Caterina speaking at Harvard’s online event

Yes VC Partner Caterina Fake spoke at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society online event titled “Hindsight is 20/20,” alongside David Bohnett, founder of Geocities, and Nancy Baym, Sr. Principal Research Manager, Microsoft Research, and moderated by BKC fellow Jad Esber. The group reflected on the current state of creator platforms and social media as part of a long lineage and series of decisions that have made the Internet what it is today and discussed what today’s builders should consider in the next iteration of the web. They shared their thoughts on answers to the questions of how can we make sense of where we are today? What can we understand about the decisions that were made and the structures we had in place? And, most importantly, how can the builders of new platforms that also intend to “bring the world closer together”, “give everyone the power to create” or “organize the world’s information” do it better?

An overview and recording of the event can be found here.

Jyri Engestrom on Investor Connect

Yes VC Partner, Jyri Engestrom, answers the question of what he looks for in a founder and their product, among many others, on Investor Connect.

Jyri advises investors to look for startups that are part of a larger social movement. Startups that can turn a small community into a global movement are the ones to look for. As Jyri puts it, an idea gets traction when people “realize that it’s something that is better for the world and it also works as a business”. Jyri talks about his partner, Caterina Fake, and her experience as an early investor with Etsy. Jyri also talks about the partnership dynamic between cofounders, and how important it is to have effective mediation strategies in place in the event of a disagreement at a critical juncture.

Jyri explains Yes VC’s strategy of smaller, early-stage investments in companies that show potential for organic growth without requiring huge injections of capital. He highlights a few of the startups they’ve invested in, and why. Finally, Jyri talks about the importance of attribution in marketing, as well as some of the sectors he finds especially promising.