Journey

How I Built a Track Record in VC Without any Money

One of my goals is to use my voice more. That means owning things I’ve learned with hopes that it can help others. This feels very uncomfortable to me! Anyone who knows me knows that I am more of a show, not tell type of a person. But as I’ve grown more comfortable in my skin, I have realized that I must tell my own story. This gives me serious anxiety – but alas, every time you try something new, it feels unnatural and uncomfortable. So in the name of growth, I’m working through it. A few days ago, I listened to Brene Brown’s new podcast on FFTs (f*cking first times) and that gave me the extra bit of courage I needed to post this.

I hope this post is useful to any and everyone who is trying to figure out ways to demonstrate both to themselves and to others that they are great investors. Without further ado, here we go!

A few weeks ago, I was really excited to see Nate Maslak — co-founder of Ribbon Health — announce his Series A led by A16Z. I met him for the first time almost two years ago when I invited him on my podcast, “Be About It”

I created the podcast to show the world that the companies that fit my thesis could be successful.

My thesis has focused on companies that are building products that give real people more agency over their lives. This can be financial agency, time agency or mental/physical agency.

By demonstrating that my thesis worked, I would also be building my track record.

What is a track record? It is a scorecard of your investments. It is used by LPs (your investors) to determine whether or not you are a “good investor”. Generally, “good” means that your investments continue to grow in value.

As CEO/Founder of this podcast, I was in charge of sourcing companies, ensuring they fit my thesis, finding times to meet with these companies, coming up with thoughtful interview questions and also running all of the mechanics behind the scenes to make the podcast live. I purposefully chose founders who were Pre-Seed because that is Precursor’s focus and also because it holds the most risk. If I could demonstrate to myself and the world that I could pick Pre-Seed companies that would advance, then I must be pretty good at finding outstanding founders & companies.

After spending over a year and countless hours on the Be About It podcast, I was privileged to share time with 15 founders — all of whom I continue to be inspired by. Here is how their companies have grown:

Season 1 (2017) Companies
2017: 7 were Pre-Seed
2019: 3 were Pre-Seed and 4 were Seed
2020: 3 were Pre-Seed and 4 were Seed

Season 2 & 3 (2018) Companies:
2018: 4 were Pre-Seed and 4 were Seed
2019: 1 was Pre-Seed, 3 were Seed, 4 were Series A and 1 shut down
2020: 1 was Pre-Seed, 1 was Seed, 5 were Series A and 1 shut down

One thing I wasn’t expecting was my own growth between my first podcast and the second. In Season 1, I learned so much and brought that into Seasons 2 & 3. You can see it clearly in the numbers — Seasons 2&3 had a higher graduation rate than Season 1.

The portfolio continues to mature and I’m excited to add another to the Series A list with Ribbon!

The thesis behind my podcast — to find companies building meaningful businesses that provide mass markets access to what previously was held by only a few — is the same one I hold today as I enter into a full-fledged investing role at Precursor with the ability to make my own decisions and trust my gut.

It’s exciting to enter into this new role with this track record and I look forward to building upon it — with dollars this time — in the coming years.

The key things that I think are important to building up your track record without money are as follows:

Develop and publish a thesis on what types of companies you like and why
Publicly name companies that fit this thesis
Wait a few years… (I never promised this was going to be quick!)
Follow-up and see if those companies are doing well!
If they’re not doing well, write an article stating what you think went wrong and start at #2 on this list again.

A few examples of people/organizations that I think have done this well are Ben Thompson at Stratechery and Scott Galloway at No Mercy/No Mallice.

I hope this inspires many of you — particularly those who might not have the accredited investor title or the VC job — an alternative way to create your own track record ❤

Have you also come up with a novel way to build a track record for yourself with limited resources? Or, do you have a company you’d like me to chat with that fits my thesis?

If so, I would love to hear from you!

You can always reach me on Twitter: @sydneypaige10 or via e-mail: sydney@precursorvc.com

Note #1: More inspiration to everyone building, striving and creating who are also worried about owning their own success 🙂

Note #2: More deep dives into the creation tools behind the Be About It podcast if you’re interested here.

Note #3: There were a few additional founders I chatted with and unfortunately their interviews never made it onto the podcast. I’m still a huge fan of them! I didn’t enter them into the calculations above since I never formally processed their interview.

Noted #4: Due to technical difficulties, currently, only Seasons 2 and 3 of Be About It are public.

Sydney