$1.3B AUM Venture Fund: Making Profits From Your Purpose

Hey, welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I'm your host, Ryan Miller and today I have my dear friend Ron Levin.

Ron is the managing partner of Alumni Ventures, a $1.3 billion venture fund that was recently ranked as the most active VC firm in the US. Ron has been an angel investor, unicorn founder and McKinsey consultant with degrees from Babson, College and Harvard.

So what this means is that Ron is changing the game in the US by showing people that capitalism 2.0 is not only possible, it's crucial. And he's about to teach us all a masterclass on VC, entrepreneurship and current markets.

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[THE GUEST]: Ron is the managing partner of Alumni Ventures, a $1.3 billion venture fund that was recently ranked as the most active VC firm in the US. Ron has been an angel investor, unicorn founder

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• 18:09 (Cont.) $1.3B AUM Venture Fund: Making Profits From Your Purpose

Transcript

Ryan Miller  

My name is Ryan Miller and for the past 15 years have helped hundreds of people to raise millions of dollars for their funds, and for their startups. If you're serious about raising money, launching your business or taking your life to the next level, this show will give you the answers, so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of Making Billions. Let's get into it. 

Ryan Miller  

Make money at all costs, I remember when that was the prevailing thinking of finance, it's not even close to that anymore. See, investors in the new economy are waking up and are desperately seeking companies that know how to profit without sacrificing their purpose. Join me in my next guest as we talk about capitalism 2.0 and how he built a billion dollar venture capital fund just from doing the right thing, setting the example for all of us in our pursuit of Making Billions. Let's get into it. 

Ryan Miller  

Hey, welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I'm your host, Ryan Miller and today I have my dear friend Ron Levin. Ron is the managing partner of Alumni Ventures, a $1.3 billion venture fund that was recently ranked as the most active VC firm in the US. Ron has been an angel investor, unicorn founder and McKinsey consultant with degrees from Babson, College and Harvard. So what this means is that Ron is changing the game in the US by showing people that capitalism 2.0 is not only possible, it's crucial. And he's about to teach us all a masterclass on VC, entrepreneurship and current markets. So Ron, welcome to the show, man.

Ron Levin  

Thank you, Ryan, really great privilege to be with you here today and especially on your show, you're going to topics like around alternative assets, that if that's the 1%, top 1% of investors that are even thinking about that sort of thing. So I applaud you, applaud your audience and it's a real privilege to be here.

Ryan Miller  

You know what, I applaud you as well, certainly privileged to have you and all of your experience. So let's jump right into it, man, so alumni ventures got over a billion under management. Let's have a conversation speaking to entrepreneurs from the perspective of a couple of venture capitalists. So with that, when you're starting out as an entrepreneur, and they're listening to a venture capitalist, what advice can you give them on how to win in the early days of their entrepreneurship journey?

Ron Levin  

Absolutely and I think it's important to preface this, because a lot of VCs kind of have a reputation of just throwing advice around and not really having had any experience. But I've actually been a founder of a venture backed company, have kind of been in the trenches, getting something going, I co-founded a company out of Barcelona called TravelPerk, started with myself and two other co-founders. I left pretty early on, but the company has now been built up to around 12 or 1300 people and unicorn valuation, which is to say that I've been on the operating side. And I think as an investor, you know, I have the privilege of having been on the side of the table of the entrepreneur. So I have a lot of empathy for entrepreneurs, so I like to give founders great advice. But I also like to be real with them as I know you do, too. Sometimes the best advice is a cold bath, but it comes with the territory. 

Ron Levin  

For me, kind of what got us going sort of laid the foundation on our company TravelPerk, it really started with the founders having a really great founding team, myself, and my two co-founders were not a couple of kids with an idea. And all respect to the Mark Zuckerberg is out there, those are the rare cases. We were an experienced team that had come from the online travel world, we'd worked at booking.com, the world's biggest online travel company and we saw an opportunity from our experience and we built a founding team with complementary skills. A chief product officer, a chief technology officer, and myself as the CEO kind of fundraising and for sales and all that. So really, getting a great complementary team is so critical to laying the foundation. And as an entrepreneur, it really depends on what experience you have, you may not know the best person, you know, today, you might not personally know that person who would be your best, an ideal co-founder. And if you don't think you've got that right, co-founder, it's important, I think, to take the time to try and figure out how you're going to find that person. Because this is a marriage, you know, treat this as you would a marriage if you want to make those billions, if you want to create a really impactful company, it all starts with the culture and the team and kind of laying down the vision from the earliest earliest days. So that was really important for us and we needed support as well, we weren't just going to do it as our team.

Ron Levin  

And one of the other really important things we did early on, was also start to build a network of advisers. And the way we thought about that is who who's been down this road, who knows our industry maybe is not directly competitive with what we're doing but but is in our space, and has built a company that's, you know, kind of 5 to 10 years out from where we want to be, you know, look toward that company, and who founded that company who built that company? Is there a way to get that person to be an advisor because they're gonna see around the corners and that's been critical. And I'm amazed that, you know, more founders, you know, don't really invest in in trying to build the support system early on, because laying the foundation early with the greatest ideas in the world if you don't have the right people in place, both building the company full time and also, you know, contributing and supporting the company. You may not get very far.

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, so as we talked about, hire good, good co-founders. That was something he found the keys to success at some of the early advice you can have hiring great advisors. I know often when I get asked people starting out is they're worried that investors won't take them serious, right? They're like I've never done this before I have no, I have literally zero notoriety like, I am the guy that definitely needs an introduction cause nobody's heard of me. Alright, is anyone going to take me serious Ryan and maybe you've heard people ask this question as well. And the great shortcut, and I just want to compliment you on that is to say, yeah, if you have great advisors, that tends to help on the reputational risk, and just show that you really have, maybe you're the dumbest guy on the lineup, it doesn't mean you're dumb, but just compare it to the lineup. And so if you have an advisory board, and you could share that with investors, that's a great way to improve your relationship or your reputation with investors. Now, one that often comes up is product market fit, maybe talk about a little bit of product market fit and some of the things that kind of work and don't work. What are you seeing as far as establishing product market fit and why do VCs care so much about this? 

Ron Levin  

Yeah, there are very few startups that have product market fit on day one, I mean, founders are really good, and you should be really good at selling your story, you got to show your passion, you got to show that you've tapped into a technology that maybe no one else has built before, or you have an angle to the market that no one else has done before. But you don't really know on day one, if you have product market fit, until you go to customers, no matter how big of an idea you think you have, and what solution you've tapped into. With our company when we got started, you know, we had one idea and it was like way too avant garde and out there for the market. You know, we built it anyway, and we invested a lot in developing an algorithm that would price trips, this was like a business travel booking tool. And we went to customers and they said, yeah, that's great. But we really what we really need are these A B C D E other things and we started listening to those customers. So it's really important that you maybe you go to the market with something, but that you're listening to your customers, because you probably don't have it nailed on day one.

Ron Levin  

And the way you really figure out, do I have product market fit, because in the midst of it, it's like the fog of war, right? You don't really know in the moment, if you have it, you might have it, you have signs that are positive, but you have early customers, but you don't. Is this going to scale? You don't really know. I mean, one of the early signs that we've picked up on and that I you know, encourage founders to think about in the early stages, is if you let a customer use your product, not not a cousin or an old friend, but someone that you don't know, but you've been able to sell into a relationship, you know what we'll call it software for now. But it could be anything, and take it to the customer, let them use it for three, six months, make sure they're using it, check in with them often, you know, is it you know, make sure that they're really using the product. And then at that kind of three or six month point, you go back to them and say, hey, you know, we've decided to cancel the product. We're getting out of business, sorry, you know, what do you think? If there's an audible gasp, like, are you seriously going to take this product away from me, there's a very good chance you have product market fit. Because there are customers out there that want and need your product, you just need to go out there and sell it. So that's my stress test.

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, great. So, the gas test, I love that. So how to win in the early days, make sure you hire good co-founders, one that sometimes you hear the metaphor of one builds and one sells, right. So you got the MBA and the engineer come together and they can build something or three founders that have that. So I think step one, really have some self awareness of where your skills at, and is there a co-founder that will help you? Or is it just going to be another partner sitting on the sidelines criticizing you, while not necessarily take care of their own part. The other one is get great advisors, sometimes they help with reputation of the firm, they add credibility to it, but most importantly, they're just there to help. And so someone like yourself, who's been there, done, been there, done that done that unicorn thing, wonderful. And then finally, product market fit, release your product, then tell them you're gonna yank it and if they gasp and say, you will take this out of my cold, dead hands, and you're like, okay, we got something that we got a very strong product market fit. I love it. So moving on putting some points on the board, while it's important. Also, in the early days, you can really screw things up just by not knowing what you're doing, and by default would be a no. What are some mistakes out there and what remedies do you have for new entrepreneurs or even VCs? I know you're listening to the show, too, there's some things to look out for. What would you say, as far as avoiding problems in the early days? 

Ron Levin  

Yeah, well, I mean, there's, there's so many I mean, you have to approach it with the right attitude. Like, if you're going to be doing a startup, you have tremendous upside, you could build a product that's going to be used by millions of people, you could become fabulously wealthy, you know, people who do become billionaires, as I know, you talked about are the people that take the big risks. They're the entrepreneurs, the innovators, not the people who rest on their laurels, but there's a lot of sweat equity, too. And you have to be ready, as my co-founders and I did to wake up at three in the morning, because a customer is having a problem and you need to fix it. And so just having that can do spirit, like all the time, and that willingness to be working when others are partying, and you know, understanding that you're making a sacrifice, but that there's you know, pot of gold, hopefully at the end of the rainbow if things go well, so you got to keep yourself motivated, that's very important. 

Ron Levin  

And you also got to just make sure some of the practical realities that you're hiring right firing quickly if people aren't working out, but very importantly, if you want to build a company that scales and you plan to raise money, particularly from equity investors, venture capitalists, angel investors, whomever else, you got to know how to raise money and this there's a certain game to this right? You know, companies raise in 18 months cycles, most of the companies that I invest in, how much runway will this round get you 18 months, it's like almost always the same slight variation sometimes but, but basically always hovers around 18 months of runway. Well, markets can change a lot in that period of time. And it's 18 months, because at the 12 month mark, that's when you need to start raising money again, because you know, you need to leave some buffer there. So how much are you going to accomplish in 12 months, maybe you don't have product market fit, and it's going to take you longer to build the product that you need to get to market. Maybe customers aren't aren't selling as fast or paying as soon as you want them to. Maybe macrotrends train change. I mean, you know, markets go in and out of favor all the time, you got to be prepared for that there. You gotta have a contingency plan like, hey, if I'm gonna make this work, no matter what, what happens if capital dries up, can I be can I make this a profitable business? Maybe I have to grow it a little more slowly than I would like, but do I have the endurance to stick in there? There are companies that go years and years before they raise venture, but by the time they do, they already have a good business, and they're in a good position to raise money. So there's not just one playbook for success. Great companies have been built many different ways. But it's important to have the commitment that you're going to make this work no matter what. And if the cash runs dry, what are you going to do? And just always be a little bit paranoid about what if things go wrong? What, what's plan B, with the idea that this product is so important, the market hasn't seen it yet, and I'm gonna get it to market no matter what, so it's really important to just keep focused. 

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, and you're writing in often markets can turn on a dime, not always, but sometimes they can and and really having those contingency plans as you and I as VCs, we like to see that, and will always ask you, or you can count on at least through your fundraising times that a VC is going to say, but what are you going to do if this plan doesn't work? It's helpful to have that, what's your plan B, just like Ron was saying. Another one is how do you explore companies that come to you and they're looking for an investment, as far as differentiation? Like, how do you walk an entrepreneur through? What do you do there? 

Ron Levin  

Yeah, I mean, really everything we invest in, there needs to be something differentiated about it, some kind of moat, or if it's really early, maybe the moats not there yet, but you've got to plan to get there. And it's really important to think about because there's so many companies out there, we get pitched, you know, 1000s of businesses every year, and there are a lot of problems to solve. So there might be 1000 business plans, but there are 1000 different things to solve. But how are you going to do it differently is really important. Do you have a technical advantage, because you've got an army of kind of PhDs, you've come out of a lab and you've uncovered some science, you can patent that has a commercialization potential, that's great on the more sciency or techie kinds of things. But it could also be how you can approach the market, maybe there's some interesting tech that's been built that's been applied to one industry hasn't yet been applied to another industry. Because some industries, heavy industrial industries may move slower than I don't know, healthcare, financial technology, for example. So there's always different approaches and, you know, what's your unique advantage? I mean, part of the differentiation is really the team, because do you have what it takes? You know, this industry, right, do you know something about it that most people don't know. 

Ron Levin  

With my co-founders, and I, we had all come from online travel, like we knew, you know, I can't say we're experts, but we knew enough that it was more than the average person. But there are a lot of people have ideas that are maybe interesting, but they've never really been in that industry, and are just going to be feeling it out. And they're gonna spend the first year just kind of learning how the industry works and, you know, as an investor, I don't necessarily want them spending my money, trying to figure out how things work, I want that kind of done ahead of time. So, you know, I would encourage founders to really focus on something that that is not just an idea that just came into their head, but it's really something that they've spent time thinking about, that they've been interested in for a while, have worked in professionally, have studied, have some connection to. Because that's where you're gonna uncover, you know, those opportunities and and think of the ways that you're going to create something that's different from what else is out there because you're going to know what the market landscape looks like. I, as an investor, it's sometimes hard for me to know, I look at so many different ideas. I'm a sector agnostic investor, that oftentimes I get pitched on something and I don't at first really know what the landscape looks like. But as you dig in, usually you start to figure things out, you can always tap some experts. But for the entrepreneur, your advantage is knowing that industry cold and being able to, you know, outmaneuver your, your current or future competitors.

Ryan Miller  

I love that. Yeah and being able to outflank, so sometimes you were trying to be better, sometimes it'd be faster, sometimes you'd be cheaper. Sometimes you bet you provide a frictionless process where everyone has friction, a great book, that it's not the end all be all, but one that outlines that way of thinking is, Blue Ocean Strategy. Often that can be a little bit helpful with strategy Canvas to say how do you differentiate yourself? Or how do you want to differentiate yourself? Or where's the gaps in your market? So there's so many areas that just by differentiation, that might be able to lead you into a new market. So yeah, we like to see the competitive moat, we like to see that differentiation better, faster, cheaper, smoother, whatever it is, help us understand and that might be the difference between getting a check or not. So let's, let's transition to the market. I'd love to hear we can't have a show called Making Billions without talking about the market. So what are you seeing out there? I know VC, it's some choppy waters right now brother, but I'm curious from your vantage point, what are you seeing out there right now?

Ron Levin  

Yeah, it's been choppy the last couple of years, no doubt about it, you know, valuations have come, come down to earth. And it's a cyclical thing that happens, valuations reset, and investors retrench a little bit and fewer companies going public, that's not great for our industry. What's a little bit unusual now is just the dichotomy with the state of the public markets, where, you know, public stock markets, all time high inflation is in check and employments pretty good all the, you know, there's still growth and big companies still, you know, doing well in profits. So there's a little bit of a divergence there, which to me raises the sound bells of hey, this is a value opportunity. You know, there's money to be put to work, valuations are low, companies have gone back to basics in terms of what founders are building, what investors are looking for, now's a pretty good time to get into the market I think. You got to be a little bit contrarian in this business. But we're seeing a lot of movement, you know, industry wise, everything is an AI play these days, you know that, there were legitimate AI driven companies a few years ago, it's not brand new, but now, every company we see has, okay, how does AI going to affect us? And how are we going to scale because of new ways of developing drugs or new ways of doing data analysis or, you know, equipment manufacturing, repair through AI, like all kinds of applications? So really seeing a lot of momentum there a lot of shift right now, I think into industrials, you know, how is is technology going to affect the manufacturing industry, the construction industry, real estate, a lot of kind of viewed these old school industries being transformed, and a lot of movement to now on deep tech. We're seeing movement in advanced computing, quantum and high performance computing, things that, you know, may not really change our lives tomorrow, but you know, a few years down the line can have a very big impact. Even on the hardware side, I mean, I sometimes say that not every problem in the world is going to be solved by software alone. I think entrepreneurs and investors have to be open to the idea that sometimes there's a hardware play to reach a big market. A lot of really cool stuff happening right now actually.

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, that's awesome and you know, what, one of the things that VCs always get labeled is we're always reading, right? It's like this, if you like to read, maybe venture capital is a place for you, but the reason why is we're gonna stay on top of industry trends. What do you do to stay on top of it? Or what would you recommend some of the entrepreneurs do any blogs, you might recommend that they can subscribe to or anything at all to stay on top of industry trends? 

Ron Levin  

Yeah, there's, there's a lot out there. I mean, there's tons of books, I do audible, I try to at least listen to most of the popular kind of VC books. If you're interested in impact investing, you can pick up my book, Higher Purpose Venture Capital, a little little plug there, that's around how venture can help back entrepreneurs solving big societal social problems, essentially. There's, there's so many blogs, and, you know, I almost don't have favorites, because I read so many of them that I just need a deluge of information coming at me, because I need to know what's happening in the market. I also see a lot just by the vantage point of being an investor and we see kind of what comes inbound, what deals that get referred to us like, kind of stay on top of the trends, I think it's really important for entrepreneurs to be like a little bit of a step ahead, you have to be an expert in everything. I'm unusual that I'm a generalist, so I need breadth of knowledge, first and foremost, and then depth kind of second. I think an entrepreneur should be pretty deep in something first, before worrying about getting into everything. 

Ron Levin  

So when I was in travel technology, I mean, people would read these online publications skift and focus wire and and just like the really focused stuff on travel tech, because that's where you learn what investors are thinking what other entrepreneurs are doing. So, so take your industry, and whatever is that, whatever blog podcast you can find, and then also just stay on top of general news, it's really important. You know, I mean, I had someone the other day asking me if the war is still going on between Russia and Ukraine, it's like, dude, read a newspaper. I mean, just you just gotta be aware of what's going on in the world. So you know, to try and stay on top of all the macro news, certainly the macro financial news, digital, or in a physical paper, I still read physical paper, sometimes just because I find it just easier to handle than being on a device all day long. But whatever works for you just consume information, particularly in the industry that interests you, like there's no tomorrow because it's so important to be just at least a step ahead.

Ryan Miller  

I love that and you know, with all your experience, your background, now I'm curious, we listen to a show called Making Billions because we're looking for an unfair advantage, whether you're an investor, or an entrepreneur, or somewhere in between, like we call an emerging fund manager, all of those folks listen to us in over 100 countries in the world and come to us to listen to guys like yourself and myself on how to get an unfair advantage. What unfair advantages can you provide for our listeners today? 

Ron Levin  

Yeah, so for entrepreneurs, I think there's a little bit of business advice and a little bit of personal advice. On the business side, every good entrepreneur should have a high IQ clearly, and there are different forms, there's the Harvard, MIT, Stanford PhD, and then there's the street smarts that also can be just as valuable, if not more so, school of hard knocks. Different ways of acquiring that intellectual capital that's going to thrust you ahead give you that great idea, but, ultimately, being an entrepreneur comes down to people skills and EQ, it is essential that you're able to build, not just a great founding team, you're able to hire and retain incredible engineers, salespeople, HR, you gotta manage legal accounting, marketing, sales, I mean, all these different functions. That's not easy for anybody just to come and do and a very technical founder isn't necessarily the right person to lead an organization as it grows. But there are ways you can get better there, you know, books from Dale Carnegie, through whatever that's published, you know, last month on kind of people skills. And don't neglect that because you need to manage relationships, with, with employees, with customers, with stakeholders, with partners, you know, everybody around the world, and it's just vitally important that you're able to competently do that. To be fair, to be open, honest, be a good person, generally, because, you know, people will remember you when you're gone, and you want to be remembered for being fair. And that doesn't mean always saying yes to everybody and sometimes it's very hard to say no, and to cut ties, when things aren't going well. But you've just got to be an honest dealer and, and just really work on those people's skills and think about it, you know, step back and think, oh, that meeting didn't go well, how come like, it wasn't something I said. And just really, really keep that in mind and have empathy for others who are around the table with you, even maybe the people you're negotiating against, sometimes. Put yourself in their shoes, and you know, just just try to relate to everyone you're dealing with on a day to day basis, so that's kind of my professional advice. 

Ron Levin  

On the personal side, I always tell people to go out and travel in the sense that there's a lot of stuff that happens in the world, that it's impossible for everyone to know, you know what's going on. And outside of our borders, our national borders, even our state or county borders, there are different cultures, there are different opinions, different attitudes, there are different ways of doing things. And very importantly, there are different business models that might exist and be very successful in one part of the world that has never ever been seen in your part of the world. Get inspired, open your mind, to new ideas and go out and if you can afford to literally travel great. If not, you can travel online and you know virtual ways, and really explore what is out there in the world. Because there is no end to the number of ideas that you might have, and the inspiration that you might get just by exposing yourself to the big world that's out there.

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, I love that. So travel that would be second piece of advice is getting out there and travel and experience things and learn from different perspectives. Just like we teach our kids, different isn't wrong, it's just different and the other one is for entrepreneurs is just develop relationships. So in this show, we talk about reputation, relationships, or your two most valuable assets. So continue to develop those but also EQ, meaning the intelligence quotient, as the saying goes, people work is better than paperwork. And if you don't understand business, if you don't understand people, you don't understand business. So business is really about interacting with people and getting things moving and in many different ways, whether it's sales, revenue, motivating people leadership, there's so many layers, but it all comes back to your success in business does come down to some degree on how successful you are in dealing with people in interpersonal relationships with yourself, your partners, and also the market that you operate in. Would you agree?

Ron Levin  

You, you nailed it.

Ryan Miller  

Thanks, man and what about number three, anything that maybe two investors that you can provide from your experience? 

Ron Levin  

Yeah, you know, so a lot of my mission, my, the fund that I operate, I run a seed fund, we invest in pre seed and seed stage companies very active. My team and I, we make more than one new investment every single week. We start with small checks, taking fires, but sometimes, right, bigger, high conviction checks as well. We see a lot of stuff, we don't specifically have a mandate around sector or a specific thesis other than to be well diversified. But within that, I really believe in creating companies and investing in companies that are going to make a difference in the world, and particularly those that are going to solve problems for those that are less fortunate that don't have the same access resources, education, perhaps as others do. We as VCs, and angels, if we're investing whether we're investing our own money or other people's money, we're in a very fortunate privileged position, we can really directly affect the outcome of whether companies and ideas succeed or not. 

Ron Levin  

They're great ideas that just never get funded because no VC or investor will back it up. So it's not just, you know, a correlation, there's an actual causation that a VC can, or an angel investor can have, so think about what kind of problems you want to solve. What impact can mean different things to different people, what's important for one person is important to another, but I would challenge investors to think about what are the big problems that you care about? Might it be longevity, would you like to live a longer, healthier life? Well, that might be something worth investing in? Is it education because, you know, you think your maybe, your kids' schools are not performing to the level that you think they should be? Is there something to do on that end? You know, for everybody, it's gonna be something different, a different priority. But think about solving like a really big problem because you as an investor, you're kind of in the background, you're not the one on the, usually on the front page of the journal. There are some investors that that do kind of do make it to some kind of celebrity status, but for the most part, we as investors are in the background, but we can really monumentally support certain companies that have a very important mission, and are going to improve outcomes for everything from folks who don't have access to a credit card, because they don't have any credit to taking a loan to pay a an unexpected medical bill to those who maybe can't get a job because they don't have the right education, to those who might have a disability, to all kinds of things. There's so many societal problems in the world that we're solving and there are great entrepreneurs doing that with highly scalable ideas, my book, Higher Purpose Venture Capital talks about 50 of them, venture backed companies, a few I've invested in most of them I've not, but I've gotten to know the founders and just wanted to share their stories of creating amazing, impactful companies that venture capitalists are backing today. So I just encourage VCs to think about, you know, maybe there's a market for that next NFT, that's great, but who's that really solving a problem for there are big problems out there to solve. And I would encourage my fellow investors just to think about working with those entrepreneurs that are really going after a big problem. 

Ryan Miller  

Awesome. I love that before, before we jump into the final remarks. Is there anything else you'd like to say? Or how to reach out to you, how to connect to you? Obviously, you have a book, maybe closing, closing remarks?

Ron Levin  

Absolutely. Yeah. Appreciate that and thank you, again, it's been a great privilege talking to you, and especially with your audience that I think understands my language, your language.

Ryan Miller  

We're picking up once you land down, brother. 

Ron Levin  

Yeah, absolutely reach out. So our Alumni Ventures, we're at av.vc, it's one of the easiest URLs you can remember just Alumni Ventures, av.vc, reach out, I mean, the seed fund, if you're raising pre-seed or seed funding, happy to hear from you, we're strictly a co investor. So best to reach out to me, once you have a term sheet are very close to signing a term sheet with another VC, and are looking to fill in around that that's when to contact us, we can be a very helpful co investor, we support our entrepreneurs in many ways that are complementary to what a lead investor does, so happy to chat more about that. And if you're interested in the impact side, and whether you're an entrepreneur and investor or just curious and how to help the world, my book is, Higher Purpose Venture Capital, available on Amazon and all the others. And I have a website for the book, it's higherpurposevc.com and connect on LinkedIn, just send me a note, say you heard me on the program, and I'll be happy to accept and engage if you want to discuss anything.

Ryan Miller  

Awesome man, I'm looking forward to, to all of those things and so just to summarize everything, build relationships and your EQ. The second one that he mentioned, is, invest in profit with a purpose, that is where capitalism 2.0 is gone. I think Ron and I both agree, no harm can come from investing in companies that also serve a higher purpose. And then finally, just travel and learn about what is different just to expand yourself as an investor and as an entrepreneur, you do these things, and you too will be well on your way in your pursuit of Making Billions.

Ryan Miller  

Wow, what a show, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Now, if you haven't done so already, be sure to leave a comment and review on new ideas and guests you want me to bring on for future episodes. Plus, why don't you head over to YouTube and see extra takes while you get to know our guests even better. And make sure to come back for our next episode where we dive even deeper into the people, the process and the perspectives of both investors and founders. Until then, my friends stay hungry. Focus on your goals and keep grinding towards your dream of Making Billions.