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.

Quick background: Reshma founded Girls Who Code in 2012 after losing a Congressional race and realizing the tech industry had a major talent gap. Before that, she was a lawyer and worked in finance. So she's got the trifecta: legal background, finance experience, and a decade of building one of the most successful tech education nonprofits in the country.

Now she's increasingly active as an investor and advisor, backing companies in areas where she has genuine expertise and unique market insights.

The "Solve Real Problems for Real People" Filter

Looking at Reshma Saujani investments and the companies she's publicly supported, there's a clear pattern: she backs founders who are solving problems they've personally experienced.

This isn't abstract. She's looking for founders who are scratching their own itch, particularly around issues that affect working professionals, parents, and growing demographic segments that traditional VCs often overlook.

Why this matters: At Hustle Fund, we talk all the time about founder-market fit. The best founders aren't just building products because they seem like good business opportunities. They're building products because they're personally frustrated by the problem and have unique insights into the solution.

Reshma takes this seriously. She's looking for founders who have lived the problems they're solving and understand the market dynamics in ways that others might miss.

The Care Economy Thesis

One area where Reshma has been particularly vocal is what she calls the "care economy." This includes childcare, eldercare, paid leave policies, and workplace flexibility.

She wrote an entire book about this called "Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work," arguing that we need to completely reimagine how we support working parents in America.

So when you look at Reshma Saujani investments and the companies she's advocating for, many of them are tackling some aspect of the care economy:

• Companies building better childcare solutions
• Platforms helping families coordinate eldercare
• Tools helping companies implement better parental leave policies
• Services supporting working parents

Here's the thing most investors miss: the care economy isn't a niche market. It's a massive, underserved market that affects literally everyone at some point in their lives.

According to various estimates, the U.S. care economy represents over $600 billion in annual spending. Yet venture investment in this space has been minimal compared to other sectors.

The reason VCs have historically ignored it? Most investors haven't had to navigate these challenges personally, so they don't recognize the market opportunity. They dismiss it as "too hard" or "not venture-backable" without really digging into the unit economics.

Reshma sees the opportunity that others miss.

What Reshma Looks For in Founders

Based on her public statements and the patterns in her investments, here's what Reshma seems to prioritize:

Personal connection to the problem: She wants founders who aren't just building businesses. They're solving problems that have personally affected their lives or communities.

Systems thinking: Reshma doesn't just want products. She wants solutions that can create systemic change. This comes from her background building Girls Who Code, which wasn't just about teaching coding. It was about fundamentally changing the talent pipeline for tech careers.

Sustainable business models: Good intentions without revenue is just charity. Reshma is looking for companies that can scale profitably while solving meaningful problems.

Execution capability: Reshma spent years scaling a nonprofit from zero to national reach. She knows what it takes to actually execute on big visions. She's looking for founders who can ship product, acquire customers, and build teams.

The "Change the System, Not Just the Symptoms" Approach

What I find most interesting about Reshma's investment philosophy is that she's thinking about systemic change, not just individual solutions.

Take Girls Who Code as an example. Reshma could have just built a coding bootcamp. Instead, she built a movement that partners with schools, companies, and policymakers to fundamentally change the talent pipeline into tech.

She's applying this same thinking to investments. She's not just looking for products that help individual consumers. She's looking for companies that can change entire systems and industries.

This is actually a smart investment thesis. Companies that solve systemic problems often have bigger addressable markets and more defensible moats than companies solving individual pain points.

Think about it: a tool that helps one parent find childcare is useful. A platform that helps employers offer comprehensive childcare benefits to all their employees? That's a system-level solution with a much bigger revenue opportunity.

The Intersection of Mission and Market Opportunity

Here's where Reshma's approach gets really interesting: she completely rejects the idea that you have to choose between solving important problems and building valuable companies.

She's argued publicly that backing founders who deeply understand underserved markets isn't charity. It's smart investing because these founders are building products for massive markets that have been systematically overlooked.

The data actually supports this. Markets like childcare, eldercare, and workplace benefits represent hundreds of billions in spending. Yet VC investment in these areas has been relatively minimal compared to sectors like enterprise SaaS or consumer apps.

That's not because the opportunities don't exist. It's because most investors don't personally experience these pain points, so they underestimate the market opportunity.

Reshma sees this market inefficiency and is actively trying to capitalize on it.

What Early-Stage Investors Can Learn From Reshma's Approach

Okay, let's get tactical. What can we actually take away from studying Reshma Saujani investments and her investment philosophy?

1. Look for underserved markets that other investors ignore: The care economy, workplace benefits, family logistics. These are massive markets that most VCs overlook because they haven't personally experienced the pain points.

2. Prioritize founder-market fit over pedigree: Reshma isn't just looking for founders with fancy credentials. She's looking for founders who deeply understand the problems they're solving because they've lived them.

3. Think about systemic change, not just individual solutions: Companies that can change entire systems have bigger opportunities than companies solving individual pain points.

4. Do the actual market sizing work: Don't dismiss markets just because they seem "too hard" or unfamiliar. Actually calculate the TAM and understand the unit economics.

5. Build networks in overlooked markets: If all your deal flow comes from traditional sources, you're seeing the same companies as everyone else. Reshma has built relationships in communities where she finds founders others miss.

The Reality Check: What Makes This Hard

Let's be real: Reshma's approach isn't easy to replicate. She has unique advantages:

She's built a massive network through Girls Who Code, giving her access to thousands of potential founders and operators who can refer deals.

She has deep expertise in the education and workforce development space, which gives her pattern recognition that most investors lack.

She can leverage her platform and public profile to add value beyond just capital.

But here's what we can replicate: the mindset of looking for opportunities in markets that other investors overlook because they don't personally experience the pain points.

At Hustle Fund, we see tons of pitches. The companies that stand out aren't always the ones with the slickest decks. They're often the ones solving problems in markets that seem obvious once you understand them, but that most investors never even consider.

That's the real lesson from Reshma's approach.

The Care Economy Opportunity Right Now

Let's zoom in on one specific area where Reshma has been particularly focused: the care economy.

The pandemic completely exposed how broken our care infrastructure is in America. Working parents left the workforce in record numbers because childcare became impossible to manage.

But here's the thing: this isn't just a temporary crisis. This is a permanent shift in how we think about work and caregiving.

Smart investors like Reshma saw this coming years ago. Now there's a massive opportunity to back companies building the infrastructure for how we'll handle care in the future:

• On-demand childcare platforms
• Benefits platforms helping companies offer better parental leave
• Eldercare coordination services
• Workplace flexibility tools

These aren't nice-to-have products. They're becoming essential infrastructure for how companies attract and retain talent.

The numbers back this up. Companies are spending billions on benefits and perks to compete for talent. The care economy is becoming a core part of employer value propositions.

Why This Thesis Works From a Returns Perspective

Let me be clear about something: Reshma isn't making these investments because she wants to feel good about herself. She's making them because she believes they'll generate strong returns.

Here's the investment case:

Large addressable markets: Childcare alone is a $50+ billion market in the U.S. Eldercare is even bigger. These aren't small opportunities.

Underinvested sectors: Because VCs have historically overlooked these markets, there's less competition for deals and more opportunity to find mispriced opportunities.

Strong unit economics: Many care economy businesses have subscription models, high retention, and clear paths to profitability. These aren't money-burning growth-at-all-costs businesses.

Macro tailwinds: Demographic shifts (aging population, more dual-income households) are driving structural demand for these services.

This is just smart investing. Find big markets that are underinvested, back founders with unique insights, and build positions before everyone else sees the opportunity.

Time Ventures Portfolio Construction Lessons

While Reshma isn't running a traditional fund, her investment approach reveals some smart portfolio construction principles:

Cluster around thesis areas: Rather than spray-and-pray investing across random sectors, she's building concentrated positions in related markets where her expertise compounds.

Focus on B2B and B2B2C models: Many of the companies in her sphere are selling to employers or partnering with companies to reach consumers. These tend to have better unit economics than pure consumer plays.

Look for platform opportunities: She's interested in companies that can become infrastructure for entire industries, not just point solutions.

For early-stage investors, this is instructive. Having a clear thesis and building concentrated positions in areas where you have genuine expertise tends to work better than random diversification.

The Bottom Line: Find the Markets Others Miss

The biggest takeaway from studying Reshma Saujani investments isn't about any particular cause or mission. It's about recognizing market opportunities that other investors systematically overlook.

Reshma is making a bet that backing founders solving real problems in underserved markets will generate excellent financial returns. She's finding opportunities that other investors miss because they don't have the same networks or don't see these problems as urgent.

This is actually just smart investing. Find markets that are undervalued. Back founders who have unique insights. Build positions in companies before everyone else sees the opportunity.

For early-stage investors, the lesson is clear: develop your own thesis about which markets are being overlooked and which founders have unique advantages in serving those markets. Don't just follow the crowd into whatever's trending on Twitter this week. If you're serious about finding overlooked opportunities and backing founders with genuine market insights, Angel Squad gives you access to deal flow and a community of investors who are all developing their own contrarian theses about where the real opportunities are.

That's what Reshma's been doing. And it's a pretty good model for how to think about early-stage investing that combines genuine market opportunity with solving real problems.