I don't have a finance degree. I dropped out of high school, talked my way into college, and left after two and a half years.
None of that stopped me from being invited into early-stage investment deals not available to the public.
How? Relationships. Specifically, the 45+ dinner parties I started hosting in Austin after I read a book about what people say on their deathbeds. One consistent theme: happiness comes from relationships. I took that seriously and started building them deliberately.
People started asking me to make introductions. Introductions led to deals. Deals led to a seat at tables I had no formal credentials to be at.
I've spent the last few years connecting founders with capital — angel checks, seed rounds, mostly $25K to $250K in the Texas ecosystem. And along the way, I've noticed something consistent: investors write checks for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with the financial projections on slide 8 of your deck.
The Real Reasons People Invest
Learning tuition. Some investors, especially those entering a new space, write small checks as an educational investment. A $10,000 or $25,000 check buys them cap table access, founder updates, and an inside view of how that industry operates. They read every newsletter. They attend every investor call. The return on education often exceeds the financial return, and they know it going in.
I did this once with a CPG startup. I put in a small amount with zero expectation of a big financial return. But I learned more about consumer packaged goods in one year of quarterly updates than I would have in a year of reading articles. That knowledge paid off in ways the investment itself never did.
Cap table association. If a well-known investor is in a round, being in the same deal carries social weight. “I'm invested alongside [name]” is a statement. It says something about who you know, who you're trusted by, and what rooms you can be in. Some investors write checks specifically to be associated with certain people. The financial logic is secondary.
Access to the founder's network. A check buys a relationship. A founder who knows 200 investors, executives, and operators can make introductions that a cold email can't. Some investors are thinking less about the company's upside and more about who the founder will introduce them to. The investment is a relationship-opener.
Genuine excitement. One investor told me directly: “This is my entertainment budget.” He found the company interesting. He liked the founder. He wanted to stay engaged with something that excited him. He wasn't particularly focused on when or whether he'd get his money back.
There's nothing wrong with any of these motivations. They're all honest. The problem is when founders assume every investor is primarily motivated by IRR.
What This Means If You're Raising Money
If you're a founder, ask more questions before pitching. Not “what are you investing in these days?” but “what are you hoping to get out of deals like this?” or “what made you interested in this sector?”
The answers will tell you a lot. Someone who says “I've been wanting to understand how this space works” is a different conversation than someone who says “I'm looking for a 3-5x in 5 years.” Not better or worse — different. You can have the right conversation instead of the wrong one.
The other thing it tells you: financial projections are not the whole pitch. The relationship matters. The access matters. The story of who else is in the round matters. These aren't soft factors. For a lot of investors, they're the primary factors.
What This Means If You're an Investor
It's also worth understanding your own motivation before you write a check.
Are you primarily looking for financial returns? That shapes how you structure the deal, what terms you negotiate, how patient you are.
Are you investing to learn? Then focus on deals in industries you want to understand, and be honest with the founder that you're there partly for the education.
Are you investing for access or association? Make sure the relationship value you're expecting is something the founder actually offers.
I've seen things go sideways when the investor expected ongoing introductions and relationship management and the founder expected a passive LP. Both had different mental models of what the check meant.
Clarity upfront prevents friction later.
The Bigger Pattern
Money moves through relationships. Always has. In my experience, the investors who write checks for purely financial reasons — the ones who see every deal as a spreadsheet — tend to be the most difficult to work with and the least satisfied with outcomes.
The ones who are in it for access, learning, excitement, or association — they tend to be easier to work with, more patient, and often more helpful. Because they're already getting what they actually came for.
That doesn't mean financial returns don't matter. They do. But they're rarely the only thing, and often not the main thing.
Next time you're pitching an investor — or being pitched by one — try to find out the real reason they're in the room. It'll change the whole conversation.
