Announcing the 5th Annual Emerging Manager Circle Summit
The Emerging Manager Circle community has become one of my proudest endeavors as a professional. It doesn’t make us any more, takes up a lot of time and isn’t used to help us raise capital or see more deals. That’s generally NOT seen as a success story, but anyone who has been part of this community over the last 5-6 years can attest to the impact it had on me, our team and the EMC community members.
A few weeks ago, I shared an interaction I had with someone who I’ve known in venture circles for over a decade. While they have been out of venture for several years, they came up in the industry and given the social nature of our business, frequently attend venture events despite no longer working in venture capital, startups or even technology. For those who read the thread, it was a pretty harsh reminder of the journey I’ve been through. I applied for hundreds (if not thousands) of venture jobs prior to starting Equal. Countless VCs have denied me for jobs and I get it, I didn’t fit the profile. It took me a long time to crack into the industry and that’s fine. I’m here now and I’m proud of what we are building with Equal. But whilst surrounded by other emerging managers, this person chose to remind me of when I was “begging” them for a job. About the shitty clothes I wore (not much has changed there). And even commenting on my physical appearance - “I knew Rick back when he was fat.” (I’ve lost 30-40 pounds over the last decade).
This isn’t to throw a pity party. It’s to show why things like EMC matter. Sensing how uncomfortable I was with that interaction, one of the emerging managers who witnessed that reached out and said “Are you alright? That was not okay.” I’ve been beaten down so much over the years that I would have normally just shrugged it off, accepting these harsh indictments as truths about myself. But not anymore. Having fellow managers around me going through these same trials and tribulations has changed me. The folks in our community have supported me, pushed me to grow and pushed me to believe that we can make this industry better. It’s not just me, this community does that for each other. They help each other. They advocate for one another. And they’re the shoulder to cry on when times are tough (which they often are). The other night, I was with a few fellow emerging managers and one told me about the support he’s gotten from the group during what has been a tremendously difficult year. Moments like that show me that there is so much need and opportunity for what we do.
The EMC Summit is where we bring all of that together. Where fellow emerging managers and the LPs backing them can come together and focus on helping each other, if only for one day a year. EMC is meant to feel decidedly different from most venture events. Each year, we’ve had someone cry on stage (last year it was me) and the content we bring together can’t be found on the record or elsewhere. It’s ephemeral to that moment, making it all the more special. All the more honest. All the more authentic..
This year’s EMC Summit will be our biggest and best yet. We’ll continue to be free for all attendees and continue to maintain a 50/50 policy on GPs to LPs. While we will expand our headcount slightly from the past, we will continue to embrace intimacy over breadth. As many know, we make our application process (which is at the bottom of this post) open to all, but often receive 10x the number of applicants that we can host. We do our best to ensure that we create opportunity, while curating the highest quality audience we can, so we will be looping in a selection committee into this year’s process.
In terms of speakers, I’m excited to announce that we’ll have Ann Miura-Ko of Floodgate, Aydin Senkut of Felicis, Pejman Nozad from Pear, and Sunil Dhaliwal of Amplify joining us as speakers. We have several other speakers locked in that we’ll announce in coming weeks and I couldn’t be more excited to see this lineup of luminaries come together. This year’s summit will take place on 11/4 and there will be events for attendees the night before. We are not ready to disclose the location, but it will be in NYC (as if there was any doubt).We’ll have some news breaking announcements revealed this year and I’m confident that the content will be the best yet.
While the EMC Summit (and supporting events and activities we do throughout the year) is a ton of work, I’m very grateful to have this opportunity. We’re a small fund, figuring things out just as much as our peers, and I’m humbled by the responsibility to bring together such amazing people, many of which I have spent my entire career looking up to. I’m thankful to this community for the support it has provided to me and our firm over the last half decade. Anyone who knows us well knows we’ve had our peaks and troughs and it’s the support of the folks in this community that has gotten us through those tough times to be able celebrate the good ones.
We’re excited to bring everyone together and hope to see you there.
If you are interested in joining us as a speaker this year or in future events, please submit your request here.
For those interested in partnering with us on sponsorship opportunities, please reach out to emc@equal.vc.