Unwrapping the Gift

What are the most common reasons for failure in this type of business that you've observed again and again?

The first is probably not having a team that has the skills. You so often run into people who can't code, but want to do a startup and then don't have a co-founder who can code. That's probably the number one

First is speed. Second is a two-step process of actually disagree, but commit.

And being on the other side helping founders try to tell their story, the number one thing that I get back is like if only I had more time. Actually, no, no, you don't need more time. You took too much time to begin with. If you're saying I have an idea that's so complex, you need to take time to understand it. That I think misunderstands human bei... See more

All of these consumer brands end up being about two things, customer acquisition cost and lifetime

We still use that as one of the primary things that we look for when we sit across the founder is if I weren't doing what I'm doing now, which I love doing this. If I was going to go look for a job, would this be one of the top 10 places that I would want to go work at? Can you convince me?

The systems-level thing is that we actually have to be very fast about getting back to people. Being able to schedule an all-partner in 48 hours or less is actually really important. Being able to make an investment decision with a group process without short circuiting due diligence within 48 to 72 hours, just speed is important because speed kill... See more

Going back to how a lot of investors operate, it's very ego-driven. It's very driven by one personality or a bunch of lone wolves who happen to run in a pack, and I don't think that's how capital deployment should work. I genuinely believe we need a hive mind, and that's what we've done at Initialized.

In a world where's there's infinite capital, the real scarcity is actually trust

Number two, I think, would be picking markets that don't exist