Episode Summary

Elizabeth Yin is the co-founder and General Partner of Hustle Fund, a pre-seed venture fund now on its fourth fund that backs companies globally. Before Hustle Fund, she was a partner at 500 Global, founded adtech company LaunchBit, and was an early employee at Google.

In this episode, Cheryl and Maxine unpack how Hustle Fund sources deals across continents, why Elizabeth avoids noisy competitive markets in favor of "small waves" that will swell over five years, and why valuation discipline matters more than founder pedigree when product-market fit risk is the same at every stage.

You'll also hear how Hustle Fund runs a 30-person team with only four on investments, why Fund 2 was the hardest fund to raise, how the AI wave is creating companies that hit $10M ARR and lose it overnight, and why international valuations still offer significant arbitrage. Elizabeth closes with her Big Cojones moment: being called a "meek Asian woman" by an angel investor while pitching LaunchBit, and how building a platform changed the power dynamic entirely.

Time Stamps

00:00 – Intro

01:54 - Elizabeth's first investment: three shares of Coca-Cola at age 10

06:50 – What Hustle Fund is investing in now and why vertical SaaS still matters in the AI era

09:31 – How Hustle Fund sources deals globally through co-investors and content

15:09 – Elizabeth's two-part framework: founder quality vs. idea quality

18:10 – Why competitive markets are a double whammy for small-check investors

22:57 – The surfing analogy: spotting small waves that grow big in five years

25:06 – Biggest investing lessons from Fund 1 to Fund 4: valuation and follow-on discipline

27:58 – Camp Hustle, content marketing, and running VC like a lead generation business

30:09 – Does valuation really matter at pre-seed? When it does and when it doesn't

37:39 – Growing AUM: why Fund 2 was the hardest and the "event ticket sales" fundraising pattern

44:15 – Which fund graduation was hardest and the DPI reality at pre-seed

46:21 – Big Cojones moment: confronting bias as a female founder and how platform changes power dynamics

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How to Build a Global Pre-Seed Fund from Scratch