Watershed
When I drafted this update earlier this year, I thought this title was the best way to begin. It captures where I feel I am in my journey as an investor and where I think our venture and entrepreneurial communities are headed.
Since then, COVID-19 has taken so many from us, exhausted our healthcare systems and turned our lives upside down. The tragic deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Rashard Brooks and many others perhaps not prominent in our news cycles have catalyzed millions to confront the persistent realities of racial inequity.
It’s an understatement to say that this title is now more relevant. Indeed, these are watershed experiences. Through them we can see things more clearly, realize what matters most and create turning points for lasting change.
With this context in mind, I want to share that I have transitioned from my role as General Partner at Armory Square Ventures. It’s been a privilege to partner with Somak, our team, our portfolio companies and our Limited Partners. I’m thankful to them — Somak especially — for our experiences and their continued support. I’m proud of our success and look forward to the bright future of the fund we’ve grown.
Over the years, it’s been gratifying to experience and help spark evolution in entrepreneurial ecosystems across New York. Some such as New York City I’ve long been lucky to call home, bullishly invest in and love. Others such as Buffalo, Ithaca, Rochester and Syracuse I’ve grown more familiar with and fond of during my time at ASV.
New York’s evolution is emblematic of a developing watershed across our broader entrepreneurial and venture communities that I’m excited to help turbo charge. Increasingly diverse, distributed and potent talent pools, technology platforms and investor networks are giving rise to a new generation of entrepreneurs within prominent entrepreneurial hubs along our country’s coasts and the many others now rapidly emerging outside of them.
Some of these entrepreneurs might lack credentials we’ve become accustomed to, silver spoons or straight paths in life. They include founders of color, women, immigrants and others underrepresented or “unconventional”. Their circumstances — and our ignorance — may have hidden their brilliance but forged their passion and grit. Their experiences shape a different, authentic understanding of our most pressing challenges and compelling opportunities. They’re enabled by technology that can help transform fundamental industries, create on-ramps for society, influence our well being and build great companies anywhere.
I believe in the power of this transformation. As a son of parents that immigrated to the US over fifty years ago, I’ve hustled to build an unlikely career in venture capital. Without a doubt, I’m a product of its progression. I’m thankful to invest behind and work with amazing entrepreneurs and investors on its front lines. Through these experiences, I understand that the potential here is enormous. But we’re just scratching the surface for what’s possible and needed.
As investors, now is the time to do everything we can to help accelerate this change and realize its full potential. I’ve been thinking about how we might better contribute to this and offer some ideas as a place to start:
Foster diversity at the core — not just as a feature
Investing in and recruiting more underrepresented founders and team members is necessary but not sufficient. Diversity should be a northstar underpinning the strategy behind our entire business. It begins with our organizational ethos and investing theses. It continues forward with partnership and team composition, board and advisory representation, LP partnerships and our accountability towards them and cultivation of other strategic networks. To reinforce and connect the loop, it should inform how we measure and communicate portfolio returns and firm success. Diversity isn’t only about our skin color, ethnicity or sexual orientation — although these factors are telling. It’s about creating a diverse coalition of human capital across our entrepreneurial and venture communities with vision, passion, experiences and understanding that better reflects the society we aspire to help transform and empowers our ability to help do so.
Reboot traditional heuristics and networks
Heuristics and networks can be powerful tools for investment sourcing and decision making. However, traditional inputs can result in stale dependencies and outcomes. Biases towards educational “pedigree”, race, sex, age, upbringing, referral source and preconceived notions of pain points and industries can mislead. Pushing beyond what is familiar or comfortable, updating our pattern recognition and creating new networks are fundamental to finding the next generation of exceptional founders solving for what matters most.
Advance cross ecosystem pollination
The “rise of rest” narrative can be incorrectly portrayed as a zero sum game — i.e. developing ecosystems’ gains are prominent ecosystems’ losses. While Silicon Valley, New York City, Boston and other more prominent hubs aren’t without challenges to address, they’re undeniably special and will continue to be compelling environments for entrepreneurial innovation. Understandably, emerging ecosystems can sometimes be reluctant of investors and others that don’t have organic ties to these regions. Advancing collaboration to expand and balance the pie of entrepreneurial activity and investment flow is integral. Primary markets are valuable allies and important corridors to access talent, mentorship, capital and strategic relationships for startups and investors in emerging ecosystems.
Build platforms designed to scale
The last decade has seen a proliferation in emerging venture funds and managers like me. Many have mandates that target specific thematic or geographic industry blind spots. They’ve been integral to advance this industry sea change. Some within our industry believe that venture is a “local” endeavor. Certainly, there is merit to this and the focus that often results. However, I believe that supercharging our impact as capital allocators requires that we build more platforms with the capabilities and personnel to coalesce some of these mandates in a focused way and expand beyond — but not past — this “local” mindset.
I’m passionate to help our industries’ watershed moment and the entrepreneurs leading us through it achieve full potential. New York will always have permanence — I’m fortunate to be a part of its vibrant fabric of entrepreneurs and investors that I’m privileged to invest behind and help shape. But, I’m also excited to continue expanding beyond what feels familiar and is “local” to me. This helps create foundation for what comes next.
Drop me a line sometime at i.ahmed111@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you and keep in touch. I’m also trying to spend more time on twitter these days (I_M_Ahmed). I look forward to digging deeper into some of these ideas with you in future posts, conversations, projects and investments ahead.
