Subject: No Deck As Vinyl enters its next chapter, I’ve been reflecting on my 10+ year run as a seed investor and the current state of the venture market. Here’s where I stand: - Multi-stage firms are continuing to drive seed round inflation. - The Series A benchmarks are at historical highs, yet - Series A step-ups, on average, are only 1.5x - a near historical low. Seed has become, arguably, the least attractive entry point for seed sized funds. I’ve made four early stage investments that reached a billion+ valuation/event and several more $250M+. The single shared attribute of my strongest investments - there was no deck. I staked the person, not the neatly articulated 10 slide plan. What’s next: I’m stepping away from traditional seed investing. My focus will now be on the formation stage: pre-revenue, pre-product, pre-name…. pre-deck. This isn’t a new motion for me nor Vinyl. As a firm, Vinyl’s commitment to its last four investments was prior to (i) revenue (ii) a functional product (iii) a DBA and (iv) there was definitely no deck. If a founder has a gravitational pull about them and is losing sleep about a problem worth solving, I’m eager to chat. Please leave any and all pitch materials at home.

RT @goodgirlfaithhh: “I love you. Thank you. I love your music.” I’m sobbing 🥺

#NErevs

If you want to be a millionaire invest $10M in DWAC.

@NattyZ Funny. I said something similar recently. These filters separate the natives from the tourists. And it’s important GPs feel it to remind them of the founder plight.

@TheJackForge Fair observation.

@elonmusk The border is a disaster but someone logically believes the party running an 81 year old man has a plan to import immigrants to win elections in 20 years? Ya’ll giving the Dems a lot of credit for succession planning.

@jabbawy I’m so sorry. It is fuxked. The area conflict is complicated - this shit is not. It’s fuxking gross.

RT @ringmybeller: Postscript started out focused on SMS marketing, but today that shifts. By launching SMS Sales, we're now the only SMS R…

I know my 400 followers are waiting for me to weigh in on this... here it goes... applied AI is going to be a thing, quickly. I was able to become an expert on target restaurant operating metrics in 5 minutes today using ChatGPT.

I’m at VC office. I find it very funny this book is sitting out… the pennies next to it are a nice touch.

@mikesalguero Respect. Long on SmoothieBox.

RT @ringmybeller: OK so my DMs blew up from this. So, I'm not gonna be coy about it. Clearly people are interested. We aspire to be a t…

@nikitabier Hotmail

Pretty sure I was part of a Twitter test tonight. Pay for Twitter Blue or lose two-factor authentication. 🤷‍♂️ Would not have been the carrot I lead with.

Solid reminder the NFL is theatre.

@MacalesterMBB @Macalester Sick finish

I have unsubscribed from 17 times in my life... but they still think... "maybe... just maybe... if we email him one more time".

@Malecopywriter Trigger. Penn Station bathroom holds many terrible memories for me.

Just discovered, after 6+ yrs of daily use, our coffee maker has a water filter and needs to be “self cleaned” w vinegar water every 6 months. Woah… this water filter is NOT in a good place.