Episode 146 - What to Do When It’s Time to Move On From a Venture with Mike Asem
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We all want our careers to be an endless upward trend, but that’s not always the case.
Mike Asem, who took a less-than-traditional road to investing, has experienced the wonderful highs and the challenging lows that come with being a venture capitalist.
While the founding partner of M25–a midwest-focused early stage investment group–has plenty of success stories to share, he’s also graciously agreed to join us to talk about some of the less glamorous aspects of stewarding capital.
Throughout the episode, he and our hosts, John Coleman and Luke Roush, open up about difficult questions like “how do you know when to let a venture go?” And “how do you protect your identity when you feel like a failure?”
Tune in to hear how we can wrestle through tough realities while maintaining hope in something bigger than our circumstances.
If you like the episode, feel free to share it with others, leave us a rating, and follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.
All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Luke Roush: Welcome to the FDI podcast. I am your host, Luke Roush. I'm here with my co-host, John Coleman. Good to have you with us.
John Coleman: Luke I'm feeling very great being the co-host today in your capable hands. Glad to be here.
Luke Roush: This is a plot twist. It's the plot twist. It's always exciting. We are overjoyed to have as our guest today. Mike Asem. Mike is a co-founder managing partner at M 25, has been an early stage investor for a number of years. Has a great background at the Great College of Purdue University and is going to talk to us about a number of topics, one of which is when do you know it's time to let an investment go and to not continue to invest? And so. Mike, welcome to the show.
Mike Asem: Thanks, Luke. Thanks, John. I'm happy to be here and looking forward to this.
Luke Roush: So we can come back to some of the challenges of being an early stage venture capitalist. But let's start with the positives. So how did you go from being a public relations student at Purdue to becoming a venture capitalist? Walk us through that journey.
Mike Asem: Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I mean, it's kind of funny. I tell people I went to Purdue and those are familiar pretty, are familiar with all the great STEM programs it has, and they asked what I study. And it was public relations and rhetorical advocacy, which is in the liberal arts College is one of those majors that comes in and out as they kind of decide if it's worth having or not. And, you know, I appreciated it because I was really interested in how organizations communicate and people relate with each other, but it was not your traditional path to venture. For me, I think it was, you know, a lot of divine scenarios I was put in that helped me get to where I'm at. I was a really bad student entrepreneur at the time. I had some really bad ideas but some really good energy behind them and kept meeting great people like Rusty Rueff, who I know is very involved with Faith Driven Investor Faith Driven Entrepreneur and and see some opportunities. I ended up at one point first year out of undergrad working for a nanotech company. So the running joke against all my buddies who studied engineering was Hey, look who's mixing electrode material and assembling 80 micron thick supercapacitors thinner than a human hair in a bio clean room first year out of undergrad. So my way of saying some really interesting opportunities happened and I'm fortunate where I'm at right now.
John Coleman: Your friend's idea of a joke is not super funny to those outside technical disciplines.
Luke Roush: Well, talk us through Mike. I mean, it's super interesting just in terms of that entry point, but talk us through the anvil, which was a co-working space that you helped to co-found. Love to hear more about that.
Mike Asem: Yeah, so I put a lot more of good energy behind my efforts in this category. So when I was working on some bad startup ideas, I also had a student organization that I started called the Purdue Gold Standard, and we were focused on promoting physical fitness, financial well-being and leadership development among students at Purdue. That was kind of my goal and a lot of that's entrepreneurial and tie that to my, you know, like I said, that hobbies. I got invited to a lunch by an alumni who was an early gentleman at Oracle did quite well and was back on campus looking to talk to entrepreneurs and leaders about how to solve entrepreneurship on campus. And I was really energized. I raised my hand when he asked who who like to put together a proposal to give to the president of the university to solve the problem. And that proposal for me turned into six months later me opening the doors to a place called the Anvil, which was a separate five one C3 nonprofit that I started the sole purpose of supplementing the existing resources at Purdue and creating mentorship and coaching and other resources for entrepreneurs on campus. And we ended up launching the first Purdue companies to go to Y Combinator. For those familiar with some of the top tier accelerators in the country and subsequently have had multiple acquisitions and lots of venture dollars raised across the companies of that program. So again, that was something that was kind of my first data on my resume. I guess as I got into tech and entrepreneurship, I mentioned the role in the startup after that and yeah, that's how it came together.
John Coleman: It's really cool trend that's been happening and it sounds like you were pretty early in it. This ability to meld the energy and the youth and enthusiasm of a university with the ability to structure startup world and provide the right support for it is kind of a magical combination. I wasn't aware that Purdue had that kind of program, but it's really neat to see that happening. And I think you see more and more great startups coming out of the same type of incubators on college campuses or university campuses today. You know, one thing we wanted to dig into Mike, obviously you've started things. You've also been a venture capitalist for a while now. There is a ton of joy in venture capital. We know we do it. We do it as well. But there are also a lot of struggles or challenges. What surprised you on the challenging side since you got into venture capital?
Mike Asem: Absolutely. I think I kind of go in semi chronological order of my realizations of some of these challenges. But, you know, if you go back to my roots, which was primarily the anvil and then being a first employee, it was a venture backed company and then subsequently actually joining the Purdue Research Foundation as a director to help do similar things. I did the Anvil, but more within the pretty proper house of their incubation systems. My career was very much on the operator slash operator support side of the house. My job was very much about meeting with entrepreneurs and saying like, okay, but how can this work? How do we make this work? Let's let's make this happen, Let's build this, and here's how we're going to build a strategy for success. As soon as I crossed the other side of the table, it very quickly became how do I apply very rigorous skepticism and say no as many times as possible? I mean, I that was probably one of the first realizations that really struck me was not only the amount of times I had to say no, but the type of quality of entrepreneur I had to say no to. Oftentimes for even things that weren't even an issue for them, maybe they just want to fit for our fund model or our fund pieces. And I'd say that was a big realization, I think as and we'll get into this, but there's definitely some learnings as well, and you model out that not every company will make it, but seeing how some of the companies don't make it and and going through that process with that entrepreneur has definitely been a learning, especially as someone who they look to as I think you can actually solve my problems because I just need more. I just need more money. Right? And that can be a challenging reality to try to confront.
John Coleman: One you're right as an investor, you have to be a fiduciary for the people who've entrusted capital to you. So you've got to maintain this objectivity. At the same time, you know, this is the biggest professional thing in the other person's life and that they've really got everything at stake on this. And it can be a challenging thing to say no initially or eventually to move on. You mentioned you kind of model in the fact that a number of these companies will struggle. Could you just talk us through examples where you've seen a company struggle and you as an investor or you as a team had to think about then moving on from a person or a venture that you really believed in when you made the investment, but you know, it's time to move on.
Mike Asem: Sure. Well, I think the framework is a lot easier for me to speak to because, you know, when you make an investment, to your point, what got you so excited at the beginning versus where you're at in the current state of affairs? I think it's always been helpful for us as we've continued to draft our own internal memos and build upon them. We are definitely trying to spell out very consistently our thesis about the investment. What has this excited about it, what we think it can become and why? Because over the course of time you're definitely going to see those things come into fruition or not. You know, I might think this company is a great business because I believe that CEO will have the ability to attract a great CTO and a great sales team, and we'll go from this revenue to that revenue in this amount of time. And the way that industry will flow is going to be in this direction. And in 24 months, maybe half those things are true or none of those things are true, or rarely all of those things are true. But that can be a really objective way, I think, for us to and we like to apply to think about why we are not so excited about a company. And then the other thing I think is with that founder, you know, once you're invested, you're on the same side of the table and it's really important for that to be really felt and owned by both parties. And to the extent that's true, I have said many times that the best founders are true truth seekers. They're not afraid of the truth, whether it's convenient or not. And more often for founders, that truth is very inconvenient. But what do you do once you get that truth? And if a founder is able to not only own the truth, but also pivot off of it or adapt to it or find successful paths through it, that's where I think you can continue to maintain conviction that you are involved in the right company. You're spending time in the right things. The founders that shy away from that tend to be the ones where you add up those objective measures and kind of these subjective pieces, and it's easier to start to look at it and say, this is probably one of those that's not going to get through. Yeah.
John Coleman: Luke I mean, we've dealt with the same types of things. I mean, any observations on what Mike just laid out? There are examples where, where you felt like you've lived through that.
Luke Roush: Yeah. You know, one of the things that we talk a lot about is in the underwriting and original investment, we always try to understand like, what are the things that can go wrong? And then in the postmortem, if it works out, did they succeed for the right reasons? If it doesn't work out, did they fail for kind of the right reasons or the wrong reasons? And there can be good reasons why, you know, companies don't make it right. Sometimes a new drug or a new medical device doesn't get approved and, you know, be impossible to understand how the FDA interprets a new application, but it just doesn't make it past that step. Sometimes the market shifts. Sometimes there's a competitor that barges in and just starts to, you know, create a red ocean based on pricing behavior. Those are kind of the right reasons that early stage companies don't make it. I think where we have focused more is sort of like when companies don't make it, there are some kind of wrong reasons. Some of them are within our control as the investor. So like we try to be really objective in like understanding what is the go forward financing risk of this business, how much more money is going to be required, and are there tools of capital for the company to be able to draw from? You know, and so that's kind of on us as if we're leading around. It's on us to really look around the corner and see what's likely to be required and do we know where we're going to go to be able to get that financing rounded up if we can't do it all ourselves? There are also, you know, I think the most challenging situations that we face are when, you know, the market's there, the product is there, but just execution isn't there because that involves people, right? And other things are more easily addressed. People are hard to address. Sometimes it's founders that can't make the jump from kind of an early stage company to a later stage company. Sometimes we hire the wrong person, maybe somebody from a big organization that we think can come in and they just can't make that shift into more of an entrepreneurial environment. So I think in the most challenging situations that I think of when I look back over the last ten years is where we had great people that just for whatever reason, didn't have the right supporting cast or couldn't individually do the work that was required.
Mike Asem: And I love what you just said there. I think though, where I would. And so on on one hand it's really hard. On the other hand, it's really easy, right? Because there is the personal side of Mike. There's the emotional side of Mike right that I need to temper, right as I'm, you know, continue to be the best steward of capital I can be. And sometimes I think it's the hardest when the founders are really good executor. But there's not that business there that we thought was there. Right. Or for whatever reason, like this outcome is not what we thought it was going to be. Maybe it'll be a great lifestyle business, but it won't be a venture fund returning type company. And that's gets really tough because then you're like, I think about as a human being, I'm like, you know, this founder, She's doing everything. She is amazing. She's a rock star. She's everything I asked her to be and more. It's just this wasn't the right company. And then you start to have some do some really tough decisions. Where do you let it fail? Do you keep investing? How do you support? Whereas if someone's just really not delivering the mail and consistently doesn't deliver the mail, that it's pretty easy for me pretty fast because I can say, I mean, I've time and time again, we've seen companies where, let's say the thesis for the business is this, but I know that I'm no longer an operator, I can't run this company for them. And the biggest mistake I can make as an investor is like invest in a company because I know what I want it to be, but I haven't really captured what the founder wants it to be or what they're going to actually do with it. Yeah. And so, yeah, that's what I would throw into this piece.
Luke Roush: So what you just said is so on point, Mike, because it's the difference between falling in love with the founders vision for where they want to take the company and falling in love with our own vision for where we want to take the company. And none of us has time to be able to effectively do that across the portfolio. I want to just maybe talk a little bit about, you know, when things aren't going well. We talk a lot as investors about identity and sort of what is our identity rooted in and how do we make sure that the business failure doesn't mean that I'm a failure as an individual or that you're a failure as a founder. Maybe just talk a little bit about how you navigate through that with portfolio company CEOs that you're part of.
Mike Asem: Yeah. And sorry, just to clarify, we're talking about my identity or the founder's identity?
Luke Roush: Both.
Mike Asem: Both great. Okay. Yes. Yeah. So I'll start with the founders identity. So I try to start really early by just trying to establish a lot of trust and rapport with the founders I'm invested in even before we made an investment, because I want them to know that whether it's whether negotiating a term sheet, whether we're negotiating a future CEO compensation package, whether we're negotiating whatever it might be, that they know where my heart comes from and they know the. Type of man I am. And they can trust that we can have a meaningful conversation. And I also want them to know that I see them as more than their company. I think that's a really hard thing, even for a founder sometimes to see themselves as, especially as they get really into it. But it's really important. I wrote an article a couple of years ago called Founders Need Stewards, Not Masters. And part of that piece was around this topic, and part of it was outlining a good friend of mine story where I cut to the chase. His business situation was very trying and he considered taking his life. And it wasn't for outside of him hearing the voice of God tell him to stop doing what he was thinking about doing. He might not have had his son. He might not have kept going. And of course, now looking forward, he's built an amazing business. He's got an amazing family. He's amazing man of God. And that could have been all for nothing if he would have been convinced that he wasn't more than his company. And I firmly believe that whether it comes from a point of I'm just understanding the side of the human or even more selfishly understanding that, hey, again, let's go to that counter. Who? She's amazing. This isn't the right business. I want to be there for the next one. Right. I mean, there's we all know we've met entrepreneurs, very successful men and women who are rock stars, not once, not twice or three times, but however many times God has decided. Right. So that's where I try to just kind of lay into that and and make sure I'm checking in on them outside of the business. And then for myself, I think, you know, it's really tempting, especially in a world like jam packed full of egos, whether it's the entrepreneurs or investors like myself or whatever. You know, I think we're all tempted at times to check the ego and be like, man, I'm, you know, this is great. I'm a self-made fill in the blank, you know? And in the same way that we can say that, you know, God, you know, I'm here because God's blessed me with talents and abilities, but he's also blessed me with opportunities. And he's also made things happen through me. Right. And I think that's the way you have to look at it. Like the same way success happens through me is the same way. You know, failure happens through me. And we all know that God uses all things to his glory. And I don't know how a failure is going to positively impact me or the founder or someone in relation to this that I don't even know. And so I think there's just taking root in that helps me at least think about how I know that my identity is I'm a child of God. I'm here to do my best. And so long as I'm actually working my tail off to do the best, my ability and glorify God in the process, then like I have to take that on the chin to take this one on the chin so that, you know, I can continue to fulfill the mission. So that's where I believe that.
John Coleman: Well, we are. I mean, almost everyone in this field is at some level a competitive person. Right. And we all want to be successful. We all want to do well, even if we have good motivations for that. And when we've done very well, the temptation is always to credit ourself a little too much. And when things have gone poorly, the temptation is to wet our identity to that and not really think about it. And it's, you know, it's kind of ditches on both sides, right. You've got to find a way to stay anchored in truth. You know, one thing that you touched on is with that entrepreneur where you do have to make the decision to pull out of additional financing or maybe even to wind down a company, etc.. Sometimes you do invest with that person again, sometimes you don't. What do those relationships look like for you after you've made a decision to part ways professionally with an investment? And how do you maintain those after that?
Mike Asem: Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think it is highly dependent on the individual. I generally have a stand of if I've ever gotten to a place where I've decided, like I've underwritten you as the founder that I'd like to back and participate in. I think that's something I like to retain is an offer like I'm not changing my phone number. You can still reach out. My email is going to be the same. Probably the [....] note if it changes and you know, didn't come with any particular promises, but at least on a human level, you know, I'm there. And, you know, I think it's interesting. We've seen some really good opportunities, not just for them to start a new company, but sometimes founders also realize things about themselves that tell them, hey, maybe I shouldn't be a founder, but I am a phenomenal technical lead, right like or I'm a phenomenal X, Y, Z, and we like to pride ourselves in our ability to continue to help our founders, you know, bring another great people into their vision. And so that can be a way that we do that as well. So I would say, you know, outside of of course, you know, unfortunately, if we do learn something through the process of being an investor, your business, that I couldn't recommend you to be a part of someone else's company, then that's a different situation. But but for the most part, I think, you know, being partner with people of high character and high integrity makes it easy to say, Yeah, let's stay in touch. And if opportunities arise, we'll be thinking of you and and vice versa.
John Coleman: So much of that is a heart orientation. Mike I love what you're saying. And it you know, this springs to mind for me too, about founders wanting to be careful about who their capital partner is. Right? That that financial capital does have influence. The person across the table matters. And what I love you saying is, I mean, you can just tell your heart orientation going in is that you actually want to see that person flourish. Right? We say we love God and love our neighbor through investing. Love of neighbor can look like different things. I mean, certainly it can be encouraging them, cheering them on. It can be delivering hard truths. It can be helping them come to decisions that are ultimately better for them, even if it's hard. But if you're doing that from the perspective of trying to also help that person achieve what's best for them, I think that can make all the difference. And Luke. I always think of our we have a colleague, Jake Thompson, who I think you know, who I think is just extraordinary about this. Right. Because he actually does really care about and love all the founders he's interacting with. And I think that makes a huge difference in the way those conversations go. So I want to pivot to another topic. If it's okay. You know, right now we're living through a downturn in venture. Arguably, this will be the most pressing adjustment in venture in 15 to 20 years or so. And we're already seeing compression evaluations. The economy may be heading into recession. We just got additional inflation numbers where inflation continues to proceed at a pace that's problematic. And what a lot of people are having to sort through now is whether a venture is in temporary trouble because of the economic environment. Right. Or whether there is a structural problem with the business model. And to Luke's prior point, you know, whether you should then continue to bridge financing to help them get to the other side of this temporary blip or whether there's something structurally wrong. How are you? And in M 25, thinking about this right now in terms of the portfolio, and how are you trying to determine how much of this is a temporary economic problem and how much of this is a structural problem where we do need to exit?
Mike Asem: No, it's a great question. And in that for many of us is the question right now, especially for those of us in our profession that, you know, haven't been through a cycle or haven't been through anything that even closely resembles what we're going through right now. And, you know, I'll throw a disclaimer here is you're getting this from a someone with a public relations and rhetorical advocacy background prior to venture. And then from there, my exposure is really through early stage venture capital. So take that for what you will. But I do think that fundamentally, if you look at where we were before things started to look uglier can only be described as a remarkable moment in venture capital in the way that valuations were happening, in the way that, you know, rounds were getting done and the amount of capital being invested in these companies. And I think that that was just, you know, inherently unsustainable. Like I think everyone that was participating in it understood it. But for a lot of folks, it still made sense to participate. I think if you even just think about the, you know, incentive structures within a lot of the VC firms that may have participated in some of these rounds where you maybe have more junior partners or folks that are they have dual authority, but they don't have the same sort of like responsibility and stewardship and ownership in the firm as a more long standing general partner. That's where you start to see some really strange incentives where if a person like that can get their name on a logo that gets them a partner role at another firm, but you start to see some really weird rounds start to shake out. I think you look at stuff like that and you ask yourself, Do VC firms need to be a little bit more careful and a little bit some of their practices and that sort of thing. But as far as like valuations and things of that nature, I still think the reality is that good businesses are good businesses. There's still a lot of great companies building with great business fundamentals. I think one of our favorite examples recently is a company that is building verticalized [....] software for salvage Yards. It is not exciting. It is salvage is software projects. Unless you like great business models and great like totally antiquated industries right for digitization and disruption. Then it is exciting. And this company has been kind of an outlier in this space where, you know, we actually preceded the company not too long ago and they've already had a significant markup and things are going great. We've got companies in the logistics space that have similar stories, right. So I think that, you know, our view at this moment is that, well, first and foremost, we need to be the best stewards we can be. And for myself, my partner Victor, who and many of you know, Victor, we're both younger than your average general partner per se, and we are very focused on surrounding ourselves with great mentors who can advise us on how to be great stewards, how to think about markets like we're currently in, but being very precise on how we make our decisions on this is a company, we're going to lean more into This is how we are thinking about cash reserves. This is how we're thinking about their ability to actually grow in a macro environment like the one we're considering and don't need to depend on some very like very theoretical ideas versus. No, this is something that we can actually build a business model around and understand. I would say that's at a high level how we're really thinking about it, but I wouldn't be shying away. I think another great mentor of mine is is a managing partner at one of the top five firms in the country. And he told me years ago that one of his regrets, if he had one mind you, this is a very successful venture capitalist I was talking about, was not being a little bit more aggressive in 2012, nine, ten, ten, because the deals that he did then were some of his best deals and somebody else he passed on that he could have done would have maybe been even better. So I think about that. I think about the ability to be contrarian. I think about the ability to run a sophisticated strategy even through scary conditions when others are pulling back the upside on that can be, you know, game changing.
Luke Roush: Yeah, one of our little bit of partners who was just on the phone with earlier today likes to say that the time to buy is when the cannons are thunder and the time to sell is when the violins are playing. And, you know, against the backdrop of the last few years, a lot of dry powder, you know, capital markets, effectively money's free for the better part of the last decade, there's been a certainly an orientation amongst some firms to start going full lifecycle. So doing everything from ten or $15,000 pre-seed checks to, you know, $100 million growth equity financings, sometimes doing it all within the same fund, sometimes having different vehicles. So you've got kind of that full lifecycle and then you've got, you know, things like crypto and blockchain and there's a real FOMO driven kind of how do I not miss out on this big trend that's going to change the world? And then all of a sudden SBF happens, you've got a denominator problem, you've got turbulence and uncertainty in public markets and things start to pull back. And then, you know, it's a great timing of your comment, which is there's probably going to be some really interesting things that come up as the market resets over the next two or three years, particularly for businesses that have demonstrated traction. And so I love the example that you gave of like, you know, who cares about, you know, scrap yards except, you know, there's a lot of people that care about scrap yards. There's actually a lot of value in there. And if you've ever had to buy a used car part from a scrap yard, you realize how much value there actually is in there. It's not cheap.
John Coleman: One thing I'd add to that, Luke, and we've talked about this a little bit internally is to emphasize what you're saying. Mike Some of the most interesting times, especially in early stage venture, are right after crises, right? Particularly the crises that hit the bigger technology companies are publicly traded, growth companies, etc. Because what people don't think about is a lot of great engineering talent is there are a lot of great product talent is there. They've kind of got golden handcuffs, often with options when the right is going well, when the market collapses. You know, we're seeing massive layoffs in tech right now. A lot of people's options are worthless. And so there tends to be a boom in early stage venture startups. So among founders, right after a correction among bigger tech companies, because these folks go out and they no longer have any disincentive to start something. Right. And so there's just emphasize what you're saying. I think it's obviously a difficult time, but it's also an exciting time to get into markets and try and think about these folks who are now leaving and starting really phenomenal ventures. And we love scrapyard type stuff. So you speaking our language.
Mike Asem: Yeah.
Luke Roush: I'd love to actually transition to just the origin of your firm's name M 25, Where does that originate from and how do you think about it with Victor?
Mike Asem: Yeah, absolutely. So M 25 comes from Matthew 25, specifically the parable of the talents. And I think, Victor and I you know, it's interesting when we get asked this question, for those who do not know our fund, we focus on Pre-seed in the Midwest, there's a lot of folks that are like, Oh, I just kind of assumed it was Midwest 25. But yeah, what does it mean? And we're like, what, 25 would apply? Anyway, we'll keep going. But it applies to Matthew 25, the Parable of the Talents, and we get a chance to tell the story. And for those familiar right, there's a master that leaves his estate amongst three servants and gives them the kind of order to take care of his assets while he's gone. And when he returns, he finds that one takes appropriate risk and creates value and another does the same to a lesser degree, but still does the same in the third out of fear buries it in the ground and the master greatly rewards the first two and greatly punishes the third one. But what we really derive from this is we see ourselves and aspire to be both master and servant in that we want to find great entrepreneurs that take appropriate risk with what we entrust them with, with our capital and build something of value and return. And for our LPs, we want to be servants in that we want to take appropriate risk. We proper stewards of their capital and creates a meaningful value for them as well. So that's where it comes from.
Luke Roush: Maybe share. Before we go, the Lightning Round, which John, I know is excited to kick off, maybe share just a moment on how your faith informs your work daily, right at a macro perspective. M 25 Matthew 25 is awesome, but how does it actually impact what you do daily? And maybe talk a little bit about the artwork that's behind you?
Mike Asem: No, absolutely. So how my faith impacts my work daily? I mean, I think, you know, first and foremost, we do have a bit of a lens in that we won't invest in anything that we think is destructive. We don't invest in anything in the vice categories and try to stay away from anything that we frankly think is has a risk of not being kingdom building and being destructive to society. Outside of that, I mean, I think, you know, I mentioned the piece on how I try to be a really good ally to my founders, a confidant, someone that they can trust and try to, you know, be that light and a hill for them and that like they can at least experience what it's like to work with somebody else that's hopefully highly competent and and skilled in this area that can help them, but also has some strong belief in values and faith behind what they do. And I think maybe the larger, more like categorical view is I just get a lot of passion. John, you mentioned liking to see people flourish. I have a big heart for access and opportunity and seeing people be the best they can be and, you know, to God's glory living out like their purpose in their lives. And, you know, I really feel energized and fulfilled by being able to provide some sort of tangible value, helping them along their journey, having God kind of help them through me in that way and be, you know, I think sometimes it's easy to be just a cheerleader in those ways, but also be a trusted accountability person. I think that we're talking about something where letting companies go the markets tough, dealing with tough times, you know from Romans that suffering, please, the perseverance, perseverance, character and character, hope. And this is a lot of times working through founders, through the tough times, although it's not the funnest part. The funnest part might be the violins. Luke, But it is a rewarding part because these are some of the moments that really kind of become cornerstone moments, I think, for people oftentimes professionally, but also very oftentimes personally. And so it's always something I'm thinking about is how can my work continue to be more redemptive? But those are the things that I think thematically kind of carry through how my faith affects how I approach my work.
John Coleman: That's awesome. Mike So we like to insert in the middle of these conversations a lightning round. And the only rule of the lightning round is 60 seconds or less for the answers. So we're going to hit you with a different set of questions. Some will be fun, some will be serious. I'm going to throw your big time softball at the beginning based on a couple of your prior comments. You are engaged with a bunch of nonprofits and a bunch of causes that you care about a lot. Are there a couple you'd like to tell us about today?
Mike Asem: Yeah. So I would say like Equal Justice Initiative is one that I think is a really important philanthropy. So they focus on individuals of color that were unjustly charged and prosecuted for crimes that they didn't commit when they spent a lot of time in areas around incarceration and kind of redeeming individuals in that way. So I love the work that they do. And I would also call out very specific [....] a group called Black V.C. I also lead the Midwest chapter based in Chicago, but I also sit on the national board, and this is a nonprofit focused solely on exposing and engaging and helping promote individuals of color in venture capital, because as we know, there's not a lot of folks that look like myself in venture capital, and especially not, you know, in senior positions or check writing positions or areas of advancement. And so we're really trying to create equal opportunity and just kind of help individuals from diverse backgrounds.
Luke Roush: That's great and love the fact that you're taking initiative and taking leadership and having your voice be heard in shaping that discussion. So that's awesome. Mike, I want to switch gears and on a slightly less serious note, we had Shundrawn Thomas on a couple of weeks ago and we had a spirited dialog around the great Chicago and traditions of Italian beef sandwiches and deep dish pizza. Today we need to know which is your preferred cuisine, deep dish pizza or Italian beef?
Mike Asem: Well, the answer is definitely situational in and what it means is if it's game day, then it's probably Italian beef.
Luke Roush: Let's go.
Mike Asem: If it's not game day, then you're probably going to deep dish pizza.
Luke Roush: And what is game day for you? Are you Bears fan? Are you a Cubbies? Talk to me about what game day means.
Mike Asem: Oh yeah I'm I'm a Chicago sports diehard. So for better or worse. Hey, look, we're having one of the most aggressive rebuilds I've ever seen in the NFL, so I'm putting my hope in that. But yeah, for better or worse, go Bears.
John Coleman: I was ready to accuse him of waffling, but that was actually a pretty good response. On the situation ality of the cuisine there. That was that was solid. Mike, you know, apart from the bears and deep dish pizzas. Why the focus on the Midwest? Why is that important to you as a venture capitalist?
Mike Asem: Yeah, I'm from here, Victor is from the Midwest as well, we feel like we have an unfair advantage here. We understand the culture here. For better or worse, it's like it's a different cultural reality in the Midwest than New York or San Francisco or pretty much any other part of the country. And so given our network, given our roots, also given what we feel is like an underserved reality from a venture capital perspective in the region, we thought we had a good opportunity to win and create a lot of value here.
Luke Roush: Next question is around your one of your hobbies, which is actually making wine with your dad. So what's the timeline around being able to anticipate some vineyards being available at the local grocery store?
Mike Asem: Well, it's a great question. The well, first of all, it's fruit wine. So we have made wine from grapes, but generally we make it from blueberries. And I do have a really good strawberry that's won a couple awards locally, but unfortunately for a few reasons. One, we don't want to make our hobby our job to I have drinking a lot more wine since then. I actually am not sure how good it is. And three, you know, just selling alcohol at the grocery store. I know if that's in the cards for me. So TBD.
John Coleman: That's great. As a Southerner, I can tell you even the mention of strawberry wine brings to mind nostalgic memories for country music fans. We'll do the last question of the Lightning Round right here, which is in this tough season, what advice would you give to other investors going through this for the first time? Young investors?
Mike Asem: Yeah, I mean, I would lean towards surrounding yourselves with individuals who have been through a season like this before and gleaning as much wisdom as you can. You know, we know that the pursuit of wisdom never lets us down. And I think this is definitely one of those times where it's the most valuable and also like watch how that unfolds because especially if you're young in your career, there's likely more and more time ahead of you where you're going to be able to put this experience and learning to work. And it's going to be extremely valuable and learn some lessons. And, you know, I think back to the ego. You're more than your career. You're more than the next deal, you're more than the losses you're building right now. And odds are, if you're in your career that your losses will help, you have an unfair advantage for the wins you gain in the future.
Luke Roush: That's great, Mike. That's an awesome word for all of our listeners. I want to pivot just to how we always like to close each episode by asking what God is teaching you right now. So what have you found recently in God's word that has stuck out?
Mike Asem: Yeah. So I'll go with a recent piece and a kind of life piece here. So the recently my wife and I are 20 when you read through the Bible again and this morning I read the story about Balam and the donkey, that that was not helping him out and then spoke to him directly. And it reminded me that, you know, a lot of times we're trying to force a square peg in a round hole. I think a lot of times God puts things on our heart or we have things in our heart that maybe God says, just like we're not getting that signal to lean into this and we're trying to force things and, you know, being able to like, step back and try to listen for God's voice and like feel from the spirit, like we're actually we should be moving forward. Is this God's will or my will? So that's the word that I think hit me recently as of this morning's reading. And then I'd be remiss if I didn't point back to the painting behind me, which I know you guys can see. But it actually it's this local Chicago artist that did this and I had them paint R 12:2, for Romans 12 two, which is my longtime favorite life verse, which is do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That way you can attest and approve of God's will is his holy, pleasing and perfect will. And I love that verse because I just love how much it speaks to how, you know, God wants us to be critical thinkers. God wants us to be constantly pursuing knowledge and have strong intellectual curiosity for the purpose of fully owning and understanding his will for our lives. And in some of these deeper questions, because, you know, I think having that spiritual relationship as well as that pursuit of intellectual curiosity is something that's very God ordained and like makes life as a Christian really rewarding.
John Coleman: Mike That's a good word. We have loved this conversation today. Obviously super encouraged by what you're doing at M 25 and beyond with the different things that you're involved in. You're just such a bright light for the industry. I know our team thinks incredibly highly of you, and entrepreneurs would be very fortunate to partner with you and with M 25 And so we're grateful for you coming on today, sharing some of the more difficult things. With vulnerability that you have to go through. And also just providing a great example for the way that a Christian can navigate those. So really appreciate you coming on today, Mike. Thanks for sharing with us.
Mike Asem: Yeah, thanks for having me. It's been great.