WSO Podcast: Arjan Schutte (Core Innovation Capital): Investing for the good of society

Link to the episode

Some quotes with timestamps:

4:38 – CORE is a venture capital firm. We invest in early stage financial technology companies that we think will transform the lives of everyday people… we’ll bet on anyone from two guys in their mom’s garage to a company that is revenue or EBITDA creating.

7:50 – Typically, we try to catch founders as early in their journey as possible... even well before we can write a check… the nature of venture investing is such that with hot teams (when they court VC) it’s as small of an interaction as possible. It’s so difficult to discern who is a team that has a pretty deck and who is a team that can actually build something. And the reverse I’d argue as well. They don’t know if I’m awesome or an asshole, and they’re going to have me on their board for a decade if they’re successful.

10:21 – We try to pattern match for entrepreneurs. There are, kind of, basic obvious patterns that you see. You look for signs of achievement, both academically and professionally. You look for evidence of grit… one of the clues that I use all the time when I talk to an entrepreneur is, apparently, someone’s propensity to be successful in high school sports is a very high predictor of their grit later in life. We have fairly specific questions we ask people, like that, to really understand who they are as people.

20:06 – When I pitch, entrepreneurs really connect with our mission. We get into deals because we are mission driven… into incredibly competitive deals. On the flip side, LPs (our investors) are deeply suspicious of this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been pitching someone and they say, “Okay. This is all great Arjan. But is this money making or is this philanthropy.”