Five years ago we launched Unusual Ventures with the ambitious goals of reinventing Seed stage investing and raising the bar for the venture capital ecosystem. My youngest daughter likes to call our firm “Unusual Adventures” — and I have to admit she’s got a good point! In some ways it’s hard to believe half a decade has gone by, and yet there have been days and weeks that seemed to last quite a long time. I decided to break my reflections into what I am most grateful for and some important lessons learned.

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At Unusual we always try to start with gratitude.

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5 things I am grateful for

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1. Team Unusual

Jyoti and I set out to recruit a team of people who are extremely capable, highly competitive, and consistently kind. Building a team that we are proud of both for their aptitude and values has been one of the most rewarding aspects of being a Founder. You can’t change the world if you don’t win — our financial performance has to be world class. But at the same time just creating a financially successful venture capital firm would not be good enough for us.

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2. Our Limited Partners

From day one we insisted on creating wealth for organizations that were forces for good in the world and for diverse institutions that had not had access to premium venture capital returns. Our Limited Partners represent inspiring causes including foundations, endowments, historically black colleges and universities, and health-related institutions. We work in service of these places and the people they help, and it inspires us to all push harder.

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3. Our Founders

Our Founders are among the brightest minds in technology. With aspirations to change the world and the skillsets to execute, we are reminded daily of the privilege we have to support them. What sets an Unusual entrepreneur apart from the crowd is the humility to embrace learning from others and the competitive stamina to keep grinding. I can’t say enough about how much we appreciate that our Founders took a chance by partnering with a new venture capital firm.

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4. Family

Unusual Ventures does not exist without the support of my wife and three daughters. They have been my rock throughout this entire experience and made real sacrifices at every step of the journey. This is true for everyone on our team and for our Founders as well. Building something elite is a commitment everyone has made. 

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5. Mentors

I believe in my bones that venture capital is an apprentice business. If I hadn’t learned from Andy Rachleff, Kevin Compton, Jim Goetz, and many others, I would have been in no position to lead a new venture capital firm. The last five years have presented a few unexpected challenges! The hundreds of hours of calls, lunches, and long walks with these generous masters of their craft have made all of the difference for me. I am forever grateful for their continued support and mentorship.

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Learnings

My list of lessons over the past five years could fill a book. There have been some challenges related to building a new venture firm that could potentially be classified as “normal startup growing pains,” but there have also been some fairly large surprises: a pandemic, a bank failure, geopolitical turbulence, etc. But perhaps the biggest surprise has been the amount of camaraderie and joy that’s come from sharing these challenges with our Founders. Unusual exists to support our Founders in every way, but we are grinding to build something new and win just as they are. It has been a bonding experience to work together on how to best navigate these obstacles and commiserate every now and then!  Let’s just say my empathy for being a Founder is 1000x what it was before starting Unusual and I believe it has made me a much better investor and teacher. 

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I’ve tried to embrace the idea that every challenge is a growth opportunity. In terms of lessons learned, here are five of the most valuable.  

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5 lessons I’ve learned

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1. The mission matters

Being a Founder is at the same time the most challenging endeavor and the highest privilege I’ve had in my professional life. The challenges that come with hiring and managing a team, building a culture, creating a brand, investing and managing a portfolio – have stretched me beyond what I thought were my limits. One lesson I’ve come to truly understand is that the “why” behind doing something hard has to be truly genuine. The motivation and purpose is what the team comes back to for strength when it is time to push through something hard. Failure is not an option, and the mission of what we are doing is my ultimate power source and inspiration to the team.

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2. It’s the people

There was a period in my life where I grossly underestimated how much the people I worked with were affecting who I was as a person. I love the team at Unusual. I love the founders we are able to work with. I love the LPs that we’ve partnered with. To love is to “will the good of the other.” I care deeply that they all grow and succeed, and that they are proud of Unusual and how we engage. Doing all the extra work it takes to be successful is worth it when you are able to change people’s lives for the better and be proud of how you behaved in doing so.

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3. Founder-VC fit is a real thing 

As a Founder, you start off believing just about everyone can benefit from your product. When we created Unusual, we firmly believed that our approach would significantly improve the slope of progress for a Founder with an insight looking to find Product Market Fit. I believed that our approach of using highly experienced, successful founders and operators turned investors, and a hand picked team of expert service team members who embed fulltime would maximize the odds of success for any Founder willing to partner with us. I still believe that. But at the same time I am acutely aware that for some founders our approach is not a great style fit. Some founders prioritize other elements that we do not offer. And that’s OK. At Unusual we don’t aspire to invest in every great startup, rather we aspire to help make every startup we invest in great.

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4. How I show up every day matters

As a good friend likes to say to me, “the leader is the weather for everyone on the team that day.” I’ve felt that building Unusual these first five years and I am a constant work in progress to be the consistent presence the team needs so they can be the best versions of themselves. It’s a challenge for me to have the energy to always be aware of the impact I am having on others, and to openly share our hardships with the team when I am struggling. But I’ve learned it actually helps gain their respect and creates the dynamic we all want. I am fortunate to have an amazing group of Partners and teammates who are patient with me as we all grow together. As a Founder, my #1 competitor isn’t some other VC firm, it’s my own personal fatigue. It’s not enough just to believe in something, you have to have the stamina to overcome the obstacles. My team gives me energy if I let them in and it makes all the difference.

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5. Don’t let the copycats or negative nellies get to you

We set out to raise the bar in the venture ecosystem — to make the unusual, usual — when it came to building a diverse team, partnering with institutions that have been overlooked by the premier VC managers, providing Academy style programs to aspiring Founders, and delivering unparalleled support with our operator engagement model. New and well established firms took notice and have launched initiatives that sound, well, quite similar. No surprise. As any experienced Founder knows, if it works, people will copy you. Expect it. Embrace it and keep innovating. I learned a long time ago that you don’t win races by looking around. We keep being Unusual and it will all work out.

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The next 5 years

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When we started we said it would take a decade to reach our ambitious goal of establishing Unusual as the elite firm for Founders in the formation years. As we take the turn at the five year mark I am proud of what we’ve been able to build thus far, and yet there is so much more to do. We’ve taken some missteps, but we’ve learned from them and grown stronger. We are set up to build and innovate even faster in this next phase, and inspired to tackle the challenges the next five years will bring. 

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We have much to look forward to. We are living through one of the most exciting technology inflections in history and have never been more energized to help aspiring Founders. The team at Unusual has incredible potential and I can’t wait to see them take the next steps in their professional and personal journeys. Our first wave of Founders will start to see the fruits of their labors change their lives and the lives of their co-workers. And our LPs, who trusted us from Day 1, will see their investments in Unusual make an impact on the institutions and organizations we all want to see thrive.  

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Inevitably there will be unexpected bumps in the road. Bring it on. We will manage through them one step at a time, together. We will keep learning, growing and innovating. Most importantly we will stay true to our mission and the highest standards we have set for ourselves. Let’s go!

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Onward,

JV

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