Welcome to issue #20 of our ongoing newsletter series, From the First Row.
Thanks to Evan Shy and Prem Kumar for sending some startups our way this month.
Look here for First Row firm updates and the startup ecosystem news that catches our attention. Feedback and ideas welcome.
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<aside> 📚 Thank you to Vlasta Schultzenhofer from Roura for presenting at Deals & Drinks this month! And thanks to our participants for bringing their energetic and thoughtful engagement to the discussion. Sign up here to be included on the invite list moving forward, and access our Deals & Drinks info page **here.**
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<aside> 🛠️ Our portfolio companies are hiring! Please let us know if you you or anyone in your network is interested in these opportunities:
<aside> 🎓 As a testament to the belief that entrepreneurship exists everywhere, Minda volunteered with Defy Ventures the last few weekends to teach ‘Pitching Your Business’ and ‘Ideation and Customer Discovery’ to a group of formerly incarcerated people pursuing starting their own businesses. Defy is a non-profit and offer this community-based course to individuals who are starting their new lives and earning a second chance after prison. From pressure washing services to an ecommerce store for artfully designed sportswear, these entrepreneurs benefit from the growth mindset and interpersonal skills that entrepreneurship offers.
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<aside> 🥂 Fellow Seattle-based venture firm Graham & Walker hosted an event at the Amazon Spheres where Karin and Minda mingled with founders and other investors before hearing from panels of Seattle founders and investors.
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<aside> 📢 Techstars Filecoin Accelerator held a showcase event and released a video to feature their first cohort of 12 companies. Minda supported the cohort as a lead mentor to Metapals — “Virtual companions that love to grow, and you'll grow to love.”
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<aside> 📖 The Bill Gurley Chronicles (Part 1) – With a summary of every Bill Gurley post from 1996 through 2004, this piece provides a palpable lens into the thought patterns and trends around the dot com crash era. Bill’s posts are riddled with patterns and mental models that are still applicable today, and this’ll save you hours by distilling them down to their essence. We particularly enjoyed how he explores three core drivers (WiFi, Mobile, and Bluetooth) that we take for granted today. What will we be taking for granted in the next 10 years?
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<aside> 🖥️ What’s better than a cookie? A wallet – Tomasz Tunguz has been churning out some of the most practical and thoroughly thought out web3 ideas out there. This particular piece is a prescient, concise writeup on the future of web3 marketing. With the Cookie being sunset later this year, Tomasz explores ideas around how the wallet will replace the Cookie and serve its purposes far better. Worth a read for anyone puzzling through web3 use cases!
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<aside> 🧵 10 Thought-provoking questions from Polina Marinova – As many of you know, we’re big fans of hosting events and bringing the ecosystem together. So we loved it when Polina Marinova compiled these excellent questions to spark any conversation, anywhere. Worth a read for anyone, even if only to liven up the dinner table!
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<aside> 🔊 Josh Wolfe, Chris Power: Factories of the Future – While focused on Hadrian, a disruptor in precision manufacturing, this episode is a masterclass in how to stay problem-first and focus on iteration over perfection. Chris warns about the “PhD mindset” of fitting cool technology into a problem that doesn’t need it, a particularly important reminder given the volume of exciting innovations we have today.
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Trends:
We’ve framed our funding news to match our evolved pillars: Software Power Tools, Data Interconnectivity, and Creator-Controlled Media.
This month, we're exploring an AI developer tool, data security compliance, and a startup focused on securing the software supply chain! Let's dive in: