E373 | Robin Haak, Robin Capital: The solo GP path and being a founder-led VC in Europe

0:00Welcome back everyone to the European VC podcast. Today we are joined by Robin Hack of Robin Capital. He is a solo GP and just quite the personality and someone who has gone through a journey that I find inspiring myself. And I just very much enjoy talking to him every time. I decided with Robin that we should bring him on the podcast because I thought that people really should get a chance to get to know the person behind the Robin Capital newsletter, as well as also maybe all the chatter in the industry about who is this Robin guy. So please do enjoy this episode as I talk with Robin about everything between, I was about to say, the earth and the heavens, because we are going deep here talking about spirituality, the importance of that and the principles of spirituality in venture, as well as, of course, solo GPs, the role in the ecosystem and why it's important to have operator and founder experience as a VC.

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2:16Tear down this wall. It's more than just an ally. This is a union of values. Let's start acting. This show is not investment advice and the hosts of this episode may be invested in the funds and companies featured. Robin, welcome to the European VC podcast. so to those only listening in robin just did a nice namaste for me which means a lot to me because i know that it means a lot to him and we're gonna talk a bit about that and his travels in bhutan and the rest of the world but to those that don't know you robin before we dive into who you are as a person maybe you could tell us a bit about robin capital first just the highlights of what robin capital is all about the size of it when you launched first how many investments you've done that type of thing well the short oh it's like the fact sheet yeah yes robin yeah robin like the the red chest bird uh robin capital it's a solo gp uh 10 million euro target it's not closed yet and final close will be in december so let's see where we end up but somewhere i don't know 10 10 million is the target.

3:34And then there's 35 investments lines I would like to do. And so far I have been, we are at 22, 23. I started last year, beginning of last year doing this and then very entrepreneurial. I was like, I'm doing this. And then a little bit later, just in June, because normally the sounding and the preparation takes a little bit longer, but I was like, let's do this. And then in June I had the first close, a very small close and I just started investing. And then what I'm doing is B2B SaaS, software as a service. Most of the investments are mid-market or enterprise sales. It's because I used to do this myself.

4:11And this is where it's like kind of my comfort zone. And other than this, it's Europe, 50 % DACH, because I'm at the notary 40 times a year. And I think it's an unfair advantage to some LPs that they don't have to come here or send this apostille and all this translation. So I do it for them. And then the rest is Europe. and yeah, I think 100 to 500k tickets and I try to have around 1 % ownership at the lowest. You're a real person. You're a transparent and honest person. So I want to ask you a question straight up. 22 investments, you target 35. You've just done first close not too long ago. That means you're going to be on the fundraise trail for fund two very soon as well.

4:55When this fundraise is done, So today, actually, I'm oversubscribed now, but I'm just super happy I made it to that point. And when you will call me in February next year, and I will for once only be with the founders and only invest and not being in the fundraiser for a certain period of time. Even people will be telling you, every GP will tell you that the best time to raise a fund is when you not raise a fund. You've got to take time off. I will definitely take some time off and I will be in Thailand boxing and I will love my life and I will be very happy about it but yeah it's absolutely true that end of next year this fund will likely be deployed and then it's time for fund too yeah it's fucking grueling there's another familiarity about embrace the pain embrace the pain and we're gonna talk about that talking about Bhutan embrace the pain I want to ask you about something in this connection, though, because it is a structural problem for many first-time funds and especially solo GPs because they're typically built on the network of the individual, which means that it's oftentimes other founders or other tech operators that are backing the person coming out with fund one.

6:18And then it can actually be quite difficult to follow on with Fund 2 because not a lot of private individuals can continue and not everyone has thought through exactly how it's going to impact the liquidity for Fund 2. And we can all have our thoughts about, well, you should be planning, Mr. LP. But the fact of the matter is that it's their own money and they took it bad and wanted to support. So how do you think about that? How do you prepare yourself? No, I don't know. It gives me shivers already. No, but it's the good and the bad thing is that most of my LPs right now is really community, you know, 45 LPs.

6:59The usual LP with me has 50 angel tickets with the former founder or is like the founding GP of a VC or is like a GP of a PE. So there is a lot of professionalism and they have like 20, 30 LP tickets. However, it's a very personal decision. It's not like, yeah, we invest this amount and allocate it here and in Q3 next year, we would be delighted to. No, it's more like, yeah, I like you and here's the money. So maybe next year when you reach out and say, hey, now it's fun too, would you like to double down? They are like, sorry, I just bought a Porsche or a house or, you know, whatever, or I don't do VC anymore.

7:33Or I turned 70 and not the right asset class anymore. So I think most people, they professionalize over time and then they start having more family offices, fund on funds, institutional investors, these kind of LP class in there. I need to see with the DNA of what we're trying to build here, if it's a fit, right? It can be for me a family office or fund on fund if the person is a good personal fit and I'm with the principal because we do co-investments and so on. And so for me, it's obviously something I want to professionalize. On the other hand, I try to stay small. Many people, they start building a firm and they become a solo GP because it's the start of their legacy becoming a big firm.

8:18I have built firms before and I chose purposely to be small at the boutique and I would like to stay at this boutique. Luckily, I would say when I do Funt 2 in size, it won't be as much bigger. So it's reasonable and I hope to manage. But I do not have this as strong as LP base when it comes to financial power as others who gave you like a million. And it was just an entry, like a pilot. Some of these bigger fund-on funds, you know, have these pilots where they give you like one, two, three. And then if they like you and you do a good job, the next fund, they will give you five or ten if you wanted to.

8:55And this LP base, I do not have. But again, the pros, it's a very much, it's a community now. And we have Christmas dinners and we have AGMs where we go to. So there's pros and cons. Yeah, there is. And I wanted to ask it, of course, because we have so many that are on this trail and trying to figure it all out. Let's go from this into who Robin is as a person, because you gave me a great segue in that you said that you decided to make this a one-man job, a solo GP, and you decided not to want to build a large firm. I'm very much the same, right? I think people that know me would say, well, Andreas is very clear about him building EUVC for himself, his family and David and his family.

9:38And then, you know, it serves that purpose and it serves both in terms of, you know, obviously creating personal wealth or family wealth. But it also serves the purpose of creating a life and a everyday working, you know, focus that I enjoy. And I don't enjoy managing. I've done that before. I had a marketing department and I did not enjoy much of that work. So that's why I'm not building that type of business again. So tell me a bit about yourself and that decision to go solo GP instead of building a firm and what that says about yourself. I started in a corporate career at Axispringer. I had a suit and a tie.

10:20I worked 100 hours a week. And I remember I wanted to invest in Get Your Guide. And I went to the board and it didn't allow it. And I wanted to invest in Lieferando, now Takeaway IPO, and they didn't allow it. And every single time, I was like, this is not EBTA positive. You know, this is not what we do here. And when they came an opportunity to do early stage, no one wanted to do it. It was Axel Springer, Plug and Play, an accelerator. And no one wanted to do it because it was very new. And then I was, again, the guy was like, I would like to do it. And then I had the chance to work there. And I absolutely loved it.

10:52It was my dream job. I'm telling you, we went there, we built the kitchen ourselves. We had low budget. We did it all ourselves. And we invested in these 104 companies in the first fund. I did like six batches, I don't know, 50 companies. And I absolutely love being with the founders every day. But I had a little bit of an imposter syndrome because I was telling these guys what to do and I've never done it myself. And then the opportunity came up to do it myself. however even being a founder I'm sure I loved what I did there working the community the events the mentor day the demo days the all of this I so much loved it and then I became a founder for a long time I learned what it means to yeah sell it yourself hire to have all these learnings and then I came back and then I became an investor and you come to an age where you like do I want to be a founder again or do I want to be now an investor?

11:48Because if you are an investor, you have to do it for the next 30 years, right? There's no way out, especially if you're a solo GP, you cannot go. So for me, it was clear when I became this investor that I really like it and that helped me on the decision-making that I could do this until I'm 80. Even once a week, I could be like, have you eaten your greens, my friend? Like, how's your life? How's sanity? So I could check in even when I'm 80 once a week with some founders. So I could foresee this. And for that reason, and maybe also having achieved some things being a founder and being an investor later, this imposter syndrome went away.

12:23And it gave me the opportunity now to become what I always loved, this investor again. And now to be at service and to give back because I feel having been in the trenches myself, I'm good with the founders. and having been an institution investor, it helps me a little bit on saying no and so on and have a certain structure because without this experience too, I had luckily both. It helps me to have also clear on decision-making and how to structure things and deals. And now I want to go to actually a bit the origins of why we decided to do this podcast together because we had a conversation where I was just coming back from our deep work retreat that we'd done with Fred Destin and Mike Reiner and a beautiful coach, Rupda.

13:18Incredibly powerful and I was enthused with energy and how it has truly transformed a lot of things in my life and how I think about things. I think my wife is happy that I went. And I then, you know, somehow, you know, you said some things, You've said some things here as well that some might recognize as wordings from this more spiritual side, like embrace the brain and so on. And we connected around that. And you said, well, and I asked you, Robin, are you into this work? And you said, Andres, I've been one and a half year traveling the world. I've bought a coffee shop in Bhutan. I've fought Mai Tai in Thailand.

14:02And, you know, I've done a fair bit of work. So maybe this spiritual side and the role it plays in your life, the journey you've been on, maybe you'd be up for sharing a bit of that with the audience. Sure. And by the way, I'm happy you went to this place because it's my friend's place. Yes, exactly. And it came by the recommendation, I think, to Mike Reiner. Because I think the place itself with the mountains and everything and so rooted and the guy bernhard is one of the best designers in the world and and then he's from austria and he left and this was a farm with cows and chickens and this is how he grew up and he had to drive you know like 40 minutes every day to school somewhere like the bus comes like twice a day and imagine going from there out of nowhere in carinthia in austria and then making it to be the one of the best designers in the world doing formula one doing porsche doing all of these things.

15:00And then you're in Berlin and flying around the world from Peru to Tokyo to people, you know, and then saying, you know what, I go back to this farm. And then he takes this farm. And when I was there, I hold a speech and I was even touching the stones because, and I said, these stones have seen so much over hundreds of years. And now he's back there and he's making it home again. And when his grandfather died, he said, I will inherit it to you and you can do whatever you want with it but don't sell it it has to stay so he he did it and he made this event space and is working from there and giving people an opportunity to connect there i think with with nature and earth and so on and i think that's beautiful so i'm happy you were you were there it's an incredible space i came back thinking you know multiple things one like just prompted by the space.

15:52One was definitely Austria is on my list of places I should go more often with my family as well. Incredibly beautiful. The individuals, Bernhard and his wife, Katia, is that her name? Katia. Katia, yes. Incredibly kind people and just building a space there that is incredible for anyone that wants to do events that are remote, that just, you know, where the place is in service of what you want to do there, where you really truly connect. You did your own AGM there, which also had like, because it was so beautiful, which this space is, had a weird individual on LinkedIn go crazy about, you know, solo GPs throwing money at events.

16:40The guy doesn't know that it's sponsored and done between friends. So, you know, act on his face, I guess. It's good that he gave, yeah, it's true. And obviously he gave me his home for free. We worked together for 13 years. But I think this is what you said earlier on network and relationships. When you think in lifetime relationships, then, you know, it's always, it's like this karma where things come and go. Zaita Amidi, when I did Axiswinger Plug and Play, he was my 50 % shoulder. He's the founder of Plug and Play, right? Very successful investor, 4 ,000 investments. he taught me this kind of he has this like everybody with him is family, he always makes these dinners he always takes care of you, he cares a lot about you and your family and it's more like a Sicilian mafia way of working together he's Persian but you know it's a very cozy atmosphere where yeah their life as work and family life and it all comes together and it's always a lifetime and I I love to work like this and shake it.

17:45You're completely right. And I think that how bad it might sound. Venture is a super long-term game. It's so network-driven that, you know, you can almost find inspiration in the models of the mafia or the models of anything that is rooted in trust and individual-born cultures. and like, because everything happens between individuals here. So I do think that, you know, a less terrible way of putting it, not including the mafia, but the rules of karma and the rules of, there's a reason why we invoke these words when we talk about venture of everything comes back and paid forward and all those things.

18:35And I do think that there's something we can learn a lot from that. And that is also why I think that events that are built to really foster long-term connections, we ourselves have said we're going to do much, much less tech events, no more tech conferences. I was literally on my way into this call. I was in a call with Ben Sondas, a polar explorer, and also another guy who we're also going to do trips with. he's um he's an ex special forces guy and we're gonna just gonna pull out 10 12 people that really need to know each other because we have all spoken to everyone in the industry with you know for 10 minutes shaking their hand and had high loud house music playing on top of it so you didn't really get shit out of it right um so we're really doubling down on these trips in places like I am Escape, as Bernhardt's place is called.

19:37And I just think that that's the route we need to go as a venture ecosystem. Ultimately, it's about always the human. This is something my father already told me 25 years, 20 years ago. It doesn't matter. It's always humans who are coming together and make a decision. And there's different interdependencies. Everybody's dependent somewhat. and then you need to see how you make it work. But ultimately, it comes down to core human being. Making a bridge to, on this travel, what you have asked earlier, because you asked me on the name on Katrin. Katrin is Katarina, right? It's the holy Katarina, is born von Anhalt, is Catherine the Great, but ultimately it comes from the Russian leader.

20:22It ultimately comes from the Katasis, and it's the Clintons. and even every drama with five acts has a cleanse and there's this where everything falls apart and then you identify with it and then everybody's dying and then you're cleansing and then you are reborn into something new after you understand where it's going. And in the end, there's always acceptance and this is in every drama, but this is also when you would read Kübler-Ross, the five stages of when you die, when you know you have cancer and you know you will be dying. There's these five stages like a negotiation. What does it mean?

20:54and you talk to God and you're negotiating. You're like, I will never do this again if you let me live. But in the end, you come to acceptance. And it's interesting that if you see like Amor Fati, or like Friedrich Nietzsche, all these things, in the end, it's this pure acceptance. And your life will be easier when you live in the moment, when you're mindful and when you're conscious. But ultimately, it's pure acceptance and being in the moment. And this is also by embracing the pain, because ultimately everything you are experiencing is external and ultimately it's what you and your mind make out of it because the past is the past it has happened the future is the future it's not there yet all the pain you're suffering is not real ultimately you're here right now in your mind and and you make with it whatever you want to do with it and i think it it takes a lot of work to come to that point and when you start working in your career you hold on to it you know this is your purpose and you want to be rich or whatever famous or whatever you want to become or you want to you go into a corporate and there is a structure and a hierarchy and you want to it's a whole system in industrialization from like 8 1890 where people got into this manufacturing and it made people made this doing and then they want to go up in social class and create this wealth.

22:17But ultimately, after a certain amount of wealth, you will not really become any happier, right? Because you need enough to have a home and do not sleep under the bridge and have food and maybe you want to go to holidays. But after that, it's not really getting any better. So ultimately, you want to have this purpose. And this purpose then could be where ultimately your life and your career and everything is also purpose-driven. And And at first you need to clean yourself and be good with yourself. And if you achieve this, maybe in a lifetime, it's not possible. Then it's the next life. But if, then the next step could be to serve others.

22:51But having said all this, when I was at JobSpotting and then Smart Retreaters being a founder, and I lived in San Francisco, and then we raised, I don't know, a 50 million with Insight and then 110 million with Silver Lake. And we came to a certain point now, 100 million AR and 550 people. And I was fully vested and I left. and then I said, I'm going to travel. And there was obviously offers again on the table, what you could do. And then I traveled the world and then you fall into like a massive vacuum and many people describe this. And then you get a little bit lost because you had been this leader all the time.

23:26And then for the first time you wake up in the morning and you don't know what to do because you travel. And in the beginning, I was traveling very fast because I took it like work. I want to see this thing at that temple, in this temple. and then at some point it drained me too and then i calmed down and then i started thinking about more spirituality from yeah meditation and zen buddhism or buddhism and i went to tibet and butan and other places but then also from kabbalah or even pachamama in peru you know or mongolian shamanism and i went everywhere and i wanted to see what it is and to wrap it up in very short, in my personal understanding, it was somehow all the same.

24:12You could even make it a Star Wars analogy. There's like a force, something greater, and you can connect it. And there's different ways to connect it. It can be a prayer in the church. It can be with Pachamama in Peru. It can also be through meditation. There's different ways of connecting. It can be chanting and singing and having certain vibrations. And all these different ways guide you to the ether universe or god or whatsoever and when you do this it will help you to find your core and i make one last quote if you're looking for god you're finding yourself if you're looking for yourself you're finding god because if you look inside and you clean this you will ultimately connect and the other way around and this was very helpful and once all of this discovered and then i i think i want to clean this i want to make a clean cut on the story i came back I became an investor because the opportunity was there.

25:04We raised a 250 million euro fund with two friends, Ibn and Jaliz, called Revaya in Paris. And then I understood I want to be an investor, but I want to have a smarter boutique and I want to have it on my own terms. And this is why Robin Capital. And that's then the end of this journey and the beginning of the next 30 years. Yeah. I want to ask you one thing because you shared on your newsletter and a big, big shout out to your newsletter. I really think anyone who listens to the European VC podcast and follow our newsletter should definitely also subscribe to yours because I do think that – again, I'm getting a nice namaste from Robin.

25:44But I really am saying this because I think that – and this also surprised me. You actually come with a journalist background, and that shines through. It's not just another wrap up on kind of how the fund is doing and the investments you've done. That's there as well. But you put real work into featuring friends in the ecosystem, other people in the ecosystem that are maybe not friends yet, but that you aspire to be like or want to do more with. I just think it's an incredibly well-written newsletter and there's not a lot of people putting a lot of love into their writing. So I want to credit that and advise everyone to subscribe.

26:25But what I wanted to ask you was, you had a story about a coffee shop guy. And maybe you could give much more credit and love than referring to him as a coffee shop guy because he became a close friend of yours. But I'd love to ask you. So the story ends with him having to fold on the coffee shop because of COVID. And then you were trying to see if someone could help him get on with his new business, which was more travel oriented. Can you tell me, where did that journey end for him? Does he now have the funding that he needs? Or is he still looking for a bit of an assistance from someone in our audience, potentially?

27:12And maybe first on the newsletter, just thank you for supporting this. I think because we were on a solo GP retreat like a week ago and people were asking about marketing or whatsoever and what to do. And my advice there was, you need to find something that you love doing. Otherwise it makes no sense. You know, if you start doing things for marketing reasons, that's not what you're passionate about. And for me, I like writing of course, and I studied theology and philosophy and politics at the time being, I thought I would end up born alone for studying this but now it's kind of helpful however the reason why i'm doing is because i truly love human beings i love i'm always i'm so curious about because yes you can be another vc and rest another billion whatever i don't care but it's interesting what was the background about it you know from childhood to some passions to some stories to even me going to a bar having like a beer and then talking to a person at 2 a.m in the morning who tells me he went he was on a ship for 30 years you know it's fascinating and and i love to hear these stories because they are always unique they are always part of their dna and heart it's almost like your fingerprint right it's your story and no one can have this story because it's your story and and i love picturing this and this is where these newsletters come from so thank you for saying this on bhutan yeah i was traveling i thought him i asked would so i want to see these different places um i went to bhutan i had a guide we spent three weeks together we went to a lot of temples we were meditating many yet yeah we were praying and we were meditating and and i learned a lot i think i asked him like 50 questions a day like if you die how long does it take until you realize that you that you're dead and there's these six thingies in the wheel of life where there's also semi-ghosts and there's animals and there's humans and how do you know and who is evaluating I had so many questions on the path of enlightenment and with the three poisons of Buddhism why is it the dove and the pig and the snake symbolizing exactly this and I couldn't stop so you become really good friends and you're in a car all the time because the king of Bhutan decided that it's good for you and mindful to drive a big car for hours instead of taking a tunnel so they don't have tunnel they are also the the you know they are i think the most climate and friendly country in the world and and yeah the king all makes it possible because he says good for you we just want to be happy we don't need to be more modern when you spend so much time we became friends and then we walked up tiger's nest it's this monastery that's in the mountain you may be have seen or not it's very beautiful and It's kind of the highlight of the whole trip.

30:03And we went up there. And I was a little bit sick that day. And we arrived on top. And I wanted to go down again. So it was beautiful. We went down. I think it's a snail or a snake path. But it's very narrow. And then we were walking halfway back. And then they were like... And like super big thingy. And like everything is closing down. So they closed on top. And you couldn't walk the trail anymore. and on this trail was only me because everybody was already on the monastery and not being back yet and there was the last person coming up the whole royal family including the lama including including all spiritual persons of wudan and then the military some people come the bodyguards everybody is like you know it's me and then the queen mother so the mother of of the king and the whole family was there is front row is the front person she's like hey how are you in perfect english i'm like i'm good i'm robin like super inappropriate okay i'm also bowing then i'm bowing for a long time and my god is like and my god is like literally this so it's not bow like this you can't see all the way down with his uh all the way down his face is very close to the ground and i talked to her and she was very friendly and then i told her that he went the snowman track five times, which is one of the hardest tracks to do in the world.

31:31And it takes 30 days and it's through the mountains of the Malaya. And he saved five people's life. He actually did. They become, they're hallucinating and then they put a tent on these people and then he put them on the back with this tent and then they run down and then they call a helicopter on the next thing and then they fly these people out. And he saved literally some people's life. And I told her. And then she said, I want to shake his hand. So she's like, his head and for him for like two days he was this was the most important thing that ever happened to him in his life imagine i don't know that your king and your queen mother is shaking your hand and is congratulating you and we became even bigger friends so during the time i asked him what's your dream and to to wrap this now up he said in all of bhutan there is no like american coffee shop with like these machines you know um and and he would love to build this and then i said look i i i will make it happen and then i made it a present to him so he wrote me a business plan he rented a place in timpu on on on the second side road to the main road on the parallel street and then i wired the money and we talked every day and my designers made a design for him and then we had a coffee shop there and he had music and so on and then COVID hit and then for two years I was financing it I think, don't get me wrong it's like 10 ,000 euros so manageable still of course a lot of money but manageable and then ultimately we decided we cannot survive anymore because in Bhutan especially no one was coming because they really were suffering and then he stopped doing this I wrote the blog post some years later and he went back into travel business where he came from.

33:15But for even then, the year after, it was really hard for him because there was not much travel. And now I think it's up again. He now has a wife and a kid and has a family. And he went back to his, basically, it's a tribe, like 15 hours. They always hitchhike. And then they hitchhike for five days to come where they live. And then he arrived there and then he started a family. And now he's back into traveling business. And he just congratulated me for one year anniversary. And I think it would be beautiful if anybody goes to Bhutan and hearing this. I'm happy to make a connection to my friend Rinsen so they could meet him in person.

33:55Yeah, absolutely. Beautiful. I do hope that one day we'll do a trip to Bhutan as well. And then for sure from EUVC, you'll have someone asking for an introduction. Incredible story. I love it so much. Now I want to go into talking, talk with you a bit about, you know, how you build as an investor today. And maybe we should start on the topic of the fact that we don't have that many operators that have turned VCs as well in Europe. I think we're talking like 8 % or so, if I'm not mistaken. I think that's the number that I see quoted by solo GPs that are operators. So maybe you'd give me a bit of your take on kind of what you see that allowing you to do, how you see it resonate with founders, how you see it maybe being an important addition to our ecosystem versus the more financial investors.

34:53In my case, I've done early, I've done late growth investing, and I have been founder and operator. And I could say I think I've been from zero to IPO and beyond with Rivaia. We even did crossover investments with SecoMore and have a couple of public lines. and I joined the board of Stepstone and we were preparing IPO with KKR and Axel Springer and a lot of banks. And I did this advisory board for three years. We haven't been going IPO yet, but I hope it's happening soon. And so there is these end-to-end experience on both sides. And this is what I try to give you as a package that I'm not helping you from pre-C to C and C to A or there is a certain phase.