YouSaid · the spoken record

Jessica Mah

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27
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2016-06-03
most recent
2016-06-03
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1
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podcast

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  1. “Describe my life, right? But once you have a beer, like I have 200 employees now, I have like an executive team and we have people who could do every single actual piece of work, right? So for me, if I work more hours and I don't have a good personal life and my personal happiness is being sacrificed, I'm not going to be as creative. I'm not going to think of the right things to get us to the next stage in our business. So today, I don't think that's the case. I think investing in my personal life today is possibly one of the better things I can do to improve my business. So there's a transition that happens, if that makes sense.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Okay, I think it cists. Okay, so I think in the early stages of the business, when you have no one to delegate anything to, that is absolutely true. You sacrificed everything. Screw holidays, screw weekends, you're going to work like all the time, no dating, no personal life, no hobbies. I fully agree with that.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “And we're going to probably be nine figure revenue business in the next five years. But then for me personally, I mean, I'm thinking about like, you know, what do I want more in life, right? Like, oh, like I know this kind of weird to talk about publicly, but you start dating someone, right? I was so on fighting for like the past few years because I'm like, no, I'm just going to work on my business, right? So, you know, but it kind of made me think about how in order to be successful at work and in our business, we have to make our life, our personal life, that much more rich. You know, I started flying airplanes as a hobby two years ago. I love flying airplanes. It's just so much fun.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Next five years for me versus in Nenero is very interesting because the two are different and that's something else we don't do very often as entrepreneurs. We just kind of assume that we are our business and our business is us. And we tie this identity to the hip when really that's not the case at all. Like for Indonero, we're going to be helping like tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs, and we're going to be able to do more than just accounting and taxes. This is just a Trojan horse to being able to do so much more to help a business understand what's going on and to help them build bigger and better businesses. That's our mission, right?”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Yes, seriously, because I mean, Steve Blank has been so influential in my life, but same with David Wu and Ariel Pohler and Anton Commissaris, who was the first guy at Mint. All these people are really helpful. I think at the end of the day, I really relied most on my parents because they're entrepreneurs. They've always given me fantastic advice and mentorship along the way.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I would hire better people. And I would so I mean, obviously I know how to interview people better now, so I can't bring that back in time. But if I had to go back in time, back to when I didn't know how to interview people, well, I would have had my investors and mentors be a bigger part of my process to help me get the right first few people in. And I didn't rely on them enough to help me evaluate people when I didn't know how to do it myself”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Well, you could launch right away by doing a PR release on it and doing the PR scramble, that is hard to redo. And we had great PR. Like I had like a billion publications write about us.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “And yeah, like I invited him to my office. He came over. He's a professor mostly right now. But he's also been an entrepreneur and he's incredibly vulnerable. He talks about how he's like taking companies public and has basically destroyed them overnight. And he's talked to me about everything, even more than that. It's just incredible. And yeah, he's just so honest and blunt. He's like, Jessica, like what you're doing is not working. You guys make no money. And it's not too late to change. And this was a year and a half in when I'm like, hey, I'm trying to fundraise. I'm trying to like get more money in. And he's like, you can't fundraise and scale something that's not working. And he also gave me crap about launching so quickly. I launched on July 2nd, 2010. And it was really a garbage product. And I wasn't ready for it. And he's like, Jessica, you just ruined your chance. Like you could only have a public launch once. So you should have waited.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Steve Link's a phenomenal investor and mentor of mine. I love the guy. He still laughs about that, by the way. I just saw him a few weeks ago and we were just reminiscing on that horrible time and chapter of my business.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Yeah, which is why you only do it when you are in a close circle where you know most of the people and you have like a good personal relationship. And I highly recommend groups like EO and YPO organizations where you're forced into that level of confidentiality with your peers.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, you have to be really careful about it, right? People talk and people gossip like, ah, did you hear like Jessica Ninera spatiga go bankrupt, right? I was at a dinner party. I was having a really horrible day. I remember seeing a friend who's like, hey, how's it going, Jessica? I'm like, thanks are going well. How about you? He's like, oh, well, and we're doing that, you know, bullshitty, you know, cocktail party. Like, we're crushing a talk. And I'm like, you know what? This is stupid. I'll be honest with you. Honestly, my company is shit right now. And like he was like taking it back. He's like, what? And so I explained and really opened it up. And then he started being vulnerable. And then we were at a dinner table after that, you know, moved from cocktail drinks to dinner and everyone went around talking about how they're crushing it. And then it came to me. I'm like, you know, I'm like a failure and like my business sucks. And then everyone else changed the tone and entire talk. Everyone was like, yeah, actually I got problems. And we went around and everyone only talked about their problems. How amazing is that? It only takes one person.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, it's like, do they really want to help you out? Are they committed to like your future as an entrepreneur and to the future of the business? That's really it at the end of the day. And they're not money motivated. It's not that type of relationship. Whereas for an institutional board, it is primarily money motivated. Here they're just doing it for fun. I mean, these guys, you know, they could be retired if they wanted to be. I think that's really the bottom line. Are you able to do it based on your relationship and not just for the money?”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Want to because we're throwing the money means returning my co-founder and I money too, but the thing is that they tend to be more mission driven. They're more long-term focused. A fund that's like two years in to their fund, they want to start returning capital in the next five, six years, right? Whereas for us, we're trying to build a company where it's going to return a lot of capital over a 10-year period. So it's just harder to do that if they're not super patient capital. And you're not going to find patient capital with these early stage institutionals. That's just not going to happen.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Once they're leading a pretty sizable round and they're putting in a meaningful check size, they're putting in five, seven, ten million dollars, then it's fine because there's no expectation for them to re-up in feature rounds. And especially if they're a firm that isn't capable of doing that or if it's not in their mandate to different stage rounds. I mean, in our case, it was just like we wanted to preserve ownership in the company. We didn't want signaling risk. And we're really happy that we took this path. Also, the clock is ticking. When you take money from these people, right? Like you got to return their money. You're giving up a lot of control, right? And you're subject to a lot more pressure. We really like having a lot of flexibility as a business. And so we build out our own independent board instead. So, you know, we don't work for them. They work for us. We're getting an immense amount of value this way. I wish I saw more entrepreneurs thinking about this.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “And then two for the next round, you know, we were only raising a small chunk of money, like 1 million.7, right? So no institutional is going to put in that little money, nor would you want to because of signaling risk still. And then my next round, I wanted to raise like, you know, four and a half million. So same thing. It's like such a small amount of money. And then also, you know, we're combining equity with debt, right? That's also pretty unusual because we didn't want to overly dilute ourselves. I kind of like, you know, having my co-founder and I own vast, fast majority of the company still.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Yeah, it's a really interesting thought, actually. So at first, we didn't do institutional money because we didn't want the signaling risk. So when you put institutional money into your seed round and they don't lead an A round, it really sends a horrible message. So that's the first one.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “It's a few things. One, it's like building the network all along the way. So you can't just say, hey, I'm fundraising now, so I'm going to start today. So I think good fundraisers. I mean, I'll be candid here. Like I raised like seven and a half million in equity and then two and a half million in debt and all from like small private firms or individuals. I haven't done big institutional money and I'm raising more money. So I'll probably in the next three years I'll probably have raised $20 million in mostly angel money, which will be pretty interesting. So that'll be a story one day.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yeah, I mean, I basically do have a very small checklist for what I'm looking for. I do prefer people not be money people. I want them to have operational experience and have experience running a company. I think that's just super important because they ask better questions. They add more value. They put in more money. They give you better introductions to other people. That's the main requirement. And then after that, they just have to be like have a great reputation. So I always do background checks on all investors just to make sure they have a good reputation. You know, a lot of people don't do that. I've turned down investors because I've talked to entrepreneurs who are like, yeah, this person's bad news. So be worried out there.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “That mission. Mean, it's part of the mission, though. You need the money to grow your business, so it is part of the mission. And then two, you get so much like value from talking to smart people. Like if I didn't have to do my fundraising, if I had like just a massive inheritance for my parents, which I don't have, but let's say I did. And I didn't have to fundraise, then I would miss out on so much mentorship. I wouldn't be as revenue focused if I had money, you know, lying around and easily available to me. I wouldn't be focused on core metrics that matter because I wouldn't be accountable to them if I only had my parents to deal with. This is incredibly valuable, I believe. And I'm 100% certain my business would not be half as well off if I had the money just sitting right there ready for me.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Machine for Barack Obama. And he talked about how when President Obama was running for reelection, his head wasn't in the game for campaigning. And I related that to fundraising because when Obama, you know, his first debate with Mitt Romney, he totally botched it, right? Because he was like, ah, this is such a tour. It's a pain. I don't want to do it. And most entrepreneurs saw that same thought with fundraising. And that's one of the clicks we're like, no, I'm going to like life fundraising. I'm going to be good at it and I'm going to do this 100%. So yeah, sorry, I think I missed your question. I'm just kind of rambling here. No, that's really good. It's really interesting.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Yeah, so let's talk about investors for a sec here, right? First off, as far as capital allocation goes, what does that mean? On one hand, it's how to use your existing capital better, but it's also figuring out who else to bring in, right? So I'm always spending, I don't know, 10% of my time fundraising, even if I'm not fundraising. Kind of interesting. It's like, well, like, that's a waste of time, right? Like that's what I hear a lot of entrepreneurs say. Fundraising is a waste of time, but it's such a core critical part of what we do. It's not a waste of time. And before, you know, before we're talking now, we're discussing fundraising altogether. Like, I think we had to change this attitude thinking, oh, fundraising's a chore, it's a waste of time, it's not value add to thinking, actually fundraising is really important. And we need to start accepting it as being something that's like fun and fulfilling. Otherwise, we're going to fail at it. I was really influenced by this book I read recently. David Axelrod, he was the campaign manager, the propaganda.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Would say that I try to follow more in the capital allocator bucket, so I was really influenced by the book The Outsiders and a bunch of my investors have read it and recommended it to me. And I've spent a lot of my time focused on that because we have to hire people and I want to make sure that they do great work. But some people look at suck, he's a product CEO, right? Like he really cares about refining the product experience. And that makes a lot of sense given that, you know, they are really product driven, right? I know it's a”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Absolutely. And I think that we're seeing CEOs and leaders who are extroverted, introverted, more focused on hands-on work versus other type of work. They are all successful and there's an HBR study about this, how actually less charismatic CEOs tend to outperform. The more charismatic ones. And you've seen this in the Jim Collins books, right? Good to grow. I think about this. This kind of comes to show that Yeah, CEOs come from all walks of life. And so yeah, I fully agree with that.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “People are more destined than others, and that some people are less likely to really care about scrutiny, risk, and all those things. And he is right, though. If you really want to be a CEO and start a company, then yeah, you could totally do it. Fact of the matter is though most people are scared and won't quit their day jobs and they're not going to put everything on the line to do it.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Yeah, sure. Well, we weren't taking off. And so unless we were, then I couldn't see a good reason to drop that. So yeah, I mean, we still hadn't launched while I was there and we didn't have any money or funding while I was there. So it really didn't make sense too. So I was happy that I stayed though because I made great friends and I had a lot of fun my senior year. So I did not follow that stereotype.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “So I found it at Berkeley and I was at Berkeley nonstop and then I finished and then I went straight into this full time.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Yeah, sure. So I started in an era a few years ago. I was still in school. I've worked on small businesses throughout college and accounting's a real nightmare. Like it's been a real pain for me and for many of my friends to think about how to take care of all that money management stuff. I mean, it's not like when you follow your incorporation paperwork, the government sent you a packet like, hey, here's what to do about all those receipts. What to do about your taxes? No one tells you anything, right? So I thought, what's a boring business that no one wants to fix and no one is innovating in that I could potentially make a difference in through software? Basically how in Denero was born.”

    2016-06-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source