Launching Arena
The New Front Door To Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley can be a fairly meritocratic place, but only once you’re in. Once you get early stage capital, you get a shot at building your startup. Its success (or failure) speaks for itself, and that storytelling attracts your next hires, investors, and customers. It gives you the right to be in the room, and build your own relationships within the ecosystem.
But breaking in to get that initial capital can be extraordinarily hard. Cold outreach, decks that don’t hit the particular tone of that year, and implicit power dynamics sit at every turn.
Right now, the clearest paths in are through a tier-one accelerator (very limited spots, very biased toward certain personas), part of a tier-one alumni network, or have a family member or close friend who is already an insider. If those buckets don’t apply to you, it’s very hard to get in, even if you have great traction.
I don’t blame Silicon Valley for this behavior, but it’s a real problem. One that blocks excellent founders and companies before they’ve even gotten started. And one I’d like to solve. That’s why I’m building the new front door to Silicon Valley: Arena.
What Is Arena?
Arena is a simple concept: we run a leaderboard that ranks founders on fundability. Anyone can join Arena, get on the leaderboard, and compete to move up in the rankings. Every week we update scores, and at the end of each month, the top 1% in the leaderboard earn the chance to work with me directly on investor introductions through an advisory relationship.
The Day-to-Day Value
Arena isn’t just about the leaderboard; the experience itself is valuable:
Weekly AMAs with tech titans such as Cyan Banister (Long Journey Ventures), Delian Asparouhov from Founders Fund, and Eric Ries (author of The Lean Startup). The pic above is from our AMA with Niko Bonastos, GP at General Catalyst
2–3 workshops per week on core parts of raising capital, including:
Office hours with me to block and tackle your fundraise
How to use Twitter/X for fundraising
Pitch practice in various formats
Evaluating your signal and how to increase it
Weekly updates. Every Friday, founders can share their progress. This builds context on their journey and provides accountability.
How the Leaderboard Works
Each Monday, we evaluate every participant and assign three scores:
Effort Score – How hard are you working to learn fundraising and tech culture?
Progress Score – How much progress have you made in the last few weeks compared to peers?
Signal Score – How strong is your background to investors, without any other data?
We combine these to rank every founder on the leaderboard. Participants are listed publicly under code names, and the leaderboard is live (view it here). Everyone can see where they stand.
The Top 5% Work With Me One On One
For founders who rise to the very top by month’s end, I step in directly. They have the option to enter into an advisory relationship with me where I:
Work with you one-on-one
Fine-tune your fundraising strategy
Make investor introductions
This is an example of one founder’s outcome from working with me in about two months. Lots of passes, but lots of intros and a handful of checks as well. If you win Arena, you will get something that looks like this too.
In a perfect world, this allows top founders to skip the accelerator phase entirely by winning Arena and working directly with me. The economics are better for founders and for the investors who will eventually back them.
My Network
To give you an idea of reach: I have warm contacts at each of these firms. Many have funded companies in my portfolio, most have taken intros from me, and all actively engage with the deals I send:
1517 Fund, 2048 Ventures, A Woman Ventures, Active Capital, Adapt Ventures, Adventure Fund, Aglaé Ventures, Afore VC, Alt Capital, Alpine Ventures, Animo VC, Anthropocene Ventures, array VC, ascend.vc, AVC, Avalanche VC, AZ-VC, Banana Capital, Barrell Ventures, BBQ Capital, Bedford Bridge, Bedrock, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Blue Collective, Bloomberg Beta, Boost VC, Brickyard, Browder Capital, Chapter One Ventures, Coalition Operators, Coelius Capital, Compound VC, Costanoa, CRV, Crucible Capital, Day One Ventures, Draper, Earthling, Emerging Ventures, Everywhere Ventures, Exit Capital, Felicis Ventures, First Round, Flex Capital, Footwork VC, Formation Capital, Forum Ventures, Founders Fund, Freestyle Capital, Fc Centripetal, General Catalyst, Geek Ventures, Goat Capital, Great North Ventures, GreenpointVC, Greylock, Ground Up Ventures, GV, Hannah Grey, Haystack Fund, HF0, Hidden, Homebrew, Hustle Fund, Incisive Ventures, Initialized, Interlace Ventures, Irrvrnt, Javelin Ventures, Jetstream, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, LAUNCH Fund, Lightspeed, Long Journey Ventures, Looking Glass Capital, Ludlow Ventures, Mantis VC, Marque Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, Matrix, Maven Ventures, Menlo Ventures, MonsoonVC, NFX, New York Venture Partners, Nike Valliant Labs, Outlander Labs, Pareto Holdings, Paradox VC, Pasadena Angels, PerceptiveVC, PHX Ventures, Pomp Capital, Precursor Ventures, Primary Venture Partners, Range Ventures, Ride Wave Ventures, Rolling Fun, Root VC, SF1, Shor Capital, Shrug Capital, SidecutVC, Signalfire, Social Leverage, South Park Commons, Stage 2 Capital, Stone Mountain Ventures, Summit Ventures, SuperAngel, Susa Ventures, The Healthcare Syndicate, Tucker Seed Fund, UpfrontVC, Urban Innovation Fund, USV, Vibe Capital, Visualize Venture Group, Weekend Fund, Wischoff Ventures, Yonder Ventures
You can get your deal in front of these firms, but through Arena, there’s a clear path. Rain or shine, we’ll be here for the best founders who come through our front door. There are other front doors, but ours is always open for you to play your hand.
The Terms / Deal
Arena costs $20/month to participate in. This covers our operations and ensures we can stay independent from LP interests, which may not always align with our own. We probably should charge more, but our goal was to keep the price as low as possible so it stays accessible. We’re not trying to get rich off the $20 subscription — we want to build wealth through the equity stakes we earn by helping founders succeed in fundraising.
If you win Arena, we’ll offer you an advisory agreement for 0.25%–1% of your company, with a six-month cliff and two-year vesting. The exact equity amount depends on several factors, but whatever we propose is our final offer to you. You’re always free to decline and continue participating in Arena as usual.
To be explicit: you can join Arena for $20/month and get all the benefits — programming, workshops, AMAs, and accountability — without giving up any equity. Equity only comes into play if you want investor introductions. That’s when we step in more directly, and that’s where our advisory stake applies.
There Is Nothing Left In Your Way
There is no application. No interview to prep for. No waiting period. Come as you are, compete, and earn your way into the center of Silicon Valley. Are you ready to bet on yourself? See you in there. And good luck.