Emerging Capital: The New Light Ventures Podcast

Ali Jamal: Founding Partner of First Check Ventures

June 10, 2024 • Pablo Castro • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Ali Jamal is a Venture Investor, Product Leader, Growth Expert, Data Scientist, and Corporate Strategist. He is the Founder of First Check Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage startups worldwide. The syndicate has supported and invested in more than 130 startups from over 30 countries, including the US, Pakistan, India, Singapore, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, Turkey, Peru, and Colombia.

Before starting First Check Ventures, he was the Director of Growth and Performance Marketing at PayClip, Mexico's first FinTech Unicorn. Previously, Ali was the Head of Performance Marketing at Rappi, leading a team of over 80 people across 7 teams in 8 international offices and responsible for generating more than $1 billion in total transaction value per year globally. Prior to joining Rappi, he was the Head of Marketing Innovation at Agoda, where he led 3 teams across 3 international offices and was responsible for expansion into the China market. Ali also held Product and Analytical leadership roles at RockYou, Zynga, and Maxim Integrated Products. He began his career as an investment banker specializing in mergers and acquisitions in the software and internet sectors. Ali has a Bachelor's degree in Economics and a Master's degree in Statistics from Stanford University.

Pablo Castro:

Welcome to the New Light Ventures podcast, the definitive guide to navigate the venture capital landscape. I'm your host, Pablo Castro, and every week we dive deep into stories, strategies and successes of emerging VC managers, whether they're navigating their first fund in the midst of growing their second or successfully running their third. In this podcast, you'll gain exclusive insights from the front lines of fundraising, management and innovation. Whether you're an aspiring manager, an experienced investor, or just curious of the world of venture capital, youve come to the right place. Join us as we explore the trials and triumphs of those shaping the future of investment. From in depth interviews with industry leaders to practical tips for our own venture journey, were here to provide you with knowledge and inspiration you need to succeed. So subscribe now, share your thoughts and lets embark on this journey together. Welcome to the New Light Ventures podcast, where capital meets innovation. Lets dive in. So hi everyone, welcome to the New Life Ventures podcast. Today we have joining us Ali Jamal, managing partner of Fast Check Ventures, a VC fund that is investing in Latin America. Welcome Ali to the show.

Ali Jamal:

Thanks for having me. Really excited to be here.

Pablo Castro:

I'm super excited. As I told you before we start recording, super grateful you're here. I know you've been traveling a lot. Also grateful were able to connect and I just, before we start, I just wanted for you to tell us a little bit about first check ventures, what you guys do, how big is the fund? A bit about the story about the fund.

Ali Jamal:

Yeah, yeah. So as the name implies, first check Ventures, we want to be your first check. We want to be your earliest partner. I like seeing companies as early as possible to be able to have that influence. Right? Like I've worked with a bunch of startups, both big and small, and I feel like in the beginning stages you really need partners and you really need people that are going to be able to collaborate with, and I'd like to be that collaboration partner. And so we have a fund and syndicate, we can invest kind of anywhere from pre seed up through series A, series B's, but really trying to be the first check whenever possible. And I like to build that relationship as early as possible with people. And I think a big emphasis for us is Latin America and kind of in general see a great opportunity across all kind of like non, you know, us, non EU kind of markets, just, you know, betting on the rest of the world. I think there's a lot of things that haven't caught up yet in other markets where I want to help them catch up, but I want to see, I believe over time the world will be a much more like, I believe in the reverse it to the mean, right. I think that everything is going to eventually kind of be fairly similar. And even now I feel like life today across most places is more similar than it was 20 years ago or 50 years ago or 100 years ago. And so I think over time we're going to continue to see this develop where more and more places are going to become fairly similar and fairly standard. A lot of these things are sort of basic human needs and basic human requirements and fulfill basic human wants and desires. And so backing companies that go and try to fulfill those needs, go and try to fulfill those desires, try to make the world a little bit more of a fair and even place to me makes a lot of sense and where I really want to put my money and my effort and my time.

Pablo Castro:

Wow, that is amazing. And just for the audience, of course, with the research I've done, knowing a bit about your background, you were raised, I believe, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Right. Funny thing is, I did part of my high school in Minneapolis, so I get, I can relate a lot to what you say. A lot of people look alike in some parts of Minnesota. It's a very homogeneous community, I would say. Can you tell us a bit about your background and how that influenced you to the fund manager you are today?

Ali Jamal:

Yeah. So I actually grew up in northern Minnesota. So I grew up in a small town about 200 miles north of Minneapolis. And I think having that experience. Right. It was a little bit more sheltered. You did get to really know all the people in your town in your high school class, in the classes above you, and there was a lot of this connection and people kind of staying home.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

And so, you know, my parents having immigrated there, it was always that you were a little bit different. You kind of had a little bit of a different exposure, different thought process. But I think kind of growing up there and then kind of continuing my education and even, you know, my first few years of work, I felt like I always wanted to go and do something else and go and explore more places and be part of more of the world, especially like the global world. But I didn't know how and I didn't know what the right opportunities were for that. And so I feel like it's really been over the last ten years where it's become much easier to go and do these sorts of things. And with the rise of mobile and Internet and international flights and all these sorts of things, we're all kind of traveling everywhere. I just came back from a trip to Indonesia and Singapore and Malaysia and Istanbul, which now I feel like I talk about it just sounds totally normal, right? But I feel like, you know, 30 years ago, when I was a little kid, that was, like, completely unheard of, right? And nobody was flying to turkey or flying to Malaysia or whatever. And maybe it's kind of this wanderlust idea that sort of penetrated a lot of our generation. But to me, I think it kind of just goes to symbolize that we are, you know, much closer and much more integrated or becoming much more integrated as a society. And so when you think about going back and looking at these small pockets of places like Minnesota or northern Minnesota in particular, that didn't have that exposure, didn't have that view, but yet, you know, everybody there still had access. They still had the basic services because they were in America, right. And because they were under this umbrella. And, you know, things that we had 30, 40 years ago, you don't have right now in some of these large cities, like Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur or Mexico City. Mexico City is the biggest city in North America, but they don't necessarily have the same things that we had access to 30 years ago.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

And it's this really strange phenomenon that getting a bank loan or being able to start your own small business and all these sorts of things that we kind of take it for granted that represent what the american dream is supposed to be is actually kind of like a global dream in my mind. Right. Everybody kind of wants these things. Everybody wants life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the ability to have a house, put food on their table, raise their kids, send them to college, have the kids have a better life than they did. And so I feel like a lot of what I'm trying to make a bet on is that everybody shares those kind of same values. They're not just american values. They're really global and human values. And what can we do to kind of spread that or to help that happen?

Pablo Castro:

Wow. That is super powerful. And just by talking with you, I can see all the empathy you have. And I think that just knowing you for. For a bit, I know. I think that's one of your biggest strengths, because I don't think there's as much empathy. And I just feel that talking with you right now and for the fun, for first tech ventures in general, how was the process for creation of your thesis? Because I've talked to different managers, and what I've seen is that it's an ongoing process or it's extremely hard at the beginning to find the right thesis for them. How is it for you, that experience?

Ali Jamal:

So I think it kind of naturally evolved. I think it kind of also goes back to my original, you know, life and lifespan.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

And kind of, again, growing up in Minnesota, although we might have been more ahead of a lot of these places, I feel like a lot of people kind of still thought of us as, you know, behind, right. But now it's caught up, and it's the same things you have in Minneapolis or in Chicago, you also have in my small town. And so growing up, I know one example, like, we didn't have sushi growing up, right. And, like, I can remember when I first had sushi, and now I remember, like, when all of my friends had first times they had sushi. Cause, like, I would go back and, like, they didn't have it until maybe they were 21 or 22 or 23, or they came out and visited me in the Bay Area or whatever. But now their kids are growing up and they're having sushi at six years old or eight years old or ten years old, right. And we've kind of gone to this place where sushi is now a default. Right? Like, we're going to a place where indian restaurants are now, like, normal and standard. And I remember when I first got to college, one of the ras was talking about, like, ethiopian food. We're all, like, ethiopian food. Who eats ethiopian food, right? And now everybody eats ethiopian food. Like, it's actually, like, everybody talks about Injera bread and there's, like, jokes about it on tv about how much everybody loves Injera. Right? I think we've now become the society that has caught up. But I didn't necessarily think about that when I was initially investing, right? I think when I was initially investing, it was coming from Minnesota, going through this Stanford network. You know, all this technology happens in Silicon Valley. Everywhere else is behind. You need to be cutting edge and blah, blah. I still think that Silicon Valley drives a lot of the innovation, but there are these places that are five years, ten years, 15 years behind, and not, like, in every aspect, right. But in specific aspects, they're ten years behind or 15 years behind. And what can we do to help them catch up, right? And so I feel like that wasn't necessarily what I thought of initially. It was just I was, I'd worked in a couple of different markets. I got presented some deals that to me seemed like no brainers. Like, oh, this company in the US became a unicorn doing this. Latin America is a market that is three times as many people as the US. Why is nobody doing this yet, right? And, oh, here's an opportunity to do bet on a future unicorn. And so it kind of evolved from that. But then I think part of it was also just what started to resonate with me more, what started to make me happier. I feel like it's like a valley everybody's building for like, 1%, right? Everybody's trying to, like, serve the richest people the world and serve the best, blah, blah. And there's a lot of competition for that. But I don't know if that would really make me happier. Like, I don't know if it really makes me happier if I can make millionaires, make 20% more money a year, right? That's fine if that's an outcome, but that's not my goal. I feel like my goal is how can I make everyday people better off, right? Like, let me try to figure out how to have this wider, bigger, broader impact. And so when I get a chance to invest in companies, especially in emerging markets, especially ones that are serving the middle class and the base of the pyramid, that's what excites me, because I see that even in these other markets, a lot of the people that are building are actually also, like, following the Silicon Valley model of trying to build for the 1%, right? And so even though they might be in Nigeria, they're not building for the base of, like, the 80% of Nigerians. They're building for that top 5% of Nigerians that want to be able to invested private equity funds in the US. It's like, okay, cool. But, like, I don't really care. Like, I would rather see something that, like, makes it easier for that average Nigerian to take the bus or to put some money aside for their kids or makes it easier that if they have some sort of illness pop up that they don't get evicted from their house or, you know, there's enough things in the world right now that we actually can be, like, a really great place if we just let the market be more efficient. And for some reason, we decide to, like, create these inefficiencies. I believe the inefficiencies exist even though we know how to solve it. And so to me, it's a little bit mind blowing that there are these opportunities, but I think there are, like, hundreds of different unicorns that can be built in all of these markets, right? We're talking that Africa is going to have 2 billion people in the next, you know, few years, right? How many people are actually building in Africa, Latin America has 700 million people. It's the same gdp per capita as China, but it has 2% of the vc dollars compared to China, right? So even though you have half the opportunity in China, it's 25 x less dollars, right. It's just a crazy, you know, crazy stats that are out there because nobody's thinking about how do we actually make life better for everyday people. But the more we can make life better for everyday people, the bigger this overall pie is going to get and the better the world is going to be, right? I think that's actually how we make all these other companies better. All these other big things better is by raising the base.

Pablo Castro:

No, I agree 100% and I just think it's so important. And also because I've also been focusing a lot on Latin american and I imagine this, you can see this in different emerging markets. What difference have you seen? An amazing idea, an amazing company that you're like, this should be implemented in this market, would work perfectly in this emerging market. But maybe the constraints that are in these emerging markets, let's say for example, Latin America, the constraints there are, what are ways that those can be overcome or those obstacles could be traversed in a better way.

Ali Jamal:

So I think the biggest issue tends to be on regulation side of things, right? And I tend to invest a lot in fintechs and companies that kind of are creating opportunities for credit and debt. But across the board, I think a lot of governments make it hard and you have to get a license, you have to get approvals, you have to get regulations. And I understand why historically it's been important, right? And I think the intentions were good, right? The intentions were to protect people. But what it ends up meaning is that 80% or 90% of the population is unbanked in these places, right? And even when I've gone and tried to set up a bank account, you know, while I was working in Mexico, in Colombia, in Thailand, it would take me, you know, weeks to months, right, to set up a bank account. If I'm in the US and I want to set up an account, I go on mercury and I set one up in like ten minutes, right?

Pablo Castro:

Maybe another account if you want.

Ali Jamal:

It's ridiculous, you know, like you could create a small business in the US in probably like 20 minutes. You could go get your bill, apply for your business license, apply for your bank account, set up a mailbox, set up everything. That is not the case in all these, most these other markets, right? It is a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of red tape to hop through. And so I would hope that over time, more of these countries will adapt and become a little bit more open. I think part of it is just information and data has been lacking historically, and so it makes it tougher and you need all this extra time to go and do verification. But I feel like we're now in a point where data and information and identity should be pretty easy to understand and to figure out. So I feel like quick Google searches, you can find stuff, right? And so I would say that's probably the biggest, one of the biggest hindrances, right, is probably around regulation. And I would say the other is, I think there's a problem in a lot of places, not just in Latin America, but kind of across the board of just legacy and legacy institutions. And these things won't change. Right. I remember talking to my parents about investing india or investing in Pakistan or investing in Kenya, and, you know, these places that they grew up in and, you know, they're like, oh, but it's corrupt, right? It's not going to change. Nobody cares. It's just going to be the same way it is. And, you know, even now, when I go and I talk to a lot of, you know, Mexicans and colombians and Brazilians, just like, oh, that's just how it's always been. That's how it's always going to be. And so I think the beauty, I think of Silicon Valley is people are like, kind of like, fuck that, I don't care. Let's go build. Like, I don't care what the regulations are, we're going to figure out a way around it. And what I tend to see is a lot of people that are building now in these other markets have come out of that kind of mindset or have come out and spent time in the US, in the UK, in Silicon Valley, in, you know, went to Harvard or went to whatever, right? And then they're able to take that kind of mindset back. It's not necessarily saying that those people are smarter or better, but that they learn to question it and learn to kind of trust themselves more and believe themselves more. I think that's part of the reason why people like second or third time entrepreneurs is because they've already kind of proven that they're willing to take a bet and willing to figure out how to make things work. So I think the more that people can say, like, okay, this is situation, but we'll figure out how to make it work.

Pablo Castro:

Right?

Ali Jamal:

Kind of MacGyver everything, right? The better off we're gonna be. And so I'm less concerned about that's the way it's always been and more about that's where it's always been. But why? And here's how I'm gonna change that.

Pablo Castro:

Wow. I can align with so many things there. I like one of the things I hear a lot about investing in emerging markets, it's like, why would you invest in the emerging market? It's so hard. It's so hard. And I'm like, it being hard is not a reason not to do it. I don't think that's a reason why you shouldn't do something. You know what I mean?

Ali Jamal:

I don't think that actually has to be that hard. Right? I think it might be hard, but when it actually works and you can scale something, you can build something, whether it's Gojek and grab in Southeast Asia or Nubank in Brazil, we're seeing 40, 50, $60 billion companies come out and be built out of these markets that are impossible to build it. I don't think that's the case anymore. I think we're now in a place where information is spreading so fast, people are spreading so fast, ideas are spreading so fast. Even when you go and you look at a lot of the people that are involved in these successful companies, they're not just locals, right? Everybody is kind of coming in and being excited by this chance to change these economies, whether it's Brazil or Colombia or Nigeria or whatever. I'm seeing a lot of the places that are more open to immigration, that are making it easier for talent to come there and build there and grow there are the ones that are being the most successful. So in my mind, maybe it's tougher, but I think the reward is probably just as great, if not greater, than what you could get out of the.

Pablo Castro:

US these days and on the side of maybe not the market, but on the side of your fund. Tell us a bit, how was the experience of raising the fund, and how did you build credibility with investors and maybe some learning experiences that you had there?

Ali Jamal:

So I've had a syndicate for the last several years, and through that, we've been able to do more than 100 investments. And so I was able to kind of prove out my track record there. Personally, I've been angel investing for more than a decade as well. And so I had angel track record. I had a syndicate track record. And then I think part of it was also trying to find people that believe in the same mission and then are willing to kind of back that, right. I understand that I might not have the same infrastructure and everything that a large institution might be looking for, but finding the people who are willing to overlook that and in the short term say, like, okay, just the way I am, right. I make first checks into startups at the early stages because I think that's where the biggest rewards are, finding other people who kind of believe in that same idea that, hey, I think these other economies are going to grow. I think being the first check adds a ton of value. I think there's a ton of upside available there. And I'm willing to make a bet on a first time VC, but who has a ton of experience and a ton of connections. And I led growth for a couple of different unicorns in Latin America. I'm now backed 50 60 founders or 50 60 companies, right. Probably 100 plus founders in Latin America, many of them that have gone on to be very successful. One third of my pre seed investments gone into YC after I invested. And so there's a connection and there's a network, right? And I think one of the interesting things about a place like glad am is everybody's two degrees away, maybe three degrees away. And so most people end up being able to find some way to get hold of you, especially if they hear that you're helpful and that you're building the ecosystem. I think probably one of the biggest reasons why people decide to come along is the fact that I am extremely active in the ecosystem and I'm connected to a lot of people and I look at a lot of things and I talk to a lot of companies and I might not be. I mean, I think I'm really good at picking, I think I'm really good at whatever, right? But even if I'm not, I'm just seeing so much that I'm at least going to learn over time, right? And I'm trying to cover as much of this as possible. I'm not like the same things that are supposed to be a detriment, that I don't have a ton of infrastructure, I don't have a ton of whatever I think of as a benefit. I don't have a ton of associates out there going in and looking at things. I'm taking that first call. I'm the one that's meeting the founder, I'm the one that's assessing them. I'm the one that's stack ranking every single founder I meet, I'm the one that's stack ranking every single deck. I mean, I get 300 decks a week I talk to the top 50 of those every, you know, top 50 companies every single week. So every month I'm looking at 200, 250 companies that I've had conversations with. You know, I'm getting those decks from all sorts of places, including founders that I previously invested in, other venture capitalists who are excited by these companies that are maybe too early for them. Right. I think a lot of people aren't willing to write that first check, and so I end up carving up a unique place in the ecosystem that I think of as giving me a lot of advantages. Right. Like most people won't write first checks. Most people have bigger teams, they move slower, they do all these other things and the early stages, I think there's benefits to moving quickly, to finding the right people you want to make a bet on and helping them.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

And I think being able to have this background of working in product, working in growth, working in data science, actually being able to add value to them and how they're thinking through things is extremely valuable to my portfolio.

Pablo Castro:

There's so many questions that come from that to me. First question, oh my gosh. And one thing beforehand, I think it's so important. There's a big difference also between being a first time manager and a first time investor. Not, you are not a first time investor. You've been investing a long time. So I think there is a lot of experience behind your investing. Definitely there.

Ali Jamal:

I think one of the unique things is when you look at most VC's, they come out of one of two backgrounds, right. Either one, they're kind of more on the finance side of things and, you know, kind of went up through the VC route or two, you know, they're an ex founder who's now kind of had a successful exit and now going in back in companies. And I'm not coming from either of those things. I've had exposure in both. Right. But I would like, I worked at these big unicorns and whatever, but I was not the CEO of rappy. Right. I was a senior person there, but I also had to, like, consistently go and just figure out who am I going to work with and which company I want to go back and what are these other people doing, right. And so I feel like the people that have committed to building a unicorn. Right. That's a 1015 year journey and you kind of have one lens for those ten years or those 15 years. On the other hand. Right. I was working at companies for two or three years and then finding another opportunity, finding some other way to have impact. And so I was, one, kind of consistently growing and changing. But two, I was also seeing things in different markets and different companies, seeing how the different structures work. And when you're coming in to a company, you can influence the culture, right? But the culture is already there. And so I'm not necessarily setting the rules. I have to figure out, how do each of these people play? How do they approach the world? How do I think about the world, what was successful about the way that this company did it? What do I think needs to improve into this company? And I'm able to take that knowledge of all these different things that I've seen and now kind of apply it when I'm meeting founders and say, okay, like, when I was working at this company, this is how they did it. This is what was successful for them. I was working at that company. We tried that, and it didn't work. And so there's these different pieces that I'm able to, I think, pull from. And I'm not necessarily coming in and telling founders, oh, when I was CEO or whatever, this is how we did it. This is the only way.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

Cause I had to learn that there are multiple ways to do things. And every company kind of approaches things with different values and different priorities. And even though your ultimate priority might be the same, there's a lot of different ways to get there. And so I feel like that has given me a unique perspective that I don't really see as much of in the ecosystem.

Pablo Castro:

Definitely not every single path is the same, and I think it's so important to also honor that. And one of the things that you had mentioned before was on how you identified maybe these investors that would invest in your fund or maybe in your syndicate. Are there special things you would do or process you would do to find maybe these, let's call it, archetypes or individuals that would align with your fund?

Ali Jamal:

I think one of the biggest things, especially kind of thinking about it initially with the syndicate, which is really nice, is that with the syndicate, everybody gets a choice of investing. And so I'm just kind of presenting deals, and in every deal I'm presenting, I'm also investing my own money. And so throughout that process, you didn't have to do anything. You could just see the deals that I was backing, like explaining to you in my deal memos why I'm doing that. And you can kind of learn along the time, and then if you like what I'm saying or how I'm saying it, and you see the deals that I'm doing. And you agree with that philosophy. It makes it easier and easier to start. To start to participate or to start to believe that I am the right partner for you. So what I found is a lot of those people that saw those deals and kind of believed in that philosophy are the ones that I'm reaching out to.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

I think it's hard for me to just talk to somebody who I've never met before and be like, oh, I'm really good at this. That's just not my personality.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

Like, I actually think I am really good at this, but I don't. Like, I feel like, you know, the Midwest humbleness or whatever, like, maybe being, you know, an immigrant. Right. Like, immigrant parents, you always kind of downplay yourself, and you downplay, like, I don't want to tell people I'm the greatest there ever was. Right. To me, that just seems like something so outlandish. And I feel like every Vc out there is telling everybody, oh, I am so much smarter than everybody else, and I'm so much better than everybody else, and my thesis is so much better than everybody else. I'm never gonna say that. I know. I don't. It's not that. I mean, I think that there's data that might say some of those things, but for me, it's. I'm gonna work harder than anybody else. I'm gonna calculate things in different ways. And it's not necessarily that I'm smarter or that I'm, you know, going to be the, you know, secret genius. I am betting on things that are already established and just need to be executed on.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

So it's less a question of, is Ali a genius, and can he figure out things that nobody else is figuring out? And more a question of, is Ali gonna hustle more than everybody else's in order to find these things that are gonna turn out well. And I think people that. That can see that or that could believe in that work ethic are much more likely also to kind of come in and invest right in again. I don't have a huge team. I don't have all these things behind me. So it's me. So when you have a question, I'm texting you back, right? Like, if you're sending me a text, it's me. There's no going into some big thing, and we'll get back to you in a month or whatever. If you want to talk, we could talk. Here's my number. All my lP's have my phone number. All of my lP's have my email address. It's not going into some generic thing and you're being dumped off and handing it to some sort of contact system. I'm the contact system. I'm my own CMS. I actually get made fun of a lot by a lot of the other VC's where they're like, oh, go look it up in your system. And I was like, the system is my email and myself. I just am, you know, remembering what's going on and it scale. Like, it seems weird, but it's still scaling for me in a way that I could put pieces together better and faster because of that versus just kind of trying to put things down and forget about it.

Pablo Castro:

Yeah. I mean, there must be so many investors that also connect on how authentic you are. I think it's so refreshing just to hear this and be like, wow, this person is for real because he could have said what I want or what people think I want to hear. But you are being real in that. In that. And I agree 100%. It's just way more efficient and faster and effective. Just doing it yourself and getting it done and executed. Then, okay, let's put it in the system. And then this has to go, this process and all this when it's like it's really you and others for a lot of emerging masters, just really them or another person. So why over complicate?

Ali Jamal:

Look, I think over time I will figure, like, there are proven cases of being able to scale it up and being able to build bigger teams around it, and I'll put those processes in place. I'm not really so worried about that.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

Because I think it'll happen. But when you're starting out with a new fund, your major fees aren't really that much. And so going and trying to spend all this money to hire a bunch of people and to have all these software and all this whatever. I don't have an office. Right. I'm calling you from my kitchen table.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

Like, it's just the structure here is different. This is, you know, for some people, that's not going to resonate, right. Like, for larger institutions or whatever. They're going to. But they weren't going to come into my fund one anyways. They're going to like, oh, well, we'll watch you for fun one, and maybe we'll talk again at font two and then maybe font three or font four is when we're going to start talking. All right, it's going to be a 1012 15 year process, but in the meantime, right, I have ten years to scale up to those processes. And I'm going to do it in a way that I think makes the most sense and in a way that I think makes the most sense for my LP's and for my companies. Right. I think part of the problem I see with a lot of companies is they go out, they raise too much money too quickly. They go, they hire too many people too quickly, they don't have product market fit, they don't know if they're really working, and things get out of control. So when we see that time and again as a vc, why are all these feces going out and try to raise $50 million, $100 million funds when they've only deployed $5 million in their past? Right. It just doesn't make sense, like, to me, like, I'm going to take things in a way that makes sense and I'm okay with it building over time and again. I think part of it is probably just the ego thing that everybody wants to brag about how big their AUM is or how many analysts and associates they have and whatever. And for me, I want to brag about how many unicorns did I find. I want to brag about how much money did I return to my LP's and keeping it lean and keeping it, you know, as cheap as possible means that I have more dollars to put to work and a better chance of finding something that really is special.

Pablo Castro:

There's just like that certain aspect of resourcefulness, you know, and it's just so important because indirectly it says a lot. I think it says a lot. And talking about the different investors, let's say the investors that are in this fund or the investor that you have talked to and maybe decide to invest in this fund, how do you manage and maintain these relationships? Are they things you do with your current investors and with potential investors for future funds?

Ali Jamal:

So, you know, I try to keep. I try to keep open communication, right. And so I don't, I feel like a lot of people are restrictive with their time and they believe that they're, again, kind of going back to this whole idea. Like, there's a lot of ego involved, I think, in this world. And so I have no problem stepping aside in chatting to an LP about why I'm making an investment and giving them my thoughts and my logic behind it, right. I believe that this is a long term game, right. These are lifelong relationships, people that are putting their money. Like, I know how hard it is to make money, right? Like, I didn't have a silver spoon, right? So a $1,000 means a lot to me, even today, right. I'm the kind of person who's gonna add an extra leg onto their flight to save a $100 or save $50, right? Like, I don't mind if I have to do a layover in Chicago, you know? Like, I'll do it if it's gonna save me $50. I want to make sure that everybody that's coming along is also comfortable with what I'm doing.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

And I've been using the word bets, and bets are the wrong way to kind of think about it. I think, you know, like, it makes it sound less serious than it actually is, right. These are all actual investments. But I feel like the way that. The reason why I'm saying bets is to certain sense, kind of like in poker, right? Like, you have to have a hand, and you have to put some money to work in order for things to happen. And trying to sit back and say, like, I knew for sure this thing was gonna go 100 x, or I knew for sure this was gonna be unicorn. Just sounds like bullshit to me, right. Even the best firms out there are still failing with 60 or 70% of their investments. So I think if you're gonna have a 60% failure rate, to me, that's got to be a bet, right? Like, I don't understand how you can make any of these terms of science and in how you're so much smarter than everybody else. We're still failing at that rate. And I have no, like, as good as I'm gonna be, I'm also probably gonna even maybe fail higher and faster than a lot of other people because I'm coming in even earlier, my rewards are gonna be higher as well, right? Because I'm making investments at earlier stages. So I think building those relationships have these sort of honest conversations with people, trying to be as upfront with the communication as I can. And having that authenticity, I think, is really what's kind of building it over time. And, you know, I think it. It's not for everybody, but that's okay. It is for the people that I don't want everybody's money, right. I want people's money who also resonates with what I'm saying. If you're just looking to invest in cutting edge technology, if you want to invest in curing cancer, if you want to invest in whatever, great, right? Like, I think that's actually the beauty of venture capital, is that everybody has their own belief on what the world needs and how the world can better. I don't think any VC's are trying to make the world the worst place. The question is, like, what do you think that means? For some people, that means climate change. For some people, that means AI. For some people, that means biotechnology. For me, it means uplifting the 99% of the world. As for guided by Silicon Valley, for me it means finding ways that hardworking people can live a better life. Right. And there are so many people that fall into these buckets outside the 5 million people, you know, in the Bay Area. 10 million people in the Bay Area. Great, right? That's amazing. But I'd rather focus on other 6.99 billion people out there and build something for them. Building something for the ones that didn't have all this access, that didn't have all these opportunities and giving them more opportunities and making their lives better, making them have an opportunity to have their children's lives better. I think there's this large opportunity to catch up, and that's what I want to do. I want to make Mexico and Colombia and Brazil on the same level. Right, where we don't think of it like, you don't think about going from California to Minnesota as like, going to some completely foreign place, but it's different. I don't want to think about going to Mexico City as a completely foreign place. And, oh, it's so weird that you live there. Right. When I moved to Columbia, all the questions I got from people are like, are you hanging out? Pablo Escobar.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

Like, why is that still our mindset? Right?

Pablo Castro:

Yes. The main question. Yeah, why is that the ball question, right.

Ali Jamal:

When it happened, if the world was a little bit more of an evenly distributed place, if people had the ability to interact, I think if Colombians had more opportunity to get out of Colombia, people had more opportunity to go to Columbia. And, you know, I think, especially over the last ten years, I feel like Columbia has been able to grow tremendously and become a much safer, cleaner, better place for people. And what can we do to do make that happen more and, you know, and get people more comfortable with these ideas.

Pablo Castro:

And just to be super respectful of your time, I think our pre last question.

Ali Jamal:

Take as many questions as you want. We don't have to.

Pablo Castro:

No, no worries. I think it's super interesting on how do you anticipate and prepare for, like, changes like that are happening, like, in the market? Because, of course, innovation, startups, everything is changing so fast. It's so funny because I was talking to a class this morning, and I was telling them if there was a kid that was at Kitty Hawk and saw the Wright brothers fly their plane for the first time. That same person would have seen the man land on the moon and before that, like, flying would have not been possible, like, when he was before. So it's like, how. How do you keep up to date with all the changes that are happening?

Ali Jamal:

I mean, even in our lifetimes, right? We went from mobile phones being the Zack Morris huge blocks to now, like, what we could. Like, we have more technology in our phones than what they took to get to the moon, right? Like, we have the whole. Every single book ever written is on our phone, right? Like, there's access to all this information and all this incredible stuff. So I think a big part of it is when people look at a lot of these emerging markets, people are only looking at what it's like right now. People are only thinking about what it's like right now. People are like, oh, what's the exit opportunity? How many companies from Mexico have gone public in the US last year? That's not really the question, right? I'm coming in the precede. The question is how many companies from Mexico are going to go public in 2035, which is a very different question. Five years ago, Latin America had five unicorns. Today, it's more than 50. And some of those unicorns, right, like, new bank went public for $40 billion in the Nasdaq. It's not impossible to have huge exits or huge returns come out of these markets. I don't know if I can personally predict what's going to happen. That's also partially the reason why, like, I don't put all of my eggs in one basket. I made more than 100 investments through my syndicate over the last four years. That's kind of the pace that I plan on going in with the fund as well. 20 to 30 investments every year in the early stages. Some are going to work, some aren't going to work. But the ones that do have the opportunity to change the world and the world that they're going to change or the world they're going to be in seven years or ten years, is so different than world it is today. Even thinking back ten years ago, in 2014, 2013, that was before all these companies I was talking about earlier, Gojek, Grab Nubank. They all started right around that time. This would have been the time that you would have invested at, like, a $4 million valuation into Nubank or, you know, a $6 million valuation into Gojek. So is it possible that I can find one of those companies and have a thousand or 10,000 x return? I'm hoping so, right? That's what I'm betting on. But that's. That's the world that we're going in, right? In 2013, people are saying, oh, you're never going to have anything significant happen in Brazil, indonesia, in, you know, Dubai, in whatever. These are all backwards places. The US is the only place to build. Hell, even in 2019 or 2020. Jason Calacanis was talking about this, that, oh, you have to be in Silica Valley to every place else is shit. Now he's going to all these places and he's investing and he's surprised that they've caught up, but they've been catching up for a while. Over the last 20 years, poverty has been cut in half, the middle class has doubled. This isn't a new phenomenon. The world's consistently been getting better and it's been getting better for a while, right? Like every year, all these places are getting better. Maybe not every individual country, but as a whole, right, they're all getting better. So I don't know exactly what 2035 is going to look like, but I think it's going to be a bit more fair. I think it's going to be a bit more even. I think there's going to be more people having more opportunities, more people are going to be more educated, more people are going to be more exposed to the world, to life, right? And we have these big shocks that come in like we just came out, you know, Covid.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

And all of a sudden, everybody's working remotely. All of a sudden, office spaces no longer matter. All of a sudden, people are, you know, on a beach in Brazil and working from there. And the more exposure that people have to these places, into these things, I think the more opportunities that are going to be created.

Pablo Castro:

Wow. No. Oh, wow. I could go, yeah, I could go through so many things on that side because I agree so much. It's just the things that are happening I am a firm believer in. I can sense that you are also that the world is just getting better. Like, in every single sort of way, the world is just getting better. So what most exciting time to be investing these startups and supporting the world. And as a last question, that, and we'll definitely need to do a part two, because it's been an amazing conversation in a long time, many years down the road. When you're on your deathbed, what is the one impact that you would like to be remembered by in this industry? And in your community.

Ali Jamal:

So I think it's making the world a better place, right? And that might be a little bit hokey or whatever, but so far I've been able to help invest in companies all over the world, right? We've invested in Venezuela, we've invested in Vietnam, Nigeria, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, right? Like 30 different countries in the world. Those companies, the ones that are successful, right, are hiring people, they're training people, they're letting people have high paying jobs, get access to more opportunities, right? Put food on the people's tables. That's kind of how I measure the success, right? It's going to be how many people's lives did I touch? How many people's lives did I have a positive impact? I can't take credit, right? I'm not building, I'm not the entrepreneur, right? That's why I want my kids to be able to entrepreneur. But I feel like I'm enabling these people to build their dreams and to have an influence. So I don't know the right way to attribute the math on how much my contribution is making to these people or to these companies or to these countries. But when I think about what's going to make me happy or what I'm going to bring a smile to my face at the end, on my career side, it's going to be, did I make people's lives better? Did I make people's lives easier? Are there more people that are educated? Are there more people that have a roof over their head that had opportunities that might not have been able to had before? That to me is, I think is really how I'm trying to frame my life or my goals.

Pablo Castro:

Wow, that is extremely powerful. And I just can sense like, the good you want to make and the difference you want to make. And I think that investing is such an award because you get to support so many founders that maybe may not be able to get that financing or get that support in some other sorts of ways. So I think it's amazing. And for people that want to reach out to you from our community, LP's, investors, entrepreneurs, what is the best way to contact you?

Ali Jamal:

So I have a website, firstcheckventures.com. There's information there. But also, like I said, I'm always available, right? You can find me on LinkedIn, just Ali Jamal, you can look up first check ventures, whichever one is easier for you or easier for you to remember and, you know, feel free to reach out. And you mentioned the podcast, right? It kind of helps me connect how you know me or how we met.

Pablo Castro:

Perfect. That sounds amazing. And I can attest to that. Ali has been super open and connected to LinkedIn, so it's been amazing. And I want to thank you for, first of all, I will put all this in the show notes, of course. So this will be in the show notes. And I want to thank you for being on the show. Thank you for everything you're doing for communities in the emerging markets and the support you're doing for startups. And thank you just for being so authentic. I think it's so important in that we need more of that in the world.

Ali Jamal:

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I appreciate the fact that you appreciate the authenticity, because, you know, it's always a question of how much do you censor yourself and how much of your real self do you put out there? But I think I don't know how to censor myself anymore.

Pablo Castro:

Right.

Ali Jamal:

And I think kind of the beauty of moving from corporate to now being your own boss or making your own investments is you kind of no longer have to sense yourself, I think to a certain extent. And to me, that's an amazing relief. Right? And not everybody's going to dig my vibe and not everybody's going to want to work with me. But those that do and those that get it, or those that get what I'm trying to do, I think we can build something really special in this world.

Pablo Castro:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Ali, for that. And I'm sure people will be connecting with you, so we'll talk. We'll have to do part two of this because it's been an amazing conversation. Thank you for your time. Okay, yeah, that sounds great.

Ali Jamal:

Thank you so much.

Pablo Castro:

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the New Light Ventures podcast. I'm Pablo Castro and it's been a pleasure bringing you insights and stories from the forefront of venture capital. We hope you're leaving with valuable knowledge and inspiration to carry you forward on your own venture journey. If you've enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, leave a review and share it with your network. For updates, additional resources, and to suggest guests for topics of future episodes, visit our website and follow us on our social media channels. We're excited to continue this journey with you, exploring our ever evolving landscape of venture capital. Until next time, keep innovating, keep investing, and keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible. This is new light venture signing off. Let's keep.