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

I remember the exact moment I realized I wasn't supposed to be an angel investor.

I was at a founder dinner in San Francisco. Someone mentioned they'd invested in a hot AI company "through the usual crew." Everyone nodded knowingly. The usual crew meant Stanford roommates, early Google employees, and people whose parents founded companies in the 1990s.

I had none of that. I didn't go to Stanford. I didn't work at a FAANG company. I didn't grow up around startup culture. According to the invisible rulebook of Silicon Valley, I was 20 years too late to the party.

Except that rulebook is garbage, and communities are rewriting it.

The Valley's Network Moat Is Crumbling

Let's be honest about how Silicon Valley angel investing actually worked for decades. It was a closed loop. Stanford graduates founded companies. Their classmates became VCs. Those VCs funded other Stanford founders. Early employees got rich and became angels. Everyone invested in their friends' companies.

If you weren't in that loop, tough luck. You could be brilliant, wealthy, and ambitious, but without the network, you couldn't access the deals that actually returned capital.

This created massive distortions. Companies got funded based on social proximity rather than merit. Entire categories of founders and investors were excluded by default.

The internet killed this model, but slowly. First came AngelList in 2010, letting accredited investors browse and invest in startups online. Then came rolling funds and syndicates that pooled capital from people who'd never meet each other in person.

Now we have structured communities that deliver what the old network provided—deal flow, education, co-investors—without requiring you to have been in the right dorm room 30 years ago.

What Communities Replace Networks With

Angel Squad has 2,000+ members across 40+ countries. Most of them never went to Stanford. They're doctors in Miami, product managers in Singapore, founders in Austin, executives in London. What they have in common isn't pedigree. It's interest in learning how to invest in early-stage companies.

The structure replaces what networks used to provide. Networks gave you deal flow through friend-of-a-friend intros. Communities give you deal flow through institutional co-investment with Hustle Fund. Networks gave you education through coffee chats with experienced angels. Communities give you education through weekly pitch sessions with professional VCs.

Networks helped you avoid bad deals through backchannel references. Communities help you avoid bad deals through collaborative due diligence channels where members share research. Networks gave you co-investors by introducing you to other angels. Communities give you co-investors through structured matching and events.

It's the same outcomes without the prerequisite of being born into the right zip code or attending the right university 20 years ago.

The Geographic Arbitrage Opportunity

Here's something most people miss. Not living in Silicon Valley is actually an advantage for angel investors today.

Valley investors are competing with 10,000 other angels for access to the same deals. A founding team raises a seed round and gets 200 investor requests. Unless you're famous or bring unique value, you're probably not getting in.

But if you're investing through a community like Angel Squad, geography doesn't matter. You're co-investing alongside Hustle Fund in their deals. The founder doesn't care if you live in Singapore or San Francisco because you're coming through a trusted institutional source.

This creates alpha. You're accessing the same quality deals as Valley insiders without paying Valley prices (housing, cost of living) to be there. Your $1,000 investment in a pre-seed company has the same return profile whether you invest from Hong Kong or Palo Alto.

The data shows this working. Angel Squad members have collectively put over $30 million into 70+ startups. Those returns aren't limited to members living in San Francisco. They're distributed across 40 countries to people who would have been completely locked out 15 years ago.

Building Credibility Without the Stanford Mafia

The hardest part of breaking into angel investing isn't capital. It's credibility. Founders want investors who add value. VCs want co-investors who won't be difficult. Other angels want collaborators who've done this before.

When you're coming from outside the traditional network, you have zero credibility by default. Nobody knows if you're sophisticated or clueless.

Communities solve this through structured participation. At Angel Squad, you build credibility by showing up to events, contributing insights in due diligence channels, and demonstrating judgment over time.

When Elizabeth Yin sees you asking thoughtful questions about unit economics in three consecutive pitch sessions, you're building credibility. When other members see you sharing useful research in the community channels, you're building credibility.

This credibility is portable. After 12 months of active participation, you can point to your track record of investments through the community. You can reference the relationships you've built with other investors. You can show that you've evaluated hundreds of deals and developed real pattern recognition.

That's how new investors actually break in. Not through begging Valley insiders for access, but through consistent participation in communities where credibility is earned through contribution.

The Education Gap That Communities Fill

Traditional networks taught investing through osmosis. You'd grab coffee with someone who'd been doing this for 15 years. They'd share war stories. You'd internalize lessons through repeated exposure.

This worked fine if you had access to those people. If you didn't, you were stuck reading books and tweets and hoping you'd figure it out.

Communities make the education explicit. Angel Squad runs weekly sessions where Hustle Fund GPs explain exactly how they evaluate companies. They break down real pitch decks. They share why they passed on specific deals. They walk through their five-pillar framework for pre-seed investing.

This isn't generic advice. It's the actual methodology that professionals use to deploy hundreds of millions of dollars. When Eric Bahn explains what he's looking for in founding team dynamics, he's sharing the same frameworks he uses for Hustle Fund's portfolio.

The community also offers a Series 65 study group and reimburses the exam fee for members who pass. That's meaningful because holding a Series 65 license is one path to accredited investor status for people who don't meet the income or net worth thresholds.

The Support System Nobody Talks About

Angel investing outside the Valley is lonely. You write a check into a startup. Your friends and family think you're crazy. There's nobody to talk to about the decision. When the company pivots six months later, you have no one to help you think through if that's good or bad.

Valley investors don't have this problem. They're surrounded by other angels. They can text three people about a deal and get thoughtful responses within an hour.

Communities replicate this support structure. Angel Squad members discuss deals in real-time through Circle channels. They set up peer circles to review investment memos. They meet other investors at quarterly in-person events.

When you're second-guessing an investment decision at 11pm, you can post in the community and get perspective from people who've been there. This social infrastructure matters as much as the deal access.

Making the Jump Without Valley Credentials

If you're ready to start angel investing but lack the traditional network, here's what works. Find a community that's actually deploying capital with institutional backing, not just talking about investing in theory.

Commit to showing up. The members who get the most value attend events consistently and engage in community discussions. Start small. Invest $1,000 or $2,000 per deal to build portfolio diversification. Be patient. Building a successful angel portfolio takes 5-10 years minimum.

For people outside Silicon Valley who are serious about angel investing, communities like Angel Squad provide structured access to everything the old networks offered—without requiring you to have the right last name or went to the right school. You still need capital, judgment, and commitment. But you don't need to know someone who roomed with Larry Page.