Episode 02 - Navigating Entrepreneurial Journeys and Insights with Luis Rincon - EIR Live

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Luis Rincon (00:00):
And that was probably still the most

(00:02):
enjoyable or, you know, kind of,like, most energetic portion of
my career that I've everexperienced because it was my
first time being in a start up,and I was like, this is awesome.
Like, everyone's working theirtail off. The culture there was
phenomenal. And so, like, bigkind of takeaways for folks who
wanna be in the hour are justgonna is, 1, go work for a
startup. If you can, if you'relooking for a VC fund or one, go

(00:23):
post series a if you're not surewhat you wanna do, that'll give
you a little bit more stability.
And then 2 is, you know, keepyour personal burn low, for as
long as you can.

Ilya Tabakh (00:32):
Welcome to EIR Live, where we dive into the
lives and lessons ofentrepreneurs in residence. I'm
Ilya Tabak, together with mycohost, Terrence Orr, ready to
bring you closer to theheartbeat of the innovation and
entrepreneurial spirit. Everyepisode, we explore the real
stories behind the ideas,successes, setbacks, and
everything in between. Foreveryone from aspiring EIRs to

(00:53):
seasoned pros, EIR Live is yourgateway to the depth of the
entrepreneurial journey andbringing innovative insights
into the broader world. Checkout the full details in the
episode description.
Subscribe to stay updated, andjoin us as we uncover what it
takes to transform visions intoventures. Welcome aboard. Let's
grow together. Man, that was,that was quite an episode. I

(01:18):
really love the energy, and Ilove kind of the back and forth.
And and, actually, I'm reallygetting to, like, as we kind of
prepare for these episodes andhave conversations around them,
that turns out to be, you know,a lot of fun as well. What what
caught your ear in this episode?

Terrance Orr (01:31):
Oh, man. This was a very fruitful conversation,
and and really, honestly, thebig takeaway for me from Louise
was really about, you know,exposure, you know, leads to you
taking the leap, and that leadsto access along the way. These
things are very interesting whenyou think about the entrepreneur
and resident's journey, at anyresidence you're you're at. And
he talked a lot about thatexposure to through early

(01:52):
mentors and coaches and peoplewho actually, you know, inspired
him actually to take the leap atsome point and took a shot on
him. And that access isparamount when it comes to, you
know, thinking about, you know,taking the leap on your own in
the wild as an entrepreneur.
I needed those mentors andcoaches because you don't know
what you don't know until youget punched in the face in this
journey. Right? And, La'Vie'sstory around being exposed,

(02:15):
taking the leap, you know,essentially, and having that
access, I think, is critical foreverybody to listen to and
learn.

You know, I violently agree here. The the
whole idea of kindaentrepreneurship and a lot of
these things being apprenticesports, is something that I I
believe pretty thoroughly. Andthen I think, you know, one of
the things we got into is kindamaintaining optionality and
taking advantage of theopportunity. And I think, you
know, kinda Luis did that indroves throughout, you know,

(02:41):
multiple stops across hiscareer. So I just love the fact
that, you know, he showed up,did cool stuff, and, kept the
people that he was working with,super excited and engaged and,
you know, continues to do that.
So, yeah. Let's let's jump intoit. I really love this one.

Absolutely, man. Let's do it.

Alright. Well, I'm always excited. I've been really
excited, but this is aconversation that's been, coming
for, actually, more than 2years. 1st time Luis and I sat
down in person was a little over2 years ago, in Austin, Texas
when I was first starting toreach out to, I guess, not just

(03:24):
first, but was very early in myjourney of kinda reaching out to
EIRs. And what was cool aboutLuis is Luis, like, immediately
got the idea, had all kinds ofsort of insights as well as
talking about, man, if I was akind of a new a EIR, you know,
I'd be I'd be super excitedabout this network and and
meeting other people.
And, you know, Luis justgenerally is an energetic and

(03:46):
infectious guy as you guys willfind out here in a second as
well. That's right. But yeah,Luis. Maybe a good way to kick
this thing off is just kindatake it back to the beginning
and and talk about, you know,how you got and really how you
kicked your career off, and andthen we can kinda walk through
it, and and talk about how yougot to be in EIR.

Sure. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Terrence
and Ilya. Yeah. It's been areally great journey getting to
meet Ilya a few years ago.
And as you guys can probablyattest or anyone listening to
this, you put cofounder or anysort of c suite role in your
LinkedIn profile, and yourLinkedIn DMs just become
garbage. Like, it's just allinbound sales stuff. And somehow

(04:27):
Ilya managed to kind of cutthrough that and sent me a
LinkedIn message. And I waslike, Yeah, absolutely. This is
a great idea.
You know, more than anything, Iwould have benefited from this
when I first became an EIRbecause I'd heard of the role,
but I and the title, but I neveractually done it. Didn't really
know anyone else who had doneit. And so just having access to
someone else saying, hey, I'm anER or 2. You want you want to

(04:49):
grab a coffee? It's like,absolutely.
So as Ilya mentioned, my name isLouis Rincon. I am a, I guess,
technically former entrepreneurin residence. I am now, you
know, transitioned into a acofounder and operator role,
with a a small venture fundcalled Socratic Ventures that
focuses on education andworkforce, businesses, primarily

(05:12):
technology businesses. I'm basedin Austin, Texas. I I went to
grad school here at theUniversity of Texas.
I went to law school likeTerrence. I'm a reformed or
recovering JD, didn't actuallybecome an attorney, didn't
practice law. But it wasactually through the law school
experience that I ended up whereI am now, in the technology
space, in the startup space, inthe venture space, and actually

(05:33):
led to the EIR role. Movedaround a lot growing up, 3
different countries and manydifferent locations, but
principally between SouthernCalifornia and Texas. Went to
college at Pepperdine in LosAngeles, worked in in
principally real estate.
My first job ever was inconstruction growing up, and I
always thought I was just gonnabe in real estate. And then I

(05:54):
graduated in 2007 into, one ofthe worst real estate markets
you could have found. Right?And, I did that for about a year
or 2 and then decided to bury mynose in some books for a while
to let that pass and, went tolaw school at the University of
Texas in 2009, which is how Iended up here at, in Austin. And
through that, it took me all ofprobably 1 semester to realize I

(06:16):
didn't wanna be an attorney,which I probably should have
done that homework, before goingto law school.
But I'd done well on the LSAT,and so I had a good scholarship.
And, you know, the only jobs Iwas really getting offered were
a 100% sales commission roles.And so I guess maybe that says a
little bit more about me and thetype of people that become EIRs,
you know, is sort of like ashoot first, aim later kind of

(06:37):
personality. But, you know,through that, I got exposed to a
course by an alumni of the lawschool, Adam Dell, who is a
multi exited founder. He's thecurrent current founder of a
company called Domain Money inNew York.
He's also been a VC a few timesover, And he had, graduated from

(06:58):
law school, become an attorney,become a VC, become a founder,
and came back to law school toteach a course. I took the
course and was just blown awayby I'd always been, flexing some
sort of entrepreneurial musclesince I was a little kid, but it
was really the first time I wastruly exposed to, like,
structured entrepreneurship, VCfunds, getting exposure to VCs.

(07:19):
A lot of that course was basedaround having Adams Network come
in and talk to, basically MBAengineering and law students.
And so I got to meet a ton ofVCs. I got to meet a ton of
entrepreneurs.
I met my first EIR, and I endedup becoming the teacher's
assistant, the TA for Adam forthat course for the remainder of

(07:40):
my law school experience for thenext 2 years. And through that,
actually, I remember having aconversation with with Adam,
and, you know, I was tellinghim, I was like, hey. You know,
Adam, I don't think I wanna be alawyer. I think I wanna do what
you do, which at the time he wasa venture partner. And I'll
never forget the guy just looksme dead in the eyes and goes,

(08:00):
oh, I'd never hire you.
And I was blown away. I waslike, I'd been working my ass
off for the guy you know, for 2years, and I thought doing a
great job. He he spoke veryhighly of me.

And I

was like, Adam, what the hell, man? And he he
was like, no. No. No. I I thinkyou're great.
I think the work you do isgreat, but just philosophically,
I think the only people whoshould be investing in startups
are, you know, former operators,entrepreneurs, people who have
really been in the trenches. AndI was like, well, you know, I
can get behind that, I think,philosophically. And, you know,
but I didn't wanna start acompany for the sake of shutting

(08:31):
it down a year later and saying,great. Will you give me a job
now? Right?
And, so I was, you know, I'msort of thinking, alright. I'm
27, 28 years old at the time.And I said, you know, you know
me. You know my skill set.You're in Austin.
You're 28 year old Luis. Whatwhat do you do? And his response
was something along the linesof, you know, I've I've got my
portfolio. I'm more than happyto introduce you to any any one
of the companies you like there.Let me know, and and you'll get

(08:54):
a direct intro to the CEO.
Or I can tell you all thecompanies that I wish had taken
my money. You know, and I waslike, well, that sounds like a
much more interesting group.Right? Like, he's like, oh,
yeah. That's those are the hotdeals.
Right? Those are the ones thateveryone wants to get in on. And
he's like, I want some of them,but not all of them. And he
happened to mention one, whichwas, coincidentally enough,
started by another alumni of thelaw school, a guy named Dan

(09:16):
Graham. And the company wascalled buildasign.com.
It was an ecommerce customprinting solution, focused
mainly in in 2 areas, b to b, soselling signage directly to
businesses, and b to c sellingprincipally, like, home decor
custom print. And, I was like,oh, is that that's Dan's
company. Right? And he's like,yeah. You know Dan?
I was like, yeah. We gotconnected through the law
school, and he's like, oh, man.Like, I would go work for Dan.

(09:39):
Like, that's a you know, that'swhat I would do if I was you.
And so I I reached out to Dan,and, coincidentally enough, I
had already accepted a role backin Los Angeles to go work for a
startup that was gonna bebasically going through the corp
dev process of getting acquiredby, I forget if it was HP or
Symantec.
This was, you know, about 15years ago. And I met Dan. It was

(10:02):
subrevenue 10,000,000, so it wasstill in the in the 7 figure
range, not in the 8 figurerange. And I met at the office.
It was just like this infectiousenvironment.
I had already become a anassociate and then a principal
at the University of TexasStartup Accelerator, what's
called the Brumley Texas VentureLabs. And so I've been exposed
to a few VC investors andstartups, but I'd never formally

(10:25):
worked within 1. And so, youknow, Dan, who's still one of my
great friends and certainlysomeone I consider a mentor, was
like, dude, Luis, just come comework for me. Like, we are so so
so, like, booked. We're justtrying to keep up with demand,
but I've got all these funideas, and I don't wanna I don't
wanna put the pressure on myexisting team.
I don't wanna take them off, youknow, the keeping the main thing

(10:46):
the main thing. But, like, youand I can just test stuff. If it
works, we'll, you know, put abow on it and pass along to the
right group. If it doesn't,we'll just throw it away. And I
thought, well, that sounds likea great opportunity.
And so I did that and just fellin love with it. And it's just
Hey, Luis.

Be before we kinda jump into that part, you
mentioned a couple of things inyour background on kind of
having traveled and lived insome places, did law. I I think
that's a theme that I've seen ina couple of conversations where
I've had. Can you talk just alittle bit about, you know, to
your point, you know, shootfirst, aim later? I think
there's actually some value inin getting that experience and

(11:23):
having the context that, youknow, there's half a dozen or
more ways to do a thing. And andand a lot of folks kinda gloss
that over when they talk abouttheir background.
But could you spend just anotherbeat, you know, kinda talking
about that a little bit?

Yeah. Happily. And, you know, interestingly enough,
if you guys listen to, HarryStebbings and and the 20 minute
VC, he's got an interesting,post that he put out. I I can't
recall how how long ago saying,you know, here's some, like, 3,
characteristics that I'veidentified just repeat
themselves over and over withfounders or VCs that I've talked
to. And, having moved around alot as a child is actually one

(12:00):
of them.
And that's not saying that I wassort of predisposed or pre you
know, kind of destined to be anentrepreneur, but I do think it
absolutely, creates value. Ithink for 1, you know, I ended
up, through the ecommercecompany, really falling into the
product role. And I like to sayI'm built like a T, right, so I
can walk across just about anydepartment in an organization. I

(12:23):
can certainly talk to all ofthem, but I can really only go
deep in one. And if I were to godeep in 1, it'd be the fact that
I've spent the last decadereally working in product, and
it's mainly because of of mywork at that start up, and and
working with those folks to tolearn, you know, SQL, learn
front end development, back enddevelopment, working with
engineers.
And one of the most importantthings to product, and I think

(12:44):
ultimately every EIR, everyentrepreneur is essentially
focused on a market pain and aproduct to start, is empathy.
And to put it into perspective,so my dad was a, irrigation
systems engineer. Everyonethinks I was military growing
up. I wasn't, and we had to moveto where the projects were.
Right.
And so my dad did his part ofhis PhD dissertation in the

(13:06):
Netherlands. And so my parents,both my parents are originally
from Mexico. My mom's born inthe US but raised entirely in
Mexico. And my dad was kind ofthe inverse. He was born in
Mexico, moved to SouthernCalifornia when he was in high
school.
And, we we lived in Mexico. I'mborn in the US, but we lived in
Mexico. We lived in theNetherlands, and we moved to
California. And if you thinkabout the traditional,

(13:27):
California. And if you thinkabout the traditional US
students kinda growth, they goone elementary school, one
middle school, one high school.
Right? You're gonna if you don'tmove, you've got 3, schools, but
they might all be really thesame community because the way
that the school districts workin United States is based off
your home address. I I went to 7schools before I started

(13:52):
college. And to put it, like,the the most acute of that was
middle school, which is 6th,7th, and 8th grade in the United
States, I went to a differentmiddle school every year,
including one in a differentcountry. And what that created
for me was I was essentially thenew kid over and over and over
and over again.
And the reason I think thatbuilt up an empathy muscle for

(14:14):
me is I was pretty darndependent on people being nice
to me. Right? Like, that sort ofcliche kinda teen movie stuff
where a kid walks into the thecafeteria with his lunch tray
and is just like, where the helldo I sit? Right? Like, I
remember having vivid memoriesof that, like, on the 1st or
second day and and just prayingsomebody would raise their hands
and be like, oh, you know, comesit with me.
Right? And and and I stillremember, in fact, the name of

(14:35):
the kids who did even as farback as 6th grade because it was
so nice. And even if they didn'tbecome my friend long term,
like, the fact that they justextended an an olive branch for
that first time around is ishuge. But, additionally, I think
it forces people to get out oftheir shell. I'm I'm a big
believer.
So I work in EdTech now. Thecompany that I cofounded as an
EIR is called Acadium,acadeum.com. You can check it

(14:58):
out. And one of the things I Ireally value about, you know,
sort of education and andcertainly, my educational
experience was studying abroad.So I did a 4th country when I
was in college.
I I spent my my entire sophomoreyear living in Italy. But
forcing you to get out of yourshell, you you just it's really
hard, I think, to be introverteda 100% of the time as an

(15:21):
entrepreneur. You can be anintrovert and be a very
successful entrepreneur. I knowsome very, very successful
introverted entrepreneurs, butthey have to flex their
extrovert muscle to really getout there, talk to customers,
understand a pain point. And Icertainly believe that that I'm
I'm a capital e extrovert.
Not to say that I don't likebeing alone and recharging, but,
like, this sort of stuff,talking to guys like you, being

(15:42):
in a room with people, like,that I I feel the energy. Right?
Like, that is what what reallygets me going. But you have to
be able to just get out of yourcomfort zone and talk to people
and constantly having to switchcoats and be in different rooms.
You know, one minute I'm talkingto a customer, I gotta wear a
certain coat for that.
1 minute I'm talking to ourinternal team, I gotta wear a

(16:02):
coat for that. 1 minute I'mtalking to a VC firm, I gotta
talk wear a different coat forthat. And moving around a lot
certainly helped helped there.

I'm gonna pull on this thread a little bit more.
Okay, Luis? Because there's afew things that I I love to I
love to pull threads and themes.We have these discussions with
people like you and and peoplelike you and me and, like,
builders, serial entrepreneurs,and people who are not afraid to
jump out of the plane and figureout how to fly it on the way
down. Right?
And there's a few things youmentioned. 1, you know, Ilya

(16:30):
already touched on the moving indifferent countries, which I
think creates a a an adaptablemindset, adaptability, which you
need as a skill, you know, as anentrepreneur. And it creates
this translated disability toswitch coats in different rooms
and being a translator fordifferent people. Right? That's
the second thing.
And but I think for every,conversation that we've had,
everything in somebody'sbackground starts with some sort

(16:51):
of spark, right? There's thespark, there's exposure, and
then there's the example, right?And for you, you had the spark
and the exposure through, youknow, Adam, right? You got that,
you took the class, then you gotinspired. Like I can do this
too.
I wanna do what you do, right?And then you started seeing more
examples of people who've doneit, right? You saw Dan, you saw

(17:12):
Adam, you saw others. So for me,it always starts in this sort of
spark, exposure, example, leap.People take that leap because
they've seen it, right?
They've seen examples, they'vebeen exposed. And now they've
had like a network of peoplearound them that would feel
comfortable to take the leap,right? Talk to me about taking
that leap, right? You're aboutto go there, right? From sort

(17:36):
of, you know, I think I wanna dothis.
I wanna do what you do. I havethe examples. Forget it. I'm
going to go and do it. Talk tome about transitioning into the
world of being an operator andentrepreneur.

Yeah. Yeah. I I agree with everything you said,
Terrence. You know, the the jumpfor me was actually very easy.
And, you know, it's interesting.
I want to like you, Terrence, Iwent to law school, which is
filled with super type a people,very high achievers, and
generally very risk aversepeople. And my friends from law
school, some of my dearestfriends, they're like, you know,

(18:09):
Luis is crazy. That guy justloves risk. When in reality, I
think a key part of being anentrepreneur or being in the
entrepreneurial ecosystem, evenas a VC, is actually to reduce
risk. And the way that I view itis, like, I'm actually quite
risk averse.
I might not be as risk averse asthe typical law school student,
but in the way that I go havegone about my career, I've

(18:31):
actually been very, veryspecific around how can I reduce
the risk here? And I actuallythink that's one of the values
of an EIR rule. And and one ofthe benefits is, you know, maybe
a fund identifies someone likeTerrence and says, like, man,
Dan, Terrence is really good.Like, we want him to start
something. And they talk toTerrence, and Terrence is like,

(18:51):
well, you know, I've got thisfinancial obligation or
something.
It just starts hearing, oh, I'mI'm risk averse. Risk averse is
like, well, hey. We'll we'll payyou. Like, don't worry. Like,
what?
And you'll have access to allour resources. And it's like,
oh, that helps you make thejump. It was a pretty similar
story for me to kind of goingback to the conversation around
starting to work for Dan. So Iended up working full time for

(19:13):
Dan during my entire 3rd year oflaw school while still teeing
Adam's class. I was basicallyworking 2 jobs.
Let's call it 1 and a half jobs.And so, you know, my GPA just
went backwards, which at thatpoint I didn't care. Right. It's
like, well, I'm not going to goget a law job anyway. At that
point, it was definitely the C'sget degrees kind of mentality
and which is not a mentalitythat I'd ever really had.

(19:36):
One of the things that also, youknow, going back to Ilya's
question of me moving around alot was before I got my JD, I
was the only person in myfamily, which is just I have one
sibling and my two parents thatdidn't have a postgraduate
degree. Like education is verybig for my family. My dad was a
college professor at a point intime. He has a PhD. My mom has
an MBA.
My brother had a master'sdegree. He's a double Ivy League

(19:57):
grad. I was like the one slackerwith a college degree from
Pepperdine. Like I had I wasn'tlike my parents. Like, hey, you
know, come on.
When when's the next one coming?And when I worked full time for
Dan, it was very clear to me,like, this gives me energy and
I'm very big on identifying,like, what drains me of energy
and what gives me energy. And Iwould be at the law school, and

(20:19):
I was it was intellectuallystimulated, certainly, and and I
I love the people that some ofmy closest friends there. But,
man, I was just like, gosh, getme out of here. Like, where
where do I sign to just, like,what's I'm done.
I'm good. Whereas even the mostminute kind of problem that we
were trying to solve at thatstartup, and that was a true
rocketship. It so just to put itin perspective, I joined, sub

(20:40):
revenue 10,000,000. And 3 and ahalf years later, when I left,
we were doing just shy of75,000,000. And it ended up
breaking the 9 figure revenuethreshold and eventually selling
for nearly 300,000,000 toVistaprint, which that's all
public data at this point.
And so having worked full time,you know, Dan was, as you've

(21:00):
used, pretty cavalier, just belike, hey, if you wanna quit law
school, just like the job, it'spermanent. And I said, oh, you
know, like, I've made acommitment to my parents, I made
a commitment to myself. So hewas like, look, cool. I'll just
tell people here that they'vegot to be understanding that
sometimes you've got to be downat the campus. Sometimes you got
to be here.
And it was phenomenal to have aguy like Dan, because he had
completed law school even thoughhe had started his company, his

(21:22):
3rd year of law school, toreally help me do that. And the
truth is, like, I graduated lawschool on a Saturday, and
Monday, I was back at work.Like, there was no you know what
I mean? Like, there's justanother weekend for me. I had a
ceremony.
My family flew in. Friends flewin. We had a great dinner. Had a
great party that night. Andthen, like, Monday, I'm back at
work.
There was no real change. Istill went on the bar trip,

(21:43):
which is like for those of youguys who don't know law school,
you basically graduate. Youspent 2 months just killing
yourself studying for a barexam. You take a bar exam and
because you haven't seensunlight in 8 weeks, you know,
then you go out on a bar trip iswhat they call it. You know, you
take a trip with your friendswho had all been just to let
loose.
So I still did that because Iwanted to go have fun with my
friends, but I never even tookthe bar. Like, I was working

(22:05):
full time at that point. And thetransition so there, I was jack
of all trades again, which hasled to me being built like a T.
I was working on some things formarketing. I was working on some
things.
I have, you know, a businessdegree undergraduate plus a law
degree. The CFO there atBuildsign, he's still there, in
fact. He was a former WallStreet attorney. And so he and I

(22:25):
worked very well together. Wewere doing small m and a, kind
of like buying up smaller printcompanies, so I would help him
with that.
And that's really where Ilearned the product role. And I
remember, Dan and and and theCIO, CMO there, a guy named
Jerry, who's still one of myclosest friends and also a
mentor, came up to me one dayand they're like, hey, Luis, we

(22:45):
we lost, you know, a productmanager and, we want you to take
over his products. And I waslike, well, what do you mean
guys? And they're like, well,you're going to be the product
manager. And I, my exactresponse was, I know what
product means and I know whatmanager means so I can like
deduce what they mean together.
But you know, this was 2011before the product manager role
had really kind of like now. Ithink you can even get an

(23:06):
undergraduate degree in productmanagement. I was like, guys,
what the hell does that mean?And, you know, Jerry laughed and
he was like, look, I've seenyour work in Excel. I've seen
the way that you can floatacross the different
departments.
That's all I need. I can teachyou the rest. And so that's
where I really started to learndigital tools, right? So like
SQL databases, how to query onmy own. Now I'm fully SQL

(23:26):
literate.
HTML, CSS, very basic, so Icould have conversations with
designers, with engineers, howto write a PRD, and and the rest
really just came through throughdoing. And about three and a
half years in, I was wrapping upa project, and I kinda felt like
I'd learned what I was gonnalearn in in my role. And the

(23:49):
company was founded by 3 guys,and 2 of them are are very, very
close friends of mine. I have aton of respect for the 3rd guy.
He was just gone already, at thetime that I joined.
And I said, you know what, guys?Hey. This isn't my 2 week
notice. I'll stay here for 6months, 12 months, however long
you need, but, like, I'm I'mready to move on. And they asked
me, like, well, what are yougonna do?
And one of the things so justkind of for the EIRs or or folks

(24:12):
who wanna be EIRs out there,huge recommendation is just keep
your burn low. I had kept myburn very low. Like, I didn't
have a car payment. I had a cellphone payment. You know, I,
like, I had very minimal at thattime student loans.
And so I was like, you know,honestly, I I wanna go back to
where we were when we started,maybe even earlier. You know, a

(24:33):
bunch of people in a crampedlittle office, maybe be a
founder. And so Dan and JR, the2 founders 2 of the 3 founders
of that company said, you know,hey. Well, we bought this asset,
and we'd love to commercializeit. It was a premium domain
called wearables.com.
And they're like, but we're sofocused here. We're heads down
here. We're not gonna have thetime. What if you become the

(24:55):
operating partner for that?We'll be the investment
partners.
Let's go launch this thing.Which candidly, guys, that I
later I have now realized that'sactually the first time I became
an EIR. It just wasn't called anEIR. Like, it wasn't my idea.
They said, hey.
We have this thing. We need tocommercialize it, and we will be
these guys at this point were,you know, independently, well,

(25:16):
speaking. We're like, hey. We'llwe'll fund it. And if it works,
we're happy to take this tomarket and help you raise
capital and build a team.
And so I was like, hell yeah.Let's do that. And and so before
I get into wearables, I think,Terrence, you know, hopefully,
that answered your question. Itwas I I've I've built those
bridges to do the next thing byjust actively working and

(25:37):
getting in there. And one of thethings that I cannot understate
is the value of having peopleI've never, you know, called
these guys a mentor to my face,but I certainly call consider
them mentors.
But guys who are willing to takea chance, you know, get into the
startup space, start working fora startup. It doesn't even
matter. Like, I had no passionfor custom printing. I still
candidly don't really have muchpassion for custom printing, and

(25:59):
that was probably still the mostenjoyable or, you know, kind of
like most energetic portion ofmy career that I've ever
experienced because it was myfirst time being in a startup,
and I was like, this is awesome.Like, everyone's working their
tail off.
The culture there wasphenomenal. And so, like, big
kind of takeaways for folks whowanna be in the hour are just
gonna is, 1, go work for astartup. If you can, if you're

(26:21):
looking for a VC fund or one, gopost series a if you're not sure
what you wanna do. They'll giveyou a little bit more stability.
And then 2 is, you know, keepyour keep your personal burn low
for as long as you can.

Just quickly to add to that. I always think that I
realized maybe a little laterthan I should in my
entrepreneurial journey that,entrepreneurship's really an
apprentice exercise, and that, Imet some, you know, awesome
entrepreneurs over myentrepreneurial career, and
realize that, you know, there'sa lot of sort of knowledge, you

(26:53):
know, tribal knowledge orwhatever that that folks had
gone through this experience,knew how to deal with these
things, but it's just very hardto understand, a, what are these
things that you've been needingto learn, and 2, then how to
sort of think about them. And Ithink, you know, extending that
into sort of the EIR world,there's a lot of sort of
ancillary and additional thingson top of just pure play

(27:16):
entrepreneur skills that areneeded to be successful there.
And so I think that general, youknow, understand that it's an
apprentice exercise and reallythink about who are the masters,
how can you get in the room.Right?
And then that low burn thing,whether it's intentional or
unintentional, I I had a prettylow burn as well because I had
been in academia for so long.And so that was actually really
helpful to keep a lot of optionsopen. And so just kind of a a

(27:41):
strong second to that, Luis.

And I wanna layer on top of that as as well
because I you know, Luis said afew things that I I don't want
people to to to get lost becausethe becoming an EIR gave me the
shot as well to take the theleap, right, to become an
entrepreneur and and dodifferent things. And I didn't
know there was a suchopportunity, right, that, you
know, a field of founder withoutan exit yet, right, could

(28:03):
actually go off and and do this.And, somebody saw value in that,
the war wounds, right, the scarsthat you already had and knew
that you would make those samemistakes again. And I think
that's important. The otherthing so that's access.
The other thing is Luis neverlet off talking about solutions,
ever. He talking about pain,market, right, and a risk.
Right? Literally. This is thethe thing that I see a lot of

(28:26):
first time founders that Icoach.
They make a mistake aroundwanting to idea everything and
be this and go to solutions, butthey don't know deeply the pain
that they're trying to solve.Right? And this process of EIR
ing, right, instead of a role ofbeing an EIR, you learn deeply
about customer discovery and,like, discovering customer pain
to the point where it's acute,it's widespread, it's emotional.

(28:48):
You know it's something that youcan go off and build on top of,
or build a business around it.The last thing is risk reduction
factory, right?
I consider all stars to be arisk reduction factory. And I
think there's something aboutwhether you're type A or you've
gone to law school or not,there's something intuitive
about graduating from a lawprogram in school and learning

(29:09):
how to control risk, okay? Likemaking sure you stay out of
jail, but you control riskenough that way you can break
the rules and actually buildsomething, you know, that's
viable. And I think it's a skillthat very few people have out of
the gate in their 1stentrepreneur experience that I
see a lot of people who've goneto law school and graduated with
a JD or any law degree, frankly,you know, they understand the

(29:29):
process of controlling risk.Right?
And I think that's a very, veryimportant point that I don't
wanna get lost, you know, andand all the incredible things
that you just said.

Well, yeah. So, a couple of things. You know, one,
Terrence, I I I firmly agreeabout reducing risk and then
sort of the the legal trainingthere. Law school,
unfortunately, in my opinion, inthe United States, doesn't
actually teach you how to becomea lawyer. It does teach you how
to think very, very critically.
I actually think it's a shamethat not all loss law programs
in the United States by, let'ssay, the Bar Association or any

(30:01):
accrediting body don't actuallyrequire you to, graduate with
your your license. Right? Ithink that's one, sort of,
opportunity for for the legaleducation community. But, my, my
property law professor summedup, for for those of you
thinking to go to law school,this is besides learning how to
think really critically andbuilding a great network, he

(30:23):
summed up law school perfectlyfor me. 2 things.
Never miss a golden opportunityto shut the hell up and always
get it in writing. Like, that'sthat's what you learn. Right?
Like, that's

That's right.

That's what law school that's what a good
loyalty is. That's right. Ithink secondly, you know, Ilya,
going back to your point, youyou used the word that's
actually one of my favoritewords in the world, which is
optionality. I actually tried tobuy the domain optionality.com,
not because I have an idea forwhat I do with it. I just really
love that word, and I wanna ownit.
It's allowing yourself to havemultiple opportunities, multiple

(30:56):
different avenues where you cango. I think a lot of people, not
just people who are prone toentrepreneurship, hate the
feeling of of being stuck.Right? And so what is the
opposite of being stuck? It'salways having options.
So that word optionality issomething that one that I I take
very seriously. But there is away that anyone can, I I think,
really increase theiroptionality? Right? And it it

(31:18):
starts with you you gotta getout there. You gotta build a
network, find out where you canadd value.
I took unequivocally the lowestpaying full time job coming out
of law school compared to myfriends. Right? And, they're
also making a lot more moneythan me, by the way. So if if
money is your motivating factor,like, don't don't don't listen
to to me on this, at least notfrom a salary perspective. You

(31:39):
know, I think as entrepreneurs,we're all driven to that kind of
asymmetrical outcome where it'sjust all of a sudden there's an
exit and then, you don't have toworry about the salary.
But it's creating an opportunityfor yourself through maybe
taking a lower salary, but goingto a place where you're gonna
learn a lot. Dan, for example,has he funded wearables. And

(32:00):
then when I started Acadium,he's now an investor in Acadium.
Right? And he gave me my firstjob in the startup world.
And, you know, JR has also beenvery important in that. And by
the way, so the first time Iactually got the title of
entrepreneur in residence, it'sthrough my my now cofounder at
Acadium, Josh Pierce. He's thefounder of Socratic Ventures,
and he and I had metvolunteering for an education

(32:23):
nonprofit that put on basicallybusiness hackathons, not like
tech hackathons, but businesshackathons called 3 Day Startup.
And it was specific to educationor excuse me, universities. And
he and I met at the Texas a andm, program and just became good
friends.
And so he was off building hisfund and working with different

(32:44):
companies in his portfolio. Iwas still at BuildASign. We
would meet up for beers and haveconversations and, hey, here's
the problems I'm facing. How areyou? Here's how I'm thinking
about it.
Please, like, tear this apartand vice versa. And that was
very useful for me. He was oneof the guys that I went to a lot
when I was building wearables.And so when we decided to wind
down wearables, which was about2 years into the journey, and we

(33:05):
still had money in the bank, butit was just every test we had
run had said, you're going back,Terrence, to your word, like, we
were iterating quickly andtrying to figure out what the
right model was. And there's agreat quote, and I don't wanna
misattribute it to to someone,so I don't exactly remember who
it came from.
But, being wrong on the timingof a market is still being wrong
on a market. And that's where Ithink we were with wearable

(33:25):
tech. We launched this beforethe Apple Watch had even come
out as an example, and we justcouldn't scale revenue to
anything meaningful. I I like tosay wearables.com was really
good at getting press and reallybad at generating revenue. We
you know, I was on Fox News.
I was on CNBC. We made the coverof USA Today. I was getting
invited to because, you know,Terrence, like, you know, SEO,

(33:47):
like, people would just search,like, media outlets would be
like, oh, what what is wearable?We have wearable tech, like, oh,
wearables.com. Oh, who's thisguy, Luis?
He's the CEO. Let's call. Andthey would reach out to me.
Sure. Let's do this.
And, of course, we had a hiredPR group too, and she did a lot
of great work as well. But whenwe wound that down, you know,
Josh is one of the first guysthat I reach out to and, amidst

(34:07):
other people just let them know,like, hey, I'm going to be
available. I'm going to go takea 2, 3 month break because I
need to breathe. But anybodyworking on anything interesting?
And he was the one who had comeup with this concept for what is
now Acadium, which if you guysare unfamiliar with Acadium,
we're a b to b marketplace inhigher education.
But essentially, we powernetworks of colleges and

(34:28):
universities that can shareaccess to each other's courses,
certificates, and degrees. So ifTerrence is a student at Ilia
University and he can't get acourse that he needs to graduate
for scheduling reasons or maybeit's not offered that semester,
he can take it at LuisUniversity, which Ilia
University has said, yeah,that's a peer institution of
ours, and we handle all of thedata passing, registration, and

(34:52):
most importantly, paymentbetween the universities. We
just do this to the tunes of nowthousands and thousands of times
on an annual basis. And Josh hadbeen the CFO of an online
university and had experiencedthat pain. And he was like,
well, you know, he was trying tooriginally, if I recall
correctly, he was trying torecruit me to be the COO for
another one of his portfoliocompanies.

(35:12):
And I was like, oh, that'sinteresting. Cool. Like,
introduce me to the CEO andlet's see where that goes. And
he's like, oh, by the way, Ialso I have this concept for
this b to b marketplace, but Idon't know how to talk to a
software engineer, so I wouldn'teven know how to build it. And
so he starts explaining it.
And unbeknownst to him, he'stelling me this, and I was one
of those students in college whohad suffered from that problem
massively. So I was veryfinancially dependent. I had to

(35:33):
be at full time, which is 12credit hours in the United
States to hit my financial aidpackage, get my financial aid
reimbursement, pay for school,pay for my living expenses. And
in kind of like the an exampleof the height of irony in in US,
post secondary education, I wasa business major at Pepperdine,
but I had tested out of myforeign language requirement
because I Spanish is my firstlanguage, English was my second

(35:54):
language. So I tested out ofthat really quickly, and my
advisor was like, well, youknow, you already tested out of,
like, one of the majorrequirements of international
business.
Would you wanna be aninternational business major?
And I was like, yeah, thatsounds a lot better because
maybe I go work in Latin Americabecause I'm fluent in Spanish or
I've lived in Europe already.And he's like, well, the other
requirement is you go studyabroad. And I was like, well,
I've already applied to theItaly program. He's like,

(36:16):
awesome.
And so I extended my program bya semester. I was gonna do one
semester. I was like, I did itfor 2. And the 1st semester,
everything counts towards mydegree. It's awesome.
2nd semester, I go to registerand only one course counts
towards my degree. Maybe 2. Iforgot exactly. And so I email
my advisor thinking, okay. Thisis they've seen this problem
before, I'm sure.
And I basically get one of theseand email back, like, you know,

(36:36):
I'm sorry. Don't know what todo. And I was, like, I'm I'm
basically here because you toldme I have to be here for my
degree, yet it doesn't worktowards my degree. So long story
short, I ended up takingadditional courses that were
throwaway elective credit. Theywere very fun, very interesting,
but, you know, Pepperdine is nota cheap school.
They were very expensive. I didit just so I could hit the full
time status, get myreimbursement check, pay for
school, and instead of spendingthat summer doing what I wanna

(36:59):
do, which candidly, which isvagabonding across Europe with a
backpack, I had to fly back toLos Angeles. This was, you know,
really before the advent ofonline learning, or what it is
now. I had to pay to live oncampus, I had to take 2 courses
to play catch up in the summer,so I took out additional loans
for that. And, you know, I'dsigned an oath in blood to my
parents that I would graduate in4 years.

(37:20):
So I did graduate in 4 years,but it was at an expense. And so
Josh has explained this conceptto me, and I was like, damn.
That would have been amazingwhen I was a sophomore. But then
fast forward, we're 15 yearslater. I don't have any kids
yet, but I was about to have myfirst kid.
And I thought, there's no waythis is a problem. Right? Like,
we've all got supercomputers inour pockets. Like, online

(37:40):
learner at that point Courseraexisted, and and he's like, oh,
no. This is a massive problem.
And so I was like, hey. That COOrole, that's cool. Introduce me
to COO. That's superinteresting. And so I began
helping him just kinda thinkthrough that.
And then he eventually justsaid, why don't you just come
work with me on this? And I waslike, in what capacity? And he's

(38:02):
like, well, how about EIR atFirst Credit Ventures? And I was
like, sure. And we drew up acontract between the 2 of us.
It was a 6 month engagement. Idid a ton of customer discovery
just cold calling universities.We flew across the country, you
know, talking to universities. Ihelped him write the investment
thesis for his investors. Wewere looking at different models

(38:23):
at that point in time, and thethe short version is, say, at
the end of 6 months, you know,he said, do do you wanna found
this company with me instead?
Right? And so, like, it wasalmost like a EIR role, but
neither of us really had had theEIR. I'd never had the EIR
experience. He'd never had anEIR work for him, so we were
kinda figuring it out as we go.And, and I was like, yeah.

(38:43):
Absolutely. Like, let's do this.And so that was 2016, about 8a
half, a little over 8 years agonow. And, let

me ask you a question, Luis. Was that the
first time you ever heard theterm EIR?

No. No. Let me actually, I'll I'll answer that
question in a second. So, youknow, sort of fast forward to
where we are now, we we raise aa small seed round from his
principally his investors, hisLPs to kick the company off,
spent the next few monthsrecruiting the rest of the
founding team. And fast forwardnow, eight and a half years
later, we've raised, you know,just shy of about 25,000,000 in

(39:18):
in capital.
We we're post series b. We'vegot 500 enterprise clients on
the platform. We're the largestcore sharing network or
platform, in the industry. Wecover 49 out of 50 states, every
accrediting body, 2 year, 4year, private, public. We're in
6 countries outside the UnitedStates.
We power online dual creditconsortium networks for, k 12,

(39:39):
so the college bound population.And we also work in in workforce
education. So people who aretaking what are called 5250
education benefits or tuitionreimbursement from their
employers, they're also usingour platform for education. And
so that's sort of fast forwardto where we are now. We've got a
great team, a fantastic board,fantastic group of investors.

(40:01):
And, yeah, that's sort of thejourney of how I officially
became one, so shout out toScrattic Ventures for for
actually giving me the officialtitle. In terms of the first
time that I'd ever heard ofTerrence, it was actually in
Adam's class when I was in lawschool. I remember the, one of
the guest speakers had come, andI asked Adam, I was like, hey.
So how do I introduce this guy?He's like, oh, well, he's an

(40:21):
entrepreneur in residence atthis fund or whatever.
And I said I was like, hey. Whatwhat's an entrepreneur in
residence? And he said, it'ssomeone who gets paid to launch
businesses. And this was 2,009,2010, something like that. And I
just remember being blown awayby what I was like, they pay you
to launch businesses like, youknow, again, being someone who's

(40:42):
trying to reduce risk, I waslike, well, that sounds like a
dream.
That's right. I was just blownaway that this existed, and I
remember I told Adam, I waslike, how do I get that job? And
it ended up being kind of thesame answer, like, well, go work
for a startup. Go learn how toactually build like, you're not
just just because you're some,you know, successful law
student, no one's gonna offeryou money to go build a company.
Right?
Like, go help a company getbuilt and prove that you can

(41:03):
operate and scale and then gofrom there. And, that was the
first time I ever heard it. Istill think that explanation,
right, of someone who gets paidto launch businesses is the most
simplistic way to say it. It'sit's how I would explain it to,
you know, or how I haveexplained it to people who ask
me, like, wait. Wait.
What exactly do you do? Right.But it's much more nuanced than
that as you guys know.

Of course. Of course. You know Oh, yeah. I'll
give it over to you, man.

Yeah. No. It's it's interesting. So this is kinda
digging into I've actuallythought a lot about this
question, how do you explain it,partially because my fiance and
my family make fun of me. And soI, you know, have tried to
explain it in a couple ofdifferent ways.
I found it sort of helpful todifferentiate between kind of
the vertical entrepreneur inresidence. So somebody that's

(41:47):
whose job it is to run abusiness line, spin one out, you
know, start something up, andthen somebody, kinda more like
myself who's translating some ofthat innovation and
entrepreneurial expertise andfinding opportunities to sort of
expand the broader team and thecapabilities of the
organization. I think at the endof the day, the goal is the
same. Right? You have to createvalue, and you have to do new

(42:09):
things to, actually make money,and and sort of contain you
know, continue to be competitivein a tumultuous marketplace.
And so those are all important.But but I've I've sort of when I
explain it, I I think about the,you know, translating relevant
experience into a new context.And then depending kinda who I'm

(42:30):
talking to, I expand it orwhatnot. How how would you
expand it or explain it to, say,your grandma or your family?
Because that's that's one whereI've had you know, I've I've
talked to a bunch of folks aboutit and the the I haven't seen
the settled, you know, here'swhat it is.

Yeah. And, you know, Kenny, I I think that's
one of the beauties of of theEIR role is that is, one of the
things that I see happening isactually some form of
standardization. We've alreadystarted to see that in venture
studios. Like, venture studiosdidn't really exist when I got
into VCs and start ups. Nowthere's some groups that are
exclusively venture studios.
But in terms of the EIR role, Istill think the most simplistic

(43:06):
way and certainly the way thatI've explained to people is
like, oh, well, I work for,investor groups who wanna launch
new businesses. I help themlaunch new businesses. Oh, okay.
Cool. I understand that.
But the more nuanced way I thinkso one, we need to, it's not
just sort of the verticalizedEIR like you mentioned, Ilya.
There's also the executive inresidence, which is called an

(43:27):
EIR, or the entrepreneur inresidence. And then there's the
fact that some can operate at aat a fund, an investment fund,
and the goal there is to spin upa net new venture that can
hopefully raise capital on itsown or at the very least be, you
know, self sustaining from acash flow standpoint. And then
there's the kind of corporateinnovation, EIR, which I've not

(43:49):
yet been I I have a question foryou on that, Ilya, at the end
and and you as well, Terrence.And that one's a little
different.
Right? Because a lot of times,the corporate EIR isn't
necessarily gonna get equityownership in whatever new
venture it is, but in in thefund model, they absolutely are.
And so I think generally how Iwould explain the more nuanced

(44:10):
role is, 1, it is an experiencedentrepreneur or executive, let's
call them an operator, who istemporarily embedded within an
organization, whether that be,an investment firm, corporation.
It could be a university. Right?
There's academic, EIRs. AsTerrence just let us know before

(44:32):
we started recording,apparently, there's trust in the
states EIRs now. Right? Butwhatever that organization is,
their responsibility as an EIRis to identify market
opportunities for new businessventures or to help accelerate
the growth of existing venturesor existing business units
through innovation. And part ofthat process, absolutely, Ilya,

(44:54):
is what you're talking about istranslating, well, here's what
it's coming at.
I think there's just people whoare naturally predisposed from a
personality and characterstandpoint to really drive
towards innovation, drivetowards, entrepreneurship. And
by the way, I'm not I'm notsaying they're the best. Right?
Like, you need very goodoperators. I've certainly

(45:15):
benefited from from havingpeople who say, oh, no.
I don't want risk. But once youguys stabilize, once you guys
are series b, series a, like,I'll go work there. That sounds
awesome. And we need thosepeople, the yin to the yang.
Right?
But to start off, you need thosefolks who are really
entrepreneurially driven. So,generally, you're brought into
either incubate new ideas, maybeeven mentor other, operators,

(45:37):
executives internally who, hey.We know we need to innovate. We
just don't really know how, andthen navigate the specific
business challenges after that.

I really like how you've gone through, you know,
what I end up explaining topeople, a lot, which is your
your role as a as a entrepreneuror ex in residence, and your ex
could be anything. It can be anexecutive in residence, an
operator in residence, a founderin residence, operator in
residence. I I I know peoplewho've held all those titles,
you know, and they've been doingsomething similar or very

(46:08):
different depending on whattheir residence is. Right? Some
people's residence is a lawfirm.
Some people's residence is amuseum, you know, which will
those people, we will try to getthem on the file later on. Some
people's residence is a trustand a stake. Some people's
residence is a family office.It's a university. So many that
I've seen EIRs across thespectrum and that in some places

(46:30):
they actually pair EIRs with aFIR.
Right? They're actually not thesame sort of role. Right? It's
it's a operator in residencewith a founder in residence, so
an entrepreneur in residencewith a founder in residence, and
they see those roles verydifferently. And and that's just
in the context of thinking aboutNorth America.
Don't get me started thinktalking about, like, Europe and

(46:50):
Asia and in other parts of theworld where, you know, the EIR
could be called a venturebuilder and that's seen as more
acceptable and so on and soforth. So I I think it's
important for people tounderstand that your residence
will sometimes dictate what youdo, you know, as as the person
that's in the residence at thatorganization. If you anything to

(47:11):
add to that, Ilya?

No. I mean, I I think what's cool is we sort of
laid a little bit of the surfaceof what's possible. I think at
the very basic level, you know,even to Luis' point where a lot
of the time you sort of knowwhat the secret sauce of the
person is and you know what theneed for the organization is.
And, you know, you don't try todo too much structure, because
I've seen some folks say, weneed an EIR. Here are the job

(47:35):
requirements for the EIR.
Here's exactly what they do. Andthey have, like, no idea what
the differentiating you know,like, what this person brings to
the table, and and how it couldhelp. And so I think that's
pretty cool to sort of say, youknow, secret sauce meets need.
And then last thing I've kindarealized a little bit is you

(47:55):
normally have to reskill alittle bit, you know, not in,
like, the founder operator rolebecause, you know, whether
you're doing it with a partneror without, that's a lot more
similar than not. But in, like,a corporate innovation setting,
there's a lot of, you know, softpower and influence and other
things that you have to sort ofdo and that's not necessarily
everybody's background.
But I I think that's good. I Ithink what's what's fun to to

(48:17):
think about is, you know, howdoes that role evolve and and
and what happens? And therethere's just a lot of different
ways that it can kinda develop.But, you know, what what are we
we actually chatted a little bitbefore we started recording
here, that that there's a lot ofopportunities of transferring
expertise as, you know, kind ofmarkets and business models and

(48:39):
things like that are, evolving.Maybe, Luis, I'll toss it back
over to you to sort of talkabout some of the things you're
excited about and and, you know,kind of what EIRs could do and
how the role could evolve.

Yeah. Absolutely. So in terms of how I I see this
space evolving, I would startwith more definition, but I
wanna be careful with thatbecause, again, one of the
beauties of the EIR role, and Ithink why people like the 2 of
you and myself and and,candidly, entrepreneurs are are
drawn to it is it it it's notrigid. It get it allows you a

(49:11):
certain amount of opportunity tooperate in the gray. But I do
think we are starting to seemore definition, and we would
benefit from seeing even alittle further definition.
And it it can still it stillfeels a little bit like the
Wild, Wild West. Like, Ilya, asI mentioned, when you reached
out to me, I was like, yes.Absolutely. And I can't tell you
how many times people had askedme, so how did you become an
EIR? How do I become an EIR?

(49:31):
And I just gave the sameresponse that I give, like, go
work at a start up and go getexposed to investors. Prove to
those investors that you canbring value, and and then
candidly just hope that they tapyou on the shoulder. And I'm
like, man, that's that's a poorway to go about giving advice on
career. Right? Like, I justgotta hope someone taps me on
the shoulder.
And so I think, you know, thewhat you guys are building here

(49:54):
in terms of community is part ofthat definition. Right? It's I
start I saw this early on rightafter the 2010, 2011 area where
I became a product manager. Iwhen Dan and and Jerry told me
to become a product guy, youwill become a product manager, I
said, well, can you introduce meto other product managers? And
they're like, well, yeah.
You know you know the guys here.And I'm like, no. No. No. Not at

(50:16):
our company because I know whatthey do.
I want people outside. And, Danwas like, just name a company in
Austin, a start up, and I'llemail the CEO. And so I was
like, well, here's 3 that Ithink are cool. He emailed the
CEO. The CEO said, oh, yeah.
Sure. Here's, you know, here'sTerrence. Here's Ilya. Like,
they're our senior productmanager. And I went and offered
to buy these people coffee.

(50:36):
And I was like, so so how do youdo it, and why are you doing it
that way? And and now you cantake certificates online on how
to be a product manager. Thatjust didn't exist back then.
Right? You and let alone a AIcan help you write, yeah, as a
copilot, like PRDs and ourproduct requirement docs.
Right? But, like, back then, itdidn't exist. I think we're
gonna start seeing moredefinition in the EIR role. You
know, I think an example is,there's huge value in what I'll

(51:03):
call, like, corporate innovationpartners, and that is almost
like going back to your point ofverticalize, Ilya, if you can,
as a fund or as an EIR, say, youknow what? We believe that in
this industry, there's going tobe massive opportunity over the
next 10 to 20 years.
But we're not just exact we'renot quite sure where or what or

(51:26):
how, but we wanna go fish inthat pond. Creating a a council
that allows you to ask themquestions like, what are your
current pain points? Like, whyare you guys doing it this way?
Because, again, a lot of thetime, these are people who, a,
don't really know technology,or, b, don't know innovation, or
maybe, c, don't know both.Right?
And if you can say, oh, hey.Cool. What if we just offer you

(51:47):
a title, you know, Terrence is asenior vice president of
whatever at corporation x, andyou say, look. We're gonna offer
you an advisory role at RinconVentures, and your job is really
just to accept coffees every nowand then or maybe hop on some
Zooms with Ilia, who's our EIR.And we've tapped Ilia with

(52:07):
saying, look, the industry ofcorporation x, we want you to
help us build something there,and we've got Terrence
alongside, you know, Susan andand Amy and Jack who are part of
this innovation council, and youcan start interviewing them.
We've already started to seethis happen with a few funds,
that have built corporateinnovation councils. I think the
good ones are are not they'rethey're not just providing lip

(52:30):
service to that. They're like,yeah. Look at it. All our
corporate innovation councilsare like, no.
Like, actually, we buildalongside them to the point
where those are your MVPcustomers. They will say, look.
We will sign LOIs, nonbindingLOIs that if this product
exists, we're willing to test itout. Right? So I think that's
one evolution.
I think, additionally, AI'simpact artificial intelligence,

(52:51):
and I know that can be somewhatof a buzzword, but, yeah, it's
not, to me, something, it'sgenuine. Like, it's real. I've I
think I'm sure all of us havebeen using some form of AI over
the last, at least, 6 months, ifnot 12 months. I began messing
around. I think like mostpeople, when, when ChatGPT came
out and we're all blown away byit, and now I use it on a daily

(53:12):
basis, multiple times a day tohelp me with my work.
Right? Well, I think it cannotbe understated as how it works
towards innovation. Right? So atthe very least, having improved
data driven decisions. One ofthe things that I love the most
about generative AI and the waythat I use it is to just help me
brainstorm.
And sometimes I've I have anugget of an idea, you know,

(53:34):
like, for a a panel I'm gonna beon or a concept I wanna propose,
and I'll like, one of myfavorite prompts is to basically
ask it to tear apart my concept.Like, hey. Here's my concept,
and you are a skilled executivein x space. Like, poke holes in
this, and it'll tell you, like,you're a little okay. Now help
me.
Like, then I start thinkingthrough it and then so, like,
not just ideating aroundinnovation. So certainly having

(53:58):
AI almost as, like, a cocreatorinfluencer in the EIR role, But
I think also one of the areaswhere I think funds or
corporations or both are gonnabe able to distinguish
themselves is in proprietarydatasets. So as we know with AI
machine learning, bad data in,bad output, you know, good data

(54:19):
in, good output, great data,proprietary data, data that not
everybody can get in, hopefully,the better results. Right? And
so you're I I think there's anopportunity.
We've heard, for example, thatAndreessen Horowitz has been
buying up GPUs as a means to getthem to win deals in the AI
space. Hey. You know, Terrence,you you guys are an AI startup.

(54:40):
We've got a whole stash of GPUs.We'll give you access to them at
a discounted rate.
But, also, what if funds orcorporations are saying, well,
wait a second. We have thebiggest proprietary database
around x. It might not be superclean, but if we combine it with
other organizations, then all ofa sudden having access to that
proprietary data certainly is isof value. And I think that's

(55:05):
just a couple of ways that Ithink AI is gonna massively,
influence the way that EIRs workand and develop concepts. And
then lastly, I'll I'll say oneother thing is and this is one
of my hopes for the communitythat you guys are are are
building that I'm I hope to be apositive contributor to building
as well is getting exposure toother types of EIRs.

(55:28):
I will tell you is I've met veryfew EIRs, but I've not so, you
know, it's very anecdotal, butI've not met a single female EIR
as an example. And I'm sure the2 the 3 of us here have worked
with some world class femaleoperators, entrepreneurs. I'm
like, well, wait a second. Like,if I had a fund, if I had a
$100,000,000, like, I'd go tapMegan or text Sarah or, you

(55:50):
know, and say, like, you shouldbe in the IR. So I'm sure
they're out there.
I just haven't met them, butthat's candidly because there's
no there's no meetup for EIRs.You guys are starting to build

that. Sure.

So I I hope the evolution will also show, one,
there is more people. Right?Like, I'm I'm a Hispanic EIR.
I've not met another HispanicEIR, but I'm sure they're out
there. Right?
And so it's like 1 at the veryleast, getting exposure to the
different kinds of EIRs and thenhopefully bringing in more
people into the EIR, space andEIR role.

I like this a lot, man, because it it goes to
access. Right? I I think, youknow, education and
entrepreneurship was theequalizer for me. Right? I I
came from a small town.
Right? Nobody was, you know,doing this sort of stuff. I'm a
first generation collegestudent. I had no examples. You
know, it it was sort of a veryinteresting path, right, for me.

(56:40):
And like I said, the EIR rolegave me the opportunity, right,
to actually take the leapbecause I couldn't sleep on my
friend's couch. I was too old todo that at that time, you know,
and and so on and so forth.Right? So I I think that's
really important. But I thinkthe other thing is that people
are looking for people, examplesof people who who look like
them, who walk the path thatthey've walked, and so on and so

(57:01):
forth.
In every organization I'vejoined, I I've been the 1st
black entrepreneur in residence,right, for the most part, you
know. And that's no knock to theorganization or or anybody else,
but it's like, it would havebeen nice for me to talk to
another EIR who had done thisrole before in the type of
organization like this before,to tell me what landmines I was

(57:23):
gonna potentially step on andand to avoid. And and I think
that community, that ecosystem,that network is something that I
think about constantly. And mostpeople in the ecosystem know me
for being an ecosystem builderand wanting to solve sort of
this problem, around itshouldn't be hard for another
EIR to find another one to askquestions to, you know. And

(57:45):
today, there's no channel.
There's no mechanism, right, forthem to be able to do that. So I
I I do think and this this thisadvent sort of, this explosion
of AI into the world of howpeople perform their role as the
entrepreneur in residence. Andwhatever their residence might
be, I think is gonna be a big,big, big deal with AI. We're

(58:05):
seeing the people that that wetalk to and we we do things for
as entrepreneurs in residence inmy organization, talk about how
we're bringing AI into venturebuilding. Right?
And we actually have proprietarytools where we have synthetic
personas that we can interviewdoing customer discovery that
gets us like 90% of the waythere. Right? From real
interviews that we've done, 2,300 of them for every venture we
build. Right?

That's so cool.

It's just the data is there. We can do AI's be
based synthesis. We can dothings that we couldn't do
before, but we need to be ableto evolve. And and and that's
important. And I think having anetwork or organization full of
these sort of people with theDNA that will want to pivot and
want to evolve is important.
And, curious to know yourreactions to that, Luis.

Completely agree. We there needs to be an avenue
for EIRs to ask other EIRs, youknow, questions, suggestions. I
I for better or worse, I like tooperate on a huge level of
candor. I think for the mostpart, that's good, but sometimes
it's bitten me in the butt.Sometimes maybe I can be a
little too direct with people,right, where I should maybe
soften the blow a little bit orsomething.

(59:09):
But, the ability to just belike, look, I'm I, for example,
with Acadium, I'd never onceoperated in the ed tech space.
And I got very lucky in that Ihad a friend in Josh who was
like, dad, don't worry aboutthat. I can teach you education.
And, you know, he handed me, theBMO report, which essentially
became my bible to to learn theindustry. And, you know, with

(59:33):
the ability to just say, guys, II don't actually know what I'm
doing right here, right now.
Can does somebody else hassomebody else done this? Can you
help me? And having a communityto say, oh, yeah. No. I've done
that.
Right? Like, that's one of thethings that I'm most interested
in in in being a member of thiscommunity is being able to, one,
ask those questions because Idid EdTech, but I might do or,

(59:54):
you know, EdTech, workforcetech, I might do prop tech next.
Right? Or I I'm not quite sure.And I might be like, hey, guys,
who who the hell knows what thisword means.
Right? And can you guys help me?I'm trying to figure out
something around it. And thenadditionally, on the AI, piece,
I I love what you said.Terrence, around, and and after
the the recording here, I wannafollow-up with you on it around
this sort of synthetic customerdiscovery work.

(01:00:15):
We're also like and I know,Terrence, you and I talked about
this a couple weeks ago. It's amodel that I think is really
cool, and a group that you and Iboth know and I've talked to is
AI Fund. And what they're doing,which for those, you know, folks
who will listen, if you'reunfamiliar, they're, Andrew Ng,
who's the founder of Coursera,essentially really one of the
creators of what we call MOOCs,massively open online courses,

(01:00:40):
and one of the preeminentmachine learning professors,
engineers, developers in theworld created this fund, and I'm
gonna completely simplify whatit is. And I'm sure the people
at IAI who will maybe kick me inthe shin for making it too
simple. But the way that Iunderstood it is they're saying,
look, we just know AI is gonnahave massive disruption on a ton

(01:01:01):
of different industries.
So we wanna create a fund aroundidentifying opportunities,
market opportunities by applyingAI into a venture, into an
industry. Like, that's it.They're almost like industry
agnostic, but they just say,like, what is an opportunity for
AI in x industry, in y industry,in z industry? And if it's not

(01:01:21):
AI first or AI specific, theythey don't operate there. Right?
And that to me shows I I've notseen another fund get launched
that is just around, hey. We'rejust gonna do application of
this technology into thisvertical. It's typically we're
gonna do an application oftechnology. Like, if you guys

(01:01:41):
have heard of 5th Wall Ventures,they do some really cool stuff.
Just saying, like, look, the thereal estate sector is super
lagging on technology.
We know technology. What if wecreated a fund that helps
technology get into in the thereal estate sector in different
verticals? Right? But that'stechnology broad. This is just
AI.
Right? It's not like anyonesaid, hey, we're just going to
do quantum computing, and thenwe're just gonna apply it to

(01:02:03):
every industry or we're gonnado, you know, blockchain or
cryptocurrency and just apply toevery at least I haven't seen
those. They might exist. So, nooffense meant to those
organizations that do exist. Butit's the first time where I and
I firmly agree, by the way.
I think it's a fantastic modelthat the AI Fund Group is
taking, which is just amassively disruptive technology.

(01:02:24):
Let's go apply it to differentindustries, and some of these
are gonna hit. I think AI isagain, going back to my prior
statement, Terrence, dovetailingwith what you said. I just think
its impact cannot beunderstated.

Ilya Tabakh (01:02:34):
That's awesome. I we've we've taken a a few
minutes longer than we typicallytake for these conversations,
but mostly because everybody wasexcited and there's a lot of,
you know, background and thingslike that to cover. I I we
always do like to ask, you know,we we sort of were just digging
in on, you know, what does thekinda EIR network look like and

(01:02:54):
how it can be helpful to whatyou're working on. So we'll ask
that question. And then alsoit's always helpful to sort of
think through how can ourlisteners kinda connect and
follow your work, Luis.
So maybe if we can button upthose 2. I think, otherwise, you
know, we've covered a lot ofground and look forward to sort
of doing the, the live sessionafterwards because I I know
there's gonna be a lot of bothquestions, and and we'll go

(01:03:18):
through and grab links to a lotof the things that we talked
about as far as, you know, kindaAI fund and some of the other
models that that we covered. Sowe'll be sure to sort of grab
that from the conversation aswell.

Luis Rincon (01:03:29):
Yeah. Absolutely. So in terms of, you know, what,
I wanna make sure I got thequestions correct. So one, what
can the EI what what am Ilooking to get out of the EIR
network, EIR live? And thensecondly is how can folks, keep
in touch with me?
So one, on on the EIR network,you know, so I I would joke when
people like ask me like, oh,well, you know, what do you do?
I I like to say, like, I'm astartup masochist. This is my

(01:03:50):
3rd startup. 2nd is a founder,3rd as an operator. And for
those people who have been in astartup, they know, like, 2
years in it's like dog years.
Right? Like, 2 years in astartup is, like, you know, 14
years in in in a regularcorporate role. And I've only
ever worked one for one truecorporate role, but I I can
certainly attest to that. So,you know, if nothing else we can

(01:04:11):
maybe we call it like masochistanonymous, you know, like an AA
group where we can all gettogether and and then just vent
about, about what we're tryingto build. But generally, I
think, you know, Terrence and Ihave talked about, like, what he
was looking for, what I waslooking for in the community.
That's still very realprofessional learning and
development. And I don't meanthat just in, like, the sense
of, like, here's an officialcertificate that you can take to

(01:04:32):
prove that UER which, by theway, I love certificates. I just
finished another one on AI, bythe way. So it's not knocking
the certification space, butit's just the ability to Q and A
with people who have been vettedas as having been there before.
Right.
And one of the things that Idon't have a good answer for,
Terrence and Elia, but I'd loveto help you guys think through
it and help the community thinkthrough is how do we ensure that

(01:04:54):
there is a hurdle to get intothe group so that we've all been
there? But then additionally,how do we help more people get
into this space? And at the veryleast, I think creating
awareness through things likethe podcast will help. But for
folks who are wanting to becomean EIR, I certainly wanna help.
But where I'm gonna derive morevalue, that that's gonna drive
me more kind of personalfulfillment.
But where I'm gonna derive morevalue is going to someone like a

(01:05:16):
Terrence or someone like Nelia,who have been an EIR for an
extended period of time now andbe like, hey, guys. I've got
this going on. Do you guys, youknow, have any resources around
it? Do you have any thoughts?Maybe even saying, can I buy you
a coffee?
Can I can we hop on Zoom? Thatlevel of professional learning
and development. And thencertainly, I think opportunity
sharing. You know, what'sinteresting is I'm a 2 time
founder, and and neither timehas the concept the the initial

(01:05:38):
concept been my idea. I Iactually personally devalue, not
entirely, but I I don'tovervalue industry specific
experience and having the idea.
Right? Like, people like, oh,man. That guy, that girl, they
have the the $1,000,000 idea.It's like, no. Like, if you've
ever been in a startup, youknow, the idea looks like a

(01:06:00):
square when you start and youiterate and you iterate, and by
the end, it looks like ahexagon.
And you're like, well, thehexagon has kind of a little bit
of a square in there, but it,you know, it started there and
where it evolved. So I'm moreconcerned. And where I've really
spent my time in trying to honemy skills is how can I iterate
to help get to the hexagon asfast as possible? And that said,

(01:06:21):
what I do like doing, this goesback to the industry council,
kinda corporate innovationgroup, is surrounding myself
with people who are veryfamiliar and hopefully currently
in the industry with the painpoint that we're trying to
solve. There is nothing thatwill ever be the still the we
can talk about AI all we want.
This is the most powerful toolthat an entrepreneur has. It's

(01:06:42):
the phone. It's get on the phonewith somebody, talk to them
who's who could be a potentialcustomer and get it to get to
understand that. As long as yousurround yourself, in my
opinion, with folks who do knowthe industry and you have to
make a commitment to ramp upyour learning curve as fastly as
possible in that industry, Iwould overweigh the ability for

(01:07:06):
someone to be iterative and anentrepreneur than having the
idea. Right?
Like, I I have buddies who workin real estate because I worked
in real estate and constructionwho don't have the most basic
idea of how an app works, of howa website works. But they come
to me and say, hey, wouldn't itbe cool if, like, if this could
happen? Because and I'm like,well, wait. Wait. Why do you

(01:07:26):
want it to happen that day?
It's like, oh, because we spend,like, 20 hours a week doing it.
I'm like, that is the problem.

Terrance Orr (01:07:31):
There you go.

Forget about the website. Like, that's the pro
let's talk more about thatthing. But then they need to be
paired with someone. So if thatperson tried to launch a venture
around this, they have no ideahow to build technology. Right?
And so it's like, don't hey.Don't worry about that. We can
pair you. There's really greatsoftware engineers that we work
with or product managers. We'llwe'll pair you with them.
But, like, really knowing thatindustry pain point is important

(01:07:54):
and then being able to iterate.And so I I think where I've
spent most of my time and honingmy skills is being a person who
can iterate. And I like, I lovethe workforce tech edtech space.
I certainly see myself stayinginvolved there for a long time,
maybe only continuouslyoperating there. I I don't know
about that, but it's it iscertainly one of the spaces that
I have learned a lot on.
I've got a lot of scar tissuethere. But more more

(01:08:15):
importantly, I've I pride myselfon learning how to iterate
quickly to build something ofvalue.

Awesome. And where can people follow your work and
connect with you?

Yeah. So for the most part, LinkedIn, and I'm
sure Terrence and Ilya will putup my my LinkedIn there. I used
to have a a a personal website.Candidly, I shut it down because
as you guys know, once you getpost that you know, once we
launched the venture, I justdidn't have time to update my
website as often as possible.Also, when we started, when my
cofounder and I cofounders,pardon me, and I started the

(01:08:44):
company, I I wasn't married,didn't have any kids.
I'm now married. I have 3 kids,one dog, mortgage. Like, you
know, I coached little leaguebaseball and soccer. You know,
just stuff that takes up yourtime. So, unfortunately, I don't
have a a public website anymore.
I might revive that. I'm also onTwitter. I'll provide you guys
with my, my Twitter handle aswell or, excuse me, x. Just be

(01:09:09):
warned, it's probably gonna befilled with a lot of Dodgers,
Lakers, Longhorns, reposts. Soprobably more so than start up
stuff, because it it's where Igo to kinda scratch my, sports
fanatic itch.
Awesome. Well, I

Man, that's awesome.

Yeah. I I think we probably need to leave it at
that. I know there's a lot ofmeat here, and so we're we'll
sort of, pull on those threadsin the follow-up and then kinda
see what questions folks have.But really appreciate you coming
on and taking the time and, youknow, enjoyed the conversations
over the years. But moreimportantly, I I love the sort

(01:09:45):
of continued engagement and andwillingness both to even in your
answer to what the EIR networkcould do for you, you answered
with how what you could do forit.
So, I mean, I think that saysvolumes about the way you think
about the world. So always kindof appreciate the time and the
conversation.

Massive plus one. And, I know you have to run,
man, but just wanted to extendthat as well. Thank you for for
gracing us with your presence. Ican talk to you for another hour
about about this topic. But I'mgonna let you go today, and and
and the guest will likely askfor a part 2.
So thank you.

Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys, for what you're
doing. Thank you for having meon here. I I enjoyed it. I could
talk to 2 of you guys, you know,for way more than another hour.
You know, I think one of thethings that I wanna end on this
is, for me, being industryspecific is less important than
kinda knowing generally where Iwanna go. And I think one of the

(01:10:36):
most frustrating, if not themost frustrating thing in this
world, is unfulfilled humanpotential. I that's one of the
things I love about the EIR roleis, like, Terrence, you said,
you you didn't wanna sleep onsomeone's couch, but you got a
bridge, and that bridge was theEIR role, and it helped you
reach your potential. And so Ilike to operate in spaces that I
I hope helps people reach theirpotential. You know, my motto is
as long as I'm making thingsthat make people happy, healthy,

(01:10:57):
wealthy, and wise, I'm gonna behappy.
And I think what the EIRcommunity could do, certainly
for someone like myself, isgonna help me reach my potential
as an EIR. And I wanna make surethat I give back to it so that
people can also reach theirpotential that are currently
EIRs and folks who wanna becomean EIR as well. So count me in,
and count me in for a part 2,whatever whatever that means.

(01:11:18):
But, yeah, whatever's coming,I'm I wanna be part of it, guys.
So thanks a lot for what you'redoing.
Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you for the time. Thanks for joining us on
EIR Live. We hope today'sepisode offered you valuable
insights into theentrepreneurial journey.
Remember to subscribe so youdon't miss out on future
episodes, and check out thedescription for more details. Do
you have questions orsuggestions?
Please reach out to us. Connectwith us on social media. We
really value your input. Catchus next time for more inspiring

(01:11:46):
stories and strategies. Keeppushing boundaries and making
your mark on the world.
I'm Terrance Orr with my co-hostIlya Tabakh, signing off. Let's
keep building.

All Episodes

Episode 02 - Navigating Entrepreneurial Journeys and Insights with Luis Rincon

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Boysober

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 02 - Navigating Entrepreneurial Journeys and Insights with Luis Rincon