Julian: Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have Ashley Aydin, Principal of VamosVentures, a Los Angeles based venture capital fund, investing in diverse teams in the earliest stages across health and wellness, commerce, FinTech, future of work and sustainability.

Ashley, I'm so excited to have you on the show. As I, as we were chatting before the show, You know, it's not our, our typical guest type, but we've had individuals like yourself in here to really just kind of, uncover some of the, the current landscape of investing, kind of how companies are evaluating other, or excuse me venture companies are, are evaluating startups and kind of that whole experience.

And also I'm excited because as a Latino myself, I'm really in invested in helping kind of. And really I guess give more access to opportunity to a lot of individuals who come from a similar background and are looking to either start a company or look for resources or, or, you know, help. And, and so I'm really excited to to chat with you.

But before we get into all of that, what were you doing before you started of VamosVentures? .  

Ashley: Yeah. And, and thanks for having me. What you're doing is awesome on this show. So, big fan . Before VamosVentures, I did a few different things. I often like to say you know, the, the most interesting people do a lot of zigzags, right?

especially in front of Adventure world. And so, before VamosVentures I was working, so after I went to Brown University for, for undergrad, yeah. Did a lot of. Entrepreneurial venture stuff there. That was sort of my first exposure into this whole entire space. I was part of the Brown Entrepreneurship program launched an organization called Lady Launchers while on campus that was focused on getting more women into founding companies in the venture world.

But after that you know, because I was first generation college student, my parents. You know, dropped out at young ages from the school system said to myself, let me get a baseline understanding a big brand name of the FI in the finance world. And that was when I went to Morgan Stanley and did capital markets where I was covering all these public consumer equities.

You know, your companies like Shake Shack, et cetera. And really got to know what you know, moved the markets, what management teams cared about. A lot of storytelling behind the companies as well. Mm-hmm. . And then after that, after two years, I was like, ah, finance is really not my thing. I do really like this startup hustle.

Yeah. And I had been reading about startup out of YC called shops.com, at the shop@thetimeshops.com was very high flying. It was basically building digital storefronts for mom and shop mom and pop shops. Yeah. And so, you know, think of an Amazon meets far-fetched type of business model.

Yeah. And so did everything there from business development to sales. I was on phones trying to sell this product to, you know, these mom and pop boutiques. And very much learned all the in and outs of early stage company building and culture and, you know, had to rally teams. And it was a wonderful experience on all of those things. Startup life.  

And then after that I went to go back into corporate world to really figure out how these larger companies think about technology. Mm-hmm. buy or build where I was at the intersection of the consumer and, you know, some of these technologies, meaning Buyline pickup in store, omnichannel initiatives, virtual beauty at Estee Lauder and Sax fifth Avenue.

Again, really trying to figure out how can we put technology in front of the consumer to then interact with. And that they wanna buy, which is really, really interesting. And in the early days of all that stuff and then I went to business school and that's when I started thinking to myself, what's a really great.

Combination of everything that I've done from my finance to operating experience, like more strategy, experience, and I said venture capital with this thematic investigative way of thinking and investing. And you still get the finance stuff, you still get, you know, the, the people side of things and you're really working with the best and the brightest.

You know, these innovators that are really gonna disrupt these different verticals. And that was really, really interesting to me. So I worked for a few different funds, but ended up meeting Marcos Gonzalez who is the founder of VamosVentures. And, you know, started having an impact orientation and mindset.

Yeah. Because I started seeing all of these discrepancies and these terrible numbers and the funding that goes to Latinx and diverse founders. Yeah. And even that there weren't many capital allocators who identified. Right, right. And so I wanted to contribute. Bettering those numbers and joined by most ventures and we, you mentioned it, but you know, we are very much focused on investing in Latinx and diverse founders at the earliest stages in future of work, FinTech, sustainability and, and health and wellness.

So here I am, I've been at the fund for a little over a year and a half now, and we're in our fund one. We're going to raise our second fund, hopefully doubling, if not tripling, if not quadrupling the impact. And so this is everything that matters to me.  

Julian: Yeah. There's so many questions that just flood my head.

But I guess one thing just right off the bat is, is what goes into raising a fund. I don't think a lot of us know kind of how venture companies go out and about and raise a fund to then invest in other companies. What is that process like and what are the what are the measurables to that? Is it a certain amount of investors?

Is it a certain dollar amount? And then how do you kind of use that then to, to start evaluating companies?  

Ashley: Absolutely it is. Being on the founder side, I like to say as well, so we have that experience of like, you really gotta hustle, you really gotta find the early believers and you know, you're building something very much as you're doing with the startup.

And so, you know, for, for Marcos who really led that initiative and effort for fund one, it was him developing a lot of relationships over time with those early believers. And the early believers are folks that do think that there's huge opportunity in us going, you know, focusing on Latinx and diverse founders.

Yeah. If the early believers believe that a diverse emerging manager like Marcos can accomplish outsize returns while still having impact, right? Yeah. And you sort of need a lot of innovation and thought leadership on that side to believe in a fund like fund. Most ventures, I think, more limited partners, right?

Investors in our fund should be like that because there's just a huge opportunity there. And so that's sort of the process. It's developing those relationships over years and years. You know, getting them to align to the vision and hopefully they already have that vision of where the world's going and some of these demographic changes that we're seeing in the country.

You know, changes in the technological landscape and founder profiles, right? Mm-hmm. , and that there is again, a lot of opportunity and outsized returns in investing in diverse founding teams, right? Yeah. And that's what the face of the country's gonna look like over the next several years. And so that's, that's number one.

Number two is, you know, then going out, you know, let's say you successfully raise a fund, you have a target. You know, we actually over-subscribed with our 50 million dollars. I think the amazing original target was 25 million. And Wow. That just shows as much momentum right. Was was in this. Yeah. And so once we get that capital and we have

partners on our own cap table, if you will. It's then going out and executing on the investment side and finding these amazing founders to then invest in mm-hmm. . And so that's thinking about portfolio allocation and strategy. So, you know, we're probably gonna invest in total and maybe 30 to 32 companies out of this fund.

Mm-hmm. . And we, you know, did a lot of exercises in the early days of like, now we have the capital, how are we going to efficiently and effectively allocate it and make impact at the same time? And so that's why we bucketed. our investible dollars in four different areas. So we mentioned sustainability, future of work, health and wellness, FinTech.

And so each of those buckets has a certain allocation. Mm-hmm. . And then within that, We say, okay, well how much is early stage? How much is leader stage, early stage? Meaning, you know, pree to series A leader stage meaning post series A and how many dollars, you know, go to those different buckets. And then, you know, our thesis is investing in these Latinx and diverse founders.

And so how do we source and find those types of founders who are building within these respective buckets to then deploy capital to, and that's very relationship driven. Right. It's Ashley going out there and being present and, you know, and caring. Because this is my background too, and this stuff matters to me.

Yeah. And so being attached to the culture, being attached to the community you know, talking within other investors all the time, seeing what the pulse is getting, you know, other great founders from the founders that we've invested in and that we know in our networks. And so it's just this constant hustle.

And then finding what Squi, VamosVentures is when we deploy that capital is finding founder. Who are a perfect fit from an alignment perspective. Yeah. Meaning like, this is the stuff that we're doing really matters to them. Mm-hmm. , it's strategic for them. And that we could also be helpful on our side with them growing and building and scaling their businesses. So hopefully that's helpful.  

Julian: Yeah. No, it, it really kind of, systematically orients my mind into how the process works. And, and I definitely wanna talk about, I think the, the overall, I, I have my hypothesis about investing in and, and founders and, and diverse backgrounds. But just to you know, kind of, I guess, close the loop on, on the mechanics of it.

Do most funds go through different series of rounds where they collect kind of a group of investors kind of raise a fund amount and then distribute the revenue? And then when or, or is there a point where the revenue generated from the investments start to. Going to say a pool that, that then redistributes into newer investments.

When does that transition happen for most types of companies?

Ashley: Yeah, sure. Yeah. There's a long life cycle of, of funds. Yeah. So, you know, typically, I think LPs have sort of a, a long-term time horizon when they invest in venture capital, right? That's the risk award, which that's, that's the profile, right?

You're investing in very early stage businesses that, you know, hopefully will exit and. Exit in a very big way and like, you know, let's call it seven to 10 years, right? Yeah. Yeah. And that's when the return sort of hit. And so the way the fund works is, of course, we have to return capital to our LPs. And then there's the carry component where, you know, the general partnership gets some of that carry, right?

And then, you know, even some of the team. And so we're incentivized by that, right? To find literally the best and brightest and most innovative founders. That can then go out and build unicorns or, you know, scale and exit unicorns. And so that's sort of how distribution works in the mechanics behind the fund.

Yeah. And the way that that's structured again, is because, It's incentivizing us to then, you know, go and, and find these best companies that will return capital to LPs. But you know, very much from an impact perspective, there's two different camps, right? And we're strong believers in that. Again, you could have impact and these outsized returns, but there's another camp that says impact kind of fluffy.

Like, what is that? And, you know, do, does it really matter? And, you know, are you sure that you can get outsize returns focused on, you know, XYZ type things that are more impactful? Again, we're, we're very, very keen on, on that. It's, it's true returns and, and impact. Yeah.  

Julian: Yeah. And what is it like, I guess obviously I think, you know, access to more funding gives us more diverse amount of products and services and things that are kind of in momentum in, in the world.

But I guess outside of that, , what is the benefit , of investing in a community? Say Underinvested in Latinx founders, , what will we see, I guess, beneficiary , as a community , of people, professionals, even just like citizens , with more investment into these populations or these communities of people who are underrepresented?

Ashley: Yeah. There's a few different things and you know, when we talk about what, what impact means to us, it's not only diversity, right? Mm-hmm. . You know, diverse founding teams and you know, there's a bunch of stats on how diverse founding teams do, perform better, and even from a public company's perspective, right?

Diverse management teams tend to outperform non-diverse teams, but it's also creating wealth to then distribute, distribute back into the community. So you are firm believers in that wealth equity and agency you created for founders and teams and communities. Then, you know, yield, right? Social mobility and job creation and funding into you know, vehicles like VamosVentures into other companies, right?

Founded by diverse founding teams. It's that there's a cultural competency component too, from a product and consumer perspective, and that, you know, Latinx and diverse founders. Maybe some of our experiences as consumers, you know, it is unique and so how can we inform better product builds? How can we inform some of these companies Yeah.

You know, to build better solutions that are more culturally competent. I mean, an example is in the health and wellness space, right? That I cover in that for a lot of black and brown families, you know, it isn't just one person going through a health issue. It's. It's the whole entire family. Right, right.

Even in aging and stuff like that. And so just having that cultural you know, knowledge and awareness and so, you know, that's why we have such a big bet here. It's that diverse teams outperform. It's that, you know, by funding these winners, right, that it could then go, capital can then go into and create wealth for individuals to then funnel back into these communities.

Yeah. It's building community, it's building better and more culturally aware product and solutions. And so, it's really, you know, it's, it's a big task. Yeah. But it's necessary. And that's why I think, you know, not only VamosVentures, by the way, is doing this type of stuff. There's a bunch of wonderful funds that have popped up in the last several years that are contributing to this.

And it's much needed because there were such white space for so long and no focus on this.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. How, how can a, you know, diverse founder, founder coming from a diverse back. Utilize not only their, their experience, but also communicate in, in, in, in a way that really is attractive to, like companies like Vao Ventures, funds like FAO Ventures better than, I guess maybe they, they were previously.

Now that we have access to all these funds, I'm sure that there are ways that you can think of they can self-promote and, and also improve the. Is that accelerated groups and then going to funds, is that sharpening stories? Where can they go and what can they do as founders to better get the access that, that they're looking for into funds and resources?

Ashley: Yeah. There, there's a few different things and you know, I think especially with Latinx and diverse founders, what I find. and, and this is probably within myself too, being in the, in the venture capital space, there's such this imposter syndrome of like, am I good enough? I got here. Like, where do I go from here?

You know, can I build a unicorn? And the answer is, Absolutely freaking yes. You know, you can, and it's, it's in a lot of our bloods to, you know, surviving right, and hustling and building big things and being creative and being passionate. And so, you know, I think that goes well into storytelling, which is own your story and where you come from and everything that makes you unique in your background to what you're building.

Yeah. You know, I think the most powerful pitches that we see are from folks that have intimate. You know, personal and work experience that they then say, okay, wait, there's something wrong here that I need to build upon. And then they go out to build a company. Right? And you know, it's just because of that experience that makes their approach so unique.

The other thing is really painting a big picture on the market, right? VCs. are you know, notorious for going really deep on market sizing and how big is this market and can this, again, get to a unicorn type level company you know, how many people would want this. And so you really need to paint a really big picture there.

And that, you know, that that's also on vision. Like this will become a multi-billion dollar business. Yeah. Right, right. And believing. And then, you know, the other, the other few things are competition and landscape and you know, the, the uniqueness and value prop. So on the competition and landscape, it's very much, you know, this is where the white space is.

This is how we're tackling uniquely, right? That's the value prop. And, and finally I will say team, right? Painting a great picture on the team of why there's relevant experiences, how you're building, you know, a really great passion. A group around you that is really keen on the product and or solution that you're building.

Yeah. That you do have diversity and that you're mindful of it. And and yeah. So I think those are like the different components. I think within all of that though, you can see a theme of like, really great storytelling and pitching that larger vision.  

Julian: Yeah. What, what would you say is one of the most compelling I guess, pieces of evidence that a company could come with to, to promote themselves or, or to kind of go into a, a negotiation with a venture company? Is that the amount of users, is the, the projected profit and revenue targets is it how they're tackling their total adjustable market?

What in particular is, is probably the most compelling you see from the venture side that you would love for a company to come with, to kind of strengthen their not, not their argument, but, but their. I, I guess advo help them advocate for themselves.  

Ashley: Yeah, it, it's a great question. You know, and it's also difficult question cuz at the earliest stages, you know, how much traction do you actually have?

We see some companies with maybe a pipeline, right. Of users and that shows that there's momentum building. To your point, there's other companies that are pretty early on that have, you know, a hundred K in, in revenues, right? A month. Yeah. And so I think, you know, when we think about pre-seed and to series.

Especially for the pre-seed and se seed c. That product market fit anything directionally that shows that and that there's stickiness with the solution. Mm-hmm. , I think that's good enough. Right? And that could mean a pipeline of customers or a wait list. That could mean an loi, right. From a, a business partner.

That could mean. That you've built and iterated on product, right? And you finally got it to a point where you're about to launch, but at least there's some sort of product build there, right? And then when you get to later stage companies, let's say series A and beyond, although, you know, series A is still pretty early then you start getting more deep into the numbers and the revenue and the customer acquisition and the ltv and.

You know, all the metrics, the margins that, that come along, right? With building these types of companies or certain types of companies. And that's where investors are like, well, you know, how much in revenues are, are you doing? Or like, how much is it costing you to acquire customers? How long are they saying on your platform?

Right? Yeah. That's when those questions start coming up. But I think this question's vary and answer is very important for the earliest stage founders. Cause I often get it. Ashley, what are you looking for At the earliest stages? Yeah. Cause we really don't have much to show for things. Right. And I often say, listen, as long as you can directionally show that there's product market fit and or that there's momentum building in what you're doing, that's, that's good enough.

Julian: Yeah. And what, what would you say are some of the, in your experience in particular are, are some of the, the biggest reasons that you won't work with the company? Is it that they don't align in terms of mission? Is it, they haven't kind of said what, or, or, or I guess, accomplished what you said previously, which is a directional kind of move toward a product market fit.

What are some of the most reasons that you, you you know, don't accept companies or work with companies? And then I guess globally, why, why are, are some companies not being, you know, worked with, with. Other firms?  

Ashley: It, it's a few different things. I think on from Obama's ventures lens, it's, you know, usually times like the market, is this market big enough?

Mm-hmm. , you know, again, is there sort of, stickiness, does it relate to the mission that we have? I think to your point, alignment also probably the. The other big thing like do these founders see oral that we see? Yeah. Are they aligned from a mission perspective? Like does board things like board diversity matter to them, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Do do they have a pure and genuine interest in connecting to the Latino and diverse communities? Right. When, again, just going back to the healthcare example, cause that's where I what I cover. If there's a healthcare company that's focused on better care delivery. , right? Yeah. Are they intentional about how they market to black and brown communities?

Like do they want to go to those types of communities? Do they wanna engage with those types of patients, right? Yeah. And build around their experiences and get more informed about them, and then that's why they're engaging with the strategic like ventures to better understand how to, right. So it's a bunch of those different things.

So market size you know, and landscape alignment. And then, you know, generally we're, we're very mindful of our different thesis areas. So yeah, for. . In FinTech we're very keen on empowering small and medium sized businesses to scale and operate efficiently. Right? Yeah. If there's a company that maybe doesn't touch that, like let's say, , I don't know, crypto web three, that's just outside the box for Ramos Ventures.

We're unfortunately not going to invest in it cuz it's not aligned to sort of our thesis in health and wellness. We're very much focused on affordability and access, right? In future of work it's about empowering the gig worker and upskilling and re-skilling. And then finally on sustainability, it's very much, you know, clean and.

and mindful supply chain and, and clean technology. And so, yeah. You know, if things don't fit in those scopes, I think it's a little harder to make the case at Homeless Ventures now generally why companies are, I think being passed on is, you know, is I think just that which is founder VC fit, so to speak.

Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And I often tell founders I do help a lot of founders outside of VamosVentures fundraise just because I wanna see them succeed. I often say choose your cap table wisely. And fundraising is a long game and it's a full-time job. And so you wanna go into fundraising with the mindset of, let me make a CRM of investors that I know one, care about what I'm building.

You know, have a thesis around it. Have invested in not like competitive companies, but similar companies, right. Like similar missions so that I don't waste my time and I'm a healthcare founder. You know, going to a generalist fund that you know is like, ugh, maybe I have 2% allocation to healthcare. Right?

So being mindful of who you're having conversations with.  

Julian: Yeah. I have two questions here, and I'm trying to, I'm, I'm debating on which one to start with, but I guess, I guess I'll go with the easier question kind of in line with what you're talking about, . You mentioned that certain areas in particular for VamosVentures, you're focusing on with small, medium businesses, at least in the FinTech space.

What within the spaces, the four spaces that you're working within, do you feel like just for fun has the most potential kind of addressable market and has the most need in terms of innovation or, or, or in, in influx of technology or, or interjection of technology? Which one of those four areas, in your opinion, are you like, I think this has the most area for opportunity?

Ashley: in my humble opinion, and hopefully no one at VamosVentures hates me for saying this cuz I cover healthcare in FinTech. It's in the healthcare space largely. There's so much innovation needed. And in particular the aging space. I mean, I can't tell you, I just went through a bunch of stuff with my grandmother in trying to get better care for her.

I mean, unfortunately, she, you know, Broke her wrists and she has very bad bones and it was hard to navigate. Right. An accident. Yeah. And so I'm like, holy, you know, blank this, this experience is very, very fragmented. It's full of friction. You know, we had to talk to a multitude of people to get care for her and to figure out what's next after this terrible fall.

What the rest of her life is gonna look like, right. With care, with, with food delivery, with you know, everything else that comes with that. And so I think the aging space, not only from an experiences and like care context, but even as we go deeper into like, what does death care look like, right?

What does engaging with the family through all of these stages of. Look like, right? Yeah. Again, extremely fragmented experience. A lot of different technologies not speaking to each other. I think that area is, and then, you know, we have a big and growing elder care demographic in the United States, and you know, frankly, we're not caring for them in the right ways.

Right? Not only from a health and wellness perspective, even from a financial wellness perspective. Yeah. And so I just think that whole entire area is ripe for disruption. Yeah. And that's something that we're very keen on looking at at VamosVentures. Particularly with aging is how to better care for our elder ones.

And how to also like personalize medicine and even care for them in the home. Things like that, that we find extremely interesting that, you know, we're trying to go out there and talk to founders and figure out what types of business models right make most sense. But I think that general landscape again, it's right for disruption and something that we're probably gonna do an X investment.

Julian: Yeah, I mean, I, I, there's a few founders that have been on the podcast who are working within that space, and not even just the elderly care or, but just within health and wellness in particular. And it's crazy to kind of discuss how much disruption is needed, how much technology can really improve processes, how much it can improve costs, and, and overall experience.

So yeah, I'm a bit, I'm in a similar boat. I think, you know, that, that industry as well. It needs, you know, a huge you know, huge boost in terms of technology and innovation. I guess from a, you know, from a founder's perspective working with the principal, there's not really a lot discussed about kind of that whole relationship.

not that I've seen a lot or, or, you know, I've heard only anecdotally. But how, how is the process of working with the founder for you? Do you obviously you start a conversation, how, how engaged and intimate is the relationship and, and also how much how, how much a founder be aware of the day-to-day functions of, of a principal's responsibility to best kind of manage their expectations from there.

Ashley: Yeah, and you know, maybe some investors are gonna disagree with me here, but I'm an advocate for the founder, so I will take the founder hat here and say, founders, please choose your investors wisely and make sure that, you know, of course you're not gonna know everything, right. And so that's why strategic capital and venture capital and you know, hopefully getting a capital to scale fast makes sense.

But you don't want someone to just try to control your company and, you know, give you direction when maybe it's not so welcomed and you know, the industry and the problem best. Right. And so that brings me to my point of what we try to do at VamosVentures is, is be there when needed and be, you know, a, a listener.

Yeah. And support where we can. And, you know, I, with all my companies, I try to meet with 'em, if not two times a month, at least once a month. Just checking in how. Personally. Yeah. , you know, family wellbeing is big, right? Yeah. How are you mentally? How are you personally? Two, what are the big major updates?

Although, you know, we get investor updates all the time and so we, we anticipate some of these questions and comments and whatnot. Right? You know, how, how's the company doing? What do you need help with? Is it connections to other investors? Is it, you know, a potential partnership opportunity introduction.

Yeah. Business development opportunity. Some research on a consumer profile. Is it connected with other founders to see how they went about going, doing these things, right? Mm-hmm. , is it, you know, being connected to thought leadership within the Latinx and diverse communities on healthcare and how they think about healthcare and policy and all that fun stuff, right?

And so, and then, you know, also is operationally like, can we help, like how to set up admin and all those other things, right? Yeah. And so, those are how we structure the conversations. And then of course we add perspective and Oh, maybe you should do things this way or like, you know, I have a thought here, or, and that's helpful to founders, right?

But I think where we draw the line is like, we're not trying to control the business or Right. You know, push it in one direction. I do see that happen with founders from time to time and I just, I'm not of that camp and of that belief, I do think. A lot of times, right. Most of the times founders, they know their businesses the best.

They're, that's, that's their baby, right? Yeah. And so, so that's how we work with founders and check in with 'em. And then, you know, outside of that, we're building something at Venmos Ventures, which is a true platform. And that is everything from, you know, right now a notion. A massive notion page with multiple subpages that focus on things like how to build a CRM of investors when you fundraise, how to go about go to market.

Yeah. Here are some partners that we have discounts with. Right. On, on the tech stack that you could build and scale your companies with. Yeah. So it's very much a lot of that stuff to you behind the scenes.  

Julian: Yeah. This is a selfish question, but for, for the companies that are being built now, are you seeing them built in a new style of technology?

And let, let me. Take take a step back here. I've seen a huge influx in say no-code platforms being increasingly more used. Things like bubble io. Mm-hmm. is now pretty much bringing everything, no code of the backend in terms of plugging APIs. Yep. Bringing things up to kind of a really modern but quick and efficient um, speed.

Are you seeing a, a kind of trend in, in movement towards no-code technologies or anything else in particular that people are working with to. Kind of, whether it's decreasing costs or increased speed start to be more effective when building their company or building their product or technology.

Ashley: Absolutely. Exactly what you just said and you know that that's the larger point of building these technologies more efficiently. Yeah. And really doubling down on that end consumer and understanding and moving quickly, right. With that iteration. Yeah. And so that, you know, you, you make a wonderful point and I'm extremely align there.

That's exactly what, what I've been seeing. And then, you know, just putting sort of my health and wellness hat back. It is leveraging those types of platforms you know, again, at the baseline, give the consumer what they want, get informed on that build and what their feedback is and then, you know, funnel it back into that consumer experience.

Yeah. And then maybe, maybe eventually go out and, and build their own things, right. The, their own technology stuff. But I do think that that's the way the world's working and how a lot of founders approach building these types of tech stacks and, and these companies. So, you know, and, and that's great on the cost point too, because in this market, right, what we wanna see, , can you build in scrappy ways?

Can you leverage technology in efficient ways to, you know, cost cut, right. You know, how are you conserving cash just generally right outside of the tech stack. Yeah. How are you being more mindful of these ebbs and flows of the market? Right. It's a very rocky time. Right, right. And how are you thinking about staff and, you know, headcount and, and all that fun stuff.

Mm-hmm. That all, that's all within that question.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm curious, and it's kind of like a long-term question but it's a long-term reflection, I would say. We went through the pandemic and we're kind of out of it now. We're in the midst. Arguably some argued in a recession now.

And a lot of the, the commentary coming out is like, you know, venture capital is, has less money or is funding less money or taken more of a loss from, from the other side of the aisle. I disagree. I feel that companies are just being more strategic and smart about where they're allocating their resources and are looking for different characteristics within companies Now.

You know, hyper-growth. What's your, how many users do you have and how can you turn that into revenue versus companies who actually have active revenue. But what have you seen, what has the change pre pandemic, and then kind of during this recession time, are venture capital losing money? Are they re allocating them? What's the strategy difference from prior to now?  

Ashley: Yeah. I think I'm aligned with your point. There's a lot of doom and gloom out there, right? That's the general commentary, but I think what we need to refocus on is the digital economy has grown at twice the rate of the overall US economy since 2000.

Right. And technology is embedded in everything we do. Right? Yeah. You know, I think venture capital too has grown and there's a lot of dry powder out there. Yeah. Waiting to be deployed. Are we going to be more careful with that deployment? Absolutely. Right. Just given the general market dynamics, but there's dry par powder and dollars out there to fund these rounds.

Right. I do think you know, to your other point that there has been a reset and there has been, you know, maybe 18 months ago, a pre-product, pre-revenue company could raise at a hundred million post money valuation. Right. But we're not in Mala land anymore right now. We wanna see real business fundamentals and that, you know, although I know.

And feel very strongly that storytelling's really important from a founder perspective. It's not just the storytelling that you have to back that up with real, again, engagement, real KPIs, real product. Yeah. But and so that's where I think the reset has been. But generally I'm really optimistic on the market.

Yeah. I still think, again, there's a lot of dry powder out there. I think that technology is getting bigger and better. Yeah. And again, it's embedded in everything we do and it's not going away anytime soon. Yeah. There's a lot of momentum and tailwinds.  

Julian: Yeah. What's particularly hard about your job?  

Ashley: What's particularly hard about my job, that's a wonderful question. What's hard about my job, especially given the type of fund that I'm at, is saying no. Yeah, and I wish we could at VamosVentures say yes to most of the companies that we see, but unfortunately that's not the case. We have a limited amount of dollars to deploy and we wanna make big bets in those.

Companies. And so, you know, for the struggling Latina founder, building a wonderful FinTech that maybe is a little too early for where VamosVentures, you know, would, would like to be, that's such a hard conversation and know to make, right? Because I, I believe in this person and I think that they could do it.

But it's just that we, again, from a strategic standpoint, we can't get there at that point in time. Yeah. You know what, I've tried to, how I tried to sort of soften that and, and that feeling. , let me still be helpful because this still matters to me, right? Yeah. Although Volvo Ventures can invest at this stage, Let me go out of my way and introduce this founder.

Yeah. To maybe Moree or Angel or strategic types of investors at this point in time where they could get the dollars, or maybe it's an I introduced 'em to an accelerator. Right, right. Or yeah. Or some sort of, you know, maybe non-diluted funding and grants that they could leverage. Right. And maybe I could help them with more of their fundraising and their storytelling and their pitch building.

Right. Yeah. And then keep that door. , so that comes Seed series A, right? We could reengage and hopefully they're really successful and, you know, I could be helpful until then. So that's the hardest part of my job. And, you know, I, I often have to do that in the seat and, you know, I, I can only imagine being on the other side and get so many nos.

Like, this game is just resistance. And, you know, and climbing up that mountain, it's the stone cutters credo. It's like knocking at the stone until it, you know, until it. Right. Yeah. And that's what this is all about. And I can only imagine being on that other side and getting a hundred nos before that one.

Yes. But you know, that it, it happens, right? It, it does happen. And so, yeah. So hopefully that answers the question.  

Julian: Yeah, it definitely does. always like to ask this as a, a light curveball, but if you weren't working on VamosVentures, what would you be working?  

Ashley: I would probably be working on an aging platform, you know? Yeah. Talking about personalized medicine and the aging experience. Yeah. And aging in place and making those folks comfortable. Probably something building in that vertical. Yeah. You know, I'm seeing so many different business models and I'm developing perspective as to where there's white space and I.

Share any secret sauce. You know, you can contact me separately if you do wanna talk about it. But I think that's what I would be doing. I, I, I do love building and the beauty about being at Bamo Ventures is I get both the building side and the venture side, the building side in that, We're early, we're our fund, we're in our fund.

One, we're going out to a fundraise for our fund two. And you know, I've helped in building the processes yeah, building a lot of the backend, building a lot of what does platform and value added mean at Bao Ventures. At the same time investing in awesome companies, right? And so I'm getting best of both worlds right now and I'm really happy about that.

But yeah, I would probably be on the founder side if I wasn't doing this.  

Julian: Yeah, , that's awesome to hear. I would like to ask this next question for my audience, but also for selfish research. Whether it was early in your career or now, what books or people have influenced you the most?

Ashley: Hmm. Well my parents, cause I just saw them like hustle and, you know, my dad was very influential, I think, you know, as a woman in this space. You know, you should take on the mindset that like, I, I can do anything. And having a support system behind you is really important. And my parents were always that, and in particular my dad was like, you know, you could be the CEO on TV one day.

So yeah, , kudos to him for, for just giving me that mindset from an early age. I think from an entrepreneurial lens, I always talk about Sarah Blakely at Spanx. I think she's a wonderful. Entrepreneur in not only the billion dollar business that she created, but she's very humble and she still is in the weeds.

Of the company asking customers, how can I improve this product? Right. Yeah. And you sometimes don't see that from co founders who have, you know, built and built and have become really successful. And then in terms of a book, alpha Girls is a really wonderful book. It's about the earliest women venture capitalists and what they had to go through and yeah, the successes and trials and tribulations that they had early on on in their careers.

And I read that book and I was like, There's been a lot of change since they were venture capital last year since, you know, they started out their careers, but there still needs to be a lot of change in this, yeah. In this landscape. So, so yeah, those are the three things.  

Julian: I love that, and, and I'm so excited to share kind of the, I love sharing and asking that question because it's such a diverse group of, of knowledge and it really, I think speaks to the mindset of, of how to not only develop it, but also to foster it with the different pieces of information.

So, Ashley, I know we're, I know we're at time here and I think we could talk, I think time and time again and hours on, on what the future of investment looks like and what diversity's really gonna do in terms of its impact. But unfortunately, we're at, we're at the close here, but we'll have to do around two, one.

I always like to give my guests a chance to give us your plugs. So, where can we, you know, be a fan of the companies you're investing in? A fan of VamosVentures. What's your LinkedIns, your Twitters, your Discords? Whatever you have. Let let the audience know where we can find you.  

Ashley: Yeah, absolutely. So, anything VamosVentures, vamosventures.com, please follow us on LinkedIn, on Instagram. We also have Twitter, and then me personally, listen, I'm always willing to talk to folks, so you can directly email me at ashley@vamosventures.com. Also, find me on LinkedIn. I check LinkedIn often and really post, you know, a lot of relevant content for founders and resources and opportunities. So, yeah, catch me on any of those.  

Julian: Amazing. Ashley, I really hope you enjoyed your time and thank you so much for joining the podcast today.  

Ashley: Thank you for having me.  

Julian: Of course.