How should venture investors split their time between supporting existing portfolio companies and sourcing new investments?

Gili Raanan · Mar 18, 2024

Venture investors should minimize memos, documentation, industry events, LP activity and non-portfolio time, and spend nearly all their time with portfolio companies.

Scope: he spends only two or three hours a week on non-portfolio matters

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Eric Vishria · Sep 25, 2024

Spending 80–85% of one's time on the existing portfolio is what the Benchmark model requires.

The Benchmark model is a highly concentrated portfolio of very high-conviction commitments to entrepreneurs, which demands that level of engagement.

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Tom Hulme · May 8, 2024

One of venture's traps is that as portfolios grow investors drift into spending all their time supporting, so they must deliberately keep the sourcing and selecting muscle alive

The world's best VCs shift away from sourcing toward supporting over their careers; Alfred Lin reportedly meets ten companies on a weekend just to keep the muscle going

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Harry Stebbings · May 8, 2024

Sourcing is the capability where mature investors are most likely to weaken over time

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Nikhil Basu Trivedi · Sep 6, 2023

An investor must spend more than 50% of their time meeting new companies and sourcing to find the next great investment

The next company you meet can be the one that changes the trajectory of the firm, so sourcing time is the metric they audit weekly

40:39 Spend majority of time sourcing new investments not portfolio support

Mark Goldberg · Oct 25, 2024

Spending 100% of your time playing offense is achievable only with a clean slate at the start of a firm, not sustainably over time

Board and portfolio load accumulate, so the energy of a day-one fund is not infinitely scalable — but right now it feels like running with a jetpack

50:03 Day one offense energy is unsustainable as board and portfolio load accumulates

Eric Vishria · Sep 25, 2024 · hedged

Sitting on twelve or thirteen boards is workable, though a lot.

The companies are at different stages, with four or five very young, and because he isn't spending the majority of his time hunting new companies he can devote 80–85% of his time to them.

46:52 Sitting on a dozen plus boards is workable when sourcing time is reduced