The Process: Entrepreneurship Globally (Ep. 4)

Dr. Michael Gervais (0:20)

All right, welcome to The Process. Alex, great to connect with you again.

Alex Fiance (0:23)

How's it going, Mike?

Dr. Michael Gervais (0:24)

Yeah, it's great. I know you've been ripping and running, and you've been in the trenches building your business. And so, just as a quick little recap, we've been through a lot in our three episodes that we've been together. And so, just a quick little background. On the first episode, we got to some background of you and your company and how you guys formed your mission.

And then on the second episode, we learned about Kairos and the process and the criteria for selecting companies and how they communicate internally to come to a decision, how you guys are doing that. And that was a great discussion about making hard decisions.

And then in the last episode, we got a first person insight from one of your founders and it was Rad. And we learned some really great things from Tim and his company. So for me, this has been a joy and I'm loving pulling back the curtain and learning how you as a businessman are making decisions and how you're supporting other businesses to be able to grow as well. So can you bring me up to speed like some of the stuff you've been wrestling with or doing in the last couple of weeks since we last connected?

Alex Fiance (1:26)

Yeah, look at a high level, I think what's fascinating for us about this is just diving deeper into how, you know, diving deeper into the psyche of the entrepreneur. Right?

I think for us, you know, as a relatively new fund, we're having to make decisions faster and faster than ever as more people learn about us. So, you know, the pace and the cadence of everything is changing fast. I, in terms of what we've been up to, I mean, there's a couple of things. We were named one of entrepreneurs, 100 Most Brilliant Companies last week, which is a really cool thing for our team because, you know, it just, it reinforces that what we're doing is bigger than just venture capital.

Dr. Michael Gervais (2:07)

I love it. So wait a minute, I'm not the first one to recognize that you're special?

Alex Fiance (2:12)

No, you were first, you were first.

Dr. Michael Gervais (2:13)

Thank you, all right, you guys are on it. Yeah, that's rad, congratulations. And why, what did they recognize as being a brilliant company? Like what were the criteria? What were the things that they saw about you?

Alex Fiance (2:26)

The specific context was, you know, building and funding solutions based on proven market needs as opposed to speculative, potential needs or wants. So, you know, I mean, we've talked about this in the first couple of episodes, I think a very important part of investing is kind of betting on where you think the future is going to go. But, you know, our thesis this whole time has been that, you know, a lot of funds and, you know, the traditional groups from Silicon Valley are ignoring the really urgent pressing needs which are also huge business opportunities, which is why we've themed a lot of we've done around, you know, existing needs, the cost of living, cost of childcare, care for the aging population, things like that.

So, I think the specific thing they were recognizing was that focus on the urgent needs and kind of working backwards from that.

Dr. Michael Gervais (3:17)

That's awesome. Yeah. So, instead of speculating that this is what I think country needs or then a global rhythm needs that you're basically saying, hey, listen, these are real needs and we're going to find people that have solutions for real needs. Exactly.

And then, okay, so a quick little thought, where did you identify that creating companies that had needs, real needs, was a better business model than what many people do saying, hey, I've got a great creative idea. I think people really like this. Why did you go the direction that you went?

Alex Fiance (3:53)

I think we just saw a gap and also a really clear way to measure the efficacy of our time and the capital we're deploying, right?

So, as an example, we've talked about the security deposit company.

We co-founded a company that is getting rid of the upfront cost of rent, aka the security deposit. And now, we can very clearly say that 50,000 units in New York no longer require a security deposit, which is millions of dollars back in a consumer's pocket. So for our team, it's a really clear way. In the investing world, especially early stage investing, you really don't know whether you're going to get a financial return for 5 to 8 years. That's the average. So for us to be able to quantify immediate impact and ROI for the consumer, I think is a key part of our mission, and I think it's how we wanted to spend our time.