Turner Novak / Banana Capital

Turner Novak is the Founder and Solo GP of Banana Capital, a fund that’s built distribution infrastructure to support portfolio companies.

Turner’s background shaped his approach. He got his start in an investment club during college for free pizza. Worked in a factory assembling shelves for JCPenney to pay for college. Spent years getting rejected from VC jobs because he didn’t have Stanford on his resume or Uber on his LinkedIn. Took an 80% pay cut to intern at Afore Capital. Sold his house and rental property for runway. Launched his fund during peak COVID chaos in March 2020. Growing up, he watched his mom survive on a Canadian visa, running a custom wedding gown business while getting paid under the table. That taught him: “You just learn to survive and do whatever it takes.”

Our conversation gets into his multi-channel strategy. The memes on X/Twitter, the podcast (The Peel), the newsletter (The Split). They’re all top-of-funnel infrastructure designed to support founders. “You’re building up distribution that you can lend to portfolio companies. There’s a lot of VCs who build their own personal brand and I think that’s actually falling short of what you could do.” When a portfolio company needs to hire, Turner’s already built the talent pipeline. When they need customer traction, he’s got the reach. The distribution compounds for them, not just for him.

He recognized early that not everyone lives on X/Twitter. So he meets founders where they are. The memes travel throughout Slack channels. The podcast reaches founders during commutes. The newsletter hits inboxes directly. One insight, repurposed across every channel, compounding reach.

We also talk about the emerging manager grind. Before noon, he’s pitched LPs, met with founders, coordinated with fund admin, and recorded podcast episodes. The context switching is relentless. “The average shelf life of an online content creator is about seven years. I’m in about eight, doing it pretty consistently. I don’t feel burnt out, because I do things I’m interested in.”

Full episode below, or on Spotify / Apple Podcasts