When you know; you know.
It’s oft-quoted that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. I wish I could say that starting this Pharos Fund Chronicles newsletter was step one, but to be honest, it’s probably step four thousand two hundred and twenty five, but instead of walking in a straight line to get to Point B, it’s been like one of the maps that trace the path of an electron – chaos theory, stops, starts, sudden appearances with a touch of general bewilderment. There’s this superb quote from Rumi: sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment, which sounds great when you’re staring up at the stars on some trek through the Himalayas, but somewhat less comforting when you’re trying to create a formalised venture capital fund and structure with the highest governance standards.
In all fairness, part of the issue was me literally not knowing what I don’t know. It reminded me a lot of the early days of Digs, not a cooking clue what was potting but following my nose in a direction that felt right until by trial and (many) error I somehow became supreme leader of founder life. It’s cool, but it takes bloody long. The doubts are probably the most unproductive part of the whole shpeel.
Next was the distractions. Good distractions all, but still, distractions. Firstly there’s falling completely and utterly in love. It’s not contentious to say that love as a topic has been covered extensively in literature, so I don’t need to go into all the wonderful parts of it now, but I will say that love is not a great companion of productivity. At least not in the early days. M and I took the deepest of plunges into each other and came out the other side only to keep roaring across the universe of love colouring this world of what it means to genuinely meet your person. You don’t realise how how insane love at first sight is until you’re a couple months deep, till suddenly you look around and realise that you somehow existed before this person, as impossible as that seems. Everything shifts, in upward direction, and sideways direction, in all the ways, it’s expands and contracts and expands again. It being pretty much everything, everywhere, all at once. Where once there was one, now there was two, and would always be two, and with that the multiplication of every feeling, activity, and moments of our pasts we carried etched on our skins and souls. In short; it’s a lot, and especially for me who for the most part has spent almost all my life alone. Not just in terms of failed lovers, but even socially with friends and colleagues and strangers at events. It overwhelmes or bores me, the groups and hubbub and racket, sitting around slugging a beer and trying to not think about the work I’d rather be doing back in my office. So eventually I stopped going and relished in the rapture of my glorious solitude. Alone again until suddenly the person that’s is more me than myself appeared one November night and now it’s us as naturally as the smile that broadens my face when I see him, smiling so much that my cheeks ache but I shall I contend myself with this delicious pain.
Moving on from that, further distractions were afoot. In various stages of uncertainty, aided by not a small amount of financial pressure, I would decide that starting it myself was an insane undertaking and I should rather join an existing VC. So then the job applications began. Everything from the IFC to mad little indie Austin-based VCs. During this process, I wound up in Stellenbosch, at the super larney Val de Vie estate for a lunch with two established fund managers getting some ideas and insight into raising from LPs. It was a superb lunch in a stunning location and I had buckets of fun.
A couple days later, I got a call from them asking if I’d be interested in a 6 month venture partner gig. That was a helluva exciting idea, and fitted perfectly into my medium term plans. I don’t think I’ve shared this yet on The Aviation Club, but I got accepted into Oxford University to do a Masters of Science in Sustainability and Enterprise, starting in October this year. I’ve also been shortlisted for the FirstRand scholarship which is a full scholarship and a rather big deal. The course has a 3% acceptance rate and is the most applied to per spot avaialble postgraduate programme at Oxford - so not excatly something one turns down.
I’m thrilled about this because I want to tie in my National Geographic love into the whole process - storytelling and exploration and frontiers. I was also going to launch my VC fund out of the whole thing, leaning on the Oxford network and opportunnities and high density of extraordinary people in that little, ancient town of brilliance. I’ve been thinking clean energy, nucelar energy, AI crossovers, systems to track agricultural output in Southern Africa, space exploration, the RAF student programme. I’ve gone to visit the college I was provisionally accepted into (pending schlarship outcome - otherwise I’m in for R1.5 million of debt).
So being based back in Cape Town for a couple months, learning the VC ropes as a venture partner sounded bloody sublime, and deferring Pharos for a couple months. M’s in love with London and the flat there is gorgeous (with a gorgeous price), so that would be a bit of a spanner in the works, because lord knows I’d follow love to the ends of the earth. But all in all, it was good problems to solve.
A couple weeks after that, M and I were roadtripping along the Garden Route (we’re a big fan of a roadtrip) and in a little town called Wilderness, at a coffee shop made of wooden planks and filled with maps and old books, they called again to say that want to make a partner. I mean - wow. It would make me the youngest partner at an established VC fund in the country, working with two incredible guys who were fantatsic at the game.
But - it just wasn’t quite right. The devil truly is in the details. And one of the key reasons, which is… tricky to bring up - is that at 32 years old, and very, very, very set on having a big family and as many kids I can possibly pop out, my fertile clock is rather top of mind. M and I have spoken about cracking on with creating some additions to the family after I graduate from my Masters in July next year. I’ll be 33 then, and enough time would have passed for things to be quite settled and lined up practically. But the offer of GP included a minimum three year lock in period, and it was more than a full time position, as in there was no way I oculd do it while also doing the Masters.
I’ve come to get rather good at multitasking opportunities, but the fund’s mandate is strictly South Africa, and Oxford is, well, strictly Oxford. Not ideal. They suggested I delay Oxford, but that would mean a delay in babies. It’s not impossible, perhaps, to have kids while doing a Masters, but it would undeniable alter my student experience. And saying no to Oxford seemed… well I just didn’t want to. The ideal situation in my perspective would be to delay taking on the partner role until after I graduated, because working and having kids is more normal. But that idea was rejected.
And so I had to walk away from that.
And so back to square 1 - my own fund, on my own terms, with my own focuses, my own ability, my own determination.
Back on track, and a bit behind schedule, I fell into the second trap of “waiting until I’m ready”. Fortunately it didn’t take me too long to remember that theer’s no such thing as ready, there’s only the blank canvas that you need to fil up with your own opoornutites by doing the thing, creating the work, and letting luck and inspirarion find you by actively increasing the surface of serenedipty through susatained effort.
So yes. Here, now, and back at it. It’s 10.47am and while my coffee is sustaining me, I’m rather peckish and keen to head downstairs for breakfast. M’s playing with his new dslr camera but looking longing in the direction of the kitchen too, so here I shall wrap things up. Tomorrow I’ll update you on progress with Pharos - the brand, the deck, the LPs, the focus areas, the team, the whole saga. It’s been fun. I’ll also update on my other projects and maybe a bit more of life. A big piece of news is that we signed a lease together, after 2 months of dating and just four months of knowing about the existence of the other. When you know; you know.