Just Can’t Get Enough: PYL In-Flight: Jan 11, 2024
Welcome Back My Educated Passengers:
This past week I spent a few days in San Francisco attending events surrounding the JP Morgan life sciences conference. While I didn’t go to the actual JP Morgan conference, I attended (as an investor) the Ropes & Gray panel discussion on Sunday, Biotech Showcase on Monday, and RESI on Tuesday with a few social events / receptions as well.
Some of you may recall that I quit angel investing last April and wrote about why in a blog post. And then in September, I invested in the latest round for one of my portfolio companies (Zum), and I find myself back in the game.
Did the market or ecosystem change? Not enough to reflect what I want to see for the startups solving the problems I want to see solved, but angel investing is a bit of a temptress and what I find irresistable is the opportunity to learn.
There are few ventures with a steeper learning curve and continuous need for knowledge as is required to be a good angel investor. To make a good (and defendable) investing decision, especially with early stage companies, it takes more than just learning about the company, the product, and the team. You also need to understand the overall market, the competition, and the legal and financial terms of the deal. With early stage companies, the market and competitoin information is often private and unavailable which then requires tapping into others who may have more and better information and insights.
It’s a lot. And in 2022 when I didn’t follow my own due diligence advice and made a seriously bad investment decision, I had to stop. What’s different now? I am. I am committed to being more deliberate about my investing which means taking on the required burden of continuous and intentional learning.
Which gets me back to this past week and why it’s beneficial to be in the San Francisco Bay Area as an angel investor. We have so many opportunities to attend events, meet with founders, and tap into other investors in the area. The Ropes and Gray panel on Sunday was on AI and Big Data in Life Sciences. On Monday, after meeting and learning from founders (and making some intros), I attended a panel on digital health innovation. Tuesday, I again met with founders and was inspired by the founder innovation and commitment to positively impacting patient health.
I’ve also decided that I’m 100% focused on women’s health, especially post fertility. We are starting to see a lot more activity, investment, and awareness in the women’s health space, which is so ridiculous given that over half the population is female. We are not a niche market. Investors and innovators are really late to the game and it’s still a blue ocean of opportunity.
I don’t believe that poppycock that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, assuming that I buy into the idea that at 53 (almost 54) that I am old (and a dog!). I learned while researching for Piloting Your Life that women enter their most creative period after 50 and I totally get it.
It might be the change in hormones. Or, if we have kids, we aren’t needed in the same way which frees up some time. Or it might be that as we women age, we just don’t care as much about what other people think. Let me tell you, the ‘fuck it 50s’ are real.
Whatever it is, after 50, we’ve freed up lots of cycles and brain space.
As for my learning opportunities, besides attending panel sessions in person, I love to listen to podcasts to consume information. Poor Zeke often has to listen to episodes on data, life sciences, health tech, investing, and business topics when we are on long drives. He drives, I listen and take notes. And then I try to share with others what I’ve learned.
I was out of the learning goove for a while. Between perimenopause, the pandemic, and getting the kids off and through college, I wasn’t motivated and didn’t have the attention span to focus. But now I just can’t get enough. I cannot learn enough, fast enough.
Zeke and I are working on a new project which is requiring research and learning new skills. We are having a (mostly) great time but it’s a lot to learn in a short amount of time. It feels so good to be learning a series of new skillsets and moderately uncomfortable which is good signal. Look for news on this in February.
Midlife is so underrated. Zeke was complaining about his back and feet and various health related challenges yesterday. I get it. Physcially our bodies are breaking down. Age is a bit of a bitch. We are so fortunate on so many levels so we are pushing our way through the discomfort.
I firmly believe that in our 50s, we still have so much life (hopefully) left to live and there are so many opportunities. Simply relying on what we’ve always done or what we already know is unacceptable and does a disservice to ourselves and our society at large.
What are you doing to keep your brain active? What new thing are you learning? I’d love to know.
In the meantime, I am going to put on some Depeche Mode and read some articles before watching some recorded webinars until my brain feels saturated and needs to process the new information. Then it’s time for a walk outside to let my brain digest the new info. Or some dumb YouTube videos or TikToks.
May you find peace, acceptance, and love today as you navigate being human.
With much love and gratitude,
Terri
This week’s song:Just Can’t Get Enough by Depeche Mode.
Journal prompt / reflection: What do I want to learn? What would tickle my brain?
What I am Reading: Tales of Potential by Joanna Bloor.
terrihansonmead.com
Piloting Your Life (the book)
Terri Mead YouTube Channel
Instagram: terrihansonmead
About the Author
Terri Hanson Mead is the multi-award winning author of Piloting Your Life, travel journalist, Managing Partner of Solutions2Projects, LLC, and an advocate for women through all of her platforms including YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and this blog. Terri, the mother of a college sophomore and recent college graduate, is based in Redwood City, CA and in her spare time, loves to travel, cook, play tennis, and fly helicopters around the San Francisco Bay Area, especially under the Golden Gate Bridge. Oh, and she loves a good craft cocktail!
