# MondayVC Newsletter: From Founder to VC

> Alex Samson's 2024 LinkedIn newsletter on opening a VC fund: 17 editions on fund economics, deal flow and emerging VC strategy.

MondayVC: From Founder to VC was my weekly LinkedIn newsletter about opening a venture capital fund. It ran from April to October 2024: 17 editions, and it has nearly 1,300 subscribers today. [The newsletter on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7183307817238294528/)

![Laptop open on the VC Lab website in an open-air cafe in Bali, October 2023](https://saalse.com/_astro/vc-lab-on-laptop-bali-2023-3x2.C6lVi_14_Z1tcfsh.webp)

*Studying with VC Lab, Bali, October 2023.*

## Why I started

I have long wanted to open a VC fund. In July 2023 I started working out how, and treated the fund as a startup: I researched the market, worked out the unit economics and designed the processes.

In autumn 2023 I joined cohort 2 of VC Lab's Venture Institute, a training program for people moving into a career in VC. It is built to make you do your own research, so I found more than fits in a LinkedIn post. From April 2024 I wrote up what I had learned each week. Writing it down also helped me make sense of it.

## Why I stopped

The research gave a clear answer: a fund was not the right move for me then.

- A fund lives on its 2% management fee, so it needs about $30M to pay for a real team. LPs commit that much to a first-time fund when its managers already have a track record.
- The way to build that record is a micro fund or an angel syndicate, and early-stage deals worth backing are rare.
- The funds that invest early at scale, such as 500 Global, Plug and Play and Antler, run accelerator programs. That makes them operational powerhouses: a big business in its own right.

So I chose to keep building [AgTech](/agritech) and [computer vision AI](/computer-vision-ai) products, and to [advise startups](/startup-mentor).

## Editions

The editions are republished here as a record of that research. Figures are as of 2024.

- [VC Management Fee Expenses: A Solo GP's $1M Budget](/vc/management-fee-expenses), Edition 8, June 3, 2024: What a solo GP VC firm in San Francisco needs from the management fee each year, as of 2024: about $1M for salaries, benefits, tax, events and office.
- [VC Team Size and Composition: Fund I, II and III](/vc/vc-team-design), Edition 7, May 27, 2024: Median team size, capital per GP and yearly investments at 30 emerging US VC firms on Fund I, II or III, and which paid and non-paid roles they hold.
- [Fair Startup Valuations: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A](/vc/fair-startup-valuations), Edition 6, May 20, 2024: Median US startup valuations in 2023 at pre-seed, seed and Series A from Carta, PitchBook and Aumni, checked against burn rate, CAC and exit values.
- [Lead vs Follow Investor Check Size: Seed, Series A](/vc/lead-follow-investors), Edition 5, May 13, 2024: Median lead and follow investor check sizes in US VC rounds in 2023–2024 at pre-seed, seed and Series A, and the lead's share of the round.
- [VC Check Size by Stage: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A](/vc/check-size-by-stage), Edition 4, May 6, 2024: Average VC check and median round size at pre-seed, seed and Series A in 2024 in the US, Singapore, Germany and Australia, from Crunchbase and Carta data.
- [Angels and Syndicates in VC: Market Share 2021–2024](/vc/angels-syndicates), Edition 3, April 29, 2024: Shares of funds, angel investors and syndicates among VC investors and deals in 2021–2024: global, US, and top and bottom countries, from Crunchbase data.
- [Finding VC Co-Investors: Guide and Airtable Template](/vc/vc-partnership), Edition 2, April 22, 2024: How emerging VCs can find deal-sharing and co-investment partners from portfolio and deal data, with a free Airtable template and an outreach email template.
- [VC Due Diligence Math: 3,226 Startups per Outlier](/vc/due-diligence-math), Edition 1, April 15, 2024: Why an emerging VC has to review about 3,226 startup applications a year for a chance at one outlier startup, and how to handle the due diligence load.