Aaron Stachel (FirstMile Ventures) / VC Breakdown & Contact

About Aaron Stachel

Aaron Stachel is a former U.S. Army officer and West Point graduate who brings an uncommon leadership and operational perspective to seed investing at FirstMile Ventures. He specializes in emerging U.S. markets, particularly the Colorado Front Range, and is known for his transparent due diligence process that he openly explains to founders while positioning himself as an educator who breaks down the specific traits that build investor confidence.

Where they've Worked

This is some text inside of a div block.

Aaron Stachel's Interests

What they've been talking about across their social media accounts

Dedicated to helping military veterans navigate and grow their networks within the startup and tech industries. An example of this commitment includes organizing and participating in panel events at Denver Startup Week specifically designed to connect veterans with the local tech community.
Enthusiastic about sustainable and scalable blockchain networks with a heavy focus on the Hedera ecosystem. The core point often emphasized is the importance of low energy consumption and predictable fees for users, pointing to network adoption by major enterprises like Dell and LG as proof of real world value.
Focused on finding solutions to the home affordability crisis through innovative real estate platforms. A specific example is the backing of Rook Capital, driven by the belief that residential real estate investments should empower families to achieve homeownership rather than pricing them out and forcing them into perpetual renting.
Passionate about civic efficiency and systemic election reforms, frequently advocating for ranked choice voting and nonpartisan primaries in Colorado. The underlying perspective is that upgrading voting mechanics administratively saves resources while strongly encouraging elected officials to focus on actual problem solving.
Interested in the practical utility of technology over speculative trends, especially regarding digital assets in video games. Using the daily gaming habits of four children on platforms like Minecraft and Roblox as a reference point, the belief is that technology should solve real problems and keep games fun, rather than introducing expensive speculative assets that detract from the user experience.

Video Interview

On why the problem can outrank the team

""The longer I've been doing this, the more the problem and the urgency of that problem come back to me as one of the most important things... the default answer is always team, and that's certainly a huge part of our decision. But I'm always evaluating the team in the light of, is this a big important problem to solve? Is there a good reason to build a company here?"

Aaron Stachel

Partner, FirstMile Ventures

On the real base rate of pre-seed investing

"I'm a pre-seed investor, the failure rate is high, and so we expect fifty percent of our companies to not make it, or at least return less than one X capital. In any other context, that's like an absolute bloodbath... even if you have the handful of breakout successes that make the fund, there's a lot of times where it still doesn't feel like things are going well."

Aaron Stachel

Partner, FirstMile Ventures

On how VC FOMO actually works

"There's a lot of techniques that you'll see founders use to try to manufacture FOMO... 'we're closing on two million and the first million gets this cap and the second million's gonna get this higher cap.' That's not a real thing. Nobody wants to pay more than other people closing around the same time. If you tell me I'm raising two million and I've got three million of interest and I need to do allocations by this week, then that tells me I better make a decision. So the way you create FOMO is creating more interest in the round than there is room... if you manufacture that, you start to lose credibility."

Aaron Stachel

Partner, FirstMile Ventures

On qualifying a VC mid-process

"The same way a founder qualifies their sales leads to figure out who they should spend more time with, you should qualify your VCs. Have you invested in this sector? Have you invested in this stage? Do your check sizes line up with the kind of round we're trying to raise?... After two or three calls, you should be able to ask a VC, what do you have left in your process? What are the things you're still trying to get comfortable with? If you don't get a straight answer, the VC is probably still figuring it out, and they don't really know what they need to hear to get to a yes. So you might want to move on, or push them to come back with an answer."

Aaron Stachel

Partner, FirstMile Ventures

On what an investor update should be

"The founders who are more successful tend to work with their investors on, what is the dashboard of things we want to look at to run this business? Let's agree on a set of things that are important and how we're going to measure progress, and let's talk about those once a quarter. My investor update is not inventing some report I don't care about as a founder but my investors bug me for... your investor update should just be a screenshot of your dashboard on how you're running your business, what's important, what's going well, what's not."

Aaron Stachel

Partner, FirstMile Ventures

About their Fund

FirstMile Ventures

Sectors

SaaS, Health, Data, AI, Devtools

Rounds

Seed

Avg Check Size

$100K

Notable Investments

This is some text inside of a div block.

FirstMile is a VC firm that has an exclusive focus on seed and is only investing on companies that has raised <$1.5M in capital.

They are not thematic investors, looking for companies that fit their view of where the world is headed. Instead, they build their investment thesis around a strong founding team that has their own unique and compelling vision for their market.

Other partners at the fund