Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping to Exit Discussion with David Lambert, Right Side Capital Management

If you have been bootstrapping and think you are ready for investors, you need to learn how investors think. First, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page. Then, start looking for entrepreneur – investor fit. Today, I introduce you to David Lambert of Right Side Capital Management.

David Lambert is Managing Director at Right Side Capital Management, a firm that invests small chunks of capital in capital efficient ventures. The firm is very much in line with the Bootstrapping to Exit philosophy we’ve been discussing. You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here or watch the roundtable video below:

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about yourself. Tell us about Right Side. Let’s get acquainted.

David Lambert: I have predominantly been a career entrepreneur before starting Right Side Capital. I came out to the San Francisco Bay Area to go to Stanford in the late 80’s. A month after I graduated, I started my first company.

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519th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Eric Benhamou, Benhamou Global Ventures

Eric Benhamou is Founder and General Partner, Benhamou Global Ventures.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Venktesh Shukla, General Partner at Monta Vista Capital (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Talk a little bit about the unicorns in your portfolio.

Venktesh Shukla: Let’s talk about three different categories I mentioned that we invest in. We have a unicorn or soon-to-be unicorns in all those three things. We are invested in a cloud infrastructure company called Aviatrix.

Roundtable Recap: February 11 – Early Stage Startups are NOT About Keeping All Options Open

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Eric Benhamou, Founder and General Partner, Benhamou Global Ventures.

VRAcademi

As for entrepreneur pitches, up first we had Sonal Ahuja from Dubai, UAE, pitching VRAcademi. The discussion is mainly about tightening the positioning.

WeConortium Limited

Next, we had Moibi Adkunle from Lagos, Nigeria, pitching WeConsortium Limited, and it was also a discussion about tightening the positioning.

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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518th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Daniel Cohen, Viola Ventures

Daniel Cohen, General Partner at Viola Ventures, discusses AI, PaaS and Deeptech investments.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Venktesh Shukla, General Partner at Monta Vista Capital (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: My next question is something that we touched upon a little bit when we spoke some time ago. In the fund strategy, one of the things we’re seeing is that there is a class of funds that is still focused on finding unicorns.

They are looking for the very large billion-dollar opportunities, but there are thousands of micro-VCs out there right now that are working in the mode where they will do the early stage and early exit at a sub-$50 million range. Some of them are doing it in two to three years and then selling their stakes into the latter rounds.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Venktesh Shukla, General Partner at Monta Vista Capital (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: If you were to look back on the 30 companies that you invested in, which ones are concept-stage ventures that you have invested in without anything already built?

Venktesh Shukla: Practically every one of them. 

Sramana Mitra: Very interesting. That’s actually unique. I’m going to give you some feedback on what’s happening in the venture world. There’s a lot of money available for companies that are doing some level of validation work and ideally generating some level of traction.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Venktesh Shukla, General Partner at Monta Vista Capital (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I am very intellectually curious. I feel very humbled with how little I know about all these segments that we are working with. At the same time, there are methodology elements that we have come up with in doing this for such a long time that apply to a lot of different scenarios.

Let’s say you’re doing B2B selling to small businesses, there’s a playbook for that. If you’re selling to enterprises, there’s a playbook for that. If you’re doing B2C transactions, there’s a playbook for that.