 I'm here at New Frontiers 2016 with Scott Nolan from Founders Fund and I get the chance to talk to Scott about a few things that we've been discussing here and some of his insights into what Kibo entrepreneurs can do in the States and what international investors and entrepreneurs can do in New Zealand. So hey Scott, what are your thoughts on what are the unique elements that you're seeing of New Zealand entrepreneurs that you've invested in that you don't see much elsewhere in the world? Yeah, great question. So we've invested in a couple, well we've invested in a number of companies outside the US, New Zealand being one of them and one company we invested in New Zealand recently was called ADI and they are a virtual reality capture startup. And so obviously we love the team, we love what they're doing, but I think to get back to your question about why New Zealand, for us we asked the same question, we're looking a lot at virtual reality, asking ourselves what is going to be the next great company and we thought it would be ADI because they had this great technology expertise in doing human capture within virtual reality and it actually turned out that the reason the company was here was because there was a lot of local expertise in Wellington around cinematography, digital reproduction, visual effects and a lot of that came out of Weta Digital and the expertise that was built around that in the Lord of the Rings franchise. And so that was something where it turned out that because there was this great expertise in this one sector this awesome company had come together and had built out that team. So I'd say often times for New Zealand I think it will get back to what are the areas where New Zealand has great talents and great expertise in certain sectors whether that's visual effects or agriculture, the primary industries, composites like there's a really long list and so I think that's one aspect, another aspect is what are the things that make New Zealand unique relative to other countries and I think it's things like a very open and accessible government so anyone who's creating products that need to work with the government or sell to the government I think there's a huge advantage here and that could even be things like the drone industry where there's a lot clear regulation around what to do and the government's very forward thinking and yes let's support this work. So to us New Zealand is a really interesting place because there is this you know these special types of expertise and that's not to say that we can predict where the next company will come from in which sector it will come from but we're open to meeting people across all different sectors and excited to see what people are doing. And I guess the good news for us is that the next big company could obviously come from New Zealand given by your investment in some of the New Zealand companies. So Scott I know that you travel to New Zealand a lot and that you've spent quite a bit of time here what would you say to other fellow you know American investors or even like investors and entrepreneurs from around the world about you know coming to New Zealand and either starting a business here or investing here like what have you observed what is really cool about the way we do things here in New Zealand. Yeah good question so I'd say to the investors I think first more and more investors are realizing that the next great company will come outside of Silicon Valley or even outside the US and even outside of anywhere they've ever been and so then you ask yourself well then where should we be where should we be looking for these companies and I think a lot of people have talked a lot about you know places like Stockholm and Berlin obviously those have become startup hubs I think then the question is well where's where's the next hub and I think Wellington could certainly be one of them. I was doing a talk about a year ago in Wellington and was shocked by how many people showed up to the panel that we had with Rod and Sam and I was on it also and Brian and Matthew were there and we after the fact we calculated okay wait there were a lot of people there what percent of the like the city population was that and it was something like a percent of the city had showed up for this startup related event so it's definitely something that's at the forefront here and a really great community is being built and even at ADI you know I was there at the company yesterday and talking to people about what they were working on and it turned out that a lot of the people at ADI now had come from other startups in Wellington or in Auckland and so I think one of the things I thought a couple years ago or even last year was yes it feels like New Zealand is is only a couple years away from having this vibrant ecosystem I think we're seeing the start of it where people are at startups are leaving those to go join other startups and now that starts building on itself and it's a very reinforcing sort of cycle and so I think we're right in the middle of that right now so it's almost tipping point sort of story for for Wellington hopefully it feels that way awesome I know that a lot of our startups and entrepreneurs follow you and Twitter and obviously you know the exciting stuff that you do it at Founders Fund and the question that always comes up when we talk to them is especially the ones that want to head over to the States to maybe try and close an investment on they're always like oh you know what do we need to do to to close around in in the States and I wanted to take the opportunity and ask you a different question it's like what are the top three things that you think people shouldn't do when they go and you know try and raise investment in the States and and just riffing off your talk that you did last year about you know things that you you shouldn't shouldn't do I think be really cool to repeat some of the things that you shouldn't do because there's a lot of material out there but you know what you should do but there's also I know I remember from the talk there's a few things that you absolutely shouldn't do yeah and I'd say that the advice isn't really different for New Zealand startups than you know US startups or LA startups or you know Minneapolis startups it's it's really you know what's the best way to raise money I think there's a lot of material out there online about about what to do I think you know specific pieces of feedback I give on what not to do are the most frequent mistakes that are very hard to know in advance I would say number one the US investment cycle like throughout the year does go in waves and so it is often harder to raise in July and August and you know November and December so don't if you can avoid it don't try and start your fund raising efforts then yeah so those are slower periods you want to start in January February March or do a quick fund raise in September October if you can that's going to probably give the best results I think you also have to realize the investors aren't trying to be extremely formal they're just trying to evaluate all the great companies out there and and really get to know the people so I'd say when meeting investors and when pitching just talk about your business as it is and be honest about it and don't try and have some pitched like monologue that you want to go through you know a lot I've heard it said before we don't want to do a presentation we want a conversation and so you don't have to be extremely formal you don't have to wear suits it's really about you know this is a part of your business it's fundraising just as operations are and so just treat it as any other part of your business and try and build those relationships with investors and help them understand what you're doing awesome really good points last question probably you know where's the future for you where do you see some really cool trends emerging that that you guys are looking at it founders fund and some some of the larger sort of mega trends or disruptive technologies that you see coming our way yeah so I would say we try to not think too much in terms of trends so we definitely see trends but for us once a trend is already obvious and there's a huge number of companies that define that trend then it's likely you might have already missed that that great company right so I'd say the best trends are the ones that are so early now that we don't even we can't even identify them or give them a name often is that one company that defines its own space so we are seeing really interesting stuff in manufacturing in biotech in energy generation these are investments we made recently that that we think are going to do really well and so yeah I would say it'll be many things that are very different from from what people have been working on in the past so yeah just to summarize I would say we're seeing interesting things in materials over the last year new types of materials companies that are making you know stronger more durable metals or you know spider silks for stronger and more flexible fiber types we're seeing things in energy generation that are carbon-free energy generation or storage and we're seeing things in financial technologies to to help you know make those systems much more effective awesome hey thank you so much Scott I really hope that we see you again soon in New Zealand and to hear more about all of the amazing stuff you're doing at Farnersvand. Cheers!