Dollhouses, Downshifts, and the Role of Resilience in Transformation

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tonya J. Long (00:03):
And welcome.
We are at the top of the hourhere at KPCR LP 92.9 in gorgeous
Los Gatos.
It's going to be 75, 78 degreestoday, beautiful blue skies,
and my beautiful friend from LAhas joined us in the studio.
I am so excited to welcomeBelinda Ephraim to Reset with

(00:26):
Tonya Now.
We talk about transitions andresets here, and Belinda is
remarkable.
She has the distinction that alot of us don't.
She grew up in a wholedifferent continent.
Belinda grew up in Nigeria andfrom there she came to the US
and we'll talk about her story.
But she worked 16-hour shiftsat Marriott before.

(00:49):
Are you ready for this?
Before she structured over $37billion in M&A activity as an
investment banker.
She's remarkable because of thejourney that she is still on.
So she went from $37 billion ininvestment banking M&A activity
to then getting more creativeand opening her own cosmetics

(01:10):
company.
She became a chemist and thenfrom there she's now a VC,
building a deep tech venturecapital fund and doing
fundraising for that.
So her journey has beentremendous.
I am blessed that she's here onthe West Coast, even though
she's a five-hour drive away,but today she is here in the

(01:30):
studio in Los Gatos.
Belinda, I couldn't be morehappy to see you.
It's been too long.
Tell us about your currentpriorities.
What are you working on now?
It's always a surprise with youwhat new things are coming your
way, thank you for having me,Tonya.

Belinda Ephraim (01:44):
This has been an amazing moment, full circle
moment for me when I think aboutmy life and also my career
track over the years, and one ofthe things that I'm really
focused on right now is takingall of those experiences and

(02:04):
really culminating them intothis venture capital firm.
So right now, it's reallytaking my experiences over two
decades now and culminating intoTonsua Capital, which is an
industrial deep tech venturefirm that I am starting as well

(02:24):
as fundraising for.
So we're fundraising.
We are looking to raise $50million for our first fund and
that capital will be deployedinto 15 to 20 investments in the
industrial deep tech space.
So that's what my focus is onright now.

Tell us about TENSEUR.
I took French in high school,so I have to embellish it far
more than the French would behappy with.
But TENSEUR, where'd the namecome from?
And tell us about the industrythat you are focused in, because
I find that interesting.
You know, I'm in this techbubble here where everyone is
focused on the latest AI wrapperright and you're going after

(03:08):
big whales.
You're going after largecapital, large like supply chain
.
Are you buying ships andcontainers?
What are you focused on withTensoir?

I love that and the French would be thankful
for the embellish.
I love that and the Frenchwould be thankful for the
embellish.
I love it.
So tensoire is really Frenchfor tensor and tensor is
mathematical.
It could also apply to computerscience, deep learning, machine
learning, but it really is themultidimensional array of data

(03:44):
so that data can be applied tovectors, scalars and any other
sort of mathematical algebraicexpressions Multidimensional, so
anyways.
So that kind of is thedefinition, because the way I
see the firm is really as a, sothe legal name of the firm is

(04:05):
actually TENSEUR Capital.
It's a vector, so the space,and then the collective are all
of the different constituentsfrom myself, investors,
primarily founders, ourscientific council advisors, so
in other words, the vision thatI am thinking about implementing

(04:26):
and building this platform.
So it's not just a first timefund.
I actually want this to get toa billion dollar plus type of VC
firm focused on industrial,deep tech.
So industrial, because mybackground throughout the years
have been investment banking andgrowing up in West Africa,

(04:49):
nigeria, west Africa.
My father was a civil engineerand my mother was a scientist on
the geological side, plantscience, and then my father was
in oil and gas early in hiscareer, and so he was one of the
young engineers that were hiredby oil companies at the time

(05:09):
after Nigeria gainedindependence and coming into
Nigeria to obviously takeadvantage of the resources that
were available, and so he waspart of the team that actually
built out one of the longest gaspipelines in West Africa At the
time it was called theTransfacando gas pipeline and so

(05:32):
he's an engineer, my mom's ascientist, growing up a building
products manufacturing company,and so I grew up understanding

(05:53):
things like sanitary wear,what's a closet bidets, and
having to see my parentsliterally start this from
scratch, so that industrial sortof insight from the
entrepreneur's viewpoint,because I think a lot of times
we VCs think we understand whatit is to be an entrepreneur, and

(06:14):
it's an extremely difficultpersonal journey, thank you.
And so, growing up in thatatmosphere, I understood what
feast famine.
I also understood what it tookto build a business, because I
saw my parents build it fromscratch together.
At the time in the 80s.
They would travel to China.
China was not producinganything at that time, but they

(06:37):
would travel to China to thedistricts that actually had a
lot of the marble quarries, andso that's where they would get
some of the raw materials, thepowders, the resins that they
would need in order to puttogether this chemical.
And then they would source someof the other raw materials from
Europe.
So Italy, the equipment wasfrom Italy and they'll put all

(07:00):
that together.
And so, growing up in that andthen, obviously, my journey, I
got into investment banking andwhen you first start with
investment banking, they kind ofassign you your group right,
because based on the bank'sneeds and where they need people
.
And so the first thing that wasassigned was industrials group

(07:22):
and I was like what is anindustrials group was
industrials group, and I waslike what is an industrials
group?
Industrial sector is actuallyone of the largest sectors that
contribute to the US GDP andthat encompasses manufacturing,
processing, transportation,aerospace, defense the things
behind the scenes that we don'tsee as consumers.

(07:43):
That's the industrial sector,so the movement of goods and
services to get to the customer.
So that was where I cut myteeth working with Fortune 500
companies on their deals.
So naturally, the size of thetransactions that I worked on
were larger but unsexy.

(08:05):
Do we not consume a product?
So when I would tell my friends, oh yeah, I worked on CXS,
which is a massivetransportation company, and it's
like daring headlights, likethey don't know what to make of
it.
Or if I said Lockheed Martin,like they wouldn't understand
that.
And so it was a space that Ireally wanted to own, and that's
really why I like theindustrial piece.

(08:26):
Now, the deep tech piece is whenI look at where we are today
and I look at the technologiesmoving forward and I look at my
experience, one of the thingsthat I realize is I want to play
at the frontier of thesetechnologies, but I didn't want
to do it as an enterprise, saas,vc type of firm because I had

(08:51):
to.
So I think maybe this is maybeI'm jumping ahead here to some
of the things that we've, butafter I wound down my company,
my startup, my manufacturingstartup, I took about a year and
a half to really consider whatmy next move was going to be,
and when I decided on becoming aVC, this was something that was

(09:15):
important to me and I decidedokay, what segments of the
market or where do I feel I canbring the most value?
And I realized that a lot ofVCs don't know how to underwrite
and or evaluate deep techcompanies, and these are

(09:36):
companies that primarily eitherhardware so hard tech combined
with maybe some software or somekey enabling technology that
can revolutionize theirinnovation.
So that's where I decided toplay, because it really fit my
wheelhouse and how I see myselfcontributing to the founders

(10:01):
that we support within thecollective.

Excellent.
So to me, what's interestingabout you?
You had a cosmetics company andnow you're looking at these.
Deeply technical, you'relooking beautiful, good, so
you're looking at these.
We have never had so many.

We're just gonna laugh about it, because
that's this is shown.
This is exactly how this islife.

This is life.
And now that you are on a micand I am on a mic, but it's not
about editing, it's aboutengagement, right?
You and I both, yes, and Ithink that's why you've moved
from big tech, from bigenterprise systems, to cosmetics
, to get more personal, and thennow back into deep tech.
Not just big tech, but deeptech, because it often starts

(10:54):
small but very, very niche, very, very complex, and you have to
dig in.
So clearly you've got the brainbandwidth for that.
I do I want to go back to whenyou were in Nigeria?
And then you how old were youwhen you moved to the States?

So, for context , I was 16 when I moved
officially to the States.
Prior to that, my parents, wealways traveled as a family.
Well, yeah, yeah, we alwaystraveled as a family.
We had homes in London, yeah,so we had a home in a flat in
London.
We always traveled as a family.
We had homes in London, yeah.
So we had a home in a flat inLondon, we had a home in the
Florida Keys, and so we wouldtake three months out of the
year and literally do the loop,the loop, nice, and maybe we

(11:36):
might pick an extra Europeancountry Brussels or Amsterdam or
something like that in between.
So my familiarity with Americawas like from a tourist
perspective.

Yeah From a oh mom dad.
This is great.
We're going to Florida to hangout with the alligators.
Can I see an alligator thistrip?

Actually, no, it was more like oh, we get to
eat bacon and eggs oh geez.
We get to eat the Americanbreakfast.

I.
We do have good breakfast here.
Eggs oh geez.
We get to eat the Americanbreakfast.
We do have good breakfast herebecause I've traveled
extensively through Asia andthey hand you a hard boiled egg
and some raw fish and they callit breakfast and I'm like, no,
this is not breakfast.
So we do have good breakfasthere.
I love that.

That's what you remember enjoying yeah, I
remember enjoying that and acouple of the other things we
could get my dollhouses, becauseI used to love building
dollhouses from scratch as ayoung child.

I made my mama a dollhouse when she was like 55.
Oh wow, and that was a reallyspecial memory.
It's like building a great bigmansion on teeny, teeny, tiny
scale, and I can see why you Ididn't know this about you, but
I can see why you would havebuilt tall houses, because you
get to do the whole thing in amatter of weeks or months.

Yes, and that was really my childhood growing
up, my childhood growing up.
We're six kids and I was afirst girl, first child.
Oh geez, yes, I know.
And but after me were two boys,and as a girl growing up with
two boys, it was either playwith them or learn to be on my
own.
I had to learn how to do bothequally well.

(13:12):
That's remarkable, yeah, and soI never had dolls.
I didn't even know what aBarbie doll was.

You had a full-scale house.

I had a full-scale house, one thousandth
of normal size, exactly Onethousandth of normal size, and
so I was always excited aboutreceiving dollhouses to build
from scratch with the littlepieces.
It would come in a bag andliterally I would have to build
it.
And my father?
I remember Elmer's glue, so Ilove the smell of Elmer's glue.
So those were the things thatmade America for me.

So did you not have Elmer's plain white school
glue in Nigeria?
Was that a rare thing, yeah?

we had our local glue, but we wanted to use
the glue that came with the dog.

We are so far off script right now, I know, we
really are.

I love it, I do , but sometimes that's the magic
of this podcast, and anyways.
I wouldn't know this about you.
Then all the work stuff that wedo.
I've always been a builder.
Yeah, always been a builderyeah.
Always been a builder, yes, andthen I love action, marvel,
comics, things like Spider-Manand Flash Gordon and things,
because I had to hang out withmy brothers and I had to learn

(14:16):
how to climb trees.
So it wasn't until five, sixyears that my sister came and
then they started playing withBarbie dolls and I was like what
is this?
Yeah, no frame of reference.
So anyway, to answer yourquestion, I was acclimated.
But when I was 60, because Ihad graduated from secondary
school back home, so I got my, Ithink, what you guys we call it

(14:38):
a WIAC certificate, you guyscall it a high school diploma.
Oh, okay, yes.
And my parents were like, okay,we want, obviously, they're
building this industry.
And so they said we want ourchildren to go to school in
America at the time, and sowhere your parents say to go as
an African child is where you go.
Right, there is no, it's likethat in the States too.

When you're a kid .
You don't have a lot of agency,you certainly don't have budget
.
You're dependent on thoseadults to make sure you get fed,
clothed, all the little things.
So, from that perspective, thethings that matter more than the
Barbie dolls, exactly.

Here in this country, when you are a high
school student, you're planningyour college, where you're going
.
So then you go to 10 differentschools, you interview, you do
all this.
There's this whole processaround going to college and then
deciding on the college,whereas for us, that's not how
it works.
Just here's where you're goingto go, and that's it.

(15:38):
Which was fun with me, becauseI loved America so much and I
was like, oh yes, I'm going, andyou had the support of your
family and I had the support ofmy family.

A lot of people in your situation.
The support also.

The business was successful, so my father
could afford to send me toschool here.
Two years fast forward, twoyears.
I was turning 18.
And due to the politicalsituation back home, so, the way
back home, I was here inAmerica, the political situation
back home, so they were backhome.
I was here in America and allof a sudden there was a coup and
they had to flee the country.

(16:10):
We don't have that much here,yeah, thank God.
And I think this is wheresometimes, when we look at the
current climate and people arecomplaining and whether it's
this president or a Democratpresident or whatever the case
is I just keep my head downbecause I'm like you guys have
no idea in this country howprivileged and blessed we are.

(16:31):
It has been very stable, yeah,it's a very stable country,
despite the short-term hiccups.
So when I think about myexperience and seeing my father
and my mom and my sisters andeverybody now having to flee our
homeland, so with nothing, thisis when you were 18.

(16:52):
This is so.
Imagine I'm here in private.
OK, let me just give you contextbecause I think people don't
understand this.
It's I came here to thiscountry.
We flew first class to get here.
Ok, we had a home in theFlorida Keys.
My father sent me to privateschool, paying cash.
This was not a loan, this wasnot paying cash for me to go to

(17:13):
a private school here in America.
And because there is a dream,there is a vision, and then, two
years after, so I'm about tobecome a junior in university.
Okay, you were at junior inuniversity.

Okay, you were at your junior year.
Yes, junior year, third year in.

I'm about to get into my junior year and all
of a sudden, I can't do that.
I have to drop out.
Oh wow.

Okay.

Because they had to flee to this country and
seek political asylum, and sobecause of that.
Everything got shut down Talkabout overnight, and so I had to
step back and really step up.

Yes, Adulthood came quickly.

Oh yeah it definitely came at the age of 18
.
Yeah, yeah, and so I had tohelp my family to help my family
.
My parents, at the height oftheir career, came here to this
country and were deliveringnewspapers.
My dad was in his 40s.

(18:16):
My mom as well.

He was delivering the paper in his 40s.

Yes, and that's so humbling.

When you've had everything you wanted, and then
you're doing the job thattypically is reserved for
teenagers, or even younger, on abike, even younger on a bike.

Yeah, yeah, back in the day, but he and my
mom that's what they did, yeah,and then finally he was able to
get into like an engineeringposition, because, again he had
the education engineeringposition because again I had the
education.
My mom ended up having to workat a CVS just so we could all
make ends meet, and then I endedup having to work as well.

(18:54):
So I ended up working threejobs, starting at Marriott, and
so 16 hour shifts, and what thatmeant was so, again, I'm very
smart, I think I'm smart, I knowwhat I know, but I don't know
what I don't know.
And so over time I had threejobs in three different
locations, and so what I did was, as each position became

(19:15):
available within the samecompany, I applied and I got in.
So I had three jobs in onehotel, one company.
So then that way.

Oh, you were efficient as well.
I was efficient, yes, because Iknow a lot of smart people who
are not efficient.
We've worked with those poorsouls, right.
Yes, I'm so in awe andadmiration of the resilience
that you've had an opportunityto build, as you've been a
businesswoman here now for along time, upwardly mobile and
successful.
What do you think you learnedgrowing up in Nigeria that

(19:49):
differentiates you?
I?

think the first thing was at the age of 10, I
was sent off to boarding school.
So I was sent up to anall-girls boarding school, and
not the Switzerland kind, okay.
So an all-girls boarding schoolwas founded by the missionaries
that came to Nigeriapre-independence, and so these

(20:15):
were female missionaries whowere all about girl empowerment,
and so they built secondaryschools across the country
federal government girls'college secondary schools in
different states and that's whenmy parents decided to send me
to school.
So while in the school, imagineat 10 years old you are given a

(20:36):
plot of land, so you form yourland with a cutlass.
At what age?
Machete, 10.
Okay, because it was all aboutin hindsight I thought it was
punishment, but that's just theway any manual labor seems to a
10-year-old.

Exactly yeah.

But I realized in hindsight it was really about
self-sufficiency.
When you go out into the worldas a woman, can you figure it
out?
Can you survive Because you'reas a woman, can you figure it
out?
Can you survive Because you'renot a man?
Men, inherently boys.
They should be able to do thesethings.

But they have your brothers in the laundry
room learning how not to bleachthe colors.

My brother actually had to also go to his
version of the boys' school andlearn how to take care of
himself.
That didn't really go so far,but for us it was okay.
Learn how to do your laundry byhand, because there was no
washer dryer, right.
So it was all of these thingsthat I learned as a child, and I

(21:39):
did that for six years.
It was if the water supply inthe borehole didn't carry water
into the dormitory, then I hadto go to the next.
All of us had to carry 10gallon containers 10 gallon and
that's heavy, and that's heavyand go downhill to the next

(22:01):
village.
Your resilience was earned andcarry water on our head.

You have one on your head.

You have your two hands, yep.
So when I walk straight here inAmerica, people think I'm
arrogant.
I'm like no, I had to learn towalk straight because I had to
carry water.
Here in America people saycatch, what is it?
Carry, chop wood, carry water.
That's an African saying,because nobody who ever says
that quote understands what itis to chop wood and carry water.

I think that's what makes you and I alike.
I don't see you often enough,but I worked in the tobacco
fields with the men and I helpedthe women bring in.
They called it dinner, but wewould call it lunch.
It was the midday meal and thenI cleaned up the mill and then
I went back out in the fieldswith the men.
I chopped wood so that we hadheat during the winters and in

(22:55):
Tennessee it's very cold, and sowe all have wood-burning stoves
back at that time.
And so it would be my unclesand my dad and my brother and me
up on top of the hill and theywould toss logs to me off the
back of the truck because I wasprobably like nine, 10 years old
and sturdy I've always beensturdy, that's my way of saying

(23:15):
pudgy and they would likeliterally lob the tree trunk
cuttings off the back of thetruck for me to stack.
And they were playing with me,they were teasing me, but I
think it's that learnedexperience that you and I both
have.
That is pretty unique and itdoes teach resilience.

It teaches resilience.
And then also when you get tothe top of.
So in my case, when you, afteryou fetch your water and you get
to the top your water, and youget to the top, about to enter
your dormitory, all the seniorgirls are lined up.
Oh, waiting for the juniorgirls who just went all the way
down to the next village.

(23:54):
So you were taught hierarchy.

Oh, If you For you out there on radio land, the
look she just gave me waspriceless.

I mean you have no idea and literally they
would take cups of water fromeach junior girl because they
did not want and they did notfeel that they had to go down to
that village to get water.
So by the time you get todormitory you have a quarter

(24:28):
after your $10 plus your one,plus your buckets.
You have no water but you haveto take a shower the next day
and you can't go down, so youhad to be smart.

You had to figure things out.
You had to figure things out.
That translated to workingthree jobs in the same hotel,
exactly Just a few years later.

Just a few years later.
Yes, but when it came time forme to, because I didn't
understand how, what thebenefits were, but when it came
time for me to put, I guess, themetal, the pedal to the metal,
or whatever you guys say, thenthat's when the pedal to the
metal, the pedal to the metal.

I'm here to help, thank you.
We'm here to help.

Thank you, because the grains just grew up
it grew up the same.

But that's really that was the foundation of who
I am, of course, and it guideseverything that you do.

Yes.

I'm going to take a little segue point.
We are at the part of the showwhere we give back to the
community for just a minute, andwe've talked about being 10
years old and chopping wood andhauling water.
It's a little different here inthe Bay Area and what I have to
offer is our radio camp for alittle bit older.
We're looking at 13 to 17 yearolds.

(25:34):
Camp starts on June 9th and Ithink that there's no better way
for teenagers to learn speakingskills.
It's focused around learning tobe on the radio, which is cool
and different, but also we'll beteaching podcasting, and so I
think there's a ton of teenagersthat are interested in having
their own podcasts.
So kpcrorg, the website, hasmore information about Radio

(25:59):
Camp that starts in a couple ofweeks.
It's June 9th is when it starts, and if your children would be
interested in that just or youwould be interested in that take
a look.
But we're focusing on 13 to 17year olds and I think we're
going to have a bunch ofinteresting podcasters come out
of that.
So this is KPCR LP 92.9 FM inLos Gatos beautiful, sunny blue

(26:19):
sky, los Gatos and KMRT LP 101.9FM out of Santa Cruz, and I can
only imagine what the beachlooks like today Glorious, don't
you know?
Because it's a gorgeous day.
So let's we've talked about howyou built resilience let's look
at how you built themultiplicity of who you are.
You had to work in a hotelbecause it was it was very much

(26:42):
a starter job, I get that.
But then you went from thereinto investment banking and put
together $37 billion in M&A, sobefore I got to investment
banking actually.

So one thing I learned I guess my father really
espoused to us children waseducation was everything for us,
and especially a lot ofAfricans.
When you meet an African herein America or anywhere else in
the world, we are probably oneof the most educated citizens of

(27:13):
the world because we know thatwithout education we can't
really be much of anything.
When I was working as a frontdesk agent in the hotels, I
actually decided to take a quickcourse at the local college.

Because this was at a time for those who are
listening, who don't understandthat when she couldn't just get
on the internet because you lookyoung, but I know.
So there was no internet at thetime for classes.

For online classes.
Yes, there was no internet atthe time, and I think thank you
for bringing that up, because Ithink the internet is really
what, and this is why I want tobe where I am with my fund.
So I took a class because Iwanted to.
This was the third job that Iwas going for, which was a night
auditor job, and I didn't knowaccounting, or at least how it

(28:09):
should be done, so I took anight course at the Naval base,
and that's how I ended upgetting that job now.
So now that was my third job,but so I took what I learned in
numbers and consolidated threejobs into one as a wealth

(28:29):
analyst or wealth managementanalyst.
It's that job that I made.
So, all of a sudden, I wasmaking the equivalent.
So the dots connect, so thedots are connecting, and then so
, during my time there, Ilearned a lot about wealth
management, about stocks, bonds,at least just fundamentally,

(28:50):
and this was during a time thatthe AOL Time Warner merger was
going on.
And I think it was almostsimultaneously with the Hoxha
Simpson trial, I think.
I'm not sure, but I didn't havea TV in my home and so when we
get to work, the CNBC was on andthis was the glorified IPO of

(29:13):
its day.
And I said to myself I said,wow, I don't know what those
guys are, but that's what I wantto do.
Literally, I said that youwanted to build those
partnerships.

However you look at an M&A, you knew that from
looking at CNBC when you wouldgo into work.
Yes, that was something youwanted to be part of, yeah, Okay
.

And so I said, okay, what do they do?
What are they called?
I had no idea what they werecalled.
And so I did my research and Iwas like, oh, this is exciting
business.
And I was like you know what?
I know that the reason myfather's business failed was
primarily because of thepolitical regime.
However, when I look back, I'mlike, okay, why wasn't he able

(29:57):
to restart the?

business.

It's good to ask these questions but, it's
one thing to say, oh, this waswhy, but then it's okay.
What was the other thing?
And I realized that when youare in an environment that
doesn't value businesses, thatthe policies, the procedures,
the way the central bank isstructured doesn't support the
flourishing of entrepreneurship,the true flourishing of

(30:21):
entrepreneurship then that's aproblem, and so as I started to
research, but to be fair, it wasalso just an immature.

I don't mean that disrespectfully.
It's just not a matureecosystem to support Correct.
It's amazing what 22-year-oldscan do now.

Yes.

Because they're surrounded by support,
infrastructure, systems andtools that enable them to do
things that your father did nothave, the luxury of, he did not
have any of that at all.

So when I started to research what M&A
investment banking was, I waslike you know what, if I really
want to understand business, Ineed to understand money, and I
need to understand how thesepeople are able to get a couple
billion dollars or whateverprice at that point in time in
order to effect this transaction.
And so that is really whatdrove me to get into M&A.

(31:12):
I have an interesting storyabout how I got into that, but
for the sake of time, we'll passthat.
But that's how I got intoinvestment banking.

How long did you do investment banking?
Two years, 10 years.

I want to say a total of 10 years.
Five years was mostly mergersand acquisitions, and then the
remainder of five years was likeinfrastructure finance, so
financing instead of corporation.
You're financing real assets,so affordable housing, and then
that's how I got intohospitality again.

(31:45):
But this time there wassomething called revenue
management.
It's a new discipline thathotels are starting to implement
, similar to what airlines dofrom a pricing strategy
perspective.
And so when I got in and I said, oh, what's revenue management?
And at that time no one wasreally doing it, but because,

(32:06):
remember, I come from WallStreet, I understand finance,
and so all of a sudden I waslike, oh OK, I think I like this
, I don't want to do nightauditor.

I've been there, done that.
No, thank you.
You weren't going to be a60-year-old night auditor one
day.

No.
And so I said no, I don't wantto do that.
I want to do this revenuemanagement.
I want to learn something new.
But then I realized that it wasmuch more complex.
It wasn't just about pricingstrategy, it was about marketing
.
It was about sales.
It was how do you drive acustomer all the way to booking
a hotel room and all of thethings that go behind it, to

(32:40):
booking a hotel room and all ofthe things that go behind it.
And then this was what was cooland what made my experience in
that special was the idea ofsomething called new hotel
openings.
So when hotels are being opened, there is a whole strategy
behind that encompasses thebranding, the marketing.

(33:02):
And so I found myself in thisunique place where I wasn't just
going into hospitality revenuemanagement, but I was actually
opening new hotels and doing therevenue management layered on
top of that.
So I learned fast.
I learned and oh, and it was ina cluster, what they call a

(33:23):
cluster.
So what will happen is thathotel owners will buy a cluster
of properties.
It might be a mix of Marriott,hilton and an independent brand,
and so that's really where Ilearned how to different systems
and all of these differentaspects when it came to revenue
growth.

You've dealt with numbers, you've bought
companies, you've mergedcompanies, you've worked in
multiple verticals and now thatyou're working with Tensois, now
that you're building Tensoisand now I love saying it I
wasn't sure how to pronounce itbefore you got here, but now
that you're doing that, you'repulling from the end of setting

(34:04):
up these environments toeventually be acquired.
It is a good thing to build acompany that's worthy of other
people paying to own it.
Correct, and so you're buildingthat.
And on LinkedIn, a few weeks ora month or so ago, you said
venture capital is powerful butwrong for many startups.
Now, why would you say that?
Because in this town, everybodyis chasing the VCs.

(34:28):
I feel sorry for us becauseeveryone wants to raise money,
and I think it's actually verybrilliant of you as a fairly
newly minted venture capitalist.
You are how dare I?
But how dare you like lookwrong at the brotherhood and say

(34:48):
Our voices on the screen behindus are going totally off the
rocker.
I love it, but this is whathappens when you get connection.
But I think it's really worth aconversation to talk about why.
And it's not so much.
I think it's a bigger lifelesson.
It's not about venture capital,blah.
It's about not every solutionis a fit for every challenge,

(35:10):
correct, correct, okay, thatsounded good for me.
Tell me what the reality is.
Tell me why you said venturecapital is a strong opportunity,
but it's not the right fit forevery startup.

Yeah, and I probably would say 90% of
startups.

Oh wow, you got skin on the game.
On this, I am so pissed.

How?
Because of this fundamentalfact and I realized it when I
founded my manufacturing startupand so when I understood the
math a lot of startup foundersdo not understand the math that
drives VC firms.
Yeah, they also do notunderstand that when you look at

(35:51):
a cap table, any capitalstructure and remember I did
this for a living equity is themost expensive, the most
expensive cost of capital.
And so when you look at thefundamental math of traditional
VC, it does not align with a lotof startups, regardless of the

(36:13):
technologies, regardless ofwhatever it is that you're
building.
For example, let me I'veactually wrote this down because
I need to there's somethingcalled, if you look at the fund
structure and the lifespan of afund, not the firm of the fund
usually it's 10 years, right?
10 years with maybe twoone-year extensions.

(36:38):
And so when you have that andyour investment period as an
investor is maybe three to fiveyears, so the first three to
five years of your fund is whenyou're making your investments
into startups.
So timeline.

(36:58):
So by year three you shouldstart technically exiting some
of those investments.
So then that way, by year 10,you close your fund.

(37:22):
The reason why there are twoone-year annual extensions is
because for any kind of, maybethere's a company on the books
that maybe needs to stay longer,whatever the case is.
So that's the fund structureand the lifespan, and there's
something called power law.
Power law says, or states, thatif I have a portfolio of 20
companies, only two of thosecompanies should return my fund.
Remember, it's a fund You'resupposed to return.

Spreading the risk across multiple purchases.
Most of our audience are not inthis space, so this is not
something they're going to godeep on.

No, they're going to spread that risk.
So only two companies out of 20.
So if you're a founder and youcollect this money, the
expectation is that you shouldreturn 10x at a minimum and it
depends on the fund size.
So if you are not a go big orgo home kind of founder, like

(38:22):
someone like Sam Altman- Sam.

Altman just for those who are listening, he is
the CEO and the golden child ofAI.
He's the CEO of OpenAI.
Openai, or Larry Ellison.

The CEO of Oracle.
You know those, steve Jobs ittakes.

He has passed and CEO of Apple now.

No, no, no, but these are big players.

These are big players, and the average startup
is not a big player.
They don't even know what itmeans yet.
They don't even know what itmeans yet.

And their vision.
They're not the ones who cantake this company to where it
needs to be.
They're not a Steve Jobs.
They're not a ones who can takethis company to where it needs
to be.
They're not a Steve Jobs,they're not a Sam Altman.
So the founder mentality doesnot match the capital, and so
there's a misalignment withexpectations.
And then the founders think, oh, I'm going to build this to a

(39:19):
$20 million company, for youjust received capital from
Sequoia.
Sequoia is a multi-billiondollar fund, so if they're going
to invest in you, you hadbetter guarantee that they not
only get back their investment,they get back 10 times that
money.
And so if you're not thatfounder who can produce a

(39:42):
multi-billion dollar company infive years, then you should not
be at the table, and that'sreally what it comes down to.
So that's why I say it's not.
There are excellent businesses.
I'm not saying the business isnot good, but you have to
understand that capital source,the expectations around it

(40:04):
expectations around it, and sowhen these founders get into
these companies or firms as aportfolio company, they wonder
why isn't the VC giving me theall?
Why isn't the VC giving me theresources I need to grow my
company?
Sorry, I can focus on theunicorn.

This is not the grandfather model.
It's not so that's why so?

that's, and I think that.
So that's why I say what I say.

But they do take fingers.
They do take fingers and that'swhy the mafia sense yes.

The mafia sense .

The story that that I work with lots of
founders and and I have thistalk with them why are you
chasing VC money?
Yeah, and I've told almost allof them and it feels like so, it
feels like telling someone tobreathe, because it's so common
sense to you and I.
But I tell them the stories ofthe founders who have 40 and 60
million dollar exits and theymight pull two or four hundred

(40:58):
thousand from that forthemselves after they finished
paying, paying everybody else,and to have a $40 or $60 million
exit and then what you get isthe Bay Area equivalent of a
year's salary maybe a year and ahalf and you killed yourself
and your family and your lifefor years and years and you get
basically the equivalent of ayear working in an executive

(41:20):
role in the Bay Area and they dothis three times, they're doing
it multiple times and I'mthinking I don't understand it.

I'm not understanding why this is not
working.
Yeah, because this is afundamental.

This is a reality , this is a myopia.
Yep, yep, it is so.
Vc funds are not the be-allend-all.
They should not be the only waythat you monetize your
go-to-market funding capacity.

I want to give a case study because I'm
actually anyone who's listening,who knows the founder, CEO and
founder of Atlassian?

Atlassian is a very good company based here in
the Bay Area, and Australiaright Australia is where they
were founded.

Yes, that is a fascinating case study.
That is a case study that, whenI so, I did and let me just
quickly go through this I did aninteresting research and I said
if I was interested ininvesting in enterprise SaaS,
the founder that shows up at mydoor has to meet this criteria.

(42:21):
Because I want to, I want 10, Iwant 10, I want 100, I want
1,000 Atlassians.

So what made Atlassian a special investment?

So they were founded in 2002.

Okay, so they're roughly 20, 22 years old,
correct.

Guess when they went out to get VC money.

I don't know.

They got VC money in 2010.

Okay, so they operated eight years.

Eight years.
It took them eight years to getto $50 million.
There was a game plan.
You have to have a game plan.
You have to have a game plan.
You cannot go to VC money andsay here's my idea and expect
that they are going to VC.
Money should not be operationsmoney.

(43:11):
A lot of startups use VC moneyto operate their companies.
They had revenue and they wereprofitable when they decided to
go to VC.
They took VC money to grow.
Let me tell you.
You tell me revenue and theywere profitable when they
decided to go to VC, they tookVC money to grow To VC.

Let me tell you so you tell me no.

I was like I'm picking it, you know why.
So this is the thing with data,peter Walker.

Yes.

On LinkedIn Peter Walker.

Carter Carter Data Insights yes, awesome.
He's great.
A great storyteller with data.

Very great story A year ago I think he had
posted for SaaS companiesObviously a SaaS person right
Focus on deep tech.
He had posted this SaaScompany's, I think, ownership at
IPO and every other company waslike below the 30% line.
Remember, this is founding teamownership at IPO and I kid you

(44:05):
not, I was like what isAtlassian?
All the way at 75% and I askedit in the comments and no one
could tell me why.
And that bothered me Because ifthere's anything I've learned
in investment banking, it's notabout trends.

Trends are average, the anomaly.
That's a very wise statement.

Yes, trends are average.
Trends are average.
The anomaly are the winners,and so I said that's important
Good.
Are they doing?
Or what did they do?
That's crazy.
And because we talk about this40 million or 400, $400 million,
the founder maybe gets $40,000as a net payout.
What did they do?

(44:48):
This is what they did.
They proved their business model.
They were generating crazyrevenue and, when it comes to
enterprise, saas, they pricedthat thing so low that it was
scalable.
It's all about scale, but youhave to price a lot of

(45:09):
enterprise companies, saascompanies.
Now they're pricing somethinglike who are you pricing for?
Are you pricing for a Fortune100 company or are you pricing
for the small business down thestreet who really makes up
America?
The disconnect is not there andthey can't scale.
That's why they can't scale.
It's not because they're notgoing after the right customers,
or should I say it's notbecause they have the wrong

(45:31):
product.
They just don't understand howinteresting.
They don't understand theychase Fortune for $100,000, but
it's really for middle AmericaMade Atlassian successful.
Then in eight years, on theirown, they got to 58 million.
So they got that VC money andthey literally quadrupled in

(45:53):
three years Okay, quadrupledtheir revenue, got it In three
years, and that's when they wentIPO, got it.

So you said three years from VC to IPO.

So when they first did the first seed late
stage seed because they werealready a performing company, so
they had to target growth andseed farms and so from $58
million in revenues.
Then they did a secondary.
So the initial investor wantedto get out, but not in a bad way

(46:27):
because of the IPO, and so theywere able to triple their
revenues, to actually quadrupleto $215 million three years,
about three, four years later.
And then the following year waswhen so not even five years.
So in five years they were ableto go to revenue from $58

(46:49):
million to $320 million.
That is what VC money is for,okay.

Let's transition.
Yes, let's transition.
We need to transition, so we'lldo a quick station ID first.
We are at KPCR LP 92.9 inbeautiful, sunny, glorious Los
Gatos, also with sister stationKMRT LP 101.9 out of Santa Cruz,
and KPCR 92.9 has justintroduced and I am a proud

(47:20):
member of the Signal Society weare a public radio station,
which means we are funded byusers who want to keep listening
to us and I think this is anovel new approach that the
station is taking so that youcan buy memberships in the
station.
It starts at $5 a month $5 amonth to listen to Belinda and I

(47:41):
messing up our microphone andtrying to figure out how to
engineer those but to reallyinteresting eclectic music and
other genres of interviews, andit starts at $5 a month, moves
to $10 and $25.
As you go up the ladder you getmerchandise.
You get a member card if you'relocal to Los Gatos, so you get

(48:03):
discounts on wine and donuts andmaybe oil changes, I don't know
.
But we're building up thecompanies that are helping KPCR
by bringing business to youthat's discounted from them.
So, anyway, the Signal Societyyou can get to that on kpcrorg
and I think it's a neat programfor listeners to support and be

(48:24):
supported in being part of thiscommunity.
So let's talk about being partof a community and that means
podcasting One of yourtransitions.
Six or seven months ago I wasyour third guest on your
Neo-Industrialist podcast andyou schooled me on a few things
about AI.
It was great.
I think we talked an hour and45 minutes.

(48:45):
That day.
It was pre-recorded andunlimited and and we had the
longest best conversation.
What got you interested inshifting, with all that you do,
into building a community arounda podcast on neo-industrialists
.

So the neo-industrialist, so it was
titled a different podcast,obviously at the time because I
was thinking, ok, maybe I'lljust go back into M&A, yeah,
which is a natural thing to do.
But then I realized, for youjust, go back into mergers and
acquisitions?
Yeah, no problem.

I'll call somebody up, yeah.

So, but I realized during that time that,
like with everything else inlife, when you're starting
something, you used to tap intoyour network yes, and I didn't
really have a network ofbusiness owners and so I was
targeting and because of that Iwas targeting baby boomers- that

(49:47):
was your target market.
That was my target marketbecause it was the lower middle
market, and especially as anindividual advisor.
That just made sense.
The problem is I'm verytech-oriented, did you say.
The problem is yes, oh, that'snot a problem.
The problem to the customer Iwas targeting is that I'm very
future-forward thinking yes, andso I did not understand why in

(50:12):
2024, 2025, why in 2024, 2025,why these small businesses
weren't really incorporating anykind of innovation, any kind of
technology.
Innovation is hard.
It is hard to actually helpdrive the enterprise value.
So I could help sell thecompany to the private equity

(50:33):
firms and to the strategicacquirer, and so it was almost
like banging my head against thewall and then I realized that,
oh, my network.
Remember, I dropped out ofschool and it probably took me
about eight years before I wentback to school.
I was a little bit of an olderlike freshman.

I went straight through to my master's and I
will tell you I have nothing butrespect for people who come
back into the classroom likefreshmen.
I went straight through to mymaster's and I will tell you, I
have nothing but respect forpeople who come back into the
classroom from a break.
Yes, they were my fiercestcompetition.
Yeah, as a 22 year old workingon my master's degree, because
they had all this businesswisdom and life experience.
But they also they were seriousabout it because it was coming
out of their pocket, theyweren't working on scholarships

(51:15):
and they were taking time awayfrom their families.
So you again, resilience.
You knew you needed to do thatand you went back, and I went
back.

So when I think of my network, truly my network
are actually younger than I am.
Same they're millennials, genZers, and my mental ability is
actually really suited tospeaking with them,
communicating with them, workingwith them, because I get it.
We all went to the same schools.
So I started the podcastbecause I was like I'm going to

(52:01):
establish thought leadership, aswe all do when we start a
podcast for a reason.
And during that, during thoseconversations, was when I really
started to listen to my sideguests.
So my network, the groundswell,what are people talking about?
And that's when it started toclick for me that, okay, the M&A
path is really not the future,at least for me.
And given my background, I knowthat I can bring so much more

(52:24):
to the table as a VC where I canactually shape these stories
and then find the advisors thatcan support me, especially
starting up a VC firm advisorsthat can support me, especially
starting up a VC firm.
I'm going to be a solo GP, soI'll be the main investment
decision maker.

(52:44):
However, what I'm doing is I'mactually surrounding myself with
technical advisors, soengineers, scientists, who
actually understand a lot ofthese technologies, and so then
that way, they're almost asecond source.

Yeah, your LPs need to be a source of
information, of informationCollaboration.

Correct.
That's what I want for the kindof investors and advisors that
I'm bringing to the table.
So the podcast really is whatshaped.

Oh really.

Yes.

So you feel like the podcast helped lead you to
this choice to be.

Absolutely Fascinating.

Because I'm looking to see it.
I'm only like two and a halfthree months into my podcast and
I'm still asking the questionof what am I here for?

What am I?

doing.
I know what the themes are.
I know, what my heart caresabout.
But I'm like, should I be doingthis?
This takes a lot of time.

Yes, it takes a lot of time it does, but that's
really that it lends you,because when I started the
podcast, I wasn't like, oh, I'mgoing to be a VC.
I was like I'm doing this forM&A.
So all of my content was aroundselling businesses, but it was
about relationships, yeah.

Because I wasn't.
I've done 20 M&As in my careerfrom the inside of companies,
not from an investment bankinglevel, but I was on your podcast
because we had met.

Hit it off.

And I had the AI card to play, and then you
helped me understand the things.

No, but then it was great, oh AI.
And then I had the Wall StreetJournal.
Was it no New York Timesreporter that published?
Was number two Was number two,but my first was Will, yeah,
will.

Drury.
Will Drury basically inventedthe lithium battery for Tesla.
Will's listening?
He's going to be like, oh myGod, daniel Elon will be after
me for that.
But yeah, I'm going to go withthat.
I'm going to take someliberties, will?
We hope you're listening andwe're having fun with you.
We miss you.

But I've known.
Will for it's true, but he isjust brilliant, he is.
Brilliant, and it was.
I think I'm glad I had him asmy first guest because it almost
set the stage, because I waslike, ooh, this is who I want,
yeah.

In my community People like this, yes, and then
you came to me.

No, and I came to you.
Here's another thing that'sgoing to be unique about the VC
firm TENSEUR is that I'mactually targeting.
When it comes to advisors, Iwant seasoned folks around me.
Yeah, of course.
I want people who have deepdomain experience, because the
founders that are coming to me,they need help.

(55:17):
They need help, yeah, butthey're also coming to me from
the Teslas and from thesemiconductor companies and from
the medical schools and youalready knew this.

We don't have to know all the answers no but we
have to know how to pulltogether the teams yes, where
the answers are easilyaccessible.
Thank you.

And that's what you and.

I do very well.

Yes, and so that's what I'm doing.

Love it.
Yeah, love it.
Okay, I'm going to have tobring you back.
How long are you in town?

We're going to have in town for quite some time
.

Okay, good, maybe we could schedule something,
then we'll pick up on, becausewe have talked actually a lot
about your new love of theinvestment community and pulling
it from a different angle, yeah, and I'd like to talk even more
, though, about your personalthings.
We talked a little about yougrowing up in Nigeria, but you

(56:15):
are a mindfulness maven.
That's my term.

That's nowhere in print and I cursed when you
put the focus on me.

I know it's a little bit of a story and the
thing is, you never do.
I will say that I've been onwhat I've been on a dozen calls
with you, and that was a first.

It's all good, it's all good, so you can tell
that this is something I'mreally like passionate about all
good, so you can tell that thisis something I'm really like
passionate about it's justbecause I see the frustration,
and this is what inspires me tostart.

So until we see you again here with mics that
are giving us what we need fromthem.
Where would listeners be ableto get in touch with you, follow
you and see you online?
How can they get in touch withyou so?

they can get in touch with me on LinkedIn
Awesome.
They can also get in touch withme through a website.
So it's TENSEUR and that'sT-E-N.
Let me do the let me backtrackhere, let me be an engineer.
So T as in Tango, e as in Echo.

I'll put this in the show notes N as in November.

S as in Sierra E as in Echo U as in Filler R as
in Romeo.

Capitalcom.
Excellent, okay, and I will putthese contact points in the
show notes, as well as yourpodcast.

Oh yes, my podcast is the Neo Industrialist
Love it.
We're on Apple Podcasts,YouTube for video, as well as
LinkedIn Lives me on ApplePodcasts, youtube for video, as
well as LinkedIn Lives.

It has been remarkable to have you in person
because most of my contact withyou since you're down in LA has
been on the phone.
We've seen each other a fewtimes, but on the phone, so it
is just remarkable to have youhere.
Can't wait to spend more timewith you.
Thank you for being here withour listeners today, teaching
them something new.
As we all think about thetransitions in life and how we
want to look at thingsdifferently, I'm going to make
my own very tiny pitch.

(58:00):
Everyone can invest, everyonecan become part of this
community, and I think thatthere's a lot of nascent
investors out there who haven'tjust haven't considered that
journey yet, and I think it's agood time for people to become
more educated about theopportunities they have outside
of the traditional retirementplanning elements.

Absolutely.

And it's going to be an interesting few years for
you and me both.

Yes.

As we build those communities up and offer and
extend more opportunities tomore people.
Excellent, wonderful.
So everyone.
Thank you.
This has been Reset with Tonya,with Belinda Ephraim
E-P-H-R-A-I-M.
Yes, when you look for her onLinkedIn.
Have a wonderful day, bonsoirfrom Tennessee, and thank you

(58:48):
for holding with us patiently aswe figured out some technical
issues here in the studio.
We will see you next Thursdayat 11 am Pacific time.
Good day.

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Host

Tonya J. Long

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