Interesting Conversations with Interesting People doing Interesting Things

The post title and picture above describe the new metric for how I measure the value of my external engagements. I spent this past week traveling between Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Lisbon. On the very last night in town a serendipitous meeting happened with a group of people that I had no clue I would actually meet at the start of the trip. That encounter led to a set of interesting conversations that I am certain will lead to further dialogues and opportunities in the future.

One thing I have learned about myself is that I am a eager learner and highly inquisitive about people. I like getting to know people regardless of the surroundings or circumstances. For instance on this trip I ended up talking with the co-founders of ChargerHelp (Kameale Terry and Evette Ellis) while driving to LAX from downtown LA. One could call this the Interstate pitch versus an elevator pitch. Despite normal LA traffic, we didn't have that much time together. With the short time together, we did establish that all of us could bring each other further value outside of the transactional engagement related to funding. Their journey to improve the EV charging experience and ecosystem very much reflects their doing a very interesting thing.

The night before I had dinner at the WeHo Nobu with Ken Grimes. Ken is a NCSSM graduate and a NC native. We had a short conversation by phone some months ago but had not had the opportunity to meet f2f without the time constraints that come with virtual sessions. It was a fantastic dinner discussing a wide range of subjects in life, finance and black excellence. We did roughly 2.5 hours at that table and it was very much worth the time and effort to go to LA (on the way to Lisbon) to sit down with him. Interesting conversation.

I met Zach Resnick at a investor meeting in Lisbon on Friday. He is the founder of FlyFlat. A very interesting startup. More interesting is that I found out that I was an investor in Zach's company over dinner a week prior with my friend Allan Tear whose fund I am a LP in. RevUp supported GDC on our growth journey and beyond the money I built strong relationships with the two GPs Allan and Melissa. So Allan was gushing about this cool company that did business concierge travel then I meet the founder by happenstance on the otherside of the world. He then introduces me to another interesting connection Francis Pedraza a founder/investor who also believes in capital efficient business models. This encounter happened at a small indian restaurant in a Lisboa neighborhood. Francis btw had just seen Allan earlier in the week in Miami. Loop closed/Interesting people. .

All of these people were interesting for a variety of reasons. The encounters would have never happened if I had not been seeking those engagements outside of the traditional pursuit of dealmaking/investing. I'll spend the day getting home to the family. I will spend time on the crossing thinking about the conversations and how they can become parleyed into more interesting engagements/actions/outcomes.

Okay the point of this post isnt just to reflect how small the world is. It's meant to say that when you are engaging with someone seek to have an authentic connection with that person versus a transactional hit n run. It's easy to schedule 30min zoom sessions everyday, pitch your deal and feel like you accomplished something a the end of the day but some people expect more. Some people want to know why you are doing you are doing. Some people what your view on how you see the world. Some people are looking for things worth trading such as contacts, knowledge or perspectives. So when you are reaching out to someone new take the time to be interesting. Take the time to have a conversation and sharing the interesting things you are doing to change the world.