The Exchanges

Q think Venture capitalists do this really strange thing where they say, we don't like cold outreach. We want warm intros. We want to know you. But at some point, you don't know them. And so the only way that they can know you is to cold outreach you or somebody you know, or to have someone that you know introduce them. And so how is your network not a moat?

A I think network is one of those things that I believe is necessary, but not sufficient. Like you can't really run a venture firm if you don't have a network or build a successful venture firm. So I, I think it's absolutely necessary, but I don't think that in itself is ultimately a differentiator. Um, And yeah, there's multiple ways to build deal flow. Networking is certainly one. And I think the reason I think generally VC is so like to have a warm intro and generally the response rate for cold outreach is extremely low. It's mostly as a way to get a signal. It's not really a judgment whether it's good or bad, but in the crowded space we all live in, in a crowded inbound deal flow, everybody's looking for some kind of signal of how they prioritize. And I guess the, how the intro came was as good of a signal as any. If somebody took a time and used their social capital to make an introduction, that is a signal. That's not by itself a conclusive signal, and there's lots of reasons why people make intros. Uh, but, um, but it is a signal, and I think that's why a lot of VCs kind of count on that as the way to kind of filter top of funnel. Uh, deal flow. But there's other ways to, to, to, to build. For example, our fund, and I think many other funds, uh, extremely active in outbound sourcing. And this is actually sometimes us doing a cold outreach to founders versus them doing cold…

AI assessment note: “I think network is one of those things that I believe is necessary, but not sufficient.”

Q How do you find out about them? Like, I imagine you'd go to like Claude or Bordy or Gemini and go, Hey, tell me about the startups in this space. Like, how do you do that?

A It certainly became easier, maybe in the last couple of years in a sense, because of all the tools you, you, you, you're talking about, but, um, it's, it's a combination of, um, data driven approach, which is collecting tremendous amounts of data and building some technology to help you find signals in it. And of course, in the last couple of years, it became even easier. But because of the stage we invest in, like we invest in the seed stage and pre-seed, there's really no, like, database you can go and, like, find things. Like, there's no pitch book for, like, pre-seed companies, right? They don't, and oftentimes, there's not even company yet. There may be just, like, a human building stuff, and they may or may not even have a company. They just may be thinking about starting a company. So there's no database. You can go find this stuff. So you're gonna have to generate those signals yourself. Um, by collecting tons of data and mining it with signals. And then also oftentimes, you know, when we talk to somebody who is building in the space, they will introduce us to five other people in their network that they know that are also building in a space, right? So it's a, there's a bit of a network effect there as well. So, so anyways, it's a, it's a, it's a combination of things. There's no zero bullet when it comes to extortion. You just gotta have as much footprint as possible.

AI assessment note: “combination of, um, data driven approach... building some technology to help you find signals”

Q to you that I had spoken to someone saying that VC firms I had previously had spoken, someone said VC firms are not a business, and he was like, actually, we are a business. It's different to the business that you run, but it's a business. How do you show up in the market? How have you chosen to present yourself and, and why, and what's an example of that?

A Yeah, well, I, I agree with whoever that person was that told you this. Building a venture firm from scratch is really, really hard. Um, different hard than maybe building a company, which I think is even harder, but it's, it's different hard, but still, still hard. Um, in terms of how we present ourselves, it's, I guess I kind of led to that when I described three ways, uh, because we're the third way, uh, with that option number three that I described, and we believe that, so we're former founders and operators. My partner built a pretty large AI company, uh, before we started the fund. Uh, grew that to be a six billion dollar company raised about a building in capital. I was associated with that business as well, first as an investor, but then ended up joining full-time to kind of help scale the company. So both of us kind of former founders and operators, and the whole reason we started Cortical, um, is we thought being builders, um, is, is really one of the few ways to understand like what's going on in this crazy space we're operating, uh, which is AI. And so besides having built a company before, uh, we also, um, building two companies, um, that we started, as we speak, both in the AI space, one in the physical AI and robotics space, one in the agentic AI. And the, the, again, the whole premise is that Like I'll give you a crazy stat, uh, which maybe some people realize,…

AI assessment note: “in terms of how we present ourselves... we're former founders and operators”

Q What does a founder have to do to make themselves Like desirable for you to outreach to them?

A Yeah, it's an interesting, uh, we spend a lot of time thinking about this. Like why do like some founders tend to like create a lot of, um, you know, signal about themselves that creates significant amount of interest and then others don't do it or try to do it. I'm not successful in doing it. And I don't know. It's, I think it's combination of, um, Messaging and positioning yourself in a way that kind of resonates and, and gets people interested in what you're doing. And that sounds like obvious, but it's really, really, really hard to do, especially for technical founders. Like most founders we work with are technical founders. They're building a thing, right? That they're really excited about. Uh, and it's a, it's not an easy thing for them to figure out. How do you make it, make this thing known in a way that In a way that creates a lot of attention and interest. Right. And like you've seen like some super crazy examples, like, um, uh, what was it? The, the, the, the cloud bot or whatever it was called.

AI assessment note: “I think it's combination of, um, Messaging and positioning yourself in a way that kind of resonates”