9 people to follow on Twitter if you invest in Startups by Bill Clark | Wednesday, October 19, 2011
When I wanted to learn about becoming an Angel Investor a few years ago I started reading everything that I could about the industry. My goal was to learn from the best VC’s out there but not knowing them personally tends to be a problem. Luckily there are several blogs that have so much content on investing that is helpful to new investors. A few of them are: venture hacks, avc.com, both sides of the table and many others. Along the way I started to follow these investors on Twitter because I wanted to understand the investments that they made and what technology they were interested in. I found that on a daily basis they have interesting things to say and it helped me get up to speed on investing a lot quicker. Another reason I started following them was to get to know them a little better. You can find out what conferences high profile VC’s are attending which might be important for you to attend as well. When you are at that conference and you meet in person knowing a little about their personality would be helpful in the conversation. This list is made up of the people that I follow daily that have helped my venture capital education. I think the tweets and links that they post very relevant to investing in startups. I am sure that I am missing a few key people so please post a comment with people you follow and why.
@FredWilson I am not sure where he finds the time but Fred blogs daily at www.avc.com and also engages with his followers in the comment section. His blog has a community feel where the comments are sometimes as good as the blog post itself. He also has a MBA Monday series which educates both investors and entrepreneurs on all aspects of a startup from how to calculate Return on Investment to cap tables. While I check his blog daily for new content he also posts his links on twitter and also additional content that he finds on the web which he finds interesting.
@Sacca – Chris is an angel investor turned VC who doesn’t have a blog but he does retweet relevant investor information and occasionally some funny content as well. I like Chris because I find out about new companies by following him. He was an early adopter and investor in Twitter a few years ago and more recently invested in turntable.fm. He tweeted very often about his use of turntable.fm which peaked my interest and made me want to learn more. I felt like an outsider so I had to convince some friends of friends to join so I could get an invitation. Without him it would have taken me weeks to know about the company and that is a lifetime in the world of startups. As new companies and technologies emerge investors like Chris have an opportunity to see great companies before the masses so they can point you to what is currently hot in the market. It is good to have this insight when you are looking for startups to invest and when speaking to other investors.
@DanPrimack While Dan is not currently an angel investors , that I know of, he is a reporter who writes about Private Equity and Venture Capital for Fortune. His daily posts are a must read and one of my favorite parts are his pre-marketing links that are related in private equity. He puts all the most interesting content for the day in one place for you to look at which saves you time. Dan also comments on stories that are currently evolving throughout the day which keeps you in the know.
@msuster at first I thought Mark Suster had the coolest Michigan State fan account but it doesn’t look like that is the case. He is an entrepreneur who made the leap to the Venture Capital side and blogs at both sides of the table. His posts are very well thought out and well written and go into a lot of detail about a topic which is helpful to new investors. He also engages with his community like Fred Wilson in the comment sections which provides a lot of content. Since he doesn’t blog daily I rely on his twitter feed to alert me to his posts and all of the additional links that he tweets daily.
@Bfeld Brad Feld is a venture capitalist at Foundry Group. He has been blogging for a long time and had a lot of great content on his website. He has a great set of posts on Term Sheets that was the basis of his recent book Venture Deals which every beginning investor and entrepreneur should read. You should follow Brad to get insight into current topics in the venture capital world and his general thoughts on current topics.
@Cdixon Chris is an Angel Investor who runs Founder Collective while also co-founding Hunch. While he doesn’t blog as frequently as a lot of the investors I follow the content is good enough that you don’t want to miss it. He even breaks his previous posts into sections like Raising money, Startup sales/marketing, operations and other great topics. This is another blog that you can spend hours on learning about startups and investing.
@robgo When I first started following Rob he was with Spark Capital and he has since moved to NextView ventures. He occasionally writes about investing and startups on his blog and tweets about topics that any investor will find interesting. I also like to follow Rob because he is from Boston and tweets about Boston and NY startups which gives me visibility to startups I might not hear about.
@Bryce Bryce Roberts is a new addition to investors I follow. I have read his blog in the past but it wasn’t until Chris Sacca recommended him saying that “he writes thoughtfully” that I added him to my list. I have to agree with Chris that I am regularly clicking on his recommended links and reading his blog on a frequent basis and agreeing with a lot of what he says.
@bussgang Jeff Bussgang is another entrepreneur turned VC and partner at Flybridge Capital. His blog is a similar concept as Mark Suster which is a VC’s perspective from a former Entrepreneur. He only blogs 3-4 times per month so I rely on twitter to update me when he has new content. Jeff is a more frequent Twitter user and posts a lot of additional content on his thoughts on investing. He also has a great book on Mastering the VC Game that every investor should read.
