Investor Stories 482: Key Advice from a Top Investor and Two Unicorn Founders: Why Companies Pick Investors, Authentic Leadership, and Loving the Game (Austin, Schlacks, Demaree)

0:00This episode is brought to you by Ramp, the spend management platform we use here at TFR. They're offering listeners$150 just to take a demo. We've never had an offer quite like this. Claim your$150 before this offer is gone at our partner link, ramp.com slash partners slash TFR. Now on to the episode.

0:23Welcome to the podcast about venture capital, where investors and founders alike can learn how VCs make decisions and reach conviction. Your host is Nick Moran, and this is The Full Ratchet.

0:40Welcome back to TFR. On today's special segment, we ask guests for the most important piece of advice that they'd share with folks early in their venture career. Here's a segment called Key Advice.

0:57On today's special segment, we have Ethan Austin of Outside VC. If you could share one piece of advice with a young new investor, what would you tell them? I think it's find your swim lane. I think there's so many firms out there today, and there's 3 ,000 venture capital firms out there. Why is someone going to choose you? And I think unless you can find a reason why a founder is going to choose you, it's really hard. And I think we tend to think that it's about picking the companies, and I think it's really about the companies picking you.

1:29On today's special segment, we have Willie Schlax from Equipment Share. Willie, if you could share one piece of advice with a young new founder, what would you tell them? I probably reinforced what I was saying before. It's that stop-and-meet-yourself approach. Ask the questions. Let yourself not have answers. Be really okay with just the person who doesn't have to be right. Because when you're right, it simply means that your brain doesn't learn anything. Because the brain just, everything that's right in your brain just chucks it out. goes, we don't need to remember that. We already know it.

1:57So the only way your brain really is enhanced and evolves and expands and when you're wrong. And even the word wrong has a poor impression in our language. And it shouldn't like the misalignment of I thought it was this, but it was that should be a celebration, not a shit, I was wrong. So lean into that celebration when you when you go, I thought it was something, but it wasn't like, boom, you just that's the goldmine. How does the founder or the leader help their employees and help their peers and others that are on the journey evolve and be open and take that ride as well? A lot of people probably have a lot more insights and better answers than I would.

2:38But I think based on my observation and the things that inspire me, it is when I observe somebody living and they don't know they're being observed. There's no intention behind their living as far as wanting to be observed or thinking that somehow it's special. But watching the raw reality of a human live is, it's emotional, it's inspiring. It's like, that's what I want to be. So I would say that instead of feeling like you have to manufacture your behaviors or be a certain thing, like the more you live that thoughtless expression, that's probably not the right word because that could be so misunderstood, but you get what I'm saying as far as, you know, there isn't, there isn't a facade.

3:17Yeah, exactly. The authentic. And everyone knows it when they encounter it. So then it's inspiring to be that. And you get that when you start letting go. At the end of the day, how your employees and people around you live and act and think, not in your control. Probably not your responsibility either. Absolutely within your influence. So you are highly influential to anybody. Just we are far more influential than we realize. The zone of influence happens when we stop trying to be.

3:50Are you still managing expenses with outdated apps and spreadsheets? If so, it's time for Ramp, the leading U.S. spend management platform covering corporate cards, travel, AP, and more. All built to save time and extend runway. We use Ramp at TFR and it's been a game changer. As our preferred partner, they're offering listeners$150 just to take a demo. No need to sign up. Head to ramp.com slash partners slash TFR to claim your$150 before the offer expires. Now back to the interview. Grant Emery joins us today from the Bay Area. He's the CEO and founder of One Brief, the defense company building the operating system for military planning.

4:33If you could share one piece of advice with a new founder, what would you tell them? For all advice, I need to start with my caveats because caveats are actually really important. Advice is a really, really dangerous thing. You should be really careful listening to it because like the industry has changed so fast that the things that made someone successful when I did it, which was like super recent, but the world was pretty fast, have already changed enough that like my lessons might not be valid and you're going to have to find your own path anyway. Within that caveat, it's really helped me a lot to love the game.

5:05By love the game, I mean that I really, really like trying to build the company, trying to solve this overall problem of making the future of command good. I wake up and really, really want to do this. And I think everybody knows that about me at this point. No one's like, hey, I think he's looking for a way to not do this. And I think that makes it a lot easier to show up to, you know, to the team, to the customer, to the investor, to your own family and be like, hey, I like doing this the way Kobe liked basketball when he wrote his poem. You should read the poem, by the way. It's so good. having the same attitude about the startup as he had about basketball, like really love the game, not in a this is like a silly thing.

5:58This is something that I can act haphazardly about or I can ignore my responsibility to the customer, to the investor or to the people. But in a like, it's a huge privilege to get to do this. And if we ever want to stop doing it, it's not that hard because a lot of people who really, really want to, I really like this. I'm really glad that I get to. I wanted to come to work today. And I think that if you are going to be a founder, choosing problem to solve and choosing people to work with, where you can say that very earnestly and where it's not true, like figuring out why and seeing if you can fix the reason it's not true, I think that's going to serve you really well.

6:41If you don't win, that's going to serve you extra well. because like most people aren't. The odds are just so terrible in this industry. And like if you really love the game, I think that's going to be a lot better of an outcome.

6:58That will conclude this installment of Investor Stories. If you're enjoying the program and would like to see it continue, take a moment and leave a five-star review in iTunes. Okay, that will wrap things up for today. Until next time, overprepare, choose carefully, and invest confidently. Thanks for joining me.