"Audrey,

I wanted to write to you and the Collegiate Capital Partner’s board as I’ve been researching and thinking about best sourcing practices. As I’ve conducted interviews, it’s become clear there’s no single platform or data for sourcing– the best way to source investments is through your network. However, upon speaking with an analyst from XFund, I had a proposal for Collegiate Capital Partners should do:

Towards the end of each semester, Collegiate should host an afternoon for founder community (similar to the Founder’s Network we talked about). Using the data each school has aggregated on AirTable, we could send out invitations and host an informal party (not labelled as a networking event) in which founders can come and enjoy food, music, etc, while also getting an opportunity to meet each other. While funds such as XFund host similar events, these events have undertones of corporate finance coming from a VC. For example, my roommate who just raised $1M for his startup said he hasn’t attended XFund events because he has no interest in engaging with VCs. However, if, instead, these events were framed as a chance to hang out with like-minded people (i.e., no mention of funding or sourcing), I believe student turnout would be greater. We could even get VCs to sponsor the event, if needed, so long as they don’t take part themselves or ask for materials.

I believe events like these across Colliegate’s colleges could serve as a kingpin event for entrepreneurs. Rather than a networking event such as XFund, individuals could gather and talk about life more broadly. Following, we’ll be able to centralize the founder communities at colleges. Assuming our analysts attend, they will be able to form connections which, through my research, is clearly the most effective tool within sourcing. These events will also spur enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and could be one of the most beneficial initiatives Collegiate takes more broadly.

I’d love to be a point of contact on this, as I’ve thought about it deeply and have many ideas about how the intricacies would work. Overall, however, I hope you and the Collegiate board share my thoughts on how beneficial it would be.

Best,

Charlie Paradis"