Adam Torres and Jerome Timmons Jr discuss the AI Vibes Summit.
Subscribe: iTunes / Spotify
Listen to coverage of the AI Vibes Summit in Santa Monica, California. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Jerome Timmons Jr., Associate Partner at LvlUp Ventures, explore venture capital, media and AI.
Watch Full Interview:
About Jerome Timmons Jr
Throughout Jerome’s career in the insurance industry, He has successfully managed multi-million dollar client portfolios, providing tailored risk management solutions to high net worth individuals. My experience includes analyzing data sets, identifying trends, and delivering exceptional results while exceeding sales targets.
In addition to his business acumen, he brings a distinguished military background as a Civil Affairs Team Manager and Healthcare Specialist in the United States Army. This experience has honed my leadership skills, adaptability, and strategic thinking, allowing me to excel in high-pressure environments and drive impactful outcomes.
About LvlUp Ventures
LvlUp Ventures is the next generation venture fund and ecosystem, investing in great teams with strong initial market validation and bringing startups to the next level through a value-driven fund, bespoke accelerators and incubators, and powerful startup programs in partnership with leading fortune 500’s. We review every funding application & add value where we can, whether or not we write a check.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and today we’re in Santa Monica, California at the AI Vibe Summit, and I was able to snag Jerome for an interview. I know he’s going to be a judge coming up soon. So first off, Jerome, welcome to the show. Thank you.
I’m glad to be on. All right. So we’re in Santa Monica. We’re at an AI conference. What brings you here? So I’m a judge for the pitch competition. I was invited by Tao to participate. So, yeah, yeah, it’s going to be fun. I know it hasn’t come up yet. I’m excited to see who’s going to be pitching today. So we’ll have some fun with that.
So I understand you’re over from Level Up Ventures. I’m saying that right? Yes, that’s correct. Talk to me a little bit more about the company. Yep. So I just joined the firm in February, associate partner at the firm, helping source deals for the firm, as well as helping raise capital for the firm. We’re a C stage fund.
We invest in pre seed and seed stage companies up to 250 K and we’re industry agnostic, so it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, we can take a look. If we don’t invest with our direct fund, we see a fit, we’ll refer it to one of our accelerators. If it’s not a fit at all, we have other partner firms that we work with that we source deal flow to as well.
So through our funding application, not only are you applying for our firm, you’re applying for our partner firms as well. Amazing. So AI, what excites you about AI right now? Like what gets you fired up? It’s just interesting to see AI being implemented into different industries and the impact that it has on the industry’s innovating new industries.
So well, the latest I’ve seen is Soros. I’m not sure if you watched that, but it’s cool to see like you can then put a prompt and then it comes up with the whole video. It’s just interesting to see what people are creating with it and how they’re using it and how quickly it’s advancing. Yeah, I’m in. I just like it.
To me, I’m thinking, I think about it and I’m like, some of it I understand, some of it I don’t. Like some of these, I know there’s a lot of people that are spending a lot of time on this, but for me, just covering the stories, I see new founders, new people. I love the stories behind it. Like the founders, all the AI founders, first question I normally ask them when they come on right now is like, what’s it like to be an AI founder?
Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s a lot. Did you always know that you wanted to get into like working with entrepreneurs and working with founders? Like, was that a part of, a part of you? I’ve done entrepreneurship ever since I was a little kid. Oh, what was the first business? I got one. Somebody tells me that I got to throw it out there.
What was the first business? So I grew up in poverty. We didn’t have much so my mom taught us to hustle. So as a kid, we were selling like lollipops. Yeah, you were the candy one. Oh, I was the comic book guy. I was either comic book or baseball cards. So we would have been, we would have had a partnership.
Yeah, for sure. We would have been in the back of the group to back of the class together. They’re like, okay, you got some, all right, I’m gonna give you these cards. You go take those Jerome. I got, okay. What do you, what’s your inventory of suckers today? I got you. We would have had a partnership, man. So yeah, I’ve always been an entrepreneur, I ended up graduating high school, going into the military for some time, and upon getting out the military, I started my own business doing nightlife events, just going through war, coming back.
I just wanted to have a place where people could come and enjoy themselves for a moment in time. So doing nightlife events, I came across a lot of entrepreneurs. One thing I realized is that a lot of them have trouble accessing capital. So I found out about venture capital. And I decided to go back to school to get my degree and get into venture capital.
So that’s exactly what I did. I just graduated last September. That was my master’s in business analytics. And now I’m into venture capital, helping entrepreneurs pursue their dreams. So it’s been great. What do you look for in entrepreneurs, like in terms of thinking about an investment or otherwise, or an idea?
Obviously there’s only a, you know, 10 minute interview, so we can’t go into the full thesis. Don’t worry. But generally speaking, like when you’re out there looking at deal flow, looking at ideas, what are some of the things that just make you think, huh, we need to look at this one a little closer. The biggest, well, we all like, we all prefer entrepreneurs that have had successful exits before.
That’s always a telltale sign of an entrepreneur that’s able to figure it out and get the job done. But new entrepreneurs coming in, I guess it’s just learning more about them and their background. Seeing what they’ve been through and whether they have what it takes to go through the entrepreneurial journey because there’s a lot of ups and downs.
And if they don’t have that, why of the why of, you know, how they’re, it’s pain, man. If you, when it gets hard, when there’s pain, when you’re on that roller coaster and you’re on that low, you’re right. If they don’t have that, that wire, that dog in them is hard. Yeah. Yeah. So a final question here, Jerome and AI, you’re going to be judging a panel and otherwise, what are some of the things that you’re, I know you haven’t seen the companies.
I know you haven’t seen it all, but in judging a panel or otherwise, the reason I’m asking this question is coming from a VCs perspective. There’s going to be a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners that watch this, that are going to be on panels one day, and they may not be the judge.
They may be pitching to you. What are some of the things that you’re going to be looking for in a tight pitch? One of the things you already mentioned is the founder. We look at the founder and the team within the business and see. Their history, have they had successful exits? What type of experience do they have?
Is it relevant to the business that they’re in? The other thing is the market, cause you can have a great product, but if the market isn’t successful or thriving, then the product won’t go anywhere. On the other end, you can have a great market as well, but if you don’t have the right product, product market fit, then your business won’t be successful.
So team, product market are the three main things. Hmm. Awesome. Final, final question are if somebody wants to follow up, learn more about the company, follow you on social media. Otherwise I want you to look into the camera and tell ’em how they can do that. Yeah. So in terms of our P firm you can find us at www dot Level Up vc and Level Up is LVL Up vc.
My LinkedIn, you can find me linkedin. com slash J Timmons spelled T I M M O N S and the number one. Amazing. And for everybody watching or listening to this, Hey, we’re going to put those links into the show notes, so you can just click on the links and head right on over. And speaking to the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters, and if you haven’t hit that subscribe or follow button yet, Hey, now’s the time to do it, this is a daily show each and every day, we’re bringing you new content.
new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button so you get the notification tomorrow for the next episode. And Jerome, I’m gonna be watching you on stage, man. Thanks again for coming on the show. Thank you for having me.
