Part 1, My Path to Venture Capital: Austin Clements of TenOneTen
Pluot recently talked with Austin Clements, an associate at TenOneTen, the LA-based venture capital firm. TenOneTen is well known for the wealth of operational experience that the firm’s partners, David, Gil, and Eytan, bring to the table when they invest in a company. Austin fits right into this culture, having been an entrepreneur since he was 16.
TenOneTen led Pluot’s seed round, and Austin is one of our favorite people to talk to about how new technologies are changing the workplace. We sat down with Austin to hear about his experience in the VC world.
- In Part 1, below, Austin talks about what led him to venture capital, and how his experiences at Morehouse College and NYU Stern shaped his career.
- In Part 2, he’ll share his perspective on working with startups and venture investing.
Part I
Venture capital is an extremely competitive industry. Mark Suster mentioned in a comment on Chris Dixon’s blog a few years ago that he had received 700 resumes for an entry-level job at his firm. What was your path to becoming a venture investor? Where did it start?
I’ve been an entrepreneur longer than I’ve been anything else. I started my first business when I was 16. I was doing web development and design for small businesses here in LA. This was in the late 90s, when most of the sales pitch was explaining to customers why they needed a website.
After undergrad, I worked in private wealth and portfolio management for a few years before leaving to start another tech-based service business. It was quite similar to the business I started when I was 16, but now mobile was the new platform. We bootstrapped the business and did well for ourselves, but over time I recognized the business wouldn’t scale well. As the skills related to mobile development became more common, competition would increase, and our margins would decline.
That realization made me want to understand what types of businesses could scale efficiently and why some companies were getting millions of dollars of investment. I was in my mid 20’s and had never met a VC or angel investor so the entire concept of getting outside investment was quite foreign to me. I always had bootstrapped.
I learned a ton about the industry from the blogs of Mark Suster, Chris Dixon, and especially Fred Wilson. Though the industry still felt distant, this served as my early introduction to understanding this scaling/investment dynamic. But so many things they wrote resonated with me because I experienced them first hand working with dozens of small businesses over the years. I also noticed that these VCs and many others had their MBAs, so I explored doing the same.
My business school application was all about venture capital. When I had my interview, the admissions director basically told me, “We really like you, but we don’t necessarily have the resources to get you opportunities with a bunch of VC firms.” If I wanted a job in investment banking or in consulting they could do a lot better for me, but there was not really a clear path to venture.
My response was: If you give me this platform, I’ll create the path myself and find a way to do it. I don’t have a plan B. I’ll just find a way to be in the industry one way or another.
What drew you to venture capital as a career?
I knew very early in my career that I needed to be around people that are inspired by their work.
The best part of what I did when I was working with small businesses, was talking to people whose life was their business — restaurant owners, barber shop owners, things like that. They poured so much of their time, thought, and energy into the success of the business. It was deeply meaningful to them.
When I started to work in larger corporate environments, I didn’t see that same sense of passion. I saw too many people who started off Monday morning waiting for Friday to come. I’m all for time off and spending time with family and friends, but it felt so dissatisfying to be around people who showed up mostly for a paycheck, but didn’t seem to get much fulfillment from being there. I knew that I needed to work around entrepreneurs on some level from very early in my career. Every time in my career I’ve moved away from that, I’ve said to myself, “This isn’t for me.”
I was good with finance and investing, had a solid understanding of tech, and had worked with plenty of software engineers. I thought that the combination of those skills, coupled with a lot of hustle, would be the foundation of making a good investor.
When did you first become a VC?
Frank Rimalovski, who runs the NYU Innovation Venture Fund, gave me my first role in VC. I was a first year MBA student at NYU Stern working with a student-focused fund created to encourage student entrepreneurship amongst the NYU community. We only invested in students of NYU, but it was my first time taking a look at how companies are evaluated.
From there I worked with New York Angels and Digital Entertainment Ventures in New York. My first exposure to the LA venture ecosystem was though a role I held at CAA, where I worked with the venture arm of the talent agency. In all, I probably evaluated over 1000 companies for investment before I started my current role with TenOneTen Ventures.
You touched on your NYU Stern experience. For undergrad you went to Morehouse College. How did that help prepare you to be a venture investor?
I’m so deeply passionate about Morehouse because I feel like it shaped a lot of who I am. Morehouse is a historically black, all male college in Atlanta. At first blush it would be easy to assume that such a narrow population would result in a relatively monolithic group, but in reality it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Morehouse broadened my understanding of people because the population represented an intellectually curious, outspoken group of young men across a wide spectrum of socioeconomic backgrounds, political affiliations, religions, and perspectives. Still, as African American men, we all knew we shared a common history.
While Morehouse provided a solid liberal arts education, that wasn’t what stands out as preparing me to be a better venture investor. The critical pillar that Morehouse provided was a sense of excellence that’s required in all that you do. Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, a former president of Morehouse College, is still frequently quoted as saying:
“Whatever you do, strive to do it so well that no man living and no man dead and no man yet to be born could do it any better.”
That’s a high standard. Still, knowing that’s the level expected of me and all my brothers at Morehouse is truly inspiring. I aim to do that with my work — again, that goes back to why I like to be inspired and around people who are inspired by their work.
How have your experiences at Morehouse and at NYU Stern helped in your career?
Morehouse helped me develop who I am and showed me who I can become, whereas NYU provided the skills and relationships to make that happen.
I was president of NYU Stern’s entrepreneurship club and involved in another program called InSITE, both which I have to give a lot of credit to. These two groups gave me a chance to talk to a lot of VCs face to face and host events with investors and venture-backed entrepreneurs. They gave me a lot more hands-on experience than just reading about or seeing theory about venture capital. It got me to ask tough questions and get good answers.
Any advice to students who’re interested in venture investing?
If you’re interested in venture, just dive in and get involved with your local tech community. Meet and help out as many people as you can, expecting nothing in return. Your education and experience is their payment. The goal is to understand the ways that you can be most useful to startups.
Once you find ways to make real connections and contributions to entrepreneurs, share your learning with others. If you become known for something useful, it will certainly help with getting a foot in the door. Some might see the advice as “being known for something” as positioning themselves as a one-trick pony. But most potential venture employers can extrapolate that if you do this one thing well, you can probably replicate the success in other areas.
Thanks for reading. Next week, we’ll post Part 2, where Austin talks about startups and venture investing. Follow us here on Medium, or @pluotco on Twitter, for Part 2, as well as future conversations with folks in the startup ecosystem.
Follow Austin and TenOneTen on Twitter.
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