#126: Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University & CWRU Alumni Venture Fund)

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:00:00]:

I think providing a forum through which students can get a deeper understanding of of how others have tried to do some of these things, I think can be a really rich way to share experiences.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:15]:

Let's discover what people are building in the greater Cleveland community. We are telling the stories of northeast Ohio's entrepreneurs, builders, and those supporting them. Welcome to the lay of the land podcast, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern, and today, I have the real pleasure of speaking with Michael Goldberg, the executive director of The Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship as well as an associate professor of design and innovation at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, where he teaches courses on entrepreneurship. Notably, Michael created a massive open online course, also known as a Mook, 4 Case Western Reserve University called Beyond Silicon Valley, growing entrepreneurship in transitioning Economies, a course which has attracted over 175,000 students from over 190 countries across the world. Before joining Case Western, Michael was the cofounder of the Bridge Investment Fund. A venture capital fund focused on investing in Israeli Medical Device Companies that have synergies with the leading health care industries and institutions here in Cleveland. In addition, Michael served as the director of International Business development for AOL, responsible for structuring and negotiating international partnerships in Asia for America online. In our conversation today, Michael covers his experience teaching entrepreneurship, and we focus on Case Western Reserve Universities' recently founded alumni venture fund. The emergence of alumni venture funds has been one of the more exciting university trends that boosts awareness support, and general discussions about entrepreneurship writ large within a community. And for any start up community to grow and strengthen its position, it must be able to leverage the local university. And so it was very informative to learn more about how Michael has thought about it here. If you think about the fact that at this point, just through lay of the land, we have featured over 20 case western alums on the show from Charu Ramanathan of Cardio Insight and Vital Exchange to a fief Ganoum of biome Health, to Stan Garber and Alex Yacobovich of Scout RFP, which sold the workday for $540,000,000. And I think you can understand the power of such alumni funds and why this is exciting in the context of educating students about how venture capital works, in addition to actually supporting founders throughout Northeast Ohio. So with that, please enjoy my conversation with Michael Goldberg after a brief word from our sponsor. Lave land is brought to you by Impact Architects And By Ninety. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio, Impact Architects has helped hundreds of those leaders, many of whom we have heard from as guests on this very podcast, realize their own visions and build these great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much that I have actually joined them personally and their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love. If you 2 are trying to build great Impact Architects is offering to sit down with you for a free consultation or provide a free trial through 90, the software platform that helps teams build great companies. If you're interested in learning more about partnering with Impact Architects or by leveraging 90 to power your own business, please go to ia.layofland.fm. The link will also be in our show notes. In preparing for our conversation today, I had taken stock of all the the Case Western Reserve University affiliated entrepreneurs who have been on the podcast and and realize that we've done, you know, well over a a dozen lay of land episodes dedicated solely to those stories. And I I think it it speaks to the the power of educational institutions in a in a local entrepreneurial ecosystem And I think it's a fun angle to to begin the conversation today because pretty intuitively sets the stage, I think, to let us explore a lot of what we'll talk about, but from venture capital to startups, talent, academia, all altogether, I think, as as we discuss more explicitly, the recent formation of the alumni fund and and the role that that it can play in this space. But for 1, you know, thank you for for coming on.

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:05:00]:

Right. Well, thanks, Jeffrey, for having me. It it's wonderful to be here. I'm a listener to the podcast. So I'm honored to be part of the Case Western Reserve University Growing Club of Entrepreneurs and supporters of entrepreneurship to to be guests.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:16]:

So, you know, with your own familiarity with the show, I I think it always is helpful to to set the stage with a little context on on who you are as a person as we make our way towards the bulk of what we'll we'll talk about today. But perhaps you can, you know, just share a little bit about your own journey and and story and how you got to to where you are today.

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:05:41]:

Sure. I'm happy to. I'm a native Clevelander, grew up on the east side of Cleveland and, you know, been sort of interested in entrepreneurship sort of broadly speaking, I mean, the days in those days, there wasn't a lot of necessarily high school entrepreneurship, even collegiate entrepreneurship. There were kind of pockets of it. Certainly, now we're really blessed in Cleveland and other communities where that entrepreneurial itch is able to get scratched even by middle schoolers or high school students. But so I was kind of interested, but then I went off I did my undergrad at Princeton where I studied public International Affairs, and then lived overseas for several years running projects in South Africa. Initially, I was teaching in a Royal Black School, and then I was working on a voter education program funded by the US Agency for a National Development for South Africa's 1st Democratic elections when Mandela was elected in 1994. So really interesting sort of seeing the world wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do when I got home. I stayed there for 3 years and ended up applying to joint MBA And International Affairs Programs from South Africa and and landed at Wharton where I did my BA and Johns Hopkins School Advanced International Studies where I did my masters in National Affairs as a 3 year program. It was well timed for me, and that was sort of the beginning of the sort of Internet 1.0. I I did a summer internship out of Microsoft, working on the pre Xbox and they call the Internet gaming zone, and then got a job right after I graduated from the joint program. at America online, AOL back in the -- I've heard of it. -- Internet is. It's funny when I ask students now if they've heard of it, many of them have not. But we were once the largest, certainly, Internet company in the world and merged with Time Warner when I was there, And I worked in a group that focused on international business development, which was super interesting and kind of was their when it went up and was there when it came crashing down. And in 2023, we were seeing these elements again. So, you know, I've I've lived long that I've seen a couple of these cycles. And my first kinda job out of grad school was was part of it. Stay today well for 5 years. Worked on joint venture, formation in Asia. then ended up through a family connection connecting with an entrepreneur and investor who was based in Israel, and we set up a small venture capital fund to invest in early stage medical device companies that were coming out of Israel sort of pre US commercialization and lot of synergies with the health care institutions here. And that's what brought me back to Cleveland at that point. I had 2 little kids. We had a we added a third, and so I moved back back home, brought my talents back to Cleveland. And then my association with Western Reserve University started off kind of innocently enough as as an adjunct professor just teaching one course that we're looking for somebody to the class on venture capitals called entrepreneurial finance. And then I started adding another course in here and ultimately ended up taking a full time position in the business school as a non tenure track. Professor said many many business schools hire folks that don't have PhDs, but have experience working in the private sector, so it did that. And then more recently added to my portfolio at the University running our Ville Institute entrepreneurship, and that sits on the 7th floor of ThinkBox and reports in essentially to the provost office. And the Provost is the sort of top academic officer at a university. So we in that role, like, I work kind of around our whole campus around entrepreneurship. I I maintain my faculty appointment. So, yeah, really love being on a university campus and working with students in alums, and, you know, that's a little bit of my narrative.

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:26]:

So having had real, I think, a experience with all parts of the entrepreneurial whole. You know, venture capital, operating, startup environment, academia, talent, did you envision that, you know, this was the this is where in that hole you would you would be? And I guess in reflection, you know, what what kind of drew you to to this space of of education and academia.

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:09:50]:

I've got my 25th Wharton reunion coming up in about a month, and my friends that I mean, I didn't I barely, like, said a word in business school, so it's quite humorous to them that I'm actually a business school professor. I mean, I was coming out of the nonprofit sector into business school but actually found Wharton a really wonderful place to kind of explore and and test myself. And actually, I found even though I had a nonprofit background, a lot of the things that I had done in the nonprofit world in terms of setting up programs and distribution networks and marketing kind of application in the private sector. I've really enjoyed my association with Case Western Reserve University. I'm not an alum. But as a Clevelander, and you made reference Jeffrey at the beginning of the podcast to the importance the important role that academic institutions or sort of anchor institutions play in a community, it was clear to me that this And it it's not a it's it's no secret. I mean, we're the, you know, the largest research university in Northeast Ohio, one of they're called r 1 sort of tier 1 research universities as 3 in the state of Ohio. So we're a really important player in research. We're a really important player in turning out talent. we have an awesome alumni base. So I've I've loved this as a perch to kinda roll my sleeves up and see what small contribution I can make in supporting entrepreneurship in our region kinda through a role at the university.

Jeffrey Stern [00:11:21]:

to feel indulge a a little detour here into a a part of your experience that I wanna talk a little bit about before we make our way back to to the alumni fund surrounding the the kind of mooc creation and all the work that that went into that and and particularly through the lens of, you know, the the Cleveland case study you know, you had talked about it in your your TED talk, which I believe was was titled something like, you know, Beyond Silicon Valley Right? And from the late 1800 to the mid, you know, 19 seventies, Cleveland was a top tend city in the country with regard to population and historically, you know, industrious and entrepreneurial powerhouse home to the the the great's business titans as they say, like, Rockefeller. And and something I learned from from your TED talk that I didn't even realize at the time was that, I believe in 2001, Entrepreneur Magazine had done this ranking of cities. In terms of entrepreneurship, in Cleveland had actually come in in dead last. And now now, obviously, a lot can change in the the 20 plus years since, and and I I believe a lot has with people who have come on this podcast alone to share their stories as a as a testament to some of the positive change. But I do think it's important to ground yourself and and the reality of things as they are and were. However, you know, they they may be so that you can have an understanding of the real options you have going forward and otherwise your somewhat diluting yourself to to what those options might be. So I'm curious, you know, this this amount of time later, you know, what is what is your assessment of of where we are, what are the the challenges we face, our trajectory, how how has it changed?

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:13:04]:

No. Thanks. And just for a little context on the Moog and there may be listeners that have never heard that term, which was true for me when my dean asked me if I would consider doing 1. So Moog stands for massive open online course. Coursera is is one of the largest platforms for Moogues and the university, case western reserve, had partnered with Coursera to kinda begin to explore offering these online courses to to a broader community outside of, you know, the folks that we that we educate. I mean, we're a private university here. We have about 6000 undergrads, a little bit more, 6000 grad students. So, you know, you're reaching 12,000 students at a time, but these mooks can reach a heck of a lot more people. So the idea for the moo grew out of officially the 1st full bright that I got, which I applied for on a complete whim and moved my family to Hanoi, Vietnam, and I was asked by the a government agency, the ministry of within the Ministry of Science And Technology. They had a national agency for technology entrepreneurship and commercialization. if I could do a seminar for them about how Vietnam could become more like Silicon Valley or become Silicon Valley and At that point, I had sort of been there for a couple months and said, you know, you guys look more like Cleveland than you do Silicon Valley. And, you know, I'm I of course, they were like, which Cleveland wasn't necessarily a a city that is often, you know, comes up when you think about models for entrepreneurship, but what I shared with them in the seminar, and I ended up including an she's using Skype back then for throwback. You get AOL and Skype in the same podcast, so we were and it was there's a 12 hour time difference. So kind of evening in Hanoi in morning here, I was joined by Lisa Dell. He used to be the executive director of the Ohio 3rd frontier, which as many of your listeners probably know Cleveland based is is our state program, $2,300,000,000 program that supports tech commercialization and entrepreneurship. Lenny Anne Gries, who's a good friend who, at the time, was a jump start. joined via Skype. Steve Gerard is a the case customer at University Alum who, at the time, was a Johnson and Johnson. So we talked about different things that Cleveland was doing. And then when I came back to Cleveland, I'd had a conversation with Deb Hoover from the Brittany Morgan Foundation about potentially turning this case study into a Mook, and they were Nice enough to provide some funding. And I worked with a friend of mine that was a former 60 minutes producer to help tell the story in another great local team, Northwater partners. And, you know, we put the like, this Cleveland case study, as you mentioned, up there Not really being sure if anybody would be interested in it. This is relatively early in the move sort of arc and so it went up in 2014. And, like, many courses that are on Coursera's platform or at least a lot of the or at least some of them, you know, we we that there was a an interesting appetite from particularly international audiences. So we ended up the mook is is now translated in 16 different languages, with subtitles in those languages, you know, ranging from khmer to Farsi to Chinese, to Spanish, to Ken Your wand in. I mean, it just was so interesting to see that there was an appetite. I think the Silicon Valley story and all the excitement and famous companies and iconic names like Great. Enjoys watching, you know, TV shows and things about all these people. But, like -- Yeah. -- it turns out I think that Cleveland experience. And, you know, Jeffrey, I know you've been here for a few years coming from New York. Like, this is a more challenging environment to support entrepreneurship and we're using government money, and we're using philanthropy, and we're using private money. So I've enjoyed, and I've gotten into a ton of travel even since that Vietnam experience, and I've probably done 30 different workshops around the world. The US State Department's been a girly great partner. I've done some work with Microsoft and, you know, you know, sort of proudly taking our Cleveland experience. And, you know, it's it's it's not a perfect experience as you know well. there's some things I think that we've done here that we we can be quite proud of. We've experimented. I just had in class last week, Brian Vern, who in 2016 ended up not getting funding from jump start and a few local folks went out to California and was in 500 startups and rail leads from jump start wrote a piece and said, hey. It's okay. Not every company is gonna sort of stay in Cleveland. And then Brian, like, a week later wrote back. He was like, actually, it's a big problem that, you know, Cleveland wasn't able to keep me, so he was in class. It's just interesting. I mean, now Brian's first company failed. The second one is raised good amount of venture capital. So, you know, we're I think we're a work in progress. I think our progress will be measured over decades. with all the different entrepreneurs and folks in the ecosystem that you've had on. I mean, there's a bunch of people in Cleveland who kinda wake up every day thinking about opportunities to strengthen the support for startups here, and some of it's worked, and some of it hasn't worked so well.

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:28]:

from the the mook standpoint and and just, you know, pulling in your your experience in you know, the actual education piece. It's it's something I've thought actually a lot about, but how do you teach entrepreneurship? Like, can you actually teach entrepreneurship?

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:18:45]:

age old question. Are entrepreneurs made or born? You know, I I mean, I think in some ways, like, my approach with my mooq in some ways, like, mirrors my even my classroom work here, you know, whether it's Brian Byrne or, you know, other Speakers David Boone we've had in class this year. I mean, I I love much like you're doing with your podcast. I mean, sort of creating a forum for folks that are experiencing capital raising, experiencing, trying to build a business, experiencing you know, the challenge of of product market fit. I mean, there's there there there are a whole host of challenges that make the decision that one takes to sort of take an entrepreneurial journey. I mean, folks know it's gonna be hard, and I think in and it's hard anywhere. Right? It doesn't matter if you're in San Francisco, Austin, Tel Aviv, Cleveland, Hanoi. But I I do think that and, you know, hopeful. I mean, I'm not saying that they've done anything. So perfectly or even my colleagues that teach entrepreneurship wherever we do it, you know, because there's there's plenty of entrepreneurs that, like, didn't graduate from college, let alone take entrepreneurship classes, let alone get an MBA. So I think providing a forum through which students can get a deeper understanding of of how others have tried to do some of these things, I think, can be a really rich way to share experiences. It doesn't mean that I'm churning out. I mean, frankly, you know, even in a place like Kiss Western Reserve University where we have, I think, a number of students that are incredibly accomplished and wanna go on to do startups and some do. I mean, you know, if we can just give people a taste of it, and then maybe they go get a job at an Eaton or a key or IBM wherever. And, you know, maybe they come back to this later. So I'm you know, when we measure our, quote, unquote success at a university in in in the entrepreneurship space, I admit maybe I'm just being a little self interested because we don't create tons. We actually have our our signature Morgan Taylor Baby. Startup competition is coming up, and, you know, we have a great pipe. We have, like, a number of people that are pitching, and we have new tracks and all these things. But, you know, I mean, it may very well be that soon that that was an engineer, took an entrepreneurship class and goes and does something traditional, and then they come back to this later. So, you know, in tracking them and keeping it tight. know, even with tools like LinkedIn, which do help a little bit, you know you know, is something that someone did during their time here. that planted that little bit of a kernel of an idea. Maybe they come back to it in 10 or 15 years. Yeah. Well, I mean, certainly, you know, folks coming through Case Western

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:25]:

are building things. And, right, we've we've been able to document some of those here. But, yeah, I I always come back to it because, you know, from my my own perspective having come to Cleveland originally through Venture for America, which I think shares this ethos of trying to teach entrepreneurship I there's always this tension to me between learning and practice and learning and theory. And and where where I've kind of come to on it is that the there's there's one of these mental models, which is kinda tight, but it's the the map isn't is never the territory because the best maps are imperfect and you know, they they are necessarily reductions of what they're trying to represent. And so it's -- Absolutely great. I mean, it's interesting.

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:22:08]:

You know, it's just in the podcasting world in which you've Planted yourself, and I mean, the there's the podcast startup, which is a company called Gimlet Media, which is acquired by acquired by Spotify. Like, There's an episode called in season 1 of startup called How To Divide an imaginary pie. And it is just such a brilliantly produced episode. Do you have you listened to that start up, Terry? No. I I haven't. That so or that podcast. So in this episode, and it's pretty I mean, the the founder of Gimlet is a guy named Alex Bloomberg who was on this American life. I mean, he, you know, was one of the he was a great public media producer. But on this episode, it was a founder negotiating with someone that would be a a joining as a cofounder in the startup. And they sent the recording equipment. So they they recorded their negotiation as they were negotiating equity, which is always a very you know, it can be a very contentious, difficult discussion. Right? I mean, the I think the the the guy was coming in initially wanted 5050, right, and Alex Bloomberg wanted to do 90 10. But the brilliant thing they did in the podcast was they sent the recording equipment home for each of the 2, and then they ended up being cofounders, cofounders to have a discussion with their wives about the negotiation. And, you know, they they all came back together later, but, obviously, they didn't play it while they were negotiating. And then, I mean, they ended up at sort of 6040, but it was just that You know, I mean, when I was, you know, I'm assuming even Jeff or you're younger than me when you were in school, like, you, you know, you know, professors assigning podcasts. I assigned that podcast in class And I've had actually Matt Lieber, who's the cofounder, not not in the past couple of years. come in as a surprise guest because we'll listen to it and we have different pieces of tape. So, you know, whether it's that, whether it's a book the book Venture deals, which was written by Bradfeld and Jason Mendelson, which is a really great kinda glossary book of of deals. So in this sort of, quote, unquote, teaching of entrepreneurship, like, we have some great tools out there. I mean, no offense to, like, textbook. You know? makers because we still are out there in the world, but, like, I don't my whole syllabus is just a bunch of, like, podcasts and ideas, venture deals, and articles. And, you know, and then, like, when SVB goes down, you know, it's like, then we're talking about any class. It's like, what, you know, what can we sort of pull from the headlines? A lot of I'll do that. So I'll literally call it, like, pull from the headlines and try to pull stuff because -- Yeah. -- you know, that's I think that's a rich opportunity.

Jeffrey Stern [00:24:51]:

I agree with you there. It's a much higher fidelity of material that you can work with today. It's it's not so much of a reduction. And I think it's actually a great segue to talk about the alumni venture fund because I think in practice, as I understand it, what it is is more of an apprenticeship where it's teaching and doing at the same time, which maybe is is the best hybrid.

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:25:13]:

No. So we're lucky actually in Northeast Ohio. There's an organization called Northeast Ohio Student Venture Fund, which was started probably about 10 years ago, funded with support from the Burton, Morgan Foundation. initially, and there's several university chapters. We have one at Case Western Reserve at Worcester, Akron Kent, Cleveland State, a few other sort of in the region. And and and that was set up actually as a way for students to come together and and do due diligence, which is the sort of process by which, you know, investors are sort of engaging with potential companies to invest in, and they're making decisions about deploying capital into into companies. We also have sent from our these students are participating in something called the Venture Capital Investment Competition, which is running out of University, North Carolina, which is another awesome way for students to kind of get I mean, that's a simulation, but to kinda get get experience and venture. I mean, this you know, when I first came to Tchick, Case Plus And Reserve University. I mentioned this 1st class was obviously a venture capital class. So there's, like, a tremendous amount of interest -- Mhmm. -- in how investors think about investing in companies. And over the past few years, there's been a growth in in broadly speaking alumni funds, and there's a couple different ways that these funds have been set up. So the alumni ventures group a shorten to ABG, operates 21 of these funds. They started. It was a Dartmouth alum. those are for profit private funds that sit outside a university that are investing in let's let's say, Dartmouth Now they have 21 is Dartmouth, Princeton, Cornell, Cornell, Northwestern, you know, Alums of those universities, students spinouts, and they also actually court account if you would be if if it's there's an alumni investor in the deal. those sit outside the university are sort of for profit, and they they sort of pull on the heartstrings or loyalties that alums of those universities have. You know? They're their pitch is basically, hey. Don't you love MIT or Princeton or Dartmouth, don't you wouldn't you wanna invest in sort of support? Now interestingly, they're doing it out of their investment pocket, not their donor pocket. Another model, which is actually the path that we took, and it the there's something called the Wolverine Fund out of the University of Michigan, which is donations to the university then with with faculty in the case of Mister Michigan and now kind of with Kaye sort of involved in in helping overseeing. But, really, the due diligence process like northeast Soe has to Metro Fund kinda led by students. And so that's the path we took. The the Veale foundation, which is the endowed our our institute that I run the real Institute for entrepreneurship. I had talked to them about the fact that we, at the university, didn't have this kind of a vehicle, you know, and I know it's a topic that's come up, you know, in in with entrepreneurs that you've talked to kinda access to Capital Minh. they're and it's kinda interesting that what getting access to a deal. I mean, oftentimes because you're in these situations, whether it's alumni venture group or us, you're joining in syndicates, so you're not leading a deal. So you're there's gotta be a lead that's sort of formed. You're you're just joining. some of the deals that we because we have put $200,000 to work already just in kind of what we were calling a demonstration period last year to sort of see if we could get into deals, we actually decided to not look at deals in which the you alums or an investor were like, alright. Let's just stick to alumni founders spin outs for students and see if we can get into deals. Some of the deals were, like, oversubscribed. There was sort of no room, and because of the relationship that we because we sit at the university have. They made room for us. Some were small arounds. They you know, many of these funds, including ours, are stage agnostics, so you could do a later stage deal. It it tends the deal flow tends to be earlier stage sort of see series a. And, yeah, it's been really interesting. So I think we've sort of proved out at least over last year that we could get access to interesting deal flow. We did 6 deals. 2 of the 6 were here in Northeast Ohio. 4 were outside the region. 1 was a spin out. And, you know, we're actively deploying capital in in new companies now. We're we're doing some fundraising against the initial commitment from the Ville foundation. it's been a lot of fun. I mean, I think you said it right at the beginning. I mean, it's an awesome teaching vehicle. I have a really great group of students that are cross disciplinary, very diverse. So I have some medical students. I have 2 MD PhDs. I've got Weatherhead School of Management students. I have engineering students. I have a a law student. I'm recruiting this week a nursing student. We've got 8 schools at the university, and, you know, my goal is to actually mind talent from all of them. So it's been a lot of fun. I'm really I'm really enjoying it and seeing the students because they're making real investments like, you know, get getting their due diligence shops and interacting, I think, in a way, that that's a real pleasure to see interacting with with startup founders in a way that that, I think, makes the universe makes me proud and makes the university proud because they're asking great questions and building networks, so it's been a lot of fun. No. It seems like really incredible progress,

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:51]:

very exciting prospects for it. when when you think about the fund overall, I guess what is the the the broader vision you have for it? Is it as a teaching vehicle? Is it, you know, in the in the context of this evergreen and philanthropically funded model, something else? You know, what is the the overall you know, objective here?

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:31:10]:

Well, that the evergreen term, which means basically your wit success from these investments, you're sort of pooling that money back into the pot has been done very well by our friends at jumpstart. So, you know, and and with CoverMyMeds, being the best example of that. I mean, jump starts made a number of bets and had some success and and the the biggest being cover my meds. So like, jump start, part of what we're doing. I mean, I'd say teaching and learning is sort of at the top of the funnel and sort of why we're doing this, but picking companies that we believe can be successful is the goal. I mean, that's the teaching goal. You know, we're sort of asking our students to to make bets on companies that we think will have financial success. And if they do have financial success, over time, that money will then go back into the fun to fun new deals. So, you know, I I think I mean, University of Michigan's Wolverine Fund started with 2,000,000. It's up to 7,000,000. My hope would be is that the legacy of the fund which includes student learning, which includes really interesting alumni engagement. Like, it's been a great way. You know, one of the companies that we invested in was our first investment. Like, the alumat really hadn't been engaged in the university at all, and, subsequently, he's come back to speak to students on campus. He met with us when we're out in San Francisco, so it's a very cool way to engage with alums. Another initial outcome, which has been cool, which has has been it was very hard to do, is that our one of our students already got a job in venture capital. So seeing our our fellows, we call them the students that work on this, you know, go and and work in the venture space. may not happen like it did for Amarcazi right out of school, but we're super proud of that. So, you know, it it's not the the the return on investment traditional metrics if we were a private fund. That's part of the equation, but we got some other things that we're looking to do as well. But It does include it does include ROI.

Jeffrey Stern [00:33:19]:

To piggyback on the conversation we were having earlier about, can you teach entrepreneurship I think on the the flip side of the coin, you know, can you teach Venture Capital? This seems like the the right way to do it. I'm curious, you know, what are the what do you find are the maybe biggest misconceptions people have coming into this that you know? because I feel like I'm we're very deep in the space And so I'm always kind of interested to to understand, you know, even when I I use the term series a casually in conversation. Right? Like, it's not a term that broadly resonates And so as you bring in a a real kind of eclectic broad group of of students into this world, What are what are the things that we can be doing better to to just kind of quell misconceptions people have about Venture Capital?

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:34:05]:

Well, one, in terms of accessing deals, I think there's folks that aren't close to this world just sort of assume, oh, okay. Well, we just Venture Capital is just to, like, you know, go pick the best companies and invest in them. That presumes that you have access. Tim Malana to is our chief investment officer at the university and is as a partner of mine in helping with this alumni fund, talks about venture capital as an access class, not an asset class. and, you know, interestingly, you know, probably our our most, I don't know, we have lots of famous alums, including, like, Maybe our most famous entrepreneur alum is, like, DAO from DAO Chemical from, you know, graduate from kids into technology, another 100 years ago. But In more recent memory, there's 4 alum Stan Garber, Alex Yacobovich, Chris Crane, and Andrew Dirlike founded a company called Scout RFP. out on the West Coast who was sold to Workday for over $600,000,000. So Stan and Alex, and I know them both. I didn't have them in class, but they have a new company that they started about a year ago. You know, I was like, hey. Can you make room for us in the deal? And, you know, part of our hypothesis was we keep getting into these you know, we know them. They're sort of proud to let me scout for alones. And, you know, basically, like, in this case, like, benchmark This is one of the league funds. Like, took the whole round. Like, there wasn't room. And I was begging you. I was like, you know, and it's been interesting because we mostly got access to deals, that one we were not you know, we're hoping maybe you can stay in Alex. If you're listening for the next round, you'll let us in. But I think one of the the most common not a misconception. I just think people don't understand it. Like, it's not quite as easy as just being like, oh, we'd love to be in Stan and Alex's new company. Like, so so with everybody. So, you know, how do you how do you use your networks and relationships? I mean, John Cobbs, who is an alum, who was a founder of an company called Apartment List, started a company called Wild xyz, digital art, NFTs, you know, oversubscribe round led by expenditures with Reed Hoffman and Gwyneth Paltrow and all you know, he made room for us. It was, you know, in a very you know, didn't didn't need our money but made room. So, you know, I mean, we're we're hoping that and I think anything that's been an interesting teaching moment for the students because they sort of see I mean, the other thing we talk about when you're a joining fund is, like, being fast and frictionless in the diligence process and we sort of joke internally. Like, we say that we're fast and frictionless and we're neither. Right? Because we're learning. Right? So we're trying to -- Right. because we want our students to make informed decisions about due diligence so that involves having to have a conversation. The CEOs are busy. We'd like to talk to co investors, but if we're investing a small amount of money. So that's another piece of the puzzle. Like, you don't have unlimited time to make a decision on the investment. You have and particularly when you're doing a very small check size and, like, you're not leading the round, no one is waiting for us to do this. So that's been another, I think, really important teaching moment for the students. Like, we've gotta go fast. or we're gonna miss these op if we can even get access, we better do this fast or we're gonna miss that opportunity. So that's been another really important teaching opportunity as we as we, you know, as as we as we churn out all these venture capitalists among our fellows.

Jeffrey Stern [00:37:44]:

Right? No. I think that that's an important point, particularly as I think we often talk about it from the perspective of founders raising capital, how difficult that can be. But that there is this competition amongst investors on the other side of it trying to to get access to these deals, and and it comes down to to those things like what is, you know, your respect for founders' time who and what is the overall process that you are enabling for founders going through it. And and those things, I mean, typically, you know, they make their way back to other founders who later are going through the the diligence process, and that's how that's how firms get reputations. And, you know, and even on that point, I mean, working with the students. I mean, if you're going to make an informed decision, I mean, you know,

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:38:29]:

sharing the the the the reason is no and we said no, that's a hard conversation. Right? And that's a huge learning opportunity. And, you know, I mean, as as much as entrepreneurs have have thick skin because they're getting turned down a lot. Like, they don't love hearing. And, you know, we're part of the university so that there's some interesting dynamics and and, you know, the students. I've loved watching them learn I mean, I'm learning a lot, and I, you know, I I have some experience with venture capital. I mean, you know, it's it's it is delicate And, you know, we can't you know, we're we're gonna say no to more deals than we say yes to, but doing it away as you say that sort of helps build the reputation of the fund. gets our students a great learning experience, but, you know, it's definitely we're we're learning along the way. And I I think because we have some great students and, you know, and I think Part of it is getting the you know, because we have founders that are out there. I mean, many of these founders are sort of, let's say, they're in the university family, they're alums, and they're spin outs of some students, you know, they're I think they see the value of what we're trying to do. But, you know, telling them no still isn't a lot of fun. So, you know, making sure that we do that in a way that is respectful and communicative even if they don't wanna hear it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:46]:

What are some of the other reflections and learnings that that you've had as part of this process. And I I can throw out a few topics that that I'd be interested to to get your perspective on because I know there are there are things I think about a lot. One of them always being the the challenge of more on the the talent side of it from retention and how how, you know, we can amplify the the efficacy of our own ecosystems here through that. Is is there, you know, an avenue through which this can, you know, help on the attention side? How does it work from a a continuity perspective, you know, as as as folks graduate literally and and new folks have to come into the fund? know, the the onboarding mechanism for for for getting people up to speed. Maybe just the the the role within the greater Cleveland ecosystem

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:40:35]:

just a a few prompts there. Sure. No. I mean, I like you, and I've been here a bit longer. Like, you know, I wanna see the ecosystem thrive. I believe that the university has a really important role to play in that. There are other ecosystems like our friends to the east in Pittsburgh where Carty emailed in Pitt and their role in in the ecosystem. You know? And I think we do a good job. I mean, we can always get better, but but folks will point to some of Pittsburgh's success due to the role that Pitt and CMU have played. So I I I think, you know, I'm I'm I'm thrilled that that the community looks to Case Western Reserve as a as a critical player here. You know, we have talent you know, we we as we've become much more of a national and an international university, I mean, just in terms of student flow. I I don't know exactly know what the numbers are, but let's say 20 or 30 years ago, we were, you know, predominantly in Ohio University in terms of where our talent was coming from and now, like our student talent's coming from everywhere. I mean, anybody that is listening that is a parent with kids apply to college, they know kind of how crazy down the application process, which is, I think, works well for us. I mean, I you know, I don't know, for you, Jeffrey, but, like, I've got a lot of friends on the East Coast. I live in the East Coast. All of a sudden, I'm getting all these visits from New York and DC. And, Bob, I mean, we are on the radar, which is awesome, which means that, you know, it's harder to get in here. The talent is better. But this question, as you reference, of of retaining that talent when somebody comes from New York or Boston or San Francisco, and those are pretty vibrant ecosystems. So, you know, some of those folks are gonna go back home to where they're from. I, you know, I do think that the alumni fund can play a role in a very small way, you know, with just a little bit of capital and and helping show entrepreneurs that there's that there's capital. I mean, not surprisingly, we're looking at co investing with jumpstart, with UHC University Hospital Ventures. and other local investors with North Coast Ventures. So, you know, I think I think we punch under our weight in terms of of availability of venture capital, Angel Investing in the region. I don't think I think most people would agree with that. I mean, we we actually have a pretty probably punch over our weight in terms of private equity and the private equity funds that are here. So, you know, even these small efforts, and this is, you know, what we're doing campus is a relatively small effort. We do have some other funds on campus. There's something called the Spartan Fund, which is run of our out of our technology transfer office. Now they're exclusively focused on spinouts of our university. But, you know, I think every little thing helps. And if we can call more attention, you know, another Another one of our goals with the fund is is to some degree, and this takes a page from kind of the angel fund approach in which you could have sidecar investments into into so we may have a donor. Then this has not played out yet, but I'm hopeful. Let's say somebody donates to our fund through their involvement with us. They find out about a a spin out or a start up. You know, perhaps one here in Low Northeast Ohio, and all of a sudden, they're they're putting money out of their investment pockets that they've they've been they've donated out of their donor pocket to the fund. but then they're putting another check to work out of their investment pocket. So I think that while it hasn't happened yet with our because our fund is so new. I'm I'm hopeful that that may be another way to bring more capital to work to support local startups.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:12]:

Oh, yeah. It's it's all it's all very exciting, and hope to, you know, see you guys get involved in in as many deals as as possible going forward. wanna leave a little space here because I think just the the breath of of things that you're involved with through case, outside of case, you know, just ancillary to to any of those that that you wanna talk about here and unpack

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:44:34]:

that you think are important that that we haven't really touched on yet. Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's the little things, like, we we have our upcoming Morgan Taylor Paybe startup competition, and we're feeding our guests with a student startup called RedHard, and a an entrepreneur that we met through the Cleveland Central Kitchen, which is a really great food hub. Down on Carnegie, we've done a couple different projects with them. So David Ball, who's an entrepreneur who makes barbecue sauce and and emerging. So I think one of the things that we you know, as we start to gather more together thinking about those community entrepreneurs that are outside of sort of our tech based high growth startups. Like, there's just a lot of cool local entrepreneurs and, you know, we gotta eat and we gotta drink. So I think being thoughtful about where we can in connecting our food buying to sort of local entrepreneurs. So and there's some I mean, the Cleveland Central Kitchen has, like, a 100 food entrepreneurs, many of whom I didn't even know about. I mean, I don't know many times for those who live in Cleveland, like, you drive by there mean, I never knew what was going inside, but we did a project with them last year. So that's something to think about, I think, for those of us that are here, like, how can we better connect our checkbooks, to the degree anybody actually uses that checkbook anymore, kinda like kinda like a Rolodex. You know, at least our buying power with sort of local local entrepreneurs even if they're, you know, not necessarily tech based entrepreneurs.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:06]:

Yeah. No. Eric's story is is really fascinating. He he was actually on the the podcast a while back, and it it is astonishing the the number of brands that I think you come across in Cleveland that you you don't really have a good sense that so many of them came from from Central Kitchen. It's very cool. Awesome. Well, I'd love to kinda bookend it here with traditional closing question that we ask for for everyone who comes on the podcast, which is for your favorite hidden gems in Cleveland.

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:46:33]:

You know, I, you know, probably come back to to food. I mean, it's been really I mean, even some of the pop up kitchens, we just had a great meal the other day and the cat's diner with these two mean, they're entrepreneurs. I mean, this couple I can't even remember the name of the what they're calling the business. It's dumplings. They ran a craft brewery in Beijing. for 15 years, and he's from China, and he's from Cleveland. I just you know, it's just so awesome. I mean, obviously, you count in this category of sort of talent, whether it's through Venture for America. There have been people who have sort of ended up here. So I think making sure that we support restaurants. And, you know, I think coming out of COVID as we start to do more gathering in person. I mean, I think that's the other mean, I'm sitting in ThinkBox. I mean, I'd love to issue an invitation for anybody sort of listening who's not been to ThinkBox to sort of come. It's it's the largest open access makerspace in the country, and open access means it's open to anyone. And I think Okay. There's it's that's not obvious where you park, and, you know, this is some of these, you know, challenges will and anybody that's lived I always find it a little bit amazing. Being in Cleveland or having lived in other places, we were, like, complaining about parking in Cleveland. I'm like, it's pretty easy to park here, but I'm all good on that. That rabbit hole, but I'd love to encourage people, and you can look me up. I'm easy to find on our website and just shoot me an email and happy to show you around. I'm actually sitting right now on our Sixth Floor of ThinkBox, which is more hotel offices. I mean, anybody can come here and work out of here. I just think we need to gather more energy for you and I run into each other a couple times at different events on campus and off campus. But, like, for the most part, many of us haven't seen each other in, like, 3 years. And so -- Yeah. -- you know, would love for ThinkBox to be one of the places that people think of and just, like, bringing your laptop and working out of here. We have great students in and out of the building, and we believe that we have lots of great talent. I mean, one of the great ways to keep people here One is having them start a business, including the other is, like, convincing a lot of other entrepreneurs and folks including to hire these guys. So you know, love to love to have more more folks on campus.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:47]:

Yeah. No. I'll I'll let go of that. I I think think Box in particular is is is pretty underrated. It's such a incredible asset that that we have here, and I'd yeah. Happy to and to spread the word. It's very It is it's an amazing facility. Awesome. Well, Michael, I really appreciate you taking the time to to come on and and share more about yourself and and the the work that you're doing. If folks had things that they would like to follow-up with you about, what would be the the best way for them to do so? Sure. Thanks, Jeffrey, for having me. I mean, the easiest is probably email, and it's michael.goldberg@case.edu.

Michael Goldberg (Case Western Reserve University) [00:49:27]:

LinkedIn has become a very easy way to find each other. So, yeah, I mean, any way that people wanna connect with me would welcome the minutes to to meet and have you on campus, and how do you think, Box? Wonderful. Well, thank you again, Michael. Great. Thanks, Jeffrey. Really enjoyed it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:49:45]:

That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show. So if you have any feedback please send over an email to jeffrey@layoftheland.fm, or find us on Twitter at podlay of the land or at Sternfa, jefe. If you or someone you know would make a good guess for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on Itunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land.