Our Ethos
Blue Collar VC
The seed from which Mucker grew came forth in the soil of the great recession.
Back in the old days (i.e. 15+ years ago), software was an industry unto itself, headquartered in Silicon Valley. These days, software is everywhere, impacting all industries far beyond Silicon Valley. Today, the skills of software-based disruption also now exist outside Silicon Valley. And we invest in the companies that are doing it. We don’t really care if you’ve never even been to Silicon Valley. We have and we can help. We spent most of our careers there as entrepreneurs, senior executives and investors doing it the old way. We can lead you through the idiosyncrasies and minefields of starting, scaling, and fundraising for your company just like a Silicon Valley insider.
As the rest of the tech world flooded toward Silicon Valley in search of millions and billions, we left the figurative birthplace of our professional careers in search of affirmation outside the Valley. Affirmation that what we learned, how we cut our teeth, and the ethos we espouse are universal truths unencumbered by location. Affirmation that great products, devoted customers, and incredible companies can be build without the support systems and the rising tide of the Valley. The questions we asked ourselves were: Are we good enough? Can we prove the naysayers wrong? Can we beat the system?
Delusional or otherwise, we believed that we were and that we could. And ultimately, we did. As much as we like to think we are special, our experiences outside the Valley helped us internalize the notion that it’s only a matter of time before the Valley’s original stranglehold on “entrepreneurship” will end. Chaos, entropy, free flow of knowledge, and humankind’s indomitable will to succeed will eventually level the playing field or create a whole new ballgame. We started Mucker in 2011 with unbridled optimism and a firm belief that THIS future was certain.
Los Angeles was our initial test bed. We took everything we learned in the preceding decades spent inside and outside the Valley and applied it to venture in L.A. in terms of how we invested in and worked with portfolio companies. We quickly realized that while the Valley had seemingly perfected a working model that’s extremely efficient for savvy members of its unique ecosystem, we needed to rethink our approach in order to succeed.
The Bay Area is a Bubble
A bubble of cookie-cutter MBAs from the best schools. A bubble full of engineers trained at some of the most well-known internet companies. A world where even developers can spout mindless business-speak like a McKinsey and Co. consultant. Seemingly everyone in the Bay Area has a college roommate or cousin whose kid goes to the same elementary school with Marc Andreessen’s daughter.
If venture capital is only about finding brands and checking boxes, Silicon Valley has to be the easiest place in the world to be a VC. For better or worse, everyone has multiple logos that they use to attract attention from eager VCs. Looking for a Stanford alum who has worked as a Facebook GPM, been on the Forbes “15 under 15”, and babysat for Steve Jobs? A simple LinkedIn search will turn up more than 100 people.
We Believe Entrepreneurship Should Not Be an Exclusive Profession Reserved for the Elites
Where you live, where you went to school, and who your friends are should have zero impact on whether you deserve to be a founder. Are you humble? Do you work hard? Are you persistent? Do you have a unique insight that drives your vision? Can you execute with speed and precision? Are you smart? Those are the underlying qualities of a great entrepreneur.
While you DO need to be special to be a successful entrepreneur, you DON’T have to have a degree from Stanford or Harvard, you don’t have to go to swanky networking parties, you don’t have to speak the same as everyone else, and most importantly, you don’t have to look — or even think — like us. The logos? That’s just for lazy VCs who can’t see past their own biases.
Blue Collar VC
Over a decade after our founding, we have found what works for us and for our entrepreneurs. Since our early days in Los Angeles, we have expanded our investment outside of California. There are now Mucker companies across the United States, Canada, and other continents, in cities small and large and worlds away from Silicon Valley. Perhaps we know what to look for in entrepreneurs outside the Valley and understand how to relate to them better. And perhaps those entrepreneurs find we understand the entrepreneurial journey outside the Valley is wholly different — sometimes harder, oftentimes contrarian, always more rewarding and authentic.
Looking back, it is clear our founders don’t fit the typical Bay Area founder profile, because they aren’t typical Bay Area founders. Our founders hail from across the U.S. and from all corners of the globe. They have graduated from schools you’ve heard of, and others that have never been touched by a single ivy leaf. They are not bound together by alma mater or social class, but instead by a mutual respect for the grit that delivered them to where they are today and a drive to build something that matters.
In the world of seed capital, the working relationship between the entrepreneur and their VCs is everything. We know there are great entrepreneurs out there in unconventional places and with unconventional backgrounds. We are casting our net farther from our home shore in L.A. than ever before in a quest to find the next great group of ideas and founders.
