Published: January 11, 2023
Nothing Is Too Early: We Write First Checks
Most founders will tell you the hardest check to get is the first one ahead of product, traction or social proof. The new economic cycle makes this even more true. Everyone needs that first person who believes enough to put their reputation, time and capital on the line when there is little or no evidence. It looks a lot like this:
Early investors can have a major impact on the trajectory of a startup. The stakes are becoming increasingly higher at the early stages of a company’s life, where the uncertainty around being able to raise future financing is at all-time highs. Having a partner who is willing to roll their sleeves up and help maximize the chances of success is more important than ever.
We are very excited to launch 43 today with the mission of partnering with ambitious pre-product founders and helping them reach product/market fit.
High Conviction, High Leverage
We have thoughtfully designed 43 to help our founders get maximum leverage from our time, networks, and capital. Our offering to founders is simple:
- We lead rounds as early as possible (and we mean early!)
- Our ownership target is 5%
- We invest with high-conviction and ample support bandwidth: only ~5 investments per investor annually
- Each of us make investment decisions quickly and independently
- We will work with you in the trenches and open our networks to help you succeed
Experts in People Ops, Growth and Fundraising
We started out as a trio of angel investors with shared values. 43 is magic because we bring complimentary experiences, skills and networks to our work. We take big risks and we’re willing to roll up our sleeves to help our founders succeed.
Dustin has a decade+ of investing experience. He was previously a Partner at Accomplice and co-founded Maiden Lane (now Spearhead) with Jeff Fagnan and Naval Ravikant. He invested $70M+ at seed or earlier in Patreon, PillPack, and Datacamp among others and has invested with 150+ angel investors.
Anabel has spent her career in people operations most recently scaling Opendoor from 30 to 600 people and starting The People Design House, which works with startups like Notion, Pave and Newfront to avoid HR debt.
Soso founded a startup and then bootstrapped Growth Pilots to a successful exit. He has worked closely with dozens of founders and oversaw $500M+ in ad spend scaling customer acquisition for top startups like Instacart, Gusto, and Zapier.
But Why 43?
Building a startup is a difficult, lonely journey. Our name is a reference to our studio in San Francisco where we bring people together to make the journey a little easier. The studio played a key role in bringing all three of us together and helped define what 43 is all about.
The space fits somewhere between a co-working space and amazing living room. Like us, it is approachable and a little quirky. You can find founders, founding team members and investors co-working, cooking dinners and hosting events here on any given week.
Ambitious Founders Wanted
We are eager to meet with mission-driven founders who are just beginning their journey and looking for a supportive day-zero partner to join them. We are vertical agnostic and nothing is too early. If that’s you, please get in touch!