I’ve been lucky to be a venture capitalist since 2010, and wake up every day excited to try to find and invest in the next big thing. The next world-changing product and business. The once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity. A “generational” company.

My focus is on consumer technology companies, as well as enterprise companies that are building consumer-like products. I also have a deep passion for businesses working on the most important challenges of our time, such as the climate crisis, access to education, societal inequality, and the intersection of healthcare, biology, and computing.

In this Substack, I’ll share unfiltered thoughts in the form of a weekly essay on the next big thing across these areas, as well as trends in consumer behavior, business models, venture capital and more.

For those of you who hope to build the next big thing, I hope my writing is of service.

-Nikhil Basu Trivedi (@nbt)


If you’re new to next big thing, here are a few of my favorite issues:

#2: Consumer and Enterprise

#5: The Right Side of History

#7: Shopify and The Key Decision for Business-in-a-Box Platforms

I also occasionally write series of essays on the same topic, such as this set on the venture capital industry from July 2020:

The Rise of the Solo Capitalists, Agglomerators vs. Specialists, Founder-Investor Fit, and The Venture Capital Flow Chart.


You can find more of my writing on Twitter (@nbt), LinkedIn, and Medium.

I’m Co-Founder and General Partner at Footwork, an early-stage focused venture capital firm investing its first fund. Our portfolio includes Heard, Felt, Power, ReflexAI, WindBorne, and several unannounced investments.

I’m a former General Partner at Shasta Ventures, now Limited Partner, and thus an investor in these portfolio companies.

Venture investments that I led or co-led at Shasta: Athelas, Blume, Brigit, Canva, ClassDojo, Color Genomics, Cover, FlyHomes, Frame.io, Imperfect Foods, Kapwing, Lattice, Let’s Do This, Literati, RDMD, Second Measure, Tally, Tandem, The Farmer’s Dog, The Pill Club.

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weekly essay by a venture capitalist (@nbt) in search of the next big thing

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Co-Founder & General Partner at Footwork (https://www.footwork.vc/). Author at next big thing (https://nbt.substack.com/).