Today's guest is Juan Scarlett, a technology-focused venture capital, strategic finance, and equity research professional. He is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of OneValley Ventures, an early-stage investor in dynamic founders emerging from the OneValley ecosystem and its partners.

Juan talked about his practical upbringing that led him to follow the most practical path in his education and career and eventually to venture capital. He also shared his experiences at Haas, what made him interested in investing and venture capital and his work at OneValley Ventures.

We also discussed why investors should break the status quo and go outside their networks and invest in underrepresented and underserved founders.

Episode Quotes:

On growing up in a hardworking and practical family

We really worked hard to make sure that we had everything that we needed and, maybe, a few of the things that we wanted. And for those other things you wanted, it was very clear that, from a very early age, you have to go make your own money to do those things.

Why he left investment banking

It's great money. It's got to be a good experience. It'd look great on my resume. But I know I'm not going to enjoy it. I know I won't love it. And so, I just decided (to leave).

I already learned that doing something that you don't enjoy was not going to be fulfilling for you or for the company that you were doing it for.

On breaking the status quo to help minorities develop pathways into VC  

During 2022 and '21, during the racial justice movement, we started to see that people were much more willing to take that chance to invest in minority founders, ones that they didn't know or came outside of their networks. We started to take that chance. But there wasn't a follow-through, necessarily, in 2022.

And so, I think you still have to just continuously remind people that that issue is still there and that it does require a little bit more work to find interesting startup opportunities to invest in outside of your small-ish network, and really develop broader top of funnel with the mindset, "Well, if I want to find these minority-led startups where they are, I have to be there, too."

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