I’ve been busy with a founder who is running an astonishingly competitive seed round. Let’s just say I’m glad I wrote the first check.
I back founders long before it’s possible to have any certainty. I have accumulated enough signal and taste over twenty years to feel like I know when someone has what it takes to try their hand at a startup. It doesn’t mean it will work but I always believe in their capacity to do the work required.
Proving that out is probably the work of millions of pages of business school papers. No wonder we are complaining about the lack of builders. Wouldn’t it be better if we just put those resources into starting actual businesses instead of theorizing?
I’m a huge fan of always being a bit entrepreneurial. The much maligned “side hustle” that millenials and zoomers maintain out of necessity has its upside.
I like all scales and all kinds of business. Alex and started dating thanks to a swap on an Airbnb rent arbitrage. I’d let someone book dates for my apartment when I was supposed to be out of town. Trip dates change. Alex offered his apartment up if we split the profit. We’ve been in business ever since.
I’m working through a new local business plan we think will have community benefit (both in terms of job creation and service offering). Am I certain it will work?
Actually more certain than you’d expect this small scale that we can boot something up. Startups are much harder to judge than an existing business model with a new offering.
Incidentally if you are in Montana and looking for a medical grade hyperbaric chamber oxygen treatment we should have ours in a month or so.