It’s not how you get there, it’s how you finish. It might be boring but putting in the work is really all that matters and all you should focus on. Timing and luck are part of the bundle but they aren’t the inputs. Ironically, there is nothing boring about Packy’s journey though from building a newsletter to becoming a fund manager. It was early days of the pandemic and Packy McCormick had just quit Breather, tired of the arbitrage model of leasing long term to then rent on a per hour basis, to take a bit of a career breather. He was interested in the intersection of education, community and physical space. He had tried to do meetups in NYC but then the pandemic put the kabosh on that. He tried to continue the meetups virtually but the interest level was middling and didn’t scale well over zoom. He took his devout optimism and turned to one of his greatest skills - writing. He put pen to paper, or digits to keyboard, and started writing about things that interested him. At first, it started with writing about companies and trends that he thought were interesting. It mushroomed from there to so much more. This is Not Boring.
He did something that few of us have the courage to do: he started writing about things he didn’t understand. Through the process of writing, he started to learn about these concepts and topics. He got flack from some, lauded from others. Regardless, he stayed humble and vulnerable the whole time, admitting how little he knew. He was learning in public. He invited others who were experts in the area to collaborate and through this process, he learned. He was specifically wrong on some but directionally accurate. He learned. He calibrated and kept going.
He set goals. He smashed those goals. He kept pushing and trying new things. He formed post-structure. He started doing deep dives on Thursday mornings and sponsored takes on Mondays. He started publicly promoting investment memos for his syndicated positions. He operated in full transparency and was explaining his process as he went. He explained how he made money. He explained how his investments came to bear. He explained his rationale, the downsides, the upsides, the pretty and downright ugly. He always leans optimistic though - it’s in his nature.
He had an opinion on how the world should look in the future and he wasn’t afraid to voice it. He articulately explained how we will see $1T company in the future made up of one person; power to the person. He explained to us how the internet works. He’s given a voice to the outsider looking into big tech, small tech and the esoteric concepts of Web3 and DAOs. He’s brought hard to grasp concepts to a digestible spoon fed approach for the lay person. He’s made us all feel like we’re in at the ground floor of something monumental.
The takeaway was that he iterated, he learned, he iterated, he learned and the business models found him. He stayed true to the flywheel concepts. He wrote about other businesses’ flywheels; He created his own in the process.
I remember early days of the pandemic. Packy had quit his job at Breather, felt like his back was against the wall with a child on the way but he had the gumption to push harder than ever. I remember saying to my wife, just you wait, Packy is going to do something HUGE. It started small though, as it always needs to.
So when I read this morning about Packy launching Not Boring Capital, I wasn’t shocked, but I was ecstatic! I root for my friends but I especially root for the ones who actively tinker in public, the ones that are forthright about the “figuring it the ‘F’ out.” He’s raised $8MM from some incredibly impressive names to back his first venture fund. This is certainly just the beginning for Packy!