How to Manage a VC Firm with Airtable as a Backend

Here’s a throwback to the time we spoke with Sydney Thomas, an influencer in the world of venture capital. Having been in the VC world for several years, she’s done amazing things with it already. In her BuiltOnAir podcast episode, she talks through a few key components on why her work was improved even more when she introduced Airtable into the mix.

Sydney built an Airtable database to manage her accounts at Precursor Ventures. That same base build (with dummy data inserted) can be found in Airtable Universe here. In the video of the episode she explains a few key items on why Airtable supercharged her VC organization:

  • All the data can be stored in one place: All the things you’d expect to find, including account names, key contacts, funding details and schedules. This can be combined with some details you wouldn’t normally consider putting into the same system, including key contact birthdays, ethnicity, and other personal details
  • A platform for storing and interacting with both quantitative AND qualitative data: carrying on from the point above, Sydney found that she could store personal “human” details in the same base with the numbers, and make the whole thing more personable. This was a huge strength for her small firm in making interactions with funds effective and personal.

In addition to building and implementing her Precursor Ventures database, Sydney shares the story of why and how she’s built (and continues to build) an Airtable of all the black women in VC. The database brings together the black women in the world of Venture Capital in a way never seen before. The list has grown over time, and has helped establish Sydney as an influencer in the world of VC.

Watch the video below for the full podcast visual, including more of Sydney’s story and the live walkthroughs of the bases described above.

Episode Video:

Here’s an audio version of the above, with links to download or share if desired:

Episode Audio

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