Apologies for the typos, this is an AI transcription
[00:00:00] Reece Chowdhry: If someone says, what's one reason you've got to where you have 90% is like showing up, but the rest is like the 10% difference between most people is they follow up. Yeah. You know, like how many people that you meet at a party or like, you know, it's something that says, oh yeah, I'm gonna send you that. Or like, I'm gonna do that.
But I'm always the guy that did send that stuff. Right. And did message. You
[00:00:22] Jay Radia: welcome to happy millionaire a show about how to make a profit with a positive impact and stay happy
[00:00:28] Rupy Aujla: along the.
[00:00:33] Jay Radia: All right. So in today's episode, we've got Reese. One of my really, really close friends. Reese runs a fund called concept ventures is actually the largest Pree fund in the whole of the UK. I met Reese actually at a wedding. We were randomly sitting next to each other and we hit it off. We've been really, really close friends since then.
And we're gonna dive into his journey and I saw Reese's launch of his fun, which was crazy. It was all over sky news. It was all over the papers. And seeing that was just amazing. And. Now you're in this room, Reese. So how was, how was that period for you? Because I know there was so much going on and it was hard to get hold of you.
We'll be getting a few WhatsApps here and there, but like, what was it like? It was a crazy experience
[00:01:10] Reece Chowdhry: because I think that journey for me was six, seven years to get to that point. And that was a long road with lots and lots of ups and downs. And when that day finally comes where you've, you know, for us becoming institutional fund $60 million.
You know, from somebody who hasn't had a VC background and there have been ups and downs on the road, it just felt relieved, to be honest. But then you're thrown in, on the live sky news interview the day before you are being, you know, interviewed by a national newspaper. And it was just, yeah, it was a crazy experience.
And I think what. I learned from it more than anything was that, you know, you've really gotta have something that's different, a different story, a different messaging for the world. You know, there are lots of other funds, there are lots of other products and services in life. But I think what we, did, which really interested people was that we did something different.
And I think that's what stood out, I think, in the media. And I think. The coverage was quite credible. Actually, our PR agency actually said that there were 242 million eyeballs across all the platforms that we kind of distributed on. So yeah, crazy day. And everyone knows who you are now. yeah, I dunno about that.
But I think it was, yeah, it's a successful launch and we were really happy with it and great to share it with some great friends who are here today.
[00:02:19] Jay Radia: Yeah, no, we will both have the launch party. Yeah. Um, we both had a lot of fun. We, um, definitely played a good part in drinking as much booze and food, so don't worry.
I. I definitely got my money's worth. Um, but no, it was nice to see everyone. Obviously, you were there as well.
[00:02:31] Rupy Aujla: Yeah. Yeah. That was epic. Let's bring the listeners up to speed here, cuz obviously, we know each other, as you mentioned. You don't come from a VC background. Talk us through sort of your journey up to this point now.
So like, what were you good at school? Like where, where did you go to university? All that kind of stuff. Yeah.
So
[00:02:46] Reece Chowdhry: I think maybe a good place to start is my 13th birthday, 13th, 13th, and, um, teenager, teenager. Yeah. So you're inquisitive about the world and I think that a 13, you dunno what hell you're gonna do with your life.
But I remember really distinctly there was a story where. I walked into my school and I'd saved a lot of pocket money and I bought this thing called an iPod and now people think, oh, okay, that's debt work, whatever. But this is when people generally thought, if you owned an apple product, you were. Bat shit crazy.
Like literally crazy. You were like some alternative. This was when they had, and some people might remember, you could only connect via firewire, which was the apple equivalent of USB and saved away money. I bought this, so took it to school and people are like, what the hell's that? Why have you got a window zoom?
Or whatever the equivalent was or, and I was like, look, I love the design, love the product. So I was always really fascinated with technology. And then off the back of that, I just loved the product so much. I said to my dad, I said, look for my next birthday, please just buy me some shares in apple. And he was like, what are you talking about?
Like, that's ridiculous. This is, you know, 20 years ago. And, um, I just like persisted in persisting and, and that was the start of my investing journey. My passion for technology and things, seeing things differently. And, you know, I kept the shares for a long, long, long, long, long time into my kind of the early twenties and fast forward ended up at EY, which was a great place to start my career in the kind of technology division.
So kind of continuing that passion for the business and technology spent four or five years there. And then I left and luckily some of the apple shares did. Okay. yeah. I was gonna ask you how much did that. I can't remember, but it wasn't a lot. I put in, I put a few thousand pounds, and obviously, it was just like pocket money.
I saved from like doing like, you know, odd jobs and little work over the summer. And then, yeah, so, I mean, obviously I saved a little bit from my E Y days, and I, I just literally quit one day. I was like, right. I didn't know anything about what I wanted to do. I went from a sabbatical and then I was like, kind of in this transition in life, basically.
So I think like after that, I really felt, let me just explore the world. A lot of people go through that and not many people take that jump. And I didn't know I was gonna end up in VC. What I did is just followed. What I was really interested in, and that goes right back to that kind of 13-year-old kid.
Who's just like exploring things and trying things and doing things? And I think where I ended up was I met a number of people on the way I found really interesting businesses to work with. And I worked with those three companies, essentially, as, almost like co-founders invested a little bit of money, very, very little, and basically, you know, had a good stake in those business and worked with those three companies for a number of.
And on that journey, I started making very, very, very small angel investments in things that I was interested in. And then, you know, fast forward a little bit longer, we sold one of those businesses to private equity. One was an absolute disaster, and we'll probably have a story about that later and one still going today.
So there was kind of three businesses that really started off kind of grounding kind of on that kind, almost that on that founder side, where we built them from literally the ground up and then, you know, fast forward now we've, you know, as a. Made like 65 investments in the UK, all in particularly software businesses, but all at the preseason stage, that very earliest stage of, uh, of the journey.
And yeah, we've had some good successes and you know, we've now closed this new fund, which is backed by the British business bank, which is the UK government's investing arm. But also I'm very proud that like a lot of the investors in our fund are from a diverse background. 80% are from an ethnic minority background, which is very rare in, in the UK.
[00:06:22] Jay Radia: It sounded like you went into angel investing quite early. Right. And there are so many people that are quite fascinated with angel investing. It's like, now it's really cool. Like even Serena Williams has got her fun coming out, Ashton coaches into VC investing. You know, you're seeing loads of like even Drake, all these guys that everyone is now investing into startups.
So I guess where people are quite early in the game. And who is thinking about doing angel investing, what are things that you've now learned, or like what are the shortcuts that they could take right now to find these good deals? Because you've obviously failed a lot and you've made oh yeah. Tons of times.
Yeah. So what, what, what are some of the ways in which they can find these deals, there are
[00:06:57] Reece Chowdhry: loads of shortcuts, which I wish I knew. And the first one I think is. The one that I probably, and every angel investor probably learns the hard way, which is like, they just invest in three companies and they're like, okay.
One of them will do really well. Right. And inevitably they will fail. Right? Like it's just a massive situation. Right. And when people start out, they should allocate to 60 companies. Like in their portfolio, like that many is like the number. Right. And so I think when you start out that journey, don't go crazy with the first two or three deals.
And the second thing is like a lot of people think, oh yeah, you have to be really rich to be an angel investor, but actually there's so much democratization these days through different platforms. And I think the one I learned the most on is definitely AngelList. So AngelList. I think is a really good platform.
And now in the UK, you have things like Odin, which is like a good equivalent, uh, shout out, 'cause I'm an investor in that business, but yeah, uh, and so AngelList is great. And the reason why AngelList is a really good platform is because you can piggyback on someone else's kind of research knowledge and you're very aligned with them.
So, you know, I did a number of deals on angel list to kind of get my network up knowledge up and, you know, some of those had gone on to become like unicorns, right? So it was a great way of like, you know, you could invest alongside Teo. With a, you know, premier VC fund in the world, and you're sitting in London with a $1,000 check and you can invest in it.
So I think that you know, really learn from people who've been there, trod the road, and people are very open to talking to you. So I think there are lots of different things, but I think really also find what you are really passionate about because you know if you are. Really passionate about climate tech or in Rupy’s case food technology, maybe.
So you've already gotta like, be interested in what you're kind of investing in. That's the kind of primary thing I would say. And yeah, expect a lot of things to go wrong. it? Startups there's, you know, that's, there's a big risk-reward,
[00:08:45] Rupy Aujla: you know, I just wanna rewind quickly. Sure. Back to like, after EY. Did you only invest in three companies?
[00:08:51] Reece Chowdhry: Is that correct? Yeah. So that's basically what I did. So, so you did the opposite of what you, yeah. Okay. And I did completely the opposite and I think that model is slightly different, right? Because I think if you're a pure angel, you're, you know, you're owning typically like maybe half percent, 0.2, 5% of the company.
But in those cases, I had a very big equity stake in those companies. I had 15, 20. And so it was almost like I was building those companies alongside the founders themselves. Um, they needed, you know, various different skills, like operational skills, you know, fundraising loads of, you know, I've got involved product everything.
Right. So it was almost like I was on that journey with those founders. It was almost
[00:09:25] Rupy Aujla: like you're coming on as like an employee. You like you, not an employee, like, you know,
[00:09:29] Reece Chowdhry: co-founder and that's the way I look at it because I think you. We were in the trenches. You know, I was in the trenches for those first three, four years of those companies and really kind of battling with those founders, but off the back of that, and kind of on the side, I started doing a little bit, you know, here and there friends said, oh, starting something, found it interesting.
And then, you know, that's kind of, and then I started doing it more. Systematically. And I realized a lot of my mistakes and then started doing more on angel list diversifying. And then we launched our first fund in 2018. And then we've done a number of funds since then. And then obviously closed this fund.
Now
[00:10:01] Jay Radia: you were essentially a co-founder helping these businesses. You are. Yeah. You know, as you said, you're in the trenches, but you actually opted to go for the angel investing part. What made you go, Hey, actually I want to stick on investing rather. Being a builder. Right. Which is what I am. Right. So in bliss growth, we build, that's what I love.
Right. Yeah. But why, yeah. Why did you go down the ancient investing
[00:10:20] Reece Chowdhry: path? Yeah. So I think, I think for me, it's a people-based thing. My passion and, you know, even our fund's drive is like, you know, we're early stage investors. So what have you got people to kind of invest alongside? And when someone often comes to us with an.
You're like, wow. I didn't even think of that. That's so cool. Like, I didn't even like the last company we invested in was a voice dubbing company, and the founders used to work at Google and Aire. I'm like, is that even a market? But it's like a $12 billion market a year. So, you know, like, I think that seeing though, so that like kind of gives me the energy very much in terms of what, what we do.
And I think our existing portfolio, like really changing the way people do things and that's our whole mantra. Like we wanna invest in companies that change the way people work, play, and learn. And so that's what gives us, you know, as a team and myself, like a lot of energy when we're doing what we are.
[00:11:11] Rupy Aujla: When you left, EY, surely you got a lot of people saying, what the fuck? what are you doing? You're leaving like a steady job. You're probably in your
[00:11:20] Reece Chowdhry: twenties. I, yeah. Yeah. If people met me at EY and saw the journey, now they would be quite, I think, bemused by if they worked with me at EY or knew me at EY.
And I think the reason why it was, because I think that it goes back to the first point of just. Enjoying fundamentally what you do. I knew that I could stay and make tons of money, like whatever, but I never did anything for the money, even, you know, back in all my steps in my career. The reason why I went at EY is cuz I had an offer from other places as well in banking.
And I didn't take that because I knew that EY was better learning. I did everything for learning. That's why I always did it. And so when I left, I thought, how can I. Maximize my learning and my passion together, you know, that Japanese, they have that, uh, the concept of icky guy, which I'm sure you'll talk about on the podcast at some stage, but yeah, I think that's what I was like, kind of, I left with nothing to go towards and I was like, let me go find my kind of icky guy as it were.
That's what it was. And I think, yeah, a lot of. My partners, probably that worked with me would probably be very short. And it's not a linear transition. You know you get a lot of investment bankers, a lot of private equity people come maybe into VC. And there are people that go into VC from consulting quite a high percentage, but there's not a high percentage that kind of start their own fund from there, which is a really hard journey, actually like the proper startup in itself.
At school. Were
[00:12:40] Rupy Aujla: you a nerd? No,
[00:12:41] Reece Chowdhry: I, yeah. I don't know. I think yes and no, probably if you don't know. Yeah, probably yes. . Yeah. I mean, in my yearbook at the end, they, they like have this poll, like who do you think will be the quickest to be a millionaire or the most successful. Okay. And I won that and I thought, oh nice.
That's a really good accolade, man. Yeah. I wish that was in my yearbook.
[00:13:03] Jay Radia: yeah. Save lives. You're gonna save loads of lives. Mine was, uh,
[00:13:05] Rupy Aujla: most likely to be a Bollywood star. Oh really?
[00:13:07] Reece Chowdhry: I think, yeah. I can see that...
[00:13:11] Rupy Aujla: I mean, apart from buying apple ridiculously early, like, were you doing any sort of entrepreneurial sort of.
Side gigs and, and stuff,
[00:13:19] Jay Radia: just singing home and trading. Right. Really?
[00:13:22] Reece Chowdhry: yeah, no, actually, no, I, I think what I did was every summer, I used to go and do some kind of work experience with people. Oh, that's awesome. Great. Um, since the age of 14, I used to every summer just go, I knew someone who was in business, I would spend, you know, two, three weeks with them.
So by the time I got to. Like applying for internships 18, 19. My CV was just full of stuff and I would just work for free. I would just be like, I don't care. Just gimme something, stockroom, whatever, you know, like I just get me in there. Yeah. Just get me in there. So I think that's, you know when I look at young people, we hire a lot of young people to do a lot of internships.
I just tell me, I don't care. You all got good grades. You all go to good universities. Just tell me what you did in your summer. Tell me what you did in your spare time. And that's what I think. People should really like to look at kind of young people, but a hundred percent, although you mentioned the school thing, I really did struggle at school.
Actually. I might have ended up like they were 18, but school was really, really tough for me. I'm heavily dyslexic. I don't wanna say heavily, but I've learned to cope with it. Like over the years when I was young people, literally my school teacher said to me, when I was probably like seven or eight, they literally said to my parents.
Reese would be lucky to get one GCSE, literally. That's what they said to that. And so, you know, it's always been, there are great entrepreneurs who, who have dyslexia and like Branson, so many examples, but you know, it's like anything in life, everyone has strengths and weaknesses and you've gotta play your, you know, strengths.
And I. Ended up doing okay. But that's because I spent, you know, had great support from my family and, and friends and everything that goes with that. So, Stuart, I
[00:14:53] Rupy Aujla: remember your, um, your dad saying that at the launch party the other week, and that, um, almost had me tearing up, man. It was amazing. Like how proud your dad was because he repeated that story about how everyone worked you off at quite an early age.
Were you privy to that? First of all? And do you reckon if you were? That kind of spurred you more. They were like, well, fuck these guys. I'm gonna be, you know, I'm actually going, I'm gonna do great.
[00:15:16] Reece Chowdhry: Yeah. I think this is a combination of both, I think very rarely early when I was five or six, I think my parents sheltered me from that, but I think, more importantly, my parents were very good about like encouraging me.
And they went the extra mile. They literally went and did training courses about kids who have dyslexia, like how to encourage them, like, you know, all of these. I learned to touch type really early on in my life. So, you know, very quick at touch typing now. And so I think. Everyone needs great mentors and support people.
And without those people that believe in your journey and, you know, a couple of teachers really believed in me, particularly in my secondary school, and that's where I got my passion for business. And it was the two subjects that kind of excelled at, and that comes from great people, supporting you and you believing and a combination of everything.
Right. And so without those foundations, I didn't think anywhere near I would, I would. Where I have today, I think. So
[00:16:10] Jay Radia: your family's incredible. Like I'm lucky to have spent a lot of time with your mom and dad, your sisters, and what's so unique about you. I dunno if you're aware, but they're actually in the Daily Mail, his family on how they, um, set good reason.
Yeah. The reason for how they set family goals and like, so they go around the table and they set goals together. They go through each person's individual goals. They literally in a daily meal head, like,
[00:16:33] Rupy Aujla: That's your mom's doing. That's my mom. That's your mom. Your mom's talk about your mom. She's amazing.
[00:16:38] Reece Chowdhry:
Yeah. So my mom, has a coaching consulting, life coaching business called Aran. And you know, she was a teacher for 25 years and then she quit and then did this, but we do things like family meetings, you know, like kind of values on the war. I mean, the article was about how to run a family, like a business, which is, would it be?
And I think, yeah, it was tongue in cheek, but I think there are some great principles there and especially modern life, you know, all of us are so busy, you know, it's hard to bridge that gap. And so like even us, we like to zoom in for like a family meeting. Yeah. Cuz we're all in different places and you know, it is difficult.
Talk us through the
[00:17:12] Rupy Aujla: framework. Yeah. So like how often do you have family meetings? What do you say when you do have a meeting? Well, what are the like non-negotiables every week? Like what would that sort of overview be of? Like what I'm proud
as
[00:17:22] Jay Radia: well. Right.
[00:17:23] Reece Chowdhry: I did think I was gonna go ahead. Yes. Uh, so basically you be right.
Not as watching anything that we, it's like any business meeting in a lot of ways, have an agenda. Okay. Everyone opens with like, this is what's happened in a week. We say something positive to start the meeting, typically something we're grateful for or something that's happened to us. And then we'll dive into it.
An individual's problems typically, like, you know, I, you know, uh, have this work issue or I, you know, have this relationship issue. And then we often spend a lot of time on just one thing and try and solve it. And then, um, if there's anything urgent, then we'll kind of wrap it up at the end. But typically what happens is one or two people have really pressing issues.
And then we'll just kind of dive deep into those things. And then we always like. Someone's at a meeting agenda person or note taker will do the actions of the meeting. Wow. That's amazing.
[00:18:14] Rupy Aujla: And how often do you have this meeting?
[00:18:15] Reece Chowdhry: Probably once every two to three weeks, I would say. Wow, that's amazing. And how long do they go for an hour, hour, hour and a half?
We usually time it with like a family Sunday dinner as well.
[00:18:27] Jay Radia: AGM.
[00:18:29] Reece Chowdhry: Maybe I should do that. Yeah, we. Site away days.
[00:18:33] Rupy Aujla: dude, that's AMA I know it sounded like for some people that might seem, sound bit cringe. I think that's amazing. And I think people should be running their families. Like you would run an organization like OKRs and like goals and like, you know,
[00:18:44] Jay Radia: as long as it's fun, but yeah.
Yeah. As long it's fun
[00:18:46] Rupy Aujla: course. It sounds fun. I mean, for
[00:18:48] Jay Radia: me, maybe it's engineered fun.
[00:18:55] Rupy Aujla: Let's talk about sort of like I'm gonna call it an entrepreneurial journey. Cause I think it is very entrepreneurial. What you, what you're up to, and what you've been able to achieve up to this point. I'm sure it's gonna be even bigger than what you've achieved right now. Where do you feel that you've had to make sacrifices?
if it's not in business, but perhaps in your personal life, like what's the opposite. Everyone. Everything is
[00:19:15] Reece Chowdhry: about trading. I think the sacrifices I've had to make is that you know, obviously, that period was since I left EY to like literally now I barely took a salary. Out of the company and what I was doing, I just literally gave everything like this.
I re like I invested my whole life savings into the business, you know, into the funds, into the companies. And, you know, that's like a huge risk, right? Like there was no plan B. Yeah. And I think you, when you speak to a lot of, if you have more guests, I'm sure that founders, or like, kind of like, I was just completely all in, right.
Mm-hmm like I had. There was no alternative to make it successful. And so that puts you in a, you know, mindset and, you know, my friends are lawyers, you know, earning, you know, they're earning like a million pounds, you know, salary. And in terms of the sacrifice, the way I've always looked at it is like, do what you love long term, you know, you'll figure things out in a, in a meaningful way.
And I think, you know, that was, it's been hard. It's been a hard journey on that. There's been some ups and downs in my personal life as well. And you know how you do have to sacrifice the weekends. Et cetera. But I think over the years, I think, you know, we can talk about balancing stuff, you know, and Jay particularly is very good at this.
You know, he balancing work and, and, and life is, is something that I've really realized. The world is not like an Elon Musk. We have this all Elon Musk culture yeah. In startups and actually, to be your best, I think you need to have, you know, a really good personal life. You gotta be like fit. You gotta be healthy.
I. You've really gotta find your own style in doing that, you know, and I think I love that Robin Sharma thing, which is like, great entrepreneurs. They'll work super hard, but then they'll just go quiet for 48 hours and you won't hear them hear anything from them. And I think I've really subscribed to that mentality.
Like Jay won't hear from me for like two days and you'll be like, where have you been? And I'm like, well, cuz I've just been like resting and walking and doing my thing or like spending time with my family. Or I think that the concept of active rest is very important. So. Begging on Netflix is not active rest it's like, that's not actually gonna help you feel UNW.
But for me, it's like, you know, going for a long walk or for me, it's playing golf. That's like active rest for me. And so like always try and plan active rest, cuz even a short period of active rest is actually like having like a day. I have a phone that I switch off. Like I switched to a NOIA 32, 10 at the weekend.
No way. Yeah. Yeah, really? Yeah. that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So then I just like screen time goes down to like two hours of the weekend. So you don't use any social, no Twitter, no. LinkedIn. I pick it up like once or, you know, twice in a day, on a weekend for whatever reason, but actually yeah, like, or what I do is if I'm out with my girlfriend, I just tell everybody that's close to.
If you need something serious, just message her sometimes she doesn't pick up the phone, which just happened. So,
[00:22:01] Rupy Aujla: um, dude, tell us about failure, right? Yeah, because everything sounds super positive. It sounds like you've been on the upper trajectory, but actually, you must have experienced so much crap along the way, so much.
What are the low points in those sort of experiences that you've had with companies? You know, dealing with founders like us or missing deals, missing deals. Yeah. Missing
[00:22:20] Reece Chowdhry: deals. Yeah. Yeah. I've got, don't even know where to start. Start. Let's start. Let's start with, in terms of funny, not funny stories, like, you know, the one that stands out is like we were selling a company.
This is like early on in this process, this is like the founder was literally ready to receive his money, you know, by the end, right? The end. Right. The end. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and the buyer picks up the phone to the founder and says, yeah, we're gonna chip the price by 50%. And I was like, what? Like, how are you doing this?
Like at the last stage, it wasn't like early anywhere. It's not a negotiation point. The docs were all kind of there. And I was just like, how. Do this that's nice, yeah. How could he do this? And then basically he called me up and told me this in my office and said, I don't think I've ever told this story to anyone.
And basically, as I was on the phone with him, as he was telling me this, I was very dehydrated. Cause I went to the gym and I was standing next to a radiator and I collapsed. So I didn't remember him telling me this. And so I, next thing I was like, I think I was speaking to that guy and I was in the hospital and, uh, guys oh, sure.
And I ended up in the E and I was like, I dunno, Like, does someone say something to me? so then I spoke to him later and I was like, oh, he is like, oh, by the way. And it's like, just add to your day, this has happened. Don't oh my God. And that was a, you know, very stressful, everyone, you know, and often these things stacked, cuz like I was going through some stress in my personal life and you know, that happened at the same time and I collapsed at work and then I was like, oh my God, like the world's, uh, falling apart there.
So. What I would learn from that is that there are lots of situations we've been in, and sometimes you only think you only have one shot in terms of the goal. You're like, kind of it's, there's only one investor who could invest. There's only one buyer, but actually what I've learned is that. You know, great founders or great teams, they just find a way they found a way people find a way if they want to find a way there's always another option.
There's all. And there's a great book called the third door, which, you know, might have read Alex benne. And the third door is the concept of like in a nightclub. You've got the VIP line, which you pay a lot for, and you've got the normal line, which everyone queues up to, but there's always a door round the back where you can jump through the toilet and get into the nightclub.
And often you have to take that. You know, to get things done in life. So I think that's probably what, and yeah, look, I've had so many, I've had founders who have both decided to leave their company at the same time I was in co-founders and co-founders
[00:24:41] Jay Radia: oh my, for the same company. Oh, man.
There's no one running the company.
[00:24:45] Reece Chowdhry: Yeah. There's no. Yeah. However, you literally have founders who refuse to speak to each other, like, oh, you know, literally, honestly, there are so many things.
[00:24:54] Rupy Aujla: What attracts you to the prey stage? Because I feel like this is. The riskiest part of the life cycle first. Yeah.
Like exactly
[00:25:04] Reece Chowdhry: what attracts me is definitely the people I love the fact that businesses can change three times before they get to the next stage and seeing, you know, almost those people mature into like great founders and helping them on that journey is really interesting. And I think when we invest, we do like this huge, like personality framework on people.
So it's not like a gut decision. Oh. Which a lot of, lot of VCs do. Yeah. And I think. That's really interesting, like seeing someone who may be old or young, but then they have the right kind of, you know, leadership skills. They have the right vision, the right risk case ability to actually make, you know, the huge company is just like, you know, when you, it's almost, when you uncover a rough diamond is really,
[00:25:43] Jay Radia: you know, it's fascinating.
I introduce Reese to a few people, right. And Reese doesn't speak to them until they do the personality test. I, I, I wanna learn about this personality test. You know what? You listen to my companies. You've not made me do the personality test. That's pretty. Last year. I might. I am just quite curious. Now you might have already done it.
You
[00:25:58] Rupy Aujla: might might have just been like, what's happening here. What were your thoughts on this? And you just like answered not knowing it was part of a test.
[00:26:03] Reece Chowdhry: He's right. I know you so well, I know the answers to the questions
[00:26:09] Rupy Aujla: so I heard, is it like me Briggs test? Is it like, like what, what
[00:26:13] Reece Chowdhry: literary is it?
Yeah, so it's, it's a combination of a couple of things. So we've designed it more around entrepreneurship and there's kind of six, six things. Decided that are important to entrepreneurship. This includes risk-taking vision leadership and various different things. So we ask, we do a questionnaire, like, you know, similar to my Briggs, but what we do is we put people typically there are two people on startups at the start, a CEO and a CEO.
So what we're really testing for us are the people well suited to those roles and then working together. So out of a hundred percent, this person. 80%, a CEO type person in this role. So often we sign like a CTO trying to be a CEO and vice versa, and that doesn't work well, but we don't take it as gospel.
What we do is then we reference our network almost like without them knowing if are they like this or by their references as well. And we go very deep and then we, you know, we even talk about like interests outside of work and like really go deep into who they are. Even though they might have built a product or no product.
It just changes like the market changes. There are three pivots before they get to kind of series a. So it's really about that. And even later that people say they're about people, but no one actually said, how are you testing for people? Yeah, no one actually does that. You know, like, and so that's why it's so important at prey.
So, and also at pre-seed is one of the riskiest, but we have like a very large portfolio. We have 70 companies in our pond, so. Kind of it diversifies the risk and one or two will do well, like Jade's companies
[00:27:40] Rupy Aujla: so what, so across the map, there's a couple of things there. So are other funds doing this sort of thing or is it in personality?
Has it become like a new thing now? Like everyone's doing it or you is it still quite
[00:27:49] Reece Chowdhry: niche? Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's slightly niche. I think more people. Larger funds have like, you know, data scientists to your work in more like numbers based. I'll see how much your, how many downloads you're getting in the app store.
How many employees you're gonna, so they track a lot of data that way. But I think there are a few funds that are doing something similar, but I think there's no one who's kind of applied it periodically to kind of precede and said, look, you know, that's kind of the interesting
[00:28:11] Jay Radia: note, right? So my third company, um, screen loop, we provide.
Like this ability where you get your future can like the candidates, you're interviewing to do these surveys. And it's been a game changer because you can identify if they're a right fit for your business. And what I found strangers like yeah. Literally, 95% of businesses don't do any like personality questions.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's 95%. Yeah. Like literally hardly anyone does it. So, you know, I think he has got an edge right now. Um, probably people are gonna listen to it now. it got fun. They're gonna do, but irrespective though, I feel, but then it's, I think you can have this personality questionnaire, but if you can make it very personalized to what you're looking for, that's the difference, right?
Because yes, you can do the generic me Briggs, but I don't know. I find those things keep 'em changing and also everyone's pretty bored of them as well now. So I think what you've got is something that's
[00:28:58] Rupy Aujla: quite unique. Also, I think the ch like along the arc of someone's career, as an entrepreneur, their roles are gonna change.
So like, for example, using myself as a project here, I'm CEO right now, I'm a founder. I know when the company gets to a certain size, I'm not gonna want to be CEO anymore. Like I'm gonna want to be in, you know, the branding or the marketing or the strategy or that kind of stuff. So right now I'm assuming that role, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I want to be in that role in like five, 10 years' time.
How do you account for that? Like the
[00:29:28] Reece Chowdhry: changing roles of work? Yes. It's a good question. I think one of the things we, we ha we probably haven't accounted for that, I suppose, because I think for us, everything is about the first 12 to 18 months of your journey. So when they do their next round of funding, it's not like we say goodbye to them, but we're like, we've done our jobs in our opinion, in sense, we've got you from zero to one.
Yeah. And I think that businesses change a lot in that leadership area, but I think that fundamentally if you're a founder of a company you're gonna stay close to. So. Meaningful in that, and you'll have a leadership position or you'll have some vision for a segment. So those are the things we're testing for.
It might not be you're running everything, but you'll be running something within that company. And are you gonna be able to push the risk boundaries? Are you gonna be able to put people on your journey with you? Are you gonna be able to do various different things that you know, great founders do?
Resilience is one of the things we test for so much. Like how did you test for that? Yeah. Yeah. So it's a couple of things. We ask some questions and there's obviously a measure of risk and resilience and there's questions that you can't like double do, like in the sense that, that opposing to each other. So it kind of.
Gives people an indication of what they're like, but then we just like dig very deep into their personal life. You know, like often, you know, people might have done some extracurricular things they might have done, like, you know, climbing, Everest, climbing, you know, things like that, where you could really demonstrate, Hey, there was a real problem here and I really overcame it and I, I did overcome those challenges.
Yeah. What are your
[00:30:52] Jay Radia: top three attributes
[00:30:53] Reece Chowdhry: actually? So I think, uh, number one, you've just definitely gotta have a vision for where you're going. Like you've got. Well, it's really clear, right? A clearly really clear, clear vision. If you look at all the great entrepreneurs, they have a very, very clear point of view of where they think the world and their company is suited in that world, which is different to now.
Mm. And they have a vision which people buy into that's investors. That's other founders, other employees. But I think also like it's also that execution piece is probably like the second bit, because. There are so many people that, you know, we speak to we've. We have our challenges with some of our founders.
We almost are like, this is the playbook of like, how you do something, but they don't execute on it. Right? Like they just literally with giving them like opening the door, they could walk through it, but they choose not to. And half of life, I think if, if someone says what's one reason you've got to where you have, 90% is like showing.
But the rest is like the 10% difference between most people is they follow up. Yeah. You know, like how many people that you meet at a party or like, you know, it's something that says, oh yeah, I'm gonna send you that. Or like, I'm gonna do that. But I was always the guy that did send that stuff. Right. And did message you the next day.
Yeah. And I think that like founders, like generally, like that execution on follow up. Tells you so much about them. Have they got their data room sorted it's so like, yeah? You know, you know, the great founders, cuz they'll follow up with you straight away. Be like, this was a great call. These are all my notes from the call.
This is what you're concerned about. This is our link to our like, like all the documents that we prepared before we came to see you. And this is. Personalized, like why we think you are a great fit for us. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, you're in the top 0.1%. If you did that, which isn't that hard in my opinion, really to do that.
[00:32:33] Jay Radia: That's amazing. Yeah. That's how you get money from Reese. no,
[00:32:36] Rupy Aujla: I think that's a really good hat for anyone. Cuz everyone throws around these words, like, you know, uh, vision and resilience and execution, but Reese's literally spelled out how you demonstrate those qualities right there, man. That's that yeah.
That's epic. Those are great hacks. How do you guys make money? Right? So like, what's the math on that? Like how, like you raise money from other people, you have a fund, you invest that, you know, based on your criteria, et cetera, how do you guys make, what, what, what's the, yeah, talk us through the logistics.
[00:33:02] Reece Chowdhry: It's a, quite simple business at its core. So we raise money from institutions like the British business bank or individuals. And we have two forms of revenue as it were. One is the management fee. We charge a management fee to manage that money. And you know, that kind of. I would say, keeps the lights on in the business and allows us to kind of pay a salary and marketing, et cetera.
And then the main, this all about 2%, one and a half, 2%. Yeah. It's between one and a half and 2% for most funds. And then the main source of the revenue, or we like to see, or the profit is, uh, when we sell companies. So in terms of a fund, really very simply we'll make, let's say 50 investments in our fund.
It's 50 million. So let's say it's 1 million I'm doing really, really rough masse, but really we'll make one. Million investment in each company for 50 companies. And then obviously we would expect one company basically to become a unicorn, which is like $2 billion. And we might own 10% of that company.
Let's say mm-hmm. Um, and then won't be that I'm just being facetious, but then you would obviously return your fund 2, 3, 4 times. So expect most VCs have this, um, the concept of the power law, which is essentially where. 90% of the returns come from one company. So, you know, the way we model our fund is like essentially one company will be extremely successful and everything else can go to zero and we'll still do pretty well.
Yeah. And if two happen, that will be a bonus. And then we make 20%. Carry, they call it, carry in the industry on the profit. So if, if our fund goes from one pound to two pounds, essentially we would make 20 P so 20% of the profits, and that's kind of our main kind of driver of revenue, I suppose, in the business.
So the 1%,
[00:34:43] Rupy Aujla: let's say 1% for argument's sake, you mean 1%, uh, management fee on a yearly basis.
[00:34:48] Reece Chowdhry: Yearly basis. Okay. For 10 years, for 10
[00:34:50] Rupy Aujla: years. Okay. And the life cycle for a fund is typically 10 years. Yeah. 10 years. Okay, fine. So you're gonna. A long time, long time. Yeah. To, so you're basically, I don't wanna say living.
Yeah. But you know, you're living off that 1%. Yeah. How many people are on your,
[00:35:03] Reece Chowdhry: in the, there there's, there's seven of us in the team. Seven of us on the team. Wow. So it's a lean team. Yeah. So it's lean what it is is that obviously what people do is they also raise subsequent funds. So they're kind of then the kind of stacks on top of each other.
Yeah. Most importantly, we're we are all, and my team are very, very aligned in terms of, we want to make great investments cuz that. The people shouldn't make the money off the management fee. They should make the money off the profits and the exits cuz then you're aligned with your investors. So let's say one of your
[00:35:29] Rupy Aujla: companies actually exit or sales, like within two or three years.
Yeah. Then,
[00:35:33] Jay Radia: then what happens?
[00:35:34] Reece Chowdhry: Yeah. So we've had a number of exits that, you know, we've, that's already happened. So, you know, some of them are, for example, you know, one, we sold recently we made five, five X on on that, which was, you know, most people look at as amazing that one, right? Yeah. You were in that one.
Yeah.
[00:35:49] Jay Radia: I can't remember. Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah. It was dead late.
[00:35:51] Reece Chowdhry: Yeah. Yeah, that was great. So that returned like of a fund of one pound. Let's say that, or one of our early funds that returned like 30 P in the pound. Yeah. In that case, we returned it back to our investors, but we still have to get over one pound that we've, you know, deployed until we get into the.
Profit share. Yeah. Oh, okay
[00:36:08] Rupy Aujla: So only you only get that 20%,
[00:36:11] Reece Chowdhry: 20% when you hit a certain threshold when we've given you the principle that you've invested into the fund back. Gotcha. We don't do it on an individual deal basis. Ah yeah. So that incentivizes
[00:36:20] Rupy Aujla: you to really, like,
[00:36:21] Reece Chowdhry: we want to push for the kind of back winners, the reach desks of this world.
[00:36:27] Jay Radia: That's my story. That's awesome. Yeah. What would you say? From all of this, we've given so many insights. What, are the two or three things you'd love to just like leave back for the listener? Like some lessons that, you know, you think you'd like are great to pass on. I
[00:36:40] Reece Chowdhry: think a couple of things just keep, you know, it's just such a cliche, but like follow up with people like follow up.
Uh, cuz you know, everyone says. Follow your dreams and passion, but actually, a lot of it is because you don't follow up. Like people don't follow up. Well, I would like to impart that. I mean, we had a vision of like, I remember when we started like we were in a different office and we ended up in a basement of a coffee shop in west London.
And I remember I was with my two first like kind of interns that were working with me and we said, right, we literally wrote on a white. This is how many deals we're gonna do, we're gonna do, and we're gonna have like a hundred million under management, and this is when we're gonna do it by. And I think like, just writing something like that down, it was ridiculous at the time we were literally in like Joe and the juice.
We did it. We didn't actually do it at the end. I think we a couple of years later than we planned that in my aggressive target, but I think writing things down, having people that support you, a good network of friends and family, and just enjoying the ride. Like, you know, like. To launch the fund. I said to all my team, you know, you all work so hard to get to this point.
It's been such a journey, literally, you know, ups and downs with companies and funds and raising and like, you know, all being from non-VC backgrounds, it's really tough. It was a really hard journey. And raising V funds really hard, really, really hard. And you know, you just gotta keep going, keep believing.
It's not actually the quickest that wins the race is one that's the most consistent. And you know, there are loads of great things like atomic habits, and you can read all that stuff, but never stop learning. I think that's, that's why I'd leave listeners with
[00:38:05] Jay Radia: Reese. Thank you so much, man. You're a really good mate of mine and we've gone through absolute wars together.
Like on my company investing and Reese is like, Reese is one of the people I call up like one of the first people every single time. And. He's an awesome, awesome friend. So I'm glad you joined us on the pod. So thanks so much, man. Yeah. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Awesome. Thanks a lot, guys.
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