Jesse Draper - Founder of Halogen Ventures

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On Apple TV plus what is going on everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode I sat down with Jessie Draper. If you do not know Jessie Draper, she is an American venture capitalist and TV personality. In 2015, Draper founded Halogen Ventures to invest in female founded companies. She's the oldest daughter of Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper, who I've also had on the show, but she began her career as an actress. Her first notable role was on the Nickelodeon series the Naked Brothers Band, which starred her cousins Nat Wolf and Alex Wolf and was created by her aunt Polly Draper. She then created a technology talk show called the Valley Girl show which she hosted, wrote and Produced. As of September 2020, Halogen Ventures has invested in 62 female led businesses and including the Skim Hop, Skip drive, Sugarfina Flex, Carbon 38 and many, many more. Before we get started, a fun fact about Jessi Draper is that she was on the first ever Skype call and she tells the story about her father and how he ended up using Skype for the first time. And it is quite an interesting story. So make sure you stay tuned the entire episode. But before we get started, please share this episode with a friend. That is how the word gets out. Make sure to follow me on Instagram, Casey and enjoy today's podcast with Jesse Draper.

All right, what is going on everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode we have Jesse Draper, the founder of Halogen Ventures. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Jesse.

No problem. Thanks for having me for sure.

So I'd love to talk about Halogen Ventures when you initially started it and what prompted this female focused venture capital fund.

Oh man, it is a loaded question. I actually grew up in Silicon Valley. Right before this we were chatting and you said you had my dad on recently I am a fourth generation venture capitalist and the first female.

But.

But growing up in Silicon Valley, I actually, you know, I interned at startups. I grew up just sort of like in the early, early entrepreneur, tech entrepreneur world, like before everything. And I didn't think I could go into it, even though my dad was incredibly generous with an education in technology, and he was always encouraging us to look at things like a business. I was a female and I watched my mom work incredibly hard raising 4k, and I just thought, oh, well, what do women do? Like, they raise kids and what's a traditional job for a woman? And when I was a little girl, my aunt was a very successful actress. And she was. Her name was Polly Draper, and she was on this show called 30 something in the 80s, which is coming back to Netflix, I just heard. But she. I was like, oh, that's what women do. Like, they're in entertainment. And, you know, they say you can be what you can see. And that really resonated with me more recently because I just didn't see women in tech. So I went into entertainment, went to ucla, went into entertainment. I was like, I'm gonna be an actress. And had some success. I was on a Nickelodeon show, did a whole bunch of movies. And I quickly realized that it just. My heart just wasn't in it. And I totally respect the profession and it's amazing and so fun, but my heart just wasn't there. And so I ended up combining these two worlds. This was like 2000. And I ended up saying, okay, well, I love technology. It was like early days of Twitter. Like, you know, I was one of the early sort of like Twitter, Twitterers, tweeters, whatever. And, you know, I was just kind of watching this world grow and grow. And so I said, okay, like, I'm gonna combine these two worlds. And I created the first tech talk show. As you know, now there's quite a few. And I know it was the first because no one cared about these entrepreneurs. I had like the former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt on my show, and I couldn't get, like, no one cared. And today, you know how big a deal that would be.

Yeah, 100.

But this was earlier days of Google. And so I started this show and I did five seasons of the show, ultimately took it to tv. And I was an entrepreneur. I created a tech news site. We acquired a tech news site. We were trying to build this kind of business insider with the heart being the show. And, you know, it was early days of digital distribution. I created this whole new distribution model we did 35 different distribution deals wherever I could find eyeballs because no one could figure out, like, how to make money online with video. So we were one of the first companies to partner with Forbes Video Online and Mashable, and we worked with some Hearst papers. And then we were like in airports and hotels and like getting millions of views at gas stations and like fast food restaurants, which I'm sure you're familiar with today. But it was like very new then.

Totally.

And it was Valley Girl, right?

Yeah, it was called the Valley Girl show. And it's so embarrassing to look back on now, but, you know, it got better and better. So did five seasons. Were ultimately nominated for an Emmy after two seasons. I quickly realized that I had only interviewed men in technology. And I love men in technology. I grew up around men in technology, but I was like, I'm facilitating the problem. And so I made an initiative to interview 50% women in tech. And at first it was really hard. It was a different generation of women. The older women were not willing to help the younger women. It's changed dramatically. But they were actually like, sort of terrible to you as a young, you know, up and coming 20 year old. And I was dying for mentors, dying for like advisors. And I was just so. I'm forever grateful to the women of fashion tech because like Jen Hyman from Rent the Runway and the Gilt Girls and Rebecca Minkoff came on my show. And that made it okay for Sheryl Sandberg who really, I believe, like, so Sheryl Sandberg came on my show before she wrote Lean in and she really changed something. Like she made it okay for women to support women because I didn't feel that before. And. And so then I started getting pitched just like all these early stage deals. And at first I'd say, you're too early for the show. Love what you're doing. Maybe I can help you. And I started sending them to like, you know, dfj, Sequoia, wherever. And these funds were investing.

Yeah.

It was like paperless post and, you know, got them their first investors and like all these companies that you are very familiar with. And so I was like, okay, I know what a good deal looks like. I'm interviewing them all day long. I don't have a lot of money, but maybe I can write a check. And so I would write 1000. I'd empty my bank account into these companies. I'd be like, too early for the show, but I'll write you like $5,000 is what I have in my bank account. Like, can I write a $5,000 check and get you some media exposure? And some of those deals did really well for me. So one, I sold for 25x return on the secondary market in less than 18 months. That company has since gone under, and no one else made money from it. So it was a good time to sell. And then, you know, like, one sold to Walmart last year, one sold to P and G last year. And then I used that track record. I kind of set the show on hold aside media. It's a conversation for another day. But it's just. I had been through the ringer there, and I hit a moment with the show where either I would go raise money for this, like, tech news site or. But I had already been through the ringer. I was like, we're barely breaking even on this show. No one's quite figured it out. And I was watching peers like Britt Marengo raise $5 million, and I was like, I don't know if I know how venture capital works, and I don't know if I can have people bet millions of dollars on this quite yet, because I haven't quite figured out how you make billions of dollars with a digital media enterprise, essentially. And so, you know, I set it aside and I focused. I said, okay, I have this nice track record. At the time, I had gotten married, I was pregnant with my first kid, and my husband's like, hate to be Captain Obvious, but, like, your investments are going really well.

That's amazing.

Yeah. And so I was like, okay, I'll see if I can raise a fund. And I pitched, you know, 500 people closed, 50 of them raised my first fund. We're now on our second fund. We just closed. And it's been. This is probably the first place I've talked about closing, actually. But it's been great. So we're continuing to do what we've been doing. So we invest in a female in the founding team of five, and we do have. We have about 62 companies.

Three.

I was gonna ask.

I know that. I saw your portfolio. It's amazing the companies that you're a part of. I know that Sugarfita is the boutique that my girlfriend loves so much. And when I saw that, I was like, that's awesome to see.

Yeah.

We were one of their first investors and then were. And we have three male CEOs, so I always like to say, no, we love men.

Yes, totally.

It's so funny you say you, like, invest in women, and it really, like, diversifies us as an opportunity. And we see a lot of different because we went off of the traditional Silicon Valley path. We see crazy amounts of deal flow. We say we're looking for women in consumer tech. But you get these funny questions like, what if a guy works there? And I'm like, so I'm building billion dollar businesses, so I hope eventually a lot of men work there. But, you know, I just want to make sure there's female in the leadership team. But it's so funny. It's like, how do you build a business without men? You can't. We need both of us.

Absolutely.

That was such a phenomenal answer. And you're a great storyteller, by the way. Just the way you portray your story from media to now. And I want to ask you, when was the portfolio? What was the growth when it comes to investing in your first company? To five to now. 50 plus. How long was that process and how have you changed your investing strategy?

So we've done. We do about 10 a year. So it's been about six years and six to eight years because of my little angel portfolio. And then in terms of investing, I don't know if this is exactly what you're asking, but sometimes we write sort of a smaller check in the early phases to see how they do. I kind of give a founder two years to prove themselves to me. And I'm like, we're not going to continue to invest if you don't prove yourself to me in two years. And then if they prove themselves to me, we continue to invest. But we only follow on about a third of those companies, and then we double down on our best performers. So we have like, you know, we have a company called Carbon38 that is an international athleisure marketplace. It's partially owned by Foot Locker. We're now one of the largest investors in that company. And we have invested in every single round all along the way. And, you know, they're just growing at a great pace. Katie Johnson is a phenomenal leader and founder. She blows my mind every day. And, you know, we will just support you through and through if we, you know, think you're growing at a good pace.

That's awesome. And I wanted to bring up something that I read somewhere. It was that you were on the first ever Skype call. Is that correct?

Yeah.

What was that moment like and how was it being a part of this early technology days, and what did you learn from that moment?

First of all, as someone who ran a talk show formerly, I really appreciate when people do reach research. So thank You. I can't tell you how many interviews I've done that I'm like, let me just tell you about myself, because clearly you didn't. So I really appreciate that. And you must have dug deep.

I tried to.

Yeah. So I grew up. You know, like I was saying, I grew up in Silicon Valley, and my dad. I'm the oldest of four, and my dad was really, really encouraging of me being an entrepreneur and looking at everything like a business. And he taught me from the age of about, you know, I just remember. I mean, I think my first kind of memory was, like, third grade or second grade. He was always having us test new technologies. And, you know, we were one of, like, we. We were one of the first people to start testing, like, aim, which was like, the first. Through the Internet, instant messaging. I've actually never talked about this before, but, like, I got obsessed with, like, messaging random people. And I was in, like, third grade, and there were. It was like the early day days of like. Like, sex offenders.

Oh, yeah.

They'd be like, is your parent. Like, are your parents in the room? And they'd, like, write these creepy messages. And I was like, like. And you're like this little kid being.

Like, what is this?

Luckily, there weren't photos at that moment. It was just, like, a lot of crazy words.

But you were like, in the chat.

Rooms, and it was just the back and forth, right. Like, I'm too young for this, but I remember seeing that. And there was, like, go around about that.

Yeah. And the. And so, yeah, I went. I think I was 16 or 17. I found a picture of it recently, actually. And my dad said, you know, hey, do you want to come with me to this? It was like the first Skype board meeting. And I said, yeah, sure. I don't know what that is, but okay, sounds fun. And the founders of Skype, Yannis and Nicholas, they were also the founders of Kazaa, which was one of the music streaming services. And Kazaa was in trouble legally in the United States. So they had moved back to their home country, Estonia, to start this new. This new company, Skype. And my dad and Steve Jurvetson from his team had invested, and I think my. And my grandfather, I think even invested, and he pulled him in. And I remember going to. So we went to Estonia. It wasn't a casual, you know, board meeting trip. So we went to Estonia, which, by the way, is like, a very cool country, very small, cool country, a lot of history, fun. And went to the board meeting. And they were so Nice. And at the time, it was just a phone service. Like, it was. You could just call, but it was like early days of Skype. But I do remember how Hartenbaum, who was at. Worked with my grandfather at the time at Draper Richards, and he was on the plane with us going over there, and he was. It was one of the first times, like, he was calling people through Skype, through the Internet on the plane.

Wow.

And that had never. That was like, never. That never happened before. And now, you know, you're not allowed to use your phone and stuff. But I just remember being like, whoa. So we get over there, and my dad had forgotten or something. I shouldn't make him look bad. Maybe he hadn't forgotten. I don't know. But he had forgotten. He was speaking at a conference at Stanford, and one of his best friends was running this conference, and he's, like, emailing him, being like, hey, are you speaking? What's the deal? And my dad's like, I'm in Estonia. Like, I can't do it. And then he said to the Skype guys, any chance, like, I know you were working on video. Any chance you could, like, Skype me into this conference? I feel like that's probably a great place to launch. And so he Skyped into this conference at Stanford. It was the always on conference. And I was there in my little. I was like the, like, mascot. Like, I was, like, wearing a little Skype T shirt, and I was just like, hi.

That was the first ever Skype call.

Yes.

And wow, that is incredible.

And, you know, it's funny is I always think about Giannis. It was, like, early days of Facebook, and I told him.

About.

So it wasn't 16. How old was I? That was like, must have been my freshman year of college. So. So it was, like, early days of Facebook. And I was telling him about Facebook. And you could only join Facebook if you had a university email address.

It was really before the public launch.

Yeah. And it wasn't even, like, you know, at first it was only, like, I think, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale or something. And then I was at ucla, and my friend Alex Moser and Elizabeth Holmes had, like, one day, like, been like, have you seen the Facebook? And we, like, start showing it to my dad and all this stuff. And so I remember at the Skype meeting, I told him about it, and he wanted to check it out, and so I gave him my name and password. And I remember feeling, like, a little weird about that, like, giving him my name and password, but I was like, whatever. He's just going to check it out and see what it's like and stuff. But now, that would be very valuable.

Totally. That's incredible.

So, yeah, long story. But it was very. Yeah, it was like real history when I look back. It's crazy.

Yeah, absolutely. And I did want to bring up. So I had Cindy Eckert on the show, or Cindy Whitehead. I saw that you mentioned in an article in Forbes, and she was amazing. And she talked about female founders and she sold Sprout Pharmaceuticals. And I wanted you to. Oh, I want to ask you, what have you learned from working with female founders, and how has it been different than the work you grew up in, which is, you know, mainly dominant with men? And how can we best be prepared for this shift in the economy moving forward with more female founders coming in and just crushing it?

Well, first of all, Cindy is a friend of mine and one of my investors, and she. Yes, she is absolutely incredible. So if you guys haven't heard his episode with Cindy, you should definitely listen to it. She sold the first female sex drug for a billion dollars cash, and now she's investing that back into the female ecosystem, which is great data about kind of what we're trying to do. And she's been a huge inspiration in what I do, where I want to build more founders like that, who, you know, the more we can change the wealth dynamic. Like, men have been taught to pass their pocketbooks down to men and their sons. And women have been taught not to talk about money. And actually, worse, we've been taught to give it away. And there is a place and a time for nonprofits. I give as much as I can. I know so many other people do, especially right now. But giving away your money before you've learned to grow your money, I think is doing women a disservice. And what I encourage women to do is, like, put their money to work. So to see people like Cindy who had someone bet on them and now are betting on other women, we need more women like that. Unfortunately, women, there's a confidence issue. There's so many issues around just women and money. And I always just encourage women. Any women listening out there, just put your money to work, take a risk. Invest in a stock that you're familiar with. There's so many easy ways to do it now with acorns or Robin Hood or what have you. Buy some Bitcoin that's 1 to 17 female to male owners. And that we need to, like, change those wealth dynamics. And then men out there like yourself, Casey, you know, it's so important that you champion women. You pull them into the boardroom, you encourage them to invest, you talk to them about money. I know, like, there is this like taboo about talking about money, but what about saying like, you know, going into Covid, I was sort of like trying to talk to my friends about, I said, you know, I bought some Amazon because I just feel like I'm gonna use Amazon a lot. And a friend of mine called me about a month later and it had gone up like, you know, 200% or something like that. And she's like, she's like, I was telling my mom how you were buying Amazon and had I bought it that day, we talked about it, like, I would have made a ton of money. Yep, maybe you should have, you know, and like, I think it's just important that we put our money to work and don't think like, you should just give it away. And the more you, you take this risk and attempt something with your money, the more you learn, you know, like, so women feel like uneducated about money. And I see this, you know, I've pitched hundreds of women, so this is actually like data I have personally collected and you them in these different categories. Cindy is like an anomaly. She understands money she's been invested in and she invests herself. Then you have. It's usually like the older generation of women who've inherited quite a bit of money and maybe they've gotten divorced and they have a bunch of money. Maybe they are married to someone with a lot of money. Maybe they've made the money themselves somehow and invested it thoughtfully with a money manager. But they still don't really know what's going on. And thus when you pitch them as a woman or male, they, they'll like brag to me about how they're writing a multimillion dollar check to charity. And I'll be like, well, what about the fund? And they'll say, well, I just don't, I don't understand it. I'm like, well, you're never going to understand it if you don't, you know, invest. And you can make so much more of an impact if it's for profit because then it's self sustaining. So I feel like there's. So anyway, Cindy's taught. We've had a lot of great conversations around that.

No, she's awesome. What are you most excited about when it comes to your portfolio and the companies that you're working with? Moving into 2021.

In our portfolio, so we invest in consumer tech so we do about 25% CPG products with some sort of like proprietary element or moat so that it's defensible and then the rest we do are pure tech plays. So right now, like today it was announced that my company trust and will just raised $15 million.

Congratulations.

Thank you. And they're making estate planning online accessible to all families. It's usually a very expensive thing, but people like Aretha Franklin didn't have a will and now they have this great entry product that's like $100 to set up a guardianship. So say you have your first kid and you need to set up a guardianship, like that's one of the first things you think of. But it's very expensive to do that and they make it affordable and online and it's great. So I'm excited about that because that happened today. I'm excited about this company called the Squad app.

I have it by the way.

You do?

Yeah.

Oh my God, that makes me so happy. It's sort of like a zoom meets social media for like younger, for like, for the kids.

And you can screen share on the app, right? Is that correct? That's how I found it. I remember I looked up like how to screen share on mobile and my good friend and I were trying to do it and Squad popped up and we downloaded it and gave it a try.

Awesome. It's so fun. And so they just partnered with Snapchat and so I'm excited about that. But in terms of the future, I think when you think about investing, you just need to think, okay, we do early stage, so we want to find these companies like five person teams with a great idea and like what will be, you know, a billion dollar business in 10 years. So that's changed a little for me. Going into Covid. We're definitely a little more focused on ed tech. You know, I, I really think people need to get back in school and go in person to classes and things like that. But in the meantime we really need to figure out how to educate everybody. And so I'm looking very thoughtfully at that. I think we have a lot of child care issues also, you know, especially for lower income communities. And we need to figure out how to make child care accessible and affordable to have families. Because all of that's been hitting hit pretty hard with COVID So I think there's a lot of opportunity there. We also look very closely at the government, has a lot of inefficiencies right now that I've realized while we invest in consumer tech we can actually solve by funneling consumer dollars into companies that also provide some sort of work with the government as a customer. So for example, Hop Skip Drive started as an Uber type service for families and childcare. It's safer transportation. They like fingerprint their drivers. They're a great LA based company and that was going well. And then they launched with the LA City foster care system as a partner and that was an enormous account. They just announced that, I think they're in 23 cities now across the country providing transportation for the foster care system. And Joanna McFarland, the founder of Hopkins Drive, really got me thinking about, wow. One, the government's a bigger customer than the Fortune 500 companies combined. Two, it's a mess. Yeah, disaster. And like everything's still done by hand. You can't get anything done. So I'm like the tech exists, like I'm sure you can attest, like the technology exists. We just have to plug it in. So I'm kind of looking for opportunities where we can invest in a consumer company that can also solve a government inefficiency. I've really dug in hard on foster care and we also invested in this company called Binti that's putting adoption online and they place 60% more kids in adoptive homes with the agencies they worked with last year. These are ways where, you know, you can make an impact, but you can also make a lot of money. And those are kind of like opportunities we really look hard for. And so those are a couple of things I'm thinking about. I think there's opportunities within child care in that vertical. And so we're looking, I'm excited to see what comes out in terms of solving government inefficiencies.

Yep, very cool. Now that was very. You guys are very, you know, playing from a high level, thinking about the big problems in the world. And I think that's, you know, not only a very important thing to do, but I want to ask you, like growing up with your father and your grandparents, what has been the biggest lesson you've learned as being a fourth generation investor and how have you compiled that knowledge to be able to have the mindset to think so big, but more importantly vet deals appropriately and to just have that cutting edge perspective on how you're looking at companies and investing for the future?

I mean, I think that's something that my dad definitely taught us to do. He makes us think so big that I can't even like, I don't know how to think small. And when I see a company, I mean When I see a company come pitch, sometimes they'll say, yeah, we're doing this. We're focused on this market. And I'll kind of define the market for them and I'll say, okay, so this is actually only a $50 million market. Let me explain to you, like, the.

Way my economics work.

I have investors who I have to make money back for. And in order to do that, you basically have to sell your company for a billion dollars, and then it pays off. My fund pays off my investors pays off everybody. So I can't even do. I can't even look at a $50 million market. So take this, figure out a new revenue stream and then an additional revenue stream, and then figure out how to multiply that by 10, multiply that by a hundred, and then come back and pitch me.

And I think, I'm constantly thinking, how do I make this bigger? How can we build bigger? And if a company comes in and I can only see what's right in front of me and they don't build the whole vision for me, or if I throw them a curve ball and say, well, what if this happens? What if we go into an international pandemic and your manufacturer shuts down? How are you going to diversify that? What other products will you come up with? With? Like, if they don't roll with me on questions like that, then I know that they're not seeing the big picture, the opportunity either. So I've definitely learned to think bigger. And that's in everything we do as a family. And, you know, I'm aware it's like, you know, there's people out there who make me feel bad because I come from. I'm like a fourth generation venture capitalist. And, you know, it's like everyone came from somewhere, you know, and I'm grateful for where I came from. It's not like I'm not, but. But I also feel I'm very close with my family. We all run funds separately. We all work incredibly hard, raise our own funds. Like right now, my dad's raising a fund, my brother's raising a fund, my other brother's raising a fund, and I just closed my fund, and they're my best friends. And then my sister is running a company called Lemon El, which is an accessories business. And I think we've just been taught to be creative and turn everything into a business and be self sustaining, whatever that means in whatever industry we're in. And so we always have to kind of think of things that way.

And.

It'S good. Like it's challenging because, you know, my mom is like the CEO of the family and she's like, dinners are like board directors meetings.

I'm like picturing this right now. This is amazing.

All you talk about is business and you do. And it's competitive. We've been taught to be very competitive. We're competitive in a loving way with each other, with others work. But I think competition drives you. But everything is a competition with my dad and it's good. It really forces us to think and do our best and it's fun.

Speaking of your involvement with your family, I know the show Meet the Drapers. When did that come about? And what about that excites you? And how are you involved?

Yeah, so this is totally my dad's show.

I do a couple episodes a season.

And it's so fun.

It's been a really great time for me to spend time with my grandfather also. But it's basically like a Shark Tank type show. But we're very nice.

Totally.

I've seen it.

I love it. I know that you guys are partnered with Republic and do a of lot stuff there, so.

And it's different because you can actually invest. You don't have to have millions of dollars to invest. You could invest, you know, as little as, you know, I think as little as 10 to like $100 and own a piece of these companies because it's the only show where they crowdfund. So they're partnered with Republic and. And they help crowdfund the capital for these companies.

And yeah, I work, I work closely with them.

I found some businesses through there. I've sent them some businesses and I'm a big fan. And it's funny because you have these multiple generations and like my cousins have done a stint on it and my brothers and you always have a couple generations of Drapers. And my dad and my grandfather and I just have such different perspectives. Like I remember the company that just raised trust and will that I invested in. They came and pitched the three of us and you know, my dad's like, okay, this is great. I see it. It could be like a legal zoom, whatever. And then I'm excited because it's very focused on like family planning.

And then my grandfather's like, but how are you going to get the word out there? Oh, well, we're buying Google Ads and we're talking about how digitally they're going to grow their brand. And my grandfather is less familiar with digital brand growth. So he like, these, these founders were so sweet like with my grandfather and they're just explaining. So Google AdWords is like, they, no way.

That is amazing.

But they had to keep, you know, explaining over and over. My grandfather's like, I just don't think they're gonna be able to, like, grow their brand because, like, I don't get it.

Yeah.

That was so amazing. Talk about a family culture. That's so cool to hear from your perspective. That's amazing.

It's fun. I feel very fortunate and lucky. And the biggest thing I've taken from them is we don't take anything for granted. We've been taught to work for everything. And there's this work ethic that almost like gets. I know it's like where we, like, work is just built into our entire ethos. So we're constantly working, all of us, and it's actually sometimes like, like a problem. Like, I know it's a problem in my family. I know it's a problem in each of the individual families where it's hard for us to take a step back because we've been taught to just love what we do and work as hard as possible. And I do think it's just like, we have really good work ethic, but sometimes the balance isn't there.

Totally. Absolutely. Last question before we wrap up, Jesse. And that is just like I said before, you've been in this investor family, the past generations, and that comes with not only success, but you learn a lot through that. And I want to ask you, what is your definition of success and why?

I think my definition of success is to have the freedom to do something you love. And that is in any category. I think the definition of success, I never look at it as though I'm successful. I feel like I'm always working incredibly hard. And when people come to me and say, like, say like, oh, you're doing really well, I'm like, am I? No, I'm not. I'm just like, you know, I'm just kind of heads down. But I love what I'm doing. And so I think that's. I think that's my definition is to have the freedom to do what you love.

Love that. Well, where is the best place where everyone can follow you along your journey on socials?

Essiecdraper on Instagram, essiedraper on Twitter. I'm very accessible online, and I try to be very accessible. If you're pitching, you can pitch us@halogenvc.com you can. I take pictures on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, wherever you. I often give out our email address on panels which my team flips out about. But I'm very accessible because I think access is such a huge thing in terms of diversity and inclusion. And I think there's a real problem with the old Silicon Valley way where not everybody knows a venture capitalist. And so we try to be super accessible online so you can find us. But essiecdraper on Instagram.

I love that. Well, Jesse, this was such an amazing conversation. I really enjoyed it. And I just want to say thank you again for coming on the show today.

Thank you. This was so fun. Thank you so much for having me, Casey.

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