April 24, 2025 • 46 mins
Joel Palathinkal converses with Kevin Jiang, exploring his journey from Silicon Valley upbringing to academic pursuits at Harvard and Goldman Sachs. Kevin shares valuable insights from his experience at Apollo and SoftBank's Vision Fund, highlighting the formation of Mangusta Capital and its strategic focus on early-stage AI investments. The discussion delves into lessons learned from Masa and SoftBank, identifying successful founder patterns, and differentiating VC firm performance. Kevin offers career advice for aspiring investors, tips on launching new funds, and emphasizes the importance of community in venture capital. The episode wraps up with Kevin's closing thoughts and appreciation.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'll finish out my my kind of background.
(00:02):
So so, basically, about six months ago, I spunout from SoftBank, started an early stage VC
fund called Mangusta Capital.
And Mangusta means mongoose in Italian.
And so my Anchor LP is a family office that'sbehind Luxottica, which is an Italian founded
(00:22):
business, now global.
It's the world's largest largest eyewearbusiness.
So they own Ray Bans.
They own Oakley's.
And they also basically work exclusively withevery major luxury brand globally to produce
and distribute eyewear.
And it's funny because it's a business thatsome peep not a lot of people have actually
(00:43):
heard about the holding company, but people arevery familiar with the brands and the
distribution channels in The US.
For example, they own Sunglasses Hut.
They own LensCrafters.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
(01:07):
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
Alright.
So, I'm excited today.
I've got a great guest.
His name is Kevin Jiang.
He's at Mangusta Capital.
(01:28):
Really excited to have him on.
New friend, we've been, you know, exchangingdiscussions about just kind of firm building
And, one thing that I'm really excited about isjust kind of learning his story.
I'm gonna give a high level overview and thenKevin's gonna go a little deeper.
Kevin, number one, welcome to the show.
Kevin is a co founder and managing partner atMangusta Capital.
(01:49):
It's a venture capital firm investing inconsumer and vertical AI businesses, shaping
the future.
Before he's worked at some amazing top tierfunds.
So obviously everybody knows about the SoftBankVision Fund.
And then before that, he spent time on theprivate equity team at Apollo Global
Management, which is also another top tierprivate equity firm.
(02:11):
So Kevin, welcome to the show.
Thank you for coming.
I think we have a lot to unpack.
You've done a lot of travels as well.
So I feel like there's insights that you canshare from that as well.
Awesome.
Thank you so much, Joel.
It's a pleasure to be on the show and andreally excited to collaborate with you on
Sutton Capital's program going forward and allthe things we can do together.
(02:32):
Yeah.
Really super excited.
You know?
So just just to double click on what Kevin's,you know, mentioning here, you know, we run an
accelerator for fund managers, and we're on ourtenth cohort.
So happy to have Kevin along with a a lot ofamazing other fund managers that that we can
learn from and and and build friendships with.
(02:52):
But Kevin, you know, why don't we just take astep back?
You know, you probably haven't done this in along time and you know, sometimes it's fun to
do this but just think all the way back to yourchildhood, man.
I mean, tell me kinda where you grew up, whatyou studied, what you thought you would what
industry you thought you'd get into.
(03:13):
You know, if you're comfortable with it, tellme about what your parents did for a living,
what their background was, what what theirthoughts were, and tell me kinda a little bit
more about that journey of, like, kinda whereyou where your self identity, your your concept
of identity was, and it's like, look, you knowwhat?
Let me figure out where I wanna go and walk usthrough all these different roles that you had
in in high finance and and how you how you, youknow, started to build this firm and then I
(03:38):
might interject in between.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And I'll try to keep it relatively briefdoesn't otherwise, it'd go for hours probably.
So I, you know, I grew up in Silicon Valley inCupertino, actually.
My parents were first generation immigrants.
They came here from China, and they came herefor undergrad and grad school.
(04:01):
And, you know, I I just basically, you know,grew up in the Bay Area fascinated by
everything that was around me.
You know, they were both engineers at Mhmm.
Semiconductor companies here in the eightiesand nineties.
And as you know, during that period of time, itwas kind of like the first tech boom, you know,
(04:22):
post World War.
A lot of semiconductor companies had switchedfrom, you know, their functions of of kind of
defense contracts to much more consumerapplications, enterprise applications for a
lot of those tips.
And so, you know, my mom worked at companieslike Maxim, Micron.
My dad worked at Cisco, a bunch of other, youknow, loose ends and names that probably some
(04:46):
names that are here, some names that are notanymore.
Yeah.
Sun Microsystems as well.
And I was just like, okay.
This is super interesting, fascinating.
Like, everything property prices are goingthrough the roof in the Bay Area.
Mhmm.
You know, people are doing IPOs and and, youknow, companies are going public and and people
are getting very rich and, like, what is allthis and how does it all work?
(05:08):
And so I I was fascinated by it from a prettyyoung age.
You know, like any good Asian my parents wantedme to be a doctor, lawyer, something, you know,
just like a grad school degree more or less.
And so for You know, it's funny, like, beingyou know, I'm from India.
Right?
So, I mean, we don't get the lawyer push thatmuch.
(05:30):
It's either it's either medicine orengineering, and I'm an engineer with a PhD.
Right?
So the the difference with my father was, like,he didn't, you know, once I started pursuing my
PHD, my dad's like, what are you doing?
Like, how come you're not married yet with liketwo kids, you know?
So, it's like once you get the education, it'slike the pressure to get married but why do you
(05:50):
think that Asians think about like pushing kidsto kinda be lawyers and and doctors versus,
like, doctors and engineers?
Is it just
I I think engineers are very, very plausible aswell.
Yeah.
I think the problem was, like, I just wasn't,like, a huge.
I wasn't super, super good at math.
I was fine at math, but, like, I wasn't, youknow, a math Olympiad champion, which, you
(06:15):
know, in the Bay Area is kinda like the standnow the the the benchmark for, like, good at
math is, like, quite high.
Right?
Yeah.
As you can imagine.
I feel like it's also maybe a status thing too.
Right?
I mean, the parents wanna brag and say, oh,he's a you know, my son Kevin's a lawyer.
You know, what does your son do?
Right?
So
Yeah.
I think the reason is actually, any hardscience or any hard degree, they would have
(06:37):
been fine with.
Because the idea is that if you have hardskills, like technical quote, hard skills as
in, like, technical skills that no one can takeaway from you, then you have some value to add
to whatever field, whether it's medicine or lawor something, right, or or or engineering, you
know, technology.
Like, have some hard skill that no one can takeaway from you, and that should theoretically
(06:59):
guarantee you a stable job with a stableincome.
So I think that
I would say back then too, I I I feel and, youknow, this is just based on my memory.
I don't think engineers were paid that wellback then.
Right?
I mean, now engineers Probably not.
Yeah.
They're making, like, 50.
I had an uncle that was an engineer.
And, you know, back in the day, I mean, he washe was probably making the same as like a
(07:19):
nurse.
You know, I mean, engineers did, you know, backin the day, they're they're probably making
close to 6 figures later on but like when theystart out, I think they're making 50 k but you
know, lawyers and doctors, obviously, peoplethink, you know, when you're that you just
think in from an optic standpoint that you'reyou're rich, right?
If you're a doctor or lawyer, especially inlike an Asian parent's mind and you know, I
think for them, it's more of like a statusthing but now, it's it's different, right?
(07:43):
I mean, I mean, there's there's probablydoctors going to coding school maybe wanting to
change careers and become a data scientist,right?
Data scientists are making like what?
Like, 800, 8 hundred grand or something or moreat some point.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
It's definitely it was definitely a differenttime.
Mhmm.
And and so anyways, I I just was stillfascinated by it, but, you know, I think there
(08:04):
was always this pressure to do something like,you know, maybe more more do pre med stuff.
And so I actually did a lot of science researchwhen I was in high school, you know, did did a
bunch of I worked at Stanford for a summer.
I worked at UC Davis for a summer and, youknow, was very hardworking, good student.
(08:26):
So ended up, you know, grate gratefully beingable to go to Harvard and study economics for
undergrad.
Because once I got to school, the world justkind of opened up.
Basically, I I met people who were working atplaces like Goldman, and I'd never heard of
Goldman before that.
I'd never heard of McKinsey before that either.
(08:46):
You know, growing up in in Silicon Valley with,you know, parents being two first gen kind of,
you know, engineers, like, that world is justcompletely foreign.
Right?
They'd never heard of it.
Yeah.
And so I met folks that were doing business andfinance and investing, and I learned what a
hedge fund is.
And that's when I really started to figure out,okay, well, where do where does my skill set
(09:11):
fit and what am I really interested in?
And, you know, at the same time, it's like myparents, I'm sure, would be happy for me to to
enter any of these careers because I think itwould be a very, you know, well regarded and,
you know, well paying career.
So it's like, you know, I I knew that theywouldn't necessarily be against me going into
one of these fields.
(09:32):
And I think I would be a lot more interestedand a lot better at a lot of these things.
So I started exploring.
I did a venture capital internship.
I did a hedge fund internship.
I did I worked in investment banking for asummer.
Basically, what I took away with it was, youknow, the first place to start is really
investment banking or consulting if you wannaget a super strong kind of financial
(09:54):
background, especially coming from a liberalarts school like Harvard.
You don't really there's no accounting.
There's no finance or business classes.
Mhmm.
So you really have to kind of, you know, learnkind of on your own or learn on the job.
And so the first job that you get is prettyimportant.
And so I was like, okay.
Well, investment banking programs have, youknow, hundreds of analysts go through it.
(10:17):
They have a very structured program.
It's gonna be a great way for me to learneverything I need to know.
And so I joined Goldman after graduation, wentthrough their program.
And, you know, as you may be aware, typically,in private equity banking, the headhunters
start calling, like, day one on the job.
(10:37):
Sure.
And then you're stuck start calling all theanalysts, the investment banking analysts, and
asking, do you wanna go to a private equityfund?
Do wanna go to hedge fund?
And so I went through that process.
And Mhmm.
You know, basically, day I hit the job and gotan offer to join Apollo in their private equity
group after after Goldman.
(10:58):
So that's what I did.
I ended up finishing out my program at Goldmanin New York, and then I I went to LA, worked at
Apollo for just about a year actually.
So it's pretty short.
Yeah.
And, you know, Apollo's obviously a fantasticfirm, amazing brand name.
They have been extremely successful at whatthey've been doing, which is value oriented
(11:21):
leverage buyouts for for decades.
Yeah.
And, you know, built I mean, it's a publiccompany, built an amazing franchise.
But for me, I just quickly realized, like, thisdoesn't it's not it's not the tech that I was
doing at Goldman, and it's not
the
tech that I really want to be doing becauseit's very value oriented.
(11:41):
It's a lot more mature kind of companies, notgrowing companies.
Oftentimes in sectors that are in seculardecline because, you know, you can often buy
those businesses at a cheaper multiple, whichwas really core philosophy of of how Apollo
would think about investing.
Yeah.
Much more value oriented.
And so after that, I I, you know, startedthinking, okay.
(12:03):
Well, what what's next?
What what should I be where do my skill setslie, and and and what's, you know, going on in
the world?
And I I think the advice that I got from aHarvard alumni, which was super helpful that I
always pass along to everyone that I talk to,like younger folks that are interested in in
figuring out what they wanna do is try totriangulate three things.
(12:23):
So the three things are, one, what are you goodat?
Mhmm.
Two is what do you enjoy doing?
And three is where is the world going?
Yeah.
Try to find something that fits in the centerof all of those three things.
Obviously, it's not gonna be perfect probably.
Like, no one can also predict where the worldis going.
(12:45):
Mhmm.
But the best advice I got was try totriangulate something in the center of that
that that circle.
Because from, you know, from then on, I I Ithought a lot about, okay, well, what skill set
am I really good at?
What what do I enjoy doing?
And where is the world going?
And, you know, I I I can't you know, I won'ttake full credit for for joining SoftBank super
(13:11):
early and and kind of proceeding a lot of thethe gold rush or the huge cycle upcycle in
growth equity and venture capital.
Mhmm.
But, you know, it was clear that, you know,buying kind of dying businesses in secular
decline is probably not where I wanted to be.
Yeah.
And just coming from Silicon Valley, like, Ijust knew all the growth and excitement that's
(13:33):
happening in the technology space.
And so I just knew that's probably where Ishould be.
And coincidentally, at that time, SoftBank andMasa were raising the hundred billion dollar
vision fund.
And so I had gotten a call from a headhunterfrom a close friend of mine that was referred
from a close friend of mine from Goldman.
(13:53):
He was like, hey, you have to talk to Kevin.
You know, he's he's thinking about moving backto the Bay Area.
He wants to do VC stuff.
Like, this would be a perfect fit because it'sit's effectively like a really well funded,
exciting, growing startup.
Right?
Yeah.
Because at the time, it was a blank slate.
There were no you know, there's no investmentsyet.
(14:13):
You know, there were no super high flying kindof names in the portfolio.
And so I was like, well, this is kind ofinteresting.
You can, like, shape it a lot.
And the team was very small.
It was, like, four or five people.
So you would come on the ground level and bereally able to build everything together.
Right?
From the opening up and and have much more ofan impact.
(14:36):
And so, you know, over the I joined and it'sbeen, you know, nearly ten years and I loved
it.
You know, I I was able to meet with Masa inTokyo a bunch of times, bring founders to him,
led a couple of deals.
Like, it's just such an amazing experiencebeing able to work with, you know, a genius and
(14:58):
and a visionary like that.
And don't get me wrong.
I'm you know, he has his flaws, but he's justsuch a unique, amazing individual that, you
know, I think every minute that you get withhim to spend with him and and kind of do do
deals and investments together is just so it'sso it's so valuable.
And so over the last ten years, I've, you know,had an amazing experience, built out a great
(15:22):
Rolodex in the venture capital space and, youknow, was able to, you know, lead about 12 of
our deals, sat on the board as a board directoracross all of those as they, you know, continue
to scale.
And some of those are hopefully going publicthis year.
But, you know, I think over time, we all sawjust the developments in the growth equity
(15:45):
space getting more competitive, more saturated.
Everyone was raising multibillion dollar funds,Sequoia, Andreessen, everyone, Tiger, Takotu,
everyone was coming into the fray.
And I think over time, you just saw a lot ofthe excess kind of play out in the market.
Right?
Both in public and private markets.
(16:05):
We went through a pretty pretty rapid meltdownin in, you know, 2021 2022 and 2023.
And and and for me, that was very much a wakeup call as well, which is I love this asset
class.
I love the work.
I love what we're doing, but I think there'sgonna be a lot of pain and and there's gonna be
(16:26):
a bit of a kind of outflow for the next fewyears.
And so Yeah.
Where do you think I can where where should Iactually be playing where I feel like there's
still good opportunity?
And I think, you know, I realize it's it'sprobably earlier stage.
You know, it's it's pre seed, seed, series a.
At that stage, you know, unless you're tryingto fight with Sequoia to get into, like, the
(16:50):
pre seed round of Vlad's new company fromRobinhood
Yeah.
And whatever valuation and whatever check sideblank check, you you know, you wanna play that
game?
Yeah.
It's tough.
But otherwise, it's pretty greenfields outthere for you to really succeed as a pre seed
seed investor because the whole world is yourplayground and founders come from everywhere.
(17:13):
And if you have a way to source and, you know,find that deal flow, build really great
relationships with these amazing founders, theday they start their journey, they really
appreciate it.
And Mhmm.
You know, they're gonna appreciate you evenwhen they're a unicorn too because they'll
remember, you know, he's the guy who whobelieved in me when I had nothing, when I was
(17:34):
just starting and I just had, like, MVP and,you know, one customer, And now we're a unicorn
with billions of revenues, and and we're doinggreat.
But, like, he was the guy who actually firstput that on me.
And and I've always kinda play out in a coupleof my portfolio companies that invested at a
pre seed stage.
They're going out to series a, series b, andthey, like, still just really value my advice
(17:55):
and the relationship they have with me.
So I think it's just a completely differentballgame from from growth equity investing
where, you know, they're just gonna go aroundto the top 10 shops that have the best brand
name, that have the most capital, that have thebiggest checkbook, and they're just gonna go
around and say, okay.
Here's the valuation.
You in or you out.
Yeah.
(18:16):
It's it's a very it's a very, like, mature kindof
deal.
Yeah.
I mean, they're looking for you know, thefounder's looking for the highest valuation and
probably the best brand name and, you know, thebest terms.
Right?
I mean, sometimes, you know, the exit, if it'sa if it's an acquisition, it might be, like,
half cash and half equity.
Right?
So I'm assuming I mean, what what do you thinkthe founders would be filtering for if they're
(18:39):
trying to find the best alpha?
I mean, I'm thinking, like, the highestvaluation at the biggest cash offer.
I mean, in my opinion.
But I don't know.
You you have a little more of a lens.
Yeah.
You know, it depends.
Right?
It it kinda depends what that founder's lookingfor at that point in their journey.
You know, if they're looking for secondary, youknow, it could be they wanna cash out a
portion.
I mean, it's fair.
Right?
You know, they've been private building thecompany for ten years.
(19:01):
They haven't taken any cash out of thebusiness.
Maybe they wanna take some secondary off thetable.
So it's like which which funds are willing todo that.
To be honest, most of the funds are willing todo that nowadays.
So Mhmm.
I think everyone all, you know, all the bignames, SoftBank, CodeTwo, Tiger, whoever happy
to do a secondary and and return cash to shareto the founders if they wanna take some off the
(19:23):
table.
You know, it's brand name.
I think that's always something that peoplecare about.
So, obviously but the thing is at that stage,like, you know, what's the difference between a
Sequoia versus an Intracein versus a a CodeTwoor a a LightSpeed or, you know, name any number
of, like, brand name firms.
Like, they're all I don't know.
In my mind, they're all kinda the same.
(19:44):
I think the one maybe stands out as Sequoia,but, like, outside of that, it's like everyone
has a decent brand name.
Are you Sure.
Like, what what are you really optimizing forthere?
I mean, even gold Goldman's got a pretty big,growth equity arm as well.
So, I mean, a lot of those larger funds at thatstage because I've done some pretty large
secondary late stage deals and like, you know,a lot of those deals at that stage too, half of
(20:09):
it is debt.
Right?
So there's like a large bank that's coming indoing like a big portion of like mezzanine
debt, like combined with the growth equityinvestors as well.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So so it's, you know, a combination of ofvaluation, I think check size, brand name.
But honestly, it's it's hard to reallydifferentiate.
(20:29):
In my opinion, it's like most of these growthfirms as well are pretty flexible when it comes
to all of those things.
Like, they have big checkbooks.
They can write high valuations.
So it's almost a question of they set theterms, who wants to come in.
So you see a lot of these late stage partyrounds where they'll list everyone in the
valley, basically, because it's like, you justdecide how much how much allocation you want
(20:53):
and just for that amount.
It's almost like an IPO in in some way when youthink about it because it's like you you
basically, the company sets, like, the IPOprice.
Here's the range that we're talking about.
What and then, you know, the the the the buyersor public markets investors will say, okay, the
Fidelity is BlackRock's the world.
They say, okay, how much do you want at thisprice?
(21:14):
Okay.
I'll put in my bid.
You know, I want, you know, a hundred millionallocation.
I want 200,000,000 allocation, whatever it is,and then they they size you down or or up
appropriately.
Be like, okay.
Well, we can give you a hundred.
We'll give you 50 or whatever it is.
Like, it it almost operate it's funny.
I never really thought about it, but it almostoperates in that way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, their positioning, I mean, that'sessentially what they're doing.
(21:35):
Right?
And those growth equity rounds, I mean, many ofthem are not ever gonna be profitable and but,
you know, there's some of them that are kindagearing up for the IPO, so they're kinda really
looking to kinda get a little closer to sometype of e EBITDA positivity, but, they're kinda
essentially preparing for the IPO on thatstage.
(21:55):
Right?
Once you get to, like, the series e or seriesf, you know, a lot and that's how, like, a lot
of these late stage, you know, a lot of peoplethat are doing these SPVs are trying to
position it that way.
It's like, hey, we're looking at, like, an IPOin two years.
So they're trying to, you know, plan plan forthat, that process.
So Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe I'll finish out the I I realized we wentoff on a little bit of a tangent.
(22:17):
No.
It's fine.
I'll finish out my my kind of background.
So so, basically, about six months ago, I spunout from SoftBank, started an early stage VC
fund called Mangusta Capital.
And Mangusta means mongoose in Italian.
And so my Anchor LP is a family office that'sbehind Luxottica, which is an Italian founded
(22:41):
business, now global.
It's the world's largest largest eyewearbusiness.
So they own Ray Bans.
They own Oakley's, and they also basically workexclusively with every major luxury brand
globally to produce and distribute eyewear.
And it's funny because it's a business thatsome peep not a lot of people have actually
(23:02):
heard about the holding company, but people arevery familiar with the brands and the
distribution channels in The US.
For example, they own Sunglasses Hut.
They own LensCrafters.
And so they're very, very verticallyintegrated, but no one really knows that
they're this huge behemoth in the eyewear Andso the the principal of the family office there
(23:24):
is our Anchor LP.
And and yeah.
So since then, we've been focused on earlystage AI investments on the application layer.
So what I would describe it is as like kind ofvertical software except using AI to really,
really enhance the capabilities of thatsoftware or technology that's able to deliver
(23:48):
significant value across various industries.
So we're industry agnostic.
We'll look at every single industry, but we dowant to see that the companies we invest in
have a significant industry focus in one areabecause we think this verticalized sector
approach actually results in the ability tomonetize a lot faster, generate revenues, And
(24:11):
then two, also opens up a lot of exit pathwaysfor our portfolio companies in the future when
they have such a strong industry focus.
There are a lot of public incumbents, latestage, you know, large businesses that are
interested in acquiring technology and AIsolutions such as these to really enhance their
talent, enhance their product set.
(24:33):
And so that's what we're really looking for insetting up a lot of our companies for is the
ability to actually be able to be a greatacquisition target for some of these industry
incumbents.
We invest pre seed through series a, sorelatively early stage 500 k to $2,000,000
first checks.
And then after that, we reserve about half thefund to double down into our winners, and so
(24:56):
continuing to get more exposure into the topbusinesses in our portfolio.
Invested in about eight companies in theportfolio and continuing to do a lot of new
deals.
So we'll probably see see another five to 10kind of investments that we'll make this year.
No.
That's great.
You know, I think one thing that I'd beinterested in learning is a little more about
(25:22):
what you you know, some of the biggesttakeaways from working with Masa.
I guess if you were to look back, are there anykind of glaring memories or just kind of life
lessons or professional lessons?
You were there for a decade.
So
Yeah.
No.
Absolutely.
You know, it's it's it's interesting because Ithink probably the main lesson that I learned
(25:44):
from my time there is when you're investing inin startups and and growth companies, whether
it's early or late stage, the most importantthing is the founder.
Like, it's people, people, people.
Right?
At the end of the day, this is a peoplebusiness because you've gotta build the
(26:04):
relationships with the right folks and andbuild really strong relationships with these
people that they trust you, they wanna workwith you.
And second, it's you've gotta recognize who arethe right founders for the right time in this,
you know, company's development and what arethey good at?
What are they not good at?
Are they surrounding themselves with the rightteam to help support them once they scale to a
(26:28):
stage where maybe it's not necessarily theright fit for them and it's
not Yeah.
Necessarily their right skill set.
And so it's all about just managementevaluation assessment and how do you work
across very, you know, different and difficultsituations with people.
And so really, I think that's kind of thebiggest lesson if you had to ask me that I
(26:50):
learned, which is which is funny because it'snot even a it's not like really a financial or
investing lesson.
But I think it is very much so an investinglesson when you look at venture capital and and
growth equity is that management team mattersso much, especially the earlier stage you go.
There's just not a lot of data to look at.
So Mhmm.
(27:11):
You know, when you're investing in pre seedseed stage companies, you know, it could be pre
revenue, it could be pre product.
We don't typically do a lot of of pre revenueor pre product.
But, you know, even then there's, you know, notprobably a lot of financial traction yet.
Like, you're looking at a limited set of data.
And so it comes down to how do you develop thepattern recognition and experience to know that
(27:36):
this is someone who's actually gonna be a goodfounder or not.
And I think that was the most valuable thing Igot from Softbank is being able to spend every
week on, like, a Zoom call with Masa and figureout, like, okay, this what are the kind of
founders that succeed?
And seeing thousands of founders walk throughour doors and being able to track them and see,
(27:59):
okay, this is what it takes to be a unicornfounder.
Oh, this guy didn't make it or this gal is isamazing and continues to crush it.
Like, that's kind of the most valuable thing Iwas able to get.
And it's hard to distill into one lesson, butit's just kind of the pattern recognition that
you develop over the course of, like, ten yearsof seeing thousands of entrepreneurs, tracking
(28:22):
them, meeting them, and and figuring out likewhat elements of their personality are helping
them and what elements of who they are and whatthey do is is not really helping them.
Right?
Yeah.
So it's it's kind of finding, you know,developing that that sniffing that nose out,
like sniffing out kind of entrepreneurs andfounders and figuring out
(28:42):
What are some patterns that you've seen, Iguess, you know, because you guys have talked
to hundreds and hundreds of founders.
Obviously, the ones that you guys have finallyfiltered through have become unicorns.
So what's just kind of the common thread?
You know, it's it's a couple of differentthings.
And and then also what I will say is it's notjust one size fits all.
Right?
There's founders that succeed that are moretechnical, perhaps less salesy.
(29:07):
There's plenty of founders that are extremelysalesy, great at presenting, highly charismatic
that succeed as well.
So there's no there's no one archetype.
What I would say though is there's a couple ofthings I typically look for now when I meet
with entrepreneurs.
The first and foremost is a very, very deepseated hunger and ambition internally to do
(29:30):
whatever drives them.
And they're they have a chip on their shoulderfor whatever reason.
They feel like they have something to prove tothe world.
And there's this deep, deep seated hunger thatthey just are trying to itching to scratch at
and make sure that they're successful to beable to to accomplish what they wanna do.
(29:51):
That is really usually the first thing I lookfor.
So it's it's focus, determination, and like a,you know, unwieldy amount of grit where they're
just never gonna give up and they're gonna justcontinue grinding away at whatever it is that
they're doing.
The second thing I would say is, which I findusually quite helpful is someone that knows how
(30:15):
to present to pitch and paint a story.
At the end of the day, as a founder, especiallythe earliest stages, you've got to be able to
sell.
You have to be able to pitch to investors.
You've got to pitch to your customers.
You've got to pitch to everyone, honestly.
And every everyone's looking for somethingdifferent.
Right?
Like what a customer is looking for isdifferent from what investors looking for.
(30:38):
But you've got to be able to demonstrate andcommunicate the value of what you're doing.
And so, unfortunately or fortunately, you dohave to be, I think, a good salesperson across
a couple of different constituents.
So that's another thing that I usually lookfor.
And then I think the other the the two or threeother things I look for are kind of a little
(31:03):
bit less obvious and and and sometimes, youknow, I think it depends on the situation.
I do like to look for folks who are repeatfounders.
So they've been through the journey hopefullyonce or twice.
They know what it's like.
They know what the pitfalls are.
They know the pain and sacrifice it takes.
So they don't have to be a, you know, serialentrepreneur that's had a ton of success.
(31:25):
But ideally, it'd be nice if it wasn't theirfirst foray into entrepreneurship because it is
definitely tough for the first time around.
As I've learned from starting the fund, likeit's a lot.
And you you can avoid a lot of mistakes.
You can be a lot more efficient if you're doingthe second time around.
Sure.
And then the third thing or the final thingI'll mention is when it comes to a founder,
(31:50):
really being able to build a team and not beingafraid, building an A team and not having an
ego about it.
Yeah.
Because a lot of folks that I meet, a lot offounders, very strong founders, they often have
a bit of an ego where they feel like I've gottabe like the head honcho.
I've gotta outshine everyone.
(32:10):
And they're afraid to bring on team membersthat often could be more senior than them or
could add a lot more value, a lot moreexperience than them.
But they're afraid to bring them on becausethey're afraid they'll outshine and outclass
kind of them as a leader.
And I think that's a big that's a big red flagfor me because honestly, when you're building a
(32:30):
company, can't do it alone.
You've got to have great people around you.
You have to retain them as well.
And I've seen a lot of cases where a companyjust doesn't find the best talent because there
is a bit of that fear of or or maybe they'rejust not able to assess, like, who are the
right people to bring on.
But being able to sniff out the right talent,bring them on, retain them, I think that is
(32:53):
extremely, extremely important as well.
And I think you can often tell after meeting acouple of the team members at the company, you
can tell how they think about hiring andretaining talent.
No.
That's great.
What are some of the things that you learned,you know, building the firm, you know, in terms
(33:14):
of, you know, maybe not so much on the on thestrategy because you've built that, but just
kinda maybe professionally, personally, asyou're, you know, kinda like ideating your
strategy.
You know, I I'd say one big thing that a lot ofmanagers a lot of managers are struggling with
is differentiation.
So what are some ways that you're you'd mayberecommend managers to differentiate themselves?
(33:40):
Yeah.
You know, it it's a interesting questionbecause it's you know, there there is an
element of differentiation for sure.
But, you know, for me, I I've always believedthat performance kinda speaks for itself
depending on who you're trying to cater to.
Right?
Like, if you're thinking about institutionalinvestors or, you know, financially driven
(34:01):
investors where there's no kind of strategic,you know, there's no strategic kind of angle to
it.
My view is that performance really speaks foritself over time.
So my goal has always been the North Star hasalways been deliver the great returns, great
value to our LPs, and over time, that will getrecognized.
(34:24):
You know, obviously, to do that, you know, youyou probably have to have something that that
differentiates you and makes you above averagein whatever it is you do.
So whether you specialize in a specific sector,specialize in a specific kind of thesis that no
one else knows as well as you do, Or you justhave great, you know, sniffing ability of like
(34:46):
what's a great founder, what's not.
So you have great picking ability or maybe youhave a more operational focus.
So you come in, you help these companies growand achieve more because you're a former
operator and you've got the team to really comein and and dig in and and help them grow.
So I think there's a bunch of different waysyou can kinda differentiate yourself.
(35:07):
But, ultimately, at the end of the day, when Ithink about it, it's like differentiation for
the sake of differentiation, I don't thinkreally makes sense.
It's gotta provide some sort of real valuehere.
And the North Star, in my opinion, is alwaysperformance.
And so you can sell I mean, sure, it's great tobe able to sell differentiation and make it
helps you with fundraising.
(35:27):
But after a while, you've gotta deliver you'vegotta deliver results.
So I'm gonna go back a little bit to theearlier part of your bio.
You know, just getting into Harvard, you know,working at Apollo, looking back, what's some
career advice that you would give maybe collegestudents that are trying to find their way And,
(35:48):
you know, maybe advice on how to get into topschools.
I don't know if there's, you know, I know a lotof those top schools are looking at your your,
your essays and they're looking at you beingwell rounded.
So maybe just general academic or career advicethat you give to somebody just starting out.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I think, you know, the advice that I wouldprobably give is just to try a bunch of things
(36:12):
out because for me, I I will either think aboutand evaluate what you wanna do and what you
might be a good fit for based on, like, thatthat triangulation of Yeah.
Kind of advice that I gave.
Mhmm.
Or just go and try things.
Just do things.
Because Yeah.
For me, I was never someone who could thinkabout things and and and just be unbiased and,
(36:35):
like, you know, determine what I wanted to doby just thinking about it.
I had to go and try it because I thought, oh,maybe I could be great at, you know, working in
sales and trading or working at a hedge fund.
And it wasn't until I actually tried it that Irealized, actually, you know what?
I don't think this is exactly for me.
And I wouldn't have guessed that venturecapital actually was kinda my my calling for
(37:01):
the longest time because I was thinking, oh, beinvestment banking.
I'll do private equity.
You know, it's gonna be great.
I'll just stay in in that PE fund for a longtime.
And so I think once you try things, you veryquickly realize, is this for me or is this not?
Mhmm.
So I think my advice would almost be just goand try things because that's a trial and error
(37:23):
is the only way at least for me, it was it wasone of the best ways for me to figure out what
it is I wanted to do.
And then a couple more questions.
So any advice for people going out andlaunching a fund?
What what are some of the pieces of advice ifyou were to be your their big brother?
And some of this could come from some of yourlearnings too, right?
(37:44):
Maybe some challenges that you've had and nowthat's a learning and we're all going through a
lot of different learnings every year.
Yeah.
You know, it's it's tough, especially in thisenvironment.
I think there's just a lot less appetite forventure capital, especially from emerging
managers.
I think a lot of there's been a lot of data outthere that's shown that capital coming into VC
(38:08):
or growth from LPs has often gone to primarily,you know, established multi platform like
platform managers, like the industries of theworld.
Mhmm.
And and so I think it really is it's tough outthere right now.
And I think you have to really desire or knowthat this is what you wanna do because you're
(38:31):
gonna have to struggle and sacrifice a lot, Ithink, to get there.
And so that's the first thing I would saybefore you take the take the leap into doing
this.
I think the second thing I would say is is kindof figure out, like, what is your angle?
What is your track record that you can reallydemonstrate to people?
Because it's really hard.
(38:53):
Like, it's very, very hard to fundraise rightnow.
And you've gotta have something you gotta havesomething compelling and attractive for people
to really be willing to to to commit capital toyou.
Right?
As as it should be the case.
I mean, I think the last, you know, when it was2021, '20 '20 '2, I heard of fundraisers
(39:16):
getting done super quickly and it being veryeasy to raise capital.
But, honestly, that's not the way that itshould be.
It should be relatively tough.
And I think do give a lot of thought to, like,where what your track record is, where you can
point to, and what is unique about yourstrategy or or not necessarily unique, but what
(39:37):
what gives you the confidence that yourstrategy is gonna actually perform versus
anyone else.
Right?
And that I think is is core to figuring outkind of how you're gonna go about doing this
because, honestly, fundraising is probably thetoughest part at this point.
And setting I mean, for me, I've I've worked ininvesting finance firms for a very long time.
(39:58):
So setting up the firm, the operational backoffice, all that stuff, like, it it's annoying,
but it's it's something that I can dorelatively easily.
If you come from less of a financial kind ofbackground and and and kind of experience, you
may want some help with that.
So find the right advisers, lawyers,accountants that will help you with that
(40:20):
because it it can be quite complicated if youdon't come from that world.
So, yeah, those are kind of a few things I'dput there.
You're, you know, you're doing communitybuilding.
You're putting together, really cool events.
I've been able to as well, and I'm always happyto trade notes and share what works and what
doesn't.
But any any secrets to or just learnings interms of building community and you know, even
(40:46):
even hosting a dinner, right?
Like, I mean, any any things to think about andmaybe I can start.
I mean, the one of the first things isobviously on the logistics side like making
sure you have a venue and, you know, figuringout the cost.
And, obviously, if you can't, you know, pay forit, if your budget doesn't allow to do
something elaborate, maybe partner with some,you know, corporate partners that can kinda
(41:10):
help cover that.
And then I think part of it is, like, in my mymind, like, just be very thoughtful in terms
of, like, what the intention is of the event.
And and I always think about, like, whateverybody gets.
Right?
So, like, what how do you entice them to comethere?
What what value do you get attending?
But would love to hear any nuggets if you wereto kind of advise or mentor a fund manager to
(41:31):
kind of build a community or maybe do an AGM atsome point.
What what are some maybe things that you'velearned?
Yeah.
No.
It's it's it's certainly something that I Ithink about a lot.
So I think one thing I I do very religiously ishave regular communication to to kind of the LP
base as well as just like ecosystem, friendsand and family because honestly, like people
(41:56):
want to know what you're up to and people wantto engage.
And one of the easiest ways to do that is tojust say, here's here's what we're up to.
Here's an event we're hosting.
Here's the latest news that I saw that was kindof interesting.
Here's the latest in our portfolio.
And and just like the bar is actually so low,believe it or not.
(42:19):
A lot of a lot of managers and a lot of, youknow, funds just don't really communicate.
And that's terrible because your LPs, you know,especially for your LPs, like, you've given
them they've given you a lot of capital andyou're, you have a fiduciary duty.
Obviously, you know, your duty is notnecessarily to tell them everything you're
(42:40):
doing, but, you know, someone kind of wants toknow, like, what are you doing with, with our
money?
Right.
So I think that regular communication isactually really, I think, valuable to to
building community, building a sense of kindof, like, what you're up to.
Mhmm.
You know?
And that extends just beyond beyond email aswell.
Right?
I I have a lot of WhatsApp groups and textthreads where, you know, I'm just talking to
(43:06):
people all the time in our ecosystem about whatwe're seeing.
You know, deep sea comes out, news comes out.
I have a quick blurb of what what's, you know,interesting there.
What are my takeaways there?
I think in this very distributed world, right,where where we obviously all live in different
places, you know, technology is amazing to beable to allow us to communicate across borders,
(43:28):
across, you know you know, thousands of milesto be able to try to stay connected.
So I I do love, you know, in person events aswell, and I want to do more.
But I think, you know, communicating justthrough other channels, I think, can't be
understated or can't be can't be overstatedenough.
(43:48):
It's also
find ways to really communicate through throughdigital channels.
Yeah.
I think the other aspect is is for in personevents, you know, I like to do them as well.
I try to keep them intimate just because Ithink when it becomes a large event, then it
becomes more of a brand and brand buildingmarketing.
Yeah.
The
smaller events, say, like, eight to 10 to 12,like, intimate dinners where you can actually
(44:14):
have a meaningful conversation with the personto the left and to the right of you, you know,
I think those are great just because Mhmm.
You know, the other people who have similarinterests, similar focus areas, and and you
actually can have a meaningful conversation.
Right?
Yeah.
The, you know, two to three minuteconversation.
(44:34):
Nice to meet you.
Here's what I do.
And then you kind of walk around the room anddo that, hand out your business cards to a
couple people.
It's really like getting to know someone overthe course of like a couple hours.
Yeah.
And I
think that is is super valuable.
So I found that when we do kind of more smallerintimate dinners or breakfast or events where
it's like, you know, eight to 12 people, that'skind of been, like Mhmm.
(44:57):
My learning the best the best kind of oh, yeah.
In Jeffersonian dinners.
Yeah.
Did a post.
I wrote a post about this, like, last week, soI thought it would you know, I've been to one.
I haven't really done one.
I mean, sometimes I'm a little self conscious,right?
Does it sound too cheesy that I'm promptingpeople but I went to one recently that was good
(45:18):
and you know, I had a good memory of that eventbecause we just kind of had real great,
meaningful discussions.
So, if some people are able to pull it off,sometimes that's great but to your point,
right, if you got like 50 people, you know,there's there's side conversations and and you
know, people are talking over each other.
So, I think definitely when it's intimate, yougot more of the the focus with kind of a
(45:41):
tighter group of people.
Right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Awesome.
Well, hey, this was great, man.
Really appreciate all your time and learned alot in brief amount of time and hopefully we
get together and do some in person stuff.
And hope everybody else has a good rest of theday.
(46:01):
Awesome.
Thank you so much, Joel.
It's been a pleasure being on the show.
Yeah, absolutely.
It a lot of fun and appreciate all that you dofor founders and really impressed with all your
progress and your background as well.
Thank you.
Alright.
I'll finish out my my kind of background.
(00:02):
So so, basically, about six months ago, I spunout from SoftBank, started an early stage VC
fund called Mangusta Capital.
And Mangusta means mongoose in Italian.
And so my Anchor LP is a family office that'sbehind Luxottica, which is an Italian founded
(00:22):
business, now global.
It's the world's largest largest eyewearbusiness.
So they own Ray Bans.
They own Oakley's.
And they also basically work exclusively withevery major luxury brand globally to produce
and distribute eyewear.
And it's funny because it's a business thatsome peep not a lot of people have actually
(00:43):
heard about the holding company, but people arevery familiar with the brands and the
distribution channels in The US.
For example, they own Sunglasses Hut.
They own LensCrafters.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
(01:07):
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
Alright.
So, I'm excited today.
I've got a great guest.
His name is Kevin Jiang.
He's at Mangusta Capital.
(01:28):
Really excited to have him on.
New friend, we've been, you know, exchangingdiscussions about just kind of firm building
And, one thing that I'm really excited about isjust kind of learning his story.
I'm gonna give a high level overview and thenKevin's gonna go a little deeper.
Kevin, number one, welcome to the show.
Kevin is a co founder and managing partner atMangusta Capital.
(01:49):
It's a venture capital firm investing inconsumer and vertical AI businesses, shaping
the future.
Before he's worked at some amazing top tierfunds.
So obviously everybody knows about the SoftBankVision Fund.
And then before that, he spent time on theprivate equity team at Apollo Global
Management, which is also another top tierprivate equity firm.
(02:11):
So Kevin, welcome to the show.
Thank you for coming.
I think we have a lot to unpack.
You've done a lot of travels as well.
So I feel like there's insights that you canshare from that as well.
Awesome.
Thank you so much, Joel.
It's a pleasure to be on the show and andreally excited to collaborate with you on
Sutton Capital's program going forward and allthe things we can do together.
(02:32):
Yeah.
Really super excited.
You know?
So just just to double click on what Kevin's,you know, mentioning here, you know, we run an
accelerator for fund managers, and we're on ourtenth cohort.
So happy to have Kevin along with a a lot ofamazing other fund managers that that we can
learn from and and and build friendships with.
(02:52):
But Kevin, you know, why don't we just take astep back?
You know, you probably haven't done this in along time and you know, sometimes it's fun to
do this but just think all the way back to yourchildhood, man.
I mean, tell me kinda where you grew up, whatyou studied, what you thought you would what
industry you thought you'd get into.
(03:13):
You know, if you're comfortable with it, tellme about what your parents did for a living,
what their background was, what what theirthoughts were, and tell me kinda a little bit
more about that journey of, like, kinda whereyou where your self identity, your your concept
of identity was, and it's like, look, you knowwhat?
Let me figure out where I wanna go and walk usthrough all these different roles that you had
in in high finance and and how you how you, youknow, started to build this firm and then I
(03:38):
might interject in between.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And I'll try to keep it relatively briefdoesn't otherwise, it'd go for hours probably.
So I, you know, I grew up in Silicon Valley inCupertino, actually.
My parents were first generation immigrants.
They came here from China, and they came herefor undergrad and grad school.
(04:01):
And, you know, I I just basically, you know,grew up in the Bay Area fascinated by
everything that was around me.
You know, they were both engineers at Mhmm.
Semiconductor companies here in the eightiesand nineties.
And as you know, during that period of time, itwas kind of like the first tech boom, you know,
(04:22):
post World War.
A lot of semiconductor companies had switchedfrom, you know, their functions of of kind of
defense contracts to much more consumerapplications, enterprise applications for a
lot of those tips.
And so, you know, my mom worked at companieslike Maxim, Micron.
My dad worked at Cisco, a bunch of other, youknow, loose ends and names that probably some
(04:46):
names that are here, some names that are notanymore.
Yeah.
Sun Microsystems as well.
And I was just like, okay.
This is super interesting, fascinating.
Like, everything property prices are goingthrough the roof in the Bay Area.
Mhmm.
You know, people are doing IPOs and and, youknow, companies are going public and and people
are getting very rich and, like, what is allthis and how does it all work?
(05:08):
And so I I was fascinated by it from a prettyyoung age.
You know, like any good Asian my parents wantedme to be a doctor, lawyer, something, you know,
just like a grad school degree more or less.
And so for You know, it's funny, like, beingyou know, I'm from India.
Right?
So, I mean, we don't get the lawyer push thatmuch.
(05:30):
It's either it's either medicine orengineering, and I'm an engineer with a PhD.
Right?
So the the difference with my father was, like,he didn't, you know, once I started pursuing my
PHD, my dad's like, what are you doing?
Like, how come you're not married yet with liketwo kids, you know?
So, it's like once you get the education, it'slike the pressure to get married but why do you
(05:50):
think that Asians think about like pushing kidsto kinda be lawyers and and doctors versus,
like, doctors and engineers?
Is it just
I I think engineers are very, very plausible aswell.
Yeah.
I think the problem was, like, I just wasn't,like, a huge.
I wasn't super, super good at math.
I was fine at math, but, like, I wasn't, youknow, a math Olympiad champion, which, you
(06:15):
know, in the Bay Area is kinda like the standnow the the the benchmark for, like, good at
math is, like, quite high.
Right?
Yeah.
As you can imagine.
I feel like it's also maybe a status thing too.
Right?
I mean, the parents wanna brag and say, oh,he's a you know, my son Kevin's a lawyer.
You know, what does your son do?
Right?
So
Yeah.
I think the reason is actually, any hardscience or any hard degree, they would have
(06:37):
been fine with.
Because the idea is that if you have hardskills, like technical quote, hard skills as
in, like, technical skills that no one can takeaway from you, then you have some value to add
to whatever field, whether it's medicine or lawor something, right, or or or engineering, you
know, technology.
Like, have some hard skill that no one can takeaway from you, and that should theoretically
(06:59):
guarantee you a stable job with a stableincome.
So I think that
I would say back then too, I I I feel and, youknow, this is just based on my memory.
I don't think engineers were paid that wellback then.
Right?
I mean, now engineers Probably not.
Yeah.
They're making, like, 50.
I had an uncle that was an engineer.
And, you know, back in the day, I mean, he washe was probably making the same as like a
(07:19):
nurse.
You know, I mean, engineers did, you know, backin the day, they're they're probably making
close to 6 figures later on but like when theystart out, I think they're making 50 k but you
know, lawyers and doctors, obviously, peoplethink, you know, when you're that you just
think in from an optic standpoint that you'reyou're rich, right?
If you're a doctor or lawyer, especially inlike an Asian parent's mind and you know, I
think for them, it's more of like a statusthing but now, it's it's different, right?
(07:43):
I mean, I mean, there's there's probablydoctors going to coding school maybe wanting to
change careers and become a data scientist,right?
Data scientists are making like what?
Like, 800, 8 hundred grand or something or moreat some point.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
It's definitely it was definitely a differenttime.
Mhmm.
And and so anyways, I I just was stillfascinated by it, but, you know, I think there
(08:04):
was always this pressure to do something like,you know, maybe more more do pre med stuff.
And so I actually did a lot of science researchwhen I was in high school, you know, did did a
bunch of I worked at Stanford for a summer.
I worked at UC Davis for a summer and, youknow, was very hardworking, good student.
(08:26):
So ended up, you know, grate gratefully beingable to go to Harvard and study economics for
undergrad.
Because once I got to school, the world justkind of opened up.
Basically, I I met people who were working atplaces like Goldman, and I'd never heard of
Goldman before that.
I'd never heard of McKinsey before that either.
(08:46):
You know, growing up in in Silicon Valley with,you know, parents being two first gen kind of,
you know, engineers, like, that world is justcompletely foreign.
Right?
They'd never heard of it.
Yeah.
And so I met folks that were doing business andfinance and investing, and I learned what a
hedge fund is.
And that's when I really started to figure out,okay, well, where do where does my skill set
(09:11):
fit and what am I really interested in?
And, you know, at the same time, it's like myparents, I'm sure, would be happy for me to to
enter any of these careers because I think itwould be a very, you know, well regarded and,
you know, well paying career.
So it's like, you know, I I knew that theywouldn't necessarily be against me going into
one of these fields.
(09:32):
And I think I would be a lot more interestedand a lot better at a lot of these things.
So I started exploring.
I did a venture capital internship.
I did a hedge fund internship.
I did I worked in investment banking for asummer.
Basically, what I took away with it was, youknow, the first place to start is really
investment banking or consulting if you wannaget a super strong kind of financial
(09:54):
background, especially coming from a liberalarts school like Harvard.
You don't really there's no accounting.
There's no finance or business classes.
Mhmm.
So you really have to kind of, you know, learnkind of on your own or learn on the job.
And so the first job that you get is prettyimportant.
And so I was like, okay.
Well, investment banking programs have, youknow, hundreds of analysts go through it.
(10:17):
They have a very structured program.
It's gonna be a great way for me to learneverything I need to know.
And so I joined Goldman after graduation, wentthrough their program.
And, you know, as you may be aware, typically,in private equity banking, the headhunters
start calling, like, day one on the job.
(10:37):
Sure.
And then you're stuck start calling all theanalysts, the investment banking analysts, and
asking, do you wanna go to a private equityfund?
Do wanna go to hedge fund?
And so I went through that process.
And Mhmm.
You know, basically, day I hit the job and gotan offer to join Apollo in their private equity
group after after Goldman.
(10:58):
So that's what I did.
I ended up finishing out my program at Goldmanin New York, and then I I went to LA, worked at
Apollo for just about a year actually.
So it's pretty short.
Yeah.
And, you know, Apollo's obviously a fantasticfirm, amazing brand name.
They have been extremely successful at whatthey've been doing, which is value oriented
(11:21):
leverage buyouts for for decades.
Yeah.
And, you know, built I mean, it's a publiccompany, built an amazing franchise.
But for me, I just quickly realized, like, thisdoesn't it's not it's not the tech that I was
doing at Goldman, and it's not
the
tech that I really want to be doing becauseit's very value oriented.
(11:41):
It's a lot more mature kind of companies, notgrowing companies.
Oftentimes in sectors that are in seculardecline because, you know, you can often buy
those businesses at a cheaper multiple, whichwas really core philosophy of of how Apollo
would think about investing.
Yeah.
Much more value oriented.
And so after that, I I, you know, startedthinking, okay.
(12:03):
Well, what what's next?
What what should I be where do my skill setslie, and and and what's, you know, going on in
the world?
And I I think the advice that I got from aHarvard alumni, which was super helpful that I
always pass along to everyone that I talk to,like younger folks that are interested in in
figuring out what they wanna do is try totriangulate three things.
(12:23):
So the three things are, one, what are you goodat?
Mhmm.
Two is what do you enjoy doing?
And three is where is the world going?
Yeah.
Try to find something that fits in the centerof all of those three things.
Obviously, it's not gonna be perfect probably.
Like, no one can also predict where the worldis going.
(12:45):
Mhmm.
But the best advice I got was try totriangulate something in the center of that
that that circle.
Because from, you know, from then on, I I Ithought a lot about, okay, well, what skill set
am I really good at?
What what do I enjoy doing?
And where is the world going?
And, you know, I I I can't you know, I won'ttake full credit for for joining SoftBank super
(13:11):
early and and kind of proceeding a lot of thethe gold rush or the huge cycle upcycle in
growth equity and venture capital.
Mhmm.
But, you know, it was clear that, you know,buying kind of dying businesses in secular
decline is probably not where I wanted to be.
Yeah.
And just coming from Silicon Valley, like, Ijust knew all the growth and excitement that's
(13:33):
happening in the technology space.
And so I just knew that's probably where Ishould be.
And coincidentally, at that time, SoftBank andMasa were raising the hundred billion dollar
vision fund.
And so I had gotten a call from a headhunterfrom a close friend of mine that was referred
from a close friend of mine from Goldman.
(13:53):
He was like, hey, you have to talk to Kevin.
You know, he's he's thinking about moving backto the Bay Area.
He wants to do VC stuff.
Like, this would be a perfect fit because it'sit's effectively like a really well funded,
exciting, growing startup.
Right?
Yeah.
Because at the time, it was a blank slate.
There were no you know, there's no investmentsyet.
(14:13):
You know, there were no super high flying kindof names in the portfolio.
And so I was like, well, this is kind ofinteresting.
You can, like, shape it a lot.
And the team was very small.
It was, like, four or five people.
So you would come on the ground level and bereally able to build everything together.
Right?
From the opening up and and have much more ofan impact.
(14:36):
And so, you know, over the I joined and it'sbeen, you know, nearly ten years and I loved
it.
You know, I I was able to meet with Masa inTokyo a bunch of times, bring founders to him,
led a couple of deals.
Like, it's just such an amazing experiencebeing able to work with, you know, a genius and
(14:58):
and a visionary like that.
And don't get me wrong.
I'm you know, he has his flaws, but he's justsuch a unique, amazing individual that, you
know, I think every minute that you get withhim to spend with him and and kind of do do
deals and investments together is just so it'sso it's so valuable.
And so over the last ten years, I've, you know,had an amazing experience, built out a great
(15:22):
Rolodex in the venture capital space and, youknow, was able to, you know, lead about 12 of
our deals, sat on the board as a board directoracross all of those as they, you know, continue
to scale.
And some of those are hopefully going publicthis year.
But, you know, I think over time, we all sawjust the developments in the growth equity
(15:45):
space getting more competitive, more saturated.
Everyone was raising multibillion dollar funds,Sequoia, Andreessen, everyone, Tiger, Takotu,
everyone was coming into the fray.
And I think over time, you just saw a lot ofthe excess kind of play out in the market.
Right?
Both in public and private markets.
(16:05):
We went through a pretty pretty rapid meltdownin in, you know, 2021 2022 and 2023.
And and and for me, that was very much a wakeup call as well, which is I love this asset
class.
I love the work.
I love what we're doing, but I think there'sgonna be a lot of pain and and there's gonna be
(16:26):
a bit of a kind of outflow for the next fewyears.
And so Yeah.
Where do you think I can where where should Iactually be playing where I feel like there's
still good opportunity?
And I think, you know, I realize it's it'sprobably earlier stage.
You know, it's it's pre seed, seed, series a.
At that stage, you know, unless you're tryingto fight with Sequoia to get into, like, the
(16:50):
pre seed round of Vlad's new company fromRobinhood
Yeah.
And whatever valuation and whatever check sideblank check, you you know, you wanna play that
game?
Yeah.
It's tough.
But otherwise, it's pretty greenfields outthere for you to really succeed as a pre seed
seed investor because the whole world is yourplayground and founders come from everywhere.
(17:13):
And if you have a way to source and, you know,find that deal flow, build really great
relationships with these amazing founders, theday they start their journey, they really
appreciate it.
And Mhmm.
You know, they're gonna appreciate you evenwhen they're a unicorn too because they'll
remember, you know, he's the guy who whobelieved in me when I had nothing, when I was
(17:34):
just starting and I just had, like, MVP and,you know, one customer, And now we're a unicorn
with billions of revenues, and and we're doinggreat.
But, like, he was the guy who actually firstput that on me.
And and I've always kinda play out in a coupleof my portfolio companies that invested at a
pre seed stage.
They're going out to series a, series b, andthey, like, still just really value my advice
(17:55):
and the relationship they have with me.
So I think it's just a completely differentballgame from from growth equity investing
where, you know, they're just gonna go aroundto the top 10 shops that have the best brand
name, that have the most capital, that have thebiggest checkbook, and they're just gonna go
around and say, okay.
Here's the valuation.
You in or you out.
Yeah.
(18:16):
It's it's a very it's a very, like, mature kindof
deal.
Yeah.
I mean, they're looking for you know, thefounder's looking for the highest valuation and
probably the best brand name and, you know, thebest terms.
Right?
I mean, sometimes, you know, the exit, if it'sa if it's an acquisition, it might be, like,
half cash and half equity.
Right?
So I'm assuming I mean, what what do you thinkthe founders would be filtering for if they're
(18:39):
trying to find the best alpha?
I mean, I'm thinking, like, the highestvaluation at the biggest cash offer.
I mean, in my opinion.
But I don't know.
You you have a little more of a lens.
Yeah.
You know, it depends.
Right?
It it kinda depends what that founder's lookingfor at that point in their journey.
You know, if they're looking for secondary, youknow, it could be they wanna cash out a
portion.
I mean, it's fair.
Right?
You know, they've been private building thecompany for ten years.
(19:01):
They haven't taken any cash out of thebusiness.
Maybe they wanna take some secondary off thetable.
So it's like which which funds are willing todo that.
To be honest, most of the funds are willing todo that nowadays.
So Mhmm.
I think everyone all, you know, all the bignames, SoftBank, CodeTwo, Tiger, whoever happy
to do a secondary and and return cash to shareto the founders if they wanna take some off the
(19:23):
table.
You know, it's brand name.
I think that's always something that peoplecare about.
So, obviously but the thing is at that stage,like, you know, what's the difference between a
Sequoia versus an Intracein versus a a CodeTwoor a a LightSpeed or, you know, name any number
of, like, brand name firms.
Like, they're all I don't know.
In my mind, they're all kinda the same.
(19:44):
I think the one maybe stands out as Sequoia,but, like, outside of that, it's like everyone
has a decent brand name.
Are you Sure.
Like, what what are you really optimizing forthere?
I mean, even gold Goldman's got a pretty big,growth equity arm as well.
So, I mean, a lot of those larger funds at thatstage because I've done some pretty large
secondary late stage deals and like, you know,a lot of those deals at that stage too, half of
(20:09):
it is debt.
Right?
So there's like a large bank that's coming indoing like a big portion of like mezzanine
debt, like combined with the growth equityinvestors as well.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So so it's, you know, a combination of ofvaluation, I think check size, brand name.
But honestly, it's it's hard to reallydifferentiate.
(20:29):
In my opinion, it's like most of these growthfirms as well are pretty flexible when it comes
to all of those things.
Like, they have big checkbooks.
They can write high valuations.
So it's almost a question of they set theterms, who wants to come in.
So you see a lot of these late stage partyrounds where they'll list everyone in the
valley, basically, because it's like, you justdecide how much how much allocation you want
(20:53):
and just for that amount.
It's almost like an IPO in in some way when youthink about it because it's like you you
basically, the company sets, like, the IPOprice.
Here's the range that we're talking about.
What and then, you know, the the the the buyersor public markets investors will say, okay, the
Fidelity is BlackRock's the world.
They say, okay, how much do you want at thisprice?
(21:14):
Okay.
I'll put in my bid.
You know, I want, you know, a hundred millionallocation.
I want 200,000,000 allocation, whatever it is,and then they they size you down or or up
appropriately.
Be like, okay.
Well, we can give you a hundred.
We'll give you 50 or whatever it is.
Like, it it almost operate it's funny.
I never really thought about it, but it almostoperates in that way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, their positioning, I mean, that'sessentially what they're doing.
(21:35):
Right?
And those growth equity rounds, I mean, many ofthem are not ever gonna be profitable and but,
you know, there's some of them that are kindagearing up for the IPO, so they're kinda really
looking to kinda get a little closer to sometype of e EBITDA positivity, but, they're kinda
essentially preparing for the IPO on thatstage.
(21:55):
Right?
Once you get to, like, the series e or seriesf, you know, a lot and that's how, like, a lot
of these late stage, you know, a lot of peoplethat are doing these SPVs are trying to
position it that way.
It's like, hey, we're looking at, like, an IPOin two years.
So they're trying to, you know, plan plan forthat, that process.
So Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe I'll finish out the I I realized we wentoff on a little bit of a tangent.
(22:17):
No.
It's fine.
I'll finish out my my kind of background.
So so, basically, about six months ago, I spunout from SoftBank, started an early stage VC
fund called Mangusta Capital.
And Mangusta means mongoose in Italian.
And so my Anchor LP is a family office that'sbehind Luxottica, which is an Italian founded
(22:41):
business, now global.
It's the world's largest largest eyewearbusiness.
So they own Ray Bans.
They own Oakley's, and they also basically workexclusively with every major luxury brand
globally to produce and distribute eyewear.
And it's funny because it's a business thatsome peep not a lot of people have actually
(23:02):
heard about the holding company, but people arevery familiar with the brands and the
distribution channels in The US.
For example, they own Sunglasses Hut.
They own LensCrafters.
And so they're very, very verticallyintegrated, but no one really knows that
they're this huge behemoth in the eyewear Andso the the principal of the family office there
(23:24):
is our Anchor LP.
And and yeah.
So since then, we've been focused on earlystage AI investments on the application layer.
So what I would describe it is as like kind ofvertical software except using AI to really,
really enhance the capabilities of thatsoftware or technology that's able to deliver
(23:48):
significant value across various industries.
So we're industry agnostic.
We'll look at every single industry, but we dowant to see that the companies we invest in
have a significant industry focus in one areabecause we think this verticalized sector
approach actually results in the ability tomonetize a lot faster, generate revenues, And
(24:11):
then two, also opens up a lot of exit pathwaysfor our portfolio companies in the future when
they have such a strong industry focus.
There are a lot of public incumbents, latestage, you know, large businesses that are
interested in acquiring technology and AIsolutions such as these to really enhance their
talent, enhance their product set.
(24:33):
And so that's what we're really looking for insetting up a lot of our companies for is the
ability to actually be able to be a greatacquisition target for some of these industry
incumbents.
We invest pre seed through series a, sorelatively early stage 500 k to $2,000,000
first checks.
And then after that, we reserve about half thefund to double down into our winners, and so
(24:56):
continuing to get more exposure into the topbusinesses in our portfolio.
Invested in about eight companies in theportfolio and continuing to do a lot of new
deals.
So we'll probably see see another five to 10kind of investments that we'll make this year.
No.
That's great.
You know, I think one thing that I'd beinterested in learning is a little more about
(25:22):
what you you know, some of the biggesttakeaways from working with Masa.
I guess if you were to look back, are there anykind of glaring memories or just kind of life
lessons or professional lessons?
You were there for a decade.
So
Yeah.
No.
Absolutely.
You know, it's it's it's interesting because Ithink probably the main lesson that I learned
(25:44):
from my time there is when you're investing inin startups and and growth companies, whether
it's early or late stage, the most importantthing is the founder.
Like, it's people, people, people.
Right?
At the end of the day, this is a peoplebusiness because you've gotta build the
(26:04):
relationships with the right folks and andbuild really strong relationships with these
people that they trust you, they wanna workwith you.
And second, it's you've gotta recognize who arethe right founders for the right time in this,
you know, company's development and what arethey good at?
What are they not good at?
Are they surrounding themselves with the rightteam to help support them once they scale to a
(26:28):
stage where maybe it's not necessarily theright fit for them and it's
not Yeah.
Necessarily their right skill set.
And so it's all about just managementevaluation assessment and how do you work
across very, you know, different and difficultsituations with people.
And so really, I think that's kind of thebiggest lesson if you had to ask me that I
(26:50):
learned, which is which is funny because it'snot even a it's not like really a financial or
investing lesson.
But I think it is very much so an investinglesson when you look at venture capital and and
growth equity is that management team mattersso much, especially the earlier stage you go.
There's just not a lot of data to look at.
So Mhmm.
(27:11):
You know, when you're investing in pre seedseed stage companies, you know, it could be pre
revenue, it could be pre product.
We don't typically do a lot of of pre revenueor pre product.
But, you know, even then there's, you know, notprobably a lot of financial traction yet.
Like, you're looking at a limited set of data.
And so it comes down to how do you develop thepattern recognition and experience to know that
(27:36):
this is someone who's actually gonna be a goodfounder or not.
And I think that was the most valuable thing Igot from Softbank is being able to spend every
week on, like, a Zoom call with Masa and figureout, like, okay, this what are the kind of
founders that succeed?
And seeing thousands of founders walk throughour doors and being able to track them and see,
(27:59):
okay, this is what it takes to be a unicornfounder.
Oh, this guy didn't make it or this gal is isamazing and continues to crush it.
Like, that's kind of the most valuable thing Iwas able to get.
And it's hard to distill into one lesson, butit's just kind of the pattern recognition that
you develop over the course of, like, ten yearsof seeing thousands of entrepreneurs, tracking
(28:22):
them, meeting them, and and figuring out likewhat elements of their personality are helping
them and what elements of who they are and whatthey do is is not really helping them.
Right?
Yeah.
So it's it's kind of finding, you know,developing that that sniffing that nose out,
like sniffing out kind of entrepreneurs andfounders and figuring out
(28:42):
What are some patterns that you've seen, Iguess, you know, because you guys have talked
to hundreds and hundreds of founders.
Obviously, the ones that you guys have finallyfiltered through have become unicorns.
So what's just kind of the common thread?
You know, it's it's a couple of differentthings.
And and then also what I will say is it's notjust one size fits all.
Right?
There's founders that succeed that are moretechnical, perhaps less salesy.
(29:07):
There's plenty of founders that are extremelysalesy, great at presenting, highly charismatic
that succeed as well.
So there's no there's no one archetype.
What I would say though is there's a couple ofthings I typically look for now when I meet
with entrepreneurs.
The first and foremost is a very, very deepseated hunger and ambition internally to do
(29:30):
whatever drives them.
And they're they have a chip on their shoulderfor whatever reason.
They feel like they have something to prove tothe world.
And there's this deep, deep seated hunger thatthey just are trying to itching to scratch at
and make sure that they're successful to beable to to accomplish what they wanna do.
(29:51):
That is really usually the first thing I lookfor.
So it's it's focus, determination, and like a,you know, unwieldy amount of grit where they're
just never gonna give up and they're gonna justcontinue grinding away at whatever it is that
they're doing.
The second thing I would say is, which I findusually quite helpful is someone that knows how
(30:15):
to present to pitch and paint a story.
At the end of the day, as a founder, especiallythe earliest stages, you've got to be able to
sell.
You have to be able to pitch to investors.
You've got to pitch to your customers.
You've got to pitch to everyone, honestly.
And every everyone's looking for somethingdifferent.
Right?
Like what a customer is looking for isdifferent from what investors looking for.
(30:38):
But you've got to be able to demonstrate andcommunicate the value of what you're doing.
And so, unfortunately or fortunately, you dohave to be, I think, a good salesperson across
a couple of different constituents.
So that's another thing that I usually lookfor.
And then I think the other the the two or threeother things I look for are kind of a little
(31:03):
bit less obvious and and and sometimes, youknow, I think it depends on the situation.
I do like to look for folks who are repeatfounders.
So they've been through the journey hopefullyonce or twice.
They know what it's like.
They know what the pitfalls are.
They know the pain and sacrifice it takes.
So they don't have to be a, you know, serialentrepreneur that's had a ton of success.
(31:25):
But ideally, it'd be nice if it wasn't theirfirst foray into entrepreneurship because it is
definitely tough for the first time around.
As I've learned from starting the fund, likeit's a lot.
And you you can avoid a lot of mistakes.
You can be a lot more efficient if you're doingthe second time around.
Sure.
And then the third thing or the final thingI'll mention is when it comes to a founder,
(31:50):
really being able to build a team and not beingafraid, building an A team and not having an
ego about it.
Yeah.
Because a lot of folks that I meet, a lot offounders, very strong founders, they often have
a bit of an ego where they feel like I've gottabe like the head honcho.
I've gotta outshine everyone.
(32:10):
And they're afraid to bring on team membersthat often could be more senior than them or
could add a lot more value, a lot moreexperience than them.
But they're afraid to bring them on becausethey're afraid they'll outshine and outclass
kind of them as a leader.
And I think that's a big that's a big red flagfor me because honestly, when you're building a
(32:30):
company, can't do it alone.
You've got to have great people around you.
You have to retain them as well.
And I've seen a lot of cases where a companyjust doesn't find the best talent because there
is a bit of that fear of or or maybe they'rejust not able to assess, like, who are the
right people to bring on.
But being able to sniff out the right talent,bring them on, retain them, I think that is
(32:53):
extremely, extremely important as well.
And I think you can often tell after meeting acouple of the team members at the company, you
can tell how they think about hiring andretaining talent.
No.
That's great.
What are some of the things that you learned,you know, building the firm, you know, in terms
(33:14):
of, you know, maybe not so much on the on thestrategy because you've built that, but just
kinda maybe professionally, personally, asyou're, you know, kinda like ideating your
strategy.
You know, I I'd say one big thing that a lot ofmanagers a lot of managers are struggling with
is differentiation.
So what are some ways that you're you'd mayberecommend managers to differentiate themselves?
(33:40):
Yeah.
You know, it it's a interesting questionbecause it's you know, there there is an
element of differentiation for sure.
But, you know, for me, I I've always believedthat performance kinda speaks for itself
depending on who you're trying to cater to.
Right?
Like, if you're thinking about institutionalinvestors or, you know, financially driven
(34:01):
investors where there's no kind of strategic,you know, there's no strategic kind of angle to
it.
My view is that performance really speaks foritself over time.
So my goal has always been the North Star hasalways been deliver the great returns, great
value to our LPs, and over time, that will getrecognized.
(34:24):
You know, obviously, to do that, you know, youyou probably have to have something that that
differentiates you and makes you above averagein whatever it is you do.
So whether you specialize in a specific sector,specialize in a specific kind of thesis that no
one else knows as well as you do, Or you justhave great, you know, sniffing ability of like
(34:46):
what's a great founder, what's not.
So you have great picking ability or maybe youhave a more operational focus.
So you come in, you help these companies growand achieve more because you're a former
operator and you've got the team to really comein and and dig in and and help them grow.
So I think there's a bunch of different waysyou can kinda differentiate yourself.
(35:07):
But, ultimately, at the end of the day, when Ithink about it, it's like differentiation for
the sake of differentiation, I don't thinkreally makes sense.
It's gotta provide some sort of real valuehere.
And the North Star, in my opinion, is alwaysperformance.
And so you can sell I mean, sure, it's great tobe able to sell differentiation and make it
helps you with fundraising.
(35:27):
But after a while, you've gotta deliver you'vegotta deliver results.
So I'm gonna go back a little bit to theearlier part of your bio.
You know, just getting into Harvard, you know,working at Apollo, looking back, what's some
career advice that you would give maybe collegestudents that are trying to find their way And,
(35:48):
you know, maybe advice on how to get into topschools.
I don't know if there's, you know, I know a lotof those top schools are looking at your your,
your essays and they're looking at you beingwell rounded.
So maybe just general academic or career advicethat you give to somebody just starting out.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I think, you know, the advice that I wouldprobably give is just to try a bunch of things
(36:12):
out because for me, I I will either think aboutand evaluate what you wanna do and what you
might be a good fit for based on, like, thatthat triangulation of Yeah.
Kind of advice that I gave.
Mhmm.
Or just go and try things.
Just do things.
Because Yeah.
For me, I was never someone who could thinkabout things and and and just be unbiased and,
(36:35):
like, you know, determine what I wanted to doby just thinking about it.
I had to go and try it because I thought, oh,maybe I could be great at, you know, working in
sales and trading or working at a hedge fund.
And it wasn't until I actually tried it that Irealized, actually, you know what?
I don't think this is exactly for me.
And I wouldn't have guessed that venturecapital actually was kinda my my calling for
(37:01):
the longest time because I was thinking, oh, beinvestment banking.
I'll do private equity.
You know, it's gonna be great.
I'll just stay in in that PE fund for a longtime.
And so I think once you try things, you veryquickly realize, is this for me or is this not?
Mhmm.
So I think my advice would almost be just goand try things because that's a trial and error
(37:23):
is the only way at least for me, it was it wasone of the best ways for me to figure out what
it is I wanted to do.
And then a couple more questions.
So any advice for people going out andlaunching a fund?
What what are some of the pieces of advice ifyou were to be your their big brother?
And some of this could come from some of yourlearnings too, right?
(37:44):
Maybe some challenges that you've had and nowthat's a learning and we're all going through a
lot of different learnings every year.
Yeah.
You know, it's it's tough, especially in thisenvironment.
I think there's just a lot less appetite forventure capital, especially from emerging
managers.
I think a lot of there's been a lot of data outthere that's shown that capital coming into VC
(38:08):
or growth from LPs has often gone to primarily,you know, established multi platform like
platform managers, like the industries of theworld.
Mhmm.
And and so I think it really is it's tough outthere right now.
And I think you have to really desire or knowthat this is what you wanna do because you're
(38:31):
gonna have to struggle and sacrifice a lot, Ithink, to get there.
And so that's the first thing I would saybefore you take the take the leap into doing
this.
I think the second thing I would say is is kindof figure out, like, what is your angle?
What is your track record that you can reallydemonstrate to people?
Because it's really hard.
(38:53):
Like, it's very, very hard to fundraise rightnow.
And you've gotta have something you gotta havesomething compelling and attractive for people
to really be willing to to to commit capital toyou.
Right?
As as it should be the case.
I mean, I think the last, you know, when it was2021, '20 '20 '2, I heard of fundraisers
(39:16):
getting done super quickly and it being veryeasy to raise capital.
But, honestly, that's not the way that itshould be.
It should be relatively tough.
And I think do give a lot of thought to, like,where what your track record is, where you can
point to, and what is unique about yourstrategy or or not necessarily unique, but what
(39:37):
what gives you the confidence that yourstrategy is gonna actually perform versus
anyone else.
Right?
And that I think is is core to figuring outkind of how you're gonna go about doing this
because, honestly, fundraising is probably thetoughest part at this point.
And setting I mean, for me, I've I've worked ininvesting finance firms for a very long time.
(39:58):
So setting up the firm, the operational backoffice, all that stuff, like, it it's annoying,
but it's it's something that I can dorelatively easily.
If you come from less of a financial kind ofbackground and and and kind of experience, you
may want some help with that.
So find the right advisers, lawyers,accountants that will help you with that
(40:20):
because it it can be quite complicated if youdon't come from that world.
So, yeah, those are kind of a few things I'dput there.
You're, you know, you're doing communitybuilding.
You're putting together, really cool events.
I've been able to as well, and I'm always happyto trade notes and share what works and what
doesn't.
But any any secrets to or just learnings interms of building community and you know, even
(40:46):
even hosting a dinner, right?
Like, I mean, any any things to think about andmaybe I can start.
I mean, the one of the first things isobviously on the logistics side like making
sure you have a venue and, you know, figuringout the cost.
And, obviously, if you can't, you know, pay forit, if your budget doesn't allow to do
something elaborate, maybe partner with some,you know, corporate partners that can kinda
(41:10):
help cover that.
And then I think part of it is, like, in my mymind, like, just be very thoughtful in terms
of, like, what the intention is of the event.
And and I always think about, like, whateverybody gets.
Right?
So, like, what how do you entice them to comethere?
What what value do you get attending?
But would love to hear any nuggets if you wereto kind of advise or mentor a fund manager to
(41:31):
kind of build a community or maybe do an AGM atsome point.
What what are some maybe things that you'velearned?
Yeah.
No.
It's it's it's certainly something that I Ithink about a lot.
So I think one thing I I do very religiously ishave regular communication to to kind of the LP
base as well as just like ecosystem, friendsand and family because honestly, like people
(41:56):
want to know what you're up to and people wantto engage.
And one of the easiest ways to do that is tojust say, here's here's what we're up to.
Here's an event we're hosting.
Here's the latest news that I saw that was kindof interesting.
Here's the latest in our portfolio.
And and just like the bar is actually so low,believe it or not.
(42:19):
A lot of a lot of managers and a lot of, youknow, funds just don't really communicate.
And that's terrible because your LPs, you know,especially for your LPs, like, you've given
them they've given you a lot of capital andyou're, you have a fiduciary duty.
Obviously, you know, your duty is notnecessarily to tell them everything you're
(42:40):
doing, but, you know, someone kind of wants toknow, like, what are you doing with, with our
money?
Right.
So I think that regular communication isactually really, I think, valuable to to
building community, building a sense of kindof, like, what you're up to.
Mhmm.
You know?
And that extends just beyond beyond email aswell.
Right?
I I have a lot of WhatsApp groups and textthreads where, you know, I'm just talking to
(43:06):
people all the time in our ecosystem about whatwe're seeing.
You know, deep sea comes out, news comes out.
I have a quick blurb of what what's, you know,interesting there.
What are my takeaways there?
I think in this very distributed world, right,where where we obviously all live in different
places, you know, technology is amazing to beable to allow us to communicate across borders,
(43:28):
across, you know you know, thousands of milesto be able to try to stay connected.
So I I do love, you know, in person events aswell, and I want to do more.
But I think, you know, communicating justthrough other channels, I think, can't be
understated or can't be can't be overstatedenough.
(43:48):
It's also
find ways to really communicate through throughdigital channels.
Yeah.
I think the other aspect is is for in personevents, you know, I like to do them as well.
I try to keep them intimate just because Ithink when it becomes a large event, then it
becomes more of a brand and brand buildingmarketing.
Yeah.
The
smaller events, say, like, eight to 10 to 12,like, intimate dinners where you can actually
(44:14):
have a meaningful conversation with the personto the left and to the right of you, you know,
I think those are great just because Mhmm.
You know, the other people who have similarinterests, similar focus areas, and and you
actually can have a meaningful conversation.
Right?
Yeah.
The, you know, two to three minuteconversation.
(44:34):
Nice to meet you.
Here's what I do.
And then you kind of walk around the room anddo that, hand out your business cards to a
couple people.
It's really like getting to know someone overthe course of like a couple hours.
Yeah.
And I
think that is is super valuable.
So I found that when we do kind of more smallerintimate dinners or breakfast or events where
it's like, you know, eight to 12 people, that'skind of been, like Mhmm.
(44:57):
My learning the best the best kind of oh, yeah.
In Jeffersonian dinners.
Yeah.
Did a post.
I wrote a post about this, like, last week, soI thought it would you know, I've been to one.
I haven't really done one.
I mean, sometimes I'm a little self conscious,right?
Does it sound too cheesy that I'm promptingpeople but I went to one recently that was good
(45:18):
and you know, I had a good memory of that eventbecause we just kind of had real great,
meaningful discussions.
So, if some people are able to pull it off,sometimes that's great but to your point,
right, if you got like 50 people, you know,there's there's side conversations and and you
know, people are talking over each other.
So, I think definitely when it's intimate, yougot more of the the focus with kind of a
(45:41):
tighter group of people.
Right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Awesome.
Well, hey, this was great, man.
Really appreciate all your time and learned alot in brief amount of time and hopefully we
get together and do some in person stuff.
And hope everybody else has a good rest of theday.
(46:01):
Awesome.
Thank you so much, Joel.
It's been a pleasure being on the show.
Yeah, absolutely.
It a lot of fun and appreciate all that you dofor founders and really impressed with all your
progress and your background as well.
Thank you.
Alright.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.