这是主旨

If ever a case needed to be made 埃隆·马斯克最近将推特的价格定为54美元.20 a share in his hostile takeover bid—one need only point to its role in the fortunes of Josh Schlisserman ’19. 用2,741 followers compared to Musk’s 82 million, 他的推文可能不会影响市场，也不会引发SEC的调查, but the social media platform has gained him an audience with some of the nation’s most sought-after venture capitalists. 这促使他在去年成立了首只风险投资基金, Genius Ventures背后, with co-founder Paige Doherty—whom he met on Twitter, 自然.

通过定义, venture capital—VC for short—is a form of private equity financing that firms or funds provide to startups, 早期, 新兴公司. By the time he was old enough to invest, “I studied the business of VC as if it was my major,施利瑟曼说, who was named (with Doherty) to 《正规博彩十大网站排名推荐》’ 30 Under 30 Venture Capital 2022 list. “大多数人进入风险投资行业，是因为他们认为你可以遇到伟大的(初创企业)创始人, and that you’re wheeling and dealing money. I’m not that interested in that. What gets me excited in the morning is, How do I win? 我该如何写一篇与众不同的论文，让我成为最好的创始人的筛选者? 我如何创建一个投资组合并构建一个数学上可行的投资组合? Those are the things that excite me in the morning. 对我来说，风险投资的业务比真正的风险投资有趣得多.”

“杰克吃, 睡觉, 并呼吸着风险资本,” says his good friend and fellow econ major, Ocra co-founder and CEO Ethan Glass ’19. (Ocra—short for One-Click Rate Adjustment and previously known as Park Place—is an omni-channel management platform for parking operators.) “His passion for the field and perseverance to break into the industry have been phenomenal to witness. There is no limit to what he can achieve.

“Josh and I met through the men’s soccer program and both lived in Braun Hall during our first year,格拉斯说. (事实上, 他补充说, the soccer class of 2019—Glass, 卢克·哈斯, 马修·莱柏瑞, 奥斯汀李, 利亚姆·沃尔什, 阿里尔罗索, and Schlisserman—lived together all four years.) “Our closest friends came from the soccer team and Braun.”

Growing up in Scotch Plains, N.J.施利瑟曼在附近的沃德洛-哈特里奇学校踢足球. He was on a recruiting trip at Trinity College in Texas when he ran into a childhood soccer buddy who was looking to transfer. “他看的其中一所学校是西方学校，”施利瑟曼回忆说. “我的父母和我浏览了Oxy的网站，我们开始谈论文科. Trinity一直是我的No .. 1 choice but it switched after that. 一个月后有一个足球训练营，所以我最后飞去了加州. 我一走进十大正规网赌平台的校园，就知道这就是我要来的地方.”

“直到乔希在招募过程的后期来到一个营地，我们才看到他的现场,” says men’s soccer coach Rod Lafaurie. “在那之前，他就已经开始服用奥施康定了，他实际上是在训练营中受伤的. But he was always so valuable and so smart.“在第二次受伤后，他的大二基本上结束了他在球场上的时间, Schlisserman pivoted to the coaching staff, “和我们的门将一起工作，帮助我们打破定位球,拉福里说. “He endeared himself to a group of his peers that allowed him to be a part of the coaching staff.”

除了足球，施利瑟曼和格拉斯在商业上也有着共同的兴趣. Each found their calling through Oxypreneurship, the College’s entrepreneurial club, leading a winter boot camp known as J-Term and meeting entrepreneurs and business leaders through weekly Monday- night sessions in Johnson 203. “如果不是J-Term，我不会创办自己的公司，”格拉斯说. “Josh wouldn’t be the successful VC he is today without it.”

通过j项, “I started building up a network, learned a lot about entrepreneurship, and immediately fell in love with it,施利瑟曼说. “I knew this is what I’m going to do with my life.”

Schlisserman’s first big break—there are three in this story—came after his sophomore year, 当时他在旧金山的Vicarious VR做暑期实习, 是谁为多个平台创造了虚拟现实社交媒体. 跟随公司创始人兼首席执行官JM Yujuico, Schlisserman帮助筹集了2美元.5 million that summer—“I’d say the biggest name investor that we raised from was Maveron [a VC firm co-founded by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz P’09] and musician will.i.我的经理.”

施利瑟曼说，整个经历“就像电影里的情节一样”. “JM and I did a road trip to L.A. to meet with celebrity influencers—part of the business was consumer social—so we met with Zendaya and her dad before she blew up with the first 蜘蛛侠 电影. 我们还会见了Scooter Braun(爱莉安娜·格兰德的经纪人), 贾斯汀比伯, 和黛米·洛瓦托, among others] through a mutual friend and promptly got kicked out of his office 30 minutes later,他笑着补充道. “这是一次疯狂的旅程. 我和首席执行官一起推销，学会了如何玩弄权术. 当时我20岁，喝酒还不合法，但我正梦想着硅谷.”

在实习结束时, Yujuico offered him a full-time job—which would have entailed dropping out of Oxy—but he turned it down to return to school. (“有趣的是，JM现在是一个有限合伙人，投资我的基金，”施利瑟曼补充道.)但这段经历坚定了他成为投资者的决心.

“我记得当时我在想，‘为什么人们要投资我们?’ VR was super hot—we were building in the metaverse before the metaverse was a thing—but the timing didn’t make any sense. The technology was so far ahead of where the market was.”

回到Oxy, “乔希和我一起上了很多课程，我们也聊了很多,杰西·莫拉说, 经济学助理教授. “I recall him being very enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies and how these might affect venture capital and individual investors. Given Josh’s intellectual and professional interests, 我鼓励他研究风险投资，作为他高年级研讨会的期末项目的一部分.”

作为这个项目的一部分, Schlisserman wrote a research paper on seed accelerators—fixed-term mentorship programs designed to assist promising startups—which he presented to his classmates. “I learned a lot about venture capital that day,” Mora says. “Josh was singularly focused on the VC industry, and it is no surprise to me that he has been very successful. He was ahead of the game then, and he’s ahead of the game now.”

During spring semester of his senior year, Schlisserman took a full-time job working for LvlUp Ventures, 这是一家由前Quake Capital联合创始人布兰登·迈尔创建的新风投公司. After a year and half on the job, he ended up quitting LvlUp. “The pandemic, 他说, “was a huge blessing for me,他说. “It completely reset my career.”

为了支付账单, 他创办了一家面向初创企业的招聘公司(“我基本上会为他们指出人才的方向”)。. 在晚上, he would drive around 洛杉矶, pick up broken TVs off the street, 修复它们, 然后卖掉它们(这是他和足球队友哈斯在奥克斯大学一年后学到的技能)。. 每个月底剩下的钱，他都会投资于创业公司. “Angel investing just means investing your own money,他说. “I’d write $1,000 to $5,000 checks toward various startups.”

大突破不是. 第2次发生在2020年6月左右. “我听到了Sumeet Gajri的声音, former chief strategy officer of Carta [a San Francisco-based capitalization table management software company with a market valuation of around $10 billion] and currently in the same role at Instabase [a startup aiming to “reimagine business apps from the ground up” with a valuation of about $2 billion]. 在听了Gajri在《正规博彩十大网站排名推荐》播客上的一席话后, talking about his portfolio construction, 他的新公司, 他的投资论文, Schlisserman cold-emailed Gajri with a critique of his thesis. Gajri responded by inviting Schlisserman to meet him in person in San Francisco the following week.

“我们戴着面具见面, 社会疏远, the whole nine yards—and spoke for nearly six hours,Schlisserman回忆道. Gajri wasn’t hiring at the moment but encouraged Schlisserman to share some of the deals that he wound up seeing. “A couple weeks later, I introduced him to the first deal that he would invest in that I sent over.在那之后, Gajri introduced him to Arjun 塞提, a founding partner of Tribe Capital, 一个超过1美元的风投公司.2 billion in assets under management.

“Meeting Arjun was a huge deal,施利瑟曼说. “谈话进行了30分钟后，他告诉我，‘我正在筹集资金. So, I can’t hire you, but send me what you got. Maybe down the line we can do something.’

2020年10月, 我的第三个重大突破发生了,施利瑟曼说——这将使他获得今天所享有的声誉. 他成为了一家名为arctype的现代公司的第二位投资者, collaborative database client for developers and their teams. 该公司由贾斯汀·德·古兹曼(Justin de Guzman)创立，施利瑟曼意外地见到了他!)通过推特. “I had conviction about him early on,他说. “We built a relationship over six months and Justin did not want to fundraise for Arctype because he was afraid to. I told him, ‘You should fundraise. I’ll put your round together in less than two weeks.’ ” True to his word, he raised $3 million in that time frame.

“Arjun and Sumeet both caught wind of it,Schlisserman回忆道, “和一个, they were mad that I didn’t refer it over to them. 第二，他们打电话给我说，‘乔希，你哪天可以来我们公司工作. You’re doing deals—Arctype is going to be one of the most competitive series A’s [a company’s first major round of financing] a year from now—but you shouldn’t be working for a fund. You should be working for yourself. We’re gonna give you some money to invest on our behalf.’ ”

Arctype的交易, 施利瑟曼还赢得了作为德·古兹曼的看门人的名声, 他们成为了亲密的朋友:“他非常感谢我逼他抚养孩子.” But by January 2021, his own finances were getting tight. 他说:“我在天使投资上花了很多钱，我的银行账户里几乎只有0美元。.

That’s when de Guzman told him about another founder he should meet—“one of the most in-demand founders in the valley. I can’t tell you his name—he’s going to use a pseudonym—but I know you’re going to want to invest.”

Schlisserman wound up talking to the founder over Zoom—with no camera on—and 30 minutes into the conversation, “我意识到:‘哦，天哪, 我想为你工作.’ And I thought, ‘Uh-oh,’ because I just emptied $10,000 out of my bank account to start the fund. 我当时陷入了困境，但创始人对我说，‘你应该成立这个基金. I’m looking to add someone on the team who invests as well. 只要找个人作为合伙人或助理来帮助管理基金就可以了.’ ”

那次谈话促成了Genius Ventures的创立, which Schlisserman launched with Doherty, author of a children’s book for adults titled Seed to Harvest: A Simple Explanation of Venture Capital. “三个月前，佩奇和我通过Twitter认识了，”施利瑟曼说. “我们每天都聊天. 我向她展示了天使投资的诀窍，我们很快成为了亲密的朋友.”

正如命运安排的那样, Schlisserman wound up being the first company hire for Series founder and self-described “chief anime protagonist” Brexton Pham, “one of the most amazing individuals I’ve ever met,他说. Growing up homeless with a single mother, 在斯坦福大学入学后，范在Yik Yak找到了一份软件工程师的工作, 他拿了个B.S. 在符号系统中. He subsequently founded a startup, developed (and recovered from) Stage 3 lung cancer, 把他的创业公司卖给了Tinder, 并在2021年推出系列之前进行了两年的天使投资.

“I’ve learned more in the last year from Brexton than I have in my seven to eight years being involved in the entrepreneurial world,施利瑟曼说. “He’s taught me everything about being an operator-investor. 我们刚刚提出, 很快就会宣布, a very large round of funding with some of the most recognizable names in the investor ecosystem. 曾任第1号雇员. 1 at Series, it gives me a lot of legitimacy as well.

“In terms of Genius Ventures背后, we ended up raising $5 million [from 120 limited partners] over a nine-month period”—the average fundraise takes from 12 to 18 months—“and we’ve deployed almost 70 percent of that capital,他补充道. “The fund is performing really well.”

Once Genius Ventures背后完成了第一轮融资, Doherty will be continuing that brand. 与此同时，施利瑟曼将于今年春天成立一家名为Picks and Shovels VC的新风投公司. The new fund will include limited partnerships with Caffeinated Capital founder and managing director Ray Tonsing (“a legend in the VC ecosystem”), Gajri, 塞提, Zenda Capital founder Esteban Reyes, 还有很多其他的.

Over the last couple of years, 他说, “I’ve learned a lot about something called picks and shovel companies—businesses that build tools for a specific customer demographic.” So, 他将继续管理镐和铲子，同时继续担任Series的幕僚长, 为机构资产管理公司和公司提供加密货币的银行. (“Think JPMorgan Chase for crypto,他说. “The business is a rocket ship.”)

All of this raises the question: When does Schlisserman find time to sleep? “I sleep 10 to 12 hours a day. 这是我的秘密. I probably work 10 to 12 hours, five days a week. I don’t really touch work on the weekends. And then I sleep another 10 to 12 hours each day.”

五年后, 他补充说, “我希望我是在纽约证券交易所为系列赛敲响钟. I want to ring the bell with our CEO and our COO. 我想通过pick And Shovels VC管理超过1亿美元的资产. That’s where I’ll be in five years, if everything goes right.” Hey, who are we to doubt him?