VC Theses #70 | Sustainable Buildings, Embedded PropTech, Guide to Product Virality, & more

The latest from Alpaca, Fika, A16Z Crypto, Lightspeed, First Round, and others

Welcome to our new subscribers! SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 650+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

---

Investment Themes, Theses & Outlooks

• New Alpaca Field Study: Sustainable Buildings (Aubrie Pagano & Stegano Gabella, Alpaca VC)

• The Emergence of Embedded PropTech (Matt Hersh, Partner @ Fika)

• Personalized discovery engines for knowledge (Minn Kim, Partner @ On Deck)

• Empowering the Growth Mindset: Next Gen People SaaS (TCV Team)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Securing the Metaverse — Taking the Wild West Out of Web3 Financials (Beata Klein & Sabina Wizander, Creandum)

• Disparities in Severe Mental Illness (Sherman Leung, VC @ AlleyCorp)

• Decentralization for Web3 Builders: Principles, Models, How (Miles Jennings, GC @ A16Z Crypto)

• Proof of Physical Work (Tushar Jain, MP @ Multicoin)

• The card economy in FinTech (Manan Modi, Angel Squad @ Hustle Fund)

• Food Delivery Is Still Expensive (Gene Munster, GP @ Loup)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Your guide to product virality (Kyle Poyar, Partner @ OpenView)

• Customer Advisory Boards: Lessons Learned from 20 Years of CAB Experience (Mike Gospe et. al, Insight)

• Executive Reference Checklist (Holly Rose, Partner @ Greylock)

• The Tactical Guide to Making Better Decisions When Starting and Scaling Companies (Annie Duke, Partner @ First Round)

• The Art of Product Management (Ken Norton, ex-GV)

Additional Reads

• Flat Is the New Up? (Mike Collett, MP @ Promus Ventures)

• Crypto Twitter (Elad Gil, Angel Investor)

• Startups as a Sport (Dez Fleming, VC @ FirstMark)

• My Thoughts on Public vs Private Valuations for SaaS Companies in Q1 2022 (David Paul, MP @ DWP Capital)

• Remote work is here to stay, but it’s not all or nothing (Luke Beseda, Partner @ Lightspeed)

• Yeah, Meta’s Rumored ‘Zuck Bucks’ Sound Weird But I Once Thought Facebook Credits Could Be Bigger… (Hunter Walk, GP @ Homebrew)

---

Did we miss something?

We’re now pulling posts from over 650 Medium writers, Substack newsletters, and blogs (full list here). Let us know if you notice someone we’re missing and we'll include their content starting with our next digest! Just respond to this email with their URL if that’s the case.

---

Enjoying SandHill?

We’d really appreciate it if you shared it with a friend who would find it valuable.

---

Did someone send you this email? Subscribe below.