I am a digital tech investor. Why did I break my rules and invest in Spacemade?

So far, breaking the rules has gone well. Here is the story.

Jonny is my brother's wife's sister's husband. I first met him before he was married and teased him about making an honest woman of his now wife.

When I saw an opportunity in the commercial property space, I reached out to him for advice.

He told me he was raising for Spacemade, I met him and Dan for a chat and was very quickly convinced.

Positives:

Thesis - I have strong views about the future of work that are consistent with what Spacemade is building. They were pushing on an open door.

Founder skills:
Sales - Jonny in particular struck me as a good salesperson. You need one founder with this skill. You have to be able to sell to investors, to employees and to sell the product.
Decision making - there are points in both their histories where they have demonstrated exceptional decision-making. If I ask for your history, I hope to hear evidence of this.
Founder market fit - they both came out of the commercial property space and knew the market back to front.
Appearance - neither founder had more hair than me

Investor base - at the time I committed, every other investor was in real estate. This reassured me there was nothing I had missed in a space I was not expert in.

Negatives:

Investor base - I prefer a VC-led round.
Commercial property - I reached out to a friend who is very successful in commercial property. He didn't understand why landlords wouldn't do this themselves and didn't believe there would be demand.
Digital tech - Jonny and Dan were very clear that the business wasn't digital tech.
Size of the opportunity - typically I want to invest in something that has the potential to be 100x. That wasn't clear here.

Sometimes the positives are so strong they outweigh the negatives. Spacemade has been an excellent investment so far and I felt strongly enough about it that I invested again and significantly more than my first ticket.

Here's hoping the journey continues to be a successful one.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic