It worked this way long before angellist. You need some combination of amazing team, traction, or social proof. AngelList features a huge bunch of angels which is a HUGE benefit to the startup. Finding angels is hard. But just because they are all in one "room" doesn't mean that you don't have to impress them in the same way that startups have always needed to impress.

The good news is that once you DO get get something eye-popping (an amazing prototype, a great advisor, a brilliant growth curve), AngelList can be like gasoline on a match-- you close faster and with better terms (at least that's what I've heard from multiple sources).