Mitchell Green - Lessons from Cold Calling 10,000 Companies

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
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Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories, and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. If you enjoy these conversations and want to go deeper, check out Colossus, our quarterly publication with in-depth profiles of the people shaping business and investing. You can find Colossus along with all of our podcasts at colossus.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:15)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of PositiveSum. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of PositiveSum. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of PositiveSum may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. To learn more, visit PSUMVC.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:43)
My guest today is Mitchell Green, the founder of Lead Edge Capital. When I think about Lead Edge, I sort of think about this giant money machine that Mitchell and his two partners have designed over the last 15 plus years to make remarkably consistent investment returns for their clients. They have all sorts of unique aspects to the machine that they built, whether that's their collection of LPs, their eight point criteria for how they select companies, the way they do cold calls, the way they construct their portfolio. This is just a totally different way of approaching markets. They're trying to hit singles and doubles and deliver very consistent returns. Mitchell says it's really important in life to be memorable. That's just a great simple thing that you can do. I think you'll find listening to Mitchell today and him talk about his entire machine and the firm that he's built, that he himself is extremely memorable. I hope you enjoy learning about his business.
So the first time that I heard about Lead Edge Capital was the very famous list of what companies report, starting with cash profits. And then if they don't have cash profits and you go down this very funny list.

**Mitchell Green** (3:43)
That's hierarchy of bullshit.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:45)
And the bottom one is the place that's voted the best place to work in New York City or something.

**Mitchell Green** (3:49)
Absolutely.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:50)
Where did that list come from? Why did you put that together?

**Mitchell Green** (3:52)
We've always found that the best way to communicate with our audiences, which is entrepreneurs and also our LPs, our clients effectively, is to write a recorded letter about a different topic. And I started my career called Coin Companies and that's the way we source deals. But when you start your career talking to, I think Brian and I probably spoke to like 10,000 companies.