Before
Founder of Product Hunt, launched in 2013 and acquired by AngelList in 2016.
The move
Product Hunt was the site where thousands of new products launched, which gave him earlier and denser visibility into new founders than almost any fund could buy. He was explicit about refusing the conventional path, saying he did not want to be an associate doing eight back-to-back coffee meetings. Instead he pointed the audience he already had at a very small personal vehicle and accepted that it would look unserious at the start.
The turn
Weekend Fund began immediately after the AngelList sale as an informal vehicle that grew to about three million dollars, which he has called the smallest fund of all time. He then scaled it deliberately, fund by fund, rather than trying to start large.
Timeline
- 2013 Product Hunt launched
- 2016 acquired by AngelList
- 2016 Weekend Fund starts informally, growing to roughly 3 million dollars
- 2019 Fund II at 10 million dollars
- 2026 Fund IV active and hiring
What this route asks
That you already own or run the surface where the deal flow happens. If you do, you do not need a firm to grant you access, and starting embarrassingly small is a feature rather than a compromise.