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5. Pre-founder: People-focused investing

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Internet Basics

๐Ÿ““Online Commodities

Consumer and Creator

๐Ÿ““1. Creator = Consumer๐Ÿ““2. The Active Consumer๐Ÿ““3. โ€œCreator-GTMโ€๐Ÿ““3.A. Where the Viral Things Are๐Ÿ““4. The Anonymous Economy๐Ÿ““5. Pre-founder: People-focused investing

Content is King -- Bill Gates, 1997

Things To Do.

๐Ÿ““Work to Be Done๐Ÿ““Statements; No Mission

โฌœย Creator Financing

๐Ÿ““Untraditional Talent๐Ÿ““Villains/Heroes, Love/Technology

Creator Extras

๐Ÿ““Content is Eating the World๐Ÿ““A Spectrum of Influence๐Ÿ““Influencing Influencers

Investment

๐Ÿ““Total Content Market (TCM)/Content TAM (C-TAM)๐Ÿ““Revisiting Community Investing๐Ÿ““Rethinking Consumer LTV๐Ÿ““โ€œOrganicโ€ = unpaid?๐Ÿ““Introducing: On-Page Collaboration, LiveWriting, anti-Press Publish๐Ÿ““VC Managers: Finding your style๐Ÿ““Womenโ€™s Consumer (2022)๐Ÿ““The โ€œonlineโ€ button

Translation

๐Ÿ““โ€œGenZโ€

Personal Journal

๐Ÿ““An intro to Personal Journal๐Ÿ““Unfortunately ๐Ÿ““How to Build a Fund๐Ÿ““I Donโ€™t Want to Be You๐Ÿ““Advice for a Y1/Y2 woman in VC๐Ÿ““Advice for a Y3 woman in VC ๐Ÿ““My love letter to Journalists๐Ÿ““Women and Wikipedia ๐Ÿ““Manifesto๐Ÿ““Dating in Your Industry๐Ÿ““Alcohol and VC๐Ÿ““Invest in the Opposition ๐Ÿ““Not On Your Side๐Ÿ““Creator vs. Kinda โ€œcreatorโ€๐Ÿ““Forced Content.๐Ÿ““โ€œPedigreeโ€๐Ÿ““โ€œLeversโ€๐Ÿ““โ€œCleanupโ€๐Ÿ““โ€œExamplesโ€๐Ÿ““Me & Paul๐Ÿ““Very Specific Advice๐Ÿ““Why I dropped out๐Ÿ““Young People๐Ÿ““How to be Jealous๐Ÿ““Content vs. Journalism๐Ÿ““To Be Free
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Personal Investment Stuff
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Freshman Year
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Old Stuff
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Tell me your thoughts

ยฉ EM 2024

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Pre-founder: People-focused businesses

Good talent is good talent. Getting back to basics: investing in talent.

There are two things you canโ€™t deny:

  1. Entrepreneurial founders (not every founder) work on multiple businesses at the same time.
  2. Distribution matters.
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Pre-founder: An individual with operational experience that fit expected qualities that would make for a good founder.

The stage before pre-seed? Pre-idea? Do you want some money?

What is โ€œpre-founderโ€?

Pre-founder or PreFounder, depending on however the Pre-/Preseed debate pans out, has been commonly defined as the stage before pre-seed. But to me:

Pre-Founder is a type of venture investment into a current operator for founder potential foreseen by the investor and acknowledged by the operator themselves.

Who is a Pre-Founder?

Pre-Founders can be determined in the following positions:

Venture Studio. The scouted, and then hired, CEO.

Incubators. Specifically the ones that decide to not continue with their entered idea.

In-house Recruiting. Candidates brought together for a specific role. Havenโ€™t left their current job, but were open enough to take the call.

Zeal-type of recruits. Outsourced equity for

Who does Pre-Founder?

The Pre-Founder track can be found in many Founder-adjacent roles to the investor.

Pre-Founder can be found by both:

The Investor. Meeting with very early founders.

Head of Talent. Recruiting for portfolio companies.

Staging

My first few months full-time in VC happened around a VC bubble. As you can imagine, I didnโ€™t care too much about it being that I was starting off at an emerging, pre-seed/seed/A-ish kind of firm. As time went on and I befriended some other investors that worked specifically at pre-seed-to-series-A, I found myself familiar to stage-specific, and most importantly price-specific funds. It always starts off with the price amount preferred.

We like to be one of the first (30) checks in.

Does not equate to:

We like to lead or semi-lead the absolute first round.

And at first, I thought this was all standardized: โ€œEarlyโ€ฆ.โ€ โ€œEarliest stagesโ€, etc.

Had to mean whatever that first round isโ€ฆ because they want to work with that founder. Because theyโ€™re โ€œworth the price.โ€

But, what Iโ€™ve come to find out is that stages are complete malarkey.

Define โ€œtalentโ€

talent: An individual person with expertise, and maybe network, in an industry.

Talent: A โ€œstar qualityโ€, independently-thinking individual. An โ€œit-factorโ€ person with creativity and skill in a very specific space.

Why I care

In the startup ecosystem, โ€œtalentโ€ has been broken up into two buckets: technical and nontechnical talent. Although there seems to be a never-ending shortage of technical talent, thereโ€™s no debate that almost half of venture dollars spent go to GTM and ads - and someone has to run that part.

My main petition is that there might be a shortage of GTM hires with enough product and SV context to really rip it.

Talent issues

There are also two main issues to talent, regardless of startup or not: recruitment and retention. For VC funds, in particular, retention in particular has been entirely difficult.

Fit

Founderโ†’Market Fit: Founder has experienced the problem, has potential to sell accurately to potential Productโ†’Market Fit: A product that solves a problem so well it generates demand within a market.

Founderโ†’Customer Fit: Built in distribution to potential customers. This can be someone with a lot of followers or someone with a niche dentistry blog. Or a previous sales operator with a rolodex of potential customers. For this blog, Iโ€™m mostly thinking about a founder with online influence.

  • Pre-founder: People-focused businesses
  • What is โ€œpre-founderโ€?
  • Who is a Pre-Founder?
  • Who does Pre-Founder?
  • Staging
  • Define โ€œtalentโ€
  • Why I care
  • Talent issues