Andrew Kazlow

Looking for some weekend reading? Diligence the Pitch Competition: Founders, vet the organizers. Founder Joanna Shu tells the tale of a “$100K” pitch competition that turned into weeks of wasted time and zero dollars. (medium.com/@joanna.f.shu/i-w…) @AnthropicAI Files to Go Public: @AnthropicAI filed its S-1 on Monday and plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker “ANT.” (nytimes.com/2026/10/26/techn…) Word of the Year: Dictionary.com named “maxxing” its 2026 Word of the Year, with tokenmaxxing (using as much AI at work as possible) making the list of spinoffs. (dictionary.com/articles/word…)

Here are the "Angel Deals of the Week" from today's issue of The Diligent Observer: 1. AegisCoat | Ryan Evans | Aggie Angel Network 2. Locus Lock | Hailey Nichols | @GoldenSeeds 3. Mesodyne | Veronika Stelmakh | Citrine Angels 4. Clopos | Reyal Savalanov | SABAH.angels 5. Colette | Frank Chen | @TbdAngels 🔍Why These Deals are Interesting: Angel communities filter through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of opportunities each year. These companies represent the elite few that survived that vetting process and actually got a deal done. 📧Have a recently funded company you'd like to showcase? Drop me a note. 🔔Want to see more deals like this every week from angel communities around the world? Subscribe via the link below. ⬇️ thediligentobserver.com/p/an…

Penn State conducts $1.4 billion in research every year. And the angel investor’s $25K check still makes a huge difference. Joe Herbst of Nittany Angels on why angels are so necessary for university entrepreneurship programs, how 800,000+ alumni open up deal flow well beyond the “normal” channels, and why pairing a fund with a network gives founders more certainty on check size. Listen now: podcast.thediligentobserver.… #TheDiligentObserver #UniversityVenture #AngelInvesting

🥇 Here’s the best nugget from my conversation with Rob Balena of TeamSense: Big logo? Ask for the big story 🔍 A Fortune 500 logo on a slide could represent a real beachhead customer. Or it could represent a favor and a one-time unpaid pilot. How to tell the difference? Get the details. Rob described how, at Cloudera, he turned a tiny foothold at Dell into a full account takeover by showing up at Dell’s office every Tuesday and Thursday for three years. That’s a long-term strategy. Many founders attempt to “skip the process” by throwing out a big one-time discount or pulling strings with an executive. While that approach can provide some short-term benefit, it can also burn the relationship and fizzle out quickly. From Rob: “You’re going to do that with that customer exactly once. And you’re mortgaging your future with that customer.” Takeaway: Pick the biggest logo on the deck and say, “Tell me the story.” Specifics = promising. Generalities = red flag 🚩. Want more? Check out my full conversation with Rob 👇 youtube.com/watch?v=rbXvKvfm…

Looking for some weekend reading? @Tesla Unveils the Flying Roadster: Nine years after the first reveal, @Tesla showed off a Roadster with @SpaceX cold-gas thrusters that let it fly. It ships in 2028… maybe. (techcrunch.com/2026/10/15/te…) Worth the Watch: Ben Horowitz sits down with @speedrun GP Jonathan Lai on why a company’s story is also its strategy, and why it should be in writing. (linkedin.com/posts/ben-horow…) Accenture Caps @claudeai Spend: The consulting giant told many employees it will now only cover $29 a month per person on @claudeai. (404media.co/accenture-tells-…)

Here are the "Angel Deals of the Week" from today's issue of The Diligent Observer: 1. Sameric Bio | Lorenzo Corsini | @sprngbrd_angls 2. it's electric | Nathan L. King | @E8Angels, Investors Circle 3. Aptadir Therapeutics | Giovanni Amabile | IAN Group, Club degli Investitori 4. Narratize | Katie Trauth Taylor | Women on the Cap Table 5. NexPlasmaGen | Valérie Léveillé | @SwanImpact 🔍Why These Deals are Interesting: Angel communities filter through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of opportunities each year. These companies represent the elite few that survived that vetting process and actually got a deal done. 📧Have a recently funded company you'd like to showcase? Drop me a note. 🔔Want to see more deals like this every week from angel communities around the world? Subscribe via the link below. ⬇️ thediligentobserver.com/p/an…

🥇 Here’s the best nugget from my conversation with Melissa Withers of @revupcapital: You cannot untwist a pretzel Melissa introduced me to what she calls “the pretzel problem,” where founders often contort their business to match what an investor wants. The trouble is that a pretzel doesn’t untwist. It breaks. Some capital decisions, once made, are tough to walk back. That makes alignment as much the investor’s responsibility as the founder’s, and too often I’ve seen well-intentioned investors miss the fact that their goals don’t align. From Melissa: “There's really not much bad capital. There's just using the wrong capital at the wrong time in the wrong way.” Takeaway: Before writing any check, ask: “Is this the right type of capital for what the company needs right now?” Want more? Check out my full conversation with Melissa 👇 youtu.be/A1NENbDPQaA?si=Hukw…

Looking for some weekend reading? Botsitters for Hire: AI’s productivity gains are getting eaten by human verification; research shows workers spend 37% of the time AI saves them fixing its output. (nytimes.com/2026/10/10/busin…) Corporate Espionage at @OpenAI: The FBI arrested an @OpenAI product team employee accused of planting a hidden recording device in an executive conference room. (techcrunch.com/2026/10/13/fb…) A Million Coworkers Who Never Call in Sick: @amazon robot fleet just passed 1 million, and internal docs suggest it could cut projected US hiring by 600,000 by 2033. (arstechnica.com/ai/2026/10/i…)

Here are the "Angel Deals of the Week" from today's issue of The Diligent Observer: 1. Indigotex | Satendra Singh | IAN Angel Fund 2. AlgaFilm Technologies | Ahren Britton | @E8Angels 3. @huupeofficial | Paul Anton | @orsportsangels 4. @yottaenergy | Jordan Harris | @SwanImpact 5. Smartlens | Savas Komban | @HBSAngelsNY 🔍Why These Deals are Interesting: Angel communities filter through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of opportunities each year. These companies represent the elite few that survived that vetting process and actually got a deal done. 📧Have a recently funded company you'd like to showcase? Drop me a note. 🔔Want to see more deals like this every week from angel communities around the world? Subscribe via the link below. ⬇️ thediligentobserver.com/p/an…

Angel investing is poker, not chess. A good decision can still lose, and a bad one can still win. @MizWithers of @revupcapital on why she never makes an angel investment when the only upside is financial, why equity alone is rarely enough to build a business, and why taking the wrong capital at the wrong time is so hard to undo. Listen now: podcast.thediligentobserver.… #TheDiligentObserver #CapitalStrategy #AngelInvesting

🥇 Here’s the best nugget from my conversation with Blair Jeffery of @aggieangelnet and ConnexPay: The customer lives in today, not the future The future is super cool. And when you spend all day listening to founders paint a picture of what the future is going to look like, it’s easy to forget the customer is stuck in today. Blair shared an illustration that still blows my mind: he said that as of our recording in late 2024, ~50% of corporate payments still went out as paper checks. What. We’re talking about AI and crypto and all this cool modern stuff, but the reality is a gigantic portion of transactions are still handled old school. From Blair: “When I got into the payments industry 25 years ago, they were declaring the death of the check. Well, here we are still in 2024 dealing with checks.” Takeaway: Change is really, really hard, and “the future” doesn’t materialize just because it sounds cool. It materializes when the customer is convinced the next thing is 10x better than the current thing. Focus on founders who are as obsessed with the customer’s CURRENT reality as with the 10x better one. Want more? Check out my full conversation with Blair 👇 youtu.be/5KJAzUjAkR8?si=pWdX…

Looking for some weekend reading? .si Is the New .ai: Slovenia's registry logged 11,000 new .si domains the day after Trump's executive order renaming AI "super intelligence" for federal agencies. (techcrunch.com/2026/10/02/sl…) Don’t let AI Plan Your Hikes Yet: A 16-year-old near Vancouver needed a helicopter rescue after following an AI-planned route. (gizmodo.com/teen-left-strand…) Pentagon Cuts Off @claudeai: The Department of Defense confirmed it has stopped using @AnthropicAI tools, months after labeling the company a national security supply chain risk. (bbc.com/news/articles/c5j9x9…)

Here are the "Angel Deals of the Week" from today's issue of The Diligent Observer: 1. Mosaic ETA | Julien Ham-Ying and Eduardo Zaldivar | Ambassadors Impact Network 2. Alma Mater | Eric Sarin and Nathan Brown | @orsportsangels 3. Retham Technologies | Steven Visuri | Golden Angels Investors 4. @KepplairE | David Joubert | Aerospace Angels 3. Galaxy Diagnostics, Inc. | Nicole Bell | @HBSAngelsNY 🔍Why These Deals are Interesting: Angel communities filter through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of opportunities each year. These companies represent the elite few that survived that vetting process and actually got a deal done. 📧Have a recently funded company you'd like to showcase? Drop me a note. 🔔Want to see more deals like this every week from angel communities around the world? Subscribe via the link below. ⬇️ thediligentobserver.com/p/an…

🥇 Here’s the best nugget from my conversation with Graham Conran of Frontier Angels and BizBuyAngels: Green card holders lost access to SBA financing This one was news to me. As of March 1, 2026, SBA 7(a) and 504 loans require 100% ownership by U.S. citizens or nationals. Green card holders are out, and so are visa holders. Even a 1% stake disqualifies the business. Stack that change on top of the well-covered “grey wave / silver tsunami” (Boomer-owned businesses changing hands over the next 10 years), and we have a situation where demand for entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) capital is likely to increase while financeable capacity is decreasing. From Graham: "Even if you put all the traditional lenders together and their balance sheet capacity today, it's not enough." The Details: 1. Rule: Every owner, direct or indirect, must be a U.S. citizen or national living in the U.S. (SBA notice) 2. Lookback: Anyone who held a stake in the past six months still counts as an owner, unless they've fully divested before the SBA loan number is issued. (Doeren Mayhew) 3. Impact: Lenders estimate 5-15% of SBA loan volume is now ineligible. (BizBuySell) 4. Supply: Boomers own about half of privately held firms in most states. In California alone, that's 3.87M employees and $865.6B in revenue. (The ESOP Association) Takeaway: If it’s not already, put ETA financing on your radar. More businesses for sale, fewer buyers who can finance them. Want more? Check out my full conversation with Graham 👇 ICYMI: Check out my conversation with Patrick Flood of Owners in Honor, a veteran-focused ETA support organization. youtu.be/u06qmUQLu_M?si=1b9n…

Looking for some weekend reading? Instinct: The Secretive AI Agent Everyone Seems to Be Talking About: It's invite-only, has 14 employees, and came out of stealth in August. The company just raised $1B at a $10B valuation from @sequoia, @benchmark, and Coatue Management. (techcrunch.com/2026/09/28/vi…) Guy Raz Bets on Himself: After 700+ episodes of asking founders how they built it, Raz is buying his show outright from NPR. (hollywoodreporter.com/busine…) @ouraring Postpones IPO: The smart ring maker is postponing its Nasdaq listing due to IPO market uncertainty, despite strong demand and a profitable business. (businesswire.com/news/home/2…)

I’m pleased to share that, starting today, I’ll highlight 5 angel-network-backed deals each week, up from the 3 per week I’ve historically covered. Here are the "Angel Deals of the Week" from today's issue of The Diligent Observer: 1. Scopia Surgical | Gabriel Rivest | @angesquebec 2. Capwell Services | Andrew Lane | SWAN Impact Network 3. Ampaire | Kevin Noertker | @SandHillAngels 4. Kind Designs | Anya Freeman | @TamiamiAngels, New York Angels and @GoldenSeeds 3. RuraLink Inc. | Mary Kathleen Bryan | Maine Angels 🔍Why These Deals are Interesting: Angel communities filter through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of opportunities each year. These companies represent the elite few that survived that vetting process and actually got a deal done. 📧Have a recently funded company you'd like to showcase? Drop me a note. 🔔Want to see more deals like this every week from angel communities around the world? Subscribe via the link below. ⬇️

No exit? No problem. The loan matures in five years. Graham Conran on why a fixed maturity means fewer zombies, the cash flow skills most angels have never needed, and how AI has made smaller acquisition loans worth underwriting. Listen now: podcast.thediligentobserver.… #TheDiligentObserver #PrivateCredit #AngelInvesting

🥇 Here’s the best nugget from my conversation with Ashher Syed of AngelsRound: Mediocre products win all the time 🏆 A great product doesn't guarantee a great business. Ashher has watched it happen again and again across nearly 50 deals. A good product with fuzzy positioning loses to a mediocre product with sharp, focused positioning. Positioning shapes the messaging. Messaging shapes distribution. And distribution is what gets a business paid. From Ashher: “Your positioning has to be right and your messaging has to be right. Otherwise you will miss those people.” Takeaway: It’s intuitive to start digging into how a product works. It’s less intuitive, but far more important, to press first on “What problem are you solving, and for whom?” Want more? Check out my full conversation with Ashher 👇 buzzsprout.com/2459970/episo…

Looking for some weekend reading? @a16z Opens a School!? @theacademysf, a for-profit venture that has raised $42 million, will train about 50 high school grads as future founders. (techcrunch.com/2026/09/22/a1…) Great Minds Discount Alike: @AnthropicAI and @OpenAI both launched lower-cost models on Tuesday, as the two labs fight Chinese open-weight rivals for price-conscious customers. (ft.com/content/0e50a3c6-9731…) Is the Data Center Market Cooling Off? @holtecintl indefinitely paused its IPO, citing data center uncertainty, while SB Energy and @Aggreko also slow listings. (nytimes.com/2026/09/21/busin…)

I’m pleased to share that, starting today, I’ll highlight 5 angel-network-backed deals each week, up from the 3 per week I’ve historically covered. Here are the "Angel Deals of the Week" from today's issue of The Diligent Observer 1. ORBES | Anna Shaposhnik | @CitrineAngels 2. Pasture Biosciences | Matt Zehnder | Veterinary Angel Network for Entrepreneurs 3. Thryft Ship | Valeria Brenner | Atlanta Technology Angels 4. @OptimlyAI | Apurva Luty | Flywheel Angel Network 5. Alchemity | Emir Dogdibegovic | District Angels 🔍Why These Deals are Interesting: Angel communities filter through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of opportunities each year. These companies represent the elite few that survived that vetting process and actually got a deal done. 📧Have a recently funded company you'd like to showcase? Drop me a note. 🔔Want to see more deals like this every week from angel communities around the world? Subscribe via the link below. ⬇️