Take A Left Turn Onto

mainstreet: a primer

There is nothing so powerful as the collective.

Our country was founded by rational risk-takers who understood this principle.

I would even argue that the collective is more powerful than the institution.

Institutions can prescribe, but they cannot consume.

Institutions can promote, but they cannot purchase.

Institutions can predict, but they cannot innovate.

Mainstreet was born out of our search for a solution to private market investing.

AK and I spent last summer figuring out the best options for investing in VC and PE.

After 3 months, we found that other platforms aiming to democratize access to funds had glaring issues:

• Misaligned Incentives: platforms adopted a traditional fund-of-funds business model and took ~1-2% in management fees, which incentivizes high transaction volumes rather than the best deals

• Closed System: platforms have no method for users to interact or provide feedback, which further perpetuates the transactional nature of said platforms

• Weak Options: not applicable to every platform, but a lot of mediocre investment offerings out there

We decided to get to work.

In 2024, we started the year with an email list of 100+ interested members and ~10 funds to consider investing in. At the time, we had met with 30+ funds.

As we grew the email list to 1,000, there were critical lessons we learned about the power of community.

On more than one occasion, we experienced outsized returns from a single warm introduction

On more than one occasion, we searched for a more efficient way to connect people that were interested in similar investment opportunities.

And although we had originally set out to build a community based investment platform, our focus on sourcing the best deals took the front seat.

Then Jason Price, COO of NextPlayU, said something on the pod that stuck with me: “Ike, it all starts with community…”

Then Brian Michael Cooper, COO of the AFFL, said that the most important driver of sports valuation was community.

Then it clicked - and I realized the timing was right for us to launch ours.

On our latest episode of mainstreetmedia, I talked with Chase Edmonds, 7-year NFL running back who recently re-signed with Tampa Bay.

After the pod, we talked about the noise around athlete investing and ways to make the mainstreet community a game-changer.

Chase is just one of many talented individuals joining the collective

So far, individuals on the waitlist include:

• VC Fund Managers

• Executives from Goldman, BlackRock, and more

• NFL / NBA athletes

• Family Offices

Let me be clear about our mission statement:

We are taking the L out of LP

We are putting the G back in GP

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this leadership, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet.

But let us begin.

If you haven’t yet, indicate interest using the poll below and fill out this form.