The Rise of Media-First Investors (now with added diversity)
On calling it out and making a contribution to changing the narrative
On the weekend, a friend retweeted the below.
As a journalism and creative writing major who has effectively written myself into the venture and tech industry in Australia, I am extremely bullish on the future of creators driving investment decisions. I love the work of the people mentioned - Packy McCormack and Turner Novak in particular. The topic of this thread, and the ensuing blog post it linked to excites me greatly. That we can still, in 2021, compile these lists without including a single woman or person of colour does not.
I was going to let it slide and enjoy my weekend (I am only three days in to a 10-day solo parenting stint after all). But example after incredible example of people driving this exact trend who also happen to not be white males kept coming to mind. So here I present to you the extended list of media-first investors, some with more direct pathways from one to the other, some who started their career in the media and creative industries before making a huge leap.
Thanks to Frederik Gieschen for the initial inspiration to write this article and for rightly pointing out that the pathway into venture is opening up for people with creative and story-telling skills. But I don’t think that matters unless the face of venture capital changes accordingly too.
Paige Finn Doherty is barely out of university but has already built an incredible reputation for her invaluable content focused on enabling emerging angels or managers to get started with investing or raising a fund. Her crowdfunded illustrated book Seed to Harvest: A Simple Explanation of Venture Capital was the ultimate catalyst for her to raise her first fund with Beyond Genius Ventures.
With extensive experience as an operator focused on go-to-market strategy for companies like Zendesk and Expedia, Brianne Kimmel went on to launch invite only mentorship program SaaS School, and kicked off her WFH Substack last year. Of the back of this and her ongoing angel investing activity, she raised her Worklife Ventures Fund 1, backed by incredible industry heavyweights.
Femstreet is arguably one of the most important newsletters focused on women in tech and investing who are shaping the future, with 15k subscribers globally. It was founded in 2017 by Sarah Nöckel, who has gone on to invest with Dawn Capital and now Northzone, where she is Vice President.
Anyone who spent time on Clubhouse earlier this year (are we still doing that?) would have probably tuned into The Good Time Show. Sriram Krishnan, a tech industry veteran and cohost of the show was made a General Partner at A16Z in January, while his wife and cohost Aarti Ramamurthy is now Head of International at the platform they grew their own profile on.
I knew this list should include Arlan Hamilton, but it took a bit more research to understand that the first chapter of her career was as the publisher of indie music magazine Interlude. While this may not have directly led to what has become an incredible legacy for improving diversity in venture investing through Backstage Capital, her roots as a creator were what she built her investing career success on.
Prior Backstage Capital colleague and investor Lolita Taub spent almost a decade in ‘corporate tech’ for IBM and Cisco before she was driven to create The F Show - 100 video interviews profiling incredible women in tech and entrepreneurship around the world. Launched in 2015, I reckon it was pretty ahead of its time, and Lolita has spent the time since investing through Backstage, NextGen Ventures, Operator and her own initiative The Community Fund, which focuses on community-led business. She also dedicates time to building out resources and tools to help underrepresented founders access the support and capital they need.
Joan Westenberg has had along career in the Australian startup ecosystem, both on the operator side in Communications and Marketing for some of the country’s most prominent startup businesses, but also as a journalist, writer and commentator with work published in Wired, The AFR, Junkee, Crikey and more. She runs Studio Self, a web3 brand creative and content agency, writes prolifically on similar topics at PizzaParty, and drops NFTs even more prolifically through her CryptoDunks project, to name but one. This is a story very much in the making, but as a leading thinker and creator in the web3 space, and one of the only transgender women angel investors in the world, I’m so excited to see how Joan’s investing career evolves.
I know there are more! I would love to hear about whose creative work you love and where people are using these skills and strengths to parlay into a career in investing. Drop a comment below.
TECH, THE ECONOMY & THE HUMAN CONDITION
This issue there is no difference.
“Because of the competitive stakes, investors are “ascribing higher valuations to things where they can move quickly,” which means relying on “hero archetypes,” like established entrepreneurs and management teams that have experience together.” The Great Competition to Give Away Money by Maxwell Strachan, VICE
“Social tokens better express the breadth and depth of a community.” Social Tokens and Creator-Centric Economies by Rex Woodbury
“It’s the unit of desire, it’s what’s actually scarce and you can call it attention. You can call it affinity. You can call it loyalty. You can call it brand affiliation, whatever you want to call it. It’s like, what is starting to become scarce is people’s actual interest in you. And people’s interest in what you have to say, not your ability to say something or your ability to make something.” World-Building and the Early Internet by Alex Danco