Ishan Haque’s story used to be something that happened to almost nobody. But now that any adult American can invest in startups with a few hundred bucks, it’s about to become just one of many. 

Haque has been poking around the venture capital space since he was a high schooler. When his online businesses started doing well, he set some money aside and decided to invest it in fledgling companies with good leadership and promising products. After some ups and downs, he bought a stake in Animoca Brands Corp. Ltd. But things took a turn for the worse. 

The stock basically got a death sentence. After it had been delisted from the Australian Stock Exchange, its price plummeted and its stockholders were panic-selling. Not Haque, though. He was buying more. 

He sought the company’s shareholders on Reddit and Facebook and offered to buy their stakes for about 7 cents per share. Haque liked what the company was doing and believed many others would, too. When his buying spree ended, his stake was worth around $140,000.

Hardly any analyst would dare to predict what unfolded one year after that. Animoca secured a $100 million investment, valuing the company at $1 billion, and then another $65 million four months after that for a total valuation of $2.2 billion. Haque became a millionaire at 21. His total stake was now worth around $10 million for a total return of 7,142.85%. Most investors don’t see that in their whole lives. 

Haque’s story captures the power of startup investing. Many companies fail, so the risks shouldn’t be downplayed. But you only need to be right once to quit worrying about money ever again. This is especially the case with pre-initial public offering (IPO) startups. 

With access to early-stage startup funding, you get to do exactly what the gigantic venture capital firms have been doing to own huge stakes in companies like Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc. You get to invest in them before they get listed on a stock exchange. When they do, you’re most likely in for the windfall of your life. A startup also can be acquired by a larger company, which can result in immense returns. 

Until recently, only financial institutions could invest in early-stage startups, but now you can do so too with as little as $100. This creates plenty of room for diversification. As startup investing is high-risk, high-reward, investing in more than one startup is advised. 

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