On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:
- Alexander Niehenke
- Kyle York
- Vince Hsieh
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 Alex Nienke of scale, what’s the biggest mistake you’ve made, and what’s the story behind it? I’ve
0:41
made so many mistakes. I have just been humbled by the idiot calls that I’ve had on companies. And I’ve had my CEOs tell me like, my feedback at board meetings was crap. And I’ve had my partners tell me the way that I presented a deal was arrogant. And I’ve had employees come to me and say, hey, the way that I’ve treated them was jerky. And I’ve had CEOs tell me like, hey, look, you know, you called on me and you didn’t. We weren’t high energy in the meeting. And so I went with another investor. I try to listen to all that, and I try to perpetually improve, and I try to get better. I’m not perfect. I don’t think anybody is, but I do seek out that that feedback, and I as painful as it is, I try to be susceptible to it. Somebody early my career, you know, gave me the advice that, you know, if you stop listening to feedback, people are going to stop giving you feedback. And so I think that’s like, and so I think that’s that’s kind of like that lesson in there for me, and I say, like, the thing that that I have probably found most consistently that I’m trying to work on is is focus. It’s so easy to get distracted, maybe particularly in the venture industry. And so my my mantra for the for the past few years, and I think it’s going to continue to be, is like, focus on the things that matter, and be prepared and be present when you’re doing the right things. Because you only have a couple big decisions in the venture business that you’re making every year. And if you’re, if you’re distracted that day because your kid was a brat on the way to school and you weren’t able to remove that out of your head, or, you know, you didn’t get the workout in that you wanted, or you were noted by something else like that might be a that might be a $20 billion business that just just slipped away on your thumb. And so, like, focus, focus, focus.
2:07
On today’s special segment we have Cal York of York. IE, what’s the biggest mistake or hardest lesson you’ve learned as an investor, and what’s the story behind that lesson?
2:16
Some of the biggest mistakes I’ve made have been out of thesis or out of skill set. I’ve invested in some random things, like hot sauces and nfts, and it’s, it’s sort of like invest in the area that you also know and can add some value. Love it.
2:33
Today’s special segment we have Vince Shea of Cypress. Vince, what’s the biggest mistake or hardest lesson you’ve learned as an investor, and what’s the story behind it?
2:41
So pattern recognition is generally considered a investor trait. We’re able to see patterns and draw conclusions and all that. Generally speaking, pattern recognition is good in everything you do in life, but sometimes I think pattern recognition can actually hurt you as an investor, because, like we do with people, I think we sometimes do with companies, it’s, called, I would call it guilt by association. So we saw a company that did x and it didn’t work. So any company that does x, we think won’t work, whatever that thing is, whatever x is, so, oh, they do that. Oh, I’m not gonna invest in that. They try that and I’m gonna do they did try that channel. That’s not gonna work. I’m not gonna invest in it. But the reality is that that’s not always true. The other thing is that guilt by association can also become guilt by success, where we see a company who’s successful do y, and we think any company that does y will also be successful. That’s not always true either. And so I think what I’ve you know, kind of the mistake I’ve made in the past was seeing that pattern recognition, guilt by association, guilt by success. Now I’ve come to realize more that, you know, especially this emerging growth stage, where the companies are still relatively early, the standard deviation of outcomes is still really high because they’re still proving out their company, proving out what they’re doing. So we need to reinforces the fact that really do need to assess every deal kind of on sale merits and not have guilt by association or success by association. It’s
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so hard teasing out like, what are the absolutes? What are the generalizations? What are the characteristics that are immutable in any cycle in any business and any founder, from those things that you know are this pattern recognition that can lead you astray, whether for for the Commission or the omission, as you’ve
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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.
