Eurie Kim, BS 01 - Being Authentically Yourself is the Real “Representation”

May 18 2023 • 31 mins

As part of AAPI Celebration Month, we welcome Eurie Kim to the show. Eurie is a venture capital investor, serving as Managing Partner at Forerunner. As a former entrepreneur, Eurie has deep personal appreciation for the emotional commitment and relentless passion required of a founder, allowing her to be radically empathetic to the entrepreneurs she works with while being realistic and honest in the advice she offers.

Her point of view reflects her practical nature and her penchant for seeing the big picture through the mess of fighting fires day to day. Inspired by identifying evolving consumer needs, Eurie seeks opportunities to leverage technology to optimize and innovate every aspect of life and to find the right entrepreneur with the vision to take on the challenge.

Listen as Eurie and host Sean Li discuss her South Korean roots, growing up in white spaces, pivoting from consultant to venture capital, and staying cool, calm, and motivated.

*OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

On why she had not been vocal about her Asian roots and AAPI-related topics

My answer, very authentically, is that I don't spend all my time thinking about it. I'm just really busy living life, doing work, trying my best, and moving forward. I didn't feel like I had discrimination overtly, either for being Asian, Korean, or female, to be honest. I know it was there, but I just didn't bother with it. I just kept moving on and ignored it and considered it the exception, not the rule.

Now, with so much conversation that has happened over the years with all the AAPI hate, I felt very personally afflicted. And it's always sad that you can't really feel it until it gets that close. And I hadn't felt it until those few years. And now, it's more on my mind. And I say, representation does matter.

On the path to becoming a good venture capitalist

If you do not have an appetite for risk, you will never be a venture capitalist. Well, you'll never be a good venture capitalist.

So, for all of those listening who want to get into venture, ask yourself really, do you have the risk appetite? If you picked your next job as though that was your venture investment and your dollars was your own labor, what company would you pick? That mentality will help you get your head in the right place to speak the language.

Challenges of being a VC

I think one of the largest challenges of this job is that you don't know if you're good for over 10 years. It's not just one investment makes you a star. It's the continued ability to do this job on an ongoing basis and to have internal validation and motivation. So, it's a roller coaster industry. You need to have serious conviction in, not only the companies you invest in and the founders and the entrepreneurs you invest in, but also yourself. Because there's plenty of weeks where I'm like, I don't have a good idea. I'm not inspired. And then, there's other weeks where I can't stop myself from thinking things that are interesting. So, you have to think about it as like it's an ultramarathon, and you can't just get give yourself a pat on the back at 26.2 miles and be like, “I crushed it.” You've got 99 million miles to go.

How Eurie keeps the motivation up and going

If you can enjoy the wins of the building, when you launch a product, when you see that consumers are excited about something, when you work with a founder and you see her crush a pitch or raise that next round, those are absolutely worth celebrating, because those are the moments that I like to always say, my philosophy is all about the baby steps. The pyramids were built one brick at a time. You can't see it yet for so long, but you're building something amazing. And so, it does require you to be able to pan back.

And I don't want to say there's no validation, because there is. You have to celebrate those wins, because otherwise, I mean it's honestly too long, of a course. But the motivation comes from knowing that you took something that didn't exist and you gave it life, or you gave the founder of this idea the chance to bring it to life.

And that is amazing. That feels really, really special.