YouSaid · the spoken record

Satya Patel

lines on the record: 64
first: 2021-11-04
most recent: 2021-11-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“and focused on support in those areas and given our small fund size, it's also important that we keep our team lean because we have fairly limited resources. But our fund size is also a strategic decision around what we think is best suited to be as aligned with these early stage founders as possible and allows us to have that concentrated portfolio without being overwhelmed by the number of companies that we work with. So that's a little bit about the team. In terms of our engagement model, again, our goal is not just to be an investor, but it's to be the investor of record, the accountable party that's helping founders build the companies that they envision. And so for us that means we want to spend the majority of our time working with founding teams as opposed to looking for the next investment. And the way we do that, in addition to being on text and Slack and email all day, every day is really two formal connection points.”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, starting with the team, there's only two partners at Homebrew, and we have a total staff of five. And the reason that we've kept things small is that our view is that startups at the earliest stages have very specific challenges. And the way to assist with those challenges is kind of hands-on engagement. And so there are really three legs of this tool for startup building in our mind. Startups have to build a product. They have to distribute a product, and they have to build a team and organization that builds and distributes that product. And so all of our energies are geared towards assisting in those three key areas. And our view is that our founders are best served if we are as intimately aware of their challenges in those areas as possible and then leverage our expertise and our networks to help them address those challenges. So that's meant that we've been able to keep our team lean.”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And have added to those list of supporters over the course of time and just couldn't be more pleased and feel more fortunate about the partners that we have around the table in terms of our limited partners and their longstanding commitment to the asset class. long commitment to us and fortunately for us and for the founders we back, LPs who themselves like the James Irv Foundation are doing incredible work to help move our country and our citizens forward. And so we feel really lucky that the returns we're generating are going towards good and noble causes as well.”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thought about homebrew not just as a firm but as a product we wanted to put into the marketplace and for us it was important that we could make sure that product would be sustainable and for us that meant having long-term capital invested as LPs in the fund meaning people who had exposure to the venture capital asset class who would be helpful advisors to us and were committed to the managers that they support and so a little naively and a little strategically we decided we wanted to focus on institutional capital and we were fortunate having worked in the valley for a long time and having a lot of relationships that we knew would be able to raise”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Given you and Hunter were deliberate in strategically building your capital base, you're able to attract some great investors, can you elaborate on how you thought about that part of building the firm?”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It and then the last thing we did was validate the thesis behind which we wanted to invest, the strategy of a concentrated portfolio, a hands-on model, and a thesis based on this democratization of access driven by technology. And so we tried to ask first principles questions around all these things to make sure that what we had conceived in our heads and based on somewhat on our experience was true. And then ultimately that led us to say, yes, we can go do this and we think we can do this successfully and we've been really lucky with how things have gone over the last nine plus years now.”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Started first and foremost with making sure that there was real alignment between me and Hunter. So although we had known each other at that point for more than a dozen years, now more than two decades, we wanted to ask from first principles what were our goals? How do we enjoy spending our time? What were our respective strengths and weaknesses? Did we think that the two of us together would be better than each of us alone? And did we believe that we had something unique to offer to the market? So it started with really understanding each other and making sure that we had a longstanding commitment to our partnership. The second thing that we wanted to figure out was whether there was truly this market need that we thought we'd identified. And so we did some floating of the trial balloons, so to speak, with founders and limited partners that we knew to figure out if there was this gap and whether they felt like there was opportunity for the two of us to address.”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Both within areas of the enterprise but also in traditional industries that have existed for a long time and are finally benefiting from the impact of technology.”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which for us was really best described by this idea that there were plenty of places to get capital at the seed stage at that time, even more so now. But we believed then still believe it's true that there are very few investors at the seed stage who are willing to be the investor of record, so to speak, or the accountable party, and so we really wanted to be that investor of record that comes from an operating background and that is expert in the challenges that startups face at the seed stage. And so that was really the genesis of homebrew the team and the clear market opportunity that we saw and the manifestation of those two things was really a venture fund which again sits at the intersection of a very concentrated portfolio strategy and an investment thesis that is based on the idea that as technology is getting cheaper and more flexible more accessible it's democratizing access in powerful ways and doing that”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tim, thanks for having me on the podcast. Always great to talk to you. The story of Homebrew is a pretty simple one, but it comes down to first and foremost a long-standing relationship between me and my co-founding partner, Hunter Walk. We met in the relatively early days of Google, worked side by side on the product team there, and that relationship led to kind of an ongoing desire to work together again after we'd both moved on from our respective roles within Google. Hunter went on to run product for YouTube. I love to become a partner at a venture firm for a little while and then got together with some of my former Google colleagues to run product at Twitter. But Homebrew really started first and foremost because Hunter and I wanted to work together again and the timing had happened to line up as we were both relieving our respective jobs at Twitter and YouTube. The second important part was we had identified a clear gap in the market.”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so it's a commitment that makes sense. And I think the same can be said for homebrew. I think if you think of how things will evolve and how the markets will evolve, they will be better positioned in the future for success.”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obviously, we care a lot about that, and in most firms we really want them to be very disciplined not to create multiple product lines and to be distracted. And so we just had a really honest conversation with them about that, about how they would manage it, with their time. And I think what really appealed to us was the authenticity with how they approached it and the passion. And so we believe that they're willing to put in the extra hours and time. And we've also spent time with them thinking about like, well, how do you balance that and make sure that doesn't become too much of a distraction and recognize that if they do it right, it actually enhances the ecosystem and should actually enhance the brand. And so we're trying to balance all those factors. It's actually the same is true for us, quite frankly, because this is a disproportionate amount of our time relative to the amount of capital that we've committed because of all the engagement. But we also believe in the same way that it enhances our brand, enhances our ability to be successful and venture long term.”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One last question, which is in this era where people are very interested in these types of strategies, and you could see the potential value in ScreenDoor, I'm curious how you thought about that initiative with your lens as an investor in homebrew and the potential just distraction of time from their core venture activities.”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So screen door is really a separate initiative. It's a collaboration among several can and will deliver great results and they just need to have the opportunity to do it in the right way. And I think what we loved is just the way in which they've approached the market and partnering with underrepresented venture capitalists and being very deliberate about the process, understanding where the challenges are, and then assembling screen door in a way to provide as much support and tools to help them be successful. Obviously, the venture funds have to be successful in their own, but there's investor mentoring that we can help provide and so one of my team members is actively involved in playing a mentoring role. They have a coalition of other GPs and they can play a mentoring role.”
2021-11-04 · Capital Allocators · Satya Patel – Homebrew (Manager Meetings, EP.18) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source