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.

Most investors say they want to back the best founders. Turner Novak actually does it.

As the founder of Banana Capital, Turner has built a portfolio that reads like a who's who of breakout companies: Linktree, Substack, Replit, and Anduril. But here's what makes studying Turner Novak investments particularly valuable for early-stage investors: his approach is less about chasing hot deals and more about understanding what actually makes companies succeed.

And that's something we can all learn from.

Who is Turner Novak?

Before launching Banana Capital in 2022, Turner spent years building his reputation as one of the most insightful voices in venture capital. He started his career at Gelt VC, then moved to Amplo (formerly known as A-Level Capital), where he made early investments in companies that would later become massive successes.

But Turner didn't follow the traditional VC path. He built his brand by sharing smart, tactical insights on Twitter (now X) about investing, markets, and what actually drives startup success. His newsletter reaches thousands of investors and operators who want to understand the mechanics of building valuable companies.

Here's what separates Turner from other investors: he's obsessed with understanding why things work. Not just that they work, but the underlying mechanics that make one company succeed where ten others fail.

What's Turner's Investment Thesis?

Turner has been pretty transparent about his approach. He focuses on backing exceptional founders building category-defining companies. But let's break down what that actually means in practice.

He backs repeat founders: Look at Turner Novak investments and you'll see a pattern. He invests in founders who have built companies before. Not just worked at startups, but actually founded and scaled businesses.

Why? Because repeat founders understand the journey. They know that product-market fit isn't a one-time achievement. They understand unit economics from day one. They've dealt with co-founder conflicts, fundraising struggles, and the thousand other challenges that kill first-time founder companies.

He invests in platforms, not features: Turner looks for companies that could become infrastructure other businesses build on top of. Replit isn't just a coding tool, it's becoming the platform where developers build and deploy applications. Substack isn't just a newsletter tool, it's the platform where writers build media businesses.

This is critical for understanding Turner's approach. Features get copied. Platforms get moats.

He focuses on creator economy and developer tools: A huge percentage of Turner Novak investments fall into these categories. That's not an accident. Both markets have massive tailwinds, fragmented competition, and opportunities for companies to build genuine network effects.

How Turner Evaluates Deals

I've been studying Turner's approach for a while now, and there are some clear patterns in how he thinks about investments.

He looks at growth efficiency, not just growth: Turner has written extensively about how cheap capital in 2020-2021 masked terrible unit economics. Companies were growing fast but burning ridiculous amounts of money to do it.

Turner focuses on companies that can grow efficiently. Not companies that need to raise $100M to figure out their go-to-market strategy. This is huge for early-stage investors because it forces you to ask harder questions about customer acquisition costs, retention, and path to profitability.

He values product intuition: Turner came from an operator background, and you can see that in how he evaluates companies. He's not just looking at metrics. He's using the products, understanding why users love them, and figuring out if that love can translate into sustainable growth.

For early-stage investors, this means actually using the product before you invest. Not just nodding along in a pitch meeting.

He thinks deeply about market timing: One of Turner's superpowers is understanding when markets are ready for specific solutions. He invested in Linktree when creator economy tools were just emerging. He backed Replit as no-code and low-code development were taking off.

This isn't about chasing trends. It's about understanding which macro shifts create opportunities for new platforms to emerge.

What Can We Learn From Banana Capital's Portfolio?

Let's look at some actual Turner Novak investments and what they tell us about his approach.

Linktree: This was a perfect Banana Capital investment. Simple product that creators loved. Clear network effects as more creators used it. Strong unit economics from day one. And most importantly, it solved a real problem that existing tools couldn't address.

The lesson here: sometimes the best investments are solving obvious problems in ways that seem simple but are actually really hard to replicate.

Substack: Another textbook example of Turner's thesis. Platform that enables creators to build businesses. Strong retention because creators don't want to move their audience. Revenue model that scales with creator success.

Turner saw that Substack wasn't competing with other newsletter tools. It was competing with traditional media companies for writers' attention and loyalty.

Replit: Developer tools are notoriously hard to monetize. But Replit built something developers genuinely love using. And Turner saw that the real opportunity wasn't just selling to individual developers. It was becoming the platform where the next generation learns to code and builds their first applications.

The pattern across these investments? Turner backs products that users love and that have clear paths to building moats through network effects or switching costs.

What Should Early-Stage Investors Learn From Turner's Approach?

Studying Turner Novak investments has taught me several things that apply to all early-stage investing:

Focus on repeat founders when you can: First-time founders can absolutely succeed. But if you're choosing between two similar companies, the one with a repeat founder probably has better odds. They've seen the movie before.

Understand unit economics from day one: Turner consistently focuses on companies that can grow efficiently. As early-stage investors, we should be asking about customer acquisition costs, retention, and lifetime value in our first conversations with founders. Not in year three when the company is running out of money.

Look for platform potential, not just product-market fit: Features are great. But platforms are better. When you're evaluating deals, ask yourself: could other businesses build on top of this? Could this become infrastructure that other companies depend on?

Pay attention to what users actually do, not what they say: Turner is famous for diving deep into product usage patterns. He's not just looking at vanity metrics. He's understanding why users come back, what value they're getting, and whether that value compounds over time.

What About Turner's Content Strategy?

Here's something that separates Turner from most VCs: he's built a massive audience by consistently sharing valuable insights about investing and markets.

His Twitter threads break down complex topics like market sizing, valuation multiples, and category creation in ways that are actually useful. His newsletter dives deep into specific companies and trends with real analysis, not just hot takes.

Why does this matter for studying Turner Novak investments? Because it shows his process. He's constantly researching, analyzing, and sharing his thinking. That discipline translates into better investment decisions.

For early-stage investors, there's a lesson here: building in public and sharing your thinking makes you a better investor. It forces you to develop frameworks, test your assumptions, and get feedback from smart people.

What's the Bottom Line for Angel Investors?

Turner Novak's approach to investing is grounded in a few core principles: back exceptional founders, focus on companies that can build moats, understand unit economics, and invest in platforms that could become category-defining.

If you're looking to join a community of early-stage investors who share this philosophy of rigorous analysis and founder support, Angel Squad brings together operators and angels who are serious about building great portfolios while helping founders succeed.

Key takeaways for early-stage investors:

• Prioritize repeat founders who understand the full journey
• Focus on platform potential, not just product features
• Understand unit economics and growth efficiency from day one
• Look for companies solving obvious problems in non-obvious ways
• Pay attention to market timing and macro tailwinds
• Actually use the products you're considering investing in

Most importantly, Turner's success comes from doing the work. He's not just pattern-matching or chasing hot deals. He's deeply researching companies, understanding markets, and building genuine relationships with founders.

That's the real lesson here. Whether you're running a fund like Banana Capital or writing smaller angel checks, success comes from rigorous analysis, clear frameworks, and genuine commitment to helping founders build great companies. And studying how successful investors like Turner approach their craft can help us all get better at this game.