YouSaid · the spoken record

Leah Busque

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35
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2018-03-19
most recent
2018-03-19
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1
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podcast

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  1. “Conversation with our child, and what was really compelling about this company is Brian the founder, is a technical founder. He's a second time, third-time entrepreneur, a serial entrepreneur, and he has a vision for this business that is so high impact and so important. And even in the early days, he had received over 25 letters from parents thanking him for actually saving their children's lives by being able to alert them that there was an issue and they were able to intervene before, you know, some really troubling, concerning behavior had happened. And I just think that this is a great example of where technology has maybe broken down in some places, but we can also use technology to kind of support and fix and provide a safety net for this next generation of children that are growing up from the very young ages with this as part of their lives. So I'm really excited about their mission and also the technical aspects.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Yes, so recent investment that I'm very excited about, and I actually cleared it with them that I could mention it, is a company called BARC. And they have created a monitoring platform for parents, for their children's social media accounts. So they plug into over 20 different social media platforms like Instagram and Snap and Facebook, Twitter, et cetera. And they do monitoring utilizing natural language processing, machine learning algorithms, artificial intelligence, and they will flag and alert parents if there are any issues. So great example would be if a child is getting bullied on social media, if a child is having any sort of trouble or disturbing behavior, this platform protects the child's privacy. It won't actually show you what exactly is being said, but it'll alert parents that there's an issue and they need to have”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Scaling servers and IT, and that engineering team. And that was an area that I'm not as strong in. I'm more of a programmer, a designer, an engineer. So we complemented each other very well from a skill set standpoint, but then from an emotional standpoint as well, just having enough respect to kind of support each other where it's needed, I think is really key.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Kevin and I work really well together. Anyone who has worked with us will tell you this. In fact, people at TaskRabbit sometimes did not know that we were married. And Kevin sat in exec meetings. He reported directly to me. He scaled the early days of our IT and servers and engineering team. And, you know, I think it just really comes down to, of course, respect. But then also realizing sort of what each person is really good at, where their strengths are, where their weaknesses are, where their vulnerabilities are. And when you're married to someone and you're with them 24-7, like you have a really, really deep, insightful perspective on those things. And so if you can leverage that perspective and that insight to work together really well and sort of say like, Kevin is really, really good at the deep technical aspects of”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “People are the most important thing in anything you do in startups that you join, in co-founders that you bring on. And when I met Chris at Fuel, I realized that he is just a great person. He just is authentic. What you see is what you get. There's 100% transparency, and we share values. And I really wanted to work with someone. I wanted to work with people that I was excited to be around on a daily basis and build something really important together. And after spending more and more time with Chris, it was very easy to see that he was that person for me. And it's just been a fantastic partnership.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “My biggest mentor wow, it has to be Scott Griffith at Zipcar, who in the early, early stages, again, I hadn't left IBM yet. He kind of took me under his wing and he gave me the courage to quit my job, to start task grabbit. He let me sit at the zip car office in Boston for free for the first year we exist in. And I really got to see what a CEO looked like, what it meant to be a CEO, how he interacted with his team, how he inspired, how he operated on a daily basis. And I'm just so grateful for that time and that mentorship that he gave me early on. And we've still stayed in close touch today. So he's just been a fantastic person to have in my life.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Changed my views dramatically. I think that as a parent, I've realized that I want to leave this world in a better place, not just for me and my children, but my children's children and beyond. And so for me, I've gained, I think that perspective on generational implications that technology can have. And so I think it's changed my perspective on businesses to invest in the potential of impact a business can have, not just financially, but on humanity. And certainly I think given me a lens to assess companies through to look at companies through and understand if I'm the best partner to help them because I'm looking for something really special that's long lasting.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “So, this is a book I actually go back to a lot. It is a book that literally changed my life. I read it over 10 years ago, right before I found a task rabbit. And it's called Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston. And I was working at IBM as an engineer, living in Boston. I knew nothing about startups. I knew nothing about the startup community. I didn't know anything about why Combinator or any of these incubators or any of these companies, but I read that book and I so connected with the authenticity of these founders' stories and their journeys really resonated with me. And it's what inspired me to really quit my job at IBM and start my own company.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Okay, so no one is ever happy with you. If you change things on one side and customers are really happy, chances are that on the other side of the marketplace, you've really made someone mad. And that is also just the complex nature of a marketplace business. Now, that's not always the case, but we certainly saw that with TaskRabbit all the time. If customers were having a great experience, that in some cases could have been at the detriment of the supplier. If the suppliers were having a great experience and were making a lot of money, that sometimes could have been at the detriment of the customers. And so it's a tough balance. It's a tough mental balance too. As a management team, as an executive operating one of these marketplaces, to never quite feel like you're winning on both sides. But I think it's the nature of the business. It's one of the pieces that make them so complex. And I think that's okay. I think it's okay that sometimes the NP”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I think it really comes down to do you understand unit economics? Do you understand how all the building blocks fit together? And if you were to add 100,000 customers tomorrow, would you know how to build up the other side to match it? And if you can answer those questions and you can operate in a positive margin way and you know how to get those metrics to work, then I think you're ready to scale. If you know how to get those customers, as I said, you know, pour some fuel on the fire, can you match both sides in the same way?”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Connections between supply and demand, and how do you scale those efficiencies over time so that the ratios get better and better and better? What are the network effects as the marketplace grows in scales? How does that make everybody's experience on the marketplace even better? And then the last thing I look for is around unit economics and business modeled marketplaces. And this is something maybe that I'm a little spoiled with with TaskRabbit because we were always so cognizant of unit economics and business model and operating with positive margins that I really believe the healthiest marketplaces can operate that way from the beginning. Sure, there are times that you're going to want to scale up and pour some gas on the fire to get to scale to get more demand. But if you can't match the supply quickly, none of that is going to matter. And so you really have to be ready to scale and you have to know what those underlying metrics are to understand if your marketplace is healthy or not.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “So, thank you for that question. I mean, I did a whole analysis and write up of something that's been in my head for many years around the anatomy of a marketplace and how the anatomy of a marketplace has really changed over the last decade. And so when I think about successful marketplaces, I think about marketplaces that have liquidity between supply and demand. And marketplaces are complicated. And that's what I love about them because as soon as you scale up supply, you need to match demand with it. And if a marketplace is imbalanced in any way, then it's like a leaky bucket. You're losing customers, you're losing suppliers, and you have to move so, so quickly to kind of patch that bucket up and scale up both sides of the same time. So things that I look for are metrics around liquidity. What are the ratios between supply and demand? What do they need to be now? What do they need to be at scale? How do you drive efficiencies and the operations in the”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Pitching limited partners about investing in our fund and what makes us different and where we fit in the ecosystem and what our portfolio looks like and what the returns have been. So that is a side I hadn't been exposed to, but has been so much fun to get ramped up on and to learn about.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Well, you know, it wasn't until I started pitching at my investors LP meetings that I realized my investors had investors. And then on sort of this side of the table, so fuel has institutional investors that make up our fund, you realize that some of those investors also have investors, right? There are fund of funds, these LPs that run funds and they also have investors. I mean, there's many layers deep here of capital that I think was a surprise to me, has been a learning curve about what those dynamics and what those interactions are. And then just getting ready to sort of go out and prepare for the next stages of fuel and how we interact with our LP community, what we're looking for in our investors, what our investor makeup looks like. It's actually sort of similar in thinking to being an entrepreneur in pitching venture capitalists about investing in your business. It's just we're”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Well, and not every meeting is going to be writing a check, but if every meeting can be helpful in some way, that's what I'm striving to do.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Yeah, so here's the thing. Here's my belief on this front. I've realized now that because you take so many meetings, you can't invest in everyone, right? We at Fuel do about a deal a month-ish, something like that. And so if you're meeting hundreds of companies a month, like and you're going to do one deal that month, then those are tough odds, right? And so when I sit down with a founder and I realize that this isn't going to be a fit for fuel for whatever reason, I really just want to help. That may not mean writing a check and participating in the round, but that may mean introducing them to other investors that may mean going through their pitch deck with them and giving them feedback that may be being a sounding board or brainstorming. I just want to utilize that hour that I've committed to spending with that person in a productive way. Because I have so much empathy for where they have been and my experience over the last decade as well.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “You know, so I would say some surprises as well. Go along with that question. So one of the things that surprised me the most was now that I meet 30 companies a month minimum. I mean, sometimes it's more, sometimes it's 100, you're meeting two or three companies a day. You realize that there's so many reasons that have nothing to do with the actual company, with the actual entrepreneur, for reasons why you wouldn't make an investment. And I think as a founder, you go in and sometimes you can take it so personally like, oh, why didn't this person invest in me? Like we had such a great connection, a great conversation. But there's a thousand other reasons why an investor isn't going to make that investment that have nothing to do with you or the company. They may already have too many investments in the space. They may not know enough about the space. They may not be educated enough. That was a big surprise.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Investors see all the time. I certainly didn't match any of those patterns. I really am passionate about bringing more inclusion, bringing more diversity to the founder community and supporting these founders to build the next incredible companies because I believe that the next billion dollar business is going to come from a woman. It's going to come from a person of color. It's going to come from someone who does not fit the typical mold. And I really want to be there at the beginning for that person and support them and open up my network to them and help them succeed.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “So first off, it's been incredible. I'm just so excited and so thrilled about this next chapter of my career. And I feel like, you know, TaskRabbit was my first baby. I now have two other children. So I consider myself with three children, TaskRabbit being the first. And so when you're in it and you're so deep in it, it's hard to think about being out of it and looking beyond it. Now I can say sort of coming out on the other side that I feel like this last decade has really prepared me for what I am meant to do. And I think that is because I am so passionate about emerging technologies. I'm so passionate about helping first-time founders in particular, founders that don't have a network that may feel like outsiders, that, you know, may not fit the typical mold or may not have the pedigree, may not pattern match with all the other entrepreneurs.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “You know, all the way up to lobbyists and the government and congressmen taking notice. And so I was always looking for people that connected with me on that level and that story, as well as the financial model and as well as the numbers too.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Yeah, I mean, I think in the earliest stages, because there's not a lot of data, you really have to rely on your instinct of how did you connect with this partner, with this investor? Do they understand the vision? Are they passionate about the space? Do they understand the impact that you're having? I think later stages, you know, you start to dive into the numbers and the unit economics. And, you know, for TaskRabbit, we always operate in a way that we were contribution positive and very, very fiscally responsible. And so we never really butted up against that as a question, as a problem in our fundraises. But I would say I was always looking for partners that kind of looked beyond the numbers and really wanted to be a part of the movement. I always saw TaskRabbit as something bigger than small jobs tasks and errands. We were really changing the way people found work and we were making waves in the lake.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “It is, and you know, he knows that I've actually struggled with this before I decided to go into Venture full-time. I mean, how can I sit across from an entrepreneur when I've been an entrepreneur, when I've been in their shoes for the last decade? And I think there's a lot of empathy that I can bring to the table. And I think where I netted out on this is I strongly believe, and Chris believes this as well, that when the founder is successful, the company is successful and the venture investor is successful. And it happens in that order. So if you continually put the founder first, the founder's needs first and understand how that is impacting the company in a positive way, then inevitably you as an investor.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “In the middle of a fun cycle for a venture firm and how that could impact your investment or follow on or pro rata. And there's so many things I think that have been held close to the chest in the VC community that I feel like deserve transparency. And so one of the things that drew me to fuel was Chris Howard and his values around authenticity and transparency and working with founders. And we've been doing a lot of work. I mean, it's early days of this next generation of fuel, but we have a strong value system about how we want to work with people, what sort of transparency we want to offer. And I believe that's going to go a long way. These are things that I sometimes wish I had as a first time founder when I first started out.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Yeah, you know, I've thought a lot about this because, you know, as an entrepreneur over the last decade, I've pitched hundreds of investors, hundreds of VCs, hundreds of family offices and private equity all the way up and down the chain. And I do feel like there is a gap, particularly at the early stages. And my philosophy is this. We live in a day and age where there is so much transparency. If you look at any social media platform, Instagram, Snap, Facebook, there's full transparency between you and your friends. But even more than that, you and people you follow, maybe people you don't know, but you feel like you know, right? Because you're following them and you're following their lives and you're following their stories. There's just no barrier any longer. I think that there's been a barrier in VC. There's been this black box for entrepreneurs that particularly first-time entrepreneurs as I was, that you may not know how to navigate. You may not know how to raise money or what it means to be.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Those end up being different dynamics and different relationships. And in some cases, you probably do have a little bit more time to make that analysis and make that assessment.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “A great question. I think it depends on stage and size of company. I think it depends on the role you're playing. So at fuel, we tend to get involved at the earliest stages, if you're raising a preseed round or a seed round or maybe a small Series A round, that's usually our sweet spot. And so for us, things do tend to move quickly. We don't typically lead deals, although we have in the past. And so we're very collaborative. We're working with a lot of other investors that we co-invest with. And so things do move quickly. And I would say my entrepreneurial instincts of sort of trusting your gut, being really quick to make decisions, quick to make an analysis to spark a relationship with an entrepreneur have all come in handy at this early stage. I think at the later stages it's different when you're raising a series A, a series B, a growth round, and someone's, you know, going to sit on your board for the next seven years.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Like, this is what's going on. What would you say? What would you do? And so I think that finding people to bring around the table that have the alignment around vision and passion and values is key, but then figuring out what their superpowers are and how to utilize them in different ways is really the leverage point. And so now myself as an investor, I love playing the role of the behind the scenes, the trusted confidant. I will tell you my entrepreneurial story. I will tell you what I did wrong. I will tell you what I wish I did differently. I will help you raise money. These are all experiences that I've had that I really, really want to share with this next generation of founder.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “You know, I think there's something really special about the early stage when investor is willing to bet on you and bet on your company before you're successful, before you have barely any traction, the belief that they have in you, I think that actually goes a long way. Wanting to work with someone who is aligned on your vision is aligned culturally, has alignment around values and what's important to you as a person, as a company, as a CEO, as you build a team. I think those are all things that all four of those people I mentioned at the early stage, we just had alignment around. And I use them in different ways. Anne was on my board in the early days. She helped me get set up with dashboards and metrics and really be thoughtful about analytics and how to measure the business. Steve was someone I would call behind the scenes on the side if I was negotiating a partnership or a business development deal and just say like, how do I get this done?”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Know, I've been lucky enough to have some incredible relationships with my venture investors and Merico from Floodgate Fund who led our Seed Round of Investment. You know, I consider a great friend and a mentor. She led our seed round. She sat on my board for three years. She rolled off, I think when we raised the series B round, because those early stage investors, you know, they evolve. They tend not to stay on boards forever. And so I had great examples with Anne, with Rob Hayes at first round, with Steve Anderson at baseline, with Craig Shapiro at Collaborative Fund. I had great examples of relationships that I want to replicate with founders that I invest in.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Yeah, I mean, that, I think, is also an influence I've had from TaskRabbit because I was as an engineer so passionate and able to see the potential of these early technologies, mobile, social location. Back in 2008, mashing up those three technologies just, it wasn't something people were doing. We were at the early cusp of that. And so I've seen the value of being able to look ahead and have a vision for how you can utilize the technology to push innovation forward, to push humanity forward, really. And so I would say that's made me as an investor more curious. Maybe willing to take on a little bit more risk from a technology stack and a technology standpoint. It also helps that I'm an engineer and I can understand the technical implications behind a technology staff.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Has the passion and the drive and the story that goes along with what they're building, that that perseverance is really going to shine through and that passion is really going to carry them through all of those walls that they're going to need to bust through, all of those hurdles that they're going to need to jump over. And so I'm really looking for that perseverance and that passion.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Well, you know, TaskRabbit again was an incredible journey, and we were so early in this space. Sometimes I feel like, oh my goodness, were we too early? There were moments during that journey, during that life cycle of that company that I worried. Maybe we were a little bit ahead of our time. Maybe we're a little bit early. Maybe the consumer mindset wasn't quite right. Maybe the product market fit wasn't working the way it should. And to persevere through each one of those moments and continue to push forward and innovate and educate and bring the customers with us, I think now ends up being a key criteria, a key attribute I look for in founders when I meet them. I love to sit across from a founder and look them in the eyes and just ask them, why are you here? What brought you to this moment? What is your story? You know, how are you purpose built for this particular opportunity that you're telling me about? And you realize that when a founder”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “as the next step in my career, and then I was lucky enough to get introduced to Chris Howard, who founded Fuel Capital four years ago by a mutual friend Megan Quinn, who runs the growth team at Spark. And she was the matchmaker. And she just knew that Chris and I would hit it off. And he was looking for a partner and I was looking for a platform to join. And so it was a perfect match.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “This new device, this new iPhone, to leverage location awareness and the social graph and connect with them immediately. And that's really where the idea was born, out of the need for dog food one night in Boston. And so if you now fast forward, 10 years later, it has been a decade since the inception of that idea. We have had an amazing journey. It's been an incredible ride. We were one of the first in the peer-to-peer space. We were one of the first to pioneer the sharing economy. And it really started because of my passion and my love for these new technologies emerging. And so when I thought about what I wanted to do next, I realized that I had put my head down in one company, in one business, in one technology for a decade. And I really, really miss that engineering and that technical side of me that really wanted to pick my head up and look around and continue to learn and be curious about new and emerging technologies. And that's really what led me to explore venture.”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Okay, we'll start at the beginning. So, my background is engineering. I was a software engineer at IBM for eight years before I had the idea for TaskRabbit. TaskRabbit came about one cold winter night in Boston. It was February of 2008. My husband, Kevin, and I were getting ready to go out to dinner when we realized we were out of dog food. And we had this 100-pound yellow lab named Kobe, who we kept very well fed. And it was cold and snowy outside, and we had called the cab to take us across town to meet friends for dinner. And we thought, how are we going to get this dog food? This is such a simple problem. Why isn't there a simple solution? But in 2008, there was no app store. The iPhone had just come out four months earlier. It was a completely different time. And so my husband, who's also in technology, and we always have these very geeky conversations in the house, we had this whole idea around what if you could just connect with someone in your neighborhood right now. Maybe there's someone at the store and we should be able to use”

    2018-03-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source