We recently invested in a company that enables creators to be the next-generation sales channels for brands, in a transparent and privacy-forward way. Brands care about a few things: 1) They only want to pay when they’ve acquired a new customer and done so profitably; 2) They want to control who can sell / promote their brand and where; and 3) They... See more

For consumer companies, there are only three growth “lanes” that comprise the majority of new customer acquisition:1. Performance marketing (e.g. Facebook and Google ads)2. Virality (e.g. word-of-mouth, referrals, invites)3. Content (e.g. SEO, YouTube)

This raises broader questions about the tech ecosystem and its investment model. I’ve been making the case for a long time that the natural endpoint is likely very large platforms and Aggregators on one-side, and a flourishing ecosystem focused on niches on the other, but implicit in the latter is that venture capital is not simply unncessary, it i... See more

Further, the internet made the marginal cost of distribution go to zero, implying that adding one additional customer is as simple as adding one more row in a database. It’s virtually free. This means the best companies win by providing the best experience, which earns them the most consumers/users, which attracts the most suppliers, which enhances... See more