The Exchanges

Q So, so what is the right reason to start one? Is kind of purely intellectual, academic, there's a market opportunity, or does there need to be more?

A This is a great question. So I'm very, very biased towards founders who are solving some of their own problems, or solving a company, company problems that they've had, right? For example, I led an investment in a company called SketchTech, and those guys, basically what it is, it's a marketplace to get Great design. So if you are a CEO of a company, or a VP of marketing, and you want to have a new white paper design to your company design guidelines, but all the designers are busy building your product, you can go to their marketplace to have vetted designers, and they do the, do the work. And the founders started this company, they were at McKinsey before, and, and although they have this little bit of the MBA organization, Profile. McKinsey had their internal resource of that type of resources where it can go and, and have these things designed. And then when these guys left McKinsey and started their company, they had this problem. They wanted to have something designed and they were like, wow, in McKinsey, we had this thing, but now we don't have it. Probably other small businesses have this problem as well. And then they started this company around and similar to GrabGad, like we had this problem where we were We thought it's crazy to redesign everything from scratch, and we built this massive library that has now more than three million engineers using every day that are…

AI assessment note: “I'm very, very biased towards founders who are solving some of their own problems”

Q And transitioning now to your, your time in venture, has it been everything you thought it would be in your mind? And what have you found as a challenge in adapting from operational life to the life of venture?

A I, I did a, quite a lot of thinking and due diligence when I decided to come over. And to be very honest with you, it's, it's been pretty much the challenges are the ones that I thought will be. And, you know, that I would say the two Big challenges if an operator becomes a venture capitalist is that first, when I was a CEO of GrabCad, I, I went home Friday night to have a dinner and wine with my, with my wife, and I felt I earned it. I felt that I worked really, really hard during the week, but every day we pushed things forward. Like everything, we were making small improvements in the business, and I felt great. Like, it was hard work. It was like a lot of hard problems, but I felt great. I felt that I have Achieve something. Now, I work the same hours. I go, go home Friday night, and I do not have that feeling of achievement in most of the weeks, and it's just, I feel entrepreneurs are doing the hard work. I'm spending a lot of time trying to make investments and meeting companies and trying to help companies, the new ones or the ones I've invested already, but that does definitely doesn't give me that satisfaction that I had When I was an operator. So that's been definitely some of the things I've been struggling. No surprise. I knew that's, that will happen. And the second one is that there's just no feedback loop in, in VC. You don't know if you're good at your job becau…

AI assessment note: “it's been pretty much the challenges are the ones that I thought will be”

Q So, so what is the right reason to start one? Is kind of purely intellectual, academic, there's a market opportunity, or does there need to be more?

A This is a great question. So I'm very, very biased towards founders who are solving some of their own problems, or solving a company, company problems that they've had, right? For example, I led an investment in a company called SketchTech, and those guys, basically what it is, it's a marketplace to get Great design. So if you are a CEO of a company, or a VP of marketing, and you want to have a new white paper design to your company design guidelines, but all the designers are busy building your product, you can go to their marketplace to have vetted designers, and they do the, do the work. And the founders started this company, they were at McKinsey before, and, and although they have this little bit of the MBA organization, Profile. McKinsey had their internal resource of that type of resources where it can go and, and have these things designed. And then when these guys left McKinsey and started their company, they had this problem. They wanted to have something designed and they were like, wow, in McKinsey, we had this thing, but now we don't have it. Probably other small businesses have this problem as well. And then they started this company around and similar to GrabGad, like we had this problem where we were We thought it's crazy to redesign everything from scratch, and we built this massive library that has now more than three million engineers using every day that are…

AI assessment note: “I'm very, very biased towards founders who are solving some of their own problems”

Q And transitioning now to your, your time in venture, has it been everything you thought it would be in your mind? And what have you found as a challenge in adapting from operational life to the life of venture?

A I, I did a, quite a lot of thinking and due diligence when I decided to come over. And to be very honest with you, it's, it's been pretty much the challenges are the ones that I thought will be. And, you know, that I would say the two Big challenges if an operator becomes a venture capitalist is that first, when I was a CEO of GrabCad, I, I went home Friday night to have a dinner and wine with my, with my wife, and I felt I earned it. I felt that I worked really, really hard during the week, but every day we pushed things forward. Like everything, we were making small improvements in the business, and I felt great. Like, it was hard work. It was like a lot of hard problems, but I felt great. I felt that I have Achieve something. Now, I work the same hours. I go, go home Friday night, and I do not have that feeling of achievement in most of the weeks, and it's just, I feel entrepreneurs are doing the hard work. I'm spending a lot of time trying to make investments and meeting companies and trying to help companies, the new ones or the ones I've invested already, but that does definitely doesn't give me that satisfaction that I had When I was an operator. So that's been definitely some of the things I've been struggling. No surprise. I knew that's, that will happen. And the second one is that there's just no feedback loop in, in VC. You don't know if you're good at your job becau…

AI assessment note: “the two Big challenges if an operator becomes a venture capitalist”

Q You said about the kind of immense amount of companies that David's seen there, and that allows him, obviously, to build up the pattern recognition. How do you look to build up pattern recognition as you move forward, progressing with your career and venture?

A That's one of the things where I am focusing because, like, I, I need to look, look at myself and think, okay, what are the things that I'm strong at? And, and one of the things I do not have is I do not have a massive experience in looking of thousands of Closely to draw conclusions. So the way I, I've been thinking about that is first is, is creating that pattern recognition and, and the way to do it is I've started to select very specific fields where I'm going in, instead of being very horizontal and, and seeing everything that comes into the door, I'm, I've become very thesis driven. So I go and look very specific vectors and I try to go and find every single company in this vector So I can start having comparison and pattern recognition around this vector. So just, uh, decreasing the data set. So that's one of the things that I've been doing. The second thing in order to start to have it is really go, like I've been very heavily focusing on founder and trying to figure out what makes a great founder. And ironically, I've spent a lot of time in the last 10 months not reading science fiction, but, but reading books about Great inventors, reading books about great entrepreneurs, and really try to understand what makes someone great. Meet with some of the CEOs who I know well who have, uh, have accomplished a lot. Really try to understand their motivations, their, their drive…

AI assessment note: “creating that pattern recognition and, and the way to do it is I've started to select”

Q You said about the kind of immense amount of companies that David's seen there, and that allows him, obviously, to build up the pattern recognition. How do you look to build up pattern recognition as you move forward, progressing with your career and venture?

A That's one of the things where I am focusing because, like, I, I need to look, look at myself and think, okay, what are the things that I'm strong at? And, and one of the things I do not have is I do not have a massive experience in looking of thousands of Closely to draw conclusions. So the way I, I've been thinking about that is first is, is creating that pattern recognition and, and the way to do it is I've started to select very specific fields where I'm going in, instead of being very horizontal and, and seeing everything that comes into the door, I'm, I've become very thesis driven. So I go and look very specific vectors and I try to go and find every single company in this vector So I can start having comparison and pattern recognition around this vector. So just, uh, decreasing the data set. So that's one of the things that I've been doing. The second thing in order to start to have it is really go, like I've been very heavily focusing on founder and trying to figure out what makes a great founder. And ironically, I've spent a lot of time in the last 10 months not reading science fiction, but, but reading books about Great inventors, reading books about great entrepreneurs, and really try to understand what makes someone great. Meet with some of the CEOs who I know well who have, uh, have accomplished a lot. Really try to understand their motivations, their, their drive…

AI assessment note: “I've started to select very specific fields where I'm going in”

Q So your favorite book and why? You mentioned the inventor books. I'd love to hear if there's one I should be reading.

A There's a lot of books that I really, really enjoyed this year. I don't have a favorite book, but I would say a couple of books that I have been really influential for me. One is called Deep Work. I forgot who the author is, but it's, it's a great book That reminds that, especially as a VC, it can be super transactional, and you can spend every minute of your day just reading and responding emails and looking through the pitches. And also, like, the way we are so connected to the world, it's just so easy to be always on and, and be very transactional. And that book is a great reminder that it actually is a great idea to take every day, a couple of hours, and do deep work, which means Reading, learning about some of the theses, coming up with an idea as writing, and I found that being a super influential for me book that I read this year.

AI assessment note: “I don't have a favorite book, but... One is called Deep Work.”

Q You said David Scott there, and you mentioned your, your kind of closeness to him earlier. I'm intrigued how much of a role has the mentorship with him played to your progression, and what have been your kind of key takeaways from working so closely with him?

A I think there is a lot to learn from all the partners here. Obviously, I am more closer to, to David Scott because he was on my board, and we're looking similar investments, but not only him. We have another partner, Antonio Rodriguez, who I, Where I work closely here in, in, in our Boston office. I would say the things that, that I have learned from these guys is trust my gut, like listen, but trust my gut. And it's, it's something that I've always thought that I'm very gut driven person. And I, I will have a feeling about if some, some, something feels right or not. And because the average, we see, see, see many, so many things that so many companies and so Especially if you're that experience like David who have done it for so long, you have seen so many companies fail that try to do something else, but maybe the time was wrong. And if I feel the time is, is right right now, I should go on and, and, and do it. So that's some of the things that these guys have, have encouraged me a lot. And then, you know, most of the staff are very, very, very specific. For example, if you're looking at SAS companies, What are the right metrics to look and, and what really matter? Like a lot of B to B SaaS investors typically look, oh, is this company for series A is doing one million annual revenue rate? And if they are, that's a checkpoint, right? What we write, what we like to do is reall…

AI assessment note: “a lot of that is what, It's really a framework that David have given me.”

Q Your favorite blog or newsletter, you mentioned kind of reads that deep work, developing pieces. What do you love to read?

A It's interesting. I'm reading less blogs nowadays, but I do still enjoy reading David's blog called for entrepreneurs.com. It is a, and now other partners are, are starting to write stuff there as well. And I just found, I found those blog posts interesting. And, you know, sometimes I go and, and, And meet one of the companies where I made an investment and our challenge is figuring out the right onboarding. And, and I always go and referring back to David's blog and, and before the meeting and going and refreshing my memory. I used to know every blog post from the heart, but those are really long posts for blog posts. So I still go back to those and go read them.

AI assessment note: “I do still enjoy reading David's blog called for entrepreneurs.com”

Q You said David Scott there, and you mentioned your, your kind of closeness to him earlier. I'm intrigued how much of a role has the mentorship with him played to your progression, and what have been your kind of key takeaways from working so closely with him?

A I think there is a lot to learn from all the partners here. Obviously, I am more closer to, to David Scott because he was on my board, and we're looking similar investments, but not only him. We have another partner, Antonio Rodriguez, who I, Where I work closely here in, in, in our Boston office. I would say the things that, that I have learned from these guys is trust my gut, like listen, but trust my gut. And it's, it's something that I've always thought that I'm very gut driven person. And I, I will have a feeling about if some, some, something feels right or not. And because the average, we see, see, see many, so many things that so many companies and so Especially if you're that experience like David who have done it for so long, you have seen so many companies fail that try to do something else, but maybe the time was wrong. And if I feel the time is, is right right now, I should go on and, and, and do it. So that's some of the things that these guys have, have encouraged me a lot. And then, you know, most of the staff are very, very, very specific. For example, if you're looking at SAS companies, What are the right metrics to look and, and what really matter? Like a lot of B to B SaaS investors typically look, oh, is this company for series A is doing one million annual revenue rate? And if they are, that's a checkpoint, right? What we write, what we like to do is reall…

AI assessment note: “things that I have learned from these guys is trust my gut”