Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Putting Education First: How Peter Harris Created the Nation's Largest Student-Run Fund

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Putting Education First: How Peter Harris Created the Nation's Largest Student-Run Fund · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:13
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:16
today's guest is Peter Harris, founding partner at University
0:20
Growth Fund. They are the largest education
0:23
based private equity fund in the country, giving university
0:26
students the chance to gain valuable real world experience
0:30
as they invest alongside top tier investors in some of the
0:34
nation's most promising companies.
0:36
Now Peter has been part of the fund since 2007, leading over 20
0:41
deals in areas like medical devices and customer
0:44
relationship management, and he Co founded the fund officially
0:48
in 2015. He was also instrumental in
0:52
recruiting and training students, enabling them to build
0:55
strong investment skills. As a senior associate and later
0:59
a principal at University Venture Fund, Peter gained
1:03
extensive experience in deal flow and diligence processes.
1:07
He's done over 100 investments in startups including Spotify,
1:12
Snapchat and Airbnb. Now before we get into all that
1:16
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Add Back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
1:46
today, founding partner at University Growth Fund, Peter
1:49
Harris. I appreciate you making the time
1:50
to Share your story today. Yeah.
1:52
Thanks for having me. Looking forward to it, Anthony.
1:55
So before we get into talking about University Growth Fund,
1:59
tell me about some of the international consulting work
2:02
that you've done before. Sure.
2:04
So when I was growing up, I, my, my dad was a computer engineer
2:11
and I always thought engineering would be this really interesting
2:14
career path because it was all about solving problems.
2:17
And then when I was in high school, he shifted and quit his
2:21
job at a, at a very large engineering, you know, very
2:24
prestigious engineering firm and started doing more investing in
2:27
entrepreneurial type things. And it taught me that you could
2:30
use business as a tool to solve some of these problems.
2:34
So when I was in college, I took a class from a professor around
2:40
this concept called micro franchising.
2:42
And the idea behind micro franchising is you take, you
2:45
know, similar to McDonald's as a franchise.
2:48
It's got powerful brand supply chain training systems to ensure
2:54
that the franchisees are successful.
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You take these same principles and you shrink them down for an
2:58
individual living at the bottom of the pyramid.
3:01
And so this class was all about taking that concept of micro
3:05
franchising and designing different micro franchise
3:08
business models for different nonprofits.
3:12
So we're trying to implement that strategy from there.
3:16
You know, had so much fun in. That yeah, real quick, Peter,
3:19
can you maybe give an example of a micro franchise?
3:22
Yeah, of course. So like one of the projects we
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did was in Africa and and Nairobi, we worked with the Nike
3:30
Foundation. And at the time, Nike was very
3:32
focused on girls. And so we went, went out,
3:37
analyzed the market, figured out that one of the products that
3:41
would do really well is a hair extensions product line.
3:45
So we partnered with a local company there and then designed
3:48
mini salons that these girls could operate where they would
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do hair extensions and hair styling.
3:55
And so they benefited from the brand, which was a company
4:00
called Darling, which had good advertising throughout the city,
4:04
had good supply chains to get them product at at good prices
4:07
and then trained them on how to do the different services.
4:10
And then we helped them kind of set up through fundings with the
4:14
Nike Foundation to provide some of the startup capital for them.
4:18
And then there were, you know, if they could go out and they
4:20
could set up their own little salon doing doing hair.
4:24
We also did ones in in that same project, we had another one
4:29
where we partnered with the the equivalent of Kentucky Fried
4:32
Chicken of Kenya, a company called Kenchick and they sold
4:38
chicken based hot dogs as a a food stand.
4:41
So a little more traditional to what most people think of when
4:44
they think of a franchise. And then we've done all kinds of
4:47
other things. Yeah, could be selling clothing,
4:50
could be selling cosmetics, home supplies, all kinds of stuff.
4:57
So get you? On the spot and ask if there's
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any metrics that you can reference in terms of success
5:03
for any one of these or sort of collectively as kind of a
5:05
concept? So last time I checked the
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numbers there, we've we've been successful in launching probably
5:12
close to 1000 of these micro franchises across the different
5:16
markets where we operated in South America, the Caribbean and
5:20
and Africa. My favorite story though is the
5:23
first project I did. So I went and spent a summer in
5:26
Northern Ghana after I graduated and our sponsor there was a
5:31
large multinational corporation that was looking to gain access
5:35
to the African market. And so we sold, we helped them
5:38
set up a business that these women would sell like home
5:43
supplies. So cleaning detergents, soaps,
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shampoos, makeup, stuff like that.
5:51
And we had this one woman who was really like just
5:55
representative of a lot of the micro franchisees we worked
5:58
with. She would wake up at like 4:00
6:01
in the morning, She would cook until like 7:00 in the morning.
6:05
And then she would take care of her children and the children of
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the seven other wives in her household.
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So she was the oldest of, of eight wives to this, this Muslim
6:19
man. And then they, she would go out
6:22
and sell door to door kitchen supplies and then she'd come
6:26
home and cook more and take care and go to bed at like midnight.
6:29
So like working insane hours and probably making about $2.00 a
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day. We brought her into our program
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and she cut her hours in half. She went from earning $2.00 a
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day to $25 a day. Started taking English classes
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and so that she can learn how to read and write in her spare
6:48
time. Improved kind of the overall
6:51
living situation of her entire family.
6:54
And you know, we just had a lot more energy and confidence kind
6:59
of going out there. And so that that was the beauty
7:01
of it was it was this, this unique like win, win, win where
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she was winning because it had this fundamental change on her
7:11
life and her livelihood. The corporation was winning
7:14
because they got access to this whole new market.
7:16
And frankly, even the customers were winning because they got
7:19
access to higher quality products and better service than
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they were getting before. So it was this, this like big
7:27
eye opener for me of this, this idea that you can create these
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win, win, win outcomes where everybody benefits.
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And it just creates this like virtuous cycle that builds on
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itself. That's really cool.
7:40
And sorry, I cut you off as you were starting to talk about some
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of the other international consulting work that you've
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done. So, yeah, I mean, that's, that's
7:47
the type of stuff we did. We worked in Kenya, Sierra
7:51
Leone, Ghana, Paraguay, Jamaica, Haiti, designing these
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businesses and launching them and and then helping them scale.
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Is it something you're still involved with?
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Not as much anymore. I've been so busy with my
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current ventures that it's, it's been hard to, to allocate the
8:11
time there. And my business partner there
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went on to start some other businesses as well.
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So every once in a while I'll get roped in to, to help advise
8:21
on something here and there. But it's it's very tangential to
8:24
what I do today. OK.
8:25
So before we get to University Growth Fund, tell me about
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University Venture Fund. Yeah.
8:32
So when I was a student, the other thing that I got involved
8:36
with beyond this consulting work was this fund called University
8:41
Venture Fund. And at the time, you know, when
8:44
I went to school, I thought I really want to be an
8:46
entrepreneur. And I had just come back from
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serving in Spain as a missionary for my church for two years.
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And while I was there, I saw this concept that today we know
8:58
is Redbox, but we didn't have it here in the US yet.
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And so I was working with a guy who owned like 150 Little
9:06
Caesars locations. And I was like, we're going to
9:08
bring, you know, pizza in a movie for 6 bucks and a vending
9:11
machine. And right as we're about to
9:14
launch, McDonald's and Redbox announced this like $150 million
9:20
partnership. And Utah was going to be where I
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was at at the current time. Utah was going to be their
9:27
launch market. And so I thought, well, I can't
9:31
really compete with that as a poor college student.
9:33
You know, I was hoping to get one of these things up off the
9:35
ground and running. So I shelved it.
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And at that time, a friend of mine was like, you should really
9:41
check out this thing called University Growth or University
9:43
Venture Fund. I think you'd really like it.
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So joined that firm and at the time it was an $18 million
9:51
venture fund, largest of its kind in the country, and had
9:57
students from different schools in Utah.
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And about six months after I joined, the two guys that had
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started the firm left to Co pursue other interests.
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And they brought in a gentleman who's now my business partner,
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Tom Stringham. And he and I revamped soup to
10:15
nuts the whole fund. So we rebuilt the entire
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training program, the recruiting strategy for our student
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interns, and then we also rebuilt how we did due
10:28
diligence, how we source deals on investment opportunities.
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And the thing that was really cool about University Venture
10:34
Fund is that we had somewhere around, at the time, call it 20
10:39
interns that were all college students.
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And the students were really empowered to run the fund.
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So, you know, we were meeting with entrepreneurs, we were
10:50
asking them hard questions, we were going through all of their
10:54
financials and other materials and then making decisions on
10:58
whether or not we should invest, you know, out of that $18
11:01
million pool of capital that we had.
11:03
So it was an amazing experience and did that for a couple years
11:08
as a student and then when I graduated was fortunate enough
11:12
to be extended an offer to to stick around and keep doing
11:15
basically all the same work I had already been doing.
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So. So you and who's your boss now?
11:21
Your partner? What?
11:22
What's that person's name? Tom.
11:24
Tom Stringham. Tom.
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And so Tom had, I'm going to guess a background in all of
11:29
this, this sort of the funding space and training students.
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He he came in with some sort of domain expertise already.
11:37
Yeah. So Tom's background is grew up
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in Utah and then went back east to do investment banking with
11:45
Merrill Lynch at the time. Went and got his graduate degree
11:50
from Harvard, went back to banking and then was working for
11:54
a small boutique investment bank called Roth Capital Partners.
11:58
And he was their Utah guy. So he had a lot of connections
12:03
in Utah, was living in Utah, and was an advisor to the fund prior
12:07
to coming on full time. OK, because I'm going to guess
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you coming as a college student, you didn't really have a a
12:13
background or sort of understanding.
12:15
So you learned a lot from him for sure your early mentor, OK.
12:19
And so at what point the two of you decide to leave there and
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start University Growth Fund? Yeah.
12:28
So funds, venture funds have a have a usually a finite life.
12:33
They're about 10 years and then you have to raise another fund
12:37
if you want it to go beyond those 10 years.
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And so as a firm, you might have like university venture fund
12:44
might be a firm, but then it has actual funds that each last
12:47
about 10 years. And most venture funds will
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raise a new fund every, call it three to five years.
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So we were coming because we took over the fund like halfway
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through that fund was coming to the end of its fund life that
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the end of those 10 years and it had a board of directors and we
13:05
went to the board and we said, hey, we would like to raise
13:09
another fund. And they said that's great, but
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the next fund really needs to be an impact fund.
13:14
So imagine investing, shifting our investment strategy from
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investing in companies like in structure, which makes the
13:21
largest learning management software used by K12 and
13:25
colleges today to doing like clean water projects in Africa.
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And we're like, impact is great. You know, clearly like I love
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it, right? I've spent a lot of time doing
13:37
that, but it was such a huge shift in strategy.
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And we talked to our students and they didn't really, you
13:43
know, get excited about it. And So what we decided was that
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they could pursue the impact strategy, which they did.
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So University Venture Fund went on to raise a subsequent fund to
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do impact investing and we were very friendly and and happy for
13:59
them to do that. And we spun out and launched
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University Growth Fund, raised about $32 million for our first
14:06
fund. And we're fortunate enough to
14:09
deploy in some really fun deals like some of the ones you
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mentioned like Spotify, Snapchat, Airbnb, Pinterest and
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and others and really providing kind of that continuing to
14:19
provide that, that tech focused experience for our students.
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So what was it about the impact fund that was not attractive to
14:28
you, but you just didn't see the ROI potential there?
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I know you mentioned like the students that you were working
14:34
with, they weren't super excited about it, but clearly it aligns
14:37
with kind of your mission purpose DNA.
14:42
You know, honestly, I think it was because I had so much
14:44
experience. I knew how challenging it would
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be. And part of it is I also, I
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don't know, I always, I always worry just a little bit about,
14:56
you know, people coming from developed countries to
14:59
developing countries and telling them what to do and how to do it
15:03
and so forth, without actually being on the ground and spending
15:06
meaningful time there. And so there was an element of
15:09
like, this is great, but I feel like you kind of need to be
15:13
there to understand it, if that makes sense.
15:16
As consultants, our, our position was always, hey, we
15:21
don't know what the local environment is.
15:23
We want to work closely with you to understand that we're just
15:26
going to bring some things that we've learned some from some
15:28
other markets that are similar to yours and, and bring them and
15:32
then together we can create something new and innovative
15:34
that's effective, right. But from an investment
15:38
perspective, you're sitting in Utah and you're making
15:40
investments internationally just felt really challenging and
15:43
hard. And as much as I do love impact,
15:47
like I love tech as well. And we, we actually propose
15:53
like, hey, can we do both? And, and there wasn't really
15:55
room to do that. And so, yeah, we just felt like
16:00
launching University Growth Fund would be a great way to to
16:03
continue on the model and the impact we were having so.
16:07
You mentioned some really big names companies that you were
16:10
able to invest in, Snapchat, Snapchat, Pinterest.
16:16
We had Airbnb, Spotify. How was it you guys were able to
16:20
get access to those deals? I mean, you're raising money.
16:24
You guys have had success, a little bit of a track record and
16:27
correct me if I'm wrong, but traditionally those deals are
16:29
reserved for kind of the big guys, right?
16:32
Yeah, yeah. No, for sure.
16:36
You know, the thing that I think has been the most impactful for
16:40
us being able to get access to really high profile deals is
16:44
that I don't just have a bunch of interns, right?
16:49
We have a program where we teach people, students how to do
16:54
venture investing and we're very authentic about it and we put a
16:57
lot of time, energy and resources into it.
17:01
When I'm pitching, you know, our program, it's there's a lot of
17:05
internships programs out there. Most internships, if not all
17:08
internships, put the intern at the periphery.
17:11
But at University Growth Fund, we put them at the center.
17:14
And because we put so much into it, we can speak very
17:17
authentically about the impact we're having.
17:19
And it turns out that most VCs and most entrepreneurs are good
17:23
people and they love this idea. They, like most of them, wish
17:28
that it had been around when they were in school.
17:30
And so the idea of like, yeah, we're raising, you know, in some
17:33
cases like $100 million. We'd be happy to carve off, you
17:38
know, half $1,000,000 for you guys to, to participate in this
17:41
round, right? And because I think we're, we're
17:46
providing something that's unique and that is the ability
17:48
to give back while taking investment dollars.
17:52
And then we also have this army of students that we use to help
17:56
these portfolio companies as well.
17:58
And so the founders really like that aspect as well.
18:01
And so it's kind of this combination of having like a
18:03
really unique story that we can be authentic about as well as
18:07
some unique value add that we can add.
18:11
And that's just been really powerful, whether it's
18:12
convincing a founder to let us in or convincing A venture fund
18:16
to bring us into one of their deals, that that's how we've
18:20
gotten access to the majority of of these deals.
18:23
So from a practical standpoint, what does it really look like on
18:27
the ground for students to be at the center of this rather than
18:30
the periphery? Sure.
18:32
So I the way it typically flows is I'll meet with a founder of a
18:39
company and hear the pitch to ensure that it fits our box
18:43
because I don't want to waste our students time and I don't
18:47
want to waste founders time either.
18:48
So assuming that fits within our strike zone, then I will
18:53
introduce the students to the founder and the students get to
18:57
sit down with the founder. They get to hear the pitch
19:00
directly from the founder. They get asked questions often
19:03
times, if not always, we get access to a full data room that
19:06
includes all the things you'd expect, the financials, the cap
19:09
table, the, the forecast, the, the, the pitch deck, etcetera.
19:15
The students then dig into that. They do research on that.
19:19
They do research outside of that, talking to industry
19:23
experts and so forth. That comes together in a, you
19:27
know, 50 to 80 page investment memorandum.
19:30
So it's long and detailed, and then the students, they pitch it
19:33
to the other students and everybody votes.
19:38
All the students vote. I don't actually have a vote,
19:40
technically. And so the students vote on
19:43
whether or not we do the deal. If they approve it, then we have
19:47
an investment committee of individuals from different
19:50
venture funds that graciously donate their time to support the
19:53
program and the students pitch to them, which helps do two
19:58
things. One, it helps us avoid any like
20:01
terrible, terrible investments. And two, those students learn
20:05
more in that hour long conversation than they do in
20:08
like a whole semester worth of classes because you just get
20:12
peppered with all of these hard hitting questions that are based
20:15
on decades of investment experience.
20:18
And so it's both educational as well as helping us, you know,
20:22
make good investments. And then once that investment
20:25
committee has come to a recommendation to go or no go,
20:29
we follow through with that and then we look for ways to add
20:32
value, typically through different consulting projects
20:35
with that company. So the students are really
20:37
involved like throughout the process, you know, I joke my job
20:43
is to get their coffee. And sometimes that's literally
20:46
so like I'll do a Costco run and, and load up the break room
20:49
with lots of snacks and coffee and other stuff for them.
20:52
So. So it's interesting what you're
20:54
describing. It's almost like there's a
20:55
firewall there for, you know, the senior advisor can kind of,
20:59
you know, have an eyeball on it, like you said, to prevent like a
21:01
really terrible investment from happening.
21:04
But otherwise, you've mostly got the students sort of at the
21:07
wheel driving this and it sounds like it would be a tremendous
21:11
learning experience. Do you run into any resistance
21:15
from your investors? I mean, clearly they know what
21:18
they're getting into, but when you're pitching somebody new or
21:21
they sort of like, wait a minute, I'm giving my money to,
21:24
who do you give any of that? For sure, yeah.
21:28
And then look, there are some, we know who we are and who we
21:31
aren't. And there are a lot of investors
21:34
that just look at this and say, yeah, like you guys may have
21:38
great performance and great track, right.
21:40
But I'm not going to risk my day job right on, on investing in a
21:45
bunch of students. But I think for those that are,
21:49
you know, willing to kind of look past that and see the
21:52
advantages that we have, you know, I think they've been
21:56
really happy with the performance they've seen over
21:58
the years. And so, yeah, it's, it's a mix
22:02
of, you know, large financial institutions and then also
22:06
family offices and high net worth individuals that are make
22:09
up our investor base. Where we don't do well is
22:13
anywhere where there's kind of a gatekeeper, you know, an advisor
22:16
that's advising like a large endowment or that sort of thing.
22:22
Because again, like they're just, they're just too risk
22:24
averse. They'd rather invest their money
22:26
into a, a much larger, more established brand than a small
22:30
fund like ours. But that's OK.
22:32
We don't need like billions of dollars under management in
22:36
order for our program to work. So.
22:38
You mentioned that one of the other benefits is that the port
22:42
coast kind of end up with an army of students that can help.
22:46
What does that mean? So, you know, sometimes that
22:50
doesn't help very much if you're Spotify, right, really big
22:53
business lot of people, but for smaller companies, because you
22:58
know, we'll, we'll work with some pretty small businesses.
23:00
They're strapped for for resources.
23:04
And so the same caliber of student that goes through our
23:07
program is the same caliber that's going to land a job at
23:10
like a McKinsey or a Bane or a Goldman Sachs investment
23:14
banking. So they're really smart, really
23:16
driven students. And excuse me, we have those
23:23
students really engage in different projects.
23:26
So we've done everything from we had one company where the CFO
23:30
left in the middle of a fundraise.
23:32
We stepped in and rebuilt their entire financial model and
23:36
forecast model and help them close over $10 million in
23:39
funding. We've helped one company that
23:43
does consumer products reach out to several 100 micro influencers
23:47
and place product with them that were like very strategic for
23:52
them. We've analyzed new markets for
23:55
companies to enter. We've had companies dump just
23:59
massive amounts of data on us, and we've parsed through the
24:02
data to find interesting insights to help them with their
24:04
sales and marketing. So it's really kind of a variety
24:07
of things. But invariably when I meet with
24:10
founders, they've got a list of 100 things they're trying to get
24:13
done. We don't promise that we can
24:15
help with the top 50. Like I just won't even pretend
24:18
like we'll be helpful there. But on the bottom 50, I'm
24:22
certain there's a handful of stuff that we could knock out.
24:25
And every founder I've ever met is immediately like, Oh yeah, I
24:28
can think of like 5 things right now that like it's something I
24:32
would love to know or get to, but I just just can never get to
24:35
it. But if I could staff like 5 to
24:37
10 really smart, eager students to crank on it for me, it would
24:41
be amazing. So.
24:43
Now, if the experience alone was the only thing that the students
24:47
were getting, that would be tremendous.
24:49
Hard to put a, you know, a price tag on that.
24:52
But are they receiving anything else that college credit, any
24:56
other sort of like compensation for this?
24:58
Yeah. So we have a stipend program.
25:00
We have, we have two layers of stipends, so and scholarships.
25:04
So we we provide scholarships to the students, which is kind of
25:08
like a stipend. And then we have an additional
25:11
scholarship or stipend available for needs based students that
25:17
need like a little bit more in order to survive.
25:19
So we don't want people to not do this program because they
25:22
can't afford it. And the reason for that is
25:24
because we're just very confident in the outcomes that
25:28
our program can produce. So our students on average are
25:32
making about 120% more than their peers at graduation.
25:38
And more importantly, they're landing jobs and careers that
25:41
really just set them up for the rest of their life.
25:44
So they're making, you know, a multiple of what their peers are
25:47
making, you know, 5-10 years into their career because really
25:51
that first job really sets them up, you know, throughout the
25:55
rest of their life. So that's, those are the things
25:59
that we really sell on is, you know, come in, get this amazing
26:03
experience, especially because of like we're going to give you
26:06
stuff that you probably won't get to do until several years
26:10
after you've started your career normally.
26:13
And you can leverage that then to land amazing jobs and, and do
26:19
amazing things. And it's going to be a little
26:21
bit, you know, it's going to be a lot of work.
26:23
So our students put in about 20 hours a week and it can be a
26:27
little bit of a grind for them, but it just, you know, hopefully
26:30
they're good investors and, and they're willing to put in the
26:33
effort and the time to make it, to make it work because the
26:35
payoff is definitely there on the backside.
26:37
So. And the kinds of places that
26:39
these students are going after graduation, I think you
26:42
mentioned, like Mackenzie Bain. Yeah, places like that.
26:45
Yeah. So this program was really
26:47
designed because Utah was viewed as a fly over state in the
26:52
early, you know, 2000s and not a lot of people know about Utah.
26:56
I feel like that that cat's out of the bag a little bit, but you
27:01
know, the students here just really struggle to compete with
27:04
students on the coasts. And so this program was designed
27:07
as a way to give them a leg up on that and and it's been really
27:12
effective at doing that. So our what we tell students is
27:16
you can leverage our program to get work to wherever you want to
27:19
go as it relates to finance, entrepreneurship, etcetera.
27:23
So we have students at all the top investment banks.
27:27
We have students that have gone on to work at large private
27:29
equity funds, venture capital funds, hedge funds, real estate
27:33
funds, all the big management consulting shops like the
27:37
Mackenzie's out there. We've had students go work for
27:41
for tech companies and we've had students start their own
27:44
companies and raise money from, you know, big powerhouse VCs
27:48
like Andreessen Horowitz and others.
27:50
So it really is like whatever you want to to pursue like this,
27:55
the experience you gain at UGF is just, you know, so helpful
27:59
in, in landing that because it's so unique and differentiated.
28:04
You said that you're very confident in what your
28:07
investment results are. What makes you so confident?
28:10
Let me let me change that question a little bit.
28:14
What what has contributed to such a successful track record
28:18
for you guys? Yeah.
28:21
So my confidence comes from having done this for 15 years
28:24
and seeing the results of that. And I think it's a lot of the
28:28
things that we talked about in that we do spend a lot of time
28:32
and energy to create a really authentic program for students
28:36
where, you know, they can learn a lot.
28:40
But we also, you know, we have robust training programs.
28:43
We put them through like we don't just throw them in the
28:45
deep end and hope they can swim like we, we do a lot to support
28:48
them in that. And then what's what's been
28:51
amazing is because we're so impactful on these students and
28:58
so critical in helping them land those jobs and and tee up the
29:02
career that they really want. They become incredibly loyal
29:06
back to the organization and it creates this beautiful flywheel
29:09
where they're helping the next generation of students land
29:13
those amazing jobs. They're also driving deal flow
29:16
back to us. So they're working at great
29:19
companies, they're starting great companies, they're working
29:22
at great venture funds and so forth and finding ways to drive
29:26
deal flow back to us, which is also, you know, incredibly
29:29
helpful. Like we just wrote a check into
29:32
Open AI and that was largely driven by one of our alumni that
29:37
went through our program that that helped bring us into that
29:39
deal. So there's, you know, a lot of
29:43
interesting things that come out of that right of kind of doing
29:48
things for the right reason and then seeing the the results kind
29:52
of compound over time. How competitive is it to get
29:56
into the program? How many students do you have
29:58
apply? How many do you accept?
30:00
So we have about 50 students in the program today across 14
30:05
different schools and it's about an 8% acceptance rate.
30:12
So it's pretty competitive. What are you looking for?
30:16
So what we don't look for is a ton of experience because
30:18
students don't have it. What we look for is 3 things.
30:23
I look for people that are really smart and there are a lot
30:27
of ways to be smart. You just have to demonstrate to
30:30
me how you're smart. And, and the reason for that is
30:33
because we're looking at so many different deals.
30:35
You got to get up the learning curve super fast on every deal,
30:39
right? The other thing we look for is
30:42
people that are really passionate about what we do.
30:45
So it could be you're super passionate about AI and tech, or
30:48
you could be really passionate about entrepreneurship or really
30:51
passionate about investing. But it like there needs to be
30:54
something in you that's pushing you forward because there will
30:57
be times where the work gets tough and you need something to
31:02
kind of push you through that. It's kind of like that saying
31:04
like you can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to
31:07
drink. And so we think a lot about
31:09
that. Like I can take almost anybody
31:12
that's passionate about doing this and get them there, But
31:15
they they got to come, you know, passionate and ready to go.
31:19
And then the last thing they look for is people that are
31:21
great team players that, you know, they check the ego at the
31:24
door. We, I describe our culture
31:28
internally as a collaborative meritocracy, which might sound
31:33
counterintuitive, but the reason for that is because it
31:37
university growth funds is one of those places where the more
31:40
you put in, the more you get out.
31:42
And that's the meritocracy part. The collaborative part is we do
31:46
everything in teams and there are rewards to spending time
31:51
helping your peers learn stuff in advance because that's how
31:56
you advance within the organization as well.
31:58
That's how you become a leader within our organization is by
32:02
demonstrating that ability to teach, training, coach those
32:05
that are below you, if that makes sense.
32:08
And so you guys are exclusively tech focused.
32:11
So software, hardware, these are the kinds of areas that you play
32:17
in. Yeah, there needs to be some
32:19
sort of tech piece of it at play.
32:22
So, but, but tech is like can can be kind of loose.
32:28
So like we invested in a company called Kopari.
32:32
Kopari is a predominantly women's cosmetic and like they
32:44
sell like sunscreen and and other kind of nutraceutical type
32:47
products, but they sell like 50% of their businesses online sold
32:51
online, right. So e-commerce business using
32:55
technology to to sell and distribute products qualifies
32:58
for us. On the other end of the
33:00
spectrum, like I mentioned, like we're in open AI, you know, very
33:05
deep technology type stuff. So pretty pretty broad range.
33:09
We've done business services in the tech space, a bunch of
33:15
different consumer products, deals, hardware, software,
33:19
cybersecurity, all kinds. What's an example of a business
33:22
services company that you've invested in?
33:24
So we invested in a company called Simplis.
33:27
Simplis was a business that would help people install and
33:31
customize Salesforce implementations.
33:35
So kind of a consulting business.
33:37
What was unique about it is they grew both organically and
33:41
inorganically because they would buy other consulting businesses
33:45
and roll them into the business and then ultimately were
33:48
acquired by Infosys a few years ago.
33:52
Is there a particular trend that you're seeing in all the
33:57
investing that you're doing that you're really excited about?
34:01
So I think the big trend is the obvious one, which is just AI
34:07
impacting literally everything. And so I've been thinking a lot
34:12
about what that means. I remember when I was fairly
34:15
early on in my career, we went through another one of these
34:19
like big pivot points right in technology when mobile kind of
34:24
hit the hit the scene. And I was thinking about this
34:28
this morning when, when mobile hit the scene, there were a
34:31
bunch of companies that would claim to be and really position
34:35
themselves as being mobile first, which meant, you know, I
34:39
didn't just build something on the web and then like repurpose
34:43
it for mobile. Like I built on mobile 1st.
34:46
And those companies ended up most of them being extremely
34:49
successful. So you look at like companies
34:51
like Uber, right? It was mobile first in its
34:56
development and, and how they saw the world and how did they
34:58
think about things. And I think there's this new
35:01
business which is being AI 1st and there's going to be all of
35:08
there are all of these opportunities that just didn't
35:11
exist before AI, just like Uber wasn't possible before we all
35:15
had a smartphone in our pocket. I think the same thing will
35:19
occur with with AI. And that's the thing that I'm
35:22
thinking a lot about. I think today we're an inning
35:24
one where everybody is just they're like slapping AI onto
35:29
current products. And it's, it's a lot of kind of,
35:33
you know, AI wrappers, as we call them.
35:36
But I think we're going to start to see more and more businesses
35:39
that are take this like AI first approach.
35:43
And I, I'm not sure exactly where the unlock there is, but I
35:47
think where it is, is in personalization.
35:51
And if you as a business like like an AI first business would
35:56
be able to create a unique solution for every single one of
36:01
their customers in a specific vertical where they have like
36:04
domain expertise, if that makes sense.
36:07
And so I think there's this challenge, if you're a large
36:10
company, how do you take this like very large platform that
36:15
you've built and create that customized experience for your
36:19
individual customers versus starting from ground one where
36:23
that's just like baked into your DNA from day one, if that makes
36:27
sense? Conceptually, it does.
36:30
I'm curious if you've sort of envisioned like an actual
36:33
execution of this, what what? It's always helpful to wrap our
36:38
heads around something a little bit more specific.
36:40
Yeah. So I mean a couple examples.
36:44
One, which is kind of a terrifying example is instead of
36:49
going on Netflix, right, and watching the same show that
36:53
everybody watches, having a show dynamically in real time created
36:57
just for you and what you like, you know, that nobody else will
37:02
ever see, right? Because it's just really for you
37:05
personalized. I think that's kind of 1
37:07
extreme. I think another though, like
37:10
more business approach would be there's companies like Airtable
37:16
and Clickup and others that have a very like flexible platform.
37:22
But what I want to be able to do is just be able to type into my
37:25
keyboard and say, Hey, I want a product that solves these pain
37:29
points for me and have the the AI automatically create the
37:36
software that specifically solves those pain points in a
37:39
solution that's just as elegant as you know, if I were to go out
37:45
and buy an enterprise grade piece of software, I think click
37:49
up and air table, we're kind of this in between solution where
37:53
is like this very broad platform and you could kind of customize
37:55
it, but it required a lot of work to get the customizations
37:58
in just right. But with AI now, like we're
38:03
getting to the point we're getting close where like I can
38:05
just tell it to do what I need and it creates that that
38:09
outcome. And then if you pair that with
38:12
some sort of like unique data set that nobody else has access
38:17
to, I think that's where you can create some some really
38:19
interesting outcomes. So maybe that's, you know,
38:24
you're a company that operates in the health service,
38:28
healthcare services space, and you've just collected A
38:30
tremendous amount of data around how people work in that space.
38:36
And so you can feed that into your AI.
38:39
So then when they're asking for solutions, it comes out with
38:43
solutions that are specifically tailored to what they need and
38:46
the outcomes they're looking for.
38:48
Yeah, it is sort of a combination of exciting and a
38:51
little bit weird and terrifying at the same time.
38:57
I'd like to shift gears now, Peter.
38:59
And obviously you're bright, successful guy.
39:02
You've had lots of different experiences, A tremendous amount
39:05
of success, and I'm sure that you had your hair share of
39:09
hardships. What is maybe a serious
39:12
challenge that you have had to overcome in your life?
39:15
What was that? How did you get through it and
39:18
what did you learn? Yeah.
39:21
So I kind of sort of mentioned it earlier, but I'll give you a
39:26
little more detail in context. So when we are going through
39:29
that transition from university venture fund to university
39:34
growth fund, it was kind of like a scary transition because we
39:39
hadn't raised a fund. We didn't know if we were going
39:42
to be able to raise a fund. We had a billionaire straight up
39:47
say to us, you know, this is a terrible idea.
39:51
I wouldn't invest in your fund. No one I know would invest in
39:54
your fund. You're going to fail, right?
39:59
And like, I had a young family. It was just really like kind of
40:05
scary. And I remember I talked to my
40:08
mom about it and and she was just like, I just feel like you
40:12
need to go for it and do this. And your downside is not that
40:15
big. And it kind of was an eye opener
40:17
for me 'cause I was like, as I really thought through it, I was
40:20
like, you know, my downside is really not that bad.
40:24
Like I can get a job doing something, right.
40:28
I'm smart enough and ambitious enough to get a job.
40:32
It just may not be something I love doing.
40:34
But if that's my downside, right, why would I not go and,
40:39
and take this risk and swing hard to do something that I, I
40:42
know I will love? And so it was challenging, like
40:46
for the first couple years, you know, trying to go out and raise
40:50
money from people was, was challenging, but we were
40:52
fortunate enough to be able to, to pull it together.
40:55
And what was interesting is we raised a little bit and we
40:58
invested in Lyft was our very first investment.
41:02
And then that kind of created some momentum and people were
41:05
like, wow, like, OK, you guys are actually doing something
41:08
interesting here. And that allowed us to raise a
41:10
little bit more and a little bit more and, and do more deals and,
41:13
and get some momentum going and finally raise, you know, that
41:16
$32 million fund, first fund that we raised.
41:19
So yeah, I don't know. I think I think a lot of it was
41:25
just that fear of failing, right?
41:27
But then also seeing that like maybe the downside is, is not as
41:31
bad as I think it is. Like I'm, I'm, I'm kind of
41:35
freaking myself out over nothing and that really I should, I
41:38
should take the risk and, and take the plunge, right?
41:41
Yeah, I kind of like that because I've got other friends
41:45
and peers of mine that like to take a similar approach when
41:48
they're kind of stressing about something that play it out to
41:51
the worst case scenario. And well, I, I could lose my
41:55
money and what, and then what, and, and then I, you know, maybe
41:58
I lose my and, and then what? And, and like, what is it
42:02
ultimately that you're most afraid of that you couldn't
42:04
recover from? And often times when you play it
42:08
all the way out to the possible, and it's really not that bad.
42:12
The, the worst case scenario is something that you could still
42:14
bounce back from. And that's exactly the exercise
42:16
that you went through. I think it's a lot easier to go
42:18
through that exercise when you're younger than when you're
42:21
older and more established. But you were still at a place
42:24
where, like you said, you had a young family.
42:26
It wasn't just, you know, Bachelor Peter, you had, you
42:29
know, other folks who were relying on you.
42:31
So it certainly took some gumption.
42:33
And the fact that you pushed through when you had a
42:37
billionaire tell you this is a terrible idea, Peter.
42:41
You're going to lose all your money.
42:42
I wouldn't invest. None of my friends would invest.
42:46
You know, I go through this on a regular basis where I'll, you
42:49
know, spitball an idea with somebody that I respect and, you
42:53
know, maybe they don't love it. This guy loves it, but this one,
42:56
no, it's not going to work for these 12 reasons.
42:58
Now I'm like, I was really excited about that.
43:01
Now I, I don't know if, if I want to continue with it.
43:04
And so I, I'm kind of curious when you've got somebody, you
43:07
know, very astute, very successful, very, you know, has
43:11
deep pockets that tells you what a horrible idea this is.
43:14
What what caused you to push on and and sort of take that advice
43:18
and file it away, but not have it be the ultimate roadblock for
43:22
you? Yeah, it's a good question.
43:25
And there there's a lot of factors there.
43:28
You know, while you were speaking, I was thinking about
43:31
how the big risk, of course, is I I don't do it.
43:36
I don't pursue my dreams, right? And I end up with like a life
43:40
I'm not really proud of, right? And like to me, that's, that's
43:45
the worst outcome, right? Kind of those missed
43:48
opportunities that, you know, the the missed shots I didn't
43:50
take. So, you know, there's that.
43:53
I think the other thing is just understanding like the biases
43:58
that people have. So he had some biases that I
44:00
won't go into, but you know, it, it was like, OK, that that's
44:04
your perspective and I can see why you have it.
44:07
And I can also see some of your biases.
44:10
And so kind of thinking through some of those things.
44:13
The other thing that I was thinking about as you were
44:16
talking is so a number of years ago, they did this study where
44:20
they, they looked at a lot of different venture funds and
44:23
they, they wanted to see what mattered, like did consensus
44:30
result in better investment outcomes.
44:33
And so they looked at like how partners at different venture
44:37
funds had voted on different deals over time.
44:39
And then they tracked those deals to see which ones
44:42
performed well. And what they found is that it
44:47
was kind of binary. The deals that that did the best
44:52
and the worst were the most controversial within the firm.
44:57
And the the deals that had the most consensus were kind of like
45:01
meh deals. They weren't terrible.
45:04
Like they didn't lose all their money.
45:06
They really didn't generate a very great return either.
45:09
And the reason for that is because if you have too much
45:12
consensus, you're really not doing anything that innovative
45:16
and new and different, right? Because then everybody's like,
45:19
Oh yeah, that's obvious. Like, of course, of course
45:22
that's going to be successful. And what happens is there's tons
45:25
of other people that come to that same conclusion, launch
45:28
similar businesses, and now you're in a sea of, you know,
45:32
lots of competitors. But if you're doing something
45:35
like truly unique and innovative and different, you're going to
45:39
have a lot of people that tell you it's a terrible idea.
45:41
They just can't get it. Because they can't get it.
45:44
I think about like Airbnb is like a great example of this,
45:47
right? Like so many venture funds were
45:50
like, wait, you're going to let a total stranger into your
45:53
house, you know, for like 20 bucks or vice versa.
45:57
Like I'm going to go into somebody else's house and
46:00
they're, you know, they're not going to murder me in my sleep,
46:03
you know, So there were a lot of people that passed on because
46:06
they're like, this is just never going to be successful.
46:08
And all of those funds had they invested would have generated
46:13
like billions in return for their fund.
46:16
And in venture, that's really important because in venture you
46:19
operate under like this, this idea of power law where a few
46:22
investments are going to return the vast majority of are going
46:26
to generate the vast majority of your returns.
46:28
And so like, the worst thing you could do is have lots of
46:32
consensus, invest in Med deals that don't return very much and
46:36
miss out on the Airbnb that that returns, you know, a multiple of
46:41
your fund. That's fascinating.
46:44
Do you bake that into any of the education that you're providing
46:47
to your students in how they're trying to assess deals for UGF?
46:53
Like you're you're sort of looking for this kind of
46:56
friction. Yeah, for sure.
47:00
I mean, we, you know, we love it when deals are pretty contested
47:03
internally for a lot of reasons. If nothing else, then it shows
47:08
the students are really passionate and engaged, right.
47:11
And into what we're evaluating. They're taking it seriously.
47:14
And. And you also learn a lot, right?
47:16
You hear somebody else's argument and it gives you a
47:18
unique perspective, a new perspective that maybe you
47:21
hadn't considered before. So yeah, like for us, we
47:27
probably lean a little bit more towards consensus because we
47:31
tend to invest more, you know, at the growth stage of companies
47:35
when they're generating millions in revenue versus swinging on
47:39
like truly massively disruptive technologies super early on.
47:44
But even then, like I always get a little nervous if it's like
47:47
too easy of a slam dunk across the board so.
47:51
You mentioned that Lyft was your first investment and that gave
47:56
you some St. cred. Folks are like, oh, OK, let's
47:59
pay a little bit more attention to what these guys are doing.
48:03
How far in, how long after the initial investment was made did
48:07
that kind of give you some St. credibility?
48:10
Because it took a little while to evolve and become known and
48:16
become a thing that, you know, everybody was using.
48:19
So what was sort of that time period in between?
48:24
It was probably about a year. I mean, Lyft was growing so fast
48:29
that between the time we invested and, you know, a year
48:32
later, they'd already grown like massively.
48:36
So it was pretty quick. How did you get the first
48:39
investor? You said it was tough early
48:41
going. So we had an investor at
48:45
University Venture Fund that was, you know, and to this day
48:48
is our biggest cheerleader, this woman, Jan Ferguson, over at
48:52
Ally Bank. And she had left.
48:55
So UBS was an investor in University Venture Fund and she
48:58
left UBS and went over to Ally. And she was really our first
49:02
believer, Like we wouldn't, we wouldn't be here without her.
49:06
And so, yeah, she she was the one that kind of went out on a
49:09
limb and said, you know, I love what you guys do.
49:11
I love this program. I love the impact you have on
49:14
students. We want to support this.
49:17
And so she made that first commitment and then that
49:20
provided a lot of credibility to others that, you know, not only
49:26
was like she willing to stand behind it, but stand behind it
49:32
in a very meaningful way. And then when we layered on like
49:35
well, and we also got access to to lift, it was kind of that
49:39
combination of of two big points of credibility that that pushed
49:44
us over the edge with a lot of investors, I think.
49:50
Besides the program that you run, Peter, if somebody's
49:54
listening and they're thinking, hey, I really want to sort of
49:58
get my feet wet or I want to better understand this entire
50:02
space. Do you have a resource that
50:05
would be accessible to folks that you'd recommend, whether
50:08
it's a book, a course, another podcast that talks all about
50:11
this stuff? So yeah, there's a little
50:14
self-serving, but I do have a YouTube channel you can find me
50:18
at VC Pete and I talk about all kinds of things related to
50:23
venture capital. And then I also do a podcast at
50:26
VC dot FM with my Co host John Bradshaw.
50:30
And we, we talk again about all things VC, but more in a podcast
50:35
format and bring in different industry experts to talk about
50:39
kind of the the latest trends that we're seeing and and get
50:43
their perspective on, on what's going on there.
50:47
Any particular daily habits or rituals that have been helpful
50:52
for you, either to get your day started or to keep you on track
50:56
during the day? So last summer I was feeling
51:03
like I wasn't in the best like physical condition and so I
51:08
decided to do 75 hard. If you're familiar with that
51:12
Which? I am but explain please.
51:14
So for 75 hard, for 75 days, you drink a gallon of water, you do
51:20
245 minute workouts, one of which has to be outside, you
51:23
read 10 pages in a non fiction book, you stick to a diet and
51:29
you don't drink any alcohol. And I think I got all of them.
51:35
And so anyways, I did it. It's not really a fitness thing
51:39
as much as it is a self-discipline thing.
51:41
And I felt like my life needed a little bit of a restart.
51:44
And so I did that and it was great.
51:47
Like with it totally, like checked that box of of kind of
51:51
hitting restart on my, my life and my health and my own
51:55
self-discipline and left me with the habit of now I wake up every
52:00
morning and I, I work out for usually about 45 minutes to an
52:04
hour. I've cleaned up my diet a ton,
52:07
which has helped. I don't eat after 8:00 PM and I
52:11
try to go to bed at 10:00. And all of those things have
52:13
resulted in me just feeling like I have a ton more energy and
52:18
just ability to tackle things. So yeah, those are those are
52:22
probably like the little things that that I've done in the last
52:26
call it, you know, 6 to 9 months that I felt like I've had a huge
52:29
impact. We had fun kind of spitballing
52:33
on the AI sort of trend that you think it is kind of coming.
52:40
Is there something kind of non AI related that you're excited
52:44
about in the tech spaces that you're investing in?
52:48
So I think the space that I am personally really excited about
52:56
is I don't, I don't believe it's been like, like now's the time
53:00
for it to take off because of AI, but it's not an AI thing.
53:05
And that is longevity. I think longevity is going to be
53:09
a massive opportunity because we're now at this point where I
53:15
think most people are starting to think about longevity.
53:19
What do they eat? How do they exercise?
53:22
What are the stuff that goes into their body, whether they're
53:24
eating it or its products that they're using?
53:28
And it's just getting more and more attention.
53:31
And now we actually have, through AI, the data sets and
53:36
the analytical ability to start giving really insightful
53:42
recommendations on things that we can actively do to increase
53:45
our longevity. When I talk about longevity, I'm
53:48
not thinking like Brian Johnson, who wants to live forever.
53:51
I'm thinking more along the lines like Peter Attia, where
53:55
it's like, I just want to have a really good quality of life and
53:59
then die and as opposed to having a diminishing quality of
54:02
life and kind of suffering for a decade or more until I die.
54:06
And I think more and more people are thinking about that.
54:09
And so it, I don't know, it's just an area where where I'm
54:13
looking at a lot of different deals and get really excited.
54:18
I'm kind of curious, where do you think the data sets come
54:21
from to produce those insights? So there's just so many data,
54:29
data sources like I think the average person now, if they're
54:32
being honest and they really like look at their life, there's
54:36
probably like 10 to 20 data sets that are tracking their health.
54:42
So if you have a, an Apple Watch or some others, you know, Fitbit
54:47
or some other device tracking that a lot of people have smart
54:50
skills. You also have your medical
54:52
records. A lot of people are doing blood
54:54
tests now, even your phone that just tracks like where you live,
54:59
where you move, where you're going, what you're doing.
55:02
All of that is data that can be ingested into providing insights
55:05
to your health. And then you put on top of that,
55:09
like a is ability to analyze all of these research papers and
55:15
medical outcomes for the past, you know, 100 years in a way
55:20
that hasn't been possible before.
55:23
It's kind of this confluence of like all of those things
55:26
happening at once and and being able to come together to provide
55:30
those those insights. So are the companies that you're
55:33
talking to thinking about investing in, are there are
55:37
these ones that are sort of figuring out how to pull in data
55:41
from all these disparate sources?
55:43
Because like that's even hard for me to think about doing.
55:45
Like how do I take the data that my phone's collecting combined
55:49
with my medical records combined with my Apple Watch?
55:53
And like, how do I, and then where do I put it and what, what
55:57
is it getting compared to? I guess in my mind I was
56:00
thinking, well, we need like massive amounts of this data for
56:04
millions of people overtime so we could sort of see the trends
56:09
of, oh, the people who ate less than three potato chips a day
56:13
had, you know, 10% less cancer or, you know, something like
56:17
that. Am I thinking about it remotely,
56:20
correctly or put put me on track here?
56:23
Yeah. I mean, I think, I think it's a
56:25
fair perspective. The companies are attacking in
56:29
all different kinds of ways. So you've got like Aura Ring
56:33
just announced that they are wrapping in blood tests as part
56:39
of their overall large like service offering.
56:41
You've got companies like Function Health and Superpower
56:45
and Life Force that also do kind of this concierge type, you
56:53
know, medical advice where you do a blood test and you meet
56:57
with a doctor and they give you feedback on things that you
57:00
should adjust to your lifestyle. You've got a bunch of new
57:04
companies that are bringing out all kinds of new devices.
57:08
So I've, you know, like just a few months ago, I met with a
57:11
woman out of MIT that has a test that can tell you your
57:15
biological age based on a whole bunch of different factors
57:19
related to your DNA and blood work and all kinds of things.
57:24
And then, you know, I've seen lots of other companies that
57:27
they, some of them are pulling in lots of data, some of them
57:30
are creating new devices to collect that data.
57:33
I think there's a lot of different approaches to it.
57:37
And that's what I think is really exciting.
57:39
You know, the, the CEO of Coinbase just raised like $140
57:45
million for a new therapeutic that is based on editing your,
57:51
your genes at the cellular level to, to solve all kinds of
57:57
different problems. So there's a, there's just like
57:59
a tremendous amount of people that are thinking about
58:01
longevity and approaching it in different ways.
58:05
I do think though, like why isn't there a platform that
58:09
pulls in all of that data into one place, you know?
58:13
That's the product. Yeah, well, you know, this is my
58:17
frustration when I did 75 Heart is I was tracking my diet was I
58:22
could eat anything I wanted, but I had to track it.
58:25
And because I believe that anything that gets measured gets
58:28
improved. And and so I was like, I I'm
58:31
just going to track it. And sure enough, my diet
58:34
improved massively, but I was like, I can't compare.
58:39
I bought one of those smart scales that tells me when my
58:41
body fat percentage and I just wanted to see the correlation of
58:46
my sugar intake versus my body fat percentage.
58:49
And I couldn't do it. There was like no easy way to do
58:51
it other than downloading, you know, data sets into CSV files.
58:56
And running continuous glucose monitor would kind of get you in
58:59
that direction, right? Yeah.
59:02
I mean, you know, and like there's some stuff that kind of
59:04
directionally points you in the right direction, but I don't
59:09
know, it feels like there's like a missing opportunity, a hole
59:12
there. I, I agree and it's going to be
59:15
fun to follow. Just got one more question for
59:18
you, Peter. But before I ask it, I want to
59:19
do 2 things. First, I'm going to invite
59:20
everyone listening. Go ahead and hit the follow
59:22
button on your favorite podcast app.
59:24
You want to get more great interviews like we've had today
59:27
with Peter Harris from University Growth Fund.
59:30
Peter, I also want to let people know the best way to get in
59:33
touch with you. I'm going to point them to your
59:34
website, which is the letter U growthfund.com, but are there
59:39
other ways? You also mentioned your YouTube
59:41
channel and your podcast. Any other ways for folks to
59:44
connect with you or follow your story?
59:47
Yeah, I think those two are probably the best.
59:49
My YouTube channel at vcpete.com, you can find me on
59:52
LinkedIn as well, just Peter Harris and I do have another
59:56
website which is also vcpete.com.
59:59
So anyone else? What will folks?
1:00:01
Find at that website. That mostly links out to a lot
1:00:06
of my podcasts and YouTube channels and you know, other
1:00:09
things so place than university growth fund for my my personal
1:00:14
content. And we'll include links to all
1:00:16
these resources in the show notes, folks.
1:00:19
But last question for you, Peter.
1:00:20
Let's say you and I connect again in a year and you're
1:00:23
celebrating something you're super excited about.
1:00:25
What is that thing? So we are, you know, as I think
1:00:31
about like, what's the future of university growth fund, right?
1:00:35
Like I always want to push the boundaries and do more
1:00:38
interesting things. And it's not just, well, we're
1:00:41
going to raise another fund and deploy into similar deals.
1:00:44
What I want to do is I want to impact more and more students.
1:00:48
I want to impact more students and impact them in different
1:00:51
ways. And so one of those ways that
1:00:54
we're thinking about it is can we expand the asset class?
1:00:59
So today we do venture and growth equity investing into
1:01:02
venture backed startups. But in the future I would love
1:01:05
to do private credit, private equity, real estate.
1:01:10
And so maybe in a year from now, like I'm celebrating the launch
1:01:14
of, you know, one of those funds where we're broadening the
1:01:19
impact and the experience that students have beyond just
1:01:22
venture capital to a bunch of these other asset classes so
1:01:26
that they can get kind of more broad experience and, and also
1:01:31
that we can, you know, generate interesting returns for our
1:01:34
investors. All right.
1:01:37
Well, Peter Harris University Growth Fund, I want to be the
1:01:40
first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your
1:01:43
story with us today. I'm really grateful.
1:01:46
Well, thank you for the time. This is a really fun
1:01:48
conversation, I appreciate it. Folks, that's a wrap on another
1:01:51
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:01:53
Thanks for learning with us today.