Chris Sims is a partner at The Alchemy Fund, which invests in early-stage startups in New England. He’s been on both sides of the startup coin, as a founder and as an investor. He’s also an MFN advisor, and we’re happy that he’s generous enough to share his experience and tips with our community.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hi, I’m Chris Sims. I spent the first half of my career in Silicon Valley, primarily working on startups as a founder. In fact, I started a company right in my living room with a few college friends. After gaining that experience, I moved back east, where I collaborated with larger companies in consulting roles and worked as a general manager for a publicly traded company. Essentially, I’ve had managerial roles in both minuscule and expansive organizations, and I’ve observed some similarities in their operations.
A few years ago, I founded the Alchemy Fund. This venture marked my first experience as an investor. Currently, I invest in and work closely with early-stage startups, aiming to assist their founders.
The first company I initiated was somewhat accidental. During my college years, I was a part of the rowing team. Together with a couple of my teammates, we created a hobby site named “Rowers World.” After a while, we integrated a shopping feature into the site. Bear in mind, this was the late ’90s—a time when incorporating a shopping cart into a website was considered groundbreaking.
One day, to our astonishment, someone purchased a water rower from our site—a substantial piece of exercise equipment priced over $1,000. Prior to this, our sales were mostly limited to a few $20 hats every week. As our site started attracting more attention, we expanded our product range. Soon enough, we realized the revenue from the site surpassed what we earned from our regular day jobs. In due course, we all left our daily jobs and transformed our hobbyist site into a network of retail sites that offered health and fitness equipment.
Our approach was somewhat the antithesis of Amazon’s strategy. While Amazon focused on breadth, we channeled our efforts into creating a myriad of microsites. Each of these sites was meticulously optimized to promote and sell a specific product. Our journey is a testament to the unpredictable nature of startups. Often, one opportunity leads to another, each one being unpredictable from the outset.
In a way, we embraced the agile methodology long before it became a trend. Later, of course, these strategies were given proper terminologies and methodologies. And that’s the story of how I unintentionally became the founder of a series of retail microsites.
