Content Is Not a Cost Center

In venture, everyone chases asymmetric bets: small checks that return the fund. Funny thing is, the cheapest asymmetric bet most firms ignore is content. One sharp report can pay for itself 1,000x over.

Venture capitalists pride themselves on seeing what others miss: a hidden market, a founder with an unlikely edge, an inflection point in the making. Yet when it comes to their own firms, many still treat content as a line item to be minimized. It’s “marketing spend.” It’s “nice to have.” It’s a cost center.

That framing is not just wrong—it’s actively self-defeating.

Content as Compounding Equity

Content is not like paid ads, where dollars in roughly equal dollars out. Done right, content is equity. A flagship report or narrative doesn’t expire when the quarter ends; it accrues value over years, shaping the perception of a firm long after the original budget cycle.

Think of content as intellectual capex: an upfront investment that keeps paying dividends. Carta’s ecosystem data, a16z’s podcasts, Sequoia’s guides—they don’t operate as quarterly “campaigns.” They’re infrastructure. They create ongoing deal flow, attract top founders, reassure LPs, and cement thought leadership.

The Invisible Firms

Contrast that with firms who underinvest. Their websites read like digital brochures: partner headshots, vague platitudes, a portfolio list. They’re invisible in the broader conversation. Interchangeable. Forgettable.

Founders notice. LPs notice. The press notices. If you don’t create and distribute your perspective, someone else will—and they’ll own the narrative.

The ROI Logic

Content’s ROI is easy to underestimate because its impact is nonlinear. One sharp essay can shift a founder’s perception of your firm. One data-backed report can drive a year of inbound. One podcast series can build trust with an entire category.

Do the back-of-envelope math:

• A flagship report might cost $100k to produce.

• If it helps win one investment in a breakout company, the returns dwarf the spend.

• If it strengthens your brand with LPs and smooths the next raise, even better.

By VC standards, content is the cheapest asymmetric bet you can make.

The Attribution Conundrum

One of the quietest challenges in this conversation is attribution. Pipeline and sourcing are notoriously messy—every deal has multiple touchpoints, half the time the founder insists they “already knew” the partner, and attribution wars break out inside firms as soon as a hot company surfaces.

Content gets lost in that fog. A founder might not cite the report or podcast that first built trust, but it shaped their perception before the first intro call. Treating content as a cost center because you can’t cleanly tie it to sourcing is like dismissing brand awareness because it doesn’t show up in Salesforce.

The Contrarian Edge

Ironically, most firms still treat content as overhead. They’ll happily fund millions in management fees for software, travel, and headcount, but balk at investing seriously in storytelling.

The contrarian move is to flip the model: treat content as infrastructure. Make it as core as your data stack or your recruiting networks. Build a portfolio of intellectual assets—reports, narratives, benchmarks, playbooks—that compounds.

The firms that do this won’t just win mindshare. They’ll win deal flow.

The Call to Action

VCs love to tell founders to think long-term, and their deals play out over 7-10 year horizons. Yet when it comes to their own platforms, they think in quarters. Where’s the sense in that?

Stop treating content like an expense. Treat it like an asset class.

Content is not a cost center—it’s a compounding growth engine.