Sam Corcos: Why Founders Should Take as Many VC Meetings as Possible | E1093

Fundraising Strategy & Investor Relations

• Investor Selection Philosophy: Founders should treat fundraising as finding a "prophet," not a "missionary," by seeking investors who already understand the vision rather than trying to convert skeptics.
• Broad Outreach Approach: Sam Altman advises against treating investor contacts as "precious gems," recommending that founders cast a wide net and engage with many investors early in the process.
• Trend Lines vs. Dots: Founders should view fundraising as building a trend line over time rather than securing a single "dot," allowing for iterative improvement (e.g., raising a round where retention is 25%, then returning six months later with 40% retention).
• Transparency as a Signal: Levels practiced extreme transparency with investors, sharing 50-page documents in advance; engaged partners like those at Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz read deeply, while others skimmed.
• Specific "Asks": The company uses a "Google Sheet of asks" within investor updates to request specific help (e.g., "Connect me with the two best designers you know"), achieving a conversion rate of roughly 50% for highly targeted requests.
• Value Extraction from Investors: Levels leveraged their relationship with Andreessen Horowitz to extract value from over 110 of their operating partners, utilizing their comprehensive service models for HR, legal, and marketing.
• Vinod Khosla's Claim: When asked if 90% of VCs detract value, the interviewee noted it is difficult to verify as they primarily interact with value-add operators and angels, though they acknowledge many institutional firms fail to deliver on promised support.

Company Culture & Operations

• Radical Transparency: Levels shares all one-on-ones, team meetings, and performance reviews internally by default, with the only exception being individual compensation data.
• The "Keeper Test": The company uses the Netflix heuristic to evaluate team members; if a manager feels indifferent or relieved if an employee left, they are considered low performers and must be coached or let go.
• No Titles Philosophy: The company eliminated functional titles (beyond engineering/product) to foster a high-trust environment where performance is visible and based on contribution rather than hierarchy.
• Performance Visibility: While transparency carries the risk of social friction, the company found that high-trust cultures often result in peers supporting low performers rather than ostracizing them, as the community is aware of the struggle and willing to help.
• Current Headcount: The company operates with approximately 50 employees, all of whom must pass the "Keeper Test."
• Retention Metrics: Levels currently reports a retention rate of 25%, with a strategic target of 40%, acknowledging that churn remains a significant challenge to address.

Founder Mindset & Risk

• Risk Perception: The interviewee argues that many risks are overblown; starting a company is less risky than feared, and the "worst case" (failure) is rarely as catastrophic as imagined.
• Dunning-Kruger Curve: A key lesson from previous ventures was realizing that once a founder moves past the "valley of despair" in their expertise, their opinions become valid and should not be deferred to the loudest voices in the room.
• Ownership & "Disagree and Commit": The founder emphasizes that while disagreement is allowed, once a CEO makes a strategic decision, co-founders must fully commit or leave; staying on the team requires total alignment.
• Defining High Performance: The interviewee defines high performance not as setting ambitious goals, but as the ability to reliably deliver on the objectives one actually sets, noting that most people underestimate their own capacity.
• Time Optimization: The most impactful time-management change was auditing time usage (revealing 3-4 hours daily lost to social media) and using the calendar as the primary to-do list with 50-75% buffer space to handle variability.
• Planning vs. Spontaneity: The founder advocates for being "intentional" regardless of the approach; a spontaneous trip to meet strangers is as intentional as an optimized travel itinerary if that is the specific goal.

Leadership & Co-founder Dynamics

• Co-founder Due Diligence: Founders should treat co-founder selection with the same rigor as marriage, conducting "co-founder dating" and checking references to prevent issues like fraud or misaligned expectations.
• Conflict Resolution: While immediate confrontation is not always possible (e.g., when tired), issues should be addressed within a "reasonable time" scale (days/weeks) rather than months/years to prevent resentment from festering.
• Resentment as a Signal: The founder disclosed recently feeling resentment toward a co-founder, used as a prompt to initiate a vulnerable conversation that revealed the issue was a miscommunication rather than a fundamental rift.
• Product vs. Engineering: The company has shifted to prioritize engineering over product management, recognizing that larger product orgs can sometimes become bottlenecks to execution.

Personal Life & Future Outlook

• Family Planning: The interviewee aims to have three more children in the next five years and views "being present" with family as a continuous practice requiring intentionality (e.g., scheduled date nights, removing phones during walks).
• Romantic Strategy: The founder treats dating as a "matching problem," not a sales problem, using a "one-pager" of dealbreakers and goals (e.g., engagement within six months) to filter for compatibility early.
• Core Values: Open-mindedness was identified as a critical non-negotiable trait in a partner, specifically the ability to tolerate relationships with people holding vastly different political views.
• Primary Concern: The interviewee's deepest worry is the "collapse of the epistemic commons," representing the erosion of shared reality and the inability to collectively agree on facts in society.
• Five-Year Vision (2028): The goal is for Levels to have reached its full potential in solving the metabolic health crisis, with significantly higher retention rates and a larger family unit.