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In today’s market, stiff competition and heightened market valuations are raising concerns across the venture ecosystem. Many fear that consensus returns for this period could ultimately be mediocre and see a reshuffling of both the venture hierarchy and the way venture as an asset class operates. With that, figuring out an advantage over the consensus is more important than ever — it’s not just a means to returns, it’s a means to survival. Some believe that power law dynamics suggest a capital cannon approach to lay down as many bets as possible in the hopes of achieving a $100b outcome (which is now more possible than ever) that will justify many losers and, to be fair, they could be right. For better or worse, that’s not me and that’s not Equal Ventures.

Over the last 18 months, digital grocery has gone from the fringe to the forefront of consumer purchasing behaviors. Far before U.S. adoption skyrocketed to 43% in 2020 from 24% in 2018, our team set out to figure out “if digital grocery adoption became meaningful, what would happen?. We knew we’d be behind the curve to invest in a digital grocery upstart like Imperfect or Misfit given our investment stage, but felt that there had to be additional opportunities created as the value chain evolved.

In 1882, Thomas Edison formed the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York, bringing electric light to parts of Manhattan. The early days of the grid were slow moving, it was primarily for only the wealthiest. These elites owned their own sources of power, building their own grids, creating a landscape of haves and have nots. The industry needed to evolve to give broader access. To do that, we began producing power through central sources to reduce costs. We developed the utility structure to achieve economies of scale. This started taking place nearly a century ago and not much has changed since. Our power sources have gotten a bit cleaner, our meters a bit better and our appliances a bit more smarter, but the same basic workflow hasn’t changed. The grid has become industrial supply chain, pushing power down an assembly line at the cheapest cost possible (regardless of its consequences) without respect to what customers actually need.

Famed Sequoia Capital Founder Don Valentine once said, “VC is all about figuring out which questions are the right questions to ask”. In today’s venture market (which I can only describe as the fastest I’ve ever seen), it’s more important than ever to figure out what are the “right questions” to ask to drive conviction into your own investment process and to do it fast.

One of the startup hacks that I realized early in my tech journey was that VCs are an incredible resource for figuring out the best startups to join, especially at the earliest stages. In a world where >50k startups get started every year, and >10k raise seed rounds, it can be daunting for an individual to figure out which private companies are showing promising signals and starting to grow. However, on the investment side, VCs have access to far more information, giving a guiding signal to some of those that may be most promising.