If you own a technology start-up in Australia, you may have heard the name Greg Riebe, and if you haven’t, you’ll be glad to be doing so right now.

Greg is the winner of the 2020 Australia’s Angel Investor of the year, largely due to his talent for mixing enabling technology with highly scalable business models that are the perfect dream of most investors.

He was the head behind Perth’s first ever technology incubator, managed funds for investing in technology start-ups and has co-founded many successful tech companies himself and today he works advising entrepreneurs on how to become investment ready.

And, while doing all of the above and much more, he still found the time to be on the Changing the Game show to talk about how his work has been leading the charge for innovation in Australia and beyond.

First Investment

Before he could become the investment titan he is today, Greg was (according to his own words), a “propeller head, a geek” that is, a highly specialised software engineer that worked at SGIO during the early 2000s.

From this position he was moved to manager, getting his first taste for innovation and advisement before leaving SGIO for a non-for-profit which was able to get a license from the Australian Government to run an investment fund for IOT startups.

That was the birth of the very first tech incubator in Perth that we mentioned, which according to Greg also acted as an accelerator, providing capital for new businesses while simultaneously nurturing their growth.

While working in that investment fund, Greg found that his passion was to enable other people’s dreams, to “that little glint in their eyes” become a true flame. Ultimately, that is what made him an angel investor, and such a good one at that.

Is Investment for The Rich?

Now, much like private flights, which we discussed in the last episode, people tend to look at investment as an activity that is exclusive to people who are already rich to begin with, a thought that Greg immediately shot down.

He explained that there are many levels that there are plenty of low-cost investments to be made, especially in stock exchange, and that it all comes down to having the knowledge necessary to “identify, filter, select, structure and manage an investment.”

You also have to take your “appetite” into consideration, or how much you are expecting to earn out of an investment, and what risks you are willing to take to see that investment through.

There is also the option of seeking out managed funds who will look after your investments for you and make all of these decisions under a more specialised context, not to mention the benefit of it being much less time time-consuming.

So, if you were thinking about investing and felt like you had neither the knowledge nor wealth to do it, know that there are options for all wallets and levels of experience, not to mention plenty of risk-free (and often free in general) ways of learning.

What is Angel Investing?

At this point we have thrown the term “Angel Investor” quite a lot, but what does it actually mean?

Greg explains that Angel Investors are a collective, or individual that “applies their time, their own money and their knowledge to participate in a venture”, often in the early development stages, sometimes before they even hit the market.

Angel investors will then look at such companies through their network and identify those that represent a real opportunity, and then reach out to collaborate with these promising starting companies to help them grow.

What differentiates Angel Investing from your usual Investment is that you are not only providing financial funds to a business, you are holding classes to teach them necessary skills, or even providing specialised services to nurture that venture’s growth.

Now, this process is not always smooth, and Greg himself described it as “a bit of a rollercoaster”, but he remarks how in these ups and downs, it’s always the quality of the team itself that sees the company through.

At the end of the day, Angel Investors are always investing in people.

Choosing an Investment

A veteran investor like Greg is bound to have some good advice for both people looking for opportunities to invest their money and entrepreneurs that are looking for an angel investor to call their own.

So naturally I had to interrogate him on what were the criteria he used when picking prospects, and his answer, however simple, provides incredibly useful insight:

“I invest in what I understand.”

You may have notice that Greg’s work is majorly focused on tech, and that is not by accident, as his entire background is on software engineering and computers, which means that he has the tools to judge any proposition made by a tech startup.

The same goes for most investors, but Greg also made it clear that you also have the option of leaning on someone else’s knowledge, which is where the idea of investment collectives like Angel groups actually came from.

This, what is known as “Syndicalisation” and it teaches us an important lesson: Investing, and business in general, is all about people.

You could have the most promising enterprise with all the funding in the world, but if there’s no trust between the investor and the CEO, if the team can’t work together without furniture being thrown, the venture is doomed to fail.

On the other hand, if the relationship network between all parties is solid, and built on genuine affinity and unity of purpose, there’s very little that a venture can’t do.

Conclusion

What I loved the most about my conversation with Greg Riebe is that while giving out priceless advice, it also managed to bring some much-needed humanisation to the topic of investments.

Too often investing in a business is seen as just throwing money at a series of letters and numbers expecting to get something return, but in effect, what we are doing is giving someone’s dream a chance.

So, for today’s thought exercise, I would like to hear about the big investment that changed your life. It doesn’t have to be money related. Tell me about that one time someone invested their time, attention, or knowledge on you, and what came out of it.