On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:
- Shamin Walsh of BAM Ventures
- Casber Wang of Sapphire Ventures
- Charles Hudson of Precursor Ventures
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.
We’re proud to partner with Ramp, the modern finance automation platform. Book a demo and get $150—no strings attached.
Want to keep up to date with The Full Ratchet? Follow us on social. 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
Today’s special segment, we have shameen Walsh BAM ventures, shame What’s the biggest mistake and or hardest lesson you learned as an investor. And what’s the story behind that?
0:45
I always joke that whenever I do podcasts or anything, I’m so bad at binary questions because, like, the hardest or the biggest mistake. I mean, we make mistakes every day, the hardest lesson. Well, I guess the counterpart to what I said last time is sometimes you realize you’ve you’ve missed out on something, or you don’t, you didn’t trust your instinct, and then you’ve missed the opportunity, and then you have to live with it forever, for years, and nobody cares about what you could have done. And I think something else that’s really hard to stomach is that, I think in all things in life. You can never get complacent, and you can never rest on your laurels. You’re only as good as your last hit. And so even if you do have a successful exit or a great outcome that was that particular fund, and you have a new fund with different LPS who are not benefiting from those past successes. So you have, you have to continue to be consistent and continue to excel. There’s no point at which you can say, I’ve made it.
1:50
That’s right. It’s a hustle every day.
1:58
On today’s special segment, we have Casper Wang of sapphire. What is the biggest mistake or the hardest lesson that you’ve learned as an investor, and what’s the story behind that lesson?
2:08
I wish I could go into a specific thing with you, Nick perhaps, perhaps we can talk about it when the company actually went public. But I think the biggest mistake I made is is looking too much at what has happened and not looking enough or believing enough of what’s about to happen, right? Because oftentimes I tried to do a very thorough diligence. I try to see and try to look at everything I could control, but there are certain factors, right? Like maybe the gross margin was a little lower today. Maybe there’s some customer concentration. And sometimes those are the passes where I look back and like, oh, that’s, you know, absolutely an anti pattern that I shouldn’t have done, which is why, like, again, we were to talk about, what are the things I’m doing differently today? I try to think about, hey, is this founder that I that I feel like I could stay at work until, like, you know, 10pm or midnight to jam on a certain session around, right? Like, do I feel excited about working with them? If I do believe that, I do think we can, you know, solve a problem together, right? So those are probably things that are hard lessons for me to learn. And if anything, like, I now value the things that spike right? Like, what is this company? Right? Whether it’s the founder, the management team, the product, the go to market, like, what is the one thing that doing five to 10 times better than the rest of field? Then, then, sort of, you know, you gotta be a plus across the board. Right? Usually, that company doesn’t exist. So I learned
3:46
on today’s special segment. We have Charles Hudson of precursor, what is the biggest mistake or the hardest lesson you’ve learned as an investor, and what’s the story behind it?
3:54
I think the hardest lesson I’ve learned is that VCs really you have mostly, like, negative power. You have the ability to, like, stop people from doing things. You don’t really have much in the way of ability to make people do things. And I’ve had a couple of investments where I’ve worked with the founder of like, it is so obvious to me what you need to do, and I just can’t make you see it. And if I can’t make you see it, you certainly won’t do it, and I also can’t make you do it. And I think the hardest thing is just accepting that when your job is to advise and assist, there will be times when it’s very obvious and very clear to you what needs to be done and how it needs to be done, and it’s not your job to actually step in and do it perfect you
4:43
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, careful. Me and invest confidently thanks for joining me.
