Riding Tandem

Vivian Kvam (00:01)
Well, hi everyone. Welcome as usual. So glad to have you all here today for a fun conversation. I have with me on the podcast today, Kayleigh Williams. And I've actually only had an opportunity to meet Kayleigh in person once we served on a pitch panel together. And I was intrigued right away with a little side conversation. And Kayleigh, I was like, hey, don't know you well, but you sound intriguing. Will you come on the podcast?

So thank you so much for being here. This is gonna be fun, because I'm gonna learn so much today, I know it.

Kaylee (00:32)
Well, thank you for having me, Vivian. It's a treat to get to be on the podcast with you today.

Vivian Kvam (00:36)
Thanks. Okay. Well, I'm going to give people a little bit of your background that you sent over, but just everyone know, like I'm learning and exploring and building a new friendship here too. So we'll kind of navigate this together, but Kaylee, you had sent over here, and this is the part that I picked up on right away in conversation, that you are a business strategist and you specialize in helping especially early stage startups. And so that of course is where I was like, okay, we for sure need to have more conversation because this sounds intriguing.

But currently, you're the investment director at, is it InnoVenture? Am I saying that correctly? InnoVenture?

Kaylee (01:12)
Correct. InnoVenture like the combination of two words, innovation and venture capital. So InnoVenture.

Vivian Kvam (01:20)
Perfect. And they manage, it's about 30 million, is that right? In co-investment funds, seed, series A. Okay, perfect. Okay, so here's some fun stuff that we're going to dig into and learn more about. But Kayleigh is the founder and president, or was the founder and president. Are you still currently the founder and president of Volunteer Local?

Kaylee (01:26)
Bye-bye. Yep.

So, yeah, co-founder and I was the CEO and president, and I stepped down from that role in 2021. So until pretty recently.

Vivian Kvam (01:48)
Okay, perfect, awesome. And that's a volunteer management software company. Also the head of customer development at Roboflow, which was a computer or is a computer vision startup. That I started digging in on the website. We're gonna put a link to the website because it's intriguing. I'm like, what is this? And then, okay, a couple other things about Kayleigh I want everyone to know is that she, you graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in English.

Kaylee (01:54)
that's right.

Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (02:17)
You're also passionate about the arts, so that's awesome. I am as well. And of course, community service, and then just promoting inclusion and equity, equality in tech, and the recipient of the 2022 Young Alumni Entrepreneurial Leadership Award from the University of Iowa. So congrats on that, that's very cool. There's so many things here that we can explore, so I'm excited for that.

Kaylee (02:38)
Thank you.

Vivian Kvam (02:43)
We're for sure going to dive into just the whole world of startups, venture capital, so many questions there for people for sure. And some stories about your travels and the Appalachian Trail, which I'm very excited to talk about as well because I love camping, hiking, national parks, all those things. Yes. But to start the conversation off with, I would love to have you just share what's been like a personal and professional best that you've had.

Kaylee (03:01)
Awesome.

Vivian Kvam (03:12)
in the recent weeks.

Kaylee (03:13)
Yeah. So.

Professional best, I would say I have been very fortunate to have been the recipient of some terrific mentorship throughout my career. And it has been one of the cool things about this new gig running the Spencer Capital Fund for the state. I've had the opportunity to turn around and support and mentor others. And I always got to do that in my previous role, running Volunteer Local, which was a software company.

individuals and help them figure out what they were good at and why they liked their jobs and just really make sure that they were feeling fulfilled and they were doing their very best work. But I wasn't, I would never, I wouldn't say I was very, very good at it. It took me a while, you know, like all things, right? You're never, you're not a great manager from day one. So it's been, it's been really nice in this role to have gotten the ability to find great talent, get them into the right position here at the fund, and then serve them, empower

Vivian Kvam (03:57)
Hehehe

Kaylee (04:15)
whatever they need to grow and to expand in their roles. So we have a terrific program coordinator here named Safia Lee Evans and she has taken on the entirety of our post-investment portfolio support program and we are just announcing in a couple of days InnoVenture Iowa's very first fellow will be rolling out a fellowship program. Two times a year we're going to bring in a young person who is interested in entrepreneurship or venture capital and they will have the opportunity

and at the end of that experience, we're hopeful we can connect them into the industry in a meaningful way and give them the skills they need to go out there and hit the ground running. So I would say that's been the professional best. On the personal best, you know, I've been doing a bit of travel lately, and I would say probably it's top of mind because I was just there. I was in Sedona this weekend and we hiked.

Vivian Kvam (05:13)
Hmm.

Kaylee (05:13)
up this mountain called, and at the top of it, there's a cave and it's called the birthing cave. And the locals say, if you make it to the top, you're gonna have a baby soon. And my boyfriend jokingly said, did you sprint to the top, Kaylee? And I did make it to the top and it was a difficult hike, but it was a lot of fun.

Vivian Kvam (05:25)
Hahaha

That's cool. I love the hikes, right? Where they have the neat stories like that. My husband and I also like to hike. And we like to find like the local hikes where sometimes they're not marked or they're just lesser known. And we did one in, we did one for, it was called a poet's table. And it's in South Dakota, Black Hills area. And it's a local hike. And like, if you ask the locals, they won't tell you anything.

It's like this big secret. They'll even send you like the wrong direction. But we had a couple clues and we did end up finding it and it was really fun because there's a table out there where a poet used to go, is this story that would go and write. It got vandalized at one point. There's all kinds of great story behind it, but it was a really fun hike because there's that neat story at the end. So, yeah. Yeah.

Kaylee (06:26)
I love that. I wrote that down on the post table. I'll have to go find it.

Vivian Kvam (06:29)
It's a great one if you live, you know, Midwest area because it's not hard to get to when you're central like that. So babies in your future, great, congrats. That's awesome. Okay, so Kayleigh, I wanna dive into some of your background. I for sure wanna talk about just venture capital and what that looks like because there's a lot of questions there. I think it can feel like a huge mystery. But before we get there, I have to ask how...

Kaylee (06:40)
Yeah, fingers crossed.

Vivian Kvam (06:59)
I want to hear your journey from English. You studied English. You have a degree in English and I'm reading through bios and I'm looking on websites and all the things you've done and like tech, tech keeps coming up over and over and over again in your story. So can you kind of just walk us through a little bit of your story? What's your journey been?

Kaylee (07:12)
Yeah.

Sure, well, you know, I never would have thought Vivian that I would end up in tech. I always was interested in startups and entrepreneurship, but...

And I look back now and I see how it kept popping up. Even as a kid, you know, my very first job was dog walking. I put an ad in the newspaper to walk people's dogs. And at one point, I think I had six dogs and I charged them. It was like $20 per walk per dog. So I would group them all together. And one time I lost the Chihuahua and I had to go running after it and all the other dogs were in tow. And anyway, so I think I've always had the entrepreneurial bug, but I wanted to be a writer. So I went to the University of Iowa

Vivian Kvam (07:38)
Oh wow.

Kaylee (07:54)
the city of literature and I was known for the writer's workshop and I thought, yeah, I'll just immerse myself in this culture of writing. I did do a lot of writing and I studied English, of course. I minored in economics, so I had the opportunity to take some business classes. But when I graduated, I needed money. I was a cocktail waitress at a bar called Quinten's in Iowa City, but it wasn't enough to make the rent. I wanted to write for a publication called Silicon Prairie News. I don't know if you ever followed

Vivian Kvam (08:23)
Thank you.

Kaylee (08:24)
or if you remember them, it's a blog today. And they cover the start points.

Vivian Kvam (08:26)
Yeah, yeah, in fact, when they were, we actually did a fair amount of video work and some collaborations with SPN, so compare and yes, yeah.

Kaylee (08:38)
But you did, Council Bluffs, because they covered Omaha, Des Moines, I think St. Louis, and Kansas City. And so, yeah, I thought, well, cool, you know, I will write for Silicon Prairie News. I'll get to talk to founders, you know, and this will be a great gig for me. And I reached out to a gal named Brittany. She worked at SPN at the time. And I said, hey, I just graduated from college. You know, I'm Dewey Eyed and Bushy Tailed. Bring me on. And she was like, cute. We don't have any jobs right now.

Vivian Kvam (08:45)
Mm-hmm.

Kaylee (09:08)
years and then come back to us because she made a good point. She said, if you can, if you can work in a startup for a bit, then you'll have a better perspective. You'll have more empathy in your writing. You'll be a better reporter for us. So I looked around and I was connected to a guy named Brian Hemsack who had developed a company called volunteer local. He had a website for it. Um, and he brought me on as an intern. So I was the first like paid employee at volunteer, part-time internship, uh, you know, 10 hours a week.

Vivian Kvam (09:32)
Nice.

Kaylee (09:38)
The first thing I did was I called the people who were using the free version of the product and I got to know them, tried to understand why they were using the product, what is the problem that this solves. And I fell in love with it. Volunteer Local was the perfect confluence of my love for volunteering and my love for the arts and music festivals and marathons. I'm a runner, so it was great. I got to call up the people who were running and producing 5Ks and understand how to do

they were managing their volunteers. So I remember I think I was like maybe a month from my internship ending and Brian sat me down and he said, Kaylee we're gonna run out of money here's when we run out of money to pay you if you want to stay on.

why don't you try to sell some upgrades? I did, and Brian taught me everything I learned about how to sell a software product. I remember my very first sale was to the Utah Transit Authority for $600. We didn't have a way to take his money, so I wrote down his credit card information on a post-it note and I hung up the phone and Brian was next to me. We high-fived and it was great. I was able to sell enough of the product in that month really to bring myself on full-time.

Vivian Kvam (10:35)
Nice.

Kaylee (10:51)
I don't remember what my salary was, but it was low. It might've been like 32 or 35. But it was like, you know, it was enough. I could keep up with it. I could essentially bankroll myself. Then we sold more of the product. We brought on another hire and then a third hire. And the rest is history. Eventually we were able to hire Brian full-time as our developer. So that we grew the company. It was so much fun. I like to joke, I didn't study business in college, but that was like my business degree. It was nine years building volunteer local.

Vivian Kvam (11:19)
Mm-hmm.

Kaylee (11:21)
CEO and I became a shareholder of the business in I think it was 2017 and I served in that role until 2021. Moved to Chicago, we opened an office there. I was in Raleigh for a hot minute and we just kept expanding our book of business. We gathered clients locally in Iowa and then nationally we had clients from all over the country and then internationally and I had the opportunity to go you know over to Holland and meet with the family who they run the Challenge

which is a really big race that happens over in Amsterdam. So we had clients like that all over the world and it was just it was a really terrific ride. We never raised venture capital however, we bootstrapped the business which means every dollar in.

Vivian Kvam (12:04)
Okay.

Kaylee (12:06)
was the only dollar that could come back out. And I regret that to this day. I wish we had raised venture capital. It's part of the reason I took this job, running in a venture Iowa, because I'll be honest with you, Vivian, I was too intimidated by the process of raising venture capital to ever do it. And at one point, I think Brian handed me the book, "'Venture Deals' by Brad Feld." And he's like, read this, maybe it'll make you change your mind and you'll wanna raise capital. And I never read it, it was too dry. And I was busy, when you're bootstrapping your company,

Vivian Kvam (12:20)
Mm-hmm.

Kaylee (12:35)
have a ton of time, you're working hard, boots on the ground trying to sell enough of your product to keep everyone paid. So I regret not raising capital. I think it could have been a different story had we had we raised venture capital at that time. I left in 2021. So we got the company through the pandemic. It was a really tough year. You can imagine volunteer software company, most of our clients were events. And so when 2020 hit, the pandemic happened, you know, a lot of those events canceled. Many of those folks wanted their money back if

Vivian Kvam (12:58)
Mm.

Kaylee (13:06)
course. We made it through that year. And then in early 2021, I got recruited to join an AI company called RoboFlo. And the co-founder of RoboFlo was also a co-founder with me at Volunteer Local. His name was Brad Dwyer. And so, yep, so he said, Kaylee, come on over. And it was time. It was time. I think Volunteer Local had, the company was ready to grow beyond my interest or capacity to continue to build it. So we named Brian, Hemisath CEO.

Vivian Kvam (13:20)
interesting.

Kaylee (13:35)
And I hopped over to RoboFlow and I helped them build up their first year book of business as their head of customer development. At that point, I just loved sales. I was like a pig in mud. So I got to learn about computer vision. I got to meet with all these incredible enterprise clients who wanted to apply computer vision strategically to their workflows. I helped them figure out how to do that. We packaged up RoboFlow, created quotes, we sold the product, and they went on to raise their Series A round of capital.

2020, 2021, I think. Might've been 2022, but I think it was 2021. Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (14:05)
Mm-hmm.

Kaylee (14:12)
And that was a $20 million series A round led by Kraft Ventures. And, uh, and then, so we, they closed the round. Um, and when they did that, it really was not long after it might've been two weeks after, I mean, I was working so hard. It was an amazing ride, but I was so burnt out, Vivian. I just closed the round and I, I closed my laptop and I got rid of my smartphone. And I said to Brian and Joseph, the co-founders of Robo flow, I said, you know, respectfully, I've got to step back and they were, they were wonderful. They, they treat.

Vivian Kvam (14:28)
Mm-hmm.

Kaylee (14:42)
me so well. They helped me to kind of off board over the course of the next month and then I took a left turn and I went and I hiked part of the Appalachian Trail. I took a whole year off. I call it my year of rest and relaxation. I spent a lot of time journaling and practicing my guitar. I lived with my best friend Megan. You know, it's just, it was nice and I was very lucky and privileged to be able to do it, to take that time off. I did a little contract work on the side but nothing too crazy. And then when I was ready to jump back into the workforce, like I said, I

I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to help other people build their own startups, and venture capital is a great way to do that.

Vivian Kvam (15:19)
This is like, I feel like so many conversations I have, which is what I love about this podcast, all these different conversations, a common thread that comes up so often is I basically fell into this, right? Like I started down a path and then this opened up and then this opened up and then this opened up. And then when you look back at the chain of events, you go, whoa, I went from wanting to be a writer,

who now uses many of those skills, but just that path and how things change and how we just can't imagine, right? And how, I mean, so often people say, I didn't start out to do this, and now here I am, which I think is just fun and exciting. Okay, I wanna go back a little bit. I'm sorry, I was jotting down questions as we went, for sure. So one of the questions I do have is just like, when you think about your experience with Volunteer Local,

how that did shape your approach to business now. And you mentioned already, wishing that you had raised capital. Talk to me a little bit more about that. You said in your comment was something to the effect of, like you think things could have been different. What do you mean by that? Like when people are thinking about venture capital or not, paint a picture of the difference when you don't use it or pursue it and when you do and what the possibilities can be.

Kaylee (16:32)
Mm-hmm.

Start.

Absolutely, and there are great benefits to bootstrapping. So if and when you can bootstrap a startup, there's nothing wrong with doing it that way. Bootstrapping allows you to retain your ownership of the business. You are not beholden to a group of investors who may or may not understand your company as well as you do or your customers as well as you do. So there are many benefits to bootstrapping. And I'll tell founders even today in my current role as an investor, have you considered bootstrapping because that is a path forward

Vivian Kvam (17:01)
Mm-hmm.

Kaylee (17:12)
and have to report back to me every quarter, every year, and all your investors to say, here's how things are going, and here's what we need to do to get to profitability. It just creates a layer, I think, and architecture above the founder that isn't always helpful and isn't always healthy. In many cases, it's fine, but sometimes it's not. So what could have been different with Volunteer Local? We were, this is, it's fun to think about now. So if you zoom back with me in time to 2012,

at Volunteer Local. We were a volunteer scheduling software company. There really weren't a lot of those on the internet. Now today there's a whole bunch of competitors who are in that space. They're doing great things, but we were kind of a first mover. We liked to joke that our biggest competitor was a spreadsheet. Volunteer coordinators were using spreadsheets to manage all the jobs they needed filled, all the shift times that they had available, and they would literally copy and paste names into a spreadsheet. And as you can imagine, Vivian, it was a horrible job.

Vivian Kvam (18:11)
Right. Yes.

Kaylee (18:13)
You lose your implementation. It was just crazy, crazy stressful and difficult. And sometimes you're managing hundreds, thousands of volunteers and it just is insane without technology. I don't know how they ever did it. So we were a first mover in the space. And we did a couple of things that were really innovative. The first thing we did, we rolled out a check in and check out kiosk, as well as a mobile app that would track time in time out and then log the hours. That was a pretty big deal at the time. Not a lot of companies did that.

also developed a novel sales team. I called them the demo team. And they were distributed remote before the pandemic. So we started this team in 2017. And essentially what we did was we hired people from all backgrounds, all walks of life. And we taught them, we trained them how to give a demo of volunteer local to software. And then folks who were interested in buying our product could click to schedule a demo. And Brian Hemsoth, our developer, built out this really cool mechanism

where when someone were to request a demo at a specific time, it would buzz all the demo team members' phones from all over the country. And just like Uber, whoever claimed the demo first got it, we paid the demo team members 50 bucks per demo. Win or lose, we're going to compensate you for your time. So they could open up a laptop in a coffee shop. They could open it in a co-work. They could open it at home. And they could give this prospect a demo of the product. And we trained them on how to listen, how to ask the right questions. We were really focused on solution selling.

So this was not a cookie cutter read from a script. This was build a relationship, get to know the person on the other end of the line, understand why they reached out and where their pain is, and then draw a line from that pain point to the solution within our product that is helpful for them in moving the needle for them. So they had a terrific conversion rate. I want to say it was between 20% and 50% conversion rates, month to month. Yeah. And then we would pay the demo team member a 10% commission.

Vivian Kvam (20:05)
That's right.

Kaylee (20:12)
for the demo. So at any given time, I mean, I think I was having coffee with Brian at one point at scenic route here in Des Moines. And I looked down at my clock, it was 104 PM. And I think I said to him, Oh, wow, there's four people giving a demo right now. And it was so it was cool because, you know, the bottleneck for our growth was always the people that we had available to actually give these demos to prospects who wanted to learn more about the product. So we had this incredible demo

They were remote again. They were distributed. They could dial up they could dial down their hours depending on how much they wanted to work and how much money they wanted to make and And we would do these really fun competitions every month with them where we would challenge them to learn new things about how to sell the product You know I think I think that between those two between the technology itself and the products that we were able to deliver in large part mostly if not all because of Brian and his ability to write that code and get it out there to ship it and

and the novel way in which we built our company, the inclusive way in which we built our company. I think that Volunteer Local, with some venture capital funding, could have really exploded. Now the company is still doing great. I don't want to undermine in any way the growth that we were able to see and the growth that Brian has been able to accomplish in the last few years as the CEO at the helm. So the company's doing wonderful, but I think if we had raised venture capital, it would have just been a different story and it would have been a lot of fun to learn about that at that age. I'm enjoying learning about it now

It's not so scary once you get right down into it.

Vivian Kvam (21:45)
That is okay. So the scary part, right? What is it as you talk with different startups out there and they're exploring this, what is, what is it that they're saying is so scary? Like what are the most common misconceptions and hesitations and

Kaylee (21:58)
Beth, no.

It's a few things and there's merit. By the way, I think all the concerns are valid, but a couple of them are particularly, there's a lot of merit there. So one is the financial component.

It's kind of like learning a new language when you go to raise venture capital. You have to learn about the different mechanisms that you can use to raise that money. So you can raise on a convertible note, you can raise on a safe, you can raise in a priced round. You have to know who the potential investors are, what is a lead investor, who is a co-investor, what does it mean to follow? There's just certain, should you give a board seat, should you not give a board seat? So I think part of it is the financial part of this.

is learning that new language and feeling comfortable and competent in those rooms and understanding. The other part, and I think both of these are really valid again, the other part is ownership and control. You know, when you raise venture capital, you are giving, you are selling a percentage of your company to sometimes perfect strangers who want to participate in the upside when and if you have some major liquidation event. So if you're

Vivian Kvam (22:56)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Kaylee (23:14)
on behalf of InnoVenture Iowa, we're hoping that you have an IPO or you get acquired or maybe you merge with a competitor and we get bought out and we make our money back plus a multiplier. And so there are certain things that can happen when you bring on investors where they may push you in a direction of sell, get to profitability, top line revenue growth at all costs. They could push you as the leader of that organization to maybe build

in a way that maybe isn't always aligned with what your customers need or what you feel the company should be or could be. So control is the other thing that I think is a factor, a mitigating factor in why folks don't, they're not always enthusiastic about raising venture capital and I think there's merit in both.

Vivian Kvam (23:51)
Sure.

How do you help people figure out if they're a right fit? And on top of that, what resources are there to become more educated and understand the vernacular and the vocabulary and kind of like the social norms, right, of venture capital world?

Kaylee (24:21)
Thank you.

So I got this from my friend Andrew Kerbalani, who's formerly the CTO, but co-founder of War Count, another successful high growth startup company that came out of Des Moines. So he likes to say there is strategic investors and there are non-strategic investors. He says it in a slightly different way. He says you can have smart money that knows it's smart, and then you can have dumb money that thinks it's smart, and then you can have dumb money that knows it's dumb.

Vivian Kvam (24:50)
Fair enough.

Kaylee (24:51)
Yeah, I like to think about InnoVenture Iowa. So just to kind of put this in context of maybe like a grid, if you want to think of it this way, InnoVenture Iowa, I would consider to be a non-strategic investor for most of the companies that we invest in. And I'll tell you why. We are not positioning our fund as having domain expertise in a unique vertical or industry that can propel a specific type of founder forward. That does not mean that our money is not helpful.

shouldn't be on the cap table if a founder wants to include in a venture Iowa and they're around, it just means that we're not strategic. You know, we're not we don't specifically focus on transportation and logistics or retail fashion or, you know, event software. That's just not that's really not our expertise. We're kind of a our fund is a bit of a jack of all trades. We're slightly industry agnostic in the sense that we'll invest in most startups as long as they're based in Iowa and they're high growth and they have some

Vivian Kvam (25:33)
Hmm.

Kaylee (25:52)
But when I talk to founders and I'm trying to help them understand if they should raise capital or who they should raise from, I tell them to think about it in the terms that Andrew Cipollani laid out for me, which is, is the money strategic or is it not strategic? Is the money smart or is it dumb? And you could say, is it emotional money or is it smart money? And those are different things. And they're not necessarily bad. Emotional money isn't bad. Dumb money is not bad.

Vivian Kvam (26:15)
Mm-hmm.

Kaylee (26:21)
not bad. So I try to help founders think about where are they getting the money from? Can that investor be strategic to them in their growth? And if not, is that okay? Or is it not okay? Will it hold them back? And at the end of the day, what do they want to do with that money that they believe will help them in a significant, measurable way? So you don't want to raise venture capital and give up part of your business just to keep the lights on and to keep doing things the way you've always done them. That's not why you give up your company, part of your company.

You raise venture capital because you've stumbled upon some something that can either speed you up and help you go a lot faster from point A to point B or is just you know innovative really a Cataclysmic product or feature that you've developed something new that you believe will help you to achieve That hockey stick growth so I you know a lot of whether or not to raise venture capital I think it really comes down to that soul searching that founders have to do to decide

Am I willing to give up a part of my business for this? And what is this? What will this do for me?

Vivian Kvam (27:28)
I think that makes a lot of sense. And I love how you present it in a way that is non-judgmental, right? Of it's not for everyone. And I love too how you talk about, like there are the pros and cons of bootstrapping. Having bootstrapped businesses, myself, there for sure are some wonderful things about not having to answer to anyone. On the flip side,

Kaylee (27:36)
Okay.

Vivian Kvam (27:55)
I think about that answering to someone, sometimes those people can also be really great mentors as well, right? I think it depends on what that relationship is and what that fit is because I've certainly seen that modeled with various friends, businesses who have pursued capital and in a way, some of them have had some really great built-in mentors then because of that. Others it has not gone that way, you know, so it is really I think making the best choice for you, for your personality.

And of course, considering, you know, like in our situation, you know, do you have, if you have a business partner, like is it going to be a good fit for the business as a whole, right? Really important to think about for sure. What do you recommend for people who, I know you mentioned a book and you're like, I never read the book. But are there, what resources do you recommend for somebody who's like, I don't know half of the words you just said, right? They sit there and they go, there's all the, the...

Kaylee (28:43)
Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (28:54)
Jargon if you will where do people start do they just start watching some shark tank or like what's step one here, right?

Kaylee (29:03)
So read the book. It's called Venture Deals. It's written by Brad Feld and there's like four other authors on it now.

And there's new versions of it that come out maybe every one or two years. So it's like a textbook in that sense, which I think is great because the information is up to date and here's what I did because when I interviewed for this job, I, you know, I'm the investment director of InnoVenture Iowa, a $30 million fund. This is the state of Iowa's first public venture capital fund. So, you know, I kind of went into the interview thinking to myself like, Oh my gosh, I am so not qualified for this job. And at the same time, I'm so motivated to get this job.

I want to learn this. And so, and that's how I kind of pitched myself when I went in for the interview. I said, look, if you hire me, you're hiring someone who doesn't have a lot of experience in venture capital. But

Vivian Kvam (29:39)
Hehehe

Kaylee (29:50)
your betting on my ability to learn and be adaptable and coachable. So what I did to demonstrate that, I read Venture Deals, the book before my second or maybe my third interview. Then what I did was I wrote all the words I didn't know on flashcards with the definitions on the back and I studied just like a test. It feels silly to do that as an adult, but I'll tell you what, it makes a big difference. It helps retain things to memory and it is important to

Vivian Kvam (30:11)
Mm-hmm.

Kaylee (30:20)
and what is a liquidation preference?

What is the difference between a safe, a convertible note and a price round? What does it mean to evaluate a business? How do you evaluate a business? I'll tell a funny story. So like I said, I've been very lucky to have incredible mentors throughout my career. I would consider Joseph Nelson, who's the CEO of Roboflow, to be one of those mentors. He helped me prepare for my final interview for this job to be the director of InnoVenture Iowa. I was really struggling with

How do you evaluate a business? And I said, Joseph, what if they give me a business and they say, evaluate it, or they give me a business and then they tell me the valuation of it and they say, is this a good valuation or a bad one? What do you think? And he was great because he wouldn't tell me the answer. He just said, figure it out. Come back to me, let's have a meeting tomorrow. Spend the rest of today and tonight, figure it out. Valuate the business, you do it. And then come back to me and tell me why you evaluate it.

Vivian Kvam (30:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kaylee (31:22)
it like this. And I remember I was like mad at him and I was frustrated. And I finally just went online and I found some calculator and I did the math and I came back to him and I was like, here's the valuation. I think this business is worth $4 million. And he was like, why? And I told him why. And he went, great, then it's worth 4 million. Welcome to being a VC. You get to do it. It's up to you. If you can defend your position and you can explain why you believe that's the case, but you're open to having a conversation.

Vivian Kvam (31:43)
Hahaha!

Kaylee (31:52)
around it that's what it is that's what this is and so it's a lot more I would say it's not all hard math it's not all set in stone there's a lot of fluidity to venture capital but the best way to learn the ropes is to study it like a test start with venture deals and then another good book I would recommend is the secrets of Sandhill Road Joseph had me read that one

Vivian Kvam (32:00)
Uh huh.

Kaylee (32:15)
I'm trying to think if there are other resources, you know, there's some great podcasts out there that you can follow. Shark Tank, sure. I don't know if Shark Tank is really all that helpful, but it's sure entertaining. And I think they interviewed Mark Cuban on the, the post, the Washington post. Uh, podcast. And so he talked a little bit about how he makes his deals. And I, so it's interesting. You'll get a lot of different perspectives, but that's, I think one of the beautiful things about venture capital is it's sort of, it's one of those industries that is so unique to the people who are currently.

Vivian Kvam (32:23)
It is.

Have fun!

Kaylee (32:45)
in the role.

Vivian Kvam (32:46)
I love that and I like your idea of studying it like a test. I'm like, yes, flashcards, that's so me. It might be on sticky notes for me just because I have this thing with sticky notes, but I do love that because I also think there's some danger, especially because venture capital world can feel very entertaining, right? It has sort of a sexy appeal to it. It's very entertaining, hence the shark tanks, et cetera. And I think there can be a lot of,

I don't know if maybe misinformation is not the right term, but pieces of information, right? That out of context, when you don't have a clear picture and you can't kind of string together all the different options. And I think specifically of TikTok, right? Where there's a lot of information out there, but you get like this tiny little piece and then you're like, okay, I get it now, or I'm an expert at this, or this is the way I'm gonna take my business. And I do think it's important to...

Kaylee (33:37)
Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (33:46)
You can't always be the complete expert on all things, but I think having a holistic picture is really helpful, especially with something as big as a decision like that.

Kaylee (33:55)
Definitely, and like any chapter in your career, my best advice is to find one or two mentors who you can go to and meet with regularly to talk about what you don't understand and what you need help with. And that's so, so important. And it's okay to have mentor churn. I found being the CEO of a software company required a completely different bench of mentors than running a $30 million venture capital fund.

Vivian Kvam (34:11)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

Kaylee (34:25)
to have to kind of clean house and find new mentors as you as you progress through your career because you're going to need different things at different times.

Vivian Kvam (34:33)
I love that, so important. And definitely something I know we've talked a lot about on the podcast, and I've brought up from my own experience that I'm not formally trained in how to run a business or be an entrepreneur, and it's been learned, and in large part by being willing to say, excuse me, what does that mean? I don't know, can you explain? Can I have a side conversation with you? Can I show you some of my work? And not being afraid to do that.

Um, because I think sometimes it can feel, it can feel vulnerable, right? To say, I'm not sure, I don't know. And it's okay. I think, I mean, not everybody started out of the womb, understanding all of these things.

Kaylee (35:16)
Thanks for watching!

You know, I have, and it's important to note, so in my role, I have no fiduciary responsibility over the 30 million. My job is to meet with founders, do diligence, follow great lead investors, and present investment opportunities to a committee of folks who vote yes or no. And we have to have a super majority yes in order for an investment to go through. So we've invested in 15 companies so far at InnoVenture Iowa. And I'm just now, I'm a little over a year.

and a half into the role. And I'm just now starting to get comfortable going to my committee and saying, here's a company that I've met with. They are a biotech startup in pharmaceuticals. Here's what I understand. Here's what I don't understand. I'm not entirely sure if this is a good investment. What do you think? And that has been a nice, I think it's been a really nice breakthrough for my committee that I'm not trying to have all the answers. And it's been a really good thing for the founders because now I'm engaging the expertise

Vivian Kvam (36:03)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Kaylee (36:19)
and the decades of experience that I have available to me on the committee of InnoVenture Iowa to essentially help me bring to them good recommendations for investment opportunities. And so, but you have to kind of get over that. I'm not, I don't always have the answers. I don't always know if it's good or bad. And it's okay to just come forward and say, I'm not entirely sure about this one. What do you think? It's been a good.

Vivian Kvam (36:43)
Yeah, I think that's great. And I love too that then you can lean into the expertise of those around you.

Kaylee (36:50)
Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (36:52)
I'm going to do a total switch here because you spoke pretty candidly earlier about, you mentioned about dealing with some burnout where you in a different way were vulnerable, right? And said, this was great. We've had a hard run, but it's been a hard run and you closed your laptop. I loved that. You're like, and we closed, we closed and I closed my laptop and got rid of technology. So this happens so often, right?

Kaylee (37:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, yep.

Vivian Kvam (37:17)
where you're just running hard at a dream and you are realizing goals. And it's not always that things are going poorly that burnout happens. It can happen even when things are going really well, right? Do you mind just talking about that a little bit? Like what came up for you? What made you decide that it was okay to just kind of shut the door on some things to take some space and time? And what did you learn out of that experience?

Kaylee (37:30)
Yeah.

Yeah. And thank you for asking. I'm so happy to talk about it. I'm far enough away from the experience of it that I've been able. I've gotten more perspective as time has gone on. So I'm almost, I've talked about it a few times before now, but I feel like I have more to say now that I've gotten some distance and some time between that experience and where I am today. So, you know, and it's, I'm glad you mentioned that burnout can happen when things are going well by, because by all measures, what I was doing at RoboFlo was the perfect job.

doing a good job. You know, one of the hardest conversations I've ever had with Brad and Joseph at Roboflow was the day that I told them I needed to quit. And it was just, we were all so sad because it was like a great fit. And I was doing really good work and we had built the team. We were closing deals right and left. We were figuring things out. We were hypothesizing. We were testing and then validating and then changing and iterating. And it just, it was moving fast.

everything I wanted and I remember telling Joseph, this is my dream job, I don't know why I'm so miserable. And like I said, in the end, they were so gracious, they really let me go and they set me up for success in a lot of ways and I ultimately, during my year of rest and relaxation, ended up contracting with Roboflow in a capacity that felt healthy and comfortable for me that wasn't too much and they were so flexible with that and letting me work two hours here, two hours there,

Vivian Kvam (38:50)
Hmm.

Kaylee (39:16)
employee onboarding, what have you. So I've been so, so fortunate, but I would say for me, one thing that I've learned from that experience, now not being in it, but knowing I could get back there at any point, is to recognize the signs of burnout when you start to feel them in your life. And for me, those signs were working way too many hours, not making time for personal life,

Vivian Kvam (39:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Kaylee (39:46)
my money on ordering DoorDash, you know, just not taking care of myself generally, not getting outside. I think part of the reason that I wanted to hike on the Appalachian Trail, which I've never done before, and certainly I've never, I'd never backpacked before. I just wanted to be outside. I wanted to feel alive. I felt like I had just spent a decade of my life behind a screen. And I had wrapped up so much of my personal, my personality.

Vivian Kvam (39:48)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kaylee (40:16)
and I had wrapped up my merit and my sense of self-worth in, you know, I'm Kaylee and I'm the CEO of Volunteer Local. I'm Kaylee and I'm the head of customer development at RoboFlo. I'm Kaylee. I am my job. This is what I bring to the table. Love me, appreciate me, this is who I am, and I think I was neglecting all the things that make me that have nothing to do with what I do from nine to five. And so I think like the big takeaway

the big aha moment for me was learning to recognize when burnout is beginning to happen and then coming up with strategies to mitigate the behaviors that lead to burnout. So for me, it's going to be four o'clock here soon. I'm going to wrap up my workday at five like I do every day. And I have a really hard boundary around the weekend. I just don't work on the weekends. I mean, maybe once or twice in the last year, I've made the exception because sometimes I have to. You can't be so rigid, right?

me getting back into running, I love to hike now. It's funny because I'm dating a mailman. So he jokes that he hikes. He'll never go hiking with me. He's like, I totally over it. But for me, these are the things that help me to not go down that path again. But I know when I start going down that path, and I try to have a lot of patience and a lot of grace for myself when I do, to just see it, recognize it, and be like, OK, I'm going to pull back. I'm going to take a vacation.

Vivian Kvam (41:22)
I'm gonna go get some water.

Bye.

Mm-hmm.

Kaylee (41:46)
I'm going to tell my team I'm overwhelmed. That's been a big one for me too. I've now always been great about asking for help. So I've a couple of times I have literally said the words, I need help right now. And I never did that at Roboflow. I never said I'm overwhelmed or I feel too much pressure. I never did those things. Even when I was told that they wanted to know that I still couldn't find a way to, to say the words. And so that, that experience was really hard and I almost don't recognize the person that I was.

when I left that job at Roboflo and I bought my backpacking gear and I went and I hiked on the Appalachian Trail but I honor that person and I know that person is still me and I could still be there again someday and if I am then I I've done it before and I know I can get out of it again so sorry that was a little bit meandering yeah

Vivian Kvam (42:35)
Oh, it's great. No, I love it. I'm like, okay, there's the gold, right? Because I think everybody can relate to those periods in their life and maybe are in that period right now, can feel themselves sliding into that, that period as well of life. And I definitely have found it to be very seasonal in my own life where even within a, in a like a seasonal year of winter, spring, summer, fall.

Kaylee (42:47)
Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (43:04)
I can feel at times where I'm like, okay, I think I'm headed into one of those cycles again, let alone entire periods of life where it's years on end. And that those warning signs, how easily we can push those down because they can start as such a small thing. And that is one of the things I loved in just kind of a pre-conversation, we had here virtually back forth through questionnaires and whatnot, but.

Um, one of the big things for me is how little things add up to big things, right? And sometimes we're looking for those big milestone moments or milestones or a big client, you know, to close, et cetera. But gosh, how often do we find ourselves where I'll just skip the walk this time. I'll just skip it. Well, just skip it this time for the client thing. Just this once. Well, maybe I'll just skip it this week.

Kaylee (43:40)
Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (44:02)
to get this done and then you're three months later and you're like, gosh, I haven't gone on a walk and I can't even remember when. And how those little things add up. And so true the other way, right? Of a 10 minute walk, if that's what you can get in every day just adds up so quickly. And so I love that, I love you talking about that. I think it's so important.

Kaylee (44:08)
Yeah.

Yeah. And let me just say too, that is so true. I believe, I believe that how you do the little stuff is how you do the big stuff. So don't discount the little stuff. That little 10 minute walk every day can make a big difference. Would have probably made a big difference for me had I just started to do the little things day in and day out. I might not have needed to leave that job at Roboflow. But I will say when I hiked on the Appalachian Trail, and this is kind of my personality, I thought I would have some big epiphany.

Vivian Kvam (44:44)
Hmm.

Kaylee (44:53)
I thought like, oh, I'm going to buy all this equipment and I'm going to go and I'm going to backpack through the trail and I'm going to go by myself. And, you know, there was just a lot of questionable decisions were made in that window there. And I, you know, I certainly don't regret the experience or anything like that, but I want to be very forthright and candid in saying, I didn't have some big epiphany. You know, I think we set ourselves up sometimes for that big thing, that big reveal, like you're talking about, oh, the big client is going to save the day.

Vivian Kvam (44:53)
Right.

Kaylee (45:23)
It's gonna learn me and I'm gonna be a better person coming out of it a different person even I don't and maybe I wanted To be a different person maybe I was trying to hike my way out of some weird psyche that I had fallen into but I finished I came home and Nothing was different and I was not different and I think that that's really important to say because it was a great experience I'm really glad I did it, but it took it actually took a year of me Consistently doing the little things I started going to the Y

I mean, I would do yoga there like three days a week. Sometimes I went to the Y twice a day and one of my friends joked with me. She was like, are you retired?

Vivian Kvam (46:00)
Haha

Kaylee (46:02)
But I just like, I had to just be consistent. We had a Friday bike ride that we would all take at like 630 or 7 in the morning. And we'd ride and we'd get breakfast and we'd come all the way back into Des Moines and just sticking with it, sticking with those things day in and day out, week in and week out. And it took me a year to really build up that, that like, steel to remind myself and to be, to identify outside of my career. And so I think it just is going to take time.

You can't rush the process of getting out of burnout. And unfortunately, the process of getting to burnout can be really slippery and it can be fast. So it's just not fair, but it's just the way that life is. You can fall fast and then to get back out of it, it's gonna be a bit of a road, but keep doing the little stuff day in and day out. Be consistent.

Vivian Kvam (46:41)
Yes.

Yeah, and gosh, I am even like, this is just so good for me right now because I committed a couple months ago to you mentioned yoga. So I go on Fridays, we do a four day work week. So I'm like, okay, Fridays, I can make work. And I did a decent job of making that work, but I gave it up a number of times last year, even though I was like, okay, this is, you know, this day. Well, I was like, okay, I'm gonna do something really brave. I'm going on Tuesdays as well.

Kaylee (47:06)
Perfect.

Uh-huh.

Vivian Kvam (47:21)
And it felt like this, like, oh my gosh, how could I possibly, like, Tuesdays are a busy day. It's nine to 10. I'm going to roll into, like, work by, you know, 11. The day's half over. I'm an early riser, so 10 a.m. is kind of like the day's half over for me. So it felt like a really scary thing to do. And now that I think it's really actually quite small, you know, but it's a small thing that's adding up. And I have...

Kaylee (47:25)
Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

Vivian Kvam (47:48)
I have yet to regret it. So, and we're very busy and there's a lot going on and I certainly could use that time, you know, in other ways. And yet it has made for sure the time that I have much more quality. So I'm sticking with it and now I've said it on the podcast, which means I am now held accountable. So that's great. This is so good. I feel like I really want to ask like a million more questions for sure, but for the sake of time.

Kaylee (47:51)
Yeah.

Hold you to it.

Vivian Kvam (48:18)
I am just going to kind of ask maybe kind of a broad question here. As you're thinking about just all the experiences you've had, how you've transitioned through so many different, like exciting things, but then also having some lows and some highs, what would you say are some just key pieces of advice that you like to give to people who are starting a business? They're just getting started.

Kaylee (48:42)
Yeah, great mentor of mine, Cherise Flynn, the co-founder and COO of the Hummingbirds. She said to me early on when we had just started, really scaling at Volunteer Local, I was worried about all this stuff. And she said, Kaylee, sales.

cash in the door solves almost all of these problems. And she was right. So if you're just starting a business, I would encourage you to focus on sales. Whether or not you raise venture capital. You know, I think sometimes founders get into the trap of they'll raise a half a million or a million and then they're not focused on sales because you can kind of burn through that cash very slowly and you know, you don't really need to, it's not the urgency, you don't feel that fire. Don't lose that fire because closing deals ultimately is you are demonstrating that you are serving

Vivian Kvam (49:01)
Thank you.

Kaylee (49:30)
that you have product market fit. And your customers are gonna give you feedback to help you make your product or your solution even better. So the more customers you get, the more feedback you get, the better your product gets, the more you grow, the more people you can hire, the more brains you can bring to the table to help you solve problems more strategically. And so it just sort of begets more and more and more. So focus on top line revenue, focus on sales, getting those customers in the door and keeping them. And then the second thing I would encourage you

remember if you're just starting out and you're building a business is that everything is a funnel. So if you kind of back into let's say that you want to close $100,000 in sales in your first year, you want to back into down to the day, day by day, how many people do I need to cold call cold email? So what are the stages of your sales process? Maybe you do a call, your first call to get to know the person and then maybe you have a call where you show them the product or they get a trial run or

with it, they get a trial account or something, right? It doesn't have to be a software company, it can be a physical thing. You ship them a version of it that they can kind of play with and then at some point you have the ask, right? You send them a quote or you work together on a proposal for a price and then they either buy or they don't buy. And of course we know that there are people who will ghost and they'll sit on that sales board for a while and eventually you'll want to move them into maybe a virtual parking lot or a place where you can kind of hold, keep them in a holding tank until they're ready to make a decision but.

All of that is a funnel. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and every stage of that process has a conversion rate. So if you can start by mapping out what are the stages of my funnel, and then if you think about what those conversion rates are, you back into if I need 100 customers to get to 100,000 revenue, I need to cold call 10 people every day for the next 90 days in order to have enough explore calls and then enough people in a trial period that I can actually close that revenue.

So you want to think about everything as a funnel and you want to stay focused on sales, especially in the early days. Listen to your customers. Build in step with your customers.

Vivian Kvam (51:37)
I love that and anyone who's hung around me at all, whether here or podcast-alized knows that like, one of my big things I talk about all the time is like, it's numbers in the end, like it really is. And that's not to discount the human and feeling and emotion side of life that is for sure there. But also end of the day, like you need a certain number of nos to get to a certain number of yeses. And if you know that number, it makes it way less scary.

Kaylee (51:55)
Yep. Yeah.

Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (52:07)
to go out and get the nose, you know? And so, yeah, I love that. So you just made my heart very happy bringing up. Once again.

Kaylee (52:11)
Thank you.

I'm glad it resonated. Yeah, and I hope it resonates with more people. It's, you know, building for your customers is one of the most fulfilling parts, I think, of having a business, is that you actually are solving a real problem for people.

Vivian Kvam (52:27)
Yes, and that feedback is so huge, right? We just had a team meeting today for one of the services we offer, which is a social content creation, and we have a small team that does that for businesses. And one of the things, one of my favorite parts of the meeting is where they bring up something awesome that's going on within their clients' lives and businesses, because that's the whole point, right? That's why we're solving that problem for them. So it's one of my favorite parts of the meeting, when they bring those things up.

Kaylee (52:57)
terrific. Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (52:57)
Very cool, yeah. All right, my friend, well, as we're wrapping up here, I like to ask a couple of just fun, sort of rapid fire questions. Totally stole this from Brene Brown. Really like listening to her podcast. I was like, oh my gosh, this is so fun. So, whatever answers you have, as short or as long as you like, there is zero pressure, okay? Okay.

Kaylee (53:07)
All right.

So great. Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (53:24)
First question for you is, what do you feel like is the biggest misconception about owning a business?

Kaylee (53:30)
Hmm... that is sexy.

Vivian Kvam (53:34)
Yes.

Kaylee (53:36)
It's unglamorous. It's the Red Bull at midnight because you're replying to emails from customers So that they don't have to wait more than 24 hours to hear from you

Vivian Kvam (53:44)
That's right, the 24 hours, it's gotta be in the 24 hours. I love it. What would you tell your 18 year old self knowing what you know now?

Kaylee (53:48)
That was great.

Oh, that's a heavy one. I would tell her, I would tell her go easy on yourself. Yeah, like I wouldn't do anything different. I would make all the same mistakes all over again. I would love the wrong people. I would take, you know, take the wrong customer on. I would do everything all over again. I would break my foot again, but I would say just go a little easier on yourself.

Vivian Kvam (54:03)
You know.

Mm-hmm.

Break your foot again.

Kaylee (54:29)
Yeah, well, it wasn't my, I mean, I accidentally broke my foot, but I did break my foot.

Vivian Kvam (54:33)
I'm like, man, I think I would skip that one.

Kaylee (54:37)
Well, you know, it builds character.

Vivian Kvam (54:39)
Yes, it's true. That is funny because I broke my tibia bone and it was a pivotal, pivotal moment in life. I learned so much about myself just by being on crutches and it was a side story. We'll have another episode about that sometime. What broken bones teach you about life? It's great. Yeah, it's great. One thing I will tell you is it's very hard to eat a bowl of anything when you're on crutches trying to get out of the kitchen and you live a little bit.

Kaylee (54:48)
Yeah.

That's right.

Vivian Kvam (55:09)
It's difficult. I ate a lot of my meals on the counter, so.

Kaylee (55:13)
I just saw that. I had like a mental image of that. Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (55:15)
Yeah, you don't think of those things. Speaking of, what is your favorite kickback and relaxed beverage?

Kaylee (55:23)
Uh, La Croix for sure. I'm, I'm into the bubbly water. I would do it. Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (55:26)
Yes, we are here too. Well, it's like always stocked up. Michaela has her flavor she likes. I have my flavors I like. It's great. Is there a song or book or podcast that's just really inspiring you right now?

Kaylee (55:35)
Yeah.

Ooh.

Uh, okay. So for entertainment purposes, I really like a podcast called scam fluencers. It's the, it's really the hosts of it that are really funny. And I feel like they're my best friends. And so I really liked that one. Um, but as far as inspiring, uh, there was a great book that I read that inspired me about leadership called multipliers and the concept of it is something that I have experienced through the terrific mentorship that I've gotten to receive throughout my career that I've talked about.

Vivian Kvam (55:50)
Okay.

Kaylee (56:14)
The concept of it is the best leaders are actually multipliers. They create, they lift up and they create more leaders who then turn around and mentor others. And so I think that one was really inspiring for me.

Vivian Kvam (56:28)
I love that. I wrote it down because I was like, that sounds great. I meet with a mentor about leadership specifically. And so he has asked me in the past, like, you know, what are you what are you doing? What's your plan? What's part of your plan? And so books are often part of my plans. I love that. Thank you. What excites you the most about the future?

Kaylee (56:30)
Great.

Yeah.

I'm excited for the untapped potential of what Des Moines Startup Community can become. I think it's changing. I think everyone senses that it's changing and there's a faction of us that are trying to hold on to what it was. But I also sense that everyone's sort of collectively letting go of that and allowing the new sort of new leadership to step up and bloom in this community and we're moving in a different direction and I think it's a really good positive direction. So I'm really excited for.

Vivian Kvam (56:57)
Mm-hmm.

Kaylee (57:21)
for what's to come. We've got some big, big ideas, and I'm trying to bring together as many people as I can to the table to make these things a reality.

Vivian Kvam (57:30)
Excellent. I love that. And for those who don't know like Des Moines is pretty there's some pretty cool stuff going on in Des Moines Yeah, it's a great place My husband I sometimes will just take like a day trip because there's a lot of just neat things going on in all different areas Of the city, so it's pretty cool. Okay, two more. What's something people often get wrong about you, Kaylee? Yeah

Kaylee (57:38)
Yeah, yeah, we got a close.

Hmm. Yeah.

about me? Ooh, that's a good question. Some people often get wrong about me.

That's a really tough one. I would say, you know, I tend to be, and this is, I think, a fault of mine. I tend to be overly nice, you know?

And I don't want to, if we talked earlier about how I want to have kids, I don't want to raise nice girls. And I'm like, I am a through and through nice girl. And I think, so I think what people get wrong about me is that I'm, um, that I maybe don't have strong opinions, maybe sometimes negative opinions about a choice that someone made or, um, the way they treated somebody or, you know, reacted to something that happened. I, I think that I just, I'm not very vocal about that stuff and I, I want to be a little bit more.

Vivian Kvam (58:24)
Hehehe

Kaylee (58:46)
vocal about the things that I don't agree with and the people that I don't agree with, but it's not in my nature. So I think that maybe that's the thing people get wrong about me the most. I'm just, I'm a nice girl and I don't always want to be that nice girl all the time. Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (59:00)
Yeah, difficult conversations is what it makes me think of, right? Like it, yeah, and not coming across the wrong way. And I think there's a lot of pressure there. So thanks for sharing. That's, you've been very vulnerable today. I appreciate all of it. Hey, as you're just thinking about, um, I feel like we've covered so many different things, like you've answered this question already in different ways, but I'll just ask it just to kind of summarize here, but

Kaylee (59:12)
Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (59:28)
What do you think business owners can do that truly makes the world a better place? Beyond their own doors, beyond their own legacies. What can they be doing?

Kaylee (59:39)
Yeah.

Uh, you know, I, okay, I'm going to answer this not in a, in a big lofty way. I'm going to answer it in a tactical individual contribution way. You can, you can hire or otherwise empower people who don't look like you.

Vivian Kvam (59:51)
I love it. Perfect.

Kaylee (1:00:00)
And that might mean women, it might mean people of color, it might mean folks who are diverse in terms of their background, their socioeconomic status, but bringing them to the table, bringing all to the table. And it can be uncomfortable, but you have to take it a little bit further. You can't just bring someone to the table, you have to empower them. So you have to give them the ability to make decisions, to make executive level decisions if it makes sense.

If you can, try to actually give them some ownership and autonomy and freedom to make choices to make mistakes. I think all of us have the capacity to bring a buddy, to bring people along. And I'm trying to do better at this myself, to bring people along and empower them, especially when they don't look like me.

Vivian Kvam (1:00:52)
I love that. Good challenge for sure. Love the tactical applications. I'm a tactical person. I really enjoy when it's like, okay, I've got my takeaway. This is great. Did you write that down? Write it down. Well, Kaylee, thank you so much. I feel like you just have incredible insights. I would love to have you come back again and maybe dive deeper into, you know, some of these different topics, especially just scaling. And I feel like you have so much wisdom you can offer. So that would be super fun.

Kaylee (1:00:59)
Me too. To a fault.

Well, guys.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And like I said, we've got some pretty big stuff in the works that I can't share currently, but we are going to be announcing, we're going to be announcing a few things probably in about six months. And so I might have some more to share with you as it relates to the community and some stuff we want to do for Iowa, really statewide. But yeah, this has been a delight. Thank you so much for the opportunity to just get to talk your ear off about my life and my experience. Hope there are some listeners.

Vivian Kvam (1:01:27)
Yeah.

Okay.

That would be awesome.

Mm-hmm.

Oh yeah, no, I love it. If folks are interested in learning more about what you do or even reaching out, connecting, what's the best way for them to do that? Is it to go through the website? Are you on LinkedIn? Like what's kind of your preference there?

Kaylee (1:02:06)
Yeah, yeah, I've gotten more active on LinkedIn in like the last year. So they can find me on LinkedIn, Kaylee Williams. They can email me at the fund. It's just Kaylee at InnoVentureIowa.com. The contact us form on the site also goes right to my inbox. So that works too. And then I'll be doing, I'm doing a springtime road show tour. It's a how to raise venture capital workshop that I'm taking all around the state. So it's very possible that I'll be in a community near you. And if you want to get together and have coffee or lunch or dinner, you know, I

Vivian Kvam (1:02:19)
Perfect.

Kaylee (1:02:36)
in as many one-to-one interactions and FaceTime with Iowans as I can while I'm on the Spring Roadshow Tour. So, yeah, I mean, I would love to help break down some barriers around how to start a business, how to raise venture capital. If you should raise venture capital, I do see that as my job and part of being a good steward of this fund is to make sure that I'm out there and I'm talking to Iowans and I'm helping Iowans understand what it takes to build a high growth...

a startup company that can change the world.

Vivian Kvam (1:03:08)
I love it. Well again, thank you so much. I am going to encourage people to like, don't be shy, reach out, truly look for those mentors. Because I know that sometimes you can feel uncertain, but Kaylee's making the invitation and I'm co-signing. So please do reach out if you have questions. I think it could really be game changing for a lot of people and their businesses out there, which then just has that ripple impact on their communities and on families around them. And that's really what it's all about, I think.

Thank you again so much.

Kaylee (1:03:38)
Awesome. Thank you, Vivian.