Aubrie Pagano

Aubrie is a General Partner at Alpaca Ventures, a New York-based venture fund with a portfolio that includes Imperfect Foods, Classpass, Aloha, and Core.

Aubrie brings experience from both sides of the New York City startup ecosystem as both an operator and investor. Most recently, she built and sold her cult-favorite apparel and gifting brand, Bow & Drape.

On her morning routine.

Most days I’m up at 7.30 AM and dive right into the news.

My average routine involves checking the Times, the front page of Reddit, and email. Then I’m making tea and getting dressed for the day pretty quickly.

It’s critical that I’m up and getting prepped with intention. 

Part of that process is getting dressed like I’d go to work, even though I’m still working from home. Putting on a more professional outfit just makes me feel better and more productive throughout the day. After getting changed, I’m at my desk around 9 AM.

On stress management.

When I was younger and having a stressful day, I’d just push through it.

From a mental health perspective, that definitely wasn’t the best thing for me.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve also gotten better at paying attention when my energy and motivation levels ebb and flow. I’ve had to come to terms with the natural up and down motion, and ride the waves accordingly.

Over time, I’ve gotten less hard on myself and more focused on self-care.

As someone who’s always been type A, my focus has always been on achievement, but I realized that stress can be more detrimental to your performance than just optimizing output. Everyone has those days where they can’t get everything done.

I’m slowly getting better at not beating myself up over it.

It’s not fair to me and just not worth the stress. The number of things to get done at a startup is endless, and it’s impossible to check everything off.

We comfort ourselves with this idea that we can create a universe where we can feel control over a to-do list, but in reality, we’re really just doing the best we can.

On energy output tips.

My three key energy givers are writing, working with founders, and working with my team. Whenever I’m a bit tired or drained, I’ll focus on one of these three activities.

When it comes to filtering what types of people I want to collaborate with, relating to both founders and my internal team at Alpaca, it comes down to self-awareness. 

The more self-aware you are, the more capable you become in navigating the external and internal challenges that will always arise in the startup world.

I also look for some kind of repeated outstanding achievement in someone’s past, especially when those points of success follow an exponential versus linear growth curve.

On natural ambition.

Success is a learned skill. 

People don’t just wake up and get good at things. It takes deliberate practice over a given period of time, and it’ll require more than mere skill or talent. 

I’ve always been wildly internally motivated. 

Put simply, I want to win at everything.

Sure, part of my ambition and success to date comes from an innate drive, but you have to couple that with practice and skill development.

On productivity systems.

I live and die by my calendar.

I’m always adding notes directly into my calendar or sending follow-ups to myself in my email inbox. That two-part system keeps my shower thoughts and random late-night thoughts organized and funneled into an ongoing to-do list so nothing gets lost.

I’m also a religious list maker.

Nothing feels better than to cross another item off for the day.

I typically segment that list into two, a rolling list of new things, and a priority list containing the top two to three things that need to get done by the end of the day.

These two systems really act as guardrails to keep me focused, especially in a world where we’re all constantly inundated with notifications that quickly can get you off track.

On her evening routine.

One thing that’s worked quite well is getting out of the house. 

When I’m done for the day, I’ll leave the house, get some tea, and take a walk around the park in Greenpoint. Another thing that’s helped enormously is meditation.

It palpably shifts my internal state and prepares me for the evening.

After that routine, I’ll do a final check through emails to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

About a half-hour before bed I’ll cut screen time, then I’m in bed around midnight.