I have had the pleasure and opportunity to work on my own fund, Precursor Ventures, for almost 9 years at this point. I have also had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people who want to start their own funds. Over time, I’ve realized that most of the conversations I have with new […]
Read More “Angel Vibes or Institutional Vibes in Venture Capital – Choose One”
Public market valuations for tech companies are down significantly from where they were at the heights of 2021. Given the pullback in public market valuations, we have not seen as many down rounds in the private markets as one might expect. There may be a massive wave of down rounds that have been done quietly, […]
Many conversations I’ve had with limited partners, fellow investors, and portfolio company founders have centered around navigating the current environment. Given the level of uncertainty, many of these conversations come down to how people are making decisions, given how unsettled things feel. In many cases, people share the rules they use to make decisions. A […]
Read More “Why Principles Are More Important Than Rules In Times Of Great Uncertainty”
Discussing a bridge round or extension is one of the most challenging and important conversations between founders and investors. In the current environment, these conversations are happening daily. I wanted to share my experiences navigating these conversations and provide founders with some insights into how many investors think about when to provide additional bridge or […]
Read More “Tips for Talking to Your Investors about Bridges and Extensions”
I’ve been sitting on this post for a while, and I finally feel ready to post it. I have been a generalist VC for my entire career. I’ve invested through the early days of SaaS, the shift from desktop to mobile, the rise of web 2.0 and social apps, crypto (mostly sat that out), and […]
Every November, we host an annual meeting for all of our investors (limited partners) in the various Precursor Ventures funds. We typically don’t share any of the content we present outside of that group, but I decided to share a few slides to give folks a glimpse into some of the things we are seeing […]
The last year has been a tough time to be a public or private tech investor or tech company CEO. We have spent a lot of time discussing the quantitative elements that have contributed to a pretty depressing environment for investors and operators – low gross margins, high burn rates, rising interest rates, high inflation, […]
I have been investing in Pre-seed and Seed-stage companies at Precursor for the past five years and I come back to that conversation all of the time. While I am broadly supportive of all of the innovation that has happened in the early-stage fundraising market, nothing can change the fact that companies only have so much equity to dole out between investors, founders and employees. I’m watching this all play out right now and I’m seeing it cause a lot of heartburn for both founders and investors.
I write this recognizing that it sounds crazy to say that Notion, one of the hottest, most high profile startups might be underrated. I’ve been thinking about my experience using Notion and I am beginning to think I underestimated how much of my workflow Notion could devour. The more I use Notion, the more I […]
My last blog post was over five years ago. A lot has changed since then – I started my own fund and have been pretty heads down focused on building out Precursor and supporting our portfolio companies. I didn’t make a conscious decision to stop writing, I just felt like there was so much good […]
