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Chief Change Officer
#337 Waverly Deutsch: Coaching the Founders Most Systems Miss
00:29:44
Waverly Deutsch, the former Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Chicago Booth School of Business, is now building her own venture Wyseheart in “retirement”. She proves that Gen Xers aren’t done—they’re just getting more intentional, more inclusive, and more human.
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- [00:00]
Stripe Representative
Stripe helps many of the world's most influential companies grow their revenue and build a more profitable business. Whether it's Hertz making checkout a smooth ride for their customers, OpenAI answering unprecedented demand, or PGA chipping away at back office inefficiency, Stripe's financial infrastructure platform helps companies achieve ambitious goals. No matter what success looks like for your business, Stripe helps ensure the complexity of financial systems doesn't get in your way.
- [00:27]
Amazon One Medical Representative
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- [01:14]
Vince Chen
Hi everyone, welcome to our show. Chief Change Officer, I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change, progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. If you've been following closely our special three part Love and Logic series, you know this episode is the final session, the finale of our trilogy, so to speak. Today we'll come full circle and refocus on Waverly herself. She spent 22 years teaching at Chicago Booth where one of her signature courses was building new ventures. Now she is building her own venture called Wise Heart. In this episode you'll hear her pitch. As you listen to our conversation, put on your entrepreneur coach head and ask yourself how compelling is her pitch. She'll discuss the why behind her actions, what Wise Heart is, exactly, who the target customers are and how she plans to help these people. Lastly, where the name Wise Heart originated. If you just joining this series, I strongly encourage you to check out the previous two parts. We started the series by focusing on Waverly's personal journey, the love and logic behind her career path and experiences. Then in part two, we explored a significant chapter of her career, 22 years at Chicago Booth. There she taught and coached a well defined group of highly logical talents who were passionate about innovation, change and entrepreneurship. From that structured environment, we transitioned to discussing her current role as a coach for a broader and more diverse group of entrepreneurs. We also touched on the topic of AI human coaching where AI serves as the powerhouse of logic. While AI can create flawless pitch decks and resumes, Waverly emphasis that building a business is about fostering human relationships. AI might set the stage, but it's the human touch that builds real connections with investors and employers. Let our finale begin.
- [04:47]
Waverly
Foreign.
- [04:51]
Vince Chen
Let'S dive into your newest venture, Wise Heart. I'm really curious about how you plan to continue supporting entrepreneurs with this new initiative. Over the years, you've coached and judged so many entrepreneurs. So for moment, let's switch gears. I'll put on my coach's hat and step into the shoe of a new venture challenge judge. Imagine you are now pitching Wise Heart to me. So tell me, what exactly is Wise Heart? What's the core mission there? Whose problem are you trying to tackle? I'd like to learn more about the specific characteristics of the people you're trying to help. More importantly, how are you going about addressing the challenges?
- [05:49]
Waverly
Often I think that the best pitches talk a little bit about momentum and traction and a little bit about the reason for the existence of the business. As a Wise Heart advisor, I am an operating partner with OCA Ventures of venture capitalists in Chicago. I'm an advisor to Pace Healthcare Ventures, a venture capitalist in Chicago. I'm working with anywhere from half a dozen to a dozen entrepreneurs actively in everything from building their business strategies and processes to raising money. That's what I'm doing with Wise Heart. Wise Heart was started not because I wanted to build a scalable company and sell it for $100 million. Wise Heart was started because I was retiring. And what that means to me, what retirement means to me is that you no longer have to work in order to cover your basic necessities, to keep your benefits, to have a steady paycheck, but the work you do because you want to do it. And some of that work might be renumerated, paid for. And some of that work might be volunteer, and some of it might be purely recreational. And your job in retirement is to figure out the balance that you're looking for across those three dimensions. So that's my definition of retirement. I knew I was going to continue to support entrepreneurs. I knew I was going to continue to work with venture capitalists. I'm passionate about that work. I love it. Highly, personally rewarding. And though I feel like I may be working more hours than I worked as a professor at Booth, particularly when I was focused on the EMBA program, where the work came in spurts. Right. You know, as you know, their classes are very intensive for short periods of time, and I'm making a tiny fraction of what I was making as a fully employed professor. I'm having more fun than I've ever had. So Wise Heart was a place to put all of that work. An LLC for tax purposes where I could get paid. It was never intended to be a business that makes me millions of dollars. Why Wiseart? Because I love working with entrepreneurs. I love working with innovators. I love working with investors. What? Who is my target customer? My target customer is entrepreneurs who have a really great business who are struggling to bring it to market. That means that I might have a session with you and turn you down as a client because I don't think that either the business or you or the market is compelling. And as an independent consultant, I have the ability to do that, to say no to customers. And I have done that. Said, this is not a business that I think I can add value to because I don't believe in it. Wise Heart is for early stage companies and investors who invest in early stage companies. Not interested in taking on corporate innovation clients, not interested in helping a very large growth company get their Series D. That is not my skill set. That is not my passion. But my passion is to help entrepreneurs who have really great business concepts and really great business capabilities bring their products and services to market in the best way possible. I also want Wise Heart to be more accessible to entrepreneurs for whom the rest of the ecosystem is less accessible. So let's talk for a minute about women entrepreneurs. There's a big statistic that everybody likes to use that women entrepreneurs get 2% of VC dollars. And that's a little bit misleading because the truth of the matter is that women only teams of entrepreneurs get 2% of venture capital dollars. Mixed gendered teams get another anywhere from, depending on the year, 13 to 18 to 18% of venture capital dollars. But that still means that 80 to 85% of venture capital dollars are going to all male teams, all male founding teams. So there's a lot of room there for improving the way the venture capital world sees opportunity with female entrepreneurs and funds opportunity with female entrepreneurs. I would like to spend more of my time with female entrepreneurs and I do. At Booth, I spent more of my time with male entrepreneurs simply because the population of Booth is more male than it is female. Now I can choose. I can spend more of my time with female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs. By the way, guys, if you're listening, I have lots of male clients. I do not turn down male clients. But I can make myself available to women, minorities, minority entrepreneurs, people of color, people, people from rural areas, people who come from less affluent backgrounds. These are all people who struggle more in the process of building businesses that require outside funding. I would like Wise Heart to serve more of those kinds of entrepreneurs. So I am talking with venture funds that focus on women entrepreneurs that focus on people of color. I am working with Start out, one of the biggest entrepreneurship not for profit organizations supporting LGBTQ entrepreneurs. I want in Wise Heart to be able to dedicate my time to the people who don't always have access to someone like me. If I teach again, it will likely be at a community college where those people are unlikely to ever experience a professor like me. I want Wise Heart to be part remunerative and part giving back. And that's the goal of Wise Heart. And by the way, my tagline is Tough love for entrepreneurs, so I'm not pulling my punches here. I'm giving the same kind of coaching to the entrepreneurs that I work with as an independent that I always did to you and your colleagues at Boot.
- [12:12]
Stripe Representative
Stripe helps many of the world's most influential companies grow their revenue and build a more profitable business. Whether it's Hertz making checkout a smooth ride for their customers, OpenAI answering unprecedented demand, or PGA chipping away at back office inefficiency, Stripe's financial infrastructure platform helps companies achieve ambitious goals. No matter what success looks like for your business, Stripe helps ensure the complexity of financial systems doesn't get in your way. Learn more@swepe.com Absolutely.
- [12:44]
Vince Chen
I remember your tagline Tough Love for entrepreneurs. I also recall that a few years back you published an article about LGBTQ entrepreneurs in the Chicago Booth Review. I read the article myself and it highlighted how underrepresented this group is in the entrepreneurial community. From what I remember, you discussed challenges like funding and general support. It wouldn't surprise me if you planned to focus more on supporting them going forward.
- [13:24]
Waverly
Yes, in fact, I just accepted a speaking engagement to talk a little bit about LGBTQ entrepreneurs in today's world with the association for Enterprise Opportunity. They're doing an event for Pride Month. I am hoping to work with Startout to refresh the report that we did in 2016 on the state of LGBTQ entrepreneurship in the US because I think that data is now now almost 10 years old. And one of the biggest challenges in thinking about the availability of resources to LGBTQ entrepreneurs is that nobody collects the data, right? That's something where you have to self identify. You don't find it in the census. You don't. You can't use AI to screen for names that indicate being a member of the LGBTQ community the way you do for gender research or even bipoc research where you can triangulate and Create a data set that is likely to be made up of people with non Caucasian heritage. You can't do that. This is a community that has to self identify. So you can't say to venture capitalists, how many LGBTQ entrepreneurs do you have in among your portfolio companies? Because they say, how would we know unless that entrepreneur has had a direct conversation with them? Unless they have self identified with their investor, it's very difficult to get data. There's a wonderful group out of Chicago called Blend that is working on diversity in the venture capital community in Chicago. And when they were doing their research, I said, why aren't you asking about LGBTQ entrepreneurs? They said, isn't that intrusive? So we think it's not intrusive to ask about gender. We think it's not intrusive to ask someone about their marital status or if they have kids, but we think it's intrusive to ask if they identify as lgbtq. Why? Because there's still a risk in identifying that way. So I said, rather than asking, are you an LGBTQ founder? You can ask, do you choose to publicly identify as an LGBTQ foundation plus founder? Right. You can ask your venture capitalists, how many self identified LGBTQ capital entrepreneurs have you funded in your portfolio? We have to rely on self identification to even collect data in that space. That makes it much harder to know what's happening with their access to resources, with their support, with their outcomes. It's just a very difficult community to support for that reason, because in the US and in many cultures around the world, it's still a risk to come out as lgbtq. We've seen a huge rise of anti LGBTQ backlash in this country. Target, which has annually done a beautiful collection of products for Pride, gave in to the protests about recognizing Pride Month and pulled that line of products. So there are ramifications in this country to being LGBTQ and in many places around the world. So it's a difficult group of entrepreneurs to support. So you're right. In Pride Month, we should acknowledge that's an area of my personal passion and interest. And I hope that wise heart can make a tiny difference with some of the individuals in that community.
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Vince Chen
Yeah, who knows what the future holds, especially with the election coming up. You mentioned the ongoing issues with LGBTQ identities. Being illegal in many places is a complex landscape. I also want to touch on ageism, another critical but often overlooked diversity issue. You are a baby boomer with extensive experience across various technological and economic cycles. Speaking of age, many of our listeners, whether Gen X like myself. Or baby boomers like you might have retired or been laid off for various reasons. Yet despite their valuable experience, they face entrenched ageism in the workplace and in entrepreneurship. As we discuss how to balance the heart and the head, love and logic. When making career decisions involving moving from corporate roles to entrepreneurship to taking risks, the challenges can be very daunting for more mature individuals. So my question for you is, is an entrepreneur from Gen X or the baby boomer generation approaches you wanting to do something meaningful to create a legacy? They have ideas that could solve problems in industry they've known for decades. But they may not be as tech savvy as a lot of people perceive them that way, or the pitch is not modern or sexy. How would you advise them? How would you help them balance the passion for their project with the logical aspects of launching a new venture at Lay H?
- [19:19]
Waverly
That's a great question and you're 100% right. I'm seeing that in the market right now. Right now in this country, we're going through a very strange time when the markets are at an all time high, the public markets are at an all time high, and yet the tech companies are announcing layoffs constantly and valuations for privately held tech companies have fallen off tremendously. It's a very strange economy. And you're 100% right that economic situations make a huge difference in the landscape for entrepreneurs of all kinds. And I think I can't answer this question without acknowledging the incredible privilege that I've had in my life. People hear about the struggles I've gone through and the hard work I've put in and I honor that. But I was born white to a middle class household where I got excellent education and excellent opportunities. And I've been very fortunate to have the kind of career 22 years at a university where I've been able to accumulate a retirement nest egg. I am still able to get health insurance through the university, albeit I have to pay for it. I am incredible, incredibly fortunate and incredible. My privilege has been part of my journey. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that a lot of entrepreneurs come from very different places and they don't have that. And so when I look at folks of my generation who do not have nest eggs for the future, who are being subject to layoffs. Why? Because when you are, when you are senior in your career, you're more expensive. Expensive. So if I lay off someone who is making $200,000 as a director in marketing, I could take that $200,000 and hire three young people out of college. Age is a factor in these decisions. Seniority is a factor in these decisions. And now you have these incredibly talented, experienced people in their 50s, in their 60s, who want to keep working, who have a lot to add, but who are also now pretty expensive people for a full time job. And they're saying, what do I do? What do I do with all of this experience? What do I do with all of this energy? I don't want to take a job that is a $75,000 a year job because I'm forced to it. I want to do something different. And people have different levels of choice at different times. So one of the things that I'm noticing in that community and one of the things that I'm talking with that community about is you have been exited from these companies because they need to reduce costs because you're expensive, and yet they still see the value of your wisdom and experience. Experience. Many of these people are being hired by companies like the companies they came from as consultants. There is generational knowledge capture that is lost when people are laid off without bought to transition plans. And I think a lot of companies have made that mistake. So I see a friend of mine who is a financial expert laid off from her CFO job, now consulting as a an interim CFO for various companies in the industry that she came out of. Same thing with sales executives being brought in. What I would say to those people is you may have to do work that you outgrow through in your career. You may, as a CFO have to go back to work you did as an accountant or a controller to establish your value to a young company that's growing, that needs financial knowledge. You may not be able to be a strategic cfo. You may have to actually go back to some of the work that got you to where you are. If you want to consult in building a go to market or a sales organization, you might have to write marketing collateral, you might have to, you might have to get on sales calls. You might have to do the kind of work you did when you were coming up to establish your value as someone that now charges consulting rates instead of full time salary rates. If you're able to do that, there's a lot of room out there to find consulting work, to find engagements that could lead you to your next job. But your dream of I'm going to go from my $200,000 job to a bigger, better $250,000 job when you're in your 60s in this market, that's a difficult one. You may have to let go of that.
- [24:36]
Vince Chen
It's not just about stripping your mindset or upgrading your skill, learning new technologies and branching out. The market itself is transforming. I see a future where new types of jobs and careers emerge, roles we haven't even imagined yet. The names or labels for these positions might not even exist today, but give it a year, two or three years max. Thanks to advancement in AI and other technologies, we're going to see work processes and roles evolve in ways we can't yet imagine. I view this shifting career landscape not just as a transition, but as an ocean of growth opportunities for everyone, whether they're in 40s, 50s, or even 60s. Health is of course a vital consideration. As long as we're healthy, those of us with sound minds and cross generation experience, particularly in people skills and relationship building, will find immense value. These skills are crucial even for AI focused tech companies like OpenAI. They're looking for individuals who can bridge the human technology gap, making these seemingly complex, more approachable and human relevant.
- [26:31]
Waverly
Absolutely. You mentioned reskilling and upskilling. I can't tell you how many people I know who are signing up on Coursera for a prompt engineering class to learn how to better leverage generative AI. People are going to need to use the contemporary tools to deliver the value that they bring as experienced professionals definitely engage with the newer technologies. Because you can't walk into a growth company populated by a bunch of 20 and 30 somethings and not understand the impact of generative AI or not understand the impact of social media marketing or not know what TikTok is. You have to be able to communicate in the language of today's companies if you want to build a new career after your corporate career.
- [27:29]
Vince Chen
So we are at the end of our interview. Waverly. This is the first time in my podcast that I create a three part series on a single topic and a single guest. You are the first person. How do you find this experience yourself?
- [27:50]
Waverly
I just want to say I love how this conversation ranged from career and heart and head into AI, continuing with the heart and head metaphor because AI is all head. So you got to bring the heart to diversity issues, which are very much heart and head. Diversity is not only the right thing to do, but there's a lot of evidence out there that it creates better business results, that focusing on diversity actually improves your business results. So I think I love the wide ranging conversational topics that you brought up Mintz today. It was a really excellent conversation.
- [28:29]
Vince Chen
Oh, I almost forgot. That's one important question I haven't asked you yet. I kind of guessed the reason. I'd like you to share with us in the show the name of your firm, Wise Heart. Any thought process behind that. Could you share your little secret with us?
- [28:47]
Waverly
So I'm working with a great agency on the book and I was creating the LLC as a place to put revenues from the book, consulting revenues, things like that. And I was working on what to name it. And I, of course, being very head oriented, was thinking of things like sepentia, which is Latin for wisdom. And the agency was like, no, nobody knows what that means. They won't know what you're doing. It makes no sense. And I'm like, okay, so I, I want to think about wisdom because I, I had. I am in the. The latter portions of my life and I have gained a lot of wisdom over my years and I think that's one of the things I bring. And, and they said, you know what, you talk about tough love because what you're bringing is also the love. And that's where the combination Wise Heart came in. And you commented earlier that I spell it with a Y. The reason for that is quite simple. I could get the URL. I could be wise heart.com. if you spell it with an I, you can't get the URL. I wanted the URL.
- [29:53]
Vince Chen
So, Waverly, thank you so much. We got so, so much good insights from you today. So I definitely would invite you back for another session. Thank you so much for your time, Vince.
- [30:05]
Waverly
It's been my sincere pleasure.
- [30:09]
Vince Chen
A special thanks to Waverly for sharing two hours of her valuable time for such amazing and candid conversation. That's a web on our three part series on love and logic. For those who appreciate Waverly's insights and teachings, be sure to explore the other two episodes of this series if you enjoyed this finale. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe to our show. Leave us top rated reviews, check out our website and follow me on social media. I'm this Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.