I didn't go to an Ivy League school, so breaking into VC felt impossible.

Instead, I found my way through the side door. I started at Lyft during the pink mustache days, co-founded their employee syndicate, and helped 300+ employees deploy $30M into startups.

That led me to help other tech companies (Airbnb, Square, Pinterest, Stripe) build their own alumni investing communities.

Eventually, I realized my real passion was making angel investing accessible to people who aren't in the traditional VC club.

That's how Angel Squad was born.

Today, I run Angel Squad at Hustle Fund. It's a community of 2,000+ professionals learning how to angel invest. TechCrunch called us the "YC of Angel Investing."

We've deployed $30M+ together, and our members include everyone from Google PMs to airline pilots to physical therapists. Basically, anyone who wants to learn how to write $1k checks into startups.

I also write Small Bets, a weekly newsletter where I share lessons on startups and angel investing - the wins, the losses, and everything in between.

If you're curious about angel investing or just want to learn more about the startup world, let's connect.

Brian Nichols

Last week my 7-year-old and I built a math app together. No code. Done in an afternoon. Genuinely better than the games I've paid for on the App Store.

That same week, one of our GPs cut her email workload by 50% using a personal AI agent she built herself. I got the bug bad enough that I splurged on a Mac Mini.

Something has crossed a threshold. Tools like Claude Cowork and Claude Code aren't "AI helps you write emails" territory anymore. We're talking agents that take over your browser, triage your inbox, draft responses, and run tasks on a schedule while you sleep. 

I say this as someone who is decidedly not a software engineer: the theoretical just became very, very tangible.

Every major platform shift creates a new generation of massive companies - and founders are right now building the infrastructure for how AI agents browse the web, make purchases, and communicate with each other. 

Think the internet in 1995, except the entire web needs to be rebuilt for machines, not humans.

That's a lot of companies that need to get built fast.

Which, makes this one of the best windows in history to be an early-stage investor. 

When kicking around the idea for this event, I realized that this is the first generational platform shift where $1k checks are a legitimate entry point. 

You don't need to be a GP or a big-shot angel writing $100k minimums to participate. The best angels in our network started small, stacked reps, and built real networks along the way.

Those days of "you can't play unless you're already in" - they're over. So for the first time ever, I’m taking my Small Bets newsletter LIVE for an Angel Investing 101 Bootcamp. 

45 minutes. 

You’ll hear my thoughts on why now is an incredible time to be an angel, and get to watch a fundraising founder pitch Hustle Fund GP Eric Bahn live. 
 
🦞 RSVP while we have space. This one’s gonna be big: https://luma.com/t6n3x6kl

Founder of Angel Squad | I write about startups, investing, and hard-earned lessons | Small Bets newsletter

Open article: 🎥 Small Bets LIVE: Angel Investing 101 Bootcamp · Zoom · Luma by luma.com

🎥 Small Bets LIVE: Angel Investing 101 Bootcamp · Zoom · Luma

Almost 2.5x more people joined Angel Squad so far to start this year vs. last year.

That number surprised me a little.

But what surprised me more was who joined.

+ A former Major League Baseball player. 
+ A pharma professional investing on the side. 
+ A private funds lawyer whose VC clients finally convinced her to write her own checks. 
+ A robotics engineer. 
+ A Stanford sophomore. 
+ A Harvard Law-trained AI strategy consultant. 

The professions are all over the place too:

+ ML scientists and senior engineers at big tech companies
+ Fintech operators, fractional CFOs, startup lawyers
+ Product managers, UX designers, enterprise sales reps
+ Ex-Goldman analysts, ex-McKinsey consultants
+ Founders who've exited and are ready to back others

Members joined from Europe, Southeast Asia, East Asia, LATAM, MENA, Australia, Kenya, Taiwan - and nearly every region of the US.

This is what I kept hoping Angel Squad would become.

Not another room full of Sand Hill insiders passing deals to each other. 

A place where the robotics engineer and the startup lawyer and the ex-baseball player can all learn this asset class together - and actually invest alongside each other.

Oh, and don't forget the best part...they all meet our strict "no a-holes allowed" policy.

AI captured nearly 50% of all global venture funding last year. Over $200 billion.
Most people have no way to access these companies before they IPO.

Every major tech wave creates a new generation of massive companies. The internet gave us Google and Amazon. Social gave us Meta. Mobile gave us Uber and Airbnb.

We're in the middle of the next one. 

Founders are building new infrastructure for how AI agents browse the web, make purchases, and talk to each other. It's like 1995 for the internet, except the web is being rebuilt for machines, not humans.

A lot of companies need to get built. 

A lot of opportunities for early investors to get in.

The best news is that this wave is different because you don't need to be a full-time VC or write $100K checks to participate.

Most of the best investors in our Angel Squad community start with $1K-$5K checks. Learned from the reps. Built real networks along the way.

We're taking our Small Bets newsletter (55K+ subscribers) live for the first time ever. 45-minute bootcamp. 

We already have 300+ RSVPs.

I'll break down how angel investing actually works and why the timing is so good right now.

Then a real founder is going to pitch Eric Bahn, GP at Hustle Fund, on the spot. 

Shark Tank style (except Eric is super nice).

You'll watch Eric evaluate the deal in real time, and he might invest on the spot. 

Whether you're an experienced investor or you're just getting curious about the space, come hang.

RSVP below. We'll send the recording to everyone who signs up.

👉 https://luma.com/t6n3x6kl

Haley Bryant

Investor at Hustle Fund

mom.

pre-seed VC in AI/ML, fintech, digital consumer health and web3 at Hustle Fund.

I 💛 customer & community centric founders who look like anyone & come from anywhere. Distance traveled > pedigree. I spend a lot of time in vertical AI, tech enabled services, embedded fintech, and famtech.

🌊 cowork with me on flow.club
👼🏽 invest with me through Angel Squad
🚲 ride with me at SoulCycle


General Manager

Today we're launching Ground Floor Growth at Hustle Fund, for anyone considering their next career move who's interested in working at tomorrow's biggest startups.

Ground Floor Growth is a reverse job board. A place for people to share the work they've done and what they're excited about, so when a founder reaches out about their next growth, engineering, product or sales hire, we can say, "I know just the right person."

When we back founders, we're underwriting 100X potential. And the best founders we know look for the exact same thing in the people they hire: curious, high-agency operators who create outsized impact at every stage of growth.

We're excited to get to know more awesome people to connect to the 300+ open roles across the portfolio today and to keep in touch about new opportunities that open up.

Some of the companies hiring right now:

🤖 Gamma - AI-powered presentations
🏥 Alaffia Health - healthcare claims intelligence
💰 Niural AI - AI-first PEO for managing payroll and benefits in the US + beyond
🏠 Coral Care - expert pediatric therapy services for speech, OT and PT
🔒 Keebler Health - AI-first risk adjustment platform
💳 Flex - AI native finance platform for business owners
🏥 Duet - empowering nurse practitioners as practice owners

And that's just a handful.

Thanks to everyone who's already given initial feedback and joined us!
Learn more and sign up at the link in comments.

Over the last decade, Chef Victor Albisu built Taco Bamba Taqueria from a takeout joint in a strip mall in Virginia to a 16-location chain with 600 employees and >$50m in revenue, serving >16,000 tacos daily.

Last night, our DMV 😇 Angel Squad community got to hang out at their flagship restaurant in City Ridge to see friends, pull apart trends, and taco. Each location has a menu (and vibe) designed for the neighborhood it's in.

Chef Victor is a great example of the mantra that great founders look like anyone and come from anywhere, and our special guest Michelle Turner, CEO and Founder of Here Now Health, is too.

Michelle is a 53x foster parent, who saw how broken the welfare system is and set out to change it, starting with mental health, by founding Here Now. We were joined by her incredible team Brittani M. Kindle, LCSW and Jaime Calderon Goff.

The edge isn't always technical. Before great founders scale, they root. They build for the block they’re on, the families they know, the systems they’ve lived inside.

If you're angel curious or actively investing in the DMV, we hang out quarterly and would love to have you. More on Angel Squad at the link in comments.

Coral Care is hiring across marketing, engineering, and clinical roles to make sure every child gets timely support. 1 in 6 kids in the US experience a developmental delay, yet families often have to wait months (sometimes over a year) just to get evaluated to start a care plan. 

Coral Care connects families with vetted, local, in-network pediatric specialists for in-home therapy sessions. No waitlist, no referral needed. 

On the provider side, it's a business-in-a-box that lets therapists build or grow private practices without the admin headaches of credentialing, billing, and patient acquisition.

By enabling therapists to see kids on their own terms, families can get matched with a provider in as little as two weeks (vs. the national norm of months-long waitlists). Most pay just $20–40 per visit with in-network insurance.

Coral Care was founded by Jennifer Wirt, a repeat founder with over a decade of product leadership experience including at Oar Health and Weight Watchers. Jen holds an MBA from Babson and an MS in Engineering from Brown. She built Coral Care after her own daughter faced 6+ months of waitlists and thousands in out-of-network costs, and she's assembled a powerhouse team:

🚀 Ryan Howard, Co-Founder & SVP, Operations and Finance with >7 years of experience scaling Uber
⚙️ Alice E. Pang, Head of Provider Operations and one of Coral Care's earliest believer as an investor at Purpose Built Ventures
⚙️ Grady Smith, GM who was previously at Zocdoc, ~8 yrs
📈 Kavin Lam, Strategy, bringing experiece across consulting and venture

Coral Care's investors include Reach Capital, AlleyCorp, GreyMatter, Charge Ventures, Purpose Built and Hustle Fund 💛

Join the team building the future of pediatric care (link in comments):

📣 Director of Marketing 
🛠️ Lead Engineer 
⚙️ HubSpot Ops Specialist 
🩺 Pediatric Speech-Language Pathologists
🩺 Pediatric Occupational Therapists
🩺 Pediatric Physical Therapists

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