D’Arcy Coolican

1/ If you’re a founder you’ve probably heard someone say “oh, I’ve seen this idea before - it didn’t work” or “isn’t this just like that other thing that person/company X tried?”

@kwharrison13 when i was a vc the hardest part was trying to figure out how to adjust and learn in absence of real feedback. biggest mistake i saw was people cementing or optimizing their thinking and process based on interim data points (markups, "hot deals", hype)

Venture is such an odd feedback cycle. Nothing but hype or heartbreak for years then, every few years, it all comes together. 5-yo co. suddenly going $0-$4M ARR in 3 weeks, another that hasn't raised more than a seed getting to ~$100M and profitable, and another going public.

Announcing Weekend Fund IV, backed by operators and founders (and maybe you). When we raised Weekend Fund III, we did something different. Toward the end of our raise, we announced the fund in public and accepted applications from LPs. Our goal was to make early-stage venture more accessible and align ourselves with an army of operators and founders to help us and the startups we back. Over 1,000 people expressed interest to join and hundreds did, but there was a problem. Legally, only accredited investors could participate as an LP. Accreditation laws are well-meaning but limit access to the majority of consumers. With WF IV, @vedikaja_in and I are doing something different. Like before, we’re onboarding engineers, designers, researchers, data scientists, salespeople, and other domain experts as LPs in the fund. But this time at a larger scale with USVC. AngelList recently announced USVC, a new kind of fund that’s accessible to everyone, including the non-accredited. It holds positions in private late-stage companies like xAI, Anthropic, OpenAI, Sierra, and Vercel. I personally invested. Today, they just announced their investment in Weekend Fund IV, one of the first early-stage funds added to their portfolio. If you’re interested in being a part of Weekend Fund and getting exposure to generational startups mentioned above, visit usvc [dot] com. Of course, don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose. Investing in startups is risky and you may lose all your money. USVC shares are illiquid with no guarantee of repurchase. Consider investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. Read the prospectus: usvc [dot] com/prospectus. Also, USVC is currently limited to US citizens. They’re working to open the fund to other geographies. Lastly, my DMs are open. :)

@RobinGainer @cohere 🙏🙏🙏

@DCoolican @cohere hey D'Arcy, feel free to send me a DM or email robin @ cohere

can anyone connect me to someone @cohere for something urgent? 🙏 dms open i am trying to spend lots of money on their product, but it is proving difficult

@DCoolican ok boomer.

seems like the tech zeitgeist is turning away from pure growth / $0-$100M in 45 seconds / momentum is the moat stuff to what true network effects look like now ive had more intelligent conversations about this in the last 3 days than in the previous 2 years. nature is healing

i can go on a long rant about what makes a good seed investor, but easier to just say that if you have the chance to work with @semil and @aashaysanghvi_, just do it. we did. excited to see them keep going.

1/ Sponsoring events can have a huge impact on customer acquisition and brand. Most companies do it wrong, though. Here’s how to have the biggest impact sponsoring an event without breaking the bank:

@jaltma this is cool to see. benchmark is lucky to have you!

I’m really excited to share that I’m joining Benchmark. The past two years as a full time investor have been the most rewarding of my career. I really love venture capital, which is not something I ever imagined I’d say when I was kid, but here we are. I love new ideas and being part of a team with a mission. I love getting to be there for people who are struggling towards goals they really care about. I love learning from people who are better CEOs than I ever was. I love the texture of the work, the competition, and the way the job lets you invest in relationships. I love it so much that I’ve even turned into a little venture nerd with a podcast who goes around harassing great investors and founders, trying to learn as much as I can as fast as possible. I’ve certainly learned what I care most about, and what kind of investor I want to be. What I’ve realized is that I love investing at the Series A, when there’s enough going on that an investor can be useful but not so much that you can’t have an impact. I think there are many amazing ways to practice venture, it’s just the way that most speaks to me. And as I came to realize that, I started to think about how to best set myself up to do that craft as well as possible. It became clear to me there is nowhere better for this than Benchmark; the way they’re structured, their principles, their overall approach to investing, and their track record all create an environment that I believe will let me do my best work as an investor and help founders the most I possibly can. As I’ve gotten to know the team at Benchmark I’ve come to admire so much about each of them. Peter is truly playing his own game. A lot of what he says sounds like poetry at first, but as the ideas roll around in your head for a while you realize how much depth they have. I first heard about Eric many years ago from my friend Saji at Benchling while I was building Lattice, who described him as the most amazing board member and attributed him with a lot of the company’s success. That’s the kind of partner I want to be one day. Chetan is brilliant and truly thinks for himself; I’ve realized over time what a courageous guy he is. And then there’s my friend Ev, whose skills complement mine and who I just love to be around. I can’t wait to have him as a partner in crime. When given the chance to work with this group I just knew I had to go. One of my motivating north stars with Alt Capital was to build a firm and be a partner that I most would have wanted as an entrepreneur. Although I haven’t gotten everywhere I want to be yet, I’m proud of the work so far. And now I’m excited to build on that work at Benchmark, where I hope to increase my rate of learning and get armed with the power of a partnership so I can help founders reach their dreams even more. Thank you to the companies who’ve let me invest with them at Alt Cap. I’m keeping all my board seats and supporting everyone just the same as before. Thank you to the LPs who’ve backed me as well. I am so excited about the portfolio we have and am grateful I can stick with all those companies. And finally thank you to my teammates, Bala, Vivek, and Nate. Bala took a bet on me and started investing with me before it was remotely obvious, and we’ve been able to grow so much figuring it out together as investors. I credit Nate with helping Alt start feeling like a firm. He joined us from First Round over a year ago and made everything run smoothly. And while Vivek joined just a little while ago, even in the short time we’ve worked together he’s had a meaningful impact on how we think and invest. They’re all joining Benchmark with me. So pumped for this chapter.

the value in great companies has always been in the network they build, not the software they build. it's just becoming more clear as cost of software goes to zero.

The annual Contrary Research Tech Trends Report is here. 350+ slides on everything from computational intelligence to lunar bases to breakthroughs in biologics to AVs revolutionizing land use to the loneliness epidemic and so much more. Full report in reply.

any funds or companies I know want to sublet me a desk / office in the presidio?

the most destructive part of this myth is that some founders think a vc is going to save them. a VC isn't going to fix your biz or crown you the winner. you have to do it yourself. the sooner you acknowledge this the better.

VCs as kingmaker is complete BS and always fails. If someone tells you it’s true, they have their own agenda. In the end, founders decide which VCs they will make rich, not the other way around

@ericwdolan most funds taking on pretty blatant conflicts rn, so unclear if conflicts are even a thing these days also this maybe worked when vc was a smaller asset class. even with clear conflict rules it'd be impossible to knock out even 25% of the top funds now.

@DCoolican king making no conflict out, wyt?

@pgosavi7056 I think you’ve lost the plot

@DCoolican well secondary is the gravy, but all funds want quick mark up, so no fund will take a lower valuation termsheet

@kirbyman01 ❤️❤️

Happy birthday in heaven! Mom would have been 68 years old today. She passed away a bit more than 2 months ago, suddenly and without any signs. I don’t know if I really understand the circumstances of her death or that I ever will. I was dreading today. Like any human, mom was imperfect, but I never doubted that she loved my brother and I. Or that she was proud of how we grew up. I remembered reading a tweet about a parent who passed away that helped me. So I wanted to return the favor to those who may have lost someone near and dear to their heart recently. She was born into a humble family in Korea with insanely high achieving three brothers, under loving and stern parents. Married my dad and they soon moved to San Diego. I don’t think it was easy for her to adjust and we ultimately moved back to Korea. My mom was well educated and proud. She worked as an English tutor to make the ends meet, and encouraged us to study hard. She would stand in line from 4am so that I could attend the best after school programs. I never skipped school and when I was very sick one day and thought I should stay home, she asked me to sit up from the bed. Then she told me if I can sit up in bed, I can sit in a classroom. I never skipped school.  I know she was the happiest when she lived with or around her sons. Years in New York and San Francisco with me and years in Seattle with my brother. I know she was the happiest then. And I am so glad that we loved and treated her the best we could. I’m glad that she got to live in a blue house of her own in San Francisco, with a beautiful garden. I’m glad she traveled many parts of the world, and that we were able to be there for her.  Yet I am regretful about my last conversation with mom. I am regretful that maybe I could have, should have done much more. I am regretful that I didn’t tell her how much I loved her and how much her support meant to me. What  my therapist said after my mom passed away continues to hit me like a brick. This is the first time that I am living my life, motherless. Obvious, but hard hitting.  I miss her. Because she lived in Korea during her last fee years of her life, it doesn’t hit me that she’s gone on a daily basis. But I miss her. Persistent. Ever present. At random times - on a plane, walking to work, late at night. I hope she is happy somewhere. I hope that she is finally resting. Away from it all.  All I can do is to carry her memory with me. And make sure that I am a better person for the world because of her. Kinder, softer and gentler. And remind folks to tell their parents that you love them. Often.  Happy birthday, 엄마. 사랑해요.

@yrechtman theoretically true, but i think i've met 2 founders actually doing this with intentional. maybe some will be (forced to) figure it out in the future.

@DCoolican The bull case is lots of them use vertical ai for customer acquisition before moving to nfx businesses (but only if the can be honest about the low value nature of the v1)

as the cost to produce software gets closer to zero, the value of a true network increases exponentially i guess im a boomer now, but im shocked at how few AI apps companies actually care about / understand network effects