Building a VC Firm as a Couple: Love, Leadership & Startups | Nick & Marina Davidovs, DVC

for the last 19 years.

For me, this is also like form of love.

That's why I don't like this game.

This is by accident.

Everybody wants to succeed.

Calls and meetings and stuff to do.

We definitely need to switch most of politicians to women.

This journey would be alone and it would be sustainable.

The company is in no longer in need of my services. Preventative education is the best thing.

today's deconstructed VC podcast we invited each other as guests and decided just you know to do like a kitchen kind of talk where well we're not in the kitchen but I prepared a few questions for you

this is by accident we didn't plan actually this podcast with each other, but it turned out that we have some time and we have

and I got questions for you

and well, I have a proposal for you. usually our schedule is so busy like full of calls and meetings and stuff to do.

You got tasks for me?

No, I have a proposal not to do anything, not to talk. Just potato couch like perfect. Oh, that that that would work. But you know I'm married to you so you'll find a job for me. So

so that's why you prepared questions so I would not give you some tasks to do.

Yes. Like if you are answering my questions you're not making me work. Which leads is a really good segue for to into the first question. I know that I'm not the easiest person to work with. How do you handle working with me for the last 19 years?

It came with ups and downs. That was one of the reason why I fired you first time.

Yeah. So for for all who don't know the story, our first job was at Cisco and I was at sales and Marina was in HR and at certain point she calls me and says, "Hey, we need to talk." And we just started dating back then. So I I got nervous. Turns out I should have been, but for another reason because she she did the talk with me and basically let me know that it's it's not me, it's the company is in no longer in need of my services.

True. Work with you. It's very fun. you're very inspiring. you always have something new. so it's never boring like every day there is something something new that you read or you learned and you're sharing it. And this is actually driving not only me but the whole company, the whole team.

Most of the time I just share your ideas.

Nevertheless, you're very curious and this is this is very I think it's very important that quality for for our field. Another thing so how we are working together we complement each other a lot. So

you're very beautiful. Okay.

In both ways. Yes.

in spite of the fact that we have very most of our background and experience and knowledge is the same. We have very different skills. I have a tendency to not to procrastinate to focus more like on perfectionism to like have to dive deeper to learn more to prepare better and sometimes it's it's good but most of the time it takes too much time and you are very active. How how was it in Cliff Clifton test?

activator

activator. Yes. So it was activator skills that I'm lack and you have and

so this is the problem with that is you're generally very easy to work with. My only problem my only big problem

too much work.

Yes. I mean like I generate lots of ideas and sometimes I generate them just for the fun of generating ideas. Mhm.

My problem is that you for some reason follow through on all of them

and and then like when it comes and thanks to you l like you take most of the workload on them usually but a lot of times you come back to me and say hey so remember you came up with that idea I made all that now you need to do this because that's like one last step and I was like wow why do we have to do that

that's a complaining or

I am well it's it's like boasting and compl complaining at the same time. Honestly, I I I feel like we we're just looking at the same thing and seeing it very differently a lot of times. I see.

And I have a question for you because lots of people asking me how we resolve conflicts inside how we're dealing with different arguments when we have different opinions on something. What's your take on that?

my take is that most conflicts are aren't even conflicts. It's just like the husband needs to accept that the wife is right. But both in the workplace and I mean statistically you're right like 96% of the time. So the 4% times that I'm right are just not worth it.

But a lot of time you can be persuaded. So I always try and you see I'm a chronic optimist. So I always, you know, try to persuade you. It does work. I agree with you.

But if we take it seriously, to be honest, we didn't, argue a lot. So we can have different opinions and which is good because if you have some different opinions on something that's a good opportunity to dive deeper and to talk talk more about that and understand what's what what's wrong why it's here. We can have an emotional breakdown every now and then

and then again it's a sign of like okay calm down step back and think why it's happening because most of the time it's not about the argument itself it's yes about we are overwhelmed or there's too much tasks and someone is not handling it

someone

the dog

the dog

see cherry

you're the weak link

it's Not and we didn't don't usually take it personally. So this is not about

see Cherry don't take it personally.

This is not about like okay when we having like some sort of emotional breakdown. This is not about like I'm we have something against each other. We are we have emotional breakdown because we are tired or overwhelmed.

How do you feel about achievement? do you have a sense of like what what's your own achievement in the company? What's like our achievement? What's my achievement? Like do you do do you think in this terms?

Usually I'm a team player not playing board games. board games is very individual contest for me. And

do not play katan with her.

Do not please play katan with me because Nick refuse refuses to play with me.

Yeah, you're a horrible person when you play katan.

You too. I know that's why I don't like this game.

Well, but yeah, in terms of the in terms of our work, in terms of the company, it's very difficult to like to do this line like between like what's your duties and what what I'm responsible for usually most of the things we're trying to do together. Same with achievements like what what what could be our achievement like okay we fundraised the fund we invested in this and that companies

cool companies. Yeah.

Yeah. And since we are making decisions together and now with three more partners in the company that's our achievement together as well.

Yeah. But like let's say when the founder says hey I want to thank you guys or like I want to thank you Nick or I want to thank you Marina do you like does it feel differently?

Well I want everyone to like respect team effort.

Yeah. So when and

because there are more people on the team honestly like even like I want to thank you guys does not include

necessarily everyone who who who put a lot of effort into something happening.

True. Talking about skills and strengths. If there is like a one superpower that you can give to all founders what could it be? So we are talking a lot to founders like every day our portfolio founders like founders former

I feel like curiosity is is a force for good

and a very strong internal motivator. and at the same time just being curious every minute of every day develops the brain in a way that everything else is easy. explaining things becomes easy. And you know, being able to explain complex things is even more valuable in the age of AI because all we do is now we we try to explain what we want to our agents.

So be better at prompting.

yeah. but being being curious would be a superpower. What's what would you suggest?

I still think that's building startups. It's not a lonely journey. So I'm always looking not only at the founder but how he sees the team and how he feels about them.

Who she

or she

I'm the feminist in the family. Raging feminist.

Thank you. So yeah and I think team is very important. doesn't matter you're a solo founder or or not. So for me super power to founder is to see the right people to find the right people to feel them together like the best team. What about all of this hyper successful founders who are psychopaths have no empathy and just like see people as tools but they're incredibly successful. Isn't that a superpower?

Yeah, but are they happy?

We don't know. They might be.

So then that that means that we have to define successfulness. What is successfulness for you? just very valuable in terms of like

I feel like in Silicon Valley success is mostly about the scale of impact one one has on the world.

Mhm. And so it's not necessarily about the money but it can be about the money because money is you know a good measure of of this like how much how much influence things you build have on the society hopefully in a good way

but still if you look at these founders you mentioned they're not doing this alone they have incredible people around them who support them so they still had looks like the superpower together amazing people around them.

I I also feel that a lot a lot of the people who who join they don't necessarily Hello Emanuel. They don't necessarily attract them by showing empathy. There's this thing that Mark Anderson talked about that I find a really good concept that any any startup is a snowball rolling down the hill and it needs to be the right kind of temperature and the right kind of structure to be able to have this attractiveness for snow. And there should be something that a founder can use to attract bigger piles of snow that and it's in their turn attract bigger piles of snow. A lot of times it's not about the founder personality or their ability to connect with people. A lot of times that's about how awesome the product is or how big of good positive impact it has or maybe how much money they're making.

It all kind of projects different cultures depending on like what is used as glue for this.

but I feel like it does not solve loneliness because people who get attached to a company they everybody has their own agenda. Everybody has you know everybody wants to succeed

and founders they still are lonely in this thing. Yes, they are in the middle of a very tightly packed snowball, but I don't I don't feel like they're really connecting in a very human way.

So your point is what?

It's like I wish everyone in in in this world to be to fund love as much as Maruna loves this cat.

Yeah. The point was about superpower. For me it's about not to work with puff alone and to gather people around you who can be support could could be a support to you. So that's

not or not necessarily like to work for you but maybe just you know

to be to be around you and so this journey wouldn't be alone and it would be sustainable because it's a long way.

It is. So, I wanted to ask you a little bit about how you approach building things because what I what I found is that for me it's usually I I want this to be a part of some bigger picture. I want it to have a clear intent just not for the sake of doing things. But a lot of times details don't matter for me.

It didn't matter.

Yeah. Like I I don't pay I you know I enjoy finely crafted things but then I I

is it like I mean you want this but you're sometimes very obsessed about something and

you can you can and this can be obsessive. Yes. And this is very important because like with all your curiosity and like sometimes like this activator think obsession leads to creating something very quick and on a very high level

which is like bringing you know our events as an example.

Okay. I feel like organizing every event like producing events

with so much love and attention to detail is what I want to do but I don't want to do do it

and you do do it like every event we do for our founders and investors you know starting from like food ambience how like it's paced

it's it's all designed and it's very nicely designed. Do you find joy in this or you you just feel that there's no point in doing it in a worse way?

We always ask ourselves why we are doing this and that thing because as you said the level of complexity in our life is so big. You have to choose and prioritize and most of the time it's you choose things that compound. you cannot do like random things and then sit and look why you're not moving towards your strategy. But in this case if even if you have like very clear answer so we are doing these events why because our strategy is to build a fund based on community in order to do to do this in order to make community working we have to make we have to do these events. We have to gather from time to time to build relationships not only like vertical between us and founders and investors but also horizontal so people know each other know each other's problems inspire each other.

so this is how community is working. Yes we can do just just an event. Yes, we can meet once once in a quarter, but it will not actually spark this community thing. And in this case, all these little details is actually strategic things to make it work. And to be honest, I like caring about people. For me, this is also like form of love and I want people to feel loved and to feel supported because we I I think

form of service as well.

Form of service for sure. They are all very busy. They have so many things to do and if they have this time that when they can just relax and feel this support and love, why not? And they are like all things matters. how it's designed. what what they eating not like ordinary pizza on meetups and carbonated drinks like Coca-Cola. I want to I want to think about them like all these simple choices.

Either Brian Johnson.

Yes. Or K to K to Toll.

Yeah. Kate Tollo is a co-founder of Blueprint.

Yes. She's advocating for women health as well. So yes, keto all these so simple choices matter like how how how they spending the time what they eating, what they drinking, is it does it does it feel like stressed or or not? That that's that's important. that is a lot of care like when we look at startup opportunities to invest in a lot of times something looks like a no-brainer for me.

Mhm.

And and then what I noticed is that a lot of times you would have a very direct opinion on something saying like no we shouldn't do that. What are the main things you look at because clearly they're different from the things I look at. there's this thing overhyped like intuition but in reality intuition is most of the time is the amount of information you process before so it's a

a prepared mind

prepared mind most of the time we make decision before we understand that we make made this decision so to make like a lot of decisions like that you have to train your brain train your neural network with enough information with enough data. So sometimes it's about seeing the patterns of office inputs on this data like I don't know how fast compan is growing how they are reacting on nowadays markets how they adopting to this but since we are investing a lot on very early stage when we just don't have any numbers and any data about this particular company. It's all about the founders. and yes, we have like some experience.

So you you're hearing this like if we say no to you, this is because she didn't like you.

I'm kidding. No. Like clearly it's not like whether you're like a founder or not not like a founder. So it's it's something something in the founder

that you feel is not going to work, right?

Or maybe it's work, but we are not the best partners for that. sometimes it's al also the case. Sometimes it's yeah it's not about the founder itself but something else is not clicking maybe the approach maybe the idea. It's not our case but investing the company it's for so being their partner for a long time.

Oh yeah

it's longer than average marriage not again not not our case but but it's true. And when sometimes it's just like you feel that like you will not bring any value or it will take a lot of time to to synchronize. We can invest money.

So first of investment is about money and if it makes sense in terms of like mathematics we still can do that. Our time is our resources are limited. We are always trying to bet on something that can give gives us not just two three times returns.

Oh yeah.

Much more.

That is that is true. I was wondering what do you

So you came prepared like or you had like all these questions before you just we didn't have time to discuss.

No, I'm coming up with them as we go.

Okay.

I speak about like what I like what I see in the future, you know, where the trends going quite a lot. But I was wondering if if you could share what picture, not necessarily technological but maybe societal.

What do you feel 2035 is going to look like?

Not about technological.

Yeah, it can be about technology but you know what do you feel is important?

I tell you a story. yesterday I was in in very interesting place. It was contemporary art museum and they had a pan a p panel with artist and writer and vocalist and music composer. So a lot of people from creative industries and it was it was also connected to this contemporary art museum which is recently opened and they have a lot of plans in the future. I was surprised that two hours of panel discussion was about AI,

not about art or

not about artic not about any forms of art particular, not about trends in art, but like about about AI, about the future like of creativity.

Let me guess, they they talked about like threats to art from AI.

It felt that they were threatened by by AI a lot.

I would be Yes, for me and I believe for you as well. we are too optimistic about technology. We are not threaten about that and well living in Silicon Valley and investing in future things like which is now only ideas. I think we are already like live in some sort of like future 10 year other like ins.

So so you're saying that in 10 years the world is going to look like what we

experiencing right now. Yes. What we see now probably in pitch tax but on a larger scale. at least like we try to invest in the companies that we won't succeed in the horizon of 10 years. So that means that as a humanity we are on this like very complex u bottom line where we have a lot of problems as a society that I believe AI can help us to to solve from drug discovery to the to our lives to our productivity. What do you think needs to happen for there to be no wars in 2035?

Let's go back and I answer the same question but tell me future not mentioning technology.

Not mentioning technology that is going to be very hard for me.

Yes, that's why I ask you.

Okay. I feel there's going to be a lot more access to things that are currently gatecapped for the for the rich. Progress in general, not necessarily technological, but technology being a major part of it is is raising the floor. Right now, a lot of people are locked in this u vicious circle of just working their asses off just to pay their bills. and the bills are basically covering shelter, nutrition, some education, some some basic services. I think these are going to become much cheaper and then some of the things that are accessible to richer people is going to become accessible to pretty much anyone in emerging countries.

Are you talking about 10 years or

10 10 years? Yes, I think I think 10 years is is is enough because there are going to be much more abundance of of of things that are like personalized right now. like healthcare, like education.

Hope it would be not only personalized but also preventive.

Oh yeah, hopefully. Yeah, preventative education is the best thing.

I hope that there's like I don't know maybe because I I was surrounded by like female leader figures my whole life. I I feel like we definitely need to switch most of politicians to to women.

Share who were your female leaders?

You, my mom, my granny and my aunt probably. Well, first of all, women are much better at politics. They just don't have momentum and enough resources to capitalize on that.

You have to define what does it mean by politics?

No, I mean they can be smarter, more cunning, more subtle in just navigating their way to get what they want done. But also at the same time, they're much less aggressive. Hopefully if if you know if we have more women presidents we'll we'll we'll be as a society more nurturing.

I hope so. But at the same time I think you're missing a lot of like dramas at our

Yeah, I know. This is daughter girlfriends.

Yeah, there's going to be a lot of drama.

so better to have equality. It's not about like have

you see it's like for me as a man it's just always beneficial to be surrounded by women.

Yeah.

So that's why but like probably a different story if you if I was a woman.

I once brought Nick to women in tech event and

by the way guys like quick tip. Sorry for interrupting you. So women in tech events are not just for women. you can go too. And like if you if you are in San Francisco and you don't go to like and and you're whining about the dating scene that you know there are like no no good dates available here, go and you have to go to one of these events. There are like 300 super smart a high agency women that are building something really cool and there's literally zero competition. There were like three guys

and all husbands.

Yeah. All of them husbands who just you know came to like support or came because they didn't know where they were going to. We were like all three of us were quite puzzled that was an actually an event that is like same stuff that happens with you know any any other meetup. So my point was that like I once brought Nick to this event and I I was asking him how did it feel to be only one

the tallest one in the room

only one man surrounded by by women and then I realized that's very stupid question because like he didn't feel

yeah I've been engineering this my whole life

he didn't feel threatened on something which is like yeah but when you're surrounded by only men it could feel absolutely different.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That 100%. When when you're the only woman in the room of 100 men, that's that's very different from being the only guy in the in in the room of 100 women. And it's much quieter.

Yeah. But I think yeah, we need Veradza to

to give his feedback on that. How how does it feel always?

Maybe he does feel threatened, but yeah, it's it's also much quieter. You don't you don't have to project as much as with you know meetups where there are lots of guys especially like finance bros that are super loud.

Okay. do you want to share your I know productivity tips how your work day looks like usually

I mean

how do you want your work day to look like?

How do you want to my work day to look like? because my day is a lot of times it's the opposite of being productive. I a lot of times I just well I I kind of follow my calendar so if if something's on my calendar it happens but a lot of times I just didn't like

funny thing that's absolutely true. so Nick Nick does usually

he's he doesn't see his calendar as something like strategic. so usually I am what I'm doing like I'm looking at my calendar one week before trying to see okay where I have gaps and how to better optimize it. Then the day before at night I'm checking again just to see exactly how it looks like. in the morning I'm confirming it because sometimes during the night it like some events could appear from nothing. So usually I know exactly how it will be. I'm trying to put like sometimes my running inside it. Think about my lunch and other stuff. Kids for sure kids. So Nick is following what it's written like

yeah like what's the next thing literally like I I never look beyond the next thing

and sometimes it's working against him. So he was one day he was complaining that like his schedule is too busy and sometimes it's it's it's like that he doesn't have time even 30 minutes to have a lunch. So he asks our assistant to put a lunch into his calendar so to make sure that every day he has this time which he did.

So he was moving through his calendar and he saw this lunch break and he

I ordered the Door Dash and I had a lunch and then I opened my next thing and it's a meeting for lunch in a in a pretty good restaurant. So I was like okay. So, I go there and it's kind of awkward not to eat when the other person is eating. So, I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna I guess I'm gonna have another salad." So, I have that salad. I open my calendar. The next meeting is also

Yeah. And I believe it was Labakasa, something like that. So it was

yeah it was it it was sad. And then the last thing so I like I had food I paid for it and then the last thing I opened the calendar and we have a meeting with one of our portfolio founders who happens to be a really freaking good chef like in Michelin.

He was preparing for that dinner one week in advance. He was making a homemade ice cream and

everything. Yeah. So

he was doing like homemade pasta from scratch. That was that was a day where I had way too many meals. Honestly, the only one I do regret is the Door Dash.

That wasn't even good.

Okay.

A lot of time my productivity is, you know, it's it's like a roller coaster. A lot of times I'm just super productive and I start lots lots of things and I hate myself from from the past before starting all of these things and, you know, taking on all of these tasks.

That's your activator.

Oh. Oh yeah. I like I hit the guy especially when I have to you know like when when I talk to a founder and we're like oh we should do this we should do that like I should introduce you to this guy and then like I should help you with this and then the next day I look at my calendar and has like all of these tasks. I was like wow I should I should I should just learn how to shut up and we're doing fine. A lot of times I'm just, you know, not in the mood and I feel like I have low energy and like I'm not going to be productive if I push myself today. So I'll just try to kill things that are draining

from that day and move them to some other day. A lot of times when you move a certain task enough times it disappears. Magic. A lot of times it reverses. So like you you need to change something and then people decide that it was better like the way it was and and then you're like oh yeah I did I I reversed it and then I changed it back and everybody's like Nick you're so productive.

We have to put this snail meme.

Oh yeah the meme I feel like it I have become much more productive once I figured what are the cheat codes to you know my internal motivation system. So understanding like analyzing your behavior patterns, adapting it, not like forcing yourself through it because that's some most of them this is what we're doing. we have we are thinking that okay I don't have enough willpower so I have to force myself into this

but

or there might be different ways like for example I was I was procrastinating like a slide deck because you know when you do a slide deck you try to put your ideas and your vision into it and then you know that is going to be rejected many many times because you know that's the nature of hiring the nature of sales nature of fundraising you're going to get rejected lots of times and and there's like a very small chance that somebody's going to say yes. So predicting this rejection creates this incredible frustration in the future that you try to avoid.

The frustration is now.

Yeah, the frustration is now and it's going to be frustrating in the future to get rejected. So you're trying to avoid it. So you're procrastinating. But what I figured is that

but this projection Yeah, that's that's interesting thing to be honest. our rejection is imaginary thing. So yes probably there's a certainty that someone will project but most of the time it's not only because of your deck or like particular sight or particular vision

that's not about us definitely yes

but the our brain look works like that so we are so afraid of rejection so we are trying and we feel frustration now about this imagining things and actually it stopped us from doing things

yeah 100% but I found you know But there a lot of a lot of coaches would say, "Hey, think of the good things that's going to happen after you like like do this. Think of, you know, what what it accomplishes for you, like how you're going to feel." That doesn't work for me.

What does work for me is finding a method of doing it that is fun in the process.

So instead, I vibe coded the app using like a vibe coding tool. So it's not in the deck, it's a website and I just enjoyed it so much that I want to keep working like honestly like we sit here is like oh like I have two more ideas of what to include there cuz it's just fun in the process and rejection no longer matters because like wow I'm building I'm happy building.

Okay that that that's very nice advice. So sometimes if you are stuck about something that like give you frustration

yeah change the method like if you if you need to clean the room

focus not on like the result of that but on the process.

Yeah. just make make it well another coach would say you like make the process enjoyable in in your particular case is just

like get some source source but sometimes it's also about like make surrounding like well I don't know like so you will enjoy things around you when you're doing this hack your brain

yeah hacking our brain is is is is more and more important

Any other Why are you attacking me a little bit?

Any other brain hacks?

Sleep well. That's that's number one. My like every time I don't sleep well, I'm just like it's it's impossible to find energy to accomplish anything.

I just barely will agree with you.

Yeah. And it's it's true. It works. Like it's it's just like so all of the brain chemistry is so out of balance that you survive through meetings like you don't remember them like and it's a waste of time. Honestly, at this point, I feel like if I if I slept bad, like let's say I just flew in from Europe and I worked at night, I had to like finish something for a deadline, the next day I'm going to have like five meetings and I'm not going to remember anything important about them. I'm going to basically it's going to be a waste of time. It's better to reschedule them. Spend this 5 hours taking a nap, walking, you know, taking care of your body and brain so you can actually return and do it with with better efficiency. I know you don't do that.

What?

Like you like you don't stop ever.

No, no, no. I'm I'm I'm laughing because you're repeating my TED talk draft.

Oh, okay. Oh, yes. But but in

even like the same words.

Yeah. But I mean it it does work. It it does really really work because nothing can make you productive if your brain's not productive. If if it if your body is not productive. Nothing can help you achieve things or focus on things. Cuz when when we're stressed, we're tunel visioning into things that are scary and we don't see all of the opportunities around them. like perception and bias that we have when we look at things is heavily influenced by just the brain chemistry.

So we tend to underestimate how brain chemistry affect our decisions.

Yeah. So in order to at least be more obtractive and less dependent on like this brain chemistry fluctuations, we have to acknowledge its importance and take care about these small things that influence our how do we feel, how do we sleep and and other stuff.

100%. good. do you do you feel like we we we've got enough for like a short

kitchen talk?

If people will like the format, we can ask them questions in advance.

Oh yeah. yeah. So so we can like please comment with what you want to learn or what you want to hear us ramble about.

Oh, maybe we just can like I don't know u film the cat.

We should put like a we should put

he's a potato couch.

Yeah, couch potato. We we should should put a little mic on him so we can do ASMR. So like his his purring is is like insane. Yeah.