Ask A VC — Sarah Kunst, Venture Partner at Future Perfect Ventures
by Elizabeth Galbut (@design4innov8)
Sarah Kunst is an investor and tech executive who has worked at Apple, Red Bull, Chanel, Mohr Davidow Ventures and several venture backed startups. She is currently a venture partner at Future Perfect Ventures and contributing editor at Marie Claire Magazine. Her philanthropic interests include Venture for America, Help Us Adopt, Code2040, Technovation Challenge and The US State Department’s Tech Women program. She also mentors and advises startups through Boost.vc, NewMe, DigitalUndivided, Mergelane, The Startup Factory, and Alchemist Accelerator.
Sarah is on the 2015 Forbes Magazine 30 under 30 list and named a top 25 innovator in tech by Cool Hunting. She has been recognized for her work in Business Insider as a 30 under 30 Woman in Tech and Top African-American in Tech and Marie Claire Magazine named her a Young Gun to watch. She also writes for Techcrunch, The Daily Beast and Entrepreneur.com. Marc Andreessen named her one of his 55 Unknown Rock Stars in Tech.
Elizabeth Galbut: At SoGal Ventures, we don’t think you have to fit the typical VC mold to be a successful investor. What obstacles did you face on your journey to become a VC and how can other women get into investing?
Sarah Kunst: Venture investing is a very small field and breaking in is hard. Getting really smart about technology — both what is currently in vogue and what is in the developmental stages — is vital. Spend time looking at what’s rising in the app stores, what technology is being patented and developed in universities and labs, what people in other demographics are doing. If you become a student of how people behave and what technology exists, you’ll start to see the intersections. That’s where the money is, and for venture capitalists, making money is how you become successful. All that aside, the dismal state of diversity in VC makes it clear that merit alone won’t be enough. Being impeccable at what you do, building a big network by helping others and having a great reputation will all help. And don’t discount the importance of capital. If you can take a lucrative job to have money to angel invest or can raise a small fund, even on Angellist, from friends and family, do so. The more you can prove that you’re good, the less the biases against you will block you out of the field.
Elizabeth: What have you seen that female founders do better than their male counterparts?
Sarah: Women aren’t better than men. Men aren’t better than women. Diversity, being different from others in the room with you, is what makes strong companies. 20 women with group think are as bad as 20 men with group think. Same across racial and cultural lines. If your entire company looks like you, no matter what you look like, that is a failure. We see this play out most clearly with white male dominated groups in tech but make no mistake, the problem is sameness, not gender or race.
I want big returns which means I want to work with teams who can see problems and solutions from all angles. Diversity drives returns.
Elizabeth: You travel between SV and NYC a lot. What should founders outside of SV be aware of when thinking about raising capital?
Sarah: Companies outside of SV and NYC are cheaper to start and scale but will generally find it harder to find investment capital. Generally I’d advise startups from other areas to build relationships with investors locally by being immersed in the ecosystem of meetups and demo days but also to meet people online. Fred Wilson, Paul Graham and Mark Suster all have blogged about investing in people they first met in their blog comment threads.
Twitter makes it possible for anyone to ‘talk’ with Marc Andreessen or Kara Swisher. Take advantage of this and become known.
Also get an MVP out the door and then consider applying to every incubator, hackathon, free pitch event and accelerator you can, anywhere you can. It’s the best way to get a foot in the door of ecosystems you aren’t geographically a part of. And remember that a dollar in Iowa goes about 10 times as far as a dollar in Manhattan or San Francisco, use the often lower cost locally to your advantage.
