One League to Rule Them All
Season 2 Episode 5
The reveal for Create-Stars came last week - if you missed that, check it out here.
Today, we’ll be covering:
Startup or Story? - One League to Rule Them All
Related references
Sponsored read
Timeless Recommendation
Startup or Story? Part 5
Please - watch the video (all the way to the end), like it, hit the comments, share it - anything?
Related References
A few resources to go deeper down the rabbit hole of this week’s business.
This week’s WIBAI is brought to you by…Obviously the Future*
If WIBAI is about narrative stories about a more awesome future, Obviously the Future is the more fact-based cousin about a more likely future. But I’m not here to tell you about the newsletter. I’m here to tell you about the person behind the newsletter.
Katelyn Donnelly.
The esteemed author of that newsletter is celebrating a big milestone. She is concluding a decade-long chapter as a founder of an awesome consulting company, Delivery Associates. With the sale of the company to Trill Impact Private Equity, there’s a rare chance to publicly acknowledge a friend who is at the vanguard of her field.
If you were a friend running a startup, there is literally no investor I would recommend more highly than Katelyn Donnelly. She has all the qualities you’d look for in an investor: integrity, intelligence, vision, and humility. If you’re lucky enough to where she wants to invest in you, I’d take her check over anyone else’s in the industry.
I was in the trenches with her as she built a globally-respected education VC fund out of nothing within Pearson, which she somehow did while also launching Delivery Associates. But I was also with her in rooms around the world with the naysayers. The potential Limited Partners (LPs). The potential LPs that could have set off the avalanche that is Katelyn Donnelly on the world.
Instead, too many of them chose to pass. They said she hadn’t managed her own fund before (despite the fact she’d set up the fund within Pearson with next-to-no corporate support). They said she needed a bigger track record (despite the fact these same LPs funded other first-time GPs with less of a record). And they said she’d never gone from zero to exit, so she wouldn’t be able to help companies do so. It was bullsh*t then - just ask any of the dozens of founders she’s invested in that have leaned on her through their journeys.
But now, it’s easier than ever to call out. Putting a bow on the Delivery Associates chapter with a successful exit shows what Katelyn is capable of. She formed a thesis - an avalanche of demand for the institutional effectiveness of public and social sector entities was coming - and she helped build a company that could fill those needs.
Let me share with you an excerpt from a note she once shared with me. I do not exaggerate when I say the note literally changed my life. It showed me what true purpose looked like in a way I’ve never forgotten.
Here’s the part that hit me like a hurricane.
As for my own motivations – I aspire to be a global leader of an organization that changes the facts on the ground…
I have seen that capital allocators are in an incredibly powerful position – we are the intermediary that determines which teams get funded and which visions get a chance at changing the world…
Do we use our limited time and capital to invest and believe in those who already have every advantage and privilege in the world? Or do we take a road less traveled and back local women and men who place values at the center of their organizations?
I want to continue to build my career as a capital allocator and find the platform that allows me the greatest position of influence to promote the values that I’ve seen to be important for a peaceful and prosperous humanity.
How many investors can describe their purpose so passionately? In fact, forget investors…how many people can describe their purpose this way?
So, for anyone reading this, take a moment to congratulate Katelyn Donnelly on the passing of the torch at Delivery Associates. Though it probably won’t be the last time, she’s silenced the naysayers yet again. If any potential LP is looking to put capital to work in the private markets, Katelyn’s firm Avalanche ought to be at the top of your list. She’s Obviously the Future.
*No one is sponsoring this, obviously. I am just putting stuff I like in here alongside my shameless plugs.
Timeless recommendation
While we’re on the theme of racket sports, let’s go back to my two favorite pieces of tennis writing. If you’re a tennis fan, or a Federer fan (if you don’t like Federer, the unsubscribe button is below 👋🏾), there’s no greater piece of tennis writing than David Foster Wallace’s Roger Federer as Religious Experience. If you’re not a NYT subscriber, you can read it here instead. If reading this doesn’t make you wistful for the heyday of Federer, I don’t know what will.
The second piece is called The Greatest Set of Tennis Ever, which ostensibly describes what I agree is the greatest set of tennis played. Despite my bias, I can acknowledge the Nadal-Djokovic set at the French Open last year was at a level that was superhuman. But more than just describing the set, the piece describes the incredible feeling tennis fans have had so often in the past two decades watching Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer.
Wouldn’t It Be Awesome If…? is the beginning of many questions I ask myself about the future. WIBAI has become my place to attempt to make sense of the world we live in and imagine ways to make it better.
I don’t check unsubscribe alerts and never look at my subscriber list. So if this isn’t for you, you can unsubscribe below.