Kidding! I didn’t actually film anything but I do want to share some highlights from the day. More below:
Last week, we hosted our annual general meeting (AGM) with LPs, the institutions and individuals invested in Slow. AGMs are sort of like the Super Bowl for anyone managing a fund. It’s a bit stressful leading up to it with a ton of prep work, but it’s always an extremely fulfilling and productive few days spent in person with our team and partners. This year marked the 10th anniversary of Slow’s main fund, so the conversation was grounded by a “decade in review” — reflecting on how we’ve grown as a firm and with a focus on where we’re headed next.
While the Creator Fund doesn’t yet have ten years under its belt, we do have eight months — so our Creator ‘AGM’ took a similar tone and covered some of our key learnings from this year. Since you’ve all been wonderful readers / supporters of us as we build this venture-venture capital firm, I figured I’d share a peek behind the curtain.
Learnings eight months into the Slow Creator Fund:
Who we look for. We back creators who see themselves as founders as much as they do creators. We’ve talked before about the spectrum from celebrity or traditional media creators to “founders building in public.” Despite seeing a lot of both, neither group is our target. We’re looking for creators building real companies on top of deep, existing communities — not creators or companies using content purely as the output or strategy.
How we find them. We focus on outbound marketing to generate inbound leads. Our best sourcing comes from planting seeds — building awareness and credibility across the industry through content, events, and relationships. The goal is to stay top of mind so creators self-select into our orbit. At the early stage, net fishing is much more effective than hunting.
How we evaluate them. Similar to traditional seed investing, we care most acutely about the person and the theme (and the community, of course). The ideal creator-founder is world-class at their craft, with a passionate audience, and building in a category that’s both growing and important. One without the other isn’t enough.
How we close. We’ve made a lot of progress streamlining our investment process, though there is still room to get faster and more efficient at closing. It feels a bit like the pre-YC SAFE days where standards are not yet widely understood. On the flip side, the lack of established structure creates somewhat of a moat for those willing to execute.
We also covered some market trends we’re following and thinking about:
Creators as founders. The conversation is quickly shifting from brand deals and CPMs to team building, capital raising, revenue diversification, etc as more creators pursue business building.
AI’s impact. The torrent of AI generated content will challenge entertainment creators; by contrast, it should bolster those with deep community, authority, and trust around a specific niche.
Content as brand. Content is the predominant way to build a brand today. The key is to figure out who is a creator with deep community vs. simply a founder building in public.
Fans going direct to creator. Live events and tours are booming, paid newsletters are the norm, and Patreon surpassed $10b in creator payouts.
Likeness as a growth hack. Sora 2 and its competitors allow creators to open source their likeness. Big creators get even bigger; those in niches go even deeper – the middle likely falls out.
Finally…. deals!
We’ve backed two more incredible creators since Jonathan Katz-Moses, with a few more in legal and nearing the finish line. We covered these in detail with LPs but are excited to share more on this front with you all soon :)
Thanks for reading.
— Megan
P.S. We made some dad caps and only have a few left. Should I place another order?
