Investing Outside Silicon Valley + Building Upstate NY Startups (Olivia Goldstein)

I think great founders and companies can be anywhere. Traditionally, in the past, people have thought like, you have to live in Silicon Valley if you want to start a startup. And the way that the world has shifted, that's just not the case anymore. And it's not really fair to most people because most people can't just uproot their entire life and move to another city because that's where the VCs are. You can't build a company in a silo. Right? It takes an army. It takes a community. It's like having a family. Right?

All right, welcome to another exciting episode of the Venture capital podcast Today. Today we're excited to welcome someone who sits at one of the most interesting, unique intersections in startup world. Olivia Goldstein is a general partner at StartFest Ventures, where she invests in B2B SaaS founders building outside the traditional tech hubs. She's also the CEO of Upstate VentureConnect, the nonprofit fueling one of the fastest growing startup ecosystems in the country. She's a former founder herself, having built and exited Rep Hike. And now she's helping connect founders, capital and community across upstate New York and beyond, which is important to me as someone who grew up in upstate New York. Olivia, we are so glad to have you on. Thanks for joining us.

Oh, thank you for having me. Peter and John, welcome.

Welcome.

So you've done a lot of incredible things in your career, but every journey starts somewhere. Can we rewind and kind of hear your story?

For sure. So I have a very unconventional path to where I am. So I grew up in Buffalo, New York, and western New York in particular. So I went away to school, went to Pitt. When I was actually at Pitt, I was doing a lot of my undergraduate coursework in Russian and Eastern European studies. So which is now just like a fun party trick that I can like speak Russian, but that's about all it serves. But when I was in college, I was really in tune and like the idea of serving my country eventually. So my last semester of college, I actually studied abroad and did a semester over in Moscow, where I was working for the US Embassy in Moscow, which was a lot of fun. Whole other separate side story around fun adventures there. When I came back, I went on to go to grad school in D.C. and while I was in D.C. i was continuing down this path of wanting to work for the government. So naturally you live in D.C. so I actually one day was in the process of applying to one of the three letter agencies and was about a year in or so for when they Were doing like the background check and all of that type of stuff. And they actually just like sent me a letter in the mail one day just rescinding my offer, no explanation at all. So here I was like, you know, two degrees deep in a lot of debt of basically pursuing a career in defense and government. And it just like I was lost. So I was in my early 20s, like now what, what do I do? I have no skills, so I did kind of what I do best. I've always been a natural networker. Love meeting people, love learning from people and just boots to the street. Just started just chatting with people in D.C. and sharing what I was interested in. I happened to be fortunate to land my very first job at a nonprofit that was doing a lot of education exchanges between students that were coming from overseas, that wanted to do like a year in the US all funded through the State Department and vice versa. Was working on a very niche program that was helping to support a lot of high growth businesses that were coming from Eastern Europe. Again, I studied Russian. That was kind of my only skill set. So we were essentially doing these roadshows for Eastern European startups that wanted to enter the US market. So I did that for a few years, but that really exposed me to the whole startup world. Realized that I really liked it. This is where I wanted to kind of be spending my time. It was more my pace, my energy level, and decided I wanted to go work for a startup. So I've always been passionate about traveling, meeting people, working in with people from different backgrounds and cultures. So I decided to go work for a startup in India. Moved to India at 26, I think. 20? Yeah, probably 26 or 27. Lived in India for a year and a half, had never been there, didn't know anyone there, and just fell in love with the company that I was working for. Was a lot of fun. I was there for about a year and a half. While I was there, I caught the startup bug, started my own company. My co founders were actually my coworkers at the startup and we decided to start our own company. And this is probably the most exciting, relevant part for the audience. But we built our company, moved back to the US, raised some capital, ran the business for about four, four or five years and then we sold it in 2019 and then I ended up joining my old investors. So it's a very, you know, windy path to venture and startups that just came from just pulling at threads and meeting the right people and just loving the people that I work with.

So one of the things I love about venture capital is that pretty much nobody has the same career path into venture. There's very few people. No, like, occasionally you'll get the, like, well, I did consulting and then I worked at a venture fund and mba, so forth. But most of the stories are like all over the place. I love it.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background? Right. It's like you just have a good thesis and a model and, you know, that's enough to stand up, fund the right relationships.

Right. So much, so much of it's like people driven in relationships. Right. Can you tell us a little bit about your startup and what that journey was like?

Yeah. So, you know, rewinding back to the company I was working for in India with which I think sets the stage. So when I was working at the startup in India, the team I was on was sort of, it was sort of like a growth marketing type role. They were a software company that had a pretty strong footing in India. They essentially had a tool that a lot of developers would use to like hone in on their skills and then ultimately they would resell that tool to enterprises that would want to hire those developers for jobs that they had in positions. So a lot of their like model hinged on having developers actively using their, their tools and their, their systems so that they could resell them to enterprises. So like I said, strong footing in India, I was responsible and I joined the team for really bringing that product to market in the US and Europe and trying to drive new users. So, you know, as I was kind of just kicking the tires trying to figure this out, one of the hacks essentially that I was using that I found that was super effective was what if I were to talk to somebody who, who has already a trusted network that could then promote this product on my behalf and then I would just like compensate that individual for bringing users in mass so in kind of like referral marketing. But it ended up being essentially like influencer marketing. Right. So I, as I started to do this, I was like, oh, this would be so much easier. And this is like 2016, 2015. I was like, this would be so much easier if there was a way to find more of these people to manage these relationships and then to like measure success of these like marketing campaigns. So my co founders and I left the company to basically do just that. It was great timing because it was as a lot of consumer companies were just starting to really pay attention to influencer marketing as a, as a new marketing channel and really dedicating Budgets to, to it. And we set up a software that helped matchmake brands to influencers to promote products and services a little bit more organically and authentically to their following.

Yeah, I love it. That's great. And yeah, that was like really good. Great timing.

I know. Timing's everything.

Timing is everything. I'm curious, what were some of the things that you took away from that experience that have impacted how you think about supporting founders today?

I think, I mean, I definitely have a level of empathy for founders. We consider ourselves at startfast, very founder friendly. And whenever I'm talking to founders about this, I'm like, hey, just look at me. Like, I liked my investors enough that I joined them after we sold our business.

So.

So it definitely gives us a level of empathy of knowing what it means to like sit on the other side of the table because it can be a negotiation sometimes and it's not always pretty, so that helps. But I think more realistically, as we really lean in to work with these companies, it's the experience and the network and the know how that we can help open these doors. Because the companies that we tend to back are usually not first time founders or. Sorry, excuse me, they are first time founders. So they don't necessarily have those relationships in place and they exist or they live in markets where there's not a lot of resources available for them to really grow and scale their business. So having that my own experience of sitting on the other side of the table and doing that in not New York City and growing my business and not New York City, I think just helps me better, better relate to them and provide value when we become an active investor in these companies.

Yeah, makes a ton of sense. I'm curious. I want to drill a little bit more on like investing in upstate New York because I feel like for a long time upstate New York is one. It's, it always gets overshadowed by the city.

It does.

And I, you know, I feel like it's been economically kind of a challenging market over the last few years. But you're, you're saying and you're seeing like a lot of exciting growth there. And I'm curious what kind of your thesis is around upstate New York and what you're seeing and why you're excited about it.

So just for clarity, I actually, my fund doesn't just invest in upstate New York. We have portfolio companies in upstate New York. But our model is essentially geographies like this. Right. But I will say this, if I, I'm fundraising for Fund 3 right now. If I had a dollar for every single time somebody said something negative about upstate New York, my entire fund would be raised. And then some like, I can't, I can't even. People are like, why do you live in Buffalo? Like, why? What, what's in Buffalo? Snow? Like, do people live there? So, you know, I'm, I'm very much a contrarian. Right. So it's like I see opportunity where other people have just kind of given up and walked away from. And there's a lot of opportunity here. I mean, is it on the same level as Silicon Valley or New York City? No, but we're our own place. We're our own. We have our own thing going, we have our own community. And there's more than anything people who care about this place, live this place and want to see a better version of it.

Yeah.

So just to kind of contextualize this a little bit, where it's not just me sharing lovey dovey stories about how much I love upstate New York, a big thing for us, I'm in Buffalo was in 2021, we actually had our first tech IPO, which was huge for Buffalo, because what ended up happening was this company, that IPO which is headquartered here, was started in, I don't know, 2013, maybe 2014. IPO'd in 2021. Employees probably upwards of maybe, you know, a thousand people here locally created a thousand plus new jobs for this region. And on top of that, when the company went public, what ended up happening is it created a new generation of wealth for the region. So now we have individuals who are reinvesting money that they made from the IPO locally. Right. That wouldn't otherwise happen. And then by extent, if you kind of pull that apart a little bit because it's such a magnet to work at this tech company, what ends up happening is we're seeing people like that are working at these, this tech company that pulls off, pulls away and they start their own startups. Right. Kind of similar that you would see in like another like more mature startup ecosystem where somebody, you know, is able to ride the wave of a company going public, makes a little bit of money, learns a lot, and then decides that they want to start a company too. So it has this like ripple effect where we can kind of continue to see more startup activity as a result. We're also fortunate because the state's invested quite a lot in upstate New York, which is nice. So we have that in our corner as well. But I mean, more than anything, it's just the people that really want to see this, this area succeed.

Yeah. I'm curious just to build on that a little bit more, you know, like, we're based in Salt Lake City, Utah, which for a long time has been viewed as a flyover state. It sounds like a big part of your thesis is, you know, funding companies that are located in areas that aren't. Silicon Valley, maybe New York City, Boston, other big hubs. What, what kind of drives the thesis? Why do you think that there are interesting opportunities there? What are you seeing that kind of bucks. Bucks, the trend.

Well, one, I think great founders and companies can be anywhere. I think traditionally in the past people have thought like, you have to live in Silicon Valley if you want to start a startup. And the way that the world has shifted, that's just not the case anymore. And it's not really fair to most people because most people can't just uproot their entire life and move to another city because that's where the VCs are. Right. So I think one, it's kind of just like allowing the opportunity for people to build wherever they are. Two, candidly, most VCs are lazy and don't go to these places. So it's, it's, it's a market that's ripe for opportunity because, like nobody comes to Buffalo. Yeah, they don't. Right. So it's, there's a lot of opportunity to, to really generate alpha in these markets because people aren't paying attention to them, they underestimate them.

Yeah. It was interesting Peter Walker, who write, I don't know if you follow him on LinkedIn, but he posts a lot of stuff from Carta Data and he was a guest prior. But yes, yes, he, he posted something recently that I guess somebody had tweeted, like, if you're not, if you don't move to Silicon Valley, you're just not ambitious and you know.

Yeah, only a tech bro would say that.

Yeah, exactly. And I posted, I was like, look, like, if only like ambition were the only factor in determining if a startup was successful, like this would be a much easier job. Right. But I was like, look, the reality is that the deals in Silicon Valley tend to be overpriced. You have to swing for the fences on every single one. Like they have to become multi billion dollar, you know, tens of billions of dollar outcomes to make the prices work make sense. And in, in some of these smaller markets, you get more reasonably priced deals. You get kind of the stuff you were talking about, right? Like because vcs tend to be lazy and they Just focus on core markets. There's a bunch of missed individuals. And then I also think about how distributed businesses today, like it used to be everybody came into the office and now it's like tons of hybrid. There's lots of very successful companies where everybody, I mean, it's completely remote. Right. So yeah, I think there's a lot of interesting opportunities to be had everywhere.

So there is. And it's not for me to say that, you know, it's not. There isn't one way to run a VC fund, period. Right. Like you can still be run a very successful VC fund in Silicon Valley. It's just not my style. That's all. Right. Because it's, there's already enough opportunity there.

Yeah.

And it's not the types of companies, even if I were to participate in deals in that market, it's not the types of companies that I want to be a part of. Right. It's like I, I'm an underdog. I like working with underdogs, so I love it.

What advice would you have for a founder? Because I'm sure you give this advice all the time. Right. So what advice do you give founders that come from these smaller underserved markets and, and how they can succeed against, you know, the, the highly funded companies in some of these other hubs?

All right, well now I'm going to flip the switch and say exactly what the opposite of what I just said. Because the reality is most VCs are lazy. If you're raising capital, you have to go to them. Right. So over and over, my advice to every single founder that I, that I work with, especially because a lot of the community building I do in upstate New York, I was like, there's like maybe seven venture funds in upstate New York. They not, that's not enough for that match the number of companies that are based here. You need to get out from your house and get out from behind your laptop and go meet people in other bigger markets because there's more capital, more opportunity there. So I tell every founder I was like, you can't just shop in your own backyard. And if you're truly, if you're building a global high growth business, you shouldn't just be spending time in, in, in your own home market. It's a great place to like, you know, build out a team because it's a lot more cost efficient. But like, your customers aren't just based here. Your investors probably aren't going to be just based here either.

Yep, that's great.

Yeah.

Any other, any other advice how do you think about like hiring and, and some of those issues? Do you tell them just go remote or. Because, I mean, this is a challenge that we've had in Utah for a long time is like nobody wanted to move to Utah, which I think actually has changed now. Too many people want to move to Utah. But, but for a while it was like, okay, well I guess if I come, I'll live in Park City. Right. But it was challenging to get really good talent here.

It's changing. Right. So I see this through a lot of different. Let me put on my community builder hat for a moment because this is where I struggle with it a little bit. So there is a large institution that's based here in Buffalo that has required all of it. They're one of the biggest employers in Buffalo, but they've required all of their employees to return to office like a lot of large corporates have. Right. But the problem with that is now people are so used to working from home or working remotely that it's like, how do you, how do you handle that? How do you manage that? That people aren't, that people want to like leave now. So it's the hiring market and the recruiting market in general is just like, it's, it's changing and evolving at such a crazy pace on a lot of different levels. So one, I think we are at the point right now where we're going to continue to see there's, there's mass layoffs in general. So I think employers kind of are at the driver's seat and can pick and choose what they want. If they want to make you come to the office, they can. But two, it's like also like, how do you find talent if you're the, a business owner? I think there's something that you can say about having everybody in one place. It's a little bit easier to do that I would think if you're more established like a corporate entity to be able to like force like return to office mandates. But for startups, when you're at the earlier stage and it's a lot riskier for employees that are joining and maybe harder to find the right fit. Usually people, what we end up saying is just like hire where you where who the best fit is. Right. And that's what most startups end up doing. That's why that you see hybrid teams, like not everybody's based in one place. You might have employees in the US you might have employees overseas too. Yeah. So it's for, usually for the early stage startups that's kind of what you see. But it starts to become challenging as you grow as an organization too. Right. Over time. Because then it's like, where is everybody centrally located? I don't know, the whole hiring landscape. There's a lot we can dive into there.

It's. And to your point, it's so, so dynamic. Right. Like, especially right now with AI. Like so many layoffs we have. We've had a few conversations around how like wages are for like tech are actually coming down in real terms. Not in nominal terms, but in real terms are coming down. Unless you are like a very sophisticated AI engineer. Right.

Yeah, it's kind of, I honestly think employment's dying. It really is. It's, it's, it's tough. I mean, the act, the October unemployment numbers, I'm not trying to turn this political. Weren't even released. Right, right. Because I think it's no longer higher, slow, you know, like, don't avoid layoffs. It's just like, I think we're going through a period, we're about to. Where there's going to be mass layoffs.

Yeah.

Because there's just so much redundancy.

Yeah, yeah.

With new technologies.

Yeah. Anyway, it's kind of funny, like, yeah, we don't need to spend the whole time on this. But how for the last like decade it was like, go get a degree in computer science. And now it's like, maybe you should go to trade school and learn how to do plumbing and H vac and electrical. But yeah. Tell us about your nonprofit, your ecosystem builder.

Yeah, so I, I run a 501c3 nonprofit called Upstate Venture Connect. We were founded 15 years ago and really our mission is to support high growth businesses all across upstate New York. So that's kind of the bread and butter of what we do. It's why I'm so passionate about where I live. So the bulk of what we want to do is sort of bring the same connectivity that you would see in Silicon Valley or New York City to upstate New York so that more companies can continue to grow and scale here, creating more of those success stories, like I mentioned earlier, where you see that new wealth being generated for the region. And it, to me, it's like a more effective way of thinking about economic development for a region as opposed to trying to recruit companies to move somewhere and then offering them tax incentives and then having them leave after a period of time. It's a way of really building out homegrown businesses by just uplifting the people who already live somewhere and just arming them with the right connections and capital.

Are you focusing on Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse or any other areas?

The whole, anything that's outside of New York City, along and Long Island. So I, when I, you know, we cover the whole state, I have team members in Buffalo, obviously Rochester in central New York. So actually my team member isn't. She covers Syracuse, but she's actually based in Mohawk Valley. We have someone in the Capital region which is like Albany, Troy area. We have an individual in Ithaca and then we're bringing online at the start of next year someone that'll cover the north country, which is like Adirondacks region and then Hudson Valley too. So we have a team across the whole state that very localized efforts to help stimulate some of that connectivity for the businesses that are based there.

That's great.

Is this all private driven or does the government help out?

No, we're all privately funded. That's the best part. I don't do government grants at all. We sort of made that rule as an organization. So the individuals that actually started it were investors in my company. So that's how I've known and worked with them for a long time. But when they were looking at the problem set, they knew ahead of like back then that this is something that goes past what any administration wants. If you want to for the long run, really change and uplift a community, you need stakeholders that can extend beyond whoever's in office that decides what the flavor of the week is. So because of that we're all privately funded. It's primarily individual donors, exited entrepreneurs. And because one of our main KPIs as an organization is referrals, corporate sponsors that continue to see ROI by investing in our programs and events because they gain business from it.

Have you noticed any, I don't know, like areas where upstate New York kind of hits above its weight? Like in, for example in Utah we have a lot of startups that are really good with inside sales. Probably because there's a lot of Mormon missionaries that come out of Utah and so they, yeah, they learn how to do sales. Right. But I'm curious, do you like that in upstate New York?

Like industry wise, we're pretty. There's a pretty mix, good mix, a lot of healthcare, deep, deep life sciences companies. Because we have a lot of strong research institutions across upstate New York. In Syracuse, your hometown, we're seeing more activity happening in like robotics, mostly in the uncrewed air systems and drones category. A lot of, I mean we're in New York State, so there's just like probably not as great as California, but maybe number two for like climate tech and clean energy type opportunities and like some like battery type stuff. What else? Ag tech too. Because there's a lot of farms in upstate New York. But I would say if you were to ask me what is like our secret weapon as a region, it's.

People.

Who are from upstate New York have such a strong affinity and calling and pride for being from this region. So as you, as you and I, that was one of the first things you mentioned to me. Being from Syracuse. Every time I meet someone who's from upstate New York, they absolutely light up about the different things that are happening here. Right. And I've lived in, you know, I've lived in India, I've lived in dc, I've lived in Pittsburgh, I've lived in New York City. Everywhere else that I've other communities I've lived in. Nobody has the same sense of pride that people do that are from upstate New York. And if you don't believe me, go to any bills bar in any other city.

Very, very true, very true. I think part of it is like you get overshadowed by, by New York City so much that you're like, no, I'm not, I'm not part of the city. I'm upstate. Yeah, yeah. There's this whole other, like huge, much larger chunk of land that you're just discounting, so.

Yeah, I know, I know. Although we, we're lucky though because we get a lot of people that get tired of the city and then move to upstairs state New York. They're like, ah, so much cheaper, easier, quality of life is better.

Yeah.

But it's usually hard when we're explaining it to people that aren't. I especially have this problem when I'm like traveling overseas and I'm like, oh, I'm from New York. And I'm like, they're like, oh my God, New York City. I was like, no, I'm from Buffalo. They're like, you must go to the city all the time. I'm like, it's a six hour drive. I was like, I'm closer to Toronto.

Right, right. That's great. All right, so what pivoting just a little bit. What is a spicy opinion you have about the VC world that most people would disagree with.

That we haven't covered? So I can't say that most VCs are lazy, I think.

I don't think most people would disagree with you on that one anyways.

Yeah, because I was gonna say my other one. Like most VCs think they're more important than they are. I don't know if this is spicy, but I just got into an argument with.

I'm.

I'm a spicy person. I just got into an argument with someone on this last week that was trying to tell me how important VCs were. Right? And when I. I'll give you a quick story. When I first joined Start Fast, when I told my investor who was the founder of Starfest, that I was interested in joining the fund and learning what it meant to sit on the other side of the table, he asked me why. And I said, well, you know, I've already started a company, you know, sold it, and this is the next step in the chain, right? This is the next step up the ladder. Now I can be a vc. And he's like, no, no, no, Olivia, you have it all wrong. He goes, you've already reached like the pinnacle as starting being an entrepreneur and running a business. Those are the people that we serve. Those are the people that we help and uplift. It's not the other way around. Do not get it mixed up. So I tell myself this all the time when, you know, even with, when I'm engaging with, with other VCs or anyone, it's like, we're here. We're only able to do our job because of the founders that we're backing, right? So, like, they're the ones that are important, not us.

I love it. I love it. Yeah, I, I don't know. It's always shocking to me how much arrogance there is in vc and I think it's.

Oh, come on.

I think it's just because VCs get it in their head, right? Because so many people come to them asking for money, but it's not even their money in most cases, right? It's. It's LP money.

It's just. Yeah, it's crazy. It. I don't even know.

Do you think that, that how much of the founder success is based on the vc? That's one of the questions Peter's asked me as we talked about, like, different, like local investments. Like there was a tax bit. It's a Utah based company. All of the VCs passed. One of our buddies, Jogo, invested in them. And that's one of those moments we think that all investors passed. If they didn't have that, that infusion of capital, they wouldn't have popped.

They went on to be a unicorn and like, they're doing well. So, like, it was a pitiful moment, right? If he hadn't written that check and believed in them, like, they probably. Probably would have folded.

I think.

You.

I mean, you can make the argument both ways, right? Because you kind of need what. You can't have one without the other. But my overall take is you can't build a company in a. In a silo. Right. It takes. It takes an army. It takes a community. It's like having a family. Right. So would I take full credit for a company that's successful? Well, no, because I'm not insane, because that's, you know, again, the founders are the one building it. But I also think if the founders don't have the right people in their corner to help them on that journey, it becomes near impossible to do it. Just as like, in the scenario that you described, they found the right investor that helped them. But, I mean, yeah, he wrote the check, but then they knew how to.

That's the safer spot, make it work.

Right. So it's kind of like you just need. You need the right people in your corner to. To help you.

Yeah.

Let me ask it. They'll simplify it. You. How many of the. How often do you think VCs are king makers?

Are what?

King makers?

I don't know.

10%, 90%. Ooh.

Most vc. I don't know. See, I don't know if I could put a figure on it. Right. I'm thinking analytically right now. There are a lot of crappy VCs out there. There's a lot of VCs that are quick to walk away when all of a sudden things are too hard. Right? Because that's. That's how VC funds are modeled. They are only, you know, one needs to hit it out of the park and, you know, they'll put all of their effort and time into that one. And if there's a few that are faltering, you. They'll write them off and stop. You'll stop helping them. So it goes both ways, right? I don't know if I can really answer that question.

Peter. How would you answer it right now?

Impression is that there are. Okay, so probably, what, like, 50% of the deals out there, they need money, but it doesn't matter who gives them the money. They will be successful and somebody will give them the money because they have a phenomenal business and they're growing and solving a big pain point. And all those things. In which case, like, does VC as a category, like, is it. Does it matter? Yes. But does any one individual VC matter? No. And then I think the other 50% fall into this category of, you know, it's like a tax bit. It's if somebody doesn't have conviction and believe in the startup early on and support them, like they won't, they won't be successful. And I think that's frankly like a lot of investors like you Olivia, where like you're backing first time founders. They're, they come from like, you know, overlooked markets and they need people with high conviction to come in and support them. And that doesn't mean that like the VC can take, takes all the credit for it, but also like the company wouldn't succeed without like that, that support, that investment, that conviction. And I think one of the things that makes it really challenging is that there is this like, like there's this line of companies that should not be funded right with venture money because they won't be successful for whatever the reasons might be, like wrong time timing, WR team, wrong product, whatever it might be and then those that will like make it successful. So for example, I was just at a conference and we were one of, one of the entrepreneurs on stage was this guy, Brian Buetler who's like, I think the world of founder in Utah. Started a company when I was in college. Like I saw him pitch at college at our like, you know, startup competition and he showed this chart and he was like, this is our journey to $1 million in monthly recurring revenue. And it was just this bumpy like crazy trajectory. Right. And there were times where like our fund was an early investor. And I remember sitting at the table with him and being like, I don't know if you should just shut this down because like this is just painful. But we wrote another check, you know, to support him and then his follow up slide was like just this insane growth because now the business, I don't even know what the revenue is today, but it's, it's. Do you take credit where it was? Right? And he just grinded until he made it successful. And so it's like, yeah, like somebody needed to be there to write that check during the down round when it sucked. Right. And support him so that ultimately he could achieve that amazing outcome. But like I would take zero credit for like his success today.

Okay.

But I don't know. Yeah, percentages are tricky.

Yeah, I think sometimes a VC can give, I think there's a bunch of founders on the fence and a VC can give them the umph to have escape velocity. And I think from my own personal experience, I think when I was doing Tiny Torch, we eventually shut down because Facebook turned off the API and killed us. But we were starting to, like, fundraise, and had we fundraised, I mean, we might have returned the cash or I think there were things we're looking at to become less dependent on Facebook, and we probably would have just kept. We probably would have kept going. So I think in that case, it would have been an anointing factor.

Yeah, I think it's. It's hard because I also don't think money is always just the problem. Like, if you have lots and lots of capital, that doesn't solve your problems. So, you know, there was a founder that I was talking to recently who was telling me that, you know, at the height of the dot com era, they raised like 60 million bucks and they blew through it. Zilch. Up into the air, nothing. And it's like, more money doesn't always mean success. Right. So it's kind of like I would never fully own and take credit for, like, one company and say, I saved the day. This is thanks to start fast. Right. Because that's just like, such an egotistical way of. Of looking at working with people. And it just doesn't match our ethos. And it doesn't match, I think, in the grand scheme of things, how successful businesses are built or why they're successful. It's like one person didn't cause it. It to. To be that way, but It's. It's good. VCs are more than just money. But I think what ended up happening is over time, every VC started saying that they're like, oh, well, we're smart capital. And it's like a lot of them aren't. Right. They're just trying to, you know, I don't.

I don't know.

There's a little. Maybe too many. I don't. I don't know. Or maybe they're just not. It just became too overstated where it's like, everybody's now a smart VC with a great network, that you should want their capital because it's like they want to differentiate from the bunch.

Yeah.

But I do think there are ones that, that, you know, can really help them. Right. And it's like, even the scenario you shared, like, of the company that's in your portfolio, like, I know you're saying you wouldn't take credit for it, but you also, like, took a bet when everything was down, and I'm assuming you did more than just wrote a check. You probably helped them in some capacity. If you were regularly meeting with this company that was going through this roller Coaster ride. It was probably more than just like, how's your cash flow?

There are probably some hugs involved. Right. Pat's on the back hugs.

This is why Peter's. A hug probably won't replace us anytime soon is because, you know, VCs can at least be there for the midnight call with the. The founder.

Yeah.

When they're stressing about things. Part therapist.

Sometimes I think I'm a therapist too. Yes, yes, exactly.

Yeah, yeah. Which makes sense because, like, let's be honest, like, entrepreneurship is hard. It's a lot of ups, downs and stress and uncertainty.

So it's not for everybody, that's for sure.

No. I'm curious, what are you excited about these days? Industry, sector, startups, whatever.

I'm going to go down a whole nother path. Since you asked. What am I excited about? All right. I'm always pulling at threads. So one of the things that I've really noticed for us in upstate New York, and I think maybe across the board and other kind of geographies that are similar to us, is there are a lot of small businesses that are closing because the. Either the people that run it, that own it, they don't have succession plans lined up. The kids don't. Aren't interested in it. They moved away. They want to do their corporate finance job in New York City or whatever. So, you know, mom and dad who run this small business don't have a plan in place. And I see this a lot in upstate New York where we have an aging population.

Yeah.

Coupled with the fact where we touched on this a little bit earlier, I think the whole state of employment right now is up in the air and changing. And like, a lot of companies are really trying to figure it out. So because of that, there is high unemployment. Like, I probably at least once a day get an email from someone looking for highly talented, looking for a job, and there's no jobs. Like, especially where I live, there's no jobs, period. So one of the things I'm looking at is how can you marry these two potentially together, Right through this whole idea I've been spending a lot more time researching called entrepreneurship through Acquisition, where maybe these individuals who are interested in buying these small businesses through, you know, creative financing options, SBA loans, et cetera, while still keeping the businesses alive in the community. So that's something I'm very excited about because I feel like it's. Timing's everything and it's like two big problems that we're seeing in our community right now that could be fun to solve. So I don't know.

Sound like Peter. He's been beating this drum.

Yeah.

Really, we must chat.

Well, yeah, I mean, I, you know, I love everything you're saying, I think. Yeah. What's interesting is. So AI is effectively driving down the value of labor. And I think the opportunity therefore is you need to own capital. Right. Labor and capital. And so you need to own assets. And I think this is exactly like some of those assets that become really interesting right now because to your point, there's a lot of these businesses shutting down as baby boomers retire and frankly pass away. Away. And you know, these businesses are likely or are not likely to be disrupted by AI anytime soon because a lot of them are services businesses. And so. Yeah, no, I, I agree. I actually have a very good friend of mine who runs a program called the Exit School and his tagline is they help six figure employees buy seven figure businesses. And it's that whole same thing.

I love that.

So, no, I'm, I'm a big fan of that. Are you seeing, I'm curious, are you seeing any interesting startups doing anything in that space?

What I just described, like ETA type stuff?

Yeah, eta or just supporting it or. Because I think it's, I agree. I think it's a big trend and I've been thinking a lot like, what's. Obviously there is a like private equity play, but like, is there a venture player?

Yeah, this is like, this is earlier than private equity though. Right, Right. Because they're, they're like not doing 5 million. So I've seen like marketplaces, like I know of actually Syracuse, again, Syracuse alum who started a marketplace that they raised their Series A that's trying to help like Match make a lot of people that want to by small businesses. But it's called baton, I think baton, but there's not necessarily a geographic focus for it. And it's like a B2B marketplace. Baton Market, I think it's called.

I feel like I was seeing something where they're talking about like fractional ownership in real estate and I feel like the same thing could happen with businesses.

That's an interesting.

We come through, we help you buy certain businesses. You can have public, you know, public data go in and out, things like that.

One thing that I'm trying to work on with some large content creators is this idea of leveraging content creators and their audiences to identify aligned businesses like this and give their audience the ability to co invest with them in acquiring these assets, which I think would be really fun.

Interesting, interesting. I go to a lot of conferences? Well, not a lot, but yeah, I go to a lot of conferences and recently Grant Cardone has been speaking at a few of my events, and I feel like that's very him because he's always promoting his. His real estate assets for his followers.

Yep, yep, yep. Interesting. Well, if you come across any other interesting businesses in that space, let me know because I would love to chat.

I will, I will. Yeah, I'm. There's probably, I'm sure, other, like, creative fintech type offerings that I've seen, because we've seen a lot of cool stuff on that, but it's just escaping me right now, so. But it's. It's a really cool, interesting space. There's a lot of opportunity right now.

I think it's what, like $10 trillion of wealth will be transferred through these small businesses? At least the opportunity is there, whether people actually pick them up or not. Who knows?

But yeah, right.

Awesome.

Well, Olivia, maybe those use AI, you know, just saying.

There you go. There you go. Well, Olivia, this has been a super fun conversation. Really appreciate you hopping on the podcast with us today and walking us through your background and the amazing things you're doing in upstate New York and other markets like it.

Thank you, Peter.

Thank you, John.

I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for. Thanks for joining.

And for those of you that are listening, how can they follow you and learn more about the stuff you're working on?

Yeah, definitely. LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn. Just Olivia Goldstein, find me there at me. Shoot me a message. Always happy to chat and meet with founders or other upstate New Yorkers.

I love it. And please be sure to like and subscribe to the VCE FM podcast and we'll catch you on the next one. Thanks, everyone.