Latest / Millennial Masters / AI built the product. Investors still said no 💸 Vinnie Lauria

Transcript

AI built the product. Investors still said no 💸 Vinnie Lauria · Millennial Masters

0:00
SPEAKER_00: A lot of founders that tell me their mission is to build a billion dollar company.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: And they think as an investor, I want to hear that.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: And I'm immediately walking away because you have just failed.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Because as a leader, you need to get a whole bunch of people running the same direction as you.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: It took me over a decade of investing and six, seven,
0:30
SPEAKER_00: And now I realize the deck will get you in the door.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure it's a fit for the thesis, but I've seen 10,000 decks as an investor.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: It's not the polished deck that gets you the investment.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: If anything,
0:53
SPEAKER_00: I have spider census going off when a deck is way too polished,
0:57
SPEAKER_00: that something's not right here.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Here's a big mistake.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: So, who are you?
1:15
SPEAKER_00: This week's Millennial Master is Viniloria,
1:17
SPEAKER_00: founding partner of Golden Gate Ventures and one
1:18
SPEAKER_00: of Southeast Asia's best known venture capital investors.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: Vinny spent the last 15 years backing founders across the region,
1:43
SPEAKER_01: and before becoming an investor,
1:45
SPEAKER_01: he built startups himself, giving him experience on both sides of the table.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: In this episode,
1:52
SPEAKER_01: we talk about what investors actually look for today,
1:56
SPEAKER_01: how AI has changed the standard founders are judged against,
1:59
SPEAKER_01: and why getting funded has less to do with a polished pitch
2:04
SPEAKER_00: than most people think.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: You've been on both sides of the table now.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: Before Golden Gate Ventures,
2:11
SPEAKER_01: what did you learn as a founder
2:13
SPEAKER_01: that still shapes how you judge other founders today?
2:16
SPEAKER_01: Your experience has been crucial to the business you built afterwards.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: I'd say as a two-time founder who's raised money from VCs,
2:25
SPEAKER_00: I think what I learned the most is empathy,
2:28
SPEAKER_00: like how it feels to be on the other side,
2:30
SPEAKER_00: what stresses they're going through,
2:32
SPEAKER_00: because it's very easy as the investor just to ask a question,
2:35
SPEAKER_00: expect the answer, and try to make a judgment call there.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: But to actually understand where the entrepreneur might be in their journey,
2:42
SPEAKER_00: what sort of challenges they have,
2:44
SPEAKER_00: and be able to connect with them where they feel comfortable to share that.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: It is a pretty amazing, a pretty powerful investor tool.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: And when you're talking about the part of the journey,
2:55
SPEAKER_01: even if there is the first race or the second one,
2:58
SPEAKER_01: for example, it can be very different.
3:01
SPEAKER_01: Your first rates might be with friends and family,
3:03
SPEAKER_01: as they call it,
3:04
SPEAKER_01: while it could be your first institutional race with full-on VCs or it could be
3:08
SPEAKER_01: with angels.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: There's some clear differences between that.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: So the reality is when you're building something, you need somebody to trust to give you money.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: And any VC today is going to say, I need to see traction.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: And especially if you're building an AI company,
3:21
SPEAKER_00: I need to see revenue because people are paying for services.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: How do you actually get there where you can be showing traction and revenue to a VC?
3:28
SPEAKER_00: You're going to need to do a seed round, which is generally a friends and family round.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: So for my first startup,
3:34
SPEAKER_00: that included a former manager of mine at IBM,
3:36
SPEAKER_00: somebody that I've worked with, that knew me, that trusted me.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Didn't really understand the area we're going after, but said, all right, but he's building it.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: I will give some capital.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Even to launch Golden Gate Ventures 16 years ago,
3:48
SPEAKER_00: our first close as a fund was basically an angel friends and family around people
3:53
SPEAKER_00: that knew me,
3:54
SPEAKER_00: people that trusted me,
3:55
SPEAKER_00: people that were,
3:56
SPEAKER_00: you know,
3:57
SPEAKER_00: made their own success in San Francisco alongside me and said,
3:59
SPEAKER_00: yeah, if you're going to be doing something in Asia, I'm interested in backing that.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: But as you mature and get to,
4:04
SPEAKER_00: you know,
4:05
SPEAKER_00: the VC stage,
4:06
SPEAKER_00: that's where the questions start becoming user behavior, traction, numbers, revenue.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have that, you can't get very far in the conversation.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: Let's go back to Southeast Asia because you started Golden Gate Ventures,
4:17
SPEAKER_01: you said 16 years,
4:18
SPEAKER_01: so 2011, focused on that region because it was an obvious startup region.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: Why did you see other investors were missing, especially compared to, say, San Francisco?
4:28
SPEAKER_00: I feel really fortunate with my timing to the region.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: I think if I was a few years earlier, it would have been too early.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: And a few years later, I would not have had enough experience to even start a fund.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: I would have been behind the times.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: So for me, it was fortunate timing.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: We had just gotten married,
4:44
SPEAKER_00: so we took off from the Valley,
4:45
SPEAKER_00: just said, let's take a break, backpack, backpacking.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: And the whole plan wasn't Asia,
4:50
SPEAKER_00: but we ended up spending a full year in Asia because it was our first time.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: China was amazing.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: There were huge companies like Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent that were already public in China.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: VCs like Sequoia from the US had already set up in India.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: But in Southeast Asia, there was no VC money.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Yet I saw all the same infrastructure growth.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: Cranes going 24-7 in Bangkok, Jakarta, Singapore.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: Entrepreneurs I met that wanted to raise Money that we're building services
5:15
SPEAKER_00: that had gone successfully public IPO in the US and was really an aha moment
5:20
SPEAKER_00: for me was an angel investment and then put it to the fund.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Money Smart,
5:24
SPEAKER_00: a financial comparison website similar to a lending tree in the US,
5:28
SPEAKER_00: pitched me and was I'm interested.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Let me hit up a few friends, angels and VCs in the US.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: And before any of them even properly looked at the deal to say yay or nay,
5:37
SPEAKER_00: they just responded, I don't do anything outside the US.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: And that was like my light bulb kind of idea.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, there's huge opportunities.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: I think I could plug in.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: So as a former computer engineer, two-time founder, it wasn't that I was looking to do VC.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: To me, it was just like, oh, that's an opportunity.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: I have experience.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And then this is the crazy thing is once I started paying I was pitching people
5:59
SPEAKER_00: in Asia that I wanted to set up a fund in Asia.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: They thought I was crazy.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: Why would you invest here?
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Why is this Silicon Valley kid interested in investing here?
6:06
SPEAKER_00: You should be investing in San Francisco.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: You need to be a little crazy.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: When I back entrepreneurs,
6:11
SPEAKER_00: they tend to be seeing things differently So you had your fundraising experience
6:15
SPEAKER_00: with your
6:41
SPEAKER_01: Two previous startups that you've done,
6:43
SPEAKER_01: you said you went for what we would call here in the UK a gap year,
6:47
SPEAKER_01: traveling in
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Vietnam and Asia.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: But what happened to your first two startups?
6:54
SPEAKER_00: So first startup, Mitro,
6:56
SPEAKER_00: location-based chat, 2004,
6:58
SPEAKER_00: four years before the iPhone,
7:00
SPEAKER_00: we raised a Series A,
7:01
SPEAKER_00: but could not get any sort of momentum or attraction to take us to the next stage.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: And so I ended up shutting that down.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: So that is a failure.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: We lost capital that was invested in us.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: We could not take the company to the next stage.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: In Silicon Valley, that's
7:17
SPEAKER_00: a badge of honor.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: I feel you.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: I've been there too.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: And so went through that process, learned a lot, as many great entrepreneurs do.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: And second company, Lafora, was an online communities platform.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: And this is the amazing thing about living in Silicon Valley.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: So for my first startup, we were seven guys living in SFX.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: We had a three bedroom house in Palo Alto right above a bunch of early Facebook employees.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: This is when Facebook was just opening up in Palo Alto in 2004 and got to know them well.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: And for our second startup,
7:44
SPEAKER_00: when we launched it,
7:46
SPEAKER_00: we were one of the first platforms to integrate with the Facebook login.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: This is like 2007 or eight when they had just launched it.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: And that allowed us to grow very rapidly,
7:55
SPEAKER_00: being one of the few on the platform that they were promoting.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: And we were essentially building Facebook groups.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, eight years, 10 years before Facebook had an offering like that.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: And so it grew very, very quickly and we were acquired by a media company out of Los Angeles.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: Not many founders experience an acquisition and sometimes it comes with a few strings attached.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: So I wonder what yours were in the case of the acquisition.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: You're right.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: There are always streams of tact.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: So we had an earn out,
8:24
SPEAKER_00: which means depending on the performance of the company over 12 months
8:29
SPEAKER_00: after acquisition would depend on how much cash and equity.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: So we were not hired full.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: We were basically hired as advisors to work and make sure the product and
8:40
SPEAKER_00: the service continued to grow.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: And this is where we were incentivized and we worked.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: And so we weren't selling a lemon.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: We were selling something that actually had some legs and traction.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: And so the whole team was very involved.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: And I can say, thankfully, we hit all of our milestones so that we received our full earn out.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: I've spoken to at least maybe four other founders now from
9:02
SPEAKER_01: over 17 Millennial Masters episodes who have been in this position.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: Most of them seem to have an earn out.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: But being on the investing side, that also seems to be quite normal, right?
9:12
SPEAKER_00: It is.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's about aligning interests.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: And so at the end of the day,
9:17
SPEAKER_00: if you're saying, hey,
9:18
SPEAKER_00: what I'm selling is of good quality and there's growth ahead,
9:21
SPEAKER_00: you should feel comfortable putting that on the line.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: And think about it,
9:25
SPEAKER_00: now as a VC,
9:25
SPEAKER_00: when I invest in a startup, it's really about that long-term partnership.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: If the company does well, we both do well.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: And if the company doesn't, then we both don't.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: So it's really aligning that longer term.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: A lot of the times you hear like big headline numbers about acquisitions
9:41
SPEAKER_01: and those only materialize after a certain number of years.
9:44
SPEAKER_01: It's not that somebody got the cash in their account next week and that's it,
9:49
SPEAKER_01: they're out of the company.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: That's where the earn out comes,
9:51
SPEAKER_01: that's where these targets come in and that's where these valuations get put on,
9:55
SPEAKER_01: right?
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and there's been, I mean,
9:57
SPEAKER_00: we've had a dozen companies in the portfolio acquired now,
10:00
SPEAKER_00: and sometimes it's not even an earn out.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: The company's acquired, the CEO can be used to say CEO of the service.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: They leave the product and the service with its own brand.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Now it just has more capital behind it and a platform to plug into.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
10:12
SPEAKER_00: sometimes that earn out is actually much longer in that the founders continue
10:16
SPEAKER_00: to stay on and run the company.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: Vinny, something that I've been writing about on Millennial Masters,
10:20
SPEAKER_01: and it was inspired by the discussions that I've had with people on the podcast,
10:24
SPEAKER_01: was that now it's way, way cheaper to build with AI product.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: And the mode is becoming the distribution, getting the word out there.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: There's no...
10:33
SPEAKER_01: It's not a case of build it and they will come.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: You can have the best product and if people don't hear about it,
10:39
SPEAKER_01: there's no way to get it on the market.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: And I'm assuming a lot of the founders you work with
10:45
SPEAKER_01: at Golden Gate Ventures have something along those lines in their long list
10:50
SPEAKER_01: of things to tackle.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: What's your take on it?
10:52
SPEAKER_00: So you're right in that AI,
10:55
SPEAKER_00: like people can build anything and just because you build
10:57
SPEAKER_00: a great product doesn't mean it's going to take off.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: So that might be more true with AI,
11:02
SPEAKER_00: but with my VC hat on,
11:04
SPEAKER_00: it doesn't feel different than anything we've been looking at for the past 30 years.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the time when we're interviewing founders, we're
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Specifically asking those sort of questions to understand their understanding of
11:27
SPEAKER_00: the difficulty.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: And I can tell you there's a wide spectrum.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: There are founders that have no idea.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: They just think they raise capital.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: And then they're not even sure what.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: They buy ads or something like that.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: The reality is for any startup you're familiar with,
11:41
SPEAKER_00: it is pretty much hacked its way to something where it gets a little money,
11:45
SPEAKER_00: it's doing this,
11:45
SPEAKER_00: and there's always something clever happening behind the scenes in order
11:49
SPEAKER_00: to get some market share.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: So we do spend a lot of time asking those And again,
11:54
SPEAKER_00: that's why by the time you come to a VC, we need to see that performance data.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: You know, what channels are people coming in from?
12:00
SPEAKER_00: How are they finding out about it?
12:01
SPEAKER_00: How sticky is it?
12:02
SPEAKER_00: Are they coming back?
12:03
SPEAKER_00: Are they just checking it out once?
12:05
SPEAKER_00: If you look into the hood and see all that data that's in revenue,
12:08
SPEAKER_00: you can get a really good idea of has this company,
12:11
SPEAKER_00: has this founding team really figured out what they need to do?
12:14
SPEAKER_01: And what would be the priority when they work on that?
12:18
SPEAKER_01: The other premise that I've been covering is that the other founders can stay stuck
12:23
SPEAKER_01: on building mode because it's so much easier than moving on to sales,
12:27
SPEAKER_01: which makes it uncomfortable.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: You obviously lived through that in the much easier social media era,
12:32
SPEAKER_01: but now it's a bit different because you don't really have organic reach anymore.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I would classify it as being easier before and more difficult now.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: I think it's always been difficult.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: I think there are maybe the competition's a bit higher now,
13:03
SPEAKER_00: so then you have to be a bit savvier,
13:05
SPEAKER_00: that might be a way of putting it,
13:06
SPEAKER_00: but At the end of the day,
13:08
SPEAKER_00: that's where I haven't really felt like an inflection point in terms of that get
13:13
SPEAKER_00: to market strategy, key talent you need.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: That has actually been a huge part of my investment decisions.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: I do not invest in ideas.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Ideas are worthless.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Every idea has already been thought of.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: I've never heard of a new idea.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: But how do you actually execute on it?
13:29
SPEAKER_00: And like you were saying, they could be very focused on developing it.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: There's also that trade-off of how polished it is.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, you need to get something out the door.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can market it really well.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: But I have also met founders that want something to be very polished
13:42
SPEAKER_00: before it goes out the door.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: So it's never ready.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: And in software,
13:45
SPEAKER_00: the web world,
13:46
SPEAKER_00: if you're waiting for something to be polished, it never will be there.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: And I've had founders point to...
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Apple, Steve Jobs.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, look at his, you know, religiousness on the original iPhone.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah, that was after 40 years.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: His first product was a computer attached to a piece of plywood.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: It was ugly, but he got it out the door.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: He sold it.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah,
14:07
SPEAKER_00: if you're going to point to Steve Jobs,
14:09
SPEAKER_00: don't point to Steve Jobs,
14:10
SPEAKER_00: you know, after a few decades, point to him in the early years.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what you need to be doing.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: And the iPhone didn't have an App Store until three years later.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, which was now one of the biggest parts in terms of Apple's revenue with
14:23
SPEAKER_01: the services side,
14:25
SPEAKER_01: let alone iCloud and Apple Music and everything else they developed afterwards too.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you are right.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: They can be reading the Steve Jobs biography and thinking,
14:36
SPEAKER_01: I need to do that and I need to be a perfectionist.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: I typically fall in that trap as well a lot of the time.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: But let's talk about pitch decks, Vinny, because...
14:45
SPEAKER_01: A lot of founders are also obsessive with pitch decks once they start looking
14:49
SPEAKER_01: at raising investment.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: How much does the deck actually matter?
14:53
SPEAKER_01: I've seen, say, the original pitch decks from Uber.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: They were like super simple, like three words on a slide.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: And then I've seen some other ones which looked like more like an Excel file,
15:04
SPEAKER_01: like loads of words on a slide.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: So this is a great question.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: It took me over a decade of investing and six,
15:12
SPEAKER_00: seven years of building and pitching VCs to realize Yeah,
15:15
SPEAKER_00: it actually is not as important as you think.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: I used to be fanatical about my decks,
15:20
SPEAKER_00: which page,
15:21
SPEAKER_00: which charts,
15:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:22
SPEAKER_00: cutting it down,
15:23
SPEAKER_00: showing it to different people,
15:24
SPEAKER_00: getting feedback, and then even as a fund, we'd spend so much time.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: And now I realize, you know, the deck world I love that.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: So I think it is important to understand some of the key things inside of a deck,
15:53
SPEAKER_00: like how do you get to market,
15:55
SPEAKER_00: about the founding team,
15:56
SPEAKER_00: what makes you unique, how you explain your problem, your ideal customer.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: If you can communicate that information,
16:02
SPEAKER_00: not in pretty slides,
16:03
SPEAKER_00: but just clearly communicate it, you're going to have a lot of information.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: So what's the most common thing founders get wrong before they even send a deck to
16:13
SPEAKER_01: an investor, you would say?
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Great question.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: I was guilty of this.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Founders think investors invest in great ideas.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: I have a great idea.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, this investor wants to invest in me.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: And that is not the case.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Investors have really specific themes and theses that they invest in,
16:30
SPEAKER_00: things they like and they don't like,
16:31
SPEAKER_00: vertical geographies, stages,
16:34
SPEAKER_00: founder profiles,
16:35
SPEAKER_00: and we do not invest in So just because a VC says no doesn't mean it's a bad idea.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't fit that investor's theme or thesis.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: So spending more time qualifying which VCs to speak to and why is where a lot
16:49
SPEAKER_00: of founders make mistakes.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: They kind of skip over that.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: And this is the ironic thing.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: You actually want to pitch to VCs that have invested heavily in your space.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: As a founder, I used to think they've already invested in this space.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: They have exposure.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: They don't need more.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: I'll go talk to somebody else.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: But it's the flip side.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: If an investor is invested heavily in your space, it means they understand it.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: If those companies are doing well, it means they like it and they want to do more exposure.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: And they don't want to invest in a direct competitor,
17:16
SPEAKER_00: but something similar or might be disruptive over the next few years.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: So you want to actually look for investors that have similar investments
17:23
SPEAKER_00: to what you're building.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: So when a founder says investors just don't get it,
17:27
SPEAKER_01: because as you explained,
17:29
SPEAKER_01: there's a thesis and a fit in their worldview, how often is that true?
17:34
SPEAKER_00: So as a two times entrepreneur and an investor,
17:36
SPEAKER_00: and I do hear that,
17:37
SPEAKER_00: I have also thought that,
17:39
SPEAKER_00: I now see the world through the perspective of,
17:42
SPEAKER_00: if you're the CEO of building something and saying investors don't get it,
17:46
SPEAKER_00: What is it that they don't get?
17:47
SPEAKER_00: Do you have customer traction?
17:49
SPEAKER_00: If you do, they should be able to understand that.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: If you don't,
17:53
SPEAKER_00: you could say that they don't get the idea,
17:54
SPEAKER_00: but what they're looking for is, have you been able to execute?
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Have you been able to get to market?
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Have you been able to build the right team around you?
18:00
SPEAKER_00: So it's not about an investor getting the idea.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: It's this magical coalition of everything that needs to happen and build
18:07
SPEAKER_00: a really big company that investors look
18:09
SPEAKER_01: And what would you say makes
18:11
SPEAKER_01: a pitch feel investable early before the business has those perfect numbers?
18:17
SPEAKER_00: I think a founder that is mature or is either because they second time,
18:21
SPEAKER_00: third time,
18:22
SPEAKER_00: or they've been part of a startup that goes and says, this is what I know.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: This is what I don't know.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: This is my competition.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: And this is who really scares me and why.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: These are the big question marks I have.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: So showing some of those real questions and it's not a vulnerability,
18:38
SPEAKER_00: it's more being like honest and realizing some of the challenges that will be ahead.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: That's going to resonate more.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: That's going to stand out with an investor.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: So watching things through rose-tinted glasses and thinking,
18:50
SPEAKER_01: I have no competition,
18:51
SPEAKER_01: nobody's doing exactly what I do, is actually not really true.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: And the investor will see that from a mile.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Like, here's a great example.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: If a payments company is pitching me, I'll ask who's their competition.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: And if they don't say cash, it means they don't have this whole view.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Just an example of being a payments company.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: So if they don't realize that they're also competing with non-tech,
19:14
SPEAKER_00: it's a good sign that they really don't understand what the ecosystem looks like and
19:18
SPEAKER_00: who they're going to be against.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: So that's why I spend a lot of time asking about the competition
19:23
SPEAKER_00: to understand Do they know who they're competing with?
19:26
SPEAKER_00: And here's another example.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: If you're making, let's say, a consumer app in the travel space.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: I get pitched these a lot.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: I'll ask who's the competition.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: And they'll never mention Expedia or Booking or Kayak.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: And then I'll bring that up.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: And they'll say, you know, well, we're not that, we're X.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: And my response is, yeah,
19:43
SPEAKER_00: you might not be that product,
19:44
SPEAKER_00: but they spend so much money being top of mind for travel experience.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: You're competing for attention.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: You're literally,
19:51
SPEAKER_00: you know,
19:51
SPEAKER_00: your cost of acquiring user, you're going to bid against them for attention.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: So you have to realize how they can actually compete for that attention.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: And you need to realize, understand how you're going to win there.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: And I think you nailed here the difference between what used to be happening before
20:07
SPEAKER_01: when,
20:08
SPEAKER_01: in a way,
20:08
SPEAKER_01: startups and brands were doing more traditional marketing,
20:12
SPEAKER_01: positioning the brand, making sure that it's memorable.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: You would see an ad for, say, Expedia.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: Terima kasih telah menonton!
20:32
SPEAKER_01: Is that my correct interpretation?
20:34
SPEAKER_00: A hundred percent.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: And I would say it not only is it creating the story behind the brand,
20:40
SPEAKER_00: but a lot of times they're missing what is the mission of the company?
20:43
SPEAKER_00: What is your vision as a founder?
20:44
SPEAKER_00: What's the purpose of why you're doing it?
20:47
SPEAKER_00: And next to while you as a CEO are driving stakeholders forward,
20:51
SPEAKER_00: how the team use it,
20:52
SPEAKER_00: and then ultimately how your customers, your consumers, partners actually see it.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: So I do see a lot of people can miss that.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can go to ask a chat GPT prompt and it's going to miss that fidelity
21:05
SPEAKER_00: if you don't have that experience of how do you build this out
21:07
SPEAKER_00: and how important it is.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: So are there any slides that you found that founders spend too much time on?
21:13
SPEAKER_01: We know Fidelity, sometimes they miss it out.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: So I think when they spend a lot of time on total addressable markets and size
21:21
SPEAKER_00: of market, the investors, we're going to have our own thesis.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: And we might agree with you and spoke to a CEO about this recently.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: I'd rather you spend more time showing me the handful of customers you have and
21:32
SPEAKER_00: the tens of thousands of dollars of revenue you might have annually
21:35
SPEAKER_00: from these handful of customers versus the billion dollars you're paying.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Because anybody can say anything's really big,
21:40
SPEAKER_00: but I really want to get into the details and understand,
21:44
SPEAKER_00: again, that customer, what pain point are you actually selling?
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes people can put logos,
21:49
SPEAKER_00: but I really want to understand what is it you're actually selling them?
21:52
SPEAKER_00: What are they paying for?
21:54
SPEAKER_00: How do they view this?
21:55
SPEAKER_00: And there can be a huge disconnect from what the founder is envisioning versus what
21:59
SPEAKER_00: the customer is actually paying for.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: So which slide usually tells you the most about whether
22:05
SPEAKER_01: a business understands their own business?
22:07
SPEAKER_01: As in, they have an idea and a product,
22:09
SPEAKER_01: but the business idea and the way of making money behind it,
22:12
SPEAKER_01: like you just mentioned.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be the title slide or the slide right after that,
22:16
SPEAKER_00: which Basically explains what you're building and can you boil it down
22:20
SPEAKER_00: into really simple.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: And so if there's a lot of buzzwords and all the best and the greatest,
22:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to keep looking through the deck.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to stop after page two.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: My perspective on the world is I want to hear your startup
22:33
SPEAKER_00: the way you would explain it to your mom.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: And if a Basic person can understand it.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: I understand you know the pain point you're solving and you know how to communicate
22:41
SPEAKER_00: to many different types of stakeholders.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: And I look at it, I've been in meetings where founders get really almost offended.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean to my mom?
22:49
SPEAKER_00: This is to customers.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: They need to know this.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: I keep thinking, like,
22:51
SPEAKER_00: if you're going to build a gigantic company,
22:54
SPEAKER_00: you're going to have hundreds of employees.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: You're going to have, you know, tens of investors.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: You're going to have thousands, tens of thousands of customers.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: You have so many different sort of stakeholders.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: You need to be able to boil down your messaging really simply for all of these different groups.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: And if you can't do that from the start, you're going to have trouble later on.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: So what does a good market slide actually show then?
23:16
SPEAKER_00: That's one of your go-tos, right?
23:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: The pages I search for are the team.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: And founders,
23:23
SPEAKER_00: here's a big mistake,
23:24
SPEAKER_00: every founder puts the team at the end because they think I'm a first time founder.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm not Elon Musk.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't have experience.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: What do I need to talk about?
23:32
SPEAKER_00: But I, as an early stage venture capital investor, I I don't invest in ideas.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: I invest in people.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: So who are you?
23:39
SPEAKER_00: What is your background?
23:41
SPEAKER_00: How long have you known each other?
23:42
SPEAKER_00: Why are you working together?
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Do you have any failures behind you together and you want to still work with each other?
23:48
SPEAKER_00: That's an amazing sign.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: So that's the information I know.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: That's usually what I'm searching for.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: It is buried at the end.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes not all of it mentioned.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: So the team slide should be way further.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: Shall we say what?
24:00
SPEAKER_01: The first half or the first third of the pitch deck?
24:03
SPEAKER_00: It should be page three.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Title, your solution, and then the team.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: As a first-time founder and especially as a second-time founder in order
24:11
SPEAKER_01: to show your credentials and what you've built before.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: So you also mentioned traction.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: What would you say is the biggest mistake people make when they talk about traction?
24:25
SPEAKER_01: Because I had a very interesting guest article recently
24:28
SPEAKER_01: where motion can be disguised as traction and you can convince yourself that just
24:33
SPEAKER_01: because you have like the likes or the followers doesn't equate to actually money,
24:37
SPEAKER_01: demand and people changing their behavior to use your business instead.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: There are many different ways to kind of report on this momentum.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: And as a savvy investor who's been doing it for 15 years,
24:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to cut through that and ask questions six different ways to see
24:52
SPEAKER_00: if it all adds up.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times I'm looking at ratios, you know, down to...
24:57
SPEAKER_00: How many views, likes and comments do you have?
24:59
SPEAKER_00: And depending on what platform, YouTube or Instagram, I can get an idea.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Is that organic or did you pay for that?
25:04
SPEAKER_00: So that would just be that I'm not going to judge a company for investment, but I want to know.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't mind if you're paying for likes or whatever because you have a plan about
25:12
SPEAKER_00: But what I'd be looking for is retention.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: How many people see your product and then come back?
25:18
SPEAKER_00: And then how do they come back?
25:20
SPEAKER_00: Is it an app notification?
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Is there something else in their workflow that forces them in there?
25:24
SPEAKER_00: So these are those sort of things that I'm looking for that if you get right from
25:28
SPEAKER_00: the beginning, you can build some variety into your product.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: So there are so many different user behaviors.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Again, daily active users divided by monthly active users.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: I can look at that ratio and know, are you on a healthy trend or you're not?
25:40
SPEAKER_00: If I look at your web traffic, I can instantly tell, are you getting only new users?
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Or are you retaining users?
25:47
SPEAKER_00: And to know the difference,
25:49
SPEAKER_00: if you're only getting new users, it actually looks like the hospital heartbeat.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Because what ends up happening is you get some users and there's like a news story
25:57
SPEAKER_00: or there's a social media post where I mean, that's a spike.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: And then all of those people drop off.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: And that flat line is actually random new users through your email campaigns, email.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of flat.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: The only way you actually get a curve is with retention.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: And I'm talking at least one in five.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: You're going to need a higher than that.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: But people that find out about it, they keep coming back.
26:17
SPEAKER_01: That's good to put a number on it.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: And with that in mind,
26:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm wondering what would be the difference between a deck that gets a meeting
26:26
SPEAKER_01: with you and a deck that gets serious interest?
26:29
SPEAKER_01: This is like high up there.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: I want I would like to invest in them, but I won't give my game away.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, for me, I mean, it's gonna be different for every investor.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: For me, I don't even need a deck.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: Just send me a link to the website and I can let you know very quickly
26:42
SPEAKER_00: if this is something that fits my thesis or not.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why I prefer a website will And I see huge differences between what
26:49
SPEAKER_00: a deck will sell and what the website sells.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: And that will be a big red flag for me.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you'll get there.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: But I don't want to take that risk right now.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: I'd rather, and I understand people might evolve and there could be a pivot.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: We'll definitely talk if, hey, we've learned and we're doing this.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: But if there's a huge gap between what the website is offering and what
27:22
SPEAKER_00: the deck is talking about, that's going to get a reply from me.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: Do you tend to stick very closely to your thesis or is there something
27:31
SPEAKER_01: that can sway you out of it?
27:33
SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: So...
27:37
SPEAKER_00: Our Golden Gate Ventures, we have a pretty broad thesis.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: We've invested in 150 companies across consumer, B2B, enterprise, deep tech, AI.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: We've invested across three different continents.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: So we're very broad.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, very broad.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: So when I say thesis, it isn't necessarily like this is the vertical investing in now.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: It is that a company within this company that's going to start as
28:00
SPEAKER_00: a new juice company, what is its revenue model?
28:02
SPEAKER_00: What geography is it going after?
28:04
SPEAKER_00: So when I say, is it within its thesis, what I'll say?
28:07
SPEAKER_00: So at the end of the day, you know, that thesis isn't just, is it solving X?
28:09
SPEAKER_00: It's more, is it solving A, B, and C within the domain of X?
28:26
SPEAKER_01: Is there a question that a founder can put to the investor that will make
28:31
SPEAKER_01: the investor realize that they know their stuff?
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's a great question.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: So there's a difference between first-time founders and third-time founders.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: The first time founder is going to think they just walk in the room.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: The VC asked a bunch of questions.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: They must like me.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: Third time founder realizes, okay, I'm interviewing the VC.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: You know,
28:52
SPEAKER_00: you're not leaving the room until you say who
28:54
SPEAKER_00: from your portfolio should I be speaking to?
28:57
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm going to choose what investor I want to take onto my cap table.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: So who's going to be a good reference check for you and why?
29:03
SPEAKER_00: This third time founder, they're going to ask the fund, where are you in your vintage?
29:08
SPEAKER_00: Because funds we have to raise every few years.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: And so how much capital do you have to deploy?
29:12
SPEAKER_00: What's How do check sizes do you write?
29:14
SPEAKER_00: What does success look for you?
29:15
SPEAKER_00: How are you as a board member?
29:16
SPEAKER_00: What sort of information you have?
29:19
SPEAKER_00: The third-time founder is going to put the investor on their backheel
29:22
SPEAKER_00: and make them be responsive.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, we're going to respect that.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: Now, you could be disrespectful about it, and that's not going to build a partnership.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: But if you're showing that I'm mature,
29:33
SPEAKER_00: I know what I'm doing,
29:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm confident,
29:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm assertive,
29:36
SPEAKER_00: and I'm asking these questions because I generally want to understand,
29:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm generally comparing,
29:43
SPEAKER_01: So where would you say the founders mistake confidence for clarity?
29:48
SPEAKER_01: You can make assertions that are clearly not true and an investor in
29:52
SPEAKER_01: the room might see that because they operated and or invested in your space
29:56
SPEAKER_01: or some Okay, that's a good question.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: So I understand as an entrepreneur, there's always a little fake it to make it.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: And then there's a spectrum there.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: And we all know that.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, no, Theranos, you know, too much, fake it till you make it.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Not really, really bad.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: So we are looking for that.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: And again, where I mentioned, I'll ask the same question about data six different ways.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to catch you in a little bit of a lie or a bluff.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to make a yes or no call purely off of that,
30:29
SPEAKER_00: but that's going to give me confidence.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: The numbers you're saying are what they're saying,
30:32
SPEAKER_00: or give me some questions that I need to look into something more.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: Did you do that when you fundraised?
30:38
SPEAKER_01: Was there anything where you bluffed?
30:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: For instance, you're doing your angel round.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: You need to raise a syndicate from like 10 to 15 angels.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: Some angels maybe
30:51
SPEAKER_00: And so you're saying, oh,
30:52
SPEAKER_00: this person's committed,
30:54
SPEAKER_00: and they haven't, but you're getting a feeling that they are.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes you're bluffing on the syndicate,
30:58
SPEAKER_00: but investors can ask investors very quickly,
31:01
SPEAKER_00: and we're going to know after the meeting if that's a lie.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's around a
31:07
SPEAKER_00: So again, I understand there's a little bit of that that happens.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: And I tell the juniors on my investment team, like,
31:16
SPEAKER_00: you know, just because a founder is saying something, don't take that for truth.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: And it's not a bad thing.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: They're selling.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: And I was on the other side.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: I respect that.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: So let's really try to find out what the actual truth is.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: Here's another thing that I've learned from two decades of pitching now.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Always have an answer.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: Never say, I don't know.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: What's your contract pipeline?
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Don't say I don't know.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: That's, in a way,
32:03
SPEAKER_01: contrary to some of the PR advice that you get given as a founder,
32:08
SPEAKER_01: where you try to defer to that.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: But I've seen Mark Zuckerberg do that in the past, where, oh no,
32:15
SPEAKER_01: it was in the Senate hearings in the US,
32:17
SPEAKER_01: where he didn't have the information, he was doing that trick.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: That just came to mind, as you were mentioning it.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're right.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: That is very common.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: And then also with PR and marketing,
32:27
SPEAKER_00: yeah, there might be messaging you do or don't want to put out to market.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: But if you're in a closed door room talking,
32:33
SPEAKER_00: and again,
32:33
SPEAKER_00: not on stage, but closed door room talking to a VC, you need that assertive answer.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: Because again, we don't have a lot of data points.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: That's also something interesting that I've heard from several founders and a couple
32:55
SPEAKER_01: The first CEO and the founder might not be the best person to lead the company in
33:02
SPEAKER_01: the second or the first stage of the growth,
33:04
SPEAKER_01: or they might not have all the skills and the quality.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: They could develop them and ideally you would want that, but if not Yeah.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: So if I have any question that a founder cannot grow into that,
33:36
SPEAKER_00: whether that's sales managerial executive sort of skills,
33:41
SPEAKER_00: we're just not going to make the investment.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to take the risk of maybe this happens and we would never take the risk.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: We'll bring in a new CEO.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: Because while that does happen,
33:51
SPEAKER_00: if we're making at the start of the investment,
33:53
SPEAKER_00: like there needs to be a different CEO here, don't even invest.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: For an early stage VC,
33:58
SPEAKER_00: it just doesn't make sense because 9.9 times out of 10, that's going to fail.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: When you change a CEO,
34:04
SPEAKER_00: if you look at companies that are really successful at scale,
34:07
SPEAKER_00: they have so much of the DNA of the founder inside of them.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: And yes,
34:10
SPEAKER_00: there are times where a founder is asked to leave and new CEOs come in
34:14
SPEAKER_00: and build something successful, but 99% of the time, that is not the case.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: So if I have any question about that from the beginning,
34:20
SPEAKER_00: then it's just, sorry, this is not a good fit for us at this time.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day,
34:24
SPEAKER_00: we might be backing a 23-year-old sort of founder that,
34:27
SPEAKER_00: yeah, they haven't been managing a team of hundreds of people.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: They haven't run a marketing budget.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: They haven't done P&L.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Do they show that potential?
34:35
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, this is where it's not purely So this is where I'm relying much more
34:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm not running the company.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Don't want somebody who can't strike a balance of partnership across the table.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: They're going to lean more towards that assertive side,
35:16
SPEAKER_00: but they're going to need to show the elements of listening,
35:20
SPEAKER_00: compromise, and how they work with their co-founders.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: And this is where I'm going to be asking different questions,
35:24
SPEAKER_00: or maybe I'm even purposely kind of poking them and seeing how they react to me
35:28
SPEAKER_00: and how they can handle their emotions and their communication when it gets
35:31
SPEAKER_00: a little difficult.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: Again, these aren't all perfect.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: Just because they can't handle it doesn't mean they won't be successful.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: But the chances are higher if they can't handle those sort of situations.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: That is where I am trying to poke around.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: So is there a fundraising habit that makes founders look less credible than they?
35:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: One, kind of this like spray and pick, just like emailing everybody cold.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: That makes you look less credible.
35:54
SPEAKER_01: People still get that advice.
35:56
SPEAKER_01: People still get that advice.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, the thing is for sales, sales works.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, going wide, if you're selling a B2B SaaS startup, it works.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: They're selling to customers and they try to apply that to VCs.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, we can tell or we hear VCs talk to each other.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that's number one.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Number two, going far outside your geography.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: That just doesn't make sense.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize this.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: Again, going back to me backpacking Asia,
36:21
SPEAKER_00: it wasn't until I pinged investors in the US and they're like,
36:24
SPEAKER_00: we don't invest outside the US.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: I realized, oh, it's very local.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: And now what I realize You know,
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Golden Gate Ventures,
36:29
SPEAKER_00: we have a footprint across Asia Pacific and across the MENA region.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: But if a startup's pitching us from Latin America or Europe, it's way outside of our geography.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: So that's a big red flag.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, why are they coming to us?
36:41
SPEAKER_00: There's so many local investors they could be knocking on the doors of.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: So these are the sort of things that I think early on would create a pretty big gap
36:48
SPEAKER_00: between investor and entrepreneur.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: And then is there a line that you try to figure out both as a founder,
36:54
SPEAKER_01: in your experience, selling hard, but also not sounding too desperate?
37:00
SPEAKER_01: And how do you see that on the other side of the table where
37:05
SPEAKER_01: the founder can say something like,
37:06
SPEAKER_01: actually, he's like, no, they're selling too hard?
37:09
SPEAKER_01: Or what makes you sound desperate?
37:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I might break this down to it.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: Desperate would be one thing different than settling too hard.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: If somebody sounds desperate, again, I'll go back to one of the things I said earlier.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: I have a lot of empathy for founders.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: I've been on the other side of the table.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes they sound desperate because they're So if I feel that desperation,
37:27
SPEAKER_00: I understand where it comes from.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to judge them for that.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to understand that and we'll really be able to talk through the business
37:47
SPEAKER_00: and let's not make a decision there.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Somebody that's selling too hard, again,
37:51
SPEAKER_00: this comes back to feeling,
37:53
SPEAKER_00: intuition,
37:54
SPEAKER_00: gut feeling, when that deck is way I'm going to answer and just answer it perfectly.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: My spider sensors are going off.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: Something is too polished here.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't make sense.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: If they are this polished, they should have people throwing money at them.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I am knocking on the door trying to give capital to companies, yet they're asking me.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: So there's a difference there.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: So that would be too polished.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: While we're on the two-polish one, can I quickly bring AI?
38:23
SPEAKER_01: Because that's also something I've been writing about.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: Putting something polished out is way more accessible.
38:28
SPEAKER_01: Do you find certain keywords that give away AI use in presentations?
38:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm assuming you get to see quite a few already.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but actually none of that's a problem for me.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: I am happy that they're using AI and that kind of polish is different
38:43
SPEAKER_00: where it looks pretty and pretty graphs.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: But again, I don't mind using AI and you're able to say this is my ideal customer.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: This is how I've gotten the ones I've gotten.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: So far, and this is how I'm going to get the next ones.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: Like at the end of the day,
38:55
SPEAKER_00: the whole magic of your ability to sell that message,
38:59
SPEAKER_00: present that message,
39:01
SPEAKER_00: along with all the data you have and the historical data you have,
39:03
SPEAKER_00: like, I can't do that.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: AI at some point may be running your business and
39:07
SPEAKER_00: then maybe it can actually get those numbers and data.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: But right now, at the end of the day, you can have great marketing company.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: You can have great ways of positioning yourself with the website aligned with the deck.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: But if you don't have the existing,
39:19
SPEAKER_00: if you haven't landed the users, then that's a big, all right, no for me.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: But if you're using AI, it helps you land the users.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: That's a good thing.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: So the idea of using AI and leaning into it more, that's great.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: I have not felt that when I'm saying the word polish,
39:33
SPEAKER_00: it's not because they have a beautiful deck.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: It is everything answered, questions I have.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: All of it makes sense, but something is missing.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: The data is missing.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: The revenue is missing.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: The demand of investors knocking out the door is missing.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: That's when it's an issue.
39:48
SPEAKER_01: So when you spot this sort of stuff, have you seen founders talking themselves out of a deal?
39:53
SPEAKER_00: I've seen founders pass on investor money from a valuation standpoint.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: So it's a bit of talking out of a deal like the investor only values me here.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: The world is not flat when it comes to startup ecosystems and VCs.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: And so if you compare yourself,
40:10
SPEAKER_00: it's like,
40:11
SPEAKER_00: you know, I'm not going to claim I'm making a Hollywood movie from Ho Chi Minh.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: It's just not the case.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: We don't have the same producers and directors and film and actors and all of that.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah,
40:22
SPEAKER_00: I've seen founders talk themselves out of a term sheet purely from
40:27
SPEAKER_00: an evaluation standpoint.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: What's a good follow-up after a meeting with a VC?
40:31
SPEAKER_01: And what's a bad follow-up after?
40:35
SPEAKER_00: The bad follow-up is, thank you for the meeting, here's my data room.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: That's 99% of follow-ups.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: The good follow-up is, I just landed this customer.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: Or, you know,
40:44
SPEAKER_00: we spoke about XYZ in the meeting,
40:46
SPEAKER_00: and that got me thinking, and I'm already building out ABC around it.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: So the good follow up,
40:51
SPEAKER_00: there's some momentum that happened from the meeting or or maybe not from
40:55
SPEAKER_00: the meeting or there's momentum happening in the company
40:58
SPEAKER_00: or there's momentum happening around the round.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: Hey, you know,
41:01
SPEAKER_00: I met with you and I met with these three other VCs while I was
41:03
SPEAKER_00: in Singapore last week.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: And this is the stage I'm at.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: So something around momentum is where a good follow up email happens.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: The thank you for meeting.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: Here's the data room.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: Is it bad?
41:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay, those are very practical.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned also in this conversation being too early and in
41:19
SPEAKER_01: a colder fundraising market,
41:21
SPEAKER_01: because I understand right now things are not as big and fast as they used to be.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: What changes for founders?
41:28
SPEAKER_01: What do they have to do differently to get your attention?
41:33
SPEAKER_01: And I know you said the time slide, the team slide, but what changed since 2020?
41:41
SPEAKER_00: So there is less capital.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: Or capital is concentrated into a few gigantic USAI companies,
41:50
SPEAKER_00: and then there's less capital for everyone else.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: That is what has changed.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in the first dot-com era.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: To build a company, you needed to buy servers.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: There was a high cost to start a company.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: And then everything was like, oh, now it's in the cloud.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: You can start a company for free, but it still takes time and resources.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: But now you really can start a company with very,
42:09
SPEAKER_00: very little,
42:10
SPEAKER_00: thanks to some of the AI tools where you have teammates,
42:12
SPEAKER_00: you have a developer,
42:13
SPEAKER_00: you have a marketer, a content creator, you have these automated workflow tools.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: So what's going to get you to stand out?
42:19
SPEAKER_00: Again, it comes down to traction.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: And if you have revenue, that is number one.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have revenue,
42:25
SPEAKER_00: but you have people that really love and use it and keep coming back to the product,
42:30
SPEAKER_00: That's a good sign.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: But these days,
42:32
SPEAKER_00: a VC is going to expect revenue because if they really love it and keep coming back,
42:36
SPEAKER_00: why aren't they paying?
42:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: And I even had VCs tell me that when I was pitching for my LaFora communities.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: And because the VC would back then before there was even unicorns would be like,
42:47
SPEAKER_00: houses get to be a billion dollar business,
42:49
SPEAKER_00: which means minimum 100 million of revenue.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: So yeah,
42:53
SPEAKER_00: I get a lot of pitches that way and I try to be empathetic and I say like,
42:58
SPEAKER_00: you know, is VC the path for you?
43:00
SPEAKER_00: Like, do you literally see getting to a hundred million of revenue?
43:03
SPEAKER_00: Do you see doing six rounds of financing every two years?
43:06
SPEAKER_00: Are there We're not a judge to say your idea is good or bad,
43:09
SPEAKER_00: but if you pitch a dozen VCs that are all
43:21
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not saying any one VC knows, but if it's.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: Independent people that are coming to
43:38
SPEAKER_00: the same conclusion should be sophisticated understanding the space.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: I would take some of that to heart.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: And then maybe it's maybe it is a lifestyle business or maybe there's like something
43:46
SPEAKER_00: that needs to change with a business model or a competitor relationship in order
43:52
SPEAKER_00: to open up scale that has concerned a lot of these things.
43:55
SPEAKER_01: So from your reading of what other VCs and investors say,
43:59
SPEAKER_01: what's the consensus at the moment on AI startups?
44:04
SPEAKER_01: Because they are harder to judge right now because there's so much noise, right?
44:09
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I know, but this data doesn't lie.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: I keep coming back to this concept of retention.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, you could spend a lot of money to get new users, but do they come back?
44:20
SPEAKER_00: Are you actually scratching an itch for them?
44:22
SPEAKER_00: Are they leaving their credit card information because this is so painful they want to pay?
44:27
SPEAKER_00: So at the end of the day, data doesn't lie.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: And that's, I don't invest in ideas.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: Like anybody could put together a pitch deck.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: And I have no idea why so many founders think I have this pitch deck in a DC.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: Like this was never the case.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the case when I was building two startups.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the case, you know, years before that.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: Investors are always looking for that data and that traction.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: There are extreme cases and sometimes I'd be a repeat founder and they literally,
44:54
SPEAKER_00: this is my idea.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: And I'll see you next time.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to say pain points with customers.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: And now what the VC is really looking at is which team can really take this big?
45:19
SPEAKER_00: And again, what potential does the CEO show to be a great leader?
45:23
SPEAKER_00: What is the makeup of the technical team, the marketing team, the product team?
45:27
SPEAKER_00: Where are they based?
45:27
SPEAKER_00: What sort of relationships do they have?
45:30
SPEAKER_00: These are the questions that we're asking.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: So all things considered, the product might be slightly different.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: We're not saying which is a better product.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: We're saying all things considered, which is a team that can make a huge company?
45:41
SPEAKER_01: So that takes me to my question of,
45:43
SPEAKER_01: what would founders need to prove now that AI makes building easier?
45:48
SPEAKER_01: You said, rightfully so, you can have a sales agent, which is AI, and can help you in that.
45:54
SPEAKER_01: PR and content, I think that's much more likely.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: I haven't really seen or heard from anybody who said,
45:59
SPEAKER_01: you know,
45:59
SPEAKER_01: successfully using these sales agents than anything that actually closes a sale.
46:06
SPEAKER_01: So back to the question, then,
46:08
SPEAKER_01: what are they to prove now that AI is making building and certain roles easier
46:14
SPEAKER_01: for them?
46:15
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to have the right people because you can have an AI employee.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: I keep going back to, though,
46:19
SPEAKER_00: this founding team, like,
46:21
SPEAKER_00: The leaders of the company,
46:22
SPEAKER_00: they need to demonstrate at the end of the day,
46:25
SPEAKER_00: if you're building a really big company, like there's going to be people behind it.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: And so can you demonstrate that you could be a great leader,
46:33
SPEAKER_00: that you can grow people behind you and you know how to use tools and you know how
46:37
SPEAKER_00: to bring stakeholders and you have a unified vision?
46:41
SPEAKER_00: I still don't think to build a successful company or build a breakthrough company
46:46
SPEAKER_00: that takes away market share from someone else,
46:49
SPEAKER_00: I still think these are the hard qualities that will be needed.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, I'm an optimist.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't think there's too many founders.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: I encourage more people to build things.
46:57
SPEAKER_00: You learn a lot.
46:58
SPEAKER_00: And in the best case, you build something of value.
47:01
SPEAKER_00: So to me, yeah, if you're backing a really good team, they're going to navigate those.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: They're not stuck to an idea.
47:06
SPEAKER_00: They're able to build a great business.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: A lot of founders that tell me their mission is to build a billion dollar company.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: And they think as an investor, I want to hear that.
47:15
SPEAKER_00: And I'm immediately walking away because I was like, you have just failed.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: Because as a leader,
47:20
SPEAKER_00: you need to And if your goal is to build a billion dollar business
47:26
SPEAKER_00: and you hire really smart people,
47:28
SPEAKER_00: they all have very different ideas of how to achieve that.
47:31
SPEAKER_00: And they're all very capable of achieving that,
47:33
SPEAKER_00: but nobody's working together in the same direction.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: But if your goal is to be the best note taking app and have a billion users,
47:40
SPEAKER_00: you hire smart people, they're all going to be working in that direction.
47:43
SPEAKER_00: And if you need to change that direction at some point in the future,
47:46
SPEAKER_00: Being really focused on that.
47:47
SPEAKER_00: Honestly,
47:48
SPEAKER_00: once if not twice a week,
47:49
SPEAKER_00: I am passing on a startup here because they are pitching me on building
47:52
SPEAKER_00: a billion dollar company.
47:53
SPEAKER_00: That's my mission.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: That's their mission.
47:55
SPEAKER_01: Then is there a point where it's too early to speak to investors if you're planning
48:00
SPEAKER_01: on building a billion dollar company or too late?
48:02
SPEAKER_00: I look at it.
48:03
SPEAKER_00: Don't plan on building a billion dollar company.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, Sergey didn't plan on that.
48:07
SPEAKER_00: Apple didn't plan on that.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, Airbnb didn't plan.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: Like they're solving something.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're building something else.
48:13
SPEAKER_00: Maybe in the back of their all founders, you know, why we do the capitalism.
48:17
SPEAKER_00: We're really excited about the future that I understand that success will come later.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: Finance will come later.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: But they're really hyper focused on on a vision and solving a pain point.
48:27
SPEAKER_00: You know,
48:27
SPEAKER_00: Google to organize the world's information and look how far that's carried them
48:30
SPEAKER_00: over how many decades.
48:32
SPEAKER_00: So to me, the if you build something of value, commercial success will follow.
48:37
SPEAKER_00: But you need to figure out what that value is that you're offering
48:41
SPEAKER_00: and how you're gonna get it out there rather than anyone else.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: And what would you say is the most efficient way of getting the message out there
48:48
SPEAKER_01: and distributing?
48:50
SPEAKER_01: Something that I was reading recently A lot of the VC money is going on meta ads
48:55
SPEAKER_01: who have had record revenue recently.
48:57
SPEAKER_00: I think social media as a platform can be very helpful for B2B tools.
49:03
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, people that understand that or understand how do Yeah.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: But again, the data is not going to lie.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: We're going to understand that this is not a business that scale, the economics don't scale.
49:28
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, if I was building a company now, I think like SEO still is important.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: What applied to Google, a search engine applies to ChatGPT when it goes Ask a question.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: So the types of tricks you would do to generally fare well in Google,
49:41
SPEAKER_00: generally, and there's some new hacks to fare well on some of the LLMs.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: So that's important.
49:46
SPEAKER_00: Social media, doing that right.
49:48
SPEAKER_00: Only 1% of startups really know how to do that.
49:50
SPEAKER_00: That's also important.
49:51
SPEAKER_00: But again, you can have social media, all vaporware and like nothing behind it.
49:55
SPEAKER_00: So that's where you need the amazing CEO and tech guy and marketer or tech gal.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: The three of them coming together is really, really powerful.
50:05
SPEAKER_01: So why would you then tell a founder who has a good business, but a weak story?
50:11
SPEAKER_01: They're not really good at promoting themselves or marketing themselves.
50:15
SPEAKER_00: Find a co-founder that is,
50:16
SPEAKER_00: because if they're going to build a big company,
50:18
SPEAKER_00: it's not just promoting yourself to a VC,
50:20
SPEAKER_00: it's promoting It's promoting yourself to key hires that are gonna leave a job
50:23
SPEAKER_00: to get behind you.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: It's promoting yourself to key partners.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: Again, if that doesn't exist in the leadership team,
50:31
SPEAKER_00: I think you have a really difficult time of getting big.
50:33
SPEAKER_01: So I would say find something that would I have a couple more reflective questions now, Vinny.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: What's a belief you've changed your mind on since becoming an investor?
50:46
SPEAKER_01: Because you have certain convictions as a founder and entrepreneur,
50:50
SPEAKER_01: and I know that, but when you crossed on the other side, something changed.
50:54
SPEAKER_01: I think on the founder side, everybody's
50:59
SPEAKER_01: Everybody thinks their idea will work and that should be invested on.
51:03
SPEAKER_01: But when you're on the other side.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: What I've learned being an investor and boil it down probably to three things.
51:10
SPEAKER_00: Number one, ideas have no value.
51:12
SPEAKER_00: So investors don't back ideas.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: Number two, investors have unique themes and theses that they look for.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: And the more time you spend understanding that and separating investors that way,
51:24
SPEAKER_00: the better conversation you'll have.
51:26
SPEAKER_01: And AI can help with that, right?
51:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, AI can definitely help with that.
51:30
SPEAKER_00: And then you can query it, you know, show me how people invest in.
51:35
SPEAKER_00: And then number three would be investing is very local.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: You know, while you can pitch a Silicon So investing is very local.
52:09
SPEAKER_01: And what still frustrates you when you see founders raising?
52:14
SPEAKER_01: Is there a mistake that a lot of people still make and it niggles you
52:18
SPEAKER_01: and annoys you all the time?
52:19
SPEAKER_00: Starting off with your valuation.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: Like if I get a pitch and it's like, this is our valuation.
52:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm passing.
52:25
SPEAKER_00: Like you're starting, you know, the cart before the horse sort of thing.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, it just tells me you don't know how this works or what's going to happen.
52:33
SPEAKER_00: And it's not to say you won't raise.
52:34
SPEAKER_00: There are people that raise, but I haven't seen those turn into billion-dollar companies.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: I see.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: If you would have the unlikely opportunity to give advice
52:43
SPEAKER_01: to your younger founder self as knowing what you know as an investor now,
52:47
SPEAKER_01: what would that be?
52:48
SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
52:49
SPEAKER_00: A younger Vinny, I would say, it's Trust, trust your gut.
52:55
SPEAKER_00: Like my intuition has taken me to some really great places in life.
52:59
SPEAKER_00: And so trust your intuition.
53:01
SPEAKER_01: I agree with that.
53:02
SPEAKER_01: But I'm going to press a little bit on it because I want to know,
53:05
SPEAKER_01: how do you know when it's your gut talking to you,
53:08
SPEAKER_01: not your heart or your ego or your fear?
53:13
SPEAKER_00: So for me, yeah, all of those voices exist.
53:17
SPEAKER_00: And clearly over time, I've learned to listen to the right one and drown out the other ones.
53:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:25
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day,
53:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
53:26
SPEAKER_00: this is what I could also say to a next generation of founders,
53:28
SPEAKER_00: like take really big risks when you're young.
53:30
SPEAKER_00: Things that feel scary, jump for it.
53:33
SPEAKER_00: You can do that when you're young.
53:34
SPEAKER_00: You take the biggest risk when you're young.
53:35
SPEAKER_00: So not just,
53:37
SPEAKER_00: you know,
53:37
SPEAKER_00: listen to your gut,
53:38
SPEAKER_00: but also, yeah, if that voice is saying, don't do this, you know, that's too risky.
53:42
SPEAKER_00: All of this can go wrong.
53:43
SPEAKER_00: Go for it.
53:44
SPEAKER_00: Take the big risks.
53:45
SPEAKER_00: Move yourself to a different part of the world.
53:47
SPEAKER_00: Quit that job.
53:48
SPEAKER_00: Start this company.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: Take that risk.
53:50
SPEAKER_00: I've done all of these things and I've been successful because of it.
53:54
SPEAKER_01: But that's not because you believe in, say, manifestation.
53:58
SPEAKER_01: It's not a state of mind what you do in business.
54:00
SPEAKER_00: I believe in manifestation in if you are determined and persistent.
54:06
SPEAKER_00: This idea of manifestation, yeah, I mean, you can't manifest everything.
54:11
SPEAKER_00: My wife will tell you I can be very persistent.
54:14
SPEAKER_00: I've seen founders that are very persistent that manifest what they want.
54:18
SPEAKER_00: So to some sense, I do believe in that.
54:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it means affirmations looking in the mirror and just saying something
54:23
SPEAKER_00: over and over again.
54:24
SPEAKER_00: But if you're really determined, hyper-focused.
54:27
SPEAKER_00: I keep going back to this idea of singular focus, larger sort of vision.
54:31
SPEAKER_00: If you can drive there and you can get stakeholders behind you.
54:35
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's not investors.
54:36
SPEAKER_00: It's a co-founder.
54:37
SPEAKER_00: It's an intern.
54:38
SPEAKER_00: It's a key.
54:38
SPEAKER_00: You can get other people.
54:40
SPEAKER_00: You can accomplish amazing things.
54:42
SPEAKER_01: So I would sum this up then, Vinny, and let me know if you agree with it or not.
54:46
SPEAKER_01: Want it hard enough and you will find a way to make it happen.
54:50
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere in between the manifestation and the affirmation and the business acumen,
54:56
SPEAKER_01: somewhere in
54:57
SPEAKER_01: between all that,
54:58
SPEAKER_00: it Somewhere between all that, it happens.
55:00
SPEAKER_00: But I'll say this, as somebody who has a failure, you also know that sometimes it doesn't.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: And that is okay.
55:08
SPEAKER_00: And this is why I like repeat founders that have some failures.
55:12
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a rubber band.
55:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, you keep stretching it, keep stretching it.
55:15
SPEAKER_00: At some point it snaps and it hurts.
55:17
SPEAKER_00: You now know not to stretch it as far or as many times the next time.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: So this is where I love entrepreneur.
55:23
SPEAKER_00: Again, repeat entrepreneurs with a failure behind them.
55:25
SPEAKER_00: They know when something snaps.
55:27
SPEAKER_00: So they are keenly aware of how not to do that again.
55:31
SPEAKER_00: It was an amazing lesson learned.
55:32
SPEAKER_00: You can be determined and manifest.
55:34
SPEAKER_00: You will have that doesn't always work out.
55:36
SPEAKER_00: And to me, that is a great life lesson.
55:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to come back with one more question, Vinny, because it came to mind.
55:43
SPEAKER_01: What did you snap in your previous experiences that you are not putting
55:49
SPEAKER_01: the elastic band too hard now?
55:50
SPEAKER_01: So many things.
55:54
SPEAKER_00: Starr, which did fail,
55:55
SPEAKER_00: you know, just had this idea of like, yeah, if we build it, users will come.
55:59
SPEAKER_00: That was wrong.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: How to communicate what we're actually building and boil it down
56:03
SPEAKER_00: into something very simple that everybody could understand.
56:06
SPEAKER_00: I didn't do that.
56:07
SPEAKER_00: I've now learned to do that.
56:08
SPEAKER_00: This idea of being very overly confident yourself of your team.
56:13
SPEAKER_00: Best engineers, designers, we're in San Francisco, we can tackle any problem.
56:17
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, there was many different dimensions that were quite humbling.
56:22
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't feel good to shut down a startup, doesn't feel good to have that written on TechCrunch.
56:25
SPEAKER_00: So those were life lessons.
56:27
SPEAKER_00: And I tell every new hire on the team, are you pushing boundaries?
56:32
SPEAKER_00: I want you doing new things.
56:33
SPEAKER_00: I want you taking risks within the firm,
56:35
SPEAKER_00: working on projects that you might not know about,
56:37
SPEAKER_00: and you're going to make mistakes.
56:39
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to yell at you because you made a mistake.
56:41
SPEAKER_00: If you make the same mistake over and over and over again,
56:43
SPEAKER_00: you're not learning and you're not a fit at Golden Gate Ventures.
56:46
SPEAKER_00: But if you are making mistakes, it tells me you're taking risks.
56:49
SPEAKER_00: You're putting yourself out there.
56:51
SPEAKER_00: You're actually growing yourself.
56:52
SPEAKER_00: You're doing something new and unknown.
56:54
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
56:55
SPEAKER_01: So you brought it full circle on the risk,
56:57
SPEAKER_01: taking the risk early as early as possible when you have fewer responsibilities.
57:01
SPEAKER_01: And I'm assuming we're talking here about children, partners, and so many other things in life.
57:08
SPEAKER_01: And also empowering your staff to take bigger risks within a framework,
57:14
SPEAKER_01: of course, to be able to...
57:19
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
57:20
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Vinny, for sharing so many useful ideas.
57:24
SPEAKER_01: And I'm now thinking what will be my next big risk.
57:28
SPEAKER_00: I love it, Daniel.
57:29
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
57:29
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for tuning in all the way to the end of
57:32
SPEAKER_01: this episode.
57:34
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57:38
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57:54
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57:57
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