In the intricate microcosm of Silicon Valley, it is more common to find a person who is an ‘angel investor’ than a person who owns a bicycle. Angel investors, by definition, allocate a small amount of their own investment funds to support companies that provide businesses with a financial lift. One thing that few people realize is that in order to get into that taxi you need to be ready, and you need to know where you are going and when you think you will be leaving.

So, in financial terms, to access angel investing, you must:

1. Approach the taxi: Must be able to walk on two feet or with the aid of a device. We don’t invest unless you have an established company, a tax ID, a defined product or service, a prototype or a defined set of promises, some form of market validation (sorry, your friends don’t count). We don’t take babies that crawl without parents, but we do take babies with parents and we call it pivoting. And yes, both babies and parents get off at the next stop.

2. Carry a wallet. Have some skin in the game. The best way to put this in perspective is this: if you’re not going to take a risk, I’m not going to take a risk for you.

3. Speak the language. To understand each other we need to speak the same language and, in many cases, that means that the financial language must be clear to you. Oh yeah, and the trading language and the execution language. You don’t need these languages ​​to apply for some jobs, but if you want the title of entrepreneur, you need the language to get hired.

4. Have direction. Knowing where you are going and how to measure if you are on the right path is essential. Yes, there can be accidents, but you can make a plan B on the spot if you know where you are going. It also helps if you know the route, have taken a similar route before, or have advisors on the trail who can check in. Or you can take a walk with others and everyone benefits.

5. Accept some guidance. You may know the route, the objective and the starting point, but we are in the transportation business. We are at this day in and day out, and we know when and where there is traffic, bottlenecks, stop signs, and landing sites. We also know the best time to take off, run and go. And we know what has or hasn’t changed since the last time you took a walk.

6. Plan your exit. Taxis need your space to carry more passengers. You will have to leave at some point. I once said that the best description of the angel investor-entrepreneur relationship was this: how can we be apart and be happy with our time together? This is one of the most exciting opportunities to create something in such a lost structure. Angel investors buy businessmen into their cabs at the expense of other rides, spend time and resources together, and expect financial and emotional rewards. We want to feel good about taking you from here to there. Entrepreneurs must also choose who they travel with. You can’t go to the moon by bike, but you can enjoy the trip in a different way, and you WILL NEED that taxi to take you to the shuttle landing, or to the airport, train station, port.

Thinking of Angel Investing as a transport in time helps you manage this financing mechanism, but if you want to finance your company, whether it is small or young, there are many other ways to do it. Don’t just think that angels are the only ways to finance a business. Sometimes there aren’t, and sometimes there aren’t even in the best way.

Having an angel invest in your company does not define your success.