Ryan Pruitt - Managing Director at Ocean Azul Partners

Welcome to another VC Wisdom podcast. We have Ryan Pruitt with us today. He's a managing director at Ocean Azul Partners in Miami, of all places. And we've been talking about a founder mutual friend of ours that is very investible. Ocean Azul, they invest in that type of partner from what I remember last conversation, Ryan. I think B2B AI SaaS is your space, pre-seed and seed, right? From what I remember was, uh, $500K to $2 million in average investments, right? Like at pre-seed stage. So yeah, tell us a bit more about yourself and the fund's thesis.

Yeah, no, of course. So we are, we are Seed&A, uh, based out of Miami. If you can't see outside, you know it's Miami because it's pouring rain in the middle of summer. Um, and, and then like in 20 minutes it's going to be sunny as hell. So, you know, that's how you know that we are here. But I was, um, look, I was, I was born and raised in Miami. Um, I actually started my journey at Deloitte in public accounting for, uh, for whatever reason. And then, um, after, uh, after ruining my life for 10 years, uh, but also simultaneously learning a ton, um, and getting to live in not only Miami, you know, where I grew up, but also in Sydney, Australia, um, long enough that I became a citizen, um, you know, I took all that wisdom I learned across multiple continents and, uh, multiple industries and, you know, multiple disciplines within Deloitte and you know, joined Ocean Azul when I moved back to Miami about 4 years ago, but the fund has been around since 2018. It was Fund 1. We're B2B software and deep tech focused, you know, seed and A, and I think really the only thing that's developed as we've continued raising funds. So we, you know, Fund 1 was $14 million. That was 2018. 3 years later comes Fund 2, $40 million. And now we're in the middle of raising Fund 3, and we're hoping to close around the $50, $55 million range. But, oh, The check size did start around like half a million to a million in Fund 1. Fund 2, it was like 750 to 1. And now it's about like 1 to 2 first check, and then we reserve the same amount for follow-on. So, you know, if we invest a million or a million and a half, then we will reserve another million or million and a half to follow on. I think it's one of those lessons you learn, you know, if you start your career as an angel investor that, you know, the biggest pain in the ass of being an angel investor and an early-stage investor is the fact that, you're gonna get diluted to shit, and you're most likely gonna end up making other people a lot more money than you end up making yourself, uh, just by virtue of trying to raise money, bring other people into rounds. And, um, you know, we were all tired of that as, as angel investors and said we're gonna, we're gonna keep 100% reserves, and it's gonna be a little bit of offense-defense type thing. And it was gonna be able to, uh, you know, to help those, uh, you know, protect us in those down rounds but also help double down when things are, uh, are going great. Um, so, so yes, your question, we were talking about Brandon Amoroso out of, uh, out of Scaleless. He is a company that sits within our, um, you know, within our interest. And, um, and as I mentioned, he's a hell of a paddle player too and a good guy.

Hell of a founder, uh, pretty rare, his kind, you know. And I'm saying that, right, like one reason why I say that, um, GTM is pretty much everything in my world, right? Like and you also know that if you suck at GTM, it's really hard to be a founder and to be successful and scale. And Brandon has this playbook of like booking mastermind dinners in like every city, and he just ranks up like 10 of his ICPs at every dinner, enterprise, and closes like 20% of that into clients, which is pretty insane because his ticket size is, uh, tens of grands, like, per year at least. So it's just, like, fascinating to see that in action. I rarely see, like, founders deploy that much. Another thing is that he leverages cold email, right? Like, I've spoken with a lot of founders, and there's this clear correlation of, like, founders that leverage cold email to achieve their objectives. And Brandon's one of the guys that understand that part of the game. He has a couple of exits under his belt, right? And He's building something and he— that has a clear product market fit. Plus he has founder product market fit. Like, I believe this guy can build it better than all the fucking 10 other founders that I've seen build in that niche, right? Because I run Spark Tank Show, which I want you on, and I cannot tell you how many like HRAI founders I've had. And I was like, dude, you're not the right person to build that. So yeah, very bullish on Brandon, uh, yeah, tell me about the founders you back and if they're like similar to Brandon, like what skills or trades you see in them that have— has you go like, oh, this guy's gonna make it.

Yeah, I mean, I'll start by saying Brandon has invited me to one of those dinners, and, um, you know, he did take me to a Heat game one time, um, but, uh, but, uh, but no, no paid dinner. So, um, you know, this is a shout out to Brandon. I know I'm not his ICP, I'm more of an investor, but, you know, I'd still like to, you know, be invited to one of these nice dinners. You're still money to him.

You're a friend, but you're also like money. Yeah, but your clients all the same.

Yeah, no, but I mean, look, it's a great model, right? And I'll kind of tie into, you know, I'll start with Brandon as a person, and I'll tie into kind of what we look like because I think he really does fit the mold of that. And, uh, you know, it's just sounding more and more like an advertisement for Brandon. You know, look at that genius, genius go-to-market.

I'll drop the banner in all of our minds all of a sudden.

Yeah, but look, Brandon is the kind of guy that does kind of fit into the model of people we invest in, right? I mean, he's a multiple-time founder, successful one, and it's not to say that we only invest in multiple-time founders. We invest in first-time founders as well. But, you know, he fits the mold of understanding that nowadays, you know, as these technical moats that used to be really prevalent, you know, when we started Ocean Azul, when I was angel investing before Ocean Azul, were pretty much the thing, right? I mean, it was what's your differentiation, what's your technical advantage? You know, you've been building this longer, therefore you have, you know, you're more ready for success. And nowadays when you can build something in, you know, hours or, you know, weeks or, you know, it just, it eliminates a lot of that technical moat because now everyone, you know, AI has been democratized to the point that everyone has access to technology and everyone can build quickly and everyone can build easily. What is your moat gonna be, right? You need to get creative with it. And, you know, it just kind of re— it kind of refocused, you know, what it's like to build a startup business. It's like, okay, now we're back to the basics. What's your go-to-market? How do you sell? And can you sell? And Brandon's nailed that, right? And, um, you know, what we look for and how that ties into what we look for in, um, you know, our, our founders is just people that are resilient and understand, you know, what the future of business is going to look like. Um, I think Mike Maples said this on a podcast. I forget which one I was on. I wish I could credit it, but, um, it may have been, um, it may have been 20VC with, uh, Harry Stabbings. But he said that they look for something called founder-future fit, um, and it's incredible and it's such a good term because it's basically, you know, the way he describes it, it's— and I hope I don't butcher it— but the ability of a founder to understand what the future of their industry is going to be and build for that future, right? I mean, you know, history is littered with, um, you know, with, with stories of businesses that failed to see what the landscape of their market was going to be, and then it has built a graveyard on their, on their mistakes, right? I mean, I'm going to date myself, but like, think of like the Blockbuster before Netflix, you know, think about all these other companies that just couldn't see you know, how technology was going to be in 5 to 10 years, and then they failed. So, you know, one of the things we, we really look for in founders is just the ability to understand what the future of business is going to be and building for that future, being ahead of the curve in, in order to, you know, really, you know, build for what they think the landscape of their, you know, the future is going to be and understanding that and then getting ready for that future. So, you know, that coupled with you know, the resiliency, the, I would say the lack of ego, right, that comes with understanding that you, you know, as a founder, some founders are more easily coachable than others, you know, and some don't need coaching, you know, that great founders can sometimes be someone that doesn't even need help. But being malleable enough, you know, whereby they're not so married to their idea as most founders are because it's their idea, they're, you know, they're the founder, they have co-founders, um, but not being so married to the idea that they can pivot in order to be successful and understand the greater good of what they're, of what they're trying to do. Um, I think those are the people we really look to invest in because, I mean, those are the ones that are going to be successful no matter what, right? And, you know, God knows what kind of things are going to impact our macroeconomic environment you know, things that we have no control over. And if you don't have the ability to pivot out of that, um, in order to find a way to be successful, then, you know, sorry, it's just not— it's not going to work out.

Yeah, the answer says like agents, right? AI, uh, that's going to impact macro for sure. That would be the only thing why I wouldn't invest in Brandon's business, but is that jobs are going to be massively slashed. But smart guys like Brandon can also like have a counter to that, which is that there's gonna be maybe a 5 to 10 years window in which that's not gonna happen. To me, it's 100% sure that it's gonna happen. Hopefully Brandon can exit before that, or maybe I'm wrong. What's your thoughts on that? Do you feel agents, uh, will replace a bunch of humans sooner or later?

I've been going— I've been going back and forth on this, and I've had so many conversations. I feel like every time I go to like some tech breakfast or something like that, this is the topic of conversation.

And you get the same answers, by the way.

Yeah, no, I know, but I feel like I change my mind sometimes. I know, but look, I, I don't necessarily think that there's going to be a like-for-like replacement of humans and agents, or, you know, or autonomous, um, you know, AI bots, etc. I just think they're— what's going to be replaced, it's not going to be technology or AI replacing humans. I just think it's going to be AI-enabled humans or humans that use AI are going to displace the ones that don't, right?

Is that going to be massive displacement, like 1 AI-enabled human for 9 jobless ones?

I, I mean, I, I don't know the answer to that, but I, I do feel like if you can imagine that, you know, even like think about coding, and I'm not a coder in any kind of way, but I mean, imagine that Now the efficiency, the amount of work that can be done by, you know, by someone who's coding using agents, you know, they are now 4 to 5, whatever, 6 times more efficient. I mean, you know, it's gonna build more companies. So, you know, that work is gonna get put somewhere. So I don't think there's ever gonna be a replacement of, you know, human capital. I think that's so important, especially in so many fields that require creativity and human touch and other things that I think there's a large premium placed on a human loop. But I think if one person can now do the work of, you know, one associate in a business, you know, think of a law firm, think of a, you know, CPA firm. I'm a CPA. That's my background. But, you know, if you gave me AI tools back when I started, I could have done the work of 6 associates in my level, you know. So what does that mean? Does that mean they're going to hire one and, you know, instead of 6? Or, you know, who knows? But I just know that now if you're— if the business can grow more, maybe they're just going to hire 6 that can use AI and it's going to perform the work of 36, you know, I don't know if the math works in that way, and, you know, but I just think that there's going to be, you know, there's not going to be like, okay, we're, you know, we're slashing jobs, every business is now going to have, um, you know, this many less, uh, you know, headcount and FTEs. I just think that it's going to be more that people are going to be more efficient with technology, right?

Yeah, it depends on the business model, right? So if the business is not going well and I, uh, am very AI agent fluent and I deploy 10 and my colleague there, there is still not adapting to these and like his performance, his KPIs clearly show that I 10x outperform him. I think the rational choice is letting them go if there's no improvement, but that doesn't change the AI-enabled HVS back then. It's the same as back then, right? So there's that. Also, if the business is making a lot of money, hands over fist, then they might keep that guy around for longer. The equation is also like, how quickly can they monetize my work as the developer? If it's obvious that they can monetize it quickly and they have cash flow, they're going to keep me. But that didn't— that has not changed from the before AI and after AI age type of thing. Me, how I view it as a startup founder, right, is if I have the choice between an agent and a human, and that agent is 100x productive— and I've seen it in various spaces, right, in sales, in fundraising, and, and whatever, right— that I've seen it, I'll choose the agent, and that agent will cost me $10 a month. Um, another intriguing point is that at the founder and startup level, it's an increase of noise, right? If everyone can code and deploy shit out there, there's a lot of AI slop nowadays, right? So that's, that's like a fact. And I think VCs are really looking for folks that can just narrow down in one niche go deep, have some GTM knowledge, because else if you have the best product in the world and you can't sell it, you won't have cash and you won't be able to go deep, right? So I'm seeing these trends around. At the corporates, they behave very weirdly. Corporates are weird fucking animals. And you know that, you worked at Deloitte. The sales cycle might be like 3 fucking years.

It's crazy.

Yeah, when they unlock something is like 3 million after 3 years. So we— everything that's happening now today, we won't really know like on the scoreboard like 3 years down the line. So it's very tough to predict what will happen.

Yeah, especially service firms, right? I mean, Deloitte, for, you know, as, as much as they try to stay innovative— and it's not just Deloitte, it's all the Big Four— as much as they try to stay, you know, innovative, it's hard to roll it out. I mean, they have member firms all over the world. They're in God knows, 80 countries plus, probably 100-something countries.

They're infiltrated like the mafia pretty much everywhere.

Yeah, but I mean, that's the problem is that then that puts us, you know, that far behind in terms of being able to implement it across all their businesses. Then you talk about the broader issue here, right, is how do you protect your data, you know, from all the agents that you're deploying, you know, because they can't just— they can't just use, um, Claude at, uh, you know, any of the Big Four, right? Because I mean, there's so much client data. And I mean, you're talking about, you're talking about a profession, especially in the audit side, that client confidentiality is the most important part of the business, right? Because you're talking about, you're talking about financial information that could lead to insider trading if released, right? So they're just always going to be so behind because not only do they, you know, do they have to get this and, you know, in front of, oh, you know, all their different member firms, you know, across, across the globe. I mean, the US is big enough, you know. I mean, then they have to ensure they're protecting the data. They need to make sure it's going to run correctly. They're going to make— they got to make sure it's so buttoned up to the point that, like, the rollout takes, like you said, like 2 years, you know. Like, I remember every time they'd release another audit software, you know, the US was always, funnily enough, like the last to adopt it because it was the biggest market and they had so many big clients. They didn't want to change. They didn't want to migrate things over. Such a pain in the ass, you know. And then by the end of it, by the time they finally We finally adopted a new audit tool. Oh, by the way, we're releasing another one now because now we have more technology. It's just like, what are we doing?

So corporations like this will survive technically from a first principles perspective if as a new, they have the brand mode for sure, right? But if I come as a brand new brand day one, I'm just fucking better at on all stages, the value I deliver is insane to the customer, like 100x, right? and that leads to virality, and then more and more customers and clients, while this big fucking giant is still not moving quick, and maybe they can retain their customers for like 2 or 3 years because they have hard contracts, right? But, is, couldn't, wouldn't like the value that I bring to my product greatly outpace the strength of their brands and legal contracts? Like, do you think most corporations will survive?

I think it could eat away at some of their market share, but I just feel like the brand names are so important to some of these other bigger companies. I mean, look, they're not making money and they may lose some share in the SMB markets because they're just gonna, you know, gonna be able to deploy, you know, some more efficient tools or you're gonna go with like a faster moving, um, you know, services company. But I mean, at the end of the day, you know, their big clients are going to be their big clients and, and it's just a brand name thing, you know, and You know, unless that mindset shifts, it's always gonna be like that, right? I mean, I'm pretty sure the majority of the Big Four in terms of like, and the McKinseys and all these other ones and, you know, the consulting work they do, you know, I'm sure like 90, maybe more percent of their revenue every year is from, you know, maybe the top 5, 10 customers and they've had 'em for years, right? I mean, audits obviously in Europe and such, they need, you know, they need to switch auditors, but, you know, not in the US, I don't believe. I've been out of it for a while, but you know, so it's just always going to be recurring and the big company is going to want the big stamp of approval from the, uh, from the big consultants and it's going to keep going. But for sure, for sure, they could lose a ton of market share, you know, in the SMB space. But I mean, that's not really their, their target anyway.

I'm gonna throw a curveball here. What if I deploy one of my agent buyers and my agent buyers doesn't give a fuck about their reputation? It will just rationally calculate what's the best decisions granted on XYZ data for me. And it obviously returns that these fucking guys are doing 100x the prices for not much, right? Well, I can pick this newcomer that is trustable. My agent vetted their background and their track record and be like, oh, and 1% risk of failure on that one vs. 100x upside. You should pick that one, obviously. So Do you see that future happening?

It possibly could, you know, like, I mean, I think that smarter decision makers are going to be— are going to want more agile tools and more agile services, right? I mean, like, you know, we have this whole SaaSpocalypse, uh, you know, thing that has been going on, and that, you know, I think there's some truth to the fact that the model of paying per seat, paying per, you know, per user, etc., is going to eventually go away, and you're going to be paying for a you know, a firm-wide service. You're going to be paying for an outcome. You're paying for it to do something for you and just, you know, integrate, right? Um, so yeah, I mean, it's fully a possibility because, you know, the, the agile companies are going to start stealing some of this market share away from them. But, you know, it's just going to rub up against the, uh, you know, the, the historical board of directors of large public companies saying, no, we want our, we want our Deloitte here, we want our KPMG here, we want our EWI here. And look, it's not anything against them. They have brilliant people that are partners at all these funds, right? They— that are— sorry, all these firms. And they've learned a ton over the years. And sometimes, you know, you're going back to this whole, right, debate. I mean, how important is that human? And to a lot of these public companies, the human is very important, especially when it comes to consulting or tax. So you can get the right answers, you know, always from, you know, for the most part, you can get the right answers about accounting problems or other consulting problems just by going on Claude every day. But it just makes us feel better when it's a person saying it, doesn't it?

But there's also accountability, right? Like, if they fuck up something, I can sue them and they have insurance to pay for it and blah blah blah. So that's— it's all about like risk management, right?

Um, for sure.

And yeah, when you said brilliant people, I was like, yeah, brilliant prisoners, right? Uh, and I'm saying that because I have, um, a guy on my sales team and a friend that's been on at PwC for years now. Um, doing part-time entrepreneurial stuff with me on the side. You talked about the SaaS-pocalypse. I want to double-click on that because I still run SaaSes on my end and they're successful, and I've never witnessed the SaaS-pocalypse because I know how to sell, I know where to position myself. Is it the fact that everyone— like, the, the cost of code became near zero and all these nerds don't know how to sell?

Is that what they call the apocalypse, or It's somewhat, yeah, I think it's part of it. I just think that, yeah, I think that the, you know, the agents, the, you know, Claude Cowork came out and like, you know, once it hit like OPUS 4.6 or whatever it was, I mean, people started saying, oh wow, okay, you know, these are the kind of solutions that are easy to integrate, that have to connect directly into my existing tools that I can just use for my business. I'm going to pay, you know, monthly fee, and it's not going to be per user, not going to be per person. This, it's just not going to be something that I need to— that's clunky, that I'm going to need to spend months migrating to it. It's just going to go right into my system, it's going to give me the solution, and then that's going to go. But, you know, it was an overblown, um, you know, it was an overblown little trend, I think. And it, uh, you know, you know how the markets react, right? You know, they, they see that everyone starts panicking, and should we sell our SaaS stocks? We get rid of software companies. Oh, AI is going to take over everything. And, you know, there's truth to everything, um, you know, but it's not ever as you know, hyperbolized as it actually, you know, as it actually is, right? It's not reflective so much of the truth. And I think, you know, there are some things where, you know, you have to be careful, right? I mean, I ask myself a lot more and I speak to my team a lot more about the concept of could Claude do this? Could Anthropic build something that could replace us when we're looking at startup companies? The answer is always yes. And I mean, like, look, look at, um, what's that design tool, you know?

Like, most people will start coding something and they won't continue because they'll get demoralized because it's not going anywhere, while the stud, the Brandon, will just keep on going and going and going until it is achieved. They have that OCD in them, right?

Yeah. Um, sorry, that's a question, right? I mean, like, think about, like, um Like, Claude Design came out and, you know, I forgot the name, it's like Figma or something. I mean, the design tool, I mean, just lost a ton of market share in one day. Like, I mean, is it—

I never understood Figma. Like, I had a partner of mine back then, the technical co-founder, he used to send me his fucking Figmas. Like, what do you want me to do with them? Like, send me something I can test, right? And we were in the AI era. So yeah, dude, Figma, not bullish.

I mean, you know, like I said, Claude Design comes out and it's a, it's a real problem. And I think I'm actually going to go back to something you said before, like where people are now looking for something very, very specific when it comes to their tools. Because again, we're, you know, back to the theme of everything, those technical moats are shrinking. And so, you know, we've really shifted a lot of our investment focus to look at very, very you know, specific tools that are helping, you know, in, in really specific verticals that are solving very specific problems. And the reason is because we're all fucking scared of Anthropic and OpenAI and all these companies because of the capability of what they can do. And you just gotta find a solution that's gonna be solving a problem that they just don't have any business needing to solve, right? Like something they can't just like, it's like, why would we waste our money to be this specific of a tool, right? So, you know, you're just— it's like, uh, you know, it's in basketball terms, you know, you're talking about like, uh, you know, that you got a Victor Wembanyama running around here. He's 7-foot fucking 4 alien, you know, the guy's wingspan is probably 10 feet and you got to find a way to shoot over him. And, um, you know, that's Anthropic and that's, uh, and that's OpenAI. And you got to find a way to, uh, you know, you got to beat him with a bunch of Jalen Brunsons running around here. Yeah, man, you just gotta, you know, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta find a way around them, right? And find a way to win. So, you know, that's really— it's funny, right? I mean, like, as much as founders and entrepreneurs are evolving, you know, investors need to evolve the same way. You can't just apply the same cookie-cutter type, you know, approach to investing, you know, because then you're going to be stuck where all the founders are stuck, behind the incumbents behind the new, you know, Anthropic and OpenAI. You gotta understand that there's gotta be a way to win around them. And that's where you need to shift your investment focus. And we're doing that.

Yeah, especially—

We're doing that at Ocean Azul. Like, that's our, you know, that's how we're shifting. You know, you gotta grow.

And there's not too many of yous in Miami, right? Like, how's the VC ecosystem in Miami?

It's growing, man. Uh, look, so we, um, you know, my partners and I, 6 of us, you know, we're, we're all from Miami and, um, you know, got started, you know, we're angel investing for, for years. I mean, some of us, uh, you know, from the 2000s, you know, we got some older, older partners there. Um, but, you know, I think around like 2017, '18, it was, it was not a ton of us there. I mean, um You know, I know that Rocker, another, another fuel VC, was around for a while. I mean, there's a bunch of them in Florida that have been around for some time, you know, the, the Florida Funders, the, the Deepworks, etc. Um, but like, there wasn't a ton there, and, um, you know, there hasn't been a ton that have, that have also continued to be successful and continue to raise funds, you know, since. I mean, you got us, you know, like I said, Los Olas is in there as well, you know, another VC that's been around for a while. But I mean, you know, we were We were amongst, I feel like, some of the, uh, some of the first institutional VCs, you know, to get started here investing at early stage tech and then continue to, you know, to keep growing and doing it now. And, you know, Miami's always had a ton of money here. There's been a ton of investors here. You know, Miami's an amazing place to live. It's attracting people. What's changing now, it's attracting talent as well. You know, it's attracting, it's attracting later stage money now, right? I mean, we've You look at the data, we've always been, you know, at least in the last 5 years or so, in the top 5, 10 in early-stage deals, volume and amount, right? I mean, there's obviously the big ones, Silicon Valley, New York, LA, et cetera, et cetera, you know, Austin. But, you know, we're still sitting in the top 5, 10 in volume of early-stage deals. Where we drop off is some of the later stage. But now you have, you know, you've got Palantir coming here, you've got Citadel, you got all these other companies coming and understanding that, yeah, this is an amazing place to be. We support businesses here, we support startups here. Um, it's a great place to live, and there's a ton of money here. And now there's going to be a— and now there's more talent here as well, right? And, and the talent feels supported. The talent— like, there's always been talent, but they've always needed to leave to go be successful, right? I mean, all the great universities here— you think of the University of Miami, FIU, Miami-Dade, um, you know, University of Florida in Gainesville. I mean One of the founders of, uh, of NVIDIA came out of UF, you know. I think they went back and donated a supercomputer there. And I mean, they have an awesome innovative set, like innovation center, right? There's always been talent in Florida. The problem is that a lot of it has been having to leave and go to the Bay Area to find jobs and raise money. And now as more of these companies come here, they won't have to leave anymore. Um, I'm so bullish on Miami, and I'm not just saying that because I grew up here. I'm saying that because it's a true You know, it's, it's more than a hype thing now. It's a, it's a true movement. Um, and it's exciting.

Happy taxes.

What's that? Yeah, no state taxes. How good is that? Get the, you get the, the ocean and you're not paying state taxes.

Yeah, the ocean is a great, uh, selling point. Like, yeah, I mean, I have the mountains here, but, uh, yeah, I need, need an ocean view. Like, that's something you need as a human being. It's like infinite possibilities, right?

It's an exciting place to be. And I think it's, you know, it's more than just where, you know, where billionaires wanna come and live. I think they're actually starting to support the community now. And, you know, it's only gonna get better. You know, eMERGE has grown every year. Tech Week has grown every year. You know, there's just so much around it that is very, seems very, very genuine now versus a lot of hype. I mean, you got the lab in Wynwood where Al, Tom and Danny are doing so much incredible work to support founders, and I mean, it just feels very, very real now, and it's, uh, it's exciting.

What's next for you? What's next for the fund? What's the immediate horse blinder goal for this year?

Close Fund 3, man. It's, uh, God, it's been, it's been 18 months. Um, it's obviously been a hard fundraising environment for everybody, you know, not only just for funds but also for startups, and obviously you know, it's, it's cyclical, right? As funds struggle to raise money, then obviously they're going to struggle to deploy money, and then, you know, startups are going to struggle to grow, and then it's going to be cyclical, right? And then there's not going to be returns, and the DPI is going to go down on funds, and then, you know, investors aren't going to keep investing in venture, and then, you know, etc., etc. But I think now, you know, we've passed that, you know, we've passed that shitty, that shitty time, and I feel like we can— there's a new horizon coming now more exits, you know, a lot of IPOs, a lot more liquidity coming in now, reinvesting in VC. And, um, you know, we're gonna close our fund, our Fund 3, by the end of the year. And, um, I'm excited to be out of the, uh, the fundraising mode. And then, um, you know, now happy to continue deploying money into the amazing startups that we're seeing. Um, you know, we're raising and deploying at the same time, but, you know, being able to commit full-time to that after the raise is done is going to be super exciting. And then continue to support our portfolio. It's going to be great, you know. So that's what's next. And, um, I don't know, just evolving every day, right? Like learning about what's working, what isn't working, you know. As I alluded to before, times are changing so fast that, you know, investment strategies need to also adapt to that. And, um, I'm just— I've been so excited to learn. I don't pretend that I'm a know-all person that could just, you know, that, that just breeds unicorns in his backyard, um, I'm a person who loves to learn. And as I continue to learn, you know, my team and I, we get better and better at what we do. And that's what excites me.

And your deal flow, how big is it? How many founders do you speak on a daily basis?

A lot. I think over close to 7 years, we've seen close to like 5,000. My partner, Lissette, is a lot better at using Affinity, our CRM, than I am. But, you know, we've seen close to 5,000, 6,000 maybe over that course of time. So I mean, you can, you can kind of work on that math backwards and see how many we're looking at a week. But, um, you know, it's exciting, right? I mean, you know, you, you have to be selective in terms of who you're looking at, but, you know, a lot of our deal flow comes from, you know, other VC funds. It comes from, um, it comes from, you know, our LPs. It comes from events we go to. It comes from guys like you that are, you supporting that ecosystem and bringing awesome deals to, you know, to capable VC funds who are serious about, you know, putting in money and time and work into them. And, um, you know, that, that part is exciting. And, you know, the collaboration excites me as well. You know, I've, um, you know, I started a, uh, a group called the Sunshine State Venture Collective. We call it SSVC. And what it is is a, like, a collection of Florida-based um, you know, GPs at, um, at VC funds here, you know, like, um, you know, very like, uh, you know, at least well-known, well-known-ish VC funds here in Florida where we invest, uh, you know, where we're all, you know, investing in the tech space for, you know, relatively early stage. And, you know, I just saw that every good ecosystem around the United States, they became as prominent as they are by collaborating, right? I mean, I don't— you know, we're not like the— we're not like the Bay Area, like fighting and scratching and clawing for deals, um, you know, in terms of, you know, being super competitive. Like, what helps us helps other VCs, right? Having a friendly face on a cap table is— or on a board of directors is incredible, right? We like to collaborate and help each other, and that's the best way we're going to grow. So I started that group, and it's got tons of people now, you know, like it's got the you know, the Bloombergs, the Medina Ventures, the, you know, the Florida Funders, the Deep Work, the Fuel, the Las Olas, all of us in there, you know, the 161 Ventures. I mean, those guys are everywhere, you know. Shout out to Pablo and Justice, you guys are great. But, um, you know, got all those guys together, um, you know, and, and all of us kind of working together to, to really build what we believe could be the next great ecosystem. And, um, you know, I'm just fortunate to be part of that.

The cycles you were alluding to, do these happen every 5 to 10 years? And, uh, can— will these happen again? Can these be reduced, right? Like the downtime?

Um, yeah, I mean, I, I think, you know, as we know, the old— the old adage, uh, history repeats itself, right? I mean, we, we understand the financial markets enough to understand that there's, you know, since cyclicality a word? Um, I don't know, but there's some cyclicality. Now it's a word. Um, but, um, to, to the trends and kind of, um, you know, the ups and downs, um, of, of the market. And I think, yeah, it's, it's going to be, you know, especially now as times are changing, technology is changing at such a high rate of speed, there's going to be, you know, so much turbulence in terms of the, the markets. And I think obviously you know, those are a lot of the time, um, a lot of time impacted heavily by the macroeconomic environment, right? The geopolitical crisis and other things that are going on in the world. And I mean, fuck, we have been no shortage of, uh, of global crises, you know, to these days. You know, we got a, we got a damn rat disease on a cruise. We got, uh, you know, several wars. We have, uh, we have gas prices at $5. I just filled up my tank on my small my small car and it was $90. I mean, there's so many things that, that are impacting these, the, the financial markets today that, um, you know, there's no doubt that there's going to be up and down. But, um, the fun thing about investing in the private markets as well is, uh, is that, you know, that sometimes this change and these disruptions are exactly what we like to invest in and what we'd like to go for. And those are the next waves we're trying to ride, right? Disruption isn't a bad word for us. Disruption is, is actually a sign of growth.

So, you know, yeah, it builds grit, it builds resilience, which is ultimately what being an entrepreneur is about, right? It's like front-loading the pain and you get a gigantic payout later on. Uh, Ryan, where can, uh, people find out more about you and your business?

Well, um, on— I guess on my LinkedIn. Um, I'm just, uh, um You know, and on our website, we're, uh, www.oceanazulpartners.com. And, um, and I use my LinkedIn quite a bit, so I think, uh, I don't know if I can post my LinkedIn in here or something, but let me see if I can find it. Yeah, I should be more well prepared. You can tell I don't market myself a lot, man. It's pretty shitty. I can tell, I can tell.

Just close