#239 Joanna Rees – Managing Partner at West, Venture Investing, and Building Powerful Brands
Big Ideas
- Joanna’s background as a student athlete at Duke University is what she credits to teaching her extreme focus, hard work, and the ability to stay present.
“Stopping and breathing and saying, I know I have all of these things on my plate but if I’m going to be able to effectively get them done, I have to just remember that I’m going to put my energy into the task at hand”
- Joana dives into the difficulties and loneliness she has experienced as a woman in the venture capital industry. She says that she puts on her ‘armor’ everyday and has always shown up as her true self, never letting the male-dominated industry impact her self-belief.
“No one’s talking to me on the sideline, people are talking over me in the meeting, so I learned how to hold my point and smile and make sure that I just kept talking and I wouldn’t let people talk over me.”
- Throughout her diverse career, Joanna’s creativity and innovation has been the cornerstone of her success in all industries. Joanna is currently the Managing Partner at West Ventures a venture studio that specializes in the end-to-end process of designing, building, and launching purpose-driven brands including Twitter, Square, Eventbrite, Impossible Foods, Prelude Fertility, Chegg, and GoFundMe.
“The world doesn’t need another venture capital fund but what we need are new perspectives”
3:37 Extreme Focus
Joanna went to Duke University and was on the gymnastics team while pursuing her psychology degree. Joanna describes gymnastics as the core of who she is, and credits it to teaching her extreme discipline and focus.
“When you’re on a balance beam and it’s only a few inches wide and if someone erupts and cheers you could get thrown off so you learn how to get very very centered and being able to stay very centered and very present in everything I do has benefited me throughout my professional career”
Professionally, Joanna says she has refined the skill of being present
“Stopping and breathing and saying, I know I have all of these things on my plate but if I’m going to be able to effectively get them done, I have to just remember that I’m going to put my energy into the task at hand”
6:24 Purpose & Impact
Everything Joanna does is about purpose and impact.
“If whatever I’m getting engaged with or involved with isn’t purposeful or impactful, it makes it really easy to say no to a lot of things and I use that as my filtering system everyday”
Joanna says that her background in team sports and gymnastics
“I feel that obligation to others and therefore I have to bring my best and full self to everything I do”
11:00 Joanna’s Advice for Young Listeners
“Volunteer to do something or take on an extra project that isn’t obvious that you should be doing it and bring value to the table of your team”
12:49 Working with Founders
With founders, Joanna spends a lot of time asking questions to understand the motivation behind their work.
“The thing I’ve learned about great founders is they have to have this really special balance of self belief and still take input appropriately, but you can’t take too much external input or you’ll lose your focus”
Joanna spends 80% of her time evaluating the people dynamics within a company she is considering investing in.
To help entrepreneurs filter out the external input and advice, Joanna says:
“If someone has something really specific and tangible, that is advice and critique, something that maybe I didn’t think about or an entrepreneur didn’t think about and it inspires you to question something, that’s valuable advice”
20:10 Creative Thinking
Joanna describes herself as a ‘creative problem solver’ which she began to leverage while managing her family’s business, a hotel In North New Jersey, where she thrived while creating innovative marketing strategies.
When it comes to marketing, Joanna recognizes the importance of going straight to the market to gain insights.
“Having that process of really understanding, not sharing my point of view, asking really good questions, trying to uncover, almost even the nuance in something, has really helped me then put together an effective pitch or plan or proposal and end up getting that implemented, funded, or in place”
26:23 Transitioning into Venture Capitalism
When Joanna was in business school she took a venture capital class which fascinated her.
After moving to California, she went into investment banking to gain transaction experience.
“My perspective was, they didn’t understand the market and their customers, they were doing technical innovation looking for a market and I said, what if you could do market and look for innovation to meet market needs?”
When starting her first firm, Joanna took equity instead of cash fees from helping entrepreneurs raise capital.
“The world doesn’t need another venture capital fund but what we need are new perspectives”
32:45 Being a Female in the Venture Industry
Joanna says that being a female manager in the venture industry trying to do something new was one of the most difficult parts of her career. She describes going into the ladies room during board meeting breaks and looking herself in the mirror and saying “You deserve to be here.”
“No one’s talking to me on the sideline, people are talking over me in the meeting, so I learned how to hold my point and smile and make sure that I just kept talking and I wouldn’t let people talk over me.”
Joanna talks about putting on her ‘armor’ everyday and showing up as her true self.
“You realize that you’re there for a reason and you’re adding value”
37:10 Connecting with Others
Many of the entrepreneurs that Joanna works with have said that she is the first person they would call if they needed help, which is a testament to her dedication to connecting with people and making them feel valued.
“There’s a human at the center of everything and we need to connect with the human first and if we don’t I think we lose everything”
41:26 The Dynamics of Power
Joanna explains how her mentor, Ann Richards, taught her about power dynamics and how people will try to take power away from you. This taught Joanna to look at conflict as more of a power dynamic than a conflict, lessening the emotional impact.
43:29 Joanna’s 48 Hour Rule
“If something is really emotionally weighing on me, I give myself 48 hours to let it simmer and figure it out and let that emotion dissipate”
47:59 Bringing On New Team Members
When looking to bring someone new onto her team, Joanna says that having a high level of intellectual curiosity is a must combined with a value in excellent execution.
“It really is a unique combination in order for people on the team to be very intellectually curious but also really understand the value, the rigor, and the discipline of excellent execution”
56:06 Getting to the Why
When working with other companies, Joanna says that the questions they first have to clarify is the company’s ‘why’.
“We always start with the why, why are we even all doing this? What is that big purpose that we’ll probably never achieve but it’s like our North Star”
Because of the tremendous amount of noise in the market, Joanna says you have to get crystal clear on what you do to the point where any team member can articulate it.
“Having a really clear why, what, how and then for who”
58:56 Joanna’s Interview Choice
If Joanna could interview anyone dead or alive but not a family or friend, she would choose Harriet Tubman.
Connect with Joanna
Email: joanna@west.ventures
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