MasterStroke with Monica Enand & Sejal Pietrzak

Manu Kumar - The Visionary Behind Unicorn Ventures

• Guest Host - Ned Renzi; Guest - Manu Kumar • Season 1 • Episode 21

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Get ready for an eye-opening episode as Monica teams up with guest host Ned Renzi to dive into the world of venture capital with Manu Kumar of K9 Ventures. Discover how Manu's unique philosophy of solving his own problems has led to an impressive track record, with seven unicorns emerging from just over 51 investments.

We explore the asymmetric risk-return profile of venture capital, delving into Manu’s journey from India to Carnegie Mellon and his latest venture, HiHello. Along the way, he shares how he navigated the challenges of investing in early-stage startups like Lyft, Auth0, and Twilio, offering a rare glimpse into the mindset behind these successful ventures.

The conversation continues with a focus on @hihello and its impact on the B2B SaaS space, particularly through  digital business cards 
and CRM integration, which are enhancing brand consistency. We also consider the broader implications of AI on various job sectors and the enduring relevance of manual labor in a rapidly changing world.

This episode is packed with invaluable wisdom for anyone passionate about technology and entrepreneurship, providing a greater understanding of the inner workings of venture capital. It’s a must-listen for those interested in the future of business and innovation.







Georgianna Moreland - Executive Producer | Managing Editor;
Matt Stoker - Editor


Ned Renzi:

Venture is made by these power law type returns, what makes what Manu does impressive. From my perspective, it's an unbelievable hit rate.

Georgianna Moreland:

This is Masterstroke with Monica Enid and Sejo Petruzak, and welcome to our special guest host, ned Renzi. Conversations with founders, ceos and visionary leaders in technology and beyond.

Monica Enand:

We just finished recording an episode with Manu Kumar from K9 Ventures. We had our guest co-host, Ned Renzi, here today. I want to ask Georgiana Moreland, our executive producer Georgiana, what'd you think of?

Georgianna Moreland:

the episode. Monica, let me start by saying how much I absolutely love having Ned Renzi sit in as our guest co-host today. I am really excited for everyone to hear this episode. Let me just say it. Our guest, manu Kumar. What an icon. Tremendous business success, incredible track record and his obvious Midas touch all the things. But most importantly, you can tell that this is just an incredible human being.

Monica Enand:

Absolutely. He is an incredible human being. As you know, on Masterstroke, what we're trying to bring to our listeners is people who've had some hopefully outsized success in their life and trying to figure out what makes them tick and how they got there and what happened and who they are, and I just love listening to sort of smart reflective. People talk about their journey, and he was a great one, yes, he was.

Georgianna Moreland:

The thing that resonated with me the most is that he's a problem solver right. The companies that he has founded and invested in have provided everyday solutions. I'm really excited for everyone to hear about his new company, HiHello Absolutely.

Monica Enand:

In every case, all of the companies he invested in was him solving his own problem. He was, you know, necessity was the mother of invention for him in every case. I'm excited to bring you this episode Master Stroke Audience because I do think venture capital, private equity, vcs, it's like the dark arts we don't get to hear. It's conversations in the back room, in quiet back rooms, people making deals. But the funny thing is you don't have to be a VC PE geek like I am to want to know all the inside baseball. You, honestly, if you're working at a company that's got these kinds of investors, you're going to understand a whole lot about what drives the behavior of boards of directors, executives, managers in your company but how they act, by hearing and understanding a little bit about venture capital. So I'm so excited to bring this episode to our audiences because I think it's so valuable for everyone to listen to the smartest people in venture capital, which Manu absolutely is, and hear kind of what's making them tick and what's driving their behavior.

Georgianna Moreland:

He truly is an icon, monica, especially because he flies under the radar brilliant, unassuming and humble, but creating massive impact.

Monica Enand:

Yeah, he's one of the quietest and one of the craziest track record. Stay tuned. Masterstroke Audiences. This is an episode you are not going to want to stop till the end. Manu, we're going to start. We're going to give you a little bit of a longer introduction than we normally give our guests, so your job is just to let us do that.

Manu Kumar:

In the beginning Sounds good, I'm going to try not to be embarrassed.

Georgianna Moreland:

I know.

Monica Enand:

I'm like I know what you're like.

Monica Enand:

You can't interrupt us, I mean, unless you think we say something inaccurate. But you got to. Let us do this, All right? Well, welcome to Masterstroke. I am very excited because we have very special guests with us today. But before I wanted to mention that Sejal is away today and we were lucky enough to have our friend and former guest, Ned Renzi from Enjoy the Work, join us as a special guest host. Today he's joining me as my co host. If you remember, Ned has worn all the hats of entrepreneurship. He has founded companies, he's been a VC who's invested in some amazing companies, and now he's an advisor at Enjoy the Work. So thank you for joining me, Ned.

Ned Renzi:

Thanks, Monica and Sejal. I appreciate the invitation to guest host and super excited for our other guest today, Manu Kumar of K9 Ventures.

Monica Enand:

And we all have Pittsburgh roots. Manu and I share an alma mater. We both went to Carnegie Mellon University for part of our education and Manu is currently the chief fire starter, as he would call himself, at K9 Ventures, which is the pre-seed fund that Ned just talked about. We're going to talk about all the cool companies you founded and what you're up to now and we're going to talk about you know all the great things you've done, but I want to talk about this pre-seed fund, K9, and what you've done Over 51 investments, seven unicorns. You know really, and for people who aren't familiar, you know, I want to talk about why I think and I want Ned to help me actually with why Manu is so different.

Monica Enand:

You know, I think, as you learn about venture capital and you learn about venture funds, you realize that there's an asymmetric return risk. Return, right, All of the companies that they invest in can make, in some cases, 1,000x returns, maybe even larger than that in the really home run cases right, but they can only lose 1x. So your loss can only be 1x. You can only lose the money you put in, but on the upside return side it can be really astronomical and has been astronomical, and that kind of leads most venture funds to play portfolio theory. So if you look at like I don't know, if you look at like the Midas list returns, you'll find that, like, most of those funds have a few companies, one that returns the fund or a few companies that really do well, and a lot of them kind of go to zero or don't do very well or get shut down. And you know this portfolio theory is really how most funds work. Am I describing? I'm the only one on this call who hasn't been a venture capitalist, but, Ned, am I describing this correctly?

Ned Renzi:

Yeah, you're right on. I mean venture is made by these power law type returns and I know like when I first got into venture I was trained by people who really had more of a private equity approach. They trained me on figuring out the probability of success and these crazy like first Chicago method spreadsheets and stuff and really, as I spent more time in Silicon Valley, it's not probability of success, it's if it succeeds, what's the probability it could be really really large in that asymmetric return you talked about. Yeah, and you know what makes what Manu does impressive. You know, in our industry if you're successful like one out of every say, 12 times, that's considered a home run fund. Right, you're going to return some major multiple back to the investors In any given year.

Ned Renzi:

There's 20 investments that make up the whole venture industry and not only is Manu in that one, manu's in several per portfolio. I mean he's hit a number of home runs in each of his portfolios. And, if I go through, you mentioned Chief Firestarter at K9, co-founder at Carta, co-founder and CEO right now at HiHello, but in between there, co-founder and CEO right now at HiHello, but in between there, lyft, twilio, otho, carta, lucidchart, everlaw, I mean the list just kind of goes on and on.

Monica Enand:

So from my perspective, it's an unbelievable hit rate. Well, and I'll correct you on one of those, because I introduced Manu to one of those companies and that was Auth0, because I got to know Manu before that and then ended up, and then I ended up also joining the board of Auth0, and that was Auth0, because I got to know Manu before that, and then I ended up also joining the board of Auth0 and that was a great success. That ended up selling to Okta for six and a half billion dollars and Manu was so critical to those founders. And I know from those founders how lucky they felt to work with Manu Because, as you know, while venture capitalists are playing portfolio theory, founders are not. Founders are pouring their heart and soul and every ounce of their being into one company at a time, Although you guys, I guess, have been on multiple. For me it's been one or two companies that I've poured my one as a founder, heart and soul.

Monica Enand:

But I want to give you some statistics, Ned, because I think what you said is right. But SignalRank recently published a list of investors who had seeded the most unicorns and you know it was kind of all the names you would expect to see. Right, it was all the incubators, like Y Combinator, Techstars 500, Global firms like Sequoia XL, First Round Capital angel syndicates like Silicon Valley Angels. And what people responded on the Twitter or X thread was what kind of unicorn efficiency were these? That was the interesting stat, not who had the most unicorns, but what was their sort of number of unicorns divided by number of seeds that they and the average of the top 100 seed investors, and in fact, they said the highest rate for any of their top 100 seed investors that had done more than 20 seeds was 14%. This is since 2019.

Monica Enand:

And that is where Manu sits. So Manu operates. Not only does Manu hit those stats that are crazy when you compare them to his peers, Manu is operating. These are talking about seed investments and Manu is operating as a pre-seed, and actually I want to give Manu a chance to explain that to us, because I think you call it frighteningly early. Is that what I've heard you say?

Manu Kumar:

That's right, frighteningly early stage. And Monica and Ned, first thank you, but I am learning about these stats from both of you because these are not stats that I even track.

Monica Enand:

I know you do because I had to do the calculations to figure out your percentage.

Manu Kumar:

And when you talk about the Midas list, for example, like I made a conscious choice to not participate in the Midas list. I mean, I talked to the folks who run the Midas list and figured out, like, okay, what's the value in this other to me as an individual or to K9 as a fund? I realized that the more attention K9 or I would get, it actually just increases my workload in terms of how much I have to sift through. And so it was a very, very conscious decision to not participate in any of those lists and to try and just stay under the radar and focus on what I want to do rather than just having a barrage of stuff coming at me. I do describe what canine does as frighteningly early stage, and I describe it that way because at the time that I'm investing, I have to be frightened, and that's a feeling that I get in my stomach every single time I'm about to make an investment, and I have learned over the years to recognize that feeling and become comfortable with that feeling when I'm making that investment.

Ned Renzi:

Well, speaking of frighteningly early, I remember when you started K9, there was kind of a major inflection point going on in just the whole venture industry right when the money was getting unpacked from the advice and the governance and other things like that and you had some pretty bold contrarian opinions about what would work or how venture should work in the future. Maybe tell us a little bit about that.

Manu Kumar:

So I think one of the first things when I was starting K9, actually I'll give a little backstory here, so in 2006 and 2007, I was helping another founder start his company, and so we went up and down Sand Hill in order to try and raise money for that company. That gave me a view into what was happening in venture capital, and the first realization was that seed didn't exist. Right, it was essentially firms that were writing a $4 million check into a Series A stage company, but there was nobody who was writing the half a million dollar check or the sub $ million dollar check or the sub one million dollar check. So that was one of my key things to note that, okay, that needs to happen.

Manu Kumar:

There's a need in the market, there's an unmet need, and who's fulfilling that need? And then ultimately it was like, oh, can I be fulfilling that need? So I think that was part of it be fulfilling that need. So I think that was part of it. And then second was just kind of focusing on super, super early stage founders and great technologies. So till today, I describe K9 as a technology focused micro VC fund, and so I definitely look at companies that are coming from a technical background. There's some level of technical innovation involved over there. In order for me to kind of look at that and think about the company.

Ned Renzi:

So, vinay, when you started, you certainly had this thesis that was different than what was happening on Sand Hill Road, from your original thesis. What turned out to be correct, what turned out to be different than what you thought, oh, that's a good question.

Manu Kumar:

I think the first thing was was being a solo GP right, and when I, when I Can you explain what the general partner is to the folks in my oh sure, solo GP being that there's only one person running the entire firm and there's no partners, right?

Manu Kumar:

And in fact it's kind of an oxymoron to even call it like a solo general partner, because partner implies that there's somebody else, but solo general partner basically means there's only one person and that's it. That was something that was contrary and indifferent. A second thing that was contrary and indifferent was around the stage of company that I wanted to invest in. I literally wanted to invest in companies that were two founders and an idea, and that was something that just wasn't very common back in 2009. And convincing LPs that this model can work was something that I would say was like new and different at that time. The second thing that was new and different was investing in the stage of company that I wanted to invest in. I wanted to invest in a company that was two founders and an idea, and if it was two founders and an idea and a dog, that was a bonus right. So for me, it was literally like two people and an idea. Stage is where I wanted to get involved with the companies, and for a lot of the companies that I was able to invest in through K9, that's literally what they were Like Lyft was.

Manu Kumar:

I met Logan and John from Lyft like literally a few weeks after they moved to Palo Alto and it was just the two of them and one part-time engineer. That was the extent of the company when I first met with Logan and John Auth0, monica, I think was probably about six-ish people at the time when I first met with Logan and John Auth0. Monica I think was probably about six-ish people at the time when I met Eugenio for the first time and Lucidchart was about four people. Twilio was four people right. Carta was zero because that was something that I went out looking for somebody to co-found the company with and then created that company after that. So I think just the stage and the solo GP thing were probably the two biggest things.

Monica Enand:

Yeah, boy, you've proven them wrong. Definitely done that. I think that we talk about. You talked about frighteningly early and being frightened, and I've heard that you know it's very unusual for people to want to be the first money in or be in that early, before there's any proof points. So it's a really scary thing and I think you know I heard one time that the definition of bravery is being frightened and doing it anyway, or being scared. It's not that you don't feel fear, it's that you feel the fear but you do it anyway. And we you know a lot of things that Sejal and I have talked about on this podcast is kind of trying to tease out and figure out what makes people successful, people different, and I think that's definitely one of them. I want to take you, Manu, back back before Canine, back before Carnegie Mellon, maybe early days of Carnegie Mellon, that when you left India for college to come to Pittsburgh. I think you were at that time 17 years old, Is that correct?

Monica Enand:

That's correct, and had you ever left India before that?

Manu Kumar:

No, that was my first trip out of India.

Monica Enand:

Yes, Wow, that is incredible. I you know I was scared sending my kids to college, but I can't imagine how your parents felt sending you to college all the way across the world. What was that like for them and for you?

Manu Kumar:

I mean, I decided when I was 15 that I wanted to go to college in the United States, and it was my decision. It was not something that my parents had even suggested to me. It was something that I figured like, okay, that's what I want to do, and this was in 1990. This is pre-internet, this is pre-email, right. And so the only thing that was available at that time was these really, really fat college handbooks like listings of all the US colleges, right, and that's what I used in order to go look up, like, okay, what colleges can I apply to? I think my family was actually happy about me going to college in the US. They were less excited about my decision to stay in the US and start my first company here, because that's what meant that my chance of returning to India was incredibly low.

Monica Enand:

Yeah, that's the rub with sending kids away is that sometimes they like it and they want to stay.

Ned Renzi:

Monica had mentioned, like you know, things that have happened to make you into the person you are today. I'm sort of smiling because I have four grad parties from high school kids on my street going to college and one of the common questions is what do you want to be when, when you grow up? And I've sort of always taken a different twist on that question and I like asking who do you want to be when you grow up? Because I do think character matters and and Manu, you know, maybe you could share like a significant event that's happened in your life that to help turn you into the person that you are today. It helps, like seed, your motivation.

Manu Kumar:

Ned, you're asking me a question that is, first, very dear to me, because I actually draw an analogy to this to startups, and my analogy here for startups is that it's usually not one single big decision or event that makes a company successful. It's a series of micro decisions that actually kind of compound over a period of time to kind of set the direction for a company. That's right, and to me the same thing applies for a human being as well. It's not just like one decision that you make at one point. That's right.

Manu Kumar:

I mean, if you take the theory of parallel universes and I can essentially look at it as like OK, if I hadn't done that, then I wouldn't have gotten here, and then I wouldn't have gotten here, type of an approach I think one of the first things for me was growing up and kind of coming of age at a time when my dad's business was struggling and that just instilled in me such a deep sense of value that I have never, ever forgotten that and that's like in my core, even in terms of how I run my own company or how I advise founders of my portfolio companies. I mean, another key moment for me was getting my first computer, and I had to convince my grandmother to buy me a secondhand computer, and if I hadn't gotten that, I probably wouldn't have learned how to program and that probably would have meant I wouldn't have gotten into Carnegie Mellon. And so, yeah, so everything could have been different from that point on, and even little things, like arriving at Carnegie Mellon and then kind of having this oh shit moment, because it was a situation where I'm like, oh my gosh, everybody here is smart, and most of them are probably smarter than I am, and most of them are probably smarter than I am, and that was a kind of a defining moment for me to kind of decide like, okay, is it sink or swim, and am I going to work my ass off to succeed? Or that was just a decision I had to make in that moment. So I think those are the things that I look back to.

Manu Kumar:

I also remember another key moment, for when I was doing my master's, I had built this chat software and I was talking to somebody in one of the chat rooms at like 4am in the morning and this guy just says like, hey, you could sell this. And that became kind of like the key moment for me to be like, oh, I should think about starting a company and so that those are like. I think it's all these little tiny, tiny events that kind of add up over time.

Ned Renzi:

This idea that you can sell it to me is seizing an opportunity, right, like when my kids were growing up, I remember telling them you get paid linearly to identify and solve problems. You get paid non-linearly to identify and seize opportunities and everything from like, if I remember right, sneaker Labs you sold, spun it back out, resold it. You made money off of that multiple times. You've done. You know all these other companies we mentioned, even up to Hi Hello, like. How do you like, if you had to give advice to founders today on how to identify and seize opportunities, like frameworks to think about or something, what would you tell them?

Manu Kumar:

I think it comes down to learning. To learn is probably the number one skill, right, and I feel that every single day, like every single day, I am learning something new, and it's truly a case of the more you learn, the more you realize how much you don't know. Right, and being able to develop that muscle of like okay, I don't know something, but I will go figure it out, that is truly one of the most important skills for a founder. And the second one that I am still working on is learning to delegate, and I struggle with that one because I love to go figure things out, and so I will get into the weeds and try and go figure things out, but there simply is not enough time and not enough hours in the day in order for a founder and a CEO to be involved in every single thing, and so you have to become comfortable with OK, I am going to let somebody else run with this and I'm going to sit back and focus on other things.

Monica Enand:

That's the other skill that I think founders need to have Learning to learn.

Monica Enand:

I think that applies so much more to everyone, especially early in their career.

Monica Enand:

When I hear from people who are new to jobs, especially if they do go work in a startup, they ask me you know, how do I be successful in a startup? And that is the number one. If you can develop a sort of reputation for yourself and for others that interact with you of I'm the person that goes and just gets stuff done, and if you develop that reputation of, yeah, I don't know, but I'm going to go figure it out, I'm going to get it done. And if you develop that reputation of, yeah, I don't know, but I'm going to go figure it out, I'm going to get it done, the amount of things that people rely on you for and come to you with, then just kind of you know compounds, and then you start really your career really blossoms, I think because you are somebody who just gets more responsibility and when you start taking on more responsibility, you learn more, you can do more, you're more valuable and that just all you know. It's like a virtuous cycle.

Manu Kumar:

Monica, I totally agree, and you're also touching on one of the reasons why, in the early stages of a company, I dislike having titles, titles, and my reason for that is because when you give somebody a title, they kind of conform what they are doing to what the title demands and instead I want them thinking from the point of view of like, hey, what does the company need and is there a way in which you can actually help solve that? And if it's outside of the scope of your title, that's totally okay for you to actually go do that. And so, yes, I definitely want that ability for people to go identify a problem, figure out how to solve it and have the initiative and the agency to actually go and solve it. Those are the key skills that I love to see in people.

Ned Renzi:

You see so many of these companies scale from beyond product market fit. I know at Enjoy the Work we focus on helping founders become CEOs as the company scales right and the idea behind that is how do you learn general management, functional management and self-management, so things like you mentioned in delegation. As you see the founders who are listening move from product market fit. You know that, zero to one phase to one to 10, where it's building repeatable, scalable processes. What two or three skills do you think are most useful for them to pick up and learn right away?

Manu Kumar:

The ability for somebody to kind of identify what they know and what they don't know is important. And I guess this goes towards the whole learning to learn approach that if you can identify like, yes, this is an area that I know and this is an area that I don't have the expertise in and we need to bring in somebody from outside to help in this area, I think that really helps founders to grow. But that's even looking at it from a functional point of view. But I think a lot of the growth in founders that needs to happen is more at an emotional level and it's really kind of understanding that at every stage of the company you're going to be faced with new and different problems. Right, and Monica, I'm going to channel one of our favorite people over here.

Manu Kumar:

So Eugenio from Auth0, eugenio Pace, who's the co-founder and CEO of Auth0. I mean, I was talking to him recently and I'm very honored to have him on my board at HiHello, so I get to talk to him recently and I'm very honored to have him on my board at HiHello, so I get to talk to him frequently. He made the point that, look, as you grow as a company, as a CEO, you are essentially being given the hardest problems to solve, because if it was a problem that was simple to solve, then somebody on your team would have already solved it. And so as you scale in a company, inherently the problems that you are going to be dealing with are going to be the more difficult problems, right, and you just have to come to terms with it and understand it and realize that.

Manu Kumar:

Yes, that is part of the journey of scaling a company, and the emotional growth that I see happen in founders over time and the maturity that they achieve over time like it is phenomenal. To see that and how quickly it happens is also astounding. I mean, I see this in folks like Logan and John at Lyft. I see it in Eugenio at Auth0. I see it in AJ at Everlaw Like they have matured and become better versions of themselves through the journey of actually running a company.

Monica Enand:

One thing about at least the founders on that list, like AJ and Eugenia, that I know they started out as great people and humble and smart but hungry and passionate people, but I think that helps them go on that journey.

Monica Enand:

Because the journey you're talking about is a crazy difficult one. I know you guys know it and I know it. That's emotional journey of the emotional development and the emotional maturity that you have to have with your ego and like being keeping your ego in check and kind of not getting defensive when things have to change, because what worked to get you here is not what works, you know, to get you there and all of those things. It's, I think it's the hard inside work that you have to do to go on that journey and like I found that doing that all that hard inside work paid dividends for me in all kinds of aspects of my life as a mom, it paid dividends as a sister, as a wife, as all the roles in which we play in our lives. I think that emotional growth and all that work you do really does pay off, but it's definitely not easy.

Manu Kumar:

Exactly, it is not an easy journey and I joke that I hate roller coasters, but running a startup is a roller coaster every single day, so I am doing something I hate every single day. From that point of view, Tell us about HiHello.

Monica Enand:

We want to hear all about it, so I started HiHello in 2018.

Manu Kumar:

And one of the things that I have been a big fan of over the course of all the companies that I've been involved with is creating a new market, and I define a new market as a market in which things have not been happening at scale before, and so with HiHello, we've essentially created a whole new category of B2B SaaS. It's a software platform for creating, managing and distributing digital business cards, email signatures, virtual backgrounds, right and so the idea here is that companies can essentially come to us by a SaaS platform for creating their cards and managing them all throughout the process. We started out by creating a platform that was designed for individuals, and companies came to us and essentially told us can you solve this problem for us at scale? So we are now working with thousands of companies all around the world. Our customers tend to be companies that are outside of the tech industry. As somebody who's been in tech, I have been so myopic and so focused on the tech industry that I didn't realize how large the opportunity is outside of the tech industry.

Monica Enand:

Given the rise in Zoom calls, but for all the companies that were not used to it, I guess they're getting the virtual backgrounds that are kind of branded with the company. Is that what's happening, correct?

Manu Kumar:

So, yeah, there's three different parts. First thing, if you meet somebody in person, you're able to give them your digital business card that is on brand. It is showing the company's brand directly. The company is actually in control of the information that is on that digital business card. And when you create a new contact on the platform, that contact flows directly into the company's CRM. And I mention that because for most of us in tech, we look at it as, yeah, let's just connect on LinkedIn, right.

Manu Kumar:

But what happens when you connect with somebody on LinkedIn is that, first, the information on LinkedIn is controlled by the individual and not by the company, right. And second, when you connect with somebody on LinkedIn, that's a personal connection and that connection is not really getting put into the company's assets in that situation. So a lot of companies, when they've realized that, oh, we have all of these people out in the field who are meeting new people, potential new clients, how do we actually collect that information and make sure that it gets into the company's CRM system? So that's what HiHello is doing. And then we also do this with email signatures, so making sure that every single person in the company has a consistent email signature. And then we also do this with virtual backgrounds, that even if you're meeting somebody on Zoom, they can see the company's brand and your identity clearly in that meeting as well. If one of those connections turns into another business, deal like HiHello has paid for itself many times over by that happening.

Monica Enand:

Well, no, I know. I mean, I remember sending my team out to events. We were in the legal tech field and we would go to these conferences and events and you would, you know, meet people and they would meet the most. They'd come back and write these trip reports, but they met the most amazing people. And then you were like, how do we the company you know make sure we develop a relationship with this that's ongoing and there wasn't a good way other than you know them, sort of remembering to manually put them in. And then where do we? How do we then keep in touch with that person?

Manu Kumar:

You know, there's a lot to figure out and a lot to do manually, no a lot of our customers will come in right before they're about to go to an event, right, and they're like, oh, what do we do about business cards? Right, and then they're looking for, like, oh, is there? It's 2024, are we still to go out and print paper business cards, or is there something better out there? So that's how they end up finding HiHello and they will come in, they will create their cards. We can get them up and running in a day. Then every single connection that their team collects at the conference is automatically flowing back into their CRM, flowing back into their CRM. And, especially for companies that want to show that they have a green side to them and they're being sustainable companies, they definitely prefer using digital cards rather than using paper cards Because, right in that initial interaction, you're sending a message saying that, yes, we are a company that is focused on sustainability.

Ned Renzi:

In that interaction, Manu, you've been sort of on the front end of a lot of these new markets and new categories over the years as investor or founder. Like for me, it's just a super exciting time with some of the things that are happening in tech. If you had to pick up a couple of things that you're excited about over the next five to 10 years, what are those?

Manu Kumar:

So I am very excited about the applications of AI, but I am being very cautious about it as well, because just how quickly things are moving, things are changing very, very rapidly and especially when I look at the stage at which I usually look at companies, it's like again two people in an idea stage. The technology for AI and the state of the art is controlled essentially by the big boys. I'm being very cautious there about what's the opportunity for a founding team to take in that direction, but overall, like what the technology can do is mind blowing.

Ned Renzi:

No, it's mind blowing. It feels like, to some degree, these LLMs which are dominating AI right now. They almost remind me of semiconductor investments in that every other year you need a billion dollars of CapEx to just sort of keep this model up to date, and it feels like a race to the bottom in margins for me. I think what Tesla's doing with FSD is much more interesting and like how they're teaching the models to sort of mimic the top decile performances of humans and things. So I'm pretty optimistic about what's going on in the intersection of robotics and AI and things like that.

Monica Enand:

I agree with Ned. It's like buying a fab. Are you going to build a fab? How many people are going to build a fab? Nobody's going to build a fab, so okay. So then that's a big money problem for the LLMs. But what about the application of these LLMs? Do you think about how to think about what tasks are the right ones?

Manu Kumar:

I mean, I'll give you some simple examples. So one of my portfolio companies is actually a company called Agenda Hero, and what they have done is just made it delightfully simple in order to take any email that you receive with a schedule or an agenda in it and convert it into putting it onto your calendar. Right, like how many of us are sitting there every single day taking stuff from an email or from a school schedule and trying to simply get it onto our calendar? Right? And when I think about the billions of people who are doing this every single day? Right? And so what this company has done has focused in just on that little tiny niche of a problem. They're using AI to actually solve the problem, and it's amazing, like you can take an entire school calendar and just push it over to Agenda Hero and it gives you. Okay, do you want to add these 20 events to your Google calendar? Like yes's exactly. Like I don't have to do it manually. Like that's exactly what I want, right? You've?

Monica Enand:

just gotten a new customer for that company. So you've got to tell me I do that all the time Georgiana was our executive producer, Georgiana, was just telling Ned about how good I am at calendar management, but I spend enormous amounts of time doing exactly what you just described.

Manu Kumar:

Now that is taking a very, very pointed and focused approach at solving a particular problem that has been plaguing us for decades. At this point right. So that's an example of like, yes, what they have done in using AI and fine-tuning things. They've done a brilliant job of it, and the AI is just one piece of it, but then it's also about all the scaffolding that goes along with it in terms of how do you actually connect this into something to make it useful? The joke used to be that, oh, the knowledge workers are going to win. I think sorry, but the knowledge workers are the ones who are going to be impacted the most by AI, and when you need somebody to do something in construction or plumbing or electrical like, those jobs are here to stay.

Monica Enand:

I hear you're trying to disrupt some of that industry too by doing things yourself, yes, in a do-it-yourself way. You know you talked a little bit about arriving at school and being around smart people and, and Sejal and Georgiana, and I would call that a masterstroke moment. So masterstroke people ask us all the time like why did you name it masterstroke? And I don't think there are these. You know there is no just one masterstroke that kind of makes you successful, right, but I do think there are these little moments and you talked about it all the little moments that you made this decision or that decision and you went down that path. How do you think you get comfortable with that? And get comfortable with, like the pits in your stomach you feel, and all of that, if I reflect?

Manu Kumar:

back to that moment. For me it was. It was very much one of like okay, I don't have a choice here, I've got to work way harder in order to keep up and to be able to succeed here. And that was just a. It was a visceral decision, right, and it was like, okay. That's when I kind of decided, like, okay, I'm going to wake up early and I'm going to go to bed late and I'm going to put in the work, right, and, monica, you may remember, the Carnegie Mellon slogan of my heart is in the work. I mean, that's what a lot of us walked away with.

Manu Kumar:

And when I think back to that today, I welcome an environment where people are smarter than I am, because it gives me an opportunity to learn. And in fact, for me, even going back to Stanford for a PhD was literally one of those. It was that same decision because it was like, okay, I'm not the type of person who's going to go sit on a beach I would be bored within a few hours and I want to go camp out amongst the smart people and learn stuff. And so, after doing two companies, I went back for a PhD, because it was that I wanted to be amongst the smart people and learn from them. And it wasn't only about learning technical things. It's also about broadening your horizon and learning about other things.

Manu Kumar:

I was taking classes in psychology and attending the social psychology seminar and I was learning to play piano and things like that psychology seminar and I was learning to play piano and things like that. So just like, just like this going back to that learning to learn thing is is what is like super, super critical for me, and I try to tell the same thing to my kids Like I actually want them to fail more often. We don't allow people to fail, we don't give them negative feedback. It's all about positive reinforcement. And then at some point, when somebody ends up in a situation where they are getting negative feedback, it's like, oh my gosh, the whole world is falling apart. And so I think grit is important to learn, and there is no substitute for how you learn grit. You just have to learn it from experience.

Monica Enand:

I'm going to ask you a question that I'm going to guess, based on what I know of your personality you haven't given much thought to but I'm going to ask you to think about it.

Manu Kumar:

What do you want your legacy to be? You're right, I have not thought about it. I'm still building stuff at the moment. I've joked with my wife that once I am done with startups and investing, I just want to have 12 golden retrievers. So yeah, I actually don't have a good answer for you, monica, I haven't thought about that. Um, I also look at it as like um, if I was thinking about that, it would feel uncomfortable to me because it would feel a little bit vain. Who the heck am I like? I am one human being on a planet of like 8 billion people in a galaxy. That's like massive. And okay, just do what you do and hope it all turns out well.

Monica Enand:

All right. Well, thank you so much to Manu Kumar of K9 Ventures and the CEO and founder of HiHello, which we learned all about. Thanks so much for being here with us today. It was really great to have you. Both Ned and I have admired you for so long, and so it's just wonderful to have some time to chat with you and share with our audience some of your journey.

Manu Kumar:

Thank you, monica. It's been an absolute delight. I have a lot of respect and admiration for what you have done with your company, with your role as chairman of the board at Auth0, and with now what you're doing with the podcast. It has been phenomenal to watch and I am delighted to be part of your periphery and your network and learn from that, and, ned, of your periphery and your network and learn from that. And, ned, you have been an inspiration for me from when I was probably 20 years old, and so it's been an honor to have you here and to be able to chat with you again.

Ned Renzi:

It always mutual.

Monica Enand:

Well and thank you so much to Ned for joining me while Sejal was away. It is so fun to co-host with you. I knew immediately when we had you on the show that I just love talking to you and I could have had you, have you, we could have you on all the time because it's so fun to have you here.

Ned Renzi:

Thanks, Monica.

Georgianna Moreland:

Thank you for listening today. We would love for you to follow and subscribe. Monica and Sejal would love to hear from you. You can text us directly from the link in the show notes of this episode. You can also find us on the LinkedIn page at Masterstroke Podcast with Monica Enid and Sejo Petrzak. Until next time.