Niki Scevak - Wild Hearts and Wild Ideas

**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, methods, stories, and of strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. You can learn more and stay up to date at investorfieldguide.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:40)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:05)
My guest today is Niki Scevak, co-founder and partner at Blackbird Ventures. Blackbird is a leading VC firm in Australia and New Zealand and has invested in companies like graphic design platform Canva and autonomous vehicle company Zoox.
Our conversation covers the types of wild ideas that Blackbird invests in, the landscape of venture and startups in Australia and New Zealand, and everything Niki knows about gross margins and customer acquisition. We also introduce a new concept on the show I'm calling Breakdowns, where we dive into a single business, what it does, how it operates, and what makes it tick. I hope you enjoy this great conversation.
So Niki, I love the idea right at the top of your website that says invest in wild hearts with the wildest ideas right at the beginning. This is your mission statement and I'd love to pick it apart piece by piece. So first, welcome. What is a wild heart?

**Niki Scevak** (2:54)
A wild heart is someone who is doing their life's work. And I think all of the great businesses of our time started with this great mission that takes decades to accomplish. And it's really looking for that type of person that is willing to solve a big problem over a long period of time. And I think also the sort of concept of someone not from central castings. So you look at all of the most valuable companies in the world.
At the beginning, the founder was not a qualified CEO. And in fact, they most had barely finished university or just finished university. Google just finished university, Microsoft and Facebook didn't finish university. And so the word wild references that typically people do not look like they're from central casting. And we would much rather invest in someone who is hungry rather than proven.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:38)
I love the idea of somebody doing their life's work. It makes perfect sense why you would want that, the endurance and the great perseverance that probably comes with that.
But how do you identify something like that, especially if a person is very young? How do you know you might have found someone doing their life's work?

**Niki Scevak** (3:54)
I think it comes in the clues of how they've spent their time before starting the company. As an example, Canva and Melanie, the CEO, her life's work has been about democratizing design, allowing everyone to create great design. And before the formation of Canva, she taught design at university. She had started a business with her partner, Cliff, and fellow co-founder at Canva, Fusion Books, which was a high school yearbook business that allowed high school students and teachers and parents to collaborate and create high school yearbooks. And so you see these sort of clues of how people have spent their time before even starting the company.