The VC Special Doesn’t Start on the Main Stage

Working the Room Before the Big Raise

From the outside, my day-to-day work probably doesn’t look like work at all.

It looks like conversations. A lot of coffee tea. Zoom calls without decks. Walks that run long. Dinners where the most important part happens after the plates are cleared.

Friends and family sometimes ask, politely, what I’m actually doing all day.

This past week clarified the answer for me.

If this phase of the work doesn’t feel slightly uncomfortable, you’re probably skipping something essential.

The conversations weren’t hard per se. They were hard in the honest sense. The kind that require you to say what you actually believe before it’s fully formed. The kind where boldness costs something.

That’s when the analogy clicked.

This is the part of the process stand-up comedians live in long before you ever see a special.

They work rooms.

Not theaters.
Not arenas.
Rooms.

Small clubs. Amateur nights. Inconsistent crowds. Jokes that die quietly. Jokes that almost land. Friends in the audience offering punch-ups afterward. Try this tag. Shorten that pause. Flip the ending.

That’s not performance.
That’s crafting.