Portfolio of Awesome People
Friday Futures with Julia Lipton
Julia Lipton is the Founder and Managing Partner of Awesome People Ventures, a fund backed by Chris Dixon, Marc Andreessen, Multicoin, Tom Lee (founder of One Medical), and other founders and operators. Awesome People Ventures invests in pre-seed companies aiming to make the world a better place. Their portfolio includes companies like Levels, Writer, and Syndicate. They’re currently focused on Web3.
Prior to launching Awesome People Ventures, Julia led growth and product teams at companies like One Medical and Rise (acquired by One Medical).
#FridayFutures Highlight 25: Julia Lipton, Founder - Awesome People Ventures
How did you get into the Web3 and VC space?
My career is a result of following my passions. Nothing has been planned. I started in marketing. I got there by accident. I had a startup idea when I was in college, and I was convinced I wanted to build this company. I reached out to tech people who I read about in Wired and Fast Company to tell them about my idea.
One of the people I reached out to on LinkedIn suggested that I visit Silicon Valley during my spring break. I'd never been to Silicon Valley. But I knew it was the place where people built things. This was in 2011. In Silicon Valley, I started pitching my idea with sketches of my product. Now I know these are called wireframes -- these were the world's most janky wireframes.
One of the people I pitched turned out to be a founder. At that point, I didn't know the difference between founders, VCs, or just random people on the street. I told him about my startup, and he convinced me to join his startup instead. At the time, it was just the two co-founders and one engineer. I was the first business hire. They made me the Head of Marketing because there was no one else there. That was a lucky accident. The company ended up blowing up spectacularly, but I learned a lot.
I joined my next startup, Rise, as the Head of Growth. Our first startup didn't have a product-market fit and I was very interested in data and metrics. Metrics tell the truth. One Medical eventually acquired rise. While at One Medical, I found myself helping a lot of wellness founders on the side. I enjoyed helping all the mental health founders, nutrition founders, and fitness enthusiasts. It was so fun to help people working on things that matter.
Helping founders on the side naturally grew into the fund. After One Medical, I took a sabbatical and started a growth consultancy practice. I advised founders, which eventually led to angel investing and angel investing turned into the fund. I always found different ways of helping founders, whether it was advising, consulting, or ultimately investing.
What's your hot take about the future Web3? What aspects are particularly exciting to you right now?
First, in terms of staying on the cutting edge, I genuinely love products. I'm a bit OCD about products -- I enjoy product tear-downs and trying early iterations. Some investors and people can look at the world, read about it, and develop a hypothesis. I'm okay at that, but I'm much better at playing with the thing and envisioning the future.
Now to answer your question, let’s step back and look at the macro view. The future is increasingly digital. Let’s look at money. We started with bartering in local markets, then introduced currencies for trade, and eventually built online and mobile payments. Over centuries, we consistently simplified and enhanced financial transactions. This will continue. Today there are tons of problems in the financial system, unstable currencies, complicated and long cross-border payments, and tons of middlemen.
When I look at that, I have zero doubt in my mind that internet-native money is going to be a thing. Money that can be moved freely and instantly. I know the concept of central bank digital currencies is a bit contentious in our ecosystem, but it feels inevitable to me that money will be issued digitally by the government.
Digitally native money and on-chain assets are really interesting. Once you put assets on the blockchain, it becomes much easier for more people to own them. It expands access. For example, stablecoins enable everyone to easily own USD globally. This is a huge win for people in inflationary economies. Take that one step further and put treasury bills on the chain. Now people can earn relatively low-risk yields in a stable currency. It also becomes easier to get access to loans and credit programmatically.
Technology makes things better, faster, or cheaper. Whether it's payments, ownership, or the way we transact and communicate with each other, I think Web3 has a role. It's very much from that perspective that I went all in on Web3. My first fund was just Web2, but then I started thinking about the problems we were trying to solve in that fund, and I realized that many of these problems would actually be better solved in Web3.
What's the most unpopular opinion – something others might disagree with about Web3 or DeFi?
It is possible that central bank-backed currencies could be the killer use case for crypto. It's an interesting thought. In some ways, it's not terrible. In others, it's not ideal. It's not decentralized, and it's not owned by the people. However, it might be the thing that brings the most people onto the blockchain. It's quite ironic, really. There's a good chance that centralized currencies run by countries could be what ultimately onboard the largest number of people to the blockchain.
What’s the most exciting thing you’ve learned that you would want others to know?
I think the most crucial thing to understand is that you should just do whatever you want in life. Life is so short. Most of the things that hold us back are just fear, which isn't really real. So, people should just do what they want.
The natural reaction is often, "Well, I can't do that." But really, have you tried?
I started this fund simply because one friend believed in me. I was angel investing and consulting, essentially running cash flow zero. This was around 2018. I made six angel investments with no significant track record. There was no apparent reason for me to start a fund.
My initial response was the same as what I think most people would say, "I can't start a fund." But my friend said something that changed everything. He said, "Julia, everyone who's ever worked with you would invest in your fund, and I'll be your first LP." That made me realize, "Oh, I need to take the money and run. I need to do it now." I didn't even have time to think about whether I wanted to raise a fund or if it was a good idea. I knew I loved investing, I'd been investing in the stock market since high school.
I also had friends who had started funds, so I knew it was possible. I called one of my friends and asked, "How do we do this?" I didn't have time for self-doubt or to overthink things. I don't believe I'm any more special or capable than anyone else with these ideas. I think I just moved faster because I didn't spend time second-guessing myself.
Is there a person or company that’s inspiring you right now?
It's kind of interesting. Lately, I've been doing the opposite of what you'd expect. Instead of looking ahead, I've been looking back and reading about amazing companies. I just re-read 'Shoe Dog,' the story of Nike. Now, Nike is nothing like Web3, and it's definitely not the future, but reading about how tough their journey was is a reminder. It reminds me of how incredibly challenging building great things can be. Understanding successful founders’ journeys is inspiring, especially when I'm facing difficulties. Creating something truly exceptional, something that changes the game is extremely hard.
Right now, many of us are finding things really tough. Everything just seems difficult. You look one way and you see uncertain regulation, you another way and it seems like everything is ready to collapse. It's like there's no relief. But you know what? This feeling of difficulty has always been there for those who've achieved great things. It's like that for everyone who's ever built something amazing. So lately, I've been revisiting these stories to remind myself.
What's your take on the future of funding for good businesses that don't need moonshot-like backing?
One cool thing about DeFi is how a bunch of people can come together and support a certain idea. Let's take a portfolio company, Solid World. They're funding climate projects in a new way. You can start earning rewards by putting money into things like Mangrove projects or other climate projects. You don’t have to lock up your money for ages, deal with complicated future contracts, and hope for future carbon credits at an unknown price.
One cool aspect about the blockchain is people can easily fund anything. They can fund art, small businesses, nonprofits…The only constraints on what's fundable are government regulations, which serve to safeguard consumers. I think the blockchain opens up new funding modalities and new asset classes that otherwise were hard to back. I think we’ll continue to see new financial products to fund the whole spectrum of businesses.
How can we stay in touch?
The best way to connect with me is on Twitter — @JuliaLipton. Sometimes I’m not active but feel free to dm me.
Have thoughts on this week’s topic or question for me or Julia? Post your thoughts in the comment section. Until next week.🙂
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