Do things for yourself, be a little selfish every now and again, and most important: invest in yourself.

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In the last year or two, I've learnt that the safest and best investment that I can make is the investment I make in myself; not by putting money into the bank or by backing a new startup during their angel round.

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A lot has been written about Y Combinator's decision to allow founders to apply to the program without necessarily having an idea.

I think Vinicius Vacanti's opinion is mostly spot-on and summarized well with this quote:

"And, so I thank Y-Combinator for helping to dispel the myth that to become an entrepreneur you need a moment of brilliance."

You definitely don't need a moment of brilliance and your first idea won't be the only determining factor in whether you're a success or a failure (eventually). But that's pretty much as far as I can agree with this whole concept.

Whilst a moment of brilliance or a first idea doesn't define whether you're an entrepreneur or not, it surely neither warrants that you should be funded (i.e. risk other people's money for you to figure out which of your ideas will eventually be successful).

This explains perfectly why the "money makes money" plays such a huge role here: if you're funding someone without an actual idea, you're taking a gamble. There's just no reason to determine the founding team actually warrants that investment.

I'm open to someone convincing me that funding an entrepreneur without an idea is actually a rational, viable & generic decision that applies to all investors (and not just those with pockets that are inevitably too deep). Or we can all agree that this strategy is at best a calculated risk and semi-gamble.

I read Ben Horowitz' post about their investment in Instagram that made them a 312x return, turning a $250k investment into $78m. Most people would regard that as a shrewd business decision on Andreessen Horowitz' part, but I think it actually comes down to money making money.

Andreessen Horowitz has raised a venture fund worth almost $3bn in the last 3 years. So for them to make a $250k investment represents 0,0083% of their total investment fund. Considering that Instagram ended up being a pivot from the business that they actually invested in, I'd argue that the $250k investment was a "calculated" gamble. Sure, you might argue they backed the entrepreneurs behind the original idea, but that too is a calculated risk / gamble at best. (I'd stick to this opinion regardless of whether or for what amount Instagram was eventually acquired.)

Compare that to Y Combinator that invests an average of $18 000 into approximately 120 startups every year. Or Yuri Milner & Ron Conway that puts $150 000 into any Y Combinator startup that wants it (via Start Fund). As of last year, Yuri Milner alone had a net worth in excess of $1bn (Wikipedia), so putting $150 000 into a startup represents small change.

Their respective returns on these investments are however a far cry from small change, making their investment status a goal for most other investors. Myself included.

Yet, these guys have a head start: they have bucketloads of money. Marc Andreessen co-founded Netscape back in the day. Yuri Milner created DST which has become a premier investor in so many awesome tech companies. And Paul Graham has become the leader of the whole startup community with his work with Y Combinator. So they deserve their success & all these new opportunities now.

The one thing all of them have in common now is that they had one big success as an entrepreneur; one big success that propelled their reputation into the higher echelons of our community & gave them the capital (or access to it) to make all of these investments. It only took one big success.

Ultimately I'd probably be able to make quite a bit of money if I had a $5m venture fund and I could invest $250k into 20 hot startups right now. You could too. Provided we're not totally shit at making our picks.

Money makes money. And it only takes one, big success to get there.

Celebrating the birth of my son, obviously hasn't brought enough "newness" to my life lately with a bunch of exciting things happening elsewhere too. Heck, when it rains it pours.

One of my ambitions this year has been to step up my angel investing activities and literally just get a couple of toes into the water; mostly to learn and just expose myself to more startups (preferably in various industries). In addition to this - and acknowledging that my investment budget is still very limited - I decided to find startups where I could offer value as an advisor (something which I'm also publicly advertising here).

On both these fronts, I have some exciting news to share and would like to introduce you to three new startups that I'm involved in... 

Dress Rush

I was first introduced to Dress Rush a couple of weeks ago when I saw their amazingly designed investor pitch deck. From the very first moment I interacted with the brand, business & ideas, I knew that I wanted to be involved. I subsequently reached out to the team and a couple of weeks later (having been made to jump through hoops to get funds transferred internationally), I'm now officially an investor in Dress Rush.

Two things make me specifically proud about this: 1) Jeanne & I made this investment together, as she was just as keen - if not more keen - to get in on this action; and 2) I get to experience a whole different industry and business model.

Having also got married a little more than a year ago myself, I could've most definitely used something similar to Dress Rush. I bet I would've saved a lot of time and even more money.

Buffer

I've been using Buffer for a couple of months now and have actually been an early user since the first time I stumbled onto Joel Gascoigne's, one of the co-founder, blog. Having found Buffer to be incredibly valuable to my own workflow and online activities, I'm honoured to be joining their team as an advisor.

I love the idea behind Buffer and I see them going from strength to strength.

PressTrends

PressTrends is a little closer to home and is already something we're trying out at WooThemes. Considering how big the WordPress ecosystem has become and how many people are buying themes, I believe PressTrends fills a massive gap for developers in giving them crucial data & analytics to fuel proper, data-driven decision-making.

I'm advising the PressTrends team and even though these are early days, they've already laid the platform of a very exciting business. These guys will be adding a very valuable component to the WordPress ecosystem.

And in addition to all of this, I might be working on a little side-project of my own that should see the light in Q1 2012. All I'll say for now is that the project was one of the ideas that remained after Radiiate was closed down earlier this year.

Finally, if you wanted to get in touch with me on any of these fronts, feel free to have a look at my AngelList profile or my startup services.