Personal Investment Policy
NOTE: I am only investing in RUVs for primary rounds (SAFE or priced shares) where all investors in the RUV have proxied their voting rights to the founder for the foreseeable future. My check size is $1k/deal. The below is mostly for historical reference. I am not investing in private market secondaries unless they come in the form of no-fee, no-carry vehicles that are company managed and third party administered
Working with investment managers
I generally do not make investments as an LP into VC, HF, PE, or RE.
In the rare cases that I consider LP investments, I generally look for
A budget based management fee (vs the standard 2% annual)
At least a 10% GP commit or some other evidence of extreme conviction
Carry to only be levied if a benchmark has been exceeded. I use BTCUSD as my benchmark against private investments.
A track record of > 5 years that meaningfully surpasses my own.
Investment criteria
I focus on Seed, Series A, and very rarely Series A+ to Series B companies
I only invest in open startups whose founders build in public. I see secrecy as a weakness and speed as the new stealth.
I generally look to underwrite for a 100x-1000x return within 10 years.
The CEO is consistently personally building an audience
Leased audience
>5k Twitter followers, >1k YouTube subscribers, etc.
Owned audience
>1k personal email list subscribers, etc.
Monetized audience
Generated at least $1 in revenue from an audience they've monetized
The CEO and ideally the founding team heavily use async video
At least $1 of revenue
The CEO and founding team actively support all efforts for secondary liquidity for all holders
I often act on a thesis by investing in multiple companies solving the same problem, sometimes direct competitors.
I am trying to minimize investing in fiat denominated assets like US C-corp shares for the foreseeable future.
Areas of focus
Tools and platforms that can make people 10x wealthier
Sales enablement
Developer tooling
Making founders more powerful, specifically enabling founders to delay a given hire in X role through software/automation
Example: corporate card providers, cap table management software, etc. delay the need for the first finance hire
Operations
Assume anything you tell me or share with me will be posted to Twitter. I will not sign NDAs and I will not promise to keep anything you tell me confidential.
I’m always happy to look at pitches asynchronously and provide feedback. I thrive on content and can read extremely quickly so feel free to send decks, memos, etc. without worrying about “overwhelming” me.
I generally will only do a call or zoom after an async conversation and a chance to review materials. I find that I can best add value if I have maximum possible context before having a synchronous conversation.
If you send me materials, I will generally draft and share with you a Google Doc capturing my thoughts as I review the materials along with ideas, critiques, etc.
I only invest through general solicitation Roll Up Vehicles (no carry and no fee SPVs lead by founders) administered by a third party (AngelList, Republic, Allocations, Carta, etc.) instead of investing directly into a company or via syndicate leads
If I invest, I am happy to share the deal with my entire audience
My check sizes are either the $1k-$5k range or the $10k-$100k range. The first range is for YOLO investments (fun money, interesting bets, unconditional backing of friends and former colleagues, etc.). The second range is for extreme conviction investments where I and/or others consider myself a Key Opinion Leader in the space
Post-investment
When I invest, I work for you. Your problems become mine and my intellectual resources become yours. This is why I am extremely careful about my non YOLO investments and will treat those as entering into a 10 year partnership.
I generally will not make or accept introductions.