Pete Flint from NFX on network effects, VC as a platform, and how they think about fund sizes.

Venture Unlocked: The playbook for venture capital managers

Follow me @samirkaji for my ongoing thoughts on the private fund markets.

Over the last decade, we’ve seen a surge of VC firms formed by those that spent their entire lives as entrepreneurs. NFX is one of those firms, and in 2016, ex-Trulia founder Pete Flint joined the firm as fourth partner bringing the experience of starting a company, taking it public, before ultimately being acquired by Zillow for $2.5B.

This was a fun conversation, not only because of Pete’s insights and interesting background, but because of unique NFX is as a firm in the way they have built their firm, using operational experience, a community driven ethos, team composition, and software to help founders. The fund’s portfolio companies include Lyft, AngelList, and Doordash and has nearly $500MM in AUM.

In this episode we discuss the following topics:

01:29 Pete’s journey into venture capital

04:04 Why he chose to go with NFX instead of a more established firm

06:58 Execution vs. Ideas

10:38 The origin of NFX Guild

13:10 How NFX views venture fund differentiation

15:53 The way NFX uses software to help their firm and their portfolio companies

20:02 Scalingvalue as AUM and number of portfolio companies increase

22:24 Portfolio construction and founder engagement

24:32 What drove their increase in fund size

27:33 Where NFX fits in the ecosystem

28:13 Biotechnology and blockchain as a new areas of investment

30:58 The importance of ethos and culture at NFX

32:42 The biggest counter intuitive fact he’s learned as an investor

33:21 His biggest miss an investor

34:35 The main characteristic of a successful investor

Mentioned In This Episode:

* NFX Fund

* NFX Guild

We’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Pete! Follow @SamirKaji and give your insight and questions using the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com