On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:
- Vince Hsieh of Cypress Growth Capital
- Paul Madera of Meritech Capital
- Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge Capital
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
Today’s special segment, we have Vint Shea of Cyprus, if you are mentoring a new investor today, what’s the single most important piece of advice that you would give them?
0:45
So the old adage is, the network is your net worth. I think that’s most true here in the investing world, our entire business is trying to get deal flow at the top of the funnel. Everything else we do, we have to start with some deal flow. And at Cypress at least, I’m sure it’s true for most investment firms, probably 80% of our funded deals come from our network, our network of other investors, our network of fractional executives, our network of wealth managers, investment bankers, accounting firms, law firms. We spend a ton of time cultivating that network. I think if you’re a young investor in the world where you don’t necessarily have a network, yet, the best thing you do to build success for you as an investor is to build up the network through the right type of network, though not going to the wrong events or spending your time with the wrong people, people who fit the let’s call it the ideal customer profile, if you will, of your fund or your investment thesis.
1:40
On today’s special segment, we have Paul Madera, co founder and general partner at maritech. Well, if you could share one piece of advice with a young, new investor, what would you tell them?
1:50
I would tell them, be really careful not to do what is the prevalent style today, at least in the late stage world, and that style today, in many ways, is talking to your buddies and then chasing after the shiny object that that the shiny company, the interesting company that everyone else thinks is interesting. Instead, you should pick a sector. Pick a sector that isn’t overly broad. Get very smart in that sector. Invest a lot of time to understand how does the sector operate. What are the critical dynamics in terms of successful companies there? Who are the opinion leaders in that sector? Why have certain companies done well? Why have they failed? And take that information, recognizing you’re not going to get a deal in the next two months out of this process, but investing in that so that a year or two or three years from now, when your pitch comes up, you’re going to make a really smart decision around that pitch, and you will get it at a better price than others, because you have something to add. And that’s what I would tell myself if I were young and getting started perfect
3:10
on today’s special segment. We have Jeff busgang of flybridge. If you could share one piece of advice with a young new investor, what would you tell them?
3:18
Slow down your investment pace. New investors are such they’re in such a rush to get points on the board and make investments and get on boards and prove to their partners that they’re seeing good deals. And I would so much rather see a young, new investor have one or two amazing companies in a year or two, than three or four or five mediocre companies in six months,
3:42
a lot of those end up taking a lot of a lot of your time. Yeah, and one
3:45
of the things that’s really tricky about our business is you can get busy with mediocre companies, and then three, four years in, you’ve got a portfolio of 1015, companies that aren’t going anywhere, and you don’t have the bandwidth to chase that one amazing company. Yep, you
4:07
Brenna, 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.
