Tatiana Mulry: Steamwork Ventures

In this episode, Tatiana Mulry from Steamwork VC shares insights into her journey from early life and education to impactful roles in investment banking and at MasterCard, where she contributed to digital transformation and global mobile strategies. Tatiana discusses her transition from corporate life to the startup ecosystem, offering valuable growth marketing insights and bootstrapping strategies. She emphasizes mentoring underrepresented founders and details the inception of Steamwork Ventures, its investment thesis, and focus. The conversation also explores her entrepreneurial journey in starting a venture fund, future innovations in VC, and includes audience questions on collaborations, educational pursuits, and engaging with LPs.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The best thing I ever did that improved mymanagement was have babies.
And I mean, of course, you develop skills as amultitasker when you have kids, right?
But That's not what I'm talking about.
What you're saying is so true.
I was a micromanager.
I wanted everything to be done my way.

(00:23):
To The Investor, a podcast where I, JoelPalafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.

(00:46):
Like like everything else in life.
That sounds good.
Yeah, well, welcome to the show, everybody whois tuning in, we've got Tatiana Mulry from
Steamwork VC, she's a new friend and excited tohave her come on and just talk about her
journey into venture capital.

(01:07):
So really excited to just get to know you overthe last maybe month or so, just talk about
just trends in the tech space.
So maybe we can start, I know you gave me yourbackground last time when we chatted, but maybe
we can go a little deeper and just talk aboutyour career where you grew up and how you broke
into venture.
Sure, wow, okay.

(01:28):
Well, thank you for having me on, by the way,is really great.
I'm happy to be a part of this community insome small way.
It's something incredible that you're buildinghere.
First, a lot of gratitude.
Going down memory lane, I grew up in New York.
I lived in Westchester County for my childhoodand then out to Pennsylvania, Western

(01:54):
Pennsylvania to a completely differentenvironment.
So I've done the and then came back to NYU forschool.
So I've done the suburb life, the rural lifeand the suburban life.
I studied economics undergrad, and that landedme in a very interesting opportunity to work

(02:16):
with investment banks back in the heyday, likethe birth of the internet.
I remember sitting on the trading floor whileNetscape was going public and it was just like
absolute mayhem and everybody was superexcited.
And we're all like, wait, what's the internet?
We barely had emails back then.

(02:37):
So it was like super exciting to see the birthof something really Tell
Tell me about like, how email was received,because obviously everyone has been talking
about this for the last decade, right?
Mean, Bitcoin, why would you want to sendelectronic money, you know, with Bitcoin
because you can just you can just Venmosomebody.

(02:59):
Right?
So, it's the same thing with email.
They're like, well, what why would you whywould want to email somebody?
I can just drop a post, I can just drop the theletter off at the post office and you get a
real letter in three days.
So just walk us through kind of like whatpeople were talking about and like what were
their reactions to it?
Because a lot of times you don't hear that.
That's so funny.

(03:20):
Now I do feel like such a dinosaur talkingabout this.
But I teach college now.
And so some of my students don't understandwhat life was like at all.
So I think the best story to contrast is theyobviously have everything at their disposal
that you guys are all familiar with.
But when I was in school, I didn't have anemail.

(03:42):
I used a typewriter to type my papers.
It had four lines of memory and I thought I washot stuff.
That means like I had to think ahead and Icould only correct like four lines before I let
it print.
And I had to hand in like a paper paper.
We got our grades by calling into the phone.

(04:02):
So when I went to work in the investment banksand sort of like the beginning of the internet,
and we started to get corporate emails, thatwas really my first email.
And so why was that interesting or important?
Well, my first investment bank, we worked withpeople in London.

(04:23):
And 90% of the team was there.
So in order to communicate, it became reallyessential to work in a satellite office of a
company based in London.
And then we had offices all over the world.
So it finally gave us this ability tocommunicate in near real time.
We started to be able to have conference calls,which was super amazing.

(04:44):
We could give our research recommendations orbuy sell hold recommendations in near real
time.
And we started to be able to, I I was faxingarticles and things like that.
It was just like, it was an absolute explosion.
One day I had to go, I figured out how to sortof hack the system so I wouldn't have to go

(05:10):
into the office to fax London.
I could figure out how to do it from home.
And that was absolute insanity.
What?
We could actually potentially someday work fromhome.
That was like a supercharge.
Like, who could have ever thought that we wouldever be in a situation where we'd all be home
for two years and never have to go to anoffice.

(05:33):
Like it was a completely different world.
So you kind of had math adoption, is emailbeing part of your work environment, right?
Everyone would then did you have any otherfriends that maybe were not in banking or tech
that were learning about email?
I mean, came slowly.

(05:53):
Mean, our cable companies gave us personalemails, and we figured out how we could email
our friends and family.
And that was really cool.
But yeah, I mean, when I would, you know, Ieither could call or write home to talk to my
family who lived eight hours away.
I used to send postcards to my friends onvacation, like that was how we communicated.

(06:14):
There was no Snapchat, right?
I just, I feel like the oldest person on earthright now, but that was what life was so
different.
Don't
if do you have Hulu?
Do I have Hulu?
Yeah.
Not not that you don't I'm just
Do I have it now?
Yes.
But
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I just wanna reference.
I mean, is a little risque, but Yeah.

(06:35):
There's a show on Hulu, Pam and Tommy, youknow, like
Oh, okay, I know.
So, it's actually pretty good because itcovers, I guess, when they had that tape that
went out, it, like, was, there was a, I guessthe true story was there was a guy that took
the, the actual VHS tape.
Wow, I feel like a dinosaur now, but he tookthe VHS tape and they made copies, right?

(06:56):
And they sold it on the internet and it waslike really crazy because they thought the
internet, know, when you, if you watch thisshow, it's pretty, pretty good actually.
Yeah.
He's like, oh, you know, well, you know, he, hegot some money from the mob to fund, you know,
this venture to actually buy enough And tapesbe able to run the mob was like, look, I can't
get mixed up in this kind of stuff.

(07:18):
And then I guess the guy that was behind thewhole thing, said, well, what if the money was
untraceable?
It's on this thing called
the So
it kind of makes me think about blockchain inthe early days, especially with Bitcoin, people
thought initially that it was untraceable, But,you know, everything has an address, right, on
on the blockchain.
So it's not actually, you know, untraceable,especially if you're using, like, Coinbase, but

(07:41):
it was just kind of interesting to, you know,have a flashback of, like, those days.
Dial up and and, like, Netscape, you know,kinda no.
Altavista.
Alt so did like, this the movie actually has,like yeah.
It's like a nine episode series on Hulu.
That's so cool.
I have to
watch that.
Yeah.
So it's like the
characters actually look like the charactersactually look really, really close to Pamela

(08:06):
and Tommy as well.
That's really funny.
Well, I'm gonna give you so many moreelectronic money flashbacks you are not even
prepared for then I guess.
Because after there was so much going on ininvestment banking at the time, the Glass
Steagall Act had been repealed, there's like,bank, you know, investment banks were being

(08:26):
bought by big banks, it was just like absolutechaos.
And I decided I wanted a steady career.
I wanted to work for a company that was goingto be around a while.
So I took a job at MasterCard.
And I was the manager of rules, which was thecoolest title, right?
Like, I'm just in charge of all the rules.
Well, what did that mean?

(08:46):
That meant I got to write all the rules forchargebacks and e commerce and how we were
going to do transactions on the internet.
And it was just it so happened I dropped intothis company at this amazing moment.
I remember walking the halls going like, youguys heard of this PayPal thing?
Do you think it's going anywhere?

(09:07):
Is that important?
So yeah, I mean, basically, the entire ecommerce infrastructure just didn't exist back
in the day, like when I started, and then allof a sudden it did, right?
And we had to catch up, we had to make surethat every merchant, every bank in the world
knew how to handle these transactions and tokeep the world safe, right?

(09:31):
Because obviously, if Pam and Tommy were likehaving their private moments attacked and sold
on the internet with mob money, anything ispossible, right?
And so what is how do we regulate that?
How do we make sure that we're not acceptingmoney from fraudsters?

(09:54):
How do we make sure that we're creating somekind of boundaries around it?
And every good business in the worldessentially has to put together their rules,
their processes, their policies, and make surethat they get out to the stakeholders in their
business.
So it was super good training ground.
And I just loved it because I was in the centerof analyzing this whole giant system.

(10:16):
And I think that's what's really exciting aboutanalyzing businesses now in venture.
Yeah, and going one, if you don't mind,Tatiana, just one more step earlier
go back
to your role in banking just for the students.
Yeah.
Because I know, you know, when it gets when youget into banking, there's a couple of different

(10:37):
focus areas you can focus on, where you canfocus on advisory, you can focus on
fundraising, you can focus on, you know, M andA deals.
Maybe you can unpack, you know, what your rolewas at the investment and then when you
transition to the MasterCard role, that rolekind of sounds almost like a compliance role,
so like, maybe you can talk about like how youpivoted into that role, or like, you know,

(11:00):
maybe what team that was from the banking role?
Totally, so in investment banking, I started atBehring Securities, and there's really
interesting stories about that.
I was doing Latin American investment strategy.
So I would look at the bucket of stocks in eachof the Latin American companies and decide

(11:20):
which one, like how to put together a portfolioof stocks if you wanted to be exposed to
Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Argentina.
Then I also supported the PhD economist who isdoing a lot of work in Latin America.
And then I became a healthcare equity analyst.
So I would write buy sell hold recommendations,deep research reports.

(11:43):
When a company would go public, I'd do thefirst if we were market makers, I would do the
first in-depth research report on that companyto introduce them to institutional investors.
So when you put together the portfolios, youwould put together those buckets of
investments, and then that would be part of thesales process to the buy side researchers,

(12:05):
right?
The buy side, so you know, for the audience,there's the buy side and then the sell side,
right?
So I think it's normally the sell side researchanalysts that are the ones that normally get
kind of mentioned in the news, I believe,right?
Because they're kind of, and then I think youget a commission, This is me, you know, because

(12:25):
I I have a I have a career in in fintech.
So a lot of my clients were like both on thebuy side and the sell side, but, you know, I
guess the on the sell side, you get commissionsfrom
and
then also these these tech stocks.

(12:47):
So this is kinda the basket and then, buy all,you know, trade all the I guess, purchase all
these shares and then you can you can make, Iguess, the bank, you know, kinda like a JP
Morgan or Goldman.
Mhmm.
They make money off of the the fees for
handling trades.
Right.
So in an investment bank, there's, you know,there's, there's many ways to make fees, but

(13:10):
generally the research is kind of like the baitto get people to come in The quality of the
research is how you get investment bankingclients who pay you
a
fee for taking the company public, but thenalso the traders and the brokers, they really
rely on your recommendations to keep thetrading really active.

(13:30):
And so the research analysts don't necessarilyget any direct commission, but they do get
decent bonuses.
Unless, of course, the market is super wonky,right?
Yeah.
And then the other piece is like sometimesthere's broker dealers
Mhmm.
That are bankers.
Right?
So if you're a startup or even if you're afund, I guess some of the bankers can almost

(13:51):
have like a placement agent role as well.
So like they can take a commission for closingcapital,
right?
Yeah.
And so I guess it does seem like a strangetransition, but I was good at analysis.
Could do a financial model.
I could look at a business and really writeabout it.

(14:11):
And my friend had moved to MasterCard.
I got my job by FedExing the person who was herlike recruiter.
And that really worked.
That got people's attention.
So I don't know.
That's my career tip is if you know somebody atthe company and stand out, have your resume

(14:32):
stand out because you're going to get lost inthe crazy resume systems.
And I didn't know if this was going to be agood job fit for me.
I just knew that I wanted to change.
It was just too tumultuous in investmentbanking.
And I had had some interesting workplacetrauma, which is probably a story for another
day.

(14:53):
And I just, I wanted something different whereI could sink my teeth in, where I believed in
the company, where I could kind of make a namefor myself.
And it turned out to be a really good choice.
I landed in a department called franchisemanagement.
And it's like the, I don't know, we are we'rethe cops of the franchise, right.

(15:15):
So if you think of a franchise, you might thinklike McDonald's Every McDonald's you go into
has certain roles.
The burgers taste the same.
The branding looks the same.
Well, we cared about what does the brand looklike on the card?
What does it look like in the merchant?
How do the transactions work?
And I had to interface quite a bit with oursystems people.

(15:38):
So when you think about FinTech, maybeMastercard doesn't come to mind.
But essentially, all of those transactions aremoving back and forth through systems that are
global.
And we had to make sure that was a goodexperience.
One of my big enterprise IT projects was aroundreferrals.

(16:00):
So what would happen is if you traveled abroad,they would have a hard time verifying who you
were.
And they were afraid to take your card becausewhat if you have you guys seen what is it?
The one about Anna.
If you were talking shows, the one that'srecently about the lady who is like scamming
everybody.
Have you seen that?

(16:21):
Remembering Anna or something Anna?
Anyway, gotta look for it.
It was really fascinating.
Like, you know, scammers could take lots ofmoney from your hotel or from your car or
whatever.
And so sometimes they would say, you have tocall us before we'll verify this transaction.
Sometimes they would say you have to tellaccess, which I can't even explain how old that

(16:44):
technology is.
Yeah.
And it could take up to twenty four I'm havingtrouble hearing.
Can you say that again?
Siri would like to know about that.
No, Siri.
Now everything's wired.
Well, anyway, it was a mess.
So we had to build a better system for
that.
Yeah.
I became really involved in a lot of enterpriseIT projects and built out a chargeback

(17:07):
compliance system, a brand standard system thatessentially the CRM for Mastercard, our
licensing database, and interface with almostevery department and convince them to use the
data that we were scrubbing and makingavailable to them.
So it kind of builds like internal APIs fordata at Mastercard.

(17:29):
Oh, cool.
And then I ended up working more externally.
We formed a consulting group and I was part ofthe information products and services group.
So we decided, hey, we've got this amazingtreasure trove of data.
Nobody called it big data at the time.
We had no idea really what was about to happenwith the data explosion.

(17:55):
But we said, look, we have very valuable data.
This is an asset to our company.
It could be used in consulting to help improveperformance of the banks that work with us.
So how could we package that up into products?
So we built operations and marketing focusedproducts.
We built predictive models to help withtargeted marketing.

(18:18):
One of my patents is in that area.
And it was just it was a really cool time.
So I really love just being innovative,creating new things, building software,
designing software.
I got assigned this really terrible everybodythought this was the worst job assignment ever,
but it was kind of fun.
I got assigned to rebuild our ATM locator.

(18:42):
And so then I became obsessed with location.
Millions and millions of people were calling inevery day to find out where the nearest ATM was
because there was a number on the back of theircard, and it didn't work.
Yeah.
So I had to fix it.
We had to fix all the data in it.

(19:03):
And one of my big career moves was saying, hey,Google, this company called Google is charging
up, you know, I don't know, quarter orwhatever, every time the click happens, right?
Why can't we do that as well?
If we're sharing ATMs, and the banks are makingmoney when somebody takes money out of the ATM.

(19:25):
Why can't we say that costs money?
And
the people, senior management team was like,wait, we can do that.
And I was like, I don't see why you can't.
There's nothing in their rules that says youcan't.
So we turned that into like, turned that switchon, and that became a, you know, $12,000,000
business the first year.

(19:46):
And With
a revenue switch that happens, it's just onemore person that you pay when you take money
out?
No.
It would just be a fee that we charge to thebanks
Okay.
Got it.
Okay.
For marketing their ATMs.
Essentially, were Google, you know, in thatrole.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
And we were driving people to their ATMs everyday, but we weren't getting any benefit from

(20:07):
it.
So I said, let's turn that on.
So because I knew the rules, because I knew thesystems, I was able to generate new business
opportunities for MasterCard.
So they said, wow, is a really interestingtalent you have, how can we get more ideas like
this?
So we need you to be a part of the IPO team.

(20:30):
And so I got drafted to do more of that, workedside by side with the consulting group they had
hired and looked at pricing, looked at shouldwe have different business units?
Should we sell some things off?
Should we buy some things?
Like what are our options?
And so that was a really fun challenge as well.

(20:51):
But I was super, super compelled by watchingpeople start to get their phones.
At the time, if you were a senior vicepresident or up, you got a BlackBerry.
I was like, that's kind of cool.
I am not eligible for one of those yet.
But when I am, there's something, you know,we're going to do something with that.

(21:15):
So I asked for permission from my boss's boss'sboss to run a global mobile strategy, meaning I
wanted to go all around the world and askconsumers, banks, mobile operators, handset
manufacturers, anybody who's and all of oursenior managers, I wanted to understand what we

(21:35):
should do in this space and bring everybodytogether to come up with a strategy so that we
could build the right systems, build the rightproducts.
And we were already ahead from an R and Dperspective, but we hadn't really
commercialized anything at the time.
I think a lesson to take away from that is alot of times you can kind of shape your own

(21:56):
job.
So you might have an initial role as a rulesmanager and then you start doing IPO stuff.
Yeah.
You're like, you know what, guys?
I think I'm gonna just launch a mobilestrategy.
What do you think?
And then I think maybe the way
It sounds so casual.
But
I think but but, like, I think also the waythat you justify it

(22:20):
Yeah.
Is is kinda having some numbers and reallybuild, like, a business case around this.
Yeah.
So, hey, guys, like Totally.
This is this is a business opportunity.
This can really help the business.
These are the pain points.
Mhmm.
And look, you know, everybody is headingtowards a mobile mobile world.
Right?
So this is kind of we don't and this and Ithink another thing you wanna call out is like

(22:41):
the risk of not doing, right?
So if you don't do this, your competitors
We're gonna be a dinosaur.
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
So I mean, just the idea of contactlesspayments, I mean, I was testing back in 2000
just for reference, right?
But it took a pandemic for everybody to careabout it, because there was no real consumer

(23:03):
need to tap and go.
And it's such a huge behavior change, right?
But we've been terminal ized since 02/2002 inmajor merchants, and got to work on all of
that.
And yeah, so it was super fun.
Ended up being that strategy was verysuccessful.

(23:23):
And we ended up building out the tokenizationinfrastructure, keep your card safe for
contactless payments, which was then after Ileft licensed by Google and Apple and Samsung.
I built out the first peer to peer paymentsnetwork at MasterCard and the first developer

(23:44):
program so that developers could apply to workwith us more directly.
So those were some of the the fun things thatwe did to create more of a bridge to be
innovative in the payment space.
Great.
And then okay.
So you're at Mastercard.
You're doing a lot of great stuff.
And then and then what happened?
Because last time I checked on your LinkedIn,you're not you're still not

(24:06):
I'm not there anymore.
I love that.
That was a really fun time.
Just for for the you know, since you're askingabout career advice, I wanna mention that
during those ten years, I had three babies.
And for people who are looking for career lifebalance, probably I'm not the one to talk to.

(24:27):
But somehow I ended up going from manager toSVP level at the end of it.
And it was it was really cool.
You know, it was really cool to be a part ofthat.
Fast forward, I
am Just to kind of go, you know, my wife ispregnant, you know, and
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, thank you.
And, know, like, so when you kind of thinkabout that, like, you know, I think there's a

(24:52):
lot of really big champions.
There's like Reshma Sojani, who's like doingthis whole movement, which is like the Marshall
Plan for moms.
Amazing, excited
about what she's doing.
So I guess like, do you have any comments onjust that topic as a whole?
And then, do you feel like it's getting better?

(25:12):
I know they have like, maternity leave and theyhave a lot of great programs, but like from
when you were there, obviously Massacre is ahuge company, right?
So they're gonna have all those perks, but anyjust general comments on that, do you think
it's a, you still think it's a problem, right?
Do people I was actually seeing something in myfeed the other day and somebody mentioned like,

(25:35):
hey, sometimes it's not, you don't get the samekind of benefits, obviously, depending on your
role and sometimes I don't know, like, did youfeel it seems like you did fine because you
were a SVP, you know, but do you feel like backthen some people, you know, especially women
that had kids, like, kinda took a hit on theircareer?

(25:58):
Like, did they feel like?
I mean, the thing is that I think Mastercardtreated people really well.
We had very diverse team even back then.
I never felt like we were held back because wewere women, I have to give compliments.

(26:18):
It wasn't like easy.
We don't have like super long paid leave.
We had to fight for what we had.
We weren't able to work from home.
We eventually got sort of flexible Fridays,eventually be able we're able to like dress
casually on Friday.
It's like we're fighting for basic workers kindof stuff.

(26:38):
Now I see people having babies at Mastercardand they are getting like MasterCard bibs and
donations to save the children in their nameand like there looks like there's a celebration
of parenthood.
I mean, for me, I think it should be parentalleave, right?
Because it's not always the it balances thingsin the workforce, if every parent can take the

(27:02):
time they need off.
If also people can take off for other reasons,like taking care of a parent or some other
relative like there's, are really legitimatethings that people need to take care of in
their lives.
And I think that's changed a lot.
It used to be I didn't even mention that I waspregnant in any of these assignments.

(27:23):
I know I'm walking around with this giantbelly, but like, it just didn't come up.
We didn't discuss our families.
We didn't like, that was just not the cultureof any of the job sites in.
And also, I mean, I think sometimes it dependson, the team and, you know, your manager as
well, because I remember there was was one rolethat I had that was just kind of awkward.

(27:43):
I mean, I had a couple direct reports but thesedirect reports were super go getters, right?
So I I felt like anytime if I was gone, likethere was a time
where I took
a vacation for like three weeks and I was stillchecking my email because I was worried that
maybe they would just come in and who knows,like they would probably do a better job than

(28:05):
me or like steal my job.
So it was like, but then it it was wasinteresting with me too, like, maturing as a
manager because I think that was one of myfirst roles where I was a manager.
So I was kinda a little, like, insecure with,just having reports and, you know, oh, what if
they come in and they try to, you know,undermine me or something like that, but then

(28:26):
as you mature as a manager, you kinda let goand, you know, you kinda, you know, micromanage
less, you just kinda say, hey, you know what,like, if those people do well, it's less work
that I have to do, you know, because they'redoing really well, they're happy, and then you
can kind of come in and think morestrategically, versus super tactically in the

(28:46):
details.
So I've kinda like shifted, you know, when Iwas a manager, my management style kinda like,
I felt like I just got more mature as a personover time, and I think that helped me.
The best thing I ever did that improved mymanagement was have babies, and I mean, course
you develop skills as a multitasker when youhave kids, right?

(29:10):
But that's not what I'm talking about.
What you're saying is so true.
I was a micromanager, I wanted everything to bedone my way.
Yeah, you
know, kind of like hold tasks.
And I had to prepare my team and myself.
And I
would get, did you get kind of like irritated,like if your your reports like talk to your
boss, because it's kind of like the change inmind.

(29:32):
I think everybody was like that was sort of theculture and the expectation.
But what happened was I had to figure out howto be okay with and make sure they were
equipped to be out for twelve weeks.
And when I came back, and everything was goinggreat, that's when I could actually say, okay,

(29:55):
great, I could take on that other project.
I actually have time to go do a global mobilestrategy.
I have time to work on the IPO.
Because that wasn't my core job.
Neither of those things were my actual nine tofive job.
They were like on top of it.
And there were things I could do to stretch mycareer and get promoted every time.

(30:15):
Like every time I had a baby, got everythingship shape with my department, got promoted.
So do you think that because you, it made youbecome more efficient with your time so that
you can spend time with your families?
I mean, was still guilty of maybe working toomuch and taking on too much.
But I think it just made me put everything inperspective.

(30:41):
Having kids made me also need to work harder,which I think sometimes my colleagues didn't
understand.
Yeah.
But I was the, you know, at the time I was thebreadwinner of my family.
And like that, this was it.
This was how I pay for my home, like all thechildcare, babies are expensive.
So it didn't make me want to back down.

(31:03):
Yeah.
It made me more focused on providing for them.
Yeah,
yeah, no, totally.
You become more ambitious because you want to,I mean, number one, you have to because there's
more mouths to feed, but then you also kindafeel challenged to be like, look, you know, I
wanna have a good life.
You know, you're not doing it for yourselfanymore.
You kinda you know, everything you

(31:23):
do is kinda
for your family.
Yeah.
Right?
So that kinda that's kind of a good frameworkto have.
Okay.
So I'm excited about what happened
All of that.
Okay.
Okay.
So yeah.
Okay.
I get it.
I get it that you did amazing at Mastercard.
Yeah.
But then what happened?
Okay.
So I was speaking at a banking conference aboutmobile payments.
Okay.
And it was in Orlando, Florida, and I had a $2beer in a bar with a friend of mine who was a

(31:48):
consultant at MasterCard for me.
And I was like, I'm not happy.
You know, I've been doing all these amazinginnovative things, but I'm still like the one
employee in this giant engine and I'm ready togo do something interesting and different.
And he said, Well, I'm the CMO of a VC fundedstartup in Santa Monica, and would you be

(32:11):
interested in coming out and being head ofproduct?
I was like, that sounds fun.
Wait, you mean I could rearrange my life, livein California, be like within three miles of my
kid's school, have a like not a brutal threehour commute, I had three hours a day of
commuting.
I could completely redesign my life and live inCalifornia.

(32:34):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna check that out.
So I came out to LA, there was there were like,I don't know, three VCs in LA at the time,
there were like, maybe five VC fundedcompanies.
And it was it lasted nine months.
This was a big lesson.
This was my first sort of VC trauma.

(32:57):
It was interesting because the founder had beenreplaced by a CEO, which I didn't know could be
a thing, right?
So people who are like, looking at this wholefounder VC landscape, these were the lessons I
learned.
The founder can be replaced at any time.
Anybody can be replaced at
any
time.

(33:18):
The pressure, I mean, we built three versionsof that product.
We essentially have the entire same chassis asTwitter at the time when Twitter was happening,
first happening.
And we kept saying, look at what's going on.
We need to try this.
We need to try this.
And Yeah.
You know, the VC is the board just were like,no.

(33:38):
We wanna recover our money.
This is the So so one of the lessons I'm tryingto extract is that Mhmm.
You know, even though you have a productstrategy, sometimes the board can influence the
product strategy.
If it's not going fast enough, if people don'tget it, I mean, we sold to mobile operators,
consumers and universities, different versionsof this product in the nine months I was there.

(34:04):
I mean, we iterated every day we like had, Wewere working as hard as we could.
And we kept saying, hey, this is the next thingwe should try, but they were done.
And so at a certain point, they want to makesure they don't lose money, right?
So they want to take out what they can.

(34:25):
And, you know, everybody sort of votes on howthat gets done and your VCs are on your board.
So they have a say in that.
We all went out for margaritas at 10AM at ElToritos on Ocean.
If anybody's from LA, you'll be like, okay, getit.

(34:47):
Yeah.
It was a sad day, and the next day I figuredout, well, I've gotta make money.
I brought my whole family out here.
I'm gonna
So 10AM 10AM was when they 10AM.
They let everybody go.
We had
Okay. Our
Our And then you got margaritas a day after inthe morning.
Well, no, like literally we walked out of theoffice across the parking lot and had
margaritas and then we were like, okay, nowwhat?

(35:08):
So, that's when I realized you could be aconsultant.
And I started down that path, but my secondclient decided to hire me.
I worked for an agency for two years doing leadgen for big brands.
So some of my clients were JCPenney, StateFarm, GameStop, AT and T, LG, BlackBerry, all

(35:33):
kinds of big companies who wanted to use mobilemarketing, and as an extension of their brand
campaign.
So started building apps for them, textmessaging lists, being able to do a lot of in
stadium kind of like text to screen and pics toscreen.
We are the first to do those kinds of things.
Oh, cool.

(35:54):
Yeah.
So we just
I mean, I would say it's tough to find yet onthe mobile side and just in general with growth
marketing.
Mhmm.
It's a shit show.
Like, I mean, it's really hard to find goodgrowth marketers.
I mean
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, so I don't know what, you know, youyou you were one.
Mhmm.
So as a founder, what are some things that youshould look for?

(36:15):
I think one tip that I and and I always usethis is always just try to get some references,
but Yeah.
Any tips that you have for just finding theright growth people, especially for mobile?
I think it's super hard because it is an artand a science.
Right?
And so you do have to find people with theright experience, the right temperament.

(36:38):
Yeah, and as a founder, I found many times thisis a place where they are the least confident,
right?
Because they don't know what they're to askfor.
And they don't know necessarily that they don'thave their own skills in this area.
And so they have a hard time verifying.
So I think they resort to trying to poachpeople from other firms that are growing really

(37:05):
fast and then assuming to have all the skills.
But that's not necessarily a person that cancome up with a strategy.
They could probably execute the strategy.
So it's a little bit difficult.
Especially in early stage startups, people weara lot of hats.
You've got to be a little good at design.

(37:25):
You've got to be a little good at asking forother people to support you with things, you
mainly have to learn how to do those thingsyourself.
And then over time, you can hire specialists.
But finding that right person who's got enoughstrategy, but then also the execution chops is
really hard to find.
And it's not the same thing as maybe UI UXperson where you could ask for a portfolio and

(37:52):
it's not always easy.
Yeah.
I think, you know, just from my experience too,there's usually, like, about a month time to,
like, set up the ads.
I mean, sometimes there's, like, a setup time.
Right.
Well, even getting things installed, like ifyou have
to do,
like install the SDK, if you have to
Yep.
You know, and all the pixels and everything, ittakes time to even build the relationships with

(38:16):
the developers to actually put that in thequeue.
Yeah, in
order to make it effective.
And so it is an interesting role.
But having done it now, many times withstartups, it's, you know, really essential if
you're going to do any kind of paid.
And measure what you're doing.

(38:37):
Like you can't measure anything until you getall the infrastructure set up.
So let's talk about that.
So for measuring
from
a growth marketing standpoint, what are some ofthe KPIs, right?
So there's obviously CAC and the LTV, you know,what other, you know, just from your, I just
want to go nerd out a little bit because youdid growth marketing.

(39:00):
Yeah.
So, you know, tell us a little bit about likewhat success looks like when you-
Well, I mean, it depends on what the productis, like for I've worked with a number of
FinTechs at this point, and you really want tolook at your stats across the entire lifecycle,
right?

(39:20):
Because it doesn't matter if I had downloads,if I didn't get somebody to load the account,
right?
And so you really have to every company is alittle bit different.
You just look at the funnel and you say, okay,well, how do I get people through this whole
process?
And what does success look like?
What is the ultimate goal?
First time they go through the system?

(39:45):
I think there's so many choke points in the andreally looking at every single step in the
onboarding flow is really important because ifyou can put things in the correct order, you
can unlock so much potential.
And then once that's in good order, then itmakes more sense to open the floodgates of

(40:08):
paid.
I would say, and having had really, really tinyteams, I would say it's also really important
to build out your content strategysimultaneously, because half of your volume
could come from content over time.
And then that's what you pay once, right?

(40:30):
You pay once to produce that piece of contentand put it out there, but ultimately it can
live on forever and keep bringing new users.
And that's like super genius mode if you canfigure out the right content pillars and really
get that going and bring people in that way.
There was a really good post by Gary Tan.
I don't know if you saw that one, but hereally, really spent a lot of time producing

(40:55):
some of his YouTube videos, Mhmm.
And he actually broke down, like, the ROI forputting together, like, a really, really high
piece of high quality piece of content.
Oh, that's And he
like, look, it took me four hours to puttogether this YouTube video.
You know, I professionally edited it, put musicin, chopped it up, but then he kind of showed,

(41:16):
like, how he you know, how many subscribers hegot just from that one high quality video.
He you know, so that was really interesting.
To your point, it's evergreen.
Right?
So once you get the YouTube video, you can pushit out on you can you can chop it up, put it on
TikTok, you can push it out on Twitter.
So it's multi, you know, it's it's a it's aproduction and then it's also the distribution.

(41:39):
Because it's a content cascade, right?
If you get that one top level piece of content,you can create it in many different medium,
like you're saying, can chop it up, you couldhave a transcript, edit that into an article.
I mean, there's just so many ways that youcould reuse that thing and have it on a cycle
to repeat as well, because it hopefully staysevergreen, like you're saying, still

(42:01):
interesting to people.
So in terms of KPIs, I would just really sitdown and think like, what is your North Star?
What is the thing that you need them to do inorder to be successful?
And for us, that and some of the FinTechs, wasreally about getting the funds on the card
because everything would flow from there.

(42:25):
It was a prepaid product in most cases.
Because you can't have transactions, which ishow those companies get paid if you don't get
to that first load.
So those that was sort of and then you workback from there.
Like, do we keep undoing the choke points toget to that first load?
Yeah.

(42:45):
It's the yeah.
It's the asset gathering and then what I'veseen with, like, Betterment is, like, new
features to do, like, recurring payments andrecurring deposits.
And if
Yeah. You
You
that in an easy way, then you can kinda reallybuild a money machine, right, because you can
kinda predict, you know
Oh my gosh.
Where you really wanna be is like, hey, I knowthat if I spend, you know, $15,000 a month,

(43:10):
that'll get me
6
k of revenue.
Yeah.
And then,
okay, this is working, this is repeatable.
Now let me put 30 k, hopefully that two x, andthen really, you instead of just the
proportional two to three x, like, hopefully,there's a point where it's like, wow, you know,
if I actually spend 30 k, this actually gets meto, like, 300 k a month.

(43:33):
Mhmm.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
I mean, some of the early things that welearned at the Santa Monica startup that were
just mind blowing is, like, the whole viralloop thing is so important, right?
To be able to put something into your product.
Almost nobody I've never come to a companythat's already like post product and have seen

(43:54):
them know to do this.
And it's like the most basic thing you need tofind a reason for people to share this with
someone else.
That network effect is so important, and it'salmost always the first thing I tell them to
do, and it's almost never the first thing theysay yes to, because it's harder to squeeze it

(44:15):
in after they've already launched the product.
Sure, Yeah, and then the big thing now isproduct led growth, right?
So you, you know, that my favorite examples,like Calendly, there's a great tool where you
can do one calendar, but, you know, a lot oftimes you want to send some people an hour
Calendly, another person would send, so Iupgraded within like a month, you know, because

(44:37):
I like, wow, it just makes sense to havemultiple Calendlys, because I think Calendly
also by default, I think they make you do anhour by default, people just don't want to do
hour, or I think you can choose whichever timebox you want, but you can only do one.
Yeah.
And for me, I find a lot of value in thedifferent times, and then obviously Zoom, I

(44:57):
think Zoom is free for like forty five minutes.
Most people have meetings over forty fiveminutes, so it's like, wow, this is
so So have
to have free.
Yeah, and I think same thing with Docs Send, Ithink Docs Send, there was a point where Docs
Send was free, probably four, maybe three orfour years ago, it was free, but then what
would happen is, you know, they would send youan email and say, hey, look at who's looked at

(45:20):
your document, and then when you try to look atit, it's like, you have to upgrade to see who
these people So they, you know, they have a lotof these really cool tools, don't know if
anybody else has like an example, but, so youknow, think now it's kind of the product led
growth, like make the product itself, assistwith some of the growth.
Yeah, and make it like create that creativepoint where like, we're going to have max out

(45:45):
our generosity, but just sure of satisfying thepeople who we think would really use this, we
have users.
So it's a really interesting strategy to talkabout.
And it's funny, our partners are taking so manymeetings right now.
I can't even tell you so many meetings.
So we wanted to set up this feature on Calendlythat they just launched called round robin so

(46:12):
that people could meet with the first availablepartner versus all three of us for one at a
time.
And so I was like, that's amazing.
So it's like a group, it's like a groupCalendly.
They pick, so they can't pick who they want tomeet, but they could just pick a time box and

(46:32):
it's one of you guys.
We haven't decided to upgrade yet, I haven'ttried.
But we're thinking about it, and the way Iunderstand it is they would see a blended
calendar and they'd be able to pick the firstavailable.
Don't know if it shows who you'd be meetingwith until after it's confirmed.
Sure.
Yeah.
No, that's that's helpful.

(46:53):
Yeah.
I mean, I always use you know, it's alwaysgreat because Calendly also is a pretty decent
CRM.
Like, lot of times when I try to think of,like, who I met or if I, like, forgot their
name Yeah.
You can always just kinda, like, look in yourinbox to see that there was a meeting invite,
and then Yes.
You know, kinda think about the day, butCalendly also lets you download all of the, you

(47:16):
know, you can download and export all of yourleads as well.
That's a good that's a great hack.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's really good.
I mean, some people use HubSpot, Mhmm.
But, you know, Calendly is really good.
I mean, you can you can literally just downloadall the all the emails.
So and then okay.
So you so you did some growth marketing Mhmm.
For Yes.

(47:37):
Like, couple different agencies.
I mean, Yeah, I mean, did it for the agency,the big, like big brand agency, and then I went
out on my own and I was a founder myself inparallel with doing the agency thing.
That was how I bootstrapped my startup.
Faced Tell me about your startup.
Sure.
I decided to do an app called EdRover.

(48:01):
And this is 2010.
It was a check-in for charity app.
Here are the flaws in my genius plan.
After running it for four years and shutting itdown, I now know where I went wrong, right?
First of all, enough people did not haveiPhones at the time, and it was an iPhone app.

(48:22):
And there were I worked with the wrong lawyerand accountant who advised me to file a
nonprofit because nobody had ever heard of anykind of like charity aspect to a company,
right, a tech company.
It was too early for that.

(48:42):
Now there's B Corp, and everybody's likeexcited about being socially conscious.
Well, it was too early.
My lawyer and accountant like helped me filefor a nonprofit status.
And it was after three years of IRS proctologyexams.
I got a one page letter saying no, that can'tbe a nonprofit pivoted like my brains out.

(49:06):
And like, should have just done it for profitfrom the beginning.
But that was super hard.
I think investors were, the reaction wasdisappointing.
I was, it came from this big corporate career.
And were like, well, is this like a cute littlething that moms do on the side?
And I was like, excuse me?

(49:26):
What?
They're like, yeah, it sounds like a lifestylebusiness.
And I'm like, thank you.
I don't know what that means.
It sounds super offensive.
I'm gonna go figure that out.
Yeah,
you know, I just didn't have exposure to thestartup world enough to have heard those terms
before.
And it was super disappointing.
So instead, I did all kinds of corporate pitchcompetitions, and wipe the floor with prize

(49:50):
money.
Was like super easy for me to relate to thosepeople and everybody loved it.
I became really deeply involved with AT and Tand Microsoft, computer world, stayed classy,
like getting great press, but I couldn'tovercome the IRS thing, and eventually shut it
down.
It was an awesome experience.

(50:11):
What was the issue?
They just didn't like that you were classifiedas a nonprofit?
There's so many.
So I had a for profit company that was like aconsulting company, I built the software, and I
had a nonprofit and they didn't like how theywere interacting with each other.
Yeah, they honestly, there's so many companiesthat have this structure that had it back then

(50:34):
that didn't, you know, that continue to haveit.
I had a really bad examiner and he retired inthe middle of it it was just a mess and they
wouldn't need to stop calling, I think after awhile, Because it just wouldn't have been gone
like this.
I had all kinds of nonprofit consultants lookat look at it and give me advice and they're

(50:55):
like, it looks fine.
Don't know why you wouldn't pass.
So sometimes it's the luck of the draw, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So anyway, that was an interesting set of lifelessons for sure.
And so, you know, I really did have these likedisappointing experiences with VCs and

(51:16):
investors, angels, all kinds of people.
And I was like, I just don't want anybody elseto be going down this path and having this
experience.
So I began really mentoring in my community.
I run a program called Founders Boost LA, wherewe help especially underrepresented founders
navigate the VC and accelerator landscape,which has totally exploded since I was a

(51:39):
founder.
And I just really got dedicated to that becauseI wanted to help prevent some of the disasters
I had stepped in.
And it's been incredible for just buildingcommunity here in LA, working with amazing
mentors.
And the alumni of this program have gone off totop accelerators, have been raising millions of

(52:01):
dollars.
It's been awesome.
Oh, there's a question I see in the chat.
No, there's no fee and no equity.
We're sponsor supported organization.
And yes, we are accepting applications now.
So if you know promising startups, we're inmultiple cities around the world, including
unfortunately Ukraine, which was really scarylast couple of weeks.

(52:24):
And so we really want to find very highpotential startups and get them just absolutely
ready for great deck, great business modelunderstanding, access to new mentors, pitch on
demo day, and then they get into amazing placesand they're getting VC funding.

(52:48):
And so I was like,
And why am then leaving this the demo day, andI guess the accelerator, do they offer any
capital as well?
Or is it more just kind of a support group andthen they help you?
Like, you have a demo day where you invite VCs?
Yeah.
So up until now, we haven't had a capitalcomponent.
But Founders Boost itself is raising isplanning a fund.

(53:13):
Yeah, sure.
Be careful about how to talk about that.
And before that fund was announced, I had alsoworked with my partners and said, Look, I'm
leaving a lot of good opportunities on thetable here by not being involved early.
To my two partners and I have been working forstartup as consultants together, and I would

(53:38):
invite them to demo day and they would likepick up some really interesting companies and
become advisors and start investing and like,Woah, don't invest in my companies without me.
Let's go, let's do this together.
And so that's how Steamwork Ventures cameabout.
So now we're, we've made our first threeinvestments, which is really exciting.

(54:01):
We love picking companies that we think aregoing to impact the world in a positive way.
Because of my software and mobile experienceand fintech experience, of course, fintech is
on the table.
But I've also got a lot of exposure andbackground in health care.
And some of my angel investments were inclimate.

(54:25):
So our thesis is around connected solutionsthat impact health, wealth, or the earth.
And we love working with steam powered teamsthat are coming in with a brilliant invention,
but they don't necessarily know how tocommercialize it because the three of us are
the CMO, CFO, COO types who can come in andjust really help a technical founder build a

(54:52):
business that can last.
And so it's pretty exciting to be able to dothat now.
No, that's great.
So tell us a little bit about STEAMwork and,you know, the, so I think you shared the
thesis, but how, or did that just kind ofintegrate in with kind of your consulting work
some of

(55:13):
your entrepreneurship and and, you know, whenwhat what was the triggering point that that
made you decide?
I guess was that I guess that was probably thefinal chapter after you
Yeah.
Started the company.
I mean, I I would say like EdRover went away,but I still was consulting with other startups.

(55:33):
Yep.
And I briefly considered doing my own fintechstartup again.
Like last year, was really having, you know, wewere all in a pandemic or having this crisis of
identity, what do we want to be when we growup?
Like what, how do we want to come out of thisthing?
And I just decided I love working with multiplestartups so much, it would be very hard to shut

(55:58):
everything down in order to work on the one.
And it's just something I know about myself, Iknow I can add value in lots of interesting
ways.
You know, we've been talking for an hour andhopefully you found it interesting.
We'll see.
It's amazing.
I mean,
I think it's really helpful for the people onthe call too to see how much the career

(56:25):
transitions happen when you try to get to whereyou are now.
Right?
I mean, look, worked in product too.
Was an engineer, and was a product manager andthen, you know, finally, like you, you know,
kinda started my own, you know, investmentfirm.
But Yeah.
I think, you know, that's also a startup.
You know, you have a brand, you have to have awebsite.

(56:46):
You have to, you know, build community.
So it's, you know, if you're starting your ownfund, it's essentially an entrepreneurial
endeavor.
Yeah.
So don't know if every entrepreneur wants tohear that, but I have to say the process is, I
would say, like 10 times harder being a founderof a startup.

(57:11):
It is.
I don't want to sound like I'm whining, but Imean, just the regulations, the paperwork, the
types of support systems that are required topull this off are insane.
And then just the speed at which you have to begood at things that are required to run your

(57:32):
firm are is really, it's really amazing.
But I can't imagine doing it with anybody else.
Think my current partners and I reallycomplement each other well.
And we had to do major trust exercises at thebeginning, because like I said, I wasn't sure
that this was necessarily the path I wanted togo down.
VCs don't necessarily have the best reputationwith founders and others sometimes.

(57:55):
And I was like, I want to do this if I can't doit the way I think it should be done.
And no, but like, we came to some really greatconsensus about how we wanted to be as a firm
and how we wanted to show up for founders andwhere we wanted to draw the line over because

(58:16):
we could easily take over and be doing all theroles at a startup.
We're like, no, we're not a venture studio.
We're not going to
Yeah.
Hey, you might just end up doing all their useracquisition for them.
Right.
Exactly.
But I do feel like we can help them when theyhave questions like your question about, well,
how do we find a good growth marketer?
Yeah.

(58:36):
Can we write up the spec for them?
Or could we review this back?
Could we have an interview?
Yes, we could do all those things.
Today, I reached out to my hundreds of studentsthat I've taught at USC.
I've been teaching an app design course since2013.
And so I was like, hey, anybody want to workfor this really purpose driven startup?

(58:57):
Those are the kinds of things that make ithopefully a delight to work with us.
We really do want to be on the side of thefounder in so many ways, like because we just,
we just see so much potential.
And if once we get to conviction, our duediligence process is thorough, I want to say,

(59:19):
But once we are on board, we're on board.
And we're helping to fill the round.
We're introducing you for we introduced one ofthe companies into UCLA Medical for SBIR
grants, projects, and speaking opportunities.
We want to completely change the trajectory ofyour future when we get on board.

(59:47):
Yeah.
No.
That's really great.
Do you have a second for maybe one or twoquestions?
Yeah.
Sure.
Absolutely.
I did see some of top.
Questions?
Hi.
Let's get some light on.
Good evening.
So I was gently stalking you on the internetfor a quick minute.

(01:00:09):
Oh, good.
Reading
one of your bios and I'm in the air force.
So it was intriguing because one of the bulletssaid you had worked with the Air Force in some
capacity.
And I was just curious what was thatrelationship like and what you were?
Where
did That's you so cool.
So the Air Force, my gosh, I have to go wayback.

(01:00:31):
The Air Force wanted help with recruiting, theysaw mobile as a really interesting way of
getting in touch with people.
And so we worked there were multiple agenciesinvolved.
We had sister agencies that would get involvedin building out experiential recruiting events,
like big trailers would and come we'd like todesign all these cool games.

(01:00:54):
But ultimately, what they really wanted wasthem to opt in for text messaging because they
wanted to be able to keep in touch with thepeople who were curious about the Air Force.
Okay, that makes sense.
Definitely up their game.
Force pilot, so
it's pretty cool.
Then one quick follow-up on a slightlydifferent note.

(01:01:15):
You're working on an MBA right now.
Yes.
And looks like you took a little bit of a gapbetween your undergrad to doing your grad
school.
I was just curious about what was themotivating factor of doing it now after you've
worked professional career for like a decade ortwo?
And why now, I guess?
I shared about the COVID sort of identitycrisis.

(01:01:39):
My kids are older now.
I have a chance for kind of this phase twocareer and really interested in being a big
player in this space as an investor.
And so I wanted to brush up on my quant skills.
I wanted to develop a deeper network in LosAngeles because I went to school in New York.

(01:02:02):
And while I've been involved in a lot ofstartups here, I am going to need the help of
bigger companies in order to help my startupsand also just open lots of doors.
So from a career perspective, I would say it'sharder to have a jump back into a big corporate

(01:02:25):
role if you've been working as an entrepreneur.
And so if that's my plan B or C, I also thinkthe MBA would be helpful there as well.
Got it.
Okay.
It's something I'm thinking about doing downthe road.
Did Econ as well for my undergrad.
And I'm like looking between, is it better todo a full time program or an executive program?

(01:02:46):
So it's good to get your thoughts on that.
Thank you.
Oh, man.
I mean, that's an excellent question too,because for me, it's such a pleasure to be in
the executive program.
And particularly like shout out to UCLA becauseit's not just 70% investment banking people.

(01:03:07):
It's people from every walk of life, includingprobably 10% of my class comes from Navy.
They're transitioning out of the Navy from SanDiego.
And so fascinating to be able to look at whatwe're learning and immediately like, hey,
General Mills does it this way, and Amazon doesit this way, and Adobe does it this way.
And we're like, woah, that's so cool.

(01:03:28):
It's such really, it's so refreshing to hearreal life examples, just applied instantly in
class.
I mean, for me, that was a perfect fit.
You know, I don't know where you are in thatcareer cycle, but that's like, I don't see
doing it any other way.
I'm a
very, very, very beginning.
Okay.

(01:03:49):
Thank you.
You for
years under your belt then.
And you know, because I think you'll have a lotto offer your class if you have more
experience.
Got it.
Thank you.
Thank You're so welcome.
I believe one of my colleagues, Farooq mighthave a question as well, it looks like.
Oh, great.
Cool.
Hi, Gatiana.
Thank you for your time.

(01:04:09):
Oh, yes.
Absolutely.
Congratulations on sort of this journey of thefirst year of a of a VC fund.
Thank you.
So I was looking at the fund thesis, and Inoticed that it it has a few sort of things
that are not usually combined together.
So med tech, fintech, and climate tech, andthen IoT sort of is a sort of a hard

(01:04:30):
combination as well.
Yeah.
Not often seen in this in this way.
So what were your conversations like with LPs?
Like, what did they think of combining all ofthis health, wealth and earning in one string?
I mean, get some that think it's too broad,like sometimes we get the instant, it's too
broad, right?
And sometimes we get that, oh, that's kind ofinteresting.

(01:04:53):
I mean, we can see that you have experience inthese areas and can see the value you add.
It's very similar.
So they're all software companies and they'reall gathering data in some interesting way.
And generally, that does require some IoT.
So they have that common piece, but we'rereally dealing with a lot of early stage

(01:05:15):
companies out of Los Angeles and we want tomake sure we can pick some very good ones.
And we also want to provide with the firstfund, LPs are generally high net worth
individuals, smaller family offices, and theymay have different needs than an institutional

(01:05:36):
investor that wants you to be super focused inone area.
It may be their first, second, third fund.
And so they actually do care more aboutdiversification than you might think.
And their conversations has been prettyinteresting.
And because we're in Los Angeles, there's anopportunity for, I would say, to work with

(01:05:58):
business managers of celebrities in a differentway.
And they may be venture curious, but wouldn'tknow, may not be ready to pick a sector.
So I would say it hasn't necessarily slowed usdown.
Yeah, and I don't know, it's very hard to picka sector when you've worked in a lot of
interesting companies.

(01:06:19):
Awesome, thank you.
Yeah, yeah, thanks.
That's a good question.
I should always be examining that.
We have that conversation almost every day.
I'm sure, yeah.
It's always constantly raising for the secondand third, it's always in the works.
Always be raising, that's a good motto.

(01:06:41):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, think always be raisingand you're also kind of thinking about your
long term franchise vision, right?
So if you're, you know, like what's the bigger,you know, there's a fund that I, you know, so
the book by the founder of Black Blackstone, Ithought it was really good because it also kind

(01:07:04):
of made me think of like the bigger vision oflike what you're building, right?
So Blackstone, what I really think about theirfranchise is like, they do private equity, they
also have like a whole real estate practice,there's like a bunch of different tentacles,
but it's kind of like part of the largerconglomerate.
That kind of made me think, hey, what I'mbuilding, are there multiple things that can

(01:07:27):
feed into each other?
Like you've got the accelerator, you've got akind of like the startup mentality, you also
have probably relationships with corporates.
And universities, there's a lot
of things going on.
And the thing is that like data and softwareand FinTech, like it's embedded in everything.
Right?
And so you just you have to keep followingwhere's the next innovation going to happen.

(01:07:51):
And so it's just fascinating to see where thisis gonna lead.
I mean, who knows what's gonna happen by thetime this fund matures in ten years.
What kind of like new things will be on thehorizon?
Yeah, mean, things that I I normally get, youknow, just average, not I wouldn't say average,
but I have typical discussions with other VCsand LPs, and there was one LP that hopped on a

(01:08:17):
call with me, and they were like, hey, have youreally thought clearly when you're talking to
these emerging managers about how crypto isgonna impact this whole thing?
Like, you know, SPVs may just be DAOs in thenext, you know, four or five years.
I think, know, just kind of just differentplatforms are gonna impact the traditional

(01:08:40):
venture structure.
I think instead of kind of I agree.
And syndicating capital, you can probably closecapital in like, you know, ten milliseconds
through like a Dow or something.
That sounds like a very interesting plan to goforward with.
I think it's it's fascinating because, so manynew technologies do rely on infrastructure laid

(01:09:04):
by previous generations.
And since I've been too early on certainthings, I'm cautious about not getting too
ahead of myself.
But what is fascinating is I feel like I havean uncanny ability to open doors to the
infrastructure players that are required to getthese startups moving faster.

(01:09:26):
And a lot of those companies, corporates arereally interested in what's going on in those
spaces.
And so I think there's going to be a lot ofchange in the next few years.
Yeah.
I totally agree.
Well Yeah.
I know that I've kept you longer.
So great
to talk to you all.
Appreciate it.
No.
I appreciate it.
And thanks for sticking around a little longer.

(01:09:47):
And and I hope that we get to hang out at somepoint.
I hope so too.
Yeah, just give me a ring if you're in New Yorkand happy to take you outside.
Vice versa.
Yeah, thank you.
Sounds good.