# Portfolio Construction, Optimising SPVs, Opportunity Investing "Between Rounds", Being Distribution-Centric Over Product-Centric and Capital Concentration Within Funds With Sumeet Gajri, Chief Strategy Officer @ Carta 20VC · Jan 17, 2020 · 57 min · 13,627 words Speakers: Harry Stebbings, Sumeet Gajri Source: https://www.996.fm/episodes/20vc--ep-990c3171/ ## Cold open **Harry Stebbings** [0:00]: Welcome back to the twenty minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings. And my word, I'm so excited for the show today. Why? Well, because our guest just has so many different perspectives owing to the fact that he wears essentially every hat in the value chain, operator, investor, investor, and LP. A truly unique guest. And so with that, I'm thrilled to welcome Sumeet Gajri, chief strategy officer, Carta. The startup that helps companies and investors manage their cap tables, valuations, investments, and equity plans. Sumeet is largely responsible for all things fundraising and m and a among other things, and Carta has raised over $485,000,000 from the likes of Andreessen, USV, Thrive, Spark, K9, Lightspeed, and Meritech, just to name a few. Sumeet is also a managing partner at Original Capital where he's partnered with companies including Front, Tonal, Instabase, Everlywell, and Cockroach Labs, again, to name a few. And finally, Sumeet is also an LP in world leading firms such as USV and Valar Ventures. Now this episode really was a team effort, have to admit. So a huge thanks do go to David and Andreessen, Manu at K9, Arjun at Tribe, Brian at Thrive, Henry at Carta, and Paul at Front for some fantastic questions, suggestions today. I think we need a group, Mojitos, to thank you for that. But before we move into the show today, ## Sponsor read **Harry Stebbings** [1:09]: this episode is brought to you by Silicon Valley Bank. 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I'm excited too. It's been so much fun researching for this one. But I wanna get the ball rolling today by discussing a little bit about you. So so much to unpack, but you're both an operator and an investor. So how did you make your way into Venture First? Let's start with that as a ground zero. Yeah. Of course. **Sumeet Gajri** [3:56]: So my entry into Venture Capital came from a process of figuring out what I didn't want to do versus knowing what I'd wanted to do. I grew up in Scotland. I originally came to The US to go to college, and my move to The US coincided with the financial crisis. And at that time, my parents had a family business which got wrapped up in a dispute with a lender, bank. And since I was unable to work in The US because I was saving up my work eligibility for after I graduated, I ended up managing that dispute on behalf of my parents for the best part of four years. And the reason I bring this up is the only employers at that time who were recruiting at my college and were willing to sponsor foreign students were banks. But it was safe to say that my love for banks at that moment was pretty low, and I actually made an intentional decision to avoid banking as a career path. The downside of that was essentially eliminated any chance I had of finding a job to remain in The US because at that point, no one else was recruiting and sponsoring international kids at Mexico. And then one day in CareerNet, I came across an opportunity at growth equity firm based in New York, and they were willing to sponsor me. So I applied. I got a first run interview. And as soon as I got it, I stopped going to class for a week. I read everything I could on growth equity and venture capital because I'd never heard of it before. And that was my first introduction to the industry. And I remember thinking as I read all the materials that this sounds like the best career in the world, and I have to do everything in my power to get it because, a, like, I get to stay in The US, and, b, this seems like the best career someone could have. So long story short, I got a job, and that was my star into tech investing. **Harry Stebbings** [5:23]: I mean, I I love that as a star, and it reminds me of mine going home and reading everything I could from the likes of Brad Feld. But I guess my question after that then is, okay. We have that initial passion. You do make the way into the industry there. Could I ask why did you leave then for the world of operating with Carta? Yeah. So I **Sumeet Gajri** [5:38]: spent three and a half years working in growth equity in New York where I had a good fortune of, a, learning the tools of a trade at a a reestablished firm, and then also got to meet over a thousand founders in that time frame. And it was during those meetings of founders, I got more clarity in what I enjoyed, which was working with founders closer to the point of creation. And something which I had just started doing on the side when I was working was actually spending time with all these founders I met and talking about company building and actually, in certain cases, just helping them with problems that are coming up in their own businesses. And I got to the point where I decided I wanted to move to the base so I could be closer to a lot of these companies that I was talking to. And the initial plan was go interview at firms in Sand Hill Road and go work your way up the ladder. But there'd be a couple things which I had realized in my journey so far, which was if you want to pick the people that you get to work with, you have to be more of an a junior member of the investment team. Typically, if you wanna pick the investments, you have to be a voting member of the IC. At this point, was '24, 25, and those job offers were not coming for those types of roles. And secondly, there'd been this long held debate, I think, in VC circles as to, hey. What's the best path if you want to be an investor? Is it to just be an investor? Is it to be an operator? And I felt like there could be an opportunity to do both. So what I started doing was talking to founders about the possibility of, hey. What if I was to come and help you solve these business problems that you have at your companies? But we won't call it a four year gig. We'll call it, you know, some something which is shorter, call it six to twelve months. In return for me coming and helping you solve operational problems, I get to invest in your company in lieu of taking options. And I thought that would be my way of spreading both being an investor, getting to pick your own investments, but also building that operational expertise and working with founders. Because, ultimately, at the end of the day, I think the common theme across the best investors and the value over time is that they're actually just people that founders want to work with based on the experiences that other founders over time have had and the great companies that most investors have been a part of helping to build. And so for me, I could accomplish working with great founders, founders I got to pick, and then helping them build their businesses and hopefully hopefully, this would go on to be generational companies. It would set a path for me one day to return to venture full time, and that's how I ended up combining both. **Harry Stebbings** [7:48]: Listen. I love that as an intro story there, and I couldn't agree more, especially in terms of the founders picking you in many ways than the founders picking the investor. And my question, I'm sorry for going off schedule this early, but I spoke to one of your founders, Paul, obviously, was acquired by upfront, and he asked, asked Sumeet, how does he build relationships of trust so early with founders? So I'd love your advice. How do you advise investors in terms of really building that environment of trust and safety with founders early on? **Sumeet Gajri** [8:13]: I think a lot of this comes from mindset. I think if you're talking to a founder and they realize that there's no empathy for the founder, that, you you know, you're there to solve your own needs, which are, you know, hey. You have capital when you want to invest it versus, hey. Like, this is a founder. There's more founders in the world that you can help than you can actually invest in practically. If if you go into those meetings and I think that, you know, you're focused on helping the founder solve their problems and looking for ways in which, you you know, you could be value add, I think it just sets a tone from the very beginning. You're there, and you want to do what's best for the company and the founders versus what's best for you. And if that's what you can relay in early conversations, I think it helps build trust a lot faster. I think another mindset I have is I always try to make decisions in anything I do in life as if seventy years in the future, if I were to look back, I wouldn't regret the decision. And so for me, like, I look at these interactions I have with founders, with other investors, the ecosystem, with just people in general as not the first interaction I'll have with them in my life time, but founders start multiple companies, investors, you'll coinvest with them multiple occasions. You kinda want to be in a position where, like, even if you don't partner this time around, you know, next time around, the the founder will remember the interactions ahead of you and want to partner with you. And I actually had that experience very recently where I met the founders of Cerebras a couple years ago prior to their acquisition by Capital One. Because I was focused on investing in growth stage companies at the time, I wasn't able to partner with them at the time. But I think I left them with a really positive impression, and we built a trust and a good relationship to where when they started their new company, Round, the recently announced fair raise led by Keith at Founders Fund, I I was able to get into that despite it being very competitive. And, yeah, I think the reason that they let me in and I was so fortunate partner with them was because they remembered the interactions that we had had over three years ago. **Harry Stebbings** [9:58]: I totally agree in terms of providing that incredible founder experience, and that is very much kind of core to how how I think and so totally aligned with you there. I I do wanna dig in then. If we take it one step further to almost more of the structure, which is Original Capital today, if we think about it as a fund in itself, is it like any other micro fund? How does the process and thinking work on an individual investment basis, Sumeet? Yeah. So the **Sumeet Gajri** [10:19]: similarities end from perspective. So we're similar size to many of our micro funds. However, whereas most of our micro funds will target seed stage investments and make investments in the 250 k to $2,000,000 range, we're stage agnostic, and we've written checks as large as $8,000,000. And a lot of micro funds will take an approach of being diverse in the investments they make and consistent check size. We know we take a different approach where despite the fact that we've written over 50 checks a day and made investments in 42 different companies, five of those companies account for 93% of our capital today. So, you know, we're pretty different structurally when it comes to our fund. And also in terms of how we think about individual investments, we have three criteria that we look at when we're trying to make decisions as to whether or not we should partner with a particular founder and company. You know, number one, is the company solving an intense pain point? We spend a lot of time looking into that. I mean, you know, oftentimes, like, we'll spend six months plus as we're getting to know a company examining that point. And, you know, another way of saying that and, like, what we're trying to get to the core of is, hey. Has this team built a product that meets a need in the market? And, you know, team product market are really three things that most investors spend a lot of time thinking about, but we we you know, we've tried to condense that into MBI idea of this intense pain point, where if you if you get a sense of this company solving an intense pain point, I mean, you get that from the customers, you get that from the users who are using it. It makes it an interesting candidate to dive deeper into. Number two, is there a base case where valuation can increase 10 x? And three, is there a potential for unbound upside where valuation can increase over 25 x? And on those last two points, yeah, I think it sounds super simple, but, you know, the framework should eliminate most opportunities we see from consideration. And if you look at the work done by the folks over at correlation ventures, they published some research a couple years ago, which looked at over 21,000 financings and their eventual exits over a decade. What they saw was 4% of investments yielded more than a 10 x return, and only 1.5 x percent of investments yielded more than 20 x. So statistically, very few companies will ever meet these thresholds. And so we spend a lot of time upfront focusing on whether or not this company has the opportunity to meet those thresholds to potentially be an outlier. And companies that hit all three of these points and which is actually very far and few between them, we get excited about it and we'll look to partner with the company. And I think the companies that hit these better than others are the ones where we'll make very, very concentrated bets into. **Harry Stebbings** [12:35]: I mean, my words to me. I'm absolutely loving this, but I do wanna pick up on a couple of elements there. First, the concentration of capital. And then as you said there about the very, very few outliers that really make it to those high multiples. Given the two combining, I'd love to hear, how does that mean then you would think about an approach portfolio construction given the two that we just discussed? **Sumeet Gajri** [12:53]: Yeah. Of course. So at Original Capital, we have a very simple objective, be the highest returning venture capital fund in the world. And I think there's a lot of literature out there which talks about how to drive returns, but the crux of it usually is the same. Make parallel investments, as you just said, which is, you know, those outliers. And I don't think there's one particular path to building an outlier fund. If you look at Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Union Square Ventures, and Benchmark, they've all built funds which supply a diverse fund structures and portfolio construction, and they're extremely successful. And if my fund could be as good as them or better, that'd be wonderful. They also have, I think, different models as to how they operate their funds versus what I do, where they're looking at companies and points of fundraising. We get to know companies before fundraising, but, you know, I think a lot of companies will go to a series a. They'll get to know these funds. One of these funds will win. And oftentimes, these funds will not be able to invest again until the company comes back to the market for series b. And so as a result of that, the business model which is implied by a lot of these funds, outside of having a diverse portfolio construction, is that they will spend a lot of time getting to know a lot of companies because then they really have to invest in companies when the opportunity arises. My approach is a little different because I spend all of my time trying to figure out, hey. What are the 10 to 20 companies of this generation that are going to matter? And then I spend a lot of time and energy getting to know those founders, adding value, and eventually earning a way onto their cap table. For example, founder Instabase and Nun. He and I got to know one another over a four year period. We probably met over a 100 times before we decided to formally partner together. And, you know, the way in which we partnered together wasn't actually even in a formal fundraising round. It was between a series a and a series b, and that was the way that we sort of got going. And I think my mechanisms that I can deploy similar to, like, you know, I've done at companies like Carta is I don't have to wait for a fundraising round. If I can build a relationship with a founder where, you know, they have conviction that I'm going to add value to their company, I have conviction that this could be a very special company. I've done multiple rounds in between traditional venture financing runs to get a placeholder in these companies and start working with those founders more closely. And so I think part of it is differentiation of model where I can be concentrated because I'm looking to get into companies outside of traditional runs. You know, I'm able to double down in companies in those traditional runs once I've already shown value and gone a place. And so there there's just differences, which I think make my concentrated approach a little bit different to, you if you're taking a more diverse approach. **Harry Stebbings** [15:09]: I mean, you're giving me so much to unpack here. I mean, you mentioned let's start with the founder itself. You mentioned Ananta there, Instabase. I do wanna ask because I spoke to Henry Ward, your CEO at Carta, and and he said you're the best when it comes to founder picking. And so he asked, what's your internal framework for picking which founders will change the world? **Sumeet Gajri** [15:25]: Yeah. So for me, and this may come across as a somewhat controversial statement, I'm a very market first investor. There there was this great presentation given by Don Valentine, which you can find on YouTube at Stanford University. And he spoke about the importance of markets and picking the right companies. And so for me, a lot of it often comes down to, hey. Is this a pain point that I have a lot of conviction over? Is this a market which is going to matter in the future? And if that's the case, I can then go and spend time looking for founders or trying to go after this market. And sometimes you meet them in the first six months when you're ever trying to look for someone solving those pain points. Other times, you wait years and years before you meet the right person. And so I think because I have a perspective on the market itself, when me and the founder are getting to know one another, you start to realize I think the things that you start to focus in terms of, like, does this founder know the best way to go win this market? You know, you can you get a sense for their clarity of thought. You get a sense for do you any secrets that other people don't know about these markets? Do even have approaches which are not just product innovation led, but also distribution led, which can help them win these markets. And so for me, like, by having an opinion on the market first, that allows me to figure out, hey. Is this the right founder to then go back? An example I'll use with Henry, where he didn't start the first cap table company and nor was he actually building a cap table company from day one. And there there had been a dozen or so companies over the last two decades that had been started to go after this problem. Henry started a financial infrastructure company, and because I've been looking for people who are trying to get these entry points into private markets, when I met Henry and heard his approach to tackling tackling the market and his approach to building both product, but also getting distribution advantage, it just made so much sense that he had that clarity of thought going forward, like, twenty years where he has his ambition and his view of how he's going to rebuild financial infrastructure here in The US and, eventually globally to where you just know it's the right founder to place a bet on after you, had the opportunity to see what's out there in the market. **Harry Stebbings** [17:17]: Given the importance that you weigh to markets themselves, I do have to ask it. Super interesting because, Carta, in the early days, it didn't look like the biggest of markets. Now everyone sees with the multiproduct incredible suite that you've built out, it's much more apparent. But in the early days, it didn't look like the biggest of markets. I'm interested. For you as an investor now with the investing hat on, how do you think about and approach market size with that in mind? Yeah. So I think market **Sumeet Gajri** [17:39]: size both matters and doesn't matter. I think it matters in the sense of if if you have a single product company and the market opportunity here is constrained. If founder isn't able to eloquently tell you what's next if they win this market, it makes it difficult to put money in because then, you know, it's unlikely to hit 10 x threshold. It's unlikely to hit a 25 x threshold. And and so that's where market size matters. Where it doesn't matter is where, you know, you have a company like Carta where, yeah, the initial market size is small, but that's actually a good feature of this because it means that you can dominate that small market very early. And when founders have clarity and vision around all the other possibilities that lie ahead of them, if they're able to dominate this initial market, it makes it possible to then buy into the idea that there's a larger market out there. And, you know, in the case of Carta, it was always dominate cap tables. You're able to lay the foundation for a new natural market infrastructure, and then you're able to go and try to rebuild what exists in the public world and private world, and, you know, that opportunity is huge. And so for me, it's always the market size only matters negatively if you don't have the ability to go beyond it. I mean, it doesn't matter if there is that **Harry Stebbings** [18:46]: clarity of vision as to what was next. Totally agree in terms of kind of asking that and really needing to see that road map. I I do wanna touch on two elements that we have discussed before, and there are two elements of this, and we've both spoken to a lot of LPs in the past. But the two conventional held beliefs that LPs have that it requires in the proposition for to be successful in venture. One is, like, diversification, and it's the common feeling that the more diversified, the safer the asset. How do you think about the benefits of diversification diversification versus versus concentration? And how do you normally explain it to an LP when they say, actually, what are the benefits of concentration over diversification? **Sumeet Gajri** [19:20]: Yeah. Of course. So I think typically when an LP thinks about diversification, diversification, it comes from the construct of how most funds typically operate, which is they get to know companies at the points of fundraising, and they have to make a decision. And you you don't have usually the opportunity to build that relationship relationship with with a company and founder before you pull the trigger oftentimes. And in order to sort of diversify your risk from having to make your decisions in that way, yeah, like, you'll typically make 20 to 30 investments in a fund, and over time, you'll be able to double down on companies that look like your winners. I think that's the way that venture has worked for, you know, the most part of the last twenty four years. When I talk to LPs, what I emphasize to them is the places where I place the majority of my capital are not founders I met last week. The place where my capital goes is founders where, you know, I've already been spending time with them solving business problems, and we've already been working together before I've ever, you know, usually written a dollar into the company. And as a result of actually building that close relationship, we're derisking it together. And because of my model where I actually go and work with these companies and spend a lot of time with them, I mean, I'm also able to derisk other risks to other funds can derisk, which is the three things that help companies live are, like, building out GTM, scaling their org, and then also fundraising. And frivolous free mechanisms, which I think help derisk the investment, it makes more sense for me to then be able to make concentrated bets because I've built this deep conviction about these companies, things which are maybe seen as risks if you're using a traditional venture model. I'm able to derisk to an extent. And so the LPs that get really enthusiastic about working with me are able to see the results that I've already driven so far. We're able to get references from the founders, and the companies are performing so well. And as a result, you know, there's a good subset of LPs at Veribat are enthusiastic about what I'm doing. It's not for everyone. Like, know, if you're a university in diamond and you want to find a fund manager that you can deploy $500,000,000 behind over a ten year period, my model probably isn't right for you. But if you're looking to invest in emerging managers and, you know, you're looking for something different when all the other funds are getting started in a very similar way. A lot of the LPs I've spoken to find this model attractive just because it is different, and return profile so far, I think, makes it **Harry Stebbings** [21:27]: very attractive as well. And listen. Looking at the underlying companies, it absolutely does. The other element that I did wanna discuss is the other con conventionally held wisdom, which is reserves is where the money is made. How do you feel about reserve allocation, and what's your strategy with Original today? **Sumeet Gajri** [21:41]: Yeah. So we we actually don't have a reserve policy. And I think, again, this goes back to how we're structurally set up against a lot of our funds where most funds will go out. They'll raise, call it, $2,300,000,000. They'll invest in an initial set of investments into 20 furry companies. And, you know, then you have to look for the winners and then double down behind them. And that strategy works where you do have a single fund and you're typically trying to deploy that fund. Our approach is a little different where we are able to make concentrated bets in these companies that we build a lot of conviction over. And so if a company hits the free criteria that we're looking for to make investment, and then on top of that, we build a lot of conviction behind, it wouldn't make sense from our fund model to, you know, deploy capital over multiple runs, and we should try to buy as much of that company in that initial investment. And the goal is until until we hit the constraint of 20% in the fund, we keep going and putting more money into that company as early as possible. And the other advantage we have is we can SPV after we hit that 20% threshold into the company. So in a way, like, you know, reserves are basically a artifact of, you know, hey. You're using a fund and to your investments versus we already have preexisting understandings over LPs where we'll deploy the fund first. But, look, if we have a winner and keeps fitting our ten and twenty five act thresholds, the LPs have opportunities to come back get back in overtime and put more money in for SPV. So we we actually got around that that way. **Harry Stebbings** [23:02]: I'm so busy, sir, about the LPs there because we have a huge amount of emerging managers and people who are looking to start their own funds that are listening to the show. Can I ask what advice would you give to other managers who are raising given the the many, many LP meetings that you've been in and experienced? **Sumeet Gajri** [23:16]: Yeah. So I think you do need to have a unique value prop. There's a lot of capital in the ecosystem today. And what most LPs want to know is given that there's so much capital out there, given that, you know, the best funds will always have an advantage in terms of they get to see more deals and an emerging fund manager, what is your unique value prop which is gonna help you get into companies and get founders to want to work with you and over time drive a fund, which is top quartile or, you know, an outlier fund. And I think if you have a eloquent explanation as to why you have an advantage there, LPs are going to want to partner with you. And oftentimes, it is going to be you have to talk to a number of LPs, find the ones that align best with you. Again, if you have a unique value prop, you're always gonna find people that will want to put money behind you. If you can't really differentiate yourself, then, yeah, you're you're you're gonna have trouble. And those are the funds which I think have the hardest time to raise capital. **Harry Stebbings** [24:05]: I'm totally with you in terms of the kind of required value prop and differentiation, especially today. I do wanna take some of the elements, so that you said that a little bit deeper. And you said specifically about distribution and one of your core advice providing areas being really helping in terms of go to market. Can we talk about this in distribution versus product? What did you mean when you say kind of you help founders think about distribution versus products? **Sumeet Gajri** [24:27]: Yeah. Of course. So I think if you look at Silicon Valley over the last twenty years, founders and CEOs have changed quite a lot. In 1999, there was a good chance that the CEO of a given tech company wasn't the founder. Their background was business orientated. Fast forward to 2019, your typical CEO probably is a founder, and they likely come from a product engineering background. That often means that they have had less go to market exposure, and therefore, business is not their own skill set. It doesn't mean that they can't pick it up over time, but it does mean that there is a gap in the market, in my opinion, for when you partner with founders to help provide a lot of expertise across, you know, things like go to market and scaling other businesses and then fundraising. So for me, when it comes to the topic of distribution versus product, a lot of founders that you meet that come from product or engineering backgrounds, the thing that they put the largest emphasis on is product led innovation. Like, hey. Well, we're gonna build one product, then we're gonna build another product, and they're both gonna be successful. But you look at what as Mark Andreessen says, the general model for successful tech companies is that they become distribution centric rather than product centric. And so when I partner with founders, the goal is like, look. You've got product market in this first product, so the goal is very simple. Let's blow this initial market up and go and get as much market share as possible in this. But if you want to build a enduring generational company, we do have to start putting in the foundations for distribution. And that can be building out your direct sales team, your channel sales team, building out your capabilities when it comes to things like product marketing. But at the same time, it's also then starting to build those next set of products where which are going to have an advantage not because they're always the best products, but because you have now built this distribution system that you're able to push them for. And the example I can give you is Carta started off as a cap table product. And, you know, when when I went there, year and was spent actually working on, it was product number two. Like, what's the right product market fit? Because we we have this advantage where we have all these cap tables. We've mapped out the network for 20 plus percent of venture backed companies in The US between investors or shareholders and their employees. And it became pretty clear over time that, you know, the next product would have to be investor centric. But the product that we build, it went from 0 to $10,000,000 of revenue, I mean, under fourteen months. It honestly had very little to do with the product itself. You know, it was probably as big as other things in the market, but I wouldn't say it was 10 x better. What we have was we had this data advantage in terms of we already had the information we gathered from having managed cap tables for these companies already. And I meant that the product that we even had had a data advantage, and we were able to offer things that other people just weren't able to do. And then by targeting funds that had a larger percentage of our portfolios already on Carta, we're able to convert people very quickly and just get distribution for that product at a much faster pace. And as we're building a lot of our financial services products this year, but we're gonna start launching over the next three to six months, The exact same thesis, which is our ability to actually go to market and scale them very quickly is gonna come from the fact that we now already have these relationships of, call it, a third of a venture ecosystem in The US. So we're adding, call it, a percent of the ecosystem a month to Carta at this point in The US. And that's what I mean by focus on distribution led versus product led when I'm working with founders, which is, you know, I get your skill set is building product, not less, mix that with a little bit of, hey. Like, once you have a product that sticks, how do we bend things in our favor and make sure that other things that we build over time win as well? And it's not going to be because of the individual product. It's gonna be because it tie into the distribution that we've already built. **Harry Stebbings** [27:48]: Can I ask? So I totally am with you in terms of this distribution centricity. I guess my question is we see a lot of companies today who rely on other people's distribution channels, be it social, be it SEO, whatever that may be. How important do you think it is to own your own lines of distribution? **Sumeet Gajri** [28:03]: Yeah. Honestly, the biggest and best companies out there are very, you know, generational businesses today, the Cisco's, Facebook's, Apple's, Amazons of the world, they don't rely on those channels very much. Like, fact, they do become those channels. And, like, you look at Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, those are the channels that everyone else that doesn't have a distribution advantage is trying to use or to get distribution. And the truly unique companies that go on to become enduring and generational, let's pick an example like Salesforce. They have an initial product that they get so good at then being able to sell additional products to their customer base and then cross selling products across different product lines to their customers, that's a unique distribution advantage. And then you're able to then build additional advantage by then becoming the ecosystem itself, whatever market you're in. I mean, think that's pretty unique. If you're trying to get distribution through social media or, like, traditional advertising, the top way to build a business, and if you're already in a market where, you know, the product is commodified, like, at some point, your CAC is just going to be unsustainable. And I think that's a that's a reason a lot of these companies that you see today have uncontrollable burn rates because the only way that they are growing is spending money on customer acquisition channels where they don't actually have a lot of control over. And as a result, their growth is very expensive versus companies that are able to build one product and then do it for go for their own distribution channels to sell the second product or the third product, their their customer acquisition cost is **Harry Stebbings** [29:20]: close to zero because they already have a relationship with the customer. Totally. Listen. I couldn't agree with you more. I think the saturation rates aligned to customer acquisition is what scares me probably more menning these days. I do wanna ask you because you did touch on cost there and expanding from the single products to the multiproduct company that it is today. And I spoke to Henry before the episode, and he said how you kind of you've mastered this and led it so brilliantly. Can I ask then a meta question that I hope is not too broad, but what's been some of your biggest lessons from turning Carta from this single product company to the suite of products that we have today? **Sumeet Gajri** [29:48]: Yeah. So I think one thing which I underappreciated when I got into the operating side of Teams was I thought that, you know, you build a product and become I was very much of the product innovation mindset. So actually learning how you build distribution, you know, how how you leverage a company's existing distribution in order to, a, figure out what what the next products that you should build are, but then also to get get adoption. That's been very helpful for me so far in a lesson I've been able to buy across a lot of other companies. I'd say the second thing is the people matter a lot. Oftentimes, when you're thinking about additional product lines that you're trying to get into and scale a company, I think it does matter that you have the best people working on these products and projects. And I think oftentimes when companies choose to go into a new area, you'll put people that may already work at a company or maybe people who don't have some expertise in this market onto the problem. And what I find is there there's there's a blend you need to have between finding the right domain experts, whoever inside of the company or outside the company and bring them on board, and then also working with people that have been at the company and understand your existing customers, understand what your distribution advantages are, being able to align them together in order to get the best results when you do launch new products. Because I think oftentimes, companies will miss one or the other, which is you'll ever have domain experts that don't understand your customers and your distribution advantage, or you'll you'll have people that know about your distribution advantage and your customers that don't actually have a nuanced insights into being able to build that product that is able to add value to your customer base? **Harry Stebbings** [31:14]: Can I ask a really unfair question? It's one that I always oscillate between. And it's the kind of the two opposing thoughts, and one is the person's never had experience in that space, and so they bring this fresh lens, this fresh perspective, and they're not bogged down by precedents that are said in prior years of the industry. And then there's others which is, hey. They've worked in this industry for twenty years. They know it back to front. They are the right person to back to reshape it. Which camp do you find yourself in more? And I know that's a really unfair question, but I'm super interested. Yeah. Of course. So I **Sumeet Gajri** [31:43]: I think it really depends on, does this person have some novel insights which other people don't have? And it can come from someone that is fresh to the industry and they're here because they noticed something different. At the same time, it could also be someone that's been working at this for, you fifteen, twenty plus years, has developed that experience, and have built, like, you know, the v one and the v two, and now they're coming back to build the v three. And, you know, an example of a founder that has done it that way, you know, would be like an. I don't think anyone would do that, but his industry expertise wasn't helpful to him in building Zoom. At the same time, I I'll point to Henry when it comes to being able to actually, I'll pick a different founder since I've been using Henry a lot. I'll point to Dion, who is the founder of Technologies, a business which is going after enterprise search. I think the traditional perspective on how you solve enterprise search is you need to get all the data inside of an organization. You have to be able to service all people at all times in a way that that you're servicing everyone is by, you know, having a search bar. I mean, Dion, he came into the industry without much pedigree, but he'd realized some unique insights just for other products and companies that he'd worked at where, in his opinion, if you really wanted to solve the problem of enterprise search, it was actually you go narrow, not broad. Search isn't actually a text box anymore. It's the interactions that people internally or externally are having with the information of that company. And so if you're able to then build a product which is able to go silo by silo in terms of different information sources inside the company, so support, sales, etcetera. And then also a lot of the interactions at which you're able to pull the information, not come from being to searching in a box, but the ways that customers or employees communicate with the company, which is things like email or or or, you know, for chat, that's how you would actually solve the enterprise search problem, which is you have to be able to honor key insights and information in real time when it's needed in the context it's needed. And so, you know, it varies. Like, you have different founders that have different approaches to solving these problems, but I don't think there's a one size fits all answer. **Harry Stebbings** [33:36]: I'm totally with you, and I was actually absolutely thinking of Eric one when I asked that question in terms of kind of that domain expert. He's absolutely dominated the industry. I do wanna touch on the second element where you absolutely provide unparalleled value, and all the families that I spoke to said the same. And it's the element of fundraising. But I wanna start on a real concern of mine actually, Sumeet, and it's actually we said that in the beginning about the importance of the relationship of trust, honesty, and almost intimacy really between the investor and the founder. My question is with the compression of fundraising timelines today, I think founders don't get the time they need with investors and vice versa to really build that relationship. Would you agree with me in saying that we are seeing this? And are you concerned by it? **Sumeet Gajri** [34:15]: So I think there are occasions in the market today where, you know, people are making decisions in compressed time frames. I don't know if it's unique to this environment, though, because, you know, even if you go back fifteen or twenty years, call it the hottest companies have always had very quick fundraising cycles. And so I don't think it's actually unique to the time we live in today. I think what I do see a lot more, Nava, is founders that will not talk to investors until they are at the point of fundraising. And I think that's disadvantageous to both them and the investors that are getting to know because, you know, at this point in the market, there are a lot of investors. You know, in The US today, there's over a thousand different venture funds. And if you don't spend some of your time getting to know the market investors are at or and the only time you come out to market is when you are fundraising, I think that is the big disadvantage for you as a founder because, you know, you've not had the opportunity to get to know these people where you're going to be in business with for potentially long period of time. And at the same time, you haven't been able to, like, communicate your narrative and your story to people and sort of had that ability to go back and forth prior to a fundraising brand and sort of narrow in on, you know, what what is that narrative that you want to use when you go out and fundraise. So I think the concerns really do stem from the founders outside of fundraising cycles. They're not investing the time in our in building relationships with people. And I advise all the founders I work with, by the way, that you should always have a subset of investors that you're communicating with, that you're getting to know outside of fundraising cycles because I think it's generally valuable for both sides. And you obviously can't deal with all investors at Verra, at least being in the market and talking to a half dozen to a dozen investment firms on a regular cadence, I think that you can be quite helpful. **Harry Stebbings** [35:44]: Can I ask, how open then should they be with their numbers? This is the real question because, obviously, all investors will want the data. How open should they be in terms of providing that data in in between me? **Sumeet Gajri** [35:53]: Yeah. So, I always tell founders that, you know, it depends on the stage of your business. If you're an early stage company and, you know, you're still looking for product market fit and you're trying to figure out what the best KPIs and metrics are that represent your business, it doesn't really make as much sense to talk about that when you meet with investors. I think a lot more about of what you need to focus on is your approach to market and the narrative in terms of the company that you're trying to build, and that's why it's important to communicate. At the same time, though, like, once you're a company of scale, call it series, you know, d, series e, the metrics are just table stakes at this point, which is you're gonna communicate them to people, and oftentimes, there's an expectation. If you meet with people, like, you know, you have a discussion around that because it shows how good of a handle you have in your company and your ability to, like, influence and pull levers and grow it. And I think that's what and, you know, especially late stage investors look for, which is if we put a $100,000,000 check-in this company, is this team, is this founder gonna be able to, like, notate this capital and, like, buy it and make best use of it? And so I think it really just depends on the stage of your company. In the early days, I don't think metrics matter that much. I think as you get larger, like, you should feel comfortable talking about these because it's just it should be second nature to you in terms of building your business and conveying your confidence in the **Harry Stebbings** [36:59]: building that you business that you are building. Totally with you in terms of that transparency as you go later. I do have to ask, Sumeet. You know, you've helped so many founders with their fundraisers, including Carta. If you were to take it from the beginning of the funnel, how did you do it? What's your approach? This one's from Ryan at Thrive. He says you're the best fundraiser he's ever seen. So how do you do it? From step one, what's the approach on how much is the right amount to raise? Yeah. So do do you mind if I take this question a little bit differently, Harry? So Listen. I'll freestyle it to the end. Totally. **Sumeet Gajri** [37:28]: Yeah. Because I yeah. I'll I'll get to, like, you know, how how much to raise. But when I start working as a founder on a fundraise, it's typically, call it, six to nine months before they actually want to go to market. And The two things that we're trying to sort of decipher, first is, hey. Who who are the investors that you'd most like to work with? Like, in a perfect world, who who do we think today just looking at the ecosystem out there? Who would be the best partners for you if you're building this business? And we we identify them. We we'll start to build relationships with those investors from that moment in time. The second thing we start to spend time on is narrative. You know, what is the narrative of the company that you're building? Because I honestly think that for the best businesses ever, and then also for the most successful fundraisers, what matters more is the narrative that you're able to tell, and then you have KPIs which are, you know, backing up the narrative that you're sharing. But I think I think that's where the most important part of what you're gonna be sharing with the market is when you go out and run that fundraising process. And so you actually take these two things together, which is, you know, over about, you know, call it six month period when you're getting to know different potential investors and telling them about your business, I look at every single one of those interactions as like an AB test where you're able to tell one investor and one example of your narrative, and you're able to tell another investor a different example of your narrative. And you can run that across different funds, and you collect the data. Every time a founder goes out and has a meeting, we'll put the details of a meeting into a Google Doc ourselves, and we'll we'll look at what seemed to resonate with the fund, what questions they had. So then on follow-up meetings, we're then able to go in and try dig in and, like, answer some of the concerns they may have had and try derisk the upcoming fundraise because this way, we've sort of gotten rid of some of our concerns once we get to that point of fundraising. At the same time, try we to figure out what are we really excited about. Like, we're obviously excited about our business, but, you know, what are the one or two things that we're really hitting on in these conversations, which gets them the broad swath of investor excited? And that will actually lay the foundation of the pitch that we'll develop when we actually go out for that fundraise where we've been testing it in the market. We know which investors are going to be most excited. And then once we go out to fundraise, you know, we'll hit those investors that we know are most excited. But, you know, to derisk the situation for the founder, we'll also go talk to, you know, a dozen other funds. And, you know, these funds are all great. So it makes sense for us to be talking to them, but we will go and talk to them. We'll pitch this to them, and and we'll be able to share the pitch that we've developed over over the last, call it, three to six months to these investors. And at this point, we can go over a really compressed time frame, which is we've already built relationships with these investors. We've already been able to, like, tell them the narrative over a sustained period of time. When we actually go out for a fundraising process, we compress time because at this point, you know, what's really important is now making sure we get the best for the company. We get the best offer for the company. Best offer can mean, you know, the right partner, the right fund. It can mean the highest valuation. It can mean a set number of things. But for us, at that point, once we actually hit this fundraising track, we're able to very quickly have these conversations. People already know us. We've already had relationships, and we're able to then get to an outcome as quickly as possible, but it hopefully is good for both the investor and the company. And that is typically how we run fundraising processes. In terms of how much to raise, in this environment, I actually tell founders, like, you know, it's much more difficult to go out and have a set number, especially in growth stage rounds in terms of, hey. We're only gonna raise, call it, 50 or $60,000,000 because I think sometimes when you hit the road and you start talking to investors, you realize that, you know, for the same amount of dilution you're gonna take for a $50,000,000 check, market's willing to write you $75,000,000. And so you have two different approaches to those. Like, you know, you have the I I always say go go pitch the smaller number, like, the the number that you actually need to, like, you know, hit your plan. But look. If the market is offering you more money and the dilution is not that different, it gives you a choice. Like, you can either take less money at the higher valuation if that's where the market goes, or you could actually move the goalpost a little and say, hey. You know, we're raising 50. Like, we have offers at 75. It's similar dilution to had we just raised 50 to where we thought that valuation was gonna go. We should raise some additional capital because, you know, the cost of this capital is quite low. And so for me, when it comes to the fundraising process itself, I like to set everything in stone except actually the final valuation or the final number that we're gonna raise. We we want a minimum number, but I'm always open to having the funders go over that number if we're able to find the right partner. The the capital that we're taking on isn't too much more expensive. **Harry Stebbings** [41:29]: Okay. So I have to dive in here. And there's, again, a few points that I I have to dive in on because it's just too interesting for me. You mentioned, like, the elasticity of valuation. For me, as an investor state, bluntly, I am worried about valuations that I'm seeing. 1,000,000 ARR companies going for a 100,000,000 increase. Honestly, it scares the shit out of me. Like, am I wrong? Are you not scared by these valuations that we're seeing? One. And then two, I guess, for you working with founders, how do you advise them on maintaining enough rationale that it's not actually a hurdle for the next round? **Sumeet Gajri** [41:59]: Yeah. Of course. So when we're making investment decisions, as I mentioned previously, you know, we're typically going into the runs where we're deploying the most capital with a high degree of conviction. We can't control where the price for a run lands. So, you know, if market comes back to you and says, hey. Like, you know, this run is gonna get done at a $100,000,000 for series a. You as a bond have a decision to make, which is, hey. Like, you know, this company is not worth a $100,000,000 and is out of lack of market multiples. So we're gonna pass in this one, and maybe we'll take a look at the next one. The other way of looking at it is if you actually have high degree of conviction in this founder and this team and the pain point that we're solving and the valuation is or twelve months ahead of where it should be, I think that's just your choice to define, and it's a decision that we sometimes make, which is we have conviction. This conviction probably isn't gonna change a lot between this round and the next round because it's already very high. You know, we'd rather pull the trigger and go in in this round because at the end of the day, look. If this works and more of a market buys into this company being successful, next valuation is gonna go up a lot. And you see that in the market today with certain companies where, yes, the early valuations may be a little bit high, but, you know, they execute really well. And as a result, they're able to actually take next rounds that they do and much, much higher valuation. So you have a choice. You ever get involved now or you pass and you wait for the next round. But if you're able to build that conviction, you can sometimes make make that move a little bit earlier. In terms of how I advise founders when it comes to capitalizing their business, I do actually promote the idea of look at what your company is worth today. If you don't need to go out to market to fundraise, I would just do an opportunistic round. The only reason I would do opportunistic rounds would be take a SaaS company, which, you know, raised the call it for e x forward multiples to, you know, twelve months ago. If suddenly twelve months later, you're you're trading at 10 times revenue, which we all know is very low compared to even public multiples, you know, I'll advise founders that this may be a good opportunity for you to go out and reprice your stock because right now you're giving out too cheaply in the form of options. You're giving out too cheaply in the form of acquisitions that you may be looking to make. And so there are actually rational points in time when even if you don't need the money, it may make sense for you to go out and reprice your stock. But why I don't encourage founders to do is just to, you know, keep going out and raising for the sake of raising because the price stacks do get high, and investors, because of the price stacks, can get some of their money out in a downside situation. But some founders and employees who will lose out in a downside situation the most, then you should always be prepared when you go out to market that you're doing it for the right reasons and that, you know, you're accepting that after this next fundraiser, you've got to build an even bigger company because you've now got a bigger hurdle to clear to, like, you know, deliver that return to your investors. **Harry Stebbings** [44:29]: You said about prep status there. Again, off schedule, so totally unfair me, but I am too interested. We've seen a massive rise, I think, really, in terms of secondaries kind of becoming much more prominent earlier in even series a in some cases, but definitely in series b. How do you think about founder secondaries? And what's your, again, advice there when when founders think about it? **Sumeet Gajri** [44:49]: Yeah. So I think it's a very personal decision for the founders to be making. I know that in the market today, it's becoming more available as more funds seek to get positions in some of these companies. I think depending on the context and the founder's situation, it can be okay to take some money off the table. Like, you know, if you you've only held salary jobs and up until that point, and you would like to derisk yourself, you would like to have some additional money in the bank for a rainy day fund, Take a small portion of your ownership off the table and, you know, get some liquidity. I think that can be quite healthy in many cases. I think where I do get concerned is, like, when you have these early series b c runs and founder taking large percentages of their ownership off the table, that can be quite concerning because I think that it's not a good formula for a long term success, especially if you're you're trying to align incentives between all shareholders, not just investors and founders, but also founders and employees. And so I get concerned when founders are doing some which we're not opening up to, for example, their employees. So for me, it's a a fairness question, but b, is is this founder really aligned for the long term in terms of, like, you know, solving this problem and this pain point? And if we're taking too much capital off the table too early, that might scare me off from being an investor in a company like that. **Harry Stebbings** [45:58]: No. I'm totally with you. All a matter of degree in my eyes and proportionate. I do wanna finish on one final observation, though, before we move into my favorite being the quick fire. And it's actually one that Samuel Shah tweeted, and I definitely see it too. And it's the best founders are actually bypassing seed rounds and seed firms. We see it often with the very large seed rounds that we see today. Would you agree with this perception, and how do you think about **Sumeet Gajri** [46:20]: it? Yeah. So I I think there are probably elements to this perception which are true, but I would say that I'm not seeing a lot of founders bypass seed rounds in the early stages. I think what I am seeing though is the time between those seed rounds and the series a's getting compressed. And as a result, I think founders are actually choosing to, in certain cases, bypass seed funds that can only divert seed round and really go target, call it, early stage funds, who do series a's and b's. And those funds will get involved to these companies at the seed stage and then double down quite quickly to do a series a or after. So I'm seeing more of that in the market than I am with companies just completely avoiding seed stage drives. And, yeah, I I think the people that are missing out on occasion are seed funds that have ownership requirements and are unable to get involved in some of these runs, which are being led by typically later stage firms. **Harry Stebbings** [47:09]: Okay. So I have a piece of advice here that I always think, and I I do strongly believe this, but I'm interested if you do. I always advise founders, take the dedicated seed fund money. You will be a meaning portion of their portfolio and their actual dollar allocation, and they will give you the time and energy that you deserve. When you're a quarter of a percent of a fund that you will be in one of the mega funds that is doing this seed or pre seed check. Honestly, you will not get GP time just because it's so difficult for them to even justify it. Would you agree with me there, and how do you think about that? **Sumeet Gajri** [47:38]: I think it's a fund to fund consideration. There are funds out there that are large funds that they take for seed commitment just as seriously as, you know, the layer stage commitments. And I think those are the funds who are still be very disciplined about the number of investments that founders make per year. So, you know, you you look at the likes of Andreessen Horowitz or Sequoia, our founder's funds, for example, they're pretty disciplined in terms of the absolute number of investments they make per person. And so I think it it depends on on honestly, on the fund and the fund that you're going to be working with. I would say, yes. It's true. In many cases, it's just optionality for later stage funds to be doing these earlier stage runs, and we're looking at it as a way of, like, try trying to keep optionality to deploy larger amounts into you. But and in those cases, I I would recommend, like, hey. It's much better to go with a dedicated seed stage or or, you know, pre seed stage fund. You know, there's a lot of great funds out there. You know, you guys at Stride, Manu Kumar at K9, they get Tema Homebrew. There's a lot of great early stage funds that you you can partner with. At the same time, if there's a larger fund that has shown that they have a track record of being dedicated to the founders of Invest within at any stage. I don't think you can go wrong by taking their capital ever. **Harry Stebbings** [48:42]: No. Listen. I think that's good advice. And as I said, I might be slightly biased given my position in market. I do wanna then finish on my favorite element. Now, Sumeet, you know this about the show. I absolutely love this round. So it's the quick fire round. I say a short statement. You have a minute perk statement. Are you ready to rock and roll? Yeah. Happy to go. Okay. So what's your favorite book and why? **Sumeet Gajri** [49:02]: Yeah. The two pieces of literature that have had the biggest impact on how I think about company building and investing are zero to one by Peter Thiel, which took away a lot of the conventional wisdom I'd accumulated for college in the early parts of my career. I think what Peter does well is that he places an emphasis on courage and optimism, which I had certainly underappreciated until that point from a conscious perspective. Those weren't traits or views of the world that I thought differentiated people, be it finders or yourself. So I I think, you know, zero to one does a really good job in terms of, you know, taking away a lot of conventional wisdom you you may have. And the other is actually a memo by Howard Marks, which is titled the value of predictions are where'd all this rain come from. And the emphasis of the memo is that the only way to have above market returns is to make nonconsensus decisions and be right. I think what Howard very concisely is able to convey is making nonconsensus decisions is hard because most people predict the future using models that incorporate data from the past. A nonconsensus event is, by definition, something most people fail to predict. And this means it most likely breaks from the historical data that you have accumulated. So it's actually the idea that these nonconsensus events, will occur in the future, can't be predicted that well using historical data. And then the second thing is the more different something is in terms of how it differs from the present, the harder it will be for someone to believe or act on. And for me, this gets to the crux of why most investors miss out on the best investments, which is typically, you know, there is a leap of faith you often have to make to get involved in a company which is connecting people on campuses and building a social network or investing in a new payments processing network when you already have all these existing players. I think Howard Marks so so well articulates and, you know, saw Bill and what Peter did as well. It's just the idea of a lot of these nonconsensus outcomes that drive huge returns do require an aspect of courage or the ability to take a leap of faith where, you know, oftentimes data may not support your decision at all. **Harry Stebbings** [50:59]: Listen. We clearly both have an absolute love of Howard Marks, so I'm absolutely thrilled to hear that, mate. Couldn't agree any more there in terms of that book. I I do wanna ask one question from Dion at four thoughts. He said, what's one contrarian opinion you hold that everyone else is wrong about? **Sumeet Gajri** [51:13]: Yeah. So I actually go for life as if death is not a possibility. I think at the end of the day, humans are wrong about a lot of things. And, you know, if you look at the two hundred years, one thing people have been wrong about quite a lot is lifespan. And so you should make decisions in life as if death is not a possibility. And the reason I take that approach is humans over the last two hundred years have been wrong quite frequently on a number of issues, but lifespan and being wrong on it is one reason a lot of government, a lot people, a lot of businesses have gone into trouble with just being able to run their own business. The reason that all these governments are racking up all this debt is because they got the lifespan of Amber citizens wrong. And so for me, I I don't know what's going to happen in the future in terms of medical events, and I don't know what's gonna happen in the future with regards to, you know, people being able to merge themselves with technology. And so I take a different approach where I think, know, a lot of people will say, hey. You should live today like it's your last. And I say, oh, we should live today like, you know, you're gonna be around forever. Because I think, actually the idea that you are gonna be around for a long time will change the way that you act and you behave with other people. And I always tell founders and and people I'm looking to invest in or even not invest in, but, you know, I'm making these decisions on the assumption that, you know, in seventy years time, you and I will be sitting down and talking about this day and, you know, did I do the right thing? And that's why I think founders will actually trust me from very, very early stages, which is because they know I'm trying to make a decision that will be right seventy years' time in terms of our personal relationship and how I acted when I was with that person versus what's the best thing for me to do right now in this moment in time. Because I think if you take that short term view, you're gonna make decisions that you'll regret in the future. I think if you make decisions with a long term view of being judged on those decisions, you think about the world a little bit differently. **Harry Stebbings** [52:52]: Manu, you seem incredibly rational, logical, calm, and very envious listening to you. How do you deal with shit hit the fan moments? **Sumeet Gajri** [52:59]: Yeah. So those are always fun. And usually usually when they occur when, you know, I'm working with a company, it is my role to be the one that, you know, stays And I think what's often important to remember is what's going on right now is not unique. It's probably happened hundreds of times in the last twelve months to other people, other companies in, like, a one mile radius of where you are right now. And so I think it's really important to, I think, you know, be the calming force when you're working with a founder, helping them get to a resolution. And I think the methods that, you know, we we would apply very quickly are, okay. Let's just gather as much information as possible, and let's gather as many perspectives as possible internally, externally, and let's try and make a decision and and figure out what type of decision it is, by the way. Is it is it a decision that we can change our minds on? So if we act quickly, if we make the wrong decision, we can always iterate and change it, or is this a decision which is, you know, irrevocable, like, who you're you know, you have security breach and you kind of have to, you make decisions right now in real time, which which will be hard to kick back in the future. So I think it's, like, often important. Like, you know, you have to frame the problem. You have to or or to find or you're gonna have to frame the way that you're gonna tackle it. And I think if you can be the cam and force in the room at that time, it really helps you move beyond the initial panic that can sometimes ensue when you have those shit hits the fan moments. **Harry Stebbings** [54:11]: Now this one is probably the one that I'm most interested by out of any of them before, and it's what do the next five years hold for you, Sumeet? What what are the grand plans? **Sumeet Gajri** [54:18]: Quite honestly, it's been an absolute privilege and blessing to be able to partner with so many great founders today. And, you know, the only grand plan I have is to continue to fight like heck every day for these founders. So in five years' time, I still have the privilege of being able to do this every day. Anything which takes away from that is a distraction for me. Like, I I think I have the best job in the world. I'm very blessed to be here. And I just wanna make sure that every day for, you know, to the limit, I'm I'm able to do this. And so, yeah, no no grand plans ever, and I hope I'm still doing this in five years' time. **Harry Stebbings** [54:46]: Sumeet, as I said to you, I knew this was gonna be a slightly extended episode because I had so much to ask. I cannot thank you enough for putting up with my Dulcet British toast for this long, but it really has been such a pleasure. Well, I'm so glad we started the time constraint there, but what can I say? We just had such a great national and free flowing conversation that I really just wanted to run with it. And if you'd like to see more from us, you can on Instagram at h Stebbings nineteen ninety six with two b's. All things behind the scenes there. But before we leave you today, ## Sponsor read **Harry Stebbings** [55:13]: this episode is brought to you by Silicon Valley Bank. 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