Hey, friends of Soapbox! Welcome to our September newsletter. We’ve got a great issue ahead, enjoy!🥂

Written by Emily

Hey everyone!

In lieu of a usual blog post, I have exciting news to share.

I am joining Groove Capital in Minnesota as an Operations Manager!🥳

Groove Capital is the most active Pre-Seed investor in Minnesota-based startups. By combining the power of a traditional venture fund with an active angel group, Groove has accelerated the velocity to countless startups’ first fundings, while activating a new generation of early-stage investors. They are deeply involved in the local startup community, and throw some pretty kick ass events!

A few things I’ve learned so far in my career:

Thanks to everyone who has supported me along the way. I’m so excited for this next chapter and to keep learning and building with all of you. ❤

Are you a certified yapper? Wish you were a more succinct communicator? The key might be avoiding “backstory scope creep” and aiming for a “minimum viable backstory” (MVB). 😀

One of our favorite creators, Wes Kao, breaks this down brilliantly in Start right before you get eaten by the bear. She reminds us that the best stories, pitches, and conversations don’t drag through every detail of your journey. They cut right to the action. The goal is to share just enough context to set the stage and then dive into what really matters.

Her article covers three main ideas:
Aim for the minimum viable backstory
Good context vs. useless context
Where to cut backstory

Kao offers a simple rule of thumb. Backstory should only be 10-20% of a conversation. That looks like:

30 minute call: 5 minutes backstory, 25 minutes real topic
60 minute call: 10 minutes backstory, 50 minutes real topic

A few practical tips from Wes:
• Explicitly give permission for others to interrupt once they get your point
• On Slack, put the key takeaway up top and add context below
• Use BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) in emails

The full article dives into how this applies to presentations, newsletters, job interviews, and more. It is well worth the read! 🙌

This week, Bad Bunny wrapped his 30-show residency in Puerto Rico.

Bad Bunny did what few artists, if any, have ever done: launched a 30-night residency in his homeland during the island’s slow tourism season, and turned it into an economic engine. “No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí” (I don’t want to leave here) has ushered in a new era for PR, as no Puerto Rican artist has experienced commercial and artistic success on the scale of Bad Bunny.

For context: El Choli, the 18,500-seat Coliseum in San Juan, sold out every night. Thirty shows. Ten weeks. $200 million (and counting) has been injected into the Puerto Rican economy.

The first 9 shows and the last show were exclusively for locals, a deliberate counter to the wave of cultural erasure Puerto Rico has faced from crypto expats and predatory tax policy. The residency’s final show was streamed globally on Amazon Prime and, unsurprisingly, became the most-watched single-artist performance in Amazon Music history.

The economic impact of concerts or residencies is nothing new. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour has become a case study in macroeconomic impact, injecting millions into the cities lucky enough to host it. According to the U.S. Travel Association, the U.S. portion of the tour alone generated over $10 billion in economic activity. The entire two-year run is projected to reach a record-breaking $7 billion in total retail impact across North America, making it the most lucrative concert tour in history.

For Bad Bunny, his impact was intentionally rooted in positively affecting the Puerto Rican economy and people.

Our take: It’ll be interesting to see which artists follow Bad Bunny’s lead. Could we see more world tours launching with small, intentional residencies in hometown venues, as a way to spark economic impact? There’s a clear shift from global-first to local-rooted, and if artists position their hometowns as economic partners, rather than just nostalgic footnotes, we could see a whole new era of concert-driven, place-based investment.

I spy with my little eye early-stage rounds over $5M+... 👀

It’s an open secret that what defines an early-stage funding round changes every day. Atm, the latest trend is a noticeable decline, or even disappearance, of rounds under $5M. While it’s something we see less of in Middle America, it’s something we’re definitely seeing among companies based elsewhere. It’s hard to find a seed round under $5M these days. But why is that? PitchBook broke down their suspects below:

Our take: We believe that multi-stage firms are the bigger culprit when it comes to the disappearances of smaller rounds. That said, founders always adapt to what the market is signaling, so even if VCs initiate it, founders are adapting and may take the term sheet if the price is right.

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