VC Theses #100 | Building the American Workforce, An Ominous October, & more
Oct 31st– Nov 6th | Insights from A16Z, Cowboy Ventures, Redpoint, Canaan, and others
Hey Everyone 👋,
Welcome to the 100th issue of the SandHill.io newsletter! These past 2 years, since the newsletter was launched, have truly flown by.
As we continue publishing and evolving the newsletter, I’d love to hear from you on any ideas for improving the weekly email or for collaboration opportunities. You can reach me directly by responding to this email.
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Best,
Ali
Investment Themes, Theses, & Outlooks
Building the American Workforce (Oliver Hsu, Partner @ A16Z)
How new risks are driving opportunities in insurtech (Mouro Capital Team)
What We’re Excited About: The Verticalization of B2B Fintech (Jillian Williams, Principal @ Cowboy)
3 Things: ZoomInfo for Devs, Generative AI Books for Kids, Trusted Health for Locum Tenens (Elaine Zelby, Partner @ SignalFire)
Industry Developments & Analyses
Charts to Chew On: An Ominous October. (Meera Clark, Principal @ Redpoint)
The State of Vertical SaaS 2022 (Fractal Software Team)
Why America Must Develop Space, and How We’ll Do It (Ryan McEntush, Partner @ A16Z)
How Payments Were Won: An Inside Look At Fintech’s Original Embedded Service (Medha Agarwal, Partner @ Redpoint)
Partner Bank Compliance and the Impact on Fintech (Marc Andrusko & David Haber, A16Z)
Insight: Here’s What Industry Experts Told Us About the PropCo Landscape + What’s Next (Alpaca VC Team)
The Evolution of Infrastructure Markets — Cloud Computing (Nandu Anilal, VC @ Canaan)
Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating
How to Build A Winning Paid Membership Program (Connie Chan, GP @ A16Z)
OpenCloud 2022: How to Navigate Stormy Markets and Other Tips for Cloud Founders (Battery Ventures Team)
Figma’s Early Days — How Patience & Discipline Fostered a Killer Product (Sean Whitney, VC @ Craft Ventures)
Product Marketing as fuel for Category Creation (Akash Bajwa, VC @ Earlybird)
Inside Hotjar’s bootstrapped PLG strategy (Kyle Poyar, Partner @ OpenView)
Additional Reads
Markets, Markets, and Markets (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)
Cutting R&D to Grow GTM Spend : Is it Happening Across Software Companies? (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Redpoint)
Identity: The Mega Theme of the 2020s (Doug Clinton, MP @ Loup)
The Rise of the Digitally-Native Job (Rex Woodbury, Partner @ Index)
Thinking outside the (text) box: better interfaces for generative models (Kojo Osei, VC @ Matrix)
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