30 Under 30 with Megan Ruan, General Partner at Gold House Ventures

Speaker A: Welcome to the Future Work Playbook. This podcast series features founders, investors and legal talent that will help you embrace technology and transform your organization for a better future. This series is hosted by Natalie Pierce, the Chair of Gundersen Detmer's Employment and Labor Practice. Natalie and her guests are committed to helping you develop new playbooks to elevate your game.

Speaker B: Since 2021, we've had the privilege of bringing trailblazing founders, visionary investors and other game changing leaders onto the Future Work Playbook podcast, each one sharing their stories and some bold predictions for the future of work. These have been truly thought provoking conversations. Now we'd like to take a quick look back on where they are now by spotlighting two of our past guests from season one of the Future Work Playbook. First is Dan Robinson, who is a co founder and CEO of Red6. Dan was the guest on our very first episode and his journey from fighter pilot to CEO was absolutely captivating. We explored how the military and businesses alike can prepare to move ahead with new training protocols and training modules using augmented reality technology. Since we last talked to Dan, he and Red six have continued to be outrageously successful. Red six has revolutionized pilot training by bringing live in cockpit, AR training and virtual adversaries to the U.S. air Force fighter jets. The company secured major contracts with the US Air Force to deploy their technology, establishing itself as a key player in advanced military simulation. In July 2025, Red6 announced its partnership with Northrop Grumman to integrate its augmented reality systems into autonomous aviation testbeds, driving innovations in both manned and unmanned missions. Through their innovation and strategic collaborations, Red six continues to shape the future of immersive military flight training and smart autonomous systems. The second founder I'd like to highlight is Samir Menon at Dexterity. Sameer was also a guest in season one of Future Work, and Dexterity was doing groundbreaking work on how robotics could support and power human capabilities. Since 2021, dexterity has transformed from a promising robotic startup into a global leader in warehouse automation. The company has garnered early attention for its innovative physical AI tech that lets robots pick, pack and palletize goods with human like skill. Their physical AI platform has fueled rapid growth, leading to broad global deployment of Dexterity robots in major logistics and manufacturing sites. In 2025, Dexterity debuted the MEC, a next generation intelligent robot arm developed with Kawasaki and Hewin. Cementing its leadership in automation at scale, the company secured 95 million in funding in early 2025, reflecting strong investor confidence and accelerating development as Dexterity achieved unicorn status as we celebrate Gunderson Detmer's 30th anniversary in season seven, it's been inspiring to shine a spotlight on forbes most dynamic 30 under 30 trailblazers. Our guests past and present remind us that the future of work continues to be shaped by by bold ideas and relentless innovation. Welcome, um, to the Future Work Playbook brought to you by Gunderson Detmer as We celebrate our 30th anniversary, a milestone season featuring some of uh, forbes most dynamic 30 under 30 leaders. Today's guest is a true trailblazer at the intersection of venture capital and cultural impact. I'm thrilled to welcome Megan roon, a Forbes 30 under 30 in venture capital. She is also a Kaufman Fellow and she is the co founder and general partner at Goldhouse Ventures, a uh, driving force behind incredibly influential platforms. Keeping Asian and Pacific Islander identity as the core investment thesis, Megan is truly reshaping the funding landscape. Under her leadership, Goldhouse Venture Capital has invested in over 78 startups and powered an accelerator, supporting more than 115 companies and unlocking over $2 billion in follow on capital. Wow. Megan, it's an honor to welcome you to Future Work Playbook.

Speaker C: Thank you Natalie. I'm really excited to be here today.

Speaker B: So before we dive into your work and your current role at Gold House, can you share what with our audience a little bit about your personal and professional journey and experiences that ultimately led you into venture capital?

Speaker C: Absolutely. I had a pretty non traditional path into venture capital and actually an even less traditional path into the world of finance. I grew up in the Midwest, so I was born and raised in Minneapolis, a uh, child of immigrants. And I think a lot of my early years were spent in a relatively homogenous, if you can imagine Arden Hills, Minnesota, town of 10,000 people. And so I think it took me a, uh, longer time than perhaps someone who grew up in a major city, uh, to understand a little bit more about my own cultural identity. But professionally I graduated from Yale, I went to Morgan Stanley, so I did take the traditional path there. I spent my first couple years in the professional world doing investment advising for family offices and high net worth clients. It was a world I was completely unfamiliar with but taught me so much, especially about working with different kinds of people. And then after Morgan Stanley I left to join a single family office based in New York. So I worked for the Johnson and Johnson family for a number of years running their venture capital portfolio, investing in funds all over the world, primarily visiting funds in Silicon Valley, all over Asia. And in that time I Got probably like the best landscape view that one could get of the venture ecosystem. I think you can't help it when you're meeting with hundreds of fund managers a year and attending every LPGP conference that there is. So it gave me a really interesting bird's eye view of the industry. But what I always felt was a bit missing was just the risk taking appetite towards backing the next generation of fund managers. And because I was so focused on early stage, they there is an abundance of early stage fund managers who are spinning out or coming from operating backgrounds to start their own funds. And so I had kind of a stroke of luck in uh, meeting the co founders of Gold House right at the moment where I was starting to think about what was next. And so I want to tell you that it was a really unique story about how I actually ended up working at Gold House. But essentially once I was there, we started building programs for founders and investors who were multicultural in their backgrounds and you know, that fit with myself and we ended up building the fund. So it was a circuitous path, but I think ultimately gave me a, uh, pretty unique lens into what venture capital is.

Speaker B: Amazing. Well, Megan, I think our listeners would love to hear how it was that you first became involved with Gold House. You know, if there was an aha moment or story behind the introduction.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, I think I first probably give some context for what Gold House is and does. We're seven plus years into our founding and so today we're known as a cultural ecosystem that pushes forward multicultural communities, in particular the Asian Pacific community. In our early days we were known as the friendly Asian mafia. I think nowadays I love that a lot more different cultural ecosystems, different people from multicultural backgrounds. But my aha moment was actually the first Gold House event I ever attended in New York. I was very green in my career at the time and my boss at uh, Morgan Stanley took me to this event. In our early days, Gold House hosted salons and they were Basically these like 20 person power dinners where we'd bring power players across different industries together to solve a problem. It could be anything. It could be like, how do we decrease income inequality or you know, combat specific specific diseases that are endemic to our community. This one in particular was about supporting Asian entrepreneurs. I remember about it was who was in the room. It was like not a single person from a traditional career path, not a single doctor or lawyer in sight. And me as this Asian girl living in New York, my first big girl job was just wowed. It was like people like Hasan Minhaj, the Actor, writer, producer Michelle Lee, who was then editor in chief of Allure fashion designer Prabhu Gorung.

Speaker B: It was just all sorts or in the room.

Speaker C: Oh, yes, these were the dinner guests. I was like accidentally there.

Speaker B: Oh my gosh.

Speaker C: And I just remember being wowed because I didn't realize that these were the types of career paths that one could shoot for. And these are the types of people that I could idolize. And so I just wanted to be a part of the movement in some way, shape or form. I didn't really care how. But the way it ended up taking shape was I joined Gold House to build our venture arm, which started as a series of founder initiatives. Uh, and then we ended up leveraging our media, entertainment and tech membership base to build for founders.

Speaker B: Well, that is a perfect example of where experience and being in the room and really following your passions and having the unique background that you had just perfectly positioned you to help co found the firm. It's amazing. Yeah.

Speaker C: It's also good timing.

Speaker B: So let's talk a little bit about Goldhouse's unique structure. So it functions Both as a 501c3 nonprofit and then also a for profit venture fund. Can you walk us through this dual mission and how it shapes investment strategy and community engagement?

Speaker C: Yes, absolutely. So Goldhouse Centers is a for profit initiative and it's part of the broader Gold House foundation ecosystem. So we share a mission, which is first and foremost about uniting the next generation of leaders. We call it moving culture forward. But I think in general that means uplifting, advancing, making sure that the storytelling is affirmative, accurate, et cetera. And so since the NonProfit was launched seven years ago, we've built a ton of programs and systems that all empower multicultural communities. The fund is our for profit arm, but rather than treating it like something standalone, we treat it as something that's structurally and obviously missionally tied to the nonprofit. So what that means for us as a fund is that first on the investment side, our sourcing and winning of deals all leverages this affinity that Asian entrepreneurs, Asian VCs have towards Goldhouse. So that's a huge part of how we actually meet companies and how we win in these competitive rounds. A lot of it is also that the Gold House membership base is highly attractive and founders want to have access to these executives and Hollywood celebrities. It lets us generate returns by partnering with these companies. And they're also solving a lot of the challenges that we as an organization want to solve. Things like health equity, climate change, and kind of income inequality.

Speaker B: But.

Speaker C: But the Second thing is that because our fund sits within this broader platform, we can give founders a lot more than capital. So we can offer them a lot of media amplification, brand partnerships, even things like board placement and hiring support. And then the last piece of it is that we have this virtuous cycle. So, uh, part of our fund profits flow back into the nonprofit. And so the more successful our fund does, the more resources that Gold House as a foundation has to invest in emerging creatives, storytellers, founders, et cetera.

Speaker B: It's an incredible model, and it really is such a great example of what you can do when you build this network that people just want to be a part of, want to invest in. And I saw a really surprising. I don't know that everyone knows this, but that in the last two decades, 1/3 of the unicorns had at least one Asian or Pacific Islander founder.

Speaker C: Forbes Midas List investors are Asian or Pacific Islander. So in many ways, we're not underrepresented in the Silicon Valley ecosystem. I think where the gap is is in the storytelling. You often find that a lot of these founders are not the traditional foundation, Silicon Valley CEO prototype. And so a lot of what we do is the repackaging, the storytelling, making sure that founders get what they deserve and also have the support not just on things like product or engineering, but also on things like PR and media and all of the razzle dazzle that you know is vain but really matters when you are, uh, a founder that needs to raise money for your company.

Speaker B: Sure. And let's stick with that a little bit more, because how is it that Goldhouse Ventures philosophy shapes the investment process? And in what ways does this approach maybe differ from traditional capital models?

Speaker C: I think I should probably just give you some examples. The short answer is that we treat culture as a growth engine. And when I think about traditional vc, like what are you underwriting? You're underwriting a founder, you're underwriting a market. We also look at those things. Obviously we look at the market opportunity, but we're also underwriting cultural insight and distribution advantage. And that is entirely tied to something that we call founder market culture fit. So this is a little bit different than product market fit, but we're basically scoring the founders lived insight as their edge, and that plays into their distribution advantage. Right. Because they may have access to a unique audience that is not being tapped by incumbents or. Or because we can help them do it through the Gold House ecosystem. And we can help with press or creator reach or brand partnerships. This means that our measurement of letsun's performance and also our company performance. It is kind of like two way in nature. It's obviously the financial outcome, but it's also the cultural impact. I'll give a couple of examples I think will help illustrate this. So one of the companies in our portfolio is a company called Anise Health, and they're creating a culturally adaptive mental health platform. And it is specifically targeted at the Asian population, which historically involves a lot of stigma and therefore barriers to accessing mental health. And so what they're doing is curating specifically the population of, uh, Asian Pacific therapists, treatment providers, making it easier in terms of insurance, and also just helping ease the cultural conversation and the dialogue around mental health. So for us, that achieves two goals, right? Tackling an underserved audience and generating a return, but also doing so in a way that uplifts our community and serves a cultural gap. Another great example is we have this company in our portfolio called we, which some of our audience members might use, but it's an Asian grocery delivery platform. And they've seized on this observation that there is a lot of cultural affinity and nostalgia tied to grocery, which is one of the most repeatable consumer behaviors that you could monetize. And so, of course, you might ask, if there's instacart, why do you need We. They've actually turned this nostalgia and affinity for certain products into extremely durable retention. And what we've tried to help them do, obviously, like, you could envision, you know, an Asian auntie being like, oh, I want these specific spices and ingredients. But actually they're also targeting Gen Z and Millennial customers. And one of the ways we've helped them do that is by bringing in marketing folks like Jon M. Chu, the director of Crazy Rich Asians and Wicked, as their chief creative officer, helping them kind of tailor their messaging to a younger audience. So this is for us also, you know, great business opportunity, but also an incredibly important cultural platform to exist.

Speaker B: Yeah, they're doing incredibly well. I think the Last valuation was 4.1 billion.

Speaker C: With the B, they're well on their way. Uh, definitely a winner in our Fun One portfolio.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Any other portfolio companies that you maybe want to highlight to exemplify your mission?

Speaker C: Yeah, I guess, like, I'll keep on that food topic because we have a really interesting company, uh, in our portfolio called Chaobus. If you live in the major metropolitan area like New York or Chicago, you've probably seen these kiosks, but. But it's essentially a POS system. So I think, like, A toast or a clover like checkout system for ethnic restaurants. And they're tailoring their experience and their business model to restaurants like Boba Stores, Korean Barbecue hot pot. If you think about the like act of ordering at uh, one of those restaurants is actually pretty different than how you order at another, like more traditional type of restaurant. And so the user experience and the platform that they've built is very special. And they've build this extremely strong wedge in Asian and other ethnic restaurants. So we love that because Gold House also has a huge Asian restaurant network. We are very close with, you know, like Panda Express Family, Din Tae Fung Family. So it's a win win for everyone. But I think that's our playbook. Right. We back founders that have a cultural edge and then we use our community power to help them scale.

Speaker B: Beautiful. How do you help? I've heard you speak before about storytelling and just how critical it is to get the story out there. Do you want to talk about some of the ways that Gold House and maybe through Gold Rush, right, your accelerator program, starting those early stages. But how do you help get these stories out?

Speaker C: Yeah. So one of the things we always talk about with our founders is that our support goes beyond the check. Right. So like the story is actually incredibly important because our first check is definitely not the last check that this founder is going to raise. Because we invest primarily at uh, the pre seed and the seed stage, we anticipate that our founders are going to have to raise a lot of rounds of uh, funding before they achieve an exit. And so we know that storytelling is incredibly important. We oftentimes, I mean, I'll talk about the accelerator in a second. But we help founders with things like national press coverage, sometimes within weeks of a launch campaigns. With our celebrity network, we've paired CMUBU with companies like Mila, but brands like Sanzo in Disney and Marvel movies, um, we've helped them open retail and partnership channels. So I think a lot of this is storytelling, but it's selling to different audiences. Right. It's not just your consumer, it's probably also your retailer or your distributor or your wholesale platforms. And so the storytelling piece is kind of like firing on all cylinders the way that we do it for our earliest stage companies, which are the ones that we take through our accelerator incubator program, a lot of those is actually storytelling from scratch. So oftentimes these are first time founders. They may have never raised money before. We're helping them with everything from creating a pitch deck to actually kind of putting them through the ringer and doing weekly pitch practice, doing demo days with them so that they're getting live feedback and they're having to incorporate that in real time. And I think a lot of that is just getting reps. Honestly, as a VC too, we know, like, our entire job is sales. You're selling your money to founders, you're selling your investment ability to LPs, you're selling your partnership ability to other investors. Like, you want to make sure everyone wants to work with you, but the founder's job is kind of the same thing. And so we always teach our founders that you are a salesperson to your customers, to your investors, to your employees. And this is really like a 247 job. I think this, the storytelling element is critical, but we also want to make sure that our founders are technically enabled. And so recently, especially as we've started to shift more focus to AI, we've been running sessions with leaders in companies like OpenAI, Meta, uh, Google, so we can help our portfolio companies stay ahead of the curve. We know that there's only so much we can do, but at least we can give them resources. And the goal is just that. They're never navigating anything alone.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it is just this ongoing challenge of figuring out how can you support portfolio companies when the broader industry continues to face us. Such rapid shifts in technology and work, in particular, when it comes to these tremendous advancements we've seen in artificial intelligence over the last few years.

Speaker C: Yeah. I think one thing I'll add to that is whereas I think the old adage of move fast and break things is still true, I think that because the cost of product development and engineering is so much lower now with AI, there's just a lot more expectation around what you've achieved when you're going out to fundraise. And I actually think that's something that some of our founders are a bit slow to adjust to. And so oftentimes we'll meet founders in our founder network. They might not even be portfolio companies. Right. But they're coming to us for fundraising advice. And I've been telling them, um, you need to go out and test and iterate. And if you think you can raise a precede round with no beta testers yet, you can't. Like, you need to do that work because those resources are out there. People are vibe coding entire apps. Like, you have to get to a certain level before you can even begin to think about fundraising. So I think that just the timeline has changed a lot.

Speaker B: Yeah. No, and it really is Important to understand the market. What is the problem that you're trying to solve for and is there that need? And something I know that you look for is proximate founders like those who really understand an industry what the problems are and that sometimes it can be boring problems. I think I've heard you say that can be solved and you have no idea that there's a billion dollar potential market there.

Speaker C: I mean we've got a company, uh, called RUC that does construction supply delivery. So it's like a doordash for construction supplies, serves general contractors. Very neat. Not what we would call it, a niche but boring market. Right, but underserved because Home Depot and Lowe's deliver supplies on a two or three day lag. And if you're building a house, you can't just sit on your hands. And so they're completely right to pursue this like hidden market. It's not that hidden. They're just the ones who have the wherewithal to try to change it and they're killing it. Or you know, we've got a company called Palm street that does live plant E commerce, also super niche market. Right. But who knew that rare plants was a $5 billion market in the US and who would even guess what all the adjacent markets are like? Crafting, gardening, even reptiles they've moved into and they're robust reptile sales business. So I think we're actually looking for is just proof that the founder has existed in this market before and that they have some sort of unique insight and that they're not just trying to apply an existing playbook to a new industry that they know nothing about.

Speaker B: What a perfect way to put it. So as we are coming to the end of our discussion in our episode, can you just share if you're seeing any new trends or challenges that are at the intersection of technology, corporations, culture, entertainment that are affecting how you are investing or advising founders?

Speaker C: Yeah, I'll share two. One is kind of similar to what we talked about, but it's basically this idea that there are these hidden giant markets. So industries that are really, really huge but untapped, they might still be run on paper and pen, I think. You know, insurance, real estate, these are like good examples. Home building, general contracting and big tech hasn't really built a dedicated product for them, nor do they have two much of an incentive to. And so these are great opportunities for startups to build a wedge, get an advantage in terms of their footprint before they get noticed by a larger incumbent. Uh, so Palm Street's a great Example of that, we have another company in our portfolio called Mercaso that does supply chain provision for corner stores. So think like your local mom and pop bodega, which, you know, they're often like the back bone of the neighborhood, often run by immigrants. And so this company replaces the shop owner's weekly Costco run, right, to buy things like snacks, soda. So these niche bets, they're really big markets. You just have to know where to look for them. Um, but we, we like backing these founders because we can help them with storytelling and go to market, but they also just have such a deep understanding of the customer that they're serving.

Speaker B: M. Absolutely. Megan, if your life story was adapted into a movie, who would you choose to play you and what genre of film would you imagine it to be?

Speaker C: I always think that I'd be in a sitcom, but I actually think that if I got to choose, I would want to challenge the actor a little bit. I love Maitre Ramakrishnan. She's the actress in the Netflix show Never have I ever. And I just think she's so funny without even trying. So I'd love to have someone with that personality play me. But I think if I were to challenge her, I would put her in a period piece like I'd put her in like the late 1800s or early 1900s and be like, you need to act like you're in an Edith Wharton novel. But you're going to be also still fighting to be a, uh, strong, independent woman. It's just going to be with a different set of constraints. How about that?

Speaker B: She would rock that for sure. Fun challenge listeners. Megan's commitment to building inclusive networks and championing next generation founders makes her a quintessential voice for the future of work and venture capital. Megan, thank you for sharing your insights, your experience, and your leadership with us.

Speaker C: Natalie, thanks so much for having me.

Speaker B: It's a pleasure to our listeners. Keep tuning in for more inspiring conversations with the change makers. Building the next 30 years of impact. Until next time, this is the Future Work Playbook.

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