00:00:01 [Music] moving the needle on founder failure one conversation at a time i'm your host lucas poles and welcome to startup 2.0 by spark xyz join us each week as we give you access to some of the top investors and entrepreneurs around the country to help you think through and overcome some of the top challenges that start-ups i think there's no better place in the country to be investing than los angeles what is the problem that you're solving and for who like what is that specific pain point sometimes when a company is not

00:00:31 listening to its customers and just thinks it knows better than it customers has a really really hard time finding product market fit i want to see somebody that that isn't gonna stop you know this person you just feel like they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna make it work [Music] a big heartfelt thank you to brex who without their support this show would not be possible we've seen firsthand the difficulties accessing basic corporate credit without providing a security deposit or personal guarantee early on

00:01:04 as companies grow managing expenses has become more difficult and time consuming which is why we've partnered with brex to offer a corporate credit card that is not personally guaranteed offers higher credit limits provides auto reconciliation and integrates with erps using receipt capture brex is the credit card of the start ecosystem and we highly encourage you to check them out i've wanted to do for for a while now i have to say like it's probably something i didn't like verbalize until like last year um you know i think

00:01:36 yeah it's really just a combination of a lot of experiences and you'll probably find this with a lot of um a lot of investors you know my you know my background and my my career path has not been has not been a straight line by any stretch of the imagination um and i think it really comes actually when i think about it um you know i moved to the us when i was 12 from germany um and um my dad was the first of his in his family to go to college he actually had never really left he never left continental europe before

00:02:05 um had maybe left germany just a few times and we you know we'd move um to to new jersey actually first texas and then later new jersey and um you know i think that that background of like that being different but also like knowing that you're just so lucky and like might you know just like just coming from an environment where you you had a lot but you just didn't have the same opportunities um i think it just always gave me that perspective of just you know i don't know like wanting to knowing that you could almost achieve

00:02:39 anything you wanted to achieve and i think that's just always a really helpful perspective and i actually started started out wanting to change the world in terms of world peace that was always my big thing and um i studied international relations i studied why um why did some economies develop differently than others and i thought i was going to be a diplomat and that was going to be my big thing and i worked in a think tank for a summer and it was just painful it was like just banging my head

00:03:06 against the wall you didn't get to do anything and my dad was like you know try um you know try this business thing he's a cfo become a chemical company i'm alright i'll try this business thing and so i then worked for um time incorporated right out of college i did a one-year program with them and they made me a product analyst it was like a one-year program and you they gave you a day job and then they also gave you like a mentoring program and there were i think 10 of us in total and it was this it was this

00:03:34 opening of like wow building products and building like so my job was essentially like we had the fortune and the money magazine brand names and let's figure out what other products you can do off of this so you know seminar series and newsletters and and um all kinds of you know it's an internet like internet was kind of he was like dating myself back to 96 97 and so they had this funny weird brand name called pathfinder back then but i kind of caught the bug and so i i from there moved to the bay area and um you know

00:04:05 spent the early part of my career in startups and and just loved the energy of startups just love the energy of like coming up with an idea um figuring out you know what the the user need is like what are you really solving for building it um you know launching it building it putting the right team together uh was it two different early stage startups um one of them went public the next one um you know we ended up selling the the assets wasn't probably the most successful sale um to outside magazine

00:04:36 um you know and then after and i went to business school and after business school i i worked for another um startup here in la um they had been acquired by 24 hour fitness and um so i guess long story short i've always found myself in these early stage product roles and then i went from there to yahoo a much bigger company but still again like solving big problems on a big scale um and then um it can get some more into my background but like i just i i've always loved that building part of it and

00:05:08 um and i spent some time in a bank and as i left yahoo in 2012 yahoo was imploding at the time i'm saying including but like you know it was was a different place in 2012 we'd gone through five cos in a year um as a product person it was a really frustrating place to be because you just couldn't ship anything but i liked la and they wanted to stay in la and there really wasn't a whole lot in la at the time um i mean there were some absolutely some companies but it was just when like amplify was just getting started

00:05:39 and i think mecca lab hadn't even started yet and they were like co-lab i think it was called and so you know i took a different tack and i was like you know i i love startups um i miss startups like and and um you know but none of the startups at the time really kind of spoke to me and i didn't have an idea for my own and so i actually started um went to a bank called grand point bank and started their venture banking division and and um they basically had this insight where legalzoom had been

00:06:09 their their um client at um the founders previous bank and within a couple years legal zoom had become the biggest um deposit account in the bank and they're like oh this is great these little they call them little baby companies you start with them and then they grow really quickly um and so help us find some more baby companies um so it was actually it was awesome it was just kind of like just figure it out and so it was a really great platform um to just really kind of figure out like what did bank would the startups

00:06:40 need and what is okay what can the bank provide and they very quickly learn that you know startups don't care about checking accounts and they don't care i mean they just want it to work and they want their money to be there but what they really care is about funding and and so i set up a venture lending product and and division within the bank and launched that and you know had a lot of fun doing that um but also got really frustrated about the regulatory environment of a bank and so from there i went to to netflix

00:07:08 it was kind of like i need to get into the exact opposite environment of where i'm at um spent two years almost two years at netflix you know had a had a blast but missed the early stage and so i left and um i wanted to get back to the capital side um because i really loved doing venture lending but i you know i wasn't sure if i wouldn't do debt because that's what i've done but i really you know for if you look at an early stage company like in the you know whatever you're going to call it today

00:07:35 pre-seed seed stage um debt is is not the best vehicle and so you know that you know after after you know spending some time and consulting with some friends i really realized that it was equity that i wanted to do um and that's kind of just to me it's a combination of like being able to work with early stage founders being able to be on that on on the on the ground with them and then being able to provide capital across multiple companies um i'm somebody i love poking holes in things and that just seems to work really well

00:08:08 at the early stage and i'd like to be able to do that across many different ideas long-winded answer wow super exciting um it's always interesting and there are a couple of insights that we'd love to dive into uh a little bit deeper so um uh i guess the first is really like because you've done startups before do you feel like that kind of gives you more of an edge with uh with investing in them right now is it maybe you might have a little more empathy towards them because you've kind of been in that space before do you feel like

00:08:41 that gives you an edge or no i think so um i think i think it's the combination of i mean i think it's interesting so yes i think having an operational background i do feel like it it just has a different level of conversation with founders and i the feedback i get and i feel myself is that founders respect that and they appreciate having a a product conversation so i do think it gives me i don't know if it's an edge just a different perspective a different different relationship with the founder

00:09:13 um i think it's the startup and then it's also the you know being able to build products at scale i think that combination um is what i think is interesting and i think also founders find interesting is like not only having done it at a startup level but also at a you know yahoo and netflix level and having seen what it takes to uh i mean i wasn't at netflix when netflix was was you know um in its infancy but but having seen a product at different stages and and seeing it what it takes to really

00:09:40 get something from zero to whatever awesome cool um awesome well let's talk a little bit more about uh what bush ventures so what uh it sounds like pre-season seed is the space they're kind of focusing on do you have a specific industry like what what's uh what's the type of deal that you're actually looking for yeah so pre-seed seed stage fund i should probably give some more context also in redfish ventures as people probably know uh wed bush capital if you live in la if you drive down the 110 you'll probably have seen the red

00:10:13 bush building so web bush is a as a financial services firm based here in los angeles actually the largest brokerage firm on the west coast i didn't realize that um they are privately held they have different business lines you know the brokerage side of the business uh wealth management investment banking um equity analysts um probably missing something but those are the kind of main parts of the business um and um it was it's been a really great match for me so when i was looking to start a fund

00:10:46 like what i saw at grand point it was great to be part of a platform where i could be independent but i also had the support of a platform and my platform what i mean um so so web bush has been great i we when i was at grandpa we actually bought wedbush's commercial bank and so i got to know the organization at that point and what has been been great for me um is has been that not only were they the first lp in the fund which has been awesome and they've started other funds before so they started a private equity fund

00:11:18 and other funds and so they've been just great advisors um and then they also have you know the whole network of people not only for deal flow but it's really awesome as for my portfolio company so we can kind of get into that later um so i'm not a strategic fund so they have seated me but as a as a you know as a asset class um and so it's you know wed bush ventures is really kind of a combination of my product background and and their their platform and so i look at pre-seed and seed stage and um in

00:11:50 in kind of i like post revenue i'll look at pre-revenue if i can get um just really comfortable with the founding team uh and um check size so the the first fund we've purposely kept small just to kind of get a tracker get off the ground so we're i'm currently writing you know 50 to 100 000 um checks in the precedence stage cool awesome um so with woodbush being what they are are you focusing more on fintech or are you kind of because you can leverage uh possible customers within it uh as well like what

00:12:27 what is the actual specific focus yeah so again like it's not a strategic fund so it's not about um kind of any web bush uh investing companies provide interest necessarily or not necessarily it's a completely different um decision making process and so i it's a generalist fund i purposely set up that way just so i can just be able to adjust the different opportunities as they come i did have invested in in two fintech one fintech company one fintech adjacent company i would say um going after the fintech space

00:13:02 but i um the last two companies i'm missing are the e-commerce i um we can get into kind of what i uh you know what i look for but it's it's not fintech specific um no awesome great awesome um so then what are what are some some things that you do look for that a little more specifically yeah i mean i come at from um come at it from a product lens really uh of and what i mean by that is like a founder that um really deeply knows a space so that they have an insight that that other people don't and i really like her

00:13:39 founders who kind of surprise me with with how they're thinking about a market and how they're thinking about a value proposition um and you know i always say it's like peeling an onion like when you first look at a problem it looks so obvious and then when you peel away the layers it you see that it's actually quite a different problem or that the need is different than you initially saw and so i really look for founders who kind of thought to that level um that's what excites me um you know in terms of of industries

00:14:11 yeah i mean so e-commerce is one that i'm particularly excited about right now content actually is one that i'm spending a lot of time in and by maybe the content is i think content generation is a really interesting one as you see an explosion of streaming services and with with the shutdown of a lot of production just the the the production of content bringing content to market more quickly i think is an area that's going to see investment that i'm excited about and then just like you have so many subscriptions how do

00:14:42 you manage all these subscriptions and then also engagement layer like netflix has been experimenting with interactive content i just think that right now a lot of content is very passive um and there's an opportunity to make content more interactive and gaming is a great example of that yeah uh what was the thing that netflix actually just did with uh it was like choose your own ending i'm totally blanking on what the actual uh thing was it reminded me of goosebumps where you can choose different uh

00:15:12 yeah they've done it with a couple of shows i mean the um black mirror yeah yeah exactly black mirror is the one that that most people know about yeah interesting very cool awesome so um so so walk me through kind of a typical like due diligence process for you like how long does it take what uh what uh specific questions are you asking uh within it uh to get to that i guess specific of like peeling the actual onion [Music] yeah so you mean it obviously starts with like an intro call um to me it's really about really

00:15:47 getting into the psyche of the the founder like really understanding what's the origin story where did the idea come from i just find that if the um origin story if it really comes from something that they've either personally felt or personally gone through it's just this much stronger motivator and and you you kind of it forces you to kind of get to the bottom of the user need uh in in a much more effective way so to me it's about like initial conversation does it make does it make sense and then that

00:16:19 initial conversation i really like to look for um yeah i mean what is the idea like what's your insight have you dug deep what kind of traction like what's the proof point because the the problem always is if somebody has a really unique insight that's different than everybody else's like how do you know it's the right one and uh in pre-seed seed it's hard but it's like usually there's some sort of proof point usually there's something that's like you know they've shown it to somebody yeah there's there's so many different

00:16:44 tests you can do now um so you know so from it to me it honestly it really depends on the industry and how much i know the industry and how much it's a problem that i deeply know and versus something completely new like another area i've been spending some time on for example is mental health and and um i mean it's called health tech like i just think there's a lot of interesting opportunities there but i don't like it's a space i don't have a lot of familiarity with so there it's a lot of industry

00:17:12 um research for me but if it's a space like content that i have a fair amount of industry experience with um it's really just kind of making sure that um it's a it's a founder investor fit meaning like it's a it's it's a person that i really want to work with um and because to me it's really down to the person and is this a person who's tenacious this is a person who can think strategically who can pivot when they need to so so it's a little touchy feely but that's kind of what i look at and so

00:17:43 um you spend just spend time talking to them usually do two to three conversations um just getting a sense of how they think and think through products and do some product brainstorming together those are the sessions i really enjoy um yeah and then and if i don't know the market it's a lot of just due diligence calls to validate the market opportunity validate customers awesome um so during the due diligence process what are some of the uh so what are some of the red flags that you end up running into

00:18:13 with these founders where it's just like oh nope i'm all right i'm out [Laughter] um i mean honestly the biggest one is is like the there's there's something founders need to tell a good story you need to be good storyteller absolutely but then there's the the um over exaggerated stories that when you dig in uh there's not a lot you know when you say you've shipped something and you haven't and when you say you have a customer and you don't like that's actually one thing i do look at is like and and i've been burned by this in the

00:18:50 past it's like you know do you have this agreement with this company that you said you have and you know or is it just something that's still in due diligence and look we all we all want to make ourselves look as good as possible and i get that but um those are the for me personally are red flags and then also i think a little bit about it's just it's a fine line right of like the best founders that i've seen or worked for are are people who are strong and visionary and opinionated um and so i actually think that's a good

00:19:20 thing at the same time i need to make sure that um founders can listen and so i love having uh debates where you go back and forth and you get deep into something but when i just just there's like a level of arrogance when i start to see this like i don't know arrogance and i i that turns that usually turns me off so to me it's like you know don't tell me something is wrong um don't tell me you have a pilot when that pilot isn't live um and um yeah just you know be be strong in your opinions but also be

00:19:54 able to back them up and be able to have a back and forth be able to like support your opinion um in a way without shutting the other person down yeah um with my i think my favorite uh uh it's not with the pilots but it's when uh they say someone's lead like that when they've told me that uh an investor has committed and i'm like okay like if you tell me an investor's committed like i'm going to call them and then when i call him like oh no we passed it's like wait hold on it's not what i heard

00:20:30 it's uh no and it's hard because like you know i'm i'm a one-person show like i i don't have a team unfortunately i like that's kind of where i would like love to get to but um so i need to be able to trust at some level um but i there are a few like i always make those due diligence calls to make sure that i don't you know get burned because there's nothing worse than like signing and then realizing that the information isn't true yeah god oh we kind of live in a little bit of a wild west i definitely agree with you about the eq

00:21:05 as well i think it's uh i think you're right it's very much a fine it's very much a fine line in between the arrogance and the and being able to listen because you're right you very much have to stick to you you you have to be flexible but rigid at the same time it's it's a very it's a it's a tough thing for founders to be able to people in general to be able to to hear that and to kind of be able to respond and so um i think the listening is very important but being able to push away like bad advice it's like okay

00:21:38 i heard you i'm going to internalize it um and i'm going to figure out what works specifically for my business and if i don't choose to go in a direction like let me show you the reasons why but have a good conversation around it yeah yeah yeah and to be honest like the other thing um i mean to me those are well i shouldn't say extremes actually the the misinformation happens more often than you would think um but the other thing i also really look for is um just key value proposition like what turns me off is

00:22:10 if someone tries to do so many things it's like oh i got this business here and i'm also going to go teach the class over here and i'm going to do this over here and it's like they're all great things but you there's no way you can do all three of them yeah um like that to me is is an almost immediate turn off um and then also like i it's hard to know if you have product market fit in the beginning but it's if you don't yeah i don't know if you don't really understand like if you can't clearly communicate what it

00:22:40 is you do and for whom um that's also something like if you can't do that like it's not a good match for me like i just i just think that that journey is too painful yeah i i feel like that's where and then that's where i like a lot of them to how startups traditionally like will start from like a problem it's like hey i was in this industry i saw this problem and now i can move forward and you feel like you have a better shot at product market fit with that so wow yeah i agree i agree it's it's an interesting um it's

00:23:17 uh the only other thing i think about is is is like how do you find that right balance of industry experience but also like an outsider's perspective because i think a lot of people who come out of an industry um well while they know the terminology and they know like they know the nuances and that's extremely helpful they also are oftentimes jaded and don't see it differently and that's that's to me the interesting balance of like finding founders like in some ways like i almost prefer founders who don't come

00:23:51 out of that industry um but then i need to be okay with them kind of going through that learning experience a little bit more and so what i actually love is like when you have like a founding team where like one of them comes with out of the industry and the other one doesn't like that to me is like the the perfect combination the one from outside you can be like oh you're crazy this is not how anyone else used or just like why not do it this way because you know yeah with the uh with the other beast

00:24:22 though the uh i can't tell you how many founders i'll look at and like even with their pitch checks and you're right they're like oh we're going to do this and this and this like cool it's a great story to be able to tell like hey this is what we're building towards like this is how uh this is where we're going to end up my beachhead though and where i'm starting what i'm going to execute on flawlessly right now is this specifically right here because you're right i think that especially when you're

00:24:50 looking for product market fit and that you're as a founder you want to say yes to everything because there's potential for bringing in revenue i think it's very difficult to have that discipline to be able to like like know like i can't go after this this is not a good client for me even if i took the time to build out specifically what they're looking for because it's just a one-off thing and i feel like a lot of people do end up falling into that trap of them and running through and then just at a certain point like oh crap i

00:25:21 haven't hit metrics to be able to hit the next round and i'm i'm sol right right no and it's so hard to turn revenue down right like if someone wants to give you money and say no to that when you're like bootstrapped or even not boosted up and you're like burning money everywhere please like so it's it's it's an awkward conversation but it's also like i always think about it like okay great so you'll make an extra whatever amount of money for the next six months but you're you're losing your trajectory going

00:25:50 forward so it's like an opportunity cost and it's um yeah i mean and i respect founders they're able to make those tough decisions yeah yeah um uh so well besides those being a couple of the a couple of the mistakes that uh founders uh make early on one other uh mistakes do you end up seeing yeah i mean um so to me it's about it's about two three kind of key areas that i think about one is product is like you need to be laser focused on what the problem is that you're solving laser focused on what that

00:26:27 value proposition is um and be really clear about it because it and that kind of leads into the second point which is team um you know so in the beginning it's going to probably be just people you know and trust and can work well with and so it's probably less of an issue but even there um you need to everybody needs to know where they're going and if you can't clearly describe where you're going it might be clear in your mind but if the people around you even your investors aren't clear on it that's that's that's

00:26:57 kind of a recipe for um at least lots of stress um and then just in general people and team i just i think it's really important to hire the right people and sometimes it's less about uh kind of their previous experience it depends on the industry but usually it's not about like what industry they come in or from or do they have a specific set of experience and more about like are they the right fit and can they work with you and and can you build trust with them um and and a lot of times the other

00:27:30 thing is like uh people have a hard time firing people that don't work out and it's hard and it's tough and it sucks um but like that's the i mean that's you know one thing that netflix is also in their culture it's like you know to be a high performance team it's you need to be able to really work at a high performance and then really be able to trust people and be able to just run and if someone you know doesn't quite fit in and it's nothing against them it's just not a fit then then you know it doesn't make sense to just

00:28:02 keep them on and when you're so lean and every dollar counts and every person counts um just really thinking about you know who are the right people and how do you have the right people around yeah well let's dive into that a little bit then so like how what is advice for uh people to build those high performing teams like what are some of the characteristics that you've seen throughout your career that you kind of look for when looking to build an actual team or when you're reviewing uh startup uh for investment

00:28:35 yeah that's a good question um i look for [Music] self-starters so i just really look more at personality traits um and i mean also obviously especially at higher levels you need to make sure they have the right experience um but i just really look for for and i i tell my startups also to look for you people who uh one you can work well with um you want diversity i think diversity is it's actually a really interesting debate and i i i think diversity is so important and something i think about a lot right

00:29:09 now myself personally um just in my fund and making sure i'm getting enough a diverse input um i do think that when you're early on like when you're really just kind of in the first five people um there is a big benefit to just having people you trust around you and people you've worked with before and um yeah i read some research uh i don't remember where it was but they kind of looked at like founding teens and who like is it like people you are related to people that you are friends with people you've never met

00:29:41 before and they've kind of found that people you've worked with before you had a working relationship with are the best co-founders um and i would agree with that because you i think a working relationship and a personal relationship are very two very different things so if you can find people you've worked with before and that you work well with in that first like group i think you're just gonna move so much faster if you kind of all know each other in that regard and then i think after that it's just

00:30:03 like finding people who are like it's it's somewhat cliche but like you know self-starters um open-minded willing to really push things um you know willing to like take on projects don't worry too much about the role they're in i mean i think there's some people who really like the the comfort of a large organization and there's really absolutely nothing wrong with that but to be in a startup you need to be okay with uncertainty like i think that's the biggest thing you need to be okay with like not having a paycheck three months

00:30:31 later or you know like you need to thrive in that kind of environment that's 100 true it really is and it's not like i think it's kind of a sexy thing to do now to work for a startup and and you don't realize that so many of them like you know like especially the last six six months like so many of them had furloughed their their employees and it's it's it's a um it's a fun but risky place to be i guess it is i don't think people really okay i feel like the startup landscape has been so romanticized

00:31:03 over the last five ten years that it's uh everyone wants to go and do it it's like yeah like you have to be very comfortable with wearing a lot of different hats all at the same time and being able to kind of execute on all of them even though you really might not have any idea what you're doing and a lot of times in early stage startups you're throwing together in a wall and seeing what ends up sticking and running with that specific thing and i don't think a lot of people are truly understand or comfortable

00:31:43 and making decisions with little information just like being able to yeah just being able to make decisions without someone kind of telling you what to do like especially in those first 20 people like there is not there's generally not a whole lot of org structure there's generally not a whole lot of reporting and so that's why i actually find like in my experience has been like once you get to 20 30 40 50 people definitely 50 people it's a different kind of organization and you know i found it like once i you

00:32:13 know even i mean it's interesting like once once my startups hit that level it wasn't it wasn't the right place for me and even like in product organizations like i love that early stage and once i hit the growth stage that was you know i moved on so i just i mean that's super interesting because like you're you're actually even cognizant about it i think that's where a lot of that's what a lot of founders actually end up tripping up is that they especially the the ones that have found it is that they're super excited about

00:32:43 the like the actual building and they love the chaos then they get into the more growth stage and it's like it's not really what i signed up for like it's a totally different set of skills it's a totally different ballgame and you're just like i kind of want to go back to the cave yeah yeah i'm gonna figure this out because i mean it's two different totally two different beasts um what's interesting that you're that you even some people won't realize it and we'll kind of stick it out because they feel like they have

00:33:11 to uh because they've just been doing something for so long that there isn't uh hey i kind of i should go do something else and what i actually loved yeah i know it's true and i i really admire um founders who make that jump like it is it is very different to different different i don't know skill sets and um and yeah i mean i think communication becomes so much more important is always important but it becomes so much more important after 50 people and and just a structure and managing and you spend so much more time managing

00:33:45 people and it's just it's a completely different kind of environment nothing it's just different and i just admire founders you can make that jump yeah one percent um all right so well let's dive into instead of into the reverse so uh what should an entrepreneur look for in like a lead vc like if they're they're going to uh either either do for investment or others like what what are they what should they want out of a vc partner i guess yeah um no it's a good question um and then i would say when your previous question

00:34:25 about like you know what should you think about in founding a company or what could go wrong and i think investor plays a big role in that um if you look if you're going to be one of those lucky startups that never really runs into problems and it just moves sailing um first of all congratulations [Laughter] um and uh you know maybe it probably doesn't maybe it doesn't matter who your investor is um uh but if you're like you know 99 of the rest of the startups uh you know i think i think of it in this way i think i

00:34:58 personally think having been on the other side as well having a a investor a lead investor in particular i mean i think one i'll just say i do think there's something about signaling and so i do think and i've seen a lot of startups get tripped up on this where they just think about it from i just need the money and then they get to their next round and they there is a signal that is like who is your lead and if your lead is somebody that they don't know or you don't have a lead or you just had friends and family

00:35:26 like if you are planning on ongoing that route of like you know seed series a series b um i do think that signaling signaling meaning who is your investor does make a difference and i've seen funds or i've seen companies like for example consumer product company you know didn't have a consumer product bc and so when they went to series a it just became a red flag and so i do think about that a lot like if you are in a certain sector or um yeah i think it find somebody who specializes in that sector

00:36:00 or find somebody who just has a good reputation so that as you go to the next round they go oh you have to you know that person or the the partner in that firm has a background there and it made sense like i think that story needs to really fit um so that's one thing i would just think about but at the same time like make sure it's someone you dive with like especially the lead investor like they're probably going to be on your board and if not they're they're going to be in hopefully involved and

00:36:27 and the ones on the one hand like as a company you just want the capital like i've definitely been on that side but on the other hand i think the other things that um you want to lead investor to bring is is is one help you raise the next round so either be that signaling effect or have the relationships um two um you know is it someone that can help you hire and help you find the right people that's i think lead investors can be really helpful although at the same time you can also use your advisors for that if your lead

00:36:57 investor is not is not um you may be as well connected in your space as you needed to be and then third you know kind of going back to my earlier point like i just think you you want someone who's going to be there with you and and ride out the waves with you and not um yeah just like be not only be a sounding board but also understand that everything goes through ups and downs and that yeah especially in the early stage like you're not always going to hit your forecast and things are going to happen

00:37:25 and and not freak out about that like and just help you help you brainstorm and help you kind of move through those and just be a partner in that like so like make sure it's just someone you really trust because they do have control um and and they can make your life miserable yeah i find it interesting i hadn't actually really thought about the signaling but even as you were saying i was thinking about like one of the last deals that i ended up doing and i felt it was not in my space whatsoever

00:37:55 like it was in like deep healthcare tech it was a b2b sass but like nothing i really knew about and i felt significantly more comfortable doing the deal because the lead vc was actually in that space because they had actual expertise and i was like okay i can lean on them and i can lean on some of the other people that i know to do more technical due diligence because there's no way that i can do the technical due diligence on this um so it's a really interesting piece that honestly it just ended up doing but it never really put

00:38:27 much thought into i guess so yeah very i guess you do actually need to be very cognizant of that because yeah they need to be able to help you raise your next round to be able to make connections and that's one of the more important things that people don't uh look at especially in the early stage i know like accelerators and other people but generally they will they literally have to go out and help you raise your round because they'll help you build your specific network so you can kind of take those

00:38:57 next steps going forward very interesting um so uh what are some of the things that i mean we're stuck in we're stuck indoors a little bit right how are you actually spending your day-to-day now that we're not having coffee meetings constantly actually you know it's my caffeine consumption has gone down [Laughter] my alcohol consumption has gone up no i mean it's funny it's like uh on the one hand as we were talking about earlier um you know there's just there are more hours and you actually get more done and and like

00:39:44 you can go from zoom call to zoom call and so for me it's actually been um really nice because i've been able to talk to more um more founders and more founders in different parts of the country and i don't think some of them in actually the world i don't think some of them would have even considered talking to me if it hadn't been um yeah coronavirus i think i think before it was just always mandated that you had to do it in person um i you know i miss the in person but i also have to say like having worked on

00:40:13 video for so long now like netflix almost all of our calls were on video um it's it's i actually think you can have a pretty good connection and and build a pretty good relationship but i also like to be off video um and um really try to find a balance um i surfing has been terrible lately but i like to get in the water and and surf whenever i can i love to be in the mountains so we're going camping up in mammoth this weekend and yeah and i'm hoping that ski season happens because if it doesn't i might go

00:40:50 crazy i'm so sad about ski season this year we went in like january and february and then like we had a bunch of storms but no one could leave and i was just like there's snow up there like i just dealt with crap snow like i want to go back and actually get the real snow that i was prominent yeah i know my kids are all three of them are in the ski team and we went up the last weekend hoping it didn't even occur to me that they could shut the mountain i don't know why i thought it was outdoors like

00:41:14 why would they shut the lifts and so we went up there and that saturday was a big they got like 10 feet of snow in march after getting no snow in january in february and so we were up there and then we didn't get a chance to ski because they closed the mountain but we just ended up uh yeah staying up there for a little while and played in the snow and we're lamenting [Laughter] lamenting the snow but no lifts running so hopefully that doesn't i mean i i totally understand but i just would love to be able to make some turns

00:41:43 turns this winter yeah likewise and just knowing your luck it'll be closed and there's going to be just tons and tons and tons of snow and it's going to break my heart well it's like in south america they've had like argentina and chile like they've had the most snow in the last like 20 years so much i'm gonna get some snowshoes [Laughter] oh gosh awesome well petra uh where can working people reach out yeah i mean you can yeah yeah um i mean my website webbushventures.com um you can my email petra wedbushventures.com

00:42:29 um pretty pretty good with email you can find me on linkedin or um i'm terrible at twitter but you can find me on twitter too awesome well really appreciate the uh the time and uh look forward to chat again soon thanks a lot lucas enjoyed it