A few days ago, I caught up with an old friend from college. Amidst our conversation on how I was spending my time, he asked me, “Wouldn’t your time be more valuable helping the winners in your portfolio than the others?”
And I told him, albeit a bit more defensively than I would have liked, “Our brand is determined by our winners. Our reputation is earned by helping everyone else.” One of my better ad hoc lines, if I say so myself.
But more so, and I might be naïve in saying so, I may not get the most number of hours for sleep a night, but I will say, when I hit the bunk, I have the best sleep out of anyone you might know. And I do so because I know I’ve meaningfully touched someone else’s life. And by extension of them, indirectly, a few others.
Just because most startups fail doesn’t make each of their endeavors any less important.
Malia Obama once asked her dad, our former president what’s the point in working on climate change if the difference is so miniscule. That the world is burning. And what can one person do?
To which, Obama said, “We may not be able to cap temperature rise to two degrees Centigrade. But here’s the thing. If we work really hard, we may be able to cap it at two and a half, instead of three. Or three instead of three and a half. That extra Centigrade… that might mean the difference between whether Bangladesh is underwater. It might make the difference as to whether 100 million people have to migrate or only a few.”
In the world of startups, which isn’t exclusive to our world by any means, there’s a saying that people love quoting. Aim for the stars; land on the moon. And regardless if you hit the stars or not, aiming for it gets you the escape velocity to be extraterrestrial. In other words, it’s not always about whether you hit your goals or not, but rather… it’s the pursuit of lofty goals that gets you further than if you didn’t try in the first place.
I’m reminded of a great line by Dr. Rick Rigsby quoting his dad. “Boys, I won’t have a problem if you aim high and miss, but I’m gonna have a real issue if you aim low and hit.”
So, in this week’s short dose of optimism, don’t aim low and hit. Stay awesome!
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
Folks coming out of school and/or are still in school often ask me how they should break into venture. It’s surprisingly a timeless question. The goalposts change every era. And as the signal-to-noise ratio and regression line oscillates in bull and bear markets, young professionals chase a moving target.
That said, while my opinions will likely change when the facts change, as of now, this is my best proxy for a timeless answer. Market risk versus execution risk.
Let me elaborate.
Early in your career, you should take market risk. Bet where others are not willing to bet. Or have the same starting point as you do. If the starting line is even, it’s all about how much faster you can run compared to your peers. And if you can outlearn them, ideally because of internal drive and motivation, you’ll be the incumbent in the space in the future.
Execution risk is what you pursue as you grow. Your network, your expertise, and your experiences make you a more robust executioner. You’re an incumbent. You’re a juggernaut. There’s no reason to focus on this risk when you’re younger because you don’t have an unfair advantage here. In fact, you have an unfair disadvantage. Others more senior to you have a better network, more expertise, and have done more reps than you have.
Steve Jurvetson recently shared the only rule of business that is inviolate. “Take any company that is large or top three in their industry. They will never lead the charge to disrupt that industry.” He goes on to say, that even in recent years, Google didn’t fight to change search until OpenAI. Apple is innovative outside their core business, but never in their core business. So as a result, innovation needs to come from the bottom. People who are willing to take market risk.
Similarly, in venture, as a young VC, you need to build your own thesis. For as long as you are investing on the basis of someone else’s thesis, you are competing on execution risk. And every VC who’s older, wiser, and more connected than you are on that thesis will out-execute you.
So… the risk you have to take is betting on a brand new thesis. That no one else is pursuing. No one else is investing by it. And that… is market risk.
The above is no less true if you’re an emerging GP. Your fund lacks the resources, likely the connections, the experience, the talent, and the ability to out-execute your incumbent on your incumbent’s thesis. The solution is to just not play when they have the home field advantage.
It’s why thesis and the question “Why does another venture fund need to exist?” matter so much to LPs betting on new fund managers.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
A friend trapped in his own tumultuous schedule recently reached out to ask how I seemingly effortlessly manage my bandwidth. For starters, I try, but even I get swamped. And I’m sure people I’ve worked with closely can corroborate. So if anyone has a better way, I’m all ears.
That said, as I mentioned, I do try. And naturally, that means I think about balancing my plate a lot. From shower thoughts to systems to keep me accountable. I’m going to share below the four things I shared with him, in hopes you’ll find some use for your own life here.
I have a whiteboard in my shower. (Although, you might remember I mentioned this before.) In a list format in the top right corner of the board, I write down everything I’m involved in, especially the ones that require my attention. This way, everything is always floating around somewhere in the back of head. And when I shower, I take the one I’m most excited about ideating and just let the kids run wild in the attic.
I like asking myself the question: What would I do if I knew I would fail? And subsequently… what skills, relationships, and experiences can I gain that would transcend the outcome of the project itself? With those two questions, it helps to take the emotion out of the equation and consider it rationally. Which helps in arriving at a decision that I won’t regret. And naturally since I have a pretty high bar with what I choose to embark on, that does mean I say no to a lot of things.
Work with people who are as passionate or more passionate than you are about the project or subject matter. You also want to work with people whose passion is independent of yours. For instance, if they’re only doing a project ’cause you’re excited about it, the lack of internal motivation, I’ve found, to be draining over time when I work with someone who isn’t intrinsically motivated to put in their all. It also ensures that if on an odd day out, I’m just 30% as motivated as I am usually, they come in with at least 70% of their motivation. And as long as the collective motivation at any given point in time is greater than 100%, we keep working on it.
Lastly, I categorize activities and projects by how often something requires my attention. Some things require my attention daily. Others weekly. A handful of others biweekly. Or monthly. Or quarterly. A few annually (like taxes, ughhh). And at any given point in time, I will have no more than two items/projects per bucket. For instance, I will have no more than two pressing things that require my attention daily. And so yes, I’m context switching. But not nearly as much as one might think. The caveat is that when an activity becomes muscle memory and requires very little thinking to execute (i.e. exercise, brushing your teeth, showering, journaling, or so on for me), then that activity/project no longer counts toward its respective bucket.
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
You can’t always be the fastest or the brightest or the most talented. For the most part, anything that can be measured with a metric, or put on a business card or a baseball card — anything with an absolute ranking — is not something you can always control. You can be the fastest 100-meter dasher in the world today. But tomorrow, there will always be someone who’s faster. Today, you can be the youngest founder who’s raised venture capital. But tomorrow, someone will outdo you. Today, you can sell the most Girl Scout cookies. But tomorrow, someone will outsell you. The Guinness World Records is proof of that. You get the point. Because you’ll be in fashion one day, and out the next.
But if there’s anything I learned from hanging around the dragons and phoenixes — all pen names for perpetually and persistently world-class individuals, it’s that there’s gravity in being a voracious consumer of content. In being a voracious curator of what one feeds their brain. Information diet or fitness as one of my friends calls it. Being the most knowledgeable — or the pursuit thereof — has a longer shelf life and a half life than all other phenotypical isotopes. Or my fancy schmancy way of saying, all the other titles one can earn in their short lives.
It also happens to be closest pursuit where one unit of input roughly equals one unit if not more of output. For instance, to be the fastest sprinter, one extra hour of practice doesn’t consistently yield one second off your personal best. But if you’re regulating your content intake algorithm, for instance reading books, and not doomscrolling on TikTok, one extra page read is more often one more unit of knowledge you can apply in the future. Or if you’re asking good questions, one more coffee chat yields you another year or two saved of mistakes you could have made in your craft. As such, one should spend time reading, listening, watching and asking.
I spent the past weekend tuning into one of my favorite talks by Bill Gurley. (I knowww……. It really took me this long to actually write this essay.) In it, he shared that one should always “strive to know more than everyone else about your particular craft.” He goes on, “That can be in a subgroup. What do I mean by that?
“Let’s say you love E-sports. Let’s just say you’ve decided multiplayer gaming E-sports, like, this is it for you. You grew up gaming, “I love it.” All right? Within the first six months of being in this program you should be the most knowledgeable person at McCombs in E-sports. That’s doable. You should be able to do that. Then, by the end of your first year you should be top five of all MBA students, and, hopefully, when you exit your second year you’re number one of any MBA student out there. It doesn’t mean you’re the best E-sports person in the world, but you’ve separated yourself from everyone else that’s out there. I can’t make you the smartest or the brightest, but it’s quite doable to be the most knowledgeable. It’s possible to gather more information than somebody else, especially today.”
It so happens to be why VCs ask about your previous experience before starting the company. It’s why they look for passion. It’s why VCs ask for you to show that you have spent time in the idea maze. And it’s why the goal of a pitch meeting or any meeting with someone you hope to impress is to teach them something new. They’re all proxies for a founder’s rate of learning. The rate that one acquires knowledge is often directly proportional to the rate of iteration.
At some point later in the same talk Bill Gurley does above, he says, “Information is freely available on the internet. That’s the good news. The bad news is you have zero excuse for not being the most knowledgeable in any subject you want because it’s right there at your fingertip, and it’s free, which is excellent.”
It’s true. There’s a lot of things out there on the internet. But with anything that is known for its volume, there is much more noise than there is signal. And sometimes the best approach is to find the smartest people or most referenced and most peer reviewed sources. So while there is a world out there behind covers and a .com address, sometimes the best thing to do is ask.
Page 19 thinking
Seth Godinshared something recently I wish I had heard sooner — page 19 thinking. It was in the context of compiling an almanac — a compilation of world’s greatest thinkers about the climate crisis. When Seth and the team first started off with a blank page, they knew that “in the future there will be a page 19. [They] know that it will come from this group, but [they also knew] there [was] not anyone here who [was] qualified.” So, to resolve that dilemma, someone had to ink the first paragraph of page 19. Then, that person would ask someone else to make it better. And then, that someone else would ask another. And it would go on and on until page 19 looked like a real page 19.
What made this approach special was that ego was checked at the door, and people were empowered to co-create the best version of that work. Seth went on to share, “But once you understand that you live in a page 19 world, the pressure is on for you to put out work that can generously be criticized. Don’t ship junk, not allowed, but create the conditions for the thing you’re noodling on to become real. That doesn’t happen by you hoarding it until it’s perfect. It happens by you creating a process for it to get better.”
In the world on Twitter, the above goes by another name — build in public.
One of the greatest blessings in writing this blog is that I get to ask really smart people a lot of questions. While a lot of knowledge exists behind two cardboard slabs, or these days, in a six-letter, two-syllable word that starts with ‘K’ and ends in ‘E,’ the richest concentrations of insight exist in gray matter.
If you’re a founder or someone who’s embarking on a new project, there’s a saying I love, “If you want money, ask for advice. If you want advice, ask for money.” Ask people to pay you or to invest in you. You’re gonna get a plethora of feedback. Feedback that comes in flavors of noise and signal. But it’s up to you to figure out which is which. Nevertheless, that rate of learning, assuming you’re out asking, building, asking, and building some more, compounds.
In closing
I’m not saying you should only read books or only talk to experts. I’m saying you should do both. Be relentless in your pursuit to learn. As Kevin Kellyonce said, “Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.”
Luckily, knowledge also happens to be one of the few things in life that no one can take from you.
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
As those close to me know, over the past few weeks, I’ve been knee-deep in some new projects. Projects I haven’t been this excited to produce in a long while. One of which is around experiences.
At the same time, as friends and long-time readers of this humble blog know, I am no stranger to the world of socialexperimentsandexperiences. I still don’t have a great catch-all term for it. They’re not just another set of “events.” Events just remind me of the same conference, fireside chat, or happy hour playbook. But I try to take my events a step further. So, naturally, given my fascination around building experiences, I walk hand-in-hand with both psychological research and game design. The former of which I share a bit more in previous blogposts than the latter.
So, I’m going to dedicate this essay to three of the lessons I picked up in the latter.
Create experiences that optimize for people who know no one else there.
Don’t confuse complexity with depth.
A great event is great not due to the event itself, but because of the story one gets to tell again and again.
1. Create experiences that optimize for people who know no one else there.
I had always had this somewhere in the back of my head. To design experiences where no one was ever left out. But when I caught up with a friend recently in New York, he codified it into what it is today. As someone who runs a design studio that builds immersive experiences in New York, he spends most of his time building experiences for strangers. And while friends may visit his exhibits together, the vast majority of his attendees do not know anyone else.
Take, for example, happy hours. Most happy hours aren’t designed for the person who knows no one. Usually the event itself is fairly laissez-faire. Most of which, the hosts don’t actively try to connect attendees. And so if you show up at a happy hour and the host is too busy to intro you to anyone, unless you’re an outgoing person, you’re likely standing near the edges, hoping to jump into a conversation if any group will let you. This often leads to events where people leave early and form cliques. It also optimizes for early birds, rather than the fashionably late.
Tactically, it’s creating excuses for people to jump in conversation. While not a problem for outgoing individuals, I need to empower everyone, including shy introverts, with tools to start conversations, where I and/or the experience shoulder the initial responsibility and blame to start conversations. That could be with customized fortune cookies where one is supposed to read their fortune to someone else. Or empowering people with a mission or an ask greater than themselves. For instance, to over-simplify it a bit, “I’m trying to put together a small group of everyone who’s wearing glasses tonight. Do you mind helping me find out all the names of the guests who are wearing glasses?” Or “I’m trying to resolve a debate with my co-host. Pineapples or no pineapples on pizza. I’m all for pineapples, but she isn’t. Can you help me find more allies?”
2. Don’t confuse complexity with depth.
This is unfortunately a fallacy I often find myself spiraling down the longer I’m given to ponder. And I lose myself in intellectual complexity.
Many years ago when a couple friend and I first decided to host an escape room in a mansion over three days and two nights, the greatest question we had was: How do we create an immersive experience over multiple days? And retain that level of immersion throughout? I thought, hell, what if we created a brand new language for the event. One that all guests would have to learn and practice throughout the event. We’d ease them in slowly, but the biggest puzzle could only be solved through adequate mastery in this new language. This easily gave me the greatest injection of dopamine when planning for the event. And I went deep, talking with linguistic professors, studying how Tolkien created Quenya, and how Cameron and Paul Frommer created the Na’vi language.
It was truly interesting to me and to many of my friends. But unfortunately, through user testing, to most others, while interesting to hear its backstory, was not fun to practice. I had ended up developing it to a level to where it departed from its English roots to resembling language of Scandinavian origin. Because of its complexity and how there were more guests who were English speakers than speakers of this new language, immersion broke almost instantaneously.
The great Mark Rosewateronce definedinteresting as intellectual stimulation and fun as emotional stimulation. While they’re not mutually exclusive, it’s important to not confuse the two.
There’s a great Maya Angelou line that I, like many others, like to reference. “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” And it is no less true for gamified designs. Emotional satisfaction often runs deeper and longer than intellectual satisfaction. The former has a greater chance of becoming a “core memory,” to borrow from the brilliant minds behind Pixar’s Inside Out, than the latter.
I was lucky to learn this lesson from one of the greatest designers of card games alive today. It was on a call earlier this year, where I was telling him about all the awesome bells and whistles I was planning on implementing for an upcoming experience. And I asked what he thought. To which, he responded: “Kill all complexity. Complexity is not a substitute for depth. Rely on your audience for depth. The more borders, the harder it is enjoy. Too few, it’s chaotic. Find the absolute minimum number of borders.”
The goal of creating systems is to create opportunities for serendipity. To create opportunities where people can dive deep. Not to force people to take the plunge when they may not be ready.
His advice just happens to rhyme with a quote I’ve always kept somewhere in the back of my mind, but now sits on the wall above my PC.
“Your ability to solve problems with magic in a satisfying way is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.” — Sanderson’s First Law of Magic
3. A great event is great not due to the event itself, but because of the story one gets to tell again and again.
Under the ambiance of MarieBelle, which I still so fondly remember the moment my friend told me this, she said, “A great event is great not due to the event itself, but because of the story one gets to tell again and again.” It’s the truest definition of surprising and delighting. She was someone who used to work on the Dreamweavers team at Eleven Madison Park when Will Guidara was still there. As such the above lesson was a page out of Will Guidara‘s book Unreasonable Hospitality, whose best known for how intentionally he took front of the house hospitality at 11 Madison Park, one of the greatest restaurants in the world. 4 stars on New York Times, and 3 Michelin stars. He also happened to be the person who conceived the Dreamweavers team there. Just to give you an idea of how seriously they take their roles…
First off, the core of the event itself — the meat, the protein — has to be great. If it’s a tofu burger, it better be a damn well-marinated fat slice of egg tofu, double-fried to perfection. To Malcolm Gladwell, that’s the meal.
And only once you have it all, what’s the cherry on top? What’s the candy? Why would people want to talk about it? For events, that’s:
Delivering surprises — gifts and/or experiences they do not expect
Transferrable pieces of knowledge — insights, frameworks, or trivia knowledge that are useful even after the event
Meeting great people WITH great stories — “Did you know that [so-and-so] did X?” And for this to happen not just opportunistically but at scale, finding ways to help people share stories of vulnerability or of adventures that have yet to grace any public media is key. The easiest way is through questions. The slightly harder way is through a set of triggers where it makes sharing such a story natural.
In closing
I am, as always, a work-in-progress. And with the events I’ll continue to host this year, I’m going to learn more. And in time, be able to share more of my lessons, trials, and tribulations in this journey. In hopes, this will aid or inspire you on your path.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
Whenever I host fireside chats, I always ask three questions before the talk begins, usually a week in advance.
What would make this interview the most memorable one you’ve been a guest for even two years from now?
Are there any topics you don’t want to talk about? Or are sick of talking about?
Are there any questions you have yet to be asked, but wish someone were to ask you?
On top of the above three questions , occasionally, I ask a fourth. Do you have a home run story that has gotten you a standing ovation in the past — privately or publicly?
The goal is simple. Despite hours of research and asking mutuals, sometimes I still can’t find anything that’s humanizing about my guest. And I know for a fact that all humans are imperfect. And that imperfection makes each person relatable. Just like when Neil Gaiman met Neil Armstrong. But recently, I’ve fallen in love with a new way to phrase the fourth question.
What is a story that you’ve told or have yet to tell where you either fight to hold back tears or fight to hold back giggles?
On my flight to New York recently, I watched a movie starring one of my favorite actors in the world, Tom Hanks, which inspired this question. And, subsequently this blogpost. A Man Called Otto. Inspired by Fredrick Backman’s A Man Called Ove. And I’m not ashamed to say, I cried during that movie. While Rotten Tomatoes may not give it the score I think it deserves, it was well-written and well-produced. Through it, I realized that powerful stories are powerful not because of how awesome the protagonist is. But by how relatable their weaknesses are. Their limitations. I’ll give an example… to avoid spoiling the afore-mentioned movie.
Spiderman isn’t awesome because he has mutant powers. He’s awesome because he’s prone to all the emotions and struggles, be it love, bullies at school, a horrible boss, and how he acts out against all of that. Spiderman’s much more relatable than a super billionaire who owns all the gadgets in the world or an alien from another planet. He’s just a kid from Brooklyn. Or Queens, depending on which Spiderman suits your fancy. And as Brandon Sandersononce said, limitations are more interesting than powers. Limitations make us human. And characters who exhibit humanness and still somehow overcome impossible odds are stories that are passed from generation to generation.
That said, storytelling, outside the realm of superpowers, is equally as true. In a world where appearance and social capital goes a long way, trying to be perfect, to look perfect, and to act perfect is a fallacy in the modern era. While we know we’re not perfect, as a society, we continue to strive for perfection.
After watching a lot of movies, and in my free time, watching acting lessons (FYI, would fail as an actor, but still find the craft fascinating.), I’ve learned we don’t cry when watching movies because the characters cry easily. We cry because the character is trying to hold back their tears. And we don’t laugh during a show or a movie because the comedian laughs easily. We laugh even more because they’re trying to hold back their own laughter. The narrators and characters we see are a reflection of who we truly are.
In many ways, if someone cries easily, it relieves the audience of the ability, some artists may call it responsibility, to cry. Someone, the actor or actress or character has diffused the tension already. But if they fight to hold back their tears, holding back the floodgates, we as the audience are more likely to cry in their stead.
Now I say all of this because I find most fireside chats and interviews unrelatable. Now it’s a product of many things. And I genuinely believe a plethora of individuals do have something powerful and insightful to share, but the stage needs to be ready for them. It’s rare for guests to drop some head-turning advice in the first 10 minutes. Which means… it’s up to both the host and the guest to hold the audience’s attention long enough, as well as create enough opportunities for the guest to shine. The above question, in my opinion, does both.
So all in all, going forward, rather than asking for a home run story, I will ask for stories where people are just people. And for stories that mean a tremendous amount to the people telling them. That they have no choice but to let even a little bit of themselves out emotionally.
The DGQ series is a series dedicated to my process of question discovery and execution. When curiosity is the why, DGQ is the how. It’s an inside scoop of what goes on in my noggin’. My hope is that it offers some illumination to you, my readers, so you can tackle the world and build relationships with my best tools at your disposal. It also happens to stand for damn good questions, or dumb and garbled questions. I’ll let you decide which it falls under.
Subscribe to more of my shenaniganery. Warning: Not all of it will be worth the subscription. But hey, it’s free. But even if you don’t, you can always come back at your own pace.
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
Last Friday was my last day with a team and a company I called home for the past 18 months. My brain’s been conditioned to expect a team sync every Monday and that every Wednesday is deep work Wednesday, but also a good time to catch up with my teammates. I’m going to miss these moments and more as I embark on a new chapter. To say the last 18 months were a rollercoaster would be an understatement, but I wouldn’t have traded a second for anything else. To see our community of the world’s most helpful investors grow from angels to syndicate leads to fund managers and LPs has been my absolute honor and pleasure. Today and every day forward, I’m thrilled to see where On Deck goes next as it continues to be the pillar behind talented and ambitious founders from the day they decide they want to change the world.
Needless to say, I’ve taken away many lessons over the past year and change. Among many investing lessons, a lucky seven of which have greatly changed the way I work. Changing up the pace here, this is also going to be my first blogpost where there is more audio than there is text.
1. Loom is my best friend
Shoutout to Andrew Rea for building a new habit in my life.
2. Don’t over-engineer
Hats off to Julian Weisser for reminding me to keep it scrappy.
3. Take breaks
A big thank you to Sam Huleatt, Vivian Meng and Soumya Tejam for reminders that we need to take one step back to take two leaps forward.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
Any views expressed on this blog are mine and mine alone. They are not a representation of values held by On Deck, DECODE, or any other entity I am or have been associated with. They are for informational and entertainment purposes only. None of this is legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Please do your own diligence before investing in startups and consult your own adviser before making any investments.
One of my favorite frameworks of thinking about building and breaking habits comes in the words of Elliot Berkman, whom I’ve cited before. He notes that there are three factors to breaking a habit.
The availability of an alternative habit
Strength of motivation to change
Mental and physical ability to break the habit
Of particular note is the second one. The strength of motivation to change. Change is inevitable. But real change is always compelling. There must be a strong enough desire to relieve yourself of the status quo. John C. Maxwell once said, “People change in four different seasons… People change when they hurt enough they have to, when they see enough they’re inspired to, when they learn enough that they want to, and when they receive enough that they’re able to.”
In each of those seasons, the person is compelled to do something outside of their ordinary flow of time. But there’s another interesting way to think about change. One where you have no choice but to.
CIA veteran Richards Heueronce wrote, “When faced with a major paradigm shift, analysts who know the most about a subject have the most to unlearn.” If there’s anything we can gather from historical records, major paradigm shifts are happening every decade (and less) whether we want to or not. On a macro scale, new technologies, like generative AI, the smartphone, and the internet, as well as political and financial eras, like the GFC, the dot com burst, and wars that affect the increasingly interconnected world. On a micro scale, when we go to college, get our first job, start our first company, raise a family, or buy your first house.
At each stage, the more entrenched you are in the behavioral patterns of the status quo, the harder it is to adjust with the next shift. For instance, as a founder, anchoring yourself on 2020-2021 multiples and valuations won’t help you in the world forward. As an investor, anchoring on the past 3-4 years of markups without fully accounting for the current climate won’t help you with your next raise. Anecdotally, I’ve heard great multi-fund managers mark their portfolio down by 25% already before the market verdict comes in. Moreover, jobs are going to look very different in an age of AGI (artificial general intelligence). Just like with the industrial revolution, new jobs will be created. And I can go on on and on. But I digress.
There’s a hero’s arc in each inflection point. Every time the second derivative goes from negative to positive. The way Viola Davis puts it that that at the end of every hero’s journey, you come face-to-face with not a god, but yourself. And that is when the magic happens.
“Somewhere along the line is a voice deep within you that tells you exactly who you are; you just have to have the courage to do that. That’s what the journey of the hero is all about. You’re born into a world where you don’t fit in. You answer the call to adventure. And you deny the call. Then at some point you then set out on your path. You slay dragons, and you do all of that. At some point, you come face-to-face with not a god, but yourself. Somewhere along the line, you get it — your A-ha moment. Your elixir. And you go back to your ordinary world and share it with others. I think that’s the journey. I think that’s the privilege of being absolutely who you are — belonging to yourself and being brave.”
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
This past Wednesday, I was having lunch with an artist-turned-VC. And as you might imagine, we had to cover every topic at the intersection of art and startup investing. But of all the ground we covered, one stood out — content creation.
She’s on the Gram, LinkedIn, and everything in between. (Although surprisingly not on Twitter.) But to help her focus, she uninstalls those apps on her phone. Otherwise, she says she’ll end up “doomscrolling.” I get it. In fact, many of my friends and colleagues have shared similar things as well. But…
I’m weird. At least among my friend group, I’m really weird. I’m terrible at social media. I’m an 80-year old stuck in a 27-year old body. At least on the social media front. I find it so hard to keep my attention on social. In fact, I schedule ten minutes three times a week to hold myself accountable to be on LinkedIn and Twitter.
So, when it came to sharing my thoughts and learnings publicly, it was a pretty easy decision. Of course, I eventually came to self-rationalize it as the ability to own my own piece of virtual real estate, but there are three more reasons I chose blogging rather than tweeting or social posting.
1. I write to think
I’ve written about this before so I won’t elaborate in length on my own rationale here, but share a few examples of others also holding it in high regard.
There’s only so much you can flush out in just 280 characters, or over any short post. And while some of my thoughts fully flushed out may only be that long or less, not having that restriction gives me peace of mind to not hold back.
One of my favorite George Orwell lines happens to be: “If people cannot write well, they cannot think well. And if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.”
On that same wavelength on writing, Jeff Bezos makes Amazon execs write six-page memos. In most companies, team members often resort to PowerPoint presentations. Take anywhere between five and ten slides. Maybe less, maybe more. It’s much less thought out than a six-page dissertation. As Bezos says, “The reason writing a ‘good’ four page memo is harder than ‘writing’ a 20-page PowerPoint is because the narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what’s more important than what.”
Equally so, it’s the same reason the best investors write memos for their investment decisions. My favorite public ones are Bessemer’s, which encapsulates much of their thinking at the time in amber. Turner Novak also turned his ability to write great memos to eventually raising his fund, Banana Capital. And the great Brian Rumao writes memos not just pre-investment, but also in his post-mortems where he gathers his learnings.
While I won’t go as far as to comparing myself to the afore-mentioned, I do find great pleasure and great learning from putting words on paper.
2. Longer feedback loop
My writing is more often a form of self-expression, self-curiosity, and self-discovery. So, unlike a product manager or founder who’s relentlessly testing and iterating on feedback, I enjoy longer feedback loops. I may start another content engine at some point that is for a particular audience, focused on feedback and iteration. But this humble piece of virtual estate will stay me. With no algorithm conditioning my attention span and yearn for external validation. That’s not to say I won’t ever (or have not ever) written things that you my awesome readers want, but it is only at the intersection of what you want and the what I enjoy writing about and asking others about that mint content here.
I also spend a lot of time thinking about audience capture, a term Gurwinder brought to my attention in an essay he wrote about Nikocado Avocado, which I also touched on in an essay I wrote near the end of last year.
I’m reminded by something Gurwinderwrote a few months ago about the perils of audience capture. In it, he shares the story of Nikocado Avocado, who lost himself to his audience, in a section of that essay he calls: The Man Who Ate Himself. He also shares one line that I find quite profound:
“We often talk of ‘captive audiences,’ regarding the performer as hypnotizing their viewers. But just as often, it’s the viewers hypnotizing the performer. This disease, of which Perry is but one victim of many, is known as audience capture, and it’s essential to understanding influencers in particular and the online ecosystem in general.”
3. The impermanence of social media
Most things on social media are ephemeral in nature. It’s designed to capture the moment, but not chronicle the moments. On Twitter, you can only pin one tweet. On Instagram, you can pin three. And on LinkedIn, only three are visible on the featured carousel, and include, five max before it takes you down another layer of friction to discover more.
There’s a level of impermanence which makes thoughts feel whimsical rather than evergreen. To use a phrase I recently heard Tim Ferriss use, the “durability of the signal seems to wane so quickly.” And that made my thoughts feel cheap.
That’s not to say every post I write has their weight in gold, but the searchability and the evergreen nature of my favorite blogposts (saved in my “About” tab) are the reasons I keep most of my thoughts here.
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
“Somewhere along the line is a voice deep within you that tells you exactly who you are; you just have to have the courage to do that. That’s what the journey of the hero is all about. You’re born into a world where you don’t fit in. You answer the call to adventure. And you deny the call. Then at some point you then set out on your path. You slay dragons, and you do all of that. At some point, you come face-to-face with not a god, but yourself. Somewhere along the line, you get it — your A-ha moment. Your elixir. And you go back to your ordinary world and share it with others. I think that’s the journey. I think that’s the privilege of being absolutely who you are — belonging to yourself and being brave.”
In the world post-pandemic, people crave connection. A desire to go from URL to IRL. Everyone lost those years. Something everyone from a first grader to a college student to a young professional entering the workforce to a retiree could relate to. And in 2021, there was a re-emergence of events. Well-intentioned and well-founded. We had conferences, coffee chats, happy hours, fireside chats, oh, so many happy hours, panels, tech weeks, and… did I mention happy hours?
Most events out there are a time and a place for a collection of people. They’re static points in time. Not even counting the full spectrum of event planners, many of the best event planners spend tons of times on what makes events special, but change more about the small bells and whistles of an event than the overall flow. There are very few who take leaps of faith. Even less true for the vast majority of events, where events feel more of an afterthought than something that is designed to start or end a chapter in your life.
As such, everyone found themselves left with a goodie bag including a surplus of events, a lack of focus and attention, and a lollipop of exhaustion.
So, I had a thought last year, greatly inspired by my team at On Deck Angels. Instead of trying to host an event a month, what would need to change if we could only do one event a year? What would we have to do? Hell, extrapolating further, what if we only did one event every two years? Three years? Every Olympic arc? Which led to the thinking around, what do we need to do to make this the most memorable event that anyone has ever been to.
You see, I’ve hosted and co-hosted small and large-scale social experiments, but it was always for an audience who proactively and voluntarily signed up for. They were willing to do things outside the ordinary. But could I apply the same learnings to events for really, busy people who crave intellectual challenges, and who have been to so many events, they might be jaded?
So, below was and continues to be my collection of governing thoughts around answering that question, which will only grow and refine this year. In the theme of my blogpost last week, the below may be messy. Disorganized. Chaotic, even. Hope not, but possible. You’ve been warned. But I do hope that you might find at least one of the below frameworks useful.
Metrics for success
Every event needs a North Star. When planning the Angel Forum, as well as future events, below are mine.
Attendees go on a hero’s journey, revisiting Viola Davis’ words above. In other words, character development. The event should create opportunities for growth within the event itself.
Every attendee continues to and is motivated to build friendships (as opposed to networking and purely transactional connection) after the event. If the event itself is the only reason for people to connect, but it does not give people incentive to after, it’s a failure (in my books).
For now, that means, not only the speakers and the presenters need to be curated, but also each and every person on the guest list. I have yet to figure out how to customize such experiences at scale, where each person has wildly different goals.
Narrative frameworks I use for events
To dig a level deeper, here are my frameworks for execution:
Surprise and suspense — Surprise is when you relay information that the audience does not expect. Suspense is when you relay information that the audience is expecting, but does not know when it’ll drop. Suspense is how you keep attention. It raises expectation, but knowing when to deliver the news helps with creating a reality that meets or beats expectation. Surprise is, on the other hand, purely for creating alphas in this expectation-versus-reality model. It’s the main driver for overdelivering on a seemingly smaller, but still powerful promise. To do so, I find George Loewenstein’s 1994 paper on the psychology of curiosity super helpful. More on how the five triggers to curiosity influenced my thinking here.
Candy versus the meal — A Malcolm Gladwell framework. Effectively, how people think and what people actually talk about are quite different. Candy is what people talk about. For example, if I were to talk about the recent Avatar movie, I’d talk about how amazing the motion capture and the CGI was. And in doing so, I’ve spoiled nothing. It tells you nothing about the plot, but it’s exciting to talk about. On the other hand, the meal is how people think. It’s the whole package, the whole story. The meal has to be well-worth the visit, but the candy is what gets people excited. More on that in a previous essay I wrote here.
The audience must understand the rules of magic — This is a combination of the thoughts of Malcolm Gladwell‘s framework around tools and Brandon Sanderson’s three laws of magical systems. Give the audience tools to use at the very beginning of the event. It could be a framework for how to think about the event and every activity in between. It could be physical tools that they will employ throughout the event. And once you do, make sure your audience knows how to use those tools. Test them. Give them small, but easy case studies and questions. Make it easy. Don’t put them on the spot. And by completing that test, that satisfaction and joy will help motivate them to use it more later. As Sanderson’s first law of magic goes, “your ability to solve problems with magic in a satisfying way is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.” More on my thoughts on Sanderson’s laws here.
Plots — Like any good story, the narrative is governed by plots. The plot must thicken and build towards a climax. And it must be resolved by the end of the event. Leave little in the main plot to chance, but leave room for each guest to discover something extraordinary. Maintaining a minor amount of stress and uncertainty, while sharing examples and reminders of being open-minded to new experiences, goes a long way. Only after stepping outside one’s comfort zone can one grow.
Always use the audience’s time in a way that does not feel wasted — Inspired by one of the greatest writers of all time, Kurt Vonnegut. I forget which lecture he did that I learned this from. But it’s always been a governing theme for what I do.
End on an ending where the reader can imagine no other — No loose ends. Everything that is teased (whether the audience realizes it or not) needs to be resolved by the end. This might be a semi-controversial opinion among storytellers and creative professionals. But I’m biased. I like my stories to end with a bowtie.
In closing
As you might imagine, much of this is still incomplete. And I hope to share more as I continue down this path of exploration and discovery.
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
Any views expressed on this blog are mine and mine alone. They are not a representation of values held by On Deck, DECODE, or any other entity I am or have been associated with. They are for informational and entertainment purposes only. None of this is legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Please do your own diligence before investing in startups and consult your own adviser before making any investments.
