Charles Hudson
@chudson
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Managing Partner @precursorvc . Fan of @chelseafc @lafc @lions and all things Michigan.
San Francisco, CA
Joined February 2007
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Last Seen Profiles
Pinned Tweet
“Supporting Founders as They Grow and Build Capacity for Leadership at Precursor Ventures” by
@PrecursorVC
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First time meeting
@Kaepernick7
in person. He came by the
@PrecursorVC
office to chat about all things tech and startups.
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I remember how many of my Asian-American friends spoke out in support of Black Lives Matter and it meant a lot to me. I am appalled by all of the violence targeted at the Asian-American community and we need to do everything we can to stop this from happening in America.
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This has been a really hard week for our team and community. It has been hard to find the words to express how we feel while this is all so raw.
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Some days it feels like a big part of adult life is realizing that vegetables you didn’t like eating boiled growing up are quite tasty when roasted
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Today I realized that being a working parent who travels a lot hurts more when your kid starts to be able to express his displeasure with your schedule in almost full sentences when you leave - that's a new one for me.
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I've sat on this tweet all day. Fixing racism and sexism in venture can't fall only on the shoulders of women / POC in the biz. It's unfair.
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I’ve spent half of my career in venture and this is the first time I’ve ever felt acutely aware that many of the prominent VCs I’ve looked up to are moving on to their post-investing careers. We are the front end of a big generational change.
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It's also okay to build and learn in private, you don't have to put your full self on the TL all the time.
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There is a lot of current energy for backing black GPs. But I feel deeply uncomfortable with the reality that most of us who will get funded are male Black VCs who have track records and previous work experience that makes us easier to fund than our Black female counterparts
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I am very pleased to announce that we have promoted
@sydneypaige10
to Principal here
@PrecursorVC
- she has made many significant contributions to our firm and we are very excited to share the good news with you!
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This might be a weird thing to say, but some times I meet companies that are so obsessed w CAC to LTV metrics that the companies and products feel like they have no soul or North Star. It’s all math and they they only think of inputs and outputs.
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Pre-seed investing is really satifying when you see underestimated / misunderstood founders succeed. Makes me feel good about the work we do
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It's really ridiculous how much BS women and POC have to put up with just to have a job or start a company in tech. We should all be ashamed
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Every year I try to do 1-2 new things that I think will be hard or scary. This year I'm part of the teaching team for a class at the Stanford GSB for the first time - nothing like a new challenge to get you focused on learning new things and activating that beginner's mind.
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One thing I was taught as a young VC is that new investors want to say yes to new investments too often. So you get more selective and say yes less often over time. I think there's a second wave where you find your groove and want to say yes more often again based on experience.
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Well, I had a quarterly check-in with one of my VC mentors and he reminded me "hey you can and will feel good at your job and bad at your job, many times and often in the same day as you have conversations with the people you've backed. That's normal, get used to it."
#thatsall
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Most of the investments I regret NOT making are ones where I underestimated the founders and overestimated my understanding of the market. Trying to do that less, but it’s hard.
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We work with lots of founders that are on the cusp of legendary success and abject failure. This last quarter has probably been the most emotionally intense quarter of my 10+ yrs in venture. Unbelievable amplitude of highs and lows in our portfolio (often in the same co).
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I have a handful of LPs who are other VCs / angels who reach out unsolicited and remind me to keep doing what we are doing and stay the course, I don’t think they know how helpful / timely those messages are. Thanks!
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After 8ish years of pre-seed investing in 300+ companies, the biggest gap I see between VCs and founders is the relative weight placed on current traction by founders and the importance the next VC puts on market opportunity. Only gets bigger with each extra round raised.
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I wore a Patagucci vest that a portfolio company gave me and I was nervous about being called out for being cliche VC. In transit I bumped into a friend at SFO who asked me in a very serious voice “are you wearing that vest seriously or ironically?” - I had no words.
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I really enjoy following people who are new to VC investing - it’s always illuminating to me to see what things look like to people who have fresh eyes. I try to add everyone I see but I know I miss many people, reply yourself (don’t be shy) or tag someone I should follow.
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In 10(ish) years of venture, this is the busiest December I've ever had, including new investments and follow-ons. Not sure what that means, but it's definitely a thing. Surprised how many things I expect to close this coming week before year end.
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In my lifetime, MSFT, GOOG, FB all had windows where it felt like they would dominate all new markets they entered. Didn’t work out that way. Feels like we’ve gotten to that point in AMZN now too. All were strong competitors but didn’t win everything they tried.
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One random difference between SF and NYC. I was wearing Patagonia and someone legit asked me if I was into the outdoors.
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Today someone asked me about an important attribute you need to have as a pre-seed investor. I thought about it for awhile and I said patience. We have a handful of companies who have been working for 2-3 years and things are just now coming together for them.
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Tonight I helped a couple figure out how to add a stop to their Uber ride. They thanked me by telling me they can always count on a millennial like me to help them with technology. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I’m old!
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VC is a weird business. If you look at it as a 2D business (check size, stage) it looks broadly competitive. If you add a 3rd dimension (preferred founder archetype) it becomes hyper competitive among small groups of peers and not competitive at all outside of that group.
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Today somebody asked me how my son’s first day of preschool went and I legit said “well he only ran over one kid with his tricycle on the playground, so I consider that a win.” I have since been told that should not be considered a win.
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Thanks to
@KellyCNBC
and
@CNBCTheExchange
for giving me an opportunity to share my thoughts
"Black/Brown venture capitalists have felt that the industry has a terrible record on diversity for a long time, and a lot of times it felt like shouting into a well,"
@PrecursorVC
managing partner
@chudson
joins
@KellyCNBC
to chat about the state of VC and private markets.
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I really don't mind cold email outreach (I get a lot of it, I try to respond to all of it if it's good), but I never get why people think automating increasingly aggressive language in what's clearly programmatic messaging with 0 context will work.
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For most of my venture career, July and August were dead zones for fundraising - it was a known thing in the industry. Zoom + COVID broke that pattern for two years - in 22 it snapped back to status quo and I get why founders who only knew the last 2 years were caught off guard.
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I travel a lot for work and have concluded the following after 20+ years of Bay Area living:
In LA I am not underdressed, but also not fashionable
In NYC, I’m definitely underdressed and not fashionable most days
In Toronto, I stay warm, nobody notices what I’m wearing
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I drew this chart for one of my LPs today a who asked me how I think about early stage investing in data-light founders and companies. Thought I would share it.
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Thx
@jguynn
for the nice profile of the work we are doing
@PrecursorVC
: Small venture firm, big mission: Diversity
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I use Twitter a lot. I’m always surprised that Twitter doesn’t do more to highlight people who follow me and 1) have cool / relevant backgrounds and 2) I don’t follow. Have been manually adding ppl that way for the last few months and it’s way better than their recos
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I spend a good chunk of time talking to folks who want to or who are starting new funds. Consistently I find that people don’t fully get the unique challenges and benefits of doing solo GP until they’re in market. Thinking of writing something about it soon.
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This is really messed up. I’m a current investor in the company and am eager to know more about how this went down.
This morning I had a meeting with a VC fund not a partner but an associate. Which now I’m sure I never want to take again, but I digress. The meeting started off as any VC call would.
Me: company background, tech, traction, revenues ect.
Him: Fund size, deal size ect...
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The older I get, the more complicated I realize holidays like Fathers Day are for everyone I know. Sending out positive vibes and congrats to all of the dads I know for the work they do, supportive vibes to those dealing with loss or estrangement, and hope for the fathers to be.
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Sending out good vibes to all my friends who are working hard to close their first and second funds. It’s a grind, stay strong, hang in there and I’ve got you’re back.
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We moved our office from Union Square to Jackson Square in SF and I am really enjoying rediscovering North Beach and being closer to the Embarcadero!
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I'm trying something new and publishing a slightly redacted version of the quarterly letter that I share with the limited partners (investors) in
@PrecursorVC
Fund I:
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Third trip to NYC this month. At SFO and struck by how much corporate logowear we wear here in SF relative to other places I go.
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Very happy for all my friends who are past or present employees / investors / founders / advisors of companies going public right now. IPOs are very rare, you’ve earned a victory lap.
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One of the most bittersweet things about being a pre-seed investor? Watching companies flourish and grow after they’ve raised a seed round and are well-supported by their new investors.
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Two things I've seen correlate with success at pre-seed:
1. Modest burn (not too low, not too high). You can't save your way to PMF but you can run out of money before you get there.
2. Consistent MoM progress (qualitative > quantitative) on the big, must-solve issues.
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Thanks to all of our LPs and founders we have backed who spent the day with us at our Annual Meeting and reception. It's always a good time to reflect on what we've done and what the future holds for our startup VC firm!
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One of the more unexpected joys of my job is keeping in touch with people we didn't fund (sometimes their choice, sometimes mine) and hearing how their lives and careers develop. I meet lots of good ppl I like but where the investment doesn't happen.
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Thinking of doing a happy hour for solo GPs in SF - chance to connect the community and celebrate and commiserate. We would host it at our office in Jackson Sq some time in late Feb or early March. Like or tag yourself or someone you think should be there.
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Have been thinking a lot about the emotional side of investing lately and the impact it's having on how investors (GPs and LPs) relate to existing investments and new opportunities. Wrote up some thoughts here:
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Very timely post by
@fredwilson
- I don't envision a world where SAFEs / notes go away but we see this all the time - we call it pro forma "sticker shock" and it can be absolutely deflating for founders and early investors: Unsafe Notes
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We are looking to add an Analyst to our team - no prior venture or startup experience required. We are looking for an optimistic, intellectually curious person to join our team - more details below
🚨Opportunity Alert📢:
We're hiring an Analyst to join our team!🎉 We're a team of three, looking to add a fourth person to the investment team. The job application is live and will remain open until midnight pacific time on April 8, 2021. See details👇🏾.
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I’ve watched Friday literally 100+ times and it just dawned on me that Smokey and Ice Cube “only” owed Big Worm $200! I had somehow convinced myself that they owed him way more than that.
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I only have one prediction for 2023. We are going to see some wild looking cap tables in 2024 when 12-24 months worth of SAFEs eventually convert on the back of priced rounds done that year.
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Some days I wonder if working in SV in the early 2000s and watching companies prematurely raise large rounds, burn through them and crash has made me unduly skeptical of the big “war chest” strategy. What makes today’s companies so much more capable of managing large $$$$?
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We work on 60-75 financings at all times, year-round at Precursor. By far the hardest conversation I have with founders is that what gets funded is heavily influenced by investor preferences - I talk to so many founders who struggle with this reality. A few things to consider:
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I’ve always enjoyed cooking and now I probably cook 10-12 meals per week during SIP. Realizing that I dramatically overestimate how much celery and carrot I will consume per week and underestimate how many onions and garlic I consume in cooking per week.
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Thank you to the
@mercury
team for this profile, it was really fun to talk more about what we've been up to at
@PrecursorVC
Founder of
@precursorVC
@chudson
has nothing against people who went to Stanford. In fact, he did too — twice. He just wants to make sure that the venture capital industry doesn’t over-index on them. Meridian has the story of how he invests in “strangers with no data.”
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And I tweet this as someone who is talking to LPs about the need to fund and elevate female black GPs (publicly and privately) and I’m not looking for claps or kudos, just saying we need to fix this too.
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Been thinking about the increase in round sizes, best to think about round size AND expectations for where you'll get - choose wisely:
- <$1M pre-seed = proof of PMF
- $2-3M seed = PMF + early company building, some metrics
- $4M+ seed = PMF, core team, Series A ready co (hard!)
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As a dad, nobody completely prepared me for the transition from your son being a toddler to a full grown young boy that happens between 4 and 5 years of age. It really does go as fast as they say 🥲
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Prob the most common conversation I have with the founders I’ve backed is around being comfortable “being on an island / being in the woods” as an analogy for being at peace when you’re working on something that others don’t understand.
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Today an aspiring VC asked me how to stay sane as a solo GP. I told him I have 3 VC self-help / therapy networks of people going through the same stuff. He didn't believe me but it's true.
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I am really excited to be a part of the team at Screendoor - I wish a vehicle like this had been around when I started Precursor
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Big today tomorrow! We have our first ever annual general meeting for
@PrecursorVC
in the afternoon.
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Tonight was an all time great night. Got to go to game 5 with my dad, wife, and sister and the Warriors won! Also got to meet Too Short and E-40, best yay area night I've had since the pandemic.
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I am going to miss Tyson so much. He was truly a great person and had such a positive impact on everyone in his orbit.
With great sadness, we share that Tyson Clark, our friend and GV general partner, passed away yesterday due to sudden complications from a health issue. We are shattered by this loss, and will miss him profoundly.
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When people used to tell me “you’re really busy” I used to brush it off and say I’m not too busy. But I’ve come to believe that other people’s view on my accessibility / availability is probably more telling than my own view on how accessible I actually am.
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Congrats to
@rheddleston
and the entire
@docsend
team! Dropbox to acquire secure document sharing startup DocSend for $165M – TechCrunch
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Like most investing jobs, VC is about your absolute performance and performance relative to your peers. In a crazy market like today, it's easy to feel good about your absolute performance and insecure about relative performance at the same time. Common convo I'm having w friends
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This is a really weak statement from a brand that usually does better. I really hope they did better 1:1 with the two men who were arrested for waiting in a place where people, you know, wait around and hang out. We just keep hitting new lows every day.
We apologize to the two individuals and our customers for what took place at our Philadelphia store on Thursday.
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What's the most expensive lesson you've learned in life (however you define expensive)?
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My colleague
@sydneypaige10
recently wrapped up a really thorough analysis of which firms are writing checks to black and brown founders at the seed and Series A stage. Really proud of her for pulling this together and doing the work to bring it to fruition.
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I learned a ton about venture investing this year. I took some Ls for sure, also saw some companies grow. But I feel like I had one conversation with
@infoarbitrage
that really inspired me to make
@PrecursorVC
better in 2019, it really stuck with me. Thanks, Roger!
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Lately it feels like the half life of fundraising advice for entrepreneurs has never been shorter. The market is changing so fast that last years advice suddenly feels really dated 🤷🏽♂️
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Lately a bunch of people have asked me what we are looking for in terms of investment areas. My default answer has been “smart founders with unique insights in contestable markets” but I realize that’s a bit fuzzy. So here’s a few areas where we
@PrecursorVC
are interested:
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One thing I really enjoy about talking to my VC friends raising 506c funds with public solicitation is that they just move differently. They think about marketing, community and comms really differently than I do and I feel like I’m learning a lot by hearing about their journeys.
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We’re having a serious baby boom in the
@PrecursorVC
portfolio. It is so cool to see pics from 1st and 2nd (and beyond) time parents. Congrats to all of you who have welcomed new kids into your families, those expecting and those who are planning / working on starting families.
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I spent almost an hour on the phone with my mom talking about this today. Just when I thought I was running out of ridiculous situations that could surprise me, this happens. You know who else issues verbal commands when they break into your house? Robbers and home invaders.
BREAKING: Investigator: Dallas police officer said she gave "verbal commands" that neighbor ignored before she fatally shot him.
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Very excited to work with
@JoshuaOgundu
on his new company!
Heart to Heart raises $750K to bring sweet, sweet flirtation to your ear holes – TechCrunch
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When founders you’ve backed drop off handwritten memos, it’s a sign you’re running behind on email.
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Worth remembering that you can still be friends with and/or friendly with people who doubted you/said no at some point. It’s not all conflict and not all personal. Lately I’ve really enjoyed reconnecting with people who had legit, fair doubts about Precursor in our early days.
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As a new dad, fatherhood is one domain in which almost all the cliches are true.
#newdadtweets
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I don’t write as much as much as I used to, but this has been on my mind a lot lately
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Looking forward to talking about investing in diverse startups on
#SXSW
panel w
@ArlanWasHere
@kagisobond
@sutiandong
on Friday!
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We are trying something new and testing out a quarterly internship program
@PrecursorVC
. We are starting with MBA students, with a goal of expanding this to include a wider set of backgrounds as we learn what works for us. We will continue to keep our full-time roles open to all.
🚨Opportunity Alert📢:
We're looking for MBA students to join the team as interns! This is a paid P/T position that requires a commitment of 15-20 hours/week over a 12-week time period. No previous VC/startup experience is needed to apply. Learn more👇🏾!
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One of the nicest things someone told me today was that we don’t make our
@PrecursorVC
NYC companies feel like 2nd class citizens even though we are based on the West Coast.
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We have met a lot of the entrepreneurs who have gone through
@MandelaSH
program
@foundergym
and I am *so* impressed by the quality of founders she attracts to the program. Continually impressed by the community she is building.
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We def have some truly terrible men in venture and it’s going to take awhile before they all cycle out of the system. I’m glad to see so many people I admire working hard instead of giving up or being cynical about their power to influence.
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Been living in the Bay Area for 20+ years and even I sometimes forget how truly beautiful SF can be on a clear day. Rode my bike from the Presidio to Jackson Square and had postcard views of the GGB, Tunnel Tops, Alcatraz, Palace of Fine Arts, Fort Mason and Transamerica.
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Doing the 0 to 1 work of finding product market fit is hard, even when ppl are co-located. Doing it distributed/remote w prior experience together is even harder. Doing it distributed/remote w/o prior experience together appears to be far more difficult than many founders realize…
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One of the funniest things that’s happened to me this year is there is now a subset of our portfolio companies who refer to me as Chuck and that meme has taken on a life of its own and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
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