Christie Jenkins: From Elite Sport to Techstars MD

Speaker A: Honestly, packed up my entire life in a week, booked a one way ticket to the us.

Speaker B: You didn't just sort of walk out of Blackbird and go into textiles, which would have been a perfectly reasonable move.

Speaker A: I have just retired from my third sport, uh, beach volleyball. One of the things I love about the US is they just do networking on steroids.

Speaker B: They do.

Speaker A: Your network is one of the few assets that compounds. I ended up meeting the partners at 100 VC funds in Cornwall. Yeah. A bit of a wild journey, but I don't think any startup founder's journey is straightforward. I think VCs are like terrible at coaching and career development. Everybody thinks sport is just about chasing the gold medal. Right. But I actually think consistency is the secret to great athletes.

Speaker B: Welcome to give it a nudge. Today we have a good friend of mine who is on the show for the second time, Christie Jenkins, who has been on a lifetime of journeys since she last came on the show, I think nearly two years ago. And we are going to explore what happened, how it happened happened, and where she's going now. Christy, welcome to the show.

Speaker A: Thanks.

Speaker B: Steve, love, um, having you back. Love you dressed in nudge blue.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So good.

Speaker A: How many people get a return invite?

Speaker B: I think we've maybe done four, maybe very few select company and none of them have come dressed in nudge blue just for you. So this is, this is a whole new level now. From now on in, everyone who we invite back is going to have to come in nudge blue.

Speaker A: There is a dress code.

Speaker B: There is. That's it. That's. We're gonna have to put that in the email. Um, welcome back. So, new studios for us, which is exciting from last time. Cause it was a little while ago, you've done all sorts of things. Um, and last time we met you were just finishing up at Blackbird and we couldn't tell anyone at that time. I think we had to wait. I think we couldn't even talk about it during the episode.

Speaker A: You interviewed me on my very last.

Speaker B: Your very last day. Yeah. And we couldn't talk about it and it was like so exciting and we couldn't talk about it. And you're about to head off to the US and I watched the episode again this morning and I'm not going to go back through everything, but we talked about how you went through your, your three sports and you represented Australia and then how you ended up working in B.C. and a multitude of other things that we won't go over. If you just anyone else wants to know that just Watch the episodes. Um, and then since then, you've also been through yet another multitude of different things. And I think you left for the States, what, about a week later, I think. Or it was pretty.

Speaker A: It wasn't long, honestly. Packed up my entire life in a week, booked a one way ticket to

Speaker B: the US and now, right now, as in today, you are the CEO of techstars, um, which is a big role and super exciting. What's happened in between? So let's, I mean, because you didn't just sort of walk out of Blackbird and go into techstars, which would have been a perfectly reasonable move, you've done all sorts of things in between.

Speaker A: I was already a mentor for techstars.

Speaker B: Were you?

Speaker A: Because they used to have a sports tech program in Melbourne. Used to mentor for them. And I've mentored for the LA program, the USC program.

Speaker B: Oh, I did not know you were the win in the world already. That makes sense. But, um, I do want to talk about your role now because I think it's amazing you're in the role. Um, but let's go back to finishing up. You walked out of the podcast here, you went home, you packed up your bag, boom, heading over to the States. What was the plan?

Speaker A: The plan was to go and work in VC in the US and the reason for that was twofold. So, one, I had just retired from my third sport, uh, beach volleyball, and I was not tied to Australia anymore. And I had done a bunch of seasons where I'd like, go to the US and like live and train in California for six months, then come back to Australia. But effectively, if you want to play in the Australian team, you have to live in Australia and have an Australian partner and represent.

Speaker B: You actually have to live here.

Speaker A: Technically not, but you have to play the Australian season.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: And so you would have to be here from like November to March.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Anyway.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so I'd retired from sports, I was like, I'm no longer tied to Australia. And at the same time, Blackbird's an incredible VC fund. You get to try every kind of investing, every stage and every vertical.

Speaker B: I remember you talking about that. In fact, you use those exact words.

Speaker A: Yes. And I realized I really, really like the early stage and I wanted to do more in other verticals, which we don't do a ton of in Australia around, like, consumer, sport, health, longevity, um, creator, economy. And so we just weren't touching many of those verticals.

Speaker B: No, still aren't here. Still aren't.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, you'll see some of the Companies I backed with Techstars. Uh, so the plan was to go to the U.S. there's way more. There's 4,000 funds in the U.S. i know. Massive. And so I was like, great, I can find one that, like, specializes by the stage and the sectors that I care about.

Speaker B: It's also. It's like the birthplace of venture capital. Really?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I mean, so you went over. So did you. Did you head straight to California?

Speaker A: I actually went to Tech Week in New York. One. Um. I didn't know anyone.

Speaker B: No. And New York's one of those cities where it's. It's like London, Right. When you don't know anyone, it's not that easy to get to know someone.

Speaker A: I knew lots of beach volleyball players, and I knew nobody that worked in bc.

Speaker B: Are there lots of beach volleyball players in New York?

Speaker A: Very, uh, few. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But like, one or two that had moved there.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And so I stayed on a beach volleyballer's couch.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I had one introduction from an Australian vc. He's like, okay, I know one person in the US and so I was like, right, gotta make that intro count.

Speaker B: Gotta make that work.

Speaker A: Um. Um. And so had that intro. One of the things I love about the US is they just do networking on steroids. They do, Yeah. I feel like in Australia, you ask for an introduction and you are, uh, like, the person making the introduction is spending their social capital and, like, asking for a favor to make that happen. Whereas in the US, the person that makes a high quality introduction, that's like, status increasing for them. And so as a result, you meet someone at a party and they're like, I'll dash off three intros for you immediately. And. And so every person I met effectively made three more intros for me.

Speaker B: Um, and that's the ideal. That's what I tell everyone. If you meet one person, you should be able to make three off the back of that.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: And I agree. I think Australians are very reluctant. Um, it's almost like they're doing you the biggest favor in the world. It's almost like they're lending you money. Um, it's really.

Speaker A: Sometimes they're more tight with their network than their wallet.

Speaker B: They are. And they're very, very protective of it, which I find interesting. It's a very parochial place. But the U.S. now, everyone's introducing everyone all the time. All the time. Um, I always wondered, and actually I'm interested in your opinion on this. Do you think that. And I had an argument without someone, and I won't tell you my side of the argument until I hear your opinion. But do you think that because they're so, ah, much more protective of them, they're worth more, whereas in the US they're thrown around like they're, you know, any old currency that they're worth less? How's your view on that?

Speaker A: They're definitely worth more in the U.S. i think, uh, because people are generous. People are generous in return. And the compounding effect, it's like your network is one of the few assets that compounds. And so the more touch points you have, the more valuable it becomes, the more people speak about you behind your back. And so it's more valuable. And people make quality introductions with the caveat that the person you're making the intro to has the right to say no. They can just ignore it. They can say no, it's no big deal. And so here in Australia, I feel like people feel like it's an obligation they have to say yes. And I think people are more free. You don't think so?

Speaker B: I don't. I think, I think you're right. I think they're worth more in the

Speaker A: us or do you just ignore people?

Speaker B: No, I don't. I can't. I genuinely can't. I'm one of those people and I, I actually really dislike this about myself. I feel I need to go back to everybody. Like, I get, and I'm going to say everybody, I mean, within reason. So I might get 100 messages a day on LinkedIn. Right. It's out of control now. At least 75 of them are, uh, someone trying to sell me web development, someone trying to do video editing out of India, the standard ones that everybody in the world gets.

Speaker A: And help you grow your LinkedIn profile

Speaker B: and help me grow. No one else offers that, but I like them.

Speaker A: I'm available.

Speaker B: But if I get someone who's been introduced to me or someone who comes to me with a genuine comment, like, I saw you at an event and I just really wanted to. I might not go meet them, but I. And I, I am getting better at saying no there. But I have to respond to them. I can't, I can't not respond. I just think it's rude. But it's not good in terms of time management. And I haven't found an AI tool that's done it well enough for me to want to use it continuously.

Speaker A: Okay. I have a strategy I call testing commitment.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Which comes from sport. And so I used to have all these people be like, you're a pro athlete. I'D love you to work. Write me a workout program.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: And I would, like, put all this time into, like. Okay, what are your goals? I'll write your program. It's, like, periodized with, like, progression and everything.

Speaker B: I know what you're going to say.

Speaker A: No one would do it. Then I was like, right, not m wasting my time on this anymore. So instead of saying no, I said to test your fitness so I can write the best program possible. Go and do this one workout. It'll probably take you less than 12 minutes.

Speaker B: You know I've done this, right?

Speaker A: Until you talk about this. Yeah. So you are the only person ever that has done this workout.

Speaker B: Really? You didn't even tell me that. I read it in your blog. Yes, you talked about it in your blog.

Speaker A: You are the only person ever.

Speaker B: I've still got it in my notes on my, uh, phone.

Speaker A: Yeah. So people probably want to know what it is, so.

Speaker B: Oh, gosh. I'm m trying to remember now. It's, um. Someone give me my phone and I can read it out to you. But I know that I. I know that I got to level 11 or 12. I can't remember what it was.

Speaker A: That's pretty good.

Speaker B: It's hard. It's really hard.

Speaker A: And it gets progressively worse and more painful. And so it's like a mental toughness test.

Speaker B: I've only ever done it in my bedroom. I've never done it anywhere. Like, the mental.

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.

Speaker B: We should do it on the show one time. If I'd known you were going to bring it up, we could have got a mat here. I would have given. No, maybe I got.

Speaker A: So the workout is you set a timer that pings every minute.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Right. In the first minute, you do one burpee, chest to ground, stand all the way up, jump. That's it.

Speaker B: It's that simple.

Speaker A: And one goblet squat. So kettlebell, hold it to your chest and, like, squat until your hips are below your knees.

Speaker B: Now, can I tell you that just to be fair, I didn't have a weight when I did it. I did the action without the weight.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, just shave a minute off your squat. Minute two comes, you do two burpees, two squats. Minute three, three burpees, three squats, and you just go until you fail to hit the number of reps in the minute.

Speaker B: So hot by the end of it, like, just burning, burning, lactic acid death.

Speaker A: Right. So, like, I think I, you know, I did professional CrossFit. I can do 15 minutes. I start the 16th round, and then fail. Um, so 12 minutes is actually very good.

Speaker B: Oh, well, then I did 11, because I don't think I got to to the end.

Speaker A: Yeah, if you get over eight, you're like a pretty average, average level of fitness. Like, not overweight, but not super fit.

Speaker B: No one else has done that. There must have been.

Speaker A: You are the only person, really. Yeah. Anyway, wild. So it's a commitment test, right. And so instead of, like, spending time with someone who's like, hey, I'd love to, like, have coffee or pick your brains, you send a commitment test. So you're like, please write back what specifically I could help you with. Or someone asked you to speak and you're like, please tell me what your budget is. Um, or someone asked you to make an introduction for you, and you're like, please write the affordable email.

Speaker B: Do you think I should be doing this?

Speaker A: Well, it's a good strategy for people like us that can't say no.

Speaker B: Yeah, okay. Anyway, we've gone way off track.

Speaker A: Way off track.

Speaker B: Um, I can't believe no one else. I bet other people have done it. They just haven't told you. They must have. I cannot believe, particularly from your newsletter.

Speaker A: Maybe they did it and they're like, hell, no. I don't want her, uh, writing my workout plan. This was the first one because I love your newsletter.

Speaker B: I've told you that many times. And I often comment. I really enjoy it. I really like the way you write it. Someone else must have done it because. Yeah, I can't believe that. Um, but it took me ages to tell you I've done it. I remember when I saw you, I was like, oh, I did your test.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Anyway, we're going back to the referrals. So what was the question you asked me now?

Speaker A: I said, what happened in the U.S.

Speaker B: what happened in the U.S. so, yes, you did the one. You got the three.

Speaker A: Yeah, so I did the one. I got the three. But I basically had a plan. I was like, I'm going to spend time in the six main startup cities in the U.S. right? New York, Miami, Boulder, Austin, L.A. sF. I'm going to go to each of them and spend time in each of them. And then I made a target list. I had, I don't know, 200 VC funds that I thought would be a

Speaker B: good fit in those six cities. Six 200 VC funds?

Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. That did, like, early stage and at least did some of the verticals.

Speaker B: I cared about some M, B, 2C or sport or something.

Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Uh, and I just basically, like, followed that Networking plan, sort of the elaborate road built My own, like, CRM had this, like, elaborate system of who's introducing me to who, and I ended up meeting the partners at 100 VC funds in four months.

Speaker B: That's insane. So tell me, you didn't go and work in vc. So what did you learn, um, that made you not go work in vc?

Speaker A: I actually met my co founder and so I mentor an athlete called Rachel Nayland. She is also mentored by a guy called Paul Francis, who ended up being my co founder. And he came to me and said, I love your blog, funny enough. And he was working on this idea that basically was around athlete progression, but buying professional soccer teams around the world, um, putting them all in a single system, and so athletes could sign at the bottom level of teams as they improve, progress up each of the teams.

Speaker B: So you were buying one. So for this, for the sake of ease.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Division 7, Division 6, Division 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Premier League kind of thing.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: And that's the idea. And you progress them, they don't have to worry about going and pitching themselves. You're literally monitoring them all the way through. Cool. Has anyone ever done that in any sport?

Speaker A: Um, to some degree. So some clubs are, like, building out these super clubs where they own multiple.

Speaker B: Yeah, okay.

Speaker A: Ones. Now the interesting thing, I also have a third co founder. I'll mention her. Diana. Um, and so the interesting thing here is the business model, Right? Not a classic tech startup, obviously. Very different. And so in sport, if you own a professional sports team, you typically make money in one of three ways or all three ways. Right. One is the media deal, so TV rights. Two is match day. That is like hospitality suites, tickets, merch, etc. Hot dogs. And three is sponsorship. Yep. Right. Those are your three buckets of revenue. Now, football or soccer has a fourth bucket, which is player sales.

Speaker B: Because they're so varied, right?

Speaker A: No, because the clubs own the player contracts.

Speaker B: So is that only in soccer?

Speaker A: Uh, there's.

Speaker B: It happens in some US Basketball and NFL and.

Speaker A: Yeah, but there's no, like, trading market. So the trading market is, like, quite private. In soccer, it is like a $10 billion a year market.

Speaker B: It's the same in baseball, Right? I think Baseball.

Speaker A: Baseball, yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. That's the other one. I just remember the movie Brad Pitt, Money Ball. That's how I know that. I knew they did that in soccer. Obviously, growing up in England, I knew that, but I didn't know they were the only ones. I assumed that was the same in every Sport.

Speaker A: But soccer, 10 billion USD a year, growing at like 9% a year. And so, like, it's an entire asset class that most people.

Speaker B: Oh, I've got a question. So I've always actually wondered this. Um, and I never knew you did this until you told me this, like, two minutes before we did this show. Um, when you buy a player for 20 mil and then you sell them later for 60 mil, right.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: How much of that does the player get? Do they get a percentage or is that completely separate? It's got nothing to do with them.

Speaker A: Yeah. Because the players get a salary, so they're just owned.

Speaker B: So when you get sold for the biggest deal. So you say, I got sold for $1 billion. Right. Biggest deal ever. They don't get any of that. They'll obviously get an increase in salary because it's inevitable. But they don't get any. Percent zero.

Speaker A: Correct.

Speaker B: That's nuts.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: How do they feel about. So they're basically owned, like slaves.

Speaker A: Well, the players have to say yes to the trade.

Speaker B: Oh, so they do have some influence.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Okay, so why would they say yes if they're money?

Speaker A: Obvious one.

Speaker B: Yeah. But let's say you're on. I don't know, let's say you're on a million a year and you're worth 20.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And someone says, right, we're going to pay you 1.5 million a year, but they're going to get 60. And you're like, well, hold on a minute. You know, you're getting 40 million profit and I'm getting extra half a million a year. Why would I do that?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It must be complex, Right?

Speaker A: It's complex. But, uh, so are you getting traded up or traded down or traded across

Speaker B: if you trade this down? That's an interesting scenario.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: You might say yes to it. If your current club is like, well, you're just going to ride the bench.

Speaker B: Can they delist you for nothing if they want? So rather than trading down. So if you say we want to trade you down, you go, no. They go, fine, we'll delist you. See you later.

Speaker A: Well, they have a.

Speaker B: But then they've lost the value.

Speaker A: You have to pay out the contracts. As in the player does the player salary contracts.

Speaker B: Okay, yeah.

Speaker A: Um. Now, players are obviously getting pretty savvy these days and, like, negotiating their own deals with clubs around other, like, endorsement things, other, uh, like media appearances and things. Signing bonuses.

Speaker B: So there's a whole gamut of things that are thrown in there.

Speaker A: Yeah. But the specific player trading part is between clubs.

Speaker B: Wow. I didn't know. It was so separate.

Speaker A: Now three buckets of revenue. Soccer has four. Most clubs make zero money in the fourth revenue bucket. So they sell a player and then they're like, we've got a gap on our roster, we need to buy another player. And actually often they spend more on players than they make selling them.

Speaker B: Because they're trying to move themselves up the league.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: So unless they, unless they know how to develop them. And that was where you model was going to change. This is me guessing.

Speaker A: Well, imagine that you have like multiple clubs stacked like a pyramid. Yep. And you sign clubs to the youth academies or to the very bottom teams.

Speaker B: Buy them cheap.

Speaker A: Buy them cheap. And then as they improve, you move them to the next club.

Speaker B: Doesn't cost you anything.

Speaker A: Doesn't cost you anything. Move them to the next club. Move them to the next club.

Speaker B: I get it.

Speaker A: The average sale price of selling a player into the Premier League is 18 million euros.

Speaker B: What happened? So why are you textile?

Speaker A: So tell me how.

Speaker B: So obviously this is, I mean this is an incredibly exciting, expensive, um, startup. It's an. From what I've just learned, it's an incredibly complex. For people who love to negotiate, it's the best job in the world. I imagine.

Speaker A: It's very cool.

Speaker B: Um, it just sounds like a cool job. Anyway, this is definitely a reality show coming for sure. Um, how did it go? What happened? Tell me, tell me how it went. Because that's a really random. You know, you go all the way to the US you meet 200 VCs and then you end up buying soccer clubs.

Speaker A: Yeah. A bit of a wild journey, but I don't think any startup founders journey is straightforward.

Speaker B: So what was your role within that? Everyone has different roles. Where was your. I mean, I'm sure you did a lot of things, but what was specifically the thing that you sort of came in from?

Speaker A: Uh, like role title? Chief Investment Officer.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: So I did fundraising and like diligence on the teams and then everything else that goes on in a startup, as all co founders do, because there's no one else to do it.

Speaker B: Did you get the players to do your test? Should have done your commitment test.

Speaker A: The commitment.

Speaker B: This should have been a standard thing.

Speaker A: You're cut from the roster if you can't get to level 15.

Speaker B: You got to do this. I want to see how. Yeah, that would have, yeah, could have been your thing.

Speaker A: Um, so in the end we raised about 8 million USD. We ended up buying three professional teams, uh, team in Ireland, Austria and Italy. Um, but ultimately we have just Closed the business because cash flow.

Speaker B: Cash flow. It's always cash flow. It's always cash flow.

Speaker A: Wow. It's an expensive sport.

Speaker B: It's a. I mean, it's very expensive. And I guess the higher up you go, the more money you need. Where did you raise that money? Did that. And I don't obviously want to know your investors names, but was that more out of individuals that loved soccer? Was it out of ex players? Was it out of corporates? Where was that typically coming from?

Speaker A: We actually had over 60 investors.

Speaker B: Oh, wow.

Speaker A: Half of them were athletes. Um, and so a lot of, like, incredible individuals who, like, I am so grateful to. Like it's someone's personal money that they're taking a bet on you.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, like you never, ever forget the people who first believed in you in that sense. And so very, very grateful to those individuals. And many of them are athletes. And saw the same vision we had around this is actually a better pathway for athletes. Rather than changing coaches every year, changing performance systems, moving to a team, getting put on the bench, not having a path to progress to the top of the sport and like, maximize your talent.

Speaker B: I mean, if you could have got this working, it could have been quite magical.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm really disappointed.

Speaker B: You never know. You never know what might happen. I mean, who'd have thought you'd end up doing that when after you came, I, uh, mean, obviously never would have imagined, you know, you go, come on, give it an urgent. Who knows what opportunities might come your way.

Speaker A: The funny thing is people, like, heard about that business, they're like, do you play soccer? And I was like, I'm so uncoordinated with my feet.

Speaker B: Not your hands, but definitely your feet. Well, I don't know. Trampoline required feet.

Speaker A: I mean, there's no ball.

Speaker B: Yeah. So how long did that run for?

Speaker A: Uh, two years.

Speaker B: Okay, so I got two questions for you. Um, one, what did you learn from meeting that. So if we take that startup and I'll come back to that in a sec. What did you learn from meeting all of those VCs? Because there would have been, I would have imagined, out of that amount of number, enormous variation in investment strategies, the way people think, risk profiles, all that kind of stuff. And I don't know whether it would have been in Boulder was different to New York. I imagine it was, but yeah. What did you learn?

Speaker A: So, like, some differences in the market. The biggest one being VC share deals.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: So when I was a blackbird, we never shared the deals. Like, we pretty much scooped up the Whole round.

Speaker B: They don't do that now. They're a bit more shared now, aren't they?

Speaker A: Or am I?

Speaker B: Sometimes, probably that's it.

Speaker A: But like, the thing in the Australian market is most funds are generalist.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Whereas funds are more specialist in the us. And so if you're a generalist fund, most things are in mandate. And so if you don't invest, you can't pass that deal on to anyone else because they're like, why are you sending us your sloppy seconds?

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Right now in the us you can be like, this is out of mandate, but great founder share deals. Right. Um, so I felt like there was a lot more networking in between the VC funds themselves and the investors that work there.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker A: Um, I did feel that, like, universally, like seeing the inside of so many VC funds. I think VCs are like terrible at coaching and career development. Um, maybe it's a spicy take.

Speaker B: I don't know what to say. I mean, I think that's, there's, there's a short for insta. For sure. I mean, that's just going to repeat. We're just going to loop that round. I mean, most people would give their left arm to have met that many vcs. Yeah. What makes you say. I mean, I don't disagree with you. I think, I think, I mean, I think a lot of people know what I think of VCs in Australia, but I think, um, I have not had any exposure to the ones in the us. Um, but their job, is it career coaching and development or is it taking the bets?

Speaker A: You know, it is taking the bets.

Speaker B: It's taking the bets.

Speaker A: But if you, like, let's say you're not at partner level and you want to work in vc, like, is that actually a great career choice for you? And so I would argue maybe it's not. Interestingly, having met that many, um, no, I think they're bad at coaching and career development for two reasons.

Speaker B: Internally, as opposed to their founders. So we're not talking about coaching founders, which they're not. I don't think they're necessarily supposed to do great if they do. But it's not.

Speaker A: Like I said, they're great at giving bad advice. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, everyone's great at giving bad advice. Um, me too. But you mean internally. So if you're a junior and you go to work in a VC fund, the opportunity for you to learn is really osmosis. That's it. Like, if you don't learn by standing next to people and it's seeping into you you're not being taught.

Speaker A: I mean, I literally remember like day one of my job in vc and they're like, go and meet five founders a week. I was like, cool, and do what? And you know, like, that was sort of the extent of the coaching. Um, but like, the industry is structurally, like, not set up for it, because if people progr within your fund, you get less carry and you get less rewards.

Speaker B: So let's talk about that, because I think a lot of people have no idea how well, everyone wants to get into vc, just like startups, because they've got completely no idea. So in a VC fund, you get paid a salary, which I imagine is relatively low, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, moderate.

Speaker B: Moderate. Okay. So you get a salary, and then the idea is that you get carry, as in a percentage of whatever the fund invests in the investments that you bring in. Or do you get it within the fund? And if you get it within the fund, how does that work? So just explain that, because I don't think most people understand it.

Speaker A: Okay, so carry is that your share of the profits? Right. So a VC fund, let's say they invest $100 million. First they have to return $100 million to their investors, but let's say they did great investments and they actually made 300 million. Uh, so they pay the first hundred million back to investors and they have 200 million in profit, 20% of that. For most funds, the VC fund gets to keep and 80% goes to the investors or the LPs. So carry is the 20% the VC fund keeps. Now, they either distribute that, so that's 40 million, essentially. Right. And so they either distribute that only to the partners, to the full investment team, or to the full team that works at the fund. Okay, but if you are like associate level, you probably get 1% of the carrier. And if you're depending how many partners are, you're going to get the vast majority.

Speaker B: But it could still be very lucrative if you're working for the right firm.

Speaker A: Incredibly. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Okay. And so if you want to have a career in vc, how do you learn?

Speaker A: Yeah, trial and error. I mean, that's how a lot of people learned.

Speaker B: And how do you progress? What do you have to do from an associate to move and I don't know the different titles that sit between associate and partner, but okay, like analyst,

Speaker A: junior associate, senior associate, principal partner.

Speaker B: So how do you progress? What do you have to do? What is it that you. Is it that you pick the right investments and they start producing?

Speaker A: Yeah, make killer investments, but also do the internal dance at the firm because it's kind of like a law firm, like politics. They have to want you to be a partner and invite you to be one. Gosh.

Speaker B: I mean, I interview a lot of people and I've interviewed some great investors and, uh, most of them will tell you, do you know if it's going to be a good or not? Not really. There's no real, no real way. I mean, you get better. Yeah. But, you know, get better through experience, but ultimately you don't. So if you get lucky, you can move up the ranks quite quickly.

Speaker A: Yeah. And like I look at like the two investments I did in my last year at Blackbird. One, like, incredible founder, uh, so smart, had all the right background and experience to like build an incredible company. I mean, she's still building that company, but it's not a rocket ship.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: To like led the deal into Leonardo. When I met the founder, he'd never met a vc. He gave me a product demo for an hour and right at the end I was like, and how many people are using this? And he said, 44,000. And I was like, and you launched two months ago. And so, but like first VC meeting ever and zero revenue. It was still just all free users.

Speaker B: So this is Leonardo AI.

Speaker A: Right, Leonardo.

Speaker B: We had them on the show.

Speaker A: Yeah, JJ, he did. Yeah. JJ's awesome. Yeah. And so, yeah, like wrote the check into that, but you're like, wow. Like not a classic founder background. Like he's built other businesses, but none of them are high growth tech companies. Had, um, team members that he brought with him from those companies and just had this early like user momentum.

Speaker B: Amazing.

Speaker A: Zero revenue.

Speaker B: And then when you leave, you still, you retain that. Right. You retain that output as long as that fund goes. Is that right?

Speaker A: Yeah. So like that company, uh, for the time was like the fastest growing startup in Australian history. Exited to Canva.

Speaker B: That's why they came on the show. In fact, they came on the show the day after. We just got lucky with the timing.

Speaker A: But yeah, okay, so Blackbird structures carry, which I think is quite generous in a way that everyone in the VC fund, including the portfolio support team and the ops people and the admin people all get carry. Um, and it's pooled at the fund level.

Speaker B: Cool.

Speaker A: And so that encourages like sharing of deals and expertise and people not hoarding like specific deals. Because in some funds the carry is attributed to the deal you bring in, as you mentioned. Yeah, okay.

Speaker B: And so, but when you leave, that doesn't. You don't lose that. Right. That's, that's there until whatever. The exit happens or whatever.

Speaker A: Carry typically vests over the time the same as startup.

Speaker B: Seven to 10 years. Right.

Speaker A: So, uh, like if you joined a startup, you probably get equity that vests over four years.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Carry in a VC fund is typically the same.

Speaker B: Oh, okay. I get. All right, interesting. Okay, good. Covered that.

Speaker A: Are you thinking about getting a job in this?

Speaker B: No, but I know that a lot of people know I'm too old. I won't be here by the time

Speaker A: I get a new brand of VC funds that are like, started by people that don't have an investing background, but like 20 VC. Right. Operator backgrounds.

Speaker B: Yeah, there's a massive push.

Speaker A: Operator backgrounds. Media backgrounds is also the interesting one.

Speaker B: Now, there you go.

Speaker A: And founder backgrounds.

Speaker B: Right, yeah. Well done. All of those. But yeah, anyway, no, I'm not doing that. But, um, tell me now. I wanted to ask you that because I just don't think a lot of people understand it and I think we've never asked anyone to explain it. We actually had a lot of VCs on and I've never asked them to explain it. So anyway. So that's what you learned about VCs. Interesting. What did you learn in your two years of buying soccer teams?

Speaker A: The piano of a sports team is not that complicated.

Speaker B: That's good. I like the sound of that.

Speaker A: Um, I mean, the biggest thing for me is, like, especially doing so much of this in the US And Europe. Like, sports is an asset class. Here we see it as entertainment.

Speaker B: The money in sport in the US and the UK compared to here is. I mean, it's not even close. Yeah, you know, it's ridiculous.

Speaker A: It's also the new, like, private jet. As in like, owning a sports team is the new, like, trophy asset.

Speaker B: I met a guy the other day who came into the pillars. I think he's going to join. And I said to him, what'd you do? Because I own basketball teams. I just didn't know what to say. Okay. I didn't know what to say. I had nothing to talk to him about. I don't watch basketball. Um, I said, which ones? But, um. And he said, look, I've only just started doing that. And he said, it's. It's a thing. He goes, I used to have this. He used to have this. I'd sold this. I sold this. I didn't know what to do. Apparently this is the new thing to do. So I've started buying basketball. I should have. I should introduce you to, um, interesting guy. And he Just he was literally going to the US the next day. He bought them in the US Interesting guy.

Speaker A: I mean, I think, um, sport is probably one of the only media assets that will remain. You know, if you look at entertainment and the use of AI in the creation of, like, film, we are in for a world of, like, you like, sci fi movies with this type of protagonist story, and we can create a movie for you on demand.

Speaker B: Yes. It's interesting to know. I've talked a lot about this with people. Whether the ease in which you'll be able to get exactly what you want. Will, one, make you bored of it? Um, like anything excessive, anything. But two, whether there will be this enormous craving for authenticity, real acting and so forth, which, you know, there probably will if you look at history and other things that have gone that way.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, and then that will become worth far more. Yeah, very much. Like writing has become that, like, genuinely, like your blog, for example, is obviously written by yourself. It is not written by AI and tweaked. And you can tell that. And that's much more enjoyable to read. But you can. And you can tell why something's written by. And AI will get better. But I think you'll always be able to tell. I could be wrong.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so it would be extremely boring to watch robots play sport.

Speaker B: It would, yes, because they'd be perfect.

Speaker A: If you think about sport, it is like one of the last ways that we bring community together. That it is live and in real time, that you have a sense of emotion watching the game. And so I think live sport will remain as a thing in our society for a very long time. Um, and then what else did I learn? I think I learned what many founders learn. Right. Like, how do you work with co founders? What works, what doesn't work, how to fundraise, like, and sit on the other side of the table for once. Much, uh, easier to give away money than ask for money.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's. I think the most things you learn as a founder are awful. They're really painful. Like, there's a lot of lessons to be learned as a founder, and I think a lot of them are pretty hard. Um, and I don't think everyone expects them. But, um, yeah, I mean, your journey so far as a founder.

Speaker A: Oh, I freaking loved it.

Speaker B: Yeah. You see, it's addictive, though. Even though it's horrible, it's so addictive.

Speaker A: Yeah. I also realize, like, I really crave the sense of ownership. And so one of the things I love from elite sport, like, I Don't play big team sports. And the reason is the accountability is diffused.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And so running around an AFL field, there's 18 people. It's like, okay, you made a mark, but then the ball got turned over by your teammate. Like, sometimes.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: You.

Speaker B: Two touches in a game.

Speaker A: In the whole game. Yeah. And so I'm greedy, and I want all of the touches, but I also want the sense of accountability. Like, win or lose, it is on me.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Now, I really, really loved that part of being a founder. Win or lose, it's on you.

Speaker B: I think I like that, too. I learned a long time ago. I hate being told what to do. I hate it. It literally makes me react in a negative way. Even if it's someone who I really love and I know they mean it. Well, I can react in the most rude and obnoxious way, and I try not to. I'm getting better as I get older. But it's funny, isn't it? You learn these things about you as you. As you go through a founder journey, because everything's so extreme.

Speaker A: Yes. Very, very extreme.

Speaker B: How did you end up back here?

Speaker A: Okay. Kirsten Hunter, who was the former managing director of techstars in Sydney, called me and said, would you come back to Australia and run textiles?

Speaker B: Uh, and asked you. That's amazing. Yeah, I know Kirsten quite well. I like Kirsten. You don't want to mess with her, but I like her. She's pretty sweet.

Speaker A: You don't want to mess with me.

Speaker B: No, I know that, but I don't know as well as I know you, but, uh, I've always, like. I've always liked Kirsten. I always thought she did a great job. So she rang you. Interesting.

Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it's a very unusual role in that you need a multifaceted set of talents. Like, you have to be willing to be the spokesperson and be out on stage and out at events and extroverted and representing the brand of techstars.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: You need to be able to have good investment judgment to select 12 incredible founding teams. You then need to be a great mentor to actually support and help those teams. And you need to have, like, a really extensive network because, you know, we pull in over 100 mentors. Um, we have to, you know, we sourced over 560 founders. And so, like, that's a unique skill set in a single person.

Speaker B: Um, and you tick all those boxes.

Speaker A: I like to think so.

Speaker B: Well, no, you do M. I was ticking them as you were going through them. Um, how did it feel and where Were you, I'm assuming, what were you doing at that time? Were you still in that startup? Obviously, you said you're winding it up. Did you know that was something you were going to do?

Speaker A: Uh, she called me the week I was going to Necker island to spend the week with Richard Branson. Uh, wild story.

Speaker B: I read about it in your book

Speaker A: to speak about investing in women's sport. And like, that was the same week that she called me.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And did she, did you know her?

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: So she didn't just like, search the world and go, this is the one. You knew each other?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: That's cool. Um, and what was your initial thought?

Speaker A: My initial thought was like, wow, I love early stage.

Speaker B: Doesn't get any earlier than this.

Speaker A: It doesn't get any earlier than this. And I actually love the chance to help founders post investment. The, the bit that I was like torn on was, do I want to be back in Australia? Because I've just spent two years predominantly in the U.S. yeah. And so that was a sticking point. I, um, I met the techstars team, I met some of the other managing directors running the other programs, and they are wildly phenomenal people. And so that was the tipping point for me.

Speaker B: Interesting, actually on that. How did you stay in the us? What visa were you on?

Speaker A: No, it's just in and out on the Esther.

Speaker B: Well, I think that's getting harder now. By the sounds of the press yesterday, it sounds like it's getting a lot, lot harder. Um, okay, let's not talk about that. But, um, and so you, you agreed and you came back. Um, and you've been in the role, what, maybe four or five months now?

Speaker A: I started April 11, which happened to be the exact day applications opened. Welcome to your new job. I flew back from LA that day, landed. We were running a hackathon weekend the day I landed in Australia. And they're like, applications are open today. And also, please run this two day hackathon weekend.

Speaker B: So how many applications we got?

Speaker A: 560.

Speaker B: Oh, you told me this. You had to go through them all.

Speaker A: M. I read every single application and so did Gwen, my program manager.

Speaker B: Uh, that's wild. What? I mean, five minutes. How long is an application? Five pages? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Three, maybe three majors plus, plus pitch deck and videos.

Speaker B: You know, so 2,000 odd pages of text and videos. And how long did that take?

Speaker A: Yeah, and like, we didn't use AI for any of it because the magic in an application is you're looking for one little spike.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Right in the founder background. Or the traction or the product design or the brand or the vision for their industry. And often it's buried in a load of crap. And sometimes like people just don't know how to write an application. Like I had people apply, they'd spent 20 years as leaders in the Special Forces. You know what they wrote in their team section have led teams in complex and ambiguous environments. I was like you didn't want to drop special forces in there.

Speaker B: To make my job easy I did some work with um, some special forces guys about helping them write their resume when they exited and the way they, I mean I said, you know they write a resume and you go this is the scariest document I've ever read in my life. I wouldn't even want to meet you, let alone employee. Like this just tells me you can kill so many people in so many different ways. We really need to work out how we take these skills and make them relatable because this is just not. And it's just so matter of fact.

Speaker A: Right. Yeah, I guess they don't very humble and they are tight lipped about what they've done.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: But you know like three of my closest friends are all like Special Forces and actually some of them are coming as speaking in techstars because I talk about the athlete mindset and I was like, you know elite military is the same and how do we teach founders to be leaders and so their skills are very applicable to founders.

Speaker B: We do quite a lot of stuff with um, Special Forces. I don't know why, I know quite a few people there and it's just ended up that way. I find them fascinating but you're right, they are very humble. Um, they're the quietest person in the room usually um, which is I've always found fascinating. I'm actually meeting you might, this might interest you. I'm meeting um, tomorrow or Thursday, three very famous NRL footballers to try and help them work out how they can start to grow their profile so they can have a career after football. Which I think is going to be quite interesting.

Speaker A: I love this I've agreed to do

Speaker B: because you think it'd be so interesting and I'm really looking forward to meeting them. They're actually play for my son's team as well so he's over the moon. They don't play for the team I sport. That's. We can push past that.

Speaker A: Do you know I did a TEDx talk on why your next hire should be an athlete.

Speaker B: Absolutely. That would be, that would be awesome.

Speaker A: No, I did it already.

Speaker B: Did you really? Yeah, maybe. What are you doing Thursday? I'm sure you're busy. Um, anyway, we get back to you, so. Okay, so you came back, you've done your applications now you said you'd made some investments, um, that are more leaning towards you than perhaps what textiles. Do they give you guidelines or is it completely your call or do you have to have a certain percentage mix? How's it work?

Speaker A: Some techstars programs, uh, on a specific vertical.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: The one in Sydney is generalist, so I have free reign to invest in whatever I would like, which is just

Speaker B: how you like it. And just for anyone who doesn't know how, I mean, techstars is obviously a global phenomenon. How big? I don't know how big it is, but it's massive.

Speaker A: Right. Techstars invented the term accelerator.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: By the way. So they're probably the number two accelerator in the world after Y Combinator. Um, they've been going for 18 years. There's 27 programs around the world, but over that period of time there's three and a half thousand alumni companies that are still active, 22 unicorns in the portfolio. And I think there's like 121 companies that are valued at over 100 mil and so very high performing. VC Fund, VC Fund, um, in terms of returns. But the magic is really in the founders and the managing directors and the program teams that are on the ground helping.

Speaker B: So ultimately you've ended up having your own VC fund or control?

Speaker A: Pretty much.

Speaker B: Pretty much. Which is pretty much, you know, in essence, you going over there and going through that journey has brought you back to exactly where you wanted to be, but in a place you never thought you'd be.

Speaker A: Yeah, and hopefully I'm a little bit better at coaching investment.

Speaker B: So you just launched what last. Was it last week or two weeks ago?

Speaker A: We just started Week three.

Speaker B: Yeah, week three. So two weeks ago. So you just landed. Um, how are you finding it? Because your previous love, it's quite so.

Speaker A: Honestly.

Speaker B: So how long are they with you? So you have your own offices. Right. And they come into your offices. How long are they with you for before you send them off into? Is it 12 weeks? Is it 20 weeks? I'm not sure.

Speaker A: 13 weeks, 13 months.

Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. And then from there on in you obviously do another intake. How long do you have between this lot finishing their on site stuff and the next intake? And then what's your responsibility to them once they, they leave the nest, so to speak?

Speaker A: We only do one program a year.

Speaker B: Oh, do you so you're not like some of the others that I nearly mentioned and will not. But, um, okay, so you do one a year. So when they leave after your 13 weeks, your time is spent still trying to supporting them, but just not.

Speaker A: I mean, we kind of say tech stars for life.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because you can come to tattoo. Yeah. Hashtag, um. So you can come like five years later and be like, I want help fundraising. Or can you make an introduction to this mentor and the network?

Speaker B: I didn't know that.

Speaker A: Yeah. So it's, um, incredible in that sense. And, you know, particularly for Australian founders, I think one of the benefits is the international focus.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And so how do you get your first customer in the us? How do you raise from an international fund? How do you move countries? How do you expand globally? Um, because with very few exceptions, startups here have to go global. And so, like, I'm currently helping a company from last year's cohort get their first customers in the US and they raised from a, um, Asian fund.

Speaker B: Actually, I'm going to ask you about one from the last cohort. Not now or not in film, but I'm just interested to know someone I met and I really liked his business, but I wasn't sure.

Speaker A: But anyway, we can talk about this year's cohort too.

Speaker B: We can. Well, let's talk. Give us, give us a little snapshot of who you've got.

Speaker A: You on the companies or the founders?

Speaker B: I want the founders.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because they're of more interest to me.

Speaker A: Yeah. The personal stories are wild.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so, uh, I've been getting to know them as like whole people. It's really nice post investment because you don't just see the pitch and the polish. No, you, they are like wonderfully contradictory people in a fantastic way. Um, where you're just like, wow, I never thought those two qualities would go together. So Joanie, for instance, is like one of the best global crypto lawyers in the world. But she's also like, so warm hearted and generous and always wear sparkles. Like, what a combination.

Speaker B: Always wear sparkles.

Speaker A: Always, always, always. Like shoelaces, jewelry, jackets, everything. Amazing.

Speaker B: Through the photos, see if I can spot her. I should be able to carry on.

Speaker A: Um, and then we have one sporting company in the cohort. Of course, I'm an athlete called Surf Lab. Um, and there's two co founders. So Jesse was one of employees at Airbnb American moved here and Ant, you know, is a serial entrepreneur. And probably, honestly, every day he's like, I have this other business idea. I was like, hey, could we make this one successful? First, um, you know, owns like hospitality and like built like an AI sports company and several others. And so black wild combination of like mega, mega entrepreneur, early operator in like one of the best companies in the world.

Speaker B: Surfing's gone nuts. Surfing to me looks like it's about to go.

Speaker A: People underestimate this. They're like, what about other sports? I'm like, you don't understand how cult like surfing and some of these what you would call niche sports are, ah, like first, it's not that niche. But second, um, you have these professional surfers and influencers who are very cheap to work with because they don't really get paid much. And so it's not like the NBA where you could never afford to work with a player. And so you can work with these influencers. And the cult, like following in these sports means, uh, a product just like spreads like wildfire throughout them.

Speaker B: And I was talking to someone, actual investor who's very, very heavily invested into this. I should actually probably introduce you to. Yeah. Um, and he was explaining to me that obviously, you know, we had the quicksilver. We had all those. Right. And they've all gone, become corporates, been sold off.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And there's this new breed coming through and they're just about to go crazy. He said this is just going to be the biggest thing since forever in sport in Australia.

Speaker A: Yep. Yeah. So they're doing like AI based surf coaching and, and retreats, like global surf retreats around the world. Cool business. Um, what else? Jad is like an incredible founder. He is a lawyer and a professional violinist. Never would have thought those go together.

Speaker B: Just. Yeah, you just wouldn't, you just wouldn't pick it.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And he's building like this. I don't know. Are you a musician?

Speaker B: I played the flute school.

Speaker A: Me too. And I wasn't even good enough to be in mandatory band.

Speaker B: I wasn't good either.

Speaker A: Um, can you play the bongos instead?

Speaker B: Can I? Just for the sake of film, for anyone who watches. I did not want to play the flute. This was forced upon me by my mother.

Speaker A: It's very manly.

Speaker B: I don't know that it is.

Speaker A: Uh, anyway, Judd puts us all to shame. Um, but yeah, if you think about when you are writing a piece and you pull in ideas and documents, you paste them all in a document. Right. To write a blog post, for instance. How do you do that as a musician? You have like all these audio clips and ideas and like judge, show me his iPhone. It's like 2000 unlabeled voice memos.

Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.

Speaker A: Unsearchable. Unlabeled. Right. And he's building the product to solve that. Like, how do you record store share, make searchable audio?

Speaker B: Maybe put a title on them? Yeah, I mean, this is that one.

Speaker A: Right. But, like, now we're at a point, like, you know, with AI, that we can pass audio and like, make that searchable and useful.

Speaker B: Amazing.

Speaker A: Super interesting. One more, one more. Okay. Kirk is, um, he set up the legal team at Canva, grew it to 75 people while he was there.

Speaker B: Chris is a big team.

Speaker A: Yeah, right, 70. Um, five and so. But he just is, like, so wildly passionate about transforming the justice system. And if you've ever interacted with the courts, you know, that one's pretty archaic really.

Speaker B: Um, but yeah, I can imagine.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's owned by the government, so it probably tells you everything, you know.

Speaker B: Does tell me everything I know. And so, I mean, I can see you're enthused by this. I think you're going to get more out of it than they will.

Speaker A: Oh, interesting. My promise to the founders is, can I make this the best 3 months of your decade?

Speaker B: Of your decade? Well, I mean, what if they sell a billion dollar company? I guess this three months. God. Yeah, it's an interesting one. I'm going to dwell on that.

Speaker A: But, like, honestly, we took the founders on a treat week one and I was just like, sitting around the campfire. We had an artist come in and perform and we should have had Jad perform.

Speaker B: You know, this is the most settled I've, uh, ever seen you. Yeah, I think the first time I met you, you might remember, it was in a cafe in the middle of Melbourne somewhere really random place that you chose. And, um, I was in Melbourne for the day and you said, meet me here and I've got a cab there. And I was like, where the hell are we? You know what Melbourne's like. It's so spread out and I don't think I've ever been back there.

Speaker A: Says the Sydneysider.

Speaker B: Yeah, says the Citysider. Anyway, I remember that. And you were very restless and then obviously you came on the show and I saw you at various events and things, but you look really settled now.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I am very, um, driven. Like, most of my sense of happiness in life comes from a sense of progress.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's with most people.

Speaker A: Yeah. I feel like my team is so sick of me saying this. Raise the standard, raise the standard, Raise the standard. And so what else can we do to make it even better?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, so I feel like there is so much more opportunity in this role to do that. Um, but, yeah, week one, we took the founders on a retreat and I was just sitting in the campfire looking around at everyone being like, this is like a highlight week of my entire life.

Speaker B: I saw obviously you came and hit do photos right on the first day and everywhere there was so much excitement. And then I saw you on your retreat and I thought, what a nice way, because you had your, had your photos in here, you had your launch event and then obviously went on account. What a really nice way to get everybody just comfortable. Um, so that you get that sense of community and team. I think it was cool.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, well done. Um, thank you. Um, thank you for coming back on. Thank you for wearing nudge blue.

Speaker A: Thank you for doing my workout and being the only one ever.

Speaker B: I still can't believe I've the only one who's done it.

Speaker A: Are we going to train together sometime?

Speaker B: Do you want to? Yeah, I am a little bit scared, but yeah, sure, we can do that. Um, I have no doubt that I should be, um. Yeah, I would, I would like to do that. That would be fun. We should film it as well. Just for just. And then if it's really bad, we'll bury the content and no one will ever see it. But we should film it. That would be fun. I still pretty much train every day in some form. If you remember, I was doing. I think when you left, I was just going to do that. My first ever half ironman, which I did do, and I really enjoyed that. I have to say, the training that you have to do, the consistency every day, I found that tough just to fit in. It wasn't so much the. Although there's not. There's a lot of things that aren't enjoyable about cycling in the dark at 4am in the rain. But most of the training I really did enjoy.

Speaker A: It's so funny. Like, we didn't talk at all about athlete mindset. We did.

Speaker B: Um, that's because we talked so much about it in the last episode.

Speaker A: But I was thinking, like, everybody thinks sport is just about chasing the gold medal, right? But I actually think consistency is the secret to great athletes. Like, I always talk, I'm like, there's six types of high performance that aren't a gold medal. It's like speed, how quickly you can improve your top end capability. Like, can you get a PB consistency? And so can you bring up the bottom level of Your performance and reduce the number of bad days. And like, 95% of what an athlete does in training is working on consistency. Um, there's, like, longevity. Like, how long can you stay in the sport? Can you be Tom Brady at 45, still playing in the NFL?

Speaker B: Not many.

Speaker A: Not many, that is for sure. Um, there's, like, pressure. Can you do it in the moment? That counts. And one more. Can't forget. I can't remember.

Speaker B: Do you think it's.

Speaker A: I promised you six and I gave you five.

Speaker B: Do you think it's the ability? I don't know what the right word is. The hardest thing I found, and I have to say, as much as the doing the event was an amazing day, and I love the event. The. The doing the. The training was the hardest thing, and it was getting up and doing it when you really, really didn't want to. Whatever that trade is. I don't know what you call that. It's probably the most important trait in terms. Maybe it's consistency, I suppose.

Speaker A: Okay. Capacity. That's the last one. Can you do more in the time you have?

Speaker B: Okay, yeah, that's a good one.

Speaker A: Um, I think that's like, a lot of what we do in our careers. Right. Can you build capacity?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: As well?

Speaker B: Well, yeah. More efficiency, I guess, isn't it? The more you can achieve in the shorter period of time.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. But, um, consistency. Massively underrated and, like, so top of mind for me because I'm just like one bad founder. Experience, you know, can ruin everything.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, you know, one, we. We interviewed 150 founders. We gave personalized feedback to every single one. Um, that's a lot. It's a lot. But, like, raise the standard and, like, consistency is actually the lever you're pulling a lot of the time, which is true of your training as well.

Speaker B: Well, where I was going with it was I had a coach, so I had an online coach. Admittedly, he was in New Zealand, and He trained about 60 athletes at the same time. And they link up all your little computers and everything. But the point was, is I had a coach and I knew what I had to get up and do.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: So it wasn't. I didn't have to get up and work out what to do. I just had to get up and execute and then carry on with my day. And I think that probably made it a zillion times easier. And I think that's what most people don't do in their business or careers. Very few people have career coaches.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And yet it makes everything so much easier if you just have some direction, someone to talk to. Now that does that can be a co founder.

Speaker A: Do you have a coach now?

Speaker B: I've just finished with one and I'm considering another one, but no is the answer. Well, having just said you need to have a coach. I don't have one.

Speaker A: But um, you just had one though.

Speaker B: I haven't found. I have to say I got lucky. He was this. The coach for that was given to me by someone else who'd done quite a few Iron Man. And this guy, he was amazing. He was really amazing. You know, he'd even I take pictures of my shoes every week so he could see how I was running based on where they were wearing down. And you know, he was really into it. Right. And it was incredible. But um, I haven't found a good career coach. I've never had a good career coach, which I'm sorry if any of my career coaches are watching this, but I've never found anyone that worked for me. It's not that they've necessarily bad coaches that I couldn't find one that's worked for me that I could click with. So. And it's really bizarrely time consuming trying to do it. I don't feel like I've got time to go and find one. Um, so. And I've never had any good recommendations and again, it's such a personal thing. It's a very difficult.

Speaker A: I have recommendations for you. But okay, two things on coaches. So one, I was like reflecting on the. What is the magic of the coach athlete relationship in sport and why don't we have that in the manager relationship?

Speaker B: You have an answer?

Speaker A: Yeah. So if you think about sport, the dominant emotion from the coach to the athlete is belief.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I believe in you. You have those ambitious goals. We're going to get them together. I believe.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: The dominant emotion from the athlete to the coach is trust.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I trust you have my best interest at heart that you're putting me first, not the company or the team or whatever. Um, those emotions are sometimes missing when we come to work.

Speaker B: I think it's because it's not as normalized coaching.

Speaker A: Mhm. So like a manager is a coach.

Speaker B: Yes. But I think that founders in particular, they feel they can't trust someone because it's their life. But for an athlete it's even more so. Right. Because it's not just your life, it's your wellbeing. It's even more. But yeah, I think that people haven't. I think unless you had a Coach that's an athlete other than maybe a sports teacher at school. Right. You know, they probably don't understand that that relationship is even more important than potentially a founder and a coach. I just. It's just not normal. Um, and people keep trying to get it right. And I also think there's a lot of business coaches who shouldn't be business coaches.

Speaker A: There's a lot life coaches. Yeah.

Speaker B: I mean, I've had people that I've known become coaches, and I'm like, what? And ring me up and go, do you want me to come? No, you shouldn't even be doing that. As a recruiter, I can tell you shouldn't be doing that.

Speaker A: So. Okay. It was my. I love coaches. One of the most special things about sport for me is a relationship I have with my coach. I have hired career and exec coaches and high performance psychologists my entire life. It was my blue sky bucket list dream to get every founder and exec coach for the program. Now, they're wildly expensive. That doesn't align well with my budget.

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: Um, but we are so lucky. So Dave shepherd, who used to lead HubSpot for Australia, and Chris Wilson, who is somatic, uh, neuroscience, doing his masters in that, are, uh, two coaches who are giving coaching to every single founder in the program.

Speaker B: Amazing.

Speaker A: And so I just. I'm like, so, so happy that we have this. Um, and I think it's, like, game changing for the founders because we expect them to be leaders from idea, like, come up with something all the way through to ipo. And yet every VC fund and every accelerator, only coaches. How do you grow the business?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I was like, how do you grow as a leader? How do you grow as a human?

Speaker B: There's some. Yeah, there's so much more. I've had people. I've had coaches for people within my leadership teams, and I've seen the impact, and it's amazing. Just never managed.

Speaker A: So you need to go get one.

Speaker B: Yeah, I just find the right one. Okay. Um, thank you again so much coming on. Um, it's always a pleasure seeing you. I can't wait to see how this first, um, year goes. I can't believe I do one a year. And, um. Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Look, I mean, I think. I think it's good to see you settled into something that really is the dream you didn't know you were going to have.

Speaker A: I still have itchy feet to go traveling sometime.

Speaker B: Oh, that's okay. Just don't leave the job yet.

Speaker A: No, honestly, I'm very, very blessed. And the founders are going to be humans. I want to be around forever.

Speaker B: Amazing.

Speaker A: Thanks, Kristen.