Insight
Grinda: Employer reference checks on startup founders are a negative signal
“We tried doing reference checks on founders and realized that they were a negative signal. Some of the very best founders were horrible employees. They would talk back to their bosses. They would work on their startup at their job. They had the worst reference…”
Disclosure
Grinda: Auto-signed angel legal documents to exit without reading them
“And in fact, I wouldn't even read any of the legal docs they ever sent me. I auto signed or docu signed every single doc they sent me from the investment docs all the way to the exit without even reading them.”
Assertion Supported
Grinda: AngelList study proves high-volume qualified investing increases fund IRR
“AngelList did a study of all of their different mini funds on AngelList to see which ones were the most successful. And their ultimate conclusion was The more qualified deals, and of course we need to define what qualified means, you invest in, the higher your…”
Disclosure
Grinda: FJ Labs is too diversified to ever be a 10x fund
“We will never be a 10 X fund just because we're too diversified for that. Any one fund will never be top to sell.”
Disclosure
Grinda: FJ Labs blindly backs previous successful founders in their next ventures
“And number three, founders we backed in the past that have done well for us, we will back them blindly in whatever they do next.”
Opinion
Grinda: Concentrating on one Uber early beats high-volume venture models
“If you find Uber or Airbnb early, if that's all you do for the vast decade, you're probably going to do better than with my approach.”
Disclosure
Grinda: FJ Labs restricts VC introductions to 5th-35th percentile portfolio companies
“Now, we don't do that for all of them. We do it typically for the fifth to 35th percentile companies in the portfolio. The top five percent usually don't need us, and the bottom 50th percentile will tell them where they send, will tell them what we think they …”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jan 2032
Grinda: Psychedelics will follow cannabis path to legalization in 2020s
“We went from something that was criminalized to then being medicalized, to then decriminalized, to then legalized, and that led to the creation of countless of companies in the category. I think the same thing is going to happen with psilocybin, with ketamine,…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Grinda: Crypto and Web3 will become mainstream after bubble bursts
“So we're seeing an entire reinvention of finance, and frankly, of the web, in a decentralized way. And that's going to go from fringe to mainstream, despite the fact that there are bubbles in that market right now. The bubble will burst, but the same thing tha…”
Insight
Grinda: Startups should ask forgiveness not permission, except in healthcare and fintech
“So lessons learned I suspect is in intrapreneurship, you want to ask for forgiveness and not permission, except in two exceptions. One is healthcare and where you definitely don't want to be lying on like the effectiveness of your underlying drugs and processe…”
What-if
Grinda: Uber and Airbnb would probably never have existed playing by rules
“I mean, think of Uber or Airbnb, right? If they tried to play by the rules, they probably, they would have never existed.”
Opinion
Grinda: Craigslist lucked into success and never cared to improve its product
“They in a way kind of lucked into that business and the network effects were so powerful that it kept going. But they didn't really care to improve it.”
Disclosure
Grinda: Made marketplace angel investment decisions in one hour
“And I created a set of euristics, essentially four decision criteria That I use to value companies in one hour. In one hour, I would decide, do I invest yes or no?”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Grinda: Most VCs Do Not Focus on Unit Economics Pre-Launch
“Most VCs actually don't focus on the unit economics, especially pre-launch.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Grinda: Top two super unicorns each decade create 40% of VC value
“So the top two deals of each decade, which are the super unicorns, create 40% of the value. The next 20 deals, which are like decacorns, create another 20% of the value. The next hundred deals that are the unicorns create another 20% of the value, and the rest…”
Insight
Grinda: Marketplaces with product-market fit are the most undervalued companies
“And there's nothing as undervalued as a marketplace that has found part of market fit.”
Insight
Grinda: Marketplaces reach liquidity at 15-20% sell-through or supplier revenue share
“What I've learned is on a product marketplace, once you have a 15 to 20% sell-through rate, ideally 25%, where you can start at 15, 20%, or in a labor marketplace, where you can start representing 15, 20% of the revenues of the supply, you've basically reached…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Grinda: Early-stage venture median valuations have not increased much
“Now, what's interesting is in the earlier stages, the mean has gone up, but the median has not gone up all that much.”
Assertion Partly supported
Grinda: Uniswap handles $7B daily trading volume with only 30 employees
“Think of Uniswap. It's built by 30 people, and they do up to seven billion a day in trading volume, taking 60 bifs.”
Opinion
Grinda: LPs are too rigid and fail to back unconventional high-performing funds
“Now, the investment side, I definitely have a pet peeve, which is you would think that with a track record that we have, it'd be actually reasonably easy to raise capital. You would think investors or LPs would be more for it thinking and more creative in term…”
Insight
Grinda: Marketplaces solve matching problems rather than capital-intensive supply chains
“The problem is if you want to build Amazon, you need billions of dollars of capital. You need supply chain management skills. If you want to build E-Trade, you need a banking license. When you build a marketplace like eBay, you have a unique set of problems of…”
Assertion Supported
Grinda: LendingClub won peer-to-peer lending because Prosper violated SEC rules
“Prosper launched, for instance, before Lending Club, but they violated the SEC rules. They were shut down, which is why Lending Club ended up winning in the category, even though they ultimately had other issues.”
Insight
Grinda: Strong Oratory Skills Enable Founders to Raise at Higher Valuations
“When you have amazing oratory skills, you're going to raise money at a higher valuation. You're going to attract better people. You can get better BD deals. You're gonna get more PR.”
Insight
Grinda: Marketplace mechanics operate identically across completely different industries
“I mean, it's pretty insane how similar the marketplaces play out, whether you're in petrochemicals or oil sources workers or an Uber type marketplace.”
Fabrice Grinda