Watch the video of this panel talk on Gamma Prime’s YouTube channel:
Panel talk by Heslin Kim (Co-Founder/CBO at Zenith Foundation)
So I’ve done over 160 angel investments in the last six years or so. And the projects that were the most successful were things that I would have never guessed were the winners. Like Virtual Protocol, for instance, I was a seed investor there.
It was originally a GameFi guilding platform. It was not an AI-agentic dashboard. Same with Movement Lab.
Rushi was a 19-year-old doing an Avalanche subnet. I never expected him to pivot so many times and find product-market fit. I think if you’re investing based off trend or narrative, because, like Toby mentioned, we’ve got 12- to 18-month lockups, you’re not going to hit the trend anyways within whatever the next cycle is going to be when you have unlocks.
So from a conviction basis, I’ve pivoted from… I’m an angel, right? It is typically how I deploy. I’m a venture partner at 3PoorFunds. I used to base my investments off of the DD and trend and narrative of what was going on in the current climate.
I would look at lead funds. I would do follow-ons from that angle. I think what I learned is that when it boils down to cash flow, to revenue, to finding legitimate projects, you need to find founders who have a conviction thesis in what they’re building.
No matter what the trend is now, they’re going to be building that regardless of whatever the trend is. And they have a directional approach to trying to get something done over the next couple of years. And whatever they’re doing is not going to get phased out if it’s not on trend, if it’s not on narrative.
If you find these kind of founders who are so dead set and focused, they’ll be poor and eat ramen cup noodles for the next couple of years, but they’re going to do everything they can to kill themselves to get this product out. I want to back those kind of founders. And it’s few and far between that you’ll find who are not just trying to piggyback narratives and branding and whatever the key terminology and jargon is.
I usually try to skip any kind of investment within that framework. I like when the actual projects are trying to teach me something new, like it’s something that they’ve innovated on. They’re out at conferences trying to convince people this is the next big thing.
I remember when I was at NEARCon in Lisbon and Rushi was speaking to an entirely empty room on a panel. It’s wild. And then a year later, he’s at every big conference.
And Movement is one of the top trending projects of the current climate. Or you look at something like, sorry, any other EigenLayer investors in here as well? I am also. But you look at something that held top focus of the entire industry and put it on the pedestal of what we were all hoping was going to be a next big trend and shift the tides for everyone with some new narrative of AVSs.
But when you look at how these things have played out, again, there’s a dichotomy between actual product, cash flow, revenue, and then also managing the token well, which is a stark divide to bring those two things together. So along with having a legitimate founder who’s not going to budge on whatever their foundational belief is, them also understanding that the token game is a play. It’s not an equity business.
The valuation, the potential exit for investors, potential exit for them as a team is based on understanding token dynamics, what comes along with that, market maker deals, custodial situations, the kind of relationships you need with exchanges. What’s your sell pressure? Where is it coming from? How are you defending that? Liquid fund strategies. There’s a huge amount of things that first-time founders have not come in touch with, and they typically don’t get guidance from because that’s not something people usually talk about openly.
It’s behind the curtains on things. You tie all these things together, though, and you can find a very good investment thesis that’s going to be long-term. I look towards 2029, 2030 for investments now.
I don’t think about whatever’s happening in this next 2025, 2026, or is this going to be the end of the bull? Are we in a bear? These things are transitional. It’s very temporary. Play for the long haul.
Look at it like a five- to ten-year horizon and make conviction bets on founders.
