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- [00:04]
Courtney Johnson
Welcome to Slay the Gatekeeper. I'm your host, Courtney Johnson, and I am here to un. Gatekeep the gatekept. Thank you so much for being here. Enjoy. Welcome, Kate.
- [00:20]
Kate McAndrew
I'm delighted to be here.
- [00:23]
Courtney Johnson
Since we're going to be working together and since you're coming on the pod, I did a full stock of pretty much every piece of media you've ever put out online on the publicly available.
- [00:34]
Kate McAndrew
Kate, which is a very small sliver of the full Kate. But I'm glad that you've sufficiently done your Internet stockage.
- [00:43]
Courtney Johnson
I've. I've done a lot of Internet stockage. And it really is weird because every time I do a full, Full deep dive, I always feel like I'm besties with the purse. I'm like, we've. We've known each other for years because I've spent so much time poking into your. Your life and your content. So.
- [01:00]
Kate McAndrew
But I'm sure that that happens with you all the time. Like, people have these parasocial relationships with you, or they feel like they know you and you're just like, who are you, bitch? Like, I'm just at the grocery store.
- [01:12]
Courtney Johnson
That does happen sometimes. People will be like, oh, my gosh, I feel like I already know you. And I'm like, wait, what do you know about me? I don't, but it's all good.
- [01:21]
Kate McAndrew
Yeah. What was the most surprising thing that you. That you discovered in your deep dive?
- [01:27]
Courtney Johnson
Well, the most surprising thing. The most surprising cheat code. Because I pull a lot of, like, actionable advice and cheat codes. And the most surprising thing was the fact that you encourage co founders to not necessarily have equal splits and, like, really go into that conversation. That's something I had never heard before and actually I thought was, for some reason, taboo. And so that was very interesting.
- [01:48]
Kate McAndrew
It is taboo, but that's like, it's taboo, especially on the Internet. Because I feel like on the Internet, most people just follow whatever YC says, but YC is like a very narrow percentage of what actually happens in investing. But yeah, the. One of the weird things about VC is so few people actually do it, but everybody, or not everybody, but a lot of people pay attention to it and they, like, over index on a small percentage of voices and don't actually know what's happening on the ground. Or people like, no, everyone splits. 50. 50. It's like, dude, I look at thousands of cap tables a year. How many cap tables have you seen this year? Like, it's not 50, 50 out there.
- [02:29]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah. And you also mentioned that you're starting with hard conversations and you know that they have the ability to have con hard conversations with each other, which I think is a genius signal to look for.
- [02:41]
Kate McAndrew
Yeah. One of the, the pieces of due diligence that is most misunderstood is we say we're looking for founder quality. Right. But most people then think, oh, that means like, did I go to MIT or did I go to Stanford? And what I want to say is, like, 80% of the people that come across my desk went to MIT or Stanford. Like, that is not novel. To have gone to one of those top schools is not novel in terms of our funnel. So what you're really looking to do in due diligence is like pressure test, like, what kind of person are you? What kind of team are you? And so part of what we're doing, like, I call it the skeletons in the closet conversation at the end, as I'm like, look, like, tell me all your shit, because I'm going to find out. So you're going to want to tell me now. And if you tell me now, like, I'm not going to. Like, it's going to. It's cool. Like, you know, we're going to be okay. But if I find out at the 11th hour, like, you don't want to be in that situation where something comes out and you didn't tell me. So that's like my often my favorite conversations. Because people like, get really, like, there's like a moment and they're like, should I tell her about the time?
- [03:47]
Courtney Johnson
No.
- [03:47]
Kate McAndrew
No. I'm like, yes, I want to know. Like, I want to know your deepest, darkest secrets. Yeah. The other great one is like my favorite. I mean, least favorite, but, like, trend is when you have like a male and female co founder and the woman's the CEO and the co founder's male, and he just talks over her in the meeting and I'm just like, thank you. Next. Like, not to bring like Ariana Grande from like seven years ago back, but like, we're not having that. Like, what are you doing? Like, this is not, this is not a dynamic that's gonna work. So that's. Yeah, there's like the individual, there's the team dynamic. It's. It's interesting.
- [04:24]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah. Okay. I have some cheat codes for you or from you. I have some questions for you. But I want to start off with how we met. We met on LinkedIn. You reach out to me. We've chatted through LinkedIn, through social, and I've had this pattern come up in my work Where I've had a lot of people come to me saying, hey, Courtney, I went to go fundraise and it was really hard because I wasn't on LinkedIn, I didn't have a personal brand. There was nothing about me on the Internet. So I'm coming to you because I need my personal brand built. Is that true or is that bs? Like, do you look at someone and say, there's no trace of you on the Internet? It's a red flag. Or maybe you're thinking, if you have a little bit of a personal brand, I can see what you're about. Like, is personal brand important for fundraising?
- [05:07]
Kate McAndrew
The truth is, yes and no. Personal reputation is critical with fundraising. Personal brand is not. And so we will most often index off of social proof of people who we trust. And that is how most animals work, right? That's how trust is built. When you have to build trust really, really fast. Because often it's like I have five days to decide whether or not to give this person a million dollars, which is sort of like an insane human proposition, right? Maybe I get two weeks, like if I'm lucky. Sometimes you get a year. You know, you nurture the relationship. But in this context, when you're really thinking about, I'm putting myself out there in front of someone who I don't know and I have to build trust really fast. Personal reputation is the number one way that you can do that. Now, personal brand to me is sort of the way that that reputation shows up online in a way. Because to me, a brand is what people are saying about you, right? Coca Cola's brand is not their logo. It's like what people think and say about Coca Cola. Similarly, like a founder, their brand is not what they put on the Internet. It's what people who I know or matter say about that person. That third party validation is really critical. And at the same time, you have to deal with what you can control, right? And so your personal brand is an opportunity to reflect who you are and your reputation in a first party way online. And so one of the things I tell all of my founders to do before they go fundraise for their next subsequent round is go clean up your LinkedIn.
- [06:44]
Unknown
Right?
- [06:44]
Kate McAndrew
Go clean up your LinkedIn. Put some thought leadership up there. Make sure your connections are current. If you have like high level connections, make sure you're connected to them on LinkedIn. Because I'm going to look for mutual connections, so are other investors to try and get to that social proof and just make sure your work history is like robust and reflective of your accomplishments. So I think it's like a very, it's very easy, low hanging fruit to make sure that your online personal brand or presentation is reflective of your value and your accomplishments. You can certainly fundraise without it if you have a rock solid personal reputation because that's ultimately like what we're looking for. But it's a miss to not translate that into something that's easy for an investor to say yes to. Because literally the first thing I do when I get an intro is go to their LinkedIn. Like I'll be in a meeting like my co founder Axel, like literally we'll be talking about someone's co founder. He will stop the meeting and say, I can't find their LinkedIn profile, send me their LinkedIn profile. Because he wants to dig through their professional history right there. So it is probably the number one surface that we use to figure out who are mutual connections, where have you worked for how long. There's so much that we read into based on work history. So anyway, you don't need to have a big following but you do need to look like you have your shit together.
- [08:00]
Courtney Johnson
That's so important and so helpful. It's funny because I think it depends on the industry. I've also seen people only on like the engineer and product side where they're like, oh, it's like kind of not cool in product if you have yourself out there too much and I'm like, just put yourself out there. You need a LinkedIn profile. Okay. If people cannot find your LinkedIn, like.
- [08:20]
Kate McAndrew
That'S, yeah, I think that's such toxic bullshit. It's so toxic. Like that's like people, okay, this is really, we're going to go back into like late 90s TV deep cut of what was that show with like Stacy London? And yeah, they're like, yes, what not to wear. Iconic episode where this woman who is like a professional and she's trying to level up in her career is walking around looking like shit and she's like, well if I put on nice clothes and do my hair and my makeup, people are going to think that all I care about is how I look. And like Stacey London just like says to this person, like, do you think that all of the professional women out there that are well dressed are full of shit or do you think that they've just figured out how to both have a lot to say and like get dressed in the morning? So I think it's really toxic because it's, it's really out of fear of saying, oh, I have to keep my value like really secret. I'm too good to put myself out there. And, and I think like maybe that was okay when we lived in these really small geo fenced networks of talent. Like in order to get a good engineering job you needed to be in San Francisco. But that era is over, right? Like there is talent everywhere. Talent is global and like people who are building their personal brands alongside having like the juice to back it up in their careers. Other ones who are winning. I actually just did this kind of audit for our own founders to prove this to them. Like if you look at the top growing venture backed business to business B2B SaaS companies and B2B AI companies, all of their founders have massive LinkedIn followings. They are all making content and it helps them have reputation with future investors. It helps them land customers like it is such an underutilized force. And I really think that in the next 10 years we're going to see the dominant voices in that market like really, really getting it. And by the way, you're going to be part of this and I'm going to get you working with all my founders. And I'm so excited about it because, because I really do think that you have to get people over that emotional hurdle of putting themselves out there, especially if they're an engineer or if they're neurodivergent or what have you. Like they might be nervous about putting themselves out there in this exposed way, but ultimately like figuring out how to show up authentically in the world is one of the like tightest cheat codes to having a joyful life and a joyful work life that's surrounded by the kinds of people that you should be working with. Because if you're authentic, people who want to work with you are going to be magnetized to you and that's how you're going to grow in your career.
- [11:17]
Courtney Johnson
It is so amazing and powerful how you can magnetize those connections just by being yourself and showing up as your authentic self. I've, I've had a lot of clients come through that they were nervous about posting about this thing they were passionate about because it could be a little controversial or showing up dressed or looking like how they would, how they like. And I'm like no, no, no, I'm not here to tell you like what to share, but I'm here to encourage you that if you have something that's really, really important to you, you should share it because that's going to come up anyways and it's great to pull people in that are aligned with your authentic self.
- [11:51]
Kate McAndrew
Well, and the number one thing that we're looking for as investors is we're looking for people who are drawn authentically to the mission that they're on.
- [12:02]
Unknown
Right?
- [12:03]
Kate McAndrew
Like if you're looking for someone that's going to build a billion dollar plus business, they are generally not motivated by money. There are much easier ways to get rich than taking 10 to 15 years of your life to try and build a billion dollar business and manage hundreds of people. It's fucking exhausting, right? Like there are much easier ways to become a millionaire. And these people are generally leaving jobs where they're easily pulling 500k to million dollar salaries. Right? So there has to be something in them that is so drawn to the impact the company will have, the desire to reshape their industry. They're design. There's something about them that has to authentically connect with something bigger than just the economics of what they're doing. Like that level of value creation is an offshoot of the actual thing.
- [12:58]
Unknown
Right.
- [12:58]
Kate McAndrew
And so if you're out here pitching me performing an idea of what you think a founder looks like, let me tell you, it's not what the founder looks like. It's not.
- [13:10]
Unknown
Right?
- [13:11]
Kate McAndrew
Like, because the founders that get backed, they're the ones especially when they have no product and no revenue, they're the ones where like they are the business, they are the brand, like we are backing them. And there's something about who they are, the way that they communicate, the way that they magnetize people to them, where they're able to convince people beyond all logic to quit their million dollar salary job and to come join them for something as fictitious as equity, which is like, it's like monopoly money, right? It's literally paying people with monopoly money. So like the kinds of people that actually do that are people who are able to show up as their authentic self and that can look like someone who's really quiet and really deeply technical and really nerdy.
- [13:58]
Unknown
Right.
- [13:59]
Kate McAndrew
Like I, I'm thinking I literally have an archetype in my mind of this guy. I'm not going to name him, but he's, he's a phenomenal founder. He finds it difficult to, you know, give eye contact to people. But in that, in the process of backing him, he was so authentic to himself, to his mission. You could see how he was the kind of founder that was going to attract the kind of talent that he needed for that business to do well. Right? Totally different archetype. Than like, I, I'll, I can call out, I think Laura from Bobby, who's like very, she's runs a consumer brand. She's very pulled together. She's very polished. She's also very raw. She's a total like warrior for her space, which is like feeding babies, right? Like, she is that archetype of founder. And there are so many different archetypes of successful founders, but every single one of them is authentic. Who they are and the mission that they're on in this lifetime and the way that that company is going to help them achieve that mission.
- [15:00]
Courtney Johnson
Speaking of archetypes, Goddess guide to branding. I have never seen anything like this. It's incredible. It's amazing. Like, it is. I, I felt so seen in this because I have mainly like worked with men my entire life and I have this side of me that's more intuitive, dare I say, a little witchy. And seeing this book, reading this book was incredible. It is like tying your brand to different feminine archetypes. It's really amazing. I actually read it after I got off of a three month course about archetypal women through history. And so it was really cool. That, that course.
- [15:39]
Kate McAndrew
This course. Like, why?
- [15:41]
Courtney Johnson
Oh yeah, it's so cool. Okay, I'll send you the, I'll send you the info. But yeah. How did the idea for this come to be?
- [15:50]
Kate McAndrew
So this was a collaboration with my sister, which was a total dream come true. My sister has been a career brand strategist, I've been a career venture capitalist. And honestly, for the two of us, like, the shared mission that we have in this life is really to uplift the archetypal feminine. And that's not just women, right? But like, I really believe that where we're at right now in the macroeconomic and macro cultural cycle is that the masculine has been ruling and it's really time for the feminine. I think the feminine is having its moment, even if it's in the underground, even if it's in the underdog, like, that. The feminine really needs to come up and speak, especially in business. And I feel like in this arc of women stepping out of the home and into the fundamental engines of the economy, we are having this moment. So my sister and I have this shared passion and we both are definitely at least a little witchy. I full on identify as a witch. Like, I am a practicing witch. It is my religion and I like regularly like hold spells in my studio and stuff, which is a whole conversation for another day. But we came together because we love brands and there are a couple of archetypal branding systems that people use as the foundations for their brands. Like, as you know, archetypes echo through time, through cultures, and they really speak to something that people immediately get when they see them. Right. Because they are ancient. And what's interesting about that is that if brands wield them well, they can connect with customers, they can sell and they can really authentically just build new relationships with customers. But most archetypal branding systems are based on Carl Jung's Big 12, which is like the innovator, the explorer. And while those archetypes are said to be quote unquote genderless, they're actually very, very masculine. And over Covid, my sister and I were reading this book from the 80s together because it was Covid called Goddesses in Every Woman. And the, the author is a Jungian analyst and she's basically taking Jung's work and adopting it to the goddess and to the goddess system. And so she's talking about it for like personal, like psychoanalytic work. We were like, let's take this framework and create a system that can be for brands, for new brands that want to connect with feminine archetypes.
- [18:36]
Unknown
Right.
- [18:37]
Kate McAndrew
So that's where we started. And so we came up with Athena the wise and Maiden, Persephone the Dream and Diana the Free and really the feminine incarnation of these archetypes, which are often bending to the masculine. And I think that there's a lot of space to have masculine leaning brands, but there is something about really carving out space for the feminine incarnation of the Diana that to me felt really juicy and really rich as compared to the explorer.
- [19:14]
Unknown
Right.
- [19:15]
Kate McAndrew
And what I noticed was that these archetypes were relating to many of the founder led brands that I was seeing women in my community, in my portfolio leading, that were finding success. And so what we did was create this branding ecosystem around these goddesses and then went and really just talked to my friends who run successful big at scale brands and you know, interviewed them and talked to them about their journeys and hopefully showed how these archetypes are alive in really successful economic driving startups today. So it all was just a sister project and then it became more and more real and we went deeper and deeper and deeper and it honestly brought us really close together, like closer together than we've been since we were little kids. And so it was also just a joy to get to be in collaboration with my big sister.
- [20:06]
Courtney Johnson
That's incredible. And yeah, the book is just amazing. I totally agree with your message around bringing more of the feminine energies Also, it does not matter your gender identity. We all have masculine and feminine energies we can tap into. And one of the reasons why I left corporate America is I felt like the masculine really had taken over and all the amazing things that masculine energy is great at, like, showing up every day, doing the same thing, going through process, like, but I felt like there wasn't a space for intuition and for impulsivity and for creativity in the tech world. And so I lacked that and I, I missed that. And that's a huge reason why I went out on my own. And I'm very excited to see that energy come back into, especially, like, the tech space and the startup space. And I think how we do that is having people like you that are encouraging and supporting founders with different messages, like, different missions, and especially like intuitive missions as well. And I know that you share that this book is intuitive and inspired. And for the reader too, they are getting these, like, messages and codes that you don't have to have a MBA to understand. They're an intuitive part of our collective consciousness.
- [21:21]
Kate McAndrew
Well, and the truth is that whether or not you are an individual building your own personal brand, you want to start a preschool, you know, co op, or you want to start a cybersecurity company, like, you need a brand, right? And whether or not you make it, it's going to happen. So you might as well lean into this opportunity to manifest something that you believe in and where there's space and spaciousness for your whole self, or at least an authentic piece of yourself, part of yourself, to live comfortably. And I think for me, this was one of the biggest transitions that I made in my career, from working for other people in venture capital to running my own fund with a couple of partners, this sense of responsibility and self permission that I gave myself, have to daily remind myself of that. Like, bitch, this is yours, right? If, if not now, when are you gonna show up as your full self, right? And what's interesting is that the more that I've done that, the more I'm able to work from a place of joy. And you can work from fear or you can work from joy, and they both propel you forward, but one makes you tired a lot faster, right? And so I think there's also also this myth that, like, productivity and accomplishment and all of that has to come from this place of, like, grinding, right? And like, what if instead it came from a place of, like, effervescent joy? Like, that is possible. So for me, one of my tells, and this happened to me in Q4 one of the reasons I'm doing this big reset planning for 2025, I found myself losing the joy and all of a sudden even like big accomplishments didn't feel good. And I was like, red flag, red flag, like what's going on? And it was like, oh, I've started to do all the things that I think I'm supposed to do. I've gone back into this idea of like grinding it out. I'm listening to other people too much. I'm not listening to my body, I'm not in community enough. I'm not focusing on non transactional relationships because those are the things that actually make the magic happen.
- [23:36]
Unknown
Right.
- [23:36]
Kate McAndrew
And if you're trying to do things that are fundamentally new, that is also fundamentally magic. And if you're investing in pre seed, which I do, that's all, that's all I'm trying to do. Right. It's not about taking a lemon and squeezing it a little harder. It's about literally creating a new fucking fruit every time you invest. Which is kind of a wild thing to spend your life doing. But I love it.
- [23:56]
Courtney Johnson
It's so cool. And it's so cool to see just your unique approach and spirit come through. I think that my biggest cheat code for staying in that joy is to remove the word should from your vocabulary. If you get too much into I should be doing this, I should be doing that. I'm supposed to rather than I want to. That'll flip the script.
- [24:19]
Kate McAndrew
I absolutely agree. Honestly. Just like another thing is literally doing a body scan. How do I feel like getting out of what do I think? But how do I feel?
- [24:31]
Unknown
Right?
- [24:31]
Kate McAndrew
It's a totally simple free, takes one minute to do. And it is such an easy tool to just get out of your thinking head out of the swords. If you want to take like the tarot analogy would be the suit of swords into the suit of pentacles, which by the way, in the tarot, the suit of pentacles is materiality, which is both money and the body.
- [24:55]
Unknown
Right.
- [24:55]
Kate McAndrew
So these things go together, especially if you're looking into ancient systems that are grounded in the wisdom of women. So I really think that the body and money are super related.
- [25:09]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah. If you need a actionable way to do that, go on, open up your YouTube app, type in the search bar 3 minute body scan. Click on the first one. I do that one all the time. And that brings me to one of your cheat codes, which is you have to be on top of your self care.
- [25:26]
Kate McAndrew
Why is this important if you break it all Breaks, right? If you, I mean it's very simple and like if you break, it all breaks. And the venture capital is an incredibly long term game. It's a get rich slow game, right? Like you can get very rich, but it takes a long time. And so like you really have to think about both. It. It's almost like sprinting a marathon all the time, right? You can't just think, oh, this is a marathon. So I go slow. You also can't sprint. You actually have to figure out like what is the sustained pace that I can hit and go a really, really long way. And that doesn't mean like the masculine version of that would be like, great, let me set my watch to whatever that pace is and I'm going to stick with that pace for the next 10 years. And that is total bullshit. That does not work for me.
- [26:28]
Unknown
Right?
- [26:28]
Kate McAndrew
For me, what I actually need to do is allow for the cyclicality of energy, the cyclicality of familial obligations, the cyclicality of businesses to be as they are and to embrace them as they come. That's kind of the feminine way of doing it. But at the same time there are daily practices, weekly practices, monthly practices, yearly practices, really quarterly practices that underpin my ability to do that. And I think each person has to come to their own assessment of what their baseline is. For me, like the number one thing that has the highest self care roi is dance, period, bar none. One hour in my dance studio is like more restorative than a week long vacation in Mexico. Like it's that powerful for me. And so I really believe that you have to decide like what are my, what's my highest self care roi and then make those your non negotiables. Right. And those are like the things that go in the bucket first, right. And then everything else can kind of flow from that. But if you don't prioritize that, everyone will take your time and ultimately they'll take you. And if you go down, it all goes down. So I really do believe that self care is like the number one thing you have to do to have career longevity.
- [27:51]
Courtney Johnson
I love that idea of what your highest self care ROI is. I'm gonna consider this exercise after.
- [27:59]
Kate McAndrew
Do you wanna know my other ones?
- [28:00]
Courtney Johnson
This is my other. Yeah.
- [28:02]
Kate McAndrew
Oh wait, I have, I have one more like self care cheat code that I feel like I've, I've really learned in the last few years. I went through a separation and a divorce while I had a young child and was starting my business. I did all of that in like A couple of years, I was like, I had a baby in a pandemic. I raised a fund, I got separated, I moved out on my own. Huge, like talk about rocking the fucking boat, right? It was a lot. And I. But I did learn something about relationships and this is like my biggest self care thing that is different from like, oh, get your workout in. Right. Which I do agree with. But I now do quarterly relationship off sites with my boyfriend. So we go away for a weekend every quarter and I actually run the same off site playbook that I give my founders and we do a review of like what worked last quarter. Like what didn't work last quarter. What are we looking forward to next quarter? Like next quarter. Like, let's look at the calendar together. Like what? Like we really do these deeply reflective off sites. We never do them in San Francisco, we always leave town. And I have really learned to care for my core work partnership or outside of work partnership in a new way. And I don't think that like not doing quarterly off sites is why I got divorced. But I do think that like it is a practice now that I consider a key self care practice. And by the way, my business partners all know about it. They know that like, hey, it's off site weekend. Like it better be good if you're texting me, you know, because they know that like, and this is true, like you're the, the co founder that you have in, in life or in your relationship. Like that relationship deeply influences your work. So I really do think about self care relationship care, like how I parent, like all of that stuff is about what are the systems? And I do think about roi because you have to like, what are those non negotiable systems? And that's just one of my favorites. I want to write a book about it someday.
- [30:07]
Courtney Johnson
I was just going to say, where's the digital product? Where's the book? Like Kate's couple off site retreat hosting.
- [30:15]
Kate McAndrew
I got venues. I've got like the whole like I got the kit.
- [30:20]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, yeah, I want to, I want to do this. What a great cheat code. Okay, our next cheat code. Love your nose. What does this mean?
- [30:29]
Kate McAndrew
Oh gosh. This is like the biggest gift that I have given myself which is to really like not only accept my nose but to like revel in them, to let them feel good, right? Because and especially again when I became a GP and started my own fund, I was in this mode of saying yes to everybody because I felt like beholden that I had to give something to get something or they wanted to get something from me. And it was, it was unhealthy. And I really had to go through this process of learning to say no and learning to love that no. Because what I realized was every time I said no, I was gaining the capacity to find my true yes.
- [31:22]
Unknown
Right?
- [31:23]
Kate McAndrew
And we talk about this in the context of consent, like if you can't freely give your no, then your yes doesn't mean shit. And so in business, what I found was that every time I was doing something that I didn't really want to do, every time I was doing something that felt low value to me, I was actually denying myself the true value of my yes. And the more nos I gave, and the more I saw those nos as backdoor yeses to my yeses, the more I started to love them. Because what I realized was I was prioritizing the people, the projects, the impact that really mattered to me. And it became a self affirming practice. And so I think for me, recontextualizing the no as actually a backdoor to the to the yes and realizing that without the no, there was no true yes, it allowed me to really love my no. And I think especially for women, for everyone, but especially for women where we've got so many demands on our time and a lot of people think that they deserve our time, it's important to realize that the no is actually affirming your true yes. And it's a beautiful way to move through life because all of a sudden the no starts to feel generative.
- [32:51]
Courtney Johnson
I absolutely love that. That's incredible. I always say, like, be completely ruthless with your time and priorities. That is a non negotiable. If you're being generous with your time and priorities, you're going to. There's no way to be successful. Like you have to be ruthless, completely ruthless. And I love the reframe of loving your nose because it can feel a little crunchy or uncomfy sometimes, especially if it's something that you kind of want to do, you kind of want to get coffee with that person or you want to do that project, but it's not like a full hell yes. So thank you for that permission.
- [33:30]
Kate McAndrew
The other one, the other like tool that I love is checking in with different parts of your body around are you a yes or you know, so you go head, heart, belly, sex. Am I a yes or a no? Am I a yes or a no? Am I a yes or a no or am I a yes or a no? And in that you really can find what's really happening for you. And literally say to yourself, I'm asking my head. What does my head think? Drop into your head. Speak from your head. I'm asking my heart, what does my heart feel?
- [34:03]
Unknown
Right.
- [34:03]
Kate McAndrew
Drop into that. What does my belly say? And it allows you to get. For me, it unlocks the should getting out of the should. Right. You remove yourself from what I should do, because your should lives in your head, Your should doesn't live in your heart, your should doesn't live in your belly.
- [34:20]
Unknown
Right.
- [34:20]
Kate McAndrew
And so it really can allow you to find that deeper yes and that deeper no if you're struggling with that process. So it's just a little cheat code for how to find your true yes and find your true no. If you're not actually sure yet, that's extremely helpful.
- [34:34]
Courtney Johnson
I'm gonna start implementing that into my own practice because that's. Yeah. Incredible.
- [34:39]
Kate McAndrew
I love that.
- [34:40]
Courtney Johnson
Okay, we have one more cheat code, but before our last cheat code, I'm very curious. What are your. What are your goals for 2025? What's your North Star? What are you working on? What are you really excited about? Like, what is your dream for the 2025?
- [34:55]
Kate McAndrew
Yeah, I. I'm, like, working on distilling this right now, and I. I'll throw out a couple of themes. One is to go deeper, not wider. So to do fewer things more deeply. And so that's gonna involve saying no to a lot of additional new projects and really being in that mode, because the things that I have on my plate really are important to me. They really matter to me, and I want to do them fully and I want to do them deeply. So that's like a theme, is just, like, go deeper, not wider. I think another piece that I'm spending a lot of cycles on and energy on, which, you know, is just putting myself out there more on social. And I feel like a big part of that is kind of just stepping into my power in a public way. I feel like in 2024, I dipped my toe in the water. I called it an experiment, and I did it. I started, but it was from this place of, well, if I fail, I fail.
- [36:05]
Unknown
Right.
- [36:06]
Kate McAndrew
There was. There's still a hesitation. And so I think in 2025, I'm really giving myself the permission to go all in with putting myself out there on social media with the goal of magnetizing phenomenal founders and investors to me and trusting that that's going to happen, because I've seen it already happen in 2024 with just the, like, small presence that I've that I've had. So I think that's definitely a goal. And I think the. The third thing that's really important to me, and this has been true for me since I became a mother, which is that, like, my number one job is to steward the spirit of this young child. Like, that is my number one job right now. He's four years old. He's extraordinary, and I will always put him first. And so everything that I do actually flows from him, right. And from that calling. And I really do feel like, called to steward his spirit in this life. And I feel really. I don't know if I'm. Yeah, I'm grateful. I have co founders who all feel that way about their children, and so we really have an understanding that, like, our kids come first. First. And so just continuing to hold up that as a North Star and I've. As he's, you know, when he was 0 to 1, I had one set of boundaries, 1 to 2, a different set of boundaries, 2 to 3, different set of boundaries. Like, how I do that has changed, right? And I think it will continue to change because kids change. But the fact that that's my North Star, I think will, I know, will need to remain, and I want it to remain because it does, does enrich actually all aspects of my life. And I feel like it's really important to me.
- [37:53]
Courtney Johnson
That's amazing to hear. I've been loving all year just getting to know women who are founders, entrepreneurs, just doing really cool things and are also mothers. I would love to be a mother one day, and seeing examples of it is the most special thing to me. So thank you for being an example.
- [38:13]
Kate McAndrew
I appreciate it. I love doing it because I was looking for them when I was in my 20s and I could not see them. And I, I waited to have kids, I think in part because I just didn't see anyone around me doing it in Silicon Valley. And part of that was it was pre Covid, you didn't see it. People hid it, right? And now we're really in this new era, and I think there's this potential. And for me, it feels like a responsibility because I can. To be out there and be transparent about what it looks like to. To weave it all together because it actually, at least in my profession, it is possible. And so I want people to see that it is possible. And as I figure it out, right? As I, like, get those cheat codes and figure out those cheat codes, like, I'm. I like, literally, I'm like making Google Drive decks and like, sending them to my pregnant friends, that's like really hot, like underground, like budgets and all that stuff of just like, hey. Cause as soon as you figure something out as a parent, the kids outgrown it and I'm like, motherfucker, like it's no longer useful to me. Like I, I, now I'm outta the space and I'm only having one kid. Cause some people get a second round, you know, where they can rinse and repeat. I'm not doing that. So I'm at least I'm, I'm like documenting. I'm putting it out there for like my friends. So hopefully, you know, they get the cheat codes before the kid's out of that phase.
- [39:29]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, maybe this will be book number three after the.
- [39:34]
Kate McAndrew
No, no more projects. No more project.
- [39:36]
Courtney Johnson
No, no more projects.
- [39:38]
Kate McAndrew
Yeah, yeah, one day, one day.
- [39:42]
Courtney Johnson
One thing at a time. Yes. Okay. I have the last cheat code. This is a video that I saw of yours that really stood out to me. I was like, well, damn, that's thinking big. And this was a video where you said you don't get out of bed for less than a billion dollars. What does that mean?
- [40:00]
Kate McAndrew
I mean, it's literally true. I like, it's so funny because this is the baseline for my career, right? And I think a lot of people don't understand that venture capital is irrelevant for like 98% of businesses, right? It is not the right fit for the vast majority of businesses, but I have committed my career to that 2%. Which means every day everything that I do has to ladder up to creating a billion dollars of value, right? As a hundred million dollar fund for a company that I invest in to be economically impactful for our investors, it needs to return a hundred million dollars to me, which means it has to have a billion dollar exit value, right? So every day when I'm getting up and I'm going to find that next founder, or I'm going to the board meeting, or I'm building our brand, every day I'm thinking, billion dollars, billion dollars, billion dollars, billion dollars. And so the incremental small stuff is there's nothing wrong with it, right? I, I really believe that people are entrepreneurial. There's never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is more accessible to everybody. But that doesn't mean that everyone should be trying to raise money for me or in venture capital, right. It this, what I do is for a very small number of businesses. But I am very clear that that's what I'm going for, right? That's what I'M doing, that's what I'm doing in my career. And so everything that I do has to have that B for billion. And I love it. Like, I think it's great. And I love working with people who are living in that aspect of their ambition. Like it's very inspiring to live with people and to work with people who share that level of impact aspiration.
- [41:50]
Courtney Johnson
Totally agree. I think surrounding yourself with ambitious people is one of the most important things you can do because everybody has big dreams and goals. But to voice those, to share those with others, to see other people that are thinking big and doing big, crazy, amazing things is honestly my favorite thing in the world. I love dreams and goals and just hearing about what people are pouring love into. So I love that. Thank you for being an inspiration, Kate. Like truly, you are inspiring me. You're inspiring so many people around you and I think it's incredible. Kate, where can people find you? How can they read your book? Where can they follow you? On social.
- [42:30]
Kate McAndrew
I am on TikTok, Kate McAndrew probably put link in something something and I'm also on LinkedIn. Those are the two best places to follow me, connect with me. Like I'm the only person that's reading those comments. So like if you're chatting with me, you're chatting with me. I, I'm pretty, pretty accessible there. So follow me there. And then my book is available on Amazon, the Goddess Guide to Branding and would love for folks to grab a copy and hopefully it inspires them to build something authentic to them.
- [43:01]
Courtney Johnson
And for the founders listening to this, is there a specific segment or industry or something that you're looking for right now to invest in?
- [43:09]
Kate McAndrew
Yeah. So my firm is called Baukunst, which actually means the art of building. So bao means building and kunst means art or craft. And we specialize in leading pre seed rounds of funding. That's all we do. And pre seed basically means brand new businesses. So I'm investing the first 500k to million and a half dollars in brand new companies. I only invest in companies that are focused on the US market as their primary market. So has to be kind of a US focused company. And we do both enterprise and consumer. We do a lot of engineering, design, manufacturing, software. I love consumer. So it's fairly generalist but really this intersection of design and technology is where my heart is.
- [43:53]
Courtney Johnson
Amazing. Well, we'll put all the links in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here, Kate.
- [43:58]
Kate McAndrew
Yeah, thanks for having me, Courtney. It was a blast.
- [44:02]
Courtney Johnson
Okay y'all, if you like this episode? You would love, love my Patreon. Okay? You get exclusive access to me, exclusive content, tons of other resources, and a lot of juicy.
- [44:15]
Kate McAndrew
Okay?
- [44:16]
Courtney Johnson
So I hope to see you on my Patreon.