Pejman is the co-founder and managing director of Pear VC, one of the most successful investment firms in Silicon Valley. Over the past two decades, he has been a seed investor in some of the most iconic tech companies including Doordash, Dropbox, Applovin, Gusto, and many more. An Iranian immigrant, Pejman took an unconventional career path, building up his network while working as a rug salesman in Palo Alto. Hear him share incredible stories—like the time he brought the entire partnership of Sequoia Capital into his rug gallery—and timeless lessons about the value of carefully building a network over time and the power of leaning in to what makes you unique.
Pejman is the co-founder and managing director of Pear VC, one of the most successful investment firms in Silicon Valley. Over the past two decades, he has been a seed investor in some of the most iconic tech companies including Doordash, Dropbox, Applovin, Gusto, and many more. An Iranian immigrant, Pejman took an unconventional career path, building up his network while working as a rug salesman in Palo Alto. Hear him share incredible stories—like the time he brought the entire partnership of Sequoia Capital into his rug gallery—and timeless lessons about the value of carefully building a network over time and the power of leaning in to what makes you unique.
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“For me, I realized there is an opportunity. I think I was very lucky. I saw people around me and I wasn't really afraid. I wasn't afraid to jump into a community that I was not part of, ask a lot of questions, and I used my differences as my power.” - Pejman Nozad
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Episode Timestamps:
*(02:10) - Pejman's beginnings from Iran to Palo Alto
*(04:32) - How working at a Rug Gallery gave Pejman access to tech and venture capita entrepreneurs
*(06:22) - Have a genuine interest in getting to know people
*(07:23) - Using you differences as a power
*(10:21) - Cultivating a relationship Lou Montulli founding member of Netscape, from customer to friend
*(12:30) - How a relationship with Doug Leone changed the trajectory of Pejman's career
*(14:07) - Getting Sequoia Capital to invest in Dropbox early on, with a ROI around $2 billion
*(17:38) - How Pear VC is partnering with founders to turn great ideas into category-defining companies.
*(29:27) - Understanding the market and product when investing
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Sponsor:
Who Got Me Here is brought to you by Connect The Dots, mapping professional relationships so you can find the strongest connections to the people and companies you want to reach. Visit ctd.ai to learn more.
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Links:
0:00:31.9 Annie Riley: Welcome to Who Got Me Here, a podcast about making connections matter. I'm your host, Annie Riley, and I am here today with Pejman Nozad, the co-founder and managing partner of Pear VC. Over the past two decades, Pejman has been a seed investor in iconic tech companies, including DoorDash, Dropbox, Gusto, Branch. I could go on and on. The list is very, very long. Pejman was an immigrant from Iran and did not take a typical path towards becoming a VC. So, I think many, many lessons to be learned from how you've built your career and made connections matter over the years to become an investor on the Forbes Midas list in 2021 and 2022 and ranked the number one investor in the US. And I think number two in the world on the Midas seed list for 2022. So a long list of accomplishments, a career of tremendous impact, and we're so, so excited to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us.
0:01:31.3 Pejman Nozad: Annie, thank you so much. It's so great. I appreciate that you invited me. And it's so good to see you after a while. I know when we started Pear, we having small office and you were just so graciously helping us at that time in building a community while you were at Stanford. So, it's so, so good to see you. And I'm excited to be in your show.
0:01:48.6 Annie Riley: It's just a treat to have you here. So, I'm curious when I sort of throw out the term networking, what comes to mind for you? A lot of people get an icky feeling about that word. What is networking to you?
0:02:00.9 Pejman Nozad: As you mentioned, I grew up in Iran. I grew up actually in war and revolution. And when I was 10 years old, revolution happened and right after the war. So it was like a tough teenager life. And I came to America when I was 22 with no plan. I didn't speak the language. I only had $700. And, you know, I lost the money because I was calling a girl I loved in Iran. So, I think the money was gone. And I bought a 1973 Chevy for five payments of 150 bucks. And my first job ended up being a car wash, because those are among the few jobs that you don't speak the language. I drove every day from Palo Alto to San Jose to wash cars, but I tell you, I was the best car washer the world has ever seen. Nobody washed cars like me. I ended up...
0:02:40.2 Annie Riley: I believe it.
0:02:41.2 Pejman Nozad: And when I ran out of money, I slept in my car, I slept on the streets and I slept in an attic. So, I was kind of homeless, I didn't have home 'cause I didn't have money. And I slept in an attic above a yogurt shop for a few months. This is the yogurt shop I used to work next to Stanford University. Then I ended up getting a job at a rug gallery in downtown Palo Alto. It's one of the best rug galleries in the world. And I ended up again, again being a really good rug salesman. I sold a few million dollars worth of rugs after being in the business for a few years. And even our software companies cannot sell a few million dollars worth of rug in our portfolio. And it was a very profitable business. [chuckle] But Persian rugs typically you come and say, Pejman I bought a home in New York or Palo Alto, I'm looking for a rug for my dining room. We look at rugs and bring it to your home. By going to people's home, I started to become friends with them, and I noticed after a few years, all of them are in tech, 99% of them are venture capitalists, founders of big companies. And I was amazed by... Not only they were wealthy, but mostly you can build so much value, you can create jobs, you can create wealth by knowledge.
0:03:41.5 Pejman Nozad: And I thought that maybe this is an opportunity of my life, and I wanna be part of that community. So I asked a lot of questions. I was very lucky because I had access to people, who normally you can't meet them, like founders of Netscape, founders of Kleiner Perkins. But I was hanging out with them in their family's barbecue while selling rugs to them. I think this is one of the magic about Silicon Valley, they didn't judge me. And somehow the connection I made with them was very valuable. And I convinced the owner of the rug gallery to partner with me, because I didn't have money. So late '90s when it wasn't very fashionable to be an angel investor, we started out angel investing. And I knew for me it was playing in NBA, but I won't be LeBron James. But I can be the best agent because of my network. So, I started to use that network to bring people together. I remember one of the first things I did, I brought the entire partnership of Sequoia Capital to the rug gallery. And I brought because I'm Iranian-American, I called every single PhDs at Stanford and Berkeley, making sure they come to the party. That said, it was just using my network in the right way.
0:04:42.8 Pejman Nozad: And Sequoia Capital was just so amazed, because they had never seen so many PhDs under one roof. You know, imagine this. There is not much of this conference has happened. The only way to get to investment was going to Sam Herold offices, so it was very new. And then the environment was very new. So my network, which I built the last 10 years, I had lot of value for me in that. And I think people realize on both sides, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists that for venture capitalists I have access to the really good entrepreneurs, they don't normally see. For entrepreneurs, I have access to not only venture capitalists, I have access to people who built massive big companies and they come and grab a tea in my rug gallery meeting them. So network, as you mentioned, had a lot of value. But I used it really carefully. It wasn't like introducing everybody every day. I was very careful that this asset, it has a lot of value and I want to make sure I grow it in the right way. And that was the beginning of really my career using the network and growing. And people have different networks. I was very lucky to be in the Silicon Valley, at a rug gallery over there.
0:05:46.0 Annie Riley: There's so much to unpack here in terms of how you approach all of this and lessons that listeners could take from your experience. If we kind of travel back in time to that experience of being a salesman in the rug gallery, I think sometimes people want to know even just how to pick a path to go down. What direction to take, where to apply their energies and where to make the effort. Can you tell us more about how you connected the dots between your experience in the rug gallery and what you were seeing when you went into these homes and with the folks that you were meeting? How did you decide this is the path for me? What drove you to move in that direction?
0:06:21.9 Pejman Nozad: I have a genuine interest in getting to know people. And I think people like that. I think especially my customers. That was a relationship for me. Obviously, I went over there to sell rugs, but more importantly, I care about them. I care about their home. I care about how this carpet looked then, but just getting to know them. And I think that was really the essence to build the network. But honestly, I didn't plan to be a venture capitalist. I just knew this network has so much value and I have access to them. I can call them, just drive to their home and go to their kitchen and hang out and ask questions. And I was seeing entrepreneurs don't have that access. And I felt there is an opportunity to build a kind of the investment platform, which I didn't know at that time, but just investing in the companies using that network. It wasn't really designed that, okay, I have to do these things, in the next six months or 12 months this will happen. I just did it. I just did it. And it worked for me. I realized there is an opportunity. I think I was very lucky.
0:07:17.3 Pejman Nozad: I saw people around me and I wasn't really afraid. I wasn't afraid to jump in the community that I was not part of it. Asked a lot of questions. And I use my differences as my power. Like people come over there. It's very odd. You bring entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in the rug gallery. But I use the tradition of the rug and art and Persian tea as something they never experienced. And it happened that people loved it because you normally go to the very boring, shiny offices and everybody's quiet. Nobody talks. And you just walk to rug gallery and it's beautiful rugs on the wall. Persian music in the background. Persian tea is coming. And I think people really felt really comfortable in that environment. And this is one of the things I always share with entrepreneurs and even my kids, that you can use your differences. Don't hide them. Just use it in the right way, in a very positive way. That's what I did.
0:08:07.8 Annie Riley: I think that's so cool 'cause sometimes people hold themselves back because they're afraid to be different or afraid to be seen as trying to break into something that they're not already a part of. And so I love the way that you highlight how you took what was unique about you and you made that something you brought them into and made everyone feel comfortable sort of experiencing something new right along with you. Another common sort of fear I think that people have around networking is taking a personal relationship and translating that into a business relationship. And you were able to take these folks who were your clients and leverage the existing relationship for a different purpose, for investing and company formation. What advice do you have about how to take an existing relationship to a new level or to a new place when folks might be fearful about that?
0:09:02.5 Pejman Nozad: Yeah, I think give before you take. I was helping everybody on both sides. I think for my network, let's say the rug customers who are wealthy and they were founders. I mean, access to some of the entrepreneurs to come and help and advise or even invest. I think I made those clients very happy. So I just felt... I mean, when you sit on the other side, you think you sold rugs, but on them, they're happier than me because they had a beautiful rug over there. They were happy with the family. So it was a two ways relationship with them. But just making sure that I always do even here. If you look at Pear, we have programs that we help entrepreneurs start companies that we have a program called Pear Standford, Pear Garage that we select top 30 technical students. We help them build companies and we don't take any equity. And some of them come back after six, seven years and, "Pejman. You were influential in what we did that time. And now I'm starting a company after being five years at Google or Palantir." So that mentality still is inside Pear. And I always believe in it. I think you always give before you even expect to get. Sometimes you don't get. I think if you put that in your thinking and your behavior, the magic will happen.
0:10:06.8 Annie Riley: You mentioned being careful and deliberate with your relationships. And I'd love to know more about how you approach that and how others could learn from how you did that.
0:10:16.6 Pejman Nozad: You know, I'll give an example. One of my very good friends in LA customers who actually is Lou Montulli. Lou was the founding engineer of Netscape. And this was at the time Netscape was taking over the world. Every single entrepreneur wanted to meet him. And I mean, people were just in line to get to know him. But I didn't just send everyday email to Lou. And I was just asking questions from entrepreneurs. Why, Lou? I mean, give me a little bit background. And I was running it by Lou and then he was picking a few people to do it. So that's just one example that you want to make sure that if you're using your network to connect people, use it in the right way and connect the right people to each other. Don't exhaust that network. But by the way, he became later on... We recruited him to be the CTO of one of... Pear's portfolio company after 20 years, Lou Montulli. So that's how the relationship just stays forever with me and my friends and my network. The other one I want to mention, I think is important. Networking, I think, has a different meaning these days, not everybody should be like me.
0:11:16.0 Pejman Nozad: Not every networking needs to put in events together and seeing people. That's one. The other one, I think, is some people are taught leadership and they write content and then they build their network through that content. So I think that the board networking always feels like putting events, go to happy hour and go talk to people. But you can leverage a different way. I think the most important thing, speak something that is very authentic and truthful to you. One of my partners doesn't want to do networking events, doesn't go much to the conferences or places or happy hours and so on. But he is an amazing thought leader. So he's writing content and people reach out to him. He has his own kind of network in a different way. So I just want to encourage people to think about if you want to build a relationship with other people, what are you good at? What do you love to do and what do you enjoy? Networking is not a task. I think it's just part of your life and it has to be very authentic.
0:12:11.3 Annie Riley: Yeah. So finding kind of what is your area of interest or how you like to do things and then playing to those strengths when you go out to put yourself out there or to meet others. I'd love to talk about one connection that you see as having been very influential to you. Is there one connection or one person who stands out in your mind as someone who was particularly influential or who was part of maybe a lucky break that you had in your career?
0:12:38.6 Pejman Nozad: Yes, I have that person. So one day I went to Doug Leone's home. He was a senior partner of Sequoia Capital. He's very charming, Italian character, very loud. And then we started to look at rugs and great negotiator. I was there for two hours. And at the end of the day, when I was leaving, I said, "Doug, I can help Sequoia Capital." And he said, "How?" I said, "I have access to so many PhDs, Iranian, and I think you should take a look." He didn't blink and said, be at your office Monday morning, 7:00 AM. My God, I made my life mission that we are ready. Normally we open the gallery at 9:00 AM. I opened it at 5:00 AM. I made Persian tea and he was right on time 7:00 AM. He said, "Tell me how you want to do it." And I said, "Bring your partners here. I'll bring Persian food," and I'd bring 100 PhDs and so on. So few weeks down the road, I think he brought Mike Moritz at that time was on board of Google and Yahoo, Jim Getz himself and others. It was like the most senior people from Sequoia. They really loved it.
0:13:35.4 Pejman Nozad: It was kind of a tipping point for me because somebody like Doug Leone took me seriously to come and put that event together. And this was very early on. This is like 2000, 2001. It was an indication for me that what I do has value even for Sequoia Capital. I got more confidence and more encouraged and we built a great vision with Doug Leone. And as you know, one morning I called him and said, I've met these two amazing founders. One of them is still at MIT. They started a company called Dropbox. We met them the next day and then they ended up investing after five days in Dropbox, which returned around two billion dollars to Sequoia Capital. So I was one of the investors over there. So this was seeded many years ago. We saw their return in 15 years after. And you never know where this relationship comes. But I think if I'm gonna take one person who really believed in me and helped me really look at the world differently and then get this confidence that I can play a role in this community, it was Doug Leone.
0:14:33.1 Annie Riley: And when you met him, can you say more about how you made that relationship matter, how you made that relationship work?
0:14:43.4 Pejman Nozad: Yeah, that's the hard part. I was explaining... Think about this, think about if I was in LA, I go to Steven Spielberg home selling rugs and at the end I say, "Mr. Spielberg, by the way, I make movies and I know a few actors and actresses you never met. And I think they should play in your movie." I think they're going to kick me out of the home and say, boy, you're out of your mind, just leave. But I actually think I won. I think through that two hours at Doug Leone's home, we became friends. So it wasn't like just selling rugs. It became somehow getting to know each other. I talked about my background, his background, he's Italian. We both love soccer. So we talk about soccer. He is a big foodie. I like food. We talk about all of these things while looking at rugs and saying hello to his wife and so on.
0:15:30.3 Pejman Nozad: So it just I think he was comfortable and I felt comfortable at the end of the day just proposing it. You just cannot go over this set of rugs and at end of it say, okay, you can... You should come and talk to me because I can help Sequoia Capital. I think you need to do more work in advance in a real way. Again, you cannot just go act and say things that is untrue or you don't believe or is not authentic to you. You know, we picked up conversation around a variety of different things. Clothes. He's a well-dressed man. And I'll talk about and I said, oh, I remember the Friday you came. You looked like dapper when you came and we talk about fashion. So it was everything around this conversation that gave me the confidence. And he felt that I'm very honest and I sincerely saying things that I believe in it.
0:16:13.6 Annie Riley: When you were, you know, walking out of his house, was there a part of you that was like, [0:16:19.4] ____ am I gonna going to do it?
0:16:21.9 Pejman Nozad: I was in heaven, my God, Doug Leone said I'll come to your office, meet you at the rug galleries. You just think about putting an event together. Pretty amazing.
0:16:28.5 Annie Riley: Yeah, yeah. It's like the dream scenario. So, okay, so you start investing, bringing these deals. How did Pear get started? How did you take that and transition into full time VC starting Pear? Could you tell us more about that experience and particularly how your network and how your relationships played a role in that transition?
0:16:49.5 Pejman Nozad: Yeah, fast forward. I ended up investing in Dropbox, LendingClub, Gusto, few others. So I make money. I started to do angel investing full time. So 2009, I realize founders raise a million dollars, small angel investor and there are few funds investing. But founders are left alone right after raising the first capital. They didn't know how to find the first customer. What is an operation plan means? How do you hire and fire people? And I decided to build an institution to serve founders at that stage, which is like day zero. The question I asked myself...
0:17:23.7 Annie Riley: And by the way Pejman, were you... When did you leave the rug business?
0:17:28.5 Pejman Nozad: 2009, 2010.
0:17:31.2 Annie Riley: So, okay, so around that time, okay.
0:17:31.8 Pejman Nozad: Yeah, the question I asked myself is just can I walk to a garage full of founders and say I'm your best partner? And the answer was no, for a few reasons. One, obviously, I had a really good track record. Everybody knew me. I had a deal flow. I knew how the system works, but I never built and shipped product. And I knew in order to build a firm to help founders, I need a partner who has been an entrepreneur. So I reached out to my current partner, Mar. It took me four years to convince her. She kept saying no. By the way, I invested in her husband's company in 2000 and in her company in 2003. And in 2003, I syndicated her first round. The only round was two and a half million dollars. Today, if you want to syndicate, let's say two million dollars round, you go on Angel List and people click and they wire money. I had to take Mar to people's home in Palo Alto to their kitchen and ask them to go write the check, take the check, take it to Mar. And then and I saw Mar in action, how she presented and then how she managed her team.
0:18:30.0 Pejman Nozad: So in 2013, I changed strategy. I said, "Mar, it's okay. You don't want to start a firm with me. Why don't you come and join my meetings in Coupa Cafe in downtown Palo Alto? Just talk to entrepreneurs." She said, "Okay, I'll come." So she started to spend like 30 minutes a day and then 45 minutes. And I think in a month and a half, she was like full time, not going to her office, hanging out with entrepreneurs. And she said and I won. She gave up. So we started Pear in 2013 with the goal of becoming the best seed fund ever existed. So we wake up every morning. We want to be the best performing fund for many, many decades. And we are yin and yang. I'm a college dropout. She's a Stanford Ph.D. In electronic engineering. She started three companies in tech, sold all three. I actually never worked for the tech company. She has 14 patents. I have zero patents. And I have a lot of scars on my body. So we became a really good complementary team. And then more importantly, we want to build something bigger than two of us. And so that's how we are building Pear.
0:19:31.9 Pejman Nozad: And Pear today, our mission is to be the best founders going from zero to one, which is investing in pre-seed and seed and go to series A. The investment team have started and sold 10 companies to companies like Cisco, Facebook, Instacart, Zynga, Yahoo. A lot of entrepreneurs in-house who can help entrepreneurs. And we're providing other services in the kind of a zero to one stage. One of them, for example, we built a recruiting agency in-house led by former head of global talent of Instacart, who took the company to 3000 people and over 100 recruiters reported to him. He just hired two other very senior recruiters. So if you come to Pear, the high or first and second engineers is part of our services for free. So we're building a lot of other services. We're building the same team for marketing, for growth. And our vision is 50 years, 100 years down the road, we do the exact same thing that we're doing today.
0:20:23.0 Annie Riley: And what was it about Mar that Led you to be so persistent about convincing her to do this with you and start this with you?
0:20:33.0 Pejman Nozad: Well, I'm pretty sure you agree with me. Maybe she's the smartest person I know. And still, I've worked with a lot of people, so I can really claim that. And being an immigrant, both of us. And then both of us, we want to give back to the community. I knew her as a friend, as a family person, her husband. So we interacted families together. So it was like a lot of things, it was not only being an entrepreneur and being venture capitalists. It was just many things about her. But listen, both of us, we didn't know anything about venture capital. I remember people thought, okay, this is a great sign of bubble. A former rock salesman turned angel investor, starting a VC firm. We were not afraid of learning it. And we just said, okay, you can learn. And one of the things I always share with our entrepreneurs, if you put your heart and soul into anything, you can learn, become the best out of it. But it requires this insane dedication to what you want to do and what you want to achieve.
0:21:28.0 Annie Riley: And how did you deal with those naysayers and with the no's that you got along the way?
0:21:35.4 Pejman Nozad: Yeah, I think just keep doing it and refine. Like, for example, if you look at the first pitch we gave for Pear, it was very different three months down the road. I actually take all those responsibilities for our actions. It's not about them. It's about us. We have to be stronger. We have to show that how we can find companies, how do we pick companies, how do we help them and we kept doing it until people believed in us and we raised the first fund, which normally first time fund is very hard to raise money from institution. We raised with one of the, you know, I can share the name. University of Chicago Endowment is one of the most respected endowments in the world. And typically first time fund, they don't invest, but they saw something that we built very differently and they believed in us. But again, these no's made us more committed and making sure we do a better job in explaining why they should give money to us. Disappointing anybody said no to you, but it didn't change our work and focus and vision.
0:22:34.5 Annie Riley: Yeah. So it sounds like it's about kind of just staying focused, staying persistent. And I mean, really, you're talking a lot about playing the long game in terms of relationships and investing in your work and the quality of your work.
0:22:46.2 Pejman Nozad: Many people who invested in our fund are the network I had and Mar had, but it was a lot of them. The first capital came from people who knew me throughout the years as an angel investor. So I even leverage that network people first. We got it off the ground with their investments.
0:23:04.0 Annie Riley: And were you able to take some of those first connections and get intros to people to create that sort of flywheel to raise the fund?
0:23:14.4 Pejman Nozad: Exactly. Two more institutions came from two of my network who invested in our fund and they were co-investing before. And obviously, if they're investing in your fund, you can ask. So we could do that. We actually do it today even when we start to fundraise, we are just closing our fourth fund. We just keep asking our network for people. You always want to do that.
0:23:32.9 Annie Riley: And what does a good ask look like? 'Cause a lot of people who listen to the show tell me, "I want to get that intro or I want to make that ask," but they feel reluctant or afraid or don't know what high quality ask might look like. Could you share any tips for making an ask that is more likely to be successful?
0:23:54.1 Pejman Nozad: Yes, I think the ask should be very precise. What is the ask? Sometimes people reach out to me and say, can I talk to this person for advice? Okay, what kind of advice? And these people get these emails every time. It should be very, very precise and making sure that you get me excited to get the courage to send that thing and make my job easy. Sometimes people ask one liner and some people write an email, I just forward it with a no. So there are things you can do around it, but be very more specific about any introduction. You should imagine that people have a lot of requests every day to take meetings and they only pick the top important things for them. So it has to look important for them and some reasons, again, very genuine and authentic reason.
0:24:38.2 Annie Riley: Yeah, I think the precision is one that has come up. But this idea of get someone excited to make the intro on your behalf, get someone excited to have your request be the one that they say yes to that day. I think that's something that we haven't heard on the show before. And what does that look like?
0:24:55.0 Pejman Nozad: I only make introductions for people who I know. You know, some people I just met them yesterday, but they asked me to introduce him to somebody else because I am putting my reputation, my network to them. I just want to make sure I do the right thing. Getting excited is just when people first asking the right person to me that meets their demand. I think a little bit storytelling of why should I meet this person? So this combination of that, I think is case by case is very different. I don't think it's very generic. But if you have a very articulate way of explaining it, why these meetings or this connection should happen, it encourages me more to take the next step and make that introduction.
0:25:35.3 Annie Riley: Yeah. So, okay. So at the beginning, we were talking about when you were working in the rug gallery and you were really kind of moving and shaken, right? Trying to make a new path to chart a new course for yourself. Things have changed a lot. A lot of people would say you've made it. You have achieved so much in your career. What keeps you, keeps you continuing? What keeps you charging ahead with all the work at Pear? Because you still invest a lot of time and energy into this work. I'd love to know what motivates you today. How do you think about all of this now that your circumstances are very different than when you first started out?
0:26:16.1 Pejman Nozad: Yeah, that's a very good question. I believe Pear is my work life. It's something that I'm very proud of it. It's just the beginning. I think for Mar and I, legacy is very important. We want to build the firm that outlasts for many, many years. I think I get a lot of joy in helping entrepreneurs start companies and create jobs, create wealth. And it's just pretty amazing when I was watching the other night DoorDash logo on NBA court. I said, my God, I met them at their home next to Stanford. And it's just pretty incredible to have witnessed how four amazing entrepreneurs can build. So that gives me motivation. That gives me energy. And I always learn.
0:27:00.2 Pejman Nozad: I think when I go to a meeting for 30, 45 minutes, somebody tells me about climate change or batteries or space. I just learn so much. And we always want to win. I played professional soccer, so I just wanted to win and become the best. And that's what we do at Pear. We want to give before you get. I think that's a lot of our culture inside Pear. At Pear, we believe everything is possible. There's no end to what we can achieve. Yeah. And I think we demand excellency from ourselves. So I think the combination of this, it becomes such an amazing creature that I'm so excited about it. And I believe we can do so much to improve what we do and help entrepreneurs build companies that really ultimately change societies and create a better future for us, our children and for the future.
0:27:54.1 Annie Riley: And how does your approach to your network change now that you are in this position? Is it the same as when you were in the rug gallery trying to break into this new industry? Has your approach to how you think about your network, has that shifted over time? I'd love to know more about that.
0:28:14.9 Pejman Nozad: The biggest change is they don't buy rugs anymore because they think I don't need to sell rugs anymore. So although I have a gallery, my brother runs, I still sell rugs. "Pejman, you don't need to sell rugs anymore."
0:28:30.4 Annie Riley: Wait. You still have a rug gallery?
0:28:32.8 Pejman Nozad: It's a side business that my brother runs.
0:28:32.9 Annie Riley: Oh, my gosh.
0:28:33.0 Pejman Nozad: Yeah. So, no, I think it hasn't changed because why should it change? I think your career might change, but your network, it grows, actually. I have a bigger network now, both in terms of the venture capitalists, founders, the Pear portfolios over 200 startups. So there are more entrepreneurs in our community and it's growing. And no, nothing has changed.
0:28:54.7 Annie Riley: What advice do you have for folks who are trying to break in or build their network in this more distributed world? You know, you've talked a lot about being in the Palo Alto area, going into these people's homes, hosting events with Stanford students. So much of that is rooted in the special location that is Silicon Valley. And with the pandemic, people are much more distributed now than ever before. What advice do you have for how folks could replicate your success, but in a more remote, more distributed world?
0:29:30.2 Pejman Nozad: So in 2019, we hosted 102 events. These are from five people to 500 people. And when the pandemic happened, we decided to build Pear 2.0, which was taking all this community building events online. And we didn't know how it would impact, but it was just amazing. I'll give you an example. We host something called Pitch Nights. So basically a group of entrepreneurs come to their office, they pitch for two minutes and we provide feedback. Everybody else listens to them and networking. And normally there are 50 to 75 people come to our office. When we did that online, I think 400 people came. I think it was just the reach was so far. So we realized, yes, we cannot go to the office, but our reach is a lot farther now.
0:30:17.1 Pejman Nozad: So I think the learning is you can always use challenges and turn it to be an opportunity. And for us, Pear 2.0 was turning around this kind of challenge of bringing people under one roof, but using the available platforms, all these video calls, what we do today to grow it. And we still do it. Last night, for example, we had three events, one in our Palo Alto office, one in San Francisco office, and one was online. We had a program called Female Engineer Founders, that it was a conversation with another venture capitalist in crypto. So I think it's pretty amazing that, what you can do, but you have to dedicate to it and find the right audience, the right community, and provide the right value for them in order for them to show up either online or offline.
0:31:05.3 Annie Riley: You have picked so many winners over the years, even when there was no track record. People who were completely new founders. This is a great example. When you are looking for founders to invest in, that's a form of relationship building. You're looking to get into a pretty long term relationship with those folks. What is it that you look for? What is it that you see in these people that causes you to invest in them, not just financially, but also your time, your energy, when even nobody else believes in it?
0:31:38.3 Pejman Nozad: Yeah, it's a good question. I think one, why are you the best person in the world to build this company? I think we always look for their relationship understanding of the market and product they're building is very important. We want people who have a deep understanding of the market. We like founders who can attract talent. We like founders who are captain of the ship. So really the customers and the team is more important than themselves. We like founders who are paranoid in a healthy way. They have this vision where they're going but they question themselves. Am I right? Am I making the right decision? Is this the right customer? Is the right amount of money I'm raising? What if things go wrong? With confidence. And then we look at the size of the market. And if those are [0:32:22.1] ____ checkmarked, then we don't need to see anything else.
0:32:26.3 Annie Riley: So many of us are perfectionists. We're afraid of making mistakes. And yet, you know, we all make mistakes all the time. I'd love to know if there are any mistakes that you've made in your approach to networking and relationship building and what you learned from that.
0:32:41.9 Pejman Nozad: You know, sometimes there are people that I don't keep really constant relationship with them. I don't think it's a mistake, but part of it is the bandwidth. You can't be in touch with everybody. At one point, I thought maybe I should send a newsletter. This is what I did last month. So make sure people see me. But now we're sending a newsletter for Pear. It just I wish I had more time and bandwidth to just keep in touch with all of my networking people who I... But it's just impossible.
0:33:07.9 Annie Riley: Yeah, totally, especially with the reach that you have. And what's a common mistake you see others make in networking that folks should avoid?
0:33:17.1 Pejman Nozad: Yeah, I think when you say networking, always people think is the task. So I really avoid even bringing it up. It's not like going to gym or is not like playing violin. And you have a certain time for networking. It's a way of life. And I think the mistake is that people think this is a task. I have to do networking this way.
0:33:35.4 Annie Riley: What should we rebrand it to?
0:33:36.9 Pejman Nozad: Oh, Who Got Me Here?
0:33:39.9 Annie Riley: [laughter] There you go. There you go. Well, Pejman, is there anything that we didn't talk about yet that you wanted to make sure that we cover?
0:33:46.0 Pejman Nozad: No, thank you so much. This is was great conversation, Annie. I think you're amazing at what you do. Thank you so much for inviting me here.
0:33:52.8 Annie Riley: Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much.
0:33:55.4 Pejman Nozad: We can reach, let's do it again, it was just wonderful, wonderful speaking with you after a while. And, you know, I'm excited about what's next.
0:34:03.3 Annie Riley: Can't wait. Well, Pejman, where can people find you if they want to learn more about what you're up to at Pear, wanna dig deeper?
0:34:10.6 Pejman Nozad: Yeah, my email is pejman@pear.vc.
0:34:10.7 Annie Riley: They can just reach out.
0:34:11.0 Pejman Nozad: Yes.
0:34:15.4 Annie Riley: Preferably with a business they're starting.
0:34:16.4 Pejman Nozad: I'm all emails.
0:34:18.9 Annie Riley: Amazing. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking the time out and sharing your insights and experiences with us. It's always such a joy to see you. And I know that folks will get so much out of this conversation, just as I have learned so much from you over the years. So thank you. Thank you for being with us.
0:34:36.4 Pejman Nozad: Thank you so much, Annie. I really appreciate it.
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