Kauffman Fellows Module 4 Impressions: “The Human Dynamics of Venture”
I promise to pick up the pace on future Kauffman Fellows blogs and be better at posting them right after the modules. Our fourth module was in March, so I know I’m overdue on sharing my thoughts with those who are curious and asking about my experience in the program.
This time, the theme was The Human Dynamics of Venture. Definitely my cup of tea, and in this case, a pun was certainly intended since the module was in London. (Side note: the benefit of the Fellows program is not only to strengthen your network and build a long-lasting firm but also to expose you to different VC ecosystems to provoke different ways of thinking, hence the global locations). Kauffman Fellows, itself, beat me (and at this point, anyone would) in covering some details of our time together. This article outlines some of the topics that were covered and lists all the great speakers we heard from. Therefore, instead of repeating what was already covered, I’d rather share the key reflection points that I continue to ponder on:
Abundance mindset: your interactions, day-to-day, and quality of life depend on your mindset. How do you view the world most of the time? From a lens of abundance or scarcity? There is plenty to go around, and we create what we see, so the more we can focus on the abundance out there and how we can contribute to it, the better off we are in being happy and successful.
For example, I recently had a call with a Kauffman Fellow (yes, Ryan I will put you on the spot), who went above and beyond to help me. He was refreshingly kind and resourceful. It was an inspiring mindset that helping me be successful does not take away any success opportunities from him. He definitely has a mindset of abundance.
Kindness is about giving a gift: It could be a gift of knowledge, perspective, or advice. It is not necessarily about being light or saying only what the other person wants to hear. We should always be polite in how we deliver feedback to a founder for example, but hiding constructive feedback is not helpful to them.
We heard a great example of an investor who, as soon as he knows a company does not fit his investment criteria, stops the meeting in the middle, explains the lack of fit to the founder, and says “Now you have 15 minutes with me, how else can I be helpful to you?”.
The power of peer learning. This, to me, is one of the main reasons why Kauffman is so interesting. During every gathering, we have a cross-module day filled with Kauffman Led Conversations, which are small group discussions or workshops led by another Kauffman fellow who has first-hand experienced a specific topic or situation.
These peer-to-peer conversations are super insightful. To learn from people who are experiencing the same challenges as you and have the opportunity to have back-to-back conversations around it is a very unique opportunity nowadays. The quality this time was top notch and that was definitely the day I learned the most.
As always, there were many ideas, tools, and framework discussions that one can take back to their firm and quickly start implementing. For me, however, it’s going back to these provocative reflections that will really impact our firm in the long term.
