# 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](https://dvhb.com), 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](/startup-mentor) 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](/vc/mondayvc)**, 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:
  1. [VC Due Diligence Math: 3,226 Startups per Outlier](/vc/due-diligence-math)
  2. [Finding VC Co-Investors: Guide and Airtable Template](/vc/vc-partnership)
  3. [Angels and Syndicates in VC: Market Share 2021–2024](/vc/angels-syndicates)
- **Research articles** on this site: [How Career Predicts Startup Success](/articles/how-career-predicts-startup-success) and [Unicorn Market Size](/articles/unicorn-market-size).
- **Posts on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/saalse)** about the VC industry and what I was learning.
- **[LP fundraising](/vc/fundraising):** I worked on bringing online business development practices into how emerging funds find and engage limited partners. Four notes, April 2024:
  1. [LP Lead Sources](/vc/fundraising/lp-lead-sources)
  2. [LP Lead Segmentation](/vc/fundraising/segmentation)
  3. [LP Lead Qualification](/vc/fundraising/lead-qualification)
  4. [LP Engagement Activities](/vc/fundraising/lp-engagement-activities)

Today I build [computer vision AI](/computer-vision-ai) products. The research stays here; figures are as of 2024.