Insight certainty 3/5 debate potential 2/5

Akhund: Angel investing improves fundraising by revealing implicit VC evaluation tactics

Immad Akhund · 20VC: Mercury Founder Immad Akhund on Why Angel Investing Makes Founders Better Operators, The Right Way For Founders To Discuss and Present Competition To Investors & How To Think About Your Initial Wedge Into The Market and How It Expands Over Time · Sep 20, 2019 · at 26:27

Immad Akhund, founder and CEO of Mercury, explains how being an active angel investor improved his fundraising skills as an entrepreneur.

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“I don't think naturally I'm actually that good at fundraising, but when you can understand how the other person's thinking and what are red flags, what are gray flags, green flags, I think it kind of helps a lot because you just, you know, when someone asks a question, you're like, oh, They're trying to get to my competitive mode when they don't necessarily ask that. So you have this, you definitely become, I don't want to try to be like a little bit too boring in the way I pitch things, but I definitely can know how to answer people and be a lot better at it.”

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