Lisa Calhoun
Welcome to the Atlanta Startup Podcast. I’m Lisa Calhoun, Founding Managing Partner at Valor Ventures. William will be back with us next week but in the meantime, as guest host, I have a really exciting person to interview today and I know you’re going to enjoy it. Before I introduce him, first, I wanted to also mention two things for you, our listeners, to get involved with as you find your own way. You’ll see I’m kind of previewing what we’re going to talk about in the startup ecosystem here in Atlanta and surrounds. One is March 30. Valor is hosting a celebration of women founders and investors for Women’s History Month, which is going to be on March 30 at our offices and registration is on our website for free valor.vc. Just go click on Events and it’ll pop right up. Now you do have to register, we do have security at the door and we have probably room for another 50 people, which means go ahead, hurry up and register now. We’re looking forward to seeing you. And then the other thing that I wanted to mention is that May and June are our back-to-back Startup Runway Foundation grant-making events. If you are a pre-seed startup led by a woman or a person of color, please apply now for the May grant and the June grant. In May, we’re running Startup Runway nationally, so where you’re located does not matter. And in June, we’re running Startup Runway Savannah. We’re really focused on that coastal Georgia area so all the details are at https://startuprunway.org/ just click the calendar to look at the dates. Click apply if you’re a startup that is looking for non-dilutive capital and introductions to early investors. That’s it for announcements and upcoming events. I hope I see you at some of those events. And without further ado, please welcome my very good friend and Wall Street Journal best-selling author, ap Treeger. Cap, so glad you could be with us today.
Cap Treeger
Lisa, thank you so very much. I’m just thrilled. I’m a huge fan of you and Valor. I just think what you’re doing is so important. It’s exciting to be here. Thank you.
Lisa Calhoun
Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. You just wrote a book called Finding The Way which is about a process that’s near and dear really to both of our hearts and I think the hearts of our listeners, the entrepreneurs’ journey. How did you decide to write Finding The Way?
Cap Treeger
Well, Lisa, I’m a startup entrepreneur myself and involved in a number of companies. I’ve directly invested now in over 100 early-stage businesses, and also done a lot of venture funds, including I think I chipped in on Valor Ventures a little bit. I do a lot of these mentoring programs, probably hundreds of companies over the years, and really enjoyed it. I feel like may be one of the best things I can do for the world. I think my passion is to help people innovate and build businesses. I feel like that pays for hospitals, schools, and infrastructure in a sustainable way that can last and so I’m a big fan of helping startups. In the process of being engaged in a lot of these companies, people come to you and say, hey, we need help with this. I’ve kind of gravitated towards sort of a process that it’s a little different maybe than a lot of mentors. We work through kind of figuring out who you are, and where you’re going. What it is that your customers really buying may be underlying the surface issues. It could be like validation or security or things like that. I’m a big business model guy. I’ve worked through that a lot and then put the right pieces into a place beyond just your team and making sure that that alignment where people can really understand where you’re going and work with sort of a purposeful intentionality. I say those things because I think there are a lot of books about a lot of other things, a lot of great resources, but those are things that I kind of look at maybe differently than people and I couldn’t find a good book on business models. I couldn’t find a good book on product positioning and understanding your customer. And so I thought, well, I need to write one and so I set out to write a book that I can hand out to companies when they asked me to mentor. When I wrote it, I shared it with you and a couple of other friends, and a couple of other friends encouraged me to make it a bestseller. That’s what we’ve gone out and tried to do. Had a great launch. As you mentioned, I think it was the number three business book in the Wall Street Journal list when it came out and the number 10 book overall. So it was a fun launch. I’ve learned a lot. Hopefully, in doing that we’re able to reach more people. So long, rambling answer, but thank you.
Lisa Calhoun
That makes a lot of sense. And to your point about entrepreneurs funding hospitals, schools, and all of those things, I was reading recently in Forbes, they come out with their 400 Richest Americans list. Something like 75% of the new wealth in this country every year is generated by startups, buildings, and exiting companies. The truth is to your point, no one has a handbook on business models. I looked in our portfolio now. And I see, for example, so many of our startups are using AI in innovative ways but they’re inventing some of the business models around selling it because even the legal aspects of having a generative AI working for your enterprise have certainly not been ironed out yet. What I like about your book, is it provides a bit of a process and it uses fiction to do it. So before we get into some of the meat of the book, why did you choose a fictionalized approach to get some of these lessons across?
Cap Treeger
Well, Lisa, a lot of us learn anecdotally and from experience. I started noticing that a lot of my favorite books, you may have read The Goal, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, or Leadership And Self Deception, are great books that I learned a lot from while feeling like I was part of the experience. For that and a lot of other reasons, you’re part of a group called YPO and they tell you in there don’t tell people what to do, they have to own the consequences. I don’t say hire someone, fire someone, sell your company, instead, I like to experience share and say, here’s what happened when we hired someone, fired someone, sold that company, the mistakes we made, the lessons we learned. I found myself repeating the same stories over and over again and so I just took the story of one of my companies that we built and sold and wrote it, basically incorporating a lot of the lessons we learned and mistakes, incorporating wisdom from a number of mentors and role models. Basically just tried to help people walk through it. Now that said, I understand some people kind of have different methods of learning. I’ve actually got a friend that’s interested in turning it into a workbook. She said she likes bullet points, but it seems like most of the entrepreneurs that have read it have enjoyed the anecdotal and experiential learning. I was trying to make it a fun story. And then there are other reasons for doing it in fiction, I didn’t feel like I had to hear specifically the details, I was able to write the book in a pen name which enabled me to not throw people under the bus and combine characters and combined businesses.
Lisa Calhoun
I think it’s much easier to remember because it is a story. I have a picture of the main character and the struggles he went through in building the business, but also how he overcame them. And you’re right, that story does sit in the mind much more so than some of the templates and processes from the business book site. I tend to read more normally. One of the things I took away from the book was that I was not utilizing lunch properly. The way that you utilize the lunch cap is really impressive and functional. Could you share a little bit more about that?
Cap Treeger
Thank you. I’m a foodie. I enjoy breaking bread with people and it feels like it makes things less formal. It’s more friendly and warmer. People get to eat. You’ll find a lot of meals in the air and a lot of food but really, as you know, that’s how business relationships happen.
Lisa Calhoun
It’s a beautiful way to build and also has pauses in the conversation. There are a lot of things about the book that procedurally for me was actually really, really engaging because I’m someone who has tended to work right through lunch. Not saying I’m not eating, but I’m eating at my desk kind of working through and your book was a little bit of a wake-up call for me and it’s like, hey, have a human lunch with people that you like, and enjoy, and you can get their insights. It becomes a great break in the day, almost like a mental break. I really, really liked that part. Actually, I’m not kidding at all. I do want to ask you if you think entrepreneurs are a breed apart or if can anyone become an entrepreneur.
Cap Treeger
Well, both. Let me go back to the food thing, by the way, they say you can tell a lot about people by watching how they eat. You can find people that are careful and you may be looking for different characteristics in someone when you break bread with them. That’s one thing. But yeah, entrepreneurs, Lisa, you saw it on the lens in the book, whatever’s wrong with this is wrong with all of this. You and I have been around a lot of entrepreneurs and maybe there are a few exceptions, but by and large, we’re all stubborn, we’re contrarian, and we go from hyper-focus to kind of scattered and back depending on what’s in front of us, never satisfied with anything. But I think those are not bad, the hyper-focused can be a superpower, never satisfied, I like being that way it hopefully helps drive us and motivate us. I do think there are things but they may or may not be something that a lot of people are born with. Entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes, just like businesses do. There’s a virtue to that. I like that not every business looks the same and not every entrepreneur thinks the same. I think some of the traits, the stubbornness, that’s worked for me. There are also certain types of businesses that need to be moved fast and be less stubborn. I wouldn’t ascribe everything to everyone but I do think it helps people around us to understand that we are going to be focused at times and we are going to never be satisfied and things like that.
Lisa Calhoun
It’s interesting that you bring that up. One of the things I also thought was really good about the book is that the main character, the people who work with him, and his advisors are not the only characters. It’s a very business-centric book, however, Cap’s wife also plays recurring and, I would say, a starring role in several of the chapters, and conversations with her mean a lot to Cap. How do you advise entrepreneurs who have a spouse who isn’t an entrepreneur? How should you best communicate? How does that work? What are some tips?
Cap Treeger
Thanks for asking that question, too. I was a bad husband and I didn’t realize it. The protagonist, I didn’t want it to just be about him by any means but he is largely based on me, I’ll confess that, and I think a lot of us come home, we’re focused on our work, and we don’t realize that our spouses can interpret that as dismissive. The things that make us that help in business, the stubbornness and that sort of thing, they’re not always success factors at home. Your partner, your spouse, I think if you’re going to my wife at the store, and said, hey, he’s gonna be like this for x period of time, not forever, but x period of time, and it’ll help him build a business, create jobs, innovate, help hospitals, help health care, she might say, okay I’ll live with that and work around it. But nobody said that. She just thought I was being a jerk and then I didn’t realize it. I didn’t even notice. It’s terrible. I’ve gotten more comments probably about that from entrepreneurs and spouses than anything else in my book. I think spouses, partners, and people around us seem to appreciate sort of a different perspective on why we are that way, whatever is wrong with us so that was definitely part of the intention of the book.
Lisa Calhoun
It’s an excellent part of the book. I love those pieces. I really found myself tuning in and although I’m really happily married to an entrepreneur and have been for many years before I was married to him, I had a previous marriage that was not to an entrepreneur. I made a lot of those mistakes and I think that my business focus was very much, I don’t want to say misinterpreted, but I could have done a better job of communicating how and why I was so focused on the business I was building. It really resonates. Well done, Cap. I loved that part. Now, I would also like to ask kind of going back to the beginning of the entrepreneurial journey you’re sharing in the book, your main character is a pretty smart guy, has options in life, went to a great university, but chose to start something. Do you feel that it’s easier to start young as an entrepreneur? I mean, our listeners, a lot of them are entrepreneurs, but a lot of them are working in a job and thinking about it someday, maybe?
Cap Treeger
That’s a good question, Lisa. When people come to me, wanting to start a business, I gotta be honest with you, the first thing I do is try to talk them out of it. I really kind of scared them if I can. My best mentor did that to me a long time ago. I guess the thought is, if I can talk you out of it, you probably shouldn’t do it. But that’s because it’s not easy. As you know, there’s always sort of a roller coaster and things that can happen but for people that really want to do it, I actually think anybody, again, harkening to your prior question, anybody could become an entrepreneur in different ways. Part of me is pulling for him. It’s not easy, it’s challenging, it’s risky, but there’s risk in everything. So many people spend their life looking for easy. Life can be meaningful, it can be rewarding and it can be fun. I’ve never seen anywhere that is supposed to be easy. In all of my experience, everybody that’s looking for easy never gets it. It’s people who go out and take risks and innovate and battle through challenges, those people sometimes end up with an opportunity for easy and decide that’s not what they ever really wanted. Part of me is pulling for you to do it, even when I’m trying to scare you out of it. As far as age, I’m a partner in a couple of businesses now with entrepreneurs that are in their 60s. They would tell you they’re a lot smarter about it just because of the scars on their back and their experiences but I also think there’s some energy in younger people. My best mentor, who you’ll read a lot about in the book, I remember at one point, he said, look, if you knew what I know, you probably wouldn’t try it. But he said you don’t know any better and you’re gonna go succeed anyway. You’ll find a way. I think for some of us, I’m not a spring chicken anymore, and for my partners that are in their 60s, I think they did a hard check in the mirror. Do I have the fortitude for that? And in their case, absolutely, they did. When I started doing this 25 years ago, it seemed like all the entrepreneurs were young white guys. Now the energy is everywhere; all ages, makes, and models and it’s a great thing. It’s fun to see so many different ages, shapes, and sizes of entrepreneurs changing the world so quickly. I would encourage all of them if they’re cut out for it and ready for the risk and challenge.
Lisa Calhoun
I had the opportunity to meet with the SBA Administrator Guzman a couple of weeks ago in our offices and I was so impressed with her and her team. One of the things they came walking in the door with was, well, we had to come to Atlanta because, in the last couple of years, there are over 600,000 new businesses that got started here. So to your point, it is magical to see that many founders in one city. New startups, not even the people who started three or four years ago. That’s very exciting. I find it very energizing, too. Do you think it’s easier to start a startup now than it was when you did and wrote about it in this book or harder?
Cap Treeger
Again, both. It’s easier in the sense that it’s easier to get capital and it’s easier to have an idea. It’s easier to move quickly. The resources, the wherewithal, the access to knowledge and leadership, people like you, Lisa. I think you’re tremendous. I see you as a value add investor and there are a lot more of you out there than then there were certainly. Not just in Atlanta, but in a lot of places. I say more of you, there’s only one Lisa and Valor, but a lot more people that really want to help you, a lot more accessible, but I do think that the challenge is we mentioned how fast the world is always changing. It moves so much faster now. We mentioned entrepreneurs, a lot of people picture halfway in startups, but I know people that opened a landscaping company and construction business, but in all of those businesses, not just the technical ones, you have to be prepared to move and roll with the punches. We’ve always had September 11, COVID, and a great recession. It feels like those things move faster, and the need to evolve in a competitive environment is greater than ever. I would argue actually getting things up and running is easier than ever. Creating a sustainable, viable business may be more challenging in some ways, but if you want to have an idea and exit to somebody that can turn your idea into a great business, that’s definitely more possible now than it’s ever been.
Lisa Calhoun
That’s an exciting thought. One of the things that come through in the book is how much advice and mentorship the main character creates around him. But you didn’t mention, of course, because it’s a book, it’s fiction, but you didn’t mention how you came to that process. Could you shed a little more light on how you think of mentors? Where I want to start with this is in the startup community, today, there are dozens if not hundreds, of mentors around every program, right? I can tend to see that as a good thing. But if I’m in a bad mood, I can see it as a bad thing, because I feel like founders can be over-mentored,over-advised, and kind of under-supported financially in our ecosystem. One of the things that I’m thinking about is your main character, Ren, he chose well.
Cap Treeger
Well, you’re giving the best questions. I guess because you’ve been through it before. I know you’re an entrepreneur, but you can absolutely have too many mentors. The right ones and the right fit are huge. It’s like so many other things, the difference between an okay one and a great one is 10x or 100x, and could add up to millions or billions of dollars. How do you find the right one? I thought you were gonna start with that question, though, is getting mentors, period. When I first read the book, I had a few people read it. They said, what I want to know is how to start getting mentors. I think when you start, it might be a college professor, a friend’s parent, or anybody you know. If you say, hey, can I take you to lunch next week? You know, they’re busy, and they’re suspicious, what do you want? Do you want money? Do you want a job? Getting that is hard. But if you say, hey, I just really want advice and to learn from you, can I take you to breakfast in a few weeks? Somebody will give you a shot at that if you ask. When you meet with them, they can tell if you’re angling for something down the road, a job, or whatever. But if you really just want to learn, they’ll pick that up, and they’ll appreciate it. If somebody is going to be the right mentor for you, you’ll find that they want to. Sometimes they have bandwidth issues and the kind of people that are mentors and role models are often very busy. But they love doing it. If they’re the right fit for you, though, they’ll get it and you’ll get it. Once you’ve created that relationship with someone, they’ll connect you with somebody else. I started doing that when I was very young. When I was in middle school, Lisa, I had a situation where I was at school and then I guess the other kids were hanging on this kid to pick a fight with me. I think he was older and bigger. He didn’t want any part of it. We had been friends growing up and I realized the other kids were pulling for him. I didn’t like them and they didn’t like me. That was a real wake-up call, a real slap in the face. I went home and I looked in the bookshelves and my dad had a book that I’m sure you’ve read and most of your listeners have read called, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. But man, I need me some of that. I picked up the book and I read it. I haven’t read it since I was in seventh grade but it still sticks with me. I’ve given away a thousand copies of that book over the years but one of the things I took from it, is to look at people you admire and respect and model them. I admire things unusually. I’ve learned from you and some of our mutual friends I look at, if I see something I like about you, I think, hey, how can I be more like that? To me, it always came naturally but I think anybody could be that way with almost a flip of the switch. Find what you like and respect. I guess I can give it away. I’m an old guy well into my 50s now and I tell people, I don’t care if I’m any good today, as long as I’m better tomorrow and better the next day, I’ll be fine by the time I’m 70. I still find mentors and role models. At first, maybe it means you know taking them to breakfast or a cup of coffee at their convenience a few weeks out, but as you build relationships, it gets easier, you get better, and you have a network. Some of the mentors and role models in the book are in their 80s now and I still meet with them, still pick their brains, and I ask what do you know now at 80-something that you wish you knew in your mid-50s? It’s fun and highly recommended.
Lisa Calhoun
That’s an incredible life process and I thought it was a tool, but I actually see it as a lifestyle for you. That is something that I think our listeners and I myself can really take away, that mentorship as a lifestyle, seeking mentors, seeking models, finding ways to intersect with their lives in an intentional and authentic way. That’s beautiful and it’s really powerful. I’m so glad you shared that on this podcast.
Cap Treeger
Lisa, I’ll tell them, I probably can never pay you back. Sometimes I try, but I tell, I’ll pay you forward in a big. Paying it forward and writing this book was a big part of trying to share things I learned from my mentors and role models.
Lisa Calhoun
I think we have time for one or two more questions. If we do, one of the questions I wanted to ask you was if you could impress on the minds of our listeners, especially the founders who want to be founders in our community, one thing about starting, what would it be?
Cap Treeger
When we did sort of the launch of the book, we did an online sort of podcast thing. Webinar, I guess. Somebody said, If you had to boil the book down into one thing, what would it be and it hit me with purposeful intentionality. I would have bought the URL, by the way, I still have one that would have pointed that out. I spend a lot of time, you may know this, sometimes I’m in a soup kitchen or a challenging community, and I work with a lot of people from different backgrounds. And then I’ll go into a boardroom with investors and very successful people. I spent a lot of time doing the forensics between the ones that made it and the ones that struggle. There are probably a lot of things that we can say, there are spent hours talking about some of the differences, but one of the big things that stands out to me a lot, particularly, a lot of the kids that I work with come from challenging backgrounds. They’re in survival mode, they’re reacting, and they’re not as proactive or intentional about their lives. Maybe in many cases, they can’t be because it’s hard to be proactive when you’re trying to eat today and deal with family health issues. But I look at the people in the boardroom, the successful people, and most of them had expectations, they had role models, they had sort of intentions about their life. Many of the most successful ones articulated their intention. Not only were they expected to go to college and become white-collar executives or founders or entrepreneurs, but they wrote it down. A lot of them, some of these entrepreneur groups that you and I do, not only do people use the word success a lot, but they have a number. They can tell you what success looks like and when they’re going to get there. I think there’s power in that and having a purpose behind it and understanding, hey, I’m doing that so I can make the world a better place, so I can create jobs, so I can help an industry or whatever. I think that purpose is empowering not only you as the entrepreneur but people that want to follow you. Whereas so many of the people that I work with that struggle, again, survival mode reacted today. I feel like if you can get evolved somehow from that to purposeful and articulated intentionality, I think that can be very, very empowering. Sometimes other things can start to take care of themselves.
Lisa Calhoun
I love that. It’s true in my experience as well. A lot of the founders that I work with now, of course, many of them are software startups given the nature of my work, but there’s a number. Some of our best founders have a very clear number, and it’s not a max number, it’s a minimum number. That breaks down a lot of the processes about how to get there and what’s going to make a difference at that scale. It’s really interesting to hear you articulate that. We could talk all day about some of the fascinating things in this book but I know that our listeners are going to be able to read it. Could you share how they can get a copy of the book?
Cap Treeger
Oh, thank you. https://findingtheway.com/ is the website. We want to create more of a community for resources for entrepreneurs. And aside from that, you can find links there to Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can look it up on Amazon, Finding The Way The Entrepreneurs Tale by Cap Treeger. There are a couple of exercises in there, things that we go through with entrepreneurs. Thank you for any consideration and just thank you, Lisa.
Lisa Calhoun
We’re gonna be putting those links in the show notes for everyone that’s listening. Finding The Way on Amazon and it’s also on Audible, which is my favorite way of listening to books. There’s a great reader. I’m often in the car and that’s pretty much what I do, I listen to books. I love it and some podcasts too. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your journey with us today. Cap, you are an absolute champion in real life. I think a lot of that heroic nature comes out in this book. If you’re listening and you haven’t read it, please check it out. I think you’ll really enjoy it. Time well spent.
Lisa Calhoun
We’re thrilled to have you as an Atlanta Startup Podcast listener to help you get the most out of the experience. Let me invite you to three insider opportunities from our host Valor Ventures. First, want to be a guest on this amazing show. Reach out to our booking team at atlantastartuppodcast.com. Click on booking, It’s a no-brainer from there. Are you raising a seed round? Valor definitely wants to hear from you. Share your startup story at valor.vc/pitch. Are you a woman or minority-led startup valor sister program? The Startup Runway Foundation gives away grants to promising startups led by underrepresented founders. The mission of the Startup Runway Foundation is connecting underrepresented founders to their first investors. Startup runway finalists have raised over $40 million. See if you qualify for one of these amazing grants at startuprunway.org. You can also sign up for our next showcase for free there. Let me let you go today with a shout-out to Startup Runway presenting sponsor Cox Enterprises and to our founding partners, American Family Institute, Truist, Georgia Power, Avanta Ventures, and Innovators Legal. These great organizations make Startup Runway possible. Thanks for listening today and see you back next week.
