00:00:01 moving the Neto unfound your failure one conversation at a time I'm your host Justin Gordon and welcome to startup 2.0 by spark XYZ during each week as we give you access to some of the top investors and entrepreneurs in the country to help you think through and overcome the top challenges that startups face 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

00:00:29 listening to his 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 you know this person you just feel like they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna make it work today's guest is Brett monster who's a principal at sway ventures Brett focuses most of his investment time on these seed and early stages for the fund he also does due diligence across all investment opportunities for the fund and works directly with their portfolio

00:01:04 companies bright welcome to the show it's good to be here I've seen a few of the other episodes though I decided to be on one yes now you're in the hot seat Joe here we go with wisp wave ventures to start with what areas is the firm focus on yeah so we are predominantly b2b enterprise focus fund we originally started doing 50/50 consumer and enterprise and just found that you know scaling consumer businesses customer acquisition costs have gotten so expensive and yeah it's gotten so crowded that over the years we've leaned much

00:01:34 more onto the b2b side so anything FinTech cyber security software logistics you know AI machine learning in the enterprise SAS is right up our alley down and then in terms of stage we're a multi stage so we kind of invest across the stack but most of the capital we deploy and kind of our bread and butter is Series A and B ok and then so with that too just people don't know what is that cheque size typically they had to dip yeah series a it's you know call it three to five million dollar you know besides cheque from us and then

00:02:06 at Series B five to ten okay awesome and then with that too so you have the areas we have this to size what is your kind of investment thesis yeah so we really believe that you know software is gonna liberate you know you know from inefficiencies in the world right so we want to invest in you know software companies that are you know eliminating and finished inefficiencies whether that's you know in FinTech and you able to drive down we've got a company called telly and yeah I know automate a lot of their life and you

00:02:39 know make your finances a lot easier to manage right whether that's you know in cybersecurity and you've got IOT and you have all these you know different endpoints that are connected and so now you've got a lot more endpoints that are susceptible to being hacked right so eliminating any kind of those inefficiencies using software we love old markets that you know are still being run on you know email or threads even fax right and using software to just streamline that process we really think there's a lot of value creation to

00:03:12 be had there yeah and roughly I mean how many investments are you making each year yeah we're fairly active call it you know 10 to 15 investments new deals per year and then plus you know any fallen ones that kind of happen you know with our existing portfolio companies we definitely reserve a lot of capital to do follow on investments we want to follow on and support the companies all the way through exit as much as we can so we try to invest not just in the round we lead but we try to invest at

00:03:40 least you know another two or three rounds after that as yeah so having me I play a file on there too and then with the actual process you go through for due diligence what does that look like for sway ventures that's very company specific right you know if we've made a small C cheque in an earlier round and then we you know I've gotta know the team right and we followed and we've gotten updates and you know we're checking back every three four six months whatever our case is we know the team well we know the progress we know

00:04:11 where this is going that's a pretty easy diligence and quick right we can get to you know term sheet really fast in those situations and it's a larger part of the reason we like kind of investing a little bit earlier then then a and B where we want to lead rounds if we're coming into a deal kind of cold light and the first time we've ever met we're gonna want to get to know the team we're gonna want to really spend time on you know the market and all the all the facets of the business so I mean it probably takes at least a

00:04:43 you know a few weeks if not more than a month but there's companies we've known for you know a year plus right yeah you know I guess you know we've been tracking and following and having regular catch ups with and trying to maybe help out a little bit introduce them to a few customers we know what those customers reactions are so we've already kind of got that out of the way yeah and so you know some of these you could say diligence was over a year in a way right because we've really gotten another team well that's really quick

00:05:12 you know when they want to go raise that next round it's really easy for us to issue term sheet and move pretty quick yeah pretty quick in those instances yeah I mean and with that too you mentioned so most companies it can be like a year which is yeah you meet them and it could take a long time how are you kind of managing that side of things in terms of how many companies you're looking at over a course of time or just you can't just remember as you see them how does that go yeah so there are you know I don't know

00:05:36 if there's any formal way we do that there are a number of companies that you know I'm really interested in I cover a lot of LA in Southern California for the fund so there are a number of companies within LA that you know I think are interesting that you know might be raising a Series A or B sometime next year that I'll you know want to check in with every few months you know it's it's kind of on an ad-hoc basis at each of the partners kind of follows up I don't know if we really track that probably as

00:06:03 well as we should but there are you know definitely companies and then there's companies we've made small investments into you know at the seed level and those are you know pretty easy to those we touch regularly those we are pretty systematic about you know regardless of the check size we've written we want to be helpful in some way shape or form and we'll try to do our best to actually help out and introduce the customers and you know regardless of if we led the or not yeah and with the you know 10 to

00:06:32 15 investments roughly maybe making it a year you obviously see a lot more companies than that yes what are some of the red flags are ways you eliminate or how do you sign which ones kind of move through the yeah so there's a quick filter we use you know it's got to be when we lead around so we're talking about you know maybe in a Series A or B right there are certain ownership targets we do want to try to hit right and if you're raising a certain amount right and we're kind of means you're gonna have to fall in a

00:06:58 certain valuation right right and so if you are expecting a huge valuation way above see a lot of times in the Bay Area and you can't quite get to our ownership then you know it's a pretty easy filter if you're not in an area that you know where we have some sort of expertise that we think we can actually help out given the expertise of our partnership that's a pretty quick filter know so we'll pass on a lot of companies pretty quickly just because we know right off the bat may not mean that the company is

00:07:29 bad sure just means we know we're probably not the right investor for them when you start talking about the ones that make it through that you know initial funnel you've had a you know meeting or you start talking you know they've met with the partnership they've gotten deeper in diligence in terms of red flags you know one thing I think I've really learned is the diligence process is much about the entrepreneur and how they operate then it is about oh we're checking you know some financials or the cohort metrics to share that

00:08:03 right so the entrepreneurs that we've seen or at least I've seen you know kind of a direct correlation with the entrepreneurs that have all that duck down and are able to produce a lot of those requests pretty quickly even if it's hey you know here's 75% of what you asked for I'll get you the other 25% in the next two weeks you know and you know a week later there's another set and then a week later there's the rest of it those entrepreneurs and we've had a lot of success with the ones where we have to

00:08:33 constantly track down and hey you said you were gonna send this hey you know we still need this hey we had a question we didn't answer it right just those little things in diligence we have found you know those translate right there's something something there where you know that entrepreneur or that team just isn't operating on quite the same level I think is you know some others so it's as much as that kind of gut feeling what you see them and how they actually run that process is as much as you know

00:09:04 we dive into the finances or the market size or all the other things that every VC says that they you know go over right some typical things yeah and with the two getting to know the teams everyone kind of has their own different thing I'm curious there any particular questions you ask or how are you actually going about getting to another team and at what point are you like okay yeah this team is salad yeah the teams so subjective right I might think one entrepreneur is awesome and the other one you know other

00:09:28 people aren't impressed it's some people want to see you know logos whether it's school or you know big tech company or you know I I do like that the the when the entrepreneur really has experienced the problem right and really intimately knows the problem if it's hey I'm a great machine you know I built a bunch of machine learning and now I'm just gonna go apply it to this random problem because I think there's you know we can apply that tends not to work as well versus hey I experienced XYZ problem in

00:09:58 my former job or in life instance or whatever the case may be I'm now using machine learning to solve that problem right that it's a very different mentality to come out the problem with and it's those entrepreneurs that tend to find new ways and and navigate the tough times I think better and so for me when you're really talking about you know what makes the team good it's not just the experience but it's also kind of why behind it it's really important yeah so you looking for that kind of matching up that as well

00:10:32 yeah just to go through it yeah yeah there's so many ways you can eliminate people through this process but I think that would be a good one actually one things you mentioned before going back to kind of knowing that you're a venture firm your folks in certain areas even if the company is potentially a good company just not for you how do you look at the competition of everyone around you in terms of being so many different venture firms at different levels and how do you look at that yeah even in the

00:10:54 you know five six years I that's why it's it's changed dramatically there's so much capital especially in the Bay Area and we're you know we're headquartered in San Francisco I'm based here in LA so I get to kind of see dynamics of both markets which is fun and we can happy to go into that if you want but yeah there is a ton of capital the top tier funds have raised bigger and bigger funds which means they've got a write bigger and bigger checks so when I first started right it wasn't uncommon if it was a ten

00:11:23 million dollar round you know someone would do you know call it sick someone would do three and then there'd be one left over for insiders or whatever the case may be yeah now that venture fund is taking that whole ten or maybe you know company wants to raise ten and they've got a right 15 so the round size 15 so now they're you know they're telling more and we've had instances we've seen that geez it's it's just an you know what it's the nature the beast when you raise those bigger funds you've

00:11:50 got to deploy much more capital and so you've got a lot more sharp elbows and you've boxing out a lot more so it makes the competition really tough and you know so what we have found is you know if we're in early even though you know and we proved that we can actually add value right I know it's a cliche term but if there's something we can do to actually you know get in and show what we can actually help accomplish whether that's introduced to customers help recruit talent maybe it's just overall

00:12:21 strategic you know whiteboarding helping out maybe it's helping fundraise whatever the case is that we can you know kind of dig in on one hopefully maybe we can preamp the round right and and maybe they never even go to market that's where it has happen but frankly that's still rare rare yeah but wheats fine that we you know we are much more competitive in those situations when we've had a chance to really show what we can do with with an entrepreneur and with a team versus if we're coming in cold and Sequoia is coming in cold right

00:12:54 yeah that that's a tough situation for us yeah it's a bit more challenging obviously and then looking at you mentioned SF vers la yeah might as well talk about the differences you see in it where are some of those differences no and then you're back and forth between the two sometimes yeah you know yeah so I mean there's just someone capital up in the Bay Area and the funds are just so big that like I said they've got employ so you know a lot of those firms want to take the full round a lot of the top tier funds especially at this

00:13:20 Series A or B and you don't you there isn't as much syndication la feels a lot more collaborative still there's you know some great funds and but they're relatively smaller compared to the bay area and so if you see a four million dollar round in here you're likely gonna see three or four different funds la funds in that round so it still feels much more collaborative which is great which obviously is you know I like that dynamic a lot but I think that's better for entrepreneurs or I think you get

00:13:48 more you know not only you get more expertise around the table and then you get more you know potential network of people of whoever even you know bring to the table but if you have to get to a bridge round the next round right it's sometimes tough if one fun has to shoulder that whole responsibility if you can pass the Hat across a couple different funds the likelihood of that bridge ground getting done I think is higher yeah so you know just having that collaborative network or feeling down here still in LA is is very refreshing

00:14:19 yeah as you go back and forth between the two it yeah this way is based out of me said SF yeah we're headquartered in SF but I'm based here in Culver City and cover LA and and all most of Southern California for the blend yeah la is our second biggest market last I'm originally from LA so I've been you know preaching you know internally that we should be doing more and more in LA and you know to their credit over the years we've made a bigger impact and push into Los Angeles yeah so yeah it made sense

00:14:51 to have someone down here full-time do you notice that other venture funds focus I mean based in SF are doing the same thing and having more the presence in LA yeah or at least coming down east kind of yeah yeah we're you know I know like Lux has people here Sequoia has a partner down here there's a number of venture funds that have or at least willing to come down to LA I think you know you almost just can't there's too much competition in too much capital in Bay Area and you know I don't think you

00:15:21 can only stay in San Francisco unless maybe your supplier or you know really name-brand fine right so yeah there is a push to move out which is great and you know I think la is benefiting from that yeah I get more money more money more funds everything else helping happening in LA and we've talked to have to see a lot different VCS now and they all are talking about how obviously growing there's more funds overall which is helpful for the entrepreneurs to get more access to capital and going to the

00:15:51 back to the focus on the entrepreneur side of things with the portfolio companies you have with some adventures I mean what are some of the challenges they're facing things they're going through right now there's always a challenge with some all the time but they I mean the the most consistent ones always hiring recruiting right especially engineering talent seems to be probably the most consistent you know ask among all the portfolio companies but you know it can vary depending on this age sometimes it's crew teens

00:16:21 sometimes it's you know driving business development whether it's hey you know special on the enterprise side we want introductions to these 20 companies cool we know you know ten of those will sign up and try to help drive introductions and actually help you you know make sure your broker those meetings and help them actually manage those kind of accounts you know at least at first yeah sometimes it's hey need help fundraising or right cool let's go for the deck let's practice so it's you know whatever

00:16:51 the case is you know anything short of actually you know writing code or kind of going over the actual product you know I we're willing to jump in and do whatever we can yeah into the recruiting part then how are you helping on that side cuz that's like huge for any kind yeah nice truck what that how are you historically I think we've been pretty good at the director level kind of executive level helping you know CMO CFO you know VP of engineering you know those high level roles I think we've been pretty good and

00:17:24 it's always kind of been on an ad hoc basis we had a internal you know we call it a lookbook of you know profiles of a number of people in our network that we know are either maybe keen for their new next opportunity or could be very interesting candidates for to come in and take a role like that as startup so it's kind of proprietary for us yeah where we have struggled in all honesty and I think we recognize this is you know your your general engineering roles or your marketing and sales roles

00:17:55 right we we've historically not been as great because I know we don't have an HR recruiter on staff that that is something hopefully we're looking and bring on and really yeah and um try to up our game on on that level yeah so hopefully next year we're able to to bring someone in that would be great yeah well after they hear this episode but ya know I think historically we have you know tried and tried to be pretty good especially at the you know the director and higher end roles yeah which is it so important and then looking at

00:18:28 to kind of the opposite struggles but also what with these portfolio companies has made them the ones that stand out the most what has been the reason why they've actually talent again I'm just parroting yeah well ability to I think punch above your weight class I'm hiring right being able to attract talent that you know could probably otherwise go to Google or Facebook or some big company and you know earn a much less Ellery right and and have you know your dry cleaning and all the you know the per

00:18:57 kids day care and all the perks right taken care of but instead get bought so bought into the vision or believe in the entrepreneur so much or willing to jump on that is seems to be the number one sign or indicator like leading indicator for us that you know there's something special going on here yeah when you're punching above your weight loss on the hiring side yeah that's probably the yeah and then to that point that you mentioned kind of the vision be able to tell that story is a big part of it and

00:19:27 then also just having a background of like what they have done before how can people better kind of communicate that you see but you also mentioned helping these companies with their decks and everything else well I mean how how can they improve upon that process and time their story of their company yeah you know storytelling is an art and the ones that can do it well where I can not only raise money but can attract talent and sign customers right and so if you're struggling to tell your story

00:19:53 concisely Chris you know yeah in a very clear manner to us that's you know indication not just whether we should invest but you know are you gonna be able to attract talent you can be able to you know sign customers and so you know the challenge most entrepreneurs face is there so in the weeds right they know their business so well yeah and they want to go deep right away they want to dive in but they forget maybe we're seeing this for the very first time we're not there to day to day yet you know entrepreneurs pitchy me they've

00:20:28 got to kind of make sure I understand what they do first one of the biggest mistakes is right they they dive in I'll be six seven slides in and time out hang on what is it that you did oh we do okay now I can get to the next point right and it's it's really easy when you're in the weeds because you know it's oh well sure I didn't and there's so much you want to talk about and all the things you've built and where are you going in all this but you if you can't walk someone through that you know basic

00:21:00 understanding of what it is you do what the opportunity is you know why you you're never going to be able to go down that rabbit hole and get interested right you know the the first meeting you're not trying to get an investment from me write that first meaning your your goal is to get me interested right get me curious if if I can get you know interested into what you're doing and start asking questions and we start going down a rabbit hole that's a successful meeting as entrepreneur right I'm not gonna make a decision off that

00:21:29 first I mean yeah but your goal is to get you know get that investor interested and excited and the best thing is you know another mistake I see a lot of entrepreneurs is you know they've spent all this time on making this beautiful deck and it's you know they've got everything in there they you know they've hit all the bullet points and they want to get through the entire deck right and it's they're gonna you know no matter what they're gonna get through every slide on that deck and if I started asking questions and I

00:21:58 want to go down the rabbit hole of market size or I want to go down you know how do you what happens if this strategic thing goes on how do you you know and how do you respond if this happens or where does this ultimately whatever it is now you've got me interested and we don't cover you know the back half that's much better than covering the entire slide deck in fact and then as an entrepreneur the trick is is that's a great excuse to follow up with me is true hey love the conversation you ask great questions it

00:22:26 was it was awesome we didn't get a chance to cover XYZ would love to you know meet up and tell you more about all that right that's actually a great way to follow up and get us continuously interested yeah and the entrepreneurs that can do that well and can make it much more conversational and or can go down that rabbit hole regardless of you know what interests that specific investor I think have a lot more success than the ones that are much more formulaic and you know they want to get here their deck and you know I put this

00:22:57 beautiful pitch together I'm gonna show it no matter what right yeah just isn't as successful and now we'll take a quick break and hear from our sponsor Breck's a big heartfelt thank you to Breck's 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 as companies grow magining expenses has become more difficult and time-consuming which is why we've partnered with

00:23:25 Breck's to offer a corporate credit card that is not personally guaranteed offers higher credit limit provides auto reconciliation and integrates with ERPs using receipt capture Breck's is the credit card of a start ecosystem and we highly encourage you to check them out and back to the show Brett with the with the future looking forward what are you most excited about in terms of industries companies anything else happened yeah so I think if you look back historically right on where a lot of the big successes have

00:23:57 been have always happened on top of you know new paradigm chefs right whether you're talking about you know databases but you know and then you moving into you know PCs in the internet area era to smartphones to cloud right in these different areas that were new infrastructure was built and then you had amazing companies built on top of each one of those you know new infrastructures what are the new infrastructure scheming built today right and I think you know that that the next big successes are gonna get built

00:24:30 on top of and to me there's two that I get really excited about I think one's gonna be kind of you know very you know Buzz worthy right a but it's gonna be a buzz term and another one is I think I'm not a lot of people are actually looking about so we'll start with the the more trendy one which is blockchain and crypto you know if you look at the smartphone it was worse in many ways when it first came out right it was smaller the real estate you know you couldn't run a small real estate yeah yeah you know no one's ever gonna do

00:25:02 work on it's too small you know it's hard to browse the Internet but you fundamentally had something a computer in your pocket that you know now enabled GPS and now had a camera with you at all time right and now you've got Hoover and Instagram and so there were in need of applications a smartphone that were much more even though the smartphone itself wasn't better yeah at first it eventually got there in time but there were native applications that were enabled right that became huge successes you know with

00:25:36 the internet and computing our personal computer right you had social and you had Google right the ability to connect people all of a sudden was really compelling that you couldn't do in a way before so what are those kind of new native applications that can be built on you know crypto and blockchain and to me it ultimately comes down to you've got this new computing paradigm built around trust right you've got full transparency because anyone can look at any of the transactions or anything built on any

00:26:08 time you've got immutability which means it can never be altered or changed and you've got decentralization which means it's not controlled by one party right we've seen all the problems that Facebook and Google and all these data companies are going through right because you have one central organization and they're controlling all that data and that's obviously become very problematic so now you've got a computing platform that is based on trust that is you know performs worse than a mini centralized you know

00:26:39 databases today right it's slower than on my own transactions right there's a little but I'm not gonna bet against engineers figuring out the scaling bro right right like that will get solved in time what are the cool new applications that this enables right and so you can go down the line between you know defy and in basically you know the ability to automate a lot of finance stuff if we cannot you know peer-to-peer and cut out a lot of third-party middleman you can talk about supply chain and with just an

00:27:11 ability to track a lot of that you can talk about you know the housing market or you can talk about just you know digitizing a bunch of securities and making things you know the tokenization of everything where things now become liquid right and now you've got markets for assets that were never liquid before I think it opens up a whole new set of interesting opportunities that I think you know yeah you follow the price of Bitcoin and that's fun and exciting but I think that misses the mark on what is

00:27:48 really truly unique and revolutionary about about that new technology yeah so that's one that I think is really interesting the second is and I this is the one I don't think very many people are paying attention to is aerospace and so what has happened over the last ten years basically is the cost of satellites to both produce and launches drop like a hundred x right there it's a lot cheaper and it's and to I mean it's still expensive it's still hardware but it's you know oh it's within the realm of possibility

00:28:23 it doesn't require you know billion dollar government programs to do we're seeing the private privatization of that market in real-time here not only SpaceX but you've got a bunch of startups that are coming in and tackling this issue and so the result of that we're seeing a lot of new satellites being launched not just by you know new startups but you've got Amazon and Bezos launching in flames you've got Facebook launching you've got SpaceX launching StarLink and frankly that's kind of the bulk a shun on SpaceX

00:28:57 right now beyond just the launch business if Starlin can really become you know 24/7 global 365 internet now you've become got the new Verizon in space and I think a lot of the terrestrial infrastructure is gonna get moved up into space so now you've got a you know so with the launch of all these new satellites you now have an infrastructure built in space that is gonna you know be beaming down data that we've never had before aerial imaging spectral high prospector all sorts of new data that we've never had and what

00:29:35 can we build with that new data insight you know we've got one investment in this in the space no pun intended that is doing just amazing things it's a software company that is you know taking a lot of that data and doing just really cool interesting use cases I think we're gonna see a lot more in agriculture and oil and gas and finance and a lot of different applications that are gonna leverage this this huge new data wave that we're gonna be beaming down from space to earth yeah and with so aerospace and blockchain knowing that

00:30:10 these are things you're excited about that yep how are you monitoring that keeping tabs on what's going on in industry as you obviously been looking at other areas as well how do you personally do that it's it's challenging right there are you know there there are definitely a lot going on in both industries right now you know crypto blockchains booming so fast that it seems like every week there's you know something new crazy to follow up on yeah and finding how we play in that space you know and

00:30:42 how you invest right and because it's it's not just you take typical equity do you invest in tokens how do you then manage it custody all like there's a lot of new challenges with that space that we're we're diving and doing trying to figure out and then with aerospace a lot of that right now is still the infrastructure phase is getting built out so a lot of satellites are being launched a lot of you know for different use cases for different types of data and so we're still I think that ones earlier I think we're still sitting back

00:31:14 trying to figure out you know because we're not gonna go do a hardware lunch launch a bunch of satellites not what we're gonna do we want to try to find that software component to it so that one we're monitoring I think is a little bit easy because it's we're still in that infrastructure phase yeah that makes sense and looking at with we can talk about earlier being so many different venture firms and more money about more money everywhere now seems to be behind but and invested how can startup founders actually ask

00:31:42 questions about which VCS they want to work with or how should they approach the process of getting funding in the first places there are so many different options yeah look you should be interviewing us as much as we're doing diligence on you right and so there's nothing wrong with asking for references and talking to portfolio companies and founders we've backed and you know not just the ones I went well but maybe ones I didn't go so well it's you know it's really easy to get all excited when

00:32:12 someone sends you a term sheet and and you know given the competitive pressures you know that time is shrinking and that's actually you know I think a detriment tell entrepreneurs right you don't it might be quicker to get to a term sheet because of the competitive pressures but that's the last time you get to know the VCS who now you're you know basically locked into for ten plus years yeah at least and so doing the diligence on actually you know how did they act when you know not just when it's a hot deal and everything's good

00:32:45 but were they there when hey we need to do a bridge route and we needed help with something or you know whatever the case is you know were they still there and were they supportive I think you can find out a lot of that I don't think a lot of entrepreneurs take the time to do that and probably only find out after the fact unfortunately but yeah I would there's no reason why they should you know any entrepreneur can't be doing reference checks and talking to other entrepreneurs in or outside our

00:33:14 portfolio you know about us right yeah I mean I would gladly you know recommend any of the entrepreneurs you know in LA that I've worked with to any of the founders we're looking to invest in yeah and with your career path here the last few years I mean how why did you get an adventure in the first place yeah I think it's funny most people actually say they kind of like stumbled into venture and what I actually deliberately tried to get in which was I think actually not the norm so I was part of two different startups

00:33:46 coming right out of college one was successful one wasn't but the second one was my first kind of exposure at a venture there's the first one where I was kind of part of the fundraising raised a little bit of money but I remember coming out of the first venture meeting and thinking how did you get that job well because I realized if they were talking to me they were talking to a lot of other interesting cool companies and like so you gotta learn on a daily basis which is probably the thing I love most about this job

00:34:16 every time I get a meet with entrepreneur right I get to learn yeah stretch my thinking and I get a question and like I think that that parts one of the best biggest perks of this job but you got to work across a number of different cool industries and see a bunch of cool things how they get that job in alright so that kind of we stuck in the back of my mind so I'd done that startup for about two years and took them took an operating role for for a few years and came back to USC to get my MBA and when I came

00:34:48 back I was thinking what do I want to do and everything every time I just kept coming back to like those meetings like that would be a really cool job all right so how do you go get that job and found out it's not easy to break into but hustled my way into you know roll what sway and it was part hustle part luck it was right place right time they just launched the fun they needed a bunch of help so got lucky and yeah I've been with them ever since they got lucky I mean how did you actually reach out oh

00:35:18 yeah wait if you're willing to share yeah no absolutely get this question a lot you know how do you how do you break into venture and the honest truth is is I don't think there's a ton of roles that are just advertised as hey we're looking to hire some so associate you know apply and we'll step through a bunch of us like that happens but not you know maybe at the analyst roles or the lower-end roles but I don't think it's actually the norm I think more people I've talked to broke in and created a position that wasn't actually

00:35:53 there and they were never actually looking to hire I never interviewed its way right I never had a formal interview whoa I got connected to them through fact one of a professor at USC one of the general partners had gotten his executive mba USC and we had the same professor so luckily I'd done well enough in our class that she was willing to reach out further it reached out to him we were supposed to have a meeting canceled on me so busy right they just watched the fun they were raising money they were

00:36:28 doing deals they were setting up processes they it was they had too much you know going on and this is where a kind of right place right time right and so I tried to schedule second meeting great that got delayed again happened about a couple times I was just persistent about hey you know want to come down fine finally got the meeting figured out you know going in that like you're obviously really busy what can I do to take things off your table yeah like what can I take off your plate and the whole meaning kind of ended up being

00:36:59 around what can I do for them not you know hey nice to meet you not about me right and so kind of led to skunk work projects right it hey can you do some market research on this company we're looking to invest in hey he did a really good job with that hey we're looking at meeting with this company mind jumping on the phone call and just kind of listening and quietly and giving us or take afterwards and you know just doing small things like that got me more ingrained that led to an internship and by the end of the

00:37:27 internship I kind of just got myself so involved in everything the day-to-day operations and just took on everything you know basically was trying to give them back time right anything I could do to take off their plate to give them more time to go do higher leverage things I was going to do and I was going to do proactively and basically put me in an internship they you know I don't not to brag just to emphasize a point like I don't think they wanted to go back to a world without me and ball yeah

00:37:57 just because I made their lives easier person and so they actually you know this was between first and second year my MBA program and they you know offered me the job and the original offer they didn't want me to to go back to second year just stay here guys they just paid all that money I did all the hard master yes I want that degree so Maeda came to an agreement where I set up all my classes on Monday Tuesday Wednesday and worked Thursday and Friday for the firm kind of full-time and so you know

00:38:36 we're all my colleagues were you know cruising second semester I was working you know what felt like if I needed up to spending more time working its way than going to classes yeah in doing that was much more interesting yeah and then soon as I graduated I was with them full-time and been with them ever since so in that summer in between were you in SF been for this or you so we have projects and so we so we have an office in San Francisco San Diego and now we just recently opened one up in Stockholm

00:39:05 as well - okay so I was splitting time between San Diego and San Francisco so I would either drive down or fly up Thursday morning okay literally sleep in the office Thursday night work Friday fly back or drive back Friday evening yeah probably do a little bit of work on the weekend too but yeah that was that was my life my second year of Business School love it yeah and oh goodness but I think it takes that kind of effort to really break in and stand stand out yeah it's doable anyone listening to

00:39:40 this alright it's it's absolutely doable you can act absolutely make it happen but going about trying to apply and resumes is not the right approach in my opinion yeah you've got to build a relationship and you've got to you know find a way to create a position that isn't currently a position that exists today yeah I mean we did at that time - did you have your eyes on other venture firms that you were yeah I talked to just about everybody in LA I could you know and it was yeah you know most of

00:40:11 they were great gave me great advice but basically at the end was hey good luck right and in keeping up up-to-date and yeah I can understand why they said that and right and they get you know I get hit up all the time for advice and try to take as much of those as I can try to pay it forward yeah but you know it's it's tough to really break in so finding that that role where you can really add value to the to the company into the firm and making it so they don't want to go back to a world without you yeah that

00:40:45 seemed to work that I've talked to a few other you know colleagues and people that you know one shape form or another of have kind of a similar story to that that seems to be a much more common way to break in and yeah applying on online right here's a job app yeah yeah not to say I'm not gonna work and how does your time spent day a day now that's way changes of course another thing I love about this job is dynamic right so we're fundraising for fun too right now so I spend a fair amount of time talking to potential LPS going over

00:41:18 the portfolio metrics going over portfolio companies talking about the model you know whatever answering whatever questions that they have spending a lot of time with our portfolio companies right now earlier this year we were you know more active and so you spent more time sourcing deals and conducting diligence and executing the transactions you know January will come around and there's you know a bunch of audit and back-office stuff that kind of needs to get done so that'll take a lot of time

00:41:47 it varies based on the time of year varies day to day I could be you know spending you know an entire afternoon with one of our portfolio companies whiteboarding going over strategic decisions trying to help them work through a problem the next day I could be just you know head down answering a bunch of emails from prospective LPS so it just it varies constantly day to day yeah every day yes every day is different yeah we what you say like you like that type of different yeah I had to come in and do the same thing nine to

00:42:22 five and punch the same TCP report and over and over man I would not I would not be a good employee yeah yeah I know the diversity the dynamic fluidity is I actually really like yeah and with with your fun to with with sway I mean how hands-on are you guys with the portfolio companies and like what resources do you have or suggested to the entrepreneurs you're working with we try to have pretty hands-on okay so we've actually got a pretty big team for relative size of the fun we are so then the investment teams about eight

00:42:56 people okay there's five general partners there's me there's a couple operating venture partners and we have one of their associates maybe nine I think there's nine of us we also have another 15 or so what we call operating partners and those are you know part-time or ad-hoc people that we can bring in on you know per company basis so for example we've got an operating partner based in Washington DC who you know couple of our companies cyber security companies sell into the government space and he's got a whole

00:43:34 government background can help navigate the DoD the you know you name it he can he can help open doors yeah so we've got a competitive advantage in that space and so you know he doesn't work with all of our portfolio companies but the few that wanna sell into the government as customers you know works very closely with an absolutely opens doors we've got you know former CFOs and that can come in and you know if you need someone to come in for eight months 12 months while you're looking to hire or maybe not quite ready to hire

00:44:07 that CFO yet yeah we'll we'll drop someone in for a period of time so we try to do you know things like that that are you know real value add or actually get in in the weeds of the business yeah see how we try to take a pretty hands-on approach yeah it's pretty big team and I think those are such a big value add to having those people yeah on board yeah it's crazy and and then just looking kind of that where people can go to connect with you or what's the best way for them to get in touch yeah email or Twitter probably

00:44:37 so email it's Brett BRE TT at sway VC calm and then Twitter it's @b Monst and then yeah LinkedIn's not a good one for me I'm not not really big on LinkedIn yeah but but yeah I know happy to connect awesome thank you so much no time today my pleasure thanks for checking out star up 2.0 from spark XYZ if you want to learn more about startups and investing and check us out join the ecosystem at spark XYZ dot IO