Build a Product-Driven VC from the Ground up
Takeaways from TechnoVC
👋 Hi, I’m Andre and welcome to my weekly newsletter, Data-driven VC. Every Tuesday, I publish “Insights” to digest the most relevant startup research & reports, and every Thursday, I publish “Essays” that cover hands-on insights about data-driven innovation & AI in VC. Follow along to understand how startup investing becomes more data-driven, why it matters, and what it means for you.
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It’s SuperReturn week and I’m excited to have met so many like-minded DDVC nerds in Berlin in the last couple of days. Coming straight from the last side event of the day (thanks Ian Osborne, Flo Rida 🤘), I’d like to zoom out and share my learnings from the TechnoVC side event hosted by our friends from Silicon Roundabout Ventures in the Redstone offices earlier today… well, it’s 4:15 right now, so technically yesterday..
I joined a conversation with Anastasia (Redstone), Mike (Moonfire), Dave (Molten), and James (Dara5), moderated by Francesco (Silicon Roundabout Ventures), where we shared learnings from our DDVC journeys and how we would start all over again, details about initiatives across the value chain, and the potential of fully automating startup investing.
For those of you who missed the event, I’m happy to share the most important takeaways together with the video recording (thank you to Dirk from Borg Collective for filming and sharing it with us) below. We’ll make all session recordings available via our new community platform The Lab, where you can also access exclusive recordings of the DDVC Summit and a lot of other resources.
Let’s dive into today’s session.
The panelists: 3 VC/GPs + 2 LPs (1x FoF and 1x FO)
The audience: 70% VCs, 20% LPs, 10% Builders & Operators - at least by show of hands in my memory..
Where Do You Start?
Anastasia: Identify the problem you want to solve.
I added: Think before you build. What do you try to solve for? Efficiency? Do you miss opportunities? Wrong assement? Win rate? Depending on your focus and shortcomings across the value chain, you should find someone who has nailed this specific part. Find peers, build bridges and learn from them before you start building in the dark.
Dave: Everyone is doing the bare minimum, but if you don’t go the extra mile, you will be left behind.
Mike: If you can buy it, per definition it will be commoditized. And always reconsider your perspective, it’s a moving target. And then, if you want to build, and if you want to hire for this role and plan to get a junior to do half investment and half tech: it’s a bad decision. Rather look for more senior people who have experience to manage large parts of the stack.
James: Let’s not forget we’re working with early-stage founders. In the end of the day, the really early-stage deals get done by humans.