Investing in Products with Community at their Core | Sarah Drinkwater, Common Magic

Sarah Drinkwater is the solo GP behind Common Magic, a pre-seed fund launched in 2023 that invests in products with community at their core. Before raising a fund, she built one of Europe's most influential startup communities as head of Google Campus London, and has been angel investing for years. She has now made 68 investments (including Odin!), with five exits so far. In this episode, Paddy sits down with Sarah to unpack why she believes emotional capital, not runway, is the real reason most companies fail, how she thinks about community as a go-to-market strategy (not a trend or a vertical) and why the hardest problems in building a company are social, not technical. Find out more about Odin https://www.joinodin.com/ https://blog.joinodin.com/   / paddy-ryan   Find out more about Common Magic https://www.commonmagic.xyz/   / sarahdrinkwater