By Ryan Hoover on Dec 11, 2024
In 2019, two years after starting Weekend Fund, I began my search for a part-time Chief of Staff. After hundreds of applications, one candidate stood out: Vedika.
Introduced by Harry Stebbings, we hopped on a call.
Vedika’s background was impressive: She grew up in India, attended school at Berkeley, interned at Mithril Capital and Kairos Society, and joined Stripe. Afterward, she moved to London as the first product hire at TrueLayer. At the age of 26, she had accomplished a lot, but what truly stood out was what she achieved outside of work hours.
I named the fund Weekend Fund for a few reasons. I wanted the name to sound inviting, the opposite of a sterile and stuffy venture firm. It also embodies an ethos I believe in, as outlined in Chris Dixon’s essay, “What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years.”
On weekends, Vedika was writing "fantasy memos"—essentially playing the role of an investor without the title. She wrote about why she would have invested in Retool, Scroll, and Zapier. I admired her eagerness to do the job without permission[1]. It showed genuine interest in the craft of investing and motivation to do the work.
I extended an offer and she joined me, nights and weekends, while she continued her full-time role at TrueLayer.
Over the following six months, her enthusiasm for working with me at Weekend Fund became clear. In all my years of hiring and working with people, few matched Vedika’s intellectual curiosity. She’s a student of startups with a product mindset that shapes how we operate at Weekend Fund and support founders.
I originally had not planned to bring someone on full-time, after all I was still spending most of my days as CEO of Product Hunt. But her drive and potential was loud. I asked her if she’d join full-time and she responded:
“I was hoping you’d ask.”
We’ve since met thousands of founders, written over 150 checks, and raised nearly $50M from LPs. In 2022, Vedika was promoted to Partner shortly after we closed our third fund. Together, we’ve divided responsibilities to grow and evolve the fund. Vedika has sourced investments in companies such as MoonPay and InVideo, led major initiatives like Signature Block, and helped shape our investment themes.
Today, Vedika is stepping into the role of General Partner alongside me.
As a small team, much of her day-to-day responsibilities won’t change. If anything, this change demands more of a mindset shift as I suggested: “think like a founder.”
Weekend Fund started over seven years ago. It’s going well, but that’s a poor reason to stop evolving. The founder mentality is a series of hypothesis testing, self-inflicted challenges, and drive to take risks. Vedika has already been doing this with me for over five years, and as a GP, she will continue to do more.
I’m grateful for her partnership, thrilled she’s found her calling in venture, and thrilled about her recent move to San Francisco.
If you’re a founder building something ambitious and want to partner with an exceptional human being, drop Vedika an email or DM on Twitter.
[1] Very few people do the work without permission. Venture is particularly difficult to break into without experience. It’s a catch-22. But if you’re creative and driven, you can find ways around that.
