This feature is part of All Day Founders, a new ongoing series contributed by Sanket Mittal, founder of Althra, which follows founders, investors, and senior operators day-to-day as they build their businesses.

The plan was 8:30 AM.

I was picking up Boris Wertz, founding partner at Version One, $400M+ under management, and the man who saw the potential in Clio, Jobber, and Wattpad before almost anyone else.

I’d spent the previous day deep-cleaning my car. I had a cortado in the cup holder that I’d guessed was his order. I was looking to set the right tone for the day ahead.

Thank god I showed up early. True to German precision, Boris was already on the curb at 8:28 AM.

As we started weaving through Vancouver traffic, I asked him about his kids. I expected a man whose career is built on forecasting the future to have an exact blueprint for his children’s lives.

Instead, he told me his approach was the same as his investment thesis: Trust the founder.

"I trust in my founders to find their way," he said. "I trust my kids the same way."

His approach to parenting isn't about imposing choices or maps. It’s the same model he uses in venture, believing in their inherent aptitude and simply being a resource when needed.

It was my first hint that Boris doesn't scale by controlling variables. He scales by picking the right people and giving them the space to breathe.

We got to the office, and Boris graciously allowed me access to his world for the next few hours. I sat in on everything—board meetings, informal portco check-ins, internal meetings, and pitches.

Being a fly on the wall was a series of quiet realizations. It redefined my idea of how someone at the top of their field acts.

What immediately stood out was that he doesn't lead with an opinion. Despite seeing the startup ecosystem from every possible angle, Boris never offered an outright piece of feedback unless asked directly.

Instead, he just asked questions.

“What are you most excited about?” “What is going to move the needle?” “What can I do that would have the biggest impact?”

It made me think about my own need to offer 'explicit value' through feedback just to feel useful. Watching Boris, it became obvious as an investor you won't be in the room for the 2:00 AM crisis or the big pivot. By asking questions rather than giving answers, he's reinforcing the only thing that matters: trusting the founder to find the way themselves.

Then there’s the way he handles time. He is a master of what I call the "unapologetic interruption."

Every meeting ended on time or earlier because as soon as Boris got his question answered, he would politely but firmly cut the fluff and move to the next question.

It isn't about being rude; it’s about being surgical. He manages energy, not just minutes, for both himself and others on the call.

But what really stuck with me is that even at this level, venture investing is unscalable.

If you have dreams of being a founding partner thinking it will be all dinners and AGMs where you can sit back and let your network do the work, watching Boris handle his calls made me realize how wrong that is.

It was a reminder that even after ten years of winning, top-tier venture investing remains unscalable. Boris is still in the trenches.. personally managing deal flow and jumping on planes to San Francisco, Toronto, and India. He hasn't lost the 'builder' hunger that started it all.

To be a top-decile investor, there is no "stepping away."

We broke for lunch and walked over to a nearby Vietnamese place. I asked him where the drive to build came from initially when he started JustBooks.

Boris told me about his parents back in Germany, both pharmacists who owned their own shops.

Business wasn't just a career path for him rather it was ingrained in his lifestyle from the start.

I asked him if he had ever actually worked a 9-to-5?

He said he’d had a job lined up after his PhD and was taking a quick trip before his start date.

That trip ended up being the pivot point of his life. He saw a news clip about Alando.de being acquired by eBay for $43 million just 100 days after launch. Suddenly, the job he was supposed to start didn't matter anymore.

It was a total leap of faith. But watching the Alando acquisition made one thing clear: the price of staying safe was too high. The 'unknowns' of entrepreneurship were less scary than the thought of watching this era pass him by from the safety of a 9-to-5.

Without even a product or direction, he called his manager and quit before he ever started. He went all-in on a phase he didn't even fully understand, but he had conviction that he would figure it out.

That conviction turned into Justbooks, which was later acquired by Abebooks. Boris then tag-teamed with his Justbooks co-founder to lead it to an Amazon acquisition.

"Looking back at your time building Justbooks, would you invest in yourself today?"

He thought for a second.

By his own current standards, he lacked "product-founder fit" a trait he usually looks for in a founder. On paper, it was a 'no.'

His verdict would change when he looked at his personal superpowers:

Early-stage investing doesn't follow a strict framework. It’s about pattern matching; a “gut feel” honed by a decade-long feedback loop of seeing thousands of pitches.

If he had to boil that instinct down, it comes to three pillars:

As the day ended, I realized the most impressive thing about Boris wasn't the $400M+ AUM. It was the purity and presence he brings to the craft.

He’s a man who has reached the top of his field yet still approaches the earliest stages of innovation with the same passion and intellectual curiosity that drove him at the beginning of his career.

Only now with a bigger pile of money and when he moves, people take note.

His approach to investing hasn’t changed.

Early-stage venture is a grind. But if you’re doing it right, the first principles are the same:

Find the right people. Trust them. And get out of the way.