How to Not Get Fired When Changing Your VC Strategy | El Pack w/ Beezer Clarkson | Superclusters

Beezer Clarkson from Sapphire Partners joins David on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on four GPs at VC funds to ask four different questions.

Precursor Ventures' Charles Hudson asks what is the one strongly held belief about emerging managers that she no longer believes is true.

NextView Ventures' Stephanie Palmeri asks how much should an established firm evolve versus stick to their guns.

Humanrace Capital's Suraj Mehta asks what the best way to build brand presence is.

Rackhouse Venture Capital's Kevin Novak asks if you've deployed your capital faster than you expected, what's the best path forward with the remaining capital you have left?

Beezer Clarkson leads Sapphire Partners‘ investments in venture funds domestically and internationally. Beezer began her career in financial services over 20 years ago at Morgan Stanley in its global infrastructure group. Since, she has held various direct and indirect venture investment roles, as well as operational roles in software business development at Hewlett Packard. Prior to joining Sapphire in 2012, Beezer managed the day-to-day operations of the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Global Network, which then had $7 billion under management across 16 venture funds worldwide.

In 2016, Beezer led the launch of OpenLP, an effort to help foster greater understanding in the entrepreneur-to-LP tech ecosystem. Beezer earned a bachelor’s in government from Wesleyan University, where she served on the board of trustees and currently serves as an advisor to the Wesleyan Endowment Investment Committee. She is currently serving on the board of the NVCA and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

You can find Beezer on her socials here.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/beezer232

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethclarkson/

Check out Sapphire's latest breakdown on if venture is broken: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/venture-broken-what-2000-priced-early-stage-rounds-tell-clarkson-sjvjc/

And huge thanks to Charles, Suraj, Steph, and Kevin for joining us on the show!

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro

[01:22] Where does Beezer's advice come from?

[04:03] Charles and Precursor Ventures

[04:47] What's something Beezer used to believe about seed stage venture that she no longer believes in

[08:04] Why did Charles choose to bet on pre-seed companies?

[10:21] What did LPs push back on when Charles was starting Precursor?

[12:18] Definition of early stage investing today

[14:38] Steph and NextView Ventures

[18:13] When do you stick your knitting or move on from the past as an established firm?

[30:48] Is venture investing in AI fundamentally different than investing in other types of companies?

[32:52] Does competition for a deal mean you've already lost it?

[36:09] Suraj and Humanrace Capital

[36:54] How should emerging managers build their brand?

[38:38] The audience most emerging managers don't focus on but should

[40:39] How much does visible brand presence matter?

[43:47] Useful or not: Media exposure in the data room

[45:40] Backstreet boys

[46:37] Kevin and Rackhouse Venture Capital

[47:28] What Kevin is best known for

[48:03] Updated fund modelling when you're ahead on your proposed deployment period

[58:00] The typical questions Beezer gets on LPACs

[1:03:22] Is venture broken?

[1:06:41] David's favorite Beezer moment from Season 1

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