👋🏾 Hi friends!

As the podcast continues to scale (knocking on the door of 10k subscribers now 🤯 ) I’m continuing to try and ensure that the quality of the content grows with it.

This week we have the second part of a two part episode I recorded with Fred Destin and it’s a banger.

Hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed recording it!

As you know, I’m well underway writing about all the things I’ve learned from the last couple of decades as founder, CFO and CEO, so sign up for early access to Off Balance - The Book and feel free to share with anyone else you think might enjoy it 😄. I’m setting myself the target of getting through a large portion of it whilst I’m away in Italy during August - wish me luck!

Now let’s get down to business…

"𝗪𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗳𝘂𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻."

Check out this incredible second part to my two part interview with Fred Destin, Founder at Stride.VC on Nothing Ventured - out now 🔥

Here are just a few of the things Fred had to say in this episode, I cannot recommend listening to it enough 💥

One of the most human, thoughtful conversations I've had with a VC in a long time :)

Just some of the truth bombs Fred had to share...

💡 "You can be a generalist, but you can't be generic."

🙈 "You drop the worst fucking advice on the planet."

🙌🏾 "I really want to be seen to be helpful by my founders."

🦸🏻 "I do not want to be your legend."

❤️ "It is the love of the craft that drives you rather than necessarily just the outcome."

🐞 "Real-time for me is a bug, not a feature."

🤷‍♂️ "The algorithm will do whatever the fuck the algorithm is going to do ultimately."

🚪 "Check your biases at the door, confirmation biases, pattern recognition, super dangerous, your past experience is not always a good guide."

💭 "The art of listening, the art of thinking about what you're saying rather than saying what you want to say."

🥱 "So all this labeling and simplification, so all of it's lazy thinking."

🤯 "Venture's fucking hard. People forget how hard it is to build value sustainably."

Check it out on YouTube!

Else listen on Spotify or Apple

If you have any feedback, or if there’s something you’re desperate to see me include, just reply to this mail or ping me online - I’m very open to conversations.

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(If you are trying to connect with me on LinkedIn, maybe read this post I wrote and make sure to start your request with “Off Balance” and, more importantly, tell me why you’d like to connect 💪🏾)

Don’t forget to like, rate and subscribe to Nothing Ventured on Apple, Spotify or YouTube, it really helps more people see what we’re doing - you can find links to these (and more including my Office Hours) right here!

As always, my office hours are open, if you’d like to chat about anything finance, tech or venture releated, just grab some time 😊.

I hope you found Off Balance #57 valuable. As always, I’d love to get your feedback and understand the sort of topics you would love to hear about.

Just hit reply to this mail or drop me a line at [email protected] and let me know 😊

🚀And that’s a wrap for this edition of Off Balance - I’d appreciate your feedback so just reply to this email if you’ve got something you’d like to say.

📨 If you think someone else might love this, please forward it on to them,

🎧 Finally, if you’re a fan of the Nothing Ventured podcast, please don’t forget to like, rate and subscribe wherever you get your pods - it really helps us spread the word.

That’s it from me so until next time…

Stay liquid :)

Aarish