“Listen, are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?”
- Mary Oliver
Catherine Williams
Operating Partner
Hi, I'm Catherine.
As the child of two engineers, I grew up creating and building most of my favorite toys—scooters and Christmas tree forts and doll houses, all built from scrap wood in the garage. The joy of knowing you chose each wood shingle on the dollhouse roof far outweighed the imperfection of a few construction mishaps. I was fortunate to be raised by parents who valued creating over consuming.
Having spent the past decade in venture capital, I’ve learned to embrace the very visible mistakes that come with building startups. We throw our heart & soul behind companies that fail as often as they succeed.
You have to hold high conviction and visible failure in the same hand. Just because a company fails doesn’t mean the work was a failure; you build, you test, you iterate, you learn, you try again.
The opportunity to learn & work alongside incredible founders (no matter the outcome) is undoubtedly the best job in the world.
"....we exist to champion founders across every aspect of building a business."
On the surface, venture capital looks like a prediction business. In practice, building a startup has less to do with the "rightness" of an investment and a lot more to do with managing the unexpected. Forecasts are powerful tools, but they are powerless without a team willing to manage the unexpected challenges that every business encounters, no matter how well capitalized.
Mudita, a Sanskrit word, means delighting in other people’s success, good fortune, and well-being. We exist to champion founders across every aspect of building a business. The job of creating net new innovations requires a certain amount of glass chewing, and here at Mudita, we hope to make that job just a tiny bit easier.
As a Growth Partner, I am excited to support founders as they navigate challenging markets & compound learning into growth. I strive to be the first call a founder makes when they need a listening ear, regardless of how sticky the situation might be. Over time, I aim to earn the right to be called a partner, in every sense of the word.