Venture Capital: From Building Startups to Investing
How Alex Samson went from building startups for founders to studying venture capital in 2023–2024: VC Lab, mentoring, the MondayVC newsletter and research.
From 2010 to 2022 I ran dvhb, a studio that built startups for their founders. Most of them were entrepreneurs backed by angel investors, or angels with ideas of their own. A few went from idea to seed and Series A. I was always on the founder's side of the table.
Why VC#
After dvhb's acquihire in 2022 I wanted to see startups from the investor's side. Opening a VC fund had long been a goal of mine. A fund's managers can put in as little as 1% of the capital and raise the rest from limited partners, and by then I knew angels and private investors who were looking for deals. My experience and network could become a fund. First I set out to learn how venture capital works.
How I learned#
I had moved to Southeast Asia, where I was new. I offered my experience to the local ecosystem and learned investing in return, starting with mentoring founders in accelerators.
In autumn 2023 I joined VC Lab's Venture Institute, its program for people entering VC. Alongside it I kept mentoring and applied what I learned with the startups I worked with, built an investor network and did my own research.
What I shared#
- MondayVC: From Founder to VC, my weekly LinkedIn newsletter, April to October 2024. That page also covers what the research showed and what I decided. Editions republished here so far:
- Research articles on this site: How Career Predicts Startup Success and Unicorn Market Size.
- Posts on LinkedIn about the VC industry and what I was learning.
- LP fundraising: I worked on bringing online business development practices into how emerging funds find and engage limited partners. Four notes, April 2024:
Today I build computer vision AI products. The research stays here; figures are as of 2024.