Hadley Harris

Cofounder @EniacVC | Seed investor | Engineer | Built & sold AI startups before it was cool

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

Thrilled to welcome @mikeyyyzhao to @EniacVC!

Michael spent 8 years as co-founder & CTO of @vimcal, a deeply technical, AI-native builder who shipped product at the edge of what’s possible. Now he’s bringing that founder’s instinct to the other side of the table.

He’s also woven into the YC, Berkeley, and SF founder communities, and has been quietly writing first checks and helping founders go 0→1 long before it was his job title.

Founders backing founders is how we started at Eniac. Couldn’t be more excited to have him continuing that tradition.

Welcome, Michael 🎉

[Michael Zhao @mikeyyyzhao]

Some personal news: I'm joining @EniacVC ! I’ll be investing in founders at pre-seed and seed with a focus on applied AI, vertical SaaS, and agent infrastructure.

I stepped away from @vimcal earlier this year after eight years as co-founder and CTO. Building, scaling, and leading Vimcal has been the most challenging and rewarding experience of my career. I'm so thankful for my co-founder @jaylbird11 , our customers, investors, and the entire Vimcal team. I'm staying on as an active advisor and board member, and remain incredibly bullish on what the team is building ahead.

Why venture? When John and I started Vimcal, we got an unbelievable amount of help from the @ycombinator community and beyond. Since then, I've tried my best to pay it forward, helping founders with everything from YC apps to product, GTM, and recruiting, sharing the lessons and mistakes I've made along the way. Over time, I started to support founders beyond just giving advice. That often meant writing the first check into a company, before they’ve even incorporated. I want to take what I’ve learned and make supporting and backing founders my full-time mission.

Why Eniac? Eniac was one of the first seed-only firms, backing founders since 2010 when seed was barely a category. The founding partners (@Hadley , @nihalmehta , and @timy0ung ) were all former founders themselves, with a conviction that founders need partners who understand the 0-1 stage and are willing to roll up their sleeves alongside them. It says something that repeat founders with successful exits, who could raise from anyone, keep coming back to Eniac for their first check. I can't wait to continue Eniac's tradition of being the first believer in founders.

If you or someone you know is building something new, I'd love to chat! Don’t hesitate to DM me!

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

@arjunram It’s not that common, but do see it. An example is @oboelabs. When users use the product the take little quizzes along the way to test what they’re learning. That feedback into how people actually learn from multimodal ai systems that doesn’t otherwise exist.

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

The most important thing I look for in agentic systems these days: usage that compounds into an advantage against future competitors. Not just for that one user, but advantage that accrues to the entire system.

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

@fendien @Bonecondor @Work_Bench I love that

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

Excited to have so many people here for NY Tech Week, here's my latest tips on being a real New Yorker this week:
1) You heard real New Yorkers ride the subway or Citi Bike. Wrong. We ride the top deck of the big bus to go from meeting to meeting. To look extra legit wave at the people on the street.
2) Want a Knicks hat for that Chalamet courtside MSG look? Wack. The insta girls of Williamsburg and the West Village wear Jets gear head to toe this season.
3) Need dinner after a long day of networking? Skip the tiny spots with no sign and a line out the door, that's where confused tourists eat. Real New Yorkers go straight to the Times Square Bubba Gump and ask for the window table so the city can see you crushing life.

You’re welcome

[Nir Zicherman @NirZicherman]

Today, we're rolling out on-demand songs and diagrams in @oboelabs.

You remember the alphabet from when you were 4, but you've already forgotten something you read this morning.

That's because walls of text are the worst way to retain what you want to learn. Songs lodge in your brain for decades, and a good diagram can help a complicated concept click in seconds.

Two new ways to learn, live today.

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

@Bonecondor Yes, that place is amazing and then you can stroll over to the Dunkin’ Donuts at the Port Authority bus terminal for after dinner coffee

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

@crapshoot101 @a16z 😆

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

@Jack_Raines Right question, wrong borough

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

You just won a 2-week, all-expenses-paid vacation to Staten Island. But there’s a catch: you have to stay within one region the whole time.

What are you picking?

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

@JoshuaBarzon https://t.co/2ByTrCT3YC

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

You just won a 2-week, all-expenses-paid vacation to Staten Island. But there’s a catch: you have to stay within one region the whole time.

What are you picking?

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

You just won a 2-week, all-expenses-paid vacation to Staten Island. But there’s a catch: you have to stay within one region the whole time.

What are you picking?

[Olivia Moore @omooretweets]

Hot take - I don’t really worry about model cos competing w/ enterprise AI startups

Yes, they are now doing FDE work, but:

(1) AGI/models are ultimate priority; and
(2) they won’t build out integrations, workflows, etc for the long tail of use cases (especially vertical ones!)

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

@omooretweets My guess is there might be some degradation of pricing power but overall limited effect

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

@JoshBobrowsky Agreed. Will be very interesting to watch companies like Figma over next couple quarters

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

Stupid question: have any of the startups Claude ‘killed’ this year actually died? Or even been materially hurt?

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

@unusual_whales Banana
Republic

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

@Techmeme $500M? Give me 10 IIT grads and 10M in tokens and I’ll build Harvey for you

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

@FIav0r The stock dropped, which is based on sentiment, but we actually don’t know how its business has been affected. Given its public will be super interesting to watch over the next couple
of quarters.

[Hadley Harris @Hadley]

Yeah, I hear you but also shouldn’t growth have slowed by now? Like why are new law firm signing up to work with Harvey when Anthropic already supposedly killed them? I’m not saying these companies aren’t gonna get killed. I’m just saying it doesn’t seem like it’s as obvious as everyone’s making it out to be.