On going from working in startups to working in VC with Helery Pops, Investment manager at Practica Capital and co-founding Honey Pot Guardian at Honey Badger Capital

Helery shares her story of entering the industry from an operational background, building a deal flow engine, and her thoughts on the VC industry and its compatibility with impact.

Patricia Borlovan

and

Andreas Munk Holm✌️

Feb 09, 2024

Transcript

Today, we’re not only launching an episode of the NEUVC podcast, we’re also celebrating the promotion of one of the co-hosts of the pod: Freddie Macpherson to Associate at Isomer Capital 🥳. As you’ve likely noticed from these episodes, Freddie is a true rising star in European venture, and we treasure every interaction we have with him. Congrats Freddie! You’re a rockstar 🌟

Now on to the episode where Freddie and Linda Võeras, Associate at Karma Ventures, are joined by Helery Pops, co-founder and Honey Pot Guardian at Honey Badger Capital. However, things move quickly in this world, so since the recording of the episode, Helery has joined Practica Capital as an Investment Manager whilst still working with and supporting the Honey Badger Capital portfolio and team 🦡 .

Helery has mastered the customer's language by doing sales and customer research at Pipedrive before moving to the product team to help build the tool that Pipedrive is today. With a love for good product design for both software and hardware, she joined the ranks of Ampler Bikes with the mission to help make the cities less car-centered.

Speaking to about 20 start-ups weekly, Helery has seen pitch decks in all shapes and sizes and will ask how much research went into figuring out the problem space the start-up is solving.

Scroll on ⏬ For the chapters & core learnings 🧠

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Chapters:

00:00:00 - A Conversation On Investing in Sustainability and Impact
00:01:42 - Helery’s Professional Background and Evolution in Career
00:03:05 - Discovering a Superpower in Starting from Zero
00:06:05 - The Importance of Inbound Deal Flow
00:07:36 - Providing Value without Control
00:09:10 - Flexibility and Expectations in VC Investments
00:10:36 - Leveraging Value in Product Management
00:13:29 - Understanding What Partners Want
00:15:03 - Making Money and Impact
00:16:33 - Combining Science and Business to Make an Impact
00:17:59 - Supporting Founders without Investment
00:19:25 - Learning from Others' Knowledge of Geothermal Energy
00:20:52 - The Importance of Having Like-minded People
00:24:01 - Impact Investing in Green Tech
00:25:35 - Constraints on Impact Investing and the Future
00:27:15 - Creating a Deel Flow for Ourselves
00:28:39 - Crucial Skills in the VC Industry

Q: What skills have been crucial for your day-to-day activity?

It’s about understanding people.
It’s people over product. People over business. People over finance.

Q: Advice for someone early in their career in VC.

People are very open to share their experience. Especially, if they are in the beginning of their journeys.
Find an investor who has been doing this for 30 years and look what they have been doing. Learn from the best.
Not all of them will be motivated to tag along with you, but those looking to continue to grow themselves will help you out.
Talk to as many people as you can.
Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know this. Say, I need to learn it.

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