Precursor VenturesA classic pre-seed and seed stage venture capital firm

Is being contrarian a smart investment strategy?

4 Sept 2025 · 0 min

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Precursor Ventures says contrarian investing isn't a real strategy. Focus on finding good companies instead. If a good company is misunderstood, investing in it might feel contrarian, but deliberately doing the opposite of consensus is just noise. You can't even short private companies, so true contrarian positioning doesn't work there anyway.

Until you can short private companies, you can't really be contrarian. Shouldn't be an identity or a strategy. I tell people you should focus on finding companies that are good. Sometimes companies that are good are misunderstood and so investing in them will feel, quote unquote contrarian because other people don't see. But if you just say I'm just going to do the opposite of what everybody else thinks as a strategy, that seems silly to me.