Notes
Relationship Investing
We are relationship-driven investors.Ideally, we work with founders across their entire career.Great founders often build multiple companies. The best partnerships last decades.
Pay It Forward
Always be helpful when you can.Five or ten minutes helping someone early in their career can be extremely valuable to them and cost you almost nothing.The startup ecosystem runs heavily on reciprocity.This has become under-appreciated as venture capital has increased in size and exposure, but the value of having a positive-sum mindset can't be overstated.Small acts of help often come back years later in unexpected and compounded ways.
Basic Business Practices
Basic practices matter tremendously.Show up on time. Follow through on commitments. Respond quickly. Close loops when something happens.These small signals compound over time.
Reputation
Be admirable and dependable.People should want to work with you because your reputation is productive and positive.In venture capital, reputation compounds over decades — and can evaporate quickly if someone behaves poorly.Protect it.
Simple, But Not Easy
There’s an old rule that Munger made famous: Take a simple idea and take it very seriously.Many successful companies and investment strategies follow this pattern. The principles are simple. The execution is extremely difficult.What I commonly refer to as "basic business practices" are the underpinning of this across any business... Show up on time. Take notes. Follow through on commitments. Respond quickly. Communicate clearly. Close loops when something happens.Small signals compound.For any given business, you need to get down to the essence of things… coherence is the goal, simplicity is key.Our business should operate like well-written code. Elegant. Simple, but not easy.We strive to think independently, act with integrity, and serve founders well.Understanding the component parts is crucial. An academic understanding is not enough. You need to learn and understand through experience. You should marry academic understanding with hands-on experience. You should be able to debate the edges of your business and always be adding to that deep understanding. Knowing what simple acts compound compound to drive your business forward.
Health
To do good work, you need your health to be in a good place.Exercise. Take care of your mental health. Keep your environment organized. Clean your room...Clarity of mind allows you to focus intensely on what matters.This is not work/life balance… that is a fallacy if you are building a big business. Work/life balance is mostly a concept useful for a job or lifestyle business.There is always another gear… we are capable of pushing ourselves way harder than we think. With a strong and healthy foundation, when those rare moments come to go full-tilt, you will know and you will be able to push yourself hard mentally and physically.
Focus & "Playing Offense"
Don’t waste time on unimportant tasks.There will always be an endless list of things to do. The job is to constantly prioritize the highest leverage work.Progress comes from focusing on what matters most. I like to think of it as playing offense vs defense.It is very easy to spend your entire day playing defense — responding to email, answering requests, reacting to things that come up.That work never ends.You need to create time to play offense:• reaching out proactively
• strengthening relationships
• pursuing asymmetric opportunities
• thinking deeply about important decisionsProtect time to do the work that actually moves the business forward.
Lists
Lists are very powerful.Simple lists prevent things from slipping through the cracks:• founders to follow up with
• people to stay in touch with
• diligence questions
• really any recurring processMost productivity systems eventually collapse into well-maintained lists. It's important to assign ownership and have dates attached to any action items.This falls into the "simple, but not easy" bucket. After every meeting, Colt and I share notes with action items at the top - assigned to an owner, with a date to be completed. We then use tools to make sure we check that list of action items by the date of completion.
Meetings
Meetings should happen sparingly.Most work can be handled asynchronously. Meetings are useful when several topics have stacked up or when a project benefits from real-time discussion.When we do meet, both people should come with a stack-ranked list of items.The goal is a team that works together so well that meetings are the exception, not the rule.
Communication
Clear communication is underrated.Most work today happens asynchronously — email, text, short messages. Because of this, business writing should be extremely clear. State the ask at the top. Provide supporting information below.Someone reading your message should be able to glance at it and immediately understand the ask. Get the the essence in the first sentence of your note.A simple protocol works well:• Email when something can be handled asynchronously (~48 hours)
• Text when something needs a quicker response
• Schedule a call when something complex needs discussion
• Call immediately when something is urgentThis sounds simple. That’s the point.
A simple focus
The best venture partnerships are built over long periods of time.Our philosophy is simple: think independently, act with integrity, and serve founders well.Venture capital is a long game where reputation, relationships, and judgment compound over time.Our goal is not to be everywhere.Our goal is to be indispensable to the founders we work with.
