Starting Out
To be honest, I don't really recall what motivated me to learn the history or the methods of fundamental venture capital investing. And I don't even think it's accurate to think of venture capital investing as something of a traditional pay and return method.
I seem to be entering into the field of VC at a time when venture capitalists are moving from an agency model, famously shaped by Andreessen Horowitz, to a financial advisor model. Ironically, also shaped by Andreessen Horowitz.
Like many other would-be investors, Fred Wilson at USV has been an early inspiration to me. I don't think reading his AVC blog was what propelled me into wanting to invest, but it did motivate me to understand technology founders. I felt even back in 2007 that early tech investors and founders would shape the global economy like nothing ever seen before.
I also think that Fred Wilson is a morally solid person, who understands the "why" of business.
His partner, Albert Wegner, is someone with whom I have kept up a spotty email correspondence for many years, primarily because we both are interested in ed tech and education evolution. We have never done any deals. But from time to time, I have sent him an email updating him on what I am doing, and he's always, warmly, written back, given encouragement, or agreed or offered insight into something I wrote about. He's also a really good investor.
What I Do Now
For most of my life, I worked as a journalist, and as a teacher, and then things really changed about three years ago. I will get into that at some other time. But here's where we are now.
These days, I work as a communications specialist at a mid-range VC firm in SE Asia, in Taiwan. The experience has prompted me to start a blog, again, something that I have not done since the early 2000s, when I lived in Hong Kong.
I wanted to start a blog to do a few things:
1. Document what I am learning, since many things that I am seeing from within a VC firm are quite different than the impressions I had gathered as someone working for 12 years with founders of tech startups and social innovation organizations.
2. Bring an intention to my work -- I don't just want to understand VC investing. I want to invest and analyze my investments with the rigor and focus of a real capitalist investor.
3. Explore Southeast Asia -- for as big as it is, SE Asia is a lot like the deepest parts of the ocean. We know it exists. We kind of know what lives there. But we do not understand it. It's just too complicated. We need to really study and understand how the multiple complexities of this region interact with each other. I want to do that with a really clear head.
4. Give me new ideas. Having never been an "investor," other than in the four angel investments I have made in my life, this is a chance for me to do a bit of leapfrogging over my own understanding of how I think and who I am. I hope to come up with a more solid picture of what I want to do with my mind, my money and my relationships.
In general, I am just fascinated with how VC investors look at investments. I have worked at my new firm for a month, and here are the few things I think they are good at doing:
1. Seeing the real person -- their motivations; their journey; their intentions; their will
2. Understanding the scope of a market -- what a market needs; what it is getting currently; how it would be impacted by growth in sector, business or wealth
3. Culture -- being a VC in Asia is not the same as being a VC in Silicon Valley. Even if I don't know that much more about what happens in the board rooms on Sand Hill Road, I am pretty sure it doesn't look the same or talk the same as the board rooms in Taipei.
On a daily basis, my work is mostly with the media, and in the media, as I try to understand founders and write about and listen for what makes these founders tick. My intention is to draw the very best founders from around SE Asia, to Taiwan, and to bring something of our knowledge in Taiwan to SE Asia.
I'm a bit of a cultural explorer, but mostly I am a life-long learner. I want to test everything that I know and learn more. I want to be able to one day use my knowledge and my money, to participate in the evolution of this region.
The journey starts today, five days before my 44th birthday.
I seem to be entering into the field of VC at a time when venture capitalists are moving from an agency model, famously shaped by Andreessen Horowitz, to a financial advisor model. Ironically, also shaped by Andreessen Horowitz.
Like many other would-be investors, Fred Wilson at USV has been an early inspiration to me. I don't think reading his AVC blog was what propelled me into wanting to invest, but it did motivate me to understand technology founders. I felt even back in 2007 that early tech investors and founders would shape the global economy like nothing ever seen before.
I also think that Fred Wilson is a morally solid person, who understands the "why" of business.
His partner, Albert Wegner, is someone with whom I have kept up a spotty email correspondence for many years, primarily because we both are interested in ed tech and education evolution. We have never done any deals. But from time to time, I have sent him an email updating him on what I am doing, and he's always, warmly, written back, given encouragement, or agreed or offered insight into something I wrote about. He's also a really good investor.
What I Do Now
For most of my life, I worked as a journalist, and as a teacher, and then things really changed about three years ago. I will get into that at some other time. But here's where we are now.
These days, I work as a communications specialist at a mid-range VC firm in SE Asia, in Taiwan. The experience has prompted me to start a blog, again, something that I have not done since the early 2000s, when I lived in Hong Kong.
I wanted to start a blog to do a few things:
1. Document what I am learning, since many things that I am seeing from within a VC firm are quite different than the impressions I had gathered as someone working for 12 years with founders of tech startups and social innovation organizations.
2. Bring an intention to my work -- I don't just want to understand VC investing. I want to invest and analyze my investments with the rigor and focus of a real capitalist investor.
3. Explore Southeast Asia -- for as big as it is, SE Asia is a lot like the deepest parts of the ocean. We know it exists. We kind of know what lives there. But we do not understand it. It's just too complicated. We need to really study and understand how the multiple complexities of this region interact with each other. I want to do that with a really clear head.
4. Give me new ideas. Having never been an "investor," other than in the four angel investments I have made in my life, this is a chance for me to do a bit of leapfrogging over my own understanding of how I think and who I am. I hope to come up with a more solid picture of what I want to do with my mind, my money and my relationships.
In general, I am just fascinated with how VC investors look at investments. I have worked at my new firm for a month, and here are the few things I think they are good at doing:
1. Seeing the real person -- their motivations; their journey; their intentions; their will
2. Understanding the scope of a market -- what a market needs; what it is getting currently; how it would be impacted by growth in sector, business or wealth
3. Culture -- being a VC in Asia is not the same as being a VC in Silicon Valley. Even if I don't know that much more about what happens in the board rooms on Sand Hill Road, I am pretty sure it doesn't look the same or talk the same as the board rooms in Taipei.
On a daily basis, my work is mostly with the media, and in the media, as I try to understand founders and write about and listen for what makes these founders tick. My intention is to draw the very best founders from around SE Asia, to Taiwan, and to bring something of our knowledge in Taiwan to SE Asia.
I'm a bit of a cultural explorer, but mostly I am a life-long learner. I want to test everything that I know and learn more. I want to be able to one day use my knowledge and my money, to participate in the evolution of this region.
The journey starts today, five days before my 44th birthday.
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