Sterling Invests Eventually Is Now Sterling’s Added Value

I'm entering the next phase of my investing journey. First step: updating the name of my newsletter

The TL;DR - I’m in the next phase of my investing journey, and I want my newsletter to reflect that. Twice a month, I’ll feature an emerging fund manager as part of the Added Value series.

In 2020, I launched this newsletter to share my journey exploring venture capital.

Since then, I’ve worked with a number of amazing investors and leaders in VC. And while I still consider this journey a learning process, I’ve also realized that I have developed my own bank of expertise and knowledge. So in 2022, I officially launched Added Value Agency to provide content creation services to emerging fund managers.

For years I’ve worked directly with underestimated investors who want to make themselves known at the table. Eventually I realized that I’d be a much better value-add to VCs instead of companies, which was largely the reason for me to become a VC. I explained this line of thinking in my post I No Longer Want to Be a VC, in which I declared my new goal: to become a fund of funds manager.

So at the end of 2022, when I was reflecting on my goals and aspirations, I asked myself “How can I add value in 2023 to emerging fund managers?”

Committed to Adding Value

When forming my business, I wanted a company name that clearly communicated how I want to work with clients. Something that said “I understand who you are and how I can help you.”

Investors often talk about their value add, which is what they provide to companies beyond capital. It comes in the form of knowledge, network, and old-fashioned elbow grease.

In my case, the value add comes in the form of industry-specific content creation and marketing. And so it seems only natural that I re-name this newsletter Sterling’s Added Value.

As part of my journey towards becoming a fund of funds manager, I want to highlight the emerging fund managers I know and continue to meet through my work. My goal with this series is to feature upcoming VCs so that investors can find more info about them, and so that aspiring fund managers can learn from their stories.

And as I’ve been mulling over this new series, I’ve also been reflecting on my investment thesis. This newsletter is, after all, still part of my investing journey. And part of that journey is forming the thesis of my future fund of funds.

Investing in the Survival of Humanity and Earth

Over the years I’ve learned and written about a number of investment topics: funding disparities, climate change, femtech, crypto, generational wealth, agritech. And when I think about these topics, I inevitably find myself thinking about how the solutions to these issues have played out in various works of science fiction.

Most authors envisioned a world where humans live longer, either due to robotics or other life extending technology. Sometimes reproduction is a problem. Sometimes it isn’t.

Some imagined humanity at war with another species. Others wrote a future where humanity is fractured and still at war with itself.

Almost everyone excluded animal products from the human diet, and implied that we will rely on innovative agriculture solutions for food. Occasionally those solutions are not grown on Earth.

Inequality often still exists, whether it’s intentionally created or a continuing result of humanity’s historically imbalanced power structures. Everyone still dreams of a world without prejudice.

From Battlestar Galactica to Gundam, Starship Troopers to The Expanse, and decades of stories in between, nearly everyone envisions a future where Earth and humanity exist, and the loss of either is an absolute travesty.

I want to invest in the survival of humanity and Earth. 

Those stories have greatly influenced my own belief of the future, and I believe those stories will continue to influence the greatest problem-solving minds over the coming decades. Solutions from said minds might look like:

• climate tech: green energy, carbon sequestration

• agritech: efficient and nutritious farming, putting nutrients back into the soil, agriculture in man-made (and possibly zero gravity) environments

• healthtech: prolonging quality life, fertility, making healthy lifestyle accessible and affordable

• CPG foods: nutritionally dense foods, long shelf life, good taste and texture

• space tech: mining asteroids, enabling quality life in zero gravity, ensuring connectivity on Earth and throughout the solar system

• economics: alleviating poverty, preserving and expanding digital currencies, providing infrastructure to galactic economies

Whatever their industry or field, I want to support innovation that will be relevant 100 years from now.

Coming Up

In the next few weeks, I’ll publish my first article about an investor whom I interviewed back when this Added Value series was just a twinkle in my eye.

In the meantime, if you know an emerging fund manager who:

• Needs a boost in their online presence without writing their own article or doing their own PR

• Would definitely vibe with me (doesn’t need to match my thesis!)

• Wants to share their message and passion

Please let me know! And if you have my email address, this is my double opt-in permission to introduce me to them :) 

I’m really looking forward to this next evolution of my newsletter and investment journey. I hope you are, too!