Upside Partnership

Announcing Upside Partnership

I’m thrilled to announce Upside Partnership and the closing of our inaugural fund, Upside I. It is an honor to be supported by institutional limited partners with such strong track records in seed, venture, and, especially, first time funds.

Smallstep and a Fundamental Tension of Early Stage Venture Capital

In the early spring of 2016, when Mike Malone told me he was ready to start Smallstep, I was thrilled. He was someone I had been tracking with the hope that Upside Partnership would be able to write the first check…

Metrist & Web Services Observability

I owe my career to web services. Without them, founders would be forced to fund and build out…

On Upside’s First Anniversary

Retain & Category Creation

There’s a trope common to fund raising pitches, “We’re building X for Y” where X is an admired company and Y is…

Building Our Partnership

I moved to Silicon Valley in 2011 with the intent to learn. My goal was to build a business and I jumped at the chance to immerse myself in tech. Since making that decision, I’ve been able to dig into the inner workings of both startups and venture, first at Readyforce and then First…

A Seed Fund’s Investment Checklist

With seed investments, failure is excusable. But having a poor process for making investment decisions is not. To help ensure that we are thoughtful about the commitments we make at Upside Partnership, I keep the following Investment Decision Checklist on my desk.