YouSaid · the spoken record

Harley Miller

lines on the record: 38
first: 2022-05-02
most recent: 2022-05-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“It was a pleasure. Sincerely, thank you for having me on. I'll ping you when I come to London probably in the coming weeks or month, or if you make it to New York, we'd love to have you by. It means a lot to me that you allowed me the opportunity and forum to share some of that with you and your viewership.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't have a crystal ball to say this will be the size or this is where we'll play. It'll be a lot larger than is today. It will have cultivated”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are good days and there are less good days when you're in the throes of fundraising and it feels like that's existential and there's so many people relying on you to get that done. And it's not like I carry that entirely on myself, but I talked about the amount of groundwork that we laid and foundation that we laid, how many meetings we took, whether it was a $50,000 check or a $50 million check to bring the same right, wrong, or indifferent, I would bring the same fervor intensity and passion to that meeting day in, day out, bar none. That's how I'm wired. And I kind of thrive and get off on that. So it's not something like I know it. I recognize it. I also sort of bottle my emotions up, right? It's something that I, or I'll speak with my mother about it as my confidant if I need to have a familial therapist, so to speak, but it's not something that I don't feel that weight on my shoulder. This is my sport and I play the game on the field, except the clock never stops. It's not like, okay, it's a 40 minute match and you're off and you take a break for me. This game is omnipresent and it's something that I live for. It's not something that weighs on.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably a dozen meetings or people that I met in this industry and on paper probably remains one of the most successful investments that I've ever participated in”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, in college in the mobile food item native Blackberry app, it was way too fucking early, or it was just whatever. At least I could say I was just too early for the space. The reality is I didn't have the execution shops to see it all the way through. It was memorable, not in the sense that it was awkward. Believe me, I got reamed out in the first month of the job ever I found her absolutely put me in my place because I wasn't prepared enough for that meeting and maybe that person was a bit too high ego. But this was different. And maybe it was because I was renting the paper and the balance sheet of the firm that I represented at the time, which certainly speaks for something. But it was incredible and I knew right then and there I was like, this space is so real. There's going to be a lot of, there's going to be hundreds of billions of dollars of market cap created here. And I was pushing for that. That was at Series A. And that was in 2010. We ultimately didn't invest into the company for another three years and watched many rounds go by, right? And that was frustrating. But eventually, when you spend long enough at it and you stick with that and your conviction is unyielding, the proof points continue to corroborate that you're likely right. It works out. One of my first”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So mine was probably two weeks in my job, June 2010. I was meeting with Lukash and Kolya of Leaferheld, which means delivery in German. This is the precursor to delivery here before they acquired and expanded and merged with online Pizza Norden and Niklas Osborg, the current CEO, to form Delivery Hero holdings. So the company was principally in just the dock region or in Germany at the time. I had obsessed first week on the job I looked at online education, online travel, and online food, right? I was told not to, and that's where I spent my time. And so they happened to be in New York. I remember showing up to Soho House. Now I wear black and people think I dress like a pirate, and that's just me. But at the time, I was dressing to the nines, right? With a nice suit, a fish hook on my lapel, right? Or something. I was trying to obfuscate my age or my tenure or lack thereof and trying to be serious and not convey that I'd been on the job for all of 10 days. But they gave me the time of day and I had spend enough time thinking through the space and had started a company.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Loft in Brooklyn, I was seeing how powerful it was. And it was highly misunderstood. I think that an older generation didn't appreciate that this would not only supplant but massively grow and expand the space of travel and alternative accommodations. I had the instinct, but I didn't have the cogent argumentation sort of substantiated and rooted in fact in data to be able to push for that. And again, I was also too early. I don't want to purport and say that we had it. It was at a term sheet level and I was driving that, right? It was not that. But the idea was there. And if I had been a bit more mature or my investor acumen had been more mature at the time, I perhaps could have given my voice the same way that I had. In subsequent, we'd be at the Deliver Heroes of the Hellafreshes or Udemies or other deals that went on to be rather successful that I had a very strong point of view on and was unrelenting in my conviction thereof.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If I had to say it was probably Airbnb circa 2011, 2012, right as I was getting my footing in this industry and having done some deals, again, I was a total consumer. And I mean that in, I don't do it in a contrived way. I do what I feel like is natural to me. And I don't view myself either as an early adopter per se, right? I actually think being a bit of a later adopter, as you made a commentary, Harry, about like concentric circles of fervent inner circle early adopter versus as you broaden that does the fidelity get worse. So I actually perceive myself to be kind of in that middle of that cycle. Therefore, I typically, if something that resonates with me, it'll probably be resonant with tens of millions of people across the country or hundreds of millions across the globe. I was a fervent user of Airbnb on both sides of the marketplace. I would represent what you call symmetry in a two-sided marketplace on both a seller and a consumer. I would travel and stay in alternative accommodations on Airbnb when I would travel to Europe for work and I would rent out my”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll start with the following. He's my best friend now and forever. We live together. I mean, really powerful thing. If harnessed the right way and if boundaries are respected, which I think is first and foremost rule of thumb, second would be let him be his own man. He needs to be, can't live in my shadow, empowering that and respecting that. And then ultimately, you have to treat him the same as anyone else, whether that be with positive reinforcement where deserved, and then harsh, constructive criticism as appropriate and make no mistake. I've towed that line appropriately over the last few years and even predating our working together at Left Lane. And that was a thing. It was a real thing that people globed onto. And they had to diligence it and get comfort with that because it's not going to be neutral. It can't be neutral. Neither is it negative or it's a huge positive. And I think suffice to say it's clearly found its way into that latter camp, but that's not something you ever take for granted. You have to keep working at.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We should do more media more often. There was some element of no one wanted to see four guys in their early 30s or the time 30 raise a large inaugural fund. I think just emotionally, instinctually, that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way or they perceived us to be playing for something of getting rich off of fees or whatever it was as opposed to objectively sizing us up and realizing like that was the asset class in which we were raised professionally that we best knew how to navigate and anything but that would be counterproductive and so I felt like doing media would draw attention and negatively bias that if people didn't want to root for our success. And I think that we've changed our tune there recently, case in point with even wanting to finally be able to have the opportunity set to speak with you.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, something along those lines, right? So, again, if you knew my mother, she's world-class human. I mean, truly, like universally, I think what she's taught me is how do you have the surface area ranged to connect with people and have that fundamental respect for the human condition? I think that's actually what has made.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is how do you perpetuate yourself, right? And so for me, that is having children, having a family. I was privileged enough to grow up with model parent in a tight familial household. And that's something that I have always had the utmost reverence for and I will have the same, right?”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Make no mistake. I go home to Pittsburgh to see my parents, my grandparents, right, or my aunt and uncle and cousins five or six times a year. You have to create the space for yourself. And that has to always be first, second, and third priority. There ultimately is nothing more important in this life than that. To the extent even sometimes infuse them into your professional life, right? And like I said, I have family or friends that are my intimate sort of customer ethnography board, right? So sometimes it's not like the most quality family time is sparring about a potential space or the merit or demerit of this company or this toy or this ed tech business, whatever it might be, but they themselves are also understand that this is our passion. This is my passion. My work is my life and my life is my work. And if they love me, that's something they will subscribe to. And it's not burdensome to them. So I don't want to purport that like the lion's share of my time spent with family or friends is sparring about deals. Far from it. But again, sometimes those two worlds are not mutually exclusive and want to offer. And at the end of the day, your ultimate legacy on this.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bottom side to side to speak to their business and their space, right? And sort of think about that constantly as opposed to it being an exception to what enterprise software practice. And so it's not something that you'd be surprised when I talk about what that process looks like. We don't get pushback on it. And it's also the path of least friction. It doesn't entail them doing, Harry, 20 different data cuts that are bespoke to us. We ask for that raw data anonymized. We cut it. We make sense of it. We play it back to them and we say, listen, we know you're not fundraising right now, but thank you for doing this with us. We never fade away. You have to be contributory in everything that you do. And we'll give that to them and say, we render this to you. You can use this for fundraising in the months forthcoming when you're ready to go. We walk away with sort of a really nice relationship. And we've had our work come back to us with other funds dozens of times. It's somewhat flattering to see us be able to even put a small imprint on a space that I think has been highly misunderstood.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Order that you didn't appreciate, and we won't be learning on the job post diligence, post term sheet, post first board meeting. Like I see so many other firms do where they might come in and ask rather rudimentary questions three, six months into their tenured working relationships like mate, where were you when you had the chance to actually get up to speed? Because you rarely do it ad hoc. To the extent you can convey that appropriately to founders, they'll really buy into that. And if they don't, then maybe it's not the right group for us to work with. And that's okay. And you have to be, again, if you're super rigid, then you'll miss some of those opportunities where being perhaps a little bit more flexible or the sequence of how you do things or the pace at which you do things shouldn't preclude you or forcibly relegate you to the sidelines. Increasingly more their pockets in the consumer and internet ecosystem that not only appreciate that but seek that, right? They haven't had their sort of schmorgasbord or menu of funds institutionally top to bottom. There's pockets of partners here and there at certain other firms, but funds that are purpose-built and architected top to”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100%, and we never sacrifice on that. Well, one, first and foremost, we don't see those groups often or hardly ever. I think we're generally earlier by nine out of ten times. We pride ourselves on being at the earliest semblance of product market fit. And then again, before it's obvious is when you strike, because when it's obvious, it tends to be expensive. And then you talked about is that even possible in this environment? Listen, I think there are certain pockets of the world where an entrepreneur says giving the money as fast as possible and the path of least resistance. And by and large, that's not a fit for us. I think we don't want to be passive like that, right? We want to put our name next to something we want to spend the time and spend the time to get to know someone before investing. Now, that doesn't mean that could be speed dating and crash course work the way which I describe. The trick is when you come at it with that contributory mentality. I don't want to say like bedside manner with a founder or a founding team, but it's that consultative sort of expectation management of this is not just for us to check the box. We're going to teach you things about your business and really short.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thumbs up or thumbs down that just will be definitely impossible in consumer. But to the extent anyone has, I don't want to say automated, but has streamlined that process in being able to account for the inherent variability across spaces or categories, I think that we've done that. As it relates to valuation or these broader concentric circles of like, do you have reverse network effects? Do you get sort of diminishing returns of efficiency? Sometimes short, if that's something that we think is, okay, this has been propagated by hardcore enthusiasts or that immediate inner concentric circle and this is going to get meaningfully worse and it's already only average at best right now. It's probably not a fit for us. And we're not doing that anecdotally or doing it with guesswork. We're running pretty rigorous, robust surveys, tying back self-inputed consumer demographic data with their behavior economically, their self-reported behavior. We're trying to really drive these third and fourth derivative insights based above and beyond what we might get provided by a company to help us ask ourselves and answer the very questions that you posited.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“An internet consumer, right? Not all revenue is credited equal. I think there's something nicely codified about enterprise software. Everyone has a principally similar spreadsheet. You can kind of put it in. You get this magic number, which seemingly governs and dictates the entire industry at large. Went a little bit bananas over the last half a decade or specifically last couple years. It's now retreated clearly, but 100 times ARR was like the new norm or that was considered fair or cheap. And everyone was doing that. In internet consumer, you have a huge range of multiples, right? And you have to understand and appreciate that not all revenue is created equal. There's different margin profiles, retention profiles, so many different more kinks in the conversion funnel. So you have to be able to look into these second and third order derivative layers that inform sort of unit economics. There is no standardized playbook or a button that you can push to kind of ascertain economics or other surplus economics. Will this break in the right way and the wrong way? Will this hold? There's so much more variability. And I think it can never be plugged into a spreadsheet with like a”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Offer a couple things. One, I think the challenge and the pushback I always received was that no, this is too early or it's too variable or unpredictable. And I would challenge that somewhat instinctually of understanding the actual underlying inputs and mechanics and drivers. How can you actually take growth equity analytical rigor and sort of principles and frameworks and apply that earlier stage in internet consumer tech? The simple answer is there's lots of littles, right? Even a company at a nascent stage of a million or two million dollars annualized revenue is probably thousands or tens of thousands of customers that have purchased a product, used it, liked it or not, taken out their wallet and come back. All the hallmarks of product market fit can actually be ascertained and deduced at a much earlier point in that company's evolution as compared to a infrastructure software enterprise security company that's at a million of ARR with half a dozen or a dozen customers half of which are pilots or introductions from there. They're seed network. It's just not predicted.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Keep that sort of top level figure never going to be totally modest just as we get into these values, but not at that sort of astronomical quantum that I recited. You have to be leading rounds and having real ownership, right? This is not passive. Is that positive? Does that kind of clarify?”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Entry point, the same ownership targets of we lead deals, we want to achieve 15 to 20 percent ownership out of the gate and keep position building from there. We've done that. The only variable that changes is that it's not simply the four managing partners who are leading those deals and taking every board seat, it's the principals and vice presidents, it's the senior associates who have now transacted on half a dozen deals over the last couple years who have learned the temperament and comportment and that sort of proverbial carrying the bag exercise where we invest heavily so that they learn how to fish and they can ultimately go and do that on their own. So when I talked about the fund getting wider, I didn't mean we're all of a sudden putting option bets left and right and center. We lead every deal that we do, or at least we purport to. And in doing so, you have a meaningful ownership stake. So ownership stake relative to cost basis what ultimately drives and governs a portfolio construction. Otherwise, you have to create $200 billion of enterprise value aggregate across your portfolio of which you would have a de minimis ownership stick to achieve a four or five X net MOIC returns. Like that's what we strive for. The way that you...”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, so I think in our first fund, again, we adhere to exactly as we said we would. We lead deals, we'll position build into those winners, and we have outsized ownership. I think when I came to the ranks at my previous firm, it was a much bigger fund. And so you were somewhat irrelevant if you couldn't produce large capital gains outcomes. And so no one got excited about our writing a $10 million check into something, but we're able to do that and achieve good ownership out of the gate and then stay the course and earn the right coupled with the company doing well, but earn the right with a founder or a founding team to double down and lead or co-lead a subsequent round and really build that outside ownership and then have big outcomes into companies that are multi-billioner outcomes. That's how you really move the needle even in a large fund. That discipline and sort of portfolio construction framework is how we've modeled left lane. So when I talk about the fund size, our first fund of 630 million, our second fund at 1.4 billion, it's more than double the size. If I were to do the same amount of deals, but it commensurately higher valuations as opposed to the same.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Contributory in everything that you do, and respect that bilateral value exchange, right? You give something to get something. And if that means you have a good comportment and temperament, you have something to offer a founder. I don't mean in the business of horse trading information. I mean in the business of giving them tips and tricks about things that you see or having just relevant expertise. That's what gets responded to. But again, before you're allowed to do that as an associate at left lane, we're putting you through a pretty rigorous training process. You're reading through and campassing every investment memorandum we've ever produced. You're speaking with every senior deal person lead and going through each deal, breaking that down. You're learning how to cut through raw data sets of tens of millions of rows to make sense of unstructured data so that you can play that back. Like that's the edge that allows us to move fast without breaking stride on that rigor or comprehension. We expect people to stay not because you force their hand to, but because you provide them with the opportunity set, exposure, and ultimately sort of the latitude to build their personal brand, right and track record on our dime and on our platform.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's the cliche answers it's the lifeblood of the firm or all that, which for what it's worth is true. I sort of just touched on it anecdotally as the firm and the fund size or AUM grows in the deal count gets wider, right? We do more deals per fund as opposed to the same number of deals, but we drift into a different asset class. By definition, you need to have more people. So if one provides the space at the top for other people to climb the ranks and make partner and stake. And we want people to come in and build them from the ground up. It's something that we invest heavily into. The training from the outside before you're allowed to get on the phone with entrepreneurs. And we probably speak with a thousand companies per month, right? Really rigorous, robust sourcing. So the best learning curve for a young early mid-20 something is to get that level of repetition, right? Of putting the reps there. And all of a sudden they became really dangerous in the field. And I think one of our mantras is don't consume. If you're a consumer, no one's going to take you seriously. You need to be.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I literally take myself out of the equation. One, if it requires the immediate with which we need to respond now, it doesn't matter whether.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The biggest challenges as you scale the first couple years, there's a lot of proximity and fidelity between you and the people that you're bringing to work with. As that evolves, there's naturally more hierarchies and sort of kinks in the funnel between that. I'm terrified of the notion of not knowing people's names that might come work for us, like the same way that a CEO of a bigger company might not do that. I don't know that a company that's an investment firm should behave the same as a tech upstart, right? I think that you can have that intimacy of relationship and proximity still.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have to be mindful about now 25 other people that I'm proud to call colleague. Tactically, are they getting paid on time? Are they fulfilled and gratified? Are they learning? Right. Are you learning from them? It's like starting a family. Where it was just you as a bachelor running around the city, being social, whatever it is, you were somewhat carefree. Same way like being just an investor at another firm that's not yours or you don't have to be mindful about the business of running the fund. And that's the crux of it. It's the business of running a fund and the multifaceted job that comes along with that. And so I think that was a big learning curve for me. And it still is. It will always be. Like there is no time off, right? It's an omnipresent thought.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the middle point where that healthy tension, right, and that sort of sparring partnership, that dance that occurs is where magic happens. And I think that's culturally what we strive for. It's a compulsion. It's not an expectation. It's a prerequisite that we have junior people who push up the curve. It's a bottoms-up-led motion. And I think that's what we believe in.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Won't go into the ins and outs of our decision making process. I think there's a mechanical way, which is there's an investment committee of the four managing partners, right? And it needs to be a certain ratio. And I think we strive for simplicity there. I think in practice, it's about accountability and sponsorship and true ownership, whether that's one of the partners, whether that's one of the other senior members or even mid-level people who really want to step up and swing the bat. I am in the business as a founding managing partner and CEO. Sure, I do deals. And I do a lot of deals. That will always be a part of my job. It's a muscle that if I ever have to stop exercising, I will go insane because it's arguably what I grew up with professionally. It's what I love. But I've now also had to be in the business of rewarding conviction. And I think you have this natural tension from a decision-making standpoint of junior investment professionals who are pushing up to do deals. And sometimes with that sort of proverbial perceived one-way option, right? If it goes well, it's great. If it doesn't go well, I sort of get to brush it off. And you have the senior partners pushing down to do good deals. And it's that.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kill them with persistence or perseverance or with kindness, you have to kill people with substance proverbially as far as kind of beat it over, right? And when you do that, more often than not, you will get, it'll be efficacious and you'll get what you want out of that. And then time will tell if that's right, right? You can't be fear mongering or credit mongering, right? I think you need to cut and toe the line. With respect to what Devin said, which flatter by, I think I had a good nose instinctually and then worked, develop the skill set to pressure test those assumptions empirically, right? I think that's what was sort of the genesis led up to left lane. It went from gut and instinct to that you always need to have that if you don't have that. I think you're out of luck in this industry because it's a lot of that and then really pressure test that with what you need to believe from sort of a number standpoint.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not just get deals done, it can't be that, it can never be that. That proverbial one way option where you credit Monger if it's great and you parry it off and say, well, the buck didn't stop with me. There are quite literally this concept of supervisors, which is what managing partners are. Even if someone else is a partner, right, or a senior investment professional, if there is someone above them to say yay or nay or sort of bless that, even if they're not principally involved in decision making or management thereafter, you as a junior or mid-level person are able to parry that off and sort of suggest that it didn't go it went wrong for XYZ reasons or it wasn't purely you who was putting it all on the line there. So it can't just be that. You have to think like an owner at all times, even if yourself are not principally an owner, you're still early in your career. Talk about finding that conviction, but you have to be a strong and original thinker, more so than conviction. It's about being an original thinker and being resolute in those beliefs and then working to pressure test and substantiate that with a very cogent argumentation with facts and data, especially if people aren't seeing eye to eye with you or not aligned with you. You can't just”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And use it a handful of times a week for months on end and years on end. My parents were actually early customers of HelloFresh. And that customer ethnography is, I think, that innate curiosity to live your life through the lens and seeking opportunities and how can that be addressable in your work. I think there's a lot of examples where it certainly wasn't so obvious. And I knew whether it was the founder's mission or purpose, the business model mechanics, how impactful it could be for millions or tens of millions of households, right? So listen, conviction is fluid, right? It evolves over time. Sometimes you know it immediately. And then you work backwards just to pressure test that you're not wrong. And sometimes it's that concave up and it accumulates, right? And I'll come back as I can think about maybe examples on the ladder. That's fair.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“General, I feel like I know within five or ten minutes of meeting an entrepreneur whether I would work with him or her. It's something instinctual about that. And then in a way, I start to work backwards to pressure test those assumptions of is this the right race? Is this a worthwhile race, meaning the space that you're playing and is this the right or sort of jockey or team to bet on? I mean, that's the calculus constantly. I think there's been times in my career where I've probably been impetuous, right, and rash, jumped to conclusions about this is a deal I want to do. I can talk about deals where it was certainly wasn't obvious, right? I remember pounding my fist to invest in HelloFresh, still not too shabby at a $10 billion market cap, right? It was a lot more six months ago. But nonetheless, it's company and it was space that was still nascent and a lot of people that I would talk to about it dismissed it as, you know, you're out of touch, like no one cooks anymore. I was like, wow, okay, let me go talk to my family and friends in the suburbs of Pittsburgh or other parts of the middle of the country for whom it's an incredibly powerful product. They live and swear by it.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was definitely more nervous than I would let off. I think I tried to portray confidence and sort of rally the troops. I had great training and I had a lot of the blessing of my former employer, right? Which meant the world, not just to me and our confidence, but to other allocators and folks that would sort of anoint us and bless us into the industry or not. But sure, it was nerve-wracking. When you have a standing start and the conversion rate that hit rate, we did not, contrary to popular belief, we did not walk in and sort of get resounding yeses across the board from the world's foremost institutions. In fact, we got a lot of no's, right? And a lot of rejection. And that was summer of 2019 that we left to start that journey. And I had a lot of bravado and naivete. And I think we probably went out to some very gold standard LPs early on without a name, without a cogent product, without a sort of a salient deck work product, and nothing to show for it. And we were coming up pretty empty-handed. And we refined and sort of honed that pitch. And I think we're able to transpose the thesis that we had.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Early days with a lot of probably naivete and bravado, I was confident and was pretty decent at the role and at the job. Some of it was work ethic and input, some of it was having a nose for markets, emerging markets before. It was so apparent before it was obvious or an ability to have a resonance, mutual resonance with founders. And I was able to do a lot of deals. And they were more internet consumer technology deals, which was not what the industry at large was focused on. It was very enterprise software SaaS focused. And that wasn't where I really cut my teeth. I think there was something about sort of growing up in Pittsburgh, middle class being deep into the bell curve of that common consumer. And I wore that on my sleeve that forgot other entrepreneurs that felt like that. And so that's where I carved out my own niche and practice and I became decently well known in internet and consumer tech. I knew pretty early on that I felt like, okay, I could do this. I want to be a founder, but within a venture context, and the only way you do that is to start your own firm, build an institution of your own.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was the coolest thing, and so that was 2010, right? So we're talking about 12 years ago at this point. And so that was my early journey into venture.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Interview, and my interviews with Insight, which I'm sure were less rigorous back then than they are now, are comprehensive, largely talked about the same things I talked about to get into Wharton, which were my entrepreneurial pursuits, kind of how I saw the world. It had nothing to do with tech. Literally 24 hours later, they said we want you to come and work with us. And I said, guys, are you sure I can barely turn on my television, let alone tell you what infrastructure, software? And they said, you'll be great. And I said, yes, I obliged, right? It was kind of a no-brainer for me. It never felt like a job. It's never been laborious to have that profound of a revelation as a 21-year-old three days into your job where your job is literally having the latitude to go out there and speak with bright-eyed entrepreneurs and sort of conversate with them and stare into their souls. And eventually be a thought partner and sounding partner once you lick your wounds a little bit from some awkward and painful first conversations meetings. There was no off button for me. I literally had to forcibly remove myself from my desk be like, oh shit, I have to go home. It's quite late. No one was saying you stay there, right? There was no start and stop button. I think that.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Specifically, how did I make my way into Venture? I kind of fell back asswards into it. I went to Warton undergrad in 2007 to 2011. The compulsion or the status quo was for every Warton night to go into an iBanking or consulting track, right? There wasn't this codified path for young adults. So you're right out of uni to go into venture capital or growth equity or private equity. That was a rarity. And there was this firm Insight Partners who was, I'd say, arguably the group that pioneered this concept of kind of an institutionalized analyst program. And I was highly entrepreneurial growing up. I had a lot of different companies and pursuits and hustles from selling candy on the bus as an eight-year-old, right? And with zero cogs because my mother fueled my entire business until I got caught by the principal to starting more legitimate business throughout high school. And so coming into university and navigating that journey, it was very clear I didn't want to do something that was the stereotypical track. I was always trying to swim a little bit against the grain. And so this firm insight was interviewing and I landed in.”
2022-05-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source