Surface area

I was recently asked what my current thinking is in finding great startups in a socially distanced environment by someone new to the venture industry.

It’s a topic that I’ve been doing some thinking about. In a nutshell, different entry points (angel, seed, venture, growth, re IPO etc) stages implies different strategies, which further implies different deal sourcing strategies.

In general, I think this is not unlike any marketing / GTM strategies, hence similar mental model applies:
– Pull: Increase surface area via presence and content.
– Push: Proactive outreach, either by forming new connections with interesting people or spending quality time in a subject matter.

Brand equity is built via doing the above consistently over time, with a differentiated point of view. Interestingly, doing the above consistently over time will help you form and refine your point of view as well.

As we move forward collectively to a post COVID world, I suspect a lot of the habits formed during this period will become muscle reflexes, and perhaps to a large degree we will collectively develop new social norms and etiquettes to forming new connections and deepening existing relationships. This is also why I think Clubhouse is such an interesting product which perfectly captures and reflects the zeitgeist of the moment. I’ve been spending increasingly more time on the platform (see surface area above) and am generally enjoying the conversations and learning from the dialogues.