20 VC 059: How To Approach VCs with Arteen Arabshahi, VC @ Karlin Ventures

Arteen Arabshahi is a VC at Karlin Ventures, where he specialises in enterprise software, commerce platforms, and marketplaces. Prior to Karlin Ventures, Arteen spearheaded the launch of Built In LA, an online community for digital entrepreneurs and innovators. However, his passion for startups flourished while helping run operations at Excelerate Labs, now Techstars Chicago. In today's incredible interview we delve into the best strategies for contacting any VC you want, how to make the approach, how to deal with the emotional and psychological pressure of starting a company and the rise of marketplaces. When not with startups, Arteen sits on the board of TEDxVenice Beach and is a supporter of TWLOHA, a non-profit raising awareness and support for those struggling with mental health. As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC, Arteen and Karlin Ventures on Twitter right here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: How Arteen made the jump into the world of Venture Capital, from originally wanting to be a plastic surgeon!! How did Arteen approach VCs when applying for positions? What did Arteen say in those emails to achieve such a high response rate? What tools did Arteen use to ensure he got the VCs real email address? Does Arteen agree with the traditional routes into Venture: Startup Founder, Consultant, Investment Banking? Why is Arteen so excited about marketplaces? Are there any in particular that Arteen is doubling down on? How big a market does a market have to be to get Arteen excited? What would Arteen advise founders potentially struggling from self doubt or lacking in confidence? What mental health tools would Arteen recommend to help with this? The biggest red flags for Arteen when being pitched to? Items Mentioned in Today's Episode: Email Address Tools: Rapportive Arteen's ProductHunt Collection Arteen's Fave Book: Fightclub Arteen's Marketplace Investments: Laurel & Wolf, ShipHawk Arteen's Fave Newsletter: Ben Evans Blog, Strictly VC Artene's Most Recent Investment: Policy Genius

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  Hey, hey, what's up everybody? You're listening to the 20 Minute VC with your host, Harry Stebbings. And on today's show, I'm so thrilled to welcome Arteen Arab Shahi. Arteen is a VC at Carlin Ventures, where he specialises in enterprise software, commerce platforms and marketplaces. Prior to Carlin Ventures, Arteen spearheaded the launch of Built in L.A., an online community for digital entrepreneurs and innovators. However, his passion for startups flourished while helping run operations at Accelerate Labs, now Techstars Chicago. And in today's incredible interview, we delve into the best strategies for contacting any

• 0:40Harry Stebbings?

  VC you want to, how to make the approach, and how to deal with the emotional and psychological pressure of starting a company, along with the rise of marketplaces. But before we jump into today's interview, the other day, a listener emailed me and asked me why I loved HiringScreen so much. And it was rather easy to answer, because the easy-to-use interface, which uses HiringScreen's Blink algorithm, analyses, compares, and then shares all the candidates who've applied for the job, meaning that I don't have to do the terrible task of decision-making, allowing me to turn a potentially three-day task into simply two, two-and-a-half hours of very gentle work. Thank you so much HiringScreen, and you can check them out at www.hiringscreen.com.

• 1:24Harry Stebbings?

  But without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, here is Arteen Arab Shahi.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 1:37Harry Stebbings?

  Arteen, welcome to the 20 Minute VC. I can't tell you how excited I am to have you on the show. Let's start off at the beginning, and can you give us a brief walkthrough of how you made your way into the VC world?

• 1:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. So I think I actually have a bit of a unique path to venture. I think a lot of people kind of follow a slightly more traditional path, and I was fortunate or lucky enough to kind of stumble into this world a little haphazardly. But so, the story around my background was... Uh, I I think the, I guess to start from the beginning, I spent the majority of my life thinking I was gonna be a plastic surgeon. So, so I grew up in Arizona, um, where there's a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of small business. Uh, but tech didn't really fully exist, right? I mean, Tucson, Arizona, where I'm from, um, has a lot of business, like I said, and my parents are small business owners and stuff like that.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  Um, so I've always been entrepreneurial, but never really got into tech until later, uh, later in life. And so, uh, the story for me was uh, a path through, uh, through, through a few different phases. Um, it started college in the Bay Area. So the irony is that when I was in the Bay Area, I was pre-med in biology and had no ambition of going to Silicon Valley. Uh, but I was at college at Santa Clara University, um, and then actually ended up transferring back to Tucson, Arizona and went to the U of A. Uh, where I did finance and entrepreneurship as a double major and spent a couple of years doing pre-med as a minor.

• 3:01Harry Stebbings?

  So, so what made you wanna move from plastic surgery to to entrepreneurship? I know it was quite a pivotal shift.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  It was, it was. So for me, um, the reason I transferred back to Arizona to begin with was because I wanted to double up in business and pre-med. Um, I I had this this ambition of kind of going into the medicine, the the field of medicine, but still kind of owning surgery centers or, you know, I wanted to have a business side, uh, to whatever I did. Um, you know, I'd always kind of grown up, uh, you know, starting small businesses here and there on the side and whatever. So I wanted to, you know, explore that side of things. Um, after a couple of years of of pre-med was when I really realized like, I couldn't fathom starting my career as a surgeon when I was like in my mid to late thirties. Uh, I think part of it was just the A D D, uh, within me, I guess, but I really was just like, I was itching, right? And so, um,

• 3:48Speaker 02

  realized that, you know, uh, at the end of sophomore year, uh, and decided to just do finance and entrepreneurship. And so, after spending twenty years telling your entire fan, the all your friends and family that you're gonna be a plastic surgeon and then mixing that all at once, you gotta, you gotta do something else, right? You gotta do something else that's that's, uh, reasonable. And so, uh, the story kind of became from, started from there. And I I went to New York and I did a, uh, I did a summer internship in investment banking at a, at a mid-tier bank out there, uh, but it got, you know, got exposure to the, uh, the finance field and investment banking out in New York. And, uh, and I joked that I got really good at knowing what I didn't wanna do. Because, because that, that wasn't really the the path for me either. Um, but the good thing was in New York, got a lot of exposure.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Uh, to tech, right? Just cause obviously New York has a, is a thriving uh startup community and stuff like that. And so. Uh, that was really where I first started thinking, okay, I wanna, I wanna get into this world. Um, I had no foot in the door. And so I. Uh, I got really scrappy. I was back in school after my New York experience and I made a list of about a hundred and fifty people that I wanted to work for. Um, it was everything from incubators, accelerators, VCs, startups, kind of the, the whole community. Um.

• 4:57Harry Stebbings?

  So you had no existing contacts in the tech community or the VC community?

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Literally none. Yeah, it was, it was, uh, I got, I got really lucky that I had, uh, I had some people take a chance on me off of a, off of a cold email. And so. Um.

• 5:10Harry Stebbings?

  What did you say in the email? How did you broach it?

• 5:12Speaker 02

  It was, it was, uh, it was interesting. So it was about a hundred and fifty emails. Um, I would say probably twenty or thirty of them were like very personalized. Where it was like, okay, I know this person's story. I did my research on them and, you know, I'll maybe throw in a, a, an anecdote or two in the subject line. Um, and then the, the actual email itself was really, really short and standard. And it was like, you know, uh, this is who I am. Uh, this is my. You know, my only relevant background. Uh, do you have any opportunities for an undergrad this coming summer? And I'll work for free. Um, and it was, uh, it was well received, probably got about thirty replies, led to about ten interviews and. Long story short, I built a relationship with a, a guy named Troy Henikoff, who is managing director of Techstars Chicago.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  Um, and at the time it was called Accelerate Labs and they were looking for somebody to kind of join their operations team for, for the subsequent summer and. You know, went through just the traditional interview process, ended up getting that opportunity and I moved to Chicago the, the following year for. Uh, for four months and did, did the, uh, did the, what is now Techstars Chicago. Um, and was kind of on the operations team there. And so helped do everything from. Uh, on one end of the spectrum, I would help the ten companies that we had go through the class with things like. You know, financial modeling or market sizing or like being on the street, doing like street marketing and things like that. Um, on the other end of the spectrum, I would plan our demo day and like work with the House of Blues to like plan logistics and then.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  Uh, would order lunch catering, right? So it was literally this hodgepodge of everything that you can imagine. Um. And so, long story short, the Techstars experience was definitely my first like deep foray into this world. Um, and it was, I I still credit that as being probably the most pivotal career uh opportunity that I had. Cause it was the first time, and I'm sure you can relate to this, um, it was the first time I felt like I was truly a part of a meritocracy. Where it was like, you know what, like, nobody really cares how old or how young you are or what your background is. But if you're bringing good ideas to the table, you're presenting them well and you're working hard and you're doing a good job. Like that gets rewarded.

• 7:17Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely. I think I think that's the the beauty of the tech industry above any other. It's it's entirely a meritocracy.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  A hundred percent. And so that was, that was the big thing for me. Um, and after Techstars, um, I actually became pretty close with a company out in Chicago called Built in Chicago. Um, which is like an online community for the tech ecosystem. They had launched Built in Colorado and they were looking to launch Built in L A. And um, that is what brought me out to Los Angeles. And I was actually looking for a reason to come out here, to be honest. This was in two thousand twelve when the ecosystem out here had just kind of really hit an inflection point. Um, where it was clear that this wasn't going away and there was a ton of growth and I wanted to be a part of it. Um, it's closer to home for me. I'm kind of a west coast kid just in general. But so, uh, that was what brought me to L A.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  And in the process, uh, you know, to go full circle into how I ended up in D C, uh, I met um, my current partner at Carlin Ventures at Techstars Demo Day. And he basically told me, hey, if you're ever in L A, hit me up. And over the duration of Built in L A and um, just, you know, my visits out here in general. Uh, you know, he and I just became friends over coffee and, you know, just talked about the scene and things like that. And um, in spring of two thousand thirteen, he basically was looking for somebody to join his team. And so that was how I ended up doing venture. And and you know, I I will say the fact that like, we are a relatively new fund. We've been around since August of two thousand and twelve. So coming up on three years, I joined in March of two thousand thirteen.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Um, and so, you know, I was fortunate in that T X, my partner, definitely took a chance on me. Um, and on the flip side, you know, I was also taking a chance on him in the sense that it was a new fund. We have sixty million um, an allocation, uh, and it's a five year fund. But so. Within that, you know, this was literally six months in, he had made about, I think, eight or nine investments before I joined. Um, and I was fortunate to kind of be a part of the evolution of that fund. So the caveat there is that, you know, I don't think a Klein or Perkins would have hired me, or like an Andreessen Horowitz at that point.

• 9:14Harry Stebbings?

  Sure.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  But I was fortunate to build a really good relationship with somebody who I thought was really smart and strong. And was gonna do some big stuff and I was lucky to kind of fall into being a part of that. Um, I had no real ambition of being like, oh, I'm gonna go to Techstars and then I'm gonna do the startup and then I'm gonna go into VC. For me, um, I actually think I, I, I got into VC pretty early in my career and I, I think my career will kind of go. Operating VC back and forth for kind of, uh, the whole duration of it. The one thing that I know for sure is just that I'm in love with the tech industry and this is kind of the, the place that I will be a part of forever. But, you know, what side of the table I sit on is probably gonna be, you know, back and forth for a long time.

• 9:52Harry Stebbings?

  So would you argue with the statement that there's a defined route into the VC industry? And then it's kind of investment banking consultancy or startup founder and that's the only way to get in? Would you disagree with that?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Um, I mean, I think, you know, regardless of my opinion, I think I, it's definitely, I, I'm an anomaly in the sense that I, I, I'm approving. I'm a proven disagreement with that, but I think that that's, you know, the status quo. I think probably like eighty percent, um, is, it just, I'm making that number up, but something like that. Um, is kind of, that's, that's the formula, right? But I think that if you talk to many kind of, you know, non-partner level VCs, a lot of them will say they somehow fell into it. Um, but definitely there are some that, you know, kind of did the, the banking consulting. And I, and I for sure, um, came into it with a, with a different kind of perspective, but also a different level of experience, right? Like I didn't do the, the two years at McKinsey or Bain or, you know, Goldman Sachs.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  So there are definitely some skill sets that I am weaker in than some of my counterparts because I didn't do that. Um, but then there are some things that I'm stronger in because I, I also didn't do that. So I would say that, you know, that formula definitely helps get you in the door. Um, but there's also a lot of people who come with that background. So there has to be something on top of that. And so in some scenarios, it could be, you know, your, your X factor could be the fact that you didn't do that. And it's like, wow, how did you get in this room without that? Uh, and that becomes an interesting conversation. Uh, that was kind of my path. Um, and then there are other times where it's like, yeah, you know, doing that, you're never gonna go wrong with that path. Um, it's just that there's a lot of people that are also doing that.

• 11:25Harry Stebbings?

  And with regards to the emails, you mentioned there about kind of personalizing them with anecdotes and uh really, really knowing the person behind the email. Did you get a much better conversion rate from those emails than from the colder, less personal emails?

• 11:40Speaker 02

  So I think my experiment had too many variables. So the, the, the, well, the reason I mean that is that. The people that I sent the personalized emails to were actually usually like the, like. The hardest people to reach, right? They were like the, the, the kind of like the tier one people who like aren't gonna answer cold emails most of the time. So I would say my conversion rate was actually about equal across the board. But I think that if you were to remove the factor of like, okay, like how difficult are these people to reach in general? Um, it would have been better the ones that were personalized. Like had I personalized every single email. I think I would have gotten way more responses than what I did. Um, I just was optimizing for time and efficiency, but uh. Which actually reminds me, I think, I think the, the person that I always, um, you know, so Troy from, from Techstars Chicago.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Obviously was, was a, was a, a, a super helpful part of that, that whole process, right? Um, ended up hiring me and all that type of stuff, but. The other person that I always like to give a shout out to, and I know you interviewed him recently or, or going to is uh Brad Feld. Just because Brad, Brad is like, I mean, the guy, his, his email uh response etiquette and ratio is just like tremendous. Cause literally.

• 12:43Harry Stebbings?

  You know, I emailed him fifteen minutes ago and he replied in three minutes.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's tremendous. And like I was, you know, I was literally some random kid emailing him from the University of Arizona. With almost no relevant background and, you know, he replied and, and gave me all these, you know, all the, the right people to talk to at Techstars and. I, the, so the great irony was that I was actually um in final round interviews with Techstars Boulder. When I got the opportunity with Accelerate Labs and. The timing uh was funny because Techstars Boulder was like, yeah, we won't be able to tell you for sure for another week or two. But Accelerate needed an answer before then. And so. I, I, you know, ultimately passed on Boulder to go to Chicago. And when they asked me, they're like, yes, like out of curiosity, where are you going? Like, what did you accept instead? And I told them Accelerate and, and everybody there was like, all right, well, we'll see you soon. Like, we work pretty closely with them.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  Six months later, they, they merged. So. Uh, it's a funny story, but yeah, I think, I think uh just kudos to Brad for, for being so on top of that type of stuff, but even at the level that he is at.

• 13:43Harry Stebbings?

  And how did you manage to get the emails of these kind of top tier VCs? Did you just crawl the web for them, looking at their blogs and their VC pages? Or did you use any tools?

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I mean, it was all just, yeah, it was all just me kind of looking around. I think, um, you know, I think these days it's not that hard to find people's email addresses, right? Like, at the end of the day, like, I think probably, you know, eighty to ninety percent of people, it's just their first name at, you know, the domain, right? Or it's their first name initial and their last name. Um, so I think that was kind of my standard. Um, the two things that if I were doing it now, I would do differently. One is, uh, uh, I think Reportive, the Gmail plugin, is awesome. I'm not like an investor or anything. I just love, uh, the fact that you could plug in an email and you can automatically know if it's right. Because if they pull up, you know, the person's LinkedIn and pro- social profiles and things like that. You know that the, the email address is, is, is correct.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  So, so that's actually a bit of a fact check that I, that I'll use now sometimes, even when I reach out to founders. Um, the other thing that, you know, if I were to do it again, if I were to send all those emails again. Uh, I probably wasted about fifty emails on the info emails of, uh, of VC funds. Whereas like, I, I, at that point, again, like, super naive, no, no foot in the door at any of these places. Uh, I was like, oh, I'll just email their info. Um, but I realized, you know, later on that obviously.

• 15:02Harry Stebbings?

  Oh, so you emailed like info at Carlin Ventures?

• 15:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 15:05Harry Stebbings?

  Okay, yeah, yeah, no, I'm with you, no, okay.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Which is like, uh, probably not the best, uh, response ratio.

• 15:12Harry Stebbings?

  And, and I'd love to talk about kind of your focus now at Carlin Ventures. And you, you seem to really be excited about marketplaces. Why, why, why are you so excited about marketplaces? And are there any in particular that you're looking into?

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. So, um, just the, the quick high level on Carlin Ventures in general. Our focus is mostly enterprise software and marketplaces. We, we've done a few other things, some ad tech, some commerce, uh, platforms and things like that. Uh, but, but really enterprise and marketplaces are, are the core focus. And, um, typically investing between two fifty K up to about a million and a half, late seed or early series A. Um, in terms of marketplaces, I think. I think what we love about marketplaces is the fact that we're we're kind of boring in the sense that we just love to see old kind of antiquated industries get disrupted. Um, and I think a marketplace approach to that is is the best way to do so, right? So, you know, streamlining industries like, uh, some of our investments have streamlined industries like interior design or

• 16:10Speaker 02

  uh, gift cards and shipping and stuff like that. And so I think, I think for us, um, seeing that is just really inspiring, right? Where it's like these these industries that have been around for, you know, decades or hundreds of years or whatever that may be, and there hasn't been an improvement in like the efficiency or the process and like just the experience, right? I think a lot of times the common thread is like, you know, when there's three different stakeholders and you cut out the middle stakeholder and just make it, you know, a platform online, right? So that type of stuff is interesting to us just because, um, we like to see those industries kind of getting disrupted. I think, um, in terms of specific stuff that we're excited by right now, um, on the marketplace's front, I think there's two kind of,

• 16:49Speaker 02

  I I wouldn't say we're thesis-driven investors, but there's definitely theses that we have that that we like to keep an eye out for, right? And so one of them is, uh, vertically specific marketplaces. So I think that, you know, most horizontal infrastructure that is going to be disrupted by big marketplaces has probably already been done so, right? So like Uber, um, Airbnb, like the, you know, I I think, I think taxis are pretty much taken care of at this point. Um, but other stuff like some of the ones I mentioned, right? Like interior design, we have an investment in a company called Laurel and Wolf that kind of takes a ninety-nine designs approach to interior design. Um, I think that markets like that, while maybe the total market size isn't quite as large, um, I think that people who are within that market have a higher conversion ratio, more of a propensity to purchase,

• 17:34Speaker 02

  uh, potentially a higher average order value, those things are compelling to us. And I think within that, you can kind of expand that market, right? You're giving, you know, just like Uber is potentially is going to be a larger market at some point than just the taxi industry, right? Because people are more inclined to use an Uber than they were to use a taxi. Uh, so I think things like that are interesting to us around like vertically specific marketplaces and seeing, you know, how you can, uh, approach different markets. Um, and I think. The other thing that we uh that we like is, you know, kind of what we call marketplace infrastructure. So tools that um help marketplaces be more efficient and uh and more effective. So have an investment in a company called ShipHawk uh up in Santa Barbara. That um basically helps marketplaces uh optimize their shipping, right?

• 18:18Speaker 02

  So if you are, uh let's say you're like an eBay, um you know, you can't necessarily optimize every shipment. Because one second you're shipping an iPhone, the next second you're shipping a table, right? So ShipHawk is a platform that helps marketplaces optimize each shipment. Um so things like that are are really exciting to us. I think those are kind of the two areas that like we've spent a lot of time in this year. Um you know, constantly trying to keep ourselves honest and and see like what's the next thing that's exciting to us. But those are two common themes that we've been looking at a lot right now.

• 18:46Harry Stebbings?

  And your first point there mentioned the size of the market. How big a market does it have to be to really get you excited?

• 18:53Speaker 02

  Um I, that's a, that's a good question, but it's probably not one I have a good answer for. So I think um the way I like to put it, to be honest, is that if you have to convince an investor how like that the market is big enough. They're probably not going to do it, uh is kind of my notion. So I think that it's kind of like a, it's more of a um do we believe that this market is growing? And is this market big enough already that there is still, you know, there's enough to make it interesting? I I think that it really is kind of a binary thing, though. It's kind of like, okay, if you're gonna, you know, uh create a marketplace that sells a very specific type of speaker to a very specific type of listener, right? Like that's probably not gonna be a big enough market.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  But like if you're gonna create a marketplace that is selling um, you know, all sorts of audio things to, you know, add the masses, right? Obviously, that's a terrible example, but you kind of know what I mean. I think that the broad scale approach to markets is uh it's a pretty binary one. Um and I if what I've seen. When I've seen entrepreneurs try to convince investors that, oh no, this market is big enough. It's like, at the end of the day, I honestly think that most investors' minds won't get changed. I think that people have a very like guttural reaction to the size of a market. Um, and maybe you can prove them all with facts and figures, but I think that a lot of the time i- it's harder to do so.

• 20:15Harry Stebbings?

  And I'd love to now move into the shoes of the entrepreneur themselves now. And self doubt is often a very prominent part of the journey of entrepreneurship. And you've written about this in the past and and you've even compiled a product hunt collection that was actually recommended by the legend that is Eric Torrenberg.

• 20:34Harry Stebbings?

  We love Eric. Um, so how do you deal with your own self doubt when it arises personally? And are there any tips or tools that you'd recommend to founders who are potentially entering that founder's dip?

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I I think that, you know, when it comes to this topic, just in general, I I think there's a couple of like. Like caveats that I always like to start with, right? One is that, um, I think that. It's it's an incredibly personal experience, right? Where every single person, I think, goes through something like this. But they go through it in their own ways and their own different ways. And so, you know, things like, okay, how do I deal with it and how have I dealt with it? Um, I, you know, I'm happy to share my answer and I will, but it's also like, I think that will be different for every person, right? And I think the most important part about this is figuring out for yourself what exactly it is that helps keep you going, right? What is like the thing that is kind of your, you're like, you know, those common denominator or something like that, that is like keeping you.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Um, keeping you solid and grounded, right? So I think everybody has has that in a different way and everybody has to find their own. When it comes to me personally, yeah, I I think, um, for me. I went through, you know, probably the the the hardest patch for me was back in college. Um, it was after I got back from New York, uh, but before I had kind of gotten into any of the tech stuff. And, um, what what was really, you know. The the difficult part for me then was just this notion of like, I didn't feel like anything I was really doing was worth it, if that makes sense, like in school. Um, I just felt like the things I was doing were weren't quite significant enough, um, and so. That was probably the hardest part about it for me. They kind of put me into this like, yeah, spiral, kind of like depression, self doubt, you know, all this type of stuff where.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  Um, what made me get better, to be honest, and what made me feel better was actually throwing it all towards something. That I thought was productive, right? And so again, this is like a very, you know, unique way in which I felt like I was. Kind of solving my day to day struggles, um, but. You know, so I talked about the the cold emails I sent. I sent all of those emails while I was in like probably the worst month or two of like. The self doubt that I was going through and it was just because I became very regimented and very productive about like, okay, I'm going to. Like work out these times, I'm gonna like exercise, I'm gonna like keep busy, I'm gonna, you know, send these emails, all that type of stuff. And so for me, that was the way. I was able to kind of overcome it. Yeah.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  Um, and and it worked. Um, I don't think that's the way that it works for everybody, but for me, that was that was my solution, um. And I think, I think even now, you know, when I'm not necessarily going through as hard of struggles as I have at some point. Um, I, I kind of have this notion that perpet- like. This perpetual struggle of mental health as just kind of like an ever present thing. And so. I no longer, you know, feel like I'm going through patches of depression or anything like that, but I consistently am questioning things about happiness, right? So it's like, now my thoughts are more around like, okay, like, am I really happy? Like, is this what happy actually feels like? Is this what it's supposed to feel like?

• 23:32Speaker 02

  Um, you know, is this what everybody else feels? What do they say they're happy? So like, I think just being aware of it has been really important for me. Um, and knowing what works for me. And I think that's kind of what most people need to need to need to understand. It just kind of, it'll be different for everybody and. Um, you know, there are tools that that you can turn to and then there are stuff, I mean, the there have been. Things that have profoundly impacted my life, um, that I discovered when I was going through rough times and things like that. I mean, one. Uh, one source that I'm still a huge fan of and and and a volunteer. Before is a nonprofit called To Write Love on Her Arms and they uh they're a nonprofit dedicated towards finding help for those who are struggling with mental health or addiction or anything like that.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Um but they do it in a really beautiful way and it's not necessarily coming across as overbearing or medical or pessimistic or any of that type of stuff, but they put out. Amazing content. They put out really nice like merchandise, honestly, like I have like um like a lot of apparel from them that, you know, it looks like stuff I would wear. Even if it wasn't related to that nonprofit, um they put on good events. And so I think a lot of what has worked for me is just like raising awareness around it and like content and. Uh exposure in ways that are slightly more subtle that most people don't think of as mental health, but for me, I've kind of put in that bucket. So even things like. Uh post-secret and uh Whisper put out, uh they have a nonprofit called Your Voice where people share their stories online. And like those are the types of things that have been most valuable to me.

• 24:57Harry Stebbings?

  And have you ever used like Headspace or Calm just to get that kind of uh more relaxed mental attitude?

• 25:04Speaker 02

  So I haven't myself. Um I have a lot of friends who who have though and and I'm I'm a huge fan. I just haven't done it myself, to be honest. It's actually, it's one of those things where it's like, man, I gotta like. I gotta start doing that. I gotta start using Headspace.

• 25:15Harry Stebbings?

  Headspace is amazing. We love.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, a huge shout out. I mean, and they're they're an L A company as well. And so like I'm I'm a big fan of that. Um and I think. I think again, that's another one of those things where for some people that is their that is their their rock, right? That type of stuff is their core. Um for other people, you know, other stuff might work. I I know for me, when it comes to like day to day stuff, um. I guess it's not that I haven't done enough research into yet, but like I really like whenever I've done like, I'm not a big yogi or anything like that, but I've done yoga classes here and there. And like the breathing part is always the most profound for me. So like breathing exercises are very interesting to me. And again, it's something that I I haven't done enough research into yet, but like I think. You know, what Headspace is doing, what Calm is doing, just all this type of stuff kind of fits together and like this overall, just like holistic approach to like happiness and health and all that sort of stuff.

• 26:00Harry Stebbings?

  Okay, so it's time for a quick fire round. We've got five questions. We've got four minutes. We ready to go?

• 26:06Speaker 02

  Five questions, four minutes. All right. Yeah, yeah, I can do that.

• 26:09Harry Stebbings?

  Favorite book and why?

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Fight Club by Chuck Polynick. Um, I think it's partially because it was one of the first like grown up books that I read. But also because it kind of taught me how to question the status quo of purchasing with a different perspective.

• 26:24Harry Stebbings?

  Okay, and then the biggest red flag for you when investing or when getting pitched to.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Um, if I feel like I know more about the sector than the entrepreneur does. There's no way we'll invest because I I probably have a sixty to seventy percent understanding of a lot of things. But if you're starting a company in that space, you should know a hundred and twenty percent of it.

• 26:46Harry Stebbings?

  And then your favorite newsletter or blog?

• 26:50Speaker 02

  Uh, it's a tie. I'm a huge fan of Ben Evans, um, and his mobile.

• 26:54Harry Stebbings?

  He's amazing.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  It's unbelievable. I mean, like the the analysis, the the quality is awesome. Um, and then I think strictly B C. Um, the two of them are just very like, very like narrowly focused, so not for everybody, but for me, those two really hit home.

• 27:09Harry Stebbings?

  And then your favorite app that you're using at the moment, what can't you live without on the phone?

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Um, this is a cop out because it's not a tech app and it's not like a, you know, it's not like a, you know, your traditional answer, but um, New York Times. Released this article and an app alongside it a while ago, which was thirty six questions that lead to falling in love with somebody. Um, and I've just been obsessed with the questions. I think they're really fascinating. So like, I'm not like, I'm not in a relationship. I'm not, you know, really actively looking for one or anything, but I just love using these questions with my friends. So it's things like, is there something you've dreamed of doing for a long time and haven't done it yet? Why not? You know, things like that. Um, and it's just been awesome to like build deeper relationships with my friends around that. So I've I've been using that a lot.

• 27:50Harry Stebbings?

  And then finally, your most recent investment and why you said yes.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Um, we did an investment out of New York called Policy Genius. Uh, we did a series A and it's a marketplace for life, rent, pet. And disability insurance. Um, so we said yes to them. Because, well, first of all, that is a massive market, right?

• 28:10Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  But also, it's an amazing combination of founders. So one of the founders has like incredibly relevant industry expertise and the other one has amazing expertise in customer acquisition. And I think those are probably the two hardest things that a marketplace for insurance will face. So that was just like a no brainer.

• 28:27Harry Stebbings?

  Well, Artean, it's been absolutely awesome having you on the show today. Thank you so much for giving me up your time.

• 28:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure.

• 28:34Harry Stebbings?

  As always, all the incredible resources mentioned in today's fantastic show with Artean can be found on the blog at www dot the twenty minute VC dot com. I would absolutely love to hear what you think of our sister show and that can be found on iTunes by searching Angel Insights. And that's where we bring you the views and tactics of all the greatest angels from around the world. And last but not least, you always hear me talk about HiringScreen, so I thought I'd mix it up and do something different. Why would you just take my word for it? So I emailed some of their existing customers and asked them what their main benefits of HiringScreen were. And one MD said that she simply used the time from screening thousands of CVs to meet

• 29:19Harry Stebbings?

  twice as many people as she could beforehand. Another partner at a firm said that being able to send feedback to every applicant made her feel so much better about the entire hiring process. So it's not just me. Check out HiringScreen at www dot hiringscreen dot com and I'd love to hear what you think of the experience. As always, thank you so much for listening and we hope you enjoyed today's show.