🧵 1/ Full circle reflection of a Black man in finance 2014: I didn’t get my dream job at a certain private equity fund 2018: Several partners from that fund invested in @HarlemCapital 2020: One of our interns now works at that fund via our introduction

🧵 My wife and I spent 5+ hours today doing all things crypto for personal investments. Here’s our step by step process and what I learned from it

🧵Faith & Finance ⛪️ +💰 They have been separate for much of my life, but no longer. I was raised to not value money even though I always valued money from a young age. The money lesson was to give back 10%, but I was never told what to do with the other 90%

🧵 It is ok to want what you want. This is something that my wife and I just had a deep conversation on. We both grew up with parents that often shamed us on sharing our true desires for any “luxuries”. This is especially true for many immigrants and POC

🧵 Let’s talk personal finances I started trading stocks at 12 Bought my first RE property at 20 Invested in 6 startups and 2 small businesses by 25 Invested in 8 VC/PE funds by 30 So here’s what I’ve learned along the way in 4 lessons

🧵 Am I really good at my job? 1/ This is a question I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. In VC you don’t truly know the answer for close to a decade. You get hints every so often, but you are ultimately judged by how much money you can return to investors. So how do I know?

🧵How does Seed stage fund math work? Now that I invest in funds, I’ve seen dozens of emerging manager decks and the fund model is one of the biggest decisions and misses that I see. VC is as much math as gut/luck. Let’s get into it

🧵 How do VCs vote on what deals to invest in?? There are typically a few voting styles for Partners at funds 1) Unanimous 2) Majority 3) Single Partner Conviction 4) Blend of Conviction and Consensus (HCP) Let’s dig into how @HarlemCapital votes to provide an example

🧵What did you write in your @HarvardHBS Essay? I applied to HBS 6 yrs ago in 2016 and am now writing recs for others. The top question I get is what should I write about? I didn't have one for guidance either so here goes for others, my FULL story. Write YOUR story

🧵 What I learned from being in a room with celebrities, investors and founders These are my top takeaways from the @upfrontvc Summit, one of my favorite events each year. It brings some of the smartest people across industries into one room, creating a truly unique experience

🧵 How do Seed stage funds think about Series A follow ons?? Many of my founders don’t understand the process and many emerging managers I have spoken with don’t have good follow on models So let’s clear the air For the excel model, follow me & leave a comment if interested

🧵 My career was a series of moments of chance It looks like a very straight line up the finance chain ↗️ - Internship @GoldmanSachs - Investment Banking @BankofAmerica - Private Equity at ICV - MBA @harvardhbs - VC @HarlemCapital But in reality it was like this 📈

🧵 Can I build a company from scratch as an Outsider?? A question I often got starting @HarlemCapital was, “What do you know about VC coming from PE?” We now have a team of 7 that never worked at a VC fund managing $174M. Here’s how 👇🏽

🧵 My Church ( @Hillsong ) broke my heart, but I’m still a Christian This was one of the hardest threads to write b/c my faith is core to who I am It took a year to fully process it and goes to the point of believing in something or someone once trust is broken Here goes👇🏽

🧵Why Seed funds are going to start investing in more companies The average Seed fund invest in 20-30 companies, partially bc LPs. But that is going to increase to 40+ companies over the next decade, breaking the old portfolio construction model. Here’s why👇🏽

🧵 Let’s talk about startup metrics other than MRR In downturns like now, VCs move to quality. Startups have to show more than just growth. We had several companies raise As in Q1 and I’m already seeing a difference in Q2. Here are some references for founders on metrics 👇🏽

🧵 How do you create work life balance as a founder?? One of the hardest questions I’ve found on my journey I have found 3 key things 1) Integrate your life 2) Time Management 3) Prioritization - Saying No

🧵 Seed valuations have nothing to do with traction, here’s why The most important metric is how much is being raised in the round Founders should expect 15-25% dilution and the round size varies based on 3 things - The fund leading - Founder experience - Market/Industry

🧵 How Founders Can Be Recession Ready I presented this deck to our founders and wanted to share with other founders. The market is changing rapidly and it’s important that founders are adapting to be prepared. Full Presentation 👉🏽

🧵 How should Seed startups think about cash runway? I find many founders overestimate how far they can get on the cash they raise. This is more important in a downturn. Many VCs do this analysis so here’s a simple cash runway analysis for founders 👇🏽

🧵 What does portfolio diversification really mean? Many emerging managers stop at number of companies, but there is another layer to the fund model that is missing Going a layer deeper will help you derisk your portfolio. So let’s dive in 👇🏽

🧵 What do VCs share during their annual meetings? The annual meeting (AGM) for VCs is like the end of year board meeting for founders. @HarlemCapital had ours last week and we spent weeks preparing. It was a 75pg slide deck presented over 2hrs so here are some highlights 👇🏽

🧵What I learned interviewing 7 of our LPs I love fundraising bc it provides access to some of the minds in the world. There was no roadmap tho when I started fundraising so I interviewed several of our LPs to make the process more transparent. Here are the top lessons 👇🏽

🧵 How much should I raise for my first VC fund? Your target fund size has more implications than most realize The median first time VC fund was $28M so most are entering at the early stages @HarlemCapital ’s Fund 1 target was $25M and we raised $40M. Here’s how we chose that

A company that isn’t venture backable, is still financially backable We’ve created two flaws 1) Young companies are now all called ‘startups’, implying they are tech focused when most aren’t 2) We pushed all young companies towards VC, when most shouldn’t raise venture

🧵 How do I calculate Total Addressable Market (TAM)? A key question VCs must answer to determine the penetration needed to reach a certain level of revenue to return the fund Many do a top down approach, when a bottoms up approach is needed Analysis 👉🏽

🧵 In Venture, the dollars returned matter, not the MOIC (Multiple on Invested Capital) This took me a while to realize coming from private equity where MOIC is all we talked about It can also be confusing to founders as a 20x MOIC sounds great, but here’s why it often isn’t

🧵 What I learned from 6 months of executive coaching For years I had heard of the benefits, but I was resistant to the cost and time I finally went for it and here was my process and some learnings👇🏽

🧵 How a week in Israel opened my eyes Israel is spoken about frequently in the US, but we are taught so little so I did an educational trip with the @projinterchange I learned so much personally and professionally so I wanted to share some insights👇🏽

🧵 How VCs can increase their MOIC (Multiple on Invested Capital), the #1 success metric If you give me a $100 and I give you back $200 then that’s a 2.0x MOIC But I have expenses and fees, this leads to a spread in MOIC (investable vs net) Let’s go through 3 scenarios👇🏽