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

What was Awesome People Ventures Founder Julia Lipton's spark in starting Awesome People Ventures?

20 Dec 2022 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:00

In this interview excerpt, the host asks Julia Lipton about the initial spark that led her to launch Awesome People Ventures. Julia explains that while she was consulting in angel investing, a friend—who later became one of her limited partners—mocked her for “running cash‑flow zero” and urged her to start a fund. At around age 30, with only a handful of angel investments and no mark‑ups, she wondered who would back her fund, noting that at the time (circa 2018‑2019) there were few emerging‑manager funds run by former operators. The conversation sets up a deeper dive into her background and future outlook.

So I'd love to talk a little bit about your initial spark on starting Awesome People Ventures, and then we'll go a bit deeper into your background and some things that contributed to that, and then also kind of some of your views for the future.
Yeah, well, on starting the fund, it very much flowed out of— at the time I was consulting in angel investing, and one of now my LPs, but one of my friends, saw me doing this and was like, Julia, this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. You're basically running cash flow zero. You should start a fund. And I'm thinking to myself at the time, I was 30, I think, and had a handful of angel investments and no markups and was like, who the hell is going to back my fund? And back then there weren't tons of emerging managers, like operators turned emerging managers.
What time period is this to like set us?
2018, 2019.