December 29, 2020 • 36 mins
Heather Hartnett is the founder and CEO of Human Ventures, an early-stage venture studio that backs and builds consumer technology companies. She was named one of the '50 Most Influential Women in America' by Marie Claire, The Information has referred to her as 'the new breed of VC,' and Business Insider has pointed to Human as the first female-led startup studio.
Prior to Human Ventures, Heather incubated companies with City Light Capital, a venture capital fund that invests in companies seeking to generate measurable social and environmental impact.
She serves on the leadership council for tech:nyc and is a mentor to the NYC MIT Startup Studio and 1776. She's also a contributor to Forbes and serves on the Board of Directors of the David Lynch Foundation.
Heather joins us to talk about the qualities that make a great entrepreneur, how from an early age, transcendental meditation has impacted her life, and how she and the team at Human Ventures foresee the future of work.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Art of the Hustle is a production of I Heart Radio.
You're listening to the Art of the Hustle, the show
that breaks down how some of the world's most fascinating
people have hustled and learned their way into achieving great things.
(00:21):
I'm your host Jeff Rosenthal, co founder of Summit, and
today on the show, I had the pleasure of chatting
with Heather Heartnett. Heather is the co founder and CEO
of Human Ventures, an early stage venture studio that backs
and builds consumer technology companies. She was named one of
the fifty most Influential Women in America by Marie Claire.
The information has referred to as the new breed of VC,
(00:42):
and business insiders pointed to human as the first female
lead startup studio. Prior to Human Ventures, Heather incubated companies
with Citylight Capital, a venture capital fund that investing companies
seeking to generate measurable social and environmental impact. She serves
on the Leadership Council for Tech n y C and
A is a enter to the n y C m
I T Startup Studio and seventeen seventy six. She's also
(01:05):
a contributor to Forbes and serves as the Board of
Directors member of the David Lynch Foundation. Heather joins us
to talk about the qualities that make a great entrepreneur,
how from an early age transidental meditation has impacted her life,
and how she and the team at Human Ventures foresee
the future of work. So please enjoy my conversation with
Heather Heartnett and Heather, Welcome to the podcast. Thank you
(01:30):
so much for having me, jaff It's a pleasure. How's
it going out there. It's going well. I'm downtown New
York City right now. I live in Greenwich Village and
New York's coming back to life. It's been really kind
of interesting to see how resilient everyone is. Well, I'm
so excited to have you on the show. You know
your work has focused on the future of work for
(01:51):
a long time, which you've empowered through the organizations that
you've been a part of, most notably Human Ventures. Talk
to us a little bit about what you're seeing right now. Yeah. So,
I run what we call a business creation platform, and
that is comprised of venture fund and a start up studio,
and we bring in entrepreneurs. We work with entrepreneurs at
(02:12):
the earliest stages of when they're building their companies, and
we provide tools to be able to create, and then
we provide financing to be able to to capitalize, and
that structure it's one of the best. It's it's I'm
just so grateful to be able to be doing it
because what you get to do is think where the
world is going to be tomorrow or in two weeks,
(02:34):
but in ten years, and then you start working with
founders who think that far in advance and um and
you give them the resources to be able to just build.
And so being around people who always see challenges opportunity,
who always see the world, you know, ten steps ahead,
I think is one of the most inspiring things to do.
Tell us more about that. So how do you pick
(02:56):
the people that are in your cohorts? Who who gets
your investment, who gets your incubation time? Yeah, it's a
good question. We you know. I think a big thesis
of human ventures is that one of the biggest arbitrage
opportunities is really identifying talent ahead of the market. And
I say that because for years and years, finance industries
and in venture capital in particular, has been really focused
(03:18):
on a particular type of entrepreneur, and it was true
ten fifteen years ago that an entrepreneur had a an archetype.
But as you know, industries start to open up to
tech and tech becomes ubiquitous, right, every company has to
have kind of that ease of use and customer satisfaction
and understanding the efficiencies that technology brings. The founder profile changes,
(03:41):
and then at the same time, the arcs of you know,
the way that society views companies and social paradigms, you know,
pardents have shifted. So the consumers very conscious about what
they're consuming and buying and um. And then the employee
wants to know who they're working for and almost their
personal passion and mission is being satisfied for what they're
working in. So I think it's become extremely complex to
(04:05):
be a founder and the way to be able to
identify them is now becoming more sophisticated. So at human
we will generally have scs that are about the world
where the world is going. We call it the human
needs economy. So that for us right now is the
future of digital health care and wellness and mental health,
(04:25):
and then the future of work and how we are
identifying and skilling and reskilling talent and then also communities.
So what companies are understanding community based healthcare, community based
products that that drive more than just a transaction, but
that drive you know, that camaraderie and really affinity with
(04:46):
a brand. So that's what we've coined the kind of
the human needs economy. That's what we look for. And
then we do calls for founders who was building in
these areas, who are building the next platforms to be
able to bring healthcare to underserve communities because or etcetera.
And we do what we call a cohort model of
entrepreneurs and residents. And you like this, Jeff, So internally
(05:08):
we used to say, this person is starting our next
company there in the wild, There in the wild, and
so we just figured, why don't we actually name it that.
So we have a program called Humans in the Wild.
It's when you know, when a founder and if you're
a founder, you you resonate with this because and you
are deaf, I'm sure resonates with you. You know, you're
sitting there and you're saying, I need to I need
(05:29):
to think of the next thing, and we need to
think of the next thing. Because naturally, if you're a founder,
wants a founder always a founder, you you will always
think about building. So when you get a group of
people who are building together, it creates you know, one
class one of goals, tend creates incredible energy. Totally. You
get this ecosystem effect. You get this like you know,
our liberation is bound up together, you know, shared experience, camaraderie,
(05:52):
same team, you know, same dream, kind of vibe where
everybody's sharing resources. Which when you go from like being
a only entrepreneur to having any sort of reason for
this kind of overlap with other entrepreneurs, it feels like
an unbelievable wind behind you. Yeah, I really you know,
there's the old saying rising tide lifts off boats. It's
(06:14):
so true. And I think the dynamics of having a
shared experience creates a trust in bond that then as
people have success and failures, you just you have this
really trusted network and it and it takes the burden
off of being alone. Well. I also kind of like
this ecosystems approach as like an investor too, because you know,
(06:35):
not all companies work out, but you're making a big investment,
almost like helping fund a PhD for these founders in
like business experience, right, and so if you can either
you know, invest in their second or third company or
repatriate those you know, talent and resource you know pools
to the other organizations that are inside of you know,
(06:56):
the ecosystem. I imagine that has a really positive return
too for the fun and I guess that you know
takes me to my question, like you know, putting my
heartless capitalist pig hat on. You know, how does this
pencil like this? You know a lot of people who
are investment professionals see impact investments in you know, air
quotes and roll their eyes like, tell us how this
(07:17):
works from a return profile? Yeah, I mean, you know
a lot of great things. I think you're right. You're
absolutely right. The ecosystem is what you invest in in
early stage. You know, if we do this right, will
invest in the next three things a founder does that
we love because too likely won't work out, you know,
but those founders have have had those learnings, so why
not you paid for them? You know, invest Again to
(07:38):
the impact question, We specifically didn't call it an impact
company when we first started because I think that it's
become just the status quo. You need to have some
sort of emission or purpose driving what you're doing. If
you're building something from scratch, the you know, the the
trials and tribulations are too too great to not have something.
(08:00):
It drives you through those times. And when you have
a very coherent underlying set of values or mission, you're
able to attract unbelievable talent. You're able to rally you know,
investors and clients and customers behind something that otherwise people
might not feel such an affinity towards. So for me,
(08:21):
I think it's a long term investment play. It's less
of a liability, and it makes the companies much more
defensible as they grow. So from a purely capitalistic standpoint,
if you're not thinking about anything altruistically, I think that it's.
Um it's just smart investing. To be able to invest
where you think the skate, where the puck is going.
I like it. You hit me with a Gretzky reference.
(08:44):
You must be a deadly fundraiser. Um, well, Heather, I
have a I have a total you know, turn in
the conversation that I want to take. I'm curious, just
you personally, when did you start meditating? Good question. I
started meditating when I was five years old five years old. Okay,
(09:05):
so unpack that. How is that poem? I definitely can't
take credit for that. That's my parents. So you're like,
Mom and dad, I'm super into this stuff. This is
a guy named Maharishi. Get in the game. No. Independently,
my parents both started meditating in their teens, started practicing
something called transcendental meditation, and in the seventies it was,
(09:28):
you know, really popular, and you know, there was kind
of a spike of popularity. A couple of people actually
wanted their kids to be able to grow up with
transgental meditations. So I would say that we were a
part of a intentional community and and in a way
that our parents were just very progressive. They wanted to
where was this, Where was this geographically in Iowa? So
(09:50):
I was originally from Chicago, but they moved us to
Iowa when we were young, where there were other folks
who who wanted organic farming and meditation in the school
systems and you know, a lot of things that have
come to fruition now, but we're not popular in the eighties.
So it was it was in hindsight, right, I can't
(10:10):
believe that my parents had that foresight, but I'm very
grateful to have that early on, and it's definitely shaped
the way that I look at life, you know, from
from the very beginning. Well, and you know, I know
that before you moved into investing, you were head of
development at the David Lynch Foundation. Correct. Yeah, so my
you know, after school, I studied business school and I
(10:33):
did go out to the Bay Area. I started working
in venture. Serendipitously, my father was an entrepreneur, my grandfather
was an entrepreneur, and so I didn't know what business
I wanted to start, and so venture was something I
kind of fell into where we had a family friend
and he said, well, I see entrepreneurs every day. Why
don't you come and analyze them and you know, see
what could be good investments. And that was when I
(10:54):
first got bit with the buck. But simultaneously I was
out in the Bay Area. The film director David Lynch
was starting uh an organization, and he was saying, I
would like to be able to bring meditation to at
risk you an inner city schools, And so I started
volunteering for what was becoming the Foundation and got to
know David Lynch and Bob Roth, who's executive director and eventually,
(11:18):
you know, really spell in love with the organization and
many years later ended up moving to New York and
opening up the New York office with Bob and started
building out the nonprofit arm of Data Lynch Foundation. What
what overlaps do you see between this work? You know,
I mindfulness is so important, and you know, I definitely
feel like my performance as an entrepreneur as an internal game.
(11:43):
You know, like the work that we do internally is
the thing that's going to have the biggest impact on
our outcomes, not necessarily a podcast we hear or a
talk we listened to. You know, what is the thing
that you kind of see? What's the pattern recognition that
you apply from your your previous work to your current work.
I think any type of meditation practice, you know, whatever
works for you, you should integrate some sort of some
(12:06):
sort of that reflection. For me, TM has brought a
sort of witnessing value or equanimity to what I do,
so I can ride the highs and lows with a
with a certain amount of witnessing, so you're not tossed about,
you know, as as life can really do for you. Now,
I'm not saying that I approach everything perfectly. But I
(12:27):
can definitely tell a difference when I'm when I'm regular
with my practice or when I'm not, how things affect me.
I think in investing, that's a huge, huge, you know,
part of it, it's just can you we just had
an incredible volatility in the market. Can you withstand what
you're doing? Can zig when everybody else is zagging? Can
you really understand your internal conviction? Because you can't, you
(12:51):
can't look to anybody else to give you to give
you that conviction. I think a lot of those things
are kind of the abstract benefits of em Some of
the more practical things are just you know, at a
time when mental health is so so so important, burnout
is real. I live in New York City. There's never
time to stop. So unless you have an intentional practice
(13:14):
to be able to stop, there's just no way that
you can control that. So I think for all those reasons,
I'm grateful for it. I can always be more judicious
with my practice. I can always There's always more that
you can do, but you just kind of have to
be easy with yourself and do what you can. Well,
It's funny, you know what comes up from me when
I hear you saying that is like we're kind of
(13:35):
in this entrepreneurial moment of like good artists borrow great
artists steel and you know the copycat culture of you
know Hollywood right now where it's like whatever Spider Man
eighteen um, you know, like the fifth installment of the
same movie with new actors and actresses right this it's similar,
(13:56):
like you know, the copycat business of like entrepreneurship. And
I think what gets lost is, you know when you
really look at a lot of these companies that have
like an original creative vision, years later, they often don't
really stray from that creative vision. I don't even remember
the headspace when we were, you know, building our brand
identity for Summit for instance, and like really caring about
(14:19):
you know, the guidelines and the and the you know,
we built like an eighty six page brand doc, Like
we worked with incredible people on our icon and our
iconography and like you know, like our language and all
these things, and like it's such a headspace to get into.
And to your point, if you don't have like self
belief and the point of view, it's very easy to
tack to whatever is working right now and just always
(14:42):
be chasing whatever is working right now. So I can
see what you're saying where it's like, if you want
to identify, you know, a visionary entrepreneur, say somebody that
makes sense to resource and to bed on and to support,
you know, and and helping sort of maintain that self
belief and the vision that you started with. You know,
I do think that the results actually speak to I
(15:03):
just always keep seeing this now. I'm like, hah, that
company sold, or it started ten years ago, or it's
undernew or whatever it is. But that sort of original
vision always seems to stick with these things. I think
it's a great point. And we have a saying internally
it's the myth of the big idea. Everybody always says, oh,
where did you come up? Where does the founder come
up with that idea? And the thing is is that
(15:24):
it's not. It's not the idea. Ideas are everywhere and
everybody can kind of pull it from the consciousness of
the moment, but and then executions the big part of it.
Except for also, it's just constantly being awake to where
the trend is going. So seeing a space or you say,
see through the matrix, like you were talking about that's steadfast.
(15:46):
You don't know the exact timing, but that's where you
can really have that intuition that bounces back and forth.
And I think the best founders naturally do tap into this.
You know. Sometimes people say you have to be a
little bit you know, an outlier kind of create easy,
and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's just somebody who's has
that conviction internally, and I love it. You can feel
(16:07):
you resonate with founders who really have that. You know,
to your point, the technology is kind of outpacing the
human condition, right, so we are strapped seven. We hear
this all the time. We're always looking to technology, but
who's taking care of the human side of it? And um,
if you're not, you know, I joke that I'm one
(16:28):
of the first to do appless meditations, you know, because
now I'm pretty thinks that meditation comes through and app Yeah,
it's it's it's you're right, and that like we're you know,
over stimulated and underrested and now we're you know, seeing
some of these first technologies come online that really lower
the barrier for us to like get involved in something.
(16:50):
So I wouldn't say that like it's it's pretty barriered
for most people in their minds to like say, get
into transcendental meditation unless they're exposed to it directly from
someone that demystifies it. Whereas like you can just download
Calm or you can download Waking Up and you're like
right in the game. You know, each meditation it's like
kind of saying that there's one medication, right, It's it's
(17:10):
not so much nuance to meditation. And sometimes some types
are right for for pain management. I mean, they know
so much more about the brain functioning now too, and
so you know, do you have an overactive and magdala?
You know, TM is classified as automated self transcending and
so it allows you to just acquire a part of
your mind. But in the result of that is that
(17:31):
your body settles down. So you're just getting deep rest.
So if we've got enough deep rest, you know, it's
that's just really what your body meets. We'll be back
with more out of the Hustle after the break. Talk
to us about the future of work, because we've talked
(17:53):
around it a little bit, but I want to unpack
that further because I think that's something on everyone's mind. Yeah, definitely,
the the future of work to us, we have four
categories that were most excited about, and we say that,
you know, unsurprisingly that the future of work is human.
So the areas that we are really excited about. One
new work environments self explanatory we have, you know, we're
(18:15):
not going back to the same way it was. And
the next one I'm excited about we call lifelong learning.
The education system is going to be changing. Online education
can be just as sufficient. Um, you know, I think
people are going to think about certificate programs a lot
more than for year college education if that gets them
the job. Revenue share you know, I says are becoming.
(18:38):
Income share agreements are becoming something that's more popular. So
all those structures life on learning, what is that? What
is an income share agreement? Income share agreement is just
basically that, you know, can you have a discount on
an education platform, certification course and then in exchange for
sharing your future you know, future portion of your income.
(19:02):
And I think people have tried this for different various ways.
And now there're a couple of companies like Lambda, there's
one called job Easy that's coming up. People are identifying,
you know, ways that you can ensure an increase in
your income coming out of a certification program, and for
that you're willing to rev share essentially your future income.
(19:23):
I think it's really interesting. You're betting, you're betting on people.
You know, you're picking stock on in people, and and
that's kind of been a thesis of mind for a
long time. The third bucket I love is we call
redefining the resume. So for so long, the resume LinkedIn
where you've worked is kind of what defines you. And
I think that's definitely going to change. The career ladder,
(19:45):
so to speak, is now looks like a lattice, and
at what point are you mapping your skills to a
whole new career. People change your career now three, four
or five times in their lifetime as opposed to our
previous generation. The last one is worker well being. So
how is your company organization? You know, if you're a leader,
how how is your mission satisfying? You know? What is it?
(20:08):
What role does it play in your in your employees life,
Because there's a lot to it now. So those are
the areas that we're really excited about. We have eighteen
founders right now in the Humans in the Wild program,
who are tackling various challenges around those four four big buckets. Well,
let's talk about access in terms of, like, you know,
who is getting these investments. I don't you know, I
(20:30):
might be setting you up for you know, something that's embarrassing,
so I hope, But I just knowing you personally, I
imagine that you're very thoughtful about investing in diverse and
your gender diverse and economically diverse international entrepreneurs. But talk
to us about, you know, how human is democratizing that
access to founders. Yeah, it goes back to the same
(20:51):
philosophy that we're talking about that it's not even I mean,
it's the right it's the right thing to do. There
should definitely be equality, and we're so far from equity
and inequality. But this is also where there is so
much opportunity because when you're investing in underrepresented founders or
underfunded areas, that's where you can have the most leverage
(21:12):
with your capital. So I absolutely think that it's an
incredible business decision to diversify your talent pools. Where you
picking founders from, what attributes are you looking for? It
shouldn't be that they all went to X, Y, and Z, college,
and that's you know, social proof that they're going to
be a good entrepreneur. It's just not that's not there's
(21:33):
no correlation there. So you really have to do the
work to say, what are the founder traits that we're
really looking for, and are their communities and are their
areas or network nodes that we can tap into to
identify founders who are in those different types of areas.
That's a great wet to talk more about that. So
what is the example of a network node that you
tap into. Well, we we talked about philanthropy earlier on
(21:56):
and one of our personas that we talked about internally
is kind of PhD in life. Did you start a
nonprofit organization? You know? Did it? You know a lot
of women actually who are phenomenal operators, and sometimes it's
easier to starn a nonprofit than it is to start
of for profit in society's view. So, you know, we
(22:17):
invested in a phenomenal woman, Megan O'Connor, who was in
the nonprofit space for a long time. She decided to
you know, Megan, she's a part of Summit. She applied
her talents to the education sector and we invested in
her company that was brain technology to tutoring in education,
and that persona of a founder might not have been
(22:38):
a typical tech investment prior, but because we said, look,
you know how to do a lot with a little
you know how to sell your vision and investors and
all the sort of stuff, she she knew how to
sell and she knows where the those are the skills
needed for her company. So if you can be really
thoughtful about how you're mapping skills, then you can find
talented founders in a lot of different places. You know
(23:01):
about network notes more than anybody with the Summit community.
It's it's who are those curators of people who have
good people who embody the values that you value, and
can you then have them kind of recruit and curate
founders to be able to come and build with you.
So that's what we do when we do our our
application process, and we'll see three or four or five
(23:22):
founders who are applying for these twelve spots, and and
then we picked the people who we think are going
to be phenomenal, and we're very careful about the construction
of the class. Is their diversity of thought, background, ethnicity.
You absolutely don't want how much in this thinking when
you're building a company, so imagining that, like, you know,
there's listeners who are you know THEYI I think that
(23:46):
there are more great ideas out there than we realize,
you know, like I I have heard, I've heard so
many awesome ideas. We all have, you know, different ideas
as entrepreneurs for things that we could pursue if only
we had the time or bannedwidth. And you know, it's
often just like building the consortium of people. But you know,
like I'm just curious. So like, you know, I have
(24:07):
an idea that I have some conviction around. You know,
I haven't started a company. Perhaps I'm in you know,
I have a corporate job, or you know, I I
run a nonprofit or I'm in a nonprofit, but like
I have an idea for something that could be a
market based solution that you know, I could scale, grow,
support myself and my family and have a positive world impact.
(24:28):
So take us through some of the steps if you
found me. I'm raw talent, I got all the building blocks,
but I'm you know, I'm clueless in terms of like
what to do next with this. There are so many
resources out there now for people who are thinking about
being a founder, find some founders that resonate with you
and see how how they think. And then and then
(24:49):
there are programs of just being with other people who
are like minded like that. There's one called day One,
there's one called on Deck. You know, their their communities
so that people can bounce these ideas off of each other.
But then more importantly, can you start testing and iterating
on that idea to see if it comes to something,
you know, taking something from nothing. And then there are
(25:10):
incubator programs. There are you know, there's just so much
out there that you can start testing your idea and
putting it towards. But I see the world in terms
of people, So I just say throw your idea against
the wall and throw it against as many people as
you possibly can to get all of the feedback and
and then just start to watch it build. And then
once you get that traction, you know, then people will
(25:34):
find you. Art of the Hustle will be right back
after the short break. You know, I just said that, like,
there's more great ideas out there than there are like
people activating on them. But at the same time, your
idea it's probably isn't that great, Like it's good and
(25:55):
it's in the right direction. But once you start moving
on it, you realize that there's like a ton of
are on it, right, Like, there's just all these things
you haven't considered, all these complexities that you haven't put together.
And then like, no matter what the businesses or the
nonprofit or of the artistic project, it's always just like
longer than you assume at first. You know, we always
underestimate what we can do in three years and overestimate
(26:16):
what we can do in one. And uh, you know,
like I definitely think that, you know, like for us
are with our Summit journey, we were always really open
with our dumb ideas. In fact, we celebrated them, and
then you know, someone would catch us, you know, about
that talking about it and then give their interpretation or
what could work even better. And so I think that
additive process of like you know, getting to get into
(26:38):
a cycle with other people that think entrepreneurially is really
really helpful. And like the truth is is that you know,
most people are risk adverse, you know, and like most
people that are successful pay someone else to help them
with their investments to be risk adverse for them, right,
So it's you know, it makes me happy to hear
you talking about, you know, the type of psychographic that
(26:59):
you looking for and the entrepreneurs that you support back well,
a good point for you. I mean, I would turn
the question over to you. Two. You have seen more
founders than than any anybody really, you know, you've created
an assembled such an incredible group of founders and that
was the genesis of summit. Do you see some attributes
that you didn't Maybe you maybe didn't even know at
(27:20):
that point that that's what everybody embodied because it's kind
of hard to tell that the bath water is warm,
you know, if you're in it. How do you think
about that? You can you identify that energy now better?
Because you were around it so much? I would say
it's just so different. You said risk tolerance. I was
such a cowboy, and so I also am you know,
hesitant about you know, recommending high high risk tolerance. I
(27:44):
almost see it more like being comfortable with being naive.
You know, like one, you have to be naive enough
to like go into the business. And then when you
you know, talk to people, both your potential customers, your
potential advisors to find the questions that you need answers
to you don't know what to ask, right, Like you've
just never been down the path. You know, there's like
(28:05):
people who have been in the game for thirty years,
like you just haven't seen ship. There's just no way
you could. So you know that that beginner's mind, that
willingness to share what you need. Like if you said, like, hey, Jeff,
great to talk to you. Everything's awesome, It's like, okay,
well what is there for me to do in this relationship?
Like if you're not willing to say, like, hey, I
(28:27):
don't know how to solve this thing, and then I'll
be like, oh man, I can't wait to be actually
useful and beneficial and you know, keep it, you know,
sort of this triangulation of goodwill. This favorite economy moving
forward in an ecosystem. I love that. I think the
founder economy, that's a great way of putting it. We
we try to invest in a portfolio of givers because
(28:49):
if you have this reciprocity amongst that group of people,
it's only net positive. So we I mean, you're absolutely
right that they're always going to be individualistic people who win,
But I think the long term, if you're investing in
people who know how to get back to that community.
It's just a longer term view. Well, and it's more
fun and it's easier and like you don't have to
(29:11):
do all the work yourself. And I wonder if it's
different times in people's lives too, Like you're more individualistic
when you're earlier, or maybe not because you need more support.
And then as you as you get older, you know,
you understand that it's a long life. Well, I love
the term the infinite game. You know, like infinite games
they never in there's not like a beginning in an end,
(29:31):
a winner and a loser. And you know, I think
if you take the sport metaphor, like you're mentioning, you know,
at first you want to hit the game winning shot,
be the star player, and then you're like, man, that's
really not scalable, Like you can build stone buildings, not
skyscrapers where you're the key man or woman, because like
your time is inscalable. So then you have to learn
a whole other skill set, which is like managing strategy,
(29:53):
scaling a business, you know, like and then I don't know,
you realize that like there's just always a factor above
of the sport or the game that you think that
you're in. So I've just that's my favorite part of
the entrepreneurial journey is just like you know, kind of
like inner discipline, you know, multidimension multidimensional chess in the
sense you know, it's like just just the most fun,
(30:15):
most sort of intellectually challenging game. And like there's no
physical limitation if you're if you're lucky, you know, like certainly,
you know, like there's there's if you you know, if
you if you don't have any sort of like mental
issues like you you don't, you know, we all cap out.
You know, pro athletes are really pro athletes, like they
are you know, top o one percent physical human specimens
to begin with, let alone the mental game. You know.
(30:37):
So so you know, for us, for all of us,
you know, human humans out here. You know this is
there an other thing I'll say, Heather, is that like
there's plenty of like not that brilliant people that are
way more successful than us. Like it's not there's not
a direct correlation with having to be like a genius
(30:58):
or having to be like the most likable us in
the room. There are plenty of very normal people that
have had a good idea and absolutely crush the game.
I agree. I mean I think that if I had
to say one quality that that I think is is
just massive, its insatiable desire to grow. It's just constant growth,
and growth is not It's not always comfortable, right, But
(31:20):
I and I think we and I see this. The
company can only go as fast as the human So
you asked me a little bit about mentation too. It's like,
if you're always on a journey of self actualization, you're
you're constantly going to be asking and curious, asking those questions.
I mean every investor talks about it in a different way. Curious,
you know, rapid iterator, you know, growth, whatever it is.
(31:43):
But it's really this quality that you don't know anything
in this moment, you know less than you did ten
minutes ago, and still asking that question all the time. Yeah, totally.
And for you, what what do you what are you
seeking at this point? Like what are the things that
you hope to bring more of into your life? We
touched on a bunch of it. I think my personal
(32:04):
and personal why is really picking stock in people? It's
it's how can you give resources to people who you
think are best student to be the catalyst to bring
us into fruition. There's nothing more satisfying than backing somebody
when nobody else sees it yet. And you know, you
don't know if you're really good at this for for
(32:24):
multiple decades. So I could be kidding myself here, but
I've more than once felt that gratification of understanding somebody's
value before the society proves it out and their social
proof for it, and giving them the resources to be
able to build on it. And then you know that
that's so satisfying and I love it. And so if
(32:46):
there's any way that I can play in a small
part in being a boost for for that genesis of
an idea coming to fruition being company, that's that's why
this is the commercial aspect of how I can do that,
you know, as a job. I love it and I
also love to see, you know, what new things entrepreneurs
are tackling. When I started investing, when I started adventure,
(33:09):
impact investing wasn't even a thing that I was an
impact to investing. And now we've even leap front that
where it's just you have to be really conscious to
be a founder m HM. And and on paper, what
are some of the most successful investments that you guys
have made so far, Like, what are some of the
standout companies. That's a good question we have. Um we've
known the founders of the Skim for a long time,
(33:31):
invested in their company. We've Kathyn Minshew from The Muse.
She's also part of their Sumi community. We seeded their
ear list stages of a company called Current, which is
a smart banking platform that's grown phenomenally. Well, a lot
of our companies are still early so they're not household
names yet, but they're getting their Tending Organics, which is
(33:51):
a baby brand focusing on Oh when I'm very excited
about is called Polo my Health and their digital health
platform for testing and diagnosing thyroid challenges. You know, they've
created an incredible community based healthcare plan for an increasingly
diagnosed disease and it's it affects disproportionately affects women. So
(34:11):
it's something that's near and dear to my heart. And
they're growing rapidly. So those are the types of investments
that we make and founders that were back. That's awesome,
that's really cool. Um. Well, you know, I really appreciate
you taking the time to be on the program, and
you know, I really have always been inspired by not
just the work that you do and the creativity that
(34:32):
you bring to it, but you're just awesome. Every time
that you're ever in a room where you know, people
always feel better, feel brighter. You're a true peaceful warrior.
It's pretty incredible. I've never seen you seem like your
heartbeat is up whatsoever, and yet like you've been constantly
increasing speed while decreasing tensions since we become friends. So it's, uh,
(34:54):
it's it's been a really remarkable thing to see. And
I just I'm a big fan of ars how they
incredibly kind of generous of you to say. I will
reiterate that. You know I said this before, but the
community that you've built really I attribute anything in my career,
you know, the last fifteen years to the Summit community.
I mean, the people that you curate are amazing, and
(35:15):
the intentionality that you have when you started Summit really
just see through everything that you do and every iteration
of what you do. So I'm honored to be a
part of the community and talking to you today. Well, honestly,
I think like your parents in Iowa on the organic
farming and mindfulness tip. I don't think Summit really was
the author of that ethos. I think it's more of
(35:37):
a generational ethos, you know, of like our generations entrepreneurs
that wanted those priorities. Listen, if it was, I'm sure
I would have been, you know, on some bud fox ship,
right like if you try to you know, pursue a
whole other you know, lifestyle, like we wouldn't have the
same inputs. We wouldn't you know, have seen sort of
like the excesses that bring you no happiness. It like
(36:00):
so so ultimately, I think that we got really lucky
that we had great mentors early on. And and uh,
you know I think that like you're talking about, you know,
skating to where the puck's going, it sounds like you
you grew up at the iceberg that ended up you know,
like you know, be becoming the rivers right Like. It's
it's incredible that you've had this exposure to these things
(36:22):
that are so important to so many people that we
care about, um, you know, for so long. And you know,
I really do hope you, you know, incredible success with
human and anything else you do. Thank you very much
to appreciate it. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
(36:52):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Art of the Hustle is a production of I Heart Radio.
You're listening to the Art of the Hustle, the show
that breaks down how some of the world's most fascinating
people have hustled and learned their way into achieving great things.
(00:21):
I'm your host Jeff Rosenthal, co founder of Summit, and
today on the show, I had the pleasure of chatting
with Heather Heartnett. Heather is the co founder and CEO
of Human Ventures, an early stage venture studio that backs
and builds consumer technology companies. She was named one of
the fifty most Influential Women in America by Marie Claire.
The information has referred to as the new breed of VC,
(00:42):
and business insiders pointed to human as the first female
lead startup studio. Prior to Human Ventures, Heather incubated companies
with Citylight Capital, a venture capital fund that investing companies
seeking to generate measurable social and environmental impact. She serves
on the Leadership Council for Tech n y C and
A is a enter to the n y C m
I T Startup Studio and seventeen seventy six. She's also
(01:05):
a contributor to Forbes and serves as the Board of
Directors member of the David Lynch Foundation. Heather joins us
to talk about the qualities that make a great entrepreneur,
how from an early age transidental meditation has impacted her life,
and how she and the team at Human Ventures foresee
the future of work. So please enjoy my conversation with
Heather Heartnett and Heather, Welcome to the podcast. Thank you
(01:30):
so much for having me, jaff It's a pleasure. How's
it going out there. It's going well. I'm downtown New
York City right now. I live in Greenwich Village and
New York's coming back to life. It's been really kind
of interesting to see how resilient everyone is. Well, I'm
so excited to have you on the show. You know
your work has focused on the future of work for
(01:51):
a long time, which you've empowered through the organizations that
you've been a part of, most notably Human Ventures. Talk
to us a little bit about what you're seeing right now. Yeah. So,
I run what we call a business creation platform, and
that is comprised of venture fund and a start up studio,
and we bring in entrepreneurs. We work with entrepreneurs at
(02:12):
the earliest stages of when they're building their companies, and
we provide tools to be able to create, and then
we provide financing to be able to to capitalize, and
that structure it's one of the best. It's it's I'm
just so grateful to be able to be doing it
because what you get to do is think where the
world is going to be tomorrow or in two weeks,
(02:34):
but in ten years, and then you start working with
founders who think that far in advance and um and
you give them the resources to be able to just build.
And so being around people who always see challenges opportunity,
who always see the world, you know, ten steps ahead,
I think is one of the most inspiring things to do.
Tell us more about that. So how do you pick
(02:56):
the people that are in your cohorts? Who who gets
your investment, who gets your incubation time? Yeah, it's a
good question. We you know. I think a big thesis
of human ventures is that one of the biggest arbitrage
opportunities is really identifying talent ahead of the market. And
I say that because for years and years, finance industries
and in venture capital in particular, has been really focused
(03:18):
on a particular type of entrepreneur, and it was true
ten fifteen years ago that an entrepreneur had a an archetype.
But as you know, industries start to open up to
tech and tech becomes ubiquitous, right, every company has to
have kind of that ease of use and customer satisfaction
and understanding the efficiencies that technology brings. The founder profile changes,
(03:41):
and then at the same time, the arcs of you know,
the way that society views companies and social paradigms, you know,
pardents have shifted. So the consumers very conscious about what
they're consuming and buying and um. And then the employee
wants to know who they're working for and almost their
personal passion and mission is being satisfied for what they're
working in. So I think it's become extremely complex to
(04:05):
be a founder and the way to be able to
identify them is now becoming more sophisticated. So at human
we will generally have scs that are about the world
where the world is going. We call it the human
needs economy. So that for us right now is the
future of digital health care and wellness and mental health,
(04:25):
and then the future of work and how we are
identifying and skilling and reskilling talent and then also communities.
So what companies are understanding community based healthcare, community based
products that that drive more than just a transaction, but
that drive you know, that camaraderie and really affinity with
(04:46):
a brand. So that's what we've coined the kind of
the human needs economy. That's what we look for. And
then we do calls for founders who was building in
these areas, who are building the next platforms to be
able to bring healthcare to underserve communities because or etcetera.
And we do what we call a cohort model of
entrepreneurs and residents. And you like this, Jeff, So internally
(05:08):
we used to say, this person is starting our next
company there in the wild, There in the wild, and
so we just figured, why don't we actually name it that.
So we have a program called Humans in the Wild.
It's when you know, when a founder and if you're
a founder, you you resonate with this because and you
are deaf, I'm sure resonates with you. You know, you're
sitting there and you're saying, I need to I need
(05:29):
to think of the next thing, and we need to
think of the next thing. Because naturally, if you're a founder,
wants a founder always a founder, you you will always
think about building. So when you get a group of
people who are building together, it creates you know, one
class one of goals, tend creates incredible energy. Totally. You
get this ecosystem effect. You get this like you know,
our liberation is bound up together, you know, shared experience, camaraderie,
(05:52):
same team, you know, same dream, kind of vibe where
everybody's sharing resources. Which when you go from like being
a only entrepreneur to having any sort of reason for
this kind of overlap with other entrepreneurs, it feels like
an unbelievable wind behind you. Yeah, I really you know,
there's the old saying rising tide lifts off boats. It's
(06:14):
so true. And I think the dynamics of having a
shared experience creates a trust in bond that then as
people have success and failures, you just you have this
really trusted network and it and it takes the burden
off of being alone. Well. I also kind of like
this ecosystems approach as like an investor too, because you know,
(06:35):
not all companies work out, but you're making a big investment,
almost like helping fund a PhD for these founders in
like business experience, right, and so if you can either
you know, invest in their second or third company or
repatriate those you know, talent and resource you know pools
to the other organizations that are inside of you know,
(06:56):
the ecosystem. I imagine that has a really positive return
too for the fun and I guess that you know
takes me to my question, like you know, putting my
heartless capitalist pig hat on. You know, how does this
pencil like this? You know a lot of people who
are investment professionals see impact investments in you know, air
quotes and roll their eyes like, tell us how this
(07:17):
works from a return profile? Yeah, I mean, you know
a lot of great things. I think you're right. You're
absolutely right. The ecosystem is what you invest in in
early stage. You know, if we do this right, will
invest in the next three things a founder does that
we love because too likely won't work out, you know,
but those founders have have had those learnings, so why
not you paid for them? You know, invest Again to
(07:38):
the impact question, We specifically didn't call it an impact
company when we first started because I think that it's
become just the status quo. You need to have some
sort of emission or purpose driving what you're doing. If
you're building something from scratch, the you know, the the
trials and tribulations are too too great to not have something.
(08:00):
It drives you through those times. And when you have
a very coherent underlying set of values or mission, you're
able to attract unbelievable talent. You're able to rally you know,
investors and clients and customers behind something that otherwise people
might not feel such an affinity towards. So for me,
(08:21):
I think it's a long term investment play. It's less
of a liability, and it makes the companies much more
defensible as they grow. So from a purely capitalistic standpoint,
if you're not thinking about anything altruistically, I think that it's.
Um it's just smart investing. To be able to invest
where you think the skate, where the puck is going.
I like it. You hit me with a Gretzky reference.
(08:44):
You must be a deadly fundraiser. Um, well, Heather, I
have a I have a total you know, turn in
the conversation that I want to take. I'm curious, just
you personally, when did you start meditating? Good question. I
started meditating when I was five years old five years old. Okay,
(09:05):
so unpack that. How is that poem? I definitely can't
take credit for that. That's my parents. So you're like,
Mom and dad, I'm super into this stuff. This is
a guy named Maharishi. Get in the game. No. Independently,
my parents both started meditating in their teens, started practicing
something called transcendental meditation, and in the seventies it was,
(09:28):
you know, really popular, and you know, there was kind
of a spike of popularity. A couple of people actually
wanted their kids to be able to grow up with
transgental meditations. So I would say that we were a
part of a intentional community and and in a way
that our parents were just very progressive. They wanted to
where was this, Where was this geographically in Iowa? So
(09:50):
I was originally from Chicago, but they moved us to
Iowa when we were young, where there were other folks
who who wanted organic farming and meditation in the school
systems and you know, a lot of things that have
come to fruition now, but we're not popular in the eighties.
So it was it was in hindsight, right, I can't
(10:10):
believe that my parents had that foresight, but I'm very
grateful to have that early on, and it's definitely shaped
the way that I look at life, you know, from
from the very beginning. Well, and you know, I know
that before you moved into investing, you were head of
development at the David Lynch Foundation. Correct. Yeah, so my
you know, after school, I studied business school and I
(10:33):
did go out to the Bay Area. I started working
in venture. Serendipitously, my father was an entrepreneur, my grandfather
was an entrepreneur, and so I didn't know what business
I wanted to start, and so venture was something I
kind of fell into where we had a family friend
and he said, well, I see entrepreneurs every day. Why
don't you come and analyze them and you know, see
what could be good investments. And that was when I
(10:54):
first got bit with the buck. But simultaneously I was
out in the Bay Area. The film director David Lynch
was starting uh an organization, and he was saying, I
would like to be able to bring meditation to at
risk you an inner city schools, And so I started
volunteering for what was becoming the Foundation and got to
know David Lynch and Bob Roth, who's executive director and eventually,
(11:18):
you know, really spell in love with the organization and
many years later ended up moving to New York and
opening up the New York office with Bob and started
building out the nonprofit arm of Data Lynch Foundation. What
what overlaps do you see between this work? You know,
I mindfulness is so important, and you know, I definitely
feel like my performance as an entrepreneur as an internal game.
(11:43):
You know, like the work that we do internally is
the thing that's going to have the biggest impact on
our outcomes, not necessarily a podcast we hear or a
talk we listened to. You know, what is the thing
that you kind of see? What's the pattern recognition that
you apply from your your previous work to your current work.
I think any type of meditation practice, you know, whatever
works for you, you should integrate some sort of some
(12:06):
sort of that reflection. For me, TM has brought a
sort of witnessing value or equanimity to what I do,
so I can ride the highs and lows with a
with a certain amount of witnessing, so you're not tossed about,
you know, as as life can really do for you. Now,
I'm not saying that I approach everything perfectly. But I
(12:27):
can definitely tell a difference when I'm when I'm regular
with my practice or when I'm not, how things affect me.
I think in investing, that's a huge, huge, you know,
part of it, it's just can you we just had
an incredible volatility in the market. Can you withstand what
you're doing? Can zig when everybody else is zagging? Can
you really understand your internal conviction? Because you can't, you
(12:51):
can't look to anybody else to give you to give
you that conviction. I think a lot of those things
are kind of the abstract benefits of em Some of
the more practical things are just you know, at a
time when mental health is so so so important, burnout
is real. I live in New York City. There's never
time to stop. So unless you have an intentional practice
(13:14):
to be able to stop, there's just no way that
you can control that. So I think for all those reasons,
I'm grateful for it. I can always be more judicious
with my practice. I can always There's always more that
you can do, but you just kind of have to
be easy with yourself and do what you can. Well,
It's funny, you know what comes up from me when
I hear you saying that is like we're kind of
(13:35):
in this entrepreneurial moment of like good artists borrow great
artists steel and you know the copycat culture of you
know Hollywood right now where it's like whatever Spider Man
eighteen um, you know, like the fifth installment of the
same movie with new actors and actresses right this it's similar,
(13:56):
like you know, the copycat business of like entrepreneurship. And
I think what gets lost is, you know when you
really look at a lot of these companies that have
like an original creative vision, years later, they often don't
really stray from that creative vision. I don't even remember
the headspace when we were, you know, building our brand
identity for Summit for instance, and like really caring about
(14:19):
you know, the guidelines and the and the you know,
we built like an eighty six page brand doc, Like
we worked with incredible people on our icon and our
iconography and like you know, like our language and all
these things, and like it's such a headspace to get into.
And to your point, if you don't have like self
belief and the point of view, it's very easy to
tack to whatever is working right now and just always
(14:42):
be chasing whatever is working right now. So I can
see what you're saying where it's like, if you want
to identify, you know, a visionary entrepreneur, say somebody that
makes sense to resource and to bed on and to support,
you know, and and helping sort of maintain that self
belief and the vision that you started with. You know,
I do think that the results actually speak to I
(15:03):
just always keep seeing this now. I'm like, hah, that
company sold, or it started ten years ago, or it's
undernew or whatever it is. But that sort of original
vision always seems to stick with these things. I think
it's a great point. And we have a saying internally
it's the myth of the big idea. Everybody always says, oh,
where did you come up? Where does the founder come
up with that idea? And the thing is is that
(15:24):
it's not. It's not the idea. Ideas are everywhere and
everybody can kind of pull it from the consciousness of
the moment, but and then executions the big part of it.
Except for also, it's just constantly being awake to where
the trend is going. So seeing a space or you say,
see through the matrix, like you were talking about that's steadfast.
(15:46):
You don't know the exact timing, but that's where you
can really have that intuition that bounces back and forth.
And I think the best founders naturally do tap into this.
You know. Sometimes people say you have to be a
little bit you know, an outlier kind of create easy,
and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's just somebody who's has
that conviction internally, and I love it. You can feel
(16:07):
you resonate with founders who really have that. You know,
to your point, the technology is kind of outpacing the
human condition, right, so we are strapped seven. We hear
this all the time. We're always looking to technology, but
who's taking care of the human side of it? And um,
if you're not, you know, I joke that I'm one
(16:28):
of the first to do appless meditations, you know, because
now I'm pretty thinks that meditation comes through and app Yeah,
it's it's it's you're right, and that like we're you know,
over stimulated and underrested and now we're you know, seeing
some of these first technologies come online that really lower
the barrier for us to like get involved in something.
(16:50):
So I wouldn't say that like it's it's pretty barriered
for most people in their minds to like say, get
into transcendental meditation unless they're exposed to it directly from
someone that demystifies it. Whereas like you can just download
Calm or you can download Waking Up and you're like
right in the game. You know, each meditation it's like
kind of saying that there's one medication, right, It's it's
(17:10):
not so much nuance to meditation. And sometimes some types
are right for for pain management. I mean, they know
so much more about the brain functioning now too, and
so you know, do you have an overactive and magdala?
You know, TM is classified as automated self transcending and
so it allows you to just acquire a part of
your mind. But in the result of that is that
(17:31):
your body settles down. So you're just getting deep rest.
So if we've got enough deep rest, you know, it's
that's just really what your body meets. We'll be back
with more out of the Hustle after the break. Talk
to us about the future of work, because we've talked
(17:53):
around it a little bit, but I want to unpack
that further because I think that's something on everyone's mind. Yeah, definitely,
the the future of work to us, we have four
categories that were most excited about, and we say that,
you know, unsurprisingly that the future of work is human.
So the areas that we are really excited about. One
new work environments self explanatory we have, you know, we're
(18:15):
not going back to the same way it was. And
the next one I'm excited about we call lifelong learning.
The education system is going to be changing. Online education
can be just as sufficient. Um, you know, I think
people are going to think about certificate programs a lot
more than for year college education if that gets them
the job. Revenue share you know, I says are becoming.
(18:38):
Income share agreements are becoming something that's more popular. So
all those structures life on learning, what is that? What
is an income share agreement? Income share agreement is just
basically that, you know, can you have a discount on
an education platform, certification course and then in exchange for
sharing your future you know, future portion of your income.
(19:02):
And I think people have tried this for different various ways.
And now there're a couple of companies like Lambda, there's
one called job Easy that's coming up. People are identifying,
you know, ways that you can ensure an increase in
your income coming out of a certification program, and for
that you're willing to rev share essentially your future income.
(19:23):
I think it's really interesting. You're betting, you're betting on people.
You know, you're picking stock on in people, and and
that's kind of been a thesis of mind for a
long time. The third bucket I love is we call
redefining the resume. So for so long, the resume LinkedIn
where you've worked is kind of what defines you. And
I think that's definitely going to change. The career ladder,
(19:45):
so to speak, is now looks like a lattice, and
at what point are you mapping your skills to a
whole new career. People change your career now three, four
or five times in their lifetime as opposed to our
previous generation. The last one is worker well being. So
how is your company organization? You know, if you're a leader,
how how is your mission satisfying? You know? What is it?
(20:08):
What role does it play in your in your employees life,
Because there's a lot to it now. So those are
the areas that we're really excited about. We have eighteen
founders right now in the Humans in the Wild program,
who are tackling various challenges around those four four big buckets. Well,
let's talk about access in terms of, like, you know,
who is getting these investments. I don't you know, I
(20:30):
might be setting you up for you know, something that's embarrassing,
so I hope, But I just knowing you personally, I
imagine that you're very thoughtful about investing in diverse and
your gender diverse and economically diverse international entrepreneurs. But talk
to us about, you know, how human is democratizing that
access to founders. Yeah, it goes back to the same
(20:51):
philosophy that we're talking about that it's not even I mean,
it's the right it's the right thing to do. There
should definitely be equality, and we're so far from equity
and inequality. But this is also where there is so
much opportunity because when you're investing in underrepresented founders or
underfunded areas, that's where you can have the most leverage
(21:12):
with your capital. So I absolutely think that it's an
incredible business decision to diversify your talent pools. Where you
picking founders from, what attributes are you looking for? It
shouldn't be that they all went to X, Y, and Z, college,
and that's you know, social proof that they're going to
be a good entrepreneur. It's just not that's not there's
(21:33):
no correlation there. So you really have to do the
work to say, what are the founder traits that we're
really looking for, and are their communities and are their
areas or network nodes that we can tap into to
identify founders who are in those different types of areas.
That's a great wet to talk more about that. So
what is the example of a network node that you
tap into. Well, we we talked about philanthropy earlier on
(21:56):
and one of our personas that we talked about internally
is kind of PhD in life. Did you start a
nonprofit organization? You know? Did it? You know a lot
of women actually who are phenomenal operators, and sometimes it's
easier to starn a nonprofit than it is to start
of for profit in society's view. So, you know, we
(22:17):
invested in a phenomenal woman, Megan O'Connor, who was in
the nonprofit space for a long time. She decided to
you know, Megan, she's a part of Summit. She applied
her talents to the education sector and we invested in
her company that was brain technology to tutoring in education,
and that persona of a founder might not have been
(22:38):
a typical tech investment prior, but because we said, look,
you know how to do a lot with a little
you know how to sell your vision and investors and
all the sort of stuff, she she knew how to
sell and she knows where the those are the skills
needed for her company. So if you can be really
thoughtful about how you're mapping skills, then you can find
talented founders in a lot of different places. You know
(23:01):
about network notes more than anybody with the Summit community.
It's it's who are those curators of people who have
good people who embody the values that you value, and
can you then have them kind of recruit and curate
founders to be able to come and build with you.
So that's what we do when we do our our
application process, and we'll see three or four or five
(23:22):
founders who are applying for these twelve spots, and and
then we picked the people who we think are going
to be phenomenal, and we're very careful about the construction
of the class. Is their diversity of thought, background, ethnicity.
You absolutely don't want how much in this thinking when
you're building a company, so imagining that, like, you know,
there's listeners who are you know THEYI I think that
(23:46):
there are more great ideas out there than we realize,
you know, like I I have heard, I've heard so
many awesome ideas. We all have, you know, different ideas
as entrepreneurs for things that we could pursue if only
we had the time or bannedwidth. And you know, it's
often just like building the consortium of people. But you know,
like I'm just curious. So like, you know, I have
(24:07):
an idea that I have some conviction around. You know,
I haven't started a company. Perhaps I'm in you know,
I have a corporate job, or you know, I I
run a nonprofit or I'm in a nonprofit, but like
I have an idea for something that could be a
market based solution that you know, I could scale, grow,
support myself and my family and have a positive world impact.
(24:28):
So take us through some of the steps if you
found me. I'm raw talent, I got all the building blocks,
but I'm you know, I'm clueless in terms of like
what to do next with this. There are so many
resources out there now for people who are thinking about
being a founder, find some founders that resonate with you
and see how how they think. And then and then
(24:49):
there are programs of just being with other people who
are like minded like that. There's one called day One,
there's one called on Deck. You know, their their communities
so that people can bounce these ideas off of each other.
But then more importantly, can you start testing and iterating
on that idea to see if it comes to something,
you know, taking something from nothing. And then there are
(25:10):
incubator programs. There are you know, there's just so much
out there that you can start testing your idea and
putting it towards. But I see the world in terms
of people, So I just say throw your idea against
the wall and throw it against as many people as
you possibly can to get all of the feedback and
and then just start to watch it build. And then
once you get that traction, you know, then people will
(25:34):
find you. Art of the Hustle will be right back
after the short break. You know, I just said that, like,
there's more great ideas out there than there are like
people activating on them. But at the same time, your
idea it's probably isn't that great, Like it's good and
(25:55):
it's in the right direction. But once you start moving
on it, you realize that there's like a ton of
are on it, right, Like, there's just all these things
you haven't considered, all these complexities that you haven't put together.
And then like, no matter what the businesses or the
nonprofit or of the artistic project, it's always just like
longer than you assume at first. You know, we always
underestimate what we can do in three years and overestimate
(26:16):
what we can do in one. And uh, you know,
like I definitely think that, you know, like for us
are with our Summit journey, we were always really open
with our dumb ideas. In fact, we celebrated them, and
then you know, someone would catch us, you know, about
that talking about it and then give their interpretation or
what could work even better. And so I think that
additive process of like you know, getting to get into
(26:38):
a cycle with other people that think entrepreneurially is really
really helpful. And like the truth is is that you know,
most people are risk adverse, you know, and like most
people that are successful pay someone else to help them
with their investments to be risk adverse for them, right,
So it's you know, it makes me happy to hear
you talking about, you know, the type of psychographic that
(26:59):
you looking for and the entrepreneurs that you support back well,
a good point for you. I mean, I would turn
the question over to you. Two. You have seen more
founders than than any anybody really, you know, you've created
an assembled such an incredible group of founders and that
was the genesis of summit. Do you see some attributes
that you didn't Maybe you maybe didn't even know at
(27:20):
that point that that's what everybody embodied because it's kind
of hard to tell that the bath water is warm,
you know, if you're in it. How do you think
about that? You can you identify that energy now better?
Because you were around it so much? I would say
it's just so different. You said risk tolerance. I was
such a cowboy, and so I also am you know,
hesitant about you know, recommending high high risk tolerance. I
(27:44):
almost see it more like being comfortable with being naive.
You know, like one, you have to be naive enough
to like go into the business. And then when you
you know, talk to people, both your potential customers, your
potential advisors to find the questions that you need answers
to you don't know what to ask, right, Like you've
just never been down the path. You know, there's like
(28:05):
people who have been in the game for thirty years,
like you just haven't seen ship. There's just no way
you could. So you know that that beginner's mind, that
willingness to share what you need. Like if you said, like, hey, Jeff,
great to talk to you. Everything's awesome, It's like, okay,
well what is there for me to do in this relationship?
Like if you're not willing to say, like, hey, I
(28:27):
don't know how to solve this thing, and then I'll
be like, oh man, I can't wait to be actually
useful and beneficial and you know, keep it, you know,
sort of this triangulation of goodwill. This favorite economy moving
forward in an ecosystem. I love that. I think the
founder economy, that's a great way of putting it. We
we try to invest in a portfolio of givers because
(28:49):
if you have this reciprocity amongst that group of people,
it's only net positive. So we I mean, you're absolutely
right that they're always going to be individualistic people who win,
But I think the long term, if you're investing in
people who know how to get back to that community.
It's just a longer term view. Well, and it's more
fun and it's easier and like you don't have to
(29:11):
do all the work yourself. And I wonder if it's
different times in people's lives too, Like you're more individualistic
when you're earlier, or maybe not because you need more support.
And then as you as you get older, you know,
you understand that it's a long life. Well, I love
the term the infinite game. You know, like infinite games
they never in there's not like a beginning in an end,
(29:31):
a winner and a loser. And you know, I think
if you take the sport metaphor, like you're mentioning, you know,
at first you want to hit the game winning shot,
be the star player, and then you're like, man, that's
really not scalable, Like you can build stone buildings, not
skyscrapers where you're the key man or woman, because like
your time is inscalable. So then you have to learn
a whole other skill set, which is like managing strategy,
(29:53):
scaling a business, you know, like and then I don't know,
you realize that like there's just always a factor above
of the sport or the game that you think that
you're in. So I've just that's my favorite part of
the entrepreneurial journey is just like you know, kind of
like inner discipline, you know, multidimension multidimensional chess in the
sense you know, it's like just just the most fun,
(30:15):
most sort of intellectually challenging game. And like there's no
physical limitation if you're if you're lucky, you know, like certainly,
you know, like there's there's if you you know, if
you if you don't have any sort of like mental
issues like you you don't, you know, we all cap out.
You know, pro athletes are really pro athletes, like they
are you know, top o one percent physical human specimens
to begin with, let alone the mental game. You know.
(30:37):
So so you know, for us, for all of us,
you know, human humans out here. You know this is
there an other thing I'll say, Heather, is that like
there's plenty of like not that brilliant people that are
way more successful than us. Like it's not there's not
a direct correlation with having to be like a genius
(30:58):
or having to be like the most likable us in
the room. There are plenty of very normal people that
have had a good idea and absolutely crush the game.
I agree. I mean I think that if I had
to say one quality that that I think is is
just massive, its insatiable desire to grow. It's just constant growth,
and growth is not It's not always comfortable, right, But
(31:20):
I and I think we and I see this. The
company can only go as fast as the human So
you asked me a little bit about mentation too. It's like,
if you're always on a journey of self actualization, you're
you're constantly going to be asking and curious, asking those questions.
I mean every investor talks about it in a different way. Curious,
you know, rapid iterator, you know, growth, whatever it is.
(31:43):
But it's really this quality that you don't know anything
in this moment, you know less than you did ten
minutes ago, and still asking that question all the time. Yeah, totally.
And for you, what what do you what are you
seeking at this point? Like what are the things that
you hope to bring more of into your life? We
touched on a bunch of it. I think my personal
(32:04):
and personal why is really picking stock in people? It's
it's how can you give resources to people who you
think are best student to be the catalyst to bring
us into fruition. There's nothing more satisfying than backing somebody
when nobody else sees it yet. And you know, you
don't know if you're really good at this for for
(32:24):
multiple decades. So I could be kidding myself here, but
I've more than once felt that gratification of understanding somebody's
value before the society proves it out and their social
proof for it, and giving them the resources to be
able to build on it. And then you know that
that's so satisfying and I love it. And so if
(32:46):
there's any way that I can play in a small
part in being a boost for for that genesis of
an idea coming to fruition being company, that's that's why
this is the commercial aspect of how I can do that,
you know, as a job. I love it and I
also love to see, you know, what new things entrepreneurs
are tackling. When I started investing, when I started adventure,
(33:09):
impact investing wasn't even a thing that I was an
impact to investing. And now we've even leap front that
where it's just you have to be really conscious to
be a founder m HM. And and on paper, what
are some of the most successful investments that you guys
have made so far, Like, what are some of the
standout companies. That's a good question we have. Um we've
known the founders of the Skim for a long time,
(33:31):
invested in their company. We've Kathyn Minshew from The Muse.
She's also part of their Sumi community. We seeded their
ear list stages of a company called Current, which is
a smart banking platform that's grown phenomenally. Well, a lot
of our companies are still early so they're not household
names yet, but they're getting their Tending Organics, which is
(33:51):
a baby brand focusing on Oh when I'm very excited
about is called Polo my Health and their digital health
platform for testing and diagnosing thyroid challenges. You know, they've
created an incredible community based healthcare plan for an increasingly
diagnosed disease and it's it affects disproportionately affects women. So
(34:11):
it's something that's near and dear to my heart. And
they're growing rapidly. So those are the types of investments
that we make and founders that were back. That's awesome,
that's really cool. Um. Well, you know, I really appreciate
you taking the time to be on the program, and
you know, I really have always been inspired by not
just the work that you do and the creativity that
(34:32):
you bring to it, but you're just awesome. Every time
that you're ever in a room where you know, people
always feel better, feel brighter. You're a true peaceful warrior.
It's pretty incredible. I've never seen you seem like your
heartbeat is up whatsoever, and yet like you've been constantly
increasing speed while decreasing tensions since we become friends. So it's, uh,
(34:54):
it's it's been a really remarkable thing to see. And
I just I'm a big fan of ars how they
incredibly kind of generous of you to say. I will
reiterate that. You know I said this before, but the
community that you've built really I attribute anything in my career,
you know, the last fifteen years to the Summit community.
I mean, the people that you curate are amazing, and
(35:15):
the intentionality that you have when you started Summit really
just see through everything that you do and every iteration
of what you do. So I'm honored to be a
part of the community and talking to you today. Well, honestly,
I think like your parents in Iowa on the organic
farming and mindfulness tip. I don't think Summit really was
the author of that ethos. I think it's more of
(35:37):
a generational ethos, you know, of like our generations entrepreneurs
that wanted those priorities. Listen, if it was, I'm sure
I would have been, you know, on some bud fox ship,
right like if you try to you know, pursue a
whole other you know, lifestyle, like we wouldn't have the
same inputs. We wouldn't you know, have seen sort of
like the excesses that bring you no happiness. It like
(36:00):
so so ultimately, I think that we got really lucky
that we had great mentors early on. And and uh,
you know I think that like you're talking about, you know,
skating to where the puck's going, it sounds like you
you grew up at the iceberg that ended up you know,
like you know, be becoming the rivers right Like. It's
it's incredible that you've had this exposure to these things
(36:22):
that are so important to so many people that we
care about, um, you know, for so long. And you know,
I really do hope you, you know, incredible success with
human and anything else you do. Thank you very much
to appreciate it. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
(36:52):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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