Deal flow management for purchasing

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hello everyone welcome welcome welcome to the meet the manager sourcing deal flow Edition uh this VC lab event helps to bring together a leading Venture uh Capital managers to share their secrets on effective deal flow management so my name is myto lakos um here at desl group I run our Flagship programs such as VC lab which is is a closing program for new and emerging VC firm managers LP Institute which is a learning program for individuals and institutional investors who are looking to learn about the VC asset class as well as Venture Institute which is a learning program for those who want to learn the basics of venture capital uh most people want to kind of start a career in in in VC so um if you're interested in any of those programs uh go to our website we have applications open for all three of those um and overall what we're doing here at THL group is that we're building a community empowering the next generation of VCS worldwide um our mission is to turn Venture Capital into a Force for good in the world and there's two elements that are really important in this Mission so the first one is kind of the good part which is all about creating impact and change and kind of reversing some of the things that you know are happening in the world like climate and social injustice um but the other element of our kind of mission statement is the force so we believe that only the best can kind of turn things around uh from where we are in the world and so we have kind of this philosophy and we're super adamant about working with the best and speaking of the best today you know we're talking about deal sourcing um with some of the best kind of in in in the field and some of the best to kind of do this today um and deal sourcing you know it's the kind of superpower of every successful Venture Capital fund and we want to talk about how you Source how you build a pipeline and how you go through this pipeline uh which is usually hundreds if not thousands of deals uh per per per month or quarter uh without missing the best ones and we have an amazing panel as I said uh uh of all made up of emerging managers who are doing this kind of top level top class in the world right now um before I have everyone introduce themselves however I do need to read through this disclaimer very quickly so here we go the content presented today is not directed to any investor or potential investors and does not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy any securities so with that out of the way I am honored to introduce everyone here to our speakers today we have Mark Zoo from zenture Capital Ventures Ali Jamal from first check Ventures and cam Crowder from redstick Ventures so hi everyone we're so excited to have you here today can I pass over to you guys uh so that you can further introduce yourselves and maybe we can start with uh you mark sure thank you to include me in this discussion I'm really excited to be here I'm Mark Zoo I'm a general partner at zenture Capital we are precc stage fund uh we went through the VC lab cohort 7 uh that was couple years ago so feels like a long time uh but certainly work very closely with the VC lab and that's our group um our sweet spot is really looking for leveraging their um fast moving emerging AI automation technology to solve real world problem um so uh with that I will just pass on to uh the other panelist yeah I can go next cam Crowder uh co-founder General partner Red Stick Ventures uh really excited to be here um and talk to Y it's one of my favorite things to talk about so um Red Stick just a little give a little context we're uh we're a food Tech fund really focus on labor efficiency and automation food and sustainable food production um precc like I said early stage and uh we really like the backf founders with Big Ideas so that's uh that's red St hi I'm Ali Jamal I run uh first check Ventures um I was in VC lab cohort 8 so it's been a couple years since I I graduated as well um BC lab has been incredibly helpful on on this journey uh before kind of joining VC lab I had a Syndicate as well as was a pretty active Angel and so through that ended up um really figuring out what I liked what I wanted to be a part of and um you know I think the name kind of says it like what excites me the most about being uh in this system and what I get excited by amazing thank you guys so much um so you know what I want to do today is really start to kind of paint the picture of who you are and what makes you so good at what you do and so kind of to start that and to go back from the beginning can can you all tell us a little bit more about your background and how you got into Venture Capital um and maybe we can start with you Ali sure so um you know I don't like to think of myself necessarily as a VC um I tend to think of myself as a you know startup person and particularly in product of growth I did that for more than a decade um in startups initially in Silicon Valley and then eventually all over the world I ended up leading growth for a couple of different unicorns in Latin America and uh during the pandemic decided to you know kind of double down on my angel wrestling and then ended up starting a Syndicate in July of 2020 that Syndicate did really well and so I ended up uh kind of leaving my job to focus on investing full time and then you know the next best step kind of after you've been doing a Syndicate is to really kind of um formalize it so I ended up starting um you know the VC uh firm to to uh help me uh kind of really do the deals I wanted to do and and really kind of help the kind of companies I wanted to help and so I think the the biggest thing for me is is really trying to be value add in the ecosystem and using my background in product and growth to be more than just an investor but but also really help and accelerate the companies that are in my portfolio cool I can go next uh I think everybody's got like a weird story about how they got into Adventure most people do uh mine's pretty interesting as well I was a franchisee in the Tim Horton system so I had a bunch of locations in Canada and uh really started to make private Investments Angel investments in 2019 because of the labor issues around uh food and Food Service uh in my business it was you know 25% turnover for about seven years in a row um really tried to focus on the people and and the turnover just continued to happen so I was really coming into VC really to solve my own problems so um was Angel Investing around Robotics and Ai and got really curious around it didn't even know what VC was and uh the more I got into it and people started to understand what the problems were around it that uh um I got deeper into the space and ended up in Silicon Valley at the Venture par ERS where kind of learned how to do deals so um yeah everybody's got like a different background of how they got into it uh there's no like straight line to VC and I think mine's probably one of those very interesting stories yeah I so I'm a chemical engineer um by training actually got a PhD in chemical engineering so I spent actually the first seven year of my career um as an engineer developing product uh specifically fuel sale at a fairly large organization um that's about 15 well actually close to 20 years ago now and uh as you all see I mean we we have uh electrical cars everywhere but we don't have fuel Cale uh Vehicles right uh with maybe exception of few of them in in California so um so through that process I really um really interested in getting to know like how how technology get adopted how Market um can be ready or maybe too early for certain Technologies um and my I I actually took uh uh a MBA program uh while I was working and afterwards was uh recruited to join a corporate Venture group uh in the climate Tech space and that's about 15 years ago so I moved around um but all in the Venture related space and my my last role before starting Venture was at uh deep Tech investment platform based out that uh bay area and um what eventually drives me to start zenture is that uh um you know one is I'm not getting any younger uh if I want to do something on my own that's probably the time and we also have a couple deals uh that we invest through our Korea had really good exits around 2021 time frame so we saw that you know there is some credibility to to our story and that's how I got started with zenture amazing amazing thank you guys so much so okay so step one of kind of deal sourcing I guess you know could be building that pipeline right and this is kind of so essential for for for you guys um how how do you and and you're new kind you're relatively new in as VCS in the market so the the what I want you guys to kind of tell us more about is how did you build this pipeline you know um obviously Ali you were investing before and some of you got you know you were investing before so maybe that's kind of what starts it but then how do you grow it so let's kind of dive a little bit deeper into kind of building that pipeline um especially in the context of kind of you know your your your fir is you know just kind of uh launched so maybe uh C we can start with you this time yeah um I think like a VC is a networking game right so you either come with the network or you need to build a network um on my side I was really lucky that there's a group of in Canada called c100 that is actually in Silicon Valley so it's Canadians working in big firms in Silicon Valley and when I was out in Silicon Valley I got in that group so it kind of blew up my network that way um but I think the end of the day I think it's like you got to be if you're especially if you're early stage pre-stage C like you have to be really close to the founders when they're starting the company um and uh it's networking it's bumping into them it's going to mentoring at different maybe Venture firms that are bigger than you um that are in the same space it could be going to meetups and and things like that and getting close to Founders investors and corporates um but it's a networking game and you have to put yourself out there and if you don't do that it's going to be tough to find those deals and uh you have to be where those where those deals are are coming from as a venture capitalist so that's kind of what we do at Red Stick we just try to be really close to where those deals are coming from and uh get in at the earliest stag as possible sure happy to jump in um you know for me I think the biggest thing is you know your reputation really matters um in this in terms of getting deal Flo and so um having a reputation for being helpful and and really focusing on helping out the ecosystem where you can really add value I think has been the biggest source of deal flow for me um you know I'm always willing to take a call with uh you know people very early in in their building and giveing them feedback on their idea until then naturally when you know they're going out to raise they end up coming to me first and then also um you know even if I decide not to invest in that because I was helpful early the process um you know they tend to refer me to their other friends that might be build there or might be a better fit um and then you know as you started to build up your portfolio of uh you know companies you've invested in most people reach out to those Founders first to kind of get help or get advice and so if you've built up a portfolio of of really great Founders those great Founders are kind of constantly getting introduced to deals that then they end up introducing to you as well especially if you've made maintain a great relationship with them and have been able to be helpful and add value to their uh company and their role so I think uh the biggest thing to just realize is how big your reputation is and if you actually are able to add value to people and to what they're doing and can you know U does it always have to be you know it always be their cheerleader but like always being honest and being truthful with them about what's exciting what's not exciting what they could do to improve and you know some of the best deals I've done have been companies that I actually re rejected the first time or rejected the second time or you know told them hey I like you guys but I don't like this company you need a pivot and then once they pivoted and they found something that actually made sense they you know welcomed the fact that I was the person that was honest with them in the beginning so um you know try to trying to figure out where you can really add value to the ecosystem and what things you bring that other people don't bring and how you can bring that Honesty to them I incredibly valuable to the ecosystem to help you build out your pipeline I I really agree with what cim and Ali had just said right it is it is a network um business and it takes a lot of hard work like Ali said um so for for new managers I thought uh to build out this network other effective way can be really uh participate in some of those accelerators right span time with their company going through their accelerator program and there there are are very good ones uh out there including you know founder Institute and uh and depend on what you're looking for like so if you look at Deep Tech like activate is a real good one um so spending time with those companies um you kind of get to know them before they go out on the demo day and you know raise the formal round uh some are real good companies they Circle up the the capital even before the demo day and I saw you they they all invest tremendous amount in marketing they have good reputation they have a huge Network in whatever area that you're interested in and I think spending quality time uh working with those accelerator is is also a very effective way right and another point I want to add is you see a lot of deals and and the key point is like our time is all limited right and so it's it's about spending this time providing valuable input and feedback to the company and you just need to have a I guess well functioning filter to focus on the ones that you want to uh spend the time get to know uh otherwise you you see hundreds of deal you just don't have enough time to process them all yeah I love that so much how you know kind of our industry really operates on kind of paying it forward and that's how you you know then VCS become successful because everyone's then coming to them and you know you just it's just you know s such a positive kind of way to to to to kind of operate uh in our sector and then this is one of the things I I I love about venture capital and so okay so what I'm hearing is you know you're building your network you're building your reputation and there there's this constant kind of inflow of of of deals coming in and you know at some point you kind of say you know you kind of can predict how many deals you get per month but um you know there's there there's one so for example you know famously Snapchat uh you know the way that uh Barry Edgar from light speed Ventures kind of uh found Snapchat is through his daughter because his daughter was kind of using the app when it had just come out so there's always kind of these like crazy you know kind of coincidences or kind of things that come your way and that fall outside of your steady uh pipeline sources and and and I wanted to kind of ask do you guys have one of these uh stories and an unconven you know of an unconv a deal that unconventionally came to you and that happened to be really good and maybe um I'll actually leave it to to anyone to to kind of go first yeah I can I can give one example um so that that's not with zenture but in my previous U firm so we were doing a due diligence on a on a company and was doing due diligence call so part of it is to talk to the expert in the space and we talk one of the expert uh we had a real good conversation and uh you know I guess tremendous respect goes both ways U we didn't end up invest in this company but then about a year later that expert reached out and say hey here is a company I'm working with and you really should talk talk to them and uh that that company was uh about a you know I think you noway probably not a huge exit but like seven eight times in four years so on the IR level was really good so that's that's one example right when you have those discussion um you if if they like you uh they will keep you in mind as and and those kind of deal like uh it's in the utility data space um it's it just doesn't kind of show up unless somebody kind of connect you right and it is um it was based out of Vancouver Canada out of all place so it's geographical is also very in a different region so very glad to get to know them yeah so you know one of the probably biggest and most unusual deals I did was actually the first deal that I ended up syndicating um which was U actually a super app in Venezuela for those of you that don't know what super apps are they're basically apps that end up having multiple functions and and end up being able to serve multiple purposes for uh people and uh I had seen the rise of super apps when I lived in Southeast Asia and had been really excited by that I'd actually had a chance to invest in a couple um in other markets um you know in Africa and in Asia and I actually ended up working for one uh in Latin America uh I ended up leading growth for rappy which is uh one of Latin America's largest super wraps and uh you know kind of again during the pandemic El time I was kind of surfing on LinkedIn and I saw a post um from a uh from the founder of a recently started super app and and it was called yummy and they were based in Venezuela of all places and uh you know the post had you know incredible traction um in a very short period of time and so I reached out to the founder I started talking to him and I really enjoyed um those conversations I thought that he was really knowledgeable what was going on he'd had experience in in user acquisition which was kind of my background with growth and uh you know ended up really getting excited by what he was building um and so you know was pretty excited about personally investing but also wanted to check it out with different VCS and so I ended up shopping around to quite a few VCS um you know in Latin America in in the US and basically everybody told me I was crazy they were like who invests in Venezuela what are you nuts and I was like but they're actually a Delaware C Corp on top all of the transactions they do are in US Dollars the money doesn't actually go to like it's the actions are in Venezuela but the money's not in Venezuela the money is actually kept from a lot of Venezuelans outside of the country um you know so what's the real risk here um and so I ended up uh doing a Syndicate for them and then actually doing a second one and then uh they actually ended up getting into YC and they ended up being the instead of coming out a rais their seed round out of IC they ended up being the first company that batched to raise their series a and they ended up being kind kind of one of the biggest uh success stories um you know both from that batch and and now in my portfolio as well um and so you know being able to understand the things that other people say are just automatic NOS um and understand if it's really an automatic no for you I think is kind of the biggest takeaway for me and I've had success investing in a lot of different regions that people probably normally wouldn't get as excited by um you know obviously there there's the big uh you know Brazil and and India you know success stories but I've also had success stories in places like Vietnam and in Pakistan you know Venezuela so I think that there's a lot of opportunities all over the world and that's one of the things that really excites me about being able to uh you know be inv Ventures being able to find these things that other people don't find and not being an automatic M but really try to help these entrepreneurs grow yeah mine's actually more uh it was outside of my my stage so uh us being food investors and around like automation Hardware we do some deals on that I got a deal there was a series B deal where they raised I think it was 20 million in the series B at a at a 99 mil valuation and it wasn't something typically i' do but I met with the founder and he was really really special like uh one of these Technical and business Founders this single founder and uh went out and looked at the product and the product was unbelievable I was really as a former operator of a Tim Horns franchise it was like a a smoothie machine the company's called bot Rista that was you could essentially do any type of uh drink out of this machine cold cold machine nital coffee thing so I wrote an angel check in because he thought I could help out um and that's actually been a really good investment for me over the course of a year and a half we marked up 3 3x so um even though I was out of stage it was kind of interesting because we I am a food investor that people look look to us to do some of these things so um yeah you never know where a good deal can come from and what valuation it can come from either I love these stories um everyone uh by the way if you have questions for the audience there's a Q&A button at the bottom so do put your questions in because I want to kind of take some of those and and kind of bring it to the panel here uh but make sure you put them in the Q&A button not the general chat because we won't monitor that one um Okay so we've kind of talked about you know how how you get pipeline it's through your network and through people who know people you know but there's always going to be you know a level of cold inbound and I I bet that you guys probably look at those and most VCS kind of always keep an eye out on that inbound and a lot of the times what ends up happening is that inbound kind of cold uh stream of deals ends up kind of being the the the large um quantity or you know very big percentage of your overall Pipeline and so you know um when you're kind of going through it could be hundreds if not kind of thousands of of pits and you're kind of going through them and I bet you're kind of think oh you know I've seen this before oh this isn't going to work and Skip Skip Skip Skip what is it in a pitch deck that you you you'll get cold and you're like okay I'm gonna actually take a meeting um after kind of you know swiping left on all the decks so I don't know who wants to go to to to go first on this one I can go first I think uh you know being early stage investors it's always going to be about the team and uh I think really when you think about it it's that like founder fit make founder market fit so if you see a team that like U we saw an early stage deal where it was an ex flexport found X flexport senior executive that built a business in Canada the $100 million business with his credit card and um he was going to go start his own thing and like kind of like a Shopify kind of version of flexport um that's something that you look at and go okay that's something I want to I want to look at and that came in cold right um and then the other part that you look at is like have they found some interesting Market maybe that someone hasn't real identified that there's a massive opportunity in um but typically if it's a cold thing it's got to have that founder market fit um otherwise you know there there just isn't enough trust to kind of do the deal so always looking for that founder market fit I think for me one of the biggest things has been just understanding the clarity of what they're saying and who actually has a Clear Vision of what they're building and why they're building it um you know I tend to try to invest in businesses that are as simple as possible and that they're clearly out there already getting traction and getting users and getting customer feedback and so seeing how they explain the problem in the deck and you know why it's a problem how big that problem is and what they're actually doing to solve it and if what they're solving is a real solution um you know and then obviously the team is super important but um you know I tend to try to figure out more of the Team Dynamics on the call itself self I feel like especially in Emerging Markets there aren't always the same signals as there are in the US so you know going to Stanford going to Harvard is great but but that's not an option for a lot of people in some of these other places and so even if they didn't go to school or they didn't work at Uber or they didn't you know get some of these opportunities that we got uh from the US I still want to make sure that that u i at least talk to them and understand where they're coming from so U you know one of my best companies right now is actually a kid that dropped out of a Mexican University um right and I ended up investing him at the age of 20 um and so it really just you know depends on how how motivated the people are and I think great companies and great entrepreneurs can come from Andor so I try to keep as much of an open minded I honestly just try to talk to as many people as possible I talk to 50 to 60 companies every single week and uh just have as many conversations to figure out who do I think can actually build something meanful and I can just add you know what get me really excited is is the uh revenue revenue grows people willing to pay for it and uh we look at a lot of deal at the kind of B2B space so sales cycle is really important you know if they have a fast sales cycle that's a strong indication of value proposition to their customers right so um yeah it's a little bit idealized not all the company we we talk to have Revenue but when we see uh they can somehow boost strap uh to revenue and and growth that's that really get me excited yeah and how how important is it for you guys to diversify your sources of deal flow OB you is it and and kind of beyond that is it something that's in your strategy to kind of make sure that your sources of deal flow are diverse or does it just kind of happen naturally and you just need to focus on the one that's kind of most uh valuable to you Ali maybe we can start with you yeah I think um I think it's sort of ended up happening naturally like I think if you end up building your reputation with other VCS with your LPS with your portfolio Founders um that you start to have more and more diverse sources you have more and more people referring stuff to you you have um more and more people who are talking about you on other social platforms so more and more people follow you and it kind of ends up becoming the snowball where um you know the more good you put out in the ecosystem the more good comes back to you and I think that's probably been you know the biggest source of diversification is is um you know building up a reputation of being helpful then kind of leads to more and more people trying to seek you out yeah I I do want to say something on on this Ali because so we we have a program called Venture Institute which I mentioned at the at the start and it's people from all over the world who are looking to kind of get into venture capital and there's one kind of thing that we ask we like name you know two VCS from your local ecosystem and it's crazy how many times I see your guys' names and just what and what I'm trying to say here is how fast you can build that reputation right so you've only kind started a couple of years ago and already you're kind of like the people from that ecosystem that you know the person who wants to get into VC and that ecosystem will put you down as kind of that the Venture Capital fund over there so you know it happens really fast and it's it's it's crazy to see anyway um Mark or Cam do you want to go next yeah I can I can next oh sorry cam so so I'm I'm based out contic and my partner is in the baraya right so in the Bara certainly is a different type of deal flow from uh Connecticut which is stuck between two large Market Boston in the and in New York um I do get to those Market often um but for small emerging fund uh in in a smaller market like Connecticut is easier to make yourself known right and there's great universities like yo and Yukon so there there's no shortage of uh deal flows and we have real strong network with the local investors as well and another thing that you know I try to replicate it is you know going to other uh markets with gray universities and I have some connections there uh where the capital is just not as abandoned so so one market is is Pittsburgh uh I got my MBA from kaniki melon Kik melon happen to have a very strong computer science and AI uh you know research activities and uh that's we saw quite a few of a deal and made investment uh from that region and you know so so Midwest of us if you look at the US market there's o obvious like disparity uh in terms of where the capital in the research funding and Innovation it's it doesn't completely overlap and so uh there there's definit Arbitrage opportunities yeah there yeah sorry C go I was just going to say like because we're kind of Niche with food technology that like if you have these bigger firms like we kind of throw our net out wide with these bigger firms uh that maybe aren't just food Tech funds are kind of like doing everything um And when they see a deal that's a food Tech fund they come to us they think of us first and uh it's kind of nice to kind of like talk through deals with people that are kind of like bigger and looking more broadly and we're looking more focused so um it kind of gives us like a we're we're maybe like the knowledge thought leaders in the space and then they kind of bounce ideas off us and it kind of expands our knowledge base of like what they're looking for so it's served us really well on a lot of deals we've done where it's come from like a nonfood VC I joke with one of them that they've done the last three Deals they've done are three are food uh deals and I joke that they're a food Tech fund now or like a restaurant fund even though they're like not doing that anymore so uh yeah just kind of like we throw the net out wide and look for those kind of like Niche opportunities in food yeah yeah there's there's a couple of questions here in the audience about whether or not you guys use those databases and platforms where startup Founders go and kind of put their company up and are saying how much they're they're raising um is that is that something that any of you are using it's not an active part of my strategy but um if I get invited to a platform or or or whatever I'll check it out and um again I think great deals could be found anywhere so I'm always happy to look at stuff uh but I find that uh you know it's usually better just to reach out directly to the people you want to connect with and I mean I also have a lot of people who will you know try to use a connection with somebody but then you know one of the things I say is like um just because you know if you reach out to one of my friends or or connections on like Dan and then they're making the intro for you make sure it's actually a warm intro right like there's a lot of random people who connect with you or follow you on LinkedIn and then um having a a warm intro from somebody who isn't really a warm intro I feel like it just ends up creating this like system of favors where now you owe them a favor now like either I owe them a favor because they're sending me a deal right it just ends up creating all these extra obligations so just send the deck directly TS to be I I go to B yeah I agree with Ally like we we uh were're on an angel platform that has like a thousand deals on it but uh typically you're looking for like those introductions through someone um it's a better way to get a good like solid deal on my gret yeah I agree I I I'm just thinking about like maybe this is the idea some kind of AI agent can replicate our thinking of picking up deals and then go to those website it's just simply um in our day day-today work it's just not enough time to go through it uh maybe I get a summer intern and have have have them start thinking about this well speaking of H AI Mark and and I'm saying mark because you know you're you're kind of in the AI space but anyone else who who's doing this please let us know uh do you use AI to to do any of your deal your pipeline shifting yeah I mean what I used probably when I do some kind of the the writing like you know if I uh you know English is not my native language right so there's always room to to Improvement but um like's say if I write a LP letter or some communication I I will probably you know put put it and ask CH gbt to make a Improvement make it better uh so yeah I mean I I think there's definitely a lot of opportunity I mean like you can use it for due diligence U purpose right this is it's it's very very useful in that sense um you know it's it's kind of like uh uh you know expert you can you can ask questions I mean we look at the deals from all over the place um I was just looking at one that's integrating a a soft sensor in some kind of medical device right and then um just just feel like with some of the AI combined with with with search I mean generating information that's just very very useful uh so so we definitely finding a lot of use cases in more probably we we've been messing around with but it's by no means a a product that we trust or anything yet but I've been messing around with AI agents and like grabbing the information off the deck and then kind of taking our thesis for like a filtering process of maybe like one or maybe three checks like Team market size uh product maturity or traction and kind of filtering it that way but it is like super early don't really trust it yet uh but I do feel like the game is really getting through as many deals as you possibly can to find that like Golden Nugget in the hay stack um so if you can get more through more deals and filter quickly I think like Ali's Point you'll find more deals in places that you typically wouldn't maybe see them but because you can get through more deals so I'm really interested with this AI agent world is going to go and uh I think it's definitely going to help make Venture capus better and drive returns if you can figure kind of crack that code uh once once the models get better I don't really use that much AI I think um part of you know my value out is actually putting like a human face it right and that you know you're not getting dumped off to some associate you're not you know answering some robot right you're actually talking directly with the person who's making the investment decisions and so um you know I I I think the longer you are in the space the quicker you are at kind of being able to Cipher through the information I think you know now most VCS probably take somewhere between 30 seconds to a minute to actually go through a deck to see if they at least uh if it passes initial check marks and then I tend to think you know if it passes initial check mark let's just talk um and so I tend to just send out very quick emails and do very quick meetings to just get that face to face as quickly as possible with anybody that kind of reaches the Benchmark for me and I think again that ends up adding to the reputation of being somebody who's helpful and building out you know building out people who can also help with kind of future deal sourcing in do tend to take you know deals that get referred to me from people I know or from other investors you know much more seriously and have a much higher percentage of actually going to a meeting and so I feel like the more I'm able to actually validate who's good at figuring things out the better my overall pipeline will be in the future as well yeah yeah Alexandra is asking with all the evolving market conditions how do you adapt your your deal sourcing strategy to make sure you're not missing out on what's kind of coming next um and I know that you know for some VCS that could be you know kind of knowing what's next next is kind of a little bit passive just because they constantly are kind of talking to Founders doing the the the things of the future but for some VCS it's it's very you know uh prescriptive very um you know intentional uh you know it's kind of part of the strategy that they'll kind of sit down and think you know where do we go next how do you guys think about about staying on top of kind of uh where your markets are going I could take that one I think I think what I do is I obviously like the more deals and like alli's point the more people you talk to more Founders you talk to you get like a pattern recognition of like where where it's going so you may see like four or five companies kind of doing like a very similar thing and there could be like an opportunity around that um but I think the other piece really is like reading and digesting information in the spaces you're interested in that again this pattern recognition starts to like present itself of like where you think these opportunities could come um just by talking to people in your space right and for us being in food like we can talk to corporates and see like what they're working on we can talk to Founders that are working in different spaces and you kind of kind of hone in on where you think the world's going to go in your space so again just like kind of like digesting as much information as you possibly can in your space yeah I I would say that is a that's a great question I I think that's people who are capable of like really looking forward and develop that kind of investment CES like future driven is what differentiate you know probably from most of the Venture investor you'll be like truly uh a a kind of a great you know investor if if you you are capable of doing that right I mean one thing I'm kind of always exploring is that if there is a mega Trend you know that it's going to take place and then you kind of fast forward think about uh a word that technology it has disrupted our existing uh word as we know and then you look at the value chain what's around it and that probably give you some hints uh you know what area you should start looking into right um so one example I I give is that uh now we all know Eevee is uh although recently there's some speed bump like Eevee adoption but for for sure I think people all think EV is going to happen right and uh then if you think about like EV get broadly adopted uh the listen iron battery recycling is going to be a large Market um so we have came across like five six years ago or maybe seven years ago a company working on Len arm battery recycling and for us to develop the conviction in this technology we need to kind of Buy in that EV is going to be uh a majority of the vehicle that's driving out there right without that conviction you probably wouldn't invest in a uh Len iron battery recycling company because it's just not going to be a big Market uh so I think that's kind of one way to to think about uh how to get ahead of a evolving Market is to look into those uh large Trend and then analyze what's happening around this and how that's going to impact us in the future so I think one of the big things for me is trying to figure out which parts of the future are real and which parts are just hype and making sure that I don't just Chase what everybody else is chasing um you know we saw a lot of people that were web 3 and blockchain VCS in 2021 now in 2023 are all of a sudden AI U you know and llm VCS cool right like I've invested in AI back in you know 2021 before everybody else was investing and now that like nobody's investing web 3 I'm looking at it right like I tend to think that uh the the like the way that I figure out what the future going look like is by trying to talk to the smartest people and so again I'm talking to 50 60 Founders each week even some of them aren't on my thesis I've made a lot of Investments that uh don't necessar like I wouldn't necessarily have been um been into the first time time they said it but then I started talking to the founder I got more and more excited um and so really trying to find the these you know what the future is going to look like by talking to the people that are building it is really kind of the thing that that excites me and the other thing is that if something is super hyped and everybody else is chasing it and those people don't really want to sit down and talk to you know the small VCS and so I don't end up having to waste my time with the people that are going out and trying to raise 20 million on $100 million valuation pre-product um you know I I want to see something that's actually real and something that you know people are excited about building and it has nothing to do with you know what the hotest trend is it's about what they actually are excited about yeah I love that I love that quote what I try to do is you know try to discern what's real and what's or you know I I love that Jeff here is asking uh once you have a broad enough a broad Network how do you uh kind of stay successful in keeping in front of them do you for example have onetoone catch ups with the top of the network or do you have some kind of marketing in place for them uh or do or are there any kind of strategies that you're using to to to stay top of mind for for for that network of yours and uh yeah Ali should we start with you sure um so I try to schedule U regular catch-ups with the people that I think are are most important so we have you know either a monthly bonly quarterly type thing always on the calendar and we can always you know send each other messages otherwise but at least then we have some regular period where we're checking in and either sharing deal flow or getting insights um I also end up having a newsletter uh which you know at least once a month then people are at least seeing my name pop up um and then trying to uh I end up going to a lot of conferences in trying to make a presence and seeing people face to face at those sorts of events and so if I'm going to a conference I'll make sure that I also spend extra time there before or after and let people know that I'm there and then you know try to get in that you know coffee ketchup or or breakfast or whatever uh you know before the conference starts or or you know after the conference is over and make sure that uh I try to just keep in touch with people I think even just sending what's that messages every once in a while checking up people ends up uh keeping you top of mind yeah I I like Ally kind of said it earlier in the conversation is uh add value right these bigger funds if you can add value you could be a deal source for them um be likable like like Ally kind of said like when you go to these conferences uh be somebody that people want to talk to because you know your and that you also like can be a good time a little bit um and but I think the biggest thing is this idea of like compounding right um like do a deal with somebody once you do a deal with somebody there's a money exchange it's Penny test there's a trust there they see how you work um once you start to do deals with those bigger firms it's a compounding of like you're going to get another deal from then it comes back because they know how you work and they understand what your thesis is and what you're looking for and those type of things um and on the conference side like don't go to like a one-off conference and then don't go back the next year like pick the conferences that are interesting to you and like go to them five years in a row and by the time like year three like we noticed that at the n a this week that we were there last year now everybody knows us we threw an event we had a bunch of people there it compounds on on itself so um just make sure you're kind of like finding the right people that you need to talk to and then keep those conversations alive and keep moving the relationship forward I agree with everything the panelist had just said uh couldn't add much more just say this it takes discipline uh what what Ali and Kim just talked about uh uh you you're just going to have to keep keep doing it and make sure you stick to the plan I love that so um I'll take kind of a a final uh question here it's it's you know kind of go going on to you know what what how do you so how I'll read the question how do you as VC's balance profit making with making a difference to Founders their businesses and the ecosystem um so more kind of a a value driven question here but um maybe Mark we can start with you on this one yeah I mean I I've to say you know we we have fiduciary duty to our LPS right so so uh foremost you you wouldn't be able to build a sustainable Venture firm if you do not return Capital right there's a lot of discussion about it I mean uh just just about you know DPI uh distribution uh so so we we definitely stay very focused on that uh and uh I I I would say you know being coming from the the uh clean tech climate side I definitely still get very excited by uh you know investment that can make a a impact on the on the sustain sustainability front um it's it's it's about building a uh balanced portfolio a lot of those high impact uh um investment is going to you know take a while uh before you know they can reach to the market they there there's going to be a return but uh uh we need to have strong conviction when you get there it's going to be like a Tesla type of exit right I mean so so I think that's that's what we are doing in terms of building the uh the portfolio you know we want to see ones that are getting traction that hopefully uh can get exit in a uh not too distant future knock on wood but on the other hand U blend in the ones that with strong conviction and the huge upside as well as making impact uh in general uh so that's my two cents yeah I think I look at it like I I think we're in a world where we can do both things I don't think it needs to be like we we're impact fund versus like return shriv fund I think like we're in a world where like if you unlock value in the world you're going to make a lot of money and it's going to be good for the world like I look at like what we're doing in food like we're trying to like make labor efficiencies in food to lower the cost so it's more you know we've all been to the grocery store over the last year and how inflation's affected you know whether it's going over for dinner or going to the grocery store or anywhere else like we view the things that we invest in that they're going to impact the world and at the same moment at the same time we're going to do really well in the return perspective because we're solving real world problems I think if you focus on the real world problems and and adding like capturing value that it like money is a store of value right so if you capture the value you're going to get paid while to do it and I think that is investors were in the business to return money back to our LPS and I don't think you want to say that yeah I really think that this is the beauty Adventure right is that what we're trying to do is is faild the future that we believe should be there um and I think interesting is that everybody kind of has a different view of how they're putting those values and what that future looks like um you know for me personally I think uh the biggest thing is I see a huge discrepancy um globally between you know the middle class and and and and what they have access to and so by going and providing a lot of basic service for everyday people in emerging market markets I think you know one you're kind of enabling these economies and and creating a flywheel of potential success and on the other hand you know you now have millions and millions of users and millions of customers that you're actually helping in adding again real world value to them and and so you know I think that there doesn't need like I think just inherently the nature of VC is that we're you know building towards these values and and you know everybody has their own values and what they see the future as and you know who am I to judge what other people's values are there you have it everyone um we've reached the top of the hour we do want to make sure that our panelists who I'm sure are kind of back to back on calls after this have you know a few minutes uh to breathe um thank you so much Mark Ali cam you know for for taking the time to to to be here and sharing so much with the community everyone we hope that was useful and you know once again if you are kind of wanting to join the community or join any of our programs go and check out what we have admissions for we hope you enjoyed this panelist thank you so much have a wonderful day thank you see everyone thanks for having us