Gratitude, story - and an invitation.

It`s 4329 of you, who have been reading me all these years, wow - and thank you! Attention is the rarest form of generosity, and I appreciate you all.

A quick teleport to the end: please, let me know, what else would you like me to write about on this theme. I am sure, that literally every one of you can connect to the topic of developing / betting on your talent, being able to earn by doing what you love, and be able to find supporters. I am sure you have a lot of questions too. I for one still have a million of questions on it. I am happy to share everything that I at the moment understand, have methodology or a framework or a way of thinking about in a more or less structured manner, - and hope it will be of help. And I intend to keep promoting unsung talents while at that.?

And now, to the beginning:?

Some of you know me well enough to know that I geniunely do not like publicity for myself as I always prefer highlight, promote and support other talented people. But I thought that this year I should be speaking more publicly on one of my fav topics and key reasons for Improve Ventures existance - talent recognition, support and development.

It requires a bit of an overview to know where I am coming from, and why my insights might actually be useful.

I cherish integrity, and recognize that talent development starts with your own self, which then truly translates into practical and actionable support for others.

I cherish freedom, including the freedom to do absolute bonkers crazy leaps in life. To be a multiverse, to have many expressions of being yourself.

I have infinite beleif in myself - and by extention, in anyone else. I think that we all posess incredible talents, waiting for be discovered. And I try my best to always express that, especially to those who are in doubt, feel down, or outright in disbeleif.??

• I was a trader and researcher, who left public markets to start anew, jumping into the unknown. I have changed industries, professions and countries a few times by now, and my personal scale of risk-taking has gone to eleven.?
• I was a producer and art director, and now I write poetry, produce an ocasional gig or a bootcamp, and help startups nail down their investment decks.
• I worked with entrepreneurs, businesses and investors across venture, IB, real estate and art asset classes, and now I am a venture investor, teach emerging angels and GPs, and ocasionally double in late stage deals.
• I worked with territory development, and now research the future of urban settlements in emerging markets, with consideration of climate challenges ahead.
• I worked over the popularization of science, and now I am contemplating the means that may empower a sustainable financing for fundamental science, such as 50-year old bonds.

All these experiences contain a library of failures, burnouts and moments of hopelessness - my story is as much of an iceberg as anyone else’s.

Yet they all contain a library of experiences with other very talented people. Some of them knew about it, some did not. Some only have started to discover what they were capable of. I was always happy to highlight and support them, and make everyone else to see what they are capable of.

I think, that absolutely everyone has talents, waiting to break through, be recognized - and be connected to relevant communities.?

And while my occupation might look too wide from the outside, it actually is very specific and very focused, as it revolvs around just one topic: early talent recognition x long-term sustainable financing of one, be that a startup, an artist, a scientist or an educator.?

So, naturally, something that have been frustrating me for a very long time, is that people from “not so nice and developed” places are often mistreated, unrecognized and do not have access to relevant opportunities. Which is unfair - and plain stupid, as talents are distrubuted evenly across the world.

And emerging markets are the future of world growth, the future of cross-cultural ideas - and the only long-term reasonable destination for investments, across many asset classes.?

As you can clearly see, Improve Ventures and my other work has a very long back story :)

So, stay tuned, as I will be ocasionally writing about talent development from multiple standpoints.

For example: an investable shape for a startup in emerging markets, an ideation process for a bootstrapping team, promoting a specific culture via arts, exploring an art / culture approach to a storytelling (and negitiations), switching from a predictable career to an entrepeneur path, taking risks as a human to bet on your own self, decission-making in uncertainty and deaing with doubts, and so on.?

So, here is an infinite teleport loop: please, let me know, what would else you like me to write about. I am sure, that literally every one of you can connect to the topic of developing / betting on your talent, being able to earn by doing what you love, and be able to find supporters. I am sure you have a lot of questions too. I for one still have a million of questions on it.

I am happy to share everything that I now know, that I understand, and have a methodology or a framework or a way of thinking about in a more or less structured manner.

And I intend to keep promoting unsung talents while at that.