On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:
- Alexander Niehenke of Scale Venture Partners
- Kyle York of York IE
- Aaref Hilaly of Bain Capital Ventures
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.
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 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 Alex nihenke of scale, if you could share one piece of advice with a young, new investor. What would you tell them?
0:43
I mean, just, it’s like, everything in life, like, slow down. I don’t know. This is a great job. It’s fun. You know, if you, if you’re, if you’re a nerd for business, if you love technology, like I do, like, you just got to pinch yourself some days because, like, sure, like, there’s a bunch of pitches that don’t get you excited or that don’t fit your interest. You don’t know what they’re talking about. But a week doesn’t go by where, like, I walk out of a pitch and I’m super jazzed about the future or something, and a lot of the times, it doesn’t go anywhere. I’m wrong all the time. But, like, enjoy those moments, understand the math. Like, I’m I’m 42 all right, that’s a data point. I don’t know. Maybe I write checks for 20 more years, but like, 62 if you’re writing a check at 62 that means you’re still on the board. At 72 like, starts getting up there, right? And I write maybe one and a half to two deals a year. You kind of start doing that math. You’re like, Ooh, I have 2530 35 of Max 40 deals left in my life, and it could just be 20, you know, you start looking at those numbers, and you’re like, Well, that’s pretty daunting. And so like, enjoy the investing that you have the opportunity to do this, the chance to work with these people and have have fun with it. I I spent too much time early in my career title chasing and comparing myself to what a peer at another venture firm had achieved. And you very quickly discover like this industry is littered with some of the best of the best. And there are certain people who just seem to walk on water, and if you compare yourself to them all the time, you’ll be depressed. Other people just get lucky. If you compare yourself to them, you’ll be depressed. And if you just depressed. And if you just show up every day and you try to do a really freaking hard job, you sometimes wake up 10 years later and you’re like, Wow, I did some pretty darn cool stuff. I’m proud of that maybe somebody else is comparing themselves to me and feeling cruddy and so, you know, like, lift them up. But you know, also feel good about yourself. Perfect.
2:22
I on today’s special segment, we have Kyle York of York, ie, if you could share one piece of advice with a young, new investor, what would you tell them? Try to be as loyal as you can be, and play the long game perfect.
2:40
On today’s special segment, we have Arif hilali of Bain Capital ventures. If you could share one piece of advice with a young new investor, what would you
2:48
tell them? When I was starting out in the business, we hired this young investor. I came in having been a founder, we hired a young investor who just recently had two years of experience. I wouldn’t name them because I don’t want to. I won’t spare them any embarrassment. But we hired someone who didn’t say a word in partner meetings for two years. So they sat in the meeting, they were present, but didn’t say anything, pretty much for two years. But then when they spoke, everything they said was excellent. Everything they said, we kind of would would sit up and go Whoa. That hadn’t, you know, considered that or that’s really interesting. And so I guess my advice to and this person, by the way, today, is a very successful investor, doing extremely well, my advice is actively listen and learn from the discussion around you, because, and by the way, if you’re not learning in these meetings, then you should change firms, because that’s the only thing that matters. And and I say that because it’s very easy to get bored if you’re just listening and you’re not saying too much. Active listening is actually more difficult than speaking, but when you actively listen and you’re challenging yourself and you’re asking yourself, what would I have done in this situation? What did that? What did this investor do? Why did they do that? Does that make sense? How do I feel about it? That’s how you really learn. And what it leads to is that when you do speak, you don’t state the obvious, which a lot of people do, you broaden people’s understanding of the opportunity. And as soon as you do that, you become critical to the investment team that you’re on
4:21
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.
