What's Next: Creator Capitalist
Starting a venture fund with a product: go-to-market via the creator economy
I’ve spent the past 5+ years working at one of the best damn venture capital funds in the world. I consider myself wildly lucky to have stumbled in to what has become a training ground for many successful venture investors in the past few decades (see: the full Bessemer Partnership, Kristina Shen + Chris Dixon@ a16z, Sarah Tavel @ Benchmark, etc.). If you want to learn the art and science of venture capital, there is no better group of modest, hard-working individuals on earth than the team at Bessemer.
So, what’s next?
Well — of all the things I’ve learned over the years, one glaring observation is that new consumer businesses are harder to break out today than ever before for one reason: distribution. At the end of the day, four companies own the “rails” for customer acquisition and marketing: Apple, Amazon, Google, and of course, Facebook. Many consumer VCs have been sitting around waiting for the “next platform” to give consumer founders a new edge in achieving the impossible growth required to be a ‘breakout’ consumer staple — whether that be audio, AR, VR, etc. But in my opinion, we’re already several years in to this new platform or new consumer “rail” — the creator economy.
Today’s top creators command more of our trust than ever before. As a society, we’ve evolved from trusting institutions, to companies, and now, individuals. This evolution has helped birth a creator movement that’s graduated from the days of transactional “influencer marketing” to a new economy driven in large part by influential individuals. With this power shift, today’s creators have become a new breed of entrepreneur that have me thrilled for my next step.
Today, I’m starting a new venture fund called Night Ventures as a General Partner. This fund is partnering with a group of the top creators across YouTube, Tik Tok and beyond — as LPs and advisors — to offer a new “venture product” to the entrepreneurs we’ll be backing: influence.
I’m excited to be partnering with my fellow GPs, Reed Duchscher and Ezra Cooperstein and the brilliant team at Night. We have lots in store in the coming months and years through our venture fund, venture studio and broader management company.
If you’re an early stage founder who wants to partner with world-class creators and a new breed of venture fund, we’d love to hear from you. Shoot me a note at ben@nightventures.com.
Stay tuned.
