I’m Joining Floodgate!
Cheers to spending the next few years chasing Thunderlizards.
I’m absolutely thrilled to share that I’m joining the investment team at Floodgate as the fund’s first senior associate!
I still can’t believe my outrageous good fortune. These are the same folks who helped invent seed stage investing as we know it today. These are the venture capitalists who backed Lyft, Twitter, Twitch, and half a dozen other companies that have come to define their industries. For crying out loud, Forbes once described one of the partners as “the most powerful woman in startups!” I am beyond excited to riff on all things tech with Mike, Ann, Iris, Arjun, and the rest of the team in this next chapter of my life.
All of this started with a cold email.
More than a year ago, I sent a Hail Mary note to Floodgate inviting them to a startup pitch competition I was organizing at Google. That’s how I ended up meeting Floodgate’s Iris Choi, who graciously agreed to join the event as one of our judges. I remember being really impressed by Iris — she has one of the sharpest analytical minds in venture that I’ve met. Later on, I met Floodgate’s Arjun Chopra over dinner in NYC, who proceeded to blow me away with his deep technical insight. There’s nothing I can say about meeting Mike and Ann that no one doesn’t already know — they are incredible investors who are super funny and down to earth. Friendly mentor coffee chats turned into monthly dealflow catch ups turned into a collaboration on how Floodgate should think about student founders. Next thing I knew, I had the invitation of a lifetime.
I’m signing up to be a venture capitalist because I believe in founders and their capacity to power a better future.
I got into this business because I wanted to help accelerate technology breakthroughs that will make humanity better off. With the right bets, I believe we can create a new age of prosperity, opportunity, equality, and justice. At the end of the day, I’m an optimist who believes in a world where tech can help make people happier and healthier. Lately, I’ve become particularly interested in spending more time with founders that are thinking through the future of how we will work (what I tackled for California Governor Gavin Newsom) and how we will grow old (what I focused on during my stint at Bessemer). I’m excited for what’s ahead.
I’m on the hunt for Thunderlizards.
As Floodgate’s Ann Miura-Ko puts it:
The term “Thunderlizard” is inspired by the movie Godzilla. Godzilla is hatched from radioactive atomic eggs, swims across the ocean, emerges with an attitude, and eats trains, stomps on buildings, and breathes fire in all directions. We look for Thunderlizards: companies that will have exponentially radioactive growth and the potential to completely own their categories.
The most legendary founders will build these kinds of companies, and I aim to believe in them before the rest of the world believes in them. Legendary doesn’t always have to mean experienced — if my time at First Round’s Dorm Room Fund has taught me anything, it’s that age is just a number. If you’re a young founder with talent, hustle, and a crazy idea, I‘d love to hear from you.
I’ve been fortunate to hitch a ride on a few Thunderlizards so far — my days launching new markets with the incredible people at Square and Vungle were the best education in blitzscaling that I could've ask for. I‘m an operator at heart and I genuinely enjoy helping entrepreneurs think through how they should bring their products to market. If you’re a founder and you want a sounding board on how to best set yourself up to grow to Godzilla level proportions, let’s chat. I’m a big fan of a good old-fashioned whiteboarding session.
I’m looking forward to working with this special team to help the next generation of startups achieve liftoff.
In the immortal words of Floodgate’s Mike Maples, if you’re a founder building a company at the seed stage and you’d like to “get into trouble together”, shoot me a note at shawn@floodgate.com. I can’t wait to hear from you.
Huge thank you to all the mentors who helped me get here. Thanks to First Round’s Josh Kopelman and Phin Barnes for giving me the world’s best education in venture through Dorm Room Fund. Thanks to Bessemer’s Talia Goldberg for teaching me what rigor looks like for an investment thesis. Thanks to A16z’s Andrew Chen for teaching me everything I know about growth and being a sounding board through the recruiting process. Thanks to Village Global’s Ross Fubini for showing me the ropes and plugging me in to the world’s best network. Most importantly, thanks to Floodgate’s Mike, Ann, Iris, and Arjun for taking a chance on me. Can’t wait to see what we do together.
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