Private Equity Spotlight: Susan Soh on Building with Data and Innovation

[00:00:00] Sean Mooney: Welcome to the Karma School of Business, a podcast about the private equity industry, business best practices, and real time trends. I'm Sean Mooney, Blueways founder and CEO. In this episode, we have an amazing conversation with Susan Soh, Chief of Capital Formation and Investor Relations with GrowthCurve Capital.
Enjoy.
So I am super excited to be here with Susan Soh today. Susan, thanks for joining us.

[00:00:41] Susan Soh: Oh, thank you for having me. I'm really excited about our conversation today.

[00:00:46] Sean Mooney: I always enjoy these things. I always learn things I wish I knew before. The only way I've progressed in life is by Frankensteining myself on the hard earned wisdom of others.

[00:00:55] Susan Soh: Same on my end. So looking forward to this being a great conversation with both of us.

[00:01:00] Sean Mooney: The way I love to kick these off is to get a little bit of the backstory. So Susan, can you just share a little bit, like, kind of how you came up in life and then ultimately how you got into this world of private equity?

[00:01:12] Susan Soh: I am in private equity now, but I didn't start out that way. In fact, I moved in and out of private equity. I first started out as an attorney, was convinced that's what I was going to do, business attorney, and then hated it, actually. was sleeping under my desk. It was like, this has got to be something better.
And then I actually moved to M& A at Bear Stearns, which no longer exists, but it was a great place, very entrepreneurial. And it was at Bear Stearns that I actually learned about, there was a group called Bear Stearns Merchant Banking, which is really just making private equity investments. And it seemed like such a great move.
So I was fortunate enough to move over there. And that was my exposure to PE in the, I would say, late nineties, actually. And then had the opportunity to go actually help Lightyear Capital when it started, Don Marin. So that was more on an independent basis, and they were doing financial services. And then candidly, all of a sudden, was hearing all these things about hedge funds.
All the investments we did in PE were losers, remember the dot com and all the other bubbles, the bubble hit, and I was thinking, oh my gosh, I'm stuck here for 10 years. So I actually moved to the hedge fund side. Very early days. Loved it. Did not look back. Everyone's like, come back to PE. Never looked back at that point.
Never thought it would come back. And then did a long stint actually on the hedge fund side over at Highbridge, helped to build a business called Perella Weinberg Partners, which did literally everything in the alternative space. And that slowly brought me back to private markets. And then didn't think I was going to do that, but ultimately had the opportunity to help start a firm, which I'm currently at now at called GrowthCurve Capital, have always loved to build things and so joined in 21 to help build GrowthCurve, so back in PE now.

[00:03:02] Sean Mooney: That's great. There's a lot of nuggets there. I just want to kind of touch a bit on, and we'll get much into GrowthCurve, but GrowthCurve has a very interesting, unique, forward thinking approach that I'm going to look forward to talking about, but before we do that, there's a couple nuggets there. That sound like some parallels, at least in adjacent parts of my life, the New Jersey element of it.
All my college roommates were from New Jersey and some of the areas that you're in and around. Similarly, we all kind of went into investment banking out and then we all went into different paths. I too went into investment banking and for maybe our younger listeners or those who are not as familiar, Bear Stearns was a fabled investment banking firm that was.
Extremely, extremely well regarded. And they also had some kind of proclivities that showed the practicality of the firm. So I'm curious if this was true. They gave you like a single pack of clips, you know, when you started and you had to make it, make it last.

[00:04:02] Susan Soh: Absolutely.

[00:04:04] Sean Mooney: So my friends that worked at Ferster's like, yeah, I never knew if they were serious, but

[00:04:09] Susan Soh: no, no, there was Ace Greenberg and like the paperclip, everyone knew that.

[00:04:15] Sean Mooney: Just do, Alvin, we'll jump by this. When you would start at various journals that were infamous for knowing you don't get too many paperclips. Because it was just like a wasteful thing, and then I looked at my experience, like how many of those paper clips and those little metal binder clips, I was just too lazy to take off, and we'd just throw them away.
And so, and so, but you think about it, it's like, this is like the most wasteful thing in the world, and Bear Stearns is like, uh uh, just take the extra two seconds. And so, so it made so much sense. And then I love the hedge fund jump. So my friends from college, many of them went into the hedge fund world, and they were like, yeah, you know, you should really think about this.
And the big problem I had is I couldn't do math in my head, or even math in general. And so, I mean, I could do it, but I needed a calculator, and they could all do it in their heads. They've done very, very well in that world, but they had much better minds than mine. It wasn't ever an option.

[00:05:05] Susan Soh: I think you could have figured it out.

[00:05:08] Sean Mooney: Well, now, yeah, it was like, I kept my calculator really close to me at all times. Yes, yes, yes.

[00:05:13] Susan Soh: What I liked about hedge funds, which actually the first time I learned about it was when I was at Lightyear on the private equity side. The whole team came out of Payne Webber and they had been running a very large portfolio on the hedge fund side.
And that was one of the things that Lightyear wanted to do, not only private equity and financial services, but also launch a hedge fund of funds, essentially. And I remember thinking, what do you mean long and short? You just buy business and make it better, right? Like PE, hold it for the long term. What are you talking about trading the public markets and shorting?
Like I didn't understand any of that. And all of a sudden we're meeting these like 20 year old hedge fund startup guys who are managing more money than we were managing and making money every day. It was so lively and everything was so fast. So you didn't need the calculator. Cause honestly the calculator wasn't going to help.
You needed to be attractive to the markets. Right. And so. That's why I actually took the jump, because I'm like, P. E. is so slow, and hedge funds are fast, right? And now I'm back to the nice, slow, but not quite slow, because, and we'll get to GrowthCurve, thank you, but we are doing things that are pretty innovative, so.

[00:06:21] Sean Mooney: There's never shortages of things to do in your life, we'll talk about that in a bit.

[00:06:26] Susan Soh: Yes, exactly.

[00:06:28] Sean Mooney: Before we jump back into kind of the meat and potatoes of our conversation. Let's talk a little bit, get back to you and maybe what's one of the things that we would know you better, Susan, if we knew this about you.

[00:06:44] Susan Soh: That's a great question because everyone has so many different facets. My family was very entrepreneurial. So both my parents went to graduate school here after they came over from Taiwan. Great, I would say startup careers in research, chemistry, what we would have called like traditional proper. And then my dad was like, I'm not going to make enough money to send you to like a great school.
And it was important to do that. Okay. So quit. I think he was working for squib before they was like Rockefeller foundation. And he's like, we're going to own a dry cleaning store. And then he turned that into a chain of dry cleaning stores and video stores. My brother and I were always working in these stores, right?
So we ended up becoming very entrepreneurial with a customer service. Like customer's always right. Even when they weren't. And so it instilled in me this desire to always be entrepreneurial and building things. My husband came from MIT, he was a double E major, so very techie. Most recently, prior to helping to launch GrowthCurve, I went to a very innovative quant fund who's been specializing in data science for over 20 years.
And I have two boys who love coding, been coding since they were five. So there's like this whole tech ecosystem in my house. I'm not that techie, but everything around me is. So it shouldn't be a surprise that again, when there was an opportunity to help build a business from scratch, that's focused on using AI and digital transformation.
That's why I jumped at it and sort of drives a lot of what I do.

[00:08:17] Sean Mooney: I love that background and it's interesting because we get to have all these conversations with these really successful investors like you. And one of the common themes is a, you kind of serendipitously find your way to private equity in ways you never planned for or expected or find your way back to it.
And there's just some sort of like siren call that brings you in and then B, there's this huge instance of people who grew up in entrepreneurial families that just are drawn to building things, building businesses and growing and working in the company as kids. And I had kind of the same thing. I grew up in a, in a entrepreneurial family and it was a manufacturing business.
So I grew up working in the back of the plants. Uh, doing all sorts of things that Osha would probably say I shouldn't be. And usually I, I think usually purposely to quote unquote build character. And so, like one of my days was, this is in Texas, it's 105 degrees out, and one of my bosses came to me smiling with a sledgehammer.
And he goes, You know, there's a big, deep Texan accent, he's like, Sean, today you're gonna make more room in the dumpster. He threw me into the dumpster, I just had to make more room, and there's no reason to do it, other than I think he thought it was funny, and he was probably encouraged to do so. So hopefully you had a better experience than that.

[00:09:36] Susan Soh: Yes, no sledgehammer or building room for a dumpster, thankfully. I did learn how to tailor clothes, apparently, though, so.

[00:09:46] Sean Mooney: That's a skill I wish I had, actually. It is a

[00:09:48] Susan Soh: skill. It is a skill.

[00:09:50] Sean Mooney: So I love that background. It informs a lot about, I think, you and what we'll talk about in the moments ahead here.
Maybe Susan, to jump into this, I'm curious, what are Two or three are some of the most important traits that you and GrowthCurve look for in a company when you think about, is this a really good company that we should invest in and or maybe as importantly, can this be a really even better company that we can bring some magic to?

[00:10:21] Susan Soh: Sure. One of the things that I think sets GrowthCurve apart and we focus in the middle market space is that we are looking for data rich businesses. And I'll tell you what that means, that are growth oriented. And so typically, these are actually good middle market businesses, but have access to a lot of operational data and they don't know what to do with it.
We look for businesses that have strong organic growth rate, maybe even could be a double digit growth rate business, but it's in a industry that is only 4%, 5%, but it's growing. So we like leaders there. We always look for businesses that are cashflow positive, despite the fact that we focus on financial tech info services and healthcare, you will find a lot of that.
But we are looking for typically the category leaders or a category killer in a growing market. A lot of other firms will do the same thing. But the distinguishing fact for us is it needs to be a business, despite all of these, that has a lot of the data, but they're just not using it. And they don't even realize the value.
So very often when we meet with a team, And this is particularly when we first started, they were like, what do you mean? I'm like, yeah, of course we're collecting longitudinal data and all this other stuff like healthcare, we get claims data, but there's no value in it, right? It's an 835s, 837s, what are you talking about?
But that's our secret sauce because we recognize the value in that and what we can do with it by applying the tools of AI and digital transformation to really grow businesses. So we do look for these things when we're looking at a business. A lot of times people will come to us and say, I have a ton of data and it's just transactional data.
It can't really help drive a business initiative. They don't own the data and we're like, you're a great business. You're going to be better in somebody else's hands, right? We need to know we can do something with it. That's typically what we're looking for as sort of the first step of. What could be a GrowthCurve opportunity?
Okay, what are you doing with the data, right? For us, we want to know that businesses we're looking at very often may have to make large decisions at scale, but they can be improved using data science or AI or machine learning, but they're not doing it. They're doing it manually. They're using heuristics.
They're using simple Excel, when actually the tools out there on the AI machine learning front can absolutely help to not just increase efficiency, but also more importantly, actually help to grow certain revenues or new markets. We need to know that they exist for us to be able to lay foundation for a lot of the growth initiatives.
And then also we look for businesses that have a lot of scale, because they need to be large enough to benefit from this approach, which is why we don't do venture, we don't They can't be too, too big because then we're not going to add value, which is why we really do focus right in the middle market spot.

[00:13:09] Sean Mooney: I love that perspective on a number of fronts. In one, if I go back to my prior life, I was co leading our information data and analytics practice at the P firm. And we always had this saying, we would in some ways look in a similar way from probably more of a good to great or a great to greater buyout perspective for like lower middle market firms.
Bye. Bye. And what we would say is we would look for same thing data assets, like where's your data factory? And more often than not, kind of what you're explaining is they had ingredients that were kind of sitting on the shelf and in themselves, those ingredients aren't worth that much. And a lot of people just think the data itself, Oh, we have this data, we're going to sell it.
No, data is flour, it's eggs, it's sugar in itself. If you're not mixing them and making cakes with it, it's not that great, but if you turn it, use it to power decisions or products and those types of things. Then it tastes really good.

[00:14:03] Susan Soh: Yes. When done together properly.

[00:14:06] Sean Mooney: Yeah. When you know how to bake, yeah. In the same vein, the way that you're thinking, like, so resonates with us here.
And when people ask me what business we are, I will very often say we're a data business. They're like, what do you mean? Like, well, data powers everything we do. It's all captured, it, it improves your ability to make higher expected value decisions, it powers workflows, it powers decision making, it gamifies your business, all those type of things.
So everything you said there kind of like makes me smile ear to ear.

[00:14:37] Susan Soh: Yeah. I mean, think about it. So much of what we do can be informed better if you have the data and you actually look at it and evaluate it, right? A lot of times you. Probably, especially as, I don't need to say how old I am, but you know, as I had gotten older and have had more experience with, with many of us, you have a sense, right?
Like, okay, based on my prior experience, this is what I would expect in this scenario. But now we have the data, if you've been collecting it, and now we have the tools that are out there that can evaluate this. It just makes your life easier. It also proves whether you were right or wrong, right? And so that should help to inform better decisions going forward.

[00:15:18] Sean Mooney: A thousand thousand percent. So if you're a business owner and you're thinking about how you succeed in the next ten years versus the last ten years in particular, listen to what Susan says. She's a hundred percent right. Do that. Change, evolve, and thrive. Or do the opposite.

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[00:16:03] Sean Mooney: With all this in mind, I think that's a good way to kind of transition into. The portfolio companies that you're partnering and investing in, how do you help them with value creation? How do you bring resources to help them use this data in other elements of value to really create transformation in ways that couldn't happen before or wasn't going to happen on its own?

[00:16:25] Susan Soh: So we are very hands on. We only do control ownership typically effectuate our model. I would say. We didn't talk about what we don't look for, but if someone is out there looking to maximize price and they're not really thinking about these initiatives, that's not going to work for us. And in fact, if anything, we're always looking at a company to say, like, are we going to be the best owners, right?
And if we believe with our approach, we will be the best owners. That's something that's really great for us and has the potential to be a GrowthCurve company. But, as a very hands on partner, because we want to be able to apply the tools and leverage the tools you see out there in the AI digital transformation space, one thing, though, that we really like is the buy in, or what we call like the demand pull from our either management team or maybe a lead sponsor, who sometimes will buy from a sponsor, a lower middle market.
And in all cases, so far, not going to go there, it continues, there's been a tremendous rollover, right, or demand pull from. That ends up being someone who you really have to be a good partner for, because they're staying on. And so what we typically will do is even during the diligence phase, or even actually earlier in the sourcing phase, when we look at a business, we present to management team.
We basically say, this is the data we believe you have access to. We're very thematic. We know which subsectors within our sectors have companies that will have this operational data that's valuable. And so we will say, we believe you have access to this data. Here are all the value creation initiatives we believe we can effectuate with your help.
Whether or not you have the right people in place doesn't matter. But because of this, and because of what we've seen out in the space, here are the things we believe we can do. It's a part of the value creation initiative. But it's not just limited to the data, it's also from a normal private equity, all the things you would expect of other traditional PE firms to do, we're also looking at from a value creation perspective, right?
Like Can we improve the operational piece of it? Can we improve the sales to market strategy? Can we grow the business, not just organically, but through M& A? Is there the opportunity to expand internationally? So we present all of this initially, almost in the first meeting. And then from there, you see the reaction of the team.
Now you see the reaction of the CEO and management say like, wow, okay, this is more than your typical PE firm. This is really someone who's going to help me do this and really take me to the next level. That's really helpful. And then what we do is we help show them or identify those large decisions of scale using the data that they have.
Again, they may not even realize the value of the data they have, where we can then apply these tools, right, that we're seeing out there. And a very important piece of all of this is, it's not just the tools out there of AR digital science or just building an army. It's very important to invest in the human talent inside our portfolio companies.
Because most of the businesses we look for are founder led, we may be the first institutional capital they've had, or they've just started on their journey, and very often we have a CEO who's the founder, CEO, CTO, CAO, CEO, everything, right? And they're a profitable business, growing double digit, and they are like, okay, but I don't have time to think about this, right?
And then they see the value we're gonna bring to really transform the business, which is why we have to be so hands on. And we will work with them to come up with not just the value creation plan, but then the talent mapping. And in the very early stages, we make sure that there is enough buy in so that we are working through it together.
We refine it during the diligence phase, right, as we get into hopefully exclusivity. And as we're doing our diligence, and then when the deal closes, then we have that strategy session where it's like, okay, remember the value creation initiatives and plan we've talked about. Now let's get to it. And this is where I would say we're very different, I think.
You can tell me if I'm wrong. Most middle market private equity firms will be focused on, could be cost cutting, could be some of the other measures I just talked about, international expansion, or M& A, the sales to market strategy, we'll do that. But separately, we have our functional leads in the room at the very beginning.
And what I mean by functional leads, our chief architect, our head of digital transformation, our head of human capital sitting there. And then just like a fortune 500 company is about to do an acquisition, we have each of our department heads meeting with their counterparts. And if the company doesn't have one, it is our job to help them fill that talent.
And if they don't have that, maybe we'll bring in vendors or other folks or consultants to help along with that. So it's very hands on. Hopefully our portfolio companies feel the same that we're a great partner because we're really in it. Like we're in it to transform the business in its entirety. It's not just a little like, Oh, let's do some tech AI projects on the side.
It is no, we're going to help transform the business in all different areas to really take it to that next level.

[00:21:29] Sean Mooney: And what you've just shared here is so important and one of the, I think the big reasons why It's part of BluWave's top private equity innovators program. You guys were kind of front and center as one of the most innovative private equity firms out there.
Thank you. It's so important to the future, and as I reflect back like in the late 90s when I first started in PE firms. Every P firm would say they specialize in partnership and they'd literally have a picture of a handshake on the website. And like Right. I

[00:21:56] Susan Soh: remember those days. I

[00:21:57] Sean Mooney: remember that. You're

[00:21:58] Susan Soh: like, yeah, we

[00:21:59] Sean Mooney: specialize in partnership.
Look, there's a handshake on our website. But it was really one way, right? It's like, we're going to invest in you. You're going to come to our boardroom in midtown Manhattan and then I'll judge. Right,

[00:22:12] Susan Soh: right.

[00:22:13] Sean Mooney: But really, was I bringing much to the table otherwise other than maybe some strategy? Not really.
But today, in modern private equity, partnership is still very important, but it's a two way street. And so the private equity firms need to bring as much to the table as possible, and not just capital. It's got to be resources, it's got to be insights, and it's got to be symbiotically helping the portfolio company get to that end place in kind of a partnership, multimodal way.
And what you're explaining is 100 percent where the industry. Is going in where you all already are.

[00:22:52] Susan Soh: I think there are other firms who are very good at partnership as well. I think the one piece where it's quite different for a GrowthCurve though, has to be on the tech front. It is front and center for us.
Another partner of mine calls it the data first strategy. Right. But you have to obviously overlay everything we've talked about as well into that. But that is what we're looking for. And so sometimes when we see a management team and CEO and they accept that we're going to be great partners with them though, they also need to be tech forward and tech leaning and recognize that we agree with you.
Data comes first. We've got to build everything around it. It's not only about that, but that's what's going to drive the vision of the company going forward is using that to power the growth of the business. Into either current other markets that you haven't gotten to, improving the current product offering, or expanding into new TAMs or anything like that, right?
So it's a little bit of everything I would say. Thank you for complimenting us. We are trying to be innovative and leading the curve, but we know there are many other folks out there who are already leading the curve in different ways. We hope that 10 years from now, people will look back and say, Oh, GrowthCurve.
They created great companies using these tools. If you want a tech forward business that uses data to really drive good results, that's the firm to go to. Well, we're not there yet. We're still early. It's always a

[00:24:22] Sean Mooney: journey. And one thing that's very true is you never cross the finish line in private equity, so like, uh.
Yeah, that's right. That's right. No one ever says we're there yet.

[00:24:30] Susan Soh: Yeah.

[00:24:32] Sean Mooney: And I do love that data first approach. It just resonates so innately with me and that was something that we do here in terms of like, We've had five offices in seven years, and every time I could do it, we would put the data team right in the middle of the floor, because we wanted them to touch every part of the organization.
In this most recent office, they were there until we finally grew out of this floor. And so now they're like, my, my grand plan is like, was screwed up a little bit. So, but we're finding ways to. Still do it, but it's so important. It touches everything. It's so impactful, empowering on making higher expected value decisions.
With that in mind, Susan, is you think about this data first mentality, what are some of the value creation opportunities? That you are kind of thematically engaging with your portfolio companies that maybe every business leader, every CEO should also be thinking about.

[00:25:26] Susan Soh: I would say when we first started, not too long ago, a few years ago, we've had a team that has always been comprised of people who are not only great private equity investors or have a lot of experience, but have always wanted to be a little bit more innovative or tech forward.
We've had folks who use big data very early on. I mentioned I came from a big quant firm using data science in the public markets, and then we were trying to do it in the private markets. In the middle market, though, you're not really seeing this, or you weren't when we first started. We saw VC getting a lot of funding using data and AI, right, and digital transformation.
Big, big firms will do that as well. But again, in that middle market space, no one was doing it. And we would call a CEO, and they're like, eh, this is great, but my top line revenue growth is 25, 30%, I'm profitable, I'm worth 300 million, I don't need to do this right now, it's not that important. See the value of it, but sounds like it's a lot of work, and there were a lot of naysayers initially.
And then there were, every so often, that tech forward leaning CEO saying, wow, I see the power of this. In your hands, this is not only a couple hundred million dollar business. Which I could sell it for right now. This is a billion dollar business. Okay. How do we do this? Right. And then come chat GPT's announcement and gen AI.
And all of a sudden now we have CEOs knocking on our door in the middle market saying, how do I do this? Right. But again, not that long ago, only a few years ago, cause we were starting in 2020, 2021, it was, it's good. I don't have the time to focus on it. And now it is an imperative. If you are not thinking about it.
You're going to be left behind, you need to be at the forefront of this, right? And so we talk to business leaders all the time now about, and now, you know, of course, every single conference we go to talks about AI and private equity, but then when you actually drill into what are you doing, it's still very, very high level, right?
In many cases, you still have a lot of companies that are just thinking about digital transformation and using the cloud, I mean, they're way behind, but for us, again, it's an imperative. You need to do it. But it's great that the industry is now slowly getting to the point where people at least kind of have an appreciation for what that is.
So when we're talking about using baby GI, right. People are like, Oh, I understand. Tell me more. How do we do this in my portfolio to take it to the next level? I'm sure there are other value creation opportunities that people talk about who don't have our approach. We will talk about those as well. Or like at the end of the day, we want to continue to build good businesses.
Using these tools, I will say again, it's not just about the tool itself, though, or having the tech team in place. It's most importantly about tying all of these initiatives to the overall revenue, which sometimes means changing your chief product officer or your head of marketing. Sometimes it means changing the CEO also.
And very often we will meet a CEO who says, I've taken this business as far as I can go. I believe in the vision you're going to build. I will be here. But in a year or two, I think you will need somebody else to take this to that next level. I'm happy to be the chairman and be along for the ride, but if we're really going to transform this using these tools, we need to do a lot more, right?
And that's actually very encouraging to hear. We don't always want to make changes, but it's good to hear that you have a partner who really believes in the value here.

[00:28:54] Sean Mooney: You're so spot on, so for the business builders, the CEOs, the C suite executives listening to this, almost always in life I try to stay away from a binary choice, this or that.
But I think we're at such a precipice of change that you can either adopt and run towards these tools and thrive, the extent you get earlier in that journey than others, or you can resist and wither. Because everyone else is going to be moving so much faster. It's just, we're going to be able to do more in the 25 hours a day that we all live in.

[00:29:28] Susan Soh: Yeah, exactly. That's a good point. We often get the question like, Oh, so you're just all about cost cutting. You must've fired a lot of people. And we're like, no, not at all. Our goal here is to focus on growth initiatives. And very often what we find is that we're taking existing human talent inside the portfolio companies and in a way upscaling that, right?
So things that. Like if you have a customer call center, right? And they're just busy answering the phone. Okay, but now you have a tool that helps them, that makes them more efficient. They can do more and higher level stuff. So what we have found actually in all of our companies, we keep adding more and more talent.
We need to. And it's not just tech talent. It's over the entire organization. I do, though, think that over time, hopefully people will get less scared about the bots taking over, whatever, and really see the value of it. I mean, I'm sure like, when you're just personally on your computer, like for me, I was on, oh my gosh, my HR resource app, dealing with my benefits, and I was like, oh, am I going to be on the phone this whole time?
There was a bot, right? And I did the chat, and three minutes in, done! It was great! Efficient, and there's gonna be efficiencies, it's great to be able to see them, but I do think, again, to your point, if you really want to continue to grow, don't be afraid of it, embrace this, make sure you have the right partner to do it though, the problem is a lot of people now are saying, we saw this in my private life also, this is great, But the expense, it's not worth it.
And now the time to implementation is a lot faster, the tools a lot cheaper, right? So as we continue to innovate, I do think it's important for everyone to just sort of say, okay, let's be focused on it, but let's not be scared of it.

[00:31:21] Sean Mooney: I think you raise a couple really good points here. And one is this bias towards action.
Just get started.

[00:31:27] Susan Soh: Exactly. Absolutely.

[00:31:28] Sean Mooney: It's really interesting day to day here at BluWave because we get these hundreds of private equity firms, thousands of their portfolio companies calling us with their needs. And very often they'll start with, well, we got to do something in AI. Yes. And you're like, okay, well, let's kind of Socratically go through this and you're like, but let's get started.
First, with organizing and cleaning your data, visualizing it, analyzing it, and that is so actionable for every company, and it's cheap. The most expensive part is just cleaning your data and keeping it clean. The tools are the easy part.

[00:31:59] Susan Soh: That's right. Yeah. I would say if you're really serious about it, we are so encouraged to see so many firms embracing that now.
Every conference is talking about it. PE firms are now hiring data scientists. But it needs to be something you're truly committed to, otherwise, it's just a little project on the side. And that's fine. For some businesses, that's great. It's value creation driver number 15, right? And that's totally fine.
For a GrowthCurve business, though, it has to be the priority for us. That is what makes a GrowthCurve company. That's a GrowthCurve opportunity. And so we are coming in and it's the entire comprehensive solution that we're bringing.

[00:32:37] Sean Mooney: This initiative, if it's going to be part of your ethos, your core, your fabric of your company, it almost always has to come from the CEO.
And it's got to be reinforced and reinforced and reinforced, even just like a recommendation for our listeners who haven't even started yet. And we have no affiliation with any of these companies other than we use it. But like. You should get Snowflake to hold your data. You should use either Tableau or Power BI to get started.
There's some really cool new tools coming up. We're actually testing right now. Just doing those two things will then inform your ability to use that. And then get people in your company using your LLMs just as like a 22 year old. And you're going to have to tell it, give it, it started and give it 10 things to get feedback on.
And then at the end, you're still going to pull out. Your red ink pen. But then the other thing that's just fascinating, like, every year I used to call our AIML groups, then they were called ML groups. In our ecosystem here, and it's like, is this stuff ready for mere mortals? And we started in 2016 and there would be, nope, next year.
Nope. 2022. I called him, they go, yep. And I go, what? And so we just started piling into building all of our proprietary AI engines, and they're incredibly impactful if they're not inexpensive, but they can be built by mere morals if you have,

[00:33:57] Susan Soh: yes. The

[00:33:57] Sean Mooney: tenacity, the commitment, and the intuition. And dare I say, not even audacity, just the forward thinking to use them, like any company can do this stuff now.
You got to commit to it to your point. So this is, I think a lot of really good lessons that Susan's sharing here that every business, and this goes for manufacturers, this goes for business service providers, and then certainly the tech folks get this almost innately. I just recommend everyone listen to what Susan has to say here, because it's going to be very important to, as I said, I never want to say the world's binary.
But, in this way, it's kind of thrive or wilt if you don't. We've touched on a lot of important comments here. Let's lighten it back up a little bit and get back to kind of the humanity of ourselves and you, Susan. So, one of the questions that I love asking really successful people is if you could go back in time and meet your 22 year old self and give yourself a piece of advice that you wish you knew back then, what might one of those things be?
Thank you.

[00:35:02] Susan Soh: Sure. Although I would say if I went back, I would be in law school, which is where I was. And even though I don't practice law at all, and I hated practicing law. I mean, I probably still would have. It's good. Be practical. Get yourself the experience. But what I say is I was raised to follow a plan and not deviate from it, right?
It was, this is the major you're going to do. This is what you're going to study. And it's got to be practical. And in some ways, Not inflexible, but that's the path. Do not deviate. Right? And when I look back now over my pretty long career. I would say that my successes were because I was adaptable, and I was open to opportunities at the time, and I was not afraid to take risks, right?
So hindsight is 20 20, right? Like, but I know growing up, and Sean, you're gonna remember that emotional intelligence, right? That was the key. I still strive to improve on emotional intelligence, but more importantly, AQ, adaptability, right? Intelligence is really important. So that's one thing that actually My kids are now, not quite 22, but close to there and their friends are.
And so sometimes they'll ask me for advice and I'm like, okay, that adaptability quotient is so, so important, but also be open to opportunities. I would say the other thing though, was I was very quiet growing up. I was very studious, valedictorian, stuck in the weeds, very Asian, work hard, put your head down.
That was me. Don't ask questions. You know, spoke up when I had to, but honestly, sometimes was afraid to speak up. And I remember my first interview, I will not say with which firm, got to the finals out of college and made it into the finals. They're like, you're our lead candidate. Okay, great. And then I ended up not getting an offer.
to be an investment banking analyst. That's okay, actually. That's a nightmare. And I went to law school instead. They're like, you're too nice for Wall Street. You're never gonna make it here. And so looking back, I would tell my younger self, first of all, don't be offended when somebody says you're nice, right?
But more importantly, that just meant that I probably was afraid to voice my opinion. And I was afraid to ask questions. And Now, as I'm setting my ways, I'm like, I ask questions all the time. I don't care if it looks like a dumb question. Because the reality is I've found 80 percent of the people in the room probably are asking the same thing but are embarrassed to ask.
And so now I ask also because it helps me, right? And so when I ask the question, it allows me to therefore advocate for my position. Whatever I'm arguing or stance or anything, right? Like it just helps me think better and makes me feel more confident. And when I was younger, I probably wasn't that confident.
I do think that's important. There's always this comment too, that they give, which I think is important when you're young or starting out, they do say, especially for women professionals, right? Make sure you have that seat at the table. But also know when to take that seat. Right? This generation, I think, actually is very different.
They are not shy to take the seat, but probably they're too early to take the seat, right? So make sure you understand the position you're in and do the hard work and everything. But I think it's important to understand that as well. And then the other thing, this is a lot of advice because I think I needed a lot of advice when I was 22, was understanding the importance of connections and networks, which I never understood.
And now, obviously, in my day to day, I realize that's very, very important. I think a lot of folks, again, in their 20s now, understand the importance of connections. It's making sure that that's not a transient connection or transient relationship one, but something that's long lasting, right? It's two ways.
It's not a one way. It's not a what can you help me with and can you be my mentor and then help me get jobs? No, it's got to be developed over time, be patient. That's a lot of different advice I would give to myself again, but I needed it.

[00:39:14] Sean Mooney: I love each one of those. There's so much. Impactful, important advice that I, too, wish I knew.
What I've never heard is AQ before, and so, that is a really good one. Did you come up with that?

[00:39:25] Susan Soh: I did not come up with that, but it's definitely something I live by.

[00:39:29] Sean Mooney: I love it, because it's so important, particularly as the speed of the world is getting faster and faster and faster. Yes. That's just evolution.
And so, being adaptable is so important. I also love this idea of, as also someone who most people are surprised sometimes when I say I'm really pretty introverted, as a kid I was painfully introverted.

[00:39:51] Susan Soh: So we were the same!

[00:39:52] Sean Mooney: Yeah, similarly. Now people are listening, they're both talking, like whatever, you know, like everyone says that.
But that was an evolution in the same ways as kind of getting confidence and probably having imposter syndrome. Even though people would look on the far, I was also one of these like achievers that would collect badges and medals and ribbons. But, to me, it was just like, so energy depleting to take a position and kind of find your way and advocate for yourself.
You'd still find a way to achieve, because that's probably, you know, the way we were raised, like, you're gonna get to the top of that hill one way or another. And as part of that, not only like, stand up for yourself, but I love the idea that you shared, like, ask questions. The way that I kind of, was able to figure it out, is it's selfishly advantageous to you because it informs you, it helps you make better expected value decisions.
It also, for people at afar, where if you're not asking questions, you can sometimes appear aloof. You're going to come across more authentic, as you probably already are, and naturally authentic and naturally humble by having the audacity to ask a question with kind of comfort and truth.

[00:41:02] Susan Soh: I agree.

[00:41:03] Sean Mooney: It took me so long to find that, and I think I still even struggle with it a little bit, but if you can get to that mindset, it's kind of like selfishly advantageous for you.

[00:41:13] Susan Soh: Oh yeah, absolutely. The danger to that is once it becomes embedded in you, you always want to ask a question. That's what I find. I'm like, I got to hold myself back because I have all these questions. Oh, no, no, no. Hold back.

[00:41:29] Sean Mooney: That's so, you know, as parents, we know like the kids who are going to be really successful or the kids who incessantly ask a thousand questions.
At some point you're like, all right, no more questions. But you're like, you're going to go far though. I can see your roadmap ahead. And then the last point I'll make is a curmudgeonly Gen Xer is also maybe for some of the advice I like is like, you're on a journey and all of us are in some form of apprenticeship in life.
And I still think I am for sure. Like you're always learning. In some ways, there's this like, don't jump over certain steps. on the stairs because it'll ultimately cause you to tumble later. So build your foundation, build your house step by step, and don't try to be the managing analyst. Exactly. Okay, try not to

[00:42:16] Susan Soh: cringe.
Exactly.

[00:42:18] Sean Mooney: You'll go a lot further faster.

[00:42:20] Susan Soh: Exactly.

[00:42:22] Sean Mooney: Susan, this has been a lot of fun. I've learned all sorts of things that I wish I knew before, and that is a tremendous gift. So thank you so much for for joining us here today and imparting your perspectives and insights with us.

[00:42:38] Susan Soh: Thank you. It's been so much fun.
I really appreciate it. you having me on this. It's been great.

[00:42:43] Sean Mooney: Absolutely. Well, we'll talk soon and take care.

[00:42:45] Susan Soh: Thank you. You too.

[00:42:56] Sean Mooney: That's all we have for today. Special thanks to Susan for joining. If you'd like to learn more about Susan Soh and GrowthCurve Capital, please see the episode notes for links. Please continue to look for the Karma School of Business podcast anywhere you find your favorite podcasts. We truly appreciate your support.
If you enjoy this podcast, a free way to support the show is to follow and five star rate. It really helps us when you do this. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you in advance. In the meantime, if you want to be connected with the world's best in class, private equity grade, professional service providers, independent consultants, interim executives that are deployed by the best business builders in the world.
Entrusted by hundreds of leading private equity firms. Give us a call or visit our website at BluWave. net and we'll support your success onward.

Private equity insights for and with top business builders, including investors, operators, executives and industry thought leaders. The Karma School of Business Podcast goes behind the scenes of PE, talking about business best practices and real-time industry trends. You'll learn from leading professionals and visionary business executives who will help you take action and enhance your life, whether you’re at a PE firm, a portco or a private or public company.

BluWave Founder & CEO Sean Mooney hosts the Private Equity Karma School of Business Podcast. BluWave is the business builders’ network for private equity grade due diligence and value creation needs.