Thread by @bksun

Wonderful but weird to be on #ForbesMidas. Having been a founder, I got into investing to stay involved in early-stage building. It's a lot easier on this side!

40 companies, 12 years, 8 unicorns, and 1 decacorn later, I have some lessons and predictions:

Seed deal flow is all about people. Most of my best investments—Coupang, Jet, Chief—came from years-long relationships with founders. Your pipeline is all the incredibly talented people you know and the supportive relationships you foster before they decide to start the business.

Concentrated portfolios, high conviction. I’ve averaged 3 deals/year over my career, including incubations. This forced me to think hard about every founder and only work with the ones I truly believe in. It also gave me time to seriously dive deep with them & offer hands-on help

Reputation is your best form of marketing, and you build a reputation by being more helpful to founders. Their referrals are your best sources of deal flow and ways to meet those special future founders.

Being helpful is about doing the work. Strategy, helping with fundraising, recruiting talent, etc. You really need to dig in and do it well. I always said to myself “Be the investor that I wished I had when I was a founder.” It forces me to keep the bar high.

Doing the work gives you better information. Knowing the business from the inside is the route to outsized returns. More than 80% of my dollars invested were follow-ons. Those dollars drove most of my returns.

Bigger firms wrote a lot of checks in the past few years, but when the public and growth-stage markets take a turn, as they inevitably do, our low-volume high-conviction model is definitely the better boat to be in, for investors and founders alike.

You are only as good as your team. The Midas List recognition sounds individual, but couldn’t be farther from the truth for me. My incredible Cofounder and Partner @bradsvrluga and the amazing team @primaryvc have been the linchpins to my success.

Watch out for the next generation of investors @primaryvc: @JasonrShuman, @dukecass, @BSchech, @Samdtoole, @leopoldcitron, and @paigemoelis are taking these practices above to a whole new level. Looking forward to celebrating their future accolades. We are only getting started!