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August 28, 2025 • 88 mins
In this episode, Alison DeNardo shares her venture capital journey, highlighting confidence in deal-making and diverse work experiences. She discusses her early life, education, and parental guidance in shaping her career. Alison talks about her time at Atrium, forming Mac Venture Capital, their portfolio, and launching Alden. The conversation covers innovative job application methods, Mac Venture Capital's focus, and Charles King's role in celebrity investments. Alison provides strategies for entering hot deals, building founder relationships, overcoming gender bias, and offers insights on successful founders, networking in VC, and mindfulness.
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(00:00):
Sure.

(00:02):
I'm gonna say this out loud, and some peoplemight think that I'm the worst, but I
genuinely, this is how I feel.
I've never been worried about not getting intoa deal.
Like That's great.
I've I've never had that concern, and I cantell you why.
So
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palofinkle, your host, dives deep into the

(00:26):
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
have a new BFF.
Her name is Alison DeNardo.

(00:48):
Her and I participated.
I even know how much I can talk about this.
I didn't sign an NDA or anything, but you and Iparticipated in a pretty fun hackathon.
There was a couple celebrities and, you know,athletes involved and, you know, the result was
taking a problem and building a business and,you know, behind the scenes, a lot of memes and

(01:13):
aggressive text messages were involved.
So those are some things that you and I sharedtogether.
But one thing that I really want to talk aboutis your journey into venture capital.
You know, a lot of people are really trying tobreak into venture capital that have not.
And people like you and myself and many of ourfriends have had their own quirky journeys.

(01:33):
And getting to know you just like me, you'vepivoted in your career.
So welcome to the show, Alison DeNardo.
It's just been really exciting to build thisfriendship with you and I wanna just introduce
you.
You're the partner at Mac Venture Capital,based primarily on the West Coast.

(01:55):
And then you've, you know, you've also cofounded Alden, which is a change management
platform for startups.
And then I think you've also been at Justin TVwhen they were on the ground, right?
I can kind of take you through that wholejourney.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Well, hope I didn't completely bash your bio.
Almost there.

(02:15):
It's okay.
Well, I'll let you fill in the blanks.
Welcome to the show and excited to maybe we canstart with just your journey, where you grew up
and how you navigated to MacVenture.
Let's take that journey and then I'll guide therest of the session with some questions.
Yeah, that sounds great.
Well, first of all, I'm glad that you considerme your new BFF because I was gonna be the one

(02:36):
to say that, so we're on the same page there.
Yeah.
So I can just start high level.
I grew up in a tiny town in Central New York,literally one square mile, two stoplights.
They just got a Dunkin' Donuts, which was areally big deal.
That's progress.
Just to yeah.
Exactly.
Just to give you a little bit of context on thefootloose level town that we're dealing with.

(02:56):
So I grew up my parents were the only parentsout of my grade that were educated, which
pretty is crazy.
And I decided very early on that I was going tograduate early from high school.
And no one ever had done that in my tinyschool.
I had to protest the school board to be able todo so.
There were maybe some pitchforks involved,people trying to stop me, it was kind of a

(03:19):
whole thing.
But eventually was able to do it, graduatedearly, did a year at a state school, in New
York, SUNY Albany, and did not like it.
Just absolutely the college like typicalcollege experience wasn't for me as far as
sitting in the lecture hall for three hours wassomething I could learn in fifteen minutes.
I just thought that was like really stupid,honestly, and a waste of my time because I

(03:40):
could learn differently.
And so I transferred to a program, an onlineprogram through Columbia, moved to Ithaca, New
York.
Was working four or five jobs from hotels,restaurants, bars, etcetera while I was doing
my school.
So making some money while I was doing myschooling was really great and getting all
sorts of experience.
And then I got an internship at a companycalled CenturyLink, if you're familiar with the

(04:03):
Seattle Seahawks, CenturyLink Stadium inSeattle.
Their traditional telecom, I was hired as anintern, which turned into me being the chief of
staff for the SVP of product when I was 19 at aFortune 500 company, which was like total plot
twist.
And that just happened because I raised my handat a meeting and he was there and he needed

(04:25):
someone to work on a project.
And basically my job was to be his residentmillennial.
And so any project that they were thinkingabout rolling out or testing or whatever, he
would have me test it first.
And I basically tell him what ideas were superor not, which was really fun.
Mhmm.
And I was the one of two women in the top 100people at a Fortune five hundred when I was 19,

(04:46):
which was absolutely insane.
Based in Monroe, Louisiana, just to throw thaton top of there too.
Very traditional southern environment.
Southern I was there for about a year kind offor obvious reasons, Louisiana was not for me.
And I don't know if I told you this story aboutJustin and Snapchat, right?
I don't know if
I did.
I don't think you did.
No.
So let's kick that off.

(05:08):
Sure.
So post CenturyLink, or while I was still atCenturyLink, it was right when Snapchat stories
came out.
Yeah.
And the explore feature was not very good.
So I was looking at all these lists of peopleto follow on Snapchat and just ended up that
Justin Kahn was one of them.
So the you mentioned Justin TV.
The Justin of Justin TV turned into Twitch,sold to Amazon for a billion dollars casually a

(05:29):
few years ago.
Right?
He had just sold Twitch to Amazon and wasrunning around San Francisco and was looking to
hire a chief of staff and he posted it onSnapchat.
And I had called him for a while, he postedstuff about entrepreneurship, starting
companies, etcetera, I thought it wasinteresting.
Then when he posted about this job, was like,oh, I can do that.
Like, I've never been in San Francisco.

(05:50):
I don't really know who this guy is, but like,he seems like fun and I could maybe do that.
So I don't remember applying to this day, Iguess that I did and FaceTimed with him twice
for ten minutes and he said, I want you to workfor me, you move to California next week?
Had never met him in person, had never been toSan Francisco and didn't know anybody, I'm
like, sure.
So that's how I became Justin's student ofstaff.

(06:14):
Did everything from buying art to doing hisbook deal to helping manage his angel
portfolio, who's also a YC partner at the time.
So that's how I really just went for it in theVC and startup space and this was 2016.
And then in 2017, he was thinking about Atrium,which was his most recent company, which was

(06:34):
basically half law firm, half tech company.
I came on as the first employee of Atrium,built out internal operations, hired literally
100 people in the first year, which wasabsolutely insane, and then fell into the
venture world kind of accidentally with MVentures, which was one of our previous funds.
Basically how that happened was Adrian andMike.

(06:57):
Adrian Pente used to be the mayor of DC duringthe first Obama term, and Mike Palinck, was in
the talent in talent world in LA, worked atWME, kinda knows everything about everything.
They had come to the Atrium office to meet withJustin.
They were doing diligence, done some deal,Justin was like, oh, you should talk to Ally.
She has tested this product.
She knows the founder.
She can tell you more about it than I can.
And just to set the scene for you, like, mayorof DC, six foot something.

(07:21):
I've never seen him not in a suit.
Mike from LA, very LA, also kind of a tallertaller guy and I'm five foot nothing in a
startup office wearing sneakers and jeans.
So there's like, just to set the scene.
So they're like, quick, your Uber's outside,tell us about this thing.
I'm like, okay, it's really stupid, it's nevergonna be a business, you're gonna set your

(07:43):
money on fire.
And they stared at me for about thirty seconds,they're like who is this person and like why is
she saying this?
And it ended up that I was right and theyoffered me a job just about the same day.
So I started working for m Ventures in the 2018while I was still at Atrium part time, bringing

(08:04):
in deals, working on deals, kind of the wholething, and then came on full time as a partner
September 2018 with the close of our secondfund.
And mVentures focused, early stage pre seedseed, average check was anywhere from 50 to
about 400 or so.
And we have about 90 companies under those twoumbrellas ranging from wine in a can to AI for

(08:26):
interactive media.
Quite some range.
And then in 2019, we were thinking about ournext fund and Marley Nichols and Troy Carter
out of LA and Cross Culture Ventures were doingthe same thing.
So that's what Mac Venture Capital is now, isthe convergence of those two teams.
We have five full time people split between,split hypothetically between LA and San

(08:47):
Francisco with a thesis of cultural change,social change, moving the world forward,
behavior change, etcetera.
And our check size ranges anywhere from 500 and2,000,000 and a half.
So leading those early stage rounds, and wehave 25 companies in our portfolio so far,
which is great.
And then, yeah, as you mentioned on the side, Irun a company called Alden, which is my

(09:10):
namesake.
Basically, if you've ever seen the Zohoscandal, Olivia Pope for startups, corporate
fixing, basically really painful things thatmost people don't know how to deal with.
And basically I learned how to do that fromAtrium, a massive scale, you learn how to
problem solve very quickly in PatternSpot.
And then I started a company recently as wellcalled Two Pink Suits, is, I have one pink

(09:33):
suit, have another pink suit.
Her name is Heather, she's actually one of ourportfolio founders.
And that is an advisory firm for women ledcompanies in AI climate and operations heavy
businesses.
So pushing the world forward for women in thosespaces.
Now I'm out of breath but hopefully that allmakes sense.
No, that all makes sense.
I took a couple of notes.

(09:54):
I've been doing this new thing where I'm tryingto structure these calls a little better.
So there's a couple of things that we canunpack just starting A
A lot going on.
Yeah, we can start wherever.
Look, I am probably the same or worse.
Have a lot going on and it'd probably be goodif both of us cloned ourselves to maybe help
with the workload.
But I want to go back to your parents, right?

(10:16):
So, you grew up in this smaller town.
I have a similar background.
My parents did not do their master's or getreally huge advanced degrees.
They wanted me to just kind of get some type ofjob and really do the same thing that my uncle
did.
My uncle was an engineer and got his master's Ithought that was my path as well.
So, what was their take on education?

(10:39):
Did they give you a lot of pressure to go getan advanced degree?
Or did they really just let you just followwhatever you thought was good for you?
Because my parents, I come from an ethnicbackground.
So my parents are all about education.
But once I got my bachelor's, they're like,hey, just go settle down.
They didn't really care too much about me goinggetting a master's or an advanced degree or

(11:02):
even moving to New York.
They didn't really care about that that much.
But I was just curious like how your family waslike with education or just kind of being a VC
and doing all these other cool things thatyou're doing?
That's a great question.
I think you can learn a lot about people fromthat question.
For me, so my parents, my mom always worked andmy dad stayed home with us he always, he has

(11:24):
patents under his name, he has multiplecompanies and he just, he remote worked before
it was cool.
He can
And be there for my mom started her, she's apharmacist, she started her own pharmacy when
she was 24.
And at that time you couldn't buy a house as awoman without your father co signing it.
Just like starting a business as a woman atthat time was really challenging, but it was

(11:47):
just her and she did it and she was massivelysuccessful and sold her pharmacy when she, I
think she was 30 to what is now rated.
And it was just her and then eventually it wasmy dad.
So they were entrepreneurs from
Sure.
The time that they were out of college whichwas amazing.
So I grew up in this environment where that wasencouraged.

(12:11):
Like I remember getting in trouble at schoolbecause I was trying to sell like bracelets and
really weren't supposed to sell things atschool.
Like I always kind of had that mentality and itwas encouraged from my parents.
I remember my dad like helping me with my pricesheet and like all of that, which was really
awesome.
On the education standpoint, I think I wasalways encouraged to do big things.

(12:36):
Remember, and think both my parents were partof that, but I remember my dad handing me Life
or whatever Time magazine with Marissa Mayer onthe front of it when I was young.
So like that was always setting that example tobe able to want that and to like push myself to
do more and like basically get out of theshitty town that I was in.

(12:59):
Yeah.
And that was amazing.
And so they definitely encouraged me tograduate early and to do programs and do
internships as soon as I could, just to figureout what was right for me.
And then when I switched to my online program,they honestly supported that because and I

(13:20):
don't know if a lot of people believe me, but Ithink that if you had this experience, would.
I learned more about people and I'm better atmy job because I was a bartender and because I
worked at a hotel because you learn how to readpeople, learn how to know what people want, you
learn how to like manipulate situations in likea positive way.
And I loved that.

(13:42):
Mhmm.
And so having a lot of money and making thatmoney while I was doing my schooling rather
than taking, not being, not having studentloans because I could pay it off with all my
jobs, so that was amazing.
And then when I moved to Louisiana, they weresuper supportive of that.
And when I moved to San Francisco to work forJustin, I was in my what it would have been,
like, my junior year of college, and I chosenot to finish it because I'm like, I work for

(14:08):
Justin.
I work in San Francisco.
This is stupid.
I don't need to pay thousands of dollars to,like, have this degree that's totally
irrelevant.
So I actually never finished my school and I'mnot mad about it.
Yeah.
Look.
I mean, there's a couple points to extract fromthat.
So number one, it's really great that yourparents were the inspiration.

(14:28):
I mean, it's just awesome that your mom was apharmacist and then on top of that, she started
a business.
So, my brother is a pharmacist.
He works at a big hospital.
Oh, nice.
But my parents were very fearful ofentrepreneurship.
They're like, hey, that's the unstable way.
Would hear stories about people startingbusinesses and failing and all that.

(14:49):
So I didn't get it from my parents, but I thinkI got the inspiration just through a community
and friends.
And if you don't have that support system withyour parents or your family, your immediate
family, I think you can build that same type ofsupport from just the communities and go into
like minded events.
So I got that and then just reading books, someof the people that I would read about or just

(15:10):
read from, it's almost like you build arelationship with the author, right?
Because a lot of them talk about their journey.
So I really, really love that.
And I think a main point that you're hittingon, which is important to think about is the
future of education, you know, so, you know,I'm building a platform for venture and private
equity.
And yeah,

(15:30):
I believe what I'm doing is helping you justskip half of those steps and skip half of the
money that it costs to achieve the same goal.
I'm thinking, what was going on in your mind?
You're like, I'm already working at a prettyawesome company.
And there's people that are paying for collegeto hopefully get here.
You already skipped like three of those stepsand kept all that money in your pocket.

(15:51):
And you know, it's funny when you mentioned theword chief of staff, I was checking out OnDeck
and they chief have of staff fellowship.
So I thought that was just really interesting.
So right now there's the unbundling and thenthere's bundling, which innovates on
technology.
So I think you can do both and find innovationeither way if you're doing either.

(16:15):
But that in mind, with both of us being peoplethat have been able to find ways to skip steps
in the long and expensive process, Where do youthink education is heading and what are you
excited about to help people just achieve theirgoals and find the career that they want?
Yeah, I think that's great.
And I actually didn't know about the ONDECChief of Staff Program, that's hilarious.

(16:39):
I think I mean, I'm of the same brain that youare of I think the days of or the, like, the
traditional in venture specifically, and then Ican go more broad if that makes sense.
I think the days of MBAs going into venture andprobably white dudes named Brad and Chad are
over.
Like, I think that's totally irrelevant.

(17:00):
I think this is the or like the generation ofwhat it is I would call like v three of venture
Mhmm.
Which it would be us, are more operator PCs.
People that have started companies, people thathave a ground to stand on and can actually like
help their portfolio founders rather than, oh,here's money, go make this more money and like,
I don't know how to help you build a saleschannel.

(17:21):
I think it's totally irrelevant.
And so either operator VCs or people comingthrough your program with different
backgrounds, that's like so high level betteror so much more high level just as far as
enriching the experience both for yourself andfor your founders, I think that's amazing.
And if I was to hire like, I mean, we've hiredpeople for the fund before.

(17:45):
I would not hire, I mean, that I wouldn't hirean MBA, I would rather have someone who had
worked at a company, knows how to work reallyhard, or someone, my favorite people to hire in
general are ex Deloitte consultants or exMcKinsey consultants because they know how to
work harder than anyone else and they loveworking really hard and they love learning

(18:08):
things.
And you could put anything in front of them andthey'll figure it out.
Yeah.
And it's amazing.
If I was to hire somebody tomorrow, that'sprobably what would I I would look for as far
as like an analyst or associate.
What's like the best package that you'vereceived from an applicant?
Like, did somebody give you like a prototype orsomething that was just out of left field?

(18:29):
I mean, the craziest I've gotten and it kind ofmade me laugh a little bit, but I didn't move
forward.
They built like this comic strip.
It was like an animated comic strip of thestory.
And I thought it was really creative, but Ijust thought, man, this person probably is just
not probably just too quirky for for thecompany.
This is like an AI company.
So, this is like a product manager.

(18:50):
So, I was like, wow, you know, this I justthought it was really interesting the way that
this person crafted the comic strip butrecently, I've been impressed with people
building instead of like a deck actually givingme like a notion page that has like air table
widgets in it.
That's the most I've seen from like from like aGen Z VC.

(19:11):
Yeah, I think I mean, this is all it's allabout making yourself out.
Right?
Yeah.
So I can when I applied to work for Justin, Ihad I can find it and send it to you.
It's probably hilarious now.
I had this, like, one sheeter with just a stickI had a bunch of big product when I was at

(19:31):
CenturyLink and we had, like, a not a demo day,but, like, a launch day.
And so there's a picture of me with, like, atrophy holding it up, and then so I had that in
the middle and then built out other true likefake trophies around me with different things
that I've done or different places that I work.
So it was a visual representation of all thethings that I've done.
So was it like photoshopped or was it likeanimated?

(19:51):
Was photoshopped.
That's cool.
Yeah.
It's super cool.
And I actually that was a prompt that Zapposdoes.
And I was like, oh, Zappos does this.
They're one of the best hiring companies ever.
Like, I could do this and send it to people andI'll stick out.
So that's what Zappos is looking for whenthey're trying to hire people.
They want people to put together some type ofvisual visual I

(20:13):
don't know if they still do that, but I wasjust doing research at the time of, like, what
are the best companies doing?
And that's what I wanna portray myself as.
Yeah.
I think summary I think the Notion pages aregreat because it helps me understand what the
heck person honestly, you hear this statisticall the time and after seeing thousands of

(20:33):
resumes at Atrium, a recruiter literally looksat your resume for less than six seconds.
Yeah.
And like, I don't care about that.
I want I'll see your LinkedIn.
Like, I don't give a shit about your resume.
I think I think there's a line though of likethe video introductions.
I'm not gonna watch that.
Not gonna read your cover letter.

(20:54):
But I think high level summary with visualsthat I can obtain information in less than ten
seconds are probably the would catch myattention more than anything.
Yeah.
Needs to be easily digestible and Yeah.
You just get a stack of them.
So when when it comes to Mac, you know, are youguys pretty agnostic?

(21:14):
Because I think you got you talked about foodtech a couple weeks ago.
Right?
So you guys look at cell based meats as welland plant based.
So you guys are pretty diverse as far asanything that's transformational, believe,
right?
Sure, so in our previous, our Inventorsportfolio, did everything, was totally
agnostic.
Invested in a few cell based companies, butmost prominently NUGGS or Simulate, which if

(21:38):
you've ever seen their Instagram is like 10 outof 10 marketing, cell based proteins made for
chicken nuggets.
It's amazing and delicious.
And we have a couple others in that space aswell.
But with Mac, it's mostly agnostic, but withthe overarching thesis of social change.
And so just some of examples of some of ourcompanies, We have a com we've there's, like,

(22:03):
we did literally did four deals in, like, thelast two weeks, so there's a lot in my brain
right now.
We have a company called Riff, which does afterso the take a step back.
So some of my partners are from the LAHollywood world, and so we do a lot of, like,
media infrastructure companies.
Yeah.
So Riff basically can take think about, like,friends from the nineties and could product

(22:26):
place something into a friend scene from today.
Mhmm.
So, like, doing that aftermarket productplacement has been really interesting.
So that's something that we have done and arereally excited about.
We have even ranging to we have two or threeaerospace companies, which I I'll send to you
because I know you love that.
Yeah.

(22:47):
Ranging from, like, last mile Internetconnectivity to satellites itself.
Stokes Space, which is a YC company that justreleased fat round that we were lucky to invest
in prior.
That was awesome.
And then most if if anyone's on like VC Twitteror tech Twitter, you probably saw like Pipe
literally took over Twitter yesterday.

(23:10):
We were lucky to invest in Pipe in 2019.
Fat
Wow.
That was a good one.
Yeah.
So Harry Hurst was one of our previousportfolio founders in his last company, and
then we invested super early in PIPE beforethey even launched, which is new type of net
revenue generating source, which is reallycool.
So kind of all over the place, but with thethings that are shaping the world in a

(23:31):
different way.
Sure.
So I got two ones, right?
So celebrity investors, what do you think ofthem?
So some of them have been really successful andthen some of them are kind of passively doing
it part time, but you have a closer ear to theground with this stuff.
So talk to me about just the ecosystem withcelebrities, trying to break into VC or doing

(23:54):
VC, Any high level insights on that?
Sure.
So Allie Rappaport, who's a partner at SerenaVentures is one of my better friends and she is
awesome.
She's one of the smartest people on the planet.
That's been great to watch her journey workingwith Serena one to one and building out a team
and their investment portfolio is amazing andthey're very active, which is great.

(24:19):
And then it ranges from celebrities who areinvesting one to one angel checks directly.
That's I think that's an interesting angle too.
There is a firm called Plus Capital that,basically is a dual fund structure.
So they have deep talent expertise and hadworked with a lot of talent previously, and

(24:39):
they have a fund that they'll invest directly,and then they have, somebody portfolios that
they'll manage as well.
So say, I'm, I don't even know.
Say, I'm LeBron and they're a part of the PlusCapital family
Mhmm.
And I'm the investor.
So I'll go find a startup that LeBron Jamesmight like and we'll negotiate great terms to

(24:59):
get LeBron to invest as well and then they'llmanage it.
Sure.
I think, like, as far as I know, that's howthat functions.
Yeah.
So that's a little bit of a different model.
And then for us, one of my partner, CharlesKing, who I believe is the coolest person on
the planet, worked his way up through themailroom at WME, which is one of the talent
agencies in the world, was the first blacksenior partner ever and basically built black

(25:22):
Hollywood for what it is.
So Janelle Monae, Outkast, Tyler Perry, likenames that you've heard, he built their careers
from scratch, is amazing.
And now he runs a company called Macro, whichis an entertainment investing and production
company.
They just, I believe they won a Golden Globeand a couple other awards for Judas and the
Black Messiah, who's one of their movies.
And so when a lot of our companies,specifically in the media, or in any space,

(25:46):
will come to us and say we want, for example,we were looking for women, celebrities who were
willing to invest as well as be a spokespersonfor the model.
That's something that that's just like aservice we can provide for those people because
that's a world that we play in.
And that's a lot of what we do is bringingthose type of people to the table because we

(26:07):
have that network, which is great.
And then it's yeah.
It's one of our well, it's a lot of fun for usbecause we have to bring people that we like
into the room as well as it gets our company'sproduct out into the world.
Mhmm.
And there's some celebrities and musicians andathletes that just have been really great
venture capitalists.
I mean, I think I posted in our private textmessage Nas.

(26:28):
I mean, just that one deal that he did withCoinbase was just ridiculously successful.
So do you see that evolution happening withother celebrities just wanting to be more
educated and do it on their own versus hire anagency or hire some type of investment manager?
Or do you think they prefer to be more passive?

(26:50):
And then the other piece is, are you seeingmany of them start to become emerging managers?
I think it depends on what type of person.
So I've seen kind of everything under the underthe rainbow here.
But I think most of the time, if it's a lotbigger celebrity and they have a talent agency,

(27:11):
the talent agency has a venture arm that willbring deals to them, which is really helpful.
Or, most in other situations, they'll build outtheir own team.
So they'll hire someone like Serena with Ally.
Like, she hired Ally to specifically build outher angel portfolio, specifically build out
their investments with a certain thesis.
And I think that's what I've seen more ofrecently.

(27:33):
Sure.
I mean, Ashton Kutcher was, like, one of thethe bigger ones and probably induced promo for
a lot of people because he's made some greatinvestments as well in building out his
practice.
But I I I actually don't know what the mostmost common thing is, but from what I've seen,
it's either having the agency Yeah.
Venture team manage it and bring deals to thetable and they'll choose to do that, building

(27:57):
out their own practice with specific hires likeJustin did that would be and add another
counterpart Nick Coursetz who manages angelinvestments as well.
Sure.
Yeah.
That's a good point.
And it could also be, you know, outside of theagency, could also be their own single family
office.
I'm seeing that a So lot single family officesnow, you know, they want to do direct deals,
they're starting to build, you know, they don'twant pay the carry and the management fees.

(28:20):
They'll just hire somebody and build their owndirect team.
So I think that's, that's really exciting.
You especially if you bring somebody in thatsuper, super seasoned, that's really exciting.
So Yeah.
I I think that's that's I totally didn't thinkabout that, but I think that's probably how
it's structured with Serena Ventures or withother funds like that.
It's structured as the family office and thenmaking those direct investments, which I think

(28:41):
is a great idea.
Yeah.
I got another one.
So you were talking about just feeling lucky toget into a really hot deal.
I feel that often and that's also just a reallygood signal for me.
Right?
So it's, you just know that you had to put in alot of work to even just get into that deal.
So you feel lucky that like that founder evensqueezed you in.

(29:01):
And a lot of times some of these deals, thecheck size that you're writing the minimum is,
for me specifically, as a you know, pre seed toseed, sometimes series A fund, sometimes some
of these deep tech companies, the minimum isreally, really high.
But I was able to somehow get in by addingvalue.
So I don't know if you have any anecdotes orany stories on, you know, a company like Pipe

(29:24):
or just a really, really hot deal that you'relike, I'm just lucky that I got in.
What were some of the special tricks that youdid or just things that you did to add value
and any advice you have on that to just getinto some of the top tier deals?
Sure.
I'm gonna say this out loud and some peoplemight think that I'm the worst, but I genuinely

(29:47):
this is how I feel.
I've never been worried about not getting intoa deal.
Extreme.
I've I've never had that concern, and I cantell you why.
So for me, coming from the, like, hiring spaceand coming from, like, working in bars and,
like, I've I think one of my best skills isinterpersonal relationships.

(30:08):
And so from the first time I meet someone, Ican learn everything about them in probably
less than five minutes of, like, mother's name,where they're from, what they're worried about,
like, maybe what they dream about at night,kind of the whole thing.
Like I have no, no concerns about that.
My partner Mike says I'm the best person tohave at parties because I can make best friends
with a stick, is great.

(30:29):
So I think that's the level of care and thelevel of interaction that I bring to talking to
founders.
And so I think a lot of pitches are sotransactional and I think that that's trash.
Like, I think I I take at least the first fiveminutes to ask how are you?
Or especially a lot of founders are back toback all day.

(30:50):
Like, have you had lunch?
Do you need a break?
Do you have water?
Like, whatever.
And even asking that question of, like, are youokay?
Do you need a water break?
Indicates that you actually care about them,which
Yeah.
I don't think a lot of people do.
I don't think a lot of VCs do.
It's more transactional.
It's like, quick.
Tell us about this pitch.
Like like, we gotta go.
No.
You you're building that relationship from thebeginning and building that level of care from

(31:11):
beginning.
And actually seeing them a human rather than avehicle to make money.
I think that that's something that I seefundamentally different.
And so I think the way that I can sum this upis my my personal mantra is I get to be
everyone's number one fan for a living.
And I try to embody that in everything that Ido, whether it be hiring, whether it be

(31:32):
supporting founders, even just interpersonalrelationships.
So that's what really helps me invest in thedeals that I want to invest in is because I've
built this relationship from the beginningregardless of whether you're gonna invest or
not because you care about them as a human.
When they start raising money, I want to be thefirst person that they come to because they

(31:54):
know that I care about them and I can help thembring in other people too and kick in my own
money if I choose to.
I think that just caring about people is reallymore of a differentiator than anything else.
And that's what I've seen from the other sideof it too.
When founders ask, like, how are you doing?
Where are you today?
Like, the that level of thinking really helpspeople stand out.

(32:15):
And those are the people that I wanna dobusiness with.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's it's funny.
There's a there's a quote that I heard fromChris Saka, like, multiple years ago, and he
was just saying, hey.
You know, I don't like to work with people thatdidn't have a a shitty job.
And I don't think working in a bar is a badjob.
I think it's like a dream job.
But you know, it's not like a McKinsey, youknow, 300 ks a year job.

(32:37):
And look, my first job was in like fast food,you know, and I ran the register.
But you know, when I was like 15 years old overthe summer, I thought I was rich, making a
couple $100 every weekend because I didn'treally have to pay for anything.
But I'll tell you, I took that job with pride.
I really just enjoyed talking to people.
And I really resonate with you because some ofthe biggest people skills and like just

(33:03):
communication skills, being able to readsomebody, those come from those college jobs.
It's not I mean, you get it at McKinsey, Iguess, but it's just at a different level and
it's so buttoned up, right?
You're just kinda working in a vacuum versusthose jobs back in high school and college,
you're really much more carefree.

(33:23):
You're not as stressed out as you are being areal adult, having the real adult problems.
You're just kinda looking forward to theweekend and spending your paycheck on partying.
Sending your paycheck at the bar around thecorner with this
sticky bar.
Or back into the bar, right?
Just paying back
Exactly. The
The Yeah.
Yeah.
And I love that so much.
And I think maybe that's why we get along sowell because people have that.

(33:47):
And I think that ties into like a lower senseof ego.
Mhmm.
I think a lot of people like you and I thathave worked those jobs, you don't come into a
room and you're like, I or the sense ofentitlement, I think, is a little bit And it
may or may not be tied to it, but I thinkhaving that low sense of ego and be like, I'm
here, I'm doing this, it's taking up my spaceand not, like, inflicting yourself on other

(34:11):
people is really important too, because that'swhat you see with, like, the generation of VC
before us of, like, oh, I'm this we'll just gowith the Brad example because this is kinda
what I like to poke fun at of, like, Bradplaying with daddy's money and I belonged in
this deal because I am rich and I can dowhatever I want.
And then you're like, no.
Like, can I can I swear?

(34:32):
Is that okay?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Swear it.
Yeah.
Get it out.
Brad, you're an asshole.
Like, we don't want you here.
And it's sort of like and that's becoming moreand more apparent of Mhmm.
The VCs that don't actually give a shit aboutpeople and that are just trying to make more
money.
And that's how people like you and I aregetting into deals because we know how to talk
to them, because we know how to, like, predictwhat they might need and because we know how to

(34:56):
be there for them as people rather than beinglike, here's my money, like, go with
Don't sort of judge me, but there was somethingthat was like some sound bite on LinkedIn with
Oprah.
And Oprah mentioned Maya Angelou.
I guess there's a quote from Maya Angelou thatsays, The measure of somebody's success is how

(35:17):
many lives you touched.
Think it also said something about, I think shehad another quote that says, People really,
they don't really remember as much about whatyou did, but it's really about how you feel.
Yeah, how they make you feel.
Yeah, and I really took that seriously becauseI always take that to heart, you know, when I'm

(35:39):
trying to spend time with somebody, it's notreally about, hey, know, I made these intros
for you or, hey, I was able to raise somecapital, but how did I make that person feel?
And there's been times where it's been theother way around.
There was, I'm not going to say this person'sname, but this is another VC.
But I was like, hey, I'm actually buildingsomething.

(36:01):
Here's something that I'm working on.
And the person was just like really, reallycondescending.
And I just kind of sucked it in.
I didn't really take the time to really go athim and really revert.
I just kind of ghosted that person.
But what's funny is I later saw that person geta review on like VC Guide.

(36:22):
And the review was kind of like, this is ashitty person and this person was like
condescending.
So I just kind of left it at is.
But how do you handle just shitty people?
I mean, I think I just try to ghost them, but Idon't know if you have any advice, you know,
for other people.
I mean, I don't think it's it's really worthyour energy or time to, you know, seek revenge

(36:43):
or anything.
You just gotta feel like you're blessed becauseyou have all these other good things in your
life.
But I guess maybe you can talk about what youthink about how you you make people feel.
I think you answered most of it, then also justdealing with difficult people.
I'm so excited to answer this.
Let me I'll talk about your example first, andthen I'll go into that because this is gonna be

(37:06):
a whole thing.
This this person, he he was like, look, youknow, you you don't know the first thing about
VC and he he was just like, he went off on aramp.
I'm like, damn, like, what happened?
Like, did you did you get into the fight withyour girlfriend or something?
Yeah.
Like, where where is this coming from?
Yeah.
So I think that's the classic, like, DaleCarnegie thing, like, should never talk poorly

(37:29):
about anyone.
Yeah.
And I think that, yeah, that person probablyhad something else going on and was projecting.
Yeah.
But also when you're looking at that person andhe's a peer, like, how are the if he's talking
to you that way, how does he talk to founders?
Mhmm.
That's problematic.
And so that's so concerning to or how does hetalk to people that he works with?

(37:51):
And I think those are the kind of thequestions.
If was a founder Yeah.
Like, why would I refer anyone to work for themif they're a dick?
Like, I wouldn't.
And the the ironic thing is I know some of hisLPs now because of some of the stuff that I'm
building.
So but, you know, it's just I don't really takethe energy to do that.
I just feel that, you know, people will feelwhat they're on

(38:12):
For their own, you sure.
So I can, I'm happy to talk about this.
So for me, being a woman in venture is a lessonin patience, I think.
Sure.
I, if you, if anyone follows me on Instagram,and I recommend the OOOD because I'm hilarious,

(38:34):
I talk a lot about this because a lot of thetimes I'll anonymize the things that happen to
me as a woman and just like talk about what Iwould do Mhmm.
Because it's that action step that no onereally talks about.
So
Yeah. I'm
I'm starting to have some small posts that areanonymous.
Yeah.
So I have some posts that are anonymous and Irecently worked with a couple girlfriends and

(38:55):
I'm setting up this new account called Sexus inthe City.
I love it.
Thank you.
Coming soon this week.
It's my weekend project.
And I did kind of a test example on myInstagram story similar to the Wall Street
Confessions of having people having womensubmit shitty things that people in their
industry have said or done to
them.
Yeah.
And then posting what I would do.

(39:17):
So having that actionable step of what youshould do afterwards rather than just like,
this is a shitty thing that it's gonna make youfeel bad when you read it.
It can totally be a book.
I don't know if you ever follow what's hername?
Ten ten ways to look smart in meetings.
What's her name?
Sarah.
There's a person named Sarah.
Starts with the last name starts with a c.

(39:38):
Let me pull it
up Go while you're talking to
ahead, I'm gonna find it.
But yeah, keep going.
So
you're working That's on something that I thinka lot about and being a woman in the VC space.
I think that's, like especially or an attackerin any industry.
Nobody ever talks about what to do Yeah.
When something shitty happens to you.
Sarah Cooper.
Sarah Cooper.
Yep.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So she she used to work at Google, and she'sjust blowing up.

(40:00):
She's all over TV now.
But what she did is she wrote this post on howto look smart in meetings.
And some of the things you can do is justinterrupt somebody and tell them to move, go
back to the previous slide Cause it makes itlook like you're paying attention.
You wanna hear it again.
Yeah, but she turned it into this book.
It was initially like a blog and then it turnedinto a book.
But it was like all these things of how to Sothat's why I thought about that blog.

(40:23):
Because I like, could totally be like a book,like an illustrated book that's like, here's
what happened.
And then like, this is this is like thesolution of how you handled Yeah.
I I think that's something I love that.
And that's something that I'm working onactively myself.
So you mentioned the word revenge, which Ireally like.
So I think for me, it's so hard when just foran example, like, it's it's it's so hard not to

(40:49):
react.
Yeah.
When somebody says something shitty to you or,like, assumes so this happened to me this week.
I was we're doing diligence on some company andwe were, doing a reference with somebody, who
had previously invested in the company and hadknown them and whatever.
And, and I'm the only woman at my firm, justfor context, and I was supposed to be on this

(41:09):
call, was gonna ask him questions about thiscompany and, they set up the time, it worked
for me, I chimed in whatever, and then he goes,Ali, can you send the calendar invite?
And I'm like, first of all, I'm not an EA.
Second of all, you shouldn't assume thatbecause I'm the only woman on this thread,
third of all, the time it took you to send theinvite, you could already sent it.

(41:34):
Yeah.
And it it was just it's those small things thatyou're like, I want absolutely nothing to do
with this person if that's if he makesassumptions about people.
And there was some other language in there thatwas a little bit more condescending.
But it's again, how did you feel?
You know,
it's like like
you don't And you feel that and you're like,you know, you and I think it hits people like
Yumi because we make sure that we don't ever wetry consciously.

(41:56):
Obviously, sometimes things get delivered wrongwhen we talk, but we would never try to try to
make somebody feel that way but some peopleintentionally do.
So it kinda for me that like that one emailthat that person sent me, I'm telling you like
it stuck with me and maybe it's like pent upand this is my here to talk about but that's
still like that is my memory of that person.
Yeah.
That's your memory and the emotion of thatperson.

(42:18):
So my response to that was sorry, I'll justcall him Brad just for fun.
Sorry, Brad.
I'm unable to make this meeting.
I'm actively working on a few deals.
I'll get the gist from my partners afterwards.
Like, letting him know that I'm not the EA,which there's nothing wrong with being here.
Letting him know that I'm not the EA and thatI'm busy doing deals and that I I could not I

(42:43):
opted out of the call because Mhmm.
That's we treated people and, like, it wasreally hard.
Yeah.
And so I think just, like, I talk about thisall the time of, like, one, making the other
person identify their behavior and two,breaking it down and three, suggesting
suggesting a better one is generally how Iwould deal with it as like a Yeah.

(43:06):
Sequence.
So in this case, addressing that a, that's notwhat's happening, b, this is actually who I am,
and c, like, see you never.
And so with, the vengeance piece, absolutelywill let this fuel my hate fire forever.
I mean, not forever, but, like, this type ofthing.

(43:27):
I think choosing not to react is reallyimportant.
Like, I could have sent him an email about blahblah blah blah, like, whatever.
But just opting out, choosing not.
Sometimes there's a time and place where that'snecessary, but Yeah.
Just sending a thing, clearing that up, and,like, walking away is really important.
And then with the vengeance piece, you canchoose not to do like, venture is the most

(43:50):
relationship driven
It is.
Business probably in the world.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
Of, I only send deals to people that I like andthat are good people and that I think could be
helpful to this company and that I don't thinkis an asshole.
And so anyone that's a shitty person is notgonna get deals and is not gonna get the good
deals or is not gonna get sent the pipes of theworld.

(44:11):
And I can actively go against if somebodyreaches out to me and say, hey, what do think
about this investor?
I'll be honest.
And I've it's really hard to be honest and tohave those conversations sometimes, but you've,
it's better than the alternative of and likenot mentioning that, then that looks bad on me
if I let them work with someone who ismisogynistic, for example.

(44:33):
Sure.
Yeah.
I mean, it's funny.
There's Chris Rock's stand up show, I thinkfrom like a couple years ago.
He was talking about this.
It's like, you shouldn't really be thinkingabout like, Oh, they're gonna get theirs.
So this person may never get his.
And I think he brought up like Donald Trump.
He's like, Donald Trump, he's never gettinghis.
I mean, he did get kicked out of the WhiteHouse and get COVID and a couple other things

(44:58):
in series that happened, and not to talk aboutpolitics.
I'm trying not talk about politics or religionor anything, sometimes people never get theirs.
So I don't think you should wish or even haveany hate.
I think it helps to just be happy with all thegood blessings and friendships and
relationships that you have.
And best way to do it is ghost them.
And I mean, I got this from a mentor of mine.

(45:21):
When pitching deals to family offices, theydon't do anything either.
They just cut you off.
And that's sometimes I feel like that's thebest way to insult somebody just not even
really bringing them into your ecosystem oreven letting them know that you're taking
energy to address it.
I think that's really important.

(45:43):
Think what you gave a really great example of,I don't remember what you said, but it was
similar Of, like, think about I always thinkabout myself as a bubble.
Mhmm.
And, like, if you say something to me, I caneither choose to let it affect me or I can
choose to, like, block it and be like, no.
Not today.
I'm not gonna let that bother me.
Yeah.
Because I have a thousand other things that Ithink about, and I'm not gonna choose to bring

(46:06):
in that negativity into my sphere Yeah.
And let it affect other people.
Oh, this is what I was.
I would like that guy who probably had a fightwith someone and was projecting that on you.
Like that just don't let that shit into yourenergy.
And I'm slightly embarrassed.
I feel kind of embarrassed for the audiencehere.
I'm like, Hey guys, sorry, this is turned intoa therapy venting session here.

(46:26):
Know we're
still talking about it.
So relevant.
Yeah, And I think it's relevant in in theinterpersonal side of any business and venture
as well as in the founder sphere as well.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, thanks, Antonio.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, and I think, so any more that you wannashare any kind of book pages that you got any

(46:52):
other examples of like, hey, here's the problemand then how you can handle it.
I think that'd be good for the audience too ifyou get any other ones off the top of your
mind, fresh in the pipeline for your Instagramfeed.
Oh my god.
I do.
I'm just trying to think about what would be,like, a good one.

(47:13):
There's a lot.
There's so much shit that happens all the time.
So this was in a previous job.
This is it.
This is heavy.
This is heavy.
But we're just gonna go there.
This is in a previous job, but I'm not gonnasay what or when or whatever.
Mhmm.
But we were looking for, someone we're lookingto hire someone who is very specialized in what

(47:36):
they do and found a great candidate.
She was like one out of 10 people that can dothis job and in the meeting when we were
deciding whether to hire her or not, the personwho she would have reported to that was the
head of the organization said, well, she'sperfectly qualified but what if she stays here
for like a year and then she has a baby andleaves?

(47:58):
Ouch.
And like, I'm my blood is literally this wasyears ago and my blood is literally boiling now
just thinking about it because there's so muchin there.
And I think I didn't I don't think I handled itas I should have at the time, and I don't think
I had the strength of self to stand up to him.
But I think what do we what happened and Imean, he should have gotten fired for saying

(48:20):
that.
Yeah.
But he eventually did get his, but that's awhole separate thing.
So I think we broke it down and just made itbecause he he's one of those people that, like,
would not listen.
He just was in his own world and, like,wouldn't listen to anything.
Mhmm.
We just said she's perfectly qualified.
She's ready to take this job.

(48:41):
She can do this better than anyone else andwould be like, she's better than male
candidates that we interviewed as well.
And she's the best possible person for this joband, like, her reproductive choices are totally
Yeah.
It's not even I mean, she I doubt she talkedabout starting a family or anything like that
anyways.
It's literally just strictly just beingjudgmental because the person was a woman, I

(49:03):
guess.
Exactly.
And, like, of child rearing age, which is justso fucking stupid.
Yeah.
And that so in that case, we identified thebehavior of, hey.
You just said this and you repeat it back.
This is not okay because and suggesting a pathforward or a behavior change.
Mhmm.
Which I think is the right and maybe not theright way, but it's a way to handle things.

(49:27):
And I think just that identification ofbehavior
Mhmm.
Like, can be so impactful to people.
Yeah.
Whether they listen to you or not, and be like,hey.
You just said this and it made me feel thisway.
And that's not okay because
But it sucks because anytime you think itbecause, you know, that person might have made
a mistake where, you know, look, I I'm one tobe guilty of this just like the delivery is,

(49:49):
like, really off.
Like, sometimes I just say something that'sawkward and it sounds stupid.
And it's not because I'm a bad person and I'mtrying to be disrespectful but sometimes the
delivery comes out.
So you gave them a chance to correctthemselves.
You're like, yeah, you're right.
Like maybe his opportunity could be like, yeah,you're right.
Sorry, that did sound kinda shitty.
I take that back, you know, but there arepeople that just the ego takes over.

(50:13):
Right?
And they can't really take the chance that theyhad to backtrack it.
Right?
Yeah.
So And I think a lot of the times that maybenot can leave that example where it is, but I
think a lot of the times in those situations orfor me, just transparently, I'm I'm 24.
I have a partner at two venture firms.

(50:33):
I run multiple companies.
I've hired a 100 people, and I don't reallypromote my age because it freaks people out and
then they treat me differently.
And then they, like, get insecure.
I make people really uncomfortable when theyfind out how old am.
Sure.
Because they get really insecure and then theytry to target me with negativity because
they're projecting, because they're scared, orthey're like, oh, I haven't done that much in

(50:55):
my life.
She's done all these things.
Like, yeah.
Yeah.
So it's like that people get really insecurewhen you're more success not maybe more
successful, but, like, on a different path thanthey are.
Mhmm.
And that's a lot of the time when negativitycomes out.
I think that's maybe not a driver, but I thinkthat's definitely a behavior of things that
happen of if you're, or like with your example,maybe that guy was shitting on you because he

(51:17):
has never built anything like that and hedoesn't know how and he's scared and he like
just attacked you rather than identifying orlike figuring out his own behavior and building
something for himself.
Yeah.
And I, you know, I have left corporate Americabecause I dealt with that shit.
And I was like, now it's cool because I havethe freedom to build this community with good
people.

(51:38):
Right?
And and have that bubble.
So, you know, sometimes you don't you don'texpect it.
Right?
I mean, you just kinda walk into this newopportunity and you get kind of a pulp because
like, wait a minute, I thought most of thesecommunities had filters already.
And then you don't see the filters.
And then what sucks is you kind of reflect onit like, did this person actually say this
shit?
Like, so it kind of throws you off for like aday.

(51:59):
I mean, I'll tell you that threw me off forlike a day.
But sometimes I'll randomly think back on itand still it's like ingrained there.
I'm like,
It'll still bother you.
Because it's because it's very, that's the onetime this whole year, something like that
happened.
Other than that, I mean, the founders that Iwork with, I mean, we've truly built like
friendships, and I don't even have that weirddynamic where I'm a VC because one day half of

(52:21):
these founders are becoming VCs, many of themare emerging managers.
In my program that's launching next week, manyof them are ex operators and founders.
So like you said, it's a small world.
So these people come back full circle.
You might be working for them at some point.
You never know.
And that's the thing too.
So you
don't know when you might need their help oryou really ask them for a deal or something

(52:42):
like that.
You're a partner,
and there could be somebody that's 50 years oldthat's looking for their next gig.
It could be a partner role.
And they might have to enter I mean, it's justI've been in those situations too where
somebody I got one for you.
So there is a So I'm not gonna say like theframework of where it happened because then it

(53:04):
would be I never know, this person may belistening.
There was a committee where I had to getapproved for something and this person was a
hater and didn't allow me to get approved.
And
so what I did is I just removed that personfrom my committee.
I was able to because the lead person of thecommittee was the main person that I had to

(53:29):
make happy.
That person was a great guy.
But this person really was trying to bring medown.
So I just asked to restructure my committee andthat guy was gone.
And then I ended up getting approved andeverything passed.
Several years later, I was teaching this courseand guess who randomly ended up being my

(53:50):
student.
And I had the ability to pass or fail.
I mean, I was just nice about it.
I'm like, you know what, it's cool, but it'sjust, it's kind of funny how things work out.
You know, and and and that's why I say, mean,it could be easy.
A very, very likely situation where these moreseasoned people might have to work for you at
some point because there's a great opportunityand they don't realize that and you'll see

(54:14):
this.
You will definitely see this if it hasn'tworked already, but these people will probably
work for you at some point.
Yeah.
And that's that's the best part.
So my I'll just share this with you and I thinkyou'll really like it.
I don't I think I identify with the story thatyou just told.
So I was taught from a very early age from mydad that you're the only one that's ever gonna

(54:35):
be happy for you.
Like Yeah.
Full stop.
And I think for me, I haven't been I hide thethings that I do until they're, like, in a
position that I'm ready to share Mhmm.
Because I don't want the haters or I don't wantpeople trying to attack me or I don't want
people, like, getting in the weeds or whatevertrying to stop me.

(54:55):
And I think even when you're catching up withpeople, like, then the networking kind of calls
that VC happens all the time.
It's part of your job is to talk to otherinvestors.
I'll only share a high level of the things thatI'm doing unless I trust them and truly I'm
asking for what they think about it.
Because I don't really wanna hear what theyhave to say unless I'm asking for feedback.

(55:17):
Sure.
Because no one's ever gonna be happy for you.
And, like, they're only gonna look atinternally and be insecure and probably shit on
you, which is just such a crazy thing.
But that's really helped me in my job and in mylife.
And I think something as well, there have beenother, like, little tidbit that I had travel
now, but I had an unopposed to note at my deskwhen I lived in San Francisco.

(55:41):
Something that Justin said, he was right when Ifirst started working for him, he was doing a
panel somewhere and somebody asked him, oh,Justin, you've raised hundreds of thousands of
dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars,very big difference.
You've started all these companies.
What's the attitude that you have when you walkinto these investor meetings?
And he said, and I I carry this with mepersonally and professionally, he said, you
have to have the attitude of I'm gonna do thiswith or without you.

(56:04):
And I think that ties perfectly into no one'sever gonna be happy for you but yourself
because you have to have that determination tobe able to do what you're doing and build what
you wanna build and not let other people affectyou.
Whether it be, like, personally, like, youwanna go to the beach on Saturday and your wife
doesn't wanna go Mhmm.
But, like, you're still gonna go because itmakes you happy.

(56:27):
Or I'm gonna build this company even though,like, XYZ might think it's a bad idea and like
I don't care or I think raising money is agreat thing too.
I'm gonna raise this fund and get on board orget out of the way is the attitude that I
carry.
Sure.
Yeah, I mean, look, there's a guy, Jesse thatcame on to my show.
He's at Alpha Partners and he really openedabout this.

(56:49):
I mean, he really wanted to be a VC.
He knew that that's what he wanted to do.
His dad was like, look, you can just work formy company.
I have a stable job for you.
And Jesse was like, no, give me three moremonths.
And then three more months turned into a year,but he finally got the job because there's no
point doing it and just doing this journey ifyou're not doing what really counts.

(57:11):
And I think I resonate with that.
Think Will Smith has been doing a lot ofmotivational stuff on Instagram but I think one
of the things he talked about, especially withhis wife is, he's not trying to make his wife
happy.
His wife isn't trying to make him happy.
They're trying to be two people walking on ajourney and they're trying to do their own
journey of happiness, whatever that is.
And that other person chooses to be on thatjourney with you.

(57:35):
So I think you're right on the money there.
Mean, I think, look, if you're gonna dosomething, just do it.
There's a lot of limitations and challenges,but if you wanna raise your first time fund,
find a way to do it.
There's people that have spent a little oftheir own personal capital and they've just
broken through walls to make it happen.
Yeah.
There's a lot of people out there that likeyourself that are willing to root for you and

(57:58):
that have done that before and happy to likereach back and pull you up.
Yeah, no, I totally agree.
And then I think another point is I think JeffBezos says his best.
It's, don't tell people what you're gonna do,do it first and then like shock people.
So I
thought that was a really good mantra.
So maybe we should talk a little bit aboutventure outside of the relationship.

(58:21):
So maybe with founders, what is like thatspecial formula?
I mean, because you've been a founder as well.
You're still a founder and entrepreneur.
So what are some of the characteristics thatyou see as a common pattern for success as a
founder?
Sure.
So for me, I think, I mean, a lot the thingsthat we've talked about are applicable venture

(58:42):
and in founding companies.
And I think for me, I rely heavily on thepsychology of people.
So I'm gonna refer back to some of our previousconversations.
So I think with founders, I really like workingwith founders that are low ego, that are
willing tend to do all the things that wetalked about that
are Yeah.
Have a spot on the wall in mind and they'rejust running towards it of, like, third, I'm

(59:06):
gonna do this with or without you.
Get on board.
Get out of the way.
And, like, that I can help them, like, kindarefine that too of sometimes when you're
raising money for the first time, it's so hardand, like, you get so many no's and then you
finally get a yes, but it's actually aboutwhich yeses you choose that are so important
and kinda figuring out that journey.
So low ego, with or without you attitude.

(59:28):
Yeah.
I really like people that have a personal tieto the business.
Mhmm.
So built like, building companies out ofproblems that they've had or they had a parent
that was sick with one certain type of thingand they built a health tech company around it.
Like, those are the types of companies that Ireally care about because they're bought in.

(59:50):
Like, this is their life mission.
They've seen it.
That's caused them pain.
They wanna fix it for other people rather thanstarting a company that you know is not that
there's anything around it, but starting acompany that, like, makes engineers 1% more
productive that's gonna sell to someone to,like, two years that, like, no one really cares
about.
Like, cool.
Someone will fund it.

(01:00:10):
That's not gonna be me.
And then I think, honestly, one of so Iinvested in this company recently who was
founded, for one of the original Robin Hoodfounders, Nick Benz, Everywhere.
So it's a sustainable sustainable textilecompany, and they figured out how to, when
you're recycling material, entry me, introducea certain component to make that material more

(01:00:37):
biodegradable, which is crazy.
So if you think about all the recycled fabricsout there now, that's still massively polluting
the world with microplastics.
And I could talk about this forever because Ilearned a lot about this to look at this deal.
But I it's called Everywhere.
And you can buy their shirts and they'reworking with companies, like big companies to
be able to produce goods for them as well.

(01:00:58):
But when we first started talking, they wereintroduced from a good friend, not like an
industry character.
Were introduced from a friend.
And then when I first started to talk to them,I talked to them for, like, two hours about the
company and then about other things and about,like, life and about Burning Man, kinda all
over the place.
Yeah.
And, like, really built that connection.
And I when I asked them, what are you lookingfor in your investors?

(01:01:20):
One of the their three co founders, one of themsaid, well, we want people who are gonna be
drinking with us when we all hit big.
And I'm like, I'm here.
I'll bring the champagne.
Like, let's go.
And then there's, like, it's a sentiment of,yes, partying together, but also being there
through the whole journey and being thatpositive light to be able to get to the end.

(01:01:43):
And that's something that I really love too.
Yeah, you're gonna be drinking too, I wouldsay, this goes back to just everything that you
said, just being so directly important withventure, it's being there with the tough times
and the bad times because you could be doing adrink with me one day because I'm venting about
something that somebody mean said to me.

(01:02:03):
But it's COVID and your business is about to goout of business, right?
And you wanna have a drink to talk about it andfigure out how you can work it through.
So I think that's our responsibility too, wouldsay to be there in the tough times as well.
Yeah, I think that's so important.
And I think that that type of relationship isreally important to me of I wanna be the person

(01:02:24):
you come to with good news, and I wanna be theperson you come to when you have to lay people
off and you don't know what to say.
And I think the sec the latter piece is notsomething that happens very much if a lot of
the times founders are scared because they haveto say something bad to their investors, but we
really wanna know.
Like Yeah.
I wanna know when things are going like, notgoing as well as they could because I can help
you.

(01:02:45):
Mhmm.
And, like, I think that piece of being thereand thick and thin is so important and the
actual execution is something that us as VCscan be doing a lot better.
Yeah.
I think a huge thing too is self realization ofyour superpower.
So, you have another business that focuses onfixing, right?
So that's really a huge superpower for you.
I think for me, I've done product as anoperator for a long time.

(01:03:08):
So I think just knowing what your superpower isand then really harnessing that, I think it'd
probably help as well.
I'm assuming.
Yeah.
And then let other people know like sellingthat.
When I ever try to talk to founders, let themknow that those are the things that I do and
these are how I can help.
Being very straightforward of this is what I'mbest at and these are all the things that I can
help you with.
Like whatever it is, I'm available.

(01:03:29):
And if I can't do it, I can refer somebody thatis better at it than me.
Yeah.
And because venture is so opaque, right,there's no real formula to break into venture.
You and I somehow, we're very fortunate tobreak in, but any advice for people?
I think we talked about some really goodthings, right?
I mean, just try to do things to be remembered.

(01:03:49):
I think you really love people from aconsulting background because they're really
good at solving problems.
But any other tips to maybe build relationshipswith potential prospects?
Because as we know, half of the roles are notposted, Half of the jobs have been there for
like six months, right?
And somehow people miraculously get hired.
So any other tips?

(01:04:10):
It sounds like for you and me, was justorganically but you know, any other
recommendations for some of the people in theaudience that either wanna break into venture
or or, you know, try to build relationships orengage with VCs?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So I would say, I would just, like, honestlyslide into people's DMs.

(01:04:31):
Like, 10 out of 10 slide into people's DMs.
The worst thing they can do is not answer you.
The best thing they can do is take a call withyou and maybe hire you and or refer you to
someone that's looking.
And what I would say in that type of message isand that's what I I love when people do that.
Like, or meet people wherever they are.
Like, I'm big on Instagram.

(01:04:51):
I'm not big on Twitter.
So whenever, like I had a founder reach out tome.
On the founder perspective, I had someone reachout to me on Instagram and she said, hi, I
really love your content, like, it reallyaligns with my business.
Would you be willing to take a call with mefor, like, five minutes and kind of talk about
this thing?
And now she's, like, I'm interested ininvesting and she's, a friend and you never

(01:05:12):
know what could happen.
Yeah.
And so what I would say is just keep the findit in the people's DMs.
Yeah.
And
what you would say is, hi.
My name is whatever.
I'm working on building my skills in VC.
I really give specific examples about somethingabout them because people wanna have their ego

(01:05:33):
stroked.
Like, I really love your product experience.
I love that you started off as an engineer andI had a similar backstory.
Mhmm.
Would love to talk to you sometime or just,like, happy to take in your content.
And, like, that people love that and havingtheir ego strokes and having that attention
paid to them.
Yeah.
Especially with when you give specific examplesbecause that shows that you care and that you

(01:05:55):
did a little bit of research.
That can be a great top of the funnel.
Yeah.
Do
you think it's also good to Yeah.
Oh, go ahead.
Sorry.
Don't
wanna No.
Was just
gonna say and then I think too, asking peoplein your immediate circle for referrals Mhmm.
Would be great.
Or even in your in your larger circle of forme, like, I know I wanna learn more about,

(01:06:19):
like, if I wanna learn more about, like, deeptech investments, I can ask Joel I mean, like,
hey, Joel.
I'm looking for people that are in deep techthat do you think who would be willing to talk
to me for fifteen minutes to help me learnabout this thing.
Yeah.
Or with your like, this cohort, I with somebodylike, you reach out to your friend who started
a company, like, hey.
Do you think any of your VCs that invested inyour company would be willing to talk to me

(01:06:42):
about their journey?
Like, everyone and every VC loves talking abouttheir journey.
So Sure.
Just asking for referrals very authentically, Ithink, can be a good source as well.
Yeah.
Another question I had was maybe acting like aVC.
So actually sourcing deals, kind of alreadywalking that walk.
There's a Gen Z VC, two young kids that havealready closed some capital and I'm going to be

(01:07:08):
an LP.
But one of their big focuses is community andcontent.
I just think that's a unique edge that doesn'tcost anything.
It takes time.
But if very helpful and valuable that canprobably attract.
I mean, think with your Instagram, you attractfounders, right?
And then you attract other co investors aswell.

(01:07:29):
So my question was like, do you think that'shelpful to, you know or even if you don't have
capital to source really high quality dealsthat are curated to to maybe a VC that may not
even be hiring, but maybe you can, you know,shadow them or something
like that. Yeah. I
that.
Yeah.
I think I think I didn't mention that because Ithink it's implied in my brain.
Yeah.

(01:07:49):
I think that happens all the time with peoplethat are looking to get roles in in VC will
scout deals and refer them or, like, just slotlike, cold email people.
Be like, hey.
I'm looking at this deal.
This might be a fit for you.
Yes or no?
And then that gets you noticed, then you sendmore and more deals, and then you get to know
what they like.
And then the VC hiring process is very longtail.

(01:08:11):
Forwarding for everybody, I'm sure you guysalready know.
And I think that can really help build arelationship too.
And it shows that your ability to your abilityto source deals as well, which is very
important.
And I think another assumed, you know, probablynot even worth even mentioning, but just an
assumed attribute is curating the right contentthe So right people, you don't wanna give the

(01:08:33):
expression is you don't wanna give a steak to avegan.
You don't wanna give a deep tech deal to like aprop tech VC.
So I think curating it effectively is a hugething as well.
Cool, we can, yeah, why don't we maybe we'llopen.
I know we got like twenty minutes left.
You gave so many life nuggets and I think therewere some really valuable ones from your

(01:08:54):
parents as well.
And you've had some amazing mentors.
So I think any other big nuggets of life advicethat you've received from a mentor that you'd
like to share with the group here?
I think I mentioned the two of you're the onlyone that's ever gonna be happy for you.
Yeah.
That's a good one.
I'm gonna do this with or without you.

(01:09:18):
Those are, like, my standout.
Keep a note on your thing and, like, bringgreen that into your brain.
Yeah.
That that's been those two things have been soimportant in how I operate and how I handle my
life and my business.
I think something that I worked really hard onjust in my own journey is being present where I

(01:09:41):
am.
And, like, I'm in the the whole mindfulnessmeditation circle too, and I'm, like, pretty
crunchy.
Literally live in, like, the mountains.
So but I think for me and when you're in thistype of environment, you're looking to get into
venture, you're looking to start a company,you're so reactive and you're not thinking
about where you are, what you're doing, and howyou feel, which really impacts more than

(01:10:03):
anything.
If you take five minutes and go sit outsidewithout your phone, without inputs, you think
about you think things differently.
That's why you have your best ideas in theshower because you're not distracted.
And so for me, the phrase that I keep to thatis be where you are Mhmm.
And, like, take that time to be where you are,to be present with your people, or be present
with yourself, to think about where you wannabe five years from now Mhmm.

(01:10:26):
And be able to execute on that better ratherthan reacting reacting reacting and then maybe
going in the wrong direction.
Are those part of the frameworks ofmindfulness?
I mean, it's kind of a I practicetranscendental meditation, which is a master
based meditation.
And I think that's core to that type ofpractice is to, like Sure.
Cultivate that presence within yourself.

(01:10:48):
And it's so it's so hard.
Of, my my main thing is I was thinking aboutthis this morning during my meditation, is,
like, a lot of the or, like, with mantra basedmeditations, I can talk about this forever.
Like, a lot of the times why you use a mantrais to be able to not you push out other things,
and then you think about this one thing foreveruntil you go to a space where everything's

(01:11:09):
quiet, and then that's fucking great.
Sure.
So is that a so is a mantra is that a themethat you focus on when you meditate?
It's more of so in transcendental meditation,you go through you have, like, a shaman.
I don't know what the technical term is, butyou have, like, a trainer who guides you
through it and then they give it to you.
Got it.
So it's a sound or, like, a fake word or asyllable or something.

(01:11:32):
Mhmm.
And it's yours to keep.
We don't tell anybody, but you with othermeditations or there's this really great if you
I don't know how what people are with this, butthere was this, documentary on Netflix with Ram
Dass who was, like, very into, like, thepsychedelics movement.
He's a guy that got kicked out of Harvard forthe whole psychedelics thing Sure.

(01:11:53):
And meditation in India in, like, the sixties.
And he gave this mantra that it's I am lovingconsciousness.
And if you just repeat that to yourself againand again and again with your eyes closed,
like, sitting outside somewhere, you, like,find you in another dimension.
It's crazy, and then you, like, remind yourselfthat, like, I am loving.
I'm connected to all of these other people, andit's kind of a whole thing.

(01:12:17):
But for me, the if you use, a gratitude journalor something Mhmm.
Which I I would highly recommend, which is Ireally love that.
It's just like be where you are or like todayI'm going to be where I am.
Sure.
What's a good start for a beginner?
So if somebody wanted to because it's somethingI wanted to do, but then the issue is like I

(01:12:38):
forget about it.
So what's a good way to be more disciplinedabout it?
Where do you start?
Is it an app or should you get a coach kindalike you've done to be more disciplined about
depends.
I mean, we should talk about this separatelytoo because if you're interested, I'm happy to
help you.
Sure.
I think it depends on what you want.
So for me, the coach was the right way to goMhmm.

(01:12:59):
Because I had to do it.
I had to show up to these lessons and you hadto do the thing and then Yeah.
Kinda all the apps support it and support yourpractice, which is great.
Obviously, with meditation, like Headspace andCalm are great great places to start as well or
even, like, Peloton Yeah.
Has really great meditations if you use theapp.

(01:13:21):
And I think more than anything, you take anhour to, like, learn something and but it's
building the habit that means more thananything.
So I use this app that I'm I'm partial to.
It's called Kin.
That's, like, social habit tracking.
Mhmm.
So we have a meditation group that, like, I canadd you to, and every day you check off your

(01:13:42):
box, then that gets shared to the group.
Like, Joel's meditated for ten days in a row.
Mhmm.
Da da da.
You can talk about it.
There's group that it's awesome.
And then when you don't, be like Joel skippedhis meditation.
I can be like Joel, like, what the fuck?
Like, why didn't you do this today?
To kind of FOMO you into building those habits,which is really fun.

(01:14:03):
And then I think the five minute journal is areal it's like kinda all over the place.
The five minute journal is something that I'veused for years.
I use the app and it's just literally fiveminutes a day.
You start in the morning with three thingsyou're grateful for, three things you're gonna
do to make today great, and then there's an Iam statement.

(01:14:23):
Just like I am where I am or I
am Yeah.
Going to be nice to myself today or somethinglike that.
Then I I can see that being a good way to setthe tone for the day.
I guess.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's awesome.
And then you do a prompt at the end of day ofthree great things that happened and then
something else and you can add a picture.
So you can scroll through, like, your life andsee what happened every day and read those

(01:14:44):
things and it's
I really flashbacks kinda like Apple Photosdoes that sometimes where they'll take like a
recap of like some
Yeah.
High level insights.
Feel like not to be like a product nerd here,but there could be some really cool plays with
like the data of like patterns of maybe commonthings that you did.
I don't think they do that now.
You I don't know if you can see, but you canlike see my

(01:15:09):
Oh, nice.
That's, like, the that's the scroll of all theYeah.
The the couple weeks that you've been
Yeah.
Doing it over time.
And sometimes it's, yesterday was, like I was,like, outside.
Mhmm.
Oh,
nice.
And I just took a picture or like And then
you add some comments around it too to talkabout how you
feel.
Yeah.
Which is really fun.
That's awesome.
Well, hey.

(01:15:29):
Know, I know we got ten minutes left.
This is amazing.
This is probably I I would say probably one ofmy favorite episodes because I think we just
went really deep and we're able to open up.
You know, I'd love to have anybody in theaudience shout out some questions.
You can also post it in the message here ifyou're shy.
I have a question actually.

(01:15:49):
Okay.
All right.
I'll be waiting for that.
No, but thanks for the meditation tip.
Actually, my roommate does it and I'm fromMyanmar.
We have like, Vipasana is like a very bigmeditation technique.
Jack Dorsey does it.
So I mean, I was kind of forced as a kid, likea Sunday school, you know, to do that.
The mindfulness is very important.
When I work at Goldman Sachs, also had weeklymindfulness session for all these people who

(01:16:12):
were anxious to, you know, just like
because everyone is so anxious.
In the building, yeah.
It's like mandatory mindfulness.
My gosh.
Well, it's like billions too, right?
Because sorry to cut you off, Rob, but I wasjust thinking about, I don't know if you guys
ever watch the show Billions, there's a womanthere that she does like, I think she kind of

(01:16:32):
like helps coach people on mindfulness, butit's also like performance coaching to kind of
get your head in the zone.
But I wouldn't be surprised if Goldman hasthose kind of performance coaches as well.
But anyway, sorry, Rob, go ahead.
No, no, no.
I love Billion.
So I know exactly who you're talking aboutWendy and I love her too, but I'm a Bobby guy,
you know, like not the check ropes guy.

(01:16:54):
So anyway, that's Billions.
If you guys haven't watched it, watch it.
It's really good.
I was gonna ask Alison about like, I see youwere a co founder and then you were a founder
for Truth Startups, before you become a founderitself.
So I've been learning a lot from Joel aboutcommunity building.
And you know, I'm the type of person who didn'twant to apply for a VC job.
I had some mentors from Goldman and we startedour own little stuff to kind of see where it

(01:17:15):
goes with Marcus people, so FinTech, focusingon that.
So I'm also doing some site on for fun.
Right?
So I was just wondering what's your experiencelike as a founder and co founder and, like, how
did you kinda, like, find like, how do youtransition from ideation to the product stage?
So when I think the two things that you'retalking about are have been service based

(01:17:40):
businesses and not necessarily products, but Ithink I can still talk about that with, like,
our product offerings.
So with Two Pink Suits, is my, like, femaleadvisory firm, that our ideation around that
was, like, a thousand percent vengeance drivenbecause kind of with the things that I had

(01:18:00):
talked about before, like, being a woman in VCand being, like, a female founder, like,
fucking sucks with the way it is.
And, like, people just poor treatment, peoplesaying shit all the time, we're sick of it.
Like, we've seen all the numbers of, like, 2%of VC goes to women, and we're we were just,
like so it was just trash.
Like, honestly, was born out of 100% vengeanceof, like, we're mad and we're gonna do

(01:18:25):
something about it, and, like, very long tailvengeance driven technique to, like, make
people get scared and be massively successfulby doing something very differently.
So the ideation phase was anger, and
then we we broke
that down into, like, okay.
Great.
What can we do about it to, like, actually makechange?

(01:18:46):
And that turned out to be we can provide, like,direct advice and investment to founders.
The founders that we wish, like the foundersthat we were, that we wish we had more support
on and things like that.
And then that refined into our offering now oflike we take advisor positions with companies
within our vein that we can help.

(01:19:08):
So we really broke that down, starting with thevery large idea into how can we make money and
how like, what do people want from us and whatare they willing to pay for?
And what works?
We did a lot of testing too.
We've thought about for almost six months ofwhat can we offer to our community that they

(01:19:30):
care about or that they want that they don'talready have and where is that hole in the
market and how can we fill it?
So I think that was, I know that's a little bitdifferent rather than like a physical product,
but that's how we got to our service offeringnow of taking advisory or board seats with the
companies that we wish we had helped and all ofthe things that you would do as an investor of

(01:19:50):
come to us.
We're bought into the business basically withadvisor position to be able to help them with
whatever they need.
And then I think the other Alden, is thecompany, my corporate fixing company, that's
basically, it's like me and an intern, which isreally fun for now.
My ideation there, my idea there was I'm a VCand I'm running these three processes all day

(01:20:17):
and I miss working with founders, and I missbeing the head of people, and I miss the
operating skills.
And I'm like, there are so many companies thatI either we don't invest in or that need help
or that I can make a huge difference in theirtrajectory by working with them for a month and

(01:20:38):
helping them solve their problems so they don'thave to go a year in the wrong direction.
And that was just for me.
I wanted to exercise that part of my brain, andI figured out I started with my boredom and
broke it down into, like, okay, what am I goodat?
And, like, the third part was, like, how can Icharge for it?
And, like, how do I get those customers?
And it was honestly just passionate, like, arethe things that I really like to do in building

(01:21:01):
building a business around it and, like,getting people to pay me for it.
So no.
I totally understand.
So I actually was a scout for Launch With GSFund, which focuses on like Black and Latinx
and, you know, underserved communities.
So I get where you're starting, like, you know,all this, like, underrepresented and all that.
So that's why the one that we're building, meand my mentor, also is for like,

(01:21:23):
underrepresented founders in fintech.
Aside from that, when you mentioned about howto charge the customers, right?
That's kind of like intriguing me.
Lot of, I think there's like, of course, I wantto be a VC, that's how I met Joel and, you
know, he's been nice enough kind enough to likeget me on board, and I learned a lot from him,
now I'm like, kind of like, okay, let me trylike, you know, things that I learned.
He and I touched base with Joe about it.
What I was kind of wondering is that I think tobe a good VC or to be a good founder, you need

(01:21:49):
to have like, it's either a spectrum, right?
I learned a lot from that I could apply whenyou're building something, and I'm sure that
when you're building something, you also knowthe tricks to get the funding, right?
You have a checklist at VC.
When you're working on figuring out how tocharge the customer, how like, do you come up
with it?
I'm sure, like, you look at your competitors,there's a lot of way to charge, you have to

(01:22:09):
differentiate it a little bit.
So the revenue model building is one of thehardest thing for founders and the VCs who also
assess that in order to determine whether theyare viable investment or align with the thesis,
even if it aligns, say, if it, if the revenuemodel is not right, but you still have to think
ahead.
Right?
It could be corrected.
It could be pivoted.
So how do you figure that, like, how do youcharge customer?
I know, like, it could be a deep conversation,but just, like Sure.

(01:22:32):
You look at some signals or, like, how do youthink about it?
Users, sellers, like, right, if you're inmarketplace?
Yeah.
So basically for me and the, like, thecorporate fixing side, how I figured that out
was very roughly how I started with howconsultants figure out their hourly rate, which
there's like a formula you can look up,certain, like, three extra expenses minus

(01:22:55):
whatever, and then, I broke that down intotiers.
So I work with different stages of companiesthat have different budgets.
So for example, if I was to work with a seedstage company that might have a smaller budget
that may or may not afford, like, my hourlyrate that I still wanna work with, I'd be
willing to take, like, x, per hour or xretainer and part in equity.

(01:23:19):
Then based on their current valuation, youfigure out what that might be worth and then
figuring that out and working with the companywith where they are to come to terms,
especially if it's a company that you reallylike.
Then you get that sweet, sweet equity at afaster vesting than probably other people
would.

(01:23:39):
So that was kind of part of it of figuring outwhat are the different breakdowns of my
customers.
So seed, series A, B, and then figuring outwhat's ideal for me within the those areas, and
what do I really want.
So, like, ideal my my ideal situation withsomething like what I'm doing is a retainer.

(01:24:03):
So whenever somebody can kind of like how youhave your lawyer, whenever you have a question,
you can ping them and they'll they bill againstyour retainer.
Whenever a founder has a question or if theyhave a project that they want me to work on,
I'm available, and I have, like five hours aweek designated to them that I'm willing to
help them with, that they don't use the fivehours of their problem.
But choosing to have that availability for themto be able to be available rather than, this

(01:24:26):
was kind of the whole thing at Atrium was thelegal billable hours disincentivizing people to
come to you for help.
And so having that, and I think consultantsthat's true too, or with something like this,
they would be disincentivized to come to mewith a question if I was billable because they
would be afraid to ask me because I'm gonnacharge them at the wazoo to answer this

(01:24:48):
question rather than actually figuring out thesolution together.
So do you do you think that, like, in, like,social media, kind of like a nominal
marketplace.
Right?
They pretend to be a marketplace, notnecessarily a marketplace.
Think about it, Facebook, for example, is oneof the best examples.
Shopify is like the reverse of that, right?
So I think they're going like to like, I followBen Thompson, I'm sure like you heard about him

(01:25:10):
too, you know, was, he did analysis about thiswhole like platform aggregator.
And I was just wondering, in this day and age,like how Facebook did or like Yelp did, do you
think that like zero feed model for like userand like users and then try to sync alternative
revenue channel.
Do you think that model is still a viable modelin terms of, like, you know, the future of

(01:25:32):
marketplace or, like, the social interactions?
I don't do I I don't know if I'm the bestperson to ask that question.
I don't do a lot of, like, social marketplaces.
That's not really my domain.
Mhmm.
What I can give a good example of is a companycalled Public, which is actually stole a lot of
users from Robinhood recently.

(01:25:54):
So, basically, they Yeah.
Heard about that.
Yeah.
They're stock exchange, and they're also asocial media platform encouraging people to
share why they invested in certain companiesand commenting on it, like, I was reading the
thread about Roblox today and, like, just crazystuff.
And I think I can give that example ofRobinhood versus public of, like, public

(01:26:15):
doesn't charge fees, but they'll do, like, atipping system.
So when I buy a stock, I can choose to tip acertain amount that goes to the company because
they go, okay.
This is great.
Whatever.
I get a portal.
Right?
I'm sure everybody has Adblock.
And I actually talked with a product managerfrom Adblock through a friend.
I was like, Oh, I didn't know that you guyshave this big, you know, like I thought I never

(01:26:35):
paid for Adblock.
I used it for ten years.
Yeah.
But that's all I have.
Don't want to give the time without the time.
Allison, I realize that we're actually thirtyminutes over, so I really apologize.
No, that's okay.
Didn't realize that we ran over.
I was free.
I do have a call in one minute, I can take aquick question if anyone has a question.
I will just, to respect your time.

(01:26:55):
I'll just rapid fire this final question, whichis biggest challenges for you working and
founding a VC firm.
So if you wanna just do that rapid fire, we'llwrap up.
I think the biggest challenge when I was goinginto it was being scared of, like, I could have
started things much sooner because I was I wasscared and I didn't know if I could do it right
or if I was the right person to do it.

(01:27:18):
The in the last three years, both building a VCand founding companies and building those, Time
management is really has been a great challengefor me, but I think the lesson there is just
figure I have a blog post on this I can sharewith you Mhmm.
Of figuring out the time of day that's best foryou to do certain things and, like, keep to

(01:27:40):
that schedule religiously.
Like, time block your time for every singletask that you need to do.
And b, I think, your own value too is reallyimportant of, like, you should figure out what
your billable hours should be and, like, areyou in that place now?
And when someone wastes your time, how muchmoney of your time are they wasting?

(01:28:02):
And not doing work for free, I think, is isanother thing of within that whole vein of,
like, you shouldn't do work for free.
Sure.
Cool.
All right.
Well, I let you run to your meeting.
Sorry for delaying you, but hey, this was soamazing.
Thank you so much.
This is one of the top episodes.
So thank you.
Yeah.
No.
Thanks so much for having me and thankseveryone for your questions.
I love this too.

(01:28:22):
And Joel, I'm glad that we're now best friends.
We are.
BFFs.
Take care.
BFFs.
Have a good one.
Yeah.
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