Charles Hudson

Founder and Managing Partner, Precursor Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

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investorfounderoperator@chudson ↗LinkedIn ↗precursorvc.com ↗

Charles Hudson founded Precursor Ventures to focus on pre-seed and first-check investments in software and hardware startups. He was previously a Partner at SoftTech VC, co-founded Bionic Panda Games, and worked at Google and IronPort Systems.

11statements → 1claims → 0claims resolved → 3.82/5average certainty → 2.27/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 16said about them ↓

1 not checkable as stated how the 1 claim stands · each chip opens the sources

1 assertion · 8 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertion are the 1 claim: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Charles argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: speaking style how? →

251 words/min while actually speaking · 3.4 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Charles Hudson: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 20 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 3,831 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Charles Hudson is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 2/10

pushed back at the host 1/10

setup questions received 65%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 10:18“And how do you implement a sense of checks and balances then on your own internal investment decision making, just to make sure that sometimes you're not seeing it through a San Fr…” ▶ 14:42“Does your market expectation and demand for market size, uh, change at all considering your status now as a pre-seed investor?”

What they said11 What others said16 Episodes1

Everything Charles Hudson said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight

Charles Hudson: Pre-Seed Venture Success Relies on Speed Over Data Analysis

“For me, though, I invest at the really, really early stage. And for me, with pre-seed, I really feel like one of the key vectors is speed and the ability to kind of process opportunities quickly. And I don't have any coordination costs at the firm. I don't hav…”

Charles Hudson May 9, 2016 ▶ 9:45 20VC: Raising A Solo GP Fund & Why They Are So Prominent Today with Charles Hudson, Managing Partner @ Precursor Ventures

Insight

Charles Hudson: Early-Stage Investment Inconsistencies Are Rarely About the Founders

“It's rarely about the people. It tends to be about some nuance of the market or some nuance of the strategy that, upon reflection isn't as clear as it was when we were together.”

Charles Hudson May 9, 2016 ▶ 12:28 20VC: Raising A Solo GP Fund & Why They Are So Prominent Today with Charles Hudson, Managing Partner @ Precursor Ventures

Insight

Charles Hudson: Building Startups for M&A Strips Out Long-Term Upside

“Because for me, if you start planning for M&A exits from day one, they never end up, in my experience, being quite as large as you would think. Because you've kind of engineered all of the upside out of the company in kind of trying to tailor make it for M&A.”

Charles Hudson May 9, 2016 ▶ 15:25 20VC: Raising A Solo GP Fund & Why They Are So Prominent Today with Charles Hudson, Managing Partner @ Precursor Ventures

Insight

Charles Hudson: Pre-Seed Funds Should Prioritize First Checks Over Heavy Reserves

“So my view is, given that pre-seed companies will have a higher failure rate than Series A companies, it's better to have more first check investment debts on the table, and it's better to be more aggressive in getting into companies.”

Charles Hudson May 9, 2016 ▶ 20:44 20VC: Raising A Solo GP Fund & Why They Are So Prominent Today with Charles Hudson, Managing Partner @ Precursor Ventures

Insight

Charles Hudson: VCs Without Operating Experience Underestimate Startup Organizational Friction

“I think as a VC, it's easy to sit in the boardroom and see strategically that there's something off with the business and to kind of dictate, Hey, we should fix sales or, Hey, we've got to fix marketing. We've got to fix product. But until you've actually been…”

Charles Hudson May 9, 2016 ▶ 4:40 20VC: Raising A Solo GP Fund & Why They Are So Prominent Today with Charles Hudson, Managing Partner @ Precursor Ventures

Insight

Charles Hudson: Small VC Teams Blind Investors to Corporate Coordination Costs

“Because most venture funds are small. You've got three or four people, so there, you don't have a, Maybe a sense for the coordination costs or the internal machinations that have to happen in order to make change happen.”

Charles Hudson May 9, 2016 ▶ 5:25 20VC: Raising A Solo GP Fund & Why They Are So Prominent Today with Charles Hudson, Managing Partner @ Precursor Ventures

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Early Micro-VC Returns Gave LPs Confidence to Back Solo GPs

“I actually think that there's a lower threshold because people like Jeff, Steve Anderson, Chris Saka, and others showed that you could take a small amount of capital. And actually turn it into meaningful returns. I think the fact that they proved that those ea…”

Charles Hudson May 9, 2016 ▶ 7:28 20VC: Raising A Solo GP Fund & Why They Are So Prominent Today with Charles Hudson, Managing Partner @ Precursor Ventures

Disclosure

Precursor Ventures Syndicates Every Deal Due to Small Check Sizes

“And last but not least for me, I have to syndicate everything I do because I don't write large checks at the firm. And so eventually I have to convince at least one or two other people in the ecosystem that the company that I'm interested in has merit.”

Charles Hudson May 9, 2016 ▶ 10:56 20VC: Raising A Solo GP Fund & Why They Are So Prominent Today with Charles Hudson, Managing Partner @ Precursor Ventures

Insight

Charles Hudson: VCs Should Maintain a Disciplined, Narrow Check Size Range

“You either think it's a great company and you should invest in line with what you typically do, or you don't think it's a great company and you shouldn't invest at all. So I'm a big fan of having a pretty narrow check size range or having a pretty narrow, if y…”

Charles Hudson May 9, 2016 ▶ 22:20 20VC: Raising A Solo GP Fund & Why They Are So Prominent Today with Charles Hudson, Managing Partner @ Precursor Ventures

Insight

Charles Hudson: Smartphone Hardware Upgrades Create Consumer Opportunities Every Few Years

“I just think consumer internet usage patterns are just not stable, and every three to five years, there's an opportunity, largely because of hardware improvements on smartphones, to rethink many core experiences on the phone.”

Charles Hudson May 9, 2016 ▶ 23:54 20VC: Raising A Solo GP Fund & Why They Are So Prominent Today with Charles Hudson, Managing Partner @ Precursor Ventures

Disclosure

Charles Hudson Invested in Postmates Before It Had Meaningful Delivery Volume

“When I think back to when we first invested in Postmates, Postmates did not have meaningful delivery volume at all”

Charles Hudson May 9, 2016 ▶ 13:37 20VC: Raising A Solo GP Fund & Why They Are So Prominent Today with Charles Hudson, Managing Partner @ Precursor Ventures

The other half of the tape: Charles Hudson's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 15 times in 9 episodes on 20VC. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 5 Alex Mather 4 Dave McClure 2 Iman Abuzeid 1 Hunter Walk 1 Ben Blumenfeld 1 Andy McLoughlin 1

Statements about Charles Hudson, by other people (1)

Disclosure

Strava's founder and Charles Hudson wrote the first Athletic angel checks

“Michael Horvath, the founder of Strava, was our first check, but it was a smaller check, and then the next check was Charles Hudson at Precursor”

Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 19:28 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic