Manu Kumar - The Visionary Behind Unicorn Ventures

WEBVTT
00:00:03.084 --> 00:00:09.596
Venture is made by these power law type returns, what makes what Manu does impressive.
00:00:09.596 --> 00:00:11.919
From my perspective, it's an unbelievable hit rate.
00:00:12.140 --> 00:00:18.704
This is Masterstroke with Monica Enid and Sejo Petruzak, and welcome to our special guest host, ned Renzi.
00:00:18.704 --> 00:00:24.088
Conversations with founders, ceos and visionary leaders in technology and beyond.
00:00:33.935 --> 00:00:38.258
We just finished recording an episode with Manu Kumar from K9 Ventures.
00:00:38.258 --> 00:00:42.622
We had our guest co-host, Ned Renzi, here today.
00:00:42.622 --> 00:00:45.901
I want to ask Georgiana Moreland, our executive producer Georgiana, what'd you think of?
00:00:45.941 --> 00:00:46.523
the episode.
00:00:46.523 --> 00:00:52.470
Monica, let me start by saying how much I absolutely love having Ned Renzi sit in as our guest co-host today.
00:00:52.470 --> 00:00:55.502
I am really excited for everyone to hear this episode.
00:00:55.502 --> 00:00:56.503
Let me just say it.
00:00:56.503 --> 00:00:58.307
Our guest, manu Kumar.
00:00:58.307 --> 00:00:59.630
What an icon.
00:00:59.630 --> 00:01:05.370
Tremendous business success, incredible track record and his obvious Midas touch all the things.
00:01:05.370 --> 00:01:09.689
But most importantly, you can tell that this is just an incredible human being.
00:01:10.230 --> 00:01:10.852
Absolutely.
00:01:10.852 --> 00:01:12.379
He is an incredible human being.
00:01:12.379 --> 00:01:30.572
As you know, on Masterstroke, what we're trying to bring to our listeners is people who've had some hopefully outsized success in their life and trying to figure out what makes them tick and how they got there and what happened and who they are, and I just love listening to sort of smart reflective.
00:01:30.572 --> 00:01:36.111
People talk about their journey, and he was a great one, yes, he was.
00:01:36.210 --> 00:01:39.784
The thing that resonated with me the most is that he's a problem solver right.
00:01:39.784 --> 00:01:44.343
The companies that he has founded and invested in have provided everyday solutions.
00:01:44.343 --> 00:01:49.834
I'm really excited for everyone to hear about his new company, HiHello Absolutely.
00:01:49.980 --> 00:01:54.873
In every case, all of the companies he invested in was him solving his own problem.
00:01:54.873 --> 00:02:00.111
He was, you know, necessity was the mother of invention for him in every case.
00:02:00.111 --> 00:02:10.126
I'm excited to bring you this episode Master Stroke Audience because I do think venture capital, private equity, vcs, it's like the dark arts we don't get to hear.
00:02:10.126 --> 00:02:14.731
It's conversations in the back room, in quiet back rooms, people making deals.
00:02:14.731 --> 00:02:20.865
But the funny thing is you don't have to be a VC PE geek like I am to want to know all the inside baseball.
00:02:20.865 --> 00:02:38.103
You, honestly, if you're working at a company that's got these kinds of investors, you're going to understand a whole lot about what drives the behavior of boards of directors, executives, managers in your company but how they act, by hearing and understanding a little bit about venture capital.
00:02:38.103 --> 00:02:53.543
So I'm so excited to bring this episode to our audiences because I think it's so valuable for everyone to listen to the smartest people in venture capital, which Manu absolutely is, and hear kind of what's making them tick and what's driving their behavior.
00:02:53.802 --> 00:03:02.508
He truly is an icon, monica, especially because he flies under the radar brilliant, unassuming and humble, but creating massive impact.
00:03:02.907 --> 00:03:07.260
Yeah, he's one of the quietest and one of the craziest track record.
00:03:07.260 --> 00:03:08.423
Stay tuned.
00:03:08.423 --> 00:03:09.665
Masterstroke Audiences.
00:03:09.665 --> 00:03:13.480
This is an episode you are not going to want to stop till the end.
00:03:13.480 --> 00:03:24.396
Manu, we're going to start.
00:03:24.396 --> 00:03:31.826
We're going to give you a little bit of a longer introduction than we normally give our guests, so your job is just to let us do that.
00:03:32.127 --> 00:03:37.888
In the beginning Sounds good, I'm going to try not to be embarrassed.
00:03:38.209 --> 00:03:38.449
I know.
00:03:38.740 --> 00:03:40.426
I'm like I know what you're like.
00:03:41.061 --> 00:03:44.685
You can't interrupt us, I mean, unless you think we say something inaccurate.
00:03:44.685 --> 00:03:45.747
But you got to.
00:03:45.747 --> 00:03:47.352
Let us do this, All right?
00:03:47.352 --> 00:03:49.026
Well, welcome to Masterstroke.
00:03:49.026 --> 00:03:52.811
I am very excited because we have very special guests with us today.
00:03:52.811 --> 00:04:04.902
But before I wanted to mention that Sejal is away today and we were lucky enough to have our friend and former guest, Ned Renzi from Enjoy the Work, join us as a special guest host.
00:04:04.902 --> 00:04:07.903
Today he's joining me as my co host.
00:04:07.903 --> 00:04:11.756
If you remember, Ned has worn all the hats of entrepreneurship.
00:04:11.756 --> 00:04:20.442
He has founded companies, he's been a VC who's invested in some amazing companies, and now he's an advisor at Enjoy the Work.
00:04:20.442 --> 00:04:22.826
So thank you for joining me, Ned.
00:04:23.829 --> 00:04:25.151
Thanks, Monica and Sejal.
00:04:25.151 --> 00:04:31.833
I appreciate the invitation to guest host and super excited for our other guest today, Manu Kumar of K9 Ventures.
00:04:32.180 --> 00:04:33.826
And we all have Pittsburgh roots.
00:04:33.826 --> 00:04:35.935
Manu and I share an alma mater.
00:04:35.935 --> 00:04:50.490
We both went to Carnegie Mellon University for part of our education and Manu is currently the chief fire starter, as he would call himself, at K9 Ventures, which is the pre-seed fund that Ned just talked about.
00:04:50.490 --> 00:05:07.088
We're going to talk about all the cool companies you founded and what you're up to now and we're going to talk about you know all the great things you've done, but I want to talk about this pre-seed fund, K9, and what you've done Over 51 investments, seven unicorns.
00:05:07.088 --> 00:05:17.949
You know really, and for people who aren't familiar, you know, I want to talk about why I think and I want Ned to help me actually with why Manu is so different.
00:05:19.480 --> 00:05:26.622
You know, I think, as you learn about venture capital and you learn about venture funds, you realize that there's an asymmetric return risk.
00:05:26.622 --> 00:05:40.302
Return, right, All of the companies that they invest in can make, in some cases, 1,000x returns, maybe even larger than that in the really home run cases right, but they can only lose 1x.
00:05:40.302 --> 00:05:43.127
So your loss can only be 1x.
00:05:43.127 --> 00:05:56.865
You can only lose the money you put in, but on the upside return side it can be really astronomical and has been astronomical, and that kind of leads most venture funds to play portfolio theory.
00:05:56.865 --> 00:06:14.524
So if you look at like I don't know, if you look at like the Midas list returns, you'll find that, like, most of those funds have a few companies, one that returns the fund or a few companies that really do well, and a lot of them kind of go to zero or don't do very well or get shut down.
00:06:14.524 --> 00:06:19.315
And you know this portfolio theory is really how most funds work.
00:06:19.315 --> 00:06:20.526
Am I describing?
00:06:20.526 --> 00:06:24.932
I'm the only one on this call who hasn't been a venture capitalist, but, Ned, am I describing this correctly?
00:06:25.505 --> 00:06:26.630
Yeah, you're right on.
00:06:26.630 --> 00:06:37.218
I mean venture is made by these power law type returns and I know like when I first got into venture I was trained by people who really had more of a private equity approach.
00:06:37.218 --> 00:06:56.336
They trained me on figuring out the probability of success and these crazy like first Chicago method spreadsheets and stuff and really, as I spent more time in Silicon Valley, it's not probability of success, it's if it succeeds, what's the probability it could be really really large in that asymmetric return you talked about.
00:06:56.336 --> 00:07:00.755
Yeah, and you know what makes what Manu does impressive.
00:07:00.755 --> 00:07:08.228
You know, in our industry if you're successful like one out of every say, 12 times, that's considered a home run fund.
00:07:08.228 --> 00:07:13.367
Right, you're going to return some major multiple back to the investors In any given year.
00:07:13.649 --> 00:07:23.892
There's 20 investments that make up the whole venture industry and not only is Manu in that one, manu's in several per portfolio.
00:07:23.892 --> 00:07:29.889
I mean he's hit a number of home runs in each of his portfolios.
00:07:29.889 --> 00:07:51.096
And, if I go through, you mentioned Chief Firestarter at K9, co-founder at Carta, co-founder and CEO right now at HiHello, but in between there, co-founder and CEO right now at HiHello, but in between there, lyft, twilio, otho, carta, lucidchart, everlaw, I mean the list just kind of goes on and on.
00:07:51.050 --> 00:07:52.637
So from my perspective, it's an unbelievable hit rate.
00:07:52.637 --> 00:08:05.252
Well, and I'll correct you on one of those, because I introduced Manu to one of those companies and that was Auth0, because I got to know Manu before that and then ended up, and then I ended up also joining the board of Auth0, and that was Auth0, because I got to know Manu before that, and then I ended up also joining the board of Auth0 and that was a great success.
00:08:05.252 --> 00:08:12.535
That ended up selling to Okta for six and a half billion dollars and Manu was so critical to those founders.
00:08:12.535 --> 00:08:24.000
And I know from those founders how lucky they felt to work with Manu Because, as you know, while venture capitalists are playing portfolio theory, founders are not.
00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:33.225
Founders are pouring their heart and soul and every ounce of their being into one company at a time, Although you guys, I guess, have been on multiple.
00:08:33.225 --> 00:08:39.677
For me it's been one or two companies that I've poured my one as a founder, heart and soul.
00:08:39.738 --> 00:08:43.591
But I want to give you some statistics, Ned, because I think what you said is right.
00:08:43.591 --> 00:08:54.725
But SignalRank recently published a list of investors who had seeded the most unicorns and you know it was kind of all the names you would expect to see.
00:08:54.725 --> 00:09:08.515
Right, it was all the incubators, like Y Combinator, Techstars 500, Global firms like Sequoia XL, First Round Capital angel syndicates like Silicon Valley Angels.
00:09:08.515 --> 00:09:16.754
And what people responded on the Twitter or X thread was what kind of unicorn efficiency were these?
00:09:16.754 --> 00:09:54.808
That was the interesting stat, not who had the most unicorns, but what was their sort of number of unicorns divided by number of seeds that they and the average of the top 100 seed investors, and in fact, they said the highest rate for any of their top 100 seed investors that had done more than 20 seeds was 14%.
00:09:54.808 --> 00:09:56.390
This is since 2019.
00:09:56.652 --> 00:09:58.214
And that is where Manu sits.
00:09:58.214 --> 00:09:59.655
So Manu operates.
00:09:59.655 --> 00:10:06.639
Not only does Manu hit those stats that are crazy when you compare them to his peers, Manu is operating.
00:10:06.639 --> 00:10:18.673
These are talking about seed investments and Manu is operating as a pre-seed, and actually I want to give Manu a chance to explain that to us, because I think you call it frighteningly early.
00:10:18.673 --> 00:10:20.076
Is that what I've heard you say?
00:10:27.524 --> 00:10:28.369
That's right, frighteningly early stage.
00:10:28.369 --> 00:10:31.404
And Monica and Ned, first thank you, but I am learning about these stats from both of you because these are not stats that I even track.
00:10:32.024 --> 00:10:36.476
I know you do because I had to do the calculations to figure out your percentage.
00:10:38.407 --> 00:10:45.474
And when you talk about the Midas list, for example, like I made a conscious choice to not participate in the Midas list.
00:10:45.474 --> 00:10:55.586
I mean, I talked to the folks who run the Midas list and figured out, like, okay, what's the value in this other to me as an individual or to K9 as a fund?
00:10:55.586 --> 00:11:05.229
I realized that the more attention K9 or I would get, it actually just increases my workload in terms of how much I have to sift through.
00:11:05.229 --> 00:11:24.346
And so it was a very, very conscious decision to not participate in any of those lists and to try and just stay under the radar and focus on what I want to do rather than just having a barrage of stuff coming at me.
00:11:24.346 --> 00:11:56.205
I do describe what canine does as frighteningly early stage, and I describe it that way because at the time that I'm investing, I have to be frightened, and that's a feeling that I get in my stomach every single time I'm about to make an investment, and I have learned over the years to recognize that feeling and become comfortable with that feeling when I'm making that investment.
00:11:56.666 --> 00:12:19.006
Well, speaking of frighteningly early, I remember when you started K9, there was kind of a major inflection point going on in just the whole venture industry right when the money was getting unpacked from the advice and the governance and other things like that and you had some pretty bold contrarian opinions about what would work or how venture should work in the future.
00:12:19.006 --> 00:12:21.173
Maybe tell us a little bit about that.
00:12:21.524 --> 00:12:37.456
So I think one of the first things when I was starting K9, actually I'll give a little backstory here, so in 2006 and 2007, I was helping another founder start his company, and so we went up and down Sand Hill in order to try and raise money for that company.
00:12:37.456 --> 00:12:48.774
That gave me a view into what was happening in venture capital, and the first realization was that seed didn't exist.
00:12:48.774 --> 00:13:02.528
Right, it was essentially firms that were writing a $4 million check into a Series A stage company, but there was nobody who was writing the half a million dollar check or the sub $ million dollar check or the sub one million dollar check.
00:13:02.528 --> 00:13:07.605
So that was one of my key things to note that, okay, that needs to happen.
00:13:07.625 --> 00:13:13.398
There's a need in the market, there's an unmet need, and who's fulfilling that need?
00:13:13.398 --> 00:13:16.431
And then ultimately it was like, oh, can I be fulfilling that need?
00:13:16.431 --> 00:13:22.446
So I think that was part of it be fulfilling that need.
00:13:22.446 --> 00:13:23.067
So I think that was part of it.
00:13:23.067 --> 00:13:28.134
And then second was just kind of focusing on super, super early stage founders and great technologies.
00:13:28.134 --> 00:13:40.071
So till today, I describe K9 as a technology focused micro VC fund, and so I definitely look at companies that are coming from a technical background.
00:13:40.071 --> 00:13:43.330
There's some level of technical innovation involved over there.
00:13:43.330 --> 00:13:47.544
In order for me to kind of look at that and think about the company.
00:13:53.475 --> 00:14:00.171
So, vinay, when you started, you certainly had this thesis that was different than what was happening on Sand Hill Road, from your original thesis.
00:14:00.171 --> 00:14:05.586
What turned out to be correct, what turned out to be different than what you thought, oh, that's a good question.
00:14:05.966 --> 00:14:25.215
I think the first thing was was being a solo GP right, and when I, when I Can you explain what the general partner is to the folks in my oh sure, solo GP being that there's only one person running the entire firm and there's no partners, right?
00:14:25.777 --> 00:14:39.596
And in fact it's kind of an oxymoron to even call it like a solo general partner, because partner implies that there's somebody else, but solo general partner basically means there's only one person and that's it.
00:14:39.596 --> 00:14:43.148
That was something that was contrary and indifferent.
00:14:43.148 --> 00:14:52.230
A second thing that was contrary and indifferent was around the stage of company that I wanted to invest in.
00:14:52.230 --> 00:15:02.586
I literally wanted to invest in companies that were two founders and an idea, and that was something that just wasn't very common back in 2009.
00:15:02.586 --> 00:15:10.226
And convincing LPs that this model can work was something that I would say was like new and different at that time.
00:15:10.226 --> 00:15:19.070
The second thing that was new and different was investing in the stage of company that I wanted to invest in.
00:15:19.070 --> 00:15:30.346
I wanted to invest in a company that was two founders and an idea, and if it was two founders and an idea and a dog, that was a bonus right.
00:15:30.346 --> 00:15:33.494
So for me, it was literally like two people and an idea.
00:15:33.494 --> 00:15:43.370
Stage is where I wanted to get involved with the companies, and for a lot of the companies that I was able to invest in through K9, that's literally what they were Like Lyft was.
00:15:43.892 --> 00:15:52.717
I met Logan and John from Lyft like literally a few weeks after they moved to Palo Alto and it was just the two of them and one part-time engineer.
00:15:52.717 --> 00:16:01.539
That was the extent of the company when I first met with Logan and John Auth0, monica, I think was probably about six-ish people at the time when I first met with Logan and John Auth0.
00:16:01.539 --> 00:16:08.133
Monica I think was probably about six-ish people at the time when I met Eugenio for the first time and Lucidchart was about four people.
00:16:08.133 --> 00:16:10.173
Twilio was four people right.
00:16:10.173 --> 00:16:20.354
Carta was zero because that was something that I went out looking for somebody to co-found the company with and then created that company after that.
00:16:20.354 --> 00:16:26.238
So I think just the stage and the solo GP thing were probably the two biggest things.
00:16:26.544 --> 00:16:28.011
Yeah, boy, you've proven them wrong.
00:16:28.011 --> 00:16:30.894
Definitely done that.
00:16:30.894 --> 00:16:32.832
I think that we talk about.
00:16:32.832 --> 00:16:42.770
You talked about frighteningly early and being frightened, and I've heard that you know it's very unusual for people to want to be the first money in or be in that early, before there's any proof points.
00:16:42.770 --> 00:16:52.028
So it's a really scary thing and I think you know I heard one time that the definition of bravery is being frightened and doing it anyway, or being scared.
00:16:52.028 --> 00:16:55.465
It's not that you don't feel fear, it's that you feel the fear but you do it anyway.
00:16:55.465 --> 00:17:09.192
And we you know a lot of things that Sejal and I have talked about on this podcast is kind of trying to tease out and figure out what makes people successful, people different, and I think that's definitely one of them.
00:17:09.192 --> 00:17:20.374
I want to take you, Manu, back back before Canine, back before Carnegie Mellon, maybe early days of Carnegie Mellon, that when you left India for college to come to Pittsburgh.
00:17:20.374 --> 00:17:24.189
I think you were at that time 17 years old, Is that correct?
00:17:24.249 --> 00:17:27.059
That's correct, and had you ever left India before that?
00:17:27.441 --> 00:17:29.688
No, that was my first trip out of India.
00:17:29.887 --> 00:17:31.813
Yes, Wow, that is incredible.
00:17:31.813 --> 00:17:39.795
I you know I was scared sending my kids to college, but I can't imagine how your parents felt sending you to college all the way across the world.
00:17:39.795 --> 00:17:41.979
What was that like for them and for you?
00:17:42.664 --> 00:17:52.035
I mean, I decided when I was 15 that I wanted to go to college in the United States, and it was my decision.
00:17:52.035 --> 00:17:55.535
It was not something that my parents had even suggested to me.
00:17:55.535 --> 00:18:02.164
It was something that I figured like, okay, that's what I want to do, and this was in 1990.
00:18:02.164 --> 00:18:05.971
This is pre-internet, this is pre-email, right.
00:18:05.971 --> 00:18:21.298
And so the only thing that was available at that time was these really, really fat college handbooks like listings of all the US colleges, right, and that's what I used in order to go look up, like, okay, what colleges can I apply to?
00:18:21.298 --> 00:18:26.038
I think my family was actually happy about me going to college in the US.
00:18:26.038 --> 00:18:35.989
They were less excited about my decision to stay in the US and start my first company here, because that's what meant that my chance of returning to India was incredibly low.
00:18:37.791 --> 00:18:44.046
Yeah, that's the rub with sending kids away is that sometimes they like it and they want to stay.
00:18:54.597 --> 00:18:59.410
Monica had mentioned, like you know, things that have happened to make you into the person you are today.
00:18:59.410 --> 00:19:09.612
I'm sort of smiling because I have four grad parties from high school kids on my street going to college and one of the common questions is what do you want to be when, when you grow up?
00:19:09.612 --> 00:19:15.585
And I've sort of always taken a different twist on that question and I like asking who do you want to be when you grow up?
00:19:15.585 --> 00:19:27.227
Because I do think character matters and and Manu, you know, maybe you could share like a significant event that's happened in your life that to help turn you into the person that you are today.
00:19:27.227 --> 00:19:29.034
It helps, like seed, your motivation.
00:19:29.817 --> 00:19:45.470
Ned, you're asking me a question that is, first, very dear to me, because I actually draw an analogy to this to startups, and my analogy here for startups is that it's usually not one single big decision or event that makes a company successful.
00:19:45.470 --> 00:19:55.071
It's a series of micro decisions that actually kind of compound over a period of time to kind of set the direction for a company.
00:19:55.071 --> 00:20:12.233
That's right, and to me the same thing applies for a human being as well.
00:20:12.233 --> 00:20:14.734
It's not just like one decision that you make at one point.
00:20:14.734 --> 00:20:15.496
That's right.
00:20:16.036 --> 00:20:54.067
I mean, if you take the theory of parallel universes and I can essentially look at it as like OK, if I hadn't done that, then I wouldn't have gotten here, and then I wouldn't have gotten here, type of an approach I think one of the first things for me was growing up and kind of coming of age at a time when my dad's business was struggling and that just instilled in me such a deep sense of value that I have never, ever forgotten that and that's like in my core, even in terms of how I run my own company or how I advise founders of my portfolio companies.
00:20:54.067 --> 00:21:17.145
I mean, another key moment for me was getting my first computer, and I had to convince my grandmother to buy me a secondhand computer, and if I hadn't gotten that, I probably wouldn't have learned how to program and that probably would have meant I wouldn't have gotten into Carnegie Mellon.
00:21:17.145 --> 00:21:47.545
And so, yeah, so everything could have been different from that point on, and even little things, like arriving at Carnegie Mellon and then kind of having this oh shit moment, because it was a situation where I'm like, oh my gosh, everybody here is smart, and most of them are probably smarter than I am, and most of them are probably smarter than I am, and that was a kind of a defining moment for me to kind of decide like, okay, is it sink or swim, and am I going to work my ass off to succeed?
00:21:47.545 --> 00:21:52.196
Or that was just a decision I had to make in that moment.
00:21:52.196 --> 00:21:56.556
So I think those are the things that I look back to.
00:21:57.586 --> 00:22:16.089
I also remember another key moment, for when I was doing my master's, I had built this chat software and I was talking to somebody in one of the chat rooms at like 4am in the morning and this guy just says like, hey, you could sell this.
00:22:16.089 --> 00:22:25.694
And that became kind of like the key moment for me to be like, oh, I should think about starting a company and so that those are like.
00:22:25.694 --> 00:22:30.336
I think it's all these little tiny, tiny events that kind of add up over time.
00:22:37.185 --> 00:22:48.305
This idea that you can sell it to me is seizing an opportunity, right, like when my kids were growing up, I remember telling them you get paid linearly to identify and solve problems.
00:22:48.305 --> 00:23:00.277
You get paid non-linearly to identify and seize opportunities and everything from like, if I remember right, sneaker Labs you sold, spun it back out, resold it.
00:23:00.277 --> 00:23:02.487
You made money off of that multiple times.
00:23:02.487 --> 00:23:03.067
You've done.
00:23:03.067 --> 00:23:07.866
You know all these other companies we mentioned, even up to Hi Hello, like.
00:23:07.866 --> 00:23:17.356
How do you like, if you had to give advice to founders today on how to identify and seize opportunities, like frameworks to think about or something, what would you tell them?
00:23:17.645 --> 00:23:19.731
I think it comes down to learning.
00:23:19.731 --> 00:23:36.247
To learn is probably the number one skill, right, and I feel that every single day, like every single day, I am learning something new, and it's truly a case of the more you learn, the more you realize how much you don't know.
00:23:36.247 --> 00:23:48.806
Right, and being able to develop that muscle of like okay, I don't know something, but I will go figure it out, that is truly one of the most important skills for a founder.
00:23:48.806 --> 00:24:28.769
And the second one that I am still working on is learning to delegate, and I struggle with that one because I love to go figure things out, and so I will get into the weeds and try and go figure things out, but there simply is not enough time and not enough hours in the day in order for a founder and a CEO to be involved in every single thing, and so you have to become comfortable with OK, I am going to let somebody else run with this and I'm going to sit back and focus on other things.
00:24:28.788 --> 00:24:30.993
That's the other skill that I think founders need to have Learning to learn.
00:24:31.013 --> 00:24:35.048
I think that applies so much more to everyone, especially early in their career.
00:24:35.549 --> 00:24:43.696
When I hear from people who are new to jobs, especially if they do go work in a startup, they ask me you know, how do I be successful in a startup?
00:24:43.696 --> 00:24:45.070
And that is the number one.
00:24:45.070 --> 00:24:59.814
If you can develop a sort of reputation for yourself and for others that interact with you of I'm the person that goes and just gets stuff done, and if you develop that reputation of, yeah, I don't know, but I'm going to go figure it out, I'm going to get it done.
00:24:59.814 --> 00:25:25.442
And if you develop that reputation of, yeah, I don't know, but I'm going to go figure it out, I'm going to get it done, the amount of things that people rely on you for and come to you with, then just kind of you know compounds, and then you start really your career really blossoms, I think because you are somebody who just gets more responsibility and when you start taking on more responsibility, you learn more, you can do more, you're more valuable and that just all you know.
00:25:25.442 --> 00:25:26.826
It's like a virtuous cycle.
00:25:27.154 --> 00:25:57.938
Monica, I totally agree, and you're also touching on one of the reasons why, in the early stages of a company, I dislike having titles, titles, and my reason for that is because when you give somebody a title, they kind of conform what they are doing to what the title demands and instead I want them thinking from the point of view of like, hey, what does the company need and is there a way in which you can actually help solve that?
00:25:57.938 --> 00:26:03.415
And if it's outside of the scope of your title, that's totally okay for you to actually go do that.
00:26:03.415 --> 00:26:19.557
And so, yes, I definitely want that ability for people to go identify a problem, figure out how to solve it and have the initiative and the agency to actually go and solve it.
00:26:19.557 --> 00:26:23.027
Those are the key skills that I love to see in people.
00:26:23.700 --> 00:26:27.924
You see so many of these companies scale from beyond product market fit.
00:26:27.924 --> 00:26:43.001
I know at Enjoy the Work we focus on helping founders become CEOs as the company scales right and the idea behind that is how do you learn general management, functional management and self-management, so things like you mentioned in delegation.
00:26:43.001 --> 00:26:47.636
As you see the founders who are listening move from product market fit.
00:26:47.636 --> 00:26:53.038
You know that, zero to one phase to one to 10, where it's building repeatable, scalable processes.
00:26:53.038 --> 00:26:58.896
What two or three skills do you think are most useful for them to pick up and learn right away?
00:26:59.157 --> 00:27:07.762
The ability for somebody to kind of identify what they know and what they don't know is important.
00:27:07.762 --> 00:27:25.558
And I guess this goes towards the whole learning to learn approach that if you can identify like, yes, this is an area that I know and this is an area that I don't have the expertise in and we need to bring in somebody from outside to help in this area, I think that really helps founders to grow.
00:27:25.558 --> 00:27:29.667
But that's even looking at it from a functional point of view.
00:27:29.667 --> 00:27:45.682
But I think a lot of the growth in founders that needs to happen is more at an emotional level and it's really kind of understanding that at every stage of the company you're going to be faced with new and different problems.
00:27:45.682 --> 00:27:50.586
Right, and Monica, I'm going to channel one of our favorite people over here.
00:27:50.775 --> 00:27:55.586
So Eugenio from Auth0, eugenio Pace, who's the co-founder and CEO of Auth0.
00:27:55.586 --> 00:28:03.294
I mean, I was talking to him recently and I'm very honored to have him on my board at HiHello, so I get to talk to him recently and I'm very honored to have him on my board at HiHello, so I get to talk to him frequently.
00:28:03.294 --> 00:28:19.642
He made the point that, look, as you grow as a company, as a CEO, you are essentially being given the hardest problems to solve, because if it was a problem that was simple to solve, then somebody on your team would have already solved it.
00:28:19.642 --> 00:28:34.557
And so as you scale in a company, inherently the problems that you are going to be dealing with are going to be the more difficult problems, right, and you just have to come to terms with it and understand it and realize that.
00:28:34.598 --> 00:28:47.864
Yes, that is part of the journey of scaling a company, and the emotional growth that I see happen in founders over time and the maturity that they achieve over time like it is phenomenal.
00:28:47.864 --> 00:28:52.135
To see that and how quickly it happens is also astounding.
00:28:52.135 --> 00:28:55.604
I mean, I see this in folks like Logan and John at Lyft.
00:28:55.604 --> 00:28:57.567
I see it in Eugenio at Auth0.
00:28:57.567 --> 00:29:07.182
I see it in AJ at Everlaw Like they have matured and become better versions of themselves through the journey of actually running a company.
00:29:07.603 --> 00:29:26.074
One thing about at least the founders on that list, like AJ and Eugenia, that I know they started out as great people and humble and smart but hungry and passionate people, but I think that helps them go on that journey.
00:29:26.094 --> 00:29:29.303
Because the journey you're talking about is a crazy difficult one.
00:29:29.303 --> 00:29:32.538
I know you guys know it and I know it.
00:29:32.538 --> 00:29:54.244
That's emotional journey of the emotional development and the emotional maturity that you have to have with your ego and like being keeping your ego in check and kind of not getting defensive when things have to change, because what worked to get you here is not what works, you know, to get you there and all of those things.
00:29:54.244 --> 00:30:18.608
It's, I think it's the hard inside work that you have to do to go on that journey and like I found that doing that all that hard inside work paid dividends for me in all kinds of aspects of my life as a mom, it paid dividends as a sister, as a wife, as all the roles in which we play in our lives.
00:30:18.608 --> 00:30:26.767
I think that emotional growth and all that work you do really does pay off, but it's definitely not easy.
00:30:27.576 --> 00:30:41.739
Exactly, it is not an easy journey and I joke that I hate roller coasters, but running a startup is a roller coaster every single day, so I am doing something I hate every single day.
00:30:41.739 --> 00:30:57.066
From that point of view, Tell us about HiHello.
00:30:57.385 --> 00:31:01.750
We want to hear all about it, so I started HiHello in 2018.
00:31:02.210 --> 00:31:25.839
And one of the things that I have been a big fan of over the course of all the companies that I've been involved with is creating a new market, and I define a new market as a market in which things have not been happening at scale before, and so with HiHello, we've essentially created a whole new category of B2B SaaS.
00:31:25.839 --> 00:31:47.924
It's a software platform for creating, managing and distributing digital business cards, email signatures, virtual backgrounds, right and so the idea here is that companies can essentially come to us by a SaaS platform for creating their cards and managing them all throughout the process.
00:31:47.924 --> 00:31:59.842
We started out by creating a platform that was designed for individuals, and companies came to us and essentially told us can you solve this problem for us at scale?
00:31:59.842 --> 00:32:04.337
So we are now working with thousands of companies all around the world.
00:32:04.337 --> 00:32:09.087
Our customers tend to be companies that are outside of the tech industry.
00:32:09.087 --> 00:32:21.761
As somebody who's been in tech, I have been so myopic and so focused on the tech industry that I didn't realize how large the opportunity is outside of the tech industry.
00:32:21.962 --> 00:32:32.988
Given the rise in Zoom calls, but for all the companies that were not used to it, I guess they're getting the virtual backgrounds that are kind of branded with the company.
00:32:32.988 --> 00:32:34.862
Is that what's happening, correct?
00:32:35.457 --> 00:32:36.903
So, yeah, there's three different parts.
00:32:36.903 --> 00:32:43.462
First thing, if you meet somebody in person, you're able to give them your digital business card that is on brand.
00:32:43.462 --> 00:32:45.943
It is showing the company's brand directly.
00:32:45.943 --> 00:32:51.406
The company is actually in control of the information that is on that digital business card.
00:32:51.406 --> 00:32:59.808
And when you create a new contact on the platform, that contact flows directly into the company's CRM.
00:32:59.808 --> 00:33:06.444
And I mention that because for most of us in tech, we look at it as, yeah, let's just connect on LinkedIn, right.
00:33:06.915 --> 00:33:15.286
But what happens when you connect with somebody on LinkedIn is that, first, the information on LinkedIn is controlled by the individual and not by the company, right.
00:33:15.286 --> 00:33:26.605
And second, when you connect with somebody on LinkedIn, that's a personal connection and that connection is not really getting put into the company's assets in that situation.
00:33:26.605 --> 00:33:42.328
So a lot of companies, when they've realized that, oh, we have all of these people out in the field who are meeting new people, potential new clients, how do we actually collect that information and make sure that it gets into the company's CRM system?
00:33:42.328 --> 00:33:44.383
So that's what HiHello is doing.
00:33:44.383 --> 00:33:52.646
And then we also do this with email signatures, so making sure that every single person in the company has a consistent email signature.
00:33:52.646 --> 00:34:03.027
And then we also do this with virtual backgrounds, that even if you're meeting somebody on Zoom, they can see the company's brand and your identity clearly in that meeting as well.
00:34:03.027 --> 00:34:10.958
If one of those connections turns into another business, deal like HiHello has paid for itself many times over by that happening.
00:34:11.159 --> 00:34:11.780
Well, no, I know.
00:34:11.780 --> 00:34:15.396
I mean, I remember sending my team out to events.
00:34:15.396 --> 00:34:23.137
We were in the legal tech field and we would go to these conferences and events and you would, you know, meet people and they would meet the most.
00:34:23.137 --> 00:34:26.755
They'd come back and write these trip reports, but they met the most amazing people.
00:34:26.755 --> 00:34:40.119
And then you were like, how do we the company you know make sure we develop a relationship with this that's ongoing and there wasn't a good way other than you know them, sort of remembering to manually put them in.
00:34:40.119 --> 00:34:41.001
And then where do we?
00:34:41.001 --> 00:34:43.989
How do we then keep in touch with that person?
00:34:44.494 --> 00:34:55.003
You know, there's a lot to figure out and a lot to do manually, no a lot of our customers will come in right before they're about to go to an event, right, and they're like, oh, what do we do about business cards?
00:34:55.003 --> 00:34:57.976
Right, and then they're looking for, like, oh, is there?
00:34:57.976 --> 00:35:05.425
It's 2024, are we still to go out and print paper business cards, or is there something better out there?
00:35:05.425 --> 00:35:09.893
So that's how they end up finding HiHello and they will come in, they will create their cards.
00:35:09.893 --> 00:35:11.561
We can get them up and running in a day.
00:35:11.561 --> 00:35:25.376
Then every single connection that their team collects at the conference is automatically flowing back into their CRM, flowing back into their CRM.
00:35:25.376 --> 00:35:41.043
And, especially for companies that want to show that they have a green side to them and they're being sustainable companies, they definitely prefer using digital cards rather than using paper cards Because, right in that initial interaction, you're sending a message saying that, yes, we are a company that is focused on sustainability.
00:35:41.465 --> 00:35:51.099
In that interaction, Manu, you've been sort of on the front end of a lot of these new markets and new categories over the years as investor or founder.
00:35:51.099 --> 00:35:57.338
Like for me, it's just a super exciting time with some of the things that are happening in tech.
00:35:57.338 --> 00:36:02.949
If you had to pick up a couple of things that you're excited about over the next five to 10 years, what are those?
00:36:03.255 --> 00:36:26.099
So I am very excited about the applications of AI, but I am being very cautious about it as well, because just how quickly things are moving, things are changing very, very rapidly and especially when I look at the stage at which I usually look at companies, it's like again two people in an idea stage.
00:36:26.099 --> 00:36:33.340
The technology for AI and the state of the art is controlled essentially by the big boys.
00:36:33.340 --> 00:36:44.349
I'm being very cautious there about what's the opportunity for a founding team to take in that direction, but overall, like what the technology can do is mind blowing.
00:36:44.534 --> 00:36:45.880
No, it's mind blowing.
00:36:45.880 --> 00:36:51.286
It feels like, to some degree, these LLMs which are dominating AI right now.
00:36:51.286 --> 00:37:05.501
They almost remind me of semiconductor investments in that every other year you need a billion dollars of CapEx to just sort of keep this model up to date, and it feels like a race to the bottom in margins for me.
00:37:05.501 --> 00:37:17.356
I think what Tesla's doing with FSD is much more interesting and like how they're teaching the models to sort of mimic the top decile performances of humans and things.
00:37:17.356 --> 00:37:22.878
So I'm pretty optimistic about what's going on in the intersection of robotics and AI and things like that.
00:37:22.978 --> 00:37:23.844
I agree with Ned.
00:37:23.844 --> 00:37:25.130
It's like buying a fab.
00:37:25.130 --> 00:37:26.135
Are you going to build a fab?
00:37:26.135 --> 00:37:27.398
How many people are going to build a fab?
00:37:27.398 --> 00:37:29.204
Nobody's going to build a fab, so okay.
00:37:29.204 --> 00:37:32.021
So then that's a big money problem for the LLMs.
00:37:32.021 --> 00:37:35.710
But what about the application of these LLMs?
00:37:35.710 --> 00:37:40.282
Do you think about how to think about what tasks are the right ones?
00:37:40.922 --> 00:37:43.168
I mean, I'll give you some simple examples.
00:37:43.168 --> 00:38:02.427
So one of my portfolio companies is actually a company called Agenda Hero, and what they have done is just made it delightfully simple in order to take any email that you receive with a schedule or an agenda in it and convert it into putting it onto your calendar.
00:38:02.427 --> 00:38:13.126
Right, like how many of us are sitting there every single day taking stuff from an email or from a school schedule and trying to simply get it onto our calendar?
00:38:13.126 --> 00:38:13.487
Right?
00:38:13.487 --> 00:38:17.385
And when I think about the billions of people who are doing this every single day?
00:38:17.385 --> 00:38:18.266
Right?
00:38:18.266 --> 00:38:24.929
And so what this company has done has focused in just on that little tiny niche of a problem.
00:38:24.929 --> 00:38:35.764
They're using AI to actually solve the problem, and it's amazing, like you can take an entire school calendar and just push it over to Agenda Hero and it gives you.
00:38:35.764 --> 00:38:38.800
Okay, do you want to add these 20 events to your Google calendar?
00:38:38.800 --> 00:38:40.844
Like yes's exactly.
00:38:40.844 --> 00:38:42.876
Like I don't have to do it manually.
00:38:42.876 --> 00:38:44.661
Like that's exactly what I want, right?
00:38:44.661 --> 00:38:45.021
You've?
00:38:45.043 --> 00:38:47.076
just gotten a new customer for that company.
00:38:47.076 --> 00:39:01.300
So you've got to tell me I do that all the time Georgiana was our executive producer, Georgiana, was just telling Ned about how good I am at calendar management, but I spend enormous amounts of time doing exactly what you just described.
00:39:01.519 --> 00:39:11.963
Now that is taking a very, very pointed and focused approach at solving a particular problem that has been plaguing us for decades.
00:39:11.963 --> 00:39:13.146
At this point right.
00:39:13.146 --> 00:39:19.248
So that's an example of like, yes, what they have done in using AI and fine-tuning things.
00:39:19.248 --> 00:39:29.875
They've done a brilliant job of it, and the AI is just one piece of it, but then it's also about all the scaffolding that goes along with it in terms of how do you actually connect this into something to make it useful?
00:39:29.875 --> 00:39:34.844
The joke used to be that, oh, the knowledge workers are going to win.
00:39:34.844 --> 00:39:48.065
I think sorry, but the knowledge workers are the ones who are going to be impacted the most by AI, and when you need somebody to do something in construction or plumbing or electrical like, those jobs are here to stay.
00:39:49.106 --> 00:39:55.096
I hear you're trying to disrupt some of that industry too by doing things yourself, yes, in a do-it-yourself way.
00:39:55.096 --> 00:40:07.242
You know you talked a little bit about arriving at school and being around smart people and, and Sejal and Georgiana, and I would call that a masterstroke moment.
00:40:07.242 --> 00:40:12.322
So masterstroke people ask us all the time like why did you name it masterstroke?
00:40:12.322 --> 00:40:14.793
And I don't think there are these.
00:40:14.793 --> 00:40:29.655
You know there is no just one masterstroke that kind of makes you successful, right, but I do think there are these little moments and you talked about it all the little moments that you made this decision or that decision and you went down that path.
00:40:29.655 --> 00:40:32.081
How do you think you get comfortable with that?
00:40:32.081 --> 00:40:36.860
And get comfortable with, like the pits in your stomach you feel, and all of that, if I reflect?
00:40:36.920 --> 00:40:38.992
back to that moment.
00:40:38.992 --> 00:40:39.894
For me it was.
00:40:39.894 --> 00:40:48.931
It was very much one of like okay, I don't have a choice here, I've got to work way harder in order to keep up and to be able to succeed here.
00:40:48.931 --> 00:40:50.936
And that was just a.
00:40:50.936 --> 00:40:54.523
It was a visceral decision, right, and it was like, okay.
00:40:54.523 --> 00:41:05.925
That's when I kind of decided, like, okay, I'm going to wake up early and I'm going to go to bed late and I'm going to put in the work, right, and, monica, you may remember, the Carnegie Mellon slogan of my heart is in the work.
00:41:05.925 --> 00:41:08.431
I mean, that's what a lot of us walked away with.
00:41:09.132 --> 00:41:20.376
And when I think back to that today, I welcome an environment where people are smarter than I am, because it gives me an opportunity to learn.
00:41:20.376 --> 00:41:27.114
And in fact, for me, even going back to Stanford for a PhD was literally one of those.
00:41:27.114 --> 00:41:40.722
It was that same decision because it was like, okay, I'm not the type of person who's going to go sit on a beach I would be bored within a few hours and I want to go camp out amongst the smart people and learn stuff.
00:41:40.722 --> 00:41:49.840
And so, after doing two companies, I went back for a PhD, because it was that I wanted to be amongst the smart people and learn from them.
00:41:49.840 --> 00:41:53.679
And it wasn't only about learning technical things.
00:41:53.679 --> 00:41:57.369
It's also about broadening your horizon and learning about other things.
00:41:58.572 --> 00:42:09.195
I was taking classes in psychology and attending the social psychology seminar and I was learning to play piano and things like that psychology seminar and I was learning to play piano and things like that.
00:42:09.195 --> 00:42:18.922
So just like, just like this going back to that learning to learn thing is is what is like super, super critical for me, and I try to tell the same thing to my kids Like I actually want them to fail more often.
00:42:18.922 --> 00:42:23.945
We don't allow people to fail, we don't give them negative feedback.
00:42:23.945 --> 00:42:26.112
It's all about positive reinforcement.
00:42:26.112 --> 00:42:34.034
And then at some point, when somebody ends up in a situation where they are getting negative feedback, it's like, oh my gosh, the whole world is falling apart.
00:42:34.034 --> 00:42:43.432
And so I think grit is important to learn, and there is no substitute for how you learn grit.
00:42:43.432 --> 00:42:45.233
You just have to learn it from experience.
00:42:56.603 --> 00:43:07.376
I'm going to ask you a question that I'm going to guess, based on what I know of your personality you haven't given much thought to but I'm going to ask you to think about it.
00:43:07.396 --> 00:43:08.097
What do you want your legacy to be?
00:43:08.097 --> 00:43:09.159
You're right, I have not thought about it.
00:43:09.159 --> 00:43:10.945
I'm still building stuff at the moment.
00:43:10.945 --> 00:43:22.597
I've joked with my wife that once I am done with startups and investing, I just want to have 12 golden retrievers.
00:43:22.597 --> 00:43:34.875
So yeah, I actually don't have a good answer for you, monica, I haven't thought about that.
00:43:34.875 --> 00:43:41.253
Um, I also look at it as like um, if I was thinking about that, it would feel uncomfortable to me because it would feel a little bit vain.
00:43:41.253 --> 00:43:44.039
Who the heck am I like?
00:43:44.039 --> 00:43:48.788
I am one human being on a planet of like 8 billion people in a galaxy.
00:43:48.788 --> 00:43:49.570
That's like massive.
00:43:49.570 --> 00:43:55.554
And okay, just do what you do and hope it all turns out well.
00:44:02.025 --> 00:44:02.344
All right.
00:44:02.344 --> 00:44:10.317
Well, thank you so much to Manu Kumar of K9 Ventures and the CEO and founder of HiHello, which we learned all about.
00:44:10.317 --> 00:44:12.958
Thanks so much for being here with us today.
00:44:12.958 --> 00:44:14.836
It was really great to have you.
00:44:14.836 --> 00:44:23.454
Both Ned and I have admired you for so long, and so it's just wonderful to have some time to chat with you and share with our audience some of your journey.
00:44:23.956 --> 00:44:24.639
Thank you, monica.
00:44:24.639 --> 00:44:26.179
It's been an absolute delight.
00:44:26.179 --> 00:44:38.239
I have a lot of respect and admiration for what you have done with your company, with your role as chairman of the board at Auth0, and with now what you're doing with the podcast.
00:44:38.239 --> 00:44:46.684
It has been phenomenal to watch and I am delighted to be part of your periphery and your network and learn from that, and, ned, of your periphery and your network and learn from that.
00:44:46.684 --> 00:44:59.097
And, ned, you have been an inspiration for me from when I was probably 20 years old, and so it's been an honor to have you here and to be able to chat with you again.
00:44:59.478 --> 00:45:00.121
It always mutual.
00:45:00.590 --> 00:45:04.858
Well and thank you so much to Ned for joining me while Sejal was away.
00:45:04.858 --> 00:45:07.398
It is so fun to co-host with you.
00:45:07.398 --> 00:45:16.695
I knew immediately when we had you on the show that I just love talking to you and I could have had you, have you, we could have you on all the time because it's so fun to have you here.
00:45:16.996 --> 00:45:17.559
Thanks, Monica.
00:45:17.710 --> 00:45:18.835
Thank you for listening today.
00:45:18.835 --> 00:45:20.938
We would love for you to follow and subscribe.
00:45:20.938 --> 00:45:23.157
Monica and Sejal would love to hear from you.
00:45:23.157 --> 00:45:27.641
You can text us directly from the link in the show notes of this episode.
00:45:27.641 --> 00:45:33.992
You can also find us on the LinkedIn page at Masterstroke Podcast with Monica Enid and Sejo Petrzak.
00:45:33.992 --> 00:45:35.056
Until next time.