Adam Choe: Tundra VC

In this episode, Adam Cho from Tundra VC delves into the benefits and challenges of multi-partner funds and his venture capital journey. He discusses profitability in overlooked sectors, frameworks for starting and managing a fund, and strategies for deal sourcing and decision-making. Adam also covers managing deal flow, selecting organizational tools, and effective communication with founders and LPs. He shares advice on pre-seed investing, evaluating founder passion, and marketing strategies. Additionally, the episode explores tech trends, consumer behavior, the future of the food industry, automation's societal impacts, and guidance for emerging managers in economic downturns.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
But as a result of that, it's given us a lot ofbenefits, but also downside just being
operating expenses stack up quickly and there'sthree miles to feed.
But the plus side is there's three people to dothe work.
Right?
What I'm quickly realizing is that this isreally hard stuff.
And so at a minimum, if you're thinking aboutstarting a fund, I'd consider having a partner

(00:20):
to come go along for the journey with you thathas a skill set that isn't exactly like yours.
So if you're really analytical, find someonethat's more creative.
If you're really good about reading line byline on a legal document, find someone that's
gonna be more better at creating a pitch deck,right?
So counterbalance yourself with an individualthat you think you can work well with.
Someone typically that you might've alreadyknown from a professional setting, so you don't

(00:42):
have to like try to figure out if it's a goodmatch.
The second thing is I quickly realized thatstarting a fund as an emerging manager,
basically meant it's a startup.
You are you're doing a startup.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
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(01:04):
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(01:25):
kick this off and I'll moderate the discussion.
So it looks like we're live here.
So really excited to have Adam Cho here fromTundra VC.
So Adam and I have been building a friendshipthe last few months and he's also part of an
exciting cohort of other really talented fundmanagers and the fund accelerators.

(01:46):
So excited have met you and also excited tocontinue to get to know you really well.
So Adam, welcome to the show.
Maybe we can kick it off by talking about yourorigin story.
Where'd you grow up?
What did your parents do for a living?
And how did you make your way into VC?
And then I'll navigate it from there.

(02:07):
Yeah, of course.
First of all, for having me on.
Enjoyed the process of working through yourprogram and admire the hustle you've put on to
make it all happen.
So kudos to you on I everything you've used torun programming, not like what you're doing,
but from a startup side.
So I know how much behind the scenes work thereis to navigate schedule.

(02:28):
So I love it.
So my origin story is a little long winded.
I'll try to be very concise.
My folks came over in 1980 from South Korea.
And so I'm first generation.
My brother is as well.
We were born in Minnesota.
So Midwest guys, we but don't really look likeMidwest guys.
That in itself is the story.
But so my understanding of entrepreneurshipdidn't really start until my late 20s.

(02:52):
My understanding of entrepreneurship was alwaysfrom the perspective of a small business.
And so growing up in an immigrant family, Ithink a lot of people can relate to corner
stores, gas stations, laundromats, smallrestaurants, you name it, being run by someone
that wasn't white.
And so that's what I knew.

(03:12):
But I didn't think of it as like a startup,right?
That was just how you survived.
You open up seven days a week, three sixty fiveand grind it out, right?
Yeah.
And so when my dad came over, he didn't speakthe language.
Had his two suitcases, brought my mom over aswell.
And so we had to start over, did a two yeardegree at a local university in HVAC, and then

(03:36):
started working for a classic just like W2.
And then what happened was he quickly realizedthat he wasn't making enough money to pay the
bills and also save for the future.
And so he packed up the family and took us toNew York when I was younger.
And for four years, he did his own smallbusiness in HVAC.
And his little beachhead market was everycorner store, laundromat, gas station, liquor

(04:01):
store that was owned by a Korean businessperson that needed HVAC work.
He became the go to guy.
So he stacked cash for four years and thenbrought us back to Minnesota.
And then I've been pretty much in the Midwestever since.
I went to school at Madison for our undergradin biology.
I thought I'd be a doctor and then that neverworked out.
Basically, I decided I didn't want to do tenmore years of school, but I still wanted to

(04:23):
help people.
And so I stayed in healthcare.
And when I came out of school, I went straightinto working for corporations.
I worked for Sanctuary Medical, which wasacquired by Abbott.
I work for Nestle Healthcare as well at acertain point.
And a few other different clinical shops thatpeople wouldn't be familiar with.
Real quick, Adam.
Hope you don't mind me jumping in every onceHave in you ever heard of this social media

(04:44):
influencer?
Her name is Cody Sanchez.
So she's on TikTok a lot.
She's all over TikTok and Instagram now.
So she has this whole movement of boringbusinesses.
So she owns like a couple laundromats, like icemachines, and she's crushing it.
Think she's making like 30,000,000 a year offof just all these really boring And a lot of us

(05:08):
like, you know, we were looking at like aquantum deal like a couple days ago and all
these really complex, sophisticatedtechnologies.
I was talking to actually met Alice.
Alice is here.
I met her in New York a couple of days ago.
We're just talking about this, right?
Like just you forget like boring businesses,these clunky, businesses, like they're never

(05:28):
going to go away.
You're, you're not going to have to stopwashing your clothes or you're not going to
have to stop like needing to, you know, cleanyour home.
Right.
And, there's a, there's a camp of people thatare thinking about these businesses that can
create, you know, monthly recurring revenue.
And that's very attractive to have as adeployment strategy alongside venture, right?

(05:53):
Because venture, you're really drawing from themanagement fee.
So if you kind of I've seen kind of some fundsnow that have kind of these dual hybrid
strategies where they also invest in realestate, you know, residential because there's
monthly recurring revenue as well.
So just thought I'd plug that in.
But, yeah, this woman Cody, she she's donereally well with these boring businesses.

(06:15):
And now she kind of does all this stuff on TikTok and she gets invited for speeches and like
events and stuff like that.
So I'm seeing a lot of the the investmentcommunity become creators as well.
But sorry, sorry to derail the discussion, butI thought I'd bring that person up.
I there's a lot of money being made doingunsexy things, right?
Things that don't get the glamour, don't getthe spotlight, but that's what makes the world

(06:41):
go around.
So I think you're right.
And the folks that can figure out how tobalance both of those from an investment
perspective, but also just from ecosystembuilding perspective, it's important because my
dad's generation's all retiring and it's a biginflux of blue collar workers leaving the
workforce.
And there's not much highlight in that spaceright now for future generations to go into.

(07:04):
There's gonna be huge deficiency coming in thenext five to ten years there, for sure.
So people working on that.
Great, great opportunity.
So didn't go back to med school, went in thecorporate world, decided that corporate really
wasn't for me.
I got bored pretty quickly.
I also got in a lot of trouble asking a lot ofquestions and not liking the answers to those
questions.
And so I went back to get my master's ininnovation.

(07:27):
And then from there, I did a couple of researchfellowships, which then turned into a startup
that I bootstrapped with co founder, which thenturned into an opportunity to become an intern
at Generator, which is a startup acceleratoracross the nation.
And then worked my way up to managing director.
While I was at Generator, I was moonlightingthe startup.
And at the end of twenty nineteen, I shut downmy time at Generator and parted ways and said I

(07:51):
wanted to focus on the startup.
And then three months later, the world shutdown.
My startup was in healthcare.
And so when the world shut down, what we builtfor three years in a pre pandemic world didn't
really fit in the post pandemic world.
And so I was racing, drawing down on my oh shitmoney and trying to pivot into a sector that

(08:11):
worked, but I just ran out of time.
So it came to a point where I was donebootstrapping, didn't have enough to prove,
didn't have enough proved out to get VCdollars.
Also, they didn't want to leverage friends andfamily for something that was super high risk.
And so it just made sense at the 2021 to sunsetthe organization completely clean.
It paid back all my customers that I had takenmoney from, but didn't give a full year's worth

(08:35):
of service to, didn't have any investors.
And so we walked away from it with no guiltfrom a financial burden perspective on anybody.
So I felt good about that.
Learned a lot of lessons, made every mistake inthe book.
And now I sit on the other side of the tableagain, and now I want to give that kind of
opportunity and wisdom and learnings to futuregenerations of entrepreneurs with a big focus

(08:59):
on underrepresented founders but also foundersthat are targeting underrepresented audiences
and customers and users.
Yeah, that's a great journey and I think that'sa interesting point to make.
No matter what venture you're doing, peoplealso observe how you sunset the business.
Because there are some costs to dissolve thecompany, to shut down the business.

(09:22):
So thinking and observing about how portfoliocompanies do that in a professional way is
really important to think about as well.
So that was good insight.
And tell us a little more about your thoughtprocess of starting the fund, like building the
firm, thinking about it, what was going on inyour head with all that was going on?

(09:44):
Did you, because some of these people on thecall are thinking about that as well, probably
starting their own fund.
So what's the framework that you recommend forthem to start with?
Assuming because you have a little bit of ahealthcare background, maybe that's something
to anchor against, but would love your opinionon that because everybody has a different
workflow for them.

(10:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
So when we started the fund, we obviouslywanted to lean into our strengths as
individuals.
And what we knew is we were operators, right?
The three of us, so we're non traditional inthe sense that there's three GPs for a really
small fund.
And so we're running extremely, extremely leanin fund one in hopes that we can use that

(10:25):
momentum to catapult into fund two and fundthree in the future.
But as a result of that, it's given us a lot ofbenefits, but also downside, just being
operating expenses stack up quickly and there'sthree miles to feed.
But the plus side is there's three people to dothe work, right?
What I'm quickly realizing is that this isreally hard stuff.
And so at a minimum, if you're thinking aboutstarting a fund, I'd consider having a partner

(10:49):
to come go along for the journey with you thathas a skill set that isn't exactly like yours.
So if you're really analytical, find someonethat's more creative.
If you're really good about reading line byline a legal document, find someone that's
gonna be more better at creating a pitch deck,right?
So counterbalance yourself with an individualthat you think you can work well with.
Someone typically that you might've alreadyknown from a professional setting, so you don't

(11:11):
have to like try to figure out if it's a goodmatch.
The second thing is I quickly realized thatstarting a fund as an emerging manager,
basically meant it's a startup.
You're doing a startup.
There's plenty of things I just was cluelessabout that I had to learn on the fly.
And so it's not just finding money and theninvesting money.
There's a lot of nuance there that I would havenever expected that I'm quickly finding out the

(11:35):
hard way.
And I think if you go into thinking, I'mstarting a startup, you'll have a much better
experience jumping into it with both feet.
I'll stop there for a quick second and see ifthere's any follow ups.
Yeah, I think that's really really important tothink about you know really thinking about your
burn.
When you build a financial model or a fundmodel you need to really come up with a fund

(12:00):
budget, because there's things that can comeup.
I'm good buddies with the people at tactic.
They built some really cool software
we use tactic plus one protected.
Plus one yeah so tactics a great tool.
Plus one to unabove he's, he's really, evolvedthe Excel spreadsheet because a lot of the

(12:20):
time, and there's actually a couple of reallygood templates for the Excel spreadsheets as
well.
I'm sure that's on Unabove's radar, but youreally wanna think about all of your expenses,
your marketing budget.
It's three times as more difficult when you gotthree people, right?
Because you got to really cut everything threeways and really be efficient.

(12:42):
How are you guys dividing up yourresponsibilities?
And then how do you guys come together?
Guess are there challenges sometimes doesn'thave to be with you, but do you think sometimes
there are challenges with decision making or isit just a voting process?
I guess if it's an even amount of people, thenobviously it could only be two to one, right?
So maybe that's something that you thoughtabout.

(13:03):
But talk to us about how you find deals, howyou source them, how you screen them, and then
make a decision on which one is going to.
And the reason why I think which is morecritical is as an emerging manager, if you
don't outperform, you may not survive.
You may not get to your next fund.
So that's why I feel that people like investingin emerging managers because they have to

(13:27):
perform to really prove their track record.
Not no pressure at all, but it's just basicconventional wisdom, right?
So tell us how you guys do that and any tips orlearnings that you've learned along the way.
There's a lot to unpack there.
So I'll start with just the easiest part.
We have a strong trust between one another interms of if they feel a strong conviction about

(13:53):
a play.
I don't question it, right?
I'll ask questions, but I also don't neednecessarily answers to move forward.
I'll ask the questions till they're out there,but you don't need to like justify on a jury
stand why, on a witness stand why it is orisn't.
It's just more like, Here are my concerns, butI'm willing to ride with you on it.
So the three of us, having known each other forfour years before we started this together, we

(14:17):
feel comfortable allowing each other to takerisks, make mistakes.
But ultimately, our fund portfolio structure iswe're gonna do 35 to 40 deals.
And we can do that because there's three of us,right?
We can support 13 companies each and stillthat's normal, right?
When I was a generator, I had 40 portfoliocompanies by the time I was done.
So if I can do 40 by myself, I can do 13 withmy eyes closed.

(14:41):
We felt as though if we could all walk awaywith 10 to 15 companies in our management and
then have a strong robust portfolio to drawdown from to find the winners and double and
triple down on, we felt good about taking a fewhigher risks without complete certainty on all
the questions on the checklist for aninvestment.
Being said, we also feel like when the dustsettles, each of us will have our subset of a

(15:07):
dozen companies that we felt really good aboutthat we get to kind of nurture and grow and
take point on.
And so that means you have confidence in yourability to pick winners.
And so each of us have our areas where we'reexcited about.
And so, the end of the day, we're still a team,so we're not gonna throw any of ourselves under

(15:27):
the bus.
And when we make a decision, it's between allthree of us together.
But what we said is, ideally, all three of usare in line when we make an investment.
A good enough case is two of us.
And worst case, which isn't even that bad, isone of us just says, I really, really like this
and I want to run with it.
We said, Let's do it then.
Right?
So it's a little bit of science and art the waywe're doing it, but we're also three people, so

(15:51):
it's a little unique, right?
When you're making your own decisions, it canbe kind of daunting to say like, I'm doing this
and I'm gonna invest.
And when you have two people, there's a chanceof a stalemate.
So my recommendation is we spend a lot of timebuilding out an advisory board that's six
individuals across different skill sets andsectors and just knowledge.
And so when we have a deal that we would likeor aren't sure about, we put it in front of

(16:14):
them.
And then pass the advisory board, just findingtechnical advisors that are willing to be ready
to give like a two sentence email back, like,hey, the science makes sense, or hey, that
business model doesn't work or whatever thecase may be.
Yeah, that's helpful.
And then how do you how can people build theirrelationships with other deal flow sources?

(16:37):
So I guess what is what's the best channel foryou to find deals?
Is it accelerators?
Is it other fund managers?
Is it tech operators, founders, all of theabove?
But if you were to rank like, you know, thewow, the the I've actually noticed a pattern
with the best deals coming from this channel.
What do you think it?
What do you think it would be?

(16:58):
So we're in an interesting spot because allthree of us also are a part of a nonprofit
accelerator here locally called Lunar Startups.
And Lunar is focused as a 501c3 onunderrepresented founders based in Minnesota.
And so those founders don't often be venturebackable, but we're just focused on startups.
So small businesses all the way to companiesthat want to be unicorns.

(17:21):
And so when we go through that program and wecoach those companies, we get a unique
opportunity to see some founders for sixmonths.
And so that's a really prolonged amount of duediligence where you get to know the people very
well and their businesses really well.
So that's a very high potential, high qualitydeal flow funnel, but it's only like one to
three potential investments.

(17:41):
So we love that end of the barbell.
Run the other end of the barbell.
I'll retweet things from funds that have hugefollowings and say, I'm taking checks.
And then my Twitter inbox will be filled with,you know, 150 emails or messages.
And what I do is I just copy paste my calendarlink and say, if you wanna talk, here's the
link.
And about 30% of them will actually go throughand sign up.

(18:04):
But those are the 30% that are probably gonnabe the ones that are worth doing due diligence
on anyway.
It's how much of a glutton for punishment areyou on the quantity side, right?
If you're kind of like me and sadistic, you'llopen it up to all of it, right?
I answer every email, every DM, and just kindof put myself through the ringer.
I won't put my co founders to that, right?

(18:25):
My managing partners, they got little ones,they got other things going on.
I bring them in after I've had like a fifteenminute chat with a founder.
And then the other part of it is too, we'repart of accelerator networks.
And so we like to leverage our accelerators.
And we also like to leverage other funds thatare downstream from us and upstream from us
that are willing to just kind of put deal infront of us because we do the same thing.

(18:48):
So I would say what's most important is justbeing available for multi channel, the omni
channel.
Don't be just siloed in one specific waybecause you'll miss out on great opportunities.
Yeah, no, I totally agree.
And I think for me, all of the above, you know,I've invested in several companies that come
out of accelerators, but I've also just foundamazing deals with just from friends that are

(19:13):
VCs that I've known for a while and I trusttheir kind of like you.
Trust their conviction.
I'm like, wow, this person really likes thisdeal, definitely must be a good one.
But the reason why I built the fund acceleratoris because I want 50 to 60 new friends like
every two months.
And that's what I've been really trying to doat scale with the fund accelerator.

(19:36):
But you touched on an interesting point, whichis the funnel and the mechanisms to manage and
track those deals.
I don't know if you've been following thegeneral channel in our slack, but there's a
buddy of mine who's a VC in Singapore.
He just posted something about just CRMs andthen there's just a bunch of people commenting

(20:00):
and venting about, hey, you know what, like I,you know, I want to, I want something that
tracks all of my email correspondence and I cango in and see the, see the string.
That's not as important to me, but I thinkthat's a handy tool.
I think Streak has that.
I think Affinity has that.
Affinity, I know, is expensive.

(20:21):
So where do you think the leaks are and wheredo you think the problems are with the, I would
say, the sourcing to investment committeeprocess because there's if we think of that and
I feel like I need to get a focus group andlike map out a workflow diagram because if we
were to map this out now there's there'sinitial touch point where maybe you get

(20:45):
something that comes into your funnel, There'sa deal, maybe it was inbound or outbound that
comes in.
Then I think what they were the biggest painpoint I think they were saying with affinity is
you get the touch point, get the deals, I thinkit integrates in with like Crunchbase or
something.
And then when you reach out to them, itintegrates your email.

(21:05):
So then you can go back and look up a companyand then see all of the history.
But there's no project management.
So then people go into some use Trello, right?
Because Trello, it's free and it's easy to kindof slide back and forth like sourced versus
need more info versus investment committee.

(21:27):
And then I think from there, when youobviously, when you close the deal, you just
move it to done.
But where are the leaks right now that you'reseeing in the VC tech stack?
Yeah.
Well, let me go from the founder perspectivefirst, and then I'll go into how I've kind of
handled it myself, which is not perfect.
And it's really ugly.
I'll caveat with that.
So from the founder perspective, when I was afounder bootstrapping, I wasn't necessarily

(21:50):
looking to raise money, but I wanted to startrelationships with investors.
So I'd reach out and try to set the stage.
And I would say the conversion rate of coldreach out to response back was sub 5%, right?
Yeah.
And so I think the first leak point, which isthe reason I bring this up is because the first
leak point is VCs are inundated with messagesfrom email.

(22:12):
Somehow they get your phone number, they textyou, you know, Twitter DM, website portal,
whatever the case is.
Like, there's a myriad of people pinging you atany given time.
From a one way street of a founder, they thinkthis VC sucks.
They're ignoring me.
From my side, I am literally answering emails20 fourseven and DMs 20 fourseven.

(22:35):
I'm just working my way down the list.
Just so happens I might not get back to you forthree weeks because it took me three weeks to
get through that list of people.
Right?
It's not an issue of, I don't want to give youtime where I think I'm better than you.
It's an issue of, I just don't have enoughtime.
My fingers don't work fast enough for me toanswer.
So deficiency one is how do you filter and notlose track of good deals?

(22:57):
My biggest fear is I don't answer an email or aDM from the next unicorn.
And I look back and I see that they havemessaged me and said, Hey, I want you in on my
pre seed round.
Like, that is my number one fear that I have totell an LP is I had a chance to be in on that
deal and I didn't.
Chances are I won't tell the LP that becausewhy would you ever admit that you missed out on
that?
That's the huge number one leak, right?

(23:19):
My tech stack is I'm a little old school andnew school.
I use Get Cabal for emails.
We use monday.com.
We invested in a startup called We Sparkle thatdoes scheduling and assisting and management.
Their focus is on markets outside of The US,but they're based here.

(23:39):
So they saw a need in like Latin America andAsia for small businesses and medium sized
businesses.
So they do that work.
So we use their platform for scheduling.
And then what else do we use?
We use Tactic.
And all these things have abilities to likeweave in and merge together.
But quite honestly, like my solution right nowfor organization is my inbox.
If it's unread, it's something I need to do.

(24:00):
And if if it's read, I've finished what I needto do with it.
And whoever can figure out a way to make that,mirror that for me is the solution I want.
But until that happens, there's no one magicbullet for this problem because everyone it's
personality based.
And I just I think it's funny to me when afounder comes to me and says, I've got the

(24:22):
solution for this.
Because unless you figured out how to create asolution that's amorphic and can morph to each
person's individual personality, you don't havethe solution for it, So the one thing I'll say
to every emerging manager is take a lot offeedback, try them all out, don't go too deep
into building out your whole infrastructure ona platform because there's a chance you might

(24:42):
wanna pivot, right?
Maybe I want to go to Airtable, but I put allthis time into Monday and vice versa.
So try them all out.
Don't go too deep, but see which ones actuallyare your most used apps when it's all said and
done.
I mean, I'd say a good example is LinkedIn.
So LinkedIn, there's only one LinkedIn, butthere's different types of customers, right?

(25:03):
There's job seekers, there's marketers, there'sinfluencers, there's multiple personalities
that have different goals, but you know youonly have one LinkedIn, you have to kind of
like design the UI so that anybody can use itfor their goal.
And you may not be able to be optimized for theinfluencer, right?
And maybe for LinkedIn that's not their biggestrevenue generator.

(25:26):
Maybe the biggest revenue generator is peoplethat I'm I wondering what it would be.
Think LinkedIn's biggest revenue generator ismaybe like the pro plan.
I'm thinking maybe because people probablysearch for jobs and there's probably a churn
rate on that.
But whatever that is, they probably have tooptimize UI, but you can't hit the goals of

(25:46):
every single person.
Like people start their workflow at a differentpoint.
You start at your inbox, maybe somebody elsestarts on Twitter or something, right?
So you got to kind of make it so it's flexibleenough that anybody can start their workflow
from
your platform.
I funnel everything to a first meeting that'slike ten minutes long with founders, and I put

(26:08):
it on them to follow-up with me.
So that's my filtering criteria.
If they're interested enough to follow-up, thenit's interesting enough for me to continue
chasing the deal.
There's it's a very rare chance where I willend up meeting with the initial potential
investment opportunity, even if I really likethem, where I'm the one following up, because
it becomes way too hard to keep that up.

(26:28):
But if they are interested in working with us,I ask them for a simple, Hey, let's just send
me an email summarizing what you're looking forand a deck, and I'll do two things.
I'll follow-up to you directly with what Ipromised you, and I'll make introductions to
other people that might be interested ininvesting in you.
And if they see enough value in that, didn'tfollow-up, then I consider the first touch

(26:50):
point of like, that startup's not worthinvesting.
So if they take three weeks to get back to me,that's also a signal, right?
So for me, I put it back on the founder to seehow hungry they are.
And, you know, it's not perfect because thereare circumstances that make it so someone might
not be able to do that per se the way I wantedto.
But at the end of the day, you have to havecertain ways to maximize your efficiency.

(27:12):
So no matter which way someone reaches out tome, I send them a link to my scheduler.
Oh wow,
you open your Calendly to everybody.
Or did they go through your funnel first?
Do you just kind of take
it personally?
When I first came into the space as a VC, Icame in with, like, that I feel like Michael
Jordan or Colby Bryant takes a thousand shots.
I honestly think, like, every meeting I take isme taking a shot from the three point line or

(27:36):
free throw.
And so I grind it out.
When I was a generator, I would see 4,000 dealsa year.
I don't know what that averages out to.
But so I'm used to just hosting ten minutemeetings.
Like, I'll cap how many I'll do in a day.
Maybe it's like only four or ten minutemeetings, but that means I can do 20 of those
meetings every week.
Right?

(27:56):
That's 20 more people that I met for the firsttime.
And as an emerging manager that's doing early,early stage deals that we're doing, I'm
filtering more for human connection than I amfor business opportunity connection.
I need to like them first.
They need to like me.
And then it's worth having a secondconversation, whether or not it's a good
business to invest in.

(28:16):
Do they fill out any kind of filteringquestions at all?
Or do
you just kind of take the
Oh, some of them will find us on our websiteand just go straight to the form.
I generally Again, the recovering founder in mesays I don't want to waste time of a founder
more than I have to.
So I'd much rather have them talk to me for tenminutes.

(28:36):
They like me.
I like them.
I say, here's our website.
If you put your information here, it helps metrack who you are, what you do, and pass it
along to other people that might be interested.
Right?
Yeah.
But I don't wanna make them do that workbecause it is extra work.
Like, ten minute conversation with me versus anhour filling out a form.
I don't want them to fill out that form if I'mnot gonna reply back to them or if they're not

(28:57):
Right?
So everything I try to do and everything we tryto do with the fund is to optimize for their
time as well as ours.
You know, they're busy just like we are, so wewanna do what we can to make their process with
us easy because end of the day, whether Iinvest or not, I want them to feel good about
their interaction with us.
For their future investment, for their founderfriends that are gonna come.

(29:17):
And just in general, if we wanna put out thebest effort that makes them feel good about the
net outcome with us.
That's what people remember, right?
They remember how
you made them feel, It was a Maya Angelou,
Maya Angelou, yeah, just dropping dropping MayaAngelou quotes here in our in our talk here.
But yeah, I mean, I think, but I do feel thatthere's been times where like people have said

(29:39):
something and they've kind of just like reallyirked me and it like it was just kind of like,
damn, I can't believe this person did that orsaid that.
You know, that's kind
of like a memory policy.
Yeah, that's a memory you have like of thatperson, right?
It's it sucks, but like that's kinda just thatfeeling that you get.
And then you know, and then and then if you'remaking somebody feel good or somebody makes you
feel good, that's kind of that like memory thatyou remember.

(30:02):
And then what are you going to do?
You're to tell other people about that too,right?
So it's just kind of that.
Vibe.
I'll give a good example.
We do monthly updates for our LPs and potentialLPs, which I think every emerging manager
that's looking to raise a fund needs to starttoday or yesterday, which is, hey, I'm thinking
about doing this.
I'm not doing it yet, but eventually I will andlove to keep you in mind.

(30:23):
It's trust building, right?
It's adding incremental social equity withoutreally even having to grab a coffee with
somebody.
And they can be across the globe, right?
But the more they see that you can followthrough on what you're doing, the more likely
they are to invest in you.
And so in that monthly update, I see more oftenthan not, see deals that I can't do because
it's not a perfect vertical fit or they'reasking for too much money and we can't do it

(30:48):
because it's too far past our stage.
But I still say to them, hey.
Look.
I like what you're doing.
If I was a billionaire with infinite dollars,I'd write you a 100 k check right now, but I
don't.
So what I can do is I can put it in front ofour current LPs and our potential LPs.
So send me a summary.
And then I just have a old school Google Docthat I update with the address that I the date
that I added it in, it's just a running list.

(31:09):
You'll see every deal that I've seen that Iwon't touch because of whatever reason.
And then I'll just put what they're raising.
I think it's high potential and it's in thesector.
And then if you like it, I make a warm intro orhere's their contact info.
Right?
And so providing value, even if it's notnecessarily for someone that's on your cap
table, will eventually pay off for you.
Maybe not at a 100% conversion rate, but even10% conversion rate is pretty good if you talk

(31:34):
to a 100 people.
Right?
So the Google Doc, do you upload the deck aswell?
Or is it just like the website and the content?
I tell the founder, you send me what you feelcomfortable getting sent out to whoever and
wherever because I can't control it.
So a lot of times they'll send a link throughDocsent and then they can manage who's seeing
it and what's happening.
I basically say, don't share anything with methat you wouldn't want your worst enemy to see.

(31:59):
But otherwise, let me just put it out there foropportunities, right?
Serendipitous outcomes.
So right now, there's probably about 15 dealsin there over the last four weeks where I've
met founders where we don't have the capital todeploy or they're asking for too much from a
valuation perspective or whatever.
But founders are cool.
Technology is great.
Verticals are interesting.

(32:20):
So I'll put it in front of, you know, thepeople that are in our network that wanna see
it.
Some people charge for that kind of thing.
I'm just more like, this will all come back tome at some point in a good way.
I can just put it out there.
What advice do you have for us to be good?
Because you focus on pre seed, right?
So what advice would
you have pre seed?

(32:41):
Precede.
So seed for me, right?
I like to see some type of revenue unless it'slike a deep tech company, right?
Because I know deep tech valuations are highcapital intensive.
There is no revenue because you haven't builtit yet.
But with consumer attacker enterprise B2B, youknow, it's interesting to see some nominal

(33:01):
traction at the seed.
Haven't done too much pre seed, but how canyou?
How can we be good pre seed investors?
Because I know you've done that at scale in thepast and you've built a track record doing
that.
So how do we evaluate them?
Because there's no traction.
Mean, when you say like, obviously, there'sthat magical connection point with the founder

(33:23):
and your instincts knowing that, hey, thisperson is gonna go really far, right?
So you're investing in the human.
But what's the you've looked at so manycompanies, talked to so many founders.
What's the common thread that you're seeingwith these pre seed founders that are going to
be winners?
I would say, again, being mindful of afounder's time, I still want to have them

(33:44):
execute on something that they promised theywould deliver on.
So I say, What can you promise me that you'lldo in the next three weeks?
And then you'll circle back with an update.
You might not succeed, but at least you circleback with me.
Off chance that you do do exactly what you sayyou're going to do and it's phenomenal, great.
Or you get close or you learn from it, I wannasee progress.
I wanna see their ability to execute.

(34:05):
Doesn't mean they need to actually successfullyexecute, but I wanna see how they operate.
I will say one caveat, right?
And it's this.
Every time I've sacrificed my investment thesison a good or a really great opportunity or
market size, but made a sacrifice on thefounder's personality or skillset, I've always

(34:26):
regretted it.
I've never regretted going for a phenomenalfounder because the ideas at the stage that
we're investing, they might, the core spirit ofthe idea might stay, but the actual product
that they end up selling for millions orbillions of dollars is gonna change two or
three times.

(34:46):
But what doesn't change is the person.
And so I firmly believe that filtering criteriawise, become really good at reading people,
become really good at understanding who youwork well with and who you don't work well
with.
Because at the end of the day, when crap hitsthe fan, they're gonna come to you hopefully
for help.
And you're gonna hopefully help them becauseyou never wanna see them fail.

(35:08):
It's okay for them to stumble, but you wantthem to continue moving forward and building
and not lose hope.
So at these early stages, like you're parttherapist too.
You're part business coach.
You're all these things.
It's more nuanced.
It's less about like, here's a spreadsheet,here's all our pro formas, here's our P and L.
What does things say?
Well, there's a little bit more science thanart, but I think at this stage, find really,

(35:34):
really cool, untapped and then find really,really smart hustlers and builders and creative
thinkers.
Because the more untapped the industry, themore they can make a mistake and still survive,
right?
If it's super marginalized and min max, there'snot much room for error.
But if they're going after some crazy thingwhere it's like, oh, I realize that all these

(35:56):
laundromats have this inefficiency, no but oneelse is going after this space because
laundromats aren't sexy.
Well, they can make 15 mistakes and no one willknow that they made those mistakes.
Right?
And so I think that's a really good place to bebecause they have room to make mistakes and
still survive.
As opposed to like, if I was doing the nextrideshare scooter, I can't make mistakes, you

(36:18):
know?
Yeah.
Like that's one shot, right?
So yeah, that's kind of probably the bestadvice I have.
It's not really solid, like do one, two orthree, but I think the more you do it, the more
comfortable you get.
Yeah, no, that's good advice.
I've heard that advice in the past too, justkind of seeing if founders do what they say
they'll do.
I've heard to grab a drink with the founderbecause sometimes people open up a little more

(36:42):
sometimes than they should when they're whenthey're a little when they're buzzing a little
bit.
Like what else?
Like what are some other tells in terms ofcharacter?
Yeah, I think.
Yeah.
Oh, I was just gonna say like, why they startedit?
What's their passion about it?
I think far too often, I'm guilty of it too.

(37:03):
I jump straight to numbers sometimes in a callbecause that's where they take me first.
Then my brain, like, I get taken there.
I'm like, wait, before we do that, like, whydid you even start this?
Right?
Because I remember the darkest days of mystartup were when I thought we were going to
get sued or when I thought that we were patentinfringing or we thought this or that.
And those are dark, dark.
Your heart sinks to the other side of theworld.

(37:25):
And you need to have the passion and theoptimism and the grit to pull yourself out of
that and keep moving forward.
So if those founders are like, Oh, you know, Ijust thought it was a cool thing that someone
told me about once, so I built this thing.
Need a million dollars.
It's like, oh shoot, is this something you'regoing to lose sleep over at night?
Or are you just gonna be like, well, that wasfun for a second next, right?

(37:47):
And I've invested in founders like that becausethey were brilliantly gifted, but they weren't
brilliantly passionate about it either.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if you saw my longemail today to the group.
I did.
Was on
the road, I couldn't, I raced back here forthis.
Couldn't read it yet.
I saw the post.
Yeah, so, you know, for me, I'm reading them,listening to that book now, Pitch Anything, and

(38:09):
it's pretty interesting.
I'll just share with everybody too.
But a lot of, you know, from what I learned,it's like, you know, your neocortex is where
you come up with these like, delightful,exciting ideas.
But when I give it to you, Adam, like there's afilter, It's called the alligator brain where
you're like, okay, what is Joel trying to sellme this time?
Or, you know, I'm, you know, what do I need tobe afraid of?

(38:31):
You know, this person may be trying to sell mesomething or hey, what's the risk in listening
to this?
So everybody's got their guard up and then Ithink if you can find a way to intrigue them
somehow, That's important too.
A big lesson for me, while running this entireplatform, I went through the journey of Founder

(38:57):
University, which was a lot of fun and it ithelped me just kind of build some really cool
relationships with some other founders.
But towards the end of that, it pushed me tokind of launch SpinUp.
And a skill set that I've been learning is todeliver high value in your message in a micro

(39:17):
piece of content.
And we're seeing that with TikTok.
We're seeing that with my program, like doingthese two to three minute pitches.
I mean, YC, you have to do a one minute pitch.
So it's, you know, and what I'm learning too,and this is just a fundamental business lesson.
There's lower quality companies that are betterat marketing and they're winning.

(39:40):
And there's amazing companies that just don'tmarket that well and they're not really doing
that well.
And they add so much more value.
I think that's those are just kind of like twotakeaways like yeah, that tell you that, that
although your business is great, althoughyou're a great person, although you're a great
founder, if you can't really communicate thatwell, and like, let people know how great you

(40:05):
are, then you're not a great company.
So like one of my new quotes is like a greatproduct with bad, I think it was like bad
messaging or that doesn't communicate well,equates to a bad product, I guess.
Because by appearance, you are a bad product,right?
Because nobody knows about it.
Yeah.
I've heard a few analogies.
One being the workhorse is only as important asthe show horse.

(40:27):
Right?
There's one.
Another one is I'll take a a c level idea witha a level team over the inverse.
Right?
That's another one.
And so, I agree, you know, product is onething, but execution and messaging are so
important, right?
The hard part about it is when you're an earlystage company, it's the internal struggle of,

(40:51):
do I spend this money on product development,which is necessary for the product to be good?
Or do I spend it in some things that are lessdirectly, easily equatable to progress, right?
Maybe you should spend it on branding andmarketing and content, but it's also not going
to improve your product.
So if it breaks, you're going be terrified,right?

(41:13):
So I couldn't agree with you more.
It's like sometimes, because the human brain,like you said, it's about tricking it in a way
to believe this is safe, this is high quality,this is better than other things.
And sometimes those things aren't actuallytrue.
So I I couldn't agree with you more.
And I think for emerging fund managers, youryour hope is to go fast, but it might be better

(41:35):
to go a little bit slower in the beginning toto to go fast when it really matters.
So if you wanna raise money for a fund, maybespend some time now just asking for advice for
people that you wanna get money from three orsix months from now.
You know, think of it this way, right?
We're almost into July.
Here stateside, I always like to say, if youhaven't closed a deal by Thanksgiving, you're

(41:57):
not closing until after the new year.
So spend this time now building relationshipsfor January 1 to start over and say, hey, I'm
ready.
I'm I'm I'm raising a fund.
I spent this time building a network, learning,getting smart.
Here's my thesis and hit the ground running inJanuary.
People have fresh budgets internally in theirhead and all that kind of stuff.
Right?
And so we set the stage for success.

(42:18):
Don't just jump on stage right away.
Yeah, I'd love to talk about a few storiesaround growth.
So do you have any examples of founders andmaybe unique process of how they got revenue
and sales?
Yeah,
could be a consumer company could be B2B SaaScompany, but something I'm passionate about
too, because

(42:39):
Yep, yep.
Yeah.
I've got one from the same founder, differentcompanies.
And you should, if you do, if you have theseinterviews with founders, he'd be a great,
great get.
Love it.
Thanks to Eric Martell.
He started a company called EatStreet, which isthe competitor of Grubhub and DoorDash.
He started it in 2009 out of his dorm at UWMadison.

(42:59):
And the reason why he did it was because theprice on the website wasn't the price he was
charged when he bought the sub that he bought.
So like, this is stupid.
Like, we have internet now.
We should be able to have real time pricing inreal time checkout.
So he started that company with the intent ofjust solving a problem for him and his campus.
And then obviously, you know, the businessmodel of that industry, it's very, very lean.

(43:24):
It's a radius You to the make pennies on everytransaction, but it's a volume play.
He did that.
They raised about $40,000,000 then he steppeddown.
And he said, Whatever startup I do next, I'mgoing the complete opposite end of the
spectrum.
Because he learned about how hard it is.
Like, you could wipe out a 100 worth of profitwith one bad customer experience in the food

(43:46):
delivery space.
Right?
Like, oh, my food was cold and wrong.
Give me my money back.
Okay.
Well, that just wiped out 200 transactionsworth of profit.
Right?
But you have to do it because you gotta make itright.
Yeah.
Tell them stuff like, I am not doing thatagain.
And so I know Seamless.
Seamless will screw our order up.
And and they'll just be like, look, cool, we'llgive you your money back.

(44:08):
Uber is like, so what?
Yeah, you're like, okay, well, too bad, youknow, so I mean, they I guess Uber is just a
savage, they don't care.
But, but that's why we use seamless, you know,we're not using Uber Eats, you know, because we
got pissed off a few times, like they gave usmelted ice cream.
And I was like, this is and they wouldn't andthey wanted us to like show a photo of it.

(44:29):
And we did and for some I don't remember whatit was.
But again, I, you know, we're talking about howyou feel, right?
And I just kind of didn't get a good customerexperience.
So we don't use Uber Eats anymore.
And that's what you said.
Think about how much money we probably spend.
I mean, it's expensive, man.
We've got like we're in New York.
So buying like Indian food, like I'm Indian,right?

(44:49):
And Indian food is probably $90 or somethinglike that if you get it.
Because one chicken tikka masala is like $20.
Everything's outrageous.
Everything's $20.
So, you're spending in flash.
But so his growth story there was we need tojust raise copious amounts of money to scale

(45:11):
because every penny counts, literally everypenny counts, and we've got all these
competitors in our space.
And so his first lesson was, that's just notthe life that I wanna live for my startup.
So his second startup said, I'm going for blueskies.
Obviously, everyone's going for blue skies.
Right?
But also is, I'm willing to chase much largercontracts that take longer because when I get

(45:35):
them, we're set.
And so the second company is called PairCommerce.
They kind of sit in the middle between CPGbrands, brick and mortar stores that sell those
brands, and then the marketing agencies thatkind of run the marketing.
They sit in the middle as a pickaxe and shoveloperation where they track all the analytics.
They take all the bids in for different groups.

(45:56):
But what equates to is huge contracts.
It takes many, many months to lock them in, butwhen he locks them in, they're enough to spike
up growth very quickly in a significant way tomake his story for the next fundraising round a
lot more compelling.
And so I think understanding what businessmodel those founders are going for and

(46:17):
understanding the heartaches that come with it.
A pair commerce that he's doing right now,there might be three or six months where
there's no progress, Right?
And you're like doom and gloom.
And then in the twenty third hour, they allcome through and all of a sudden they got 400%
growth year over year.
Right?
As opposed to an EatStreet or a Grubhub wheregrowth is steady, growth is good, but growth is

(46:39):
also not for a lot of margin and not a lot ofprofitability potential.
And so understanding that I think is importantfrom a business model perspective.
But he, I would say arguably, succeeded in bothmodels.
But one to me is a lot more of a faster exitpotential, which is the higher risk, but higher

(47:01):
reward opportunity.
That's what venture is, right?
We're all trying to swing for the homerunswing.
The one caveat being if they are gonna go forthat more smaller transaction stuff, really
ensure that it's a blue sky opportunity thatthey're going after.
The laundromats.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, another thing that was pretty eyeopening.

(47:22):
I don't know if you ever watched my firstmillion, but here's the episode here with Neil
Patel.
So Neil Patel is one of the most brilliantmarketers and he when he launches these
businesses, which I think is obviouslycontrarian to the venture model, right?
He'll just launch a business.
He won't raise money, but he is an SEO expert.

(47:45):
So what he'll do is he'll build a copycat tolike a Canva and make it completely free.
So everyone uses it and then he'll add thesetiny little small fees for like an upgrade to
like a really high value feature.
And he's happy if he, you know, is able to justconvert a small percentage of them because that

(48:06):
small percentage is like 30,000,000 a month.
Yeah.
So I think that's an interesting model.
With this time now, if you're not capitalefficient or you're not a founder that can kind
of really truly build a real business withouthaving to raise tons and tons of money and hope
that you're going to get an exit or get boughtout, think you're really going to have to think

(48:28):
about how do you get to revenue today?
How do you sell something and get that valuefrom the customer and get some type of
recurring metrics?
Because I feel like some of the VCs are goingto be looking for that.
I'm assuming you're not too worried about thatin the pre seed, but in the seed.

(48:49):
Yeah.
What are you looking for in seed?
You're looking for how much revenue monthly?
You know, for us at a seed round, we're moreconcerned about what their valuation is than
their revenue because I think if theirvaluation makes sense for where their revenue
is at, we're less concerned about it.
If they're doing phenomenally, obviously it's alot easier.

(49:10):
But if they're even in the 1,000 to $9,000revenue range, It's more about level setting
expectations about how much they think theircompany's worth, right?
And so each company is different.
To your point, we're in a unique spot.
We do CPG, tech, and healthcare.
So my healthcare companies, I don't reallyexpect them to have revenue for a long time,

(49:31):
right?
Or at least not meaningful revenue for a while.
CPG companies, I'm way more in tune to like,okay, how much have they grown month over
month?
And so we're in a unique spot where we look atdifferent deals from different sectors that can
have different key KPIs.
So it's it's it's And not an exact science.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When you say tech, are you saying justsoftware?

(49:52):
So like b to b SaaS or are you looking at deeptech?
Probably not deep tech because I'm not smartenough to do deep tech due diligence.
So if I had really good advisors, maybe we wewould do something there.
Yeah.
But more so like b to b SaaS, web three, thingsthat are customer focused tech, you know,
things that we think there's lot of goodalignment.
Like, when we look at tech, CPG, and healthcare separately, they seem very far afield from

(50:16):
each other.
But we also see a world in the next five to tenyears where a customer wants to know what
they're eating, track it on an app, but alsowant to know what the long term health effects
are for that, right?
Or same for like tech company that wants toalso offer a health feature.
Maybe they want to go into health more, right?
Look at Apple, what they're trying to do.
And so in the future, I think customers aregoing to demand more from their products that

(50:41):
they spend a dollar on because the cost of adollar is a lot more expensive.
You want your dollars to go further.
And so like one trick ponies, I think, are alittle bit, not a way of the past because
there's something to be said about simplicity.
But I think we go more simple in food, I thinkis where we go.
But I think in terms of tech, we want morefeatures, more synchronous outcomes, but in a

(51:03):
minimalistic form factor, which is like theholy grail of like really, really good tech,
but easy to use.
And, you know, I think I think that's probablyApple's model internally or externally.
It's like, how do we make the best featuresthat easy to use and intuitive?
Yeah, mean, if you think about the first iPod,like you could, you know, there's no
instruction manual, it's a circle.

(51:24):
And I feel most people knew how to use it.
And you know, lot of apps and platforms whenyou when you build it for the first time,
people the navigation is confusing.
So I think to your point, right, if you caneasily just scroll up and that's all you have
to do in the app or tap it, know, then it'ssuper easy.
And then, you know, going back to growth, I'vebeen talking to a lot of CPG companies that

(51:50):
have really been adding TikTok into theirchannel approach.
There's one and, you know, I think you can getI think Facebook is still the cheapest, but
TikTok there's opportunities to leverage theinfluencers that are on TikTok that I think
there's a lot of influencers that actuallydon't know they're an influencer.

(52:11):
They don't know that they could get paid tojust post something.
They have a huge following because they likeit.
But you could actually have somebody discoverthemselves as an influencer for a pretty
reasonable price.
But I don't know what your thoughts are, youknow, with CPG, I guess.
Are the trends that you're seeing as far asjust growth strategies?
Yeah.
What's been working?

(52:32):
What hasn't been?
So when we look at just the population of TheUS alone, I think in the next five years it's
gonna, I can't remember the stat, but 44% ofThe US population are not white, right?
Grows And continuously.
But if you look at a grocery store,predominantly the foods that you see in those
aisles are 90%, you know, American foods,right?

(52:56):
And so to me, it just seems like such a nobrainer that over time, grocery stores are
going to normalize more towards the ratios ofwhat you see walking around in The US.
And so we're looking for companies that aredoing things that are more, I guess, quote
unquote, like out there from a traditionalpalate of a US household as ways to become

(53:16):
what's going to be the next Heinz ketchup ofThe US, right?
The staple condiment that isn't ketchup, right?
Is it sriracha?
Is it something else?
Is it a chutney?
What is it going to be?
And we wanna be one of those people.
Is it a chili oil?
What's gonna be the thing that takes over andbecomes the number one staple?
And all of a sudden overnight becomes like thishuge brand that's not very sexy, but it's just

(53:39):
like in every refrigerator.
Or from the product side, yeah, what's, I don'tknow what the next technological revolution is
that everyone needs in their home, like themicrowave, but it's out there somewhere, right?
What is it?
I'm not sure.
Is it the air fryer?
Like, you know, everyone's got one now.
What's next, right?
And so trying to understand what those thingsare.
But from the perspective of 40% of thepopulation are people of color now and what do

(54:04):
they want?
What do they Rice cookers, right?
Does everyone want a rice cooker now?
Know what is it?
Yeah that's kind of where we
see.
Mean what do you think it is?
I mean I you know it's crazy because like myfather-in-law is cutting carbs now you know and
traditionally in India like you know, if you goback, go back there, and it's probably similar

(54:25):
in the Asian countries, you see a massivemountain of rice, and then there's like a few
theories.
Yeah, like, you know, people are more mindfulof, you know, diabetes and their insulin, your
sugar levels going high.
Rice is going away.
So what are the condiments?
I don't know.
Like what do you think it is?
I mean, I I've been sprinkling this newJamaican hot sauce on everything.

(54:50):
But is it what is it?
Is it like a chili oil?
When you say American, American is Chinese,Mexican, Indian.
Exactly.
But when down the you grocery store aisle, it'sone.
Well, you feel that ketchup is bland now forall of America and it needs to be kind of a
little bit of like a hot sauce or like a TacoBell seasoning or something.

(55:11):
I like to say like to say I'm still in touchbecause I'm a millennial.
I'm 35.
But I also understand that, like, my purchasingpower days are finite.
Right?
I'm the key demographic for the next ten tofifteen years from the perspective of what's
trendy and hip and whatnot.
And then all of a sudden, I'm the person thatdoesn't know how to use the next VR headset.

(55:34):
Right?
How do I turn this thing on?
And so as a result of that, I'm trying to thinklike, what does Gen Z and Gen Alpha want?
What are they going to When they haveexpendable income, where are they going to
spend it?
And so just spent a lot of time on socialmedia, seeing what they're doing, what they're
saying, and then obviously trying to figure outwhat they're saying because they have a whole
lot of the language basically.

(55:55):
But they're the ones that are going to definewhat the staple products are going to be
fifteen years from now.
Now, is that looking too far ahead?
Probably a little bit.
But I also think I'd be doing a disservice if Iwasn't looking there and trying to find a
middle ground in between.
So I think understanding what they like is agood way to know where the trends are going.

(56:16):
And I think a lot of those people in thosedemographics are very product conscious.
They want to know who's building it, whythey're building it, what they're doing to give
back.
And so like the social side of it is just asimportant now because they've kind of seen what
the Fortune 500s of yesteryear have done to theworld.
They don't want to support those types ofbrands anymore.
Yeah, yeah.
And I mean, there's a whole plant basedmovement.

(56:39):
Plant based doesn't necessarily always meanmore healthy as well, because there could be
some processed elements to it.
A lot of it is pea protein.
But that is a trend that I'm seeing and I'm aninvestor in plant based companies as well.
So I think there's definitely a huge movement.
It's aligned with climate change as well.

(57:01):
So climate change definitely is on trend.
Food tech and the future of the carbonfootprint of how we consume food and and create
food is a thing.
I just my I just feel right now just the thefood and I know we're out of time, but I just
feel that the way that we even get food like wego to Chipotle.

(57:24):
The assembly line is so inefficient likehumans.
I feel like the entire Chipotle process shouldjust be robotic and there should be a human
kind of greeting you and again making you feelwell and like maybe just having some type of
that's what humans are here for right they'rehere to give you kind of an experience and feel
that interaction with people and robots couldprobably do that in the future as companions

(57:45):
but I feel like that assembly line work I wentto.
Like I said, I went to a Chipotle like maybemonths ago and they screwed up my order and
then I was trying to get a hold of them, butthey were so busy trying to fulfill all the
Uber Eats orders.
So I feel like if there's some type ofopportunity to, like, automate all that with

(58:06):
with a robot, I feel like that would be arevolution.
I agree.
I think what humans are great about isinnovation, but we also like to go to extremes.
Then when you go to extreme, you break it.
So like, I think you're right.
It's it's the human greets you, human takesyour money, human hands you food, but food is
made by robot.
That's probably the perfect symphony.
And you kind of see that in

(58:26):
And there was live music.
So I thought about this.
I was like Chipotle would be really cool iflike the food was made and you can watch the
robots because you watch these humans likepouring like chopped chicken into your salad,
right?
But I think it'd be cool to watch a bunch ofcyborgs like thank you Chipotle.
And then there's a human that greets you makesyou feel good or ask you or has conversation

(58:49):
with you.
But then there's maybe like entertainmentthat's like
a human being, right?
I feel like that would be attractive as well.
Lot of people when they see live music, that'sa huge perk, right?
When you go to a bar or like when you grabfood, at least for me, right?
And I'm not like the population of users thatyou're sampling or surveying.
So maybe I'm an anomaly that appreciates that,right?

(59:11):
I mean, but I think there's, there's just, Ithink there's something that's there.
I've shared this, I think with some of you guysin the past tee pain, the rapper, he has like
an innovation show, on Amazon.
I forgot what's called the school of business.
And one of the there is a burger shop on theWest Coast.
I think it's called Creator Burger and that'scompletely robotic.

(59:34):
And because they're robotic, they're able tosave some of the cost on personnel and they're
using some of that additional expense, revenueor resources to be able to invest in higher
quality ingredients.
Like when you chop the lettuce is actually awhole head of lettuce, but then when you get a

(59:55):
burger, they actually chop the lettuce as afresh chop.
So it's like a different level, right?
Like versus kind of like the bagged lettucethat you get from like Subway or something like
that, right?
So they actually have like much more fresheringredients.
Think even the cheese is like manual, you know,like less packaging as well.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(01:00:15):
So there's something there.
It just someone hasn't, they haven't completelyfigured it out yet.
But I think that provide some more free cashflow.
Think if you if you build the businesseffectively.
Yeah.
Mean, automation is coming.
It's really a matter of how do we as a societyembrace it and adopt it and evolve from it
because it's gonna take some jobs or it's alsogonna open up some jobs too.

(01:00:38):
Right?
Yeah.
Think of a world where everything's robotic.
Think of the need for mechanics.
Right?
Everything is gonna need a mechanic at somepoint now.
Yeah.
Like, every McDonald's is gonna need a a fleetof mechanics to fix broken down machines.
Not, you know, it's
all mechanics are going to be more expensivetoo.
People, this is the thing, like people don'twant to do that mechanic work, like people that

(01:00:58):
were Yeah.
Yeah.
Like I feel like they don't like that's thething.
Even if you want to get your, if you look inthe last six to seven months right like if you
want to fix a cabinet or if you want to justclean your house, it's not the same prices that
it used to be so labor.
People just don't want to do that anymore.
People want to hang out at home and watch TV.

(01:01:21):
They don't want to go out and go to differenthouses and do that work.
There's a price point for that.
So I feel like human labor, those expenses aregoing up too.
Yeah, absolutely.
I know we're out of time.
So hopefully this was entertaining for folksand informational.
I think the last thing I'll say for anyemerging managers that are thinking about it,

(01:01:45):
don't rush it.
There's always time to raise money even in arecession.
Arguably, if you look at the data from 2008 to2012, that was some of the best time to be an
early stage investor and some of the biggestoutcomes.
So it's a great time to start a fund and don'tfeel like you're not going to be able to raise
it if you wait too long.
Think you actually hurt yourself more by goingtoo quick and not knowing what you want to do,

(01:02:09):
how you want to do it, what your branding andmessaging is, kind of what we talked about.
And just know that I think this is a great timeto be upstream, cutting checks to builders,
because if you're at the stage of growth, it'skind of terrifying to be kind of just raised
$30.40, 50,000,000 with the market the way itis, and you have to try to like hire 100 people

(01:02:30):
on staff.
That's tough spot to be as a venture as well asa startup.
Yeah, absolutely.
We appreciate all the advice.
Thanks for sticking over a few minutes overtimeand it's great getting to know you man.
Really appreciate all the stories and all thehelpful nuggets.
Yeah.
Well, appreciate being able to come on.
And, if anyone needs to reach out to me, free.

(01:02:51):
I'm on open inbox.
Great.
Thanks so much, man.
Take care.
Take care.