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Excited to share I’m launching a seed fund—Paradox Capital ( @ParadoxVC)—to arm founders beneath and beyond Silicon Valley’s radar with early checks and expert advice to build the next great companies anywhere.
Follow along in this thread or reach out at http://paradox.vc :
Follow along in this thread or reach out at http://paradox.vc :
Every week, founders from all over reach out asking for help taking their marketing strategies from 0 to 1. This fund will scale my ability to bet on the best ones and build a support network around them. Here's some backstory on the fund thesis, why I'm doing this + what's next.
The pandemic broke Silicon Valley’s location monopoly. Great founders can build great companies anywhere. But they still want direct access to top-tier Silicon Valley advice and capital to help get their companies off the ground –– and much of that talent remains centralized.
The fund mission is simple. Give outsider founders and founders outside Silicon Valley early checks and direct access to experts.
While SV the place is dissolving into the cloud, the philosophy around boundless creation is stronger than ever. That’s the paradox I'll lean into.
While SV the place is dissolving into the cloud, the philosophy around boundless creation is stronger than ever. That’s the paradox I'll lean into.
To deliver expert advice, I tapped some of the best experts in my network: writers ( @david_perell) comms leaders ( @cristinculver) product minds ( @dmcintosh). I’ve already sent a few founders their way & it’s amazing the impact a 30-minute chat can have on a startup's trajectory.
Next, I connected with @sunilpai about the right fund structure (in this case a rolling fund). There's no way I could invest part-time without the support of the @AngelList team. I have a podcast episode coming with @avlok where we talk about this in more detail, so stay tuned.
Once the fund’s structure was set up, I shifted my energy to creating a deck and pitching LPs. This was a new learning curve for me, but a process I enjoyed as it allowed me to refine my fund strategy and thesis with really smart people that I’d always wanted to chat with anyway.
Some background on me –– I love my job because I get to work with visionary founders to build marketing machines from the ground up. In 2016, I joined @Opendoor as the second marketing hire and this year I joined @Fast to help @domm and @abarrallen build our marketing team.
After advising founders for years, I decided to start investing a year ago. My first check was for @withprimer. I was bullish on homeschooling, loved @delk's vision and enjoyed brainstorming with the team. I was instantly hooked on helping founders and did 5 more deals in 2020.
I wanted to scale this up. Not only write bigger checks but connect founders I was betting on with folks who could help them work through their earliest challenges. As the pandemic ramped up and I did more Zoom meetings with founders around the country, the fund thesis emerged...
Now that the fund is live, I’m excited to shift back to having more of those conversations with founders.If you’re an early-stage founder building a company (or a potential LP), I’d love to chat. You can DM me or reach out @ParadoxVC. https://twitter.com/KyleTibbitts/status/1343747337206697984?s=20
Finally I’d like to thank my earliest LPs for betting on this vision and helping refine it @pmarca @balajis @garrytan @DavidSacks @juliadewahl @cdixon @GeoffLewisOrg @kimmytaylor @foundersfund @eladgil @lizeavey @ChrisJBakke @ibringtraffic @sriramk @CindyBiSV @pueokeffer + others
