00:08:13 · Molly O'Shea, S1, Paige Finn Doherty
But like, I just loved the process of like making something, like refining it and selling it, making it, refining it, selling it, and like making like money in order to fuel the next thing. And it's just like this generative, like cashflow process. Yeah. And it's creative. It's like fun. It's exciting. And I just like kept on doing that. But for art, was like really clear, like, you know, art was my thing. I, before college, like also did this summer architecture course at USC. Oh yeah. Because I didn't know, like, do I want to be a creative director like my mom was, or do I want to go into architecture? And I did this program and it's like nine hours a day. It's intensive, like Architecture is really difficult. You have to do like five to six years of school. And for me, how I calculate things is does it have an efficient ROI? Will I be able to achieve what I want to achieve in the amount of time? Or will this like actually take longer than I [00:09:11] S1: think I love with [00:09:12] S2: an efficient ROI. Yeah. And like, what will the actual options be for me at the end of this? Like, it's not for me. And so, I did that and it was like fucking awesome. Like it was really cool and I loved it and I love architecture and I love home design and I love like buildings. Like there's [00:09:29] S0: a but coming.
00:09:30 · Molly O'Shea
[00:09:30] S2: Yeah. But, but hear me out. You do this for like, and like at USC, right? I would be in the studio, making little, like, you know, like models and like drawings and, you know, by hand, like all day and like watching the kids go to the football games and all the social things. And I'd just be like, you know, slaving away in, in there. And I was like, nah, it's probably not for me. And then also this is, this is another thing you probably heard from that podcast is like, I found out you don't even make that much money. Yeah. Like, okay. So you pour all this money into the education, all this time that you can't take back and then you don't actually make that much money. Like that doesn't make any sense to me. None. So like, I just wanted to like figure out, okay, I could get myself into school for art. I had amazing portfolio. Like, all these awards, like state awards, like all this kind of stuff. Like I'm really fucking good at art. Like I am. And, and so I used that to get into college and NYU was the college. I went there and I went to like one of their like orientation days and, what stood out to me and like plug for NYU. It's like, of course they have Gallatin where you can pretend like, you know, you want to study grass and like, you know, like, I don't know, wood. And, or like, you know, there were kids there that were theater majors that ended up in finance. And then there were like, you know, athletes that ended up in like marketing or, you know, you just like saw like dimensionality and people could try things and do lots of stuff. So like, for me, was perfect. It was like, okay, I know how to get into like, I don't know how to get in school. I have a skill set or like something that could get me into the school and then I get in and then I can figure it out as I go. Because I have no idea.
00:11:16 · Paige Finn Doherty, Molly O'Shea, S1
[00:11:16] S0: Okay, so I wanna switch gears a bit to talk about like the skills and figuring it out. Can you talk a little bit about the first time you heard about venture capital? [00:11:26] S2: Yeah. So I think I was in my sophomore year of college. I was at Google thirty Weeks, which was their incubator for designers. I was a project manager there. It was a very small team. There were probably like four or five of us. And, I had my own company at the time and it was called Blue and Tuck. It was a sports rock company. Cool. It used technical fabrics. People are all about space now, but I was about space back then. [00:11:53] S0: So you were using space textiles [00:11:55] S2: Yes, to make it was like a NASA derived It was silver ionic plated. It blocked RF shielding radio frequencies and stuff because the interior liner, this was at the time when like phones weren't that big. This was just like a functional, like product. I made a sports bra. You can put your [00:12:11] S1: phone in. Oh. And I
00:12:12 · Molly O'Shea
[00:12:12] S2: was like, okay, but like you don't want any potential harm, radiation, breast cancer bad. So like I went on this huge, like, you know, study and trying to understand material science. So I did that and I was like, well, at first I was talking to my dad and we're like, we have to invent a fabric. Turns out it's usually probably exists, right? So it did. Then I just found all these suppliers of it, and this was awesome. And so anyways, I got into Google thirty Weeks as a project manager because of that and like the knack for like building businesses and the creativity because it was for designers. Building a business is hard and I wanted to be exposed to as many as possible. And there was a venture capitalist on the team. And once I understood what that job was... You're kind of like, the leader Oh, starts is awesome. This is awesome. This is gonna be an easy job. Yeah. All you do. How are you gonna be? It can't be that hard. Like, not at all. For me? No. So like, I know you're laughing because you understand, but it's like a real reality. Like, you know, I saw this person, like what you do as a venture capitalist seems very simple at its base level. You find companies, you research them, you do a lot of diligence and you choose which ones you want to invest in. And then over time, like you get to see them grow. You get to see all the mistakes, challenges, like, hopefully they're like really good teams. Sometimes, you know, you have to learn hard lessons and then you make a return maybe one day, hopefully that's the goal, right? Sometimes. Yeah. And so once I saw that, I was like, oh, obviously like if I want to build a business, you know, I mean, I was probably like 18, 17, 18, 19 at the time. Right? Like young. And I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I did not have the risk appetite to actually go all in. I'm like, I don't have any money. Like I don't have any money. Like, there's no, like, am working like 10 jobs right now and I go to NYU and I have to live in an apartment in New York City as like a kid. Right? Like, this is so expensive. And I'm like eating cafeteria food, and like frozen food from Trader Joe's. And, like, there's no way I can, like, just do something for free for a while and like just bask in unemployment. Right? Like, it just doesn't make sense. And so I was like, logical sense. I need to be a VC.
00:14:47 · Molly O'Shea, Paige Finn Doherty
And so I can learn all this stuff. Yeah. Invest into these companies, make money. Obviously you don't make that much money as a VC, unless like, you know, you're like a GP somewhere, or you have major exits, but, you know, the goal would be like in my thirties, maybe I use all those learnings to start my own company and do that. [00:15:12] S0: So after graduating, you have the... You had this experience, you encountered venture capital. You're like, wanna go try this out in the real world. Can you share a bit more about your experience working in a family office and like continuing to gravitate towards venture and startups?
00:15:26 · Molly O'Shea
[00:15:26] S2: So after graduating and getting into VC, you know, it's like, it's a new world, like even learning about and everything, it's a new world. Like you'd think just because someone has a fund or like a name of a fund that the fund exists. Like, I really have no, like, I'm just learning about this. Like, I don't know much about the industry. I don't know which firms are good, which firms like have been around for a while, how it works. I didn't know you could just make them and, like, you know, what the, the process is for building them up. Obviously there are some long dated legacy funds and like solidified names, but for whatever reason, like I just thought those were like, you know, not, I would, there's, there'd be no way with an art degree, even though I like finished up my credits really early and then shifted over to like entrepreneurship and business classes and took, I took graduate, I took a graduate class in college, which was really cool And all this stuff, was like, there's no way like they would hire me and whatever. Anyway, so I get into VC. I'm working for a growth equity fund. We're doing pre IPO investments. All of the hard, you know, spreadsheet modeling, decks, research, all that good stuff. Super fun. Like it just is such a, like a wild puzzle and like satisfying puzzle to kind of unravel and uncover and figure out, like, do we wanna do this business? Like, do we wanna get into this? Does it have, like, long tail? Like, do we think there's exit? Like, all that kind of stuff. And so I got obsessed with it. I just thought it was a really satisfying intellectual journey and process. And of course, like at the time I just didn't have the capacity to like start my own company. Know what it takes. So I just like, I started on this journey and like, you know, the first couple of funds I worked for were emerging managers. I was joking, but you know, if you looked at my LinkedIn, like I probably changed funds like every year or so. And like, those were for some macro factors, like one of the funds couldn't raise another fund. I was let go, like as a first job out of college. That's wild. I was like, oh my God, harsh reality check. But like I learned really soon, like the world, like you can't depend on it.