Origins Ep. 5— Joelle Kayden, Founder of Accolade Partners

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Joelle’s experience in the LP trenches is unlike anyone we’ve had on Origins thus far. We realize this episode is a little longer than usual, but we really struggled to cut parts out…the whole interview is just that good. Joelle provides both a history lesson and a roadmap for any VC building a firm today, as well as some guiding principles for founders evaluating potential investors.

Joelle founded Accolade Partners as a solo founder herself back in the height of the Internet bubble in 2000. She was previously with Alex Brown for 18 years, where she worked on technology company IPOs and began to build a personal track record as an LP in venture funds, something very few people were doing at the time.

In this episode, we talk to Joelle about surviving the dot com bubble in the early oughts, grinding her way towards a Fund II five years later in 2005, and all of her success since, including her early involvement with what are now iconic firms like Accel (including their FB fund), Andreessen Horowitz, and Harrison Metal.

We hope you’ll listen, subscribe, and as always, let us know if you have any feedback or ideas for the show!

— Nick + Alex