My guest today is Samara Hernandez, founder of Chingona Ventures. Samara invests at the preseed and seed stages on industries that are massively changing and founders whose backgrounds uniquely position them to create businesses in growth markets that are often overlooked. We discuss how she analyzes overlooked opportunities, some of the differences when investing in consumer vs. enterprise, and Chicago.
A book that inspired Samara is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
You can also follow your host, Mike, on Twitter @mikegelb. You can also follow for episode announcements @consumervc.
Here's a few questions I ask Samara -
- What initially attracted you to finance?
- How did Chingona Ventures come together?
- Why Chicago?
- Walk me through your due diligence process.
- Has it been harder to find conviction within founders during COVID since you have to meet with them remote?
- You are a strong advocate of increasing diversity in tech. What is the key to making the startup ecosystem more diverse?
- Where do you sit on the thematic vs. generalist spectrum and what is your approach to investing?
- When you are talking with founders, is there a question that is most important that you ask?
- What's your most recent (public) investment and what makes you excited about it?
- What is one thing that you would change in venture capital?
- What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
- What's the best advice that you've received?
- What's one piece of advice that you have for founders?
Consumer VC: Venture Capital I B2C Startups I Commerce | Early-Stage Investing I Brands