Venture Trailblazers, October 1, 2026. Adeo Ressi in conversation with Charles Hudson, founder of Precursor Ventures.
On October 1, Adeo Ressi sat down with Charles Hudson for Venture Trailblazers, the VC Lab series where investors who built their firms their own way talk through how they actually did it. 1,046 people registered for the session, and we still finished the hour with more than 100 questions left in the Q&A.
Charles has raised five funds and about a quarter of a billion dollars at Precursor Ventures. He has never let a single fund get above $100 million, he runs the firm with no investment committee, and he writes the first check into 80 to 100 companies per fund, usually before there is a product to look at. Over the hour he and Adeo covered how he named the firm, how he sizes funds, how he decides, what he looks for in a founder when there is no data, what the Cursor round did to pre-seed pricing, and what 1999 taught him about this AI cycle.
Watch the full conversation here: Charles Hudson on Venture Trailblazers, the complete session.
This piece is about one thread from that hour: the three practices people told Charles were mistakes when he launched Precursor, and why all three turned out to be the strategy.
The short version
- Charles is the only decision maker at Precursor. There is no investment committee, and he can say yes in the same meeting.
- He meets a lot of people on purpose, even though everyone told him to narrow the funnel.
- Precursor does 80 to 100 deals per fund, and the portfolio is the sourcing engine. Forty percent of the current fund came in as referrals from existing portfolio companies.
- All three were called bad practices in 2014. In a market where rounds close in days, they read as an edge.
"People said those are bad practices"
Charles brought this up himself. When he started the firm, three things he planned to do were considered mistakes by people who had been in venture longer than he had.
Twelve years and five funds later, he still runs all three. Here is each one, the objection he got, and the reason he kept it.
One: a single decision maker who can decide in the same meeting
The objection was the obvious one. Don’t you need someone to bounce this off? Who checks your thinking?
"At the stage we invest, there’s no data. It’s mostly perception. And I’d rather live and die by the decisions that I make than have a partner talk me out of something that they don’t like as much as I do."
That is a sharper claim than it first sounds. An investment committee exists to average out individual error, which works when there is evidence to argue about. At pre-seed there is no traction, often no product, and no revenue to model. A committee is not weighing data, it is weighing opinions, and the output of that process is systematically the least objectionable company in the pipeline rather than the most interesting one.
Then the part that has changed since 2014: "In this environment, speed is an absolute weapon, and the ability to make decisions quickly is incredibly useful and valuable."
Why speed matters more now than it did in 2014
Charles described venture flipping from a mostly inbound business into one where firms run outbound. A founder gets contacted before they were even thinking about raising, takes a coffee, and has a term sheet in hand before they ever ran a process.
"That person didn’t run a process. They just replied to some high-quality inbound."
If that is how a meaningful share of good rounds now come together, then a two week IC cycle is not caution. It is an exit from the market. By the time your committee meets, the round is closed and you were never in it.
He named the two things you need to win early stage deals in that environment, and he was clear there is not a third:
- A brand strong enough that your cold outreach actually gets answered.
- A relationship, either with the founder or with someone who knows them well enough to vouch.
Notice that both of those are built over years and neither is helped by a faster process. The process only determines whether you can act once you are in the conversation.
Two: meet a lot of people
The standard advice is to narrow the funnel so you can go deep on fewer companies. Charles went the other way, and his reason is a confession rather than a framework.
"I don’t always know where a great founder is going to come from."
For a first-check investor underwriting people rather than metrics, volume of exposure is how you calibrate. You cannot develop a feel for the top decile of founders in a category by meeting six of them a year.
Three: a large portfolio
Precursor does 80 to 100 deals per fund. The critique writes itself. Nobody can meaningfully support that many companies, so you are just buying a basket.
Charles reframed what the portfolio is for.
"A large portfolio creates a large network."
Forty percent of the investments in the current fund came in as referrals from existing portfolio companies. The portfolio is not only the thing he is managing, it is the sourcing machine that feeds the next fund. A hundred founders who had a good experience taking his first check are a hundred people forwarding him their friends, and that compounds in a way that a concentrated portfolio does not.
It also changes what support means. At 80 to 100 companies per fund the promise is not a board seat and weekly calls. It is a fast first check, a straight answer, and access to a network of people solving the same problems two quarters ahead of you.
What to take from this if you are building your own firm
Charles is not arguing that every firm should drop its investment committee. He is arguing that your decision architecture should match your stage and your strategy. A few tests worth running on your own setup:
- How much evidence does a decision at your stage actually have? If the answer is almost none, a committee is averaging opinions, not reducing risk.
- How long does your process take from first meeting to wire? Compare that honestly to how fast the good rounds in your market are closing.
- Who loses a deal when you move slowly? If the answer is you, the process is costing you your best outcomes, not protecting you from your worst.
- What is your portfolio doing for your pipeline? If the answer is nothing, you are paying the cost of a large portfolio without collecting the benefit.
- Can you live with your own mistakes? A single decision maker owns every loss personally. That is the price of the speed, and not everyone wants it.
Frequently asked questions
Does Precursor have an investment committee? No. Charles is the sole decision maker and can commit in the same meeting.
How many companies does Precursor back per fund? Between 80 and 100, with first checks typically from $250,000 to $500,000.
How does Precursor source deals? Largely through the portfolio. Around 40% of the current fund came from referrals by existing portfolio companies, and the rest comes from brand plus relationships.
Is a single decision maker a problem for LPs? It is a question LPs will ask, and the answer is track record plus a clearly written process. Charles has five funds of evidence that his own judgment is the asset being bought.
Watch the full session
Everything above comes from the hour Charles spent with Adeo on October 1. You can watch the complete conversation here, and the rest of the Venture Trailblazers series is on the VC Lab YouTube channel.
Want the whole session in one place? Charles Hudson’s advice for emerging fund managers is the full recap, with a timestamped index of every topic.
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