Investor Stories 496: Three Lessons for the Next Generation of VCs: Find Your Edge, Build Your Network, Stay in the Game (Solomon, Vaidya, Chen)

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Now, on to the episode.

SPEAKER_2 (0:24)

Welcome to the podcast about Venture Capital, where investors and founders alike can learn how VCs make decisions and reach conviction. Your host is Nick Moran, and this is The Full Ratchet.

Nick Moran (0:40)

Welcome back to TFR.

SPEAKER_1 (0:42)

On today's special segment, we ask guests for the most important piece of advice that they'd share with folks early in their venture career. Here's the segment called Key Advice.

Nick Moran (0:57)

On today's special segment, we have Glenn Solomon of Notable. Glenn, if you could share one piece of advice with a young new investor, what would you tell them?

Glenn Solomon (1:06)

I see many early in career VCs believe that they can rely on intellect and hustle to win.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, those are table stakes in this game. To really succeed as a VC, you need a reliable and compounding edge. The good news is there's a lot of ways to create and develop an edge. But all the truly great VCs I've met and I've worked with, they have an arrow in their quiver that's truly differentiated.

Nick Moran (1:42)

Interesting.

Glenn Solomon (1:43)

This isn't easy and it really must be something that's native or endemic to you as a person. But having that edge is absolutely critical to becoming a great VC.

Nick Moran (2:01)

On today's special segment, we have Vivek Vaidya of Superset. Vivek, if you could share one piece of advice with a new founder, what would you tell them?

Vivek Vaidya (2:10)

When in doubt, keep building, keep selling, because there's going to be a lot of doubt. That's one. The other thing I would say is take care of yourself, take care of your health, take care of your overall well-being. It's, the cliche goes, it's a marathon, not a sprint. It's really true. I've been on that side of the journey.

I've been in places where I was working nonstop, 16 hours a day, seven days a week and all of that. You might feel like you have the energy to do all of that, but resist the urge. Take some quiet time, spend time with yourself without all the gadgets and whatnot, and you'll realize you have a better company if you do that.

SPEAKER_1 (2:43)

Awesome.

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Head to ramp.com/partner/tfr to claim your $150 before the offer expires. Now back to the interview.

Nick Moran (3:23)

On today's special segment, we have John Chen of Fika. John, if you could share one piece of advice with a young new investor, what would you tell them?

John Chen (3:30)

Network density is probably the most important thing for a young investor and I was lucky enough to be a box at a time when the network was extremely dense. I did not know it at the time.

And I did not understand anything about VC. I didn't know I wanted to become one. But the people that were there at the time went off and they started great SaaS companies or they joined great SaaS companies. And it's not only about relying. I still lean on them today, not just for access to interesting new founders and companies, but also the unfair insights you might gain from knowing the head of marketing at XYZ company or the head of sales at XYZ company. And the diligence part actually is the more valuable I've found, where can you go call 10 heads of sales or 10 heads of marketing when you're diligently something in that category? And if you don't have that bench of people that you can go rely on to go get to the bottom of an idea, then you have to go build that up manually. And doing that in the investor seat is much harder than being embedded in a growth stage company where you're just naturally surrounded by all of these people. So I'd say if you want to become an investor, or maybe you're young enough in your investing career, hopping over to a growth stage company where there are enough people, unfortunately, it has to be probably a couple hundred people, for you to really get to know, embed yourself, those relationships you're going to carry over many times over. And again, I think that a lot of folks think the value of the operating experience is in the lessons you've learned in the actual day-to-day operating. And I think there are lessons there, and especially as it relates to founder empathy, et cetera. But those are end-of-one experiences, like the real exponential asset is the people you get to know, and the seeds you get to plant, that don't show up for many years afterwards.