July 16, 2025 • 60 mins
In this episode, Diane Yoo of Filkor Capital and Maria DeMaracho discuss their roles at Philcore Capital and their career journeys. They emphasize Asian American representation, community engagement, and challenges faced by female investors in venture capital. The conversation highlights the role of data, social media's impact, and the importance of digestible content. They explore omni-channel strategies, content monetization, and growth across platforms, addressing the evolution of the Asian ecosystem in venture capital. The episode concludes with insights on empowering Asian American entrepreneurs and key learnings from 2022.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
So it's been an incredible ride in the pastsince, know, now this is my fifth fun.
I've also launched accelerators for RiceUniversity alumni and other accelerators as
well and a national pitch competition inpartnership with the largest Asian American
business organizations.
And we partnered with MIT Angels as well withover 10 cities.
(00:21):
So that was quite a ride as well.
My track record being probably over 40investments and two unicorns and
3,500,000,000.0 valuations and market leadersin their industry and numerous unicorns.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
(00:43):
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.
Excited to have some really amazing guests ontoday.
(01:04):
As you guys know, I do this a couple times aweek just to have different people in the
investment management space, private equityinvestors, hedge fund managers, we've had some
real estate, you know, private equity investorsrecently, but excited to talk about venture
capital.
Really honored to have Diane and Maria who havenow become friends of mine and just part of the
(01:25):
part of the community.
And I just think it's really amazing to heareverybody's origin story, right?
Everybody comes from a different background,everybody, especially when they get into
venture, they go in for different reasons.
Sometimes they fall into venture.
And sometimes they just get into venturebecause they really, really have been trying
for a decade like me, you know, so for me, Icame from a tech background, and was really
(01:49):
trying to break in and then finally broke in.
But it didn't, you know, naturally happened forme.
So why don't we start with that, you know, soDiane Maria, why don't you guys talk about both
of your origin stories?
Know both of you guys have been in theinvestment space for some time.
And then kind of let's go into how you guys metand then talk about the origin story of
(02:12):
Philcore Capital and what you guys arepassionate about.
And we'll just have fun.
I'll try to navigate the discussion.
Yeah, Diane, do you want me to start?
You wanna start?
Yeah, okay, go for it.
Hi, everyone, Maria DeMaracho.
I am first generation immigrant from ThePhilippines.
I was born there, came when I was two and ahalf straight to Chicago.
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I hadn't gone back to The Philippines until Iwas an adult and there with my son.
When I came there, I just kind of reconnectedback to a part of myself that was missing.
I was doing leadership workshops and somecommunity service.
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There was a number of catastrophes and myheart's heavy today because there's just a
catastrophe seven point zero earthquake thatjust happened in The Philippines.
And that was just this morning.
But when I went back, there was a volcanoeruption, there was typhoon, mudslides,
(03:19):
thousands of families displaced.
And as we were doing work with the communitythere, I was just touched by the spirit of our
people.
They were thankful they were alive, they hadeach other, and tomorrow was a new day.
And the ingenuity of what people were justcreating with the resources around them.
(03:40):
I kept asking questions about, couldn't thesebe exports?
These could be businesses to help these peoplerebuild.
And often the response I got was that the jobswere in the BPOs and call centers and so I kind
of came back with this spark in my mind aboutlike how I could give back and how
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entrepreneurship and how these things thatpeople were creating could be a path to out of
poverty, a path to economic empowerment.
So moving forward into my corporate world, I'ma corporate executive, entrepreneur, community
advocate, and launched employer resource groupat Allstate.
(04:31):
It started with five of us with ideas that wehad and we were often told, kind of focus on
your job, there weren't really pathways tobring those ideas to life.
And we pitched an employee resource group,which has now become their corporate incubator.
It's grown from five to 700 employees, they runthe internal Shark Tank now of the company, do
(04:55):
startup challenges, and I thought this is theway that I could actually give back to the
community.
Maybe I can create incubators to createpathways where people can bring those ideas to
life.
And so that connected me to Diane.
It was a dream I was kind of working on for anumber of years.
Diane and I met through some Asian Americancommunity work we were doing.
She introduced herself as an angel VC and itwas like, I'd just seen a rare sighting of
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first an Asian VC, but also as a woman.
So I connected with her and she had taken meunder her wing saying, I'm doing something
similar in Korea and I have resources and I'dlove to help you.
So as we were working and she was helping mealong the way, Diane kind of said, It's really
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noble what you're trying to do, but there'salso different pathways.
One is that you could be an investor yourself.
And never thought about that, I was always theproducer of the show, kind of the matchmaker of
the funders and founders and it was that thatjust opened my eyes to it.
I really wasn't thinking that this would be apath I'd go to until I started looking at the
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stats, seeing that only 2% of women got venturefunding, the lack of representation with people
of color and just the movement of democratizinginvesting so that the people getting invested
was also democratized.
So, you know, I said what I need to do and thatwas kind of like the opening.
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I started angel investing, joining somesyndicates, you know, and at the end of last
year is when we applied for our VC Acceleratorwhere we launched Philcore Capital.
And tell us how that intersected with you,Diane, I know that you, you know, you do
definitely have a track record, you know, witha couple different institutions and funds, and
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you also have done some angel investing and,also, we're going to dig dive deep on this in a
couple of days, you and I, but tell us a littlemore about just kind of the ecosystem in East
Asia too, and kind of how that's taken to whereyou are now.
Sure.
So I'll start with my background.
So I'm a techpreneur for over a decade.
I started really in consumer.
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So grew a food and bev portfolio and then wentinto a lot of food and bev tech and then threw
myself into retail to ecommerce, became afashion designer at one point, worked for
fashion corporate and launched the digital aswell on that side.
From there, I got my MBA at Rice Universityfrom Houston, Texas.
And, you know, it was really tough fundraisingfor my tech platform at that time.
(07:37):
And I would walk into a room in Houston andthey would say, what's blockchain, right?
And then what's fashion in Houston?
And I would say, forget about it.
This is not the city to really, it's reallydifficult to raise capital at that time.
So I went into, what can I do to empower mypassion always being Asian American
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entrepreneurs?
And so what can I do to get my foot into theVC?
So I became the founding managing director ofthe Rice Angel.
We helped launch that we hired like 10 peopleand it was an incredible time of global pitches
almost on a monthly basis.
And then went on to launch numerous funds afterthat.
One of them in partnership with the largestmedical center, we launched and closed that
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working with institutional funds with differentuniversities, several universities.
And so it's been an incredible ride in the pastsince, know, now this is my fifth fund.
I've also launched accelerators for RiceUniversity alumni and other accelerators as
well and a national pitch competition inpartnership with the largest Asian American
(08:42):
business organizations.
And we partnered with MIT Angels as well withover 10 cities.
So that was quite a ride as well.
My track record being probably over 40investments and two unicorns and
3,500,000,000.0 valuations and market leadersin their industry and numerous unicorns.
I'm also the official venture partner to theKorean government agency and we'll see like a
(09:06):
thousand deals.
So we'll curate 50 of them and talk to them andconsult.
And through that, I also have launched thefirst IPO program for South Korean government
agency ever.
It's been incredible.
Our clients are anywhere from 1 to5,000,000,000 in IPO so it's been incredible
ride.
Work with the best of the best tech firms inKorea and so just to say we work a lot not only
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in East Asia in Korea primarily Came togetherwith Maria and she wanted to apply, mentor a
lot of women in BC, and that's where we aretoday.
Yeah.
And tell me what you guys were, you know, wereinitially thinking as you guys met each other.
Right?
You you kind of, it was almost like a littlebit of an epiphany.
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You guys happen to be there.
It sounds like you guys, your personalities andyour skill sets complement each other.
But like, what was the moment that you decide?
Because that's a big decision, right?
And you'd obviously have to find the rightperson to go on that journey with.
I mean, it is a marriage, right?
I mean, it's like a seven to ten year term fora fund.
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What were some of your core values?
And what do you think is important now lookingback in terms of finding a partner?
You know, when you're trying to build a firmbecause there's so many solo GPs.
So what advice would you give, you know, peoplein the audience to just try to find someone to
collaborate with, especially to this magnitude,right?
(10:28):
Building a fund and, a firm and a brand andyour reputation's on the line too.
Absolutely.
I'll go first, Maria.
I'll just jump in.
Having launched different funds, I know exactlywhat are the teams you need and the partners
that you need to bring in?
And what are my areas of weakness and whatareas we can collaborate?
So first thing being trust.
Maria and I had a trusted relationship as wetalked and she would come back and she's like
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Diana, I did this.
I listened to what you said and I came back anddid this and it was incredible to see her
number one work ethic but number two reallywant to find someone that's a true connector
and a national thought leader and that's whatMarie is in the Asian American community.
She also published a Asian American leadershippublication as well.
So she serves on countless boards, can't evenkeep up.
(11:15):
So her network and working together for thefirst Asian American woman fund was a no
brainer.
And What I was just building
brought us together along with that seekingmentorship from Diane was our passion about
Asian American women.
We found that we were on the shared mission andwhen we started to go down this path, like I
(11:39):
initially had applied for this VC acceleratorand as my mentor said, Diane, here's my pitch
video, here's what I'm doing and that's when wehad this conversation that while my story and
what my mission and drive of what I was tryingto accomplish was compelling, my background was
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limited, right?
It's been more corporate community advocacynetwork building And that's where we had our
conversation about what is it that we wouldwant to make, what's the longer term impact?
What I would say is Diane and I are aligned onwe are passionate about impact and achievement.
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The nuance there is, so Diane, I'd say isamazing at wanting to be the best at something,
wanting to really scale and blow things up.
It's her serial entrepreneur, like a backgroundand strength that she has.
Lead with impact, and I really want mybackground is about systemic change.
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I really want to have that systemic change, butwe share both of those things.
We may just lead with one versus the other.
And that's what we found was really like asecret sauce for us, was that while we shared
those, we had different strengths that canreally get us to where we wanna get to.
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So that's one thing that I would recommend, andyou're absolutely right, this is a marriage.
We've definitely had rocky times just like inany marriage and what it's actually done is
it's forced us to like face those thingstogether, be even more truthful and realign on
our expectations as we learn and grow together.
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Yeah, I totally agree.
And I think the skill set of putting together,you know, educational data and research, I feel
that that attracts the investment community,because it's material that you would usually
see.
That's premium content that you have topurchase, right?
A lot of times you have to buy research.
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But if you have proprietary knowledge,especially with you guys, understanding a
specific region or a sector focus, and thenpublishing that content, That definitely
intrigues people to kind of want to learn more,get access.
So I think that and then also kind of thecorporate hat that you have, that attracts
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corporate partnerships, right?
So if you do want to essentially, you know,over time become institutional, you know, a lot
of those corporate entities are like theinstitutions that are looking for, you know, a
conservative side to the fund strategy as well.
And then I think the entrepreneurial spiritthat also kind of attracts entrepreneurs,
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because they see that you empathize with them.
And, you know, you've kind of been on thatjourney, as well.
And tell us a little more about the fundthesis.
So, I know that there's a couple specificthemes that you guys are looking for.
I did hear impact and systemic change.
Tell us a little more about just kind of theoverarching mission that's cohesive across both
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of you guys and then just maybe the sectorfocuses and then maybe some interesting trends
that you guys are seeing in those sectors.
Absolutely.
So generally speaking, at First Asian American,Pan Asian American Women Fund, we're excited
and like you said, we understand the painpoints of these Asian American and female
entrepreneurs.
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So we're really passionate about helping themout.
And so that's what we invested at an earlystage and anywhere in consumers.
Generally speaking, getting too into the weeds.
And that's what we do.
But what we're seeing is our target is we seean opportunity for Asian American women.
Americans are highly educated.
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They go out, they have these wonderful jobs andthey're at the top of their career.
But when they come home, they take care oftheir kids because it's very Asian culture.
Work hard, keep your head down, go home, takecare of your family, but you don't hear them
talking about what type of investments are youmaking in BC?
What type of tech firms are really coolnowadays?
Mean, this isn't a conversation we want toengage, we want to grow the emerging LP
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network, especially in Asian Americans.
So, we look forward to really bringing morepowerful Asian Americans by helping them invest
in more Asian American entrepreneurs.
That has been definitely a hurdle and somethingwe want to embrace more Brian.
Yeah, and I think you want to have everybodywants a community.
Mean, look, I identify as Asian, right?
Because I'm from India.
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It's, know, I mean, we have similar cultures.
I mean, my parents really pushed me to, youknow, either they wanted me to either be a
doctor or an engineer.
And, and, you know, that was really only my twooptions.
But you know, and they still don't think theyreally understand what I do for a living.
It's okay.
They know that I'm doing something but, but Ithink you're right.
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I think the communities and especially thetraditional mindset of Hey, you know what,
let's go get a job, let's get an MBA, let's getmarried, let's try to, have some work life
balance.
I think there's a lot of other exciting thingsthat you can kind of share and open up.
It's really interesting.
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I'm seeing the same exact thing with the MiddleEastern community.
There's a very similar community.
I think the community is based in Europe, butthey have a large community of people that it's
specifically women, and they're focused on justeducation around investing, angel investing,
startups, tech, you know, what is privateequity versus venture capital, right?
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Kind of like the basics of just the, you know,fund manager or, you know, investment
management universe.
So I think just kind of that education aroundthat, and then have the social circles be
around that too.
You know, the social circles could be aboutfamily and, you know, just personal things, but
also just have that be a channel where peoplecan have, have banter and talk about like, you
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know, something that they invested in what theylike about it.
I think that's really amazing.
So what are some things that we can do tostimulate that more, we can have happy hours,
we could do, you know, get togethers, but whatdo we need to kind of enable that more, you
know, alongside just community and events?
(18:16):
Is it software?
Software is a great idea.
I mean, if you want to scale and get to themasses quickly, absolutely.
I think it's a multi pronged approach, it'sdifferent touch points that we have to get to
because really the data for Asian Americanentrepreneurs or even LPs is invisible.
Like we don't see that on PitchBook.
We actually hit the ground running on anational tour and Maria could talk more about
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that.
But where's the data, right?
Whether BLPs and entrepreneurs.
And so we've actually launched into our owndata and try to find out what are some of those
similar ways and how Asian Americanentrepreneurs have been successful and what can
we emulate to Asian American females and therest of Asian American underserved communities.
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Yeah, that's really cool.
I've seen that.
Oh, go ahead, Maria, sorry.
No, I was just gonna say that, like often, soin the data and from an entrepreneurial
perspective, Asian Americans look as thoughwe're over served, right?
And so part of the DEI conversation, sometimeswe're actually cut out of that, but what's lost
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is when you disaggregate the data, that's acouple demographics that make that up.
There are over 48 different ethnicities thatmake up Asian Americans, almost sixty percent
first generation immigrant, women are just kindof lost in that data.
So like education around the complexity of ourcommunity and that there are very different
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needs, each of those ethnicities are differentlanguages, different cultures.
There's so many nuances to that.
We have refugee communities within the AsianAmerican community that are not considered.
So that's a lot of the, education that we'redoing in helping understand there's the
complexity here, but that there are also likelocal needs, you know, like this multi pronged
(20:13):
approach, think is important because they'relike having resources that people can access
asynchronously is important.
So I love the videos and the resources thatyou're creating, Joel.
I think those have been even helpful for us.
But also synchronous experiences where peoplecould come together, we could normalize the
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dialogue on money, on investing, onentrepreneurship.
Like we've done a lot to start to build thatecosystem from an entrepreneurship standpoint,
like on the investment side, that's stillsomething that is, It's rather new, and that's
the part that really gets to buildinggenerational wealth and starts to put us into
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better situations with each generation versuseach generation having to start from scratch.
And I'll say Joel, you know, that's where itis, is, you know, one of the aspects is we want
to change what generational wealth looks like.
I mean, parents were immigrant parents.
Yeah.
Right?
But for our generation, for future generations,we want to change that generational wealth.
Yes, Asian Americans may have a higherthreshold in terms of, they may be the untapped
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potential LPs.
So how do we get into that network?
That's exactly our sweet spot.
So with our, you know, in touch points, likedoing events locally in cities, partnering with
someone like you on a spin up app to captureall that data on the LP side, we'll go from
there.
But we need to get our elbows dirty, get intothese Asian American communities,
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organizations, executives that have the LPnetwork and kind of expand and get in there on
the educational side and then pull that datathrough technology.
And especially women, because what we've beenfinding, like most of our investors that have
come in are men.
And so we are really working and trying toeducate and bring executive women into the
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conversation.
But this is a newer space, there's interest anddesire, but a lot of times, even with the
education, there's a hesitancy.
So our hope is that we could normalize thismore so that they can see more pathways and
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options for them.
I actually think an educational program like anaccelerator plus a platform would be great for
this target market.
Yeah, I mean, I think the the thing that I'vebeen seeing that's really been sticking is, you
know, really these communities.
So I just posted this video on Tiger twentyone.
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And you know what happened with Tiger twentyone?
Was YPO and there was a couple of these otherorganizations.
YPO, you know, to join, as you guys know, youhave to be you have to be a successful CEO with
a certain amount of revenue.
But they graduate once they, what do they dowhen they have a liquidity event?
They're not a CEO anymore.
So I feel like that's where Tiger twenty onewas ideated, right?
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They did that it was the challenges, it's toughto manage because it's a membership business,
right?
And you're doing a lot of community events.
So, that could kind of be time intensive,especially if you're trying to deploy capital.
But if you can make it part of your investmentstrategy, I'm seeing a lot of people build
communities and platforms, obviously, you know,the revenue is not supposed to be like a
(23:33):
massive revenue generator, but it's a great wayto kind of own the ecosystem and the content
and the community as well.
Like you have your own proprietary content onthe data of the demographic and the type of
investments that you guys are looking for,which is really interesting.
It kind of reminds me a little bit of my friendKhalsum.
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So she runs Eye to Eye Ventures and her wholestrategy is strictly on Pakistan.
And she's also had these really coolinfographics on data.
And I'm a data nerd, but I feel like anybodywould be interested just to kind of look at the
data and the graphics and say, this is reallywhat's happening in this region and this is the
(24:16):
activity.
And I was really blown away in terms of theventure activity that was happening.
So I think that a lot of people just don'tunderstand that.
And if you can uncover that, but then I thinkalso if you have this community where there's
like, the whole strategy with Wing as well.
Wing is like a massive business now, but theyhave like really organized communities and sub
(24:40):
communities.
I think they have like pod leaders.
So I think really being thoughtful.
And what I've done too, this is what's helpedme, just think about each of the people and
think about what do they get coming in.
If you're an LP, what do you get when you comein?
Maybe you get some really cool education.
You're a really highly paid executive atGoldman Sachs, And you've been doing that for a
(25:05):
long time.
Definitely you've made a lot of income butbeing part of a community of like minded people
and having an organized discussion and kind ofhaving that I think really the challenge is
like the frequency, you know, the content, theprogramming, you know, what's the rhythm, you
know, that's kind of things that I'm alwaysthinking about too, you know.
(25:27):
I mean, I was glad last night that we mixed itup a little bit with like a small little
educational thing because, you know, sometimesit could get repetitive if you have the same
kind of content each time.
So what advice or what are some things that youguys are thinking as far as like, what could
work with building an engaged ecosystem withLPs and GPs?
(25:50):
I think the accelerator or like some educationis great, but you know what are some other
ideas of other people want to kind of createsome communities?
Yeah, so we're using social media, using thatplatform to meet the founders, we have a
(26:11):
founders corner, share their stories, sharetheir learnings so other We founders can build
from have a YouTube channel that we're startingourselves.
Been doing this listening tour that Dianementioned.
So we
started, we were in Houston and Austin,Chicago, we have a couple more that are coming
(26:33):
up where we just engage the community, we workat the local accelerator, we invite the
community, different chambers of commerce, Sothe, you know, SBA, we kind of bring like a
three sixty of that ecosystem together and talkabout what are local needs, how does that kind
(26:55):
of tie to things more globally?
And then usually what that's ended up doing ishas been sparking some local activity where the
community starts to build together,
Yeah.
But you know, we say we'll partner with you,but we're at a national level.
So that helps us to, you know, create somegroundswell at those local levels, but then we
(27:17):
have, you know, a great connection and networkthat's growing across The US.
What do you guys think about TikTok ascommunity channel?
Yeah, Diane and I have been talking about that.
Yeah.
It seems to be sticky.
Have you explored it, Joel?
(27:38):
I mean, I'm seeing twenty minute VC, likethere's shorts, right?
So I what I've learned, you know, I've beenstudying this a little bit.
And some of the people that have the biggestaudiences, they're able to just repurpose the
content, and just reuse it on all the channelsto get bigger distribution.
(27:59):
So it's something that's on my list, I have alot of YouTube content.
And some if somebody were to take that content,like just the snippet that you just said right
now, right?
Like if there was a snippet of like what youwere talking about with your community and
talking about the local level, if that washighlighted and like those words were like on
the screen, that would be like really amazingcontent like as a fifteen second short.
(28:23):
So I think there's gold in YouTube shorts, likeyou can take that content and chop it up and
you know, has to manually do it.
So I think that could be a like if somebody wasdoing that, think that would be a really high
quality service that people would probably payfor at some point.
And then a lot of times, I don't know if youguys are using Zoom for some of your YouTube
(28:46):
shows, you can rip the audio as well.
Like edit it and add music, put it to podcast.
And some of the people that I've been studyinglike Gary Vaynerchuk, already has a content.
He just goes to conferences and speaks.
And one thing that he said, which I thought wasreally notable is he's just kind of living his
normal life.
And he just has hired people to crop thosevideos and pieces of content, repurpose it,
(29:10):
obviously add music and effects to it, and thenjust kind of distribute that content.
So it really is kind of like a omni channelstrategy as far as getting the word out.
I just mentioned this to a very early emergingmanager.
You know, Twitter is super powerful.
And there's a fund manager that I know that'sdoing really well.
(29:32):
Mean, person wrote a book, it was like a kid'sbook on venture capital.
So I think even like creating little packageddigital goods that people can download, people
can that can consume, that forces them toengage or do something, you know, so I even
really like, LinkedIn where if you upload aPDF, it's kind of like embedded in the PDF.
(29:53):
I mean, it's embedded in the post.
So they have to kind of like click through andread it on your post and that creates some
average time spent that's increased.
So I've been just kind of studying a lot ofthis.
A lot of things they're still in the backlog ofthings I want to do, but I think that really
it's something that I'm seriously thinkingabout.
Just taking the video content that I alreadyhave and trying to repurpose it in a more
(30:16):
digestible way because an hour is a long time,right?
But I think if you can trim it down to like acouple key points, that would be really
interesting.
I even thought about having all of the cohortmembers do like a three minute clip on like
something they learned starting a fun.
I feel like just that very, very quick patchypiece of content could be something that could
(30:41):
gather the attention of someone that's anemerging LP, especially if you target it right
or if those LPs are already kind of followingsome hashtags.
I think thinking through like those channels,right?
Because the events to your point, right?
I mean, there's only so many you can do.
If you're doing it in person, there's usually,you
know,
Diane's probably hosted events in New York,there's usually a capacity limit.
(31:05):
And there's usually a time box that you got toconnect with those people.
Yeah, I love that actually Joel, because Imean, that makes it approachable, less
mysterious, right?
Yeah.
Seeing people more like us.
When Diane kind of opened that door for meabout becoming an investor myself, it was a
(31:28):
mystery to try to like, where do I even start?
If I hadn't found resources from Jason Kalkanesor seen Pocket Sun's TED Talk, or I really
didn't know where to begin.
So those resources actually helped me enter inalong with Diane's mentorship.
(31:50):
So I think that would be, when you talk aboutthe next level of democratizing information to
invite people into this, I think that'damazing.
Yeah,
ahead, Diane, sorry.
Definitely my background is digital marketingand that's actually the firm that I've
launched.
So I did a deep dive.
That's what I did day to day is in the wild,wild west when Instagram just came out,
(32:13):
everyone is, know, what do we do?
How do we deal with digital marketing andsocial media?
So that was my deep dive focus.
So we also have Asian American executive andentrepreneurship called Phoenix, and we have a
lot of content there where we highlighttrailblazing Asian American women who have
(32:33):
created first or no one has gone before.
And we ask them, you know, has there been amentor?
And they're like, has been none.
I broke that glass ceiling and being the firstgeneration.
So we have a ton of content like you that wecan put out there.
What we're doing is we're slicing it perquestion or a few questions and we're bundling
into shorts
and
they're spreading across all social mediaincluding TikTok.
(32:56):
Believe me, I'm a believer in digital media,but I think at the end of the day, I've hosted
a lot of shows and on digital marketing.
So I think at the end of day, it's reallygetting the brand out there, getting the word
out there.
It's not easy.
Content takes time, I think that's easier partis editing that takes more time and doing it
right, and then marketing it.
(33:18):
And there's a, and I have some comments on thattoo.
So you can hire like virtual assistants andtrain them.
But what I've heard, and I haven't done thisyet, know, I haven't done a lot of video
editing.
I've tried to, yeah, there's no way I could doit on my own.
And you know, I've had a few interns help me,but they just don't want to do that stuff.
Like nobody wants to do it, you don't reallylearn much, you know, it's really kind of busy
(33:40):
work, you can get some virtual assistants to doit.
But there are companies that do charge a flatrate.
And they will take time to kind of like cut itat like the right moments that are like really
impactful pieces of content.
And then you know it's just if you got a moreof a professional, you know they can add like
you know emojis and like you know, thoughtfulways for the words to pop out.
(34:04):
But you know, another cost efficient way is ifyou can try to build your own team of like,
virtual assistants and happy to happy to chipin if, if you have, if you have a person that
already does that already.
Because that's definitely something that, youknow, people are charging a premium for it,
because it's a lot of time and effort to dothat.
(34:24):
But that's really the only way you can scale.
There's another guy, it's great.
This is great.
So there's a guy named Mark Pineda.
I don't know if you guys have been followinghim.
He's pretty well known in like the real estatespace.
And he's just made a lot of investments andbought a lot of property.
But he was saying that he makes a couplemillion dollars a month just on, you know,
(34:50):
content and education.
So he sells courses on like how to flip homes.
There's another woman, Kiana Denial, she runslike InvestDiva.
So she's kind of got like this community ofpeople that want to learn how to invest.
But she's turned that into like an entireonline course, and it generates a lot of
(35:12):
revenue.
But I think, you know, she's also kind ofthinking about that omni channel approach and
kind of putting that content out there.
So it's just kind of interesting to see howecosystems are cascading.
A lot of people are becoming content creators.
Essentially, a VC, know, the ones that I'veseen that have done really well have pretty
(35:34):
much been a media platform.
Right?
So That's right.
And so that's the model that we've studied aswell.
And we want to get a head start on that.
And I think, for people that are out there thathave 500,000 followers, we call them mega
influencers, instead of the mini influencers,they have that platform, but similar to
(35:55):
fundraising, it's really difficult.
So starting a media platform is reallydifficult.
And I think, how do you grow that until you get10,000 followers?
That is a hums part.
And that's where I would just hone in and let'stalk strategies and let's talk how to get there
because we've been through so much.
We've built a team, we've been through so manyteams and turnaround.
(36:16):
Like you said, it's hard to keep.
And what I find, and I just do it personallytoo, just to have fun, my own R and D, is
actually how do we make it?
How do we hit the right algorithm and make itgo viral?
Because you can do content and it won't goanywhere, right?
Until you hit a certain threshold of followers.
And I think one of the keys is knowing thetrends of music and hashtags help, but I think
(36:43):
music is really helpful.
Like, you can post one without music, like yourfavorite song and post one on the base on the
top 10 trending musics on TikTok, 10,000 viewsin a few seconds.
Right?
Just kidding.
There was a woman that I think she worked forDeloitte or something, but she's an expert.
She's an expert in Excel.
I don't know if you saw this, but what she'lldo is she'll post like an Excel hack.
(37:07):
Like, hey, you press Ctrl Shift, and she andshe, you know, does like some dance or
something, and she has music in the background.
But she makes about 100 ks a month in revenue,because she's got like Microsoft as a corporate
sponsor.
So she gets sponsorship.
So there's a huge, you know, industry now oflike, you know, what I've noticed too, this is
(37:27):
another hack.
So there's people that are influencers thatdon't know that they're influencers, there's
people on TikTok, they just did there arepeople like if you hashtag TikTok and venture
capital, there are people that have likefifteen twenty thousand views.
And they're not really monetizing it.
They're just doing it because they enjoy it.
You know, they love the likes, right?
That's the whole, that's the whole thing now,right?
(37:49):
I want to be liked.
Yeah,
they get the high of like being liked and youknow, but they're not monetizing.
They're not, they're not thinking like abusiness person, but you can pay those people
like $150 for like, a post, right?
And that's like, you know, 400, you know, maybe300, $400.
But you know, if you can get some really greatreach that's targeted, like maybe it's a, know,
(38:12):
it's maybe it's an Asian American that works inthe private equity space and they also talk
about venture capital.
They're not raising a fund.
They're just kind of passionate about thespace.
They have a lot of helpful content.
If you can do kind of like a cool webinar onsome really interesting topic on a sector that
you guys are investing in, like those are kindof potential people that can now join your
(38:35):
platform, maybe there's a form that they signup to kind of join your newsletter, you know,
you send that, know, so it's really like afunnel, right?
It's like, like, I love too, is like, just thefunnel design, right?
Like, somebody posted about your platform or anevent that you're doing, they sign up, then
they show up to your event.
And you know, now they're, you know, eitherlike a co investor or an LP.
(38:58):
And it's just, there's just so many channels,really prioritizing which one's going to be the
best.
I know email is not going away.
So definitely email is like still a strongoutlet.
So I think that will always be a primarycommunication channel for updates.
(39:18):
But there's also a cadence around that, Liketoo many emails is going to become spammy and
you're going to face deliverability issues.
So there's all that too.
I mean, can talk I mean, it my face is bluebecause this is something I'm passionate about.
Know?
This is my bad.
And and these are there are so many strategies.
Like, I love talking about it.
(39:38):
And LinkedIn, you know, YouTube, TikTok,they're all different strategies too.
Yeah.
It
is.
What works TikTok won't work with Instagram,won't work with LinkedIn, etcetera, Twitter.
But yeah, I think it also comes down to likeSEO, like on YouTube, right?
It's about the graphics and the clip.
You have to make it YouTube friendly and thatstuff is not going to work on TikTok.
So what type Like on TikTok, for example, I sawthis woman, she's a People might know her,
(40:06):
she's an anesthesiologist, but also a fashionlover.
And I saw how she grew, right?
Because she was my once a day check-inentertainment, have a quick laugh.
And so she took the best trending videos, andwe would do it on our own.
And then you attach music and quality content,and it just blew up.
And so that's like the TikTok algorithm, right?
(40:27):
Yeah, mean, my takeaway on growth, right?
So that's organic.
When you're talking about paid advertising,this is kind of some of my learnings, right?
So there's going to be a certain ad spend, thatyou're going to hit a plateau, right?
So if you're spending, once you start spendinglike $50 a month on Facebook, it's not going to
(40:47):
move the needle, and you really have to startthinking about like the next channel, because
that is like the maximum amount that you canand you got to really look at your RO return on
ad spend.
So if you're spending 40 ks a month in Facebookads, you know, you better be making hopefully
like, you know, on, you know, 100 to 150 ks amonth.
(41:07):
But like, that's kind of the plateau, right?
So then what I've seen a lot of people do islike, they start on Facebook, and I'm seeing a
lot of people now move to TikTok because TikTokis really a hot space to get into, and it's not
completely saturated.
So even though people can still make more moneyon Facebook, they don't want to waste time when
(41:28):
they're jumping on TikTok as well and likedoing that in parallel.
And they're maybe tapering off Facebook.
And then I see YouTube.
I things I've heard about YouTube is it's ittakes much longer to optimize versus versus
Facebook.
But those are kind of the main and thenInstagram, I think is part of Facebook as well.
But yeah, that's and I know that you and me areseem to be nerding out on this a little more.
(41:53):
I know.
We're locked in.
Let's try this out.
Yeah.
You know, know we got like nine minutes left.
I want be respectful of your time.
Like, I'd love to learn a little more aboutjust, you know, the Asian ecosystem, right?
So, I think so I don't think we mentioned this,but Philcore stands for The Philippines and
(42:14):
Korea, right?
Great.
Yeah, so tell me a little bit about theecosystem there, like the hot industries that
are there, and like, how has that evolved inthe last maybe three to five years?
Yeah, I would say in The Philippines, theecosystem has really been growing, I think the
(42:37):
private sector, so entrepreneurs that haveexited, executives, philanths that kind of have
gone back and reinvested in the ecosystem havereally helped grown it.
There's a lot of collaboration now with thegovernment, I would say the last few years.
So that's really building a stronger ecosystemfor The Philippines, because one of the things
(42:58):
that we've learned as we were, Diane and I werecoming together before we shifted to more of
like Asian American, is that there's greatingenuity that comes from The Philippines.
They can take a technology and figure out 10ways to use it and a couple ways to hack it to
like really you know, find new solutions, butthe infrastructure to support them to be able
(43:25):
to like really grow and scale those companies,that's been a bit lacking.
You talked a bit, Joel, about theentrepreneurship or in our community
culturally.
In The Philippines, it's been more of get ajob, be a good worker, and there hasn't been a
(43:45):
lot of support or understanding ofentrepreneurs, even though there's thriving,
gritty bootstrap entrepreneurship that isthere.
What are the typical, like when you say go towork, what are the typical jobs that the
parents are pushing their kids to go to?
(44:05):
Because I know some of the insights I'm gettingabout Hong Kong and just China is there's a big
push for a lot of the parents to get theirstudents to get a job at McKinsey or JP Morgan.
So those big, well known branded investmentbanks, The typical larger institution.
So is that kind of the same ecosystem thatpeople are looking to get people into?
(44:28):
Or is it more like tech?
I mean, India, it's really, you know, if you'rein India, you know, it's really like working at
a big startup or working at like, LinkedIn orsomething like that, right?
Yeah, it's mostly healthcare, healthcare, youknow, a lawyer.
Like, that's kind of where most of the, youknow, most of the, you're directed to be a
nurse or doctor or a lawyer, because that's asafer route.
(44:53):
Like I would say that there's more likeguarantee for, that's gonna be-
The stability too.
On the road, exactly, stability.
And I would say even like in Asian Americans,like our parents grew up as immigrants
experiencing discrimination and go more of thattechnical route and it's more about your
(45:15):
achievement and accomplishment, lesssubjectivity.
And so that's where a lot of folks get moredirected to.
Then, that was a big thing.
Then I wanted to just touch one more thing onPhilippines.
So you said that the government has beeninvolved.
So has that stimulated a lot of acceleratorsand a lot of new funds coming out?
(45:35):
Is the government anchoring some of those fundsalso?
Yeah, so governments are focusing with a numberof the accelerators and those VC firms that are
really developing there.
I'm actually talking on a panel this afternoon,it's in Silicon Valley the building of the
Philippine Consulate there.
(45:56):
I'm joining virtually from Chicago, but in theconversation, it's like, what has the
transition been over the last five years?
Why is the time now?
And Diana was doing our research, we were like,it looks like the Vietnam of two years ago,
that's where The Philippines is today, and justthinking about what's emerging there.
(46:17):
Yeah, think, you know, I think a big thing,would say sales 101 is really understanding
your customer.
So I think some of you guys were in, I thinkboth of you guys or either one of you guys was
in one of our sessions where this fund managerhad a very unique strategy that was very
(46:37):
interesting to institute like museums, right?
There was like a very, you know, unique impactapproach that really made that person stand
out.
And I think if you can kind of tailor asolution, that's kind of a unique approach that
solves that solution.
That's really interesting.
Because like, you know, maybe there's certainmandates that the consulate has that, know,
(46:59):
because you got that relationship, youunderstand that problem, and you're able to
kind of and that's already maybe part of yourDNA is your thesis.
And, and that's kind of how you can, you know,be that solution.
And I want to build on that, I know Diane, likeshe has, I would love for her to share about
Korea, but I also want to share, kind of tiethis into what we're doing and why the Asian
(47:21):
American women, if we look at it, AsianAmericans are only about 6% of The US
population, but globally, Asians are 60% of theglobal population.
So if you think about this small populationhere in The US, that is a bridge and has
insights and knowledge into culture, problems,needs of the majority of the world, that's a
(47:47):
pretty differentiating perspective that thatcommunity has.
The status, want to make sure you got the rightdata.
So Asians in America is 6%, and then globallyit's 60%.
Exactly.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah.
And so this is really our sweet spot in that weunderstand the Asian American culture and the
(48:09):
norms that work against us, know, be a lawyer,be a doctor, go out there, be very successful,
go to Ivy Leagues.
Well, when we get into those positions, let'ssay, you know, Asian American woman, getting
into the C suite has truly been a difficult,you know, glass ceiling.
Yeah.
And so while we are there and we have workedhard to get there, the issue is it's hard for
(48:32):
them to get in.
So we bring all those Asian American womanexecutives say, here's the opportunity to
actually work in tech, you have built a fortune500 company, come build it for our tech through
our VC network.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I mean, so one other thing too, I feel andjust correct me if I'm wrong, sometimes we're
trained to believe that that C level, like atGoldman Sachs is like the pinnacle of your
(48:57):
career, where, you know, now it's like, becauseof you guys, people can think even beyond that
and think bigger and bigger.
But I feel like even, you know, with even withmy family, we had kind of a limiting
constraints, like, hey, you know what, like geta master's degree.
And you made it, you know, my parents didn'teven want me to do my doctorate.
(49:19):
They just thought I was like, they likediscouraged me to like, I'm not trying to make
this session like a therapy session here.
But, but they, you know, they weren't reallythat didn't really push me that much to kind of
go beyond getting the basic education.
And I got motivated kind of with my community,like my peer group.
Was like, wow, these people are doing so manyamazing things.
(49:40):
These people are building companies.
So I feel like that's kind of a catalyst thatyou guys can really instill.
And to your point, right, if you didn't seePocket give that talk, you wouldn't have even
known about it.
So I think it's really just kind of theexposure and the awareness.
And there's, you know, when you think aboutsocial impact, there are pockets of communities
that really don't even know about thatopportunity.
(50:01):
And something that I'm really interested in andreally passionate about is, you know, I have a
belief in you guys my life, but I don't thinkit's brain science to be a venture capitalist.
Like I think you can be trained and it's askill and you can build that skill and improve.
So imagine if there was someone that was inkind of like a developing area where they
(50:23):
didn't have that ecosystem, but he could usesome software and train them virtually and be
like, wow, you're a VC now, you know, wherelike normally that industry, especially this is
why this is the main reason why I built thisentire platform.
Normally that this industry venture capital andprivate equity, like by default a lot of the
people that came in early they came in throughsome type of pedigree or like knowing somebody
(50:44):
right but I think things that you guys aredoing you're gonna pull that wall down and give
access to a lot of people and it doesn't haveto cost a quarter million dollars to, you know,
you don't have to go through four years ofeducation or spend a lot of capital to do that.
Can kind of build that through the communityand through learning together.
(51:06):
And that's cool.
Mentorship too.
Absolutely.
We're seeing, I work with a Korean, SouthKorea, we're seeing outside of The US leaps in
India, leaps inbound in technology.
We are not seeing that here in The US.
So we want to bridge that.
Korea, Coupang was the largest Alibaba used tobe the largest IPO, now it's Coupang that
(51:30):
superseded that.
And we continue to see such fast trackingtechnologies happening in Korea.
And so, yeah, it's a great opportunity toreally invest.
So where are we behind?
Is it you know, I know a lot of the e commerce,you know, steps are just like super
streamlined, right?
You can use your phone to pay for things.
(51:52):
Like what are some other big huge things thatwe're just like super behind on in The US that
Asia probably still has from like five yearsago?
Is it like the shopping experience?
Is it like a lot of the deep tech?
Are they doing a lot of robot like crazyrobotics that are commercialized?
What's kind of like the big major things thatstick out?
I would definitely say, you know, one thingthat's very different, I think it's the
(52:15):
infrastructure of the country and how thingsare connected and there are more different
smart cities structured is, for example,getting home deliveries.
If we get Amazon, if we were to buy groceries,it takes on Amazon, for example, may take
twenty four hours, but over there it's withinhours you get it.
(52:36):
And so it's a different infrastructure thatthey've set up in a different smart city and
how technology is truly infused into that city.
Also what is the government behind?
So I know the president of Korea is behindKorea being the Asia leader for biotech, and
they are working hard to pull a lot behindthere.
So we're seeing a lot of biotech firms as well.
(53:00):
Definitely e commerce.
Korea is also a leader in fashion.
And India too, they have a lot of fashion.
Retail tech consumer is a big thing.
Healthcare.
I was gonna say too, The Philippines, becausethe mobile capability of like the average
(53:20):
person is extremely high, you know, becausepeople didn't have the resources to buy a
laptop or a desktop, you know, way back, sothey kind of leapfrogged, you know?
And so the pay to play has offered incomeresources for people in really rural areas.
(53:40):
So just the mobile capability that they have,they're one of the biggest in the Web three
zero, largest as far as understanding andownership of like NFTs and things like that.
Like you're seeing in really, you know, likewhat is thought of as like very underdeveloped
(54:02):
parts of our world, like really taking leapsand bounds into spaces that are still very
foreign, and in more developed areas.
That's great.
Well, I know we're out of time, I usually ask aspecific question to the guest to just close it
up.
But I'm going to give both of you guys twodifferent questions.
(54:23):
So for Diane, I want to know, what's kind ofone of the biggest things that you learned this
year, you know, kind of reflecting on 2022?
What's kind of like a big takeaway that youhave?
It's kind of like an overarching learning.
(54:45):
And you can think about it for a second whileyou do.
Maybe this one's easier.
Maybe this one's more difficult, Maria, butmaybe something from a mentor that you want to
share, you know, with us maybe a family memberor just kind of someone that's mentored you or
somebody that you saw on a YouTube episode?
(55:05):
Is there something that, you know, just kindasticks out to you that you wanna share?
Yeah.
Sorry.
No problem.
I have a couple that I just want to, for one,Diane being so gracious to even take my call
(55:26):
and the following calls and even just openingmy eyes to this new pathway, that it's changed
the trajectory I'd saved of my life.
I'd been working on this idea of this incubatorfor a number of years to open this door and to
(55:46):
realize that there's this path for me or that,you know, to be able to be in driver's seat or
in the, you know, to be the decision maker wasa total mindset shift.
I'd say on top of that, honestly, this is moreof like a fan girl mentor, like Jason Falconis,
(56:11):
his book Angel, those resources that he just sograciously puts out there and continues to put
out there, that completely opened my door,opened the doors for me to this new world and
made it feel possible.
It seemed very foreign, unapproachable, until Istarted to find those resources.
(56:34):
And I've just been sharing that with anyone whowants to start to enter into the space.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think one thing that I wouldsay is when you master a craft, it's just
something that it just comes over time,compounds over time, right?
So Jason, if you think about his first episodeof This Week in Startups, I'm sure it probably
(56:55):
wasn't perfect.
But just the more and more that you do of it,you just become an expert.
And I just see these people that have beenworld leaders.
It's just something that they just continuouslydo.
Like Tony Robbins is still doing Tony Robbinsseminars, seminars, right?
Like when you think about like, you know, JayLeno, you know, he was there every night at
(57:17):
10PM for decades.
So I think it's really the same thing.
Like, I mean, I haven't stopped creatingcontent in the next two years.
I mean, in the last two years.
And, you know, I enjoy doing it, it kind ofhelps me stay up to date and kind of build new
friendships.
So for me, you know, I'm trying to have as muchfun as I can, but I, that's something that I
(57:41):
would take away.
It's, It's really just kind of I see the peoplethat are experts, kind of build that craft
repetitively over time.
There's that consistency.
Yeah, and on that note, I think for the pastyear for me it has been a challenging year.
Obviously being in the pandemic, I had COVIDtwice, was hospitalized.
(58:01):
I just had COVID last week.
I'm sorry, two weeks ago.
You're fine, Joel.
I wasn't positive.
Let
me work for a second.
But going against all odds has been my yeartheme, right?
Yeah.
And it's only just really bootstrapped me moreto be resilient.
Yeah.
And as an entrepreneur, and as you know, infundraising too, is you just got to keep going
(58:27):
and get out there and continue hustling.
And really the other thing too is, we're reallyseeing some of our dreams come to fruition.
What was drawn on paper, a conversation I hadwith Maria, is how do we empower more Asian
American entrepreneurs and women?
And seeing that dream come true is comingbecause we're seeing the response.
(58:49):
We're seeing the communities, theorganizations, the other VCs that are saying,
yes, I'm with you.
Yeah.
It
is an incredible ride.
I do want to see more Asian American woman inpower seats investing.
So that's been really a recap of my year.
Well, excited about all the things you guys aredoing.
I think you guys are really attacking a hugeproblem and solving it.
(59:11):
So kudos to you guys for everything that youguys are building.
And I look forward to, you know, following andwatching some of your your guys's content to,
you know, check out your YouTube channel, andwe can share it across our communities to to
get the word out.
Awesome.
Thank you so much as well, Joel, for everythingthat you're doing with Sutton and your platform
(59:33):
and just all the resources that you makeavailable.
It's been an amazing learning experience.
Yeah, my pleasure.
It's been a been a really good time and, youknow, enjoying every moment of it.
So well, thanks.
I know we're a little over, but thanks for yourtime and appreciate appreciate both of you.
Thanks.
All right, take care.
So it's been an incredible ride in the pastsince, know, now this is my fifth fun.
I've also launched accelerators for RiceUniversity alumni and other accelerators as
well and a national pitch competition inpartnership with the largest Asian American
business organizations.
And we partnered with MIT Angels as well withover 10 cities.
(00:21):
So that was quite a ride as well.
My track record being probably over 40investments and two unicorns and
3,500,000,000.0 valuations and market leadersin their industry and numerous unicorns.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
(00:43):
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.
Excited to have some really amazing guests ontoday.
(01:04):
As you guys know, I do this a couple times aweek just to have different people in the
investment management space, private equityinvestors, hedge fund managers, we've had some
real estate, you know, private equity investorsrecently, but excited to talk about venture
capital.
Really honored to have Diane and Maria who havenow become friends of mine and just part of the
(01:25):
part of the community.
And I just think it's really amazing to heareverybody's origin story, right?
Everybody comes from a different background,everybody, especially when they get into
venture, they go in for different reasons.
Sometimes they fall into venture.
And sometimes they just get into venturebecause they really, really have been trying
for a decade like me, you know, so for me, Icame from a tech background, and was really
(01:49):
trying to break in and then finally broke in.
But it didn't, you know, naturally happened forme.
So why don't we start with that, you know, soDiane Maria, why don't you guys talk about both
of your origin stories?
Know both of you guys have been in theinvestment space for some time.
And then kind of let's go into how you guys metand then talk about the origin story of
(02:12):
Philcore Capital and what you guys arepassionate about.
And we'll just have fun.
I'll try to navigate the discussion.
Yeah, Diane, do you want me to start?
You wanna start?
Yeah, okay, go for it.
Hi, everyone, Maria DeMaracho.
I am first generation immigrant from ThePhilippines.
I was born there, came when I was two and ahalf straight to Chicago.
(02:35):
I hadn't gone back to The Philippines until Iwas an adult and there with my son.
When I came there, I just kind of reconnectedback to a part of myself that was missing.
I was doing leadership workshops and somecommunity service.
(02:56):
There was a number of catastrophes and myheart's heavy today because there's just a
catastrophe seven point zero earthquake thatjust happened in The Philippines.
And that was just this morning.
But when I went back, there was a volcanoeruption, there was typhoon, mudslides,
(03:19):
thousands of families displaced.
And as we were doing work with the communitythere, I was just touched by the spirit of our
people.
They were thankful they were alive, they hadeach other, and tomorrow was a new day.
And the ingenuity of what people were justcreating with the resources around them.
(03:40):
I kept asking questions about, couldn't thesebe exports?
These could be businesses to help these peoplerebuild.
And often the response I got was that the jobswere in the BPOs and call centers and so I kind
of came back with this spark in my mind aboutlike how I could give back and how
(04:05):
entrepreneurship and how these things thatpeople were creating could be a path to out of
poverty, a path to economic empowerment.
So moving forward into my corporate world, I'ma corporate executive, entrepreneur, community
advocate, and launched employer resource groupat Allstate.
(04:31):
It started with five of us with ideas that wehad and we were often told, kind of focus on
your job, there weren't really pathways tobring those ideas to life.
And we pitched an employee resource group,which has now become their corporate incubator.
It's grown from five to 700 employees, they runthe internal Shark Tank now of the company, do
(04:55):
startup challenges, and I thought this is theway that I could actually give back to the
community.
Maybe I can create incubators to createpathways where people can bring those ideas to
life.
And so that connected me to Diane.
It was a dream I was kind of working on for anumber of years.
Diane and I met through some Asian Americancommunity work we were doing.
She introduced herself as an angel VC and itwas like, I'd just seen a rare sighting of
(05:24):
first an Asian VC, but also as a woman.
So I connected with her and she had taken meunder her wing saying, I'm doing something
similar in Korea and I have resources and I'dlove to help you.
So as we were working and she was helping mealong the way, Diane kind of said, It's really
(05:47):
noble what you're trying to do, but there'salso different pathways.
One is that you could be an investor yourself.
And never thought about that, I was always theproducer of the show, kind of the matchmaker of
the funders and founders and it was that thatjust opened my eyes to it.
I really wasn't thinking that this would be apath I'd go to until I started looking at the
(06:08):
stats, seeing that only 2% of women got venturefunding, the lack of representation with people
of color and just the movement of democratizinginvesting so that the people getting invested
was also democratized.
So, you know, I said what I need to do and thatwas kind of like the opening.
(06:31):
I started angel investing, joining somesyndicates, you know, and at the end of last
year is when we applied for our VC Acceleratorwhere we launched Philcore Capital.
And tell us how that intersected with you,Diane, I know that you, you know, you do
definitely have a track record, you know, witha couple different institutions and funds, and
(06:52):
you also have done some angel investing and,also, we're going to dig dive deep on this in a
couple of days, you and I, but tell us a littlemore about just kind of the ecosystem in East
Asia too, and kind of how that's taken to whereyou are now.
Sure.
So I'll start with my background.
So I'm a techpreneur for over a decade.
I started really in consumer.
(07:13):
So grew a food and bev portfolio and then wentinto a lot of food and bev tech and then threw
myself into retail to ecommerce, became afashion designer at one point, worked for
fashion corporate and launched the digital aswell on that side.
From there, I got my MBA at Rice Universityfrom Houston, Texas.
And, you know, it was really tough fundraisingfor my tech platform at that time.
(07:37):
And I would walk into a room in Houston andthey would say, what's blockchain, right?
And then what's fashion in Houston?
And I would say, forget about it.
This is not the city to really, it's reallydifficult to raise capital at that time.
So I went into, what can I do to empower mypassion always being Asian American
(07:57):
entrepreneurs?
And so what can I do to get my foot into theVC?
So I became the founding managing director ofthe Rice Angel.
We helped launch that we hired like 10 peopleand it was an incredible time of global pitches
almost on a monthly basis.
And then went on to launch numerous funds afterthat.
One of them in partnership with the largestmedical center, we launched and closed that
(08:21):
working with institutional funds with differentuniversities, several universities.
And so it's been an incredible ride in the pastsince, know, now this is my fifth fund.
I've also launched accelerators for RiceUniversity alumni and other accelerators as
well and a national pitch competition inpartnership with the largest Asian American
(08:42):
business organizations.
And we partnered with MIT Angels as well withover 10 cities.
So that was quite a ride as well.
My track record being probably over 40investments and two unicorns and
3,500,000,000.0 valuations and market leadersin their industry and numerous unicorns.
I'm also the official venture partner to theKorean government agency and we'll see like a
(09:06):
thousand deals.
So we'll curate 50 of them and talk to them andconsult.
And through that, I also have launched thefirst IPO program for South Korean government
agency ever.
It's been incredible.
Our clients are anywhere from 1 to5,000,000,000 in IPO so it's been incredible
ride.
Work with the best of the best tech firms inKorea and so just to say we work a lot not only
(09:27):
in East Asia in Korea primarily Came togetherwith Maria and she wanted to apply, mentor a
lot of women in BC, and that's where we aretoday.
Yeah.
And tell me what you guys were, you know, wereinitially thinking as you guys met each other.
Right?
You you kind of, it was almost like a littlebit of an epiphany.
(09:47):
You guys happen to be there.
It sounds like you guys, your personalities andyour skill sets complement each other.
But like, what was the moment that you decide?
Because that's a big decision, right?
And you'd obviously have to find the rightperson to go on that journey with.
I mean, it is a marriage, right?
I mean, it's like a seven to ten year term fora fund.
(10:08):
What were some of your core values?
And what do you think is important now lookingback in terms of finding a partner?
You know, when you're trying to build a firmbecause there's so many solo GPs.
So what advice would you give, you know, peoplein the audience to just try to find someone to
collaborate with, especially to this magnitude,right?
(10:28):
Building a fund and, a firm and a brand andyour reputation's on the line too.
Absolutely.
I'll go first, Maria.
I'll just jump in.
Having launched different funds, I know exactlywhat are the teams you need and the partners
that you need to bring in?
And what are my areas of weakness and whatareas we can collaborate?
So first thing being trust.
Maria and I had a trusted relationship as wetalked and she would come back and she's like
(10:53):
Diana, I did this.
I listened to what you said and I came back anddid this and it was incredible to see her
number one work ethic but number two reallywant to find someone that's a true connector
and a national thought leader and that's whatMarie is in the Asian American community.
She also published a Asian American leadershippublication as well.
So she serves on countless boards, can't evenkeep up.
(11:15):
So her network and working together for thefirst Asian American woman fund was a no
brainer.
And What I was just building
brought us together along with that seekingmentorship from Diane was our passion about
Asian American women.
We found that we were on the shared mission andwhen we started to go down this path, like I
(11:39):
initially had applied for this VC acceleratorand as my mentor said, Diane, here's my pitch
video, here's what I'm doing and that's when wehad this conversation that while my story and
what my mission and drive of what I was tryingto accomplish was compelling, my background was
(11:59):
limited, right?
It's been more corporate community advocacynetwork building And that's where we had our
conversation about what is it that we wouldwant to make, what's the longer term impact?
What I would say is Diane and I are aligned onwe are passionate about impact and achievement.
(12:21):
The nuance there is, so Diane, I'd say isamazing at wanting to be the best at something,
wanting to really scale and blow things up.
It's her serial entrepreneur, like a backgroundand strength that she has.
Lead with impact, and I really want mybackground is about systemic change.
(12:46):
I really want to have that systemic change, butwe share both of those things.
We may just lead with one versus the other.
And that's what we found was really like asecret sauce for us, was that while we shared
those, we had different strengths that canreally get us to where we wanna get to.
(13:06):
So that's one thing that I would recommend, andyou're absolutely right, this is a marriage.
We've definitely had rocky times just like inany marriage and what it's actually done is
it's forced us to like face those thingstogether, be even more truthful and realign on
our expectations as we learn and grow together.
(13:29):
Yeah, I totally agree.
And I think the skill set of putting together,you know, educational data and research, I feel
that that attracts the investment community,because it's material that you would usually
see.
That's premium content that you have topurchase, right?
A lot of times you have to buy research.
(13:50):
But if you have proprietary knowledge,especially with you guys, understanding a
specific region or a sector focus, and thenpublishing that content, That definitely
intrigues people to kind of want to learn more,get access.
So I think that and then also kind of thecorporate hat that you have, that attracts
(14:11):
corporate partnerships, right?
So if you do want to essentially, you know,over time become institutional, you know, a lot
of those corporate entities are like theinstitutions that are looking for, you know, a
conservative side to the fund strategy as well.
And then I think the entrepreneurial spiritthat also kind of attracts entrepreneurs,
(14:31):
because they see that you empathize with them.
And, you know, you've kind of been on thatjourney, as well.
And tell us a little more about the fundthesis.
So, I know that there's a couple specificthemes that you guys are looking for.
I did hear impact and systemic change.
Tell us a little more about just kind of theoverarching mission that's cohesive across both
(14:56):
of you guys and then just maybe the sectorfocuses and then maybe some interesting trends
that you guys are seeing in those sectors.
Absolutely.
So generally speaking, at First Asian American,Pan Asian American Women Fund, we're excited
and like you said, we understand the painpoints of these Asian American and female
entrepreneurs.
(15:16):
So we're really passionate about helping themout.
And so that's what we invested at an earlystage and anywhere in consumers.
Generally speaking, getting too into the weeds.
And that's what we do.
But what we're seeing is our target is we seean opportunity for Asian American women.
Americans are highly educated.
(15:37):
They go out, they have these wonderful jobs andthey're at the top of their career.
But when they come home, they take care oftheir kids because it's very Asian culture.
Work hard, keep your head down, go home, takecare of your family, but you don't hear them
talking about what type of investments are youmaking in BC?
What type of tech firms are really coolnowadays?
Mean, this isn't a conversation we want toengage, we want to grow the emerging LP
(16:01):
network, especially in Asian Americans.
So, we look forward to really bringing morepowerful Asian Americans by helping them invest
in more Asian American entrepreneurs.
That has been definitely a hurdle and somethingwe want to embrace more Brian.
Yeah, and I think you want to have everybodywants a community.
Mean, look, I identify as Asian, right?
Because I'm from India.
(16:22):
It's, know, I mean, we have similar cultures.
I mean, my parents really pushed me to, youknow, either they wanted me to either be a
doctor or an engineer.
And, and, you know, that was really only my twooptions.
But you know, and they still don't think theyreally understand what I do for a living.
It's okay.
They know that I'm doing something but, but Ithink you're right.
(16:45):
I think the communities and especially thetraditional mindset of Hey, you know what,
let's go get a job, let's get an MBA, let's getmarried, let's try to, have some work life
balance.
I think there's a lot of other exciting thingsthat you can kind of share and open up.
It's really interesting.
(17:07):
I'm seeing the same exact thing with the MiddleEastern community.
There's a very similar community.
I think the community is based in Europe, butthey have a large community of people that it's
specifically women, and they're focused on justeducation around investing, angel investing,
startups, tech, you know, what is privateequity versus venture capital, right?
(17:29):
Kind of like the basics of just the, you know,fund manager or, you know, investment
management universe.
So I think just kind of that education aroundthat, and then have the social circles be
around that too.
You know, the social circles could be aboutfamily and, you know, just personal things, but
also just have that be a channel where peoplecan have, have banter and talk about like, you
(17:55):
know, something that they invested in what theylike about it.
I think that's really amazing.
So what are some things that we can do tostimulate that more, we can have happy hours,
we could do, you know, get togethers, but whatdo we need to kind of enable that more, you
know, alongside just community and events?
(18:16):
Is it software?
Software is a great idea.
I mean, if you want to scale and get to themasses quickly, absolutely.
I think it's a multi pronged approach, it'sdifferent touch points that we have to get to
because really the data for Asian Americanentrepreneurs or even LPs is invisible.
Like we don't see that on PitchBook.
We actually hit the ground running on anational tour and Maria could talk more about
(18:40):
that.
But where's the data, right?
Whether BLPs and entrepreneurs.
And so we've actually launched into our owndata and try to find out what are some of those
similar ways and how Asian Americanentrepreneurs have been successful and what can
we emulate to Asian American females and therest of Asian American underserved communities.
(19:04):
Yeah, that's really cool.
I've seen that.
Oh, go ahead, Maria, sorry.
No, I was just gonna say that, like often, soin the data and from an entrepreneurial
perspective, Asian Americans look as thoughwe're over served, right?
And so part of the DEI conversation, sometimeswe're actually cut out of that, but what's lost
(19:25):
is when you disaggregate the data, that's acouple demographics that make that up.
There are over 48 different ethnicities thatmake up Asian Americans, almost sixty percent
first generation immigrant, women are just kindof lost in that data.
So like education around the complexity of ourcommunity and that there are very different
(19:48):
needs, each of those ethnicities are differentlanguages, different cultures.
There's so many nuances to that.
We have refugee communities within the AsianAmerican community that are not considered.
So that's a lot of the, education that we'redoing in helping understand there's the
complexity here, but that there are also likelocal needs, you know, like this multi pronged
(20:13):
approach, think is important because they'relike having resources that people can access
asynchronously is important.
So I love the videos and the resources thatyou're creating, Joel.
I think those have been even helpful for us.
But also synchronous experiences where peoplecould come together, we could normalize the
(20:34):
dialogue on money, on investing, onentrepreneurship.
Like we've done a lot to start to build thatecosystem from an entrepreneurship standpoint,
like on the investment side, that's stillsomething that is, It's rather new, and that's
the part that really gets to buildinggenerational wealth and starts to put us into
(20:57):
better situations with each generation versuseach generation having to start from scratch.
And I'll say Joel, you know, that's where itis, is, you know, one of the aspects is we want
to change what generational wealth looks like.
I mean, parents were immigrant parents.
Yeah.
Right?
But for our generation, for future generations,we want to change that generational wealth.
Yes, Asian Americans may have a higherthreshold in terms of, they may be the untapped
(21:22):
potential LPs.
So how do we get into that network?
That's exactly our sweet spot.
So with our, you know, in touch points, likedoing events locally in cities, partnering with
someone like you on a spin up app to captureall that data on the LP side, we'll go from
there.
But we need to get our elbows dirty, get intothese Asian American communities,
(21:43):
organizations, executives that have the LPnetwork and kind of expand and get in there on
the educational side and then pull that datathrough technology.
And especially women, because what we've beenfinding, like most of our investors that have
come in are men.
And so we are really working and trying toeducate and bring executive women into the
(22:08):
conversation.
But this is a newer space, there's interest anddesire, but a lot of times, even with the
education, there's a hesitancy.
So our hope is that we could normalize thismore so that they can see more pathways and
(22:29):
options for them.
I actually think an educational program like anaccelerator plus a platform would be great for
this target market.
Yeah, I mean, I think the the thing that I'vebeen seeing that's really been sticking is, you
know, really these communities.
So I just posted this video on Tiger twentyone.
(22:51):
And you know what happened with Tiger twentyone?
Was YPO and there was a couple of these otherorganizations.
YPO, you know, to join, as you guys know, youhave to be you have to be a successful CEO with
a certain amount of revenue.
But they graduate once they, what do they dowhen they have a liquidity event?
They're not a CEO anymore.
So I feel like that's where Tiger twenty onewas ideated, right?
(23:13):
They did that it was the challenges, it's toughto manage because it's a membership business,
right?
And you're doing a lot of community events.
So, that could kind of be time intensive,especially if you're trying to deploy capital.
But if you can make it part of your investmentstrategy, I'm seeing a lot of people build
communities and platforms, obviously, you know,the revenue is not supposed to be like a
(23:33):
massive revenue generator, but it's a great wayto kind of own the ecosystem and the content
and the community as well.
Like you have your own proprietary content onthe data of the demographic and the type of
investments that you guys are looking for,which is really interesting.
It kind of reminds me a little bit of my friendKhalsum.
(23:55):
So she runs Eye to Eye Ventures and her wholestrategy is strictly on Pakistan.
And she's also had these really coolinfographics on data.
And I'm a data nerd, but I feel like anybodywould be interested just to kind of look at the
data and the graphics and say, this is reallywhat's happening in this region and this is the
(24:16):
activity.
And I was really blown away in terms of theventure activity that was happening.
So I think that a lot of people just don'tunderstand that.
And if you can uncover that, but then I thinkalso if you have this community where there's
like, the whole strategy with Wing as well.
Wing is like a massive business now, but theyhave like really organized communities and sub
(24:40):
communities.
I think they have like pod leaders.
So I think really being thoughtful.
And what I've done too, this is what's helpedme, just think about each of the people and
think about what do they get coming in.
If you're an LP, what do you get when you comein?
Maybe you get some really cool education.
You're a really highly paid executive atGoldman Sachs, And you've been doing that for a
(25:05):
long time.
Definitely you've made a lot of income butbeing part of a community of like minded people
and having an organized discussion and kind ofhaving that I think really the challenge is
like the frequency, you know, the content, theprogramming, you know, what's the rhythm, you
know, that's kind of things that I'm alwaysthinking about too, you know.
(25:27):
I mean, I was glad last night that we mixed itup a little bit with like a small little
educational thing because, you know, sometimesit could get repetitive if you have the same
kind of content each time.
So what advice or what are some things that youguys are thinking as far as like, what could
work with building an engaged ecosystem withLPs and GPs?
(25:50):
I think the accelerator or like some educationis great, but you know what are some other
ideas of other people want to kind of createsome communities?
Yeah, so we're using social media, using thatplatform to meet the founders, we have a
(26:11):
founders corner, share their stories, sharetheir learnings so other We founders can build
from have a YouTube channel that we're startingourselves.
Been doing this listening tour that Dianementioned.
So we
started, we were in Houston and Austin,Chicago, we have a couple more that are coming
(26:33):
up where we just engage the community, we workat the local accelerator, we invite the
community, different chambers of commerce, Sothe, you know, SBA, we kind of bring like a
three sixty of that ecosystem together and talkabout what are local needs, how does that kind
(26:55):
of tie to things more globally?
And then usually what that's ended up doing ishas been sparking some local activity where the
community starts to build together,
Yeah.
But you know, we say we'll partner with you,but we're at a national level.
So that helps us to, you know, create somegroundswell at those local levels, but then we
(27:17):
have, you know, a great connection and networkthat's growing across The US.
What do you guys think about TikTok ascommunity channel?
Yeah, Diane and I have been talking about that.
Yeah.
It seems to be sticky.
Have you explored it, Joel?
(27:38):
I mean, I'm seeing twenty minute VC, likethere's shorts, right?
So I what I've learned, you know, I've beenstudying this a little bit.
And some of the people that have the biggestaudiences, they're able to just repurpose the
content, and just reuse it on all the channelsto get bigger distribution.
(27:59):
So it's something that's on my list, I have alot of YouTube content.
And some if somebody were to take that content,like just the snippet that you just said right
now, right?
Like if there was a snippet of like what youwere talking about with your community and
talking about the local level, if that washighlighted and like those words were like on
the screen, that would be like really amazingcontent like as a fifteen second short.
(28:23):
So I think there's gold in YouTube shorts, likeyou can take that content and chop it up and
you know, has to manually do it.
So I think that could be a like if somebody wasdoing that, think that would be a really high
quality service that people would probably payfor at some point.
And then a lot of times, I don't know if youguys are using Zoom for some of your YouTube
(28:46):
shows, you can rip the audio as well.
Like edit it and add music, put it to podcast.
And some of the people that I've been studyinglike Gary Vaynerchuk, already has a content.
He just goes to conferences and speaks.
And one thing that he said, which I thought wasreally notable is he's just kind of living his
normal life.
And he just has hired people to crop thosevideos and pieces of content, repurpose it,
(29:10):
obviously add music and effects to it, and thenjust kind of distribute that content.
So it really is kind of like a omni channelstrategy as far as getting the word out.
I just mentioned this to a very early emergingmanager.
You know, Twitter is super powerful.
And there's a fund manager that I know that'sdoing really well.
(29:32):
Mean, person wrote a book, it was like a kid'sbook on venture capital.
So I think even like creating little packageddigital goods that people can download, people
can that can consume, that forces them toengage or do something, you know, so I even
really like, LinkedIn where if you upload aPDF, it's kind of like embedded in the PDF.
(29:53):
I mean, it's embedded in the post.
So they have to kind of like click through andread it on your post and that creates some
average time spent that's increased.
So I've been just kind of studying a lot ofthis.
A lot of things they're still in the backlog ofthings I want to do, but I think that really
it's something that I'm seriously thinkingabout.
Just taking the video content that I alreadyhave and trying to repurpose it in a more
(30:16):
digestible way because an hour is a long time,right?
But I think if you can trim it down to like acouple key points, that would be really
interesting.
I even thought about having all of the cohortmembers do like a three minute clip on like
something they learned starting a fun.
I feel like just that very, very quick patchypiece of content could be something that could
(30:41):
gather the attention of someone that's anemerging LP, especially if you target it right
or if those LPs are already kind of followingsome hashtags.
I think thinking through like those channels,right?
Because the events to your point, right?
I mean, there's only so many you can do.
If you're doing it in person, there's usually,you
know,
Diane's probably hosted events in New York,there's usually a capacity limit.
(31:05):
And there's usually a time box that you got toconnect with those people.
Yeah, I love that actually Joel, because Imean, that makes it approachable, less
mysterious, right?
Yeah.
Seeing people more like us.
When Diane kind of opened that door for meabout becoming an investor myself, it was a
(31:28):
mystery to try to like, where do I even start?
If I hadn't found resources from Jason Kalkanesor seen Pocket Sun's TED Talk, or I really
didn't know where to begin.
So those resources actually helped me enter inalong with Diane's mentorship.
(31:50):
So I think that would be, when you talk aboutthe next level of democratizing information to
invite people into this, I think that'damazing.
Yeah,
ahead, Diane, sorry.
Definitely my background is digital marketingand that's actually the firm that I've
launched.
So I did a deep dive.
That's what I did day to day is in the wild,wild west when Instagram just came out,
(32:13):
everyone is, know, what do we do?
How do we deal with digital marketing andsocial media?
So that was my deep dive focus.
So we also have Asian American executive andentrepreneurship called Phoenix, and we have a
lot of content there where we highlighttrailblazing Asian American women who have
(32:33):
created first or no one has gone before.
And we ask them, you know, has there been amentor?
And they're like, has been none.
I broke that glass ceiling and being the firstgeneration.
So we have a ton of content like you that wecan put out there.
What we're doing is we're slicing it perquestion or a few questions and we're bundling
into shorts
and
they're spreading across all social mediaincluding TikTok.
(32:56):
Believe me, I'm a believer in digital media,but I think at the end of the day, I've hosted
a lot of shows and on digital marketing.
So I think at the end of day, it's reallygetting the brand out there, getting the word
out there.
It's not easy.
Content takes time, I think that's easier partis editing that takes more time and doing it
right, and then marketing it.
(33:18):
And there's a, and I have some comments on thattoo.
So you can hire like virtual assistants andtrain them.
But what I've heard, and I haven't done thisyet, know, I haven't done a lot of video
editing.
I've tried to, yeah, there's no way I could doit on my own.
And you know, I've had a few interns help me,but they just don't want to do that stuff.
Like nobody wants to do it, you don't reallylearn much, you know, it's really kind of busy
(33:40):
work, you can get some virtual assistants to doit.
But there are companies that do charge a flatrate.
And they will take time to kind of like cut itat like the right moments that are like really
impactful pieces of content.
And then you know it's just if you got a moreof a professional, you know they can add like
you know emojis and like you know, thoughtfulways for the words to pop out.
(34:04):
But you know, another cost efficient way is ifyou can try to build your own team of like,
virtual assistants and happy to happy to chipin if, if you have, if you have a person that
already does that already.
Because that's definitely something that, youknow, people are charging a premium for it,
because it's a lot of time and effort to dothat.
(34:24):
But that's really the only way you can scale.
There's another guy, it's great.
This is great.
So there's a guy named Mark Pineda.
I don't know if you guys have been followinghim.
He's pretty well known in like the real estatespace.
And he's just made a lot of investments andbought a lot of property.
But he was saying that he makes a couplemillion dollars a month just on, you know,
(34:50):
content and education.
So he sells courses on like how to flip homes.
There's another woman, Kiana Denial, she runslike InvestDiva.
So she's kind of got like this community ofpeople that want to learn how to invest.
But she's turned that into like an entireonline course, and it generates a lot of
(35:12):
revenue.
But I think, you know, she's also kind ofthinking about that omni channel approach and
kind of putting that content out there.
So it's just kind of interesting to see howecosystems are cascading.
A lot of people are becoming content creators.
Essentially, a VC, know, the ones that I'veseen that have done really well have pretty
(35:34):
much been a media platform.
Right?
So That's right.
And so that's the model that we've studied aswell.
And we want to get a head start on that.
And I think, for people that are out there thathave 500,000 followers, we call them mega
influencers, instead of the mini influencers,they have that platform, but similar to
(35:55):
fundraising, it's really difficult.
So starting a media platform is reallydifficult.
And I think, how do you grow that until you get10,000 followers?
That is a hums part.
And that's where I would just hone in and let'stalk strategies and let's talk how to get there
because we've been through so much.
We've built a team, we've been through so manyteams and turnaround.
(36:16):
Like you said, it's hard to keep.
And what I find, and I just do it personallytoo, just to have fun, my own R and D, is
actually how do we make it?
How do we hit the right algorithm and make itgo viral?
Because you can do content and it won't goanywhere, right?
Until you hit a certain threshold of followers.
And I think one of the keys is knowing thetrends of music and hashtags help, but I think
(36:43):
music is really helpful.
Like, you can post one without music, like yourfavorite song and post one on the base on the
top 10 trending musics on TikTok, 10,000 viewsin a few seconds.
Right?
Just kidding.
There was a woman that I think she worked forDeloitte or something, but she's an expert.
She's an expert in Excel.
I don't know if you saw this, but what she'lldo is she'll post like an Excel hack.
(37:07):
Like, hey, you press Ctrl Shift, and she andshe, you know, does like some dance or
something, and she has music in the background.
But she makes about 100 ks a month in revenue,because she's got like Microsoft as a corporate
sponsor.
So she gets sponsorship.
So there's a huge, you know, industry now oflike, you know, what I've noticed too, this is
(37:27):
another hack.
So there's people that are influencers thatdon't know that they're influencers, there's
people on TikTok, they just did there arepeople like if you hashtag TikTok and venture
capital, there are people that have likefifteen twenty thousand views.
And they're not really monetizing it.
They're just doing it because they enjoy it.
You know, they love the likes, right?
That's the whole, that's the whole thing now,right?
(37:49):
I want to be liked.
Yeah,
they get the high of like being liked and youknow, but they're not monetizing.
They're not, they're not thinking like abusiness person, but you can pay those people
like $150 for like, a post, right?
And that's like, you know, 400, you know, maybe300, $400.
But you know, if you can get some really greatreach that's targeted, like maybe it's a, know,
(38:12):
it's maybe it's an Asian American that works inthe private equity space and they also talk
about venture capital.
They're not raising a fund.
They're just kind of passionate about thespace.
They have a lot of helpful content.
If you can do kind of like a cool webinar onsome really interesting topic on a sector that
you guys are investing in, like those are kindof potential people that can now join your
(38:35):
platform, maybe there's a form that they signup to kind of join your newsletter, you know,
you send that, know, so it's really like afunnel, right?
It's like, like, I love too, is like, just thefunnel design, right?
Like, somebody posted about your platform or anevent that you're doing, they sign up, then
they show up to your event.
And you know, now they're, you know, eitherlike a co investor or an LP.
(38:58):
And it's just, there's just so many channels,really prioritizing which one's going to be the
best.
I know email is not going away.
So definitely email is like still a strongoutlet.
So I think that will always be a primarycommunication channel for updates.
(39:18):
But there's also a cadence around that, Liketoo many emails is going to become spammy and
you're going to face deliverability issues.
So there's all that too.
I mean, can talk I mean, it my face is bluebecause this is something I'm passionate about.
Know?
This is my bad.
And and these are there are so many strategies.
Like, I love talking about it.
(39:38):
And LinkedIn, you know, YouTube, TikTok,they're all different strategies too.
Yeah.
It
is.
What works TikTok won't work with Instagram,won't work with LinkedIn, etcetera, Twitter.
But yeah, I think it also comes down to likeSEO, like on YouTube, right?
It's about the graphics and the clip.
You have to make it YouTube friendly and thatstuff is not going to work on TikTok.
So what type Like on TikTok, for example, I sawthis woman, she's a People might know her,
(40:06):
she's an anesthesiologist, but also a fashionlover.
And I saw how she grew, right?
Because she was my once a day check-inentertainment, have a quick laugh.
And so she took the best trending videos, andwe would do it on our own.
And then you attach music and quality content,and it just blew up.
And so that's like the TikTok algorithm, right?
(40:27):
Yeah, mean, my takeaway on growth, right?
So that's organic.
When you're talking about paid advertising,this is kind of some of my learnings, right?
So there's going to be a certain ad spend, thatyou're going to hit a plateau, right?
So if you're spending, once you start spendinglike $50 a month on Facebook, it's not going to
(40:47):
move the needle, and you really have to startthinking about like the next channel, because
that is like the maximum amount that you canand you got to really look at your RO return on
ad spend.
So if you're spending 40 ks a month in Facebookads, you know, you better be making hopefully
like, you know, on, you know, 100 to 150 ks amonth.
(41:07):
But like, that's kind of the plateau, right?
So then what I've seen a lot of people do islike, they start on Facebook, and I'm seeing a
lot of people now move to TikTok because TikTokis really a hot space to get into, and it's not
completely saturated.
So even though people can still make more moneyon Facebook, they don't want to waste time when
(41:28):
they're jumping on TikTok as well and likedoing that in parallel.
And they're maybe tapering off Facebook.
And then I see YouTube.
I things I've heard about YouTube is it's ittakes much longer to optimize versus versus
Facebook.
But those are kind of the main and thenInstagram, I think is part of Facebook as well.
But yeah, that's and I know that you and me areseem to be nerding out on this a little more.
(41:53):
I know.
We're locked in.
Let's try this out.
Yeah.
You know, know we got like nine minutes left.
I want be respectful of your time.
Like, I'd love to learn a little more aboutjust, you know, the Asian ecosystem, right?
So, I think so I don't think we mentioned this,but Philcore stands for The Philippines and
(42:14):
Korea, right?
Great.
Yeah, so tell me a little bit about theecosystem there, like the hot industries that
are there, and like, how has that evolved inthe last maybe three to five years?
Yeah, I would say in The Philippines, theecosystem has really been growing, I think the
(42:37):
private sector, so entrepreneurs that haveexited, executives, philanths that kind of have
gone back and reinvested in the ecosystem havereally helped grown it.
There's a lot of collaboration now with thegovernment, I would say the last few years.
So that's really building a stronger ecosystemfor The Philippines, because one of the things
(42:58):
that we've learned as we were, Diane and I werecoming together before we shifted to more of
like Asian American, is that there's greatingenuity that comes from The Philippines.
They can take a technology and figure out 10ways to use it and a couple ways to hack it to
like really you know, find new solutions, butthe infrastructure to support them to be able
(43:25):
to like really grow and scale those companies,that's been a bit lacking.
You talked a bit, Joel, about theentrepreneurship or in our community
culturally.
In The Philippines, it's been more of get ajob, be a good worker, and there hasn't been a
(43:45):
lot of support or understanding ofentrepreneurs, even though there's thriving,
gritty bootstrap entrepreneurship that isthere.
What are the typical, like when you say go towork, what are the typical jobs that the
parents are pushing their kids to go to?
(44:05):
Because I know some of the insights I'm gettingabout Hong Kong and just China is there's a big
push for a lot of the parents to get theirstudents to get a job at McKinsey or JP Morgan.
So those big, well known branded investmentbanks, The typical larger institution.
So is that kind of the same ecosystem thatpeople are looking to get people into?
(44:28):
Or is it more like tech?
I mean, India, it's really, you know, if you'rein India, you know, it's really like working at
a big startup or working at like, LinkedIn orsomething like that, right?
Yeah, it's mostly healthcare, healthcare, youknow, a lawyer.
Like, that's kind of where most of the, youknow, most of the, you're directed to be a
nurse or doctor or a lawyer, because that's asafer route.
(44:53):
Like I would say that there's more likeguarantee for, that's gonna be-
The stability too.
On the road, exactly, stability.
And I would say even like in Asian Americans,like our parents grew up as immigrants
experiencing discrimination and go more of thattechnical route and it's more about your
(45:15):
achievement and accomplishment, lesssubjectivity.
And so that's where a lot of folks get moredirected to.
Then, that was a big thing.
Then I wanted to just touch one more thing onPhilippines.
So you said that the government has beeninvolved.
So has that stimulated a lot of acceleratorsand a lot of new funds coming out?
(45:35):
Is the government anchoring some of those fundsalso?
Yeah, so governments are focusing with a numberof the accelerators and those VC firms that are
really developing there.
I'm actually talking on a panel this afternoon,it's in Silicon Valley the building of the
Philippine Consulate there.
(45:56):
I'm joining virtually from Chicago, but in theconversation, it's like, what has the
transition been over the last five years?
Why is the time now?
And Diana was doing our research, we were like,it looks like the Vietnam of two years ago,
that's where The Philippines is today, and justthinking about what's emerging there.
(46:17):
Yeah, think, you know, I think a big thing,would say sales 101 is really understanding
your customer.
So I think some of you guys were in, I thinkboth of you guys or either one of you guys was
in one of our sessions where this fund managerhad a very unique strategy that was very
(46:37):
interesting to institute like museums, right?
There was like a very, you know, unique impactapproach that really made that person stand
out.
And I think if you can kind of tailor asolution, that's kind of a unique approach that
solves that solution.
That's really interesting.
Because like, you know, maybe there's certainmandates that the consulate has that, know,
(46:59):
because you got that relationship, youunderstand that problem, and you're able to
kind of and that's already maybe part of yourDNA is your thesis.
And, and that's kind of how you can, you know,be that solution.
And I want to build on that, I know Diane, likeshe has, I would love for her to share about
Korea, but I also want to share, kind of tiethis into what we're doing and why the Asian
(47:21):
American women, if we look at it, AsianAmericans are only about 6% of The US
population, but globally, Asians are 60% of theglobal population.
So if you think about this small populationhere in The US, that is a bridge and has
insights and knowledge into culture, problems,needs of the majority of the world, that's a
(47:47):
pretty differentiating perspective that thatcommunity has.
The status, want to make sure you got the rightdata.
So Asians in America is 6%, and then globallyit's 60%.
Exactly.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah.
And so this is really our sweet spot in that weunderstand the Asian American culture and the
(48:09):
norms that work against us, know, be a lawyer,be a doctor, go out there, be very successful,
go to Ivy Leagues.
Well, when we get into those positions, let'ssay, you know, Asian American woman, getting
into the C suite has truly been a difficult,you know, glass ceiling.
Yeah.
And so while we are there and we have workedhard to get there, the issue is it's hard for
(48:32):
them to get in.
So we bring all those Asian American womanexecutives say, here's the opportunity to
actually work in tech, you have built a fortune500 company, come build it for our tech through
our VC network.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I mean, so one other thing too, I feel andjust correct me if I'm wrong, sometimes we're
trained to believe that that C level, like atGoldman Sachs is like the pinnacle of your
(48:57):
career, where, you know, now it's like, becauseof you guys, people can think even beyond that
and think bigger and bigger.
But I feel like even, you know, with even withmy family, we had kind of a limiting
constraints, like, hey, you know what, like geta master's degree.
And you made it, you know, my parents didn'teven want me to do my doctorate.
(49:19):
They just thought I was like, they likediscouraged me to like, I'm not trying to make
this session like a therapy session here.
But, but they, you know, they weren't reallythat didn't really push me that much to kind of
go beyond getting the basic education.
And I got motivated kind of with my community,like my peer group.
Was like, wow, these people are doing so manyamazing things.
(49:40):
These people are building companies.
So I feel like that's kind of a catalyst thatyou guys can really instill.
And to your point, right, if you didn't seePocket give that talk, you wouldn't have even
known about it.
So I think it's really just kind of theexposure and the awareness.
And there's, you know, when you think aboutsocial impact, there are pockets of communities
that really don't even know about thatopportunity.
(50:01):
And something that I'm really interested in andreally passionate about is, you know, I have a
belief in you guys my life, but I don't thinkit's brain science to be a venture capitalist.
Like I think you can be trained and it's askill and you can build that skill and improve.
So imagine if there was someone that was inkind of like a developing area where they
(50:23):
didn't have that ecosystem, but he could usesome software and train them virtually and be
like, wow, you're a VC now, you know, wherelike normally that industry, especially this is
why this is the main reason why I built thisentire platform.
Normally that this industry venture capital andprivate equity, like by default a lot of the
people that came in early they came in throughsome type of pedigree or like knowing somebody
(50:44):
right but I think things that you guys aredoing you're gonna pull that wall down and give
access to a lot of people and it doesn't haveto cost a quarter million dollars to, you know,
you don't have to go through four years ofeducation or spend a lot of capital to do that.
Can kind of build that through the communityand through learning together.
(51:06):
And that's cool.
Mentorship too.
Absolutely.
We're seeing, I work with a Korean, SouthKorea, we're seeing outside of The US leaps in
India, leaps inbound in technology.
We are not seeing that here in The US.
So we want to bridge that.
Korea, Coupang was the largest Alibaba used tobe the largest IPO, now it's Coupang that
(51:30):
superseded that.
And we continue to see such fast trackingtechnologies happening in Korea.
And so, yeah, it's a great opportunity toreally invest.
So where are we behind?
Is it you know, I know a lot of the e commerce,you know, steps are just like super
streamlined, right?
You can use your phone to pay for things.
(51:52):
Like what are some other big huge things thatwe're just like super behind on in The US that
Asia probably still has from like five yearsago?
Is it like the shopping experience?
Is it like a lot of the deep tech?
Are they doing a lot of robot like crazyrobotics that are commercialized?
What's kind of like the big major things thatstick out?
I would definitely say, you know, one thingthat's very different, I think it's the
(52:15):
infrastructure of the country and how thingsare connected and there are more different
smart cities structured is, for example,getting home deliveries.
If we get Amazon, if we were to buy groceries,it takes on Amazon, for example, may take
twenty four hours, but over there it's withinhours you get it.
(52:36):
And so it's a different infrastructure thatthey've set up in a different smart city and
how technology is truly infused into that city.
Also what is the government behind?
So I know the president of Korea is behindKorea being the Asia leader for biotech, and
they are working hard to pull a lot behindthere.
So we're seeing a lot of biotech firms as well.
(53:00):
Definitely e commerce.
Korea is also a leader in fashion.
And India too, they have a lot of fashion.
Retail tech consumer is a big thing.
Healthcare.
I was gonna say too, The Philippines, becausethe mobile capability of like the average
(53:20):
person is extremely high, you know, becausepeople didn't have the resources to buy a
laptop or a desktop, you know, way back, sothey kind of leapfrogged, you know?
And so the pay to play has offered incomeresources for people in really rural areas.
(53:40):
So just the mobile capability that they have,they're one of the biggest in the Web three
zero, largest as far as understanding andownership of like NFTs and things like that.
Like you're seeing in really, you know, likewhat is thought of as like very underdeveloped
(54:02):
parts of our world, like really taking leapsand bounds into spaces that are still very
foreign, and in more developed areas.
That's great.
Well, I know we're out of time, I usually ask aspecific question to the guest to just close it
up.
But I'm going to give both of you guys twodifferent questions.
(54:23):
So for Diane, I want to know, what's kind ofone of the biggest things that you learned this
year, you know, kind of reflecting on 2022?
What's kind of like a big takeaway that youhave?
It's kind of like an overarching learning.
(54:45):
And you can think about it for a second whileyou do.
Maybe this one's easier.
Maybe this one's more difficult, Maria, butmaybe something from a mentor that you want to
share, you know, with us maybe a family memberor just kind of someone that's mentored you or
somebody that you saw on a YouTube episode?
(55:05):
Is there something that, you know, just kindasticks out to you that you wanna share?
Yeah.
Sorry.
No problem.
I have a couple that I just want to, for one,Diane being so gracious to even take my call
(55:26):
and the following calls and even just openingmy eyes to this new pathway, that it's changed
the trajectory I'd saved of my life.
I'd been working on this idea of this incubatorfor a number of years to open this door and to
(55:46):
realize that there's this path for me or that,you know, to be able to be in driver's seat or
in the, you know, to be the decision maker wasa total mindset shift.
I'd say on top of that, honestly, this is moreof like a fan girl mentor, like Jason Falconis,
(56:11):
his book Angel, those resources that he just sograciously puts out there and continues to put
out there, that completely opened my door,opened the doors for me to this new world and
made it feel possible.
It seemed very foreign, unapproachable, until Istarted to find those resources.
(56:34):
And I've just been sharing that with anyone whowants to start to enter into the space.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think one thing that I wouldsay is when you master a craft, it's just
something that it just comes over time,compounds over time, right?
So Jason, if you think about his first episodeof This Week in Startups, I'm sure it probably
(56:55):
wasn't perfect.
But just the more and more that you do of it,you just become an expert.
And I just see these people that have beenworld leaders.
It's just something that they just continuouslydo.
Like Tony Robbins is still doing Tony Robbinsseminars, seminars, right?
Like when you think about like, you know, JayLeno, you know, he was there every night at
(57:17):
10PM for decades.
So I think it's really the same thing.
Like, I mean, I haven't stopped creatingcontent in the next two years.
I mean, in the last two years.
And, you know, I enjoy doing it, it kind ofhelps me stay up to date and kind of build new
friendships.
So for me, you know, I'm trying to have as muchfun as I can, but I, that's something that I
(57:41):
would take away.
It's, It's really just kind of I see the peoplethat are experts, kind of build that craft
repetitively over time.
There's that consistency.
Yeah, and on that note, I think for the pastyear for me it has been a challenging year.
Obviously being in the pandemic, I had COVIDtwice, was hospitalized.
(58:01):
I just had COVID last week.
I'm sorry, two weeks ago.
You're fine, Joel.
I wasn't positive.
Let
me work for a second.
But going against all odds has been my yeartheme, right?
Yeah.
And it's only just really bootstrapped me moreto be resilient.
Yeah.
And as an entrepreneur, and as you know, infundraising too, is you just got to keep going
(58:27):
and get out there and continue hustling.
And really the other thing too is, we're reallyseeing some of our dreams come to fruition.
What was drawn on paper, a conversation I hadwith Maria, is how do we empower more Asian
American entrepreneurs and women?
And seeing that dream come true is comingbecause we're seeing the response.
(58:49):
We're seeing the communities, theorganizations, the other VCs that are saying,
yes, I'm with you.
Yeah.
It
is an incredible ride.
I do want to see more Asian American woman inpower seats investing.
So that's been really a recap of my year.
Well, excited about all the things you guys aredoing.
I think you guys are really attacking a hugeproblem and solving it.
(59:11):
So kudos to you guys for everything that youguys are building.
And I look forward to, you know, following andwatching some of your your guys's content to,
you know, check out your YouTube channel, andwe can share it across our communities to to
get the word out.
Awesome.
Thank you so much as well, Joel, for everythingthat you're doing with Sutton and your platform
(59:33):
and just all the resources that you makeavailable.
It's been an amazing learning experience.
Yeah, my pleasure.
It's been a been a really good time and, youknow, enjoying every moment of it.
So well, thanks.
I know we're a little over, but thanks for yourtime and appreciate appreciate both of you.
Thanks.
All right, take care.
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