The Power of Genuine Networking for Entrepreneurs With OneSixOne Ventures” with Pablo Casilimas and Justis Mendez

Founder Shares – Pablo C and Justin M_mixdown

00:00:01 – Justis Mendez

The people who have the most fulfilling lives are often the ones that are contributing the most and giving the most back. And, you know, for our journey, like I mentioned, our greatest mentor, Martin Schaffel. And one thing he always says is, you know, life has these three stages. It’s learning, then earning and then returning. And the incredible thing about what we’re doing at 161 Ventures is we have the opportunity to do all three at the same time.

00:00:30 – Trevor Schmidt

Hello and welcome to the Founder Shares podcast, brought to you by Hutchison, a law firm in Raleigh, North Carolina that helps founders and entrepreneurs in technology and life science companies start up, operate, get funded, and exit. So whether you’re already an entrepreneur or want to be one someday, or are just fascinated by the stories of how a business goes from idea to success, or not such a success, this podcast is for you. Today’s guests are Justus Mendez and Pablo Casilimas of OneSixOne Ventures. They’re going to share their journey from hosting events to launching a venture capital fund. The pair started by connecting founders and investors in the state of Florida and went on to expand their efforts by hosting highly curated programs and events in different cities across the country. When the pandemic hit, they pivoted to hosting their own virtual accelerator program, which helped 40 companies raise over $13 million. In today’s episode, justice and Pablo discussed their unique approach to venture capital and their focus on long term thinking, as well as the importance of building value, reputation, and supporting founders along the way. So when you guys were kids, did you, like, have an entrepreneurial drive? Is this something that you kind of thought you would do someday in the future, have a business, or is this kind of a new idea for you guys?

00:01:46 – Justis Mendez

For me, 100%. I was always fascinated by the concept of entrepreneurship, and I never felt like it was possible. It just felt like a dream to me. It just felt like I see other people doing it, but I don’t know if I can ever do this, but I want to try. And, and so even in high school, like, I started what was called iclub after Steve Jobs passed away. It was named Innovation Club. And my co founder for that was actually Joey Levy, who is now the co founder of Better, which is one of the fastest growing sports betting companies on the planet. And then I got into college and got involved in the entrepreneurship club and started hosting these little mastermind sessions. And when I met justice, he was also hosting these mastermind sessions. I think that I had this drive within me from a very early age and this curiosity to learn more and connect with people that wanted to build cool things. But it wasn’t like I was some type of prodigy or, like, born with the skills or even born into an ecosystem where that was normal.

00:02:46 – Pablo Casilimas

Yeah. Yeah, for me. So I think that there was this inflection point very early that made me kind of fascinated with finance, not knowing that maybe this quickly I would get into finance. But so when I was really young, you know, we grew up super poor, grew up with a single mom, had to live with my grandparents majority of my life. My mom still works at a factory, General Motors. And when 2008 came, the General Motors stock at zero, and, you know, we were almost homeless. She lost her retirement or 401k. Everybody the company did, you know, company wide. And I remember being, you know, super young. I mean, I had to been, what, like, twelve years old at that point. And I remember asking my mom, like, what is this stock? And how did it hit zero? And at that moment, I started to really, like, my eyes became wide. Like, how does just something hit zero? And all of a sudden, the whole entire financial system gets flipped on its head. I look around Cleveland, Ohio, and all these houses are abandoned and boarded up. You know, people are telling me about their mortgage, and I’m like, what’s a mortgage? So I think at that, at that point in my life, I tried to reverse engineer, like, who is a stock? Who owns the stocks? Who owns the stock market? And then try and work your way backwards. And I remember writing down, at 16 years old, you know, one day I’ll have $100 billion, which is such a crazy, you know, goal. But then I said, how will I do it? Try to reverse engineer? And he said, by buying and selling companies. So at that moment, I knew that eventually I wanted to buy and sell companies, but first I had to start building them. So my first legal business when I was 16 was buying and selling sneakers. So I would come to basketball courts, find kids who, you know, their parents bought their sneakers. They’re nice Jordans. You know, there’s like a big secondary market for them. And I’d sell them on eBay. First month, I made $1,200, and the rest is history. I was just like, okay, I have a knack for business. Buying, selling, seeing market opportunities, and from there, launched a bunch of other stuff along the way. But, you know, I like to think that if you’re very mission driven, you know, your purpose and your pain becomes your platform, and things will just kind of put itself together, and you have to be open to opportunities and just walk through the right doors.

00:04:49 – Trevor Schmidt

Yeah, and I hear in your story, too, you know, you talked about both of you coming together after having your own separate mastermind groups. You talked about kind of connecting these groups of people together. It sounds like you constantly surround yourself with mentors and other people who are like minded and kind of striving forward. Talk about that just a little bit and how that’s influenced who you are today.

00:05:08 – Pablo Casilimas

One of my actual, probably my favorite quote ever is Sir Isaac Newton. And it says, if I see further than my peers, it’s by standing on the shoulders of giants. Right. You don’t have to recreate the wheel. And nobody who ever made it to the top got there alone. So it’s just like being around people. You could cut your time in one 16th, right? Like, somebody’s already done it, somebody’s been there, made those mistakes. Why would you not want to listen to them, take advice from them, and then have them kind of propel you in the right direction? Because most people who get to that level actually want to give back, and they want to be able to build a legacy by helping you get there as well.

00:05:43 – Justis Mendez

And to tee that up, one of our greatest mentors, his name is Martin Schaffel, and I took his class during my last year at University of Florida. And he’s got an incredible story. He built Avispl, started in his $400 a month apartment and built it to the largest company in their category, the audio visual equipment integration and distribution space. Over 2000 employees, 100% shareholder in the company, sold the company about 15 years ago. And then he generously decided that he wanted to give back and educate the next generation of entrepreneurs. So he donated a million dollars to UF, still teaches to this day at UF. And, you know, we had the honor of learning from him. And he actually brought us down to Tampa and introduced us some of his colleagues who all built like nine figure, ten figure businesses. And, you know, when we were in these rooms, we’re just thinking like, wow, like, these are people just like us, but, like, look at what they’ve accomplished. It’s so incredible. And so getting back to Gainesville after, after going on these trips, we were so inspired. And that’s really what was the impetus for us to start hosting these, these larger meetups and getting people together. And, and then from there, it just spy, it just skyrocketed, just, it compounded on it, on itself. And I think both of us are very, like, we’re lifelong learners. We’re always trying to find, you know, people that we can learn something from. And naturally, events was a great medium to do that by bringing them in to speak and mentor and teach.

00:07:12 – Trevor Schmidt

Yeah, I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense. I want to go back to something you mentioned before, too, kind of. You talked about how you were starting to have these gatherings and they were gaining traction. And then, of course, Covid hit and you had that quick pivot to kind of moving into like an online accelerator. Tell about, talk a little bit about how that came about and just what the experience was and how you attracted people to that kind of event.

00:07:33 – Pablo Casilimas

Yeah. So the online accelerator, right before this actually happened, this is the strength in having goals. Right. And just kind of having a North star and a compass that continues to guide you. So we, we all sat down and back when we were before the fun and before the accelerator, there was a big group of us, and, you know, it’s like, hey, let’s sit down and let’s map out our long term goals. The events are cute. They’re great. You know, it’s great for the ecosystem, but, like, what’s the long term here? It’s a lot of time, a lot of effort, and, you know, we got to figure out what’s the best decision. So a lot of us all wrote down our long term goals. Me, Pablo, and one other person wrote down that we wanted to be similar to YC, you know, like a Y combinator. We want to have an accelerator, wanted to have a fund. And then once the pandemic happened, we just went straight into kind of that longer term vision because we had our North Star and our compass. And, you know, at that moment in time, we told ourselves, you know, the people, people need help now more than ever, and we’re going to find out who the real leaders are. And so we wanted to just step up and really help out as much as possible at that moment.

00:08:33 – Justis Mendez

Yeah, but really, it was a lot of scrambling because it was like, I mean, you can imagine, like, the whole world was shutting down. We had three events we were planning, and we’re just like, you know, what do we do? So we immediately started thinking about when we literally launched a podcast like a week after everything shut down. And then we ran that for two months. And during that time period, we were having these discussions on a weekly basis, how can we have a larger impact? And that’s when the idea came about of like, why don’t we just launch an accelerator? And then it was like, wait, how can we start an accelerator? Like, we have no experience doing this. And then we’re like, screw it. Like, let’s just go for it. And we just started reading everything we could find on, like, Paul Graham’s, like, essays and, like, watching, like, combinator videos and just trying to learn all these, like, fundamentals of, like, building a startup.

00:09:21 – Pablo Casilimas

And.

00:09:22 – Justis Mendez

And then it was a lot of just hustle. Like, we literally would reach out to clubs at ivy leagues, like, computer science clubs, entrepreneurship clubs, and just say, hey, we have this new accelerator. It’s completely free. We’re gonna help you get customers. We’re gonna help you raise capital, and. And, yeah, and we started getting companies. I mean, our first coal, we had. I believe we had two companies out of Harvard, one from Georgia Tech, and then obviously, like, a lot of University of Florida and other Florida colleges. And actually, what’s super crazy is that our first investment out of our fund ended up being in one of the companies that came through that first cohort, a company called Easeller that actually spun out of University of Florida, was started in Gainesville, and they’re working with fire departments. And we kept track with the founders throughout those two years, from starting that accelerator to launching our fund. And they came to us a couple of months before we launched our fund, and they said, hey, we’ve got this patent now. We have a fully fledged product. We got a couple customers. And just seeing all that traction, we were like, we’ve got to do this. And now it’s one of our top performing companies in the portfolio. It’s doing over 600,000 a year in revenue, and we invested when they were pre revenue, so pretty amazing.

00:10:34 – Trevor Schmidt

Yeah, that’s fantastic. And to be able to make those connections, from my perspective, almost out of nothing, because it was hard enough during the pandemic for long established businesses to pivot, to move online. So to be able to create something from scratch, it’s just amazing and speaks a testament to how much effort you put into it. So I wanted to ask, too, aside from COVID and what that was associated with that, what have been some of the early challenges for you guys in creating the fund and kind of continuing to run some of these events?

00:11:04 – Pablo Casilimas

Say the hardest part is just coming. So we didn’t spin off of a fund. You know, we didn’t start a fund before this. We didn’t spin off of a fund. So just kind of. I call it baptism by fire. Right. I’ve heard this a few other times by other people. We’re learning on the go. So, you know, how to. How to be able to do reporting for performance, you know, some of the nitty gritty stuff that’s not as sexy that you see on online, just being able to raise the capital. I mean, obviously we’re too young. Kids were 29, we launched a phone at 27. So that’s been kind of a struggle and a hurdle. But we believe that these are like learning lessons and opportunities within itself. And then I’d like to hear whatever Pablo set has to say as well.

00:11:45 – Justis Mendez

Yeah, I think going from zero to one is always difficult, no matter what it is, whether it’s a startup or a fund. I would argue that it’s likely even more difficult for a fund when you have two people that are not experienced fund managers, because the difference is, like, for a startup, you have a tangible product to sell. You have a very clear vision of what you’re building and what you’re going to sell and how you’re going to make money as a fund. You’re really, you’re selling yourself because it’s like we’re selling a portfolio that in the early days we didn’t even have the portfolio, you know, and so it was just selling, you know, our ability to hustle, our ability to break into ecosystems, network ourselves into great opportunities. And so it was incredibly difficult to get to that point. And thankfully, we had been actually building communities for a long time and we had a great network of investors, mentors, and people had seen what we’ve been doing in the ecosystem in person before the pandemic, after the pandemic. So for a lot of the mentors that we went to in the early days, it was a very easy decision. I mean, they gave us a yes right on the spot, and that was what allowed us to really kick off the fund. And then from there, it’s not like it was just like, you know, a smooth sailing. It’s just like that allowed us to get started, but we had to continue hustling and like, and now it’s incredible we’ve been able to do, because back in those days when we launched a fund, it was, we were the small little shop in Gainesville, and now we’re doing like, sold out summits and events from New York to Cleveland to Seattle, bringing in some incredible speakers like the co founder of Vermitli, $3 billion fintech. And it’s really bringing us some really high caliber talent and founders. And so I think that we’re to this day, like, it’s still day one and we’re still, it’s not like it’s easy or anything like that, but we’ve been able to demonstrate that we have something differentiated and that we’re able to break into ecosystems in a way that other firms have not been able to do.

00:13:37 – Trevor Schmidt

Yeah, well, I think that’s interesting because, you know, I think with the Gainesville connection and the UF connection, you know, the presence in Florida makes some sense, but, you know, the ability to kind of spread out to kind of diverse markets, what have been some of the challenges in kind of moving into a Seattle, moving into, like, another market, whatever it may be. How have you gone about that?

00:13:57 – Justis Mendez

I would say that actually, it’s what we did in Gainesville served as, like, a training grounds. And what was so amazing is that the culture is so different in some of these different ecosystems. And so, like, Miami, for example, like, it has a lot of latin influence and, like, everybody’s super social and, like, very easy to connect with. When I came to Seattle for the first time, one thing I realized is that there’s so much great engineering talent here that we don’t have in Florida, but people are not as. I mean, they’re very nice, but they’re not as social. And so if you can pull them out of their comfort zone, if you can pull them out of that shell, then they’re actually very receptive and open to connecting with people. And so when we came here, we hosted our first event last summer. It was completely sold out, had 100 people in the room. It was featured on Geekwire, and that was our first event that we ever did in Seattle. And I was just like, wow. Like, this is incredible. Imagine what we could do in two years, in three years, in ten years. And so it’s a very unique opportunity that we have here. It’s been actually, not to say that it’s been easy, but it’s been a lot easier than I expected to get connected here. I mean, we’ve been able to meet some really, really incredible people in this ecosystem. Like our most recent event, we had the AI global chief technologist at Boeing Speak, we had the director of AI strategy at Oracle, and we had the us practice leader for AI at KPMG Speak. And these are all people that I was able to meet here in the Seattle ecosystem just through our network.

00:15:24 – Trevor Schmidt

That’s fantastic.

00:15:25 – Pablo Casilimas

Yeah. Back to what you said earlier. The most difficult part, I think the most difficult part is just not having four of each of us. So it’s like, not only we hosting events, but we’re also raising money from LP’s, we’re also deploying capital, and we’re also making sure that we do reporting and also making sure to give updates to our LP’s. So fund one is like, like I said, baptism by fire and fun two, hopefully we’ll have, you know, obviously we’ll have some more resources, we’ll be able to bring some more people on. And I think that’s where you’ll really see this inflection point where we have more capital to do more things. And it’s not like it takes up 100% of each of our time, because right now, we really don’t even have time to sleep or eat.

00:16:06 – Trevor Schmidt

I believe that it’s one of the challenges, too, kind of like in a smaller shop, but, like, I talk a little bit about that. Do you guys, do you guys have complementary roles? Do you have a lot of the same skill sets? How do you, how do you kind of view the team and how you guys work together?

00:16:19 – Pablo Casilimas

I think right now we have to both do a little bit of everything eventually. You know, I like a little bit more of, like, the travel role of, like, meeting new people and bringing them in, but I think that that will evolve and we’ll kind of figure out where the puzzle pieces land. I think Pablo’s really good at having kind of that technical savvy of looking at things and looking at it with a different light. And then I’m a little bit more of, like, a relationship guy of trying to go out there and bring big people, but both of us do each of it really well. And Pablo’s been an amazing job in Seattle meeting people, and I think eventually we’ll just find people that do what we can’t and bring them on.

00:16:59 – Justis Mendez

Yeah, I think also, like, a venture fund is a little bit different from a startup in the sense that, like, you don’t have an engineer who’s actually building tech, and then one person who’s going out and selling it. So what we have to do is a lot of the same work. It’s a lot of networking, building these relationships, finding investors, finding deals, and then bringing in experts to help us vet some of these opportunities. So, so far, it’s been a lot of overlap. And, you know, there are certain things that I do more of and certain things that he does more of, but there are. There also are a lot of things that we overlap on.

00:17:32 – Trevor Schmidt

Now, I want to ask this question, because in my experience with both of you guys, you’re both just consummate networkers. You’re excellent at kind of getting out and meeting people and talking to anybody. Just do you have any tips or suggestions for folks about how to get better at networking or how to kind of get value out of the networking that they’re doing.

00:17:50 – Pablo Casilimas

I would say that most people, I think the biggest thing that starts off with people trying to network is fear. People have a really big fear of going out and just talking to a stranger. So first overcome that fear. Just realize that everybody’s scared, everybody’s anxious, everybody wants to meet cool people. So just like go out there and just start talking. And then number two is like, start off by giving. I don’t think enough people start off, like, with an intentional mind of being like, hey, I want to connect. How can I help you? How can I be of value to you? And, you know, if you’re very self serving, you’ll, you’ll be very limited in your connections and network. And I think going out there and just like, figure being genuine, you know, it’s in the book, how do friends influence people, right? Says, how do you be the most interesting person in the room, be the most interested in others? So it’s like, hey, Trevor, what do you need help with? Hey, how are your kids? How is this? And I think just the more you give, the more you gain, the more you get. So just don’t be scared. Give as much as you can. And make sure to put yourself as like the center of a node, the center node of a network. So I go out, make connections, make introductions, everybody will have you as one commonality. And then from there, you kind of start to build up on your social ladder.

00:19:02 – Justis Mendez

I always tell people that you want to put yourself in a position where serendipity can happen. And I tell people that there’s three hacks for networking, and we have actually done all three of these in the past. So number one is podcasts, which you’re doing now. So props. Number two is publishing. Like, if you work for TechCrunch or Geekwire, everybody wants to meet you because they want you to feature their company. Or if you’re an investor, they want you to feature their portfolio companies. And then the third is by hosting events, because when you host an event, you’re bringing people together and everybody’s there because of you. You’re the center of gravity, and you’re creating value for everybody in the room because you’re facilitating those connections. So if you can do any of those three, you’ll, I mean, those are, those are hacks. Like, you’ll get plugged into an ecosystem very, very quickly, and you’ll build up a reputation and a brand where people want to, want to talk to you and want to support you as well.

00:19:50 – Trevor Schmidt

That’S all great, great advice. I appreciate it. What’s been one of your favorite events that you’ve put on to date?

00:19:57 – Pablo Casilimas

They’re all special in their own way.

00:19:59 – Trevor Schmidt

Come on, I’m asking you to pick your favorite child.

00:20:02 – Justis Mendez

I would say that the Gainesville Innovation Summit is just a really special one for us because that just brings the whole story together. We started at UF and the whole purpose was because there was no capital. There was nobody teaching people how to start startups and to be able to put together this summit with over 300 people bringing in founders of like, cameo better and all these nine figure startups to educate students and early founders, it was just like a full circle moment and it showed us that, like, the flywheel is in full effect. And imagine what we could do in five or ten years. Gainesville could be a whole different place. I really believe that there’s going to be a ton of VC firms lined up around the university in another decade or two, like, like Palo Alto or whatever. Sandhill Road over there near Stanford. I think we’re gonna have our own Sandhill road. Maybe it’ll be called Swamp Hill Road.

00:20:55 – Trevor Schmidt

There you go. We have to hashtag that one.

00:20:59 – Pablo Casilimas

Yeah, I gotta patent that real quick.

00:21:02 – Trevor Schmidt

So let me ask you this question. So as you were saying that I kind of pictured you as like the old white hairs on Swamp Hill Road, but, you know, I typically view VC as like a kind of an older person’s game. And you both, like you said, you’re relatively young. Do you see that as an advantage or disadvantage in the space and kind of what has been your experience, kind of in how other people react to it?

00:21:23 – Pablo Casilimas

Yeah, I mean, I personally think it’s a young man. I mean, I think it’s an advantage. We had this conversation with actually another VC and, and somebody who’s a semi informal mentor, but he was like, you know, justice. Some of the things that you guys have sent me, he was like, I’m now realizing, you know, tech is a young man’s game. It was like, you know, we’re looking at a lot of these things and it’s moving so rapidly and so quickly because at first that was one thing of pushback that we got. They said, you know, statistically, a majority of exited founders are 40 plus. And now that you really look at it, a lot of the tech and innovation is being pushed younger and younger and younger. So we think that we can connect with these founders a lot easier. And us also having that ability to look 40 years out. We’re making decisions that are building a foundation instead of just making rapid decisions and throwing band aids on things. I think we have such a longer timeline and time horizon that we’re looking at, which gives us a long term advantage.

00:22:19 – Justis Mendez

I would absolutely second what justice said. I think our ability to think long term, we’re thinking 40, 50 years out, whereas most VC’s are twice our age and they’re really thinking about their next decade or next 15 years before they retire. So it’s a different mindset and you do things differently. When you think super long term, it’s all about how do we create value, how do we build that reputation, how do we continue to help people and support people in ways that other firms are not doing. And that’s what really gives us a unique advantage. When you think about all the events we’re hosting, on an outside perspective, it’s just like, wow, these people, they’re putting on a show, getting tons of exposure, but a lot of work goes into that. And for us, we wouldn’t trade it for anything because it’s totally worth it, because the long term of what’s building is going to be super, super valuable for us. I mean, it’s going to be a really valuable pipeline of deal flow and mentors and people who can really support an ecosystem.

00:23:20 – Trevor Schmidt

I know you mentioned your very first investment came out of that accelerator. I wonder if you could kind of talk through some of your early investments and lessons that you’ve learned from those kind of early use cases and kind of how you think about things a little differently now, if at all, based off of that early learning.

00:23:37 – Justis Mendez

Yeah. So the first company that we invested in was ease alert. And what they’ve built is a patented tactile pre alert system for first responders. So the leading cause of death in the line of duty is actually a heart attack for firefighters. And they’re actually 14 times more likely to have a heart attack when the alarms are going off and the tones are going off at the fire station. So one of the things that we learned from this deal, ease alert, is that the founder, Blake Richardson, his father was in the fire service for over a decade, and so he had some unique insight into the problem he was trying to solve. So today that’s one of the biggest things that we look for, is founder market fit. Why is this person solving this problem? And what unique perspective do they have that gives them some advantage or some competitive moat? The other thing that we realize, which has shaped our part of our thesis around doing government tech, defense tech, dual use tech is these types of companies are eligible for non diluted funding. So since we invested in ease alert about two and a half years ago, they haven’t had to raise any additional capital. Even though the revenue has gone up significantly and the valuation is up significantly. They haven’t had to go to market for, for more capital because they’ve gotten non diluted funding and they’re getting funded through customers. So those are some of the insights that we got from that first deal, but, yeah. Curious to see if justice has any other.

00:24:58 – Pablo Casilimas

Yeah, I think that Jim Collins talks about this in built to last. Right. It’s like being mission driven. So not only does he have extreme expertise into the market and really understands it, you know, when we first vetted him when he went through our accelerator, accelerator taught us a lot as well. We asked him, you know, why are you building this? And what would you feel if this never came to fruition, this product? And he was like, I’d feel like I let my father die, right. Because the leading cause of heart attack is exactly what he’s solving for, you know. And then on the exact opposite end of the spectrum, we had a founder go come and apply to our accelerator. And, you know, we said, why are you building this? And he was like, you know, I want multiple streams of income. And as you know, Trevor, starting an early stage startup, you’re not there to get more time or more capital. Yeah, like, that is the exact opposite. You have less time, you have less money. So just really looking at the why and having a purpose driven company and a mission driven company, I think it’s super important. And you want to test people on kind of how they’re thinking through problems. Sometimes you’re not really looking for an answer. The answer doesn’t really matter. But you want to see kind of, is there a thought process and a framework behind their why, right. Or what they’re, what they’re actually telling you of how they’re going to market. Right. How are they thinking about the problem and just really doing more upfront on asking them like, hey, what’s your go to market? Well, how are you thinking through this? Right. I think it’s like you want somebody who kind of has, and some great investors talk about this. They say, you know, what is the top, what is the top thing bothering you about this? And if they don’t have three really big concrete things, maybe they haven’t thought it through enough. If they go into 20 different tangents or they’re going to one thing, but not very deep, like you want them to really be in touch with what they’re building and know their own problems. So just asking more questions upfront, I think, is something that we continue to learn and just really get to know them as well as possible.

00:26:52 – Trevor Schmidt

So how about for you guys, any mistakes that you made kind of in the early days that you can share or things you would have done differently?

00:27:00 – Pablo Casilimas

I think just making sure that we stay in touch with all founders throughout the lifetime of our fund and really being able to track them. The only problem is, right now, we’re doing so many different things back to, as we continue to build out the firm, we’ll have more resources. But so, like, a really great example is the company Devon AI. And, you know, they went through either our first or our second cohort. Now, you know, one of the founders, one of the co founders went through the cohort, and, you know, just, we didn’t track. Stay in touch with each and every founder. We stayed in touch with, of course, his two co founders. And then Walden ended up building Devon AI, which is now, like, $2 billion plus valuation. And, you know, it could. It could, you know, can land anywhere. But just making sure that we stay in touch with founders over the lifetime of our firm, I think, is something that was, like, really great point and a great lesson. And it’s just like, have to build systems, you know, and it comes with time, because there’s so many different things we have to do. You know, we’re both planning two or three events more right now as we speak. You know, we’re looking at two more potential investments. We have a few investors that, you know, it’s herding cattle and making sure you get the checks in. So it’s like, we’re doing all things at all times. So, yeah, I mean, it’s a great journey, and I’m loving all the learnings that we’re having.

00:28:17 – Justis Mendez

Yeah. The other thing I’ll add to that is that in the early days after we launched our fund, well, two and a half years ago, one thing we realized is that the companies that we were most involved trying to support and help were the ones where we really knew what was going on. And so if we didn’t speak to a company for, like, two or three months, we didn’t really know exactly what they needed help with or how we could help. And so about a year and a half ago, we implemented this new policy that we’re basically setting up monthly calls to speak with our portfolio founders. And it’s an opt in. Like, they don’t. They don’t they’re not forced to talk to us every month, but if they’d like to, we’ll do a phone call, Zoom call every single month and just to catch up, stay up to date and see how we can get involved. And so that allows us to really track them, you know, track the progress they’re making, but also be able to come in and make introductions at the time that they need them.

00:29:04 – Trevor Schmidt

I had a question and I think I just lost it. So I’m going to ask you. You talked about some of the challenges in Gainesville and the associated kind of not having an ecosystem there. How much have you seen that changed already? And what are kind of the big, I would say, impediments to kind of the further growth in that environment?

00:29:24 – Pablo Casilimas

The biggest impediment is capital. There’s so much talent, and that’s why we want to stay there in Gainesville, like we think it is the exact opposite of most ecosystems. There’s a lot of capital, small amount of talent. People are competing over deals. You know, we think long term that there’s just so much talent and so much opportunity in Gainesville, but it’s just putting the puzzle pieces together and that’s what. Exactly what we’re trying to build. And I’d love to hear Pablo’s two cent on as well.

00:29:52 – Justis Mendez

Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges is that it’s not a place that’s like, super easily accessible, especially for people who are in SFD, Seattle, or like these other big tech hubs, just because, like, it doesn’t have a major airport. You know, most people tend to fly into Orlando or Tampa and then drive up. So I think historically that’s been the biggest thing that’s stopped this flywheel from kicking off. And when you look at all the companies that have been started by Uf alumni, it’s actually really, really impressive. I mean, our mentor, Marty built Avispl. They’re going to do 1.6 billion in revenue this year. Obviously, co founder of Nvidia, Chris Malachowski, went to the engineering college there. And then there’s several others like Papa Archer aviation, which is worth almost 3 billion. And now figure AI, which is also worth about 2.6 billion. So there’s obviously no shortage of talent like justice was saying. But historically, most of these alumni and most of the talent ends up leaving because there’s just limited opportunity there and because it’s not easy to get to these larger tech hubs. So what we’re doing is really trying to bring people in a couple times a year so they can experience it and they can see it and developing that ecosystem. And over time, more alumni will say, I can choose to stay here and build. I actually have a shot at being able to build a startup, at being able to raise capital and being able to scale staying here in Gainesville and being able to hire high quality talent at an affordable cost. So I think that’s going to happen more and more over time. And the fly was only going to accelerate and we’re going to be positioned in a really good spot to be able to get into the top performing startups that are coming out of UF now.

00:31:33 – Trevor Schmidt

Do you see those kind of success stories that have come out of the area? Are they coming back and reinvesting, even if they have left, or have they kind of taken their money and gone elsewhere?

00:31:43 – Justis Mendez

The majority are not, but, but they’re open to it. And so it’s just a matter of like, somebody’s got to twist their arm or somebody’s got to send them an ask and they’re usually pretty excited about it. They’re like, yeah, I haven’t been to Gainesville in ten years. I’d love to come back and go to a football game and talk to students. And so most of them are actually hungry for it, but they just have not been given that opportunity. And they’re so busy in the day to day of building their own companies that they don’t even think about it.

00:32:09 – Trevor Schmidt

And have you seen kind of, I don’t know, you talk, people talk about after the pandemic, the world shrunk in some respects because people feel less inclined that they have to travel everywhere. Have you seen that impact, kind of your ability to have meetings or your ability to kind of talk to other investors who were not necessarily based in the area?

00:32:26 – Pablo Casilimas

Yeah, I mean, I think the world got a lot smaller and we see a lot of VC’s investing outside of SF. Like, there’s a fund, I’m in Cleveland right now, there’s a fund that like, their whole entire thesis is like, to avoid all of these really big hotbeds, which could be great, could be bad, but they’re like, you know, I only want to invest in the midwest, silicone heartland, like all these other opportunities. And I think the world has like a fundamental shift. You know, people in Pittsburgh are now raising a bunch of capital and staying in Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon, great robotics. So you see all of these opportunities that are really changing. And I think the pandemic is what brought that, because now you could have a meeting with anybody anywhere. And people kind of fundamentally shifted their mindset of being like, I have to be able to meet this person in person, and I have to be able to stop by their office, and I have to be able to, like, watch them at all times. Now people are investing without ever even meeting somebody in person. Like, and that’s happened to us, and we’ve made investments, like, hey, you know, I’m willing to take a call and I heard you from this, and, you know, it’s like everything has been flipped on its head. And I think that that opens up so many new opportunities for everyone, especially places like Gainesville, where you’re 5 hours away from, you know, or 2 hours away from international airport.

00:33:40 – Trevor Schmidt

And how do you think about, like, where you spend your time? Because I know you’re kind of going into other markets, you’re kind of having these events and outside gains, but how do you think about your time dividing your time between kind of building the home base versus expanding the market?

00:33:53 – Justis Mendez

So we’re trying to be as strategic as possible. So when we think about getting into these other ecosystems, the first thing is to understand why are we trying to get into this ecosystem and what, what’s valuable about that particular ecosystem. So Seattle, for example, is number two in the country from a technical talent standpoint, but it’s not even top five from a venture funding standpoint. So there’s an arbitrage opportunity here, and some of these other ecosystems that we’re looking into have a similar opportunity. So that’s number one. Number two is where can we get the most value on in what season of the year? Right? So Gainesville is perfect every fall because that’s when the majority of students are there, and that’s when alumni are most receptive to come back to town because there’s football games and there’s homecoming and there’s all these other things happening. So. And then, you know, Miami, for example, is obviously taking off one of the fastest growing ecosystems when you talk about capital in the country. And obviously, the tech talent is following that with Apple recently announcing 40,000 sqft in core Gables, Microsoft and Amazon looking for space. So, you know, it obviously makes great sense for us to be there. And the winter and the spring is just incredible because that’s when the weather is nicest and that’s when the majority of the billionaires and the really successful entrepreneurs want to be in Miami.

00:35:06 – Trevor Schmidt

So, you know, many of our listeners are founders or folks who want to be one day. And so what advice can you share with them about seeking kind of early stage funding. You know, when do they need it? When do they not need it? You know, how can they make themselves more appealing to a fund like yours? What are your thoughts on that?

00:35:24 – Pablo Casilimas

Yeah, I mean, I would say that, which is like the, the opposite of what most VC’s would say is like, if it was me, I would just start off and I would try and bootstrap as long as possible. And then I think a lot of people go straight to VC funding a little too early. Right? Like, I think that a few small angel checks in these really early days, I think is something that no angels who are operators, somebody who knows your space, somebody who’s not as strict. I mean, you see a lot of people pitch a VC and they don’t know the fun math and how it has to be able to return on entire fund. So in the traction so early stage, sometimes you need some angels to kind of help you build those connections, help you build product, help you kind of get to the next level and next stage. And then I would start to build community. Exactly what we’re doing. You know, getting in front of your customers, getting in front of your mentors, getting in front of potential investors, putting together panels, I think there’s just so many things that people need to be doing to get in front of others.

00:36:24 – Justis Mendez

Yeah. And the other thing I would add is I think it’s really important, especially as a first time founder who’s never raised capital before, to have some type of context because nobody really teaches you how to fundraise. So I think it’s a great idea to go to other founders that have raised, go to VC’s and seek their feedback and advice and try to get some understanding of what threshold do you need to get to before you’re actually ready to go raise capital. Because when you go raise from a VC, you’re competing against every other deal that they’re looking at. And sometimes they’re looking at some top tier deals out of Silicon Valley or New York or Seattle or whatever it is. And like now you’re in the mix, they’re not even going to pay attention to you. And if you’re not aware of that, then you’re really just wasting your time. So you want to make sure that, yes, one, you want to do as much as you can to de risk the business before you go raise, but two, try to get some understanding of like where you’re at and where you need to get to before you’re ready to raise.

00:37:21 – Trevor Schmidt

So aside from not really having kind of a why or the purpose for being involved in that business? Are there other red flags that you’ve come across that, like, you’re just like, I’m not interested in touching that company.

00:37:32 – Pablo Casilimas

I think sometimes it’s the founder itself. I mean, we’ve seen founders that, like, literally, like, curse people out and on emails and, like, crazy stuff where you’re like, this person is, like, untouchable. But also, I think, like, something that’s just, like, not attractive is. Is first of all, not being able to take feedback, but second of all, just not having a real business, you know, and it’s hard to tell somebody that, but, you know, because obviously you want to be nice. People are people, and you don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. But at the end of the day, the market will tell you if you have a real business or not. And is this a vitamin or is this a painkiller? And, you know, if you’re operating for three years into the business and, you know, you have not one customer, you have not one person that’s ever given you $1, and you really like trying to force it. It’s just like, unfortunately, it’s not a real business. You know, there’s, try something else. Launch different MVP’s each week, talk to customers. And if not, like, don’t be in love with the solution, be in love with the problem. And I think that that’s, like, a really hard thing for early stage founders to, like, hear and understand. But, you know, we’ve come across, people have been trying to build the same thing for five, seven years, and it’s just like, hey, you know, if it was a big problem, like, there’d be traction by now. And I’m sorry, but that’s just the reality.

00:38:42 – Trevor Schmidt

At some point, the market is trying to tell you something.

00:38:45 – Justis Mendez

Yeah, for sure. To add to that also, like, one thing that we see as a red flag is when companies really early stage, they have no technical co founder and they’re outsourcing that. So they have, like, a shop in, like, India or like, some other country that’s building out their product. And not to say that it could never work, but. But the problem is that you’re paying somebody to build your product for you, which needs to be evolving every single day based on customer feedback that you’re getting every single day in order for you to execute fast. And so what we see in a lot of these cases, exactly what justice just said, that five years later or three years later, they’re in the same exact spot that they were because they’re not able to execute fast enough. So I think it’s really important to have somebody who can actually build the early versions of the product and then somebody who can actually go out and sell it. And that’s rarely the same person. So we almost always look for at least two co founders.

00:39:39 – Trevor Schmidt

Is there any specific tech or kind of a space that excites you right now that you’re kind of most excited to see companies come out of?

00:39:46 – Justis Mendez

I’d say infrastructure right now, infrastructure for cloud and AI and developer tools. Because when you think about like the 1849 gold rush who got rich in 1849, it was already too late. It was all the people selling the pics and the shovels and the jeans. So today I think there’s going to be some very incredible applications that are going to come out of this AI boom. But also it’s so early on that it’s hard to tell who’s going to be the winner, what’s going to be the key differentiator. And so with infrastructure, you know that the infrastructure is going to be needed. Not to say that it’s, that it’s like a free ride and like you pick one and it’s going to be a home run, but it’s a little bit easier to understand that, yes, if this is going to optimize your ability to actually create applications a lot quicker and a lot cheaper, then there’s some real value being created here even from day one. So we’re super interested in the AI infrastructure and our two investments that we’ve made this year so far are both in the infrastructure side with rain AI being one of them on the chip side which is backed by Sam Altman, and then the other one being hedgehog which is led by two former executives at Cisco, one of them who sold the company to Cisco for 860 million. And that’s on the data center and cloud infrastructure side.

00:40:58 – Trevor Schmidt

That’s great. Now let me ask you this question. At the end of your career, when you’re off retired somewhere lovely and beautiful, what is it going to look like for you to look back and say 161 was the success?

00:41:11 – Justis Mendez

I’m never going to retire.

00:41:13 – Pablo Casilimas

I believe it for sure. I think it’s more about, and this goes back to that quote, like, true leaders don’t create followers, true leaders create more leaders. So, you know, the most inspirational people that we read about and hear are those people who are like, man, this person helped me propel my career. And you know, this guy’s the Godfather and he created all the top vc’s in this one specific area and all of the founders. Who was it? I was hearing from Emil Michael, the former chief business officer at Uber, and he was saying, I forgot the exact guy’s name right now. I barely any sleep last night. But he was saying that this guy used to both mentor Steve Jobs and Sergey Brin at the same exact time, which is like an incredible, think about those two titans alone. You know, mentoring one of them would be insane, but mentoring both of them at the same exact time and, you know, there’s, there’s a risk of information sharing, but they need that information so bad and that mentorship so bad, they’re willing to take that risk. That to me is like, wow, the pinnacle of success. The two biggest influential minds in a generation and you help craft both of them and help them get to the next level and they needed you and you were one call away. And it’s like, that’s like, wow, you know, love that you could have all the money. The money comes and goes. You know, obviously I want to be comfortable, want to be able to travel and enjoy life and take care of family and friends, but, but just building like the next set of people and, you know, really influencing the world I think is the biggest part. I think we’re both driven on that.

00:42:51 – Justis Mendez

I agree. And I think the people who have the most fulfilling lives are often the ones that are contributing the most and giving the most back and, you know, for our journey. Like I mentioned, our greatest mentor, Martin Schaffel, and one thing he always says is, you know, life has these three stages. It’s learning, then earning, then returning. And the incredible thing about what we’re doing at 161 Ventures is we have the opportunity to do all three at the same time. So through hosting these events, through working with founders, helping them succeed, you know, we’re constantly learning, we’re constantly supporting them and educating and giving back, returning. And on the other part, if we do a great job helping them, then we’re going to be able to make great returns and we’re going to earn quite a bit. So I think it’s just building this flywheel and focusing on education because for us, we didn’t have these opportunities growing up. Like, we didn’t have somebody to mentor us and teach us. You know, these are the things that you have to do to build a startup. And that’s why I say I’ll never retire because it’s so rewarding, it’s so much fun and I wouldn’t want to do anything else.

00:43:53 – Trevor Schmidt

That’s great. That’s when you know you found your niche where you’re supposed to be. So that’s amazing. Now we are the Founder Shares podcast. So I always like to ask our guests, you know, if you could share one piece of advice with someone who’s thinking about starting a company, what would that advice be?

00:44:08 – Pablo Casilimas

For me, the most simplistic thing I could think about starting. About thinking, thinking about starting a company. Start before you’re ready. Great advice. I heard somebody, a millionaire once told me that when I was young, he said, start before you’re ready. You know, at the end of the day, everybody waits for like the perfect time, the perfect idea. Honestly, what it’s about is just getting reps. Like, the earlier you start, the better. And it’s been proven. They’ve said like, some of the biggest entrepreneurs ever have had multiple businesses before. Very seldomly does your first business make you a billion dollars or change the world. You know, like, that’s like once in a lifetime, once in a generation. So it’s like, get in there, get in the reps, join a startup, launch your own thing. It’s gonna fail. It’s okay, keep persevering. But like, start tomorrow, start today. Like figure out how you can get something out there and just like, don’t hesitate. And just like keep learning along the journey and be open to advice.

00:45:03 – Justis Mendez

I would say find the largest problem that you can solve at the intersection of three things. One, what you love doing. Two, what you’re great at, and three, where there’s a market opportunity that you can actually make money.

00:45:14 – Trevor Schmidt

But I love both of them. Let’s put them together and you find that intersection. Then you start before you’re ready and get going. So I appreciate you both taking the time today. I want to give you a chance. Are there any events coming up that people should be aware of, where they can meet up with you guys and learn more? About 161.

00:45:30 – Justis Mendez

So we got a couple events around the country. So we’re hosting an angel investor event here in Seattle on July 11. We’re hosting a venture capital event August 1 in Seattle as well as part of Seattle Tech week. And then just is working on something in Cleveland that he can talk more about. And then we’ve got some events happening in Gainesville. October 18 is when the big summit is happening. Gainesville Innovation Summit. So we’ll definitely, you know, put that on your calendar. We’re going to be announcing it in about a month or two. And yeah, excited to see everybody there.

00:46:02 – Pablo Casilimas

Gainesville innovation summits to one for sure. Everybody should be there. It’s going to be a full day. It’s going to be super fun. Leads into homecoming weekend. Full weekend of activities. Hosting a Cleveland innovation summit July 23. To be like mayor, a bunch of foundations, investors and founders here in Cleveland. But I’m sure for some of the audience, a little harder to get to Cleveland. But Gainesville will be perfect. We’ll see everybody there.

00:46:24 – Trevor Schmidt

I was gonna say, you find the right time to be in each area of the country, right? Cleveland in the summer and Florida in the fall.

00:46:30 – Pablo Casilimas

Absolutely. And then for everybody who wants to reach out, like, we’re super active on LinkedIn, Instagram, I mean, we’re always super responsive. So it’s just our first names that you can reach out to find us on any social media. Just reach out. And we’re always happy to take a call.

00:46:46 – Trevor Schmidt

Well, I encourage everybody to get out, get down to Gainesville, to the summit. It is a great event and I look forward to being there and hopefully seeing some of the folks there as well.

00:46:55 – Justis Mendez

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having us, Trevor.

00:46:57 – Trevor Schmidt

All right, thanks, guys.

00:46:59 – Pablo Casilimas

Thank you, Trevor.

00:47:07 – Trevor Schmidt

That was Justice Mendez and Pablo Casalemas of 161 ventures. To learn more, you can visit their website at one six one ventures. That’s one six one ventures. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Founder Shares podcast. If you’re a founder or business owner and need legal advice, be sure to check out our team@hutchlaw.com. that’s hutchlaw.com. we have the capacity to help you out with just about any legal need your company may be facing. We’re passionate about the innovation economy and ready to help you on your entrepreneurial journey. The show was edited and produced by earfluence. I’m Trevor Schmidt, and thanks for listening to the Founder shares podcast.