Introducing Deliberate Ventures
de·lib·er·ate
Dictionary result for deliberate
adjective
/dəˈlib(ə)rət/
done consciously and intentionally.
Deliberate Ventures is not in reference to an investment approach.
First, you could debate how deliberate one can actually be in venture, vs. some combination of ability, hard work, timing, and good luck, among many other things (privilege, etc.).
Second, even if the act of being deliberate were correlated to successful outcomes, the feedback loops in venture are so long that you wouldn’t be able to tell for years (if ever!) how much of the outcome was attributable to you vs. some exogenous factors.
No, Deliberate Ventures is about founders - founders who have a very conscious and intentional modus operandi to building their companies and lives!
So what does it mean to be a deliberate founder? I hope to keep this as a living, breathing definition that I revisit over time, but to me (last edited March 2020) it’s the following:
1. They’re in it for the right reasons.
Over the last few years, starting or joining startups has become the sexy thing to do. The Deliberate founder has a genuine reason to do it - whether it’s lived experience with a problem that is un- or under-addressed because of structural issues, or it’s because they spent twenty years in a broken industry and think they can fix it for the benefit of the end users, or because they are just passionate about a problem and studied it for years and spend all of their free time thinking about it.
2. They have a north star.
The Deliberate founder codifies the company’s reason for being into vision, mission, and values. So that no matter what decisions are made, there is something to come back to that keeps everyone moving in the right direction.
3. They prioritize sustainable growth over growth at all costs.
The Deliberate founder knows that money can’t fix a broken business. Great businesses solve their own problems first and then use capital to intelligently scale models that are clearly working. They won’t feel pressured by investors to make decisions that are good in the short term at the expense of the long term.
4. They care about people and are conscious about the culture they build…from day 1.
In the era of me too, this should be a no brainer and you’ve probably read countless thought pieces about how important diversity and inclusion is, so I won’t repeat it.
5. They think about the environmental and social consequences of their business decisions.
It’s becoming widely recognized now that taking into consideration the environmental (how a company performs as a steward of nature) and social (how a company manages relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities where it operates) impacts of your business is actually good for the bottom line.
6. They are learning machines.
The Deliberate founder is an independent thinker. They have strong opinions, loosely held. They listen more than they talk. They focus on progress and results over self promotion, and they are not afraid to say, “I don’t know.” They are empathetic. They are wary of falling into the traps of inertia, ignorance, or ideology. They are direct communicators.
Investing is all about people, and I’m excited to support people who have been thoughtful about the types of problems they want to solve and the type of impact they want to have in the world through starting their company.
In starting Deliberate Ventures as a vehicle for my personal investments, I can’t wait to meet you, and for the many interesting conversations we might have together about our shared interests, motivations, and goals.
Please reach out - I’d love to hear from you.