Sourcing a Deal with Semil Shah

This is lunch pail, VC presented by Bullpen

Capital each week,

host, Randy komisar and I Paul Martino go deep into the nuts and bolts of all aspects of the Venture Capital business and do we don't ice the kicker, but we do give you a no bull look into the VC business.

We talked with exceptional,

VCS about all sorts of topics including deal sourcing deal selection, selection of your fun,

in size, just to name

a few

Welcome to season two of our podcast, which were calling lunch pail VC. And this is where, no fleece is. Allowed my friends. Wait, right. Look at this fleece. Well, come on. Comas. Are, you're gonna, you're gonna throw me off? You're gonna throw me off, in my opening comments like that. Symbol and commissar are both wearing

Fleece. Am I on the wrong podcast right now?

Okay, let's try this again. You know, I want to welcome you to season two of our podcast which were calling lunch pail VC, it's where no fleeces from me but apparently everybody else is wearing fleas so I guess that's how we roll this year this year we're going to give you a no bull. Look at the Venture Capital ecosystem. I'm one of your host Paul Martino and I'm joined by good friend. Randy Comas are and we're going to be talking a lot about how people actually run their

Firms. Not the oh what the last deal I did was or oh how cool my friend is that I met at Stanford the other day, but how you actually run your fund, the nuts and bolts of it. Comas are, what do you think? Well, Paul, it's great to be back for another season and this season, we're going to transition from the lessons from our Mentor, our good friend, Bill Campbell, and is some deep dives from world-class experts in our industry. That's right. And I always say it's funny that venture capital is one of the only Industries without a real professional development and

Ever the way you were if you are a lawyer or a doctor, we're supposed to just learn it all on the job, right? Well, exactly. I mean this season is intended to help others in the industry. Learn from some of our friends who are world-class innovators at growing companies and of course, will continue to take our lessons from our Mentor, bill into these conversations. And if you remember from last season, build thought you could divide VCS into Market, Pickers people, Pickers and product Pickers. So, I figured we start off with one of each and let

Explain their philosophies of finding, great Investments, that's great. And I got one of the great people. Pickers, I can think of we're here with the now, very famous seminal shot. I can't believe I could say, I knew you, when, before you were as famous as you are mr. Haystack, one of the most prolific bloggers twitterers and God knows Waters of the social media space, I'm sure he's on Tick-Tock now. Doing awesome videos. I see my niece's do that. I'll bet, I'll bet they move a little better than you do this. We're going to kick this off, you know? Obviously

We'll talk a little bit about your background someone but we're going to really hit an interesting topic today. And it is in this framework that Randy talked about about people. Picking we're going to talk about how you Source a deal. I mean you talk about what the business is all about at the end of the day, if you can't Source a deal, you're not really good. And so Samuel were thrilled, that he stack, has been as successful as it's been and very happy to have you as a guest today symbol.

Yeah, thank you for both of you guys mean, Paul's been just great knowing you over the years and just working and learning from you.

And Duncan and Rich and and Eric more recently in Randy. I've heard a lot about you in the past from a lot of your partners at Kleiner. So it's great to have like more intimate discussion. Thanks, guys, it's a pleasure.

And in fact, some of I think maybe my Cabot introduced me to you. Yeah, years ago.

Yeah, actually. I still am in touch with Michael quite frequently and trying to pull him into doing other things.

Yeah. Yeah, I saw him for coffee a couple of weeks ago, he seems to be doing great. He really loves going back.

Doing real work at Apple from being an investor

and he may in the future depending on how the cards sort of are laid out, he may be very useful to a certain social media company again. Yeah,

exactly exactly. Right. So for you who don't know, we're recording this here in the second week of April and there's a guy named Elon Musk looking at a company called Twitter. So I'm sure by the time, this actually hits the Press, whatever has happened has happened by that incidental, but God knows.

Knows what it will be. By the time we hear

this. Yeah, we should. We should lay out our predictions here, you know?

Yeah. We might have to admit that we might have to end with that, especially with you such as Savvy guy for basically, the media ecosystem. And, you know, I've been involved in a lot of stuff that at the Confluence of politics media, Etc. So you and I both not afraid to take some arrows in our

back for sure. Let it rip.

So someone let me kick off with this question. And I really am thrilled that you're here is one of our guests because you're really the perfect person to talk to about sourcing a deal.

Because, let's be honest. Haystacks, precede, you hang out with me at Bullpen which is post seed. You worked a bit with light speed which is a and Beyond and you were a ggv late stage. So you've sourced the deal all the way from inception stage to late stage growth Capital. I'd love to hear your philosophy about how you source of deal, how it's different at those stages and what's the same what's

different? So maybe I'll just start off with with My Philosophy but you know as a mega

Clamor for you guys. Anyone listening, I think there are 101 Ways To Source, a potentially good investment or high potential investment. And so, to me, it's not about if you're a player on the field, do you do that the right way or the wrong way? It's like, it's a way that can get to the outcomes, you eventually need. Because you're, there's so much in this business. We can't control. And one of the things we can control is who we spend time with and who we have conversations with

and who we help out in the community. And so for me if I were to like summarize it in 280 characters going back to Twitter and this really comes from someone. We all know dearly Maples. I remember him saying many many times if I met to really smart people a day, every day for a month I'm probably going to find a good investment opportunity in there and so I think part of it is just meeting people and keeping your mind open to that. Now my personal

If is that, and this is another Maples line is that people can think of venture when they come into the industry, maybe they become an associate. A Kleiner. They come in as a principle of Bullpen would have you doesn't matter, the firm and they think it's a deal flow business. So how do I generate deal flow and how do I do that? And maybe for some people that works. I think what Maples articulated perfectly which really resonates with me is that it's a people flow business and that when you meet a lot of people and you

Help them or your direct with them, or you're honest with them, or your Swift with them, or even do things like say no in the meeting, or get back to them in a normal manner over time, especially in the Bay Area. And now in other places that that Network effect can compound of other people sending you things, and if you pay enough attention and filter up front, I think the deals come to you. And so that's my philosophy. And again, I don't want to say that, that's the right.

To do it. But I believe it's like Maples. It's a people flow business and you meet interesting people, you treat them well and good things happen.

I mean obviously you're a people person and your track record attest to that. You also mentioned that there are many different styles that can succeed. Could you talk about a few of those other styles and how their approach could be different and successful?

And I made some notes on that. I think the big framing for us and the audiences.

Are you primarily getting inbound deal or people flow? Or is it outbound deal in people flow? Or is there a mix or how does a mix change over time? And I think that's very dependent on where you sit and ecosystem, where you sit geographically, what stage you're at. And so there's a lot of different permutations and combinations of this that how it can work. But if we talk about like a pure inbound model, you know, what are the tactics that some people will use?

You could say, people using Twitter or blogging or content creation, more broadly are kind of creating a lighthouse model where, you know, you have the analogy of ships passing through in the ocean sort of, without orientation. And the lighthouse provides them, a potentially Safe Harbor for an evening. Then you have what, you know, is a celebrity star power of like, man, like this person built this company, then they were the CFO of stripe, and then

Are doing this and now they're doing this, you can't talk to three people better than this person on this topic. Or you know, I think one canonical example is like Reid Hoffman as like you have in that day and age, we had the operator, he was a successful investor, he was incredibly nice to everybody. Incredibly thoughtful, if Reid, Hoffman calls, you an entrepreneur. How do you compete with that? And then I think the other kind of like inbound strategy as you hit your star to affirm and you say, Hey, I'm

You know, I could go start my own firm or I could go work at this new firm in New York City, but like, Randy or my Cabot or John doar calls me and says, like come here and sit with us and a place of repute. And that gives you an edge in some of those deals. So like I think those are like the common inbound models, people use. Now the the outbound ones, there's many, many more, I made a whole list of them. But what's interesting about how the business is changing, is that, I think if we had had the

Just even three years ago. I wouldn't have as many outbound ideas but today 2022, there's a plethora of them someone's just to like maybe scratch the surface a little bit. Is there's a firm Bessemer oldest venture capital from around. They do phone banking, they're dialing calling people directly emailing, people directly in sight, does this as well, there's pioneered by Sequoia, but there's obviously Scouts. So someone would say, why would I have 10?

It's today when I can have 100 Scouts, there's pipeline Management, Systems Infinity, Atlas all these other things that can help you track all the inbound. So there's there's an a moment of it and there's so many things depending on how deep you want to go. There's a lot

Oh, no, Samuel. This is, this is I, I can't tell you how excited I am that. Not only are you a guest, but you did your homework in advance of being a guest, right? He's actually looking up a list of things that he wrote down. I mean, pessimal, when's the last time you did a podcast, where you actually did homework.

I can't tell you when and where I wrote it down, but it took a few minutes. But I mean, this is a topic. I feel like I dunno.

We'll talk a little bit more about it. Yeah, yeah. So

let's let's talk about

Out. There's one other inbound thing. I forgot to mention which is a vertical Focus. So like Paul and I could say, okay and our next ACT we're going to create a Bitcoin Maxi fund or a crypto fund and you know we're just going to focus on defy or something and so people have been doing that too is the industry mature but if we go into outbound here's what I've had listed. There's feeder systems. Like accelerators Scouts AngelList syndicates, you can follow there's online platforms. Like you know I think y combinator will move to crowd sourcing

Because all this stuff is on video. Now, there's AngelList obviously, there's all these other aggregators, there's the phone Banking and robocalling, there's using Scouts. There's actually doing fund to fund investing. So, like you have a, you know, Marc Andreessen and Chris sticks and famously created their own family office, to invest in funds. You have Sequoia Heritage, you know, even people don't realize this, but Benchmark had Scouts and investing in funds occasionally, even as a smaller kind of craft fund and then you have all the tools.

And enablement to help you do that. So I think the way to summarize this is like for classic Venture. Let's put in sight and Bessemer aside for a minute for classic Venture. I think it used to be hey we need bodies. Like maybe Kleiner and maybe Randy there's a question for you Kleiner in 2008 was like, okay, we have our GPS are kind of Junior Partners or principals, who kind of made it, and then we have a battery of Associates. Well in 2022. Do you need the battery of Associates anymore? I think that's a

It's a great question to ask. I'm not, I'm not really sure and I think a lot of the move towards that and again, you know, pioneered by Sequoia is that, in the past VC's, I think had Market power for the deals would come to them naturally. And they weren't potentially may be compensating those people who are bringing the deals in them that way. Now the people who are bringing the deals have a direct source of compensation, right? If that deal turns out to be good and so it makes sense more economically as well and actually those people are

Our to the fire than any investor would be.

Yeah, yeah. I that resonates with me a lot. I mean up until certainly the probably the time I got to Kleiner there's a real sense that deals came to you that if you were Kleiner Perkins or sequoia or any number of the top-tier Venture firms, you actually sat around and took meetings and and you didn't have to even leave the office or leave Sandhill Road and that is fun.

I mentally not the case today. I mean it is radically different today, you got to be quick, you got to be out there looking for deals. You got to be selling yourself and selling your money into deals. And that is a very different sort of mentality than the mentality. That I entered the business with years and years ago. Where that that wasn't what I had to do. I want to Riff on one thing you've got though, they're assemble your idea that the associate is less and less important in the modern world.

I think that's actually a very profound idea. Oh yeah. I think that I've seen in more kind of up-and-comer funds, the bullpens of the world, the Sosa's are important because there's a brand building Endeavor, quite frankly, that the associates still do. But in the more incumbent places, you're exactly right. What is the job of an associate at a largely

incumbent Welland at this point? Well, Paul this, I'm so glad you asked this question because I will answer this with a bang and I've said this publicly many, many times I

Like being in venture capital for more than a couple years, unless you really love it and are committed to, it is a complete absolute banging waste of time, but like if you're out of school and you're 21 and 22, and you get a job at Excel and that's your survey into the ecosystem. Great. Or you get a job at Bullpen. Come in great. You don't like it at the end. You're 24. You 25, right? And you've met

A lot of people, I think the trouble starts forming when your post MBA or you're coming in and like, you're just trying to do these deals and like, it is a complete waste of time unless you're really, really committed to it. And if you don't like it, get out immediately, like, get out because you're not going to gain any skills that are, that are going to transfer over anywhere else. I mean, I've seen this with so many operators coming into Venture, we're in,

In two years like they just don't even, they couldn't even go back into the ecosystem, you know? So technology is moving so fast, so I have a very strong point of view that if people are curious about Ventura, they should start early and and figure out in the 6 to 12 months. Like, do I love it or not and it's okay, if you don't love it.

So simple, let's get back to source and for a minute. But ironically, this is all about sourcing, right? The network of people in your partnership is with sourcing is about. Now, let me tell the audience one thing. I know most of the people here, probably.

We know who you are, but I got to tell them a little story about Haystack because I remember when you were starting the firm, you were spending time, hanging out of our office at Bullpen. And you said to me the following thing and I'll never forget it. I was sitting there in the office with Rich Melman and you said, you know, Martino if I do this thing Haystack, I want to find Founders before they even know that they want to start a company. I'm sitting there thinking to myself, God damn, that sounds pretty freaking hard. So now you went you've done it. You've literally been doing this for a decade. You are finding people.

At like, prior to Inception stage of their company when they think they might just want to start a company. So let's start talking about the precede and seat in the early stage sourcing strategies because that is a whole different game than what you do and we'll hit mid and later. But let's talk about early stage and how crazy, quite frankly what you did at Haystack

was yeah thanks Paul, I appreciate that. I think one caveat would be as I think seed today has like three or four different land masses attached to it. So it's like

This rugged terrain that it's a really, really different. And I want to be clear to, like will invest in just people or like, help them. Just start with the idea or company or sometimes. We'll wait. And, like, it could be kind of a post seed round, right? So, like, I like to play across the land mass entirely knowing that the terrain is different in those quadrants but to me it comes from like power to summarize it to start. I would say it starts with with two beliefs, one is like more

And the other one is just an operational reality. The philosophical thing is, I'd like, I end up investing in Technologies or things that have Network effects, or those kind of properties. But really, I believe that I'm giving money to the person creating that and then they're applying that. So I view myself as investing in the person philosophically. And that's just what I believe. I think the operational reality is that I can't control when I'm going to meet someone if it's ripe.

Starting the company or they're raising a seat extension or or what have you. So I want to have the flexibility operationally to act when I when I meet them because you can't control that.

Oh, yeah. And just to clarify to this is prior to Haystack being form where the element of the precede Inception stuff was really in my opinion, very novel, of course, Haystack. Now across the entire seed, ecosystem, the, the Inception stage investing though, I just still remember scratching my head going. Well, symbol. That sounds like a

12 on a 1 to 10 in

difficulty, but I do think, you know, even before I got into the game or Paul, you got into the game, there were certain firms in certain players at these firms including Kleiner, that would fund people off a PowerPoint, maybe from their portfolio or things like that, and had had wild success in doing that. So, I don't think the concept was different. I just think as, as the earlier stage and Paul you were like, basically the first person to nail this like people calling 1520 Million Dollar Round a

It's all just been sort of escalation. I feel like I'm investing in the person and have to have the potential to have some connection with them in order to layer in more Capital to get the next follow-ons done to feel like I'm connected to my work and sort of a squishy way. I need to feel like I can have some relationship, even if it's entirely and online or texting relationship with that person. And so that's my mental model of going. Whereas like someone like, maybe don Valentine would famously say,

You know, markets, markets, markets, markets markets.

A couples are come on. How much would Bill Campbell just just sit there and go semin. What the hell are you talking about? You have an online and texting only relationship with their CEO? Do you know what the hell you're doing? No, but that is the new world it is. I mean that is some. Oh, I'll bet some of your best CEOs that is your primary mode of conversation and that would be lost on a prior generation of investor. I

think what I would say is if you look at my iPhone homes,

Green. It's like signal. What's up telegram iMessage? And I basically say our job is investors once we commit and we can get back to sourcing is okay I commit to Randy funding Randy's company. I have to meet Randy online where he is. So for Andy likes using Yahoo meat or whatever I gotta meet him there because that's, you know, that's

he's in charge by the way, call me sir. I think he was insulting you when he when he when he picked you for the yahoogroups thing. I just want to be clear. That was

An insult. Right? Right. That was an insult to Randy by. You didn't say AOL. Instant messenger is one of trust and I think the issue for somebody like Bill Campbell or me would be until we were in person with somebody. I'm not sure. We knew we could trust them or have the chemistry with them in new we could have influence. And so,

And I'm not saying this, that this new medium is not trustworthy. I'm saying it's a new generation that is figured out how to create trust or chemistry in that environment,

right? I can just speak for me on the investor side is that that was a transition for me. I would say it was a bumpy two to three-month transition but then I sort of trained myself to think about the net benefits. Outweighing the costs of it. I felt like someone mentioned to me. I can't remember who but like referencing someone on book.

And off book might be a better barometer of gaining information on that person than me. Just assessing them. I think also like I can have more conversations over a period of time. I always say like as a line if I sit with someone in conversation like I'm talking to a Founder now and I told her in the first meeting she said, hey, this is a really great first meeting. What's your process. I said, if we talked for three hours over the next seven days, doesn't matter when and how I feel like I can get a sense of who you are. And so that's kind of the

People reading piece and then I think it just goes back to our job which is like I feel like our ability to influence or persuade as investors that bar has gone up because Founders have more Market power. They have more options and so the art of doing that has to elevate from our side. Instead of trying to over persuade, I try to just focus more on selection and remind myself like before we y or commit to somebody like, hey like that's like getting a tattoo, you know.

No. And someone down the road is going to look at my Seb Ledger and ask about this cell.

So hanging out where they are, obviously key part to sourcing and the technology by which you hang out with them, where the modality has changed significantly over the last few years seed stage, very important people picking, let's talk about maybe moving to the a stage, I was hanging out at Lightspeed hat on for a few minutes. The more traditional a even before we get to the G Vista.

Age. Let's talk about some differences there. Look this company Works. They're looking for an a round, which is 20 million bucks. I'll still never understand that, but that's that's a topic for another day. This is a 50-person company. It's clearly working. Talk to me about sourcing, their verse hanging out at the University and making sure the cool kids know

who you are. Yeah. So and this is just coming from observation because I've never written a series, a check, or sat on a real bored. So I just want to be clear with everybody. I'm very focused on that early stage. When I was the three years at Gigi,

V as a venture partner they were actually in the process of all of moving earlier. They did a bunch of A's and B's when I was there and try to venture in the seed. But if I were to say likes m, g GB or any other great fund that's looking at a series a investment. How were they sourcing? I think today people are vertical izing and specializing at the GP level that's been increasing over the last five, seven, ten years, whatever, you want to say. And then I think those people running those books are required to manage their own book to source.

And what's changed for maybe what if we would have this podcast, a few years ago is like the pipeline management and attribution. So I think as these firms have moved, more to Scouts and fund investing and like having quasi underlying portfolios and then the GPS getting more vertically specific one would hope there's a culture of accountability of like, okay, if this GP is in charge of fintech or this group is in charge of fintech that they're going to see the club deals. Okay? And so I'll never forget Keith boy.

Once tweeted like years ago, said, one of the best ways to raise a series a round is to get a lot of series a partner meetings because then you get on the radar,

right?

Species don't want to admit this, but I think the reality is that they want to know, they're competing for something that their peers. Also view is interesting,

so get the fomo going is what you're saying. And that's the way that's the advice to the founder on, how you raise a good sense, how you get in the jet stream

is like, you have to be

Will they come in and be like Randy great to meet you through? My cabinet would love to chat and then Randy goes like, what do you know what's going on? And I'll say, you know, I'm going to be down on saint-hilaire. I'm going to be, I'm finding the San Francisco for a few days for a few meeting now. The Nuance here is, I'd like, they want to know you're in their peer group or aspirational group and so that that ends up being a filter for a deal method. I think that's a big one.

The best Founders that I know raising Capital are always raising money but only

Calling it occasionally. Meaning they are out there taking those meetings telling their story figuring out who's resonating right story. And then when it comes time to call the chit's in, they basically blow the horn and the money comes the other guys, the ones who sort of figure out, well, I kind of need money in six months, so I better go raise money and then they go quiet for another year. That's much harder. And I tend to find that they don't do it nearly as

well. This, this goes into my one of my persuasion sort of things. It was like, we're

To train our Founders to always keep in touch in a lightweight way and they have to Market in a man July's themselves, right? So that when the time comes to call in the thing that you're talking about, it's not dead cold. Now if we go back to the sourcing side was like okay let's for Founder's given the head of someone at light speed or ggv, or Kleiner, or whatever great firm where someone would want a series a investor, how do those people think about sourcing? So I think

I think they think about it as one one way. They narrow their focus to use a salute man. Quote is they were vertical eyes and say I'm doing open source software developer tools productivity I'm doing software-as-a-service vertical sass, I'm doing fintech enablement consumer everything. So I think it's like getting into that jet stream and then knowing that that GP wants to know that they're either getting an early look on a high quality filter team or that they're going to be competing with other people. Where

They run these repeated games of competition, 10 times a year. They're going to get their fair share of those deals and entrepreneurs. Don't realize that sort of funnel, and how tight it gets at that stage. And then I think the other way of sourcing is like the GPS will either do personal Investments if they're firm allows them to some firms. Don't allow them to which I think is crazy, right? Some firms will have the Scout programs. We all know how those cop programs are managed. It's a hot mess. Some firms will do, underlying fund Investments, there's

Is varied accountability for managing and harvesting those underlying portfolios. So, there's different ways that people do this. People will throw events and marketing, right? Or they'll do the dinners. So there there are these, like classic things that people that the GPS will do to quote, narrow their

focus. Yeah, we used to declare Specialties and oftentimes we would declare a specialized fund which was your really wasn't a fund at all. We sort of say we're going to put a hundred million dollars into the iPhone in two thousand five or six or whatever it was.

But it wasn't like we took a hundred million dollars out of the broad fund and put into that. It was really marketing. It was saying to the world, we want those those

deals. Well, I think Kleiner. And who else did this like Greylock for a period of time? We're Smart in marketing. It and again, they had the star power to do it to other about on the back end. But I mean, that kind of marketing, definitely works Founders. Look at it. And again, it goes back to the market power thing of like, at that, A, and B stage people want those logos.

Yeah, right sound with

it. Yeah I and I you know, the other thing venture capitalist tend to be very susceptible to being seen as special. So when you've got entrepreneurs who can play to that in them, oh you're special. I really want to work with you. I think that you're that you can do an amazing job. And by the way, a good entrepreneurs, saying that 25 different GPS and five

different groups but

it is remarkable. How responsive

GPS are to that. If you've got enough time to build it in a credible way, you know you've had lunch with him a number of times you've had dinner, maybe you've seen him at a party and something like, boy, I'd really like to work with

you. And I think we're any, what I would say is that all boils down to sales.

Yes.

Exactly. And we're kind of making fun of the GP, but it's actually, all of these are proxies for houses founder are going to behave with a big customer. They want to land, or how they're going to behave with this big recruit. We're going to send them from Amazon, they're all the behavioral.

Is that actually our logical for them to hone in on?

Yes. All Right. Several, let's keep talking. So now you've sourced a dealer to we've talked about it throughout the ecosystem, you got to get a, yes, right. That it turns out that Source in the deal was only half the loaf

of bread, Acela internally. Yeah,

it's time to go full court. Press you, are you sending them the private jet? I know some firms do that. So talk to us about how you get that relationship, how you get to yes. And quite frankly I know some stories like this, you got to tell me about a time you would not take no.

No, for an answer. Sure

me just sourcing. If you're coming in new and then to the industry, you can hear ways. You can tactically separate yourself from the pack. If you want to be good at sourcing, get your foot in the door. First its volume. How many people are you meeting? How many people are you seeing? And can you summarize and package information? For the person you're reporting to now, how do you separate yourself further, you start layering in judgment and pattern recognition?

Mission either against the market, the founder, or the product offering you start signaling. Hey, I'm building a little bit of an encyclopedic sense about this, okay? And then the sort of like God mode of this is that you can actually stand up as a 22 year old and have a have a firm back and say I think we should do this because of a b and c. I've thought about this I slept on it. I'm willing to put it in writing that we should do it.

And the reality is most people who want to be inventor, can't do those three things, and the ones who can do the first, and second things never get to the third step.

I think that's very insightful. I mean, I can remember a number of, very good investors who eventually left Kleiner and did well for themselves, but at Kleiner, but they weren't capable of actually arguing their case in front of somebody like a John doerr. So you've got people with the stature of somebody like

And if John isn't immediately taken with your opportunity, then it's very hard to stand up to John, we try to design processes around that so that the influence was more diluted in the organization, but that could be very difficult for a young person. You're coming into an organization like liner, John doors, just come off of Amazon and Google and in Netscape. And now you've got to argue with them around. Why your idea is better than he may think it is.

And then I think this gets back to judgment to First for someone young we've seen over the last five, seven years, whatever people who are younger Associates. Will create private, Twitter accounts to just create a timestamp record of saying, hey, you know, I worked at so-and-so for, I really wanted to

invest in this County and, you know,

creating the track record of your judgment is super important. Imagine someone going to Paul looking for a role and saying, here are three years at tweets, you can see all the

Time stamps, you can see all the dumb ideas I had, you know, that's pretty powerful. Now we haven't talked about the access piece to write but you can just say this is a good deal but like can you get in position to win and

that's absolutely right. I mean look once you've sourced the deal you were selling as part of that process, if you were any good at your job at venture capital and so now you got to get it over the goal line, right? I mean the whole get-to-know-you process is a bilateral process. And so at some point it's hey you're going to take my money, right? I remember the first time I met, Bill Campbell, Randy.

Bill was no longer taking on new people to coach and Randy said, no, no, you got to meet this Martino guy, you'll get along with them and so Randy kind of gives me a breathing. He's like, look bills, not taken any building on anymore, but, you know, go be yourself and I didn't quite understand what that meant and so afterwards, Campbell's, like, yeah, you're an asshole from Philly. I'll work with you and he said it to me. He was very clear. He's like, look, I'm at a stage in my life where I get to pick who I want to work with. I'm at a stage now where I literally don't need to work with people. I don't like, I don't need

Work with people who are going to cause me drama and headache. You're the kind of person I like to work with. You're the kind of person that my coaching will work well with and that goes both ways, right? The CEO and that relationship with the Venture person and that Venture person's relationship back with the CEO, the bill Campbell pictures, the one I have in

my head and so I think I'm glad you said that Paula because well one I'm just jealous and never got to meet Bill Campbell and I feel like 100 people. I know talk about them like this profusely. So that was my Miss. I do think a lot.

A lot of Founders generationally because of all the content marketing, which is a net good. They're very dilution sensitive in these rounds and I think I'm not saying dilution sensitivity is an important, but I meet a lot of people who are doing it at the cost of these other things that were talking about, that may emerge later in life, the ability for someone in my seat to persuade has gone down for everybody and the, the bar to

It has gone up. How do you do that? You know, I found that very challenging, right, because someone will say, well, I would love to work with you, but someone else is giving me three on 24. When I haven't done anything yet, and this is just my coping mechanism, is I just explain my business model to them and I just say this is awesome. Like you should do what you want to do. But, you know, this is what I have to do. And again, to use a Maples Linus, I want to get paid for the risk. I take.

No, that's exactly right, that's exactly.

Right. If look I can't tell you the number of times, I think you and I revert to the exact same Mode. God I say God bless. Go take that round. If that's the thing you're looking for great. This is the thing I do. By the way, the thing I do I'm good at if that thing's the thing you want on the person you want to work with. But that thing over there is almost something. I don't even need to talk about it because it's not what I do

there. Well there's that there's just like apples and oranges and then there's like from Brad Feld I kind of learned this to which again I think comes from starting to get

Maturity of like in the business of like a little bit as n around at want to see that you want to work with me too. Not that you have to like bow down here, something is just like hey I've expressed I want to work with you. Like the way we express, we want to work in each other. As we do something that's a little uncomfortable like we literally just had a founding team. It was a seed round of a really good team led by you know, one of these big funds and we were able to get in with like a 200k check.