Do You Have Skin in The Game?

If you’re starting an investment collective, whether it’s an angel group, a syndicate, or just a handful of friends co-investing, one principle matters more than anything else at the beginning: you must have skin in the game.

Nobody is going to co-invest with you if you’re not putting in your own money. As a lead, your capital signals conviction. Without it, you’re just asking others to take a leap you wouldn’t take yourself.

I was reminded of this recently while listening to a podcast featuring Sam Altman (founder of OpenAI) and Garry Tan (CEO of Y-Combinator). Garry asked Sam how much money he had invested in OpenAI in the early days, and Sam’s answer was telling. He invested in the first round of $1 billion alongside Elon Musk and others because he knew people wouldn’t back him if he wasn’t also backing himself. This is in addition to his time investment since the company's inception. Even now, when Sam champions a startup to other investors, he often invests personally first. That simple act builds credibility.

I’ve seen this firsthand with the collectives I’ve helped build, from HoaQ to Diaspora House. When we launched HoaQ in 2020, I was a complete newbie. Still, in the first 10 deals, Nubi (my co-founder) and I invested every time. Between the two of us, we have individually invested in 50-60 companies. I’ve personally invested in over 30 deals, and every time we told others, “we’re in,” it moved the needle. People trusted the deal more when they saw that we believed in it enough to back it with our own capital. These days, since I’m over-exposed on venture, whenever I have high conviction on an investment opportunity I’m not investing in, I make sure to let as many people know about it as possible.

Same thing with Diaspora House. For our first two deals, the core organisers, I, Cobih, Thandeka, and Dami, all invested money. That helped us hit the minimum faster. For one property, the minimum raise was $100,000, with a check size of $5,000. Being able to say “we already have $20K committed” made a huge difference. Investors want momentum, and skin in the game creates it. When you have capital at risk, investors believe that you have their best interest at heart and your win is their win.

On our second deal, none of us had planned to invest, but once we hit 85% of the target, we stepped in and closed it out. It was very easy to do because we believed in the opportunity. And because we knew: if we’re asking others to co-invest, we better be willing to take the same risk.

If you’re building a collective, especially in the early days, make this your rule: lead with your capital. Show conviction. That first check you write might be the one that gets the whole thing off the ground.

Thanks for reading.

My name is Joe Kinvi, and I’m building Borderless, the infrastructure that enables the Africa Diaspora to invest at home easily. We are starting with building tools for investment collectives. We are going live this month (June 2025), and you can join our waitlist here.