The Ledger
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Startup fundraising will shift to crypto tokens within 10 years
“I actually think in 10 years, some of the craziness will level out. And maybe it's not on Bitcoin, but maybe it's on another token or so, that you will see fundraisers done differently in 10 years.”
VCs assess founders on pitch skill and pedigree, not execution
“And very often VCs assess people based on those meetings, just basically by how well you talk. And also based on your resume, especially at the early stage, when you don't have a whole lot to show, Do you have pedigree or do you not have pedigree? VCs don't ac…”
Hustle Fund decides on initial $25k checks after one conversation
“Then we'll be really fast to write a first check, a 25 K check. I think that since I'm a GP of hustle fund, we have to move fast ourselves. So within a conversation, pretty much like unless there's something jarring where we absolutely need a second conversati…”
Venture capital has failed to tap underrepresented minority founders
“Arlen Hamilton is going after underrepresented minorities and doing a lot of outreach around communities there. I think that's really innovative. No one has really tapped those communities.”
Hustle Fund bases follow-on checks on speed, not absolute traction
“And really what we're looking for, if we decide to write a follow on check, that criteria in part is based on the speed at which that priority metric is moving. It's not so much about where that number stands today.”
SAFEs and convertible notes are the new wave of investing
“I like them a lot. I think actually this is the new wave of investing.”
VCs exhibit very little innovation in founder scouting
“I think, to be honest, there hasn't been a lot of innovation on scouting amongst VCs.”
Hustle Fund does not look for product-market fit when investing
“And I think, frankly, like, it's post-seed or Series A investors who are most concerned with that. We are not looking for product market fit.”
Strong executing teams at 500 Startups were often weak pitchers
“At least at 500 startups, I've seen so many teams execute while they were in the accelerator program, and very often they were not necessarily the best at pitching.”
The best startups execute rapidly on their single core metric
“This is something that we noticed, Eric, my business partner, and I noticed in many of the portfolio companies we worked with at 500 startups and in our own angel portfolios, the best ones are the ones that execute on that one metric that matters very fast.”
Hustle Fund targets execution speed over founder pedigree
“At Hustle, our model is to go after teams that are moving really quickly. This may or may not include teams that have Strong pedigree. Certainly it encompasses some of those teams, but it also encompasses a lot of teams that don't.”
Co-founder drama and morale issues are top startup failure reasons
“One of the top reasons why found founding teams fall apart actually has nothing to do with speed. Although speed is a by-product is just, you know, co-founder drama and co-founder breaks, breakups and co-founder issues like that, you know, morale around team, …”
Hustle Fund explicitly excludes pure consumer apps from its portfolio
“So I think first off, to be clear, we, there are certain areas that we are not investing in. So we don't invest in pure consumer apps. So we would have missed out on a Twitter and Instagram, Snapchat, et cetera, anyway.”
Hustle Fund writes high check volumes to hedge bets and gather data
“This is why we are writing a lot of checks, essentially to hedge bets, essentially to gather information across lots of different companies.”
Hustle Fund will not scale to a $300M fund size
“I don't actually think that that would be the strategy for us.”