Jay Drain Jr. (Associate @ Maven Ventures)

Confluence.VC is a resource library and private community 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 Jay Drain Jr. (@jay_drainjr) of Maven Ventures.

Maven is a seed-stage fund that has made a name for itself as one of the best consumer-focused funds out there with a portfolio consisting of names like Zoom, Cruise, and AngelList to name a few. Jay is a rising star in the venture world, and we wanted to have him on to pick his brain on a number of topics.

In this talk, we discuss:

• Synthesizing thoughts through writing

• The platform-ification of Zoom

• The emergence of vertical social networks

• Thoughts on retail investing 3.0

Check out the full episode below:

1. Everyplace Labs: developing a self-service diagnostic kiosk, designed for simple and reliable, patient-initiated testing (Referred by Emily Zhen)

2. Perfix: helping companies reimagine employee experience

3. Personify XP: uses anonymous behavioral data and AI to create real-time analytics and website personalization, with plans to use this data to create an anonymous global insights platform

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⏳ How timeless is timeless advice?

🔎 Great frameworks for evaluating consumer companies (Shoutout Gaby)

🔥 Awesome collection of memos, activist letters, presentations, and essays

🤝 Demystifying data surrounding VC co-investing

🆔 Finance has seeped into culture

• Village Capital is looking for a senior manager, associate, and finance manager in DC.

• Quona Capital is looking for a remote associate.

• Lewis & Clark Ventures is looking for an associate in St. Louis.

• Titan is looking for an investment writer in NYC.

• Clay is looking for a founding designer.

What did you think about this week’s newsletter?

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