Brian Nichols is the co-founder of Angel Squad, a community where you’ll learn how to angel invest and get a chance to invest as little as $1k into Hustle Fund's top performing early-stage startups

Beginning angels often ask what resources they should use to learn. The resources successful angels actually use differ substantially from what beginners typically pursue.

This is what top angels prioritize and what they skip.

What Top Angels Don't Prioritize

Expensive courses: Successful angels rarely credit premium courses for their development. The $5,000-20,000 programs marketed to beginners don't appear in most successful investors' backgrounds.

Academic content: Research papers, business school cases, and theoretical frameworks receive minimal attention from practicing angels. The gap between academic models and actual early-stage investing is too large.

Comprehensive book reading: While some foundational reading helps, successful angels don't become successful by reading extensively. They learn by doing and discussing, not by consuming written content endlessly.

Solo learning: Top angels almost universally emphasize community and relationships over individual study. Isolated learning produces isolated investors who struggle to sustain practice.

As Elizabeth Yin, co-founder and GP of Hustle Fund, explains: "Getting deal flow & education have been the bigger blockers to date" for new investors.

Top angels solve both blockers through community, not through solo educational consumption.

Resource Category 1: Practitioner Communities

Why communities dominate: Every successful angel I know emphasizes community as primary learning resource. Real deal exposure, peer discussion, and collective wisdom compound into expertise that individual learning cannot match.

What communities provide: Curated deal flow enabling pattern recognition development. Educational programming from active investors with current perspective. Peer network for discussion and accountability. Infrastructure handling operational complexity.

Quality indicators: Institutional deal sourcing (not member-brought). Active investors teaching (not retired or academic). Engaged discussion culture. Transparent operations and costs.

Time allocation: Top angels spend 70-80% of educational time in community engagement (deal review, programming, peer discussion) versus 20-30% on individual content consumption.

Angel Squad exemplifies this community approach: 2,000+ members providing peer network, weekly education from Hustle Fund GPs who actively invest, curated deal flow from institutional pipeline, and infrastructure enabling focus on evaluation rather than operations.

Resource Category 2: Real Deal Exposure

The primary curriculum: Evaluating actual investment opportunities teaches more than any amount of theoretical content. Pattern recognition develops through repetition with real stakes.

Volume matters: Top angels have evaluated thousands of opportunities over careers. This exposure density creates intuition that reading cannot develop. There are no shortcuts.

Quality feedback: Seeing how experienced investors evaluate same opportunities you're reviewing accelerates development. Understanding gaps between your assessment and expert perspective reveals what to learn.

Learning by investing: Making actual investments with real money at stake produces learning that hypothetical exercises cannot. Stakes focus attention and create memorable lessons.

As Eric Bahn, co-founder and GP of Hustle Fund, emphasizes: "For beginners, a bigger startup portfolio is better. It helps with diversification and helps you learn and get reps in. Investing requires practice like everything else."

Reps require real opportunities, not theoretical content.

Resource Category 3: Peer Networks

Horizontal learning: Conversations with investors at similar stages provide practical wisdom that expert instruction misses. Peers share mistakes, discoveries, and approaches in relatable context.

Accountability function: Peer relationships create engagement expectations that sustain practice through difficult periods. Community engagement maintains momentum that solo learners lose.

Deal discussion: Talking through specific opportunities with peers develops evaluation skills through articulation and feedback. Explaining your thinking reveals gaps in reasoning.

Long-term relationships: Peer networks built during learning phase become valuable relationships throughout investing career. These connections compound over decades.

Resource Category 4: Practitioner Blogs and Podcasts

Focused consumption: Top angels read and listen selectively, not comprehensively. They follow 5-10 practitioners whose perspectives they value rather than consuming everything available.

Current perspective: Content from active investors (not retired or academic) provides relevant market perspective. Active practitioners discuss current reality, not historical patterns.

Specific topics: Rather than broad survey content, successful angels seek specific insights on topics they're actively working on. Just-in-time learning, not comprehensive coverage.

Recommended approach: Subscribe to quality sources. Consume 3-4 articles and 2-3 podcast episodes weekly. Note specific insights applicable to current evaluation challenges.

Resource Category 5: Founder Relationships

Direct learning: Relationships with founders (including portfolio company founders) provide unfiltered perspective on startup building. Understanding founder experience improves investor judgment.

Pattern recognition: Conversations with many founders across portfolio reveal patterns about what founders experience, struggle with, and need. This context improves evaluation.

Humility source: Seeing how difficult startup building actually is develops appropriate humility about evaluation confidence. Founders remind investors how uncertain early stages really are.

Building relationships: Portfolio investments create natural founder relationships. Providing helpful support (not demanding engagement) deepens these connections.

As Shiyan Koh, co-founder and GP of Hustle Fund, notes: "Great founders can look like anyone and come from anywhere."

Relationships with diverse founders reinforce this truth through direct experience.

What Top Angels Skip

Comprehensive book lists: Successful angels rarely recommend extensive reading lists. They suggest 2-3 foundational resources and emphasize learning through practice.

Certification programs: No credential matters in angel investing. Performance is the only metric. Programs offering certificates provide credential without competence.

MBA programs for angel investing: While MBAs have career value, successful angels don't credit business school for investing skill. The curriculum doesn't cover relevant material.

Most paid courses: Premium courses promising comprehensive angel investing education rarely deliver value matching cost. Community membership provides superior education at fraction of price.

Academic research: While occasionally interesting, academic studies on angel investing have limited practical application. Market conditions change faster than research cycles.

How Top Angels Allocate Learning Time

Weekly breakdown for established angel:

• Deal evaluation: 2-3 hours reviewing current opportunities
• Community programming: 1-2 hours attending educational sessions
• Peer discussion: 1-2 hours talking with other investors
• Content consumption: 1-2 hours reading/listening to practitioner content
• Portfolio engagement: 1-2 hours on existing investments

Total: 6-10 hours weekly, heavily weighted toward community engagement and real deals.

What beginners often do wrong: Spend 10+ hours weekly on content consumption with zero hours on deal evaluation or peer discussion. This inversion produces knowledge without judgment.

Building Your Resource Stack

Foundation layer: One quality community providing deal flow, education, and peer network. This is non-negotiable primary resource.

Content layer: 5-10 practitioner blogs and podcasts for supplementary perspective. Selective consumption, not comprehensive coverage.

Relationship layer: Peer connections through community. Founder relationships through portfolio. Developed over time through engagement.

Reference layer: 2-3 foundational books for background concepts. Minimal investment producing diminishing returns beyond basics.

The Learning Progression

Year 1 priorities: Community engagement (70%), deal evaluation (20%), content consumption (10%). Heavy emphasis on practical exposure.

Year 2-3 priorities: Deal evaluation (40%), community engagement (30%), portfolio management (20%), selective content (10%). Shift toward application.

Year 4+ priorities: Portfolio management (40%), deal evaluation (30%), peer relationships (20%), targeted learning (10%). Maintenance and refinement.

The pattern: Early emphasis on community and exposure. Gradual shift toward portfolio management and peer relationships. Content consumption remains minority activity throughout.

Accessing Top Angel Resources

Join quality community: Angel Squad provides primary resource stack for serious angels. Deal flow, education, and peer network in single membership.

Curate content sources: Select 5-10 practitioner voices to follow. Unsubscribe from everything else. Quality over quantity.

Build peer relationships: Engage actively in community discussions. Connect with investors at similar stages. Maintain relationships through ongoing interaction.

Develop founder network: Make investments. Provide helpful support. Build genuine relationships with portfolio founders over time.

The resources top angels actually use are different from what beginners assume. Community engagement, real deal exposure, and peer networks dominate their learning. Courses, books, and academic content play minimal roles.

Structure your learning around what actually produces successful investors: community providing deal flow and education, real opportunity exposure enabling pattern recognition, peer relationships sustaining engagement and providing accountability, and selective practitioner content for supplementary perspective.

What works for top angels will work for you.