Introduction
In this episode of Inquisitive VC, host Nawaz Ahmed interviews Lucas He, founder of Tomorrow Ventures, to dive into crypto investing and venture capital. Lucas shares his journey from buying Bitcoin in 2013 to building a crypto fund focused on real-world adoption. With experience at State Street and OP Crypto, he discusses bridging crypto to industries like healthcare and AI, navigating fundraising challenges, and crafting a portfolio for institutional adoption. Lucas’s insights on real-world crypto use cases and portfolio exits offer actionable strategies for investors and founders aiming to drive crypto adoption beyond speculation.
Key Moments
[00:02:10] Lucas’s crypto roots: From Bitcoin to blockchain investing at MIT.
[00:04:31] Why leave OP Crypto? Building a crypto fund for real-world crypto.
[00:07:33] Tomorrow Ventures’ name: A vision for crypto adoption and innovation.
[00:09:45] Fundraising challenges: Emotional rollercoaster of market uncertainty.
[00:17:12] LP rejections: Traditional investors question crypto’s value.
[00:21:23] Portfolio construction: Pre-seed focus for non-consensus investing.
[00:36:04] Secret obsession: Tech gadgets fueling crypto investing curiosity.
Guest Bio
Lucas He, founder of Tomorrow Ventures, is a crypto investing expert with over a decade in venture capital. Formerly at State Street and OP Crypto, he drives crypto adoption through real-world crypto projects in AI and healthcare, emphasizing institutional-grade blockchain investing.
Keywords
Crypto investing, Venture capital, Crypto fund, Crypto adoption, Real-world crypto, Fundraising challenges, Blockchain investing, Portfolio construction, Non-consensus investing, Crypto’s value
Resources
Tomorrow Ventures: Explore Lucas’s crypto fund for crypto adoption.
State Street: Learn about Lucas’s institutional blockchain investing roots.
Inception (fka OP Crypto): Discover Lucas’s prior crypto investing platform.
Season 1 is Sponsored by Carta:
Carta is the leading provider of world-class software purpose-built for everyone in private capital. We connect founders, investors, and limited partners through software purpose-built for private capital. Trusted by 65,000+ companies in 160+ countries, Carta’s platform of software and services lays the groundwork so you can build, invest, and scale with confidence. Our Fund Administration platform supports 9,000+ funds and SPVs, representing nearly $185B in assets under management, with tools designed to enhance the strategic impact of fund CFOs. Recognized by Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc. and Great Places to Work, Carta is shaping the future of private market infrastructure. Find out more about Carta at carta.com/sg/en/.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Lucas He: I bought my first Bitcoin back in 2013. Very fascinated about the 12 page white paper. I describe a very interesting, robust infrastructure. I would emphasize here is explain, well, do you think about the portfolio exits? It requires a lot of institutional background knowledge, treating expertise that some of the venture investors are not necessarily naturally trained for that.
Was there any rejection that particularly stood out for you? There are way too many rejections I talk with. Traditional investors, they basically told me, Hey, I like you, but I still don’t understand what’s the value of crypto or blockchain? How do we bridge crypto to the real world, solve some real problems that we’ve seen?
[00:00:51] Nawaz Ahmed: Welcome to another episode of The Inquisitive vc. Today I’m excited to have with us Lucas Hay, founder and General Partner of Tomorrow Ventures, a specialist crypto fund focused on driving real world crypto adoption. Lucas’s journey is particularly compelling from discovering Bitcoin in 2013 to building a comprehensive understanding of both traditional finance and crypto through roles at State Street and Op Crypto.
After years of witnessing the space evolve from speculation to institutional adoption, Lucas founded Tomorrow Ventures with the mission to bridge crypto to the real world and invest in projects that solve genuine problems beyond just token appreciation. In this episode, we’ll dive into Lucas’s perspective on the institutional breakthrough moment in crypto, his approach to building a focus investment thesis around real adoption.
And the philosophy behind tomorrow’s vision of turning today’s what ifs into tomorrow’s what ifs. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Welcome Lucas. Thanks for jumping on. Really appreciate your time. Thank you, NOAs. Thanks for inviting me. I’ve been looking forward to it. Fantastic. I would love to start with, going over a little bit of your background.
So if you could talk through, your entry into venture capital and crypto, that would be great.
[00:02:10] Lucas He: Sure. Very briefly, I have a technical background and gained into crypto. Back in 2013 when I bought my first Bitcoin there, started to dive deeper into white paper. very fascinated about, you know, the 12 page, each paper where I describe a very interesting, robust infrastructure.
start to dive deeper into it while at the same time was working in financial service. Naturally see how the two works can potentially merge together. So I’ve been working on the financial service for six years. In 2016, I moved from Singapore to Boston, pursue my M-B-D-M-B-A degree, MIT, where I get to know a lot more about crypto, not just within financial service, but within other industries.
Healthcare supply chain. A lot of the real world adoption. I think that’s super interesting. Get into the crypto venture space in 2018, when I joined the venture arm of Hobby, one of the largest changes back in the days were any early investors into circle. some of the fun, fun investment to one key x mono coin.
And later on I came back, and work at one of the largest, institutions here in Boston called State Street. I was advising their management team in terms of digital asset strategists from a venture from MIA, but also from an internal building perspective, which gave me a lot of strong foundation, network, and connections in institutional space.
2021, I was invited by my previous colleague and manager, at to, to go find as a head of investments of this new crypto fund called. and, yeah, it has been great three and a half years now I’m in process of transition out from mobile crypto and starting my own fund called TMA Ventures. it’s been fun, but exciting and at the same time, you know, a lot of interesting challenges along the way.
[00:04:05] Nawaz Ahmed: Yeah, no, fantastic. thank you for the background. you know, so you’re mentioning, you mentioned you’re about to, you know, transition out and start a new fund. Can you walk through some of your thinking on, you know, why that I, you know, you are a early founder, early employee at Op Crypto, so why leave to start a new fund?
[00:04:31] Lucas He: Right. I think building a new fund or your own firm is something that most of the investors in the space naturally expired to at some point. So for me, it wasn’t one big aha moment. it’s really a. Gradual realization shaped by all this years experience and personal growth in the industry. So I’ve been in the space since 20 thirteens.
Mission started as a retail investor, then, came to MIT to dive deeper into the technical fields. Forecast three streets to understand institutional assets services better, and build a very strong foundation on venture investments at, cryptos. So over time, you know, I think I’ve gathered all the necessary skills, but also the idea of starting something my own feels very natural and timely at this point.
and that idea is supported by my previous fund as well. So I see some fundamental shift in the space where we have, we witness the starting point of institutional adoption. The space has entered a new phase of growth beyond just. Speculation and with real enterprise and institutional use cases coming to really start to take place.
I think I remember the day when the Bitcoin ETF got approved and that’s the day I, roll over all my retirement money in the retirement accounts into the Bitcoin ETFs. That’s how much conviction I have in this space. But at the same time, that is a inflection point to me, you know, signifying how strongly.
Interested this space has been, to a lot of the new players. you know, I know having this new mindset, investing the next generation of what I call the real adoption crypto projects, be it in within financial service or within crypto ai or within some other industries where we say makes sense.
Healthcare supply chain, even D side, you know, where people talk about how we can help our science project within this new paradigm. So I know with this new focus, this new, investment thesis towards the real adoption, I need a new platform. It allows me to really fully dive into this long-term projects that focus on adoption that has.
Different mindsets, but also set up the supporting network to cater for these experts that can help out. So I would say it has been a fantastic journey starting this new fund. I think there has been great investment appetite towards this new thesis of how do we bridge crypto to the real world? How do we, not just think crypto token is the only product, but rather have this solve some real problems that we’ve seen.
[00:07:23] Nawaz Ahmed: Yeah, understood. I think that makes a lot of sense. what’s behind the name of the fund?
[00:07:33] Lucas He: Well, it’s actually very simple name. TMR stands for, tomorrow, which we have take a couple of approaches of arriving his name. First of all, I started to think from top down, what kind of the brand I want to build, what kind of image I wanna present to the investors.
So it really comes down to a few points where I want to be forward looking. I wanna be innovative. At the same time, I want to give a sense of future. you know, I think around a few names and, you know, tomorrow obviously one of the names that is in that list of. Of a couple. And also I started to think from bottom up approach, brainstorming names that feels very catchy, memorable, and most importantly, we need to make sure that the name doesn’t conflict with other companies in the space, where even within the traditional investment space, ‘cause that’s the area crypto start to get into.
and very technically speaking, we need to make sure there’s a good do domain name that we can afford and a good Twitter handle. Everything’s ready. So that really, that Venn diagram really comes down to, tomorrow we shall feel pretty strongly aligned with and just look up online. Tmr VC is readily available for $20 per year.
I quickly grab it, together with a few other domains that start with TMR, but, it’s, yeah, it’s really about how I wanna build this new brand. I want it to be. Young, futuristic, but also be very grounded. so that, you know, really ties back to my events thesis being very, real world driven.
[00:09:19] Nawaz Ahmed: Yeah. No, great. I think it, it really does align with what you mentioned around your thinking of the fund. I would love to understand, you know, you have started fundraising for, the first fund. could you talk through, I guess, what was the most surprising thing, when it came to fundraising for you?
[00:09:45] Lucas He: Sure. So I think everyone has different experiences. I’m speaking to my own experience in this timeframe. I wasn’t really surprised by anything like majorly, as people have been telling me, you know, this is a challenging markets there, there’s a lot of uncertainty, things like that. But it really hits me differently when I’m start to experience it.
Like in real life. it’s very different than reading about it, you know, hearing about it. ‘cause a lot of times we see, hey, you know, the taglines are big fundraisers. Seems like it’s easy to do, especially with a track record. You know, I have a track record investment preceded deals and we have good returns.
But the reality is there, there’s a lot of uncertainty and emotional stress involved being a, first time manager and people will view you with a different lens. There’ll be more, critical about things that, you know, you like your track record. Why we invest in you investing versus investing in the bigger managers who has stronger track record.
you know, one thing I think I really are getting used to is the emotional rollercoaster. Some days it’s moving along very well. A lot of momentum and some other days is just, you know, you start a self-doubt whether it’s works and you hear a lot of rejections and. Many things are out of your control.
You know, looking at the macros, looking at the cycles, looking at how the LPs are rethinking their investment strategies after the past cycle. So I think that’s the part that I wouldn’t say I’m totally surprised by. But there is definitely a lot more to what I was prepared. And fortunately I think I have strong kind of personality and resilience to this situation.
if anything. In the past 10 years, plus the space taught me is, you know, you need to really be prepared for anything to happen. You know, we go through the whole cycles of cracking down crypto from multiple times. FTX goes down, Terra Luna, and people’s confidence in this industry comes and go, but for me, I have that long-term conviction.
So it is hard. At the same time, I feel like the lack of. Over supply of capital is actually helping us to get into a better period of venture investments. we’re looking at one of the surveys from PitchBook. It mentioned about the fundraising amounts from crypto VCs this year versus in 20 21, 29, 2.
It’s actually 95% down. at first it looks like, you know, it is a very bad market, but at the same time, I look at the bright side. Less capital and more discipline investors really allows the market to reset. Okay. and start to support stronger fund and more reasonable valuations. I think that’s a blessing for long-term investors, like what I’m aiming at, and I believe this vintage actually might be one of the strongest, you know, in recent years.
yep. I’m still trying to deal with a lot of market ing and stress, but you know, I think we’re in a good position to really march along.
[00:13:02] Nawaz Ahmed: Yeah, I think you’re right, like the uncertainty and it’s pretty hard, especially when there’s a lot of things that, you know, as a fund manager you can’t control.
what would you say was the. I guess your process when you started to think about the fund, how did you think about, you know, the fundraising process for yourself? Did you know, I’m not sure, were you fundraising previously for op crypto? but you know, how did you kind of go about, you know, okay, I wanna do this fund now, and what were the steps for you to kind of go down as you started to line up meetings?
[00:13:40] Lucas He: Sure. So there. A couple of angles at OB Crypto where I was a mainly the investment partner, manage the whole team, set up the processes, and relatively less involved in that whole, fundraising and pitching process. Although I did bring some investors on board. I would say that’s one of the biggest learnings I’ve been having and starting my own fund.
It’s different than just running an investment team and doing a portfolio support and do accounting and auditing. And so the way I started is obviously talking with people that knows me, in the past cycles from the old days, you know, the founders that investing to the venture managers that I shared deal flows with, who see me as, a very active player in the space.
And really some of the friends and family who have seen me through all this journey, they started to get more interest into crypto. you know, I talk with people from my previous company at State Street from my, you know, some other friends working at Tri Fi companies that are looking at a space as more legit and they wanna see how crypto and their industries can crossover.
So those are the people I naturally get started. I would say this is forming my initial. Strategic checks and people really believe in me regardless of, you know, what’s going on with the market, what is my investment thesis? ‘cause they trust me. And I think the next sector is what I call, a lot of crypto native institutional investors.
I was inside of, you know, investing from crypto on the venture side. I was also managing. The fund book where we invest into emerging managers alongside some of the largest fund funds in the space. But throughout that process, I got to know most of the as asset allocators here in the States and in the western world in general, likes of the DCG.
Some of those are the previous factors of the crypto fund. So bring a lot of that institutional connections from day one and start to have conversation with them on my unique basis. I think that has helped. A lot in terms of getting some of the initial conversations. And I think going down the route there is, crypto foundations I think are still actively looking at emerging managers to invest into.
But more importantly, the way I deal with it, whenever I talk with investor or potential lp, I’ll get their opinions and their takes on, you know, who are actually deploying, who. Do they recommend I’m speaking with at the same time, you know, you know, I’ve been traveling on the road for the past couple of months.
Really, establish some new connections that are more important. Just reconnect with people who are still active in the space. So I would say it’s there. There’s not a. Single answer to this. There’s not a standard playbook. There are people looking for, external advisors helping them with fundraise.
There are industry conferences you can go. There is data platforms that you can get access to family office data. But you know, this is my approach is go with the people I’m most closely with. Start to hear their feedback, their warm introductions, and start to branch off from there.
[00:16:59] Nawaz Ahmed: Great. No, I think that’s a great process in terms of how you go about it.
You know, as you started to talk to LPs, was there any rejection that particularly stood out for you? Oh, man. There are way
[00:17:12] Lucas He: too many rejections that I, couldn’t count with, with five, within five minutes. but I think there general themes of those rejections overall, I feel it’s not. Actually, personally, a lot of those are based on the market sentiments and how they view the timing.
The cycles are, so one example I can give to you is when I talk with traditional investors from, you know, family offices, they basically tell me, Hey, I like you, you know, but I still don’t understand what’s the value of crypto or blockchain. We have seen you guys working in the space for more than 10 years, but still, you know, there, there aren’t a lot of impactful use cases.
I can really feel as outsider, right on the country. They are investing to AI and they can understand and they can. Perceive AI as very powerful within different industries. They’re using ai. Even my mom used try GBT from time to time just to, you know, search for different stuff. So I felt like that kind of mainstream adoption, similar to AI hasn’t yet come for crypto.
It really reminded me how, niche and how, Misunderstood space still is from the outside perspective. So we take a lot of things for granted, like, you know, the things that we are excited about, but for the outsiders, what they see is a lot of headlines that doesn’t necessarily give them the best impression of the industry.
You know, the hacks, you know, the meme, token pumps and duns and, you know, a lot of other things. There’s a lot of real work that needs to be done to bridge that gap. you know, that, that makes me also, on the other hand, looking at the bright side, very excited because I know this type of people, are the next groups of people that can be onboarded, you know?
So once the real use case is out, once they are, you know, seeing the impact, I think they, they can, contribute a lot more to the space. The other example I would say, I. It is the crypto natives, you know, people who are already starting to play and they are mostly into Bitcoin, right? Like people telling me, Hey, Bitcoin has done five x loss cycle, but I don’t see any kind of returns profile from the crypto VCs, which is fair, you know, it’s a sign.
Of the industry getting more mature in the early days of any crypto VCs can, you know, 10 20 x within two, three years without much of a token lockout, that days are basically gone. Right. But at the same time, I do think crypto VCs are not going anywhere, and the VC is a asset class. They offer a unique risk and reward perspective that should be complimentary to the liquid exposure.
You know, it’s overall. Portfolio construction concept that I think many of the people still haven’t grasped. You know, they have these memories about whichever assets has grow the biggest and therefore the over index on that asset class versus think of this overall portfolio construction of venture liquids, and some alternative asset classes.
So again, that highlights the need for better. Education for the industry. You know, those rejections aren’t unpersonal, you know, they just give me another prompt to say, Hey, you know, there, there’s a lot of gaps in that understanding and that’s something I’m actually doing traveling on the road, talking with people that outside of this circle and trying to, you know, help them understand the concept of this all portfolio construction diversification.
Just all cycles work right from the bear to the bull. but yeah, those, I think those are the rejections that actually helped me to find my pitch and to really find out what’s the gap there.
[00:21:12] Nawaz Ahmed: Yeah. Gotcha. as you’re talking about portfolio construction, I would love to hear how you thought about it for the new fund.
So I
[00:21:23] Lucas He: always in the camp of. You wanna build a very side conviction and conservative portfolio. So in my case, targeting a 2020 $5 million fund. I think I’ll be investing at most 30 portfolio companies so that I can have enough of my energy and time span, which each of them, and ideally the number is lower than that.
I specialize in pre-seed investments, in the earliest stage, the first round or second rounds. I like to lead some of the earliest rounds when they are not at a consensus stage. You know, I think it’s important ‘cause early stage investments all about finding that non-consensus areas you are early, and you can find those teams still at good valuation.
You can have meaningful influence to them as well. Not investing in a very saturated market where, you know, you’re just a very small part of the whole value network. And, you know, especially for VC and smaller investors, that kind of, niche and focus is very important. So I would say out of the previous funds, and the ones who drive a lot of the early investment into new thesis, like wealth to ai, were early investors since 2022.
We’re talking about Z key scaling. we have one’s first track into some of the biggest projects back in 2021 and deepening this area that’ve been following up for the past couple of years. Very early investors into one prominent deepening fund, as well as some of the real strong deepening projects nowadays.
you know, thinking about portfolio construction here, that’s the other mindset that I want to operate with. Very cons and forward looking and finding the narratives that is in the early earnings. Adoption is early, but not too early. At the same time, I will cover some small portion of the fund to invest in, more liquid formats, but still with the venture light returns, you know, talking about.
TC deals that invest into the public markets at a great discounts. You know, sometimes those teams are even treating below their past, you know, private runs. A lot of times if you get to know the team better, knows their future plans. I think there, there are strong fundamentals that is not making the price.
So it’s really about uncovering a lot of the mispricing from the secondary market, which follows the similar investment thesis and framework, the same rigorous, process that we apply to the primary rounds. But those are the deals that more realistic speaking can generate better liquidity. and also I think there are some new trends coming out, like new forms of fundraising.
Likes of Echo. and a lot of fair launches start to really be more popular within the crypto startup space, but I think that’s an interesting trend. I’m still watching and observing and trying to find good place from the VCs perspective, and I think that ultimately gives a different liquidity profiles at the same time, and it’s better aligned with the team, with the communities from day one.
So those are the thoughts around the portfolio construction. and overall I feel, you know, it’s a balanced approach with long-term pre profiles, but also short-term liquidity. the existing formats of fundraising, but also some new forms that we have seen right now where if we haven’t even seen the future, you know, really maintain a very, open-minded towards that approach as well.
[00:25:07] Nawaz Ahmed: Yeah, makes sense. How do you think about reserves? I.
[00:25:14] Lucas He: Sorry, reserves in terms of, the, in terms of follow on
[00:25:18] Nawaz Ahmed: capital?
[00:25:21] Lucas He: Sure. So I’m definitely in favor of investing across cycles or across the rounds. To me particularly it’s the pre-seed rounds and C rounds. So typically what I want to work in here is, you know, identify some strong projects.
Ideally, I can lead the preceded rounds or write a meaningful check. And, you know, start, get hands on with them and. Watch their KPIs and really help them out with that next step of growth. And ideally, we can help structure the next round as well and introduce them to good investors alongside us. and typically we will, and I, it’s my plan to invest in that next round as well.
but it’s sometimes I can say the value of some other investors coming to lead that rounds, versus, you know, I lead all the rounds I would say, you know, there, there are good companies, like I say, more, 50% of them, we will write historic speaking a full on checks, and that’s still my strategy, in this new fund.
[00:26:25] Nawaz Ahmed: Understood. Understood. you know, you mentioned at your last fund you did a little bit of fund to fund stuff, and now you are also founding your, own fund. What would be like the most crucial piece of advice you could give a, new first time fund manager?
[00:26:45] Lucas He: It’s interesting question. I’m being on this different side of the table and now. Just really appreciate a lot of that fund of fund framework, what they’re looking at. I think one of the things I would emphasize here is explain, well, how do you think about the portfolio exits? You know, that’s one of the questions I don’t feel a lot of people are putting to their first priority.
and I think a lot of VCs I’ve seen has make good investments, but not necessarily have a strong. Portfolio management or exit plans. Talking about how institutional this space should be in terms of there are scenario planning involved, there’s risk management framework, there’s you know, stimulation in terms of how the market will go, what price points or sell If this happens, what do you do?
This doesn’t happen, what do you do? So there’s like a whole framework of portfolio access. I think it’s requires a lot of institutional background knowledge, treating expertise that, you know, some of the venture investors are not necessarily naturally trained for that, but I think this is super important, especially given the new matter where, you know, the portfolio getting longer and longer.
Lexuses LPs are demand liquidity. For the fund of funds, obviously they’re long-term investors, but still their LPs are demanding. We’re asking about the equity profile. So I felt this question needs to be well prepared, and really start to think your edge of managing this portfolio companies, what kind of connections do you have there?
You know, what kind of unique value add you can provide. Sometimes increase their value. You’re not just a passive investor. More so the portfolio companies, the invest, the investment you’ve done, they’ll look at you as someone who guide them through the whole process. So that mindset, that rigorous portfolio management and platform approach is also very important to me is capital at the end of day is not the most critical thing for prese stage deals.
It’s the guidance, it’s resources, and it’s a lot of the other support that really matters. And that’s what I’m trying to build in here as well. A very robust framework for platform resources, portfolio management as per network, and make it very scalable as well. So that’s one of the things I would, highlight to any of the first time managers, to think about additional investment.
What are other things that, you know, the investors and, the teams really care about?
[00:29:25] Nawaz Ahmed: Yeah, no, great point. Thanks. is there an example of a company that you feel is a great representation of your thesis for the fund?
[00:29:40] Lucas He: Absolutely. I think of a couple in the category. So one of the companies that I. Lead and invest into, an op crypto. The previous fund is called Naix, network, which is a, pretty interesting company. They are crowdsourcing and decentralizing the collection of autonomous driving data. You think about you can download the app on your phone, you monitor your dash cam and drive around and collect those street mapping data in video format.
And then on the other hand, there are the companies like. the autonomous driving company, they constantly look for different training samples in different regions at different cities, and I think there is a good market for this, especially with the growth of ai. There has been so many different companies come up with different vertical AI products.
I would say the biggest, challenge they have, it’s not a GPS, it’s not a models, it’s the data. You know, how they can efficiently source the data and that becomes their edge. So in this way, I think crypto or blockchain is a foundation layer or payments. For orchestration of, you know, wider public and also be the undo layer for tracking, right?
What contributions everyone’s making is really working well within this new AI and data economy. So this company, their approach definitely is not new, but they’re finding a good niche within that autonomous driving space. and I’m also seeing some other companies looking at different data segments.
But, you know, I think that represent one kind of projects that I. I feel really excited about because it has a very strong business demand from the web two clients, and we see the potential of revenue generation from day one, and we see that potential bring this technology to more people outside of this industry.
And ultimately, you know, if they have a token, which they do, you know, token itself is tied back to a lot of economic value that they can generate from those real business models versus the previous mindset and the practice where token itself is product, which in some project makes sense.
It’s very community driven by retail folks product. But in this case, I think tokens. Some somehow needs to be backed by those real revenues and you know, these real business models. you know, those are the companies I’m excited about and that is not limited within this segment. There’s other industries be healthcare, telecommunication.
There’s obviously the host Stable Coin Payments, RW Space, which has similar operating mindset and instead of the investment criteria here,
[00:32:30] Nawaz Ahmed: great example. One thing that’s different to a few of the other people I’ve had on the podcast for this season is that you’re a solo gp. could you talk about your thinking around, you know, why you decided to, go down that track, of being a solo GP and how different it is, you know, compared to your last role where you had, you know, you were part of a partnership?
[00:32:59] Lucas He: Absolutely. It’s very different, you know, being a solo GP versus being part of a bigger platform. You know, no one has really tells me how, you know, intense. It is, you know, starting this journey. Every decision, every setbacks, every winning, every no, every yes is with you. You know, personally, you could hire a team, you could, you know, have people working for you, but that doesn’t replace the core decision making.
Responsibility that, you know, rests on you as a gp. So at the same time without a platform behind you, it’s really about your value that you can ly bring to people because you don’t have that natural credibility and brand name with you. you have to deal a lot of that from, ground zero. What I’ve been talking with people is really sharing a lot of my thought leadership and my views to help them understand how I work as a person.
It really comes down to if people trust you as a person, like in some way, I. You are the product, right? Like people don’t necessarily invest in a investment fund, especially for solo gp, for a first time manager. They invest in this person who they believe can manage the money well, who they believe can pivot and adapt to new market challenges and paradigms.
And at the end of the day, that’s really about, you know, building your brand as a unique product. And your fund just goes along with you, you know, it’s, it won’t be the same thing, right? As if like you have a very big machine and it’s, the good thing is you’re dealing with the founders who understand you are a decision maker, you make things happen much faster and there’s not a very long process committee and a lot of that process.
So in terms of that level of engagement is actually helping me a lot to, to gain people’s trust and to work in a much more hands-on way. but yeah, it’s, never easy journey. At the same time, I do feel over the past more than 10 years, I get enough in terms of the skill sets, in terms of the network, it’s, only about whether you have the courage you have, you’re seeing the right moment to start things.
I feel all the things start to line up for me in terms of the external environment, in terms of, you know, how ready I am. Yeah, I’m definitely growing this into a bigger brand and a bigger shop. So hopefully I’m not gonna be doing this along, you know, for much longer. and I’ve been talking with good people that can potentially on board while things get into a good momentum.
[00:35:49] Nawaz Ahmed: Gotcha. great points. final question. What’s a secret obsession of yours that nobody knows about?
[00:35:58] Lucas He: A secret. What
[00:35:59] Nawaz Ahmed: a secret. Obsession.
[00:36:01] Lucas He: Obsession.
[00:36:03] Nawaz Ahmed: Wow.
[00:36:04] Lucas He: Okay. So I wouldn’t say there, there’s a lot of obsession. and, but I think I’m generally very geek in terms of technical gadgets. You know, I am the first generation holder of.
The iPads, the, you know, the iPod and a lot of, you know, the Apple vision, a lot of the breakthrough technology products. I still remember, you know, the first time I got hold of the iPads, first generation is very bulky. I spent actually $50 on the screen protect itself, just how excited I was. and I think where people criticize a lot of early stage technology, I see different things.
I see. I. Their future, their, and personally, I have much higher tolerance for imperfection. You know, all these first generations are not perfect. It’s, somewhat similar to how I discover. Crypto or blockchain. At the time it was very slow. I tried to sync the whole database. it takes me hours, but now I think it takes days.
But still, you know, I enjoy and obsess with, just identify some of the new gadgets that can play around what is within crypto instead of crypto in, in tech. Even non-tech space, like to start new things and trying out, I build different stuff. I have a 3D printer at home that I print 7 24 and different gadgets.
So I would say that kind of curiosity, it’s actually helping out in this industry as a early stage venture manager. but yeah, you know, I’m enjoying it. and it’s always a good topic to share with people how many different digital. Gadgets I have, and what kind of the new releases that we’re looking forward to as well.
[00:37:53] Nawaz Ahmed: Yeah, that’s super cool. I would definitely think of myself as an early adopter as well for some of these gadgets. Nice. I find them quite interesting as well.
[00:38:02] Lucas He: Nice. Nice.
[00:38:04] Nawaz Ahmed: Cool. Yeah. Well, again, I think that was, a great conversation, Lucas. I once again, appreciate your time. thank you for coming on and, sharing some of your thoughts.
[00:38:15] Lucas He: Thank you. Thanks again for inviting me and for enjoying the conversations. Thanks for all the thoughtful questions here.
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