Julia Gudish-Krieger Transcript
Clint Betts
Julia, thank you so much for coming on the show. What an honor to have you. You are a very impressive woman, a very impressive investor, and an entrepreneur. We are thrilled to have you. Why don't we start with maybe your title, the name of your firm, how you got started, and where you are now?
Julia Gudish-Krieger
Absolutely, and thank you so much for having me. I've been really looking forward to this. So, my name is Julia Gudish-Krieger. I'm the managing partner for Pari Passu Venture Partners. We are an early-stage venture firm, mostly backing seed and series A companies, a lot of B2B SaaS around e-comm consumer tech, but set up a bit differently where instead of a traditional fund structure, it is an ecosystem of heavy hitters, founders, operators, mostly I would say like VP and up, if not like C-suite and founders specifically, that collectively are able to come together and back some of the leading companies within venture.
And so the seed thought of what we've really created is that it takes a village to succeed in all parts of life, right? Personal and professional, definitely professional as well. And so I think the more people you have on your cap table that have actually rolled up their sleeves and built something and been smacked around and humbled by entrepreneurship to know value add isn't asking what numbers are every quarter, there's always a fire to put out, right, and so the seed thought for us for Pari Passu is how do we create the world's most powerful value add on cap tables but also allow incredible operators and founders that maybe haven't had a crazy exit were they can put 250K into a fund to write much more approachable checks but into really competitive deals and ventures? So that's what we have built and what I'm very excited to talk more about.
Clint Betts
Well, I think it's brilliant, and I think it's kind of where VC is heading. You tell me, though. It seems like, remember, five or six years ago, it seemed like everybody was starting a fund or had a fund or all these various things, and it was very like, "So why do you have a fund?" And it was very generalist. Let's say that. A lot of VC's history is kind of like generalist, and you pick deals and stuff. It sounds like what you're doing is very much operator-focused, with people who have actually been in the trenches before and who have done this, helping, supporting, and investing in other people. And man, the value of that is beyond money.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
I think so. I think we've seen the last few years with the unthinkable can happen, pandemics, valuations, bubbles bursting, or whatnot, and I think startup founders have realized, maybe even more so, that a value add investor is important for when the quote-unquote shit hits the fan because it can, right? So to actually have people that have had to navigate not just the shiny exits and experience there but have had to navigate difficult times, right, and can roll up their sleeves and actually help, right, and think through what's not working and what's worked for them.
And I think going through the entrepreneurial experience, it changes you, right? I think it gives you a different sense of human empathy once you really know what it's like being in the trenches again, solving problems, navigating emotional states, and all the things. And I think it also then puts you in a place of really wanting to pass along those learnings to other founders and let someone benefit from mistakes that I've made or had to navigate or whatnot.
And so yeah, I think it becomes very, very important for founders to think about who they're bringing on their cap table and not just a quick shiny check from the first person that wants to give you a term sheet and the right valuation so you can get back to work. I think founders are becoming much more thoughtful about that, and it's really smart to do so. I think it benefits the win significantly and a much more pleasant journey along the way.
Clint Betts
Yeah, somebody who you can actually call, and they have actually been there before. The value of that is insane. It's beautiful, actually. I wonder how you are curating this community. How are you curating the app and getting the right people in there? I imagine on your end and on the community ecosystem and app end, that's kind of a big piece of it, making sure that it's the right people.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
Yeah. And when I think of this curation, I said this to someone the other day: it's not meant to be like a "You can't sit with us" kind of thing. It's really more of the idea that we want to make sure when we write a million dollar check to a company, and it's 20 founders behind the scenes, that it's folk that can be very value add and that continues to reaffirm why founders pick us and carve out space and oversubscribe deals for us.
And so the thought process of who we're thinking about initially is mostly, like I mentioned, C-suite founders. It's all accredited investors, so that kind of already narrows your pool. They are people who have had to navigate across all sorts of parts of business and different challenges and have acquired really incredible skills that they can then pass along. In terms of titles, again, it's like I don't mind if someone's a social media director from a huge company. That's something that can be value-added. It doesn't just have to be C-suite, but it's really us thinking about, and a bit more of an art than a science, who should be in the fold that would be amazingly valuable to a company even if they can only write a 10K check, right? For some of these people, that 10K check is worth more than a fund giving you a million dollars and not adding any value, right? A lot of the folks who are operators haven't had that crazy exit, especially. Maybe their net worth is mostly sitting in the form of equity, so they could only invest 15K, but they're actually even more valuable than someone who exited five years ago because they're still plugged into the scene. They're still building themselves. They know the players. They know the partnerships, and so that's how we think about curating the community.
I also think about it a bit less... For better or for worse, I think about curating the community less in a transactional way. It's less of who wants to angel invest right now in companies. It's more about who the really smart people who are plugged into this ecosystem are. They should be sitting at the table here because regardless of whether or not someone is actively angel investing now, you should see the deals that we're backing. Maybe there are partnership opportunities. Maybe there's a potential customer of yours.
So many of the people in our investor network are CEOs of DTC companies and e-comm companies, which we don't back brands, but you think of their perspective on, for example, e-comm SaaS, which we focus a significant amount of effort on, just given our backgrounds. If they don't end up investing in one of these companies, they might be their customers of theirs; they might be able to give really interesting feedback, and they may be able to do partnerships. So it's a very need better word for this very incestuous ecosystem. There are so many ways that value ends up being created. So that's how we're thinking about it.
Clint Betts
And how does it work? Is it structured like a normal fund, or what are these called SPVs, or what do you do inside of AngelList? How does it work?
Julia Gudish-Krieger
So it is individual SPV, so the community is curated, right? That's sort of one piece of it, right? So really thoughtful and who we're putting into the fold, but again, credit investors that can add value that is mostly plugged into this ecosystem as operators, we'd love to have you, right? I think that's one piece of it.
And then, in terms of the structure, we're very thoughtfully set up as individual SPVs because A: once you do a fund, it's very hard to make it work to take less than I mentioned, like 250 K minimum checks. Just even from a regulatory standpoint, it starts triggering things or whatnot, right?
I think the other piece of it, though, here is to allow individual SPVs to allow the freedom for people to be able to pick and choose what they want to lean into, right? So, I may be a DTC founder and have a real perspective on this particular space around SEO. I've seen the other players, and I know the problem they're solving; I want to put 50K into this company, but I only want to put 10K into this company and maybe a bunch of companies. I'm going to sit out because it's not where I'm allocating discretionary income. That flexibility generally does not exist when you're talking about the most competitive deals with a venture.
I think there are a lot of opportunities there with crowd equity platforms and whatnot where everyone can put in small checks, and those are amazing. I think the kind of deals that we're focused on are mostly SaaS and consumer tech deals alongside literally tier-one funds. We've co-invested with Upfront, Sequoia, and Sierra. And so it's typically not the deals you would have access to unless you were an institution writing bigger checks, but we're typically the exception because of the bench of support that you end up getting with the people that end up actually writing the checks and their experiences.
Clint Betts
This is probably a naive and dumb question, but why build your own app versus what already exists in AngelList? What would be the difference between just, I imagine there's people who have invested in these types of things through AngelList or other groups. Can you explain the difference between that?
Julia Gudish-Krieger
The purpose for building the app, and I guess just to even take a step back, so we've backed 24 companies since December 2020. The average check is around a million. So we've put a decent amount of money to work backing incredible companies. I think the purpose of the app and why we spent a year head down iterating and creating the best UI experiences for our community to stay engaged. There's really a need to have a tech home, right? So, when you log into this app, it is not a long, weird process, right? We're essentially asking you to put your LinkedIn and confirm you're accredited, and we will let you know, right? So, there's not a ton of friction there. And we're also very thoughtful. There's no membership fee. There's not a minimum amount you have to commit to best a year. I don't want that friction. I just want the best people that, again, can back the best companies.
And so for us to build this app, it was more so what's the experience you want to offer? So if you are building this amazing community and you want them to see the deals that we're backing, but then you also want to customize and see asks from founders to be able to really get a push notification and see, "Hey, who knows someone at this level at Skims or at Everlane who can really help think through building out a sales team? We're looking for a VP of growth, but they have to have this background." I don't know. I mean, I'm swimming in emails where I'm drowning a bit, so to be able to have an experience where you're getting a push notification for that, it's such a smooth experience. It's such a great UI, and you're able to really see basically your whole alternative investment platform on one dashboard, too.
It was an experience that was worth investing in. And I think as this app develops and grows and we hear more feedback from our community, they want to get together offline, right? They want other ways. Even if I haven't invested in this specific company, maybe I'm open to all of the companies asking me for advice or seeing the list of what they're looking for intro-wise, right? And so that's really the thought of it to really be a great home to supercharge this community and its ability not just to back amazing companies but to help support them for that larger win.
Clint Betts
I think it's brilliant, and I think, yeah, I mean, the answer is so clear why you wouldn't do it on some of these more plug-and-play platforms is you are what you're building as a community, a community of founders, a community of leaders, a community of entrepreneurs, and to do that you need a platform or in this case an app and a technology hub for that to exist, right? It can't be through emails, in a sense.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
It's just a much better experience than something living in emails, right? And I also think about the way we think about building this community, which is very organic and has happened a lot through YPO channels, right, in places where, again, there are already pockets of communities. Once you're approved to be on the app, you have your own invite code, so it's very easy for you to loop in other people. They bypass the approval process to get front of the line. It's just a better in-the-pocket of-your-hand all-in-one experience versus trying to figure out logins and emails and whatnot. Trying to simplify. The intention is to be cleaner, cleaner, simpler, and better on all fronts.
Clint Betts
How much time do you spend trying to remember passwords and logging in at the end of the day? That is a huge part of my day.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
I use one password, so if someone hacks into one password, I think it's going to be terrible. But yes, listen, for sure, I think all of our emails are bombarded. And so I've experienced it before as an investor; it's like I want to add value to certain portfolio companies. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, wait, there was an update that went through. What did they need? Who do they need to speak to?" And so I think the ability to have it in a different UI and the ability again to have a push notification that's like, "Oh, CNAI has an update," or, "They're looking for this or that or that," it's just a much more fluid, enjoyable experience. So that's how we're looking at it.
Clint Betts
Can people direct message each other inside of it? They can talk to each other?
Julia Gudish-Krieger
No, not in phase one, but we can send on behalf of the founders updates, founder, asks, which is its own section, content in terms of bigger updates that we want to share, not just with the subset of people who invested in that company, but more broadly with the community. So it's just a lot more flexibility, and then we'll hopefully be doing a lot more to bring this community together offline because there are so many ways that they can add value to each other outside of, again, backing each other.
I think just the other piece to mention, which has been really beautiful to see organically happen, is a lot of deal flow then comes from this community because these founders have their own tech stacks of companies that they're using, and they will flag to us like, "Hey, this company has been killing it for conversion for us. They're profitable, and they're bootstrapped, and they haven't raised, and you have to speak to them because if you do a deal, I want to put money into the SVP." And so we end up having a really early finger on the pulse for exciting companies because we've really built this network that is all aligned to support these companies together in different ways and some of its capital, right?
Clint Betts
Yeah. You've built this incredible scout program, right? Have you actually thought about, and I'm sure you have, building this scout model inside of it?
Julia Gudish-Krieger
Yes, we are thinking through the details of that now because there are especially some really big super connectors that have already just flagged some deals for us or brought amazing people into the community that we're like, "Wait, there's something more here," especially as we think about, and certain people I can't announce yet, but certain other sectors outside of just B2B SaaS or consumer tech, think defense tech, right, and some of these other areas where we have very, very strong relationships to the who's who, investors and/or founders, that would be somewhere where bringing on a venture partner, a venture scout, something more formal would make a lot more sense. So we are very actively thinking through that. But the beauty of this community is, by default, everyone's a scout, right?
Clint Betts
Yeah. That's the beauty of it. Yeah. That part is really cool. Tell me about the name.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
Pari Passu?
Clint Betts
Yeah.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
So the name Pari Passu, it really means on equal footing, right? And so it's kind of a legal term, but the way that we interpret it is on equal footing, with founders supporting founders, right? We are in your court again. I have been in the trenches and stayed up all night worrying about payroll, and I know what that feels like. And so, the relationship that I intend to have with the founders of my portfolio companies, which most of them know, is that they can text me any time of the night. I'm like, "Don't worry, my notifications are turned off. Anytime, go ahead."
It's just the kind of support that I think all of us as founders have wanted, and some have had it, and some haven't, right? But that's the beauty. I think of this shared experience of having a relationship with your portfolio company founders where they know they don't only have to tell you the shiny things, right? They want to loop you into the fold. They know you'll understand that there's, again, a fire to put out or things to navigate, and that's really impactful because you want to be able to help versus just getting update emails every six months, right?
And listen, founders navigate their own insecurities and imposter syndromes and whatnot, and if you don't have the kind of relationship where someone can be vulnerable with you because they're only trying to share the shiny stuff, you're not going to be able to help before it's kind of too late to help, right? And so I think that relationship is super important and is easier to develop with the shared experience of having gone through the entrepreneurial journey yourself.
Clint Betts
What does a typical day look like for you? Walk us through a day.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
Typical day. Okay. I would say, on average, I'm waking up, say, 7:00 AM unless the kids wake up much earlier, and I've definitely had that happen. My youngest, who just turned three, woke me up literally with his head in my face this morning, "Hi, I need to go poop." I'm like, "Okay, it's early. All right, let's do it," which is always fun. But I would say I typically wake up around 7:00, really spending an active couple of hours with the kids. I have three little ones. I have three that are six and under. We [inaudible 00:17:49] things.
Clint Betts
Oh wow.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
We've done it all at the same time.
Clint Betts
Yeah, that's incredible.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
We're a little nuts. So, really active time with the kids in the morning, which then helps me justify being really, really kind of work-focused throughout the day. They're all in school, which is great. I have a nanny and help, and it really takes a village, again, on all fronts.
And then I would say 9:00 to 9:30, try not to have any calls or meetings so I can really be intentional around my day. I'd also say I've added some morning routines before I go down to the kids that have really helped me center myself and be more intentional around my day. I think before; I was in this go-go-go mentality that the second you get up, grab your email, and try to get the most done in your day and work every minute, and it doesn't benefit you, right, at a certain point.
So, there are certain practices that I've added in the morning. I do a cold plunge every morning. And so that's something my husband did for years, and I would literally say, "You are insane." And then I actually tried it in November, and once you do it for a week straight, so it's typically like 55 degrees, although we just got a thing that can go to like 39, which I think is a little aggressive, you're going full immersion into super cold water the first thing you do when you wake up, and I swear to you after, you just feel like a rush of dopamine. I literally feel happy, and I'm like, "Wow." It took a week of not being like, "Get out of here, you're crazy," and then your body sort of adjusts. But that has been an amazing unlock. So cold plunge into hot shower, intention into the day, ends in chaos. Nice seed thought.
And then I would say during the day, listen, it varies, right? I am trying not to do what I default do, which is have 11 meetings a day, because I am so interested and engaged in the people that I'm connecting with that I don't want to say no, but I'm realizing five days in a row of that is not the best use of time because you also need blocks to think and to strategize and to answer emails and all of the things, so really full days I would say until probably 5:30.
And then I really try, unless there's a fire to put out, to keep 5:30 to 8:00 sacred and really be present with my kids, and once they're all asleep, candidly, I probably watch TV for an hour or so to feel like a person again. And then when my spouse passes out at 10:00, I probably work again until midnight. For some people, they're morning people. They're like, "Oh my god, it's so quiet at 5:00 AM. No one's there." I'm like, "That also happens at midnight."
And so that's kind of like my also time. I know it's not like the healthiest, but I get so much done between 10:30 and midnight, and that's how I've been able to justify my day of balancing, not that there's ever a real balance, but some semblance of real focused time for kids. And for me, that means making up for it by then working until midnight a lot of nights, but it's things that I love, and it allows me to be present and make up for it later. So that's a bit about how my days are scheduled, but it really varies.
Clint Betts
Yeah, that's incredible. What are you reading? What reading recommendations would you have for us?
Julia Gudish-Krieger
There are two books that I'm reading right now. I've actually read both of them before and I think it's something where it's good to reread it almost like once a year. One is called The Way of Integrity. Let me figure out... I think I know the name... by Martha Beck. It's a book that you read with a pencil in your hand and pause and circle things, and they have little workshops throughout, but the seed thought of it is really about personal growth and checking yourself of where you are out of integrity and that means different things for different people, right, but essentially not feeling split in different ways and how do you make yourself whole? And it's going through all of these really interesting processes. That's an amazing book. And I feel like even ten pages into it, you pause, and you're like, "Oh wow." And a lot of what she talks about is also these one-degree daily shifts, right? And so the analogy is if I'm flying a plane, right, and I make even a one-degree change, it's the difference of me ending up in Miami or Timbuktu. Not really, right? But you get the idea. And so that concept in that metaphor really stuck with me of it being much more approachable to try to make these lasting changes in your life of these one-degree shifts daily to stay in this place of integrity, stay in this place of intention in business and personal and spiritually on all front of life, so really amazing book I would recommend. So that's The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck.
And then the other one is called The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer. It's the same author of Untethered Soul, and that one is an amazing read. It's also these three-page chapters, so you feel like you've accomplished so much. You're like, "Oh my god, I'm on chapter seven," which is great, but it's really, it's his story, and it's like this process of just kind of seeding control in a way, more flow with life.
The short story of it is he was a professor, then decided I'm going to go live in the woods and just study yoga, and by the end of the book, you'll read this in the back of the cover, so I'm not giving it away, he literally, IPOs a tech company from the woods for billions of dollars, and it's just this process of him not having a death grip of control around life, which I think is a very healthy approach to flow and not force. That shift for me has really unlocked a lot of things professionally and personally, as well as how I approach many parts of my life. And so it's a very enjoyable read and a great book.
Clint Betts
Okay. I haven't read either of those, so I'm reading both of them.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
Let me know.
Clint Betts
You sold me on both. That's incredible. How much of your day are you spending thinking about artificial intelligence, how is it integrating into your companies and investing, and how is it going to affect everything?
Julia Gudish-Krieger
Yeah, it's a great question. I feel like a year plus ago, everyone was like, "Now I'm an AI company," right? And then I think it took time to be like, "You're not an AI company. AI-enabled is just table stakes for a modern company," right, versus the folks that are actually using AI as the core of their offering and it's something very different than just a skin on ChatGPT. So I think what's labeled an AI company is changing because, again, everything should really be AI-enabled in a way.
I think on a daily basis, there have definitely been unlocks in terms of note-takers that then give summaries that integrate with your CRM. There's a lot of unlocks on time. Motion was a company that I tried that kind of manages your calendar, puts in tasks, and acts like a virtual EA. That's been really great.
But yeah, I definitely spend a lot of time thinking about AI-enabled companies and hearing how they're approaching different solutions. I think the biggest question that I ask these companies is like, how do you think about defensibility, right? And so the answer definitely has to be if they're presenting themselves, again, as the main focus of their company and the unlock is AI; again, it can't be a skin on top of ChatGPT, right? It's like, why can't someone else also raise 500K and do this tomorrow?
And so that's where I think the secret sauce is for these companies that are really taking a thoughtful approach to building a moat and defensibility with their use of AI. Those are really fascinating companies, but there's so much that's happening in that space. It's a fun time to be an investor.
Clint Betts
It really is funny when, a year ago, everybody had AI on the headers of their websites, just like, "We're an AI company now."
Julia Gudish-Krieger
I know. I think I made a joke that everyone spent $59 on GoDaddy and changed their URLs to .ai, and all valuations went up. They probably did for some, but-
Clint Betts
They probably did. Actually, yeah.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
Probably did.
Clint Betts
It probably did work, honestly. What are some key traits that a leader should have? Do you have three leadership traits that you've seen in... because obviously all leaders are different, have different personalities, different approaches, but what kind of traits make a good leader?
Julia Gudish-Krieger
I think humility is super important. I think, of course, confidence is important as well, but when it comes to arrogance or ego, it's such a turn-off for me. I think the humility to not want to be the smartest person in the room, the humility to be able to course correct when you've made a wrong decision, to be able to actually listen to feedback from someone and not just be defensive because you feel threatened.
It generally takes someone having to be [inaudible 00:26:49] up around a little in life and fail something or whatnot to cultivate that humility. It's not always an easy path to get there. Sometimes, life forces it upon you. But I think that humility is super important to be a great leader and to build a great company. And again, when you disagree with someone, by all means, right, but say not from a place of defensive ego, right, from a place of, "Actually, here's a different perspective. Here's why I think this." So, I'd say humility is really up there.
I think someone also, just as a side note, told me a stat that was really interesting: investor-founder relationships last longer than most marriages. [inaudible 00:27:31]. I mean, right, ten-year cycle versus... I'm like, that's really interesting, right? So, at the end of the day, humility really makes you a better human, and investors want to be in that relationship with you for a long time, and it goes both ways.
I think the other one is determination. I think that as a founder, you have to have thick skin. You have to be willing to hear a lot, right, and not get disheartened, especially in fundraising. You're getting off a meeting where someone says no, and then two minutes later, your next meeting is starting, and people can smell fear, right? You have to be able to find ways to ground yourself, right, and to be able to continue to show that determination if you believe in what you're building, right, and that grit, right? So, I think determination and grit are kind of the second.
And I think the third one is really authenticity, right? I think a few people view being a leader as putting on a show and "I need to know everything. I need to present," right, and much more being authentic in their journeys. I mean, I've seen that even on LinkedIn. There are some founders who are sharing very vulnerable things about how hard it is to raise or whatnot. And then all of a sudden, that post goes viral because people are yearning to connect with someone who's being authentic about their journey and doesn't have everything buttoned up and is being real, right, and people are drawn to that. So I think those are the three. I think humility, determination, and authenticity would be the ones that I think most of.
Clint Betts
Speaking of authenticity, and this goes into a broader question around, it does seem like CEOs and leaders are being asked to, I wouldn't say being forced to, but being asked to comment on things outside of their company, outside of their business, even outside of their industry. And we've seen a trend lately of VCs getting political, which I don't remember ever happening before. And so, I wonder what you think about that and what role you think investors in the VC community have in all of this.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
It's an interesting question. I mean, I think everyone's getting political, right? It's such a climate that we haven't been used to, I think, historically, right? So it's sort of natural from a human standpoint, and that's what happens.
I think as VCs are asked about things outside of their wheelhouse, whether it's politics or opinions on other sectors or whatnot, I would just challenge people to not always have to have an answer if it's something that you're not super well-versed in potentially. And again, I'm not talking just about politics, right? I think, again, my early founder hat. I kind of thought I had to know everything, so it makes you always have an answer for everything. And sometimes it's okay for the answer to be, "I'm not really in the weeds on that. Here's how I'm thinking about it, but X, Y, and Z."
And I think that in my early founder days, I didn't even think that was a viable option for an answer or anything, right? And I think that's the difference between them. Maybe some of that is age, or maybe some of that, again, is just life experience, but you don't have to know everything, especially, by the way, for early-stage companies. An okay answer is, "You know what? That's a fair point. You have a question to bring up. That's something we would love your help to help navigate. Here's how we're thinking about it, but we don't have everything figured out. Between the seed and the A is when we're going to figure out X. This is what we do know."
That's much more... That kind of goes back to humility. I love that answer from founders versus, "No, no, because it's going to be this and it's not,"... because again, a lot of that kind of answer comes from this energy of, "Must prove I know things," right? And I can say that because I've been there, right, and I see the light on the other side of that, so a little peripheral. But I think that's how I think about answering things outside of maybe what your expertise is.
Clint Betts
Well, another thing that I'm seeing investors do in VCs is become kind of like media companies. They're starting podcasts or publishing and stuff. What do you think of that? Do you have plans to do things like that, or are you already doing stuff like that?
Julia Gudish-Krieger
I think it's really interesting. I think the right kind of investors break through the noise, the ones that have a lot of authenticity and a real perspective to add. I love Jason Calacanis and all that he's done. I'm a guest judge on Launch and some of their Founder University stuff, so a big fan of what they're doing.
I think it depends. I think for someone to feel they should start a podcast for the sake of starting a podcast unless they have a real passion for it and perspective on it and be really deeply authentic, I think people can see through that, right? Viewers can see through that. So, I think great folks break through the noise. It's not something I'm actively thinking about now, but I think intuitively, in the roadmap down the line, if that's where this community flows, I think it would be something that's additive to our community because to be able to highlight such amazing people there makes a lot of sense. I don't think we would ever shift to a media business. It would only be if it would benefit the bigger picture of helping this community connect with each other, but not on the short-term roadmap.
Clint Betts
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. It is a big commitment. Julia, you've been amazing. We end every interview with the same question, and that is at CEO.com, we believe the chances one gives is just as important as the chances one takes. When you hear that, who gave you a chance to get you to where you are today?
Julia Gudish-Krieger
Oh, my first real job, which was an internship, was with Insight Partners. So between my junior and senior year at Harvard, back then a lot of the other venture funds would basically have deals coming from the partners on the golf courses and maybe a young person in a backroom crunching numbers somewhere, and they were really one of the first to flip that model and hire young and hire super lean and thoughtfully and give a tremendous amount of autonomy.
So I started venture before I could legally have a glass of wine, like at 20, and literally had free rein to speak to CEOs of any companies that I thought were interesting and looping a partner kind of the last mile. And so many other funds have replicated or tried to replicate what Insight has done with that cold calling model. 80% of the deals came from this analyst and associate class. It was really what principles do at other funds, and that was an incredible start to my career. And I'm such a fan of all the original partners there and have stayed close with a bunch. And yeah, that was really kind of what gave me my start.
Clint Betts
Insight Partners. Fantastic, fantastic group. They have invested in some Utah companies. I know that they're incredible, being from Utah. Julia, thank you so much.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
Thank you so much for having me.
Clint Betts
What a pleasure.
Julia Gudish-Krieger
I loved this. Looking forward to keeping in touch.
Edited for readability.