00:00:01 moving the Neto unfound your failure of 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 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 Melinda Moore who's a general partner at more adventures she's also a co-founder of Tuesday nights and as a serial entrepreneur she brings experience from both sides of the table to this interview Melinda welcome to the

00:01:01 show yes we're happy to have you on and where I want to get started first is with more ventures in the middle of raising right now but what areas are going to be focused on with this fund yes so more ventures is entirely focused on investing in the low-carbon economy okay and so we have four sectors that were investing in and those I did a bunch of research and those sectors are the ones where we can have the greatest impact on lowering co2 emissions yeah so that's in green building renewable energy okay sustainable food and

00:01:38 alternative transportation great and how did that come about then how this fund the idea for where you want to focus with this and everything and how would you have this come about right so I've been a serial entrepreneur for the past couple decades and most of the companies that I've started which loving eco and I was advising Lovegood Lee a lot of these companies are in the sustainability space yeah primarily getting women to vote with their wallet for ecologically conscious products because we're not really aware of like

00:02:08 what we're putting onto our skin what's going into the environment yeah like how many toxins are out there so for me it was just a natural evolution to start more ventures in this sense that when you're looking at the research and the UN reports regarding what's happening with co2 levels yeah they're at an all-time high and what what happens with that is then things are heating up but it's heating up ice is melting and unfortunately by 2050 we could have at least 200 million climate immigrants so when you have to move an

00:02:43 entire town of Jakarta or places in India because it's under water and you have to move 10 million people at a time yeah I'm like okay we have an issue yes so let's use all of this intelligence wisdom the people that I know to make a positive impact yeah that's awesome and it's obviously such a huge need I mean that's depends on yeah I'm literally like okay I've got to go like I'm working and somebody interrupts me I'm like I gotta go I gotta save the world nobody I think you should let me do that

00:03:17 yeah and for this then too because of that I mean what does that diligence process gonna look like as you're evaluating companies when you're eventually gonna make investments right so the way that I'm looking at it is clearly I'm not an expert in each area so what across the four verticals I brought on strategic advisors that have like decades of experience you know I just recently brought on Mark Ellis to do renewable energy so he comes from semper energy ExxonMobil McKenzie has a great background at Harvard and MIT and

00:03:47 so he's helping me evaluate all of the renewable energy and alternative transportation deal awesome so it's essential when you're dealing with like hardcore science and scalable technology that you have people that can truly identify if the technology can scale yeah makes a lot of sense and how have you been approaching those people and like targeting certain people to help you like bring you up bringing on board with more ventures yeah I mean I think you've learned through decades of entrepreneurship that it you know it's

00:04:18 important to be bold and to ask people who know think that's one of the things that I've learned is just to ask for help right but to ask for help that people you know it's the experience that I've had is being able to identify great leadership and a good team and build the right culture so for me it's just about asking but then it's also about creating a win-win so that's like how you're structuring the incentives the culture that you're creating and making sure you're on the same page yeah and for raising this fun - I mean

00:04:53 what has that process been like for you so far Musa so okay so I always say this entrepreneurs like you have to run a company don't you have to raise money which means you essentially have two full-time jobs yeah and you know raising money is definitely challenging um I would say this like I'm highly motivated I feel like I'm on a complete mission for at least two reasons one is I care so much about the environment and I grew up in Santa Monica surfing and hiking and I get a lot of inspiration and peace from

00:05:27 from nature yeah so I want to protect it and then secondly as a woman and my partner's african-american it's really important that we shift the dollars last year less than two percent of venture capital went to women and literally less than 1% went to minorities so for me at this point in my career in order to change that equation you have to write the checks so I feel like there's just no other choice but to succeed and to provide really healthy returns for my LPS and so the process is just you have

00:06:01 to just have fun with it kind of game if I it like every day I reach out to at least five new potential LPS but it's also being very strategic right so it's looking at the family offices looking at high net and individuals private equity but people that have raised their hand for doing impact type investing yeah I always say that to entrepreneurs you know do your homework make sure that who you're reaching out to that it makes sense yeah of course not gonna reach out to somebody that's never ever done

00:06:36 renewable energy or alternative transportation deal and they only do you know something that makes no sense right yeah because we're wasting everybody's time and with raising money there's just no time to waste yeah and then coming like that entrepreneur perspective to looking at the entrepreneurs as they're going through their whole process of fundraising as well I mean what should they be thinking about or made some questions they should be asking as well so first of all you want to make sure

00:07:00 that the the venture capitalist or however you're raising the money isn't having these discussions because they have a direct competitor or in their portfolio so they're just looking to get intelligence because we're always looking to get intelligence in every conversation we have so number one is make sure you're not handing over like all of your secrets your direct competitor so just go to their website look at the portfolio go on crunchbase just make sure you're not handing everything over to a competitor

00:07:31 potential competitor right so that's one sure two is you really want to make sure that they're gonna you know add value so what is the money what is the venture capitalist what are they bringing to the table what are they offering you do they have the right expertise are they going to be able to help you with culture are they gonna be able to help you with you know continuing to raise money in future rounds adding to your team those types of things so I really evaluate what I call like the value add yeah and what's

00:08:01 smart money you got to raise smart money good well go for it ring me buy smart money be what I aren't aware of that yeah so smart money to me is smart strategic money which means you are in complete alignment with how you want to move the company forward and strategically what value you can add to the VC and the VC can add to you and making sure that you really think that they have your back yeah and they want to move your business forward and they want to move your business forward in a way that's completely in alignment with

00:08:33 your mission yeah and one things we have actually talked about before a little bit before the interview was like different options that entrepreneurs have for raising money even if it's not ventured back and you talked a little bit about some of those options just they have an idea of what is available out there even absolutely so for me I'm so passionate about entrepreneurship because I really believe you know with a single idea you can change the world you know it's weather like it's 3d printing for houses where you can buy a

00:08:58 house for $3,000 instead of you know $300,000 or right now somebody created a blood test where they can detect cancer so for me I'm just I love ideas and how much they can transform literally the world and so something that I've just always been passionate about so when you look at the equation and you say okay well VC's only gave 2% of money to women less than 1% to men and oftentimes they really are in the business to say no they have to be just because that's just the way that the numbers work yes and so there's got

00:09:32 to be other alternatives so I actually wrote the book how to raise money the ultimate guide to crowdfunding I definitely believe in both equity and rewards based crowdfunding if you have a b2c company it's great to get market validation like a Kickstarter IndieGoGo campaign and then there's a bunch of platforms that are actually really good circle up crowd funder flash vendors and these are all for equity crowdfunding so actually getting money from accredited investors and giving away equity so it

00:10:01 really goes down to the Y in this storytelling so for entrepreneurs I always say and there's dead equity so you can get working capital for companies you can raise money from banks I think it's really important to understand as an entrepreneur what are all the different avenues of raising money and what are the pluses and minuses and what is going to make the most sense for the type of company at the stage that you have yeah and I'm not pointing to for companies looking to raise funding then who which companies

00:10:33 are the ones that should be looking for venture capital yeah okay so companies that should be looking for venture capital are ones that are primarily like hardcore technology-based in which it's you know expensive to produce the products sure to get them out there and that they have the potential for like a hockey stick growth so essentially what VCS are looking for is like over the next three to five years they want to see you go from like zero to at least a hundred million in sales and and have that curve

00:11:05 in terms of the growth so you have to make sure that your business is in alignment with that type of growth so a lot of SAS models fit in really well with that you know whether your sales force or you know any time that you know b2b kind of model and so it's like like I said it's really a certain type of primarily technology-based versus you know b2c like if I had a new oat milk company I probably wouldn't get venture funding yeah even if I could I wouldn't take it because a they're gonna push me

00:11:38 to grow too fast they're gonna take too much of my company and and force me to do things that I might not want to do but I think venture is really good for businesses that require like there's a very capital-intensive which-which reason why I'm doing more ventures that way is a lot of these technologies that are highly scalable in I'm looking for the Apple of agriculture right I'm looking at renewable energy I'm looking at alternative transportation Tesla Hyperloop all of these things are extremely capital intensive which is why

00:12:10 venture to me made the most sense yeah and it's important for arcs entrepreneurs understand that there are different options for fundraising and that point of what you mentioned of who it's actually for because everyone sees all these different raises and he's you know for every different company seems like everyone's getting money but venture money is not for every business and I think it's important to understand in the world and people like to say oh hey I got money from upfront ventures not a cocktail party sure and so they

00:12:41 like to kind of becomes a little bit of a bragging right yeah versus wait are you actually making the best strategic move for your company right now and forth long-term future yeah and with what you mentioned with with more ventures and as you're moving forward obviously the huge mission behind it as well I mean how are you going to evaluate entrepreneurs in terms of where they come from as we are in Los Angeles right now and then stick up clearly there's people here there's entrepreneurs all over the place how are

00:13:06 you going to I'm actually already evaluating deals in Israel in Japan you know I'm evaluating a deal that is using it's doing desalinization but using wave from the ocean and that's actually from Japan because the ocean is endless in terms of the waves so in the past desalinization sore filtering water has been very expensive and it requires a lot of energy so it doesn't scale well but if you're using a natural resource like waves in the ocean it's very interesting yeah right so I'm already evaluating

00:13:40 deals all over the world and I've created a really interesting vetting process and so I obviously look at the opportunity I look at the size of the opportunity I look at if they have intellectual property you know is it something that I can talk to a customer already yeah because I want to talk to a customer because I want to invest in companies that I think have the ability to scale my partner Daria Sankey has extensive expertise in intellectual property okay so we can actually license intellectual property and sell that he

00:14:16 splits his time between China in here Wow China in the United States are the two largest dirtiest kind of countries in the world so we can have the greatest impact by being able to take technology from Germany Israel of the United States and bringing it over to China or even finding these from China and bringing it over here so intellectual property to me is very important and then looking at the team so you know I want to look at the why how passionate the team is their level of experience expertise if they

00:14:49 have exits in the past the culture and then I've also I'm working with my partner mark on the renewable energy side and he's developed a proprietary platform that actually analyzes the entrepreneurs performance oh wow development so it's called aperture okay and so we're putting all of our entrepreneurs through this and it's a platform that tests and looks for openness flexibility leadership and we can identify strengths and weaknesses and also work with them over a development plan so I think that's

00:15:25 what are the unique things that actually more adventures is doing is we have a development platform yeah we put all of our entrepreneurs through as part of the vetting process that's very interesting is that answering Angele much of questions it's like interview style mobile apps it's not only like a sort of output but it's also a development platform to help you become a better leader and help you become better at analytical skills better and understanding culture and open-mindedness because open-mindedness

00:16:00 and flexibility we found is very key in having successful entrepreneurship and leadership yeah and with what you mentioning they're also sourcing deals like in Israel other places too I mean how how are you sourcing deals and where you how are you how they're coming to you yeah I am very active in LinkedIn okay it's an incredibly powerful publishing platform sure and I get extensive deal flow through LinkedIn awesome and then because I've been an entrepreneur I have a great you know expertise with raising money in the past

00:16:35 and so I have a really good venture Network yeah so I'm working with a lot of the VCS that are up in the Bay Area that had been very focused on impact investing for about a decade because in fact I think there's I literally think that impact investing you know it's a trillion dollar opportunity and it's only really been around for ten years so I think it's one of the greatest investment opportunities of the century yeah and what you see it's only been around for ten years you mention like yeah yeah yeah why would you say that is

00:17:06 one of the great opportunities diving a little bit deeper into that impact investing because fundamentally we have to change everything that we're doing which means we have to change the way that we grow food we have to change the way that we transport ourselves both in the air and on the grass shirt we have to change our homes in terms of the way that the energy the way that we're heating all of the appliance says we have to change what we're eating like all of these things yeah you know technology talks about disruption and

00:17:36 disruption there's opportunity but I'm basically saying we have to disrupt the way that we're living so there's I find great opportunity with that so like I said I'm definitely looking for the Apple of regenerative farming right yeah and so farming has become this big business and it's all about monoculture and you've put so much chemicals with Monsanto into the ground and that goes into the water supply it goes into the air and so this is not healthy so I'm looking at ways even like using robotics but using

00:18:09 techniques that don't use any chemicals yeah and that have better output for food and that are focused on biodiversity so for instance I you know those people in LA that love their avocados over 80% of all of Autocar vacarros grown in California and Mexico are Hass avocados they're Hass avocados because essentially they can make more money thinks that they can make more money so they can grow more of them and fit in a box and sell them at like Ralph's or wherever you purchase your avocados sure

00:18:45 so it's all about money making but the problem is let's just say something comes in a bug a bacteria a virus and it wipes out Hass avocados well now you've wiped you're not going to have Alva cata toaster big problem for California a perfect problem and so you know you need biodiversity in order to be healthy so I want to bring biodiversity back to the entire food system around the globe I mean as an initiative not being reliant as one yeah I mean monoculture is not healthy and now we'll take a quick break

00:19:20 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 managing expenses has become more difficult and time-consuming which is why we've partnered with Brett to offer a corporate credit card that is not personally guaranteed offers higher credit limit provides Auto reconciliation and integrates with erps

00:19:51 using receipt capture Breck's is the credit card of the start ecosystem and we highly encourage you to check them out and back to the show so what areas are you most interested in in terms of investing where are some things you're seeing that you're like okay out definitely these particular areas we talked about a little bit I'm curious in what areas are really excited about right now transportation I'm definitely looking you know all of these cars are essentially using batteries yeah and so there's kind of two levels

00:20:19 so that one is how can we make more efficient batteries so that we have two we can we don't have they can be more efficient with charging going larger distances but then right now a lot of these batteries are sitting in warehouses because they're actually not cleaned because how do you get rid of a lithium battery right so I'm actually looking and working with Marc right now and what could we do to upcycle these batteries yeah because it's actually you know people are like oh I'm driving a Prius I'm being great for the

00:20:52 environment but they're not necessarily thinking about the battery yeah and so I'm looking at the battery I'm looking at the salt and sea because the Salton Sea is really toxic in California but there's a lot of lithium what could we do there to clean that up and actually create more efficient batteries like I said I'm looking at regenerative farming I'm looking at AI robotics that are using essentially robotics to get rid of the weeds and you don't even need to tell the soil or use any fertilizer so I

00:21:22 find that really interesting I'm looking at a lot of Walter a water filtration systems I'm looking at desalinization but using waves instead of you know traditional power yeah I'm looking at a lot of renewable things that could just optimum you know right now in California PG&E is really in trouble and with all of the fires I'm also looking at the regulations like what regulations are happening so they can find some opportunities they're specific to regulations around fire risk mitigation and that's around like green building

00:21:54 it's around energy you know all of these things there's just I think it's really exciting yeah and how are you how do you Hubert some of these ideas these different things that people are working on them how how do you go about learning about these and hearing about what's going on I'm just cares about your process about looking for these different opportunities yeah so first of all you know I developed like I like I said we've developed a tight vetting process and then we across the four vertical so alternative transportation

00:22:21 the food renewable energy and green building we've put together I put together like a small white paper that says where I think the opportunity is okay and so then I kind of communicate that to the community you know on LinkedIn through the VC Network private equity Network family office network of specifically where we think the opportunity is yeah and like I said because my partner Darius is excellent and intellectual property we think that we can accelerate in a unique way as a VC by leveraging that IP yeah and being

00:22:56 able to license and sell it to multiple countries immediately whereby offering our LPS immediate liquidity because if you look at the IPO market it used to be on average eight years well it's now gone to ten years then there's not as many IPOs so as a venture capitalist it's my responsibility to my LPS to provide strong return right so I'm doing that through a unique LP I mean intellectual property yeah that's awesome and one thing we haven't talked about we had to get to is Tuesday nights I mean how did

00:23:26 that get started in the first place and what is it for people who don't work yes so Tuesday nights it's Tuesday nights org and it's a powerful female networking organization where we're moving businesses forward and creating community to really help one another across all verticals of business so technology entertainment nonprofit fashion beauty everything and when Justine last off and I started loving eco and it was a flash sale site for all green products like for women so natural beauty skin care

00:24:00 we went to raise money and people on Sand Hill Road a Thurmond yeah and be there like what do you mean natural skincare what do you mean or get like we could have been speaking Mandarin Chinese even though our numbers and the cohort analysis and everything was growing at a phenomenal rate yeah we weren't able to raise more money and that was just highly frustrating and I do want to say it was kind of just a boys Network yeah so we kind of looked at each other and this is in 2013 that we started this so many years ago before

00:24:30 there was a girl boss things like that it's different yeah and yeah it's much different now which is better and so we said let's create a network for women and help elevate them because you know women you know there's the strengths that the it's our version of the PayPal mafia for women yes and when you started that I mean what did you plan that that being exactly cuz like you want to start this network for women you know that there's a need for this what do you have plans for that being and looking like

00:24:59 and how is that kind of progressed over the last you know five six years now yeah so it started off obviously we wanted to pull some amazing founders across different areas of business so yeah they are so we've got an incredible like foundation of women to kind of start it with us and then we started by events you know and those events are panels fireside chats we have a private Facebook group and we do a lot of polling to say hey do you want to learn about raising money do you want to learn about branding do you want to

00:25:30 learn about you know impact like all of these subjects and so we would just provide programming based on events that we do usually on a Tuesday evening go figure that so that's what we do and it's evolved to doing bigger conferences around and we did a huge impact conference that was completely sold out in Santa Monica well next year we're doing a media conference so media about you know inclusion diversity and where women's stories so Channing Dungy who was the first African American woman to run a network she ran ABC but now she's

00:26:04 running original content for Netflix so she's one of our codes and that's the media one in me first and we're gonna do a fall one that's on impact that we're programming so now we're kind of moving to having even greater impact yeah so large larger scale events is now more so what you're focused on and then and then you're just like charging her event that okay that sort of thing and then and now with with all the things you're working on it how are you imagine your time and where is your time focus on these days because

00:26:31 there's a lot of different things you're involved with yes so more ventures is definitely my primary focus of course for sure yep and with Tuesday nights we have a great team so we have a small team that helps and I'm definitely will be involved but more ventures is where you know I'm putting really a hundred percent of my energy because I just feel it's that important and it doesn't take I will say this to entrepreneurs and venture capital it's beyond a full-time job yes with that then - I mean for those who don't know

00:27:05 as you're raising this fund working these different things I mean what does your day kind of look like in terms of meetings or in times like how is that structured I'm sure it's different but how is it look we're so but I I think you have to have a certain discipline so I wake up I meditate I go to the gym you know so I make sure that I start with like a very strong grounding and in high energy right and not having anxiety like honestly working out it helps me with the anxiety of raising the money and the

00:27:35 pressure that's on there to deliver you know returns back right yeah and make the right decisions and then you know the day is just like each what I love about being a venture capitalist is my job is to talk to incredible entrepreneurs doing amazing things all day long that is my job yeah yeah that's pretty cool and then talking the part that's tougher is just at the simultaneously raising money as they're talking to the family offices to private equity and high-net-worth and you know it's like chasing whales yeah all day

00:28:07 long and then meetings with the other doctors really focused multitasking yeah yeah and having the experience though as an entrepreneur for your many years as well and knowing that many entrepreneurs gonna be watching and listening I mean what would you tell them as we're going through process of building companies things to think about like any particular lessons that you think are valuable that they should they should know definitely so I think don't underestimate setting a really positive culture okay so culture is really

00:28:37 important to understanding what type of culture you want to create making sure that's our structure around that culture that everybody that you hire is gonna kind of fit in well to the culture yeah and I think a culture you have to allow people to fail because if you have I think one of the things that I see is you know all entrepreneurs want to be perfect well perfect is really an illusion and then when you want to do things so perfectly you end up not releasing things like products items yep and what I always say to people is

00:29:08 release something faster than you think so that you can get feedback from customers because that feedback is so invaluable and if you're listening as an entrepreneur to your customers and you're building it for them you're gonna be more successful oh yeah and so I actually see a lot of fear because it's around perfection and I think we need to just break that that that a perfection doesn't exist you're never really going to achieve it and so it's better to just work really hard get it out there get

00:29:40 the feedback but then you have that means you have to create a culture where you allow your employees to fail but that also means that they're taking greater risks yeah and more innovation and then also in a big goal of ours as diversity's though we fundamentally more ventures believe in diversity and that diverse teams they promote more innovation they're better at pivoting in fact the research shows that they have higher returns so you know if you have a bunch of people that bring different perspectives yeah that actually creates

00:30:14 strength versus like all the people that look the same so I already tell entrepreneurs make sure you have a really diverse team and that's the team at the c-level founder level and then all the way down yeah and with that piece going deeper inside the team as such because it's so important that's also what all these venture capitals are looking for in a company especially early stage is the team and the hiring process is so important I mean what should founders be thinking of or questions they should be asking these

00:30:39 potential looking at to make sure they do actually build like the right culture because that's so important but then it's like they're gonna be building their team they're trying to like get help however they can I'm just curious any insights you have on what they should be asking potential yeah yeah as they're evaluating these different people to join their company it's definitely the questions but it's more how does somebody respond to you yeah how flexible do you think they it's even higher than the question sure

00:31:06 what's a starting point yeah yeah it is a starting point but it's you know yes it's having certain questions understanding obviously their expertise understanding do they have the grit because being in a start-up is really tough and so it's kind of an emotional roller coaster yeah so you know asking people if they're okay with like high highs and low lows and that and they're able to wear a lot of hats right because in a startup you need people that are generalists as well as specialists right and so we having that right mix but it's

00:31:45 like watching how somebody you responds you know like how open they are do they cut you off also because I'm looking for people that are really good active listeners yeah where they don't have to feel that they always have to prove themselves like throughout the entire conversation themselves I understand that but it's probably not great because they'll be doing a lot of interrupting and creating like a defensive environment versus a really receptive active listening learning environment yeah and with you and your career too I get

00:32:22 building companies like what well where maybe some of the biggest challenges we face and like that startup should to know about or should anticipate like running into I'm just curious on your personal experience - sure so raising money yeah so the number one reason that companies feels they run out of money so you always have to ask for more and as you're raising you know before you do you have to ask for more you absolutely has to ask for more but you have to obviously get the more in terms that

00:32:50 work but it's better to raise more than less and unfortunately women are notorious for asking for less and so I always tell women no you need to know your worth and ask for more and you're selling an opportunity like with more Avengers it's an opportunity it's a trillion dollar business to be a part of the impact I'm building the best team I have incredible knowledge I understand media how to be able to diverse teams so when I'm communicating to potential LPS it's from a position of I am inviting

00:33:21 you to an opportunity yeah exactly and and with that too I mean obviously you want to ask for more how do you know knowing what you're worth and how does it how do they figure that out how do you understand like is it just getting more perspectives or input from other people who have done this and like yeah I should probably add some more than that like what do you think it ask you for more is you know it always takes you long it's like construction it always takes you longer to raise the money

00:33:47 sure so that means the critical thing is being able to go from round around around typically in financing so you have to a make sure that you have enough to get enough traction of your story so that you have a story to be able to raise the next round right and you have to be able to raise the next round when you're already trying to do everything that you're an accomplished in the first round and it's by being a good storyteller right it's like making sure that you're communicating to investors

00:34:14 on an ongoing basis and letting them know like all the exciting things and and advancements that you've made so that you're kind of always raising even when you're not raising yeah you know yeah yeah yeah you're always informing people you're educating you're you're being a really good storyteller a great salesperson for what you're doing always yeah and as your I mean as if you see then you're you're hearing these companies pitch and they're telling stories all the time and but you're seeing a lot of companies and only a few

00:34:44 of them you'll actually be able to invest in I mean what are some those things that either make a company stand out in a positive way or a negative way that it helps them actually get through to maybe getting investment yes so let's go with a positive for sure with the positive it's you know definitely looking at a team that understands that they're uniquely addressing some that's big in the marketplace yeah right and for me I need to know that that I don't just want an ID on a napkin I want to know that they had enough grit to get

00:35:14 it to a point where I can actually talk to a customer yes if they're gonna say oh yeah we can do X Y & Z I actually want to talk to the customer yeah so I say that to people and a lot of times you know entrepreneurs they get a little weak when I say that because they're like oh but it takes this and this and so they start to kind of get weak when I say I want to talk to a customer and then saying to them but because it's my first fund and we're talking about 25 million yeah I have to be very careful that I

00:35:48 apply it to companies that can truly scale and reduce our carbon footprint yeah so if you're gonna get squealy with me about a technology that doesn't really exist yet then that doesn't look good and I've already had a few of those conversations and I'll get super defensive and this and that and that to me is a bit of a turn-off because they've got to figure out how to make it happen you know right right right yeah make it habit yeah just money and you want a lot of money then like let me make sure that it works

00:36:23 right you should make sure that you test it right right and then on the flip so yes yesterday the negatives where does some negative companies have it like that just to know for you as your pastor you're looking through a lot different things and the numbers and there's been a number of companies that come to me and they've been around for six eight years and there's almost nothing going on literally like and I'm like yeah and I break into the economics and we start to have this conversation yeah about it

00:36:58 and you know that so it's amazing you know what people think but there's just not really the track record to prove you know you get a deck but then when you start digging into the deck and looking at the history I look at the history look at how far somebody has come in a period of time and I look at market traction and I'm looking at capital utilization how efficient are they with the money that they've received because that's gonna be a very strong indicators that when I give them money yeah how

00:37:31 efficient are not efficient they're gonna be and you'd be amazed at how many people don't have capital efficiency but just think that I'm gonna give them money because we're saving the world yeah it's not that simple no and what's that point then to I what is that average checks how is gonna be with that funk two hundred fifty thousand to two million okay so how did you come up with that number just curious it's basically just looking at economics in terms of the funders how big the fund is what type of impact that we can have

00:38:02 we're doing early stage in series a yep so it's just honestly what makes sense when I you know when Darius and I evaluated yeah the marketplace yeah and then as we're kind of wrapping up here with more of interest to what makes more venture standout for these entrepreneurs are looking at value eight different funds potentially and like you're obviously want money for me like what is it about more adventures that makes there's a couple things that are really unique from a venture site so number one

00:38:27 we are diverse team yeah and so we invest in diversity and we know that diversity outperforms those that don't so there are very few VC firms that are founded by a woman and an african-american manager it doesn't exist right sure and then number two is I'm very strong at marketing and media and so we understand media and a lot of these technology companies they actually don't understand media so I believe that we can provide a lot of value ad as to accelerating market traction through understanding the power of media yeah

00:39:00 and then the third thing is like our vetting process you know Mark has developed a proprietary platform where not only can we identify what we think is great leaders but we can also help them through development I don't know of any other VC firm that's actually committed to doing that yeah um and then I'm very smart about building a team and having very strong expertise across the four sectors that I'm investing in yeah and what are the best ways for someone to reach out or connect or even learn

00:39:33 more about more ventures yeah so I mean you know I'm Melinda more more ventures on LinkedIn it's more - ventures dot-com is our URL you know we have all these social channels awesome um so yeah that's the best way to find me awesome thank you so much for coming on the show today Melinda thank you thanks for checking out step 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