Hi! I’m glad you’re here. You’ve made it to issue #99 of VC Demystified🪄.

Two quick announcements:

1) If you’ve ever wanted to start writing a newsletter but haven’t made the jump, I’m working with beehiiv to give my subscribers the push they need. More here.

2) I finally turned my brand-building playbook into a video course. If you've been putting off building your presence in VC, this is your sign to stop waiting. Get it here.

When I broke into VC, it was as an intern. It was the first VC firm I had ever worked for. And during that internship, I sourced a deal that resulted in an actual investment. I was the first intern in the firm's history to do that.

I had no prior VC experience. I didn't have a large network. What I had was a mission and a willingness to work as hard as I needed to to make it work.

That experience shaped how I think about sourcing now. And it's why, when a student at a recent panel I spoke on asked me how to build a sourcing engine that VCs actually value, I didn't give the generic answer about going to events and meeting founders.

I gave them this.

Most people think sourcing means finding startups. That's the output. But what VCs are actually evaluating is whether you have proprietary access: do you see deals they wouldn't otherwise see, and do founders take your call?

There's a big difference between forwarding a TechCrunch article about a seed round and introducing a founder who isn't yet talking to other investors. One is noise. One is signal.

Before you build anything, you need to answer one question honestly:

If you can't answer that, your sourcing won't be differentiated, and undifferentiated sourcing is the easiest thing for a VC to ignore.

A sourcing engine isn't a spreadsheet. It's a set of relationships and habits that compound over time. Here's how I think about building one from scratch:

Start with your unfair advantages.

Your operating experience, your school network, your geography, your industry background. These aren't just resume lines. They're sourcing channels. An operator who spent three years in climate tech has access to a founder community that most generalist VCs are trying to break into. That's the engine. Use it deliberately.

Build visibility inside the communities where founders live.

The actual places where early-stage founders congregate: accelerator alumni networks, niche Slack groups, university research labs, operator communities. Show up there consistently. Be useful. Ask good questions. You want founders to think of you before they think of reaching out to a fund directly.

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