It's early, but lifestyle companies are <10% of our applicants. Mostly clustered around series A/post seed.

Agree. Founders contribute a percentage of the equity they would fully own, if fully vested to the pool, not a fixed percentage of the equity of the company.

Good analogy.

Fair point. That dates back to the panic period weeks ago when people were refreshing the "RIP" good times" deck from sequoia, putting their name on it and sending it off to their portfolio companies :)

You will be surprised at the spectrum of companies that are interested in doing pooling, as were we.

Maybe, just may be a realistic assessment of the chances of success is an under appreciated entrepreneurial trait.

Maybe this trait can co-exist independently with the ability to forge ahead DESPITE knowing how low the odds are, because you want to see something happen.

Maybe it is that silicon valley groks this as "an irrational belief" when in fact, it is the compulsion to forge ahead despite knowing the odds.

Cool reference. Thank you!

Entrepreneurs free riding on the VC model is the opposite of what really happens: VCs free ride on founder risk.

We see VCs themselves encourage founders to take money off the table with a secondary sale in rounds as early as series A. They also look for founders with previous exits, and usually pay a premium for their startups or invest with a much lower threshold.

This idea that "founders that are not starving are going to be less motivated to succeed" is one of several silicon valley mythologies that don't stand up to scrutiny empirically or otherwise.

Most people don't start companies to sit back and chill as soon as they are financially secure. If they did, and you had invested in them and now have to force them to stay hungry, you should reconsider being a VC.

Hard transfer ban clauses are rare, usually they are ROFRs. Some boards may push back, but they do see the benefit of the founder having an aligned support network and we believe many will let this happen.

We believe that this exception to the ROFR or transfer restriction becomes a standard clause built into most term sheets in the future.

I've heard that some YC founders approached them about it, but the management of this structure may be more work that distracts YC from it's focus. We hope every accelerator and VC film does this eventually, we want to power as many of them as we can under the hood.

lol im sure you do, as does pando.

and ya, that makes sense. it should be offered by YC and other accelerators, but it should be managed by alumni and pool members, not by the investing party.

edit: a word

If they want to take it upon themselves, they should.

Having said that, there is a reason coop pools like insurance are managed by third parties.