SUCCESS IS A TEAM MISSION

Telescope in one eye, microscope in the other.

Trajectory

• VeeV (Co-Founder)
• Goldman Sachs’ Investment Banker Industrials Division (Associate)
• Daily Harvest (Board Member)
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Board Member)
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art Digital Committee (Advisory Member)
• City of Los Angeles (Executive in Residence)
• Best-Selling Author of Shortcut Your Startup
• Top 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs – Goldman Sachs’ Builders + Innovators
• Columbia University (B.A., Economics and Business/Managerial Economics)

Perspective

I’m obsessed with journeys alongside good human beings. Of all the things we’ve done and achieved, that’s been the best part of this entire process, for me.

After Courtney and I sold VeeV, we closed the chapter on what had been an 8 or 9 year journey—but we wanted to make sure that experience informed what we committed ourselves to next.

M13 came out of two major motivations. The first one was pretty simple—intellectual curiosity. We wanted to be around the smartest people doing innovative things every day.

The second reason is that we wanted to give back—and we wanted to do it in a scalable way. Along the road of building VeeV, there were so many people who helped us and believed in us, but there were also so many things we needed to learn from scratch when really, they were repeatable processes, things we could have flown through if we’d had the right tools.

Sometimes, the small things are the big things. One text, one deal. No single decision truly moves the needle, but enough decisions, over enough time, compound to create a massive impact, starting the flywheel.

That’s what we’re here for. When you’re an entrepreneur, your to-do list is always going to be greater than your resources, and there are always going to be areas where you have blind spots, where you need more guidance. But when you have resources like our Propulsion team—with productized knowledge and a dedicated operating team—in your corner, that entire equation starts to look different.

We’re always challenging ourselves to think about how we can help entrepreneurs make better decisions, make fewer mistakes, and do it faster. Because speed is one of the biggest differentiators in today’s world—you have to win, but you also have to do it quickly.

Why should every entrepreneur have to learn how to prepare for their first board meeting? It’s pretty simple. Here are some tools, here’s what the deck should look like, here are some best practices. By stepping in to help with these repeatable processes, we allow them to focus on the things that are unique to their business—their product, their customer experience—because doing those things better than anyone else is what’ll really set them apart.

Telescope in one eye, microscope in the other. There’s no substitution for being in the trenches and getting things done. But on the flipside, it’s also critical to make sure you’re picking your head up and looking at the bigger picture—otherwise, you’re just waiting to get left behind.

Gratitude journaling, foraging the farmer’s market… I value anything that reminds me to make time for appreciation every now and then.

While there’s a total democratization of ideas, there’s not yet a democratization of execution, resources, and access to capital. That’s what we’re aiming to foster with all the arms of our venture engine, but especially with our Launchpad. By creating an infrastructure that empowers more kinds of people to take the leap and pursue their ideas, we’re working to level the playing field.

You need to be best in class in some aspect for your business to stand apart

Trajectory

• VeeV Spirits (Co-Founder)
• Goldman Sachs’ Consumer Products, Retail, and Media Groups
• Select Boards: Thrive Global (Observer), Good Catch, Hylete, Tony Robbins’ America’s Best 401K, Hylete and formerly Kevita (exited to Pepsi)
• City of Los Angeles (Executive in Residence)
• Best-Selling Author of Shortcut Your Startup
• Top 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs – Goldman Sachs’ Builders + Innovators
• Young Presidents’ Organization (Bel Air Chapter President)
• Columbia University (B.A., Economics and Philosophy)

Perspective

When Carter and I were starting M13, we knew the world didn’t need just another venture capital firm—and frankly the idea of building one wasn’t that interesting to us either. Starting a platform, with an approach that’s designed to evolve venture capital? That’s really exciting. We have to walk the walk, but the opportunity to have a different value prop for our companies and for the people joining our platform is something that energizes me every day.

Working with my brother has been one of the most rewarding parts of M13, and it’s all about trust. On top of that, we both motivate each other to be better and do bigger things. It’s usually unspoken, but I definitely don’t take that for granted.

One transformative experience, for me, was discovering that although we’d built VeeV into a successful brand, there wasn’t a lot of interest from buyers right away. It was a great reminder that a successful company doesn’t necessarily mean a successful exit—it’s more complicated than that.

It wasn’t until the last three or four years of VeeV that I realized investing in industry relationships and being able to efficiently connect the dots was just as important as building a stand-out product. It was actually this process of “leaving breadcrumbs”—going to industry conferences, listening to others’ impressions of VeeV, and making the time to connect—that led to our acquisition, in the end.

It’s so easy to get stuck in the day-to-day, even the hour-to-hour. But one of the biggest things we’re focused on prioritizing is picking our heads up, looking at the big picture, then sharing those insights with our partner companies. When you’re able to connect the dots—and to do it much more efficiently—that translates into better, faster decisions for your business. And at the end of the day, it’s that accumulation of small differences, saved hours, and 1% betters that compound to create massive impact.

The best advice I’ve ever gotten is “(once you’ve been lucky enough to make some money) prioritize your time over your money…time is the one thing we all have in common.”

In this new, bespoke world, you need to be best in class at something for your business to stand apart. Sure, you may need good accounting, but it’s not what drives the bus. So the way we see it is, if there’s a way to outsource that, to put it on set-and-repeat and focus on what you do differently or best, that’s where the opportunity lies to create real value for your business—and that’s exactly what we created our platform of productized knowledge to do.

To me, the most exceptional founders won’t be denied, yet are also aware of the gaps in their skills or knowledge.

Simplify first, don’t add. We live in this world where everyone is trying to do more things and add more things to their plate. Nobody is really asking themselves “how can I subtract one thing and try to do what’s on the plate better?” We need more pruning!

Build what you love, and don’t focus on the money.

Trajectory

• DigitalOcean (COO)
• China Export Finance (Co-founder, CEO)
• Clearview Networks (Co-founder, CEO)
• Imperial College London (BEng Electrical/Electronic Engineering)
• Columbia Business School (M.B.A.)

Perspective

I’m inspired every day by the creativity and boldness of strong founders. Seeing founders achieve the impossible, simply because they don’t live within traditional limits, always excites and inspires me.

After exiting China Export Finance, I took 3 years and focused on working with a portfolio of young technology companies to help them along the journey to build their businesses. During that time, I was exposed to both inspiring talent and a wide set of challenges that really opened my eyes—to the unique nature of every business, yes, but also to the problems and solutions they often had in common.

Working with these founders not only grounded me as a mentor, but also provided me with countless insights and significant growth that prepared me for my tenure at Digital Ocean, where I was able to leverage my 20 years of experience and build the company from the ground up—ultimately reaching 500+ employees and over $200M in revenue. I’m thrilled to be able to share this playbook of knowledge and experience with M13’s partner entrepreneurs, across every stage of growth.

Here at M13, our portfolio companies have the unique advantage of a deep, experienced bench, ready to actively support their needs and provide executive-level capabilities in areas where their own resources might be limited. We look to help these companies navigate key strategic planning moments and hurdles specifically oriented around growth, aiming to help them rise above the fold and win in their category.

I truly believe that success is a team mission. M13’s commitment to community allows us to be effective investors and mentors, but also provides an opportunity for founders to gain incredible value from the talent and resources that surround them.

I learned the true value of community in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis. China Export Finance—a fintech business underwritten by AIG and backed by a syndicate of global banks—was on the precipice of disaster for nearly 6 months as the market was dealing with the fallout. The unwavering commitment and support of a strong board and dedicated team was the key to success through tough market conditions. We survived the crunch and still grew in 2009 by 60%+ to $137M in revenue.

The best advice I’ve gotten in my career is “build what you love” and “don’t focus on the money.” Beyond that, remember to ask for help, and to show appreciation wherever it’s earned.

Insights

Meet Karl Alomar, Managing Partner at M13

Engineers are poets who speak math.

Trajectory

• Virgin Group SVP Corporate Communications
• Virgin Galactic Head of Communications
• KIPP Foundation Director of Communications
• KIPP New Jersey (Board Member) 
• KIPP Gaston College Preparatory (Board Member) 
• Teach For America (National Institute Director)
• University of Houston (Executive MBA) 
• Williams College (BA English)

Perspective

An essential part of building purposeful new technology is sharing the journey. Working with Virgin Galactic, The Spaceship Company, Virgin Orbit, and Kitty Hawk’s EVTOL solutions taught me the importance of building goodwill by sharing your progress, especially for technology that we haven’t yet seen or tried. True leaders have the courage to help us see what we can’t yet even imagine. Failure leads to both learning and progress, and kindness is an underrated leadership trait. I enjoy helping founding teams share their stories — and convey their optimism and questions about the future.

I once told Dan Rather that the engineers I worked with are poets who speak math. (He liked that.) Collective progress happens when our command of the technical is inspired by our humanity. EVTOL has the potential to make more room in our built environment for human work and play. Space access for civilians will continue to improve life on Earth. I’m also a believer in the power of culture to break taboos such as enabling cannabis regulation and adult access. M13 is the chance to collaborate with diverse changemakers shaping how we live today—and how our children will thrive tomorrow.

In college, I joined Teach For America and became a founding member of a generation-defining social movement. We were social entrepreneurs before the phrase existed. The greatest privilege is working alongside people with an intentional vision that expands access and transforms lives. I learned so much from the last dozen years with Sir Richard Branson and Virgin company founders in launching Virgin brands in North America across entrenched industries. When you choose to be the customer champion, as Virgin did, business decisions are at once intuitive, challenging and a hell of a lot of fun. 

Brighter Together can’t happen without community.  The sparks of diverse perspectives and shared experiences move us forward. It takes convening power to gather creative and curious solution-oriented makers, and M13 applies that in dynamic ways — in LA, NYC and beyond. I’m excited to connect with more people and make magic happen for our founding teams. 

Chemistry and attitude are everything. At M13, everyone works hard, has fun and looks after each other. As we say at KIPP: Work hard, be nice.

Insights

The best marketing strategies and ideas come from diverse opinions and experiences.

Trajectory:

• Brilliant Ventures (Founding Partner)
• GOAT (COO)
• Gilt Groupe (CMO)
• JustFab.com (President)
• Intelligent Beauty (CMO)
• Cornell University (B.A., History)

Advisory/Board:

• Jaanuu (Board Member)
• FIDM (Advisory Council & Instructor for Bachelor of Arts in Social Media)
• Shoes of Prey (Executive Board Member)
• NextGen Venture Partners (Founding Venture Partner)

Great brands require even an even greater pool of talent, and I am privileged to have worked with so many innovative entrepreneurs, marketers, and technologists throughout my career as an operator and venture capitalist. I’m passionate about the intersection of fashion, retail, and technology, and am honored to have held CXO titles at some incredible companies, including Gilt Groupe and GOAT.

One of the best things about LA is its strong entrepreneurial ecosystem. We’re in this moment in time where we have more graduates with engineering degrees than any other area of the United States per capita. We have this influx of fantastic tech talent coupled with a proliferation of venture growth, which has resulted in a robust community that’s able to support the ideas that are forming every day in our ecosystem. It’s a great time for the LA venture community to broaden and diversify. 

My passion for entrepreneurship and marketing has centered my operating career in launching and developing successful consumer brands. I love helping founders figure out how to create meaningful relationships with their customers through innovative go-to-market strategies. Founders can also look to me for help with growth marketing, brand positioning, or generally how to scale their operations from day one. These decisions have the power to help expose consumers to brands they haven’t known before, and I’m passionate about leveraging this expertise to help build and scale the next generation of household names.

As Head of Operations at M13, I help bring together our partners’ prowess and create codified systems to propel our founders’ businesses forward. I work with our leadership team to provide the resources and create the frameworks for our founding teams to achieve the goals they’re setting as a company. I also lead our Launchpad program, our in-house venture studio that develops the right people, products, and practices to launch an idea from inception. This program allows us to build scalable companies that have an impact on consumers’ lives while bringing a heightened level of accessibility to entrepreneurship. We’re really excited about our first partnership with P&G Ventures and look forward to expanding the program so we can bring more products that are really transforming consumer behavior to market.

I’m passionate about the work we’re doing to empower female entrepreneurs, leaders and women in venture. We have so many brilliant women in M13’s ecosystem, and I’m excited to be part of the alchemy that happens when talented women create, operate, build and define this generation of female-founded companies.

What M13 brings to the table is empathy. Because each of the partners have entrepreneurial experience, we understand what our founding teams are going through — the late nights, the problem-solving, the never-ending to-do lists. We’ve been there before and we know how to best help them move forward. I’m excited to help our founders overcome complex obstacles while building impactful, successful brands along the way. 

Humility, in all situations.

Trajectory

• Virgin Group (Managing Director)
• IAC/Ticketmaster (Director)
• Bear Stearns (Analyst)
• Columbia University (MBA)
• University of Michigan (BBA)

Perspective

I spent 8 years working for Sir Richard Branson and during this time I developed a clear understanding of how a single brand and visionary was able to scale 8 companies in disparate industries and geographies to a billion dollars or more of enterprise value. Specifically, Virgin’s approach at entering markets is driven by its focus on creating a sustainable value proposition to the consumer — anchored in rapid product development, creative marketing strategies, and the power of brand.

I realized that these frameworks apply to the world outside of Virgin and the lessons I learned investing in Virgin Galactic, Virgin Pulse and Virgin Hotels served me well when we invested in Ring, Slack, and Capsule. I have brought these same lessons with me to M13, and it is exciting to find entrepreneurs who are attacking markets with the same perspective.

When meeting founders I am most focused on understanding their motivation. Did it come from a personal pain point? What triggered this particular path? What led them to this moment? Motivations are crucial as the odds are stacked against them yet these founders move forward with such singular focus to build something that endures.

I’ve been lucky to have some great moments in my career including witnessing Virgin Galactic reach space for the first time in the Mojave Desert and then enabling the public to participate in its growth through its SPAC merger. As a Series B investor in Ring, I worked closely with founder Jamie Siminoff and a great board of directors on its journey to a $1B exit to Amazon 3 years later.

We know this is a long game and being good partners to our founders is essential to our success. Reputation is all we have and it compounds over time. We look forward to earning ours.

If you’re not adapting a growth mindset and always looking to learn and improve, you’re likely to be outpaced quickly.

Trajectory

• DigitalOcean (VP, People)
• Return Path (Sr. Director, People Ops)
• NYU (Organizational Psychology)
• Cornell University (Policy Analysis)
• 2019 #1 Best Place to Work in NYC (Digital Ocean)
• 2014 #2 Best Place to Work in the U.S. (Return Path)

Perspective

In a marketplace where products and technology are becoming more and more commoditized, Talent is often the key differentiator. It’s fantastic to see how more and more companies are realizing that, and I’m incredibly passionate about helping entrepreneurs use Talent to their advantage in order to build sustainable companies that execute well and win.

I think many leaders discount culture, saying that it’s something that either “just happens” or is secondary to other areas of the business.  The best companies bring the same level of thought and intention to developing their people as they do toward developing their products. Maybe more so if they are really smart.

The truth is that building a healthy culture is one of the best and most impactful ways to drive sustained high performance in a business, and it in fact helps accelerate the speed of growth, especially in early stage companies. Creating a culture of trust, empowerment, and psychological safety is essential to ensuring a resilient foundation for a high-growth organization. Strong cultures help ensure that everyone knows what they need to do to succeed. They help teams move more quickly and with more agility, and seed the conditions for innovation and success.

I’ve seen first-hand the way companies with amazing product-market fit can crater because of toxic cultures, and I’ve also seen how a powerful and unified culture can help business last through downturns that would have killed less resilient organizations.

I’ve been lucky enough to work for some of the most innovative and progressive organizations around. Working under a visionary CEO and board at Return Path helped me understand how vital strong culture is to creating successful organizations.  At DigitalOcean, I got to partner with world class operators and lead an astonishingly talented People Team as we helped scale a rocketship that grew almost 700% in size over four years, all while achieving both significant revenue growth and industry-leading organizational engagement.

There’s no secret to balancing high growth and high engagement! One of the biggest drivers of engagement is feeling like you’re part of a successful mission. And when your business is growing quickly, that inherently comes with greater opportunities for your employees to grow as well. Smart teams lean into those opportunities by giving their people meaningful developmental experiences, as well as by using a growth mindset and a culture of continuous improvement as a competitive advantage when attracting and retaining talent.

When teams get regular, open, and candid feedback at the rapid pace of growth, it can be totally transformative. At DigitalOcean, we were fortunate enough to have our agile HR processes recognized by Harvard Business Review.  We had applied best Agile practices and methods from Engineering and transformed them to the People space, recognizing that growth is continuous, ongoing, and iterative. By using methods of real-time feedback and performance development, we were able to unlock new levels of potential and performance in our teams.

The number one trait I look for when helping to select leaders for our Launchpad or portfolio companies is intellectual curiosity and humility. Even the most successful founders know there’s always an opportunity to learn, and there’s always an opportunity to get better and raise the bar for themselves. It’s precisely that belief what helps the best founders break barriers and do things that others thought impossible.

If you’re not adapting a growth mindset and always looking to learn and improve, you’re very likely to become outpaced by the competition quickly.

One of the key differences about M13 is how deeply and authentically we invest our time with founders, and honestly for me that’s the most fun part of this job. Whether it’s helping a founder think differently about the way they’re approaching an executive search, understanding how to operationalize their culture at scale, or building best practices around retention, talent development or compensation, it’s been amazing to see how impactful we can be.

Anyone can tell you why something isn’t going to work. It’s our job to figure out why something just might.

Trajectory

• NatureBox (Founder and CEO)
• General Catalyst Partners (Principal)
• Babson College (Board of Overseers, B.S., Business Management)
• Inc Magazine 30 under 30
• Goldman Sachs 100 Builder and Innovators

Perspective

The most transformative experience in my career was driven completely by luck. At the age of 18—as an undergrad student—I met a partner at General Catalyst and parlayed that meeting into an internship and then into a full time role where I saw the firm grow from $600m of capital to over $3B. It was my first experience with technology, and totally changed the course of my career—which later included opening their west coast office and going on to found my own company, NatureBox.

When I decided to join M13, my experiences at NatureBox were at the forefront of my mind. As a founder, you’re pitching all the time. You talk to VC, after VC, after VC, and no one will straight up tell you “no.”

There’s this culture of lip service that can really grind you down as a founder. If you aren’t getting feedback, how can you grow?

At M13, we’re trying to change that paradigm and bring transparency back to the process. Entrepreneurs deserve it, and it’s rewarding to be able to deliver on that promise—whether it’s in the form of two-way feedback to help us work better together, or just a simple, “it won’t work for us right now, and here’s why.”

For me, the most exceptional founders are Missionaries rather than Mercenaries—opportunity obsessed.

“You’re down but you’re not out.” I remember one of my advisors saying this to me and it’s stuck with me ever since. At the time, my company had nearly run out of cash, our existing investors refused to fund the company further, our creditor put the company in default and we had millions of dollars of accounts payable that needed to be paid. Adding to that, I was about to get married. It was the most stressful time in my life but as it turns out, I was down, but I wasn’t out. We learned how to operate the business on the cash we had and we saved the company. I learned just how resilient people and companies are.

Don’t panic. That’s the most important thing I learned as a founder, and it applies to investors, too. So many people get spooked at the first sign of trouble. I think that sets us apart at M13. Since so many of us have been a part of starting businesses, we’ve got the nerve to support you through the downs, not just the ups.

A good VC partner is someone who’s checked in, no matter what. When you’re down, they’re your company’s biggest cheerleader, in the trenches with you. And when you’re up, they’re the cautious optimist. It’s easy to wear the rose-colored glasses, but what you really need is someone to say, “yeah, things are going well, but have you thought about this?”

I love the drive, hustle, and ambition of entrepreneurs of all kinds. It doesn’t matter if you own an ice cream truck or are building the next Amazon, that drive is contagious. That’s one of the reasons I spend my free time mentoring entrepreneurs and serving on the board of my alma mater, Babson College.

Growth companies need a culture of learning, the directive to test, and a willingness to fail.

Trajectory

• DigitalOcean (Director & Team Founder, Data & Analytics)
• MDC Partners (Director, Analytics & Insights, Performance Marketing Services Group)
• Crossix Solutions (D2C Analytics Lead: Pfizer, Sanofi, Amgen)
• Princeton University (B.A., Economics)
• Top 100 Young Entrepreneurs — National Federation of Independent Business

Perspective

I’ve always gravitated toward opportunities to work with teams who are looking at data for the first time — not always startups.  During my time at Crossix, I sat down with consumer marketing teams at Pfizer, Sanofi and Amgen to understand insights generated by a new data set they had been operating without for decades.  With advances in data privacy technology, Crossix offered them the ability to link their marketing efforts to actual behavior at the pharmacy, at the patient level. Overnight, these seasoned marketers were able to precisely measure the efficacy of various acquisition and retention tactics, in near real-time, enabling quantitatively-driven optimization decisions.  For these century-old corporate giants, this technology drove a dramatic (and sometimes contentious) shift toward a culture of fast and frequent decision-making, supported by a mathematically rigorous test-and-learn philosophy.

When I came to DigitalOcean, the company was growing so quickly and generating so much data, that it was both a challenge and a necessity to focus on only the actionable data that mattered.  Data paralysis is a growth company’s worst enemy — time is almost always against you, and it’s far too easy to feel like you have “too much data.”  When you decide to “dive in,” it’s imperative to have a compass directing you to a narrow subset of data. More importantly, you must force yourself to lead with action-oriented analysis rather than curiosity-driven calculations.  “If I find the answer to my question, what will it allow me to do differently?”

In the era of “big data,” Excel remains indispensable. Decision-makers in new businesses can easily over-complicate the way they think about using data. Being data-driven doesn’t necessitate having a PhD on your staff to programmatically mine your data lake for insights. Many highly impactful “data-driven decisions” have been made using data that can fit in Excel and math that can be done on the back of a napkin.  Where winners shine is in acknowledging that their “lake” of incomplete and imperfect data can be used to directionally guide their decisions — these teams prioritize decision-making velocity over academic precision, and in so doing gain a huge advantage over the competition.

Trust (your gut), but verify. As a founder or growth company leader, operate first with your gut and let data directionally guide your decisions when you reach a fork in the road. Acknowledge that there are some decisions that simply cannot be made with quantitative support, either because there is no available data, or because the decision is impractically difficult or impossible to measure. Move with high velocity, and use data where you can to continually verify your assumptions and to evaluate your overall progress.

“I haven’t failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  Growth companies need a culture of learning, the directive to test, and a willingness to fail.  When you prioritize actions and hypothesis testing, every outcome is a gift and insight into either something to do more of or something to do less of.  Both are valuable insights that allow you to re-assess, re-prioritize, and move forward.

Step #1: Collect and store.  Before you even know what you may need the data for, find ways to allow your customers (or potential customers) to volunteer information.  Ask them questions, and ask them about their needs, intents, and demographics. Track observable data like website behavior, product interactions, and transactions in a way that is attributable to a single customer.  Get in the weeds and stitch together a customer’s story across datasets, so that you understand where there may be gaps in information. Start storing all of this data now, and then when you have questions to answer, you likely won’t need to wait as long (or at all) to generate enough of a sample to give you the insight you need to move forward.

People are looking for meaning in their work, more than just a paycheck.

Trajectory

• Glamsquad; DigitalOcean; Wonder; Flavorpill (CFO & COO Advisor)
• Piano Media (COO)
• PlaceIQ (VP, Finance & Strategy)
• Akamai Technologies (Product Marketing & Consulting)
• Columbia Business School (MBA)
• Claremont McKenna College (B.A., Politics, Philosophy, Economics)

Perspective

I’ve held most startup roles at some point in my career. My progression may seem eclectic (from software engineering, to network engineering, to sales engineering, to marketing, to product, to VC [during business school], to startup operations exec, to startup finance exec, to private equity finance—whew) but it’s given me invaluable insight into the many (many) distinct worlds that come together to help a business succeed.

This varied background was one of the things that drew me to M13 initially—having the chance to work with a team of others who, like me, have built up a cache of operating know-how. Maybe we haven’t seen it all before, but we’ve seen more than most, and I think it makes us uniquely suited to advocate relentlessly for your company.

Working with Akamai and its customers through the early boom / bust stages of the dot com era was transformative for me—and deeply reinforced the importance of sound financial management and agile operations for startups. It’s one of the reasons that I’m passionate about helping young companies lay the proper financial and operating foundation for rapid growth.

The dot com downturn wasn’t the only trial we faced during my time at Akamai. Our darkest hour came after our Founder, Danny Lewin, was killed in 9/11. Watching the grace and compassion of George Conrades as he led our team through that hardship has affected me to this day.

9/11 infused Akamai with a sense of purpose. Persevering through the hardship of the dot com downturn after September 11 showed how galvanizing a shared mission can be, and how much people are looking for meaning in their work, more than just a paycheck.

The best entrepreneurs have an infectious enthusiasm and in-depth knowledge about solvable world problems. So as a VC working with entrepreneurs, you get both motivated and educated each and every day. What a gift!.

My best advice? Learn and use the keyboard shortcuts!

Entrepreneurs create a better future, and we need a better future now more than ever.

Trajectory

• Techstars (Managing Director) 
• The Fund LA (Founding Partner)
• PledgeLA (Advisory Board Member)
• Hudson Institute of Coaching (Executive Coach)
• Scribble Press (Founder and CEO)
• Barber Artists Group (Founder)  
• Petstore.com (VP Product)
• McKinsey & Co (Consultant) 
• Yale Law School (JD) 
• Yale College (BA American Studies)

Perspective

I look for founders and teams who have an insatiable drive to learn. A learning mindset is probably the single most important quality in an early stage founder. There is a close to zero percent chance that the plan you have today will be the best plan in six months. Therefore, only the people who are willing – eager – to learn and adapt will succeed. As Brene Brown says, I’m here to get it right, not to be right. 

Curiosity has always driven me in career – and life. I don’t believe in the five year plan; instead, I’ve followed my curiosity and am most engaged and alive when I’m on a steep learning curve. I’m not afraid of risk – launching a new venture, switching to a new industry, creating the space to travel around the world, talking to a stranger on a plane. What it boils down to is, I’m not afraid to be a beginner and have a beginner’s mindset. M13 is a team of bold thinkers who also embrace uncharted territory and value curiosity and asking the hard questions. There’s no better environment than a place to take risks with the full support and trust of a team around you.  That’s what M13 has created.  

Entrepreneurs create a better future, and we need a better future now more than ever. LA is home to a creative, diverse community of entrepreneurs and operators who want to make the world better. LA is also a center for innovation in everything from media to biotechnology, from proptech to food. As a tech community, we’re also committed to growing in a way that includes everyone—reflected in the work of PledgeLA, which M13 joined and where I’m a founding member of the Advisory Board.  M13 embraces purpose-driven innovation and gives it fuel.  

Empathy is essential.  Empathy is grounded in seeing and feeling things from the point of view of the other.  “Become the other person and go from there,” the saying goes.  I like to think about empathy as perspective, rather than feeling.  It’s about working to turn the lens around so you see things differently, as someone else does. When we are driven by empathy, our interactions become transformative, rather than transactional.  

It all comes down to storytelling. Stories are how we understand, influence and connect with each other.  The best leaders, teams and brands are master storytellers.  And it’s one of the strengths of M13 and woven into everything we do.  Helping our founders and brands tell their stories in the most impactful way.