Joanne Wilson - Angel Investing and Trend Spotting

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
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Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, methods, stories, and of strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. You can learn more and stay up to date at investorfieldguide.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:59)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is a Principal and Portfolio Manager at O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (1:21)
My guest today is Joanne Wilson, a New York City-based angel investor, writer, podcaster, trend spotter, and self-described woman around town. Joanne has had a multifaceted and winding career and began angel investing a decade ago when she put money into New York City-based media company Curbed Media, which we discussed in detail. Since then, she's invested in more than 90 companies and been pitched by countless more. She's an instantly likable person. You can literally tell in 10 seconds you're going to have a great conversation. So it's no surprise that part of what makes her unique among angels is a very close relationship with many of the founders she backs.
We cover a lot of ground. We talk about personality traits of entrepreneurs, Joanne's evolving investment style, her focus on female founders, fashion, business models, restaurants and a lot more.
Please enjoy my conversation with the Gotham Gal, Joanne Wilson.
So in preparation for our chat today, I was reading some of your website, listening to some things, listening to you talk to some other people. And two things really stuck out. I thought they'd be a fun way to frame this whole thing. The first was on the investing side. And I think the quote was something like I invest in survivors. So a personality trait of the entrepreneurs that you like to back. And the second was I'm not quite the New Yorker you are. I only lived here for eight years with my wife. We live in the suburbs with our kids now. But I think share a lot of the same passions around the scene in New York, art, food, culture, etc.
And that you're always on the lookout for what you call like the new, new, the new, new thing, maybe sort of a trend spotting type thing. And I thought those were two almost opposite ends of an interesting spectrum because the new, new thing is always rotating and survivor means the last. So I'm curious.

**Joanne Wilson** (2:57)
Well, survival also is about constantly to evolving and rethinking.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:02)
That's right. So I thought we'd start with kind of New York. It's a shared passion of ours and your love of trends.
Maybe we can use food as an example because it's an easy one that people can relate to. So what is the process? Do you just follow your nose? How do you constantly reorient yourself towards kind of what is new, let's say in the food scene in New York?

**Joanne Wilson** (3:23)
I think it's multiple things. First of all, you have to read as much information that is absolutely ridiculous for your head. I always call it cocktail fodder. So it's blogs, it's magazines, it's getting out there, it's seeing what's happening. And I don't read as much as, let's say, my daughter does, who does the same thing. I mean, good God, you know, she reads this stuff all day long. But I also think it's about no's. And I think a lot of it is innate.
My grandmother was really good at like seeing things coming down the pike, was always on top of things. And I've always been that way. I mean, I've said things that have been from furniture to fashion to food to neighborhoods. And I was like, and then I'll go back and say, remember, five years ago, I said this?
And it's just like, I think it has to do with a guttural of having your finger on the pulse.