How the World’s Most Active Angel Investor Operates | Ed Lando, Founder of Pareto Holdings
The Peel with Turner Novak
Turner Novak
4.6 • 11 Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2025
⏱️ 105 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ed Lando is the Co-founder of Pareto, where he’s been an early investor in over 25 unicorns, started and incubated over 10 companies, and was recently named the most active angel investor in the world according to Crunchbase.
We get into how Ed first got started angel investing, how he built up deal flow, why he’s historically kept a low profile, and why he hasn’t raised outside capital.
We also talk concentration vs diversification, why there’s many ways to build successful companies, advice on hiring your first employees, and his playbook for incubating companies at Pareto, which is where he focuses most of his time.
Timestamps:
(0:00) Intro
(2:51) Getting into angel investing
(3:58) Debating high vs low PR strategies
(8:27) How to start building deal flow when angel investing
(10:00) Pareto: first investor in people leaving school or their job
(12:05) Evolving from angel to fund
(14:57) Why Ed didn’t raise outside capital
(20:33) Concentration vs diversification
(28:29) Investing in non-sexy categories
(32:50) There’s no one right way to build a company
(36:03) When to go against traditional wisdom
(39:36) Lessons from his anti-portfolio
(45:59) Ed’s close relationship with his parents(
(49:04) How we’re using AI
(54:04) Incubating companies
(58:38) Investing beyond spreadsheets and DCF models
(1:05:49) How to trust your intuition investing
(1:09:47) How to move fast
(1:14:24) What most people get wrong when incubating companies
(1:18:40) How to hire your first employees
(1:26:27) Navigating hype when building and investing
1:29:59 Venture math and the Power Law
1:35:33 How Ed and Pareto’s strategy might break
1:38:45 Differences between the US and Europe
Referenced
Pareto: https://pareto20.com/
Misfit Market: https://www.misfitsmarket.com/
Catalina Crunch: https://catalinacrunch.com/
Zamp: https://zamp.com/
Magnus Carlsen on Joe Rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybuJ_nIXwGE
Follow Ed
Twitter: https://x.com/edwardlando
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardlando/
Substack: https://edwardlando.substack.com/
Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I think the model works at scale. |
| 0:01.4 | I think the part that breaks actually sooner than the economic model. |
| 0:04.9 | Like even if you're managing billions of dollars, I think the model works and you can be really well. |
| 0:09.2 | But I think that what breaks is the brand and the attention to detail. |
| 0:15.1 | If we get to the point where we have thousands of precedes, where we are actually the first investors, |
| 0:22.7 | the hardest part for us, |
| 0:24.1 | and I think we will get there, |
| 0:25.0 | but I think the hardest part will be, |
| 0:27.7 | how do we continue to be a brand that people love |
| 0:31.2 | and wanna work with as like, they're the best. |
| 0:33.2 | Like when they decide on you, they're the best. |
| 0:35.7 | And actually someone who's done a really good job at that is Sequoia whenever they invest in something everyone wants to invest in that company but if you go to a crossbase sequoia has thousands of investments you know they're louder about the bigger ones uh but like you know a seed round type of thing from sequoia like there's been a good amount i think i forget the latest but i remember it was like 1500 or,000 investments or something like that. It's like that's still a good amount of companies and they have a really good success rate, but they've managed to not really dilute their brand from doing so, which is fascinating. Welcome to the Peele. I'm your host, Turner Novak, founder of Banana Capital. Today's guest is Ed Lando, co-founder of Pareto, where he's been an early |
| 1:11.7 | investor in over 25 unicorns, started and incubated a dozen companies, and was recently named |
| 1:16.6 | the most active angel investor in the world, according to crunch-based data. |
| 1:19.8 | We are not passive. We know we're not waiting for people to ping us. We're sort of actively |
| 1:24.2 | hunting. Our conversation gets into his angel strategy, lessons from starting and investing in over a thousand companies, |
| 1:29.9 | trusting your intuition, |
| 1:31.2 | navigating hype and substance, |
| 1:32.7 | and why Ed didn't raise outside capital. |
| 1:34.6 | I think this model that we're doing actually scales to managing billions of dollars |
| 1:38.8 | because... |
| 1:40.3 | He also breaks down his playbook for incubating companies, |
... |
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