On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:
- Han Shen
- Barry Schuler
- Daniela Binatti
We asked guests to tell the most important lesson they’ve learned in their 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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You can learn more about New Stack Ventures by visiting our LinkedIn and Twitter.
Transcribed with AI:
0:19
Welcome back to TFR on today’s special segment, we ask guests to tell the most important lesson that they’ve learned in their career. Here’s the segment called Lessons Learned.
0:35
On today’s special segment, we have Han Shin of iFLY. Han, can you tell us a story highlighting a critical lesson that has changed the way you invest.
0:43
A lot of lessons, for sure, but I will say, how about this a fund lesson? So some people ask me, why did you name the fund I fly? Do you fly? The answer is, actually, no, I used to fly airplane when I was in the Bay Area. I still have a valid FAA issued pilot private pilot license by aviation standard. I’m really rookie, right? So I’m not like bragging about that, but the next question people ask is, oh, gosh, you know you like flying. You’re a venture capital investor. Oh, I see you must love risk. I said, Actually, no, not really. It’s not that I love risk. I’m probably just more into how to assess and mitigate risk, and the commonality between flying and venture investing is understanding, what are you getting into? What I mean by that is, before I took off at San Carlos airport in the Bay Area back then, there’s a long checklist, starting from the day before weather forecast, airport situation. Is there a temporary flight restriction when the President is in town? Lot of these details. Isn’t that the same as we do due diligence checklists when we talk to founders, right? If there is a major reflex, for example, GFR or temporary flight restriction, President, don’t fly. If you ever take off, there will be some serious consequences, right? And wait, no same thing. When you talk to a founder, you raise a red flag. They just stop right there. And more than three, four times I was so close to push the throttle start rolling for takeoff, and I saw something I could understand on the instrument panel, right? And I pulled back and told the tower country said, you know, board I don’t, you know, want to fly anymore. I’m going to taxi back to my parking spot. And the choice of not investing, the choice of not flying, is as important, or even more important than the decision to take off or investing. So that is analogy I want to highlight the piece of kind of a fun lesson, a job between flying and eventually investing.
2:57
On today’s special segment we have Barry Schuler of DFJ growth. Barry, can you tell us a story highlighting a critical lesson that has changed the way you invest?
3:06
Oh, boy. So so, so, so many, I think the most important lesson is, you know, when, for me in particular, going from being a CEO who ran a big organization to then becoming an investor, there is a transformation that you have to go through, because working with young entrepreneurs as a minority partner, which we all are in venture, is a challenge. You can’t make them do anything, and you can, but I view our job is to take all of our scars and minds that we stepped on, that blew our feet off, or whatever. And you know, the difference between a young entrepreneur and an old entrepreneur like me is our radar is the you know, to me, danger’s pinging from all sides. You know, what makes young entrepreneurs so good is they don’t know what they don’t know, and that, you know, causes them to venture into areas that I would never do this stuff I did when I was a 20 year old, old entrepreneur now and and so I have a one company in particular. They’re doing great. They’re they’re the leader in the 3d printing space. Super smart entrepreneur, and there helping helping him and helping him avoid mistakes, has been a learning experience to me, on how to be effective, on how to it’s almost like being a parent. You can demand your kids to do what you want. It’s never going to be the best outcome, because they’re going to want to do exactly the opposite. You’re a parent, you know, and you know, the job becomes, and I think, a very important job for those of us who are engaged investors, a lot of people don’t, you know, there’s a style of investing that’s indexing, throwing, throwing money everywhere, and whatever happens, happens. But for us. Engaged investors, we have to help the team arrive at the right answers. And I think that’s been the most important lesson to me, is how to speak and work with them in a way that gets them to want to respond in a positive way.
5:18
On today’s special segment, we have Daniela Bonacci of Pismo. Daniela, can you tell us a story highlighting a critical lesson that has changed the way you lead? I
5:28
think that one of the things that when we started the company, I we came from a very traditional in not only industry, but very traditional or design when you have hierarchies, when you have, like, VPs and directors and managers, and kind of the the when you have to communicate down, like to just, you know, pass through, usually you kind of keep some communication and some informations in some forms, and I think having the Most to the point where it’s possible, of course, but having the most transparent and open conversations, and to employees, to the team, it’s something that is extremely important, especially on the hard times, to make people on board it in what we were doing. So if you just say, No, I cannot talk about this. Or sometimes we tend to protect information, even to try to protect the team, but when you share your challenges and you show some vulnerability and you are, you have the courage to say, I don’t know the answer, or maybe I think it’s the time where people get, like the most attached to you and onboarded to try To solve the problems, sometimes by trying to protect protecting them, you end up like losing people. And I think when the conversation is open and transparent and you treat adults like adults, which is something that the Netflix culture deck says, I think it’s one of the most interesting things to think like. You need to treat addicts as adults, and they will be, if they are mature enough, they will be on boarded with you to help to solve the problem. Like, I don’t have all the answers, and this is something that I kept repeating. So we don’t have all the answers, we need to be able to make the right questions. And when you are like, 10 people thinking it’s definitely more powerful than just one or two perfect
7:22
you 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. You
