In this interview, Colin Gardiner explains how his investment process for pre‑seed marketplace startups has evolved. He stresses that timing matters not just in market terms but also in relation to a fund’s cycle and the promises made to limited partners (LPs). A startup must fit the fund’s “product” – the type of companies the GP has committed to deliver to LPs – otherwise it may be rejected even if it looks attractive. Gardiner’s current approach favors slower, relationship‑focused diligence: getting to know founders deeply, building transparent, long‑term rapport, and relying on warm introductions that act as vouch‑for‑others. He argues that at the pre‑seed stage, quantitative fundamentals are thin, so investors underwrite more on founder quality and trust than on metrics. He also notes practical fundraising advice for founders: avoid hard‑sell tactics and hard close dates, prioritize relationship building, and recognize the difficulty of maintaining connections in a Zoom‑centric world.
Chapters
Colin, good to see you again. How's it going?
Yeah.
I'm curious from the beginning of your investment career, how your process or priorities have evolved when evaluating, let's say, pre-seed marketplace companies. And another maybe framework for that is the famous TED Talk with Bill Gross, where he says timing is the number one determinant of a company's success. I'm wondering how you Similarly structure, probably maybe criteria or, yeah.
Yeah, it's a good question. I do think timing matters a lot, especially in like fund cycle. Like I think a lot of the things that founders aren't privy to, and so therefore can't really appreciate in the same way if you're like running a fund, is that you as a fund kind of promise things to LPs, right? Like I'm selling you this product, Like, and you, I'm selling you this cookie, this like sugar cookie with green sprinkles. I need to get you all sugar cookies with green sprinkles, right? And so if someone comes in that's an amazing looking sugar cookie with orange sprinkles, I'm like, I would love to eat that cookie, but it's like, it may not be a fit, you know? And I think that's actually the bigger issue I'd say just overall is like that you're just like, people are a little bit outside the lines of the product that you sold to people as a like GP to an LP. I know they didn't get at your process question, but I'd say that's often like what gets misconstrued is like, not that I'm not interested in, you know, you have a great business, it's just that isn't a fit. And it's not me just saying it's not a fit to like get out of it. It's just literally like at face value, it's not a fit. Process-wise for evaluating companies, like the thing that I'm leaning more and more into is like going slower. And getting to know people better, like honestly. And I think as a founder and as a GP, I'm telling you this, like I'm getting to know LPs as I go out and fundraise is like, stop, take like the sales pressure off of it. Like I know we all have timelines that we want to raise against, but in reality, the less you hard sell and the more you relationship build and are transparent with people, the better it's going to go in the long run. And I know that like people will tell you like, have a hard close date, hard charge, do this. Like, I don't think that applies as much in the pre-seed as it does as running a process as you get later stage. I think it's just different and it's a bit more commodity later, right? Like, and pre-seed, what I think a lot of ways you're gonna be raising from friends and family. So those are the bucket of people that already know you and trust you. But as you think of funds that are doing it at that stage, it's gonna be a lot of relationship because they're underwriting you and not necessarily your fundamentals because there just isn't enough of it to underwrite, right? You know, I mean, like maybe you have some good nascent numbers that are like, yeah, of course this is going the right direction. So like I tick that off as like good, but it's really about the founder and getting to know them. And so that's why when people say warm intros matter, like what they're really saying is like people want to vouch for other people. So that like we can get more comfortable more quickly. And so that's the thing is I would say is like, it's just hard to fast-track relationship building and especially in a Zoom world. Like I, it's just hard. Like I could, you know, like meet someone, you look great, and then I could just forget about you, not because I want to, but just because it was like very ephemeral.
Right.
And so I think you as the founder have to spend a lot of time following up, and being in touchpoints with people and trying to build the relationship and like also being human about it. Like, you know, funny stuff, I don't know, whatever it may be. So I don't know, I'm trying to do more longitudinal diligence is what I would call it. Like spending more time getting to know people and their idiosyncrasies because if I invest and any investor invests, these are 10-year funds, which probably should be 12 or 14-year funds. So it's a long relationship. So just remember that.
