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

When you start exploring angel investing, advice comes from everywhere. Experienced investors share wisdom. Courses teach frameworks. Books outline approaches. The problem is that much of this advice is wrong, and following it produces worse outcomes than ignoring it entirely.

This is the common advice you should ignore when becoming an angel investor, and what to do instead.

Ignore: "Wait Until You Can Write Bigger Checks"

The advice to wait until you can write $25,000 or $50,000 checks sounds prudent. It suggests building capital first, then entering angel investing at scale. This advice is outdated and harmful.

The reasoning behind this advice no longer applies. Historically, transaction costs and administrative burden made small checks impractical. Minimum viable investment was genuinely $25,000 or more. This changed with SPV structures and community infrastructure that enable $1,000 investments with institutional-quality deal flow.

Waiting costs you learning time you can't recover. Every year you delay angel investing is a year of learning you miss. The investors who start earlier, even with smaller checks, develop judgment faster than those who wait for larger capital. Time in market matters more than check size.

Smaller checks enable better portfolio construction. Someone with $25,000 who writes one check has terrible diversification. Someone with the same $25,000 who writes twenty-five $1,000 checks has proper portfolio construction. Smaller checks are feature, not limitation.

What to do instead: Start now with $1,000 investments through communities like Angel Squad. Build your portfolio while developing your judgment rather than waiting for capital accumulation that delays both.

As Elizabeth Yin, co-founder and GP of Hustle Fund, explains: "Most of your investments will return $0. You will lose money. So it's important to have great portfolio construction."

Portfolio construction is easier with smaller checks. Ignore advice that pushes you toward larger, concentrated bets.

Ignore: "Invest Only in What You Know"

The advice to stick with familiar industries sounds sensible. Invest in sectors where you have professional expertise. This advice limits opportunity and isn't actually safer.

Your expertise doesn't predict startup success. Knowing an industry well helps you evaluate market dynamics but doesn't help you evaluate early-stage teams, timing, or execution capability. The factors that determine startup outcomes aren't the factors your industry expertise addresses.

Familiar industries can create false confidence. Expertise makes you feel capable of identifying winners, leading to concentrated bets based on perceived insight. This concentration increases risk rather than reducing it.

Diversification across sectors matters for portfolio construction. Limiting investments to familiar sectors reduces diversification benefits. Sector concentration creates correlated risk that broad portfolio construction avoids.

What to do instead: Invest across sectors based on portfolio construction principles rather than expertise-based concentration. Your judgment about teams and business fundamentals applies across industries.

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."

More investments across more sectors builds better portfolio and provides more learning opportunities.

Ignore: "Build Your Network Before Investing"

The advice to spend years building relationships before making first investment sounds patient and wise. It's actually procrastination disguised as preparation.

Network building for deal flow is unnecessary with community membership. Angel Squad provides institutional-quality deal flow from Hustle Fund's pipeline of 1,000+ monthly applications. You don't need personal founder relationships when community membership provides curated opportunities.

Relationships build faster through investing activity. The best way to build investor network is to become an investor. Portfolio companies create founder relationships. Co-investors become peers. Community engagement builds connections. Active participation creates network faster than passive relationship cultivation.

Waiting for network is indefinite delay. There's no clear threshold where network becomes "ready." This advice creates open-ended procrastination. You could always build more network before starting.

What to do instead: Join community, start investing, let relationships develop through activity rather than preceding it.

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

You'll meet great founders through community deal flow, not through years of pre-investment networking.

Ignore: "You Need to Live in a Startup Hub"

The advice that successful angel investing requires San Francisco, New York, or Boston residence persists despite being thoroughly obsolete.

Geographic barriers have collapsed entirely. Community infrastructure works identically regardless of location. Angel Squad's 2,000+ members across 50+ countries access the same deal flow, education, and peer community regardless of where they live.

Remote investors often outperform local ones. Without social pressure to back friends and community members, remote investors evaluate more objectively. Without expensive startup hub cost of living, they can deploy more capital into actual investments.

Local presence provides minimal advantage now. Founders expect remote investors. Fundraising happens virtually. Due diligence happens virtually. The activities that once required proximity now don't.

What to do instead: Invest from wherever you are through community infrastructure designed for distributed membership.

Ignore: "Take an Expensive Course First"

The advice to complete expensive education before investing sounds responsible. It's often a trap that benefits course sellers more than students.

Most expensive courses provide less value than free alternatives. Active practitioners share frameworks through blogs, podcasts, and community programming. This free content often exceeds paid course quality.

Courses without deal flow create gap between learning and practice. You pay $10,000+ for education, then must separately solve the deal flow problem. Integrated community membership provides both at lower total cost.

Learning happens primarily through practice. Courses can provide foundation, but capability develops through actual investment decisions. Delaying investment for more coursework delays the learning that matters most.

What to do instead: Build foundation through free practitioner content over 4-6 weeks. Join community like Angel Squad that provides ongoing education integrated with deal flow. Start investing at $1,000 per deal while continuing to learn.

What Actually Works

Understanding what common advice to ignore points toward what actually works for becoming an angel investor.

Start now with small checks rather than waiting. $1,000 investments through Angel Squad enable proper portfolio construction and immediate learning.

Diversify broadly rather than concentrating in familiar sectors. Portfolio math matters more than expertise-based conviction.

Join community rather than building network first. Deal flow and relationships develop through active participation, not preparation.

Invest from anywhere rather than relocating. Community infrastructure makes geography irrelevant.

Learn through integrated practice rather than isolated courses. Community membership combining education with deal flow produces better outcomes than expensive courses.

Angel Squad provides what actually works: institutional deal flow at $1,000 minimums, weekly education from active GPs, community of 2,000+ members across 50+ countries, and infrastructure supporting immediate participation regardless of location or existing network. Ignore the common advice that delays your start. Begin building your practice now.