VC Insights: Portage Ventures

This week we sat down with Jonathan and Brendan who work on the platform team at Portage Ventures, a fin-tech focused venture capital firm. We learned what it’s like to transition from heading up marketing & sales at an operating company to advising portfolio companies within a venture capital firm.

Highlights:

• 6:25 – Jonathan shares how he transitioned from an operating role to VC.
• 7:30 – Jonathan & Brendan share what is the biggest difference in an operator role vs operating in a company
• 13:17 – Brendan & Jonathan speak on how success is measured in their roles
• 19:11 – Brendan adds how they like to partner with their investments, Portage is not only a capital firm. They are looking to build a longer term relationship.
• 22:52 – Jonathan explains what their tasks as Chief Growth Officer and VP Sales are
• 29:55 – Brendan shares which skills were learned once entering the VC space
• 39:00 – Brendan shares how operator skills provide you with a fair advantage once entering VC world.
• 47:19 – Jonathan tells us what he misses from being an operator and what he’s gained being a VC.

Guests:

Jonathan Metrick, Chief Growth Officer at Portage Ventures – Jonathan Metrick is the Chief Growth Officer at Portage Ventures, helping build some of the world’s leading fintechs. During this time, Jonathan has also been the Fractional CGO at Wealthsimple.

Prior to joining Portage, Jonathan served as the CMO of Policygenius, America’s leading online insurance marketplace. At Pg, Jonathan built a growth marketing division of +45 and helped 10x revenue and achieve positive LTV in 3 years. Previously, Jonathan has held marketing leadership positions working with Tiffany & Co, Live Nation Entertainment, Diesel, Hult and Procter & Gamble.

Jonathan has an MBA with distinction (top 10%) from Harvard Business School.

Brendan Callaghan, VP Sales at Portage Ventures – Brendan is VP Sales at Portage, helping build some of the world’s leading fintech companies. A key member of any start up’s Management Team charged with generating and maintaining year over year growth. While developing/coaching staff and creating a successful sales organization. He is a sales leader with substantial hands on sales team management experience and high attention to bottom line results.

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Read the Full Transcript

Grace Portillo (00:01):
All right. Thank you everyone for joining us. This is VC insights moving from an operating rule to VC with Portage ventures. So this is being recorded. I’ll send an email with a link once it’s ready. And if you have any follow up questions, please drop them in the chat and we’ll get to them. Anish.

Anish Shah (00:26):
Yeah. Hi my name’s Anish. I’m based out of Brooklyn, New York. My background was actually running growth for companies, both full-time and as a consultant for about 11 years then began consulting I’m sorry. Then began actually building out an executive recruiting firm. Our specialty is focusing on hiring everyone sort of head of growth out of marketing, out of product, head of analytics. Most of our clients tend to be fast growing startups. And now we’re a team of nine.

Jonathan Metrick (00:56):
Awesome. Hi folks. My name’s Jonathan Metrick I’m the chief growth officer of Portage. So what that means is I’m on the platform team, helping advise our portfolio companies, which are primarily FinTech related kind of us Canada and Europe all over actually with matters related to marketing and growth. I’ve been doing this for a whole six months which I onboarded virtually. So I’ve been doing all of this on zoom but prior to that, I was a CMO of policy genius in New York. Whereas there for three years helping scale up the marketing team we recently closed our series D round with KKR for hundred million in February. So on the kind of tech and, and marketing side of things there prior to that was working at, you know, traditional Proctor and gamble brand building, consumer driven marketing did a little bit of a stint in London doing some education startups there. But yeah, nice to meet everybody. I know Anish actually from from a growth breakfast that we met at in New York where all bunch of growth geeks would meet up early in the morning and go for breakfast. So that’s how I’m connected to, to Anish. Nice to meet everybody.

Brendan Callaghan (01:59):
Hello everyone. My name is Brendan Callaghan. I work alongside Jonathan. I’m fond of reminding Jonathan that I’m more senior than him because I’ve been working at the fund for three years and he only joined six months ago. So that’s our little inside joke much like Jonathan though. I have worked within startup. I’ve always worked as a sort of CRO VP of sales sort of role. Typically that individual who came in started the entire sales function or perhaps inherited a very small team, brought in best practice, ran it with a lot of rigor, scaled it out very quickly, and then basically exited the business at this stage. I’ve had a number of exits and very happy to be here. I’m very much within the fund. A practitioner who now works with a, a venture fund. I hope that helps.

Grace Portillo (03:04):
So VC insights with Prock is a series of conversations with venture capitalists to learn about what they look for in companies to fund how they spot the best talent. And what is their advice for startup founders looking to grow or get funding. Now we’re focusing more so in the transition and let’s get started with the questions.

Anish Shah (03:26):
Great. yeah, we’re getting right into it. You know, when and why did you decide to kind of jump from an operating role into venture capital and, you know, when you kind of made that decision how did you know, kind of the right organization to end up joining as far as a venture firm,

Jonathan Metrick (03:50):
Brendan, you wanting to start, you’ve been doing this a little longer than we have, so

Anish Shah (03:52):
You’re the senior one. Yeah,

Brendan Callaghan (03:54):
A little unclear who, who would wanting to take it first? I guess for me, I was, I was minding my own business. I, at the time this is three years ago, I was running sales for another startup. I had a sort of global sales role at the time. I literally had a team all around the globe and I was running it from this space that I’m now sitting in. And you know, the company was having a lot of success and the team was growing and it was all great. I was doing what I do. And then I got a phone call and it was a, Hey, would you be willing to give some free advice to a startup? And I went, sure, I’ll sit down with someone. And I agreed to do it for beer. I said, yeah, buy me a drink and I’ll do it. And so I did it and then that went well. And then I gave an another piece of advice to another business, little did I know the relationship between these two businesses? And at the end of that meeting, they turned around and said, right, we wanting to offer you a job. So it was something very much that came to me. It wasn’t something I was looking for. And I’m really excited that I agreed to to give some free advice to a business for beer. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here today.

Anish Shah (05:06):
Almost moral of the story is, you know, don’t turn down those sort of initial

Brendan Callaghan (05:11):
Productions, don’t turn down free advice for beer opportunities.

Anish Shah (05:15):
Awesome. And Jonathan,

Jonathan Metrick (05:17):
Yeah, I think for me very similar was it wasn’t really something I was, I was targeting and, you know, it kind of popped up on my radar. So I’ve been, you know, CMO policy genius. I’ve been leading marketing teams, you know, most of my career really. And, you know, this role came up from a, a contact that I had you know, I got connected with someone who, you know, worked in DC and they needed a lot of work in tech. So it was just kinda a casual introduction. And they mentioned that they were hiring for, for a role like this, which is to kind of advise on the platform team of a, of a VC, you know, the various portfolio companies on marketing and growth. And it, it felt different. It felt a little bit, you know, kind of, it was a newer role, one or two of my other friends who used to be CMOs transitioned into roles like this. And they seem to be having a good time with it. They seem to enjoy the, the, the, the difference of kind of not just working with one company, but multiple. So I, yeah, I decided that I would check it out. So it was very organic popped up. But it seemed like there was more movement toward that. And I feel like there’s more folks that are taking this move from operating side, going into VC you know, more and more

Anish Shah (06:17):
Awesome. And, and when you did reach out to your friends and have conversations with them, what were, what were, what was the gist of a lot of the different conversations? Like, were there any surprises like, oh, well, Hey, I didn’t understand that. That’s part of the role.

Jonathan Metrick (06:30):
Yeah. you mean in the sense of when they were working in the venture teams and the PLA the platform teams that venture firms? Yeah. I think it was, it’s definitely a bit of a different, you know, tact. Like I think, you know, you aren’t, you know, I, I don’t have a marketing budget anymore, so that’s different. And so, you know, that’s one of those things that, as a, marketer’s always a little bit fun to be like, okay, great. Where’s my experimentation budget. So that doesn’t really, you know, you’re kind of advising the folks that have those budgets now instead of owning them yourself. But no, I think by and large, you know, the, the feedback was it was interesting. You meet a lot more people, you know, I, I had a, a conversation with a friend of mine. We were laughing how much easier it is to get someone to, you know, open an email from you on LinkedIn, if you’re working at VC versus if you’re working at an operating company for whatever reason. So I found that a little easier to get folks to kind of have a chat with me now I’m working on the VC side versus just, you know, being in the operating side. But it’s different, but I think it was generally by and large positive.

Anish Shah (07:24):
That’s awesome. We can jump to the next one, grace. Yeah, what’s the biggest difference you’ve noticed other than, you know, not having a budget anymore of your, your, your day to day role in venture versus, you know, being an operator.

Brendan Callaghan (07:43):
So the, the difference I feel how would I put it? What’s the difference? The difference I would feel is that I’m sure much like Jonathan, we were, so I was so used to doing, you know, I was the doer. I would make it happen. I was accountable to the number. I drove my team accordingly. I made decisions and I just got it done. And, you know, I had that kind of velocity to all of my decision making and everything I did was driving to this. The reality now is that I don’t have a number I’m not accountable to a particular performance of a team. I’m trying to support others in terms of what they execute. And then I think the difference for the fund, you know, what’s the difference for being VC versus working for a particular business. I have a broader view, you know, we have to, as the fund return our investment to, to our LPs and, you know, we look to ensure that our investments are successful and we do everything in our power to encourage them. But when I was working for a business, that was all I cared about. So I had one child now I’ve got 10, 20 nieces and nephews, I think is the way I would describe it.

Anish Shah (08:56):
that, that, that makes a lot of sense. Interesting. So, you know, especially from the sales side, I mean, obviously when people think of sales, it’s very much go and just drive a sale, you know, go and put your, your sweat equity into getting a, getting a contract back. So is your role doing any part of that as well, or is it really, really high level strategic? How do you sort of integrate with one of your companies, both that is brand new to your, to your portfolio, or since you’ve been there for three years you know, that you’ve been working with for, for a while, how does that, how does that translate?

Brendan Callaghan (09:36):
Yeah, I mean, that’s a really interesting question. I mean, I, I think, I think the way that Jonathan and I work really is at the, at the behest of the investments. Now, our help is here. What they need is what they feel they need. We might have ideas, but fundamentally we are there to support those teams. And so depending upon the team, you know, they have different needs, you know, different needs. So I’ll give you a, you know, a fun example. The there’s an investment. They’re setting up an implementing Salesforce for the same first time. Now I’m kind of handy. I can do that. And so I’m helping them do that. That’s what they feel. They have a problem with right now, and I can help them today. Another team they might be hiring their first VP of sales. It’s been found led perhaps to that point.

Brendan Callaghan (10:28):
And now they’re looking to hire true sales experience. And I might come in as part of an interview panel. I might try and source candidates and I’ll support them at that end, but really it’s what does the firm need? What does the business need? We’re there to support and we’ll hold their hand as much as we can and help them as much as we can. And if we can’t do it, like if my skillset is Dr is, is, is insufficient, then I have other people I can call upon who can support that business. You know, we just wanting to, we wanting to support our investments as much as we can and as, as, as best as we can.

Jonathan Metrick (11:04):
Yeah, that’s great. And in addition to that, I would just say, I think you’re doing a lot more context switching in this role where, you know, at a, at a series B startup, you’re in the, the series B stage, and you’re, you’re helping that scale over, you know, a year or two or three to try and get to series C you know, with working with multiple companies, you know, as Brenda mentioned, you can be working with on my side, I’m looking to hire a, you know, first person in marketing, or maybe the first performance market they’ve had, or the first email marketer they’ve ever had. And no one internally may know the expertise that’s required on that front. And then that’s in one meeting and I switched to another company who’s looking to build, you know, hire their CMO and they’ve got a team of 20, right.

Jonathan Metrick (11:44):
And they’re, they’re going to raise their series D so those sorts of kind of context switching is, is pretty active. And I think the, the difference is kind of breadth. Well, we have a lot of breadth here. We tend to see like the entire kind of industry, but you don’t get as deep because you may make the recommendation, but at the end of the day, it’s the team that’s still going to then hire that individual. Or if you’re bringing in force or Iterable CRM, one’s actually implementing it. You’re kind of just helping advise and then kind of moving on

Anish Shah (12:19):
A lot, this project. Cool. Jump to the next one, Chris. Thanks for the examples. Both of you both of you just answered this, we’ll jump into the next one. and for those that didn’t hear it. Yeah. They, they both got recruited by by Portage through, through very light methods. One was offered a free beer and another one was offered an intro from a friend. This is actually a very good question which may not have a great answer, which I’m very curious about. How, how do you measure the success of your role? You know, obviously both of your come coming from very metric oriented roles previous to this where the KPIs correct. If I’m wrong were probably very simple yet like one or two basic KPIs. How do you go about, does your manager give you specific goals? How, how does this work?

Brendan Callaghan (13:15):
Do you wanting to go first, Jonathan?

Jonathan Metrick (13:17):
Sure. I mean, so we, we both have the same manager, funnily enough, we both report into the head of our fund. And so, yeah, I think it, it is definitely a slightly different way of measuring impact and success than you would normally have, you know, leading a growth org. You know, I woke up every Monday morning looking at lead pipe, like how many leads do we get? You know, what do we need to close this week to make our number? I think Brendan probably similar on the sales side, you know, we have a, we have a bunch of indirect metrics I think, for us to kind and track and, and move the needle. Right. So Brendan did mention, you know, we are very much partnering with our, our companies. We invest to yield growth and financial returns, right. And that’s over a period of time, right?

Jonathan Metrick (13:54):
So we’re not so much focused on, you know, how are sales doing this week? We are thinking about building capacity for the longer term and ensure that they can then get to that next stage of growth, get to that next stage of funding or, or, or expansion. And, you know, there’s a couple ways that we can go about tracking that. So we, you know, obviously kind of have like an internal NPS that we use where we pull our portfolio companies to see, you know, how are we doing? You know, are the projects that we’re working on with you helping move the needle? Where else else could we help you? So that’s kind of one of the, the direct ways that we kind of gain, you know, insight into our impact and, and feedback from our companies.

Brendan Callaghan (14:32):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, totally agree with Jonathan. I think the only thing I PLA perhaps add to that would be add value, right? If, you know, when our leaders talk to the CEOs of the various investments and say, right, did the time today with Jonathan, or did the time today with Brendan or Ron or Chris? I mean, there’s a number of us on our platform. Did they add value, be honest, you know, and that honest candor that we add value and that we helped that business is, is great for us. I mean, fundamentally, that’s great. We, in terms of individuals, you know, we look to impact, I think Jonathan used the word impact. So I can reference a business in Europe. They recently instituted a CRM project, but that started when I had a conversation with them in January of this year. So I know that that was the, that was the catalyst. I noted an issue. I brought it to the fore, they investigated it as a team. And then they decided, yeah, this is something that they need to act upon. And they did, but that would be an example of how we impact some businesses at times.

Jonathan Metrick (15:43):
Yeah. Another one that would be relevant for you, the ruckus folks is, you know, hiring, right. So one of the portfolio companies I work with in Toronto, they just hired a CMO. You know, and that was a search that we were looking for for six months. Right. And so those take a while you wanting to make sure you get the right person growth oriented, but brand that kind of marketing unicorn, everyone’s looking for that. Right. So it takes a while, but we’ve now hired that individual. That’s another element of driving impact because the key thing you wanting to make sure you’re doing is, you know, again, as Brendan mentioned, it’s not about us necessarily doing the work for them. Like we’re trying to build capabilities so that they can kind of internally do it themselves, which is a little different, I think, than on the operating side. Yes, of course you wanting to build your team, but you know, it really is. You leaning in a lot to impact the, the, the outcome of the company while we’re trying to build capability

Anish Shah (16:33):
Makes a lot of sense. So almost like you guys will be judged at the end of whatever your periods are for a review on client NPS. Is that, that kind of the best measurement that, that your sort of manager would be looking toward?

Brendan Callaghan (16:47):
I, I think it’s one of the north stars, obviously a high NPS score is important, but also, you know, seeing perhaps demonstrative changes in the business, like helping to hire a VP of sales or a CMO or helping set up a CRM system or working on their value proposition or go to market strategy, you know, those sort of things come into play as well. But yeah, it’s not as tangible as it used to be. I think that is one of the differences for me and Jonathan from going operators to this role, I used to be held accountable to a number. I don’t have that anymore. And Jonathan saying, right, it’s just changed. It’s just also,

Jonathan Metrick (17:25):
I think the key piece is the time Horizon’s changed. Right. And I think, you know, in the sense of, you know, back in both Brendan and I sounds like, you know, we were both watching our number daily, weekly, monthly, right. And, and that time horizon was really, you know, make sure that we’re doing what we need to do now to generate the revenue we need. I think with a within venture, you know, you’re, you’re taking a much longer time horizon because you’re looking not only for now, but what is that next step? What do we need to build today to be in a year’s point at a certain element? So your time horizon resulted different.

Anish Shah (17:55):
Cool. Makes a lot of sense. Thanks for that. You have my next one. Yeah. this is a funny worded question. You know, how do you gauge your effort reward ratio as an, as an investor and, and, you know, maybe we’ll even circle back on that. How does your role even dovetail into being an investor? Is it an investor? Are you somewhat of a, of a partner in the fund in terms of the investment side, or is it solely support these organizations and marketing and sales? How does that all kind of come together?

Brendan Callaghan (18:37):
Well, the, I think the word I would first use is, is we are partners. We, Jonathan, we Portage we’re, we, we like to partner with our investments. We’re not just capital. And there’s obviously a lot of venture funds out there. There are a lot of sources for entrepreneurs to get funding. And you know, we’re aware of that. They’re aware of that. The reality is we come to the table with more than just capital me, Jonathan, the rest of the team, we’re there to be used, we’re there to support. And you know, we, we do so freely across all of the investments. But in terms of me and Jonathan in our role, no, we’re not really part of that investment team and the decision to deploy capital.

Jonathan Metrick (19:25):
Yeah. And were you share the success of, of the firms, right. And that’s, I think, you know, part of the difference of, you know, venture, which is a little bit more captive capital for a long period of time versus, you know, stock traders or public food traded companies at every quarter, you can dump the stock if you want to, depending on their returns, we’re very much in it for the longer term, right? Like we, we have met with the companies, we have loved the teams, we love the product idea and, you know, we’re, we work with them for, for years. Right. So I think that’s a very different relationship where we’re looking to really build for a longer term time horizon, very much a partnership angle, you know, Brendan is, is great about kind of, you know, we can’t really in our roles, we’re advising, but we’re not, we don’t make the decisions. Right. So we very much have to work with the teams to try and advocate for what we think is right, but also just help them where they’re going.

Brendan Callaghan (20:13):
Yeah. And to be fair, none of the investments have to listen to us. They truly don’t , you know, all we’re trying to do is pose, you know, a level of thought or, or a comment on a particular avenue that perhaps wasn’t already on the table say, Hey, have you considered this? And then it becomes conversation. And the only reason I can bring that to the table as a sales leader is cause I’ve got the gray hair to prove it. And you know, I’ve been in those shoes and I can do the, Hey, have you considered? And it’s that operating experience that both Jonathan and I, and the rest of the team have, which really gives value to these teams that we’ve invested in because, you know, we get it, we totally get it. And I’ve taken $50,000 out of my credit card. I’ve helped cover payroll. I’ve done that month after month. And I’ve had to go back to the wife and then the girlfriend, when we got married and say, it’s okay, we’ll get the money back when I was working startup. So, you know, we can really relate and empathize to the teams that we’re working with.

Anish Shah (21:16):
Okay. That, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for that. And I, did you get your money back?

Brendan Callaghan (21:20):
I did. I probably wouldn’t. She probably wouldn’t have married me if I if I ended up not getting the money back.

Anish Shah (21:27):
Yeah. And also if you would’ve told that story and it just took a real hard left and it was like, oh, and now I oh yeah.

Brendan Callaghan (21:36):
Well, I, I actually remember because, you know, we were living together at the time I pulled the money out. Hadn’t told I pulled the money out, covering payroll. We were waiting for the check. It was one of these waiting for the check scenarios. And she come, you know, I can come into the house and she goes so $50,000 I went, yeah. I meant to talk to you about that. It was a bit of a tense evening, bit of a tense evening.

Jonathan Metrick (21:59):
You had an IOU, you were all good.

Brendan Callaghan (22:02):
Was good for, I ran. We were going to be good for it.

Anish Shah (22:05):
Credit card debt. Isn’t real dead. It’s okay. It doesn’t matter. cool. Thanks for, thanks for running, running through that. And then also to summarize the, the investment side. So, so if someone was out there looking for an investment and to one, you guys, it would then go from one of you guys to one of the partners. You’re, you’re not exactly writing checks at this at this moment.

Brendan Callaghan (22:29):
No, no. I mean, I mean, I do get occasional LinkedIn pings. I’m part of a number of groups, which support entrepreneurs and young entrepreneur teams and invariably something FinTech or FinTech related to our fund will come across my radar when that happens. We, I simply refer it to the appropriate people within the team.

Jonathan Metrick (22:51):
Yeah. And I think the other part of our role in addition to advising is so we, we do do due diligence on prospective investments, right? So for example, if we’re looking at the company and the investment team is considering whether they’re going to invest in them or partner with them, you know, oftentimes we’ll be pulled in, you know, Brandon can meet with the sales folks. I meet with the marketing team to get a, to get a sense of, okay, from on the growth side, if we’re going to, you know, cut them a check for, you know, $20 million and a lot of that’s going to be deployed into marketing, you know, how do we feel about that? Is that a, is that a good investment or, or are they going to need to really, you know, level up their team in order to kind of absorb it? So there is a due diligence factor that we do in addition to kind of our advising our current portfolio for prospective investments that might come in, but the end of the day, the decisions down to the investment team to, to green light.

Brendan Callaghan (23:36):
Yeah. And in fairness as well, the only thing I would add to that would be that my opinion’s opinion or any of the other advisors opinions were just one opinion and it’s the EC collective whole, you know, it’s very much an initiative led by the investment team.

Anish Shah (23:51):
Okay, cool. That makes a lot of sense. What did you notice about the VC verse that appealed to you specifically? I don’t know what the VC verse is. So text,

Jonathan Metrick (24:03):
I was thinking like universe VC verse, like the VC space, maybe.

Anish Shah (24:10):
Sure.

Brendan Callaghan (24:12):
What the question,

Anish Shah (24:13):
I don’t know myself, but what I think this is asking what, what appealed to you to, to jump from your previous worlds into this? I think you spoke to it a little bit in terms of like the variety of work, but were there any other things that, that were kind of appealing

Brendan Callaghan (24:32):
John hun?

Jonathan Metrick (24:33):
Yeah. I mean, on my side, I think, you know, one of the really interesting things about this gets back to kind of the depth versus breadth. I think being at a company, you know, you, you know, I’m in intimately now aware of kind of the insurance marketplace world, specifically life insurance and home auto, right. Having worked at policy genius for three years and you go really deep into that area, but in this role, you know, I, I actually, you know, and we’re pretty focused at Portage. We do, you know, FinTech, that’s our specialty, so financial services, payments insurance, but, you know, I, I have a much broader understanding now of the different types of companies that are startups in this space, but even taking a look at, you know, we, we operate globally. So, you know, how does an insurance marketplace look in Germany versus the United States versus Canada versus south America, right? And so you get a chance to really take one step higher view that I think is very interesting and working in an operating company, you know, you’re very deep you’re into the weeds, which is great, cause you need to obviously, you know, action things forward, but you really only have a sense of your immediate sphere while I feel like in VC, you’re a step up and you can really start to see trends a little easier in this sort of role.

Brendan Callaghan (25:42):
Yeah, yeah, completely. I would add, you know, for me the opportunities to work across a wider spectrum of businesses versus just, you know, working for one individual business and was really appealing. And that has given me a lot of, you know, self what’s the word I’m after. It’s given me a lot of happiness working with all these different investments. I’ve, I’ve certainly learned a thing or two far more than I ever knew before something about FinTech. But beyond that, I’ve had an opportunity to learn from other leaders because these investments do have their leaders and I’m learning from those individuals, whether it be for the CEO or perhaps the other sales leader. But I’m certainly in this very fortunate position where I work across a wide sway of businesses in Europe, north America. And if I was working at one shop here in here in north America, or here in Toronto, I wouldn’t be having that experience right

Anish Shah (26:37):
Now. Awesome. So some of the excitement breath versus depth where you guys were, were very deep in your previous roles and you can learn about other kinds of insurance now beyond just those two, have you upskilled in certain ways, since you took your, your next role, what’s something that you had to kind of grow within your current role to like manage current role, whether it’s thing you to get better. Maybe we start there, like maybe when you were jumping out of your operator role, you know, were there things like, wow, I could, I really would like to grow in these certain areas. And then in your current role, like what have you had to grow within to get better at it? Yeah.

Brendan Callaghan (27:35):
I mean, speaking personally, you know, I’d admit to it when I was responsible for my number and responsible for my team, I took full ownership. I took 100% ownership and I drove my team and I did what I felt I needed to do to have the success that we wanted for the business, you know, as part of a founding team that I was just, that’s the way I ran. And so when I moved to this role, I think it was a communication, shall we say, style that I had to adopt. I was very used to just grabbing it and doing it, like I’ll do it. And I would just grab it and I would do it, but that’s not my role anymore. And so I think I had to adjust my communications style certainly to, you know, communicate it more effectively with, with, with people. But the reality is I’ve learned a heck of a lot around VC and the VC landscape I’ve certainly benefited hugely from that. But if I was to go back and say, what was the thing I really changed most over, probably my communication style.

Anish Shah (28:36):
Did you feel, do you feel, you have to, maybe your communication style before was more aggressive and now it’s a little bit more conciliatory or what are sort of differences in your communication style?

Brendan Callaghan (28:48):
I think you, I, I dunno if I to use the word aggressive, but I would, I would have accountability. So being a sales leader, if any sales leads on call, you know, we’re totally accountable to a number it’s very, it’s very binary. You either hit it or you didn’t, you know, and so that kind of clear thinking drives honesty and candor in conversation. And so, you know, when I’m pushing for my team to do what it needs to do in order for it to hit us for order for us to hit our number, you know, I, I sort of just push I push, maybe that is my style, but the reality is, you know, I, I’m not the parent anymore. I’m just trying to help these businesses. So adjusting my stuck communication probably was the biggest thing for me at the beginning.

Jonathan Metrick (29:37):
Yeah. Yeah. I think on my side it would be similar, like the approach of just you’re going to go in and do it with your team and your team just, you know, kind of tends to action. What you’ve, you’ve outlined you know, is different. I think also there’s an element of scale, right? So I think, you know, in a, in a startup, you know, you might kind lean in, you just kinda get something done, let’s get it done quickly, let’s get it out the door. But, you know, I think in this role, you’re trying to create, you know, either exercises or learnings or templates that can be used across a portfolio, right. So you don’t wanting to do it just once, you know, you, cause you don’t wanting to have that sort of conversation or that activity then go and do it at 10 other companies. You’re trying to then identify, you know, trends or things that can be ized to some degree or at least shared more broadly that are less personalized, more scalable.

Jonathan Metrick (30:25):
So I think that that was definitely shifting mindset to that was a little bit different. And then I think as well, you know, at the end of the day, you know, half of our work is, you know, Brendan working with sales folks, me working with marketing or growth folks, but the other half is us working with finance people and the fund. Right. And so they, they think differently, you know, they’re, they, they’re very strong in financial modeling and scenario planning and, you know, doing, you know, tons of analysis on various different companies and, you know, what’s that going to look like? So you have to shift a little bit of your context that way as well. I mean, I, I think, you know, as a, you know, the CMO at a company, you’re always preparing the decks for the board meeting and then kind of presenting your section in this stage, you’re kind of on the other side of that desk. And you’re kind of seeing a lot of these board decks and, you know, you’re, you’re looking at it from a different lens than the operating side. So that was also a little bit of a switch in context of being a little bit more on the financing side, you know, doing a lot more discussion with folks in finance or a finance background than, you know, kind of in the, in the marketing function.

Brendan Callaghan (31:24):
Yeah. And completely an opportunity for, I mean, I’ll say for us to learn, you know, the things that I’m now more aware of because I’ve had this exposure, that finance team wow. You know, it’s, it’s such an education, so that’s another great benefit that I feel and blessed the feel cuz I’m .

Jonathan Metrick (31:44):
Yeah. I think if we were ever to flip back onto an operating side and looking to go through a fundraise, like I’m substantially more informed as to kind of what all the different factors of fundraising is now than, than having been through it once or twice at, you know, previous companies. Yeah.

Anish Shah (31:59):
Makes a lot of sense. And do you, do you, do you feel like you have to walk into conversations a little bit less kind of knowing the answer than you maybe did in previous roles where you, someone might come to you and talk to you about their scenario, where maybe in your previous roles, when you were deep in, in, in your particular functional area this time around, maybe you’re a little bit less, more so like, I don’t know the answer and I shouldn’t, you know, I shouldn’t go ghost very, very aggressively and, and thinking I do know the answer because I it’s, it’s kind of a little bit of a whole new world.

Brendan Callaghan (32:35):
I think, I think the honest answer is if I, if I’m comfortable with the subject matter, then, you know, I’ll give my opinion because that’s, my role is, is to do that. If whatever, the reason it’s out of my comfort zone, you know, I’m very happy and, you know, welcome to pull in other people within the team who have a broader sense of knowledge. So given an example Jonathan and I are working on a file together and I said, Hey, Jonathan, this is really touching into your area a little bit more so than mine now. And I pulled Jonathan in and, you know, Jonathan joins the dialogue and there’s been numerous examples of that since Jonathan’s joined the fund. Yeah.

Jonathan Metrick (33:11):
Yeah, we definitely, I think that’s one of the nice pieces around having, you know, a few folks that are experts in their own functional areas, cuz you know, at the end of the day, oftentimes you, as you get into the more complicated meat challenges that business is facing infrequently, is it just one little area of a team? It usually crosses a couple of them. And so if you, if you can draw on, you know, like a, a CTO expertise, sales, marketing, you know, a little bit of a finance or, you know, kind of business intelligence side of things that creates a very interesting model to really move a, a, you know, a challenging project forward. With some folks that, you know, are, are then can, you know, go off and do their, their respective pieces after. So that is definitely different. I think as well, you know, on the concept of, you know, you do need to spend a little bit of time getting to know those businesses, right?

Jonathan Metrick (33:57):
So it’s, there’s 10 of them, not one of them say you work with and you know, over time you get to know them, which is great, but it does take a little bit more time to onboard versus, you know, you come into a company, you know, you got to live and breathe the company for three, four weeks. Okay. You’re, you’re getting closer, but with ours, you know, you do really need to, you know, spend some time with the folks. COVID makes that a little harder for someone who onboarded virtually. So you do that more on zoom than going and visiting their offices, but yeah, that’s, that is slightly different.

Anish Shah (34:24):
Okay, cool. Thanks for that. And then Nicole had a question in the chat, I think summarizing a bit of her question you know, what skills did you have from your previous roles to highlight that you could go from, you know being something that’s being in something that’s very depth oriented to something that’s a little bit more breath oriented. So from being, being a doer to more of an advisor were, were there certain, like in your interview processes, you have to speak to that a little bit to kind of convince the team that you could jump from, from something very focused to something that’s a little bit broader,

Brendan Callaghan (34:59):
I’ll take a shot on things. I think, I think the reality is both Jonathan and I had, you know, success in previous roles at what were our organizations that our fund would invest in. So, you know, to the point of living the life. So, you know, we live the life of a sales leader or a marketing leader out of early stage business. And we grew with that business through its subsequent rounds of funding. And, you know, we took it to an exit. The, the reality is, you know, we did it numerous times. And so when we’re typically dealing with some of our investments, this might be their first kick of a can, you know, this might be that first sales leader’s first sales role in terms of leadership or perhaps someone in marketing. So the reality is we’ve seen and touched a lot of things. And so we can talk to broad strokes and then we can see what they’re doing. And we’re peers, we’re peers that come in and we go, Hey, have you thought of this? And we just bounce ideas off each other. It’s never a sort of, you should do this. No, it’s a, have you considered? And we have a conversation around it. That’s really our role.

Anish Shah (36:09):
Cool. And one thing I can speak to I is you know, as people are jumping from viewers to try to get greater, greater breath I’ve noticed a lot of people who have trouble being able to communicate that properly. There’s a, there’s a definite alignment with how many external conversations you have on a regular basis. It’s not necessarily are you capable of doing it, it’s quite a bit. Are you able to communicate that you’re capable of doing it? And are you able to really put that, put that out there so someone can ingest it in a way and walk away from the conversation and be like, all right, this person kind of gets that. And I think the difference from people who are good at that and are able to be for lack of a better word, charismatic in sort of sort of putting that that forward.

Anish Shah (36:55):
The difference is they just have a lot of conversations. You know, so if you’re looking to, to better communicate what your skills are and how broad that they can go and that, you know, you’re not just stuck to whatever your, your, your current desk job is go and have three coffees a week with people. I think that’s great career advice for anyone who’s trying to upskill themselves in any, I’ve learned a hundred times more from you’ve had one-on-one coffees with, or zoom coffees with then I’ve learned from those people’s blogs or what they put out that’s meant for mass consumption, because nine times out of 10, those blogs are full of shit. It’s stuff that’s put out there to create a certain impression that that person wants to put out in the world. And then when you actually get that person and you can grill them on a couple scenarios that are real you get the real answer, you get the truth, you get the story of why they left their last company.

Anish Shah (37:48):
You get the story of how they coped with it, you get these real stories. But then you’re also able to put your real story out there and make a ton of mistakes. You know, when I was first pitching our company to people, I was pitching it completely in the wrong way, and I was failing, but I was still getting a lot of those conversations and starting to learn what pitch was resonating and why people wanted to have conversations with me and why they wanted to avoid, avoid having conversations with me. And it just started getting better and better. And so, you know, what I could say is like, do that, you know, don’t rely on blogs, don’t rely on books, don’t rely on, you know, quote unquote, classroom learning. And don’t think that your internal job is going to help you level up to the next thing and that your internal communications and all those internal meetings, make sure to make sure to schedule a lot of external meetings with, within your career with people outside of your, of your four walls of your organization. That’s, what’s going to up level you, at least in my opinion, I could be wrong. It might not work for some people, but I think, I think that’s helped people. Number one, get out there and make those communications. And number two, just get better with what you’re pitching and how it becomes, you know relevant and exciting for the person sitting on the other side from you. We can jump on the next one.

Anish Shah (39:09):
Interesting. was there anything that you guys were doing previously that provided you with an unfair advantage to, to help you get this job or perform better? Probably more so to help you perform better within this job than possibly, you know, than the norm?

Brendan Callaghan (39:29):
I think it’s back to the point that we did the role. You know, we, we are advising individuals or advising companies on the role that we used to have and, you know, we did that for numbers of years. And so that ability, that ability to storytelling, you know, relate tangible examples, you know, my example of the taking 50,000 out of my credit card, you know, that totally sings to any kind of founding team when their early stage. And they have to bootstrap because they probably did something similar at one point in order to keep the lights on, you know, they didn’t get paid for two months because they were covering payroll for their team. You know, they were the last people to get paid, so I can totally empathize and have so much respect for operators. So much respect for, you know, entrepreneurs and founders, because they take those risks and, you know, we can all sit down and have a good story and share them.

Brendan Callaghan (40:23):
And as the businesses grow and they have more success, you know, we, you know, we can relate as well. A funny little story, I was sitting in a room with one of our one of our founders he’d recently closed his series B and he wasn’t paying attention to me. He was, he was playing with his phone, he was playing with his phone and we were talking and then he went, yes. And I went, oh, what happened? And he goes, oh, I just got the money, just got transferred to my account. I went, oh, great. You know, cuz he was just closing his round and he received the funding and I went, that’s great. Went already spent, he’d already, it’s already been gone. You know, it was done. He knew where he was going to be over the next 18 months to 24 months and the money was already spent in his head. And so he was just distracted for that moment. But I remember that same moment when I was in his shoes and I went, yeah, I remember that as well. It it’s, it’s so quick and those moments are so special because we’re peers and we can relate to each other.

Anish Shah (41:28):
That’s

Brendan Callaghan (41:28):
Amazing. That’s really great.

Anish Shah (41:29):
That’s amazing. Has COVID changed anything now this is a question from Raul in the, in the chat either in the FinTech industry in how you are working with your, your, your portfolio clients, maybe, you know, a greater insistence on profitability or anything else.

Jonathan Metrick (41:51):
Yeah, I get to that. I know Brendan, you probably have to roll, roll off. Yeah. But let me, let me, let me take that one from a kind of overall portfolio

Anish Shah (41:58):
Perspective and, and just one thing really quick. And it just goes to show that you could be family first and venture as well. Cuz Brandon study has a 2 45 hard stop to grab to grab his kids. And

Brendan Callaghan (42:09):
I have to go collect my daughter from school. So this is a hard out, thank you so much for the opportunity to be on this panel. I really, really enjoyed it. If anyone wants to reach out with me, reach out to me on LinkedIn by all means. Do we can chat there? Raul? I think you’re my friend. I know who you are. You’re the finest COO. I know to man, how Columbia is treating you. Well, my friend. Okay. Take care. Bye

Jonathan Metrick (42:37):
Brenda. But yeah, on the front of, on the side of kind of how co has COVID changed things. Yeah, absolutely. I think in the, you know, immediate throws of, of March, I think everybody went through this, you know, all those plans that were, you know, 20, 20 projections all got redone, right. And I think it was a mad dash within March of, you know, what’s happening, you know, are revenues coming in, are all the tax and the CPAs by channel are those still relevant is, you know, historical data even relevant anymore. Do we need to redo our projections to, to see, you know, how, how much cash do we have in the bank? Can we operate for 12 or 18 month time horizon? So there was a mad dash, I think in the first few months of COVID to really Batten down the hatches, make sure that, you know, the finances were secure and you know, now that we’ve, you know, merged into summer and now in fall, I think, you know, things have re stabilized and, and, and, and in very much cases, I think FinTech businesses have actually benefited largely from the fact that more consumers are shifting online.

Jonathan Metrick (43:37):
You know, you’re not going into a mall or going and walking around to, you know, your traditional financial institutions as much, or meeting your broker for a coffee shop, you know, kind of catch up. You’re doing a lot more of that online. And I think FinTech specifically, I think is very well positioned to ride this kind of change in consumer behavior localized to COVID because of their offering that Lean’s first digital and is oftentimes cheaper and kind of more, more efficient from a consumer perspective

Anish Shah (44:07):
Makes a lot of sense. Are your, where your portfolio companies a little bit kind of worried and kind of stressed out with it or is FinTech one of those industries that’s not going to hit as much as some others like retail or luxury or travel.

Jonathan Metrick (44:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think there was definitely that that initial wave of, you know, is the sky falling. And I think everybody felt that right. And I think in the marching April timeframe, when the cases were going up and, you know, everyone wasn’t going to work. And I think that initial question of can we even do our jobs remotely. That was an outstanding question. I think for everybody and, you know, here we are six months later doing, you know, these, these calls on zoom and this is kind of standard now, but I think, yeah, there was definitely an initial, you know, wow, what’s going on and, and can we, will we be able to survive this? And I think by and large, you know many of the businesses that are more tech related I think have, have done well you know, I think getting in front of consumers in a more scrappy digital way, you know, I think COVID is forced businesses to reimagine some of their operating procedures, some of their distribution mechanisms and, you know, startups are well positioned for that, right? They’re more nimble, they’re smaller. They can make decisions faster. They’re more used to, you know, agile testing and launching and testing new things quickly. And, you know, that’s, there are benefits to, and rewards that are going to companies that are leaning into reimagining, you know, what the distribution models look like. And, you know, FinTech, I think is in there, you know, it’s a little harder if you’re a legacy retail business with, you know, a hundred or thousand stores across America to, you know, pivot in, in the course of three months

Anish Shah (45:41):
Makes a ton of sense jump on the next one, grace. I think you’ve talked a bit about what you’ve gained, but do you miss anything about the old days?

Jonathan Metrick (45:55):
Yeah I mean, I, I definitely miss having, you know, a team, I think I’ve got like lots of teams now, you know, I, I definitely have a, I created a slack group with all the kind of, you know, growth marketers and the different funds and, and the companies and then the funds, so we can chat, but it’s not quite the same as, you know, being able to, I don’t know, virtual happy hour now, but going happy hour with your team and that sort of thing. So that’s a little bit different. Not having a marketing budget is different. You know, I, when I started my career Proctor and gamble, when I was, you know, in my early twenties, I had a marketing budget of $40 million working on, you know, kinda brands from, from Proctor. Right. So that’s been pretty different to not actually, you know, see an opportunity or see something new in market and be like, yes, let’s like deploy capital there tomorrow.

Jonathan Metrick (46:35):
So that’s different. Those probably would be the two biggest pieces, I think, in terms of the team team element. And then, yeah, just having the, your pulse on, you know, the ability to kind of execute quickly, if you see an opportunity. I think that kind of resonates with maybe some of the growth folks on the call who are, you know, driven to that sort of role because you have, you’re constantly looking for new trends and new areas to, to ma to maybe suss out and, you know, it’s a little bit different being on the advising role

Anish Shah (47:02):
Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Do you, do you do get frustrated with some of your like portfolio companies that they don’t move fast enough with your, with your suggestions?

Jonathan Metrick (47:11):
I mean, by and large, they, they typically do actually, I think it might be different if I was working with, you know, bigger stage companies, you know, later stage that were, you know, hu you know, like trying to advise Coca-Cola to change their marketing strategy my time. But I think, you know, at earlier start they’re, they’re, you know, very eager and excited to for the advice, right? Many of them maybe are doing it for the first time or, you know, even in the growth world, you know, if one of my peers came up to me and was like, Hey, by the way, you should try this thing. It’s a pretty good growth opportunity. I probably would try it. So I think it’s, you know, within the stage that you work in, when they’re growing quickly and, you know, they’re kind of agile and excited to try new things, typically they they’re on board. I think as long as, you know, you’re aiming in the same direction that they want to go to.

Anish Shah (47:54):
Okay. Awesome. Awesome. That’s really great. That’s great to hear that they’re all moving really fast, fast too. You know, you never know, as, as kind of an outside advisor, whether people are going to listen to you and move for, not just, okay. Jonathan said this, Mel,

Jonathan Metrick (48:09):
Back to that

Jonathan Metrick (48:11):
Earlier of, you know, kind of having been in their shoes. Right. I think if you’re kind of just a general investor and, and you know, maybe you’ve seen, you know, you’ve invested in these companies, but you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been there on, you know, those you know, Friday nights before a deployment and does it work or sending out an email blast and, you know, reading it six times before you push send, cuz you wanting to make sure there’s no errors like you you’ve been in their shoes. And I think that creates a bit of a different dynamic than if, you know, someone’s kind of giving you advice, but they they’ve never executed that before. So they don’t really know. You know, I’ve been in that shoe before I’ve, you know, been in the junior side of things and also on, on more of the leadership side of things and marketing. So I think that that kind of helps create a stronger connection and more of a shared experience

Anish Shah (48:55):
Makes a lot of sense. And maybe your suggestions are just really good. Maybe that’s part of it as well.

Jonathan Metrick (48:59):
I hope so. I hope so. I don’t know. You have to, you’ll have to back channel that one. You could probably do that, that we’ve got a lot of folks in common that we,

Anish Shah (49:06):
I Willm going to send an email to every single one, like Jonathan’s

Jonathan Metrick (49:09):
Please,

Anish Shah (49:11):
Is he, is he a VC? So you just can’t tell him that his stuff sucks or just really.

Anish Shah (49:16):
Yeah. I mean, is, is there, I mean, so is there part of that cause actually, so when I was in house running growth at a company and we, we had, we had a VC and there was a direct growth partner that was assigned to me basically in your role. You know, there was hesitancy in sort of laying it all out for, for this person because you know, I, I feel like portfolio companies, aren’t always like completely forthright with their investing partners because they don’t wanting to alarm their investing partners. Also investing partners have the capability to fire the CEO. So you know, if the growth partner knows that, well, we aren’t doing as well as we should. Can you, can you sense that in some people or just something you can’t sense? Unless they’re very like honest about it. Yeah.

Jonathan Metrick (50:07):
I mean, there is that element, right? For sure. I mean, I think it’s kind of, you know, with someone who’s a little bit more informed in the growth space, you know, I, I probably can get an assessment of, well, you know, does your attribution model make sense or does it not? Right. I mean, I, you know, I probably have a decent sense of that having built a few of them myself. So I think there is a little bit of, you know, yes, absolutely. There is a back channel and, and connecting into the fund. But again, I think the other component is, you know, this really is a partnership, right? This isn’t a quick win on something that, you know, is a flash in the pan. Like we’re really trying to build these businesses together. We’ve invested capital in them for a long period of time.

Jonathan Metrick (50:45):
And, you know, they’re only going to do that by, it’s not by meeting your quarterly number it’s by meeting your year targets and multi-year targets. So that creates kind of a shared understanding hopefully, and a bit of trust where, you know, these are just ideas and these are recommendations, but, you know, we’re, we’re coming from a pretty good place in terms of the recommendations. So I’ve found at least, you know, kind of, since I’ve been in this role, there is a lot of shared alignment, but yeah, I think there’s that kind of side of, you know, if, if you don’t wanting to take the advice, okay, that’s totally fine, but you probably should have a, you know, some other thing you’re going to do and a reason why maybe, but it is, it is a conversation and it’s a partnership more or

Anish Shah (51:22):
Not sure. And, and I mean, less of taking the advice more so of like just not sharing certain information with you, do, do you, and it’s probably something that someone’s not going to outright say, by the way, I’m not sharing this information with you, but like that you may be just like sense in a conversation like this. Person’s a little,

Jonathan Metrick (51:40):
That’s fair, worried. I mean, that’s totally fair, but it comes back to building trust. Yeah. Right. And I think for me, it is, you know, I, the way I’ve approached this is I come in and just try and add value. Right. And so I’m attending these meetings. I I’m willing to, you know, one of the companies I work with when I first joined, I wrote their press release for a new, you know product that they were spinning out. And we ended up getting media coverage from it, cuz I did it on Friday night. Right. So those sort of things end up creating, you know? Okay, well, wow. Like that’s this isn’t just like someone who’s, you know, I’m willing to also roll up my sleeves and do some of the work. And I think that helps build some of the trust with some of these folks being like, Hey, like maybe, you know, there’s a number that’s coming in. That’s lower than target. You know, I’d love to be in a scenario where they come and ask me first and I can maybe brainstorm with them to try and turn that around versus them then going to the board and the next board meeting

Anish Shah (52:29):
Target. And then question from Ben actually no Ben from a decade ago. Good to see you on here. From working together a decade ago what are some trends in what’s getting funded these days? Obviously you have a very FinTech focus, but that can go in a lot of different directions to apps, to insurance, to all over the place. What, what have you guys been kind of eyeing these days and what have you noticed the trend in the companies that are actually getting that funding?

Jonathan Metrick (52:54):
Yeah, I think so. Fintech is hot. I mean, I remember back in policy geniuses days, you know, before inure tech was even a thing, we just like attached ourselves to FinTech as at least it was like a term people were using, but you know, our fund focus is exclusively on FinTech globally. So that’s, there’s a lot of movement in that. I think that the, you know, the companies that are doing well are, you know, really the ones that are trying to create solutions that are better for their, their customers. Right. I think, you know a lot of the incumbent financial institutions, insurance companies, you know, they’ve had the same way of selling their businesses for literally decades. And you know, there’s a lot of fees that are attached to that. They’re very complicated products that people, you know, I always joked at at policy genius.

Jonathan Metrick (53:37):
Like no one wakes up on a Saturday morning being like, oh, I can’t wait to research insurance. Like no one wants to do that. So I think there’s a lot of room for companies to reimagine, you know, products, make them a little easier, educate consumers, save them some money. You know, there’s a ton of fees that are created around financial services and transferring money and payments. And you know, so there’s a lot of companies that are reimagining that and when they’ve done it digital first, right, I think they, they have a lower cost structure so they can, you know, reimagine what, how much does it really cost to have a checking account? Does it need to be $12 a month? I don’t know. Right. Does do you have to pay $5 every time you do a wire transfer? So those sorts of things I think are, are really where a lot of startups are, are getting traction, reimagining, you know, financial services in a digital way.

Jonathan Metrick (54:25):
And then I think from a just growth side of things, cause I always love, you know, the latest growth trends which is always the eternal question of life. A lot of companies that are leading into SEO are doing quite well. So generating a lot of organic content that folks are then finding on Google and finding your website. That’s kind of one of the, one of the key trends I think which is going to continue on, I think automation’s as big. So folks who are creating automated scripts for auto bidding on things like Facebook and Google, that’s pretty hot. I’m pretty bullish on that. So I’d say those are two areas that when I see a company that’s doing things like that, I get pretty excited.

Anish Shah (54:59):
Cool. and one last question and then we’ll we’ll wrap things up here, but do you have a favorite FinTech company, whether it’s one of your portfolios or other ones where you’re like, I really like what these people are doing here?

Jonathan Metrick (55:12):
I mean, I, I love it’s similar to Brendan. I think like I love all my children. They’re all great. I think, you know, so there’s different folks in different geographies that are doing cool things, right. I mean, you know, in, in Canada while Simple’s doing great you know, they’re kind of a robo advisor cos also doing some, some awesome stuff in Germany. We work with Clark, which is kind of the, you know, leading inure tech in Germany. They all have their own unique pieces that they’re doing really well. I think that’s one of the interesting things around, you know, working adventure. You really see, you know, you don’t need to be good at everything. You just have to do really something really, really well, right. Maybe one or two things. And that can be different according to the company. So, and here’s Brendan back. Oh my gosh. Just before the, just before the close, that was a quick turnaround.

Anish Shah (55:52):
That was great. Well, well then I can ask Brendan

Brendan Callaghan (55:54):
Success mission.

Anish Shah (55:57):
Sorry, say that again.

Brendan Callaghan (55:58):
It was a successful mission I collected.

Jonathan Metrick (56:02):
Awesome.

Anish Shah (56:03):
So we have a closing question here, which I asked Jonathan and he danced around. So Brendan do you, you know, do you have a favorite kind of FinTech company these days, whether it’s one of your portfolio companies or not that you’re like, I really like what, what, what these people are doing,

Brendan Callaghan (56:19):
Sorry at this moment.

Anish Shah (56:24):
Yeah. Whether it’s one of your portfolio companies or not, where you’re just really impressed at what they did.

Brendan Callaghan (56:32):
I mean there are several that spring to mind. I think I’m going to go with our portfolio. I mean, some of the businesses that we have within it, I’m going to single out dialogue and I I’ll single out them simply because of what they do in today’s environment. So dialogue is a telemedicine technology here in Canada and they’ve been able to help so many people with COVID and COVID related issues and health issues in general, that, you know, we, as a fund, investing them, investing in them at such an early stage and seeing all the good that they’re doing right now in Canada are helping so many hundreds of thousands of people just gives me so much pride. And to know that we helped grow that business and seeing all the positive that they do, I’ve just got to call them out. Amazing. cause in the, in today’s environment with COVID yeah. I mean talk about a business that’s making a real positive impact. So hats off to dialogue.

Anish Shah (57:38):
Amazing. well thanks everybody for attending, but most importantly, thank you to the panelists, Jonathan Metrick and Brendan Callaghan. Thanks for sharing all your.