From Startup to Investor and VC Fund Manager

[00:00:00] LuRae: Andrew, welcome to the show. I'm so happy to have you. Tell me a little bit about yourself and what you're up to these days.

[00:00:09] Andrew: Lou Ray, thank you so much for having me. It's been a while since we reconnected, but I'm so glad to see you. So greetings from New York city. I don't live here. I'm visiting, but I now live in Auckland, New Zealand, and I moved, I moved to Auckland in October, in September, I married my wife who is originally from New Zealand and we decided we wanted to have a family in New Zealand and I've had the chance to visit before we moved.

[00:00:38] Andrew: And, you know, I really wanted to come to New Zealand and use a lot of the skills that I've. Created in the U S, um, from operating businesses, starting startups. And as an investor in startups on the other side of the table, I wanted to bring those talents. Those skills and that network to New Zealand. And so we decided to do it.

[00:00:59] LuRae: That is so awesome. So I can't believe you moved to New Zealand. That is such a big move and so exciting on, on all the life changes. So let's rewind because I know when we initially met. I was in the stages of launching the blockchain startup that I was working on, and you were in the digital agency space, and you had your hands in all kinds of initial startup opportunities with investors, etc.

[00:01:28] LuRae: So rewind, because you've definitely not taken the traditional nine to five career path, which I think is so inspiring. Share with people your journey a bit. How did you get to where you are now?

[00:01:42] Andrew: Yeah, it all started with music. When I was a kid, music was like my first love. I was a singer and a songwriter growing up.

[00:01:50] Andrew: And, and then I got really into recording music. So I got an audio set up and started in some microphones and started recording it. My friends and I, at the time said, let's start a record label. Like we really like recording. Like we can curate all these different artists. And record them. And so we started producing acts when we were like 16, 17 years old.

[00:02:12] Andrew: And that was in, in Michigan, so yeah, it all started off with like a extreme amount of passion time because you know, you're in high school and not a working adult, but yeah, I spent all my, I spent all my free time when it wasn't working when it wasn't at school. I was recording bands. I was singing. We were playing shows.

[00:02:31] Andrew: We were putting on shows. We were printing merch. We were selling merch. I mean, wow, we were, you know, we were hustling. That's how it all started. And then I got accepted to the university of Michigan music school. And I was studying sound recording. It's called the performing arts technology department at Michigan.

[00:02:48] Andrew: So that summer I went and worked for a record producer in Los Angeles at the summer after my freshman year. And I had a friend in town and we had this idea for buying stock in a band. On a website on having a having a stock exchange for artists, right? So we pitched the recording producer. His name is evan frankfurt.

[00:03:07] Andrew: Wonderful, man We pitched him on the idea and he called me that night. I remember standing in my uncle's kitchen He called me that night said I can't stop thinking about your idea. I want to be involved. I want to be in.

[00:03:20] LuRae: Wow.

[00:03:21] Andrew: And this is the same guy who, when listening to a bunch of my demos and stuff I was recording and whatever, it was the same guy that was like, you know, Andrew, you're really not rock and roll.

[00:03:31] Andrew: Like your parents love you. You grew up on a cul de sac, like you're going to a great college, like you're just not rock and roll. Like, you're just, You know, I mean, and he grew up in Hollywood and was around artists his whole life. So this whole, like, let's be an entrepreneur thing in music, that was much more something that was befitting of me than like, you know, uh, being on skid row and, and being a rock, a rock band singer, recording producer, whatever.

[00:04:00] Andrew: So, so that was kind of when I, that's when I really first took flight. Was somebody believed in me, somebody came into my sphere. You know, I was, I wasn't afraid to pitch the idea. I wasn't afraid to say, Hey, like, what if we did something like this? Like, what if this existed? Right. But he was the one that really pushed me.

[00:04:19] Andrew: And so that was 2007. We put together an LLC, we started writing a business plan. Like this is all like pre Y Combinator being what it is. And before there was accelerators and before there was all these people writing about investing in startups and all that stuff. So it was before all that, right? So we raised a round of financing and we moved to LA in 2010.

[00:04:41] Andrew: I actually decided not to graduate from school. And we all moved to L. A. because I was working on, I was working on this, my band stock. Well, we ran out of money and we couldn't get the product market fit and we couldn't raise more money. So we just, we kind of had to just, you know, say, okay, we, This is a four and a half year learning lesson, but we all got jobs in LA.

[00:05:01] Andrew: So I went and worked for a company called Grooveshark. Uh, I was the head of marketing for a company called Mobile Roadie. And then I was a product manager at a full screen, which ultimately ended up getting purchased by Otter Media and AT& T. And then I went back to school to finish my degree. Because I decided I didn't want to be a music tech person forever.

[00:05:20] Speakers 1: Right.

[00:05:21] Andrew: And I decided to start another business because I can't be in college without starting a business. Like, I can't just, I can't just be in class and like, enjoy my life. So my brother and I started snapsuits. com, which was custom suits for 250 delivered in 14 days. We built up that business over the course of a couple of years.

[00:05:39] Andrew: I graduated, moved back out to LA because that's where my network was. I said, Hey, I'm going to try my hand at this venture capital thing for a while. So I started working for a family office in Los Angeles called membrane ventures. And today they're, you know, they're, they're still investing and there's running their deals for them.

[00:05:56] Andrew: I was looking at their deal flow and they have, they're just, they have such amazing deal flow. Um, and so I got to see. On the investor side of the table what it's like when you're seeing a lot of really really high end deal flow

[00:06:10] Speakers 1: Right, and

[00:06:10] Andrew: I said wow being an investor is pretty cool. I kind of want to do this over the suit thing Right, and so I got introduced to eric kuberman at hawk media at the time His business was exploding and he was doing some investing as well So they brought me on board to run their investments at Hawk Media.

[00:06:27] LuRae: Very cool.

[00:06:27] Andrew: And so that's sort of where we got to when I met you, I was running investments at the media agency and we had our own venture capital fund. So right. 30 million under management did that for about seven years. So yeah, that gets us up to the timeline. I hope I was fast

[00:06:42] LuRae: enough. So when you say high end deal flow, walk through that.

[00:06:47] Andrew: There's deals everywhere. Right. There's startups everywhere. Right. Right. Really, really good entrepreneurs. Those are really, really good investors. Those are really, really accomplished. Really high end deals, you know, the ones that people wish they could invest in, but they don't have access to right when you see those really amazing world class entrepreneurs, because you don't meet them at a pitch event, you know, Los Angeles or something.

[00:07:13] Andrew: They're not there. They're like using their networks, right, right. So it's about seeing really, really awesome deals that other people didn't have access to.

[00:07:23] LuRae: So interesting. So you're in New Zealand and now what are you up to?

[00:07:28] Andrew: Yeah. So I have a business called seed Excel and our main product right now is called pitch perfect.

[00:07:37] Andrew: I do a one on one workshop. With entrepreneurs to help them with their pitch deck. I wanted to find something that was very, very productized. Like what can I do? That's different than what everyone else can do. What's my superpower and it's language around fundraising. It's deck building. It's having a plan for going out to investors.

[00:07:59] Andrew: And so I, I liken it to like. Urgent care. I'm not doing open heart surgery. Right. , you know, it doesn't cost a million dollars. You're coming to urgent care and you need help. You need help articulating why your business is investible. Right? Right. So most people make a pitch deck and they think like, okay, here's what I do.

[00:08:18] Andrew: Here's my customer and here's my revenue model and here's this and that's all great, but why is this investible? Right, right, right. Why? Yes. And so there, there's a translation event that has to happen. Between here's why my business is investable, and this is what we do. And so when I was an investor on the other side of the table, I was always sitting there translating in my mind for the entrepreneurs in real time, right?

[00:08:48] Andrew: Well, you say this, but what you really need is this. So I would just kind of do that naturally. So I decided, you know what, I want to help founders in New Zealand. I want to help founders throughout the world really, it's better. And so I can do that in 90 minutes. You can sign up for an intro call on my website and to see if it's a fit, because I also want to make sure that it's a fit, you know, that it's a two way fit.

[00:09:12] Andrew: And there's some projects I can't help people pitch, you know, and that's fine. Right. So we don't, we don't promise introductions. We don't do design. We just do content like what does your deck say and what are the right words and how is it structured and we'll get through the whole thing and you'll have a much better way of getting in front of investors that you want to talk to and be able to translate your business.

[00:09:38] Andrew: Right. Investor speak.

[00:09:39] LuRae: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Getting the story right is, is the key and making sure that it's narrative,

[00:09:46] Andrew: right? People, data, dollars. That's it. Those are the, those are the four pillars of any investment pitch because, um, if you can't translate your business into people, data, and dollars, what are we, what are we doing here?

[00:10:04] Andrew: And so I'm, I'm, I'm really big on, on making sure the pillars of your business make sense.

[00:10:10] LuRae: There are so many people with great ideas who don't know how to formulate the story. So that is definitely a need and you can do that anywhere. All you need is this setup and the person on the other end and you can definitely help people who have great ideas.

[00:10:26] LuRae: This is about what you

[00:10:27] Andrew: say and how you say it. Yeah. And most founders. 99 percent 99. 5 percent almost all founders can just pitch a little bit better,

[00:10:38] LuRae: right?

[00:10:39] Andrew: Absolutely. Most need to pitch a lot better. That's why I exist. Well,

[00:10:44] LuRae: and people get so close to their idea. And their concept that they can't see the forest for the trees.

[00:10:51] LuRae: So that's the other beauty of I think what you're doing. So I'll definitely put a link in the notes below this. Yeah. Recording so people can find you easily. There aren't a lot of people that know how to do that.

[00:11:05] Andrew: It comes very naturally to me because I've been on the other side of the table. I've also been on the other side of the table as an entrepreneur, right?

[00:11:13] Andrew: And you really. I need an outside opinion to ask you, okay, so what product does this? So what?

[00:11:21] LuRae: Yeah, absolutely. And so that's

[00:11:23] Andrew: what I try to teach people.

[00:11:25] LuRae: Yeah, I totally, totally get it. So as far as lessons you've learned along the way, because obviously you were not afraid to just. Go after what you thought you wanted to do at that moment, and then you were able to pivot.

[00:11:41] LuRae: What are some of the lessons and life lessons you would give people because there are lots of people who I know right now feel trapped in a nine to five job or feel like there's no way they've got kids and a mortgage and what advice would you give people who might want to pivot into something else?

[00:11:58] Andrew: So Matthew McConaughey's book, Green Lights, is like a really good kind of encapsulation of something that I think about, which is called signal. I really believe that things pull you in different directions in life. You can push as much as you want, but things will just kind of come together at this moment and you're like, Oh, this is happening right now, right?

[00:12:21] Andrew: This is, this is a pull moment, not a, Push more. Right. So when you're thinking about getting out of that stability or that nine to five, that thing that is really solid or whatever, and you're looking to take that risk to take that job, right? You really have to think about what is the signal coming back to me that says, like, this is a go.

[00:12:47] Andrew: This is a good idea, right? And it's the same thing I talked about with founders, where I'm like, go talk to your customers. Like, you got a thing? Like, go talk to who your customer is going to be. Do they want to buy it? How much will they pay for it? If the answer is like, no, no, I don't want it. I don't want to pay for it.

[00:13:03] Andrew: I'll use it for free, but I won't pay for it. You don't have a thing if people don't want to pay for it. On some level, right? Absolutely. And so where is your signal coming from? You know, it could be, it could be an investor or someone in your family. Oh, wow. Like, Hey, um, this is really cool. I would invest in this now.

[00:13:21] Andrew: All right. And would you take an investment? Like, like, where is the signal coming from? Right? And so. I think people need to think really hard. If they don't have any signal, then you have to think about how do we generate signal, right, right. You've heard about entrepreneurs that have been relentless with their perseverance towards finding that signal, right?

[00:13:42] Andrew: And that's the difference. You know, they hung in there long enough. They eventually found the right people. They eventually created their own luck because they were in the game long enough. They created, they pushed their way into that signal that then pulled them. Right. So that's my advice is to make sure you're finding that signal.

[00:14:02] Andrew: The, the things that are saying this, This is the right pathway to be on. Make sure you're listening.

[00:14:08] LuRae: Absolutely. Yeah. Because having tunnel vision, I mean, some people can get to your point caught up in, Oh, I'm just going to do this thing. Regardless, there's one thing to have persistence. What you're saying is be connected with your gut.

[00:14:23] LuRae: Intuition and listen to the signals as you're calling them, the input and feedback from other people around you. Yeah. Of course, Matthew

[00:14:32] Andrew: McConaughey calls it green light.

[00:14:35] LuRae: Yes, right. Because if you go blindly off into the unknown, it's like that MVC, MVP. You have to have a minimal viable product and go out there and test it.

[00:14:46] LuRae: Make sure,

[00:14:47] Speakers 1: exactly, a

[00:14:49] LuRae: reason to even do it. What is your vision going forward? How do you see yourself going forward and evolving?

[00:14:58] Andrew: Yeah, that's a great question. I think ultimately, as an, as an entrepreneur, you also understand you build this muscle of how to support entrepreneurs,

[00:15:10] Speakers 1: right?

[00:15:10] Andrew: And so they're very different things.

[00:15:13] Andrew: There's like, I run my own company. I make my own decisions. I hire and fire my own people. I manage my budget. Whatever. Right. I closed the deals and I create everything. Right. And then you have partners and you work with each other. And then there's, I want to support an entrepreneur, which is like, what do you need?

[00:15:31] Andrew: And what if we did this? And Hey, I want to go, you know, hunt for you. Right. And I think that when you are an investor, You, you really build a muscle, at least I did at my firm for how to support entrepreneurs directly and what do we need to do to support them? And how do we make these introductions? And Hey, what if we thought about your pricing structure this way?

[00:15:53] Andrew: And Hey, let's introduce you to this investor or this, you know, corporate entity that could buy from you or whatever. Right. So I really feel like I'm. I'm on this planet to, um, not only serve entrepreneurs, but also to serve people, you know, and I believe that ideas and businesses, they kind of find you.

[00:16:16] Andrew: Right. So people ask me all the time, like, would you, would you ever start another company again? Would you, and I'm like, I mean, if it presented itself to me, absolutely. You know, do I just have like, Thousand ideas like running around all the time. Yes, for sure. Like, of course, right. But I'm also not trying to generate signal for those ideas.

[00:16:39] Andrew: So for me, it's really about, I want to support entrepreneurs in the ecosystem, whether it's working directly for them, whether it's fractionally working for them, whether it's the pitch workshop that I do, I'm dedicating the next 10 years of my life. To, uh, to supporting entrepreneurs. And then after that, we'll see what happens.

[00:16:58] Andrew: You never know what kind of signal I might wake up with tomorrow or go to bed with tomorrow, whatever, but I'm in the phase of my life. We're definitely supporting entrepreneurs right now is, is what I want to be doing.

[00:17:10] LuRae: So cool. It's so needed. When you think back to some of the biggest obstacles or challenges that you have faced on your journey of not going the traditional route, what would, what would you say they were and what were some things you did to overcome them?

[00:17:29] Andrew: Yeah. And I think, um, It's funny when you're an entrepreneur, there's just so, there's so many things that happen existentially or otherwise, I think you just, there's this part of you that has to really believe in yourself, um, long term and that everything's going to be okay tomorrow, even if it doesn't seem okay today, and then you just have to rigorously apply yourself, burning the candle at both ends, doing everything you can to keep it alive.

[00:18:03] Andrew: And I think people underestimate how much energy it really takes to be successful. Being successful. Isn't like. Work life balance and like I work four hours a day and I go to the spa and I come home and like, I mean, if you've made it and that's your life, I mean, amazing. Like, congratulations, but if you're still climbing, like people don't, people underestimate, like how much effort takes to climb and how much effort it takes to get to that next run.

[00:18:31] Andrew: Right? And so it's a combination of believing in yourself. It's a combination of knowing what your strengths are and applying them. And then it's a combination of just having a sheer force of energy and will to make it happen, you know, and if you do those three things, you'll arrive somewhere and it may not be where you thought you were going to end up, but you'll arrive eventually.

[00:18:55] Andrew: I think that those are the three things that I think about with overcoming challenges.

[00:18:59] Speakers 1: Yeah,

[00:19:00] Andrew: absolutely. And then everything changes too, when you, when you, like, I'm married now. And so now everything that happens to me also happens to us.

[00:19:08] Speakers 1: Right. And that's

[00:19:09] Andrew: a, that's a new dynamic, right? It's like, I can like be in the, in the foxhole and like fight my way out or whatever.

[00:19:15] Andrew: It's like, no, there's, there's, there's two of you there, so you got to make sure everyone is comfortable. Right. And then if you have a family and kids and a mortgage, there's, there's all these externalities and things to take care of. So you have to sort of balance out the risk. And the opportunity, and you really have to look at those things.

[00:19:35] Andrew: You really have to look at those things critically. And a lot of people I've been definitely in the past is if you look way more rosy at the opportunity without thinking about the risks involved, right? Right. When you're an investor, you actually, that whole framework changes. It's what's the risk here, right?

[00:19:54] Andrew: Absolutely. Not what's the opportunity here. And then when both of those things combine and you're stoked and you make an investment and you say, okay, I'm comfortable with the risk and I'm comfortable with the opportunity. Right? Absolutely.

[00:20:06] LuRae: Right.

[00:20:07] Andrew: So you have to weigh those things. You have to weigh those things hand in hand.

[00:20:10] LuRae: Yeah,

[00:20:10] Andrew: absolutely. But you, but you can't be overly opportunistic and you can't be overly pessimistic. You have to be somewhere in the middle. In the middle. Combining things and see where it goes. Right. And make, and make pivots as they are needed. Yeah, all of this is so much easier said than done, of course, you know, I feel like I'm speaking in speaking in platitudes, but there are days that I, you know, wish I had a nine to five and said, gosh, I wish I had.

[00:20:40] Andrew: Was an executive at a company making X and not being an entrepreneur, right? There are those days. And then there's days where you're like, this is why I love what I do. This is why I am where I am. Things have been floated.

[00:20:51] LuRae: Yeah. It depends on the day. Depends on the, on the situation. I think you're, Oh, I wish I was doing a nine to five.

[00:20:58] LuRae: That would probably fleet very quickly. By the time you got not, didn't make it to lunch. Cause there's so many working for a

[00:21:05] Andrew: startup is also different than working for like a company with 15, 000 people. Yes.

[00:21:11] LuRae: Absolutely. And I think the other thing that's so clear for me, because obviously I left New York in 2015 and have been on the entrepreneurial path since then, and discipline and focus Is one of the other big things more so now than ever with all the social media, there are all these things that tension grabbers that try to pull people's attention away from what they should be focused on.

[00:21:40] LuRae: I was just having this conversation with a friend the other day and I said, I don't go on social media to consume it. I go on to create and post something. Yes. So I think it's a good reminder for anybody listening. How much time are you spending creating? And how much time are you spending consuming?

[00:21:56] LuRae: We're meant to be creative beings and create things, not just be consuming, consuming content. So discipline, focus. Staying away from the distractions. Right? Right.

[00:22:08] Andrew: Yeah. And you have to also allow yourself to be distracted when the time is right as well. Because you have to put your foot off the gas sometimes.

[00:22:18] Andrew: You have to breathe. You have to. You take your brain into another space so that I can take a little bit different form. Think of things differently. Absolutely. So it's important to, to really have a balance. Yeah. You're so right. But by the way, balance looks very different between each person, right? And so a 14 hour day for me twice a week is fine, but seven days a week is not, and it's just like, what's the balance look like?

[00:22:48] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You have to find that for yourself.

[00:22:51] LuRae: Absolutely. Yeah. And I personally believe it's like the hustle culture isn't cool anymore. If you're focused and disciplined and you've got a clear path of where you're headed, just hustling, it's not sexy.

[00:23:04] Andrew: I had a mentor. In between working as an investor at Hawk Media and creating Hawk Ventures with Eric and Tony, the partners, there was this moment where I had a mentor that was like, how long are you going to be hustling?

[00:23:17] Andrew: Like, you shouldn't be hustling. You should be creating systems. Right. That create wealth. Absolutely. Not like, not like scratching at the, you know, at just the tiniest morsels. Right. So. That's wisdom. There's a ton of truth to that. And I, it was great. I loved hearing that in the moment because that again, signal, green light, that kind of pushed me to go pitch Eric and Tony.

[00:23:43] Andrew: I'm like, well, let's start this 5 million fund. And then we did it and we raised it and we deployed it. And it's, it's great. doing fantastically. Sometimes you, you know, you need to think outside the box, think bigger and get out of the hustle.

[00:23:57] LuRae: Absolutely. You have to unplug and get away, even if you're in the middle of something.

[00:24:03] LuRae: And so like, I need to get this done. That's the time, probably the most that you need to step away and gain perspective and then come back to it. So what final words of advice would you have for any of the either people out there who are starting something new, wanting to start something new, encouraging them to just

[00:24:23] Andrew: go for it?

[00:24:25] Andrew: What I would say is that, you know, um, most of us are, are not Elon Musk's or Mark Zuckerberg's or like, you know, most of us aren't those people. So don't compare yourself to them. That's just not fair, right? Most of us need to involve other people in what we're doing in order for it to be successful. And your job is to find people smarter than you, people faster than you, people with more connections than you, people who are more equipped in one way, shape, or form to be involved with what you're doing.

[00:25:03] Andrew: The best thing that you can do to level up on your business is to get other people involved that are amazing. Right, right. Absolutely. You know? Yeah. You gotta have your pitch deck and you gotta have your logo. You gotta, you gotta have all this stuff, but like, get really good people involved with you and if you can't, well then maybe you need to change it.

[00:25:25] Andrew: right to get right what's not, what's not good enough that you can't. Get the quarterback of the football team, you know on your team. Hey, you can't get the lead singer of the band in your band That's the best one, right? So Really think about the people in your organization That's going to be one of the biggest drivers for your success is the people that you involve early on.

[00:25:48] Andrew: I think just

[00:25:49] LuRae: pull in the right. So share again your website. So if somebody is wanting help with a pitch,

[00:25:56] Andrew: yes, it's seedexcel. co. nz. In New Zealand, we say NZ, cdexcel. co. nz. Oh,

[00:26:06] LuRae: right.

[00:26:07] Andrew: People don't say that in the U. S., but that's the website.

[00:26:11] LuRae: And I will link it down below. Thank you so much for all the wisdom and insight.

[00:26:17] LuRae: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, so fun.