Strike while the iron is hot. I know you’re interested in connecting with VCs, angels, and founders. Building stronger relationships with them. Staying on their radar. Which is marketing, plain and simple. And in marketing, timing is everything. For instance: If a VC/angel/founder has just moved to a new city where you know people like them, why not … Read more
When you are looking to join a VC firm, having some angel investments under your belt is always a good thing. But not all angel investments are created equal. Here are the ones that I think will give you the most mileage. Maybe not in terms of returns. But almost definitely for your VC job … Read more
Carta has done 13 acquisitions in 14 years. Four of them happened in the last 15 months. Davis Thacker has personally led or helped lead 11 of those deals. So when I sat down with him to talk M&A strategy, product vision, and where Carta is taking its platform, there was a lot of ground … Read more
Founders rarely are “One and Done”. Most of them will start another company some day. You should keep this in mind. Especially when you see that their last company was acquired. Why? Most founders who go through an acquisition have an earnout period. So once the dust settles, a few months after the deal closes… … Read more
“Close to half of our final round candidates will wash out.” The hiring playbook most founders are still following was written for a different world. We just wrapped a conversation with Michelle Volberg, founder and CEO of tech-enabled recruiting and referral platform Twill, and Ryan Denehy, founder and CEO of ITaaS provider Electric. The topic … Read more
A little over a year ago, I was talking to one of our GoingVC alums who had been trying to launch a venture firm. Someone I would have written a check to once their Fund 1 came online. But you know how the market is for new firms. Unless you came from a firm that … Read more
Lindsay Kaplan co-founded Chief, built one of the most talked-about communities in tech, and then left to go on a year of soul-searching (and like many founders, angel investing). Coming out of that walkabout was Lindsay joining up with our friends at Bullish as a Venture Partner. In her new role, she’s hunting for “weird” … Read more
Chieh Huang has seen disruption cycles before. As co-founder of Boxed (the bulk shopping app that went public via SPAC), he built a company that employed thousands of warehouse workers. Now he’s betting that AI will trigger the biggest workforce transition in a generation. And he just launched Pelgo to help people land on the … Read more
We just launched the Office of the Venture CFO — a new program at Venture5 where we partner with leading VC finance executives, interview them, and publish their insights to our audience. It features nine CFOs and finance leaders from top firms like Founder Collective, Flybridge, Left Lane Capital, Lerer Hippeau, 01 Advisors, BITKRAFT Ventures, … Read more
You should have built X yesterday and showed me a demo. What happens when your customer can just ask Claude Code to do your startup’s job? What if the moat you spent two years building gets bypassed by someone texting an AI agent on their phone? And what does a VC actually want to see … Read more
