I think that if venture capital is going to change, we shouldn't rely on VCs to make the changes. They benefit from the system, so change needs to comes from the founders. Here is a thread of opportunities I see for founders to shake shit up in venture capital land.

FOMO education - Venture capital is a game of FOMO, and the VCs are largely followers. When others run to an opportunity, more will follow. There should be a school/education system to educate founders on the game, and how to play it. FOMO education, hype building, etc.

A decentralized scout program - All scout programs come from individual firms. The blindspots of the firm will carry down to scouts. In this case, there is no GP or LP influence so the scout company can focus on finding the best deals/create FOMO for the startup.

A new filtering system - VCs are filter lovers. Right now, filters are school, work, and network. There is a major opportunity to define new filters, and sell VCs on them. This allows a wider top of funnel for VCs, without compromising founder quality.

Build a cold email filtering tool - VCs have inboxes that get destroyed by cold emails from founders everywhere. Build a tool that helps VCs sort these emails and filter them, which is better for the VC and better for the founder.

Pitchbook for preseed - Founders have data on series seed startups and beyond. What if someone indexed all of the -pre-seed ecosystem to help VCs get a better grip on how to think about pre-seed founders and startups. More data will lead to more confidence in the asset class.

Crunchbase for pre-investment startup updates - For pre-seed, the best data to look at is rate of execution. Have a database of millions of startups and how quickly they execute. Sell this data to investors, so they can invest in the fastest moving teams.

Educate rich people on how to be VCs, get them deal flow that a SF VC would get. Get them to stop being LPs and give them the intelligence to invest directly, with equal or higher returns.

Create a service to make it really easy for people to study to get the Series 65 license from FINRA, to make them an accredited investor. Cover costs, education, and practice. Make passing that test a piece of cake.

Oh, this isn't theoretical. This is the product roadmap for @fwdthinkingcity's capital arm. Want to get involved?
Email me. And for the brave, we're fundraising.

Email me: [email protected]