Insight
Rob Go: Endowments Are Often the First LPs to Flee in Downturns
“You know, there was a time when folks used to say that, like, endowments and foundations are the most robust long-term partners that exist on the planet. It is just not true. I've heard so many cases where markets turn, things change, and the first ones to lea…”
Insight
Rob Go: Funds 2 and 3 Struggle to Convert Fund-of-Funds LPs
“Weirdly, when you're in the middle, you're neither new, nor are you so well known that you have, like, a great brand. Fund to funds are not as good. So what I found is that, like, funds, you know, Three-ish, two to three, it's actually harder to get a new fund…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jun 2028
Rob Go Predicts Multistage VC Funds Will Eventually Abandon Seed Investing
“I don't think that it will persist because at some point the multistage funds will say, hey, it's not really worth, worth our time and effort to invest at this stage. And, you know, they'll, they'll turn their attention to later stage rounds where you write bi…”
Insight
Rob Go: Best Seed Opportunities Are Non-AI Companies and Non-Pedigreed Founders
“I think there's actually a lot of opportunity out there for non-consensus thinking. I think there are a lot of companies that aren't getting very much love because they're not AI. The teams aren't fancy founders that came from well-known companies that are jus…”
Prediction Held up
Rob Go: Late-Stage VC Investors Will Suffer Badly in Market Correction
“I think there are a lot of later stage investors that are gonna get their hands slapped pretty badly as you know, the value, the late stage valuations that work Get worked out in this market.”
Disclosure
NextView Passed on DraftKings Due to Misjudging Market Size
“I knew he was special, and he walked into our offices to pitch DraftKings along with two other extraordinary co-founders, and we passed, not because of, like, regulation, but because we misunderstood the market size.”
Insight
Rob Go: Energy and Hustle Give Young VCs a Competitive Advantage
“But I really believe venture is a young person's game. Like the amount we were talking about this before you started recording, right? Like the amount of like energy and hustle that you're able to deploy as a young person is truly a competitive advantage.”
Insight
NextView Ranks Portfolios Quarterly to Prevent Hype-Driven Follow-On Decisions
“We basically do a ranking of the portfolio every quarter from a perspective of where we want to deploy or follow on capital. And we do that because we want to make the decision apart from a financing opportunity, right? Because what ends up happening is when s…”
Insight
Rob Go: Single Mega-Funds Create Worse Alignment Than Separate Opportunity Funds
“I think the third is like, there's an alternative, which is we just raise a bigger fund overall. But I think everybody kind of loses in that case, right? Because, you know, it's hard to deploy that much money. The fees effectively are higher if you don't do, b…”
Insight
Rob Go: Unequal VC Partnerships Lead to Mid-Fund Renegotiations
“We felt like if it wasn't equal, there'd be too much of an incentive to renegotiate depending on like how things are going in the fund.”
Insight
Rob Go: Emerging VCs Should Refuse Anchor LP Requests for Special Economics
“I wouldn't do it. I think it's a sign of strength not to take that deal. It's not very typical in venture, I would say. I, I've heard it's more common in private equity or hedge funds. And so if you're talking to an LP that's very used to anchoring hedge funds…”
Opinion
Rob Go: Scarcity Mindset Hindered Boston Venture Market Compared to West Coast
“Part of why the Boston venture market at the time was not thriving the way the west coast market was is there's a little bit of a scarcity mindset here, a little bit more of a protective attitude towards everything”
Insight
Rob Go: Ideal Portfolio Construction Is Theoretically 100% in One Winner
“The best portfolio construction in the world is to invest in one company and put all your money into the first round and be right. And every derivative from that basically is allowing for uncertainty and risk.”
Insight
Rob Go: A Base of Small LP Checks Creates an Anti-Fragile Fund
“I generally am a believer in like building an anti-fragile LP LP base. And so in a weird way, like, even though I said earlier, I really, you know, I don't mind concentration. I also don't mind a lot of small checks if you can handle it from a timing standpoin…”
Disclosure
NextView Backed Hit Firm Attentive via an Uncapped Convertible Note
“One of our biggest hits is attentive. And we invested in an uncapped note and that changed my mind because we never would have done it before.”
Insight
Rob Go: Mega-funds struggle with $1M seed deal math
“When a business is looking to raise, you know, a million dollars or even less, it becomes very difficult for you know, a multi-hundred million dollar, you know, nearly billion dollar fund make the math and the time investment work for that kind of a company.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rob Go: Seed rounds have replaced traditional Series A financing
“Over the last six years, what we've seen is that, you know, seed investing has really essentially become the new, you know, series A round of financing for the companies.”
Insight
Go: Raising excessive money pre-PMF hurts focus and breeds overhead
“There seems like there's no downside to raising more money, but there actually is. And the downside is actually around a lack of focus scrappiness And over investment in overhead before there's really the sort of core machinery to support it.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Go: Raising large seed rounds pre-PMF shows no obvious outperformance
“There isn't a really obvious trend that companies that raise a lot of money pre-product market fit end up doing much better than the ones that don't.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Go: Evangelical Christianity Is Very Unusual in the Tech Industry
“I'm kind of in a habit of, like, this is very out of vogue, but, like, I'm a, you know, evangelical Christian guy which is very unusual in the tech scene.”
Insight
Rob Go: LPs Spend 90% of Time on Decks and Track Records
“But like, really, I think most LPs, they spend like 90% of the time on the deck. And the track record, and that's all there is.”
Disclosure
NextView Ventures Operates Under an Equal Partnership Structure
“We do have an equal partnership.”
Disclosure
NextView Launched via Minimum Viable First Close Before Institutional LPs
“You basically find the people who are willing to say yes and just trust you. You try to tally up as much as possible, preferably enough to do a minimum viable first close, close that capital, get into business, and allow yourself time to be able to cultivate t…”
Insight
Rob Go: Avoid Letting a Single LP Constitute 50% of a Fund
“I think 50% is kind of extreme. I think it's probably unusual that an LP would be willing to do that without some special controls or economics that I would recommend probably steering away from for the most part.”
