Paige Finn DohertyFounding Partner, Behind Genius · Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures

How has Village Global Co-Founder Anne Dwane's experience been building a venture firm?

16 Nov 2022 · 1 min

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In this interview, Village Global co‑founder Anne Dwane reflects on her journey from founding a startup during the 2008 financial crisis to building a venture firm. She recounts joining a company in 2008, raising capital despite market turmoil, and eventually seeing the business acquired by Chegg, describing the acquisition as a strong cultural fit. Dwane contrasts the founder experience—focused on a single company with extreme emotional swings—to venture firm life, which offers diversified portfolio exposure and more moderated highs and lows. She emphasizes the unique value a venture firm brings to the ecosystem by offering founders an external perspective, positioning this as a core responsibility of venture partners.

Chapters

How does building a venture firm compare to your work as a founder?
Well, I think we're seeing the cycles now. And again, I lived through 2008 because— and maybe you don't want to co-found a company with me because I joined the company in 2008 and financial markets continued to crash. But once again, we pulled through that and raised money and, and ended up having, you know, building a service that was— and we ended up being acquired by Chegg, which was a perfect outcome for that company. And I think It was a good marriage of teams and culture and things like that. And I think venture is different. I think there are, the highs aren't as high, the lows aren't as low. We have diversified portfolio. When you are a founder, you don't, right? You have a one company. Mm-hmm. And, but the benefit I think, uh, in the ecosystem is that we can provide external perspective to founders, which is super important. And that's what we should be doing.