Alexa Binns 00:00
Lisa, welcome to swimming with alligators the VC podcast, from the LP perspective, with your hosts, Alexa bins and Ernest. Are you ready? Let’s dive in. So

Earnest Sweat 00:13
today on our podcast, we have an esteemed guest, Lisha Bell, fund manager of PayPal ventures, $100 million Economic Opportunity Fund, and also the co founder of BL X VC, an angel investing firm funding black and brown founders previously led teams at PayPal, Wells Fargo and Kohl’s focused on payments and fraud. She’s also been responsible for building many of the earliest digital financial tools in online banking, Bill Pay and digital wallets. Through her podcast and angel investing guides, Leisha is inspiring and supporting more women to pursue venture capital. Today, we’re going to speak with Leisha about how GPS can welcome more diverse LPs to invest in best practices, to setting up a corporate LP practice, and where she sees the biggest opportunities in FinTech. So with that, thanks Lisha for being on.

Lisha Bell 01:15
Yeah, hi, thanks for having me.

Alexa Binns 01:17
I just feel like you’re an expert on pretty much everything this podcast covers. So the GP side, the LP side, you have coached a lot of people at a lot of levels.

Lisha Bell 01:30
I love it. I love the work. So

Earnest Sweat 01:33
I would love to start just like, kind of the origin story of like, how all these things flow together to becoming an allocator in venture capital world, yeah,

Lisha Bell 01:43
you know, I didn’t know how all these things flowed together, honestly. You know, my origin story starts as a girl in the South Los Angeles, who had a family business during the LA riots that we ultimately lost because of LA riots and the divestment that happened after a racial riot and unrest, and that forced me to go to school and learn about businesses and how they work, and I got into tech and fintech, and somehow all this came together to support racial equity and venture capital in tech, like, I don’t know, somehow it’s a lot of sense. Why do I do today? Because I care about advancement and innovation, I care about equality, and so I’m so privileged to have a job that brings all those aspects together for me. Yeah. Thank

Earnest Sweat 02:39
you provide that context even just like, the background, and you know, your family’s history, as you started to explore these different worlds of business and then fintech. Was there anything that, like, really surprised you, that has really inspired you now for this, like, equity charge?

Lisha Bell 02:59
Yeah. I mean, there’s so many times when I was in rooms and I was like, I didn’t know that. Like, I used to be the Chief of Staff for the head of credit and lending, and then, like, you know, you really shouldn’t revoke your credit card, even though 80% of people do, and that’s how we make our money. I was like, You’re not paying the whole bill after 30 days. Like, that’s the thing that people do. Like, I just had so many moments where I’m like, Why did I know this? Why didn’t anybody teach me about financial education and how to build wealth in a kind of healthy mindset, kind of way? And then that took me into, when I got into, like, finance as a profession, you learn about systemic instruments that predict in redlining, and you’re like, Oh, this is why, right? So I think all that is like inspiration to like, disrupt what’s broken in the systems.

Alexa Binns 03:52
We pulled up some data on how many people are actually angel investing across demographics, and it seems like the numbers are getting better. University of New Hampshire, Center for venture research, showed women angels represent 46.7% of the angel market today, and that’s up from 39% 2022 33% in 2021 the minority angels still account for five and a half percent of the angel population. And I guess I’m curious, you know your story of how you started writing Angel checks, and how you sort of help other people along the way, given that data,

Lisha Bell 04:36
yeah, and that’s better day than I than I knew, so that

Alexa Binns 04:43
I’m sure we could find counter data that’s worse. It’s getting worse,

Lisha Bell 04:49
you know? So I think the investment making decision is who makes a decision, and so in a lot of households, you typically have. Making investments is decisions about who is making more money in the household. And so as that narrative shifts right, and we have more women making investment financial decisions, there’s a more intentional focus on where the money is going and how it’s spent. And you know, the first step is building wealth right and having ownership of wealth. And I think there’s another huge wealth transition happening now where, like, people are dying, and these women, these young women, are coming to wealth, like daddy died, and they’re like 20, and they’re like millionaires. I was, you know, like, all these are happening right now. We have, like, I’m in a place of power, and so you get positions of power by inheriting wealth or creating wealth for yourself. So I didn’t inherit any wealth. So I had to create wealth. And I worked in tech, right getting into jobs that pay more money, and building equity in these companies. And so once I figured out that wealth gave you access, and it is a privilege to do things. So it’s like, you can’t even, it’s not like the stock market, like you can’t even get into venture as an LP, like, if you’re not accredited or have institutional capital, like you just can’t even play the game. Yeah. And so I think allowing us to get in and play the game is so powerful. And like, because I worked in Silicon Valley, my whole career always was exposed to it, but was never in it. I was always around it. And so I think about the people who aren’t even around it, and like, we didn’t even know we could do this thing, and how do we do it? And once, every time it’s like riding the bike is scary, but once I get in, someone’s into it, they’ll eventually write another check. I mean, because they see how powerful it can be and how much they can learn and how fun it is. I think it’s a fun hobby. I call it angel investing. I think there’s so much reward to it,

Earnest Sweat 06:48
absolutely when I think of like my peers, and maybe I did programs like, you know, SEO and MLT, all those kind of black and Latinx professionals, you know, they could have pretty high paying jobs, but based on not being kind of in the flow of Silicon Valley, and that doesn’t mean down on the West Coast. It means kind of like just in tech in general, right? They’re really scared and unaware of it. When you come across people like that, who maybe are the first generation really, actually making some money? How do you get them warmed up to the opportunity to, you know, use a certain percentage of their disposable income to invest?

Lisha Bell 07:32
Yeah, you know. So like, for those of us who grew up in the church and you got time, your money is like, you just need five oranges out of, like, just 5% but, you know, like, it’s really a small number that used to allocate to vendors, not it’s like, don’t throw away the real estate. Like, it’s like the money that you can afford to lose or triple, right? And I tell people you have to invest within a thesis, because, if you’re just randomly investing, you tell somebody I’m ready to write a check. 5000 founders will call you tomorrow. Yeah, right. And you don’t have any guidance or vision into what, right? And so my, you know, my thesis is very clear. It’s on financial aspects, it’s on maternal health, it’s on civic and social tech programs like that, that’s what I care about the most. And so when I see those kind of things and I’m like, Oh, I’m in position and ready to be able to support a founder and expand, um, and I think you don’t have any guidance, or you’re just going out there blindly, like you’re going to get lost and scared and confused and like, oh, I regret that. If you know, like that regret. Like, we don’t want that to happen, but it takes time and you do have to educate yourself.

Alexa Binns 08:42
You clearly have access and also understand, like, what do these tech companies require in order to have any sizable return to you as an angel investor, where other people who, if you’re not coming from that context, you’re sort of judging on a totally different filter, and you’re maybe a little out of your league. Could angel investing feel like it has become much more accessible, much more popular. Could LP investing be sort of a stepping stone for some of these people who don’t have the same access that you do your direct Angel deals are going to be some of the absolute best sitting where you sit, and knowing the technical teams that you know, versus some other women that you know, we just run in our social circle, right,

Lisha Bell 09:32
right? And so just for your audience, I work at PayPal ventures. We have deal flow. I have an elf fund that has 20 funds, they have deals, right? So I get to see if there’s, like, a diverse founder or FinTech founder, it’s probably coming across my desk. So I’m very privileged to have deal flow. But if you don’t have deal flow, that’s what angel investing groups are for. That’s what being an LP in a fund can give you. You just found that thesis. You find someone who’s investing in your thesis and say, I’m just going to write you one check well over time with capital calls, but I’m going to write, I’m going to commit this capital to you, and you’re going to do the work, right? Because if you’re an angel or you don’t have time to do the work, right? You don’t have time to go hunt founders down. It’s just good and it’s not your skill set. Probably right so you let people do what they do best. And I think LPs are great if you have a good size of money to allocate as an LP. I think a minimum might be 25,000 and you can just watch that fund perform in that portfolio, and you can learn just by watching. I think that’s a great passive way to participate and enable a general partner to do what they do.

Earnest Sweat 10:45
I think you know, when it comes to becoming an LP for the first time as an individual, what advice do you give people? Because it’s even harder to find the funds and then the right funds to be in. What advice would do you give individuals looking to do that for the first

Lisha Bell 11:07
time? Yeah, I think there’s several ways. So like, let’s assume you’re not a family office, and you don’t have people who are doing this work for you. You don’t, you don’t yet have 100 million. But so I think you know one way is like, do your network right? If you’re investing within your profession, whether it’s financial services or healthcare, and you have a doctor friend or like people, there’s someone tapped into the community and showing up to these events. La Tech Week is Dreamforce right now in San Francisco, everybody’s going crazy. But like, you know, I think getting out there and firsthand, talking to people who are in that industry, or know who the hottest companies are, can maybe give you an introduction, right? Because, as a little LP, it’s going to be hard for you to get an introduction, right, and so you might find the fun that’s backing them, or just go to the website who’s backing, who? That’s your Research. People are very public about who they’re backing, so you can find out that information. Start following them on LinkedIn, on Twitter, like I think self education as an LPR angel is really important, because you don’t have an institution providing you that access, and so you gotta do a little bit of digging. But I just say, tap into your network, because the networks get very close. If you’re if you’re in the credit investor community, they’re very tight networks,

Alexa Binns 12:28
yeah, maybe, maybe you have a trusted recommendation from somebody who’s joining a fund. Is there for our GPS listening? Is there anything they can do to do a better job of welcoming more diverse LPs?

Lisha Bell 12:43
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, it’s just, I feel like GPS and LP relationship is so critical, and it’s an important relationship, and you should get as much feedback, because in the fun, you have an LPAC, but it’s not you have a governing body that’s governing what you do. And so the LPAC relationship, we serve as that kind of governance in a very, maybe less informal way, but that’s what we do. We sit with our DPS and we talk about their business strategy, their foundational strategy, their sourcing strategy. We get advice on their companies, like it’s a free sounding not free we pay, but you know, it’s a sounding board and a relationship that can be very reciprocal. And so the more diverse you get in industry, profession experiences, the more intel you get. So I think you should have as many different people as possible, because you get that array of information and knowledge.

Alexa Binns 13:42
I can, you know, credit some of the first GPS that I invested in definitely took more time to explain to me what this opportunity was. I’m definitely an example of that, sort of like opportunistic you invested in your network, but maybe, you know, starting out a decade plus ago, and I think it helped that I had a pre existing relationship with those people, because I wasn’t being spoken down to. They understood that I was super helpful to them in other parts of their life or their business. But this was new to me, and so I do think my experience of generally speaking with people in the finance industry is that they do speak it down to you, a little bit, yeah, like having a little bit of respect for the people that you’re pitching. If they’re not using the language of VC, they’re not necessarily familiar yet with the terms. I really give credit to those early GPs who, you know, didn’t make me feel like an idiot for asking questions.

Lisha Bell 14:48
Yeah, I think all check writers have value, yes, and you have to figure out what that value is. I’ll give you an example from my first angel investment to the company called you. CNO, run by Kat Berman, wise Latina, amazing in Oakland. And that was 2016 2020. Happened? I’m now at PayPal, leading racial equity commitment. Have $500 million and like a C note, does this work? Right? And connected her to the Treasury. And see now, I got a $100 million investment from PayPal. Who knew she didn’t think we should be worth 100 million. I just wrote a $5,000 check. She was like,

Earnest Sweat 15:26
no, no, huge return, but

Lisha Bell 15:29
like, that was just the relationship, right? You never know how people show up for you over time, right? And so I think you should just always value the people, your early backers, because I think they’ll pay off over time in different ways right beyond their check.

Earnest Sweat 15:45
Yeah, the combination of capital and community is always going to be like a super team. So I wanted to switch gears towards, you know, talking about the Economic Opportunity Fund at PayPal ventures. I know it was a part of PayPal’s commitment in response to the Black Lives Matter movement George Floyd’s murder and the pandemic’s impact on minority owned businesses. Could you walk us through how that was developed? Because, you know, that’s not a you know it wasn’t. We don’t have histories and decades and decades of like organ organizations creating entities like that.

Lisha Bell 16:29
Yeah, so I will tell you it’s a story of internal employee advocacy. And so that’s the beauty of this whole story, is that there was a group of employees who got together and said, You know what? This is a moment that we want to stand on, and we want our employer to stand with us and build with us. Now it helped, and I had some organizing experience. I led ERGs. I was involved in Wells Fargo when they were in the kind of predatory crisis lending that disparately impacted marginalized communities. So I had a little bit experience in talking to CEOs about racial equity work, but you know, this opportunity, it came and we went to our execs, we went to the CEO, we went to the board, and said, This is what we want, and let’s work together to find the solution. And, you know, we’re so honored to have had a team that said, Okay, we’re on board. And we had all the employees. We kind of had this, this moment where everybody was like, let’s do this. And it showed up, and it showed up and we got small business grants. It showed up adventures showed up in Treasury and backing black banks and CDFIs and like a beautiful plan was developed because people really cared

Earnest Sweat 17:49
with so many different initiatives within that initiative, how did you how did the team prioritize? How did you prioritize, what to do, how to find the right partners, because that’s a lot of different types that is kind of like a huge endowment, right? You have different types of asset classes you’re going after.

Lisha Bell 18:10
Yeah, and I joked that it was like volunteerism. That was love. We didn’t call McKenzie to come in like we did the work ourselves. Most of the work we did ourselves. We later partnered with AEO American Enterprise Opportunity in DC that works with small businesses. But really we did the work ourselves, like the whole EOF was done by the ventures team, like literally sourcing, taking calls, a small but mighty team just sourced and pound the pavement. And so I credit, like, I’m like, we all had extra jobs during that time to get that work done because we didn’t have a playbook for, like, how this was done. We just knew we needed to do it. And so I think that’s the beauty of that moment.

Alexa Binns 19:01
And any things you’re especially proud of since then, it’s you. I’m sure there are some wins, you

Lisha Bell 19:09
know, and that’s what I call my GPS, my babies, but they’re kind of my baby, you know, a lot of them have moved on to their next funds. They’ve doubled their fund size. They really validated the thesis of economic opportunity. And one fact that I’m super proud of is that our portfolio is over 80% diverse, with women and people of color, and that, more importantly, the people they employ are over 90% so our funds are 90% people of color and women. And that is what I’m most proud of about the Economic Opportunity Fund, because it really created an opportunity for people to access venture as a profession, which was one of the goals. And we have a summer internship every year that is from marginalized communities on purpose. And so I think that that’s what makes me the most proud. I

Earnest Sweat 20:00
Right on the flip side of that, not even it’s not negative side. But like for other organizations, let’s say someone else is at another corporation. What are some of the lessons learned that you would recommend for them to, you know, create something that can stand on the shoulders of what you guys built. Like, yeah. And even better,

Lisha Bell 20:19
yeah. I mean, I would encourage, you know, these corporations, to put that Treasury money to work. I mean, it’s just sitting there, right? And you can make, um, low risk, you know, asset deposits. I mean, there’s all these things that you can do, deciding where you want to play, right, or you allocate to venture and maybe invest in funds that are in your area, in your arena, in FinTech or in CPG, and you can have learnings you know, or have access to a community that you may not have had access to. I think it can be usually beneficial for all parties involved, and provide just a different perspective. So I think, you know, our elfs, they provide us a lot of value. We provide them value when a synergistic relationship together, and I think we’re better off for having it.

Earnest Sweat 21:09
Now. We’re going to take a quick break to speak with our sponsor, and on the show today, we have industry expert and sponsor, Braughm Ricke, founder and CEO of Adoro Advisors, which leverages best in class technology, powered by the industry’s top professionals to provide premier fund accounting services. Thank you, Braughm for partnering on the show. Thanks

21:31
so much for having me today.

Earnest Sweat 21:33
Cool. Glad to have you. So I wanted to start first before your current role. You spent some time as a CFO at True Ventures. Could you start off by telling us how that experience and others in the past have led you to start a duro? Advisors, sure.

Braughm Ricke 21:54
So kind of rolling back a little bit of the kind of origination, their origination of my time at True Ventures, really started with them at their infancy. So, and I say that because I always had, I’ve had the entrepreneurial streak, let’s say, and really saw the next trend emerging within the venture capital community in that time which was around, you know, very end of 2005 beginning of 2006 with what I like to call, or what a lot of people call, the the platform, the kind of the next generation platform, VCs, right, like the first round, union squares, etc, of the world. And really saw an opportunity to help build one of those from, you know, from the very beginning. And so, you know, took that, took that leap in, you know, kind of helping to build that organization from day one effectively. And I think that that experience of building that really helped me, number one, see my capabilities in terms of entrepreneurial, you know, kind of endeavors, if you will. But then also really the capabilities in helping to build a firm from scratch, and leveraging that experience and that knowledge and that exposure into helping a multitude of firms do something very similar, maybe not on such a large scale, right? Because there are different paths that everybody wants to take. But I think that leveraging that experience has been helpful

Earnest Sweat 24:17
Yeah, I love that. Can you give us an overview of what Adoro does and the core services you offer to venture capital firms?

Braughm Ricke 24:49
Yeah, so we really provide kind of a full service fund administration platform, if you will, for those mainly in the venture capital community, we also work with so. In the private equity and fund to fund realm as well, but really kind of predominantly in the venture capital world. And what I mean by full service is really as a full suite, both from an operational standpoint, but then also really kind of focused on the day to day financial aspect of the fund administration component over

Earnest Sweat 26:40
With that kind of change and shift in the market, you start to see more players come up. And you know, some using tech, tech enabled, some simply being another standard fund administrator. What do you think a new manager or new fund should consider when looking at these services and what they should, you know, what should be their criteria of how to make a decision?

Braughm Ricke 27:04
Yeah, I think finding the balance of, and, you know, this answer is, of course, somewhat self-serving, because we do provide this. But I think by finding the balance of, you know, the best of both worlds, is the way I put it. So what we the way that we term it is, you know, we are a service first organization. We always will be a service force organization, but we’re supported and augmented by, you know, best in class technology. And so we think that we are quite unique in providing that combination of best of both worlds, you know, best of technology, best of service. We are known for our service, and that’s, you know, by design. We very much want to be known for our service, but we also want to be known for being uniquely coupled with great technology as well. And so, and not only creating great technology for the benefit of our clients, but creating great technology for the benefit of our team so that we can retain the best in the business, service is team. Service is people, right? And so you know, us having the best people is going to be reflective of our service and the quality of that, and then also using technology to, you know, facilitate a great engagement, great experience for our clients, investors, for the LPs, right? And so, you know, the better we can make their experience, you know, the more they’ll enjoy engaging with us as a service provider. And so, you know, we really view the LPS as our customers, customer, if

Earnest Sweat 29:28
you will. And what, what are the biggest challenges you foresee for the next 10 years for VC funds when it comes to their operations?

Braughm Ricke 29:38
Yeah, when it comes to operations, I think you know, finding a group that can scale over time, and you know you could find a group that suit, that suits your needs for today, but finding, finding a group that can scale to, you know, what you’ve envisioned your firm looking like in five or 10 years time is quite. Important. If you look at some of our earliest clients that we signed back when I started this cowboy, lowercase, lower carbon, et cetera, they’re still with us today. We’ve grown and scaled with them over time, and I think that’s quite important, is to have that capability and ability to be able to do that in the you know, to be able to make those shifts in those changes in the way that you’re engaging with your service providers, and you know, kind of how you’re leveraging them, right? And so, you know, one of our larger clients has been with us for a decade, utilizes our service and our team quite differently than they did. You know, at the outset, when they first got started,

Earnest Sweat 30:40
If you are a GP or LP looking for fund administration, please go to aduroadvisors.com and now back to our LP interview.

Alexa Binns 30:51
Can you give us any examples of how being at PayPal has ended up, you know, being great synergy with some of these companies, because I think that’s what a lot of the corporate venture programs, you know, they end up leaning on, or it’s more of a strategic relationship, yeah,

Lisha Bell 31:08
yeah. So I think PayPal Ventures is different, that we invest for financial returns, we don’t invest for M and A, we don’t invest for synergies. We invest to make money, and so we don’t acquire so think about PayPal as big as acquisitions, Braintree, Venmo Isa, like, these are just M and A. There were never companies that we took any equity stakes in. And so we just want to be a pioneer in FinTech and invest in FinTech companies that are going to be the next PayPals. Like, that’s really our goal. And so if you look at the companies in our portfolio, they’re just pushing the needle in ways that maybe we couldn’t do or, you know, maybe at some point they would be a commercial partnership, but that’s not our kind of leading identity with them. It’s like, you know, we want to back and be a catalytic investor to help your business grow, because we can power our network and so, you know, I think that’s a powerful relationship as well.

Earnest Sweat 32:11
Lisha, were there certain ways, or even currently, certain ways in which you and PayPal tried to value add to the GPS in your portfolio?

Lisha Bell 32:24
Yeah. I mean, I think, like, it’s always difficult to say, where do we stand with this fund? How much do they want us in their business, you know? How is it, you know? And I would say it varies across the board, like it’s like kids, like every kid is different. This one we talk to every week. This one never calls us right, like we don’t force but there’s some that we have really synergistic relationships, because they’re in our same business, our same wheelhouse, and we can be really helpful. They refer to their founders, and we’ll talk to them, and we’ll give them feedback, even if we’re not going to invest we can just say, hey, here. We think your headwinds are right, or we like this part of your business, like, we’ll do that for the founders in our portfolio, just to have that relationship and so that we can refer them other our friends, and say, Hey, this may not be for us, but we know somebody. So I think all that’s super helpful for GPS that we have a strong relationship with. And I tell GPS, you should over communicate to LPs. Like, I have, you know, I get emails, I get text messages for some of my GPS, like, tell me what’s going on, because I really care about your firm and what you’re building. I mean, we’re backing you for a reason, so I think you should always keep that door open.

Alexa Binns 33:40
A knee jerk reaction we hear from some, from some LPs, is, oh, well, there aren’t that many diverse GPS would love to like, you’ve clearly been able to source fantastic talent, right,

Lisha Bell 33:54
right? And I hear that. I hear that too, like, how did you guys do it? Think so hard Now, granted, like, I am a black woman, one legitimate is a Latino male, and you have to have representation on your team, right? If you are like, like, have no representation, and you’re in your bubble, like, I don’t know anybody, I’m looking around, like, yes, it’s gonna be hard, right? But they exist, and they’re everywhere. And there’s so many more amazing organizations, blackVC, SomosVC these amazing conferences, who just had their conference like that, bringing together all these great leaders. I know culture shifts like, there’s all these great organizations that, like, we are here and we are building, and we need support in what we’re building. And I don’t think it’s that hard. I honestly and if you think it’s hard, call me okay, and I will help you. Send me a note. If you say I can’t find anybody, just give me a city. I will find somebody. I would spam my network to you.

Earnest Sweat 34:54
Isaiah, you’re gonna get a lot of emails. Um, I

Alexa Binns 34:57
feel the same way about female founders at. I’m like, I got binders full of women.

Earnest Sweat 35:01
What industry? Romney, where do you

Lisha Bell 35:07
Want a female founder? I’ll send you. I’ll serve him up.

Earnest Sweat 35:12
You’re gonna be like, Oprah, I’m

Lisha Bell 35:14
always like, but do you know about this? Like, here’s me,

Earnest Sweat 35:20
um Lisha. You know, you’re, it seems, from your background, you’ve kind of been studying all of this, both, you know, as a student as well as practitioner in business. What do you think of the legacy of the earlier part of this decade with the racial equity movement? What do you think? How are we going to judge that, that legacy specifically, kind of inventor, like, with all the interest, and then, yeah, like, what do you think is going to

Lisha Bell 35:49
go, Yeah, I mean, you know, we have seen a regression. Um, right, and, and, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, we set this precedent. It was a very strong precedent, and we wanted people to build on that, to add that momentum, to keep keep the work going. And so I think our legacy is that what I love about the Black Lives Matter movement was I was really harmonious. It was everybody in like, this was not just black people at PayPal, it was not it was white people, it was women, it was it was the Asian community, Latino, like, every community got together and said, this is, this is what we want to do, and the kind of place we want to be. And I think as society, like, you know, like, we can’t keep backing the wheat work founder, like, for the fourth time, who’s gonna? Like, we have to know that there’s something different, and there’s ideas that are that are worthy to be funded, and are disrupting things that we can’t even dream of, because they’re living experiences that are different. They are seeing markets that are different, you know, like, I don’t think the future is world domination. It’s like, what’s your segment, what’s your niche, and own that. And, you know, the world is brown, like, like, like, essentially, to like, to essentially, have 90% of white men run an industry. It’s silly, because it’s just not representative. And I think, like, you can only be in denial for so long, and then it’s got to be in your face, right? And, like, have a plan. Like, have a strategy for it. Like, that’s okay, have an allocation, I said, just 5% like, just try it, test and learn and build out your model and get comfortable with it, because it’s coming as here,

Alexa Binns 37:42
I’m also curious if we get pushback that’s like, well, we will certainly consider people’s race, but we don’t want to lead with that. We don’t want to lead with their gender as a deciding factor. Where, where do you see, sort of like, What strategy do you recommend for doing doing this in a way that works for everybody, that they’re actually seeing returns and they’re also not missing big opportunities,

Lisha Bell 38:11
right? I mean, I think you need a balanced portfolio, right? Different industries perform differently. I mean, healthcare is not where it’s at few years ago, Beauty is where it is now. Beauty, like, I mean, like, like, venture is a betting industry, right? And so if you think that one group is always going to outperform another group, like that will turn on its head, like, it just doesn’t make sense. And I think that you do have to, you have a portfolio. You’re not betting on one black person, like, like, not bad, not like, don’t do those things are just like, mentally to dead ends. Like, have a portfolio. Invest in everybody. I’m not saying don’t invest, invest in everybody, right? Give everybody that opportunity and watch how they perform over time, right? And maybe, maybe make some adjustments like this. This founder, this fund is backing marginalized people who don’t have as much capital to scale as fast. Like that could be a real reality that you say, Okay, I’m gonna put that, make that adjustment into the model. But are they still performing? You know, they are still right, doing what they need to do. And like, you can watch that. That’s a good thing about being an LP, you can watch. I have a portfolio of 800 companies that I get to watch and see. And pick out the like, pick out the winners. Do that, have a different photo, and then pick out the winners and say, this is the one I’m going to double down on. Like, you know, eventually you make multiple bets. You don’t reward people that don’t perform. Like, that’s how the game works, right? Like, I’m like, let’s give people a chance to see how they do, right? That’s good. Yes.

Earnest Sweat 39:52
Now, an industry that’s near and dear to you, FinTech, has kind of been out of favor, [although I. Several conferences I’ve been to recently, people are like, getting fired up again about FinTech again. So listen, I’ll be

Lisha Bell 40:05
on Monday 2020, where everybody’s gonna be fired up about exactly,

Earnest Sweat 40:09
exactly. Um, so it’s coming back, but um, what? What do you think the lessons learned during this kind of cold period, and] where do you think the real opportunities are going to be in these next five years?

Lisha Bell 40:23
Yeah, you know, whatever people ask me about, like, sexy FinTech, and what’s hot and what’s next, and, like, we haven’t saw these basic use cases around financial transactions and money movement. Like, as long as it’s still hard for people to move money, whether they’re unbanked and they can’t move from this account to this account, or if they change geographies and regions, and now they can, they’re paying heavy fees to move money and remittance. Like, all these are still problems that we have, even in America. Like, I joke, I’m like, can you move money and paypal to the same company? So, like, there’s little things like this, right? Wait you up at night. One day, they gotta fix that. But, um, you know, I’m like, fix the basic cases. Like, yes, let’s use AI to power it and enable it. And I’ve heard some really exciting things about powerful decisioning, like, give people the tools they need when they need it, and make sure it is thoughtful about where they are in their financial journey. Don’t offer me a credit card with fees if, you know, I can’t afford a credit card with fees. Don’t like, you know, like, give me what I need when I need it. And I think that’s can be super powerful in lending and underwriting and all these use cases to provide more access and more opportunity to expand the pie for for borrowers, like, to me, that’s really powerful. And I’m like, Let’s do those things. And, you know, you know, as we look at credit like, all this is so interesting, like expanding the access, right? I think that’s to me, is always something very important to me, is like, how do we expand more? Because it’s, it’s here, and we’re just hacking the system to try and make things work, but like, we can just build things to make it work. Like, let’s focus on that.

Earnest Sweat 42:09
Yeah, I totally agree. I think, in particularly, particularly with automation coming in every industry, I think Fintech is going to be critical, as well as other automation tools, because we’re going to see an even faster digital divide, which is also going to, like, have a multiplier effect on the haves and have nots of actual resources and capital. And so, yeah, we need everybody to understand the tools to be able to utilize them. Are they going to be seriously left behind?

Lisha Bell 42:42
Yeah. And I think there’s something about adoption. So I launched on the first NFC contactless cards. It was, like, 2011 and nobody would use it, like, literally, right? And it was available. I mean, it was starting to be real but Europe was already everybody had it over there. And like, not till covid, did people adopt, right? So I think there has to be something like this, like adoption push and having that patience, say, Is this going to be and like, now, nobody wants such cash. Covid happened. Everybody’s like that, right? And so I think about like, you know, what adoption, what adoption incentives do we need for people to really jump on, like, even like, we’re cryptom, like, what’s the incentive? Right? Like, we need, we need incentives to, like, want to do these things and appreciate that they are better. And I think that that’s the lag that we’re trying to, like, push through in, like, FinTech, like, why am I doing this right? And we have privacy. People don’t want to share data. Like, we have all these things that we’re trying to get through these hurdles and make sure it’s better and not harmful.

Alexa Binns 43:54
Is there anything that you see on that adoption curve that’s like, about to get to a tipping point?

Lisha Bell 44:02
I um, I don’t know. I just still feel bad for crypto, you know, like, we have, we have a crypto investor in Paypal ventures, no. Like, I hope it comes back for you. Like, you know,

Earnest Sweat 44:14
I think it’s, I think it’s gonna come back something, that something’s gonna come back.

Lisha Bell 44:17
Yeah, I mean, you know, after the fraud, and you just gotta

Earnest Sweat 44:21
watch that. That’s a part of the cycle. Yeah, yeah.

Lisha Bell 44:23
You know, I think there’s still, like a powerful use case there that, if done right, can be super powerful. So I want crypto to come back. What

Earnest Sweat 44:33
you’re involved in a lot of different things, as we mentioned in the intro. But one thing I also love how to give you credit for is your podcast name SWV. So Sisters with Ventures. Love that. Could you tell us a little bit about what that is and who that audience is? Who’s the audience for that podcast?

Lisha Bell 44:53
Yeah, so when I got into Vc, working in tech was very lonely as an industry. If you’re a woman of color, it’s like, just you essentially in product engineering roles. And so when I got exposed to Angel investing, like, where’s my tribe? Like, where are these people writing texts? You know, did you like soccer? You hear about the super angels and these rich, super wealthy individuals like Elon and them. But like, where are regular people who are, like, working and raising kids and like, just, like, I’m just gonna write this $5,000 check to help your business. Like, those are the people that I really want to learn about. And so I spent my time hunting them down to get inspiration, because I was scared to write to be an angel investor. I’m like, I’m really nervous, right? And so I was, it was for my own therapeutic self, like learning other people’s stories, seeing how they did it, and being inspired by what they do. So that was sister adventures. That’s what it’s all about, is that some people can find inspiration in their wealth journey, in their ability to back founders and know their value. I think you talked about that, Alexa, like you had value. Like, I think that’s a thing, like you had value. It may not have been in this way or this way, but like, we all have value that we bring to these companies or these funds. And like, honoring that you are a professional who builds an amazing career, like you have value in all these ways. And like, don’t discount that.

Alexa Binns 46:15
No, I think each episode you interview a different angel on her sort of career path, is that right, or her path to starting to make deals, which I think is a big leap, I don’t know. I don’t know that everybody can. I don’t know that everybody can relate. But it’s like it seems like sometimes, like writing a check to a political candidate, or writing a check to a charity is something women can sort of do in their sleep. And I I often see men kind of feel the same way about writing an angel check, that it has that level of sort of comfort. And you know, you don’t overthink it, but I do think it’s like a real leap. If you’re making your first tech investment or your first angel investment, if it’s something you just haven’t been exposed to before, yeah,

Earnest Sweat 47:06
yeah, ditto, yeah. You can, just like I can use that money for something, especially if you have families. Um, Lisha, thank you so much for being on the podcast. See

Alexa Binns 47:15
See you later, Allocator