Sue Xu, Amino Capital Managing Partner on Data Moat Investing

**Grace Gong** (0:01)
Well, I could like, one sec. Of course, there's some sort of like technology difficulties on a technical podcast. But anyway, okay, we're live. Hi Sue, welcome to Venture with Grace.

**Sue Xu** (0:15)
Thank you for having me.

**Grace Gong** (0:17)
I'm so excited about our conversation. But before we dive in, I want to give a quick shout out to our amazing sponsor.
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Okay. I wanted to start with your career journey because honestly, I feel like I'm so impressed by Amino Capital's amazing portfolio. You guys are like Turing, Riplet, Rippling, Grail, Wee, Webflow, Chime, among many others, and you were a founding CEO of your own company, Candy House. Maybe we could talk about what were some core lessons I learned early on in your career shaping into who you are today.

**Sue Xu** (1:17)
Yeah, so I was actually in Stanford Medical School laboratory and doing research. And then I always believe that scientific research and venture capital are really not to completely separate paths. And so the ultimate goal is actually trying to answer the same question. How do we actually turn a good idea into a product that can actually change the world?
So when I was at school, of course, I talked to professors and I had other training in the laboratory. But really, my attention was actually Aaron Lee. He was the founding partner of Amino. And he was among many investors and came to Stanford, treated us with pizza and telling his life story within one hour.
And then I kind of learned and then so I started to actually feel comfortable. So when Candy House came out in the laboratory from Stanford, I feel like, oh, this is the product really blew my mind and really wanted to actually work with Jeremy. And so Amino invested in the company and then I became the CEO.

**Grace Gong** (2:35)
Amazing. So Candy House is basically, I guess like, it is, okay, so when you leave your house, there's like phone and wallet. So like, okay, so do you want to tell us more about like the company and then, you know, maybe how it kind of like shape you into like the VC you are today?

**Sue Xu** (2:57)
Oh, sure. So Candy House is a company that actually more like back then, you know, there was a Lockitron, there is some other kind of like tools. It's more, basically, it's more like a robotic arm. So it doesn't require any lock changes, that doesn't require any people that actually manually change a lock. So a actually very low cost. So the magic is basically the robotic arm. So there is no drill, no true fitting, and the lock is designed for renters and apartment drillers. So it typically mount directly over an existing doors, some term using very strong 3D tape. And then, so anybody can just put on top of your dial bio, meaning that you do not have to unscrew or replace your current door hardware. So that was actually during the more like a Kickstarter kind of like time window.
So I think we actually pitched to Amino. Amino invested over 300,000.
We are, Amino was sole investor back then.
And then Jeremy were able, Jeremy originally from Taiwan. And then he actually managed the supply chain. And then he actually managed the kind of like movie shooting. And then we got the best of the best, you know, like movie shooting kind of like crew for Kickstarter. And then, so suddenly, you know, it was actually the heat during the mass. And I think we raised over 1.4, more than 1.4 million dollars. That was free money, grand money, but it's a pledge money. So you were meant to deliver. And then during that process, you know, having a good idea is really, really cool, but delivery is such a challenge. And then, so me and Jeremy, so Jeremy went back to Taiwan. And then, so he actually will drop out from Stanford Laboratory, but he did his Morrigan undergrad at the Taiwan National University. So he went back to Taiwan and then dropped out of the whole supply chain. And then eventually, what was really surprising and really kind of like satisfying for both of us is that Candy House, we actually delivered to all the kind of like pledged users on Kickstarter. So that was like, more like hundreds of thousands of people. So that was amazing experiences and people had really good review.