Besvinick broke into VC by persistently cold-emailing Chris Sacca at Lowercase
Adam Besvinick · Adam Besnivick: How to Invest in Pre-Seed & Seed Stage Companies; Looking Glass Capital | E1020 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · May 29, 2023 · at 0:54
Adam Besvinick is the founder of pre-seed firm Looking Glass Capital. He describes how he transitioned from traditional finance into venture capital during business school.
0:00 / 0:11exact quote · 11.9s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Ended up working for Chris Saka and lowercase capital while I was in business school off of a cold email to Chris and then diligently annoying and following up with him until he caved and gave me some work to do basically.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Adam Besvinick
Besvinick led 14 Fund 1 deals despite rarely writing the largest check
“Like I said, I was the first yes or the lead in 14 of 24 investments out of Fund One. It's effectively been the case in every investment out of Fund Two so far, and I was the largest investor in only one of those 14 rounds in Fund One.”
Besvinick: Cold inbound deals produced some of Fund I's top performers
“The deals that I've done that have been cold inbound have been explicitly because they're looking for investors that invest in relevant themes to what they're building. And those have been great companies. In fact, those are some of the best companies out of f…”
Besvinick: Presenting pitch decks on LP calls is unnecessary for VCs
“I don't think I've never walked through a deck on a call. I just, I don't think that's really necessary as an investor in the same way that it is as a founder who has like screenshots and competitors to show and revenue charts. Like I just don't think that tha…”
General Catalyst and True Ventures accept pre-seed terms set by Besvinick
“In fact, I've had general catalyst, true ventures, tribe, lower carbon that have come in after me after I've said yes and have not altered the terms of those rounds.”
Besvinick: Venture capital will bifurcate into small thematic funds and behemoths
“What you're ultimately going to see is a very distinct bifurcation of relatively smaller vertical oriented, thematic oriented funds, and then behemoths. And if you're just in the middle, it's very tough to stand out.”
Besvinick: Reputation is the only asset investors 100% control
“Reputation is the number one currency as an investor that you have control over. The other one obviously is your track record, but you and I both know that To a certain extent that's out of the investor's control. You know, we can hopefully select great founde…”