Christine Tsai, CEO & Founding Partner of 500 Global on Building 500 Global | E293

29:32So they might recommend deals to us or companies. I know founders probably don't like hearing us talk about companies as deals, like they're humans and people, but so they recommend companies to us. They might co-invest in some of our companies. So a lot of times they may meet our batch, our accelerator batch. We actually have our demo days this week. So a lot of the VCU alumni will come. So it's been great for that. It's certainly been not as the more of a secondary effect, but sometimes they've been really interested in 500 just because they are new to venture, new to tech, and they maybe join us as a partner in terms of backing some of our funds.

30:12But and they've become just like a really it's been great, obviously, for the 500 brand. So all of those things have been very it's created something so special. Like these VCU networks are so they're like your college class. Like I'm in some of the WhatsApp groups and there's this one WhatsApp group for VCU Stanford in 2019 is so active. They still do meetups. And so this group of alumni, like all these investors around the world, they've been really great champions for our portfolio companies and N500. And we didn't expect that from that 2015 experiment. So it's been quite unique for us. That's pretty cool.

30:51That's cool. Okay. So now I want to ask you about, because you've written in the notes that we've exchanged beforehand, disrupting VC in 2010. And that's to when I ask you about building the 500 Global brand and why you picked exactly the model that you ended up going with. So I'd love to ask you a bit about why disrupting VC in 2010? Because that's not the founding date of 500, right? Yeah. I mean, so if you think about where venture was prior to that, it was very much what you might refer to as the traditional model of venture, which was it's obviously very concentrated. You invest in a small number of companies.

31:33You invest, I don't know, a Series A at that time might have been anywhere from$3 to$5 million. And a lot of that went into server costs. And basically, investors picked winners or they felt like they could pick winners. And the reason why 500's model was very untraditional at the time and I think stirred the pot quite a bit was we felt that it's very challenging to pick winners, especially at such an early stage where it's really just the founders, very little traction, like who knows who's going to win. So we felt rather than take that concentrated approach, we believed in this thesis of investing in a bigger portfolio, larger portfolio, start out with small checks at the time, which was anywhere from 50 to 200K, but it probably averaged around 100K.

32:29And work with the companies, particularly the ones who were going through our accelerator, and then double down on the companies that we felt like were working. So that was our model. We were not the first to execute on that kind of investment strategy, but I think we were probably the first to do it the way we did, which was probably a lot more companies really helping them, being much more hands-on in terms of building a network for them, building a mentor network and a community. We also investing in very atypical founders, so international women, all kinds of things. So that was really what was untraditional.

33:06And, you know, we got a lot of like kind of laughed out the door and thinking about like, that's never going to work. But, you know, 14 years later, you know, our first couple funds are, you know, with that model are performing very well. They're both top decile funds. Many of the other funds, even overseas follow, there's some differences, but they do have that type of model. It's a larger portfolio. And they're all, you know, many of them are tracking very similarly. So I don't think that you have, like, depending on the market or maybe as we expand ourselves from purely accelerator early stage to a more of a multi-stage firm, of course, you can't do this massive, large portfolio at, say, the growth stage, right?

33:47You don't invest in like 100 growth stage companies. But, you know, we felt like that is really key to building that platform, that base of companies. And the other aspect of it is that we want to make sure we can get in at lower valuations. And back in 2010, obviously, valuations were much lower. But, you know, valuations either through our standard terms or in companies outside of Silicon Valley, there is a bit of that kind of better economics from that perspective. So because now you are multi-stages, you said, how do you break that up in funds? Do you still have the 500 base fund or seed fund, pre-seed fund?

34:29Yes. So it's definitely a work in progress. I think, you know, right now, a lot of our investments, of course, are still early stage, but that's really pre-seed, seed and has expanded to series A and some series B. It's more at the kind of growth and pre-IPO stage where we're really starting to build that track record and excited to build that out. But with our, I think what you refer to as our core funds, the global flagship funds, that is already a great example of how that investment scope or we've expanded our aperture, as a lot of people like to say. So we still are very active at the pre-seed seed.

35:07A lot of those first checks are through our global accelerator program. But now we do$1 to$5 million checks, which are anywhere from the seed to Series A, sometimes Series B stage. sometimes five to 10. And in many, a few of these cases, we've started to lead, lead those rounds. So it's really, it's definitely been very exciting to do that. And I think we can only do that now, like in the last few years, because of the, the, the platform that we've built, you know, we have a big portfolio in some ways, it's kind of like almost like proprietary deal flow. So when we do those one to five or five to 10 investments out of the flagship fund, they're all companies we've already, typically they're companies we've invested in.

35:47There's some few cases where that first check goes into a company we've never met before or, well, never written a first check. That you didn't have ownership in beforehand by one or a few other funds. But there may be some other connection. Maybe it was a founder that we backed previously or someone in our network. But all in all, it's been exciting to expand our scope for sure. If you take the late stage fund there or later stage fund, what's the split for that between US and rest of world? Is that also 50-50 or? That's a good question. So at least today, we don't yet have a pre-IPO growth stage fund that's global.

36:36Hopefully, we'll have more to share in the near-term future. But when I look at, say, our later-stage companies, like, say, the unicorns of the overall portfolio, it is about maybe 40-60. So 40 % non-US, 60 % US. It may actually be closer to 50-50, but it is quite close to that 50-50 slide. So we even see it in our own portfolio. It is tracking that way. Now, if you drill it down in terms of which ones are the bigger drivers or like the, you know, maybe everyone can be a unicorn now or maybe not now. Much harder in 2020, 2023, 2024. But, you know, in terms of the ones that really are driving value for their respective funds, it's a good question.

37:25It probably depends on the fund. But, you know, let's say Canva is a great example. That's going to definitely be an outlier. It's a non-U.S. company, technically. It's very significant in terms of value, valuation. And I think a lot of people maybe don't realize it's not a U.S. company, but that's a great example. Can I ask you, your U.S. funds, how are they different from the rest of your global funds? Are all your U.S. funds run by the core team, if you even make that distinction? Ah, so our, so I would say that our global, like our flagship funds that I referred to, um, those are essentially our U S vehicles.

38:09So no, we don't call them our U S funds, but, but they definitely are where we invest into the U S companies. Um, we call them global because we do invest into global companies. And I think today it kind of depends on where you, where you delineate what's a U S company or not. So like, you know, great example, like the example I just talked about, Canva is not a US company, but I don't think anyone would quibble over the fact that they're based in Australia, but they're essentially a global company, right? And the product was not a local thing. It was really a global thing from day one. But then you have companies say like Chipper Cash, which is in our last flagship fund, also went through our accelerator.

38:50They are a US company, Delaware Corp, but their target market is in Africa. And the founders are based here in the Bay Area. So they may be not considered a US company because of the customer demographic. But I think we have found that now today, many companies are, that line is kind of blurred. And also, they're companies that they want to be and can be global companies from day one. And that's essentially, we want to be that first choice for founders who are thinking about building a global team or global company from the very beginning. So how many of the startups that you invest in at the early stage go through the accelerator?

39:33So we do have our flagship accelerator that's based here. And we actually now are bringing it back in person, starting with the next cohort in April or May. Is that the first time? Well, yes, since COVID, we, you know, had a moved everything very quickly to virtual remote over when the pandemic hit and then for the next couple of years. So we're excited to get everyone back in the office full time. It's been a bit of a hybrid situation. But then we also have our we have a few other accelerators around the world where we invest in similar model where we invest into companies and work with them, build a relationship.

40:10Hopefully may double down if we see things working. And these are in Latin America, in Mexico City, Middle East, which is based out of Riyadh. and then a couple other regions as well. Georgia, we're in, I can never pronounce the name, Belisi. And so we invest in those companies. Now, in terms of the overall breakdown, I would say it's maybe, I don't think it's quite 50 % because we do have some regions where we don't have that accelerator model. But it's definitely a pretty significant chunk of those first checks. And we think that's actually great for us because again, we're getting a lot of information.

40:50Most investors don't get access to typically getting in at lower valuations, which is when you don't think of it initially, but down the line, it makes a big difference in terms of ultimate returns. Yeah, no, no, it makes a huge difference. What do you think about accelerators globally? Who do you benchmark or who do you think these guys are doing a good job other than yourselves? because I always find accelerators as that is really a space where that's probably because they don't need to be backed by LPs, right? So you don't have any weeding out function really. It's very hard to weed out an accelerators compared to VC, right?

41:32You tend to do well or poorly in the first two funds. And if it's not moving, then you're done in venture, right? That's not true fund accelerator. You can run a university-backed accelerator with very little success for a long time. Oh, that's true. Yeah, that's a challenge. I think there's, on one hand, it's great that there's a lot of options for founders. Like that wasn't there in 2010 when we started. The accelerator model was relatively novel at the time. But then at the same time, you have to be, I think, judicious about which accelerator you go into, particularly if they take equity. If there's a lot of accelerators, I think, like you said, there's some university accelerators where maybe they don't invest.

42:18Maybe it's there's no strings attached and you get access to the resources. And that's that's great. Or but I think ones where they invest and you look at the terms, you just obviously want to be careful because a lot of accelerators, they can range from really like no time. It's just come work in our office for six months. It's not really even an accelerator all the way to they try to run your company for you, which is not you want to be careful with that. But but, you know, there's there's a number of great programs. I mean, the ones that I think of that are either Silicon Valley or globally, obviously, there's, you know, obviously, YC is really set a very high bar.

42:56They started five years before 500 did. They are still primarily San Francisco, very much San Francisco based, Silicon Valley based. I think they did have a period where they were going global. And I think they still, I think, are global. But it's very much, you got to be here in San Francisco. And then, you know, in Europe, I know there's Entrepreneur First. And there's other programs like, I know Seed Camp doesn't really call themselves an accelerator anymore. They're more of a fund. But they, we definitely. Yeah, they used to run. They used to run as an accelerator. Yes. And, you know, we invested in.

43:30And what you said, it was funny to hear your talk in the beginning about how LPs met you when you came with your model, because I was like hearing Carlos talking about how LPs received them in the beginning. Well, are you crazy? You can't do that. Yeah, there was a lot of like, why? Like, how can you invest in all these companies? Or how are you going to, this is not going to work. And, but, you know, the nice thing today is we can show that it does work. there's obviously refinements to the model, but it's so funny. I think you mentioned this before about how venture is like this club and everyone kind of does the same thing.

44:05And it's like herd mentality. That is so, that is so true. And it's ironic because VCs all want to be disruptive and invest in the next big company. And what is required to do that is investing in things before other people think it's a big deal. If everyone thinks it's a great, Everyone's hopping on, then it may or may not be truly disruptive. But I think that is – we are in some ways hypocritical. But it's also a funny balance, right? Because at the same time, I think both you and I, imagining a workflow in a day without ChatGPT and other AI functions, AI-driven softwares today. for us it's like what i wouldn't get half my stuff done but then if you go outside of venture you know they are still like i don't think you can really trust that chat bot thing so in that in that sense hurt mentality within a space that's very frontier is maybe also not too bad right that maybe just means that you're being wise in terms of going with people that you respect and think are quite smart.

45:22And then if that name is on it, I know I'm going to have a markup because they always have co-investments. You could just also game the VC math and then you can say, if you want to be a real outlier, that's outperforming fund, then you need to make your own calls. But you can also do a great top quarter fund and just kind of follow a very good hurt. That's true. There are definitely funds that they'll say, we only invest in companies that were backed by XYZ or their strategy maybe. I don't know if this is a ongoing strategy or this is maybe for the first fund, but they do a lot of local collecting and they say, we've backed this company and that company.

46:10And these companies were also funded by Sequoia and Greylock and Excel and, you know, like the who's who of Sand Hill Road. I don't think that's a good long-term strategy because most likely these companies got some small allocation, right? And I think it might help a little bit, but not as a long-term strategy in terms of like generating, I think ultimately generating returns, right? So you want to see on the portfolio page or whichever page it is, you want to see follow-on investors. You don't want to see co-investors, right? That's the big thing, right? Yeah. Well, that's a common question.

46:51People will ask who else LPs might ask or founders will ask. Let's focus on founders. Let's say you're a first check investor or you're an accelerator and naturally biggest reasons why founders will want to go through an accelerator is to be able to learn, obviously, and help accelerate their company, get access to a network and fundraise. Like they want to be able to come out of this program and be able to use that to either get those intros, get exposure to investors and have that be a positive signal. So of course, many accelerators, and of course we will share this too, we bring in some of these investors to come do talks and meet the companies.

47:31And we will say, many programs will say this as well, like our companies have been backed by X, Y, and Z, but you know i i think that it's a good balance because there also are investors who don't have those names but they can write checks and sometimes they can be incredibly valuable for sure i think there's a there's a world of difference between having strong co-investors and having strong follow-on investors that's the thing yeah because you can squeeze into a round with a small percentage where you have other great names well you know that's just which parties do you go to um yeah whereas whereas if you if you can actually pick something and come in before everyone else well then it's probably just a good signal that you know what you're doing uh yeah it's even better if you if you have a company that you know whether you're a lead or not but if you were able to say that you beat out some of you know you won the deal right i think that's more applicable if you're leading the round but but i think if you really double click onto that like you said it's like the different levels of how you got into this deal.

48:38Tell me, Christine, because you did say that earlier, and we for sure have many in our audience going from a co-investor strategy to starting to lead more. And you said that in the beginning that you're starting to lead more and more often. I'd love to ask you how you've worked on that inside, because that is quite a difference in in how do you build your whole thesis? Also the networks that you source in can be, I don't think as much for you. I think it's more a matter of percentage and portfolio construction more than it's the networks since I think often you originate the deal, but you don't just take a lead, take it just because that's not your model.

49:25Am I right in saying that? That it's more of a portfolio construction change then it's a matter of you changing how you act. You know, it's a very live discussion, I think, internally, because I think that we, with the pre-seed or kind of that very early stage platform model, that's been us historically, it's our bread and butter, and we've done quite well there, and we continue to be very active. Now, in terms of, say, these Series A deals or Series B deals, where we may potentially lead. It is a different muscle. I think a lot of it is it's a combination of ourselves as investors flexing new muscles, but also bringing in new talent.

50:12And then our companies just even knowing that we write at this stage. I think the advantage that we have for a lot of these first checks is that they would love to have 500 continue and lead the round or co-lead a round or just be in the round with a significant check alongside another lead. It's something that's a bit newer for us. I think a lot of people will see 500 and either they think, oh, it's 500 startups and I have to tell them, no, we have a new brand, 500 Global. But they still think we're either, we only do Accelerator or we're not even so far as to say that they don't even have a venture fund.

50:48I'm like, well, no, actually we've been a fund from day one. We are very much a venture capital firm. So I think a lot of it is awareness. And I think that we have a number of examples where we were a first check into a company. They went through our accelerator and we actually were, we came in and sort of, I guess if you call it lead, we came in and did a check into that company because we could see how the momentum they had and other investors won't see that. Now, of course, there's different ways we will write those types of checks into companies. Sometimes they may be coming from our regional funds.

51:22They could be a company, again, like we mentioned before, it's a founder we backed before, but maybe it's a much more early bet. But I think that with the proprietary deal flow in our network, I think that's something where it's very unique to us versus us regularly going out and trying to win outside deals from everyone else. There is some element of that, but again, I think the benefit of us having this 3 ,000 portfolio company network and growing is that we have a lot of relationship and information symmetry. And that's to our benefit as we expand our scope, write bigger checks. We should talk a bit more about what you do in Europe, especially because as I said in the beginning, people may have heard about 500 Emerging Europe, but you also have a good Portuguese guy with you who's doing some stuff in the Baltics.

52:14so I think I'd love to give you the opportunity to talk a bit about that oh yeah so uh specifically about our Portuguese guy or yeah tell me a bit about what Pedro is doing uh we've had Pedro so and just to provide some context I told you this before but we've had Pedro on the podcast back before like three years ago so uh so it's cool to hear what he's doing now and also So what you're doing in the rest of Europe, aside from Ennis, is very good work. Pedro actually has been with 500 for a number of years. And he currently is a partner for our 500 Georgia Fund. And that fund is primarily investing in companies that are going through the 500 Georgia Accelerator Program.

53:01We have actually, I think, invested in one or two companies that have graduated from that program as a second check from the flagship funds. But it's definitely, you know, Pedro, he's a fellow Cal Bear, went to Berkeley. But he, you know, this is like a great example of a market that people probably first confuse with the U.S. state. They think Georgia, right? And, you know, a lot of questions like, well, why Georgia? And what we can say back is, well, people said, why Mexico? Why Japan? And why, what is Southeast Asia? Is that India? So these are very typical questions we've gotten from every other, every other region and market we've been in.

53:45And Georgia has been quite interesting for us in terms of running programs there for the last few years. We have great partners that have helped us in terms of anchoring this, this fund and, and the program. And they, he, he's really, I feel like, I don't know if he has a Georgia passport or, But he really loves the market, loves the founders. And I think that's a great example of us taking a bet on an emerging market that we feel like will have natural quarters and connections to what we're doing with emerging Europe broadly. So with NS and Arun and team. And there's a lot of overlap and synergies, at least in terms of some of the markets.

54:31And, you know, in terms of what does that turn into, Georgia is still a relatively small country. like a small population wise. And all those companies are typically trying to target the broader region or being a global company. So I think in the next few years, it'll be really interesting to see how that evolves in terms of the broader 500 and with what we do in Europe and maybe Georgia itself and how that ecosystem grows. Can I ask you about a question that obviously everyone listening in will have to apply their own thinking to read through the lines? because I can only imagine that when you run a model like you do, picking or deciding to do something in Georgia, when you have a fund that's focused on emerging Europe already, that must have led to some interesting discussions.

55:22Oh, yeah. I think sometimes you'll find in different geos that there's either that overlap or making sure that we're not being like cannibalizing ourselves or shooting ourselves in the foot. So in this case, there definitely was a lot of, you know, Enes and Arun are very much, there's a lot of close coordination. I think one of the differences is that the 500 Georgia team and Pedro, they run, it's primarily that first check pre-seed accelerator. So it's very, very early. Whereas emerging Europe, they don't run any accelerator. They're moving up the stack as well. Exactly. Compared to where they were in the first fund.

56:06Exactly. Their team is a growing team and very talented, but it's still a small team. And they write direct checks, increasingly larger checks, slightly later stage than the accelerator that's in Georgia. So it's a natural handoff, I guess, let's say, if there are companies that, you know, the very early stage. I don't believe that. And we are very careful about this as well, that there's not like a conflict in terms of they're going after the same company. So the stage and check size and the model are very distinct between the two initiatives. So it works well. And I think like NS, he helps look at the deal flow and that's coming in for the applications.

56:49And they do try to share quite a bit of deals. And both of them have an interesting angle towards the U.S. as well. Like a lot of those companies want to come to the U.S. or be part of the market here. Why Easton? Why not the rest of Europe? Why not Portugal? Portugal. Just because Bretz are always from there. Yeah, that goes back to like doing a Portugal fund or whatnot. But, you know, we do have a lot of strong investments in Europe more broadly. So, you know, like I mentioned, TalkDesk is a U.S. company. The founders came from Europe originally. We were also investors in companies like Algolia.

57:33Ninefin is kind of a Series B stage company based in London, but they're doing quite well. And maybe like 100 others. And we've had various phases throughout the last 14 years where we've had more active investing in Western Europe, people on the ground there, and it's evolved, obviously. So today, like I mentioned, we currently don't have an active investment team in Western Europe. But one of the nice things is that with Ennis and the Emerging Europe team, they do spend a lot more time in London because there's a lot of synergies there. even if they are focused on emerging Europe, a lot of those founders want to be in the UK or in the US even.

58:12And I think this goes back to something we talked about. So I mentioned that, you know, us being a global organization, obviously that's, we're not in every single country. And I think we have actually just found that a lot of, in a world of, you know, maybe limited resources, limited time, of course, we want to be everywhere, everything all at once, like the movie. But I think where we've really concentrated and where we've actually seen a lot of that more success is in those more nascent markets and the maturing markets. So like Eastern Europe or emerging Europe or Latin America, Southeast Asia, et cetera.

58:48And where we see the world going is that there is a little bit of this globalization increasing in some ways. And then at the same time, some markets are a little bit more domestic focused or kind of almost de-globalizing so it's an interesting dichotomy and that is also connected to the stage of the individual ecosystem uh yes so very much more accessible than eastern europe

59:23now christine i'd love to ask you to just give us a shout out to someone you really love in the ecosystem because we do like to share the love here on the podcast oh i feel like i need it's like the awards like the oscars or the yes you have some long list of i'd like to thank you spend 10 minutes talking people but if i were to give i'll give one shout out and this goes back to those those serendipitous pay it forward type of interactions who are awesome and so i'll share one one investor that i think i'd like to give a shout out to because it is uh wesley chan people call him Wes but Wes Chan who started FPV Ventures so he was previously at Felicis for many years he was a GP there I worked with him at Google um this is probably around 2005 or 2006 so we both worked on Google Analytics which if many of you may or may not know is a product that is now incredibly huge market share on the analytic side but it came out of an acquisition of a small company in San Diego called Urchin Software.

1:00:27So he was the PM who came over and helped, you know, turn into Google Analytics. You know, I didn't have, I remember, you know, he joined Google maybe a couple years before I did. And I didn't, I knew he was a PM, but he would, all I see, all I used to see him do was he was, he's, if anyone, if any of you know Wes, he's very like, he's an interesting guy. He's kind of like talks really fast and he's kind of like all over the place. And he was, he had this kind of interesting role where he did a lot for Larry and Sergei. So he would like take pictures and do all sorts of things. So when I had the opportunity to work on Google Analytics and he was the PM, I remember thinking like, oh, I don't know what it's going to be like.

1:01:02He seems kind of like an interesting personality. But, you know, he was like he is very much like a kind of this bumblebee, like busy bee. But he was so like during that time, he was incredibly helpful to me. I was in a more of like a technical operations role. I'd wanted to transition into product and product marketing. And he, I remember he came up to me and said, okay, we're going to help you get into, get into product marketing. So you're going to do all these things. And he almost like laid out this plan on like, we're going to have you go to New York. We're going to go to New York together.

1:01:35And we're going to go to this web analytics conference and you're going to do some like arbitrage, like competitive analysis and pretend you're a customer. And so it was, if you guys know Wesley, hopefully that was a sort of a good impersonation, but But he just really was like, okay, you want to do this? I'm going to help you get there. And then eventually I did end up moving into product marketing. But it's just things like that. I think especially I was, I don't know, still relatively young in my career, pretty junior. He really just paid it forward. I didn't know him super well. And I think that was just a great example of many, many years ago.

1:02:12I don't necessarily believe that things are predetermined per se, but it's sort of like that step helped get me to this step, which led to that step, which now is where, you know, like things happened in a way that got me to where I am today. And then, you know, today, Wes, you know, we're both investors in the same, we're both investors in Canva and a number of other companies. And, you know, when I see him from time to time, he's still the same Wes, like he's still like super, like a lot of energy, super, super humble and just a great guy. So I feel like, I don't know if you get that everywhere, if that's unique to Google, that generation of Google or Silicon Valley.

1:02:49But he's someone that has, if he listens to this or if he even remembers that whole Google Analytics year, someone that has been really awesome for me.

1:03:05I love that. That was a really good one. Thank you for that. So now let's reflect on the last 10 years of your life and building a global firm. I know you have three core learnings. You've got play the long game, all about relationships and trust. You've got keep evolving. VCs must keep innovating. And then you say, don't rest on your laurels. I'd love to ask you to just pick in the respect of time here. I know we only have 15 minutes left. So pick whichever one you want and then we go into that. Oh, this is a tough one. You should pick which one intrigued you or not. I'm having a hard time picking.

1:03:46Maybe it's a jet lag. VCs are jet lagged all the time. So I would love to dive into don't rest on your laurels, actually, because I think that it's very interesting to talk about this whole concept of building a franchise versus building a boutique firm versus, you know, also career-wise, how long do you actually want to run at your fastest possible pace? Yeah. And let's start on the firm first. To you, why has Don't Rest on Your Laurels been so important for the 500? How can we see it through the 500 journey? I think a lot of this stems from my own personal values. So I do feel like, you know, like let's say the way I grew up, I think we, you know, nothing was handed to me or to my parents.

1:04:42You know, they came here, this is kind of typical immigrant story. They came here with like$10 in their pocket or, but they, you know, they didn't, you know, we, we didn't come from some legacy family that, you know, we immigrated here. So everything was built here. And a lot of the, what my parents were able to accomplish and providing the life for myself and my brother growing up where we did, I don't know, brute force. It was just hard work. It was just the result of hard work. And it's very typical for immigrant families. And I think also for me, I feel like I did a lot of those things. Certainly, like parents did help in terms of like either the like helping with homework, let's say early in the days, but they didn't grow up here.

1:05:22So in terms of figuring out the school system or how to do things in the US, it was really like I had to figure that out. So I think, and even when I think about my journey prior to starting 500, that whole thing about like Wesley helping me get into, you know, helping me figure out like a way to move into product marketing or whatnot. Like a lot of that was like I had to figure out and might have attempted it and I got rejected or all those things. And so I think the rest on your laurels is really more around like you've hit some level of success, but it's not you can't guarantee that. Like, OK, I got into product marketing at Google.

1:06:01Like, you know, my work is done. My career is set. It's just more of like or we closed our first fund with 500. Like we finally hit our, you know, we're done. And it's like that's like to me, I always have this. Maybe it's this the Enneagram type I am. I'm a six. So I'm always anxious and paranoid. I always think like, okay, that's great, but like something's going to happen or like, who knows how long this will last. So it's not a very relaxing way to live, but I think it at least goes down to like not letting that fire go out or that urgency or the, the, some of that paranoia is actually good.

1:06:39Like you can't count on the next one. You can't count on the next markup. Something can happen. Life happens. Macro effects happen. So I think there's always that bit of me that feels like I always have something to prove and you have to keep working hard for it. Like, yes, people will think all these great things about 500 or you or whatnot, but I always think about like, but, you know, it's like not being satisfied in some way, like, but we're, you know, we, we've, we, you're sure we have this AUM, but when are we going to be like at 10 billion or like, sure. We have invested in great companies like a talk desk or Canva, but like, like when will the next Canva happen?

1:07:15Like, I don't want to miss out on that. So I think when you think about 500, that's probably the challenge with a lot of firms, especially when you think about succession planning is like, maybe they've had the success and maybe they don't feel the urgency to innovate or kind of reinvent the firm or, you know, but I think the firms that don't do that, you know, they're not going to last. I mean, they probably have lasted for many years, but I think it's when you think about who do founders want to work with, who LBs want to keep backing, you know, they want to, you want to work with firms that are going to keep wanting to do better and improve themselves.

1:07:49So, and I think that's definitely been the case for 500. We've evolved quite a lot over the last 14 years, and I think we'll continue to evolve and grow. And everyone on our team just works so hard, like the, all the way up to the managing partner level. Like we just work, we, you know, the, the whole, like, like VCs not working hard or whatnot. Like, I, I think we're an exception. I do feel like we work all the time in all time zones. And, and I feel like a lot of that is because we, you know, you can't guarantee, again, you can't assume it's success. Like you got to keep working hard for it.

1:08:23Do you have kids, Christine? Yes, I have two, two boys. How old? uh they are in uh they're a bit a little bit older now um but my my eldest is in um middle school so it's like a like we'll be a teenager this year and then my younger one is uh is turning 10 pretty soon i have two children as well six-year-old and three don't write don't rest on your laurels is something that i have very much always lived with tip on your shoulder and all that then you have children, right? And then you realize there's other stuff in this world that matters. And at some point, resting on your laurels might actually mean that you're just, you know, taking time for something else.

1:09:09How do you navigate that? Do you have any, you know, every single VC conference you go to or tech conference you go to and you end up in the wee hours, that's the topic you end up with, right how how is life at home how do you manage this oh it's it is not easy i think i i do have i am fortunate that at least my support system at home is is very strong like my my husband obviously deals with the brunt of it when when i'm not home but he's he he knows like i you know i i gotta do what i gotta do and he's he's always been very supportive um this entire my you know entire time We actually just celebrated our anniversary a few days ago.

1:09:52We've been together for a very long time. We were high school sweethearts. So that gives you an idea. I know people think I still benefit from looking young, but we have been together since high school. So that's about 28 years. We've been married. Our wedding anniversary, the two anniversaries fall on the same day. But we've been married for 16 years. So it's definitely been a very long time. That helps. I think the fact that my kids are older now, it does help. That helps a lot. I think that when my kids were very young, it was much more challenging. And, you know, of course, like my parents are not too far away.

1:10:30So they always, my mom constantly thinks I don't eat, we don't eat anything or we're starving. So she just can't help herself. Typical Korean mom, she cooks up tons of food and brings it over. But, you know, it's like those things are very, make a big difference. I also do try to make sure that if I am traveling or doing something, it's something that only I can do. That is needle moving. It's an incredibly interesting predicament, right? Also, because many of the people that we have on the podcast here have gotten to a place where you can't really say that it's needed anymore. Right. Yeah, that's true.

1:11:08You could stop now. Right. And then we have to dial down your lifestyle a little bit. but then you could definitely go down to a small amount of hours and then you'd have all the time in the world for your kids, right? Or being with your kids and all that. So I think it's always a very interesting conversation to have this exact... So when it's really just a matter of what do you want to do and what do you feel called to do in this world, then I think it's incredibly interesting to hear how people think through that. Yeah, no, it's a good... That's a really good comment because I think it definitely applies to parents.

1:11:46And I know a lot of times when you're the mom and there's either certain expectations or whatnot on women who are parents versus men. And I do think that everyone has their own system. You really just got to do what works for you. But I know for me, I do feel very fortunate that I think if I didn't have that support from my spouse and my family, it would be very difficult. So I think that's something that's a big consideration for anyone who has a very intense role. I'm the exact same, right? So I would not call my role very intense, but I do work more than the average person, right? But it's definitely, it's only doable where I think that I provide what I want to have my children have in terms of family life.

1:12:36That's only possible because of my wife. And luckily we had spoken about that before deciding to have children, right? I tried to talk about this with as many as possible because I think it's so important that we keep revisiting it in our careers. And now, the Quickfire.

1:13:03Christine, I'd love to go to our quick fire round. Are you ready for that? Sure. I think so. What advice would you give to your own 10-year younger self? Take a lot of risks. They don't always have to be the big, massive ones where you jump out of a plane, but just take a lot of risks, small to big. Just do the uncomfortable, scary thing, especially when you're younger, because you never know what will happen. What are your top tips for emerging VCs across Europe for fundraising? Three things come to mind. So one, it's kind of like the three biggest learnings type of thing. But one is definitely that relationships and trust are paramount.

1:13:45It's easy to focus on that short term, like LPs will write you a check now. But don't forget about the long term. So this is definitely the case with a number of LPs in Europe, especially, but many of them really don't want to invest in a first fund. And they'll take many years before they consider backing you. So just build those relationships early. Second is bring that unique thesis, that differentiated position. So like why would, especially in an increasingly competitive environment in Europe, why would a founder choose you? And keep finding ways to demonstrate that conviction and prove out your thesis.

1:14:19And that leads me to the last point, which is, as you do that, beware of distractions and drifting away too much from your thesis. You know, we talked about going to conferences, like don't try to do everything or be at every conference or be at everything or chase every FOMO deal because that just distracts. It's distracting. And I think what you'll end up is that you'll end up spending whatever money that you've raised for your fund on a bunch of deals that don't actually prove what you were trying to do. So the distractions piece is especially in venture and like it's very much of like a there's an expression.

1:15:00I don't know if this is the same in Europe, but like keeping up with the Joneses, like what is everyone else doing? And a lot of FOMO, even even me, I'm sure there's a little there's there's FOMO that I succumb to. but be careful of that. What's the most counterintuitive thing you've learned in venture? So funding raised. So for a company, the funding that you've raised and the valuation, that's often what gets celebrated in press and announcements. Like, you know, we've raised a gajillion dollar round, but that's usually a very poor indicator of how the company is actually performing. And I think that we have seen this certainly like, And very much so everyone has seen this from everything in 2021 and the fallout after that.

1:15:45So, but this is even, even without that crazy year over the 14 years of 500, I've definitely noticed this, that of course it's great. It's not a bad thing. Companies able to raise money, notable investor, you get a big markup, but really pay attention to how the company is doing in terms of their, their actual numbers, business model margins. like just like the brass tacks of running a company, you'll find that they're not always correlated. You know, we have actually one of our companies, we were the first investor, they're going to be on stage with me at Demo Day in a couple days in San Francisco.

1:16:20They're a great example. It's a company called BabyList, great founder, CEO, Natalie Gordon. They didn't raise really that much money. So I couldn't, you know, if you look at them purely from the funding raised valuation perspective, it's not going to stand out as much, but the The company's been profitable for many, many years, several hundred million in revenue, and they've just grown so much as a business. And that's a great example where you look at the hell the company is doing. Yeah. And that goes to all the LPs listening in as well. There's other things than markups. Yeah.

1:16:59finally your uncommon belief that meaning something that most people around you don't believe in so i was a disclaimer i don't i didn't come up with this um i'm not sure who was the first one to say it but it definitely something that sticks in my head is that companies don't die when they run out of money they die when the founder throws in the towel or the founder gives stuff. I think this is definitely true. Like, you know, typically when you think about why companies imploded or didn't go anywhere, it's commonly like, oh, they couldn't raise money or they didn't run out of money. But I think a lot of the reason why that couldn't happen is that the founder, the founders of the team, they essentially gave up.

1:17:38And I don't mean this in a insensitive way because I know founders will hear this and be like, well, I tried really hard. But I mean, we have seen so many founders who were like, you know, near death experiences and they really just found some way to turn it around. And I say this more in terms of that founders and anyone running a company, like you're the one and you're in the driver's seat, you're in control. So even with the most difficult, challenging situations where everyone is telling you, you're not going to make it, or the company's going nowhere, or you're going to die, it's really up to the leader to turn it around and whatever way seems possible.

1:18:18you know and I say this thinking about 500 as well in terms of like the various transitions that we've had and you know I I came in and became CEO in 2017 with a very public disruptive founder split and I'm you know I'm sure many people thought during that time that 500 was was gone and you know like it's it's not going to go anywhere it's not going to survive this but But here we are today, you know, now seven years later, and we have significantly grown our AUM. Our portfolio has done great. We've expanded into new markets, have brought on some amazing leaders, like managing partners and, you know, partners in the region, or sorry, globally.

1:19:01And, you know, I think that's a, there's many ways that could have gone the other way. But I think ultimately, it's just like, it really comes down to the person and the people. Christine, thank you so much for joining us for today's episode. It was absolutely awesome. I really think we covered some ground here and made it to shine some more light on a firm that I think everyone in Europe perfectly knows, but don't really know how operates in, you know, under the hood as you started out saying. So thank you so much for joining us. I hope to all of you who listened in today that you enjoyed this episode.

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