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Broadening the On-ramp for Women-run Companies

5 Reasons Every Entrepreneur and VC Should Follow the Hustle Fund

MergeLane invests in venture capital funds led by at least one female partner. We invested in the Hustle Fund, which invests in fast-executing pre-seed startups. We chose the Hustle Fund over hundreds of other seed funds, so, obviously, I think they are amazing. The content they have been putting out lately is especially amazing. 

I have learned a lot by following them. Here are five things I think every startup and VC can learn by paying attention to what they are up to:


  1. Early-stage investor inside baseball: They share their authentic thoughts about their investment strategy and their reasons for investing or not investing. You can get a taste of that here: Watch Real Founders Pitch to the Hustle Fund.
  2. Marketing and content delivery ideas: They experiment with a bunch of different content formats. It's interesting to watch and think about which formats resonate and why. Check out Elizabeth Yin’s Zoom whiteboard experiment here: 3 Marketing Funnel Examples.
  3. A Twitter master class: They artfully leverage Twitter to recruit potential investments and to position themselves as thought leaders. Here’s a tweetstorm on economic macro conditions
  4. A lesson in increasing diversity: Although they don't have an explicit focus on diversity, their investment strategy has yielded a portfolio far more diverse than their peers’.  
  5. A pulse on the Southeast Asian startup scene: Hustle Fund partner Shiyan Koh is based in Singapore. They are actively investing in Southeast Asia and have many Asian LPs.  


A few ways to follow the Hustle Fund:

Hustle Fund Newsletter
YouTube Channel
Twitter
Elizabeth Yin’s Blog
First Pitches Podcast with Eric Bahn
Guest Appearances from Elizabeth Yin on Gimlet’s the Pitch Podcast

Enjoy!




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