How to Raise From US VCs as a European Founder — Marc Cohen, Investor, Unbundled VC

0:11Marc Cohen:Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Scaling Stateside podcast. I'm David Rose, the founder and CEO at U.S. Expansion Partners, along with my co-host and co-founder, Matt Oxley. We are on a mission to help founders better understand the U.S. expansion journey, the pitfalls and best practices to hopefully give them a greater chance at success and faster success in the U.S. market. As part of that, we're hosting a series of conversations with founders and VCs who are funding U.S. expansion for their portfolio companies. And today we're very excited to have with us Mark Cohen, who is also an AI builder, but also on the VC side as well.

0:47Marc Cohen:So, Mark, thanks for making time to join us today. Please introduce yourself and tell us where in the world you are today. Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm Mark. I'm in Guernsey, which, for those of you who don't know, is a small island between the UK and France, like 65 ,000 people or something. But, like, yeah, we've got some interesting people here. You want to know a little bit about me? I guess I was a maths undergrad at Cambridge a long time ago. I was a trader at banks, quit in 2001, did a master's in AI, built a couple of times in AI, including building the world's best poker AI, switched into VC, built my own portfolio, which is doing quite well, including run an exit to Strava, which is very nice.

1:35raised a fund which we'll probably talk about because of the thesis i guess but like uh and then post raising it decided i didn't want to do it and give them give them the money back to the lps and kind of you know trying to play and figure out if i might want to build something with ai at the moment and uh on the side i do a little bit of stand-up which is fun

2:01Marc Cohen:my first guest to say that that's for sure um so mark one of the things that we always like to talk to our guests about is um take us all the way back to the beginning what was your very first paid job so my very first paid job and because i'm old people might i might have to explain this was a paper route for those people that don't know papers used to be physical and people used to have them delivered to their house and they used to pay school children uh to go out in the cold and wet and do that and try not like get bitten by dogs as they were putting newspapers through uh letterboxes so that was my my very first job first paying job all right that's it's amazing how many people have said that i mean i think we'll start keeping metrics uh you know the early hustle um kind of sets the path for for the career for sure well let's let's fast forward a bit so from the paper route you end up at cambridge in math um and then you started building AI or studying AI and researching AI.

2:57Marc Cohen:Talk about that part of your life that's kind of led you to your professional career. The bit that led me into AI is just like the sort of wildest set of random coincidences you've ever heard. So I went into the banking trading side of things, which I really enjoyed. But a good friend of mine, my best friend at university, Emma, went to work for what was then Erds & Young, now EY. Absolutely hated it. Couldn't have hated it more. Got like a transfer. So I'm just going to go do this in like Cape Town for a bit. I can go do that like a three or six month placement out there. Never left. Married the guy she first sat next to on the plane on her very first flight out there.

3:38I used to go visit them a lot, her a lot, because she was like a good friend. I became good friend with her, what became her husband and all of his friends. They're all surfers. I used to go on surf trips with them to places in like the middle of nowhere where like literally we were the only westerners and on one of those trips one of the people there eugene gave me a book on ai which at some point i read when i went home and it interested me enough that at some point i quit my job and went and did a master's so like quite a random set of events to lead me down that that path the first um i guess

4:14Marc Cohen:application that you built was in poker did were you already a poker player or did you just kind going to go to AI to poker? Were you poker to AI? I guess is the question. I think someone had introduced me to poker. There's a funny story about this as well. Sorry. We sidetracked, but for another funny story. So I was working for the Royal Bank of Canada. We were trying to hire a trainee for the desk. This trainee came and sat on the desk for like a day or half of the day, like in a few different spots, including sitting with me. He chose a different job. I then quit, got a better job off and went to work for like NatWest.

4:49When I got there, I was given a new trainee and it was the same guy who had turned down the previous job because he was going to have to sit next to me and be my trainee and then ended up being my trainee in the new place. And he taught us all how to play poker. So I hadn't played much poker, but that was when I first got into poker and then I was like, okay, this will be a fun thing to go and do when I went and quit and did that Masters. so love it um and then obviously ai um poker and then into vc tell us kind of from operator startup into into vc how did how did that how did that come out uh so oh how did that happen well i think there was there was i was doing the ai and poker and i brought that friend into the trading business because I was at that point I was doing like systematic trading and building systematic trading systems and then I brought the friend in from the that I did the poker stuff with into the trading and we did the trading thing that stopped at some point um uh and we moved here and I didn't know what was next and I was like I've been fortunate enough to do sort of reasonably well out of that and I was trying to figure out like the best way to invest my money uh and also what was going to be next for me and those two things kind of ended up coinciding uh and that was before the whole sort of ai boom like started to kick off so those things ended up converting as well and and when you were kind of getting into into venture did you did you have a thesis was the thesis evolved over time because you started at 1818 am i right in saying that and was it was that your own fund did you join a fund what was what was the situation I joined that fund.

6:38I ended up sort of being co-owner of that business for a while. And then I sort of left to, I want to say, do it better. But there wasn't like a huge underlying thesis from me at the beginning that evolved over time to something that's obviously, funnily enough, much more consistent with the podcast that I find myself on today. Well, there we go. Lovely segue. way into um your thesis because you know background for everybody's like me me and you appeared on a panel at the into america house which was fantastic conversation and i've always been just absolutely fascinated by by your your thesis and i'll i'll say it and then you can kind of tell me how badly i got it wrong um is you you started unbundled to actually um invest purely in tech companies that were going from the UK to the US.

7:38Yeah. So a few reasons. I'll tell you how it started. So it started with Runner, which I was fortunate to be an investor in that got bought by Strava last year. The founders at some point said, hey, we're going to start targeting the US market because it's like 10 to 20 times the size of the UK market. And I was a bit skeptical about that at first. Not that they were doing it. I was like, is it really 10 to 20 times the size? Like GDP at the time was like, I did the research it's like seven times I was like okay well it's still bigger and then I asked them this and they were like well yeah that's true but like on the consumer side actually people spend a lot more of their disposable income on like SaaS products and then I did the research on the business side and it's also true of businesses that they spend a big portion of their thing and they're happier to engage with early stage companies and they move faster the second piece was there was literally one deal that i'd missed and the sole question that that the founder asked me and i think i missed it just because i was late actually i was late to come to it sole question the founder asked me just do you have a network of like usbcs that could help me like in the next round and i was like i got one and he uh and he was like actually that's more than most that's as many as any of the other ones that i'd asked i was like oh god that's not uh thing so at some point i did a speculative trip out to the u.s and i like booked for a week uh i had no meetings in my diary when i booked that trip i said to my wife worst case i'll go i want to meet vcs that can follow my portfolio current or future worst case i go for a week work remotely for a week come back not really any downside but can have permission to stay longer if i can turn meetings into meetings stayed for three and a half weeks met 38 funds uh and the thing i got told again and again was like why don't more people do this uh because like the only people that do show up show up for like even from larger funds they show up for two to four days and then we never see them again so we humor them but we don't really take them seriously right uh and so i was like okay well this is interesting all of a sudden from like one wildly speculative trip i magically have a better network than the vast majority of people out there and then from a vc perspective vc is all about outliers right it's very clear the returns are driven not by like how many winners you have but like how big they are right and the us market being that much bigger all of a sudden it's like well if you're not doing this why the hell aren't you doing it and so over time the thesis then evolved to like well i only want to invest in those people because it's a filter for not just the potential for those biggest outcomes but also people with the ambition to go do it and i'm sure i've missed a few things out but that was kind of the evolution and then just digging a little bit into that because i imagine you get pitched a lot and i think there's a huge difference between a founder saying yes i'm gonna go to the us and actually executing on it how do you what's your tell what is what is what is that sign that you look for where it's like all right you you're actually going to execute on this and you're going to deliver on this and i want to back you what's that what's that tell that you look for i think first is you can never be completely sure right some people will just tell you what you want to here but like the question i will ask or i'm listening i would rather not have to ask hope they're here is they're going to move right uh because i think it's probably less true in consumer but it's certainly true in in any kind of enterprise sales even like you know sme it just makes a difference if you're there it really makes a difference in you if you're there uh and the even more important than that it's a sign of that ambition level and that commitment that they'll do what it takes right if they'll do what it takes on that they'll probably do what it takes on the other 20 things when it's like this is going to be hard but I'm just going to do it anyway and what what are the things that they've they've the founders come to you beyond the check and ask and and need and because obviously you're in there you're introducing a kind of lead to them you're going on the journey with them right and everybody manages that portfolio but beyond the capital what are the things that they come to you asking for help um on on the u.s angle in particular i think it's like they don't know what necessarily what those u.s investors look for they've heard everyone like oh silicon valley they're looking for this it's different to europe and this kind of thing it's like they just want to know what that looks like and and how to frame that message differently for for u.s investors that in particular what did those u.s investors

12:32Marc Cohen:mark tell you tell your portfolio companies about coming to pitch them did they say hey these are things that you know they can do better did you get any guidance or feedback from the usvcs not specifically on that but you're listening to what they're looking for i think uh and what they're typically looking for is they're less fixed on you must have this level of revenue to be at this point and they're more in terms of how big can this be i think they're also more on um thinking more about like are there 20 other people doing this than european vcs are and look there's always a distribution right uh and it varies but in general they are that's what they're looking for the other thing i would say is that there is a stereotype of european founders which is not necessarily fair but they're like they're sort of less ambitious right uh and less going for big outcome and it's also true that the stereotype of european vcs so you almost have to make sure that they're playing against that a little bit right so they don't necessarily say it up front but they say things that show that that's obvious to sort of so that they're not worried about it let's um let's talk about a specific deal i think you said earlier that runner was one of the biggest uh one of the biggest exits you had um looking at the background information i'm a i'm a big cyclist so extreme when a strava strava makes an acquisition it gets my attention um What got you excited about Runa?

13:57Marc Cohen:What did you learn about that through the exit process to a U.S. company? So I wasn't involved in that exit process. They were doing that. But one of the things that got me excited on day one was I knew when I invested that they already had a significant minority of U.S. customers. And they hadn't even been trying to get them. And so that was in my head when I made that decision to invest was like, OK, they have U.S. customers. and actually try and get those US customers. So there's something going on here that's quite positive. And I think in that specific business, you're like, the running, and it's probably true in cycling as well, culturally very similar, right, in the US as in the UK.

14:41And so some products, you're like, does this product actually solve a problem in the same way in this other country that you're going into? It's not always true. So here there was some, both it felt like culturally it was very similar and there was already some evidence that that was the case. And do you have that as part of your thesis when you're investing now? Yes. So one of my things is like actually have you checked, so this is again for a founder that would be pitching me, is like have you checked that you solve a problem in the US? The most common vertical where this is hard is healthcare, right?

15:23Particularly because the US healthcare system and the sort of UK or European healthcare systems are so different that you could be solving an amazing problem both for whoever your business purchaser is and for like solving a real health problem in the UK. And then in the US, it's like, who's my buyer, right? Because they just have such different incentives. sets that there may be no way to do it and or you may need a different product or it could be the same product but you need an entirely different route to market uh and so it's actually have you thought about that because if you again going back to this how can you how do you know that they're really taking this seriously and not just saying the words if they've actually thought about thought about that whether the customer whether their product solves a problem for people in the US and that go to market that tells you it's less likely to be words and more likely to be something that's really important to their roadmap.

16:26Marc Cohen:And I guess one question, Mark, is when founders go to the US, right, it's part of your thesis that you need to go there and, you know, win that US market. When you go there, do you notice changes in founders once they started operating in the US about how they start thinking? Do they start thinking more like U.S. founders with speed and aggressiveness? Do you notice those changes physically in your interactions with them over time? I think that it probably depends where they are because it is culturally different in different places. So if they move to the Bay Area where that is the most true, right, that where they are just like, oh, we're trying to just go at like insane speed if we can.

17:12they will just inherit some of that just from being around those people. You know this thing where you say you become like the sort of average of the five people that you spend the most time with. Founders are most like that in the Bay Area, so you're more likely to see those changes of founders there. And as you move away from the Bay Area, depending where you are, that like intensity on average shrinks. And for any founder that is thinking of going to the U.S., They're about to book their ticket. They're kind of like, all right, okay. I'm going to go and give this a go. What are the top recommendations that you would have for those individuals?

17:54So it depends what they're going. If they're actually, this is, I'm moving and they're doing it. But like if they're going, I'm going home to the US just to see what it's all about. It's actually have enough time. Again, don't be that person that shows up two to four days. Because I think people just, when I went, people were like, oh, you're staying for this long? just that shows a certain level of commitment and that you're prepared to turn up and like try and make things happen you're gonna have to hustle right because you're gonna meet all those us founders and they've all got so much hustle right and if you don't you're just not gonna whip again this is something you might pick up when you when you get there and i think there's also can be a perception particularly among early stage founders that it's much easier to raise in the US.

18:36It isn't any easier. There's a lot of money, but there's also a lot of people competing for that money. So you still got to be good. Yes, there's a set of investors that maybe think a little bit differently to European investors, but don't think that that's going to be easy. Can you unpack the hustle bit a little bit more? Because this is, I think, something that, you know, we talk about a lot, but I think once people get on the ground, it surprises them. And I always use the anecdote of I had two kids in America and from the age of four, they're doing show and tell, which is basically demonstrating why their pen is better than their classmates pen.

19:17So they're selling, they're selling, they're understanding their audience. Like they're getting into that psyche. We don't do that in the UK or we didn't when I was growing up. Right. So, you know, the hustle surprises people, but I'd love you just to unpack your perspective on that hustle. What is it? What is it people are doing? How do people adapt to that kind of environment? Yeah, I don't know. Hustle is like kind of a strange thing to describe because it's kind of a set of things that you do and an attitude as well. Because it's kind of like, oh, right. Hustle means that you manage to achieve things by ways that are sort of kind of aren't obvious and almost that by definition everyone else isn't doing it, right?

20:05So like in my case, I had to be prepared to go, I'm going to go for a week and if I don't get any meetings, this is fine. But I'm going to hang around and just keep trying to turn meetings into meetings, into meetings, into meetings, right? It's like how do you – it's like the same thing people go – I'll give another example. People go, well, how do you raise money? What is that path that means you can raise money? It's like, well, by definition, there can't be one, right? because if it was everyone would do it and everyone would raise money if i could give you the answer that tells you what that thing would be then it's almost meaningless right because that then would become table stakes and everyone would be doing it so what's the thing you're doing that not but nobody else is so i i this is sort of a non-answer answer but yeah no it's so true because i also believe that sometimes as founders and entrepreneurs you need to go through what you need to go through to get the experience on the other side to therefore deploy it okay and that is that is the hard way but sometimes it's the only way you're going to get that experience yeah you've got to go well how do i how do i show up and get everyone goes oh you show up you can meet this person this person will introduce you this one will introduce you but like yeah but that doesn't mean you're going to get a meeting with like you know ben horowitz at a16z because he's going to take like no meetings right uh it's just yeah by definition it's hard you just got to find it's like finding a way and having like the attitude that you're going to go i'm just going to figure this out and i'm going to try hard enough and just be a little creative as well i mean i don't know it's quite hard to say what those things are to be honest yeah i i think america is a state of mind and expanding in America is a state of mind.

21:52And I think it's kind of very much the door shuts. You've got to find the window kind of mentality. And that to me is the hustle that is required. But also what I do think is that some founders, when they go over there, and David says this all the time, are looking for the easy button. They're not really kind of prepared to go through what they need to go through to get them set up for success. And I think it's just having the tenacity and the ability and desire to actually want to absorb some of the hard things, knowing that it's actually going to make you a better entrepreneur. And that is a state of mind, you know.

22:30So it's such an interesting topic because it comes up again and again, like the hustle side of it and what you're going into. Yeah. I mean, it's the same mind and then the actual doing, right? so you still then got to go well okay I'm gonna actually do the things as well like how do I get a meeting I'm gonna do cold I'm gonna ask for warm intros I'm gonna try and do cold outreach I'm gonna turn up to some networking events and talk to like 10 people that I've never spoken to before and maybe I have to be a bit cold and move on if I think that isn't useful which isn't very nice but that's still what you've got to go and go and go and do and probably five of those events i won't get any useful introductions to but i'm still going to go to the sixth one and like uh and i'm going to do that cold outreach on linkedin that like probably i've done that three days in a row to like 10 or 20 people and no one's replied to anything but i'm going to keep going uh oh this person goes likes to you know play golf maybe don't so i'm gonna go and do this or like don't turn up at their kid's school to watch them play football don't do that i would say like i'm just like trying to like maybe there are some limits you might like terrify them uh maybe they'll take the meeting if you say i promise not to turn up at your kid's school thing i don't know but like this is the sort of thing we're talking about you've got like kind of like go i don't know how to do that but like i want to meet this person maybe it's impossible but i'm going to give it like everything that i've got mark um you recently announced that you're going to be returning funds

24:10Marc Cohen:to lps that is a highly unusual move talk talk us through that decision making and also i'm curious about the lps responses when you call them up and say you're going to return their funds so there's some reasons i'm not going to go into all those reasons but like the uh the lp's actually super supportive like couldn't have been more supportive all like very kind uh and going and actually quite a few when actually if you do this again um then then let me know also one or two that went actually my personal circumstances have changed so while i would have gone and given you all the money and done all this and it would have been fine i wouldn't have meant anything but actually this is still helpful.

24:49Thank you. So like, that's quite funny. And I think I was just like, actually, there were a whole load of reasons. So I would say, like side reasons, which were not the main reasons, but things that I'm enjoying about not being in that situation now, although I'm going through the sort of wind down admin, which is like, you've got to do but not that interesting. It's like, I'm having fun. I'm playing stuff. I'm building stuff for myself now, right? Which is like, useful and you know could be productizable or not maybe maybe not it's probably not exactly the right use of my time but i haven't decided i want to do that i'm being open-minded about where all those paths might lead but yeah i don't know if that answered the question all right fair enough

25:36Marc Cohen:fair enough and so what what advice so you've talked to a lot of founders about coming to the us what what is the top advice you give them um about you know going or is it to go like what is what is the one thing you would you want to make sure any founder thinking about coming to the us knows based on what you've learned to date i think you just got to be committed to doing it right is you have to actually want to do it and be committed it's like would you move like are you all in a hundred percent to go and do this because those and if they're not i won't even make the introductions because they're wasting my time they're wasting those vcs time and those people aren't going to give them money anyway right uh and so it's like that's what those vcs want they want to know you're committed one way or another what does that actually mean to you is this your primary market are you going to move like and can you evidence to me that this is something that you are taking seriously and plan to to take seriously and if you're not don't try because they will spot it and you are wasting everybody's time but if you are they will take you seriously and they will take you as seriously as any us founder if they think you're committed one thing we we see differently i guess in um with when european founders first start coming to the u.s is i think the european founders have been beat to death by their european investors about profitability i'm always trying to explain like like don't use that word that's a bad word when raising in the u.s do you have to coach do you have to coach founders what do you tell them when they're like probably telling you how profitable they are before they go to the u.s market the the deck that says are we going to be profitable in two years time i was like i was just like no you're not i was like oh you like you see it in lots of decks one is also it's not like what that is that's really for like mainly for angel investors right the uk there's a profile of uk angel investor that wants to go hey i'm gonna be profitable now we won't need any more money and I'm going to exit to this thing in this period of time.

27:42And it is the opposite of what any good investor wants to hear. Because a good investor doesn't care, I want to be profitable. I hear the good investor wants to know, I am going to build this huge business that yes, will be profitable, immensely profitable at scale. And then we won't even have to think about exit. We're going to IPO or we'll be buying people, not people will be buying us or, you know, we'll do a stripe and stay private forever or whatever it is. It's like, but we're going to build this insanely big business. And it is like entirely the opposite of what an angel investor wants to.

28:18The challenge is if you're trying to raise from both sets of people at the same time and they want different answers, but like, yeah, that's not, the main thing is you need to know how your investor base thinks, right? What they think, and then actually only take money from them if you're aligned with them, if you actually want to do that, right? don't be telling this person this and this person two different stories because like you're gonna have to make some decisions about how you run your business along the way and you're gonna piss someone off if you don't do that and actually you probably won't get what you want either how much hand-holding do you have to do so you you've got a european founder you know you you're you're backing them you're supporting them you're kind of holding their hand as they're going through the process what what coaching do you frequently have to do when they're engaging with us vcs so i think in general what i tell founders uh is like i'll be anything from a frictionless investor to like your first coin i'm happy to be anywhere on the scale and you'd be surprised how much founders eyes light up when they when they when they hear that which tells you something about like how much of a pain in the backside most investors are i think uh but um in terms of handholding i'll let them get on with it one i want them to be here if they do it and i think it is if they want to raise from that u.s go they'll go oh hey can you help me raise here from someone in the u.s i was like okay have you got a deck and have you got me you're like tight bullets and they're like uh and then you look at the it's it's not stuff that's actually that different to if they were raising somewhere else because like is the deck any good do i think this deck is going to get people's attention if i'm emailing someone to take a meeting i need to get their attention beforehand and actually in the u.s it's where it is in the u.s worse because some of those people get so many right there are people that get 10 000 decks they get 50 000 decks and so it's like not only do you need those tight bullets but you need that first email subject title to be good or no one's even going to look at the bullets.

30:21Then those bullets have got to get their attention to the open the deck. Then that first slide or two slides has got to get their attention. So they're actually going to bother to read the rest of it. And it's the tightness of each piece. And it's more important in the U S than it is in Europe, but it's still important in Europe as well, I would say, but it's just not there. It's very rarely there and tight. And I'd say I'm as bad as anybody else. I had my own deck when I was out raising my fund and like, mine probably wasn't as good at that as i would like it to have been either so i'm just as guilty of it well yeah because i think there's a stat out there it's like vcs make their their decision the first decision the first 45 seconds right they're reviewing it you've got two slides whatever whatever it is and then i guess there's a kind of it's not a translation thing but it's like right how do you get them prepared right because there's there's the kind of like here's the here's the deck here's the message here's the bullet points because you're putting your professional reputation on the line as well it's like you've you've worked long and hard to build these this broad network in the u.s this is your thesis what what was what's that kind of pep talk that you're giving them prior it's like you've got the materials i'm connecting you to barbara who's killer right you got to go in there and impress off you go what's what's that what's that what's that pep talk i think most things they most need to understand is like to get inside the heads of the people they're talking to like what do they care about right and if you think about what they care about you can present stuff in the same way that you go okay like the content's the same but like i'm giving this to them in the way that meets what they're looking for and it's no different actually to if you're doing sales, right?

32:10If you're selling to a client, it's like not just I have this product and it does X, like what does that client actually care about? You go, okay, well, I'm presenting this in a way, it's exactly the same product, but I'm presenting in a way that makes sense for what they are looking for, right? And so like for a VC, it's like, they're looking for something that potentially has a huge market and great people to do it and is really solving, is solving a real problem, right? Particularly if it's early, it's not 100 % clear if you are like A or B or whatever you've probably got enough revenue you're at least solving a problem for proved you're solving a problem for someone so it's like that's what they're thinking for and wanting to they're trying to figure out to go do I want to consider this as an investment so you have to then present your thing in a way that meets what those filters are right what are they trying to do what do they think they can sell to their investment committee because they got to go and do that as well.

33:06Am I in remit, right? Does this even fit your remit, right? And actually you go in and go, am I wasting your time? Like, it's like this, it's just like need to, all those things. But that's a really interesting point because we speak to so many founders, like they go, I sent 3 ,000 emails and I didn't get a response. I'm like, well, have you understood the remit? Have you understood the partner that's involved for this? Have you really gone out on X or whatever it might be and find out who knows more about the problem that you're solving than you. And I think that is the gap that I think founders go through because, again, to David's point, they want the easy button.

33:46It's like, right. If they sent 3 ,000 emails, none of those were personalized, right? I get those, and I'm like, well, that's out of remit. If you've sent me one and it's clearly wildly out of remit, you don't think, that's getting marked as spam, right? It's not just a thing, it's getting marked as spam, which means it's less likely to get through to the person that you actually wanted to get through because you sent something which is like, you didn't bother this. Or the person you could have personalized it to, you personalized it to badly, because it just didn't have that much care and attention.

34:15So there are some great tools out there that can enable you to do this really well, but make sure that it actually, like read some of those emails and check them against some of the people that you're sending them to and go, does this actually has actually been written well is it been written badly that it's just going to piss off the person that you do want to get the attention of yeah because i i think you know the guidance that we give is you know it's not quantity it's quality so go and discover who those 20 individuals are you know you mentioned it before maybe don't stalk them but be very creative about how you engage with them and get get your business in front of them yeah there's no harm in doing cold outreach this is all fine and actually it is to a certain extent a numbers game right you do want to get it in front of like as many people as possible but you don't want to get a shitty pitch in front of as many people as possible right which means that they're going well you know because then you're just going to kill all your chances and if they've said no once like they might not you might have lost your shot actually so that that's the risk if you're doing

35:22Marc Cohen:it that way mark are there are there companies and you can name names or not if you'd like are there companies european companies right now you think are really being built for u.s scale that you are excited about even if you're not involved that you're kind of looking at watching from the sidelines is there a company that either profile wise or industry wise or sector wise you're like really excited about uh so i'm probably not paying enough attention to ones that i'm not investing in if i'm honest uh so i don't really have anyone to to to call out i'm afraid fair enough fair enough and also we don't condone insider training yeah absolutely not no don't do anything illegal don't kidnap their kids and then say you can have them back if he puts the money in my heart.

36:15We've been stalking the good news. This is not good guidance. Did that go too fast? I love it.

36:27Marc Cohen:Well, Mark, is there any topics, again, we're trying to help founders prepare for the U.S. expansion journey and U.S. fundraising journey. Are there any topics we haven't touched on today? You want to make sure that a founder who's starting this process needs to hear before they get started? uh yeah i think so we covered them a bit matt i think when we're on that uh panel one thing is like uh the delaware flip is the thing that people talk about is like you just have to be prepared to do it it's not that hard it's probably gonna cost quite a bit of money you don't need to do it until you have an investor that says they want you to do it they just want to know you be prepared to do it um in terms and then one of the other things that i think we spoke about was like where are you going to go where in the u.s are you going to go and what are the considerations well if it's capital There's a whole load of considerations.

37:11Obviously, most capital is in the Bay Area, and there's quite a lot in New York, and then there's lots of little different areas. Where are your customers? That's a thing that you sometimes want to be physically close to your customers. You don't necessarily want to be looking for an acquisition, but you might want to be near potential acquirers at some point in the future. There's no harm in that because they may also be potential partners from you. There are all sorts of tax incentive schemes all over the US that you absolutely should not be ignoring. And so you should be looking to see what those things are.

37:46Where's talent, right? So where do you think the talent that you need to hire is best acquired? So if you're going to go and build a US headquarters, that's one of the considerations. So I think there's a whole, when you're going, the default is I'll just go to the Bay Area. And that is the right answer for lots of people, but there are more considerations than that. And you should have all of those things in mind before you make a decision. I think also for some of those areas, some funds, when you get outside the Bay Area in New York, a lot of the funds, if they're local to that, will only invest in low, have like a regional remit.

38:24So for example, you know, in Seattle, they'll have a Pacific North, which has like a great actually load of software engineers and AI engineers like there, but there's a Pacific, A lot of the funds there have a remit to invest only in the Pacific Northwest. So if you get there, you do become accessible, and you're moving there, you will become within remit for some of those funds. So I think, yeah, there's probably like another five considerations as well, but there's a chunk of things there to think about. Great.

38:56Marc Cohen:Mark, this has been really great. We really appreciate you sharing your story with us. We're excited to see what you're going to do next beyond your stand-up career, which is obviously going to be huge. But after that, we're kind of curious that you're going to build some more, you're going to invest more, maybe do some of both. So please keep us posted. Will do. And thank you both for having me on. And where do people find you if they want to kind of follow your story, Mark? Do you want to just share that? Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. If you search for me, you'll find me on LinkedIn. A profile picture has me with one of my kids sat on my shoulders.

39:28um unbundled.vc is my uh website um yeah come find me come say hello fantastic well look it's been an absolute pleasure privilege always enjoyed our conversations panels so thank you very much for for joining today really do appreciate it cheers i enjoyed it too