Voices of Women in Venture 🌊

In this episode, Anna talks to us about her 10 year journey in Venture Capital, starting at Bessemer Ventures, where she found the unique opportunity of a venture firm willing to take a chance on a young woman, to CRV ventures where she currently works. She also gives details about her own firm LaunchX Ventures, a firm oriented towards teaching women how to fundraise, democratizing the tips and tricks previously disclosed only in certain exclusive circles. She closes with some advice for aspiring venture capitalists, emphasizing sourcing good deals over all else. 

Jules Miller knows what it is to be a legal tech entrepreneur. She is a three-time founder, twice of legal tech companies: Hire an Esquire in 2012 and Evolve Law in 2015. Now a partner in venture capital firm Mindset Ventures, she is leading her firm's expansion into legal tech investing, most recently with the Series A financing of legal marketplace Priori Legal.

On this episode of LawNext, Miller joins host Bob Ambrogi for a conversation about venture investing – in technology generally and in legal technology specifically. She discusses what she looks for in a founder, the types of companies and technologies that excite her, and how a founder can get her ear. She also talks about what VCs can do to increase diversity among founders.

Prior to joining Mindset in June, Miller was an executive at IBM, where she co-founded IBM Blockchain Ventures, launched and ran the IBM Blockchain Accelerator, and led the IBM Blockchain Garage for North America. Earlier, she was a partner at LunaCap Ventures, a venture debt fund investing in diverse founders, and was COO of gender lens investing pioneer BRAVA Investments. She is co-author of the forthcoming book, Designing the Successful Corporate Accelerator.

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Anna Whiteman, Vice President at Coefficient Capital. Coefficient Capital is a new venture capital fund that leads early growth investments in fast-moving consumer goods, typically investing in Series A and B rounds. So far they've invested in Just Spices, NomNom, Hydrant and Personal Care. Anna also founded Rad Ladies, a private network of female founders. Previously Anna worked at VMG on investments including Health Warrior and Vermont Smoke and Cure, and also at Tribeca Venture Partners and Credit Suisse.

One book that inspired Anna professionally is Stress Test by Ian Robertson. One book that inspired Anna personally is A Theory of Justice by John Rawls.

You can follow Anna on Twitter @AnnaWhiteman2. You can also follow your host, Mike, on Twitter @mikegelb. You can also follow for episode announcements @consumervc.

In this episode you will learn -

1. What attracted her to finance, consumer and startups? Anna walks through her diligence process at the Series A and Series B. What are some of the milestones that startups need to achieve? At what stage do DNVBs usually expand to offline retail? How does she think about subscription vs. non-subscription DNVB businesses? Is there a difference to how she approaches due diligence? How is she thinking about optimizing for profitability vs. growth in today’s landscape?
2. What she think about the future of online advertising? What is Rad Ladies? What are some changes in consumer behavior that she’s focusing on? I’ve heard some folks say on this show it’s a contrarian time to be investing in consumer. Why do some folks think that and does she believe it? What is one thing that she would change when it came to venture capital?
3. What is a company that is on her anti-portfolio? What (if any) lessons did she learn from that? What is one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally? What is your most recent investment and what makes you excited about it? What’s one piece of advice for B2C founders?

Elizabeth Yin is Co-Founder & General Partner at Hustle Fund, a pre-seed focused firm based in the Bay Area. Appropriately named, Elizabeth and her team truly epitomize the word hustle. She and her co-founder Eric raised $11.5MM Hustle Fund I in the fall of 2018 and more recently started investing out of a larger Fund II. The firm has a unique investment model that starts by investing $25K in each startups, and then by working closely with their entrepreneurs looks to upsize their commitments into select portfolio companies.

Previously, Elizabeth was a partner at 500 Startups where she invested in seed stage companies and ran the Mountain View accelerator. In a prior life, Elizabeth co-founded and ran an ad-tech company called LaunchBit (acq 2014). Elizabeth has a BSEE from Stanford and an MBA from MIT Sloan.

In this episode, Elizabeth covers the following:

* What their journey in raising their first fund together was like.

* How broad their LP outreach was, and how they managed hundreds of LP conversations.

* The continuous nature of raising capital.

* The role of brand in venture.

* The thinking behind their unique portfolio construction model, and how they serve such a large group of portfolio companies.

* How to efficiently manage a firm amidst all the competing priorities.

* What she wishes she knew before she started Hustle Fund.

Mentioned in this episode:

* The Hustle Fund

* Elizabeth’s post “How I Raised my $11.5m VC Fund”

* Here’s her post on “11 Things I’ve learned from running a micro VC in the last year”

* Elizabeth’s post “How Do VCs Make Money?”

Hope you enjoy the episode, feel free to tweet or DM me @samirkaji your further questions from the show or other guests you think I should invite to the show under the hashtag #ventureunlocked. 

Jodi Sherman Jahic is a managing partner of Aligned Partners, a Silicon Valley-based venture fund investing in early-stage, enterprise technology companies that are have a lean toward capital efficiency.

Jodi has nearly 20 years of venture experience and started Aligned Partners in 2011 with her co-founder Susan Mason. A meticulous designer of market strategies and a fierce ally of entrepreneurial founders, Jodi is recognized for her thought leadership in go-to-market strategies. Aligned has raised a total of $125 million across three funds.

Prior to co-founding Aligned Partners, Jodi led the wireless sector for Voyager Capital and was co-founder and Managing Director of SCG, a pledge fund headquartered in San Francisco focusing on capital-efficient investments. 

Jodi was selected as an early Kauffman Fellow during her time at Battery Ventures. Previously, Jodi was on the founding team of three startups in North America and Europe, and she worked in the technology industry group at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). Jodi is co-author of a 2007 book on venture capital investing. She is also a proud founding member of All Raise, focusing on fostering gender diversity in venture capital and tech.

In this episode Jodi and I cover the following topics:

* How working at larger funds motivated her to start a small fund focused on capital-efficient startups.

* How she and her co-founder discovered that they’d work well together and how managers should think about partner selection

* Her thoughts on portfolio construction and why they use a concentrated strategy.

* The market incentives and social pressure to raise a large fund, and why they are committed to stay small.

* Why it is critical to maintain transparent communication with LPs, and how they do it.

* What could threaten the modest gains in gender equality in venture capital.

Mentioned in this episode:

* Aligned Partners

* Kauffman Fellows

* All Raise

I’d love to know what you took away from my conversations with Jodi; Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest, or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

In this episode, we talk to Joanna about the various opportunities she pursued that led her to business school. Joanna has an impressive amount of experience under her belt, starting off in marketing at RBI where she negotiated with franchises in South America to make the region more data driven and afterwards joining the smaller company Earshot where she was director of marketing. 
She became interested in VC because of the ability to work with dozens of entrepreneurs across industries and made the leap with a pre-MBA internship at S2G ventures. She lastly tells us about her interest in the Femtech industry and elaborates on what should be done to promote diversity in VC and how to best approach recruiting.

Nicole Quinn says "you can't be called Lightspeed and move slowly" and explains how they can get a term sheet done in 2-3 days.

My guest today is Samara Hernandez, founder of Chingona Ventures. Samara invests at the preseed and seed stages on industries that are massively changing and founders whose backgrounds uniquely position them to create businesses in growth markets that are often overlooked. We discuss how she analyzes overlooked opportunities, some of the differences when investing in consumer vs. enterprise, and Chicago.

A book that inspired Samara is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

You can also follow your host, Mike, on Twitter @mikegelb. You can also follow for episode announcements @consumervc.

Here's a few questions I ask Samara -

1. What initially attracted you to finance?
2. How did Chingona Ventures come together?
3. Why Chicago?
4. Walk me through your due diligence process.
5. Has it been harder to find conviction within founders during COVID since you have to meet with them remote?
6. You are a strong advocate of increasing diversity in tech. What is the key to making the startup ecosystem more diverse?
7. Where do you sit on the thematic vs. generalist spectrum and what is your approach to investing?
8. When you are talking with founders, is there a question that is most important that you ask?
9. What's your most recent (public) investment and what makes you excited about it?
10. What is one thing that you would change in venture capital?
11. What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
12. What's the best advice that you've received?
13. What's one piece of advice that you have for founders?

Richelle Martin was the first woman in Wisconsin to found a Venture capital fund when she founded the Winnow Fund. She has raised over 10 million dollars for the fund single handedly and is working to invest that money in early stage startups and ideas. 

Winnow Fund: winnowfund.com

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