☔🔥☔ @kirbywinfield Twitter profile

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

had a founding team ask for a "what not to do" list today and i sent them this off top. what did i miss?

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

dad struggle share: my daughter is 12. she’s starting to get that she’s different. she calls people who don’t have ds “strangers” bc she doesn’t think we understand her. this am she asked why her friends won’t play w her anymore. shouts to parents, this stuff is HARD.

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@kirbywinfield

3 months

angel investor closing a $25K investment after 10 weeks of diligence

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

@Jason man who provides 2.6M people with jobs enjoys a night out.

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

hug a founder today

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@kirbywinfield

4 years

I know I am in SF because I just overheard this woman at the bar saying the phrase (I sht you not) “tier 2 friends”.

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

i can't stand shark tank. it is the single most dangerous thing that's happened to startup founders in tier 2/3 markets. it has taught both them and angels that being predatory is "part of the game" and giving up ridiculous ownership is par for the course.

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

@WillManidis college marriage hairstyle whether or not to try heroin

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@kirbywinfield

4 years

@jrichlive 1) daily vigorous exercise is as close to a panacea as you will find 2) the best transactions do not come from transactional relationships 3) if you are not “killing it” at home, doing so at work is nothing to brag about

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@kirbywinfield

8 months

literally had an LP tell me the other day they thought when we indicate "SAFE" as the investment type in our quarterly statements it meant the investment was "safe" as in "doing OK and not dying" sir you're not going to like this...

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

so many second time vc backed founders start out like "no way am i raising venture for this one" and then 3mos later it's $10M on $50M pre.

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@kirbywinfield

5 months

techstars shutting down hundreds of accelerators where they're the only game in town... ...to focus on the markets where they're needed least. good luck with that deal flow lol

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@kirbywinfield

1 month

this is the most infuriating thing as a vc: the best founder and the worst founder look nearly identical at the idea stage

Alex Macdonald

@alexfmac

1 month

99% of advice on here is aimed at the ‘average founder’. It is rarely relevant for the best founders. In fact the best founders will normally find better results from doing the opposite.

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@kirbywinfield

5 months

techstars billion dollar outcomes by program: boulder: 4 seattle: 3 nyc: 3 boston: 2 r/ga: 2 kaplan: 2 cloud: 1 chicago: 1 austin: 1 london: 1 sf: 0 la: 0

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@kirbywinfield

4 years

it creeps me out when you repeatedly address me by my name while you are talking to me about your business. stop reading dale carnegie books.

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@kirbywinfield

1 year

lfg ☔🔥☔

TechCrunch

@TechCrunch

1 year

Ascend raises $25 million for pre-seed AI startups in the Pacific Northwest by @rebecca_szkutak

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@kirbywinfield

11 months

@DragonflyJonez this is elite level strategic tanking by the front office. never seen a team hire a coach specifically on the grounds that he is so terrible his team will quit on him naturally.

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

don’t 👏 hire 👏 process-driven 👏 bigco 👏 sales execs 👏 at 👏 preseed 👏 startups 👏

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@kirbywinfield

4 months

it was a good night.

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

my daughter is 13. she has down syndrome. today, she piloted a boat on the seine. nothing is impossible 🥰

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@kirbywinfield

4 years

go read Amiri Baraka Walter Mosely Ralph Ellison August Wilson Marlon James James Baldwin Toni Morrison Maya Angelou Hanif Abdurraquib Langston Hughes W.E.B. Du Bois Jesmyn Ward Ta-Nehisi Coates Octavia Butler Chester Himes Richard Wright Iceberg Slim Donald Goines before u ask

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

you think you like remote work but really you just like not having kids

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@kirbywinfield

1 year

it’s always the female founders in our portfolio who are getting term sheets pulled, having exits disrupted, suffering 11th hour investor backouts…i wouldn’t believe it unless i’d seen it firsthand.

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@kirbywinfield

5 years

Thank you ⁦ @AvrilLavigne ⁩ ⁦ @AvrilFoundation ⁩ for all you do for ⁦ @SpecialOlympics ⁩ athletes like my daughter! The tickets were an extra treat :-)

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@kirbywinfield

10 months

career advice: if you catch a ride on a rocketship, don't mistake that for inventing the rocket.

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@kirbywinfield

1 year

happy #WorldDownSyndromeDay to the girl who changed my life 🥰🥰🥰

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@kirbywinfield

4 months

happy #WorldDownSyndromeDay2024 to the girl who saved my life ❤️❤️❤️

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

passed on 317 startups today

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

seattle people with big $ quietly be having houses in LA because it's just not that much fun being ultra wealthy in seattle. you still have to eat at overly casual restaurants, you can't own an nba team, people laugh at your mclaren and nobody notices your watch cost $200K.

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@kirbywinfield

5 years

Having run a vacation rental startup (sold to $AWAY), I can tell you, it’s a shtty biz with shtty margins and any1 doing it at scale needs to bake in ridic fees to make numbers work for investors. Biggest trick Airbnb pulled was convicing investors they weren’t in the vr biz.

Jake Chapman 🇺🇸🚀 ✨🇺🇸

@vc

5 years

Airbnb sucks. I can’t stand the search function, the pricing isnt transparent, they facilitate scammy hosts and the last time I booked with them, the host contacted me to say they forgot to raise prices on the site and would cancel us if we didn’t agree to the new higher price.

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

ghosted by a local VC this am - what are people thinking it's like ten of us in this entire town lol

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@kirbywinfield

4 years

24 years ago I got off the subway at Canal Street with boxes and suitcases full of my belongings, ready to start my adult life. I had $10 on me. It was 100 degrees out. There was no such thing as Google Maps or a smartphone. I had no idea my apartment was 100 blocks uptown.

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

to all showing concern, or frustration at her friends - she is a mostly happy kid! and her friends have been awesome and inclusive for years! it’s just natural that they have different interests as she stays less mature. but that’s where her down syndrome pals are great :-) 🙏🙏

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@kirbywinfield

8 months

so proud of my girl ❤️❤️❤️

Global Down Syndrome Foundation

@GDSFoundation

8 months

THANK YOU @FOX13Seattle for having Global Down Syndrome Foundation Model 𝗞𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗹𝗱 on Good Day Seattle with host @ErinMayovsky to chat about her upcoming runway gig at the #BeBeautifulBeYourself Fashion Show in Denver. She nailed it!

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@kirbywinfield

7 months

fan of the pod, but this is just patently untrue and is something you would say if you spent your life talking to vcs and never built an early team yourself.

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@kirbywinfield

29 days

@StrangerJosh11 me and my ❤️

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

i don’t give a damn if you have a lead investor or not. if i get conviction i’m in. and i’ll lead with a small check too. or just join the party. it’s about the team and that’s that - imagine not investing in a team you LOVE because “they don’t have a lead”. smh

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

you don't need traction u need signal when i tell founders this they breathe a sigh of relief nobody shld expect u to be growing scalably into a pre-seed what we expect is some indication of a slice of ur potential user base actively loving on the product or idea. ie signal

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@kirbywinfield

1 year

@brettdash_ pronounced “skeet”

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

fast growing $1.2M arr saas startup. winning bakeoffs against entrenched competitors. tech advantage. $120K acv. sophisticated understanding of marketing mix/funnel, sales cycle, brand etc. raising $600K “seed” only in canada 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦

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@kirbywinfield

1 year

welp, just saw my first 5x liquidation pref term sheet.

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

i love her so much 🥲

World Health Organization (WHO)

@WHO

3 years

Today is International Day of Persons with Disabilities! More than 1 billion people 🌏🌍🌎 live with a disability. Anyone can experience a disability at some point in life.

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

it happened again today. it never doesn’t break my heart. if you’ve been made to feel this way yourself or for your kids, whatever the reason, stay up, i love you.

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

just got a 3x return on a 2016 angel investment. co was almost killed by lack of revs combined with a horrible investor, but founder was gritty, fought off investor, found a landing spot and then that co got bought. best part is, i brought 4 friends in, and they got $ today!

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@kirbywinfield

1 year

father daughter dance bound

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@kirbywinfield

5 years

Strong crew. @indievc scouts I see you! @ekp @lolitataub @tiffani @DonaldRichard @ashleymayer @RyanNegri @eatwithkofi @6Gems @mikster @mrsharma @EricaJoy @KristyT @DavidSpinks @kanakhey @_kcwatkins @VineetDevaiah @far33d @micah @TheKofiAmpadu @JoshuaOgundu @Bosefina @DelJohnsonVC

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

closed two new investments yesterday. a $6M post money SAFE and a $20M post money SAFE. guess the difference?

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@kirbywinfield

3 months

just saws a portco go from a save-the-company bridge round to $2.5M gross profit run rate in 12 months. founders, man.

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

it's not scientific but i just invited 300 VCs to a party and i got about 50 out of office responses and counting.

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@kirbywinfield

4 years

@KSBWDrea I got run past, run over, and lit up by Corey Dillon our jr and sr years in High school. He went on to set the NFL single game rushing record with the Bengals. I went on...to write this tweet.

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

@bilbosfootcomb been taking this one on a special daddy daughter trip to nyc since she was 4. she is 11 now. she talks about the trips all the time.

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@kirbywinfield

1 year

she turned 14 today and we’re @Burgermaster just like i was when a kid. simple pleasures! and a @johnscrofano spotting :-)

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

happy #WorldDownSyndromeDay to my special girl.

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@kirbywinfield

2 months

fun fact: if you’re talking to your attorney and you’re using an ai note taker, you’re waiving your attorney-client privilege 🤓

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@kirbywinfield

4 years

Seeing Jamie Foxx trending and wanted to put it out there that he is an incredible advocate for and supporter of people with Down syndrome. Kate got to walk the runway with him and she’ll never forget it. Annie stays on repeat on her iPad - for the past two years 🤣🤣

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@kirbywinfield

5 years

ex-MSFT founders of Seattle startup behemoths: Darrell Cavens (Zulily) Dan Lewis (Convoy) Aaron Easterly (Rover) Nick Huzar (OfferUp) Eric Ranft (Docusign) Brent Frei (Smartsheet) Manny Medina (Outreach) Eugenio Pace (Auth0) But yeah, MSFT doesn’t birth startup talent. smdh

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@kirbywinfield

1 year

ai founders: move to seattle, it’s always like this! #aitinkerers meetup @allen_ai incubator, @MadronaVentures and feat @yoheinakajima @jheitzeb @hellokillian . good to see @madebymarius @anusharma @Qworg @jturow @etzioni @ianbnet @diamondbishop @doppenhe & yay @jenduryeehaller !

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@kirbywinfield

1 month

proud of you, kate ❤️❤️❤️

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

@JeanineSuah -too much of co owned by non-employees (wacky cap table) -exit plan in slide deck -20 page business plan pre-revenue -small market without plans to expand in later acts -founders have zero experience related to problem space -tech/ai co without a tech founder -oversized raise amt

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

vc twittr: who are best pre-seed vcs for a ☔🔥☔ enterprise saas deal? 👱‍♀️founder (ex-head of MSFT customer-centered design) 👩‍🔧collab platform for leaders solving big probs 🌎drives results w remote / decentralized teams ⚓use case: sales acceleration 💲50k ARR 🌱raising $1.5M

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@kirbywinfield

4 months

just found out i’m getting a mid 5 figure exit check for startup advisory equity i took 8yrs ago

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@kirbywinfield

6 years

. @JohnCMcGinley thank you for all you do for our kids with Ds. You made Kate’s night. #BBBY2018 @GDSFoundation

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@kirbywinfield

4 years

Nobody pushes a founder harder than an A+++++ employee they had no right to hire. We don’t talk about this enough when we say “hire people who are better than you”. It’s not just what *they* can accomplish. It’s how they push *you* to be better and think bigger.

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

how do you tell someone "cereal entrepreneur" is not what they mean to have in their bio without killing the vibe?

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

pretty great to wake up to this one @geekwire . long way to go but a nice recognition of where i came from. ☔🔥☔

How becoming a venture capitalist helped this Seattle startup vet turn his life around

When it comes to startups, Kirby Winfield has seen the highs, and he's seen the lows. The longtime Seattleite spent nearly 20 years in various leadership

www.geekwire.com

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

Just sat down with a unicorn serial entrepreneur starting a new company, raising their pre-seed round. $1M raise on a $2M post. The times they are a changing.

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@kirbywinfield

4 years

Kate says Happy Fourth! Here’s to making this a better place for all of us.

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@kirbywinfield

5 months

if you're currently stunned about the techstars news, this (by the og who buit ts seattle, @crashdev ) is the best read you will find on what went wrong:

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

two funerals tonight for friends in my age group. feeling hollowed out.

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@kirbywinfield

4 years

@RexChapman my daughter has Down syndrome and this is how her typically developing classmates have supported her for 5 years. kids bruh...

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@kirbywinfield

4 months

so proud to announce my friend and chief of staff @jenduryeehaller as an official partner at Ascend! 🥳🥳🥳☔🔥☔

Tech Moves: VC firm Ascend names new partner; Common Room adds board member; and more

Jen Haller. (Ascend Photo) — Startup veteran Jen Haller has been named partner at Ascend, the Seattle-based pre-seed venture capital firm. Haller

www.geekwire.com

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

can’t believe we lost a year of nights like this #WhereIRoot #SeaUsRise

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

i messed up. daughter had drama performance fri. i had urgent exec board session right after. play went long. she saw me leave and started crying. after when the kids all said their names, she instead said "i am sad my daddy left." i thought i was past this 😢

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

always nice when i politely pass on an in person coffee meeting and get this kind of reply. set those boundaries people. especially when your gut tells you to.

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@kirbywinfield

1 year

from my 16yo son today on my 49th birthday. i am not sure how i got here but good lord am i blessed.

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@kirbywinfield

6 years

Being on time. Work ethic. Effort. Body language. Energy. Attitude. Passion. Being coachable. Doing extra. Being prepared. These things take zero talent, and there is zero excuse not to do them if you really want to win.

Sean Rose

@seanrose

6 years

All else held equal, working harder than everyone else results in better outcomes. So bizarre that this is a contrarian stance nowadays.

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@kirbywinfield

11 months

@carkerpox love this. we found our daughter had down syndrome in the delivery room. much grieving the child we planned 2 have, but past that is a pretty magical world parents of typically developing kids will never experience. i wouldn’t be 1/2 the man i am without my girl being who she is.

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

my wife reminded me the other day to run my own race in this vc game and i really didn’t realize how much i needed to hear that. even being mindful, getting caught up in esteem needs and what could be vs what is right for me and my family is an occupational hazard out here.

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

san juan island 🏝 is a special place - local kids included kate completely organically today at the swimming hole and the playground! made her day (and mine) 😊

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

if you live in miami austin california denver or anywhere else where the sun shines more than once from like nov to april you have no idea what a warm spring day in seattle means to the soul

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@kirbywinfield

1 year

today i let lps know a portco bit the dust. got a few replies i thought i'd share. bonus if you can guess which one is from a hedge fund manager 😂

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

for a $100K check from an "angel fund" in the year of our lord 2021: ⌚ 2 month process 😗 won't negotiate on terms 😳 won't do safes ⏩ focus on quick exit "ipos take too long" 📊 12 month trailing financials 😱 downside thinking "how get money back vs go to zero"

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@kirbywinfield

10 months

i’m a convert.

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

i would like to invite wsb chairman and any redditors calling themselves the “r word revolution” to jump on a zoom with my daughter kate and get to know her! use whatever slurs u want, i’m pro free speech, but u should meet someone your slurs affect if ur gonna use em. ✌️❤️

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@kirbywinfield

1 year

Women make up 45% of the VC workforce, but only represent 15% of partners. It takes a woman 2-3x longer to raise a venture fund vs white male counterparts on avg. Recast was designed to accelerate the success of women-led, emerging U.S. vc funds.

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@kirbywinfield

1 year

hey @united u shld know something abt ur employee janie on flight 2050. my wife is traveling w our daughter who has down syndrome, and my mom who is recovering from surgery, and all their seats were scattered. janie proactively realized this and sorted them out. thank you!!!

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

so apparently it’s 80s day at school...

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@kirbywinfield

2 years

v hard day for wife and i today. reminded that the biggest challenge for our daughter (and so many others) is not disability but the tyranny of low expectations. well intentioned ppl just don’t believe that she can achieve, so they “take it easy” on her, which kills her growth😔

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

@MacConwell face of a proud dad and a champion. people are often shocked when i express pride and not sorrow when i talk about my daughter. she is positively impacting the lives of her typically developing classmates, her big brother and her whole family in ways you can’t even quantify.

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

find an LP to give you this level of deck feedback

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

"ceo's job is just set vision raise money hire great people" you forgot "spend every waking hour 7 days a week for a decade managing these things and every sleeping hour stress-dreaming about them"

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

just cut a founder call off 5 mins in due to conflict with a stealth co in our portfolio. not sure how any investor fails to do this - when it's obvious, it's obvious.

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@kirbywinfield

3 years

talked to a "pre-seed" fund who actually said they're not looking to back cos without PMF they want cos "ready to put money to work to grow" smh

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@kirbywinfield

7 months

portco just got quoted $110K for legal on a $4M seed. name brand firm. this seems insane…what’s the real price? (since we do safes primarily we don’t have great market data for fees)

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@kirbywinfield

1 year

first family game of the season #WHEREiROOT