ISSUE 178 · AUSTIN, TX
The people behind First Capital.
FreshmanFund is a small editorial shop founded in March 2023 by Marcus Velez and Priya Ramaswamy, publishing a weekly newsletter on the financial first eighteen months of a founder's life. We run on a strict no-paid-promotion policy, ship free to 240,000 readers, and ask for nothing in return except your attention.
Get the Founder's First-Capital Playbook →Origin Story · March 2023
How a Series B CFO and a former operator started a newsletter from a six-table coffee shop in East Austin.
FreshmanFund began in March 2023 with a single argument between two friends at a six-table coffee shop on East 6th Street. Marcus had just closed his third Series B as CFO and was tired of watching first-time founders wire their first checks without a map. Priya had spent four years inside two early-stage companies and had the operator's scars to match. They disagreed on almost everything — except one thing: the financial playbook for the first eighteen months of a founder's life was being gatekept behind accelerators that cost $25,000 to enter.
So they started a newsletter. The first issue, "The $50,000 you didn't know you'd lose," went out to 312 subscribers on a borrowed Substack and a borrowed mailing list. It opened with a line that has since become the publication's editorial north star: "The most expensive money a founder will ever spend is the first money they spend badly."
Nine months later, the publication was profitable. By month eleven, the run rate cleared $2.1M in annual revenue — all from the paid Cohort program, with no outside funding, no sponsors, and no compromise on the editorial line. The team grew to eleven. The newsletter crossed 100,000 readers, then 200,000, then the current 240,000. The Cohort program, which charges $1,200 a year, has now graduated 1,840 founders who have collectively raised $74M in pre-seed and seed capital.
None of that was the plan. The plan was a newsletter. Everything else is what happened when a candid, opinionated read of one specific subject — first-time founder capital — turned out to be the read a lot of people wanted.
— Marcus Velez & Priya Ramaswamy, co-founders
The Masthead
Eleven people. One publication. Austin, TX.
Four former founders. Two former VC associates. Two former operators. Two editors. Eleven people total — no contractors, no agencies, no outside columnists with sponsored briefs.
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Co-founder & Editor-in-Chief
Marcus Velez
Former Series B CFO who has personally wired $140M+ in seed capital. Writes the flagship First Capital weekly and authors the FFC Index.
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Co-founder & COO
Priya Ramaswamy
Two-time early-stage operator turned editorial lead. Runs the Cohort program and edits the Runway daily brief.
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Senior Editor
Daniel Okafor
Former Techstars founder. Edits long-form essays and the FFC Index data reports. Joined as hire #3 in May 2023.
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Head of Audio
Linh Tran
Produces the First Capital podcast, which ranks #14 on Apple Podcasts in the Investing category at 92K monthly downloads.
Plus seven more: a research lead (ex-VC associate), a data engineer, two staff writers, a community manager, a finance & ops generalist, and a part-time editorial assistant. Eleven people total, all in Austin, all on the payroll.
Editorial Policy
No paid promotion. No sponsored sections. No financial advice.
Since the March 2023 founding, FreshmanFund has run zero sponsored sections, zero advertorials, and zero paid newsletter inserts. Every essay, podcast episode, and data report is written by the eleven-person core team, edited in-house, and shipped under the publication's name. We do not take money from accelerators, VCs, fintech platforms, SaaS tools, or founder services in exchange for coverage — and we never will.
The publication is also not licensed financial, legal, or tax advice. We are educators. The First-Fund Framework, the FFC Index, and the Cohort curriculum are opinionated, candid, and built on the operating experience of our team — but they are not a substitute for a CPA, a securities attorney, or a fiduciary advisor. Read us like you'd read a mentor who has been broke once and recovered.
By the Numbers
By the numbers, since March 2023.
- 240,000
- Newsletter subscribers
- Flagship First Capital weekly + Runway daily brief.
- 178
- Long-form essays
- Plus 52 podcast episodes published since launch.
- 1,840
- Cohort members
- Paid members of the year-long program at $1,200/yr.
- $74M
- Raised by Cohort grads
- In pre-seed and seed capital since January 2024.
92,000 podcast downloads per month · #14 in Apple Podcasts Investing category · 2024 Substack Creator Award winner · Bootstrapped to profitability in 9 months.
The Next Step
Read what 240,000 first-time founders are reading.
The Founder's First-Capital Playbook is the same 38-page document we send to new Cohort members on day one — the one that maps out the first eighteen months of a founder's financial life, from the first $5,000 wire to the first priced round. It's free. It always has been.