On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:
- Laura Chau
- Mike Whitmire
- David Garcia
We asked guests to discuss the most visionary founder that they’ve worked with and what makes them so special.
The host of The Full Ratchet is Nick Moran of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to investing in founders outside of the Bay Area.
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Transcribed with AI:
0:19
Welcome back to TFR on today’s special segment, we ask guests to discuss the most visionary founder that they’ve worked with and what makes them so special. Here’s the segment called visionary founders.
0:36
On today’s special segment, we have Laura Cho of Canaan, Laura, who’s one of the most visionary or inspiring founders you’ve worked with, and what makes them unique?
0:45
So I recently led an investment in a company called nige. They are a consumer AI company focused on the deaf and hard of hearing community. So they have a dedicated app, and actually going back to what we’ve talked about with earlier, with kind of regulatory moats within sectors. This is one where they’re building a consumer app that transcribes calls in real time, really low latency for the deaf community. The really cool thing is that it is regulated by the FCC, and the government pays for all of these users, so it’s a better experience, and it’s free. The founders, Tomer and Alon, they have, don’t come from this background in terms of being deaf or hard of hearing themselves, but they have gone so deep in learning about this community, embracing the community, they have their team all learn sign language, and they do that once a week. They’ve hired deaf engineers, and they just live and breathe this solution, in addition to being incredibly talented, technically and, you know, really building a team, but their dedication to the mission of what they’re doing and their deep understanding of it, I think, has allowed them to build a product that’s really, really purpose built for this community. Amazing.
2:08
On today’s special segment, we have Mike Whitmire of flow cast. Mike, if you had to choose one visionary founder or leader who has inspired you most? Who would it be and what about their leadership approach resonates most?
2:20
I’ll give you kind of the the cheesy answer, and then the, I guess, the non cheesy answer. My mom is a founder. She started her own bookkeeping firm. Her her and my answer. Her sister started it. And it’s, you know, 20 people and but what I really, what I really admire about them, is they both lead by example in a really intense way. They’re they are in the weeds. They’re doing the work, they’re pushing their team, they’re reviewing it, they’re training them, they’re teaching them. And they just are great leaders by example. There’s no fist pounding get this done, anything like that. They’re just genuinely the type of people that you want to work hard for. And I would actually say my first boss at Ernst and Young was the same, the same exact way. And it’s a really, it’s a really, it’s a profound boss to have, and it’s really means something to see someone else putting in the same amount of effort as you and working that hard, and it makes you want to work that hard, naturally. And so I really appreciate that about any type of leader and then going bigger in the SaaS world. I mean, probably not the first time you’ve heard this answer, but Marc Benioff is just incredible. He’s the man, father of SaaS. Effectively, anyone who coined the term the cloud? I think I made up the cloud. That’s mind boggling to me. So one of the best branding things that’s ever been invented, I don’t know how you convince people that a bunch of warehouses full of servers should be called the cloud, but very well done, very cool naming. And just obviously Salesforce is Salesforce, and respect everything he’s done. And we very much try to emulate Salesforce, and we think that we ultimately are going to be the sales force for accounting departments.
3:44
Amazing.
3:51
On today’s special segment, we have David Garcia of digit, David, if you could choose one visionary founder or leader that has inspired you most, who is it and what about their leadership approach resonates? Yeah,
4:03
I think I have to mention David Welles from from Nubank. I think what he has done with new banking, and this last, I think it’s like 15 years or so, is just being on words, it’s one of the most amazing consumer finance companies in the world. And I think he has gotten I think, like the execution is just amazing. Like starting with credit, nailing this formula of optimizing for average revenue, proactive customer, while at the same time, keeping customers are very low. The speed with which they ship new products and features, even at the scale that they are today, is amazing. So I think David Wallace is an amazing leader. And some someone that I look up to, and I will also mention someone that it’s there’s this guy called Brunello cocinelli, an Italian designer who just has a very unique way of thinking about building a company, leading a company about Fauci. Really about work, about even about beauty or life in general. There’s a very interesting interview with this guy. He’s very discreet, so there’s not much information about the way he thinks and works. But there’s one very interesting interview that I will share with you so that it can be included in the in the show notes, I would say that’s another, I would say uncommon, founder, leader of a company, founder of a company that I would definitely
5:25
add. You know, was it on a podcast, or who conducted the interview? Is, I’ll share the link.
5:29
It was a reported, reported and Brunello, Brunello cocineli Agreed him to receiving his beautiful villa in solo male in Italy, all of the companies based there in sorome, and it’s a very deep interview. And then there’s an episode on the founders podcast about Brenna cochineal, which actually references a lot of that interview. But a very, very interesting guy, super interesting guy. Love it.
6:00
That will conclude this installment of investor stories. If you’re enjoying the program and would like to see it continue, take a moment and leave a five star review in iTunes. Okay, that will wrap things up for today until next time over. Prepare, choose carefully and invest confidently. Thanks for joining me.
