Hi there 👋
I’m Paige Finn Doherty. I’m the founding partner of Behind Genius Ventures, author of Seed to Harvest – a children’s book for adults on venture capital, and host of the podcast Seed to Harvest, where I interview founders, creators, and investors about their frameworks and stories.
I’m a community-taught venture capitalist who grew up digitally native in San Diego, CA – Welcome to my digital home 🧘🏻♀️
recent writing
- shared stories: the wood line
- fred again…and again and again
- rediscovering the magic of reading
- tidal trials
- dear mr allen wrench,
- does my neighbor have a sorolla?
my values
- EMPATHY:
- this is two-fold: empathy in the human-to-human way & empathy in the product-to-customer way. i believe that by establishing a framework that values people above all else, I will be more successful in building richer relationships and better products.
- CURIOSITY:
- a lot of people ask me about my journey from mechanical engineering to computer science to entrepreneurial endeavors to venture capital. it seems strange until I tell them I’m guided by a deep sense of curiosity. I went from “how does this physical thing work?” to “how does this process/algorithm work?” to “how does this business model work?” to “how does one construct a successful portfolio of all these moving parts?” by putting my journey in this perspective, it becomes apparent, that like higher-level cs languages, I simply “abstracted” my way up to more and more complex systems(which equals more questions!)
- INTEGRITY:
- i value honesty & transparency. I appreciate people who share how they did things & “learn in public.” I write a lot about coming from a relatively non-traditional background in the hopes that others will benefit from me sharing my playbook.
- DETAILS MATTER:
- this is something I internalized having a lifelong love of art & architecture. my mom is an artist, and watching her work is a lesson in discipline and elegance. she has taught me that the slightest mix of purple in white clouds makes them appear real – just as adding a human touch to software dissipates the illusion. my dad & I do woodworking products every year, which taught me that adding details(like a note about why a desk or bookshelf was made) in the process of making things creates delight in use.
- ITERATION:
- everyday, I want to be 1 percent better than I was yesterday. whether that’s organizationally, empathetically, communicatively. I enjoy making and iterating upon mental models of how I reach decisions, quantify risk, and communicate.
🎓 education 🎓
- a bachelor’s degree in computer science from san diego state university. my favorite classes were machine learning, sales engineering, and speech processing. i studied java in core classes, but completed most of my projects in python. i also studied mechanical engineering my first three semesters at sdsu.
- i was also part of the lavin entrepreneur fellowship at sdsu. i’m one of fifteen students at sdsu that spent the last two years of college waking up for a 7am class on entrepreneurship. it was a crucial part of my education & focused primarily on the lean model, creating mvps, and building a community of san diego founders and investors.
- a lot of consuming content on Twitter, YouTube, and talking to other people. I love going down internet rabbitholes.
odd jobs & what they taught me
- music festival vip host: smiling is important. so is remembering people’s names. so is responding to medical emergencies quickly.
- developing a complete digital media strategy for a city councilman: real-time experience on the project management triangle of budget, schedule, quality. also that copywriting is a) hard and b) important.
- moonlighting as a life coach: a lot about helping people is providing them a dedicated space to just asking & let them answer the questions that have been ping-ponging around in their heads.
- music journalist: I could never afford to go to as many concerts & festivals as I wanted to growing up, so I started volunteering as a music journalist for SDSU’s Aztec Music Group. A friend and I learned a lot about how pr cycles work – I learn what is a good journalist pitch and what is not. I learned being friends with journalists & artists alike is awesome.
- instagram nano influencer: i actually cannot type nanoinfluencer without laughing…but I figured out somewhere in 2015 that you could trade posts for products, and among other things, entry to exclusive Coachella parties. I got really good at explaining my audience demographics, analyzing successful content, and doing that for other people when influencer became a real job title.
- running python growth bots on instagram: prior to instagram clamping down on security, you could build organic lookalike audiences based on following/unfollowing who followed your customers using a python script. I learned how to replicate and build semantic terms for these python bots to run & had a good amount of success building engaged audiences for entrepreneurs & artists. also got some good experience in python.
- author: I literally only write when I have 500 more pressing things to do. patience and persistence are key.
- seamstress: sewing is a lot like machine learning – the secret sauce is in the preparation of raw materials/data. i came to appreciate taking the extra time to pin pleats because of how much the extra prep improved the final product. also have an increased appreciation for the analogy “it’s like threading a needle”. because that hole is tiny and very difficult to get a fraying thread through.
- teaching english to chinese students: good teaching depends a lot on cultural context. i would ask about their cultural icons & research current events because i learned analogies are great teaching methods.
- tutoring: seeing the light in someone’s eye when they “get” something you explained to them is fantastic. talking on a daily basis with students about their learning methods also helped me understand how best to adjust my explaining methods.
- growth at eyemoutheye: a small group of people can make an incredible impact. in under 36 hours, our team raised over $200k in donations for the loveland foundation, therapy for Black women and girls, the okra project, the anti police terror project, Black futures lab, and more organizations supporting Black lives. along the way, we reached the number one product on product hunt, were featured in forbes, business insider, and independent.
on this website, i occasionally explore my experiences, augmented by books, pop culture, and occasional memes. my writing is a blend of storytelling-oriented non fiction, and i’m a big fan of analogies. i don’t have a publishing rhythm, but i post more often on twitter (@paigefinnn).
what’s on my bookshelf
on writing well // william zinsser
the year of magical thinking // joan didion
this is what it sounds like // susan rogers
bird by bird // anne lamont
if you’ve enjoyed yourself this far…i think you’ll enjoy my newsletter.