In this week’s episode, we interview Paul Grossinger, an angel investor and co-founder of Gaingels Syndicate, Blue Jay Syndicate, A-Level Capital, and Pervasive Group Inc. Gaingels Syndicate is a group offering investment opportunities to LGBT founders and Blue Jay Syndicate offers investment to founders in the Johns Hopkins community, which Paul started partially as a way to give back to his community.

During this interview, Paul challenges the idea that there is a perfect startup formula of funding and encourages founders to think critically about their company’s funding strategy. We are taught to go after big-name venture capitalists, but are founders really going to benefit when they sell their company for a huge chunk of cash and investors take their share first?