Good morning 👋
Nothing annoys me more than a transactional person.
Unfortunately in venture, you see these people often, and they want to “catch up” and ask for intros any time you have a breakout in your portfolio.
Here’s why that doesn’t work anymore and what you can do to preemptively build up goodwill with other investors you plan to invest with in the future.
Today’s highlights
You can’t win deals anymore by constantly asking for favors
“Talent unboxing” and VC hiring
Escaping competition and trying to outsmart your opponents
TOP
what’s in it for me?
This is one of the better pieces I’ve read recently on changing venture dynamics.
There are only so many truly great founders in the world, and we don’t know how to mint more of them. If you are lucky enough to find one of these people as an investor, you can expect old and new connections trying to take advantage of your proximity to this person so they can tag along.
In the past, there was a dynamic that growth funds were doing seed funds a favor by putting more money to work in the best companies from their portfolio.
Fast forward to today, and the dynamics have flipped; seed investors are doing Series A investors a favor by putting them in position to win the deal.
So if you’re a Series A investor and you want to win, you have to do some self reflection and figure out how you’re repaying the favor (ideally before you need to ask for your next intro).
Here are some ideas from Yoni’s piece:
Take real risks on companies that we think are great but aren’t obvious yet. Show conviction in the companies others are fighting over.
Send me great companies/founders to work with early. Help me help you.
Be a thought partner. If I get better by being around you, I’ll want to force you to be around me.
Perks work. Publicity, dinners, sports, etc.
GP / LP Mastermind
The “anti-conference” for fund managers 🌴
We don’t like conferences, so we created our own version that we would actually look forward to going to.
📆 Dates: April 24-27, 2025
📍 Location: Miami, FL
ℹ️ Other details:
Small group of 6-10 LPs, GPs, and partners
Golf and padel
Boat charter
Private dinners
No outside sponsors
We’ve already confirmed half of the guests, we only have space for a few more, and applications close in under a month.
If you’re interested, we’d recommend letting us know sooner rather than later …
TWEET
HEADLINES
Why ‘Talent Unboxing’ Is Set To Become The Latest VC Hiring Craze (Crunchbase)
Palantir CEO’s new book says Silicon Valley has ‘lost its way’ (TechCrunch)
Key Cambridge, UK VC launches $126M fund to stem later stage flight (TechCrunch)
MEMOS
Chima: Interoperability for AI agents
Superpower: The all-in-one health membership for elite performers
Documenso: The DocuSign killer
LINKS
⑨9 Lessons I Learning Failing to Scale My Business to $1M per Month: Dickie Bush tells the journey of this last 4 months, complete with what he should have done differently, the changes he’s making, and lessons and realizations to apply
🂫 The Top 5 Reasons to Be a Jack of All Trades: Tim Ferris pushes against the old adage “Jack of all trades, master of none”
⠯ The Surprising Patterns Behind Viral AI Products: Growth Unhinged discovers the best companies are using AI to guide users through a seamless, intuitive, and trustworthy experience—one where AI feels like an assistant rather than a guessing game
👷♂️ When Everyone Can Build Anything: The accelerating of AI will allow more time for humans to generate more ideas of what to build and why instead of how to build
👁️ A Visual Introduction to VC Financing: Learn about the different components and interactions of this financial technology by turning the various knobs and seeing how the visualization reacts with this interactive sandbox by Venture Dealr
MEME
BOARDROOM
Get a FREE audit of your business 🆓
Honest take: I’ve made hundreds thousands of mistakes building this business.
GTM mistakes that slow down sales
Marketing / paid advertising mistakes that literally light money on fire
Ignoring platforms or not learning how different algorithms work that results in not getting enough attention
Not delegating or using automation that cost me hundreds of hours of my time
And a thousand others
But after making tweaks for 5+ years, you start to learn what works and what doesn’t.
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- Clay
(Founder @ Confluence.VC | GP @ Outlaw)
