Meet the Funds: Hear from managers that built new funds in VC Lab

Hello everybody, thank you for coming in today and joining us, uh, for this exciting VC Lab panel with alumni general partners from funds all around the world. Uh, very excited to have people streaming in. We already have 56 people and growing. I'm gonna just give a moment for people to come in. And while we do that, I will introduce myself. Uh, my name is Adeo Ressi. I'm CEO of VC Lab and CEO of Founder Institute, and I'll be the moderator today for this exciting event. The goal of this event is to ask recent general partners that have finished the VC Lab program about their experiences building a fund, building a venture capital firm, going through the VC Lab program, and answer any questions that you have. So I'm gonna tell you how to post your questions, and I'll repeat this a number of times. We're already at 100 people, that's great. If you have a question at the bottom of your screen, this is something that's available on webinars, you don't normally see it, there's a Q&A button. It says Q&A. Click that button and you can actually ask a question and then I will take those questions and ask them to the best participants and participants can jump in and answer them as well. So if you have a question, remember Q&A on the bottom, type it in. Now another thing about the Q&A system that's really cool is you can upvote questions that you like. So I recommend you read questions from other people, upvote the questions that you like, it will make things super easy. So let me, now that we have a good amount, over 100 people in and growing by the moment, let me quickly introduce VC Lab. Then I'm going to introduce our esteemed panelists and we'll jump into your questions. So one last thing about questions, If you try to form them as clearly as possible and only ask one question per time, that would be super helpful. So VC Lab is a 4-and-change-month-long venture capital accelerator. We help you create an enduring venture capital firm and get to a first close. Now, you may not get to the first close during the program. It normally takes a few weeks or a couple months after the program's over to finalize all the details of the first close. But the average amount of time that a VC Lab participant gets to a first close is, is roughly 5 months from the beginning of the program to money in the bank. And the average size of a VC Lab fund is $17.89 million. And so we work with general partners, the founders of funds and venture capital firms all around the world, on creating their— the fund that they've always dreamed of. And very quickly about how the program works, and then we'll turn it over to our guests. So this is not an educational program. This is a, we're gonna help you to get to a first close program. So there's stuff you do every week and you do learn for sure. You're gonna learn stuff, but you're gonna learn by doing, right? So it's not like read this long textbook and think about things. It's like, no, go, you know, find a lawyer and get started setting up your entities, right? So you're gonna learn learn by doing. And there's a very active community of general partners that are there that have similar experiences, different experiences, and everyone's sharing information, sharing about what they're learning, uh, trading best practices. So not only are you building, but you're interacting with a community and you're learning by doing, and that helps you get to a close. Now Normally, if you build a venture capital fund, it can take, you know, 9, 12, 18, even 24 months to get to a first close. Very common. I would say the average is probably 12 to 18 months. And we're able to shrink that down quite a bit because a lot of times as a new manager, someone launching a new venture capital firm, you do things kind of out of order. Right? Like you talk to your lawyer too early, you kind of pitch investors too early, and as a result, you waste time. So what we've done at VC Lab is, because myself and other people involved in VC Lab have launched, you know, in some cases dozens of funds, we've, and myself, I'm at, you know, roughly 14, 15 funds. We sort of know what needs to happen in what order, and we help you do it in that sequence. Okay, so that's a little bit about VC Lab, a little bit about me. Again, Q&A button at the bottom to ask questions to our panelists. So I have an order here. I'm just gonna— I'll do one by one. And so I'll just say something about you, and then if you wanna add to your background, maybe why you decided to do a fund. So first and foremost, I'd love to welcome Brittany. From Coyote Ventures, a fund here domiciled in the United States with presences around the United States. Brittany, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, Coyote Ventures, and what really inspired you? And we'll go one by one through the other panelists.

Thanks, Adair. Hi, everyone. I'm Dr. Brittany Barreto. I am a geneticist by training, serial entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. I was working as a senior venture associate at a fund a few years ago, and I realized that, you know, I thought people running funds were like the most smartest, educated, financially savvy gurus. And I realized that they were just everyday humans and that I could probably run a fund too. And I should— I could set one up that invests in things that I'm passionate about. And so I'm really passionate about innovation in women's health and wellness. So we are not a female founder fund. We are a women's health fund. It just so happens that most of our founders are women, which is awesome. And so I'm known as an expert in the femtech industry, innovation in women's health. And so if you like women's health or you're interested in it, check out our podcast, Femtech Focus. That's what led to the thought leadership, the industry knowledge, the market research that really set us up for success to launch Coyote Ventures. So my business partner Jessica Carr and I It's a $10 million venture fund, Coyote Ventures, investing in women's health and wellness seed stage deals. And it was a fantastic experience. I can't wait to tell you more about it.

Yeah, no, and so lovely. And I love what you're working on. It's great to see female GPs. In fact, we have a number of female GPs, but we're gonna switch genders for a moment. Next of the four, Sydney. He's a founder of Seldor Capital based in New York City. And, you know, as someone who's worked many, many years in space, actually kind of got into space with Elon Musk. Elon Musk and I started the precursor company to SpaceX. I'm a huge fan of everything you're doing. Sidney, please introduce yourself.

Thanks, Adil. And I should say that I'm a big fan of VC Lab because without VC Lab, I wouldn't be here. So my name is Sydney Nakahodo. I'm a general partner founder of Seldor Capital. We're based out of New York City and we invest in space startups here in the US. And my motivation to start Seldor Capital actually didn't happen until I joined VC Lab. I never knew that I would be able to start a VC. I never thought that I had the I had the skills or the network to create a fund. But my work here in New York to support the New York space startup ecosystem and through my activities that I developed with NASA in order to bring together investors, entrepreneurs, and companies that were part of the space ecosystem They provided the initial motivation for me to give it a try. And my start with VC Lab was slow, I would say. I got many reviews and I had to redo my homework many times. And I thought that I would give up because I didn't think I was prepared. But eventually things took off, right? Or things lifted off, as we would say in the space sector. And I'm so glad to be here. I'm very happy to share some of the lessons Doing a VC is very hard, I should say in advance, much harder than I anticipated and much, much more rewarding than I could ever imagine.

Oh, that's so beautiful to hear. Yeah. And, you know, congratulations to you and to Brittany. And then the next, I'm going to introduce you both at the same time because you're part of the same fund, Isabelle and Brian. Brian got in a bike accident, but he's okay. And, you know, it's sort of a A strange thing when someone you know well and care about gets injured, you're like, oh my God, are you all right? And he is okay and was able to join us today. And I can tell you, one of the things that's come out of the program for me is like forge friendships and relationships with lots of people all around the world, Brian and Isabel included. They're co-founders of Black Tech Capital up in Canada, and they're a $5 million pre-seed fund that focuses on Canadian Black entrepreneurs working in clean tech and other industries to make the environment and the world better. One of you two can go first introducing yourself and the why.

Ladies first, I guess. I'll take it.

Go ahead.

Hi everybody. Thank you so much for having us. Number one, I want to say huge thank you to Adeo and Mike. I know that you guys already feel my love. And I've given it to you many times, but here on this platform, I just want to say being led by these two has been just a blessing. They not only are there for you professionally, but also personally. So thank you guys very much. I totally appreciate you. Can't wait to hug you in person. Um, as Adeo said, my name is Isabel Stark and I am a GP for Black Tech Capital. And it's kind of interesting the way that this journey started for us. I remember having a dinner with Brian and his wife, who's my bestie, and I shared with him a stat that I thought was just, ah, for me, it just didn't resonate. I said, you know, did you know that 2.8% of VC funds go to women-led businesses? He said, interesting. Did you know that only 1% goes to Black entrepreneurs? So there started the journey because the very next day we saw an ad for Founder Institute and they talked about Start your own VC fund. I said, what's that? Okay, well, why don't we jump in? I think it was 6 days later, we had our video done, we were submitted, and we were approved. So out of 2,000 people, we got in. We were so excited. And I gotta say, this journey has been transformational. Okay, not only on a business side, but also on a personal side. It's pushed you, it's, it's gotten you to expand and just really grow into the person that you're meant to be. So if you're ever considering becoming a VC or starting your own fund, I can say this is the place to go. And I'm happy to answer any questions offline as well. If you wanna get like the real dirt, you know, I'm here. And so that's me in a nutshell. I am excited to hear your questions.

Hello everyone. Yes, so, you know, happy to be here, happy to be here with my business partner, Isabel. We were supposed to be side by side, but my bike accident is, Left me a little bit slower moving, but all good. Well on the mend. Excited to be part of the VC Lab program. It was just such an awesome experience for me being a long time in the energy industry, multiple founder, 4 times over. But, you know, getting into venture capital was not my background, had really no experience in it. But when I started looking at how can I amplify the impact of having on the clean tech industry, the sustainability industry, and no better way to do that than help a lot of different companies get started. And then for me, with my own personal journey as a Black entrepreneur, having difficulty getting funding, even just regular funding from banks, saying, "That doesn't work, that's not fair." And that's really what started off this journey. And then conversations with Isabel, began building this. And for us, VC Lab, I mean, I agree with Isabel. It's been so transformational. Not having a background in this space, it was really a lot of handholding. It was doing the homework. Every time we didn't do the homework as designed, you know, we had to go back and do the homework because that's what made a difference. You know, it's like, I think it helped and hurt us not having that experience, but, you know, The helping is, you know, we listened to what was told, followed through with that, and really enjoyed this journey. I mean, I couldn't believe I'd be sitting here to say that I actually enjoy going asking people for money. You know, I thought that would be the last thing in the world I wouldn't want to ever do. And you know, I'm not attached to it anymore. It's a yes, or as Dale said, if it's not a yes, it's a no, right? So, you know, and just enjoying the journey and happy to answer any questions and Yep, great to be here today.

Adair, you're muted.

Thank you. Awesome, guys. I love being muted. Uh, so we have tons of questions. What I'm going to recommend, Mike, if you don't mind answering some of the questions in text, then I'll pull some of the questions on screen because we have more questions than we can probably answer on screen. So why don't we do this? I'm going to read questions sort of one at a time. If someone wants to take it, they can just jump in. So Alyssa is asking, how much money should we set aside to launch the fund in addition to what we invest in it? Anyone who wants to take that one?

I would like to mention that I think that a lot of venture has been built on rich people getting richer. And I wanted to share for anyone who's in attendance, 147 attendees, if you do not have your own capital to even put in the 1% GP, yes, it's standard, it's expected, but I'll just say that we're doing really well at Coyote Ventures, and I personally have American United States education. I am wildly in debt. My first startups didn't work out. My exits of my last fund aren't here yet. And I personally don't have the capital to put in a 1% GP. And honestly, I have another full-time job while I was doing VC Lab. And I just wanted to speak to anybody who's like, "Oh, I'm not rich enough yet to start my fund," because I actually think that's a huge issue in our industry where VC is meant for high-net-worth individuals to continue to increase their wealth. So I'm not putting in a GP capital, but I have a lot of other amazing assets that I'm bringing to the fund, and I'll just say LPs are fine with that.

Okay. That, yeah, I agree. Like a lot of people don't do the 1% GP commit and they don't need money to start. What happens just on a technical level is when you raise your first close, you have something called organizational expenses that get debited out of that close. And can cover things like law firm prices, et cetera. So you don't actually need money. Another question from Alyssa that I like, I don't know if she just asked them really quickly or whatever, but what are your expectations when you join the accelerator and how are they met? And if you wanna add maybe how they weren't met, though she didn't ask that, I'm also interested in that. But does someone wanna take that one?

I'll go, I'll go. I'll take this one. What were my expectations? Well, I didn't know what to expect because I am not from the financial industry. I have a corporate background, started my own businesses, and I don't have a background in finance. So I really didn't know. I, I live by the motto of just jump and build the parachute as you go down. And that's exactly what we did. So what I can say that I did get as I've already shared, is just a lot of guidance. Adele touched on the fact that they guide you in sequence. I'm all about efficiency, Virgo, so that's me, but I need to do things in order, and they really take— they make sure that they are focused on the right things at the right time so that you're not wasting time down the road. There you go, succinct.

Great, love it. Um, Bill was asking— there's a couple people here, I guess the, um, Black Tech and, and is asking about, um, Oh, it got moved around. I have 5— a lot of people are asking questions. Upvote questions as well, so I'll remember your question, Bill, but it popped off my screen, which was, hey, we've got 5 partners that want to apply. Is it— does it make sense for everyone to apply? And we got 2 people on here who have more than 1 partner. I'd love your feedback. I either can take it Sure, I'd love to answer that.

I mean, we came in as 3 partners into it, and we were down to 2 within a week, right? So I would say that, you know, it's a great test going through this to see if this is the strong partnership meant to be. Um, so I'd say all 5 partners, if that's what you have, all need to apply, all need to do the work, all need to be part of it, because you need to find out, is this for everyone? And I mean, It was great to find out that when our partner dropped out in the first week, you know, he was able to say, this is not for me, I don't want to do this. And so we could still remain friends. And Isabelle and I have stuck through this the whole way. So definitely all 5 partners should be in.

Yeah.

And so what— and I love Brittany. How did it work between you and Jessica? Did it help you guys? I'd be— I don't really— I've met Jessica, we talked Did it help you guys solidify more? Cause you were pretty good friends beforehand.

Yeah. So, um, I live in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Jess, my business partner, lives in San Francisco. We had actually never met in person before applying to FI. And so we had only known each other, uh, virtually because of the pandemic for about a year. Um, we've had virtual drinks. We, you know, uh, hung out, texted memes. We both have little dogs that we love and we would text pictures of our dogs. So we were growing our relationship that way. Once we joined FI and we got into like week 3 or 4, we decided that we really needed to get together in person and kind of feel our energy in person. Um, you see how tall each other were in comparison, get a photo together for our deck. And so she actually flew out to Raleigh for a week and we did a week-long little retreat in my apartment. So I don't think that— I see even some folks are asking in the chat, like, but we're not together, how are we going to make a video? It's 2021, y'all. There's so many— you just figure it out. Also, whatever. Like, Jess and I did a lot of our video stuff separately and just submitted it. You know, our text answers to our weekly homework was a collective, you know, Google Doc that we then submitted. But the videos we did independently, you know. And sometimes hers was better. Sometimes mine were better. But whenever we did get together, we hustled to get a photo shoot done with 10 different outfits. So it looks like we did a lot of different photo shoots throughout the year, but it was one day. And, you know, that's, that's just how you make it happen. So I, I got to say, when I met Jessica, she's, she's, she's tall.

I was like, wow, I'm very tall as well, by the way. So are you tall, Brittany?

I'm average, 5'4", very average. Yeah.

Yeah.

Spanish.

So it's so funny you bring that up because many of the people feel like we know each other so well, but we've never actually met in person.

Yeah, absolutely. I would just say if you have questions that are about, but what abouts, that sounds like an excuse. And if you want to be a VC fund manager, you need to innovate as much as the founders that you invest in. So get creative.

That's a beautiful answer, actually, and a beautiful way to think about things. Well, this is an interesting one again from Melissa. Thanks for the great questions, and remember to upvote because it's easier for me to get the questions at the top. My colleague will also be answering questions by typing them in, and if I don't understand a question, I'll ask you to clarify. So, um, Alyssa's asking, are there, again, and you know, are there any challenges that you find that women and underrepresented GPs come across in the program and in fundraising? So maybe you could stay in fundraising first and also in the— I'd love to hear if you as a woman experienced anything in the program that was uncomfortable so that we could fix it, or as an underrepresented GP, Brian.

Brian, or—

Oh, you want to go first? Or either, anyone. I know, but the question, Isabel, excuse me, Alyssa asked for both, women and underrepresented GPs.

So I'll go first. Number one, I didn't feel like I was singled out at all. The fact of being in the room with a lot of men, it's kind of— I'm good with that. I was in the car industry. Motorsport is all men. So I was totally comfortable and not an issue there. But I would say even, I guess, just getting past that piece of asking. Asking, like going, doing your fundraising and being able to ask, you're seeing, people are seeing you in a different light now. So, you know, creating relationships, I'm totally great at, and I've done tons of sales, half million dollar sales, no, no problem. But when you're asking people to invest in you personally, it just, for maybe for a woman, I don't know, maybe Brittany, you can kind of touch on this too, but there was just this little bit of, oh gosh, I, this, this just doesn't feel natural until you get over the hump.

So, and adding to that, as a Black founder, yeah, you— I've faced some of the same things fundraising as I did raising money for my own company. So you will get people that, you know, don't want to invest in you because you're not the right color. But at the same token, I've met a lot of amazing, great people along the way. You know, uh, most of our LPs right now are white, and they're saying, you know what, This is not fair. How can I make a difference? And they're really seeing it as a way to impact and make a difference by putting their money into something, into people, you know, Isabel and I as GPs that can now impact other Black founders to make a difference for them. So it's been a great learning journey. We're tied in tightly with a number of universities here that are also building out their programs for Black founders and Black entrepreneurs. So If anything, it's bringing things to the foresight. My, you know, my wife tells me, you know, you're kind of an activist. And I'm saying, I'm an activist? I'm not going out marching anywhere. But, you know, it's making a difference for those that haven't had those opportunities. And I just love being able to do that.

You inspired me right there with that. I just popped an LP in my head, uh, for your fund. So let's talk offline about that. So many questions here. I don't know who Wes is asking, did I lose my hair before or after the first one? Before the first one, but I'll tell a funny story about that. One day I was hanging out with, you know, my colleague, I'm still very good friends with Elon Musk, and he's like, "Adeo, it's time to shave your head." I'm like, "Uh-oh." When your best friend tells you it's time to shave your head, It's time to shave your head, and this was long before my first fund. Okay, ton of questions here. Let's give one to Sidney because you've been quiet. And what were some of the most more tactical aspects of VC Lab that you found most helpful, i.e., fund deck, positioning, fund financials overview, et cetera?

Right. Do I have at least 30 minutes? Personal thoughts? On the technical side, I would say that I couldn't tell GP from LP. That's how I started BC Lab. As you can imagine, I needed help on every dimension. I'm trying to figure out what specifically I could describe on the tech. As you mentioned, Adil, we don't talk about forming the fund legally, right, until the end of the program. And, but there's a lot of thinking into the process of— it's— there's a psychological commitment, there's a practical commitment too, until you get to that stage. And I would say that the homeworks, they really help you solidify a lot of the ideas that would go into more technical aspects of creating a fund, right. I would say that perhaps the most important technical aspect is on figuring out a framework for fundraising. So the idea of first listing your potential LPs and then having a template for a commitment letter and having the whole process of developing templates to reach out to LPs using the right language, engaging them little by little. So I would say that all these little things that are so important for us and that are provided not only by VC Lab, the program, but also by the community. And I should say that I have benefited tremendously from the Slack channels and I've learned so much from my peers because a lot of them have much more experience than I had. And a lot of the technical questions that I had were actually answered by people that were generous on Slack.

Yeah, and what— so someone else is, and this is also somewhat relevant to you asking about deal flow, Flávio, what did you do to get good startups into your funnel? Have you had part— now I know we— have you had— let me finish the question. Have you had any partnerships with accelerator? How hard was it to find good companies? And I know we actually referred a couple deals to you, Sydney, I think one of which you've done. And if any— so does anyone else want to talk? I mean, we do— we call it deal warehousing in the curriculum, and we really want the funds to warehouse startups and we work with them. Who would like to take that particular question?

Yeah, so I'll jump in. You know, the fund started way before the fund started, if that makes any sense, right? So I started a podcast about femtech in March of 2020 when we first went into lockdown, because me isolated in an apartment is like not a good look. So I was like, I'm going to start a podcast. And I started interviewing people. Next thing you know, it's like this worldwide podcast with thousands of downloads. And I was getting inundated with deal flow. And so it was almost like when we got to the parts of the homework where it was like, go find a deal, I was like, how do I make them stop messaging me? You know, we've actually already passed on 75 deals and committed to 2. And we didn't really start to analyze them until probably midway through this program. So deal flow was not an issue for me. And the, I found that you actually have this working group in FI, so you can get matched with a few of the other participants and every week you can meet up and ask questions to each other. And I noticed that the folks that didn't have like crazy amounts of deal flow were not getting as much LP attention either because LPs are investors themselves. So why wouldn't they just find deals if they want to know, like, you have some unique advantage over getting the best deals that they can't. And so for Coyote Ventures, it's that we are the femtech experts. We are the leaders in the industry. The other femtech investors listen to our show to get trends on the industry. And so, yeah, deal flow was never an issue for us. And if you are not inundated with deal flow right now, ask yourself, how can I become a thought leader in this industry in order to get the deal flow? It only took me a year to become a thought leader in the industry, which I think is actually a travesty. Women's health needs so much more attention. But nevertheless, become a thought leader, become somebody in your industry so that the deal flows just come.

That's great advice. And I don't know if anyone else wants to take that. I know Sidney, you had a lot of deal flow because you were running the space community in New York.

Do you—

the Black Tech Ventures guys want to talk? Because you built deal flow during the program, correct?

We didn't come into the program with deal flow, but I think one of the things that helped us a lot was having that very focused. I mean, Black entrepreneurs, there's so many overlooked Black founders, so we've had no difficulty finding Black founders. However, with that specific cleantech focus and niching it, you know, it helps people— as you're niched, it helps people say, okay, we know someone in that space that meets that criteria, here, let me send them to you, versus if you're not as niched, it's harder to say, Okay, how do we send you specific deal flow? But we— but with ours, we've been able to partner, as I said, with universities. We've partnered with accelerators, both on the clean tech side, as well as ones focused on Black founders. And we went from zero to 10 that we're seriously looking at right now over the course of the program. So it's reaching out to your networks and being focused on where you're going with it.

I'll also add to Brian the fact that we're also advisors in accelerators and starting our own clean tech vertical accelerator. So that is bringing people to us.

I'm happy to share.

Yeah, go.

Yeah, no. So for us, there are 3 main sources of deal flow, right? First, we're, as you mentioned, Adil, through New York Space Alliance, we're pretty immersed in the space ecosystem. So I've been a judge in pitching competitions, and that's one of the ways that we identify companies to invest. The other one is actually the FI network. Some of the graduates from their program that have reached out to us. We invested in one company that was referred to us by a VC Lab graduate participant that is also investing in Agile and shared with us. So, and the other one was through personal introduction. So we really trust and the people that are, that that are a network, and then we are very happy to put them on a shortlist, so to say, for us to consider for investments.

Awesome. Yes, so many questions here. Love it. Upvote, upvote, help me surface the best ones. I like this one from Martin though. What has surprised you most about your experience so far? And you know, I'd love it if anyone who answered this answered it both from like just in the VC world, what surprised you? And then also possibly about the program, what surprised you?

Let's take that one. Yeah, I can go with that one. So, you know, the VC world has surprised me. It's that's how unstructured I guess it is. There's so many different terms and terminology that apply out there, but different ways that people apply it. So there's no no sort of standard way through, no sort of standard documents for everything, which I know VC Labs been doing a great job improving that. So that surprised me at how, I guess that lack of structure being the engineer type here that was missing. Inside of the program, the thing that surprised me, and I'm being honest here, is how much care and attention I felt from ADEO and Mike. Like, you know, It was genuine what they were doing to try and help us win and trying to help us succeed. You know, it was not personal when they took the— when they were criticizing some of the stuff we did. And I can remember one of our first decks getting torn apart by Adeo because of how much crap it was. But, you know, it helped us really improve it quickly. But you can feel that, you know, care, attention, really wanted to help you succeed and win. So, I mean, I felt if I didn't succeed, it was on us, myself and Isabel. It wasn't because of the program because everything in the program was set up to help us win.

That's so sweet. I like, yeah. So, we try, like, guys, so one thing we're not, Mike and I and a group of people, there are a lot of mentors that are very involved who are successful general partners and fund managers themselves. Ourselves. And we just want to help, right? Because the world needs more VCs, especially like the VCs here. You know, we need more companies in space if we're going to be exploring space in the next decade. We certainly need more women VCs, we need more Black VCs, and we need femtech innovation. Every— I mean, you guys, for me, this, this group is, is representative of why we do it, and it's just a small sliver because there we need VCs in Central Asia, Africa, and many more. Tons of good questions here. So I don't even know where to begin. But let's, let's take one from Zoya. Did most of the commitments come from LPs that are part of FI's network? And then there's a bunch of questions about LPs. So if you— so I can answer. We do some LP stuff. Through events called a Venture Forum, which are private events where GPs and LPs can intermingle. But we're not in the business, at least yet, of brokering LP to GP relationships. That's really up to the GPs. So maybe if someone wants to take sort of the process that they went through to find some of their LPs, that would be Great.

Yeah, I would say that if you're gonna apply to FI, you know, VC Lab, thinking that they're gonna provide you the investors, you are sadly mistaken. None of my LPs, our LPs, have come from necessarily the accelerator itself, but it set us up for success that when we did talk to LPs, we knew what the hell we were talking about. And when they said, hey, well, what's your standard carry, or what's your fee, or what's your You know, investment timeline, or, and it was like, boom, boom, boom. We know how to talk about that. We know all those words, you know. And so if you're, again, bottom line, don't join if you think that this is just a giant pitch competition and every day you're going to meet investors. I promise you, you won't. You need to have a large Rolodex of folks you already have. So one of the activities I really appreciated, all the activities are It's so annoying, and yet so important. So one of the activities was make a CRM of all of your potential investors. And dear God, it is so annoying to write everyone's name in there. But we have a CRM of over 600 potential LPs. I haven't even finished emailing everybody. I'm one of those crazy, crazy ladies who kept business cards from the conferences I've been to with notes on them. And I've been going through these damn business cards, adding them to the CRM. Hey, how you doing? Emailing these people. And that's how we've been able to close, um, a certain amount, but it wasn't via, you know, it wasn't, I mean, we did go to his house just to go to Adeo's house.

We hope Adeo comes in, but you know, I would love to, and let me, let me throw something out, guys. It's going to take, just to give you a sense, and I'm sure you can all regale us with your pitching stories. You're gonna have to pitch hundreds of LPs. And so even at like, let's say the Venture Forum event that I just talked about, a good Venture Forum event might have 120 LPs come, okay? That would give the list of the attendant LPs to the participants, the GPs, and they can reach out. And not all of them will respond, but you're literally gonna have to pitch hundreds. Probably, I don't know, you mentioned 600, that's not uncommon. I don't know if anyone else wants to add how many pitches you're in already, but I'm guessing it's in the hundreds. Yeah, if you want to add anything else, anyone?

Happy to share my experience. Yeah, so you'll probably talk to 100 people to secure one LP, and but the first closing It's going to be family and friends. I was expecting to get some more sophisticated LPs or people outside of my immediate circle, but especially given the timeframe and the pressure that they might put on us to close it, there's no way that— unless you're very lucky and you get to connect to someone who's very excited about what you're doing. Other than that, People are not going to invest necessarily on, on your thesis, and they're going to invest in you. So that's my suggestion, that try to get started on people that you know well, that trust you, with whom you have a long relationship, because they are going to be your first early supporters. And I would say that the most important ones, because they're going to be with you no matter what.

I like, um, Akram is answering. I hope— Akram, I hope I got your name right— um, is asking an interesting question, uh, and I'm gonna rephrase it, no offense.

So he's—

his question is, what is the first step after applying to BC Lab? How do I take off? But I'm going to ask a slightly different question, which is like, so let's say these, um, people get in, and hopefully many of them do, uh, we, we have a crazy amount of applicants again, and we'll do our best to pick very interesting people working on interesting things. What would be some, you know, first advice you would give someone who got accepted? They're getting ready to come into the program, you know, you say, okay, be ready for this, this, and this, or do this. What's, what's your advice?

I would block your calendar for homework. Don't just assume like when you have time, you'll get it done because you won't. It's like hours worth of homework. And also just expect the deo to say crazy shit. It's actually part of the weekly course. It's really fun. Those are my two biggest things. Brian, I saw you unmute. Didn't mean to interrupt you.

Yeah, no worries. I was going to add to what Brittany said because I agree with that. Like you set aside 20 hours into your calendar, 20, 25 hours, book that time out because you're going to need it and you're going to use it. Doing the homework, doing the pre-work, because there is pre-work going into the course, that helps as well. I have— using your Slack channel to ask questions, make big use of that. As Sydney pointed out earlier, that was a great help. And then you're put into working groups. And for myself and Isabel, that's been a huge thing because we found our working group partners had experience where we didn't have it. So So relying on that was huge. So that's what I would add to it as the first things to go after.

By the way, I love— there's like a whole chat thing going on. There's a whole Q&A thing going on. I was like, wow, I'm like riding the tiger here. OK, so many questions here.

I'd love to add one more thing is don't be afraid to ask questions. Okay. Because again, I told you, I'm not, I'm not from the financial industry. And I really felt like I got some dumb questions to ask. I'm like, what am I going to look like? But I would just ask them anyways. And I'm actually going to just say what I asked. I asked Adele one day about asking your potential deal flow, for a business plan? And I cannot tell you all the chats that came in. It's like, oh my God, really? She just asked that? There are no dumb questions, okay? So don't be afraid to just ask.

Yeah, and we try not to— so I can have some pretty poor humor at times, like for sure, and, but we try to take every question seriously. So We work with a number of GPs on setting their funds up on a much more hands-on basis. And, you know, we've had hundreds, literally hundreds of questions come in on documents, on this, on that. And, you know, we try to answer everyone with a fresh mind, you know, not take, oh, yet another question and give a thoughtful response and answer. Because everyone here is learning, right? Even ourselves, right? So I like this one from Nassim. What was the hardest hurdle you had to overcome? And that's going to be fun. Who wants to take that one?

I can get started. I think it's definitely the first closing or getting the first investor, because then it starts to feel real when you get someone investing in a fund that just a few months ago were just an idea, right? For me, like, translating that list that Brittany just described into something concrete was— came with lots of ups and downs. I would say that if anything else, just keep going, keep going, because eventually, like, LPs that you would never expect, they will join you. So I think the most important thing, that if you can push it through the program and keep doing your homework and manage to graduate, you're gonna be in a very good position to launch a successful fund.

Anyone else, big hurdle or personal issue they had to overcome?

Uh, I think I did that.

Go ahead, Brian.

The biggest hurdles was, yeah, going out and asking your family and friends, as Sydney pointed out there. I mean, and, and you're thinking, you know, I don't want to bother this person, I don't want to, to upset them or something. And yet I found a lot of people that did decide they were going to invest thank me for that opportunity. So it's recognizing if you believe in yourself and you believe in your fund and what you're doing and what you're offering to people, if they're able to invest, it's an opportunity for them. And once you get your head switched around that, then it makes all the difference.

I've been a founder for a while. I have no problem asking for money. In fact, Jess laughs about like, oh my God, Brittany's just gonna say it. So I have no problem, like, let's cut each other, let's save ourselves time. Are you going to invest or not? But I would say the biggest thing for me was that our unique asset to Coyote Ventures is FemTech Focus, which is the nonprofit I started a year ago. And so there was this like, damn, it's like we're starting two companies. It's like I'm still running a startup and we're starting a fund, but I can't let up on the FemTech Focus because that's our unique asset to the fund. And so at the end of the day, what really was beautiful was that Jess took on more of the homework stuff for the fund. She took on building the CRM, she took on making the pitch deck, she took on a lot of the homework, honestly. She led that while I continued to lead FemTech Focus, because without it, the fund doesn't work. And so my suggestion is, you know, make sure you're finding a business partner that has strengths that are your weaknesses and your strengths are their weaknesses. Hopefully, you just don't have, you know, that many weaknesses, but you both know where you stand. So, Jess is more introverted, I'm more extroverted. Jess is more mindful, I'm more reactionary. Both of those things are really awesome qualities to have as an investor, but it's also really great to have them balanced out within your partnership. So, if you do have co-founder or five from 4 different countries apparently. Make sure that you all have unique assets that you're bringing and you know where your lane is. You know, like, oh yeah, Britt's the pitcher, right? Whereas I'm the backend, you know, and Jess is always getting me— she's reading the contracts and the fine print. I never do that. I'm just like, that's not how my brain works. I can't read fine print. I can't. So find yourself a business partner that really balances you out, because that was one of our biggest hurdles was, you know, how do I run FemTech Focus and build the fund? And it was finding a business partner that brought the assets that needed to, to make this happen.

So I— one thing of note that I just want to reiterate, the program, if you have partners that you're thinking of working with, the program will test that relationship. And we've seen two things happen fairly consistently, you know, coming closer together and even finding other people to work within the program. Or breaking up. And I would say they happen in, you know, pretty commonly on both, closer together and breaking up. In fact, we just graduated, you know, so to speak, last, was it last Thursday? And literally the day before graduation, a fairly big fund in Europe with 3 partners, one of the partners backed out. And it probably wouldn't have happened if there wasn't for the program, right? So, and of course you don't want that to happen when you're in the midst of a first close that you have to write all your investors and be like, oh, sorry, you know, so-and-so is leaving, right? That looks terrible. So yeah, please do. Okay, so Mark is asking, How do new fund managers deal with LP questions about track record? And this is the number one voted question.

Isabelle, you're muted. Sorry, I'm the mute police over here.

I'm sorry, go ahead and— can you repeat the question?

Because I just archived it, but, um, it was a— Mark was asking how do you you new fund managers deal with LP questions about track records. So if you don't have a track record or maybe you've been an angel investor but not a VC and they're like, tell us about your track record. So I can tell you that as an LP and as someone on both sides of the equation, I think thesis matters most, but I'd love to hear how you guys deal with it when you get asked.

Yep. Pre-FI, I was like, I'm going to have to do SPVs, special purpose vehicles, in order to find a great deal, raise capital from people who have it, and then invest, and then wait years and continue to do that. And then I'll make a track record and then I can become a VC. And then I joined FI and I realized that that wasn't necessarily the case. If you have a good story, it doesn't necessarily matter. And so that has been our experience. I've had only one LP so far ask me for like a detailed Excel sheet of like all of our, you know, track record. And oh my gosh, isn't that funny? That was like homework week 4 or whatever. So we already had that. Now, my track record is more advisory shares and 7 investments when I was a senior venture associate at another fund that haven't materialized yet. But what you can do is actually see, let's say you started to advise a company 2 years ago, you can see what the value was then, what the value of the company is now, and use that as, hey, I work with companies that I know are going to be awesome because look, this one's going great. You may not have an exit, but that's okay. I find that I do get LPs saying like, what's your previous experience in investing? And they're not really stuck on the idea of what has your returns been. But more of a question of, do you know how to be an investor? Do you know how VC works? Do you know what the hell, you know, this community feels like or does or looks like? Like, if you're just, you know, straight out of MBA, you've never worked in venture, that worries them more so than when I say, yeah, I've been a founder, I have fundraised, I'm a pitch coach, I've helped other founders fundraise, I've been a senior venture associate. All of that is like, okay, cool, so you've been in this, you know how the game works, Works great. Less so about how much returns that you have you made.

Yeah. And I'll say that on the financial piece, because I keep going back to that, that's not my background, is the fact that it's all about relationships. And at the end of the day, you look at your strengths and what it is that you bring to the table and whether it's your relationships or your coaching or just, just being able to fundraise. Those are the things that are going to matter. And I think one of our secret sauces with Brian is the fact that we actually go really deep with our deal flow. So we're already advising people that we're intending on investing in down the road. So get started early.

There's a number of questions, including one from Robert about fund size and, and, and stage. So let me ask Robert's question. Um, uh, how do you define these business model variants— accelerator, pre-seed, seed? And, and the question is, more importantly, Did any of you pivot during the program from stage? And then, as I mentioned, there's a lot of questions about how you guys determined your fund size. I know fund sizes bounce around a lot. So whoever wants to take, did you pivot on stage and how did you determine your fund size?

Yeah, I can share some thoughts based on my own experience first on the pivot on the stage. My main motivation was to support early-stage space startups. So I definitely have seen some great opportunities in later stage, but I want to stay focused on my mission. So for now, we're sticking to pre-seed, even though we've invested also at the seed level. But we're also doing a follow-on on a warehouse deal that I brought where I had advisory shares as well. And I would say that that's not a— that it's still in line with our idea of support companies throughout their different growth stages. And regarding the size of the fund, I would say that I started with a certain amount and divided that amount by 3. Towards the end of the program?

Yeah, we put— so I'm just gonna add one thing here, and I'd love to hear anyone else who wants to answer this particular— here's the method we tell you to think about. If, if you can wake up tomorrow and raise a certain amount of money from the people you know, and maybe you add that up with your partners, multiply that by 10, and try to be conservative. Now, I know there's a lot of people asking questions like, I'm in this country, I, you know, there's no venture capital, or I don't have access. You know, what I would then recommend is take some of the advice from Brittany and build your network first, and then apply to a cohort later if you don't have a network that has any money in it. And any, anyone here can do that. But does anyone else want to take the fund size question or stage question before I move on to some others?

Lots of questions. I was going to add on the fund size question. The first thing also to look at is this is your first-time fund, and for us raising a $5 million fund, it's like, get it done, get it done quickly so that you can now have a track record to move on to Fund 2 and Fund 3. So it, it's easier to do the smaller fund first and get that done than to go after a bigger fund and then have to keep reducing it in size because you're not able to hit that amount. So that's what I would add to that.

I came into the program wanting to do a $25 million fund. In the back of my mind, that is still what I want, but I go to market now saying it's a $10 million fund so that when we hit $25, we seem super badass because that's what we are.

Right.

And actually, I want, I really want a $100 million fund because women's health is so important. And like, I see our mission is so much bigger than, oh, we're like, we're investing in things because like, we're going to make money and capitalism's great and blah, blah, blah. Like, women are literally dying because people don't want to say the word vagina in boardrooms. And so, you know, Jess and I are here to change that. But, you know, you need to start somewhere. Go into market saying, "I'm going to raise a $100 million fund." People are like, "That lady smokes crack." Okay. So you have to go to market with something reasonable. And the most reasonable thing is, you know, the program says is like $5 to $15 million. Personally, I've gotten a little bit of feedback saying even $10 million is too small. And so if you're thinking of less than $10, think about— well, if you join the program, you'll see that the way the fees structure work and stuff, sometimes Less than $10 million doesn't make financial sense. And I've had some family offices saying, oh, only $10 million? I tell them in that moment, $10 million is our minimum. Then all of a sudden the conversation continues, 'cause then they're like, oh, okay, great. And then you keep talking.

Right, and what Brian said is exactly right, guys. We're not, so I think one thing about VC Lab that doesn't get said very often, especially in things like this, but Mike and I, who Mike runs it and I'm sort of, I'm the CEO, so, But we think about your third fund, right? So we're not— Fund 1 is a gateway to Fund 2. Fund 2 is actually often pretty easy because you built a track record with Fund 1. Fund 3 becomes hard again. Usually it's much bigger. So you can see, like, for example, in Brittany's story, maybe Fund 1 is 10, maybe she gets it to 25. Maybe fund 2 is 50 and maybe fund 3 is 100, right? That's not an uncommon projection. Maybe fund 3 is bigger than 100, right? That's also not uncommon. So we did, but fund 3 is where the rubber hits the road and your idea of a firm gets manifest into something real. And we wanna be there to help you all the way through fund 3. All right, lots and lots of questions. We're a little bit over here and I wanna be sensitive to everyone's time. Here's, I'm gonna, you know, so let's do this. Mike, we're gonna, we'll contact everyone. A lot of these questions are program related and I don't wanna waste the GPs' time with questions that Mike and I can answer. So we'll do a special Q&A just on program related questions for everyone here. And for the panelists, maybe if you could, you know, in honor of your time, so we can wrap up just a little bit late, if you could just some parting thoughts, because we have some— I've read a lot of the comments here, you know, and you were in their shoes not that long ago, parting thoughts to them, and maybe inspirational words of wisdom for someone who's about to launch their first venture capital firm. Maybe whoever wants to go first, go first, and we'll try and get all 4 of you with some inspirational words in closing.

I would just say that going into FI, Jess was like, are we going to know what we're talking about? Are we going to fit in? Are we going to be in over our heads? And I said, are you kidding me? We're going to graduate top of our class. And sure enough, we got in and we met a lot of people that were at the same stage at WeWork, we met people that were, you know, had been running funds and they had their own money and they had all these LP friends. And then there was people who were like, what's a pitch deck? And so it was actually quite a range of folks that were in it. And so my advice is that if you are wondering if you're qualified for the program, I almost guarantee, especially if you're a woman, I guarantee you, you are. Just apply. Just do it. Just show up and just do it. Even if you get kicked out, showing up and making 5 friends on the first week is enough to continue making your snowball bigger. So just apply. Just do it. You are qualified.

Sydney, maybe?

Yes, I would say that when I, I got to the program, like my only expectation was to figure out how many weeks I would last. And it took me a while until I internalized the idea that I could become a VC. But the more you do, the more confident you get. So keep it going. It's one day at a time. There are some bad days, especially when you get some harsh feedback from Adil and from Mike, but they are doing this for your own benefit. But the point is that I think the program is not only about creating funds, right? It is also a way for people to figure out if that's something, the right thing for them, right? Not everyone, this is, I think, this is not the right thing for everyone, right? But for those of you who decide to do it, like, you couldn't be in better hands and be part of this amazing community. I cannot stress enough the importance of being part of this community. I continue to benefit from it right now. I try to give it back as much as possible. And, and I— and that's, that's, I think, my final message, is that if we can do this together, like, it's gonna be less hard. Because I don't know, I wouldn't say that it's gonna be easier because it, it is tough, but hopefully more bearable.

Brian or Isabel?

I'll go.

I'm unmuted.

I'm just going to say, just jump. Really, just, if you have a passion for it, you want to make a big impact in the world, just jump because you will be supported not only by Adele and Mike, but by the community. You got to get in the room with the right people. I've made some great friendships within this and people I'm going to take with me for the long run. We've even met some investors in here. So, Even if you don't have any background in there, I'm going to tell you again, I didn't. And I was super shocked that after the first review, I was rated first out of all 200 people that were in the course. So even with somebody who doesn't have any kind of experience, coming in first was, it was a big confidence boost for me. I cried. I couldn't believe it. And I was so grateful. And I just knew that I was you're in the right room. So just jump.

Last part I would add to that, because I'd echo everything that Isabel, Brittany, and Sydney have said, but for me, it's also remembering why. That's been a big thing, remembering why I'm doing this, you know, remembering that it's for Black founders, it's for the environment, it's for clean tech. And so the more you can identify with yourself with that why and why you're doing this, that's what keeps me going, and that's what will keep you going through the program. Because yeah, it's not easy, But, you know, when I'm trying to go through the homework, it's remembering the why. When I'm trying to pitch investors, it's remembering why we're doing this. And, you know, I get excited about it and it's fun. You know, as Cindy said, if you're not enjoying it and this is not for you, then it's not for you. But this is a great way to find out if it's for you or not. So remember your why and have fun while you do it.

Great advice, everybody. Guys, I have goosebumps. You know, I get goosebumps when things are really— thank you so much. I, I, you know, I I'm your biggest fan. So everyone, thank you. We will have a Q&A about the questions we didn't get to about the program, all this stuff. And panelists, wow. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in as well. Have a great day. Have a great weekend. Bye, guys.

Bye.