Sarah Leners: Bull City Venture Partners

Summary

Podcast Summary:

The Investor With Joel Palathinkal — Sarah Lenners: Bull City Venture Partners
Date: August 27, 2025
Guest: Sarah Lenners, Senior Associate, Bull City Venture Partners
Host: Dr. Joel Palathinkal

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Main Theme and Purpose

This episode dives deep into the career journey and investment philosophy of Sarah Lenners from Bull City Venture Partners. The discussion focuses on Sarah’s path from investment banking to venture capital, the inner workings and strategies of Bull City Venture Partners, the realities of breaking into VC, deal sourcing best practices, portfolio construction, and advice for emerging managers and aspiring VCs. The discussion is both practical and inspiring, with a strong emphasis on relationship-building and the evolving landscape of venture capital.

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1. Sarah Lenners' Background and Path to VC

• Education and Early Career:
  • Grew up in DeWitt, Iowa, attended Dartmouth College (track athlete, economics major).
  • MBA from University of Chicago Booth.
  • Started her career in investment banking: Deutsche Bank (NYC, real estate, gaming, lodging & leisure) and Lazard Middle Market (Chicago, consumer, food, retail sell-side M&A).
• Transition to Venture Capital:
  • Became interested in VC during business school through classes in entrepreneurship, but didn’t know a formal path in.
  • Moved to VC a year prior to the episode—hired at Bull City via a recruiter.

Quote:
"I actually always wanted to get into banking… I was more exposed to venture capital when I was in business school after I had already started going down the banking path. I didn’t really know anyone in the industry." — Sarah, [06:13]

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2. Breaking Into Venture Capital

• Sarah strongly advises aspiring VCs to pursue VC directly if that’s their dream, rather than treating investment banking as a stepping stone.
• Notes that VC has less formal recruiting than banking - network, direct applications, and sometimes recruiters or aggregated job boards (like the John Gannon blog) are key.

Quote:
"If your dream is to get into venture capital, try to go right in if you can... those finance skills are helpful… but the venture end of the spectrum is very different than what I was doing in banking." — Sarah, [04:48]

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3. Bull City Venture Partners: Strategy and Deal Flow

• Fund Focus:
  • Seed and Series A investor (post-revenue, post-product).
  • Focus on software, internet, mobile tech—primarily Southeast and Mid-Atlantic U.S., but flexible.
  • Investing out of their fourth fund; check sizes from $300k–$3M, reserve 2–3x for follow-ons.

Investment Approach:

• Flexible on leading rounds, board seats, or control.
• Value-add via introductions (customers, capital, talent).
• Preference for repeat founders or those with deep industry expertise—relationship and founder quality outweigh sole ‘macro thesis.’
• Portfolio is concentrated: 2 to 4 investments/year vs. high-velocity West Coast funds.

Quote:
"We like to work really hard for our companies, whether that means introducing them to customers… introducing them to capital, later stage capital... and also helping make introductions to talent as they grow and scale." — Sarah, [00:00]

• Founder Qualities:
  • Look for founders with previous cycles/experience, passion, a large enough market, and hiring skill. Recognizes the importance of “gut” and intuition due to lack of hard data at early stages.

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4. Sourcing, Screening, and Managing Deals

• Sourcing Tactics:
  • Virtual demo days, pitch contests, networking with entrepreneurs and VCs in other geographies.
  • Participation in communities and groups (e.g., Women In VC, 3,000+ members).
  • Emphasizes “networking as much as you can”.

Quote:
"We're always looking for new deals, for sure." — Sarah, [24:01]
"Networking with your entrepreneurs, networking with other VCs… I frequently have calls with other VCs in other geographies that may see something great but it's not a fit for their portfolio." — Sarah, [13:02]

• Deal Screening:
  • Initial screens: US location, post-product, post-revenue.
  • Assess market size, competition, product moat, team.
  • For B2B, rely on founder to define and track key metrics; early metrics are often more qualitative.

Quote:
"I think my very first screens are that it, you know, is located in the US, looking for, you know, post product, revenue... and then you want to make sure that the market that it's going after is big enough." — Sarah, [44:00]

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5. Portfolio Construction and Valuation

• More concentrated portfolios than typical ‘spray and pray’ West Coast style.
• Investing at a slower pace to maintain concentration and ability to support portfolio.
• With respect to valuation: acknowledges that early-stage valuations are set by supply and demand, and are universally high; no rigid internal benchmarks but always consider return multiples.

On Exits:

• At exit, look at industry comps to benchmark, but admits difficulty of valuation at early stage.

Quote:
"The best way that I can describe it is that it's just like a supply and demand kind of, you know, in action and a number gets assigned based on that versus based on, you know, a quantitative valuation." — Sarah, [39:52]

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6. Fundraising as a VC

• Sarah joined as Bull City was launching Fund 4 and was involved in fundraising and legal formation.
• Fundraising is compared to a sales pipeline process—many meetings, little correlation between meetings and LP conversion.
• Having track record/prior investor relationships is critical; first-time funds faced special challenges during COVID.

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7. Navigating Team Dynamics & Investment Conviction

• Acknowledges the challenge of managing team consensus and the “FOMO” (fear of missing out) from competitive deals.
• Recognizes importance of both conviction and flexibility to be challenged by peers.
• Community and network are essential for collective wisdom and risk assessment.

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8. Advice for Aspiring VCs and Emerging Managers

• Build a network and pay it forward—one of Sarah’s core messages.
• Do not be afraid to reach out cold (e.g., via LinkedIn); personalize approach and demonstrate genuine sector interest or value-add potential.
• Produce investment theses or sector reports to demonstrate initiative (but don’t “fake it”).

Interviewing for VC roles:

• At Bull City, the interview process was broad and less technical than banking; sector specialization isn’t required unless fund is sector-driven.
• Have a clear thesis and a good answer to “why venture capital?”

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9. Diversity and Women in VC

• Sarah is part of Women In VC, observes more inbound from female founders as a result.
• The podcast touches on evidence of strong results from women fund managers and diversity overall, including mention of Harlem Capital and Gaingels.
• Endorses the value of affinity and professional networks for sourcing and support.

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10. Investment Structure & Returns

• In early stage VC, returns for investors are only generated at exit (no cash flow “dividend” structure).
• Early-stage companies should reinvest cash—not pay out, unlike in private equity.

Quote:
"If they're free cash flow positive, are you going to take dividends? No, you would want that cash to stay in the business so the business can use that cash to grow..." — Sarah, [54:46]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Networking as Destiny:
  "Try to meet as many people as you can. Network. That will come in handy." — Sarah, [51:31]
• On Venture's Uncertainty:
  "You only know if you're right probably like seven years from now… and you also don't know if you're wrong until many years later too, if you missed one." — Sarah, [16:21]
• On Sourcing:
  "Virtual demo days, pitch contests... Networking with your entrepreneurs, networking with other VCs..." — Sarah, [13:02]
• On Paying It Forward:
  "Always trying to help when people reach out, you know, pay it forward. Because I think that always does come back to benefit you." — Sarah, [51:31]
• On Portfolio Construction:
  "We're kind of backing the jockey vs the horse... our portfolio is a little more concentrated than what you'd see on the West Coast." — Sarah, [09:17]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:40] — Sarah’s upbringing, education, and career journey
• [04:48] — Advice on entering VC and career paths
• [08:52] — How Sarah landed her role at Bull City Venture Partners
• [10:00] — Bull City’s investing strategy and fund characteristics
• [11:32] — Sectors of interest and fintech focus
• [13:02] — Sourcing deals and value of networking groups
• [15:00] — What to look for in founders
• [17:18] — Navigating team differences, conviction, and FOMO in investing
• [19:49] — Best practices in deal flow management and fundraising
• [24:01] — Sourcing tools and tips
• [28:35] — How to effectively reach out to VCs and stand out
• [32:17] — What VC interviews are like and how to prepare
• [35:04] — Diversity in VC, women-led funds, and observations
• [38:03] — Banking skillsets transferable to VC
• [41:26] — Regional and stage-based valuation considerations
• [44:00] — How Sarah screens decks and B2B KPIs
• [48:58] — Parallels and differences between banking and VC
• [51:31] — The importance of networking and paying it forward
• [54:46] — Returns structure: why early stage VC doesn’t do dividends

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Closing Takeaways

Sarah Lenners’ path demonstrates the non-linear and relationship-driven nature of venture capital. Her practical insights touch on the importance of network, due diligence, founder quality, and the nuance required in deal sourcing and selection. The episode is rich in actionable advice for those looking to break into VC, operators considering the transition, and anyone interested in the evolving strategies of regional VC funds.

Endnote:
"Try to meet as many people as you can. Network. That will come in handy." — Sarah Lenners, [51:31]

Transcript

[Sarah Lenners]

We don't have any mandates with board seats or control or anything like that. And we like to work really hard for our companies, whether that means introducing them to customers, introducing them to capital, later stage capital if there's a round coming up that is too big for us to leave. And also helping make introductions to talent as they grow and scale. We also like to invest in repeat founders or founders who have a deep industry knowledge or expertise.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Welcome to the Investor, a podcast where I, Joel Palo Thinkle, your host, dives deep into the minds of the world's most influential institutional investors. In each episode, we sit down with an investor to hear about their journeys and, and how global markets are driving capital allocation. So join us on this journey as we explore these insights. All right, looks like we're live here on the Sutton Capital Web show. So we've got Sarah Lenners from Bull City Venture Capital. Really excited to have you here. It's Bull City Venture Partners, to be correct, right?

[Sarah Lenners]

That's right.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah. So excited to have you here and, you know, just thanks for giving us your time. You know, excited to learn a little more about your background. And where are you calling from? Where are you guys located?

[Sarah Lenners]

We're based in Durham, North Carolina.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Oh, nice. That's not too far away. I'm in New York. So, you know, you have to, have you, have you guys gotten out of North Carolina recently or you guys just.

[Sarah Lenners]

Not recently, but excited to.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, we, we've done like a couple small trips, like a couple hours away, but haven't done anything too crazy. But anyways, hey, you know, thanks for joining again and would love to learn a little more about your background, how you got started. The audience here is, you know, a bunch of emerging managers. We've got people who are trying to break into vc. We've have, we have some entrepreneurs. So pretty diverse group of people, but, you know, all just interested in both private equity and VC and learning a little more about your journey. So maybe you can just kick it off with, you know, where you grew up, if it was in North Carolina and what was your story? How did you navigate into bc?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, sure. Actually, I grew up in Iowa, went to Dartmouth where I ran track and was an econ major. Fast forward a few years, went to business school at the University of Chicago. Booth went into investment banking first in New York, working in the real estate, gaming, lodging and leisure group at Deutsche bank and then switched to Lazard Middle Market in Chicago where I did sell side M and A for consumer, food and retail companies. And then a year ago Switched into venture capital.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Where in Iowa did you grow up?

[Sarah Lenners]

DeWitt.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

DeWitt. Okay. So I. My first job out of college was in Cedar Rapids. I don't know if that's.

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, I have family there.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

So where. How far away is that from, like, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids?

[Sarah Lenners]

Oh, probably like an hour, hour and a half.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Okay. That's not bad. Yeah. So my first job out of college was at Rockwell Collins. It was like an aviation company. So I lived in Iowa City, and then I commuted to Cedar Rapids. We had a good time there.

[Sarah Lenners]

Oh, wow.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

And then. So then you went to. And then you wanted to kind of get out of Iowa and see the rest of the world. Pretty much, right?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah. You know, I had the opportunity to run track at Dartmouth. That was a big dream of mine. So, yeah, headed out east.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

That's great. Yeah. So I actually spoke with. We got Kevin on the line here. Kevin is also thinking about pursuing that same track with banking, and he wants to kind of start with investment banking and then maybe try to get some experience there and then transition into venture. Do you see that model and that path changing now, or do you think that's still a good path? And do you think that's still about the same where people are trying to maybe start as, you know, as an investment banker? Or do you see venture, that career evolving more, where people are coming from a tech background or a product background and now jumping in?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah. Hi, Kevin. I would say if your dream is to get into venture capital, try to go right in if you can. I loved investment banking, and I learned a ton, and those finance skills are helpful, but, you know, valuation and stuff, you know, finance in general, and the venture end of the spectrum is very different than what I was doing in banking. So I would say. And, you know, you see all different paths. You know, former, former founders, former operators. You know, there are many paths that can lead here, and if it's what you want to do and you can get in directly, that I would go for it.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah. No, that's good advice, because there's some people that take their career as, like, stepping stones. Like, hey, you know, I eventually want to get into venture. That's what I really want to do. But I think I'm going to go to business school first and then, you know, do banking. So your advice is, you know, if that's really what you want to do, don't burn two to three years. Just go into what you want to do. Right?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah. Yep.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

And did you. Was that your case? Did you always want to be A venture capitalist. And you thought about banking as like the pathway into it or did you just kind of stumble upon banking? I mean, stumble upon venture. When you were getting into banking, I guess what was your pivoting? What were your career aspirations? And then what triggered that pivot?

[Sarah Lenners]

I actually always wanted to get into banking.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Okay, got it.

[Sarah Lenners]

That's a little unusual. But I was more exposed to venture capital when I was in business school after I had already started going down the banking path. And I didn't really know anyone in the industry. I didn't really know how to get in. You know, there isn't a very formal, you know, recruiting path in like there is for banking. So I didn't know much about it, but I was really interested in it and I took classes in entrepreneurship. But yeah, I didn't, I didn't know as much about it. Learned more later and then, you know, feel really lucky that I was able to get in.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah. You know, when I was in college, when I grew up in, I grew up in Florida. Right. So I didn't even know about venture. I knew nothing about banking. When I, when I thought about banking, I thought about like bank of America, like down the street, you know, like a teller. And I don't know if you ever watched the Office. Yeah, have you seen that episode?

[Sarah Lenners]

I don't know the teller one.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

So there's a, so there's an episode where Michael Scott goes to New York City from Philly and one of his buddies is like, hey, when you're at the bar, just tell people that you're a banker. So he goes around and then I guess somebody asked him at the bar, like what he does and he's like, oh yeah, I'm a teller. And that was me. Like when I was in high school, I thought really banking was, you know, going, going and making a pot deposit at the bank. But I went to New York one time and met a bunch of friends and they told me about investment banking and that's how I discovered it. So I guess like your banking was like my engineering, you know, because I just thought that's all it was. But, you know, how did you discover venture? Did you start going to tech events? Did you just meet people that were VCs?

[Sarah Lenners]

Well, when I was, when I was working on a sell side deal in banking, we were selling a company for a founder and that was the first time I'd ever done a sale where the founder was still involved with the company. And that really opened my eyes to it. It's so much different when the founder was still involved and the business was her baby and she knew it inside and out. There's a different feel and energy about it. And I wanted to be more involved in that spectrum of finance.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

No, it's really interesting. And then tell me about Bull City Venture Partners. Was that the first fund that you joined or is this an emerging fund? Maybe you can tell us about the journey into Bull City and maybe how your career has transitioned.

[Sarah Lenners]

So I actually found out about this position through a recruiter.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Okay.

[Sarah Lenners]

Yep. And I think over the course of a month or so of six interviews was able to get, get, get a job here. So Bull City Venture Partners is a seed and series A investor. We're generally investing post revenue, post product, investing in software, Internet, mobile tech companies. We tend to focus on the Southeast and Mid Atlantic just because that's in our backyard. But we can invest anywhere in the US we are investing out of our fourth fund. We've made two investments out of there. We can lead. We don't have to lead. We can be the first institutional capital in. We don't, you know, have any mandates with board seats or control or anything like that. And we like to work really hard for our companies, whether that means introducing them to customers, introducing them to capital later stage capital if there's a round coming up that is too big for us to leave. And also helping make introductions to talent as they grow and scale. We also like to invest in repeat founders or founders who have a deep industry knowledge or expertise. You know, some of our founders, we invested in Infund 2. They had a very successful exit, and now we're investing in them again. And, you know, so we're kind of backing the jockey versus the horse. And because of that, that can kind of pull us from our core thesis a little bit. And our portfolio is a little more concentrated than what you'd see on the West Coast. So we're not making a bunch of tiny investments, hoping that one becomes a unicorn and subsidizes the rest of the portfolio. It's more concentrated and we're investing at a slower pace. So two to four investments a year versus deploying it all up front. And then our check sizes can range from, depending on the stage, 300,000 to 500,000 up to 3 million. And then when we make that first investment, we intend to have two to three times that saved up in reserves for our winners.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

That's really interesting. And is there a certain sector that you're interested in or maybe excited about more than the others?

[Sarah Lenners]

I do consider Myself a generalist, I'm actually really interested in fintech. I never saw that coming, but. But I like to see a little bit of everything.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, I think we chat about this. I have a fintech background as an operator, so I do have a passion on fintech. And you know, fintech, if you just say fintech, it's so massive. Right. There's so many different subsectors of fintech. Is there a sub sector that you think needs innovation?

[Sarah Lenners]

Oh, I think there's. I think there's innovation and disruption everywhere.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah.

[Sarah Lenners]

And I think, you know, because we're kind of close to Charlotte, there's a lot of, you know, great companies that are emerging there, but I don't have like a specific subsector that I'm like, you know, in particular looking at, you know, it's not, it's not like a macro thesis and I'm trying to find something that fits that. Sure, yeah.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

And any advice that you have for the audience on just sourcing because you guys make around four investments, so it seems like you guys, you know, probably look at a lot of volume and I'm assuming there's high selection criteria because there's only four deals that end up making it. So in general, are there any best practices to find deals inbound and outbound and then what are some best practices to screen them and eliminate them to leave the best quality companies.

[Sarah Lenners]

So I've only been investing in a Covid world where it's all virtual, so I don't know what it's like in normal time.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Sure.

[Sarah Lenners]

So yes, you're right. Just we see a ton of deals and they come from, you know, I will, I'll attend virtual demo days, pitch contests and see a lot of deal flow that way. Networking with your entrepreneurs, networking with other VCs. You know, I frequently have calls with other VCs in other geographies that may see something great but it's not a fit for their portfolio and then they'll pass it to me and vice versa. And then just being involved in a bunch of VC groups, you know, there's a group that I'm in, women in VC. I think there's about 3,000 members.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Oh wow.

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah. And they members are frequently posting, you know, Seed Sage Opportunities, Series A opportunities and beyond. So I think just trying to get out there and network as much as you can is how I've been sourcing on the outbound side.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, I totally agree. I think some of the best deals that have been a fit for us, I mean for me I've been through text message. So just texting a friend of mine that's a VC and learning about it and it's literally like a doc send that you can text to somebody. That's really true. I feel like definitely the network and just connections have really helped and I use Crunchbase sometimes, but I feel that again, the best ones have been through just hearing some of the context through friends and reading their memos too. That's really helpful. What are some things that you think are important in a founder? When you look at the founder, you mentioned that they're a past. It's obviously great if they're a serial founder and they've had an ex it or something in the past. But what are some characteristics that you've seen that have been a common characteristic in a lot of the deals that you've been excited about?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, I think having having, you know, some cycles under their belt definitely helps, especially when Covid hit and there was a lot of uncertainty and just having that muscle memory I think was very beneficial. And then just, you know, having passion for their business, you know, hiring the right talent, having a great idea that isn't a market, you know, that's large enough for the opportunity to be, you know, enormously successful. But that's hard, you know, it's a lot of intangible, hard to pinpoint.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah. And you know, I've heard feedback on being a gut based investor. Right. So it's kind of tough. Right. Because half of you know, I met a VC before that was like, look, I never do gut based investing and it's kind of tough to say that when you're in VC because there's not really much data. Right. I mean there's barely, barely the income statement and you're not even sure if they put it together themselves or they have an outsourced cfo. So it's as good as the numbers that they provide. So I mean, I hate to say that it's based off of gut, but I'd say maybe some conviction and just really believing in the sector. But would you agree that you only know if you're right probably like seven years from now. Right?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

I mean, to be honest, I mean, you're really only going to know when you do your reconciliation of your performance.

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah. And you also don't know if you're wrong until many years later too, if you missed one.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah. And I think, you know, that's why I think it's good, you know, that there's these communities, even with, with my platform there's been deals that I've been excited about, and then there's been some of the people in this room that have really just pointed out a lot of risks. And I think just maybe not being swayed. Maybe you can tell me about this. So how do you navigate just different opinions and then still stick to your own? Right, because you might really have conviction in a deal, but then a lot of people pass on the deal. So how do you synthesize that? Do you let that manipulate your decision, or do you still just try to look at it objectively and not get really swayed in one direction?

[Sarah Lenners]

That's a really tough question, I think, because we're a team of three. Everyone has different opinions and voices them, but if there is a consensus, that's great right off the bat. But I think that there is something to be said about being swayed, because, you know, we'll hear, you know, XYZ company just got a term sheet from someone else, and then that kind of.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, that's. That's true. It's the FOMO pretty much. Right? Because you hear that they didn't seem attractive until somebody else that's bigger courted them, and now they're immediately like your hottest deal. Right, Exactly. I think, you know, part of it, too. What I try to do is, obviously, I have my opinion, but I try. I try to embrace being called out and being told that I'm wrong, because if I had, you know, this is kind of like, you know, agree with it or not, but, I mean, Bridgewater has a lot of different attributes, and, you know, one of them. They have a lot. And they're known for different attributes, but one of them is just being able to, you know, radically be transparent on, like, what they believe. Right. So I think that would be interesting adventure if you could look at a deal and maybe you have an ego and you really believe in the company, but there's tons of flaws in that company, and a lot of people are pointing that out. I think uncovering that might help you change your opinion. But I think a lot of times you have so much conviction because you just believe in the founder. You're emotionally invested where you still want to invest. I feel like there's examples, like with Airbnb, where everybody thought Airbnb was just a stupid idea, but there were some people that still, no matter what, they still had conviction, and those people were right. So I think for me, it's like synthesizing all the data, Right? So I've got a bunch of people that don't agree with investing and then there's a bunch of people that do and maybe looking at like, why they don't agree with you and synthesizing that could maybe sway me a little bit. I think so, Yeah. I totally agree. Yeah. And then what are some artifacts that you think are helpful when you're analyzing deals? So probably the deck, the term sheet, the financials. I mean, I'm assuming in the beginning it's really just some high level notes on the sector and the deal. Right. I guess maybe you can walk me through the best practices just for the audience on just deal flow management and the sourcing all the way down to the actual execution of writing the check.

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, it is. It can be challenging to juggle everything. And especially, you know, we were raising a fund, so we also had, you know, fundraising thrown in. Yeah, yeah.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

So you're. So you were involved in, you were involved in some of the fundraising of Fund 4 as well.

[Sarah Lenners]

Okay, yeah, that was launched, you know, shortly after I joined.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

That's great. Yeah, we can talk about that too, because I think. Yeah, you know, one, one of the things that I'm doing too is an emerging manager program. So there's a lot of people that are just going through raising the fund. But I, but you, but I want to touch on the previous one that you're talking about, which is really juggling. Right. Because one thing I want to say is, you know, one day I'm at the bank, like, why making three wires. And then right after I have like a first call with like a founder. And then right after that there's like, you know, investment committee. So I feel like there's the full stack of like all the stages and you're like managing all of those at the same time. But I feel like if you're doing that with fundraising, I mean, that's just, I feel like fundraising just needs to be a dedicated like full time job. You know, I don't know if you want, if you've read like Elizabeth Yin's blog on how she raised 11 million, but it was, I think she took like almost like 700 meetings in a couple months. And it was really like being a sales rep. You're like a sales rep pretty much, you know, you're building a pipeline. And what I thought was really interesting, so I listened to her podcast on Venture Unlocked with Samir Kaji, and she was just saying there's no correlation with, there's no like pattern at all with the, with the LPs that converted like, she was just saying it was just more of like a numbers game where she met tons of LPs and some LPs committed for no specific reason. So it really is kind of like maybe like a sales strategy. Because if you're, if you're prospecting leads as a sales rep, let's say you work for an enterprise company. Right. You're targeting like a certain type of sector industry. She was just saying, like it's the same thing. So.

[Sarah Lenners]

Wow.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

And when you did the fundraising, I guess, were you involved in it or were you, were you just kind of coming in at the tail end?

[Sarah Lenners]

I was involved. And even with, you know, the formation docs and stuff like that. Yeah. But I will say, you know, there's a track record, so that helps.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

That helps a lot. Yeah.

[Sarah Lenners]

And you know, just leveraging. Yeah. Leveraging your prior investors. So, you know, especially I think for first time fund. First time funds, I think it was challenging to raise in Covid. That's what I've heard. But yeah, we were fortunate to have, you know, prior relationships.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah. And I think it's great to show those, you know, really great wins on your, on your deck when you got the track record. So it's good. Especially when you're raising more institutional rounds. Do you have any buddies that are on their first time fund and if so, you know, any, any words of wisdom that they have as far as like raising their fund?

[Sarah Lenners]

I don't know anyone firsthand who's doing that. I do see it in some of the groups that I'm involved with. I think there's a lot of resources out there for people who are, you know, raising their first round. But I think that's really neat when people are doing that on their own.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, I think it's great when you have the communities that you're in. I think a lot of those people are sharing knowledge, they're sharing resources. I think I saw on Twitter, I was thinking about putting this together myself. So if you're doing an spv, normally there's a typical email that you send out. The email has like, hey, this is when the deadline is to do your commitment. This is your wire. So I thought about just taking that and turning that into like a resource or something because I thought that would be helpful. Do you think there's any resources that you think could be helpful for you that maybe you've been looking for on the Internet.

[Sarah Lenners]

As it relates to sourcing deals?

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, maybe sourcing deals or just anything in venture. I was just curious.

[Sarah Lenners]

We're always looking for new deals, for sure.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah. So More on the sourcing.

[Sarah Lenners]

That's one. Yeah.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

As far as sourcing, are there any tools that you recommend for sourcing besides like Crunchbase and Pitchbook or connecting with other friends?

[Sarah Lenners]

So I haven't used any of the databases.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah.

[Sarah Lenners]

But I know a lot of people do. I think basically everyone else I know does generally use those. And also just, you know, the accelerators and incubators, just seeing what's there, you know, because we also like to invest after we've met somebody a few times, you know, not after the first meeting. So it's good to develop the relationship, you know, early on. Yeah, I guess. Any sourcing tips? Always. Great. Great to have those.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah. No, I think, I think you hit it on the head. I mean, really just, you know, connecting with the networks and, you know, collecting just thoughts across the community. I think all of that is really helpful. I guess maybe I'll open it up to the, to the group if anybody has any questions. And you know, feel free to chime in if any of you guys have questions. If not, I'm just going to call on you guys. No, I'm just kidding.

[Kevin]

Ms. Sarah, how are you?

[Sarah Lenners]

Good, how are you? Hi, Kevin.

[Kevin]

I'm great. I'm great. Thank you so much for asking about me. I'm a first year MBA scholar studying at Florida A and M University. Thank you for speaking to us this afternoon. I wanted to ask specifically, you're a senior associate for Bull City Venture Partners. I was curious to know how that firm got on your radar in terms of your selection of venture firms and kind of how you selected them. Did they find you? Kind of. You could tell that and share that story with us?

[Sarah Lenners]

Sure. So I actually found out about it through a recruiter who was helping them find candidates. So it was actually through a third party. And I don't think that is as common, but I know there's, there's blogs out there that will aggregate or aggregate postings like John again blog. So there are ways.

[Kevin]

It was a recruiter for the fun.

[Sarah Lenners]

Mm, okay. Yep.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, that's, you know, I was getting too much into the weeds of like process and sourcing. And I think a good topic is really recruiting. That's a good point because I think recruiters normally, you don't really work with recruiters or placement agents for funds, I would say also, it's just most of the funds are not, you know, those positions that are available, they usually don't always publicly advertise them. I found some weird off the Radar roles just through my LinkedIn feed because I've just connected with so many VCs, so sometimes they'll just post on their LinkedIn feed that we're hiring. But I would have, you know, people have told me they would have never known about it on LinkedIn or Indeed. So I think, you know, you were a fortunate case. But any advice, you know, maybe through the communities that you're in with the other VCs, what have they been saying as far as like how they broke in? Any tips that they've given you or that you've heard through the community?

[Sarah Lenners]

Let's see. Generally I think it's through networking. Yeah, I just posted a link which, which does have a bunch of openings where you can find positions and I think that's updated pretty regularly. But I think it does generally take a while and I think if a fund, if you know that a fund is raising a new fund, then there's a chance that they're bringing more people on board. But I think it is, you know, just trying to network and you know, unfortunately, I wish I had a better answer.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, I think, you know, I think maybe like you said, reaching out. What do you think you should say to a vc? Like what would you, what would you recommend not to say? And then what, what you should say. So let's say that Kevin, cold messages, maybe, maybe a vc, you know, what, what should he not say? And you know, maybe what are some good things to maybe call out?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, I think the way I usually get inbounds is through LinkedIn and you know, some, usually a student will reach out to me and they'll say, you know, hi Sarah, you know, I'm interested in a career in venture capital. Do you have 10 or 15 minutes to talk to me about your path in and then, you know, leave your email address and maybe some availability. Yeah, that's generally how, how I get inbounds. And I do, I do try to respond.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, yeah, I think that's, that's a good, you know, attitude to have. And I try to take as many as I can too. And I think what I thought is a pretty slick trick too is sometimes if you, you know, I'm a power user of Calendly, so I'll like, I'll send somebody a message and then I'll give them the calendar and I'll be like, hey, if you're interested in chatting, click on it. And I usually just try to do like a 15 minute meeting. But I think to add to that, maybe one thing that I Would say is maybe personalize a little bit too. It's like hey Sarah, you know, I know that you're focused on. I know that you love fintech. Here's you know, I think that maybe take it one step further. Here's like a really cool fintech deal. Did you hear about it? Oh yeah, love to. Would love to chat about it if you got 15 minutes. And by the way I got a memo that I wrote so I can go through it with you. I feel like that would be tempting for you to click on the calendly and book time because that would probably help you do your job well. Right. I mean if you found a really good fintech deal and then that person attributed to it, you know, maybe that's someone that you would maybe recommend.

[Sarah Lenners]

I assume that's a great idea. Yeah, I haven't seen that. It would definitely stand out.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, I think that one's good. Sometimes you can do like a deck. So like a high level presentation on like an investment sector. So like I think even, even if it wasn't a specific deal because I think sometimes the challenge is if, if you're not a vc, founders won't like take a call from you. Right. To like pitch you. Cause you're just some random student. No offense to the students in here but, but the founders may just not think that you're going to write a check. Right. So they may not want to take a call. So I think one thing that they that tell me if this would be helpful Sarah, like if they wrote some high level thesis on fintech, it's like hey, we've got fintech and then this is how I decompose fintech. We've got like the future of payments. We've got banking 2.0, we've got decentralized finance. Right. And then we've got NFTs and all that stuff. So I feel like. Do you think that would be helpful too? Some type of like high level macro report on a certain sector?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, that's interesting. It would definitely stand out but I wouldn't try to fake it.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah.

[Sarah Lenners]

And that might be hard to do to a lot of. If you're targeting a lot of VCs.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, yeah, but interesting. And as far as faking it, you mean like just make sure that you do a good job doing some really detailed analysis on the. On the sector. Right?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

And I think either way, even if it doesn't work out, even if you don't convert on the. On the meeting, I think just going through that exercise is A really good one because you're just learning so much about the sector. And I think I would highly recommend anybody to just do multiple different sectors, like maybe one on whatever you're excited about. It could be the future of food, it could be B2B SaaS, it could be quantum. But I think the more you can tailor it, I think it would be a better, probably higher conversion rate with the person that you're trying to engage with. Cool, good question. Any other questions guys?

[Kevin]

I have another question. No one else I don't want to hog all the time.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Kevin]

Sarah, in, in your interview process with the fund that you're currently a senior associate with, are they expecting you to come with your own ideas or maybe specialization of a specific sector or industry?

[Sarah Lenners]

I think it depends on the fund. If they are very sector focused, I would say have, have a viewpoint. But so, so my interview process, it was, it was six interviews over, you know, I think a month and a half or so and it very wide ranging, less technical than what you'd see in like a banking interview. But just, you know, I think universally just have, have an answer to why do you want to work here? Why do you want to work in venture capital? And yes, having some type of thesis. Investment thesis.

[UK Participant]

Awesome. Thank you so much, Sarah. I'm actually based in the UK and I've got a banking experience. I'm just about to pop out to pick up my daughter but I've got this question, right? And I was excited about what you said with regards to joining this group of women in venture. And as you said it, I got on telegram and I was looking for groups of that nature, right. And I found it's, I think it's an Abrahamic but it's a very interesting way to just plug in and I'm going to start adopting that. But what I've got is a question from the financial space, right? So we've identified that female managers actually produce a lot more stable returns than most of the men or the male managers. And I just wondered which, especially when you mentioned, oh yeah, this group about women in venture. I just wondered, do you see a tendency for female entrepreneurs to have certain, I don't know, attributes that their male counterparts may not have? Is that something potentially there that hasn't been discovered yet? Just to throw that out there, okay.

[Sarah Lenners]

Just to make sure I heard the question right. The question is, are female investors seeing something different in the companies that they're looking at?

[UK Participant]

1 and 2, is that the same for the female entrepreneurs and business owners?

[Sarah Lenners]

Okay. So this is also tougher for me because we're generally investing in software companies, so I think the mix is a little. A little more skewed towards male founders anyway. But I think if you're in a different sector, you're probably seeing a lot more female founders. I don't see a ton.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Sure.

[Sarah Lenners]

And this is a tough one. I'm not sure. I do feel like when female founders are reaching out to my firm, I feel like I'm getting a lot of those inbounds. So that's my best answer. I'm not sure how to quantify that.

[UK Participant]

I think it's interesting because there was a point where I was exploring managers that were creating funder funds purely with women fund managers. And they apparently there are returns. We're actually a lot better than fund of funds with male fund managers. I noticed this is public, the public markets and said about just the temperament of the female managers, selections and volatile markets. They actually maintain better alpha. So I do wonder if there's something there, you know, something to be explored.

[Sarah Lenners]

So.

[UK Participant]

But thank you. Thank you for trying at least.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a huge initiative. Yeah, I was just going to say I was thinking about Harlem Capital. They just went on this week in startups, a couple, I think, last week, and their mandate is focusing on diversity, but they also focus on women. But the women that they invest in don't have to be under a certain diversity. It's just women of any race. But then they're really focusing mainly on African American and Latinx. So I just thought that was really interesting. And it's great that they have a lot of these initiatives and just having networks like women in vc, I think, just kind of getting different groups together, whether it's based on gender or sexual orientation. There's Gain Gels as well. So I don't know if you guys been hearing about Gain Gels. Gaingels is an LGBTQ angel group and they have a massive track record of deals. They've been just writing a lot of checks very frequently, but that community has been really coming together to generate alpha. So I think no matter what group you come from, as long as you're part of a community community and you're collecting thoughts together, I think you can really generate alpha because you're kind of building that platform together and supporting each other. So I think the more that they have these things, I mean, like Sarah said, she doesn't even have to use the database because her database is like the collection of minds of the people that she's working with. So I think that's great.

[Sarah Lenners]

I love that concept of alpha inventure. Just quantifying that, it's something that really, really fascinates me.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

I got another question. So I know that you really wanted to get into banking in the beginning. What are some of the skill sets and tricks that you developed as a banker? Uniquely. Because as we can probably both agree, everybody has a superpower. Right. So me, I was a product person. So whenever I support founders, I test the app and give UI feedback. What are some of the superpowers that you think a banker can bring into being a venture capitalist?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, I think I really see it when it comes to mergers and sell side processes. Just being on the other side of that and bringing that knowledge has been really, really helpful and helps me provide insight when we're about to transact.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, because that's a big thing too. I mean, in the early stage, you don't really know what the next valuation is going to be. Somebody was asking me the other day like, oh, how do you think about valuation? And it's like, really it's the lead investor that sets the term, so you're really just agreeing with the valuation. And then we normally co invest, so we're pre seed to series A, but we don't normally lead deals. So we're really just kind of looking at the terms and then we co invest. But I think what you're saying is as a banker looking at the later stage, the M and A deals, you're probably also doing some type of return analysis of thinking through like, hey, you know what we're investing, the company is worth 10 million now. It'll probably maybe 2 or 3x in valuation in a couple years. And you probably model that out kind of like you would have done in banking, right?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, yeah. It's so much harder to pinpoint valuations in the beginning.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah. Because there's no data. Right. So you're kind of making up all the data. You're assuming that they'll be making 5x in revenue in two years, right?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah. The best way that I can describe it is that it's just like a supply and demand kind of, you know, in action and a number gets assigned based on that versus based on, you know, a quantitative valuation.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

So yeah, you probably rely on comps as well too. Right. So I mean, when you're looking at like some type of investment that you invested in now I'm assuming you're probably looking at some company that exited. There was a similar type of Business for some type of multiple. Is that a good framework? Are there any other best practices when you're trying to evaluate how the, how the exit would happen?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, if it's near an exit, yes, definitely looking at comps. But I'll say valuations just these days are just a lot higher than the normal at all stages.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, no, that's great. And you know, I got another one. Do you see differences with valuation with different states and how do you guys handle that? Because you guys are mainly focused on, you know, the Northeast and the Southeast. So is there a certain type of valuation that you're, that you're comfortable with? Because obviously they can be much more expensive in San Francisco and New York. I mean, I see differences between New York and Jersey. Right. So are you guys pretty sensitive to that? And when you're looking at these deals, is there kind of a certain threshold that you're looking for as far as valuation?

[Sarah Lenners]

We definitely were thinking about what kind of a multiple can we get over the life of our investment? We're definitely thinking about that at the beginning, but we don't have any certain ranges that we're targeting for each stage. I just, but I do feel like valuations are high at any stage right now.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, yeah. And you don't have the data, so you don't know how big the multiple is going to be when they get to their series A or B versus banking. Like you could probably take some of the current revenue and model that out. Right. Which is probably the biggest difference.

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah. And you know, they're profitable companies generally. So you know, ebitda, multiples, comps, dcf, all that.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

What are some other superpowers that you've seen from other VCs, maybe from other backgrounds that you thought were interesting? So you know, have you seen like somebody come from like a writing background that was a VC or you know, any of your friends in your women's VC group? Have you seen anybody that just came from just a background from left field? Or are they mainly all just, you know, the traditional banking route and then.

[Sarah Lenners]

Vc, you'll, you know, you'll see some consultants too, prior consultants. I think it can be, it really can be anything. And if you're passionate about the industry, you know, your skills from whatever career you had before will, will translate in some way at some point. So, you know, there isn't one path. And I think networking and hustling, I think that helps by far.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, I think I truly believe anybody can be a venture capitalist. It's such a relationship based business so as long as you're able to, I would say the key skill sets are building a network. I feel a lot of it is community and content. Right. So I'm trying to build some content here in community, but you know, there's people that have been doing it for a long time and you know, half of the alpha is really building that community and network. And then I think Shayla here had a question. I think this is a good one too. So you get the deck, you know, what are the, maybe the first two or three things that you look at or think about with the deck?

[Sarah Lenners]

I think my very first screens are that it, you know, is located in the US looking for, you know, post product revenue. Those are my very, very first screens. And then you want to make sure, you know, that the market that it's going after is big enough, you know, looking at competitors, any moat that they have. Yeah, I think those are the team. Yep, those are kind of the first screens.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Is there an ideal monthly revenue that you're looking for or like ARR that you're looking for or just general, just at least showing that they have revenue?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, I would say just. Just general.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Okay. So it could vary. It doesn't have to be a specific. And I mean what I like to see is, you know, from year one to year two, just some step up in revenue or some increase in value of the revenue as well that we can kind of, you can probably make some assumptions of like the potential valuation that would coincide with the revenue step ups as well, right?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, yeah. And any KPIs, any user metrics, any. Any data like that is great.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Do you guys, is it mostly B2B or do you guys also look at consumer as well?

[Sarah Lenners]

Mostly B2B.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Got it. Yeah. So both. So the KPIs are pretty consistent because it's kind of a basic framework for any of you guys. Maybe for B2B, are there any specific KPIs that would be helpful for people to look at as they're evaluating B2B startups. That has worked for you?

[Sarah Lenners]

I think it's generally how the founder sees it and tracks it. Yeah, because they're going to know, you know, the best way to look at it and analyze it. So definitely relying on them when it's an industry that I don't have a specialty in.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah, that's a good point. Because different. Even though it's just B2B, you know, ARR is just a very general metric, but they may be tracking things differently in their dashboard. As far as like maybe what's important to them. I think what you're saying is like for some businesses, like average time spent in a B2B SaaS platform may be more important than somebody else that's just like paying for a transaction or something or like using data. Because I think there's really interesting. So there's an interesting fintech company that I met in Singapore, I mean not Singapore, in Israel. And what they do is they can take. So they build like custom models for people and then if you want to build more models, it just automatically bills you, but it's kind of more on demand versus like the typical financial terminal where you have to like pay for like a Bloomberg and then just pay for the terminal and you get kind of limited sets. But this company is a little more bespoke but like their metrics are really like how many custom models were built and then the billing gets scalable based on like how much processing they're doing. So I feel like those KPIs would be different than just, just like an annual subscription. Right. If you just pay for Salesforce and then you buy a couple like it's a salesforce like CRM and you buy the base system which is like 15 grand and then you just upgrade to a couple apps, I feel like that's much more similar. But I think you're right, like thinking about how they analyze their, their platform and like success of the platform I think is really interesting. So.

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, definitely.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah. Cool. So we got about 10 minutes. Maybe we'll take a couple more questions. Anything else guys?

[Economics Graduate Participant]

I had one question.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Sure.

[Economics Graduate Participant]

Hi Sarah, I'm also uk. I did a similar sort of pre career path. So also an economics graduate at Warwick and now in banking. And I found that when studying economics you get a lot of the investment banks come to you and they just sell this massive dream and then it pushes you towards sort of ib and also your whole cohort is, you know, wanting to go in that direction.

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah.

[Economics Graduate Participant]

So that sort of fueled my interest in IB predominantly. And I wasn't really, you know, you don't see a lot of VCs coming to pitch to sort of economics grads. I know you mentioned, you know, in the beginning something about, you know, try to go right into vc. So what would you, how would you sort of say economics grads or people in that sort of space can get into it when there's such an inflow of ibs? And then the second point was around sort of how does your experience in banking compare to now being in vc? Obviously Banking is a very different environment to vc. There's sort of crossover paths and you talked about how you're starting to build your network. But what I've seen in banking is that you kind of have to build your own internal network to get recognized banking itself. So I'm guessing that helped you when it's come to VC as well.

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, great questions. It's very different than banking. You know, the hours in banking can be pretty brutal. You know, just never having a weekend off working till 3:30, you know, for a month and a half. It definitely, definitely wears, wears on you. But, but I will say, you know, the skills that you learn in banking, whether it's the finance and the strategy, you know, you're, you're creating pitch decks for companies with potential, you know, acquisitions targets, and you're developing a sector expertise. So that will always come in handy. And then, then, you know, your friends who went into banking, eventually they, a lot of them will go into corporate jobs. So I have a lot of friends who are at companies who could potentially help our portfolio of companies, you know, by eventually becoming a customer someday. So being able to connect them is hugely beneficial. The cohort that I did banking with, I don't think anyone else might into vc. Some went into private equity, someone, some went corporate or some, the rest are still there. Those are kind of the three, three tracks. But the skills that you develop and the network that you develop there, it still translates into vc, you know, And I think it'll be very beneficial that you have had that.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Do you miss, do you miss banking at all besides the hours, but like, do you miss the work? Because there's a lot of modeling. Right. A lot of quantitative stuff. So you sometimes you miss that stuff.

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah. And then just the pace of it.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah.

[Sarah Lenners]

And I think, you know, it was also. Everything was in person too.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Yeah. And I think the biggest dynamic with banking too is you can kind of see results pretty quickly. Right. You either do the transaction or you don't. Right. And you can, you can see the waterfall once it happens. That's interesting. Yeah. And I really appreciate your insights of some of those key skills and how they translated into vc. And I'll wrap up in a few minutes, but I think one question that I always like to ask at the end is any piece of advice that you've gotten from a mentor looking back on your career or just someone that you have shadowed anything profound that they shared with you that you want to share with us.

[Sarah Lenners]

I think, you know, just building your network and always trying to Help when people reach out, you know, pay it forward. Because I think that always does come back to benefit you. So, you know, that would be my piece of advice. Try to meet as many people as you can network. That will come in handy.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

That's really a good point. I mean, there's a friend of mine, is my cousin's friend, he works at Blackstone and you know, you can imagine, right, everyone's trying to get a meeting with him. And I asked him the same question and he was like, look, you know, just take meetings because you never know where they'll lead. Even if you don't get anything out of it, just take meetings because you never know. That person may know a pastor that's like an lp. I mean, maybe that person knows a pastor that's related to an lp. And, you know, I think if you just kind of take meetings to get to know people and build connections without expecting anything, I think somehow the universe works out. So good advice. Appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

[UK Participant]

Yeah.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

And I try to do the same thing as much as I can. And I think you can probably try to optimize your time with time boxes. So calendly is a good thing to do. You could even block off what I thought was really good. I think they said this in radical habits, blocking off a time in your calendar or your week for like collaboration time. And that's like the set day and time box where you're saying, hey, you know what? This is the time where I can meet new people. And, you know, when it fills up, they can just kind of grab the next week. But at least you have that time allocated. So that was something I picked up, but this is great. So, anybody else have any final questions? If not, we'll wrap up and let Sarah get back to what she's working on.

[Kevin]

Yes, I guess. Last question, Sarah. Being that I'm an amateur, a novice in the venture space, I wanted to know, in terms of venture capital with an early stage startup and early fund, is there a way to. If the business is producing revenue, is there a way to contractually structure, or is this commonplace to contractually structure.

[Sarah Lenners]

Cash.

[Kevin]

Flow until you make the official exit, let's say seven years out, to reduce the basis that you originally invested in the company and to ultimately increase your overall rate of return, is that. Is that actually done?

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

So you mean like, are you saying like hold the company? Yeah, are you saying like hold the company? Well, are you saying that holding the company accountable to generate revenue?

[Kevin]

No, not hold the company accountable. Generate revenue. Meaning that if the company is free cash flow is in the free cash flow space. Free cash flow positive. Where based upon whatever your stake is or your share size as a means of reducing your basis until you actually exit your position. Or is it just. Or is the return strictly based on exiting your stake or your equity within the company?

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah, it would be on the exit. You're not going to. I think you're talking about. Are you going to take. If they're free cash flow positive, are you going to take dividends? No, you would want, you would want that cash to stay in the business so the business can use that cash to grow versus paying it out to investors. I think, I think that would be harmful to the company at the early stage. You do see that in private equity they'll do a dividend recap, but yeah, not, not in an early stage company.

[Kevin]

Okay, that makes sense. Thank you.

[Joel Palo Thinkle]

Cool. Well, hey, Kevin, good question. And Sarah, thanks so much for your time for paying it forward, supporting, you know, the community and excited to hopefully, you know, get together sometime whenever you make it out to New York. And I'll give you a ring when I make it out there.

[Sarah Lenners]

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me and feel free to reach out anyone.