Product design
Kingston, NY
Joined May 2008
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Jim England retweeted
In 2011, I pitched a top securities attorney in New York on democratizing investing. After hearing me list all of the ways I believed retail investors were disadvantaged by the financial system, he just looked at me and said:
“Why would you bother with the little guy?”
Today, 15 later, we’re listing the @fundrise Innovation Fund on the NYSE under the ticker $VCX.
The financial system has a structural problem that most people can feel but few can name. The most valuable private technology companies are worth hundreds of billions, even over a trillion dollars, and they’ve never gone public. The wealth creation that used to flow through public markets—enabling everyone to participate—now happens behind a wall that excludes everyday investors.
AI compounds the urgency. The companies building the most transformative technology in a generation are growing at rates we’ve never seen before, and the gap between who owns that growth and who benefits from it widens every quarter.
We started working on the Fundrise Innovation Fund in 2021 to test whether a public venture capital fund could work. Over 100,000 investors now own a portfolio concentrated in the leading private AI and technology companies, making VCX one of the largest funds of its kind to ever list on a major exchange. No accredited investor requirement. Now available in any brokerage account.
When that attorney asked me why I’d bother with the little guy, I told him: because they’re getting screwed! But I believe today marks another step in building a better financial system for the individual investor.
Onward
Yes!
And as we move from a few billionaire outcomes to many millionaire outcomes
The need for quality design work goes up 10x
And the new moat becomes design
I heard an incredible analogy from a VC friend that I can’t stop thinking about.
“The moat in software was the cost of building software. And Claude Code just mass produced a bridge.”
It’s wild when you think about the impact of this.
The SaaS boom produced a few dozen billionaires and a bunch of zero sum winners.
But the AI SaaS era will mass produce millionaires.
There will be fewer ServiceTitans hitting $5B valuations, and instead there will be 50,000 companies doing $500K-$5M each, run by 1-3 people with deep expertise and huge margins.
To be clear, I believe that the total value of software goes up, and the number of companies created goes up exponentially.
But the number of people who capture the value also goes up 100x.
I don’t believe in the “SaaS is dying” headline, I think it’s missing the point.
It’s simply that the power of SaaS is changing hands.
Patrick and Stripe get it
Quality and craftsmanship are trust signals
Patrick Collison on the importance of beauty and craftsmanship when building products
“If Stripe is a monstrously successful business, but what we make isn’t beautiful… I’ll be much less happy. The world’s just uglier than it needs to be.”
Patrick believes that the impact of beauty and craftsmanship are higher than people think. And not just for aesthetic reasons — it’s rational for customers to buy beautiful products.
“What does a beautiful thing tell you?” Patrick asks. “It tells you the person who made it really cared."
Video source: @MillionStories (2024)
Jim England retweeted
it's easy to care about product quality. but everyone has a "care battery" and it gets depleted with every decision you have to make (even if unrelated to product quality). this is why "poor quality" things ship. it takes enormous reserves to maintain your "care battery".
This is phenomenal
Retains the essence of the original brand but positions it for the future and stands out distinctly from the crowd
Excellent work @ChrisTauziet and team 👏👏👏
I would personally pay $100+ for Slack to let me make CMND + K add a link
And not their search bar BS
I will never ever remember your alternative shortcut for adding a link Slack, the muscle memory is too strong
Please make my dreams come true
Jim England retweeted
I’m creating a course on developing products with Generative AI! I’d love to get your input.
If you'd be interested, could you take a moment to fill out a quick survey to help shape the course?
Your insights would mean the world to me—thanks!
maven.com/forms/530c6f
Jim England retweeted
There are more ways than ever to invest in private start-ups before they go public. And with 1200 unicorns and barely any IPOs, there's more start-up stock available than ever, too.
I recently wrote about of the so-called secondary market (link below). I also made this beautiful flowchart for getting start-up stock. Please enjoy my incredible MS paint skills!
Jim England retweeted
“We want to democratize access to private tech companies,” @Fundrise
cnbc.com/video/2024/03/14/we…
