There's a type of startup that doesn't make the headlines.
No splashy TechCrunch launch. No viral Product Hunt day. No blitz of press around a seed round.
Just a product with real customers, real revenue, and a founder who understood their market from the inside out.
That's exactly what Mike MacCombie at Generous Ventures is looking for.
Mike is a solo GP writing pre-seed checks of $25K to $500K into AI, enterprise, and health tech companies. His thesis is simple: back founders with genuine customer insight who are building companies that would survive without a famous investor's name on the cap table.
He told me about one of his best-performing investments:
“I invested in a company that was stealth in any communication I sent to LPs — $24M valuation, $8M revenue run rate, and profitable. They didn't need hype.” — Mike MacCombie, Generous Ventures |
That's not an accident. Mike actively filters for founders who have a first principles reason for why they're going to win — independent of who's backing them or who writes about them.
“I like companies that have a first principles basis for why they're going to succeed. It shouldn't be that if we don't get a key name investor, we'll never succeed.” — Mike MacCombie, Generous Ventures |
What he's really looking for underneath that:
Founders who are close to the ground. Who have real customer conversations, not surveys. Who are solving a specific problem in a specific market that they understand better than most — ideally because they came from that industry.
He calls it bottoms-up customer insight. And he can tell within a few minutes whether a founder has it or is just pattern-matching what they think investors want to hear.
The implication for your raise:
Before you walk into any investor meeting, ask yourself whether your pitch would hold up if the investors you're talking to had never heard of each other. If your company only makes sense in the context of a hot market narrative or a famous co-investor — that's a problem Mike will find immediately.
The founders who get his attention are the ones who can point to specific customers, specific feedback, and a specific reason why they're the right person to solve this problem. Not because it's trendy. Because they know something most people don't.
Reply and tell me: when an investor asks why you're the right person to build this — what's your answer?
Want to know if you're ready for investors like this? Book a free Fundability Review → |
🎙️ Chris Hines
Founder, Next Round Network