198 | 3 Types of Capital Social Entrepreneurs Need with Yasmin Cruz Ferrine
Image of Yasmin Cruz Ferrine, guest on episode 198 of the Awarepreneurs podcast.
Our guest on the pod this week is Yasmin Cruz Ferrine. Yasmin is a co-founder and General Partner as Visible Hands VC, a pre-seed fund with a 14 week fellowship program that supports overlooked talent in building technology startups by providing company building services and investments of up to $200K.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Yasmin Cruz Ferrine Interview on Social Entrepreneur Capital
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer, Yasmin Cruz Ferrine
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of The Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact and awareness practices. Each episode I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience and is already transforming many lives. Before I introduce today's guest, in our topic, I have one request. If you could go over to Apple podcasts or whatever app you're listening to the show on and hit the subscribe button and do a review. It helps tremendously. Thanks so much. Today, I'm really thrilled to introduce you to Yasmin Cruz Fabien. And our topic today is three types of capital social entrepreneurs need. Yasmin is a co founder and general partner at visible hands VC, a pre seed fund with a 14 week fellowship program that supports overlooked talent in building technology startups by providing company building services and investments of up to $200,000. Yasmin, welcome to the show.
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 01:08
I'm so glad to be with you, Paul. Thank you for having me.
Paul Zelizer 01:11
This is such an important topic. Boy, let's start like right off. Well, let me ask you the first question, I want to dive right in because it's so important. But we're called the wherefore nurse. And one of the ways we like to get to know somebody is to ask you about a wellness or a resiliency practice that you personally use?
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 01:31
Yes. Yeah. So I would say that mine is situated in play space. I live in a town called Winthrop, which is right on the flight path when you're landing into Boston, right next to Logan Airport. And so I'm surrounded by the ocean. And I love to go on walks at the end of the day, and look at the ocean living in Massachusetts is too cold at this point to get in the water. But I find that my shoulders just relax and a more present and taking in the majesty of of the ocean is something that I definitely find, oh, continue to find joy in
Paul Zelizer 02:19
nature's such resilience, such a wonderful revitalizing practice. I so agree with you. So I wanted to dive right in and talk about the intersections and the challenges. And let's go there. Now let's just say right from the start, that there is a huge problem, just like a massive failure historically, with the investing world into getting hands of founders with incredible ideas. So like, for instance, if you look at the intersection of gender and race, historically, less than 1% of all funding goes in to the founders who, you know, research tells us have the best ideas and move the needle in terms of great things in our community and creating awesome businesses, but because of white supremacy and lots of other things, that just money's not getting in the hands of the people who needed the most is that fair to say? Yeah,
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 03:14
absolutely. There's definitely more than a funding gap. It's as wide as the Grand Canyon. It's it is certainly of connected to, I think institutional and structural biases that begin in day zero when you're talking about allocating capital.
Paul Zelizer 03:38
So today, we're going to talk about how do we help founders with great ideas, but because of all sorts of intergenerational issues, getting the resources you need to start your awesome social enterprise is a challenge. And we wish it wasn't. It is, Yasmin, you're doing incredible work to help like, hmm, close that gap. If somebody wanted to understand a little bit about kind of how you got started in this work, what would they need to know about Yasmin to get a sense of like what you're doing now with visible hands, like, mind us back a little bit, just give us the short version of the origin story?
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 04:19
Sure, the short version is 99% of my career has been in investments and asset management. And I came to this work from a place of frustration. And at this point, it's personal. And that has sort of become intertwined. And I was frustrated because when I was doing kind of classic investments, whether that was an analyst role or as a director, deploying assets, I found that one the check size or the transaction size for things that were, you know, traditional classic investment strategies was always factors exponentially bigger than when I was working on issues that were connected to the racial wealth gap. And it's an always bothered me that the size of the checks and transactions never really matched the size of the issue that we were trying to work on. So that was the majority of my career. And then I worked at a firm that worked with family office clients, and it was intellectually a challenging place to be. And in a great way, you know, there was a lot to learn. At the same time, I just saw kind of the status quo in terms of how portfolios were constructed, there certainly was a practice there around trying to move the needle in ESG, or environmental, social, and governance factors, playing into portfolios. But in many ways, from a venture capital perspective, in particular, the funds were very traditional in terms of their mandates. And when you think about, you know, deploying some of these, you know, large transaction sizes, large cheque sizes, you know, I saw that the money wasn't flowing to women and people of color as founders. And in fact, there was, in many cases, a protectionist ideology around there being too much risk, when you think about investing in that category of founder at the earliest stage, and that there was so much success investing in the, the status quo, what I call the sequel, never the new movie, that, you know, it just seemed immovable. So I, I said, you know, I'm going to have to do this on my own in my own shop with my own team, and allocate capital in a way where I don't perceive a new movie, quote, unquote, as as a risk that that that is exciting to me, and something that I want to explore and understand better.
Paul Zelizer 07:33
Thank you so much for this important work, you obviously could have a more traditional path and like, you know, make lots of money. If you play by the rules, and you're not playing by the rules, then I honor you for doing this work, visible hands is so needed. But before we get into, like, what you're doing now, and how it all works, let's, I think it's really important. If somebody is like in Silicon Valley, and they know the world of VC, there's a lot of terms that they'd be really familiar with. Our audience are really scrappy entrepreneurs, oftentimes, either from underrepresented groups working with underrepresented groups, or oftentimes both. So let's not make an assumption here give us like, if, if somebody is a social entrepreneur, they're like, Alright, I know that sometimes people give money to other people to help start and grow their companies. But like, I don't know, a whole lot more than that. Just give us a little orientation of some of the vocabulary and how people get ready to talk about other kinds of capital. We're not only talking about financial capital, but let's start there. What What does somebody who's newer to this conversation, and not super familiar with the world of investing in social enterprise need to know to have an informed conversation about capital and how people get it?
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 08:53
Yeah, so at the earliest stage, and investors are going to ask you questions about your total addressable market. And we'll shortcut that to Tam. And that really is what's the opportunity here. And as an social entrepreneur, that's really exciting. Because it could be that you're growing a market and that there's white space, or it could be that you're thinking about it from kind of an incumbents or the players that are already in that space, what you know what market share they have. So you'll hear a lot of investors ask questions about that, quote, unquote, Tam, another important topic that you'll want to understand an investor's love language is around traction. So at the earliest stages, revenue often isn't the best proxy. So you'll have to as the founder Figure out what is the right Love, love language to express how you're progressing, and how you're moving forward. That that's something that you have to create, you don't want it to be so isosteric, that it's hard to compare kind of the opportunity to other opportunities. But I would say developing language around how you're moving forward, some might ask for, you know, key performance indicators or KPIs that you've set that help convey to an investor. How your idea and the development of your company building is progressive is progressing, and increments of time.
Paul Zelizer 10:52
Love that language, investors love language, what a great way to. And I might add and build on what you're saying, as an ad, tell me if you think this fits that, that empathy and being able to put ourselves in somebody else's shoes. In this case, like we've talked a lot about that in terms of marketing on this podcast, like, you want to think about who your ideal client is, or your ideal customer and think about their needs, and what their challenges are, and how that is oftentimes the difference between a company that grows and a company that doesn't, well, that same empathy skill set, which our listeners are so good at. If we just put ourselves in the shoes of an investor, what are they thinking, why are they investing? What are they looking to do? What are their financial goals in terms of investing as well as their impact goals? And if we can speak to that with care and consideration, we're really likely to get invest in our companies compared to somebody who is less attentive in that, in that way, is that fair to say?
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 11:55
Absolutely. It, you know, there is an aspect of this, that is, you know, your investors are almost like, who you're married to, my husband would be offended by that. But to some degree, it's, it should be a long term relationship that's dynamic, and that they're rooting for you and a support system. And so you want to make sure that you're aligned. And the best way to understand if you're aligned, is if you're, you have kind of the same framework for understanding what progress looks like.
Paul Zelizer 12:33
And for those who'd like to hear and kind of build that muscle, we have a fabulous interview with a dear friend of mine and impact investor investor here in New Mexico in Albuquerque, Genevieve Chavez, Mitchell, and I'll put a link in the show notes. But here's somebody who's very public, her and her husband are investing their retirement funds in community focused ways. And just to hear how an investor thinks about an impact investor thinks about, you know, what they're trying to do return wise, but also how important it is, and how powerful it is for an investor to put their money into the hands of social entrepreneurs and why they do it and how they do it. I'll put that as a link just to help build those empathy muscles. Big shout out to Genevieve, she's a dear friend. So he hasn't Alright, now that we got a sense, okay, this is this is a little bit of the lay of the land talk to us more specifically about these three types of capital, right? There's the dollar capital, which investors give you because they believe in what you're doing if you can speak their love language. And also because they want to not growingly seeing that investors don't just are these many investors don't just want a financial return on their investment, but they also want to see the world become a better place. Would you say that's fair to say that in the investment world, there's at least a significant portion of it that say, Oh, I don't just want dollars back on my return. On my investment. I also want to see how this company is making the world a better place. Are you seeing that conversation grow in the investing space?
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 14:11
Absolutely. I'm definitely seeing it kind of almost across the entire spectrum, as you look at institutional investors, whether that's foundations and endowment investors and pensions, all the way through family offices and into, you know, different, more, you know, shops, other VC shops as well thinking about what is the diversity look like? And in some instances, you know, on the debt side, there is an investor here on Boston, Deborah Freese, who is an impact investor, and she has equity and impact covenants. connected to the actual amount of capital that is deployed. So you're you're seeing this certainly across the board, there isn't a standard. That is, you know, kind of a common practice throughout, I think you see each each shop have their own thoughts about how they want to draw, and come to these conclusions. And what that assessment looks like. And some of it obviously, different sectors, you're better position to be able to demonstrate some of these impact measurements. But it's certainly a present theme, even if you aren't an impact investor. And from a portfolio perspective, you are being asked questions around equity strategy of your portfolio companies.
Paul Zelizer 16:00
And just to give our listeners an example, here in New Mexico, where I live, for instance, one of the largest investment funds in our state is the educational funds, retirement funds that are related to the public school teachers in the University of New Mexico and young people here in New Mexico now widened back, the single biggest, two biggest sources of dollars in the New Mexico economy is oil and gas. We're a carbon economy here in New Mexico historically, although that's changing, and federal dollars coming in, due to things like Los Alamos National Labs, and the pueblos here of northern New Mexico on the reservation. So anyway, we get a lot of federal dollars, a lot of money from oil and gas. in a state where oil and gas is one of the biggest sources of revenue in the entire state, the young people are organizing and pushing on the state to say you need to get money out of the retirement funds that are invested in oil and gas. And it's worked. They're winning. And the largest fund in New Mexico's divesting from oil and gas, I just tell that story to say this story is replicating itself all over the world, we're especially younger folks who understand the power of money and investing or organizing and pushing large pools of money into the direction of positive impact and no longer as business as usual, you know, just replicating itself over and over and over again, without any challenge. Now, there's huge movements, I mean, massive movements in this one tiny little example. But we're hearing stories like this all over the world where people are recognizing that where we invest our money, and who we invest money with, and other resources, one of the biggest ways we can move the needle in terms of a more sustainable and just way of humans living on planet Earth. So just want to back you up Yasmin and saying right on and here's a concrete example, from my backyard of how people are doing that.
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 18:00
Yeah, and Paul, I think the best investors in this space, they can also prove the point that they're playing offense. And these considerations are actually improving their outcomes and their returns. And they're able to help reframe kind of the paradigm we've had, where it was more like we're on defense, and we're eliminating opportunities, and what that might do for you know, potential outcomes to actually, you know, inclusion, improve innovation, actually being conscious of sustainability is going to be my company's competitive edge. So I think the best investors help us transcend from that defense perspective to the opportunity. And that is how we're able to move from this, you know, we have to move beyond the status quo, to something that's more like, this is something that is going to help me make more money, because ultimately, that's how you that's how the capital flows, when it's not perceived as niche. And the best investors kind of switch gears away from niche to an active return strategy.
Paul Zelizer 19:29
Inclusion improves innovation. I love that. Yeah. And, and, and, and there's, there's lots of research and it's growing and deepening that, you know, for instance, women founded companies make more money. It's just like, just dollars and cents. And yet, historically, so much of the capital has gone to white male tech companies and, and that's changing because people are saying, Well, wait a second. I say that dollars and cents are one of my guiding principles, but I'm putting money in ways that actually aren't giving me my highest return. So we're seeing some research starting to challenge the historical ways capital has flowed. And even from a dollars and cents perspective, it doesn't make sense. And it certainly doesn't make sense in terms of, you know, humans living in equitable, thriving ways on planet Earth, the way we've been doing capital is really causing harm and is not logical if you just look at the actual data. So I'm so glad you and your team are doing this work. So that's why I'm back just for a second Yasmin and talk to us. And we are going to talk about capital. And in the second part of the show, we get really granular what you're doing and visible hands and how your program works, and who gets investment. So we're gonna go there. But let's find back and say we're talking about more than just we are talking about dollars and cents. And this is very much a dollars and cents conversation. But to thrive, and to have the positive impact that we want, and to have a thriving financial company, social entrepreneurs need more than just money. Talk to us about the three types of capital that social entrepreneurs need.
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 21:08
Yeah, so the second is social capital. And this is where I seen when we think about some of the barriers that might create obstacles for underrepresented founders, whether that's women or people of color. This is the area where I think the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem has made progress in social capital. And that's the understanding that entrepreneurship, when is most successful, is almost always a team sport. And that you have to make sure that you're have great advisors, great mentors, that you have a community of people around you that can help level up, whatever challenge you're working on, whatever, you know, operational constraints, your experience, that there's a community of people who can help you figure that piece out. So that's the social capital, that's the ability to, you know, phone, a friend, phone an expert, and I've seen a lot of programs, and even on the investment side, adding consulting, to help create that social capital, that some founders, you know, if you have kind of a more homogenous network, this gives you access to another network. That I do want to say, I always caution though, that we don't want founders to be over mentored and under resource. So there's a balance, I think, between financial capital, social capital, and then I'm going to speak to inspiration capital. So I think we want to make sure we're not setting up founders to have access to all of this information, but not have the resources to actually execute. So social capital is so important. And when you think about people who may have historically had advantages, there's a tremendous wealth in their social capital typically. So we want to make sure that we're able to manufacture that and at visible hands, we have a platform of 500 visible partners who create and manufacture that social capital, so that if you're a founder that we're working with, and you're working on something that's connected to travel, that you could talk to experts in this space, you could interview potential customers, and that can improve your business outcomes without having to spend money, right. That's just social capital. The third one is inspiration capital. And this is where I think of the financial capital, social capital and inspiration capital in our model. This one is where we have a lot of learning to do across the board. I think, as a firm from a visible hands perspective, and the entire ecosystem. Part of it is its intellectual, it's really about Can I be something that I can't see if my model of achievement has been one image, whatever that images? Can I really do this, and we create a cohort community so that all of the ups and downs of being a founder that you're going to experience that you're a part a part of a cohort, and you have social emotional support, and that social emotional support is what builds confidence and allows you and provides the inspiration to continue to persist and often what can be a very Challenging path. So I describe it in two ways. One is bringing in executive coaches who can work on the aspects that don't have to do with the operational pieces of company building the HR piece, it's really about the work that we each individually have to do as a leader, right? So working on that and strengthening those muscles, and that belief in yourself. And then the second is bringing in other leaders who can replace some of what we have historically had as one profile of what leadership looks like. So we know that representation matters. And we've seen that in some other sectors. And we're way behind when we think about entrepreneurs in many cases, in terms of having kind of a template of what achievement can look like. So it's bringing in leaders who disrupt the status quo, and that provides kind of that clear view, like, I can be what I can see. And that's what that's what female achievement looks like, or that's what whatever your demographic achievement looks like.
Paul Zelizer 26:21
So we've got three types of capital just to name them again, financial capital, social capital, and inspiration capital. Love that so clear. Yeah. So let's do this. In a moment, I want to come back and talk about how visible hands actually works with the entrepreneurs you work with, and the founders who work with and how you help people in these three buckets of capital. Before we do that, I just want to take a quick break and hear from our sponsor. Are you a social entrepreneur who has something that you want to grow in terms of impacting more people and increasing your income? If you do, I'd like to talk about podcasting for a second. Why? Well, but the people who listen to podcasts and the medium itself are very innovative. In my opinion, let me tell you why I say that. three data points about who listened to podcasts, the listeners, number one is that people who listen to podcasts are early adopters. They're looking for new ideas and new approaches and out of the box solutions, and they listen to podcasts to find out about more of them. Number two podcast listeners are natural leaders. So they're the people that in their network, whether it's their work network, or their community network that people naturally turn to you. And so you seem to always have your finger on the pulse of what's going on, how would you approach blank. And lastly, podcast listeners make more money, not just little bit, but quite a bit more money. That's a pretty unique confluence of who's listening to podcasts. And then the medium itself, the average podcast episode is 43 minutes long. And think about that for a minute. You have time to get into the nuances and the intersections and explore things. You know, you don't have to do it in a 13 word meme, right? You really get to go into what your topic is, and how things come together and to explore and some complexity and nuance. And when you put that all together, it's a pretty unique opportunity, both who listens and what the medium itself is, how it's structured, and when people what the norms are. If you'd like to learn how to leverage podcasting to help grow your social enterprise, so we're printers has a podcast success team. Whatever your impact goals are, podcasting can help and if you'd like some support and learning how to do it skillfully, check out the aware printers podcast success team, aware printers.com forward slash podcast dash success. And thank you to everybody in the podcast success team who sponsors this podcast. So in the second part of the show, Yasmin, we'd like to joke about putting on her entrepreneurial glasses. Put on your entrepreneur glasses for a moment with us and talk to us about visible hands as a social enterprise. Like, who are your ideal clients? How do they find you? How does it work in terms of revenue, just some basics of like, just kind of sketch it out for us as a social enterprise?
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 29:32
Yeah, so I'm definitely a founder in my own right. And my business is sourcing and building other companies and then being a part of their equity structure and cap table and then helping to facilitate introductions to additional investors. So my customers bars are I have two customers, one are the investors and then the other customers are the actual founders. So that's, that's my business model. And ultimately, when the founders are successful and their valuations shift, then I become sick, I become also successful. And then on the investor side, they provide the the capital that I'm able to deploy. And in order to be able to invest in the founders, I need more customers and a more aligned investor base and growing investor base, so that I can continue to have that flow of capital. There's also a huge company building piece that I don't think people appreciate for VCs, or for those that are running fellowships, which is, we also have to set up our HR. And we also have our staff and think about our culture. And we also have operations and legal and vendors. And we're also regulated by either local and the SEC. So there is a fair amount of company building that I have to take part in and be mindful of, and growing in my seat.
Paul Zelizer 31:33
Yeah, it's deep. For what you're doing. It's complicated in terms of the number of players that have opinions about what you should be doing. And you know, what the laws are and what skillfulness looks like. Talk to us a little bit about who your ideal founder is, like, let's dial in right there. Like, like, where if you were gonna like say, yes, this is a hell yes. person for visible, and like, sketch that out for us a little bit.
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 32:02
Yeah, the just give them the money moments when Yeah, a founder. When it's just, it feels so binary. And there are so many things to consider, but it just is almost instinctual, I would say that, we are looking for three things, we are looking for actionable insights, part of the reason why we are a fellowship and a fund is there are components of the founders makeup that are baked at day zero, that if you are missing, it's hard to even get through the rest of the continue on. So we think the first thing that you have to work on is your team composition and your customer validation. So what we're looking for is someone who has a commanding insight into a customer, a problem, a sector or technology. So that is that is fundamental, this person has to be obsessed with a certain pain point. And it is their life's work and dream to help chip away at it. So that's first. Second is resilience. So I think in many ways people have have a parochial, perhaps view of what, like a leader needs to look like. And I joked to professors around the world, that we don't look for a quote unquote, leadership and a founder, which can be confusing to some. But what we're looking for is someone who's been resilient, and someone who has resource magnetism. And that resource magnetism is really is what's going to connect them to talent, you know whether people want to work for them, it's going to connect them to potential partners. Sometimes before you can even attract customers, you have partnerships and beta test. So you have to be able to attract that type of partnership. You also at a certain point will need to attract investors beyond us. So that resource magnetism is really important. And then the compliment is resilience. So someone who has persisted. I was talking to a founder this week, who's unfortunately their mother passed suddenly and had cancer. And she had to continue running her business. But the way that that tragic life experience happened to her and how she decided to move forward with her business, and how that's impacting how she's viewing. The type of businesswoman she wants to create teaching you to be, you know, is so attractive. And this is someone who went through something that was life altering, and is searching for the lessons. So that can absolutely translate to what it's like, in a day when you're being bombarded by the challenge does you're and you are trying to search for how do I problem solve? How do I learn from this? That's absolutely a repeatable mindset and muscle that we want to see in our founders, which I think is so much more important than, you know, did they drop out of college, didn't they, you know, that is that could potentially be one way that you've been resilient. But, you know, this kind of paradigm of, you know, leaving an elite institution is not necessarily what I'm, I'm looking for it does happen when you have something you want to work on, so much, but that that kind of flat template of a founder is not what we're looking for. Then the third piece is really around growth mindset and coachability. And it's not in a way that's trying to control kind of the type of founder and what their journey is going to be on. And are you going to listen to me as an investor, it's more about acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses. If you're coachable, then you are honest about the fact that we all have things we can improve on, no one should come to the position that we are the experts in and everything. So you're going to need to acknowledge and and complement some of your weaknesses. So a growth mindset for us means that you're you're aware of what continues to either be something that you need to outsource or something that you need to work with mentors with.
Paul Zelizer 37:07
Once you select somebody say, okay, you're in, you're now part of the visible hands, familia, right? And you do some pretty cool things, right? So like, right up front, if I remember correctly, there's a, there's a chunk of financial capital that gets delivered, you know, pretty early on in the process. And pretty early on the process, you start thinking about social capital, and pretty early on in the process, like, just give us a little bit like some of the upfront support that was really that really stood out, when I started learning a little bit about what you're doing. What do you do fairly early on when somebody comes in? And as part of the program?
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 37:42
Yeah. So once you're in the program, there isn't a single Demo Day. And that's because we, we will spend 14 weeks with you. So the performative elevator pitch is not what we focus on. We thank you, can
Paul Zelizer 37:59
I say thank you?
38:03
Yeah,
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 38:04
I want to I want to know, if you're going to respond to my email, I don't want to know that you practice in the mirror 10 times, but you know, so. So that is really important. So since there isn't a demo day, we give you $25,000, right off the bat, for that 14 week period. And that is, that's because we don't believe in it. We call it ramen entrepreneurship, we want you to be entrepreneurial, hungry, not literally hungry. So that is why we provide the $25,000 upfront. And then the other thing is, we mentioned at the start of this program, all of the institutional barriers, that might mean that, you know, you don't have the for very valid financial reasons, the ability to leave an employer and dedicate, you know, your, your full time attention to building and scaling your dream. So you need some some sort of safety net. And in some cases, people have access to it. But for many women and people of color, the you know, ability to manage a $400 emergency just isn't even there, let alone go three months without a single direct deposit. So that upfront capital is, is we think what free some potential founders to even start this journey.
Paul Zelizer 39:32
so important. I'm so glad to hear you speaking that the structural challenges to entrepreneurship, when you know, you could even hear it in the language, right? Oh, your first rounds of your first round of funding is going to be friends and family. Well, Who's most likely to have friends and family that can give them a bunch of money even if it is a really good business idea and who's less likely to be able to get The kind of money you can live on for some cases a couple of years to start a business, correct, right? Not because your friends and family aren't supportive, but because the structural inequality, some families, and some friends circles have more resources that they can say, yeah, here's two years of funding to get your business up and running to get it to a point where an investor actually then wants to give you what you can take it to build to go for it.
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 40:26
Yeah. And I mean, many founders need up to $300,000 to launch a business, you know, in that earliest phase, and that is a substantial amount of, of capital. I mean, not all at once. But that is, you know, if your family has an extra $300,000, you know, that blows away all of the economic research that we've seen for for net worth, by racial and gender kind of segments, right?
Paul Zelizer 41:02
Yeah. So earlier, you talked in in, he made a humorous reference, my husband might not like that, right. But you talked about that. It's a bit of a marriage between an entrepreneur when an entrepreneur and an investor sign on the dotted line, like, and we've all seen examples of marriages that are awesome, and some that are not so awesome, right? It's a really big commitment. And when it goes, Well, it can be game changing for everybody involved. And when an investor entrepreneur relationship doesn't go, Well, it can be a nightmare. Talk to us a little bit about how can entrepreneurs be paying attention and thinking about more the former those like, this was awesome, I'm so glad I got this person as investor, and a whole lot less of those nightmare scenarios. What have you learned? And what is your network share with investor I'm sorry, with entrepreneurs, who are thinking about bringing investors on?
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 42:04
Yeah, so I always say to founders, when they're talking to me passionately about their idea and their company, that I want you to try as best as you can to put money on the shelf for a moment. And think about the value and the relationships you need, and how hard you need me to work for you. And if you can answer, like, yes, the team that you've built, can help, you know, unlock some of the value I need your relationships, like, for example, if it's something that is heavy academic, or is heavy research or heavy regulatory, you know, you want investors that have those relationships already, right, it takes in everything in business takes longer than we think. Right. So I am often going to people that I've been building relationships with for five years, and that's how we're able to, to create value. So I think, you know, yes, not everyone can be in a position where you can be picky, and quote, unquote, put the money on the shelf. But make sure if you're doing a ledger of the value creation, you need an investor that, you know, I understand the resource is really important, like that check will allow you to do some of the things that you need to do to hire the people that you've wanted to hire for so long. And that's so tempting. But if you find yourself, you're in a portfolio of other companies, and you're trying to do something other than buy something, you know, is that the right cohort to be a part of, you know, those are some of the questions you need to answer. How big is their portfolio? Am I? Am I an important piece of the overall portfolio? Are they gonna work hard for me? Are they gonna make calls for me? Another thing too, especially if you're looking for VC funding, the best VCs, I think, create conditions where your portfolio companies can call up some of your investors who can really move mountains, right. So you want to be in a place where, you know if, if I have a founder who's working on something, and I have an investor in my phone and LP is what we call them. For me, then I would, I would want to make that connection and feel comfortable that they're able to work together and that they can provide value to one another. So I think you need to look at who if it's a venture firm, like, who are their investors, I think you need to look at across the portfolio, talk to some of the other portfolio companies and, and have a true understanding of, you know, can you call this person in the middle of the night to help you work through something, or you know, what their accessibility is like? So, there's so much more to the relationship. After you do get that check than what?
Paul Zelizer 45:39
That's great advice. Thank you so much for sharing. So visible hands is kind of opening for a new round, and for your fellowship, and you told us 14 week fellowship and you know, this more holistic type of support for building capital in these three awesome different ways really important, different ways. If our listeners are interested, like, what would you tell them a little bit about the process of applying? or What else? Do you want somebody who's thinking I might either be a good person or know a good person to be in this next round? What do you want those folks to know?
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 46:16
Well go to our website, and on our website, it's www dot visible hands.vc. And there you can both apply, or you can nominate someone, and applications actually open on Monday, March 29, of 2021. And they will be closing officially may 7, there is an early priority application timeline, if you want to try to get a decision sooner, I definitely encourage you to apply. Now. And I also say, you know, you, you know, and this is kind of cliche to say but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So So apply and, and get to know us we have info sessions that are on the website. So you can also sign up for office hours, if you want to spend time with one of us, who's a member of the team. And it's a virtual first. So there's no need to move to Boston, you will fly into Logan at least once. But it would be for less than a week. Your time in Boston. So we we know we're going to have founders from across the country. We are so excited about talent, and Kansas City and Baltimore and Detroit. we've, we've met exceptional talent in South Carolina. So you can stay you don't have to pull your kid out of school or leave a parent that you might be taking care of. So as a virtual, it's 14 weeks, so that will be September through December. We work exclusively with women and bipoc tech founders at the very earliest stage. So we're preseed and we are pre idea. And we're pre team and pre revenue.
Paul Zelizer 48:20
So we're printers as a community. We know a lot of folks like this please, even if it's not the right fit for you think for a moment who do I know that might be good to tap on the shoulder and say, hey, go check this out. I think this is a good fit for you. Let's help get the word out and help them get just even more fabulous crew folks, and they already have I could hang out with you all day has been such an important topic. But I won't do that to you. I won't do that to our listeners, if there was something as we're starting to wind down that you were hoping we were going to get to today and we haven't talked about it or there's something you want to leave our listeners with as we start to say goodbye. What would that be?
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 49:04
Yeah, I want to encourage more people to think about you know, certainly there's an accredited investor role that might not democratize everyone from writing a check to a potential founder. There are platforms that like that can help facilitate that whether it's I find women is a platform where you know, you can help a founder who's building
Paul Zelizer 49:40
we're gonna have them on the show very soon.
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 49:44
We'll tell her I'm I am plugging her when you asked me what's one of one thing you want to do? Because I think part of what I cannot wait to see and I hope it happens within a generation as a more people Supporting founders right now, you know, a lot of the challenges that we spoke about institutionally are there, because the investor base that I have to attract, right creates some structural limitations for me. But if we were in a position where there were more people knew about venture capital could participate and funding founders, then we could do some of the things that we need to do, like write bigger checks. And we could, you know, the perception, certainly you have to do what's right for your portfolio and your risk, and where you are and all of your financial goals. I'm not giving away financial advice. But I am I do you want to see a rising class of angel investors, who women founders, don't come to me and say, for example, you know, the investors I spoke to none of them understood the business opportunity, you know, I want to, I want to know more about the micro biomes of pregnant women. And, you know, the number of people who are interested in that can have customer empathy around that is exceptional market. But when I look at my investors, I'm having a hard time putting together resources for something like that. So there's definitely some asymmetry that I think will shift and the playing field will open when we have more angel investors more people who want to see founders birth, on the pregnancy analogy, you know, Game Changing companies that are transformational, and are solving real world problems. So there's certainly a role to play even if it's a small check size, and you you know, when you have iPhone, women on anyone can can help facilitate unlocking that for potential founder
Paul Zelizer 52:14
Asan. Thank you so much for being on the show and a deep bow for doing this incredibly important work that you do.
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine 52:21
Thanks, Paul, it's been a honor to be with you.
Paul Zelizer 52:26
So that's all the time we have for today's show, please go check out the visible hand site, there'll be a link in the show notes, tell your friends, tell your colleagues, let's get the word out community. This is important work. before we sign off, I just want to remind you we love listener supported topics and guests. If you have an idea for the show, go to the aware printers website. And on our contact page, you'll see that there's three simple criteria, we try to be very transparent how we vet, the guests and the kind of topics. If you take a look at that and say I've got an awesome idea, please send it to us. We love our listeners, helping us surface the kind of stories that our community is looking for to learn from and to amplify. With that said, I just want to say thank you for the important work that you do. Thank you for listening. And thank you for all the positive impact you’re working for in our world.