Welcome to Getting Rich Together. I’m your host, Shama Bunton. This show was born from my own journey. Coming out of a divorce, I reached out to 50 women to talk to them about money.

95% of them did not want to go there. That’s when I realized we need spaces where wealth isn’t hidden in silence but shared in possibilities. Here, you’ll meet women from all backgrounds, trailblazers, risk takers, visionaries, each expanding what wealth can look like. This is your place to be inspired to discover new pathways and to remember that we rise by building wealth together. Getting Rich Together is a wealth catalyst production.

At Wealth Catalysts, we bring together education, networks, and great opportunities for women to build wealth and change the world. Now, on to today’s show. I am here today with the brilliant, incredible, heart-centered venture capitalist, not something that you would say in the same sentence for most people. The lovely Jessica Carr. Jessica, you are not only the fearless leader of Coyote Ventures, focusing on women’s health and wellness, but you are absolutely brilliant.

Former biochemist, early member at Impossible Foods. You bring everything that I think is so special in this world, science, business, impact, heart, friendship, and love to a world where we really need to see more intersection of integrity and values. I am thrilled to call you a friend and honored to have you here today on Getting Rich Together. I’m honored to be here and likewise honored to call you a friend and so excited to be on this podcast. I’ve listened to so many episodes.

Thank you. And hopefully, you guys will get a chance to maybe Angie, Jessica’s cute little beautiful dog who I fell in love with. Maybe she’ll make an appearance today.

I don’t know. But Jessica, let’s start from the beginning. Before you knew you were a brilliant scientist or before you knew that you were a brilliant deal maker, before you knew you were a visionary or maybe you always knew that somewhere between seven, nine, 12 years old, take me back to a young Jessica. Where were you living? What was around you? And what was money like around you those days?

Great questions. I grew up in Amarillo, Texas, which is in the Northwest Panhandle. It’s a small city, not really close to anything.

So part of my dream was to leave that place, love it now, still visit my family, but envision myself in a city beyond that. I come from a family of physicians. So my mom or healthcare practitioners, I should say, not all doctors in the traditional sense. My dad’s a dentist. My mom is a recently retired OBGYN nurse. I have many dentists and PAs and lots of healthcare people in my family. So I developed that passion from an early age and was really interested in the impact of it.

I dreamed about being a doctor with doctors without borders, traveling the world. My family was fairly middle class in Amarillo, not fancy. My mom was a single mom and we didn’t have anything fancy, but never went hungry. I did learn good financial tools as a young kid, like tithing 10% for savings, 10% for the church. So I learned some healthy habits as a young age, but it was never really a dream or focus. It was more about how can I take care of people. When I was 14, I started working in my dad’s dentist office.

Started off with filing charge, just like maybe an hour after school. And then by the time I was 18, I was working. I actually certified as a dental assistant and helped with some surgeries. Some of my friends at 18 got their wisdom teeth out.

I remember helping with some of their surgeries. And so it was the desire to work with your father. Was it like, I want independence, I want to make a little extra cash? Was it I’m really curious and want to explore what this is like more?

Was it a combination of things? Like, how did you think about these early jobs and also like working with family is really different, right? How did you decide to go down that path so early?

I don’t even remember making a decision. I just remember starting to work and really loving it. And I felt like by the time I’d been there a few years, like I made my place. And I remember when I was leaving for college, I was training someone and I was like, this shouldn’t take long.

My job is easy. And I remember like hours later, I was like, wow, that did take a while. Like I felt like I left my mark there and I really loved it. But I don’t remember in the beginning, like, why did I do that? Besides, I was there and I liked it.

I love it so much. I had a friend in high school and I remember her first job was working at a chiropractor’s office. And I remember just being like, huh, what an interesting thing to do as a high schooler, right?

It’s not exactly the first thing that we think about. Did you think at that time that you were going to go into dentistry? What did you think of yourself as a young woman before you went off to college?

I definitely had some different dualities. On one hand, I thought I could be a doctor or dentist and really enjoyed the idea of that path and saw that I was ambitious. On the other hand, I wasn’t ambitious at school. I made a C in biology because I didn’t want to do some of the homework that I thought was really silly, that was just busy work. So I wasn’t that good at memorizing things or doing silly homework that I felt like was taking away time from me either working or hanging out and listening to music with my friends. And then the other duality was I had always loved music and performing. So there was also a part of me that wanted to just go like seeing or be an actress, even though I basically had not that much talent in those areas. Do you think your family would have been supportive if you had gone down that path? Yeah, they were pretty supportive. My dad did tell me that I could basically do what I wanted to do. And so I’m thankful for that. And we didn’t have to have too many difficult conversations because I didn’t do anything too crazy. And I know financially it would have been hard to go some route that wasn’t earning cash in some way.

Interesting. And so as you then embarked on university, was it pretty clear to you that you were going to go into school full time for the next four years? Did you think about financing your education in different capacities where your parents on board to help support? How were those college years for you? How did you navigate that?

Yeah, I was very lucky. So there was a program that they bought into when I was maybe a baby called, I think Tux’s Tomorrow Fund. And so they paid into what the cost of tuition was when they paid it, which was very low. And so it basically secured in the cost of a tuition for four years for a state school in Texas. So those were the requirements.

I’ve always been good at capital efficiency, I would say. So basically went to college for free because my parents paid a small amount. And I went to Texas State and San Marcos. It’s between Austin and San Antonio. Really lovely school. The river is the main feature.

Everybody’s always at the river or in the river, which was also what I did. Since I still had my foot in the door at my dad’s dentist office, I retained a role that was updating the website. And that was a way that my dad could justify like paying my rent and like a couple hundred dollars a month, essentially for like groceries. But I basically did not spend money. I couldn’t shop. I couldn’t go out to eat. I was definitely penny pinching then.

And I remember my rent after I moved off campus for the first year, I moved into an awesome house and my rent was $267 a month. Get out. Yeah. Well, that would became the party house because a lot of people still lived on campus. So it was a good place for lots of parties that happened there.

And let me, I mean, let me context this. This isn’t like rent you were paying in 1970. This wasn’t like all that long ago to have such an incredible rent. It was so different back then. And like Austin’s grown a lot now. People actually live in San Marcos that like go to Austin. When back then it was all college people like we’re like, why would adults live here?

This is for the students. I know some college colleagues that still live in San Marcos. So adults live there now.

It’s got expensive. I love that. I love adults live there.

It’s not just kids, but real people all real adults live there. So then when you graduated from university, was it what was clear to you at that point? Was it I’m going to go and quickly go get my job? Was it I’m going to do some graduate work? Like how did you start to weave together what life would look like? Because obviously getting your education and really seeing yourself in terms of exercising as a scientist in the world or your interests.

When you think about that, at least for most people, it feels very narrow limited, right? It’s either become a professor or I might work for like a university and their research department or maybe. So how are you triangulating? What opportunities were for you with this interest that you had?

Yeah. So I would say during college, I started out as pre-med and ended up realizing I wasn’t doing as much on the practicing. Like what is it to take care of a patient? But I did and I still wasn’t good at memorizing things, but I did figure out I could do well at understand anything. So I did well at chemistry biochem became my major. I was enjoyed math and physics as well. So it was like, OK, I can understand how things work.

Remember some formulas and things like that. But I can’t remember what is the name of this bone that comes into my head as well, the head bones connected to the neck bone. OK, there’s no head bone. I sound like a total idiot, but anyway, it’s on goes. I don’t even know.

No, yes, something like that. But the other important thing I left out was that the junior year summer, I decided to do a summer internship. So there was like an Amgen scholars program that that sponsored students to do research in a lab. And I chose to see Berkeley. So I actually got to spend the summer in Berkeley doing research with my grad student and became close with a lot of the students and postdocs and the PI of the lab who ended up opening a lot of doors for me. So that was a really, really pivotal moment in my life where if I wouldn’t have done that, I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today. She encouraged me to go to grad school. And so I ended up going to UC San Diego instead of Berkeley. I didn’t know where I was heading to your point.

A lot of bio chem paths, especially grad school, will either go academic or pharma. And at the time, there were not a lot of visibility to other options. Even though I knew I didn’t want to do either one, I remember the Amgen scholars and they were like, let’s go look at our Amgen facilities. And I was like, this is impressive, but I do not see myself here.

And the academics is the same. I did not see myself there either. So after I finished the master’s portion where I basically had to complete a oral exam, I decided that I wasn’t sure I saw like the path where a PhD could go. And my professor was very helpful and supportive as well. I know a lot of professors love to make their students miserable during their PhD, unfortunately, so very thankful for him and still keep in touch and visit the lab.

And he does pretty interesting things still. Basically, I said, I don’t think I should stay here. And he’s like, yeah, I see that you really want to be like out in the world doing more applied projects, essentially.

So we were really aligned and I’m thankful that he helped me there. It’s also like a lot of self awareness at a young age. Typically, it’s like there’s the path in front of you. And especially when it’s like not a lot of options are presented. People usually pick a path and they’re like, well, I’m going to do this and then see where it goes. And or I’ve seen so many other people chart this path and it’s predictable and I can follow it and to be young and say, I have no clue like where this is going. But I do know that these things are not working for me. And I may not know what it is that I do want, but I have a strong understanding, at least of what I don’t want right now. And I think that’s a really powerful thing as a young person. And so once you had decided that you were not going to be pursuing your PhD, which honestly piled high and deep, they say, there’s a lot going on with that world of academia.

And I think sometimes can expand your worldview, but in many ways also really close your worldview and you’re really charting this other course. So how did you then decide what was next for you? What was the impetus for then taking the next step? It was very hard. I was pretty unclear on on what the path was, but I could define. I have this opportunity and it excites me right now.

So I’m going to take it. So back to when I was in college, I spent one summer studying in Madrid and I had gone through Europe and Italy really resonated with me. I know a lot of people will also resonate with just the food culture, the wine. And so part of me thought that I could use some scientific knowledge towards food and wine. So I decided to apply to a harvest internship at a winery. So I went up to wine country and did it a couple months there on the harvest. And it’s so cool.

What did you learn? What a dream, right? To be like, oh, yeah, my internship in Sonoma or Napa.

Tell me something cool biochemie about being there during harvest. Yeah, this could be a whole long story in itself, even though it was a very short time in my life that I usually don’t even talk about. But it was pivotal for like, what do I do that I’m diverging my path? I thought I was going to be working in the lab, which meant like they picked these grapes. Are they ready to harvest?

Can we test their ship? Ended up. They let some people go, including me. Apparently they drew my name out of it. But I was like, not me.

I’m not leaving. I set a meeting with the director of operations and he I think there is an internal politics. He did not like the lab guy and he is like, I’ll hire you. You can work under me.

So there’s like little drama things that happen at these small companies. But I was really grateful to get this opportunity, especially as I could have applied somewhere else. I had already moved there. My life was set up. I needed the paycheck. So he helped me retain this opportunity in a different way.

So instead of doing the lab work, I did operational work, which I opened my eyes a lot, like seeing how are the workers organized? I just picture those big wine bats and how they clean them. I had a special project, which was optimizing grape presses. You see a big grape press, the grapes go in and it looks like a black box, but there’s a balloon inside that expands. So as you can imagine, when the grapes go in, it expands a little bit, like a balloon that’s pressing the juices out.

And there’s like different ways you can do that. So if you start with a smaller expansion, it’s going to be a slower juice press. That can have a huge effect on the quality of the wine. And so we were playing around with like, OK, how can we make this still happen efficiently, but in a way that’s pressing out the best juice?

And a lot of times that like stones and things will be in there that could cause impurities. And so we developed a grape press program that then was analyzed by the people in the lab. And I got to be more of the person like sending the samples, analyzing the data and working with the actual winemakers. So yeah, crazy story that turned a bad experience into an amazing opportunity that that was a couple of months of my life. But how young, how like formative again, as a young person to get to see things now from so many different angles, the opportunity to work in beverage or food and these things that really touch us on a day to day basis in really intimate ways and then to be able to see how it all comes together.

The people involved, I think most people just don’t realize how labor intensive whiners and all the different processes and the ways you can do it. And so this like operational efficiency met with like your ability to leverage your science background. And then hopefully also a love of wine really probably made it a really interesting experience. Honestly, yeah, sometimes we would be like, let’s go on our lunch break and we would go to Hawaii and get a bottle with our sandwich. Yeah, I love that. I’m like, let’s go do that now.

You know, what a wonderful way to have lunch in Napa with a delicious bottle of wine. So you mentioned this opportunity only lasted a few months. What bridged you to the next place? Obviously, California was calling you. See San Diego, UC Berkeley, now in Napa. California has a big calling for you. How did you decide and what were the next steps following this incredible opportunity? I definitely desired to stay in California, but an opportunity did arise to intern at the Smithsonian. And so some of the techniques I used in my masters called mass spectrometry.

It’s analytical chemistry technique. I had stayed in touch with a professor I knew from Texas actually, who went to the Smithsonian and coincidentally had seen him at a conference back when I was in grad school, stayed in touch and he had told me that they take interns. So can’t pass up an opportunity at the Smithsonian.

Such an amazing historic institution. So I was actually there for a few months, tested out the East Coast and did something really different. And that was also a few months during the winter. I also decided that was a temporary thing. It wasn’t leading to something long term. So I decided once that was over to not continue in DC and I went over to New York for a month thinking I everybody should live in New York once.

Right. While I was figuring out my next step, I did a yoga teacher training. I lived in a friend’s room and she stayed with her boyfriend for the month.

So that was a pretty easy setup. It was in Gramercy Park a couple blocks away. This yoga studio. I lived a great New York life for a month and got a 200 hour training.

That’s incredible. I feel like so many different things, at least as I know you personally start clicking right like these moments where we get to take the time for me when I did my yoga teacher training. It wasn’t that I ever wanted to be a teacher. I just wanted to understand my own body differently. You know, it’s like that sort of like opportunities again to reflect and to know yourself and deepened awareness and understanding. So by the time you were done with that month, were you like, OK, East Coast, I’m done with you. Was it let me find some more opportunities and ways to be here?

I feel like people have a pretty visceral response mostly to East Coast. What was your vibe like at the end? I was open to staying but not finding the right opportunities. And it was during that time I got a cold email from what was called at the time Sand Hill Foods. And I didn’t understand any of it. But it was said we’re a disruptive technology. I didn’t understand what that meant. And it said, but it did say displacing animal as the main protein source for sustainability. I’ll have to find that email set to see what it actually said.

But yeah, I was sitting at an oyster happy hour. What is this email? Who is person? Where did this come from? What? I mean, essentially I flew out to Palo Alto and had my job interview and got a job at what became impossible foods. It was very stealthy. It was less than a dozen people at the time. So definitely decided that was the next right thing. So I helped read you, Jessica. When you first heard the word disruptive technologies sitting at that oyster bar.

Probably around 23. Yeah. I thought you were like, what is this? Okay. So you get yourself to California. You’re going through this interview process. What were you thinking at that time? Was it like, let me find a sense of stability and all these components are clicking? Did the idea of like from a salary standpoint, were you taking any of that into consideration? Was it serendipity? How did you navigate what would soon be a pretty long stretch in this formative stage of this business? They captured you at the perfect age with this like bright sort of future ambition, intelligence, but how were you sort of evaluating that opportunity for yourself? The salary was definitely a need. I got paid a little bit during my PhD program.

They give a small stipend that after that I was essentially living on a small amount of savings and tiny paychecks from internships. So I think salary was a talk need, but also I was really waiting it out for the right fit and making things work. And I definitely saw a perfect fit because I was getting a job that was in my field that I studied. I was working with talk scientists and most of all, I was really excited about the potential impact that people were working towards. I think that was the piece I had been looking for that I hadn’t quite seen in opportunities with like Harvard and academics that were aligned with what I wanted to make impact on. So having both using my field, but also working on something tangible that has an impact that we can actually see and eat, that was really exciting to me as well.

I love that. And also being so young, sometimes I think it can be challenging to know where to get knowledge and information from when it comes to salary negotiations or compensation packages and how things were set up. When you got your offer, were there things in there you didn’t understand?

Did it all seem to make a lot of sense? How did you sort of land on what would be your starting salary and your comp package? I had not lived in San Francisco before. My point of reference was the small PhD salary I received in San Diego. And so honestly, when I saw the number, I was like, this is amazing.

I think if we looked at it now, it’s well under 80K. They didn’t offer a stock in the beginning. That definitely came later though. So I hadn’t been very trained in salary negotiation or the compensation packages. So I didn’t push back at all. I did talk to. to the head of business development later about it. And he implied like, we were so early. They had only raised a small pre-seed. So he was like, it probably wouldn’t have been a good look if I would have done it. I don’t know if that’s true. I think now we definitely encourage everyone to at least have the conversation.

But it honestly looked good to me at the time with the little reference points that I actually had. Pause for a second. If you’re not already on the wealth catalyst sub-stack, you are missing out. Over 20,000 people have subscribed and they are diving into stories, strategies, and money expanders you won’t find anywhere else. Join us today and keep fueling your wealth journey. Check out the link in the show notes. Now back to the show.

I mean, at that time in life, it’s unless you have mentors and peers around you that are guiding you go with your gut. Okay, this feels good. And yeah, I totally relate and understand. So you were at impossible for over six years, obviously during some really high points of growth and certainly like growth for yourself being so young and almost growing with a company, getting your feet on the ground. How did things evolve for you personally during that time? Especially as it relates to money, were there interesting inflection points or milestones or things for you that really shifted the way that you thought about finances or shifted the way you thought about how you were developing your skills for the future? I think on the financial side, this still sticks with me. It’s like I can be very capital efficient, but it’s in the strategy of a very long-term gain.

So it’s like, yes, I forwent a good salary, but the stock options, some of them were like 10 cents. And so I think that like part of it is okay. I see how I can put in some time and be patient for like a very large financial reward. And that’s still very much like how I think about my life and projects.

It’s paying off like it’s a slow game for a large reward. So that’s, I would say that pretty much for me started there when I learned about, I hadn’t really understood before about venture capital and startups and how that funding mechanism worked. You know, important. Were there key people that helped you understand that? Like as stock options became presented to you, like how did you sort of, I’m just thinking about all the women who are listening who are like, yeah, I’m like being presented with these options and what does that mean?

And how do I figure out the value of that? How did you sort of context that at the time? There are better resources now. I know there’s some resources that will tell you if you’re at a company of high value, you can look at it at Forge Global and things like that. I remember there being one meeting in a conference room that it was fairly confusing. It was people sort of high level explaining things to you, but also like sometimes the company’s incentives and the employee incentives aren’t always aligned, but and there’s tricky things like have you vested enough and then how much taxes do you have to pay? I don’t know if I can point to great resources even now.

I did have a few people at the company I could ask, but I would say they were not ever able to go super deep with when is the right time? And I remember, yeah, I remember even when I left prematurely in 2016 went part time and then 2018 fully quit. And then, but I, yeah, people still stayed until early 2020s, I would say. So yeah, I left a lot of friends behind, still had great relationships there. And I remember like slowly they would like all ask me, like, did you buy your options?

How did this work? And how do you pay these taxes? And yeah, a lot of times the taxes end up also being a huge, a bigger financial burden than the actual purchase. I’m sure we could talk about this for much, much longer, but the implications of everything I feel like are still not really understood, right? When it comes to someone who’s not trained in the world of venture capital, the world of being an entrepreneur, the timing of everything and the rights that you have as an owner of stock options.

A lot of these things can also have big implications, but until there’s some sort of liquidity event, you mostly can actually think about what that means and then something happens and then there’s a big, oh shit. When Beyond Meat IPO’d Impossible Foods stock became very in demand, so there was like an interesting time where a lot of people were looking to purchase some shares. I sold a small amount. I honestly wish I would have sold more because it hasn’t approached that value since then. But I remember it was an exciting time to figure out what is it worth and talking to people about it. And the aspect of making a little money off of it for the first time, I think a lot of people were excited. I think some smart people sold a large amount and I know some that had more stocks than me that bought mansions.

Wow! People to buy myself a year of another grad school and hustling different consulting projects that didn’t pay a lot. That was the amount that I sold. Well, you know what’s interesting is bringing up secondary markets is… It’s an interesting segue because I remember when I first started getting into investing, the secondaries were actually really appealing to me because I was like, I don’t know, like I’m not super venture savvy, but I am a consumer and I know products and usually on the secondary markets, it’s like companies that you are knowing about. But it’s like there’s a lot more familiarity and I remember making an investment in Slack. I was like, I use it for my company and so I guess on the secondary, it feels like you’re closer to an exit because of the stage of the company. But as we’ve seen time and time again, that’s not always the case, but it’s interesting to hear it from the perspective of being the employee who’s selling those shares and really thinking about outweighing your risk and your reward and then also what the flip side of that looks like.

And now that you are a venture capitalist, it is probably also even more interesting to sort of see these companies that you are investing in and working with these founders and entrepreneurs to also help them understand, like not just the ecosystem of business, but also the ecosystem of people and what they’re offering and how they’re incentivized to do things. You’ve had a really, a really unique and interesting sort of life experiences. Okay, so you exit impossible, you’re now like, I’m going to go conquer the world.

What an incredible experience. How did you start to chart your next path? Was the path to venture, did it just make so much sense to you at that point? Were there other things that you were looking to close the gaps on?

Tell me how it unfolded. I still had a lot to learn. When I went part-time at Impossible, I was doing an MBA. So I chose Pristhenio Graduate School because it’s focused on impact and also it was a hybrid program. I didn’t want to go somewhere where I was just like full-time student living on campus. I was like, I’m too old for that. I want to keep working.

I want to keep like living my life in San Francisco and not move anywhere. So it was convenient and kind of aligned on the impact focus. And so I did that. I thought I would find like the next impossible foods and work there and make more money and have more impact. So on that search, I just was networking with tons of very early stage startups, both in food talk as well as health and wellness. So I consulted for two years as an independent consultant. And my background being in science and then product and then my MBA adding skill sets of like finance. So I did a lot of, in addition to the product, I would help with like financial modeling and helping founders on their strategy to raise capital and started to also enter into those discussions with angel investors and VCs. And I was very vaguely interested in becoming an investor, but I didn’t, I was still learning a lot. Even in my MBA program, we didn’t really like have a VC course. And we had one entrepreneurship course, but the funding part of it wasn’t a big part of what we learned there either. So I learned by doing, I went into many conversations, you know, not knowing terminology or differences between safe and convertible notes and things like that, which yeah, I learned by doing and by messing up and by showing my ignorance sometimes unfortunately.

And after doing that for two years, I found an aligned firm that was basically doing some company creation and some investing. And I won’t go into too much detail about that, but basically the one of the mandates for the impact side was gender equality. And so both with that and then looking at the market of a lot of things happening in women’s health in 2020, where kind body and maven had raised large rounds and scaled. And there was a lot of examples of some of the sort of medium scale companies. And then I started getting a lot of deal flow in the very early stages of women’s health, sexual wellness and sort of healthcare overall.

So I was really excited about that as an area. And I ended up leaving that firm for various reasons. And I had already started establishing a good network in that area and realized that I had access to LPs that would fund me going out on my own. So Coyote Ventures formally started in 2021. And since then I’ve raised fund one and completed 17 investments.

So incredible Jessica. It feels like you were trading and born for this moment where science and technology meets investing and business and strategy. It’s such an interesting background and narrative in your heart around impact seems to have just been such a consistent through line as you made decisions.

Can you speak a little bit about impact? I think you said this so nicely about I was holding out and waiting for the right thing. When I think that sometimes, and today it might be a little bit more different than I think maybe on things were 10 years ago, where impact wasn’t necessarily tossed around as much or it wasn’t as popular and people didn’t talk about it. And so obviously waiting for the right thing. But can you speak a little bit to making these decisions through the lens of your values and what was important to you? And I think that there’s something juicy about not only going after your heart but truly following your values and your vision.

Yeah, great question. I’m thankful I had an internal guidance that I could really listen to and I did do that. So I think a few, maybe two core memories that contribute to that. I think in a blend personal health with a better world that’s also sustainable essentially.

I don’t know what the core memory on the whole side is. I think it has to do with working at my dad’s dentist office and seeing the cool thing about dentistry actually is you can make a very positive impact on someone very quickly. Like a toothache is horrible. It will affect your whole body.

It’ll definitely affect your mental state. So seeing people that come in and just rip that tooth out or whatever needs to happen, maybe it’s a cavity or a… But the cool thing about that I liked was that people would feel better so quickly. And my dad was really good at his job. He had a great relationship with his patients and he did mission trips as well.

I went on a few where they go volunteer and do this work for free for people who need it, both in the US and abroad. So I think that was a core memory where it’s like affecting people’s health and health for all. And then on the sustainability side, I was always just, yeah, like into the rhythms of the earth, the cycles and nature essentially. Like I, yeah, I loved just being in nature and I still do. So I think, and even tying back to the Italy trip where it’s just like you’re eating more in line with nature. And so I think those are core memories that I internalized and just feelings of this is the world that I want to create. And then fitting that into this hectic world where healthcare makes no sense.

Life, it’s just real. It’s really important to stick to these things because sometimes it’s overwhelming. Wow, are we hopeless? Yeah, it takes a lot of optimism.

And the great thing I think about being in your seat is that you get to see all the hope in the world. You’re being pitched companies and by brilliant founders who are looking for solutions to really move the needle in proactive ways, which if only there was a place where everyone could just read all the good stuff that all these business owners were up to creating and doing because it’s so uplifting and just, I don’t know, gives me a greater sense of humanity, my faith in humanity when I see how many brilliant people are working after really positive things. Raising a fund in 2021, if I recall, 2021 was a good year for venture. If people were really excited, there was more cash flowing in the economy.

There were a lot of exciting movements in the private markets. Did you find raising your fund for the first time? Was it challenging? Did it happen quickly?

You mentioned you had a lot of backers early who are like, we believe in Jessica. But what was that experience like for you at that time? I would say the first close was very exciting. It was definitely people who were like, we believe in this. The first close was very exciting, a lot of momentum.

A lot of surprises. There was an angel group I was in, for example, where I had diligence to company. I was very interested in and I had stayed in touch with that founder, even though we didn’t end up putting that SPV together.

He became one of the first close LPs, for example. And it was just like surprises, like, oh, and people that I would meet on LinkedIn and have a great chat with and they’d be like, I’m interested in 100K. And so I would say like the 2021 excitement, especially in the first part of the year, was really contributing to a great first close, but we didn’t really do that until sort of the second half of the year. And the good part about that is we didn’t get into rounds with crazy valuations as especially in the first part of the year, we still had some pretty conservative.

Okay, we’re doing early stage valuations still need to be reasonable. And so the first close 2021 went well. I would say like the downturn came soon after that when people were like over allocated and some of the markets stopped performing in the same way, which obviously that needed to happen. And so things did start to become a little more challenging.

I did my final close around 2023 and there was some great momentum to happen, but nothing was as easy as the first close, I guess. It’s always nice though to have that first high lets you know that you’re on the right track. Which is an important signal, right?

We always are looking for signaling to tell us that we’re moving in the right direction. Bank of America as an LP towards our high-level close. So that was huge for the fund and having a more institutionalized LP base and process.

It definitely leveled up everything. Oh my gosh, and it’s so impressive for your first fund to have the support and vision and speaks to you, right? Because at the end of the day, everyone’s taking a hedge on who you are as a first-time fund manager and saying, you know what, this woman’s got experience, vision, and the ability to see these trends and opportunities. Your life has been full of being, holding out, right? Holding out for what’s right, taking risk, playing in the spaces of like creation and sort of living on the edge, right? There’s nothing quite like pinning your destiny on long-term results, right?

To really push you up against, I think, your own sense of self. How have you been sort of thinking about, and obviously that’s on the venture side, it’s such a long-term game, right? You’re looking at these seven to 10 year returns as you’ve sort of been looking at your own personal life, right? Do you find yourself also living in that same landscape within your internal world, thinking about things for yourself more long-term or how have you sort of navigated the world of your own finances? Now, are you mostly allocated in these startups? Do you sort of also have your safety net to some degree and some other categories? How have you sort of complimented your work with almost your own personal definition of well-being?

Definitely. My personal financial situation, I always say, is a complete nightmare for most wealth managers because it’s in private market right now. I definitely desire to shift that to be more balanced. Part of that is we’re early in the fund and GP commit is fairly substantial. And so having some GP commit to Coyote and having some investments that existed before that, it’s all tied up in there for now. I’ve heard from so many fund managers who are like, yeah, like we’re all in.

This is all in for the future. And there’s something quite like living in integrity with what it is that you’re building and having your resources in those areas. But yeah, balance is good.

I think everybody wants to have more balance and balance in their lives, which I think is lovely. As you’re sort of looking to the future now and thinking about your life, you’ve been in California a long time now. I’m grateful to have been introduced to you. And my gosh, Jessica, I feel like you know everybody and you’re really sort of part of the fabric of the city and of the VC world here. As you’re looking to your own sort of charting the next paths, you’re still quite young. There’s so much to do, so much that you can be. And certainly while you’re not swimming in the ocean, which for those of you listening, is incredible that Jessica swims in the ocean. But where else do you see your life trajectory moving to right now? What’s calling you forward?

Great question. I’m definitely addicted to my, yeah, cold water-based swimming. I definitely see some like midterm goals that include more balance in my life because I know starting the first fun and even figuring out the point to starting that, like leading up to that took a lot of effort and time. And I think a lot of focus in my last decade plus two decades maybe was on the career side. So I definitely think balancing out with good relationships, family, friends, and potentially more Pomeranians, potentially living a little more in nature. And yeah, I think like I see the next decade-ish as like continuing the positive impact but with more balance in my personal life. I love that.

I think that’s perfect. We’re all living much longer today than ever. So the next 10 years, I mean, my love, you’re going to be around for the next 50-something. It’s like there’s so much time and it’s so hard to sort of know. It’s so hard to sort of know what the body of our life’s work is going to be, but this area of impact and changing the way in which the world is sort of evolving just seems like such a part of your written narrative. Are there things that feel too big to say that you might share with us? Or visions of a life at 90 that might be juicy and tantalizing that you have an inkling of?

It’s a great question. I think so much could change between now and then. But something I think both you and I are excited about and many others is living in more community. I’ve played around with some ideas that I halfway got off the ground, but like one is what does the world look like if we like create more community that’s in-person and potentially like share our homes or second homes.

I created a platform. It’s called HabNob. And right now it’s focused on sort of vacation homes. Okay, what if this is off Airbnb and it’s a community right now focused on women but could end up being inclusive? What’s a replacement of something like chief that’s not only focused on executive women? It’s focused on women who have a growth mindset and are creative and heart-centered and things like that. So I’ve thought a little bit about what would it look like to keep building a community like that and potentially at an older age living more in community because I do think a lot of us are aligned on how in America we’ve created kind of a way of living a little more isolated and I don’t think that would remain.

No, I agree with you. So one of my favorite final questions, we often and certainly in this conversation, money has played an interesting role. You’re a venture capitalist, you’re evaluating companies, you’re investing, you’ve been in this world of startups now, your entire career. Money can be really serious but it can also be really fun. And there’s a lot of great things that we can do with our money. Jessica, darling, what are some of your most favorite things that you have been spending your money on lately? I was so fortunate that I went to Greece and Turkey the summer, it was not a cheap trip, stayed in some nice places, ate a lot of great food, a little bit of Michelin Star restaurants even and a little bit of shopping, had my scarf on and I really enjoyed that trip. I would love to continue international travel at least once a year. And then in my daily life, spending a little money on gym memberships just joined the Bay Club. So gonna go do a swim tonight.

That’s so wonderful. And then my final question is around how we can support you. What is that ask? What are you calling in? Who do you need to know right now?

What recommendation would help you out? Like what is it that we can do to help further the vision of the world that you’re creating? Definitely. Well, always aligned joining in more people in our community.

So whether it is founders building things that fit our thesis, as well as investors who either co-invest in these companies or are interested in learning about fund investing. Not sure when this episode comes out, but we have some events in September that potentially we can share. And yeah, happy to stay in touch. Wonderful, Jessica, you are such a gift. This has been such an awesome conversation. I have loved peeling back the onion layers of what make you an incredible human on this planet. So thank you for being here today. Thank you, I’ve always loved talking with you. So, so happy to be here. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Getting Rich Together. My hope is that you leave every episode feeling more inspired, more powerful, and more connected. Until next time, remember, you have everything it takes to create wealth on your terms.