Kristina Montague: [00:00:00] We went from about 5% of all angels were women when we first came into this in 2014 to almost 40% of angel investors are women now.

If you do have the ability to do some private investments, this is a great time. The companies are gonna be undervalued. You can get in really early.

It's not something your financial advisor's gonna tell you about because they're not gonna get a commission from it.

Without early stage private investment, most of this innovation is not gonna get off the ground and it's not gonna see the light of day. 

Get out of your sandbox and go kind of play another sandbox. 

Andrew Kazlow: Welcome to the Diligent Observer, the first podcast exclusively focused on helping angels see what others miss. I'm your host, Andrew, and every week we explore what works, what doesn't, and why through conversations with experienced startup investors and operators.

My guest today for this special episode recorded live at the ACA Summit in Denver is Kristina Montague, managing partner of Jump Fund, an early stage fund focused on investing in women-led ventures across the Southeast. As [00:01:00] the incoming Chair of the Angel Capital Association, an author of Jump In: Women Investing in Women,

she's at the forefront of transforming how capital flows to women entrepreneurs. During our conversation, she reveals how women angels have grown from just 5% to nearly 40% of all angel investors in a decade, shares compelling data on why gender diverse founding teams deliver superior returns, and explains why investing in women founders represents an untapped arbitrage opportunity in today's market.

I hope you enjoy learning from Kristina as much as I did.

One quick note before we jump in. If you're an angel investor or thinking about becoming one, you need to know about the Angel Capital Association. The A CA is an incredible community for connecting with experienced investors, tapping into tons of well-documented best practices and training resources, and just generally keeping up to speed with what's happening in the angel space.

Now I've really enjoyed getting connected over the last few years [00:02:00] and that's why I'm so excited to partner with the ACA to bring you this special series of episodes live from their annual summit in Denver. If you're serious about angel investing, you will definitely want to check them out.

 Kristina. 

Kristina Montague: Hi. 

Andrew Kazlow: Thank you for being with me today. 

Kristina Montague: Thank you so much. Enjoy being here. 

Andrew Kazlow: Well, we are thrilled to be here day two of the Angel Capital Association event. There's a ton of background noise right now because we're in the middle of a company showcase, and lunch shortly. But we're just thrilled to be sitting down together.

So, Kristina, I'm gonna ask you, what are you excited about right now? Personally, professionally, what's exciting? 

Kristina Montague: Yeah. First of all, I'm excited to just see the energy in the room here. You know, the companies always excite me, right? The new innovation that's happening. We have many sponsors of those companies, Keiretsu and NIH, and now FedTech is coming in bring some companies some really cool

different innovation that we are seeing here today. And it's always great to get all of the [00:03:00] investors in the same room because we like to talk shop and we like to connect and we like to trade deals. So that whole energy is always exciting to me at Summit. And this is our 20th year, so that's also exciting.

We're celebrating an anniversary this year for the Angel Capital Association. And you know, I think it's interesting times economically, so, you know, everything 

Andrew Kazlow: Interesting times. 

Kristina Montague: You know, we've had quite a bit of conversation here already, and some speakers talking about the current economic climate, but I think, angels are always hopeful. We are always energized by the innovation and the companies that are, you know, we see and that innovation is not gonna stop. We have companies continuing to innovate. So, I think just seeing the next gen of companies that these new platforms that are coming out for companies, to find different sources of funding are really interesting. Different forms of financing they can, they can look for. So, I think that just the aperture for access to capital is really opening a lot more. And that is exciting as someone who just really cares 

about this access to capital [00:04:00] issue is exciting to see.

Andrew Kazlow: Say more about that. Can you gimme some examples like, more tactically, what does that mean? How does that actually happen? 

Kristina Montague: Sure, sure. I mean, I have a lot of colleagues across the country who are doing things like revenue-based financing. So we have Sage Growth Capital here. They're out of Idaho and invest across the country.

We have a group in Chattanooga who's doing it too, called Capacity Capital. So there are groups all over the country doing that. And that's a really different model than kind of your direct equity or even debt financing that you might get from angel investors. And then you couple that with crowdfunding.

I mean crowdfunding. Now there's equity crowdfunding that you can do. And a lot of angel investors are actually investing that way as well. Sort of expanding their own portfolios quickly and at lower dollar amounts to kind of seed a lot more companies. So those are a couple examples that are I see used most frequently now, and we don't see it as competition as angel investing.

It's just, you know, who's gonna create that capital stack for these companies. Some of them get a lot of great non-diluted funding from grants and things, but [00:05:00] if you have these other sources that you can tag on, and it's not just sort of the straight equity partners that it used to be, which is really a lot harder dollars to come by.

So a lot of exciting things happening in our marketplace. 

Andrew Kazlow: Well, you are deeply involved here at the Angel Capital Association. And so first of all, thank you because I'm recently involved and just so blessed by the work that you all have done over the last 20 years to build this community. You're about to have a new job or new volunteer position, 

Kristina Montague: I would say position 

Andrew Kazlow: here.

Kristina Montague: Yes. These are not jobs, these are laborers of love. 

Andrew Kazlow: So tell me about this labor of love. 

Kristina Montague: Yeah, yeah. 

Andrew Kazlow: What is your new role going to be and then, maybe say a little bit about what are some of your hopes, your focus areas during your time in that role? 

Kristina Montague: Sure. So I'm the incoming Chair of the Angel Capital Association and I have big shoes to fill from Ron Weismann and, my colleague Marcia Dawood before him. But you know, I've been engaged with this organization for the past 11 years now. When [00:06:00] we first started our first fund in Tennessee and I have benefited so much from the Angel Capital Association, so I want to help continue to foster these connections and relationships that really help all of these smaller funds and networks across the country achieve their goals, which is getting funding out the door for entrepreneurs and making strong returns.

We won't be able to keep doing this unless the returns come in. It's been a little bit dry in the past few years, but we're still seeing some pops. I just had one of the groups that I'm invested with. We had an exit yesterday, so that was really exciting to see at this moment.

A positive exit, I have to say. So 

Andrew Kazlow: Can you say more? Who was it? 

Kristina Montague: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's actually a really cool company. It's called Little Thinking Minds. They are an Arabic language learning company that is out of the UAE. I invested through a group called Mindshift Capital, and they're a global gender lens fund that invests across the UAE Europe and the US.

And started by a colleague of mine that I met through Next [00:07:00] Wave Impact Fund, and I met all of those people through the Angel Capital Association. So it's all about these connections. It's about how we are growing these other funds and networks to keep achieving our goals. So I'm just really, I'm excited to step into this role because I think there's great opportunities still to grow this community and really expand the tent to these other, as I said, types of capital providers, other ecosystem builders.

And provide the kind of education and training that we do here at ACA and this connection piece. 

Andrew Kazlow: Incredible. Well, if that's not a plug for next year at ACA. If you weren't here this year. 

Kristina Montague: Come, come!

Andrew Kazlow: Come next year it'll be, 

Kristina Montague: come back to Colorado. 

Andrew Kazlow: We'll be in Denver, Colorado and we would love to see you.

So when you think about kinda the next year or two, what are the key focus areas as the Chair of the organization? What are the things that are top of mind for you that the things like resources are gonna be allocated towards specifically, like what are the projects, the activities, the things that you're [00:08:00] really focused on during the season?

Kristina Montague: We have really grown our organization through group memberships and we will continue to do that. That's really the backbone of our organization. We are a member driven organization, but we are launching a larger outreach to individuals because we're seeing a lot more individuals - angel curious and coming into this space and not really knowing, you know, where to plug in, where to find the information. Where do I find these groups that I could invest alongside? Where do I find funds that might fit my investment thesis or something that I care about my values and interests. So, we are making more of a concerted effort.

We haven't really. It's kind of an aside thing for us. We've had an individual membership, but we are really pushing forward an individual membership campaign, which comes with a lot of perks and benefits by being engaged with this amazing network. So that's one thing. We're also starting to leverage AI more to really

extract this 20 years of data we have from seasoned experienced [00:09:00] investors, that we can then create tools so that members can say, just do general queries and find information that's in our archives. Through our webinars, through our data and insights, we publish an annual Angel Funders report. So that's exciting.

That's coming online soon. 

And then all of these, sort of cohorts that we're bringing in right now, we have a new partnership with the Center for Black Entrepreneurship that was highlighted today in the meeting. We have 6 out of the 15 from that cohort here. And that is a group that we are really focusing on, on education and training and connecting them in. Again, kind of all the things that we really do well, but tapping into different networks, right?

 People who are kind of under, otherwise probably hadn't been invited into these same networks. And through the Center for Black Entrepreneurship, having that collaboration and with our colleagues at Milestone Capital also who are driving that effort. So those are some of the exciting things we're doing.

I could talk about more, but.

Andrew Kazlow: Well, we'll be very excited to see how those individual [00:10:00] memberships mature. I would love to be able to talk to the Angel Funder Report archive and whatever else. You know, that AI tool set ends up looking like I will use that on a regular basis. So personally watching that, and many of our listeners, 

Kristina Montague: Good! 

Andrew Kazlow: I think will as well.

So I'd love to talk a little bit more about the work that you're doing, apart from the ACA, in connection with the ACA to support this gender lens investing. So tell us more about your fund. Tell us more about your book. You've done so much great work. I don't even know how to ask this question.

So just tell me about, 

Kristina Montague: okay, great. 

Andrew Kazlow: What's some of the work that you're doing to develop the gender lens investments ecosystem? 

Kristina Montague: Yeah. Yeah. So, over 11 years ago, I worked with a group of women in our backyard in Chattanooga, Tennessee to form a fund that invest just in women-led ventures in the Southeast. We were the first microventure fund to do so. 

And still remain one of the only actually, unfortunately. But we were really trying to address this [00:11:00] issue of just getting more capital to women-led ventures, which would really, and still suffers from a lack of venture funding. Now the angel landscape has changed dramatically. We now have, we went from about 5% of all angels were women when we first came into this in 2014 to almost 40% of angel investors are women now.

Andrew Kazlow: No kidding. 

Kristina Montague: So if you look around this room, you would see that it looks almost like half of the people here are women. 

Andrew Kazlow: 10x I mean, let's 

just pause for a second. 10x in 10 years. 

Kristina Montague: Yes. Yes. 

Andrew Kazlow: That's incredible. 

Kristina Montague: And a lot of that, I mean, that's not due to a lot of people's efforts. It was really spearheaded by Golden Seeds, which is the largest angel network investing in women and predominantly run by women.

But out of that and through the Angel Capital Association at other networks like this, we've started spawning what we call the Growing Women's Capital Network. And so we just started getting together and saying, Hey, you're doing this and you are doing this, why don't we all band together and we can syndicate deals and we can share best practices together.

And grow these [00:12:00] other kind of micro funds, these networks where women are getting together to learn about angel investing. So a lot about it is demystifying this. This is an asset class that women haven't really been exposed to, and to make them better angels, right? And to really engage them in that.

So, a lot of us have been kind of seeding that effort or then helping to grow that effort through all of these networks and funds that we've created. So, my book Jump In really chart the course of how we did this in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Small group of women who really was kind of like a startup venture ourselves.

We saw a problem, we discovered a solution, we decided we were gonna go about fundraising for it. Got a hundred women to jump in with us. 

Andrew Kazlow: Wow! 

Kristina Montague: And launched our first fund. And we have a second fund after that, that we also deployed capital from. So that story, but also the story of these other women who are creating similar things and kind of a playbook.

 There's a bit about like a how-to and angel investing in there. There's a profiles of all these women who've also done this, their why, their [00:13:00] how. That's really, it's just trying to break this all down and get it more accessible, particularly for women. But it's really a book that anybody can read, so.

Andrew Kazlow: Well, we'll for sure include a link in the show notes to that book.

If you haven't checked it out, pick it up. I'm curious, as you wrote that, and as you have just thought very deeply about this, tell me about what are some of the primary barriers that you see newer angels struggling?

Like what are some of the things that you've worked with these women over the years? You just find, come up again and again, and again and again. What are the key themes that are difficult for women when they're getting into this ecosystem 

Kristina Montague: I think, you know, this is a game of relationships and so when you have, what really was kind of an old boy network and a kind of a men's dinner club situation in the old days. This is pre, pre even 20 years ago, where people were getting together, sharing deals, talking shop, maybe talking about the deals on the golf course

or over a beer. It was a kind of very, let me say [00:14:00] bro environment. But women were like, this is really interesting. There are interesting companies we want to invest in too. We were starting to come into this seeing that there was a dearth of capital for women-led companies and wanting to change that.

And so, what we have found with women is that they are very attracted to educating themselves first before they really jump in. So a lot of guys will kind of shoot from the hip, jump in, you know, deploy a few dollars, see what happens. Women are less likely to do that, a little more risk intolerant.

This is a pretty risky asset class. So how do we demystify that? How do we make it there a playbook for that? How do we create community so that people are investing alongside others, doing due diligence together, and making it fun and interesting. And we gather differently, right? We're gonna gather our Next Wave Impact Fund was all around and it was actually started right pre-Covid.

So most of our stuff was online, but we [00:15:00] gathered together with our LPs. So it was a fund, but with our limited partners and everybody saw the deals. Everybody was asked if we were going forward with a deal to sit on a diligence committee. So you learned diligence firsthand on how are we gonna assess this company?

And so it was really like a learn by doing model without the high stakes of feeling like, I don't know the right questions to ask. I feel sort of dumb in this room of everybody's sort of talking shop and I don't know what they're talking about. So it was that way. And let me tell you out of that, we have spawned other funds and networks.

I mean, these women are going on to start all these amazing things. Four people outta that wrote books. People got really excited about it. I was just talking to one person who came in the Next Wave and she is now running Investors Circle, which is one of the largest groups of impact investors in the US.

And she didn't know anything when she came in. It's that kind of environment that we wanted to foster so that women felt more comfortable coming into it. It's not something your financial [00:16:00] advisor's gonna tell you about because they're not gonna get a commission from it.

Andrew Kazlow: Right.

Kristina Montague: So you've got to find those people who do know. And so we wanna be those people inviting other people into this. 

Andrew Kazlow: Well, you're reminding me of a conversation I had recently with Kate Brodock, who is CEO of SWITCH, and leads W Fund. She was just a couple episodes ago. And she was hitting on a lot of these same themes of just how important education is for activating capital.

I mean, there's just this massive latent source of capital that really is only blocked by having the confidence to make a call and make the first investment, and to do so with confidence that it's being done thoughtfully, being done well, and I just see this theme so clearly emerging 

Kristina Montague: mm-hmm. 

Andrew Kazlow: In several recent conversations.

It's incredible to hear about the work that you're doing and, encourage anybody that's listening to this to check out that book if you haven't already. 

Kristina Montague: Yep. Jump In: Women Investing in Women. It's pretty clear what it's about. 

Andrew Kazlow: I would love to hear any other lessons learned or things that you [00:17:00] think new angels or even intermediate, let's call 'em intermediate angels, should think about during this season as they consider.

Kristina Montague: Mm-hmm. 

Andrew Kazlow: Capital allocation deployment. I mean, we've been talking a lot about that this week at the event, but given your experience, your background, some of these lessons, what are some things you would leave with new angels as they consider how to deploy capital in this current environment? 

Kristina Montague: Yeah. We haven't had many exits the past few years, so it looks a little bleak, but I think kind of remembering that without early stage private investment, most of this innovation is not gonna get off the ground and it's not gonna see the light of day. And so you can really be the seed for the next gen of products and services that we see. And so if you care about things passionately, this is one way to do it. And a lot of people do it through philanthropy.

 They're supporting things they care about that way, but this is another way to do that. So, for instance, our second fund became a lot more impact focused without even [00:18:00] having that be a sort of an investment thesis of ours, but we started really caring about what are these companies building.

 For instance, we've had FemTech products that have come out, and done been really successful in this kind of next gen of products that are coming out. This whole industry that's being built around FemTech has all been seated by women angels. Because we understand the issues.

I mean. 

Andrew Kazlow: Makes sense to me. 

Kristina Montague: The menopause market is huge right now. 

Andrew Kazlow: Yeah. 

Kristina Montague: It's really blowing up, but we've always had menopause. It's just nobody's ever addressed. 

Andrew Kazlow: Yeah. 

Kristina Montague: So how do you see these companies? And it's gonna be more, even more important right now as I think, you see maybe federal dollars pulling back, or grants pulling back 'cause they don't have that non-dilutive capital.

So how does the private sector step in? Granted cash flow is not as great right now, but if you do have the ability to do some private investments, this is a great time. The companies are gonna be undervalued. You can get in really early, and help see these companies and get them to a point that they could be seen by upstage capitals.

Andrew Kazlow: Hmm. [00:19:00] 

Well, I love that you talk about the menopause market as just one example, like I think that's something that you're exactly right. I would love to hear, like, I'm personally curious, what are some things, if I'm talking to a FemTech founder, what are some questions that you would encourage, perhaps our male audience?

What are some of the questions you would encourage them to consider asking as part of that diligence process? Maybe that would be distinct from any quote unquote standard diligence workflow. What are some of the things that you would encourage to focus on? 

Kristina Montague: Well, the first thing I would say is, don't say, oh, I need to ask my wife or sister, right? 

 I think, understanding that this person is coming to you and does understand their market, as a woman, that they probably do understand what they're talking about, and that there is a huge market out there for both women's reproductive and sexual health. It's an untapped market because people really haven't invested in it because

it has been, as I said, a fairly bro network. And so if you're only investing in the things that you're, as our speaker said earlier, you're wowed by that [00:20:00] you get excited about that you have a heart for. And a lot of that is seen through a pretty biased lens. You're gonna invest in kind of who you're comfortable with. 

Andrew Kazlow: Right.

Kristina Montague: And how you see yourself. So if you start looking outside of that box and be like, where are markets that I'm not tapping into? And I'm actually running a session later today on investing in overlooked innovators. 

Andrew Kazlow: Hmm. 

Kristina Montague: And on my panel I have people who've been investing in FemTech companies.

I have people who've been starting black angel groups and seeing opportunities where others are not. And so go into those networks and find that untapped talent and that untapped innovation because there's a huge market there that you're not seeing with your particular lens. So that's one of the things.

And I think the FemTech market, it's beyond obvious now that it's a very large addressable market. I think that we've proven it with some of these products and services. We have an amazing company through several of the portfolio I'm in called Joylux, which is addressing both menopause and women's sexual health.

And it's blowing up. Halle [00:21:00] Berry, it's new spokesperson. She is just kind of phenomenal across the market. And if you haven't, women haven't tested this product out, go check it out. It's called Joylux. Those products. We had her, that founder on stage a couple years ago here, and she got investors in they're a lot of male investors to invest because it's a powerful story to tell. You're addressing over 50% of the market, right?

These products are gonna be, products and services are gonna be used, and there's opportunity there that 

Andrew Kazlow: Yeah. 

Kristina Montague: May be overlooked.

Andrew Kazlow: That is exactly what the show's all about. Helping angels see what most miss. Let's say I'm like, okay, I wanna start looking for things that I'm not seeing 

Kristina Montague: Yep.

Andrew Kazlow: Today, right? That's a difficult thing to do because I'm not seeing those things like what's the playbook? How do I start doing that? How do I start recognizing opportunities or finding opportunities that maybe I'm already naturally overlooking. 

Kristina Montague: The first thing is now that we have such a large network of women-led funds [00:22:00] out there, as well as there are over a hundred black-led VC firms out there now. 

Not all of them are investing in black-led companies, but I mean, there are people who are seeing these deals that you might not be seeing. So I would say go to the experts, go to the people who are seeing these deals that we are. That's what we do in our Growing Women's Capital call is they're mostly women-led companies that are being invested by women.

 Get out of your sandbox and go kind of play another sandbox. So that's one thing. And build those relationships. The other thing that I've kind of said for a long time is like if you have an investor group that's all one kind of people, you're not gonna have those lenses that see other things.

So even if an entrepreneur came in and pitch the company to you, you may not have the lens to really see that opportunity. And so how do you bring other people into your group that would bring those diverse perspectives, understand the pain points of those markets much more personally, and have a heart for those companies. 

It's not by anything of your own doing. It's like this is your worldview, your [00:23:00] perspective, your experience. So bring other people with other experience into that. It's harder said than done because it's hard for people like me to step in a room that is completely different than me. 

 Actually not hard for me personally 'cause I do it all the time, but 

Andrew Kazlow: you're a pro at this. 

Kristina Montague: But I think that's one thing. Like some of these angel groups are launching, just women investors, specifically groups to get more women investors in the Queen City Angels is doing a great job of this.

They have a whole new ascent program that kind of gets people in the door, does a lot of education with them, have some women specific events, and then those people stick with them and they start becoming their investors and bringing deals to them and looking at deals. So they've really diversified their angel group a lot by just that process of looking kind of different ways of bringing folks into their networks.

Andrew Kazlow: I think you're ringing up a really important point. And that is, that there are tons of investor communities. And so if you're listening to this and you're involved in one community and you're like, oh man, we do see one kind of thing. And I like that. I like that I see the same type of thing in this [00:24:00] group, but I also wanna learn more about how to get involved in this other types of quote unquote overlooked opportunities.

There's groups that are probably focused on that. And so go find one, go join one. Like, there are tons of communities out there and we work really hard at The Diligent Observer to surface opportunities like that. We do this on a newsletter every week, and so I think there's just so much opportunity if you try a little bit. 

Kristina Montague: Absolutely. 

 It's about, I've always said it's about intentionality. You have to be intentional about this. It's not just gonna come to you. We used to have our brother investor group that I love dearly, told us when we were starting our first fund, we're gender agnostic, we're open to any company that comes to us.

Said, well, do you have any companies in your portfolio you've invested in? No. 

Andrew Kazlow: Good question. 

Kristina Montague: How many can you count that have actually come to you? Two. And one was a feminine hygiene product that they had no idea how to deal with, right? I'm like, if you're not gonna be intentional, if you're just gonna wait for everybody to come to you, you're not gonna see those opportunities.

 So get out. [00:25:00] You know, a lot of it's about going to things like this too. This showcase has a really diverse group of founders here. And they're brought by all different groups that we have as part of our association. So, you gotta get outta your sandbox, as I said, play with other people.

Angel investing is really a group sport and so we never have individually enough capital to kind of completely fund one company. We're always looking for co-funders. And so that's where you need to get out, and see what the network looks like. Yeah. 

Andrew Kazlow: Kristina, any hot takes or soapbox elements that we haven't hit on today that our listeners should know about? 

Kristina Montague: Well, I always have my soapbox about gender lens investing and it's been something that's grown over the past 10 years.

The landscape has really changed for that, as I said on the investor side. But the amount of capital going to women has actually gone backwards. With venture capital, it's hovering around 2.2% of all venture capital goes to single female-led founders, founded companies.

Now what we're seeing is that actually if there's a [00:26:00] co-founding team that is male and female, they're getting more like 26% of venture funding. So that number has seen a positive trend. But on the flip side of that, investors who have invested in female-led companies and or co-founded companies, they have actually seen higher return on investment in those companies than they see in their all male-led portfolios.

The people who have either equitable amount in there or at least enough to be able to track this. First Round Capital was the first to do this 10 years ago with some excellent data on that. And so there is a really opportunity for returns for investors by investing with a wider lens.

 This is not about doing good. It's not about diversity per se. It's about, we are always coming back to, can we make better returns? And so if you're dressed, if you're looking at more of the markets, you're looking at other opportunity, other opportunity that's been undervalued, right?

There's arbitrage there. That's where I say that [00:27:00] you're missing out. Yeah. If you're not looking at companies with a broader lens. 

Andrew Kazlow: Well, making better decisions in theory should lead to better returns, and we're all about that here on this show. So I love that point. And I think the 26% number is, I hadn't heard that before.

I heard the 2% number, but this blended team allocation numbers is interesting. 

Kristina Montague: Yep. 

Andrew Kazlow: What do you think it's gonna take to see that continue to grow? I mean, if better returns are correlated with these blended teams, how do we as an ecosystem continue to, to shape and inform that growth? The investor perspective drives a tremendous amount of behavior.

Kristina Montague: Absolutely. 

Andrew Kazlow: Right. 

You're not a fit because of this reason. Go do A, B, C and then come back to me is real because entrepreneurs will do that. So how as investors, can we be thoughtful about shaping the growth here? Obviously the work that you're doing and a lot of the ACA initiatives you talked about are helping, but what else?

Maybe even on an individual level, for our listeners, can investors [00:28:00] do to help drive more of this adoption and this blended approach? 

Kristina Montague: Check how you are treating the entrepreneurs who come to you based on your bias.

Andrew Kazlow: Mm-hmm.

Kristina Montague: And there has been many studies you may have already known about them, of the kind of prevention versus promotion questions that are asked.

Andrew Kazlow: Yep, yep. 

Kristina Montague: There are studies out of Columbia and Harvard on this. Different entrepreneurs get different questions asked of them based on internal biases. And so checking that, are you doing that in your processes? 

Obviously we need to dive deep in diligence, but again, as Bill Reichert said today, investment actually comes from the heart. You can do all the diligence of the world, but in the end, you're investing in a team and you're investing in with kind of heart over head, right? And then you're drawn to something in this entrepreneur. 

Andrew Kazlow: So true. 

Kristina Montague: And so I think, it is really about checking those biases, widening your aperture, seeing opportunity everywhere, and understanding the statistics that there, particularly with a co-founded [00:29:00] team, what could that, diversity of perspective really bring to the team that you might not otherwise see in maybe an all male-led. Like, women are

traditionally much better long-term managers of companies. We've always really proven ourself on the HR side. We have a little more EQ out there. 

As you're building companies, you might want to make sure you have somebody like that who is either the CEO or the COO of the company.

 And also they're very much more efficient and effective with capital. So they are going to preserve that capital as long as possible. They have a little more risk adversity. And so they want to make that capital go to the distance. Now the VCs want you to blow all your capital and, we're gonna give you several millions and then we want you to spend it like within the next year.

Andrew Kazlow: That's right, that's right. 

Kristina Montague: But when we're doing angel investing, we wanna make sure that money's being well spent and women have actually proven to be very capital efficient. So there are some fundamental reasons in a company why you would want that perspective. No, that's like saying all women do that or it's definitely not all a gender thing. That's been some of the research. I think just checking that, seeing [00:30:00] opportunity where others are not in, realizing that there are good fundamental business reasons to have a more diverse team that you're looking at. 

Andrew Kazlow: Kristina, final thoughts for our listeners as we continue into day two of the ACA annual summit?

Kristina Montague: Yeah, well join us next year. We want to expand our message on this. We want to get more people engaged in angel investing, particularly if you're a first time angel. When I came to this as we were just starting our fund, I felt like I was drinking from a fire hose. So I was here 2014, my first conference was in Washington, DC and

it was overwhelming, but the energy and the excitement just made, like I understood my purpose now. And so come and learn from us. We have education and training all year long. We run our Angel University all year long. Definitely look us up. You can become an individual member and get access to all sorts of information from us. From

weekly webinars, deep tech dives, all these things. And then plug into some of these [00:31:00] amazing groups of networks. I would say join us. That's what I would say to anybody. It's an amazing group of people. Kind of a little bit of a sleeper group because, you know, we are investors and so we don't go out and publicize too much.

 We're a little behind the scenes, but if you are interested in this asset class, come learn with us and connect. 

Andrew Kazlow: I love it. Well, Kristina, thank you for joining me today. I very much look forward to our next conversation. 

Kristina Montague: Thanks for having me, Andrew. It was great. 

Andrew Kazlow: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Diligent Observer. I'm your host, Andrew, and if you're an angel investor looking for essential angel intel in five minutes every week, I think you'd enjoy my newsletter. I send my best stuff, interesting deals, and more straight to your inbox so you never miss a thing.

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