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About Venture Wisely

Most startup advice is loud, fast, and shallow. It tells you what worked once, for someone else, in conditions that no longer exist. Then it sells you a course.

Venture Wisely is the opposite. A newsletter for founders and investors who want the long, slow, useful version. The compounding kind. The kind you actually use.

I’m Alex Packham. I built ContentCal from scratch to a nine-figure exit in 2021. Today I’m Founder of ASTP Ventures, where I advise companies or get hands on running them to scale through to exit. I am CEO of JAAQ, a clinically governed AI platform helping millions of people navigate their mental health, Board Director at Propstore, one of the fastest growing auction sites in the world, and Founder of AcademyAI, democratising access to AI skills. Along the way I’ve made more than sixty angel investments and sat on enough boards to know the difference between founders who make it and founders who don’t.

It usually isn’t talent. It’s wisdom, or the lack of it.

That’s what this newsletter is about. Wisdom for the long game, drawn from building, investing, scaling, failing, and rebuilding. Sometimes it’s tactical, how to read a term sheet, when to fire, what a good board actually does. Sometimes it’s philosophical, how to stay sane while your company tries to kill you, how to lead yourself before you try to lead anyone else.

Both matter. Most operators only get one.

If you’re early in the journey, Venture Wisely will help you skip a few of the expensive lessons. If you’re further along, it’ll be a quiet place to think between the noise. Either way, you’ll leave with something usable, and ideally, something true.

Read freely. Reply often. Build something that matters.