Redefining Venture Success with Court Lorenzini
After leading DocuSign to a historic IPO, Court Lorenzini faced a question most founders never get to ask: What now?
His answer wasn’t another startup or another fund. It was something far more ambitious.
In this episode of the Predictable Revenue Podcast, Court shares why he’s betting on founders themselves, and how his latest venture, Founder Nexus, is redefining support, community, and success for entrepreneurs around the world.
The “Now What?” Moment
After taking DocuSign public, Court had what most founders dream of: financial freedom and a historic win. But once the dust settled, he found himself staring at a blank slate. No pressure to work. No urgent next move. Just a simple, disorienting question: Now what?
Court could have coasted. Joined boards. Chased another unicorn. But he didn’t. Instead, he zeroed in on a problem most people in his position overlook: how broken the founder journey still is for the next generation.
That realization sparked his next act, not another startup, but a global support system for the people building them. One built around shared experience, not top-down advice. One designed to rebalance opportunity for founders everywhere, not just in Silicon Valley.
Because for Court, the real impact wasn’t building another billion-dollar company. It was helping 10,000 founders build one of their own.
Most Advice for Founders Is Broken
Startups don’t fail because founders aren’t smart enough. They fail because the support system around them is upside down.
Investors write checks. Advisors give frameworks. But when you’re in the trenches at 2 am trying to make payroll or navigate a co-founder meltdown, theory doesn’t cut it. What you need is real-world wisdom from someone who’s lived it.
Lorenzini saw this firsthand. Again and again, he watched promising founders flame out not from a lack of grit or vision, but from avoidable mistakes that could’ve been sidestepped with the right input at the right time.
The truth is:
Founders are one of the most precious and most wasted resources in the startup ecosystem. And the fastest way to change that? Flip the model. Give founders access to each other, not just capital. Prioritize lived experience over pitch decks and playbooks.
A New Model for Founder Success
Founder Nexus isn’t a fund. It’s not an accelerator. And it’s definitely not another gatekept “network.”
It’s a membership-based model built for one purpose: helping founders win, wherever they are, whatever stage they’re in. No equity. No inflated fees. Just relevant, peer-driven support that meets them where they are.
At its core is a five-tier matching system that connects founders by geography and company stage. Early-stage SaaS in Singapore? Bootstrapping in Berlin? You’ll get paired with peers facing the same problems, not generic advice from someone three stages ahead or 5,000 miles away.
The results speak for themselves:
Members of Founder Nexus are seeing 3x higher success rates compared to those going it alone.
And maybe the most surprising upside? Mental health. For many founders, this is the only space they don’t have to pretend everything’s fine. It’s a pressure-release valve they can’t get from investors, employees, or even their families.
In a world obsessed with scaling products, Founder Nexus is scaling something else: the people behind them.
Beyond Silicon Valley & the ‘Power 30’ Cities
The startup world has long centered around a handful of power cities: San Francisco, New York, and London. But that model is cracking.
The vision goes beyond just fixing founder support.
He’s playing a global game, one that aims to rebalance where and how startups get built. His approach rests on a “three-legged stool”: democratize capital, talent, and expertise.
Through initiatives like VC Lab, now powering over 50% of new venture funds globally, most of which are outside traditional hubs, Court is helping new funds launch everywhere from Lagos to Lisbon. Founder Nexus adds the human layer: peer support that makes isolation optional and success more likely, no matter your time zone.
With remote work now normalized and knowledge decoupled from geography, the next breakout company won’t need a Silicon Valley zip code. It just needs a founder with access to the right people, the right insight, and the support to keep going when things get hard.
That’s the bet Founder Nexus is making.
Culture & Long-Term Impact
Court Lorenzini isn’t chasing quick wins. He’s building infrastructure for founders by founders that will still matter 20 years from now.
His goal isn’t more unicorns. It’s more sustainable, community-powered wins. Less burnout, more belonging. Less “fake it till you make it,” more real-world support when it matters most.
The vision is simple:
A world where geography doesn’t dictate opportunity. Where a founder in Des Moines, Dakar, or Dhaka has the same shot at building a billion-dollar business as someone in San Francisco, without having to uproot their life to do it.
This is how you shift startup culture. Not with another fund. But by creating a system where founders can thrive, on their own terms, in their own communities, with people who’ve actually walked the path.
Founder Nexus is the first step toward that future.
Conclusion
Court Lorenzini isn’t just reimagining founder support, he’s rebuilding it from the ground up.
Founder Nexus flips the script on how we define value in the startup world: less capital-first, more human-first. It’s proof that when founders have access to the right peers, practical support, and a global mindset, they don’t just survive, they thrive.
The next generation of billion-dollar companies won’t come from the usual places, and they won’t be built alone. They’ll be built by better-supported founders, everywhere.
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