VC is an apprenticeship business
from our October 1 2023 LP newsletter
The Hustle Fund team just returned from the inaugural Camp Hustle Asia in Bali. It was great to see some of you there and/or in Singapore over F1 weekend!
At Camp, I was lucky to have a conversation with Arthur Chua, CEO of Goldbell, Singapore’s leading industrial vehicle company. Goldbell was started in 1980 by Arthur’s grandfather and father as a forklift distributor. Arthur joined out of college and later took over the business with his brother Alex in 2012.
When Arthur and Alex took the helm, they led the charge on digital transformation to become a data driven company. Their core business expanded beyond distribution into leasing, care and financial services. In 2020 Goldbell launched MoveSG, a global accelerator that has gone on to invest in 70 companies across 20 countries.
Arthur’s insights across autonomous cars (still too early), investing successfully across different ecosystems (find a savvy local partner) and assessing what business models in the future of mobility work in which markets were fascinating, but what stuck with me most was a well-known Chinese saying he expanded on:
Wealth transfer doesn’t last beyond 3 generations. But effective value transfer can last 10 generations or more.
Throughout our conversation, Arthur emphasized the importance of humility in his family and his work. Arthur wasn’t handed the family business. Arthur started his career at Goldbell apprenticing as a technician in the workshop making $2,000 per month. He’d often get up at 5 am to catch 3 buses to make it to work on time while his father took the family car in. He spent his salary on treats for his tenured workshop coworkers and had to earn their trust and respect bottoms up to transform legacy operations.
When I started at Hustle Fund a year ago, I focused on learning through research, learning from the best practitioners and learning through practice.
I refined my information diet, set out to meet lots of other VCs, and focused on practice:
review 50-100 companies per week
meet with 10-20
write memos on 1-2
invest in the best 1 each month
I spent a lot of time asking questions (and will continue to!) but a piece of advice I received from a mentor at All Raise and Hustle Fund LP is that nothing replaces time in seat. Tacit knowledge. Looking at lots of companies, seeing market cycles, building relationships with other funds, and intimately understanding the ups and downs of running a startup. VC is an apprenticeship business. Samo Burja, whose research focuses on building immortal institutions says:
Tacit knowledge is knowledge that can’t properly be transmitted via verbal or written instruction, like the ability to create great art or assess a startup.
In year 1, the lessons that stand out most were observed, not explicitly told.
Understanding what resilience looks like by meeting weekly with a founder as he pivoted the company into a competitive space, broke up with his cofounder, built an MVP, secured design partners, and started fundraising through angels and then tier c, b and a funds.
Seeing founder friendly in action as Elizabeth fielded calls throughout Thanksgiving from founders who were struggling to fundraise or just realizing they waited too long to cut burn.
Will’s process of updating his due diligence questionnaire every few months as part of his reflection process to create shorter feedback loops in this longterm game.
Shiyan’s ability to find founders that are strategic subject matter experts and great executors to raise my own bar of what good looks like.
Eric’s execution on fast followup, attention to detail, and focus on getting leverage on time through process and automation.
In the year ahead, I’m excited to continue to bring Angel Squad members in closer to observe beyond the classroom.
Deal referrals from Angel Squad have doubled YoY to >200 YTD, and the quality of referral has increased both in terms of company and fit for Hustle Fund (stage and sector). Some of those companies come from Angel Squad members who have decided to start companies since joining the community. Others come from members who have started specialized syndicates, run accelerators, or are already VCs themselves. We’re pulling Angel Squad members in to deepen and accelerate our diligence, grow our top of the funnel, support founders, and learn.
For a long time, VC has been inaccessible to most people. And while there’s an explosion of content and courses available, I think there’s still a gap in programs that give people a way to review a lot of companies, observe investors throughout their decision making process, and be a fly on the wall as companies mature.
It’s why we launched an Angel Squad deal review program earlier this year and have evolved it alongside members over the last 6 or so months. And it’s why last month, we started piloting a Venture Fellowship with a few Angel Squad members. More to come!
As an operator, I’m used to brute-forcing things. It’s been fun to help this program come together organically. This was one of Arthur’s key learnings from his dad:
One of the key values he would always tell me is: ‘It’s good to be excited, but not too excited. Because when you’re overly excited, you jump into problems or start new things too fast.