Elliot Shmukler

Big announcement below! 👇 Let's talk about the current state of GP-LP affairs: 🤯Emerging VC managers have absolutely exploded over the past 5 years. 📈 At the same time, more and more data has surfaced that shows that emerging VC firms tend to outperform larger, established firms. 🤔 All of this has made it intriguing but tough for LPs to know where to direct their attention. 🛍 GPs frequently meet LPs at conferences who are window shopping but not committed to the asset class or emerging managers. 🧾 And both crews get overwhelmed by transactional convos. So Sydney Paige Thomas and I created Abundance. Abundance is a private, nomination-based retreat for active LPs and top emerging GPs to form new experiences together and build lasting relationships. Why Abundance? Abundance is knowing that there is more than enough for more than one to succeed. And a single win within a community is a win for the community itself. The journey of an emerging VC manager from 1st close to final close or Fund 1 to Fund 2 is (1) communal and (2) requires an abundant mindset. LPs look for structure and confidence to feel comfortable investing in early VC firms. Yet many of the feeds we scroll and conferences we attend reinforce inherent power dynamics and transactional thinking, which allows scarcity mindset to creep in for emerging GPs. Some of the best events I’ve attended have been intentionally non-transactional, e.g. Camp Hustle, Recast Summit, and other GPs’ AGMs. The fundraising success stories we see usually involve a community (usually of other GPs & LPs) coming together to support and open doors for the emerging GP. We designed Abundance to be an immersive gathering that fosters these connections. Starting tonight, ~100 GPs and LPs are descending upon Seattle for the inaugural Abundance retreat. This has been under wraps for months and I can’t wait to see it come to life! Thanks in advance to our awesome sponsors who were the earliest believers in this vision: Sydecar, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Gunderson Dettmer, & Zelda Ventures. And shoutout to my dad Ed Illig for logo design & Halle Kaplan-Allen being the first sponsor to say yes 🤩 Presented by The Council Capital & Symphonic Capital.

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At Forum we look at thousands of deals each year across our Accelerator and Pre-Seed funds but only end up investing in a little over 1% of those startups.  As an early stage VC, I am in the business of saying no to nearly every startup I meet, and while there is nuanced rationale for many of the startups I pass on, a vast majority of businesses that don’t meet the qualification to get funded typically fall into one of two buckets. ▪ First time founders have a tendency to go out to market too early to raise pre-seed capital ▪   I’m sure most founders have heard some iteration of this from VCs that ultimately pass on their business.  In some cases it's a blanket excuse covering up for other pass reasons- perhaps a VC doesn’t believe in a team or isn’t bullish on the market opportunity - but in many cases founders simply haven't proven enough to the market to warrant an investment. I meet many teams with an articulate vision for the product that they want to build, but they either haven't performed enough customer discovery to prove demand for their initial wedge product, or need to raise pre-seed capital to build out an MVP.  In those cases, pre-seed investors are unwilling to underwrite those risks.  To be default fundable, teams need to be able to keep costs low, perform extensive customer discovery, and ship some version of an early product - pilots and early paid customers are key. A huge piece of this is having founding engineering talent on the team. ▪Not every startup is a venture opportunity ▪ By definition, a venture backed business is solving a problem within a market opportunity so massive and so desperately needed, that its growth rate is off the charts.   It spreads like a weed, absorbing almost unlimited amounts of capital to fulfill demand within its customer base.   Each year there are maybe 20 companies launched that ultimately have venture scale outcomes. The bar to reach this rarified air is unfathomably high and the reality is the vast majority of founders simply aren’t building for opportunities that have the potential to be one of these generational companies. Many startup founders view VC as the only viable option for capitalizing their business, but not every great business is a venture business, and most successful founders never take VC dollars.  In order to reach an IPO/acquisition large enough to generate venture returns, a startup needs a credible path to $100s of millions in revenue. This is the standard by which early stage opportunities are evaluated. The flip side to this, and I share this feedback often with founders I meet that are building interesting business in non venture markets, if you are able to scale to $10- $20M in revenue that can be a massively successful outcome for a founder.  There are investors who focus on these type outcomes, namely lower middle market PE shops, and the typical path to those deals is a bootstrapped business or a friends/family capital raise.

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Worth reading: The Cost of Anticompetitive Pricing Algorithms in Rental Housing What is interesting here is the shift toward coordination at scale, which Teddy Roosevelt (Republican) referenced in his new nationalism speech in Osawatomie, Kansas - on August 31, 1910. The absence of effective state, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. . . . We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary. No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar’s worth of service rendered—not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective—a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate. Link: https://lnkd.in/gPrYK_ni --- "Pricing algorithms may help landlords and building managers set prices that are more responsive to market conditions, which could increase market efficiency in a competitive market. But the algorithms can also facilitate price coordination, which decreases market efficiency by harming competition. Small yet coordinated landlords can act as if they are a single dominant landlord, and use their collective market power to increase profits by setting higher prices." https://lnkd.in/gVzcZbzW

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Why we invested: Gratsi Wine 🍷💸 We led the seed round of Gratsi back in November of '22. At the time, they had zero distribution and their ecommerce revenue was modest. But we were blown away and ultimately decided to partner with the team for a few key reasons: 1. Metrics and efficiency: the underlying metrics of the business were unlike anything we've seen in the space. Gratsi's ability to acquire and retain customers (online and in retail) is unrivaled. 2. Potential for premium boxed wine: we remain convinced that premium boxed wine will continue to become one of the most important categories in the wine space. The volume, margin, and customer experience implications are massive. 3. Founder vision and execution: Stephen Vlahos has been executing relentlessly against his vision since day 1. As we met and got to know Stephen in the early days, it quickly became obvious to us that he would stop at nothing in his mission to build one of the most important wine companies in the world. It's been an amazing two years for Gratsi since we invested and I'm incredibly proud of what the team has accomplished. But I'm perhaps even more excited for the years to come. This team is truly just getting started. Exciting times ahead for Gratsi and the team! cc: Top Shelf Ventures Noah Slakter Jason Sherman

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Insightful breakdown from my great Partner Omri Amirav-Drory on the simple factors that really separate the top 1% of investors from the rest, and how more operators should become investors! https://lnkd.in/gEiZdT2h

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Want a front-row seat to the frontier of tech? We’ve got the role (or two) for you! We’re expanding our frontier-tech team at Blackbird by hiring a Frontier Tech Investments Associate and Foundry Fellows! Got questions? We've got answers... 1️⃣ What are the roles? 🧪 Associate = a full-time VC investment gig in our Blackbird Investments team, working directly with me. We’re looking for someone with a science and/or engineering background and more curiosity than they can handle. You’ll grow your own investment brand and practice, support our portfolio founders, and will help build Foundry, our early-stage frontier-tech accelerator. ✨ Foundry Fellow = a casual/contract gig in our Blackbird Investments team, ~15h per week for 3 months. The Fellowship is ideal for PhD students and ECRs who want to learn more about startups and VC. You’ll go deep on emerging areas relevant to your expertise (or curiosity!), get a front-row seat to groundbreaking companies in those areas, build out your non-academic network, and develop a solid writing practice. 2️⃣ Why are you hiring? We love frontier tech, and we’re ready to grow our team. 3️⃣ Wow, it’s so great that you’re starting to look at deep tech! Look, we get it: we don’t make a lot of noise about our frontier tech investing. Buuuut we’ve been deep-tech investors since we backed Tim Kentley-Klay to found Zoox back in 2014—we’ve been on incredible journeys with PsiQuantum (building the world's first utility-scale quantum computer right here in Australia!), Inventia Life Science (transforming drug discovery with high-fidelity cell models), Remedy Robotics (surgical robots for remote endovascular procedures), Opto Biosystems (minimally-invasive neural implants to treat cancer), and more. We believe that frontier technologies, and great frontier-tech investing, will be part of the solutions to the greatest problems humanity faces today. 4️⃣ When do applications close? May 31st at 11:59pm AEST. 5️⃣ I have more questions! I’m sure you do! Clare Birch and I are hosting an AMA to answer any and all questions about these roles. Want to know what a week in the life of our team looks like? What’s keeping us up at night? What our ideal candidate looks like? Come along and find out - registration link in the comments 👇 Apply for these roles: Associate - https://lnkd.in/gCfj4EUJ Foundry Fellowships - https://lnkd.in/gj6ATZVZ If you know anyone that we should meet, send me their details! Cameron Elise Ben Andrew Robin Joseph Adelaide James Olivia Lucinda Raghav Jesse Christie Mohamed Tom Amee Pablo Haya Loong Hon Joshua Benjamin Megan Harry Denzil Matthew Diana Daniel Tom Deanna Justin Amar Lilly Stone Thomas

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Having a Cars and Capital event tomorrow in Southern California with Oren Klaff. If you want to join message me. https://lnkd.in/gDQ4D39u Oren Klaff Bridger Pennington #InvestorEvent #FamilyOffice #InvestmentOpportunity #CarlsbadEvent #PrivateEquity #WealthManagement #InvestmentConference #CapitalRaising #NetworkingEvent #IndustryLeaders #FinancialGrowth #InvestorsMeetup #WealthBuilding #BusinessGrowth #InvestmentForum

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Here's my 2024 LinkedIn Rewind, by Coauthor.studio: GATHER THE F***ING DATA. That's the real lesson from 2024, and it's why we launched Founders First Fund, kept Demolicious roaring, and continued pushing Portland's startup ecosystem forward. This year wasn't about me. It was about proving that overlooked founders in the PNW have the chops to build incredible companies - they just need the right support, data, and a community that refuses to let them fail. At NSIN, we connected defense and commercial startups. Through Founders First Fund, we made our first investment in Airbuild Inc. And with Demolicious, we gave 90+ founders a stage to share their vision. Three posts that captured our journey: 1. Early-Stage Startup Reality Check "Don't write any code! Don't build a website! Don't create a social channel! GATHER THE F***ING DATA!" https://lnkd.in/gQfMPaRi 2. Demolicious Champion of Champions "We had over 90 founders pitch throughout the year with the top founders pitching last night at the Mission Theater in front of a packed house." https://lnkd.in/gySaA--3 3. OEN Awards Reflection "We are really lucky to have an insane number of people who care deeply for the founder community here in the state." https://lnkd.in/g3ejZrPt Key moments: • Launched Founders First Fund - $5M focused on PNW startups • Ran 12 Demolicious events with 90+ founder pitches • Continued NSIN work connecting startups to defense opportunities • Celebrated UpStart Collective's 2-year anniversary 2025 is simple: Keep fueling the engines of founders who most people overlook. Because talent isn't distributed evenly, but opportunity shouldn't be a privilege. To every founder grinding away in their garage, basement, or coffee shop - we see you. Keep building. #LinkedInRewind #Coauthor #2024wrapped -- Get your 2024 LinkedIn Rewind! Go to coauthor.studio

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Team San Diego! I though you may find this as surprising as I did...we are not alone. Read this quick article from Jon Prentice's (Silicon Valley Bank) interview with with James Newell (Voyager Capital), published in GeekWire on Seattle's innovation ecosystem....they lament the SAME issues as we do in San Diego: * Lack of angel investors, (Especially, it calls out, given the local giant tech co's) * "We need low-conviction check writers." * Lack of "cachet associated with being an angel investor" - We have similar efforts (as described in the article) to drum up angel activity: NuFund Venture Group and, Interlock Capital (read the article and you'll see why the Interlock effort is tops as relates to "paying back into the ecosystem") Connect.org strives to 'connect' innovative companies with investors of all types (angel, VC, PE...) - just see "Innovation Day". Their Springboard program provides another great way for experienced entrepreneurs to give back through mentorship...as for the companies going through Springboard: "Ask for advice, and you often get $$" Your thoughts on the article or San Diego innovation ecosystem? https://lnkd.in/gfwq6mfq

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🎙️ Exciting insights from SaaS Academy's CEO Johnny Page on the Expertise Economy podcast! Johnny breaks down their two-step approach to helping SaaS founders: 1️⃣ The Discovery Call: Uncovering the founder's "why" and long-term vision 2️⃣ The Strategic Game Plan Session: Creating a 90-day action plan to achieve 12-month goals 🔑 Key focus: Identifying and solving business constraints Want to dive deeper on the secrets of building a successful SaaS business? Check out the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/dju-Be2u #SaaS #BusinessStrategy #SaasAcademy #ExpertiseEconomy #Podcast

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Non-Engineering Roles at Early-Stage Startups Offering $120K+ Base Salary with Meaningful Bonus and Equity: Chief of Staff @ Milo (Consumer), Remote Biz Ops Lead @ Fractal Agriculture (FinTech), Remote; Backed by Virta Ventures Chief of Staff @ CakeAI (AI SaaS), NY; Backed by Primary Venture Partners Demand Generation Specialist @ Rootly (Consumer), Remote; Backed by YC, 8VC, Gradient Ventures Account Executive @ CommandBar (Enterprise SaaS), Remote; Backed by Soma Capital, YC, Insight Partners Product Marketing @ Slope (Enterprise), Remote; Backed by YC, Union Square Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures Supply Planning Manager @ PROVEN Skincare (Consumer), Remote; Backed by YC, FJ Labs, Soma Capital, Social Capital Account Executive @ Accrue Savings (Consumer), NY; Backed by Ground Up Ventures, Tiger Global Chief of Staff @ UNIGRID Battery (Climate), CA; Backed by Union Square Ventures, LiquidMetal Ventures Job details and the full list (40+ opportunities) are in the comments below. If you're interested in non-tech jobs focused on specific industries like HardTech, HealthTech, Climate, etc., then DM me or let me know in the comments.

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Check out my recent post on why President Trump is the forcing function for us to solve the “Missing Middle” and catch the industrial Tsunami of onshoring coming to the US!

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🔥 Thrilled to see Hydrolix crushing it with a $35M Series B! 🔥 Data is the new oil, but too much gets discarded due to prohibitive storage costs. Hydrolix cracks this with its streaming #datalake platform that leverages object storage, decoupled compute, indexing, & compression. As Marty Kagan puts it: 'We’re cheaper than cold storage and faster than hot storage' Hydrolix’s streaming data lake platform is a game-changer for #AI, #observability, & #security workloads. 💥 Real-time query performance at terabyte scale 💰75%+ savings on log mgmt & 4x more data retained  ☁️ Stateless & containerized for seamless scaling with Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3, Google Cloud GCS, Microsoft Azure Blob 💡 Had the early conviction (first investor) that data is key to unlocking AI & enterprise workloads. It's proving right. Huge thanks to Marty Kagan Hasan Alayli for letting me early on their journey to build an impessive company 🙏 Super pumped to have awesome Aaron Perman at S3 Ventures leading this round along with other strong existing investors - Nava Ventures (Manish Patel) Wing Venture Capital (Peter Wagner) Oregon Venture Fund (Matt Compton Scott Grout) and others 💪 Onwards! 🚀🚀🚀 #cloud #data #ai #ml #llm #largelanguagemodels #analytics #security #loganalytics #datalake #datawarehouse https://lnkd.in/g5i6afP5

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Despite the headwinds many software companies (even public ones) are facing today, there are still those that are delivering great results. Check out how the top decile companies in our Beyond Benchmarks survey are performing. And don't forget to review the full report for many more insights on the state of private software businesses.

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Today, GTMfund’s is excited to announce to launch of Operator, its first incubated company. Max Altschuler (founder of GTMfund) teamed up with co-founder Adam M. (design engineer and 0-1 builder) and co-founder Mark Kosoglow (Outreach employee #1 and former SVP of Global Sales) to create Operator.ai alongside an insanely talented team Pleasant Middelhof, Jeremy Jonas, Carl Gunderson. We've entered a period called “The Great Ignore”. Spam and irrelevant, poorly-automated outbound campaigns are running rampant.   Operator gives you an easy-to-use Growth Engineer that allows you to build and enrich lists with accurate data, and run experiments and queries using AI to generate highly targeted outreach.    Check out their website to get updates, early access, and see how they are taking the world back to 2 touches meant to attract buyers into conversations that convert, instead of 20 touches meant to make sure you hit your activity number: https://www.operator.ai/

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Congrats to Christopher Robson, Kurtis Broda and Kristen Cote at Wyvern on bringing on fantastic new investors Guy Filippelli, Dan Madden and Isaac Carp, CFA at Squadra Ventures. I'm a broken record at this point, but we're in the early innings of the Earth Observation market, and as we're seeing with Wyvern there is more demand for hyperspectral data than supply. As we will see in the coming years, there will be all kinds of problems that can be addressed by understanding our world beyond what our eyes can see. https://lnkd.in/gEzTjYks

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For a young software company, what does a dream end-market look like? A few great signals off the top of my head: ▶️ Low NPS of incumbent solutions ▶️ Lots of manual / lightly-digitized processes ▶️ Many buyers (i.e. top 3 don't control the market) ▶️ High ability to pay (decent margins and trendlines) What else should be on the short list???

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