It's About Damn Time
“Don't forget to buy Arlan's excellent new book. We are reading it for book club.”
Why it is worth your time
It's About Damn Time is Arlan Hamilton's 2020 book, written with Rachel L. Nelson, on building Backstage Capital, the venture fund she started in 2015 to invest in founders who are women, people of color or LGBTQ. Hamilton was homeless and sleeping at San Francisco airport while raising the fund. The book mixes her story with advice on confidence, networking without an introduction, and getting into rooms that were not built for you. Jason posted in July 2020 that readers should buy it and that his TWiST book club was reading it. Her outsider route into venture capital matches the argument of his own writing on biographies. It suits aspiring investors and founders without a network. The caveat is that the book came out in May 2020, so Backstage Capital's later record - it paused new investments and cut most of its staff in 2022 - is not in it.
