Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund - Venture Unlocked 001

Elizabeth Yin is Co-Founder & General Partner at Hustle Fund, a pre-seed focused firm based in the Bay Area. Appropriately named, Elizabeth and her team truly epitomize the word hustle. She and her co-founder Eric raised $11.5MM Hustle Fund I in the fall of 2018 and more recently started investing out of a larger Fund II. The firm has a unique investment model that starts by investing $25K in each startups, and then by working closely with their entrepreneurs looks to upsize their commitments into select portfolio companies. Previously, Elizabeth was a partner at 500 Startups where she invested in seed stage companies and ran the Mountain View accelerator. In a prior life, Elizabeth co-founded and ran an ad-tech company called LaunchBit (acq 2014). Elizabeth has a BSEE from Stanford and an MBA from MIT Sloan.In this episode, Elizabeth covers the following:* What their journey in raising their first fund together was like. * How broad their LP outreach was, and how they managed hundreds of LP conversations. * The continuous nature of raising capital. * The role of brand in venture. * The thinking behind their unique portfolio construction model, and how they serve such a large group of portfolio companies. * How to efficiently manage a firm amidst all the competing priorities. * What she wishes she knew before she started Hustle Fund. Mentioned in this episode:* The Hustle Fund* Elizabeth’s post “How I Raised my $11.5m VC Fund”* Here’s her post on “11 Things I’ve learned from running a micro VC in the last year”* Elizabeth’s post “How Do VCs Make Money?”Hope you enjoy the episode, feel free to tweet or DM me @samirkaji your further questions from the show or other guests you think I should invite to the show under the hashtag #ventureunlocked.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com