E86: Inside Mischief VC's Evolution with Zach Perret and Lauren Farleigh

Erik Torenberg (0:03)

Welcome back to Turpentine VC, the podcast where we discuss the art and science of building successful venture firms, VC to VC. In today's episode, I speak with Mischief VC's Lauren Farleigh and Zach Perret, who discuss how they've leveraged their founder experiences to build a differentiated VC firm. Zach is the co-founder and current CEO of Plaid, and Lauren was the founder of Dote Shopping. Up ahead, you'll hear their approach to sourcing deals, supporting founders, and unique firm infrastructure. Please enjoy. Before we get to today's episode, please note, this information is for general educational purposes only, and is not a recommendation to buy, hold, or sell any investment or financial product. Turpentine is an acquisition of A16Z Holdings LLC, and is not a bank, investment advisor, or broker-dealer. This podcast includes paid promotional advertisements, and individuals and companies featured or advertised during this podcast are not endorsing AH Capital or any of its affiliates, including but not limited to A16Z Perennial Management LP. Similarly, Turpentine is not endorsing affiliates, individuals, or any entities featured on this podcast. All investments involve risk, including the possible loss of capital. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, and the opinions presented cannot be viewed as an indicator of future performance. Before making decisions with legal, tax, or accounting effects, you should consult appropriate professionals. Information is from sources deemed reliable on the data publication, but Turpentine does not guarantee its accuracy. Now let's get started.

Lauren, Zach, welcome to Turpentine VC. Thanks for coming on.

Lauren Farleigh (1:36)

Thanks for having us.

Zach Perret (1:37)

Thanks for having us.

Erik Torenberg (1:38)

So, Lauren, let's start with you. For those who are unfamiliar with Mischief, why don't you give a brief background?

You have a 30 million fund one, you're now on an 80 million fund two. Why don't you tell the story of how Mischief came together?

Lauren Farleigh (1:49)

Yeah, for sure. Well, Zach and I had known each other for a very long time. We worked together right out of college. I went and started a company. Obviously, Zach started Plaid. I think while I started my company, I realized that the best people on the cap table were really other founders, folks who had done that zero to one journey. I think wanted to pay that forward, started angel investing in 2017, really enjoyed it. I think Zach started angel investing around the same time. We worked on a lot of deals together. I think pretty quickly realized that more than just paying it forward, there was really a market opportunity to institutionalize what we were doing. Still a relative rarity, I would say, in venture and particularly, I think at the earliest stages to find investors who have that zero to one true finding product market fit experience. That was really the spirit with which we launched Fund One in 2021 Now, I have scaled it to Fund Two, have added two more partners, both of who embodied that ethos that really drove us to start it in the first place.

Zach Perret (2:52)

The story I like to tell about the early days of Platte is, I started the company, I think it was 23 when I started the company. An amazing co-founder also equally inexperienced as me. I'd worked a year at Bain. I thought I knew everything about the world. It turns out I knew basically nothing about the world. We were fortunate to have these two really early angel investors who had founded big companies and were also just like, they were in it for the grind, they loved the building of companies and were willing to take a call on pretty much anything. They worked at a completely different industry than us. They had no idea about financial services. But I could call them to say like, hey, I'm struggling with this higher decision or I need to fire this person, or I have this crazy situation with a partner. Just the level of input that they gave was transformational to the company.

The inspiration for Mischief is we wanted to build the same thing. Oftentimes, it's just one call at a critical inflection point with someone that's been there before or they can lend the right ear, they can give you the right advice to meaningfully change the trajectory of the company. It's not to say we're only there for those moments. But really having someone that has been in the room where it happens to actually call when you find yourself in a very similar room, that was the inspiration for starting the firm.

Erik Torenberg (4:07)

Lauren, why don't you share more about what you guys invest in or how founders should think about Mischief in the market?