Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Mitchell Green - Lessons from Cold Calling 10,000 Companies - [Invest Like the Best, EP.464]

402 snips
Mar 24, 2026
Guest
Mitchell Green
Mitchell Green, co-founder of Lead Edge Capital, a growth equity investor, shares how cold calling 10,000 companies shaped a disciplined investing machine. He gets into pattern recognition, an eight-point filter, creative deal structures, LPs as a sourcing edge, selling with forward IRR discipline, resilient software incumbents, firm culture, and why AI may reshape markets unevenly.
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INSIGHT

Why The Criteria Filter Better Than They Predict

  • The eight criteria are not predictive scores; they are a strike zone that shrinks 9,000 companies into a workable pool.
  • Mitchell Green says requiring all eight would leave too few candidates, so the framework exists to focus attention and avoid wasting time.
INSIGHT

How Young Analysts Pull Real Numbers From Founders

  • Cold outreach works when analysts arrive informed, ask anchored questions, and make it easy for founders to correct toward real numbers.
  • Mitchell Green calls it investigative journalism with sales and says AI now helps juniors sound informed enough to keep entrepreneurs talking.
INSIGHT

Scaling The Machine Without Losing Creativity

  • The next improvement to Lead Edge is preserving scrappy creativity as the firm scales, especially in structured secondaries and special situations.
  • Mitchell Green says increasingly liquid private secondary markets mean they can underwrite to reaching escape velocity, not just to going public.
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