Jenny Fielding

So, I wrote a book! It's basically a love letter to everyone brave enough to buck convention and start something hard. Pre-sales open today for friends, founders and trolls alike!♥️

What a joke. I tried to post a very sought after VC job on a few college job boards and there was so much friction (thx Handshake) that I gave up. It’s hard out there for recent grads to find jobs, this is not helping.

I love it when Series A investors go on about being the first investors, first believers, first supporters of founders. Reality is that they are more like the fifth supporters these days. Two recent podcasts I listened to with iconic VCs made me think about this.

Guess how many Analysts at Goldman applied to work at our fund? They know it’s a pay cut and prestige cut and yet I could staff all the venture funds in nyc just with our candidate pool 🤷🏼‍♀️

We closed 5 deals in June and will do 3 in July but quality deal flow has mostly ground to a halt 🛑

Every time we decide to slow down and take a beat at our fund, the opposite happens. In June we closed 5 new deals (plus a couple of SPVs). But now I’m serious…

Want to build resilience…. Post a tweet that inspires 700+ people to tell you you’re an idiot. Yep, that should do it! 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼

This weekend I met a guy who exited his company around 2010, made $200M and retired (mid 30s). 15 years later, he’s still retired and happy doing nothing. Total head scratcher to me and goes against all the patterns and beliefs I have about founders 🤷🏼‍♀️

Many pre-seed (software) founders still think they need a 10 person team… 🤷🏼‍♀️

Founders who can’t / won’t decide who is the CEO and chalk it up to being early, are problematic. Have seen a few decks recently without defined titles. Better to just pick a lane and if it’s not right later on then switch it up.

5 meetings with pre-seed founders today and 3 pitched usage-based pricing models. Tbh, I’m surprised just how fast this is happening. Buckle up sassy friends 🤠

Embarrassed to admit it but… I agreed to be on a podcast because the previous guests seemed legit. I didn’t listen to an episode first. Turns out the host was unprepared and asked dumb questions. Totally on me. But made me wonder if this is why bad shows get good guests? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Friend in M&A in the Bay Area says Corp dev hiring like crazy. Have not seen this much staffing up since 2021.

Today, finally, a seed stage VC I know (and like) admitted that he’s not really the first check in but more like the second or third. In other words, most investors are really seed investors not pre-seed. Founders take note!

Monday I sent out 12 emails to VCs I know well on behalf of founders who want to connect with them. Two responded, took them 4 days. But sure, the summer slow down is not a thing…

The intersection of AI and hardware is increasingly interesting and I just backed a crack team raising (true) pre-seed taking this on. So who is interested in this space?

When raising money, it’s good to be different but not tooo different. Unique is good. Weird is not. Like many entrepreneurs, I walk the line.

Disappointed to hear about yet another startup Board of Directors being too afraid to do the right thing by standing up to a bully board member. They are all SF insiders who all know each other and no one wants to rock the boat…

If one more VC pitches me a roll up strategy… it sounds reasonable yes, but damn hard to execute well.