Venture Capital 101 with Eric Bahn

On this episode, Ryan sits down with Eric Bahn from Hustle Fund in San Francisco. Hustle Fund invests in what they call “hilariously-early hustlers.” Prior to co-founding the fund, Eric worked in a number of operating roles, including as a product manager at Intuit, co-founder of a gaming company, founder of a startup to serve MBA students (that was later acquired), product manager at Facebook, co-founder of a media company called The Hustle, and EIR at 500 Startups (phew!).

On this episode we take you behind the curtain to break down exactly how venture capital works. We talk about:

• Eric's advice on how to break into venture capital if you've never worked in the space before.
• Some of the common misconceptions about VC, including how much venture capitalists are actually paid (spoiler alert: unless you're at a big fund, it's not as much as you think).
• Hustle Fund's investing thesis, including their unique data-driven approach to investing in early stage companies.

We also talk about the rise of “no code” and some of the best apps that are letting makers create amazing products without writing code.

We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Also, big thanks to AngelList and FreshBooks for their support. 😸

Quotes from This Episode

“Fundamentally our jobs are the most blessed in the world because we just surround ourselves with people who have a worldview, have a product, have an idea, that they wholeheartedly believe in. They’ve taken all the sacrifices to make that happen and you and I may not agree all the time with whether their vision is the correct one to be successful but it only leaves you with optimism.” — Eric

“Our thesis is driven by the notion that the single best leading indicator of success for a team — that is discernible at the pre-seed stage, is this characteristic called hustle. Whatever the core metrics that are relevant for your business, the teams that are growing aggressively against those metrics tend to grind out the best results over time.” — Eric

“These folks will look amazing on paper — maybe they worked at Facebook or Google or something previously, went to Stanford or MIT, checks all the boxes, and then you watch them work and you realize that person who was successful in the context of a larger company with more resources doesn’t necessarily have the skills that translate to cold-starting a business from scratch in a world of entropy where there’s no rules and no structure.” — Eric

Companies and Products Mentioned in This Episode

Bubble — Build a fully functional web app without any code.

Retool — Build custom internal tools in minutes.

Webflow — Build professional dynamic websites without any code.

Articles Mentioned In This Episode

Mark Suster, Both Sides: Invest in Lines, Not Dots

Kate Clark, TechCrunch: This Is How Much VCs Are Paid