Dakota McKenzie / Dynamic Fund

Dakota McKenzie is the Founder of Dynamic Fund, a $10M fund writing $500k–$1M checks into technical SaaS founders.

Dakota was the first in his family to go to college. He figured out his path into tech by working at startups in Boston to pay for school, becoming obsessed with working at the earliest stages. That led him into early GTM roles at Databricks and Segment, then he joined Unusual Ventures under John Vrionis.

In parallel, he started Dynamic Growth Partners with his co-founder Trey, helping technical SaaS founders find product-market fit and build GTM. That business now supports over 60 companies doing $160M+ in combined ARR, brings in $2M/year. Over 30% of their clients have gone on to raise Series A from top-tier firms.

Our conversation gets into what he learned from that work. “I started noticing that many startups just don’t make it, even the ones that look good on paper. There wasn’t some big aha moment. It was just the same patterns showing up over and over.”

We also talk about how he keeps consulting and investing separate. “Good consulting isn’t good investing.” Only one of his 60+ clients has become a portfolio company. He doesn’t promise to do the work for founders he invests in. “The best founders just want to be elite, be coached, and then they want you to get out of their way.”

Dakota leans into the lens he’s built from doing the work at depth. “You’ll hear everyone say you need to get to $1M in revenue as fast as possible. What’s more useful is asking: Do we even have the right product? Do people actually want this? Why is this differentiated? Then you can build a repeatable process from there.”

Full episode below, or on Spotify / Apple Podcasts