August 25, 2025 • 61 mins
In this episode, Joel Palathinkal and guest Kate Brodock of W Fund, explore venture capital with a focus on underrepresented founders. Kate discusses launching a VC fund and building a community at scale. Topics include early-stage founders' needs, accelerator structuring, and virtual vs. in-person event dynamics. They cover strategies for engaging limited partners, diligence criteria, and investment opportunities. Case studies of innovative companies are highlighted, followed by audience questions on community building, mental health in startups, and the future of marketplaces. The episode wraps up with insights on targeting LPs and challenges for first-time fund managers.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Once they hit fundraising, pitch pitchpractices are like a super big thing.
(00:08):
Like just refining that pitch, going over thepitch deck, It's very interesting how little
access people have to that knowledge to be ableto really effectively get a pitch done.
So that's a big bucket.
Intros are huge as you can imagine.
(00:29):
So we really try to catalyze as many investorintros as we can.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palofinkle, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
(00:52):
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
So it'll be one second, and then we'll be readyto go.
(01:12):
Alright.
So it looks like we're live here.
So, Kate, again, thanks for popping in.
I know you're super busy.
You know, nobody is more busier than, a fundmanager, especially someone that's in the
process of it.
So excited to have you here, excited to learnfrom you.
Kate here, Kate Brodoc is with the W Fund.
(01:35):
So really excited to have the discussion.
Know, her and I have had some discussions thelast couple weeks just talking about everything
emerging manager, everything first time fundmanager, challenges, opportunities, community
network, all that stuff.
So a lot to unpack.
But Kate, you know, why don't you just startwith maybe a quick intro and give some
(01:56):
background and then I'll try to navigate thediscussion and maybe we can try to keep it
interactive because people probably get tiredof me talking too long.
Perfect.
Love it.
And thanks for having me today.
So I'll do cliff notes version of mybackground.
I've been in the tech startup space for fifteento twenty years or so.
(02:21):
And in first half of my career in two maincapacities, one is an operator, COO, CMO stuff.
And then, and of course, jack of all tradeswhen you're in startup.
And then the second capacity has been reallyactively involved in gender and representation
in the space.
So again, sort of that first ten years, it waslike, you know, the on the side work that I
(02:46):
really, really loved and easily could have had,be my full time if there was an opportunity.
But I was part of and then for a couple ofyears ran a large global nonprofit focused on
women in entrepreneurship.
At the time, I was the president for aboutthree years and at the time I stepped down, we
(03:07):
had about 60 chapters around the world.
So did a ton of founder work, everything fromjust mobilizing and navigating the space to
like full accelerator programs, that type ofthing.
About five years ago, I was fortunate enough, Iwas able to combine both of those parallel
paths and I acquired the brand assets to a forprofit for good out of Silicon Valley called
(03:33):
Women two point zero.
And was able to really structure that in a waythat my previous experience, at least in my
opinion, was gonna be able to tackle this issueof represent, or the multiple issues of
representation in this space.
(03:53):
And so built that for a couple of years.
And then last year, actually late twentynineteen, but I think everybody gets a pass for
the big three or four month hunk of time in2020 where nobody was doing anything,
especially fundraising.
So we launched a exact same thesis venturecapital fund.
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And I launched it with a community partner ofmine who's run a similar organization for about
ten years.
So stage, seed, mostly seed, a little bit ofpre seed, little series A tech enabled
companies run and led by women orunderrepresented founders.
A past tech enabled industry agnostic, astrategic, we have, of our two communities, we
(04:46):
have just a ridiculous amount of deal flow.
And so, at this point, we're really excited tobe able to write out checks to these founders.
It's kind of the last piece here is being ableto write out equity taking checks to these
founders that we've been working with for tenor fifteen years.
That's really great.
And, you know, I think a huge differentiatorbecause we were talking about differentiators
(05:09):
last night, you know, with a couple LPs and,you know, just being in FinTech is not a
differentiator or even, know, I'll beprovocative not just being a female or diverse
focus is not differentiated but I think a hugedifferentiator is really the community that
you've built.
So any advice on how people can build contentand community at scale?
(05:30):
You know, I think you were really strategicbecause you built a really strong partnership
with somebody, but any other advice, especiallyfor emerging managers, how do you really get
people to care?
We're seeing a lot of these Twitter VCs, right?
We see people that are on Twitter and then liketwo months later they got 30,000 followers and
they're listed as like a 506C.
So that means they're allowed to talk aboutfundraising and that really helps.
(05:54):
And that really boosts community.
But what's worked for you?
What doesn't scale?
I'll be honest, clubhouse does not really work.
So I've done a few clubhouses and like some ofmy old friends from school are like the only
people that show up.
So I don't think I can do clubhouse.
So it's like three people that show up.
I love it.
It's not for me, but what works, what doesn't?
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How do you start building community?
Yeah, I'm Take this with a grain of salt toobecause I think Alison and I, that's my partner
at the fund.
We've had the benefit of actually coming fromcommunity.
So we're not a fund that's kind of backing intothis.
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It's really forward for us and we kind of addeda fund.
That being said, you know, some of the thingsto keep in mind are to approach communities,
whatever the community is that you want to bebuilding.
Normally for funds, it's of course some sort offounder community or co investor community
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maybe.
But take, it's almost like mentally take thefund out of it.
And if you do that, you show up authenticallyand with genuine intent and you show up
consistently.
Consistency is really important.
And then really figuring out like what is thevalue that you're bringing truly beyond just
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we're a fund and we can write out checks andreally dig in there.
And I think it's really important to reiterate,like continue to take the fund out of what
you're doing, you will reap the benefits ofthat.
And I think showing up the founders, it'salmost like the founders can kind of sniff out
(07:44):
when you're not doing that.
Yeah.
And the broader community can as well.
I think, know, Joel, it's funny when you're,the example you just gave is all of a sudden
Twitter VCU show up and you got 30 ks and thenyou're asking people to invest in your fund.
People notice that.
So, and they kinda get when it's happening.
(08:05):
So those are just a couple of the things.
And I really do think the value piece of it isimportant.
That's something we've thought about a lot atWomen two point zero is just like, what is the
true value, the true value?
Yeah.
And just really dive in there.
And then all the basics like it's relationshipbuilding, it's long term and consistency and
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it's giving back and it's all, you know, allthat kind of important stuff.
And with with your community, you just talkedto, you know, probably thousands of founders.
So what is the most valuable?
Right?
I mean, for me, I I try to use my superpowerswhere, you know, I'm a product person, so I'm
I'm always happy to play with the app and playwith the website and I'll give them like a mock
(08:51):
I'll give them like a marked up deck with like20 revisions to their app.
Know, it's up to them if they wanna take it ornot.
I'm not Yeah.
Expert but you know, that's kind of mysuperpower.
There's other people that are like financialmodelers, right?
They can help you with your financials.
So, but what's the most important?
Is it fundraising?
Is it anything else?
What's kinda the common pattern that you'reseeing that the founders need help with?
(09:16):
Yeah.
Well, first I'll say like you just did anexactly like that powerful thing right there.
As you said, look, I'm really good at x.
So not everybody will have that problem.
But that is what I can offer to the world.
Sure.
Generally speaking for founders and keep inmind, most of the founders that we're working
(09:36):
with are earlier stage.
So like pre seed feed.
And so it depends on their journey.
Once they hit fundraising, pitch practices arelike a super big thing.
Like just refining that pitch, going over thepitch deck.
It's very interesting how little access peoplehave to that knowledge to be able to really
(10:06):
effectively get a pitch done.
So that's a big bucket.
Intros are huge as you can imagine.
We really try to catalyze as many investorintros as we can.
Yeah.
And then outside of when companies are outsideof the fundraising stage, the variations
actually of what you just said, Joel, those arethe bigger buckets is you have a lot of When
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you get a founder, generally speaking, they'regood at one or two things.
They have an experience in one or two things.
And then they have all this other stuff theydon't really know.
Lot of times it's finance.
So finance is kind of a bigger bucket where youdon't often have, you know, you don't often
have like a CFO unless they're building aproduct around that.
(10:55):
You don't often have a CFO jumping in as afounder, right?
Sure.
And legal's another one.
And so I think filling in almost like thebusiness basics is really helpful for people
and people don't get that a lot.
(11:16):
There are a lot of really great programs outthere, accelerator programs, etcetera.
But if you haven't run through one, that is abig, big gap is like the basics.
How in my next twelve months of running thisbusiness, what am I doing literally with
everything?
So being able to give them that, so we at Womentwo point zero for instance, we have an
(11:40):
accelerator program.
Really at the end of the day, it's a readinessprogram.
Sure.
It runs them through like accounting 101 andthat type of thing.
And those are really the things.
And then the last thing I'll say is specializedcommunities.
(12:00):
I think there's a, at least I'd say a desirefor that.
And what I mean by that is if you arespecifically SaaS product is really being able
to have those like, okay, I have 10 other SaaSfounders that I can regularly sit down and talk
(12:24):
to and we are just like going through thisjourney together.
That's something we've been thinking about alot but I think that's another aspect is like
the really close specialized peer network.
So, you know, I've been learning, I've neverlaunched an accelerator before, but with the
fund accelerator, I've been getting a lot ofcandid feedback and I've been having mentors
(12:47):
like yourself ask about how to do anaccelerator.
And I think one of the biggest things is theprogramming.
So I guess with the educational content, didyou just build that yourself or did you get
some help like some CFAs?
Because you probably have to have like a goodstructured programming and how many hours
should that be a week?
Because the founders are busy, right?
(13:08):
So I'm secretly like asking because it'ssomething that I've been thinking about.
So like, what's the cadence?
What's too much and then what's too little likewhen you're trying to build an accelerator?
Yeah, great question.
The approach that we took is that we took alayered approach.
(13:31):
And so we have sort of the core curriculum wedo try to keep that to your point to tops six
hours a week.
Okay, that's good.
That's a good rule
of know, sessions much like you run.
Yeah.
Yeah, because to your point, these companiesaren't stopping everything and doing this.
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And we're also we are also not set up likeTechstars is.
Techstars is like a full drink from a hose.
They've developed that over the past twodecades program.
Right?
So and you know what you're getting into kindof when you go to Techstars.
But Yeah.
So so that's the core curriculum.
Then what we do do is we layer on essentially,like, optional additions.
(14:18):
And so Yeah.
And that comes in a couple different formats.
So we'll do, you know, additional guestspeakers.
We'll do office hours.
And then the other thing we like to do is thatwe also we have lead mentors for every single
founder.
They meet with weekly.
And then we have an outer layer of mentors thatbasically can engage in however they kinda
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want.
Yeah.
And then the last thing that we kind of insertthere is that we do have specialized points of
engagement.
So you just mentioned like financialprojections, for instance.
We have someone who is basically available ifyou would like to go through the process of
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working through your projections, which prettymuch everybody does.
Sure.
Set up some time with this person.
So then we try, and it's really, so webasically have like a core and then like a
engage at your will
Yeah.
Set of stuff.
Yeah.
Because you gotta be sensitive to both partiestoo because the founders, you're like, hey, six
(15:21):
hours, that's time that you got to commit.
Then it's scalable too because you're notasking too much of a commitment because each of
the modules might be just an hour for eachperson pretty much, Like the financial person,
their module may be like one or two hours.
And then the VCs, do you guys you know,something that I've seen which seems to make
sense and that's gonna be really aggressivewith like some type of fund manager
(15:44):
accelerator.
But some of these accelerators I've seen havehad like venture investor sprints where they
will actually line up like tons and tons of VCmeetings.
And I think that's helpful too because ifyou're doing early stage, you know, just lining
them up for like series a, that's also butthat's like a full time job.
You know?
(16:05):
I don't even think you can fundraise and dothat at the same time.
Yeah.
Because
that's like a program manager role.
Do a oh, yeah.
So we actually do a a hard down version ofthat, but we already kinda have that process
built in at women2.o.
Sure.
And our accelerator just to confirm or just toclarify, we are meeting them where they are in
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their fundraising journey.
We are not one of the accelerator programswhere you're expected to like be going out and
fundraising at the end.
Sure.
For those who are, we actually do go through alittle bit of that process, but we, again, we
kind of have the process down already becausewe have like weekly pitch sessions and all this
stuff.
(16:49):
We've got the investor network set up, so we wekinda have that already done.
But yeah, it it can be a lot.
Yeah.
But you've probably found Joel, those areoftentimes some of the most valuable things
that you can do.
Yeah.
Are those intros.
I agree.
So we try to just be the good stewards.
(17:12):
Yeah, and it's only gonna help everybody,right?
It's gonna help you because you're helping themkinda get to the next level and it's helping
you help them pretty much, right?
Because you're lining them up with othermentors and connectivity to really grow and
accelerate from where you drop them off on.
And it's just a catalyst for just futuregrowth.
(17:33):
So I think that community is huge.
If you don't have a community, you're not gonnaget to the goals and the milestones that
everybody's trying to march towards.
So, kudos to you for building that And you guysare completely global too, right?
So you guys have kind of like, I guesseverything is virtual now, right?
But do you plan on Yep.
Meet in person at some point or is it justbetter and scalable to just stay virtual?
(17:55):
It's a good question and it's something weactually were thinking about pre COVID.
Yeah.
Is the idea of access.
It's one of the big things is we do want thesethings to be accessible if you can't go
somewhere.
Yeah.
Though we know the power of being in person.
(18:16):
And so we're actually sort of trying to figurethat out a little bit.
And we have a couple of ideas that I don'tthink we have like quite an answer just yet.
Yeah.
Do you think it's also helpful, you know,there's one accelerator that I specifically
building a friendship with.
They One of their LPs is just one anchor singlefamily office, and they like to bring the LPs
(18:41):
in the in the events too because the LPs, someof them are like entrepreneurs.
Right?
So they actually are the same way.
Like, some of them are like me.
They're kinda like, hey, let me roll up mysleeves and add my 2¢.
So do you think have you had some LPs that andI guess it depends.
Right?
If they're super institutional.
Right?
They may not care about product market fit andand try to, you know, do like a cohort analysis
(19:03):
on like a social media marketing campaign.
But what are the type of LPs that you thinkhave been really good partners and what's their
level of interest with kind of your community?
Have you seen them kind of really be involvedor do they just wanna hear performance numbers?
Yeah, no, love that you're asking this questionbecause we love LPs who wanna get more
(19:28):
involved.
Yeah.
And 90%, I almost really wanna say a 100% thatI'm just gonna solve for whatever, say 90.
They are the types who have already on thatfirst phone call, they're already asking us
like, and so what type of involvement can Ihave?
(19:50):
Yeah, that's great.
And so we actually really don't have any LPswho just sit back and wait for like the
quarterly update.
Yeah.
They engage at various levels.
We have one LP who is an exec coach and she'sjust running quarterly CEO roundtables for our
(20:12):
founders.
We have a couple of really specialized, youknow, just like sort of CFO type of stuff.
We have some really some specialized LPs.
And then because Allison and I both then havethese larger communities as well, we're able to
allow them access, but most everybody comes tous and that is like very central to kind of
(20:39):
what they wanna get done out of the experience.
Now, of our LPs right now are individuals.
We have a couple of family offices, but usuallythat lead, same thing, that's kind of excited
about being involved.
So that right now is the profile.
But we very much open that obviously withinreason, we don't want anyone jumping in and
(21:05):
starting to get into due diligence andinvestment decisions.
But yes, it's a pretty porous line that wehave.
Yeah, that's something that's funny that youmentioned this because we were actually talking
about this yesterday.
It's like, you don't wanna get micromanaged andthey're gonna add their own 2¢.
So there's either the blind pool or there'sthe, hey, let's share and get your feedback.
(21:29):
And then, again, wearing the product managerhat, right?
I mean, you get a lot of feedback, you getquantitative qualitative data, then you as the
fund manager slash product community personhave to make the best decisions.
So there's a lot of onus on that, but it's alsoliberating too because you can kind of have the
(21:49):
power and be empowered to make the decisionsbut try to synthesize as much feedback as you
can, right?
You're gonna get a lot of inputs and a lot ofopinions and you gotta cut through that noise.
And I guess that's something that your Andpartner works I guess, we talked about this
too, guess.
How do you cut the noise?
And this is, you know, a big hot topic justfinding LPs.
You know, we don't have to name any specificcommunities, but what are some signals that
(22:14):
you're like, man, this this conference is likea waste of time.
You know, any hacks to meet LPs?
And I'm gonna bring one up that I think isbrilliant that maybe you may not know of and
maybe you already do because you've tried it.
Okay.
It's a funny hat trick.
It's kinda cheesy, but I'm gonna but any any,you know, advice you have for kinda meeting
LPs, building LPs.
(22:34):
I know you're still in the process.
It's a CRM business.
That's what I've been hearing.
Oh, yeah.
I am not gonna have the golden ticket on this.
Is something that we are, like you said, stillchipping away at where we've been successful is
first of all, we are able to publicly solicit.
(22:57):
So we're on the Angel List Rolling Fund.
Oh, sure.
And so that means that means in every singleone of my weekly women2.0 newsletters, I can
ask people and we've gotten some LPs fromthere.
So I'll just sort of broadly put that out, butwe have the community to bring that in.
Yeah.
So the structure I think one and I'm sorry tocut you off.
(23:19):
Was just gonna pull one nugget from that.
It's kinda like the structure, strategicallystructuring it in the right way could also help
you be set up to have certain advantages.
Yes.
And and we benefit from that because we hadthat community that we were able to solicit.
Sure.
Taking that out of the equation, because I thatisn't the majority of where we get our LPs.
(23:44):
One large bucket that we have an advantage withis that we have a lot of LPs who are
essentially like successful women.
They now have assets in their hands and theywanna put their assets to work.
They have somehow, maybe they've followed ourwork before.
(24:05):
Maybe we know them, maybe they just getintroduced, but they like the idea of putting
that money into the hands of women founders.
So that is kind of a big bucket that we have alittle bit of a uniqueness in, but I would say
that you could translate that into what is yourstrength and therefore, you know, how can I
(24:28):
leverage that?
We have a lot of new money and I think there'sa lot to be said about new money.
People who have not been LPs before, you dohave to spend time with them and talking about
what it means to be an LP.
We try to be as responsible as possible and wespend time when they need it.
But if you start just chasing the same LPs whoare being asked by 10 different funds, like
(24:54):
that's when you're gonna get into the salesdilemma, right?
Yeah.
We still have some of those, right?
We have your Silicon Valley successful founder,hey, we're gonna dunk a bunch of money in it.
We have a couple of those.
But I think there's something to be said aboutnew money and really catering to that group.
(25:15):
Once you start getting out of the individualsfor us, that is where we are still kind of
chipping away at.
You know, you can't really Google too manyfamily offices.
And so, and we were not well networked in thatspace either.
And then there's the reality that we're fundone.
(25:37):
And so once you get further into institutional,you're just gonna be looking for the needle in
the haystack.
Yeah.
So we've just really kind of grasped the roots.
We've been just trying to get the intros, askfor intros.
We've been pretty aggressive on like askingintros.
We even ask the people most of the people weget a no from, if it makes sense, we actually
(26:01):
ask them for an intros.
And so that is that's kind of how we've beendoing it.
I have been part of a couple of emerging fundmanager programs sort of similar to yours.
I have found those.
I have started to ask about that connectionpoint because I have found those to be a little
(26:26):
less helpful on the LP.
So I really dig in on what they mean when theysay there are LP connections because those
have, and don't get me wrong, I love those froman educational standpoint, but that is one area
where I've started to dig in on.
(26:48):
Yeah, because you gotta make sure that each ofthe, I was gonna say that's a good point.
I think also one thing that you mentioned too,which is related is that community can help
filter that as well, right?
Because the community could be like, look,here's a program, it's an educational program.
It's taught by like fund admins.
So it's like, are there real LPs there?
(27:10):
People And then a big thing is too, it's likethese LPs, are they too big for like the
$10,000,000 funds?
That's something that you gotta balance too.
Is it worth it to meet an institution if you'reon fund one?
Yeah, I guess long term.
So that's a question that maybe it's good toget feedback on from your peers too.
(27:31):
And hopefully all these platforms, theseemerging fund manager platforms, they take the
feedback and they incorporate it, right?
And they roll it into the next batch, so.
Yeah, absolutely.
And to your point, Joel, I'm in a couple of thesort of emerging fund manager communities as
(27:53):
well, whether it be like, you know, women fundmanagers or whatever it is, first time fund
managers, whatever, they're really helpful forlike qualifying some of these.
You know, it'll be something like, hey, I gotapproached by so and so, or I got invited to do
this program.
Has anybody found value out of that?
(28:16):
And the nice thing is that most people arepretty respectful, but they'll give you the
honest feedback that you And that has beenreally helpful.
I think it's just being in that community oflike the people who are doing the same thing
that you are and talking to the same people.
And they're very helpful.
Yeah.
And your reputation really carries through.
(28:38):
And I think in other big pieces, it's a smallcommunity.
If you just ask one person, like if I mentionedyour name to Ariana, know Ariana and then
there's probably five other people that knowour second connections.
So I think it's just such a small community.
And even with the LPs, mean, LPs is evensmaller.
(28:59):
They're all in the same exact deals.
Half of them are they're all LPs and some ofthe same funds.
So I think just trying to have that goodwilland good intentions in general, I think is
helpful.
And yeah, I think that also helps withcommunity building too with deal sourcing also.
When you're trying to find deals, there'sprobably somebody that already did much further
(29:22):
diligence.
So you might even save your time.
So, I think some people are kind of a littleconcerned that it's, Oh, it's competitive
because we're sharing too much information.
But at the same time, it's like, if you don'tshare You're like frenemies, right?
So, you kind of are sometimes competitive, butat the same time, you have to work together to
kinda make sure it's a good opportunity foreverybody, right?
(29:45):
So
Yep.
Yep.
Yeah.
And with your thesis, I guess with yourcommunity, this might be good for some of the
people in the community that are emergingmanagers or looking to break into VC.
What are some of the top characteristics thatyou guys look for when you're trying to invest
(30:06):
in an opportunity?
What's your vetting criteria to get themaccepted into the accelerator and then how many
people do you can you accept at a time with thebandwidth that you have for cohort?
Yeah, yeah.
And just to clarify to the accelerator, and Iknow this can get confusing when I talk about
it, but the accelerator is separate from thefund.
(30:27):
So that's in women2.0 and our fund is sort ofover here as a side thing.
And I'll answer what I think is your questionsecond.
For the accelerator, we don't necessarily lookat the ability we don't necessarily look at the
invest the immediate investability on that one.
(30:50):
Sure.
We really look for you know, there are a bunchof different application criteria.
Are they generally high growth?
Do they have enough that we can work with?
Is the founder motivated?
All that good stuff.
Yeah.
Then they kind of go on their trajectory.
We might talk to two or three of them for thefund, but that's about it.
Sure.
What I think you're or or I'll turn it intothis for our fund.
(31:15):
What we look at for investment criteria is acouple of things.
First, our basic thesis, just to make sure itlines up.
And we have tech enabled as our bottom outbasically.
And what we mean is that technology has to bethe core innovation.
So things like e commerce doesn't cut it, youknow, that type of thing.
(31:39):
But that's pretty broad.
We are we are explicitly generalists,
but
we have some things that get us excited.
So that's the first thing.
We have some things that don't get us veryexcited.
What gets you excited?
So we start, we talk a lot about access.
(31:59):
And so if the core innovation is basicallyopening up access to a market group of people,
whatever it is that didn't normally have accessto that, you know, two big ones might be
geography and price or something That likeexcellent for us.
We really like that.
FinTech, EdTech, health tech, all that type ofstuff.
(32:22):
Sure.
Especially probably like one thing.
Yeah, no, one thing could probably also be likemaybe insurance tech, right?
So if people are able to get like access to aninsurance policy through an app, you know, that
is getting that is growing in popularity in TheStates, but there's still emerging markets
where it's still like brand new, right?
(32:43):
The unicorns already IPO ed in The States butthere's still like unicorns like some of those
other countries that could still open up accessto FinTech as well.
Although I will say for Insurtech, we actuallyhave a, not we the fund, but working with a
(33:04):
cool, very early stage.
So need to wait on a little bit, but she'soffering in The States more affordable
healthcare for freelancers, which is a hugehole.
Yeah.
And that is exciting.
It's a hole I've felt personally, she's felt.
So there's, yes.
So, but exactly that goal.
(33:24):
It's like she is dealing with millions ofpeople in this country who are pissed off at
their lack of healthcare options or haven'teven left their full time job because of
healthcare.
And that's huge.
But yes, so Insurtech is legal tech would beanother one.
(33:45):
I think too, we actually just invested onFriday.
We closed the deal with a Canadian company thathas built an AI powered trademark registration.
That's it, straightforward platform for smalland medium sized businesses.
If anybody here has ever tried to register abloody trademark, it is awful.
(34:08):
And they have leapfrogged that by several stepsand it's fantastic.
So we're really excited about that one.
So we love access.
We love mother earth.
So, you know, things in the sustainabilityspace to the extent that we can.
Have a great advisor on for that too.
We love that.
And, you know, we have some fun companies.
(34:30):
Like we have a portfolio company that does itsstock market for sneakers.
Oh, Love them.
Fantastic team.
Yeah.
Like really fun, really fun company to be in.
They're doing some really cool stuff.
They're getting into
Are they using the blockchain to track the
Not yet.
(34:50):
Okay.
Not yet, but that's on the roadmap.
Yeah.
So cool company.
And then, you know, there are some things likesome things that don't get us very excited are,
you know, marketing and ad tech, so likeadvertising tech.
Sure.
You know, ag tech, agricultural tech, tell youis very exciting.
(35:13):
Yeah.
There's been some robotics agriculturecompanies.
I don't if you guys been looking at that, butyeah.
Yep.
Cool stuff.
Cool stuff.
And also, again, one of those markets that'sbeen so low tech, there's a lot of room to play
in there.
And then, you know, something like future ofwork is so busy that we're just really careful
(35:37):
there.
We generally won't look at it like precedefuture of work companies because it's just so
hard to figure out if they're gonna be the one.
And then ethical boundaries.
So, know, how are you using your data?
Are you good to your humans or are you, youknow, the next Facebook?
(35:58):
That's You know, we don't touch, we don'treally touch things in like the defense space.
So a couple of those boundaries.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, so then, so if it gets us excited, wedefinitely put a lot of weight on the founder
from a couple different angles.
(36:19):
We really like founder market fit.
So they may have never started a company.
They may be coming straight out of corporate,but if they have maybe deeply felt the pain
point they're solving for, if they have been inany industry and just can absolutely navigate
the heck out of it, awesome.
(36:41):
And so we really like that.
We also really need to have like, we reallylike our founders.
We spend a lot of time with our founders.
We love our relationships with founders.
And so this is gonna sound cliche, but,coachability I think is really a big thing for
(37:02):
us.
And we see that as being the sweet spot ofhumility plus conviction.
It's like the ability to say, I wanna take ininformation because I know that people do this
better than I do, but I can also synthesizethat and make very decisions within my
(37:26):
leadership role are gonna be positive andbeneficial to my company.
So that's important.
And then we just have a couple of your sort ofstandard, we look at all the sort of standard
things that everyone does.
What's your go to market strategy?
How are you gonna be using the money?
What's the market size?
We're not necessarily one of those companiesthat have to see or funds that have to see like
(37:52):
a unicorn status everything that we do.
We actually feel really comfortable having aportfolio that's getting up there but we don't
wanna be the portfolio that's just leaning onthe three unicorns and everyone else is like,
one and a half X or fail.
(38:12):
We still get excited if it's not necessarilylike, you going to be a unicorn?
A lot of times we don't even know until, guesstalk to me in like seven years, talk to me in
seven years, right?
I'll let you know.
Yeah, exactly.
So those are just a couple of the things thatwe look at.
(38:34):
No, that's really helpful.
Maybe I'll open it up for questions.
Guess anybody in the audience have anyquestions?
Hello, I may have one if that's okay.
Sure.
Yep.
Hello, hey Kate and Joel, you very
(38:55):
much the discussion.
Really, really, really helpful.
And I really liked your points around buildingcommunities.
And I think that is really important and reallydifficult and hard to navigate.
Like if you want to start a startup, you canfind many books and many people who have done
(39:16):
it and you could easily learn.
But to build a community is really, reallydifficult.
So my question for you is that how was thatpossible during the Zoom life, like during the
epidemic?
Was it really struggling to do that?
And you know, when you want to build somethingand you have these online communities, it's
(39:42):
very difficult to fit people, I think.
Well, if you see them face to face, it's easyto understand yes or no.
So I don't know if you have some thoughtsaround that.
Yep, great question.
I'm going to preface that by saying that I haveessentially in some capacity or another been
(40:06):
working remotely for ten years.
So I did have a comfort level with that builtin.
Yeah, that being said, you know, for women2.o,first of all, we went into 2020 with probably
four, we had just in 2019 for the communitydone basically like these marquee core events,
(40:33):
in person events, summits.
And we were going into 2021 having six of thoseon the docket as also as main revenue streams
and ways of course to be serving the communityand that sort of thing.
So we had scratch all of that.
However, I think what we immediately dug intowas okay, everybody just got all of the in
(41:03):
person community aspects stripped away fromthem.
So how can we replicate at least some of thosethat are gonna be the most valuable to our
community and just go with it?
So one example is all the founders who werefundraising and then COVID hit.
They lost all of their all of their one to onepitches.
We had to cancel our own pitch event that hadbeen scheduled for the March.
(41:27):
They lost everything.
We popped up starting in April, we popped upweekly pitch sessions live on Zoom, five
minutes.
We invited our entire investor network to them.
Only goal was to pitch, get intros, andhopefully you will get a term sheet because
(41:48):
this is about the best that we can do rightnow.
Those were so successful.
We're doing them still in 2021.
We've had many term sheets signed like 200 plusintros made.
So one of the things that did happen in COVIDis that I think people actually understood that
(42:09):
they could be doing these things virtually.
A lot more people started to make deals andaccelerators, all of the accelerators that were
running, all of Techstars, they had to all of asudden do everything.
All of their little, what do they have?
A 100 accelerator programs?
I don't even know, but they had to say allvirtual, YC virtual, everything.
(42:32):
And so I think it almost got forced on them.
And I am excited about at least some of thatsticking around long term.
I do think it's gonna be very valuable when wecan start bringing in the in person stuff.
I think people need that.
(42:53):
There's a lot, like you said, there's a lot youcan't do when you're not in person or that's,
you know, just can't do it as well.
And then in terms of kind of assessing people,we, and I think a lot of other firms, you know,
for example, from the investment standpoint, wekind of lean a little bit more on things like
(43:19):
founder references and spending more time withthem than you might in person and that type of
thing.
If you think about it when you're not, when youare in person, you have that access.
You also have a lot fewer meetings, Right?
Zoom actually gives you the capability to lineup a lot more touch points and it and you can
(43:45):
actually get some different but more exposurepoints to somebody's personality or how they
make decisions or how they communicate topeople and that type of thing.
So kind of like weighing the pros and cons alittle bit, but I'm excited for like the
merging of both of them now.
Cause I do think virtual has opened up a lot.
(44:08):
Yeah.
Do you think, and I'm sorry to jump in, I thinkthis is an important topic.
Do you think loneliness is an issue?
Like just when you talk to founders, are therea lot of founders tackling that?
Not only with the pandemic, but look, I live inNew York City.
And there's just people are trying to date,people are trying to meet people and there's
(44:31):
just a mental health piece.
So do you think number one as an initiativefrom founders, are you seeing that increase a
lot?
And then as an investment technologyopportunity, right?
Are you seeing any innovation with that withlike digital software and stuff?
(44:52):
Yes, on all of this.
And part of it too is that I think even just alittle bit pre COVID, this idea of mental
health especially in the startup space was likebubbling
for
this idea of hustle, eighty hour work week, allthat stuff.
And then I absolutely think it got exacerbatedand I think like loneliness but but then on the
(45:19):
other side of the coin, five people stuck in aManhattan two bedroom apartment and
homeschooling and like, and I don't even wantto talk about it.
Just described my life right now.
There you go.
Yes.
(45:40):
So I absolutely mental health in the past yearhas been across the board really important.
We started the fund at least thinking aboutthat anyways and pre COVID because we have
(46:00):
mainly because we just, we want founders whoare founder, being a founder is already so
lonely.
Yeah.
It is it can be anyways.
And so we already were thinking about the justthe personal well-being of our founders into
(46:22):
it.
And now I think even more so.
Yeah.
And then and I think there are quite a fewfunds starting to kinda do that with their
founders.
Mhmm.
And then to your last question aboutinnovations in the space.
Oh my gosh, there's so much.
One of my, one of my classmates from my gradschool program, he's in Sweden now, but he's
(46:44):
running an entire fund that just invests in themental health and wellness space.
And so there's a lot of technology that iscoming out to address anything from again, like
access to mental health professionals.
We have a woman in our accelerator programright now that is building a product
(47:05):
specifically for professional women, justaround being a community focused on the mental
health of your professional female peers.
Yeah.
So I do think it's really another cool area ofinnovation right now for sure.
(47:26):
And that's exciting.
Yeah, yeah.
And I, you know, the people that are kind oftrying to find the tribe, if they're able to
find some type of tribe or community that theycan relate to, feel like that in itself is a
huge support system.
So, you know, I'm just really excited to hearthat you're doing that and really helping
people out with the community.
Because I think you're helping on all differentfronts, It's founders, it's females, but then
(47:49):
it's just kind of the community as well tosupport all those things intersecting.
And I think it is strategic that you have twodifferent entities, right?
You got the community but then the fund is alsokinda driving against its own mandate.
So kudos to you on that.
And I know we got about ten minutes left.
Hope that's all right with you, Kate.
(48:11):
I we might have a couple of questions here.
So I guess just open it out to the audience.
Does anybody have any questions for Kate?
I wanted to give you guys a little bit of timeif you guys had any.
I actually have one.
Sorry, I have one.
Go ahead, Rob.
Hi, Kate.
This is Rob.
Thank you so much.
You mentioned about how you structured theaccelerator program earlier, that's really
(48:34):
helpful.
And when you mentioned about the lead mentorand the external mentor, along with pairing
with such a meta expert from the industrycontact, I think that's pretty interesting.
So what I want to ask is essentially, when youadvise startup founders, how do you advise for
product solution fit or like problem solutionfit?
Because one day they're like looking for aproduct market fit, you know, with the MVP,
(48:57):
like, how do you recommend that, hey, like,maybe you're on the right problem, but then
your solution might be different.
How do you look at the signals and how do youdetermine, like, you know, when is the time to
like do an action, I guess.
Yeah.
So the first thing I ask is whether thatfounder has done.
(49:23):
Basically customer discovery.
So, the end goal is that you're serving, you'reserving a customer with your solution.
And so, the first thing is whether you have aproduct or not understanding of like that
person who's gonna be paying you at the end ofthe day actually needs what you think they
need.
So that I make sure that that's alreadyhappened.
(49:46):
Is it just your problem or is there actually alot of people out there who are having the same
problem?
So if that is if they've done that and they'relike, definitely that type of thing.
I always kind I always advise like, listen, theone thing I do love is, is the movement of kind
(50:09):
of like no code low code, and just being ableto pop something up to start getting those
customer potential customer proof points.
And, and understanding.
Okay, what pieces of this could go into aproduct.
So like, it doesn't matter if you're doingthings on like a combination of like, Google
(50:30):
Sheets, and a wordpress and like a landing pageand whatever, but can you actually build in
there the proof points that you need to thenfurther build on that product and get to your
MVP stage and really kinda tackle it from afeature perspective beyond that.
(50:55):
And then I always really appreciate, like,don't try to tackle everything, be really
figure out what you think the core is and thendo something very simple around that core.
Whether you think you could do five things withthis product in the future, like just start
with one and then continue on that.
(51:18):
And again, this is all about proof points.
And in my opinion, it's all about proof pointsbecause that is what you need from customers.
You need yeses from your customers.
So when you're building that product, you haveto figure out how to get those yeses from them.
Yeses, I'm not saying they're actually going tosay yes to you, but they're going to engage in
(51:39):
your platform they're going to whatever it is.
So, I don't know if that quite answered yourquestion but that would that would be kind of a
conversation that I would have with a founderwho maybe doesn't have a product set up yet.
And they're trying to get on that pathway to anMVP.
And then I would say Rob also that I, I have acouple of people who I would also that who are
(52:02):
product experts like Joel.
Maybe I'll send somebody to Joel next time.
Sure.
But I also have a couple people who are like,you know, I wouldn't call myself a product
expert.
If they're really in that serious realm, Imight ask one of my colleagues who's a product
expert.
Hey, I've got this great founder.
I spent a little time with them.
(52:23):
Sounds like they're in a really great spotright now.
Do you have thirty minutes spend with them?
And that is kind of founders love that.
They don't need all the stuff from you.
They need information.
And if you are the connector and you can alsosave yourself thirty minutes, that's really
valuable to founders.
(52:43):
Thank you.
That that's very comprehensive.
I I like, the second part to it, I I know Ijust wanna say one last thing is, what are your
thoughts on the future of marketplaces?
Are they gonna intersect between ecommerce andsocial media?
What is your thesis on that?
Yeah.
Marketplaces are hard.
Yeah.
Especially two sided.
(53:03):
Right?
I get oh god.
Yeah.
I mean, man, you've gotta line up so much toeven execute on a marketplace.
And that is not me saying that they aren'tgonna work at all, but I think that is where,
(53:25):
and like Joel said, especially on the two sidedmarketplaces is like really understanding what
your customers or whatever the sides of thetable are need and how you can deliver.
Because the thing with marketplaces too is youoften have like one shot to prove your value
(53:48):
once you get people in there.
Like if you if they if they come to you andyou're you're not matching them or whatever it
is that your marketplace is gonna do, you willprobably not get that person back as a
potential user.
So you've really gotta have your ducks in arow.
So that's me being like maybe a little cynicalbecause I've actually worked in a startup that
(54:16):
was a marketplace and it is very difficult.
If you can figure out that nugget and you canstart showing user growth and then in addition
to that, making sure that at some point you'regonna have people opening their wallets, then
fantastic.
So, but that's my answer on marketplaces.
(54:39):
Thank you.
Really appreciate it.
I'm doing a marketplace like that's why I askedabout it.
Okay.
Keep going.
Just you got it.
You got it.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Good question and good advice.
I guess, Jude, did you have a question?
Might have went off for a second.
(55:03):
Sorry sorry yes.
Yeah no worries.
Yeah I do it's hi hi Kate it's more related to.
Hi David.
Hiya it's it's more related to basically thepersonality traits for some maybe that an LP
may be interested in for someone that's sort ofa VC coming from a pre seed compared to a
(55:29):
growth sort of front.
Do they do they have particular personalitytraits that that they tend to look for for, you
know, pre seed to growth or does it all sort ofblur and it's all one type of person type of,
you know, communication style that they theyprefer?
And let me just clarify, are you talking LPslooking for personality traits in fund
(55:55):
managers?
Absolutely, yes.
Or, okay.
I think from my experience, I think this varieson the type of LP and how they kind of
function.
For individual LPs, for individuals, I thinkit's very much just like a, if they believe in
(56:18):
what you're doing, it's a personality mesh.
You've gotta convince them and that's, theyeither liked the full package or not.
I don't mean to oversimplify that, but to me,like the one on one thing is just very kind of
individual.
For family offices, I actually got really greatadvice when I started fundraising.
(56:43):
I don't know if anyone knows Charles Hudson.
He runs precursor.
He's on like fund three now.
He's one of my advisors at women2.o.
So I had a couple of chats with him and I wasthinking about starting this fund.
And Charles is like, if you ever get to likelisten to Charles talk, he's just super
practical.
He's like, look, here's the flipping deal.
(57:04):
And so he told me the deal with family officesand he said, they all function on like their
own set of things that they get excited about.
And he told me this example of when he went infor his first, he had gotten an intro to his
first family office conversation when he wasraising fund one.
(57:28):
And he had like, you know, he had thepresentation deck with the return profile and
the but, you know, all the money stuff.
Right?
And luckily, friend was there in the waitingroom and his friend pulled him aside.
He's like, he's like, no.
No.
No.
Don't do any of that.
All this guy cares about is honestly, like, ifyou can get him tickets to the freaking NBA
(57:48):
game or something like that.
And so so in fifteen minutes, Charles justcompletely changed his pitch and ended up not
investing in fund one.
They weren't a fund one investor.
They got him in fund two.
And he just, he was like, I had no idea.
Like you just, you have to, you know, everybodyfunctions differently.
(58:09):
And then I think at the institutional level,they're much more data driven and performance
driven.
And where we've had the most success is when wecan really communicate how they can overcome
the risk that they perceive in investing withus because ultimately that is a long shot of an
(58:38):
investment for institutional to invest in afirst time fund manager in Fund One.
And so if we can, and those are long termrelationships.
So if we can just continue to feed thatrelationship, be very gracious when you get a
couple of nos, I think is important.
Keep engaging with them.
(59:00):
We have one that we're still working on.
I say to him, hey, I've got a really coolFinTech deal.
I'd love for you to look at it.
Seems like it would be a good fit for yourfund.
Like I'm still doing all of that and I thinkit's just back to that relationship and I do
think graciousness really matters there.
(59:21):
Yeah.
And being in that conversation for the longrun.
So I don't know if that answers your question,Jude, but those are a couple of things.
Yeah.
I I posted that blog with Elizabeth Yen, youknow, whenever you guys get a chance and Kate,
you probably read it.
But I mean, it's just we you know, that blogwas interesting because there was no
correlation.
(59:41):
Like, she just met so many LPs and and she justdidn't see a correlation.
She just it was really kind of a it's it's asales CRM strategy from what I'm seeing from a
lot of people, but everybody's different.
Right?
I mean, it also depends on how you're targetingthe LPs.
If you're if you're only pinging institutions,you're probably just too small for them.
(01:00:03):
So really kind of doing the exercise of like,who is the profile of like, who I should target
Yeah, as an
and Joel, I'll add super quickly a piggyback tothat.
What you just said was being very realisticabout who you can get.
Is we got so many times the advice of like,listen, you're probably not gonna get an
(01:00:26):
institutional investor.
Yeah.
But most people said start the relationshipnow, which is a 100%.
So but we don't expect nos from that.
Yeah.
And then it's about where you're gonna put yourtime because if you, I mentioned needle in a
haystack.
If you put all your time into trying to getinstitutional investors and you've got, and
you've, you're gonna land one out of 200.
(01:00:49):
Whereas if you talk to individual LPs, you'regonna land, you know, 10 out of 50, you can
figure out the math.
Yeah,
good question.
I know we're over time.
I guess, Kate, do you have maybe one minute ifanybody else has a final question?
(01:01:10):
Yeah.
Does anybody else have anything?
If not, we can wrap up but just wanna see ifanybody has anything else.
Thank you so much.
Alright.
Then I guess, you know, Kate's put her LinkedInthere if you wanna connect.
And, Kate, I know you're super busy, so reallyappreciate you coming in and doing some
(01:01:32):
storytelling with us.
Have a good one and we'll catch up soonhopefully.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, have a great night or
day or whatever.
All right, bye.
Take care.
Once they hit fundraising, pitch pitchpractices are like a super big thing.
(00:08):
Like just refining that pitch, going over thepitch deck, It's very interesting how little
access people have to that knowledge to be ableto really effectively get a pitch done.
So that's a big bucket.
Intros are huge as you can imagine.
(00:29):
So we really try to catalyze as many investorintros as we can.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palofinkle, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
(00:52):
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
So it'll be one second, and then we'll be readyto go.
(01:12):
Alright.
So it looks like we're live here.
So, Kate, again, thanks for popping in.
I know you're super busy.
You know, nobody is more busier than, a fundmanager, especially someone that's in the
process of it.
So excited to have you here, excited to learnfrom you.
Kate here, Kate Brodoc is with the W Fund.
(01:35):
So really excited to have the discussion.
Know, her and I have had some discussions thelast couple weeks just talking about everything
emerging manager, everything first time fundmanager, challenges, opportunities, community
network, all that stuff.
So a lot to unpack.
But Kate, you know, why don't you just startwith maybe a quick intro and give some
(01:56):
background and then I'll try to navigate thediscussion and maybe we can try to keep it
interactive because people probably get tiredof me talking too long.
Perfect.
Love it.
And thanks for having me today.
So I'll do cliff notes version of mybackground.
I've been in the tech startup space for fifteento twenty years or so.
(02:21):
And in first half of my career in two maincapacities, one is an operator, COO, CMO stuff.
And then, and of course, jack of all tradeswhen you're in startup.
And then the second capacity has been reallyactively involved in gender and representation
in the space.
So again, sort of that first ten years, it waslike, you know, the on the side work that I
(02:46):
really, really loved and easily could have had,be my full time if there was an opportunity.
But I was part of and then for a couple ofyears ran a large global nonprofit focused on
women in entrepreneurship.
At the time, I was the president for aboutthree years and at the time I stepped down, we
(03:07):
had about 60 chapters around the world.
So did a ton of founder work, everything fromjust mobilizing and navigating the space to
like full accelerator programs, that type ofthing.
About five years ago, I was fortunate enough, Iwas able to combine both of those parallel
paths and I acquired the brand assets to a forprofit for good out of Silicon Valley called
(03:33):
Women two point zero.
And was able to really structure that in a waythat my previous experience, at least in my
opinion, was gonna be able to tackle this issueof represent, or the multiple issues of
representation in this space.
(03:53):
And so built that for a couple of years.
And then last year, actually late twentynineteen, but I think everybody gets a pass for
the big three or four month hunk of time in2020 where nobody was doing anything,
especially fundraising.
So we launched a exact same thesis venturecapital fund.
(04:20):
And I launched it with a community partner ofmine who's run a similar organization for about
ten years.
So stage, seed, mostly seed, a little bit ofpre seed, little series A tech enabled
companies run and led by women orunderrepresented founders.
A past tech enabled industry agnostic, astrategic, we have, of our two communities, we
(04:46):
have just a ridiculous amount of deal flow.
And so, at this point, we're really excited tobe able to write out checks to these founders.
It's kind of the last piece here is being ableto write out equity taking checks to these
founders that we've been working with for tenor fifteen years.
That's really great.
And, you know, I think a huge differentiatorbecause we were talking about differentiators
(05:09):
last night, you know, with a couple LPs and,you know, just being in FinTech is not a
differentiator or even, know, I'll beprovocative not just being a female or diverse
focus is not differentiated but I think a hugedifferentiator is really the community that
you've built.
So any advice on how people can build contentand community at scale?
(05:30):
You know, I think you were really strategicbecause you built a really strong partnership
with somebody, but any other advice, especiallyfor emerging managers, how do you really get
people to care?
We're seeing a lot of these Twitter VCs, right?
We see people that are on Twitter and then liketwo months later they got 30,000 followers and
they're listed as like a 506C.
So that means they're allowed to talk aboutfundraising and that really helps.
(05:54):
And that really boosts community.
But what's worked for you?
What doesn't scale?
I'll be honest, clubhouse does not really work.
So I've done a few clubhouses and like some ofmy old friends from school are like the only
people that show up.
So I don't think I can do clubhouse.
So it's like three people that show up.
I love it.
It's not for me, but what works, what doesn't?
(06:14):
How do you start building community?
Yeah, I'm Take this with a grain of salt toobecause I think Alison and I, that's my partner
at the fund.
We've had the benefit of actually coming fromcommunity.
So we're not a fund that's kind of backing intothis.
(06:35):
It's really forward for us and we kind of addeda fund.
That being said, you know, some of the thingsto keep in mind are to approach communities,
whatever the community is that you want to bebuilding.
Normally for funds, it's of course some sort offounder community or co investor community
(06:56):
maybe.
But take, it's almost like mentally take thefund out of it.
And if you do that, you show up authenticallyand with genuine intent and you show up
consistently.
Consistency is really important.
And then really figuring out like what is thevalue that you're bringing truly beyond just
(07:20):
we're a fund and we can write out checks andreally dig in there.
And I think it's really important to reiterate,like continue to take the fund out of what
you're doing, you will reap the benefits ofthat.
And I think showing up the founders, it'salmost like the founders can kind of sniff out
(07:44):
when you're not doing that.
Yeah.
And the broader community can as well.
I think, know, Joel, it's funny when you're,the example you just gave is all of a sudden
Twitter VCU show up and you got 30 ks and thenyou're asking people to invest in your fund.
People notice that.
So, and they kinda get when it's happening.
(08:05):
So those are just a couple of the things.
And I really do think the value piece of it isimportant.
That's something we've thought about a lot atWomen two point zero is just like, what is the
true value, the true value?
Yeah.
And just really dive in there.
And then all the basics like it's relationshipbuilding, it's long term and consistency and
(08:28):
it's giving back and it's all, you know, allthat kind of important stuff.
And with with your community, you just talkedto, you know, probably thousands of founders.
So what is the most valuable?
Right?
I mean, for me, I I try to use my superpowerswhere, you know, I'm a product person, so I'm
I'm always happy to play with the app and playwith the website and I'll give them like a mock
(08:51):
I'll give them like a marked up deck with like20 revisions to their app.
Know, it's up to them if they wanna take it ornot.
I'm not Yeah.
Expert but you know, that's kind of mysuperpower.
There's other people that are like financialmodelers, right?
They can help you with your financials.
So, but what's the most important?
Is it fundraising?
Is it anything else?
What's kinda the common pattern that you'reseeing that the founders need help with?
(09:16):
Yeah.
Well, first I'll say like you just did anexactly like that powerful thing right there.
As you said, look, I'm really good at x.
So not everybody will have that problem.
But that is what I can offer to the world.
Sure.
Generally speaking for founders and keep inmind, most of the founders that we're working
(09:36):
with are earlier stage.
So like pre seed feed.
And so it depends on their journey.
Once they hit fundraising, pitch practices arelike a super big thing.
Like just refining that pitch, going over thepitch deck.
It's very interesting how little access peoplehave to that knowledge to be able to really
(10:06):
effectively get a pitch done.
So that's a big bucket.
Intros are huge as you can imagine.
We really try to catalyze as many investorintros as we can.
Yeah.
And then outside of when companies are outsideof the fundraising stage, the variations
actually of what you just said, Joel, those arethe bigger buckets is you have a lot of When
(10:33):
you get a founder, generally speaking, they'regood at one or two things.
They have an experience in one or two things.
And then they have all this other stuff theydon't really know.
Lot of times it's finance.
So finance is kind of a bigger bucket where youdon't often have, you know, you don't often
have like a CFO unless they're building aproduct around that.
(10:55):
You don't often have a CFO jumping in as afounder, right?
Sure.
And legal's another one.
And so I think filling in almost like thebusiness basics is really helpful for people
and people don't get that a lot.
(11:16):
There are a lot of really great programs outthere, accelerator programs, etcetera.
But if you haven't run through one, that is abig, big gap is like the basics.
How in my next twelve months of running thisbusiness, what am I doing literally with
everything?
So being able to give them that, so we at Womentwo point zero for instance, we have an
(11:40):
accelerator program.
Really at the end of the day, it's a readinessprogram.
Sure.
It runs them through like accounting 101 andthat type of thing.
And those are really the things.
And then the last thing I'll say is specializedcommunities.
(12:00):
I think there's a, at least I'd say a desirefor that.
And what I mean by that is if you arespecifically SaaS product is really being able
to have those like, okay, I have 10 other SaaSfounders that I can regularly sit down and talk
(12:24):
to and we are just like going through thisjourney together.
That's something we've been thinking about alot but I think that's another aspect is like
the really close specialized peer network.
So, you know, I've been learning, I've neverlaunched an accelerator before, but with the
fund accelerator, I've been getting a lot ofcandid feedback and I've been having mentors
(12:47):
like yourself ask about how to do anaccelerator.
And I think one of the biggest things is theprogramming.
So I guess with the educational content, didyou just build that yourself or did you get
some help like some CFAs?
Because you probably have to have like a goodstructured programming and how many hours
should that be a week?
Because the founders are busy, right?
(13:08):
So I'm secretly like asking because it'ssomething that I've been thinking about.
So like, what's the cadence?
What's too much and then what's too little likewhen you're trying to build an accelerator?
Yeah, great question.
The approach that we took is that we took alayered approach.
(13:31):
And so we have sort of the core curriculum wedo try to keep that to your point to tops six
hours a week.
Okay, that's good.
That's a good rule
of know, sessions much like you run.
Yeah.
Yeah, because to your point, these companiesaren't stopping everything and doing this.
(13:52):
And we're also we are also not set up likeTechstars is.
Techstars is like a full drink from a hose.
They've developed that over the past twodecades program.
Right?
So and you know what you're getting into kindof when you go to Techstars.
But Yeah.
So so that's the core curriculum.
Then what we do do is we layer on essentially,like, optional additions.
(14:18):
And so Yeah.
And that comes in a couple different formats.
So we'll do, you know, additional guestspeakers.
We'll do office hours.
And then the other thing we like to do is thatwe also we have lead mentors for every single
founder.
They meet with weekly.
And then we have an outer layer of mentors thatbasically can engage in however they kinda
(14:39):
want.
Yeah.
And then the last thing that we kind of insertthere is that we do have specialized points of
engagement.
So you just mentioned like financialprojections, for instance.
We have someone who is basically available ifyou would like to go through the process of
(15:00):
working through your projections, which prettymuch everybody does.
Sure.
Set up some time with this person.
So then we try, and it's really, so webasically have like a core and then like a
engage at your will
Yeah.
Set of stuff.
Yeah.
Because you gotta be sensitive to both partiestoo because the founders, you're like, hey, six
(15:21):
hours, that's time that you got to commit.
Then it's scalable too because you're notasking too much of a commitment because each of
the modules might be just an hour for eachperson pretty much, Like the financial person,
their module may be like one or two hours.
And then the VCs, do you guys you know,something that I've seen which seems to make
sense and that's gonna be really aggressivewith like some type of fund manager
(15:44):
accelerator.
But some of these accelerators I've seen havehad like venture investor sprints where they
will actually line up like tons and tons of VCmeetings.
And I think that's helpful too because ifyou're doing early stage, you know, just lining
them up for like series a, that's also butthat's like a full time job.
You know?
(16:05):
I don't even think you can fundraise and dothat at the same time.
Yeah.
Because
that's like a program manager role.
Do a oh, yeah.
So we actually do a a hard down version ofthat, but we already kinda have that process
built in at women2.o.
Sure.
And our accelerator just to confirm or just toclarify, we are meeting them where they are in
(16:29):
their fundraising journey.
We are not one of the accelerator programswhere you're expected to like be going out and
fundraising at the end.
Sure.
For those who are, we actually do go through alittle bit of that process, but we, again, we
kind of have the process down already becausewe have like weekly pitch sessions and all this
stuff.
(16:49):
We've got the investor network set up, so we wekinda have that already done.
But yeah, it it can be a lot.
Yeah.
But you've probably found Joel, those areoftentimes some of the most valuable things
that you can do.
Yeah.
Are those intros.
I agree.
So we try to just be the good stewards.
(17:12):
Yeah, and it's only gonna help everybody,right?
It's gonna help you because you're helping themkinda get to the next level and it's helping
you help them pretty much, right?
Because you're lining them up with othermentors and connectivity to really grow and
accelerate from where you drop them off on.
And it's just a catalyst for just futuregrowth.
(17:33):
So I think that community is huge.
If you don't have a community, you're not gonnaget to the goals and the milestones that
everybody's trying to march towards.
So, kudos to you for building that And you guysare completely global too, right?
So you guys have kind of like, I guesseverything is virtual now, right?
But do you plan on Yep.
Meet in person at some point or is it justbetter and scalable to just stay virtual?
(17:55):
It's a good question and it's something weactually were thinking about pre COVID.
Yeah.
Is the idea of access.
It's one of the big things is we do want thesethings to be accessible if you can't go
somewhere.
Yeah.
Though we know the power of being in person.
(18:16):
And so we're actually sort of trying to figurethat out a little bit.
And we have a couple of ideas that I don'tthink we have like quite an answer just yet.
Yeah.
Do you think it's also helpful, you know,there's one accelerator that I specifically
building a friendship with.
They One of their LPs is just one anchor singlefamily office, and they like to bring the LPs
(18:41):
in the in the events too because the LPs, someof them are like entrepreneurs.
Right?
So they actually are the same way.
Like, some of them are like me.
They're kinda like, hey, let me roll up mysleeves and add my 2¢.
So do you think have you had some LPs that andI guess it depends.
Right?
If they're super institutional.
Right?
They may not care about product market fit andand try to, you know, do like a cohort analysis
(19:03):
on like a social media marketing campaign.
But what are the type of LPs that you thinkhave been really good partners and what's their
level of interest with kind of your community?
Have you seen them kind of really be involvedor do they just wanna hear performance numbers?
Yeah, no, love that you're asking this questionbecause we love LPs who wanna get more
(19:28):
involved.
Yeah.
And 90%, I almost really wanna say a 100% thatI'm just gonna solve for whatever, say 90.
They are the types who have already on thatfirst phone call, they're already asking us
like, and so what type of involvement can Ihave?
(19:50):
Yeah, that's great.
And so we actually really don't have any LPswho just sit back and wait for like the
quarterly update.
Yeah.
They engage at various levels.
We have one LP who is an exec coach and she'sjust running quarterly CEO roundtables for our
(20:12):
founders.
We have a couple of really specialized, youknow, just like sort of CFO type of stuff.
We have some really some specialized LPs.
And then because Allison and I both then havethese larger communities as well, we're able to
allow them access, but most everybody comes tous and that is like very central to kind of
(20:39):
what they wanna get done out of the experience.
Now, of our LPs right now are individuals.
We have a couple of family offices, but usuallythat lead, same thing, that's kind of excited
about being involved.
So that right now is the profile.
But we very much open that obviously withinreason, we don't want anyone jumping in and
(21:05):
starting to get into due diligence andinvestment decisions.
But yes, it's a pretty porous line that wehave.
Yeah, that's something that's funny that youmentioned this because we were actually talking
about this yesterday.
It's like, you don't wanna get micromanaged andthey're gonna add their own 2¢.
So there's either the blind pool or there'sthe, hey, let's share and get your feedback.
(21:29):
And then, again, wearing the product managerhat, right?
I mean, you get a lot of feedback, you getquantitative qualitative data, then you as the
fund manager slash product community personhave to make the best decisions.
So there's a lot of onus on that, but it's alsoliberating too because you can kind of have the
(21:49):
power and be empowered to make the decisionsbut try to synthesize as much feedback as you
can, right?
You're gonna get a lot of inputs and a lot ofopinions and you gotta cut through that noise.
And I guess that's something that your Andpartner works I guess, we talked about this
too, guess.
How do you cut the noise?
And this is, you know, a big hot topic justfinding LPs.
You know, we don't have to name any specificcommunities, but what are some signals that
(22:14):
you're like, man, this this conference is likea waste of time.
You know, any hacks to meet LPs?
And I'm gonna bring one up that I think isbrilliant that maybe you may not know of and
maybe you already do because you've tried it.
Okay.
It's a funny hat trick.
It's kinda cheesy, but I'm gonna but any any,you know, advice you have for kinda meeting
LPs, building LPs.
(22:34):
I know you're still in the process.
It's a CRM business.
That's what I've been hearing.
Oh, yeah.
I am not gonna have the golden ticket on this.
Is something that we are, like you said, stillchipping away at where we've been successful is
first of all, we are able to publicly solicit.
(22:57):
So we're on the Angel List Rolling Fund.
Oh, sure.
And so that means that means in every singleone of my weekly women2.0 newsletters, I can
ask people and we've gotten some LPs fromthere.
So I'll just sort of broadly put that out, butwe have the community to bring that in.
Yeah.
So the structure I think one and I'm sorry tocut you off.
(23:19):
Was just gonna pull one nugget from that.
It's kinda like the structure, strategicallystructuring it in the right way could also help
you be set up to have certain advantages.
Yes.
And and we benefit from that because we hadthat community that we were able to solicit.
Sure.
Taking that out of the equation, because I thatisn't the majority of where we get our LPs.
(23:44):
One large bucket that we have an advantage withis that we have a lot of LPs who are
essentially like successful women.
They now have assets in their hands and theywanna put their assets to work.
They have somehow, maybe they've followed ourwork before.
(24:05):
Maybe we know them, maybe they just getintroduced, but they like the idea of putting
that money into the hands of women founders.
So that is kind of a big bucket that we have alittle bit of a uniqueness in, but I would say
that you could translate that into what is yourstrength and therefore, you know, how can I
(24:28):
leverage that?
We have a lot of new money and I think there'sa lot to be said about new money.
People who have not been LPs before, you dohave to spend time with them and talking about
what it means to be an LP.
We try to be as responsible as possible and wespend time when they need it.
But if you start just chasing the same LPs whoare being asked by 10 different funds, like
(24:54):
that's when you're gonna get into the salesdilemma, right?
Yeah.
We still have some of those, right?
We have your Silicon Valley successful founder,hey, we're gonna dunk a bunch of money in it.
We have a couple of those.
But I think there's something to be said aboutnew money and really catering to that group.
(25:15):
Once you start getting out of the individualsfor us, that is where we are still kind of
chipping away at.
You know, you can't really Google too manyfamily offices.
And so, and we were not well networked in thatspace either.
And then there's the reality that we're fundone.
(25:37):
And so once you get further into institutional,you're just gonna be looking for the needle in
the haystack.
Yeah.
So we've just really kind of grasped the roots.
We've been just trying to get the intros, askfor intros.
We've been pretty aggressive on like askingintros.
We even ask the people most of the people weget a no from, if it makes sense, we actually
(26:01):
ask them for an intros.
And so that is that's kind of how we've beendoing it.
I have been part of a couple of emerging fundmanager programs sort of similar to yours.
I have found those.
I have started to ask about that connectionpoint because I have found those to be a little
(26:26):
less helpful on the LP.
So I really dig in on what they mean when theysay there are LP connections because those
have, and don't get me wrong, I love those froman educational standpoint, but that is one area
where I've started to dig in on.
(26:48):
Yeah, because you gotta make sure that each ofthe, I was gonna say that's a good point.
I think also one thing that you mentioned too,which is related is that community can help
filter that as well, right?
Because the community could be like, look,here's a program, it's an educational program.
It's taught by like fund admins.
So it's like, are there real LPs there?
(27:10):
People And then a big thing is too, it's likethese LPs, are they too big for like the
$10,000,000 funds?
That's something that you gotta balance too.
Is it worth it to meet an institution if you'reon fund one?
Yeah, I guess long term.
So that's a question that maybe it's good toget feedback on from your peers too.
(27:31):
And hopefully all these platforms, theseemerging fund manager platforms, they take the
feedback and they incorporate it, right?
And they roll it into the next batch, so.
Yeah, absolutely.
And to your point, Joel, I'm in a couple of thesort of emerging fund manager communities as
(27:53):
well, whether it be like, you know, women fundmanagers or whatever it is, first time fund
managers, whatever, they're really helpful forlike qualifying some of these.
You know, it'll be something like, hey, I gotapproached by so and so, or I got invited to do
this program.
Has anybody found value out of that?
(28:16):
And the nice thing is that most people arepretty respectful, but they'll give you the
honest feedback that you And that has beenreally helpful.
I think it's just being in that community oflike the people who are doing the same thing
that you are and talking to the same people.
And they're very helpful.
Yeah.
And your reputation really carries through.
(28:38):
And I think in other big pieces, it's a smallcommunity.
If you just ask one person, like if I mentionedyour name to Ariana, know Ariana and then
there's probably five other people that knowour second connections.
So I think it's just such a small community.
And even with the LPs, mean, LPs is evensmaller.
(28:59):
They're all in the same exact deals.
Half of them are they're all LPs and some ofthe same funds.
So I think just trying to have that goodwilland good intentions in general, I think is
helpful.
And yeah, I think that also helps withcommunity building too with deal sourcing also.
When you're trying to find deals, there'sprobably somebody that already did much further
(29:22):
diligence.
So you might even save your time.
So, I think some people are kind of a littleconcerned that it's, Oh, it's competitive
because we're sharing too much information.
But at the same time, it's like, if you don'tshare You're like frenemies, right?
So, you kind of are sometimes competitive, butat the same time, you have to work together to
kinda make sure it's a good opportunity foreverybody, right?
(29:45):
So
Yep.
Yep.
Yeah.
And with your thesis, I guess with yourcommunity, this might be good for some of the
people in the community that are emergingmanagers or looking to break into VC.
What are some of the top characteristics thatyou guys look for when you're trying to invest
(30:06):
in an opportunity?
What's your vetting criteria to get themaccepted into the accelerator and then how many
people do you can you accept at a time with thebandwidth that you have for cohort?
Yeah, yeah.
And just to clarify to the accelerator, and Iknow this can get confusing when I talk about
it, but the accelerator is separate from thefund.
(30:27):
So that's in women2.0 and our fund is sort ofover here as a side thing.
And I'll answer what I think is your questionsecond.
For the accelerator, we don't necessarily lookat the ability we don't necessarily look at the
invest the immediate investability on that one.
(30:50):
Sure.
We really look for you know, there are a bunchof different application criteria.
Are they generally high growth?
Do they have enough that we can work with?
Is the founder motivated?
All that good stuff.
Yeah.
Then they kind of go on their trajectory.
We might talk to two or three of them for thefund, but that's about it.
Sure.
What I think you're or or I'll turn it intothis for our fund.
(31:15):
What we look at for investment criteria is acouple of things.
First, our basic thesis, just to make sure itlines up.
And we have tech enabled as our bottom outbasically.
And what we mean is that technology has to bethe core innovation.
So things like e commerce doesn't cut it, youknow, that type of thing.
(31:39):
But that's pretty broad.
We are we are explicitly generalists,
but
we have some things that get us excited.
So that's the first thing.
We have some things that don't get us veryexcited.
What gets you excited?
So we start, we talk a lot about access.
(31:59):
And so if the core innovation is basicallyopening up access to a market group of people,
whatever it is that didn't normally have accessto that, you know, two big ones might be
geography and price or something That likeexcellent for us.
We really like that.
FinTech, EdTech, health tech, all that type ofstuff.
(32:22):
Sure.
Especially probably like one thing.
Yeah, no, one thing could probably also be likemaybe insurance tech, right?
So if people are able to get like access to aninsurance policy through an app, you know, that
is getting that is growing in popularity in TheStates, but there's still emerging markets
where it's still like brand new, right?
(32:43):
The unicorns already IPO ed in The States butthere's still like unicorns like some of those
other countries that could still open up accessto FinTech as well.
Although I will say for Insurtech, we actuallyhave a, not we the fund, but working with a
(33:04):
cool, very early stage.
So need to wait on a little bit, but she'soffering in The States more affordable
healthcare for freelancers, which is a hugehole.
Yeah.
And that is exciting.
It's a hole I've felt personally, she's felt.
So there's, yes.
So, but exactly that goal.
(33:24):
It's like she is dealing with millions ofpeople in this country who are pissed off at
their lack of healthcare options or haven'teven left their full time job because of
healthcare.
And that's huge.
But yes, so Insurtech is legal tech would beanother one.
(33:45):
I think too, we actually just invested onFriday.
We closed the deal with a Canadian company thathas built an AI powered trademark registration.
That's it, straightforward platform for smalland medium sized businesses.
If anybody here has ever tried to register abloody trademark, it is awful.
(34:08):
And they have leapfrogged that by several stepsand it's fantastic.
So we're really excited about that one.
So we love access.
We love mother earth.
So, you know, things in the sustainabilityspace to the extent that we can.
Have a great advisor on for that too.
We love that.
And, you know, we have some fun companies.
(34:30):
Like we have a portfolio company that does itsstock market for sneakers.
Oh, Love them.
Fantastic team.
Yeah.
Like really fun, really fun company to be in.
They're doing some really cool stuff.
They're getting into
Are they using the blockchain to track the
Not yet.
(34:50):
Okay.
Not yet, but that's on the roadmap.
Yeah.
So cool company.
And then, you know, there are some things likesome things that don't get us very excited are,
you know, marketing and ad tech, so likeadvertising tech.
Sure.
You know, ag tech, agricultural tech, tell youis very exciting.
(35:13):
Yeah.
There's been some robotics agriculturecompanies.
I don't if you guys been looking at that, butyeah.
Yep.
Cool stuff.
Cool stuff.
And also, again, one of those markets that'sbeen so low tech, there's a lot of room to play
in there.
And then, you know, something like future ofwork is so busy that we're just really careful
(35:37):
there.
We generally won't look at it like precedefuture of work companies because it's just so
hard to figure out if they're gonna be the one.
And then ethical boundaries.
So, know, how are you using your data?
Are you good to your humans or are you, youknow, the next Facebook?
(35:58):
That's You know, we don't touch, we don'treally touch things in like the defense space.
So a couple of those boundaries.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, so then, so if it gets us excited, wedefinitely put a lot of weight on the founder
from a couple different angles.
(36:19):
We really like founder market fit.
So they may have never started a company.
They may be coming straight out of corporate,but if they have maybe deeply felt the pain
point they're solving for, if they have been inany industry and just can absolutely navigate
the heck out of it, awesome.
(36:41):
And so we really like that.
We also really need to have like, we reallylike our founders.
We spend a lot of time with our founders.
We love our relationships with founders.
And so this is gonna sound cliche, but,coachability I think is really a big thing for
(37:02):
us.
And we see that as being the sweet spot ofhumility plus conviction.
It's like the ability to say, I wanna take ininformation because I know that people do this
better than I do, but I can also synthesizethat and make very decisions within my
(37:26):
leadership role are gonna be positive andbeneficial to my company.
So that's important.
And then we just have a couple of your sort ofstandard, we look at all the sort of standard
things that everyone does.
What's your go to market strategy?
How are you gonna be using the money?
What's the market size?
We're not necessarily one of those companiesthat have to see or funds that have to see like
(37:52):
a unicorn status everything that we do.
We actually feel really comfortable having aportfolio that's getting up there but we don't
wanna be the portfolio that's just leaning onthe three unicorns and everyone else is like,
one and a half X or fail.
(38:12):
We still get excited if it's not necessarilylike, you going to be a unicorn?
A lot of times we don't even know until, guesstalk to me in like seven years, talk to me in
seven years, right?
I'll let you know.
Yeah, exactly.
So those are just a couple of the things thatwe look at.
(38:34):
No, that's really helpful.
Maybe I'll open it up for questions.
Guess anybody in the audience have anyquestions?
Hello, I may have one if that's okay.
Sure.
Yep.
Hello, hey Kate and Joel, you very
(38:55):
much the discussion.
Really, really, really helpful.
And I really liked your points around buildingcommunities.
And I think that is really important and reallydifficult and hard to navigate.
Like if you want to start a startup, you canfind many books and many people who have done
(39:16):
it and you could easily learn.
But to build a community is really, reallydifficult.
So my question for you is that how was thatpossible during the Zoom life, like during the
epidemic?
Was it really struggling to do that?
And you know, when you want to build somethingand you have these online communities, it's
(39:42):
very difficult to fit people, I think.
Well, if you see them face to face, it's easyto understand yes or no.
So I don't know if you have some thoughtsaround that.
Yep, great question.
I'm going to preface that by saying that I haveessentially in some capacity or another been
(40:06):
working remotely for ten years.
So I did have a comfort level with that builtin.
Yeah, that being said, you know, for women2.o,first of all, we went into 2020 with probably
four, we had just in 2019 for the communitydone basically like these marquee core events,
(40:33):
in person events, summits.
And we were going into 2021 having six of thoseon the docket as also as main revenue streams
and ways of course to be serving the communityand that sort of thing.
So we had scratch all of that.
However, I think what we immediately dug intowas okay, everybody just got all of the in
(41:03):
person community aspects stripped away fromthem.
So how can we replicate at least some of thosethat are gonna be the most valuable to our
community and just go with it?
So one example is all the founders who werefundraising and then COVID hit.
They lost all of their all of their one to onepitches.
We had to cancel our own pitch event that hadbeen scheduled for the March.
(41:27):
They lost everything.
We popped up starting in April, we popped upweekly pitch sessions live on Zoom, five
minutes.
We invited our entire investor network to them.
Only goal was to pitch, get intros, andhopefully you will get a term sheet because
(41:48):
this is about the best that we can do rightnow.
Those were so successful.
We're doing them still in 2021.
We've had many term sheets signed like 200 plusintros made.
So one of the things that did happen in COVIDis that I think people actually understood that
(42:09):
they could be doing these things virtually.
A lot more people started to make deals andaccelerators, all of the accelerators that were
running, all of Techstars, they had to all of asudden do everything.
All of their little, what do they have?
A 100 accelerator programs?
I don't even know, but they had to say allvirtual, YC virtual, everything.
(42:32):
And so I think it almost got forced on them.
And I am excited about at least some of thatsticking around long term.
I do think it's gonna be very valuable when wecan start bringing in the in person stuff.
I think people need that.
(42:53):
There's a lot, like you said, there's a lot youcan't do when you're not in person or that's,
you know, just can't do it as well.
And then in terms of kind of assessing people,we, and I think a lot of other firms, you know,
for example, from the investment standpoint, wekind of lean a little bit more on things like
(43:19):
founder references and spending more time withthem than you might in person and that type of
thing.
If you think about it when you're not, when youare in person, you have that access.
You also have a lot fewer meetings, Right?
Zoom actually gives you the capability to lineup a lot more touch points and it and you can
(43:45):
actually get some different but more exposurepoints to somebody's personality or how they
make decisions or how they communicate topeople and that type of thing.
So kind of like weighing the pros and cons alittle bit, but I'm excited for like the
merging of both of them now.
Cause I do think virtual has opened up a lot.
(44:08):
Yeah.
Do you think, and I'm sorry to jump in, I thinkthis is an important topic.
Do you think loneliness is an issue?
Like just when you talk to founders, are therea lot of founders tackling that?
Not only with the pandemic, but look, I live inNew York City.
And there's just people are trying to date,people are trying to meet people and there's
(44:31):
just a mental health piece.
So do you think number one as an initiativefrom founders, are you seeing that increase a
lot?
And then as an investment technologyopportunity, right?
Are you seeing any innovation with that withlike digital software and stuff?
(44:52):
Yes, on all of this.
And part of it too is that I think even just alittle bit pre COVID, this idea of mental
health especially in the startup space was likebubbling
for
this idea of hustle, eighty hour work week, allthat stuff.
And then I absolutely think it got exacerbatedand I think like loneliness but but then on the
(45:19):
other side of the coin, five people stuck in aManhattan two bedroom apartment and
homeschooling and like, and I don't even wantto talk about it.
Just described my life right now.
There you go.
Yes.
(45:40):
So I absolutely mental health in the past yearhas been across the board really important.
We started the fund at least thinking aboutthat anyways and pre COVID because we have
(46:00):
mainly because we just, we want founders whoare founder, being a founder is already so
lonely.
Yeah.
It is it can be anyways.
And so we already were thinking about the justthe personal well-being of our founders into
(46:22):
it.
And now I think even more so.
Yeah.
And then and I think there are quite a fewfunds starting to kinda do that with their
founders.
Mhmm.
And then to your last question aboutinnovations in the space.
Oh my gosh, there's so much.
One of my, one of my classmates from my gradschool program, he's in Sweden now, but he's
(46:44):
running an entire fund that just invests in themental health and wellness space.
And so there's a lot of technology that iscoming out to address anything from again, like
access to mental health professionals.
We have a woman in our accelerator programright now that is building a product
(47:05):
specifically for professional women, justaround being a community focused on the mental
health of your professional female peers.
Yeah.
So I do think it's really another cool area ofinnovation right now for sure.
(47:26):
And that's exciting.
Yeah, yeah.
And I, you know, the people that are kind oftrying to find the tribe, if they're able to
find some type of tribe or community that theycan relate to, feel like that in itself is a
huge support system.
So, you know, I'm just really excited to hearthat you're doing that and really helping
people out with the community.
Because I think you're helping on all differentfronts, It's founders, it's females, but then
(47:49):
it's just kind of the community as well tosupport all those things intersecting.
And I think it is strategic that you have twodifferent entities, right?
You got the community but then the fund is alsokinda driving against its own mandate.
So kudos to you on that.
And I know we got about ten minutes left.
Hope that's all right with you, Kate.
(48:11):
I we might have a couple of questions here.
So I guess just open it out to the audience.
Does anybody have any questions for Kate?
I wanted to give you guys a little bit of timeif you guys had any.
I actually have one.
Sorry, I have one.
Go ahead, Rob.
Hi, Kate.
This is Rob.
Thank you so much.
You mentioned about how you structured theaccelerator program earlier, that's really
(48:34):
helpful.
And when you mentioned about the lead mentorand the external mentor, along with pairing
with such a meta expert from the industrycontact, I think that's pretty interesting.
So what I want to ask is essentially, when youadvise startup founders, how do you advise for
product solution fit or like problem solutionfit?
Because one day they're like looking for aproduct market fit, you know, with the MVP,
(48:57):
like, how do you recommend that, hey, like,maybe you're on the right problem, but then
your solution might be different.
How do you look at the signals and how do youdetermine, like, you know, when is the time to
like do an action, I guess.
Yeah.
So the first thing I ask is whether thatfounder has done.
(49:23):
Basically customer discovery.
So, the end goal is that you're serving, you'reserving a customer with your solution.
And so, the first thing is whether you have aproduct or not understanding of like that
person who's gonna be paying you at the end ofthe day actually needs what you think they
need.
So that I make sure that that's alreadyhappened.
(49:46):
Is it just your problem or is there actually alot of people out there who are having the same
problem?
So if that is if they've done that and they'relike, definitely that type of thing.
I always kind I always advise like, listen, theone thing I do love is, is the movement of kind
(50:09):
of like no code low code, and just being ableto pop something up to start getting those
customer potential customer proof points.
And, and understanding.
Okay, what pieces of this could go into aproduct.
So like, it doesn't matter if you're doingthings on like a combination of like, Google
(50:30):
Sheets, and a wordpress and like a landing pageand whatever, but can you actually build in
there the proof points that you need to thenfurther build on that product and get to your
MVP stage and really kinda tackle it from afeature perspective beyond that.
(50:55):
And then I always really appreciate, like,don't try to tackle everything, be really
figure out what you think the core is and thendo something very simple around that core.
Whether you think you could do five things withthis product in the future, like just start
with one and then continue on that.
(51:18):
And again, this is all about proof points.
And in my opinion, it's all about proof pointsbecause that is what you need from customers.
You need yeses from your customers.
So when you're building that product, you haveto figure out how to get those yeses from them.
Yeses, I'm not saying they're actually going tosay yes to you, but they're going to engage in
(51:39):
your platform they're going to whatever it is.
So, I don't know if that quite answered yourquestion but that would that would be kind of a
conversation that I would have with a founderwho maybe doesn't have a product set up yet.
And they're trying to get on that pathway to anMVP.
And then I would say Rob also that I, I have acouple of people who I would also that who are
(52:02):
product experts like Joel.
Maybe I'll send somebody to Joel next time.
Sure.
But I also have a couple people who are like,you know, I wouldn't call myself a product
expert.
If they're really in that serious realm, Imight ask one of my colleagues who's a product
expert.
Hey, I've got this great founder.
I spent a little time with them.
(52:23):
Sounds like they're in a really great spotright now.
Do you have thirty minutes spend with them?
And that is kind of founders love that.
They don't need all the stuff from you.
They need information.
And if you are the connector and you can alsosave yourself thirty minutes, that's really
valuable to founders.
(52:43):
Thank you.
That that's very comprehensive.
I I like, the second part to it, I I know Ijust wanna say one last thing is, what are your
thoughts on the future of marketplaces?
Are they gonna intersect between ecommerce andsocial media?
What is your thesis on that?
Yeah.
Marketplaces are hard.
Yeah.
Especially two sided.
(53:03):
Right?
I get oh god.
Yeah.
I mean, man, you've gotta line up so much toeven execute on a marketplace.
And that is not me saying that they aren'tgonna work at all, but I think that is where,
(53:25):
and like Joel said, especially on the two sidedmarketplaces is like really understanding what
your customers or whatever the sides of thetable are need and how you can deliver.
Because the thing with marketplaces too is youoften have like one shot to prove your value
(53:48):
once you get people in there.
Like if you if they if they come to you andyou're you're not matching them or whatever it
is that your marketplace is gonna do, you willprobably not get that person back as a
potential user.
So you've really gotta have your ducks in arow.
So that's me being like maybe a little cynicalbecause I've actually worked in a startup that
(54:16):
was a marketplace and it is very difficult.
If you can figure out that nugget and you canstart showing user growth and then in addition
to that, making sure that at some point you'regonna have people opening their wallets, then
fantastic.
So, but that's my answer on marketplaces.
(54:39):
Thank you.
Really appreciate it.
I'm doing a marketplace like that's why I askedabout it.
Okay.
Keep going.
Just you got it.
You got it.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Good question and good advice.
I guess, Jude, did you have a question?
Might have went off for a second.
(55:03):
Sorry sorry yes.
Yeah no worries.
Yeah I do it's hi hi Kate it's more related to.
Hi David.
Hiya it's it's more related to basically thepersonality traits for some maybe that an LP
may be interested in for someone that's sort ofa VC coming from a pre seed compared to a
(55:29):
growth sort of front.
Do they do they have particular personalitytraits that that they tend to look for for, you
know, pre seed to growth or does it all sort ofblur and it's all one type of person type of,
you know, communication style that they theyprefer?
And let me just clarify, are you talking LPslooking for personality traits in fund
(55:55):
managers?
Absolutely, yes.
Or, okay.
I think from my experience, I think this varieson the type of LP and how they kind of
function.
For individual LPs, for individuals, I thinkit's very much just like a, if they believe in
(56:18):
what you're doing, it's a personality mesh.
You've gotta convince them and that's, theyeither liked the full package or not.
I don't mean to oversimplify that, but to me,like the one on one thing is just very kind of
individual.
For family offices, I actually got really greatadvice when I started fundraising.
(56:43):
I don't know if anyone knows Charles Hudson.
He runs precursor.
He's on like fund three now.
He's one of my advisors at women2.o.
So I had a couple of chats with him and I wasthinking about starting this fund.
And Charles is like, if you ever get to likelisten to Charles talk, he's just super
practical.
He's like, look, here's the flipping deal.
(57:04):
And so he told me the deal with family officesand he said, they all function on like their
own set of things that they get excited about.
And he told me this example of when he went infor his first, he had gotten an intro to his
first family office conversation when he wasraising fund one.
(57:28):
And he had like, you know, he had thepresentation deck with the return profile and
the but, you know, all the money stuff.
Right?
And luckily, friend was there in the waitingroom and his friend pulled him aside.
He's like, he's like, no.
No.
No.
Don't do any of that.
All this guy cares about is honestly, like, ifyou can get him tickets to the freaking NBA
(57:48):
game or something like that.
And so so in fifteen minutes, Charles justcompletely changed his pitch and ended up not
investing in fund one.
They weren't a fund one investor.
They got him in fund two.
And he just, he was like, I had no idea.
Like you just, you have to, you know, everybodyfunctions differently.
(58:09):
And then I think at the institutional level,they're much more data driven and performance
driven.
And where we've had the most success is when wecan really communicate how they can overcome
the risk that they perceive in investing withus because ultimately that is a long shot of an
(58:38):
investment for institutional to invest in afirst time fund manager in Fund One.
And so if we can, and those are long termrelationships.
So if we can just continue to feed thatrelationship, be very gracious when you get a
couple of nos, I think is important.
Keep engaging with them.
(59:00):
We have one that we're still working on.
I say to him, hey, I've got a really coolFinTech deal.
I'd love for you to look at it.
Seems like it would be a good fit for yourfund.
Like I'm still doing all of that and I thinkit's just back to that relationship and I do
think graciousness really matters there.
(59:21):
Yeah.
And being in that conversation for the longrun.
So I don't know if that answers your question,Jude, but those are a couple of things.
Yeah.
I I posted that blog with Elizabeth Yen, youknow, whenever you guys get a chance and Kate,
you probably read it.
But I mean, it's just we you know, that blogwas interesting because there was no
correlation.
(59:41):
Like, she just met so many LPs and and she justdidn't see a correlation.
She just it was really kind of a it's it's asales CRM strategy from what I'm seeing from a
lot of people, but everybody's different.
Right?
I mean, it also depends on how you're targetingthe LPs.
If you're if you're only pinging institutions,you're probably just too small for them.
(01:00:03):
So really kind of doing the exercise of like,who is the profile of like, who I should target
Yeah, as an
and Joel, I'll add super quickly a piggyback tothat.
What you just said was being very realisticabout who you can get.
Is we got so many times the advice of like,listen, you're probably not gonna get an
(01:00:26):
institutional investor.
Yeah.
But most people said start the relationshipnow, which is a 100%.
So but we don't expect nos from that.
Yeah.
And then it's about where you're gonna put yourtime because if you, I mentioned needle in a
haystack.
If you put all your time into trying to getinstitutional investors and you've got, and
you've, you're gonna land one out of 200.
(01:00:49):
Whereas if you talk to individual LPs, you'regonna land, you know, 10 out of 50, you can
figure out the math.
Yeah,
good question.
I know we're over time.
I guess, Kate, do you have maybe one minute ifanybody else has a final question?
(01:01:10):
Yeah.
Does anybody else have anything?
If not, we can wrap up but just wanna see ifanybody has anything else.
Thank you so much.
Alright.
Then I guess, you know, Kate's put her LinkedInthere if you wanna connect.
And, Kate, I know you're super busy, so reallyappreciate you coming in and doing some
(01:01:32):
storytelling with us.
Have a good one and we'll catch up soonhopefully.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, have a great night or
day or whatever.
All right, bye.
Take care.
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