John Murphy

Music has been my obsession for as long as I can remember. It started with flipping through vinyl 45s with my dad at the local record store and grew into my own CD collection and teaching myself guitar at 13. Then, one day, a simple compression algorithm changed everything.

The first time I heard an MP3, the opening notes of Metallica's Enter Sandman through a friend's computer speakers, I was hooked. Usenet, FTP servers, Napster. I never looked back. If a compression algorithm could rewrite an entire industry, what couldn't technology do?

I started my career in public accounting at Grant Thornton, learning the fundamentals of how businesses actually run. But I couldn't shake the pull of technology, and in 2011 I joined PJC, and early-stage venture capital firm based in Boston. Since then, I've had the privilege of backing founders from day zero to growth stages who are doing for their industries what the MP3 did for music.

Entrepreneurship is equal parts art and science. There's no perfect "genre" of founder. For every Eddie Van Halen, classically trained from age six, there's a Kurt Cobain, composing by ear. Great founders come from anywhere.

What I've learned at Hyperplane is that patience is the most underrated trait an early stage investor can bring. The early innings are unlike any other, and grit, perspective, and the long view matter more than anything else.