Precursor Ventures

“I don't think I can get there on the current round, just cause I'm not, I think I have in my mind a sense of how big the university tickets would have to be, and I'm not sure they're there yet.”

“Most of the companies we've sold, with a few exceptions, the buyer was not anticipated or known at the time of the investment.”

“We've had totally polar experiences. We've had some companies where we've had tons of local capital, and it's been highly problematic.”

“Our portfolio is half female. We have a bunch of really smart female founders who just don't do the alpha thing.”

“My biggest dumb-dumb investments at Precursor have been where I've worked with someone for a year and not invested, and then when they raise, it's at some crazy place, and I'm like, I just worked for free and helped this person for a year. I should have put mo…”

“I don't believe these charge operators want five different software systems. They're gonna pick one. And if he can make it work, he has a chance to be an early winner and lock up a bunch of distribution that will be very difficult, if not impossible, for someo…”

“I just brought that up because we have a few companies in our portfolio where what they realized is the cost of fulfilling a sample was cheaper than buying a customer through digital.”

“These are people where the existing tools for reputation and Career management, like, don't apply. Like, the LinkedIn's of the world. There isn't a reputation, resume, experience tech stack that's readily available for these people because it's a different, it…”

“We've had a strict sort of no tobacco, no cannabis policy, a precursor, since I started the fund.”

“If it's a good business, you'll have lots of opportunity, like, it's more important to build a really good business that has the ability to remain independent until something else happens than it is to, every time I've tried to forecast, oh, so-and-so company …”

“So I'd like to look at a small investment for our fund of like, 10,000 dollars.”

“Historically, you know, this is, I think, in 200 some odd investments, probably the first time I can think of where we Made a commitment to somebody, had every intention of fulfilling it, and haven't been able to, and it's one of the things we pride ourselves …”

“We have 300 founders in our portfolio, and I know sometimes they'll come to me and say, hey, I've heard this person, like, isn't good. I've heard that this firm isn't responsive. I've heard this firm, like, wastes founders time. That's coming from somewhere. T…”

“We've been talking to them about using Vetted for our platform because I'd say a third of our Slack channel messages are We're looking at lever or greenhouse. What should we use? What did you pay? How did you get a discount?”

“We're in team pay and stack share, but I think what you're doing is different. And so I'll just cut to the chase. Like I'm going to be out for right now, but we're going to roll this out. And I'm gonna learn a lot, and I'm gonna talk to Jonas and Andrew at Sta…”

“I just didn't feel like our normal full-size, two 50 K check was the right one in this case.”

“Everything we've done in pet has ended up being bigger than I thought going in.”

“So I'd like to invest a 100,000.”

“I found out shortly after this that Charles is actually very much still interested in investing. Like he wants to put in the 250 K that he wanted to invest originally, which is huge.”

“So we've only recently started investing in apparel, or what we call tangible goods at Precursor, but I have a good feeling about you. And so I'm gonna invest 50,000 dollars.”

“Valuation is purely driven by negotiation and standards in the industry. So I think I've had founders come into my office and pitch me and say, hey, we have a hundred K in revenue. And we think that means that we're worth ten million dollars. And I would ju…”

“I think part of the challenge for founders is there is this whole, I'm going to anchor high and get negotiated down to something I can live with. It doesn't really work that well in venture because as a founder who's raising money, your real competition is no…”

“And then Charles Hudson with Precursor Ventures, another investor who's been on the show, decided to join the round, coming in for another 250 K. Altogether, Shearshare received over a half a million dollars in funding.”

“When we lead, the three things I usually try to think about are like, what's a price that I think would pull in the other people who we need as investors? What amount should we commit to sort of like help catalyze the round? And then like, what else can we do …”

“We invested in a business that not only is competitive, it's somewhat similar, called Ease, which helps doctors essentially launch their own”

“We don't do that many things on the infrastructure side. And when we do, it's usually like something that I can, where I can understand the value prop as someone who's not deeply technical.”

“So like, just as a front level, we're just not doing much in AI infra, just, I don't have the technical ability to analyze them, and I haven't found many interesting categories where I don't instantly meet two dozen very credible teams.”

“We are small investors in UNES through an acquisition, and we have a multiplayer family money product that aims to end up in the same place as you, but from a very different starting point. And the more I hear, the more I think we're probably conflicted out.”

“We still do five to 10% hardware.”

“We have four or five of our biggest outcomes at the firm level will be product companies, actually not software companies.”

“I know what the status quo is for products in this category, and there are multiple, multi-billion dollar public companies in this space, and I think it'd be really interesting to go on this journey with you at the same level that Elizabeth mentioned.”

“Look, I think one of the big mistakes I've seen companies in our portfolio make is they take two to three million dollars, and it's very hard to have two to three million dollars and not magically have it all disappear in 24. Everyone's like, oh, don't worry. …”

“Three of our best companies, Bobby, Pepper, and Pierre Ivo are all DTC, and they're all like real companies.”

“But provided that there's no conflict, I would love to be a part of the round at the sort of 50 to a hundred K range.”

“Most of the companies we've sold, with a few exceptions, the buyer was not anticipated or known at the time of the investment.”

“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…”

“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.”

“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.”