Stay Focused. Stay Engaged. An interview with Venture Capitalist Greg Sands

Hello and welcome to episode 215 of Dream, Think, Do. I am so glad you're listening in and I think you will be as well. I've got somebody that's got an amazing story and some incredible strategies, especially if you've ever had a big idea and thought, how do I pull this through? How do we get people on board and maybe just maybe how could I even turn it into a business or a service or a product. This person that we're gonna be talking with, again, has got a great personal journey, but also a lot of wisdom to share when it comes to getting people on board with your idea and making it happen. So let's get to this. Listen To The Podcast: Resources: Twitter: @gsands, @costanoavc Website: costanoavc.com Interview: Mitch Matthews: All right, gang, buckle up. This is going to be fun. My guest this week is Greg Sands. Greg is the founder and managing partner for Costanoa Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. I can tell you I've met Greg here recently when we were both at an event in Jefferson, Iowa, which was fantastic and I can tell you he's got passion. Passion for life and passion for entrepreneurship or entrepreneurs. And the more I've dug into his story, I get it. His passion for entrepreneurship, it started early. He grew up in St Paul, Minnesota. Wound up, shout out to Minnesota there. Mitch Matthews: He worked, even as he was growing up, worked in a community bank, so he started to get to know the ins and outs of entrepreneurship early and up close. In college, he even co-founded a micro enterprise incubator in East Palo Alto. Before founding Costanoa, Greg was a managing director at Sutter Hill where he had a number of huge successes. Plus he was the first product manager at Netscape Communications where he helped to write the business plans. He even coined the name Netscape and built SuiteSpot a business unit. That unit went from zero to $140 million annually. Amazing. No schlep either. He went to Harvard for his undergrad, Stanford for his MBA. But most importantly, he's the proud father of four, and apparently around Palo Alto, he simply known as Sara Sands' husband. I know what that's like. I love it. Hey Greg, welcome to Dream, Think, Do, buddy. Greg Sands: Thanks. It's great to be here with you. Mitch Matthews: I love it. So, okay. Many, many facets to venture capital. How do you describe specifically what you do? Greg Sands: Well, our job is fundamentally to find extraordinary entrepreneurs working on important problems and then make an investment and support them through the entrepreneurial life cycle and journey. Mitch Matthews: That's awesome. Now I- Greg Sands: It's extraordinary work. I h onestly, I feel grateful to do it everyday. Mitch Matthews: I bet. And I'm sure peaks and valleys, adventures and horror stories all go along in that. Again, as we got to interact even in Jefferson, it was just obvious you are in a sweet spot where you're really truly getting to do something you love. Now we've got a lot of different people, as you and I have talked about, we got a lot of different listeners to Dream, Think, Do, but a lot of younger listeners also just anybody that's kind of also trying to find that sweet spot in life. So I love to ask some questions about that a little bit as well. When did it start to sink in that maybe this was your gig? This was your jam? Was that at an early age as well? Or was that something you uncovered over time? Greg Sands: No, uncovered over time. I mean it's interesting. I would say my career has not been one that's been planned very top down. I tend to be bottoms up and kind of sense of direction and push towards it. So I was working at a consulting firm out of college. I was working with pharmaceutical R&D and environmental technology and I basically decided to go to business school at Stanford because I wanted to put myself in the middle of Silicon Valley. And I didn't know that much about it,