Recharge. Consistently.

Writing is by far the best way for me to sharpen my thinking.

Yet, with everything else going on, I haven’t done it nearly enough recently (more on that below).

👋 If you’re new here and have recently interacted with me / focal / findfunding or elsewhere, welcome! What to expect: I get exposed to many incredibly smart people through my job as a pre-seed lead investor. This is the place where I share what I find the most interesting ones, written for early stage founders, operators, fellow investors, and anyone else who cares.

Which I regret:

The biggest privilege I have in my job as a VC is that I get to talk to so many incredibly smart people daily (plus read / listen to a lot of stuff).

Not capturing that in / processing it with writing is such a wasted opportunity. Both regarding clarity of thought and the serendipity putting thoughts out into the world creates.

That’s why I chose to agree to a 365 day writing challenge and I’m pumped to get back into it. Which includes writing this newsletter more regularly again.

🚀 Speaking of pumped - our incredibly fast growing portfolio company Pump is looking to fill 17 (!!!) roles across their expanding team. If you’re looking to join an early stage rocket ship, check them out here.

So, if I enjoy writing as much, why haven’t I done it in a while?

The relentless pace of building a (startup or investment) company can leave one exhausted. Which is what happened to me. I ran on an empty tank both at the end of 2023 and again in mid 2024 and stopped writing. It wasn’t bad by any means / far from what you would consider a burn out. But it made me dig in to understand how to best avoid running empty.

The root cause was easy to find and is shared by many entrepreneurs and operators I work with: The challenge of recharging regularly despite the demands and chaos of firm building.

Adrenaline plus caffeine can carry you for a while. But building startups and investment firms are marathons, not sprints. Finding time to recharge is critical when striving to make the impossible possible.

Self care is essential. But it’s not recharging.

When we talk about recharging, the first thing that often comes to mind is self-care.

I’m amongst the strong believers in physical health, mental health, and cognitive performance being strongly correlated. Thus, I exercise more or less daily, eat well, rarely drink, don’t touch my phone for the first hour in the AM, intermittent fast, etc while tracking everything with my Whoop.

Yet, as important as self-care is when wanting to perform at ones best consistently, it isn’t recharging.

Time off to recharge. And think.

The most straightforward way to recharge is to take time off.

I took a week off each time I felt my energy waning, and both breaks revitalized me. Needless to say I came back saying that I should do it more often.

Not just to recharge. The benefits of time off go well beyond full batteries.

Key amongst them is that time off increases ones cognitive flexibility which amplifies creativity and helps combine raw ideas in ways one least expect. Because creativity has 3 ingredients: a relaxed mind, no distractions, and an influx of dopamine - all of which we get on (the right kind of) vacation.

My team members see this as a two-edged sword as I tend to come back with way too many new ideas.

The hardest yet most important: Find your recharge. Consistently.

To sustain the pace needed to succeed in investing and startup building, one needs to find a recharge and do that activity consistently.

You may ask: What is recharging if it isn’t self-care?

Think of yourself like a battery. A full charge isn’t just plugging in - it’s finding the right power source. Which differs by person. For some, that’s time in nature, for others it’s reading, music, museums, and much more. Common amongst them is that a true recharge restores your mental energy, not just your physical stamina. And that we all need it regularly.

Finding what it is for you personally is hard. Doing it consistently is even harder. Make a point in truly recharging for at least an hour or two each week. It makes a huge difference in the long run. Trust me.

My personal recharge is either a walk in nature or reading a book at home on the couch, without distraction. Doing so allows me to operate at the pace I set out to - including writing. And without running out of steam.

If you’re in a similar boat to where I was at the end of last year, think about: How do you recharge?

Other things I’ve been thinking about

• Future of pricing: Salesforce moving to consumption based pricing with Agentforce and what that means for per seat pricing for software / eventual outcome based pricing (here).
• The race for superhumanity is on: Listened to this fascinating episode on the Five Year Frontier Podcast with the founder of Enhanced Games (backed by Peter Thiel etc). The vision of the future he paints is both super exciting and scary at the same time. Not just for professional sports but us humans overall.

Until next week,

Pascal

Are you or any of your smart friends thinking about starting companies? Then reach out! At focal, we exclusively lead pre-seeds with up to $750K. We want to get to know the smartest people as early as possible and thrive where the rest of our industry says "too early".