Gabe Becher

How to think about the founder who won’t take “No.” for an answer. Regulatory barrier? They find a workaround. Technical limitation? They build around it. Market rejection? They pivot the approach. Funding door slams? They find another way in. Too many investors see this and think, "Difficult. Stubborn. Won't listen." I see it differently, "Problem solver. Unstoppable. Will find a way." The smooth-talking sales founder who charms everyone is often the bigger risk. The enthusiasm and charisma is great for getting funding, but doesn’t always translate to the ability to find their way around barriers. When building a startup, finding ways around barriers is the single most important skill. Don’t give up on the first, “No.” The founder who sees barriers as challenges to overcome... that's who builds something special.

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123 Comments

In venture, it's really easy to overthink the current iteration of the product/idea and to underthink the founder and their vision. Like Ed Catmull explains in Creativity Inc, great people will find their way to great ideas and build great things, and bad builders will botch great ideas. Yes, the product and how the founder is thinking about it can give you a lot of insight into the thoughtfulness and ability of the founder. But make no mistake that the founder is everything, especially at the earliest stages. Invest in great people building in a direction you believe in. Don't overthink the current iteration.

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Advocating for change in venture capital can feel like shouting into the void. I know, I've been doing it for years. Every quarter, the same conversations resurface about the lack of progress funding diverse founders. But by the next quarter, the numbers have barely moved. As I shared with Bronwen Clune of Capital Brief yesterday (link in comments), that’s one of the reasons I left venture capital to join Birchal. Instead of continuing to shout into the void, I wanted to help build an alternative pathway to capital: one where diverse founders, industries, and business models can thrive on their own terms. Birchal's latest Funded! 2025 report shows exactly why this matters. While just 15% of venture capital went to teams with at least one woman founder last year, crowdsourced funding delivered double the representation to 32%. Women-only teams received 5% of total CSF capital, compared to 2% in VC. It’s proof that when you give everyday investors a say, they back a more diverse, more representative, and more innovative Australia. If you’re curious about what the future of inclusive investment looks like, check out the full Funded! report (link in comments) 👇

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The Full-Stack Venture Capital BDC model, led by Capital Q Ventures Inc. in our flagship fund CAPQ BDC Inc., is purpose-built to meet institutional investors and portfolio companies where they need us in the capital stack. This structure aligns seamlessly with the Total Portfolio Approach (TPA) that CalPERS is already implementing. It seems CalPERS has moved beyond mere discussions. Under the leadership of CIO Stephen Gilmore, the board has been guided through educational sessions, defined a comprehensive risk framework, and is now moving toward the operational launch of TPA. TPA enables decision-making that prioritizes portfolio-wide impact over rigid asset-class allocations. It emphasizes dynamic capital deployment based on marginal value—an approach mirrored in how CAPQ BDC Inc. dynamically allocates capital across venture capital, private credit, and private equity to deliver a multi-asset total return for our fund investors and co-investors in our portfolio companies. https://lnkd.in/eMkTjAgg

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Whelp.... "Venture capital assets under management in Canada could decline to one per cent of overall North American VC in the next five years, down from 4 per cent currently, according to modelling from research and analytics firm PitchBook. VC assets in North America overall are poised to increase 38 per cent in that period. (The Logic)".... If this happens Canadians can expect to be nothing more than a branch economy... We have spent the last decade focused on specialist areas, now the overall ecosystem is in jeopardy. No answers here except we need open and honest discussions.

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I've been spending some time thinking about the second-order effects of what happens as large, multi-stage venture funds account for a greater share of VC AUM. One area of particular interest to me is the evolving conversation around how multi-stage firms will think about conflicts in a world where they need to be in the biggest, power law companies. https://lnkd.in/d2RZXcEw

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