Investor Stories 494: Passing on Outliers, Misjudging Founder Quality, and Holding Too Tightly — Lessons from Notable, Superset, and Fika (Solomon, Vaidya, Chen)

0:00Vivek Vaidya: This 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.

0:23Nick Moran: Welcome 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.

0:39Vivek Vaidya: Welcome back to TFR. On today's special segment, we ask guests to tell the most important lesson that they've learned in their career. Here's a segment called Lessons Learned.

0:55Vivek Vaidya: on today's special segment we have glenn solomon of notable glenn what is the biggest mistake or hardest lesson you've learned what's the story behind it i think my biggest successes uh by far all correlate most highly with the quality of founding teams i've backed uh no matter how great an idea is if the founding team isn't stellar the outcome is not going to be great uh i've had i've had to relearn this lesson many times, many, many times in my career. And, you know, but thankfully, I've also been bailed out many times by investing in incredible founders who always seem to find a way to make lemonade, even if they get dealt lemons.

1:38So.

1:45Vivek Vaidya: on today's special segment we have vivek vadia of superset vivek can you tell us the story highlighting a critical lesson that has changed the way you lead it's along the lines of what i

1:55Nick Moran: was saying about satya right and it's the lesson that i learned for myself is i cannot do everything myself even though i might like to even though i might things would only be done in a certain way if I had done them. I had to get really comfortable with giving people the space and delegating authority to them, pushing authority down and then giving them enough of the context. That's the other thing I learned. That's the one thing I learned is it's not just enough to delegate. You have to delegate and provide context. And no amount of context is too much. What I do now is I go out of my way to tell people why.

2:30Nick Moran: I'm asking you to do X, Y, and Z. Why am I asking you to do that? And I either narrate a personal experience or I'll tell them, well, if this happens, that will happen and this will happen. So that providing delegation with context has been key change in the last maybe five, seven years or so how I've led.

2:52Vivek Vaidya: Are 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. On today's special segment, we have John Chen of FECA. John, what is the biggest mistake or hardest lesson you've learned as an investor?

3:32Vivek Vaidya: What's the story behind it? I think like many investors, maybe not many investors, in my specific case, I think passing on companies because of the deal spec has been, you know, one of the bigger mistakes, you know, in. And this, again, this runs counter to a lot of what constitutionally FICA cares about making sure that, again, incentives are aligned on something that's reasonable on all sides from a valuation and ownership perspective and all of that. But the ones that are, you know, the outlier outcomes, you know, oftentimes like look different or outrageous in certain ways. And so, yeah, not like not allowing the deal spec.

4:18Maybe the lesson is actually not allowing the deal spec at all to creep into the conversation until you've actually done the real work of understanding the opportunity, the founder quality, etc. I think that's like starting with the work before thinking about the deal is a lesson I've had to learn many, many times over.

4:41Vivek Vaidya: That 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, over-prepare, choose carefully, and invest confidently. Thanks for joining me.

5:08Thank you.