Brandon Beck (Principal @ Kickstart)

Confluence.VC is a resource library and private community reserved for venture and growth equity investors. Since launching, membership has grown to include:

Each week, we use this newsletter to highlight members that make up this community.

This week we had on Brandon Beck with Kickstart.

Kickstart is an early-stage fund based in Salt Lake City that focuses on building and partnering with the best companies in the Utah region. Since launching in 2008, this targeted approach has established the fund as one of the most successful in all of the Mountain West with their portfolio consisting of companies like Galileo, NAV, Lucid Software, and countless others.

In this talk, we cover:

• Brandon’s background and path into venture

• The origin story and thesis of Kickstart

• Investment trends that Brandon is monitoring

• The startup ecosystem in Utah and the Mountain West and the Utah Startup Guide that Brandon helped author

Check out the full episode below:

🔟 Ten lessons on vertical software investing

📈 Layering sales onto a bottom-up self-serve product

🔥 David Sacks details simple rules on structuring a sales staff

5️⃣ Five lessons from Dave Chappelle

💯 100+ Slack communities for founders to join

👀 Alpaca VC put out their master agency list (shoutout Erica Amatori for organizing)

🎦 Great market map of the creator economy

❓ Should early-stage founders focus on distribution or product?

👨‍💻 Venture jobs:

• Intuitive Ventures is looking for an associate in Sunnyvale.

• Atento Capital is looking for an investment associate in Tulsa.

• Tusk Ventures is looking for an investor in NYC.

• Bessemer Venture Partners is looking for a senior associate in SF.

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