Chad Byers grew up selling Beanie Babies on eBay at age 11 and later helped digitize the electric grid at Silver Spring Networks, giving him an unusual combination of early internet commerce experience and regulated infrastructure expertise. He describes building Susa Ventures using startup language—calling their first fund a $25M seed round with no product—and focuses on companies with strong data network effects or scale economies rather than generic brand defensibility, while maintaining a low 6-8 company ratio per partner to stay deeply involved. Chad Byers grew up selling Beanie Babies on eBay at age 11 and later helped digitize the electric grid at Silver Spring Networks, giving him an unusual combination of early internet commerce experience and regulated infrastructure expertise. He describes building Susa Ventures using startup language—calling their first fund a $25M seed round with no product—and focuses on companies with strong data network effects or scale economies rather than generic brand defensibility, while maintaining a low 6-8 company ratio per partner to stay deeply involved.