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How to Build an Emerging Manager Community | Rick Zullo | Superclusters | S3PSE1

rick zullo

Rick Zullo is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Equal Ventures. which invests into the future of four verticals: climate, insurance, retail, and supply chain, and boasts a portfolio including the likes of Threeflow, Leap, Smarthop, Ghost, Starday, David Energy, Leap, Odyssey, Vquip or Texture, just to name a few — many of which Rick serves on the board of.

Prior to co-founding Equal Ventures, Rick was an investor at Lightbank, an early-stage venture fund based in Chicago, where he led investments in companies like Riskmatch (acquired by Vertafore), Vettery (acquired by Adecco), Neumob (acquired by CloudFlare), Expel and Catalytic amongst others. Prior to Lightbank, Rick worked with investment firms Foundation Capital, Bowery Capital, and Lightview Capital, investing in technology companies across the capital spectrum from seed-stage to buy-out and began his career as a strategy consultant at Deloitte Consulting.

Rick received an MBA with Honors from Columbia Business School and graduated from the University of Richmond where he studied Economics and Leadership Studies.

You can find Rick on his socials here:
X/Twitter: https://x.com/Rick_Zullo
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickzullo/

And huge thanks to this episode’s sponsor, Alchemist Accelerator: https://alchemistaccelerator.com/superclusters

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.

Brought to you by Alchemist Accelerator.

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro
[00:42] Rick’s book and how Rick thinks about his habit of writing
[05:45] How Rick became a VC
[11:36] The speed Rick listens to audiobooks
[12:38] How Sendbird closed their first customer
[14:20] Is networking a feature or a bug in VC?
[17:59] Rick’s three hat framework
[26:07] Growing up with a stutter and weak knees
[35:58] Going from getting a job in VC to starting a firm
[46:42] What motivated Rick despite how hard it was to raise Fund I
[57:16] What makes EMC different from other emerging manager communities?
[1:04:03] How does Rick help people become vulnerable at EMC?
[1:15:25] What’s broken with venture
[1:18:50] Rick’s hot take on funds of funds
[1:22:04] “Seed stage is the worst stage to be investing into”
[1:27:54] Asymmetric insight and asymmetric value add
[1:33:00] How to pick board members as a founder when VC currently has high turnover
[1:39:54] What should people know about Rick that he isn’t already known for?
[1:42:55] Thank you to Alchemist Accelerator for sponsoring!
[1:43:55] If you enjoyed this GP episode, do let me know in the comments or in DMs!

SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“Everyone in venture is networking and not working.” – Rick Zullo

“When I played football once upon a time, our coach [was] screaming at us, ‘Three hats on the ball! Three hats on the ball!’ The runner wasn’t down until we had three helmets tackling them.” – Rick Zullo, on staffing at a VC firm

“Historically, if you look at the last 10 years of data, it would suggest that multiple [of the premium of a late stage valuation to seed stage valuation] should cover around 20-25 times. […] In 2021, that number hit 42 times. […] Last year, that number was around eight.” – Rick Zullo (circa 2024)

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