In this episode of Said with Candor, join Candor's Founder Kelsey Bishop, and Paige Doherty — Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures, author and podcast host of Seed to Harvest, as they explore the key role of company culture and the rise of people-centric companies in the venture funding landscape. Paige shares the mission and principles guiding Behind Genius Ventures’ investment in 'Visionary Builders' while exploring the values and behaviors shaping their own company culture.
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"One of the things that gets brought up is that early-stage founders should be fast and have speed. But I think for me the thoughtfully set direction with an ability to apply customer feedback critically and a really strong value product philosophy — similar to an investment approach of a venture fund — is having a strong philosophy on how they want to build what they're building, whether that's on like a team or product level."
— Paige Doherty, Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures
Paige Doherty is the Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures, a venture fund investing in pre-seed and seed-stage companies, in the future of work and future of play. Based in San Diego, California, Paige is the author of the children's book ’Seed to Harvest: A Simple Explanation of Venture Capital’ and the host of Seed to Harvest podcast, where Paige shares insight about the journey of building a venture capital firm, featuring inspiring leaders in the industry.
🧑💻 Paige Doherty on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paigedohe...
📖 Seed to Harvest: A Simple Explanation of Venture Capital: https://paigefinndoherty.com/seed-to-harvest/
🎙 Seed to Harvest podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@seedtoharvest/featured
🔗 Behind Genius Ventures: https://www.behindgeniusventures.com/
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00:00:26:12 - 00:00:49:06
Kelsey
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Candor podcast, where we get candid about culture. Candor helps leaders create strong culture through Candor profiles. You can sign up for free at joincandor.com. I'm Kelsey, the founder of Candor. And today, we're joined by Paige Doherty, the founding partner of Behind Genius Ventures, author of Seed to Harvest and podcast host of Seed to Harvest.
00:00:49:09 - 00:00:50:14
Kelsey
Welcome, Paige.
00:00:50:16 - 00:00:54:08
Paige
Hey, thanks for having me. Kelsey, I'm excited to be here.
00:00:54:10 - 00:01:15:02
Kelsey
Yes. They're so excited to have you. So I want to just kick us off and I'd love to hear more about what you're building at behind Genius Ventures, kind of the premise behind your investment thesis and kind of like nitty gritty. Like how do you think about culture building in a small venture? Like just just give me the behind the scenes of pages made in this role?
00:01:15:02 - 00:01:48:12
Paige
Yeah. Sure. So all all sort of by framing our discussion with first our investment approach, which as a venture fund, your investment approach is basically the product that you're developing. So we're looking for pre-seed and seed stage companies in the future of work and play based in the U.S. or Canada, helmed by visionary builders. And so we can go a bit more into detail about this later in the episode, but that's the overarching investment approach that I've designed to date.
00:01:48:12 - 00:02:15:11
Paige
We've backed 38 portfolio companies across two funds, which has been really, I don't know, it just like so special to see what was once a dream of mine being able to like, practice this craft that I feel so deeply about. And I would say like the mission of Buying Genius Ventures is first to support incredible early stage entrepreneurs.
00:02:15:12 - 00:02:46:07
Paige
Second is to drive really great risk adjusted returns to our LPs. And third is to educate the next generation of venture investors. And in that order. And so I think the the culture behind genius ventures that I've cultivated stems directly from those priorities. So I think a lot about founder, trust and transparency. That's really important to me as an investor and as the leader behind Genius Ventures.
00:02:46:12 - 00:03:19:16
Paige
I want to build a legacy venture firm, and that's really important to me. So for where we're at right now, investing out of our second fund, that means getting really strong on the investment approach and thinking about how I want to scale our investment team. And when I think about some of the individuals who have inspired me in terms of like the company building, I think someone who stands out to me in the venture world is Union Square Ventures, and you guys were in was one of our earliest investors buying Genius ventures.
00:03:19:16 - 00:03:46:14
Paige
And I really love their approach to hiring, really writing focus analysts and then training them up into partner level roles so that they can gain independent conviction and the courage of that conviction to act on it. And then also Thomas Keller, who is the founder of the French Laundry, he is like Michelin starred chef in his honor guard and has chosen to keep his own restaurant small.
00:03:46:15 - 00:04:14:07
Paige
But I think one of the things that's really special about the culture that he's built there is there's a really high standard of excellence. And also he looks to bring on entrepreneurial chefs who have started Michelin starred restaurants of their own accord. And so long term, I love to have Behind Genius Ventures be a place where entrepreneurial managers come to be like, get trained and learn the craft and and then start their own funds one day.
00:04:14:09 - 00:04:33:19
Kelsey
So I feel like the best examples that you just outlined, there's a couple of things that stand out. One is kind of like the grittiness and the hard work required to work your way up. I think like that's a really interesting theme. The excellence and the attention to detail, like a michelin star chef being like one of the inspirations.
00:04:33:19 - 00:04:43:21
Kelsey
It's just like you can kind of see that. And I see that in like kind of the way that you operate. But those two things I find really interesting, like are those two things that you look at when you're hiring?
00:04:43:23 - 00:05:30:13
Paige
I mean, I think it's interesting because the the to go deeper into the behind genius ventures founder archetype is quite similar to how I think through hiring as well. And so there's three things that I think about deeply when making an investment beyond, you know, sector stage or fund fit. And and that's kind of this theme of visionary builders, which I classify as a great storyteller, so deeply rooted in curiosity with a strong sense of customer empathy, kind of that like, duh, why would I not talk to hundreds of customers attitude, deep market knowledge like a sponge, for information about the competitive landscape in products, what works, what hasn't really strong communication skills or the
00:05:30:13 - 00:05:41:01
Paige
ability to explain complex vertical topics simply and in casual conversation? I think this is beneficial for like sales fundraising, recruiting, culture, building.
00:05:41:03 - 00:05:42:00
Kelsey
Everything.
00:05:42:02 - 00:06:05:01
Paige
Yeah, everything. Yeah. And then this the second trait that I look at is mission driven. So when I think about mission driven, I think about this is clarity on the problem that the founder or the person wants to solve. So it's not necessarily that they are stuck on a solution because I believe that can change quite dramatically at the earliest stage.
00:06:05:01 - 00:06:29:21
Paige
But a deeply personal long term problem to solve that they'd be solving even if they weren't building a venture back company. And I think a good indicator of this is like strong involvement or buy in from teammates or customers and then so it's the second trait is mission driven. And then the third is high execution velocity. So I'm an engineer by training and I think a lot about like vector math.
00:06:29:21 - 00:07:07:02
Paige
And so velocity is a vector composed naturally. Yeah, naturally and well. So to so velocity is a vector composed of speed and direction. And I think like one of the things that gets brought up is like early stage founders should be like fast and have speed. But I think for me the thoughtfully set direction with an ability to apply customer feedback critically and this really strong value product philosophy similar to an investment approach of a venture fund is like having a strong philosophy on how they want to build what they're building, whether that's on like a team or product level.
For the full episode with Paige, check out YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
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