Everything Paige Craig said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Craig: Founder qualities are the only thing early-stage investors can truly evaluate
“But to me, the, Qualities of the founders are the most important, the most enduring part of any company, and the only thing you can truly understand as an early stage investor”
Craig: Venture capitalists range from geniuses to 'fucking idiots'
“VCs are just people, so you'll find VCs who are very intellectual, some VCs are very diplomatic, some VCs are very aggressive, some VCs are fucking idiots, some VCs are genius”
Craig: Unproven investors have no business launching syndicates or venture funds
“If you're going to start a syndicate, please do it once you have some real fucking experience, because there's a lot of people start syndicates who have no business doing so, but it's the same with people who start funds and have no business doing so. If you'r…”
Craig: All good seed-stage investors actively hunt for deals
“I know that the good ones who are early stage are hunters because, you know, if you're further up the ecosystem, if you're a, Series A, Series B, VC. Obviously, all the great founders have been funded by someone. So you're going to, you know, naturally a lot o…”
Craig: 3 to 8 hours of founder meetings is enough for diligence
“Three hours, six hours, eight hours of meeting with people. But that's plenty of time to understand if these are the people that we want to invest. It's spending a week with a new team is a lot of time.”
Craig: Government is deeply dysfunctional but ripe for startup disruption
“I think government is absolutely horrible and screwed up, and it's hard to imagine how a for-profit company can go disrupt it, but I'm very open to Founders who are disrupting government.”
Craig built and sold a private military business before angel investing
“I built up a private military, sold that business, and about eight years ago, decided to go start working with entrepreneurs”
Craig provided seed funding to AngelList around 2011
“I seed funded AngelList about five years ago.”
Craig: Top AngelList syndicate leads succeed by actively promoting their activity
“I think if you look at any of the other top syndicates out there, you'll find that the people who have top syndicates have gone out there unashamedly and told people, hey, I'm doing this, set my flag”
Craig: Syndicate leads will use AngelList for Series A and B rounds
“A hundred percent. I think it, you know, it's not necessarily that AngelList moves into it, it's that the syndicate leads and other players will use AngelList to do pre-seed, to do seed, to do A, to do B.”
Craig: Backing syndicates requires investing across a full portfolio
“But at the end of the day, if you're going to go back syndicates, it's a portfolio play. So go find a syndicate lead or two that you like and try to back as many deals as possible.”
Craig wrote the very first check into Wish.com
“I wrote Probably the first, the very first check into a company back then known as context logic, which is now wish.com. And they're a very large e-commerce play now, billions of dollars that came from an introduction from Brian Wong of keep.”
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