Story
From selling worms at 6 to running a $1.6B fund
James Currier grew up poor on a dirt road in New Hampshire, selling worms to fishermen for 50 cents. A 6th-grade friend told him about prep school after he got beat up; Exeter paid his way, launching the path that led to founding NFX.
“I grew up on a dirt road in New Hampshire, about a mile from the nearest paved road. My mom was a music teacher. My dad, she made about $7 an hour. And my dad was a carpenter. Sometimes she was a hostess at a nearby restaurant. And we had 12 cats and 2 dogs. We just, we lived in the middle of nowhere. And I would sell worms to fishermen who would be fishing nearby. That was my first job when I was 6.”
Framework
Choose a network, not a job or an industry
NFX's most-read post argues you should frame every major life decision (where to live, who to marry, where to work) as choosing a network, because the network you join shapes how your life plays out.
“don't think of yourself as choosing a job or choosing an industry, or think of yourself as choosing a network.”
Steal thisBefore your next big move, ask which network you're joining, not which job or industry.
Framework
Savage founders: 16 traits that all roll up to speed
Across investing in ~300 companies, Currier says the single trait predicting founder success is speed. You can list 16 characteristics, but they all reduce to speed, and measuring it in the first meeting predicts the next decade.
“So the number one thing that it rolls up into is speed. So you could, you could lay out 16 characteristics that you're looking for, but all of those lead to one thing, which is speed. And so if we measure speed when we're meeting with the founders, that's the main thing that determines.”
Framework
The technology window: opportunity opens then slams shut
Every world-changing technology has a window during which the giant companies get built, then it closes 90% as incumbents lock in. Railroads were open 1830-1870; consumer internet 1994-2013 then closed in 2014, with only ~10 Western unicorns since.
“between '94 and 2013, it was a fantastic time to start companies in the consumer software space and invest in them from seed or Series A. In 2014, the window just closed. You can look at the number of unicorns created from 2014 to today, and it's really small. It's like Discord, TikTok, you know, Starlink, ChatGPT. There's like 10 of them in the West.”
Framework
Don't be in the fresh produce business; be the house
Content creators like MrBeast are in the 'fresh produce business': they must keep producing content that times out, building no network effect or embeddedness. The platforms own the network. Currier's rule: be the house, not the blackjack player.
“Well, because he's in what's called the fresh produce business, which is he has to keep producing fresh produce and putting it on the shelves. And then it has a, it times out., and he's not building any network effect. He's not building any embeddedness.”
Steal thisAudit your business: if you have to keep producing fresh content to survive, build a network effect so you become the house.
Framework
The vampire attack: suck the value out of a rival's network
A vampire attack is when you enter a competitor's network and extract the energy that makes it work, building your own network effect on your platform from blood you drain from theirs (e.g., Saudi LIV Golf poaching PGA players).
“A vampire attack is when you go into a network and you try to suck out the blood from what makes that network work. Okay. And you, you essentially try to create your own network effect on your platform by sucking out the energy that had been developed on their platform.”
Number
Dragons of Atlantis: $120M revenue in year 2
After name-testing led to 'Dragons of Atlantis,' NFX's game doubled daily and did about $120M in revenue in its second year before merging with Kabam, where it was ~55% of revenue.
$120M
Year 2 revenue · USD/year
“And then in year 2, I think we did $120 million in revenue. I mean, it's, you know, we merged with Kabam and then the company grew like crazy. I think we were 55% of their revenue when we merged.”
Number
Dragons of Atlantis: $120M revenue in year 2
After name-testing led to 'Dragons of Atlantis,' NFX's game doubled daily and did about $120M in revenue in its second year before merging with Kabam, where it was ~55% of revenue.
$120M
Year 2 revenue · USD/year
“And then in year 2, I think we did $120 million in revenue. I mean, it's, you know, we merged with Kabam and then the company grew like crazy. I think we were 55% of their revenue when we merged.”
Story
Change one word ('store' to 'share') and go from solo to 47M users
Currier's photo-storage product stalled as a single-player 'store your photos' tool. He changed the homepage to 'share your photos' before the feature existed; the team built sharing in 3 days, and within 6 months 47M people registered virally.
“So I said, okay guys, we're just going to change the homepage to say share your photos. And I just changed the name. I changed the word right on the homepage. And my team said, but James, our product doesn't let people share photos. We're lying to people. That makes me really uncomfortable. And I said, so fix it. And so 3 days later, they had figured out how to put in features that allowed you to share your photos. And within 6 months, we'd registered 47 million people virally.”
Steal thisChange the verb on your homepage from a single-player action to a multiplayer one, then build the feature to match.
Story
Renaming eMode to Tickle doubled the company to $110M
Currier's board nearly fired him and the whole engineering team threatened to quit over renaming eMode to Tickle. He kept the decision to three people, announced it; traffic rose 30% in a week and a $45M offer became a $110M offer six months later.
“So we did it and the traffic went up 30% in a week. And we had gotten an offer for $45 million as a company when we, when we were called eMode. And then 6 months later, we got an offer for $110 million. So it literally doubled the value of the company by changing it to a good name that was spellable and memorable.”
Billy
Andy McKelvey bought Monster for $400K without knowing it
Monster CEO Andy McKelvey acquired 220 companies to build a $7B-market-cap firm. He bought Monster for $400,000 when he acquired a Boston ad agency that happened to have a side project called the Monster Board, not even knowing he owned it.
“He had, he had acquired 220 companies to build Monster. Monster he had bought for $400,000. Wow. When he had bought an ad agency in Boston. And they had a side project called the Monster Board. He didn't even know that he had bought it.”
Story
In the acquisition, pay my employees and investors before me
Closing the Monster deal, Currier negotiated down 10% on price and instead asked the buyer to pay out his employees and investors before himself, betting they'd stay for reasons other than money. The CEO read it as character and wanted him around long-term.
“I said, I want you to pay all of my employees out before you pay me. And I want you to pay my investors before you pay me. And he's like, well, you know, I can't do that because then the people will leave. I was like, they won't leave. He's like, but don't people just stick around for money? I'm like, no, that's not why most people work.”
Framework
Turn the relationship into a giving competition
Currier's 25-year partnership with Stan works because he turned it into a giving competition: each tries to out-give the other. At the company sale, with ~90% ownership, Currier equalized the split toward 50-50.
“He said James turned it into a giving competition. I think that's the That's the phrase I think that will help people understand the way he and I look at the world.”
Steal thisWith key partners, compete to out-give rather than out-take; equalize at the moments of leverage.
Idea
Buy a boring services business and undercut it 30% with AI
Currier predicts AI will transform every service business (accounting, lawn care, contracting). The opportunity for founders: bring AI to a local services business, lower the price ~30%, and take market share.
“And so I would encourage people to think through what are services businesses in my area that I could bring AI to and lower the price by 30% and just take market share.”
Steal thisPick a local service (lawn care, accounting), add AI to cut delivery cost, drop price 30%, and grab share.
Prediction
Pending
AI will be like water; foundation-model companies go to zero
Currier predicts free unlimited AI processing on your own phone/CPU within 3-4 years as open source catches up. He argues NVIDIA and the giant LLM companies spending on training will eventually 'go to zero' because they lack durable network effects.
“AI is going to be like water. You are going to get free unlimited AI processing on your CPU, on your phone within 3 to 4 years. There's no doubt it's going to free in the same way that I can use my phone.”
Story
The team that almost invented Bitcoin (and the immaculate conception problem)
In 2006-07 Currier, Second Life's Philip Rosedale, and Mitch Kapor met weekly to build a torrented, encrypted global currency called 'blue.' They stalled on anonymity: seigniorage above the US dollar is illegal, so they needed an 'immaculate conception.' A year later Rosedale emailed asking if the Bitcoin paper was Currier.
“we knew what had needed to happen is we need to have an immaculate conception. We needed to be born so that no one knew it was us. Because Philip had 4 kids, I had 4 kids, we had plenty of money, we had all of our friends. Target on your back. We like being an American. We don't want to have to move to the Bahamas or the Cayman Islands.”
Framework
Market networks: a network where money flows on every edge
Shaan explains the 'market network' concept (per NFX / James Currier): a regular network passes likes and messages between nodes, but a market network has money flowing across every connection, like AngelList's jobs, investing, and rolling funds. He invested in MicroAcquire because it's structured as one.
“a market network is where it's 10 dots on a screen and there's lines connecting all of them, but there's money signs going in between each, right? So, like, on Facebook, you transfer likes to each other, you transfer comments to each other, messages.. But on AngelList, when you hire someone for a job, you give them money. When you invest in somebody, you give them money.”
Steal thisLook for or build platforms where money flows across every connection, not just content.
Fact
Live content makes the 'interestingness' problem 2 million times harder
Relaying NFX's James Currier, Shaan explains every app must clear an interestingness bar; live, in-the-moment content can't be algorithmically curated from millions of options, which is why only Twitch (open-ended, low-effort game streams) cracked live.
“The problem with Meerkat and Blab and all you guys is then you cross-section that with something that's super interesting that's happening right now. And that right now problem, the evergreen problem you're talking about, it doesn't make the problem 2x harder or 4x harder. It makes it like 2 million times harder.”
Take
Language matters — from your company name to the copy in your app
Iman relays the NFX view (via James Currier) that language is load-bearing: the company name, the tiny copy in your app, your outbound emails — it's often the first interaction a customer has with you. They chose 'Incredible Health' because it's unique and sounds big.
“Where language matters. Everything from the name of your company down to like the tiny copy in your app, to your emails that you're sending out, language matters. It is often the first time users or customers, clients interact with you.”
Steal thisSweat the language everywhere — name, microcopy, emails — because it's usually the customer's first touchpoint.