Jack Greco On Building A $2.7 Billion Company That Went Public And Now Investing In Over 200 Startups

Jack Greco built one of the first unicorn startups in a tier-two city. After taking that venture public, he has gone on to become an angel investor and VC fund manager. His VC, Far Our Ventures, has invested in startups like Bounce Imaging, ShearShare, and Patient Pattern.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Jack Greco’s top advice when launching a business
• Growing marketplace startups
• What he’s looking to invest in now

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About Jack Greco:

Jack Greco is a Co-Founder and serves as Chairman at AireXpert. He is a Co-Founder and serves as General Partner at Far Out VC. He serves as Board Member at Jack Greco’s Furniture and Moove.ai.

Jack is also a recovering angel investor. He served as Board Member at Forsake. He served as Chief Financial Officer at Efferent Labs. He also had some success with Tackle.io, TCG Player, and Roofstock and decided to take that energy and launch a venture fund (farout.vc) investing in early marketplace and B2B vertical SaaS companies.

Jack served as Board Member at Azuna. He also served as Venture Partner at StartFast Ventures Management. He is the Founder and serves as the Chairman of the Board at One Link Ventures.

Jack served as Executive Director at Techstars. He also served as the Advisor at 3AM Innovations. He serves as an Advisor at CloudInsyte. He serves on the boards of several startups, as well as for the Monroe Community Hospital Foundation, the Beta Phi Alumni Association of DKE, University Heights Tool Library, Olmsted Center for Sight, and Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center.

Jack is a former unicorn founder (NSDQ: ACVA), an experienced investor (120 direct investments 2017-2021), and LP (50 funds). He serves as Advisor at Impellent Ventures. He is interested in marketplaces, primarily B2B, and technologies that create efficiencies in traditional industries.

Jack served as Advisor at Agape. He earned an MBA in Business Administration and a BA in Economics from the University of Rochester.

Connect with Jack Greco:

• Crunchbase
• LinkedIn
• PitchBook
• Signal

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty hello everyone and welcome to the deal maker show. So today. We have a very exciting guest. You know we’re going to be talking about his say a journey you know as an operator his journey as you know someone that has worked for other companies do and then also his journey as an investor from every single. Angle of the table that you can think of and I I find that you know we’re going to find his story quite inspiring because he’s done it. He has built you know a pretty successful company. You know unicorn you know in a tier two city. You know. Also we’re going to be talking about that but without farther ado let’s welcome our guest today. Jack Greco welcome to the show so born in Rochester but you grew up in a farm town so give us a little of a walk through memory lane. How was life growing up.

Jack Greco: Thanks a lot for having me appreciate it.

Jack Greco: Sure, absolutely yeah I grew up in Rochester New York and then when I was getting right? Android grade school my family moved to a little a farmtown in theinger lakes called Candaa it was a big change from the city. Um, but I enjoyed it a lot. You know it was. A slower pace of life but it was my my father was an entrepreneur he had opened a store out there. You know and it it gave me kind of ah a unique view of what it’s like you know, an urban very urban moving to a very rural environment. So um, you know, grew up working for my father. He was an antique dealer. Um. You know also worked on a farm for a little while so those kind of you know the real solid the earth type techniques and um, you know morals and values that you learn you know, bail and hay and being on a dairy farm. You know, kind of shaped me and put me in the trajectory I think it is a hardworking guide that. That I am today.

Alejandro Cremades: And what about being able to experience your father being an entrepreneur entrepreneur I mean how was that you know also for you to see the ups and downs. You know that that he was perhaps you know going through himself. So.

Jack Greco: Yeah I mean you know I didn’t just see it I I felt it right? I mean you know there were you know rich ears and there were lean years. Um and and you notice that by the number of presence under the tree or you notice it by how how much he was there versus working. You know so being a dad myself now I’ve I have a 7 year old son. Um and in a good relationship. You know it’s it’s interesting seeing that um we are all human right? and but these things that happen there is no. There is no division between work and and personal life when you run your own business like. You could try to compartmentalize how you spend your days but they directly affect each other so much so it was good and you know I do so much work with really stage companies. You know, ideally Vc backable startups. You know you still realize they really are also in addition to that small businesses I mean every business starts as a business of one or. 2 or 3 of you have co-founders. Um, and so I saw what it was like my father never had any partners I happen to have take a different mode in life. Everything I’ve done I’ve usually done with somebody else I learned a lot of that because I saw when the times were tough. There was nobody helped share the yoke and.

Jack Greco: So just experiencing that grown up and and that being able to be part of it from the ground up and in in his in his store and in his business really gives you appreciation that you know it takes everybody to contribute to be part of this.

Alejandro Cremades: So you’ve been a hustler your whole life where does that drive come from.

Jack Greco: I think he came from my father you know I mean he was an antique dealer originally and it’s a very much ah like a hustle-based business right? I mean you show up with a pocket full of cash and a brain in your head and you hope that at the end of the day you end up with a pocket full of more cash and a brain in your head is pretty much intact still right? so. Was a game of connections. It was a game of networking you know I grew up in the late eighty s early 90 s I was borned in 83 it turned forty later this year. So you know if you look at the chronology of technology. You’ll know that you know I grew up as like cell phones started to come out. My father was one of the first ones that had 1 right? But just it. It didn’t replace that pure need to be able to network and build be able to know where to go as an antique dealer. He was a middleman. So I mean it’s funny. You know I do a lot of marketplace work and and marketplace is really the difference between people to have something to get rid of and people that want it. Um, and my father was just ah, you know an earlier traditional version of connecting those 2 so that kind of that the hustle and drive just comes from being able to see the opportunity between two things that aren’t already related and aren’t already connected and if you do it the right way, you’re able to make a living you know, really.

Alejandro Cremades: So in your case, you ended up a studying economics and quantitative finance and then after this, you know like you you know 1 thing led to the next and you end up you know in the in the venture world not being a consultant. So how do you land? you know there? What was that the experience in.

Jack Greco: Bridging the gap between them.

Alejandro Cremades: And what happened next.

Jack Greco: Yeah I mean you you pretty much try and say yes to every opportunity you see you know I didn’t start off in economics I started off going to school to be an architect um and it just turned out I actually had to spend a lot of time working my dad’s business in the. And undergrad running it for a little while I actually end up running it for a year and a half while he was out of commission and you know you you cant you cannot. You cannot graduate with a degree in science if you’re not going to make it to any of your labs so you know economics brought me to quantitative finance I got my Mba. You know at same place I got my undergrad to create the university of rochester and for me I wanted to be able to have a practical toolset. You know I had seen so much so many people right? just being around small business small business owners around each other and they lack this fundamental understanding in a lot of cases of kind of the physics behind the way. Cash moved right? I mean it is the blood flow of every single business. So when I went to school for quantate finance. It was kind of going to school to understand the diagnostics of the way cash moves and financing and leverage and debt and everything you know, um, and really when I was getting my Mba at Simon. It’s business school. You are I learned what venture capital was and I was used to being a risk taker right? I was the kind of guy that had bought product in the first time I went down to New York city and was selling you know fake oakley sunglasses and Novada watches at lunch at school because I thought it was opportunity to make money. Um, and I said all right I said.

Jack Greco: I said venture capital is just if this really is the wild west if this really is where like the biggest ideas are coming from this meshes together. The reason I originally wanted to be an architect which is to be a creator with what I’m really good at which is understanding businesses. So I jumped into it basically functioning the equivalent of. Like think of a poor man’s consultant from Bain or Mckinsey except working with a regional vc um in the upstate New York area you know um again you just keep saying yes to everything so I said yes to basically being willing to work there for six months for almost no money. And then I said yes when they were bringing on. You know, an international portfolio. Um commercial the commercialization of government and military technology out of great Britain and so you just keep saying yes and you keep taking shots in you know in my twenty s that took me around the world gave me experience and. Ah, handful of industries that are completely unrelated like material science and optics and photonics and um, you know and biotech and you know you you take all that and then you start to you know in your mid and late 20 s for me 11 years into it to understand what you really like. And what I had realized was you know this is all great I’d build this massive amount of very unique vari inperiences and I was ready to focus on something you know and then that’s what you know at the conclusion my twenty s and beginning my thirty s that’s what kept me from instead of focusing on 10 things as a consultant focused down to become a founder.

Alejandro Cremades: So then let’s talk about you know what that looked like because that was quite successful. You know with Acb Auctions so how did the idea come together and how did you meet the cofounders.

Jack Greco: Yeah, so I mean um, when I was doing the work I was doing in my twenty s I kind of I realized places like Buffalo and Rochester and you this theme later. Um, you know they they were great cities entrepreneurial in in their essence. Although those 2 cities are very different in the way they. Become entrepreneurial in their vision and their long-term goal but they didn’t really have the connection to the rest of the venture community right? I mean this was in the the mid and late two thousand s going into the early twenty ten s and so for me I kind of played this role as anybody that was starting anything I was willing to talk to. Was single throughout my twenty s so they had afforded me a lot of time to be able to get to meet people over breakfast lunch dinner drinks didn’t matter. Um I I learned early in my life. There’s no excuse to take a meal by yourself. Um, so I kind of really embedded myself with what was going on in the buffalo and Rochester startup communities which is. Where I had family which is where I spent time. Um and you know I had met a founder a guy with an idea Joan Eman um that just lined up. It felt like it hit so many different places from what I’ve always done right? It was in the automotive space and though I didn’t have experience in automotive. It was in wholesale and I did have experience in wholesale. You know, basically the the b two b interaction that happens. Um, you know price and goods so like I understood that and the idea was hey could we digitize the physical wholesale auctions of cars. So basically when a dealer sells a car to another dealer.

Jack Greco: And I thought this is the same thing as an antique dealer selling another an antique to another antique dealer like yeah I’ve been around physical auction my whole life I’ve been to a couple car some antique some fine art cattle all sorts of stuff and this intersection of this like economic mechanism which was an auction. It really excited me. And I didn’t know what what it could become but 1 of my good friends who ended up being the third cofounder Dan Mansevsky like he I knew he sat in a cat bird seat seeing a lot of different tech and it just happened to be at a time. It was a time when I you know I I started a family you know, um, ah like as I a dad a seven a half year old boy. Um, I knew I wanted to focus down like my grandmother lived down in Buffalo I was her primary not her primary but very active caretaker. Her I said why not give it a shot. So again, it was just saying yes to an opportunity. Um, and you know 3 of us in November at 2014 kind of agreeing to do this. Then began to actually grow and we had a lot of lucky breaks along the way and that’s you know what? ultimately resulted in the company going public in 2021 and being the first real tech uniticor and in in Buffalo.

Alejandro Cremades: And and we’ll talk about that you know in in just a little bit but you know just for the people that are listening to be able to really understand it What ended up being the business model of acb auctions. So.

Jack Greco: So you know it’s um so you know everybody experiences marketplaces right? Amazon ebay any place where there are a handful of people on both sides of the table and a piece of technology exists in the middle that helps connect now. So but most of the most of the marketplaces we see like I just mentioned are b to cmarketplaces. It’s the way you know ecommerce if there is a handful of different sellers on the backend could be considered a marketplace you know Um, so what does not exist that much. Is b two b marketplaces so the way a business connects with another business are still done very traditional ways you know Um, so the automotive ah the the wholesale automotive landscape you know 30000000 cars get traded into a dealer every year you know you buy a car and they take your old 1 and they give you some you know they give you a discount off the new car for it and you know of those 30000000 let’s say a third of them end up getting transacted to another dealer at some point and a lot of that was done at either a physical auction which was slow and incumbent and expensive and didn’t really utilize technology. They were very much you know it was it was part of you know, regional monopolies or national dualopolies. There was really 2 2 you know, 2 different businesses that are 2 different companies that did that um and so there wasn’t a lot of competition in a lot of technology but it was a massive market right? like.

Jack Greco: 10000000 cars times I don’t know what the average car is now $15000 apiece made a really big market that nobody had really touched and you know again, 1 of my cofounders or Joe from acv like he said he was a use cardi learning felt this pain. You know he was gone all the time he was. He was not able to run his dealership because he was at the auction trying to buy cars and everybody had to do so much work to understand what was wrong with them. They’re all use cars right? They all have issues. They all have histories. So we said why don’t we make a platform that levels the playing field on the information people have to bid on cars. You know we’ll put actual people out there that know how to look through a vehicle and create all the information that everybody gets to see ubiquitously and then why don’t we let them buy and sell on their phone instead of going to a physical location to do it and that simple elegant idea is the premise the backbone and. You know the entire business model of of Acb which you know you could look it up. It’s publicly traded on Nasdaq now. Um you know it’s it’s a successful company but it was really an evolution on what was going on. It wasn’t revolutionary and it didn’t need to be um and I would say it was the fact that it was just.

Alejandro Cremades: Yep.

Jack Greco: Ah Slight It was incorporating technology into an existing business that ah people already Understood. You know we weren’t trying to reeducate we weren’t trying to change the way the world ran we were trying to add efficiency we were trying to add you know clarity to what was going On. We want the transactions to be smooth and simple and start to take advantage of some of these other digital products that were out there financing companies to start to offer digital products. You know there were different types of digital products that allowed you to do inspections on vehicles Better. We thought why not pull this together on 1 Marketplace. You know and that’s what Acb options is. It’s a place where dealers go and buy and sell inventory. You know between each other in an auction platform.

Jack Greco: But did I hope.

Alejandro Cremades: And obviously the rest is history I mean as you were saying the the company right now is trading you know Nasdaq you know the market copy is two point five billion so you know pretty pretty impressive stuff now you know when it comes to marketplaces. You know there are. Really really tough because it’s like launching 2 companies at the same time I mean obviously you know you’re ah seeing this now as well on the investment side and we’re going to talk about that transition. But when it comes to marketplaces you know building really that supply and demand you know so that people can find that liquidity in it so that they can find what they’re looking for in a short period of time. How was how was that you know experience of really figuring things out to make sure that you know it worked you know with Acb. Yeah.

Jack Greco: So I mean look it’s it’s a lot of handholding in the beginning in the beginning. Um, and you’re right? It’s like running 2 different businesses at the same time I actually think it’s like running 3 different businesses at the same time because a good marketplace. You know there’s a reason why buyers and sellers. You know are interacting. There’s a need but that relationship between buyers and sellers still has to exist and you have to forge in a relationship between you and the buyer and you and the seller in order. So. It’s really a triangle to some degree. Um and as opposed to a normal business where you know like let’s say a. A saas business where I build a product I meet you maybe it’s an enterprise sale. Maybe it’s a monthly sale but like I sign you up and now we’re doing business. This is very much like trying to throw a party or trying to get you know it’s a chemistry. It needs to be the exact right proportions at the exact right time. So what’s unique is it’s as much psychology. It’s as much you know you know like you want to look at the anthropological aspects of things right? because these are people these are human making decisions on both sides. So you know how do we. Change the platform so it makes it seem like I mean when we first started I don’t remember maybe we put a couple hundred cars across the system. The first month which we were lucky to do that and that was because we had spent really five or six months building up interest in this event that was going to happen.

Jack Greco: And we had gotten some good advice from you know a couple mentors and advisors early on like make sure it’s a vent make sure you concentrate the activity. So it looks busy. You know I mean if you or I went to a grocery store you know and we walked in and it was the first day the grocery store ah opened and the aisles were basically bare but they had some product there. You wouldn’t look at what they had you would look at what they don’t have and that’s what commonly happens in these marketplaces I want to be able to go and at least see enough quantity right? that is that is real right? I mean like and I’ll explain what real means in a second but like. You want to be able to see enough of the shelves being full aka the shells being full that you’re interested in staying and when I say real you know it needs to be items and products that are the right items at the right price with the right availability you know with the right understanding of what it is. You know? and so you really have to curate these again. It’s like throwing parties you have to curate both aspects of the environment. So you know I’ll be honest in the early years you know we were working very hard at making sure you know that. Hey you know what we would call up Ray and say Ray we know you love pickups there’s 5 of them coming on the system we’re trying to launch them along the right time you know I’ll give you a call right before the auctions come live and we were doing everything we can were to get people’s attention on it. You know and that’s really the way that you have to get these things up and going we were lucky and that we were regional.

Jack Greco: So like again, we launch in Buffalo New York and like our buyers and sellers were both from Buffalo new york so it made it easy. It made you know us helping with logistics easy if there was a problem we could actually go there and see it. But once we got that built up. We started to do and we had an adjacent market. You know strategy. Where we would then say okay, how do we bleed outside of this. We didn’t go from Buffalo to you know Chicago l a Dallas and Miami you know we went from Buffalo to Rochester and Syracuse in Albany and Pittsburgh and and Cleveland you know we were aware and understood that our product was big and heavy. You know it was they were difficult to move and they were expensive to move and so we knew that dealers we wanted to give them as much access and variety to what they had as close as possible to make our lives a little bit easier. So I think the best marketplaces find ways to. To create that second and third tier relationship. We don’t just better the relationship between buyer and seller. We get the buyer to have a relationship with us and the seller to have a relationship with us and the weakest relationship is between buyer and seller because in order for us to control and curate the environment. We want those relationships running through the 2 of us. You know? So sometimes that means that ah you know, maybe a ah buyer doesn’t pay us but we make sure the seller gets paid you know and sometimes it means that you know the car wasn’t what we thought it was going to be to the buyer. So while we handle it with the seller. We take care of it to make sure the buyer is happy.

Jack Greco: That’s what I’m talking about and decoupling the relationship so that they both actually have relationships with us.

Alejandro Cremades: so so 5 years in you know I mean the company was rocket ship. You know as we mentioned you know went public two point five billion you know, right now we’re 2000 employees I mean 5 years in you decide. You know it’s time to turn page. Why.

Jack Greco: I had a young son I really wasn’t spending a ton of time with him. Um, you know I buffalo though I spent a lot of time in it is in my home and you know I I just made the decision. This has gotten to the point you know this is being big and successful. We had been actively tried to hire I was the cfo co and by and large head of you know, strategy and Data Analytics you know for the majority of my time there and I realized my existence as a founder was blocking the company from bringing in specific. Good talent in each of those positions. You know I could have done one of them. Well you know I could have probably done one of them. Great. Ah, but I couldn’t do all of them and I just saw that for some reason the recruitment process wasn’t going great on a executive level and I said all right like. Maybe the only way to fix this is just to completely remove myself I want to be able to spend more time at home I’d saved up a little bit of money and I said I’m also a founder. Maybe I’ll go start something else. So it was really being able. It was a hard decision but it was making the decision like I know the environment I want to be in. And I have the success of this has created a climate or an environment which is outside of where I really flourish. So you know it was. It was a decision to you know I I stayed on until they until they brought in an outside Cfo They hired a Ceo shortly after that um and the company has done excellent.

Jack Greco: You know I won’t take any credit in that. Um, but I will say that I think I remove myself as an inhibitor of growth and it’s a weird thing to think right? like you know you you think of yourself as as a requirement and a necessity for this business I always thought of myself as the heart of it and you know it really. It really took a lot of convincing you know and a lot of support from people around me that you know my family and you know friends and even a couple coworkers that that really cared about me to say no like this will this will be Okay, um. It was tough decision but it ended up being the right decision I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve done since then.

Alejandro Cremades: And you just said it now I mean you’re a founder so being a founder you know, Obviously you know as a result you know for you, You know what? what you did is you started you know like getting more involved with tech stars you know mentoring startups and and also investing you know like. Why going to the other side of the table.

Jack Greco: Well because I didn’t like the ah the way the other side of the table was plan right? I Hate you know like it’s ah you know like any like any entrepreneur I saw an opportunity I thought you know I went through the experience right.

Jack Greco: Not cradle to grave but cradled to pretty close to grave you know from founding a company all the way to exit and I just said there is a ton of opportunity like we’re not getting ah no offense to any of the investors I’ve been around but I thought there were better ways to help support. You know like it didn’t seem I always wanted an investor that was. In it with me and so like I’d seen that with angels angels get that way right? Angels are unsophisticated. Don’t know how to price deals typically don’t carry the clout needed to like ensure the success of the next follow-on round but angels were willing to put their own skin into something right? and I’m a founder obviously like. Live in the world of all my skin being in the game and so when I left I originally started being an angel investor right you know I was like all right like I want to help these founders. You know I want to this is what I was doing before as a consultant but now I have some money and I’d rather create. The next great Ceo Cfo Ceo I want to be a kingmaker um you know and ultimately you know write some of the disadvantages I think we had was in a tier two city. You know when we were raising money at acv. We didn’t know what a good valuation was because we needed peers that had gone out and made mistakes for us to learn from. We were the ones that made all mistakes I mean we made a ton a ton of mistakes and so I said all right I said if I start investing. It’s really my way of saying I want to put some money to build yeah in on this relationship and also.

Jack Greco: You know I hope that it’s a good relationship where I can at least share the war stories I have so you can learn from um so investing was almost just like 1 thread of a chod right? Oh I vested I became active some of them I would take an active role a lot of time I would just be a mentor or advisor and it allowed me to start to build this. You know. What I really wanted to be which was just a connector right? like I love working in marketplaces because I think of myself as like a human marketplace just a lot of the same ways. My father was right like seeing the buyers seeing the sellers being able to bridge them and hopefully being able to make it moved past the point of me but wanting to make a living. It was me trying to build an engine that was bigger than me. So ah I really enjoyed investing I think um I’ve angel invested I’ve cut over 200 angel checks and probably 12130 companies 51 different geos I’m super proud of that. Um you know and it’s with people that I all had that that. All.

Jack Greco: I’m pretty easy to give trust but they haven’t lost it. Um, and they’re worthwhile they’re they’re taking a worthwhile endeavor and they’re I think they’re the right person to do it. Um I did also do a lot of fund investing because I thought this is crazy I’m going to blow my money angel investing what if I’m horrible and wrong at this right. Even a man with my amount of confidence isn’t that stupid so I started investing in other funds also and at this point I think I’m in close to 60 funds while I’ve well I’ve wound down angel activities when we started far out which is the preceding seed venture fund that I’m a you know, um, general partner in when the. Of the founding partners in um, I’ve I’ve kind of maintained a fund to fund investment strategy strategy personally where I’m going into other funds and honestly it’s to make friends and to learn from them. You know like it’s you know Ah, hopefully in 10 years they’re going to give me my 3 to 4 times my money back which will be wonderful. But more so over those 10 years I’ll build a relationship and learn from them. So it was you know versus what it cost everybody else to go to college you know I thought well this is I’m getting I’m going to make money and I’m going to get educated and I think as much as you understand the other side of the table I just didn’t think there were a lot of these people in there’s brackish water. Between founder and investor you know and I wanted to be the one that kind of bridged that gap and could walk both worlds. So um.

Alejandro Cremades: Now Now as an investor on the angel side you have much more flexibility than when you are vc because that’s right.

Jack Greco: Yeah, you can do whatever you want right? I mean it’s you know I ah one of my first angel checks if my buddy Colin Hurds listening to this right? like I met I I switched a swap seat to the guy that was in an uncomfortable middle seat on an overnight flight. Um. And the guy ended up saying next to Collin you know I thought I was going to sleep on it I didn’t we ended up talking the whole time he was in the middle and negotiating the sale for his business. It was one of my first angel first real angel checks I cut him a check. Basically when we walked off the plane this is a guy had never met before you know a 6 digit check it wasn’t small. You know I live in a $200000 house and drive a 2005 gep right? This is ah this is a big check and you know you’re able to do that like I can’t even do that in the venture world right? You know like if I take money from you like I’ve taken money we have about you know a little under 20 a little less than 20 investors in our fund right now I can’t take their money and be that liberal with it and I need to be more judicious. It doesn’t doesn’t matter my gut was screaming do this. It’s the right thing to do. But yeah I mean as an angel I’ve covered um probably. I don’t know at least platform type almost every type of platform company. You could be in I think I’m in over 100 unique industries. Um, so a lot of people would call that generalist I just think that I make my decisions different than the industry and the platform.

Jack Greco: You know I do a lot of marketplace stuff I lot I do a lot of saas primarily b two b um so I trust that my my knowledge set my experience at growing a particular type of platform. You know? Um, but yeah, you have a lot more flexibility and you get into creative stuff too. I mean I bridge companies I’ve given you know let money to companies on debt. I’ve lent money the companies on a handshake right? It’s all great stuff. You could do as an angel and the conversion from that you know, really over the last year and a half I’ve I’ve transitioned fully and now I’m a Vc you know so the majority of the investments I’m making you know is me investing in my fund. And then they have fun going into companies. But now I’ve got boom you know I got an investment committee two very experienced complimentary guys to me that keep me from doing some of the dumb stuff. That’s an angel. Don’t get me wrong sometimes the dumb stuff ends up being the best but more often than not weighted average is not um. But and this goes back to that you know I I think that when you focus on 1 thing for me when I focus on one thing and I have a team around me that I’m you know equal partner in like things end up going better I do think 2 heads or in this case, 3 heads is better than one.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing now. Imagine if you were to go to sleep tonight Jack and you wake up in a world where the vision of your fund is fully realized what does that world look like.

Jack Greco: Um, you know if for the fun to be fully realized it means that we are able to invest in so we will have built a portfolio of great companies. In places where we were able to add unique advantages to right? like yeah I mean we’re all great. All all 3 of us are as founders. So maybe we’re able to help the company itself but all 3 of us came from you know townships of less than you know 20000 right? Like not that we’re necessity and not that we’re necessarily going to you know small town America but like we’re not overlooking anything so I would say the vision means we are investing in founders and not because they’re the hottest sexiest thing in the world. But because they’re building practical fundamentally solvent business models in places that are somewhat overlooked. We do a lot of what I call n of 1 investing so you might be a market divining technology. You know it’s doing things different than anybody else. Um, and we really like that you know and obviously if this if the fund that we have can. We can start stringing them together into a firm and help you know be that poster on the wall of other firms like ours you know I think that’s what success looks like you know it no longer becomes you have to go to x to get funded I think that you know x should come to you.

Jack Greco: And that’s honestly what we’re trying to do with far out ventures.

Alejandro Cremades: So imagine if you were to get into a time machine and you go back in time to that moment where you were 30 and thinking about you know, launching something of your own if you could give that younger Jack one piece of advice before launching a business but would that be and why given what you know now. Okay.

Jack Greco: Yeah, um I would tell him you know, don’t forget how confident you are on what you’re doing um but don’t let that confidence turn into Hubris or stupidity right? You know? Um I think I think it’s easy when you’re doing something. You know entrepreneurs are great at quickly pivoting on new information kind of like a skier can bounce around moguls when they pop up but you know I don’t always I think there are times when you have to cut against the grain too and you have to make you have to know when to when to be aggressive. And cut into what’s existing and then when you kind of got to go with the flow to and I would say be very careful who you take advice from because just because somes willing to give you their time doesn’t mean that you should be giving them yours.

Alejandro Cremades: Got it now for the people that are listening that will love to reach out and say hi. What is the best way for them to do so.

Jack Greco: Um, so I mean we we have a ah website far out Vc um, everything goes directly to the partners. Um, so you can you can go through there I’m on Linkedin happy to do that I’m ah you know i’m. Very good, very responsive on any the messaging that goes through that those are 2 really good ways to do it I will tell you don’t lead with hey I’m trying to raise money for this like do a little bit and this goes for any intro you’re trying to make to especially an emerging manager like me. Like try and find something either from what I just talked about or any of the other stuff out there that you can relate to and make sure it is a good connection. You know, um I do a lot of job I do a lot of work in ecosystems. So if you happen to be a connector or or well connected within you know. Ah, city that’s got maybe 1 or 2 professional sports teams but not all 4 of them right? like reach out to me I’ve I’ve found I’ve built really great relationships I want to invest in people I have in a relationship with and I build really great relationships amongst people that share common interests and common threads. Like any other friendship in the world.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s incredible. Well Jack thank you? So so much for being on the deal maker show. It has been an on earth to have you with us today.

Jack Greco: It’s been great. Thank you very much I appreciate it.

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al*******@pa**************.com

 

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