On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:
- Manish Patel
- Barry Schuler
- Shamin Walsh
We asked guests for the most important piece of advice that they’d share with folks early in their venture career.
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 for the most important piece of advice that they’d share with folks early in their venture career. Here’s the segment called key advice.
0:36
On today’s special segment, we have Manish Patel of Nava ventures. Manish, if you could share one piece of advice with a young, new investor, what would you tell them? Be
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vulnerable. I think a lot of young investors come have are very, have to come in very alpha, like, very hard, you know, very strong, like this kind of world where they have to kind of puff up, you know, and act like they know everything I would say, be vulnerable. It’s okay to say I don’t know, but work real hard when you say I don’t know, right? Be honest with founders and say, like, yeah, man, I don’t know the solution this problem either. But you know what? I’m gonna back you. I’m gonna work with you, and I’m gonna work my tail off to make sure we get to the right answer together. Love it on
1:21
today’s special segment, we have Barry Schuler of DFJ growth. Barry, if you could share one piece of advice with a young, new investor, what would you tell them?
1:30
You know, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting. This is very much an imprint apprenticeship role you cannot, yeah, I’m happy to say this is, this is, this is one job or occupation you could be doing where the gray hair is a bit of an advantage, because we’ve seen, we’ve seen the cycles, you know, we you do get a deep understanding of how these waves come along and how they play out, and but, but I think the most important single thing for a young investor is you have to be a voracious learner. You have to spend all of your spare time reading, learning, engaging with products. Because if there’s one thing I know, a great product will cover many sins. If you have a fantastic product and you’re getting the engagement on that product or service, you can kind of screw up your go to market and other stuff, and it’ll be okay. But if you have a marginal product and you’re not really seeing strong product market fit, and maybe it’s not that great, maybe your mom likes it, but no one else does. You know you’re gonna have a hard time turning that around. And I think to be able to differentiate what’s a great product and what’s not requires study. You never know who’s gonna walk in the door or what you wanna go after. And I think to be great, you have to, like I said, that love of learning is really important. But then it’s not just the spreadsheet. You have to go beyond the you know, the spreadsheet jockeying to play with the products really try and understand, is this a great product that is going to create engagement and that is going to serve you really, really well? Perfect.
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You today’s special segment, we have shameen Walsh BAM ventures. Shameen, if you could share one piece of advice with a young, new investor, what would you tell them? I
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would tell them to really look deeply into their own skill sets and strengths, because every type of investor is different. I think what makes you a good early stage consumer investor might be totally different than what makes you a great B to B investor, or climate investor, a late stage investor, pe investor. Not all investors are the same in terms of what’s necessary to make good investment decisions. So really think about who you are and the level of risk you’re comfortable with, where you feel like your skill sets are. And then I would, I would tell them to really think about becoming very knowledgeable in whatever it is that truly interests them, where they think they can excel and distinguish themselves in as opposed to, again, like following the shiny coin
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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.
