Investor Stories 427. Balancing Growth with Profitability, Why the Customer's Pain Matters Most, and Lessons from Film Financing to Supply Chain (Jiang, Ruscio, Niehenke)

This episode of TFR is brought to you by Ramp, the spend management platform we use here at TFR. They're offering listeners a $150 just to take a demo. We've never had an offer quite like this. Claim your $150 before this offer is gone at our partner link, ramp.com/partner/tfr. And this episode of TFR is brought to you by the American Arbitration Association, where smart startups and investors turn to for fast, efficient, and cost effective dispute resolution. Visit adr.org/tfr to learn more. Welcome to the podcast about venture capital, where investors and founders alike can learn how VCs make decisions and reach conviction. Your host is Nick Moran, and this is the full ratchet. Welcome back to TFR. On today's special segment, we ask guests to describe the biggest change to their investment philosophy over the course of their career. Here's the special segment called rewriting the playbook. On today's special segment, we have Kevin Jang of Mangusta Capital. Kevin, how has your philosophy or approach to investing changed over the course of your career? Absolutely. It's an interesting question. I think, you know, I have obviously started from a bunch of different, you know, a different place than where I am today in terms of my investing experience. I started out at Apollo, which is a very value oriented private equity firm that, you know, focuses on leveraged buyouts, you know, EBITDA cash flow positive businesses. And so for me, it's it's been an interesting journey to actually see a bunch of different varieties of investing, everything from, you know, profitable cash flowing businesses to obviously hyper growth scaling businesses that, you know, were growing 300, 500%, a thousand percent year over year when we were at SoftBank investing in, you know, these phenomenal growers. And so for me, I think the way that my investing philosophy has evolved over the years is actually kind of melding those two different aspects together, where you not only have the growth that obviously is important in venture capital and early stage investing, but also a appreciation for profitability and unit economics. So even when I look at businesses that I invest in today, where it's a pre seed or seed company that's starting to generate revenues, I think it's still important to understand what are the margins that you have in your business. What does the unit economics of your product look like when you bring on an additional customer or additional user? And these are things that, you know, obviously will change over time as the business continues to mature, but I think it's a very important piece of the puzzle that a lot of early stage investors and founders don't really think about that is worth thinking about as you wanna build a long term sustainable business. On today's special segment, we have Joe Russo of Heavybit. Joe, how has your philosophy or approach to investing changed over the course of your investment career? Yeah. So I …