About

Hi! I'm Rachel.
Thanks for reading Working Hypotheses.

I've spent the last fifteen years working with startups. I've been on a winding career journey that started with flying laboratories, where I made sketches in lab notebooks. Then I spent time in VC, healthcare, and most recently building Modern Treasury. I'm on a break to interview and to write these essays. I don't know what will come next, but it's unlikely to be exactly what I've done before. I have a habit of leaving the golden ticket.I took that phrase from Joubin and his team after doing the Grit podcast.

Photo from Modern Treasury Series C fundraise announcement — This is my favorite photo taken during almost seven years of building Modern Treasury. The founders are getting their picture taken for our Series C fundraise announcement. There I am in the background, doing godknowswhat to lighten the mood. Of course really what I'm doing is making sure we get what we need out of the moment.

Sketch of a document with margin notes and annotations

What's written here & who is it for?

I publish essays every few weeks. Half of the essays are generated from my off-the-record interview project. The other half I started writing over the last ten years. They're thoughts jotted down in the margins of day-to-day operating. Between the companies I've had the luck to be part of, and now the dozens of others I've glimpsed into from my interview project, I began tying things together from those margin notes.

Sketch of a golden ticket with text: imagine this is golden

These essays are my current Working Hypotheses about how to build companies. They are written for readers interested in the inner workings of startups or for those who work closely with founders in some way.

Illustrations

I'd say I "art" at an approximately first grade level. But I am a highly visual thinker and often take to an oversized piece of white paper to work things out. Some of these images are redrawn from my notebooks, all of which I've kept. Some of them are hand drawn versions of things AI suggested to me, and some are ideas that come while writing.And sometimes I just let AI do the drawing.

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thanks for reading!
Rachel