To kick off this season, we sit down with the amazing Amanda Price - Head of KPMG High Growth Ventures. Learn how she believes in how practice makes perfect and hear her talk candidly about how she has made and learnt from her mistakes.
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Kylie
Defaulting to likability is bullshit. You know, I don't care if my founders don't like me all the time, you know, if they want to come and hang out with me, I'm not doing my job properly.
Camilla
Welcome everyone, back to another episode of Shares Not Shoes, an insider's guide to careers in Finance. I'm your host, Camilla Love, founder of F3 Future Females in Finance. Shares not Shoes, is a podcast whereby I interview some of my favourite people, all with one thing in common. They work in finance. We lift the lid on who they are, how they came into a career in finance, and arm you with some knowledge about why a career in finance could be a good fit for you. I will promise that all my guests will share some amazing personal stories, will be open and honest, and will inspire you. So let's go. We are definitely going to have a few giggles with today's special guest. We won't hold it against her that she started a life as a lawyer, but in actual fact, this is one of her superpowers when it comes to doing some cracking good deals. She made her way into finance by doing corporate advisory work and flung herself into the startup venture capital scene about eight years ago or so. Now she's fully invested in the angel and vc scene. Do you get it? How I love a fabulously good pun.
Camilla
Kylie Fraser, welcome to shares, not shoes.
Kylie
Camilla, thank you so much for having me. And yes, here I am, fully invested. What a cracker. Here we go. How many puns can we fit into half an hour?
Camilla
I'm sure we can. Sure. We've not done one. We can, we could. Is it a, you know, do we ding ding the bell or do the shots or whatever it is for the buns that we can do in half an hour.
Kylie
You listeners will not thank me for that. I suspect.
Camilla
I can't wait to for you to impart all your wisdom in the early stage venture capital space and structuring deals and how to not make mistakes. Because how to not make mistakes is pretty much the gold standard and the north star in your segment, dare say. Kylie, you are the co founder and partner of Flying Fox Ventures and they are an early stage VC firm. Your business connects early stage startups with private capital to support their growth journey. So tell us a little bit about what you do, because this is a super exciting space. I love this space myself. And why do you love it?
Kylie
Yeah, awesome. Great place to start. What we do is that we raise money from investors and then we select the early stage startups that we believe have the most potential to generate returns for our investors. Once we've deployed the capital, the work just gets started, as we then have a lot of kind of support work to do as we help those companies grow, which the way that a startup grows is different from how a normal business grows. And this is one of the things that took me a little while to kind of unlearn and relearn when I came to the venture capital space, is that growth is kind of measured differently. It happens at a much faster rate. And the levers that you can pull here, specifically by access to external finance, are a bit different from how they look over in kind of normal corporate land. So that's, that's kind of what we do in, in a nutshell, how I came to be here is, you know, I guess a little bit of a roundabout way, when I, you know, had spent most of my career in the law, which people are supposed to apologise for, like, you're supposed to be really apologetic that, oh my God, I'm so boring, you know, like, I'm such a.
Camilla
Lawyer, but as I said, it's his superpower.
Kylie
It's great, you know, and I was there for so long that I learned deep specialisation, you know, like, I am really good at m and a, you know, that's, that's what I do. And in venture capital, there's so much focus on getting in that no one realises that you actually make your money on the way out. And you have to have. You have to be able to bring that, that toolkit to the table. So, yeah, when I had my babies, I realised that I was unlikely to ever see them if I stayed, you know, kind of in an m and a role at a. At a big law firm. And I made the. What was a tough decision to kind of step out on my own and start a business, which failed spectacularly.
Camilla
Tell me.
Kylie
It wasn't good. So it was an innovation lab for professional service firms, because I wanted to solve the problem in front of me. And if I was kind of drawing themes from my career, I would say that's probably what I'm good at. I'm very good at just identifying obstacles and then removing them. And I had, this is back in kind of 22,000, 920 ten. And I had kind of been a bit fed up with how slow the kind of professions were to pick up some of these technological shifts that I. That I could see were coming. And postscript, they are now, really, you know, it's an entirely different world now. You know, I think. I think it's fully embedded. They really embrace that. But at that time, it was, you know, it was just a bit too early, and they weren't quite ready to hear what I was saying. And those few that were certainly didn't want to buy it in a product firm. They wanted to buy me as a consultant, and it did not make any money for me to hire myself out as a consultant by the hour, because if I was going to go back to selling myself by the clock, there was, you know, I may as well stay in law.
Kylie
Right? You know, like, no one.
Camilla
Well, you could do it by six minutes. Exactly. By the hour.
Kylie
Exactly. So, yeah, that was kind of. So I think one of the things that I learned there, well, I learned many things, but one of the things I felt rather than learned was acute embarrassment. And as, you know, as someone that has seen me on the dance floor on occasion, you know, like, I don't, I don't suffer from acute embarrassment easily, but when you fail in a sector that you have grown up in, you know, where, you know, everyone, like, I just felt that everyone was laughing at me, you know, that my peers, you know, had, had seen me take a swing and not have it come through. So that one hurt.
Camilla
They weren't really.
Kylie
Of course they weren't. They didn't give a shit, you know, like, they. No one feels those things as, you know, as deeply as you do.
Camilla
No, I know. And generally, most people are, you know, proud of you for backing yourself on doing something, regardless of whether it passes or fails.
Kylie
Yeah, exactly. And I was blessed to fail quickly. So it's not like, you know, I didn't spend, you know, five years flogging this thing. I was kind of in and out in, you know, 18 months, and moved on to my next venture, which luckily was more successful. Didn't take a traditional venture path, but for a while I thought that it would. And that was when I came to kind of learn about, you know, the role of venture capital and the difference between, you know, startups and business. I was really coming at it from first principles when. When I was learning about how VC's are remunerated. Everyone's referring to Carrie, but I heard it as carrot. And I thought, I thought everyone was running around, yeah, chasing carrot with a carrot. And I just thought it was like some, like, industry insider lingo for all these cats. And I was desperate to know, like, what actually is a carrot? Like, is it a. Is it a unit of money? Like, is it. Is it shares? Like, it's a diamond what? I want to be collecting these carrots. So, yeah, that shows you how noob I was when I came in.
Kylie
But, yeah, luckily I'm a fast learner.
Camilla
Oh, definitely, definitely. And so why do you love it? Because I know why I love delving into this space. Why do you love it?
Kylie
I love. Yeah, I'm a morbidly curious person and I love just the opportunity to go deep on different things every day. I think one of the great benefits of having a deep specialisation, you know, like I was lucky to have with law, is that it reminds you of the superficiality of your knowledge in other areas, you know, so you always come to new spaces with a lot more humility and a lot more willingness to learn, I think because I know how much I know about, you know, warranty and indemnity clauses, you know, I can't bring that expertise to every other area. And I love it when, you know, you kind of get to sit for an hour with someone who has this niche specialisation and you can just, you know, ask all the questions and come at things with this, with this real, like, childish enthusiasm where there's no, there's no expectation that I have the answers, you know, I just have to, you know, have, have the courage to ask the questions, which is, which is a wonderful thing to do day in, day out.
Camilla
And I love the fact that you can bring to fruition the joy of a founder's goals. Right. So watching them back themselves and support them into growing their business to what it could or should be is just an amazing, amazing opportunity.
Kylie
Yeah, it is. I'm going to badly misquote one of my us venture colleagues, who referred to seed investors as being those that really shape the version of the future that they want to see, because we get to select the few that at least have a chance, you know, that at least have a chance to bring their version of the future into reality. Later stage investors tend to just pick the ones that have the best metrics, you know, the ones that are growing fast. But at the stage that we're investing in, there's usually, you know, not many metrics to rely on.
Camilla
And so why did you choose the angel end of the capital structure here?
Kylie
At the time when I started, that was where the need was. So it was as kind of simple as looking at what gaps existed in the ecosystem. Now, I'm delighted to say that those gaps have largely been filled, but that's why I started there. It's also, you have to show a track record, right. You can't go and ask people for hundreds of millions of dollars to deploy when you haven't demonstrated that you can consistently return capital over time. So you do have to earn your stripes.
Camilla
And the segment has actually grown, as you mentioned. Is it much more like, is there a lot of competition, or are you finding yourself up against? Because obviously, capital finds good businesses and you want to put yourself and your investors in the best possible space so that you can grab those opportunities as they come up. So, given there is more competition, are you finding it more challenging to offer those great investors? Or is it, in fact, that the network, your network, is so good that you're getting those opportunities, just giving you.
Kylie
Dorothy Dix, I have the best network. Thank you. The end? No. So there's two ways in which we compete, right? We compete for investors, you know, for the right to, you know, to invest people's capital on their behalf, and then we compete with access to deals. And I think it's definitely true that competition has increased on both sides of that equation over the last few years since we started. But competition's a good thing. It makes you better, makes you sharper. It makes you get really clear on what you're not and really clear on what your points of differentiation are on the deal side. You know, Rachel and I are lucky in that we do have, you know, quite a good track record in helping companies on the business side as well. You know, Rachel was. Was one of the great kind of startup product advisors before she came to venture capital. So she is really good on that, you know, on that early growth story and helping people identify they're kind of moments of customer delight, which can really set a business up for these moments of hyperscaling. And she's done it, you know, at canva, she's done like, she's just done it time and time again.
Kylie
So, you know, being able to ride on her hotels certainly helps. And then. And then people know that I'm, you know, I'm a straight shooter, you know, like, I think one of the things that, you know, if. If we surveyed our founders, and we're kind of terrible at doing this in a systemic way because we. We hate taking them away from the business, but, you know, I don't sugarcoat things. You know, not startups are hard, and mistakes are made all the time. You know, I think one of the things I do very well is give, you know, direct and honest feedback when it's needed. And, you know, that can be a self selection process. Right. I do that right from the very first meeting. I don't want to partner with a company that can't, you know, that doesn't, like, you know, the way that Rachel and I work, that's just not a good match. It doesn't mean that it's not a good company. It doesn't mean that mine and Rachel's way is the only way. And it doesn't mean that Rachel and I aren't flexible in tailoring our, you know, most bitchy selves to accommodate, you know, the egos of founders.
Kylie
But, you know, we're looking for the best. You know, we're not. We're not looking for founders who just need their ego stroked and to be told that they're awesome all the time. You know, there are others who'll do that. That's not us.
Camilla
That's never a winning combination, that one. Never. Never.
Kylie
But you'd be surprised. Sorry, I don't mean to talk over you, but this kind of, one of the metrics that VC's hold themselves to is NP's from founders. And I've already fessed up that we're not particularly good at surveying our founders. But defaulting to likability is bullshit. You know, I don't care if my founders don't like me all the time, you know, if they want to come and hang out with me, I'm not doing my job properly. You know, it's not my job to make their lives easy. It's my job to remove as many obstacles from the business path as I can and to coach them through it. But that's, you know, that's not always without pain, shall we say?
Camilla
No, absolutely. And I think that frankness and directness, particularly as a founder, is really, really important. And the same goes on the investor side, too, because you want to know at the time when your investment is going well, but you also want to know the time when your investment isn't going well and what you're doing about it. And I think that, that, you know, and I said your lawyer piece is a superpower. But actually, I think that the way. The way that you conduct yourself, the way that you are direct, the way that you, as you say, don't default to likeability, is. Is really, you know, again, another superpower of yours in this space. So I love it. Love it. Just to let you know. Thanks, Jamila, you mentioned Rachel, your co founder in Fine Fox. And another thing that I love is the fact that two cracking great women are running this absolutely fabulous firm. How did you guys come across, you know, is it, you know, was it something that you you cared about the diversity piece or having a women only founded firm, you know, or is that just a by the buyer, who cares thing as well?
Kylie
I feel like I'm going to get in trouble for this.
Camilla
But no, no, tell the truth.
Kylie
It wasn't. It wasn't by design at all. You know, we just didn't even think about it. You know, as. You know, sometimes I joke that I'm not sure Rachel or I particularly identify as women. You know, we're on almost women last. I don't want to get into the gender wars on anything, but it's just. It's never been relevant to how we see ourselves or this business. It has been, you know, others assume that it is from time to time, less so now. But when we started, I mean, Camilla, you'll remember, we actually started this business as Eleanor Venture. And one of the reasons why we had to change the name was that folks couldn't get their heads around that a business started by a couple of women that was also named after a woman could not have a gender lens, that we had the audacity to invest in male founders as well. And we were just like, crikey, venture capital is hard enough without making the women fix the very real problem of the lack of funding to female founders. That is the responsibility of everyone in the ecosystem, not just pointing out to the couple of women who had the audacity to start a firm to say, oh, good, you're here now you fix this mess that we made.
Kylie
That's not going to happen.
Camilla
Yeah. And I love that because it really is two very highly experienced, skilled people getting together rather than anything else. Really?
Kylie
Yeah, no, we can. We keep saying we probably have a diversity problem to fix on the other side, but, you know, we'll get around to hiring a token mail eventually.
Camilla
Only if their skills stand up.
Kylie
Exactly.
Camilla
So, thinking about flying Fox as it currently stands, is there one company that stands out for you or has made an impact on you? And why? And the reason why, you know, you know, whilst I assume parents aren't supposed to have a favourite child, like, do you actually have one in your portfolio of companies?
Kylie
No, I'm just gonna lie and say, no, I love them all equally, which is so not true, especially the ones that I'm having argy with at the moment. You know, who you are. Love is not distributed equally. Look, there is one that stands out and it's the reason, you know, probably the main reason why I was inspired to start the firm. And it's probably the investment that has taught me the most about professional boundaries, because I am terrible at maintaining them with this particular founder, who is Olympia? Olympia Yaga, the founder of Goterra, which is a biological waste management company, kicking all kinds of goals, processing waste up and down the east coast of Australia. But I think because it's the only time I've invested in someone who was a friend first. Although we met through startups, we met, Olympia was giving like a 32nd pitch at TEDx, I don't know, like eight years ago, maybe more. And I went up to her after the pitch and just said, that was incredible. You know, you've blown my mind. Like, I think we should get you some of this thing called venture capital. I'm learning about how it works, you know, let me get you some money.
Kylie
And she was just like, this is amazing. I don't know what this is. And like, you know, we kind of had a hug and a chat, and we've really been on this journey together in a lot of ways like that. There is, there are some founders in our portfolio who perhaps think, I was going to say, who think I have more knowledge and experience in this space than I do, but that's, that's, that's bullshit. That's giving myself a disservice. Because even though it's actually, even though it's only been eight years, the feedback is so constant, you know, like this knowledge is compounding day, day and day, but Olympia was there at day one. So we just have this very candid relationship that is unique amongst my founders, but also sometimes difficult because it is personal. This is a game of humans. When you invest in startups, you are investing in founders, and it's important to maintain good working relationships with all of them. But yeah, it's interesting when they turn into real friends. And I hope over time, as our portfolio matures and I have to spend less time in the trenches with my founders, that some of those relationships will develop into more pure friendships rather than just kind of almost transactional relationship that it is now.
Kylie
But yeah, Goterra special also, who doesn't love a robot maggot? Like, it's just hot.
Camilla
It's so hot. Can I say, I'm so glad that you love Gotera, because I actually, in my notes have, I love Goterra. And the reason why I did so I. For me, I actually use Goterra as in a, I was doing some lecturing for UNSWS, learn to lead online programme in essentially investing for the future. And I used Goterra as the example of true impact investing.
Kylie
Yeah.
Camilla
And because I love, as you say, robot maggots the best. Like, seriously, I just. I think, and you know, that business is just amazing. Just starting from scratch, doing what it's doing and the impact and how it could be rolled out globally is just amazing.
Kylie
Yeah, it's phenomenal. She's an absolute powerhouse.
Camilla
Gosh, can't wait to meet her. You'll have to do an intro.
Kylie
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Camilla
So my next question is actually about mentorship. Right, so you are a mentor for startups at start mate, but you also help foster the angel investment community here in Australia through your involvement with UNSW Angels programme. So firstly, why do you mentor? And secondly, do you have a preference on which side of the coin you prefer to mentor on? Or is it really the same coin?
Kylie
This is interesting. Right, so I have actually pulled back a bit from mentoring start mate since, you know, since flying Fox, it has taken up more and more of my time. I think it's really difficult to be a good mentor and a good investor. When I say mentor, I mean a mentor to startups specifically. I just. I think the skills that a good mentor requires, you know, the leading people to the right answer, the, you know, questions that pull the truth out of them. Out of them like that. That stuff takes time and sadly, at the moment, I just don't have the time to do that work outside of my portfolio. You know, like, I am just so laser focused on giving the best of me to the companies that we have backed. Because at the end of the day, you know, my fiduciary obligation is to my investors, which is to drive returns, which means I need to work for the portfolio. You know, I do that. There is always ecosystem work to do and there are some firms who hold a heavier burden than others in doing that ecosystem supporting work and I'm very grateful to them.
Kylie
But Flyfox is a small and nimble firm. There's a limit to how much we can do, I think, where we do a lot, where we can have a lot more impact, and where I think we are amongst the best in the ecosystem is the way that we mentor and educate investors. Now, there's some wonderful formal investor education out there. You mentioned UNSW angel Investors programme, where I've been lucky to be involved since the conception, and they run a wonderful programme. Rachel is the lead facilitator for the Wade Institute's VC catalyst programme down in Melbourne, which again, is just world leading in the education that it provides. But what we offer at Flyinfox is this kind of experiential learning process where investors who may not yet have the confidence to go off and do it by themselves can follow along and see how rach and I do it. You know, they can sit in on our founder calls, we share our deal memo, we share our diligence notes. And that I think is just really important as you're, you're starting your, your angel journey is just the opportunity to really see how others do it and hopefully learn from their mistakes and stories rather than making your own.
Kylie
Because I don't know, man, like, it's certainly my early mistakes in angel investing were expensive and every person that I can stop from making such ridiculous mistakes account as a massive win.
Camilla
I absolutely agree. So I mean, what are the stats? Like 65 70% of startups essentially fail or even more? And then, you know, what are there any highlights or, you know, red flags that you look out for? And obviously the VC space has had down rounds over the last little while. It's been challenging from a capital space as well to accumulate capital to put into companies because investors are more sitting on the sidelines in this last 18 months, say two year period. What are your thoughts on, on those little aspects and then, you know, you view on mistakes as an investors?
Kylie
Yeah, I think for an angel investor, the easiest and most common problem to make is lack of diversification at the early stages. We all think we can pick the winners, but study, after studying has shown that, you know, investors with early portfolios never knew at the earliest stages which were going to be the ones that hit. So to increase, to kind of increase your statistical likelihood of achieving returns in this space, you have to have a number of shots on goal. And that doesn't mean investing more because no one should over index to startups, you know, this, this is a small part of a well balanced portfolio. It means writing smaller cheques. And when you come to a new space, you know, when you come to the world of startups, your ego kind of wants to write cheques that your bank balance can't keep up with if you really want to achieve that diversified portfolio. So people tend to go out too hard, too fast, and then they're too exposed, too concentrated to just a small number of startups. So, you know, thinking from the earliest stages how you can, you know, manage that diversification risk and not invest with your ego is, is important.
Kylie
When we take new investors on to flying Fox, first off, we don't let anyone invest a single cheque the first time they come. We always make sure that they have, you know, between five and ten deal, minimum commit. So we'll say great, that's the amount that you want to invest. Fantastic. But you can't put it in one, you know, like let's spread it out so that even if we are the only taste of startup investing that they get, they're still going to come away with a little portfolio because we just, we've just seen too many folks make those early mistakes. So I think that's, that's the key thing to look out for.
Camilla
Absolutely. So is there a burning platform for you at the moment? In this segment? At the moment, is there anything that's sort of keeping you up at night?
Kylie
Not really. Not that I can think of. It's the moment.
Camilla
Is it because you're still in holiday vacation mode?
Kylie
I think that it would probably be remiss of us not to at least touch on the proposed changes to the asset and income test agree for wholesale investors. Because while I have done a wonderful job of avoiding all social media over the holidays, those changes have been on the cards for a while. We've put in a submission to treasury. We'll likely speak with the regulator about it too. I think it's very easy to have a knee jerk reaction and say any proposed changes to the test will be bad and detrimental to the sector. And you know, look, maybe that's true, but the tests don't apply just to the sector. Right. And I am not a policy expert. I don't know what, you know, I don't know what the other considerations are other than what was in the consultation paper, of course, as to, you know, why the thresholds should be changed. That's a complicated piece that frankly is well above my pay grade. What I do know is that investing in startups is risky and that it should not be easy for everyone to access this asset class. You know, I do believe that wealth is an extraordinarily blunt measure of financial sophistication and I do support there being some kind of knowledge pathway, particularly given how, what investment, you know, two of our top universities have already made in investor education.
Kylie
Like, it just seems crazy to not recognise the excellent work that the University of Melbourne and Neon SW have already done. You know, that someone can come out of one of those core courses and still, you know, after they've had two weeks of me yelling at them about, you know, high, high risk and diversification like that, they know more than most, you know, they should be allowed to invest small amounts of money over time. So I think there is, there is some nuance here, but I'm actually reasonably confident that the regulator will get it right. There's. There's already ways in which, under the sophisticated investor test, you know, there are pathways for exceptions to be made. I think we just need a little bit more guidance as to when it's reasonable to take some of those factors other than wealth into account.
Camilla
Yeah, I think that. I think you're right and I think that. I mean, the two things that I take away from your answer here is, you know, it is a blunt instrument, wealth, because also you don't want wealth to create more sort of, you don't want it to be concentrated in one segment of society either. And I think you are right in the fact that there will be a median ground that the regulator will come to where everyone is somewhat happy. No one's like, overjoyed, but no one's also overly disappointed. So I think, I mean, and you're right to bring this up because it is a really hot topic here in Australia right now. So I'm going to flip into your career, and looking back at it, is there a moment that, you know, was a. Was a sliding doors moment or a moment where you. You either made a mistake and you learnt a lot from it, or you, you know, something happened. In hindsight, it was a gift. Like, was there a moment that changed in your career that you just went, yes.
Kylie
I suspect that my career has been more. A very slow, laborious inch forward, bit by bit. You know, like, I'm much more tortoise than hare, which is. I love that it's particularly unglamorous, but I can't think of that sliding doors moment. I can tell you this. Probably this may show aside of my personality, that I'm less delighted to have in public, but here we go. A couple of years ago, I did an audit of mistakes that we make. We keep registers of various breaches that we do and small things, but, you know, we are in a regulated environment where compliance is always front of mind. And I went through years of data to see what threads I could pull from various small breaches that were made, and I noticed that something like 99% of errors were made between the hours of five and seven. Wow. Yep. Pm. Yep. Like, I always knew that I'm a morning person, but there is something about that window, you know, like kids wanting attention. You know, I'm hungry and ratty, you know, like, it's just. It's a shit time of day for me to do any work, so now I don't.
Kylie
And I used to, like, you know, just because, you know, my kids are older. You know, I don't have that rush of daycare pickup. Like, it's. It's not a structural problem, but it's still. There's something in the way that I work that I am not at my best during those hours. And knowing that has been super helpful. You know, I just. I just don't try and do complicated things at that time. You know, have a gin and tonic.
Camilla
I think that's great.
Kylie
Better for my business to have a gin and tonic than do any heavy lifting at that time.
Camilla
Totally. And I'm like, I'm like you where I'm a morning person. I'm like a gazelle where you just get up and I've got 50,000 things in my brain. I've got to get them all done. But I have. I put my important meetings in the morning and my to do list that's like, the super important stuff in the morning. And then, you know, my coffee meetings or it's a bit of a chitty chat or I'm finding out some information or something in the afternoon, because I know that that's, you know, my less effective time, so. And I'm. I'm with you on that. Yeah, definitely. My issue is when I have to have, like, calls to London. Yeah.
Kylie
Yeah.
Camilla
Like 09:00 p.m. That's when I've got the problem.
Kylie
Yeah. Yeah. I'm not. I'm not so good then either.
Camilla
No. So I asked this question to everybody, and so you are no different in this regard. And I. Everyone's answer's been very different. So I'd love to know what. What your answer is here. So what is the most valuable advice that you've been given in your career, and why did it resonate with you?
Kylie
I would say it was a conversation I had with Matt Allen, who is the founder of Tractor Ventures. And that was before flying Fox. It was before tractor Ventures, when we were both kind of figuring out what our next move was. And he looked at me and said, so what does success look like to you? I was just like, ah. And I never, I'd never really thought to map out that personally. You know, like, I had always measured success objectively and extrinsically and really taking the time to kind of go, hang on, you know, like, that's all bullshit. What do I care about and what do I want to get out of this next phase of my career was, you know, a really important framing for me. It's now a question that I ask most of my founders often in the first call, and it's, it's a good one. I like it.
Camilla
So what does success look like? Just throwing it back.
Kylie
Look, for me, I'm at a stage where I really value flexibility. I really value learning, and I don't want to run a large team. You know, having managed, you know, large numbers of people and, you know, transaction teams for most of my career, I value the kind of flexibility and autonomy that comes from running a much smaller team, which has really helped kind of define the kind of firm that we want to build at Flying Fox. You know, like, we're not, you know, I think Blackbird has 90 staff now.
Camilla
Wow.
Kylie
Yeah. You know, like that, that's, that's not the kind of firm that we're looking to build. We look to the, to the benchmark model, which is, you know, one of the great us firms, which is a very partner led model, you know, where they just grow organically, you know, partner at a time with everyone having a unique but fulsome skill set so that they can, you know, pretty much every partner is their own little self contained unit almost without having to have masses of support staff. So understanding that directly impacted the strategy that we have at fly and Fox.
Camilla
Yeah, great. And I think that's, you know, just as long as you're, you're on your own path. Right. You're not on anybody else's path. You're on your own path.
Kylie
Exactly.
Camilla
So we're going to wrap up really soon, but before we wrap up, we do a quick fire round. And so you have to answer every question I have for the first thing that comes in your mind. You ready?
Kylie
I'm terrible at these.
Camilla
Or is your brain still. Yeah, yeah, no, no, brain still on vacation mode.
Kylie
I got it. We can do this.
Camilla
Okay. Ready? Ready. Okay. How would your friends describe you?
Kylie
Funny.
Camilla
Yeah, I'd agree with that. My biggest investment mistake was too much, too soon. What weird or out of place thing do you have in your handbag right now? Yes. Neither. Neither. I need one of those. I need one of those things, those chains with, that connects my phone over my shoulder, and then I'm good.
Kylie
I went to the cricket with a girlfriend. She had one of those, and I was very jealous. I just only wear pockets and I have a phone in one pocket and tampons in the other, and that's about it. Ready to take on the world?
Camilla
Yes. Winning there. The biggest lesson I've learned on the job is.
Kylie
I'm going to take a little bit longer to answer this one rather than pithy. One word. And I would say that this desire to be your authentic self and to bring your whole work to self, it has possibly blown too far in the wrong direction. It doesn't mean be your whole self all the time, you know, work should always be a professional place and we should bring our best professional self. That doesn't mean that, you know, you were acting inauthentically when you act in accordance with, you know, what a good HR division would sign off on.
Camilla
Yeah, there's a story there.
Kylie
There's a story there. Yeah. Just.
Camilla
There's a story there that might be over a g and t later.
Kylie
Don't be an asshole at work because you're an asshole at home. I think that was probably a nicer way of summarising it.
Camilla
Great. Okay. We should have got there in the beginning. I think you were being too polite. What really useless thing are you talented at?
Kylie
It's not useless, but I am excellent at pickling. If there's ever a nuclear holocaust and you need to have someone in your bunker preserve all the food you want me and lots of salt and vinegar, I can make anything delicious and long life gold.
Camilla
So what's your favourite pickle thing?
Kylie
I am famous for my fennel. Fennel? Fennel. Fennel pickle with lime and chilli. It's very good. Also, my pickled pineapple is to die for. I'll bring you some.
Camilla
You might have to send some over.
Kylie
I can do this.
Camilla
The kids will hate it, but I'll. I'll be into it for sure. Tell me something no one else knows about you. Maybe it's that.
Kylie
Yeah. That I might just say that I'm. I don't have too many secrets. Um, I did get chased by a snake in the holidays, which I haven't really told anywhere. Yeah, it was scary.
Camilla
Um, brown one or a red belly black one?
Kylie
Red belly black. Just in the Darawar National park. And, like, I do a lot of bush walking. I see a lot of snakes and I'm not intimidated by snakes, but this one was aggressive and, yeah, kind of threw my confidence a bit. I might have to take a walking buddy with me.
Camilla
I saw. I went bike riding up at Thredbo in the snowy Mountains National park. And. Yeah, beautiful. And there too, there's lots of snakes. Lots of snakes.
Kylie
Yeah.
Camilla
Okay, next question on my bucket list.
Kylie
Is a trip to Alaska.
Camilla
Ah, very nice. Describe in three words why angel investing and VC is awesome.
Kylie
Learning every day.
Camilla
Love it. Well, that is the end of our episode and thank you ever so much, Kylie. I knew. I said in the beginning we'd have a few giggles, and we definitely did. The one thing that I'm definitely taking away is the default to likability is bullshit, because I think that might be my new mantra. But thanks for being so candid and open as I always expected to you would be, because that is, as I said, one of your superpowers, your directness and your willingness to support growth in people and in organisations. I think that's super, super important. I love the mistakes stories and I love the bringing of two minds together, really talented minds together to develop flying Fox Ventures. So Kylie Fraser, thanks very much for joining me on shoes. Not shoes.
Kylie
Thanks Kamila, thanks for having me.
Camilla
You know the information that is in this podcast. We always talk about finance in this podcast, but it's not financial advice. It's actually really careers advice. If you really want financial advice, I recommend that you speak to a financial planner or a broker and work out your own personal circumstances with that. But this is all about careers advice and how finance will be a fabulous career for.