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Start a Signal group, I'll join. I spent all day reading about GPT-3 and thinking about potential applications that seem investible.
Sounds great, shoot me a DM
Yo link me in --> just entered this world myself.
I'd love to get in on this too if OP or anyone else has actually started the group
https://t.me/joinchat/vclD5s2dQK43ZGZh
Down for a WSO VC group
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Your imagination
IMO, underrated approach if you have an idea of what types of investments fit your personality/acumen is to find investors who have done deals that you would do if you were in their shoes. GPs are usually easy enough to get a hold of and you can grind them with dumb questions all day, they will love it. Bring up specific deals they've done and get specifics, find out what worked and what didn't.
For example if you are really really into DTC/consumer 2.0 and are a big fan of David Bell's approach you would reach out to David (Idea Farm Ventures) and a few of the seniors at the firm. Grill the shit out of them with questions. People love helping people, especially if you have a genuine interest in their approach.
This will help you refine your thesis but at the end of the day the fastest way to do it is to write some cheques :)
Edit re: writing cheques. You don't need to be rich to do this (although you do need to be accredited), just write into a few deals via an AngelList syndicate. After each investment, contact everyone on the cap table and get to know them. This is how you build an exceptional network very inexpensively as some Angel List SPVs have smalll mins like $1000 a deal etc.
Awesome insight, really appreciate you sharing. I’m really curious to share and debate niche theses in specific subverticals (i.e., HR Tech, martech, etc.) so you’re approach seems particularly helpful on that front.
Will be trying out some of the AngelList stuff.
Hey, I’m at a VC backed technology startup rn. Long story short just ask VCs. A lot of the action happens on Twitter/Slack/Discord. Follow some VCs that are in an industry you like and just reach out and ask questions. Ask if they’re a part of any interesting Slack groups or other communities that have these types of resources available. I know of a few groups on Slack there’s also confluence.vc (run by some Mucker Capital associate) that has things once you break in, Cambrian HQ (Rex Salisbury a16z’s group) for people in startups already, etc... you get the point. A lot of this stuff isn’t held under lock and key it’s just offline on different platforms that people in traditional finance might not be on. I’d maybe target associates as they’re typically running the dealflow up the pipeline to the investment committees and will usually know their fund’s thesis decently well. Doesn’t hurt talking to accelerators too as they have the super early stage startups that eventually convert to dealflow for seed/A series funds.
This is incredible, thank you. Do you have any tips on who to reach out to to find out about the Slack channels you mentioned?
Rex Salisbury (a16z) could be an in with his Cambrian HQ community. It's primarily founders and startup executives; however, I know of some angels/VCs/investment bankers/outsiders that have gotten invited just because there is so much overlap for deal flow and connections once these companies reach their later stages in life. check out John Gannon's VC blog https://johngannonblog.com/ it has a lot of essential resources for VC. Also, check out Carta.com for info on cap tables/other blog posts and creep on the post writers they're usually involved in the startup/VC space pretty well. Meagan Loyst (Gen Z VC) she's an analyst I think with Lerer Hippeau but has amassed a pretty huge community in a short amount of time. For other things around your investment thesis check out Roelof Botha's (Sequoia) 2005 Youtube deal investment memo. It's pretty intricate if you feel like reading the whole thing but shows just how a top investor at a T1 fund thinks. Happy to answer anything else I can help with. Most of my VC knowledge just comes from being around the crowd with the connection through my startup but I'm sure there are others out here that have actual experience in a VC fund that shed significantly more light on what resources to check out. My advice just cold outreach on linkedin/twitter - VCs are all about connections and meeting new people from my experience and have had a lot of luck striking up random convos with most - definitely much better than the response ratio from whenever i was doing cold emails for tryng to break into IB.
Just created a Telegram channel for the VC folks on WSO, would be great to bounce ideas around even if there are only 10-15 of us. PM for link if interested (not sure if links are allowed). Also, I recommend the Bessemer investment memos.
Sent you a DM - thanks
Why do people opt to use Telegram over Signal? Never used Telegram myself so genuinely curious, especially since it seems like people use the two apps primarily for security/privacy. Signal seems clearly superior to me in this respect, as Telegram has had a number of security flaws exposed over the last year, doesn't use default end-to-end encryption, collects a decent amount of metadata, etc. Are people using Telegram for reasons other than security or do most just overestimate how secure the app actually is?
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