Adam Torres and Emma Ohanian discuss venture capital.
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Show Notes:
What does it mean to be an Honest Optimist? How does honest optimism relate to the venture capital landscape? In this episode, Adam Torres and Emma Ohanian, Founding Partner at Y&Z Ventures, explore Emma’s background and Y&Z Ventures.
About Emma Ohanian
Emma is the Founding Partner of Y&Z Ventures, a Los Angeles based multi-family office investing on behalf of immigrant and first-generation entrepreneurs.
As a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) professional, Emma’s experience uniquely positions her to work with companies to build for the end game, or the Y&Z. She works with founders to position for exit viability, inorganic growth strategies, and cost optimization.
An honest optimist, Emma believes each shortcoming is an opportunity to create change. Founders and Funders make it their livelihood to execute that change. Reach out to talk about your next fundraise!
About Y&Z Ventures
Y&Z Ventures is a Los Angeles based Fund of Funds + direct investment vehicle investing on behalf of influential professionals and private foundations. Their mission is to create and redefine wealth for their community by reinvesting capital in the future.
At Y&Z, They’re dedicated to supporting investments to the final stages, or the end game. Through their established network of dedicated M&A professionals across finance, tax, and legal, Y&Z support their portfolio investments through buy-side and sell-side exploration.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d love to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to apply. All right, so today’s guest is Emma Ohanian, and she is the founding partner over at YMZ Ventures.
Emma, welcome to the show. Thank you, Adam. I’m happy to be here. All right, so we got a whole lot to talk about today. We’re going to talk about venture capital. We might get into some multifamily office. We’re going to get into, I’m going to have to ask this, what does honest optimism mean and why are you known as an honest optimist in some circles?
So we got lots to cover here today. But before we get into all that, we’ll start with what we like to call our mission matters minute. So at Mission Matters, Emma, our aim and our goal is to help amplify stories and for others that we feel need to be heard. That’s what our mission is. Emma, what mission matters to you?
Yeah, I love this question. I, in terms of our mission, and for me personally, it’s really about establishing community impact. And, that takes various forms, but at least specifically within the professional setting, it’s through access, exposure, and long term wealth establishment. So I really do this in two ways.
On one side, it’s through YMZ Ventures, and then on the other side, it’s through my involvement in GenSheets. So on the, on the YNZ venture side, we’re dedicated to ensuring capital investment has community impact essentially by investing into venture capital and private equity on behalf of first generation and immigrant entrepreneurs and these families that we represent, they’ve built, you know, fully bootstrapped businesses that are pretty scaled over the last 30, 40 years and are seeking opportunities to reinvest that capital into the next generation of, you know, innovation.
And then on the, on the Gen Xi side, We have an audience of over 500, 000, both women and men, in tech venture and entrepreneurship. And on our online resources, you can find free resources that will propel early stage entrepreneurs to, you know, the top 1%. Amazing. Love bringing mission based individuals on the line to share why they do what they do, how they’re doing it, and really what we can all learn from that.
So, great having you on. And just to get us started here, like, how did you get interested in the VC space or even finance and working with businesses? Like, how did, how’d all that take place for you? Yeah, truthfully, I had a pretty natural progression into this career, and I’ve been largely purpose driven as I’ve grown.
Kind of approached my my professional lucky you because I didn’t decide I want to be a podcaster in school I don’t know if we had it when I was in college, but don’t go home I like I love you Please it’s possible Yeah, looking back now, it feels pretty natural, but obviously at the time I was like, what am I going to do?
What’s going to be right for me? And, I think asking that question at a young age was really important. I was, I was always pretty more math, science minded. And for my first, my first job was essentially working at a boutique investment bank and supporting sell side processes. And so I’ve got that early exposure to finance training and then eventually went into consulting, doing more of the commercial diligence and then eventually joined Uber’s mergers and acquisitions team and integration team where I worked on deals like the, the, Drizly Acquisition and Integration, Cornershop Acquisition and Integration, TransPlace.
These were all companies that were, you know, billion dollar plus acquisitions by Uber. And, and honestly, while I was at Uber, I just had kind of a moment where I thought to myself, Why am I doing this for a 20, 000 and company when I could be doing it for myself? And so I actively started working out of various accelerators.
And that’s how I connected with the individual who became my essentially anchor investor or anchor family in the multifamily office. Ventures, what was that like, that moment that you, or not the moment, but just in general, like when you finally go out. And the reason I ask this question, by the way, whether it’s vc, whether it’s small business owner, whether there’s a lot of, you know, individuals who went from very large companies like, maybe an Uber or another company, and then at some point they decided to do it on their own.
What was it like when you made that transition? Yeah, I mean, I grew up as part of an entrepreneurial family. And so I really think that from a, from a young age, I knew that. It was in the blood a little? Yeah, it was in the blood a little. And I, think that was something that I was always inspired by.
And, you know, when you’re part of an entrepreneurial family, you see the successes and the failures. And there’s really high highs and really low lows. And personally, I kind of am often referred to by my family as, You know, an emotionally leveled person. And so that, you know, high, high, low, low is where I found kind of a lot of the excitement in my professional career.
So entrepreneurship just seemed like the inevitable, inevitable future for me. When did the when did that concept of honest optimist or honest optimism, when, when did that come to you? Yeah. I mean, I always kind of saw myself as just like a, you optimistic person in general. Like it’s hard to get me down.
My sister says I’m never mad, but really what honest optimism is about is opportunity, right? So wherever there’s a gap, there is an opportunity. And that’s what I, that was sort of my guiding principle through my career to get me to this point of entrepreneurship. The reality is that we take risks to challenge ourselves and we challenge ourselves to experience.
And so honest optimism is really just the state of mind that allows Me and hopefully others to acknowledge the challenges in our lives as an opportunity rather than as a constraint. Hmm, and I know that this is what , we’re gonna go further in the concept of course what you’re doing at YMV Ventures.
But I know this is not a coaching program. But for me, this is some consulting for me. How do I implement more honest optimism in my life? Like how does this and anything any tips you can give me?
I mean, it’s a tough question. I think. I know it’s tough. I’m just, I want it though. I want it. Yeah. You were born with it, but those of us that weren’t born with it, like, how do I, you know, gleam a little bit of that? Yeah, but you know, I didn’t know this is what it was in the beginning. I probably only used the term to define it over the last year and a half, maybe.
Before I got to this point, I think I often, Sometimes found myself almost like a like a happy realist. Like I was just like, you know, I can think I’m Smart, but what is it to actually share with the community? How do I know until yeah, it’s collected around that and So in terms of actually implementing it within your own life.
I think it’s actively just seeking that feedback from your peers To understand where the opportunities are for you to continue to grow and that’s just on a micro level. I think on a macro level that presents itself in like. you know, gaps within your career. Like where do I see a challenge or a problem that I can go out and address?
But once I started thinking that way, that really just kind of carried itself in my life personally and professionally. Well, thank you, coach. That did actually help me a lot. So I’m great on the optimism part, but not always the realist part. So thank you. And there’s some other unbalanced people listening.
So I think you helped a lot of us on that answer. So thank you. Yeah, sure. I mean, even just to put an example to it, like, you know, when anybody in their Job or profession, whatever it is, like, I would hope that the goal is not to just be a cog in a system. It’s to identify, you know, where you can actually bring value to the table.
And, you know, even, when I was at Uber, you know, I was working on the, on the integration of, of TransPlace. And I was like, wait, we have, you know, X amount of potential savings available to us if we, you know, consolidate some of these vendor contracts, you know, and that was something that I had to ask a problem.
I had to actively seek and resolve on my own. And I think that sort of thinking really does enable or just empower you to actually bring, bring value to the people that you work with. Speaking of bringing value let’s go a little, let’s go a little bit further into YMZ Ventures and, how you’re approaching the space.
So maybe, maybe just tell us, start off by telling us a little bit more about the firm. Yeah. So, so like I said, with YMZ Ventures we invest into venture capital and private equity on behalf of first generation immigrant entrepreneurs. We’re, technically a multifamily office, but focus our investments into venture capital predominantly.
And we’ve been actively deploying over the last year and some months, but we officially launched September of of last year. And what, what type of industries are you, are you, are you looking at or focusing on or what can you give us there? Yeah, technically we’re industry agnostic, but the families that we represent, you know, like I said, they’re, they’re entrepreneurs who built fully bootstrap businesses.
And those businesses are predominantly within legacy sectors. I would say like home services, healthcare. Manufacturing and production. You know, those are the things that really excite the folks that we work with especially software innovating within those sectors. But I think at the end of the day, there’s opportunity for for impact in the community that we represent across various sectors.
So I’m trying to kind of slowly inch our way towards some other opportunities as well. A lot of founders, a lot of CEOs that listen to this show, and I’m curious what kind of things you look for, like in businesses that you want to invest in, whether it’s on the financial side or whether it’s even on the founder side, like the people, the management team or otherwise.
Yeah, I guess to separate it, you know, qualitatively versus quantitatively. On the qualitative side, the founders are extremely critical. , I’m not the first person to say that. Everybody has their own scorecard, but I think for us specifically, kind of grit and just like a collective and the team are really important.
So obviously, like I said, we, represent a lot of immigrants. And so, That that sort of grit is something that we experience day to day with the families that we work with and we seek that Founders that we hope to invest in as well And I think it just shows a certain level of resilience and ability to bounce back and pivot and grow the business through challenges And then in terms of team, I kind of, I, like to say that we’re redefining codependency.
So it’s really important to surround yourself with people who, who you want to be more like, or bringing that value to people to go back to what we were discussing earlier. And so understand seeing that the, the team that was built around the business is really representative of kind of that value creation and you know, complementary skill sets is, is also really critical for us.
And then just to speak , to the quantitative side a little bit, I mean, I mentioned to you already, my background is in mergers and acquisitions, so I definitely spend a lot of time understanding the comps within the space, but I will say for YNZ specifically, where our valuations are validated by public markets and president transactions, not fundraising history, which I think is a really critical differentiation as a fund.
Hmm, I think, Redefining Codependency, that sounds like a great book title. That’s great. I’m liking it. Redefining codependency. How to blank, blank, blank, blank, blank. I’ll let you finish that one, but okay. We’ll continue. I like to kind of work this question in especially with your background especially for founders that are considering, you know, taking on VC funds, not considering taking it on like a lot of different ways to, to grow businesses or different, you know, even different accesses to capital.
How would you, how would, how would you. How would you talk to a founder and kind of coach them through whether or not they should be if VC funds are going to be right for them and maybe what would be even the right type of VC partner they should think of, even if it’s not obviously YMV Ventures, if that’s not a good fit, but just in general, like some of the things they should look for.
It’s such an important question, Adam. I think so often folks raise money due to the clout and the excitement that comes with that. But oftentimes Great word. The clout. It’s a great word. Go ahead. Go ahead. I love it. It’s, you know, it’s just, it’s, it’s so possible for folks to build their businesses without raising a single dollar.
Obviously, you know, those are the families I represent. And that’s why I asked you that question, by the way, it’s not a generic question because I’m like, this is interesting. Go ahead, please. Yeah, but I think in terms of like answering that question that she said, you know, what they should look for if they do choose to raise money, I kind of refer to venture investment, like relationships, you know, the same way, the same qualities you might look for in a long term, you know, romantic partner, or even just friendship.
Reliability and, consistency and just investment in what they’re, and, like intentionality, those are all things that I think similarly apply in the venture ecosystem. And it makes sense because oftentimes these are 10 plus year relationships you’re investing in, right? It’s really important that you find, find a complimentary partnership in, in your investors and not just kind of.
And that’s why I don’t get offended if a founder is not interested in me investing in them. Because if we’re not meant to be partners for each other, you know, it’s My value is, is needed elsewhere and it doesn’t have to be needed everywhere. Oh, that’s great. I think I would have said your value is needed elsewhere, it doesn’t need to be needed everywhere.
I love that. Emma, this has been a lot of fun having you on the show. I appreciate you coming on. If somebody’s listening to this or watching this and they want to learn more about YMD Ventures or they want to follow your journey or learn more about Honest Optimism, or Honest Optimist, how do they do that?
How do they connect? I think LinkedIn is definitely the best place. But you can also follow me on, on socials and Instagram and even the Gen She social pages are great to follow. It’s just gen. she, G E N dot S H E. And we share a lot of, a lot of free, actionable resources there as well. Amazing.
And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll put the links in the show notes so you can just click on them and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show.
Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Emma, really appreciate you coming on. This was a lot of fun. Thank you, Adam. I appreciate you.