Nathan Blecharczyk

When we first met Brian, Joe and Nate in 2009, they had big dreams. They were working from a tiny office on Rausch Street in San Francisco and had leveraged our guide to writing a business plan for their first pitch deck. With just 1,000 listings on their site, they drew us in with storytelling. The trio—now infamous for selling “Obama-O’s” and “Cap’n McCains” cereal boxes at the 2008 DNC Convention to keep the the lights on—showed all of us what it means to be a “cereal” entrepreneur. Even then, their commitment to mission, values and culture was clear. A month later we led their seed round.