Nicole Quinn is a General Partner with Lightspeed Venture Partners, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. Since the mid 2000s, Nicole has specialized in consumer behavior, the retail market, both in the United States and in Europe, and in taking companies public. Her specialty has seen her invest in and work with fintech, ecommerce, and early-stage Cosumer Internet companies. Before joining Lightspeed Venture Partners Nicole spent nearly a decade at Morgan Stanley, working in equity sales and research. After Morgan Stanley, Nicole went on to Nutmeg, a London-based fintech startup, where she worked on branding and marketing.
Nicole has a BSc in math and economics from York University, in England, and an MBA from Stanford.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
- One, real grit, so that you will take on any challenge and run through any wall that comes up, that you come up against.
- Two, a real knowledge in the space that you are building in. Maybe you’ve got that from a prior company you’ve been looking at, or maybe you are the consumer and found this pain point, or maybe this is an idea that you’ve been contemplating for the last few years. But you are a real expert on that space and have deep insights in that space.
- And then another skill is to be an incredible storyteller — to hire people, to sell to your customers, and fundraise.
How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business?
The pandemic’s really been a tale of two halves because some of our companies were really affected negatively by the pandemic because they had retail stores and those stores had to close down. Some of our other companies, I would say they are really there for their customers, because they are in the education space or the future of joy and entertainment, so customers really turn to them in the pandemic times and the business five, 10 times during the pandemic.
So, there are some companies that did well, some that haven’t. In terms of lessons learned, it very much is don’t project that a global pandemic will go on forever. That and be extremely flexible. Being flexible and being able to mold yourself into whatever situation is happening in the world, I think is the big key here.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
How does Lightspeed separate itself from our other VC firms? I would say that it is really being there for our founders and the good times and the bad times. A lot of us have been founders and realize that nothing ever goes straight up and to the right. There’s many zigs and zags. And so we will be there for our partners in terms of capital and also everything else that is required in those tough times. Also, working harder for our founders, really being there for them, day and night, and prioritizing them. We’re global, and so all the insights and help that provides as a result of being a truly global firm, which is pretty different.
Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
Speaking on panels and doing podcasts and doing our blogs and tweeting about areas that we are really passionate about or going on CNBC to talk about those themes. It’s having strong opinions and then going out and marketing those opinions so that everybody knows what you stand for.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
The greatest failure I have had as an investor has been not investing in friends. It is my greatest regret that I have not invested in my Stanford classmates and they’ve all gone on to do such incredible things. I was really just learning the craft of VC [venture capital] when they were doing their early fundraising rounds. I wish that I had moved faster at an earlier stage to invest in great friends.
What was your first business idea and what did you do with it?
I’ve definitely had lots of business ideas over the years. My first one was online pharmacies because I saw my father, who had a chain of offline pharmacies, and so suggested that, instead of us having a pharmacy in France and Romania and Germany and the U.K., wouldn’t it be much more powerful if we had just one pharmacy online? And so we started to build that online. And that was in 1999, so it was a big learning.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
Learning so much now. Probably the biggest thing is Web3. I think that being a consumer investor is synonymous with being a crypto investor. As we think about the two, so closely linked, they’re literally holding hands and will be going forward, I think, for the rest of our lives, that we need to deeply understand the Web3 space. And so that’s what I’m learning.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
- Twitter, just whenever we have quick insights that we want to share with founders, it’s the best way to get those thoughts out there.
- Medium, much longer-form thoughts and content that we want to share our ideas around.
- And then Salesforce; we recommended it because it is a really terrific tool for tracking the different companies that you’re speaking to and interactions that you’ve had and how to best work with your team.
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
I’m a really big believer in having walking meetings. It doesn’t matter if it’s an in-person meeting or a phone meeting, walking while having a meeting brings forward movement to the meeting and really keeps the problem-solving juices moving. I believe in the power of forward momentum and getting deeper in my meetings and walking helps that. It doesn’t necessarily mean this style of meeting will work for everyone but it is a habit that has worked very well for me.
Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs?
- Oh, I really love Shoe Dog, which tells the story of Phil Knight, the founder and CEO of Nike. Phil’s story is so inspiring because it really hammers home the fact that things in business don’t get easier when you are a founder. A startup is full of inherent risks; you get through one and another pops up immediately behind it. Phil Knight embodied this at Nike. His whole belief system was, “we have this problem, we just have to get through this problem and move onto the next.” Even the day they IPOed, a day that should be celebratory, was shaded with the necessity of going public because they were about to run out of money. It was a means to an end.
- I also really love the Harry Stebbings’ podcast, “20 Minute VC.”
- And I would always recommend entrepreneurs peruse the Masterclass catalog for something that catches their eye. Learning should never stop and learning from those who have been there before is one of the best ways to do it.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
Trying to make a difference in the world. Trying to level the playing field for women and create great female-led, female-run startups. And yeah, making that difference will drive me to continue doing this for decades.
What is your favorite quote?
My favorite quote is, ‘We have two ears and one mouth, so we should use them in that proportion.’
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
Take more risks and always think bigger. I grew up being completely scared of failure around people who were also terrified of failure. Coming over to the States and getting started in Silicon Valley, I was surrounded by people in a place that not only welcomes failure but understands how necessary it is! When I hear someone tell me that they have a trail of failed start-ups behind them, I immediately recognize the growth they’ve gone through and the lessons they’ve learned.
Every great founder has failed. To be successful in the world of entrepreneurship you have to stare failure in the face and understand that it holds benefits. Don’t be afraid to fail, be afraid of not learning from your failures.
What is your definition of success?
Making a difference in this life and leveling the playing field for women and female-run startups. Money and professional accolades are great, but making a lasting difference is how I measure success. What good is it to have a lot of money if I don’t leave the world in a better place than I found it?
How do you personally overcome fear?
I just keep going. I just try not to overthink it. If something does scare me, then I try to jump into that with both feet and really embrace it and see it as a learning opportunity.
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