I'm a VC founder. Here's a day in my life, from coffee and emails at 4 a.m. to taking a Waymo to dance class at noon
Kate McAndrew cofounded the San Francisco-based VC firm Baukunst in 2022.
She told BI she builds out her schedule every quarter to accommodate her son and 12 p.m. dance classes.
Her "deep work" begins around 4 a.m., and she's asleep by about 8:30 p.m.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kate McAndrew, a San Francisco-based 38-year-old cofounder and general partner at VC firm Baukunst. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I got my first opportunity in venture capital in 2012, and as soon as I found venture, it was like two puzzle pieces fitting together.
In 2022, I founded Baukunst, a VC fund that I'm a general partner at with three other partners. We invest in brand-new technology startups in the pre-seed phase on the frontiers of technology and design. We raised a $100 million debut fund, and now we're off to the races.
No two days in a week are alike for me, but most of my weeks look the same. Mondays look like Mondays, or Tuesdays look like Tuesdays, but all of the days are different.
A big part of that is because I have 50/50 custody of my son, so my whole schedule gets built out around him.
My assistant and I do a quarterly planning of my schedule. I really lean into my natural rhythms and create structure based on what worked previously. I make my choices, and I own my choices, and that's not a privilege everybody has. But I think in the ways that you can control your time, you should.
My day starts at 4 a.m. with coffee
I wake up at 4 a.m. every day, and I am one of those people who wakes up awake.
I make coffee with my automated pour-over, and I drink as much of it as I want.
Once I get my coffee, I open my laptop right away. I'm probably already on my phone on the way down to make the coffee, which I drink with a little bit of half and half.
My deep work takes place between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. That's when I'm cranking through emails and when I'm most creative.
I drink a smoothie filled with functional mushrooms every day
I do a green smoothie every morning that has all my functional mushrooms in it, which are said to produce functional benefits, such as brain elasticity. I love them.
I either make my smoothie to drink in bed while I work or when I make breakfast for my son.
My son and I read for 45 minutes every morning
If I have my son, we have a wild morning routine where I'll make him breakfast in bed and we read for about 45 minutes. Then we'll get dressed and go to school.
I walk with a weighted vest
If I'm not dancing later that day, I go for a walk in the morning with a weighted vest. I walk about a mile — it's more about moving and seeing the sunrise than exercise.
I walk to my office around 8:30 a.m.
I can walk to my office, so I walk to my office.
Out of four cofounders, two of us are in San Francisco and we both live in the same neighborhood. A place was available halfway between our houses, and we were like, "We run this company. We can make this work for us."
Having everything feel totally integrated geographically has made me feel completely integrated with this community in a lot of different capacities. It is also so practical. I don't deal with parking.
I dance every Tuesday at noon during my lunch break
The non-negotiable for me is that I need to dance at least three days a week. So I plan all of my dance classes a quarter in advance.
Dance hits so many things for me — it's like this totally transcendent, ultra-efficient self-care. It's a physical workout, it's an emotional release, and it's a community.
My dance classes are one hour long and depend on the week, but most commonly, I dance every Tuesday at noon. It's a great class, and I never miss it.
I've killed the unproductive commute
I Waymo and work in the car on the way to dance. There's a community space at the dance studio and I will often take calls from the dance studio right before and after.
It was my assistant who figured this out. She was just like, "Why'd you miss dance class?" I was like, "I couldn't find a parking spot." She was like, "Why are you driving?" I was like, "It's expensive." She was like, "You can afford it."
I eat grocery store sushi for lunch
There's a store by our office, and I just get either a cup of soup or grocery store sushi for lunch. It's less than $10, reasonably healthy, and super fast. I do not snack during the day.
Half of the workday is usually back-to-back calls, and the other half is reserved for focused work or longer networking coffees
Usually once or twice a week, either the morning or afternoon is taken up by a big board meeting or a strategy session with a founder.
I try to reserve half the day for focused work or a networking coffee that's going to be an hour and a half, and then the other half is typically transactional 30-minute Zooms.
I head over to a wine bar around 4 p.m. and finish my workday there
If I'm picking up my son from school, I finish off the day while I'm having a glass of wine.
That allows me to decelerate from the workday and then transition into mom mode. For a while, I was like, "Is it weird to be going to get a glass of wine at four?" And then I was like, "No, it's fine."
I pick up my son around 5 p.m. and we're asleep by 8:30 p.m.
If I have my son, there's no phone. I don't want him to see me with the device.
I'll pick him up, we'll go to the park and play together, and then I'll cook dinner. We eat around 6 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. and then his bath is at 7 p.m.
We're both in bed by 7:45 and asleep by 8:30 p.m.
I typically go to one work event a week
If I don't have my son, I usually make it to one work event per week. If I'm not at a work event, I'm either dancing in the evening or having dinner with my boyfriend.
I am in constant iteration cycles based on what works for me, my family, and my company
In startups, 9-to-5 is a total fiction; you really have to think about seven days a week.
This is what's working for me now, but in six months, I'll probably have three things that stopped working for me — and I'll iterate.
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