Superclusters’ Post

It’s the first time I’m interviewing a GP for the sole purpose of that GP’s story on Superclusters. But of all people who have asked to be on the podcast and all the people I could have had on the podcast to date, Rick Zullo is the person who made me break my rule to myself and my audience. And Rick I hate you and love you all at the same time for that. While Rick won't take this compliment from me either (perks of this being my LinkedIn post and not his haha), starting a VC firm is frickin hard and Rick went through his trial by fire to start Equal Ventures. And to me, I am in constant awe of what him and his team have built. From sleeping in hostels to making a loan to his own fund so that they could invest in a company that became the inflection for Equal, I loved every second of our episode! If you don’t believe me, and to make it more tactical, here's why our first post season episode for Season 3 is just one of a kind! 🪖 Rick’s 3 hat rule. “When I played football once upon a time, our coach [was] screaming at us, ‘Three hats on the ball! Three hats on the ball!’ The runner wasn’t down until we had three helmets tackling them.” Similarly, venture is a team sport. At Equal Ventures, they work to have multiple people on a portfolio company at any given point in time, resulting in 300+ hours per company in the first year of investment and around 150 hours per company per year after they get past the Series A. 🌱 Seed stage is the worst stage to be investing into now. “Historically, if you look at the last 10 years of data, it would suggest that multiple [of the premium of a late stage valuation to seed stage valuation] should cover around 20-25 times. [...] In 2021, that number hit 42 times. [...] Last year, that number was around eight.” Late stage is actually looking very interesting today. 🏆 Picking a board member that won't retire or leave to another firm in 3-5 years matters. Startup journeys are long, and choosing the right partner who'll be with you through thick and thin matters more than most people give time for when they build their first board. And of course a clip of our episode below with Rick's hot take that funds of funds should get paid more! I also want to give a shoutout to Jerry Colonna for all the great work he does, some of which Rick and I have a mini fanboy session about him. And also thank you to Chris Leiter for sparking our friendship! P.S. Don’t worry, Superclusters will stay focused on LP content, but I thought Rick provided an amazingly refreshing perspective as to how to build lasting communities that I really wanted to share for our audience.