Hey, friends of Soapbox!

Happy New Year!!!! Thanks so much for being a supporter and going on this journey with us!

Here's the rundown on (some) of the big headlines of in 2024:  

Starting with capital: The SEC approved Bitcoin ETFs and the price of Bitcoin broke the $100k threshold - taking crypto one step closer to the mainstream. Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison, marking the downfall of the once mainstream crypto exchange, FTX. The stock market enjoyed its best two-year run in 25 years, with the S&P 500 up 23% and the Nasdaq up 29% 💰

In culture: The Kansas City Chiefs celebrated another Super Bowl win, and Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour wrapped up in Vancouver, grossing $2B. 🏈 Women’s sports saw crazy growth in viewership + revenue as Caitlin Clark had her first season in the WNBA and was named Time Magazine’s Athlete of the Year. The Olympics were hosted in Paris, France, where the US clocked the highest metal count and tied with China for the number of Golds. 🏅

In career: Red Lobster emerged from bankruptcy with a new 35-year-old CEO (he’s changing up that tartar sauce formula, thank goodness).🦞 Lots of job changes were slated to hit the White House this year. President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 Presidential Race, leaving Kamala Harris as the Democratic party’s Nominee. Donald Trump survived 2 assassination attempts, was convicted of 34 felonies, and still won re-election. Outside of the U.S., Mexico made history by electing its first female president, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned.

For a more detailed and visual recap of the year, check out Time Magazine's Top 10 Photos of 2024 (one of our favs)! 📸

Soapbox of the Month

2025 Ins and Outs for VCs

Written by Emily

Here’s my list of Ins and Outs for VCs in 2025!

Ins

• AI-powered sourcing and diligence: Leveraging AI tools to enhance investment analysis, cold email drafts, and more.

• Due Dilly: Giving due diligence a rebrand—we’re calling it "due dilly" now.

• Community building: Helping people connect, even if it’s just a Slack channel.

• Curation over noise: Quality deals > inbox chaos.

• Micro-expertise: Becoming that person for one super-specific sector.

• Personal branding: How can you elevate your brand on LinkedIn?

• Pipeline transparency: Keeping founders in the loop on where they stand.

• Networking with peers: Building relationships with other associates for peer learning, deal sharing, and friendships!

Outs

• Newsletter overload: Let’s unsubscribe from the ones you never read (quality > quantity)

• 24/7 availability: Turn off notifications after hours… It’s not a flex.

• Overloading on buzzwords: Let’s leave “synergy” and “flywheel” behind.

• Fear of saying no: Passing on deals is part of the job—do it confidently.

• Ignoring red flags: Don’t let founder charisma blind you.

• Analysis paralysis: Speed matters—done is better than perfect.

• Overcomplicated diligence docs: Streamline it—nobody reads the 50-page reports.

CAREER 🧑‍💻

The Forbes 30 Under 30 list came out about a month ago, and it has been getting a lot of heat on social media. It’s like a big highlight reel of people your age doing incredible things, leaving you wondering if you’ll ever be as successful.

And every year, there’s a flood of online critics ready to judge and dismiss the winners. Accusations begin to fly: claims that spots were "bought" or that certain people don’t even deserve to be on the list.

Our take: Instead of letting it fuel imposter syndrome and self-doubt, why not celebrate the wins of our peers and use the list as a spark for our own inspiration and curiosity?

Your 20s can feel like a hot mess—directionless, stuck, or overwhelming. But the 30 Under 30 list can actually be a goldmine for ideas. Use it to research people doing innovative things. Look for folks whose lives or careers make you a little jealous and take notes—what steps did they take? What could you learn or adapt for your own path? Use the list as inspiration or a guide.

Shoutout to friends in our network who made the Venture Capital section: Kristina Chapple!

CULTURE 🌈

New Year = New Me !! We’ve all heard that one before, but GenZ seems to take it seriously. Here are some of the big “resolutions” we’re seeing across our own generation:

📱 Cutting down screen time: Most of us are complete phone addicts. When did this habit even start picking up our phones before doing anything else? Gen Z and millennials average over seven hours and six hours 42 minutes, respectively. That’s almost the amount of time we’re working/awake during the day! Maria has a screen-blocking app on her phone, and Emily has not been on TikTok in months, both as an effort to cut down on screen time.

• In the headlines: How I cut down my screen time by 7 hours a day and got my life back by Tanyel Mustafa

💄Project Pan: For the people not on beauty YouTube in 2016, “Hitting Pan” usually refers to using all of a makeup product and seeing the little pan in which the product was held. It’s taking new meaning now with just referring to an empty container, and many people are going into the new year focusing on finishing products they already have in their collection rather than buying new products. It’s a move away from “stocking up” or having 10 different kinds of body wash in the shower and a move towards sustainability and consciousness with purchasing.

• In the headlines: r/projectpan

🍸 Dry January (and Feb, March, April, etc.…): It’s not only Dry January; it's the year of being “dry.” A 2023 survey from Gallup found that the share of adults under age 35 who say they ever drink dropped ten percentage points in two decades, to 62% in 2021-2023 from 72% in 2001-2003. Whether it’s for health, family, or other personal reasons, it’s clear that young people are taking a break from drinking. Here are some of our non-alcoholics bevs for a fun night out or in: Ghia’s “Le Spritz”, Something&Nothing Yuzu Soda, and

• In the headlines: Why GenZ is drinking less than ever by Solcyré Burga

CAPITAL 💸

We have both lived in and deployed capital in young venture ecosystems and know what it’s like to be one of our community's few early-stage capital deployers.

So why are founders struggling to find pre-seed investors?

Short answer: because in many places, pre-seed just…doesn’t exist.🥲

Let’s break it down. First, some quick definitions:

• Angel Rounds: SAFEs or Notes raising under $500K

• Pre-Seed Rounds: SAFEs or Notes raising $500K–$2.5M

Now, you’d think that in newer startup hubs (outside the Bay Area, NYC, etc.), ecosystems would naturally start with angel and pre-seed checks before scaling into seed rounds and Series A land. That makes sense, right? But the data tells a different story. It turns out that many ecosystems start with seed investors and grow "middle-out" into both earlier (pre-seed) and later stages.

Our take: The data says it best: there are way more metro areas with budding seed ecosystems than at any other stage. Since there’s a small number of pre-seed type funds in these ecosystems, they’re often looking for seed round traction. Some founders lean in and bootstrap to traction (if they can) and other companies die early.

“Only 2% of venture capital goes to female founders.” 

There’s a catch: according to Carta, that stat typically applies to female-only founding teams. And these days, plenty of startup teams are mixed-gender.

So, is it more useful to look at venture metrics through the lens of CEO gender?

In Carta’s 2024 Annual Equity Report, they did just that. The findings? Let’s just say the gap between male and female CEOs isn’t subtle.

• Across most venture stages, male-led startups are consistently valued higher.

• Overall, 90% of the venture capital raised by Carta companies in 2024 went to startups with male CEOs.

• Only 14% of Carta founders are women—a percentage that hasn’t budged in half a decade.

Carta’s Take: The gender gap in venture funding may not just be an investment problem—it could start upstream in who gets to found startups in the first place.

From Our Feed to Yours

Tweets, Memes, and other things from our feed that gave us a laugh.

Thanks for supporting Soapbox!!! Have something you want us to talk about, or want to connect? Drop us a note at [email protected] 

Did someone forward you this newsletter?