287. Distribution vs. Product, Founders vs. Markets, and Winning Deals in a Hyper-Competitive Seed Market (Ben Sun)

Ben Sun of Primary Venture Partners joins Nick to discuss Distribution vs. Product, Founders vs. Markets, and Winning Deals in a Hyper-Competitive Seed Market. In this episode, we cover: Can you tell us a bit about your founder journey?  What are your thoughts on the major differences and challenges now versus when you started a Community Connect? Is there a bias at Primary toward consumer investments? What region focus does Primary have? Is Miami a viable tech center or is this hype? What is the thesis at Primary? What areas does the Primary team focus on (strategic, sweat equity, talent recruitment)? How collaborative is that formative ideas stage between Primary and the entrepreneurs? I imagine, some of them come and they're ready to raise, and if it's a great fit, you invest, but in other circumstances, ideas may not be fully fleshed out. How much of a role do you play? We've had many folks on the program that say, it's all about the market. The team is important, but there's sort of a base level of competence. Then many others say it's just all about the team and the best teams will find their way to the best markets. Where do you stand on that, and how does that square with kind of the way that you look at talent?  Ben, you wrote this tweet, quote, there is no longer such a thing as proprietary deal flow in VC. It's now more about winning a deal versus picking a deal. You know, I'm curious, what has changed? Is it supply side of capital at seed? Is it other factors? What prompted the tweet? So put you on the spot, what is the win rate at Primary? And why do y'all win, going head to head against other firms? What do you know you need to get better at? What is the best way for listeners to connect with you and follow along with Primary?