Latest / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes / When IQ becomes a commodity

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When IQ becomes a commodity · AI for Founders with Ryan Estes

0:00
The defensibility score of your startup just hit zero and that
0:03
should terrify you. VCs are watching entire SAS
0:06
categories collapse in real time.
0:09
HubSpot is getting destroyed. CRMS are being vibe coded
0:12
overnight. The Moat you thought you had
0:15
gone. So if code is free and features
0:17
are free, what exactly are you selling?
0:19
The product was never the point. The product is a ticket to the
0:22
real game, which is community, proprietary data, and brand.
0:26
The founders who survived the next wave are not the ones with
0:29
the best tech, they're the ones who built something people
0:32
refuse to leave. Think about this, If IQ is now a
0:35
commodity that you can rent for $20.00 a month, the only
0:38
currency left is EQ, Taste, discernment, the ability to make
0:42
your customers feel smart, not just served.
0:45
So if your entire product got cloned tomorrow, would your
0:47
community still show up for you? And if the honest answer is no,
0:51
what does that tell you about what you have actually been
0:53
building? Welcome to AI for Founders.
0:55
I'm Ryan Estes and that was Jesse Marble, the founder of
0:58
Wildwood Ventures, a Colorado based VC firm investing in human
1:02
flourishing through technology. If you're a founder trying to
1:05
build something defensible in a world where software costs are
1:08
racing to 0, this conversation is your blueprint.
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1:14
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That's Kick Caster by MO Burst. Right.
2:11
There we go. Jesse, welcome to the show.
2:13
Thank you so much for joining me.
2:15
Brian, thank you for having me. Excited for today?
2:18
Absolutely and a true pleasure to be able to talk to another
2:20
Colorado company. You know, anytime I can talk to
2:23
neighbors, I love it. I, you know, had I bit had the
2:26
my wherewithal together, I would have come to see you in the
2:29
office. But maybe next time we can do a
2:31
a remote. Podcast next time in person
2:34
recording. Absolutely.
2:35
I love. It yeah, it's more fun that way.
2:37
I actually end up getting a lot less information, but I'm end up
2:40
having a lot more fun so it's worth it to me to to take it to
2:44
the road. Especially it gave me an excuse
2:46
to go buy some new hardware, which I'm pretty excited about
2:48
this new Zoom hardware I got, but that's neither here nor
2:51
there I'll. Follow up after and here are
2:53
your tips. Cool.
2:56
Well, I'm really excited to talk about your venture company,
2:59
Wildwood, largely because it seems to be emblematic of kind
3:03
of the Colorado lifestyle. But I'll let you kind of talk
3:06
about the companies that you're looking for and the companies
3:09
that you invest in. Yeah, cool.
3:11
Thank you. Yeah.
3:12
So Wildwood Ventures were an early stage venture capital
3:15
firm, pretty traditional in some ways as in we are looking for
3:21
passionate founders that have some level of discontent with
3:26
the world. All I mean by that is who can
3:29
look at the world and and think it should be different and
3:31
willing to put in the work to do that.
3:33
And that's pretty standard for other venture investors as well.
3:37
But yeah, you're you're talking about this kind of Colorado
3:39
lifestyle, Colorado culture angle.
3:42
Wildwood is rooted in this belief that we have more
3:46
technology in our pocket literally than sent Americans to
3:49
the moon the first time. We've got more content, more
3:52
gadgets, more connections, more all the things.
3:56
But subjectively, the human experience is not flourishing in
4:01
many ways. And you hear that around mental
4:02
health stats, around loneliness, stats around being sedentary.
4:07
I heard a stat that the average American spends 93% of their
4:11
time indoors. And that is the highest rate of
4:15
any civilization in human history.
4:18
And so that's what Wildwood is, is based on is we want to invest
4:22
in the kinds of companies that are bringing life to the full.
4:26
And that includes physical health, mental health.
4:28
We have a whole thesis area around outdoor sports, fitness
4:31
and exercise. We've got kind of a bunch of
4:33
categories that we invest in, but all around this idea of, of
4:36
human flourishing. So we're based here in the
4:38
Denver area and that definitely aligns with a lot of the, the
4:41
hobbies and culture we have of, of skiing and whatnot in
4:44
Colorado. But, but to be clear, Wildwood
4:46
is, is much bigger than just, you know, hiking and yoga.
4:50
There is a whole world of what it means to be healthy and
4:53
active that we look for and invest in.
4:55
So that's the Wildwood kind of thesis.
4:58
Our background we're actually we're the corporate venture
5:00
Capital Group that was inside of Denver based VF Corporation.
5:05
Many of your listeners, maybe you haven't heard of VF, but you
5:08
probably have of some of VF's brands in your closet.
5:11
The North Face Vans shoes, the American Classic Vans,
5:15
Timberland Smart Wool Ultra. They own 10 awesome brands and
5:19
they're based here in Denver. So we, we work closely with VF
5:23
and their awesome brand. So early stage tech startups, we
5:27
are investors and we get to do Shark Tank all the day, all day
5:30
long, meet founders, see what they're building and see if it
5:33
makes sense for us to be a part. So cool.
5:36
So is it a lot of this kind of CPG brands, but you also
5:40
mentioned tech and is there like service components as well?
5:43
Yeah, good question. So even though we're connected
5:46
to VF, which is obviously apparel, accessory footwear
5:49
kinds of brands, Wildwood's thesis is focused on technology,
5:53
software, digital platform. So not CPG, not physical
5:56
product, not stuff that will be for lack of a better analogy in
6:01
REI, but technology based businesses.
6:05
Cool amazing. Now that's it's a really cool
6:08
specialty, you know, largely because I am a Denver native
6:12
proudly, I host another podcast called real good Denver that's
6:17
all about preserving Denver culture events.
6:19
It's all it's just a like a big love story for, for the city and
6:24
the state, you know, and you probably, if you, if you looked
6:28
up Colorado guy in the dictionary, you see a picture of
6:31
me with a pickup, a flannel truck and dog.
6:34
I'm that stereotypical. I know I probably fall more into
6:38
the sportsman category because, you know, I'm like, I like a
6:42
destination at the end of my my hikes, you know, But this is
6:47
like a integral part of Colorado and why we've seen in the last
6:50
20 years so many people coming here is for this kind of quality
6:53
of life. Now, I will also shake my fist
6:56
at the sky because it clogs up by 70 and 285.
6:59
And like now I can't get to where I need to go, 'cause we
7:01
got all these millennials that are taking all my good spots, my
7:04
honey holes and I kid them. But it has been like a, a great
7:10
boon for the economy, you know, to the point that like there is
7:13
like an emergent outdoor lifestyle.
7:15
Now it's interesting to me to hear these statistics that were
7:18
all inside, particularly right now, I'm finding myself kind of
7:21
more and more falling victim to this, largely because the rate
7:25
of these tools advancing. I'm talking about Claude code
7:28
right now makes work so fun that I find myself working like 6:30
7:33
to 7:00 everyday and still feeling like I'm not getting
7:37
enough. So I want to get into kind of
7:39
like what you're looking for in deals, but I'd like to talk to
7:42
you personally, you know, just like how you're managing like
7:46
this onslaught of information, this onslaught of opportunity,
7:49
this onslaught of like desire to get inside the monitor and live
7:54
there. So what are you kind of doing to
7:56
improve kind of your mental health and what are some of
7:59
maybe your your practices and techniques?
8:01
Yeah, that's so great. Well, as as a little bit of
8:03
context, I, I have kids and there's a certain, you know,
8:07
balance that comes from having to make sure that the kids are
8:12
alive and fed and where they need to be.
8:14
And so there's these natural breaks in the day that I have
8:17
because of trying to be present with my kids.
8:21
But I think what's so interesting, man, we, we talk
8:24
about AI and the future of humanity a ton at Wildwood as a
8:29
team. And you know, there's of course,
8:32
there's the optimists and there's the pessimists, the
8:34
doomsdayers that say we're going to be killed by, you know,
8:37
killer robots in 20 years or something like that.
8:41
I tend to be an optimistic person myself.
8:44
And one of the fundamental things that we have not lived
8:47
through enough is somebody said recently, you know, every
8:51
generation believes that the world is going to end in some
8:53
form, whether it was from like electricity or nuclear bombs or
8:57
fill in the blank. And one of humanity's enduring
9:02
strengths was, is the ability to adapt and navigate that.
9:06
So there will be challenges, but at a really meta level, I, I
9:10
deeply believe that we can find ways for good.
9:13
And I will continue to operate that way at work and with my
9:17
family and, and in the world. As opposed to a more kind of
9:20
doomsday, doomsday view of that. One of the fascinating things
9:25
right now is what is, is what it means to be human if these tools
9:30
start to be better than us at core identities that we have
9:35
been proud of as humans, right? So for example, like we were, we
9:38
have been the apex predator for however long, or maybe not
9:41
predator is the right word, but sort of they call it apex
9:43
species based on multiple things.
9:47
One might be intelligence, right?
9:49
Well, no longer am I the smartest thing in any room that
9:52
I'm in. Everybody's got clawed sitting
9:54
on their machine, which is like, you know, can pass the bar,
9:57
examine every state in 5 minutes.
10:00
So, so there's the notion of like, we're not the most
10:02
intelligent person in the room anymore.
10:04
Another interesting category is the idea of an, of compassion or
10:08
kindness. I read this really fascinating
10:10
article in Wired magazine. Ryan, I'll try and remember to
10:13
send it to you after. It was about a couple's retreat.
10:18
A group of couples booked a cabin in the mountains, but the
10:23
couples were a human and their AI companion partner.
10:30
Usually when you think of a couples retreat, it's you know,
10:32
spouse, you know, couples of humans together going let's go
10:35
skiing together or whatever for the weekend.
10:37
This was a human, a human and and AAI girlfriend.
10:43
And it was really fascinating because when asked, well, why do
10:47
you do this? What is what is it about this
10:48
relationship? All those people said, listen,
10:51
I've tried to be in relationships with humans and it
10:53
doesn't go well. They're not kind.
10:56
They don't listen to me. They think I'm stupid.
10:58
What, what fill in the blank. They, they, whatever the, the.
11:03
And so there was this moment in reading this article where you
11:05
go, oh, wow, these AI companions are nicer too.
11:10
So they're, they're, they're smarter.
11:12
They're nicer. And you start to kind of go
11:14
through some of these big categories of what it means to
11:16
be human. And I think there's still plenty
11:18
of room to be clear, even in a world dominated by AI.
11:22
But this, this is a discussion that's going to get thicker and
11:26
thicker as these tools get better and better.
11:29
Great article. I also saw on LinkedIn yesterday
11:31
this idea of signal collapse, that AI is going to drive what's
11:35
called signal collapse. It used to be the a great
11:37
example of signal is fitness. And talk about our thesis here
11:41
for a SEC. If you were buff, if you were a
11:44
buff person, there's no way to fake that other than a lot of
11:48
discipline and a lot of hard work, right?
11:51
Whether or not you think being buff is somehow a goal or
11:55
attractive, that set that aside. If you saw somebody who was
11:58
really jacked, it meant that they worked hard.
12:01
Well, with Ozempic, for example, and other GLP ones, that signal
12:07
is going to shift. But think about other categories
12:10
like coding or writing. These were signals of
12:12
intelligence and hard work, writing and coding.
12:15
I mean, Clod is better at all of that too.
12:18
So this idea of signal collapse and what does it mean to show
12:22
what your character traits are is going to continue to be
12:25
harder and harder. So there's like a lot of views
12:27
around AI, what it means to be human, what it means for
12:30
productivity. Also, as a dad, I think a lot
12:33
about how do I prepare my kids for a world where a lot of white
12:36
collar entry level jobs are, I mean, even already are
12:39
fundamentally easy to replace with with some pretty basic LLM
12:43
tools. So lots of categories there.
12:45
We could talk about that for hours and hours, but that's
12:47
something we as a team at Wild will talk about a ton and share
12:50
all the latest articles on who the the latest thinking and what
12:54
it means for for our kids and beyond.
12:58
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13:52
Now back to the show. Yeah, I agree, man.
13:56
And it also feels like the people at the outliers don't
13:59
really have a position at the table to have this conversation.
14:03
Like if someone's coming on a couples retreat with ChatGPT, I
14:06
mean, like, you need to see a therapist.
14:08
I'm sorry. Like maybe it's just because I'm
14:12
from the 90s, but let me tell you something that my best
14:15
friends aren't kind to me at all.
14:16
Actually, they're horrible. They're.
14:18
Very. It's part of the love, right?
14:19
It's part of the love. They're mean to me and that's
14:22
what I expect out of my closest friends is like, man, iron
14:24
sharpens iron. Make sure you know, they're
14:26
going to be slapping me on the belly passive aggressively if I
14:29
gain a little bit of weight. The the since the last time they
14:31
saw me. You know what I mean?
14:32
I'm like, I know what you're doing there, man.
14:34
I hate you for it. I also love you for it.
14:36
So, so I guess that The thing is, is that there's, there's a
14:39
lot to unpack of like how we're going to interact with the Super
14:44
intelligence, you know, how much are we going to want to
14:46
automate? What are we going to do for, for
14:49
leisure and recreation? But I also think that the people
14:52
that we should be listening to are, are people that have stakes
14:55
in being human as it is, which means doing the hard things,
14:59
which is like, yeah, you got to meet people and you're going to
15:02
kiss a lot of toads before you find a Prince.
15:04
Like this is the real world. If you're falling in love with
15:07
your sycophantic chatbot, it's like you have a personal
15:10
problem, I'd like to think. I agree with you.
15:14
I agree with you and, and, but but to be really candid, like
15:19
what? I just had a new that that was
15:21
what I was thinking going into reading this article was like.
15:24
I thought that I would feel fully like I, I don't know what
15:32
term I'm looking for, but I just finished the article feeling a
15:35
different level of empathy for people who like pride to engage
15:42
in human relationship and just have failed kind of so
15:47
voluminously that they're like, well, say la vie.
15:51
So I, I tend to agree with you. And if one of my kids talked
15:56
about having a relationship with AI in some form, that would be a
16:01
deep and controversial conversation.
16:04
But but I had a new that that switch flipped around.
16:11
Wow. What can I learn from these
16:14
these chat bots around being being helpful and kind if if the
16:19
chat bot is the better alternative to the human
16:22
version, right? I agree.
16:24
I like this. I love this kind of line of
16:27
conversation too, because I think there there's like
16:29
important definitions, you know, if we're talking about kindness,
16:33
we're talking about empathy, we're talking about compassion.
16:36
Like what's the difference? You know, I actually spent a lot
16:38
of time thinking about this because, you know, I, I, I feel
16:42
like empathy can be ruinous in some standpoints.
16:46
I, I don't know if I want to allow myself, and this is to
16:49
being pedantic about definitions, you know, but, but
16:53
I think it's, it's interesting to kind of explore because, you
16:56
know, again, we're, we're kind of bombarded by all this like
16:59
information and, and takes and hot takes and what's, what's
17:02
happening that if I allow myself to go empathetically into X, for
17:06
example, I'm going to be like, Oh my God, what's happening?
17:09
Why don't I have 6 Mac minis with Claude code or Claude open
17:14
claw running on 17 instances and you know so.
17:18
I'm behind, right? It's easy to feel behind right
17:20
now. It's easy to feel behind.
17:22
It's also easy to feel like, dude, what are you?
17:24
You're dating like a robot, man. What's going on?
17:27
Like I feel like if I open myself empathetically, then I'm
17:32
it's like a vampiric kind of feeling as opposed to like
17:35
compassion, which doesn't seem to have like a, a ruinous
17:38
component where I can be like, that's amazing what you're doing
17:41
with open claw. That's amazing that you you
17:43
found love with a robot. Fantastic.
17:46
You know, I can feel compassion for your personal situation, but
17:49
I I don't have to let it enter into my world.
17:52
So, you know, the only reason I kind of bring it up is because
17:55
you're an expert at like finding products that like bring out
17:59
the, the humanity in us, especially as our humanity is
18:02
kind of adapting. So I feel like kind of like this
18:04
emotional maturity is almost a prerequisite.
18:08
And I, I also find myself feeling like I assume that
18:12
everybody has that already. You know, I, I live in a small
18:16
bubble where I speak to brilliant people like you every
18:20
single day and have really cool conversations.
18:22
So, you know, when I, I kind of expect that from the audience
18:25
I'm, I'm engaged with in the supermarket everywhere else.
18:29
But a lot of times, man, people are, are not there.
18:31
They don't have a developed sense of empathy, compassion,
18:34
intelligence, strength, grit, fortitude, none of that, you
18:38
know. And so like, figuring out maybe
18:41
a common ground becomes challenging.
18:44
Yeah, good point. And I think there is this, there
18:47
is, this can be this assumption, especially in the
18:49
entrepreneurial world, call it Silicon Valley.
18:51
You know, the fact you even know what open claw is, right?
18:54
Like that, that is even a, a tiny percentage of the, the
18:59
human population. You probably saw there was this
19:01
graphic at least floating around LinkedIn of all the little dots.
19:05
Each dot represented like 2 million people or something like
19:08
that. All the grey dots on this chart
19:10
were like people who have never interacted with AI in any form.
19:13
And they were just, there's billions of them.
19:15
There's billions. And there's one little dot in
19:17
the bottom right corner that was like people paying for some AI
19:21
tool 1 little dot like down here.
19:25
I do think that there are a lot of people in the world who have
19:29
a level of content around their lifestyle that as long as they
19:35
can pay their bills and as long as they can have some of their
19:40
kind of core values met that they're just not as interested
19:44
Ryan, in what the latest stuff is and let let you guys figure
19:50
it out and then let us know, right?
19:51
Like you, you early adopters, you on the bleeding edge, Y'all
19:55
can bleed for us and then we'll figure it out.
19:58
And I, I actually have, I think a lot of empathy for those
20:02
people too, even though I tend to be like, I want to, I want to
20:05
know and I want to get ahead and blah, blah, blah, right that.
20:10
Contentedness I think is a is a gift in many ways in many people
20:15
that like it. You know they don't.
20:17
They don't need to be run an open claw to be 4 times more
20:21
productive in order to be happy in life like some of us.
20:26
You know, I totally agree. Wouldn't it be great just to sit
20:30
down in front of the game with a cold beer and hot dog and just
20:33
really enjoy the game? Put your laptop away for once,
20:36
Ryan. I mean, it's yeah, I was even, I
20:39
I literally almost brought another laptop to work today so
20:43
that I could have another instance of COD Co work running
20:46
and and I just had to be like, it's also it's OK to to not
20:52
Forex my productivity today. How about just a normal level of
20:57
pushing the boundaries? Yeah.
20:59
You're already not eating lunch, dude.
21:01
Like come on, that's a good sacrifice.
21:05
How old are you, kiddos? Yeah, yeah.
21:07
Thank you. Love being a dad.
21:09
We are, we're in a really sweet kind of middle season.
21:13
We've got 4 kids, they're 141210 and seven about to be 8.
21:17
So we're kind of post diapers, but pre high school on on the
21:23
other side. And so it's it's a season of
21:25
lots of togetherness, lots of activities that everybody wants
21:28
to do. And I think that being a dad is
21:32
one of the coolest parts of my life.
21:36
Totally agree. My kids are 17 and 18.
21:40
My, my daughter's a freshman at Mizzou.
21:43
They are growing up. I said, all you guys are going
21:45
to do, you're going to be computer engineers.
21:47
That's that's what you're going to do.
21:48
You can spin that into whatever else you want to do, but that's
21:50
what you're going to do Until two years ago and then I was
21:53
like, you're not going to be a computer.
21:55
I don't, I don't know what you're going to do now.
21:57
So my daughter's studying finance at Mizzou and on
22:01
Wednesdays we have a standing meeting for an hour where I
22:04
basically am just like training her to be AI native that every
22:09
problem she comes up against, whatever it is, social school,
22:14
anything we're, we're diving into like how can we solve this
22:16
with AI? We're doing, you know, cloud
22:18
code. We're doing a lot of different
22:20
things, vibe coding stuff. So, you know, she kind of gets
22:23
made fun of by her friends. They're like, oh, you're so you
22:25
use a A for everything, you know, So you're right that like
22:29
adoption right now is very low. So to that point, she said that
22:33
one of her professors in like a business administration class,
22:36
you know, one of those big freshman classes, 500 kids in
22:38
there, you know, said does anybody know what vibe coding
22:41
is? None of them.
22:43
He did. She did, yeah.
22:45
She raised her. Is he the only one?
22:47
They, you know, they kind of side eyed her, but like, you
22:50
know, so to the feeling like we're already late, it's, it's
22:55
so untrue. But I would like to get your
22:58
take because you are on the the tip of the spear here.
23:02
And it seems like the Moat around technology and software
23:06
is gone and that the cost of software development is going to
23:09
0. So if you don't have necessarily
23:13
defensible IP, let's say that you don't, I mean, obviously you
23:17
get the you get the suits involved and you can probably
23:19
defend anything if you have that kind of budget.
23:22
What are you looking for out of a product or a founder that can
23:26
maybe survive, you know, 100 different competitors that could
23:30
spring up overnight? Yeah, man, it's such an awesome
23:33
question because I think the bulk of the Silicon Valley
23:36
industrial complex was built on the assumption that enough
23:40
capital could drive unique enough technology development to
23:44
create sustainable moats and industry.
23:49
That's just not true it anymore. So a few different thoughts
23:54
around defensibility. So one of the things that's kind
23:57
of fun that we do and we hear pitches from founders.
24:00
We actually do this live scoring thing, got this Google Sheet
24:04
essentially. And everybody on our team has
24:06
their own little tab and they're scoring in real time, the pitch.
24:11
And then what we do is we get together and we debrief and
24:14
there's a tab that pulls everybody's score in.
24:16
It's kind of a little consensus tab, but everybody's scoring on
24:20
their own without seeing each other's.
24:21
But we we score all these different criteria and one of
24:23
them is defensibility. What's fascinating is if you go
24:27
back over the last 2 1/2 years, the defensibility scores of our
24:32
live scoring sheets have just fallen off.
24:35
I mean they, we, we score things 0123 in our, in our live scoring
24:41
sheet And the chances that any start up especially at precede
24:45
even hits A2 are very low and a lot of times the score is a 0.
24:52
So we see it, you know, literally every week is that
24:56
there's I don't I don't know that founders are doing a great
24:58
job of thinking about this right now broadly.
25:02
So OK, so then what creates A Moat and what are the
25:04
opportunities? If you think about basic
25:07
business tools, basic Productivity Tools are the
25:12
easiest to just vibe code like ACRM or a note tape note taking
25:18
app or a timer, whatever. Like if it is about tactical
25:25
business productivity, your Moat is a -1 I mean, it is getting
25:32
and you see this with the SAS apocalypse right now in the
25:34
public markets that a company like HubSpot is getting
25:37
destroyed because there are people who going listen.
25:40
I, I now to be clear, I don't think that vibe coding is
25:45
sufficient for a lot of complex enterprise software around
25:49
security and, and, and just like compliance kind of stuff.
25:54
But if you look at HubSpot, is there a meaningful chunk of
25:57
their customer base that doesn't really need to spend money on
26:02
that software and could just use something vibe coded?
26:05
Yes, enough to be impactful on their business.
26:08
And so you see it in the really big SAS applications.
26:12
So where do modes come from? You know, there's this basic
26:15
idea we talked about earlier that like if if IQ becomes
26:19
easier to tap into because intelligent, like standard
26:23
intelligence is pretty easy to access with Claude, for example,
26:28
EQ and social skills become magnified that if you can have
26:34
the answer to everything, the question is, well, which answer
26:37
is right? There's a wisdom, there's so
26:39
much more EQ that will get magnified around social skills,
26:42
around taste, around creativity, around discernment.
26:44
And So what when we think about what's defensible, often times
26:49
it's going to be around can you build community?
26:51
Is there some kind of data that you have that nobody else has?
26:56
The thing to keep in mind about the public LLMS, is there a, a
27:00
reversion to the mean they, they are going to spit out the
27:03
average of what is the known inputs in that topic.
27:08
It's hard for them to be net new creative compared to to compared
27:13
to the human brain. And so if you can have just a
27:16
little bit of extra proprietary data in your models, you're
27:21
going to get different results from LLMS.
27:24
And so we think a lot about proprietary data sets that this
27:27
platform would be generating. We think about how good is this
27:30
team at generating brand and community and stickiness and,
27:35
and we're just really long on the human experience.
27:38
So I don't know if that was a, a long rambling answer, Ryan, but
27:42
I, my brain goes to what makes businesses durable then.
27:46
Well, it's, it's going to be around a lot of other things
27:48
like community, brand and switching costs and why, why
27:54
show up and, and pay for a software?
27:57
Well, it's it's not going to be because of the functionality.
28:00
It's gonna be because of of other traits, other things that
28:03
it drives for you and your human experience.
28:06
Yeah. When I think about community, it
28:07
really seems like a mixture of distribution and domain
28:11
expertise and influence ultimately.
28:15
So when you're looking at a product, are you all, I mean
28:18
that seems like a focus on the founder that that they are
28:21
really bringing that distribution in, They're
28:23
bringing the community into the product.
28:25
The product is a reflection then of like the feedback from that
28:28
community. Would that be fair to say?
28:30
It's a great point. There's that quote, you know,
28:33
first time founders focus on products, second time founders
28:35
focus on distribution. And so then what the
28:39
distribution channels and mechanisms are.
28:41
I think it's really important. So yes, we I mean, at early
28:45
stage, we index on the founder a lot anyway, it's because there's
28:48
going to be pivots, there's going to be listen, we were in
28:52
final diligence. We had actually already offered
28:54
a term sheet to a start up and ChatGPT came out with ChatGPT
28:59
Health and it it just kind of threw the skids on the whole,
29:05
the whole thing. And so there are very real
29:09
external pressures from these big incumbents.
29:12
One of the fascinating ideas in the tech world is some
29:16
categories being an incumbent doesn't help you much, but other
29:21
categories where it does and AI development, whether it's around
29:25
the CapEx, the energy costs, the actual hardware, how much you're
29:29
buying from NVIDIA, having war chests to afford the kind of
29:33
development that it takes. AI is actually a a category of
29:38
innovation that has been shown to where incumbents have very
29:43
clear advantages. And so start-ups just have to
29:47
think about it differently. Yeah, proprietary data sets.
29:53
That's really interesting community.
29:57
What else is on that live scoring sheet?
30:00
Oh, yeah, good question. So we kind of have, we have a
30:03
whole section about the founder, the founding team, and it is
30:08
things like how good are they at presenting?
30:11
How do they show up? Are they confident?
30:12
Can they tell a good story? Emotional intelligence?
30:16
Do they seem like they have what we call learning agility?
30:20
There's a fascinating dynamic adventure, which is you need
30:23
people who are both high conviction, but also high coach
30:25
ability. It's kind of a two by two,
30:27
right? I need both.
30:29
Yes, high conviction and high coachability.
30:32
You need somebody who is dog on a bone about a specific problem,
30:35
but also can actually listen not just to us, by the way, that's
30:40
that's not even the point. It's like coachable across what
30:43
what the data might be telling you as well.
30:45
So, so on the founder section of our live scoring sheet, we've
30:48
got some of those kinds of things.
30:49
It's also things like, do you have a tech background?
30:52
Do you have more of a business background?
30:53
Do you know how to code stuff? Are you an SME in this area?
30:57
What's really interesting is when we see pictures where
30:59
somebody is trying to tackle a space and they haven't spent any
31:02
time in that space themselves, that's it can be a bit of a
31:05
concern. So we've got kind of a whole
31:06
founder section and then a whole section on the business itself,
31:11
you know, defensibility tech. What do we think about the the
31:15
ICP? The business model is the is the
31:18
Tam, the Tam seem big enough at first blush.
31:21
So founders, we've got a business section and then at the
31:26
very end we literally have questions like overall, what do
31:30
you think is the business potential?
31:31
Overall, what do you think is the founder potential?
31:34
And then we have kind of the final gut check question on our
31:38
scoring sheet. As we say, would you be willing
31:40
to put your own money into this? It can be easy and venture
31:44
because the money, the bulk of the capital might be coming from
31:48
our LP's. But to ask the question, am I
31:51
going to put my own money into this?
31:52
Is, is a great just gut check at the end of a live pitch.
31:57
That's just in our, in our some of our first meetings, Ryan.
32:00
We have more in depth diligence of course, but that's how we do
32:04
our pitch sessions. Interesting.
32:07
Yeah, yeah, I'm really interested in that kind of gut
32:09
check feeling too. Is there kind of like a am I the
32:12
right person right now situation where you know, everything lines
32:16
up founders grade products rate, but there's just still something
32:19
like. Yeah, I mean all the time there
32:23
is. I mean in early stage there's so
32:26
little to diligence, right. It's not like, OK, they've been
32:30
doing this and we just want to know if it can grow and we even
32:33
invest at pre product pre revenue sometimes.
32:36
What I mean these these data rooms, the data room of a of a
32:41
pre seed business is not a, it's not a robust place.
32:45
You're like, look at this hockey stick.
32:47
I'm projecting. It's going to be great.
32:48
Let's let's get on board. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a lot of
32:51
projections and that's OK. But, you know, we got to, you
32:54
got to dream big for sure. But so, so, yeah, the, the
32:58
notion of, of being able to diligence these companies just
33:02
looks a lot different. And so you end up having to go
33:04
off just like, what do I think is can this person show up?
33:07
I actually posted a video on LinkedIn yesterday just about
33:11
there is this strange thing that I've never heard VC investor say
33:16
to a founder's face in a meeting, which is, hey, love
33:19
what you're doing. I just don't believe in you.
33:22
But it has run through the mind of many investors.
33:24
And because we have to index on the founder so much, listen, how
33:29
is this person going to respond when ChatGPT launches a
33:32
competitive product or a competitor poaches your top
33:35
talent OR your top talent decides to go, you know, do
33:39
something else full time. Like at the end of the day, it
33:42
does funnel through the founder as this like agent of chaos.
33:46
And and so we sometimes you just go, I like the product, I like
33:50
the Tam. I don't know that you're the one
33:53
to win in this space. And it's a bummer to hear
33:57
because it's personal and I don't even know what you do with
33:59
that feedback. Sometimes I don't even know how
34:02
you how you change that. But that runs through the minds
34:06
of many early stage investors. Again, it's primarily it's not
34:10
because early stage investors are like trying to be overly
34:13
critical of the human sitting across from them.
34:15
It's because there's nothing else to diligence, right there
34:19
is, there is no history in this business.
34:21
And so you kind of go, what do I have?
34:24
I guess the person sitting across from me is the most
34:27
tangible thing I can try and analyze.
34:31
Yeah, and talk about being human, you know, you got to pass
34:34
the sniff test. You know, maybe we should hang
34:37
on this a little bit of what those attributes are because
34:40
it's pretty fast. You know, I, I think as far as
34:43
personality traits go, I had a guy pitching me the other day
34:47
and like he literally smelled like weed.
34:50
And I was like, not that I, I'm judging you, man, but like we're
34:53
having this conversation. You're high as hell.
34:55
Like you don't pass the sniff test literally.
34:58
Literally in Colorado, it's something different.
35:02
But I mean, and in Colorado, a little more sophisticated, I
35:05
expect you to have edibles or something do what you're going
35:07
to do. But like, dude, you can't be,
35:08
you know, smelling like some sativa wandering into a meeting.
35:11
It's just, it's just weird. Yeah.
35:13
You know, So you know, the attributes that you're you're
35:16
kind of talking about people that are confident, people that
35:19
are coachable, that people that can handle a little bit of
35:23
scrutiny and a little bit of uncertainty.
35:25
People that know that that you know, that they know that they
35:28
don't know what the future is, but are able to kind of walk
35:31
around that kind of questioning. That's important.
35:34
What are what are other some attributes of like a real strong
35:38
founder that that feels good intelligence, just just raw
35:41
processing power has to come through.
35:43
And maybe I'll just attach to that question that often times
35:47
like, you know, the the smartest guys in the room will spectrum
35:50
me, you know, so they're they're soft people skills aren't
35:52
necessarily as robust as, let's say, like a sales guy, you know,
35:56
and I mean that with all due respect.
35:58
I just know so many of them that I know like the impressions
36:03
might not be the the best impressions if you know what I
36:05
mean. Right.
36:06
I mean, yeah, there is a unique archetype in Silicon Valley and
36:12
in business broadly about high charisma and and the business
36:17
partner who is maybe you know, the smarter that the IQ person
36:22
and that's we we see that all the time.
36:24
So, yeah. So what are some of the things
36:25
we look for and and even how quickly we can assess those.
36:29
I talked about this idea of conviction and coach ability.
36:32
That was really interesting because sometimes people will
36:35
show up too coach able and they'll kind of have this like,
36:41
well, here's what I'm thinking, but well, what do you guys
36:43
think, Wildwood? And like we certainly have
36:45
opinions and our model actually do this whole studio thing.
36:48
I kind of mentioned where we are going to be really involved.
36:52
But when when you lack conviction and you're sort of
36:56
too coachable, there's that that other end of the spectrum.
36:58
So one of the things that I really like is when somebody
37:03
when it feels like they know their business cold.
37:07
And what I mean by that is instead of like having answers
37:10
up here, it's almost like they, it's down in their gut when you
37:15
ask them questions that about their business, they they just
37:18
know it. Now to be clear, I think it's OK
37:21
sometimes to when asked a question in a meeting with an
37:23
investor to say, I don't know, I'll find out in a 30 minute
37:27
meeting, saying that a couple times makes a lot of sense.
37:30
If you say it 10 times, that's a little bit weird.
37:33
Or if you say it no times, that's a little bit weird too.
37:36
But but the person who just feels like they live and breathe
37:41
this space, they know the competitors, they know their
37:43
numbers, they know their margins, they know how they
37:45
scale. They know that is really
37:47
compelling is when, when they just I, I joke about, about it's
37:54
like dropped from their head into their gut.
37:56
And so it's like their business kind of comes out of them.
38:00
Now, to be really clear, you can do that in an extroverted way.
38:03
You can also do that in a very introverted way.
38:05
I don't think that's a personality thing.
38:09
That can be very much a just how much do you care?
38:13
And do you like, you know, you talked about staying up late and
38:17
wanting to be inside the computer.
38:19
There's there's some of these founders who no matter what
38:21
question, they don't sound surprised when they answer.
38:25
They don't give the I've never thought about.
38:28
They're like, oh, I thought about that.
38:30
So the idea of it moving from your head to your gut, that's
38:33
one idea. Here's another piece of advice
38:35
I've given to a few of our founders recently is this unique
38:39
balance between kind of wanting to highlight your network and
38:45
also not being name droppy too much.
38:48
There is a sweet spot on that spectrum.
38:50
Some founders will show up and they talk for 10 minutes just
38:54
about people that they know that that's too much.
38:59
You need to find really concise, specific places to talk about
39:02
people. Maybe it's investors, maybe it's
39:04
one of your advisors and it's, you know, early customers you
39:07
can have, but you got to keep it concise.
39:09
And it can feel it can just feel a little slimy.
39:13
It can feel a little insecure if you spend too much time talking
39:16
about everybody else and not your own business.
39:19
So that that's another thing is, is like you want to you want to
39:22
signal your network without without just being name dropping
39:27
the whole time. So those are a few that come to
39:30
mind. Ryan, confidence, but being able
39:32
to say, I don't know, highlight your network without and yeah,
39:36
knowing your business. Cold is is the phrase I use.
39:39
Knowing your business cold. I love that, you know, as a guy
39:43
that has these conversations, you know, 3-4 times a week.
39:46
I I know exactly what you're talking about where I'll ask a
39:48
question and there's like a pause where they're like, I
39:52
can't believe you'd ask me that. It's so obvious to them.
39:55
You're like, no, no, I know no disrespect.
39:57
Like please expand. I'm trying to get you, I'm
39:59
trying to get to your sweet spot buddy.
40:01
So let's, let's get there. But yeah, there is, there's a
40:04
confidence that comes from that domain expertise and operating
40:08
in a, in a long time and absolutely knowing that having a
40:11
real take like, hey, I've done this 30,000 times.
40:15
Let me explain it to you. No problem.
40:17
It just. Bubbles out.
40:18
You get this feeling where it's just bubbling out as opposed to
40:22
some practiced script, practiced pitch.
40:26
It's just like, Oh yeah, let me tell you, I've forgotten more
40:30
about that topic than I can remember.
40:32
You know, like that you just you can feel that even the first
40:36
couple minutes. Again, not that could be the the
40:39
salesy person that could be the technical person that but you
40:42
can tell when it's just down in their belly.
40:46
Yeah, You know, I, I think I was fortunate that I had a great
40:48
example of that. My grandfather is Major General
40:51
in the Marine Corps and he was, you know, he was the commanding
40:55
officer at Camp Pendleton for many, many years.
40:57
And this guy, smartest guy in the room, but always the one
41:02
playing it down. Everything had a story and a
41:04
metaphor, just like brilliant smart connects on a on a very
41:09
visceral one-on-one level, wonderful man, Unbelievable.
41:12
So a great example of like how I want to try and try and be in
41:17
and try and engage in the world, you know, but for folks that
41:19
maybe don't have an example of what this is who, who's somebody
41:23
maybe in pop culture that you feel like nails it, whether
41:25
they're an actor or a, a podcaster or something like who
41:28
kind of has this like feel to them.
41:32
And great question. OK, there's a couple that come
41:37
to mind and I'll put caveats around them.
41:42
OK, so I think that Simon Sinek, who's the famous kind of Ted
41:46
Talk guy, the way that he tells stories, Simon Sinek is a very,
41:50
very smart person. He never shows up in a room and
41:53
says, my job is to sound smart. And somebody actually said this,
41:58
saying the good public speakers make themselves sound smart, but
42:03
great public speakers make that audience feel smart.
42:08
And that's, I think, something Simon Sinek is good at.
42:11
Listen, I know he's controversial and so pros and
42:14
cons here, but when Sam Altman talks about technology, there's
42:19
actually this simplicity and clarity that I tend to
42:22
appreciate. You know, he's getting embroiled
42:25
in all kinds of stuff, as is so many of the AI leaders, But but
42:30
he tends to have a style that I really like.
42:32
I'm trying to think about and and honestly, Steve Jobs was the
42:36
same way, right? He he just had a again, a, a
42:40
tortured soul himself. His Walter Isaacson biography
42:45
highlights that for so many talented entrepreneurs.
42:47
Honestly, it's it's there. There's a lot of difficulty
42:53
being in the orbits of those people.
42:55
But but Simon Sinek is very cliche because he's like the
42:58
king of the Ted Talk, but he can take very complex systems and
43:04
simplify them. And honestly, shout out to my
43:06
business partner David Wagner at Wildwood.
43:09
This is not meant to be overly sort of self preserving, but
43:13
that man is one of the smartest people in any room he's in.
43:16
And he, he just asks good questions over and over and over
43:21
again. I don't know him, but those
43:24
other examples I think are great because they're very diverse in
43:27
in their styles and tactics. You know, like Simon Sinek is
43:31
the the pinnacle storyteller. He's very talented.
43:35
Sam Altman uses a lot of, he, he has a very kind of muted energy
43:39
and uses space to, for emphasis. So like he'll pause before he
43:43
answers, which is a very good tactic.
43:45
And then of course, Steve Jobs is just like, he's your sales
43:48
guy. He's in your face and he expects
43:50
you to, to, to hang with them. So I, I think that represents a
43:53
lot of different skills from that different people can
43:56
possess that can work equally well.
43:59
We're at the time of the podcast where we're entering the quantum
44:02
round. Are you ready for this?
44:04
Bring it on. How do you guys find I feel?
44:08
Quantum. I feel quantum sorry.
44:11
Say that again. It's not lighting round anymore.
44:13
We've gone quantum. See what's happened here?
44:17
I can steal it. I the the the lighting changed.
44:19
We're ready to go. Well, now I feel like the
44:21
quantum round's going to be a let down.
44:22
Dang it. I shouldn't have built it up.
44:25
No. How do you guys find inventory?
44:27
How do How do you get deals put on your desk?
44:30
Yeah, great. We events networking with other
44:34
VCs so they know our thesis area.
44:37
We're also really early, so traditional C and A style
44:40
venture firms see a lot of stuff that's too early.
44:42
We get those. We also have tools on our team,
44:46
AI tools and resources. We have somebody on our team
44:48
who's in charge of deal flow and sourcing who just talks to
44:51
founders non-stop. So we have a pretty broad kind
44:55
of sourcing strategy as well as we're launching some of our own
44:58
media. A podcast for Wildwood is coming
45:00
soon as well to drive kind of owned media.
45:03
So we're trying a pretty broad approach, and we got to look at
45:07
a lot of start-ups because our thesis is so specialized, so it
45:12
makes sourcing a little bit trickier.
45:15
Yeah, I added to to my newsletter prospects and just
45:20
said, hey, if you guys are are raising, shoot me a deck and
45:23
I'll publish it. Amazing response, you know.
45:25
Yeah, a lot of people were interested in that.
45:27
Ryan, I want to, I want to get on that list.
45:30
I want to see the stuff people are sending to you, by the way.
45:32
You got it, you got it. I will feed you a deals 'cause I
45:36
love. Deal flow, baby.
45:38
Deal, flow, love. It what's the average check size
45:42
you guys are cutting? 300,000 right now in fund one.
45:47
Cool, you got 4 kids. How are you kind of coaching
45:53
them on where they should well say this?
45:56
If they're going to college next year, what should they study?
46:00
Oh man, Oh shoot, I don't know. I, if they were going to college
46:07
next year, I would, I still like the sciences.
46:12
It just might be software engineering looks a little bit
46:15
different, but like, for example, robots are going to be
46:19
one of the biggest industries in the history of mankind and
46:22
there's going to be lots of jobs in that space.
46:25
So like computer science, but applied in the robotics world.
46:29
I think there's huge opportunity there still, but I think it's
46:34
going to be on a lot of soft sciences.
46:36
It's going to be around marketing and EQ and psychology
46:39
and stuff that that we like we talked about earlier.
46:43
Yeah, nice. Yeah, I I'm publishing a a
46:47
episode today with this guy Mark Chen, who's who's basically the
46:50
founder. He was acquired twice, but he
46:52
builds like the the brains and eyes of this robot of these
46:57
robots. And what, what he was telling me
46:59
where they're at right now. I mean, well, I mean, I guess
47:01
you see the the demos from China where they're doing Kung Fu and
47:03
stuff. But yeah, Robots is almost here,
47:07
you know, no doubt the this audience is full of founders.
47:12
They're all building tools and they all have shiny objects
47:15
syndrome. Shout out to founders, shout out
47:16
to the heroes. For real.
47:19
Shout out to those of us who suffer.
47:21
What's an idea, a business idea or category of idea that you're
47:25
not seeing right now that you really wish someone would bring
47:28
to to your table? We have not figured out that.
47:44
So COVID changed social dynamics in like the world writ large.
47:50
And I think even in like small local populations.
47:54
We unplugged, we got in cohorts, we started like, you know,
47:58
because we're wearing masks for so long, we kind of like forgot
48:02
how to talk to people in certain ways.
48:04
There is just this whole category of social connection
48:07
and relationship that everybody's trying to, well, a
48:11
lot of people are trying to figure out that it's just really
48:13
hard. Like what, what is social media?
48:18
How has it taken from us in some form?
48:20
What it means to connect with friends?
48:22
And So what it means to hang out with friends again is an
48:26
interesting category that I, I, I just don't, we see a lot of
48:30
pitches in that space and I don't really know what winning
48:33
looks like. So I just, I'm long humans and
48:36
I'm long relationships and I'm long in person human
48:40
relationships. I think that can be some of the
48:42
best magic. So figuring out how to do that,
48:45
I think is is this interesting space.
48:49
Super cool. You're a founder and you have a
48:53
very stressful, intense job. What?
48:56
And you also have a family and you're this is your
48:58
intersection. So with your physical mental
49:01
health, how has your work negatively impacted your mental
49:06
emotional health and what have you done to kind of resolve
49:09
that? Yeah, yeah, it's it's a great
49:13
question and every founder should be able to talk about
49:15
this with somebody regularly. I mean, I don't know that my
49:19
answers would be anything unique, Ryan.
49:22
Sometimes I will be technically home and present with my family
49:26
physically, but just not mentally and emotionally.
49:28
Moments I regret the most where dad's just not there, Dad's just
49:34
not as responsive. Dad is not as fun.
49:37
Not because I'm maybe overly stressed per SE and like upset,
49:41
but just my, my gears are spinning.
49:43
That's, that's a hard 1. And So what I've actually found
49:45
is sometimes working just a little bit later to close some
49:49
of those loops out right, might be helpful for me many times to,
49:55
to be able to be more present. I have a, a few rhythms, whether
49:58
it's exercise, I get up and have a quiet time in the mornings.
50:01
I, I read my Bible every morning before the kids wake up.
50:06
But lots of exercise quality time.
50:08
We try and we have some other rhythms as a family, like trying
50:11
to have Sundays be not super busy with a bunch of activities.
50:15
For example, we say no to kids sports events on Saturday or on
50:20
Sundays, for example. So there's some of these things
50:22
we've tried and practiced, and there's still lots of things
50:26
that stressed me out. Very much so.
50:29
But I just turned 40 last year, and I think I've got a few more
50:34
tools in the toolkit. It's even as silly as making
50:38
sure I'm hydrated and had a decent meal.
50:40
What I noticed a couple years ago is that sometimes my body
50:45
feels the same if I'm hungry and if I'm anxious.
50:50
Yeah, like. I so so sometimes just.
50:53
Having a snack, will will like truly.
50:56
All of a sudden I'm like, oh, my anxiety.
50:58
I I wasn't anxious. I was just hungry.
51:01
You're hungry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
51:04
So so I. I've got, I think just grown in
51:07
my own self-awareness around like it's OK to take a walk
51:10
outside for 5 minutes or whatever it might be.
51:13
And then there's a lot of. So no, no, no magic.
51:15
They're just trying to remember I'm human and I don't have to
51:18
do, I don't have to have every second of my schedule packed,
51:23
optimized in full to be the best version of myself.
51:26
And in fact, maybe those are inversely connected.
51:31
Yeah. You.
51:32
Mentioned walking that's something that I started doing
51:35
the last couple of weeks you know because the temptation is
51:38
like in between calls your hidden emails and then you have
51:41
4 terminals open and you're writing and then you like
51:44
there's so much that like just getting up from the desk and
51:49
taking a walk is like Ouch you know you know another idea that
51:55
I. Like right now I'm looking at my
51:57
screen and I have probably 20 Chrome tabs open.
52:04
I've I'll, I'll jokingly call it like Chrome declare Chrome
52:07
bankruptcy. And one of the things that will
52:09
help is just close everything and, and then when you reopen
52:13
it, you know, it'll say like, do you want to restore tabs?
52:17
Say no, just say no. Just you're going to be fine.
52:21
If it was that urgent, it'll pop back up.
52:23
You'll, somebody will send it to you again.
52:25
But declaring tab bankruptcy is a is a little thing that works
52:32
well for me. Sometime soon it's the little
52:34
wins. That's a good one.
52:36
Yeah, yeah, I know. Like first world.
52:38
Problems, of course, but it's amazing how that all those all
52:42
those open loops really add a lot of a lot more load mentally
52:46
than we realize yeah. Tell me about your morning Bible
52:49
study. How do you?
52:50
Approach the study. Are you doing commentary?
52:54
Is it is it just kind of like do you open the pages randomly?
52:58
How do you approach that? Yeah, yeah, just close my eyes
53:01
and. Yeah, the quick version is the
53:04
book of Proverbs is full of just amazing wisdom.
53:08
Yes, it there's a culture around which it was it was written, but
53:12
there's 31 chapters in the book of Proverbs, which aligns nicely
53:18
to a calendar. So most mornings I will read the
53:21
proverb of the day, meaning today is the 4th.
53:26
And so reading Proverbs 4 and then I try and spend time
53:30
reading some of the stories of Jesus.
53:32
So, so Proverbs and then and then some of the Gospels is how
53:37
I spend listen, I'm not I, I, I don't want any listeners to
53:41
think I'm somehow trying to communicate some level of
53:46
righteousness here. I just have found that that
53:48
rhythm for me brings me back to core values and how I want to
53:52
show up in the world in a really meaningful way and again back.
53:57
To being human, this is very important.
53:59
You know that you, you feed yourself spiritually like you
54:01
need, you need the, the inspiration, you know, and it's
54:05
important. Exactly, exactly.
54:08
Cool. Amazing.
54:11
We are running out of time, my friend, but this has been
54:13
extraordinary, Jesse, to get to know you.
54:15
Yeah, you too. Thank you for this time.
54:17
My. My Denver friend and to all the
54:20
listeners, Ryan and I had not spent time together in person,
54:23
but we're going too soon. Let's change that.
54:26
I would love to come check out the office.
54:28
Shake hands with you. Shout out to Rita for making
54:30
this happen. I'm really appreciative for
54:32
that. People can check out the website
54:35
Wildwood dot VC. Where's the best place for
54:38
people to connect with you online?
54:40
Actually, I'm a LinkedIn guy. So find me on LinkedIn, just
54:45
Jessie, Marble, Jesse and I, I try and be responsive on there.
54:52
Jessie really appreciate it. Thank.
54:53
You so much Ryan. Thank you for having me.