B (5:03)

Yeah, and I apologize I didn't formally introduce you so I guess I just got too eager to kick things off. But Shambhavi Siva Makrishnan. Did I get that?

A (5:14)

Yes, it's Sivaram Krishna. But that was like 90%.

B (5:18)

Yeah, it's 90%. We'll try saying my last name three times and you'll probably get a tongue twister. But you know, Shambhavi, you know, we, we met through a Common friend. And it's been really great getting to know her. So she works at A and B Bev, Anheuser Busch's venture fund. But you know, as a corporate vc, there's. And we've talked about this too. Right. There's big differences with working, you know, maybe a $50 million traditional venture fund versus a corporate VC a lot of times. You know, from my knowledge. Right. The main difference is that there's strategic initiatives. You're not always looking for returning the fund or looking for outsized returns. Obviously that is a good goal to have returns plus strategic outcomes. But how do you guys think about that at Anheuser? And we've had quite a bit of corporate VCs come into our web show and you know, they've all said different things, but I'd love to hear a little more about, you know, kind of a little more about your role and then just the structure of how you guys are organized and then you know, just thinking through the corporate VCs mandates.

A (6:29)

Yeah. Let me talk a little bit about what ZX as an organization is focused on from an investment standpoint and I'll delve into like how we use data and analytics to drive some of these decisions. Right. From a investment standpoint, we're always looking for innovation, always looking for cutting edge. The next big thing. In the beverage space that's a primary focus. Right. Where are the white spaces in the market? And that's not restricted to just like United States or North America. We're looking investments in Latin America, Europe, South Africa, Asia, Pacific. Every single like, you know, predominant, like upcoming markets and countries and anything ancillary to beverage. You must have read a lot about like you know, the biotech space. Alternate like, you know, alternate like meat protein space where there is a lot of like exploration that's going on and that's where like our thesis are pretty much like in that space coming to the point of like you know, data and analytics. Right. So simply put, like we are using data for efficiencies and strategic advantage. But I would break it into like you know, three or different, three, four different areas where we really use it day in and day out to make better decisions. I think the first is like, you know, pretty much like sourcing when you're thinking about like what's the new thing that's coming in the market that sells us for instance, like, which is like, you know, which is everywhere. We always look at sourcing information. Think about looking at hundreds of different data points. We are creating efficiencies in terms of reducing the time that it takes to analyze this information and then evaluating. In terms of evaluating, we are removing the bias that has gone into making the decision. Especially looking at a potential investment against its competitor set or how does it compare within the category, what does this performance been in the last one year or four year, do we see that this would bring value to us? And then the last one is once you have made the investment, what are the KPIs that we can look at? Traditionally in an established business you're going to look at profit and cash flow, but in early stage you're looking at a lot of other metrics. For instance like cltv, what's the number of customers that we have? Or how is your online sales been offline sales been, what does your distribution look like? Is the distribution makes sense? Is the result statistically significant for us to, to draw any conclusion? What can we learn from this? These are the three main areas that my team focuses on essentially across all of the different countries. We also use this information to support the portfolio companies with any forecasting or like any detail distribution, market activations and all of that. So it's a bit of everything I would say like sourcing, evaluating insights and at the end of the day we also do a lot of deep dives on the portfolio health as well.

B (9:33)

And then what about market data, I guess does that, do you have your own data, proprietary data feeds or are you pulling from, and you don't have to share like where you pull the data specifically, but is it a combination of creating your own data sets or is it really pulling from different data feeds and kind of stitching together something.

A (9:53)

I'm glad you asked that because that's the most challenging aspect of it, right? Like when you're an established business you can look at some of the partnership data and panel data and you will get everything know like if you're looking at for instance like, I mean I don't want to name a brand but then like you know, you get like you, you get all the information but you're on the early stage when you're not like present in a lot of key accounts, you're like only focused on a small percentage of the market. It's hard to get. So from a standpoint of like you know, driving insights, there is a lot of data that is out there. From investment standpoint we look at that like, which is what we call the partnership data. We look at a combination of proprietary data that we in Anheuser Busch has and then a lot of the public data which is related to social information, related to what you can gather from what is out there in the media through Google search, desktop search. But what we do is we have a very robust pipeline. No matter your data is whether it is from Peru or whether it's from Brazil or whether it's from China, we have a very, very robust pipeline to integrate all of that information. So even if it's a messy data, you're at the end of the day looking at it in a very organized fashion and systematic fashion that all the KPIs, all the measurements are standardized. So you're looking at very, very similar like you know, metrics to compare one business against another business in one country against another country. So that's essentially like how we look at it. But in terms of like some of the KPIs and other things we look at a lot of like you know, panel data that we get from even surveys sometimes like that we look at like you know, testing and other things like you know, understand product market fit and whatnot.

B (11:35)

And you know, going back to the corporate initiatives versus a traditional fund, can you maybe unpack what you've seen as far as just the difference between being a corporate VC versus traditional fund? And then you know, how do you guys think about that as well as far as like your goals or mandates?

A (11:54)

So our mandate is, I think this is, you know, I do not have that much experience with the traditional, you know, vc so I think, you know, take my response with a grain of salt completely off your as well. But knowing what I know about US ZX Venture as a corporate venture capital, our mandate is essentially like I said, like innovation, you know, anything to do with some aspect is also impact investing that we are thinking about. But it's mostly like on the innovation side related to beverage and ancillary to beverage I would say.

B (12:27)

And what are some things that you're seeing that are becoming innovative trends in the beverage space? Are you seeing a lot of like the beverages that are like good for your digestion? Any, any themes that you're seeing on the beverage space specifically?

A (12:43)

Yeah, I mean I think there is a lot of like, you know, I think like three broad categories would be health and wellness related which is where we see a lot of like you know, zero cal. We have a lot of like you know, brands and SKUs that support that whether if you want like a non alcoholic beer or beer that there's a lot of products for that. And then the second is a lot of I would say related to energy drinks where we see a lot of boonde. And then the last would be a lot of natural ingredient related like you know, products as opposed to artificial ingredients like organic. Organic and natural. Those are the three top like, you know, subcategories that we are seeing or the segments that we see a lot of traction these days.

B (13:38)

Yeah. And then are you seeing any food tech being involved as far, you know, you talked about lab grown. I've been in the, the lab grown meat space. So I'm familiar with using bioreactors for, you know, for growing food. But what are the technologies that you're seeing that are being adopted to innovate in the beverage space? Are they using, you know, like types of algae to improve digestion? Is there any kind of lab grown applications, you know, using a bioreactor? I don't know if you've, if you've been involved in any of those.

A (14:10)

Yeah, we have a big, big thing on biotechnology and we are exploring a lot of that space. We also have a big like you know, barley ever pro, ever beta protein. That is, that's a huge, huge innovation that we are export. We are like you know, building and we are scaling at this point, which is essentially protein, barley converted into protein. I would say I think like the specifics, the people can like, you know, mention it like more clearly on the component of it. But that's something that, you know, we, it's a big venture that we have that's built out of St. Louis factory in. Yeah. In the U.S. yeah.

B (15:00)

And you know, I want to go back a little bit to your career because I have a very similar background that we talked about this. So I have an electrical engineering background and then I also worked in product. So I have my own opinions about how that background and skill set helped me. But how do you think that helped you? And then, you know, you know, some of the people on this call, you know, are working in technology, they're working in consulting, banking, they're trying to get into venture. So any advice that or any piece of wisdom that you would share to kind of help you to help them, you know, kind of break into venture from maybe a traditional technology or consulting role. And what, what worked for you?

A (15:41)

That's a great question. I'm actually thinking like, you know, while you're asking what worked for me, I think like, I think, I think general inquisitiveness to the business. Right. To the financials and the investments and being curious about it. I think that's the first from a skill set standpoint. I think there are A lot of transferable skills, especially from consulting or from technology. Right. Consulting especially I would say because I was in marketing analytics consulting. So when you look at that you get, you tend to look at a lot of businesses and you have this outside the box perspective, out of box perspective where you bring in, you're not looking at one business in one industry. So I think those are the skills that are very much needed, like being able to think about like multiple businesses and like the pianos and everything, like, you know, how it works. And I think the last, I would say from a tech standpoint, I think tech is always evolving. Right. Like there are like, you know, it depends on like what sort of venture capital anyone wants to get in. But then like, you know, especially with looking at a venture capital that's like heavily investing in SaaS based businesses, there are like a lot of skills that go a long way, especially in value creation. Being more on the operating side, I think those are the things that I would think about like, although like I am not, I'm not an investor more on the operating side, I think that that gives me a direct visibility into how like the investment committee makes the decisions, what goes into making the decisions, how can I support it from, from an operating standpoint. Right. Even that is really interesting and eye opening and I think like people who find it difficult directly as an investor to, as an entryway into venture capital or any of the private equities. I think operating side is, I would say is a good, like, you know, option as well for some of the folks who might be like very, very keen on getting into that space.

B (17:41)

Yeah. And I think you get to find your entry point. Right. So I think the fact that you had some analytics and product background that got you into the ZX Ventures, even though it's not the specific investment team role. And I think based on our conversations, you do work directly with the investment team. You're involved in some of the decisions. Obviously a lot of that gets tracked and there's some data. So you know, it's much closer than not being at the firm and you know, being related to that. So I think, you know, getting those initial experiences, trying to find your way in. Right. So if you have a product or analytics background and there is an analytics role that is out of fund, at least you're out of fund versus IBM, right. No disrespect, I don't think anybody here works at IBM. But you know, IBM is a great place to work. My, my brother in law works there. But, but yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that's a good point and that's what works for me as well. So when I was in, in engineering, I thought, hey, you know, I'm good at technology, but I'm also good with people and I like coordinating and working with different personalities. So that's kind of how I broke into product. But then when I wanted to break into venture, I used kind of my product sense and I said, hey, you know, when I'm supporting these different founders, one thing that I can do to add value is look at the product, give feedback, test the app, download it, and really give some meaningful value based on what I thought the product was doing. And then from ZX Ventures standpoint, when you guys are looking at interesting companies, what are some of the KPIs that you look for when you're evaluating them? Obviously it needs to be in the same sector that you guys are interested in. Right. So it needs to be in the category that is interesting. But are there any specific KPIs that, that you've seen as a pattern that says, hey, you know what we've made, we've made these few investments and they all have these traits, you know, maybe they have, you know, 100k in revenue every month or they're growing by X percentage, I guess. Are there some things that from, from a data and quantitative side has been helpful to kind of have a system in place to be able to source and screen effectively?

A (19:53)

Yeah. So I think we also like, you know, it's not just like investments that we make. We also incubate our own like, you know, ventures. Right. Like where we are pre seeding and seeding. So from a standpoint of like, if you separate out like, you know, investments versus like things that we start on our own, like, which is where we seed and seed. It's a, it is in the initial stages. It's all about like, you know, three main categories, which I would call it as like the commercial metrics, like the brand related metrics. How does the brand resonate? What is your, what is the PR looking like? And commercially like, you know, what is your sales, like distribution, offline, online distribution, those sort of metrics. Or like, if you're looking at a D2C business, it's about like, you know, the consumer growth, you know, the order rate and things like that. Right. So if you think about the KPIs, it's all about like, you know, your product, liquid testing the brand KPIs and commercial KPIs. Right. And then we start to look once the Business evolves when it reaches the, when it reaches like from the initial testing of the product or the desirability of the product. When it becomes to more of the viability and the feasibility stage. That's when we look at KPIs from a financial standpoint, from an investment standpoint. At the point of time it's always like, you know, what is your, the typical profit and the cash flow. Besides that we also look at ARR value. We look at like, you know, sales and marketing spend. Like you know how does it, you know, how does it, how is it looking in conjunction with the net revenue? Because at the end of the day you don't want to be buying consumers. You don't want to spend so much to the point where you're buying consumers. So we look at all of these things on a consistent basis. So on a monthly basis there is a data driven memo that goes out to the management committee looking at each business from an objective standpoint, eliminating all the subjectivity surrounding it. Right. Like you could create a great product with a great packaging and a great messaging. We eliminate all of that and just paint the story looking at all of the KPIs and that's what like you know, all the general partners and the managing directors get it on a monthly basis so that they can look at business to business across countries, across like, you know, across different strategic pillar that we have to see what it means. Right. So that's what I would say from a KPI standpoint. But for a more established growth level business we look at like, you know, what is the IRR is looking like what is the, the MOIC factor looking like? And, and you know, the cash flow and everything. That's for more like an established business that's in the growth stage. But in the early stage we're always looking at just not just the financial and investments. We're looking at a lot of additional KPIs, but they are like, you know, standardized and standardized across regions. And while the KPIs are standardized, the benchmarks are set based upon the country specific. You know, simple example. You're looking at a NPS score in US against an NPS score in Asia. It will be completely different. You know, the benchmarks will be very different because of the cultural nuances and how people react. You know, on a scale of 1 to 10, how, how? Well like you know, more consumers in US are leaning towards to given you know, seven but this for the same seven it would be like a two in like, you know, in certain countries and regions. So the benchmarks are set based upon each region and the market and the category within the particular country. But from a KPI standpoint, we tend to remain consistent across regions.

B (23:40)

Yeah, double clicking on that. That's a really interesting insight because I did an internship at General Mills when I was in school, and it was really interesting. I was working on a few different products, but some of the products in India and Asia, they. It's a completely different ingredient. You know, they probably have a lot of masala in the Asian, they had these corn chips. It's like Bugles. I don't know if you know Bugles, but it's. It's like a chip that's shaped like a. Like a cone. And I. Yeah. And I realized that in Asia and in India, the seasoning is different, Right. In India, it's a little more spicy. Well, here we've got like, cool ranch, right? So it's like completely cheddar cheese and cool ranch. So that, you know, so I can definitely say, like, probably when it comes to food, probably that might taste bland to some other countries because they like. And I'm also ethnic, right. So I love. I put hot sauce on everything. And, you know, I probably would fail some of the. Some of the NPS scores. But what, you know, what's the NPS score difference that you think is being triggered over beverages? Because, you know, is it that, like, maybe a beverage is too sweet for something? I guess. What are some of those trigger points that you're noticing? And that's really interesting when you think about cross border, because then you still have to make a different skew for Asia and India and maybe the Middle east as well.

A (25:05)

So when we think about our incubations, it's the liquid. We do a separate liquid testing, right? To look at it. To look at the padding of the liquid against this one, against like a few other competitors. In that we look at the session. Sessionability of the liquid, we look at the taste profile, we look at the flavor profile. So most often it's when we are thinking about, like, early stage of PC ventures, it's completely a different product altogether. You know, there are like, you know, products like Ho Garden, that you have it in US as well as in China. But those are more like in the growth stage at this point, I would say. But even in that, like, there are different flavor profiles that are tuned to a certain, certain culture, certain region. You know, certain fruity flavors tend to work better in Asian culture in comparison to US Market, I would say that's Something that we had found through Insights, but from our standpoint of NPAs, it's more about, like, it's a promoter score to understand whether would you recommend this product to one to your friend or not. Right. That's what. That's what it is. But even when you think about it, you think about whether you're comparing your own product against, like, a competitor's product, they will pretty much rate the same. Because culturally, I think what it is is that, you know, you don't tend to give a higher rating for anything that is good, you know, that's a good point. Yeah. I think, like, I mean, immediate thought that came to my mind is that, you know, even if I would get like, you know, a top, my parents would be like, good. You know, it's not. Whereas, like, you know. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, so that's interesting.

B (26:50)

I didn't even think about that. So that the standards might be higher for different cultures.

A (26:54)

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So even that's important. And the standard, for example, a premium craft beard is different from our standard for a premium craft beer here in the U.S. right? Because you have a lot more, like, a lot more options. So you expect a lot more as well. In an evolving market or a growing market, you're not expecting. You don't have that much pool of options, then, therefore, your expectations also vary. So it's a combination of everything. But what I'm trying to say is that it's important to have the right benchmarks in place so that you know what you're comparing against in terms of your competition. Not only that, you need to know where you stand in the competition. That's extremely important that. I think that's extremely crucial. At the end of the day, you can have the right KPIs in place. You can, you can come up with like, you know, a whole lot of, like, hundred KPIs. But at the end of the day, if you don't know what the right benchmark is, then you would really don't know where you are standing, you know, so that's, that's important, especially in the early stage when you're in the growth stage, then you have a lot more measures like market share, market penetration that you can look at and, like, you know, sort of have a sense of, like, how you're performing. And then most often the P and L is actually a reflection of your business. Right. Like, you don't need to, like, dig into more of the granular metrics. You will probably need to identify where you can spot issues Ahead and fix it from a strategic standpoint, but especially in the early stage, I think this is something that I notice is setting the right benchmark has been extremely crucial.

B (28:30)

And when you guys are incubating, I see it almost like an innovation lab. Right? So what are the teams that you need to put together to be able to build a brand who is composed of that team? Is it like a science, Like a food scientist or marketing people, branding people? I guess what's kind of like your core team usually when you guys are incubating something?

A (28:52)

So we usually have a product owner who is sort of like, I think of it as like a founder sort of a role where they are doing all of the work. Right. Like essentially from like, you know, working with. Working with the, with the lab to create the liquid and then packaging, creating it and all of that. So the product owner pretty much owns the product and they work with the commercial team, they work with the supply team, they work with. Then they work with the sales reps. So they, the product owner is a core of the product and they work with the supply team and the different team that we seek help from, like abi, where there are synergies and that's how they go about it. But it's essentially the product owner that is like, you know, that's playing sort of the, the owner of the. Of different initiatives, of different ventures that we have.

B (29:48)

Okay, yeah, that's really helpful. And you know, and then how, I guess you could take it as far as you can take it, right? Because I guess, yeah, I understand the, you know, obviously the very literal numbers of the, you know, is it getting any revenue? Is it getting any possible early adopters? Right, Because I'm sure you do a pilot and you get some feedback. But when you look at brand. And also I think you mentioned PR as another KPI. So how do you measure the brand? Is that more just qualitative surveys? And then with the pr, how do you measure that? Do you do a couple test Twitter posts and then see who. See who responds to that? And sorry, for migrants, I probably don't.

A (30:29)

No, no, no, no. I like the questions. I mean, I wish, like, you know, more people ask these kind of questions. A lot of people when they think about brand, they only think about like, you know, the traditional brand agencies and they are survey and then with a trial rate, you know. But what we're looking at is pretty much in the early stage. It's all like awareness to the product. Right. Are you aware of the product? That's essentially what we Are testing and in. For that to test. We look at a lot of. We have a framework in place where we look at different metrics. PR is one of the labor. And in terms of pr, we are essentially looking at, you know, looking at magazines, consumer pr, trade pr. So we have, there are like a lot of platforms that would enable. Enable a lot of brands to track some of this information. Right. So you can say that this is a brand that is like launched and then you can pretty much set up a tracker and then see what is how many mentions, PR mentions has happened, how many consumer mentions has happened and how does it translate to the brand's like awareness and how does it, what does it mean for the brand's interest besides that we are. I mean, you can have a, you can have an article on beverage magazine. Right, but what does it mean? You know, at the end of the day you want to know what sort of like awareness that it generated. That's what we're trying to look at. And besides that, we look at a lot of the social engagements, engagements on social media, how many followers we have, how many, how many influences like organic influences we have garnered. So we have a framework where we look at a combination of survey combination of our organic and paid and reach on the social. On the E commerce channel. I'm sorry, on the online channel.

B (32:23)

Sure.

A (32:23)

And then the PR and then we also have the survey that covers for the offline channel. So it's a combination of looking at like, you know, different things so that at the end of the day we are eliminating the noise that you would get from, you know, looking at only one channel. But what we are essentially measuring in the early stages, like what does that awareness mean for the product?

B (32:44)

Okay, yeah, that's really helpful. And then when you look at the awareness, I guess the, you know what, what happens if you're not meeting those metrics? I guess you can just put that on pause and then maybe work on another brand project or maybe that product manager pivots. Has that happened where you've had to kind of re. Pivot the strategy?

A (33:04)

Yeah, several times. And that's the thing that we look at. We look at it over. Our seeds are like running for a period of time and then we consistently arrive, like I said, like every month. Where is the focus? And we have this traffic lights that we provide to see that green, red, yellow, green, you know, consistently doing well, you know, traffic lights. But anything that's ready watch for it to say that, hey, this is not like, you know, there's no traction on any levers. Like you know, there is not much interaction from a brand perspective. There is no interest or awareness of the brand. Not just that we're not seeing much like you know, interaction from, from a commercial standpoint in terms of the sales data that we, there is not much repeat purchase. I think we look at it like consistently and if we see a consistent trend then that's a, that's a, that's a call for us to say this is not working. So we need to pivot. We need to either like, you know, think about an alternate strategy, see if we can change it. If not, I think at that point of time we just make a decision to kill it and like, you know, focus on something better that has happened in the past. And that's what you know, you, you test and learn, right? Like when you're in the pre seed and the seed stage, that's what you're looking at, right? Like so that's happened for us and that's where the data comes in, like really, really helpful because we have had occasions where the brand story is amazing. You look at the brand image, you look at the packaging, you look at everything, everything looks great on paper, right. But then when you start to look into the details and that's when you see that it's not working, you know. So I mean as a creative and a brand manager I would have loved this. But when you start to look at the numbers, they don't add up. So there has been multiple occasions where we had to kill some of the passion adventures. But I think that that only benefits us in the long run to focus on things that are working well.

B (35:01)

Sure. Let's talk about the future. So something that I've seen recently that's interesting is sosv. They have glyphs so it's a whiskey that ages much faster. So they use some type of lab grown technology to be able to allow whiskey to age much faster. So what do you see that's happening from maybe a deep tech perspective in the future for beverages? And do you guys do whiskey or just more, you know, soft drinks and beer?

A (35:30)

I wish we did. We don't focused on a lot of wine. I would say RTD's but not much of whiskey. But I think the most like upcoming space is in the Bio brewing side. I think that's where I see a lot of like, you know, focus. Not just like from ZX or ABI perspective. I think from the future. When you read about it from an, you know, biotech perspective there is a lot of like, you know, biogrewing, that's spoken about. And again, I think the other thing is that, you know, the use of spent grain for creating alternate proteins and like, what can we gain from that? Right. I think that's something that the whole like no meat, ultimate meat, the protein space is something that I think it's definitely spoken about in the organization widely as well as like, you know, what you see in the market. So I mean, if my space, I mean if I would have to pick on two things, those would be the two things that I am interested in. I would curious. And that's probably where I think the organization might focus as well.

B (36:33)

Yeah, I think it'd be really interesting too. I don't know if they've ever piloted like protein in beer, but you know, I know they had beer that. Because what kills you with beer is the carbs. Right. So. So I know that they do have like low carb and I think they have just, you know, beer that's just a little more lightweight. But I think if they had beer that was good for you, you know, obviously that would be really interesting too because then there's maybe some nutritional value and yeah, could be some technology to maybe provide that from like a chemical.

A (37:05)

Yeah, we recently had like a lot of like, you know, vitamin D sort of, you know, you. And I think even if you look at the calorie content for carbs in a lot of like, you know, SKUs that we have, they are pretty, pretty amazing. It doesn't compromise on the taste. So I'll send you the list that you needed to try, you know, so.

B (37:27)

Yeah, and you know, where could. Where could other people if they want to maybe apply to CX Ventures, you know, if they're preparing. What are maybe some news articles or blogs that they should read to hear about the hottest trends and beverages. Are there any blogs or websites that you recommend for people to follow?

A (37:49)

Bednet is one, I would say which has all of upcoming like you know, news about every single thing that's happening on the beverage space. I mean traditionally I would say follow RZ Accenture page and LinkedIn on everything that is there. So that's when you can. And yet to know what our cool investments what is happening in our space. But I think like anybody is interested in zf, I'm happy to speak to them one on one if there's anything that anybody wants to know more about. And we have a lot of roles open as well and you can check them out on LinkedIn which is. Yeah, I think we're looking at a lot of investment roles at this point and not just like zx. I think we can also like, you know, ABI is a good, great place as well. Even they do a lot of investments within abi, which is focused on beyond beer. So I would highly encourage, like, you know, while you might be interested in zx, ABI is also an entry point for a lot of people to like. You know, people move between ZX and abi. So that's also an amazing place that I would recommend anybody interested in the Bellbridge to look at.

B (39:01)

No, that's great. Well, you know, thank you so much. You know, we got about 10 minutes. So guys in the audience, you guys have any questions? All right, well, they're thinking of questions or if they don't have any questions. One thing that I always ask the guests before we wrap up is any piece of life advice that you would share with us. You know, you've pivoted a few times and now you're really in the venture space. So, you know, with those life experiences and professional experiences, anything that you want to share with us is just maybe general, general learnings or advice.

A (39:39)

I think what I would say is be ready to be flexible and pivot and change. You know, you never know what opportunities you would get and where it would take you. I think I, like I said, I think like, I never anticipated me being in a venture capital. I never even envisioned a group that's dedic to data and analytics within a corporate venture capital. So I think initially I could have like, you know, when this opportunity came, I could have completely been oblivious to it, to the fact that, okay, this is not something meaningful. But I think like, you know, being curious and being open to it and being flexible about a lot of things, I think like, you know, really helps. I think that is one thing that I think like, you know, I would say that has helped me both professionally and like, you know, otherwise being flexible, being open to change, and the ability to pivot. Right. You might not be tied to a solution. You might be like, you know, flexible to change. You know, that's something that no matter whether you're an entrepreneur, like you should, you at one point you would have to pivot. Right. So I think that like, you know, helps in every, I think, like every sphere of life. I think.

B (40:54)

Yeah, yeah, no, that's really helpful.

A (40:56)

Cool.

B (40:57)

Well, guys, if you don't have any questions, maybe they can try to get ahold of you at some point is what's the best way to get ahold of you. Or to reach out to you for questions.

A (41:06)

I mean, you have my number. You can always like text me or you can reach out, reach me on LinkedIn or I can give you my personal email address here and then, and then like, you know, text me. I'm happy to chat more. We're always looking for like, you know, tech and analytics talent. Anybody is interested, I'm happy to share. Always looking for, you know, talent in data technology and analytics. Yeah.

B (41:34)

Great. Well, thank you. Yeah, well, I posted your LinkedIn. That way the whole world doesn't get your cell phone number and I'll try to point people in the right direction but thank you so much. I know it's, you know, getting late into the evening so hope you have a great rest of the week and, and really great. Yeah, really great. Thankful for the French.

A (41:54)

No, thank you. I mean I really enjoyed. I think there's very rarely people ask about data analytics in a CVC and I'm so glad like somebody, somebody was interested to know about it and I keep telling everybody it's not like a support function, it's a must have, it's a lead team that, you know, drives decisions. So I'm glad we were able to connect and talk about it. So.

B (42:14)

Yeah, me too. I mean I'm a little bit of a data nerd because I worked in Fintech for some time. So when, when I think about data feeds and when I think about processing data, you know, all of that just comes back to me. So great to great to be a like minded person but hope to catch up soon and you know, we're both in New York so we'll organize something at some point.

A (42:33)

All right, for sure, for sure. Thank you so much.