Ajo Angels Weekly Pulse

Over the past couple of months, I've covered each of the 8 steps of angel investing. I tried my best to break it down from a best practice and skill-based perspective in a way that makes sense. But I also understand that angel investing can still feel complicated. Honestly though, that's mostly because it requires doing steps that most investors aren't used to taking anymore, without realizing that all investments used to work this way before tech and the internet made things so much easier. You hear terms like cap tables, SAFEs, and pre-money valuations thrown around constantly, and it creates this impression that you need a finance degree just to understand what's happening. But when you strip away all that terminology, the fundamental concept is actually pretty straightforward.

Here's what angel investing boils down to:

• You find out about a high potential startup

• You have a conversation with them about what problem they're solving and why they think it matters.

• After that conversation, you ask yourself the question: Do I believe this could become something significant if things go well?

• If your gut and the numbers say yes, you put in an amount of money that won't cause you sleepless nights if you never see it again.

• Then you essentially forget about it and go on with your life.

• If the company succeeds down the road, awesome, you’ve probably made a nice chunk of loot. If it doesn't, you’ll prolly see nothing back, but you understood that possibility going in.

That's really the whole thing…thats it.

The reason it feels so much more complex than that is because people tend to pretend angel investing is about having certainty or maintaining control. It's neither of those things. What it is, is making small early investments while knowing that most of them aren't going to work out, and you’re okay with that because the ones that do win could be a huge financial win for you.

And this part needs to be said out loud, especially to Black folks who might be thinking about this. Angel investing is something you do when you already have financial stability. You’re not using rent/mortgage money for this. It's not a shortcut to anything.

Angel investing is optional, just like any other type of investing. But…it's been one of the best-performing investments over the past fifteen years. It takes patience, and it only makes sense when you're in a spot where losing that money won't mess up your life. Once you get that, the whole thing stops feeling intimidating and starts feeling like what it is; a straightforward path to closing the wealth gap (via big financial gains) and the black founder funding gap; and that's exactly why I keep talking about it.

UMI is tackling a massive women’s health gap: 2.7B women face hormonal disorders that mainstream healthcare doesn’t fix. They offer a 3 month, clinically proven, personalized AI powered program that delivers real results, not generic wellness.

They’ve already got 435 paying customers, 45.6k followers, 4,600 email leads, and $555k in revenue.

The founder has a 100k audience and a track record of helping women heal naturally.

Early results: 83 percent success rate, including cycle normalization and fibroid reduction from 4.8cm to 1.4cm.

Summary: LEAP helps housing counselors, lenders, and agencies see which homeowners need help before things get worse. It shows who is at risk and why, so help can come sooner. It’s like an early warning system for homeownership. Instead of waiting for missed payments or foreclosure, LEAP shows risk early so people can step in and help families stay housed.

The Backstory: Many families lose their homes because warning signs are missed. Housing groups often use old systems and scattered data, which makes it hard to act in time. The team behind LEAP saw this problem up close and built a tool to turn messy data into clear signals that show when a family needs help.

Key Innovation: LEAP brings together housing, financial, and behavior data in one place and uses it to predict trouble early. The platform helps teams decide who needs help first, what kind of help works best, and how to use limited resources wisely. This shifts the system from reacting too late to helping sooner.

Funding: LEAP is raising funding to improve the product, work with more housing partners, and expand into new markets. The goal is to reach more families, prevent more foreclosures, and protect homeownership at scale.

Black women are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the US, starting businesses at nearly 2× the rate of the overall population, even though they receive less than 1% of venture funding?

Cheers,

Abdul

Hey Hey… I’m Abdul I’m the chairman of Ajo Angels and Shujaa Capital and I’m on a mission to introduce angel investing to 25,000 black folks over the next five years. I’m doing this with the goal of narrowing the racial wealth gap as well as trying to close the billion dollar funding gap for black founders.

This information is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. Angel investing involves substantial risk, including the risk of total loss. Consult with a qualified financial advisor and attorney before making investment decisions.