YouSaid · the spoken record

Matthew McCall

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32
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2015-03-26
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2015-03-26
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1
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  1. “And they've come to a next generation global brain. And it understands context. So it'll pull from multiple databases and sources, understand contextually what's going on, and then take action for you. So instead of it just saying, what's the capital of North Dakota, you can say, please find me the cheapest flights for next Thanksgiving to visit my sister and I'll travel with my uncle. And it will then go and know your dress book, your calendar. It knows what Thanksgiving is. It knows what cheapest flight is. And it will do all of that. And then we'll come back to you with recommendations.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “People sometimes scratch their name on their head regarding the name, but at this point they are one of the largest sites for women represent a huge portion of refinery 29's traffic. And I just love when you have a situation like that where A strong mission and purpose drives a company with a strong narrative to growth in a very efficient manner. Another deal that we recently did is company called Viv VIV. And it's next generation Siri, it's DAG and his team who were the founders of Siri.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Most recent investment in why we said yes. Most recent investment was in I've done a number of them recently, but it was Hello Giggles. And why we said yes was because of the power of what they'd achieved on no money at the end of the day. And they'd gone from 0 to 15 million uniques with no capital based on a narrative, and again I go back to narrative and story, of Zoe Deschanel as she came into Hollywood. and was being torn apart by getting pressed for how she dressed and a lot of snipy and negativity and she said I want a place where women can have a positive place to talk about important things in their life and that was the genesis of Hello Giggles which you know is a maybe a”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “On writing a memoir of the craft. And then last but not least, Robert McKee. This one a lot of people in Hollywood use, MCKE, Story, Substance Structure, and Style. And then near and dear to me, it's a long book, but very powerful. It's called The Writer's Journey, Mythical Structures for Writers.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Book a resource would you recommend ah there's always the generic Eric Reese Yeah, lean startup is always good. Number one predictor of success is amount of capital raised. I would also say one of the books on narrative, Stephen King has a great book that he did on narrative. Let's see if I can actually pull a couple of these up here very quickly. But I believe at the end of the day, venture is about storytelling, as we just talked about. And I'll just pull a couple of these names up here. These are the kind of well-known narrative books that people in Hollywood will use. Clinkenborg that's called several short sentences about writing down the bones by Natalie Goldberg. This one's a great one, Stephen King on how he writes.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Blood cord, she said, I found over 60 toxins in my blood core. I was literally poisoning my child. But bottom line is she starts talking about a narrative, a story, right? And that's why the hero's journey is so powerful, right? And she talks about feeling like we were poisoning our children in terms of what we were doing. You could literally feel it in the room when she starts talking about this. And you see the passion and then mothers relate to her and they tell other mothers. And next thing you know, the company is growing through pure organic growth.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “A woman has the ability, clearly men can do this well, but women have this ability to dig deeper, as they say in spinal tap, to go to 11 in terms of narrative and passion and mission. Jessica Alba, when she was talking about honest, wasn't talking about how she's gone green and wants... Women can take that narrative and drive it. And when they drive it, it resonates with other women. And women have this network, right? Whether it's moms or other women, and it spreads virally. So the acquisition cost goes to zero. South, when Jessica Alba was talking about why she was doing honest, she was literally testifying in front of Congress, right? And she wasn't talking about how it was good to be green. She said, when I had my blood core drawn. Sorry about this.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “That they're intertwined. Millennials, I love millennials. Some people are like, oh my goodness, I can't believe dealing with millennials are so demanding. Millennials are demanding that there be a purpose and a meaning to what they're doing. As a result, the firms that they work for have to have that sense of mission and purpose and the products they buy have to have that. So that's why Whole Foods is in a triple store count while Safeway is shutting its stores down in the US, right? It's no longer a PR. Well, what we found is that women, if you take a man and a woman who are of equal caliber,”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Zoe Deschanel and Sophia and her team at Hello Giggles, which has become the leading site for women aged 20 to 35 to talk about authentically talk about things affecting their lives, but it has to have a positive twist to it versus the snipey sites you see out there. On no money, literally no money, they've gone from 0 to 15 million uniques. Sarapenna over at Big Frame was one of the co-founders there and now is one of the stars at Austin STV, absolutely incredible with talent. I go on and on and on and on. I mean, what I would argue is going on right now is”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Yeah, you know, so here's a really wild stat. So do you know what percentage of deals have generally in the venture industry have female founders or CEOs? Are funded I think it's something like four to six percent. Which is pretty small. I was looking at our Southern California portfolio. We opened up our West Coast office about three years ago. Half our deals. Are either co founded or led by female founders. And it isn't because we said, hey, let's go out and do this. It was we just wanted to make money. But it's Jessica Alba at the honest company, right? Which has gone from zero to several hundred million in three years.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “At the end of the day. So if there's one thing that in my life I want to do from this point forward is to talk about the hero's journey, to talk about whatever wisdoms I have, but more importantly is to encourage this incredible batch of entrepreneurs coming through right now, the millennials, and more importantly the rise of the female entrepreneur, I would argue that those two trends are going to define the next 15 years.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “That's really what entrepreneurship is about. And so, for example, the movie Star Wars is based on Joseph Campbell in the Hero's Journey. All great movies, in fact, our lives all revolve around this hero's journey, the call to adventure, the reluctant hero, the embarkment into the forest, the kind stranger facing your dragons, which are your fears. And it's interesting when you talk to entrepreneurs, they begin to nod their head, like being in the forest and facing their fears and their dragons and pushing through to something greater. And then you get to the tail end of the hero's journey. And it's about the myth, the story that then tells, which is a lot like the commencement speech. It's then telling the next generation, you too can do this.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Yes, thank you. But again, most of these are really good commencement speech has a contrast. This horrible thing happened and yet it's what opened the door to my next chair's journey. And so there is something I would actually recommend everybody who listens this download. I probably had 150 entrepreneurs listen to this. Even my 19-year-old son listened to it begrudgingly. He's now listened to it, watched it 10 times, and written papers on it. And it's a small documentary. It's a small movie called Finding Joe. As Joseph Campbell, and it's got Deepak Joe Brian and it's got Tony Hawk, it's got Laird Hamilton and it's got a whole host of folks and it talks about the hero's journey.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yeah, I mean, I would say that the granddaddy of commencement speeches is obviously Steve Jobs' speech. Which was absolutely incredible. What I think is wonderful about commencement speeches is it's a good commencement speech is someone looking at their life pulling the nuggets and insights from it, putting an inspirational wrap around it, and in a very short window or period of time communicating their very essence in many cases to the next generation of students. And so it's very powerful. There was another one that I have on my website. It was Admiral's name now. Which was incredibly powerful.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “So as a result, that's when the great companies are built. So we've been actually kind of holding our dry powder. We've done some smaller checks in the last 18 months. We've done quite a number of deals, but smaller check sizes, but we're holding our dry powder because there'll be some really exciting opportunities coming up.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “That were laid on the stage, and the fifteen year cycle holds 85, 2000, 2015, maybe it's 2016, October this year could be pretty interesting. And also the stock market has a seven to eight-year cycle, kind of biblical about it. But again, 2000, 2008, 2015. The problem is that you can't see it because it's a nonlinear shock. It could be Russia defaulting on debt. It's usually not something involving the tech community. It's usually something affecting the global economy. And then everything pulls back. Everyone becomes risk averse. And as they become risk averse, venture being a very high risk asset class will be one of the first to lose liquidity.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “And in one week, all the term sheets into Chicago, which the Valley guys hate flying to Chicago because it's a four and a half hour flight into the snow into O'Hare. But you know that they've so overfished their own market they'll stretch to Poland and wherever they can to find deals. But then what will happen is you'll start to see a pullback. We haven't seen that quite yet. And so and also everyone's waiting for a market crash. So I don't think we're going to see a market crash until people are tired waiting for it. But I will tell you that we've been thinking of creating a Google Doc of yet another sign that we've got excess here, mutual funds coming in and paying outrageous prices and putting 400 million into companies. These are all some”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “So I'd say I'm a horrible forecaster, but the good news is from time to time I do blog posts just to at least put my stake in the ground. So I did a blog post in June 2008 saying that the venture cycle was done and to get ready for the winter. And then another one in November 2008 saying start investing. And the reason was in 2008 it was in one week all of the term sheets from West Coast rooms in Chicago vaporized. And so what I like to say is that as you get deeper and deeper into a cycle, people move into either geographies or sectors or types of investors come into the market that normally don't until it feels like the world's risk-free, right?”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Yeah, oh, the second is they see something differently. So where you know you've got an opportunity to put the ball out of the park is when you see someone going into a space that is full of dead bodies and your natural inclination is to say, I don't want to be anywhere near this thing. And then they tell you, but you're looking at it in the wrong way. And they show you a different view of the problem or how to approach it. And it makes sense. And that's where very few things are revolutionary. Most things are too evolutionary things coming together. I call it the recess peanut butter cup, chocolate and peanut butter. I mean, think about Uber. Uber is not revolutionary. It's evolutionary, right? It's mobile meets, you know, taxis at the end of the day. But it's how it was done. And it's the little things.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “A couple things. The deals that I love most, there are two types of deals that I really, really love. One is an ugly industry where someone is bringing technology in. It's a huge competitive advantage and barrier to entry because in those industries, you either have the domain expertise or you're a technologist. But very few people have both. I would say that that is one of the key things. And I just completely blanked on the question here because there was a second part I was going to add to that.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “So, and you see that with the great entrepreneurs. Now, some of them, of course, you know, are just brilliant and through sheer will drive things through, but the truly great ones generally, there is a lot of that.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “How that into the venture. Exactly. And in fact, what was really interesting is when we, well, and what happened is logical is the more people you've done good things for, not expecting anything in return, the more likely they're going to say, hey, Matt, I just came across a deal I thought you might find interesting, or I'd love to make that introduction to Yahoo for you, right? And when we were doing our diligence on feed burner with Di Costlo, what was interesting is every single person I talked to use the same quote. I'm in the Dick Costlo fan club.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Well, we do take board seats, but it's very simple. There's only one rule that I found, and we've tried over 20 years, I've been in the business 20 years, we've tried everything under the sun to try and figure out what drives success and what doesn't. In terms of predicting, and it really comes down to karma equals synchronicity. And I'm not trying to sound new agey with that. What it means is random acts of kindness done on a continual basis builds up a large karma bank.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Someone who has got a strong sense of purpose and mission, but more importantly, as it relates to the domain that they're going into. So they know the nuances of the domain and they can zig and zag as need be at the end of the day. That, I think, is critical. And then when you look back at it, the thing that right now we're in the middle of momentum investing, which is about pumping enormous amounts of money into companies with the hopes that someone else will pump even more money later on. But the strategy that has worked historically the best are those companies that are very capital efficient at the end of the day. And you're going to see that happen when the market downturns coming up here. You're going to see a bunch of, I think, what was it Bill Gurley said, you're going to see Lot of dead unicorns floating around.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “I think that every year I'm convinced that I've learned everything I need about venture capital and every year I realize that I'm still in third grade. Happens is as you go through market cycles, their large sector trends, things moving, for example, the rise of the millennials, the rise of female entrepreneurs, the crash in 2008, they force you to reevaluate how you think about investing. What I would say is that where I've made my most money over the years is by backing authentic passionate entrepreneurs where there's open communication and trust. So no matter what happens at the end of the day, that is the most important thing I tell all of my associates and VPs is you have to protect that trust and communication. Where I've always ended up getting into trouble is where I convinced myself that it's not that.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Well, the good news, again, because we don't have a fund, we don't have an end of fund where we have to return capital. So if the company continues to perform well, we can hold on to it as they say, you know, the Pritzkers originally started Hyatt, and that's going on 60 years. That's obviously not what we're targeting. So we've got one deal we're 14 years in and we're still the only person, we're the only investor writing checks still to support the company. But our real target is kind of traditionally a three to five year hold.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Got flexibility to support our companies, especially, we might talk a little bit later about where we are in the cycle, but if there's a, or when there's a downturn in the market, we've got the ability to protect our companies because we don't have a fund per se.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “So we have the advantage we have is with the Pritchke group, we have a $7 billion evergreen pool of capital to invest off of. So our core investment focus is series A and B, and that's $4 to $10 million on the downstroke. But we have a very active seed program we use strategically, so that can be as little as $250 or $100,000. But really, our core focus is that. Because of our capital base, once we're in, we have the ability to run with a company all the way. So we've written up to $60 million into a deal, one of my companies, SMS Assist. We put $15 million in. The company was doing well, needed another $45 million, and we wrote the check. And so we've got the flexibility to do that. But again, we're not stage agnostic. We are A, B investors, but we...”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Because it never goes the way you think it goes. And Joseph Campbell's quote was, you must be willing to let go of the life we've planned so as to embrace the life that is waiting for us. And I would say that is true about venture. And it was also true about how I got into the venture business. So here I am. I'm trained. I have a master's in manufacturing. I've worked on Wall Street. I'm definitely going to go into buyouts. And a friend of mine who had been in the venture business for 15 years was starting a fund with a partner of his. And I said, oh, I'll make some introductions for you in New York to help him fundraise just to be nice to him. Law of karma, and a couple more. And then I looked at a deal and I looked at another deal. And then I was in there a day, a week, and two days a week. And next thing I knew I was a venture capitalist. And, you know, a year into it, I kind of looked back and said, huh, how in the hell did that happen? Couldn't be happier would just absolutely love the venture world because it's a creative process. It's an art.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “I can't even remember eight. And we would play with the Apple IIs, the IBM when it first came out. So it was wonderful. I ended up doing liberal arts. And next thing I knew, you know, Wall Street beckoned and I became an econ history major working on Wall Street and merchant banking. And one thing led to another, ended up back at Kellogg in the Boston Consulting Group. And I always thought, you know, at that point, I was going to go into buyouts. We'd done most of KKR's deals when I was on Wall Street, and that seemed to be the clear path. But, you know, there's a quote that you put on here. And I'm a firm believer that life is nonlinear and that venture is a perfect training ground for life.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “So I remember I had the very first TRS-80 Tandy computer, which was one of the first at-home computers for the Apple II, where you would literally record your programs on a cassette tape.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “It's interesting when you a lot of people ask how they can get into the venture capital world and almost every single person has a very unique approach or way they get in. I think you had interviewed my colleague, Mr. Hornick, from the legal side. Some people come in from the operations side. In my case, I had been early on an athletic computer geek. So probably the only person I know that had 11 varsity letters and taught computer camp and Pascal during the school year.”

    2015-03-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source