Unless Ventures
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,Nothing is going to get better.It's not.”― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
Portfolio
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Katelyn DonnellyContact at hello @ Avalanche dot vc
MANIFESTO
I Care"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot…"— Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
"I Care."— BeyoncéThe world will tell you that whoever cares less wins.It's the first rule of cool. Don't get attached. Don't let them see you want it. The one who can walk away holds the power; the one who cares, loses.Nowhere is this gospel preached harder than in money. The disciplined investor is the detached one. Caring clouds judgment. Caring is what amateurs do. Stay cool, stay unattached, stay able to fold.I don't believe it. I've watched it be wrong too many times.Every call I've gotten right came from a problem I knew from the inside, a founder I'd have been heartbroken to be wrong about. Every miss came from the opposite: a room I joined because it was warm, a bet I made with my poise intact and my conviction empty. Detachment isn't discipline. Most of the time it's just absence of knowledge and conviction.Caring is not the opposite of rigor. It's the engine of it. You do the deepest work on what you can't put down. You hold through the dip on the companies you'd grieve to lose. The investor who cares less isn't steadier.There's a reason we're taught to hide it. To care is to admit you have skin in it. That you could be hurt. That you're not above the outcome. We code that as soft. Feminine. Unserious. You've lost your stoic poise.It takes more to say it than to hide behind cool.So I'll say it. I Care.
Behind every company worth building is an answer to one question: why do you care? The founders who win are not the ones playing it cool. They're the ones who can't let it go. Who'd be doing this whether or not anyone funded them. That's who I want to be on the journey with in illquid markets. Capital that cares, behind people who care, about the things that will still matter in fifty years.That's the opposite bet from the one the room is making. It might look like losing in the short run. Unless someone cares a whole awful lot, nothing gets built that lasts. No company, no industry, no future worth handing to our kids.I care. That's the whole thesis. The rest is just diligence.