Executing as a Best-In-Class Firm: Operational Excellence From The Inside of Over 50 VC Firms with Kristen Ostro of Strut Consulting

Hey everybody, this is Ben Kaznoca, co founder and partner at Village Global, a network driven venture firm. And this is our podcast where we go deep on all things business and technology with world leading experts.

Welcome to VC Mastermind. Today we have an incredible interviewee. Kristin Ostrow is the founder and CEO of Strut Consulting. I mean, I'll let her explain a lot of that because she has a depth of experience in the back offices and operation centers of Silicon Valley. I've had the opportunity of knowing Kristen Gosh, I think for maybe a decade and a half or so we worked together out of the Homebrew office. And so it's just been amazing to be able to know you for this long and get to see how you've been helping dozens of venture capital firms across Silicon Valley. So thank you for being here.

It's my pleasure. And it's so fun to be able to do this with you all this time later as well.

Totally amazing. Well, again, I kept my introduction to you short because I would love for you to kind of tell your story and how you got to be working with so many VC firms because I think it's really special. So do you mind sharing?

Sure, of course. I landed into venture by accident, as so many people do, I feel I I applied to a job on Craigslist, lol. Glad to date myself and ended up on Sandhill at NEA New Enterprise Associates for those who are maybe not Akram friendly. And I joke. I earned my Sandhill road stripe. I was there doing a combination of administrative work and ops and then marketing and events. So probably would have been a lifer had I not gotten in so young. And when the emerging manager Flywheel started to really pick up or initially pick up in 201312 range, I was very fortunate to get in with the guys at Homebrew. It's all about, you know, who you know and who you have access to here. So got the opportunity to join them right as they were getting fund one off the ground and be in an office with you and them and a handful of other really fun companies and friends of the firm and help them build their massive machine. Now it's just the two of them, but it is like a powerhouse little machine, I guess. And yeah, from there I worked with a variety of other emerging funds. My NEA ties brought me back to helping spin up a firm that they had seeded with Polaris and Excel sell on the emerging side. And anyway, all those experiences led to sort of a critical moment in mid-2016 where I wanted to continue working with managers, but was interested in doing it in a more dynamic way. And that's when I started strut. And my goal was to provide a lot of expertise and muscle and lift to all of these gps who are leaving big firms to start their own shops, athletes turned VCs, operators turned VCs, and all these new archetypes that we're getting into this space. And what we do today is very much the core of what I've always done, back office operations, so working with all the core service providers, you know, legal fund, admin, tax and audit banking, being that sort of block and tackle on all the mundane unsexy things that need to get done at a fund on a weekly, monthly, quarter, quarterly and annual basis. And then I also have a lot of high touch on the LP side. So helping with fundraises on the investor relations side and helping with annual meetings and all that kind of fun stuff and, and that's sort of the core of what STRUT is. Now we offer fractional operations, investor relations and also fractional finance to emerging funds and established emerging funds. And we also offer a little bit of event support for established clients. We'll get into those Weebs today.

Amazing. Amazing. Well, we have another CC Mastermind episode with Vienna Poise your colleague talking through a lot of the operational and kind of expectation setting for fundraising into the future. If you're listening to this, definitely tune into that episode as well. But today, Kristen, what we're going to talk about is really setting up the firm, a venture capital firm, for long term success in the long haul. And I think you have a framework of how you think about really building a strong foundation upon which gps can, can really kind of count as ground zero and then scale from there. And so, you know, do you want to start to introduce that? Like, what are some of those pillars that we'll continue to talk through?

Absolutely. And just for listener reference, this is all rooted in me sitting back and supporting and watching, you know, hundreds of firms evolve and grow over time, good, bad and otherwise. I would say when I was solo doing Strut from 2016 to 2020, I was working with three to five funds at a time and then also working with First Republic bank and Silicon Valley banks, emerging manager teams supporting their clients. May they all rest in peace. The banks on. Anyway, yeah, yeah, those former teams, crazy boys, yeah, they were all wonderful. As I decided to start scaling strut in 2020, you know, main in large part to more business coming in and need from emerging funds than one person could handle. Is how we started growing, adding Vienna, who Jacob mentioned about a couple years ago, to help lead our investor relations team. And so all of this thought through that I have on this particular topic are rooted in, you know, all of that time. And plus the new era of strut from 2020 till now, which is working with, you know, 50 plus venture clients, all shapes and sizes. I've worked with micro funds of 5 million, proof of concept, hyper focused thesis, all the way up to, you know, a billion in aum, multifun firm, solo gps, small teams, big teams, and then I've obviously been at big shops, medium and everything in between. So this is definitely what I see as a recipe for success. When you're building your firm, whether you're doing it from day one or my opinion is there's never the wrong time to start doing this. So if it's something that you haven't done and we and want to get into, we can definitely get into those pieces too. But this is all rooted in doing a mission, vision, values, exercise. We ask our portfolio companies to be best in class and certainly probably ask our founders, the companies that funds invest in, to do this work. And my attitude is why shouldn't we also eat our own breakfast? This stuff is so important for a variety of reasons. As funds start to grow and mature, mission obviously providing clarity of purpose and vision, giving future direction and aspiration and alignment. And then values definitely are the cultural foundation of your firm. You know, how you want to be perceived and how you want to attract talent internally and as well as, you know, also the founders and LPs that you want to work with. Having a good cultural foundation with yourself helps with the alignment as well. And I, I think the tragic thing is I see so many firms who just sort of skip this step in the process, which is totally natural because getting a first fund off the ground is completely overwhelming. No one prepares you for all the, the lift not only from a fundraising capacity, which, you know, in this competitive market is very challenging and you know, it's taking funds infinitely longer to raise than, you know, in previous cycles. But you know, from the operational foundation setting, you know, getting all of your service providers in place, you know, getting the deck just right, even all of the fantastic programs that are now out there for emerging managers to get, you know, some support in this and kind of help demystify the process, they don't really go deep on the operational burden of running the fund like a business and how much that pulls on gps, taking them away from, you know, why they gotten this to begin with, which is invest in categories and founders that, you know, they love. So.

Yep.

And it's what's natural to skip, skip this piece because who has the time? But I couldn't. Yeah, I couldn't recommend it more and there are a lot of reasons why. And I'm going to get into some anecdotal examples, but let's start at the top. Doing this exercise. It provides all of your sort of strategic vision and focus, which when you're in the iterative stage of putting your pitch deck together and from defining, you know, what you want to focus on, from, you know, your investment thesis and who you want to the firm you want to pitch to, your LPs, doing a mission vision, values exercise, or MVV as I'll call it, to keep the jargons easy, can really be a clarifying and foundationally important piece of your firm building and supports that thesis and your pitch deck and gives you a really clear path forward that you can communicate not only when you're talking about your firm to LPs and key stakeholders, but generally it can be a really helpful tool to do some initial one year, three year and five year planning, goal setting and give you some guardrails for firm building. And of course these things are going to evolve and change over time as your firm evolves and changes over time. But it gives you like a sense of a roadmap, a clear path for the future to get, to get really get going and help you decide who you want to be as a firm as you're growing up. Part two, and this is, you know, it helps you differentiate in the marketplace which given this insanely competitive fundraising landscape, having a compelling mission and vision can serve to distinguish you from your peers, help you resonate more strongly with prospective LPs, founders that are competing or you're competing with other firms in your category to win term sheets on and other key stakeholders in your space and in the ecosystem, having that can be very powerful and give you a real true north star, which I think is super important.

Would you consider that brand like the brand of the firm or is this kind of component how's it going to it?

Yeah, I would say it certainly can feed your brand and I think we'll go a little bit deeper on that for sure because I think there's some definite things to think about when it comes to how you want to brand your firm and the kind of marketing presence, social presence, you want to have these. Doing this MVV exercise definitely feeds that and, and reinforces you know your approach there and I'm going to kind of talk through three little case examples of how great. But yeah, so. And then obviously we kind of hit this on. Hit on this already. Defining your firm's culture. Doing a mission, vision, values exercise can certainly, you know, set the tone for your firm's culture and will influence, you know, how you and the people you hire work together, treat each other, you know, speak and represent the brand, et cetera, which is, you know, again, incredibly important. The thing I like the most about MVV is it, from my perspective, provides a clear decision making framework for all of the things you're going to be faced with making significant and small decisions on as your firm evolves and grows. I think having a really strong mission vision values gives you this alignment on your firm's core identity and can basically become a filter and a litmus test for all big and small decisions you need to make. And I'm going to give some cool examples about that in a sec. And then the final thing, when you have strong mission, vision and values, you're able to attract the best talent. You can communicate these things to prospective hires. And everyone here wants the best, and everyone also in this world wants to be inventor, it feels like. And knowing gps as I know them, they want the very best in their firms. Mediocrity is not the bar. And I think you can really win the best talent when your employees know who you are and what you're about and can resonate with that and feel inspired by your bigger purpose and get involved in a firm because they believe in it and they believe in your vision and your mission. And we're going to go a little bit deeper on that too in a sec.

Amazing. Yeah, I mean, that's such a great high level perspective on the MVV framework to look at the polar opposite. What happens if firms do not properly do this from the beginning? What are some of the things you've seen go awry?

Yeah, I think there's like three sort of case case examples or archetypes of firms who don't have this really locked in, whether they've done a formal exercise or it's not a fundamental part of, of the founder or the founding team. My first one I call is Chasing the Dragon. We see firms who are struggling because they have no, you know, individual GP or firm conviction about who they are, who they want to be when they grow up, and how they want to show up in the world or in and even within the ecosystem. So I see them spending endless amounts of time worrying about what their peers are doing, copying their peers, chasing their peers, chasing the ecosystem fads. And my personal belief is don't do things just because everyone else is doing it. And I think like a case example is, you know, seeing the rise of platform and portfolio service in the last 10, 15 years and a lot of firms trying to activate in this category and obviously it's got wonderful benefits for your portfolio. It can be incredibly helpful to founders at the early stage especially. But a lot of firms lack a crystal clear vision on what their unique value proposition is and how to effectively deliver that to founders. And they start with what I see as a kind of a kitchen sink approach, like, well, this competitive firm is offering talent. We should do that too. You need to build out a resource database and if you have mission vision values, it truly becomes this litmus test or filtering method for is this aligned with our greater purpose, is this in alignment with our values and is this alignment with our mission and how are we going? If all of those are in alignment, then like let's move forward with X. And the other thing I'll add here is regardless of whether it is or isn't aligned, my other hot take is don't do anything in this category without having clear metrics for how you're going to measure it and how you're going to track success because you just get lost in the sauce. Which is brings me to number two, being constantly lost in the sauce. Firms without mission vision values are constantly struggling with shifting priorities, shifting job scopes during an active hiring process, stop starting on initiatives, spending on things wildly without again metrics and KPIs or qualitative how we're going to measure success here on things like marketing and events or office space or hires without any true plan to measure ROI or firm value. And again, you know, running through that exercise like does this move feed this bigger purpose really quiets the noise on how to proceed. And I would say when it comes to spend, my pro tip is work with a VISA experienced finance or OPS expert. Whether you bring it in house or you use a fractional resource like a, you know, CFO adjacent or fractional CFO who can help you with things like I'd be your a, your accountability coach on are, you know, here's your mission vision values, is this big spend in alignment with that and also of course help you, you know, work on long term budget and cash management, ensuring, you know, institutional best practices for good financial hygiene are being applied. And that can also help kind of navigate the lost in the sauce problem. And then the third one is this lack of a filtering process or an approach to big decision making about what's important and how to execute on it. And this is again like this Mission vision values filter. This is the ultimate best recommendation and where this comes into play with every major and minor decision a firm needs to make. If you ask yourself, is it aligned with my mission? Does it embody my values and does it feed my bigger vision? And if all of those three are a yes, then you know where to allocate your time, your money, your resources.

Interesting.

But if there's a no, like, then we hit pause, right? Like let's dig deeper, let's do some more research. Let's bring in somebody you know, your trusted advisors, you know, your, whoever you trust, you know, in your circle, your team, your peers. My attitude is if you can't get to a yes on MVV for big and small decisions and the answer is a no. And don't waste money, don't waste time, don't waste resource like your gp time is incredibly precious. And having this as a little gut check at all times and also having, you know, people you trust to help you gut check is, is a huge lift. That's, that's, that's my big, my big kaboom on that.

It makes a ton of sense. I mean I've seen so many examples of firms I've been involved with, but also friends and colleague. You know, the main thing I'm hearing you say is like, let's make sure that the leadership of the firm is totally aligned. Whether that is one person or whether that's multiple kind of co GP partners. But make sure everybody's aligned so we know where we're spending money, where we're spending time, where we're looking to hire. Because I've seen examples where firms can have some pretty big issues when people are not aligned on all of those, you know, investment areas. Investment of money, but more importantly, time and, and attention.

Absolutely. And I think like a really good, like little antidote is, you know, real estate is less than it probably used to be, maybe in the Bay Area, but on the, you know, corporate side. But you know, spending big bucks on a fancy office from a, you know, sandhill road, price per square foot or even doing a expansive build out. I mean the cost is immense and you can go back to your values. And is having FaceTime fundamentally aligned with our core values? Does it serve them, does it feed them? That can be. Or are we awesome remote and we save our real estate bucks and Our tenant improvement dollars to go and have a really awesome retreat two or three times a year where we get that in person connection that we need to feed to feed our culture and our values. So a lot of that again is like a perfect filter for mvv.

Yep, makes sense. And I imagine there's a number of folks listening now who maybe they've started their firms, but they haven't set this, you know, spent time thinking through this. Is it too late or you know, how. What would you counsel them?

Yeah, never too late because, you know, and I see this so much with firms that we work with, especially when we get in pretty early, what's happening in, you know, year one and two. It looks so much different in year three, four, five, six and beyond. And your mission, vision, values isn't locked in stone, you know, forever thing in the sense of it should evolve and change as your firm evolves and evolves and changes and you should be going back regularly to check in with it and evolve it and iterate on it. And I think the thing you really hit the nail on the head with is doing it as a team at the leadership level. You have to have alignment and you should be doing this together always. And make it fun, you know, make it a team retreat, make it a tradition, a ritual that's special to you and your firm. And yeah, it is so much a part of the true partnership, alignment and long term stability. And if you guys can all agree on these core things, you're really setting a strong foundation for success. Yeah.

And so you're saying, how often should you revisit? I mean, is every six months too tight? Is it on a fun cycle basis?

I mean, this is your foundation, so you don't need to kick the cement too much, you know, And I think, you know, again, your firm is unique to you. So if checking in on them as a part of your annual strategic planning feels good, amazing. I would say my recommendation would be probably every new true fund cycle as part of like kind of the pre marketing exercises, like just do a gut check on them, do they need updating? Are they still relevant to us today? And maybe the answer is yes, and onward we go. Maybe you tweak a thing or two, but I think probably every fun cycle is a good cadence. And if you want to be more aggressive, then good on you. But they're feeding things like authenticity, integrity and personal reputation. And those things probably aren't very malleable. So no need to go back off. No back to go back to the well too often.

Yeah. Makes sense. Amazing. Let's shift gears a little bit and talk about how this relates to hiring and team building. Certainly that's kind of the most important part of any venture team are the people that are on it and their ability to execute. So how would you align or explain kind of the MVV values into that hiring process or experience?

I think it absolutely should be a part of the experience. I think it's something you should share in your JD or I think it's something you could put on your website if you felt so emboldened. But I definitely think within, if not on the jd, within the first interview process, like it should be put in front of candidates, I think you will immediately weed out people who are not in alignment with you. And of course like being in a venture firm, whether you're partner level or not. I mean it's a. Typically these are small teams, it's a very intimate working environment. It feels, I think at the partner level like a marriage and at the team level like a family. And you know, you want people who are aligned with you, who are excited to show up and bust their hump to be there and give you their all. And I think getting your mission vision values incorporated into your hiring process is an awesome way to ensure that people coming to your firm are attracted to you for the right reasons and stay in your pipeline because they, you know, they buy into what, what you believe in. And I think, you know, employees especially, whether they're on the investing side or they're back of house, there's so much training and institutional knowledge that's required to really have an impact when you come into a firm for the first time. I would say most back office folks take a year to fully wrap their brain around the role and get up to speed on institutional knowledge. So that's a significant investment before they can really activate into the role. And on the investing side, you know, it's. We can debate how long it takes for someone to become a great investor, but you know, maybe you have a mission, vision, values, that's a two year in out associate program, but maybe you want to hire more for the long term or you're trying to cultivate future partners and leaders of the firm. You know, getting this aligned day one is, you know, a game changer and making sure that you're bringing the right people in the door and building, building the firm with the right kind of humans. And I think people feel like you're gonna invest in them too when you, when you lead with what you believe in and it is an investment and hopefully they'll be inclined to stay longer because you know, they love it too. Yeah.

And the expectation is set of like timing and expectation and misfires are expensive.

So like let's not. And your time is valuable so. Yeah, let's not, let's not waste it. It's precious, right?

Yeah, totally. And you've seen so many VC firms over the years, you know, thinking through, I mean, hiring. Yes. And then the other flip side of that is like succession planning.

Right.

As GPS start to think about moving on and passing the torch to the next generation for true leadership, you know, can you share some learnings of MDV values or MVV there as well?

Yeah, I had to. The pleasure and I guess non direct pain of seeing some pretty significant legacy firms pass leadership across and then small firms kind of struggling to figure out how to compose the right team. And I think finally the LP landscape is shifting enough that I think in the last decade there was a lot of pressure for that LP's put on GPS to hire or bring, not start a fun solo, bring in somebody else. And I think that unfortunately and in certain situations forced a lot of marriages that weren't the right fit. I think they're finally softening on that, which I'm overdue. But you know, all of this is to say that legacy planning is not called a legacy for nothing. It takes a long time to not only design a firm transition plan, but also pull the pieces together. And even when you start to execute on it, it takes many, many more years for all of those pieces to come together and align and truly transfer, you know, the baton to, you know, the next, the next crew that's coming in or how you envision your firm being led or legacied. My humble opinion, and based on all of the wild things that I have seen. Hiring a new partner, the courtship, minimum six months, unless you have a pre existing relationship, up to a year. I, I think you really need like it is a marriage, you really need to get to know somebody. You need to do very detailed background checks on each other in terms of, you know, talking to former founders, talking to former colleagues, spending time, genuine time with each other. I always, I think there's a joke, you know, get on, get on a six hour more flight with somebody, sit next to them and see if you still like them when you get off the plane. Yeah, it's funny but it's, it's, you know, that's the kind of person you want to, you want to, you know, really build a firm with and Finding those relationships, if you don't already have them in your, you know, your network and in your prior experience takes time. And then beyond that, you know, if we're talking multiple GP LED firms, you know, adding headcount means adding complexity from how you want to run your shop, how you make decisions, how you, you know, from voting on deals to bigger and smaller things and really making sure to your point that you have alignment as a team and adding more leadership to the pool, it makes things complicated and can kind of unsettle whatever was the normal before. So allowing for those types of transitions and not making knee jerk hires and really creating a transition plan, ideally in between fund cycles, doing wild partner swaps in the middle of a fundraise is typically not a good signal unless it's a special circumstance. And then when you do make those changes, giving a couple years for them to fully settle in and adjust and then make the decision about what's next. And now we're talking about a decade long process. And I really push firms to think about, you know, especially if they've got senior leadership, any type of leadership that's, you know, we can all argue about what retirement age is, but you know, who are, you know, on, on the cusp or even looking onto the horizon of what that is. You know, that's a 10 year timeline to get ready to transition. And having these conversations now is so important so you have the timeline to start planning for them. You know, again, going back to like hiring, you know, junior investors, you know, associate principal level, you know, they take a decade or more to hone their skills and deploy capital and become GP partner ready. That's a huge investment and needs to be obviously very well thought out and plotted against the larger timeline. And then of course, you know, where I love to chime, you know, building a solid back office team that, whether it's fractional or in house or a combination of the two that can really support the firm effectively and you know, give you that, that lift that you need it and you know, it takes years to fully formulate and you know, and so, and, and train up and, and really, you know, impart your institutional knowledge onto and the more fun cycles they go through, the stronger they become. So again, we're talking, you know, years that become decades. So you know, I think your firm or legacy, legacy plan should be as, you know, built into as long as fund cycles last. If you've got, you know, three vehicles actively deploying or you know, your, your layered management fees and, and you're looking to Raise another. I mean we're talking rough what 10 year average cycle, you know, that's 40 years of, of care that, that your. Right, your fund needs. And what's your plan for that, both short and long and, and what's your thinking about bigger picture? You know, that 40 year timeline is an example. What is the legacy that you want to leave with your firm? And who are the people again, going back to mission vision values, who believe the things you believe to be true and can embody that and that you want to impart this thing that you've built onto and ensure that it trends in the right direction. And then also part of legacy planning is unfortunately Murphy's Law, planning for the unexpected. What can go wrong, will go wrong. What if something catastrophic happens, an unexpected death or you know, an illness that causes this major shift in leadership and who will take the charge? And if you don't have anybody in your funnel even remotely that could step in or that you're nurturing as a part of bigger picture firm building, you're in a pretty tough situation. And I know we can't plan for every little thing that's going to go wrong, but the more and more we think about these things and we talk about them as a leadership team and start to put plans to paper, if you will, or a Google sheet.

Yeah.

You know, the, the better off you are. And, and honestly, this is what best in class firms do. They're stewards of their money. They're fiduciaries to their LPs and they think through these details and chart a path. And even if that path changes multiple times, you know, they have a bigger picture plan for, for how to care for all that is under their charge, from the cash to the investments and the firm.

Yeah, that's a lot. I mean it's really a lot of introspection and thoughtful planning. And I think more, I mean just hearing you talk through it, it's much more. It's a whole other job other than going out and finding a great investment and investing in it. You know, like that's where we all get started. Like that's what excites us. And then before you know it, you know, you're. Yeah, you're building a team and building for the future. So thanks for detailing it in such.

A nice way about.

And I guess now shifting a little bit, you know, talking about firm brand, you mentioned it at the beginning, but you know, how do you see the mission vision values relating to brand?

Yeah, I think firms need to decide whether today or the day when they start again, you know, who they want to be when they grow up. And it's never too late to get started on that. But, you know, obviously the beginning is the best time. But again, it's an insanely competitive market. There are more, you know, more funds raising now than ever before. There are more just pure funds than there ever have been. And Venture has gone through this, you know, uncharacteristic, and no unprecedented growth in the last 15 years. And I think when it comes to brand as a firm and as it relates to your mission, vision, values, you need to decide on what your brand strategy is from the jump. And I think it kind of falls into three buckets. One, either your marketing and brand presence is a critical component to who you are because it feeds your mission, vision, values, and it reinforces them. And you view marketing and brand and the resources required to fuel that as a fundamental business expense. And you're going to invest in it consistently from day one. And I think what I see this in live time looks like is emerging managers who believe in this and make it their ethos. They start day one whether it's a hire or outsourced help using a designer or a marketing consultant. And if they start outsourced, their top internal hiring priorities are bringing in a marketing hire or a branding hire as part of who they are and who they're going to be. And truly, you know, putting their money where their mouth is and investing in this from day one. And, you know, there are a lot of big shops, you don't need to call them out, who've made this, their, their, their thing, their shtick, and, and there's everything in between. But, you know, firms who take this approach, you know, really, truly, this is what they believe in. They feel like this is a differentiator and they follow through to the letter. And, and I think you see the results. You do. Like, you know, we don't need to name drop, but like I, you know, firms who built their brands, you know who they are because we don't need to say them. Right? Yeah. So that's path one. Path two is it's not a priority and it doesn't feed your mission, vision, values. So I see a lot of firms just maintaining like a minimal, viable VC presence, you know, pitch deck, website logo, they've got some social channels. You know, they post sporadically or around moments or, you know, whether it's a liquidity moment or a fundraise moment or milestone moments. And there's nothing wrong with this approach. You know, this is your firm. This is your mission, your vision, your values. And if you know pounding your chest in the LinkedIn town square on a daily basis doesn't fuel you and doesn't serve your bigger purpose, you don't need to do it. And my attitude is always, if you can't do something well, that is okay. Lean into what your strong suits are and let everyone else shine where they need to shine. Totally. But I would say emerging funds who take this approach tend to not bring in full time hires and try not to compete with their peers. They usually outsource a lot of this sort of critical work in design to design shops and marketing consultants. And a lot of them keep on like a fractional marketing consultant. And a lot of them lean into one thing which I think is great. You know, whether it's someone in the firm, is a prolific writer and is the voice of the firm, maybe they are very active on LinkedIn or Twitter. Maybe they, you know, really do a lot of podcasts or speaking or, you know, they've got sector subject matter expertise or sector focus expertise and, and that's what they make their thing. And they lean into that one thing and don't try to broad brush and don't try to make it their whole firm's identity. And I think all of that is great. Again, like lean into what you're great at and don't try to be something you're not and that authenticity in your brand will come through, which is the most important thing. And then there's approach three. I love this one because I think it's kind of fun. Your brand is literally, we are under the radar by intention, by design, and in staying that way, it does feed your mission, vision, values and your funds thesis. What I like. And you're like, what the heck is this? This doesn't make any sense. But I'm gonna go a little deeper.

And I think, yeah, no, I can think of the firms that I'm like, don't have a website or just it' logo on a website, but nothing else you can see, you know.

Yeah. And what they're doing is everything that you don't see. Right. So funds who take this approach tend to have a unique strategy in that, well, one, doing absolutely nothing is low cost, maybe on the marketing front, but they are, they tend to be taking a unique path and building their own exclusive little mountain, if you will, of whatever their differentiator is, whatever their secret sauce is, or a unique thing. And, and they tend to be spending dollars there rather than on, you know, A fancy webpage or you know, whatever kind of other brand, brand resources you would and marketing resources you typically spend money on. They're basically building this little kind of VIP thing typically inner sanctum, you know, something that we hear about, Whispers on the Wind. Did you get invited to this exc exclusive retreat? Did you get invited to this VIP dinner? You know, instead of being on the LinkedIn soapbox, you know, they, they are taking a really differentiated approach and spending what would be their marketing dollars on this differentiated strategy. And it can look like a myriad of things for a myriad of funds. But yeah, I think the, the physical approach you see is they've got a landing page, maybe they have a LinkedIn profile or not. But like they're, they're special thing is the, the thing they're doing behind the scenes and investing dollar and and and resource into that really makes them stand out in their own way and again feeds their fun thesis, feeds the brand they're trying to build and, and feeds the their mission, vision, values of who they're trying to be as a firm. Yeah, and I can say, you know, you can also combine these strategies.

Yeah, I was going to ask is, is one of these better than the other? Like would you recommend like, you know, one of them over the other?

I. I really don't think there is a, there is no one ring to rule them all like it is you. This is again, this is your term. This is your baby. This is, this is your, you know, your probably for many people, their life's work. Yeah, I know. Strut for me has become my life's work and yeah. How I want to show up, you know, needs to be authentic to who I am. And you can taking a blended approach, there's nothing wrong with that if you are doing, you know, V light marketing efforts, but you've got this super secret cool thing that you're building or doing or you've created this exclusive community of, you know, founders or you know, an expert network or you're hosting these really high touch intimate dinners or whatever they are. Like you should do what's true to you and find the combination that delivers on your vision, what you're trying to accomplish and speaks to your core stakeholders in the right ways. That's how you differentiate in the market. And I think differentiating yourself and having that special thing, no matter what the approach is, is how you stand out and how you make a name for yourself rather than following the playbook again, don't get lost in chasing the dragon. Don't follow everyone else's playbook. Write your own and like take inspiration from other people. Absolutely. And, and see who's, you know, winning or, you know, wowing the crowd and in certain categories and, and then make it your own. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Love it.

Authenticity.

That's great.

And what are some common pitfalls that you've seen along the path?

Yeah. Stepping away from marketing and going back to like the bigger mission vision, values. Common pitfall. Yeah. Yeah. I think people get stuck trying to do this. I've tried to do this for my firm many times and I've got like three different working docs and they're all evolving all the time. Mainly because my company is evolving faster than it ever has. But it's natural to get stuck. It's natural to try to go with all best intentions into a two day off site and we're going to nail this to the ground. And you come out of it like, oh, we only got like half of it done or we got really stuck on this one part or we couldn't get alignment. And that is so totally natural and normal. And don't be discouraged or, you know, swayed by the fact that, you know, it didn't go perfectly. This is a, you know, it's a, it's a working masterpiece and you're, you know, you're going to struggle sometimes to get it right. And I think it shouldn't be easy. It should be, I mean, parts of it should be easy because it should be natural. But like, you know, getting it right for you is, is an evolution and not an instant snap creation. And I would say if you are getting stuck, whether doing it solo or you're struggling to, you know, get it accomplished as a team, bring in an expert. There are some people who are fantastic at this. You can get a couple of names if you want to share them with the.

Yeah, we can put them in the show.

Yeah. But you know, there are lots of people who specialize in doing this for a living and they can kind of help you work through the places. Sometimes just giving you like the right feeder phrase or word gets you to the next level and, or giving them what you have and having them help kind of massage and pull it to the right place is helpful. And I would say, like, don't be afraid to ask for help. We all, we all need it and this is not easy work all the time. So having someone kind of shepherd you is impactful and I wouldn't be shy, shy away from doing it. I think other common Pitfalls are again, you know, the more your partnership grows, you know, the more voices in the room and too many opinions sometimes dilute what you're trying to accomplish. You know, this really should be done by top core leadership, you know, the top team, the founding partners, or whoever your inner sanctum is. Things tend to just get watered down or too many voices around a table. Too much data is sometimes not good here. You struggle to get consensus and it doesn't produce strong outcomes. So having an intersection of people you're going to do this with at the firm level is good. And then of course, you can always share it with the rest of the team or the other partners and get their feedback and insights and perspective. But, you know, don't. If you're trying to do this as like a power session, don't bring too many voices into the room. It can kind of stifle the process. And my other big thing, common fitfall, is like not documenting what you're doing. Please write everything down. Whether it's on a whiteboard and you take a photo, you've got someone being the scribe or the note taker or using AI to help you capture all of this. Whether you're doing it in person or virtually record the session and transcribe it. Like, ideas will continue to flow long after the session is over. And having sort of a parking lot of where, you know, where you got to, whether virtually or in person and how to iterate on these ideas and bring new ideas to the table as they come to you. Like, I always joke I have, like, things come to me when I'm in the car, you know, when I'm, you know, at a workout. Like, they just come in weird times. And having a place where you can dump all of that and use it as a, you know, parking lot for moving the cars around and getting, getting the right alignment is really important.

Totally makes a ton of sense.

Yeah.

So I guess getting to the end of our time here, a couple of last questions. If you were to kind of give one top level a number one piece of advice to gps who are listening, you know, what would that be?

Yeah, I mean, it's back to the top. Don't skip this. Go back and do it. Even if you're like, oh, we're five funds in, who cares? Like, you write the rules, it's your fund. Yeah. And, and, and, and do this. Even if you do a V light version, I think that's powerful. It doesn't have to be some, you know, 30 page doc. It could literally be a one pager. And I think that that is powerful. And you know, you know, don't, don't feel like it's too much. Don't, don't slack. Like, you wouldn't let your founder make an excuse for not doing this. So, like, you know, do it to be, be, be the talk you walk. Right. And, you know, I think of it as like a house. This is the foundation. And houses without foundations don't stand upright and firms without foundations don't stand the test of time. You know, things fall apart, things become wobbly when you don't have a good base and a good North Star and core leadership, who is driving, driving MVV forward, that is, that is who's taking the reins and who's leading your ship where it needs to go. Yeah. And then I would say second most important thing sub to that is if you're going to do a mission values exercise, use it, Use the filtering framework. Use it all the time, constantly. Big decision, medium decision, small decision. It is your gut check, your roadmap, your bible, like it is your. And have someone be your accountability coach if possible, whether it's your other partners or some like a trusted, you know, person in the firm or an advisor. But use the framework. It is incredibly impactful and will bring so much clarity and focus to all of the decisions you need to make as a fund manager.

Yep. And like you said earlier, like, ask yourself, does this fit the mission, yes or no? Does it fit the vision, yes or no? Does it fit the values, yes or no? If any of those are no, pause and try to figure out, like, why?

Let's go deeper.

Maybe you shouldn't be doing it.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

That's very tactical and very helpful.

Yeah. And a lot of firms use this not a mission vision values, but they have a process for their deal flow decisions. And it's no different. It's different in that it's your firm building decisions, but you take a very, you know, methodical approach to making deal decisions. You should be doing the same for your firm. Yeah.

Love it. And I guess as a last question, any final thoughts or inspirational thoughts to help us GP into or probably just listen to this and we're like, oh, my God, it's a lot of work. Where do I find the time?

So, yeah, well, number one, hit me up. I'm happy to help you do this.

Yeah.

Selfish plug.

Absolutely.

We can definitely do it as a project. You don't have to, you know, get on contract with us. We can, we can definitely give the VC mastermind Discount, you know. Yeah, happy to help in that process. But, you know, I would just say, like, your firm deserves this. You deserve this. And I think we owe it to. Owe it to ourselves and to, you know, the founders, the LPs, each other, this ecosystem we're building. Like, all of the firms who are in market right now are going to shape the next chapter of venture for decades to come. And I think we owe it to ourselves to. To be, you know, be the brands we should be and. And live, you know, live with, and live and work with integrity and authenticity. And I always, you know, Dick Cran, like, may he rest in peace, was someone that I got to know personally, I was fortunate to know. And I like a man who walked and talked, you know, mission, vision, values, and was the most authentic and awesome example of this for me in the early phases of my career. And I always say, like, be like Dick, think like Dick. Like, he built something you're proud of that you are proud to leave to your. Your other partners, your firm, your team, your LPs, your founders, you know, your kids, your grandkids. Like, we're. We're all here because we're trying to change the future and invest in incredible things that are gonna change the way we live, work, eat, think, survive here and do it for. Do it for the legacy adventure. Like, it deserves it. You deserve it. We all deserve it. And that's my motivational. Go get it.

I love it. Yeah, I love it. Well, yeah, I mean, Dick was the founder of nea and gosh, man, that firm has been around for, yeah, 40 plus years, and they've built an incredible legacy. So what a place to start your foundation.

Yeah. Yeah, I was. I was lucky and I was fortunate to get to know him. And he was an incredible person. And truly, he walked his. His values every single day in that office. And I was lucky to see it and. And be inspired by it. But I think it's a. It's a good lesson for us all to take home and. And honor his legacy too. Yeah.

I remember I got to meet him once that I was at like, a founder's birthday party at Cotonia in San Francisco, and he showed up and I was just, like, in awe. You know, I, like, said hello to him. I just kind of wanted to, like, absorb the. The. The legendary, you know, legacy. Yeah. And what he's able to do. Godfather.

Yeah. And he's such, like, a genuinely nice person and that exuded out of every pore, you know, good cornframe, Midwest soul. And yeah, I got to I got to get to know him well, and I feel lucky for that. And yeah, it's, I think, you know, we can all get inspired to, to be bigger than we are and we're all, you know, literally investing in it. So let's do it in our own house, too.

Yep.

Love it.

Kristen Ostrow with strutconsulting.com thank you so much for spending so much time and thought and energy being here today and sharing with with the VC Mastermind Group. And thank you for being a supporter of the VC Mastermind Group. And as we get off the ground and for anybody that's looking to contact Kristen, you can reach out to me or you can go to strutconsulting.com and find all the information there. But we'd love to connect the dots for anybody who can work with you to help help them scale themselves.

Yeah, you bet. Contact form goes straight to me.

So amazing. There you go. Wonderful. Well, thanks everyone who's listening. Thanks for listening to VC Mastermind. I'm Jacob Mullins and I look forward to to chatting with you again soon. Thank you.

Thanks so much for listening to the Village Global Podcast. You can check us out online at VillageGlobal VC. We'd love to hear from you, your feedback, your ideas, your inspirations. You can email us at helloillageglobal.