Investor Productivity Tool Stack - Part 1
Data Silos, Fragmentation & Basic Automation
šĀ Hi, Iām Andre and welcome to my newsletter Data Driven VC which is all about becoming a better investor with Data & AI. Join 34,520 thought leaders from VCs like a16z, Accel, Index, Sequoia, and more to understand how startup investing becomes more data-driven, why it matters, and what it means for you.
ICYMI, check out our most read episodes:
Brought to you by Affinity - Exclusive Dealmaking Benchmarks
From market trends to performance benchmarks, Affinityās 2025 European venture capital benchmark report reveals key insights into the dealmaking activities of European venture capital firms.
With exclusive data on 640+ VC firms, view the report to see how your firm stacks up against the competition and what you can do to help your firm rise up the rankings.
Tool Stack Comparison Today vs 2 Years Ago
Todayās episode is the first of a two part series where I compare how my tool stack has evolved in the last two years. Teaser: It has materially changed ;)
Every summer and winter break, I sit down to review my tool stack and explore which new tools are available to make my job easier. While itās sometimes painful to leave the comfort zone of existing workflows and tools, itās fun to test new solutions and push the boundaries.
In todayās episode, Iāll dive into my tool stack from exactly 2 years ago. It allows a direct comparison to your existing stack and might already serve as inspiration for some of you.
In the next episode, Iāll then share a deep dive into my current stack - to highlight major replacements and additions, and whatās possible today that wasnāt possible two years ago.
Make sure to sign up below to not miss this next episode.
My Tool Stack in July 2023
Back then, I regularly used around 80-100 individual tools, depending on what we classify as a ātoolā. I used approximately half of them (see visual above) on a daily basis and while this sounds still a lot, my biggest insight was that the greatest efficiency gains come from combining different ābest-of-breedā solutions via APIs and automation tools.
Hereby, the majority of these solutions became rather a passive component of my stack as they got automatically triggered via APIs and other automation tools without me noticing it in the day-to-day.
In the remainder of this article, I dissect the most common workflows into their individual stages and depict the tools that Iāve used to execute them. All of these flows have been connected via automation tools that I highlight at the end of the article.
Exemplary Workflows and Preferred Tools to Execute Them
