"You can't AI your way out of bad taste" — Diana Melencio (GP, XRC Ventures) on building the next $100M consumer brands
18VC Podcast · Episode 5 · May 30, 2026
Guests: Diana Melencio
Source: https://www.18-vc.com/podcast/xrc-diana-melencio

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to our audiences. We are thrilled to have Diana Melencio from XRC Ventures with us today. Diana is the general partner at XRC Ventures' Brand Capital Fund. XRC Venture invest in the future of retail and commerce, and has invested in over 150 companies since 2015. Thank you so much for joining us on our episode of 18VC recording.

For those of you who may be new to this channel, 18VC is a student-run podcast featuring student founders, operators and investors, betting on the youngest and smartest mind in the next generation. The host today will be me and Philip. So Diana, gave us a walkthrough of your previous career from banking to founding your own startup, and to family office and to joining panel to -XRC Ventures. -I worked full-time while I was in college, paid my own way through college.

And I think that work ethic shown through as I was interviewing for analyst programs. At the time, Robertson Stevens, or RS Investments, was considered to be one of the top investment banks. It was one of the four horsemen. So that was my first job out of college, and that really helped set me up for success, not only because I worked with some super challenging managers, but in exchange for, say, staying an extra year, which I did, they introduced me to every investment bank on Wall Street.

-Wow. -And so I got a number of offers when I moved to New York. -Mm-hmm. -And I sort of stayed in Wall Street long after I wanted to because, -the money was really good and I- -Yeah ... grew up financially struggling, so I was just like, "I'm not going to leave." -And then- -But at one point in time, something happened and you left. I did, yeah. So my portfolio manager at the time, still I consider a great mentor, sat me down and just said, "You don't want to be here." What the heck?

He said, "You don't look like you want to be here." -He senses it. -"And it would make me really sad if you, a few years from now, you were still sitting across from me." And he actually let me go that day- -Wow -... but I had been working on something with my friend. I don't know if he had spidey senses, but he knew that it was time, and I had enough savings to make that leap, and that's when I started working full time on OK My Outfit, which grew really quickly.

A month after we launched that mobile app, I was at a party and met a news anchor at ABC News. -Mm-hmm. -So we were on ABC News, and then after that aired, it aired in New York taxi cabs for six weeks. And so within a month of launching that app, we had 15,000, 20,000 users. So we didn't have a lack of users. What we had- -Mm -... was a lack of a true business model.

Primarily affiliate, which is just, I think in general, still a bias of mine, affiliate revenue models -are- -Mm ... bad ones. Unless you have an unfair advantage on customer acquisition and you can scale to millions very quickly. So if you were, I don't know, Taylor Swift, and you launched an app and you had $20 million, excuse me, 20 million users right away on the app, then you could make an affiliate model work.

But you can't if you're going tensies, twosies, hundreds, 10,000 here. That's going to be years before you generate revenue. -Yeah. -So we pivoted, and started a new business, last mile delivery called Quinn. We found product market fit with retailers, multi-brand retailers like Neiman Marcus and Saks and, Lord & Taylor. And we found product market fit in a dense city like New York.

But last mile economics requires density to be -venture scale. -Mm-hmm. And so even as we expanded the geography to Jersey City, the unit economics just started to break. It was no longer a profitable endeavor. So the lesson I learned, I read your questions, the lesson there is those were just not venture scale businesses. But I learned a lot. Yeah, and then I ran a large family office, and then really only about a year into it, Pano, the founder of XRC, approached me and said- -Mm-hmm -...

"Hey, do you want to join XRC?" We started an advisory engagement, and then I went full time in the middle of 2021. I've been there ever since. So backing your point at transition from your finance career to founding your first startup in fashion space. What exactly that led you to choose fashion as the first entry point of the startup world? I've always had, I still have an interest in all things consumer, retail, fashion, design.

So it felt like a natural fitAnd some of the inspiration for my first startup called OK, My Outfit, was really just my friends asking me -about outfit advice. -Mm-hmm. And it was just creating an app around that to see if it can scale. That's interesting. So I also know a lot of companies nowadays are also trying to -build, like a virtual try-on or smart- -Yeah ...

wardrobe. Have you looked into any of this space, and are you able to resonate more with what founders are thinking because you have similar experience in the past? I resonate with the problem. Fit is a perennial issue in online sales, in particular, very high return rates, which in turn, high costs to the brand and the consumer. The issue with virtual try-on is that fit- -Mm-hmm -...

is very different based on the person. Some people like a very form-fitting fit. I like, depending on the shirt, mostly loose-fitting shirts. So it's really hard to create that technology because the definition of fit differs by person and differs by body type, even if you're the same -size. -Mm-hmm. -That makes sense. -So I understand the problem. It's not an area that I invest in.

So you have yet to found a great solution to actually fix the problem in the field. We've seen a lot and actually drafted an internal white paper about it. We did a big search and an analysis of why, when Gap tried it, it didn't work, when Levi's tried it, it didn't work, and we spoke directly to the executive team launching those programs and testing the different startups. I don't see a solution anytime soon, so I'm not really bullish on that as a startup idea.

-I see. -Yeah. I see. Sure. During the 2016 to 2017 period, you have been a two-time consumer tech founder, uh, the two company, OK, My Outfit and Quinn, which is backed by Jason Calacanis and also XRC Ventures. Looking back at these experience, how did you learn during the process, and how does that influence the way you evaluate startups and founders, as an investor today?

I think there's a difference between a good idea and a venture, a good idea, a good business, and a venture backable business. And the issue with both those companies was not necessarily product market fit. OK, My Outfit, attracted over 20,000 users in the span of two months. And Quinn had major partnerships with Saks, Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus.

And so the issue wasn't necessarily product market fit, was a business model that was venture scale. And so I try to differentiate what is a good idea because it is solving a true problem with one that you can underwrite to a billion-dollar outcome. -Mm-hmm. -And those are not always the same. Definitely. And, so you are basically using that three different ways of classifying if that startups is a venture backable business, when you are evaluating them nowadays, and that's basically the biggest lessons probably or takeaway you have from the experience.

-There's a lot of takeaways, but- -Oh ... specific to what I just said. The unit economics, whether technology or consumer brand has to work, and if those unit economics don't work, are not venture scale, then it's not one that should have venture dollars invested into it. There's plenty of great businesses, plenty of great ideas that are meant to be lifestyle businesses.

Those are great businesses. And so I would implore founders to not necessarily look to venture capital first -when they have a great idea- -Mm-hmm ... and they want to build a business. Yeah, definitely. And we want to have another one that is, we have checked your, basically your previous interviews and your articles. You actually been quite open about imposter syndromes, and you serve as a managing partner of a fund, and I think it's a quite demanding job, which you need to communicate with different founders and LPs in a sense of perfection, confidence, and authority.

How did you actually navigate through that? I think much better now. Years are more forgiving, and with more experience comes more confidence. But I think when you're an exception or you stand out in any roomIf your -insecurity can creep in, whether you're- -Right ... the only woman, whether you're the only person with an accent, whether you didn't go to a certain level of school.

A very random example is my husband and I went to a wedding, and I didn't look closely at the invitation, and I told him to wear a tux. It was not- -Yeah -... a formal wedding, and he was so embarrassed, and he's a fairly confident man. But in that moment, he felt like he was other, if that makes sense. He felt a little bit out of place, and anyone in that situation, you'd have to be in that situation regularly to sort of overcome that insecurity to feel confident.

And so I think actually with my Substack, and these type of podcast appearances and like- -Mm-hmm -... I've been on Bloomberg and I'm on stage at a lot of conferences, those are always really difficult for me. Being in front of a camera and being on stage is not something that comes supernatural. I love meeting one to one. I like writing behind a computer screen, being informed by data in front of me, and then editing and writing and editing, double checking, making sure that I-- We footnote a lot of our research.

That's where I feel most confident. But with enough repetition and enough years of experience, your confidence increases, and you feel more at ease. Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for stepping out of your comfort zone and take our -podcast and showing up. -Yeah. Yeah. And then we want to talk a little bit more about XRC. So XRC runs a family of funds across the accelerator fund, the brand capital fund, and the opportunity fund.

How does these three funds reinforce each other in terms of deal flow, and where do they sit? How do they sit differently inside in terms of the investment thesis? Yeah. So to level set, -XRC is really two primary funds. -Mm-hmm. But we invest in consumer products out of our brand capital fund, and then we have a technology fund that invests in technologies that help get that end product to the consumer.

So supply chain logistics, that helps consumers transact, commerce, payments, fintech, that helps that product show up to the consumer through marketing technologies and social commerce. So the end-to-end consumer journey is what we invest in, and how they interact with each other is actually becoming more and more of an occurrence because we invest in technologies that automate a process for consumer brands and retailers. Well, we now happen to have very scaled consumer brands in our portfolio. We happen to have large public retailers and large public consumer brands, the largest global mall operators in the world as our LPs.

And so a lot of the ways that we add value and have an unfair advantage in the market is through those relationships that we can help foster. So it's really like a symbiotic relationship between our consumer brand investments and our technology investments. Yeah, I can see that. So basically, your consumer brand portfolio companies can be the natural customer of your consumer tech portfolio companies.

Yes, they often are. So we invested in a company called Nectar Social, and her first enterprise customers were Naked Sundays and SolaWave, and those are both portfolio companies. Yeah, I think that's definitely a great way to find the first customers for a startup. Yeah. Yeah. I actually saw the post about Nectar space. I think they're generating a lot of momentum right now, so good for them.

What's the large investment success and the bitterest lesson for you at XRC? The biggest success is being the first call for my portfolio company founders. When Sam at Naked Sundays is reviewing a distributor contract, she sends it to me first. When Connor at Homefield, he's fielded a lot of acquisition- -Mm-hmm -... bids, actually. -He lets me look at the LOI- -Right ...

first and opine on it, and I think that- -Mm-hmm -... level of trust is incredible. In terms of failure, I think we fell in love with a lot of products historically- -Mm-hmm -... where the product was good, but the founder didn't know how to sell or didn't know how to hire the people that can sell. It's like that saying, the tree that falls in the woods or-- English is my second language, so what is it?

It's like the tree that gets chopped down, but no one hears it because it's in the forest. Oh, okay. You know what I'm saying? And, so now we really look at -teams or a person- -Ah ... that can build the thing and that can sell the thing, because otherwise, it's a product that goes nowhere. No one hears it. -Makes sense. -No one uses it. -And- -Makes sense.

And are you actually seeing more one-person company getting power because of AI and can do many more things that which they otherwise couldn't do in the past? I think it's still helpful to have co-founders. It's a really lonely journey. Okay. It's really hard. But I think it is, to your point, significantly easier to build technology products and significantly cheaper.

Makes sense. So XRC's edge, per your own language, is deep ties with CFOs and execs, and major consumer and retail companies. Can you tell us a little bit about how that shows up in a typical deal, in terms of sourcing diligence, post-investment value added? Yeah, so from a sourcing and diligence perspective- -Mm-hmm -... we literally go to their customers and -ask them, "Would you use this?" -Oh, okay.

Or, "What do you currently use? Is there -a solution?" -Mm-hmm. And then in terms of post-diligence process, we work very closely with our portfolio companies to draft a one-pager, how they sell themselves to the enterprise customer, a list of target customers. If your current clients are primarily consumer brands that are- -Mm-hmm -... $10, $20 million in annual sales- -Mm-hmm -...

maybe the first person that you -approach is not Colgate-Palmolive. -Mm-hmm. We can get you there, because we have relationships there. But let's start with maybe one of our brands that are $30 to $50 million in sales. That's a good step up. -Mm-hmm. -So then you have use cases that are larger -and larger. And so that's something- -Yeah ... that we work closely with our portfolio companies.

And I think the key difference is that our relationships are at the C-suite level. -Mm-hmm. -So within the last 30 days alone, I've spent one-on-one in-person time with the CFO, the CIO, the head of M&A at mid-cap and large-cap consumer product goods companies. So when I introduce you to someone, it's the top down, it's the CFO saying, "I want to use this tool," versus, in the nicest way possible, a low-level person- -Yeah -...

that then has to go up, up, up, up. -Yep. -That takes forever. -Yes. -And so we create our financing so that everyone's aligned on the success of the business, because by having more customers, the company is worth more. That makes total sense. In terms of just the idea of looking for contrarian, because avoiding consensus, looking for contrarian is a common belief for early-stage VCs, right?

What does contrarian look like in the sectors that you look into specifically? Well, our sector is contrarian. -It is- -Well, that's true. -It's really out of favor. -That's what this says, right. -Hugely out of favor. -Yep. Talk to any consumer VC, it's very difficult to raise a fund in our category. When people talk about breaking records on valuation, they're talking about AI -startups.

-Yeah. They're not talking about enterprise software. -Right. -They're not talking about CPG. -Yep. -And so I think our contrarian view is that we are very focused. And even though we are investing in AI, we're still investing in the industries where we have incredible depth in terms of expertise, but also network. And in terms of investing in AI, I would assume you're investing in the part where AI and consumers and retail overlay, right?

We're investing in software businesses that automate what was once manual processes. So -I mentioned Nectar Social, but- -Yep ... their initial beachhead was answering DMs at scale. So if you're -a $100 million brand and you have- -Mm-hmm ... a very good Instagram presence, you're probably getting hundreds of DMs and- -Yep -... and comments on your posts -every day, all the time.

-Yep. Historically, founders would stay up all night and the crazy ones would, like some of the ones I know, would personally reply back to every single customer via DM or comment. What Nectar Social does is it learns the brand's voice and then -replies as that- -Mm ... brand's voice at scale. So instead of, say- -Mm -... six customer service people, you now require one or none.

And so it's that kind of AI that we invest in, solving problems for consumer brands. -I see. -Yeah, definitely. And after we talking about AI's application in consumer sector, then we also want to talk about how AI actually transform the way investors work. So, for example, specifically in deal sourcing, on a high level, how does AI help you do deal sourcing at XRC?

Because from our knowledge that probably AI can only find these open public information on the internet, would that means that if relying too much on AI, so on that would kind of miss out some of the companies that may still in the stealth mode or is not have a online presence yet? Yeah, so technology and consumer brands are very different. So I'll address the technology hunting for technology startups first. You have to be on the ground, and frankly, you have to have presence in Silicon Valley, because there's never been a greater concentration of startups in Silicon Valley, even pre-dotcom.

It's all happening there. The talent is gravitating there, which is why I'm looking for an intern and an analyst based in the Bay Area, because there -you have to be boots on the ground. -Right. And you have to understand... what's happening and what people are building. So from a sourcing perspective, I don't know. There's a bunch of AI tools. I get cold emails all the time and LinkedIn messages about how this AI is going to help me.

I'm like, "You're not helping me." And so, I think it just requires time, and it requires relationships. On the consumer brand side, thankfully, every consumer brand wants to be known. As soon as someone wants to build a brand, and they've done the branding exercise or hired the branding agency, they put up an Instagram. They put up a Shopify or a Shopline.

-Mm-hmm. -So it's very easy to find them. And to that end, we have built our own proprietary AI tool to track companies that are launching online, and we have some kind of guesstimate on where they are from a revenue perspective, because you can ballpark what the average order value is or what the hero product is. And then the page for checkout is a unique site, and then you can just back into an average conversion number.

And even if it's not exact, directionally, it will tell you that there's more people landing on that checkout site. So you can -see the growth of this consumer brand. -Yeah, definitely. And we want to go to the due diligence process. -Yes. -For example, for consumer brands, I think social listening, retail sell-throughs, and channel scrapes are being increasingly important as a part of pre-investment due diligence.

How does your due diligence stack actually look like in 2026 in SRC? And also, what's the most important metrics you are looking at during the due diligence process? Yes. So I'll back up a little bit on the sourcing side. So I spend a lot of time personally with these public strategics. -Mm-hmm. -So to give you a little history lesson on CPG, since really the height of Allbirds and Casper and those failed consumer IPOs, single category consumer brand IPOs are not successful.

And so the outcome for consumer VCs, a successful outcome is predominantly defined as a strategic exit to a large public company who suck at innovating, and so they have to buy it. And so because of that, I spend a lot of time with these strategics, like, "What do you want to buy? You want to buy something in laundry? You want to buy something in fragrance?

You want to buy something in vitamins, mineral -supplements, VMS?" -Mm-hmm. -That's where Groomts would fall. -Mm-hmm. Okay, but what kind of brand do you want to buy? The kind that sells at Walmart, the kind that sells at Target, the kind that sells at Sephora- -Mm-hmm -... the kind that sells at Ulta? And so we download a lot of these conversations to be one side of our sourcing -Venn diagram.

-Mm. Like, okay, this is the acquirable white space. And on the other side of that, we take a lot of the proprietary data that we garner from our tools. Okay, these are the fastest-growing consumer product categories. So then the middle, the intersection of that Venn diagram is where we hunt. And so we're, on the consumer brand side, very thematic investors.

So maybe we identified, okay, we want to invest in a mass stage to prestige sun care business. -Mm. -Great. We'll talk to 25 of them and then see which one we want to deploy capital into. And then a lot of how we bake them off from one another is different depending on the -category. So if it's like a- -Mm ... home products, it's like how efficacious are they?

How differentiated are they? Where are they priced per fluid ounce relative to the other competitors? What does the shelf look like? Is it predominantly incumbents or is it a lot of emerging? Mm-hmm. So that's a little bit before we do real diligence, which from, to your question about KPIs, it is repeat purchase is probably the number one. -Repeat purchase.

-And then we spend a lot of time looking at -the unit economics. -Mm. Do we have to change the price pack architecture of this business to get it to scale? I'm looking at one now where I think there needs to be... Well, I want to do it. So I'm like, "Okay, so what do we need to do on the price pack architecture to make sure that it is a little bit more appealing to the masses than it currently is?" Because of how, without giving it away, because of how it's priced on a per fluid ounce basis.

Totally. And I think we do our diligence process, I would say, is more akin to growth equity and -private equity- -Mm ... than it is to traditional venture capital, because we set up the acquisition from the beginning. So we professional- -I see -... when we invest in a business, we -professionalize them. -I see. Their board packet is really good. -You take a traditional VC-backed- -Mm-hmm ...

CPG brand, look at their board deck versus the board deck of our portfolio companies. I will go to town. I will get first place on that board packet because we spend a lot of time making sure that they're ready for that strategic exit very early. That's the uniqueness, that's the mode at XRC. That's why you're so competitive. -Yeah. -So me and Phil, we actually found our favorite quote, which is, "You can AI your way out of bad taste." And it's from one of your Substack -articles.

-Yeah. We have repetitively heard that building is kind of easy in the era of AI, but taste is what sets startups apart, right? And to you, what does taste specifically mean for startup and startup founders? Is it specifically product design, strategic mindset, or can you just give a more concrete example of what taste could be and how sometimes, maybe one occasion in which how a good versus bad taste could affect something larger?

Yeah. I don't know that I can give you the answer that you want because it's almost like je ne sais quoi. Did you read the book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell? -No, not yet. -Oh, you should. You should read a lot of his books. "David and Goliath" is also another good one. I think "Blink" is the one that says something about when you do something for 10,000 hours, you're an expert.

Mm-hmm. I was going to tell a story about it, but I'll just skip to my part, which is, I don't know that I can -clearly- -Mm-hmm ... define it, but from a founder perspective, it's someone that can clearly articulate the problem. Because often for consumer founders, it was one that they faced themselves. As a mom, as a woman who was going through menopause, as a college student in his dorm room wanting to find the appropriate T-shirt to wear to the national basketball championship.

That's the story of HomeField, which he started when he was -in college. -Mm-hmm. Connor started it. Connor and Chris started it when they were both at Indiana University. So it's someone that uniquely understands the problem and then uniquely understands the solution to serve it up. So Connor had design skills. He just knew, and he knew everything about college sports.

So he would screen print them from his dorm room or college apartment, sayings from old school Indiana football, Indiana basketball history. And his friends were like, "Where did you get that shirt?" And it just sort of snowballed from there. So that's sort of what I mean by taste. Sam at Naked Sundays. So Naked Sundays is an Australian-based sunscreen brand that was made famous by their SPF 50 top-up spray that you can wear on top of makeup.

And she found that solution because she was a news correspondent in Australia. If you're a news correspondent, you're out on the field. You're not in the anchor in an air-conditioned studio. A lot of the correspondents, the majority of the correspondents, had had skin cancer cut out of their face. Because fun fact, Australia has the highest rates of melanoma.

It's the closest to the ozone layer. -Mm-hmm. -And they couldn't put sunscreen on top of their makeup, even though they were covering bushfires for hours on end. And so she was like, "Where's the spray that you could put on top of your makeup so that I don't get skin cancer, and I don't have to cut something out of my face like everybody else did?" -Mm-hmm.

-And then she also happens to be really cool. And she developed this formula on her own, and that's how Naked Sundays was started. So I don't know if that answers your question on taste. Some of it is just style. -Mm. -But it's really also understanding the problem the best, and then being the right person to solve it. And on top of that, what does taste mean for investors then?

Does it mean different things for investors versus founders? What kind of taste should an investor have? I can -compliment my fellow consumer VCs. -Mm-hmm. I think Brian at Silas Capital has great taste. -Mm. -I love the brands that he invests in. Consumer VCs tend to be more stylish than most. Yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't know how to describe it.

Yeah. And usually, we tend to come from investment backgrounds that- -Mm-hmm -... where we focus our career in consumer, in retail in one form or the other, whether that's public markets, growth -equity, investment banking. -Yeah. Mm-hmm. And on top of that, we just love the category. We love shopping. We love seeing what's new and what's next. Yeah.

There's one observation that I think is really interesting in terms of the founders working in the space of consumer and retail. So there seems to be a pattern for recognizing sharp tech founders, right? Graduating from top university, younger, savvy, maybe serial entrepreneur. Maybe had preferably a scientist or researcher at big companies, and maybe went to YC.

Is there a similar or a different pattern for recognizing high potential builders in consumer space? Besides what I already communicated, which is someone that knows the problem acutely, it's just hustle. -Hustle. -Right? It's someone that's willing to run through walls. It's what I look for in my investment team. It's, what is it? It's 7:00, I'm in Paris on a nice day, and I'm not only here with you guys, but I'll be on Bloomberg later, also in my hotel room.

I just always want to learn more. I want to do more. I want to be better. I want to win. And so, in addition to really understanding the industry and teaching me something new -that I didn't know- -Mm ... before. If I know more about your category, that is a red-- I don't think that that should be a case. Maybe I know a lot more about price pack architecture.

I know about unit economics. -Mm-hmm. -I know how to- -Mm-hmm -... build a financial model, and maybe I know what a sales deck to a Target would look like, or a Walmart would look like better -than you. -Mm-hmm. But the product, like who the customer is and why this ingredient is best suited for that specific demographic or customer, I shouldn't know more than you.

And I know a lot. So, the bar is fairly high. So yeah, hustle. It's like, who is it? Do you know Rick Ross, "Everyday I'm Hustling?" -Oh, that sounds familiar. -The song. You should look it up. -Definitely. -Well- It also kind of echoes back to Steve Jobs, right? "Stay hungry, stay foolish." I think that we also have kind of resonance in that quote, about- -Yeah -...

hustling. Your inspiration, Harry 2020 VC. He's been loving getting on fights on LinkedIn recently on 996, and working all the time. But honestly, I ascribe to his similar philosophy. I think to build- -Mm -... anything big or- -Mm-hmm -... aspire to, you have to spend a lot of time doing it. You have to know more than me, and I spend a lot of time doing what I do.

Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. Yeah, definitely. And we want to move on to a little bit more practical tips and advice. So we have a lot of founder friends who are maybe students now, also some are young professionals, and we want to know, can you give them some kind of advice on what are their typical mistakes that these founders may make during their pitch, or what would you advise them to prepare ahead of time before they reach out to a VC, so that the process can go more fluently?

Number one is try. You just have to put yourself out there. And then number two is know your numbers front to back. What's your repeat purchase rate? What's your gross margin? Is that product gross margin, or is that fully landed? If you can't answer that, that's not a great signal. Maybe I can educate you, and we can come back later in time, and you'll have a better grasp of that.

But that is something, if you're actively fundraising, there's a certain level of -preparedness that I would expect. -Mm. When I support fundraisers for my portfolio companies, it usually takes several months- -Mm -... because we're socializing that deck with other investors. I'm looking at it, I'm tearing it down. I'm asking them the questions. And so, not having a good grasp on numbers and a succinct communique on why you are different would be a big mistake.

Definitely. And, yeah, out of curiosity, have you considered founding something again? For example, a startup, or have you ever considered founding another startup again? If so, what would that company be? -No. So- -Oh, nice ... it was very hard. It was very, very hard. So, in the span of two startups, I did that across five years. Raised venture capital, as you mentioned, from- -Yeah -...

Jason Calacanis and XRC and Accenture. -Yeah. -And it was really hard and soul-crushing. The highs are few and the lows are many. I think thankfully, I was fortunate enough, I had a spare room in New York. Not a lot of people do that, have that. And so I Airbnb-ed that because I wasn't paying myself. I sold Christmas trees. I did crazy things to extend my runway, and then extend my runway, and then extend my runway, and then extend my runway.

So, that level of passion and perseverance is maybe another thing I would add to my list of things I look for in founders. Are you doing it full time? -Mm. -I mean- -That's very important. -Yes, very important. -Yeah. -And where can people follow your work, and engage with you at XRC or reach you? Yeah. So, I'm very reachable on LinkedIn. I'm very active.

Actually, even when I'm on a plane, I'm just on it all the time. Hustle all the time. Yeah. Multiple times a day. I'm not on it all the time. It's not- Yeah, I'm not addicted to it, but if I'm online, I see a little ping, I get an -email notification. -Mm-hmm. I have time, I'm in the bathroom, I send a little message. Yeah. So then before we actually wrap up our recording session, the last question may be a little bit unconventional, but it will take us back to your childhood time.

What was your childhood dream? My childhood dream was just to support my family, which is what I'm living today. Mm. It took me longer than I thought. So I'm in my 40s. I'm 43, and I didn't get to this place as young as I wanted, but I think it's all -meant to be. -Worth it though. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The time on Wall Street led me to have a fulsome understanding of growth and public markets.

It also helped set up a lot of relationships for me, in terms of public -market relationships with- -Mm-hmm -... equity analysts, for example, and- -Mm-hmm ... those equity analysts that were the same age as me are now the senior analysts, and they cover the- -Ah -... public companies and they introduced me to the CEO and the CFO. And then that led me to starting a company, and then that led me to understanding early stage venture and eventually taking all of that experience to become an entrepreneur.

-XRC. -So I think it was all cumulative- -Yeah -... experience and I really hope to impart that. So if you're looking for an internship, I know it's a little late, but we are looking for a Silicon Valley-based intern to work alongside me and our investment team, focused on technology investments. You can go to our website, xrc.com, and scroll down to Careers.

Awesome. Thank you so much. That will wrap up our session today. Thank you so much, Diana, for being here with us today. And, folks, I'll see you next time. -Bye. -Bye-bye. Thank you, guys. Bye.