Introducing Steelhead

Hey everyone, this is Steelhead, a substack by me, Erik Zahnlecker (X).

I’m thrilled to be launching this today, in the first week of 2024. Not because the internet or your inbox needs another newsletter, but because it’s the beginning of a new chapter for me, and I’m excited to share part of it with you.

The last 7.5 years since grad school have been action-packed - I built a company & sold it, built a 50+ person AI team at a large public company, moved to Paris with my wife, and most recently built & led teams at a growth stage startup. I’m now working on what’s next, and am excited to fill some of the space with writing.

Writing is something I’ve dabbled with in the past, always enjoyed, but never stuck with amidst the craziness that is life. I look forward to getting back on the horse! I hope that somewhere along the way you’ll find some value in the words I have to say.

So, you might be wondering, why is this substack named after a fish? Valid question.

Truth be told, I’ve been wanting to do something with the Steelhead name since 2015, when I was a Master’s student at Stanford, enrolled in MS&E 276: Entrepreneurial Management & Finance. During the class, 3 friends and I formed a team and named it “Steelhead Equity”. I had always enjoyed fly fishing and thought it was a great name. We didn’t think much more about it until one of the co-instructors of the course, Trevor Loy, wrote us an email about how he liked the name and described how it was an apt metaphor for startup building and investing. At that moment a seed was planted, and it’s been watered ever-so-slightly over the intervening ~8 years.

Steelhead are the anadromous (they live in both fresh and saltwater) form of coastal rainbow trout. They are born in freshwater, migrate to the ocean for several years to forage, and then return to their native freshwater to spawn. During their years in the ocean, Steelhead face harsh conditions, causing most to die. The few that survive to return to spawn are cunning, strong, and fast.

Due to their strength, speed, lack of interest in feeding when they come to freshwater to spawn, and generally low numbers, catching one is incredibly difficult. It’s for this reason that fly fishermen have given Steelhead the moniker “The Fish of a Thousand Casts”.

The above article makes the metaphor to startup building and investing abundantly clear:

Only one or two out of a hundred survive the ocean’s dangers to return to their place of origin, some small patch of gravel in a vast world…Steelhead are called the Fish of a Thousand Casts for good reason: the effort is great and the catch count low. You’ll find yourself fishing in rain and snow storms, with water freezing in rod guides. You might fish for days without a strike. Then again, you might hit that magic day where you’ll land more than a few. Remember: it’s called fishing, not catching.

Put simply, being a successful entrepreneur and/or investor is hard, tiring, and comes with a low chance of success, just like Steelhead fishing. However, if successful, the reward is well worth the effort.

I’ll be using this Substack to write about company building and investing - two passions of mine. Topics covered will range from my own experiences to the experiences of others, macro trends, and much more.

As a teaser - my second post next week will dive into Customer Development and how it can be improved, leading to better outcomes for startups.

Hopefully, throughout this journey together, we’ll get that much closer to our thousandth cast…

Erik