A failed startup, then first employee at Product Hunt, then Village Global, On Deck and Turpentine. He built what founders pass through rather than joining a firm.
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- Aug 30, 2026
People who built or ran the thing founders touch before they raise, so that sourcing stopped being a problem they had to solve.
4 current matches · Reviewed August 30, 2026
Case studies of people whose way into venture was the platform route.
A live filter that updates itself.
A failed startup, then first employee at Product Hunt, then Village Global, On Deck and Turpentine. He built what founders pass through rather than joining a firm.
Unpaid Techstars mentoring became a managing director seat, which became 130 personal angel investments, which became her own fund.
Cardinal Ventures made them visible to real firms before they had any credentials. A general partner who met them through it later hired them both.
He refused the associate route, pointed Product Hunt's audience at a tiny personal vehicle, and grew it fund by fund.
This list is a live filter, not a fixed set. It updates itself, so cases can join or drop off at any time.
Each case links to its own page, with sources and a verification date.
People whose original written analysis was the application. The rarest route here, and the only one where writing alone carried the entry.
People who were senior at one company that became a network hub, wrote personal checks from inside it, and scaled those checks into a fund.
Case studies of the access mechanisms themselves: what a firm actually builds when it wants deal flow from people who do not work there, and what those programs produced.
People who built a real investing record with none of their own capital, through a scout allowance or a syndicate, and then raised on that record.
People who published in public until founders and investors came to them, then turned the audience into deal flow and a fund. The fastest route in the set, and the one that asks for the most patience up front.
People who took the geography, stage or demographic established firms had collectively ignored, and became the name in it. The hardest route, and the one carrying the most caveats.
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