Ben Zises / Superangel Fund

Ben Zises is the Founder and Solo GP of SuperAngel.Fund, a fund investing as close to the first check as possible, namesake, acting as the “super angel”.

Ben’s first angel check was $10,000 into quip when they didn’t even have a name. He became their first investor. Ben treated every angel investment like he was already running a fund. He wrote comprehensive deal memos for each investment. He sent regular updates to investors in his SPVs. He documented every decision, every pattern he noticed, every mistake he made.

By the time it came to raise SuperAngel.Fund I, he could show his LPs what he’d done so far. There was congruency in the story he was telling with proof to show for it from his angel track record.

Our conversation gets into his three specific practices. First, document your investment process. For every investment Ben made as an angel, he created a formal deal memo. Second, treat small investors like future LPs. Ben ran 13 SPVs between 2017 and 2021. He treated the 15-20 people in each SPV as future LPs, sharing portfolio updates and being transparent about performance. Third, stay organized from day one. “I started off very organized, the investments I was making, the performance, the markups.”

While Ben was building his track record, he was also building his brand. He started writing on the Super Angel Blog, maintaining transparency in what founders he was meeting, how he thinks, conversations he was having. Portfolio companies are listed on his website. His investment style isn’t a black box.

Full episode below, or on Spotify / Apple Podcasts