I’m on a plane today headed to NYC for the week. I’ve refrained from tweeting too much directly about the implosion of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and the threat to other regional banks. This is in part because it’s a complicated topic where there are... Read More

As an unofficial tradition, I attempt to “look back” on the previous year in technology startups and tease out the big themes. Looking back on 2022, I’ll admit I found it harder to step back from the noise of work and family life, to zoom... Read More

Each year, when the summer ends, I begin to think about what I’ll write in this annual “breakout company” post, which has turned into a mini-annual tradition for me here on this blog. Until a few days ago, I kept thinking – just like in... Read More

As an early-stage startup investor, this year, 2022, has been marked by one thing: Hard Conversations. Lots of them. Each conversation is different, but depending on the situation, they fall into one a few buckets. The hardest are with founders who are already in your... Read More

In the summer of 2020, an odd time for sure, my friend and Lightspeed colleague Guru told me about a team he loved but felt was way too early. We took the intro from Guru, and wow am I glad I did. Guru, we owe... Read More

In the summer of 2021, and old friend Eric Ries introduced us to Aaron and Courtney from Schoolytics. I was initially skeptical of the idea — to build a data and metrics platform for all sorts of schools — but in the very first meeting... Read More

In the fall of 2019, as we were opening a new fund (Haystack V), and old friend/mentor of mine Josh Stein pinged me about a deal he was leading in a company called Databook. He and his colleague did a lot of work on the... Read More

Maybe over 10 years ago, I remember a Twitter thread with @cdixon. He was defending startups against critique, citing that journalists and other startup ecosystem players shouldn’t publicly criticize startups because startups are really hard, most of them fail, and it’s the market that delivers... Read More

Nearly 8 years ago, when I was on the verge of finishing Haystack Fund I, I was introduced to a tall, lanky kid who was dropping out of Stanford. I was living in downtown Palo Alto at the time, so took him out to Fraiche... Read More

Back when Haystack just started out, we were fortunate to make a small investment in a friend, Larry. We documented that here years ago. Well, a lot has happened since then. Larry and the team at Envoy have experienced growth, survived through Covid, where their... Read More

For those who know me, I am a planner. I truly enjoy it. And while I’m happy to be flexible when things don’t fall the way I’d like, I oftentimes build concurrent plans as options along the way, just in case those things happen. At... Read More

As a mini-tradition here on this blog, at the end of each year, I attempt to briefly summarize and contextualize the big events that happened in the world of tech and VC. It’s impossible to touch on everything, so for reflecting on 2021, I’ve tried... Read More

It is that time of year on my blog. This year-end tradition has lasted happily longer than I would’ve predicted. Each year, as a “committee of one,” I declare the breakout startup of the year. Let’s briefly revisit the past: In 2012 it was Stripe; then Snap in... Read More

This has been an interesting week. Yesterday, HashiCorp listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker $HCP, for HashiCorp Cloud Platform. Over nine years ago, a close friend introduced me to one of his star colleagues, Mitchell Hashimoto, who wanted to get some advice on how... Read More

I’m pleased to announce that Haystack is about to begin investing out of a brand new fund – Fund VI, raised in May 2021 – in January 2022. Our new fund is $50M, just like the previous Fund V. Haystack has shown a deep commitment... Read More

Almost seven years ago, mutual friends introduced me to Krystle Mobayeni. She lived in NYC but was visiting the Bay Area to raise money for her startup. I recall meeting her a few times in/around Palo Alto, in particular the new Blue Bottle as it... Read More

When Noah Jessop joined Founder Collective a few years ago, we met in person just to meet each other. I’ve luckily been friends with the folks at Founder Collective for a while. To give you a sense of how thoughtful they are, they spent the... Read More

I met Tommy Leep over a decade ago now. He was working for Floodgate back then. We immediately became friends. Since then, he’s been on a journey – some ups, some downs. He made incredible contributions to Haystack as a friend and consultant for many... Read More

In the inconsequential world of venture capital, the past few weeks have been illuminating and unpredictable, with a particular focus on the human dimension. Folks reading this likely are in-tune with the realities of today’s markets — we all know technology and startups are attracting... Read More

I shared this last month on Twitter and was delayed in posting it here o the blog. I called it “2021 Venture Capital Market Dislocation.” Credit to my friend Leo Polovets who encouraged me to write this out. Adam Nash tweeted this earlier, paraphrased: The... Read More