0:00

So, yeah, McDonald's, it was. Oh, so

0:03

you did work at McDonald's? I did,

0:05

yeah. I flipped burgers. I

0:07

was a cashier. I was promoted really,

0:09

really fast because I was capable of

0:11

working like ridiculously long hours. And

0:14

he was telling me, you know, the big

0:17

problems of everything that exists today in the

0:20

society is because people don't dream big enough.

0:22

It's because they put a ceiling, like put

0:24

a hard cap on their ambitions. If

0:29

I had to pick up the laundry of

0:32

a managing partner in my firm on Sunday

0:34

night and deliver it on Monday, I'll do

0:36

it. I think the attitude and just this

0:39

desire to learn, there was two things that

0:41

allowed me to succeed within that specific company.

0:47

If you put your life into something

0:49

that has meaning to it, you are

0:51

dedicating ridiculous number of hours because not

0:53

a single million on the bank account

0:56

just magically showed up. You

0:58

have to work really hard to get it.

1:00

And it's better to do something that you're

1:02

really excited about and something that you initially

1:04

dreamed for yourself and then you made it

1:06

happen and then your wealth came after. Hi,

1:11

my name is Olga Maslikova. I

1:13

am 38 years old, actually just

1:15

turned 38, and I am based

1:17

in New York City. What

1:20

I do for a living is

1:22

tech investing and being

1:24

an entrepreneur in Latin

1:26

America. You do that all

1:28

the way from New York? I do

1:30

that all the way from New

1:33

York. I think COVID had such

1:35

incredible impacts on how we think

1:37

about work. Today, work is

1:39

where we want it to be. I

1:42

spent half of my time in New York

1:44

City and half of my time

1:46

in São Paulo, Brazil. What's

1:48

the name of your company or firm that you

1:50

invest in? The name of

1:52

my media platform that I'm building in

1:55

Latin America is the J-curve. In

1:57

addition to that, I'm an investor in all of Latin

1:59

America. over 16 early

2:01

stage tech companies in

2:04

US, Brazil, and virtually

2:06

all over the globe. And they

2:09

all have different names. My most

2:11

recent deals are companies named Sunny,

2:13

Beacon Founder, Cloud

2:16

Humans, and Nyquistatum.

2:19

And how do you find these companies that you invest

2:21

in? I've actually been doing that

2:23

for quite some time. I've been

2:26

investing both as an angel

2:28

and early stage VC since

2:30

2008. So

2:33

it's been over a cycle. And by

2:35

cycle, I mean 10 year fun period,

2:37

plus one, plus one. So I got

2:40

to build a pretty substantial network in

2:42

the industry of founders and partners who

2:44

know me well and refer me deals.

2:46

And that's how I get my deal

2:48

flow most of the time today. So

2:50

you're saying like you're an investor now, but at

2:53

one point you must have started a company, I

2:55

guess, in order to gain this much capital to

2:57

invest in all these companies. Is that what happened?

2:59

Or how did you get the backing of the

3:02

capital that you have to invest in all these

3:04

startups? Yeah, so first of

3:06

all, I wanna say that I've always been

3:08

a terrible corporate employee. I started my career

3:10

in 2008. And in

3:12

five years since I've been employed

3:15

by someone, I realized that the

3:17

corporate environment just doesn't really fit

3:19

my personality. So it was pretty

3:21

obvious that I would need to start something on

3:23

my own. And I was

3:25

really lucky to be part of one

3:28

of the most successful early stage VC firm back

3:30

in Russia where I was born and raised. And

3:33

just getting the flavor of

3:35

working with high performing, high

3:38

ambitious people who dream really

3:40

big and make really complex

3:42

things happen. It kind

3:44

of gave me a really great

3:47

understanding of what I wanna do. And

3:49

fastly forward, I started my first

3:51

fund in 2013, in

3:55

Singapore actually, to invest

3:57

in entrepreneurs, building businesses in

3:59

the market. markets and helping

4:01

them scale internationally. And the

4:03

first fund, I want to

4:05

say the first closing of

4:07

the fund was around $5

4:09

million, mostly

4:11

coming from high net worth individuals,

4:13

entrepreneurs who made money in tech

4:16

and who believe in the potential

4:18

of technology and who believe in

4:20

the potential of emerging market entrepreneurs.

4:24

And fast forward by 2017, the fund grew

4:26

from $5 million at under management to over

4:28

$70 million

4:33

at under management. 25

4:36

companies globally distributed. We invested

4:38

in things from alternative fuel,

4:41

the company called Zira Avia

4:43

that was backed by Bezos

4:45

after us to hardware cybersecurity

4:48

company that was called

4:50

Tertugologic, which is one of the

4:52

largest providers of hardware cybersecurity for

4:54

US space and defense today. So

4:57

it was a very successful fund.

4:59

We had several successful exits. And

5:02

simultaneously with that, I started

5:04

deploying really small cash as

5:07

an angel investor to start as an angel.

5:09

They actually don't need that much money. You

5:11

just need to be really lucky and have

5:13

some sort of decisions behind that activity. So

5:16

my thesis was joining Techstars as a

5:18

mentor and backing companies out

5:20

of Techstars that I found interesting or

5:23

I got to mentor. And

5:25

that's basically how it all started. First

5:27

capital came from high net worth individuals.

5:30

And then it's just really about how good

5:32

you are at what you do. Are

5:35

you good at what you do? I want

5:37

to say that I am pretty

5:39

good at what I do. Yeah. I

5:41

think that what makes you good versus

5:44

other ones are I guess your competition.

5:46

What would you call your role right now? I

5:49

want to say, well, there's multiple

5:51

roles when you're doing early stage

5:53

investing. But what I started with

5:56

was purely and still today entrepreneur

5:58

in venture capital, meaning that I'm

6:00

not purely fund manager. Fund manager is

6:02

the people who got paid out of

6:04

the management fee. I started my own

6:06

firm and I grew it actually hired

6:08

my first partner and build the team

6:10

and grew it to the

6:12

extent it was by 2017. So

6:15

I would call myself a founder for sure

6:18

and now with

6:20

the media platform that I'm building

6:22

today, it's even more true. It's

6:24

even more so. It's even more

6:27

about being an entrepreneur in tech

6:29

and venture capital. Well, I

6:31

guess before we kind of reel it back to

6:33

wherever you got started in your life as an

6:35

entrepreneur or even growing up, is there anything else

6:38

you think we should know about you overall before

6:40

we reel it back and understand your history? Probably

6:43

the good things to know would

6:45

be is that I've been living

6:47

across so

6:50

many different markets from

6:52

Russia to Singapore to

6:54

the United Kingdom to Massachusetts

6:57

to California to finally New

6:59

York and I've been

7:02

investing across Singapore India

7:04

UK European Union US

7:08

probably the only country I haven't done a deal would be Malaysia

7:11

Vietnam and China at

7:13

this point. Is there a

7:15

reason that you work in all these

7:17

countries? Do you just find it fun

7:19

or versus, you know, just investing in

7:22

US startups or maybe startups in Russia

7:24

or Latin America? So

7:26

I think that the very

7:28

purpose of tech is to drive

7:31

the improvements in human lives and

7:33

I think it's really important to

7:35

put things in perspective. When

7:37

you live in your own little bubble being

7:39

it, you know, Russia, Brazil or United States,

7:43

you don't really see much beyond your

7:45

zip code your community and VC

7:47

is a very long-term game. It's

7:50

over a decade game. So

7:52

you want to make sure that you have

7:54

very different perspective and when you build your

7:56

investment thesis or you build your conviction around

7:59

certain markets that you have so much

8:01

data in it. And I

8:03

think one market never provides enough

8:06

data in your decision making process.

8:09

Yeah. But is it hard to connect with all the people

8:11

all around the globe? Not if you

8:13

come from emerging markets. If you

8:15

come from emerging markets, I think

8:17

that's especially if you made it

8:19

out of the market like Russia,

8:21

which is a really hard market

8:24

and you made it on global

8:26

markets, the reason why you survive

8:28

and thrive on global markets is

8:30

because you're good at making connections

8:32

with new people, understanding new cultures,

8:34

understand a new perspective, understand the

8:36

different ways of doing business, very

8:38

different from the one where you're

8:41

coming from. So yeah. Well,

8:43

how are you able to connect with those

8:45

people? Do you just have them on your

8:47

media platform, the J-curve, or is there other

8:49

ways, I guess, even before you started J-curve,

8:52

was there other ways for you to easily

8:54

connect? It's never been

8:56

easy for me because I'm probably

8:58

the utmost version of an introvert

9:00

you can think about, but I

9:03

really love the industry. I really

9:05

love Finch Capital and I really

9:07

love working with early stage founders.

9:09

I think this love and passion

9:12

for the space, it overcame my

9:14

fear and lack of desire of building

9:16

relationships with people. I think it's just

9:19

about how better you want what you

9:21

want and what are you ready to

9:23

do for that? So for me, and

9:25

I think for a majority of people in

9:27

this specific industry, network is

9:30

number one tool of acquisitions

9:32

of companies, of building partnerships,

9:34

of pushing, you know, M&As

9:36

among portfolio and so on

9:38

and so forth. There's no

9:40

deal access if you don't

9:42

have the right network among

9:44

entrepreneurs and VCs alike. So

9:46

I'd say, I think

9:48

Brazil would be a really interesting

9:50

example because Brazil was a relatively

9:52

new market for me. I started

9:55

looking at Brazil from the Finch Capital perspective

9:57

in 2019 while I was in

9:59

Stanford. business school. I really

10:01

believe in Stanford's motto, change lives,

10:04

change organizations, change the world. So

10:06

after graduation, I wanted to do

10:08

something that was different from what

10:10

I've done before, but at

10:12

the same time, something that would

10:14

allow me to leverage all of

10:17

this experience that I've had operating

10:19

across many different markets, passion for

10:21

emerging markets, and desire to back

10:24

something that has a real big,

10:26

real life application. And

10:28

I first traveled to Brazil

10:31

in 2019 between Stanford classes, like three

10:33

days, brutal schedule, ready there, ready back.

10:35

And I fell in love with the

10:38

country potential, even though I didn't and

10:40

I still don't speak Portuguese. And

10:42

when I got back, I initially started leveraging

10:44

my Stanford community. There's so many Brazilians in

10:47

Stanford. So it was really relatively easy to

10:49

reach out to people and say, hey, you

10:51

know, I'm interested in the market. I'd love

10:53

to learn more about who are the great

10:56

founders on the market, you know, who are

10:58

the great entrepreneurs on the market. Refer me

11:00

to, you know, two or three people from

11:02

your network. So it's network after network after

11:05

network. That was the first step. Second step

11:07

for me was, I did like

11:09

a huge research paper and second VC

11:11

ecosystem in Brazil and using my

11:13

Stanford.edu domain. I stalked so many

11:16

people who got to talk to

11:18

me and explain me what's happening

11:20

on the market, why everybody's excited

11:22

about Brazil, why I saw bank

11:24

back then was allocating, you know,

11:26

five billion dollars to fund early

11:28

stage to late stage startups on

11:30

the market. So that was something

11:32

else I've done. And then

11:34

after graduation, I just started to stalk

11:36

people. I started to go deep

11:39

into research of the key market players, learning

11:41

as much as I could about them and

11:43

then just sending them an email. And basically,

11:45

that's how I ended on the advisory board

11:47

position of the company in portfolio

11:50

of one of the big Brazil and

11:52

VC firms. The only international advisor actually

11:54

just by stalking people and by constantly

11:56

proving my value by keeping in touch

11:59

and by helpful always

12:01

by investing forwards. So

12:08

when you enter a new market and you say, first,

12:33

need to vote with your own cash. Nobody

12:35

will give you cash until you prove you're

12:37

serious on the market with any new market.

12:39

So my strategy in Brazil was no different.

12:42

What I did first, I built a portfolio of angel

12:44

companies. I built a portfolio of tech

12:46

companies as an angel investor, allocating

12:48

small amounts of money from my own

12:50

capital from five to $50,000 per company,

12:54

just to prove that I'm serious. And

12:57

then you invest in those companies and then. Yeah.

12:59

You invest in those companies. Like one

13:01

of the companies we have already sold.

13:03

So I made some upside on that.

13:06

You make an upside. You reinvest it

13:08

back. The more you build yourself in

13:10

the market, the more people trust that

13:12

you're serious about opportunity. The more their

13:14

willingness is to co-invest with you and

13:17

invest in you as a person who's

13:20

trusted and knows what they're doing.

13:23

And in venture capital, the returns, you

13:25

ask me like how you make money

13:27

on that returns are driven by the

13:29

power law. You invest in a company.

13:31

Ideally, you invest in portfolio of companies.

13:33

If you take an example of my

13:36

prior fund, our fund was like over

13:38

$70 million and the portfolio was 25

13:40

companies out of those 25 companies, over

13:42

half companies would never return anything. But

13:44

the business of venture capital is not

13:46

trying to maximize the performance of every

13:49

company in the portfolio. It's just trying

13:51

to maximize the performance of one

13:53

to two to 3% of your companies

13:55

and the portfolio because those are the

13:57

companies that allow you to make just

14:00

proportionate upside returns. Like think

14:02

Airbnb and Y Combinator who

14:04

was among first investors in

14:06

Airbnb. I think they made

14:08

like 3000 acts on

14:10

their initial investments in Airbnb. And

14:12

my business is no different. But

14:15

when you said you're investing maybe like five to 50,000

14:17

per company, when

14:19

you're going into Brazil, did you get

14:21

money from other people too at the same time

14:23

or was it just your money first? And then

14:26

you asked these other people to invest after you

14:28

prove it. That's the only thing I'm trying to

14:30

figure out as well. And I appreciate you explaining

14:32

all this because I've never really dove into details.

14:34

We've all heard of venture capitalists or angel investors,

14:36

but I think hearing from your perspective of you

14:39

kind of doing it yourself and building your own

14:41

fund, I think really could help people on at

14:43

least help me kind of understand it. Yeah.

14:46

So in Brazil, because it's a new

14:48

market, like I mentioned, I started being

14:50

active on the market after business school

14:52

in 2020 and 2021. I

14:56

want to say I've built already a

14:58

portfolio. It's purely angel checks, like I

15:00

said, between five and 50 and

15:02

it's more money for sure. Going forward,

15:04

I will create a fund and there

15:07

will be other people's money, but I'm

15:09

still not there. I'm still learning on

15:11

the market. I think the more you

15:13

know, the faster you mitigate

15:15

the risks of failures on the big,

15:17

complex and new market. In

15:19

terms of the prior fund, we actually

15:21

invested way more than 50 grand. We

15:23

wrote the deals from 100,000 to 1.5

15:25

million dollars. My

15:28

biggest deal was 1.3 million

15:31

dollars in a company called Awesome,

15:33

which is an awesome

15:35

company. It's one of the biggest

15:37

accounting service providers for SMBs on global

15:39

markets today. Yeah. So

15:42

Brazil, my money funds, partially

15:44

my money, but mostly money

15:46

of limited partners. Those are

15:49

institutions and individual investors who

15:52

made cash or who have cash to deploy and

15:54

who have a conviction in the strategy of the

15:56

fund manager. I'm with the

15:59

author of on food franchising. And

16:01

guess what? He's the number one franchise

16:03

broker in the country. John Austinson, I

16:05

actually interviewed him on episode 250 of

16:08

this very podcast. So you can check out

16:11

his story after the episode. But in the

16:13

meantime, John, could you tell us why franchising

16:15

is a better path to business ownership for

16:17

so many of our listeners? Yeah,

16:19

Austin, thanks for having me. You know, so oftentimes

16:22

people are thinking about starting a business, but maybe

16:24

they don't have that genius idea. Or they say,

16:26

well, why don't I go buy an existing business?

16:28

And I actually wrote chapters on both those topics

16:30

in the book, Non-Food Franchising. But I humbly believe

16:32

that franchising is simply a better path to business

16:35

ownership for the majority of people out there. And

16:37

certainly you can look at the success rates. I

16:39

mean, over 90% of franchisees are still in business

16:41

after five years. And we all know what the

16:44

stats are for startups. It's well below that. Again,

16:46

a lot of people like the idea of this

16:48

ETA, Entrepreneurship Their Acquisition. There's been a lot in

16:50

the media about this. Some of the things they

16:53

like, and it can be a great option in

16:55

some cases. You're getting existing cashflow day one. You

16:57

have existing customers. You have a team in place.

17:00

There's some market awareness from past marketing efforts.

17:02

Everything's kind of set up for you. At

17:04

least on paper it is. It's a known

17:06

entity there in the market. So people like

17:08

that. And oftentimes they're willing to pay a

17:10

multiple for it. However, I think

17:12

oftentimes they forget a few other aspects. When

17:15

you go into buy a business, you are

17:17

paying a multiple. You're paying well more than

17:19

typically if you were to just start that

17:21

business. And it may take several years to

17:24

pay that back. You're also banking on the

17:26

seller having accurate financial representations. That's what you

17:28

made your offer based on. And oftentimes

17:30

there's so many caveats and ad backs and

17:32

things that aren't taken into consideration. They can

17:34

be really, really hard to get good data

17:36

to make that business decision off of. Third,

17:39

you're inheriting a team of employees and some

17:41

may be good, some may not be. But

17:43

the fact is there's a built in culture

17:45

already that may or may not gel well

17:47

with you. And we all know that whenever

17:49

a business changes ownership, there's gonna be some

17:51

turmoil and there's gonna be some people that

17:53

leave. And so the risk is you think

17:55

you're paying for this team, but some of

17:57

your key employees can leave the very next

17:59

day, especially. not a franchise or resale.

18:01

You're in business for yourself and

18:04

by yourself. You don't have that franchise around

18:06

the sideline. Fourth, I would say from a

18:08

brand awareness standpoint, there's awareness in the market.

18:10

It may be good, may not be good.

18:12

Some of the mistakes that were made in

18:14

the past may kind of slowly the reputation.

18:16

And I do think that people oftentimes don't

18:18

weigh that risk. What key customers leave? What

18:20

key employees leave? And here I am having

18:22

paid a multiple. So that's why I feel

18:24

like there's risk to entrepreneurship or acquisition. People

18:26

oftentimes talk about isn't there risk when you

18:28

start the new business, even if it's a

18:30

franchise. Yeah, there's always risk in business. That's why

18:32

we do what we do. But end of the

18:34

day, if you get in with a good franchisor,

18:36

and we'll talk more about this in a future

18:39

episode, but you start checking this box and having

18:41

a coach on the sidelines, got franchisor, you've got

18:43

other franchisees you can learn from. You've got a

18:45

playbook to execute against day one. You've got synergies

18:47

and economies of scale from a buying standpoint, whether

18:49

it be for services or for good. And you

18:51

get a higher multiple upon your exit in like

18:54

kind industries. That's what the research has shown. So

18:56

just want to tee that up. If you'd love

18:58

to learn more, feel free to have a free

19:01

copy of our book, Non-Food Franchising. You can

19:03

come out to franbridgeconsulting.com. We'd love to share

19:05

some free downloadable options with you. And if

19:07

you'd like to take a next step and

19:09

learn more about franchise opportunities and this wide

19:11

array of industries that we participate in, and

19:13

we've seen unprecedented levels of interest in, I'd

19:15

be more than happy to get on a

19:17

call with any of your listeners, Austin, and

19:19

have that conversation. So it's entirely free to

19:21

work with us. We get funded with a

19:24

referral fee by the franchise brand on the

19:26

back end when a placement happens. You can

19:28

think of me as this real estate broker,

19:30

the exact same model. So we'd love to help

19:32

any more of your listeners. We've helped quite a

19:34

few in the past and I look forward to

19:36

talking more. And thank you for sharing those stats

19:38

as well. Because I didn't know that about franchising.

19:40

You say 90% or self franchising

19:43

after five years versus let's say even

19:45

say the restaurant business. What 95% are

19:47

closed after five years, you know. So that's

19:49

just interesting having someone who's able to help you

19:52

out with the franchise. And I thought it

19:54

was pretty interesting when you're talking about when

19:56

you're acquiring a business versus starting a franchise business.

19:58

It's important to know those differences. because

20:00

if you're acquiring a business, you're kind of getting

20:02

that small mom and pop, right? Business more than

20:04

likely. Maybe you're gonna have enough capital to buy

20:07

a big business, but if you're doing franchising, it

20:09

is different. You're saying maybe they loved the owners

20:11

who were running their own business before the employees,

20:13

and then they leave once you become the new

20:16

owner, and then it's like you're starting a new

20:18

business all over again. So I think those are

20:20

some great tidbits that you had there that maybe

20:22

makes people understand what the difference is between A,

20:25

starting a business, B, acquiring a business, and then

20:27

C, what you kind of help people do, is

20:29

doing that franchise business model. So anyone who's

20:32

listened to the podcast, they know there

20:34

might be higher upside in starting your

20:36

business from scratch, but almost every entrepreneur

20:38

I've had on, literally everyone has had

20:40

multiple failed businesses at some point, either

20:42

before, after, or in between. So looking

20:44

at the risk assessment and trying to

20:46

get the most success and you're scared

20:48

to kind of do it on your

20:50

own, seems like contacting John and finding

20:52

out more about franchising might be the

20:54

best opportunity. So again, could you share

20:56

the best place for them to reach

20:58

you? Come out to franbridgeconsulting.com, sign up for

21:00

our newsletter, sign up for a free copy of our

21:02

book. And if you'd like to take the next step,

21:04

just leave a comment and we'll reach out to you

21:06

and set up a call. And I look forward to

21:08

helping many of your listeners. What's

21:13

the biggest hurdle or like wake up that

21:15

you've found when you were going into Brazil

21:17

and investing in these companies? I

21:20

think it's cultural wake up. I

21:22

think that over the course

21:24

of my life, I got so used to

21:26

taking risk, like I've taken risk multiple times.

21:29

And I think that's the reason why venture

21:31

capital is an industry that fits me perfectly.

21:34

And in Brazil, I think the

21:36

initial hurdle was that people are

21:38

really afraid to fail. So they

21:40

have to innovate by necessity because

21:42

it's a market where there's no

21:45

middle class scale. You know, it's

21:47

216 million population, huge

21:49

income inequality gap, but at the

21:51

same time, huge potential and huge

21:54

stigma around failure. So how do

21:56

you reconcile this necessity to build

21:58

something in the... market where

22:01

nobody will do it for

22:03

you with the social biases

22:05

towards failing. So I

22:07

think that was a really interesting wake-up call.

22:10

Thank you for sharing that. I'm sure we can dive

22:12

a little bit more into details later. I think that

22:14

overall that kind of helps us understand the whole venture

22:17

capital and angel investing at least a little bit more

22:19

than we normally get from somebody. So if you don't

22:21

mind, why don't you go ahead and tell us you

22:23

told us you grew up in Russia. Why don't we

22:26

go ahead and reel back to where you grew up

22:28

in Russia and then just kind of take us from

22:30

there. I grew up in

22:32

Moscow, which is the capital of Russia.

22:35

And I grew up in a very

22:37

interesting period historically for the country. So I

22:39

was born in 1985. And

22:42

then I don't know how much you know about history of

22:44

Russia, but in 1991, Soviet Union collapsed.

22:48

And everybody were, you know, at

22:50

least in most people's imagination

22:52

on the way to democracy. So there

22:54

was this period of time when people

22:57

believed that there would be some form

22:59

of democratic future in the country. So

23:01

I grew up during this like

23:03

really tough time when, you know,

23:05

the initial currency was devaluated and

23:07

then there was a new currency.

23:09

And then there was like wild,

23:11

wild, wild bonanza, where a lot

23:13

of people got reached really fast

23:15

during this period. It was not

23:17

safe initially, then it became safer.

23:20

And then I think everybody transitioned from the

23:22

idea of democracy to the idea of what

23:24

it is today, which is, I think it's

23:27

what's it called, like, sovereign democracy, but authoritarian

23:30

regime at the core. Yeah.

23:33

So I had like a pretty normal,

23:35

like lower middle class, I want to

23:37

say, childhood. I

23:39

was really lucky because my mother thought

23:42

that it's really important to give a

23:44

perspective of education outside of Russia. So

23:46

I got to spend a little bit

23:48

of time in Canada and that's where

23:50

I kind of got exposed to the

23:52

world that did not exist where I

23:54

grew up. I was really into sports.

23:56

I did ice skating, was super intentional

23:58

and competitive in ice skating. Yeah, and

24:01

then at the age of 16, I

24:04

decided that I have major disagreements with

24:06

my parents and it's kind of take

24:08

it or leave it kind of disagreements

24:11

and I left home to never get

24:13

back and I started to build my

24:15

own independent life since I was 16

24:18

and it's not like it isn't the state. It

24:21

was like a cultural shock I think when

24:23

I moved in and here and I realized

24:26

that it's normal for kids to work at

24:28

the age of 16, work

24:30

in McDonald's by their own like second used

24:32

car vehicles and so on so forth. It

24:34

was not the case in Russia. In Russia,

24:36

there was a big biases against teenagers who

24:38

worked in fast food chains and so on

24:40

so forth. So there was a lot of

24:42

sigma when I grew up and

24:45

I think when you think about

24:47

like the main things that shaped

24:49

my personality from the childhood, there

24:51

was this decision to leave

24:53

home at the age of 16 and

24:55

got exposed to both goods

24:57

and bads of being

24:59

an independent person who had to take

25:02

care of herself. I think the second

25:04

important thing that happened to me was

25:06

me becoming a mother when I was

25:10

I think my life really separates from

25:12

two fat lines until I became a

25:14

mother and after I became a

25:16

mother because when I became a mother, I realized

25:19

that I have to become really strategic

25:21

in terms of my life because it's

25:24

not just me who depends on me.

25:26

There's another human life that depends on

25:28

me and if I fail, I would

25:30

not just fail myself. I would fail

25:33

someone else who have absolutely no one

25:35

else to lean on. And

25:37

that was a really important realization.

25:39

I think that's something that made

25:41

me intentional and strategic in terms

25:44

of building myself in the business

25:46

environment which is scalable outside of

25:48

Russia as well. And I think

25:50

getting into private equity in 2008

25:53

and transitioning into venture capital later

25:55

the same year because private equity

25:58

in Russia just like the... private

26:00

equity all over the world

26:02

collapsed that year was somewhat

26:04

intentional decision. And then luck

26:07

had it as well, you know, serendipity occurred. I

26:10

got to be on the team in

26:12

that firm I was employed by that

26:14

was a super early investor

26:16

in the company called Evernote. Do you know

26:19

Evernote? Have you heard of them? Yeah,

26:21

you see it all the time. Yeah, so

26:23

we were the first institutional investor

26:25

in Evernote because Stepan Pachikov who

26:27

is the Evernote co-founder and CTO,

26:29

he faced a lot of issues

26:31

with fundraising in Silicon Valley. So

26:34

he turned back to, you know,

26:36

his peers back in Russia with

26:38

whom he knew well or went

26:40

to school with. And that's how

26:42

we ended up in the deal and we sold our

26:44

shares to Sequoia and Morgan Tyler

26:46

later on by 2010 made

26:49

a huge return on the fund and it ended

26:51

up being a very successful fund and

26:54

successful start for me as a

26:57

manager in venture capital back then.

26:59

And then fast way forward I

27:01

joined another firm as a VC

27:04

associate. I spent just a little

27:06

bit of time there because we

27:09

ended up deciding that we

27:11

need to spin out the

27:13

early stage division from that

27:15

firm into a separate vehicle

27:17

partially because the fund I

27:19

joined ended up raising more

27:21

money than they wanted. I think

27:23

they wanted to raise like 30

27:25

million dollars, they ended up raising

27:28

over 70 million dollars and they

27:30

just decided that from the economics

27:32

perspective betting on something slightly later

27:34

stage than early stage investing, it

27:36

makes better sense. And to me

27:39

I think I have always been,

27:41

you know, somewhat retarded in finance

27:43

or Excels projects. I just couldn't

27:45

really understand and I didn't

27:47

really want to work as much as I

27:50

think my strength has always been an empathy

27:53

and emotional intelligence. I think my emotional

27:55

intelligent brain was like pretty developed by

27:58

that point. And I really wanted to

28:00

work with founders at the earliest stage

28:02

of their endeavor in technology. That was

28:04

my passion. That was my goal. And

28:06

when I realized that I would not

28:08

be able to hit that goal as

28:10

part of that unusual firm I joined,

28:12

I decided that it would be great

28:14

to do it as a standalone vehicle.

28:17

Yeah. And that's what we did. We

28:19

spent out super early stage, like seed

28:21

stage funding into the separate vehicle, partners

28:23

of that prior firm, put a little

28:25

bit of money. I got

28:27

to hire an incredible partner who

28:29

proved to be an absolute

28:32

incredible operator in Bench Capital. And together

28:34

with him, we built that firm from

28:36

scratch in 2013 to what it was

28:39

when I stopped

28:41

being operationally involved in 2017, 2018.

28:46

I moved to Singapore because, and

28:48

I think that in general, we

28:51

did a pretty interesting job with

28:53

the thesis of the first firm

28:55

because our thinking was that, look,

28:58

we're the first time fund managers.

29:01

I had an experience in Bench

29:03

Capital. He had an experience in

29:05

Bench Capital. But overall, there was

29:07

little that we could counter offer

29:09

to more established VC fund managers

29:11

in the US or in Europe,

29:13

for example. So we decided that

29:15

we want to carve out a

29:17

zone, like geographical zone or thesis

29:19

that would be less of interest

29:21

to more established players. And that's

29:23

how Southeast Asia came into play

29:25

and Singapore came into play because

29:28

back then, in 2013,

29:30

there was nothing in terms of

29:32

Bench Capital in Southeast Asia. Nobody

29:34

did that. And also, our

29:36

thesis was deep tech investment in

29:39

enterprise software. Nobody really did that.

29:41

Both things together. Not

29:43

even they did that. Both things

29:45

separately as well. So yeah, for

29:47

us, it was a pretty interesting

29:49

thesis, pretty unique, pretty niche, pretty

29:51

specific that allowed us to raise

29:53

capital from people who made money

29:55

in somewhat similar space in terms

29:57

of enterprise software. Yeah. spent

30:00

four years living in Singapore,

30:02

traveling all over Southeast Asia and

30:04

scaling the portfolio of companies

30:06

from there. What was the

30:08

name of the company? Because it's all been the same company

30:11

that you've worked for, right? The whole time? Yeah,

30:13

Vistech Ventures. It was called Physics

30:15

and Technology Ventures. It actually still

30:17

exists, but I'm no longer a

30:19

general partner in that firm for many reasons.

30:22

A war between Russia and Ukraine being one

30:24

of them. So Vistech Adventures,

30:26

that's what you started in

30:29

whenever you got into venture capital. It's

30:31

called a venture capital firm? No,

30:33

this is my fund that I started in 2013 out of

30:35

Singapore. Okay, but

30:37

before that, what was the name of the company that you're

30:39

working with? Before that,

30:42

the fund's name is

30:44

Still Runa Capital and it's a big firm today.

30:46

It's over, I want to say they have over

30:48

$500 million assets under management. And

30:51

when did you actually move to Singapore? In 2013. Okay.

30:55

So you were 28 at that point. But yeah, do

30:57

you mind if we kind of go backwards before we

30:59

go forward anymore? Of course. How about we

31:01

just go back to when you were 16, if you don't mind? 2001,

31:04

you said you moved out of your parents' house. Yeah,

31:06

just tell us from there what you actually did to

31:09

get a job. Did you have your own apartment? Did

31:11

you stay at a friend's house? Like let's just dive

31:13

into that before we keep moving on to all the

31:15

business stuff, if you don't mind. No,

31:17

I didn't have an apartment. It was nothing

31:19

like, I don't know if you would

31:21

actually get an apartment at the age of 16 in

31:23

Russia. I lived in between

31:25

different friends' houses. Hopped

31:28

on from one friend's place to

31:30

another friend's place. And

31:32

there were many nights where I did sleep in the

31:35

same place for like two or three nights in a

31:37

row. And getting a job

31:39

in Russia when you were 16 back

31:41

then was pretty challenging. I think the

31:44

only place that you could work back

31:46

then was McDonald's because you had to

31:48

be 18 before you were able to

31:50

get a more decent job the way

31:53

they called it. So yeah, McDonald's it

31:55

was. Oh, so you did work at McDonald's?

31:58

I did. Yeah, I slept burger. I

32:01

was a cashier. I was promoted

32:03

really, really fast because I was capable

32:05

of working like ridiculously long hours. Straight.

32:08

Did. You go to school still or did you drop out of

32:10

school to. Now and I did

32:12

go to school, I did graduate

32:15

although he and I had this

32:17

like really strong teenage rebellious spirit

32:19

to the extent that at some

32:21

point like I was a straight

32:24

A students and sell probably high

32:26

school and then after I got

32:28

back from Canada and just like

32:30

understanding that the environments where I

32:33

live in today is not something

32:35

where I want to be tomorrow,

32:37

I completely gave up on anything

32:39

that was perceived as. Necessary in

32:42

the social environment. Beck and rush and

32:44

I started to think okay so this

32:46

is not where I want be. What

32:49

do I do to build myself into

32:51

a who would be capable of been

32:53

in other places in this world. And.

32:56

When you went to Canada, did your parents a

32:58

sign you up for study abroad or something and

33:00

high school? Yeah I went seal

33:02

Hamilton which has like the little

33:05

town not too far from Toronto

33:07

and so Canada right? My mother

33:09

really wanted me to study abroad

33:11

so I think us went off

33:14

the list because if I were

33:16

to choose to stay in the

33:18

say it's after high school there

33:20

were some complicated rules so have

33:23

seen your family. there was some

33:25

preventive barriers for your family to

33:27

come to the U. He would

33:29

have some meat like. Elsewhere and

33:32

so on so forth. And there

33:34

was a time when Canada was

33:36

super open for immigrants. So too

33:38

I say deal other Edsel, you're

33:40

gonna go spend some time in

33:43

Canada, go to this International school

33:45

in Hamilton, see how that sits,

33:47

and you know if everything goes

33:49

right. Maybe. you'll apply to

33:51

university in you'll go to university in

33:53

canada that was a plan initially it

33:55

really didn't work because at large i

33:58

think because when i got back I

34:00

got into this rebellious teenage years and

34:02

I fell off with my mother, which

34:04

started to have major disagreements in terms

34:06

of figure skating, in terms of our

34:09

ideas on what is the right career

34:11

for me and so on and so

34:13

forth. So yeah, I ended up not

34:15

going to Canada for college. I ended

34:17

up going to school in Russia.

34:20

But that experience was really

34:22

important for me to understand

34:25

that there is a completely

34:27

different reality and there

34:29

is a completely different way of

34:31

living your life and that

34:33

reality could be a better fit

34:35

for my personality. It makes sense. And

34:38

so you came back, you're rebelling, you then

34:40

said at one point that you became a

34:42

mother when you were 20. So

34:44

did you have your own place at that point or like

34:46

how that worked out? No, back then

34:49

I lived with my daughter's father. I didn't

34:51

have my place. I actually never had my

34:53

place in Russia. It

34:55

was I think the closest I got to have

34:57

in my place was renting an apartment. Did

35:00

you all end up getting married or anything? No,

35:02

I was never into being

35:04

married I think. I mean, if you just look

35:06

at from the data perspective from the

35:09

rate of divorce. Yeah, but

35:11

you probably weren't doing that at age 20. No,

35:14

I actually did. I actually did. You said

35:16

let me run an analysis of what my chances

35:18

are staying together so I'm not going to get

35:21

married. So age 20 or

35:23

maybe 21, I want to say 21,

35:26

I started to experience this

35:28

crazy necessity and just like

35:30

crazy desire to understand and

35:33

find my own meaning in

35:35

the world. I think in general, because there's

35:37

so many things that were wrong with my

35:40

life back then. There's nothing like no one

35:42

in my community was in any form similar

35:44

to me. Like everybody had like good relationships

35:47

with parents, with brothers, sisters, clear view of

35:49

what their future should be and so on

35:51

and so forth. And I was just like,

35:53

I don't even know who, you know, left

35:56

home, had a baby and all this stuff. So

35:59

I really wanted to find. something in me

36:01

that would make me feel confidence

36:09

about my different path. And that actually led

36:11

me to India. So I was 21 when

36:13

I came to India first, but from 21

36:15

until I was 24, I spent in between

36:17

three to six months in India. So I

36:20

lived in Russia from March

36:22

until like November. And

36:26

I was ready to go out and I

36:28

lived the rest of the year and go

36:30

and working remotely for that first M for

36:56

myself to get married. Like I

36:58

thought that if you really need

37:00

some form of a contract, obligations

37:03

to stay together or to fit

37:05

in the society, that is not

37:07

what I want to be part

37:09

of. To me, the best contract

37:11

is trust and alignment. And I

37:13

just didn't feel that marriage was

37:15

a necessity. I couldn't find my

37:17

why for doing that. Are you

37:20

still with the person that you had a

37:22

baby with? No, I separated

37:24

with him when my daughter was six months.

37:27

And today, as we're speaking

37:29

today, I have three children

37:31

from different former partners, both

37:33

are former partners. But yeah.

37:36

So when you're going to India, were you taking,

37:38

was it your daughter? Yeah, actually,

37:40

she has an Indian name. She has

37:42

a name Uma and Uma

37:44

is a very Indian name. And yeah,

37:46

she spent a lot of

37:49

time in her early life in

37:51

India with me in Goa. She

37:53

even wants to this like little

37:55

British kindergarten in Goa was pretty

37:57

popular option for people who move.

38:00

of the Ngoa for the winter period of

38:02

time. Is Goa just like a

38:04

state in India or is it like a GOA?

38:07

Am I spelling that right or is it something else? It's

38:10

GOA, Goa. And yes, it's

38:12

a state. I

38:14

mean, it's definitely part of India that was

38:16

British colony. So there are a lot of

38:19

Brits in Goa. It's really

38:21

different from all other India, but

38:23

it's absolutely gorgeous. Yeah, I

38:25

have it saved on my Google maps, which means

38:27

that there was something that I did like about

38:29

it. In case anyone's wondering, it's like on the

38:32

west side of India. If you're looking at India

38:34

kind of like a triangle, right? So I guess

38:36

anyone who's listening, they know. For six

38:38

months, you'd basically be in India and then

38:40

six months you'd be in Russia. You're taking

38:42

your daughter with you back and forth. But

38:44

this is again, all before you got into

38:47

private equity, right? Yeah, I

38:49

think the last time I went to Goa

38:51

was in 2008 when

38:54

private equity collapsed and everybody was

38:56

uncertain. And I haven't

38:58

spent six months there that specific

39:00

year. I've spent like few

39:02

weeks there and then got back. And

39:04

to me, it was a pretty

39:07

interesting period because private equity collapsed,

39:09

but I joined Venge Capital. Venge

39:12

Capital is the industry that thrives

39:14

in adverse environments. As much as

39:16

tech companies created in adversity tend

39:19

to be much healthier and more

39:21

successful than tech companies created in

39:23

the perfect on top of the market

39:25

cycle. So yeah, last time I

39:27

went to Goa was 2008 and

39:30

I haven't been back ever since. But

39:32

I still have a lot of friends from that

39:34

time. Getting even to private equity

39:37

before things collapse, how did you make

39:39

that transition from McDonald's to that? I

39:41

was hired initially as an executive assistant

39:44

for private equity division. So I think

39:46

just to kind of conceptually, the way

39:48

I think about things is that there's

39:50

absolutely no limits to what you can

39:53

do. And it's not about where you're

39:55

starting. The main thing always for me

39:57

has been to find an entry point.

40:00

just find something where you are

40:02

qualified to get started. And then

40:04

just work really, really hard and

40:06

be really useful for people. And

40:08

that's how I build myself. No

40:10

matter what I joined, you know,

40:12

that's how I got promoted in

40:14

McDonald's super early. That's how I

40:16

starting in as an executive assistant

40:19

in private equity. I transitioned to

40:21

invest relationship specialist in venture capital

40:23

and lead a started managing portfolio

40:25

in venture capital. To me,

40:27

find the company you like, find a way

40:29

to get in and then just do your

40:31

best always. So that was it. And that's

40:33

the reason why private equity was not detrimental

40:36

for me during crisis when I'm going

40:38

to say like over 50% of

40:40

people in the company I was working for were

40:42

laid off. And why weren't you laid

40:44

off? Because I build incredible

40:47

relationships with managing partners. I was reporting

40:49

to I was available 24 seven.

40:52

There was not a single task that

40:54

was out of my scope

40:56

of responsibility in my perspective. If I

40:58

had to organize like, I

41:00

don't know, pick up the laundry of

41:02

a managing partner in my firm on

41:04

Sunday night and deliver it on Monday,

41:06

I'll do it. I think the attitude

41:08

and just this desire to learn, there

41:10

was two things that allowed

41:12

me to stay and succeed within

41:15

that specific company. I would say

41:17

it almost seems like you have two two

41:19

personality just what we talked about so far

41:21

is just the workaholic lifestyle,

41:23

right? Where it seems like that's why you

41:25

weren't laid off. But then you're also saying

41:28

you're into yoga, maybe more of a hippie

41:30

lifestyle as well. Is that a good way

41:32

to characterize kind of the two personalities going

41:34

on here at the same time? No,

41:37

I was. I think that

41:39

to me, this period of

41:41

self discovery, it was a

41:43

period that ended when I

41:46

finally started to feel

41:48

confident in what I can do

41:50

from the professional perspective. I'm not

41:52

into yoga anymore. I do like

41:54

a bunch of stuff like intermittent

41:56

fasting and crazy workouts every day,

41:58

but it's more. to build

42:01

mental resiliency than to

42:03

be a hippie. And I

42:06

wish I was more a hippie than I

42:08

am a workaholic, but I think

42:10

since 2008, all I've been doing

42:12

is figuring out how to run

42:14

faster than everyone else around me

42:17

and how to do things that excite me and

42:19

how to be a lead by

42:22

example and being an example for

42:24

my daughters. Well, right when

42:26

you got into that private equity firm as

42:29

an executive assistant, did you

42:31

know then that you wanted to be promoted in the

42:33

firm or were you just kind of looking for a

42:35

job and then you're like, you know

42:37

what, I see potential here. If I

42:39

work my ass off, maybe I can get

42:41

promoted and be a bigwig. No, I

42:43

was looking for a job, but

42:45

I think the company I worked for back

42:48

in 2008, it was called Troika Dailik Group.

42:50

It was actually a pretty unique and pretty

42:52

specific company and you could feel it and

42:54

you can sense it the moment you get

42:56

into the office building. Troika

42:58

Dailik was the largest independent financial

43:01

institution. And when you think about

43:03

independent financial institution in the market,

43:05

like Russia, it's a very rare

43:07

breed of animal because majority of

43:09

everything is owned by the state.

43:12

So it was a pretty

43:14

unique organization of over 1.5

43:16

thousand people, built by entrepreneurs,

43:19

very successful with a really incredible

43:21

corporate culture, with English as the

43:23

language of internal communication, with so

43:26

many experts from different parts of

43:28

the world being part of that

43:30

organization. So yeah, I got in

43:33

because I really needed a job

43:35

and I think the reason why

43:37

I was hired was because I

43:41

was really hungry to prove myself and

43:44

also because I did speak pretty good

43:46

English because I got to study in

43:48

Canada. So those two things, they got

43:50

me into the organization. They were these

43:52

entry points. And later

43:54

on, I just really sold

43:56

myself on the idea of

43:59

this company, been a really

44:01

amazing environment. And I

44:03

remember I used to report to

44:05

this managing partner, Kanaku Sikini. She's

44:08

like an incredible woman. I think

44:10

she was like 60 Japanese woman

44:12

who spent all of her career

44:14

in Iberidi. And she

44:16

was hired to deal with the

44:18

assets and private equity as the

44:20

market was collapsing. And it was

44:22

such a cool experience to work

44:25

with her with her ruthless work

44:27

ethics like around the clock and

44:29

being part of and just seeing

44:31

all these really tough managerial decisions

44:33

and just trying to help in any way

44:35

I could. That I think just

44:37

is a combination of this incredible corporate environment

44:39

and people I got to build relationships with

44:42

and work with. There was something that allowed

44:44

me to start dreaming really big in terms

44:46

of what I can do. And

44:49

so is that the private equity firm that

44:51

closed? Was it Trica Dialogue? So

44:53

Trica Dialogue is an independent financial

44:55

institution. So it was like a

44:57

group of companies that had hedge

45:00

funds, real estate, private equity, venture

45:02

capital, everything under one roof. So

45:04

think about that as a different

45:06

division within, let's say, JP Morgan.

45:09

So it was not a standalone private

45:12

equity and not standalone venture capital. It

45:14

was like this big house under one

45:16

roof with a different department in it.

45:19

And yeah, I started in private

45:21

equity and migrated to venture capital

45:23

as the market and private equity is unless a

45:25

class collapsed. And yeah,

45:27

from operational businesses to

45:29

tech sector. And so

45:32

you did that for how many years

45:34

before moving to Singapore? Before

45:36

I moved to Singapore, I worked for

45:38

a different firm. Like I mentioned, it's

45:41

called Runa Capital. But in that specific

45:43

company in Trica Dialogue Group, I worked

45:45

until 2010 until the company was acquired

45:47

by Sberbank, which is the largest bank,

45:49

like state bank, I want to say

45:51

in Europe, but one of the biggest

45:54

in the world as well. And I

45:56

just didn't really feel like being part

45:58

of a corporate VC in. state-owned

46:00

bank. So I moved on

46:02

to Runa Capital. So Runa Capital

46:04

from 2010 to whenever

46:08

you moved to Singapore? So

46:10

we started working on the

46:12

idea of the funds in

46:14

late 2011.

46:17

So it took us like a year to

46:19

raise the funds, finalize

46:21

investment thesis, finalize the relationships

46:24

with Runa Capital as a

46:26

feeder of deals. So

46:29

yeah, roughly like a bit over a

46:31

year in Runa and then getting ready

46:33

to raise the fund and doing the

46:35

first closing in 2013

46:37

and getting started. And at

46:39

this point you're a single mother? Are you

46:41

traveling with your daughter to Singapore too? Like

46:43

how would you be able to handle this

46:45

like trying to move up in a

46:48

company while also being a single mother?

46:50

You know, it was really funny. So back then

46:52

I was not single in 2010. I

46:56

was dating the father of my other two

46:58

children. The way I handled my work with

47:00

my daughter was a pretty unconventional

47:03

way. I just took her everywhere with me.

47:06

When she was little no matter what I did

47:08

I just took her with me in a bassinet.

47:10

So she joined my meetings and schedules

47:12

and calls and everything because I

47:14

actually didn't really think about the

47:17

motherhoods as something that has to

47:19

be separated from my life as

47:21

a worker, as a professional. I

47:23

thought that it actually has to

47:26

be integrated and I did

47:28

integrate it as much as I could.

47:30

And I actually have been integrating that

47:33

ever since. I think all of my

47:35

children, which today they just vary from

47:37

seven years old until 18 almost. She's

47:39

turning 18 this week. They know

47:42

really well what I do. They follow what

47:44

I do and they are my biggest cheerleaders

47:46

and the seats to that were put back

47:48

then when she was little, when Uma was

47:50

little. I guess I

47:52

had cut you off when you said you moved to

47:54

Singapore. So let's kind of pick up back there. So

47:57

what year was it and how old are you and

47:59

were you just giving us a little rundown where

48:01

you're still dating the guy, I guess it all

48:03

sounds like it that you had the other two

48:05

children. Yeah, totally. Because we had two kids

48:07

together. It was 2013. Yeah. And

48:10

Singapore, I don't know how much you know

48:12

about Singapore, but Singapore is just like, it's

48:15

a pretty impressive place. And I

48:17

am by nature, I'm a big

48:20

history fan. And I

48:22

really love reading autobiographies of biographies

48:24

of people who do like ridiculously

48:27

important things with their lives. One

48:30

of those people with whom

48:32

I was absolutely inspired with

48:34

and impressed with was Likwan

48:36

Yu, who is the founding father of

48:38

Singapore. And Singapore is the

48:41

country that was built into the first

48:43

world country in less than, I don't

48:45

know, like 40, 50 years from byproduct

48:47

of Malaysia without having any

48:49

natural resources, without actually having

48:51

anything. Likwan Yu and his

48:53

leadership team built this

48:55

city into like the garden state.

48:58

It's probably the most beautiful and the

49:01

safest place you would ever be in

49:03

the world, I want to say. It's

49:05

gorgeous. It's beautiful. The whole

49:08

natural system of Singapore is super advanced.

49:10

Half of the population of the country

49:12

is experts from Europe

49:14

and Australia mostly. And

49:17

yeah, there was incredible four years when

49:19

you launch a VC firm in the

49:21

market like Singapore where an average

49:24

person spends like 30, 40

49:26

years in the same position,

49:28

in the same company. And you just

49:31

explain that you're dealing with the startups,

49:33

you know, where the risk of failure

49:35

is over 80% where there is no

49:38

substantial cash compensation and most of your

49:40

upside comes in stock. It's a pretty

49:42

interesting conversation to have. So it was

49:45

a lot of fun adapting

49:47

to the culture. Remember, we started

49:49

the conversation in terms of what

49:51

was the interesting realization in interesting

49:53

wake up moments in Brazil, it

49:55

was culture. And in Singapore,

49:57

it also was culture. It was like... With

50:00

adversity, it was this

50:02

passion for stability, respect

50:05

for authority. So

50:08

yeah, it was a really

50:10

interesting adaptation period and super

50:12

important for years of my life. And

50:15

this was the first time you had started your own fund? That

50:17

was the first time I started my own fund.

50:20

And that was the first time I lived outside

50:22

of Russia for an extended period of time. Hey,

50:25

John. So why are so many entrepreneurs and

50:27

investors getting into franchising? Thanks for having me,

50:29

Austin. You know, we are seeing unprecedented levels

50:32

of interest across the country. You know, and

50:34

so many are waking up to the fact

50:36

that franchising is a better path to business

50:38

ownership for the vast majority out there. Really,

50:40

there's three groups that we see getting involved

50:43

in franchising. First, you've got your traditional corporate

50:45

refugee, as I like to call them. And

50:47

they've been working the nine to five, they've

50:49

been grinding. They're tired of building someone else's

50:51

empire. They're ready to build their own. So

50:54

we see record levels coming out. You

50:56

know, I'm in my early forties. Quite a

50:58

few folks in their thirties and forties and

51:00

fifties stepping away even in their twenties. We

51:02

have some clients there. But I think COVID

51:04

really has caused a lot of people to

51:06

question the path they're on and say, hey,

51:08

maybe now's the time to scratch that entrepreneurial

51:10

itch and either jump in full time or

51:12

maybe get something going on the side, which

51:14

I'll speak to in a minute. How about

51:16

your first group, corporate group? Second would be

51:18

investors. Right now, especially in the real

51:20

estate arena, if you're a real estate investor, there

51:22

aren't that many good deals to be had. Inventory

51:24

is low. Interest rates are high. And I'd

51:26

say probably 80 percent of our clients also invest

51:28

in real estate. There's just a lot of synergy.

51:31

And right now they're out there looking for yield

51:33

and looking for better paths to alternative investments. So

51:35

we see a lot of interest from investors. And

51:37

then third, we're seeing existing business owners. A lot

51:39

of people have started their own company, maybe, and

51:41

they've been growing it and they've got it in

51:43

a good place now. And I will say franchising

51:46

is not right for everyone. Some people are too

51:48

entrepreneurial, some business owners are. But for the vast

51:50

majority, I'd say a lot of our business owner

51:52

clients love the fact that they know what went

51:54

into setting up a business back in the day. And they

51:56

love the idea of starting on third base where a lot of

51:58

things are already in to step into

52:00

and execute. So they really have an appreciation

52:03

for franchising and as they're kind of building

52:05

out that portfolio of businesses. One thing that's

52:07

important, you know, if you're a business owner,

52:09

if you're going to keep your day job,

52:11

how does that work in franchising? Really, there's

52:13

three different models. One would be your owner

52:15

operator. And I'd say that's probably about half

52:18

of our clients that go down that path.

52:20

That's where someone jumps in to running the

52:22

day-to-day operations. Secondly would be what we call

52:24

semi-passive or semi-absentee or executive model. And that's

52:26

where you put a manager in place day

52:28

one. The nice thing about franchising is you've

52:30

got a franchisor on the sideline that's also

52:32

helping to manage and coach that manager. Take

52:34

some of the burden off of you on

52:36

a day-to-day basis. You're still going to be

52:39

involved, but you're going to be more focused

52:41

in the energies and the time you're putting

52:43

into the business. Number three would be what

52:45

we call an investor passive model. Very rare

52:47

in franchising. There's probably five or six companies

52:49

out there that do this today. That's where

52:51

the franchisor can actually run the business for

52:53

you. So really it's almost entirely passive. I'm

52:55

personally invested in one of those amongst, actually

52:57

I've got several semi-passive and then I pass

52:59

one myself. I've been a franchisor, I

53:01

am a multi-brand franchisor, so I absolutely live

53:03

in this out as well. And what I

53:05

find oftentimes Austin is that someone will start

53:07

out maybe running the day-to-day operations with the

53:09

intention then to put a manager in place

53:11

and they can step back and be more

53:13

strategic and focused on other things. That's very

53:15

common. I think of my client Nathan as

53:18

a good example of that. In South Carolina,

53:20

Nathan's the largest franchisor. You have two men

53:22

in a truck moving service. Operates in like

53:24

12 markets. Every year, Nathan and I do

53:26

another deal together. We've done one in the

53:28

waste management space, one in the plumbing space,

53:30

one in the driveway, concrete space.

53:32

All these businesses that we would call

53:34

property services, non-sexy, cash-blown, understandable businesses.

53:36

And he's now up to 30 locations

53:39

across six different brands, doing well north

53:41

of 30 million a year. And he's

53:43

really built out a nice organization. He's

53:46

41 years old. So

53:48

it's doable. Everyone's at a different place

53:50

in their journey, but that whole portfolio

53:52

approach is very common. And again, it's

53:54

corporate refugees, investors, business owners, all of

53:56

us fall into one of those buckets.

53:58

That's where we're seeing all. the interest. So

54:00

if you'd like to learn more, I'd be

54:03

more than happy to jump on a call.

54:05

We'd also recommend our book, Non-Food Franchising. It

54:07

was a best seller. We've gotten great feedback.

54:09

If you come out to our website, franbridgeconsulting.com,

54:12

you can share your interest in a book. We'll

54:14

send you the links where you can download different

54:16

versions of the book. And then like I said,

54:18

if you'd like to take the next step and

54:20

jump on a call, just indicate that as well

54:23

and we'll make it happen. Yeah. And one of

54:25

the interesting things you're saying, you have even investors

54:27

and real estate investors maybe more specifically. If someone

54:29

even started with the franchise business through you or

54:31

find their own that they like and then they

54:33

take that money that they're actually making and say,

54:36

if they don't own any real estate, they

54:38

want to buy real estate later. There's a lot

54:40

of people who become kind of wealthy from taking

54:42

that cash flow from the actual business and by

54:44

investing in a real estate, you get the appreciation

54:47

and cost segregation shields kind of like on small

54:49

business income. So you end up with a lot

54:51

more cash and very little tax. So that's

54:53

just one more thing that I guess I know

54:55

from my standpoint that kind of helps those people.

54:58

Maybe they are just real estate owners already or

55:00

maybe they want to be future ones, but this

55:02

is definitely a model of like, okay, hopefully I

55:04

can have a successful business, small business through franchising.

55:07

And then I take the cash flow or capital

55:09

that I have instead of paying as much taxes

55:11

as possible on it. By investing that extra money

55:13

into real estate, you're able basically to kind of

55:16

have some cost segregation and depreciation that hides that

55:18

actual income that you pay less taxes and you

55:20

make more money. So it seems like it works

55:22

for everybody. But yeah, thank you for coming on

55:25

and sharing that. If you want to hear more

55:27

about John Story, everybody actually interviewed him on episode

55:29

250 of the podcast, so you can

55:31

hear more on how he helped entrepreneurs in

55:34

that story. Then he also brought up two

55:36

men in a truck. So if anyone wants

55:38

to hear about like how that two men

55:40

in a truck franchise actually started, actually interviewed

55:42

on episode 153, one of the founders. So

55:44

hopefully all this is coming full circle of

55:47

like all these interviews I've done and you

55:49

can find out more about John Story and

55:51

the two men in a truck story. So

55:53

thanks for coming on John. And again, if

55:55

anyone wanted to check out his website, that

55:58

is franbridgeconsulting.com. Right,

56:01

and you said your boyfriend came with you as well?

56:03

Did you all have kids yet? No, we

56:05

didn't have kids. My second daughter was born

56:07

in 2014, but yes,

56:09

of course, because so the

56:12

father of my children, he is

56:14

Russian Singaporean. So yeah, we

56:16

went to Singapore together. Oh, so he was

56:18

born in Singapore? No, he

56:21

obtained Singaporean citizenship. Oh,

56:23

at the same time that you did, or did he

56:25

have any influence of why you went there? I

56:27

never had a Singaporean citizenship, and

56:29

it's not that easy to obtain

56:31

it, but my children father, he's

56:34

a pretty successful entrepreneur who built

56:36

his business at the intersection of

56:38

Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe initially. So

56:40

he was one of the

56:42

first people who got Singaporean

56:44

citizenship out of Eastern Europe.

56:48

You ask whether or not the decision

56:50

to move to Singapore was influenced by

56:52

him, partially. Yeah, partially, but not fully,

56:54

because it's just from the perspective of

56:56

investing in Southeast Asia and leveraging

56:59

R&D in Eastern Europe, Singapore is just

57:01

the perfect place to be. It's a

57:04

very simple commute anywhere in the region,

57:06

and at the same time, it's the

57:08

safest place to build a family. And

57:11

when you started your fund here, this is what

57:13

you said earlier, FizzTech Adventures, that was the name

57:15

of your fund? FizzTech

57:17

Ventures, like physics and technology ventures.

57:20

I put adventures, I meant ventures, making

57:22

sure. I love that.

57:24

I should have trademarked that, FizzTech Adventures.

57:26

It's pretty cool. So when you start that,

57:28

how much money did you have saved up

57:31

personally? Because this is your first time being,

57:33

quote unquote, like real entrepreneur where you're not

57:35

underneath anybody else who has funds and everything

57:37

like that, correct? So when

57:39

you start the fund and you don't have

57:42

substantial savings, so what you do, you defer

57:44

the management fee. So the

57:46

way VC fund works is that, let's

57:48

say you raise a certain amount of

57:50

capital. So you say you

57:52

raise, like, I don't know, $10 million

57:55

in capital for the fund,

57:57

And management fee out of those 10. Million

58:00

dollars could be in between one.

58:02

Point Five Point Five percent.

58:04

So Fast. Point Five percent.

58:07

Annually you get to spend on

58:09

your expenses. it's your compensation is

58:11

a fund manager and you know

58:13

bunch of others so when you

58:15

don't have savings like I didn't

58:17

have savings it differ your personal

58:19

bails out of this management see

58:21

so you say. Okay out of

58:24

this ten million dollars roughly two

58:26

hundred fifty thousand is our compensation

58:28

or as a general partnership and

58:30

x amount of capital will be

58:32

put back in the funds as

58:34

my commitments. If you understand what I'm

58:36

saying, I understand that one percent to two point

58:38

five percent cut or be a hundred thousand to

58:40

two hundred thousand. We say that again if you

58:42

don't mind but your same happened with you. So

58:45

normally when you started lisa from

58:47

you are supposed to make a

58:49

commitment to the phones. Okay gotcha.

58:51

So you're supposed to put in like a million of

58:54

got ten million total someone's for to put him so.

58:56

It It really depends and journalists it's in

58:58

terms of percent So let's say you target

59:00

size of the font is x y z.

59:02

Two million little as as put Mickey Easy

59:05

numbers. Ten mil and so normally

59:07

if you are a first time

59:09

fund manager you puts up to

59:11

one percent of the science. In

59:13

your own capital of as you got to put an

59:16

hundred thousand in this case. Yes, And

59:18

then if you made money previous

59:20

land you have this cask. Awesome!

59:23

But if you haven't you can

59:25

choose to use the portion of

59:27

your compensation from the management see.

59:33

That isn't defined for is doing to deals

59:35

and Madison the portfolio is say okay I'm

59:37

not gonna get my salary us this twenty

59:39

five percent of management see I'm gonna put

59:42

them back in the fans So that's how

59:44

you don't put all of your cash up

59:46

front but you put. The cas from

59:48

the funds from something that was

59:50

supposed to be your compensation. And

59:52

that's what we've done, both me in my partner. so

59:55

that first year instead of taking a hundred thousand

59:57

dollars or if we did one per se you're

59:59

like here I'm going to take nothing and that will be

1:00:01

the money I put in. Yeah, or I'm

1:00:03

going to take a little bit because

1:00:05

when you think about the business of

1:00:07

venture capital, the reason why, for example,

1:00:09

today is such a lucrative space because

1:00:11

team and venture capital is relatively small.

1:00:13

So let's say you're on a fund

1:00:15

of 30, 40, 50 million dollars. You

1:00:17

have a team of three to five

1:00:20

people. So you basically have this 2.5%

1:00:22

of management fee spread between a very

1:00:27

limited number of people. So if you

1:00:29

are good at fundraising and if you

1:00:31

do a good job as portfolio manager,

1:00:33

you're really well paid, not just on

1:00:35

the upside, meaning on the return of

1:00:37

this portfolio of companies that you've built,

1:00:39

but also on the management fee that

1:00:41

comes as a percentage of the total

1:00:43

amount of asset center management. So if

1:00:45

you are good at what you're doing,

1:00:47

I'm saying you can find a way

1:00:49

to reallocate part of your

1:00:51

compensation as your commitment to the

1:00:53

fund. And also still have some

1:00:55

leftover that allow you to sustain yourself

1:00:57

until you actually start seeing exits. This was kind

1:00:59

of alluding to, I guess, in the beginning of

1:01:01

understanding like how much money do you need to

1:01:03

be in venture capital or private

1:01:06

equity or whatever we're talking about, any

1:01:08

type of fundraising to an extent. And

1:01:10

now you're kind of explaining in more detail. Thank

1:01:13

you. As far as like, yeah, you're saying you

1:01:15

don't need as much money as you think. Right.

1:01:17

So, yeah, this definitely helps. Whereas like I'm thinking

1:01:19

anyone who's running this type of fund would have

1:01:22

to have millions in the bank personally, just to

1:01:24

even be part of like a $50 million fund

1:01:26

where they put some amount into the fund, but

1:01:28

you don't need as much as you think if

1:01:31

you can do the fundraising properly, you're saying. Yeah.

1:01:34

And I Think there are many

1:01:36

more ways. So There was a

1:01:38

huge wave of emerging fund managers

1:01:40

in the post-COVID world, like 2020,

1:01:43

2021. I Don't know if you

1:01:45

heard this phrase, emerging fund managers,

1:01:47

but it's basically first time managers.

1:01:50

It's people who raise their first

1:01:52

VC fund without having an experience

1:01:54

of managing huge portfolio before. Typically

1:01:57

it's, you know, former entrepreneurs or

1:01:59

maybe. Employees of different firms like in

1:02:01

my case and Sansa foresee just side to

1:02:03

start your own fund and raise their own

1:02:05

capital. And for that you really

1:02:08

don't need and in most cases you

1:02:10

probably never had an opportunity to accumulate

1:02:12

wealth says there's multiple ways to do

1:02:14

it without having a pile of cash

1:02:16

sitting on your account. One as like

1:02:19

a sad when you make a commitment

1:02:21

but then but you basically you give

1:02:23

up on for salary in a favor

1:02:25

of that commitments from the management. see

1:02:27

this could be one thing. The second

1:02:30

thing that she also could do if

1:02:32

you have Me for example had an

1:02:34

experience of angel investing of writing. Any

1:02:36

type of tax. You can also

1:02:38

use your shares because if you

1:02:40

did well as an angel investor,

1:02:43

the on paper price of the

1:02:45

shares and the companies that you

1:02:47

hold it goes up. And I'll

1:02:49

give you an example. like I

1:02:51

invested in Class Pass in two

1:02:53

Thousand and Thirteen and Class Passes

1:02:55

attack Unicorn which means the company

1:02:57

was valley Son was over one

1:02:59

billion dollars and it was acquired

1:03:01

by Mind Body last year. So

1:03:03

the companies in really really well.

1:03:05

but I invested. In the tenth when you

1:03:07

went there were like a tiny little start. Up out

1:03:10

of Sex Star's there was a

1:03:12

yawn her cofounder. So the

1:03:14

valleys and was really love with

1:03:16

evaluation was like several million dollars

1:03:18

and imagine like they have value

1:03:20

of company goes from let's say

1:03:22

seven million dollars. It goes all

1:03:25

the way to billion dollars. even

1:03:27

would the dilution serve value of

1:03:29

your shares that you acquired in

1:03:31

the company goes up. So when

1:03:33

you start of funds and let's

1:03:35

say you had a successful or

1:03:38

relatively successful prior experience as an

1:03:40

angel investor you can take those

1:03:42

shares and put. Them in the funds

1:03:44

as a part of your commitments to the

1:03:46

fans and that's actually really am. Highly

1:03:49

appreciated by people to whom you goal

1:03:51

to raise capital for the funds. So

1:03:53

that's another way to compensate for a

1:03:56

pack of cast sitting on your bank

1:03:58

accounts. And mix. No

1:04:00

thank you for clarifying in Canada gun in

1:04:02

a details here cause I don't think of

1:04:05

ever dug into details as much as China.

1:04:07

Understanding at so deeply appreciated. So you're

1:04:09

in Singapore like you said, and twenty thirteen,

1:04:11

how long do you and Singapore for and

1:04:14

lazard disconnects? Continue along with your story here.

1:04:16

Yeah. Was in Singapore him for

1:04:18

four years on this until two thousand

1:04:20

and seventeen. and then in two thousand

1:04:23

and seventeen there are two things happen

1:04:25

for his. I think I really get

1:04:27

tired of living in a small country

1:04:29

because like I said Singapore's like ten

1:04:31

million people. the whole population. To just

1:04:33

put things into perspective is you get

1:04:36

a car at Seung Gi airports to

1:04:38

get some Malays. It will take you

1:04:40

like forty minutes south. Like really really

1:04:42

small and some meat was like oh

1:04:44

my god I'm live in in this.

1:04:46

Incredibly beautiful. Save country but it's

1:04:49

so small and dislike a risk

1:04:51

averse nurse and his desire to

1:04:53

you know be part of to

1:04:55

sit ins. Stability of this class

1:04:57

for stability. That was something that's

1:04:59

I think I got really tired

1:05:01

all so I really wanted. Similar

1:05:03

to the States a sign at

1:05:05

like from two thousand and Ten,

1:05:08

two thousand and seventeen as censuses.

1:05:10

So many signs because I had

1:05:12

this persona of companies and Myleene

1:05:14

Klass Pass was a New York

1:05:16

City. Today's in Montana but it

1:05:18

was a New York City. had a

1:05:20

priscilla of companies in Massachusetts and California

1:05:23

so I got to spend a lot

1:05:25

of time in you don't tech hubs

1:05:27

in the Us with all this dreamers

1:05:29

who immigrated into country in own to

1:05:31

build something big, the procedure, their dreams

1:05:33

and they really wanted to be part

1:05:35

of that anything by the thousand zones.

1:05:38

In my desire to depart of that,

1:05:40

it was really really unbearable. I

1:05:42

decided that to apply nose up at either

1:05:44

similar to the states. By the way, if

1:05:47

you're a foreigner, So. What I did

1:05:49

I decided to apply for this the sir

1:05:51

I don't view of the heard about oh

1:05:53

and visa have you heard of or one

1:05:55

of his ever. Notice about it.

1:05:58

So. On visits the desert. people

1:06:00

with extraordinary capabilities. Oh,

1:06:03

yeah, just look it up. That's exactly what

1:06:05

I said. It's all about US citizenship. Individuals

1:06:07

with extraordinary ability or achievement? Yeah.

1:06:10

And initially, this visa was created

1:06:12

for extraordinary athletes and actors and

1:06:14

all of these people in performance

1:06:17

whom you could not really measure

1:06:19

on, say, scientific merits and so

1:06:21

on and so forth. So that

1:06:24

was the visa to drag all

1:06:26

this incredible artistic crowd. And

1:06:28

later, they expanded the visa for

1:06:30

people who are really good at

1:06:33

what they do in their industries.

1:06:35

So I decided to apply for that visa

1:06:37

and I did in 2017. I

1:06:40

applied for it based on

1:06:42

my early stage investing activities on

1:06:44

global markets to build an

1:06:46

argument that I could back

1:06:49

startups here of completely different

1:06:51

backgrounds and help them scale

1:06:54

globally. And one

1:06:56

important thing, I think that every single company I backed

1:06:58

in the States by 2017 sent

1:07:02

the letter to USCIS and vouched for

1:07:04

me and that was really important. For

1:07:06

me personally, as someone who spent most

1:07:08

of the lives supporting entrepreneurs but also

1:07:10

to build a case for USCIS and

1:07:12

fast way forward, I got this visa

1:07:15

in March 2017 and so

1:07:18

I moved to Massachusetts. Oh, in

1:07:21

Boston? Yeah, I moved to Boston

1:07:23

initially. And then from

1:07:26

there, you were just investing the whole time.

1:07:28

I know you did say something about Stanford

1:07:30

at one point as well. Yeah, so when

1:07:32

I moved to the States, yeah, I

1:07:34

continued investing. I started being more intentional

1:07:36

about building the portfolio and being an

1:07:38

active mentor and tech star here in

1:07:41

the States just to prove to the

1:07:43

USCIS the decision to grant me the

1:07:45

visa was the right one. Just

1:07:48

to be closer to Silicon Valley and

1:07:50

be closer to all of the people

1:07:52

in my industry who have always impressed

1:07:55

me enormously, I Decided to

1:07:57

apply to Stanford. Kind of the way I operate,

1:07:59

I don't really... We believe in optionality

1:08:01

that much soul agent for you

1:08:03

apply to like bunch of business

1:08:05

schools I decided okay, there's only

1:08:07

one place I want to go

1:08:09

otherwise I'm not willing to spend

1:08:11

my time and my life outside

1:08:13

of my children and my work.

1:08:15

So the only place I want

1:08:17

to go to Stanford. So I

1:08:19

decided supply to Stanford. so I

1:08:21

decided to do that and a

1:08:23

citizen seventeen. And then there was

1:08:26

some pretty tough period of preparation,

1:08:28

like I spent eighteen months preparing.

1:08:30

For Sanford because I had a

1:08:32

major tests and exciting. You.

1:08:34

Don't send for than gerald so play to

1:08:36

business school in spouse teammates and I think

1:08:38

of send for an average g mad is

1:08:41

like seven hundred sixty. Besides. Is

1:08:43

like eight hundred and send for the

1:08:45

Seven Seas T Evers. And every time

1:08:47

I stepped into the testing facility my

1:08:49

brain you know that frozen and I

1:08:51

got like ridiculous or something like six

1:08:53

Twenty or six thirty. It no matter

1:08:55

that to scan a When I did

1:08:57

the testing when I did like seemingly

1:08:59

sense at home I scored like eight

1:09:01

hundred. But whenever a substance a test

1:09:03

facility was like six twenty six thirty

1:09:05

Six forty. so I was pretty demoralized,

1:09:07

but I kept going. So I spend

1:09:09

like eighteen months preparing them, just trying

1:09:12

to find. A way of overcoming this

1:09:14

mental barrier. And yeah, I ended

1:09:16

up getting to score that I

1:09:18

target as I ended up writing

1:09:20

to Really cool as says that

1:09:22

I think I'm so proud of

1:09:24

even today and ended up getting

1:09:26

in send for it's an joining

1:09:28

the I'm i'm a sex class

1:09:30

of twenty Twenty. And along

1:09:32

the way you've just been kind

1:09:34

of investor as will simultaneously. Yeah

1:09:37

I I kept in my think much of

1:09:39

for you to better understand the venture capitalism

1:09:41

industry. It's not that you invest every single

1:09:43

day so what's your jail for? So he

1:09:46

creates a certain seasons like what is that

1:09:48

you believe that will be truths and years

1:09:50

from now. That's the most important question. The

1:09:52

venture capital. Or gave overcooked what's

1:09:54

your thesis. Yes, so my

1:09:56

seizes overall in general is

1:09:58

that technology has to solve

1:10:00

a big real world problem

1:10:03

for humanity. The purpose of

1:10:05

Venge Capital is not to invest in

1:10:07

yet another tech project. Venge Capital to

1:10:09

me is an asset class that allows

1:10:11

to solve a very big problem through

1:10:14

technology. For example, a bunch

1:10:16

of my investments are in the

1:10:18

industry like healthcare. My most recent

1:10:20

deal in this company called Sunny

1:10:23

in Brazil, it's the company that

1:10:25

helps elderly people deal with early

1:10:27

signs of chronic diseases like Alzheimer's

1:10:29

and so on and so forth.

1:10:32

It targets a population of 65

1:10:34

years plus. And

1:10:37

when you think about, you know,

1:10:39

the aging population and when you

1:10:41

think that people have fewer children,

1:10:43

spend longer hours working, people

1:10:45

live longer, you want them to live

1:10:48

healthier. You want to make sure that

1:10:50

you tailor to the needs of specific

1:10:52

age category and so on and so forth. And all these things

1:10:54

are important to me. So this

1:10:56

like big market inefficiencies

1:10:58

like healthcare infrastructure,

1:11:01

like logistics, for example, like

1:11:03

security that could be addressed

1:11:06

through technology. This is my

1:11:08

thesis. It has never changed. So it's the first

1:11:10

thing, like when you create this thesis, something that

1:11:12

you believe in, then, you know, you have certain

1:11:14

industries where you look at, given the thesis. And

1:11:17

real quick, so just an example, and thank

1:11:19

you for again, dropping all this knowledge and

1:11:22

trying to figure this out. So if someone

1:11:24

brought you like a dating app, right? That's

1:11:26

something you're not interested in based on your

1:11:28

thesis, right? No. Okay. Absolutely not.

1:11:30

No. And I'm not interested

1:11:32

into anything that leverages

1:11:35

like a short term trends

1:11:38

as well. Right. Like NFTs

1:11:40

or just the crypto. You

1:11:43

know, I was like, I'm a big fan

1:11:45

of podcasts, as you can probably tell. So

1:11:47

I was listening to this incredible episode with

1:11:50

Josh Kushner. Josh Kushner is the founder of

1:11:52

Thrive. He was asked this question about Josh,

1:11:54

like why the hell did you never invest

1:11:56

in crypto? And his answer was like, you

1:11:59

know, I just. could never build a

1:12:01

case, like a real world case

1:12:03

of where I would believe that

1:12:05

it has like a real world

1:12:07

application. And in my case, it

1:12:09

was the same like web 3.0, or

1:12:12

this virtual reality that

1:12:14

was pushed by meta

1:12:16

or NFTs, or even

1:12:18

today, like should a lot of this

1:12:20

AI companies, you know, that emerge at

1:12:22

open AI as a platform, like I

1:12:24

just don't know how sustainable that is.

1:12:27

That's why it's a no. I think to me, I

1:12:30

love complex problems. So for example, the company

1:12:32

that I love today is Andrail.

1:12:34

Have you heard of them? Yeah. How

1:12:37

do you spell it? A-N-D-U-R-I-L-L. It's

1:12:39

the company by the former

1:12:41

founder of Oculus, who sold

1:12:44

his company to Facebook, and

1:12:46

then he was kicked out

1:12:48

of Facebook, but he made

1:12:50

like a billion dollars on

1:12:52

that transaction. So he started

1:12:54

this company Andrail, which is

1:12:56

disrupting the way government contractors

1:12:59

work in military, like COSPLOS

1:13:01

constructors work in military. So

1:13:03

that's something that in my

1:13:05

perspective, wars funding, and it

1:13:08

gives a purpose, you know, you're like really

1:13:10

solving a big problem through your brain and

1:13:12

your capital. Because I think when you think

1:13:14

about venture capital, the way I think about

1:13:16

venture capital, it's not just that you are

1:13:18

investing. Investing is probably the least of

1:13:20

things that you could do. I think the

1:13:23

important thing is how you help those companies

1:13:25

that you invest in. And that's where the

1:13:27

majority of your time gets spent. So you

1:13:29

don't spend most of your time on just

1:13:31

like searching the deals and negotiating the terms.

1:13:34

You have three to five years investment

1:13:36

period, you're in which you build a

1:13:38

portfolio. And then once you

1:13:40

build a portfolio, you have to

1:13:42

manage those portfolios, and you need

1:13:44

to help those companies grow. And

1:13:46

eventually you need to sell those

1:13:48

companies. So this like highly operational

1:13:51

part involvement with the startups, that's

1:13:53

the most interesting part of work

1:13:55

in my perspective. It's something that

1:13:57

happens after you've deployed this capital.

1:14:00

I mean, it makes sense and thank you again

1:14:02

for giving us a little bit more insights of

1:14:04

what your daily routine is or how you're looking

1:14:06

at these and how you're able to allocate your

1:14:08

time while also going to grad school or raising

1:14:10

kids or whatever. So it sounds like over a

1:14:12

life cycle of a few years, what

1:14:14

you do kind of changes in those funds.

1:14:17

If I summarize that correctly. You

1:14:19

know, like I was sitting, I remember,

1:14:21

I think I was working on the

1:14:23

essay for Sanford looking at my weekly

1:14:25

schedule and thinking, oh my God, today

1:14:27

I'm dealing with the startup that I

1:14:29

used to have this company called Vinebox.

1:14:31

I sold it. It was the direct-to-consumer

1:14:33

wine company in the States. So I

1:14:35

was looking at all this like wines

1:14:37

and testing all these wines in the

1:14:39

tubes that they sent me. And then

1:14:42

the other time I was talking to

1:14:44

this incredible founder that I later backed

1:14:46

who was like head of business development

1:14:48

in Novartis. And she was telling me

1:14:50

about all these issues that exist when you

1:14:52

as a biotech company or as trying

1:14:55

to bring a new drug to the

1:14:57

market. And then another day I was

1:14:59

talking to a company of mine that

1:15:01

pivoted from one space to another space.

1:15:03

And I was sitting and just like

1:15:05

thinking how lucky I am to be

1:15:08

exposed to so many different industries and

1:15:10

just feed my curiosity from so many

1:15:12

different perspectives. You know, Vidge Capital and

1:15:14

Second Investing, I think such a beautiful

1:15:16

industry for people with major ADD.

1:15:19

And I do think I

1:15:21

have ADD, although undiagnosed. So

1:15:23

yeah, you do, you get to do a lot of

1:15:25

really exciting things and they don't even feel like work.

1:15:28

I definitely see the cool part of it. That's why

1:15:30

when I started the podcast, my background was real estate.

1:15:32

But I'm like, I don't want to just do real

1:15:34

estate. I'm tired of talking about real estate all the

1:15:36

time. And talking to people like you opens

1:15:39

my eyes until like what your routines are

1:15:41

like or how things really work. And then

1:15:44

I can talk to a different type of

1:15:46

entrepreneur later on. It's just cool that we're

1:15:48

all entrepreneurs, if you will, but it's just

1:15:50

all so different. So well, I guess

1:15:52

kind of like wrapping things up. I don't know if there's

1:15:54

anything else you want to touch on before we close down

1:15:57

the interview. You know, I was talking

1:15:59

with This incredible founder, he's

1:16:01

the founder of this company called

1:16:03

Betterfly, which is a social impact

1:16:06

unicorn out of actually Chile. And

1:16:08

at the same time, he's also

1:16:11

a two times Iron Man world

1:16:13

championship runner up. And

1:16:15

he was telling me, you know, the big

1:16:17

problems of everything that existed in the society

1:16:19

is because people don't dream big enough. It's

1:16:22

because they settle and you know, and because

1:16:24

they put a ceiling, like put a hard

1:16:26

cap on their ambitions. And I

1:16:28

think just connecting our conversation to

1:16:31

capital that you create and the

1:16:33

value that you create is an

1:16:35

output of doing something that you

1:16:37

really like and that you're really

1:16:40

passionate about. And that's like

1:16:42

it's a really direct output of it. If

1:16:45

you put your life into something that

1:16:47

has meaning to it, that means that

1:16:49

you are dedicating ridiculous number of hours,

1:16:51

because nothing like not a single million

1:16:54

on the bank accounts or on paper

1:16:56

in the form of returns on the

1:16:58

companies just magically showed up, you have to

1:17:00

work really hard to get it. And

1:17:02

it's better to do something that you're

1:17:05

really excited about and something that you

1:17:07

initially dreamed for yourself and then you

1:17:09

made it happen and then your wealth

1:17:11

came after. Yeah, I think that last

1:17:13

point of you actually have to work hard to get to

1:17:15

where you want to go. Like I

1:17:17

think that's what gets swept under the rug on

1:17:20

a lot of other podcasts or classes or courses

1:17:22

on how to become a successful entrepreneur. So I

1:17:24

think we've kind of heard that through your story

1:17:26

and I appreciate you sharing it. So if anyone

1:17:29

wanted to reach out and say thank you for

1:17:31

doing the podcast or to learn more about you,

1:17:33

where's the best way for them to reach out?

1:17:36

I think you can guys find me

1:17:38

on LinkedIn. Oka Masikova, I'm

1:17:40

super active on LinkedIn. It's my

1:17:43

social network of choice. So yeah.

1:17:46

And again, thanks for coming on and sharing your

1:17:48

story. We really appreciate it, Oka. Thank you.

1:17:51

Thanks for having me. I

1:17:55

know what you're thinking right now. You

1:17:57

want more tech-based interviews, don't you?

1:18:00

Well, if you become a patreon member, we've

1:18:02

got plenty of extra interviews for you right

1:18:04

now Just jump on

1:18:06

over to the patreon feed plus

1:18:08

I've got a special spreadsheet that

1:18:11

has every interview categorized by industry

1:18:14

So you can easily jump to interviews

1:18:16

that will help your business immediately So

1:18:19

to become a member just

1:18:21

check out our website millionaire-interviews.com

1:18:24

And if you made it this far into the

1:18:26

podcast and you aren't a patreon

1:18:28

member Well, then what's holding you

1:18:30

back?