July 20, 2025 • 52 mins
In this episode, Brandon Maier from LvlUp Venture discusses his journey from venture capital to the crypto space, sharing challenges faced in founding a crypto exchange and lessons from failures. He highlights the impact of Quake Accelerator, family office councils, and leveraging university resources for startups. Brandon also explores his venture into VC, building LevelUp, and insights into breaking into the industry. The conversation covers talent acquisition trends, LinkedIn's role, raising a fund, and fostering investor relationships. Brandon concludes with advice on creativity, innovation, tech stack challenges, and transitioning roles in the VC landscape.
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(00:00):
Yeah.
(00:00):
So no one really knew at the time what it was.
Anytime and this is the complication withgetting being bankable is anytime a bank
manager would look up what Bitcoin even wasbecause the transaction volumes are crazy
seeing that, there were all these red flagarticles, especially, like, around, like,
(00:25):
mainstream media.
And that was the back of the day when they hadSilk Road.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
(00:49):
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
Live in a second.
Gonna turn my camera on.
Oh yeah, do you want my camera?
Cool.
Awesome man.
(01:10):
Well thanks for popping by excited to have youon the show.
This is my second one today.
So excited to have Brandon Meyer on the show.
He's running Level Up Ventures.
So thanks for popping by Brandon and I feellike I've been seeing you like three times a
week because I have been.
(01:31):
Yeah, to be here and thank you for having me onthe show.
Yeah, well why don't we kick it off?
Don't we jump right into it?
Tell us a little bit about your background.
I know this is not your first rodeo.
This is not your first fund so tell us aboutthe origin story, you know how you broke into
VC.
Was your background before, why did you want toget into VC and tell us about the process that
(01:56):
you went through when you decided to start yourown fund and now your second fund.
Yeah.
I'd love to.
So a little background on myself.
Originally born in the Midwest by way ofMichigan.
I moved to New York City for for college atNYU.
(02:22):
I started off I actually really didn't know awhole lot startups.
And I started off actually running running alot of campus brand ambassador campaigns, but
not as a brand ambassador for a specific group,but designing a program to get them into the to
(02:46):
the school.
Mhmm.
So that was kinda my first foray into thestartup world.
From there, I became a financial controller inthe very, very early days of crypto back when
there was only Bitcoin and Litecoin for a majorexchange at the time backed by the Winklevoss
(03:08):
twins.
And did you come from so when you saidcontroller, did you come from, like, an
accounting background?
Is that what you studied?
So no, actually.
I started doing bookkeeping for my stepdad'sbusiness when I was 12 years old.
Got it.
And I had learned a lot that didn't necessarilymake me want to go that route.
(03:33):
I was always obsessed with statistics andnumbers.
Yeah, but have you worked for Azure or Cartabecause nobody wants to do that stuff.
But everyone has to pay for someone to do it.
So I feel like there's a lot of job stability,but it's just no one wants to do it.
It's helpful to know how to build financialmodels.
(03:57):
It's not something that Exactly.
It's not something that I'm passionate about.
If anything, it's more therapeutic to sit infront of a computer, but you miss out on all of
the interaction, especially the fun interactionin the startup world.
So early day financial controller, crazy timein crypto.
(04:20):
It was actually back when the government wasdoing initial federal regulation.
So the the easiest part and this is so this hashappened over the course of the last decade for
them to even figure out how to tax it properly.
So very interesting time to be in that space.
But once government started doing earlyregulation, any exchange in The US that wanted
(04:46):
to keep going, a
lot
of them moved to Panama City or out of countryentirely where there wasn't any sort of
regulation and it wasn't hard to get a bankaccount.
So at that time, I actually went on to start myfirst startup where as a founder, CEO, actually
(05:07):
started that with my business partner in inthis fund now, AJ Smith, who's been a four time
CTO.
And then come up
with the what what was the impetus for startingthe startup?
Like, what made you decide to do it?
Was it was the crypto it was the cryptoexchange.
We had it was it was a perfect example veryearly on with a having a young founder where
(05:39):
you get you get money and you don't necessarilyspend it in the best way.
We had a very large off office in the GarmentDistrict in New York City
Mhmm.
That could have housed 50 people.
There was 17 of us.
I had a double office which
(06:00):
was like you needed a comptroller to to helpwith the the bookkeeping.
Well, it wasn't when I when I came in, there isabout two and a half years worth of bookkeeping
to to do, creating a whole new chart ofaccounts, Also really kind of understanding
(06:23):
cross currency coming in, making sureeverything was time stamped properly because
you're taking currency from multiple differentYeah.
And the conversion rate and up and downvolatility, especially at that time, you know,
is crazier than any, you know, stock thatanybody's ever seen.
(06:45):
So Yeah.
I feel like the founders should be focusing onrunning the company.
Right?
And although bookkeeping is important and I Ifeel like there's a there's a balance between
understanding your financials and knowing yournumbers, and then one step beyond that is
really going down to the granular level ofpreparing financial reports.
(07:06):
I feel like the VCs and the founders, if theystart doing that, they can't do their core job,
which is either deploying capital or or runningthe company and hiring talent.
So
And they did and they on their on their side ofthings, they did as founders what they should
have done.
(07:27):
They had the network that Mhmm.
Crypto was such a very unique small network atthe time Mhmm.
Of the earliest evangelists evangelists in thatspace.
And they did such a great job at growing thatnetwork, the transaction volume.
(07:50):
Like, we're processing, like, a half a milliondollars you know, a month in a in a in a time
that no one knew what crypto was.
Yeah.
What year
was This is, like, 2012.
Oh, yeah.
Super early.
Yeah.
So no one really knew at the time what it was.
Anytime and this is the complication withgetting being bankable is anytime a bank
(08:18):
manager would look up what Bitcoin even wasbecause the transaction volumes are crazy
seeing that.
There were all these red flag articles,especially, like, around, like, mainstream
media.
And that was the back in the day when they hadSilk Road.
(08:39):
But kind of the point of starting a completelydifferent startup entirely that AJ and I built.
So AJ was also at Bit Bit Instant and did thefront end design.
But we had certain roles where we were pullingin, like, developers that were college students
(09:05):
at NYU, but paying dice.com, like, $5,000 for,you know, placement on some of the this
development talent Mhmm.
When it could've cost us a lot less.
We had and that was even kind of, like, on thelow end of developers where we could have
brought in some some students.
(09:27):
We had just certain roles for things where weare paying above market value, and there were
roles that a a student with some sort ofproduct manager or leader would have been
completely sufficed.
So my idea around starting my startup, Jazzy,which was HR ed tech platform.
(09:48):
And by no means was it wildly successful, butit I think when you have those kind of initial
fails, everybody will tell you that's where youlearn the absolute most.
That's where I learned how to fundraise and notto fundraise.
Someway, somehow, I was able to raise a half amillion dollars pre platform from a complete
(10:14):
stranger in basketball shorts and a tank top.
Sure.
So it was but it was actually then, and this ishow it was such a serendipitous way of stepping
in the in the world of VC.
We went through the second accelerator programNYU's entrepreneurship lab ever did.
(10:38):
We were the second company in the lab when theyreplaced the old bookstore near Washington
Square.
And I was I was there for an additional fouryears in the in the lab.
And that's where not only house jazzy, but as Ikinda saw the writing on the wall, we came up
(11:03):
came out the same time that another company inthe same exact space raised money quicker, just
executed a lot better, called WayUp.
They started off as
campus jobs.
Yep.
They started off as campus jobs, and theyquickly crushed it in that market, which was
(11:24):
great to see.
But I saw the writing on the wall, and I neverwanted to be that founder that just hangs on
and hangs on because there, you know, comes acertain point where the company starts to get a
little bit stale and there's a much lowerlikelihood of you being able to take some
somebody else's money.
And even if you can, if you have that and knowthat in the back of your mind, it doesn't seem
(11:51):
right in in the first place.
So I've actually found the company was stillgoing.
I found someone to replace me as CEO.
I started working with someone else I metthrough the NYU Wesley E Lab accelerator
program that was part of another company hadbeen interning for NYU Stern's family office
(12:12):
council, which was a very new development.
And there was a couple guys, one guy who hadhis own family office and another who is in
private equity space and they're really goodfriends that were kinda forming these at
various top tier MBA programs.
(12:33):
But it was with them.
They had a close friend in common who was aserial founder.
Quake came together in the most nontraditionalways where they had a really good friend who
was a little bit older than us, serialturnaround CEO, founder, had eight exits, three
(12:59):
IPOs, crazy background.
Mhmm.
Needed a couple of other people.
We wanted to build some sort of acceleratorprogram, and that's the base.
Let's let's build an accelerator.
So I spent a couple nights in the lab.
I I slept there studying every single it's a107 accelerator programs that either succeeded
(13:26):
and especially the ones that failed.
A perfect example, and I can't remember thename of it, was one that was doing crypto in
2015, just way too early, not the right time.
And it helped really kinda shape the programthat we were we were building and started
(13:49):
working on the program design, started buildingadjacent programs to tie in having gone through
a university program to learn how to build astart up, I really felt early on that the
colleges, although certain, you know, certainstudents that might be a a kind of a a learning
(14:10):
on their initial start up that they build.
They're given the proper tools to understandhow to execute in this space, which a lot of
people coming out of universities fifteen plusyears ago, we didn't have that type of
entrepreneurial education.
Most universities didn't have any sort of focuson on it at all.
(14:33):
So you're kind of taking this siloed educationpath of this is a good book to read.
Someone else tells you to read this book.
It contradicts the ideas of this one.
And it's it's really kind of trial by fire.
You really kinda have to just dive in.
Otherwise, you're gonna potentially confuseyourself.
(14:55):
What's the objective of the I just had a quickquestion.
What's the objective of the family officecouncil?
Is it a group of family offices that aresharing deal flow, or is it you know, what's
the purpose or intended outcome for for thatgroup?
I honest I honest it was teaching family officeformation.
(15:17):
So there's there's a a lot of wealth,especially coming from other con like,
countries
Yeah.
Or generational wealth from other countrieswhere they didn't have this type of structure.
Yeah.
And going into some of those places where youhave a lot of international students and I
(15:40):
didn't work specifically for them, so I don'thave all of the inside baseball knowledge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
That makes sense.
You were involved with NYU and then can youunpack a little bit how Quake started?
I think you were saying you had a couplefriends over serial entrepreneurs and did you
(16:02):
bring along your past co founder from theprevious venture along with Blake?
I did in a certain capacity.
So Okay.
Like a venture fellow or EIR?
No.
I put them at the comp there was a couplecompanies that needed, like, a a CTO.
(16:22):
They needed someone that was also gonna be ableto project manage, you know, outside devs.
Mhmm.
So we plug them into certain projects.
Yeah.
He's also just amazing at helping founderspitch and with the storytelling aspect.
(16:44):
Mhmm.
I actually never pitched our startup.
The c the person who's the CTO that youtypically not pitching startups
He was doing a lot of the pitching.
Yeah.
But he's his personality type is not in linewith your average CTO, extremely outgoing and
forward facing.
Yeah.
No, it's great.
Yeah.
(17:04):
This is definitely a superpower if you can haveboth of those skill sets because I haven't seen
that before and I work with a lot ofdevelopers.
So I can't wait for you to meet AJ sometime.
Yeah, so you know, so tell so AJ was there withyou and then tell me tell me how you ideated
the fund and what really triggered deciding togo all in.
(17:28):
Because you raised a well, you know, you raiseda decent amount
of Yeah.
Yeah.
30,000,000 in three years.
Mhmm.
That's a lot.
So the the group came together veryserendipitously.
Two of us were in the NYU accelerator program,graduated from that.
(17:51):
One was interning for the family officecouncil.
Their the members of from there, their buddywas the third person.
And then we also ended up hiring away themanager from the NYUE lab to join the fund as
well.
And did you do an MBA?
(18:12):
Is that what you studied or did you just No.
Do your undergrad there?
No.
Just just undergrad.
I I honestly have had a very interesting careerof sorts.
I promoted in college.
I had a number of different internships indifferent industries.
(18:37):
I really wanted to search and find what was thebest fit for me.
And it was kind of on this entrepreneurialjourney of discovery of sorts.
And when we started the accelerator at Quake,we built it initially out of NYU until we got
(19:04):
the first funding.
I once we had been at the eLab a little toolong, we moved over.
I got my ID extended and we moved over to thestudent service center.
Okay.
That's great.
In Kimmel.
And I know I'm dropping buildings at NYU andthat not everybody's gonna understand that, but
(19:26):
my apologies.
So we formed everything out of there.
We spent the first nine months building it outof the school.
I worked on a lot of program development.
I built what became the university investorseries, which we'd always take a college the
(19:49):
college company that won that quarterly serieswould get to go into the accelerator of their
choice.
Yeah.
Well, it really helps to be on the back of theuniversity too because you got the
infrastructure.
Like, it's probably not too difficult to host ademo day because you got, you know, probably
the ability to maybe rent out the auditoriumand if you can integrate it in with the
(20:11):
curriculum and kind of make the case that it'shey, you know, and supports the students
development.
Feel like that's a that's a win win.
Plus you've got all the computer science majorsand you know kind of the entrepreneurial school
to kind of complement what you're doing.
Oh yeah, I had 20 interns at the startup.
(20:34):
And we built in a lot of interns at Quakehelping, but once we kind of put all the pieces
together, we were able to raise our firstcapital to kick off the first program in New
York City.
I had negotiated and put against one anothersix different co working spaces because we
(20:58):
didn't always need to have an abundance ofspace.
So I negotiated this great lease downtownacross from Charging Bowl.
We kicked off our first first program witheight companies, had an incredible success as
we got six of the eight rounds closed beforethey even reached demo day.
(21:22):
Mhmm.
That not only allowed us to be able to race forthe next program, but to start thinking about
the next city.
So we were able to kick off a program in LosAngeles.
I left New York City to move out to LA.
We kicked off a program in Austin, Texas.
As far as the accelerator, like a franchise ofthe wow.
(21:45):
Didn't we didn't franchise it.
So that's where things got a little bit morestressful because as we expand it, we expanded
the team.
We started we needed to raise more and morecapital and it got to the point of kind of
feeling more of like a serial fundraiser.
And as much fun as it is to meet with new LPsand potential investors, for me, the pure joy
(22:14):
of it and the reason why I work so hard to notonly build something that's that's unique to me
and what I feel could re can really work, butit's it's also because I really thoroughly
(22:35):
enjoy working with startups.
I enjoy helping people whatever way I can.
And I what really actually pushed me to go intoVC is I met with I'm not gonna say any names or
anything, but I've met with certain investorsin the past when I had my first startup.
(22:56):
And when I, you know, I do my deep dive onpeople to see a bunch of, you know, few people
that never started anything and some just to bevery short or not seem like they at least
whether you like the company or not, at leastnice and you allow people to leave with a good
(23:20):
taste in their mouth, it rubbed me the wrongway, and I wanted to change that.
So that was my initial true motivation.
And at Quake, we built a really great founderfriendly accelerator.
Became a top Forbes ranked seed fund andaccelerator within a year.
Wow.
(23:42):
So it was a nice quick rise to that.
It is a lot to work in a multitude of differentprograms in different cities, travel,
everything.
And when I thought about doing something likeLevelUp, I really wanted to build something
(24:03):
that was different, that differentiated fromall the other funds that you typically see
really with a value admission.
And I know there's a lot out there that have avalue admission, but I feel like creating
LevelUp really allowed to have kind of thatstartup perspective and creative freedom while
(24:26):
also having a really good and solid perspectiveon what, you know, types of investments we
wanna do and how could this differentiatedthesis work.
Yeah.
And so tell me you know, I asked earlier aboutthe career, you know, that that kind of
(24:49):
validates that you don't necessarily need anMBA to break into VC.
And I think the fact that you were able to jumpinto different roles, maybe did a startup for
some time, wore a comptroller hat one day, thatdefinitely hopefully is good for the audience
to know that you don't have to come frompedigree or go to a top school.
(25:11):
Really, you know, I would say this is what Itell everybody.
You need to have really great deals, you getjudged on the deal flow that you bring in.
And a lot of times it's your networks thatallow you to get access to great deal flow so
that you can, you know, hopefully outperform inthe interview if you're applying, but we'll
love your inputs, you know, if you're lookingto hire someone for your team, and I know you
(25:35):
have this venture fellow program, which I thinkis really cool.
You know, tell me what you look for when you'rehiring an analyst and, you know, the people
that you've hired, what are kind of the commonthreads that you're seeing?
Yeah.
So I would say I would less qualify them lessas analyst per se at the pre seed seed stage.
(26:03):
And the only reason why I say that, you cangive them whatever title you want Mhmm.
Is there's a heck of a lot to less to analyzeor quantify.
You know, we're not even coming up with realvaluation caps if you're using true multiples
anyway.
So there's I think that's why every early stagefund has a kind of a specific thing that they
(26:29):
really focus on, whether it's it's team or it'sproduct market fit, etcetera.
In the past, I've always looked for people thathave a lot of drive that can pick up on things
(26:51):
pretty quickly.
They can learn quickly.
They're versatile.
I think when you're working with a lot of earlystage startups, it's great if you're really
good at one thing.
But because of the multitude of hats thateverybody wears at this stage, I like to find
people that are versatile.
(27:12):
That doesn't necessarily mean that you're anexpert in finance and you're an expert in
marketing.
But you're suffice in both areas that, youknow, you still understand it.
You still can be helpful.
And then I think one of the biggest pieces is,you know, you always hear a, you know, a a lot
(27:41):
about I'm sorry.
I'm drawing a quick blank, but you wanna makesure that there's synergies within the within
the the overall company.
And I always wanna work with people that arefriendly and that every single person that they
interact with, that they never get too big of ahead on their shoulders, that they treat each
(28:06):
founder with respect whether we wanna work withthem or not.
That's extremely important to me.
So coachable, versatile, forward facing, andnice.
Just good people.
Yeah.
That's helpful.
(28:27):
And what I guess so those are kind of thecharacter traits.
What are some of the hard skills that you liketo see?
I'm assuming when you interview them or youassess them because you probably get as you as
you can imagine, right, there's there's a rolethat gets posted on LinkedIn, there's 1000s of
applicants, right, so you may not be able tosee their coachability or their friendliness
(28:51):
through a resume or through maybe a firstapplication.
So I guess in your in your opinion early stageand this is really also just kind of for the
audience out there the students that are tryingto break into VC.
What are some hard skills that they shouldbrush up on to to really kinda outperform in
(29:13):
the selection process?
So you might find this hard to believe, butpost having a HR tech platform where I could
could see everybody's face and their skills andwhere they went to school, I stopped looking at
resumes.
Yeah.
So when if someone reaches out to me, gives mea little bit about their background, and sends
(29:38):
me a resume that way, I'll review it.
Mhmm.
And that's great.
They've taken some initiatives.
But if I have I typically have somebody else onmy team and the same in the past review it, and
I go I go in blind.
I wanna I wanna meet them at face value.
But in terms of, I guess, you know, hard hardskills for this space, it would if if it's
(30:04):
early stage investments, I wanna know thatthey've been involved in some way, shape, or
form with another startup so that they at leastunderstand the inner workings of those those
companies, whether they've interned or they'vestarted one and failed or started one and
succeeded.
If they've had any, you know, past VCinvestment experience, I think doing some sort
(30:30):
of scout program or fellowship is always ainitial good way to break in.
Accelerators are great to kinda get your footin the door or doing a program that's at your
own school.
So if there is some sort of entrepreneurshiplab, if there is some sort of fund, which a lot
(30:53):
of school schools have started their own funds,you know, that's a great kind of foot in the
door because you'll start interacting with alot of outside investors, especially that wanna
support that university.
Mhmm.
I've got a bunch of hard skills, but
No.
No.
No.
It's fine because, you know, I wanted tofollow-up real quick with where you think the
(31:15):
resume concept is heading.
And the reason why I ask you that is becausethere's a friend of mine that launched a
fintech company more for public markets.
And what you can do is you can actually paperkind of paper trade, but pretty much trade with
play money, almost like you're working for aninstitution.
(31:37):
So you're doing institutional grade assetallocation.
But what you can do is you can send yourperformance to a job.
So like Wellington's management is hiring.
So instead of sending Wellington a resume thatprobably has a bunch of lies on it anyways, but
you can't lie is your performance in thenumbers or if you're doing sales, your ability
(31:59):
to sell.
So I feel like the next generation of theresume is some type of data that tracks your
performance.
And you can send that as a report.
I feel like with VC, it's kind of like maybeyou source a deal and you drop it into this
pool and then I don't know see if other VCs optin to learn more or just straight up see what
(32:24):
the comp like see if people comment on it orupvote it and then like the best deal that has
a lot of great qualitative commentary sayinghey you know what I want to opt in maybe that's
like the next generation of the resume for VCbut I'm super passionate about like just the
future of like hiring and education because theresume is just a lot of fluff and look we coach
(32:47):
on that stuff too.
And it it it's really about positioningyourself, but it's hard to hard to, you know,
fake performance and data.
So it's interesting that you said that becausefor certain jobs, I think that is where the
next generation of hiring is going.
Mhmm.
I just reviewed a company in the HR tech spacethat's basically doing the same thing, but it's
(33:14):
they're only focused on the engineering side.
So these major
Google's been doing that for a while too.
So Google, I guess, like, you know, if you it'scrazy.
So Google, I mean, you probably heard aboutthis, right?
If you're if you search like some crazy Pythontype of library or formula, sometimes Google
will like drop down the browser and like takeyou into this like secret portal.
(33:38):
That's what I've heard before, but I knowGoogle can track your like browser history and
then target you.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of there's a lot that's beenbuilt built for, like like, in terms of, like,
the engineering component and developers,there's been a lot that's been built even for
the schools that have a better way of actuallytesting the students by, you know, giving them,
(34:04):
like, specific, like, coding sets.
And, yeah, there's I think that the it's shiftit's shifting.
I still think LinkedIn is having leading theway.
I think that's kinda become people's modern dayresume, at least in the professional workplace.
(34:27):
Yeah.
No, it is.
Yeah, I think your digital footprint.
I mean, VC is a little tricky, right?
Because there's just a lot to unpack with VC.
There's the hard skills where you're doingreturn analysis, you're sourcing and screening
deals.
But part of being a good VC is really being acontent producer and then also being a CRM
(34:52):
manager, right?
Managing a pipeline of You're
only really as good at like, in terms of VCs,you're only really as good as the deal flow
that you're able to recruit and choose.
And since there is a lot of competition for thebest companies, it's important that you offer
(35:17):
value that people actually wanna work with you.
I think that kind of forward facing, beinglikable, being somebody that's trustworthy,
that they can depend upon, maybe not too much.
No.
I think it's important.
Yeah.
No, I totally agree.
(35:37):
Anybody in the audience feel free to chime inif you guys have any questions.
I can keep going.
I would say also with raising a fund, This isyour second time around.
What type of advice you know, I know you saw mego off this morning with like a long email on
(36:00):
just my
reflections.
Thank
you, man.
Appreciate it.
Just on my reflections of buildingrelationships with LPs, but what are your
reflections?
I mean, is your second time around 30,000,000plus later.
So what has worked?
What are some learnings in terms of raising afund?
(36:22):
So it's it's it's it's been a little bitdifferent this this second time around, but
it's it's been a a good different.
Before, like, when we we were initiallystarting Quake, we we were tapped into, like, a
(36:42):
very deep family office network.
It was a a little bit of a different type offundraising where this kinda started with
complete personal network.
It was really fun at the start of the year,kind of reengaging some people I haven't spoken
(37:04):
to for a decade and getting on calls.
I found out one friend had a company valued at1,200,000,000.0, which was an interesting
development.
But started with a personal network.
Being that raising a fund, you have to followsome different protocols than if you're raising
(37:28):
for a start up.
You can't really do a lot on the cold outreachfund.
Even got creative with that.
Just kind of starting at a place of sharingdeal flow and building a relationship.
Anybody that I've brought in that I didn'tdidn't know, I would do weekly or biweekly
calls with them.
(37:50):
Get them to a place where they're comfortable,I'm comfortable.
Make sure that the first people that you'redealing with early on are people that you wanna
work with.
I think it's kind of a lot of people, whetheryou're starting your first fund or you're
starting your first startup, even if you wannajust be the boss, once you take on money,
(38:17):
especially other people's capital, youtheoretically have a boss.
You have to be mindful of that.
And you wanna make sure that unlike maybe yourold nine to five, that it's a boss that you
wanna come and you wanna work with.
And if they're coming with just a check, great.
(38:40):
But if they can offer additional value, that'ssomething that you wanna build on.
And then I think finding a program likeSouthern Capital has been great.
So you were actually intro I was introduced toyou by my very first hire at Quake, Abby Lyle.
(39:00):
Who who was oh, Abby.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's right.
Yeah.
So I Abby was my very first intern.
Mhmm.
Very first full time hire.
She was there.
She was basic I basically asked her, I think,day one or day two of not even really knowing
what we're building.
(39:22):
Yeah.
She's super sharp.
I you know, she's she's been on the show.
I met her in person and just super sharp.
You know, I met her.
Met another one of her bosses too.
He's in the Slack channel as well.
Forgot his name, but he started the newcommunity for helping people with their pitch
(39:42):
decks.
Is that Jason?
But, yeah, met met another one of her previousmanagers as well.
So it's
From Big Idea?
Big Idea.
Yep.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
Big Idea Ventures.
Yeah.
So Abby's a great friend.
So going through programs like Capital, findingother networks, you have to dig under every
(40:12):
rock.
Do whatever you want.
If it's something you truly believe in, believestrongly in, that you wanna get this done, it's
a lot of work, but the reward's great.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
And where do you think Venture is heading?
(40:33):
So tell me about where you think Venture isinnovating.
One thing I'll tell you, me included, I'mseeing a lot of VCs build stuff.
You know, I mean, NFX is an interestingexample.
But I'm seeing a lot of people just build theirown infrastructure.
But, you know, we'd love to know where youthink, you know, especially with the macro
(40:56):
environment where you think venture hasopportunities to kind of innovate and change.
Then, you know, we're seeing me specifically,seeing it being much easier to to start a
syndicate and then you know many of thesesyndicates are graduating into emerging funds.
(41:18):
So maybe you can unpack your observations onthat.
That was a lot.
I will do my absolute best.
So, I mean, it's definitely an interesting timeto be in this in this space.
The last few years have been nothing short ofcrazy.
(41:39):
Mhmm.
I've been in the VC space specifically for sixyears, and it is it's incredible how much it's
changed.
Valuations have have shot up.
Valuations despite the start of an economicdownturn, despite the start of a recession,
(42:01):
it's vastly different as you go to thesedifferent areas where even in The US, areas
where there's an absence of capital.
It's not that the founders are not as good asthe ones in ESA for New York, but there's not
as much opportunity in terms of angel investlike people that are actively angel investing
(42:26):
or, you know, a lot of those territories alsojust have, you know, smaller VCs as pretty much
everywhere now in this country has some sort ofinnovation hub.
Where it's going, I I think there's a ton ofroom for innovation and creativity within the
(42:49):
VC space itself.
You mentioned NFX.
I think, you know, the system NFX built is isgreat.
My my partner, I chose to go not only with agood friend, but choose a previous partner that
I've had also because the background of being afour time CTO.
(43:11):
And we're looking to have a lot of our own IPwhere we can, instead of using Carta, track the
companies ourselves.
Mhmm.
So I think that there's a lot of room for notjust innovation, but there should be more
creativity on this side of the table.
(43:33):
We're investing in creativity, but there needsto be more creativity on this side of the
table.
Yeah.
No, I agree.
And for me, I think it's I think, you know, Idon't know if you've been taking a look at our
Slack channel, but there's been a little bit ofa debate on the tech stack.
So people, I mean, if you really, one thing Iwant to do is get everybody together and really
(43:57):
map this out.
There's so many stages in the workflow, So whenyou source a company, number one, you need to
source companies.
There's an omni channel approach right nowwhere you're, you're, you're meeting other VCs,
you're going to accelerator events, you'regoing on crunch phase, you've got, you know,
(44:18):
venture fellows that are, that are gettingboots on the ground, connecting to those
networks.
There's so many different outreach channels andright now I'm not sure if it all kind of is
organized in the same place.
Some people really like the ability to plug inyour Gmail or you know whatever your email
(44:42):
provider is to see the email history.
Maybe if you have somebody that leaves they cankind of pick up on the communication.
That isn't too much of a huge requirement forme.
But I think still trying to organizeeverything, especially when you're looking at
the fire hose of like outreach and then inboundand prioritize.
(45:05):
Don't think there's something that easily kindof stitches everything together.
And then I think once you source the deals,think kind of like project management now goes
into a different system, is which likemonday.com.
So the stack that I've been seeing it's likeaffinity which is expensive and then Monday and
then.
(45:26):
And then obviously reporting an LP stuff islike a different portal.
Those are those are things that I've beenobserving or just getting feedback on just kind
of the disparate systems, but maybe everythingdoesn't need to be in one place.
Mean, but maybe it does.
Just think you got to really think through likeme putting a product person's hat on like
(45:47):
thinking through the user experience, like,making sure it's not confusing or clunky to get
in.
Or when you get in, like, where do you start?
You know?
So
It's I think it all comes down to connectingthe dots.
It's it's it it can be very siloed.
I won't share completely what we do, but wehave it all streamlined into one system coming
(46:09):
from multiple platforms where we're reachingout to start ups in a in abundance.
So we've we've created a, like, deep channelfor a deal flow outside of the Venture Scout
network, but that's kind of where AJ, mypartner, comes into play.
Yeah.
(46:30):
So of the all of the, you know, kind ofsystems, making sure that everything is
automated, that can be automated, It's great toactually have somebody in VC that's on the tech
side.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
No.
(46:50):
I totally agree.
Well, I know we got two minutes left.
Anybody on the on the chat here have anyquestions?
While they're thinking about a question or justlistening, I know we got like a minute left.
Maybe just to you know one or two nuggets oflearnings from like a mentor that you had.
(47:13):
Maybe a VC that you looked up to or a familymember whoever it is you know it could be life
advice or career advice anything you want toleave us with as we wrap up would be great.
Oh, you know what?
I gotta there looks like there's a betterquestion because that's kind of you've already
covered.
So what has been the most difficult part oftransitioning from founder to VC?
(47:37):
Thanks, Pedro.
Good question.
It was I feel like it was a little differentfrom me because it was it wasn't easy
transition.
But kinda starting your own thing and havingthe ability to directly be able to impact
(48:02):
yourself in a positive or negative way wassuper helpful.
But I admit that there was a lot of learningsalong the way and it was kind of closely
watching.
Anytime I served on an investor panel, I'm I'mlistening to to other people's advice.
(48:26):
I'm I just I just always kinda kept my eyes andears open and having an openness that I don't
know everything.
I'm never going to know everything.
And so there's been many people along the waythat I've been able to absorb information, and
I couldn't even pinpoint it down to saying it'smy mom.
(48:50):
I couldn't pinpoint it down to saying it's thenext business partner.
So many people along the way have been superimpactful.
But going from a founder to a VC, it'sdifferent.
For me, it was the right fit because I'm I'mslightly OCD and extremely I have ADD.
(49:16):
It all works to my advantage, but I like thechange.
I like being able to work with a multitude ofcompanies instead of doing the same thing day
in and day out.
So I was much better suited for this side ofthe table than I was for the other side.
(49:37):
Yeah, that was helpful advice.
Well, Brandon, appreciate all that you do.
So can we take one more question?
Yeah, please.
All right sorry I know I got you excited that Iwas gonna let you go but you're stuck with me
for the next seven weeks at least and for theremaining question here.
So Pedro you want to just shout this questionout or you want me to do it for you?
(49:59):
Be more personal if it comes
from Yeah, the sorry Brandon to keep you fromgoing about Last your question, given that VC
horizons are essentially ten to twelve years,you know, the additional two, How does that
affect the personalities that you hire?
Some people could be shortsighted.
Other people are more long term visionaries.
(50:21):
Are you talking about, like, kind of time timeto exit?
Yeah.
Like, do you typically encounter associates oranalysts that are, like, trigger happy or,
like, want something to happen immediately?
That they can't wait for a company to exit?
So the they're not it's not really dependent onfor anybody that's coming at the associate
(50:47):
level or they're just getting started, thatshould be a building block for them.
And it should be either something for them tomove up within that specific group or, you
know, go on to bigger and better things atanother group.
(51:07):
So coming from early stage, it's never expectedthat they're gonna stay there long term,
especially they're not meant to wait arounduntil a company leaves.
So it's it's If they're there for a year ortwo, if they're there for three, great.
But I think it's great if you see an associate,if you don't have the ability to promote them,
(51:34):
that they're gonna go on to bigger and betterthings.
Girl, Abby, I mentioned, it's been incredibleseeing what she's done in VC.
I couldn't be happier for her.
Thank you.
Great.
Cool.
Well, awesome.
Brandon, thanks so much and catch up with yousoon.
(51:56):
Have a good rest of the evening.
Yeah.
(00:00):
So no one really knew at the time what it was.
Anytime and this is the complication withgetting being bankable is anytime a bank
manager would look up what Bitcoin even wasbecause the transaction volumes are crazy
seeing that, there were all these red flagarticles, especially, like, around, like,
(00:25):
mainstream media.
And that was the back of the day when they hadSilk Road.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
(00:49):
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
Live in a second.
Gonna turn my camera on.
Oh yeah, do you want my camera?
Cool.
Awesome man.
(01:10):
Well thanks for popping by excited to have youon the show.
This is my second one today.
So excited to have Brandon Meyer on the show.
He's running Level Up Ventures.
So thanks for popping by Brandon and I feellike I've been seeing you like three times a
week because I have been.
(01:31):
Yeah, to be here and thank you for having me onthe show.
Yeah, well why don't we kick it off?
Don't we jump right into it?
Tell us a little bit about your background.
I know this is not your first rodeo.
This is not your first fund so tell us aboutthe origin story, you know how you broke into
VC.
Was your background before, why did you want toget into VC and tell us about the process that
(01:56):
you went through when you decided to start yourown fund and now your second fund.
Yeah.
I'd love to.
So a little background on myself.
Originally born in the Midwest by way ofMichigan.
I moved to New York City for for college atNYU.
(02:22):
I started off I actually really didn't know awhole lot startups.
And I started off actually running running alot of campus brand ambassador campaigns, but
not as a brand ambassador for a specific group,but designing a program to get them into the to
(02:46):
the school.
Mhmm.
So that was kinda my first foray into thestartup world.
From there, I became a financial controller inthe very, very early days of crypto back when
there was only Bitcoin and Litecoin for a majorexchange at the time backed by the Winklevoss
(03:08):
twins.
And did you come from so when you saidcontroller, did you come from, like, an
accounting background?
Is that what you studied?
So no, actually.
I started doing bookkeeping for my stepdad'sbusiness when I was 12 years old.
Got it.
And I had learned a lot that didn't necessarilymake me want to go that route.
(03:33):
I was always obsessed with statistics andnumbers.
Yeah, but have you worked for Azure or Cartabecause nobody wants to do that stuff.
But everyone has to pay for someone to do it.
So I feel like there's a lot of job stability,but it's just no one wants to do it.
It's helpful to know how to build financialmodels.
(03:57):
It's not something that Exactly.
It's not something that I'm passionate about.
If anything, it's more therapeutic to sit infront of a computer, but you miss out on all of
the interaction, especially the fun interactionin the startup world.
So early day financial controller, crazy timein crypto.
(04:20):
It was actually back when the government wasdoing initial federal regulation.
So the the easiest part and this is so this hashappened over the course of the last decade for
them to even figure out how to tax it properly.
So very interesting time to be in that space.
But once government started doing earlyregulation, any exchange in The US that wanted
(04:46):
to keep going, a
lot
of them moved to Panama City or out of countryentirely where there wasn't any sort of
regulation and it wasn't hard to get a bankaccount.
So at that time, I actually went on to start myfirst startup where as a founder, CEO, actually
(05:07):
started that with my business partner in inthis fund now, AJ Smith, who's been a four time
CTO.
And then come up
with the what what was the impetus for startingthe startup?
Like, what made you decide to do it?
Was it was the crypto it was the cryptoexchange.
We had it was it was a perfect example veryearly on with a having a young founder where
(05:39):
you get you get money and you don't necessarilyspend it in the best way.
We had a very large off office in the GarmentDistrict in New York City
Mhmm.
That could have housed 50 people.
There was 17 of us.
I had a double office which
(06:00):
was like you needed a comptroller to to helpwith the the bookkeeping.
Well, it wasn't when I when I came in, there isabout two and a half years worth of bookkeeping
to to do, creating a whole new chart ofaccounts, Also really kind of understanding
(06:23):
cross currency coming in, making sureeverything was time stamped properly because
you're taking currency from multiple differentYeah.
And the conversion rate and up and downvolatility, especially at that time, you know,
is crazier than any, you know, stock thatanybody's ever seen.
(06:45):
So Yeah.
I feel like the founders should be focusing onrunning the company.
Right?
And although bookkeeping is important and I Ifeel like there's a there's a balance between
understanding your financials and knowing yournumbers, and then one step beyond that is
really going down to the granular level ofpreparing financial reports.
(07:06):
I feel like the VCs and the founders, if theystart doing that, they can't do their core job,
which is either deploying capital or or runningthe company and hiring talent.
So
And they did and they on their on their side ofthings, they did as founders what they should
have done.
(07:27):
They had the network that Mhmm.
Crypto was such a very unique small network atthe time Mhmm.
Of the earliest evangelists evangelists in thatspace.
And they did such a great job at growing thatnetwork, the transaction volume.
(07:50):
Like, we're processing, like, a half a milliondollars you know, a month in a in a in a time
that no one knew what crypto was.
Yeah.
What year
was This is, like, 2012.
Oh, yeah.
Super early.
Yeah.
So no one really knew at the time what it was.
Anytime and this is the complication withgetting being bankable is anytime a bank
(08:18):
manager would look up what Bitcoin even wasbecause the transaction volumes are crazy
seeing that.
There were all these red flag articles,especially, like, around, like, mainstream
media.
And that was the back in the day when they hadSilk Road.
(08:39):
But kind of the point of starting a completelydifferent startup entirely that AJ and I built.
So AJ was also at Bit Bit Instant and did thefront end design.
But we had certain roles where we were pullingin, like, developers that were college students
(09:05):
at NYU, but paying dice.com, like, $5,000 for,you know, placement on some of the this
development talent Mhmm.
When it could've cost us a lot less.
We had and that was even kind of, like, on thelow end of developers where we could have
brought in some some students.
(09:27):
We had just certain roles for things where weare paying above market value, and there were
roles that a a student with some sort ofproduct manager or leader would have been
completely sufficed.
So my idea around starting my startup, Jazzy,which was HR ed tech platform.
(09:48):
And by no means was it wildly successful, butit I think when you have those kind of initial
fails, everybody will tell you that's where youlearn the absolute most.
That's where I learned how to fundraise and notto fundraise.
Someway, somehow, I was able to raise a half amillion dollars pre platform from a complete
(10:14):
stranger in basketball shorts and a tank top.
Sure.
So it was but it was actually then, and this ishow it was such a serendipitous way of stepping
in the in the world of VC.
We went through the second accelerator programNYU's entrepreneurship lab ever did.
(10:38):
We were the second company in the lab when theyreplaced the old bookstore near Washington
Square.
And I was I was there for an additional fouryears in the in the lab.
And that's where not only house jazzy, but as Ikinda saw the writing on the wall, we came up
(11:03):
came out the same time that another company inthe same exact space raised money quicker, just
executed a lot better, called WayUp.
They started off as
campus jobs.
Yep.
They started off as campus jobs, and theyquickly crushed it in that market, which was
(11:24):
great to see.
But I saw the writing on the wall, and I neverwanted to be that founder that just hangs on
and hangs on because there, you know, comes acertain point where the company starts to get a
little bit stale and there's a much lowerlikelihood of you being able to take some
somebody else's money.
And even if you can, if you have that and knowthat in the back of your mind, it doesn't seem
(11:51):
right in in the first place.
So I've actually found the company was stillgoing.
I found someone to replace me as CEO.
I started working with someone else I metthrough the NYU Wesley E Lab accelerator
program that was part of another company hadbeen interning for NYU Stern's family office
(12:12):
council, which was a very new development.
And there was a couple guys, one guy who hadhis own family office and another who is in
private equity space and they're really goodfriends that were kinda forming these at
various top tier MBA programs.
(12:33):
But it was with them.
They had a close friend in common who was aserial founder.
Quake came together in the most nontraditionalways where they had a really good friend who
was a little bit older than us, serialturnaround CEO, founder, had eight exits, three
(12:59):
IPOs, crazy background.
Mhmm.
Needed a couple of other people.
We wanted to build some sort of acceleratorprogram, and that's the base.
Let's let's build an accelerator.
So I spent a couple nights in the lab.
I I slept there studying every single it's a107 accelerator programs that either succeeded
(13:26):
and especially the ones that failed.
A perfect example, and I can't remember thename of it, was one that was doing crypto in
2015, just way too early, not the right time.
And it helped really kinda shape the programthat we were we were building and started
(13:49):
working on the program design, started buildingadjacent programs to tie in having gone through
a university program to learn how to build astart up, I really felt early on that the
colleges, although certain, you know, certainstudents that might be a a kind of a a learning
(14:10):
on their initial start up that they build.
They're given the proper tools to understandhow to execute in this space, which a lot of
people coming out of universities fifteen plusyears ago, we didn't have that type of
entrepreneurial education.
Most universities didn't have any sort of focuson on it at all.
(14:33):
So you're kind of taking this siloed educationpath of this is a good book to read.
Someone else tells you to read this book.
It contradicts the ideas of this one.
And it's it's really kind of trial by fire.
You really kinda have to just dive in.
Otherwise, you're gonna potentially confuseyourself.
(14:55):
What's the objective of the I just had a quickquestion.
What's the objective of the family officecouncil?
Is it a group of family offices that aresharing deal flow, or is it you know, what's
the purpose or intended outcome for for thatgroup?
I honest I honest it was teaching family officeformation.
(15:17):
So there's there's a a lot of wealth,especially coming from other con like,
countries
Yeah.
Or generational wealth from other countrieswhere they didn't have this type of structure.
Yeah.
And going into some of those places where youhave a lot of international students and I
(15:40):
didn't work specifically for them, so I don'thave all of the inside baseball knowledge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
That makes sense.
You were involved with NYU and then can youunpack a little bit how Quake started?
I think you were saying you had a couplefriends over serial entrepreneurs and did you
(16:02):
bring along your past co founder from theprevious venture along with Blake?
I did in a certain capacity.
So Okay.
Like a venture fellow or EIR?
No.
I put them at the comp there was a couplecompanies that needed, like, a a CTO.
(16:22):
They needed someone that was also gonna be ableto project manage, you know, outside devs.
Mhmm.
So we plug them into certain projects.
Yeah.
He's also just amazing at helping founderspitch and with the storytelling aspect.
(16:44):
Mhmm.
I actually never pitched our startup.
The c the person who's the CTO that youtypically not pitching startups
He was doing a lot of the pitching.
Yeah.
But he's his personality type is not in linewith your average CTO, extremely outgoing and
forward facing.
Yeah.
No, it's great.
Yeah.
(17:04):
This is definitely a superpower if you can haveboth of those skill sets because I haven't seen
that before and I work with a lot ofdevelopers.
So I can't wait for you to meet AJ sometime.
Yeah, so you know, so tell so AJ was there withyou and then tell me tell me how you ideated
the fund and what really triggered deciding togo all in.
(17:28):
Because you raised a well, you know, you raiseda decent amount
of Yeah.
Yeah.
30,000,000 in three years.
Mhmm.
That's a lot.
So the the group came together veryserendipitously.
Two of us were in the NYU accelerator program,graduated from that.
(17:51):
One was interning for the family officecouncil.
Their the members of from there, their buddywas the third person.
And then we also ended up hiring away themanager from the NYUE lab to join the fund as
well.
And did you do an MBA?
(18:12):
Is that what you studied or did you just No.
Do your undergrad there?
No.
Just just undergrad.
I I honestly have had a very interesting careerof sorts.
I promoted in college.
I had a number of different internships indifferent industries.
(18:37):
I really wanted to search and find what was thebest fit for me.
And it was kind of on this entrepreneurialjourney of discovery of sorts.
And when we started the accelerator at Quake,we built it initially out of NYU until we got
(19:04):
the first funding.
I once we had been at the eLab a little toolong, we moved over.
I got my ID extended and we moved over to thestudent service center.
Okay.
That's great.
In Kimmel.
And I know I'm dropping buildings at NYU andthat not everybody's gonna understand that, but
(19:26):
my apologies.
So we formed everything out of there.
We spent the first nine months building it outof the school.
I worked on a lot of program development.
I built what became the university investorseries, which we'd always take a college the
(19:49):
college company that won that quarterly serieswould get to go into the accelerator of their
choice.
Yeah.
Well, it really helps to be on the back of theuniversity too because you got the
infrastructure.
Like, it's probably not too difficult to host ademo day because you got, you know, probably
the ability to maybe rent out the auditoriumand if you can integrate it in with the
(20:11):
curriculum and kind of make the case that it'shey, you know, and supports the students
development.
Feel like that's a that's a win win.
Plus you've got all the computer science majorsand you know kind of the entrepreneurial school
to kind of complement what you're doing.
Oh yeah, I had 20 interns at the startup.
(20:34):
And we built in a lot of interns at Quakehelping, but once we kind of put all the pieces
together, we were able to raise our firstcapital to kick off the first program in New
York City.
I had negotiated and put against one anothersix different co working spaces because we
(20:58):
didn't always need to have an abundance ofspace.
So I negotiated this great lease downtownacross from Charging Bowl.
We kicked off our first first program witheight companies, had an incredible success as
we got six of the eight rounds closed beforethey even reached demo day.
(21:22):
Mhmm.
That not only allowed us to be able to race forthe next program, but to start thinking about
the next city.
So we were able to kick off a program in LosAngeles.
I left New York City to move out to LA.
We kicked off a program in Austin, Texas.
As far as the accelerator, like a franchise ofthe wow.
(21:45):
Didn't we didn't franchise it.
So that's where things got a little bit morestressful because as we expand it, we expanded
the team.
We started we needed to raise more and morecapital and it got to the point of kind of
feeling more of like a serial fundraiser.
And as much fun as it is to meet with new LPsand potential investors, for me, the pure joy
(22:14):
of it and the reason why I work so hard to notonly build something that's that's unique to me
and what I feel could re can really work, butit's it's also because I really thoroughly
(22:35):
enjoy working with startups.
I enjoy helping people whatever way I can.
And I what really actually pushed me to go intoVC is I met with I'm not gonna say any names or
anything, but I've met with certain investorsin the past when I had my first startup.
(22:56):
And when I, you know, I do my deep dive onpeople to see a bunch of, you know, few people
that never started anything and some just to bevery short or not seem like they at least
whether you like the company or not, at leastnice and you allow people to leave with a good
(23:20):
taste in their mouth, it rubbed me the wrongway, and I wanted to change that.
So that was my initial true motivation.
And at Quake, we built a really great founderfriendly accelerator.
Became a top Forbes ranked seed fund andaccelerator within a year.
Wow.
(23:42):
So it was a nice quick rise to that.
It is a lot to work in a multitude of differentprograms in different cities, travel,
everything.
And when I thought about doing something likeLevelUp, I really wanted to build something
(24:03):
that was different, that differentiated fromall the other funds that you typically see
really with a value admission.
And I know there's a lot out there that have avalue admission, but I feel like creating
LevelUp really allowed to have kind of thatstartup perspective and creative freedom while
(24:26):
also having a really good and solid perspectiveon what, you know, types of investments we
wanna do and how could this differentiatedthesis work.
Yeah.
And so tell me you know, I asked earlier aboutthe career, you know, that that kind of
(24:49):
validates that you don't necessarily need anMBA to break into VC.
And I think the fact that you were able to jumpinto different roles, maybe did a startup for
some time, wore a comptroller hat one day, thatdefinitely hopefully is good for the audience
to know that you don't have to come frompedigree or go to a top school.
(25:11):
Really, you know, I would say this is what Itell everybody.
You need to have really great deals, you getjudged on the deal flow that you bring in.
And a lot of times it's your networks thatallow you to get access to great deal flow so
that you can, you know, hopefully outperform inthe interview if you're applying, but we'll
love your inputs, you know, if you're lookingto hire someone for your team, and I know you
(25:35):
have this venture fellow program, which I thinkis really cool.
You know, tell me what you look for when you'rehiring an analyst and, you know, the people
that you've hired, what are kind of the commonthreads that you're seeing?
Yeah.
So I would say I would less qualify them lessas analyst per se at the pre seed seed stage.
(26:03):
And the only reason why I say that, you cangive them whatever title you want Mhmm.
Is there's a heck of a lot to less to analyzeor quantify.
You know, we're not even coming up with realvaluation caps if you're using true multiples
anyway.
So there's I think that's why every early stagefund has a kind of a specific thing that they
(26:29):
really focus on, whether it's it's team or it'sproduct market fit, etcetera.
In the past, I've always looked for people thathave a lot of drive that can pick up on things
(26:51):
pretty quickly.
They can learn quickly.
They're versatile.
I think when you're working with a lot of earlystage startups, it's great if you're really
good at one thing.
But because of the multitude of hats thateverybody wears at this stage, I like to find
people that are versatile.
(27:12):
That doesn't necessarily mean that you're anexpert in finance and you're an expert in
marketing.
But you're suffice in both areas that, youknow, you still understand it.
You still can be helpful.
And then I think one of the biggest pieces is,you know, you always hear a, you know, a a lot
(27:41):
about I'm sorry.
I'm drawing a quick blank, but you wanna makesure that there's synergies within the within
the the overall company.
And I always wanna work with people that arefriendly and that every single person that they
interact with, that they never get too big of ahead on their shoulders, that they treat each
(28:06):
founder with respect whether we wanna work withthem or not.
That's extremely important to me.
So coachable, versatile, forward facing, andnice.
Just good people.
Yeah.
That's helpful.
(28:27):
And what I guess so those are kind of thecharacter traits.
What are some of the hard skills that you liketo see?
I'm assuming when you interview them or youassess them because you probably get as you as
you can imagine, right, there's there's a rolethat gets posted on LinkedIn, there's 1000s of
applicants, right, so you may not be able tosee their coachability or their friendliness
(28:51):
through a resume or through maybe a firstapplication.
So I guess in your in your opinion early stageand this is really also just kind of for the
audience out there the students that are tryingto break into VC.
What are some hard skills that they shouldbrush up on to to really kinda outperform in
(29:13):
the selection process?
So you might find this hard to believe, butpost having a HR tech platform where I could
could see everybody's face and their skills andwhere they went to school, I stopped looking at
resumes.
Yeah.
So when if someone reaches out to me, gives mea little bit about their background, and sends
(29:38):
me a resume that way, I'll review it.
Mhmm.
And that's great.
They've taken some initiatives.
But if I have I typically have somebody else onmy team and the same in the past review it, and
I go I go in blind.
I wanna I wanna meet them at face value.
But in terms of, I guess, you know, hard hardskills for this space, it would if if it's
(30:04):
early stage investments, I wanna know thatthey've been involved in some way, shape, or
form with another startup so that they at leastunderstand the inner workings of those those
companies, whether they've interned or they'vestarted one and failed or started one and
succeeded.
If they've had any, you know, past VCinvestment experience, I think doing some sort
(30:30):
of scout program or fellowship is always ainitial good way to break in.
Accelerators are great to kinda get your footin the door or doing a program that's at your
own school.
So if there is some sort of entrepreneurshiplab, if there is some sort of fund, which a lot
(30:53):
of school schools have started their own funds,you know, that's a great kind of foot in the
door because you'll start interacting with alot of outside investors, especially that wanna
support that university.
Mhmm.
I've got a bunch of hard skills, but
No.
No.
No.
It's fine because, you know, I wanted tofollow-up real quick with where you think the
(31:15):
resume concept is heading.
And the reason why I ask you that is becausethere's a friend of mine that launched a
fintech company more for public markets.
And what you can do is you can actually paperkind of paper trade, but pretty much trade with
play money, almost like you're working for aninstitution.
(31:37):
So you're doing institutional grade assetallocation.
But what you can do is you can send yourperformance to a job.
So like Wellington's management is hiring.
So instead of sending Wellington a resume thatprobably has a bunch of lies on it anyways, but
you can't lie is your performance in thenumbers or if you're doing sales, your ability
(31:59):
to sell.
So I feel like the next generation of theresume is some type of data that tracks your
performance.
And you can send that as a report.
I feel like with VC, it's kind of like maybeyou source a deal and you drop it into this
pool and then I don't know see if other VCs optin to learn more or just straight up see what
(32:24):
the comp like see if people comment on it orupvote it and then like the best deal that has
a lot of great qualitative commentary sayinghey you know what I want to opt in maybe that's
like the next generation of the resume for VCbut I'm super passionate about like just the
future of like hiring and education because theresume is just a lot of fluff and look we coach
(32:47):
on that stuff too.
And it it it's really about positioningyourself, but it's hard to hard to, you know,
fake performance and data.
So it's interesting that you said that becausefor certain jobs, I think that is where the
next generation of hiring is going.
Mhmm.
I just reviewed a company in the HR tech spacethat's basically doing the same thing, but it's
(33:14):
they're only focused on the engineering side.
So these major
Google's been doing that for a while too.
So Google, I guess, like, you know, if you it'scrazy.
So Google, I mean, you probably heard aboutthis, right?
If you're if you search like some crazy Pythontype of library or formula, sometimes Google
will like drop down the browser and like takeyou into this like secret portal.
(33:38):
That's what I've heard before, but I knowGoogle can track your like browser history and
then target you.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of there's a lot that's beenbuilt built for, like like, in terms of, like,
the engineering component and developers,there's been a lot that's been built even for
the schools that have a better way of actuallytesting the students by, you know, giving them,
(34:04):
like, specific, like, coding sets.
And, yeah, there's I think that the it's shiftit's shifting.
I still think LinkedIn is having leading theway.
I think that's kinda become people's modern dayresume, at least in the professional workplace.
(34:27):
Yeah.
No, it is.
Yeah, I think your digital footprint.
I mean, VC is a little tricky, right?
Because there's just a lot to unpack with VC.
There's the hard skills where you're doingreturn analysis, you're sourcing and screening
deals.
But part of being a good VC is really being acontent producer and then also being a CRM
(34:52):
manager, right?
Managing a pipeline of You're
only really as good at like, in terms of VCs,you're only really as good as the deal flow
that you're able to recruit and choose.
And since there is a lot of competition for thebest companies, it's important that you offer
(35:17):
value that people actually wanna work with you.
I think that kind of forward facing, beinglikable, being somebody that's trustworthy,
that they can depend upon, maybe not too much.
No.
I think it's important.
Yeah.
No, I totally agree.
(35:37):
Anybody in the audience feel free to chime inif you guys have any questions.
I can keep going.
I would say also with raising a fund, This isyour second time around.
What type of advice you know, I know you saw mego off this morning with like a long email on
(36:00):
just my
reflections.
Thank
you, man.
Appreciate it.
Just on my reflections of buildingrelationships with LPs, but what are your
reflections?
I mean, is your second time around 30,000,000plus later.
So what has worked?
What are some learnings in terms of raising afund?
(36:22):
So it's it's it's it's been a little bitdifferent this this second time around, but
it's it's been a a good different.
Before, like, when we we were initiallystarting Quake, we we were tapped into, like, a
(36:42):
very deep family office network.
It was a a little bit of a different type offundraising where this kinda started with
complete personal network.
It was really fun at the start of the year,kind of reengaging some people I haven't spoken
(37:04):
to for a decade and getting on calls.
I found out one friend had a company valued at1,200,000,000.0, which was an interesting
development.
But started with a personal network.
Being that raising a fund, you have to followsome different protocols than if you're raising
(37:28):
for a start up.
You can't really do a lot on the cold outreachfund.
Even got creative with that.
Just kind of starting at a place of sharingdeal flow and building a relationship.
Anybody that I've brought in that I didn'tdidn't know, I would do weekly or biweekly
calls with them.
(37:50):
Get them to a place where they're comfortable,I'm comfortable.
Make sure that the first people that you'redealing with early on are people that you wanna
work with.
I think it's kind of a lot of people, whetheryou're starting your first fund or you're
starting your first startup, even if you wannajust be the boss, once you take on money,
(38:17):
especially other people's capital, youtheoretically have a boss.
You have to be mindful of that.
And you wanna make sure that unlike maybe yourold nine to five, that it's a boss that you
wanna come and you wanna work with.
And if they're coming with just a check, great.
(38:40):
But if they can offer additional value, that'ssomething that you wanna build on.
And then I think finding a program likeSouthern Capital has been great.
So you were actually intro I was introduced toyou by my very first hire at Quake, Abby Lyle.
(39:00):
Who who was oh, Abby.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's right.
Yeah.
So I Abby was my very first intern.
Mhmm.
Very first full time hire.
She was there.
She was basic I basically asked her, I think,day one or day two of not even really knowing
what we're building.
(39:22):
Yeah.
She's super sharp.
I you know, she's she's been on the show.
I met her in person and just super sharp.
You know, I met her.
Met another one of her bosses too.
He's in the Slack channel as well.
Forgot his name, but he started the newcommunity for helping people with their pitch
(39:42):
decks.
Is that Jason?
But, yeah, met met another one of her previousmanagers as well.
So it's
From Big Idea?
Big Idea.
Yep.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
Big Idea Ventures.
Yeah.
So Abby's a great friend.
So going through programs like Capital, findingother networks, you have to dig under every
(40:12):
rock.
Do whatever you want.
If it's something you truly believe in, believestrongly in, that you wanna get this done, it's
a lot of work, but the reward's great.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
And where do you think Venture is heading?
(40:33):
So tell me about where you think Venture isinnovating.
One thing I'll tell you, me included, I'mseeing a lot of VCs build stuff.
You know, I mean, NFX is an interestingexample.
But I'm seeing a lot of people just build theirown infrastructure.
But, you know, we'd love to know where youthink, you know, especially with the macro
(40:56):
environment where you think venture hasopportunities to kind of innovate and change.
Then, you know, we're seeing me specifically,seeing it being much easier to to start a
syndicate and then you know many of thesesyndicates are graduating into emerging funds.
(41:18):
So maybe you can unpack your observations onthat.
That was a lot.
I will do my absolute best.
So, I mean, it's definitely an interesting timeto be in this in this space.
The last few years have been nothing short ofcrazy.
(41:39):
Mhmm.
I've been in the VC space specifically for sixyears, and it is it's incredible how much it's
changed.
Valuations have have shot up.
Valuations despite the start of an economicdownturn, despite the start of a recession,
(42:01):
it's vastly different as you go to thesedifferent areas where even in The US, areas
where there's an absence of capital.
It's not that the founders are not as good asthe ones in ESA for New York, but there's not
as much opportunity in terms of angel investlike people that are actively angel investing
(42:26):
or, you know, a lot of those territories alsojust have, you know, smaller VCs as pretty much
everywhere now in this country has some sort ofinnovation hub.
Where it's going, I I think there's a ton ofroom for innovation and creativity within the
(42:49):
VC space itself.
You mentioned NFX.
I think, you know, the system NFX built is isgreat.
My my partner, I chose to go not only with agood friend, but choose a previous partner that
I've had also because the background of being afour time CTO.
(43:11):
And we're looking to have a lot of our own IPwhere we can, instead of using Carta, track the
companies ourselves.
Mhmm.
So I think that there's a lot of room for notjust innovation, but there should be more
creativity on this side of the table.
(43:33):
We're investing in creativity, but there needsto be more creativity on this side of the
table.
Yeah.
No, I agree.
And for me, I think it's I think, you know, Idon't know if you've been taking a look at our
Slack channel, but there's been a little bit ofa debate on the tech stack.
So people, I mean, if you really, one thing Iwant to do is get everybody together and really
(43:57):
map this out.
There's so many stages in the workflow, So whenyou source a company, number one, you need to
source companies.
There's an omni channel approach right nowwhere you're, you're, you're meeting other VCs,
you're going to accelerator events, you'regoing on crunch phase, you've got, you know,
(44:18):
venture fellows that are, that are gettingboots on the ground, connecting to those
networks.
There's so many different outreach channels andright now I'm not sure if it all kind of is
organized in the same place.
Some people really like the ability to plug inyour Gmail or you know whatever your email
(44:42):
provider is to see the email history.
Maybe if you have somebody that leaves they cankind of pick up on the communication.
That isn't too much of a huge requirement forme.
But I think still trying to organizeeverything, especially when you're looking at
the fire hose of like outreach and then inboundand prioritize.
(45:05):
Don't think there's something that easily kindof stitches everything together.
And then I think once you source the deals,think kind of like project management now goes
into a different system, is which likemonday.com.
So the stack that I've been seeing it's likeaffinity which is expensive and then Monday and
then.
(45:26):
And then obviously reporting an LP stuff islike a different portal.
Those are those are things that I've beenobserving or just getting feedback on just kind
of the disparate systems, but maybe everythingdoesn't need to be in one place.
Mean, but maybe it does.
Just think you got to really think through likeme putting a product person's hat on like
(45:47):
thinking through the user experience, like,making sure it's not confusing or clunky to get
in.
Or when you get in, like, where do you start?
You know?
So
It's I think it all comes down to connectingthe dots.
It's it's it it can be very siloed.
I won't share completely what we do, but wehave it all streamlined into one system coming
(46:09):
from multiple platforms where we're reachingout to start ups in a in abundance.
So we've we've created a, like, deep channelfor a deal flow outside of the Venture Scout
network, but that's kind of where AJ, mypartner, comes into play.
Yeah.
(46:30):
So of the all of the, you know, kind ofsystems, making sure that everything is
automated, that can be automated, It's great toactually have somebody in VC that's on the tech
side.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
No.
(46:50):
I totally agree.
Well, I know we got two minutes left.
Anybody on the on the chat here have anyquestions?
While they're thinking about a question or justlistening, I know we got like a minute left.
Maybe just to you know one or two nuggets oflearnings from like a mentor that you had.
(47:13):
Maybe a VC that you looked up to or a familymember whoever it is you know it could be life
advice or career advice anything you want toleave us with as we wrap up would be great.
Oh, you know what?
I gotta there looks like there's a betterquestion because that's kind of you've already
covered.
So what has been the most difficult part oftransitioning from founder to VC?
(47:37):
Thanks, Pedro.
Good question.
It was I feel like it was a little differentfrom me because it was it wasn't easy
transition.
But kinda starting your own thing and havingthe ability to directly be able to impact
(48:02):
yourself in a positive or negative way wassuper helpful.
But I admit that there was a lot of learningsalong the way and it was kind of closely
watching.
Anytime I served on an investor panel, I'm I'mlistening to to other people's advice.
(48:26):
I'm I just I just always kinda kept my eyes andears open and having an openness that I don't
know everything.
I'm never going to know everything.
And so there's been many people along the waythat I've been able to absorb information, and
I couldn't even pinpoint it down to saying it'smy mom.
(48:50):
I couldn't pinpoint it down to saying it's thenext business partner.
So many people along the way have been superimpactful.
But going from a founder to a VC, it'sdifferent.
For me, it was the right fit because I'm I'mslightly OCD and extremely I have ADD.
(49:16):
It all works to my advantage, but I like thechange.
I like being able to work with a multitude ofcompanies instead of doing the same thing day
in and day out.
So I was much better suited for this side ofthe table than I was for the other side.
(49:37):
Yeah, that was helpful advice.
Well, Brandon, appreciate all that you do.
So can we take one more question?
Yeah, please.
All right sorry I know I got you excited that Iwas gonna let you go but you're stuck with me
for the next seven weeks at least and for theremaining question here.
So Pedro you want to just shout this questionout or you want me to do it for you?
(49:59):
Be more personal if it comes
from Yeah, the sorry Brandon to keep you fromgoing about Last your question, given that VC
horizons are essentially ten to twelve years,you know, the additional two, How does that
affect the personalities that you hire?
Some people could be shortsighted.
Other people are more long term visionaries.
(50:21):
Are you talking about, like, kind of time timeto exit?
Yeah.
Like, do you typically encounter associates oranalysts that are, like, trigger happy or,
like, want something to happen immediately?
That they can't wait for a company to exit?
So the they're not it's not really dependent onfor anybody that's coming at the associate
(50:47):
level or they're just getting started, thatshould be a building block for them.
And it should be either something for them tomove up within that specific group or, you
know, go on to bigger and better things atanother group.
(51:07):
So coming from early stage, it's never expectedthat they're gonna stay there long term,
especially they're not meant to wait arounduntil a company leaves.
So it's it's If they're there for a year ortwo, if they're there for three, great.
But I think it's great if you see an associate,if you don't have the ability to promote them,
(51:34):
that they're gonna go on to bigger and betterthings.
Girl, Abby, I mentioned, it's been incredibleseeing what she's done in VC.
I couldn't be happier for her.
Thank you.
Great.
Cool.
Well, awesome.
Brandon, thanks so much and catch up with yousoon.
(51:56):
Have a good rest of the evening.
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