Danielle Strachman is the Co-Founder and General Partner of 1517 Fund.

Danielle has worked with young entrepreneurs for about a decade. In 2010, during the founding of the Thiel Fellowship, Danielle joined to lead the design and operations.

Danielle has worked with some of the most prestigious founders like Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum) and Ritesh Agarwal (OYO Rooms).

Previous to her work with Peter Thiel, Danielle founded and directed Innovations Academy in San Diego, a K-8 charter school serving 400 students, with a focus on student-led project-based learning and other alternative programs.

In today's episode, we talked about how Danielle built her fund from scratch, and we also discussed how to build a VC firm that is different from the others by putting a community-first approach.

We discussed a range of interesting topics below:

0:00 Introduction
0:42 Huge exclusive updates from 1517 fund
2:09 What the 1517 name stands for
3:54 How 1517 Fund invests
4:49 Having fun while investing
7:30 How to be comfortable writing the first check
11:00 Do younger founders build better startups?
13:33 Is dropping out of college worth it?
17:08 Do only wealthier students can afford to drop out?
20:52 Pursuing a community while building in VC
23:05 Solving 'let me know how I can be helpful' syndrome
32:37 Are founders and investors on the same team?
37:55 Unique journey in starting a VC fund
42:15 How VC firms raise capital to fund startups
47:56 What is a typical day like for a VC general partner

Connect with Danielle:

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellestrachman
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DStrachman

Connect with 1517 Fund:

- Website: https://www.1517fund.com/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/1517fund