David McDonough

Introducing 37Maru Dear Friends in the Venture Capital and Startup Communities, A few months ago, I shared the news that after 17 incredible years I was stepping away from the VC firm I co-Founded, QED Investors. It wasn’t a retirement message. Far from it. It was an announcement that I wanted to return to my roots as an Operator and throw myself into the zero-to-one phase of building new businesses once again. The truth is, my time at QED allowed me to become a decent Investor over the years, but my real superpower is in the realm of navigating the idea maze and creating things that didn’t exist before. Building is in my blood. It’s who I am, and the people who've worked with me know this to be true. With this said, I’m happy to announce that my plans have crystalized enough to share what I’m actually working on. Welcome 37Maru! At a high level, 37Maru is a small-batch idea factory with one simple approach: Identify profound problems, develop well-thought-out solutions, find amazing Founders to partner with, and then obsessively build together. This is my chance to collaborate with the many remarkable people I've grown to know and respect in the VC world as well as the opportunity to partner with a few hungry, eager Founders to build special businesses together. 37Maru isn’t an incubator or an accelerator. It’s a way for me to throw my time and resources at a very small number of ideas and roll-up my sleeves as an Operator once again. And I don’t plan on doing it alone. Every idea will require a co-Founder. Every idea will require hiring amazing people to work with. And every idea will benefit from the skills of 37Maru’s wonderful and talented COO, Rachael Harnish. She’s scaled teams, navigated complex regulatory environments and built operations that work at startup speed. She’s the chaos wrangler who's worn every ops hat from seed to post-IPO who you’d want to call if you needed someone to turn ideas into reality. I encourage you to check out our new website (link is in the first reply) where you’ll find more information on the themes that we’re currently investigating and the first business that we’re actively building (First Press). The site is a great place to sign up for my new Substack that very soon will contain all the historical posts that I’ve shared on socials over the years. And now that I’ve finished the first draft of the book I’ve been working on (!!!!) it will be a great place to learn when and where it will be available. And in case you’re wondering about the name, it’s an homage to two personally inspirational “events”: Move 37 and The Kobayashi Maru. There’s no doubt both ideas have had a profound impact on the way I see the world. Finally, as many of you know from my recent posts, I’m currently in fundraising mode for First Press so wish me well as I navigate the gauntlet with my amazing team! Onwards and upwards, Fintechjunkie

apparently this is a picture of citadel’s risk center. it made me think of an alan kay talk where he discusses how big missions, like going to space, have a “mission control room” where the entire mission is managed & yet it’s rare to find businesses w their own “mission control”