Brian Nichols is the co-founder of Angel Squad, a community where you’ll learn how to angel invest and get a chance to invest as little as $1k into Hustle Fund's top performing early-stage startups

Li Jin graduated from Harvard with a degree in statistics, worked as a product manager at Shopkick before it sold to SK Telecom for $250 million, and then joined Andreessen Horowitz as a consumer partner. She spent four years there building a perspective on what she called the passion economy: the emerging infrastructure enabling people to monetize their skills and creativity without going through traditional gatekeepers.

She published that thesis in a widely read 2019 essay, "The Passion Economy and the Future of Work," arguing that new digital platforms were enabling people to earn livelihoods in ways that highlighted their individuality rather than commoditizing it. That was the framework she built her fund around.

Atelier Ventures and the Thesis

Li Jin investments began through Atelier Ventures, which she launched in early 2020 with a $13 million fund, oversubscribed from her original $10 million target. Her LP base was itself an expression of the thesis: investors included Andrew Chen and Alex Rampell from Andreessen Horowitz, Adam D'Angelo from Quora, Jack Conte and Sam Yam from Patreon, Kevin Lin from Twitch, Hunter Walk from Homebrew, and David Sacks from Craft Ventures.

Atelier backed companies including Substack, the newsletter and media subscription platform; Patreon, the creator membership platform; Descript, the audio and video editing tool that became widely used by podcast and video creators; Stir, a financial platform for creators managing revenue across platforms; Geneva, the community platform for group chats; and Dumpling, a marketplace allowing shoppers to start grocery delivery businesses.

The thesis was specific: back companies giving creators more ownership, more monetization leverage, and better tools for building sustainable businesses from their content or expertise. Not social platforms extracting attention. Ownership platforms distributing value.

Shiyan Koh of Hustle Fund has noted that the most durable category of startup investments are those enabling people to work more autonomously and capture more of the value they create. Li Jin operationalized that observation into an investment fund years before most VCs were talking about creator economies. Angel Squad members looking at the future of work category should study her writing portfolio as much as her investment portfolio. Both are excellent. You can find the community at hustlefund.vc/squad.

The "100 True Fans" Framework

In 2020, Jin published "100 True Fans," an update on Kevin Kelly's classic "1,000 True Fans" concept. Her argument: emerging monetization tools like paid newsletters, direct memberships, and digital products were compressing the number of loyal fans a creator needed to sustain a meaningful income. With the right tools, 100 deeply engaged supporters could provide more economic value than 1,000 casual followers on an ad-supported platform.

That framework is now widely cited in creator economy investing, growth strategy conversations, and product roadmap discussions at platforms serving creators. Writing that shapes investment categories before they exist is one of the most effective forms of deal flow generation. Angel Squad members who publish their investment theses publicly develop the same flywheel. The more specific and rigorous the thinking, the better the deal flow. See how that plays out in community at hustlefund.vc/squad.

The Variant Merger and Web3

In late 2021, Atelier merged with Variant Fund, a web3-focused early-stage fund co-founded by Jesse Walden. Li Jin became co-GP at Variant, investing in what the firm describes as "software owned and operated by its users." The merger was a logical extension of the ownership economy thesis: if creators and workers deserve more ownership of the platforms they power, crypto-native ownership structures are one path to making that happen.

Variant has backed companies across decentralized finance, tokenized platforms, and ownership-primitive infrastructure. Li Jin's consumer and creator lens applied to web3 companies focuses on projects where token ownership aligns user incentives with platform growth, rather than extractive models where platforms capture value from user behavior.

Eric Bahn of Hustle Fund has pointed out that the most interesting web3 companies are not speculation platforms but coordination tools that make community ownership tractable. Li Jin's portfolio at Variant reflects that distinction clearly.

The Writing as a Flywheel

Jin publishes regularly across her newsletter, podcast, and public essays. She has taught courses on creator economy fundamentals through Maven. That content output creates a self-reinforcing deal flow flywheel: founders building in her thesis areas read her work, reference it in pitch decks, and seek her as their first check. That is the same dynamic Elizabeth Yin has described at Hustle Fund, where Twitter presence generates thousands of founder applications per year. Content compounds in venture capital just like it does in the creator economy Li Jin studies and backs.