Sam Haffar of Real Ventures on the Evolving Role of Early-Stage Investors

Being an investor in the early stages of companies has a lot of responsibility. You know the money you are putting in is a vote of confidence, but your role is even more important, you become a sounding board, a mentor, and in the best cases, a friend to the founder. Our guest today is Sam Haffar, Partner at Real Ventures, and he knows this road very well.

This was a great chat and it was wonderful to hear Sam’s perspective on investing and the markets.

And we also have reactions to the week’s news with John Ruffolo.

About Sam Haffar:Sam Haffar is Partner at Real Ventures, where he works with founders on all aspects of their business from organizational development and product strategy to series A fundraising, growth, and scale initiatives.

He began in the Silicon Valley startup world barely before he graduated from university and then joined the founding team at Chegg, a leading education technology company that went public in 2013.

In this episode we discuss:

(0:00:56)  News roundup with John Ruffolo talks Thoma Bravo acquiring Magnet Forensics, preventing hollowing out Canada, ChatGPT’s threat to white collar workers, and activist investors(0:19:03)  Sam Haffar’s journey to becoming an investor(0:22:39)  Where Sam gets his drive(0:25:21)  On becoming an extrovert(0:27:57)  How Sam came to the Canadian tech scene(0:32:14)  Coping with imposter syndrome as an early investor(0:36:14)  Processing the emotional rollercoaster of being an early-stage investor(0:43:10)  Staying grounded when things may look a bit too rosy(0:48:57)  How founders can deal with adversity(0:52:00)  Backing founders super early(0:54:43)  Work-life balance with young kids at home(0:57:56)  What keeps Sam passionate about this space(1:01:07)  His vision as a content creator in the space(1:04:18)  Content creators he admires(1:06:23)  How he supports his portfolio as they grow

Fast Favorites:

* 🎙- Favorite Podcast: Lex Fridman

* 📰- Favorite Newsletter/Blog: Waverly

* 📲- Favorite Tech Gadget: iPhone

* 📈-  Favorite New Trend: ChatGPT

* 📚- Favorite Book: Kitchen Confidential

* 🤔 - Favorite Life Lesson: If you live by fear, you create a fearful world. But if you live by love, you create a fear less world, not fearless, but fear less world.

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