Alex Houghtalin of Access Venture Partners on Thematic Investing Research and Capturing Value as an Early-Stage Company

What is the right way to organize the knowledge you have in your head into a framework as an early-stage company? Putting your vision onto paper is helpful and a great way to capture industry value and acquire power over your customers and suppliers.  

In this episode of The Capital Stack, we have Alex Houghtalin, a senior associate at Access Venture Partners. She has deep experience in business strategy research, advisory, and social entrepreneurship. Alex had a career at the Harvard Business School working on business strategy research and advisory alongside Michael Porter, one of the legends in the field. We discuss the creating shared value, strategy, and social entrepreneurship lessons she learned from Michael Porter.

Listen in to learn how a senior associate in a venture capital manages their time and what the role entails. You will also learn about the thematic investing strategy and how to create a market map to identify interesting companies in your area of interest.

What You Will Discover:

·       [00:00] Intro

·       [03:53] Alex on her education background, career interests, and experience working with Michael Porter.

·       [09:35] How she advanced her career with the social entrepreneurship lessons she learned from Michael Porter.

·       [16:00] The difference between academic and strategy exercises in an early-stage company.    

·       [20:00] The role and time management strategy of a senior associate in a venture capital.

·       [23:53] The value of thematic investing strategy plus how Access is doing it in tech.

·       [29:43] How she does case studies and develops taxonomies for market strategies she’s seeing.

·       [35:10] How to understand the pain of the industries you’re mapping by interviewing company leaders.

·       [38:00] Random questions with Alex!

Memorable Quote:

·       “Profit and purpose are not in conflict, there are highly synergistic, and a lot of our business opportunities are solving social needs.”- Alex Houghtalin [11:30]

Connect with Alex:

·       Website: https://accessvp.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-houghtalin/