Chris Rizik, Michigan’s "Dean" of Venture Capital, Joins The Herd Has Spoken Podcast

Chris Rizik -- Michigan’s Dean of Venture Capital & The King of Soul Tracks

Despite being recognized as “The Dean” of Venture Capital in the state of Michigan, Chris talks about why he sees himself as a founder first and foremost. Brad & Chris talk about the the good and the bad of venture capital -- and the importance of always finding time to give to others as a true key to success. But before talking shop about investing, Chris dives into his true passion: Soul Music -- and how founding the home for Soul Music online helped Chris to create a VC firm that helped to develop the Moderna. COVID-19 vaccine.

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Enjoy the conversation between Chris and Brad

Brad
Chris Rizik Welcome to The Herd Has Spoken.

Chris
Thanks so much, Brad. It's awesome being here.

Brad
Well listen, like you've had a lot of success across a lot of fields, accounting, law, venture capital. But what I want to start with today is to hear a little bit more about something that I know is a passion project of yours. And that's soul tracks. Can you share a little bit about what soul tracks is and how you got started with it.

Chris
So it really began when I was a student at Michigan State. And I had this itch to write about music. So I went to the editor of the state news, which then was the largest student newspaper in the country, and asked if they had anybody who review soul music, that was kind of music that I'd grown up with here in Michigan, of course, and, and I felt like I could do an okay job of it. And so they looked at me, like, go for it. I nobody's ever thought about doing that. So I became a staff writer and started writing about it and really loved what I was doing and loved writing about it. Briefly thought about it as a career, but I wasn't that good. So I stuck with accounting, right? And, and then finished, graduated and didn't think of it again, until the internet came in, like 2000 2001. And as a fan of Sony Music, I would go online, and they were just there was just an absence of good material, biographies, reviews, etc. And so I found a website, wrote a couple pieces just for fun and submitted it to a website. And they posted it. And then out of the blue, I got an email from XM Radio. And they had a solo music station. And the guy who ran the station said, Well, I really like your writing. Would you like to do a show on Excel? Basically by doing biographies of classic soul artists. And I was like, Man, I'm so busy, and my wife would live with me. And the Soviet thing for years said, You've got to do this. So so so Collette got me to do it. And I went, I just wrote, I did a couple shows. And it wasn't really what I wanted to do, what I really loved to do was write so literally Memorial Day weekend 2003. I bought a program on eBay for 50 bucks and figured out how to build a website and just started writing on airplanes or on weekends. And one thing led to another. And next thing I know, I looked on Google, and I was getting a few 1000 people a month, which shocked me that we're reading these, mostly biographies that I was writing. And I'm a little competitive, right. And then I had been involved in venture capital in a company called lacz, which was basically Pandora before Pandora. So I learned some lessons from that, and just decided, Okay, I'm going to actually try and turn this into something. So I had the site professionally developed and started hiring writers. And we started doing you actively doing reviews and introducing new artists, you're one of the issues was, so music was kind of a dead music from radio standpoint, radio was already on hip hop, in particular and pop. And it's like, what if we create like this parallel universe, where fans of soul music, who can't hear what they want on the radio, can learn about it, can keep up with it. And importantly, can discover that it's not a dead music, there's all kinds of new artists, and we can introduce them to new artists through soul tracks, that was kind of the mission was really kind of connecting people who would love this music with artists who were doing this, but didn't have a way to reach them. So and so here we are, you know, 1718 years later. And you know, it's kind of gone through the roof. We have readers in 140 countries, we have eight writers, an editor, and it's how I spend my Saturdays and Sundays.

Brad
So did you have any plans that were specific enough to get you to where you were today, when you restarted soul tracks.

Chris
It's been constantly just flowing. So when we first started still tracks, the biography piece was huge. That's where everybody wanted. And then all of a sudden Wikipedia came. And my traffic went down by 70% in like a month. And so then it was like, Okay, let's look more reviews. And then, you know, people stopped buying albums became more singles oriented. So then we started doing more introducing people to new singles and in songs that they wouldn't otherwise know. That's kind of where we're at right now. We've sort of half that and half kind of getting tribute to artists that people may have forgotten that are still around. So I couldn't have planned for where we are right now.

Brad
So you just knew that you were you you're passionate about this, you'd had some success writing for the state news while you're in college. And you said, Wow, this, this internet thing's pretty cool. And I can't find what I need. And I'm not terrible at writing about about soul music. Why don't we just go ahead and put this out there and fast forward? And you are sort of the authority online for all things? solo music?

Chris
Yeah, it's just kind of worked out in a way I couldn't imagine.

Brad
I love it. I love it. And so obviously, you mentioned you spend your weekdays doing other things today. And I'm curious, what have you taken away from your work in Seoul tracks that's enabled you to be such a successful Venture Capitalist?

Chris
Well, the interesting thing is soul tracks. It is a startup, or at least it was a startup, but it's still very startup like, in the end, what I what I had to discover, and what every startup has to discover is, you can have an idea of what you want to do. But there's got to be a market that says this is something we want. So it was sold tracks, I was doing these biographies. And all of a sudden, the market said, We don't really want these anymore. So we had to pivot, and then pivot, and then pivot, do we now last year was by far the biggest year ever. But if I look at what soul tracks looked like last year, it is nothing like what it was 16 years ago. And that was a lesson that has helped me in venture capital, just kind of having lived it, and realizing the need to be to navigate. So inside your head, you're no longer in tune with the market. And you know, what the market needs. I often I tell founders all the time, most of whom are tech founders. It's like, your technology not working. Is is the second worst thing that can happen. The worst thing that can happen is it works. And nobody cares. Because that's super frustrating.

Brad
Yeah, no doubt about it. And I'd love to hear your take a little bit in terms of how you most identify. So this is probably going to be a question that's, that's tough to answer. But do you most identify as a founder, as a venture capitalist, as an accountant, or an attorney?

Chris
I would say as a founder. And in part, I'm cheating a little bit. Because, you know, when I created Renaissance, I was a founder. And you know, like other founders, you know, I left my other job. I went out on a limb, I had a period of, you know, several months, where it's where the question was, is this going to happen? Or is this not going to happen? And, you know, we created something different with Renaissance that nobody had done before. So it wasn't just a venture capital fund. And we've had to continue to invent all the way through the run with with Renaissance. So I feel like a founder because the path that we're taking is different than anybody had taken before.

Brad
Well, I'd love I'd love to get into that with Renaissance. But before we do, I want to kind of walk through your career a little bit, and understand some of those inflection points that you had. So you mentioned your time at Michigan State, and he went on to get an MBA from University of Michigan as well. And you work for an accountant, he was worked for the see of PricewaterhouseCoopers right, Coopers and Lybrand before became PwC. And then you are Excuse me? I don't think you got your MBA was it was law school? Correct? I'm sorry about that. So you then you went on to become an attorney. And you work for Dickinson right for 13 years. I mean, that's that's a tremendous accomplishment extremely well respected. Law law firm doing great things clearly on a great trajectory. And and then seemingly, you make this crazy transition or you move from the stable trodden path of becoming a partner at a law firm, to getting involved in nanotechnology investments. And and what walk us through that, that moment in time when you were transitioning out of the what I would consider to be a safe space in a law firm and walking into, you know, some some crazy new technology world, which is not neat was not nearly as well established as it is today.

Chris
Yeah. You know, I love my time at the law firm and you know, and I became a partner and I ran a group in the firm. And I was surrounded by just these fantastic, super smart people. For me, I guess the best way I can put it is I still push the snooze button two or three times every morning, because, you know, I liked my job, but I didn't want passionate about it. So I had thought that I would probably end up doing something else eventually, actually thought about doing something in music, you know, but I didn't know what that would be. And then, you know, literally, out of the blue, I got a call from an old friend of mine who I worked with, at Coopers Rick Snyder. And he had, he was starting a venture fund. And he just moved back to Michigan from running gateway, the old computer conference, I'm really dating myself, because, but and he was looking for a law firm to represent. So I got the call, and we're gonna meet the next morning. And I had no idea what venture capital was. So literally that night, I got up some books, and figured I got to learn just enough to bluff my way through this. And so I did, firm was hired. And then I started helping to do deals to do venture capital, because it was such an interesting area. It got to the point where I was actually, while I was in Dickinson Wright's Bloomfield Hills Office in Michigan, I was working out in an arbor, because the vibe out there was so great. And one thing led to another in a year later. You know, he asked me if I wanted to quit Dickinson and be his partner, and I made him wait a month, because I wanted to make sure I was making a rash decision. I knew the moment he asked, that's what I wanted to do, because it was just really exciting. I could see the the impact that we could have, I mean, the idea of starting new businesses, creating jobs, you know, really developing the next generation of, of, you know, potential Michigan powerhouse companies changing the world, right. I didn't feel that and what I'd been doing before. So, but obviously, I was leaving something very secure. I mean, I could have been at Dickinson for the rest of my career and been fine with it. But I will say from the moment I left getting back to what I said earlier, I haven't used any of the use the alarm for the last 20 years, you're much less push snooze, because every day I can't wait to get up some days, it's fear. But you know, it's exciting every day. And that was the life changing event of going to what was essentially a startup from found the other career and I've just been really blessed that there have been some twists and turns but it all worked out.

Brad
Yeah, you probably have some holes in your sheets from kicking them off every morning, you know, poking through, because you're definitely doing some some groundbreaking stuff. I'd love to maybe pause for a second and just talk about venture capital as a whole. So I think venture capital is something that a lot of people have a lot of opinions about. But but it's probably harder to have as informative opinion as you do as someone that's been involved in founding multiple venture capital funds, and now funding others, which again, we'll get into in a minute. But you know, there's there's a lot of press in terms of the pros and the cons of venture capital. So maybe we can start with the positives. I mean, you touch on a couple of the themes, but But what are things that really make venture capital a very positive instrument in terms of financing new businesses and making an impact on society as a whole?

Chris
Yeah, it is super risky capital. And so there are businesses that could never take place without venture capital. I mean, Case in point, and I'm involved this one Madonna, right? I mean, this vaccine came out as the result of venture capitalists, who believed in what appeared to be this crazy idea of harnessing messenger RNA and turning it into vaccines, you know, no bank is going to finance that. Right. And it took it literally took over a billion dollars of investor capital, those kinds of things wouldn't happen. Really, you can look at almost any major company, including we're using zoom, right? zoom wouldn't exist without venture capital. So when somebody has an idea that's going to take, as they most do now, and technology, millions of dollars, to get to feasibility, millions more to get to sustainability, the only place to get that is venture capital. So venture capital has driven the growth in our economy for the past almost 15 years. Whereas if it didn't exist, you know, so many of these companies want to exist, and so many of these technologies and innovations wouldn't have happened. And you can look around the world. And in many cases, places that have grown on a more stagnant, you're more staggered, haven't grown at the same rate is because they didn't have that kind of risk capital.

Brad
And it's it's it's not really hyperbole to say that the world would be very different at this very moment, if it weren't for your involvement in venture capital to and you think about Madonna, and I know, you're your humble guy. And there's, there's certainly other partners involved in that. But to be able to have capital that was investing in something that changed our ability to move forward as a society in such a positive way as being able to have a vaccine for for COVID. I mean, that's a pretty compelling case, that would be tough, too tough for anyone to to ignore right now. And frankly, it's, it's got to be extremely satisfying to look in the mirror at night and know that you played a role. And certainly, you know, you're not the only person. And there's a lot of people doing a lot of heavy work at Madonna that deserve a ton of credit. But again, like they wouldn't exist, if it weren't for the capital that was that was infused into the business very early, very risky moments. And I have to imagine that that's a pretty satisfying thing for you.

Chris
Yes, and it's one of many satisfying things, again, might I consider my involvement, so tertiary, you know, to the brilliant people who started it and ran it and supported it all along. But there's so many stories like that, including many, you know, here in Michigan, you know, take a company like llamasoft, in Ann Arbor, you know, at a time when COVID when supply chains were broken, and the ability to manufacture, whether it's vaccines, whether it's cars, whether it's toilet paper, you have this company in in Arbor that was created about 1213 years ago, that helped companies figure out, Okay, if this plant here is running into trouble, here's an alternate way that we can get our supply chain going, because people need Lysol wipes, or toilet paper, or whatever. And there's all kinds of things like that, that are super satisfying. And just the idea that I can take the work that, you know, that that I've done, but also that a lot of other people and venture capital had done in Michigan, and literally trace 1000s of jobs. Your average pay for jobs in venture capital back companies is almost $80,000. So high paying jobs that aren't going overseas, you know, that that wouldn't have existed here. And venture capitalists would have done it. And obviously, we wouldn't have the results of those companies.

Brad
Right. Right. A lot of a lot of things on the on the positive side of the scale. What about what about the other side? Where do you think are some of the drawbacks of venture capital? And I guess, that could be answered in a lot of different ways are from different perspectives. But I guess, as someone who has a handle of attorney, accountant, founder, and you know, and MVC, I'll let you pick where you think it's appropriate to answer that from.

Chris
Yeah, I would say sometimes, to the problems of education first, sometimes it can be sort of an echo chamber. And so in some ways, what's what's deemed important by venture capitalists, maybe because of the echo chamber they live in. So I mean, I don't know that it's really important that I can tell on my phone that I'm the mayor of Starbucks, or something like that. Yeah, that's not changing the world. I guess there's a need or kind of a need for stuff like that. But so there is an issue, because venture capital tends to be concentrated in a few locales, that there is the risk that the people involved in venture capital can become fairly myopic. And they appeal to their own herd. Right, as opposed to looking at the world in general. So there are certainly markets that have not been served well by venture capital. And what I mean is, there are populations that have been ignored by, or largely ignored by venture capital backed companies. And there are people who have not been able to sort of share in venture capital, either as venture capitalists themselves, or the ability to attract venture capital into their own startup. So there's been, you know, there's so many studies that show, you know, historically, you had 90% of venture capital going to white males, you know, a couple years ago, jewel, the the, the e cigarette company raised more money from venture capitalists than all female founders in the whole country. So there's been that issue, it's certainly changing, you know, but it by no means is it there. Yeah.

Brad
Right. And I'm trying to do my best to not just dive into you the fact that you just mentioned heard, and you were talking about a startup, also named after alarm or SMI after an animal in Llamasoft. So my mother skybox tenants are really going up. And I appreciate that, that the, the the nomenclature you're using to use here. But but on a more serious note because I think this is a really important and very serious topic, I think you've continued to really innovate in the venture capital world. So you mentioned that you founded Renaissance and AI in 2008. So now 13. Yeah, see me at 13 years ago. And it's, it's a fund of fun. So I'd love for I'd love for you to explain to our listeners like what, what is it? What is a fund of fund means? And what is what is Renaissance venture capital do? Because obviously, what you're doing is pretty unique, and making a huge impact on Michigan and certainly more broadly than that as well.

Chris
Yeah, so a fund of funds very simply, it is, it is a fund that doesn't invest in startups invest in venture capital funds. So you all you can almost think of it's almost like a mutual fund of venture capital. We're investing in funds all over the country and funded funds have been around forever. The difference that we did with Renaissance was, we looked at it through more than one lens, a fund of funds is a financial vehicle, invest in venture funds, you get returns, but we turned it into a sort of a three pronged vehicle. Certainly we want financial returns, because if you don't get financial returns, you kind of go away,

Brad
Right? It's like a football coach, you got to win games. Right, exactly.

Chris
But we had two other areas of focus. One was, can we take this underserved area for venture capital, Michigan, and can we use Renaissance as a means of attracting capital from all over the country, into Michigan. That's the second pillar. The third pillar was, we have all these major companies around here, that you're beginning 2008 realized they needed to look elsewhere to get some of their innovation, they couldn't do it all internally. And that was a change for them. And so our thought was, if we are investing in venture funds around the country, they're investing in all these startups, could we use as a rat Renaissance as a means of taking these major companies that are looking for innovation, connecting them with innovative startups, and you create this win win situation, a major company gets innovation they wouldn't otherwise have that they need at a startup company that is starved for customers can get it really important big customer, dramatically increasing the likelihood that that startup will survive. And interestingly, those three pillars I talked about returns, the Michigan piece, and the connecting major companies to startups, those all fit together. We'd go find a venture fund on the coast and say we'd like to invest in you. But you've got to come look at Michigan startups. And by the way, we have 70 major corporations that are willing to become customers, of companies you invest in, that became very enticing. And we were able to invest in these funds don't have problems raising money, but they were willing to engage with us and come and look in Michigan, because we created this really interesting way for them to connect with customers. And we also agreed we would help them find startup opportunities in Michigan, and we do a lot of programming around that, working with universities, and other startup organizations to make sure they get exposed to venture capital funds. So here we are 13 years later. Our goal was, if at this point, we could have attracted, let's say $800 million into Michigan, you know, it's kind of a metric we use, we would have been ecstatic. Instead, we've attracted 2 billion into the state. And we've been sort of dollar for dollar with the amount we've invested in the amount we've brought in the most impactful fund in the country. And it was kind of this, this kind of holistic view of it, you know, connecting customers and startups and all that that that I think is what is what made it work.

Brad
So there's this little shop in Ann Arbor comes together with this with this with this idea. And the fund to funds idea sounds like is not new. But the notion of being able to have large corporations involved and happy to be customers and potentially acquires suddenly gives you a competitive advantage out there because money is money but now you're bringing something that the other guys can't to these folks on the on the coasts, and you've turned that into be something that's tremendously successful. So clearly, you you had this idea that was extremely well thought out, right? You had the three pillars that you that you mentioned, but But what is it that you think allowed that To be so transformation successful, I mean, when you're talking about being one of like one of the best returning, you know, VCs out there. I mean, that, that That, to me has to be more than than just just an idea, right? I mean, what else? What else do you think has allowed you guys to have so much success at Renaissance?

Chris
Um, a few things. I mean, first and foremost, like we have, I have my dream team working with me. And I think you know, just about all of them. You know, we're not very big, we're a five person organization. But everybody who works at Renaissance is so committed to the organization. So committed to the vision, I mean, you know, I can talk about this more later. You know, what, we all have a service mentality. And you don't, sometimes you don't see that in investors, because they're the ones with the money. But, you know, ultimately, we have to view ourselves as service people. In the end, you know, I don't mean to be too full, we're all waiters at Denny's, for sure. And those people who don't recognize that they are, that they are really serving customers become less successful. So that was the one thing from the beginning we had built into us is that we're serving customers, and our customers are the major companies, our customers are the funds, our customers are the startups. And we just continue to work at making sure we remove friction from the interactions between people. And we take our we take our egos out of it. And so I'm blessed, first of all, to have a really great team that all has bought into the vision. And they're fantastic candidate. The second thing is, we happen to be in a pretty good location for this, you know, we've got major research universities, between University of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State, that's 2 billion of research a year. So the fact that we had all that, and we just weren't taking advantage of it before as a region that made it kind of if we executed properly, it should work. And then the third thing is we had these a number of major companies that were open to the idea, and an open to involvement. And you know, and they've been, they've been great. So it was a really good environment, we teamed with an organization called business leaders from Michigan when we started, and they've been a great partner. It's a nonprofit organization, the members of which are the CEOs are at the largest organizations in the state. having that connection to CEOs. And having them be able to sort of buy into the vision at the highest level was extremely helpful. So it's all worked out nicely for a number of those reasons. And we've what we've been fortunate is that kind of the model we created here, we said this can work in other parts of the country, and it's not competitive. I mean, any place that we can help that is underserved. We're willing to help. So we took this model, we open sourced it. And we've probably taken calls from out of 25 regions of the country. And three of them now have started it. And again, we just gave them all the information. We had all the learnings over the years. And, you know, basically created a network with them, of funds like ours, each of which is focused on helping its own region, but also helping each other.

Brad
You mentioned having a fantastic team and I love the analogy of ik we're servers, right? And I think servant based leadership is something that gets gets a lot of press and in rightfully so. And that clearly comes from from you. Right? Yeah, that's something that's always been important to you. And one of the things that I've been so impressed with, with you, in our interactions over the last eight years or however much time it's it's been is is that you're involved in so damn many things. I mean, you're chairing executive committees, you're involved in investment committees. left and left and right. They're almost too numerous to to listen, this podcast, we want to we want to keep this under an hour, Chris, but you've got you've got so much going on. You're leading such an such a successful venture capital firm at at Renaissance, but yet, you've always been just extremely available and approachable to me and to others. And I've always sort of wondered how you do it, because it's not easy to run a company and organization. And, and I just love to hear like how are you able to prioritize it and make that happen. I mean, it's Sounds like there's there's definitely a mindset of the importance of being able to be part of a community with such a fantastic mission. But is there anything else you can impart upon our entrepreneur listeners in terms of how you're able to make that happen?

Chris
Um, well, it's very kind of your, I guess I would say, in part, it is you the idea that I have been like, so fortunate, right? I mean, yeah, I guess I'm kind of smarter, whatever. But the things that have happened that I couldn't have predicted has mostly been good words. And so part of it is, is that the other part is, I guess, I would say, you know, there's the old saying, no good deed goes unpunished. I think that is a bunch of BS, in really no good deed goes unrewarded in some ways. And I can't tell you where, you know, I took a call from a student, you know, and didn't think I was doing anything important, you know, talk to him for half hour. And somehow they come back into my life. 10 years later, I may not even remember that I've talked to them. But they did. And, you know, people did that for me when I was young. So when I'm going to tell you something I've not ever set when I was starting Renaissance, and I didn't know how it was going to go. You know, like a lot of people I made a deal with God. Right? And I said, if this can work out, I will just say yes, to people, and not to like, you know, spammy emails, but you're not to people trying to sell me stuff. But, you know, I will simply say yes to people who, who need it. And there's nothing special because people in this town, people, I'm shocked at the number of people I can call, who have never met before and said, I just need your advice for something, and they will do it. It's kind of a Midwest thing, kind of a Detroit thing. And but that was kind of what I agreed to do back then.

Brad
Yeah, well, it's it's certainly paid off. And I think that's, that's wonderful advice. It's funny, because when, when I've talked with with college students and talk about, you know, their networking and trying to get to know people, okay, there's, there's three rules of networking. Number one is give first, number two is give first, and number three is don't worry about any other rules. And I mean, you you live that, and it's, it's clearly worked tremendously well, well, for you. And obviously, the results speak for for themselves. So we don't need to dwell too much. In that, if it's okay with you, I'd love to pick your brain a little bit on what makes for for good investments. Right? So we all know that there's, there's a lot of capital out there. There's there's press now that that saying there's probably too much venture capital, it's it's it's swimming, and founders are able to, you know, get their businesses funded, funded super quickly. But the the key for any venture capitalist is? Where are you investing your money? So from, from your perspective, and now I guess I'm talking less at a fun level and more at a company level? What what makes for a good investment? At the time you're investing those dollars?

Chris
I'd say a few things, people, the people involved are huge. And I'll get back to that same people, the technology or product, you know, can this technology work? Can this product work? And then the most important thing is, is there a market for it, which we talked about earlier? If there's a need, you begin with the need, and then you do the other things? And I guess I would say that's that people always think technology's first of those three technologies. Third, the market is first second is the people. So I will take great people with mediocre technology, over mediocre people with a great technology, because great people will figure out a way. And, you know, if I look back, you know, when I was investing directly in companies, I think I invest in probably 50 companies and looked at the ones that failed, very few failed because the technology didn't work. They usually fail because the the team wasn't the right team. Or, most often, there really wasn't interested in what they were trying to do. And it's just crushing to be working on something for years and just realize people don't care. So you you see all these programs for entrepreneurs, and they tend to focus on customer discovery or or figuring out the market and they're they're dead on with that. Because if you don't have that you can do everything else you want, and you'll never be successful. And so that is ultimately,

if I look at the things I did, whether it's even sold tracks, I mean, I had to find what the market wanted Renaissance, I had to find, you know, what the steak what was it be? What would be appealing to the stakeholders? And I think it's like that for every, every startup.

Brad
Yeah, it seems like there's there's a lot of commonalities across, you know, so many different worlds that you've had a chance to live in. And one of the things that sticks out the most to me is really interesting is you're working with really large businesses. So you mentioned the business leaders of Michigan, and of course, you're investing in in startups. So when you think about these large corporations, and these eager, big dreaming startups, do they have more in common than the average person may may think? Or do you think those organizations really are light years apart in terms of how they're performing and how they're thinking?

Chris
It depends, if I look at the the major companies we deal with, there are some that are extremely entrepreneurial, and they're willing to try things out, they're willing to do pilots to test things out. And then there are some that are very regimented. And it isn't, I can't say it's based on science, it, it's just based on personalities. And I won't name I won't name any ones, neither one. But we've got several companies where, you know, from the CEO level on down, it's like, we have to continuously be improving ourselves, looking at opportunities, you know, being aggressive. And there are others that I would say are more, I don't want to fail, don't rock the boat. Yeah, I don't want to fail, rather than I want to read that I want to succeed, it's I don't want to fail. And those two, bring about very different results. So the ones that are aggressive, and trying to move forward. They're a lot like startups, just with more zeros. And you know, and more people they're managing. But there are other companies that are very unlike that. And, you know, I would, I would say that latter group, are companies that tend to be they tend to have peaked A while ago. You know, they're around. But they're not growing, you know, they're kind of they're

Brad
right, they get the cash cow in that sort of classic quadrant of, of companies. That's right. So when you're when you're talking with, with founders and people with with big dreams, it's ultimately your your objective as an investor to try to figure out who's credible, and who's maybe being a little bit of a prevaricator or someone who's full of hot air, or someone that's full of shit, depending on what your preferred approach for describing it is. But what I also what I think of investors a lot of time is you have to have a fantastic antenna for people who are blowing smoke. And so I'd love to hear, how do you how do you get to the bottom of that, like, what are some of the cues that you're able to read consciously? Because it's tougher to figure things out? If they're subconscious, that I give you an indication that someone is is not the right fit? And they man that they're, it's tough to believe what it is that they're saying?

Chris
Yeah, it's a great question. And what what some entrepreneurs don't understand is, they feel when they pitch a VC or talk to VC, they have to pretend that they know everything. And they have to pretend like Everything's all set. So, you know, rather than say, you know, what, I know these three things, and we're moving down this path, I'm going to need some help. At some point, I'm going to get a higher CFO, because we don't have that skill set. And we need to hire a head of marketing. We're not there yet. You know, and there's some warning flags out there, we're gonna have to deal with somebody who comes with that. I love right, because I realize they're being honest with themselves and with me, and we're going to have the kind of relationship that where we can help each other. The ones that come in and, you know, sort of like, yeah, I'm all set by my nephew's the CFO, we're good there, you know, he's got, you know, he took an accounting class in college, and, you know, and and we're all set on sales. And I mean, most VCs have been around long enough that they can pretty quickly see what the holes are in the organization, and a CEO who comes in like that. is probably now considered a hole in the organization. And so it's tough to get excited about that. The other thing that sometimes trips people up is they're so concerned about saying this is going to happen quickly, they'll say, okay, you know, we're talking to, we're talking to this potential customer. And, you know, we're pretty sure they're going to give us a purchase order in a month, and then the next one's going to happen next. And, you know, the obvious answer is great, let's meet a month after you've gotten that purchase order, and then we'll go from there, of course, the purchaser doesn't happen. And they've kind of boxed themselves in by trying to overstate things. One thing that VCs pretty much always have is time. And you know, the worst thing that one of the worst things that a founder can do is box themselves in by over promising things that are time driven. And then having a VC say, Great, let's just see how that goes. If you do all those things, then now you've increased your credibility, which is your credibility, the important element of that people element people part of talked about. And again, it's kind of overselling, doesn't work, because, you know, most VCs have kind of lived through enough and had enough things go wrong at age, they've got the scars on their back, you know, and they become a little bit more cynical.

Brad
Yeah, you learn, you learn to spot that false bravado with folks over time. And, and I think, you know, a firm that is based in the Midwest and humble, I think is, is really well suited, particularly well suited to be able to appreciate when someone knows their knows their limitations and knows your strengths, of course, but but sort of knows what knows what you don't know. And speaking of like, you know, things that no one can truly know. We'd love to get your perspective on what the future of venture capital looks like. So you're someone who's continued to be an innovator in the space continuing to grow your presence in that, which I wouldn't have thought would be possible a couple of years ago, but continues to happen for you, Chris. But But where do you see venture capital heading? How is it going to look different in the future,

Chris
it's going to continue to be important because innovation isn't slowing down. And already the last year was the biggest year for venture capital ever. This year is going to dwarf last year, it looks like so innovations moving faster, and the need for risk capital is going to be there, I think where it's going to change is it's gonna become more democratic. So it's going to be more geographically democratic, and that there will be more venture capital throughout the country. You know, there's the old saying that, you know, talent is equally dispersed, but opportunity isn't. And I think we will see more capital coming into currently underserved regions have the area where there's talented where there's innovation. So I think that's one change, we'll see. I also think we're going to see, we're going to see venture capital, entering into areas that it hasn't entered into before, it still needs to be a fast growing area. But we may see more things like more material science. We're seeing things like artificial intelligence, machine learning, those types of things becoming more important. We're going to see more intersections of areas. biotech used to be here in tech used to be here. I mean, they're going to be firmly crossing over, and that you're going to need artificial intelligence to make drugs. You know, so we'll see a lot more of that. And I think we'll see more investors coming in, we're already seeing more corporations coming in, you know, that are creating their own venture funds, we may even see more feel almost like what we've seen, you know, in your theoretical in consumers, and common folks getting involved in the stock market, I wouldn't be surprised if we ultimately saw that bleed into sort of pre stock market things or into to venture things, something more than what we have with crowdfunding. But, you know, so a more of a, an alternative to venture capital that is, has more common, you know, regular folks, and I think is something that will be likely to see, we're also going to continue to see shake outs. So there's a lot of money being invested right now. And there's a lot of people that are going to get burned, because things get a little overheated. So we'll continue to see people come in, go out, we'll continue to see companies do well. And we'll see shakeout You know, it is, it is tends to be a high risk, high reward area. We've had the high reward last few years, but I think we're gonna see the high risk part start to show itself in the not too distant future.

Brad
We'll certainly be be tuning in. And it's exciting to kind of think about the democratization of venture capital A little bit as you talk about being able to get it to, to the, to the hands of more people. So that's something exciting to to be tuned into. Well, Chris, you've been extremely generous with your with your time and certainly appreciate your your perspective on investing. Just a couple final questions before we let you go here. So gotta ask, What is your biggest pet peeve?

Chris
Hmm. I think it would go back to something we talked about earlier, my biggest pet peeve. People who don't return emails, people who don't return calls, I'm not saying you know, spam emails, or you know that. But if you have a business relationship with someone, you just return their call, I learned that in my first job where it was it was they actually had a rule, you had to return a call within four hours. And it was, it was a great rule. And if if we truly are all waiters at Denny's, you know, you don't leave somebody sitting at the table for an hour. And again, those who don't realize that that's just it's not just polite. It's part of the contract that we all have with each other. You know, he talked about servant leadership. I mean, that, is it worse, we're service oriented at work, we have to be serious service oriented at home, with our spouses and our kids, you know, that's just the way we have to live life and those who don't recognize it. It's super frustrating for me, you know, it's frustrating to me in the first instance, because I don't like to not have something, you know, email or call returned, because, you know, there's a message being delivered, probably unintentionally, right? But, um, second thing is, is that sometimes it's really nice people who don't get it. And I know that will come back to haunt them at someday, because you just, you can't go on forever like that, you know, karma brings things back around.

Brad
Yeah, absolutely. Well, well said, Well said, I appreciate that and agree with that so much. Final question for you here. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Chris
I would say, and, you know, I talked earlier about how I've, you know, I've, I've learned a lot from my years of venture capital. And it's many ways, I'd love to have my first two years back, because I made so many mistakes. But something someone told me one time that I didn't fully appreciate it until later. And they said, experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted. And, you know, I haven't learned nearly as much from things that have gone well, as I have from things that didn't go well. And, you know, hopefully I'm smarter now than I was 10 years ago, and 20 years ago. And if I am, it's because of things that didn't quite work out the way I wanted to. And I kind of carried that lesson with me.

Brad
Experience is what you get when you when you don't get what you wanted. I love that. I love that. Well, listen, Chris, we really appreciate you joining us. We appreciate your ongoing support of MuskOx and being part of the of the herd and really all you're doing to go out there and change lives through these companies that are it'd be hard to argue against the fact that they're making making society better as a whole. So thank you. Thanks for all that you do. And we appreciate your time here on the hardest spoken.

Chris
Thanks so much, Brad. It was great being here. Thanks for what you're doing with this and your other work. I'm just enjoying seeing all the impact you're having.

Brad
Thanks again, Chris. All right.