A Special Episode of First Funders: The Journey to VC with Shaherose and Mel Strong

This episode of First Funders is a little different… It's a conversation between two friends who made the leap from to VC from two shared and unique paths.

Shaherose is joined by Mel Strong, an operator-turned investor, whom she met while working at Nike. Today, Mel is a founder of NEXT VENTURES, a fund dedicated to supporting early stage companies in the health and wellness space. In this episode, Mel and Shaherose discuss their shared journeys, why they decided to leave the corporate world, and what they're looking forward to investing in next. 

Highlights: 

• Shaherose and Mel met at the same company, but both had very different paths to get there.
• The pair gives a behind-the-scenes look at creating Valiant Labs inside Nike and applying venture-style experimentation within a global corporation. 
• Shaherose leapt first, and then Mel followed after in leaving Nike and going into VC. 
• Mel has often felt like an outsider, but she's turned that into a strength as a VC. 
• Both investors appreciate backing founders who have immigrant or athlete backgrounds, as they've each seen excellent results from people with these profiles. 

00:00:00 – Introduction & Why This Conversation Is Different

00:02:30 – Mel Strong's Journey: Teacher, Journalist, Nike Executive, VC

00:08:15 – Shaherose's Origin Story: Entrepreneurship, Sports & Silicon Valley

00:14:15 – Building Women 2.0, Founder Labs & Early Startup Successes

00:20:00 – Bringing Venture Thinking to Nike & Building Valiant Labs

00:24:15 – From Operators to Investors: Angel Investing, Risk & Reinvention

00:39:45 – Leaving Nike, Finding Conviction & Becoming Fund Managers

00:47:00 – What We Invest In: Venture-Scale Founders, AI, Healthcare & The Future

Creators and Guests

Guest

Shaherose & Mel Strong

What is First Funders?

How first checks get written. What it takes to earn them.

First Funders goes inside the minds of the investors who back founders before anyone else believes in them, and the founders bold enough to make that pitch.

Each episode, host Shaherose Charania, Partner at Unshackled Ventures and a 20-year veteran of the startup ecosystem, sits down with angels, pre-seed investors, and operators-turned-VCs for candid, tactical conversations. Guests include partners from First Round Capital, Accel, Precursor Ventures, Climate Capital, Hustle Fund, and beyond.

We cover how investors are building conviction in an era where AI is reshaping every sector, what they look for before traction exists, and the frameworks behind their best bets. Whether you're writing first checks or trying to earn one, this is your inside track.

Shaherose x Mel Strong
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[00:00:00]

shaherose-host316_1_04-16-2026_103756: Welcome to First Funders. I am so excited for today's session. Today is gonna be a little different.

Shaherose: Today is really special. I have Mel Strong here from Next Ventures, someone who I met and had the chance to collaborate with at Nike. And we're gonna do things a little bit differently. Mel offered the option for us to have a conversation where I get to also share what my experiences are or my thoughts are as we brave our way through this new world of venture.

Shaherose: The rules of the game continue to change. Capital keeps concentrating in more of the same bets, more of the same firms, but here we are as fund managers building the next [00:01:00] generation of venture together. And so Mel, I'm so excited to have you here because we have a lot in common, not just having spent time at Nike, but pe- but s- but as people who have broke their way into venture and earned our seat at the table without any safety net, and in a way that when the way we show up with founders, it shows up differently.

Shaherose: So I met Mel in 2018 when I joined Nike. She was a highly respected leader, and at the time, the VP of Nike SB, Nike Skateboarding.

Shaherose: And she spent her, a, a good amount of her career launching products that you may all know. Whether it was the Nike iPod in 2006, the Nike Run Club or the Nike Training Club, And our team had the chance to collaborate on projects that were rooted in sustainability. So today she invests out of Next Venture, is a fund that's dedicated to finding the root causes of poor and disparate health outcomes through the through whole person care solutions.

Shaherose: Her portfolio includes companies we know, like Oura Ring, Momentous, which I use, I love their creatine, and Eternal. [00:02:00] Um, so today, like I said, it's gonna be different. Mel offered the opportunity for the two of us to have an authentic conversation about our journey to venture, and what we see about the future.

Shaherose: And so together we're gonna answer questions. We've never done it like this before, but I'm excited to spend time to hear both Mel's answers and to be able to share with you, all my listeners, what I think about and where I've come from. So we're gonna start with first an intro from Mel, because that's what I always love to do.

Shaherose: Mel, welcome to First Funders. I would love for you to sort of share a bit about yourself.

Shaherose: and tell us why you chose this path, 'cause we all know there are easier paths than being in venture. And if you could also answer the question sharing a bit about how your upbringing, has played a role in how you think about risk and how you think about work.

Mel Strong: Absolutely. And I feel like, I don't know if this resonates with you, but I feel like you [00:03:00] can only really understand your path when you're, like, looking back at it.

Mel Strong: But when you're in it, it feels like a complete cluster. And I would say for most of my big professional chapters, it has felt that way. A sort of

Mel Strong: like going out on a limb, I've never done this before, I don't have the right pedigree. My whole life has been sort of centered on maybe not taking the linear path and not being at least the archetype of the person I imagine

Mel Strong: the industry wants in these roles. So, you know, I was a first grade teacher in Philly, born and raised, uh, which was great. Great, hard, very centering role that has definitely taught me a lot. Um- And then I became a journalist, you know, and, and went back to school, which was great. A really good experience. I think a lot of skills actually that I've used as an investor. I've met a lot of great VCs and investors, especially women actually, who have journalism backgrounds, and I think there's something about [00:04:00] people and research and being really curious and, and trying to tell

Shaherose: the

Mel Strong: truth that I think resonates in VC and makes for a good investor. Um, but I, I had the opportunity to get a entry-level job at Nike, as you mentioned in the intro, and, uh, again, like my first interview was for a job that required eight to 10 years of experience but I did not have. They wanted an MBA, which I did not have. Um, and I honestly don't think they wanted to hire me, but I, like, showed up in person for what was meant to be a phone interview. Um, I had a day of panels, which I later learned I completely bombed. But my hiring manager at the end of the day asked if I brought my running stuff, and I looked back and realized this was a bit of a test because a run was not part of the formal interview process.

Mel Strong: because I was applying for a job in Nike Running, and because I was a runner, I was working at Runner's World, of course I had running stuff in my rental car.

Mel Strong: So it was that run with my first... who became my first boss at Nike, that I think[00:05:00]

Mel Strong: kinda got me the job because I was a good runner and we had a great time just connecting personally. And so i- honestly, I think that that step of teaching to journalism to corporate taught me a lot about myself. It taught me not to feel compelled to meet all the requirements expected from me in every professional role I've played.

Mel Strong: And so the journey to venture, I give you a ton of credit because I knew almost zero about VC when you and I first met, and I'm so lucky that I met you when I did because I was looking for experts. I was looking for people to help me understand whether I could be any good at this. I did not wanna do corporate again. I, but I still wanted to contribute meaningfully to our society more broadly, but

Mel Strong: I wanted to learn what it took to scale a business. I wanted to know that I could perhaps bring some of what

Mel Strong: I learned as an operator into early stage companies [00:06:00] specific to health and wellness, where I feel I have the most expertise. But I, I didn't really know anything about it. I'd never sat at the table at home or in the office with anyone like you. So it was so cool to have you at that point in my Nike career help me kinda like demystify a lot of things, that I didn't

Mel Strong: need the MBA and the investment banking background. And so I, I'm super grateful for you and all the people you introduced me to,

Mel Strong: uh, for helping me understand that this was, like, a potential path for me.

Mel Strong: So thank

Shaherose: For sure. You're welcome. Yeah. If I look back at all the folks that are in my network who are GPs and partners at funds now, and they're all, they've all been on my podcast. They all kind of have a similar story, right? they're not a traditional background. They're-- It's, it's like a misnomer in venture that you have to come from banking, to your point.

Shaherose: there are certainly folks who do, and they live more so in the bigger funds, deploying larger checks at later stages. But for [00:07:00] the stage that we live at, it's more creative, it's a more builder energy. It's people who've been operators or they've worked in, you know, big tech or, you know, it's just, it's a smattering of things, um, to come to this point and say, "I'm an early-stage investor."

Shaherose: And early stage pre-seed through A is really the phase we're talking about. And so when you said you were ex- curious about venture, I was so excited because, like I told you in that moment, we need people like you, right? We need people like you with your experience, with your network, with your perspective, and in the areas you were focusing on, you know?

Shaherose: When we talk about whole body health, that movement is just finally now taking off, but we started talking about that 2018. It was starting. It's still, still starting, you know? But, like, it is the future. Like, we cannot be symptom-driven. We must look at root cause. We must look at whole body. And I really said that also, like, [00:08:00] because that's what I wanna see in the world, and that's how I see venture.

Shaherose: It's a way to play a role in what you wanna see in the world, right? How do you want the arc of our future to look like? And that's why I, you know, spend my time in this space. It's why I chose, to be in tech from the, from the get-go, which maybe gives me the opportunity to respond to the same question of, like, h- what's, you know, how did I get here?

Mel Strong: so like, I, I know a little bit obviously about your background, but I'd love to revisit it and just hear more about your arc, 'cause there-- you did a bunch of things before you came to Nike. Um, you spent a lot less time at Nike than I did, which was probably wise, and now you're back in venture. So like, tell me a little more about how that's felt for you, kinda starting from sort of your first chapter.

Shaherose: Yeah, for sure. And, like, maybe even going back a little further for you, look,

Shaherose: the sort of, like, water that I swam in growing up has a huge [00:09:00] influence on why I chose capitalism and why I chose VC. So my father was a small business entrepreneur, my mother was a competitive athlete. And so this idea of being an owner, building, embracing risk, like, starting a company or being a part of starting a company, like, that just comes to me way more naturally than being in a big corporation, and I've always known that about myself.

Shaherose: So

Shaherose:

Shaherose: when I was young and thinking about what I wanted to do, I always had that sort of,

Shaherose: like,

Shaherose: pull towards building and creating something that doesn't exist yet, and slowly realized,

Shaherose: you know,

Shaherose: again, in hindsight, that,

Shaherose: you know, it would be,

Shaherose: it would look like something called a startup.

Shaherose: But in the moment, of course, you don't know that. And I think from my mom, who, was a competitive sprinter, by the way,

Shaherose: the, you know,

Shaherose: in Karachi, Pakistan, by the way, in the '60s, right? Like, wearing shorts,[00:10:00]

Shaherose: she was cut from a different cloth,

Shaherose: right?

Shaherose: So,

Shaherose: like,

Shaherose: the idea of,

Shaherose: like,

Shaherose: not giving up,

Shaherose: you know,

Shaherose: dedicating to a practice,

Shaherose:

Shaherose: being in competition,

Shaherose:

Shaherose: those

Shaherose:

Shaherose: things were just,

Shaherose: like, it's

Shaherose: like the water I swam in,

Shaherose: right?

Shaherose: In terms of,

Shaherose: like,

Shaherose: what was around me.

Shaherose: And, the other part was, from my spiritual practice, the message I got from our spiritual leader was, like, "Life is short. Have the biggest, most positive impact you can have with your life." And, like, that was ingrained from, day zero for me. Like, those three sort of, like, arcs.

Shaherose: And so as I, was exploring what do I do, where do I go, I tried, like, journalism, dentistry, medical, nonprofit, X-ray technician, you know? Like, all these things in high school, uh, because I wanted to come out the gate into college knowing what I wanted. And nothing just fit right until I did an internship at, a tech consultancy when I was in, I think, first year of college, and we were advising [00:11:00] companies on how to go online.

Mel Strong: Oh

Shaherose: is, like, 2000, right? This is '99, 2000. How to make a website for your small business. What is SEO?

Mel Strong: I started at Nike. My first job was digital producer. So in

Mel Strong: 2002, I was producer of nikerunning.com and nikeacg.com, neither of which were e-commerce enabled. So you just-- you came to a website and then you saw some stuff, and then maybe you would go to your local retailer to buy the stuff you saw.

Mel Strong: Like,

Shaherose: Isn't it, isn't insane?

Mel Strong: It's so funny 'cause you think about AI. I know we're gonna talk a little bit about how we view AI through the lens of

Mel Strong: investing now, and I keep thinking about what it was like to live in that era of the early 2000s. So I

Mel Strong: think it's amazing.

Shaherose: Right? Like, the pre-dot-com era, right? Uh, uh, you know, now AI's the substrate and, you know, it's just n- natural. But yeah, that's exactly what we're going [00:12:00] through right now. So yeah, look, for me, that was, like, a defining moment where I realized, oh, tech. Like, in, in sort of 2000, '99, 2000, I realized tech was gonna be the biggest industry of our time.

Shaherose: And so what sort of, like, fits the, you know, the, the sort of, like, influence I had around, you know, taking risk, being a builder, being competitive, and having a net positive impact on the world, like, capitalism came up for me, and then this idea of helping companies and being a sort of, like, startup-y thing.

Shaherose: Like, the word startup just showed up into my world. And so as I graduated, uh, anyway, and I continued to do internships in sort of, like, tech consultancy 'cause that's all you could find in Canada. I had a friend who had started a company in high school and sold it to some company in LA, and before I knew it, his company went public on the LA Stock Exchange, and he was, like, in Silicon Valley.

Shaherose: And I was like, "What is going-- What is this?" And it was, like, a web [00:13:00] hosting company Right? So anyway, the thread I followed and I realized Silicon Valley is where I belong. So when I graduated from college, I booked a one-way flight, you know, took a sort of cr- line of credit and went to go look for my first job.

Shaherose: I interviewed at Google. That didn't go over anywhere at all. Again, big company, not for me. but then I found my first gig at a nonprofit that was supporting entrepreneurs, similar to what I had done in high school, and these were tech entrepreneurs now. And so I did that for a bit as a way to, like, get in the ecosystem, and then I found a startup that I was really excited about, and that's when I knew.

Shaherose: I'm like, "Ah, I'm here to, like, be a part of something that's pretty early." And so I joined my first startup, in a marketing role, and then eventually became the first product manager, and it was a series of three different startups that I went, worked at, um, in product and in marketing.

Shaherose: The... And y- now you're gonna laugh 'cause the first startup was, uh, a VoIP startup, right? So, a competitive to, competitor [00:14:00] to Skype. Yeah, I know. People, uh, some people I mention it to, they're like,

Mel Strong: For sure.

Shaherose: you know, I cut my teeth. Uh, it was a Sequoia-backed company, um, you know, at Jaaja, and, you know, from there followed the founders to another startup, and then from there went to...

Shaherose: So I worked at three venture-backed startups. So I soaked myself into being an operator, uh, at a startup in this product and marketing role, and I loved it, right? I loved sitting at the intersection of design and product and shipping new products every week, every month, whatever the, the cadence was at the time.

Shaherose: Um, but in parallel, I had an itch to start a company. And so I would go to these networking events and I'm like, "Why am I the only girl in the room? Where's... Why, why is this all dudes? What's going on?" And so I just started to create my own events. I m- had met these three women who said, "Look," we all said together, "Tech is gonna be the most important industry of our time," as I'd said to myself when I left Canada to come to the US.

Shaherose: We said the same thing in our room, in this room. By the way, it was, like, the... first, uh, Facebook office that we booked a room in because it was open and we knew someone who worked there. [00:15:00]

Shaherose: That's great.

Shaherose: random. Yeah. And I couldn't even get onto Facebook then because it was for, like, people who graduated from a US college, and I graduated from a Canadian university.

Shaherose: So I was like, "What's Facebook?" Uh, I got in. They let me in. I, like, asked someone to, like, add me, so I was, like, one of the first Canadian users. Anyway, um, look, that's, that was the start of me sort of side hustling. So my journey has been I've always done things that I love in the day and at night. And so my side hustle was building an ecosystem for women because we said, "If we're building these, you know, Web 2.0 products," right?

Shaherose: Again, this is, like, 2005.

Mel Strong: Mm-hmm.

Shaherose: The people who use these products are not a homogenous group, right? They're diverse people. They're humans. They're men. They're women. So we need women in influential roles, whether they're founders or executives of these new tech startups to be included, otherwise these products are just gonna exclude us.

Shaherose: And there [00:16:00] were, you know, as we know, numerous examples of this type of poor product design in our time. And so that sort of became our thing, is like, how do we get more women to be the f- be founders of technology startups at day zero such that the companies that get built actually solve the problems that need to get solved for the people that are having the problems?

Shaherose: And that was the start of something called Women 2.0, and I did that on the side to inspire more women to be founders while working at the, these other startups in the day, hoping that I would meet a co-founder that I could start something with. So, like, it was like, there was like, you know, in a bigger picture, but also, like, I hope I find someone that I can work with.

Shaherose: Um, that never happened. I g- what instead happened was I realized that I am truly an ecosystem builder,

Mel Strong (2): Hmm. Mm.

Mel Strong (2): That's what Women 2.0

Mel Strong (2): was. I was part of that.

Shaherose: yeah, yeah, exactly. So what started to happen is I started to [00:17:00] become sort of like a node for people who were starting companies and then investors who wanted first access. And so I would, you know, make relationships between these two folks in the moment that they were raising their pre-seed or their seed round, give feedback on their pitch decks.

Shaherose: Like, I just started to see a lot of data points of companies and, you know, new ideas, uh, and new moments, uh, and new and n- new, new ways to do things. I just, I just started to become a wave of inbound. And so what I did is I ended up turning that into an incubator. I happened to meet Eric Ries, uh, who's the creator of "Lean Startup."

Shaherose: His book was just coming out. It hadn't come out yet, and I was like, "Oh, that framework makes sense. What can we do to bring it to the people that are coming to my events?" 'Cause at this point, our network had become tens of thousands of women, uh, you know, we were in our fifth year doing it on the side. And I remember the moment where he said, "Yeah, let's turn this into a program."

Shaherose: And I was like, "Yeah, let's turn this into a..." So we designed a five-week program [00:18:00] to go from zero to one, which is what I ended up bringing to Nike. So I'm giving you this really long story, but essentially, to your point, it all looks un, you know, uncoordinated until the moments when you look in the rear view mirror.

Shaherose: So as I ran this incubator, Founder Labs, one of the companies we incubated on day zero, you probably use it, is a two-factor authentication company called Authy,

Mel Strong: Oh,

Shaherose: got acquired by Twilio. So we sourced the founder. He was coming out from Columbia, you know, had this crazy idea of using your mobile phone for the two-factor authentication and not the little hardware piece that most corporations had to use.

Shaherose: Um, and we g- we got him, we got him going, got him into YC, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and so as that started to happen for me Like, those outcomes made me realize I was good at finding founders and supporting them in that earliest journey. And so I just kept doing more of it, and that's where the incubator came into play.

Shaherose: That's... Following that, I continued to do it on my own. So another company I helped incubate [00:19:00] was called Republic, uh, which is now a unicorn. So if you know Republic, it's... Yeah, it started off as an equity crowdfunding platform. I was with the founder day zero before it even had a name. It used to be called Open Deal.

Shaherose: And we, you know, got really clear on what's the problem, what's the solution, who's the customer, how do we get... How do we launch this? How do we pitch this to investors? I was always sort of this co-pilot to these founders. Um, and I loved it because I got the chance to start a bunch of things and have them continue on.

Shaherose: And many of them failed, but these are the ones that, that survived. Um, anyway, this... I've never told my story this way, so here we are.

Mel Strong: it's great. This is exactly why I wanted to do this because, I mean, when you get to meet someone in a work setting, like, you get, like, these little bits of the story, right? I never actually had the opportunity to hear the whole story.

Mel Strong: Um, that's amazing. It's like you've had

Shaherose: yeah.

Mel Strong: lives.

Shaherose: Yeah, around the time, around the time [00:20:00] Republic had just launched was around the time I connected with Hannah. So this is where the, the story... I was very not expecting any of this to happen, but here I was bopping around, spending my time with founders three months, six months, or one year at a time, getting them from zero to one, 'cause I just realized, like, that was my jam.

Mel Strong: Mm-hmm.

Shaherose: And I met with Hannah and she said, "You've got this, like, zero to one playbook." She's like, "We're trying to do this."

Mel Strong: who Hannah is for

Shaherose: Oh, yes.

Mel Strong: And

Mel Strong: your audience.

Shaherose: so, I

Shaherose: through a common connection, Peter Sims, um, he said, "You know, Nike's trying to create an incubator, and you just did that."

Shaherose: And I was like, "I did just do that. Um, so what?" Was sort of my response.

Shaherose: He's like, "Will you meet with them?" And so, you know, I had the chance to meet the then VP of a to-be-created business unit that did not also have a name. Um, but the idea was how do we come up with net new revenue streams for Nike in [00:21:00] spaces including social commerce, health and wellness, and sustainability?

Shaherose: But we need to generate these new ideas from zero to one. And so when I met with Hannah and I shared the work I'd been doing, she's like, "This is exactly what we need. We need to, like, try a bunch of new ideas inside a corporation and build them And scale them only if they're good enough. And I would say, "Great, exactly the point," right?

Shaherose: You need to do this venture style. And so I came in and real- without really realizing it, honestly, brought my playbook, but basically designed it as if we were venture investors. And we, together with Hannah, set the goal thatthese new ideas have to be so big that there's a line of sight to 100 million in revenue or five-- in five to seven years, or it's not worth it.

Shaherose: It's not worth it as a VC. It's not worth it as a company the size of Nike. And so that meant creating a really rigorous innovation process. What's the idea? Who's the [00:22:00] customer? What is the market size? And can we actually get traction? And we would f- hire former founders to do this. But it also meant, because we were so rigorous with our criteria, like we are as VCs, right?

Shaherose: You need to hit a certain bar at the pre-seed, at the seed, at the series A, and those were the stages, by the way, that we sort of mirrored inside the company. it meant we killed a lot of ideas inside a corporation that wasn't a normal practice, right? We, we did a lot of things differently that didn't feel right because of the level of failure required to get to something big.

Mel Strong: Which is crazy, right? Because innovation was one of Nike's, like, mission objectives, right? To

Mel Strong: be innovative, to push the boundaries of what's possible in sports. But you're right. I think when you and I partnered, and, and I think for me as a longtime Nike employee, the reason why Valiant Labs was so exciting to me is it seemed like you still had a remit [00:23:00] to innovate and fail.

Mel Strong: And I'll be honest, in the, the back half of my career at Nike, there was zero appetite for failure.

Mel Strong: we were very afraid of failing. And so that's, I think why so many people were attracted to Valiant Labs internally, is it felt like the last bastion of that opportunity to iterate on things, break things,

Mel Strong: learn a few lessons on behalf of the brand, and bring the things

Mel Strong: that work back in.

Mel Strong: And so, like a, it's a big testament to you and Hannah and the original team at Valiant for being a place where we thought that was possible, and we had some success there.

Shaherose: We did. We did. I think you heard that Nike Refurbished in the last fiscal year hit 100 million in revenue, which was the exact goal we had.

Mel Strong: That's awesome. That's...

Shaherose: it took that amount of time, right? We incubated it in 2018, and it was like, that's exactly the time it takes. And so I think there's something about the journey of taking risks and failing that was [00:24:00] a big part of my experience at Nike, and I think when I was there, two things happened to me.

Shaherose: One was like, oh, I really know how to go from zero to one, 'cause I just recreated it inside one of the biggest corporations there ever was. And I know a lot about how it works at each stage, and I know what good looks like. And in parallel, I started to angel invest. I, up until that point, was always the co-pilot, the first advisor, the incubator person, the person who was, like, kind of building in the trenches with these founders.

Shaherose: And this was the first time where I instead started to write personal checks. And it's when I wrote the first check that I was like, "This feels different." And I like it. And I like it.

Mel Strong: It's so important, and I think it's important... I mean, that's, that was similar to my journey. You know, I, I did not have the diverse founder, tech [00:25:00] operator, kinda zero to one type of experience that you had, obviously, but I started angel investing as well. And honestly, my first few investments were in companies, that I discovered while I was at Nike because they

Mel Strong: were doing interesting work that was adjacent to what we were trying to do or possibly competitive, although,

Mel Strong: you know, it would be death like 1,000 paper cuts for Nike to, um, see startups as meaningfully competitive.

Mel Strong: But back then, I thought this would just be a really interesting way for me to learn through my own investments. Um, so I, I, I think that's often the path for a lot of VCs who maybe don't come from investment banking. You put your own capital, hard-earned in our,

Mel Strong: experience, like into a company and do the same kind of diligence and have the same skin in the game. I think that prepares you so well to deploy capital through a fund.

Shaherose: Yeah. Yeah. Let's reflect on that, that jump for both of us, um, in that [00:26:00] moment where you and I were talking and you were exploring venture, and you made the move, right? What-- Tell me a bit about what you ha- what you kept from the Nike or other experiences you've continued to keep in your job, and what did you really have to, like, let go of and, like, unlearn along the way?

Mel Strong: Yeah. It's been pretty balanced, and when I first left in 2019, I thought I would have to unlearn a lot.

Mel Strong: You know? I'd been there for so long, almost 20 years. I'm not naive enough to acknowledge that the things that make a big- $50 billion brand work from both a leadership perspective and a go-to-market strategy perspective and membership, where I spent a number of my later years, working within Nike, are not necessarily plug and play for a smaller, startup.

Mel Strong: And so the reality is, and, [00:27:00] and Oura is kind of a nice example of this. I think I- it took me a few years to understand that there is actually more application at a certain scale, maybe at the Series A stage,

Mel Strong: of my experience directly into a company building in this space.

Mel Strong: and so having that opportunity to kind of get in with a company and be like, "Oh, I can actually help," at a certain point after we've pro- proven mar- product market fit and we're just starting to figure out who our real target audience is.

Mel Strong: Should it be tech bros? Should we think about serving women primarily through a wearable device? Here are the pros and

Mel Strong: cons. That was 2021. It was such a cool moment a few years into building Next Ventures

Mel Strong: for me to feel like, um, my operating experience and specifically building digital products at Nike was really, really useful for one of our

Mel Strong: portfolio companies.

Mel Strong: But man, so much unlearning.

Mel Strong: You know,

Mel Strong: Because we are both the products of

Mel Strong: immigrant parents, I do think I learned a lot [00:28:00] about what it takes to trust yourself,

Mel Strong:

Mel Strong: and use your community to help you be successful. Like I knew a solo GP path wasn't for me. Like I'd always been on teams. I also know that there are a lot of things I don't know, and I just felt we would be better if, if there was a we involved instead of a me. but having lived... I'm half Japanese, and having seen my grandmother and my mother's experience as,

Mel Strong: um,

Mel Strong: first gens. My mom moved here when she was a baby,

Mel Strong:

Mel Strong: when at the time it wasn't popular to be Japanese in this country. And to see and experience discrimination through the lens of my mom's experience, and a little bit of my own actually.

Mel Strong: Um, we lived in the South for a little while, uh, in the late '70s, early '80s when I was just foreigner-looking enough

Mel Strong: to get bullied. And

Mel Strong: prior to honestly, [00:29:00] I'd never had that experience. We lived in Japan, and I felt pretty welcome there. And then when we lived on the East Coast where I was born, I felt really welcome there.

Mel Strong: But there was a period

Mel Strong: in,

Mel Strong: in like third to fifth grade where I was an outsider.

Mel Strong: And actually, as much as that sucked, obviously, as it would for any child, like I look back at that and I'm like, "Okay, I can be an outsider and I can still deserve to be here and prove that I'm good, if not great."

Mel Strong: And so a lot of the things that I learned from my own experience

Mel Strong: and,

Mel Strong: and certainly my parents helped me through

Mel Strong: the,

Mel Strong: the hard times of transitioning out of a career I'd spent so much of my life building to do something where, and I wasn't invited.

Mel Strong: No one was like, "Oh, Mel Strong should be a VC. This is a great idea." I mean, I had lots of

Mel Strong: friends and peers and mentors like you around the table, but let's be clear,

Mel Strong: like, you know,

Mel Strong: I was elbowing my way in there and just figuring out where we could carve out a space that would be meaningful for Next Ventures.

Mel Strong: So there's [00:30:00] that. The grit is an overused word for experiences like ours, but I, I think there is something to, um, having to kick down closed doors, having to feel, comfortable in your own skin, and

Mel Strong: just knowing you don't need to change who you are to be great. Those are lessons I think you distinctly learn through the experiences we've had growing up.

Shaherose: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Um, just, like, reflecting on what you're saying too, you know, one thing I would say is y- you sharing how being at Nike was super helpful to you with Aura, as an example, and I'm sure many other portfolio companies since. You know, I would say the same for me. Up until that point, I had never worked in a big corporation.

Shaherose: Uh, and I wouldn't have understood what it takes to sell into an enterprise until I lived it, until I was the receiver of all the things that people want to sell [00:31:00] you. And so my empathy for sort of the enterprise sales journey is so much higher and so much more real, right? 'Cause I can speak to what it takes to be- just become a vendor.

Shaherose: Uh, and, you know, there's so many dinosaur moments in, in a company like Nike, and yet I would say I also felt at home. Because when I met you and I met other senior leaders, you all actually operated, I don't know if you know this, but very entrepreneurially. N- not, uh, yeah, in a way, like, you were, you had conviction about a way and you would move down whatever was in your way to make it happen.

Shaherose: And I saw that and I could feel it, like there was still some entrepreneurial spirit. Like, Heidi O'Neill was like that. Hannah was like that. Okay, maybe it was all the women. Right? But, like- like, there was, like, some level of, like, bravery that I saw in you all. But it was not even bravery, it was just [00:32:00] conviction that you knew this was the path.

Shaherose: And so I just, I wanna, like, echo that back to you, but also say, like, I... It sharpened me to remind myself that always operate from conviction, right? That, like, on your point of, like, not changing who you are, that also happened to me at Nike. I had an identity breakdown. This was the first time I wasn't the founder or the co-pilot of something that, like, was in my full control.

Shaherose: And by the way, also was my full identity. I was just coming off having run Women 2.0 and Founder Labs. I was a founder. I was those brands. And now I had a badge. And I was

Mel Strong: You remember your employee number at Nike?

Shaherose: Yeah, yeah. It's, uh...

Mel Strong: What was it?

Shaherose: wanna say it's, like, 808066 or something like that. I know it was, like, 006 was the

Mel Strong: I was

Shaherose: you would

Mel Strong: 63860. So

Shaherose: probably... Okay, there you go.

Mel Strong: I was employee number 63,860

Shaherose: Yeah, [00:33:00] like exactly my point, right? Like, it's, it's such a different environment and yet you find also, you know, the parts that are common to what, what you know and what you believe in, which was like the entrepreneurial energy for me.

Shaherose: And then I learned so much about what it sells into enterprise, but also what it takes to operate something at scale and the level of precision that's required. Like, as we were continuing to scale, Nike Refurbish or trying to take some of our products to market to scale through the Nike Run Club or if it was through, um, the, what was the workout app called?

Shaherose: Nike Plus. Nike Plus? No.

Mel Strong: Nike Training Club.

Shaherose: The Nike Training Club. it's just a different game that I had played where I would be the owner of the product. I would ship the products, right? But, like, to see things operate with that level of rigor and scale, it really rounded out who I was and I think it's allowed me to also show up differently to my founders.

Shaherose: I think [00:34:00] also to your point on the, like, putting your own capital to work, right? Like, it shifted my energy from being sort of, you know, co-pilot builder in the trenches to a guide and a, and a, and a, oh, maybe guide's not the right word but a steward of the capital that was put into that company, right? So as, even if it was my own capital and now it's the ca- the capital of, of my LPs, I just notice that that's a different posture altogether and it's a posture that allows me to sort of like look at the deal very holistically and not through the eyes of the founder, right?

Shaherose: and be able to say the hard things because when you're the first advisor and the first builder you just want the founder to win only, right? But here as an investor, like even as an angel investor, I've had to just like say things to these founders that, you know, I wouldn't have normally said.

Shaherose: and I don't say it because I believe they're wrong, it's just a perspective for them to [00:35:00] consider that I think is more holistic and more big picture than just, you know, being, you know, um, almost, um, you know, intoxicated by the founder's journey which is what I, you know, used to. So I've had to really, for my own learning, it, it's been that and, and I, and I, and it, and it's just like I like operating from there now.

Mel Strong: Yeah,

Mel Strong: I believe it. I believe it. I, I'm so jealous that you got to, like, build, co-found, and be a founder before you did corporate, you

Mel Strong: know? Um, I wonder how different my perspective would be now. You know, I had a career before Nike, but I had never built anything. And I don't know if this resonates with you, but I found that a lot of people are investors because they wanna build, but they don't know what they wanna build themselves, and so instead

Mel Strong: they exist to serve the people building.

Mel Strong: You know, they build funds

Mel Strong: or they put their own capital into founders building things that inspire

Mel Strong: them. And I, I think, what you said [00:36:00] is absolutely true too. It really resonates with me. Some of the biggest mistakes I've made with my own capital, and maybe early days with our LPs' capital, is understanding how to balance your enthusiasm for the founder with the realities of whether that business is venture scale or not, and will this investment return the fund.

Mel Strong: And certainly once you get to a place, like we have almost 30 companies now in our portfolio between our first and second funds,

Shaherose: Mm-hmm.

Mel Strong: you know, so we've gotten enough, opportunities to understand where we're good and where we're not. And, you know, so we've been doing a lot of hindsighting as a team. And it's often the case for me, my personal blind spot is falling in love with the person, the

Mel Strong: founder, at the expense of really being able to critically diligence the business. Obviously that's now something as a team, we've protected the investment committee process around. But early [00:37:00] days, I think I just fell in love with the passion and vision.

Mel Strong: And at Nike probably taught me a bit of this.

Mel Strong: spending so many years with athletes,

Mel Strong: you know, who have had to bet on themselves, especially

Mel Strong: female athletes. Like, I'm so stoked on this moment in women's soccer and women's

Mel Strong: basketball, just because I feel like you and I were working in sports at a time when women's sports wasn't necessarily A driving commercial opportunity, a driving audience participation opportunity, all of that has changed.

Mel Strong: We just hosted the International Women's Sports Film Festival here in Portland last week. It was so cool because it was sold out, and there were these packed audiences of all different kinds of people, right? Not just

Mel Strong: women, um, wanting to watch these stories of women athletes. Um, it feels like in the last few years, it just has, like, finally sort of become a place where people see opportunity not through the lens [00:38:00] of charity.

Mel Strong: Like, this isn't

Mel Strong: just a cute, like, let's check the box on women's sports. Like, no, this is a massive market. And so I wanted to ask you about-- 'cause I think the fact that your mom was an athlete is very interesting.

Mel Strong: We, we have this perspective and culture within our firm around the athlete's mindset,

Mel Strong: 'cause we're all athletes, but we are also really interested in finding founders who have an athlete mindset.

Mel Strong: This is why I think athletes make great investors, great business leaders.

Mel Strong: And you know this, like an athlete doesn't need to be a professional

Mel Strong: Olympian-level athlete. But

Mel Strong: anyone who's ever set a goal, everything on the line for that goal, failed

Shaherose: Exactly.

Mel Strong: in seeking

Mel Strong: that goal. All those cross-country races that I lost in high school and college, you know?

Mel Strong: Like it,

Mel Strong: it-- I think that those reps really matter, and that my

Mel Strong: mind was comfortable with the idea that I could [00:39:00] fail. Although I was very afraid of failing when I left Nike.

Mel Strong: And this is such a blind spot for so many of us, I think. What are people gonna think? You

Mel Strong: know? If I leave Nike, and I, I

Mel Strong: wanna hear more about like why you left Nike and what you decided to do next and why, and

Mel Strong: what you learned during your time working with me and, and the rest of the crew at, in Beaverton.

Mel Strong: But I was really afraid of failing because I was doing something that was pretty unusual. A lot of my peers at Nike were leaving to go work at other big companies, right? Whether

Mel Strong: it was in sports or outside of sports. Um, there weren't many, if any, Nike folks creating venture funds.

Shaherose: No, nobody.

Mel Strong: who am I to think that I'm the right person to do that?

Mel Strong: And what if I was unsuccessful? Like, what would people think? I constantly had to check myself those first few years. I know you have gone on to continue to take risks since you left

Shaherose: Yeah.[00:40:00]

Mel Strong: but I'd, I'd love to just hear more about what that thought process was like for you.

Shaherose: Yeah. Um, that's a good, that's a good question. I think, I think what happened for me was, you know, I was reaching five years, and the journey of building the business unit with Hannah from zero to now, you know, what it was when I left, which was like a sort of like well-oiled machine to some degree, you know, that was when I was like, "Th- this is not where I belong anymore."

Shaherose: I'm the starter, right? I'm the, like, catalyst. I'm the designer, whether it's org design or people design or, you know, innovation process design or investment process design. everything that created Valiant's journey was in place, right? And I think that for me, that's sort of where I feel, "Okay, I'm done."

Shaherose: You know? I've, I've, I've done enough. And I think in parallel, [00:41:00] as I continued to do angel investments, my interest in becoming a venture capitalist full time started to become bigger and bigger. And I also had to break through the thought of, will I make it? Because to be a VC is n- first of all, breaking in, the odds are low, and then actually making the right bets and having outsized outcomes, the outcomes are also low.

Shaherose: none of the choice made any logical sense, right? But every time I would quiet my mind, whether I would meditate, you know, or go on a run or whatever f- like, for me, my sport is yoga. I, I've gone deep into the practice. I am a yogi. I am someone who... I've done, like, teacher training.

Shaherose: I've taught classes like that. That is my sport. But it's also the place where I find myself and I find the messages that [00:42:00] are coming to me. And, you know, it just kept coming through of like, y- you know, my dad passed away in 2011, and his voice was just always like, "Give it a go." You know? Like, what's the worst that could happen?

Shaherose: But more importantly, as some of the companies I had backed came to fruition, right? Like, Republic is now a unicorn. Um, you know, there's a couple other companies I backed that I just started to see momentum. I- there's nothing else I can think of that makes the best possible use of who I am, authentically who I am, and what I can bring to the table.

Shaherose: Like, there literally no other gig, right? Everywhere else I would feel underutilized, and I would feel that there was more for me to do. But venture allows me to really step in and, you know, resonate with the builder's hat. I see the big picture on what could be venture scale or not, and I wanna talk about that if we have [00:43:00] time, because I think that's a, a big part of the role as a VC is to suss out what actually can reach venture scale, and it's a very small subset of every innovation that you see.

Shaherose: Um, and also this idea of like, I have built a really credible reputation and network with people who want to back and support the things that I support. And so, like, the combination of what I've done in my life, who I am, and who I know was just so strong to- pointed towards early-stage founders that I was like, "This is the only option, my friends.

Shaherose: Nothing else makes sense." Um,

Mel Strong: Could you imagine having come to this career, like earlier in your life? Like,

Mel Strong: I would've been so unprepared.

Shaherose: I didn't. Yeah, I hadn't, so I- 'cause I was always the, supporter of the founders, and that everyb- VC back then, the wave of VCs that I was around, were a little more, you know, structured and not sort of from the builder [00:44:00] background. The, the founder-operator VC profile just came into play in the last five years, 10 years maybe.

Shaherose: When I saw people I knew who were former founders, like Amit at Accel, right? he built a company before he became a VC. And plenty of others, I thought, "Oh, no, no, no, this profile needs to be... It only makes sense to me." I would... If I was a founder, I would want me.

Mel Strong: Yeah.

Shaherose: You know?

Shaherose: Um, yeah. So anyway, were you gonna answer the question too?

Mel Strong: I can. Um, I mean, I'm so glad that I came to this chapter of my career exactly when I did,

Mel Strong: um, because I don't think I would've had the confidence.

Mel Strong: and I don't think I would have had the endurance. You know, VC's a weird game. Uh, when you

Mel Strong: come from an operator life,

Mel Strong: specifically working at a big corporation, like you're used to constant change,

Mel Strong: all of those things. But you know how you're [00:45:00] doing immediately. Like you get performance evaluations for one, pretty regularly. But then two, like the market, the public market tells you, it tells you at

Mel Strong: Nike like

Mel Strong: how you're performing, by which geography, which categories are doing well or poorly. You know, there's lots of levers to pull, and lots of data that gives you sort of real time feedback on how you are doing in the role you're playing at that corporation. When you're a fund manager and you're deploying into early stage, let's talk about what it means to be a venture scale business, because I do think that exercise of vetting a company, but then keeping that company focused

Mel Strong: on like either playing out that path, the reason why

Mel Strong: you invested in them, or if they're shifting gears, why that new path is still going to create the kind of returns we're in the business of creating. And I think, I think that that nuance for me early on was really challenging.

Mel Strong: Uh, 'cause again, like you said, you want these [00:46:00] founders to succeed, but Our responsibility first and foremost, yours and mine, are to our LPs.

Mel Strong: You know, the people who have decided that we are good enough to, and to pick, to pick great

Mel Strong: companies, and to pick a few companies that are gonna win.

Mel Strong: Um, so- That responsibility has weighed on me from the very beginning, and I do think I'm not sure I would've been prepared for that earlier. You know? I think I needed the experience and the maturity and, uh, also, like, a full life of things that brought me to a, yeah, a point where I, I feel like I trust myself or I know how to find the answer. so I'm grateful I didn't try to do this sooner. Frankly, I would have no, had

Mel Strong: no business doing it

Mel Strong: earlier,

Shaherose: agree with you.

Mel Strong: but

Shaherose: Yeah.

Mel Strong: it's been, yeah, it's been amazing.

Shaherose: Yeah. I, I feel the same way. I feel like everything I've done and everything I've learned and experienced shows up every single day. And [00:47:00] had I had any gaps in the operating side of it or the incubation side of it, I wouldn't have felt so convicted that I belonged in this seat, right?

Shaherose: so maybe let's wrap on, like, what we're both sort of doubling down on in this context. what we're both doubling down on as we look, let's say, to the next five years, 'cause I can't think we can look past five years as everything's changing so fast.

Shaherose: and I'd love to share sort of like how we think about, you know, the stage that we invest at, so, you know, given that, like what we look for and what we're excited about. So, you know, at Unshackled Ventures, we are hilariously early, right? We're backing founders where they just have an idea, which is the stage I mentioned that I spent my whole career in, right?

Shaherose: So we tend to zero in on the types of founders who first and foremost are immigrants, because we believe immigrants have outsized resilience and grit, and they outperform the market time and time again. You know, data [00:48:00] shows, we don't have to go into that. And because we... And ultimately, like, as immigrants, like we uniquely understand the journey and can support them in ways that others can't, whether that's immigration or networks, you know,

Shaherose: Um, so what we look for. So when we're thinking about the next five years, what we've been noticing is there are two types of founders that we get really excited about. The first is what we call a technical visionary. These are people who are coming out of our institutions. They've got, you know, a master's or a PhD or they're a post-doc in some kind of net new technology for the world.

Shaherose: And these are... Like, we're talking about the top 1% of people who sit at the intersection of really interesting technology, but they also think in that venture scale that we were talking about, right? So this could be companies in energy, uh, climate, uh, robotics, quantum, biotech. They are people who are set out on a bigger mission than just the research that they've [00:49:00] done.

Shaherose: So an example of one of our companies is Cache Energy. Cache Energy has, started by a founder who in his research in, in his master's and his PhD was looking at, how do I create a sustainable source of energy that is also portable and works in any environment without any setup costs? Sounds easy, right?

Shaherose: And so he discovered that you can store energy in limestone pellets and make them very sustainable and portable. And he's at a point where he's raising a Series A, he now has Duke Energy as a customer, Whirlpool as a customer, Alaska PG&E, and they are using it to get off the grid.

Shaherose: So one of many examples of companies that are just truly, you know, creating something net new for the world that, that is absolutely gonna be at scale. So when we think at the venture scale of this, energy as a market, the shift towards, you know, getting off the grid, [00:50:00] it, it-- the opportunity from a market standpoint is really incredible, but the solutions that live in these spaces are clunky, they're confusing, they're expensive.

Shaherose: And the per unit cost that he's come down to is one that a, a customer cannot say no to. So, like, that combination of things is, you know, a very unique set, um, that, that I think, like, you know, just a researcher could not have thought of, right? So it's a very unique human that we back. The second type of persona we tend to back are system disruptors.

Shaherose: So these are people who've worked in industry, and they've seen the guts of the industry so such that they're ready to disrupt it in some way.

Mel Strong: Oh.

Shaherose: an example of one of our companies is sort of an AI orchestration layer for supply chain, and this founder started 10 months ago. He'd worked in supply chain his whole life and saw that people are just throwing robots into warehouses, but there's still humans around, and the workflows are not flowing as efficiently as they could.

Shaherose: The, the work [00:51:00] cannot be efficient without the workflows being orchestrated with the humans as well. And he is killing it. This guy just raised a preemptive Series A within 10 months of our first check. And so these are, again, people who he's so deeply embedded into his industry that that's his competitive advantage.

Shaherose: So these people go into complex industries, regulated industries, and we find that their ability to really find the unique opportunity and then do it at venture scale, it's just, it's natural to them 'cause they've operated there. And so, you know, when we look at the next five years, we're definitely looking at, the future of, for sure, healthcare and health, health delivery, physical AI, you know, s-science on, like, biotech in, in a new way, quantum.

Shaherose: We're generalists at the end of the day, but if these people fit in these two buckets, like, follow their journey, in a way that, you know, we can unlock them in no-- with no oth- in a way that no other funds can.

Mel Strong: Very cool. I've often thought about the, the question of, like, whether it's better to [00:52:00] be category specific or generalist. You're kind of both. Like, you get the best of both worlds because you are focusing on immigrant founders, right? So

Mel Strong: you're sort of, like, creating that first filter through the lens of founder experience, lived experience, which I think is

Mel Strong: really smart. and then within that, I think the generalist strategy makes a ton of sense.

Mel Strong: we are going at it through the lens of category specificity. So our firm, and you

Mel Strong: articulated it so beautifully at the beginning of this, I won't go into what Whole Person Health is in too much detail, but like pre-COVID, the whole idea of consumerization of healthcare was pretty new.

Mel Strong: I think we all got this, like, hard lesson in 2020 to today that, um, you have to be the captain of your own experience

Mel Strong: as a patient and person, and that the healthcare system, especially in this country, is

Mel Strong: pretty backwards. So 85% of healthcare spent in this country are, are spent on things that are preventable.

Mel Strong: And so our job as investors is to find those [00:53:00] big levers of preventative healthcare upstream that can drive better outcomes, and then we also have a downstream practice. So it's so cool to, be here with you now and say, like, we're hiring people, and we just closed one too, and it's, like, it, like, I finally feel like I'm getting to that point we talked about earlier where I can be like, "Okay, I think we might be good at this."

Mel Strong: Um, we've got great returns. We have DPI, and we are in a position, like a very lucky, lucky position to be hiring people. And so we brought on Felix Kim a couple months ago, um, who is building out our downstream healthcare strategy. So the idea is eventually we will be finding companies that are closing the gap between upstream healthcare utilization from the perspective of patient or consumer and downstream utilization, so integrating with payers, healthcare and hospital groups, uh, pharma. So we've got, like, a really interesting- spot, I think, where we may be differentiated from more traditional health tech firms.

Mel Strong: And, you know, the things that I'm excited about, I think are pretty similar to [00:54:00] yours. Like I, I think that AI is gonna help enable better healthcare outcomes, you know,

Mel Strong: in the ways in which we live through the era of personal computing And, and technology was and will always be used for both good and bad things. But I, because we're investors, you have to be more optimistic than pessimistic. And so I do believe tech and AI and this gen- this generation of like large language models will be used to do more good than not good.

Mel Strong: so I continue to be very bullish about that. And I think AI is also going to give people an opportunity to think more about how they spend their time.

Mel Strong: Um, I think there are a host of really interesting challenges we're gonna face as a society.

Mel Strong: But in all the ways, I think both of us decided to be fund managers 'cause we wanted to be part of building that future at this stage in our lives, having seen our own companies, the companies we founded, the companies we worked for, [00:55:00] nonprofits and for-profits, tackle this problem of how to grow while building for a better future.

Mel Strong: Like, who wouldn't wanna sit in our seats at this moment in time? It's really exciting.

Shaherose: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. when I think about my why every day, uh, and I remember articulating it to myself over and over every time it was time to think about leaving Nike and jump into venture with no plan, which is like, I'm here to bend the arc of our future in a positive direction by being the wind behind the backs of founders that are building our future.

Shaherose: Like, that just, like, wakes me up every day because founders, the intersection of technology, innovation, you know, capitalism, just that intersection is just so powerful.

Mel Strong: Mm-hmm.

Shaherose: And to be able to be sort of the wind behind that energy or be the energy really, my gosh, what else would I else-- what [00:56:00] else would I wanna do with my life?

Shaherose: It just feels so meaningful to me.

Mel Strong: Yeah. I totally agree.

Shaherose: think we're both motivated by the same things, for sure.

Shaherose: Definitely. Absolutely. Look, this was fun. Thank you so much, Mel, um, for spending time with me, for letting me bam- banter on about some of the things I'm thinking about and the journey to venture. It was really fun to switch it up, not be a host.

Mel Strong: Well, thank you so much for having me. This was super fun.

Shaherose: Yes. Thank you.

Speaker: All right. Welcome back. That was another great episode. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. So typically, I listen to the episode soon as we record it. Take some time to reflect, do some thinking, do some writing, and share back my takeaways. Many of you have said how much you enjoy the takeaways, which I appreciate because this is why I'm doing this.

Speaker: I'm doing this too. Take the time to think and reflect and have my own thoughts about what other people are saying. [00:57:00] So it's, it's, the real reason for doing all this is to have some takeaways. However, I'm gonna change the format of how I share my takeaways, and there's two reasons for that. One is. I wanna hear from you.

Speaker: Uh, I love recording my thoughts, but it's also great to hear what you all think the listeners. So whether you're an angel investor, a venture capitalist, or a founder, I wanna hear your thoughts too. If you agree or disagree or have new thoughts or have questions, I'd love to hear what those questions might be.

Speaker: Um, so that's one reason is I want to be in conversation. I want to be in community with all of you listeners. The second reason is things are changing. In a good way for me, which is gonna make it harder for me to take the time out to come back on to record. It's gonna be much easier for me to spend time writing and thinking and putting that out via our newsletter.

Speaker: And I'll share more about why things are gonna get [00:58:00] busy in the next week or two. But it's all good stuff and I'm super excited to let you all know. So with that, if you have not joined the newsletter, and I know some of you already have, thank you for that. Please join. And once you do join, you'll only get messages after every episode.

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