Latest / Trailblazers by Erica Wenger / Kate McAndrew Inside The Mind Of A $100M Investor l Trailblazers Podcast Episode 40

Transcript

Kate McAndrew Inside The Mind Of A $100M Investor l Trailblazers Podcast Episode 40 · Trailblazers by Erica Wenger

0:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always been a seeker.
0:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always been interested in knowing myself.
0:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always been quite fearless and where I put myself, and seen myself as a great experiment.
0:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I was really raised in this culture that was about figuring out where your greatness was and not judging you for where that was.
0:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But just expecting that if you found it, you would rise to it.
0:22
[SPEAKER_01]: There was something about people believing in me, intrinsically, where I didn't have to prove it, it was in me.
0:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And that carries me every day.
0:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had a lot of clarity around what I'm doing in this life.
0:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Why I'm here, how I want to show up, who I can show up for.
0:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So we ask everyone this at the start of our podcast.
0:45
[SPEAKER_00]: If I talk to the people closest to you, how would they describe you?
0:48
[SPEAKER_00]: What would they say are your biggest strengths?
0:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And what would they say is your biggest weakness?
0:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, my sister once described me as a whirling dervish, which I think was like the most hilarious.
0:58
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, it's a hilarious piece of language, right?
1:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I feel like a whirling dervish who even says that anymore.
1:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like there's something, it's like old British.
1:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's very old British.
1:09
[SPEAKER_01]: She went to uni for university of 16andres.
1:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So she has this kind of, maybe some Britishism.
1:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But, um,
1:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So, they would say I'm passionate, they would say I beat to my own drum.
1:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
1:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always have, all these tricks have.
1:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
1:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always been passionate, I've always done my own thing.
1:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think they'd say I'm a great mom.
1:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That's become a huge part of my identity.
1:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I think those are the three things they would say.
1:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and what about weaknesses?
1:37
[SPEAKER_00]: What's like the one thing they would say you struggle with?
1:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say, um... Huh.
1:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So the truth is, my family really focuses on strengths.
1:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's part of the family culture.
1:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's part of my work culture.
1:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That's part of how I talk to founders.
1:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I really encourage people to focus on where your exceptional and doubly down on that as opposed to worrying about your weaknesses.
2:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would say my weaknesses are
2:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a lone wolf, right?
2:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a collaborator.
2:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Doing anything in isolation does not work for me, and I've learned that, and I think my family knows that.
2:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also how I move through the world.
2:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I do very little alone, and I think there's a cultural understanding of that as being, oh, you're afraid to be alone.
2:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not good at finishing things, you're not process oriented.
2:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, I'm just someone who thrives in collaboration.
2:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I thrive in community.
2:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the way that I move through the world is both an acknowledgement of my weaknesses and this really natural way of hiring around them or like totally the world in a way that makes that less of a thing.
2:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm a starter.
2:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm an Aries Moon.
2:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we like to get stuff, we like to get stuff started, right?
2:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a Capricorn, I'm extremely hardworking.
3:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a Virgo.
3:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I love a spreadsheet.
3:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I like to get things done, but my gift is really in the beginning.
3:07
[SPEAKER_01]: My gift is in the strategy, not in the growth long-term execution.
3:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That is best done in partnership.
3:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also why I do pre-seed.
3:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to say it's your job for making fit.
3:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Baby, that's my stage.
3:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
3:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's worth practicing and focusing on and I have a lot of respect.
3:27
[SPEAKER_01]: for growth investors and for folks who have a different archetype, but I'm very clear about who I am, how I show up, why the era of investing that I'm in is right for me, and I think that's actually quite emblematic of the rest of my life.
3:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally.
3:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love this concept too, that you just know yourself so well, that you're not going to force yourself to do growth stage investing, you're not going to force yourself to start a solo GP fund, like you have this real clarity of self, which is
3:52
[SPEAKER_00]: contributed to that.
3:53
[SPEAKER_00]: How did you get so clear on your strengths and your weaknesses?
3:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And I say that because I'm someone we're early on.
3:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I took the via character strengths test.
3:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you're familiar with it.
4:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like 24 globally accepted values.
4:04
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like judgment, humor, leadership, curiosity, creativity, zest for life.
4:08
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a bunch.
4:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And you take this test and it ranks them like one through 24.
4:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And human nature is to like look at your bottom five and be like, why am I so bad at those
4:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But what you're supposed to do and to your point and it sounds like your family did this well is you look at your top five You just double and triple down on those and so from like an early age I felt like I had almost like a list of like your good at this and you're not so good at that What did you do to figure out the things that you're good at and maybe like sort of forget the things you're not so good at?
4:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I've always been a steeker.
4:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always been interested in knowing myself.
4:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always been quite fearless in where I put myself and seen myself as a great experiment.
4:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that has taken me deeper and deeper into myself from a very young age.
4:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I would also say going to an all-girl school shaped me incredibly, I went to a phenomenal all-girl school that really created a culture of excellence that didn't prize athletic excellence over scientific excellence over, you know, the humanities, everything was seen as, well,
5:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the motto of my old goal of my old, the motto of my school was Surgray 10 Thomas, we strive to rise.
5:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that is an actually incredible encapsulation of the culture.
5:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not about being the best in one dimension, but it was about being your best.
5:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I think I was really raised in this culture.
5:29
[SPEAKER_01]: that was about figuring out where your greatness was and not judging you for where that was.
5:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But just expecting that if you found it, you would rise to it.
5:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
5:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's very, very powerful.
5:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also think going to an old girl school shaped me very deeply because I grew up mostly out of the male gaze.
5:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I really didn't really have an awareness of what boys thought about me.
5:53
[SPEAKER_01]: at all.
5:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I had a boyfriend, but they were kind of boys were like play things for the weekend, right?
5:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Like girls were the people who were doing the serious experiments who were achieving.
6:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I look at my high school class, there were 67 girls and they are astronauts.
6:09
[SPEAKER_01]: They're artists who are exhibiting at the Whitney.
6:11
[SPEAKER_01]: They are, I mean, people have excelled in these really diverse ways.
6:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
6:16
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something about growing up in that context that I think continues to give me this real sense of self and excellence without judgment around how that excellence shows up.
6:27
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like a magical, it's like the Barbie world, you know?
6:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Like to grow up in that.
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Western school for girls.
6:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyone who's got girls in LA, Western School for Girls?
6:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It was seriously an incredible, it shaped me.
6:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I actually just got invited to, um, sit in Gloria Steinem's living room.
6:44
[SPEAKER_01]: and go to a salon in her living room.
6:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And the first thing I could say is, no, I just got invited.
6:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, recently.
6:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, recently, I was just airing into life.
6:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was recently invited to join a salon in Gloria Steinem's living room.
6:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
6:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And I actually messaged my high school history teacher because she didn't independent study with me when I was my senior year on feminist studies.
7:06
[SPEAKER_01]: and like she chose to take her time to do this extra reading with me and I'm such a charnaz.
7:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll never believe this.
7:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go to meet Gloria Steinem and I'm going to sit with her in twenty women and we're going to talk about the world and she was like, I believe it.
7:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And so
7:24
[SPEAKER_01]: There was something about people believing in me, yeah, intrinsically, where I didn't have to prove it, it was in me, and that carries me every day.
7:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's what I'm trying to give to my son, as well.
7:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It's beautiful.
7:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I also think there's something really clear about uniqueness that I'm picking up.
7:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, a lot of these other graduates in your class became astronauts and our incredible artists.
7:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are not traditional career paths.
7:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I guess maybe when you're five years old, you think like, I want to be an astronaut, but when you get to high school, it's usually like, am I pre-med, am I gonna do business, am I gonna be a lawyer, maybe an engineer?
8:03
[SPEAKER_00]: How did they cultivate this ability to understand your passions and then go for it?
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think our traditional schooling systems, like you take a history class or you take a French class.
8:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of like the extent of diving deep into your passions.
8:18
[SPEAKER_00]: What did, is there something specific that they did other than that motto that made you guys all realize, like, oh, wow, I'm really passionate about feminist studies and really passionate about space.
8:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, these are sort of like quirky side things that you would not expect a school to help you uncover.
8:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that I'm not a specialist in education, and so I don't even understand all the things totally that they did.
8:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But one of the things I think about is in English class, in history class, we always sat in a circle.
8:48
[SPEAKER_01]: We sat in a circle because the mode was discussion.
8:51
[SPEAKER_01]: The mode was not what is the right answer, the mode is what is the right question.
8:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, how do we go deeper into our own original thought?
8:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember in ninth grade, we learned to write a paragraph, and our homework would be to write, so
9:06
[SPEAKER_01]: rewrite sentence after sentence and there was great care and specificity with the depth of a given practice and we did it together.
9:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's something about that that I think shaped the way that I think I remember going to college, I went to a very good school and was just shocked that nobody could write.
9:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I was like, you guys can't write, like you can't, you can't write.
9:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And what what what I realized is what they were doing was teaching me how to think.
9:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the secret of it all.
9:37
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like when you go to law school, you're not learning to be a lawyer, you're learning how to think correct.
9:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That's more of it than anything else.
9:41
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no like facts.
9:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just the process of doing it.
9:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think what they were interested in was raising phenomenal women.
9:48
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the project.
9:49
[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't interested in helping people make a lot of money.
9:54
[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't interested in being excellent in just one way.
9:59
[SPEAKER_01]: They were about raising excellent women.
10:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever that meant,
10:04
[SPEAKER_01]: However, that showed up, and I close with my sister, obviously, I keep mentioning my sister, but one of my classmates is a nurse, and I was telling my sister about her, and she was like, this is the most westerned nurse ever, because she's not just a nurse, she became a nurse,
10:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she became a nurse that flies in helicopters in the back woods to rescue people.
10:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like that kind of thing of, I'm a nurse, but what's the edge of that profession?
10:34
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the deepest I can go into that?
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: and show up in this radical way, right?
10:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think about her, and it's like, that's so Jenny, right?
10:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I'm very grateful for that, really, and I think about it all the time.
10:53
[SPEAKER_00]: and how lucky to live such an authentic life.
10:55
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like I think that is, that's the greatest gift any education or any parent can give someone, is that you get to the end of your life and you've lived such an authentic life.
11:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not just the nurse, but you're the nurse that does the thing, maybe you're the nurse that loves nature, so you find a way to be like the ultimate helper in the backwards.
11:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that is the most probably gratifying feeling any human can have, because we're all searching for meaning, and we're all searching for meaning in a way that is like deeply authentic, and what a great gift that they gave you.
11:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's very powerful.
11:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I find it really interesting because a lot of people are like, oh, you're so good at non-consensus investing.
11:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And what's interesting is I don't think about it that way.
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't think about what's consensus, what's non-consensus.
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I really think about first principles.
11:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that comes from that all-girls education.
11:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It comes to everything we're talking about.
11:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I approach each company, I approach each person as its own potential entity, and I think for pre-seed especially, you can't invest in what's hot.
11:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't.
11:54
[SPEAKER_01]: What's hot today, what's hot is about the harvest, not about the planting, and with pre-seed, you're investing 10, 15 years ahead of the harvest.
12:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're focused on what's hot in the harvest, what's hot in the discourse, you're behind.
12:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to be paying too high of prices.
12:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's all kinds of reasons why being non-consensus is good at preceding, but I think thinking about yourself as non-consensus is not helpful.
12:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Think thinking about
12:21
[SPEAKER_01]: The first principles is what gets you there.
12:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the same thing as writing the perfect sentence Yeah, like having having the ability to honor the sentence and Really going going deep into that and saying what's the original thought?
12:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that here, right?
12:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's kind of how I approach it investing and where I see that.
12:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
12:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I make sure I think also We've come to learn with a lot of examples that the best companies have really like any of one founders You can't really put them in a box
12:50
[SPEAKER_00]: like, you know, maybe they're starting this really interesting health care business and they themselves were like a PA for 20 or 30 years.
12:56
[SPEAKER_00]: They know this space better than anyone.
12:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, there's not a lot of founders that are PA's potentially.
13:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just giving a random example or the astronaut that wants to do the thing like so much of investing is finding those people that are just so end of one because those are often the ones who create the best companies.
13:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I don't know, there's a recent piece, which I can share with you if you haven't read it.
13:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, giant foundation capital route.
13:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And my favorite line from it is, I've been thinking about this piece 24-7, which is why I bring it up.
13:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, like, great institutions are a wrapper around a person.
13:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm.
13:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've just, it's, like, really stuck with me.
13:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That, like, your, it sounds like your ability to really see, like, a full person, and a person, um, for all their different quirks and, and eccentric, eccentricities.
13:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, is what makes you such a great investor.
13:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I actually see beyond that.
13:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Interesting.
13:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually really disagree with that.
13:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, tell me.
13:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe great institutions are a rubber under person.
13:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, tell me more.
13:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I think great institutions are a rubber on a set of values and ideals and beliefs that hopefully the people who are in that institution
13:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Those things are authentic to them, right?
13:56
[SPEAKER_01]: If I think about what Balkin's to is, it's not just me, it's me and not an axle and Tyler, and it's our shared set of beliefs, values, truths.
14:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is what Balkin's to is, and that means that Balkin's can live beyond me.
14:12
[SPEAKER_01]: If I want to retire in 20 years, Belgians can live on because a new partner who embodies those beliefs, those ideals can come in and live in that.
14:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's actually how the great longitudinal firms are built.
14:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Sequoia was built around personalities, yes, but it stands for something else.
14:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And that means that new people can come in and embody that.
14:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that,
14:35
[SPEAKER_01]: If you think about institutions that are really long lasting that reach back, that reach forward, there are about much more than one identity.
14:43
[SPEAKER_01]: The identity is just one instantiation of the greater belief.
14:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And then hopefully how that is practiced, how that is embodied is passed down totally.
14:54
[SPEAKER_00]: big institutions I mean they you can't physically have the same person running it forever right because they will then retire and all that um i think the thing i have seen the clearest is this idea that like it might start with one person in your case a few people the the institution is the summation of the values and the quirks of the person or the multiple people and that like you know if you just try to copy and paste like if you're trying to build your firm exactly like sequoia did
15:20
[SPEAKER_00]: might not be so successful because you are such different people and you have your own strengths.
15:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think the root of that line is more about exemplifying what the values and the quirks of each person are.
15:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, putting it into an institution, but you can't copy and paste from someone else.
15:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's something you guys have done such a good job of is really being authentically yourself.
15:44
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really special.
15:49
[SPEAKER_01]: People are aware when something is not authentic.
15:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.
15:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very easy to call that out, especially young people, right?
15:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It's quite obvious when people are full of it.
16:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that there's been no better time to be rewarded for your own authenticity, right?
16:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And to share that.
16:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's really a miss, both personally and professionally when you don't do that.
16:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Because then I'm like, but where is all of you?
16:15
[SPEAKER_01]: What is all of you with here?
16:19
[SPEAKER_00]: and it could trice as back to that high school that it's school experience because you can see all these people that I've like been so authentically themselves, which is awesome.
16:25
[SPEAKER_00]: One thing I've learned talking to GPs on the show and in my own experience as a GP, you're back office is a signal.
16:31
[SPEAKER_00]: How fast you close deals, how clean the LP experiences, how your K1s land, investors notice all of it.
16:38
[SPEAKER_00]: The more buttoned up you are, the more likely they are to give you more money in the future.
16:41
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I want to talk about SideCar.
16:43
[SPEAKER_00]: SideCar is the SPV platform built for fund managers who want institutional quality execution without hiring a full back office team.
16:51
[SPEAKER_00]: They'll review your deal with an hours, handle full secondary transaction support, and give you transparent pricing upfront.
16:57
[SPEAKER_00]: No platform carry.
16:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, your LP Relationship State Private, which is super important.
17:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It is not a marketplace.
17:03
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're running a professional fund, your infrastructure should look like it.
17:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Sidecar makes that possible without the overhead.
17:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Check them out at sidecar.io slash partner slash trailblazers.
17:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk a little bit about how you discovered venture.
17:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're sitting here with me, and you're telling me about your extremely creative lineage of women.
17:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You're sitting here in a really cool outfit, which is like, I feel like if I saw you walking on the screen didn't know you, I would think you were like in fashion or something.
17:28
[SPEAKER_00]: your capitalists.
17:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think a lot of people who don't know about our industry probably think that you would be like a some like stuffy sort of like financing type.
17:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Our industry does reward uniqueness at the earliest stages.
17:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So to me it makes total sense.
17:42
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'd love to hear how you found this industry and how you've made it your own.
17:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I feel that you are so authentically you as a VC and I'd love for you to share with everyone how you first discovered it.
17:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Completely my accident.
17:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I, I knew nothing about what venture capital was.
18:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew I wanted to start something.
18:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew I was an entrepreneur at heart.
18:03
[SPEAKER_01]: That was very clear to me.
18:04
[SPEAKER_01]: At what age?
18:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Mmm, my whole life.
18:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Like my whole life.
18:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, second grade.
18:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I was the person running the Oreo cookie milkshake ring.
18:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, sending my first grade employees around the neighborhood, you know, that it's just who I am, right?
18:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just who I am.
18:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I was in college, I started a vegan cupcake business.
18:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't even vegan.
18:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just like, seems like there's a lot of vegans who want to have parties.
18:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a vegan company, I was a vegan, I don't even know why.
18:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, I just, I love to start things, I loved to offer things to the community.
18:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, these people need this.
18:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I like doing this.
18:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm, you know, that's so I'm going to show up in that way.
18:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was always in me and I was early to blogging.
18:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I was blogging when I was in college, it was 2005, 2009, and then I was at Lulu Lemon, and, you know, that was really interesting.
18:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I was not in the corporate office.
18:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like folding pants.
18:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was like working at Lulemon working as a hair salon receptionist.
18:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It was 2009 global financial crisis.
19:00
[SPEAKER_01]: There were no jobs.
19:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just need to need it to hustle.
19:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think I Lulemon, I kind of saw company culture, what that did.
19:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And I saw early experiments in social media marketing, right?
19:13
[SPEAKER_01]: We were hacking personal pages on Facebook and turning them into business pages.
19:17
[SPEAKER_01]: No one else was doing that.
19:19
[SPEAKER_01]: We'd started the first, like, one of the first run clubs.
19:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So I did that for about a year, and then I moved to LA and started a consultancy helping companies, really executives, learn about social media was creating their strategy, and then I would hire my under-employed English major friends to run their accounts.
19:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I kind of had this hustle, and I really loved getting inside the businesses.
19:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved working,
19:45
[SPEAKER_01]: with the C-suite, and even in my early 20s, I could do that, like, and I realized I was good at that.
19:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But I didn't want to tell other people what to put on Facebook for the rest of my life.
19:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So I actually decided to take a year off in volunteer.
19:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So I shut down all my consulting clients, I bought a pickup truck, I drove across the country, and I moved to a small town in North Carolina.
20:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, which weirdly is how I got my first venture jobs.
20:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was volunteering at a habitat for humanity job site, building houses.
20:12
[SPEAKER_01]: In there were a bunch of, um, volunteers who were kind of retired bankers from New York who wanted to start an accelerator program.
20:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had been thinking, like, oh, I have to go get my MBA.
20:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to start a company or I want to start a business.
20:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to learn how to do that, even though I'd been doing it, but I was like, oh, I have to learn how to do that.
20:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But it didn't make sense to me to go into all this debt, you know, because I was like, but I'm starting a business.
20:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Why would I want to have debt?
20:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And, um,
20:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So they mentioned, oh, I'm starting an accelerator program, and I was like, what's that?
20:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And they said, oh, well, we find people who want to start businesses, we give them money, and we help them start it.
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember the world stopped.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I was like, wait, you give them money?
20:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you help them start the company?
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were like, yeah, and I had never heard of this.
21:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I was still in this paradigm of I have to pay for knowledge.
21:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this investment paradigm of someone invests in someone and then helps and start the company, it was like, I don't know what that is, but I need to be part of that.
21:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, do you need anyone to help run it?
21:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were like, yeah, we need a program director.
21:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I'm your girl.
21:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was the program director for two years.
21:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually did my first 20 deals.
21:26
[SPEAKER_01]: The man in doing director like wasn't focused on investing.
21:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got to,
21:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Feel the track record?
21:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
21:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
21:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And then one of those companies was a hardware biotech company that did very well and they were based in San Francisco and they invited me to come hang out in San Francisco.
21:40
[SPEAKER_01]: This was 2014.
21:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It was an extremely special time in San Francisco.
21:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I slept on the floor of their warehouse where they all lived and, um,
21:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I just knew immediately that that's where I needed to be.
21:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So I bought a U-Haul move to San Francisco and just household to find my first venture job and I did.
21:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I got hired by a small fund that had just done one accelerator and they were raising their first pre-seed fund, $32 million fund, all focused on hardware and software.
22:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew nothing about hardware and I convinced them to hire me and I was there for eight years.
22:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I went from associate to partner.
22:14
[SPEAKER_01]: invested in some wonderful people, wonderful companies, and then co-founded, balanced.
22:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was really an accident where I found the place where all of me was welcome, and I got to unleash myself.
22:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that was really about
22:34
[SPEAKER_01]: being in the right place with the right people.
22:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I was very lucky that the GPs that I was working with, and one of them is still my partner, or my partner about Kunst, phenomenal experience people who who believed in me and my specialness and invited me to go deeper and deeper into myself and find my own way in the work.
22:57
[SPEAKER_01]: and it was really a culture of iconoclasts and I'm grateful to this day so the best years of my life.
23:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I worked 80 hours a week and there was some of the best years of my life.
23:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's always the best when you can get that combination of like deeply fulfilling and also just putting it a lot out put.
23:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally and that's where you're I think that's where you're tapping into the like universal energy that is unending Like every time I did more I got more energy and so I think I was like connected to the source and so it wasn't Draining me it was propelling me yeah
23:27
[SPEAKER_01]: when it's really powerful because nothing can stop you, right?
23:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And nobody can touch you because like you're in your own flow, right?
23:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that I again, like so my partner Axel who have now been investing with for over a decade, well over a decade, he had been in venture for a long time.
23:45
[SPEAKER_01]: He sold his first company out of MIT in the late 80s and became a VC and you know, he's been extremely successful.
23:52
[SPEAKER_01]: He flies into the radar.
23:53
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't post online
23:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But he didn't care what anybody thought about him.
24:00
[SPEAKER_01]: He had no interest.
24:01
[SPEAKER_01]: All he cares about is building great companies.
24:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he brings first principles thinking.
24:07
[SPEAKER_01]: He really did, he, I've never met anyone who cares last would anybody think about him.
24:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Refresh it.
24:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It's amazing.
24:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And so to me, I just thought that was normal.
24:17
[SPEAKER_01]: right like I and again it was kind of like the all-girls school where it was normal to be actually in your own way it was normal to all of these things were normal growing up in that venture firm it was normal to not care what anybody thought about you it was normal to like be none consensus right not for the point of it but just because you were looking at the underlying company in a real way so um it was in a phenomenal culture and really the underpinnings of what we're
24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's awesome, and it's so sweet that you can take that relationship with you into this next phase.
24:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's, that's everything, right?
24:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good people.
24:51
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all this business is about.
24:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I'd say we're, just gives you a sense of axle.
24:55
[SPEAKER_01]: He's, first of all, hopefully he never listens to this, but like, he's so modest, but, you know, he's in his 50s, and there are not a lot of older men who would be equal partners with a woman that they hired when she was 26.
25:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
25:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just think of it as even the ego of it all to 1,000 percent.
25:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and like from the economics just ego.
25:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
25:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Well exactly exactly.
25:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not about the money.
25:19
[SPEAKER_01]: He has plenty of money.
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but not many people have the ability to put their ego aside.
25:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and because he he care all he cares about is the great outcome.
25:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
25:30
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants to work with great people, he wants to enjoy the ride, he wants to build great companies and he believes that equal partnerships build great companies.
25:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's right.
25:38
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we've seen time and time again, it'll be great firms.
25:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, if you're building in public, sharing insights or staying top of line with your network, you need a newsletter.
25:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you have a newsletter, you need be high.
25:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You know how I always talk about writing essays that change the trajectory of my VC firm?
25:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I publish all of them through be high.
25:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my absolute favorite platform because it serves as a blog, a newsletter, and a website all in one, so I don't have to republish a reformat across platforms.
26:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Beyond is the creator platform where new zudders actually grow.
26:04
[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking built-in referral programs, a recommendation network, and analytics that tell you what's working, not just vanity metrics.
26:11
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26:15
[SPEAKER_00]: No platform cut eating into your revenue as well.
26:17
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26:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Beehive is a range of customers from major publishers like Time Magazine, TechCrunch, and Newsweek to solo operators earning 7 figures from their inbox.
26:29
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26:31
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've been putting off starting your newsletter or outgrowing whatever you're on, now is the time.
26:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Go to beehive.com and use code trailblazers 30 for 30% off your first three months.
26:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have a confession.
26:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to be a compulsive note taker.
26:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Every meeting, I'd be half listening and half scribbling and still leaving with gaps on the next steps.
26:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But granola completely changed that for me.
26:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an AI-powered note pad for meetings, and it's connected to every single call on my calendar.
26:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So before each one, it shows me a very well-researched brief with all the context they need to know, and then during the call, I'll jot down whatever stands out, it made its decision, or a quick thought that I have, and then granola handles the rest.
27:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll transcribe in the background and turn my rough notes into clean, structured takeaways the second we hang up.
27:11
[SPEAKER_00]: There's also no boss joining the calls, it just works in the background.
27:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I use granola for several things, so as an example, if I finish a meeting with a potential investor in my fund, I'll ask granola, what could I have done better to get my point across?
27:22
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm meeting with a founder, I like, I'll ask granola to point out any major green flags or red flags, I may not have already caught.
27:28
[SPEAKER_00]: For people with a lot of meetings and decisions that require endless context, granola is a gain-changer.
27:33
[SPEAKER_00]: We're actually running granola on today's episode.
27:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can read the full show notes at brinola.ai slash trailblazers and new users get three months completely free.
27:42
[SPEAKER_00]: That's brinola.ai slash trailblazers.
27:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So you land in San Francisco.
27:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You have this idea that you want to be in the game and you want to venture from to hire you.
27:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, bolt ended up hiring you.
27:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Use how did you convince them to give you a job?
27:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think there's a lot of people and I'm sure you see this too.
27:58
[SPEAKER_00]: in your DMs, saying, how do I break an adventure?
28:02
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I convince people, hey, maybe I don't know anything about hardware either, but there's this hardware fund that I think could be interesting.
28:08
[SPEAKER_00]: How did you actually get your foot in the door?
28:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to hear more about that story.
28:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So I did what was obvious to me, which was to get in the mix and start providing value, and be in person, which I think is a lot of it too.
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: We were like right there, yeah.
28:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, I was at the heart of it, and remember, the company I invested in that brought me to San Francisco, they were a hardware company.
28:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So they knew all the key people.
28:30
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a fund at the time called Lemnos Labs.
28:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like the heart, heart, heart, heart, heart, and they were like, oh, they do a Friday afternoon, like pancake thing.
28:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you should go.
28:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was there every Friday.
28:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I was there every Friday in the mix.
28:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have a job, and so this hardware company, they had an office in Stoma.
28:50
[SPEAKER_01]: and like the worst part of Soma, and I just went and sat on the couch by the door every day.
28:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And literally, there was this guy, Jeff, who was also sitting on the couch by the door, because he didn't have a place to work, and I was like, hey, Jeff!
29:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what are you up to?
29:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was starting Temple Automation, which later exited for a billion dollars.
29:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Now he's building like a lights out circuit board factory, nimble precision, which is in our portfolio.
29:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I met Jeff sitting on that couch, and I brought both the deal.
29:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Right like I actually can't remember if I brought both the dealer or not, but I knew Jeff so like I got in the mix and so when I was talking to them I was like oh yeah like I met this person at the lemnos happy hour like you should meet them or like oh have you met Jeff and I think they actually had already met Jeff Or like oh She goes you know Jeff.
29:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, how do you know Jeff and I'm like oh
29:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course I know Jeff right so I just got in the mix and I made it seem like I'm already doing this I'm already in the ecosystem I'm already sending you interesting founders I'm already connected and the truth is like I was because every day all I was doing was trying to meet every single interesting person that I could and luckily that was the network that I had dropped into and also like I just wanted to do a plug for any of the like young people in
30:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, we weren't just like having coffee meetings, we were partying, we were partying together, we were throwing crazy waves with like weird pop-up pools that were going until six in the morning in the middle of this warehouse, we were like shooting off rockets in the desert, we were having fun, right?
30:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And like being in the mix and having fun, you connect with people, it's natural, it's organic, and that people have got to get out of this like,
30:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Coffee meeting death march like go have a good time go do things that you're passionate about and it doesn't need to be about Nuckered it not networking like have fun and so I think I was also just living joyfully and connecting with people and being interested And yeah, and I like you know, I flew to Boston.
30:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like I want to meet them in person.
30:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it took three months, right?
30:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like three months
30:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Kind of convincing them that an oxal wasn't sure right oxal like my current partner He was like, oh no, she doesn't really have the background.
31:02
[SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't have an engineering degree D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D
31:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think the thing that he saw was like, how good I was at networking and community, he was like, let's give it a try.
31:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, I think getting in the mix and providing value are kind of the two, the two things that you can do.
31:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't ask for advice.
31:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't like I mean, I actually don't know that I would advise anyone to like start a newsletter A startup podcast like maybe now, but I think for me the thing that I did that really worked was in the beginning I had no presence.
31:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I had no I was not building I knew a lot about social But I was not doing that because my focus was fully on the work and
31:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, doing deals, getting on boards, like, just working to deliver value for the fund.
31:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And then only later, once I had a track record, once I was really running my own fund and needed to market it, then I started having more of public presence.
32:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But for the first decade, I was just hanging it out, heads down.
32:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I did a lot of in-person community building, but I did nothing online.
32:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's how I built a really genuine,
32:14
[SPEAKER_01]: type network and network really.
32:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying that's what you need to do, but I think sometimes people see how maybe hairy stepping, people have built these media platforms that have turned into funds, and I think that that can work, right?
32:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I can definitely work, but I also think there's a lot to be said for just working your ass off on the court work, delivering, doing great deals,
32:41
[SPEAKER_01]: put on the panels and kind of put out front by the firms they got turned and burned and they didn't get nifty else done they were they were so focused on the public facing stuff that they weren't able to like deliver what they needed to deliver for the fund and the truth is you got to do both so
32:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally, that's the tricky part of our lives.
32:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just juggling it all.
33:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, because I think the marketing stuff and the reputation stuff, even if it's not online, even if it's offline, just going to the events, being in the mix, meeting the Jeffs of the world.
33:11
[SPEAKER_00]: That is, in some way, marketing yourself, building a reputation.
33:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a personal brand, even if it's not online, like you were known as having someone being someone that was quite connected in that sphere, even if you weren't online, everyone that mattered in that universe knew who you were.
33:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a brand.
33:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the thing, a brand is not what you say about yourself.
33:29
[SPEAKER_01]: A brand is what people say about you, right?
33:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's what a brand is.
33:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So like I can say what I want, Boutcouping's brand to be or what I want my brand to be.
33:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's has nothing to do with it.
33:42
[SPEAKER_01]: My brand is what you think about me.
33:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally.
33:44
[SPEAKER_01]: My brand is what you think about Boutcouping's.
33:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, it's both what you say here on the podcast, and then after we wrap my experience with you in regular life, you know, it's a combination.
33:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just what's that on time, right?
33:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was on time like, yeah, I am annoying with actual, I hate being late.
34:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, always early, I hear you.
34:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but yeah, all of those things, it's not just what you do, it's how you do it, like, all of that.
34:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, especially in this business, which is very small, right?
34:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Very not.
34:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very small business.
34:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I care how people show up, you know, if like you come to a dinner of mine and you're unkind to people, you're not coming back.
34:27
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34:54
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35:00
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35:03
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35:09
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35:15
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35:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so a quick experiment.
35:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about the last long message you typed.
35:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Could be a Slack thread, a prompt into cloud, maybe it's a detailed email.
35:42
[SPEAKER_00]: It probably took you 10 minutes, maybe even 20 to get a write.
35:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Now imagine you just set it out loud instead.
35:48
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the whole pitch for whisper flow.
35:50
[SPEAKER_00]: whisper flow is voice detects that actually works in every app on every device.
35:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You speak naturally and outputs clean, formatted text that's ready to send.
35:58
[SPEAKER_00]: No set up, no integrations, no fixing, weird transcription errors.
36:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And it works across Gmail, Slack,
36:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And unlike the built-in dictation on your phone, whisper flow removes all filler words, mid-sentence corrections and jargon.
36:12
[SPEAKER_00]: What I personally love about it too is that it perfectly matches my style.
36:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So I often type in all lower case letters, so it'll type like that.
36:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I also say things like LMK, which means let me know in shorthand, and it'll auto adjust it from let me know to LMK.
36:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Like many of you, I also do a lot of bring dumping into LM's.
36:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So instead of typing it all out, I actually just speak my windy train of thought into whisper flow, which is infinitely faster than trying to get my fingers to keep up with the pace of my thoughts.
36:37
[SPEAKER_00]: If you do any serious writing or just send a lot of messages and emails, using whisper flow is a no-brainer.
36:42
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36:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I posted a TikTok, or I guess I went to Instagram too, but how there's so few VCs on Instagram and TikTok.
36:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And you commented like I love our little club, which I thought was really funny, because not only is the VC and just do small, but like the ones who make the content, especially on platforms that are not Twitter, it's like insanely small.
37:04
[SPEAKER_00]: There's less than 10 of us total.
37:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So we all know each other.
37:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And it'll lot of fakes.
37:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot of faith.
37:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
37:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Those people who aren't actually investing.
37:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Correct.
37:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Or like also aren't really like in the mix.
37:15
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe they've like a family office, which is great.
37:17
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want to talk to you a little bit about content.
37:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And like this little club that we have, let's call it like less than 10, probably like let's say five to six people that you know are actually investing, writing checks, and are talking about investing, technology, companies are excited about why do you do it, what gave you the idea to do it, talk to me about that.
37:37
[SPEAKER_00]: because it's very different than how you started, you know, I mean the beginning like you said that was not you were very like off the grid working, but now you're very much public have built a big profile for yourself, so I'd love to hear more.
37:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, I started making content because I was pissed that I couldn't get press.
37:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I had worked so hard for over a decade to start this fun.
37:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We raised a $100 million debut fund of so proud of this.
38:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And of so proud of the brand, the design, everything.
38:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we had this great track record.
38:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, and I couldn't get anybody to write about it.
38:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I hired a PR firm for a year and got nothing out of it.
38:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And,
38:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I swear?
38:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
38:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like fuck this noise.
38:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I am going to plot for myself.
38:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just like I am done with this.
38:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I am done with the gatekeeping.
38:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I am done.
38:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And also like who reads Forbes anyway, you know, like you can't like know everything's behind a paywall, you know, like I was like this is so ridiculous.
38:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And coming up in the 2010s, I saw the dudes
38:38
[SPEAKER_01]: that rode the medium wave, punched well above their weight, in terms of funcise, in terms of dual flow, like I saw that partnership between content and platform, really propel a lot of those funds forward.
38:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was thinking, okay, where is that edge today?
38:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll take it short from video.
38:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Gen Z is originating search on TikTok and Instagram.
39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's like nobody there, really talking about investing, talking about VC.
39:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm gonna try.
39:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I started, I started only on TikTok, because I was like, I don't know anyone is on TikTok.
39:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's great, no one will see me.
39:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I can just try.
39:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, doing get ready with me in my son's bedroom.
39:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the early ones are so cringe.
39:22
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was just like, I have to try, no.
39:26
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I was like I'm just gonna try it and I told myself I would do a three-month experiment So I really believe in like you can't I knew you can't just do it a couple of times Like I need to create a process.
39:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to do it for three months and I started doing it and it found out a couple of things One I actually liked it
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: like I found it was easy and kind of fun for me.
39:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm quite creative and so I was like I was not hard for me to think about ideas of things to talk about or things to do.
39:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I like to chat, right?
39:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's easy for me.
39:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I found that like oh like this is kind of fun.
39:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mostly was letting go of any of their results.
40:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just decided to kind of keep going, keep going.
40:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I would say it was about a year in where it was just very clear that this was now delivering business results.
40:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that was like, OK, we should really invest in this.
40:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I've doubled down.
40:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been two years now.
40:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And the last three investments that I've made, every single one of them, found me on social.
40:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So they found me on social network at a warm intro, wasn't like a cold DM.
40:27
[SPEAKER_01]: One was a cold DM from like a founder that previously sold her a company for $200 million.
40:31
[SPEAKER_01]: She DMed me on TikTok.
40:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I sold my previous company for bootstrapped for $200 million.
40:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm thinking about starting my next thing.
40:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, do you want to talk?
40:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, yeah.
40:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I wanna talk.
40:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I got into a plane, I flew down to LA, I like took her for lunch and took about nine months for her to decide she really wanted to do it.
40:47
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, we've led the pre-seed.
40:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and you know, with pre-seeds, all about people, it's about getting their first having their trust.
40:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, now it's like a huge piece of our deal flow.
40:58
[SPEAKER_01]: In the early days, it wasn't, like in the early days, what I was noticing, deal flow wasn't coming through that, but people were using like a resume.
41:05
[SPEAKER_01]: They were looking at the content, understand, what do I think?
41:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And now like I was at Cafe Chelsea just yesterday and a woman who's like an incredibly impressive resume like recognized me at Cafe Chelsea and she was like oh my god who are you getting a ganger I've like watched all your content and I was like what and she told me who she was and I was like this is a heavy hitter.
41:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like oh my god so it's in two years it's gone from get ready with me and my son's bathroom that are like really are like my son's bedroom it's like very embarrassing so
41:32
[SPEAKER_01]: In two years, it's gone from very embarrassing get ready with me like TikToks in my son's bedroom to getting recognized a cafe, tell see by like, oh, very heavy-hitting woman.
41:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's amazing how quickly that's happened, but I've enjoyed it, like I've just had fun.
41:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think that's the secret to if you were enjoying it, which is very evident in what you do in the content.
41:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll continue to do it, and it'll compound.
41:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's the craziest part.
41:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, you're only two years in what happens in the next two years.
41:58
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, how much more can it grow?
41:59
[SPEAKER_00]: How many more deals can you see?
42:01
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really exciting to think about.
42:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I have no idea, and that's also okay.
42:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, I love that it's not my business.
42:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I love that I'm a venture capitalist, and my focus is doing great deals, providing returns for my LPs, and one of the ways that I'm doing that is by making content to help drive deal flow.
42:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a content creator per se.
42:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm, or on the cost of not being well, that I'm not trying to monetize it.
42:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not, like, my business isn't to be a creator.
42:26
[SPEAKER_01]: My business is to be a VC who makes content,
42:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Stay in that game, but I'm already seeing like managers want to manage me and I'm just like wait like I don't know right So it's I've gotten big enough now where there's this pool to do I want to be this other thing So in two years I actually don't know how it's gonna play out I know that being a BC will always be the main thing that I'm doing but two years right now I have no idea
42:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I have no idea where it's going to go, but I enjoy that.
42:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't need to know, and I'm not someone who designs for the end, I'm someone who lives in the process, so I'm just enjoying the process and continuing to make good decisions along the way, hopefully.
43:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love that.
43:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
43:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's, I'm sort of realizing that, you know, it's not just the deal side.
43:10
[SPEAKER_00]: There's also, I go on a, you know, DM from a potential LP for a big check.
43:13
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's so many other, maybe you speak on a stage and someone hears you that is starting a company.
43:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's, there's a lot of these like roundabout wins that even aren't as direct as deal flow that can massively help the business.
43:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of wins there.
43:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to talk to you a little bit about starting.
43:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So we sort of jumped to content, but I want to talk about that transition from like being up old, you put in your eight plus years, you worked really hard at this firm, and then you decided to start this new one with a few friends, partners, talks to me about why you did that, and this really unique thesis about like tech and design, you know, I think you don't really see that we're design in many theses, so talks to me a little bit about that piece about starting the firm and the thesis behind it.
43:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think that Bolt had been very focused on hardware.
43:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called Bolt.
44:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
44:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, you know, the LPs really wanted it to be very narrowly focused on hardware.
44:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we're kind of two pieces, like hardware software and pre-seed.
44:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I saw was,
44:10
[SPEAKER_01]: is I didn't believe that there were enough high quality pre-seed hardware companies to build a 35-ish company portfolio.
44:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And the durability of that, it was just too narrow in my opinion.
44:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I felt like we are either gonna have to become full stack, like a route or in a clips and raise more money and do pre-seed series, I series B in hardware vertical.
44:37
[SPEAKER_01]: or software for hardware, you know, you can expand that way, or go broader and stay at pre-seed.
44:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was very clear that I wanted to go broader and stay at pre-seed.
44:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was already really pushing the edges of what was hardware.
44:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, is Bobby an infant formula company hardware?
44:54
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a product.
44:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, so I was a factor.
44:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we did some great great investments that are value drivers for the portfolio But that weren't really on thesis and so I knew that I wanted to start something I knew that if I was going to be a GP I wanted to be a GP of my own firm and I wanted this LPs to bet on me I wanted them to bet on my thesis
45:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I knew that I wanted to be pre-seats specific, and I wanted to be more generalists.
45:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Like with areas of concentration or like a lens, like tech and design.
45:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But I just knew that that was the fun that, if I was going to put my name on a known end and build it for 20 years, that that's what it was going to be.
45:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And so...
45:33
[SPEAKER_01]: that transition was pretty clear for me and i was also it was a time where it was like very hip to have female partners were not like in that era right now but i was getting lots of dm's from all the big mecca funds where i could have gone and made a ton of money but like that was just never
45:49
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just not me, right?
45:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Those were very easy to say no to.
45:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is interesting because I was going through a divorce.
45:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I just had a baby and I had no backup plan.
45:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So like I look back now and like logically speaking, taking a cushy like multimillion dollar salary would have been the quote unquote right thing to do.
46:05
[SPEAKER_01]: But I honestly didn't.
46:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to do it as an option?
46:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I did it.
46:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it was not in my consciousness.
46:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That was obviously a no.
46:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was really just this is what was going to happen.
46:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, did you know that this firm was going to be started?
46:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And you wanted to join it?
46:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Or was it really like you had the idea?
46:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's going to be started.
46:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like, how does, because it's so interesting, like, as a solo GP, you know, I was very much like, me being like, okay, I want to do this thing.
46:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll look for maybe other partners, but no, I've decided I want to go out at alone.
46:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how does it,
46:36
[SPEAKER_00]: originate do you know have this idea then you you know ping the people that you want to do with you Is it like a coffee chat between you and someone else and you're like should we do this thing like what's the origin?
46:45
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no one else in the world.
46:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I would start this firm with no one
46:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like, oh, maybe this isn't, no.
46:52
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't know, you don't know.
46:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'd say this is a divorce person, same thing with marriage.
46:57
[SPEAKER_01]: If you think you know, but you're not sure, you don't know.
47:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I think same thing with GPs.
47:02
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no one else in the world.
47:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I would build this firm with.
47:05
[SPEAKER_01]: If I wasn't building this firm with them, I'd be like running a dance nonprofit or something.
47:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, like, these are my people.
47:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that because I worked with them, I invested with them.
47:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw them weather hard times.
47:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw them disagree with me, I saw them, and love me anyway, and like I truly love my partners.
47:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It is so deep, it is a familial type of respectful love, and it wasn't a recruiting process, it wasn't even...
47:41
[SPEAKER_01]: a thought it was just obvious and we're also all extremely different.
47:47
[SPEAKER_01]: We spike in different ways, which means there's a lot of space for mutual respect around our very excellence.
47:54
[SPEAKER_01]: What's everyone's strengths like across the board?
47:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Who's the best at which thing?
47:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So first of all, I would say everyone is a very strong general athlete, like we can all kind of do everything, but then we all have excellence in different dynamics.
48:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So, operationally, we have a very clear division, Tyler and I run everything I call front of house, brand marketing, the collective that we run, we run all of that out of San Francisco, Matt and Axel, we
48:19
[SPEAKER_01]: run everything finance ops back office with our CFO in Boston.
48:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So Operation League have a very clear split, right?
48:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And then functionally when it comes to board management, again, we're all pretty strong general athletes, but there's probably 10 people in the world that are as good at product as Tyler.
48:37
[SPEAKER_01]: He was on the core team of the first iPhone, and
48:40
[SPEAKER_01]: He, you know, lived in China half the year, lived in the design studio.
48:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It Apple half the year where at the time he was in his mid-20s, he was running a multi-billion-dollar product line of all of the iPods.
48:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, Tyler is a really truly one of the great product minds of our generation.
48:56
[SPEAKER_01]: If I have a question about product or if someone wants to dive into product, I'm pulling him in.
49:01
[SPEAKER_01]: right, I would say Axel's one of the most financially deep strategic thinkers when it comes to how do you build enterprise value.
49:09
[SPEAKER_01]: He's seen zero to billion dollar exits again and again and again and so much of what it's about is the nuance of these really complex business design questions and company questions and so if I'm at a crossroads and I'm like okay
49:26
[SPEAKER_01]: we're thinking about designing it this way, or this way, he's got the three questions I haven't thought of.
49:32
[SPEAKER_01]: To help us get to that answer, it's also great to be with someone who's been through so many MNAs, who's exited public stocks so many times, so like all of these firm management things, that a lot of him or any manager hasn't seen, he's done it dozens of times.
49:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I also love is he's willing to do it differently.
49:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's like, this is what my experience tells me, what do you think, what do you see, right?
49:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So that willingness, that low ego, that willingness to be wrong, that willingness to do it in new way.
49:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But he just has this depth of experience and this joy of true, like, operate operating.
50:04
[SPEAKER_01]: He's built in Seoul due company.
50:05
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, that is where he is, is incredibly valuable.
50:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the nitty gritty stuff like reserves analysis, like, that's why it's like the financial piece.
50:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that means there's a fun model.
50:15
[SPEAKER_00]: He loves it reserves analysis.
50:17
[SPEAKER_01]: He's just like, I've been working on this spreadsheet and I'm just like Plus you know, I'm not that I can't do it, but he loves it.
50:25
[SPEAKER_01]: He has joy in it, right?
50:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like Tyler has joy in product
50:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say Matt is probably the most like Axel.
50:33
[SPEAKER_01]: He's also like, I mean, Matt, I don't think he's ever not dotted an eye or cross to T in his life.
50:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, and I think one thing that Axel says about Matt is the level of rigor.
50:47
[SPEAKER_01]: that Matt brings to things is unparalleled, a Tyler got him a hat once that says action items.
50:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, and so, you know, he's amazing.
50:55
[SPEAKER_01]: He's amazing as a board member.
50:57
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't let you squeak by with 80%.
51:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, he is just so good.
51:03
[SPEAKER_01]: He also, this is like random, but he's the only one of us that was ever a management consultant and think God was going to have to make a less slide desk.
51:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You know those through him.
51:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, he's a great board member.
51:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm an independent think of all these things that we all are But like that is is that and I would say for me like I am strong guys when it comes to creative Go to market marketing branding like that's where I really thrive.
51:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm also very well networked So like when it comes time for fundraising.
51:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really calling me You know get the intros and so that's where I spike and like again We're all good general athletes, but we have these areas
51:39
[SPEAKER_01]: and markets, you know, where we're experts, right?
51:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, axles, one of the leading engineering software investors and builders in the world.
51:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Tyler is one of the leading hardware people in the world.
51:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I do a lot of consumer.
51:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we all have these different areas, expertise.
51:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're willing to be wrong.
51:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So the dealful conversations are really interesting, because it's like we're all kind of bringing these perspectives in these minds together to try and make the best decision as a firm.
51:59
[SPEAKER_01]: We have equal economics, if equal decision making, consensus decision making, so we really do this as a team sport.
52:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is why you say, like, there's no other team, I would want to be on.
52:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, these are my guys.
52:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's so awesome.
52:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so special that you feel that way.
52:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I was going to say, like, we got to like, grab this snippet of what you just said and like throw it in your data room for your next fundraise.
52:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Because like, that is like the ultimate, like, this one's heard at this.
52:20
[SPEAKER_00]: This one's heard at that.
52:21
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like the for some that you should invest in.
52:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I feel like that was like the perfect advertisement for your next race.
52:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope so.
52:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyone watching?
52:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's zip it up for you, let's zip it up for you.
52:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
52:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm so excited for you.
52:33
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you most excited to invest in over the next five to 10 years?
52:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, where are you spending your time?
52:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I know there's like a splash of content, of course.
52:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But what are the investing themes you're excited about?
52:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And if there's founders listening to this that are building these spaces, and they're yours perk up, tell them what you're excited about.
52:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So over the next 10 years, who knows, right?
52:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, the founders will take me there, but the next year, so one area, I'm spending a lot of time in, I've talked about, I've been in hardware investing for eight years.
53:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very curious about the post-phone era.
53:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how it's gonna happen.
53:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know who's gonna do it.
53:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what the form factors are gonna be, but I'm spending a lot of time looking at kind of two areas of consumer hardware.
53:15
[SPEAKER_01]: One would be the kind of rise of analog,
53:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about, like, Yato or Tony's, and I think that's really the millennial parent buying for the child, where they're realizing the phone isn't good for the kids, and I need alternatives, but I also think there's another piece of that that's more sovereign computing.
53:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Gen Z being scared of AI, not wanting their data, exposed to AI models, and wanting to have sovereign hardware.
53:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we had some early product kits in the crypto space, actually.
53:41
[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at hardware wall, it's like there was some interesting stuff happening in there.
53:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that crypto is the use case, but there's something going on for me in these sovereign devices.
53:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And it could be toys or it could be finance, like I don't know.
53:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's something there for me.
53:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm also curious about kind of the AI wrapped in plastic.
54:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And my forecast is that will actually be owned by the core models, right?
54:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be anthropic and open AI, and you know, open AI bought IO obviously that are going to win there just because they can probably give the devices away for free and make them any other ways and it's really hard for a start to compete against that.
54:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think if you have this like external software brain of your whole life, there's some really interesting like entry points like maybe it's not a home speaker maybe it's a bag charm.
54:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, like I don't know what's going to happen there, but that's a place where I'm spending a lot of time I'm trying to meet as many founders as possible to kind of get a sense for what they're thinking about it And I think this will be a really interesting multi-generational product.
54:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's probably going to be a Gency founder with a great idea and a cracked manufacturing team that's been doing this for 20 years.
54:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one area.
54:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm excited about
54:52
[SPEAKER_01]: another area where I think I have a pretty non-consensus opinion.
54:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you agree, but right now, like every VC hates a creator business.
55:00
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think they're wrong.
55:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that we're early to the creator economy.
55:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I think VC's mostly think about the creator economy investments as like creator tools, Lincoln bio, like
55:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Accounting for creators.
55:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that's not it.
55:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's not it.
55:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, but there's so much money flowing from brands into the hands of the creators because creators have distribution.
55:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Distribution is valuable.
55:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So the consequences.
55:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the companies that figure out how to be the platform for or to somehow monetize the desire, people's desire, businesses desire for distribution are going to win.
55:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're crushing it, but they're really focused on affiliate commerce and that's a narrow set of The distribution world, right?
55:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Fashioned money.
55:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So it gives a lot of opportunity.
55:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
55:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
55:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I don't think shopmise is going to be the last.
55:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's going to be the first.
55:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's a space where I'm actually actively making investments.
55:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And everybody hates them.
55:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Vc's hate them.
56:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So the thing I have to figure out is like who has the juice to build something big?
56:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Who's gonna be able to fundraise for it?
56:06
[SPEAKER_01]: What are the big ideas?
56:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's a space where I think I have an edge because I think I see it in a different way much like you do I'm sure Then other investors and it's a pretty non-consensus opinion, so the valuations are low, which is nice
56:18
[SPEAKER_00]: yeah it's nice but like to your point it's this balance of like coming in love with then making sure you're finding the founder that can sell the story so that one of the big dogs will like take a swing because that's like so much of our business is like you want to be non-concenses enough where it's like you know you're going to make money at it it's a low price and it's a really interesting idea that no one's talking about but then you also need them to have a you know solid runway long future ahead and so um i've a lot of thoughts on everything you just said um i think the first thing is i love your hardware and like
56:48
[SPEAKER_00]: people also don't make those investments enough.
56:50
[SPEAKER_00]: There's this like physical AI wave right now, but you sort of have this like consumer spend to it, which is like really refreshing.
56:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It's most deep tech people are like, give me a circuit board.
56:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I won't be nerdy about it.
57:01
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't understand consumer.
57:02
[SPEAKER_01]: There's very few people understand hardware and consumer.
57:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where I think, yeah, like you really shine because you have the chops, a lot of people don't.
57:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like novel, like they bought their kit a tin can, but they don't really understand the economics behind it.
57:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is really cool.
57:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the other thing I wanted to say was, you're talking about creator, like everyone talks about lifestyle creators.
57:19
[SPEAKER_00]: They think of like the Alex or roles of the world.
57:21
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's these like knowledge creators.
57:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Like even like you and I, like we're not lifestyle creators.
57:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we're talking about our jobs.
57:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And our number one job is the job of making money for our LPs.
57:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the side thing is like, oh yeah, like here's a sneak at our life, you know?
57:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that there's something really interesting there about how creators are evolving and it's going from being really cute and talking about getting your macho, which is I love that and that's great too, but also maybe a little bit more about the work itself and creating being more of a secondary task versus the primary task.
57:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the wave I'm most interested is like multi-hyphenate non-screener, as that's like the wave that I think is underserved right now, and I think they're going to bring on a vast amount of investment.
58:02
[SPEAKER_01]: If you think about the value of a makeup brand versus, let's say, financial services.
58:10
[SPEAKER_01]: There are massive markets that are going to try to figure out how to advertise your creators are actively trying right now, and they don't know how.
58:17
[SPEAKER_01]: That's an opportunity.
58:19
[SPEAKER_00]: A thousand percent.
58:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like you and I are living proof of that, because we probably get DMs.
58:22
[SPEAKER_00]: They do DM me.
58:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to make a post about your weird thing for 20 grand.
58:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's just weird.
58:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, not because I'm sure 20 grand is nice, but like, I have a job.
58:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
58:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this isn't my job, but it has to be a better route.
58:34
[SPEAKER_00]: There has to be a better route.
58:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally.
58:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing.
58:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's a problem I hear constantly from operators.
58:40
[SPEAKER_00]: The data exists.
58:41
[SPEAKER_00]: The answers are somewhere in there, but getting to that of actually pulling a useful insight without bugging the data team or learning SQL takes way too long or just does not happen.
58:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Hex solves that.
58:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Hex is an AI analytics platform where anyone on your team can ask data questions and plain English and get real answers backed by your actual business context, no sequel required.
59:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And the best part is that Hex shows you exactly how its data agents think, so you can see where the logic comes from and trust the output.
59:07
[SPEAKER_00]: The more your team uses it, the smarter gets.
59:10
[SPEAKER_00]: From seed stage founders running lean to larger works dealing with serious data complexity, hex is built to scale with you.
59:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's game-changing for people like me who want to understand what's going on under the hood, but we are not the data experts.
59:21
[SPEAKER_00]: It's funny too, because I feel like every time I look over my operator friend's shoulders, whether they're in product or marketing or ops, they often have a hex dashboard pulled up.
59:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a great tool.
59:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Trailblazers listeners get an exclusive 30-day free trial at hex.ai slash trailblazers.
59:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I do.
59:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I could ask you many more questions, but I want to get to our lightning round.
59:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
59:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do it.
59:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm ready.
59:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
59:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Trailblazers are trade-offs.
59:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So we call it.
59:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
59:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So give me just the first answer that comes to mind.
59:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
59:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
59:43
[SPEAKER_00]: A book in hand, or a podcast in ears.
59:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Book in hand.
59:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Any favorites?
59:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Besides a goddess guide to branding, a shout out again.
59:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I just picked up a fabulous poetry book and a poetry reading and I can't remember the name of it But I read a lot of poetry.
59:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a lot of time But I love reading poetry on the page.
59:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I often have a poetry book with me Can read it between things before bed some a big poetry reader.
1:00:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it I see like people would never get as a vc's read poetry You know, they they should more should read more poetry.
1:00:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
1:00:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, you're slow We're fire fast.
1:00:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I are slow Okay, um, I would say we have an incredible new member of our team She was my intern for a year and a half
1:00:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And in that year and a half, not only got to see her work ethic, the quality that she put out, but how she meshed with the team, her style.
1:00:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're a flow-based team.
1:00:31
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not like, here's the calendar.
1:00:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the goals.
1:00:34
[SPEAKER_01]: We're very much about going where the energy is.
1:00:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was able to move with the team in that way.
1:00:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And so by working with her in an intern capacity for a year and a half, we got the opportunity to really like know each other outside of the output, but in the process, and that matters a lot to me, especially in a small company, adding one person is like a huge percent change.
1:00:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And so at least for us, I'm now a believer in higher slow.
1:00:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And even if it's not like a full blown internship, like the people that can do like the weekend, the week nights with you for a while just to test it out.
1:01:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always a good idea.
1:01:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, literally she would like come to my house.
1:01:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So she was in content for us.
1:01:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And she would come to my house and sit in my son's bedroom with me or like go for a walk with me.
1:01:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was, I felt like she also just knew me and knew my life and was willing to kind of fit into it, which is what I need it, being as busy as I am, as a mom, as an investor, all of that stuff.
1:01:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I needed someone who could kind of hang with all of me.
1:01:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Not someone who is like, I have these three goals and you need to deliver them for me and I did it at that rate but really just be with us in the process and she proved that she could do that and it's been the best working relationship I've had really in a long time.
1:01:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That's awesome.
1:01:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I love hearing that.
1:01:41
[SPEAKER_00]: 10 small wins are one big moon shot.
1:01:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, I think it depends on personal or professional.
1:01:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually think the 10 small wins get you to the moonshot, because I'm not a believer in like, I want this big goal and I'm gonna design this whole process to get there.
1:01:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a big believer in like intuitively feeling it out.
1:02:03
[SPEAKER_01]: and kind of going where the energy is.
1:02:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's often about like, what's the next best choice?
1:02:08
[SPEAKER_01]: How does this feel over here?
1:02:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Like my belief is that if you do that in a way that is brave, you ultimately will get to the moon shot.
1:02:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Economically, of course, you're looking for all moonshots, right?
1:02:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you want everything to be that big returning, so that, you know, every investment we make, we have has to be able to return the whole fund.
1:02:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But from a process perspective and how to get there, I don't think you go moonshot hunting.
1:02:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you go looking for excellence, and that's through these little cycles.
1:02:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that, I love that.
1:02:38
[SPEAKER_00]: because it doesn't happen overnight.
1:02:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, moonshine, they look like they're overnight, but they're very similar to the original.
1:02:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
1:02:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like all moonshines are actually diligent, small choices day in and day out.
1:02:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love that reframe.
1:02:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Being early or being right.
1:02:53
[SPEAKER_01]: being earlier being right I mean I've chosen to be early um because I think if you're right but late it's like not that interesting to me uh I want to be early and right and so but if you want to be early and right you can't start with just being right because they could never be early right so I don't really care about failure I think this is a difference between venture and PE like PE cares about failure rate venture doesn't
1:03:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I care about the opportunity for success.
1:03:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very, the glass is always half full with me.
1:03:22
[SPEAKER_01]: See optimism business.
1:03:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'm, and I just, it's who I am, right?
1:03:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just kind of how I, how I am naturally.
1:03:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I always want to be early.
1:03:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I always want to be in the dream state.
1:03:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I only want to be with possibility.
1:03:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm okay if it doesn't work.
1:03:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't think that's, um, a bad thing, right?
1:03:39
[SPEAKER_01]: To take, to take shots and for them to fail.
1:03:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very comfortable with that.
1:03:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, it reminds me a little bit too of like you posting on TikTok as sort of like I'll just try it.
1:03:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It's early.
1:03:46
[SPEAKER_00]: No one else is here.
1:03:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Could be right.
1:03:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Could be wrong, but it's definitely early.
1:03:49
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure.
1:03:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:03:50
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the best teacher?
1:03:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm mentor or I'm a steak.
1:03:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm.
1:03:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I don't really think about mistakes.
1:03:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So mentor, um, I'm all about where are you going?
1:04:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Like forward looking, where are you going?
1:04:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's been very powerful for me to see how people ahead of me show up.
1:04:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think mentorship is really a two-way street.
1:04:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a dialogue, it's collaboration.
1:04:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of that is very productive for me.
1:04:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Mistakes are like, I've learned from my mistakes, but nowhere as much as I've learned from mentors.
1:04:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I just move on.
1:04:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I just let go and move on.
1:04:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep going.
1:04:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very refreshing.
1:04:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of people dwell.
1:04:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what holds them back from doing great things.
1:04:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:04:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally.
1:04:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, is the future of AI abundance or chaos?
1:04:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, he's a little bit of questions.
1:04:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't warn you.
1:04:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:04:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I mean chaos, I think, uh, but I don't, I don't think that chaos in a abundance or diametrically opposed, okay?
1:04:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think it'll depend a lot on his in power.
1:05:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we continue to have the people in power in power, with AI, we're in trouble.
1:05:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think we are in trouble.
1:05:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So, abundance is the feminine framing.
1:05:11
[SPEAKER_01]: the abundance mentality, the idea that there isn't a finite pie, that there's more than enough to go around, that if I have things to share, I want to crowded table if people to share them with me.
1:05:23
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the abundance mentality.
1:05:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You can have the exact
1:05:27
[SPEAKER_01]: and have abundance or chaos.
1:05:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Chaos is a scarcity mindset.
1:05:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Chaos is the masculine, and I don't mean men.
1:05:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean the masculine.
1:05:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like only one can win.
1:05:38
[SPEAKER_01]: We, there's only so much pie to go around.
1:05:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And ironically, we have people in power around AI who are trying to build an abundant technological world, but they're doing it from a political and personal disposition
1:05:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And they don't seem to care about the people who lose their jobs and die in the process.
1:06:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm very worried about where we are at culturally and politically, not because of AI specifically, but because of the power structure that exists within international politics, within America, and within what appears to be an emerging oligarchy.
1:06:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think people who don't believe that are not paying attention or truly don't care.
1:06:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be an interesting decade.
1:06:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That's for sure.
1:06:27
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a lot unfolding and there's a lot of, there's a lot of, I want you to use a button in your case, I'll just say noise and energy around so many changes, political changes or religious changes, technological changes, so it's a very interesting time, it's we have to make sure we have the right mindset around it, but you're right, there's definitely a lot of energy as how I usually describe it.
1:06:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think that you can meet chaos with abundance.
1:06:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
1:06:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And that looks like community care.
1:06:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks like feeding your neighbor.
1:06:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks like growing a garden.
1:07:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks like all like this kind of abundance way of moving through the world, even in a context of scarcity and competition.
1:07:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that you meet chaos by saying, oh, well, I'll just get my bag and win, right?
1:07:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Which I think is a lot of where that fear comes from.
1:07:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it needs to be island into my community and care.
1:07:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love this idea of like when all the outside world, international, national, whatever feels crazy, you can focus on the local.
1:07:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the garden, it's the neighbor, it's the friends, it's the, you know, the way you show up, even just here.
1:07:38
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the stuff that we also have the control over.
1:07:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's a good reminder.
1:07:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Really predominantly offline.
1:07:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Get offline.
1:07:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
1:07:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Like check on your actual neighbor.
1:07:47
[SPEAKER_01]: knock on their door, bring them a pie.
1:07:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is the time to do that.
1:07:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually hosted a neighborhood resiliency potluck last month.
1:07:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And just like put a note on the neighbor's door as it did at our office.
1:07:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a potluck.
1:07:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody came and they were so excited to meet their neighbors and I became friends with my neighbors.
1:08:04
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like elder lesbians of burnel heights.
1:08:06
[SPEAKER_01]: They're so nice.
1:08:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And my son has a relationship with them.
1:08:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of knew them, but I didn't know that across the street neighbors.
1:08:12
[SPEAKER_01]: They introduced me to them.
1:08:13
[SPEAKER_01]: They're watering my plants right now.
1:08:16
[SPEAKER_01]: this kind of community resilience we know that that is what predicts safety and resilience in natural disasters.
1:08:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that whether that natural disaster is a fire or a flood or
1:08:31
[SPEAKER_01]: a career apocalypse like that community resilience I think is going to be what carries us through and a willingness to share and care for your neighbor and not forgetting what makes us all human.
1:08:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's so much of it.
1:08:43
[SPEAKER_00]: We're all hyper obsessed technology but at the end of the day since the dawn of time we've been humans talking to humans.
1:08:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are very basic needs that science can tell us, you know, connection, what it's like more powerful, not having connection loneliness is worse than smoking or something like that.
1:08:58
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so it's a, it's important to remember that.
1:09:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
1:09:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, for more killer product or loyal niche audience.
1:09:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, killer product, okay.
1:09:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think killer products find loyal niche audiences and then they grow.
1:09:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Loyal niche audiences without killer products tend to only stay within that niche and I'm building billion art companies here, so we gotta grow, baby.
1:09:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Love it.
1:09:20
[SPEAKER_00]: VC or bootstrapping.
1:09:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna go with seed strapping, which is my favorite right in the middle.
1:09:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I love, especially now, like, you can really do so much with a lean team because of AI.
1:09:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think there's always going to be the opportunity to raise, you know, or invest one to two million into great people, building companies.
1:09:40
[SPEAKER_00]: but they're not necessarily going to need the same amount of downstream capital.
1:09:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't get diluted.
1:09:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
1:09:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's good for founders.
1:09:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's good for early stage investors, but you have to make sure that you're okay to like value your own deals.
1:09:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a different shape of thing.
1:09:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're not going to get the markups at all that stuff.
1:09:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that there is really
1:10:02
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that's a little bit of an issue right now is we have this kind of glut of capital Partnered with technology that should make us more lean and They're a little bit at odds right now or people are like building these War chests, but it's not really sure that they need them honestly a lot of it's going to compute So that's a problem.
1:10:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think that like I'm very interested in Lean operating styles that That really serve like
1:10:29
[SPEAKER_00]: profitable businesses businesses that they're off a lot of cash that also have big market opportunities where I don't get to load it so yeah yeah it's crazy I mean Bobby's a good example of this not to like bring it all way back but like you know one of my an investor friend of mine who was early there was talking about just like the delusion element and how it's actually helped them so much in their portfolio they haven't had to raise as much over time
1:10:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, never post on social media again, or never fundraise another dollar again.
1:10:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Never post on social media again.
1:10:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, tell me why.
1:10:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I love what I do, I love my job.
1:11:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's primary.
1:11:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, totally, absolutely.
1:11:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I love being an investor.
1:11:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, I feel like how I'm making an impact in the world.
1:11:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I, deploying capital to people, to build their dreams is like,
1:11:11
[SPEAKER_01]: The reason I'm here, you know, that and extruding the spirit of my son, those are the reasons I'm here.
1:11:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So social media take it early, but like I love what I do, easy, love it.
1:11:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Last question, is AI overhyped or underhyped?
1:11:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a bubble, I think it's overvalued.
1:11:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that the hype is wrong, but I think the valuations are wrong.
1:11:31
[SPEAKER_01]: A hundred million dollars seed rounds that's insane, right?
1:11:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just illogical, illogical behavior is what creates bubble behavior.
1:11:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So the AI technology wave is real.
1:11:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the technology promise is real, and I think it is overvalued.
1:11:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
1:11:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, thanks for being here.
1:11:49
[SPEAKER_00]: This is so exciting.
1:11:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having me.
1:11:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks so much for listening to the Trailblazers podcast.
1:11:54
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1:12:00
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1:12:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It helps more constrained builders find us and supports the work we're doing here.
1:12:06
[SPEAKER_00]: To learn more about what we're doing, you can visit Trailblazerspod.com or my venture capital firm parkrangerscapped.com or just follow along on socials at Erica Under Score Winger.
1:12:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, keep trailblazing.