Speaker 1: Season two of the Black Tech Green Money Podcast is
Speaker 1: brought to you by Lexus, who's been celebrating driveway moments
Speaker 1: for over thirty years with a Lexus December to Remember
Speaker 1: Sales event, where you can find exclusive offers on the
Speaker 1: most popular Lexus models. Experience Amazing at your Alexis dealer
Speaker 1: Afro Tech World. Will Campbell, the CEO at Quantity and
Speaker 1: Associates and award winning creative agency, He's on the virtual stage.
Speaker 1: He discuss how M and A mergers and acquisitions can
Speaker 1: play a pivotal role in helping you grow your business
Speaker 1: and achieve your vision. I want to talk about why, um, briefly,
Speaker 1: mergers and acquisis, since we're so important, especially for boticultural
Speaker 1: companies and for the black businesses, is we need to
Speaker 1: create larger, more influential companies. So you might say, as
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur or a founder, UM, hey, you know, my
Speaker 1: goal is not to be some massive company. UM. I
Speaker 1: really just want to pursue my passion. You know, I
Speaker 1: really want to just Um, if I could change one life,
Speaker 1: I've done my job. UM, I just want to make
Speaker 1: something that's right for you know, my family. And that's
Speaker 1: all great, but at the same time, the business community
Speaker 1: needs you. We need your ideas, we need your hustle,
Speaker 1: we need your innovation, and we need you to create larger,
Speaker 1: more influential companies. Um no matter what type of company
Speaker 1: you are, is it helps you deepen the capacity that
Speaker 1: drives your mission. UM So as a visionary, as a
Speaker 1: person with an idea, M and A can become an
Speaker 1: incredible growth strategy that gives more capacity, of more foundation
Speaker 1: to what your overall mission is. I'm with Lucas Mrs
Speaker 1: Black Tech, Green Money. I want to answer this you
Speaker 1: to some of the biggest names, some of the brightest
Speaker 1: minds and brilliant ideas. If you're black, in building or
Speaker 1: simply using tech to secure your bag, this podcast is
Speaker 1: for you. Elliot Robinson his partner at best Mere Vented Partners.
Speaker 1: He has fifteen years of international experience investing and partnering
Speaker 1: with world class entrepreneurs and the technology companies that they lead.
Speaker 1: He spent six years focused on Series A and B investments,
Speaker 1: followed by seven years and county focused on growth stays,
Speaker 1: Series C, D and E opportunities. I asked Elliott about
Speaker 1: how cloud computing in the agent COVID might accelerate innovation
Speaker 1: in stubborn industries. So I oftentimes like to to weaverage
Speaker 1: or quote from one of my favorite videos. You know,
Speaker 1: before I joined best mers a partner and twelve Ventures
Speaker 1: which was Microsoft Global Venture Fun and in that role,
Speaker 1: I was lucky to spend time with Sasti Nudela, who
Speaker 1: is still the CEO of Microsoft. And it was probably
Speaker 1: maybe like three months ago after earnings caller. During an
Speaker 1: earnings caller, Satia said, you know, we've seen more digital
Speaker 1: transformation decisions and initiatives being taken by our client base
Speaker 1: and customers in the last two months than we have
Speaker 1: in the last two years. And what does that really mean. Um,
Speaker 1: that means there's been some kind of legacy industries that
Speaker 1: have bought software in a certain way for two plus decades,
Speaker 1: you know on prim software where people still have to
Speaker 1: come to your premise, sit there and like swap out
Speaker 1: the CDs or download things onto your system. Um. But
Speaker 1: now with with you know, the proliferation of about computing,
Speaker 1: you can do all of that remotely. You can continuously
Speaker 1: update and release new software. So when Satia says he's
Speaker 1: seen more digital transformation in the last two months in
Speaker 1: the last few years, what he's really saying, is you know,
Speaker 1: powered by things like AWS and Azure and GCP. Folks
Speaker 1: are just really pushing cloud software applications to the forefront,
Speaker 1: every every part of the stack of infrastructure to platform
Speaker 1: to kind of the software front inside. UM. So for me,
Speaker 1: you know, COVID has been an interesting thing because cloud
Speaker 1: was already moving quickly. But now everyone's working from home.
Speaker 1: You know, we're working from home now, at least on
Speaker 1: the tech company side, we might be working from home
Speaker 1: like indefinitely, or at least this remote first kind of
Speaker 1: work from home virtual world. So the areas that we're seeing, um,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of movement is you know, we
Speaker 1: call it future of work, but what does that really mean.
Speaker 1: That means, you know, people that are building distributed teams,
Speaker 1: startup founders in the ecosystem today, there was this thing
Speaker 1: where you know, you might have to move to a
Speaker 1: really cool city like l A to find, you know,
Speaker 1: talent that you can hire and build your team. That's
Speaker 1: not necessarily the case right now or the future. It's
Speaker 1: kind of been like that the last few years. It's
Speaker 1: been companies that started that way. But now you can
Speaker 1: build a team be totally distributed just in the States,
Speaker 1: you could have you know, headquarters quote unquote in l
Speaker 1: a Iron, New York, Austin. You know, there's some great
Speaker 1: tech hubs like Detroit and Atlanta that are really bubbling up.
Speaker 1: So there's a bunch of software tools that most startups
Speaker 1: need to help manage that. How do you do remote learning,
Speaker 1: remote sharing? Of course, I think we're on Zoom today
Speaker 1: and you know, they just announced a bunch of new
Speaker 1: kind of integrations and tool sets to make you know,
Speaker 1: more of a remote office environment, UM even more effective.
Speaker 1: So we think about things like future of work with
Speaker 1: productivity tools, UM, knowledge sharing tools, even down to the
Speaker 1: back office. That's actually one area that I'm really excited about.
Speaker 1: So companies that are dealing with UM international payroll, which
Speaker 1: is a space that that we've been spending a lot
Speaker 1: of time, or distributed payroll, distributed hr UM, distributed you know,
Speaker 1: accounting software. All of these things are now going from
Speaker 1: in office to in the cloud, and the whole definition
Speaker 1: of what is an office, I think is changing. The
Speaker 1: last thing I'll say on this this topic, UM knowing
Speaker 1: a couple of folks from the AFRO Tech team. One
Speaker 1: of the coolest things about AFRO tech for me has
Speaker 1: just been as an outsider looking at the office culture.
Speaker 1: It looks like the most fun place to work at
Speaker 1: the African American venture capitalists. I can go weeks without
Speaker 1: you know, necessarily seeing someone else that looks like it
Speaker 1: was a remarkable place office I could work out of.
Speaker 1: It's probably Afro text office. But now they're remote. So
Speaker 1: how do you take such a unique culture? UM? I
Speaker 1: think it's called like wind down Wednesdays or Fridays or
Speaker 1: something something really cool like that. But how do you
Speaker 1: pull that into zoon? How do you pull that into
Speaker 1: you know, like a hopic and environment and make it cool,
Speaker 1: bring the music in, bring the culture in. Um. And
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about some of the opportunities that are
Speaker 1: coming there. It's in a respect um, how fast our
Speaker 1: companies growing today? You know, beat with the ability that
Speaker 1: the efficiencies that cloud computing provides, and how as COVID
Speaker 1: changed that. So if you look at two years ago,
Speaker 1: how fast companies? How does that scale? Exceptional question? And
Speaker 1: you said two things that I'm going to pick on.
Speaker 1: Not only are companies able to move faster? Uh and
Speaker 1: kind of a remote first environment if you're willing the hustle.
Speaker 1: You know, I actually think it's it's kind of a
Speaker 1: unique time. Um for underserved founders. I don't like the
Speaker 1: whole underrepresentative or minority. I think it's a it's a
Speaker 1: trash term. We're just underserved. Um, So for underserved pounders. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know, you can take two sides of the coin.
Speaker 1: From a funding perspective, it's always been tough for us,
Speaker 1: right um, and perhaps in a world where you can't
Speaker 1: necessarily spend time face to face gems to know people
Speaker 1: that will be tougher. But from an operational standpoint, you
Speaker 1: can actually take a lot more meetings now. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: if I think about companies here in the Bay Area,
Speaker 1: in in l A, for example, when I used to
Speaker 1: fly into l A, I can only take three to
Speaker 1: four meetings a day because traffic was crazy. I try
Speaker 1: to stay Dennis Panta Monica kind of a hub. But
Speaker 1: I love play is like Culver City. I still love
Speaker 1: West Hollywood, and it would take me forever to get around.
Speaker 1: Now with with Zoom and more of the remote work culture,
Speaker 1: you can bang out calls from seven am to seven
Speaker 1: pm any time zone. I'm on calls at eleven pm
Speaker 1: with my team in Europe and Tel Aviv. I started
Speaker 1: my day at six am with my partner in Tel Aviv.
Speaker 1: We've got you know, um folks in China. Now we've
Speaker 1: got two offices in New York. So the whole idea
Speaker 1: of what your schedule looked like has changed. So typically
Speaker 1: where you are time constrained in a physical, face to
Speaker 1: face environment, all those things have moved. So again, picking
Speaker 1: on your first word of growth, I think you can
Speaker 1: you can take more business development, more potential customer pipeline meetings,
Speaker 1: and a way you can before and then the second
Speaker 1: word that to use, I'm gonna pick on his efficiency. Um,
Speaker 1: So I think everyone's business from like just a fixed
Speaker 1: cost basis has changed, right, Like you know you you
Speaker 1: might not need that office space. While it might be
Speaker 1: advantageous for you to have face to face time with
Speaker 1: your employees and your employee base to build that culture,
Speaker 1: maybe doing it remote is easier. People certainly aren't flying
Speaker 1: nearly as much last year. I think I logged like
Speaker 1: a hundred twenty nights and hotels. I'm I'm at zero. Well,
Speaker 1: actually I'm technically at like a couple. Um, my wife,
Speaker 1: I took a little bit of a vacation just to
Speaker 1: get a change of scenery. But um, you know a
Speaker 1: lot of the fixed costs that are in an operation
Speaker 1: are now changed. It's not that they're gone, it just changed.
Speaker 1: So where founders may have raised a million dollars in
Speaker 1: their seed round or um maybe a super angel around
Speaker 1: a year ago, and you have these like fixed costs
Speaker 1: to build things out. Now with everything remote and your
Speaker 1: ability to hire and lower costs geos and cities where
Speaker 1: the talent pools are just as good or sometimes even better,
Speaker 1: you know, you can pull that money out and you
Speaker 1: know is under served founders. That's that's kind of like
Speaker 1: one of our skill sets we've always made more less.
Speaker 1: So I'm pretty excited about some of those respects as well.
Speaker 1: That's a great um t up to my next question
Speaker 1: because it would seem that because of the scale and
Speaker 1: relatively low cost of cloud computing, um in the efficiencies
Speaker 1: that it provides, it would that startups may need less
Speaker 1: to do more things. Right. Um, but is that capital
Speaker 1: just being redeployed elsewhere versus how it would have historically
Speaker 1: been deployed against those fixed costs and etcetera. You know,
Speaker 1: travel or those things. Because the prices aren't necessarily going down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. Um. The way I look at
Speaker 1: it is, Uh, if you're cutting let's just say your
Speaker 1: annual budget for your startup is let's just say that
Speaker 1: salaries for a couple of people. Um, maybe you've reduced
Speaker 1: your office space or gotten rid of it. And if
Speaker 1: you've freed up just even a hundred brands out of
Speaker 1: your budget year over year in COVID versus free COVID,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of different things you can do with that. Um.
Speaker 1: You know what I've really liked is the whole gig
Speaker 1: economy has always been a thing, but I think in
Speaker 1: COVID it's even different. So you can try new things
Speaker 1: on the marketing side, on the biz DEEV side, on
Speaker 1: the pr side, that perhaps you couldn't have done before
Speaker 1: because either needed an in house or you know, the
Speaker 1: business has been working a certain way for a couple
Speaker 1: of years, So a smaller business couldn't have got the
Speaker 1: attention of a marketing or pr um kind of shop
Speaker 1: in the way that it can now where everything is
Speaker 1: discerned mediated. So I think it's it's down to the
Speaker 1: business to your comment of prices haven't come down that's
Speaker 1: certainly the case because everyone is trying to meet their
Speaker 1: their top line revenue goals. So while prices haven't changed,
Speaker 1: the one thing I can say is negotiating terms have changed.
Speaker 1: So in this world have been certainty. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of software and clouds, software tools that said, hey, this
Speaker 1: is a minimum one year commitment. A lot of things
Speaker 1: have changed in COVID where they said, okay, well, everyone's
Speaker 1: business is kind of up in the air. You know,
Speaker 1: why don't we give the first three months way free,
Speaker 1: or why don't you sign up for a year, but
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay us anything for the first
Speaker 1: six months. We just want to keep you locked in UM.
Speaker 1: If you're on kind of the accounting or controller side
Speaker 1: of a business, as as some of these software licenses
Speaker 1: come up to renew, I would certainly be thinking about,
Speaker 1: you know, renegotiating. I'm never gonna tell you to, you
Speaker 1: know hard renegotiate and think you're gonna get fifty percent off.
Speaker 1: But you know a lot of companies that weren't potentially
Speaker 1: working UM with customers a year ago, and in COVID
Speaker 1: there are a lot more open to negotiating. So not
Speaker 1: just the fixed costs that have come out during COVID
Speaker 1: of of being virtual. But even those those same kind
Speaker 1: of virtual class software tools I've talked about, you and
Speaker 1: I've been discussing, you can go back to the drawing
Speaker 1: board and say, hey, beyond just a ten or fiftcent
Speaker 1: haircut until things get back to normal, maybe we can
Speaker 1: change some of the payment terms. And that's another way
Speaker 1: to kind of extend your your catch lun way. So
Speaker 1: let's think about like prices coming down from a different
Speaker 1: perspective owned because I'm not a VC, but it would
Speaker 1: appear to me that you know, buy in to get
Speaker 1: in on these deals hasn't come down either with regards
Speaker 1: to you know that capital being more flexibly UM deployed.
Speaker 1: So how how can you how do you read that? Look,
Speaker 1: we're not doing as much you know in these fixed costs,
Speaker 1: these travel expenses, you know, UM, but the prices of
Speaker 1: getting in on deals hasn't reduced. Yeah, there's this weird
Speaker 1: macro thing that happened, and it's really a dual side
Speaker 1: of equation. So one UM, the last six to twelve months,
Speaker 1: more capital has been raised, are bigger funds have been
Speaker 1: raised than ever before UM And then the other thing
Speaker 1: that happened. On the other side of the equation is
Speaker 1: unfortunately in COVID, there's a lot of businesses that were impacted,
Speaker 1: but it's super volatible. So what I mean by that
Speaker 1: is um an aggregate businesses are just dealing with uncertainty.
Speaker 1: So that means there's less companies that are still either
Speaker 1: hitting plan or beating plan. So on one side, you've
Speaker 1: got more capital that needs to go into these companies
Speaker 1: than ever. On the other side, you might have it's
Speaker 1: not that like companies are familing, but you might have
Speaker 1: a smaller basket of companies that are really thriving in
Speaker 1: COVID who would be either figured it out, they might
Speaker 1: be in a market or industry vertical that's actually got
Speaker 1: a COVID tailwind versus a headlind. So there's more capital
Speaker 1: than other going after a smaller subset of opportunities. Therefore,
Speaker 1: you know, just to find demand. The prices have come
Speaker 1: up um, but look at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: like valuations, UM, they're certainly meaningful in every company's li
Speaker 1: every entrepreneurs, like every term early team's life, because it
Speaker 1: has to do with delution in your own equity and
Speaker 1: what you own. What I would really be advising founders
Speaker 1: on is and this doesn't necessarily change in COVID. But
Speaker 1: if some of the funds that one's been time with
Speaker 1: you pre COVID, now all of a sudden one has
Speaker 1: been time with you, like you need to ask yourself
Speaker 1: why that is. And that could be on both sides.
Speaker 1: That could be they think, thank your um, you know,
Speaker 1: you're seeing some COVID headwinds and now it's like a
Speaker 1: good opportunity to get in cheap or cheaper than they
Speaker 1: think it would be. Or you're really seeing some tail
Speaker 1: winds and now they're all over you. I'm just like
Speaker 1: a very values based person. So the question is if
Speaker 1: they weren't spending time with you when things were good,
Speaker 1: like you know, perhaps that's not the right fit for
Speaker 1: you and your company and your your core founding team
Speaker 1: for the next two or three years. Just really try
Speaker 1: to think about that fit. And we're also the last
Speaker 1: comment on make on this is we're going into a
Speaker 1: really unique time in this country. Twenty has been the
Speaker 1: craziest year I think all of the experience, certainly in
Speaker 1: my adult life, and all that means is uncertainty and
Speaker 1: every kind of CEO and sea level are co founding
Speaker 1: team is thinking about, you know, what does the next
Speaker 1: six months look like for us? And that that impacts
Speaker 1: everyone's business. So I think, you know a lot of
Speaker 1: founders are just you know, trying to stay conservatives, stay
Speaker 1: the course, but also be flexible as the next three
Speaker 1: to four months are gonna be really um followl when
Speaker 1: it comes to change. Is it possible startups maybe taken
Speaker 1: more capital? Do they need? Oh? For sure? Right? Well, actually,
Speaker 1: let me I hate that I answered that so strongly.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it's a foreshore, but it's certainly proving.
Speaker 1: Um you know, I think I had written a tweet
Speaker 1: a week or two ago all caps are saying why
Speaker 1: is every company in America raising right now? And it
Speaker 1: actually is my last comment, which is why we're about
Speaker 1: to enter a period of uncertainty that we've never seen.
Speaker 1: Um So, if you're a company that's performing relatively well
Speaker 1: to plan or or even beating it, why not do
Speaker 1: it now before we enter into this kind of desert
Speaker 1: of uncertainty. Um So, I certainly understand that, but I
Speaker 1: will make sure I address your question, which is, do
Speaker 1: I think companies are raising too much money? I think
Speaker 1: some companies certainly are. Um. There's this mentality um and
Speaker 1: and just kind of a behavioral norm that happens when
Speaker 1: you raise enough capital to have twelve to maybe eighteen
Speaker 1: months of cushion and you can just crank that business out.
Speaker 1: You're thinking about efficiencies. You're always thinking about your balance
Speaker 1: sheet in your bottom line, where sometimes if you raise
Speaker 1: so much capital ahead of plan, you know, not only
Speaker 1: are you sitting there thinking that what am I gonna
Speaker 1: do with all this extra money I raised, but your
Speaker 1: investors are also thinking, well, look the I R our
Speaker 1: clock is still ticking on my money that I gave you.
Speaker 1: I need to generate a return faster. So now we
Speaker 1: we start adding on to fits and variable costs at
Speaker 1: a rate that wasn't necessarily the original plan. Right. And
Speaker 1: then you know the term that I always uses. I
Speaker 1: never want to put a founder or an executive team
Speaker 1: in a position of doing unnatural things. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: an expel plan is just numbers and the excel. But
Speaker 1: if your balance sheet is now boosted to a point
Speaker 1: where you know it doesn't reflect the plan, now now
Speaker 1: everyone feels it's pressured to change, and that's not good
Speaker 1: for either side. Season two of The Black Tech, Green
Speaker 1: Money Podcast is brought to you by Lexus, known for
Speaker 1: celebrating driveway moments for over thirty years. Lexus invites you
Speaker 1: to create more with exclusive offers on the most popular
Speaker 1: Lexus models at the December to Remember Sales event. Experience
Speaker 1: amazing at your Lexus dealer, being black me and seeing
Speaker 1: people of other ethnicities and backgrounds realize the value of
Speaker 1: our sauce. They capitalize what we create, They monetize the
Speaker 1: culture we move As a creator, I'm interested in the
Speaker 1: take of a VC like Elliott on how we as
Speaker 1: the global leaders and was hidden music, fashion, food, sports
Speaker 1: and more might finally be able to realize the reward
Speaker 1: in the marketplace for the ideas that we bring to
Speaker 1: the table. Elliot Robinson speaks on it. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take a thirty and then probably go down to like
Speaker 1: ten thousand community and on the street level, UM, I
Speaker 1: think thirty thousand feet view. UM. What I'm really excited
Speaker 1: by is the growing number of enterprise software and cloud
Speaker 1: software opportunities that I'm seeing founded by UM not just
Speaker 1: black founders, but UM Latin X founders and women founders. Traditionally,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, it actually makes a lot of sense um.
Speaker 1: At least the last five to ten years, a lot
Speaker 1: of the start up opportunities have been focused at consumer
Speaker 1: opportunities because while founders that look like me and you
Speaker 1: are underserved, you know, consumers are underserved. Right. There's this
Speaker 1: its age, old adage. You know. I started my career
Speaker 1: to all black mentuer firm in DC called Singcom Venture Partners,
Speaker 1: and we were the first investors in bt SO, first
Speaker 1: investor in bt UM. You know, Bob Johnson says all
Speaker 1: the time at Singcom and herb Wilkinson exists bt when
Speaker 1: it is. We're the only investor who served the board
Speaker 1: from first investment until it was sold to Viacom. And
Speaker 1: then you know, in the middle of that, we invested
Speaker 1: in Kathy Hughes who started Radio one in TV one.
Speaker 1: All right. You know a lot of people said to us, well,
Speaker 1: there's already b t like, why on earth would you
Speaker 1: invest in radio one TV one? And we said, dude,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we're talking about fifteen million people
Speaker 1: and you give them one channel and then we got
Speaker 1: three hundred channels serving the rest of the communities. Doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense, um. So you know, I think historically
Speaker 1: because our consumer base is seen as one very homogeneous,
Speaker 1: which it's not. There's all different types of lanes and
Speaker 1: tide to the black consumer opportunity. But because we're underserved,
Speaker 1: there's just so much like clear obvious opportunity to go
Speaker 1: after the consumer market. But I think in the enterprise space,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's like it would take a whole
Speaker 1: another zoom to really break down my views on on UM.
Speaker 1: Why we're just naming these opportunities and these ong noors now.
Speaker 1: But I'm really excited by the diversity UM that's influencing
Speaker 1: kind of cloud and enterprise software. And that's where I
Speaker 1: as a cloud investor UM and spending my time. Now
Speaker 1: I'm on the later stage investor. We can talk about
Speaker 1: that a little bit, but you know, I I spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time with the early side, even down
Speaker 1: to the seed team of going through all the lists
Speaker 1: of UM kind of black and brown founders going after
Speaker 1: enterprise and making sure that that vessel's meeting with UM
Speaker 1: and making sure that we're we're funding. We just funded
Speaker 1: one that we haven't announced yet, which I'm really excited
Speaker 1: about coming around, but one is certainly not enough UM.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't have a set number, but in
Speaker 1: my own mind, I've got a number of where I'd
Speaker 1: like to see the portfolio go, and I'm really excited
Speaker 1: about that. On the street level, UM, you know, I
Speaker 1: just I think that we and then this is gonna
Speaker 1: I want to make this very nuanced. I think that
Speaker 1: one thing that has to change on the street level
Speaker 1: is like we as a UM underserved entrepreneur base and
Speaker 1: underrepresented investor base, we just gotta think bigger UM. And
Speaker 1: And that's like a really nuanced thing, because sometimes people
Speaker 1: hear me say that and they take it the wrong way.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that we're not thinking big now, it's
Speaker 1: just that UM many times we're just trying to get
Speaker 1: from point zero or point negative one because that the
Speaker 1: whole industry is backed against us to like getting through
Speaker 1: those first blocking and tackling, and we got to do
Speaker 1: that right, Like we've got to focus on getting out
Speaker 1: of the blocks, um, you know, getting the business up,
Speaker 1: getting the first customers, getting the first users. But sometimes
Speaker 1: we focus so much on that that we don't think
Speaker 1: about how big of an opportunity we are, not just
Speaker 1: on the consumer side, but enterprise technology and now even
Speaker 1: on the frontier textile. So I think on the street level,
Speaker 1: I spend a lot of my time even with early
Speaker 1: stage entrepreneurs that as a growth investor I can't invest
Speaker 1: in now. And when we're tweaking the deck, of course,
Speaker 1: the blocking and tackling has to be there. How are
Speaker 1: we going to spend the first million, how do we
Speaker 1: get the m v P of how do we get
Speaker 1: the first paying customers? But oftentimes we leave out the
Speaker 1: big picture of how big of an opportunity all of
Speaker 1: these things are for us. UM. You know, I will
Speaker 1: really feel great when we're not just talking about the
Speaker 1: first UM black entrepreneurs that raised ten million dollars, but
Speaker 1: the first that exit for a billion foot and it's coming.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that sometimes you have to UM speak
Speaker 1: it into existence and also reverse engineer into that success.
Speaker 1: If we say that every time we raise a million dollars,
Speaker 1: we're looking at a half billion to a billion dollar opportunity.
Speaker 1: You know, if that's letter Z and we know what
Speaker 1: letter A is, let's let's really map out the letters
Speaker 1: in between. All I'm saying is sometimes we um we
Speaker 1: underestimate how big of an opportunity all these things are.
Speaker 1: So on the street level. That's where I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of my time, particularly working with early stage down
Speaker 1: there is that I'm just not positioning to invest in
Speaker 1: yet because I want to see them get there to
Speaker 1: that billion dollar that Series B, Series C, still thinking
Speaker 1: about that billion dollars bus opportunity. I love that we're
Speaker 1: having this conversation because you know, we don't have this
Speaker 1: conversation enough at at this high level of you know,
Speaker 1: in late stage investing, because it's so hard to get
Speaker 1: capital in the first place, and for for black founders
Speaker 1: and to that in that regard, what has to happen
Speaker 1: in our ecosystem for more black founders to get to
Speaker 1: Series A because getting that seed is difficult, But you
Speaker 1: know they're we're out here in this in the seed
Speaker 1: stage getting the Series A and been beyond that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's there's very few of us in that regardless. So
Speaker 1: what has to happen in the ecosystem for us to
Speaker 1: get to Series A? See more of us as Series
Speaker 1: A and get post Yeah, it's a complex question and discussion.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, the reality is for more black founders
Speaker 1: to get to Series A, the venture capital industry has
Speaker 1: to change, like dramatically, um and that is not an
Speaker 1: excuse for um, you know, underserved founders to not get
Speaker 1: to serious a But this is the conversation I have
Speaker 1: internally here at the fund and perhaps even more importantly
Speaker 1: with our LPs, so our limited partners that invest in
Speaker 1: the space. So you're saying that the entrepreneurs are here
Speaker 1: that are capable oh one thousand percent. I mean we're
Speaker 1: actually like this, man, Like I don't know how much
Speaker 1: time you have. It is something we gotta break down.
Speaker 1: So like, if you think about the last six months
Speaker 1: of conversation, um, the unfortunate events so uh, you know,
Speaker 1: George Floyd and mont Audrey, Brianna Taylor, it goes on
Speaker 1: has created this um uh kind of this movement of
Speaker 1: venture capital trying to figure out like what are we
Speaker 1: doing wrong? Like why are these founders not getting fundid
Speaker 1: at levels Bestimer included quite frankly, and um, the one
Speaker 1: thing I was just writing and tweeting about this uh
Speaker 1: this week, like the black founders are the most over advised,
Speaker 1: over cohorted, over mentor and over office our folks in
Speaker 1: the world. And sometimes it's like, hey man, we just
Speaker 1: want to lose your money at the same rate all
Speaker 1: of our cockade and college capital by design is kind
Speaker 1: of a sport. Like of our investments either go sideways
Speaker 1: or are lost. And many times those same founders that
Speaker 1: lost your money into or three years come back to
Speaker 1: the table and you give them money again because they learned.
Speaker 1: So again, that doesn't that's not saying that they're not
Speaker 1: good founders, But the question is how come we're not
Speaker 1: being given that same kind of opportunity and credibility. So, yes,
Speaker 1: your point, um, the founders exist actually an overabundance. The
Speaker 1: problem is that, um, it really takes like a bit
Speaker 1: of hearts and minds, longer conversation inside of the industry
Speaker 1: to say, like, why don't we treat people equitably? Right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's a conversation that has been going for a long time,
Speaker 1: but I think in it's certainly been pulled to the
Speaker 1: forefront and then taking a step back, I do think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of responsibility that goes to limited partners
Speaker 1: or what we call LPs. So just to be clear,
Speaker 1: you know, as venture um investors, we manage for the
Speaker 1: most part, other people's mind and that can behind net
Speaker 1: worth people, celebrities, family offices, But for the most part,
Speaker 1: it's UM kind of state and federal government funds like
Speaker 1: pension funds, and if we just kind of focus on California,
Speaker 1: I can I can say, um, with some some pleasure,
Speaker 1: I'll be it measured, Um that California's kind of been
Speaker 1: on the forefront in terms of diversifying the way by
Speaker 1: which they allocate those funds, but it's still kind of
Speaker 1: less than one tenth of one. You know, us LP
Speaker 1: dollars goes into the hands of venture investors that look
Speaker 1: like the entrepreneurs that we're talking about, so they're just
Speaker 1: like a fundamental mismatch. However, if you think about a
Speaker 1: state like California that's super diverse, I don't know what
Speaker 1: the exact number is, but I think it's like roughly
Speaker 1: thirty two or thirty three of the pension fund dollars
Speaker 1: created to then be put in the hands of venture
Speaker 1: investors are created by black and brown people. So like
Speaker 1: it's it's weird, like Robin Hood story and reverse. Where
Speaker 1: we create the dollars, it's then allocated for private equity
Speaker 1: and venture capital, then not allocated to the people that um,
Speaker 1: you know, represent how the dollars were created, and then
Speaker 1: wealth creation is created in other communities like you really
Speaker 1: got to take a second and like think about how
Speaker 1: crazy that is. So it's not saying that like, oh
Speaker 1: there are dollars because they were created off of the
Speaker 1: hours and the careers of people that look like us,
Speaker 1: but it kind of is at least that's that's the
Speaker 1: mentality and philosophy I had. So I know we veered off,
Speaker 1: but it's just to say that, you know, I just
Speaker 1: I think that UM, not only are our entrepreneurs over mentor,
Speaker 1: but many times even our investors are over mentor and
Speaker 1: over courted cohorted. I'm really excited by how many new
Speaker 1: faces and backgrounds are getting into the venture capital and
Speaker 1: investment game. But what I fear again is when I
Speaker 1: look at UM many of my colleagues who are need
Speaker 1: industry that don't look like us, Like, how can they
Speaker 1: don't have to go through all these hoops, you know
Speaker 1: to get allocated dollars. A lot of these people come
Speaker 1: from non traditional backgrounds, have never invested before, maybe it's
Speaker 1: invested in the farm for a year or two, and
Speaker 1: now they're off raising big funds UM and unfortunately we're
Speaker 1: kind of put in a box. So you know, I
Speaker 1: think I'm hoping UM turns into a bit of a
Speaker 1: a paradigm shift or watershed moment for both underserved investors
Speaker 1: of color and certainly in entrepreneurs because where you started,
Speaker 1: like we're there in abundance. You just have to be
Speaker 1: blamed by an equal set of rules as the folks
Speaker 1: that don't. Yeah, and I know the numbers like less
Speaker 1: than a hundred, and it might be something like seventy five.
Speaker 1: There's seventy five black vcs who have check writing authority, um,
Speaker 1: in these firms. And my friend Richard Kirby put out
Speaker 1: the numbers at fort of those went to Harvard or Stanford, right,
Speaker 1: And so you went to more house. Um, and how
Speaker 1: do you then get more black vcs in the door?
Speaker 1: When a the successful vcs have previous operational experience? Um?
Speaker 1: Are they over index on previous operational experience and be
Speaker 1: many come to the table with a check? Yeah for sure. So, UM,
Speaker 1: you said a bunch of things there that are really important. Um.
Speaker 1: You know when when all the unfortunate events that we
Speaker 1: referred to happen kind of March April may beyond, it
Speaker 1: happen to us all the time. Unfortunately, UM, I saw
Speaker 1: a lot of my venture capital peers open these office hours, right,
Speaker 1: they said, like, oh, I'm gonna dedicate um ninety minutes
Speaker 1: a week for the next six months to meet with
Speaker 1: founders of Color objectively a good thing because typically like
Speaker 1: we want to make it into their calendar. So what
Speaker 1: I did, I said, Well, I talked the founders of
Speaker 1: Color all the time, right, like, just by the nature
Speaker 1: of who I am, my networking what I care about.
Speaker 1: The question is, you know, how can I impact the
Speaker 1: industry as one of the few black partners at a
Speaker 1: at a large venture pound with check writing authority. I
Speaker 1: kind of flipped it and said, Okay, well, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do office hours ninety minutes twice a week and speak
Speaker 1: to any venture fund in the country that doesn't have
Speaker 1: a black investor to really talk through why don't you
Speaker 1: have a black investor, stir um and what are the
Speaker 1: benefits of having a black investor. Venture capital by definition
Speaker 1: is about um making non consensus investments and really high
Speaker 1: performing and high potential entrepreneurs. So you know, referencing my
Speaker 1: my dear friend Richard's analysis, it's the same thing that
Speaker 1: we talked about or I talked to my partners here investment,
Speaker 1: which is if we hire another Caucasian male from Harvard
Speaker 1: and Stanford, Like, what's the r O I partner with
Speaker 1: that profile? Like, if we don't have those networks covered already,
Speaker 1: then we're not doing our job. So I'll say a
Speaker 1: couple of things. And this is kind of the framework
Speaker 1: of the discussion of these ninety minutes. And I think
Speaker 1: I've talked to now forty three firms and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be putting out at the end of the year kind
Speaker 1: of a medium process and slides around best practices. But
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cherry pick one thing that talks to these
Speaker 1: firms about, which is um, my entire career, uh, having
Speaker 1: interviewed with probably twenty five firms, you know, at different
Speaker 1: points of my career, outreach, outbound. UM. This term of
Speaker 1: like cultural fit has always been a big thing. It's
Speaker 1: actually I can't stand it. Um, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: bring this up. Yeah, I don't fit the culture of
Speaker 1: venture capital. And I guess technically most founders that look
Speaker 1: like me and you don't fit whatever culture of their portfolio,
Speaker 1: their typical investment. So UM, here a bestimer, particularly on
Speaker 1: the growth fund side. We've we've totally built in a
Speaker 1: new hiring philosophy and process. And it's something I talked
Speaker 1: to all our venture peers about, which is, um, cultural
Speaker 1: fits gotta go like that's that. Um, what I really
Speaker 1: care about is values fit and values aligne not just
Speaker 1: with the founders but my colleagues. And I think if
Speaker 1: you take a step back and you do some work
Speaker 1: to figure out, like what are the values that define
Speaker 1: a really good investor at your firm or in my case,
Speaker 1: at Bessemer, that's a different conversation. And when we're hiring
Speaker 1: and when we're interview these people, if I'm aligning for
Speaker 1: values and I'm not talking about you know, do you
Speaker 1: wear all birds are better? Yeah? I mean all birds
Speaker 1: are at trashed to Um, I wear Jordan's to work
Speaker 1: every day. That's hey, I can pick my foot up
Speaker 1: right now, you'd see. Yeah. I just uh scored those
Speaker 1: new bladers on the sneakers atmosphere and I woke up
Speaker 1: early at seven as I've been taking on the sneakers
Speaker 1: app By the way, I should invest in Nike and
Speaker 1: make them fix the sneakers at me. How about right?
Speaker 1: If I if I would, I could, Um, So we
Speaker 1: we eliminate cultural fit, we bring in values fit and
Speaker 1: score candidates on them. And then what we substitute in
Speaker 1: is um something we call cultural ad. Yes, right, that's
Speaker 1: been probably like the most um lightbulb moment for most
Speaker 1: of my close friends who work at fear firms in mind,
Speaker 1: which is like, oh ship, like you've never actually thought
Speaker 1: about that. I don't really care as a venture capitalists
Speaker 1: to go deeper into networks and patterns that we know.
Speaker 1: We talked about pattern matching, but like the way we
Speaker 1: generate outside of the urns is the pattern matching places
Speaker 1: that we aren't already. Um, So we talk about cultural
Speaker 1: ad and if you really do score people on cultural ad,
Speaker 1: and this goes for entrepreneurs in your portfolio as well,
Speaker 1: you really start to ask different questions. You know, what
Speaker 1: is it unique about your background? What is it about
Speaker 1: your perspective your experience that you bring not just to
Speaker 1: the portfolio, but but um, you know, in my case,
Speaker 1: to the investment team. And I'll add ill endo it here.
Speaker 1: So I did go to Morehouse. Um, I'm from small
Speaker 1: town Reston, Virginia. My brother went to HbCO at Hampton
Speaker 1: and both my parents were the first integrated class advandabile.
Speaker 1: So education is a big thing in my family. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you have to have quote unquote traditional education
Speaker 1: to be a great startup founder. UM. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think what I bring to not just Bestimer, but
Speaker 1: any firm UM that I've worked at, and probably the
Speaker 1: broader venture capital in the street is just a different perspective,
Speaker 1: you know. And then on on, like the the venture
Speaker 1: capital side we do, you'll hear firms talk a lot
Speaker 1: about UM learnings from the community, which is like putting
Speaker 1: functional leaders CEOs, head of sales CFOs from throughout your portfolio,
Speaker 1: you know, ten twenty in our case over two companies
Speaker 1: together and pulling out best practices. But many times if
Speaker 1: your founder base isn't diverse, like there's an exchange of
Speaker 1: learnings and perspectives that like are just being left out.
Speaker 1: And not only does that damage UM or leave kind
Speaker 1: of opportunity on the table for underserved and underrepresented founders,
Speaker 1: but actually it leaves opportunity on the table for the
Speaker 1: folks in our portfolio where they don't get to see
Speaker 1: our perspective as operators, Like you can't tell me we
Speaker 1: we don't hustle more than anyone else. We've had to
Speaker 1: our whole lives like we've always been pulled by our parents.
Speaker 1: You've gotta be twice as good as everyone else us
Speaker 1: to get a fair shot. Um So in terms of
Speaker 1: like we're underinvested, but we still are expected to generate
Speaker 1: the same return. There's like an exchange of learning that
Speaker 1: that even across the portfolio. Um, we don't get So.
Speaker 1: The last thing I'll say on this you know, um
Speaker 1: you mentioned that the statistics semi five percent or I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: lesson semi five or seventy five in total venture capitalists
Speaker 1: have steck writing authority. That is very true, and I
Speaker 1: actually think the the number might be way smaller than
Speaker 1: seventy five because check writing authority of me and its
Speaker 1: different things to different people. But luckily the number is
Speaker 1: is slowly through the Season two of the Black Tech
Speaker 1: Green Money podcast is brought to you by Lexis for
Speaker 1: over thirty years. Lexus May Driveway is the place to
Speaker 1: celebrate with the December to Remember Sales event to find
Speaker 1: its offers on popular Alexis models Now through January four,
Speaker 1: experience amazing at You Alexis dealing. You put up a
Speaker 1: tweet a little while ago that I thought it was
Speaker 1: amusing but at the same time, you know, it'll make
Speaker 1: sense why it was a shame to me in a second.
Speaker 1: So you said, VC right now is basically a never
Speaker 1: ending episode of ninety day fiance, tons of online dating,
Speaker 1: mostly people you've never met who don't need to share
Speaker 1: much because they have multiple rings already. And while that
Speaker 1: was amusing, you know what the part of it and
Speaker 1: you're saying, and you said you ended it with and
Speaker 1: hoping they pick mine. And so what I thought was
Speaker 1: unfortunate about that is when you see our counterparts are white,
Speaker 1: you know, entrepreneurs and etcetera, who may have all kinds
Speaker 1: of term sheets on the table, and they're just trying
Speaker 1: to fix you know, who they like better, you know
Speaker 1: which terms they like better, etcetera. So they're interviewing you
Speaker 1: and more than you're interviewing them to give you, to
Speaker 1: give them money. When we come to the table, we're
Speaker 1: hoping Elliott picks us to invest in. And we have
Speaker 1: way less in in too many cases, way less um
Speaker 1: leverage to get deal terms that are good for us.
Speaker 1: And so while it was amusing, you know, I thought
Speaker 1: it was also a shame that we don't come to
Speaker 1: the table with the same you know, hutzpah as as
Speaker 1: they might. And what's your response to that? And how
Speaker 1: do we make Elliott And this is no disrespect to you,
Speaker 1: but how do we make you less the prize and
Speaker 1: the startup the prize? Yeah? Sure so. UM. What's interesting
Speaker 1: about that is, Uh, the startup that I've thought about
Speaker 1: the most, probably the last month, UM is a startup
Speaker 1: led by a dear friend of mine, you know, is
Speaker 1: an African American founder. UM. I can't talk about it
Speaker 1: just because I don't want to steal the thunder of
Speaker 1: the company. But they're out raising UM. They're seriously and
Speaker 1: out and it was that dynamic. UM. He had multiple
Speaker 1: offers on the table UM, and two of them were
Speaker 1: unfortunately just kind of higher than I could go on price. UM.
Speaker 1: And like that's the worst situation actually because to your point,
Speaker 1: like that's not always the dynamic at the serious C
Speaker 1: or D stage where there's another black founder on the
Speaker 1: other side of the table. For me, I'm sitting there, like,
Speaker 1: talk to my wife about it. I talked friend about
Speaker 1: I said, what do I do here? Like the market
Speaker 1: is so crazy and the business is performing really well,
Speaker 1: and I've I've actually known this founder now for four
Speaker 1: years talked to him off cycle. Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: hope he hears this or he'll be laughing. At the
Speaker 1: same time, we're texting on the plane and I just
Speaker 1: couldn't get there on price. So I'll say this. That
Speaker 1: influences that tweet a bunch, But it also makes me
Speaker 1: really happy because if that is the dynamic for him,
Speaker 1: then I know the pipeline is coming. Um. Unfortunately, pattern
Speaker 1: matching at the Series C is very different from pattern
Speaker 1: matching and the seed or the Series A, like that's
Speaker 1: the unfortunate challenge at the SEA, like, there's more data
Speaker 1: to work with. You know, there's paying customers, there's revenue there,
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, it demystifies this disconnect between
Speaker 1: UM black and brown founders and the majority of the
Speaker 1: industry which doesn't look like them. So just so so
Speaker 1: I make sure I address your questionnaire comment. I think
Speaker 1: that I think it's getting better, you know, when I
Speaker 1: when I you know, I talked to Richard Kirby a lot.
Speaker 1: He's my closest friend and adventure and oddly both of
Speaker 1: our wives went to high school together well before we
Speaker 1: ever looked, so I talked to him a lot. I
Speaker 1: talked to him last night enough. Um, you know, he
Speaker 1: spends time more time in the early stage and when
Speaker 1: we do text, like we'll talk about some early stage
Speaker 1: hot deals that are led by UH founders of color
Speaker 1: and the dynamic is way different than it was UM
Speaker 1: ten years ago. Also shout out Austin Clements at Slawson
Speaker 1: and Co. In l A. He was tweeting about this
Speaker 1: other day, which is like back in the day, you know,
Speaker 1: particularly and underserved founders like you felt like you heard
Speaker 1: about every deal, particularly a few are black venture capitalists
Speaker 1: were now at a place where I don't, which is
Speaker 1: like good and bad because I want to hear about everyone.
Speaker 1: But it's also good because the industry has expanded to
Speaker 1: the point where it's not just like the same ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen or maybe even twenty folks that you talked to.
Speaker 1: It's actually more like fifty to a hundred. And that
Speaker 1: that bleeds over to like you know, sports and entertainment
Speaker 1: where they're getting into the tech game, or they've got
Speaker 1: kind of advisors and venture capitalists and angel investors that
Speaker 1: represent them and it's kind of increased their umbrella, UM
Speaker 1: in terms of how do we get it there? I
Speaker 1: hate to throw this answer out again, But like there's
Speaker 1: just a continuing hearts and minds conversation that pass that
Speaker 1: happen really inside of the venture capital industry. Um. All
Speaker 1: in the answer here. You know, I write and speak
Speaker 1: a lot about this thing called diversity theater UM. It's
Speaker 1: something I've written about for a really long time. You know,
Speaker 1: the statistics came out about I think it was Q
Speaker 1: three Venture funding UM. And from a diversity standpoint, there's
Speaker 1: all these like tweets going out and right and going
Speaker 1: around and mentoring and all that, but the numbers haven't
Speaker 1: shown up. What I'll say about that is it's unfortunate,
Speaker 1: but it takes some time, Like it takes time to
Speaker 1: actually connect from these office hours to getting to know
Speaker 1: your business to making the investments. Unfortunately, those decisions are
Speaker 1: made slower when it comes to us. UM. But I
Speaker 1: am you know, I have to hould that book at
Speaker 1: the next quarter or two. Is different. But in terms
Speaker 1: of diversity theater um, you know, all of us have
Speaker 1: been in this place, you know, speaking personally about my
Speaker 1: venture career and then you know, projecting some of the
Speaker 1: conversations I've had with black founders where you know pretty
Speaker 1: quickly whether someone just kind of bullshitting you on this
Speaker 1: diversity thing, right, Like we're happy to meet with you,
Speaker 1: but like you didn't tell you you mentioned something around
Speaker 1: like um operating experience. I'll just put it in my example.
Speaker 1: As I was going through my career, I used to
Speaker 1: always I'm from Virginia. Right, we use this term called
Speaker 1: better rock, and that's the term is better rock, and
Speaker 1: what that means is I'll put in my own experience.
Speaker 1: When I was interviewing for venture roles throughout my career,
Speaker 1: you would show up and the job description would say
Speaker 1: you need to have x y z in order to
Speaker 1: get this job. You would have x y Z and
Speaker 1: then they throw a rock and say go get letter D.
Speaker 1: It wasn't on the job description, but like go get
Speaker 1: letter D. Then you go get letter D. You come
Speaker 1: back and they throw that rock and they say go
Speaker 1: get letter T. Right. And I think that happens with
Speaker 1: founders to where they you know, a lot of Ventra
Speaker 1: bungle put on the website this is what we need
Speaker 1: to see to make a seed investment, our serious investment.
Speaker 1: And you're looking at your debt. You are a product
Speaker 1: some of your early tract and say, man, I've got
Speaker 1: all that, and then within fifteen minutes they're telling you
Speaker 1: you need to go find something else. That's when you
Speaker 1: should know, and that's when you don't want to go
Speaker 1: affect that rock. So we've got to we've got to
Speaker 1: get to a point as an industry where we stopped
Speaker 1: throwing that rock. And fortunately, I think the community is
Speaker 1: talking about it enough. Where as as the faces um
Speaker 1: become more diverse and check writing authority, you know where
Speaker 1: to go. But there's actually some um faces adventure that
Speaker 1: don't look like us, that are making these bets, treating
Speaker 1: people effitably, and we actually need to like elevate them
Speaker 1: too and speak about them because those are the folks
Speaker 1: you want to spend the time, but don't don't waste
Speaker 1: your time infection that rock is the answer to create
Speaker 1: our own firms, I think it's both UM and I'll
Speaker 1: tell you why. And then that's a great question. So UM,
Speaker 1: as someone who's been doing this fifteen years, I started
Speaker 1: my career to all black firms. Still today the largest
Speaker 1: black interre firm in the country to ever exist. Our
Speaker 1: Fund five is a two seventy five million dollar fund um.
Speaker 1: So a huge part of the equation is certainly starting
Speaker 1: our own firms. However, until the LP community UM expands
Speaker 1: the aperture. My big fear, having started my career in
Speaker 1: series A and Series B and seeing successes there is
Speaker 1: you know you, um, you kind of cross that chasm
Speaker 1: of a Series A, Series B founder of color and
Speaker 1: then you show up in the series C and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: who's here to talk to you? Like who who can
Speaker 1: actually right that twenty thirty million dollar check? That world
Speaker 1: gets real spooky, UM. And I can say that as
Speaker 1: a dedicated growth etnly invest You know we talked about
Speaker 1: people with check rounding authority. I can name three um,
Speaker 1: black venture capitalist later stage that I know who have
Speaker 1: checked righting authority. That's like three um. So you know,
Speaker 1: it goes back to that tweet and this experience I
Speaker 1: had with my dear friend who, thank thankfully he's about
Speaker 1: to announce his seriously investment or his seriously around Like
Speaker 1: you feel that pressure where it's like damn unlike one
Speaker 1: or three people that can write that check, I can't
Speaker 1: write all of them because like there's a larger pipeline
Speaker 1: and thankfully for him, he got an exceptional deal and
Speaker 1: a great investor around the table. So I think, yes,
Speaker 1: it is very important that we um master our masters
Speaker 1: and determine our own faith. But unfortunately the LP community
Speaker 1: is very happy to back us at kind of this
Speaker 1: ten million to maybe forty million dollar fun size level.
Speaker 1: Now there's been a couple of breakout successes, um, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like fifty to level UM. So it's it's
Speaker 1: expanding um. But for someone like myself, like my average
Speaker 1: check right now, however, somewhere between like thirty and fifty UM,
Speaker 1: and you've got to make sure that we've got people
Speaker 1: that can treat entrepreneurs effortably through the entire lifestyle. Um. Again,
Speaker 1: all the seed stuff is bubbling up, has been the
Speaker 1: last ten years, particularly the last two series as has
Speaker 1: certainly gotten better. UM. But man, it is a it
Speaker 1: is a ghost can for me when I go to
Speaker 1: growth stage confidence. But I know it's coming right Like
Speaker 1: if you know the investors are there in the seed
Speaker 1: in the A and they're raising their bees, I know
Speaker 1: as they come to the seed, I'm hoping that I'm
Speaker 1: uniquely positioned to see all um and hopefully support those
Speaker 1: entrepreneur business scale black tech, green money and production to
Speaker 1: black of the afro tech. He was produced by Morgan
Speaker 1: Dabon and me Well Lucas, with additional production support by
Speaker 1: Love Beach and Raven Nearport. Special thank you to Michael
Speaker 1: Davis since the car savon Jan you know, like the wine. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's his real name. Learn more about my guests and
Speaker 1: other tech disruptors and innovators at afro tech dot com
Speaker 1: and go get your money. Peace and love,