TLDR: Endless resilience and just getting started.
One of those mornings, nothing to write about.
One day until a quick Thanksgiving break.
It’s like that last mile of a long run.
You know you could stop at any moment, but you didn’t start just so you could give up early.
For the past five months I’ve averaged 12 meetings a day.
And usually about 2 hours on Saturday or Sunday.
Literally as I wrote that last line, one of my strongest founders texted me a video from Sam Altman where he says:
The hardest part of starting a company is the level and frequency of bad stuff that happens to you…So much about being a successful entrepreneur is just not giving up. When we have funded people who have a great idea, perfect background on paper, and a great product, and still failed, they are insufficiently determined.
This particular founder happens to text me most mornings before 8am, and the topic is regularly some flavor of ambition, optimism, creativity, or raw intelligence. He’s a maniac.
This topic of “The Maniacs” has been coming up more frequently; probably because we are one week away from our Fall Investment Committee.
Each cycle when I make investments, I denote who I think our “maniacs” are, and I keep track of them. So far, I’ve invested in about 41.2% “maniacs.”
Currently, within 18 months of investing, the average valuation of a maniac founder in my portfolio is $18m; or 9x higher than the entry price.
And that’s the data from possibly the worst venture climate in decades.
Needless to say, 41.2% needs to climb, and it will.
The strategy: optimize for the maniacs and underwrite their resilience.
That’s all I’ve got for today.
Time to finish the race.
And see, I started with nothing to write about, but ended up here.
Sometimes you just have to get started.
See you Monday.