Episode 2: Get Them Excited About Fishing | Aviel Ginzburg
Aviel Ginzburg is General Partner at Founders’ Co-op, where he just closed a $50 million Fund VI investing in pre-seed companies across the Pacific Northwest. He’s also the founder of Foundations Seattle, an invite-only community of 250+ members on Capitol Hill that’s become the center of gravity for Seattle’s startup ecosystem.
Before becoming an investor, Aviel co-founded Simply Measured, a social analytics company he scaled to 150 people before it was acquired by Sprout Social in 2017. That experience taught him something painful: he was a terrible manager. He could empower people, but he couldn’t guide them. He confused leadership with management for years.
The breakthrough came from watching what happened when he told people what to do versus when he asked the right questions. As a founder, overpowering people felt justified because it was his company. But when he became an investor doing the same thing with portfolio founders, the results were ugly. They took his advice without learning anything. When it didn’t work, the blame landed squarely on him. And he realized he never had the full context to be giving directions in the first place.
His philosophy now: a leader’s job isn’t to tell someone where to go or even give them the tools. It’s to get them moving with agency. Don’t teach a man to fish. Get him excited about fishing, because if he doesn’t love it, knowing how won’t matter.
Aviel shares one story that changed how he operates permanently. An analyst at Simply Measured, someone who’d been building Excel files, showed potential. Instead of giving him a development plan or a reading list, Aviel pulled him into every meeting, every uncertainty, every moment where he didn’t know what he was doing. Total vulnerability. The kind where the guy could have gone to the co-founders and torpedoed him. Instead, that analyst went on to lead product after the company sold, then became CEO of another company.
We also talk about why Seattle’s startup ecosystem is struggling compared to the Bay Area, what Foundations is doing about it, and why momentum matters more than strategy.
Mentioned in this episode
- Founders’ Co-op – Pacific Northwest seed-stage venture fund
- Foundations Seattle – Invite-only startup community on Capitol Hill
- The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
- The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier
- Acquired – Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal’s podcast
About Aviel Ginzburg
Aviel is General Partner at Founders’ Co-op and founder of Foundations Seattle. He previously co-founded Simply Measured, a social analytics company acquired by Sprout Social. He’s been investing in early-stage Pacific Northwest companies for over a decade. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
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