Governance is the rulebook. Goodwill is the soul. Only one of these will make a founder call you when the lights are flickering, the term sheet is cracking, and the runway’s burning down.
In early-stage venture, everyone obsesses over the cap table, the docs, the stack of SAFEs and SAFEs-on-top-of-SAFEs like a mille-feuille of diluted hopes. They forget that this game — this brutal, beautiful game — is built on memory. And memory makes goodwill.
Your first investor? The one who said yes when 99 others ghosted? You don’t forget them. You don’t ghost them when the Series A comes calling. You pick up their call at 10pm on a Sunday in a crowded Uber back from a pitch dinner. That’s goodwill. And it cannot be backdated or manufactured. It is earned in the trenches, and it fades if you don’t protect it.
Now pair that goodwill with governance — not control, but insight. The information rights. The access to real-time revenue dashboards, product metrics, hiring plans, the signal that growth is about to explode not in Q4, not in next month’s board, but this week.
Put it together: a GP who owns 10%, has information rights, and is the first believer? That is a nuclear cocktail. They’re not just a name on a cap table. They are the most informed, most trusted non-founder in the room. They can call the co-invest before the Series B term sheet leaks, before the Tiger clones get FOMO. They can call the LPs. They can move.
This is how sophisticated LPs win. They work with a small set of GPs with that goodwill-governance combo, aggregate intelligence across the portfolio, and triangulate the top 1–3% performers before the market does. Then it’s about one thing: access. You get in, or you miss the breakout.
This is happening now. And when you hear someone say “We don’t mind being passive early on,” you’ll know they’re playing the wrong game. Because in this business, the gold isn’t in the governance or the goodwill alone. It’s in both. Earned early. Held tight.
Anyone who isn't a true believer really shouldnt be in going in early.
Not for Everyone. But maybe for you and your patrons?
Dear James,
I hope this finds you in a rare pocket of stillness.
We hold deep respect for what you've built here—and for how.
We’ve just opened the door to something we’ve been quietly handcrafting for years.
Not for mass markets. Not for scale. But for memory and reflection.
Not designed to perform. Designed to endure.
It’s called The Silent Treasury.
A sanctuary where truth, judgment, and consciousness are kept like firewood—dry, sacred, and meant for long winters.
Where trust, vision, patience, and stewardship are treated as capital—more rare, perhaps, than liquidity itself.
The two inaugural pieces speak to a quiet truth we've long engaged with:
1. Why we quietly crave for 'signal' from rare, niche sanctuaries—especially when judgment must be clear.
2. Why many modern investment ecosystems (PE, VC, Hedge, ALT, SPAC, rollups) fracture before they root.
These are not short, nor designed for virality.
They are multi-sensory, slow experiences—built to last.
If this speaks to something you've always felt but rarely seen expressed,
perhaps these works belong in your world.
Both publication links are enclosed, should you choose to enter.
https://tinyurl.com/The-Silent-Treasury-1
https://tinyurl.com/The-Silent-Treasury-2
Warmly,
The Silent Treasury
Sanctuary for strategy, judgment, and elevated consciousness.