So it's been really for us this this organic process of leading with value. You know, what do you actually do versus, like, can you deploy money? Yeah. So I gotta you know, my first question for you, what makes talent? So you've you've looked at thousands and thousands of people, you know, and you know the formula in the DNA of what, you know, creates high performing teams and venture backable high performing teams, because that's really gonna determine a lot of things.
It's gonna determine can investors return their capital? Can the can the start ups still survive? Welcome to the investor, a podcast where I, Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the minds of the world's most influential institutional investors. In each episode, we sit down with an investor to hear about their journeys and how global markets are driving capital allocation. So join us on this journey as we explore these insights. So awesome. Hey. We're live with Rusty.
Rusty is a is a good friend. He lives in New York, a fellow parent, and, we have actually bonded together a little more closely the last couple of weeks with all that's going on. But, you know, glad to call him a friend. He was in one of my past fund accelerator cohorts and just a huge, huge addition to our community of active, you know, fund managers and, you know, soon to be institutional allocators.
But, you know, Rusty, I think what's really interesting with you and a lot of the fund managers that I'm seeing is, is really building a strategy based on your subject matter expertise. So I've seen a lot of people do this. And it's natural. I mean, for me, I come from a deep tech background. And then I worked in FinTech and product management. And then, you know, I kind of went on a couple tangents, just based on my curiosity. So I was interested in the food sector.
So invested there was interested in energy. So I think there's a lot of different schools of thought, whether you just stay in your niche or you eventually kind of become a generalist or or see your niche kind of evolve into sub niches as well. So I think there's a lot to unpack, a lot of storytelling that that I'm excited to dive into. But number one, welcome to the show. Thanks for all that you've done. Thanks for all the amazing intros that you've made, especially the one, this week.
So, really appreciate all your contributions. But welcome to the show. Excited to, you know, maybe learn a little more about your background. So let's dive in. Just talk about your talk about where you grew up, where you what your family did, and, how you navigated your career into, to Swell Ventures. And just also, I didn't call this out. But, you know, Rusty is going to get into this.
He really started out in the talent space really building huge high performing teams for venture backed startups. And now his fund Swell Ventures is really doing some interesting stuff kind of in that sector. But don't wanna steal your thunder. I'll let you kinda dive into it. Yeah. Well, thanks. Thanks for having me on. Really appreciate that and just love what you build at Sutton, Joel. So I appreciate it. Great to connect on here.
And and just, you know, I I think, you know, what I love about Sutton is the community you've built and, you know, how how open you are with information. You know, I think that venture and and especially with emerging managers, everything is so opaque. Mhmm. You know, it's like how to there's just so many things that are kind of hidden behind these curtains that are hard to access. And I and I think that, you know, one of the cool things that you do is just put it all out there. You know?
You're you're really open. And and in the end, what that comes with is, you know, putting it all out there means that, you build a community and people trust trust that and and get to learn from each other. So I think, you know, just it was really cool to take part in in Sutton and just appreciate being a part of part of it. Know, what you're building building there, and I'm glad that you're, you know, in in our backyard here, you here in New York City. Thank you. So so so yeah.
I mean I mean, really, to kind of piggyback on what you said, I mean a little bit about what I do at Swell is, I mean if you kind of sum it up, like our core belief at Swell Partners is that people determine the outcome of a company. Company. Right? And I can't emphasize that enough. It's like, you know, investing in seed and pre seed stage companies companies means investing without many data points. You know, there's no spreadsheets at that point or business plans.
And so, you know, I think that's really all about, like, having great judgment to pick winners, which is about evaluating people at that stage. And it's, you know, like you mentioned, kind of with our background, it's it's having the ability to help make those companies successful. And so what we do at Swell is, you know, we're on fund two. It's a $15,000,000 fund.
You know, the investments are really driven by, like I said, the caliber of the founders, and that paired with the ability for these startups to create their own market and category. And so, you know, what we do is my I'm very, like, very fortunate to have, you know, a best friend, an incredible business partner for fourteen years, Jay Patel.
And, you know, what we do is we offer founders to GPs that are like hands and what we think is world class at recruiting and give them what really is kind of like an unfair advantage in building teams, going after like the top people in the country and helping these founders build and scale amazing teams, you know, through the life cycle of the company. Know? So through you know, it's not just when the when the next, you know, stage investor comes along, we don't disappear. Right?
It's it's through acquisition or IPO from day one, we invest until that point. It's, you know, being a true partner and an extension of the team. And so, you know, we've it's been fortunate to to kinda go down this really organic journey. You know, we didn't start going into venture with $30,000,000 in our back pocket. Like, let's let's get adventure.
It really was like one foot, you know, in front of the other going from, you know, from our backgrounds obviously and then working, you know, as the first employees at a tech startup here in New York City on the in the recruiting space, which led to angel investing, pairing that with recruiting, which led to a fund one and now fund two. So it's been really for us this this organic process of leading with value. You know, what do you actually do versus, like, can you deploy money?
Yeah. So I gotta you know, my first question for you, what makes talent? So you've you've looked at thousands and thousands of people, you know, and you know the formula in the DNA of what, you know, creates high performing teams and venture backable high performing teams, because that's really going to determine a lot of things. It's going to determine can investors return their capital? Can the begin the startups still survive?
Can the startups survive during bad times more importantly than good times? So, you know, I want to know that. And then after after we you cover that, I want to know your reaction to kind of AI technologies and fun fun technologies like AngelListTalent talent that have just collected so much of this talent data. Do you see that kind of being interesting tools in the future to kind of help find find talent? Yeah. Think a long time ago, there was this movement towards, like, evaluating people.
And, you know, if you can collect the most amount of resumes, you know, thousands and thousands of resumes, then you can, you know, you can actually make make sense of that and evaluate people. You know, the hard part about that is, like, people you know, their real experience and and their the intangibles about that person aren't on the resume. Right?
So, like Yeah. The the the the things about, you know, what we were building at this tech startup, this is twelve, thirteen years ago, was we were building this machine learning startup. Jay was the first employee at the startup. We were backed by John Elton, who's now at Greycroft, and Jeff Judge Innovia Capital and some other VCs. And more or less we were developing this like recruiting framework. Right? This ML startup that was built to assess salespeople. Right?
And assess the startup DNA in people. And so we would actually record a phone call. We would run kind of the ML on top of that. And the goal was to rate that conversation and rate the salesperson. So what do you rate on? Well, the characteristics that make salespeople great, which is drive, motivation, empathy, relationship building. Those are these key characteristics that I think that we look for because you obviously have to be an incredibly smart start a company.
You obviously like you have to have a track record and an incredible body of work. Right? But I think what the last several years really revealed is that just because you worked at a company that maybe is like a top company, let's say, just because you worked at a company doesn't mean that you have the intangibles of, you know, just a crazy drive to solve customer problems, like this incredible tenacity and resilience to win. Right?
You know, there's all all these things about a person that beyond kind of what their background is or, you know, seemingly like how smart they are, there's all these intangibles that, you know, should they even be a founder? You know, does this person have that burning desire to win and solve customer problems? Like, what drives their behavior? Like, what what do they have to prove?
You know, and I think that, you know, for us, it is really kind of looking at diving deep into those, you know, kind of the next layer and really what motivates people at their core because that you know, getting to those whys is really essential in early stage investing. Yeah. No. That's helpful. And do you do you think there's, learnings that you had from just maybe culture fits, you know, just kinda reflecting back? I mean, because culture is such an antiquated word.
We don't really know what that means. Mhmm. And different people have a different definition of it. But what is culture? Like, how can a founder and even a fund manager? I mean, see so many parallels after, you know, having so many people kind of go through our platform. It's just it really is the same thing, you know. So if you're trying to build a team and a culture and a community, you know, what's kind of some common threads that you've seen?
Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is like, you know, people who there's this there's a sentiment of like you know first time founders it's it's all about the product you know and attacking the market. And second time founders it's all about the team. You know I think that is you know, it's not true in every case. Right? Everyone's different. I don't put a box around like, oh, this is this type of founder or not. Like, you have to kinda have a completely open mind to that.
But, you know, culture is incredibly important, and the early hires of the company and and it's well, we think there's four to six hires at a company that really impact and and shape the future. Right? And so that that's why when we invest in a company, we really wanna help, you know, founders make those critical early hires, you know, whether that's our head of sales, BD, marketing product, etcetera, revenue related.
But it is those, you know, four to six early hires that determine the entire culture of the company. Right? And and it's hard to, you know, go back in time if you don't get this right. And and there is really like building a culture, you know, where building a particular culture is is incredibly important.
And so yeah, I think that establishing those things early on, saying this is the type of people we're after, high character, high integrity, incredibly driven, incredibly curious, incredibly resilient, tenacious type of people who have backgrounds that makes them know, really experts in what they're doing and can supercharge a business. I mean, I I I think that that just all compounds. Right? Yeah. Do you, one thing real quick just on the, the text side.
I don't know if you can bump up your volume a little more. If you could, I don't know, speak into the mic a little more. But, also, just, you know, do you have any examples of good culture? Like, maybe there's a, you know, there's a b to b SaaS company, and this is what you like. I mean, I don't know if you have any case studies, but that would be really helpful. And I know there's no shoe fits all, but, maybe just some amazing winning teams, kinda like I I mean, I always love founder stories.
So if there's a kind of a story of a of a team to crush, you don't have to say their name, but, like, you know, maybe some things that they did. And then same thing, you know, maybe some of those things that you think fund managers have done really well.
Mean, I believe, you know, the fund managers that that will do well in the future are people that can be open and, you know, share share learnings with the community because that's that's one of the best ways to build relationships with LPs, you know, just kind of helping them be educated on why they should come on the journey with you. But before that, they get little breadcrumbs of of, content that that maybe helps them in the workflows too.
So I've seen that as a as a really helpful tool, for founders as well. You know, I mean, but, you know, maybe you have a couple examples of just some of the founders that really nailed the and then just what and then I think let's cover that. And then I'd love to learn your thought process on, you know, how these companies can scale to to to actually the institutional grade venture backable scale too, because people don't often talk about that. Yeah, that's a good point.
Yeah. So maybe maybe cover. Yeah. So a couple examples on just some companies that really nailed it, like what they did, you know, whether it's culture or just building the team. And then and then I love to talk about just kind of the life cycle. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I mean, I I think a great example of of a company that that we work with is a portfolio company that has an amazing culture is a company called Crisp, and that's founded by Ari Trostol and Doug Lieden.
And this is their second or third company together. You know, serial entrepreneurs have have learned, you know, so much over the years. And and we invested in their last company, Tapad, which is which had an exit here in New York City. And and I think that we just love, you know, love what they've built at at Crisp on just the people side and culture. They they decided to to actually build a remote first company before the pandemic started. Right?
So so if you're gonna if you're gonna do that, then you need to really dial in your values from day one. Right? So I think, you know, dialing in your and and stating your values at a very, very early stage is something that they did. And that, you know, begets it's it's a cycle. Right? Like, if if you can say that early, that's incredibly important. I I think, you know, one of the things about Crisp is it's it's also a very mission driven company. Right?
I mean, it it is like a, you know, a double bottom line company, what we call it, in that, you know, their goal is to, you know, obviously build a massive business. Mhmm. And but it's also to really have a massive impact on the world. Right? And so that they may they're able to build a business where those things go side and side, where they actually, you know, work with retailers and distributors and food brands, you know, big and small, and help them reduce food waste. Right?
And at the same time, you know, they're helping all of those brands get better insights, you know, save you know, really reduce reduce as as far as, margin goes. You know, their their food waste is their lost margin. Right? So they're really able to to amplify those businesses, grow those businesses, and give these, like, long tail food brands tools that they never had before, as well as work with, know, CPG fortune 500.
But at the same time, I think the mission driven part really lets really lets them build a culture internally where everyone kinda has this North Star. Right? And I think that, you know, you can hire the best people in the country for this and who came to help build startups themselves and assemble them all in one place. But but having a North Star and having a unified mission for the company of what people value is incredibly important because those values shape the culture.
So I think Chris is just a great example of that. Yeah. No. That's great. And this takes me to another point. Recently, there was a whole forgot if it was I think it was Harvard Business School. They had a whole study on you probably you probably know where I'm getting with this, but, you know, just, you know, the the tie in with happiness and compensation. And, there was a whole study, I think, several years ago saying, look, after '75 k, people, you know, people don't care about money.
But there was a new study recently that said that money does bring happiness because you can have the tools to maybe help your parents when they're sick or, you know, if you need to go somewhere quickly, you know, you have the resources to do that. So, you know, my question to you is what what is important to attracting talent? Like, what what do prospects or, like, potential, you know, high quality candidates actually really care about? I'm sure the money is important.
I'm sure the mission is important, but, just any reactions to those two, differing studies? Yeah, I mean, I think one thing to note, and this is what we've built our our business on and helping founders hire the best people is, you know, the best people are never looking for jobs. Right? And and this is Yeah. You know, if if if you're the top salesperson, you know, at a company, it's very unlikely, you know, slash impossible that you're just shooting your resume all across angels.
So they're being poached. I mean, the they're they're getting poached from someone else. Right. So so then it's like, you know, what what drives, you know, what what drives someone to move? You know? And I think, you know, compensation is when you're talking about revenue producing roles, like, you know, compensation is a factor. Right? It's one thing. Yeah. People wanna show progression. They wanna make more money and and and especially salespeople.
Like, obviously, that's what is a huge driving factor for sales, and that's great. But be besides money, you you obviously, like like you mentioned and alluded to, there's so many other other pieces of the puzzle, and they all go together. And you can't have one without the other. You can't have the money without the culture, know, and this instability and the growth potential, right?
And I think that more than that, I I think the the key piece is that when people are looking at a company is like, is this the only company in the country that can solve this problem in this unique way? You know, like what about these founders and this team is unique that no one else can really do this in this way? You know? I I and I I think that's really compel that's the thing that people have to think about is that, you know, there's a lot of startups out there.
There's a lot of places, obviously, to move roles. But when you can find kind of that founder alignment with the problem they're trying to solve and the team alignment with that and their track record and their experience, it all comes together. We're like, anybody's gonna solve this, this is the team. This is this is these are the the women and men who are gonna do this.
And I think, you know, that probably more than anything, more than comp, more than everything else, you know, kind of determines that because the best people wanna join that. You know? Mhmm. Yeah. So so, yeah, that's kinda how how we look at look at that. You you mentioned kinda the the transition to from emerging manager to taking out institutional capital. I mean, maybe we can we can Yeah. Chat about that. Well, I would say from the start up standpoint. Right?
Like, walk me through in your mind, you know, what what levers need to be pushed, because there's a big difference between obviously being a seed stage company to, you know, getting to your series C. And you've probably seen that entire life cycle. And we don't often I don't see a lot of people really unpacking that. And obviously depends on the type of company you are, right? Whether you're a consumer tech company or B2B SaaS. But you know what?
On the talent side, you know, there's going to be a point where if you're a CEO, you have to hire, you know, the I would say it's the the executive layer right below you, which is kind of like the, you know, the chief revenue officer probably has a couple VPs of sales, right?
And then those VPs of sales have probably specific numbers where like, obviously, your your your first your first four hires, the CEO is going be doing founder founder selling as well, you know, so I think every in my opinion, every company that's starting out, the founders should be doing the first sales, especially if you're 100%, especially if you're breaking into a new product, you know, you want to test the market, no one's going to tell the story better than you.
But at some point, you can't you can't do that all the time because you're busy trying to make sure that the company stays intact and you're also raising money. So in your progression, let's let's just hypothetically start from four to six early hires, the founder, founders doing sales, the founders doing everything. And then who are the So let's let's just start like, I think this is a fundamental example. If we were to build a business, who are the other, you know, three to five people?
I'm assuming somebody that's doing growth hacking, probably an engineer. But again, I'll let you kinda walk us through this imaginary, life cycle. Yeah. Yeah. You you you obviously have, you know, your your engineering team, and hopefully, that's a a a technical cofounder. You know? So you have kind of that piece, and then you have, you know, the business a business facing cofounder. You know?
And then and then you're really looking at, you know, your early hires, you know, being engineers that really, you know, really move the needle, engineering leader, product marketing, sales, you know, maybe that's two year growth depending upon, you know, what what that looks like. You know, some of these other hires come, like, further down the line. But I think in all of those types of roles, you're hiring this person that is really stretching their career into the next level. Right?
Like, you're you know, these are these tend to be a VP in title maybe Mhmm. Or senior senior director in title, but they're individual contributors. Right? Like, they're, you know, maybe you know, they're stepping into this title, VP title for the first time, but that's a startup also gives the flexibility to say, you can be a director, you know, somewhere else, but startups can play with titles a little bit to to even, you know, attract people. Right? That's one kind of level.
Yeah. To the stretch goal, the the the promise is, hey, you know what? You're you've done this all by yourself. You've headed up all of business development. And, if you do a good job, you can build your own team. And I think maybe a lot of people, you know, look towards that because if you if you're a VP of sales at Unilever, you know, you're gonna get your 3% raise every year and and, you'll you'll get paid even if you don't close any close any sales. Right.
So it's a very cushy job and some people just I mean, I'm included. I'm one of those people that worked in big companies for a while. I was like, man, I'm I'm bored to death. I want to do something that makes me feel alive again. So that's you know, I I think sometimes, like, maybe unleashing the fire from someone who's who's kinda been in more of a non stretched opportunity and kinda putting some fire under them can be an interesting transition. Yeah. Exactly.
Someone who, you know, maybe they were the the thirtieth or or fortieth employee, you know, at a start up, or or maybe they were one of the even earlier than that. But, you know, this person, like, really, went to market kind of zero to one type of motion, you know, build revenue from scratch, became a top salesperson at that company, and kind of the next step for them is having the opportunity to really do that with a lot more ownership, you know, in in a company being an earlier employee.
And then also the opportunity to to essentially run revenue at at a company, you know, or Yeah. And build and scale out. And then also with, you know, a title that bumps up too. And then I think, you know, the other thing that we're talking about sales in particular is that, you know, the the bigger company get companies get, the more constrictive they get around compensation plans. Right?
So what was once, you know, a salesperson's dream, which is give me a base salary, but I just want a gross percentage of revenue I bring in. Right? Yeah. That would that was kinda like, you know, the starting point. But then as companies get bigger, they're like, oh, if you hit here's your goal. If you hit a 100% of your goal, we'll pay you this. If you hit a 101% of your goal, we'll pay you this.
And then essentially, it's it's it's structured in a way where if you just had gross margin, you know, percentage of gross margin, you would they'd make a ton more money. And I think salespeople, you know, love that type of early opportunity and risk in that, oh, okay. It's on me to take this to market. You know, I realize I'm surrounded by an amazing team, amazing investors, an incredible product that has, you know, founder led sales that's closed some deals.
And that's kind of a salesperson's dream to step into that role that has traction, be the first type of person with the bigger opportunity.
And I think that sort of profile of someone who wants to make that leap and and step into a bigger opportunity and has that ambition, and that drive and motivation and experience and all that together, you can kind of fit that profile into whether it's a product leader or sales leader, you know, or marketing leader or what have you, whatever type of role it is. But it it really is, you know, kind of that that archetype, if you will.
Yeah. And we've helped so many companies over the past, you know, thirteen years going back to when we started, we were at this at this startup, and it is it's hard to tell.
I mean, it's it's hard to tell who these people are, and but even early on, you know, what we were doing, Jay and I, is at this start up, it was pretty fascinating because, you know, we were working with all start ups to you know, this recruiting firm that was in house at a start up we had to build to collect the data, and our clients, you know, were founders and we're helping them, but they were backed by, you know, VCs like Andreessen or Sequoia or New
York or First Market, whoever, who had talent platforms. And the question was like why are they want to use, you know, why do they want to work with us if all these VC's have talent platforms? So they answered that really clearly for us, which you know really kind of spawn swell.
But it is hard to assess these type of people, and and I think that and it's it's hard to kind of just because it is a deeper look into that drive and ambition to people who want that type of bigger role versus just what's on their resume. Yeah. That makes sense. And then, you know, another question.
So graduating to your price round, which is your series a, you know, usually it's a series a. Sometimes it could be, you know, a seed to to a or whatever, whatever they want to call it in this in this market. But, you know, what are some of the You got avocado seeds, mango seeds, like, you name them. We got all of them. Yeah. But, you know, so what what have you seen in the dynamic drastically change overall just in the company?
And, you know, how have their expectations changed once they get their price round? Yeah, I think for the audience, essentially, the price round is, you know, before you get your price round, everything is a valuation cap. So there's no real valuation, we don't have to talk about it. But, you know, at some point when you get your actual institutional round, you know, there is a valuation that's assigned to it.
So, so, you know, there's this definitely some expectations that probably are are changing. So, would just love your perspective on on that. Yeah. I would just say, like, you know, the the structure, you know, call the call the structure a price round, you know, call another note. Like, what whatever it is, I would say that's that's more of a formality.
I I would say it really is when you get past pre seed and you're raising a seed or an a. Like, no matter how the deal is structured, you know, there has to be what's changed is before you could, you know, raise a pre seed, go to raise your seed without much traction. Right? You could say, hey. We validated this market. We have a customer in this market, and this is the the start up's attacking this one market. Right? We validated the market. We have a customer.
You know, this is where things are going. Now we're raising our 2 and a half million dollar seed. That's what you used to be able to do. Right? And I think now that's shifted to, you you raise your pre seed, then you gotta raise your seed. And it's not that you just validated a market or it's this idea of a market. Right? Or it's it's not just the story anymore. You know? Now it's, okay. Tell us about attraction. What's what's it really look like?
Like, you know, is that, the number of customers, the revenue, the retention, you know, you know, the just diving a lot deeper into customer traction. And I think I think that's that's the big shift, and I and and that's why it's a lot harder to raise the seed now than it was two years ago. And so Yeah. So so I think that's that's definitely a definitely a big shift, and then that just really stretches out. And that's kind of that that stretches out into your a and beyond.
And then and then the other thing that's changed is is just, like, the multiple on revenue of valuations in later stage, obviously, which, which is clearly impacted many people, and and growth investors. Yeah. So we got about twenty minutes. Don't wanna go. You know? So now that we cover those topics, think and happy to cover any other topics you're passionate about as well, Rusty.
But I think one natural topic for me is just your origin story of Swell VC, and then I wanna just, you know, get extract some nuggets of wisdom for people that wanna start their own fund. So maybe we can run through that, just talk about how the you know, how challenging it is and can be. And and, you know, maybe some advice you have for people that wanna wanna launch their own fun and then happy to rapid fire on any other topics.
If you wanna try to catch me off guard too, happy to try to answer any of those topics. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think our our origin story at at Swell is really, you know, Jay and I being being early employees employees at a start up, you know, first of all, like Jay being the first and me being, you know, right after him. You know, think that that's one thing. It's just really working at a start up and getting that. Right?
And before that, I had worked at I had like been really entrepreneurial. I worked at bigger companies and mid sized. And and so, you know, I I think, like, you know, my background just to give some context. Like you know, so so Jay and I are, you know, like I said, we're best friends, business partners for fourteen years, really because of our shared values. You know? And but our our backgrounds couldn't be different.
Like, you know, for Jay, that was growing up in Mumbai, like in this crazy city of, you know, 20,000,000 people. And and growing up with, like, parents that, you know, that ran several different businesses from, you know, running hotels to ad agencies to being doctors to reading dogs. Like, you name it. Like, Jay's parents were incredibly entrepreneurial, and he, from a young age, you know, he's basically like in charge of these businesses. Right? So just, you know, incredible background there.
And and and for me, you know, I was I was the opposite of, you know, growing up in a city of $20,000,000. I grew up in a town of, you know, 70,000 people in Springfield, Ohio, which was, you know, surrounded by, like, forest, you know, running around the woods as a kid all day, you know, and and then, you know, cornfields on the way to school. You know? So it was just a, you know, very different backgrounds, but but our values are really kind of, you know, formed who we are. Right?
And I think that, you know, for both of us, we just have a lot shared there and and foundationally just, like, know who we are as people, you know, have great great families and just emphasis on, you character integrity and all these things that have really, like, I think, bonded us. And then, you know, growing up, I I I then went to college or university. Went to Miami of Ohio, which, you know, most people probably a lot of people have never heard of.
But our our our bookstore, you know, had a t shirt that says Miami was a university before Florida was a state. Yeah. So so it's a Miami of Ohio.
Yeah. Miami of Ohio. And and surprisingly enough, I've actually reconnected with with so many people there, and there's just so many incredible, you know, people people work at who work in venture, but also who founded companies and the founders of of DoubleClick, of MongoDB, you know, just so many companies with Miami, which has been really cool to see.
Mhmm. But but after that, I, you know, kind of followed this interest I had in music, in the music business, and, and and got into the music business, after college. So for me, my first job was at a creative artist agency, CAA, talent agency. And, so I lived and worked in the music business in in Nashville and Los Angeles and and did that for around five years. And, you know, look looking back at it's it's kinda funny.
Like, you know, twenty years ago, I was learning and practicing, you know, what I do now actually, which is really, like, at CAA, it's about being right and being early. And that's the name of the game name of the game as an as an agent. Like, you know, so I don't know if you know Bruce from MEC Ventures, but he was in our a and r, and, now he runs MEC Ventures. Would you say Oh, culture. They they focus on culture.
So I've I've really been passionate about the music industry too and been trying to kinda stitch that into venture. Plus, you know, shout outs to Richie Richie, from plus eight. So they're also a really cool, investment firm focusing on music technology as well. Oh, cool. I I have to have to make an intro for them. Some of them some of them are DJs too, which is crazy. They they know, like, they know all the people at, at Kai goes, venture fund and the chain smokers and that.
So I think it's just it's really cool to see. I mean, look, I'll say I'll say this. So it's interesting to see how everything comes back full circle and how there's so many parallels in life. You know? And I I'm probably repeating myself, but just, you know, if you're if you're raising money, if you're dating, if you're trying to get a job, it's essentially all the same frameworks of kind of, you know, building a relationship, connecting with people, not being too clingy, not being creepy.
You know, all three of those things in life, you know, it's kind of the same, you know, strategy of of building relationships. Then and then I think it's just it's crazy, like, you know, like the past, a lot of us get really insecure about our past careers and and we compare ourselves to our other friends. It's like even for me, I was I was insecure for the longest time of, you know, being an engineer and being in product when I had a lot of people that were working in private equity.
But I feel now like some of those things that I learned kind of like complement who I am. Yeah. And I feel like it's, we'll we'll probably maybe we'll we'll double click on being dads as well. But it's just, you know, I I try not to have as many regrets of like, just decisions I made because I think somehow all of that flows into who we are. Like, you know, our cultures and our value and just the person that we've evolved to be. 100%.
I I think like being who you are is, you know, I think there's, in the past, maybe it was like you need to separate the different parts of your life. And I think that now it's more like there's just so much power in being who you are and learning from all these experience and putting them all together because they don't it's your life. They all overlap. I'm like a firm believer that all these learning experiences are all for the best.
You have to really whether it's good or bad, if it's bad, you transform those experiences. So you don't translate them to other people. So I think like you know if it's bad and they're learning and they inform your future, you know. And if it's a good experience, they obviously do that too. And so I agree. I think it's like kind of owning everything about yourself and being who you are and taking you know like your hobbies. Mean music for example like you know I still love music.
I started you know in the past couple years in the pandemic like working with all these reggae artists in Kingston Jamaica. Mhmm. And and and I, you know, I've got went into that world and like, you know, and love that. And and, you know, they're just all these things kind of come together, and it's I think it's really important to just be be who you are. And I think that it's just also relatable. You know, like Mhmm. Being, like, just boring and, like, just avoid avoid boring people. Right?
Like, boring them and and avoid, you know, hanging out with boring people. And I I I think that that's it's just there's a lot of power in just and just just sharing more about, you know So what kind of music were you into? So were you in you know, you said you spent some time in Nashville. So Yeah. I'm thinking, like, folk country. Is that kinda like the the the the genre? Nashville, you're right, is the epicenter of country. It's funny.
When I worked in Nashville, I worked in the rock and roll department for the top rock and roll agent, and we represented John Mayer and Kings of Leon and My Morning Jacket and stuff like that. And then, you know, which was which was amazing, over for Scott Clayton at CAA. And, and that was, you know, first job out of college, that was the most intense, you know, atmosphere. Like, the phone's just ringing off the hook. It's just like deals being cut, intense, you know, work environment.
Nothing will be intense as that for for me. And, and then the the flip side of that was, like you said, you know, then I moved to Los Angeles, and I worked for a management company, and we managed they were a huge country artist. Right? So it's it's funny for me. It was like, you know, rock and roll in in Nashville and in country in LA. So pretty pretty funny. So I yeah. I was out there, and then I Mhmm. I I went to Boulder, Colorado and lived there.
And then, you know, from there, I moved to New York almost fourteen years ago. Yeah. Yeah. And so had, yeah, I had an interesting musical journey too. Mean, I was a Yeah. I was a drummer in a in a punk rock band in high school. Yeah, in high school. And then I never really, pursued it. But, know, my career, you know, my musical tastes kind of evolved over time. Like I, I ended up, you know, getting more into getting more interested in like soul and R and B and hip hop.
So I kind of have a pretty diverse palette. You know, I learned the drums playing Metallica and Led Zeppelin, you know, just playing all those I can play. I don't play because, you know, we live in New York and and we got like, you know, it's a crazy house here, right? There's like two two little kids running around. So, yeah, mean, I but I can play. I don't think so. Think if you're a drummer, you might get somewhat rusty, but you never really lose the skill, I would say.
Yep. And you know what? What I'm excited about, know, so I'll say one of the best concerts that I went to was in New York. It was a Rolling Stones tribute concert, and, Nora Jones happened to be there. And a couple of these, like, old '90 bands, nineties bands were there. I forgot who they were, but like the Black Crows were there and they're all just playing like different Rolling Stone songs. I love that. It was pretty amazing just being like, you know, seven, eight feet away from Nora.
Oh, yeah. It was in the bowling. Yeah. Was in one of the it was one of those small little Like little amphitheaters. Yeah, some small little amphitheaters in Lake Loris, but that was amazing. And then there's a new artist that I'm following. His name is Mark Rebier. I'll post this in the channel. What he does is crazy, man. So he every show is completely different. And what he does is he he'll start with a beat, and then he'll put it on loop, and then he'll add, like, a piano.
He allows, like, an organ, and it's just, like, completely from scratch. But he he does it now with all these other well known artists. So this is him and Nora Jones. Oh, wow. And literally, he started the beat like a baseline. Then he kind of does, then he adds some sense, and then he'll sing something and then he'll loop that. And then Nora does the same thing. So it's pretty dope.
So that's just I think that's a kind of for me just personally, I know it's been done, but I think it's cool when you can kind of just off the cuff, like come up with just a really cool experience. And that way, like every experience is is brand new from scratch. So I thought that was really cool. So I thought I'd share that with community I love that. I love that. Yeah. The improvisation piece is is is just one of the most, you know, fun things about music.
It's it's know, you have you have your tools in front of you, you know, whether it's you're playing drums or or playing guitar and, like, and you're and it's all in real time, and there's no you know, you just you get after it. It is it is really fun. Yeah. It's super fun. I I a couple years ago, a couple friends of mine in tech, we were founders, and we we live in New York City, so can do this in your apartment. But in the Lower East Side, there's these little practice rooms.
So we we would we would jam in there. That's amazing. Do you play anything? What do you what do you play? I play bass and and guitar. Yeah. You know? That's awesome. We should definitely jam. Use Logic Pro and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But yeah. Yep. Yeah. We should definitely jam at some point. No. It'd be fun to be like, you know, old dads playing, playing, like, Metallica songs. Did you grow up around here?
I'm from Florida. So I grew up in Florida, then I've been in New York, for almost ten years. You know, we live in Midtown East. But, you know, last point I wanna talk about is, you know, maybe this is a hybrid. So, you know, just some tips for maybe emerging manager parents. So, you know, we talked about this as far as kinda like just trying to maintain balance and then also just kind of building a firm. I think that's a good topic.
That's kind of a little bit of a twist because obviously we you can give some generic feedback on, hey, you know, here's how you build your thesis and all that. But you know what what advice? Because we're both parents, busy parents with kids. You know, we we just mentioned, hey, you know, at, you know, evenings, we gotta make sure that there's time. You know, I struggle with trying to, you know, make sure I'm a good husband, good parent, and then also just a good professional.
And you just, you know, wanna try to excel in all of those things, and sometimes it can be overwhelming. So just tell me kinda like how you handle it and advice for other busy parents that are trying to kinda build something, but also not, you know, be an absent father or or all that stuff?
Yeah. You know, I I mean, it's hard for me to give any advice on, like I mean, whether it's, you know, emerging manager building a firm or it's, you know, entrepreneur as a founder or, you know or Or maybe what works for you. Right, right. It's a you know it is but I think that's a good question. What works for me? I think what works for me is just being present. I'm not a person that's like, oh, these five tips work for me.
I think when you're present with yourself and you're present with your children, then you really can understand what their needs are and be there for that. And that dictates the shifts in time. Know? It just dictates your shifts and what your day looks like. It it kind of you know, those kind of that that really forces you to adjust and change and and know and and make those decisions given that, you know, they're the biggest priority in your life.
So so, yeah, it it is it's certainly a balancing act. You know? Yeah. And I'll I'll tell you I'll tell I I got two more things to add that could be somewhat, maybe mind blowing or just kinda maybe something to consider, and I've been thinking about this a lot more. You know, so it's so at five, five p. M. Or six p. M. You know, if you have little kids, like my kids go to bed at like 07:30. Right? So it's only like two hours really that you're gonna have with them.
So I I try as hard as I can to try to, like, you know, not use my phone. Obviously, I'm not perfect. I'll still maybe, you know, sneak peek and, you know, so I try to be present as much as I can. And then, you know, this is something that has synced in with me. It's like, look, my parents are in Florida, and, you know, they're probably in their mid sixties.
So if you think about it, you know, you only, you know, God forbid, you don't know how long they're gonna live, you know, everybody's parents. But if you only see them once a year, you know, hypothetically, they may only they may only be 20 more times if you could see your parents. And, you know, when I started thinking about that, I really think about, like, how valuable, being present is, how how valuable those relationships are. I also so that's one thing.
Just kinda being a little more thoughtful, you know, in terms of, like Like that time window, you know, five to seven, and and you you only have that and they go to bed, and then there's you you can do work. You know, you can you can work later. That's the thing.
But but, sharing those dinners and like, know, just kind of having those those rituals where like you're always, know, sharing those meals together and and and all the time and then being active and all whether it's sports and all the other stuff. But, yeah, it is you know, the day ends like you have a certain amount of time and they go to bed. Exactly right.
But short And then my number two is trying to be less I think, you know, health is really important, you know, so trying to be mindful of not being so hard on yourself. Like, obviously, there's things that you can do if you stay up till three a. M. And then there's sometimes I'm like, look, I'm so tired. It's like ten p. M. And I and I knock out. I'm like, hey, you know what? Maybe I'll wake up at five. Yeah. Yeah. You like go to bed. You're like, you turn.
But but at the same time, it's like, you know what? Like, I didn't get all the things that I wanted to do get done. But, hey, you know, maybe I got some rest. You know, maybe I got to get in a run. So, know, the hell, you know, you you need health to be present and you need help to actually be a performer as well.
So if you kind of sacrifice your health and, you know, mentally, you're too hard on yourself, even though you get like 10 of those two new items done, If you're not kind of if you're, you know, degrading your your health, and I think it's it's going to have some long term effects. So those are kind of the two things that I try to think about it. I used be super hard on myself. Used to work like people used to like tell me, Joel, you never sleep.
And, and I think for me now, I don't I don't know if I'm proud of that of, like, not sleeping as much. So now I try to sleep, and then I try to kinda hire somebody or try to, you know, try to replicate myself the best that I can. Yeah. Because it's, you know, it just kinda takes a toll on you if you if you're kinda, losing sleep and then you're kinda got all these other things going on like like all of us did last week. So Yeah. A 100%. No. You're right.
I mean, I I feel like the there's such a massive shift in the past, five plus years to sleep and how powerful sleep is. It's like you operate like you're intoxicated without sleep. Operate like you're working shifts, you know, if Mhmm. Like, you're a shift worker without sleep. I mean, you're you're it really, you know, that you gotta get your sleep, but, know, I I I I totally agree. It's it's Mhmm. It's something that, has to happen.
I was gonna say one other thing, but but, yeah, same page with you. Same page with today. Yeah. And I would say, you know, we we all have our off days. I mean, definitely, like, I I would say when I know that I'm off my game, it's definitely those days that I don't, get enough rest. So I think definitely that's, you know, something that I'm mindful of. So I'm just also mindful of the time.
Maybe we'll spend the last couple of minutes if anybody, has any questions on LinkedIn, we can try to address them. If not, well, we can do it asynchronously. But, you know, maybe we just end with just kinda one of your biggest takeaways or couple learnings either from a mentor or just from, the last quarter. Anything you wanna maybe share as as just maybe a helpful learning?
Man, I mean, the help the helpful learning in the in the in in the last week is is is one, you know, one, have a bank account with, with one more one month worth of payroll and your expenses. Two, have a backup backup backup account. And three is, like, you know, put your money in government backed short term securities. I think that's the the the biggest takeaway is that Yeah.
Is that treasury management was the most unsexy thing in in you know, around, and now it's, you know, one of the most important. So I think that's been, like, very, very, very top of mind Mhmm. You know, as as far as the past week. And and then kinda going back to what you said is, like, you know, you you you can't control a lot of the stuff. You can you can, you know, really work your ass off to be the absolute, you know, best at what you can do.
Yeah. And and I think that's the expectation is like, you know, have a higher expectation for yourself than anybody can help, you know, else can have of you. And if you do that, you know, you'll you'll be and you work your ass off, you will be successful. Right? But at the same time, like you said, like, you have to give yourself some grace. You know, you have to you have to be, like, gentle with yourself.
You know, you can't, you know, have super high expectations and then, you know, constantly knock yourself down because you didn't achieve, you know, one of those things. It's like Yeah. You have to take it easy on yourself. So I I think that, like, what you said, you know, those are that's such a great, you know, takeaway that I think about. And then just, you know, practically is like, man, treasury management, it matters now.
That's that's the past, you know, seventy two hours or past week takeaway. So Yeah. But, yeah, I I I've really just enjoyed, you know, being on here, and it's great to great to chat with you and catch up with you and appreciate, you know, you have me on for a couple minutes. Yeah. I really appreciate it, man. Hope, hope everything else goes well, and, you know, we'll we'll get together, man.
Maybe we'll jam out in that that studio or, you know, do a drink or something like that in, in New York and get some of the local VCs together and and do something fun. That sounds like a great plan. Alright, man. Take care. Thanks a Appreciate it. Talk to you soon. Bye.