August 20, 2024 • 45 mins
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Get ready for an eye-opening episode as Monica teams up with guest host Ned Renzi to dive into the world of venture capital with Manu Kumar of K9 Ventures. Discover how Manu's unique philosophy of solving his own problems has led to an impressive track record, with seven unicorns emerging from just over 51 investments.
We explore the asymmetric risk-return profile of venture capital, delving into Manu’s journey from India to Carnegie Mellon and his latest venture, HiHello. Along the way, he shares how he navigated the challenges of investing in early-stage startups like Lyft, Auth0, and Twilio, offering a rare glimpse into the mindset behind these successful ventures.
The conversation continues with a focus on @hihello and its impact on the B2B SaaS space, particularly through digital business cards
and CRM integration, which are enhancing brand consistency. We also consider the broader implications of AI on various job sectors and the enduring relevance of manual labor in a rapidly changing world.
This episode is packed with invaluable wisdom for anyone passionate about technology and entrepreneurship, providing a greater understanding of the inner workings of venture capital. It’s a must-listen for those interested in the future of business and innovation.
Georgianna Moreland - Creator, Executive Producer & Managing Editor;
Matt Stoker - Editor
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ned Renzi (00:03):
Venture is made by these power law type returns,
what makes what Manu doesimpressive.
From my perspective, it's anunbelievable hit rate.
Georgianna Moreland (00:12):
This is Masterstroke with Monica Enid
and Sejo Petruzak, and welcometo our special guest host, ned
Renzi.
Conversations with founders,ceos and visionary leaders in
technology and beyond.
Monica Enand (00:33):
We just finished recording an episode with Manu
Kumar from K9 Ventures.
We had our guest co-host, NedRenzi, here today.
I want to ask GeorgianaMoreland, our executive producer
Georgiana, what'd you think of?
Georgianna Moreland (00:45):
the episode .
Monica, let me start by sayinghow much I absolutely love
having Ned Renzi sit in as ourguest co-host today.
I am really excited foreveryone to hear this episode.
Let me just say it.
Our guest, manu Kumar.
What an icon.
Tremendous business success,incredible track record and his
obvious Midas touch all thethings.
But most importantly, you cantell that this is just an
(01:08):
incredible human being.
Monica Enand (01:10):
Absolutely.
He is an incredible human being.
As you know, on Masterstroke,what we're trying to bring to
our listeners is people who'vehad some hopefully outsized
success in their life and tryingto figure out what makes them
tick and how they got there andwhat happened and who they are,
and I just love listening tosort of smart reflective.
(01:30):
People talk about their journey, and he was a great one, yes,
he was.
Georgianna Moreland (01:36):
The thing that resonated with me the most
is that he's a problem solverright.
The companies that he hasfounded and invested in have
provided everyday solutions.
I'm really excited for everyoneto hear about his new company,
HiHello Absolutely.
Monica Enand (01:49):
In every case, all of the companies he invested in
was him solving his own problem.
He was, you know, necessity wasthe mother of invention for him
in every case.
I'm excited to bring you thisepisode Master Stroke Audience
because I do think venturecapital, private equity, vcs,
it's like the dark arts we don'tget to hear.
(02:10):
It's conversations in the backroom, in quiet back rooms,
people making deals.
But the funny thing is youdon't have to be a VC PE geek
like I am to want to know allthe inside baseball.
You, honestly, if you'reworking at a company that's got
these kinds of investors, you'regoing to understand a whole lot
about what drives the behaviorof boards of directors,
(02:30):
executives, managers in yourcompany but how they act, by
hearing and understanding alittle bit about venture capital
.
So I'm so excited to bring thisepisode to our audiences
because I think it's so valuablefor everyone to listen to the
smartest people in venturecapital, which Manu absolutely
is, and hear kind of what'smaking them tick and what's
(02:52):
driving their behavior.
Georgianna Moreland (02:53):
He truly is an icon, monica, especially
because he flies under the radarbrilliant, unassuming and
humble, but creating massiveimpact.
Monica Enand (03:02):
Yeah, he's one of the quietest and one of the
craziest track record.
Stay tuned.
Masterstroke Audiences.
This is an episode you are notgoing to want to stop till the
end.
Manu, we're going to start.
(03:24):
We're going to give you alittle bit of a longer
introduction than we normallygive our guests, so your job is
just to let us do that.
Manu Kumar (03:32):
In the beginning Sounds good, I'm going to try
not to be embarrassed.
Georgianna Moreland (03:38):
I know.
Monica Enand (03:38):
I'm like I know what you're like.
You can't interrupt us, I mean,unless you think we say
something inaccurate.
But you got to.
Let us do this, All right?
Well, welcome to Masterstroke.
I am very excited because wehave very special guests with us
today.
But before I wanted to mentionthat Sejal is away today and we
were lucky enough to have ourfriend and former guest, Ned
(04:00):
Renzi from Enjoy the Work, joinus as a special guest host.
Today he's joining me as my cohost.
If you remember, Ned has wornall the hats of entrepreneurship
.
He has founded companies, he'sbeen a VC who's invested in some
amazing companies, and now he'san advisor at Enjoy the Work.
So thank you for joining me,Ned.
Ned Renzi (04:23):
Thanks, Monica and Sejal.
I appreciate the invitation toguest host and super excited for
our other guest today, ManuKumar of K9 Ventures.
Monica Enand (04:32):
And we all have Pittsburgh roots.
Manu and I share an alma mater.
We both went to Carnegie MellonUniversity for part of our
education and Manu is currentlythe chief fire starter, as he
would call himself, at K9Ventures, which is the pre-seed
fund that Ned just talked about.
We're going to talk about allthe cool companies you founded
(04:53):
and what you're up to now andwe're going to talk about you
know all the great things you'vedone, but I want to talk about
this pre-seed fund, K9, and whatyou've done Over 51 investments
, seven unicorns.
You know really, and for peoplewho aren't familiar, you know,
I want to talk about why I thinkand I want Ned to help me
(05:15):
actually with why Manu is sodifferent.
You know, I think, as you learnabout venture capital and you
learn about venture funds, yourealize that there's an
asymmetric return risk.
Return, right, All of thecompanies that they invest in
can make, in some cases, 1,000xreturns, maybe even larger than
(05:35):
that in the really home runcases right, but they can only
lose 1x.
So your loss can only be 1x.
You can only lose the money youput in, but on the upside
return side it can be reallyastronomical and has been
astronomical, and that kind ofleads most venture funds to play
(05:55):
portfolio theory.
So if you look at like I don'tknow, if you look at like the
Midas list returns, you'll findthat, like, most of those funds
have a few companies, one thatreturns the fund or a few
companies that really do well,and a lot of them kind of go to
zero or don't do very well orget shut down.
And you know this portfoliotheory is really how most funds
(06:19):
work.
Am I describing?
I'm the only one on this callwho hasn't been a venture
capitalist, but, Ned, am Idescribing this correctly?
Ned Renzi (06:25):
Yeah, you're right on .
I mean venture is made by thesepower law type returns and I
know like when I first got intoventure I was trained by people
who really had more of a privateequity approach.
They trained me on figuring outthe probability of success and
these crazy like first Chicagomethod spreadsheets and stuff
and really, as I spent more timein Silicon Valley, it's not
(06:48):
probability of success, it's ifit succeeds, what's the
probability it could be reallyreally large in that asymmetric
return you talked about.
Yeah, and you know what makeswhat Manu does impressive.
You know, in our industry ifyou're successful like one out
of every say, 12 times, that'sconsidered a home run fund.
Right, you're going to returnsome major multiple back to the
(07:10):
investors In any given year.
There's 20 investments that makeup the whole venture industry
and not only is Manu in that one, manu's in several per
portfolio.
I mean he's hit a number ofhome runs in each of his
portfolios.
And, if I go through, youmentioned Chief Firestarter at
(07:33):
K9, co-founder at Carta,co-founder and CEO right now at
HiHello, but in between there,co-founder and CEO right now at
HiHello, but in between there,lyft, twilio, otho, carta,
lucidchart, everlaw, I mean thelist just kind of goes on and on
.
Monica Enand (07:51):
So from my perspective, it's an
unbelievable hit rate.
Well, and I'll correct you onone of those, because I
introduced Manu to one of thosecompanies and that was Auth0,
because I got to know Manubefore that and then ended up,
and then I ended up also joiningthe board of Auth0, and that
was Auth0, because I got to knowManu before that, and then I
ended up also joining the boardof Auth0 and that was a great
success.
That ended up selling to Oktafor six and a half billion
dollars and Manu was so criticalto those founders.
(08:12):
And I know from those foundershow lucky they felt to work with
Manu Because, as you know,while venture capitalists are
playing portfolio theory,founders are not.
Founders are pouring theirheart and soul and every ounce
of their being into one companyat a time, Although you guys, I
guess, have been on multiple.
(08:33):
For me it's been one or twocompanies that I've poured my
one as a founder, heart and soul.
But I want to give you somestatistics, Ned, because I think
what you said is right.
But SignalRank recentlypublished a list of investors
who had seeded the most unicornsand you know it was kind of all
the names you would expect tosee.
(08:54):
Right, it was all theincubators, like Y Combinator,
Techstars 500, Global firms likeSequoia XL, First Round Capital
angel syndicates like SiliconValley Angels.
And what people responded onthe Twitter or X thread was what
kind of unicorn efficiency werethese?
(09:16):
That was the interesting stat,not who had the most unicorns,
but what was their sort ofnumber of unicorns divided by
number of seeds that they andthe average of the top 100 seed
(09:44):
investors, and in fact, theysaid the highest rate for any of
their top 100 seed investorsthat had done more than 20 seeds
was 14%.
This is since 2019.
And that is where Manu sits.
So Manu operates.
Not only does Manu hit thosestats that are crazy when you
(10:04):
compare them to his peers, Manuis operating.
These are talking about seedinvestments and Manu is
operating as a pre-seed, andactually I want to give Manu a
chance to explain that to us,because I think you call it
frighteningly early.
Is that what I've heard you say?
Manu Kumar (10:27):
That's right, frighteningly early stage.
And Monica and Ned, first thankyou, but I am learning about
these stats from both of youbecause these are not stats that
I even track.
Monica Enand (10:32):
I know you do because I had to do the
calculations to figure out yourpercentage.
Manu Kumar (10:38):
And when you talk about the Midas list, for
example, like I made a consciouschoice to not participate in
the Midas list.
I mean, I talked to the folkswho run the Midas list and
figured out, like, okay, what'sthe value in this other to me as
an individual or to K9 as afund?
I realized that the moreattention K9 or I would get, it
(11:01):
actually just increases myworkload in terms of how much I
have to sift through.
And so it was a very, veryconscious decision to not
participate in any of thoselists and to try and just stay
under the radar and focus onwhat I want to do rather than
just having a barrage of stuffcoming at me.
(11:24):
I do describe what canine doesas frighteningly early stage,
and I describe it that waybecause at the time that I'm
investing, I have to befrightened, and that's a feeling
that I get in my stomach everysingle time I'm about to make an
(11:47):
investment, and I have learnedover the years to recognize that
feeling and become comfortablewith that feeling when I'm
making that investment.
Ned Renzi (11:56):
Well, speaking of frighteningly early, I remember
when you started K9, there waskind of a major inflection point
going on in just the wholeventure industry right when the
money was getting unpacked fromthe advice and the governance
and other things like that andyou had some pretty bold
contrarian opinions about whatwould work or how venture should
(12:17):
work in the future.
Maybe tell us a little bitabout that.
Manu Kumar (12:21):
So I think one of the first things when I was
starting K9, actually I'll givea little backstory here, so in
2006 and 2007, I was helpinganother founder start his
company, and so we went up anddown Sand Hill in order to try
and raise money for that company.
That gave me a view into whatwas happening in venture capital
(12:43):
, and the first realization wasthat seed didn't exist.
Right, it was essentially firmsthat were writing a $4 million
check into a Series A stagecompany, but there was nobody
who was writing the half amillion dollar check or the sub
$ million dollar check or thesub one million dollar check.
So that was one of my keythings to note that, okay, that
(13:06):
needs to happen.
There's a need in the market,there's an unmet need, and who's
fulfilling that need?
And then ultimately it was like, oh, can I be fulfilling that
need?
So I think that was part of itbe fulfilling that need.
So I think that was part of it.
And then second was just kindof focusing on super, super
early stage founders and greattechnologies.
(13:28):
So till today, I describe K9 asa technology focused micro VC
fund, and so I definitely lookat companies that are coming
from a technical background.
There's some level of technicalinnovation involved over there.
In order for me to kind of lookat that and think about the
company.
Ned Renzi (13:53):
So, vinay, when you started, you certainly had this
thesis that was different thanwhat was happening on Sand Hill
Road, from your original thesis.
What turned out to be correct,what turned out to be different
than what you thought, oh,that's a good question.
Manu Kumar (14:05):
I think the first thing was was being a solo GP
right, and when I, when I Canyou explain what the general
partner is to the folks in my ohsure, solo GP being that
there's only one person runningthe entire firm and there's no
partners, right?
And in fact it's kind of anoxymoron to even call it like a
(14:29):
solo general partner, becausepartner implies that there's
somebody else, but solo generalpartner basically means there's
only one person and that's it.
That was something that wascontrary and indifferent.
A second thing that wascontrary and indifferent was
around the stage of company thatI wanted to invest in.
(14:52):
I literally wanted to invest incompanies that were two
founders and an idea, and thatwas something that just wasn't
very common back in 2009.
And convincing LPs that thismodel can work was something
that I would say was like newand different at that time.
The second thing that was newand different was investing in
(15:16):
the stage of company that Iwanted to invest in.
I wanted to invest in a companythat was two founders and an
idea, and if it was two foundersand an idea and a dog, that was
a bonus right.
So for me, it was literallylike two people and an idea.
Stage is where I wanted to getinvolved with the companies, and
for a lot of the companies thatI was able to invest in through
(15:39):
K9, that's literally what theywere Like Lyft was.
I met Logan and John from Lyftlike literally a few weeks after
they moved to Palo Alto and itwas just the two of them and one
part-time engineer.
That was the extent of thecompany when I first met with
Logan and John Auth0, monica, Ithink was probably about six-ish
(15:59):
people at the time when I firstmet with Logan and John Auth0.
Monica I think was probablyabout six-ish people at the time
when I met Eugenio for thefirst time and Lucidchart was
about four people.
Twilio was four people right.
Carta was zero because that wassomething that I went out
looking for somebody to co-foundthe company with and then
created that company after that.
(16:20):
So I think just the stage andthe solo GP thing were probably
the two biggest things.
Monica Enand (16:26):
Yeah, boy, you've proven them wrong.
Definitely done that.
I think that we talk about.
You talked about frighteninglyearly and being frightened, and
I've heard that you know it'svery unusual for people to want
to be the first money in or bein that early, before there's
any proof points.
So it's a really scary thingand I think you know I heard one
(16:46):
time that the definition ofbravery is being frightened and
doing it anyway, or being scared.
It's not that you don't feelfear, it's that you feel the
fear but you do it anyway.
And we you know a lot of thingsthat Sejal and I have talked
about on this podcast is kind oftrying to tease out and figure
out what makes people successful, people different, and I think
(17:07):
that's definitely one of them.
I want to take you, Manu, backback before Canine, back before
Carnegie Mellon, maybe earlydays of Carnegie Mellon, that
when you left India for collegeto come to Pittsburgh.
I think you were at that time17 years old, Is that correct?
That's correct, and had you everleft India before that?
Manu Kumar (17:27):
No, that was my first trip out of India.
Monica Enand (17:29):
Yes, Wow, that is incredible.
I you know I was scared sendingmy kids to college, but I can't
imagine how your parents feltsending you to college all the
way across the world.
What was that like for them andfor you?
Manu Kumar (17:42):
I mean, I decided when I was 15 that I wanted to
go to college in the UnitedStates, and it was my decision.
It was not something that myparents had even suggested to me
.
It was something that I figuredlike, okay, that's what I want
to do, and this was in 1990.
This is pre-internet, this ispre-email, right.
(18:05):
And so the only thing that wasavailable at that time was these
really, really fat collegehandbooks like listings of all
the US colleges, right, andthat's what I used in order to
go look up, like, okay, whatcolleges can I apply to?
I think my family was actuallyhappy about me going to college
in the US.
(18:26):
They were less excited about mydecision to stay in the US and
start my first company here,because that's what meant that
my chance of returning to Indiawas incredibly low.
Monica Enand (18:37):
Yeah, that's the rub with sending kids away is
that sometimes they like it andthey want to stay.
Ned Renzi (18:54):
Monica had mentioned, like you know, things that have
happened to make you into theperson you are today.
I'm sort of smiling because Ihave four grad parties from high
school kids on my street goingto college and one of the common
questions is what do you wantto be when, when you grow up?
And I've sort of always taken adifferent twist on that
question and I like asking whodo you want to be when you grow
(19:15):
up?
Because I do think charactermatters and and Manu, you know,
maybe you could share like asignificant event that's
happened in your life that tohelp turn you into the person
that you are today.
It helps, like seed, yourmotivation.
Manu Kumar (19:29):
Ned, you're asking me a question that is, first,
very dear to me, because Iactually draw an analogy to this
to startups, and my analogyhere for startups is that it's
usually not one single bigdecision or event that makes a
company successful.
It's a series of microdecisions that actually kind of
(19:50):
compound over a period of timeto kind of set the direction for
a company.
That's right, and to me thesame thing applies for a human
(20:11):
being as well.
It's not just like one decisionthat you make at one point.
That's right.
I mean, if you take the theoryof parallel universes and I can
essentially look at it as likeOK, if I hadn't done that, then
I wouldn't have gotten here, andthen I wouldn't have gotten
here, type of an approach Ithink one of the first things
for me was growing up and kindof coming of age at a time when
(20:33):
my dad's business was strugglingand that just instilled in me
such a deep sense of value thatI have never, ever forgotten
that and that's like in my core,even in terms of how I run my
own company or how I advisefounders of my portfolio
companies.
(20:54):
I mean, another key moment forme was getting my first computer
, and I had to convince mygrandmother to buy me a
secondhand computer, and if Ihadn't gotten that, I probably
wouldn't have learned how toprogram and that probably would
(21:16):
have meant I wouldn't havegotten into Carnegie Mellon.
And so, yeah, so everythingcould have been different from
that point on, and even littlethings, like arriving at
Carnegie Mellon and then kind ofhaving this oh shit moment,
because it was a situation whereI'm like, oh my gosh, everybody
here is smart, and most of themare probably smarter than I am,
(21:38):
and most of them are probablysmarter than I am, and that was
a kind of a defining moment forme to kind of decide like, okay,
is it sink or swim, and am Igoing to work my ass off to
succeed?
Or that was just a decision Ihad to make in that moment.
So I think those are the thingsthat I look back to.
I also remember another keymoment, for when I was doing my
(22:01):
master's, I had built this chatsoftware and I was talking to
somebody in one of the chatrooms at like 4am in the morning
and this guy just says like,hey, you could sell this.
And that became kind of likethe key moment for me to be like
, oh, I should think aboutstarting a company and so that
(22:25):
those are like.
I think it's all these littletiny, tiny events that kind of
add up over time.
Ned Renzi (22:37):
This idea that you can sell it to me is seizing an
opportunity, right, like when mykids were growing up, I
remember telling them you getpaid linearly to identify and
solve problems.
You get paid non-linearly toidentify and seize opportunities
and everything from like, if Iremember right, sneaker Labs you
sold, spun it back out, resoldit.
(23:00):
You made money off of thatmultiple times.
You've done.
You know all these othercompanies we mentioned, even up
to Hi Hello, like.
How do you like, if you had togive advice to founders today on
how to identify and seizeopportunities, like frameworks
to think about or something,what would you tell them?
Manu Kumar (23:17):
I think it comes down to learning.
To learn is probably the numberone skill, right, and I feel
that every single day, likeevery single day, I am learning
something new, and it's truly acase of the more you learn, the
more you realize how much youdon't know.
Right, and being able todevelop that muscle of like okay
(23:41):
, I don't know something, but Iwill go figure it out, that is
truly one of the most importantskills for a founder.
And the second one that I amstill working on is learning to
delegate, and I struggle withthat one because I love to go
figure things out, and so I willget into the weeds and try and
(24:03):
go figure things out, but theresimply is not enough time and
not enough hours in the day inorder for a founder and a CEO to
be involved in every singlething, and so you have to become
comfortable with OK, I am goingto let somebody else run with
this and I'm going to sit backand focus on other things.
Monica Enand (24:28):
That's the other skill that I think founders need
to have Learning to learn.
I think that applies so muchmore to everyone, especially
early in their career.
When I hear from people who arenew to jobs, especially if they
do go work in a startup, theyask me you know, how do I be
successful in a startup?
And that is the number one.
If you can develop a sort ofreputation for yourself and for
(24:50):
others that interact with you ofI'm the person that goes and
just gets stuff done, and if youdevelop that reputation of,
yeah, I don't know, but I'mgoing to go figure it out, I'm
going to get it done.
And if you develop thatreputation of, yeah, I don't
know, but I'm going to go figureit out, I'm going to get it
done, the amount of things thatpeople rely on you for and come
to you with, then just kind ofyou know compounds, and then you
start really your career reallyblossoms, I think because you
(25:14):
are somebody who just gets moreresponsibility and when you
start taking on moreresponsibility, you learn more,
you can do more, you're morevaluable and that just all you
know.
It's like a virtuous cycle.
Manu Kumar (25:27):
Monica, I totally agree, and you're also touching
on one of the reasons why, inthe early stages of a company, I
dislike having titles, titles,and my reason for that is
because when you give somebody atitle, they kind of conform
(25:48):
what they are doing to what thetitle demands and instead I want
them thinking from the point ofview of like, hey, what does
the company need and is there away in which you can actually
help solve that?
And if it's outside of thescope of your title, that's
totally okay for you to actuallygo do that.
And so, yes, I definitely wantthat ability for people to go
(26:10):
identify a problem, figure outhow to solve it and have the
initiative and the agency toactually go and solve it.
Those are the key skills that Ilove to see in people.
Ned Renzi (26:23):
You see so many of these companies scale from
beyond product market fit.
I know at Enjoy the Work wefocus on helping founders become
CEOs as the company scalesright and the idea behind that
is how do you learn generalmanagement, functional
management and self-management,so things like you mentioned in
delegation.
As you see the founders who arelistening move from product
(26:46):
market fit.
You know that, zero to onephase to one to 10, where it's
building repeatable, scalableprocesses.
What two or three skills do youthink are most useful for them
to pick up and learn right away?
Manu Kumar (26:59):
The ability for somebody to kind of identify
what they know and what theydon't know is important.
And I guess this goes towardsthe whole learning to learn
approach that if you canidentify like, yes, this is an
area that I know and this is anarea that I don't have the
expertise in and we need tobring in somebody from outside
(27:20):
to help in this area, I thinkthat really helps founders to
grow.
But that's even looking at itfrom a functional point of view.
But I think a lot of the growthin founders that needs to
happen is more at an emotionallevel and it's really kind of
understanding that at everystage of the company you're
(27:43):
going to be faced with new anddifferent problems.
Right, and Monica, I'm going tochannel one of our favorite
people over here.
So Eugenio from Auth0, eugenioPace, who's the co-founder and
CEO of Auth0.
I mean, I was talking to himrecently and I'm very honored to
have him on my board at HiHello, so I get to talk to him
recently and I'm very honored tohave him on my board at HiHello
, so I get to talk to himfrequently.
(28:03):
He made the point that, look,as you grow as a company, as a
CEO, you are essentially beinggiven the hardest problems to
solve, because if it was aproblem that was simple to solve
, then somebody on your teamwould have already solved it.
And so as you scale in acompany, inherently the problems
(28:23):
that you are going to bedealing with are going to be the
more difficult problems, right,and you just have to come to
terms with it and understand itand realize that.
Yes, that is part of the journeyof scaling a company, and the
emotional growth that I seehappen in founders over time and
(28:44):
the maturity that they achieveover time like it is phenomenal.
To see that and how quickly ithappens is also astounding.
I mean, I see this in folkslike Logan and John at Lyft.
I see it in Eugenio at Auth0.
I see it in AJ at Everlaw Likethey have matured and become
better versions of themselvesthrough the journey of actually
(29:06):
running a company.
Monica Enand (29:07):
One thing about at least the founders on that list
, like AJ and Eugenia, that Iknow they started out as great
people and humble and smart buthungry and passionate people,
but I think that helps them goon that journey.
Because the journey you'retalking about is a crazy
(29:28):
difficult one.
I know you guys know it and Iknow it.
That's emotional journey of theemotional development and the
emotional maturity that you haveto have with your ego and like
being keeping your ego in checkand kind of not getting
defensive when things have tochange, because what worked to
(29:49):
get you here is not what works,you know, to get you there and
all of those things.
It's, I think it's the hardinside work that you have to do
to go on that journey and like Ifound that doing that all that
hard inside work paid dividendsfor me in all kinds of aspects
of my life as a mom, it paiddividends as a sister, as a wife
(30:15):
, as all the roles in which weplay in our lives.
I think that emotional growthand all that work you do really
does pay off, but it'sdefinitely not easy.
Manu Kumar (30:27):
Exactly, it is not an easy journey and I joke that
I hate roller coasters, butrunning a startup is a roller
coaster every single day, so Iam doing something I hate every
single day.
From that point of view, Tellus about HiHello.
Monica Enand (30:57):
We want to hear all about it, so I started
HiHello in 2018.
Manu Kumar (31:02):
And one of the things that I have been a big
fan of over the course of allthe companies that I've been
involved with is creating a newmarket, and I define a new
market as a market in whichthings have not been happening
at scale before, and so withHiHello, we've essentially
(31:22):
created a whole new category ofB2B SaaS.
It's a software platform forcreating, managing and
distributing digital businesscards, email signatures, virtual
backgrounds, right and so theidea here is that companies can
essentially come to us by a SaaSplatform for creating their
(31:44):
cards and managing them allthroughout the process.
We started out by creating aplatform that was designed for
individuals, and companies cameto us and essentially told us
can you solve this problem forus at scale?
So we are now working withthousands of companies all
around the world.
Our customers tend to becompanies that are outside of
(32:08):
the tech industry.
As somebody who's been in tech,I have been so myopic and so
focused on the tech industrythat I didn't realize how large
the opportunity is outside ofthe tech industry.
Monica Enand (32:21):
Given the rise in Zoom calls, but for all the
companies that were not used toit, I guess they're getting the
virtual backgrounds that arekind of branded with the company
.
Is that what's happening,correct?
Manu Kumar (32:35):
So, yeah, there's three different parts.
First thing, if you meetsomebody in person, you're able
to give them your digitalbusiness card that is on brand.
It is showing the company'sbrand directly.
The company is actually incontrol of the information that
is on that digital business card.
And when you create a newcontact on the platform, that
(32:56):
contact flows directly into thecompany's CRM.
And I mention that because formost of us in tech, we look at
it as, yeah, let's just connecton LinkedIn, right.
But what happens when youconnect with somebody on
LinkedIn is that, first, theinformation on LinkedIn is
controlled by the individual andnot by the company, right.
And second, when you connectwith somebody on LinkedIn,
(33:18):
that's a personal connection andthat connection is not really
getting put into the company'sassets in that situation.
So a lot of companies, whenthey've realized that, oh, we
have all of these people out inthe field who are meeting new
people, potential new clients,how do we actually collect that
information and make sure thatit gets into the company's CRM
(33:41):
system?
So that's what HiHello is doing.
And then we also do this withemail signatures, so making sure
that every single person in thecompany has a consistent email
signature.
And then we also do this withvirtual backgrounds, that even
if you're meeting somebody onZoom, they can see the company's
brand and your identity clearlyin that meeting as well.
(34:03):
If one of those connectionsturns into another business,
deal like HiHello has paid foritself many times over by that
happening.
Monica Enand (34:11):
Well, no, I know.
I mean, I remember sending myteam out to events.
We were in the legal tech fieldand we would go to these
conferences and events and youwould, you know, meet people and
they would meet the most.
They'd come back and writethese trip reports, but they met
the most amazing people.
And then you were like, how dowe the company you know make
sure we develop a relationshipwith this that's ongoing and
(34:34):
there wasn't a good way otherthan you know them, sort of
remembering to manually put themin.
And then where do we?
How do we then keep in touchwith that person?
Manu Kumar (34:44):
You know, there's a lot to figure out and a lot to
do manually, no a lot of ourcustomers will come in right
before they're about to go to anevent, right, and they're like,
oh, what do we do aboutbusiness cards?
Right, and then they're lookingfor, like, oh, is there?
It's 2024, are we still to goout and print paper business
cards, or is there somethingbetter out there?
(35:05):
So that's how they end upfinding HiHello and they will
come in, they will create theircards.
We can get them up and runningin a day.
Then every single connectionthat their team collects at the
conference is automaticallyflowing back into their CRM,
flowing back into their CRM.
And, especially for companiesthat want to show that they have
(35:26):
a green side to them andthey're being sustainable
companies, they definitelyprefer using digital cards
rather than using paper cardsBecause, right in that initial
interaction, you're sending amessage saying that, yes, we are
a company that is focused onsustainability.
Ned Renzi (35:41):
In that interaction, Manu, you've been sort of on the
front end of a lot of these newmarkets and new categories over
the years as investor orfounder.
Like for me, it's just a superexciting time with some of the
things that are happening intech.
If you had to pick up a coupleof things that you're excited
about over the next five to 10years, what are those?
Manu Kumar (36:03):
So I am very excited about the applications of AI,
but I am being very cautiousabout it as well, because just
how quickly things are moving,things are changing very, very
rapidly and especially when Ilook at the stage at which I
usually look at companies, it'slike again two people in an idea
(36:25):
stage.
The technology for AI and thestate of the art is controlled
essentially by the big boys.
I'm being very cautious thereabout what's the opportunity for
a founding team to take in thatdirection, but overall, like
what the technology can do ismind blowing.
Ned Renzi (36:44):
No, it's mind blowing .
It feels like, to some degree,these LLMs which are dominating
AI right now.
They almost remind me ofsemiconductor investments in
that every other year you need abillion dollars of CapEx to
just sort of keep this model upto date, and it feels like a
race to the bottom in marginsfor me.
(37:05):
I think what Tesla's doing withFSD is much more interesting
and like how they're teachingthe models to sort of mimic the
top decile performances ofhumans and things.
So I'm pretty optimistic aboutwhat's going on in the
intersection of robotics and AIand things like that.
Monica Enand (37:22):
I agree with Ned.
It's like buying a fab.
Are you going to build a fab?
How many people are going tobuild a fab?
Nobody's going to build a fab,so okay.
So then that's a big moneyproblem for the LLMs.
But what about the applicationof these LLMs?
Do you think about how to thinkabout what tasks are the right
ones?
Manu Kumar (37:40):
I mean, I'll give you some simple examples.
So one of my portfoliocompanies is actually a company
called Agenda Hero, and whatthey have done is just made it
delightfully simple in order totake any email that you receive
with a schedule or an agenda init and convert it into putting
(38:01):
it onto your calendar.
Right, like how many of us aresitting there every single day
taking stuff from an email orfrom a school schedule and
trying to simply get it onto ourcalendar?
Right?
And when I think about thebillions of people who are doing
this every single day?
Right?
And so what this company hasdone has focused in just on that
(38:23):
little tiny niche of a problem.
They're using AI to actuallysolve the problem, and it's
amazing, like you can take anentire school calendar and just
push it over to Agenda Hero andit gives you.
Okay, do you want to add these20 events to your Google
calendar?
Like yes's exactly.
Like I don't have to do itmanually.
Like that's exactly what I want, right?
(38:44):
You've?
Monica Enand (38:45):
just gotten a new customer for that company.
So you've got to tell me I dothat all the time Georgiana was
our executive producer,Georgiana, was just telling Ned
about how good I am at calendarmanagement, but I spend enormous
amounts of time doing exactlywhat you just described.
Manu Kumar (39:01):
Now that is taking a very, very pointed and focused
approach at solving a particularproblem that has been plaguing
us for decades.
At this point right.
So that's an example of like,yes, what they have done in
using AI and fine-tuning things.
They've done a brilliant job ofit, and the AI is just one
(39:22):
piece of it, but then it's alsoabout all the scaffolding that
goes along with it in terms ofhow do you actually connect this
into something to make ituseful?
The joke used to be that, oh,the knowledge workers are going
to win.
I think sorry, but theknowledge workers are the ones
who are going to be impacted themost by AI, and when you need
(39:42):
somebody to do something inconstruction or plumbing or
electrical like, those jobs arehere to stay.
Monica Enand (39:49):
I hear you're trying to disrupt some of that
industry too by doing thingsyourself, yes, in a
do-it-yourself way.
You know you talked a littlebit about arriving at school and
being around smart people and,and Sejal and Georgiana, and I
would call that a masterstrokemoment.
So masterstroke people ask usall the time like why did you
(40:11):
name it masterstroke?
And I don't think there arethese.
You know there is no just onemasterstroke that kind of makes
you successful, right, but I dothink there are these little
moments and you talked about itall the little moments that you
made this decision or thatdecision and you went down that
path.
How do you think you getcomfortable with that?
(40:32):
And get comfortable with, likethe pits in your stomach you
feel, and all of that, if Ireflect?
Manu Kumar (40:36):
back to that moment.
For me it was.
It was very much one of likeokay, I don't have a choice here
, I've got to work way harder inorder to keep up and to be able
to succeed here.
And that was just a.
It was a visceral decision,right, and it was like, okay.
That's when I kind of decided,like, okay, I'm going to wake up
(40:56):
early and I'm going to go tobed late and I'm going to put in
the work, right, and, monica,you may remember, the Carnegie
Mellon slogan of my heart is inthe work.
I mean, that's what a lot of uswalked away with.
And when I think back to thattoday, I welcome an environment
where people are smarter than Iam, because it gives me an
(41:19):
opportunity to learn.
And in fact, for me, even goingback to Stanford for a PhD was
literally one of those.
It was that same decisionbecause it was like, okay, I'm
not the type of person who'sgoing to go sit on a beach I
would be bored within a fewhours and I want to go camp out
amongst the smart people andlearn stuff.
(41:40):
And so, after doing twocompanies, I went back for a PhD
, because it was that I wantedto be amongst the smart people
and learn from them.
And it wasn't only aboutlearning technical things.
It's also about broadening yourhorizon and learning about
other things.
I was taking classes inpsychology and attending the
(42:02):
social psychology seminar and Iwas learning to play piano and
things like that psychologyseminar and I was learning to
play piano and things like that.
So just like, just like thisgoing back to that learning to
learn thing is is what is likesuper, super critical for me,
and I try to tell the same thingto my kids Like I actually want
them to fail more often.
We don't allow people to fail,we don't give them negative
(42:23):
feedback.
It's all about positivereinforcement.
And then at some point, whensomebody ends up in a situation
where they are getting negativefeedback, it's like, oh my gosh,
the whole world is fallingapart.
And so I think grit isimportant to learn, and there is
no substitute for how you learngrit.
(42:43):
You just have to learn it fromexperience.
Monica Enand (42:56):
I'm going to ask you a question that I'm going to
guess, based on what I know ofyour personality you haven't
given much thought to but I'mgoing to ask you to think about
it.
Manu Kumar (43:07):
What do you want your legacy to be?
You're right, I have notthought about it.
I'm still building stuff at themoment.
I've joked with my wife thatonce I am done with startups and
investing, I just want to have12 golden retrievers.
So yeah, I actually don't havea good answer for you, monica, I
(43:34):
haven't thought about that.
Um, I also look at it as likeum, if I was thinking about that
, it would feel uncomfortable tome because it would feel a
little bit vain.
Who the heck am I like?
I am one human being on aplanet of like 8 billion people
in a galaxy.
That's like massive.
And okay, just do what you doand hope it all turns out well.
Monica Enand (44:02):
All right.
Well, thank you so much to ManuKumar of K9 Ventures and the
CEO and founder of HiHello,which we learned all about.
Thanks so much for being herewith us today.
It was really great to have you.
Both Ned and I have admired youfor so long, and so it's just
wonderful to have some time tochat with you and share with our
audience some of your journey.
Manu Kumar (44:23):
Thank you, monica.
It's been an absolute delight.
I have a lot of respect andadmiration for what you have
done with your company, withyour role as chairman of the
board at Auth0, and with nowwhat you're doing with the
podcast.
It has been phenomenal to watchand I am delighted to be part
of your periphery and yournetwork and learn from that, and
(44:44):
, ned, of your periphery andyour network and learn from that
.
And, ned, you have been aninspiration for me from when I
was probably 20 years old, andso it's been an honor to have
you here and to be able to chatwith you again.
Ned Renzi (44:59):
It always mutual.
Monica Enand (45:00):
Well and thank you so much to Ned for joining me
while Sejal was away.
It is so fun to co-host withyou.
I knew immediately when we hadyou on the show that I just love
talking to you and I could havehad you, have you, we could
have you on all the time becauseit's so fun to have you here.
Ned Renzi (45:16):
Thanks, Monica.
Georgianna Moreland (45:17):
Thank you for listening today.
We would love for you to followand subscribe.
Monica and Sejal would love tohear from you.
You can text us directly fromthe link in the show notes of
this episode.
You can also find us on theLinkedIn page at Masterstroke
Podcast with Monica Enid andSejo Petrzak.
Until next time.
Venture is made by these power law type returns,
what makes what Manu doesimpressive.
From my perspective, it's anunbelievable hit rate.
Georgianna Moreland (00:12):
This is Masterstroke with Monica Enid
and Sejo Petruzak, and welcometo our special guest host, ned
Renzi.
Conversations with founders,ceos and visionary leaders in
technology and beyond.
Monica Enand (00:33):
We just finished recording an episode with Manu
Kumar from K9 Ventures.
We had our guest co-host, NedRenzi, here today.
I want to ask GeorgianaMoreland, our executive producer
Georgiana, what'd you think of?
Georgianna Moreland (00:45):
the episode .
Monica, let me start by sayinghow much I absolutely love
having Ned Renzi sit in as ourguest co-host today.
I am really excited foreveryone to hear this episode.
Let me just say it.
Our guest, manu Kumar.
What an icon.
Tremendous business success,incredible track record and his
obvious Midas touch all thethings.
But most importantly, you cantell that this is just an
(01:08):
incredible human being.
Monica Enand (01:10):
Absolutely.
He is an incredible human being.
As you know, on Masterstroke,what we're trying to bring to
our listeners is people who'vehad some hopefully outsized
success in their life and tryingto figure out what makes them
tick and how they got there andwhat happened and who they are,
and I just love listening tosort of smart reflective.
(01:30):
People talk about their journey, and he was a great one, yes,
he was.
Georgianna Moreland (01:36):
The thing that resonated with me the most
is that he's a problem solverright.
The companies that he hasfounded and invested in have
provided everyday solutions.
I'm really excited for everyoneto hear about his new company,
HiHello Absolutely.
Monica Enand (01:49):
In every case, all of the companies he invested in
was him solving his own problem.
He was, you know, necessity wasthe mother of invention for him
in every case.
I'm excited to bring you thisepisode Master Stroke Audience
because I do think venturecapital, private equity, vcs,
it's like the dark arts we don'tget to hear.
(02:10):
It's conversations in the backroom, in quiet back rooms,
people making deals.
But the funny thing is youdon't have to be a VC PE geek
like I am to want to know allthe inside baseball.
You, honestly, if you'reworking at a company that's got
these kinds of investors, you'regoing to understand a whole lot
about what drives the behaviorof boards of directors,
(02:30):
executives, managers in yourcompany but how they act, by
hearing and understanding alittle bit about venture capital
.
So I'm so excited to bring thisepisode to our audiences
because I think it's so valuablefor everyone to listen to the
smartest people in venturecapital, which Manu absolutely
is, and hear kind of what'smaking them tick and what's
(02:52):
driving their behavior.
Georgianna Moreland (02:53):
He truly is an icon, monica, especially
because he flies under the radarbrilliant, unassuming and
humble, but creating massiveimpact.
Monica Enand (03:02):
Yeah, he's one of the quietest and one of the
craziest track record.
Stay tuned.
Masterstroke Audiences.
This is an episode you are notgoing to want to stop till the
end.
Manu, we're going to start.
(03:24):
We're going to give you alittle bit of a longer
introduction than we normallygive our guests, so your job is
just to let us do that.
Manu Kumar (03:32):
In the beginning Sounds good, I'm going to try
not to be embarrassed.
Georgianna Moreland (03:38):
I know.
Monica Enand (03:38):
I'm like I know what you're like.
You can't interrupt us, I mean,unless you think we say
something inaccurate.
But you got to.
Let us do this, All right?
Well, welcome to Masterstroke.
I am very excited because wehave very special guests with us
today.
But before I wanted to mentionthat Sejal is away today and we
were lucky enough to have ourfriend and former guest, Ned
(04:00):
Renzi from Enjoy the Work, joinus as a special guest host.
Today he's joining me as my cohost.
If you remember, Ned has wornall the hats of entrepreneurship
.
He has founded companies, he'sbeen a VC who's invested in some
amazing companies, and now he'san advisor at Enjoy the Work.
So thank you for joining me,Ned.
Ned Renzi (04:23):
Thanks, Monica and Sejal.
I appreciate the invitation toguest host and super excited for
our other guest today, ManuKumar of K9 Ventures.
Monica Enand (04:32):
And we all have Pittsburgh roots.
Manu and I share an alma mater.
We both went to Carnegie MellonUniversity for part of our
education and Manu is currentlythe chief fire starter, as he
would call himself, at K9Ventures, which is the pre-seed
fund that Ned just talked about.
We're going to talk about allthe cool companies you founded
(04:53):
and what you're up to now andwe're going to talk about you
know all the great things you'vedone, but I want to talk about
this pre-seed fund, K9, and whatyou've done Over 51 investments
, seven unicorns.
You know really, and for peoplewho aren't familiar, you know,
I want to talk about why I thinkand I want Ned to help me
(05:15):
actually with why Manu is sodifferent.
You know, I think, as you learnabout venture capital and you
learn about venture funds, yourealize that there's an
asymmetric return risk.
Return, right, All of thecompanies that they invest in
can make, in some cases, 1,000xreturns, maybe even larger than
(05:35):
that in the really home runcases right, but they can only
lose 1x.
So your loss can only be 1x.
You can only lose the money youput in, but on the upside
return side it can be reallyastronomical and has been
astronomical, and that kind ofleads most venture funds to play
(05:55):
portfolio theory.
So if you look at like I don'tknow, if you look at like the
Midas list returns, you'll findthat, like, most of those funds
have a few companies, one thatreturns the fund or a few
companies that really do well,and a lot of them kind of go to
zero or don't do very well orget shut down.
And you know this portfoliotheory is really how most funds
(06:19):
work.
Am I describing?
I'm the only one on this callwho hasn't been a venture
capitalist, but, Ned, am Idescribing this correctly?
Ned Renzi (06:25):
Yeah, you're right on .
I mean venture is made by thesepower law type returns and I
know like when I first got intoventure I was trained by people
who really had more of a privateequity approach.
They trained me on figuring outthe probability of success and
these crazy like first Chicagomethod spreadsheets and stuff
and really, as I spent more timein Silicon Valley, it's not
(06:48):
probability of success, it's ifit succeeds, what's the
probability it could be reallyreally large in that asymmetric
return you talked about.
Yeah, and you know what makeswhat Manu does impressive.
You know, in our industry ifyou're successful like one out
of every say, 12 times, that'sconsidered a home run fund.
Right, you're going to returnsome major multiple back to the
(07:10):
investors In any given year.
There's 20 investments that makeup the whole venture industry
and not only is Manu in that one, manu's in several per
portfolio.
I mean he's hit a number ofhome runs in each of his
portfolios.
And, if I go through, youmentioned Chief Firestarter at
(07:33):
K9, co-founder at Carta,co-founder and CEO right now at
HiHello, but in between there,co-founder and CEO right now at
HiHello, but in between there,lyft, twilio, otho, carta,
lucidchart, everlaw, I mean thelist just kind of goes on and on
.
Monica Enand (07:51):
So from my perspective, it's an
unbelievable hit rate.
Well, and I'll correct you onone of those, because I
introduced Manu to one of thosecompanies and that was Auth0,
because I got to know Manubefore that and then ended up,
and then I ended up also joiningthe board of Auth0, and that
was Auth0, because I got to knowManu before that, and then I
ended up also joining the boardof Auth0 and that was a great
success.
That ended up selling to Oktafor six and a half billion
dollars and Manu was so criticalto those founders.
(08:12):
And I know from those foundershow lucky they felt to work with
Manu Because, as you know,while venture capitalists are
playing portfolio theory,founders are not.
Founders are pouring theirheart and soul and every ounce
of their being into one companyat a time, Although you guys, I
guess, have been on multiple.
(08:33):
For me it's been one or twocompanies that I've poured my
one as a founder, heart and soul.
But I want to give you somestatistics, Ned, because I think
what you said is right.
But SignalRank recentlypublished a list of investors
who had seeded the most unicornsand you know it was kind of all
the names you would expect tosee.
(08:54):
Right, it was all theincubators, like Y Combinator,
Techstars 500, Global firms likeSequoia XL, First Round Capital
angel syndicates like SiliconValley Angels.
And what people responded onthe Twitter or X thread was what
kind of unicorn efficiency werethese?
(09:16):
That was the interesting stat,not who had the most unicorns,
but what was their sort ofnumber of unicorns divided by
number of seeds that they andthe average of the top 100 seed
(09:44):
investors, and in fact, theysaid the highest rate for any of
their top 100 seed investorsthat had done more than 20 seeds
was 14%.
This is since 2019.
And that is where Manu sits.
So Manu operates.
Not only does Manu hit thosestats that are crazy when you
(10:04):
compare them to his peers, Manuis operating.
These are talking about seedinvestments and Manu is
operating as a pre-seed, andactually I want to give Manu a
chance to explain that to us,because I think you call it
frighteningly early.
Is that what I've heard you say?
Manu Kumar (10:27):
That's right, frighteningly early stage.
And Monica and Ned, first thankyou, but I am learning about
these stats from both of youbecause these are not stats that
I even track.
Monica Enand (10:32):
I know you do because I had to do the
calculations to figure out yourpercentage.
Manu Kumar (10:38):
And when you talk about the Midas list, for
example, like I made a consciouschoice to not participate in
the Midas list.
I mean, I talked to the folkswho run the Midas list and
figured out, like, okay, what'sthe value in this other to me as
an individual or to K9 as afund?
I realized that the moreattention K9 or I would get, it
(11:01):
actually just increases myworkload in terms of how much I
have to sift through.
And so it was a very, veryconscious decision to not
participate in any of thoselists and to try and just stay
under the radar and focus onwhat I want to do rather than
just having a barrage of stuffcoming at me.
(11:24):
I do describe what canine doesas frighteningly early stage,
and I describe it that waybecause at the time that I'm
investing, I have to befrightened, and that's a feeling
that I get in my stomach everysingle time I'm about to make an
(11:47):
investment, and I have learnedover the years to recognize that
feeling and become comfortablewith that feeling when I'm
making that investment.
Ned Renzi (11:56):
Well, speaking of frighteningly early, I remember
when you started K9, there waskind of a major inflection point
going on in just the wholeventure industry right when the
money was getting unpacked fromthe advice and the governance
and other things like that andyou had some pretty bold
contrarian opinions about whatwould work or how venture should
(12:17):
work in the future.
Maybe tell us a little bitabout that.
Manu Kumar (12:21):
So I think one of the first things when I was
starting K9, actually I'll givea little backstory here, so in
2006 and 2007, I was helpinganother founder start his
company, and so we went up anddown Sand Hill in order to try
and raise money for that company.
That gave me a view into whatwas happening in venture capital
(12:43):
, and the first realization wasthat seed didn't exist.
Right, it was essentially firmsthat were writing a $4 million
check into a Series A stagecompany, but there was nobody
who was writing the half amillion dollar check or the sub
$ million dollar check or thesub one million dollar check.
So that was one of my keythings to note that, okay, that
(13:06):
needs to happen.
There's a need in the market,there's an unmet need, and who's
fulfilling that need?
And then ultimately it was like, oh, can I be fulfilling that
need?
So I think that was part of itbe fulfilling that need.
So I think that was part of it.
And then second was just kindof focusing on super, super
early stage founders and greattechnologies.
(13:28):
So till today, I describe K9 asa technology focused micro VC
fund, and so I definitely lookat companies that are coming
from a technical background.
There's some level of technicalinnovation involved over there.
In order for me to kind of lookat that and think about the
company.
Ned Renzi (13:53):
So, vinay, when you started, you certainly had this
thesis that was different thanwhat was happening on Sand Hill
Road, from your original thesis.
What turned out to be correct,what turned out to be different
than what you thought, oh,that's a good question.
Manu Kumar (14:05):
I think the first thing was was being a solo GP
right, and when I, when I Canyou explain what the general
partner is to the folks in my ohsure, solo GP being that
there's only one person runningthe entire firm and there's no
partners, right?
And in fact it's kind of anoxymoron to even call it like a
(14:29):
solo general partner, becausepartner implies that there's
somebody else, but solo generalpartner basically means there's
only one person and that's it.
That was something that wascontrary and indifferent.
A second thing that wascontrary and indifferent was
around the stage of company thatI wanted to invest in.
(14:52):
I literally wanted to invest incompanies that were two
founders and an idea, and thatwas something that just wasn't
very common back in 2009.
And convincing LPs that thismodel can work was something
that I would say was like newand different at that time.
The second thing that was newand different was investing in
(15:16):
the stage of company that Iwanted to invest in.
I wanted to invest in a companythat was two founders and an
idea, and if it was two foundersand an idea and a dog, that was
a bonus right.
So for me, it was literallylike two people and an idea.
Stage is where I wanted to getinvolved with the companies, and
for a lot of the companies thatI was able to invest in through
(15:39):
K9, that's literally what theywere Like Lyft was.
I met Logan and John from Lyftlike literally a few weeks after
they moved to Palo Alto and itwas just the two of them and one
part-time engineer.
That was the extent of thecompany when I first met with
Logan and John Auth0, monica, Ithink was probably about six-ish
(15:59):
people at the time when I firstmet with Logan and John Auth0.
Monica I think was probablyabout six-ish people at the time
when I met Eugenio for thefirst time and Lucidchart was
about four people.
Twilio was four people right.
Carta was zero because that wassomething that I went out
looking for somebody to co-foundthe company with and then
created that company after that.
(16:20):
So I think just the stage andthe solo GP thing were probably
the two biggest things.
Monica Enand (16:26):
Yeah, boy, you've proven them wrong.
Definitely done that.
I think that we talk about.
You talked about frighteninglyearly and being frightened, and
I've heard that you know it'svery unusual for people to want
to be the first money in or bein that early, before there's
any proof points.
So it's a really scary thingand I think you know I heard one
(16:46):
time that the definition ofbravery is being frightened and
doing it anyway, or being scared.
It's not that you don't feelfear, it's that you feel the
fear but you do it anyway.
And we you know a lot of thingsthat Sejal and I have talked
about on this podcast is kind oftrying to tease out and figure
out what makes people successful, people different, and I think
(17:07):
that's definitely one of them.
I want to take you, Manu, backback before Canine, back before
Carnegie Mellon, maybe earlydays of Carnegie Mellon, that
when you left India for collegeto come to Pittsburgh.
I think you were at that time17 years old, Is that correct?
That's correct, and had you everleft India before that?
Manu Kumar (17:27):
No, that was my first trip out of India.
Monica Enand (17:29):
Yes, Wow, that is incredible.
I you know I was scared sendingmy kids to college, but I can't
imagine how your parents feltsending you to college all the
way across the world.
What was that like for them andfor you?
Manu Kumar (17:42):
I mean, I decided when I was 15 that I wanted to
go to college in the UnitedStates, and it was my decision.
It was not something that myparents had even suggested to me
.
It was something that I figuredlike, okay, that's what I want
to do, and this was in 1990.
This is pre-internet, this ispre-email, right.
(18:05):
And so the only thing that wasavailable at that time was these
really, really fat collegehandbooks like listings of all
the US colleges, right, andthat's what I used in order to
go look up, like, okay, whatcolleges can I apply to?
I think my family was actuallyhappy about me going to college
in the US.
(18:26):
They were less excited about mydecision to stay in the US and
start my first company here,because that's what meant that
my chance of returning to Indiawas incredibly low.
Monica Enand (18:37):
Yeah, that's the rub with sending kids away is
that sometimes they like it andthey want to stay.
Ned Renzi (18:54):
Monica had mentioned, like you know, things that have
happened to make you into theperson you are today.
I'm sort of smiling because Ihave four grad parties from high
school kids on my street goingto college and one of the common
questions is what do you wantto be when, when you grow up?
And I've sort of always taken adifferent twist on that
question and I like asking whodo you want to be when you grow
(19:15):
up?
Because I do think charactermatters and and Manu, you know,
maybe you could share like asignificant event that's
happened in your life that tohelp turn you into the person
that you are today.
It helps, like seed, yourmotivation.
Manu Kumar (19:29):
Ned, you're asking me a question that is, first,
very dear to me, because Iactually draw an analogy to this
to startups, and my analogyhere for startups is that it's
usually not one single bigdecision or event that makes a
company successful.
It's a series of microdecisions that actually kind of
(19:50):
compound over a period of timeto kind of set the direction for
a company.
That's right, and to me thesame thing applies for a human
(20:11):
being as well.
It's not just like one decisionthat you make at one point.
That's right.
I mean, if you take the theoryof parallel universes and I can
essentially look at it as likeOK, if I hadn't done that, then
I wouldn't have gotten here, andthen I wouldn't have gotten
here, type of an approach Ithink one of the first things
for me was growing up and kindof coming of age at a time when
(20:33):
my dad's business was strugglingand that just instilled in me
such a deep sense of value thatI have never, ever forgotten
that and that's like in my core,even in terms of how I run my
own company or how I advisefounders of my portfolio
companies.
(20:54):
I mean, another key moment forme was getting my first computer
, and I had to convince mygrandmother to buy me a
secondhand computer, and if Ihadn't gotten that, I probably
wouldn't have learned how toprogram and that probably would
(21:16):
have meant I wouldn't havegotten into Carnegie Mellon.
And so, yeah, so everythingcould have been different from
that point on, and even littlethings, like arriving at
Carnegie Mellon and then kind ofhaving this oh shit moment,
because it was a situation whereI'm like, oh my gosh, everybody
here is smart, and most of themare probably smarter than I am,
(21:38):
and most of them are probablysmarter than I am, and that was
a kind of a defining moment forme to kind of decide like, okay,
is it sink or swim, and am Igoing to work my ass off to
succeed?
Or that was just a decision Ihad to make in that moment.
So I think those are the thingsthat I look back to.
I also remember another keymoment, for when I was doing my
(22:01):
master's, I had built this chatsoftware and I was talking to
somebody in one of the chatrooms at like 4am in the morning
and this guy just says like,hey, you could sell this.
And that became kind of likethe key moment for me to be like
, oh, I should think aboutstarting a company and so that
(22:25):
those are like.
I think it's all these littletiny, tiny events that kind of
add up over time.
Ned Renzi (22:37):
This idea that you can sell it to me is seizing an
opportunity, right, like when mykids were growing up, I
remember telling them you getpaid linearly to identify and
solve problems.
You get paid non-linearly toidentify and seize opportunities
and everything from like, if Iremember right, sneaker Labs you
sold, spun it back out, resoldit.
(23:00):
You made money off of thatmultiple times.
You've done.
You know all these othercompanies we mentioned, even up
to Hi Hello, like.
How do you like, if you had togive advice to founders today on
how to identify and seizeopportunities, like frameworks
to think about or something,what would you tell them?
Manu Kumar (23:17):
I think it comes down to learning.
To learn is probably the numberone skill, right, and I feel
that every single day, likeevery single day, I am learning
something new, and it's truly acase of the more you learn, the
more you realize how much youdon't know.
Right, and being able todevelop that muscle of like okay
(23:41):
, I don't know something, but Iwill go figure it out, that is
truly one of the most importantskills for a founder.
And the second one that I amstill working on is learning to
delegate, and I struggle withthat one because I love to go
figure things out, and so I willget into the weeds and try and
(24:03):
go figure things out, but theresimply is not enough time and
not enough hours in the day inorder for a founder and a CEO to
be involved in every singlething, and so you have to become
comfortable with OK, I am goingto let somebody else run with
this and I'm going to sit backand focus on other things.
Monica Enand (24:28):
That's the other skill that I think founders need
to have Learning to learn.
I think that applies so muchmore to everyone, especially
early in their career.
When I hear from people who arenew to jobs, especially if they
do go work in a startup, theyask me you know, how do I be
successful in a startup?
And that is the number one.
If you can develop a sort ofreputation for yourself and for
(24:50):
others that interact with you ofI'm the person that goes and
just gets stuff done, and if youdevelop that reputation of,
yeah, I don't know, but I'mgoing to go figure it out, I'm
going to get it done.
And if you develop thatreputation of, yeah, I don't
know, but I'm going to go figureit out, I'm going to get it
done, the amount of things thatpeople rely on you for and come
to you with, then just kind ofyou know compounds, and then you
start really your career reallyblossoms, I think because you
(25:14):
are somebody who just gets moreresponsibility and when you
start taking on moreresponsibility, you learn more,
you can do more, you're morevaluable and that just all you
know.
It's like a virtuous cycle.
Manu Kumar (25:27):
Monica, I totally agree, and you're also touching
on one of the reasons why, inthe early stages of a company, I
dislike having titles, titles,and my reason for that is
because when you give somebody atitle, they kind of conform
(25:48):
what they are doing to what thetitle demands and instead I want
them thinking from the point ofview of like, hey, what does
the company need and is there away in which you can actually
help solve that?
And if it's outside of thescope of your title, that's
totally okay for you to actuallygo do that.
And so, yes, I definitely wantthat ability for people to go
(26:10):
identify a problem, figure outhow to solve it and have the
initiative and the agency toactually go and solve it.
Those are the key skills that Ilove to see in people.
Ned Renzi (26:23):
You see so many of these companies scale from
beyond product market fit.
I know at Enjoy the Work wefocus on helping founders become
CEOs as the company scalesright and the idea behind that
is how do you learn generalmanagement, functional
management and self-management,so things like you mentioned in
delegation.
As you see the founders who arelistening move from product
(26:46):
market fit.
You know that, zero to onephase to one to 10, where it's
building repeatable, scalableprocesses.
What two or three skills do youthink are most useful for them
to pick up and learn right away?
Manu Kumar (26:59):
The ability for somebody to kind of identify
what they know and what theydon't know is important.
And I guess this goes towardsthe whole learning to learn
approach that if you canidentify like, yes, this is an
area that I know and this is anarea that I don't have the
expertise in and we need tobring in somebody from outside
(27:20):
to help in this area, I thinkthat really helps founders to
grow.
But that's even looking at itfrom a functional point of view.
But I think a lot of the growthin founders that needs to
happen is more at an emotionallevel and it's really kind of
understanding that at everystage of the company you're
(27:43):
going to be faced with new anddifferent problems.
Right, and Monica, I'm going tochannel one of our favorite
people over here.
So Eugenio from Auth0, eugenioPace, who's the co-founder and
CEO of Auth0.
I mean, I was talking to himrecently and I'm very honored to
have him on my board at HiHello, so I get to talk to him
recently and I'm very honored tohave him on my board at HiHello
, so I get to talk to himfrequently.
(28:03):
He made the point that, look,as you grow as a company, as a
CEO, you are essentially beinggiven the hardest problems to
solve, because if it was aproblem that was simple to solve
, then somebody on your teamwould have already solved it.
And so as you scale in acompany, inherently the problems
(28:23):
that you are going to bedealing with are going to be the
more difficult problems, right,and you just have to come to
terms with it and understand itand realize that.
Yes, that is part of the journeyof scaling a company, and the
emotional growth that I seehappen in founders over time and
(28:44):
the maturity that they achieveover time like it is phenomenal.
To see that and how quickly ithappens is also astounding.
I mean, I see this in folkslike Logan and John at Lyft.
I see it in Eugenio at Auth0.
I see it in AJ at Everlaw Likethey have matured and become
better versions of themselvesthrough the journey of actually
(29:06):
running a company.
Monica Enand (29:07):
One thing about at least the founders on that list
, like AJ and Eugenia, that Iknow they started out as great
people and humble and smart buthungry and passionate people,
but I think that helps them goon that journey.
Because the journey you'retalking about is a crazy
(29:28):
difficult one.
I know you guys know it and Iknow it.
That's emotional journey of theemotional development and the
emotional maturity that you haveto have with your ego and like
being keeping your ego in checkand kind of not getting
defensive when things have tochange, because what worked to
(29:49):
get you here is not what works,you know, to get you there and
all of those things.
It's, I think it's the hardinside work that you have to do
to go on that journey and like Ifound that doing that all that
hard inside work paid dividendsfor me in all kinds of aspects
of my life as a mom, it paiddividends as a sister, as a wife
(30:15):
, as all the roles in which weplay in our lives.
I think that emotional growthand all that work you do really
does pay off, but it'sdefinitely not easy.
Manu Kumar (30:27):
Exactly, it is not an easy journey and I joke that
I hate roller coasters, butrunning a startup is a roller
coaster every single day, so Iam doing something I hate every
single day.
From that point of view, Tellus about HiHello.
Monica Enand (30:57):
We want to hear all about it, so I started
HiHello in 2018.
Manu Kumar (31:02):
And one of the things that I have been a big
fan of over the course of allthe companies that I've been
involved with is creating a newmarket, and I define a new
market as a market in whichthings have not been happening
at scale before, and so withHiHello, we've essentially
(31:22):
created a whole new category ofB2B SaaS.
It's a software platform forcreating, managing and
distributing digital businesscards, email signatures, virtual
backgrounds, right and so theidea here is that companies can
essentially come to us by a SaaSplatform for creating their
(31:44):
cards and managing them allthroughout the process.
We started out by creating aplatform that was designed for
individuals, and companies cameto us and essentially told us
can you solve this problem forus at scale?
So we are now working withthousands of companies all
around the world.
Our customers tend to becompanies that are outside of
(32:08):
the tech industry.
As somebody who's been in tech,I have been so myopic and so
focused on the tech industrythat I didn't realize how large
the opportunity is outside ofthe tech industry.
Monica Enand (32:21):
Given the rise in Zoom calls, but for all the
companies that were not used toit, I guess they're getting the
virtual backgrounds that arekind of branded with the company
.
Is that what's happening,correct?
Manu Kumar (32:35):
So, yeah, there's three different parts.
First thing, if you meetsomebody in person, you're able
to give them your digitalbusiness card that is on brand.
It is showing the company'sbrand directly.
The company is actually incontrol of the information that
is on that digital business card.
And when you create a newcontact on the platform, that
(32:56):
contact flows directly into thecompany's CRM.
And I mention that because formost of us in tech, we look at
it as, yeah, let's just connecton LinkedIn, right.
But what happens when youconnect with somebody on
LinkedIn is that, first, theinformation on LinkedIn is
controlled by the individual andnot by the company, right.
And second, when you connectwith somebody on LinkedIn,
(33:18):
that's a personal connection andthat connection is not really
getting put into the company'sassets in that situation.
So a lot of companies, whenthey've realized that, oh, we
have all of these people out inthe field who are meeting new
people, potential new clients,how do we actually collect that
information and make sure thatit gets into the company's CRM
(33:41):
system?
So that's what HiHello is doing.
And then we also do this withemail signatures, so making sure
that every single person in thecompany has a consistent email
signature.
And then we also do this withvirtual backgrounds, that even
if you're meeting somebody onZoom, they can see the company's
brand and your identity clearlyin that meeting as well.
(34:03):
If one of those connectionsturns into another business,
deal like HiHello has paid foritself many times over by that
happening.
Monica Enand (34:11):
Well, no, I know.
I mean, I remember sending myteam out to events.
We were in the legal tech fieldand we would go to these
conferences and events and youwould, you know, meet people and
they would meet the most.
They'd come back and writethese trip reports, but they met
the most amazing people.
And then you were like, how dowe the company you know make
sure we develop a relationshipwith this that's ongoing and
(34:34):
there wasn't a good way otherthan you know them, sort of
remembering to manually put themin.
And then where do we?
How do we then keep in touchwith that person?
Manu Kumar (34:44):
You know, there's a lot to figure out and a lot to
do manually, no a lot of ourcustomers will come in right
before they're about to go to anevent, right, and they're like,
oh, what do we do aboutbusiness cards?
Right, and then they're lookingfor, like, oh, is there?
It's 2024, are we still to goout and print paper business
cards, or is there somethingbetter out there?
(35:05):
So that's how they end upfinding HiHello and they will
come in, they will create theircards.
We can get them up and runningin a day.
Then every single connectionthat their team collects at the
conference is automaticallyflowing back into their CRM,
flowing back into their CRM.
And, especially for companiesthat want to show that they have
(35:26):
a green side to them andthey're being sustainable
companies, they definitelyprefer using digital cards
rather than using paper cardsBecause, right in that initial
interaction, you're sending amessage saying that, yes, we are
a company that is focused onsustainability.
Ned Renzi (35:41):
In that interaction, Manu, you've been sort of on the
front end of a lot of these newmarkets and new categories over
the years as investor orfounder.
Like for me, it's just a superexciting time with some of the
things that are happening intech.
If you had to pick up a coupleof things that you're excited
about over the next five to 10years, what are those?
Manu Kumar (36:03):
So I am very excited about the applications of AI,
but I am being very cautiousabout it as well, because just
how quickly things are moving,things are changing very, very
rapidly and especially when Ilook at the stage at which I
usually look at companies, it'slike again two people in an idea
(36:25):
stage.
The technology for AI and thestate of the art is controlled
essentially by the big boys.
I'm being very cautious thereabout what's the opportunity for
a founding team to take in thatdirection, but overall, like
what the technology can do ismind blowing.
Ned Renzi (36:44):
No, it's mind blowing .
It feels like, to some degree,these LLMs which are dominating
AI right now.
They almost remind me ofsemiconductor investments in
that every other year you need abillion dollars of CapEx to
just sort of keep this model upto date, and it feels like a
race to the bottom in marginsfor me.
(37:05):
I think what Tesla's doing withFSD is much more interesting
and like how they're teachingthe models to sort of mimic the
top decile performances ofhumans and things.
So I'm pretty optimistic aboutwhat's going on in the
intersection of robotics and AIand things like that.
Monica Enand (37:22):
I agree with Ned.
It's like buying a fab.
Are you going to build a fab?
How many people are going tobuild a fab?
Nobody's going to build a fab,so okay.
So then that's a big moneyproblem for the LLMs.
But what about the applicationof these LLMs?
Do you think about how to thinkabout what tasks are the right
ones?
Manu Kumar (37:40):
I mean, I'll give you some simple examples.
So one of my portfoliocompanies is actually a company
called Agenda Hero, and whatthey have done is just made it
delightfully simple in order totake any email that you receive
with a schedule or an agenda init and convert it into putting
(38:01):
it onto your calendar.
Right, like how many of us aresitting there every single day
taking stuff from an email orfrom a school schedule and
trying to simply get it onto ourcalendar?
Right?
And when I think about thebillions of people who are doing
this every single day?
Right?
And so what this company hasdone has focused in just on that
(38:23):
little tiny niche of a problem.
They're using AI to actuallysolve the problem, and it's
amazing, like you can take anentire school calendar and just
push it over to Agenda Hero andit gives you.
Okay, do you want to add these20 events to your Google
calendar?
Like yes's exactly.
Like I don't have to do itmanually.
Like that's exactly what I want, right?
(38:44):
You've?
Monica Enand (38:45):
just gotten a new customer for that company.
So you've got to tell me I dothat all the time Georgiana was
our executive producer,Georgiana, was just telling Ned
about how good I am at calendarmanagement, but I spend enormous
amounts of time doing exactlywhat you just described.
Manu Kumar (39:01):
Now that is taking a very, very pointed and focused
approach at solving a particularproblem that has been plaguing
us for decades.
At this point right.
So that's an example of like,yes, what they have done in
using AI and fine-tuning things.
They've done a brilliant job ofit, and the AI is just one
(39:22):
piece of it, but then it's alsoabout all the scaffolding that
goes along with it in terms ofhow do you actually connect this
into something to make ituseful?
The joke used to be that, oh,the knowledge workers are going
to win.
I think sorry, but theknowledge workers are the ones
who are going to be impacted themost by AI, and when you need
(39:42):
somebody to do something inconstruction or plumbing or
electrical like, those jobs arehere to stay.
Monica Enand (39:49):
I hear you're trying to disrupt some of that
industry too by doing thingsyourself, yes, in a
do-it-yourself way.
You know you talked a littlebit about arriving at school and
being around smart people and,and Sejal and Georgiana, and I
would call that a masterstrokemoment.
So masterstroke people ask usall the time like why did you
(40:11):
name it masterstroke?
And I don't think there arethese.
You know there is no just onemasterstroke that kind of makes
you successful, right, but I dothink there are these little
moments and you talked about itall the little moments that you
made this decision or thatdecision and you went down that
path.
How do you think you getcomfortable with that?
(40:32):
And get comfortable with, likethe pits in your stomach you
feel, and all of that, if Ireflect?
Manu Kumar (40:36):
back to that moment.
For me it was.
It was very much one of likeokay, I don't have a choice here
, I've got to work way harder inorder to keep up and to be able
to succeed here.
And that was just a.
It was a visceral decision,right, and it was like, okay.
That's when I kind of decided,like, okay, I'm going to wake up
(40:56):
early and I'm going to go tobed late and I'm going to put in
the work, right, and, monica,you may remember, the Carnegie
Mellon slogan of my heart is inthe work.
I mean, that's what a lot of uswalked away with.
And when I think back to thattoday, I welcome an environment
where people are smarter than Iam, because it gives me an
(41:19):
opportunity to learn.
And in fact, for me, even goingback to Stanford for a PhD was
literally one of those.
It was that same decisionbecause it was like, okay, I'm
not the type of person who'sgoing to go sit on a beach I
would be bored within a fewhours and I want to go camp out
amongst the smart people andlearn stuff.
(41:40):
And so, after doing twocompanies, I went back for a PhD
, because it was that I wantedto be amongst the smart people
and learn from them.
And it wasn't only aboutlearning technical things.
It's also about broadening yourhorizon and learning about
other things.
I was taking classes inpsychology and attending the
(42:02):
social psychology seminar and Iwas learning to play piano and
things like that psychologyseminar and I was learning to
play piano and things like that.
So just like, just like thisgoing back to that learning to
learn thing is is what is likesuper, super critical for me,
and I try to tell the same thingto my kids Like I actually want
them to fail more often.
We don't allow people to fail,we don't give them negative
(42:23):
feedback.
It's all about positivereinforcement.
And then at some point, whensomebody ends up in a situation
where they are getting negativefeedback, it's like, oh my gosh,
the whole world is fallingapart.
And so I think grit isimportant to learn, and there is
no substitute for how you learngrit.
(42:43):
You just have to learn it fromexperience.
Monica Enand (42:56):
I'm going to ask you a question that I'm going to
guess, based on what I know ofyour personality you haven't
given much thought to but I'mgoing to ask you to think about
it.
Manu Kumar (43:07):
What do you want your legacy to be?
You're right, I have notthought about it.
I'm still building stuff at themoment.
I've joked with my wife thatonce I am done with startups and
investing, I just want to have12 golden retrievers.
So yeah, I actually don't havea good answer for you, monica, I
(43:34):
haven't thought about that.
Um, I also look at it as likeum, if I was thinking about that
, it would feel uncomfortable tome because it would feel a
little bit vain.
Who the heck am I like?
I am one human being on aplanet of like 8 billion people
in a galaxy.
That's like massive.
And okay, just do what you doand hope it all turns out well.
Monica Enand (44:02):
All right.
Well, thank you so much to ManuKumar of K9 Ventures and the
CEO and founder of HiHello,which we learned all about.
Thanks so much for being herewith us today.
It was really great to have you.
Both Ned and I have admired youfor so long, and so it's just
wonderful to have some time tochat with you and share with our
audience some of your journey.
Manu Kumar (44:23):
Thank you, monica.
It's been an absolute delight.
I have a lot of respect andadmiration for what you have
done with your company, withyour role as chairman of the
board at Auth0, and with nowwhat you're doing with the
podcast.
It has been phenomenal to watchand I am delighted to be part
of your periphery and yournetwork and learn from that, and
(44:44):
, ned, of your periphery andyour network and learn from that
.
And, ned, you have been aninspiration for me from when I
was probably 20 years old, andso it's been an honor to have
you here and to be able to chatwith you again.
Ned Renzi (44:59):
It always mutual.
Monica Enand (45:00):
Well and thank you so much to Ned for joining me
while Sejal was away.
It is so fun to co-host withyou.
I knew immediately when we hadyou on the show that I just love
talking to you and I could havehad you, have you, we could
have you on all the time becauseit's so fun to have you here.
Ned Renzi (45:16):
Thanks, Monica.
Georgianna Moreland (45:17):
Thank you for listening today.
We would love for you to followand subscribe.
Monica and Sejal would love tohear from you.
You can text us directly fromthe link in the show notes of
this episode.
You can also find us on theLinkedIn page at Masterstroke
Podcast with Monica Enid andSejo Petrzak.
Until next time.
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