http://paulgraham.com/start.html

https://startupclass.samaltman.com

What is the duration of your preferred exit/ROI when you invest?

- 7-10 years (although we might sell a % shares earlier to lock profits in secondary markets)

What are the top 5 criteria you consider when investing?

* Large Market Size
* High Quality of team
* Really painful Problem / real market need
* Distribution/Acquisition Channel
* Simple business model

Since your journey investing, what has been your biggest mistake and lesson learned?

* Not sure I''ve made a big mistake yet, but we''re still early and mistakes are part of the journey
* My biggest lesson is the quality of the team matters most, so invest in quality founders that I can see myself working for.

What are top sectors you have invested in?

* Fintech
* Crypto
* Education
* Just done a deal in social commerce (TwoCents Exclusive)

As a startup, what should i think of or put in place before contacting an angel investor or VC?

*Have a product, show you can build something and have some users

I understand the risk of investing in start ups, how do you react when a startup you invested in does not produce good returns or fails?

* I expect at least 70-80% of my investments to fail
As an aspiring venture capitalist, what is are the steps in being one and your general advice?
* Start a startup and learn from the experience
* Try writing an investment thesis/memo on a company that hasn''t raised money and why you would invest in them, check out opentraction.com for sample investment memos

At the early stage, valuation is more an art than a science, first both sides have to want to do the deal, then is there an intersection between my maximum and their own minimum valuation, if there is then we do a deal, otherwise I try to connect them to later stage investors or we revisit when the company has made enough progress to get the valuation they want.

Another contrarian viewpoint, I don't think many companies that get started are venture backable, they may make good profitable software businesses but only 2-3% of software or tech-enabled businesses are venture backable. It's a function of how big the company can be from a revenue standpoint (at a minimum $25m/yr), which is a function of how big the market is ($100m+/yr and growing) and fast you can capture the market i.e. an adequate distribution strategy for the product offering.

For now, I am biased towards B2B & B2B2C offerings - consumer African startups have struggled to scale cost-effectively so we are looking for businesses that can leverage commercial / distribution partnerships to scale.

Most new businesses need money, but it''s a function of if the business will/can get the capital it needs.

Answered a similar question earlier on how to go about getting investment as a company/startup :)