Monica Simo Black

I’m thrilled to announce LL3 Ventures, a new evergreen vehicle dedicated to early stage venture capital, backed by three generations of the Leichtman Levine family. We’re going to build a large, diversified portfolio of early stage startups and will also back promising fund managers. Our goal is to provide collaborative, strategic, and patient capital to founders and GPs. We are sector agnostic and prefer investing at the seed stage in post-product companies with early revenue. LL3 will invest anywhere from $25K to $500K+ with our first check. We’re based in SF and believe in the power of meeting in person, so please reach out! I’m incredibly grateful to the Leichtman Levine family for their unwavering support and am beyond excited to invest in the future with them. And a special thanks to everyone who took the time to chat with me and provided guidance and advice as I embarked on this journey — there are 50+ of you and I appreciate you all!

@Roto_Frank Jazz, Sal Perez, Devers

Who are some players you want to hear about on the Worry-O-Meter tonight?

@bznotes Do you think those folks would actually tell the truth / talk about unrest, etc. with an LP?

Wish more LPs spent time talking to non-managing partners and IR folk at VC firms where they weren’t just getting the party line. The stories of unrest and decision-making criteria/processes they hear would likely startle them.

@crapshoot101 And the degens are sending barrages of hateful messages to players and their families when they lose. Just awful.

Every part of this is awful, and the impact on making young men worse off while flashing ads during every sports game seems like a form of cultural suicide

@EricNewcomer I think you’re missing Reducto (Puttagunta)

Puttagunta involved with LangChain and Fenton also involved with HeyGen.

some recent key Benchmark AI deals Fireworks (Vishria) Sierra (Fenton) LangChain (Grimshaw) Mercor (Lazarte) HeyGen (Lazarte) Manus (Puttagunta)

CRM: Attio @attio SO customizable and lightweight. Delightful Notion-meets-Airtable UI/UX. Wish there were more integrations (ahem, native Granola integation pls)

AI Note Taking: Granola @meetgranola Tried Notion AI note taker and it didn't come close. Granted, Granola has been tailored for VCs from early on.

@daylightco the fintie case/stand came from your faq page! amazon.com/dp/B01K780TN2 the @Nedrelow case options are: 1) simple sleeve: nedrelow.com/products/sleev… 2) magic sleeve: nedrelow.com/products/magic…

@monicasblack wow, thank you sooooo much for this in-depth reflection we'll have to look into that sleeve and that case – do you have purchase links for those?

Daylight Computer (@daylightco ) is game changing. I'm obsessed. I've been using the Daylight for a few months now. Prior to that, I used an iPad Pro for light computing on the go (writing, browsing, some reading). Daylight has completely replaced it for everything except watching videos. The e-ink screen is incredibly responsive and the refresh rate is fantastic. Don't think about this like a Kindle screen. This is MEANINGFULLY smoother. Much more usable. Touch interface is just as snappy as an iPad. Writing on it is just as paper-like as a Remarkable tablet. It captures my tiny, tiny handwriting extremely well. I use its Notebook as my "scratchpad" on a daily basis. I don't know why anyone would choose a Remarkable over this — you get the same Notebook + a full OS which enables Kindle and read-it-later apps. Android OS is great — most of the apps I use regularly are on there. The ones that aren't are pretty new / niche (like Reflect — please make Android apps!). It's easy enough to make Vivaldi web apps for those that are web-based, like Reflect, Motion, and Vimcal. I use Vivaldi browser for full cross-platform sync. The impact on eye strain is noticeable, especially at night. I love reading on it or doing NYT word games, while reducing blue light exposure in those precious 30-60 minutes before falling asleep. Most importantly, I didn't install any messaging or social media apps on it and intend to keep it that way. This allows me to zone in to writing or reading (or crosswords 🤓) and ignore all distractions. Daylight Computing is coming out with thier own cases soon, but for now, I've found these two accessories to work best: 1) Fintie Carry Case for the Apple Magic Keyboard — aside from being a sleek case to carry around a Magic Keyboard, it folds to allow you to place a tablet and mimic the "laptop" feel. This has been my favorite way to use the Daylight when typing 2) Nedrelow's (@Nedrelow ) sleeves for carrying the Daylight around. Simple, thin. Helps protect the Daylight when I throw it in my bag and makes it easy to carry around. Nedrelow's sleeves are flexible enough to throw a notebook or airpods in there too. Kudos to the Daylight team. You've made an incredible device and I can't wait to see what else you have in store.

I am continuously blown away by how relevant Facebook groups still are. Our pediatrician used one this morning during our visit to see what peers had said about a specific condition.

@annimaniac tried a bunch and going all in on @NotionHQ, especially with native meeting notes (or granola integration). once they launch @NotionMail on mobile, then i will switch off superhuman so their AI can theoretically search across all my notes, e-mails, & calendar

What are people using for personal knowledge management these days given AI? I'm worried platforms like Roam have such great capabilities but are not right given all that's happening in AI? Curious to hear what people are doing...

@sarahrnagy Congrats @sarahrnagy !!

we moved from Miami almost a year ago, but my kids still want to listen to Miami Sound Machine every morning 😂

@jerseejess @Work_Bench Congratulations @jerseejess and @fendien! This is awesome news for B2B founders. You’ve built an incredible firm. Much respect for you all!

So thrilled to announce @Work_Bench Fund IV: a $160M fund to continue backing founders with massive enterprise software ambitions 💥 Twelve years ago, we set out to build a Seed stage enterprise SaaS VC firm here in NYC - still funny to think how contrarian of a bet that was back then We've ridden the high highs and low lows 🎢 but never a day has this is not been the best job ever: working with some of the most brilliant, hungry, and visionary founders who see the enterprise and SaaS world differently and who are taking the biggest swings at changing it Thank you to all of our founders who have put their trust in us to be a part of your ride at Seed - it's the greatest honor and honestly the most fun of all 🙏 Thank you to all of our founders who have put their trust in us to be a part of your ride at Seed - it's the greatest honor and honestly the most fun of all 🙏 + our incredible NYC enterprise community - of founders, operators, corporate execs, and more who give back and help lift other founders and companies up + and our dream team here at Work-Bench: a group of unabashed enterprise nerds who love helping our founders win (and Olive Garden and Catan) We are so lucky to be here at Fund 4 and to do more of the same, but even better: 🌱 Lead Seed rounds ($2M–$4M) in AI/ML, cybersecurity, infrastructure, dev tools, and enterprise/vertical apps 🎯 GTM support from day one to Series A 🧠 Deep research > FOMO 🤝 Founder-first, community-driven ⏳ High conviction, hands-on, long-term 12 years in, we’re hungrier than ever. If you’re building something ambitious in enterprise software - we want to hear from you. Special thanks to our LPs who have believed in us, and a huge thank you to everyone for being a part of this crazy, awesome ride with us 🚀 The best is still to come - LFG 🔥

@ericbahn Wait is this a real phrase?! My 4yo started saying it the other day after school. I thought it was jibberish!

Skibidi toilet.

having both @j_chisholm3 and agustin ramirez on my fantasy team makes me chuckle every time I see it. silver lining to all of last year's devastating trades.

How I get 58% sleep scores consistently: - Kids go to bed at 730pm, finally a few hours to relax - Fall asleep between 11pm and 12am after finishing work and cleaning the house - Kids wake you up 3-5x throughout the night - Kids wake up between 545am and 630am every morning

@PGASplits101 Does Poppy still have the longest putt made by a McIlroy this week?

Rory vs Bryson The Masters "Tale of the Tape" - Data through three rounds

love this analogy and 100% agree. especially your point that the express train path can jump into the warp zone later. I'm not bought into the "fast car" / seed-strapping path yet. I think it could only work if you are tackling an incredibly niche, overlooked problem that no one is paying attention to.

There has been a lot of discussion about the bifurcation of the venture market that we are currently witnessing. One way I like to think about it is that VC backed companies are choosing to either ride the express train or jump into a warp zone.