When Jeff Morris Jr. first started investing, he was not trying to build a venture firm or rethink the scout model. He was an operator with strong product instincts, writing small angel checks while leading product teams at companies like Tinder.
That path eventually led him into Index Ventures’ scout program, where he quietly built one of the top-performing scout funds in his cohort. Even with strong results, operating behind the scenes raised a deeper question for Jeff: what if venture had a better way to surface investing talent in the first place?
That question became the foundation for Chapter One’s Scout Program. I spoke with Jeff about his path into investing, what traditional scout programs miss, and how Scout Program is designed to make investing talent visible.
Before Chapter One was a firm or a scout program, it was just you operating as a scout. How did you first get into investing while still building products full-time?
I started angel investing before Tinder. When AngelList launched, I ran my own syndicate, starting with small checks and eventually scaling into SPVs as my network grew through my work as an operator.
While working full-time as VP of Product, I spent nights and mornings meeting founders, reading decks, and thinking about investing. I was scouting for Index Ventures at the time, and I approached startups the same way I approached product problems: pattern recognition, incentive design, and long-term thinking about behavior.
The Index scout fund was a turning point. I treated it as a proof of concept for becoming a venture capitalist. I built a public-facing brand, ran the back office like an institutional operation, and kept a clean track record so I would have something real to show.
By then, I had put in enough reps to trust my judgment, win competitive deals, and understand how I could help founders meaningfully. There was no grand strategy. I followed my curiosity and wanted to be the first believer for founders I respected.
You joined Index’s scout program in 2018 while leading product at Tinder. What did that experience teach you about how scout programs actually work?
Getting into a scout program is just the starting point. It gives you capital, but it does not give you an edge.
The real work is finding exceptional founders early and winning allocation. That comes down to taste, relationships, and how useful you are to founders. I leaned into my operator background, especially around growth and monetization, and earned my way onto cap tables by helping companies ship and scale.
It was also my first experience managing a defined pool of external capital with a clear mandate. I treated the scout fund as the first chapter of a real venture career. I believed that if I invested well, I would earn the chance to raise my own fund, and that is exactly what happened.
That fund delivered strong results, yet you had to operate almost entirely behind the scenes. How did that contrast shape your thinking?
That experience fundamentally changed how I thought about scout programs.
I started to see scouts as a critical training ground for future investors, but most programs were not designed to develop talent. One of the biggest gaps was mentorship.
If scouting is meant to be a proving ground, then learning from people who have built enduring firms and portfolios should be core to the experience. With Scout Program, I wanted to be intentional about that.
We assembled a mentor group that reflects a wide range of perspectives across venture and capital allocation, including:
Mamoon Hamid, Partner at Kleiner Perkins
Keith Rabois, Managing Director at Khosla Ventures
Rebecca Kaden, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures
Kyle Samani, Founder at Multicoin Capital
Roger Ehrenberg, Managing Partner at Game Changers
Gokul Rajaram, Founding Partner at Marathon
Tomasz Tunguz, General Partner at Theory Ventures
Ashton Kutcher, General Partner at Sound Ventures
Laura Andron, Managing Director at Pathstone
Kelli Fontaine, Partner at Cendana Capital
For me, this group represents the kind of judgment and pattern recognition that actually accelerates learning. It is not about prestige. It is about giving scouts real feedback from people who have spent years doing the work.
At some point, you realized the real bottleneck in venture was not capital, but talent discovery. What made that click?
I believe there are hundreds, if not thousands, of exceptional early-stage investors waiting to be discovered.
Too much access in venture still depends on closed networks. Most scout programs require a tap on the shoulder from a GP just to get in. If you have an original thesis and a unique network, there should be a path into investing.
Scout Program is open to anyone with a genuine passion for the craft, whether or not they want to become a full-time VC.
Traditional scout programs are mostly private and firm-led. What did you want to design differently with Chapter One?
I have a product mindset, so my instinct was that scouting should feel like a product.
It should be engaging, competitive, and designed with clear incentives and outcomes. A lot of people say they want to become investors. Very few are willing to put their work out in the open. We wanted to give them a platform to do that.
Each scout gets real capital, high autonomy, and the ability to build a public investing identity. Performance is visible, and reputation becomes the ultimate reward.
You’ve described Scout Program as “YC energy meets fantasy sports mechanics.” What does that look like in practice?
Scout Program is season-based and built around public performance.
Each scout has a public profile and a player card that shows their track record. Scouts are effectively drafting their ideal roster of founders and backing talent others have not recognized yet.
For Season One, we are selecting ten scouts and giving each $100K to deploy over the year. They build their theses, portfolios, and reputations in public.
Radical transparency is a bold choice in venture. Why make everything public?
Venture has become overly focused on access and logos. What actually matters is who had conviction first.
Scout Program makes each scout’s thesis and investment decisions visible. When someone connects dots early or earns a founder’s trust before a round becomes competitive, that work deserves to be seen.
My goal is to close the gap between doing the work and getting credit for it. I want to find the world’s best pickers and let them prove it in a single season.
What does “winning” at Chapter One unlock long-term?
Winning makes great operators legible as investors.
It gives you credibility with founders and other investors, better economics, mentorship, and a real track record you can build on. Scout Program compresses years of quietly proving yourself into one visible season.
Winning changes how rooms treat you. Founders call you first. You get introduced to world-class people. Scout Program is designed to help people earn that moment.
Five years from now, what do you hope Chapter One changes about who gets to call themselves an investor?
I hope investor stops being treated as a title and starts being recognized as a skill.
An investor is someone who can consistently find and back outlier founders and help them win. That does not require permission from existing networks.
I want to surface operators, ex-founders, engineers, and product leaders, especially those embedded in overlooked networks. Many of them are already investing with their time or capital. Scout Program is simply giving them a platform to do that work in the open.
Conclusion
Chapter One’s Scout Program is an attempt to make early-stage investing more merit-driven, more legible, and more accessible, while treating the craft of investing with the same rigor and intentional design as the best products.
Launching the program on AngelList was a natural choice for Jeff. It is where he ran his first syndicates, built early LP relationships, and learned the mechanics of investing. With AngelList handling reporting, compliance, and fund infrastructure, Chapter One can focus entirely on discovering and developing investing talent.
If you are interested in launching a scout program or fund on AngelList, learn more here.
