Bio

Vivjan Myrto is the Founder and Managing Partner at Hyperplane where he focuses on early-stage investments in software and full-stack companies, leading the firm's investments in Dover Microsystems, Soft Robotics, Modulate, Tive, Butlr, and others. Vivjan bootstrapped his first software company from his college dorm room and co-founded two additional companies before starting Hyperplane in 2015. He is an active member of the Boston entrepreneurial ecosystem and serves as the director of various non-profit organizations.

Intro

Vivjan Myrto, founder and managing partner at Hyperplane, shares his extraordinary journey from growing up in Albania under a harsh communist regime to navigating significant health challenges, including a battle with cancer, which ultimately shaped his resilient entrepreneurial spirit. He reflects on the lessons learned from surviving societal upheavals and how they instilled a deep determination to persevere and innovate. Vivjan emphasizes the importance of grit and adaptability in the startup world, highlighting that success often comes from being reactive to the present rather than overly focused on long-term predictions. As a venture capitalist, he discusses the unique dynamics of early-stage investing, especially in technology and deep tech sectors, and the significance of partnering with founders who possess both vision and market understanding. Through his experiences, Vivjan illustrates that the path to success is not only about capital but also about building strong relationships and navigating the inevitable challenges along the way.

Story

Vivjan Myrto's journey from his childhood in Albania to becoming a successful venture capitalist in Boston is a compelling narrative of resilience and determination. Born during a time of severe oppression under the communist regime, Vivjan's early experiences shaped his entrepreneurial spirit. By the age of seven, he was already starting his first business in a post-revolution Albania, where the transition from communism to capitalism opened up new opportunities. His passion for technology ignited when he got his hands on an IBM computer, leading him to discover coding and the early world of the internet. However, his journey took a significant turn when he was diagnosed with cancer at just 15 years old, prompting a move to Italy for treatment. Despite the challenges, Vivjan's mother believed in the potential for better healthcare in the United States, leading to their eventual relocation after a difficult visa process post-9/11.

Arriving in the U.S., Vivjan not only battled health issues but also navigated the complexities of starting anew in an unfamiliar environment. With determination, he learned English, pursued higher education, and eventually founded several companies, including Hyperplane, his venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments in technology. The conversation dives deep into the themes of grit, the importance of community, and the lessons learned from both failures and successes. Vivjan emphasizes the significance of adaptability in the fast-paced startup world, as well as the crucial role of a strong founding team and clear vision in achieving long-term success. His experiences underscore how overcoming hardship can foster resilience and innovation, ultimately shaping the future of entrepreneurship.

Takeaways

• Vivjan Myrto emphasizes the importance of resilience, shaped by his experiences in Albania and battling cancer.
• His journey illustrates that grit and determination are crucial for startup founders to succeed.
• Vivjan highlights the shift in venture capital, noting that seed stage investing is becoming more institutional.
• He believes that the ability to adapt quickly to changing circumstances is vital for entrepreneurs.
• Vivjan shares that early-stage companies often face significant risks when they begin to succeed.
• He encourages founders to focus on their core mission and not get ahead of themselves when achieving success.

Links

Vivjan’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivjan/

Vivjan’s firm: https://hyperplane.vc

Leave us a review: https://podchaser.com/DesigningSuccessfulStartups

Jothy’s book: https://www.amazon.com/Tech-Startup-Toolkit-launch-strong/dp/1633438422/

Site with podcasts: https://jothyrosenberg.com/podcast

YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DesigningSuccessfulStartups

Jothy’s non-profit: https://whosaysicant.org

Jothy’s TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNtOawXAx5A

Hello, I'm Jothi Rosenberg, the host of Designing Successful Startups, where today's guest is Vivian Murta.

We've gone through two really large crisis where inflation went off the roof and the value of our money went to zero.

And you had to survive through that and we had to survive through two revolutions and you had to survive a change in things.

And so it's been the story of my life.

I think, you know, when you come from poor countries like that, the grid determination never g up is sort of ingrained in you.

I think going through cancer, it was, you know, it was a moment of my life where, you know, at the time I still had a lot of plans around university and where I was going to go and how my life would look like and everything was thrown out the window.

Vivian Murto is the founder and managing partner at Hyperplane, where he focuses on early stage investments in software and full stack companies, leading the firm's investments in Dover Microsystems, Soft Robotics, Modulate, Tive, Butler and others.

He is an active member of the Boston entrepreneurial ecosystem and serves as the director of various nonprofit organizations.

Welcome to the show, Vivian.

Hi, Jose.

Hey, it's great to see you.

It's great to thank you for agreeing to be on this podcast.

I think, I think you, as a, as a vc, but also as an experienced startup person yourself, will have a lot of things that the audience for this show will, will appreciate.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Thank you so much for having me.

And I just want to start by saying that I've learned just as much from you over the past how many years that we've been involved together as anybody else.

So it's a real pleasure that I'm super happy that you are doing the podcast and surfacing some of the stories in the startup world.

And by the way, I want to, you know, let people know that you're the guy that wrote the foreword for the book Tech Startup Toolkit, which just happens to be right there.

It was my pleasure and it was the, the easiest forward book I've ever read.

Okay, can you tell us a little bit about your origin story?

Where are you originally from?

And also just mention where you live now, but starting there.

Yeah, to start from the beginning without going too much deep.

You know, my personal story has been, you know, it's been long with many chapters and in my first 40 years, I think I've lived already five lives.

So we'll start with chapter one, which was being born in Albania in Tirana, which is the capital of Albania, a small country in Eastern Europe.

I was born there in the 80s under really dark communism.

Came out of this communism and capitalism became, you know, sort of the system that, you know, we started operating under.

And at the time I was 7 years old and I started my first, you know, small business there basically out of my.

Out of my grandparents house where I grew up.

Started a small, you know, bike shop with one of my neighbors.

And that was my first case at the time where everybody was starting companies, starting private enterprises out of 50 years of very dark communism.

Since then went on to my hands on my first computer, which was an IBM computer two years before Windows 3.1 was launched.

And it was, you know, very, very.

I taught myself how to code.

I really wanted to play, you know, Prince of Persia, which was a really small game at the time in Tetris.

And to even access those games, you had to know at least some basic coding, you know, from there.

And I was just so, so, you know, just so enthralled with the whole idea of the impact that, you know, you can talk to computers from city to city, from neighborhood to neighborhood.

And it was just really, absolutely remarkable that we can all of a sudden talk to each other from such distances through this, through this machine that we had at home.

So that was my first taste of, you know, of the Internet, of the technology.

And same as you.

When I was, you know, 15, I ran into some, some health issues.

I was diagnosed, you know, with cancer when I was, you know, 15 and a half and moved to Italy for.

For a year and a half in search of treatment.

Unfortunately, in Albania the treatment was non available, non existent even.

And moved to Italy for a year and a half, you know, to did, you know, chemotherapy there, radiation.

Unfortunately it did not work.

It actually got worse there.

My mom, which has been a single mom her whole life, said that America, I think could be the only hope and we started to see the options of how we come to the United States.

And it was really difficult.

And it took me about five to eight tries going to the embassy, knocking on their door, you know, for looking for treatment.

And from there, they transferred to UMass Medical center right outside of Boston.

And through that process, I learned English.

I started to, you know, go to college.

I remember asking a nurse, it's like, how do you.

How does one go to university, United States?

And she's like, well, you know, you gotta take your SATs.

And I'm like, what's that?

And she's like, well, here's a course.

You can study for this, and then I can help you sign up for it.

And so I, you know, I.

I took the SATs and ended up getting actually a maximum score, which was lucky on the English side because my English is still not very good today to this day.

But it was great on the meth side.

And that ended up, you know, led me to a really good school here.

I had no money.

My family pretty much lost everything through the treatment and the bone marrow transplant and so on.

You know, we really didn't.

You know, my family is like, engineers and doctors and so on, but unfortunately, because of the system back then, you know, for 50 years in communism, never really had any financial wealth after that.

I ended up going to college here, and I wanted to be a doctor.

My whole family, like I said, my father was a doctor, my grandfather.

And so I grew up in a family where, you know, the most important thing you can do in life is really to help others and to have an impact on other people's lives and so on.

And I also wanted to be a doctor.

And I had, you know, I survived by a miracle almost.

And so firsthand, you know, understood, you know, the impact that, you know, healthcare can have on one, on.

On someone.

And.

But I realized very quickly that the path to becoming a doctor in the United States is very long and above all, very expensive.

And so I really wasn't an option for me.

I was struggling to pay for college, and when I got the first bill, I was like, oh, my gosh, like, we've never seen 5,000 or mine $50,000 at the time.

So I quickly switched to business.

And I, you know, in college I was basically working whatever I could to help, you know, my family and my mom and sister at the time, they were also working and also pay for tuition.

And, you know, through that I started this few other businesses, small ones, and I was working whatever I could and then eventually started an enterprise software company and sort of rediscovered my love for technology, rediscovered my love for, you know, how impactful software can be, how impactful, you know, few lines of code that can be.

Most important, it was like, what that proverbial, you know, light bulb that people talk about.

For me, it was simple, you know, as like few lines of code that can impact, you know, tens of millions of people versus 10 patients at a time.

And so never really looked back since then.

Been basically been on this journey.

My American journey has been one of survival, has been one of a lot of hustle, and most importantly, also a lot of luck.

Luck has such an important role in everybody's life.

And mine certainly has been very fortunate, you know, to move to the US And I was fortunate to have a great roommate who was a brilliant engineer to this day.

And together we built our first business, which was a healthcare record company of the same struggle that I had moving to the United States at the time of transferring all my records of, you know, all those years of chemo here.

So, you know, we sold that business, you know, a bunch of years later.

And I can talk about the reasons why, but one of the most important things in businesses is certainly partnerships.

And I learned a lot about partnerships through that, through that journey of my first company.

And eventually my business partner and I didn't see eye to eye of how to grow the business from there.

And the opportunity cost has become much higher in different areas that we were excited about.

So eventually sold it to one of our private equity group that owned a lot of customers that we were selling to.

We mostly had European customers.

And from there I tried to start a second business that was, you know, that's where I learned basically my second company learned what venture capital was.

And, you know, when venture capital came in my life, it was like, oh, my gosh, like, what do you mean?

You know, there's somebody in the world that is willing to invest in a company without revenue.

You know, it just seemed like such a thing.

I mean, growing up, where I grew up, it was like banks and, you know, you had to have.

You had to have had so much to borrow money and to you start your companies and, you know, what do you mean?

Like, there's other ways besides bootstrapping to start a business and going to the bank when you have 10 million in revenue, right?

So I was just like.

I was like, oh, my gosh, this is incredible.

You know, I was like, I couldn't believe it.

And even to this day, I still get goosebumps, you know, when I think about, like, you know, the work that I do today.

It's like, you know, we always looking for, you know, the future in a way.

We're always looking for impact.

And, you know, unlike starting one company at a time, Metro Capital, you know, sort of give me the opportunity.

It gives us the opportunity, you know, to really have an impact across so many different industries and to have an impact across so many different technologies and sort of you always on a forever hustle to find the next big idea, but most importantly, the next big founder.

So it's just absolutely a privilege to be part of.

To be part of this industry and to do the work that we do.

So now that business basically learned about venture capital in Boston at the time.

Very different community than it is today.

And it was, you know, just a bit harder for some.

Someone like me that did not eventually graduate college and had spent so much time just building versus the networking and all that, all that other side of building companies.

And eventually we started a small nonprofit organization here to meet other people like myself and was knocking on the doors of people like General Catalyst and Star Capital and so on with no luck at all at the time.

And.

But that nonprofit led me to build a really good, you know, community around myself.

And through that community, started to really see a lot of opportunities here and eventually start.

I became an angel investor, investing in some of these companies that were coming through that nonprofit.

So I'll pause there a little bit because it's a long story and there's so many chapters and so many places where you can dive in further.

I'll definitely come back to Hyperplane in just a second, but I just want to ask about your grueling health challenges that.

That you had to go through, and living in the hospital for such a long period of time.

You know, I always talk about on these episodes, I always talk about grit towards the end, but we have to talk about it at the beginning.

In your case, because how did that manifest all.

All that experience manifest itself in you in.

And how did it change your personality?

How did it toughen you up for whatever else you've gone through since then and.

And.

And might go through in the.

In.

You know, I know when I see you sailing in December 1st, I think you're crazy, but it's also.

It's also an expression of grit.

Sailing is a gritty sport, and sailing in December is extremely gritty.

Yeah.

And you know, that.

That's a hobby that I've picked up many, many years ago now, you know, through actually one of our founders, one of our first investments in hyperplane and something that we share together.

Yeah, I mean, I think for me it goes even further back.

I think certainly going through a very existential health situation that I have with cancer.

And given a year and a half, it changes a little bit.

Sort of the timelines that you have in your head and the plans that you might have for your future.

You know, I think that one thing, you know, through that, I mean, even when I was, you know, even when I was like, even, you know, in the 80s and the 90s and early in my country, we just had to go through so much.

I mean, we've gone through two really large crisis where inflation went off the roof and the value of our money went to zero.

And you had to survive through that.

And we had to survive through two revolutions and you had to.

I had to survive a change in things.

And so it's.

It's been the story of my life, I think, you know, when you come from poor countries like that, the great determination or never giving up, it's sort of ingrained in you.

I think going through cancer, it was, you know, it was a moment of my life where, you know, at the time I still had a lot of plans around university or where I was going to go and how my life would look like.

And everything was thrown out the window.

And so you start to become a lot more reactive to the current situation than try to plan ahead and be proactive.

And something that even at hyperplane, we're always saying that we have to be the best at reacting to the future versus try to always predict the.

React to the present versus always predicting the future.

Right.

The future is happening faster than ever before in my line of work.

And so we just have to be really good at the future.

And I still, to this day, it's ingrained in me that I still have just another year and a half.

And so everything I do is faster, is a lot more intense and you know, just want to live as much as I can and enjoy as much as I can.

If that means sailing in December in zero degree weather, so be it.

I'm not going to miss that, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and surfing and everything under the sun.

So, you know, it's really important for founders, you know, to never give up.

I think that's really, really the most important thing.

You can be a terrible business for five years and our gear six.

You own the world, right?

So it's just so important, you know, to never give up.

And I've learned so much from you about not giving up.

And going through the Dover journey together has been, you know, an amazing one in many ways of, of grit and determination.

So, you know, we will never give up.

And I think that, you know, as long as we have a big North Star, it's important always to have a big North Star.

Someone that probably can never reach, but we certainly do have it, our firm here.

And that manifests in my life as well.

Hi, the podcast you are listening to is a companion to my recent book Tech Startup Toolkit how to Launch Strong and Exit Big.

This is the book I wish I'd had as I was founding and running eight startups over 35 years.

I tell the unvarnished truth about what went right and especially about what went wrong.

It's for the founder, the CEO and wannabe founders of tech and non tech startups.

You could get it from all the usual booksellers.

Now back to the show.

So Hyperplane is seed.

You focus on seed stage and you, you like hard tech and those are two really important combinations.

They don't always have to go together.

You can do seed stage and say I like SaaS or something but, but you guys have combined those two things and it kind of is related to the name you pick too, right?

A mathematical concept.

Yes, correct.

Well, let me backtrack.

The way that Hyperplane started was on two main, you know, sort of thesis number one was that we believe that pre seed and seed stage will be a lot more institutional over time.

And I think at the time you could still, you can already starting to see, you know, the cost of getting a company off the ground, coming down with cloud computing and so on and, and certainly true today, precedent seed is now there's so many more participants large and small and Then the second thesis that we had at the time was we really wanted to build a firm where we can attack really large problems in the world.

And at the time we looked at certain different areas.

What would be the best way to solve, you know, some of these problems in the future.

And it became clear that artificial intelligence, machine learning, you know, was really going to come out of the MIT labs, Stanford Labs, Northeastern labs, Harvard's labs, you know, was going to come from all of these research labs into the real world.

Right.

So we built the firm basically with these two concepts.

We wanted to be a seed investor to invest in companies from the very first day to about a million in revenue or so.

And that's, you know, fluctuates a little bit, you know, today as the firm has grown.

But certainly we've always stayed true to being B2B and attacking really large problems in the world.

And large problems in the world are both on the industrial side, slash deep tech, which we're one of the first ones to do that.

And also on the enterprise side with that, the firm has attacked things like we're big in agriculture right now, you know, water management, water supply.

We've done cybersecurity together on a chip level even.

You know, we love companies that leverage sensors, we love companies that leverage hardware.

In the beginning, Hyperplane 1 was sort of the first chapter of what today is artificial intelligence, which was so much more about building, you know, the ecosystem, building the infrastructure of AI.

And that meant to invest in some things that we're a little bit more to deep tech that what a seed fund should do for the capital structure that we operate under, but also, you know, moving up the stack symbol software businesses and so on somewhere in the middle as well, more infrastructure type businesses.

So for us, the mission is always to solve really large problems for society and big industries to go in industries that technology hasn't gone yet and try to make those businesses more efficient, better and larger and attack it from an AI perspective because we believe that automation is the force that is going to really drive a lot of these industries and small businesses forward.

Then yes, Hyperplane, it's actually like it is, it is in geometry, is a subspace of a vector space.

And it's used in things like machine learning to support, you know, vector machines and convex geometry and so on.

So it's a very technical name, but even when it gets confused to very fast, I really don't mind it.

Typically of a VC firm, as it grows and the size of the next fund gets bigger, it gets harder to do the early stage because you need to put more money to work.

Do you guys have a.

Because the fact is, unless you kind of fall flat on your face, you're going to grow.

So what is your plan for that?

Will you stay seed stage?

We love to say C stage.

So the way that we look at the industry, there's two business models to venture capital and I think it's way more acute today.

On one hand, you have firms that are really focused on making multiples on their investments.

So intrinsically, those firms tend to stay small.

They're very early stage, seed stage, series A firms, funds usually typically less than 500 million or so.

And then now you have also this other part of the market, which are, you know, these aircraft carriers, if you will, that have, you know, tens of billions of dollars under management.

Some names like Anderson Horowitz, most recently, you know, not most recently always, but you know, the largest fund to date, you know, 9 billion generalists, you know, Sequoia, that basically under one roof, they offer everything.

And I think those firms, you know, tend to be focused on different types of returns, you know, that we are.

So, you know, I think hyperplane.

We also have a lot of our own capital in the firm and we absolutely love early stage investing.

It's, it's who we are.

It's in our DNA.

And we love businesses that are, are starting and that's been our bread and butter.

And we envision the firm in the future to still continue doing, you know, just very early stage.

And we also have a thesis that early stage investing, it's going to be, you know, it's going to be cheaper and cheaper for companies to build.

So, you know, an early stage company can still maybe three years from now mean that the business has 3 to 5 million under revenue versus zero today or a few hundred thousand dollars.

You know, AI is really impacting the venture capital industry in a way that it's cheaper, easier, faster than ever before to launch a product.

You're not going to need as much capital in the future to get to 10 million in revenue.

So we believe that a $250 million fund is going to be the new billion dollar fund in the future.

And we want to be always sort of on the early stage side because it's also what we don't want to do.

When you're at the seed stage, you tend to invest in a person or a small team of founders and a big idea.

And so one of the things that that means is that you're dealing with someone who has this passion for this idea, a problem that is just been very difficult and they have a solution for it, but they're not necessarily.

In fact, they're rarely experienced CEOs, and so they're going to have gaps in what they know.

How do you guys deal with that?

You got, you know, you got a team there.

But I just, I haven't actually seen, you know, you operate in that sort of mentoring, coaching kind of environment.

I think that's a great question.

And it's something we think about all the time.

And, you know, the framework around that has changed, you know, for me over the past decade as I've become, you know, as I've grown in the industry and our portfolio has grown and we've seen, you know, so many, you know, you know, successes and failures and so on.

And I think, you know, before we even start, you know, before we even have an investment, I think, you know, sort of our philosophy has always been we value more the soft skills of the founder versus the hard skills.

Right?

We value EQ a lot.

We value histories of the founders and their lives a lot.

We always want to invest in people that, you know, they're.

The company that they're building now is sort of their life's work.

And, you know, obsession around that product really drives returns and build big businesses.

Because when you're building a company, you're going to have 10 bad days and one good day.

And in those bad days, I think that obsession, I think that mission that is really at the core of these founders is really what's going to drive the business forward.

So we love founders that are visionary.

We love founders that, you know, you don't care a lot about the culture of the company that they're building.

We love founders that are really good at sales.

It's really important.

I think even in venture capital, some of the best venture capitalists in the world have to be really good salesmen.

And I think it's not as talked about.

But founders and ourselves, we're always selling an idea, we're always selling a product, we're always selling, you know, a fund.

It's really, really, really important for us.

And I think that it's never to be discounted how important it is to have a founder market fit.

So the founder of the the business has to know the industry that they're going into incredibly intimately and have very unique insights into the industry that they're going to.

Because at Hyperplane, we certainly believe that market and founder are the most important things to invest in.

If it's a big market and the market dynamics are certainly favorable for a new company to really grow large.

And the founder knows that business is obsessed with what is building.

I think that's really, really powerful for Hyperplane.

And no founder knows everything.

Every founder, you know, needs something, you know, at the early stage.

So at the early stage, firms like us compete on what we offer, I think more after the investment.

So the servicing part, you know, of the product, of the deal and that means that and at growth, you know, sort of the difference between the early stage and growth.

At growth, I think companies typically have already figured out all of their motion product marketing, you know, sales and so on.

So you know, the firms that want to, you know, invest in a 70 million round that typically are competing more on price and brand and network and so on.

But with us we're competing, you know, we're offering, you know, Hyperplane is always specialized in one thing, one thing only, which is go to market.

You know, we tend to invest in founders that you know, are very intimately involved with the product.

They know the product, you know, they know the team and they have sort of figured out some of the pieces already and if not, they have a good idea, you know, where this is going to go.

And our job is really, you know, it's really to take this company from those very early days, you know, to millions in revenue.

And so we focus a lot on the go to market sales, you know, and, and that part of the business after the investment.

Startups at the early stage, of course, as you know, are fragile.

That's just the way it is.

And what do you think is, you know, the one or two most dangerous situations, risky situations, and I don't mean obviously running out of cash, but I mean something else that you see or maybe or you've seen multiple times.

What do you think that that kind of situation is?

Is this risky?

I, I, I think at the stage that we invest in, the whole situation is very risky.

There's so many risks all the time.

And our job is to like try to squeeze this risk out as much as we can early on and identify, you know, this risk early.

But I have to say that like, you know, for me actually the most most important, you know, stage and the most risky stage is when the company is starting to do well.

Once you hit, once you're feeling good and everything is clicking and you have product market fit and the customers are banging in your door and investors are banging in your door is like where we've seen the biggest mistakes that people have made.

And so that is really, really, I think, the most, you know, it's the hardest time, you know, when the.

Why do you think that happens?

Because I think a lot of founders might get a little bit too, you know, sure of, of what they're building, might get too sure of themselves, might get a little bit ahead on valuation of the company that can hurt them in, in rounds after that.

There's a lot of things that happen when you're, you know, at your highest peak and those highest peaks never last.

You know, there's always going to be, you know, a little bit of coming down from it, right.

And it's really important to build a business for the long term.

And when you're really starting to hit your stride and you're doing maybe 5 to 10 million revenue and you're growing three times year over year, and your margins are looking good and so on, you know, that's where you really start to fumble.

And new competition can come around or, you know, maybe a large incumbent is starting to really snoop into the space.

And so that's really the, I think, the hardest time and the most, you know, thing that worries me the most.

And when this company starts really starting to hit their stride, you know, I think when they're young, certainly there's a lot of, you know, things.

And I think on average, a company, you know, makes about three really big decisions a year.

Be with team, product or strategy, right?

And you know, we're there for the ride and that's fine.

And you're going to fumble.

It's not a big deal.

We can be there for a bridge round or whatever, you know, but it's really when they start to really hit their stride and people are knocking on their door and they're giving, giving you a $200 million valuation on, on, on a few million dollars revenue, that's where you really start to worry.

And we saw this manifest over the past, you know, two to three years, you know, 20, 20, 21, 22, which hyperplane.

We took a little bit of a different approach to those years and you know, we slowed down and we were a lot more disciplined than, than, than, than some others.

You know, you, you, you've seen it.

And now they have to recorrect and they have to do down rounds.

You know, their tables are looking bad and the founders are losing a lot of their own equity and you know, and it just, it gets really messy.

So you've got to really be thoughtful, you know, not just for the next year, but what about the 10 next 10 years and how the markets can go and markets are more volatile than ever before.

You know, macro, both geopolitically and I think there's just so many things happening in the world that you know, make this business is so much more volatile.

You just have to plan so further ahead and always be, you know, not to get ahead of yourself.

One of the things I try to make sure when I'm talking to founders is to make sure they understand the VC's business model and how it works so they can understand the VC better.

It's, it's a really, you know, it's a really great point that we, we, we talk about it with our founders all the time.

So you know, in Hyperplane, for example before you know, we sign a term sheet together or we get into a deal together, no matter if somebody else is leading or we're co leading or you know, we're the sole lead or whatever have you like we always talk to the people to always talk to the founders around what is, what are the milestones, what is it going to take, you know, for this company to get money from us again?

That's really important part of the journey because we follow on, on the rounds and so on.

But most importantly also we all, we're very, you know, upfront about, you know, founders that sometimes you don't need venture capital is venture capital.

It's, it's, it's not for everyone.

Once you're, once you get money from us like you're on a treadmill, you know, you're on a treadmill to build a really large business.

Fundraising all the time, really.

Go, go, go at all costs, right.

And sometimes, you know, it's fine to build a $10 million run rate business.

You own 100% of it and you sell it for, I don't know, 10 times revenue.

You're making a hundred million dollars.

That's life changing, right.

And not everything has to be a unicorn, right.

And it's fine if you don't take venture capital.

So what we're trying to tell people is listen, you know, once you're, once we have a, we have a term sheet together, you can never, you know, get rid of me once we're in this journey together.

And it's a very long journey, right.

So it's really important, you know, for, for the founder to understand sort of my alignments, you know, long term with their business and what they're in for, you know, many chapters from this first one together.

So, and again, you know, we're very upfront about that, you know, it's a long journey.

You know, it is so many ups and downs and, you know, we can be together for 10 years, 15 years, and who knows, right.

And at Hyperplane, we always say that we want to be here, you know, for your first company to your second, to your third.

And we want to be a lifetime partner to most of our companies, to most of our founders.

Right.

Because the majority are very young founders and, and, and they have a very long road ahead.

And so we want to be there for the whole journey.

Venture capital is not for everyone.

Yeah.

And all of what you said, I, I agree with the, the other reason I like to bring that up is because it helps you understand what the VC that you're working with has to spend their time on, what their time allocation is.

For example, aren't you in the middle of raising a new fund?

I cannot speak about it, but we've had, we have three funds under our belt now and 80 companies or so that are valued over 4 billion.

And you know, so there's a lot of businesses.

And I think how I look at my time is more important to think about how many other boards I'm in and how much time I'm going to spend with you when we're on a board together, if I join the board, which we typically do.

Right.

And most importantly also venture.

Either way you look at it tends to be a bit of an individual sport.

A certain, found a certain partner at a firm has a certain expertise, you know, be it in the area that you're in or maybe something that you want to learn more about.

So it's really also important to find a good chemistry, you know, with your board to really complement, you know, some of the shortfallings that you might have.

Right.

Be it on the go to market side or network or something might have you.

So I think that's really important.

I think founders always should make, you know, reference calls.

And I know it's a bit of a cliche and many don't have that luxury, but, you know, you should always really understand a little bit who, you know, who, who are you getting into your company.

And founders should think about, you know, when, when, when you get money from a vc, you're actually recruiting that VC to work for you.

So it should be the same framework, you should be the same sort of methodologies, like just hiring one, one of your team.

Mm.

You're hiring basically an executive on your team.

When you're, when you, when you're, when you're getting money from us.

Well, okay, forget about when you're raising a fund, but you have, you are also tied to a bunch of investors, your LPs.

How much time do you spend, you know, of course across a year communicating with, having meetings with your limiteds because that's almost invisible to, you know, your portfolio of CEOs.

It's a really important part of our business, you know, that RLP's, we're, we're fortunate that we have a lot of institutions and you know, university endowments and foundations and so on.

So it's really, really important for us, you know, who our LPs are and where we making money for.

Most importantly, I think we're also pretty transparent and with our founders who are LPs and I think over time has gotten, you know, a little bit more, you know, smaller and smaller group which is sort of a little bit about design.

And you know, we just like every other firm we have an annual meeting once a year, you know, where our LPs attend.

And in that meeting we invite also, you know, a lot of founders.

And I think it's really important because you know, our limited partners certainly sit on boards of much bigger, you know, firms like us.

And we have, we get a huge wealth of knowledge from them doing you know, our business, investing in our asset class, some of them for 40 years.

So we've learned a lot from them.

That brings so much value to me the way that I might bring value to, to another company.

And I think that they also bring a lot of value to our founders.

Their network and expertise and knowledge of the space is remarkable.

So we always encourage encouragement, have exposure to RLPs and RLPs have exposure to founders as they grow and so on.

So I think on a yearly basis I probably on, let's say on a monthly basis I probably spend two to three days every month communicating with my current investors.

And I repl.

In is a position now where we have dedicated, you know, investor relations person here that her full time job is only to communicate and, and with LPs and you know, manage those relationships so that I can focus more of my time on sourcing and building on board and on the investing side of the business.

I think everything we've just covered is extremely useful information to existing and future startup founders.

Yeah, I'm a founder myself, you know, Hyperplane is my startup.

So I have had to learn a lot of the, you know, what I know from other podcasts and other books and other people helping me as well.

So you know, I'm always, you know, I'M always a fan of just mentoring and sharing what I've.

What I've done wrong.

That's, that's why I was able to fill a book, because I made so many mistakes.

Well, anyway, thank you, Vivian.

I think we've, we've done a nice episode here, and I appreciate you taking the time.

I appreciate having me.

That's a wrap.

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This is Jothi Rosenberg saying TTFN Tata for now.