Scaling Stateside Podcast - Episode 2: Ali Mitchell, Founder to VC Journey and US Expansion Insights

0:11Matt Oxley:Hi, everyone. David Rose here with USXP. Welcome to the Scaling Stateside podcast, where we are doing our best to help founders from UK and EU venture-backed tech companies understand more about the US expansion process and the US venture capital fundraising process. My co-founder, Matt Oxley, and I are going to do our best to bring guests here to add value to those discussions. And today we are pleased to have with us Allie Mitchell. Allie, introduce yourself to our guests. Hey, guys. Great to be talking to you on this massive subject. It's very close to my heart. My name's Alistair. Everyone calls me Allie.

0:48I am a founder, turned to the dark side, became an investor, now running a fund called Odyssey Ventures, who conveniently for this podcast is exclusively focused on taking the most ambitious British and European founders into the US and helping them to go from there globally. So good topics and lots for us to cover.

1:09Matt Oxley:Well, it is a big topic. One thing we always like to hear about, Ali, is how people got their very first start in business. Just tell us briefly about your very first paying job. Well, I won't talk about my first paying jobs and I had a series of terrible small summer jobs after that but probably the one that got me started and showed that I could kind of build business become an entrepreneur and and frankly paid my way through college was being a dj and we were just talking about the mighty Southampton University and the College En Véran but I yeah I was a dj around Southampton for many years and that paid my way through college and was a great start to being an entrepreneur and doing what you love and making a living from it what was your dj name well we had a series of them but the night was called one night stand um which is you know if you're a dj you know that's what you're trying to make it down but no um it was good fun it was a good it was a great way to great way to to party and have fun and make money at the same time i love that's where we're leaving it it was fun yeah let's just leave it there um what i would like to do and i think you know what's really intriguing and i i certainly love with these conversations is the journey that got you to where you are okay because i i i fundamentally as an entrepreneur and you know in in venture myself i i love learning about people because i believe in chapters it's like you you learn from one chapter you take to the next you take to the next be that an idea be that a contact be that you know philosophy whatever it might be so um you were studying maritime engineering in in uh southampton and you became a vc that's that's a kind of like that's that's that's a huge kind of like journey uh can you tell us you know you know what what sparked your interest to i think firstly be an entrepreneur talk us through some of those kind of like founding stories of those first businesses but then i think the thing that i'm really interested to kind of ask because i think as you as you alluded to earlier you went to the you know you called it the dark side um what was that kind of catalyst that took you to the dark side so there's a lot in that and i'll let you unpack it as you as you might no it's great well it's great to hear you you could always tell a founder that's become an investor because the first thing to talk about is people because it is a people business and founding a business as always so my founders the hardest thing every problem is a people problem ultimately when you're growing but my journey was was i came out of uni as an engineer my family been engineers my grandfather been entrepreneur and um so i either wanted to go into engineering or go and start something myself it's kind of one of those two stems and um some guy this is in the height of the dot-com booms this is early 2000s and um a bunch of guys coming out of uni was had who had come out of my exact course had actually gone off to be a consultant and gone and so on they were starting a business and so i joined them basically so i thought that'd be fun i got a bunch of offers from fidelity and big grad schemes and still the kind of conventional route and um i went into a startup earning precisely one-fifth of what i would have been earning if i'd gone into those those jobs which my now wife didn't forgive me for many years but um we went in and it was a great journey right and it took me from all over the world um i was at one point um being a tea taster in the highlands of uganda schlepping around with my suit my black dell laptop bag trying to sell internet trading software in place where they hadn't had copper in the ground for five years let alone any form of working internet this is before the mobile revolution and overtook all of africa and is now ubiquitous um but you learn a lot right you learn you know every journey but i love that got the bug decided i could never be particularly employed properly did a couple of startups we actually sold that one um i did another one that was a total disaster with a friend from uni um but it was a model worked but i just didn't know enough on how to make it successful um which fed into one of my later lessons, which is just about the ecosystem and learning, which is why it's great to be doing this podcast.

5:06Then went to work for another great startup that was not my own this time called Dunhumby. It's probably one of the best UK startups that no one's ever heard of. But you use their products all the time if you go shopping in Tesco or Sainsbury's or in any of the French supermarkets or the US ones using their loyalty cards and all the retail media and the data and the in-store stuff you do. They were special. So that we bought what was now known as a SaaS business um we took it to about 50 60 million um so as a startup within a startup they exited i left to go and do my next startup having taken all my lessons and that's called huddle which was well known in the uk back in the days one of the og kind of london startups of the first dot com the first of the sas cloud boom as everything was was growing in the um mid to late 2010s and we grew that that's when i moved to the us that took me to the us we raised a bunch of venture money from US and European VCs.

5:58Lived 10 years in the valley. Halfway through that, we sold Huddle with a very much an up and down journey. Learned so many lessons about when to raise, when not to raise, how to do the US journey, which we'll talk about. Got it wrong three times. Sold that. And then having done that, I still wanted to do a startup. But by that point, I realized there were many, many better founders around. I'd been lucky enough to invest in some incredible founders as angel that had gone on to become a unicorn so i thought i'm pretty good at spotting i know i love helping founders and making sure the mistakes i don't make um but um and i want to do another startup so why don't i start a fund so i started a fund made some more great investments and then eqt came along and said um we would love for you to help us fix vc we've read your posts we have a very shared alignment we're starting a venture fund could you come and be one of the first partners.

6:47And so we built that over seven years, raised two and a half billion, three funds. And I ran the US team, the London team, the New York team, the Paris team, the operating team, all the B2B investments, and sat on like 120 ICs as a VC. But most importantly, what I think my job is as a coach, guide, mentor, sounding board, therapist, frankly, to founders on their journey and spent all my time focused on helping European founders grow into the US and helping US founders grow the other way into Europe. And I've been lucky enough to partner with some amazing founders, amazing VCs, all the big names in VC, and then, you know, companies that are now like Handshake, one of my most favorite companies, which is a pre-IPO company in San Francisco with hundreds of millions in revenue that I've been there from, you know, pretty much the start with the founder so amazing journeys and now backing founders again to do the journey um from europe into the us the next generation of founders with my own fund because i think once you've been a founder you're basically unemployable for the rest of your life so

7:55never a true statement said i mean that that that's fascinating that's and and if i may just kind of like honing into that that kernel of founder to VC um obviously there's a what I'm kind of unpacking is like there's a human side to it as well where there's a you know paying it forward you know paying it back you know those types of analogies was it was that was that part of it because you felt that you knew the founder better than than anyone else because you you've walked a thousand miles in their shoes so therefore creating funds and creating environments for them to prosper would that be that be fair and i had a pretty bad experience a lot of my um vcs not all of them there's a couple who i will work you know and literally on a call with one of them in his new guys literally last night and i will always work with him but several i didn't and so i really felt that it was um it could be done better i certainly felt in europe it could be done better having been a founder yeah you obviously said you want to solve it you know you have that you want if you've been through the experience you want to make it better for other people and that's my motivation and i also you know love helping founders on their journey that's the kick you get out of it there's really three reasons why you might go into vc one is that and sometimes it's exclusive or some of the combination otherwise you just want to make a load of money there are much easier ways to make money and faster ways so that's the other thing you learn in venture um although you know if you get it right in the long term then the outcomes can be enormous but it's still better to be a founder um and then the third way is you really love new technologies like you know you're just you are the the earliest of the earliest adopters and you can see a long way into the future and have a real thesis on how the market's going to go and want to go there normally it's a combination of all those things i'm probably you know people first i would say right and helping founders on those journeys and that's my kind of modus operandi and what i hope i'm known for and where i get the most kicks out of and it's helping founders on their journey because it's an it's an incredibly hard and difficult journey and i admire people do it so much.

9:54I mean, what's really interesting in that is what you do is you're probably exposed to such a volume of deals and founders. So that's probably kind of scratching, you know, the entrepreneurial itch. You're kind of at that level, being able to kind of dive in and, as you say, kind of get on calls late at night if needed. So is that kind of like, does that scratch the itch or is there any part of you that's like okay right maybe maybe i'll i can go again or is it i get my right now i get my entrepreneur now from founding founding a vc building it's just like founding any startup you've got product market fit you've got team you've got timing you've got fundraising you've got selling you've got everything all the things that go with a startup um so it is it is like the same challenges it takes even longer to get funded than it does in a startup.

10:44So raising money a bit is even harder, especially in today's market. So you get that from that. No, what you get is the buzz of seeing amazing people succeed living their journeys, and that's the up bits and the down bits. But hopefully being successful and having it. And then the competitive bit comes from having a better track record than anyone else, having more winners, higher percentage of winners, bigger deals, bigger wins, and beating the next guy to the best deal and unearthing that amazing founder who's doing amazing things and winning. So it's a great job. and it's different from founding business, especially your first startup where you're all in and your whole, which I remember my whole family, 200 staff, five offices, mortgage, everything, all the, so intense in your first business you start.

11:28It's a bit different as you go forward, but it's still the same level of competitive drive and a desire to win and a desire to help more people to win as well.

11:36Matt Oxley:Ali, I think a lot of founders from their side of the table look at the VC side of the table and go, oh my gosh, that's such an easy, great job. You just get to go to conferences and travel and talk to founders and write checks. What an awesome experience. What are some things about being in the VC business that most people just don't understand from the outside? I think, well, I think there's a big difference if you, like any business, right? And this is speaking to the founders who are listening to this. There's a massive difference between founding a business and working in a business that's already been successful, just as there is founding a VC and working in a VC that's been very successful.

12:16So take that away, right? One is much harder and I hope more rewarding than the other. But once you're in it, the biggest difference is, well, there's several biggest differences, but one is the feedback loop, right? Feedback loops on venture particular are very long, right? So, you know, 10 to 12 years and companies are staying private now 15 years. So you have very, very long. So understanding and knowing that you're successful is really hard. And you're removed from all the startups that you're working with. That's the first thing. Second thing is, you are not running a business. So the biggest difference from a founder, an operator becoming a VC, and this is one of the things you have to learn, is that you can't fix or help or do everything in the business.

13:01That's the founder's job. And they're much better at it than you. And they're the ones that will make it massively successful. You can't, what you can do is give them some view around the corner is the phrase, you know, looking around the corner, looking ahead, say, look, here's what other, what's happened to other founders in this situation. Here's a way of doing it. So they don't make mistakes. Secondly, you can supercharge them by saying, look, at this stage, if we could bring in this person or land this customer or get this investor into your business, imagine that would like 10 or 100x your business.

13:29Let's go do that. And that's really our job to help you do that. But the rest of the time is to get out of the way and to be a sounding board when they need you. Great founders are fantastic at asking for advice and help and network and support and introductions and customers, but not running their business for them. So it's a very different type of model to if you're founding a business. But the biggest thing that you have to understand is that just like anyone, there is a paymaster. VCs have their own investors. They have their own board. They have their own team to work with. just like a founder does.

14:03And those dynamics are incredibly important and are actually often more the reason why someone's not going to invest in you. Your thesis, what you've sold your LPs, you're going to invest in the status of your fund, your status in the partnership, what you're like with your, where you are in your allocations, the timing of it. And those things are never visible to a founder or very rarely to a founder. But they're all dynamics that make a decision. And about 90 % of those things are nothing to do with you as a business. And so, you know, learning that, figuring that out is part of the learning in the game.

14:34Matt Oxley:You mentioned thesis. Let's dig into that for just a second, Ali, because I think a lot of, especially first-time founders, think, oh, everyone in the venture capital world is the same. They have money. They invest in startups. I'm a startup. They should invest in me. Tell a first-time founder or someone listening, explain what an investment thesis is as a venture capital firm or partner and why it's important. and then how founders should think about thesis and how other companies align. I mean, the easy way to think about it is you have a startup that does a particular thing. You have a product and you're selling that product or service into a market.

15:10And you don't do everything. You don't just say, I just have a technology. You have a very specific thing. It's the same with an investor. That's like saying, oh, I have a technology. It's like saying I have money. Now, investors have, in most cases, a pretty strict and specific focus, like a product. It's their product. Now that might be because the firm has a very strict thing. Some firms just do B2B or they do a subsection of B2B. They might do just biotech or even within biotech, they might do something very specific. So some firms can be very specific. Some are more generalist. But if you're generalist, that means you do invest in most things.

15:41You will still have a stage you're focused on. There's no point talking to someone if they don't invest at your stage. They'll also have a geography. So they're not that generalist. And then they'll have partners that do the specifics. They'll have one partner that does biotech or healthcare in one region. They'll have one partner that does fintech in one region. They'll have one person that does B2B software, SaaS and AI in another. They'll have one person that does consumer apps or even networks. You get very specific. So you've got to know exactly who you're talking to to understand what they invest in and what they do.

16:11And are you a fit for them, like really specifically. And then you have to understand all the other things that go along with the personal dynamics of do you like them? do they like you? Do they invest in your type of founder? Because you are a type of founder. You could be a sales lead founder. You could be a technical founder. You could be an introvert, an extrovert. Do they invest in your location? Do they have any money? Do they have enough standing in their partnership to be able to deploy and invest? Are you calling them right before Thanksgiving and they're in the US? All of these things, so many things that go into it, but it starts with understanding, do they actually invest in the thing that you do?

16:46is their product it's a product market fit is your product too much for their products

16:53Matt Oxley:and what what is your current investment thesis what's a what's a perfect deal for you so our perfect deal is we invest at an early by staging what we remember early is pre-seed and seed so the first or second check in to a business institutional check beyond friends and family we invest in UK and European founders. I'd love to keep on saying European, but unfortunately I have to say UK and European since disastrous decision a few years ago. UK and European decisions, founders who want to go global, specifically starting into the US. And so that's a very specific set of founders and they want to go now, not in five years time.

17:33They want to go as quickly as possible because they believe their next investors, their market, their customers, their team and talent are going to be there. and they can go. And in terms of where they're building a startup, they are building in which sectors. They are using all of the new technologies, specifically AI and automation and all of the new data techniques that are coming out, where it intersects with the physical world. So our thesis is that the world does not need another CRM, even a CRM with AI on top of it. That's just a slightly nicer thing that we've been doing for 10, 20 years.

18:09But if you look at the rest of the world, which is most of what we live, whether that's materials or health or science or deep tech or energy or transportation, all of these things are being massively disrupted by AI and automation and the new technologies that are coming out of the most fundamental levels out of amazing universities across Europe, spin outs, all of the research that goes on. And those things are being accelerated 10 or 100x by AI. Like you used to spend 10 years dropping different formulations of a chemical or a piece of new protein into droplets to work out whether that's going to work in your particular formulation.

18:50That would take you 10 years and thousands and thousands and thousands of combinations. Now you can do that with AI in the digital realm or in the compute realm in a matter of hours or days or weeks. And that is enormous acceleration. And we're just starting to see the cusp of that. And that's going to change everything about what we do. And so those are the sort of founders that we're looking for, who are building amazing tech, which Europe is fantastic at, and want to take that global because they have massive ambition to be the global winner. And just kind of, I mean, that's fascinating. But as it pertains to finding those companies, how do you typically source those deals?

19:30Do you have a kind of methodology? That's the next thing to think about, right? So if you're a VC, you're basically in the no game, right? So if you think about it, a typical VC partner in a VC firm will make two to three deals at most in a year. So they might do over a three-year fund lifecycle. They might do five to ten deals because if they have any more, they have too many to look after. They're joining boards. The founders won't get the support they need. That's not many. Now think about how many emails, cold emails, events, conferences, startups, founders you might see, hear, read about on TechCrunch, see at the local universities, see it in accelerators in a year as a VC.

20:19You'll see thousands, if not tens of thousands. So that starts to give you an idea of what you're trying to get through as a founder. you're trying to get from hundreds if not thousands down to three or four maybe if you're later stage even one or two like it's a very small thing so if you just think about it as a numbers game what that means is the importance of founders being able to articulate and impact an investor in literally minutes in a conversation and i know i'm guilty of this still is that when i'm raising money right i know i'm not good enough at it it's something you you constantly try and get better at but you have that sort of timescale and generally an investor will make up their mind about a pitch or a thesis within the first two lines of an email or the first minute of a conversation so the first thing is to cut through that noise what's the first way you cut through the noise what introductions so if you think about a thousand and you're trying to get to five you know cold emails reach outs on linkedins um pings are very unlikely to make it through that barrier to you know to actually look at the pitch the fastest way is an introduction from a trusted source to that particular investor because that's you've already crossed a massive quality bar and then you have your one or two minutes to persuade the person or one or two lines but that gets you from like a thousand to like the hundreds if not you know down maybe even less so that's why most investors don't put on emails on our pitch numbers or contact us it's not because they're trying to be assholes or you know they're trying to do it because they're trying to it's a self-selection and why is it important it's not to make their job easier i mean it does but it's not to do that it's because if you can't get to that connection and make the pitch how else are you going to make your next round or make the next biggest customer or find that amazing bit of talent so it's like it's basically these constant tests in fact raising money is a test so the reason why there is the monday morning pitch meetings when you come and pitch for investors it's not because they like to sit in their ivory carters and have people either pitch online or come to me it's because it's a selling test can you sell your idea can you stand up in front of people who you've never met who have seen thousands that are super cynical and probably maybe seen yourself just like yours literally the meeting before and beat them in a pitch because that means you'll be able to beat them in a customer pitch or pitch a new technology partner or hire the best bit of talent to join you or sell to your next round so all of these things are basically tests essentially to help to basically to filter to get through so that's what you've got to understand is that the number one skill is not the technology you're building it's the ability to pitch and sell yourself and the only other thing that you can do to help you to do that is clearly we haven't talked about technology at all here but clearly is to have a technology that is absolutely ripping that people want to contact you now that's fine by the time you get to like a late seed series a or be because your product's out there.

23:18If you're doing well, you'll have people contacting you because the rest of the time, VCs, when they're not being pinged, they're spending their time doing research, like finding you. But at the very early stage, like the stage I operate at, there's very little data out there. You don't necessarily even have enough product yet. So you don't have that as your ability. So you really are about, can you connect and share your vision and pitch your idea and where you've got to and have something to show, even if you don't have massive product traction yet. And then just a follow-on question, if I may, which is of the companies that you've invested in over the last six, 12 months, may I say, were they inbound?

24:03Were they through the network? Were they sourced by you? Because I've spoken to a lot of VCs that have actually got a kind of an engine and data and repository where that will create outreach by them um others are just very much inbound how do you kind of manage that and again i think you know percentage of success you know from the ones you've invested in where do they come from what was the source of that yeah absolutely yeah so um generally all of the deals we've done we've got to know through a referral of some form but they've been through our outreach right so um we've um one of our start investments um is a company called viridi um it's a it's a spin out from selhampton and the reason i know it is because i mentor at their accelerator day oh brilliant and i met dan and he was clearly the standout founder from two and a half years ago absolutely incredible guy basically making plastics out of co2 has a huge number of patents a totally transformative industry in a trillion dollar market that absolutely requires his business You can't use palm oil or oil or gas to make plastics, but we're all going to live off them and we still use them.

25:13So we went to find him. We found him, got to know him, and that's how the ratio. So that's an example of an outbound sourcing. Another one that's a stealth one out of the US is a Cambridge founder. She was so ambitious that she bypassed everyone in Europe and went straight to San Francisco to build her business. She'd been working at Neuralink and Science Co. and building neuro, this is neurotechnology. So basically brain-human interfaces, which is the next foundation of medicine. And we found her as part of our team out in SF, who's basically look at all the European founders that are coming to the US and capture on the other side.

25:50And our venture partners saw her and said, this person, this founder is incredible. She is the best of the best of the best. You need to meet her. And we met her. And that was a case of both sides are pitching each other as much as each other, right? In that one minute time. So, you know, you know, you know. And so that's an amazing. So it's a real mix, right? Outbound, some referrals. And then others where you're doing a presentation and talk and they come to find you afterwards. And the connection is really strong. And then when you're evaluating a deal, what would you put first? Opportunity and product or founder?

26:27um so we we have um what i developed over um many years is called a 6t framework and as in six t's just as a way that i can remember it and i can sort of mentally score things and it's it's not perfect but it is a pretty tried and tested kind of rubric and so the the six t's are um and i'll try and get them right but it's basically it's but to answer it starts with team which is basically founder right so team timing tam traction technology and tempo so team is is is a team right so is this just a clearly incredible technologist like amy the founder we're just talking about with the neurotechnology um just clearly best of the best has she been able to track around her a group of people who are also clearly amazing so that's the team then you've got timing and they're in order for a reason so timing is super important because when i was selling tea trading software in the highlands of Uganda, where they hadn't had internet ever, that's clearly the wrong timing, right?

27:27It's pretty freaking obvious, right? It's a pretty brutal lesson in timing. But there are other markets where you could be five years ahead of it, or you could get it perfectly right. And actually, timing and the market timing beats almost everything. So timing is super important. TAM is the one that most VCs get completely wrong. And if you listen to any great VC, they will admit that this is the one they get wrong most. There are some famous examples. Uber in SF is bigger than the entire taxi market in SF, right, from about its second year. It created a new TAM. So great founders, great businesses create TAM.

28:03You always get it wrong. And they're normally starting off in one thing, and then they kind of grow from there. And they can grow faster than you ever think. So that covers TAM. Then you've got technology. So is it, and this is obviously important, but you're looking for something that is not just better than everything else, but 10x better. And that comes from customers and users. You know, you can try and assess yourself, but it comes from users and so on. Then you've got traction, which is the way you can tell if a technology is better. Is it just growing better, faster than others, even if it's very early?

28:33And then tempo is the last one. And tempo is a shorthand for us for speed. So we'll talk about US versus European VCs and investing climate. but speed is literally the only arbiter of truth in this market so the faster a founder's clock speed the faster they iterate the faster they learn the faster they ship product the faster they iterate product the faster their users use it the faster they use on board the faster they can raise money just faster they get back to you the faster they talk and have a conversation with you like speed is everything like an enterprise sales it's the same thing it's faster something it goes through a funnel and more like you have product market fit.

29:11So it's the same thing. So speed is like the ultimate arbiter. And yes, a business might take a long time to reach its full potential. But in that, it's going very fast on the small steps as it goes through.

29:23Matt Oxley:When you're engaged with a founder and you're kind of going through the evaluation process, what are the things that founders often think are really important, but really aren't? And what are the things that they regularly think are unemployed, but really are from your side of the table? yeah great point i mean there's the classic like what you want to use with the use your budget and your forecast and what are you going to do with the uh the money the founders always think is really important it's completely irrelevant first of all because your forecast is wrong the minute you wrote it it's a forecast you have no idea right so just rip that thing up right what you spend the money we'll figure that out with you right and it's always going to be the same things and it should start with engineering and products right above all else so if it's anything else well I guess if it's anything else, then that is a flag.

30:05But generally, that's what you're focusing your time on. And all that matters is how long is it going to give you? Are you going to be sensible with the spend? So that's stuff that people really worry about, and this is totally one. I think people don't spend enough time on their founding story. The best founders do, again, using Amina's example. That's what she spent her whole time on. Why was she here? Her sister has a particular condition that means she's super personally motivated to do this. her co-founder saw Elon the boring company and saw what could be done and the future of machines and the human body and wanted to do that so you know those are the sort of things that people are really matter because at the very earliest part of the journey you're backing a person or a couple of people if it's the founders and that that's what's going to have to carry them through you know in 10 years time this group of people is going to have to have the energy and the stamina to be still standing when they've taken thousands of hits they've had to hire and fire great people their business has gone up and it's gone down they've worked every late hour they've not seen friends family you know they've kept growing and they've done that incredible pace and resilience and humility and that's like a really freaking hard thing so that that's why you're backing people right and that's what the judgment you've got to make is what is it about this person that is going to allow them to build this great business because the other thing that's the total truism is that the best founders iterate their product in response to the market benioff said a great phrase which i think is credited to him which when i was a founder i hated i was like no he's how me of course saying to mark benghuff was wrong but you know what does he know right and it's that the phrase was tactics dictate strategy and i was like that's bullshit like it's strategy to take tactics but it's not it's completely the other way around he's completely right basically you build your business in response to the market demand so and as the market shifts you shift your product that doesn't mean you're changing like every day like one million is selling one minute selling here but markets change all the time and you might start off here and then you're gradually evolving to be here he didn't set out to be like a pure cloud company serving you know doing marketing and automation he set up so essentially started with crm then he iterated and iterated in response to the market demand same with amazon they didn't start up to be aws right but that's now the biggest most profitable part of their business um and so all of these businesses and elon musk is the best example of that right you know turning Twitter into X into basically a training algorithm and then rebranding the whole thing as an AI founder LLM, almost ignoring the fact that X even exists anymore.

32:36It's like a great example of going as the market goes, right, to build your business. So it's that pragmatism, not having any sacred cows that you're not afraid to slay, you know, not being too dogmatic, but being strong enough in your vision that you understand at least where you're trying to get to in the end, even if the path to get there might change.

32:57Have you ever been wrong about a founder? Because I totally agree with you. Great question. It's the people first, right? Yeah. This is a big debate. Yeah, this is a great question. So the biggest debate that we have always had as a team of investors when I was at EQT and now my business partner and with my people who I really trust as other VCs and other founders is, should you like the person? and should you get it on right so yes you can first of all you can get wrong the question of um do they have the stamina and do they have the will and the ability to do it so you can absolutely get that no one knows no look honestly no founder knows right so you can get that wrong um the other bit you can get wrong is um you've you really like the nice founders you want to work with the nice people you care about especially for a people person like i am that can sometimes lead you down the path of working people you like and who are supposedly really nice but perhaps that might suffer from a little bit as when the time going gets tough and you have to make the tough decisions when you have to frankly be a bit of a maniac to force your view through and then you have the notorious founders who were clearly had you know a slightly sociopathic streak which you'd argue is all of the most successful founders like the really uber successful people like and i uber being the absolute words right with the travis galanick whether it's being Elon Musk himself, whether it's being the founder of some of the fintechs in the UK who are well known, right?

34:26But they are the most successful. So I think that's what probably US investors are very good at is they really don't care as much as that. They just look for your product traction or product momentum and go where that is. Don't overthink it. But there's a fine line because the thing that I've been proud of is that I think we've got a pretty good nose for people who are downright scams or trying to build something that doesn't exist. And there are, you know, every year, there's probably two or three big blow-up examples of that happening. Not always nefarious, not always because the founders meant to, but just they got over their skis and things got out of control and they ended up basically selling something or believing something themselves that never existed.