What’s EF (& Antler)?

They call it “talent investment” but that’s just a term to make us feel better about ourselves. It should be called something like pre-team & pre-idea accelerator, or founder matching accelerator. Confused? Me, too. This graph illustrates it. In case you’re not familiar with venture capital, read my noob intro below.

Noob Intro to VC

The key hypothesis of EF & Antler is that they can get in super early. They believe that:

• successful founders share many similarities (you can tell in advance)
• many people do not found companies, because they can’t find a co-founder (co-founder search is really really hard and solo founders usually fail)
• many great founders need an extra cushion or an extra push, this means:
  • personal runway (how many months you can live without a salary)
  • ecosystem
    • knowing other founders really helps
    • knowing investors helps
    • having access to frameworks and learning materials helps

So their idea is to take would-be founders and give them this stuff, in exchange for a % of their future companies.