Hi all,
I feel like this newsletter has been fairly robotic over the last few months, so I wanted to check in.
I like the fundraising posts i’ve been putting out—I think they’re helpful to a lot of my audience—but they feel like a shallow version of the message I’m trying to get out, and are only relevant for a fraction of you. The fully realized message I want to share is rooted in the same spirit as Seedscout: four years of expression, passion, and value creation. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss that style of expression. Especially the early days. Before I knew this many people, before I had the roots I have now, I was just a nobody tweeting truths into the ether on Twitter—and those tweets started getting picked up by people I respected the hell out of. I was ruthless. Relentless. No fear. Just truth-seeking. And that energy lasted four years.
That had its place, but being so far on the “missionary” end of the spectrum led to the eventual death of Seedscout. I’ve since learned that to transition from outsider to insider, you have to be both missionary and mercenary.
I’ve been working at Product Hunt for almost 10 months now, leading ad sales. It’s fun. I enjoy it. I get to meet interesting companies, feel like I’m on the bleeding edge of the future, and bring in a stable paycheck for my family. That last part is the most important—my wife and I brought a child into the world 18 months ago. The thrill of truth-seeking matters a bit less when a little baby is relying on you for diapers and food. It’s tough, I won’t lie. I still want to take risks, but I had a decade to do that. And I did. And I think it served me well during that season of my life.
What I’m Doing Now
Day Job – I lead ad sales at Product Hunt. This takes up most of my energy, as it’s my full-time job. I shared more about that above.
AZTF – I started an Arizona-focused brand to house all my AZ pride and work. I know most of my audience doesn’t care much about Arizona, and I don’t blame them. This lets me keep my personal brand undiluted while still going deep locally with the people who care (which is a ton of people in AZ). I have a group chat of 140 builders, we do events every 2–3 weeks, and I even started a local newspaper called AZTF News. It’s been pretty fun and fulfilling.
Advising – I’m actively working with about five companies as an equity advisor. Two I’ve been with for over a year or two, and they’re both about to close their first seed rounds (I helped with the pre-seed). Two others are just starting their pre-seed journey. One is much further along and could be a massive success story for them, me, and Arizona. Fingers crossed.
Writing a book / educating people on fundraising – You know about this already, since this newsletter has been the primary distribution channel for it. I’m not sure I love that setup. It probably feels boring and dis-engaging to many of you, but the topic is crucial for a small segment of people trying to figure out VC. I’ve been thinking about creating a separate brand for all my fundraising education and resources—something with the same energy as Seedscout—so I can separate that content from my main message to everyone. I’ve been playing with a brand and I think it’s really bold/strong. We’ll see where it leads. I do love a good brand.
What Am I Orienting Myself To?
I think in a perfect world, I’d want to figure out how to turn advising and capital raising education into my main thing. Seedscout was an exploration of this, and I failed—miserably. I’m not in a rush to fail again, so I’m taking my time, running experiments on nights and weekends, figuring out what feels good, what resonates with founders, and what resonates with me. At the end of the day, it needs to be sustainable, and I haven’t found a model that is quite yet.
I do believe there’s a CAA-style model for founders waiting to be built. A group of people that advise founders, earn equity in their companies, but don’t invest. I know it sounds niche and maybe doesn’t make a ton of sense right now, but I’ve seen how this works. I’ve been doing this for five years. There’s something powerful about that model when done right. Some kind of magic when incentives are aligned and I’m sitting on the same side of the table as the founder.
It is hard to hold my innate builder energy back to support and provide for my family, but it’s the most obvious choice I’ve ever made. There will be a day I can get back out into the arena and pick things back up full time. Until then, I will sell a ton of ad space on the Product Hunt leaderboard, and tinker on the side.
I will try to have this newsletter be a bit more fun moving forward. I don’t like the fundraising-only tips. I will be better. Thanks for reading. See you next time.