I've created the companies profile page as well as fully completed the profiles for all company founders. But it's just not clear how to get the profile pages in front of the angels to whet their appetite and start building relationships with them.
What of the following things does your startup have?
> Founders who have graduated from prestigious universities / previously exited companies to known acquirers / worked for a known companies (with known being a brand-name company such as Google, Amazon, Facebook etc)
> Three or more months of statistically meaningful growth (e.g. for easy sake, double digit growth of a number in the thousands)
> At least one investor who is active on AngelList (defined in the ideal state by at least one investment in a company who raised their round through AngelList and ideally whose social graph is connected to "high signal" members of the AngelList network)
If you have none of these things, then at least, have advisors and referrers who have a strong AngelList profile.
And another option is to seek out the AngelList scouts and pitch them directly. They are more open to this than anyone else and I've seen companies with very little traction and very little social proof get featured because a scout believes in the founder and/or the story.
Without any or most of the above, it will be difficult to stand out or build relationships via AngelList, in my opinion.
I assume now AngelList operates on a concept similar to the LinkedIn "degrees of connection" model, whereby an entrepreneur can now send unsolicited messages to investors so long as there is a degree of connection between the investor and the company.
I get a few unsolicited emails a week from companies whose advisers or investors aren't people I follow but that because of the way they determine "connection strength", these unsolicited emails still gain my attention. I assume this is the case for all investors.
So the more that you can build your list of advisers and referrers, the more connections you can solicit.
That said, AngelList's inbound email system is almost entirely ineffective for "cold" emails to really high-profile investors.
Happy to share with you what I think to be your best options for raising profile for your company.
The key on AngelList is to be either Featured or Trend. Featured companies are specifically chosen by a group of advisors to AngelList. About the only way to get this done is to know one of the people in the group. Most of these guys are easy to meet, but this is key.
Trending requires you to run a "blitz" on AngelList. AngelList measures Trending companies as the ones that have the most activity from Sunday to Sunday. Companies that Trend run a very coordinated campaign to get people to follow, ask for information, and invest all in a 7 day period. You will probably need more the 100 people to do this to trend.
It is also very important to have a great profile, a really strong Referrer, and be very good at responding to the investors.
Social proof. AngelList is one online component of a primarily offline and relationship-driven process. Startups are not commodities and AL is not eBay. You have to do the legwork to ensure your Co is worth the attention. Focus on bringing onboard advisors and investors who have a high angellist rank. Linking to your page would help. You want followers as well as people that engage more deeply.
I recommend viewing AngelList as a source of intel. A place of research.
Your inbound enquiries will be low.
But it's not Angel's strong point either way.
Find investors who are active in your business model or industry.
Connect with them.
Add them to a "target" list if you think they may be a fit.
Research them (LinkedIn and similar).
Possibly build rapport (not always necessary).
But approach them with a message that would be relevant to them. And pull their attention back to your AngelList company page.
Having the company page is great for reference ... but it, in itself, is not a "lead generation" method of any sort. Including for Angels.
