Drew Taggart

And I was like, is that a lot?

Kind of feels like a lot.

Turned out to be a lot.

I just want to start.

And I think a big part of anything is just start doing it.

That, to me, is probably one of the things that sets us apart and makes our partnership so unique is that we push each other into these areas that you're like, maybe on your own, you'd be like, I don't know where to begin, so I'm not going to begin.

And that's the cold start problem, obviously, is the hardest part.

part of any process.

But I think with us, we're very comfortable putting ourselves in those uncomfortable situations.

But also because of how we interact with people and the relationships we've had, we're just listeners, you know, and we spent the better part of those three years doing 10 hours of calls a day with any investor or founder that would speak to us and just asking questions and like learning

through their experiences, mistakes they made or the things we should think about.

And a lot of it began to contradict each other by the end of it, but there were definitely some patterns and things there.

And I think through those conversations, we were like, wait a minute, this does feel like an extension of what being a good investor means is an extension of what made us good in chain smokers.

And it gave me a lot of confidence that we were right to get into this space.

But I think

fighting the preconceived conceptions, and rightfully so, a lot of them, about being a celebrity investor.

And I've told this before, but it's like on fund announced day, it wasn't a positive vibe.

People weren't like, finally, chain smokers.

It was the opposite.

People were not stoked about it at all.