Shownotes
Join Chris and Anne for a candid conversation with Clarence Bethea, investor and executive in residence at True Ventures, as he shares his incredible journey from a troubled youth to startup success with Upsie and becoming a VC. Clarence discusses how AI is shaping the future of retail and startups, the importance of empathy and honesty in funding decisions, and share practical advice for early-stage entrepreneurs, including why early money matters.
Key Moments:
- (1:00) Clarence’s personal journey from Georgia to VC success
- (3:00) Building Upsie and disrupting the warranty market
- (7:00) True Ventures’ focus on seed-stage investments and AI
- (11:00) Challenges for women and black founders in securing funding
- (17:00) The importance of having 3 key people in your entrepreneurial journey
- (22:00) Advice for entrepreneurs on persistence and overcoming breaking points
#startupfunding #vcinsights #entrepreneuradvice #aiinvestments
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Transcripts
Foreign.
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Chris Walton:Hello, everyone.
Chris Walton:I am one of your co hosts for today's interviews, Chris Walton.
Anne Mazinga:And I'm Anne Mazinga.
Chris Walton:And we are pleased to introduce investor and executive in residence at True Ventures, Clarence Bethea.
Chris Walton:Clarence, thank you for joining us and welcome to Omnitalk.
Clarence Bethea:Thank you so much for having me.
Anne Mazinga:We're excited to have you.
Anne Mazinga:Thanks for taking time to join us today.
Anne Mazinga:I'd love to start by just giving an audience, our audience, a quick background on you, especially going from startup entrepreneur to now working for a vc.
Anne Mazinga:So maybe start there, if you don't mind.
Clarence Bethea:Yeah, so the joke I make to people is that if we go back a little bit further, I'm your most like non traditional VC founder guy that you've ever met.
Anne Mazinga:Why is that?
Clarence Bethea:You know, I, I, my background is not entrepreneurship, my background is not vc.
Clarence Bethea:I'm from a place called Decatur, Georgia, right outside Atlanta.
Clarence Bethea:And my whole background was doing all the wrong things.
Clarence Bethea:And so I, I, I, I, as a young adult, I met the CEO of Best Buy who changed my life.
Clarence Bethea:And you know, that is how I kind of got to where I'm at today.
Anne Mazinga:Oh, my God.
Chris Walton:Tell us a little bit about that story, Clarence, if you don't mind.
Chris Walton:Give the audience the quick snippet because I heard it when I first met you and I think it's a great introduction to you for, for the audience.
Clarence Bethea:Yeah.
Clarence Bethea:So, yeah, I'm from the streets of the K, Georgia, grew up doing all the wrong things, in and out of juvenile, in and out of jail, just making all the mistakes that a young man from that area of the town makes.
Clarence Bethea:And in my late 20s, I was working at a basketball gym.
Clarence Bethea:And just by having chance, the COO who ended up becoming CEO of Best Buy took a liking to me.
Clarence Bethea:And we met and he said he wanted to mentor me.
Clarence Bethea:And it just gave me a lot of confidence into what I thought I could become as a young man.
Clarence Bethea:And.
Clarence Bethea:And, you know, that relationship spanned it for about eight years.
Clarence Bethea:And he just gave me experiences.
Clarence Bethea:I say that was a real life MBA experience, you know, happening every day.
Clarence Bethea:And that led me to starting my own company.
Clarence Bethea:And that company doing.
Clarence Bethea:Doing all right.
Clarence Bethea:And I ended up here, where I'm at today, being a vc.
Chris Walton:And what was that company, Clarence?
Chris Walton:What was that company?
Chris Walton:What did it do?
Chris Walton:What does it do?
Clarence Bethea:Yeah, so the company called Upsie.
Clarence Bethea:So I'm sure you both walked into a Best Buy, you check out, and at the register, they say, hey, would you like a warranty with this, with this product?
Clarence Bethea:Well, what most consumers don't understand is that that warranty is marked up as much as 900%.
Clarence Bethea:So you could buy the warranty for $400 and it could cost $50 from the insurance company.
Clarence Bethea: oblem, you know, in the early: Clarence Bethea:And I started the company.
Clarence Bethea:I had no clue about starting a company.
Clarence Bethea:I had no clue what pack or LTV or any of that meant.
Clarence Bethea:What I.
Clarence Bethea:All I knew was that I wanted to create something that felt like it was benefiting the consumer.
Clarence Bethea:And that led me to Upsie.
Clarence Bethea:And, you know, we raised over $30 million in venture capital.
Clarence Bethea:We exited the company last year, and that's led me to the VC side of the table.
Chris Walton:Yeah, it's kind of a baptism by fire then into entrepreneurship and the VC world.
Chris Walton:So.
Chris Walton:All right, so then.
Chris Walton:So you mentioned.
Chris Walton:So, so now you've linked up with True Ventures.
Chris Walton:You're kind of an executive in residence as well as an investor.
Chris Walton:So.
Chris Walton:So tell us about True Ventures first.
Chris Walton:And then also I want to know, like, where does it focus its investments and how do you help with that?
Clarence Bethea: ntures have been around since: Clarence Bethea:Our founders are still very, very, very active today.
Clarence Bethea:We are re industry agnostic.
Clarence Bethea:So we invest across everything.
Clarence Bethea:So you can say we got people making meat in bags and growing meat all the way to your kind of your stereotypical SaaS companies.
Clarence Bethea:Some of our companies, Peloton, Fitbit, Duo Security, Hashicorp, Goodreads, those are some companies where we were very, very early into those companies.
Clarence Bethea:So we had a lot of wins.
Clarence Bethea:But we are on a new, exciting trail with AI.
Clarence Bethea:Our latest fund was close to $900 million.
Clarence Bethea:So that is all seed stage investing.
Clarence Bethea:So 1 to 4 ish million dollar checks into the future of, of, of entrepreneurship.
Clarence Bethea:And so we, we have a team of about 50 people, 25 of those people are on the investment team with, with, with me.
Clarence Bethea:And we really just try to make sure we focus on people and then the, the, you know, the business stuff will work itself out.
Anne Mazinga:Well, Clarence, you mentioned AI being a focus, but are there any other areas that are kind of, of particular interest right now or maybe like on the flip side, anything that you're not interested in investing in or that true ven.
Anne Mazinga:Like staying away from?
Clarence Bethea:Yeah, so we, we believe, and one of our partners Rohit said this, we believe that AI is going to infiltrate every single industry.
Clarence Bethea:So today if you're not working with AI, if you're not thinking about how AI will affect your business in the future, I, I don't know if we're very interested.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Clarence Bethea:So because it could be the most boring business and AI is going to play a huge role in how that business move forward.
Chris Walton:So you have to be looking at AI in all of the pitches you're getting or the companies need to be in the pitches you're getting.
Chris Walton:The companies have to be looking at AI because it's such a disruptive technology that if you're not accounting for it, you could be obsoleted down the road.
Chris Walton:Is that right?
Clarence Bethea:Totally.
Clarence Bethea:I mean even if you're not technically an AI company today, but if you're not looking at AI tools that can make your business more efficient, you know, we have a company in our portfolio, one of the largest beauty brands in the world.
Clarence Bethea:They are using AI to help with customer service and it is showing like major, major savings and efficiency for the business.
Clarence Bethea:So even if you're not an AI native business, you should be thinking about how AI plays a role in helping you become more efficient as a business.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah, it's almost like you need to say like you're staying out.
Anne Mazinga:Like the more notable thing is maybe if you're not using AI, like you're a homegrown, like you're growing meat in a bag or something.
Anne Mazinga:Like you said, said like this is something where you would call that out more than like every.
Anne Mazinga:It just should just be assumed at this point that you're using AI if you are looking for investment.
Clarence Bethea:Exactly.
Clarence Bethea:Yep.
Chris Walton:You can probably even figure out a way to use AI for meat in a bag too.
Anne Mazinga:I know.
Anne Mazinga:As I was saying that I was like this is probably ridiculous.
Anne Mazinga:There's many ways you could probably see efficiencies there too in today's day world.
Clarence Bethea:So.
Chris Walton:So then True Ventures.
Chris Walton:So the idea then with that fund you mentioned is like really seed stage getting in early and investing early to find the next companies that will break through in that AI space.
Clarence Bethea:Yeah.
Clarence Bethea:So we're one of the few, like true, true C stages.
Clarence Bethea:Like we're not a big fund that says we're going to invest across all of the stages.
Clarence Bethea:We're really focused on that early stage.
Clarence Bethea:And I think what that allows us is it allows us a breadth of knowledge that a lot of people don't have because we've been at the early stages.
Clarence Bethea:So we have a sympathy, a sense of empathy that a lot of people just don't have the early stage, like you.
Clarence Bethea:You don't need to come to us and tell us you're CAC and ltv, because we know.
Clarence Bethea:You should know it.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Chris Walton:You shouldn't know it.
Clarence Bethea:Right, Right.
Clarence Bethea:Yeah.
Clarence Bethea:There's a lot of businesses who come to us and they are, they don't have the product flushed out or they don't have the team flushed out or we're not asking them for five years projections because we understand right now is you're making a bet on the founder and CEO.
Chris Walton:Got it.
Chris Walton:And hence the role you're playing.
Chris Walton:So back down's question that is there, are there any areas that you, that, that you and True Ventures are particularly staying away from right now too?
Clarence Bethea:No.
Clarence Bethea:You know the joke I make internally that if you put AI in front of anything, like I'm making AI loaves of bread, we'll take a look.
Chris Walton:It'Ll get a review.
Chris Walton:That's what you're telling me.
Chris Walton:All right, listening.
Clarence Bethea:Yeah.
Chris Walton:Hence why we see AI on every company's name out there right now.
Chris Walton:Right.
Chris Walton:So.
Chris Walton:All right.
Chris Walton:So one other topic that I want to talk to you about too, and I know it's something you're particularly passionate about, is inspiring people to be successful.
Chris Walton:And you've kind of touched on it a little bit there in your last answer too, in terms of helping those early stage entrepreneurs understand, you know, what, what the whole starting a business is all about.
Chris Walton:So, so I'm curious, I want to get more into that.
Chris Walton:So how do you approach doing that in your day to day job now?
Clarence Bethea:I, I think it goes back to empathy.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Clarence Bethea:Like being a former founder, having gone through the trenches of, you know, before I got my first.
Clarence Bethea:Yes, an investor check, I had to pitch 153 notes.
Clarence Bethea:So when you go through that journey and you understand what that journey looks like there's a simple sense of empathy that I think I just have.
Clarence Bethea:And so I try to do two things with founders.
Clarence Bethea:I try to be empathetic and I try to be honest because I think both in VC are missing.
Clarence Bethea:People often don't tell you the truth because they don't want to hurt your feelings and then not have a chance to invest in you later if you blow up.
Clarence Bethea:Empathy comes from, you know, having gone through it.
Clarence Bethea:And so that is where I find myself a lot of times with founders and even with, you know, VCs, like, hey, we need to make sure that we are treating this founder because they're already going through hell.
Clarence Bethea:Like, we don't want them to go through that with us.
Clarence Bethea:And so we really, really try to anchor in on making sure we're being honest and empathetic with founders.
Anne Mazinga:So, Clarence, I, you mentioned empathy and I'd love for you to talk a little bit about, you know, even in your own experience when you were starting your company, what do you think really needs to happen right now to give these entrepreneurs a shot at success?
Anne Mazinga:I mean, I love, I mean one example that I think of is like we hear from all of these retailers, they're like setting aside space, space or we're going to have the startup area or the small business, you know, we're going to invest in bringing X number of small businesses into our massive retail store, you know, as a start to them.
Anne Mazinga:Is that helpful?
Anne Mazinga:Is it causing more problems?
Anne Mazinga:Like maybe just kind of give us a state of, the state of what you think, like the next best path is for a lot of these startup entrepreneurs right now.
Clarence Bethea:Yeah.
Clarence Bethea:So no disrespect to makeup, but that's all just makeup, right?
Clarence Bethea:Yeah, it's just makeup.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Clarence Bethea:Like, yeah, like we, we saw in the George Floyd era where a bunch of people made promises and it was like a trillion dollars worth of promises made and you know, barely any of them happened.
Clarence Bethea:I think a lot of that, you know, let's create extra shelf space and let's, let's do that kind of stuff is just makeup.
Clarence Bethea:I think the truth is most founders are over mentored and underfunded.
Clarence Bethea:So what we need to do is put money, money in the hands of creators and let them create right.
Clarence Bethea:And let them earn their way on the shelf.
Clarence Bethea:But a lot of times, especially for black founders and women founders, we just don't even get the opportunity to get started.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Clarence Bethea:And that is where a lot of our focus comes in.
Anne Mazinga:What kind of areas of investment are important?
Anne Mazinga:Because I've been hearing that from a lot of especially like, you know, brand rep groups who are trying to bring these brands from early startup stage into retailers.
Anne Mazinga:What, what kind of investments are you seeing are most critical for them to be able to get funded?
Anne Mazinga:Like where are those areas that they need funding to focus on?
Anne Mazinga:Is it like in development stage?
Anne Mazinga:Is it in retail media investment?
Anne Mazinga:Like where, where is that, that area that you're seeing?
Anne Mazinga:Most founders need help.
Clarence Bethea:Yeah.
Clarence Bethea:In our business we call it the friends and family round.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Clarence Bethea:That's where you know, your rich uncle gives you 150 grand to get started.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Anne Mazinga:The truth is I need one of those rich uncles.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Chris Walton:But yeah, but that's really interesting because that is where a lot of the early stage money comes from is from people that have rich uncles and not everyone does.
Chris Walton:Right.
Chris Walton:That's what you say, right Clarence?
Clarence Bethea:Yeah, exactly.
Clarence Bethea:And, and most people just don't have the rich uncle that says, you know, here's some money, here's some buddies.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Clarence Bethea:That's money.
Clarence Bethea:So you can try this idea out.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Clarence Bethea:And, and so I think it's really important that we focus in on those early checks like most people think the, the multimillion dollar check is, is the right one.
Clarence Bethea:And truly, sometimes people just need the $200,000 check to get started.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah.
Anne Mazinga:Great.
Chris Walton:So, so how do we go about doing that?
Chris Walton:Like how, how what, like what, what, what needs to happen collectively to make that type of, I guess, you know, friends and family round type money more available to more, let's say women and black entrepreneurs as an example.
Clarence Bethea:Yeah.
Clarence Bethea:So I think it's twofold, I think for folks like us as true.
Clarence Bethea:And we're working on this internally, working on products that allow us to be earlier.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Clarence Bethea:And get away a little bit from our norm that we've been over the last 19, 20 years.
Clarence Bethea:But then I think there's the other side of the coin, which is we need to help entrepreneurs get the information they need to be better at what they do.
Clarence Bethea:So we always talk about there's an information gap and I see it a lot sitting in my seat is that I will see a black founder or woman founder come in and they will really struggle with their pitch, what they supposed to say, how we want to see it.
Clarence Bethea:And so a lot of times that blocks us from being able to even take it serious.
Clarence Bethea:Because if you come to a pitch, and I give you an example, if you come to a pitch, and oftentimes black founders and women founders are credentializing themselves and it takes like 10 minutes.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Clarence Bethea:They want to say, I have a PhD, I've done this, I've done that, I'm.
Clarence Bethea:And it's like 10 minutes of a 30 minute phone call and you're like, I don't need to talk about you for 10 minutes.
Clarence Bethea:Like, tell me what you've done.
Clarence Bethea:Let's move on, let's get to the problem.
Clarence Bethea:And oftentimes, because of the way this industry has gone black, founders, women founders are taught to come in and credentialize yourself as much as possible.
Clarence Bethea:And I tell them, like, no, you don't need to do that.
Clarence Bethea:Like, if you got a PhD, all you need to do is tell us, I got a PhD, that is good enough.
Clarence Bethea:Let's move on to the problem.
Clarence Bethea:Conversely, if most white founders that come in, especially white CIS males that come in, they come in and they're telling you, I am building a trillion dollar company.
Clarence Bethea:This is the best thing that ever happened to you and you would be lucky to invest in me.
Chris Walton:Right.
Clarence Bethea:And so just even that confidence, you're like, I want to give this person money.
Clarence Bethea:Right, right, right.
Clarence Bethea:Because our business is helping companies build businesses so we make money.
Clarence Bethea:Right, right.
Clarence Bethea:And so little things like that is what I try to encourage founders.
Clarence Bethea:You don't need to do that.
Clarence Bethea:Like, come in with all the confidence, come in knowing your stuff and like, give us a chance to look at the real business and not just about yourself.
Chris Walton:So, Clarence, I want to ask you too, so, so how do you activate this then?
Chris Walton:Like, how do you act?
Chris Walton:I mean, you know, different communities, different municipalities have different areas or centers of entrepreneurship.
Chris Walton:How do you activate this, say throughout the country?
Chris Walton:Like, what, what efforts do you think need to be taken there?
Clarence Bethea:Yeah, I don't know if there's like a real solve nationally.
Clarence Bethea:Okay.
Clarence Bethea:I think I have to do the work.
Clarence Bethea:You have to do the work.
Clarence Bethea:And you, like, we all individually have to do the work on our side.
Clarence Bethea:I think to create a national movement, it's just not realistic in our space.
Clarence Bethea:But so every entrepreneur I try to touch, I try to make sure that I'm honest and empathetic towards them so that they see this.
Chris Walton:Got it.
Chris Walton:So your real takeaway though, is that we need more of the early money going to these entrepreneurs to help them out.
Chris Walton:That's.
Chris Walton:That's your big message here, correct?
Anne Mazinga:Clarence, do you find that there's, there's like, where, where is there access to that early money?
Anne Mazinga:I mean, true ventures, obviously, being someone who's empathetic and can understand and be honest with some of these founders.
Anne Mazinga:But are there other places out there that you'd recommend people listening, kind of explore or any, I guess, anything that you have them ask or look out for as they're going to get first round of funding?
Clarence Bethea:Yeah.
Clarence Bethea:So I have a saying that there's three people as an entrepreneur that you need in your life.
Clarence Bethea:If you don't have all three people, you're going to struggle, especially today.
Clarence Bethea:The.
Clarence Bethea:The first person is somebody ahead of you.
Clarence Bethea:So if I want to raise a million dollars, I need to be mentored by somebody who, who has raised a million dollars or more dollars.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Clarence Bethea:So, yeah, I can understand good advice, like how they did it.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Clarence Bethea:The second person is somebody behind me.
Clarence Bethea:So if I raised a million dollars, I need to be turning back and helping the next generation of founders, showing them, hey, here's what you're going to need to be able to show in order to raise a million dollars.
Clarence Bethea:Because I think it's really unfair to take from people in front of you and not give back to people behind you.
Clarence Bethea:And the third person is probably the most important.
Clarence Bethea:You need somebody at your same level who has, who is going through the trenches with you, who their company is at near the same spot as yours that you can call at 1:00 in the morning and say, hey, I am really tired.
Clarence Bethea:I don't know if I can do this anymore.
Clarence Bethea:My wife is yelling at me, my husband is yelling at me, and I go get a reg job.
Clarence Bethea:Like all these things are happening.
Clarence Bethea:You really need that person there to, to sanity check you.
Clarence Bethea:Because if you don't, I can tell you I've.
Clarence Bethea:And I've seen it multiple times.
Clarence Bethea:You can get in a really bad place and, and not trust these other ends of people because you're like, they don't know how I feel.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah.
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Clarence Bethea:And when you know that this person is going through the same thing, I got a guy named Harold Hughes who ran a company called Bandwagon.
Clarence Bethea:He was that for me.
Clarence Bethea:We would call each other 1:00 in the morning, crying, like, I can't do this anymore.
Clarence Bethea:And I think those three people, if you get those three people in your life, it will help you kind of navigate because people in front of you will introduce you to their people.
Clarence Bethea:Right.
Clarence Bethea:Like they will.
Clarence Bethea:They like you.
Clarence Bethea:Hey, this investor who invested in me.
Clarence Bethea:And it kind of all works itself out.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah.
Anne Mazinga:So it's like building your board of directors as an entrepreneur, those people that you can go to versus like a place that you're going to.
Anne Mazinga:To get you know, resources that.
Anne Mazinga:That's building the community.
Anne Mazinga:It sounds like that will help you get to the.
Anne Mazinga:The money that you need.
Clarence Bethea:Yes.
Anne Mazinga:I had one more question for you real quick, because you made me think of something as you were just explaining that.
Anne Mazinga:How do you.
Anne Mazinga:If.
Anne Mazinga:If you're my person that I'm calling at 1:00 in the morning, Clarence, how do you advise those listening when they're.
Anne Mazinga:They're.
Anne Mazinga:They're doing an entrepreneurial venture?
Anne Mazinga:How do you advise them to think about the Runway that they give themselves to see through an idea or even the questions that they should be asking themselves along the way of, like, when those creeping thoughts of like, I need to go get a job or this isn't going to work, like, how do you advise them to kind of consider, like, look, you got to give yourself a real a year to prove out this idea, or you got to give yourself six more months to do this.
Anne Mazinga:Like, what.
Anne Mazinga:What kind of, like, guidelines do you have for that situation?
Clarence Bethea:Yeah.
Clarence Bethea:So great question.
Clarence Bethea:I'm not going to give you the answer you think I'm about to give you.
Anne Mazinga:All right, Even better.
Clarence Bethea:I was crazy and fanatical about being a company.
Clarence Bethea:There was no timeline.
Clarence Bethea:There was no, I'm giving myself this amount of time to do it right.
Clarence Bethea:I was all about.
Clarence Bethea:I was willing to sacrifice everything.
Clarence Bethea:And this is gonna sound harsh, but I was willing to sacrifice my marriage.
Clarence Bethea:I was really sacrifice.
Clarence Bethea:Friends.
Clarence Bethea:Like, everything was on the table because I had this vision about what I thought the future should look like.
Clarence Bethea:And so my answer to that question is always, most of the time, when you're going through things and things are hard, you're about to have a breakthrough.
Clarence Bethea:And mine was.
Clarence Bethea: my wife told me in October of: Clarence Bethea:At the end of December, you're done.
Clarence Bethea:You're gonna go get a job at Target.
Clarence Bethea:Her exact words to me, you're gonna go stock shelves at Target.
Clarence Bethea:If we don't get a sign that this thing is going in a different direction, you are done.
Clarence Bethea:Because you have a family you need to take care of.
Clarence Bethea:And I remember, I was like, whatever.
Clarence Bethea:Like, I just divorce you in December.
Clarence Bethea:We'll move on, right?
Clarence Bethea:Like, Like, I.
Clarence Bethea:I was seriously, I was like, I am going to chase this thing down.
Clarence Bethea:And I think that, like, God, is so amazing, because in December, an investor approached me and said, hey, I want to give you 100k.
Clarence Bethea:And it kind of started off the road for me.
Clarence Bethea:And so, like, I don't believe in balance.
Clarence Bethea:I don't believe that you should put timeline.
Clarence Bethea:Like, if you believe in this vision, you should sacrifice it all.
Clarence Bethea:You should mortgage the house.
Clarence Bethea:You should do it all.
Clarence Bethea:If you really believe in it.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah.
Clarence Bethea:Until you.
Chris Walton:Until there's a point maybe where you don't believe in it.
Chris Walton:Right.
Chris Walton:Because at some point.
Clarence Bethea:Yeah, that point.
Chris Walton:But that's your thing.
Chris Walton:It's like you have an unwavering commitment to it until you just no longer can.
Chris Walton:And that's your trigger for I need to get out of this.
Clarence Bethea:Yeah.
Chris Walton:And that just never happened for you.
Chris Walton:It sounded like.
Chris Walton:Like you were just still believing in yourself and the idea that you could make it happen.
Chris Walton:And that's.
Chris Walton:Yeah, that's good.
Clarence Bethea:Yeah.
Clarence Bethea:And I think most people have an easy breaking point.
Clarence Bethea:And this entrepreneurship will test you.
Clarence Bethea:It will test you and make you break.
Clarence Bethea:And I just think, like, if you want to do this the right way, you can't break at the slightest hint of something going wrong.
Clarence Bethea:Like, you got to keep going.
Chris Walton:And that was the one thing I was going to ask you to close us out.
Chris Walton:Because, you know, I imagine as you've been sharing these lessons, I imagine and.
Chris Walton:And these kind of frameworks and rubrics that you've been talking about, I imagine those were learned from your years of.
Chris Walton:Of doing this.
Chris Walton:So I'm curious.
Chris Walton:I'm sure you've been asked this before, but as you look back, is there anything you wish you'd done differently or wish you knew then that, you know, now, you know, experience isn't something you have until after you need?
Chris Walton:It is one thing that we always say.
Chris Walton:So.
Chris Walton:So what was that for you?
Clarence Bethea:Yeah, I.
Clarence Bethea:I don't regret.
Clarence Bethea:I.
Clarence Bethea:I wouldn't do anything different because it ended up, you know, ended up working out for me in a way that I didn't even believe was possible.
Clarence Bethea:I believe that adversity is a gift, and so I would go through all that adversity again if I knew.
Clarence Bethea:Yeah.
Clarence Bethea:This is where I was going.
Clarence Bethea:So.
Clarence Bethea:No, no regrets here.
Chris Walton:Got it.
Chris Walton:Got it.
Chris Walton:But was it.
Chris Walton:Was there any.
Chris Walton:I.
Chris Walton:I totally buy into the whole no regrets thing, too, because that's kind of the philosophy we live by, too.
Chris Walton:But I'm curious.
Chris Walton:Was there any.
Chris Walton:Like, when you said.
Chris Walton:When you said, like, you know, have these three people in your life, did you have them, you know, with you at every step?
Chris Walton:Or did you, like, was there a time where you're like, oh, shoot, I wish I had had, you know, this person who had gone through, you know, raising money with me before, some other example like that?
Clarence Bethea:Yeah, I mean, I, again, I think you, I go back to, like, everything happens for a reason.
Clarence Bethea:And especially when I look at my life, I've been so fortunate.
Clarence Bethea:Like, and, and I, the, the, the comedy I make most people is like, I'm living a life that I don't deserve.
Clarence Bethea:And I am fortunate and blessed and God has blessed my life and my family, and I don't, like, I don't deserve to be here.
Clarence Bethea:I got really, really lucky.
Clarence Bethea:So when I look back at things like that, I say, you know what?
Clarence Bethea:Like, people came in and out of my life at times where it made sense, right?
Clarence Bethea:And they left my life at a time that it made sense.
Clarence Bethea:And I'm, I'm grateful for their, you know, their moment in my life right now.
Clarence Bethea:I hope they got, they see the same thing about me.
Chris Walton:Got it.
Anne Mazinga:Well, Clarence, I cannot tell you how much we appreciate your honesty in this conversation.
Anne Mazinga:Like, you say it and you do it.
Anne Mazinga:You're walking the walk.
Anne Mazinga:It was wonderful.
Anne Mazinga:I really appreciate your perspective, especially in our ongoing conversations here at OmniTalk.
Anne Mazinga:If people want to get in touch with you, they want to learn more, you might be that person that they call in The Future at 1:00 in the morning.
Anne Mazinga:What is the best way for them to get into touch with you?
Clarence Bethea:Yeah, I mean, you can email me.
Clarence Bethea:Just clarence.
Clarence Bethea:True ventures.com is my email address.
Clarence Bethea:And I'm on, you know, Twitter, Instagram, all just Clarence.
Clarence Bethea:Underscore Bethea.
Anne Mazinga:Excellent.
Chris Walton:Awesome.
Chris Walton:Well, that wraps us up.
Chris Walton:Thanks again to Clarence Bethia of True Ventures for sitting down with us today.
Chris Walton:And thanks to everyone out there for listening in to this episode of our ongoing series on VC perspectives across the retail and consumer goods industries.
Chris Walton:Please let us know what you thought of our interview with Clarence on social media.
Chris Walton:Let us know also how we can do better.
Chris Walton:And as always, on behalf of all of us at Omnitalk Retail, be careful out there.