Fritz Lanman

founders that have only ever worked within a large company tend to be empty vessels. the most valuable skill at a big company is identifying who has (or could soon have) power and then aligning with and advocating for their ideas as if they were your own. take a spin through the recent YC class and you see a pattern of big company mids all founding the same AI for xyz... its not really their idea, it just sounds good. the board meetings will be especially painful. founders acting like they work for the investors, seeking approval, lost in the woods. there are exceptions. but they tend to be founded before zirp. when founding a company was hard and low prestige and there wasn't capital at every turn. an empty vessel doesn't jump into the abyss without first raising a $5m round from the 9 figure 'seed firms'. 

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I’m thrilled to officially announce our $3M seed investment in Propel People, a company we built inside the 1848 Ventures studio to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing the #construction industry today: the skilled #labor shortage. For small and medium-sized contractors, hiring isn't just a challenge. It's the number one threat to their growth, profitability, and safety. With 94% of contractors struggling to find qualified workers, it’s clear that traditional hiring methods aren't built for the trades. That’s why we built Propel People. It’s a mobile-first, AI-powered hiring platform designed for how construction actually works: in the field. By leveraging smart candidate ranking, instant #SMS-based screening, and a fully #bilingual interface, Propel helps contractors build great crews faster and more efficiently. I’m also thrilled to formally announce that industry veteran Dexter Bachelder is at the helm as CEO. Having worked with Dexter and the team over the last few months, we've already seen the impact of his leadership. His 25 years of experience scaling construction tech companies will be instrumental as Propel People enters this initial stage of growth. This investment reinforces our core thesis at 1848 Ventures: building AI-native companies that solve fundamental pain points for the #SMBs that form the backbone of our economy. A huge congratulations to Dexter and the entire Propel People team on this milestone. We are incredibly proud to partner with you to support the people who build our world. Read the full announcement below. #constructiontech #venturecapital #seedfunding #ai #skilledtrades #smb

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🚀 This month at LvlUp Ventures we’re investing in 100+ companies. Not over the next year. Not “by Q4.” This month. Why? Because the next iconic companies aren’t waiting for perfect timing. They’re being built right now — in dorm rooms, tiny apartments, co-working spaces, late at night after full-time jobs. And capital shouldn’t be the bottleneck to ambition. Because momentum loves speed. Because the best founders aren’t waiting for perfect market conditions. Because early belief changes trajectories. So instead of sitting on the sidelines debating spreadsheets for weeks, we’re choosing momentum. 👇 Drop your one-liner in the comments and I’ll DM you. #Startups #VentureCapital #VC #AngelInvesting #Founders #Entrepreneurship #StartupFunding #Investing #Innovation #BuildInPublic #SeedStage #EarlyStage #TechStartups #Fundraising #LevelUp

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Every hire, product feature, and GTM experiment is a capital allocation decision, most teams just don’t call it that. I’m kicking off a 3-part series on capital allocation for founders, operators, and finance leaders with a simple question: ➡️ Will the next $1 you deploy become worth more than $1? Series overview Part 1: defines the core concept + the math Part 2: where capital goes + how to measure whether it’s working Part 3: AIMS framework for communicating allocation decisions to management teams and your board Part 1 (attached here) lays the practical foundation: 🔹 The $1 invested test and ROIIC vs. hurdle rates (scoreboard vs. decision lens) 🔹 A lightweight “investment brief” to evaluate bets (GROW / BUILD / BUY) 🔹 The small metric toolkit that translates finance into operating decisions (NPV / payback / ROIIC / incremental margin) 🔹 Early-stage proxies when DCF inputs are unknowable (burn multiple + revenue quality) 🔹 Operator “vital signs” to spot drift early (profit engine, leverage, cash conversion, optics) Series Roadmap ✔️ This series (Parts 1–3): breadth-first. shared, lightweight framework to define value creation, choose decision-grade metrics, and communicate tradeoffs clearly ✔️ Next series: depth-first. momentum drivers + operational decisions that need near real-time measurement to spot drift early and course-correct fast Read Part 1 here and Part 2 and 3 on substack. Next Series will be out next week. 💰 What’s one bet you’re funding right now, and how will you prove it’s working?

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Lately I’m hearing more founders being told to delay revenue to make early growth metrics look better for fundraising. I get the logic, but it just feels wrong. Early revenue is an important learning loop. Don’t stunt your business just to package it for VCs

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Boards are supposed to help founders. Over the past 19 years, I've watched many trap them instead. As companies scale, many boards turn from insight to oversight and stop doing what founders actually need: Help making big, hard decisions. Early boards tend to be small, the board members are close to the business and highly invested in it. They argue from first principles. They help founders think. Later-stage boards often look more impressive on paper - they have more independent directors, committees and process. Somewhere along the way, collective problem solving gets replaced with oversight. The board shifts from helping the CEO make better decisions to monitoring decisions that have already been made. Strategy discussions get safer, real debate gets rarer and meetings become more about risk management than judgment. This usually coincides with the introduction of more professional board members. For better or worse, they often optimize for governance, optics, and liability management. That’s their job. But it’s not always what the company needs in moments of real uncertainty. Then, CEOs stop using them as thought partners. That’s a problem. So what should founders do? A few principles that help: • Keep the board as small as you can for as long as you can • Add directors for new insight they bring, not what boxes they check • Treat board seats like senior hires, not trophies • Design meetings for debate rather than reporting • Be explicit about when you want input vs approval Good boards should improve decision-making. If your board isn’t making you think harder, it’s probably not doing its job.

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Yesterday, Airtree announced a new $650m set of funds. But what does this actually mean for founders? Jackie and I joined Sachin and Adam to unpack all the details. Links are in the comments but the TLDR is that we've sized and structured it to provide world class capital (both in terms of size and services) to the best Aussie and Kiwi founders from pre-product onwards. We'd love your feedback. And, if you're the type of founder we describe, DMs are open!

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