Allocator’s Notebook: Union Square Ventures Funds I-III, 2004-2015
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Allocator’s Notebook: Union Square Ventures Funds I-III, 2004-2015
- He says that Jake and Evan asked them questions around the path to monetization and potential distribution deals with mobile handset manufacturers, and liked the USV answer of no distribution deals, just scale product and let the world come to you. Fred and Brad showed up and shook the hands of like-minded founders, and it worked.
Allocator’s Notebook: Union Square Ventures Funds I-III, 2004-2015
It was a small team deliberately kept that way and scaled organically. Following the experience with Flatiron, Fred was very deliberate in scaling the team slowly and preferred integrating the new GPs with patience and from the immediate ecosystem of people they know and trust.
Allocator’s Notebook: Union Square Ventures Funds I-III, 2004-2015
Fred is open and reflective on his experience with Flatiron, between 1994-2000, having done well, but then scaling the firm from 4 to 25 people very fast, spending more time managing rather than investing, getting carried away in a crazy market, and eventually making bad investments at the wrong prices.