On today’s episode, Apollo chats with Adrian Mendoza, Founder & General Partner of Mendoza Ventures, the first Latinx VC Fund on the East Coast. Scoring with a majority in Prioritize and Leverage, Apollo and Adrian discuss how his working style has changed through his success.
On today’s episode, Apollo chats with Adrian Mendoza, Founder & General Partner of Mendoza Ventures, the first Latinx VC Fund on the East Coast. Focused on fintech, AI, and cybersecurity, Adrian is dedicated to diversity when making investment decisions. 80% of their portfolio consists of startups led by immigrants, people of color, and women.
Scoring with a majority in Prioritize and Leverage, Apollo and Adrian discuss how his working style has changed through his success. Adrian, once purely an executor while starting Mendoza Ventures, describes his transition into a leader by “firing” himself from unscalable tasks he would have previously done himself.
While advising his early stage portfolio companies, Adrian aims to create a memorable experience: bringing around a plush dog with the firm's logo on it to every investor meeting. He stresses to Apollo the importance of telling your story and describing your vision, so that others from similar communities can follow in those footsteps.
Side note - If you were interested in taking a look at the art of Adrian's brother, Angel Mendoza, here is the link to his website.
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Guest Bio
Adrian Mendoza is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, Founder & General Partner of Mendoza Ventures, the first Latinx VC Fund on the East Coast. Founded in 2016 by Adrian and his wife Senofer, Mendoza Ventures has raised two funds, and is in the process of its third as we speak.
Focused on fintech, AI, and cybersecurity, Adrian is dedicated to diversity when making investment decisions. 80% of their portfolio consists of startups led by immigrants, people of color, and women. Through their first two funds, they’ve invested in 13 companies including Listo and Wabbi.
A forward-thinker with a proven track record, Adrian combines his deep-rooted industry knowledge with a keen sense of market trends, enabling him to make impactful investments that shape the future of technology. Adrian and Senofer made Axios’ list of the five most influential people in Boston 2022, and were named to the Boston Business Journals Power 50 Movement Makers. Beyond his role as a successful entrepreneur, Adrian is a sought-after speaker, mentor, and advocate for fostering a culture of innovation, appearing on CNBC multiple times last year.
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Guest PLE Score
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Guest Quote
“I don't care what people think of me. I just go and I do it. Because if I can do it, whether I fail or succeed, I'm laying the groundwork for the next person to walk behind me. If I'm making the path in the snow up Everest, I'm literally clearing the way for the next 10 people that are like, ‘Hey, I'm gonna follow him and we are gonna succeed together.’” - Adrian Mendoza
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Time Stamps
*(2:47) Intro
*(5:15) Adrian’s Achievement Index
*(8:24) Getting people to believe in your story
*(16:10) The Mascot of Mendoza Ventures
*(29:44) Why Bank of America is anchoring Mendoza Ventures' Third Fund
*(34:06) Representation in VC funding
*(42:49) Apollo’s Takeaways
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Links
[00:00:00] Apollo Emeka: Improving your leadership skills will help you in every area of your life. But it's tough to know where to get started, and that's why we created the Achievement Index Assessment. You can take the assessment@theachievementindex.com. It takes about five minutes, and it's gonna generate a personalized report that breaks down how you prioritize, leverage and execute.
[00:00:19] Apollo Emeka: Go to the achievement index.com or find the link in the show notes.
[00:00:26] Adrian Mendoza: I as Adrian as the c e O of Mendoza Ventures. Have to be that visionary to build products that not just are about what we believe in our core identity as a firm, but going out, bringing it into communities, bringing it into the lives of founders.
[00:00:45] Adrian Mendoza: I don't care what people think of, I just go and I do it because if I'm making the path in the snow up Everest, I'm literally clearing the way for the next 10 people that are like, Hey, I'm gonna follow him and we are gonna succeed together.
[00:01:00] Apollo Emeka: Welcome to the Achievement Index, a podcast designed to help you understand and accelerate the ways you perform.
[00:01:09] Apollo Emeka: I'm Dr. Apollo Ekka. I created the Achievement Index based on my experience in the F B I US Army Special Forces and Business according to the Achievement Index. Vibrant success is the result of doing well in three areas, or as we like to call them, orientations, prioritize, leverage, and execute. On this podcast, I'll be getting inside the minds of noteworthy leaders to explore how their unique orientations and form the successes and challenges they've navigated throughout their lives and careers.
[00:01:44] Apollo Emeka: Today I'm joined by my fellow Trojan, who was born and raised in LA and I just met him a couple of months ago, but we have already hung out. I'd say we're pretty tight. His name's Adrian Mendoza and he's the founder and general partner of Mendoza Ventures, the first Latinx VC fund on the East coast.
[00:02:03] Apollo Emeka: Founded in 2016 by Adrian and his wife, fer. Mendoza Ventures, has raised two funds and is in the process. Of its third as we speak, focused on FinTech, AI, and cybersecurity. Adrian is dedicated to diversity when making investment decisions, and about 80% of the portfolio consists of startups led by immigrants, people of color, and women through their first two funds.
[00:02:29] Apollo Emeka: They've invested in 13 companies, including Listo and Wabi. Adrian and Fer made Axios list of the five most influential people in Boston in 2022, and were named to the Boston Business Journal Power 50 Movement makers. You also might've seen Adrian as an expert commentator on C N B C multiple times last year.
[00:02:54] Apollo Emeka: Adrian, how in the world.
[00:02:56] Adrian Mendoza: How are you doing? Hey, Apollo. Good to see you, man. So everyone knows, we literally hung out in LA and I reached out to Apollo when they connected me about joining, and I said, Hey, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna have breakfast in my neighborhood in Latino la I. And I brought, you know, Apollo up from Pasadena.
[00:03:15] Adrian Mendoza: I brought another friend from Newport Beach, my brother, who is a Mexican American graph artist, and it was great just combining worlds together. And that's really what I love doing, especially being in Angeleno. I mean, you get different ecologies of LA bringing them together all at once to have Mexican
[00:03:33] Apollo Emeka: food.
[00:03:34] Apollo Emeka: Absolutely. And I was not expecting that. You know, we spoke and about 11 minutes into our conversation, he was like, Hey, I'm gonna be in LA next week. Uh, let's hang out twice in one day. How about that? And so breakfast was one, and then we actually had to scrap hangout number two, which I'm still gonna hold you to, bringing you out to this, this wine bar called The Cellar out here in Pasadena, which is just magical.
[00:03:57] Apollo Emeka: It's like underground speakeasy type deal. So we're gonna have to do that for sure. So Adrian is a Renaissance man and and a connector. And with that, let's dive into his Achievement index score. And so I know you took this back, I think maybe about three months ago now, but it looks like you are 52% prioritize.
[00:04:21] Apollo Emeka: 32% leverage and 16% execute. So for those of you who are not familiar, you can take the achievement index at www.theachievementindex.com and get your own score. But prioritizing is all about kind of deciding what must be done. It's about being a visionary. Leveraging is all about figuring out ways to make getting stuff done easy, and then executing is all about doing that stuff.
[00:04:48] Apollo Emeka: So Adrian, you're 52% prioritized, 32% leverage, and 16% execute. How does that hit you? Does that feel consistent with how you show up in the world?
[00:05:00] Adrian Mendoza: Actually, I think it really does. And you know, one of the things I love about the achievement index is you reference like the climbing of the mountain. And what I love about that is when we talk to founders and entrepreneurs, we actually talk about climbing Everest.
[00:05:17] Adrian Mendoza: And we talk about that in two ways. We talk about, I was actually had a founder in this morning and I was talking to her about doing a vision pitch. And in a vision pitch, you talk to investors about, we're gonna climb Mount Everest together, and you give about selling the big vision of climbing the mountain.
[00:05:38] Adrian Mendoza: You know, and you're not talking about the details, you're not talking. It's really about the power of vision. And then we take a step back and we tell 'em, you can't just go climb Everest. If you did, you would die along the way. You have to get to Basecamp. To Basecamp, to Basecamp, and to founders. We talk about prioritization of what it takes to get to those metrics of A, B, C, and D, and, but the important part and that relates to that 52% is you've gotta bring everyone up with you.
[00:06:16] Adrian Mendoza: It's not just you. You've gotta bring your team, your investors, and they all have to believe that we're climbing Mount Everest together. And you know what? Some, some people may die, some people are gonna make it. Some people we're turned back. But the vision is we're climbing Everest together. And so that when when I saw that I was like, yes, Apollo and I are in sync, because that's how I view the world.
[00:06:43] Apollo Emeka: So one of the things that I've noticed with really successful fund managers, especially folks with diverse backgrounds, is that these fund managers have almost a controversial stance that really ignites some people and really turns some people off. Like, have you experienced that with. In using this mountain analogy that like some people are like, hell yeah, I want to climb Everest with you.
[00:07:06] Apollo Emeka: Like, yeah, let's do this. And some people are like, oh, you know, like sounds like too much work or sounds like whatever, you know, like, do you get this kind of polarizing thing by using this analogy?
[00:07:16] Adrian Mendoza: Well, you know what? There's two ways to pitch a deck and so that everybody knows my background. Prior to being at Mendoza Ventures, we started two technology venture backed businesses, and that was the first one in 2009.
[00:07:31] Adrian Mendoza: So we went through the founder's story. We went through pitching investors and pivoting companies in hiring and firing, and out of that belief, You know, there's two ways to pitch a business, you know, and there's between sort of zero to series B, you can get away with doing the vision pitch. You may not have a product, you might have, not product market fit, but you've gotta get people to believe in you.
[00:07:59] Adrian Mendoza: You know, there's that quote from, um, the c e O of Disney. You know, I'm trying to figure out like the ex c e O, but now he's the current c e o, but he said that no one follows the pessimist. People wanna follow the optimist. And when you are early stages, when you are building things that like have not been seen, you've gotta get people to believe in you.
[00:08:23] Adrian Mendoza: And it's hard. Pitching a vision is the hardest thing you ever do because there's some people that can't pitch it. So I go to them and said, well, there's the other way to pitch it. The other way is the business pitch. And you literally go through the numbers and you're, here's CAC and here's L T V. And I have seen some founders, including people that were connected.
[00:08:46] Adrian Mendoza: Some of our companies fail miserably at it because they're trying to talk to early investors and they go down the rabbit hole and next thing you know, the investors like, well, I don't know. Is it really 17 cents for cac? Or is it 17 and a half cents, or is it 18 cents? And next thing you know, The vision's lost.
[00:09:05] Adrian Mendoza: But look, there is a way to do it. If you've got your numbers ready to go and you're like, I believe in my numbers, I'm a profitable business, and here is the mechanics, because funny enough, what we see in the world is that between now and the Series A, you're pitching that founder big vision, and then magically at the series B, it flips over to that business deck that.
[00:09:32] Adrian Mendoza: Here is the economics, and we've coached some of our port coss about that. And a lot of them don't realize the switch just flips. And so you have to be ready to do both. And that's why for us, we're really good in the early stage because we know that space really well. We know what the vision is, we know how to tell that story.
[00:09:55] Adrian Mendoza: And it's funny because it takes a while. Um, you know, when we started, we weren't really good at telling our story. You know, we were out there doing what we were doing. You know, we started Mendoza Ventures in 2016, and it wasn't until maybe 20 18, 20 19 when we started going out, because other founders, other investors out there were saying, your story's incredible.
[00:10:20] Adrian Mendoza: You have to tell everybody. You have to tell the world what's happening. And so we started doing more press. We started doing more articles. We started getting out there because we realized there were two important things that were happening, that in order to climb Mount Everest, You've gotta get people behind you and they've gotta know about you,
[00:10:44] Apollo Emeka: man. Tell me if you can relate to Adrian's story right now. I mean, have you ever been working so hard on something that you're just putting one foot in front of the other and you're knocking out task after task after task, and then you look up and you're like, man, how come nobody's coming after us? How come nobody's checking for me?
[00:11:02] Apollo Emeka: And it's because he wasn't telling the story. Right. So as soon as he learned how to tell the story, that's when Mendoza Ventures, I. Took off. He didn't have to change his behavior a lot. He didn't have to change the tasks he was knocking out. He had to change how he was talking about them. And, you know, different guests on our podcast about different ways of doing that.
[00:11:26] Apollo Emeka: Danielle shoots talked about the domestic emerging market, Carrie Colbert. Branded herself as always wearing pink. And Brian Hollins talked about not getting lost in that sea of sameness. Now Adrian has a really interesting way of branding his story, which you're gonna hear about in just a second. But you know, one of the other awesome things about being able to tell your story is that if you have a diverse identity, if you are a first, who is, you know, climbing a mountain and breaking barriers, Your story can also have the consequence of inspiring others to follow in your footsteps.
[00:12:11] Adrian Mendoza: And one of the things about climbing Everest and doing something, especially as a diverse manager, you sometimes have to be the first. And if I as a Latino climb Everest, other Latinos can look at me and say, he did it. So can I. And I was reminded last week by someone who I had a phone call with who just really wanted to talk to me and he said, Hey, I saw your interview in Houston from a few months ago, and what struck me was you saying anyone can do this.
[00:12:48] Adrian Mendoza: And he was like, that just struck me that I can do this too. And for me, part of this business is private equity has been led by, you know, people in the industry that have been at prior firms and then they spin out and you have to have this 20 year track record. We were founders, we started companies. Um, and people forget that starting a firm like ours is having a startup and that's a world we really well.
[00:13:16] Adrian Mendoza: And sometimes, you know, you said it, you're right. You have people that agree with you and sometimes you have people that. Completely. I rubbed the wrong way. You know, we have a mascot, uh, actually he's our employee, Reese Puppy. He's a plush dog and 99% of people just love it. They think it's great. We have stickers.
[00:13:35] Adrian Mendoza: He appears in C N B C with me, and there's 1% people who don't find it funny. Mm, they don't have a soul. Or one
[00:13:42] Apollo Emeka: 1%. Yeah, just 1%. Is it
[00:13:44] Adrian Mendoza: 1%? It's, it's about 1% of people who just. I do not find him funny. When we, when we have a pitch and as a joke I say, you get one free blush dog. They, there were some people that are just do not find, but you know what?
[00:13:57] Adrian Mendoza: It doesn't matter what I do, they're just not gonna find us funny.
[00:14:01] Apollo Emeka: Yeah. Right now Adrian is situated with his plush puppy by his side and with VC Puppy on his t-shirt. VC puppy sticker lives on our main conference table here in the office, and people come in and they're like, Hey, what is that? I mean, my five-year-old was like, Hey, what's this?
[00:14:18] Apollo Emeka: It's a sign that, uh, branding matters, right? And branding can be impactful. And that was one of the big things that I took away from our conversation over the Vos Rancheros is. Leveraging press and leveraging media to tell a story. But you kind of have to have something to tell, right? And you're really high on the prioritized side.
[00:14:36] Apollo Emeka: On that vision side, you're also really big on the leverage side. But I can also tell that you are a doer, right? And so for you to show up as 16% execution, I'm trying to reconcile. Everything that I know about you thus far is that, oh, if he says he is gonna do a thing, he does the thing. You know, like how do you balance having this vision piece, but then also being such a
[00:15:02] Adrian Mendoza: doer?
[00:15:03] Adrian Mendoza: Well, it's interesting as we've grown, you know, we're now raising our third fund. We now have about four full-time employees, another two or three venture fellows that are part-time employees, and we brought in an advisory board. Some incredible people. One of them was a C I O for the city of Pittsburgh, I think.
[00:15:22] Adrian Mendoza: And we were in New York and a couple of times we've met for coffee or dinner or lunch. And every time he meets me, he's like, Adrian, what did you fire yourself from today? And he really pushed me on this because he said, look, you're growing. You're institutionalizing the business. You have staff now you have to focus on not just building the business, but giving them the vision so that they can go out and do what needs to be done.
[00:15:54] Adrian Mendoza: You can't be everything to everyone. You can't be the, the janitor you can't buy. You know this. And once in a while I do sneak in it and I'm like, look, I just need to get this done. I'm gonna do it on my own. But he's really pushed me on like, every time, where'd you fire yourself from? And I, and it was really good because.
[00:16:10] Adrian Mendoza: Part of being in the startup is you wear every hat and as you grow you have to learn to walk away. And so at the last startup, um, I was the C T O and founder of the company, and I never wrote a line of code. I would actually tell people my job is to unblock people if I'm writing code. We failed. And that was really what I took away from that experience and have started sort of bringing back into, you know, sort of Windows Ventures as we're growing is my job is to unblock individuals to ask the hard questions, but empower our team to go do it.
[00:16:56] Adrian Mendoza: Because if you had given me the achievement index five years ago, I would've been all execution. I am gonna go do this. Oh, just five years ago. Oh yeah. I mean, and this was because five years ago we were a startup. We had, you know, we started, you know, really fund one center for and myself and over three years we were trying things and we were doing due diligence and we were really learning the mechanics of building a fund and how we were doing due diligence, but we were doing all of it, and we are trying to do it part-time.
[00:17:28] Adrian Mendoza: And mid 2018, we took a step back and said, in order to be successful, because we actually in 20 17, 20 18 sold our first company. It's actually where the dog came from, and we took a step back and we're like, we've done really well. We have an incredible track record in just doing this part-time. If we did this full-time, we could just blow it out of the park.
[00:17:55] Adrian Mendoza: And so at the end of 2018, we really started looking at our second fund. And we were like, we have to put the cards on the table. We have to do this. And we took the proceeds of that exit, put it, reinvested it back in the business to start giving us nine months of. Fundraising and building the next fund and beginning to learn how to fundraise to outside investors because we had raised money from VCs before, but we never raised money from LPs, those individuals that sit inside of the fund.
[00:18:26] Adrian Mendoza: And that was at a time when there were no such things as a diverse emerging manager. No one heard what that is, let alone micro funds, let alone. Fund managers that had been entrepreneurs before. You know, when we raised money, we were raising money from asset managers and family offices and lawyers that had, you know, that was their trade.
[00:18:51] Adrian Mendoza: So we had to take a step back and be like, well, we've gotta learn the business. And so we were learning everything about the mechanics. I tell people now, 25% of being in BC is writing the check. 75% is both networking, the back office, the front office, the day-to-day aspect of moving bank accounts, when banks are going out of business, you know, opening bank accounts, doing credit facility lines, just doing all of that to both help us and our companies, and that was really the power as we grew.
[00:19:24] Adrian Mendoza: Just about two years ago, we hired a full-time C F O. But,
[00:19:28] Apollo Emeka: so I hear you talking about all these things that have to get done, right? And I mean, you say anybody can do this, and it's like, yeah, anybody who is willing to execute. A hundred percent. Right. Anybody who's willing to do all the things can do it, right?
[00:19:44] Apollo Emeka: But one of the things that we usually see is whether it's a fund, whether it is a technology company, a real estate company, that there's that this transition that has to happen when you're going from being all execute to, okay, actually, ooh, I can't be the executor on all this stuff anymore. One of the snags that can happen is that, People just say, okay, nevermind.
[00:20:05] Apollo Emeka: Oh, if I can't do it, okay, then you do it. If I'm not supposed to be doing it, okay, you do it then, right? And then we can hit snags with folks passing things off before they're kind of ready to get passed off or passing them off in a way that's uninterpretable by the person that it's getting passed to.
[00:20:25] Apollo Emeka: Do you know what I'm saying? Like that's, oh, absolutely. Did
[00:20:27] Adrian Mendoza: you hit any of that? Or like, you know what? This is why when we started, there were two of us. You know, that was by design to have the two of us to be able to help, because I do a lot. Right now, I'm the one that's out talking to the pension funds.
[00:20:44] Adrian Mendoza: I'm out on the one doing all of sort of this, you know, scouting ahead. And she is the one that does the investor relations. She is the one that is, you know, doing the account management, talking to LPs, doing the quarterlies, working with our C F O. And then I come back when I'm, when we're, we're then do a couple of things together.
[00:21:06] Adrian Mendoza: We're doing due diligence together, but it's really important that as we grow, we institutionalize. Who's part of the investment team, who's part of operations. Every quarter we're meeting as a team to be like, what are the gaps that we see? You know, right now we have a plan to hire an ops finance person to help on that side.
[00:21:27] Adrian Mendoza: We have a plan to hire another investment professional, but you have to have that transparency of one. You have to, as an entrepreneur, be willing to talk about the business all the time. You can't just shut it off. You know, I was talking to one of our advisors and he said the difference between that employee and the entrepreneur is that as an employee, you're sitting in the back watching things.
[00:21:54] Adrian Mendoza: As an entrepreneur, you're dancing the razor's edge. And they're incredible things that, you know, to, to founders, to the LPs, to the building of communities, because that's really, for me, and you saw this at that breakfast, you know, we are about building community. We are about taking individuals that, you know, and this is my belief of how that anyone can do it.
[00:22:17] Adrian Mendoza: Take an individual that doesn't think that they can do something and help them to try, whether it's a founder, whether it's an investor.
[00:22:27] Apollo Emeka: Wow. Adrian is making his way all over his prioritized, leverage, execute landscape. So remember when he was talking about kind of just climbing the mountain head down, executing on the tasks, and then he realized he needed to pop up to that prioritized level and really talk about that mountain that he was climbing and where the opportunities were and the things that they had already accomplished in that space.
[00:22:48] Apollo Emeka: Now he's talking about leverage. Leveraging people and relationships and various parts of people's identities. So remember that breakfast that we were talking about at the beginning of the episode? Well, he just brought this random mix of people together. His brother, who's an amazing Chicano artist. And another guy named Alex, who is also in the VC space, but specifically around issues of national security and intelligence.
[00:23:14] Apollo Emeka: So he and I got to nerd out because of my F B I and Army Special Forces background, and this was just a random Tuesday at a restaurant called Antigua Bread and Highland Park. I didn't know any of these folks, but he brought us together and we were able to connect nonetheless. It's a powerful, powerful skill, being able to connect various identities to one another.
[00:23:38] Apollo Emeka: You know, one of the identities that Adrian talked about was his Latino voice that he had to kind of shut out early on, which is this voice that was popping up and telling him, Hey, you don't need any help. You can do this, you've got this. Don't connect with other people actually, and you know, in having 80% of his portfolio companies have diverse founders.
[00:24:01] Apollo Emeka: I had to ask him, how often does identity come up with his founders? How often does the conversation around kind of identity come up with your founders? All the time.
[00:24:15] Adrian Mendoza: How so? I have a founder who has iPod, a company who's went to some of the top schools, and I still talk to him about ask for help. I'm like, you gotta ask for help.
[00:24:27] Adrian Mendoza: Your Inner Latinos saying, I don't need help. I go to him and we're like, no, no, you do need it. Ask for help. And he thanks me. He said, you're right. And a lot of them, I remind them about, ask for help, ask me for help. Don't just ask anyone for help. You should be asking your investors for help. I. And my goal is to empower them so that the next investor comes in and they're like, great, what are you gonna bring to the table?
[00:24:52] Adrian Mendoza: This is not a one-sided conversation. We are partners, and I believe that at every piece, because part of anyone can do this is we, you know, and we were talking about this earlier. One of the things that we learned from our second fund when we first started bringing outside money in is that we realized that about 50 to 60% of our investors in our fund are actively co-investing with us.
[00:25:20] Adrian Mendoza: They're doing their little angel investments. They're coming along, we're training them how to do it. We're having these founders pitch, and they're putting in a little bit piece so that they could start building their own Angel Track records alongside the fund and around 10 to 20%. That were first time investors in a fund are now investors in other phones owned by people of color or women because we busted the door to say, you can do this.
[00:25:50] Adrian Mendoza: So now they're actually like going out and doing it, which I love. And so as we were raising our third fund, and now this is all public, our third fund is anchored by Bank of America, the Lord's Bank in the us. You know, they have a commitment of $500 million to deploy to diverse funds and diverse fund managers.
[00:26:10] Adrian Mendoza: And when we met them, they called us and said, Hey, we've heard about what you guys are doing. We wanna be part of this. And they said, we've heard that you guys have active investors, and we think that's incredible. And so it's like, great, let's talk about what that looks like. And one of the things that we went to them is that our power is bringing in black and brown female LPs that are first time, and we can't put them in the same pool together.
[00:26:42] Adrian Mendoza: So we're gonna create a separate fund called the Inclusion Fund that is a little $10 million fund for individuals to bring them in at a lower. Entry point with the entire goal of building a base of people that may never go and raise a fund, may never go and start a startup, but they get to participate in the wealth building ability because even if the fund blows up, the fact that we've opened the door to an asset class, That is not available to most individuals.
[00:27:15] Adrian Mendoza: Like I, you'll hear me joke and say I was an accredit investor for years and never even knew. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then I take a step back and we're like, who would've let me into their fund? Nobody, uh, you know, no one at Sequoia was gonna be like, Hey, brown guy, you should come in. Um, the goal was if we help one person, they help 10 people.
[00:27:36] Adrian Mendoza: Those, you know, and it just keeps on going because that's how we've solved it, or that anyone can do it. If they're an accredit investor, they get to participate, they get to have access. I've had cases where someone said, this is really interesting. God, I wish my son could come. And I was like, come to the event and bring your son.
[00:27:55] Adrian Mendoza: He was like, wait, what? And so he brought his 14 year old son. To like see the pitch and learn about investing in a fund, because that's how we break these models. But that goes back to the achievement index of I, as Adrian, as the C E O of Mendoza Ventures, have to be that visionary to build products that not just are about what we believe in our core identity as a firm, but going outward.
[00:28:28] Adrian Mendoza: Bringing it into communities, bringing it into the lives of founders. I don't care what people think of me, I just go and I do it because if I can do it and I can show whether I fail or success, I'm laying the groundwork for the next person to walk behind me. If I'm making the path in the snow up Everest, I'm literally clearing the way for the next 10 people that are like, Hey, I'm gonna follow him and we are gonna succeed together.
[00:28:58] Adrian Mendoza: You
[00:28:58] Apollo Emeka: know the, what you're saying is, so, it's so cool because going back to the achievement index and prioritizing, it's like you've managed to shift that kind of your execute energy up to the prioritized level, and so it feels like you're really devoted to your priorities and to the big picture. In a way that just kind of comes out everywhere.
[00:29:19] Apollo Emeka: I went to this event where one of my new friends, her name's Rose Riga, she's the the d e I leader for a company called Optum Health. And in this talk she said, you know, with D E I efforts, the best way to get started is to start. And I think that it's so simple, but you know, like the whole audience just did this like yeah.
[00:29:40] Apollo Emeka: That, you know, That's what it feels like your approach is. It's like, hey, there's an approach to diversifying things, to making things more equitable that does not require a big, touchy feely, like massive exploration of history. Although I'm not downplaying the, the benefits of those things, but sometimes we can get bogged down and for you it's as simple as, Hey, bring your 14 year old kid to the thing.
[00:30:05] Apollo Emeka: Yeah. Bring them, right? Like, and just exposing people of color to these concepts and making sure that they're in the room. It, it can be as simple as that in moving the
[00:30:16] Adrian Mendoza: needle. Well, and what we did is a couple years ago, you know, everyone was talking about, well, there's not enough representation in jobs in BC and how do we get there?
[00:30:27] Adrian Mendoza: And at the same time I'm like, well, duh, just start hiring. And I was like, how about this? I'm gonna start a Venture Fellows program that is only for diverse and female M B A students to get jobs in venture and I'm gonna have them work for us for a semester with the entire goal of we get more jobs out there.
[00:30:48] Adrian Mendoza: People thought we were ridiculous. We've gone through about five cohorts, 16 fellows, now three of them. Are now investment professionals at like institutional allocators. Two of them are now LPs in our fund, and the other two I just found out one is just started a startup and they're out in the industry doing it.
[00:31:09] Adrian Mendoza: And it all just came from, we should do something. Let's just go ahead and do it. Let's not talk about it. And I've now been approached by other investors to being like, how did you do that? Well just take, steal my model. Here, take it. You, you want me to give you the Airtable of what the application looks like?
[00:31:25] Adrian Mendoza: Same thing with the model of how we create the inclusion fund. I tell every fund manager, this is how I solved it. If you wanna steal my model, go right ahead. Because if you do it, that's great. And that's really the thing about it, and this is what I see the in the de and I space, is there's so much like we have to have a conversation, we have to have an analysis of, of efforts.
[00:31:47] Adrian Mendoza: We have to, and we're like, No, you just have to go do it. And look, it doesn't have to be
[00:31:53] Apollo Emeka: perfect. Can you imagine what the world would look like if every executive approached d e i in this way, something absurd, like 98% of all VC dollars are managed by white men. So if you wanna diversify the space, it's a no-brainer that just bringing other folks into the space is a good place to start.
[00:32:16] Apollo Emeka: And that's what he's done. He says, Hey, it doesn't have to be perfect, but let's just start moving the needle. And you know what? As a matter of fact, this is working over here, so if you want to do it, go ahead. Steal my model. He said, I'll share my air table application with you. Adrian is locked in on this priority and he's taking the first steps that are necessary to move the needle.
[00:32:41] Apollo Emeka: Being decisive on complex issues is an executive's job. It's a founder's job. And it's probably one of the hardest things that you can do. Listen to Adrian talk about how that operates in this company. Now,
[00:32:54] Adrian Mendoza: and this is the thing of why, for me, it's the focus on prioritize. Because I see so many founders get stuck in analysis paralysis.
[00:33:05] Adrian Mendoza: In the fear of being perfect can stop someone in their tracks. And my thing is, if you're just having movement, it's better than not movement at all. Because if you're not making a decision, that's a decision. If you're not doing anything, that's a decision. And my thing is it may not be perfect. But you're still out there because I'm a big believer in things like the Lean startup method where you do, you execute, you iterate over and over and over again until you get it right.
[00:33:37] Adrian Mendoza: But if you're not doing it, you're not learning it. And now what we're doing, even for our fellows, we're now capturing the data on it. Where did they come from? What schools, what are their outcomes? We look at gender, we look at, you know, what, you know, what year they're in, to hone in where is the keys indicators of success.
[00:33:55] Adrian Mendoza: And then we share that out to be like, Hey, this is where we've done it. This is the good years. You know, we, we notice that, you know, they're, you know, perfect places, second year, first semester, and yes, there could be some outliers. But the key is let's make a successful program that we could sort of copy over and over again.
[00:34:15] Adrian Mendoza: And same thing, even with how we're helping founders, we're now looking at initiatives internally to be like, Let's bottle up all the help that we do and be able to create a programmatic approach to either bootcamps or founders to just bring this over and over again and not talk about the big rah rah, you know, the the 1 0 1.
[00:34:37] Adrian Mendoza: You go to a conference and everyone's like talking these topics and we're all like, yeah, we should do something. But that 400 level classes that someone just gave me a term sheet, what do I do? Someone, you know, gave me a acquisition offer. How do I walk through the steps and that level of detail, that's where the power of prioritize comes in.
[00:35:02] Adrian Mendoza: Because at the same time, if you don't, you could get easily distracted. You know, you can go down the rabbit hole of an acquisition, you can go down the rabbit hole of this, but you also have to start thinking 10 steps ahead. Because this is a business, not you have to be in the now, but you also have to be thinking, what are we doing six months next year, five years from now?
[00:35:27] Adrian Mendoza: Because if you're not thinking about five years from now, you're not thinking from 10 years from now, you're not building the vision for yourself. Because it always has to come down to we're climbing Everest and you're doing it with us. And I don't think I told you this. When we have this thing of we call, you have to believe in Christmas like.
[00:35:47] Adrian Mendoza: We hire people who believe in Christmas. We bring in founders who believe in Christmas. And if you don't believe in Christmas, you're just not a good fit for us. You're gonna be like, I don't know, Santa's not real. There's people that are like, I wanna work with Santa, I wanna work with Mrs. Claus. And like, you know, I wanna build toys with you guys.
[00:36:04] Adrian Mendoza: And I'm like, great, let's, let's learn how to build toys. But that's the power's of it, is, you know, you gotta believe in Christmas.
[00:36:12] Apollo Emeka: That's so cool. Well, man, when we had breakfast, I think our, our breakfast was maybe two and a half hours or something like that. So I love a great conversation, but I don't want to keep you so I won't be selfish.
[00:36:24] Apollo Emeka: But thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. My hand is sore 'cause I don't normally write, but I got so many awesome tidbits that I had to write down here in our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today,
[00:36:38] Adrian Mendoza: Apollo. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to hear it. And uh, you know what, I'm excited for the next guest, you know, heard a couple of episodes already and I'm excited for the next time we go to the Cellar in, in Passade.
[00:36:49] Apollo Emeka: We gotta go to the cellar, man. Next time youre in town. Seriously, hit me up. I'll, I'll all thank you so much Adrian. I'm going back forth. Thanks, Palo. Thank you once again to Adrian Mendoza of Mendoza Ventures. Is anybody else just itching to get out there and take action now after hearing all about Adrian's journey?
[00:37:10] Apollo Emeka: So it's time for some takeaways. All right. From a prioritized perspective, he talked a lot about vision and having a vision pitch and how important it is, especially in the early stages of something I. To have a crystal clear vision and be able to communicate it, because sometimes a vision is all you have.
[00:37:30] Apollo Emeka: You don't have a track record or you know, business results to pitch, so you've gotta pitch a compelling vision. Another thing that he does masterfully but didn't really talk about as much is branding. I mean, he carries this plush dog with him everywhere he goes. And like you said, people you know. Either get excited by it or turned off, but they are going to remember it.
[00:37:53] Apollo Emeka: And sometimes you have to be the first person to tackle that mountain. You've gotta be the first person that is gonna set a new priority that maybe nobody that looks like you or nobody where you're from has. Achieved before from a leverage perspective. He's like, man, you gotta bring everybody with you.
[00:38:13] Apollo Emeka: And a lot of that is by showing them the vision, but however you do it, you've just gotta bring them with you because you also can't do everything yourself. He is really specific in leveraging press to tell his story, and you have to have a story to tell. Also, he learns in every direction, which is something that I am a big believer in.
[00:38:35] Apollo Emeka: Strong leverages. Are able to learn from anyone and he's learned a lot by watching his founders and been able to apply what he has learned and observed in his own company. And finally, for the execute metrics matter. In the first couple of minutes of our conversation, he's talking about getting your metrics dialed in, but that was secondary to having a strong vision.
[00:39:02] Apollo Emeka: For those of you out there that are actively fundraising right now, that may need to pitch, he talked about two specific ways to pitch. That vision method, if you're anywhere between seed and Series A, you're, you're pitching the vision. You're selling the vision, and after that you've gotta flip it into metrics, into business model, into customer acquisition costs and lifetime values.
[00:39:27] Apollo Emeka: Well, I don't know about you all, but my brain and my heart is full and I feel like I need to go. Take action. So I'm gonna do that. I'll see you out there on the mountain. Remember, you can find out what your achievement index is by going to www.theachievementindex.com. Take the assessment, takes about 15, 20 minutes.
[00:39:49] Apollo Emeka: Make sure you're in a nice, calm state of mind, in a quiet place, and you can find out your own achievement index and figure out how you match up. Against our guests. I'm Dr. Apollo Omeka. If you liked the podcast, please rate us on whatever platform you're listening and remember to share it with your friends.
[00:40:07] Apollo Emeka: Thanks. See you next time.