In this episode of Turpentine VC, Erik Torenberg interviews Lauren Farleigh and Zach Perret from Mischief VC, discussing their experiences as founders and how they leveraged those to build their venture firm.

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📰 Be notified early when Turpentine drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccess

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SPONSORS:

☁️ Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds and offers one consistent price. Oracle is offering to cut your cloud bill in half. See if your company qualifies at https://oracle.com/turpentine

💥 Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/ and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist.

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LINKS:

Mischief VC: https://www.mischief.vc/

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X / TWITTER:

@zachperret

@LFarleigh

@TurpentineVC

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE EPISODE:

• Lauren Farleigh and Zach Perret from Mischief VC leverage their founder experiences (Zach is CEO of Plaid, Lauren founded Dote Shopping) to build a differentiated VC firm.
• Mischief started with a $30M fund one and grew to an $80M fund two, focusing on early-stage investments.
• Both started angel investing in 2017 and saw a market opportunity to institutionalize their approach based on founder-to-founder support.
• They identified a gap: few VCs have true zero-to-one, finding product-market fit experience.
• Zach shares how early angel investors who were former founders helped Plaid at critical moments, inspiring Mischief's model.
• They're a generalist fund investing in software companies, more founder-driven than thesis-driven, with $1-4M checks.
• Their approach is hyper people-driven: they follow the best people in their network rather than doing outbound sourcing.
• They host structured dinners with 10-12 people, asking attendees to recommend others, effectively building their network.
• Send quarterly updates to portfolio companies like a monthly company update, keeping founders engaged.
• Transitioned from participating to leading rounds after a portfolio founder wished they had led his successful round.
• They track potential founders before they start companies, building long-term relationships.
• Play a "ground game" focused on delivering results rather than being loud on social media.
• Fund two fundraising was harder than fund one due to market conditions and larger size.
• Zach is part-time at Mischief while running Plaid, focusing on sourcing and unique situations where he has relevant experience.
• Having four GPs provides the right level of availability while allowing each to focus on their strengths.
• Fund two has primarily first check focus with aggressive recycling, avoiding follow-ons that dilute returns.
• Currently feel capital constrained with four GPs on $80M, planning careful growth while maintaining responsible investment practices.
• Focus on building training modules for common founder challenges like recruiting and sales, not on firm marketing.
• Most founders struggle with fear/indecision in cold sourcing rather than making mistakes; Zach advocates direct outreach.

Andrew Braccia, partner at Accel for nearly two decades, sits down with Erik Torenberg to discuss the firm's evolution from Silicon Valley early-stage investor to global, multi-stage powerhouse. Braccia explains Accel's two major strategic shifts: global expansion with local teams in Europe, India, and beyond; and the launch of their growth fund in 2008 targeting bootstrapped companies like Atlassian, Qualtrics, and Squarespace.

Braccia reflects on lessons from his journey from Yahoo to venture capital, emphasizing the importance of "wiping your mind clear" of past experiences that might cloud judgment of new opportunities.

The conversation provides rare insight into how Accel maintains operational excellence at global scale while preserving their early-stage venture DNA in an increasingly competitive landscape.

—

📰 Be notified early when Turpentine drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccess

—

SPONSORS:

☁️ Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds and offers one consistent price. Oracle is offering to cut your cloud bill in half. See if your company qualifies at https://oracle.com/turpentine

💥 Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/ and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist.

—

LINKS:

AcceL: https://www.accel.com/

The Slack Origin Story: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/30/the-slack-origin-story/

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X / TWITTER:

@Accel

@eriktorenberg

@TurpentineVC

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE EPISODE:

• Accel started over 40 years ago focusing on early-stage venture capital (seed, Series A) and maintains this core business today.
• The firm expanded globally to Europe, Israel, India, and other markets with separate teams and funds to identify defining technology companies worldwide.
• In 2008, Accel launched growth funds to invest in bootstrapped technology companies that didn't fit traditional Series A parameters.
• Notable growth investments included Atlassian, Qualtrics, Squarespace, and CrowdStrike, companies that might not have intersected with Accel otherwise.
• Global expansion and multi-stage investing introduced communication and coordination challenges that require strong partnerships to overcome.
• Andrew Braccia grew up in the Bay Area, studied business at University of Arizona, and joined Yahoo in 1998 when the internet was still emerging.
• Working at Yahoo gave Andrew broad exposure to various internet segments and connected him with talented people who later became successful entrepreneurs.
• Today's AI investment landscape has similarities to 1998-99, with high capital requirements and significant burn rates.
• In AI, Accel has invested more in infrastructure and application layers than foundational models, including companies like Scale AI and Decagon.
• Venture capital is becoming a permanent asset class that will continue to grow in capital allocation across various firm structures.
• Increasing competition in venture capital makes operational excellence and firm culture increasingly critical for long-term success.
• The biggest lesson Andrew learned is to avoid letting past experiences create "false negatives" that prevent seeing new opportunities. Another key lesson is not to fear failure and to take more shots with great entrepreneurs.
• The Squarespace investment in 2009-2010 exemplifies Accel's entrepreneur-focused approach and ability to support companies through multiple stages.
• The biggest mistake in venture capital is missing an opportunity because you didn't know it existed.
• Failures often stem from not moving quickly enough, lacking decisiveness, or carrying intellectual baggage about certain categories.