Thanks for joining this angel investing newsletter — let’s jump into what you can expect from this newsletter going forward and how it relates to angel investing.
Note: This will get into very specific financial information about me personally, please keep confidential.
The Basics
I’m going to be using this newsletter as distribution to other physicians that are interested in angel investing and pooling capital into promising startups. It will detail what new deals are coming through and give you highlights from meeting with those companies’ founders. However, please note that all legal documents, deal memos, etc. will love on AngelList, which can be found, here.
Housekeeping
All investment information regarding wiring information, valuation, deal memos, K1s, Blue Sky Filings, etc. will live on our AngelList page. If you would like to join The Physician Syndicate’s on AngelList and begin receiving information regarding upcoming investments, please do so here.
***Please note, you must be an accredited investor to participate in these types of investments.
Quick introduction to me
I’m a physician — originally from California, went to UCLA for undergrad, received my MPH from Columbia, and my MD at Dartmouth.
Ultimately, I matched at Thomas Jefferson in Philadelphia for both my surgical internship and integrated interventional radiology residency — in July 2020, I built a startup, flipMD, with my wife to help physicians find non-clinical side gigs as a source of extra income.
In September 2021, we got into conversations with multiple companies about acquiring the flipMD platform and ultimately decided to sell to GoodRx for $12m in February 2022 after just 18-months of actively building it part-time while in residency.
Note: this is a very small exit by Silicon Valley standards; however, for my wife and I, we received ~97%+ of the acquisition amount because we had raised such a small amount of “venture capital”, which meant our lives had changed forever.
For me personally, it was as if I had worked my entire career as an IR attending but I received all the capital upfront and could now invest it for the next 50 years with the goal of creating generational wealth for my family via the 8th wonder of the world — compounding interest.
For our investors, it was a nice, quick win with most receiving 2.4x (e.g., turning $25k into $60k) on their investment after a little over a year since the investment (netting a really nice IRR).
Since selling flipMD, I have been an active angel investor into early-stage companies and have even launched a podcast to explain the power of investing into early-stage companies (and building them) to the physician community called The Physician Syndicate Podcast, check it out!
1. Why this, why now
Some of the best companies ever built were created and scaled during economic downturns. Think Airbnb, Dropbox, Doordash, Stripe, etc.
Also, there have been massive amounts of tech company layoffs, which throws a lot of talent into the startup ecosystem creating and building off new technologies (AI, ML, NLP, etc.).
My goal is to find those generation-defining companies within the broader healthcare startup landscape, place bets, and use the network (this syndicate, podcast, and newsletters) to supercharge those bets and give us the best opportunity to hit those “winners”.
2. The Power Law & how we can bend it in our favor
The Power Law is the idea that most venture returns occur from a very small % of the funds investments (e.g., one company returns 3x the fund — think investing in Doordash’s seed-round at a ~$10m valuation, which is now worth $31B in the public market — ~3100x return if you held it until now assuming no dilution).
My goal is to find the best companies building in the healthcare space, meet with those founders to understand their overall strategy and goals. Then, think through how, if at all, our network of several thousand physicians can improve the odds of their success exponetially.
As an example, if we come across a company that is building tools for practicing physicians to help with prior authorization, can we take what they are doing and get them introductions to decision makers and help drive revenue and ultimately their exit.
This is the power of building an all physician angel investing syndicate, we each bring value in our own way and pooling that value creates a huge advantage over taking a check from a VC firm that knows next to nothing about the actual practice of medicine.
3. How will investing within TPS work?
I will be researching and reaching out to companies that I think are interesting and building within big potential markets. I will also create a funnel for founders to find TPS and reach out to pitch. I will bring the top 1% of those companies to the broader syndicate once I have thoroughly vetted those companies and their founders.
If a company passes through these hurdles (market, go-to-market strategy, founder background, founder-market fit, product-market fit, traction, etc.), I will then create a deal memo, recorded a pitch with those founders, perform due diligence and then put all that into this newsletter.
I will then include a poll, which will last 7 days to begin to understand the overall level of interest in investing into that particular company from each individual syndicate member. If we find there is enough interest (likely check size in the range of $100k-$500k), we will create an SPV (special purpose vehicle) on our AngelList page and run through the investing process + secure allocation into that startup.
We will then track that company over their lifetime and provide both monthly (or quarterly) updates from the company and I will meet with those companies at least once a year to write an annual report, which will be sent to all those who invest via the SPV.
Additionally, we will ask our founders how the broader syndicate can help with introductions to potential customers, getting product feedback, etc.
4. Intro to The Physician Syndicate podcast and how it can be used as a resource for you
I have been putting together a podcast over the last several months, which hits on a lot of the basic angel investing topics and can be found, here.
For those wanting just the investment information, focus on the “Angel 101” episodes.
5. What’s next?
I am currently evaluating companies and am meeting with founders that are currently or will be soon raising capital. For this specific instance, raising from a large group of physicians, is a pretty easy sell for most healthcare-focused startups given the unique situation.
The Physician Syndicate has a huge advantage over practically everyone else that will be trying to get into the best healthcare startup deals — we have actively practicing physicians that are putting their own capital into the company. This means that we can help the startups in ways that a regular venture firm or angel group simply cannot; we can help evangelize the product, give product feedback, consult with the company, help with go-to-market strategy, key customer intros, etc. All of these things make it much more compelling to take our capital versus someone else with no value add, which means we will have the pick of the litter and will have startups knocking the doors down to pitch THIS group.
Connect with me on LinkedIn and follow The Physician Syndicate page!
Final Word — Let’s jump on a call!
I would love to meet with everyone that is seriously interested in learning more about the syndicate. Here is my calendar page to book a time to chat.
Also, if you are serious, please start the process of enrolling into the syndicate via AngelList — there is no commitment if you sign up.
All the best,