How Does Harvard Business Alumni Angels of Greater New York Create Value For Its Portfolio Companies?

Author - Sharjeel Kashmir (PLDA 07), Chairman, President & Screening Co-Chair, Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York (original publication)

 Are you an entrepreneur seeking angel funding? Learn more about how to apply to pitch to the HBS Alumni Angels of Greater New York.

Early-stage investing used to be about access. Spot a good idea, write a check, and hope for the exit. But in today’s founder-driven market, capital is no longer the differentiator. Value is. And value isn’t passive. It’s designed.

The best early-stage investors no longer just fund growth—they help build it. They operate like co-founders with capital, shaping strategy, opening doors, and accelerating momentum long before revenue or even a product exists.

So, how does Harvard Business Alumni Angels of New York (HBSAANY) create value at the zero stage? We engineer outcomes, not just exits.

The traditional model was passive: fund, wait, exit. That worked when capital was scarce and the bar for growth was lower. Today, founders (and the market) expect more. Startups aren’t just looking for capital, they’re looking for leverage. When a company has strong founders, early traction, and product-market fit, where can an investor like HBSAANY make the biggest difference?

After years of assisting companies, we have realized that investor leverage comes from five key value drivers:

1. Ecosystem Access: Opening doors to capital, customers, and credibility—faster than founders can on their own.

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3. Capability Building: Strengthening the team, refining the product, and accelerating go-to-market readiness.

4. Trajectory Shaping: Building the path from seed to scale, with each move calibrated for capital, market fit, and exit readiness.

5. Follow-on Funding: Secure the right capital to fuel growth, bring in the next round of investors, signal confidence to the market, and create liquidity options for early investors and founders.

6. Exit: Timing is everything. Even great businesses can falter on a poorly timed exit. Aligning with the right market cycle, buyer appetite, and public market multiples is essential to maximize returns for both founders and investors.

Think of this as the early-stage value equation:

Value Creation (V) =

[Ecosystem (E) + Capabilities (C) + Trajectory (T) + Follow-on Funding (F)] x Exit (X)

Ecosystem, Capabilities, Trajectory, and Follow-on Funding all add up to create momentum. But Exit is the multiplier. Get it right, and you compound everything. Get it wrong, and the whole equation breaks.

Let’s break it down.

1. Ecosystem Access: Building Credibility, Capital, and Customers

In early-stage startups, access isn’t just about capital—it’s about connections that accelerate traction. Strong investors don’t just bring their checkbook. They bring a network that opens doors to future funding, early customers, and market credibility. That ecosystem is often the difference between a cold start and a head start.

It begins with the cap table. Sophisticated investors help founders design a cap table that attracts not just money, but momentum, bringing in respected angels, former operators, strategic partners, and later-stage VCs who can unlock future rounds and validate the company’s potential.

Just as importantly, they open doors to customers. Whether it’s warm intros to pilot clients, brand-name logos for social proof, or early design partners to help shape the product, ecosystem investors help startups find their earliest traction in the market.

And they build forward-looking investor relationships early. The best early VCs act like talent agents: connecting founders to potential Series A and B investors long before they need to pitch. They “pre-wire” the raise—because in a capital-abundant environment, what matters most is who believes in you before the crowd shows up.

A strong ecosystem isn’t a perk. It’s a competitive moat.

2. Capability Building: Turning Teams and Products into Go-to-Market Engines

Exceptional early-stage investors don’t just spot potential; they help unlock it. Strong investors help recruit critical early hires—especially heads of product, engineering, and sales—and support founders as they evolve from builders to leaders. They offer coaching through the messy middle: team structure, delegation, hiring mistakes, and culture-setting.

On the product side, they bring pattern recognition from dozens of portfolio companies. They help founders focus on the right features, validate customer needs, and avoid overengineering. They push for clarity, not complexity.

And when it’s time to go to the market, these investors provide more than advice. They roll up their sleeves to shape pricing strategy, onboarding flows, sales playbooks, and messaging frameworks—all to shorten the path to revenue. At HBSAANY, we’ve done everything from coaching founders through scaling challenges to providing interim leadership to fill gaps.

Great investors don’t wait for traction to show up. They help you build the machine that creates it.

3. Trajectory Shaping: Building the Path from Seed to Scale

Startups are unpredictable. But their capital journey shouldn’t be. The best early-stage investors help founders map the path from seed to Series A and beyond—calibrating each move for market fit, investor expectations, and long-term exit potential. They work backwards from the future, asking:

What milestones will unlock the next round of funding?

What revenue mix or customer traction will signal real product-market fit?

How should growth align with acquirer criteria or IPO readiness?

4. Follow-On Funding Is a Milestone. Great Investors Help You Achieve It. 

Securing a first check is a breakthrough. Securing the next is a signal. Follow-on rounds aren’t just about more capital, they’re about the right capital, at the right time, from the right partners. That’s when early investors earn their keep.

At HBSAANY, we don’t just help companies raise, we help them level up.

Here’s how:

•  Sharpen the Narrative – Every round tells a story. We help founders craft a clear, compelling arc: what’s been de-risked, what’s within reach, and why now. Investors don’t fund potential—they fund progress.

• Backchannel Credibility – Warm intros get meetings. Quiet endorsements close them. We help founders build reputational capital where it counts—through trusted references, early signals, and strategic visibility.

• Stage-Right Capital Strategy – It’s not just about getting funded. It’s about curating the cap table. We help founders think critically about investor fit, value-add, and long-term alignment.

5. Great Exits Are Manufactured, Not Manifested.

Founders often see the exit as a finish line. Investors know better: it’s a phase of value creation that starts long before a banker picks up the phone.

At HBSAANY, we help companies build for strategic optionality—aligning business milestones, investor expectations, and market conditions well in advance. Because in our experience, exits are rarely about the business alone. They’re about timing, positioning, and the story the market is ready to believe.

We’ve seen too many companies miss their window—great teams, strong growth, wrong timing. M&A appetite dries up. Strategic buyers move on.

That’s why we work with founders early to:

• Signal to potential acquirers through relationships, relevance, and readiness.

• Align internal metrics to what buyers and bankers value.

• Structure rounds strategically to preserve flexibility and keep exit paths open.

• Track market cycles and buyer appetite—and move before the window closes.

A great company can still fail to exit. But a good company, timed right, can deliver an exponential outcome.

Exit isn’t luck. It’s a function of pattern recognition, operational discipline, and investor foresight.

Why This Value Equation Matters More Than Ever

In early-stage investing, you're not just selling a product; you're also selling an idea. You're selling the story of its inevitability.

Unicorns like Moderna, Uber, and Amazon scaled on narratives—on perceived future dominance, not present-day profit. Venture capital operates in “contracted space-time.” It collapses the timeline between vision and valuation. What gets priced in isn’t today’s value. It’s tomorrow’s momentum.

That’s why savvy investors focus less on net income and more on the velocity of customer adoption, product iteration, brand penetration, and market signals. Because in this environment, perception creates valuation before precision catches up.

The early-stage value equation: V = (E + C + T + F) * X is how founders generate that perception with substance. It’s the structure behind the story.

The Takeaway: Value Is Forged, Not Found

HBSAANY helps founders turn early traction into long-term outcomes. We engage early, work closely, and act decisively—opening doors, building capability, shaping growth, and preparing for strategic inflection points.

Every step is intentional. Every relationship, every hire, every round is part of a broader arc. That’s how momentum becomes enterprise value—and how strong companies finish stronger.

Exits aren’t the end of the story. They’re proof that every decision along the way was aligned, informed, and built to compound. That’s what we aim to build alongside the founders we back.

In a founder-led world, leverage matters more than capital. That’s what HBSAANY delivers—by design.

Are you an entrepreneur seeking angel funding? Learn more about how to apply to pitch to the HBS Alumni Angels of Greater New York.

Author - Sharjeel Kashmir (PLDA 07), President & Screening Co-Chair, HBS Alumni Angels of Greater New York

Sharjeel Kashmir invests in companies that have a hyper-focus on the customer and use innovation to disrupt the current landscape. He brings the unique perspective of having worked at leading investment banks, asset managers, commercial banks, retail banks, private equity firms, and innovative fintech startups. He currently serves as President of the Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater NY (HBSAANY). Sharjeel has more than 25 years of experience working in financial services in the US, UK, Japan, Hong Kong, and Australia. He currently works as an advisor to investment banks and asset managers in NYC, focusing on transformational initiatives, deal sourcing, due diligence, and post-merger integration. Sharjeel has worked at or advised the world’s leading banks and asset managers including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, MUFG, SMBC, and ANZ. In addition, Sharjeel counsels the executive teams, CEOs, and boards of several early-stage companies on product strategy & development, capital structure, and the journey from negative to positive EBITDA. Sharjeel has been a member of the HBSAANY and served as co-chair of the screening committee since its inception. He is an avid art collector, enjoys golf and polo, and lives in New Jersey with his wife and son.

Are you an entrepreneur seeking angel funding? Learn more about how to apply to pitch to the HBS Alumni Angels of Greater New York.