Maxine Minter, founder and managing partner of Co Ventures, joins Vlad Cazacu, co-founder and CEO of Flowlie, to discuss the Australian-US arbitrage opportunity, lessons from building her first fund, and the unusual VC market of '21 and '22.
Maxine Minter, founder and managing partner of Co Ventures, joins Vlad Cazacu, co-founder and CEO of Flowlie, to discuss the Australian-US arbitrage opportunity, lessons from building her first fund, and the unusual VC market of '21 and '22.
You can find Maxine Minter on Twitter at https://twitter.com/minmintymin and learn more about CoVentures at https://www.coventures.vc/.
Learn more about Flowlie and how the platform can help you screen deals faster and discover the right connections from your network at https://www.flowlie.com.
Stay up-to-date with all our episodes by checking our website at https://www.thevcarchitects.com, following us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/thevcarchitects, and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thevcarchitects.
The VC Architects (Ep. 5) - Maxine Minter (Co Ventures)
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Maxine Minter: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Maxine Minter. I am the founder and GP of CoVentures. We are a cross ecosystem arbitrage pre seed investor. We invest in Australians anywhere in the world, building the next generation of unicorns.
Vlad Cazacu: Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in and welcome to the VC Architects, the podcast where we share the real stories behind new VC fund managers and the blueprints used to make them successful.
Vlad Cazacu: My name is Vlad Cazacu and I'll be your host today as we interview Maxine Minter, a trailblazing investor who took a bold bet to become the first woman solo GP in Australia after being immersed in the Bay Area ecosystem. This is an insightful conversation with a very analytical and intellectual investor, where we discuss firm value add, arbitrage opportunities, and much more.
Vlad Cazacu: For more information about starting and growing your venture fund, including show notes, highlight clips, and exclusive scenes, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @TheVCArchitects, as well as on our website at TheVCArchitects. com. This episode is brought to you by Flowlie, the number one choice for deal screening and network [00:01:00] management used by hundreds of investors from 50 plus different countries.
Vlad Cazacu: Now, let's dive right in.
Vlad Cazacu: Maxine, such a pleasure to have you. Really appreciate you accepting our invitation and peeling back the curtain a little bit on CoVentures and what you're building there, how you're supporting founders, and quite frankly, how you got started.
Maxine Minter: Thanks so much for having me. Excited to chat.
Vlad Cazacu: I think this is a very interesting conversation moving forward because of your unique angle that you're approaching this, uS-based Australian focused obviously with, Australian background and heritage. So I'm really curious to understand a little bit better, this dynamic between US and Australia and you starting your first angel investing when you moved here to United States to go to Stanford.
Vlad Cazacu: So how did it all start here in United States and how did a connection be made back to Australia?
Maxine Minter: Yeah, I think, I mean it started for me, my journey. Angel investing, as you mentioned, started in the US in 2016. The Australian [00:02:00] ecosystem was incredibly nascent. That was when I started to leave the Australian ecosystem.
Maxine Minter: And so at the time, actually, I didn't even have the, noun of entrepreneur or the noun of investor. I knew one investor in the Australian ecosystem and I knew her 'cause she used to be a lawyer like myself. I didn't really know anyone who thought of themselves as an entrepreneur. So stepping into the US ecosystem and especially the Stanford ecosystem was the first time that I got really exposed to the incredible innovation dynamism.
Maxine Minter: Pace of execution, creativity that is entrepreneurship and investing, and was just totally enamored with it. So my first step into that world was obviously building a company and then while building that got introduced to this idea of angel investing. And I think like lots of folks my journey into angel investing was meeting other angel investors, obviously raising for our company, but also just the community of people around me starting to Angel invest.
Maxine Minter: And my first step into it was the opportunity to [00:03:00] invest alongside and learn how to invest from some incredible women through a community called the Council which has now actually built its own fund and a really gives an incredible another solo gp. So it's been amazing and really inspirational to watch her journey.
Maxine Minter: So my kind of first step into that world was, Seeing other people, angel invest, learning from them collaboratively, sharing deal flow, sharing cliff notes, how to think about certain opportunities through the council community. That was my first step. And then I think you'll speak to any Australian internationally, we're quite interestingly patriotic.
Maxine Minter: Almost everyone will say to you, I'm gonna go home eventually. It's usually a timeline of two to three years, and that two to three years continues to move forward. Uh, you know, every single year it's another two to three years. And so I always expected to come back and spend time in Australia.
Maxine Minter: During Covid was when I got a time to really do that. And had got a little bit of a taste of it since being in the Bay Area, but really coming back to Australia, I just met so many incredible founders. Like the way that the ecosystem had changed between when I left and when I came back in 2020 was just [00:04:00] exponential.
Maxine Minter: And I met these incredible founders building these amazing companies, but the funding ecosystem was relatively undeveloped. Relative to the Bay Area. And so I really saw this arbitrage opportunity. So I started Angel investing in that thesis, investing in incredible companies like Eucalyptus, like own home in the Australian ecosystem.
Maxine Minter: And just watching the companies that they built and helping them expand was amazing. And that really was the genesis of the idea for CoVentures.
Vlad Cazacu: And I'm curious, back in the SF days you were mentioning that community of our angel investors and quite frankly, what SF has been known for for a number of years. At that point you were also starting CoLab if I remember correctly, correct?
Vlad Cazacu: Yeah. You just got started on CoLab, so, where's the budget coming from? I would love to support, founders, but hey, I'm living in SF, I'm making X amount of money. How much can I really allocate towards supporting other founders?
Vlad Cazacu: So how are you really thinking about check sizes, you're getting started in angel investing, and what can you really provide [00:05:00] in terms of monetary versus other type of value to founders?
Maxine Minter: Yeah, I think this is one of the most insidious and unproductive assumptions people make about investing, that you have to be really wealthy to start angel investing.
Maxine Minter: And I think the Bay Area, like in a lot of things is really the front runner here. We have collectively, I. Uncovered actually, there's lots of other ways you can add value at the earliest stages in particular. And also there are retail investor rules that allow, even if you aren't a high net wealth individual, or sophisticated investor under the rules, you can still participate in some of the value creation, either via advisory or writing these small checks.
Maxine Minter: So the first check that I ever wrote was, $2,500. And at the time I was living in the Bay Area earning $75,000 a year, like if you've ever lived in the Bay, that's not a lot of money to live on in the Bay and living in share houses, et cetera. And I was just meeting these founders that I felt so convicted, were gonna build incredible things and so wanted to support them that.
Maxine Minter: It was the right thing for me [00:06:00] to do, I think in that first check I ever wrote, I wrote the check instead of paying my credit card bill. So I guess the like overall cost of the investment was actually much higher for the, if we add the interest that I had to pay on my credit card bill that month.
Maxine Minter: But it was, I think, feeling really passionate behind supporting founders, adding my voice to the chorus of people that support them and celebrate them and really believe in the next step for them. One of the things, especially for other folks thinking about maybe getting into angel investing and especially people from underrepresented backgrounds, it is so important to have a variety of voices around the table for founders to, draw from and learn from, not just one homogenous group.
Maxine Minter: Having permission and an ability to go and invest in companies. You can actually get on cap tables via syndicates for as small as a thousand dollars. And so starting to hone your craft, starting to really learn the skill of investing by doing, I can't recommend it enough. And actually you'd be surprised by the smaller check size you can get on if that's not available to you.
Maxine Minter: [00:07:00] Also supporting them with skills. And being able to advise and support with some of the expertise you could bring to the table also is a wonderful way to start, you know, investing but using your time as opposed to your dollars. I.
Vlad Cazacu: Absolutely. And I think, syndicates, as an ex syndicator as well, I very much subscribe to the idea that are a great way to get started or a great way to, get your feet wet and then figure out how can you start building a track record. But I'm curious how you're seeing risk at that, early investment part of your investing career, right?
Vlad Cazacu: And we've had this question to quite a number of people around, people are investing in the public markets are deploying, maybe some real estate investing, et cetera, and all of a sudden you make the choice to not pay the credit card bill and write a check into a startup. So were you thinking about your portfolio, about your risk allocation, et cetera, from that early on, or it's something that evolved later?
Vlad Cazacu: It it, but sure, a little bit later
Maxine Minter: on. Oh, it absolutely matured later on. Like I think the reality is that One of the great [00:08:00] benefits of Angel investing early for little checks is just, you largely dunno what you're doing for that first kind of year or two. And getting those reps and ability to learn, I think is the most important thing.
Maxine Minter: So that first check my diligence was almost completely absent. Like the way that I made the decision was not robust. I didn't consider all of the information I could a could get access to. There were, you know, there was. In no way would I replicate the way that I made that decision kind of any time in the future.
Maxine Minter: And that was an enormous learning journey for me. I got lucky. The company is doing amazingly well. The founder is amazing and she continues to deliver real value for shareholders, but I don't think that was because I made a good decision. That was all. Or luck. I think a huge part of angel investing, especially at that like early stage, is you're starting to learn how to invest.
Maxine Minter: You're starting to learn, how do I make decisions? What are my heuristics? What version of these heuristics are actually serving me in my investment decisions? What isn't learning about what questions to ask, how [00:09:00] to collect that information over time. Especially, you know, 2019 or 20 18, 20 19, 20 20, 20, 21, like we were moving up the cycle such that.
Maxine Minter: It was getting faster and faster to try and due diligence in time to make a decision and a quality decision in that period of time. But I think, one of the great things when you're just starting out to invest, and especially if you're thinking about starting to syndicate that trajectory and then over to fund management, but that trajectory I.
Maxine Minter: It forces you to get more and more sophisticated in the way that you think about your decision making, the way that you learn how to diligence, the way that you reflect on your decision making. I think one of the key levers there is decision diary so that you can actually really effectively learn from the way that you are.
Maxine Minter: Making decisions and the quality of your investments as well as when you're making those investments, if you wanna be a value add investor, seeking to support those companies. And by doing that, learning a lot on kind of, okay, this is what I predicted would happen. This is what I thought was gonna be the biggest lever for value creation.
Maxine Minter: This is what I'm learning. [00:10:00] Actually is what matters. Or these, things that I thought would happen didn't, could I have known that at the time? All of those evaluations, it takes reps to be able to. Really properly learn those things. And I think angel investing on your own dollar is a wonderful way to get those reps and get those learnings before you necessarily start being able to deliver a more quality investment opportunity to a syndicate of people or then maybe to a fund.
Vlad Cazacu: I am glad you, you're mentioning the syndicate of people, right? Because it, it's a relatively common story in the sense of getting some reps in and then being able to invest other people's money, right? Mm-hmm. Like a lot of people would not make that jump before going through a number of reps yourself.
Vlad Cazacu: But where I would say some stories diverge is a lot of people mature into a syndicate. Start syndicating deals with a number of friends or some business partner, et cetera, and at some point, some of them mature into becoming a GP and starting a fund. You, on the other hand, took a different approach and went straight from angel investing directly into fund management.
Vlad Cazacu: Not [00:11:00] necessarily, skipping the syndications that because it's not meant to be, but making a different decision and then. Also deciding to invest in a very different subset or a very unique thesis that was previously not as mainstream as it may be today, maybe today, if at all. So I'm curious in that, very first genesis of CoVentures and saying, at this point, I feel confident enough to take other people's money and take on the fiduciary duty and know that I'm gonna get her returns to them.
Vlad Cazacu: Yeah. What was in Maxine's head during that time?
Maxine Minter: Well, so we, I did do some syndication in between, so I. I can't pretend like I did this magical leap from angel investing into fund management. I did dust those cobwebs off kind of test that I could do that syndication that I felt comfortable deploying other people's money and helping them corral around opportunities.
Maxine Minter: I didn't do it for years. It wasn't, you know, I didn't have a kind of shining career as a syndicate lead and then, do that. Traditional, step ladder up to, to fund [00:12:00] management. But I think the, that question of, how did I get to conviction that I wanted to offer fund management to a broader group of people deliver on that fiduciary duty?
Maxine Minter: Um, I mean, it's a journey, right? I think in this process, there is so much imposter syndrome that pops up for us. There's so much, should I, could I, why would I, kind of conversation that you have with yourself and also other people along the journey. You know, a big part of being an emerging fund manager is you fully expect to have hundreds of conversations with LPs and every single one of them will ask you why you, why now? Why should I trust you with my money? So you get a lot of push on that particular question. And I think the big thing for me was I had been an angel investor.
Maxine Minter: I had seen the returns I had delivered for myself. I had then been a syndicate lead and seen the returns I've, delivered for those communities of people. I had experienced firsthand bringing people together around those investment vehicles. But I think the big thing, the big driver for me was just impact [00:13:00] for the founder, along this journey and a big journey, a big influence for me is helping other people be.
Maxine Minter: Excellent, accelerating other people. That's a place of deep joy and purpose for me. And so, you know, as an angel investor, I'm hearing from a lot of the founders that we were supporting, we're investing at pre-seed and they're saying to us, it's so hard. Pre-seed is such a hard stage.
Maxine Minter: It's really hard to find value, additive capital. It's really hard to find capital at all. People that get behind us really celebrate us and, support us, help us become better founders, build a better company. That gap, especially for Australian founders internationally, was present and is still very present.
Maxine Minter: If anything, actually in this market, it's becoming more present, not less present as investors move back up the kind of risk profile. But, so hearing that from founders meant that one, I felt like I was in a position to maybe help them in that moment by finding other investors, putting them into a syndicate, and helping those investors see [00:14:00] why this founder and this idea was such an exciting opportunity and helping to close that informational asymmetry for those founders.
Maxine Minter: That was one driver, but. Got me to start syndicating away from angel investing. And then once you start syndicating away from angel investing and seeing the impact you can make, bringing those two communities together for value creation on both sides. It's really only a small step into I don't wanna herd cats into a syndicate, periodically.
Maxine Minter: I think it's gonna be more value additive for both sides if I build a fund around this. And the other thing that I actually haven't heard a lot of people talk about is the benefits of building a fund versus a syndicate in terms of the impact you can create for the founders. And when you have a fund, when you have that kind of set amount of capital and the management fees that come with it, it starts to unlock the ability from a business perspective to build a platform layer or some more value additive support.
Maxine Minter: Also to give incentives. And tie that into the fund construction for a larger group of people to also be deployed for the support of the portfolio. So the companies that we work for, for us, what that looks like is we have venture partners, about [00:15:00] 16 of whom they're all successful founders who are Australian, who are building globally scalable companies.
Maxine Minter: So think like the Misty Yum founders, the Forage Founders, the Link three founders, the Eucalyptus founders, really incredible founders who are still deep in it that want to give back to the next generation of companies. And we couldn't really activate or support that group of people via a fund.
Maxine Minter: Or via an incentive if we're doing syndicate by syndicate. Whereas, as we continue to chase the impact for that portfolio of companies is the easiest way for us to pull everyone together in this kind of compounding ecosystem for the benefit of that next generation. And if we do that really well, we earn the right to be this compounding vessel for awesome Australians doing incredible things internationally.
Maxine Minter: Through our venture partner community and also I L P community, both groups are. Value additive to the portfolio that we support. And then when the portfolio is successful, hopefully they then become part of those groups and the cycle [00:16:00] continues. So none of that kind of compounding benefit would've been possible if we just stuck to a syndicate or angel investing.
Maxine Minter: So a big part of it that kind of pull up that maybe complexity ladder, if I can call it that, was a desire to be able to kinda scale our impact for the founders that we work for and generate value throughout those communities that we serve.
Vlad Cazacu: I'm hearing you discuss about this advantage of creating a fund by also becoming and seeming more professional in speaking with all those parties, actually having an institution that acts as a brand as an entity that can get all those people to together, enable all these sets of incentives for them to play along.
Vlad Cazacu: So, now you are into co venture's journey for a little bit. Are you still holding true that going to a fund during that time was the right decision?
Maxine Minter: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think there is a, there's a whole bunch of kind of market timing and match to thesis.
Maxine Minter: I. That has meant that it's been an incredible journey so far. We [00:17:00] are meeting really amazing companies. I'm really excited about the portfolio we've got so far the community of LPs, the community of VPs we're already working with and we're continuing to grow those two groups. But I think absolutely there's no part of me that is, that thinks that was the wrong decision.
Maxine Minter: It is a trade. There is more complexity. You are professionalizing and getting all the benefits of that professionalization and also the cost of those professionalization. But the trade off for me 100%, it was a excellent transition. I'm really glad I took the leap and I have my good friend, Soph McNaught, to thank for that.
Maxine Minter: She gave me a push in Chrissy Field to get me over the line to, to have the bravery to start it. And so I'm very glad that I did it.
Vlad Cazacu: Fantastic. And it seems, that's a recurring theme around this imposter syndrome pre-race and the gladness that it happened post-race, right? It was the right decision.
Vlad Cazacu: It just, it was an overwhelming amount of worry during the time of getting it started. So it seems that, [00:18:00] post raise this, looking back at the decision to fund everything seems that was the right decision, but when you were really in that moment, some of those feelings of fear, the imposter syndrome, not really sure exactly what you're doing.
Vlad Cazacu: It's a recurring thing with first time in solid gps. And it makes sense and it's interesting to understand that, at the end there's lights at the end of the tunnel, quite frankly. But I'm curious, was there anything specific during that journey that kept you going? Some of that extra motivation or some of that support ecosystem that made you say this is the right decision, even back then and tomorrow's a new day.
Vlad Cazacu: More fundraising, more lp. This is gonna work out in the end.
Maxine Minter: Yeah. I mean, I think the thing with imposter syndrome is that it is present for any person who is building something in the world, right? Any act of stretching. I think it is a very natural and valuable thing that our body does, which is. That gives us fear and says to us, Hey, just f y i, make sure that you are doing the right thing.
Maxine Minter: You're doing it in the [00:19:00] best way. You're not overextending what you can promise to do. You're not overpromising what's possible, what's in your sphere of possibility. So I, my kind of counteract to imposter syndrome is a couple of things. One, just remind yourself of the facts. A lot of the time, your brain will say to you something along the lines of, you shouldn't be doing this, or you can't do this.
Maxine Minter: And then the question is what evidence do you have? What fact-based evidence do you have that you have a good chance of doing this? So as opposed to the fear-based, yes, no, to, what's the probability that you might be able to do this? What de-risking are you putting in place? Asking your brain to do system two thinking, to evaluate, is this the right thing for you to be doing or not?
Maxine Minter: And. When you are flagging that for yourself via imposter syndrome, you do that evaluation, you come up, no, like this is worthwhile. The risk you are communicating in an authentic way, in a clear way on what your experience has been today, what the success of that experience has been, and giving the opportunity for your [00:20:00] LPs or syndicate members to participate on that journey if they want to.
Maxine Minter: And so that fact question I find to be really helpful. The other thing I find really helpful in imposter syndrome is just acknowledging that it's scary. Doing something that you've never done before, doing something that you might be successful or might not, has some kind of risk premium or risk profile to, it brings up fear and a lot of imposter syndrome is the kind of black and white interpretation of it's scary, you shouldn't do it.
Maxine Minter: And just sitting with yourself and reminding yourself like, yeah, it's scary. It might not work. It is a risky endeavor that you are taking on, allows you to just own that risk, let yourself feel scared, and then continue to move forward. So those two I find to be really impactful tools just to continue to move through imposter syndrome when it pops up.
Maxine Minter: Recognizing that anyone who is wanting to do something ambitious, stretching themselves into a new sphere will feel some version of, is this the right thing for me to be doing and am I the right person to be doing it? And I think they're really productive. Questions to ask yourself.[00:21:00]
Vlad Cazacu: Absolutely.
Vlad Cazacu: I'm hoping you build a cohesive pitch to those LPs as well, right? Because that's gonna be the primary question being asked. And also appreciate the first guest bringing Kahneman's two- mind theory into a fundraising conversation, which I think is very relevant because most of the time we are mind one thinkers and go for life in a more animalistic way.
Vlad Cazacu: But I'm curious, regarding. The level of conviction around the thesis, right? So we talked a little bit about the level of conviction around you as a GP and making that jump into creating the fund, but at some point there must be some crystallization of the investment thesis and putting that pen on paper and getting the first LP to say, yes, I.
Vlad Cazacu: I agree that this is a thesis worth pursuing. So walk us a little bit through that thesis creation process, the portfolio allocation some of the, scary venture math that can help to come together and say, this is what I think would make sense for my LPs to get a great return. And willing to bet the next 10 years of my life on this hypothesis.
Maxine Minter: Hmm. [00:22:00] Yeah. Well I think one of the benefits is like a lot of entrepreneurial journeys and I think, while it's not the same as building a venture-backed company, there isn't an entrepreneurial activity you do when you are building a fund. You are thinking about what the market needs. You are thinking about what need hasn't been met yet.
Maxine Minter: You are thinking about how might I. With my skillset and context, be able to meet that need in the market and kind did the exact same elements of those steps, right? Like I was angel investing in the market. I kept hearing from pre-seed founders how painful, how frustrating, how low value add. A lot of the support they were getting was at pre-seed relative to the seed market, both in the Australia, in Australia and elsewhere.
Maxine Minter: Hearing from them the terms at which they were being able to raise at pre-seed, relative to seed. Also, one of the benefits of being cross ecosystem for me is that I living and breathing the Australian ecosystem and living and breathing the Bay Area ecosystem and seeing the [00:23:00] delta between those two.
Maxine Minter: And so from seeing this open, very. A painful need in the market for these founders to be able to find a better funding solution to back them and meaningfully support them at pre-seed. Also, hearing from the LP side the desire for returns and knowing the kind of product that I'm able to build there because I'm building it for myself, is a very well returning investment profile between those two have sets of needs then in terms of gonna fund construction.
Maxine Minter: Starting off as an angel investor, that's a real journey to learn how do the mechanics of a venture fund work, how should I be thinking about constructing this entity to be able to deliver or meet those two needs, the return profile for the LPs and the kind of value additive piece and engagement from the LPs, and also a value additive.
Maxine Minter: Support structure for founders and how does that grow over time? It's not just fund one, but it's only worth doing this if I'm building fund two, fund three, fund four, over time an [00:24:00] enduring venture capital fund in that space. And so for us, really thinking about, okay, the reality is that pre-seed is one of the riskiest, if not the riskiest stage to be investing in venture capital.
Maxine Minter: So our evaluation was a consolidated strategy. Didn't make sense 'cause there's so many risk profiles that could materialize that we have no control over. So wanting diversification for the benefit of what that does to the risk profile of your fund. Also, not so, so many portfolio companies or such a wide diversification that we start to run the risk of antis signaling i e we wouldn't be able to properly support those companies, add value to those companies.
Maxine Minter: As we are supporting them along that journey. So for us, the right number was about 30 investments per fund. It's also a, I think, the right number for us to be able to meaningfully connect in our venture partners and connect in our LPs to support that community as well as a kind of test and m v P of.
Maxine Minter: How we [00:25:00] support those companies and how well those companies do over time with our support with them. Now, I wanna be clear here. I don't think that our LPs and our VPs are gonna be the thing that makes these founders successful. These founders are incredible. They are building these really amazing companies, but I know having been in seat at pre-seed, having the right support, the right conversation, the right information flows at the right time, can be enormously value additive for you to kind of.
Maxine Minter: Avoid a hurdle get support and encouragement at the right moment to really help push you through that next journey. And that's what we're looking to do. So for us that right number is 30, will that be the right number for fund two and later? I don't know. I mean, this is the great thing about a fund one is you learn a lot of things along the journey that we can then compound into fund two and fund three moving forward.
Maxine Minter: But that was a big one for us. And then thinking about. What is the size of the fund? What is the right deployment into each of these companies? How should we think about ownership targets? How should we think about follow on strategies? For us there's like all of these [00:26:00] competing levers that you need to be thinking about.
Maxine Minter: For us, we kept anchoring back on our values, anchoring back on delivering value to both sides of that market, and thinking about the enduring compounding value of fund on fund. We want to own and be a signal for Prese globally for the Australian market, or companies with at least one Australian founder.
Maxine Minter: And so thinking about, what do we need to be doing in terms of ownership profile to make sure that the juice is worth the squeeze, so to speak. But also, my opinion is that it doesn't. Serve the founders we work for to come in and take their entire round at pre-seed. Again, having sat in seat, having just one set of views around the table, when you are at that very malleable early iteration phase, doesn't serve you given the breadth of potential outcomes that could be between pre-seed and seed.
Maxine Minter: So actually we have structured our fund to be what I think of as collaborative capital. We write 100 to $130,000 checks. So that there is more space in those [00:27:00] rounds for other micro front funds and angel investors to come along the journey with us. It is product creation in any other, in the same way you create products in any other category, just within a kind of more defined set because you are building a venture capital fund and not just any product that you could potentially build on the market.
Vlad Cazacu: I was gonna say just that sounds like the recipe for a product manager going to do the customer discovery and figure out exactly what market they're selling and what product they're selling for that particular market. But it's an important distinction though, because as you alluded to earlier that the GP GPS responsible to two parties the founders that are backing, but also the LPs that are backing the gps.
Vlad Cazacu: So we wanna shift the conversation a little bit in that direction and. Understand after that customer discovery, right? The fund creation, understanding where your role in the larger global venture ecosystem is, some of those very first LP meetings. The first, yes. Peel back the curtain a little bit for us and help us understand, who was really [00:28:00] that very first test and how are you approaching the very first conversations on what maybe at that time seemed like an idea, a grander vision.
Vlad Cazacu: And then with time it materialize into an actual fund.
Maxine Minter: I think maybe this is a theme across my journey and has been, I think it'll probably continue to be a theme across my journey, which is early support. And getting to learn from those that have gone before me has been incredibly impactful on how I've chosen my path.
Maxine Minter: My first conversation. Maybe in that kind of product management style, I started to soft circle this conversation, or soft circle this product with people that represented my key customers on the LP side and customers on the company side. As soon as I had that conversation that I mentioned before with my good friend Sophie aught, she, after that push she gave me, I started to put feelers out and test this the first.
Maxine Minter: Conversation they had on the LP side was with a woman called Jackie Bowens, who's a partner at Ree Ventures, which was one of the, best funds in the Australian market. [00:29:00] Explored with her this idea, and she was so helpful as a thought partner, which I'm sure it reflects the way that she engages with founders of all sorts.
Maxine Minter: I just happened to be a founder of a venture fund. Really insightful questions. She pushed me on a lot of my thinking. And really gave me encouragement to start off with. And then ultimately they ended up coming in as an LP of the fund. She obviously didn't say yes in that first meeting, but a lot of those, thought partnership, her challenging questions pushed me to think deeper about.
Maxine Minter: The opportunity and she kind of, I think it's actually a really hard thing to do as an investor, to be challenging to push on the parts of the ideas that don't make sense and still be encouraging and, encourage that person to continue to explore. So that was my first conversation. Maybe I just got lucky.
Maxine Minter: It was kinda soft landing, so to speak, in my first, first conversation. I know other folks have had some more challenging first conversations. And from there I did about four months of. Kind of user testing, talking to a lot of the personas of the [00:30:00] LPs that I really wanted to have along around the table.
Maxine Minter: Not necessarily having built a fund yet, but really getting from them, what would be attractive in terms of a return profile. Especially in the Australian market, there has never been a precede specialist fund, right? We are the first ones in this market. We're the first solo GP. By a woman.
Maxine Minter: So the combination of those two things, there's lots of firsts and they wanted to test with our LP community and the, people that represented our portfolio community, what did they think of that combination of things. Was that an attractive proposition? Was it too many new thirsts that made it, scary from the outset?
Maxine Minter: So we went through a kind of four month period of having those conversations. And on the other side of that, there was enough signal there for me that it. Was worth taking the step to more formalize it and really test the thesis. From then on out, the conversations, it's felt very similar to raising for a company.
Maxine Minter: So, I mean, my previous experience raising for venture backed raising for Venture backed companies has been [00:31:00] that. There's lots of yeses, there's lots of nos, there's lots of hard questions, there's lots of information curves you have to help your audience get up, especially talking to American investors reasonably, they have no idea about the opportunity coming out of Australia.
Maxine Minter: It's not a. Especially population-wise, it's a much smaller place relative to the US market. And so lots of those hard conversations and lots of really enjoyable conversations with LPs. But that is just part of fundraising. I fully expect to have multiple hundreds of conversations along this journey as we continue to do the raise.
Vlad Cazacu: Absolutely. I'm curious, have you uncovered after this hundreds of conversations, a specific persona that was most interested in this particular thesis? Mm-hmm. Did you had more success with Australian LPs versus US-based LPs, for example?
Maxine Minter: We've definitely had more success with people that have a nexus to Australia.
Maxine Minter: I've met a lot of Americans that have a nexus to Australia, so they have lived in Australia. They have previously invested in Canva or. Atlassian or [00:32:00] CultureAmp or another kind of huge company that's come out of Australia. So they've seen firsthand the grittiness, the growth orientation, the kind of really amazing Australian founders that build these incredible incredible companies.
Maxine Minter: So I think having a nexus to Australia has been really important. Sadly or reasonably, if you've never done any business in Australia, you've never interacted with Australian founders before, it's harder for you to inherently get the opportunity set that we are chasing and why that is really exciting.
Maxine Minter: I mean, I can, I can spout all kinds of stats for them that tries to paint the edges of why this is so exciting. The Australian ecosystem from a unicorn perspective is one of the fastest growing in the world. It's underfunded. In Incre to an incredible degree. To give you a stat there, we, in Australia, we deploy a 17th of the dollars controlling for G D P into the venture ecosystem that the Bay Area does, and then the arbitrage between pre-seed and seed.
Maxine Minter: As I mentioned before, [00:33:00] there's much fewer folks deploying our pre-seed than there are at seed. So the pre-seed valuations are suppressed relative to seed, and then the ecosystems themselves are also suppressed. So there's all of these like numerical, rational reasons why it's a really exciting proposition.
Maxine Minter: But my experience is that LPs get most excited when they have a. Values alignment or some kind of emotional connection to the thesis that you are chasing. And so that's definitely been the case for us. So most of our LPs are connected to Australia in some way or connected to an Australian company in some way.
Maxine Minter: Thankfully, that's quite a large set of people, so that hasnt been too restrictive for us so far.
Vlad Cazacu: Well that's, that's an important piece, right? The target market figure on the LP side. But this is very interesting to hear about that emotional connection. Obviously the alignment on the thesis more from a philosophical standpoint, not just from a money perspective, right?
Vlad Cazacu: There is a clear opportunity, but. I feel like it's the right thing to do to also back [00:34:00] you and back more gps to invest in the Australian market to generate more wealth for the region as well as the larger globe. So I'm curious and maybe we already explored this a little bit, but talking to the people who said no the people said, well, this is not really a fit.
Vlad Cazacu: Where have you seen the biggest pushback, either as a type of therapy or a particular part of the fund that just didn't resonate with some of those people? Yeah,
Maxine Minter: that's an interesting question. I think, I think, um, there are a whole bunch of reasons why people said no to the fund. If they didn't see the value in the value proposition.
Maxine Minter: One that jumps to mind is a conversation I had with a friend who's A later stage investor at a big fund in the us and she was one of the people that I kinda spoke to in that early user journey perspective. And when I said to her, these are all the reasons that I think the Australian ecosystem is a really interesting ecosystem arbitrage she shared with me the feedback.
Maxine Minter: She'd literally never thought the word Australia. It's just like nowhere in her frame of reference. [00:35:00] And I was like, well, okay, that is a reasonable reason to not be excited about the value proposition that we're chasing or to not be able to resonate with it. There's informational asymetry you would have to close to even start to be interested in this proposition and.
Maxine Minter: Part of that informational asymmetry is you have to know that the country Australia exists and that it produces founders who produce companies. So there's kind of that version of no, you know, I don't see the value for the reason that I've never thought about it. Then there is the group that have said no because pre-seed.
Maxine Minter: As an exposure, isn't particularly excited, exciting for them, or it's too risky for them, or they don't see the return profile there. I've had some folks, or at least one LP who decided to pass, ask me, do I think there's enough interesting ideas being built by Australian founders to fund?
Maxine Minter: And my immediate question to them was, what shape do they think a funnel is? And the plot twist is it's not a diamond, right? If you can get to conviction [00:36:00] that there are interesting seed stage companies in Australia, then there must, by very definition be interesting pre-seed stage companies, because that is how the death rate works in our industry.
Maxine Minter: So there's a lot of. I think like any type of new idea, there are a lot of people that haven't really thought through the implications of it. And so immediately ask questions that, when they sit and they think about it, there are implications that mean, oh, okay, that would be an interesting proposition. And then there's the folks that is just not a fit for, right? Like they already have exposure to the asset class or they are not excited about the value proposition or they are. Already, looking at different areas, especially in this macro market with the return profiles of kind of investment grade debt and listed and a whole bunch of other asset classes.
Maxine Minter: Being a small fund, a lot of high net wealth individuals are our LPs and they have other investment classes that mean that they're, they're not chasing this kind of exposure at the moment with the illiquidity periods that you have in venture. The reality is that is why you have so many conversations.
Maxine Minter: 'cause there's so many [00:37:00] reasons to say no, and there's so many reasons to say yes. And the reality is that a smaller percentage of people have a reason to say yes. Then a reason to say no. And so it's just finding enough of those people that you can get into business as a venture investor, and then show the return profile based on fund one, and then hopefully continue to grow from there.
Vlad Cazacu: And I bet the 20 21, 20 22. Interesting macroeconomic context did not really help. But it only needed to increase the top of funnel probably because of, as you mentioned, the lack of liquidity, right? A lot of people had assets held in, in a lot of different areas, and when the stock market went down there, Overall exposure to private markets, if they even had any, went through the roof as a percentage of their total portfolio because we're not adjusting to market as our friends in the public markets do.
Vlad Cazacu: And also there was a lot of fear on the LP side, or even worse commitments that weren't able to be backed with actual cash on the first capital calls. So I'm wondering as you're thinking through this more like sales, like process [00:38:00] top of funnel and being able to get more people and there's more reasons to say no than reasons to say you're constantly have to put people in the top of the funnel.
Vlad Cazacu: So some, what were some of the ways that you were able to achieve that in order to be able to entertain? Hundreds of conversations with LPs because for a lot of people it may seem scary to say do I even know 200 people who are very wealthy that could write an LP check into a fund?
Maxine Minter: Yeah. I mean, I think this is where having done a fundraise or multiple fundraisers, outside of the crazy period of 2020 to 2022 really helps.
Maxine Minter: The first adventure round I ever raised, I had lived in America for. Five months and I didn't know a single person. So there just is a lot of kind of relationship development and market mapping you have to do, and a lot of, being clever about the way that you network your way to certain people.
Maxine Minter: So I think one is just like the research to know who you're targeting. And the hard thing [00:39:00] then about venture and now about LPs is they're not super discoverable. Like these days you have. Numerous lists of investors that kind of circulate within founders that you can find these lists of thousands and thousands of funds and some information about the way they invest that doesn't really exist at the LP level.
Maxine Minter: There's so many amazing collaborative groups that are trying to support each other. Like Transact Global would be one, for female investors. But it, there is just a lot of collaboration that happens at this stage and it's finding the names of those people running a very tight process as you can find.
Maxine Minter: Either warm introductions, cool introductions or cold outreach to those people. So there's a lot of that. Then also finding places where these people are. Like conferences, get togethers, that can be really helpful as a way to develop those relationships. And then there is just the kind of existing network of people that I have invested alongside prior.
Maxine Minter: And then I think this is where Angel investing really helps, is I share a lot of cap tables with really wonderful [00:40:00] investors and so have an opportunity to have worked alongside them already, and then now as I'm raising a fund, have them in my network of people that might be interested to work alongside me again.
Maxine Minter: Although in a slightly different format, but it really is quite an organic process, right? You really just run a tight process. It's a sales process like any others and just doing everything you can to scour the market for the for leads to put in that top of funnel.
Vlad Cazacu: So I'm curious, how are you seeing collaboration cross GP when they're both, let's say, or everybody's fundraising from LPs in a market where LPs are a little bit more shaky than they used to be?
Vlad Cazacu: Are you seeing the same, truthful, honest collaboration of helping you to help me, et cetera? Or are you seeing a little bit of competitiveness because the LP layer of capital is a little bit less discoverable? And less liquid during these times.
Maxine Minter: I think both, right? Like it, the macro market means that there [00:41:00] is some com competition and more competition than there was in the previous three years for those same LP dollars.
Maxine Minter: And as gps, as investors, we default take the long-term view, right? We are committing to 10 to 12 year periods as we make these investments. So I've actually noticed that this community is particularly great at. Recognizing we are gonna be working together for a very long period of time. We will be in the same community for a very long period of time.
Maxine Minter: And there's an enormous amount of collaboration, sharing LPs with each other, making introductions for each other scouting who is deploying and not at different times, and making suggestions for each other. The reality of maybe, calling back to the previous conversation we had about this kind of two-sided marketplace almost that venture is the buyer of, buyer as an LP of CoVentures, it isn't necessarily the same person as a lot of other thesis, right? If you are doing some like deep cybersecurity or deep tech strategy, that LP and an LP that we might work [00:42:00] with are different people. And so there's lots of opportunities for collaboration if you're so inclined to find those opportunities.
Maxine Minter: And I would say the venture community is excellent at collaborating, right? With the. Good at working together to support the next layer of the ecosystem. I also have noticed, an enormous number of gps are former operators and founders, and they know what that feels like to be raising, to be in the trenches and also to have the right investors around the table.
Maxine Minter: And so I speaking for myself, I want to see a community of investors that are diverse and passionate and funded sufficient to be able to support that next generation of founders. And I wanna serve the LPs. I know for a lot of our LPs, they want diversification in their LP community in the same way that we want diversification in our portfolio.
Maxine Minter: And so, you know, it's a win-win by helping find amazing fund managers for those LPs. Even if we are or are not a fit.
Vlad Cazacu: And I think this may be a insight [00:43:00] that may be harder to adjust for certain people because of the lack of visibility on the LP market. I think you're coming from a perspective of there's plenty of efficiency and everybody's gonna find the right group of people to back that specific strategy, and there's plenty of capital to go around.
Vlad Cazacu: Whereas there may be this running theme of scarcity around, Twitter around some, Communities where people are feeling that the markets are not really moving. So it's encouraging to hear that you're seeing things a little bit differently in that perspective.
Maxine Minter: I think the key, the key thing I would pull out here is that there isn't enough liquidity to go around to fund all of the people in market.
Maxine Minter: That's a reality. And that is also the reality for most seed stage companies and pre-seed stage companies. I think the nuance here, and maybe this is the learning to be an operator and an investor in the Bay Area, is this abundance mindset and this long-term thinking. If in this moment I choose to be competitive only and only look out for my needs, and only look out for raising [00:44:00] my fund.
Maxine Minter: That means that I forget that I will be a infinite player in this game for the rest of my career, and if I prioritize and optimize just for this transaction, I probably will destroy a lot of value. For relationships and value created for my ecosystem that I care very deeply about. And so I think the reality is there is less at the table right now, right?
Maxine Minter: There are less LPs, there are now less funds. If you look at the data of new emerging managers in 2023 versus 2021, we've gone from 1100 net new. Funds in 2021 and 61 in 23, like the data speaks for itself. Less dollars are being deployed, less funds are being built. But I think the reality is this is a long-term game and taking the view as an infinite player, not a finite player is really important.
Vlad Cazacu: And I'll have to say that was an insight related to what I heard in a different podcast around your favorite [00:45:00] book of finite and infinite games, which I did purchase two days ago. But unfortunately, four, eight hours are not enough to read it so we may need to continue the conversation a different episode to dig a little bit deeper.
Vlad Cazacu: But I hear you fully around the perspective of long-term games. Because venture by itself, operating in those 10 year cycles, and as a result, you needing also a second fund to have some form of continuity. That usually starts in, let's call it year three or four, to start fundraising for it and be ready to deploy.
Vlad Cazacu: You have, by definition, to take this long-term perspective. And are you thinking about, let's say the abundance of new managers and new investors around late 2021, beginning of 2022, as non long-term oriented, or, fast forward 10 years from now, we may not see as many GPS as a result of that crazy period of about two years that we've seen.
Maxine Minter: Yeah, I think the reality, I [00:46:00] mean, funds perform in a power curve in the same way that the underlying portfolio we invest in perform in a power curve and the performance of the, bottom half of that, or actually in some vintages, the bottom 75% of that is not rational to continue to invest in.
Maxine Minter: Relative to other investment return profiles and liquid controlling for liquidity profiles. So the reality is that probably, if history is anything to learn from and the dynamics of the class, like probably the majority of those 1100 new funds in 22, sorry, in 21, and I think it was about 600 in 22, probably they won't have a fund two.
Maxine Minter: But there will be net new managers in 23 and then 24, which will step into that space, and then there will be a survivability percentage of that group as well. And that will be the case for the, 19 vintage and 18 vintage and 17 [00:47:00] vintage. And I think that is just the reality of this market.
Maxine Minter: I don't expect to see maybe 50 to 75% of those 2020 and 21 vintages raising. Fund two. And I'm definitely hearing that from LPs, for a lot of them they've, they overcommitted or are, fully saturated in their commitment to those vintages and don't plan to reinvest in fund two for those.
Maxine Minter: And I think that's a really unfortunate dynamic, but a reality of the market. That we all invest in. I think for us, we focus on making sure that we are that top decile, top quartile fund so that we earn the right to have fund two and then earn the right to have fund three and continue to move on.
Maxine Minter: And that dynamic is the same for the companies that we work for, right? They have to earn the right for that next generation of capital. And we are in exactly the same boat.
Vlad Cazacu: Do you think this has any impact on the founders that those gps are backing? Are you seeing in any way some reticence [00:48:00] on the founder side regarding accepting capital from first GPS regarding signaling or that track record of fund building?
Vlad Cazacu: Or will there ever be a fund two, will there be, additional capital reserve for follow on, maybe from an additional fund, add growth, et cetera? Are you seeing those implications at all on the other side of the market?
Maxine Minter: Yeah, I think that there'd be two things that I'd say there. The first is that as an ecosystem, I'm not sure we did ourselves any favors, call it from 2020 to 2023, where a lot of people in an attempt to win deals and just, be people pleasing, made promises that structurally they can't deliver on, right?
Maxine Minter: I think the promise of. Me as a fund manager, I will always be there. I will follow on every round. I am your advocate, bar none, and will follow that advocacy with dollars. Structurally, you can't make that promise as a fund manager and without adding in those, the layer of nuance or the caveats to that, I think [00:49:00] it.
Maxine Minter: What venture did accidentally is make a bunch of promises to founders that they couldn't follow on and then sorry that they couldn't keep. And then now when they're in a macro market where they're not able to follow on either because they can't raise fund two or because you know the company is not performing and so they're not able to in good faith and with reference to the fiduciary duties of their LPs, to their LPs, they can't make that follow on investment.
Maxine Minter: They are directly going against what they said when they, in an attempt to win the deal. And I hope that our collective learning as an ecosystem is the importance of, clarity as a kindness of what you can commit to, what you can promise and what you can't. And we as venture investors, can't promise dollars all the way up, right?
Maxine Minter: They just, we can't unequivocally make that promise. I think we are seeing that in the market, both for structural reasons, i e the GP can't raise fund two and therefore can't follow on, also be for fiduciary reasons. And so I think we have, we're collectively in industry as an [00:50:00] industry. Lost a little bit of the trust of founders.
Maxine Minter: I've, I meet a lot of founders that are pretty. You know, miffed about the last two years of interacting with VCs and feel let down and frustrated and as they're thinking about the next company that they might be building Considering not taking venture when in a previous ecosystem they probably would have considered taking venture.
Maxine Minter: So I think that's a net loss for us as an ecosystem. If the company that they're building now really was another kind of potential huge success and really impactful company for the world. I also think we're seeing it a little bit on the LP side. Again, that kind of desire to be people pleasing, promises to LPs on liquidity dynamics and when they would be looking to raise their next fund.
Maxine Minter: And I'm noticing people slow rolling their deployment periods because of the macro market. So they're trying to not raise fund two in the market waiting for it to recover. And I think it's creating an interesting bottleneck, kind of end of 23 and 24 for fund two raises and things. So I think it will be.
Maxine Minter: Similar to the portfolio companies we [00:51:00] support. My kind of hot take is I think we will see a similar level of pain in the emerging manager group. So funds one, two, and three coming into the middle of 23, here on out through 23, and then maybe the beginning of 24. But my hope is we'll start to see the recovery.
Maxine Minter: The green shoots of recovery come through in 24, and then we'll be back on the risk building cycle again, and then we will continue the saw tooth dynamic before we have our next correction, hopefully in 12 years.
Vlad Cazacu: Absolutely. I mean, any, any change in velocity, acceleration or deceleration, right? It's gonna have some ripple effects over the next couple of years as people are maybe a little bit more patient waiting or going, or everybody's going, et cetera.
Vlad Cazacu: And stabilize now be back where we started, as you mentioned, hopefully, 10, 12 years from now. Before we move into the rapid fire part of the interview that we usually end with, I would like to ask you a little bit more about CoVentures and, the plans for the futures. And I think it's a very interesting conversation with an emerging manager because some people may think what fund one and, [00:52:00] that's where a hundred percent of the attention is. And some people may think at some point the firm is gonna have to raise, fund two, fund three is gonna need to grow it's Human capital. How do you think about expanding CoVentures as a company about bringing additional partners, expanding the investment team, creating a platform function? What's on your mind right now about company building as you're coming to the end of the fund one
Maxine Minter: fundraise?
Maxine Minter: Yes. Nowhere near the end of fund one. Lots of work to do on the fund one still. I think venture fund building is the same as any other company building in many ways. I think it is really important both for bringing collaborators along the journey via, employees also, you know, LPs and VPs for us that I am really clear as the founder of what the vision is for this.
Maxine Minter: You know, I have a thesis on what. Is needed in the market and what I would like to build and also where I think the market will be in, 5, 10, 15 years as we continue on this journey. And for us, that [00:53:00] is, I think there is wide open space for someone, and it, in my opinion, it will be CoVentures to own pre-seed for Australian founders globally.
Maxine Minter: So building a place in market where we. Do successive funds investing just in pre-seed and focused on really supporting founders as they navigate that pre-seed journey. So the trajectory from a pre-seed company to a seed company, and what I mean there is pre-product, pre-revenue businesses and helping them get through to early pride market fit for them to be able to then transition into the seed stage.
Maxine Minter: What that means is, I think forever we will be a small fund, probably somewhere around the kind of 25 to $30 million size. So the business model that sits behind that has to reflect that it, I don't think it is reasonable to ever deploy, hundreds of millions of dollars into pre-seed for an Australian founder anywhere in the world.
Maxine Minter: And so, We likely will bring on a team member next year, so over the course of 24 to join our [00:54:00] fund one and then fund two, it might be another partner, it might be more team members. I think that remains to be seen as we continue to see growth over, and we can prove out this thesis for on fund one and think about how that might expand for fund two.
Maxine Minter: But I'm pretty clear that we are always gonna stay at pre-seed and kind of continue to compound in that value add. I have ideas about might, what might happen on the venture partner side and on the LP side, and how we can continue to add value to those communities and compound them for. Of the fund and the portfolio that we work for and how, if we do this correctly, covens will be the vehicle to compound incredible Australians doing things internationally.
Maxine Minter: So you can imagine if we do a great job of picking amazing companies and supporting them really well, those founders will then become our next generation of venture partners and next generation of LPs. And our VPs will become, for those of them that are already LPs, will increase their LP dynamic or their LP investment in us.
Maxine Minter: And then for those of them that [00:55:00] aren't yet, in a liquidity position to be, LPs will be able to join us. And so there's a kind of compounding benefit that happens with the fund as we go from fund one to fund two and fund three and beyond. So I have a pretty. Clear outline of where I think we can get to for fund two.
Maxine Minter: I think for fund three, predicting 15 years in the future is a fool's errand. And so I have an even fuzzier outline of what that looks like for fund three. And then fund four, gets progressively fuzzier as we go. But I have pretty clear conviction that I think there is wide open space to support at pre-seed and just pre-seed for Australian founders globally, you know, from here.
Maxine Minter: And it, that opportunity's gonna be there at least for the next decade, decade and a half.
Vlad Cazacu: And it's very commendable, the level of architecting around the fund thesis and as you mentioned all the compounding elements of it. And I think one of the key lessons here is that there's never, a moment where it's too early to start thinking about the next, and about architecting a real company because venture is not a one fund game whatsoever.
Maxine Minter: I think that's right. Yeah. I'm really hoping that we start to see more [00:56:00] entrepreneurialism in venture. Like I think for a while we have seen the kind of like generalist early stage leads rounds has three partners version, and I think there are so many other versions of. An investment fund or thesis or construction that could exist, and I'm excited to see this kind of next generation, especially emerging managers and micro funds come through really innovating on that business model and their fund thesis and the return profile they're able to deliver in line with that.
Vlad Cazacu: Absolutely. And it's only gonna compound with the new durations of founders. Building new companies and overall will lead to more economic growth and more innovation, which I think everybody's rooting for from different angles across the world. Absolutely. Um, just wanted to run a few rapid fire questions towards the end of it.
Vlad Cazacu: They're not necessarily business related to get a little bit more color around Maxine. And our first question is what is something that people don't know about you that you [00:57:00] feel should be more public and more people should be aware of that?
Maxine Minter: Oh, that's a good question. I have a pretty open book to be honest.
Maxine Minter: I mean, I think, um, I get best feedback a lot, even like on podcasts and things where like, wow, you really, you're really very open about everything. What do people dunno about, about me that they should, um,
Maxine Minter: I think one, one thing that pops to mind, I don't know if it's something that everyone should know about me, but one thing that pops to mind is I. I think the best place to think in the entire world is with your head in the ocean. And so I am a huge lover of ocean swimming. I Australia is a wonderful place to go ocean swimming 'cause the water is pristine.
Maxine Minter: And I have noticed, I do my best thinking with my feet on a Australian soil and my head in the Australian Ocean doing kind of laps of Bondi or laps along the coast in Australia. Maybe my controversial view is, I think the best place to think is when you cannot [00:58:00] be accessed in any way, shape, or form, and you're just with your mind staring at the bottom of the ocean for hours at a time.
Vlad Cazacu: It reminds me a little bit of the Bill Gates documentary around the thinking. W I dunno if you got the chance to see it, of him taking a week in the mountains. Yeah. With the, with the number of books. Just to be able to not be bothered, to be able to think. I think everybody's hoping that at some point they'll be able to do that on a consistent basis.
Vlad Cazacu: In your case would be
Yoshi.
Maxine Minter: I wish, actually, when I watched that documentary, I was so jealous of the thinking weeks. I was like, I cannot wait till I'm at the point in my career where I can step out and just like fully think for a full week. I also, um, sadly don't think I have the physical fitness to stay in the ocean for a week at a time.
Maxine Minter: I think I'd become puckered, start to be pickled almost from the salty ocean. But it would be quite beautiful to hang out there for a week. It's a beautiful place to spend time.
Vlad Cazacu: We may add a raft into the picture to help with the survivability for a whole week. [00:59:00] Yes. Yeah. Um, onto our second question or penultimate question of this episode, which is, who is someone that you've consistently looked up to over the years either as a guiding light in terms of a mentor or an aspirational figure?
Maxine Minter: A woman called Susan Rothwell, she doesn't have a big public profile. But the things that I think she, the reason I think about her a lot, and I think about her probably at least on a monthly basis and have been inspired by her since I was about 17 years old, and the things that I find most inspiring with her is that she is enormously generous with her mind.
Maxine Minter: And her money and her support, both kind of putting her money where her mouth is and her time, where her mouth is, but also her kind of verbal support and that hasn't changed for her anywhere along her success journey. She's [01:00:00] consistently generous and thoughtful in the way that she gives back to community.
Maxine Minter: I also, she the kind of range of ways. That she accelerates others. She's incredibly philanthropic into a whole bunch of different versions of philanthropy. Everything from institutional through to individual. And she supports in the arts, she supports in business. She supports in individual people as they are navigating important inflection points in their life.
Maxine Minter: And she does that all at the same time as having been a pioneer in her field. She was one of the first women. To be an architect in Australia and has continually advocated for a change in the demographics of who builds physical infrastructure from then until now, even in moments that were particularly inconvenient to be an advocate for that.
Maxine Minter: And I anchor back to the. Humbleness that she's able to bring to every single day. And also the acknowledgement and utilization [01:01:00] of the enormous position of privilege and leverage that she has for the betterment of the next successive generations in Australia. So she's probably the person that I think of as someone who has continued to be a shining light that I am inspired by, and I think about actually very frequently.
Vlad Cazacu: What a beautiful answer. Appreciate you sharing that with us, and I think it's a great segway into our final conversation, a longstanding transition at our company and previous companies and previous teams that we've been part of, which is ending any conversation with a point of gratitude. And reflecting back on your life and or career if you had unfortunate to pick only one, we had some pushback on on this requirement of the question in the past, a person that you would like to send a point of gratitude and say thank you to who that be and why.
Maxine Minter: Yeah, it's so hard to choose one. Who do I think about, uh, who jumps to mind for me? Aileen Lee at Cowboy when I [01:02:00] was at Stanford, I. Was auditing a bunch of subjects in the G S B, which means that I was sitting in the back quietly listening to a subject, without necessarily permission to be in that room or kinda, I wasn't doing a course there, but professor was kind enough to kinda let me sit in the back and quietly listen along to what was going on.
Maxine Minter: And I went to a class where Aile was presenting about her investment journey. And talking quite candidly about what that journey had been like, talking quite candidly about how she had made the decision to invest some of the trade-offs she had made some of the hard decisions, some of the successful decisions she'd made, and that was my spark into being an investor.
Maxine Minter: And I am enormously grateful. I. I reflect back, she was in a similar point in her career of a kind of transition out of a big fund into building her own thing. And now I can, Ima only imagine the number of directions she was being pulled at that at any one moment. And I'm enormously grateful that she took the half an hour to [01:03:00] come and talk to our class.
Maxine Minter: And To get the benefit to hear her speak about that. And I think about that presentation that she did a lot in terms of taking courage from it, taking inspiration from it. And so just very grateful for that contribution of time and the inspiration that she continues to provide. That was just one moment, but if you look across her career, the level of support and high leverage.
Maxine Minter: Impact she's had on the Bay Area ecosystem and through that, the whole world I think is huge.
Vlad Cazacu: I hope, uh, there's gonna be some people who are gonna think the same about this episode. I certainly do think so. Incredibly grateful for you joining us and having this intellectual conversation about the markets, about building a new fund, sharing part of your story, and hopefully inspire other people to join your footsteps and create their own thesis and attack their own part of the venture ecosystem. I cannot thank you enough for taking this time to share your journey with us, and I certainly do hope that we're gonna get You back to [01:04:00] discuss fund two and then you'll have a second chance of picking a person to say thank you to.
Vlad Cazacu: So there's always a next chance.
Maxine Minter: That's a wonderful incentive to get fund two put away so that I can come back and be like, and these other people that I'm really grateful to. 'cause the list is very, very long including to you. Thank you so much for having me on. This has been really wonderful and looking forward to chatting again.
Vlad Cazacu: What a great conversation! If you enjoyed it, make sure to like and subscribe to our podcast and be on the lookout for a new episode in two weeks, featuring another amazing fund manager and their story.
Vlad Cazacu: This podcast was made possible by Flowlie. If you are a fund manager, angel investor, family office, or syndicate lead who receives a lot of deals or simply once help sorting through the noise, create a free account today on Flowlie at flowlie.com, that's FLOWLIE.com, and get access to an AI assisted deal screening engine and network manager that will dramatically improve how you work. Are you ready to take your investing journey to the [01:05:00] next level and join hundreds of investors across the globe who use the platform every single day?
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Vlad Cazacu: That's it for today's episode. See you next time.