Micro-VC — Smaller is better, but the math is still really hard (read)
While the math in the post may be intimidating, there are strong reassurances as history has shown us that small funds that do well, tend to do VERY well. Firms such as Lowercase, Baseline, Forerunner, Felicis, and K9 have top-decile funds that will ultimately far outpace top-decile performance of large funds. And there will be many others.
For managers that are starting funds, it’s simply important to understand the mathematical realities, and adjust their investment decisions accordingly.
From the Investors
David Skok of Matrix Partners describes how recruiting top talent means building a great process early on and sourcing and nurturing passive candidates over time in “Recruiting: Top of the Funnel – Sourcing”
Stephen Hays of Deep Space Ventures puts together some thoughts on how VCs come up with an investment thesis, with the big takeaway being that his fund has invested their way into their current theses and learned by trial and error in “The Birth of a Venture Capital Investment Thesis”
Chris Quintero of Bolt outlines the potential of recurring revenue for hardware businesses in “The Promised Land of Hardware Startups”
Mattias Ljungman of Atomico interviews Harry Stebbings of The Twenty Minute VC to uncover how he got started, how his perception and analysis of the VC market changed over the 800 interviews, and more in “20VC: Harry Stebbings” (podcast)
Shahin Farshchi of Lux Capital dissects the regulatory, business model, and technological roadblocks towards our driverless future in “Smarter Cars Interview with Shahin Farshchi of Lux Capital” (podcast)
From the Operators
Nazila Alasti of eBay outlines her observations after traveling from a fifteen person startup to eBay – population 12,600 in “Entrepreneur at Heart – Lessons in Navigating Large Companies”
Gregarious Narain, formerly of Chute, provides nine characteristics to back up his statement that “engineers are indispensable” in “Engineering Field Guide For Founders”
Jack Morgan of Duolingo walks through a design case study of how his team worked through creating the assets for their new learning app in “Tinycards by Duolingo”
Sean Byrnes of Outlier expands on an earlier essay he wrote and highlights the fundamental changes happening in how companies use data to make decisions in “Talk: The End of Business Intelligence” (video)
Zhiyao Wang of Airbnb recaps the launch of Airbnb’s “Messaging Sync” technology, how it works, and the end results in “Messaging Sync — Scaling Mobile Messaging at Airbnb”
Must-Reads From Today’s Raise The Bar
Derek Draper of Pattern shares exactly what this multi-stage sales plan looks like, including questions that should be asked during each phase of a deal, and how to customize it to your own needs and train up reps as you bring them on in “This Sales Plan Moves the Needle on Every Success Metric”
Ruchi Thukral gives detailed insight on how to build your user acquisition funnel using a customer centric framework in “Your User Acquisition Funnel: Jobs To Be Done, and other considerations”
Tyler Hakes of Optimist details his process to create a strategic mix of content for each of your target customers throughout their buying decision in “How to Generate Strategic Content Ideas for Each Funnel Stage”
Raise The Bar is our other newsletter focused on sifting through the mountains of content out there around sales, marketing, and growth to help the community of DOERS who grow companies. If you’d like to save time and read the best sales, marketing, and growth content, subscribe to our Raise The Bar newsletter.
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