Transcript
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Hello and welcome to the consumer VC. I am your host, Michael but
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and on this show we talked about
the world adventure capital and innovation in both
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consumer technology and consumer products. If
you're enjoying this content, you could subscribe
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to my newsletter, the consumer VC
DOT sub stackcom, to get each new
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episode and more consumer news delivered straight
to your inbox. Our guests today is
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mckiever Conwell, the second or,
as he's most well known, Mac,
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the VC founder and managing partner of
rare breed ventures. Rare breed ventures is
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a precede fund that invest in exceptional
founders, primarily outside of large tech ecosystems
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and earlier than everyone else. We
discuss how MAC built relationships on twitter with
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investors and founders, was able to
raise a VC fund all through twitter,
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his due diligence process and how we
thinks about customer acquisition. Without further ADO,
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here's Mac. Mac, thank you
so much for being here and coming
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on this show. How are you? I'm doing good. Thank you for
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the MVITE. MIC, is good
to see man, great to see you're
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great to see you and really excited
to catch up with you here in chat.
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Serving the beginning, Mac I mean
what was your initial attraction to technology?
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I maybe what what led you down
like the entrepreneurial path? So technology
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was in sixth grade I had a
teacher by the name of Mr Davis,
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who I didn't recognize it at the
time. It went till like years later
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that I realized he was a former
software engineer and here he was seagons group
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of, you know, sixth graders
about robotics and coding and like before we
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had language for it. And so
by the time I was in eight grade
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I was in robotics competitions. You
know, when I was in high school
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I started the Robotis Club in my
high school. I was that kind of
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kid. I also played on the
football team. So, like you know,
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also that kind of kid. Yeah, you know, I was that
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kind of kids. So that's where
I got started. Entrepreneurship really stun for
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my father, and my father was
really my father was a dreamer, you
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know, he was a guy who
was always looking to do more and you
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know, as a pump ten year
old kid, will tell my dad I
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wanted to be a rapper. One
day he asked me the question, like
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who you know who signs your favorite
rappers checks and I didn't understand what he
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was seeing and he so he made
me go like look it up and realize
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like, Oh, the guy who
writes the checks is the one with the
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real money, not the rapper.
The rapper gets to be cool. The
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guy who sides to check gets all
the money. I want to be the
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guy with all the money. And
so, you know, that's kind of
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like the beginning of like thoughts of
entrepreneurships, like the earliest days. That's
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where it comes from. Yeah,
no, no, I appreciate that.
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So you start at companies. Like
what were like the reasons why you and
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like the period in your life to
that kind of made you want to,
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you know, put two feet in
and actually become an entrepreneur and dedicate,
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you know, have this actually as
your job and obviously build a company yourself.
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And wouldn't that well thought out right? What happened was I software engineer
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working for the government and I had
a good friend by the name of Patrick
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Jackson who was obsessed with being the
Black Mark Zuckerburg. Right today he's the
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CTEO of a company called disconnector is
the VP and company. And so,
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you know, he was building a
website, he was building apps, like
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what the iphone comes out and no
seven. He builds his first IPHONE APP
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into eight. Like he was that
guy and he was also the first one
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of the group to like quit his
job and move to San Francisco. And
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so we all and so he was
always talking about how to build things that
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make money while you sleep. So
for me, for our first company,
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me with my two best friends,
it was really the build a company that
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could make money while we slept.
Right it was like, Oh, we
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were engineers, were software engineers,
so we we're builders, so we could
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build something. So let's build something
cool and make some money. We didn't
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think of it as a company.
We didn't know what startups were, we
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didn't know what VC's. Were we
in the any of that stuff. was
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just like, if you build a
website the school, you can make money.
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Figure it out from the year.
It wasn't ntil about a year and
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a half in that we started going
to events, started networking, started meeting
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people, started learning that we realize, oh, we're building a company.
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We got like take this seriously.
So we kind of just fell into it,
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honestly, and ran that first company
for four and a half years or
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what, through two accelerators and eventually
sold the IP to a four to one
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hundred companies like that was a hell
of a Ri it's amazing. That's amazing
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and I also love how you said
like the founding journey. It was you
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kind of fell into it. It
was just something that maybe you thought was
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cool and you were maybe inspired by
your buddy and just wanted to I mean,
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obviously it's great to build a business
that you know makes money. Why
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you sleep right. So that obviously
is very attractive to want to start a
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business like that. Why did you
decide to? Like I let's also type
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A little bit about like your investment
journey and why you shift it over to
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become an investor and then eventually,
like dive into the world of like vc
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and and kind all that jazz.
So my first company, we sell the
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technology off. The second company fails, end up getting a job at a
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marking firm. So I'm morking the
job in this marking firm where I've been
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the CEO to start ups, I've
done deals with like Disney and Viacom and,
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you know, hundreds and not thousands
of customers and all this stuff,
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to now, you know, working
out a marking firm managing a team of
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engineers, which is very different,
and I end up quitting that job at
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that marking firm because we had a
client I didn't agree with, Earth at
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least I quite on principle. In
the week after that, literally I quit
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on a Friday. In the very
next Monday I got an email, a
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community wid email, from the Investment
Roma the state of Marylan, saying we're
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hiring. So I was just narrogant
entrepreneur who figured I was good enough and
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like I could do that job,
and so I literally apply for a job
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off an email and four and a
half months later they hired me a home.
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So that's how I broken the venture
and that was like the beginning of
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what I called Tell People's my third
career. You know, I was engineer,
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that I was entrepreneur, and then
I broke into the like the state
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rand venture firm, and that's really
where I cut my teeth in the venture.
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And what happened was I realize I
found the job I loved. Like
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these people were paying me to go
to events, talk to entrepreneurs and every
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now and then give them money.
It was like I was doing all the
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things I love to do already,
and now I had to Addi Botus of
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every now and then I could give
people money and watch their dreams come true,
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and I used to joke with my
bosses that I couldn't believe they would
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paying me to do this. It's
like the greatest job ever and I was
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literally making the least amount of money
I'd ever made in my professional career at
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that point. Wow, and I
was so happy. I was so happy
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I love doing it. That was
the first time my life I had a
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job where, you know, where
people always say like, if you love
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what you do, you never work
at day your life. Always thought that
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was bs because, like, who
actually likes a job? I found the
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jobs actually left and so that's like
the beginning of me knowing like the rest
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of my career was going to be
adventure. So what made you leave that
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position and work for the state and
their venture capital arm to start your unthink.
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So the goal was always originally,
you know, get the job there,
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cut my teeth and like go get
a job in a bigger fund.
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And while I was there, you
know, I started a precede fun within
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the state, specifically for under our
STIMDA founders, and you know, the
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first of his kind in the country
and that was really fun. Well,
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while I was doing that, I
was still finding founders who I really believed
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in but couldn't get funded or had
a hard time getting funded, and I
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recognize if I've ever going to back
these amazing founders, I was going to
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have to do it on my own
terms, and so I quit my job
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in two thousand and twenty, September, two thousand and twenty, to build
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rare breed for that explicit purpose of
investing in these amazing founders, the matter
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who they learn, no matter where
they were, based on what I knew
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to be true about startups. You
know, whether it was a woman building
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a tumble dryer for wigs, or
a seventeen year old who's got crazy ideas
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but it's smarter than everybody else in
the room, or just your Silicon Valley
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repeat founder who's building a super high
growth company. Those, all three of
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those companies look very different. The
all three of those founders look very different
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and all three of those founders are
in my portfolio. When you realize it,
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like what were some of the reasons
why some of these founders were overlooked
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and kind of we're part of your
inspiration for prare breed. I tell a
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story often about the founder who,
like truly is my inspiration. Was a
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woman wanted to build a whig drier
and I watched her for three years get
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nothing. But knows right. She
she had an idea for a product and
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industry that had not innovation our lifetime. She had ideas for additional products.
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She wanted to make some multi billion
dollar market that know, wigs and Herrickson
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Shu understand. Most people don't get
our most VC's don't understand. But like
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a gigantic market. And she struggles
so hard to get access to capital or
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getting by the believe her dream.
She decided to become a sarage mother to
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raise the capital will start building a
prototype. Like to watch a woman literally
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sell herself to raise a nominal amount
of money just to start the process of
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building a Proun ply not even like
truly build, but just started, was
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heartbreaking. And you know, as
a VC, we all save me one
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invest in category to finding companies like
she's literally building a product and industry that
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didn't have that had that innovation in
like thirty, forty, fifty years,
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and yet we're still investing in the
next cool be TOB SASS company. Don't
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get me wrong, I got playing
ABB SASS compies that invested. Love those
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two. But, like when I'm
looking at deal flow and I'm trying to
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pick out unique founders and people have
the chance to really generate amazing returns,
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I'm betting on the founder who's in
an industry that didn't have any competition,
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owns willing to do whatever it takes
to be successful. You can't say that
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that every founder. And so,
after watching her journey, like I knew
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if I was going to do this, I was going to do them all.
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Like when I was working for the
state of Maryl I couldn't get her
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fund at the stay in the Maryland. Why? Because I had an I
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see and I was like I can't, like, I look around at all
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you folks. It's it just makes
me up sick. I know that this
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woman has a chance to be successful. All she needs is the capital.
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How dare you hold that from her? So I started the fund so nobody
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could hold that from her again.
That's amazing. I love to kind of
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know how you think about, you
know, the buckets in terms of what
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looks like a really compelling value proposition
to you versus one that might be just
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not as interesting. It's always on
a case by case basis for these companies,
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right. I am a generalist,
but my reason for investing in companies
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is different for almost every company.
You know, the big thing I look
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at mostly is customer acquisition. I
want to know how you're going to acquire
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customers. Like yeah, you can
have a great product, but like so
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what? There's, I know,
plenty of products that are way better than
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the market leading companies that will never
see the lighted day or never go anywhere.
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I've seen people spend years building like
beautiful, amazing products and nobody ever
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uses right. I'm looking for people
who I'm looking for founders who know how
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to find customers and keep their customers
coming back. So that's like at the
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top of my list. Then there's
also found it just building amazing products and
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thesent industries. Right. So,
like a company like rebundled. I'm making
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plant based biodegradable breeding are hair made
out of plants. I never heard of
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it. I'm pretty sure you haven't
either. Like, like that's just an
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amazing idea, like let's let's give
that a shot and you know that found
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that had built an amazing brand and
people love the products. You got companies
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like, you know, super high
growth companies that just everybody's trying to get
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into. And even in the in
the cases of companies like that, it's
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still usually something else. It's not
just this is a hot company, it's
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not just that everybody wants to get
into. is like, what kind of
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founder are you know? What do
you care about? Why is this mission
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so important? We want to know
that. And sometimes found their stories of
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found the journeys are just so exceptional
that like, whatever I'm in, like,
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I don't, I don't mean know
this business, does doesn't matter.
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You sound like an amazing person.
I want to be part of your journey
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and all of those are buckets like
that. Last one happens to least.
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I don't do that often, but
it happens right, and so I'm always
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looking for I'm looking for whatever it
is that gives a founder edge to potentially
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build a Unicorn. Or is it
their tenacity? Is it their customer acquisition
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strategy? Is it the market they're
they're in? Like, what's that edge?
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And that edge can come in many
different forms. So I'm always trying
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to figure out what that edge is. It's interesting too, because you talk
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a lot about, you know,
cus PRA acquisition, which is obviously so
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important. As you say, there's
so many beautiful products that just haven't seen
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the light of day because the winner
in the category one through cuss P acquisition.
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To you, as an investor,
flipping the script a little bit,
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how important to you is the product
itself like, and maybe how beautiful or
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just great the product is? Just
like if an entrepreneur came to you with
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like a an amazing product but maybe
didn't have the cust practition strategy like panned
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out, like what would be maybe
like your reaction per se? Come back
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when you figure out how to get
customers. So, like, it's not
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about what I think of your products. That's what customers think of your products.
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Like founders ask me all the time, like what do you think?
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It's not what I think. Like
what I think doesn't matter. Show me
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dirty of your customers and tell me
what they think and why they think that,
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and then go repeat that and get
another third. You can't figure that
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part out, then the matter how
great of a product is, no matter
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how beautiful is right. What I
think about how beautiful or how great your
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product is. It's nominal. I'm
I maybe a customer by much, just
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white customer, right, and if
you're going to be a billion dollar company,
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you're going to need them, bunch
of them. And so it's really
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about, you know, how do
your customers react to it? What are
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your customers think about it? You
know, don't just tell me you have
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a beautiful product. Have your customers
telling you have a beautiful product. And
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if you have a terrible looking product
but your customers love is so much they
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still use it, who cares?
You could you now have runway to figure
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out all the other stuff. What
our stuff like? Really Unique Custo practition
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strategy that you've seen. I mean
obviously in in consumer yeah, so I'm
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so for my second company was a
ECOMMERCE platform targeting sellers on Instagram, and
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so what I did was I created
an instagram page, it's called shop redberry,
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still here, where I would basically
just repost products from sellers I liked,
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and it gave me two things.
One, based on how many lights
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are comments, I could tell how
much consumers might like the product, but
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also the whoever the seller was of
that product always liked our commented on my
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post, and thirty percent of all
my other lights and comments came from other
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sellers and bloggers. And so I
did that for about two months and built
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up a giant spreadsheet of all these
different sellers who I now had a touch
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point with, and I used as
email campaign to start selling up sellers for
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my product. We signed up a
hundred and twenty sellers and two weeks preproduct
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well in the paid twenty dollars a
month for our services. Say That's didn't
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spend the die, just spent the
whole bunch of time and learned way too
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much about Instagram, a company I
invested in. The founder, who was
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seventeen at the time, introduced me
to the idea that vemo was a social
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media APP where it was a it
was a tool helping college students get money
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for college. And what he did
was he found all his friends and their
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friends and sent them all a penny
with the message to say here's money for
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college. If you want more,
check out our website. Wow, the
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smartest things I ever saw like that. This is incredible. They signed up
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twenty five Tho users in their first
three months. Good is oh my goodness,
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yeah, like things like that are
really cool. Yeah, that's that's
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super cool because, like we talked
a ton on this show about, you
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no longer have the arbit charge opportunities
like you once did, and like facebook
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and Google and you know, I
mean I even see brands that come like
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or, you know, just is
consumer companies that come and they talk about
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growth. It's like, Oh,
like facebook, like our money's to go
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to facebook. And you know,
I know there's like a forty percent of
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all like been or dollars ghosts like
facebook ads, which is pretty whack.
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And so I love these stories of
just like very unique ways to actually acquire
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and adopt like your early, early
customers. That's super cool, super cool.
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So how do you also approach sourcing
and finding diamonds in the rough and
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as well as how far along is
the company, since you are focus on
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customer acquition, like will not focus
on cups position like that is like one
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of like a big selling point to
you that, if you're your your ability
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to to acquire customers, how far
along must the company be in order for
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you to be to be interested?
So from steel sourcing, we take deals
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from everywhere, in bound, outbound, twitter, linkedin, cold emails.
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I speaking like one the two accelerators
a week. Like I look everywhere,
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all right, but then when thinking
about how far along company has to be
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different for every company. Now,
most companies we talked to are going to
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be post product, post revenue,
show some good growth, interesting mark it.
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Some companies are going to be like
almost growth companies, doing really well.
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They don't need my money, but
I would love to give them money.
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And every now and then there's companies
where's they're super early their pre product.
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Right. That's rare, but it's
happened and it's usually a unique founder
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or unique opportunity or some special thing
there that prompts us to do that again.
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We don't do it off, but
we doing. So I was all
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over the board, right. I
got everything from pre product, free revenue,
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free website to sixteen million in revenue. And you just want to be
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in the room, right. So
it's not a great answer, but it's
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like this is why our door,
our portfolio, is so widely the verse,
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because, like, will you invest
in everybody? That's really helpful because,
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as you say, like even from
the very beginning of this conversation,
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just in like the preproducts of like
if a bounder truly blows you away.
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You're going to give them money and
you're trusting them to obviously figure it out.
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I also wanted to know to and
I know you you touch on this
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quite a few times, but how
do you also like source or able to
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really build your network through, you
know, twitter and social media for your
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fund as well? I didn't have
a network right when I went to go
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raise my fund. I needed to
learn how to raise a fun and so
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the tweeting was recently just an experiment. So after George Floyd, I had
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some things to get off on my
heads. I started tweeting. That said,
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I'Mna just keep tweeting and see what
happens. If I tweet every day
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for two weeks, it's just what
happens. And so as I was doing
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that, most of my tweets are
just information, the founders giving advice,
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talking about venture. And as I
was doing that, I noticed more and
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more VC's were following me, and
so I just like, okay, if
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I see a new VC follow me, I'm going to send them a dum
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for meeting because, like, I
just need to meet people learn how to
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raise a fund. I was I
was meeting with these investors and found that
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some of them were starting to commit
money to my fund, and so it
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was like, okay, the more
gps I talk to, the more I
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might be able to raise some then
that just became the strategy. And as
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that became the strategy for my fund
raise, I mean taking as many meanings
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as I possibly could. So from
the middle of June to the middle of
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September, two thousand and twenty I
had over one hundred meetings. That just
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started growing the network and it just
kind of build and build a snowball.
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But like, it wasn't like a
planned out thing. It wasn't like I
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was going in and had like a
strategy, just something that just happened on
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the fly. I just kept going
with it. Was it one of the
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things where, like, you were
tweet all because obviously, with all your
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experience both as a founder and an
investor, prior just trying to be helpful
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for our founders all these kind of
things. Were you always in the back
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of your mind thinking that I'm going
to raise a venture fund? Or was
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the type of thing where you started
just meeting with Dra capitalist and they'd be
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like hey, back if you did
a fund, I would back you.
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At the point when I started meeting
people, I was in the idea of
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fund raison. But like those first
two weeks when I first started it,
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that wasn't the idea. I was
just tweeting and I met a founder the
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company called robot aunt jump by the
name of Roberto, who was Latin Guy
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Based on Dallas Texas, trying to
build this cold d Tob SASS company and
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nobody was trying to support them and
it didn't make sense to me because,
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like, he had the numbers he
had to grow. If he had partnerships,
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he can raise any money right and
it was like this doesn't make sense.
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So I started to try and do
a special purpose vehicle to do a
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one off investment his company because I
worked for the state of Maryland. And
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that's when one of my mentors say, Hey, here's some money. I
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think you should go reason fun and
it's like okay, I should go raise
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a fund and then that's why I
looked at me saw that my twitter file
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was growing. That VC's we found. He's like, okay, let me
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go learn how to raise a fun
and it just kind of snowball down the
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control from there. It's truly amazing
is you're able to be extremely helpful to
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an entrepreneur that clearly needed to be
given a chance, like deserved a chance
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and just wasn't. Wasn't actually given
one because he didn't have a network or,
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you know, whatever the reason is, because you know, as we
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know, vc it's really a very
network people business, just like a lot
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of industries are. That makes a
ton of sense. What has been like
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for any like new WHO's listening to
someone that maybe wants to start their VC
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fund? What we're something like the
hardest and challenging parts to raising fund one,
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it takes a really long time,
takes a lot of meetings, it
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takes a lot of nose. You
know, under normal times you spending a
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lot of time traveling, going to
meet people all over the country just for
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them to tell you know right that
part's not fun. I'm not independently wealthy,
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so when I was starting to raise
my fun before my first clothes and
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even weeks after my first goals,
like, money was tight, but I
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knew this is what I was going
to do, so there was nothing that
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is going to stop it. That
stuff sucks. Fundraising is not fun.
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What also like your Tragi, because
like part of your fun. You're going
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into you know, secondary, tertiary
markets and markets that are very much underserved
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when it comes to you know,
VC's maybe don't typically look into those markets.
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What your kind of strategy to like
build relationships with like founders, like
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a cross maybe, like the country
that are outside, you know, the
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silicon values of the world, the
New York's of the world and and what
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have you. Twitter helps. It's
twitters everywhere. So twitter, like a
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lot of this always goes back to
twitter being very thoughtful about the accelerators and
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incubators I speak at right, speaking
at accelerators in the Midwest, in the
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southeast and the those tertiary markets.
Um being willing to talk the founders off
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of cold emails, Cold Ems,
tweets, things like that opens you up
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to like founders all over the place. Was it up too, founders all
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over the globe? And then you
know also, you know, as the
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merging manager, I have a lot
of friends who are emerging managers who also
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investing in these Nason places, who
are sending me deal flow. So like
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all that stuff bills on itself.
That makes that of sense. What are
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a couple of your favorite accelerators that
are still, you think, very under
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the radar. I'll know under the
radar. They are by love generator,
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generators that you know, great companies
on the Midwest. Text ours is everywhere
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now. So, like you know, text ours is a gigantic networks.
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I love text our folks. Five
hundred startups. I have a love in
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my heart for five hundred startups and
they send me good stuff. But then
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you got like these off the bean
pathic celerators like acceleerate Baltimore. You know,
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they clerated locally, velacity, the
accelerator Birmingham, Alabama. Right,
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like those kind of accelerators, you
get some really unique stuff out of if
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you watch closely. So you know, those are the things. I know.
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Those are places like spend my time. We invested in the company rebundle,
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those plant based by all the gradable
braiding hair, and before I invested
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I ran a competition on twitter the
giveaway some of the hair to folks,
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would to women who would tell me
stories, horror stories of like interacting with
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fake hair. The amounts of women
and the depth of their stories and the
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pain they depicted in those stories,
which so significant that it was like impossible
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to ignore the the the normity of
the problem right, and they were sitting
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on two mackerel trends of sustainability and
creating a product that was healthier. And
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we saw that in the reactions where
some people talking about they just wanted to
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live a more sustainable lifestyle, some
people talk about they wanted to you synthetic
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hair that wasn't going to be irritating
to their scout. Some people wanted both,
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and is like, okay, this
is validating all the things we think
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about in the market. So I
actually helped out the founder as a way
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to validate and dug one though.
That's amazing. What I love about that
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is if you use twitter and and
leverage twitter, obviously amazing, to build
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your network, build relationships and build
a fund, but what you've also done
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is use your network actually validate,
you know, ideas and actually really be
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helpful to founders, whether you invest
or not, but actually see if there's
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actually something there. I love that
example to rebundle, and I love also
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the way that you think about social
media in not only in like the VC
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world, like in terms of,
you know, raising a fund and like
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what have you and like, you
know, being helpful for founders, but
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also like being helpful founders and that
hey, like, let's see if this
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really is like a real pain point
that you'd be solving for people. Absolutely,
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I mean, I got a community
of Sixtyzero folks. Let's all work
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together. It's amazing. Love it, love it. Talk to me through
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like a day in the life of
an emerging manager. Every days, every
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day you got your calendar of you
try to catch up on emails, you
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missed them, that the night before. You gotta to do list of founders,
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you gotta catch up with introductions you
got to make. You probably have
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several meetings throughout the day, you
know, meeting with founders, having second
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meaning of the founders, you know, going over companies with your team,
395
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meaning with potential lps and either in
your current fund or future funds, meeting
396
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with operators that could potentially be employ
these for your companies, dealing with the
397
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massive amount of emails to come in
as you can, and then also dealing
398
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with like just day to day operations
of the fund. So, you know,
399
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making sure we're management fees go out, making sure capital calls are happening,
400
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making sure you know all the fun
documents are in the right order,
401
00:27:18.839 --> 00:27:22.400
making sure that you're getting all the
day to you need from your portfolio companies,
402
00:27:22.440 --> 00:27:26.240
making sure your portfolio companies don't need
help. So every day some combination
403
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of those things, and that day
could be anywhere from eight to to in
404
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a morning, or it could be
from like eight to, you know,
405
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six in either right, they the
six and the evening or typically rare for
406
00:27:40.200 --> 00:27:42.039
me these days, but sometimes that
happens. But eight to two in the
407
00:27:42.079 --> 00:27:48.400
morning, that happens. That happens
a lot. I appreciate that. I
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appreciate that. I think it goes
to show just all the different kind of
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shuffling and all different types of people
that you're dealing with. Right, for
410
00:27:53.839 --> 00:27:59.400
anyone that's thinking about what's the reason
why someone you think should start a fund
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00:27:59.599 --> 00:28:03.799
versus joining a fund, if you're
thinking about starting the fun I would tell
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00:28:03.839 --> 00:28:08.799
you make sure you have a clear
viewpoint in thesis that you truly believe can
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00:28:08.920 --> 00:28:12.279
make money for your lps right.
Can't just be a mission and can't just
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00:28:12.319 --> 00:28:15.559
be a passion as guy to like. At the end of the day,
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00:28:15.720 --> 00:28:21.319
what we do is we are glorified
financial advisors. We have wealthy people and
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00:28:21.400 --> 00:28:26.240
wealthy organizations will give us money to
make the more money by investing the private
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00:28:26.279 --> 00:28:30.119
companies, and so having a clear
viewpoint and clear thesis and clear thought on
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00:28:30.319 --> 00:28:34.519
clear strategy of how you're going to
do that should be the boy number two.
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00:28:36.279 --> 00:28:38.559
If you want to start a fund, you should have in your mind
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00:28:38.920 --> 00:28:45.559
be prepared for a fifteen to twenty
year career of just doing right, because
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00:28:45.559 --> 00:28:51.440
the fun is going to be a
ten year committment right start there. Two
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00:28:51.519 --> 00:28:53.440
to three years in the fun one, you'll go raise fun to. Okay,
423
00:28:53.559 --> 00:28:56.319
now you're twelve to thirteen years old. Two to three years in the
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00:28:56.400 --> 00:29:00.480
fund to you're going to raise fun
three. You've now got sixty got fifteen
425
00:29:00.559 --> 00:29:06.680
to sixteen years worth of like committed
to your part, to your investors over
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00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:10.839
the course of these three funds.
That's the next fifteen or sixteen years of
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00:29:10.920 --> 00:29:12.960
your life. This is what you're
going to do. So be prepared for
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00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:17.200
that. And so I would say
also make sure you love what we do,
429
00:29:17.400 --> 00:29:19.720
because this job isn't always easy and
it takes a lot of time and
430
00:29:19.880 --> 00:29:23.759
you're going to sacrifice some things to
do it right. Like, it ain't
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00:29:23.880 --> 00:29:27.000
just all fun and parties and conferences. Right, guess that's a lie.
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00:29:27.880 --> 00:29:36.480
So be in a place where you
truly want to support these founders or to
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00:29:36.680 --> 00:29:41.200
be an asset manager in this asset
class, because this is what you're passionate
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00:29:41.240 --> 00:29:44.119
about, not just because you think
it's cool, just because you think it's
435
00:29:44.160 --> 00:29:45.599
fun, because, like, this
is truly what you want to be,
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00:29:45.960 --> 00:29:48.279
what you want to do, like
I'm going to spend the rest of my
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00:29:48.359 --> 00:29:52.119
life, like this is the last
job I'll ever have, right and less,
438
00:29:52.160 --> 00:29:53.680
barring something crazy, is the last
job I'm ever going to have,
439
00:29:55.319 --> 00:30:00.440
because I love supporting him back and
these amazing founders that we have of and
440
00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:03.519
I will make it money and I
get to do both. What motivates you
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00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:11.119
every day. The founders are support
like like the number of founders who may
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00:30:11.279 --> 00:30:15.599
not have a business today had I
not written them their first check. That
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00:30:15.720 --> 00:30:21.319
gives me up out of bed.
The the the founders will reach out to
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00:30:21.480 --> 00:30:26.039
me and thank me for the advice
I gave them along the way, even
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00:30:26.119 --> 00:30:30.839
though I didn't invest in their company, or the LP who writes me a
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00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:33.279
note of before I met you,
I always wanted to be the last check
447
00:30:33.359 --> 00:30:37.839
in the seeds around, but after
meeting you and hearing the stories of the
448
00:30:37.880 --> 00:30:41.240
founders you back, I now want
to be the first check in the preceding
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00:30:41.319 --> 00:30:44.920
round, because it matters. Those
are the things that get me up out
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00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:48.799
of bed every day. Wow,
yeah, that's that's amazing. That's amazing.
451
00:30:49.160 --> 00:30:52.400
What's one thing you would change about
penture capital? There's a lot I
452
00:30:52.440 --> 00:30:56.400
would change. I would make it
more diverse. Price. One thing I
453
00:30:56.440 --> 00:31:00.880
would change. I either make a
venture capital lot more diverse or I would
454
00:31:00.960 --> 00:31:03.400
change some of these arcadic rules where
with that limit the number of lps.
455
00:31:04.400 --> 00:31:08.079
Like if I don't have to worry
about number of lps, we'd have a
456
00:31:08.119 --> 00:31:11.319
two hundred and fifty million dollar fund
in the next three months. Like guarantee,
457
00:31:11.480 --> 00:31:15.119
like I promise you. We could
make you APP and we would do
458
00:31:15.279 --> 00:31:21.039
well. But you know, first
and foremost I would make venture more diverse
459
00:31:21.359 --> 00:31:25.839
across the board. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. What's one book that is
460
00:31:25.880 --> 00:31:29.279
paraty personally, one book in his
party. Professionally, it's the same book.
461
00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:33.759
Why should white guys have all the
fun? The Life Story of Ragel
462
00:31:33.799 --> 00:31:38.279
F Luis, a black man who
was a lawyer and later became got in
463
00:31:38.400 --> 00:31:42.960
the private equity and became a billionaire, who's originally from Baltimore, some of
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00:31:44.039 --> 00:31:48.279
the worst parts of Baltimore. It
is an amazing book about an amazing individual
465
00:31:48.440 --> 00:31:52.200
who comes from my city, who
does what I do, just in a
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00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:56.240
different asset class. This is a
different level, the same mass a class.
467
00:31:56.759 --> 00:32:01.160
That book has been profound and letting
me see somebody who looks like me
468
00:32:01.319 --> 00:32:07.759
make it in this industry and somebody
who looks like me has a background coming
469
00:32:07.799 --> 00:32:10.000
from the same city I came from. So, both professionally and personally,
470
00:32:10.440 --> 00:32:15.359
that's the book. That's amazing.
I definitely definitely check that out and no
471
00:32:15.519 --> 00:32:17.640
one else on this show has mentioned
this book. So really excited to Adit
472
00:32:17.640 --> 00:32:22.720
to our reading list. Yes,
amazing book, I'm I promise you you'd
473
00:32:22.799 --> 00:32:25.680
enjoy it. Yeah, no,
definitely, I definitely need to get it.
474
00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:31.359
What's one piece of advice that you
have for founders as unique in creative
475
00:32:31.599 --> 00:32:37.519
in this thoughtful as you are about
your product, be just as unique and
476
00:32:37.680 --> 00:32:42.519
creative in your customer acquisition, because
customer acquisitions was going to get you paid
477
00:32:42.839 --> 00:32:47.240
either in revenue and customers are funding. So don't put all your brain power
478
00:32:47.319 --> 00:32:52.319
and just a product, but just
as much bringing power into your customer acquisition.
479
00:32:52.480 --> 00:32:54.880
Don't just default. We're going to
look for influencers are we're going to
480
00:32:54.920 --> 00:32:59.440
buy some mad's like. No,
put some real work into that. It'll
481
00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:01.519
pay off a promise. My pottle
question to you is, what's the best
482
00:33:01.599 --> 00:33:07.720
piece of advice that you've received?
The best piece of advice I've ever received?
483
00:33:07.640 --> 00:33:13.759
Do what you love, because life
is short. In everything is hard,
484
00:33:14.359 --> 00:33:16.119
so whatever is you're going to do
is going to be harsh or Lisa,
485
00:33:16.279 --> 00:33:19.160
is going to be hard. Do
something you love to do. I
486
00:33:19.279 --> 00:33:22.440
love that. I love that.
Absolutely agree there as well. This has
487
00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:24.200
been such a pleasure. Thanks so
much for coming on the show. I
488
00:33:24.279 --> 00:33:27.960
appreciated Mike. This is fun,
man. There you have it. It
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00:33:28.119 --> 00:33:31.400
was such a blast tatting with Mac. I highly highly recommend following him on
490
00:33:31.440 --> 00:33:36.039
twitter at Mac the VC. If
you enjoyed this episode, I love it
491
00:33:36.039 --> 00:33:38.240
if you'd write a review on the
apple podcast. You're also welcome to follow
492
00:33:38.359 --> 00:33:42.519
me, your host, Mike,
on twitter at my guelb and also follow
493
00:33:42.680 --> 00:33:45.319
for episode announcements at Consumer VC.
Thanks for listening. Everyone,
