Crowdability: Early Stage Playbook – Matt Milner & Wayne Mulligan

Imagine if you’d owned a piece of Google, Facebook or Microsoft before they went public…

Investors who backed those companies at their earliest stages made fortunes.

Google’s earliest investors earned profits of 3,000% when the company IPO’d.

Facebook’s first investor turned every $1,000 he invested into $20 million.

And on average, folks that invest in early-stage companies earn 27% per year – that’s almost 4 times higher than the average return of the stock market.

To put that in perspective, 27% annual returns would triple your money in 3 years. Over a 10-year period, a $25,000 investment would grow to nearly $273,000.

Now, because of new laws, you’ll be able to invest in early-stage companies, too.

But if you don’t have the right strategy, those types of returns will be elusive. In fact, if you get into this without preparing yourself, you could lose your shirt.

The professionals in this space use a proven process to only back companies with the most potential. Some have been using it successfully for more than 50 years.

The “Early-Stage Playbook” is a step-by-step guide to this proven process.

The Playbook was created by Matt Milner and Wayne Mulligan, the founders of Crowdability. Based on their backgrounds as bankers, investors, and entrepreneurs, they were granted interviews with over 30 of the top early-stage investors…

This includes venture capitalists and “angels” who backed some of the world’s most successful companies when they were just an idea written on a napkin –

Companies like Twitter, Uber, Airbnb, LifeLock – and the list goes on and on.

Over the course of 14 months, these investors gradually shared with Matt and Wayne their time-tested strategies for creating fortunes.

Matt and Wayne learned how, by using the playbook process, one investor turned $5,000 into $2 million. Another investor used it to turn $500,000 into $1 billion.

The Playbook is an in-depth 12-lesson video series. By the time you complete it, you’ll have mastered the proven process used by industry veterans, and you’ll be able to build your own early-stage portfolio in just 60 minutes a week.

The Early-Stage Playbook also includes special bonus lessons, including how to invest in later-stage pre-IPO companies, and how to earn double-digit yields from private real estate deals.

Course Summary

The Playbook is an in-depth 12-lesson video series. By the time you complete it, you’ll have mastered the proven process used by industry veterans, and you’ll be able to build your own early-stage portfolio in just 60 minutes a week.

What you’ll learn

Lesson 1
In this first lesson, we introduce the course, explain the concept of Private Equity, and provide an overview of Venture Capital and “Equity Crowdfunding.”

Lesson 2
In Lesson 2, we explore the websites that play matchmaker between entrepreneurs who need capital, and investors like you.

Lesson 3
In this lesson, we explore two critical concepts: the illiquid nature of private equity, and exactly how you’ll get your money back after you invest.

Lesson 4
In this lesson, we look at the concept of valuation – how it’s set, the factors that can affect it, and how it relates to the returns you can earn.

Lesson 5
In this lesson, we review the deal terms you’ll see with early-stage investments, highlighting the ones that are the most favorable to you, or most objectionable.

Lesson 6
In this lesson, you’ll learn how much of your portfolio to allocate to early-stage deals, how much capital to put into each deal, and the secret to high returns.

Lesson 7
In this lesson, you learn where to find deals, how to screen them so you’re only looking at the best ones, and how to avoid deals that could hurt your portfolio.

Lesson 8
In this lesson, you’ll learn why evaluating a start-ups’s founders and investors is so important. Then you’ll learn the exact attributes to look for, and how and where to look for them.

Lesson 9
In this lesson, you’ll learn how to evaluate a company’s past performance, as well as its prospects for the future. This is a critical step in your investment decision.

Lesson 10
In this lesson, you’ll learn how to determine the fair price you should be willing to pay for a start-up’s shares.

Lesson 11
In this surprising lesson, we debunk three common myths of early-stage investing, and show you how to use these insights to become a better investor.

Lesson 12
In the last lesson, we teach you the final steps to take before making an investment, review everything you’ve learned in the course, and set you on your path as an Angel Investor.

Instructors & Contributors

The Playbook was created by Matt Milner and Wayne Mulligan, the founders of Crowdability. Based on their backgrounds as bankers, investors, and entrepreneurs, they were granted interviews with over 30 of the top early-stage investors.