It's interesting that maybe consumer vets, we all know them because we use them, but perhaps they haven't got the valuations of the semiconductor, the software space of late. But what does consumer resiliency look like? Well, first off, Caroline Connan...

...good morning. And I wanted to thank you for having me here. And for those who may not be familiar with me, as Caroline said, I'm a managing director at the Ventures where we have a pre-seed and seed consumer-focused fund based in Los Angeles and built by the...

...founders of billion-dollar public companies like LegalZoom and Honest Company. And then, as you mentioned, you know, the privilege of investing early in household names like Sweetgreen, Snapchat, Copley, and NerdWallet, etc. And to your question, you know, it's...

...interesting because I think valuations are what catch headlines, but we often underestimate the inputs that it takes to get to those numbers and also the equity breakdown. So, for example, you know, a company that exits for $5 billion is an eye-popping amount.

But when you look at the cap table and you see that a founder, you know, owns 2% of that business, they actually made less than a company where the founder owned 25% of a $500 million exit. So the valuations are often, you know, a...

...particular focus. On the brand side, the valuations may not be there on the tech side. Of course, they do have that potential. But, you know, the equity outcomes for the investors and the founder, you'd be surprised to see, are often much better.

Yeah.
And so you're very much trying to align yourself with the founder and with your own legal background. I'm sure you're ensuring that they maintain a lot of holding and serve themselves well by having ownership of the business as it matures and takes

funding.
What then, about finding these diamonds in the rough?
How are you deciding, okay, this is a startup, a consumer-facing startup that is at a pivot point, is about to go up and to the right?
We have this internal mantra that we

like to... we like.
We say that we have to love the founder and not hate the idea at this stage that we invest. It truly is about the founders.
And we, we, we love what we call the silent assassins, the folks that are focused on building their business, who

know their customers, who know how people actually operate. You know, there are a lot of things that we theoretically would like to exist or like to do.
You know, I'd love to be the fittest woman in the world, but, you know, maybe I won't put the effort and time into an

exercise regime or counting my macronutrients. And the founders that actually understand how people live and behave and what gets them to a purchase decision is really what we're looking for. And do they do that via EQ?
Are they doing that through data?

What do you want to see when a founder that you don't hate the idea of comes and pitches you?
Yeah, I think it... I think it's both. And I think more importantly, it's around understanding not only their consumer but themselves as well: what their strengths and weaknesses are.

So if they are incredibly data driven, maybe they hire a team that is very EQ and brand driven or vice versa. If they're incredibly brand driven, then they hire a team who understands operational efficiencies and knows that, you know, they need to hit their margins.

And so I think the most important thing we look for is a founder who understands their customers, as I mentioned, but also who knows how to hire around them. Look, you've been in angel investing for more than 17 years.

You've been in your seat at BAM Ventures for a number of years. And what are valuations like at this particular moment? How are you looking into 2025 and thinking about whether these are the right sort of checks to be writing at the right valuation?

Yeah, I think that our valuations are very specific to the sectors right now. You know, you hear about the buzzwords of AI or Darwin. They can command a hefty valuation. They also are very capital intensive.

It, I think, to the point I was making at the beginning around the inputs and the outputs. A lot of times funds will back into valuations based on how much they need to deploy, and it may be detached from how much a company itself is actually worth. If you're a large fund and you need to

write $100 million checks and you love a particular category and you give them $10 million, then you need to back into a valuation from there as opposed to investing in a company they may not need as much. It's interesting that you said crypto is sort of the buzzword and, sure, Bitcoin

has been the buzzword, MicroStrategy has been the buzzword. But are we seeing more and more founders coming to you with a Web3 adjacent company now or a consumer focus that is building in Web3? Once again, are we at that stage of the cycle?

We are. We see a lot of founders who have a Web3 component. And I do see it having come back into vogue. And like I mentioned, AI is the mortgagor. And to that point, when you're a

consumer founder, is it just that you want to see AI boosting productivity internally rather than trying to back themselves into a generative AI business? Do you mean what we look for as investors or what founders are pursuing these days? Yeah.

What founders pursue. What are you seeing and what are you wanting? Briefly. Yeah, well, what we're wanting in the way that we think about AI is the way we think about the Internet.

You know, it's like if a founder came to us and told us they're building an Internet company. I think it's ubiquitous. It's necessary. It is the future for us. We're really looking at, you know, the other elements that will make you a successful business: what your

distribution, your team, sales and marketing are. The AI itself for us, particularly at our fund size, is not the sole determinant of whether a company is attractive or not. And I think founders are catching on to that as well.

I think there was a period of time where
just adding AI, yeah, was, they thought it was game changing
in terms of, like, activeness. But I think at this point, founders are
starting to realize we need to show some differentiation beyond that.

Finding Startup Diamonds

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소비자 비즈니스 가치 평가와 창업자 자본의 중요성에 대해 논의합니다.

소비자 비즈니스는 기술 기업만큼 높은 가치를 인정받지 못할 수도 있습니다.

전체 가치 평가보다는 창업자의 지분 비율에 초점을 맞춰야 합니다.

더 작은 비율의 더 큰 출구를 가진 창업자는 더 큰 비율의 더 작은 출구를 가진 창업자보다 더 적은 수익을 올릴 수 있습니다.

소비자 중심의 유망한 스타트업과 창업자의 중요성을 파악합니다.

고객과 사람들의 행동 방식을 이해하는 창업자를 찾는 데 초점을 맞추고 있습니다.

창업자는 EQ와 데이터를 모두 사용하여 구매 결정을 내리는 요인을 이해해야 합니다.

창업자는 자신의 강점과 약점을 파악하고 그에 따라 채용해야 합니다.

AI와 Web3의 역할을 포함한 현재 가치 평가 및 투자 전략.

가치 평가는 분야별로 다르며, AI 및 Web3와 같은 유행어가 영향을 미칩니다.

대규모 자금은 때때로 배포 요구 사항에 따라 가치 평가에 다시 투입되기도 합니다.

점점 더 많은 창업자들이 자신의 비즈니스에 Web3를 도입하고 있습니다.

AI는 인터넷처럼 보편화되고 있으며, 기업의 매력을 결정짓는 유일한 요소는 아닙니다.

Finding Startup Diamonds

Finding Startup Diamonds

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