Phin Barnes: The Services Model of Venture Capital is Broken, The Best Founders Do Need Help | E1067

Every great founder needs help. They just don't need it from VCs. (instrumental music resounds)

Finn, it has been five years. So many great things have happened since our last show. But first, thank you so much for joining me today.

Yeah, of course. No, I'm really happy to be here. It's always wonderful to talk to you, whether we're on the show or on WhatsApp. Uh, you know, it's always great to, to hear your voice or, or read your words.

Man, I so appreciate our relationship. It's one of the great joys of doing this show for me, building friendships like we have. And so, huge thanks for that. But I want to start with some context. So, talk to me first, why did you leave First Round? And before you said to me about a co-founding moment and the pursuit of it. Can you talk to me about those two elements?

Yeah, sure. Leaving First Round was a, a really, really hard decision. I think, you know, you, you find your greatest opportunities when you leave the best job you ever had (laughs) . Um, and, and I think that's, that's definitely the case here. It was a wonderful, obviously, brand, very successful, wonderful people. But for me, there was always this question, um, sort of eating at me around, uh, was, was this it, right? Was, was this all there was in my venture career? And was there more in, in the opportunity to build something of my own and find a way to do that, and continue to push myself and continue to engage, uh, with, with the edges of what I was capable of, uh, by, by trying my own thing? And, and so admittedly with some probably COVID-induced naval-gazing, um, you know, in, in 2020 was looking at the market and feeling, uh, the work I was doing and where I wanted to go, and felt like it was a now or never moment. And I had, uh, had some conversations with, with Josh and other partners, and we figured out a, a path to navigate that, that was sort of, um, I think, appropriate and acceptable to everyone. Not the happiest of moments, because any time you, you know, these are deep friendships and, and people that you, you care for and trust. And in that recognition that you want to go try something else, um, I think I, I underestimated the sense maybe that that somehow meant that what I was doing wasn't good enough. Um, and that was not at all what, what I was saying. And those relationships are, are, are strong and, and, you know, it's been, it's been some time, and, and, you know, those are, you know, Josh is an investor in the fund and so forth. But navigating that was, was a challenge, but I think it was the sometimes, uh, doing the hard thing is, is a thing you have to do. And, and I felt like I did that and did it with integrity.