Notes on fatherhood, the newsletter, fundraising, and the power law
Stretch Four Insights Volume 18
Hello all,
It has been a few weeks because on March 8th Whitney and I welcomed our first born son, Cain Jamison Parker, into the world.
We’ve spent the past eight months preparing our plan and our son had a good laughed at what we prepared.
Pretty crazy birth story for us
Long story short…
Whitney woke up at 12am with the urge to use the bathroom then instantly started with cramps which turned into contractions.
After a long night of timing the contractions, we called the doctor at 6am to which she told her to go to labor and delivery to get checked out.
She was already 4cm dilated. Within 3 hours she went to 100% dilation
She was able to get the epidural at the very last minute, pushed for two hours (with my help of course) and 💥 bam.
Our little guy
Whitney and I debated the name for a few months but we were pretty solid on Cain for quite while. There are a few reasons we chose the name, some more vain than others, but we liked it. It’s one syllable, it is unique at least to us (Whitney made sure the name we chose wasn’t in the top 1,000) and it has a strong biblical meaning. We chose Jamison as the middle name as an ode to my late father’s last name and I wanted to carry that on through my son.
Cain came 5 weeks early, weighing 5 pounds 14.5 ounces and 20 inches and as of this update, he is progressing very well and adding weight. This is always the biggest fear when having children before their due date, we are on day eleven and Whitney and I spend half our day at the hospital as our son is in the NICU getting the care he needs.
No matter how many blogs you read or people say this is standard you still long for your child to be at home with you. You really are pushed to the brink mentally when you have to leave your newborn at the hospital. Some days are easier than others, there is also the anxiety of being in the limbo of what your schedule will eventually become but it is fascinating to see him make so much progress. He’s under the best care with the nurses and doctors at the hospital but we will be happy as hell when he comes home.
The Newsletter
I am going to get back to my weekly volumes and I am constantly thinking about new things and topics to discuss in a more long form variety. Moving forward I will muse on personal improvements based on books I am reading and real life experiences, the NBA, and my continued education of learning as a startup founder in the trenches.
I am also going to start writing on specific topics around the themes above. Like my current fundraising process and how I raise money from venture capital while also having a child, or how I think the NBA finals will play out and how the league needs to expand.
Startup Corner: The cooling fundraising market
Raising venture capital is getting more difficult. You can sense the energy, I have been raising from venture capitalists since 2018 and I have been able to raise a decent amount for a non-technical, Silicon Valley outsider with no Ivy League or big tech company on my resume, but things are seemingly returning to the norm of 2017 when I began starting companies with other people’s money.
Overall, I think a frothy fundraising landscape is a good thing as it was getting too easy. I know maybe 20 companies right now with no revenue, no real market adoption, but the founders have raised millions at valuations in the hundreds of millions and and hired full on teams to build products that they hope companies and consumers will buy. While I admit fundraising is a skill, I believe the advantage right now is being able to make money.
The NBA: It’s do or die time for the Golden State Warriors
I could moonlight as a Golden State Warriors beat writer. My wife only watches the Warriors so while I subscribe to league pass the only team I have to watch nearly every game is the Warriors.
The past two seasons have been an uphill battle, but this year the Warriors have looked like their old self. And when Klay Thompson returned in January it looked like old times. Two months in, the reviews are mixed and I now think there is more pressure on the Golden State Warriors to win than there has been since they recruited Kevin Durant.
Joe Lacob, the Warriors owner who made his fortune being a venture capitalist and now welcomes Kanye West to sit side by side at the Chase Center, has seen near venture type returns on his investment since he purchased the Warriors with the team now being valued at over $5 billion up from the $450 million he and his ownership group purchased the team for in 2010.
Lacob is an owner I admire, he has spared no expense to keep the Warriors at the top. The team has the largest payroll in the NBA. Lacob is paying $60,146,599 in luxury taxes this year nearly three times more than the next highest team.
This makes Klay Thompson’s reliability all the more important. He has a large amount of money left on his contract and three years left on the deal. If Klay is not able to reach the level he was in the 2019 finals before his injuries that effects the Warriors championship aspirations. You’ll also hear rumblings of whether they have to make hard decisions of moving away from one of the three older veterans (Klay, Steph, and Draymond) to manage their payroll to accommodate many of the young and cheaper players they’ve been able to draft (Jordan Poole, Jonathan Kuminga, Andrew Wiggins, and James Wiseman).
Overall the Warriors are one of the best-run franchises in the league. Joe Lacob has made nearly ten times his money on the purchase. On his new podcast Andre Iguodala even alluded to the fact that Lacob should compensate the core guys with equity for how much value they have created for Lacob over the years.
Personal Development: Book Club
The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future | Sebastian Mallaby
I am halfway through one of the most deep books on venture capital. Mallaby shows how the power law is what drives the venture capital market. How companies we live and thrive on like Apple, Google, Facebook, and others were incubated by the founders only with the help of venture capitalists. This book is heavy, but is becoming a pop icon amongst the startup and venture capital community.
What’s Next
The grind continues at ModernTax we are building an open-source platform for all government data. This quarter we have signed on a few new clients, I am going to market for our next fundraising round and have received some commitments already.
Your feedback means the world to me so drop me an email at matt@stretchfour.co on what you would like coverage of, provide us with feedback on my format, and what you think is the best day of the week you would like to hear from us.
Lastly, if you found this newsletter interesting and know someone else who would, please forward it to them or tell them to subscribe here. It would make my day if you do!
Back to the trenches.