One of the key benefits of the shift in the venture landscape has been the ushering in of more diverse funding sources to entrepreneurs. In this week’s Venture Unlocked episode (available both on Spotify and Itunes) I’m excited to bring you Ryan Hoover, founding partner of Weekend Fund.

Ryan grew up in Oregon and worked in the gaming industry prior to launching technology product discovery platform Product Hunt in 2013. Backed by some incredible angel and institutional investors, the company built the largest platform for new products, and ultimately was acquired by AngelList a few years ago.

Ryan continued to act as CEO post acquisition and just recently stepped down to focus on Weekend Fund, which he manages with Vedika Jain. At Weekend they focus on co-investing in pre-seed and seed companies.  Weekend Fund’s LPs includes Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Jana Messerschmidt, Chris and Crystal Sacca, Hunter Walk, Kevin Rose, and Garry Tan.

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In this episode we discuss the following topics:

01:49    Ryan’s journey into tech

03:49    The launch of Product Hunt and the sale to AngelList

07:48    Weekend Fund’s origin story

11:04    What growing from $3M in Fund I to $10M in Fund II has meant

14:40    How Weekend differentiates itself from other funds

19:30    Maintaining NPS for portfolio companies

22:10    Competitive landscape amongst funds creating experimentation in venture

24:01    Systemizing the fund’s deal flow operations 

28:35    Tactical considerations for raising Fund III 

31:38    LP composition and building relationships with Institutional investors

34:26    Ryan’s anti-portfolio

37:48    The best piece of investing advice he’s gotten

39:30    The investor that inspires him the most

Mentioned In This Episode:

* Product Hunt

* AngelList

* Weekend Fund

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Ryan. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked.

If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com