Why We Invest in Teams: From Hype to You Too
Why great venture investments start with teams, not products. Using U2’s early years, we show why early-stage VCs back people who can evolve, pivot, and compound long before the product is finished.
Written by David Thyresson • 6 min read
Back teams that evolve faster than markets change
Most early products aren’t very good. They’re incomplete. Overbuilt. Pointed at a market that doesn’t quite exist yet or doesn’t yet care.
Decks look polished. Demos behave. Reality hasn’t arrived.
So the real question for an early-stage tech VC is rarely:
Is this product great?
It’s:
Is this a team that can get somewhere great?
Sometimes the product is wrong. Sometimes the timing is wrong. Sometimes the story isn’t clear yet.
But occasionally, the team is unmistakably right.
Before U2 was U2, they were called The Hype
Don’t believe the hype. Not yet.
It’s raw. Unpolished. Clearly unfinished.
This is not a band at the peak of its powers. It’s not even obvious what the final sound is supposed to be.
So when you watch it, ask yourself: Would you invest in a band literally called The Hype?
On the surface, this is exactly the kind of thing investors are trained to avoid. No proven product. No clear market. A name that sounds more like a warning label than a strategy.
And yet, this is precisely why we would have invested.
Not because the product was ready. But because the team was.
If you watch early footage of U2 you don’t see a finished product
You see something:
- Uneven
- Loud
- Sometimes awkward
You do not see product-market fit. At least not yet.
But that doesn’t mean the product was wrong. It hadn’t found its full audience. Its final form. Its enduring narrative.
What was already there was trajectory.
Five years: team, mentors, leverage
In 1978, The Hype were raw and undefined. By 1983, U2 were playing Red Rocks.
That five-year gap is the whole story. What changed wasn’t the people. It was everything around them.
During those early years:
- The team stayed intact. Same four people. Clear roles. No churn.
- They brought in mentors, starting with producer Steve Lillywhite, who helped them turn instinct into structure without sanding off the edges.
- They learned how to use technology as leverage through The Edge’s restrained use of delay, turning limitation into identity.
This maps cleanly to the early startup lifecycle. The first product isn’t great. The second one usually isn’t either. (Ok, maybe U2 is an exception.)
But over five years, strong teams:
- Reduce noise with the right advisors
- Clarify roles before scaling output
- Use technology to amplify intent, not hide weakness
We’ve written before about this as the five-year startup multiverse where early companies explore many possible futures, and the best teams steadily collapse that uncertainty into one coherent direction.
U2 didn’t “break out” at Red Rocks. They converged there. Five years of iteration collapsed dozens of possible futures into one.
That’s what we mean when we talk about a five-year horizon. Not betting that version one works. Betting that this team when guided well and using leverage wisely, will still be standing when it does.
Bands and startups
I’ve written before about how startups are a lot like bands.
Small groups. Clear roles. Extreme constraints. Trying to create something that resonates before money, time, or belief runs out.
Most great bands don’t start with a hit. They start with conviction.
U2 is a canonical example.
At its core, U2 is a quartet. Four people. No excess. No rotation. A structure that has endured for decades.
That alone maps well to how many strong founding teams are built early: small, opinionated, and deeply interdependent.
Technology as expression
The Edge’s use of delay is a useful metaphor for how strong founders use technology.
The technology itself wasn’t new. What mattered was how it was applied. It amplified intent. It didn’t replace it.
Great founders don’t just “use AI” or “add automation.”
They shape technology into something emotionally legible.
This is where taste shows up early. Often before traction. Sometimes before revenue.
You see it in:
- What founders choose not to build
- The constraints they impose
- How they talk about the problem
Taste compounds.
Pivoting without losing the core
U2 changed over time. Sound. Aesthetics. Production. Attitude. But they never abandoned the core of who they were.
That’s the difference between evolution and panic.
The best founders do the same. Strategy changes. Products get rebuilt. Markets shift. But the reason these people are working together remains intact.
As investors, this matters more than any roadmap.
We’re not betting that version one will work. We’re betting that this group of people can keep writing, creating, bulding, shipping until something connects.
What we look for early
At PWV (Preston-Werner Ventures), we work with many young, first-time founders.
Often before the story is fully formed. Before the product makes sense to anyone but them. Sometimes before it even works.
That’s fine.
What we look for early is:
- Confidence without arrogance
- The ability to learn in public
- Willingness to reshape both the product and the narrative
Without losing belief. You don’t need a hit single yet. You need a band that can stay together long enough and honest enough to find one.
Why teams outlast products
Products are temporary. Markets move. Technology changes.
Teams compound.
Some of the best investments don’t start with certainty. They start with a feeling:
This team will figure it out.
If you only judged early U2 on polish or immediate commercial success, you would have missed it. But if you paid attention to the people, their cohesion, their ambition, and their ability to evolve, you could see the trajectory. That’s why, sometimes, you invest in the team and not the product. Because the product can change. The story can change. The name can change.
But the right team will keep finding its (own) Edge. 🎸