Track
Principal & VP
Principal · VP · senior associate starting to lead
The principal seat is where nobody hands you work anymore. You're judged on deals you found, won and can defend, on how you behave in a boardroom, and increasingly on whether LPs would back you. This track starts with the chapter on leading deals, then pulls in the mechanics and fund-level context a lead needs from elsewhere in the learning path.
Owning the deal
From first meeting to wire, with the math to back it.
6.1 · Leading Deals
Leading a Deal End to End
The sequence you're now responsible for, from first meeting to close.
6.2 · Leading Deals
Ownership, Pricing & the Fund-Returner Test
Run the fund-returner test before every term sheet. This module shows how.
3.1 · Deal Mechanics
Cap Tables & Dilution
Revisit the preference stack, control terms and anti-dilution. As lead, you're the one negotiating them.
1.3 · The VC World
The Power Law & Portfolio Math
A refresher on why every deal has to be capable of returning the fund.
Owning the relationship
What happens after the check, when it's your board.
6.3 · Leading Deals
Your First Board Seat
Read it before your first observer seat, not after.
5.2 · After the Check
Follow-ons, Reserves & Pro-rata Basics
You'll propose the reserve for your companies and make the case for each follow-on.
7.2 · Running the Fund
Marking the Portfolio
You'll be asked to defend the marks on your boards. Know how they're set.
Owning your future
The work that makes the partner conversation possible.
6.4 · Leading Deals
Building and Publishing a Thesis
Start one now. It's a sourcing strategy and a promotion case at the same time.
7.3 · Running the Fund
LP Reporting & Fund Performance
Learn to read your fund the way LPs do. They'll read your track record the same way.
6.5 · Leading Deals
The Road to Partner
What changes at partner, how carry works inside the GP, and what to ask.
From the library
Further reading tagged for these seats that the modules above don't already cite.
Principal
Canadian Venture Capital Market Overview ↗
The quarterly dataset of record for Canadian venture.
Common Provisions in Venture Capital Term Sheets: Information and Observer Rights ↗
What information and observer rights in a term sheet actually grant.
Consider Control and Voting Rights When Making Venture Capital Deals ↗
The control terms that decide who runs a company after the round, from a firm that drafts them daily.
Feld Thoughts ↗
Decades of practitioner writing from the co-author of Venture Deals, from term sheets to board behaviour.
First Round Review ↗
The deepest free archive of operator writing in venture.
Forum on Corporate Governance ↗
Free, citable governance commentary from practising lawyers and academics.
Model Legal Documents ↗
The free forms almost every US venture financing is drafted from.
Q1 2026 Venture Financing Report ↗
A free quarterly, term-by-term read of the rounds one of the busiest venture law firms worked on.
The Cloud 100 Benchmarks Report ↗
What the top of the private software market looks like in numbers.
The Perfect Board ↗
Wilson's response to Sam Altman on what founders should want from a board.