There is no better way to show that you have a lot of confidence in yourself as an investor than you are the biggest LP in your $101 million fund, right?
Especially if you call your company Conviction, as Sarah Guo did after leaving Greylock after a decade of investing for the well-known venture group. Last week, she announced that she has raised $101 million for her new fund to support companies building artificial intelligence and what she describes as software 3.0.
Guo spoke to australiabusinessblog.com’s Equity podcast, co-hosted by Natasha Mascarenhas and Alex Wilhelm, about her inaugural fund and the broader market she invests in today. The entire conversation is now live, everywhere you’ll find podcasts, so listen up if you haven’t already. Below we have taken four key excerpts from the interview for further discussion. Guo’s comments have been slightly edited for clarity.
Think of business in collections
Part of the appeal of startups is that when things don’t go wrong, which they often do, you might be an early employee of a rocket ship. Of course, that counts in VC too, if you were the first person to support a company like Airtable or see the power of connected fitness.
But what happens if you want to disrupt a category that has already been around a few times? Guo shared her framework around venture innings, and how that plays a role in her new focus areas at Conviction:
