Managing Director at Jackson Square Ventures
San Francisco, CA
Joined March 2008
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This was an astoundingly impressive cohort. I was 10% as coherent at the same point in my life.
S26 JSV Launchpad wrapped on August 20 with Demo Day in San Francisco.
13 companies. 10 weeks of building, weekly pitches, and time with founders and operators.
Four are now in YC. Another four have closed their first funding rounds.
Thank you to everyone who spent time with the cohort this summer.
Applications for S27 open January 11: jsv.com/launchpad
This summer, don't try to fix your kids' boredom. Just be a bored observer.
Been thinking a lot about this since our last book club with @bgurley. Kids are so over-programmed these days. So much so that when there are no plans, they seem totally lost and enter a state of boredom. Boredom is nothing new, but the nature of that boredom has changed across generations. Boredom for me as a kid was a transitory state. It was a signal to go find things to do and people to hang out with. Today, boredom is a static state to be solved by others.
My parents didn't throw me out the door and tell me to come back at 6, but they didn't try to solve my boredom either. There was no ipad. No Playstation. Just other kids and a phone to call them with. Eventually, there was a 2400 baud modem and BBS's. Shareware to discover and install. No one did any of that for me. I was bored and taught myself.
This is, unfortunately, a negative network effect issue. Kids can't make ad-hoc plans with friends who are in camps or sports all day, every day. So the logical outcome is to just overprogram. What we need is a critical mass of children being bored so they can learn to solve boredom with each other. My kids are ready and willing!
youtube.com/watch?v=_7IEFVaU…
When asked what metrics they care about, first-time founders give the wrong answer most of the time. "Revenue" they say. Or "churn," or "net spend retention," or any number of metrics that have nothing to do with what really matters: the value customers/users measure. Customers don't care about a startup's ARR, they care that the startup's product has improved something about themselves. Some meaningful internal or external improvement.
@Docusign customers reduce unsigned contracts by a large percentage. @Strava increases users’ athletic performance. @roo_vet increases available appointments at veterinary clinics. “How will this product affect your annual revenue?” is not a question they will hear in sales meetings or support tickets.
Years ago, in the talk @JoeMontana gave at the JSV Book Club, he talked about Bill Walsh’s “The Score Takes Care of Itself,” a tale of Bill’s incredible run as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers. He was famous for his intense focus on game scripting and the outcome of plays and drives. He believed that if you executed correctly, you’d never have to look at the scoreboard. The metrics that mattered, the ones he could directly impact, came from adjustments at each play. He focused on things he could control that added value and that, when compounded, would automatically drive successful outcomes.
It’s nice to see revenue, MRR, or whatever output you report. But if the bolded numbers on your dashboards aren't the ones that customers care about, you're reading the wrong user manual.
Allan Thygesen (DOCU), Mike Martin (Strava), and @dleffel (Roo) focus on moving customer metrics. If they do a good job with that, revenue will follow automatically. So to all you early-stage founders out there, focus on the KPIs your customers care about and the score will take care of itself.
Know anyone who does this well?
The clarity of thought and communication from @bgurley and @benthompson on today’s Stratechery interview is outstanding.
I'm seeing more companies than ever struggling with the need to self-disrupt and risk existing revenue in the face of lower cost, better quality, AI-powered new entrants.
"You have this Apple mindset of handicapping developers combined with a bunch of old farts who want to make fall detection and don't want to enable generative AI apps." h/t @benthompson on @ditheringfm
When Epic finally gets hit for anti-competitive practices, the wave of healthcare software innovation will be, well, epic.
The problem with characterizing black-hole VCs as PE firms is that they look for power-law returns, which are unprecedented at that fund size. PE looks for consistency through activism. Black-hole VC is PE-size funds without PE-style discipline.
2024 was a record year for LP concentration into megafunds. Half of all commitments went to just 8 firms vs. 25 in 2021 when emerging managers raised their funds. We presented this at our AGM.
Smart move for a VC to vertically integrate their coffee meetings. Congrats @jbreinlinger sonomanews.com/article/busin…
I love driving my EV. But getting by on public chargers has been challenging. There’s so much promise with electrification. We just need infrastructure.
Victor Echevarria retweeted
Today, we're announcing Stand: property insurance for those impacted by climate-driven disasters. The growing impacts of wind, wildfire, and flood are pushing insurers out of markets, when that safety net is needed most. This can't be solved with insurers' typical tools. 🧵
It's sad that this article now has a Wikipedia page. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27No_…
Victor Echevarria retweeted
(1/6) I'm very excited to share that @harnesswealth has been featured in @techcrunch today! This article, written by @bayareawriter, highlights two recent achievements of our incredible team:
Victor Echevarria retweeted
My heard from VC LPs this week is 10 soundbites from #UpfrontSummit. Thanks @msuster & @upfrontvc team!
#1 “In Venture, the majority of companies will fail. The majority of firms will fail too.”
#2 “DPI is not a catch all. TVPI is distorted b/c of valuations. What we need to see is demonstrated progress of your investments”
#3 “If you don’t have returns or measurable progress by Fund 3, be prepared to be a zombie fund. You have to prove your original thesis is playing out.”
#4 “There is a temptation in a pitch to talk about the macro - the ‘why now’. Spend more time on illustrating discipline, differentiation and the journey of your portfolio.
#5 “We aren’t just investing in a series of funds - it’s a partnership. Partnerships are built on passion, humility, & intellectual honesty. We need to hear when it’s not working”
#6 “I can’t put enough emphasis on intellectual honesty. Don’t window dress the issues. The truth will come out and it will be worse for you.”
#7 “I’m highly skeptical of anyone that calls themselves an ‘AI fund’.
#8 “We never answer/read cold emails. The only way we source funds is from referral from other LPs”
#9 “If you sell a piece of your GP there is a 99% chance that we are out””
#10 “No LP will say Mega Funds are great. But they can serve a purpose in a portfolio - they are more effective at returning capital faster. “
Observations as a Waymo passenger. When other drivers or pedestrians get irritated at an AV, it’s always been as a scapegoat for their own illegal behavior. Like joggers assuming they have right of way when still 30 feet from the crosswalk. Or left turners not yielding.