ventureminded.me

This is true across fashion and apparel, travel and hospitality, technology, and myriad other categories, yet when it comes to health and wellness, very few brands, outside of some in fitness (think SoulCycle or Equinox), have emerged that cater to a consumer’s mind, body, and spirit. There are numerous other thematic tailwinds like an increasing focus on the value of sleep, destigmatizing mental health challenges and removing it from a list of taboo talking points, the mainstream-ization of meditation and a variety of forms of alternative medicine, and numerous others. Below is a non-exhaustive list of products / services / spaces that fall in the aforementioned realm and which I’m particularly interested in: When it comes to the above list, I’m eager to see how founders are tackling these areas with a range of business models and approaches. I think there is a real opportunity to create a lifestyle brand in a number of the categories above through a mixture of commerce (e.g. subscription, marketplaces) and content (e.g. social and UGC, subscription), and in others, I think B2B2C is the right go-to-market strategy instead of going straight to consumers.

How Seed Investing Prepared Me to Invest at Later Stages Just over four months ago, I took on a new role investing in Series A and later companies after spending nearly three years investing in seed stage startups. While there have certainly been a number of differences to contend with while investing at these later stages, for a variety of reasons, I believe that seed investing was great prep for the investing I’m doing now. It feels like it could be easy to get complacent with sourcing Series A and later companies because the nature of discovering investment opportunities is different, but I think unearthing lesser known or less hyped companies at these later stages is where some of the most compelling investment opportunities reside. I’m frequently talking to multiple seed stage companies per week to keep a finger on the pulse of what’s being built and to develop a relationship with founders upwards of a year ahead of when they raise a Series A by being helpful and serving as a resource (i.e. making intros to seed funds and angels or potential customers and hires).

So, the purpose of this piece is to 1) enable founders with whom I meet to know what to expect from me prior to meeting, thereby allowing them to ask more specific (e.g. helpful) questions when we chat and start to build a sense of trust and 2) enable founders and other investors to hold me to this list and call me out if I’m slipping — I’m always seeking to improve. Bring the same hustle and scrappy resourcefulness to sourcing companies and meeting with founders that I did at the seed stage to these later stages of investingMeet with founders as early as possible in their companies’ life cycles; get to know a founder and her business and build a relationship and add value well in advance of the stage when our fund would investReply to / acknowledge / engage with every single inbound email In my previous role, we invested in one company that came to me via a personalized cold emailBe as transparent and communicative as possible during the pre-investment processImmerse myself in a company’s app / product / service as much as possible; always meet at their office when doable, particularly early in the fundraising processReply to every email relating to a process with a founder — never leave any loose endsDo my absolute best to facilitate a seamless evaluation and diligence process (i.e. a quick pass if that ends up being the result)When passing on an investment, provide a clear reason why, suggest the founder continues to provide updates if she’d like, and offer to help in other ways, if possible. Be proactive about continuing to make the relevant intros outlined aboveContinue to be transparent and communicative; my best relationships with founders have these traits going both waysSend an email during the first week of every month asking founders of companies I’ve sourced for us (i.e. ones I work most closely with) what I can do to be immediately helpful; I encourage founders to give me “homework”Outside of one-offs, allocate an entire day every week to nothing but portfolio-related work: standing calls / meetings with portfolio founders, ad hoc calls / meetings with portfolio founders, calls / meetings with relevant partners for portfolio companies, calls / meetings with other VCs who may be a good fit to invest in our portfolio companiesI would love to hear any feedback on this code, and for anyone who’s ever worked with me, please let me know if this rings true and if there’s anything I’m missing.

Quite simply, I could probably count on two hands the number of moments each year that were deemed picture-worthy—and that included school picture day. And during a trip to Tokyo earlier this year, I saw this taken to the next level in the form of Purikura, essentially a photo-booth version of these apps. Ultimately, I think understanding these implications is what allows for creating second order products (e.g. apps for touching up selfies) and other social products that are underpinned by this behavior. Not only is there generally an over reliance on texting and the ability to perfect what you’re going to say before you send it, but also when you feel like you could be on camera at any time, you’re prone to behaving like you’re on stage.