Sarah Smith / Sarah Smith Fund

Sarah Smith is the Founder and Solo GP of the Sarah Smith Fund, a $16.1M pre-seed and seed fund investing $250K+ into “irrationally intense” founder CEOs.

Sarah’s background is unconventional. She started as an elementary music teacher in 2000. Landed in the Bay Area in 2001. Gained decades of company building experience at Meta/Facebook, Quora, Bain Capital Ventures, Graph Ventures, BCG, and Stanford GSB. She sits on the boards of Lime and Archive Resale and teaches ENGR 245: Lean Launchpad at Stanford. She’s invested nearly $50M into 70+ companies.

Sarah started the fund in late 2022 as a rolling fund, made 13 investments before launching Fund 1. Half of her portfolio tends to have a founder with a Stanford degree.

Our conversation gets into her “network of networks” approach. Through her GSB venture fellows program, she’s created tentacles throughout Silicon Valley and beyond. Each summer, she hosts fellows for three weeks, visits with 25 different firms, direct access to professionals across the spectrum. Unlike most fellowships, they’re given capital to source, diligence, and invest in a startup. Former fellows become dealflow sources, co-investors, references for Stanford founders, and eventually, LPs themselves. It’s a talent flywheel that compounds.

Sarah’s also built world-class AGMs that punch above the weight of most solo GPs. The format is tight: half day in person, high caliber content, showcase of top founders. No death march of metrics, no wasted time. “Over half of my fund came in, in that last four weeks after the AGM.” When your existing LPs become your best salespeople, you’re doing something right.

We also talk about her unique value-add: the CEO 360 Review and People Ops Office Hours. The CEO 360 is a comprehensive performance review focused on “spike areas,” “blind spots,” and recommendations for increasing impact. She’s also leveraged AI to screen founders with a 100pt system, helping her go deep, earlier, and quicker.

Full episode below, or on Spotify / Apple Podcasts