What the mainstream media dislikes about investing in startups isn’t surprising.

A lack of transparency. Almost no liquidity. And most metrics investors rely on nowhere to be found.

I talked about these things in this post I wrote before Thanksgiving.

A lot of people are drawing the wrong conclusions… that investing in startups is too hard. Too risky. And too complicated.

How can investors possibly overcome these negatives?

It’s the kind of rote thinking that keeps individuals away from this very lucrative new investment space.

But this line of thinking couldn’t be further from the truth. Each of these so-called flaws or drawbacks can be turned into an advantage, as I’ve explained.

My more optimistic view isn’t some pie-in-the-sky opinion or based on outside research. It comes from our own experience of building a successful startup portfolio.

Adam and I have mostly targeted seed-stage companies. They’re doing fine. Several are doing much better than fine – far exceeding their targeted milestones and getting much higher valuations (for those that have gone on to do another round of fundraising).

In this recent post, I promised that “I’ll show you how we do it.”

Three Startup “Flaws”

Lack of transparency. Founders aren’t part of a secret society. Nor do they hide from the press. (In fact, founders love publicity, mainly because it’s free – a big plus for very small companies with modest cash resources.)

But access to information is limited and uneven compared to public companies. Very few filings with the SEC are required. A startup’s deck is often sent to individuals on a “confidential” basis. Valuations are negotiated behind closed doors.

There’s no denying a lack of transparency. But we’ve made it work to our advantage.

We talk directly with the founders. Also talk to the customers. And competitors.