
Microfunds as a way to gain early insight into promising startups - chat
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/marc-andreessens-secret-weapon-for-finding-startup-investments?pu=hackernews6zx36c&utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=unlock
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michaelbuckbee
The micro funds as listed in this article seem more like a replacement for
angel rounds or almost as scouting fees to bring deals into traditional VC
funding structures.

That (to me) is less interesting than the work that's happening with TinySeed,
Earnest Capital, etc. where they're trying to hit bootstrapped companies with
a little bit of traction but that are unlikely to become unicorns.

~~~
transitivebs
100% agreed - would add indie.vc to this list.

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narak
Anyone know what the management fees are on a microfund?

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simonebrunozzi
We (three friends) started a micro-VC fund in 2014, called Mission and Market
[0].

We decided to go for 0% management fee, 20% carry up to 2x, and then 30% from
there up.

[0]: [http://m14t.com/](http://m14t.com/)

~~~
tosh
another data point:

0% management fee

20% carry

[https://magic.do](https://magic.do)

~~~
simonebrunozzi
No info on the webpage. No (or very few) posts on Github, Twitter, Instagram.
What is it about?

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throwa20200226
> In 2019, Guo sent a cold email to Chris Dixon, a general partner at the
> firm, asking again for capital, this time for a tiny VC fund she was raising
> alongside tech entrepreneur Dave Fontenot.

hilarious way to start the article. fontenot is a perpetual idea guy, sv
brogrammer-turned-mindfulness-and-meditation non-operator. guo afaik was
effectively kicked out of scale relatively early on and has been riding the
coattails and traveling since then. marc isnt getting any credibility from
this opening, which incidentally backend cap surely helped put together as a
content marketing piece

interesting commentary on the trend of dealflow, though. with so much capital
floating around, VC differentiation is increasingly important. "thought
leadership" a la naval is one way to obtain it; earlier and better dealflow
via scouts (or scout microfunds) is another.

~~~
hhthrowaway
Clearly a puff piece but just want to second the above, I was in their peer
group for a time. Pretty sure Guo also got canned by Snap before Scale? Looks
like Dave is still riding wave from being the collegiate hackathon pied piper.
Astounded these two raised $7mm, did anyone do any due diligence?

~~~
Jarred
> Pretty sure Guo also got canned by Snap before Scale?

This is false.

She quit Snapchat to start AVA after getting into YC, and they pivoted from
AVA to Scale during the YC batch.

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xibalba
> Secret Weapon

How secret can it be if an article interviewing insiders reveals it?

This smells of puff piece marketing nonsense.

~~~
dang
That's just the usual title thing:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20headline%20writers&sort=byDate&type=comment).
It's their job to puff it up, ours to puncture it.

We've replaced the title with a representative phrase from the article.

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SecurityMinded
Please do not put paywalled links as direct targets.

~~~
dang
The Information regularly unlocks articles for HN readers. I asked them to
unlock this one and they agreed and sent a special URL, so it should be
working for anyone who clicks on the link. Is that not the case?

Paywalled links in general are ok if there's a workaround. Users usually post
workarounds in the threads. This is in the FAQ at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)
and there's more explanation here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

theinformation.com normally has a hard wall, which normally makes the
submissions off topic here. But if they unlock it for HN readers, that's
welcome!

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pyramation
This fund is unlike any fund out there, and it makes sense as the DNA stems
from what birthed a shot heard around all major US universities in the 2010s
when Dave Fontenot and his crew at MLH catalyzed thousands of college students
to get together and build software all across the nation. Their approach in VC
I believe will be just as exciting in this new chapter. Excited to see what
comes out of this

