Why Market Size Trumps Everything in VC Deals

Welcome back to Funded, a show taking you behind the scenes of the startup fundraising process. In this episode, I sat down with Jesse Robbins from Heavybit, a seed stage fund that specializes in developer tools, infrastructure, and AI. Their approach is unique in that they have built their entire firm around a hypertargeted vertical. They run structured programs with early stage founders, run weekly check-ins, and treat early stage investing more like a hands-on partnership than portfolio management. This structured approach has created some massive wins for the firm, including early investments into startups like sneak, launch darkly, and netify. We covered a lot of ground in this conversation, a Jesse breaks down why market size is the ultimate deal breaker for heavy bit, the specific co-founder dynamics that predict success or failure, and the unforced errors that kill fundraising conversations before they even start. I had a lot of fun talking with Jesse. He is a seasoned podcast pro and gave some great hot takes when sharing his perspectives on the fundraise landscape. Let's get into it. Jesse, well, thank you so much for sitting down with me today. I'm really excited to get into this with you. Absolutely. I'm pumped to be here. So we 1st met through your investment in True Star back in the way back time. Late 2010s, and I'd love to start with an experience that I had sitting in on True Stars board meetings. It was my experience that you had a knack for zeroing in on a high leverage experiment that Patrick and the team could run in the next quarter to deliver maximum impact for the business. And in looking through your profile, it struck me that you worked at some very high leverage companies. I'm really curious to hear how you think about identifying that capacity for gaining leverage within early stage founders and also how leverage as a concept has changed today in the age of AI. When you think of leverage, uh, which I think what you really are saying is like focus and power, right? Maybe force multipliers is a term I like a lot as well. And in an early stage startup, you basically have a very small number available to you. The single biggest one is, is that anyone can make a decision and implement it immediately because there's not a whole bunch of process and people and other things that you kind of have to move around. You know, I come from Amazon and environment that, um, at least while I was there was, you know, an extremely aggressively executing environment where individuals had the ability and were expected to, you know, make fast decisions, focus, test, iterate, and, uh, we prioritize that, uh, over, um, you know, long, detailed planning cycles and and other things, sort of a good plan, reasonably executed, uh, beats, uh, you know, a uh, perfect strategy, right? At Amazon. The other thing that I, uh, learned was that, uh, for the most part, if you, um, understand what you're measuring, It allows you to experiment and iterate really quickly. And so, um, as a result, um, I've always had a deep metrics orientation, I communicate extremely directly in a startup. Um, you know, that's again a superpower, right? Like you're not, uh, having to manage around the politics that even as a CEO, you end up creating and having to operate within over time. So probably the single biggest lever is there's not a lot that you have to do, and so you can just do the stuff that matters most out of the gate. Um, it's something that founders really screw up in their thinking about how large competitors operate, because if you're a founder and you're thinking like, I can move uh, at this speed, and therefore my competitor, who's a big company, um, or who I'm trying to disrupt or whatever, uh, might be able to do this, this, and this, everyone always forgets like how slow big organizations move, uh, speedboat versus battleship. It's just an entirely different sort of strategy. That's probably the 1st place, which is just like the, the perfect way for founders to be and to use their leverage is focus, move quickly, and iterate the 2nd part of that. So you, you know, going back to the true star example. And true star is a really exciting, uh, security company that really kind of transformed the, uh, shared information space. Um, its customers were organizations like like IBM and, um, ultimately, uh, they were bought by Splunk, um, in order for Splunk to add a, a new capability, their security offering. With true star, the focus that we could drive, the, and maybe the thing that you're talking about that memory, um, is, uh, I'm just as an investor and as a founder, not really tricked by, um, a lot of the metrics and manipulations and self-deceptions that, um, founders and VCs uh, have in the early days where you're like, oh, if only we can get this key partnership or this one, you know, and it's like, whatever that thing is, that you've, it's, It's not like a deliverable that you can test with a customer and see revenue or usage or something essential. Um, it's probably optimizing for optics. Um, it might be strategic. It might be any sort of these other things, but it's really, really easy to deceive yourself with performative metrics and progress, uh, which don't really move the needle, that don't really prove the business out. Um, and, uh, don't prove that you're building a community, don't prove that you're building a product that excites people. Um, but do make it look like you're actually making progress. And that's that trick a lot of people fall for, founders, investors, um, you know, everybody in between. Um, because we do not have a sense of what the, like, pointy end is, where the work is actually happening, like, and so, you know, it feels great to be like, oh, we've got this big partnership with IBM or a big partnership with sales force or big, and it, sometimes those turn into really awesome things. But if you're, you know, a seed stage company, you're trying to raise an A, you're trying to do kind of these other things, like all that stuff takes forever. And so what I encourage and what my partners encourage at Heavybit is, we really, really, really like to see traction, early, repeatable, measurable, personal, where you can be like, no, this is why this customer is using it. You can talk to this customer. This is key for them, and we think that what we're doing with them is super repeatable. When you're evaluating an early stage startup, what are the metric thresholds that you're expecting a founder to be able to hit, um, in order to demonstrate that they have the traction, um, to merit investment? This is a spicy controversial thing that I'm about to say, and it's because I'm going to reveal a secret inventor. The 1st thing is, is that there's a pretty big lie that investors tell, which is, here's our ranges, right? And a couple years ago, Robbie at MTF, uh, wrote this like, uh, or did this survey and it was, this is what all VCs, uh, these are their stages and gates, and Erica Brescia and I both reacted to it because, for instance, it said, oh, you can raise a series A with 500 K in ARR and like 10 or to 12 enterprise customers, which is completely bullshit in most cases. Um, you can get a coffee with Erica, um, at that level. She'll definitely like have coffee with you, but typically she, that is like outside of uh, the range, but people end up uh, getting uh, attracted to the low end. And so what I told Robbie and Erica and I actually gave a talk at CubeCon about this to really line up the metrics was, no, no, if you ask a VC what they're interested in, they'll tell you the floor of the people we're expecting to talk to because every once in a while some exceptional case may walk through the door. But, uh, the reality is, is that um, usually the bars are way higher than what people say. So I'm going to give the ranges. I'm going to tell you what's true for us at Heavybit and what we look at, and then I'm going to talk some shit about, like, what founders end up being misled, okay? So, uh, for heavy bit, when a founder walks in the door, if they're basically like just incorporated or not even incorporated, 0 anything, they just want to hang out and talk. We don't do it. We don't have like a incubation thing or something. We do something called a workshop. And a workshop is basically, I will create a slack channel and we will hang out and we will iterate on something for a period of time and we'll tell you what we think you should do. And then maybe if you want to raise money, we might be interested in that and we'd ask typically that, like, you let us invest if, you know, if we've been helpful and our model is to be extremely helpful. So that's like incubation formation stage. We don't do them very often because part of the journey is figuring out that stuff, but we hang out with people a lot and we really try to be helpful. You know, for us, that's just like, you're an awesome person who has a cool idea and we like hanging out. We will, we want to give you some resources and support while you figure out whether or not there's a startup there. When we look at what we call a precede deal. So usually this is um, one, 2 or 3 founders, sometimes a couple more, if they're like getting rolling, they have no revenue. They might have like an early concept for a product, but it's usually at the project stage. And for us, normally what we look for is a couple of design partners who are referenceable and credible and and that are going to be a pattern that we can kind of believe in. So, Ricky is a great example of this, a deal that we did earlier this year with CL Cow. They're basically building a data CICD pipeline. Um, like software has had the whole time, but instead for like making and training and updating uh, data. And, you know, CL had an open source project, a kind of a rough idea, a couple of early folks. And so we did a pre-seed deal for him, no revenue, but lots of early promise. We were able to figure out like, this is an experiment that we want to run. We want to see whether or not that business, um, or that product is one that there's that the market's ready for. So, you know, for us, that's a, uh, 500 K to $2500000 uh, check, uh, sort of at the maximum. He was a little farther along so that round ended up being a little bit bigger. But the point is for pre-seed for us, we're really looking for a concept that we're able to test with not only our own kind of sense of taste, but the broader market with some real customers who obviously know more than we do about what's possible. So that's validating that the problem exists and is a big enough problem for customers to potentially pay for. That there might be a big enough market. And we do that earlier than most VCs because we're not looking. I don't need 20 other VCs to tell me founders are awesome and they're working on something important. We have that sense ourselves. What I'm looking for is the idea to test an idea. And see where it goes, right? Like, in many ways, um, uh, local stack, um, who's just, you know, doing extraordinarily well, um, came out of this exact concept, right? The founders had an open source project. We kind of help them figure out, hey, maybe we should start a company here and then start a company to iterate, and lo and behold, you know, now the whole world uses open stack, and I mean, local stack, and it's pretty awesome. That's kind of like how these projects evolve from the early stages. But yeah, it's uh, precede. The goal is prove that the that the product is one that customers might want. Um, and then seed stages prove that there's a business, um, that we can grow and scale and make it repeatable. So, uh, for us, uh, seed stage round, um, we want you to have revenue or some other really compelling customer traction, adoption, et cetera. In AI, in dev tools, and kind of these other things. We're seeing adoption patterns that have dramatically compressed. Um, and so, like I was talking with the continue founders and we were, you know, they were describing like how many users they added in a month. And, you know, that was more, it ended up being more people than the DevOps community that I would, the size of the DevOps community, when I was building the DevOps community after 7 years. And they did it in like a month. And it's like, oh, wow, some crazy new compressed adoption cycles are happening. So we're sort of, in some cases, we're getting to early sign of product market fit at seed stage with like real clarity, and then you end up on these sort of rocket ship rides. But the key thing, though, is that when founders hear about deals that have happened around them and they compare themselves to that. Um, I usually find it just to be really, really frustrating. And I know that they're going to get their hearts broken in most cases. We end up saying a lot like, hey, if this crazy thing was going to happen, it would, to you, it would have happened to you already. Like, the fact that you're wondering why it's not happening. Like when that kind of thing happens in our portfolio to me, you know, in our own experience, it happens and then you are like, oh, I wonder why. Um, but like, it's not a thing that people are engineering around or like, you know, secretly running in in the background. Like, we coach and help tune when they have the magic. But mostly, you know, you have to build a business. It takes time. It's hard. Um, and so you move through these uh, stages and steps uh, pretty easily. But yeah, a thing that founders really screw up constantly. If they get it in their head because they read an article or they talk to someone. You know, they raised 10 on 100 or whatever, some unusual outlier case, and it turns out that the reasons that happened were completely not replicable. You know, they were lucky, right place, right time. Maybe the investor's awesome. Maybe the investor doesn't care. Maybe it's just a market timing thing. And so, um, in general, uh, precede $0 in revenue to like, you know, up to 500 K, seed 500 K to about, you know, 1500 A, one. 5 uh to 3 AI rules change that a little bit. It's a blessing and a curse, which is that you can rate us a seed, a larger seed round because you've got early interesting adoption. Uh, but then people expect cursor like growth. And so, you know, you get cut the other way. But do not believe it when people tell you all VCs are looking for this one hurdle. Um, that is the hurdle to get a coffee with them. Um, and, uh, and if you're, you know, hoping that or you think that like the magic's going to happen for you, they would have already called you typically to get coffee. And so like, if it's happening for you, you already know. I mean, Traction is, in some ways, it's the most black and white of the criteria that a VC uses to judge whether a startup is ready to raise their seat or their A or whatever, but there are multiple other criteria. And I think of traction a little bit is like the plug out of like the 4 buckets that we talk about internally at Air CFO. So we talk about team, market, product, and traction. And if you have a lot of traction that can maybe paper over, you know, like, hey, maybe the market size, as the VC is quantifying it, maybe they don't see the size, but maybe the VC is also just missing something, if they have an extraordinary amount of traction, or to your point, a founder might be able to raise an A at 500 K of ARR if they're 3 time exited founders, and they're building like a long-term business, something along those lines. So out of those 4 buckets, maybe pick a stage, how would you stack rank them in terms of their importance to you when you're evaluating a founder? So team, market, product, traction? Market, as in market size and not necessarily today, but like potential, is the ultimate arbiter of whether or not heavy bit will make an investment. We can love you. Um, and like really want to work with you forever. We can believe that you are building the truly the best product imaginable. We can uh, 100% see early traction that's super compelling. And if it's not a big enough market, it's not a venture scale business. So we spend a lot of time on that problem. Um, it's the thing that makes founders defensive, I've found, so I've gotten better over the years, and I, I've started emulating my, my partners, Tom and Joe and James, I ask a little differently when I'm asking the market question now because I'm like, well, tell me how big it is today. So we've got actually a framework for doing market analysis so you can kind of get a sense of the world. Probably one of the best examples I've ever encountered for this is Edith, the founder of Launch Darkly. We've been working with her since like our very 1st fund. Um, uh, we've been, you know, advising and and supporting her since I think it, there were 5 people and they had this early thing. Now, super driven founder, CEO really compelling product. Um, market, uh, literally every VC we talked to, uh, that, uh, you know, we were talking about raising after us, discounted it. And we're like, no, no, no, this is so big, the feature flagging as entry point is such an enormous thing. Uh, and every company has to build their own version of this product. Um, and they were like, no, the market's too small. And what Edith did that was brilliant. And, you know, we helped and were part of those conversations, which, you know, were very lucky to be in, was she figured out, it's not just a tool, software development tool, it's a product tool. Uh, it feature flagging isn't just uh, a tool that people use to manage software configuration. It's a way that they use to manage business configuration. And that took launch Darkley's market from being, you know, a $100000000 market to, uh, we don't know how large, uh, uh, that market's uh, going to be, but it is enormous because it's, well, everywhere product changes need to be made in real time, right? It's everywhere there's a long relief cycle or, um, there's an AI feature that you want to launch. And so the trick for her was, um, you know, uh, she raised a great series A. It was very competitive, but the thing that set that company on this incredible trajectory was she changed it from being a software tool to being a business tool and made the market enormous. And so that's the way like when I think about what really matters. We look at a founder at Heavybed. And we say, if you come in, right, and you're like, this is the market, and it's a small, it's a small initial market. The question we ask ourselves, because again, it's ultimately the, the, the gate that determines whether or not we can invest is, is this something that has uh, global scale potential? Can it be bigger? And founders don't always see it the way we see it because, you know, it's their 1st time around, right? Like, and they haven't had the luxury yet or the privilege of being able to look at how you can change markets and and grow them and evolve products and sales motions. So that's the single biggest thing in your 4 buckets. It's not the entry market that we're looking at. It's, it's the ultimate uh, state of the market that uh, when everything has realized its fullest potential and you've captured, you know, every adjacency. At Amazon, our example, was like, what we launched, you know, EC2 and S3, S3 came first. Um, and, you know, EC2 is always, it's not a loss leader, but the gross margins on EC2 have always been quite low. And the reason is the EC2 unlocks this perpetual enormous storage market in S3. So when you look at that, it's like, well, how big is the hosting business? Well, the hosting business is the hosting business, right? And servers or servers. And so, you know, in the last 20 years, which is crazy. Obviously, we've seen this now become the new, the dominant paradigm, but if you sized it based on EC2 nodes, um, and like or all server capacity. You were missing the actual unlock, which is, this is how you make this bigger over time with all these additional elements. There's a lot of rabbit holes. We could go down there on the market side, but I'd love to talk about the team component next. How do you evaluate early stage founders and because I think, okay, the markets there. You can see it, you see the potential, but then the next question that you ask is, is this the right team to actually attack and like gain sizable share of that market? And especially in the early days, if you, unless it's a multiple time founder who's had some successes in the past, How do you go about measuring a founder's abilities to succeed in the market that they're trying to attack? It's interesting. A successful multi-time founder has all the attributes that I'm about to describe to you, at least in our space, right? So you don't get to build an infrastructure, dev tools, or AI company, um, if you're not a person that, uh, wants to work with other people and believes that, you know, that's an important part of their job, right? So, um, when we look at founders, and I am looking at it intensely, um, how they're interacting, how they support each other, um, uh, there's the Gottman love language book, um, and they have the, in it, it's, um, uh, the concept of turning towards responses. Uh, so that is every time someone says something, even in conflict. Are they fundamentally turning towards supporting each other? You could say the same thing of like improv, yes, ending, right? Um, it's very rare that you want to see founders arguing with each other, cutting each other off. Um, and uh, you know, this was actually, um, I'm an extrovert. It may not come through on this. Think it will. But in case anyone's doubting that I'm an extrovert. I am an extrovert. So the interesting thing is, is that, um, you know, you're talking about founder dynamics, um, it is a relationship that is going to become truthfully one of the most important, and sometimes the most important relationship that you're going to have for a really long time, right? Like if people have families, uh, you know, and you're, you have a spouse and kids. Um, you know, this, this work that you're doing is going to consume you and it's going to take you away from them a lot of the time. So the people you do that with are people that you need to be comfortable working with all the way through. You got to want to work with them. You got to know that it is going to strain. It is going to be difficult. You are not going to have, uh, I never describe the founding journey as being easy or fun. It sucks. It's really hard Um, CEO is the worst job in a startup for sure. Um, and the reality is, is that I'm looking for people who support each other, um, as I said, these turning towards responses, these positive. Yes, ending responses, um, people that uh, are making each other feel comfortable even when they've got, you know, a scary VC staring at them asking them, product questions that have more technical depth than they were hoping for, um, and or, you know, they're, you know, struggling to, to communicate about this really big thing. What you want is people that like, it's clear they're having a good time and you want to spend time with them. Magnus, uh, and Simon at, um, at Sanity, uh, and, uh, uh, Magnus's other co-founders. Um, they are a team that's been working together for a really long time over a decade. They love each other. They have fun together. They really support each other. Everyone's super positive. Um, it's a really intense direct, uh, you know, Norwegian culture. So like people sometimes misunderstand questions or responses that they get. You probably 5 pretty well with them, though. For the most part, although Magnus, Magnus has gotten me a couple of times. Also, he's like six, four. I don't know, he's so tall and a lot of the time we go for these walks and for him, it's a walk in the hike in the woods and for me, I'm like running after him being like, what about ARR? So, yeah. But no, they got to like each other. And that comes through right away. The conversive that, um, and, you know, including in my own experiences when uh, founder relationships fall apart. Um, it is the most value destroying destructive thing, uh, that, you know, can happen to you professionally. And so I look for people that have, you know, a very good sort of sense of self and, um, you know, a desire to be the best version of themselves. And that's what makes great founders. When that vibe is not there, it is very clear to us most of the time. Sometimes, sometimes we get surprised by something hidden that, you know, we weren't expecting, but, um, you know, and that happens in every relationship, but, uh, yeah, so, you know, I want founders to show me that they like each other and are going to be working together, um, and are, and 10 years from now, we're all going to still be having dinner and happy and enjoying the time. Evaluating the dynamics between startups, co-founders is definitely important because of the deep nature of that relationship. The relationship between a founder in a VC, while not quite on that level is still like a very intense long-term relationship. If you had to create your ideal early stage founder in a lab, what are the one to 2 personality traits that you would endow upon this person to maximize their chances of success? They would have personal grit, meaning that they are able to just grind in absence of positive feedback or stimulus for a really long time, because they're driven out of a sense of purpose that comes from the inside, and they would have a very strong sense of self. Um, which these things go uh, hand in hand. But a sense of who they are, how they work and operate in the world, how they want to win, how they will lose if they're losing, right? Um, I want them to be comfortable asking for help. Um, when they need help, and again, having this sense of, um, knowing that, um, every day they're going to be running in most cases, the largest company that they will ever run. It gets bigger every day, right? The problems get harder tomorrow. That's the 1st thing. And then the 2nd thing is, is that understanding that if they're succeeding will be the least qualified in their job over time, and that's cool. That's how you stay, uh, the founder, CEO, or, uh, you know, founder at, uh, working every day is that you recognize like your job is, um, to drive and build and be the vision that, um, it's in, it's can't come from anything else. It has to come personally from inside you. And, um, it needs to radiate out and it needs to be able to sustain other people through periods of challenge, even though you're not going to get anything back internally, like you're going to get an exit at the end, we hope, knock on wood. So Founder Grit is, um, is is probably that. Uh, you know, I, um, uh, I took a break from tech um, a long time ago and became a firefighter. And, um, so I'm a trained firefighter. I volunteer still periodically. I keep medical certs up from time to time. That's a career that selects for people that have grit and a sense of self, for better or for worse. You know, I'm not saying firefighters are the most well-adjusted folks. Um, But, uh, you know, we, we, uh, but what we know is, is that like when someone calls us, like, we are the answer, right? We are the answer every time. You call 911, you get a firefighter, who's part of a team, and they're going to solve your problem no matter how big that problem gets. That's just how it works. And that's the same job for a founder, CEO. It's going to get bigger. Do all kinds of other stuff. Going to be outside of your comfort zone. You're going to have to ask for a lot of help. Um, you know, things are going to change quickly and you're going to have to react to that. And everyone's going to be looking to you, uh, to solve the problems, to make the decisions and to get shit done. So that's what I look for when I look for like what a successful founder is going to be. And, you know, it's pretty obvious when you see it. Um, uh, that said, it doesn't require everyone being a type A extrovert personality like me. It comes in in all shapes, sizes, and colors. And um, when someone has that kind of personal determination, that grit, that sense of self, even if they're quiet, it's okay if they, uh, you know, or a person that likes, uh, being in the spotlight or a person that would prefer they, no one ever see them. It's okay. I hire a CEO um, at chef uh, to replace me, um, and uh, his name was Mitch Hill, unfortunately he passed, but, um, Mitch um, was, uh, as much of an introvert as I am an extrovert. And boy, was he extraordinary as a leader. And what he did, and we literally talked about it when, um, when I was like, look, I think it's time for you to take the reins. I said, I just don't know how you're gonna basically do the part of this that is the big Jesse out, you know, the biggest version of everything self. And he goes, I'm not going to do that. You're going to do that. And I'm like, you still want me to do that? And he's like, yeah, I can't do what you do. And hopefully, you know, when our time is done. You'll have learned a thing or 2 from me, which I did. So, uh, my co-founder, Adam and I, um, had an extraordinary experience working with this, uh, this person who just incredible personal drive, uh, extremely quiet and unassuming most of the time. Um, he had resolve is probably the the classic word you would use. And he is a founder too, had gone from 0 to a 1000000000 in his last company. That's what I look for is that sense of self, determination, grit, understanding that you're going to be uncomfortable every day and no one is going to say, thank you. Um, no one is going to give you anything that makes you feel good. It's going to have to come from inside you and flow out and sustain everybody else, even as things grow. That hits very close to home to me on many levels. Founder to founder? Yeah. Building a startup has a very interesting way of like putting a spotlight on all of the founder's personal shortcomings and flaws. There is no hiding. You're coming into contact with like the bare metal of reality every single day. And, um, so to your earlier point, like you can either shy away from that or you can like turn towards it. And I think that's probably one of the most important skills or not skills, but just mindsets that a founder can have to be successful. So I'd love to get into what the heavy bit investment process looks like. Starting from the beginning. So what's the best way for a founder to put themselves onto Jesse's radar? We highly uh, prioritize uh, people who come to our events, which we have, have them all the time, uh, uh, virtual, a lot of now in person uh, events, um, and participate in the community and reach out to us either directly or through a, a trusted friend. So normally with people that are coming to us. Um, uh, they've already interacted with heavy bit in some way, either, you know, directly with one of uh, the partners or the team, uh, or uh, through one of our, you know, many founders. Um, uh, we measure ourselves as a firm using founder NPS score. And, uh, that's literally, like, we just had our annual general meeting, and, um, you know, we we do this right beforehand, which is always a little bit stressful. Um, but and then we share the numbers and uh, it's, you know, above nine. Um, most people would would recommend heavy bit, and, and they really do. And so that's the easiest way is like, you can literally ask anyone in our extended network. Hey, um, if you don't know me or have a route to me directly, um, and you can't get to an event for some reason, find, uh, find it a friend, find another person, talk to them about what they're doing and then, you know, come talk to us. You can also absolutely fill out the form we have on our site. Um, uh, which uh, we can provide a link to. But it's available right on our homepage. It says apply. And if you fill that out, I or one of my partners will read it. And we will look at it and we will respond and let you know what we think. You know, mostly what happens, though, is that because we spend all this time and energy being out in the world. That's why we do all these podcasts. It's why, uh, you know, we we do all of these things. We want it to be really accessible. And so, uh, and we want you to understand who we are before we meet so that you can decide whether, you know, our vibe is the right vibe for you. That's kind of the 1st thing. Um, if you're coming to me, do not walk up and just start telling me about your startup idea, right? Like, walk up and say, hi, do you have a minute? I'm familiar with the thing that you're familiar with. Like maybe you listen to this podcast or whatever, and I'd love to talk to you about this startup that I'm, I'm working on. Don't start pitching me, uh, until like I've like had a moment to contextualize. I want to know your name. I want to know like why you're there. How do we know each other? Um, and, uh, I need a little bit of time to, like, make my brain work, uh, so that I can provide an an attentive experience for you. So, yeah, don't like rattle off your elevator pitch. The 2nd thing is if you can, just make it conversational. Just be like, well this is kind of what we're trying to do. You don't need me to believe in the 1st 30 seconds that like your idea is a multi-gazillion dollar opportunity. All I need to believe at 1st is that you're the kind of person that I want to talk to for like an hour or more. Um, and like, that's the single most important thing that you can let me know is like, we're going to have a nice time talking. And I'm going to learn something, you're going to learn something. Maybe we have other meetings after that, but like do not ratchet the stakes to be like, this is my elevator pitch. Do not do that, right? And I don't want that. And no one actually does, despite what the movies and the shows do. Like, um, I'm going to ask you questions and we're going to have a conversation and like, hopefully the very best thing you can communicate to me is like, you're a smart person with grit, and, uh, you know, resiliency and an internal sense of purpose and drive, and you got a big idea that you need help with. That's how to how to pitch us. If you, you know, uh, the incidentally, the worst thing, like, do not do is do not send me random LinkedIn requests. Do not do that to be, like, I do not respond to them. It never works. Uh, no one is happy about it, right? Don't randomly send like, oh, I'm working on a dev op startup. We should connect on LinkedIn. No, like fuck off. Um, like that is not helpful. Like, literally, we provide all of these other mechanisms. And, uh, and my door is open, so like, do not do the, the, the, the one that's like creepiest. Probably not a fan of cold email either. I will read well written cold emails. However, if I have a bot now that looks for bot written emails and pitches and auto response to them. Sure they're very polite responses. Um, yes. Um, sure. Yeah. I keep in a growing list of bad examples, and which like, they get pretty funny, because it's like a super personalized, like clearly read, you know, all the shit on me online that it could find, and they're like, you know, it's just this flowing effusive thing, and then they're like, um, we're, we're building a new type of candy corn, and uh, for the global candy cord market, which is estimated to be $3600000000, you know, and I'm like, really? Candy corn. Like, okay, bud. It's a bit of a stretch for heavy bet. Yeah, I mean, it's like, if it's AI enabled, gentic, you know, there's Candy Corum and MCP server maybe, but like if that's the case, then like, you know, please go through another one. So you, if you cold email me and it's good. And what I mean is short, clear. Um, and and inviting, um, I will, I will, and, oh, sorry, if it is relevant to what we do, right? Short, clear and inviting, then yes, I want to talk to you. But to your point, there, you created so many avenues for founders who want to make the effort to start to build that relationship with you, so the cold email or the LinkedIn request. It's actually, it's not the cold email that's the problem. It is the AI, it's the AI, SDR generated ones. And so they're just garbage, right? And I get 1000s of them a month. Two years ago, I began building a bot that auto categorized and then auto responds to them and, you know, it's only gotten better with time. But like, uh, I guess the other thing to say is like, hopefully no one listening to this podcast is the kind of person that is going to spam every VC whose email they can get. And so this advice is probably not for anyone that's actually listening, but instead for people that will never listen. It's like gross and uh, pro tip. Um, you know, every email, intro like that, I do law, that goes to the bots and like I, they are getting logged and processed. I am looking at them. I'm just not I'm not exerting any effort, but that means if you pitch me again later. Exerting any effort either, though. So that's okay. Exactly. If you pitch me again later, I am going to know because I'm going to have our entire conversational history. So, um, like, really just don't do that. I will read a well written, simple, like, hey, this is why I'm trying to reach you, um, that's actually real, right? And not, again, candy corn for, for whatever. If a founder makes it to your 1st formal meeting together. What's the purpose of that 1st meeting? What are you trying to? Formal meeting. Yes. First common meet with Jesse. Yeah, yeah. All right, so here's how it works. At Heavy Bit, we get, you know, we have a huge network. We're constantly looking in this in network for, you know, really interesting people that we want to find and people think are awesome, right? Um, what would you say that funnel uh, looks like in terms of like ballpark numbers from top to bottom? I mean, like the our total community reach. How many potential deals do you evaluate and then how does that funnel down into ultimate investments that you make? I don't know the exact number. Um, we try to do between 10 and 20 new deals a year, um, and I don't even know our current count. Um, and that doesn't include all the other things, you know, that we're doing for every one of our 85 today, uh, companies in our portfolio. I think my partner, Tom, um, who's, uh, you know, got the most experienced in in all stages of VC, um, you know, he always is basically clear that, like, we want to see everything. And so I would say our constant mission is to make sure that everybody knows who we are, what our program does, why we're special and different, that we want to talk to you, that we lead investments very early. We co-lead happily. Um, like we are here to help you. We will help you regardless of whether we're going to invest and we'll get back to that part of the funnel. So you have a 1st interaction with somebody at Heavy Bit, right? Any one of us, whoever it is. Um, we're gonna be curious. We're going to, and we're going to have advice and thoughts and we're going to make connections. Um, and what that means is, is that like, we consider you part of our network, right? And so we want you to come to our events. We're gonna, we're gonna support you, even if, uh, like at the stage you're at. You're really far away or you're much later stage. Um, I, we've gotten outreach recently with a couple of these monster AI deals where people have been kind enough to be like, hey, would you like to, to participate in this enormous $100000000 round? I'm like, well, we're a seed stage firm. You know, we don't really write $20000000 checks that often, but like, you know, I'll take a look and they're like, no, no, we just want you involved. We want heavy bit involved. We want each one of the part. We want the experience that you provide, and we'll try to make it work for you. And so, like, we look at those and again, our job is to be maximally helpful to everyone because what that means is, is that we will know everyone that, uh, that, uh, needs help. And, uh, some percentage of those, um, will ultimately invest in, but we want everyone to have a great experience with us. We want to be a trusted advisor, whether we're on your cap table or not, and we want to be the 1st people who you think of referring to us when somebody, you meet somebody that's doing something kind of relevant. So that's kind of the starting point. Um, so, uh, 1st meeting, if you meet me socially or any of the partner socially, we'll usually spend a couple of minutes like talking and figuring things out. Um, I've gotten pretty precise on some questions like, are you a Delaware Sea Corp, right? And people are like, oh, that's, you know, we can't talk about that. Yet. I'm like, well, no, no, just yes or like, I'm just trying to figure out, Are you investable for me right now? Or how are you incorporated, right? Um, so like there's some screening that we do that's just sort of natural in the conversation, but like, um, but basically, I, we want to understand who you are, why you're working on the problem, why it's a big problem and then like what you're doing and where you, you know, what you need. And, you know, those are short conversations. Um, uh, if we're at an event. I'm going to have as many of those as I can, right? So, like, and so it's, don't be surprised if a heavy bit partner talks to you for a few minutes, writes down some stuff, says, hey, yeah, I'll follow up and we do. That's like what you're looking for is you're literally trying to add the context so that after the meeting, the next day, we, I can talk at it, I'll, we'll talk about it as a partnership. Um, we review everything. Like we, we, we have a pretty detailed ongoing process because we want to give everyone a chance. Um, and we want to find for us the, who's the perfect fit for where we are and where they are and where we can help. Then the 1st meeting. Um, uh, if possible, we try to do a 1st meeting in person here at our office in, in, uh, in Hayes Valley and uh, Heavy Bit House, which is where we are right now. Um, and basically, you know, if you've never pitched a VC before, um, or you haven't pitched us, like, you're going to come into a building that looks like an office with, you know, uh, I mean, it's a house and it's cool. It's a really nice frat house. Yeah, something like that. Um, you know, you're probably going to meet with us in either our big conference room or our medium-sized conference room and in there, like, we're going to sit down and we're going to have a conversation. We're going to serve you a drink and a snack and you're going to connect your, you know, laptop to a thing. We're going to record that. Um, we're gonna have a conversation where we talk about all the things that you're trying to achieve and how you got there. And we're gonna do some things in those, that 1st interaction. And usually it'll be one Mac, sometimes 2 uh, partners. We're gonna try to figure out all of our our nose right away, right? So, like, talking about, you know, market timing and like, the opportunity and, you know, how you're incorporated and how the cap table works and like, are, you know, is this like a thing that's on fire right now or is it a, um, a thing that's working really great? We are, um, unusual because every heavy bit partner here is very technical. We all write software. We all have written software. Even the people that, you know, haven't been a software developer in name or an engineer in name, uh, actually write more software right now than most other people, which is always a surprise. But it's going to be a technical conversation. It's going to go pretty deep. And our goal is for you if you're pitching us to have the best 1st meeting that you've ever had with the VC and maybe one of the best meetings you've ever had with the VC. And like that's a personal standard. Um, for me, this was for me, uh, pitching Jim Briar, who's a super famous uh, extraordinarily successful VC. He wrote the the original check into Facebook. He's, you know, on every Midas list ever. He's like, and he's he definitely was not going to fund my company. Um, uh, but the pitch experience and talking to him. Still to this day makes me feel warm. I was like, wow, he knew he got me. He got me. He got what we were trying to do. And, you know, he didn't really follow up. Like there, it would, the, the other parts were not like any different, but I feel personally connected to him. I feel like he's a friend. I doubt he remembers my name. So we try for that. Um, uh, we try for um, kind of this evolving experience. Some founders come in believing that like, um, they'll say like, oh, what's your minimum ticket size? When I hear that, all kind of red flags go off and they're like imagining we're going to write a small check into something like, no, we're we're talking about a relationship. Like, I'm I'm looking to co-lead or or to lead or co-lead. Um, if we're going to do a deal together. I'm not like trying to shoehorn in small amounts of money, right? And partially that's because we're going to do an extraordinary amount of work together over the next decade. Um, so, um, yeah, so that's that's what like the 1st meeting is like. Uh, at the end of it. Um, uh, you. I want you to feel like you did a good job. Um, even if you didn't. Um, but mostly people do, um, I will have follow-up questions and then typically I'll say, you know, in a in a follow-up meeting, hey, this is really awesome. Sometimes in a meeting, it's really clear. I want it to advance. And so I will say that. And so you will know, and I'll be like, uh, you know, we'll, we're going to set up uh, next meetings at Heavy Bit, we want you to meet with the entire partnership. Um, and, um, the, that's not always possible. Sometimes people are on vacation or whatever. And so, um, you know, that's like, we don't get blocked by that. But um, we're all making a bet on you. And so, um, and we're committing for the next decade, um, or more, who knows? And so, um, we need everyone to be aligned around all of those uh, 4 buckets that you described. And then, um, if we are going to meet again, we'll have more follow-up questions. So on the background, we'll talk about the deal with everybody as things are getting set up. Um, we try, it doesn't always happen to send out, um, internally, make sure like right before somebody meets, we've got the context from all of our data that we've gathered and the materials that people have sent. Um, oh, on Jesse's pet peeve list and maybe we'll run through it at the end so we can get the right sound bites. Uh, do not send me a uh, dock share thing that I cannot download an artifact from. Um, send me a thing because I need to download something and share it in advance. I do not need to have you gathering metrics or doing anything else. Um, so you need to send me something that I can annotate that I can work on. Now, I have written, uh, originally I wrote my own ripper. Um, there's a really good DocuSign deck downloader. So if you don't do it, I will I will scrape it anyway and I have some other tools that go through and rip materials out, but you're basically making me mad. Um, and so um, whoever tells you like, oh, you need to do this. Like, if I ask you for a printable artifact, it is because I am writing a business case for you. And I need to communicate that on, uh, to my partners so that when you walk in, you can have the 2nd meeting that will be one of the best meetings you'll ever have in your career with DCs, right? And so please stop screwing that up. Um, that is that is a request I make of the universe. Like do not reach out to me on LinkedIn and try to add me as a connection. Number one, and number two, send me the material when I ask for it in a downloadable form. Uh, not, um, in uh, something that I have to keep clicking through. Whatever you think the reason is for doing it, you are, it is a mistake. You are making it hard for me to love you. And all I want to do is make the best possible case and like, please don't do that. So, um, yeah, so then we kind of gather material. Um, we usually write up like a quick little narrative. Um, it's usually focused on the founders and like what they're trying to do. If I can demo something, I'll demo something. Um, and uh, I have a now robust demo environment. So people are often surprised when I'm like connecting things up. Um, so yeah, that's the thing. Um, and then, uh, for your for your next couple of meetings, we're basically, we're going to ask some repeat questions. We're looking to see how your stories changed and improved. We want because we want you to be coachable. And so after the 1st interaction that you have with somebody at Heavy Bed, um, hopefully you learn something. If you didn't, that's fine too, but like, um, but what we're looking for is for you to get better because you've now had more pitches and you've had more opportunity to kind of talk about that. We'll dive in on some other stuff. So it means it's a couple meetings, three, four, five, usually for us to get from like where, where we're like, we're interested. Um, let's start talking to here's a term sheet. We formally have a regular partner meeting cadence where we all get together and talk about everything, but, uh, that process is running constantly in the background, uh, formally, informally, like, um, you know, at the very beginning of this talk, the advantage that you have when you're a small type team is speed and agility and that's 100% what we do. Our days are completely scheduled. Um, and you know, uh, over half of our time is spent with our existing portfolio helping. Um, and so, um, you know, we have to squeeze that kind of stuff in. So, um, at each stage, we will tell you, yeah, like, if we're still interacting and poking, um, we're leaning in, we'll tell you like, this is kind of where we are, we'll ask questions about timing. You can, if you try to manipulate that, like people will tell you sort of, you know, say this or signal it, like it doesn't really work on us, um, not because it doesn't work, but like, um, the, we're actually just trying to problem solve early on. And so it's just like, oh, it can be a little weird to be cagey or whatever. Um, that said, if actually, we're talking, and you're running a really fast process, and so you need an answer in day or two, we, we do that pretty regularly as well. So we're, we want to talk to you. We want to help you. We want to do that at whatever stage of the process is. We prefer to do it early. The benefit for you, if we meet earlier is even if we're not going to invest, I promise you, your pitch will be better, your story, your company, your journey, uh, will be better. You'll raise on better terms from whoever funds you. So, um, like, and and, and then we want you to think of us and come back soon when you get ready for the next round or when your friend asks you or whatever. So yeah, we want it to be a really, really interesting, fun, valuable experience. I kind of think of the heavy bit moment is like, when a founder tells me, that is the best meeting I've ever had. And I'm like, great, that's just a meeting. That's, you know, this wasn't a meeting that is any different than any other one. This can be every day for you if you invest or if you take heavy bits money. Whether you like it or not. Yeah. Before we get to the term sheet, what does the partner meeting look like where you decide whether or not you're going to extend the term sheet? Is it one partner puts up a startup and sort of, you know, is their main advocate or I, I, you said that every partner meets with, uh, each startup you're considering. So is it like majority rules or how exactly does that like? Well, we all got to want to do it. Um, we don't, uh, like, sometimes it's there, like, it's not required that every partner votes yes on, in the formal vote. Um, uh, so yeah, practically, um, when I describe we're gathering information, um, we're writing a deal construct, right? And it's basically like, this is name of startup. Uh, name of startup was founded at this point. You know, is at this stage, has this many customers, blah, blah, blah, blah, has raised this much from these people. Um, we are contemplating an X dollar on why, uh, post-money or pre-money or whatever with Z option pool and blah, blah, blah, other elements. Mechanics. Um, and, and that's the artifact that we then use to generate a term sheet. I can tell you when procedurally, um, I know like we have agreed as partners that we're going to do a deal or we're going to start negotiating a deal. Um, uh, we're going to issue a term sheet and we're going to try to make that work. That moment actually usually happens well in advance of like the formal artifact. Sometimes it happens way after. Uh, and so, like, there's no artifact. We actually have done a whole thing and then we, we're like, it, because it happened really fast and it was really clear and so it's just a conversation we have again, that kind of speed, agility, clarity, um, and high trust. A firm like heavy bit only works if its partners are operating with, you know, high trust and integrity, which uh, which is what we, we try to do. Especially in the fairly constrained space that you operate in, right? Like it's a small community. You probably at this point do know just about everyone in the DevOps infrastructure. We know everyone that we know, but like new people are coming showing up all the time, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I really appreciate kind of like through line throughout this whole conversation, which is the long-term orientation that you take. And the knowing that an interaction you have with someone today is likely going to come back around in some form. Many times. Yeah. Good or bad, right? And we don't always get it right, but we certainly strive for it. Um, and I think when, you know, when like something's a little weird or, you know, the day is not perfectly smooth. Um, what we, what we learn is like, oh, you know, we're always also trying to, to improve, um, and good behavior that founders should learn is, um, you need to manage investors. So like if you want attention, um, or an update or whatever, like don't go silent, be like, hey, this is what's going on on my side, what's going on with you today? Or, you know, uh, not pushy or take away, not like, again, focused on the relationship, but like, can I get an update? Um, you know, can you give me a sense of where we're heading? And, you know, I've had a couple of other really good conversations. Have you been, is my number one choice? This thing that I'm pretty honored that is a conversation that happens for us a lot and people will be like that, but, you know, I want to, I want to, you know, make sure that the timing and sort of everything else aligns. Um, that's, that's good, again, turning toward relationship sharing. Uh, you know, what doesn't work is like, blah, blah, blah is in. And I'm like, okay, well then congrats, right? Or, you know, we expect a term sheet. Oh, other pet peeve, a safe is not a term sheet. When someone tells me, and this has happened a bunch recently, it's just like, the language gets wrong, so they'll say, we are expecting 3 term sheets this week. And it's the 1st meeting. And I'm like, oh, congrats. Um, because we're not gonna not do all of the work to get to know you. Then it turns out that it's, oh, no, they had 3 people say that they would, it's a YC handshake deal for a safe. That's not a term sheet. That's a, that's an investment, right? Um, and a term sheet is like around that has, you know, dynamics and that it will take us. Are factors to consider. So, yeah, that's, um, I would say a pet peeve. So after you make an investment in a founder, what does your ideal working relationship look like with that founder in terms of cadence, expectations, um, communication, all those kinds of things? So, there's a slider. Okay, so the slider starts with, um, the sort of lightweight, you just came out of YC, it's a, it's a precede or even formation stage deal, we're meeting. We're kind of helping you, but like you're at the very beginning of your journey. Um, and that's just kind of a lot of partner check-ins and, uh, scheduled kind of regular time as we're sort of helping you shape, um, the, uh, the early stages of the company. At the sort of heavy bit typical entry point, which is at seed stage or late preseed, we have a structured program that we kick off uh, within a week or 2 uh, of you uh, of the, of the, of the wire clearing. Um, and that involves a couple things. First of all, you meet the entire heavy bit team. There are a lot of us. We have a large program team, including, you know, we're in our podcast studio. That's, you know, all part of that as well as the network that we run, uh, of, you know, that includes like over 20 different shows and, you know, 1000000s of downloads. Our events and other community, like all this stuff is happening constantly. And it takes a big team who works really well to do that. We we do a formal onboarding, like like a new hire orientation. And this is everyone, uh, that you're going to be working with. This is kind of how we separate. Here's your primary contacts. We make sure you have our information in your phones and we have it in yours so that you 2 o'clock in the morning. You need to call, you know, your, uh, the partner that you're working primarily with, you can get them, right? Not get filtered. So that's the uh, that's kind of the 1st step. This is gonna probably irritate some other of our peers in the industry, but so we meet every 2 weeks minimum, um, for an hour for partner, partner meeting time. That is like one on one time. We're working at the highest level and helping you succeed. We're working on every problem when that starts. I mean, it depends on like stage, but we literally start outlining a bigger roadmap. Every problem that came up that we're worried about at an existential level, and we work that into a series of sprints that we do, um, each one is customized uh, for the company. Sometimes we're able to run like, we have a messaging sprint that we're kind of famous for. And, um, that's a some, sometimes it's one on one, uh, for a company. Sometimes it's a cluster of them, so we'll work on that. Um, and you can see the material online on our website and like how we do this, although uh, it's really different to kind of have the full experience uh, of the team there. Messaging is usually the place we spend a lot of time on upfront. Um, and, uh, and then that dovetails into basically like the roadmap and launch for the company that, uh, that builds on the messaging program that we've done that gets you the coverage that you want that, um, that, you know, and drives kind of the adoption loop, whether it's community or customers or usually both and kind of gets the the flywheel spinning. Um, so that is a structured process that we do as part of our program while we're having these weekly check-ins. We're working pretty intensely together to push and make those things happen. And then we customize basically a work plan where it's like, by this point, we want this to happen. By this point, we want this to happen. Um, and so, um, you know, we meet uh, 10 or 20 times as frequently with founders, then, you know, other typical VCs do, part of the key to our success is like, we invested in you because we see the potential and you want help. And um, and we will give it to you. Um, so, uh, sometimes, um, uh, we swap partners around, um, depending on expertise, like, um, whether, you know, depending on the challenges that uh, folks are facing, um, over the course of, you know, 12 to 18 months, kind of that 1st post-investment period. What we want to do is get you into a state where you're ready to raise the next round of financing, easily, having built up all of these other things. Um, again, Pet Peeve, founders who have been through it, even who know the magic that was done, they end up focusing on the outcome. So they're like, have you been made it really easy for me to raise my next round? And it's like, yeah, after, you know, and we spent a 150 hours together working on messaging and positioning and pricing and executive leadership and basically everything that you need that we are able to give you ourselves through the program, through our extended advisor network, in that period of time to give you the best possible chance of succeeding in a uncertain and challenging world. And so, um, and so, you know, at some point in that period of time, um, we're also then able to give you a pretty sober analysis of like, do we think that it's going to be easier hard to raise? Do we, you know, what do we think? Again, the messaging, et cetera, is going to be as we prepare to raise another round or to sell or to, you know, do whatever. And so, um, so that's kind of like that 1st year. Anyone that works with us. You should ask about, like anyone that's ever experienced this at all. Um, we are in, we are hands on in that we really, really care. Um, but it's your company. Um, we're here to help you build and do that. And so, um, you know, we're direct, like, you know, uh, I wouldn't describe our, our style as soft. Um, uh, it is, but it is caring. Um, and, you know, we're going to be the people that tell you as straight as anyone can. Um, whether we think you're on the right track or not. Um, uh, and try to help you find a way to succeed. You know, remembering that most startups don't, you know, we want every one of our companies to succeed, uh, both because that's how we make money, but more importantly, because that's the change we're trying to make in the world. And so, you know, that's sort of what happens after we take board seats pretty frequently. Um, usually as the main board seats, sometimes as an observer. Again, there's a bunch of like really not for heavy bit. It's not about us. Uh, thing that I'd have to remind myself, but like pretty negative stories and other things. And like I have been on the other side of all of the drama and I am familiar, uh, and I don't want that to happen to people. And so that's kind of what I do, uh, to prevent is like I'm coaching and and explaining. But, um, so when we do that, there's also, you know, legal stuff that has to be done well. We think of ourselves as preparing, you know, as I said earlier, every startup founder, CEO is running what is probably the largest business that they've ever run. And it goes through some predictable leadership challenges and changes. Um, also seems very personal and human one. You know, you go from being like a little tiny team to suddenly like you have employees who names you don't know. And that's a really different vibe. You might not even have noticed that that happened, right? Particularly younger founders. Particularly younger founders who started working professionally during COVID. Um, and so haven't even like learned office culture, right? Like, because, you know, you weren't working in an office before. And then you find out, oh yeah, it turns out it's a job that people have, right? Um, and so we just do a lot of very one hand to hand, 11 support trying to get people, um, uh, through the challenges where we can be prescriptive where we can say there is a right answer. This is the right answer. And it doesn't matter what you think. Like, um, you know, you need to do a 409 A, you need to, you know, have an account, like, this is actually part of what, uh, our conversation started with is I'm like, I want to know when I bring in my CFO that you guys have the checklist and that, you know, I don't have to worry about our checklist because you are on top of it. Um, but like, that's the 1st time that, you know, many people, founders are dealing with things like payroll and like, 0 yeah, you have to do the payroll every week or the employees don't get paid. And by the way, people need to be paid, right? And it's like this is, and they're, oh, I forgot. I'm like, no, see, that's the problem is I know we had a lot going on, but like, it's actually a big deal. Every payroll is a little tiny test. And so, you know, and these are just normal scaling lessons that every organization has to go through, more importantly, every founder has to go through. And so we would just work super closely to make as many of those decisions easy to make as many of the one way doors that happen really early in the journey of a startup and change the trajectory that you, you know, they change what is possible for you. We want to make those as easy as possible and we want you to be as informed around them, right? Like, you're making a big decision about what software license you're going to release open source under. That's a one way door, right? There are decisions to be made, or those big strategic deals that you want to sign, or who to take money from, or who you want to add as a board member, or who, you know, what to do with your founding team, if there's one of your co-founders isn't working, or is working really great, or, you know, everything in between. And then, you know, the personal stuff that people go through, like relationships change. Um, people don't want to admit that, but like, you know, you end up having conversations about like, oh, you doing okay? Yeah, it's going to take a while, right? And then you have the journey of the startup. Sometimes it's super great and everything's really easy. Sometimes really hard and there's no good moves. And we're there through all of that. So that's, uh, that's what happens afterward, is we do everything in our power to help founders and companies succeed. Sounds like one of the most hands-on kind of post-investment approaches that I've I've heard of a VC taking, but I think it's it's really smart. And to your point, there's all of these one way doors, especially early in a startups journey that can have ripple effects across their entire company trajectory. So making sure that you have those decisions, we make those decisions thoughtfully and with a little bit of benefit of talking to someone who's been through it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's really awesome. Thank you for walking me through that. Love to just wrap with, um, one last question, which is we've talked about some of your pet peeves and we could go through some of those. But what's one piece of, um, knowledge or advice that you would give to a founder that you just, you wish that more founders understood about the way that venture capital and raising venture capital works. Well, the 1st thing is I'm going to tell the book that I wish everyone would read, which is crucial conversations, um, cannot recommend it enough. It's just a fantastic book on how to talk about difficult things. Highly recommend that. Number one pro tip. So the 2nd thing, what do I wish or what do I want every founder to know about just venture in general? You are in charge of your company and your destiny. Um, and it is your job to manifest it. You can deal with famous rich people who have lots of money and success and stories and whatever, you can deal with, you know, uh, very junior people in the investing world. Um, but, uh, the unique force of creation and power that happens in startups is the founding team and what they do and the vision that they have and what they're ready to bring to the table. And, um, the better of a job, you that founders have understanding that it is their job to bring a thing into existence, despite every impediment, despite how hard it is, despite everything else, and that that's what they want to do, those founders succeed. And there's lots of ways to be distracted and get bad advice. Um, there's lots of communities where founders talk to each other. You know, you've got like little tiny startup A, talking to little tiny startup B about what, you know, how enterprise sales work. And then you have a bunch of other people that are like, yeah, we're at like $100000000 in sales and we still won't know what we're doing and that's the point. The thing that I just wish people understood is like, please stop trying to play a meta mind game. Please stop trying to like overthink the, you know, the the matrix around you. Like, it's not that cerebral. It's a pretty... Yeah. And like the reality is, is that your job, again, no matter what you're doing is to be a person that people want to talk to, listen to, um, uh, and follow and support. And that's what being a founder, certainly a founder, CEO is. And so focus on that on being a person who is doing something that is worth doing and who people are going to enjoy doing that along the way. Um, I heard a quote once that has kind of defined my life, which is I love adventure. I'm an adventurous person. I mean, venture capital. Right? And an adventure is a journey that has uh, 3 things. Um, the 1st is uh, certain adversity. The 2nd is uncertain outcome, and the 3rd is good companionship. And what I'll tell you is you're going to remember the bad days and how you overcame them and the companionship of the people you did it with along the way, and that's going to be what your story is. The money is great when it comes. It sometimes does. It sometimes doesn't, the, you know, success becomes pretty blunted or dulled over time because you're just like, cool, now I'm, you know, speaking at another thing or I got another award or whatever, but you remember, um, the people you work with and how you work with them and the contributions that they've made, um, and how they helped you and how you helped them change the world. And that's what I want people to know. And if you follow that, you're probably a person, you know, is going to be pretty successful, uh, in whatever you do. The journey is the destination. That's a similar quote that I think about quite a bit. That's a really great place to end this. Jesse, this was full of great takeaways for founders. I think I really enjoyed our chats. Yeah, thank you again. Thank you.