A Well-Prepared Pitch Deck Gets You in the Right Doors
John Livesay interviews Jason Shuman
Hi, and welcome to The Successful Pitch. Today’s guest is Jason Shuman, who is a venture capitalist at Corigin Ventures in New York City. Jason has a really interesting background, coming from the University of Miami. He has been involved in some startups himself, but he is now a big time VC in New York City. Jason, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much, John. How are you?
I’m good. It’s great to have you. We met through Judy Robinett; the two of you were down in Puerto Rico judging a pitching contest, right?
That we were. We got back from sunny Puerto Rico a couple weeks ago. Now, I’m up here in the cold and windy New York weather.
Quite a contrast. Well, I always like to ask my guests how they got started. Could you take us back to the days when you were in college and you were saying, “Hmm, what am I going to do with my life? I’m going to be a VC in New York.” How did that all happen?
To go back even further, I was born and raised right outside of Boston. I grew up in a family of nothing but entrepreneurs and they were people that gave me a lot of confidence to go out there and follow my passion of entrepreneurship and starting companies.
Really, I started getting into startups at around 17 years old when I graduated from high school a semester early. I went to work for an identity theft protection company that my aunt and uncle had spun out of a company my grandfather started way back in the day. They did background checks for the U.S. Federal Government, and had been really doing well growing the business. And I’ll never forget, they told me, “What do you want to do?” and I said, “I’d love to help create the consumer side of the business and really help build that up.”
It was there that I found one of my mentors in Rob Shavell who had come over from SoftBank. I proceeded to shred papers for about two months, and shredded some incredible background checks while I was there, and as soon as those were done, they let me run free and really put together a plan and help build that side of the business.
I decided to go to the University of Miami for college and study entrepreneurship there. I got my real estate license while I was there and started doing that when I was 18. I did identity theft protection again, and then actually started my first company while I was in college. It was called Category Five, which is an e-commerce-based men’s footwear company where we made boat shoes and driving moccasins and grew that out for about two years, including for a year after graduation. And before you knew it, I was consulting for startups and got a phone call that ended up leading to introduction to a VC here in New York because I was making so many introductions between startups in Boston to VCs in New York, and finally somebody wanted to pay me for all those introductions, and that was Corigin Ventures. So, here I am today.
What a great story. I like the spirit of giving so much and making introductions. You really are a walking case study of ‘your network is your net worth’.
I think that paying it forward is the most important thing here. Ever since I wanted to get into startups, probably around 14 or 15 years old, everyone paid it forward. It also goes back into my background, which is the fact that I was born with something called primary immunodeficiency. It basically means that your production of white blood cells is a little bit lower than the average human being. I had to get infusions every three weeks, and growing up with a health condition like that led me to really be around doctors and donors a lot of the time for a non-profit that I was heavily involved in.
I was always about giving my time and my energy, and I continue to do so today, which is one of the things I love about venture capital. We can add value to a very wide range of people ;not only the people that we’re invested in, but people we just meet as well.
Well, let’s not be shy about the charity that you’re involved with. Tell us how people can be aware and contribute to the charity you’re involved.
It’s called the Jeffrey Modell Foundation. It is a non-profit that was started by Fred and Vicki Modell in New York City after their son, Jeffrey Modell, had passed away from primary immunodeficiency back in the ’80s. Honestly, they’ve been another set of grandparents to me, and it’s really helping out with research and trying to come up with a cure for primary immunodeficiency, and they do some great things.
That’s now led to your passion for investing in health-related ventures?
It’s really interesting, outside of my own health issues, I’ve had a grandmother with Alzheimer’s and a grandfather that’s had heart issues for a long time, and I’ve had mental health issues in my family. I think that in today’s innovation economy, whether it’s the mobile phone or the IoT, there’s all these new different types of technologies that are truly powerful, and can really help assist and add value to our healthcare systems and us, personally as human beings, as well. In the next 5-15 years, not only do I think that they’re going to be impacted personally, but I think our healthcare system’s going to start to save money because of it, and I think that it’s going to improve outcomes and increase access for consumers.
How great. Well, let’s talk a little bit about Corigin Ventures. To me, it seems a little interesting. They’re a VC firm that does both early stage seed and series A, and I usually don’t see that. Usually, it’s just the angels doing the seed and the ventures doing the series A and B, etc. What is it that makes you guys do both, and do you often find that the people you invest in for seed, you become the series A as well?
Great question. Corigin has a unique setup here. Corigin, itself, is a holdings company where, on one side, we’ve got a billion-dollar real estate arm. The CEO here is a guy by the name of Ryan Freedman. Ryan started to invest in startups about four or five years ago, and when he was doing that, he was investing in companies that, a) he knew he could add value to, and b) that were in verticals that he really understood and had some expertise in.
He was being approached by these companies, but he was writing checks, which means $100k and $1.5 million. With that comes both seed and series A, and I think, for us, with seed and my background, my boss, David Goldberg’s background, we are able to be more hands-on and add more value because we’ve been in the trenches before. But with series A, we can add value in other ways as well, and that includes the check size. We do prefer to follow along with our companies from seed to series A, but you don’t really see us leading too many deals in series A.
Fantastic. Are you one of the youngest people that has ever been hired by Corigin Ventures?
Well, I guess as far as Corigin Ventures is concerned, I am the youngest person that’s ever been hired. I was actually only the second hire here on the venture capital side. But, as far as New York City is concerned, I have some other young colleagues, whether that’s Heston Berkman over at BoxGroup, Ash Egan over at CommonAngels, or Mike Falb at KEC.
There are a lot of young people in venture capital now, and the way I like to put it is that we grew up with technology, and for the most part, we understand consumers that are around our age. It’s a target demographic that a lot of companies want to go after because our wallet’s only going to get bigger and bigger. Between those two factors, I think you’re going to see a lot more younger VCs getting into the game, and hopefully, getting some good returns for investors as well.
I think I’m going to look back on this day and brag about being the first person to get to interview you on their podcast. The branding awareness that you have is so smart; you talk about VCs like Brad Feld, for example, that have branded themselves. What are your plans to brand yourself and how does that help you get good deal flow?
Yeah, it’s a great question. I think that the Brad Felds, the Mark Susters, the Fred Wilsons of the world, they have the ability to brand themselves because they’ve been around for so long, and they’ve seen so much. Therefore, they’re really talking and speaking honestly about their experiences and their opinions, which really do matter because there’s some substance and background behind that because they’ve seen it and they’ve proved that what they’re talking about can be right.
With younger VCs, positioning and branding is a very interesting thing. To me, what it means personally, is two things: one, I like to share personal story, why I’m interested in certain verticals, how I look at certain verticals, and how I try to look at certain companies. But then, on the other hand, I want to be able to share my story on how I got into venture capital because I think that’s a big thing and a big question that I get a lot as well.
I guess, both a) add value and b) give people my opinion in the same way that the Susters, and the Felds, and the Wilsons of the world do, whether it’s right or not, who knows? But, I’ll tell you what, it’s better to put something on paper and look back ten years from now and be right than not put it on paper at all and everyone just say, “Oh, yeah, I thought that too.”
Yes, absolutely. You have to put it out, what you think and feel at that moment, and if it changes, that’s fine, but you can’t be afraid to know what you stand for, because that’s what branding is all about. You’ve shared your story of how you started at such a young age becoming an entrepreneur and leading into that. Are there any other details about how you got the job offer? Was it just strictly making introductions and then getting those connections and then they said, “We want to tap into you because you already have a good network”?
That’s a great question. I was living in Boston, and if you ask Sumeet Shah at Brand Foundry, he’ll probably tell you that I was the only free venture capitalist, the only non-paid venture capitalist out there. The reason why dates back to November of 2014, when I started consulting for startups, and prior to that, during what I would call my first failed startup, I had met a lot of venture capitalists. There is a gap in Boston right now for some seed stage startups, and a lot of that gap is in the consumer space. NextView Ventures and Dave Beisel and the guys over at Founder Collective like David Frankel, do a great job investing in the consumer, but outside of that, there’s not a lot of seed funds that can do it.
I was making those introductions and adding value before I got in, but I was also maniacally focused about venture capital and startups. I read every single blog post, every single news source I could. I came up with my own opinions, and interviews in venture capital are very, very basic conversations with these people. There’s not one size fits all. Before I went into these interviews, I made spreadsheets on my computer of every single venture capital firm that I was about to go into, every portfolio company of theirs, which partner did it, when they funded them, how much funding they had, the background of the founders, and I came up with my own thesis and my own opinion based on what was publicly available about those companies. God blessed me with somewhat of a photographic memory or good memory recall so I was able to pull up some of that in my meetings.
Well, I think that’s a tweetable statement right there: “focus maniacally on what you want because that shows passion”.
It does. Have you ever read the book, ‘Think and Grow Rich’ by Napoleon Hill?
Yes.
That is one of my favorite books in the world. In November, I was doing a lot of soul searching, candidly. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go into venture capital or work for another startup, and once I figured out that I wanted to get into venture capital, I said I was going to get a job by January 15th, because I actually had to get a hip surgery later that month and I knew I was going to be out of commission. I said to myself “Look, go to work and say you will get a job in venture capital by January 15th,” and I said it every morning when I woke up, I said it every night when I went to bed, and luckily I did. So, it was great.
I love that. That’s the same kind of passion and preparation that founders need to do before they go meet with an investor like you. It’s very complimentary, and it shows you’ve done your homework, it shows you’re serious. You did that to get a job, and if someone’s pitching you to give them money, they need to do the same kind of focus: maniacal, read every blog post you’ve done.
Sometimes you spend some time with somebody helping them with their pitch and their narrative. Please share with me that story and also what you look for in a pitch.
First off, I got started here at Corigin and it was David Goldberg and myself, and one of the big things is we like to add value to our companies. One of the ways that we like to add value is to help them go out and fundraiser, whether that’s to fill out the remaining part of the current round or to go raise series A. When I first got here, there was a portfolio company of ours whose name I won’t mention, but they were in the FinnTech space, and the founders are brilliant, which is an understatement. They are two of the smartest people I’ve ever met in the world, and their solution is pretty incredible.
I don’t care if it’s a founder in our portfolio or outside of our portfolio, being in the company day in and day out sometimes blurs your vision, and it makes it very difficult to tell the story and the narrative and sell it in the way that is most effective for either, a) raising capital or, b) selling to a certain type of population, and investors are not the buyers of your traditional product.
But wait, there’s more!?
This post has been adapted from The Successful Pitch podcast. Listen to this past episode for more on the inspiring JASON SHUMAN!
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About
As a funding strategist, John Livesay helps CEOs craft a compelling pitch which engages investors in a way that inspires them to join a startup’s team.
After a successful 20-year career in media sales with Conde Nast where he worked across all 22 brands in their corporate division [GQ, Vanity Fair, Wired, W and Vogue] and created integrated programs for clients such as Lexus, Hyundai and Guess, John won salesperson of the year in 2012 across the entire company.
Follow John on Twitter at @john_livesay. We welcome your comments.
