Early-stage venture firms are typically small but mighty operations. The normal profile is a lean team with the majority of players holding some sort of investing role. It’s not uncommon to see non-investing teams of one, maybe two. Speaking as a one-woman platform operation myself, I have found this dynamic to be quite interesting. I’m lucky to have wonderful colleagues who believe in me, care deeply about what I do, and provide in-depth support whenever I need it. But the reality is, our day-to-day as platform professionals vs. investing professionals looks vastly different. When I’m in need of platform-specific advice or resources, I lean heavily on my group of platform peers.

This network of non-investors has been transformational in my development and instrumental in my success. A lot of it has been tactical, like chatting about sponsorship best practices or dishing on annual meeting venue recommendations. But just as much if not more has been emotional – creating safe spaces to vent about challenges or toast to accomplishments that only we could truly appreciate. There’s something to be said for the comfort that exists between people who don’t need to explain anything to one another. That baseline of understanding, empathy, and compassion is powerful when you lean into it. 

We’ve been thinking about this a lot here at NextView. The magic that can happen when founders lean on their collective network to win. The compounding advantages that are possible when you tap into the power of your peer group. In the way that platform folks are typically solo operations amongst a larger web of investors, founders similarly find themselves on islands within their wider teams. A founder’s day-to-day is night and day to that of their employees. The work is different. The goals are different. The stakes are different. That’s why it’s crucial for founders to build relationships amongst other founders, not only for the tactical support fellow entrepreneurs can provide, but also for the emotional support – that baseline of understanding, empathy, and compassion that I spoke to above. Founder friends you can look to for advice when your fundraise isn’t going well or you’re experiencing co-founder conflict. Founder friends you can celebrate with when you make that key hire or win that big customer. 

Our platform focus over the past year and change has been to create opportunities for these relationships to develop organically, both virtually and in person. The NextView founder ecosystem is a formidable one, and designing spaces for these emotional connections to take root and these compounding network advantages to take flight has been special. Instead of outsourcing resources that founders can obtain themselves, how can we leverage combined knowledge to get ahead where it matters most at the seed stage? Here’s what we’ve been building: 

NextView Founder Retreat 

A multi-day event that brought together 50 founders from a wide variety of industries, geographies, stages, and walks of life. The goal of the retreat was representative of that which I touched on before; we wanted every entrepreneur to walk away feeling like they found their founder soulmate – someone they could confide in, lean on, and laugh with for years to come. To ensure this happened we traded crowded speaker series for intimate coaching circles, we swapped stuffy conference rooms for hikes in nature, we exchanged panels for pickleball, boardrooms for breathwork, the list goes on. It was pure magic to witness the connections that blossomed and the progress that was made at this retreat; we can’t wait to do this again next year!

NextView Founder Retreat – Santa Cruz, CA – May 2024

 

IRL Founder Activations

In addition to the annual founder retreat, we think it’s just as important for founders to spend dedicated time with each other throughout the rest of the year, as well. This happens across regional founder gatherings, stage-specific dinners, and in-person co-working time at the NextView NYC office.

NextView Founder Gathering – New York, NY – September 2023

 

NextView Talent Exchange

A digital place where NextView founders access support for their hiring needs. Founders swap top-tier candidates, relevant resources, and best practices for staying competitive in startup recruiting. Anyone can hire a recruiter or scrape their own network to fill a role, but we believe the true edge here lies in the compounding advantage of the wider NextView web of founders.  

Screenshot of NextView’s Talent Exchange, Summer 2024

 

NextView Founder Roundtables

High-quality virtual discussions created specifically for founders in the NextView portfolio to learn from experts and bounce ideas off of each other. This monthly, AMA-style webinar tackles key issues that every founder will face in their startup lifecycle and allows them to form relationships with each other, as well as potential advisors. Past topics have included AI and PLG, B2B marketing, hiring, budgeting and fundraising, financial planning, scaling technically, storytelling, and more! 

Recording of NextView’s September 2024 Founder Roundtable: The State of Fundraising in 2024 (Series A and Series B Founders)

 

Top Operator Networking Events

In addition to our founder-centric activations, we also put on a myriad of other initiatives that are focused on connecting top operators in the New York, San Francisco, and Boston startup ecosystems. We are less public about these events, but they are incredibly important to us as an early-stage firm. If you know someone who could benefit from joining an entrepreneurially-minded community, feel free to recommend them here for more information.  

NextView Operator Event – New York, NY – March 2024

 

I’ll end with this thought. My job isn’t forcing connections to happen, my job is cutting through the assumptions and generalizations and designing space for human connections to occur. NextView’s high-conviction, hands-on approach has created unbeatable one-on-one relationships over the past 13+ years, with trust at the core of each bond. Now it’s about scaling those relationships and making room for them to happen across the portfolio, across fellow founders. Multiplying the trusted pool + maintaining the top-tier quality = better chances of winning, and we’re looking forward to doing just that!