A look at risk tolerance | Recapping ‘Founder Friday’ 3.0
Haseeb Qureshi hosted a discussion with Brandon Bruce as a part of his inaugural Founder Friday series with the Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
In the second to last Founder Friday session of the semester, Haseeb Qureshi, more commonly known as “HQ,” sat down with Brandon Bruce for a discussion about all things entrepreneurship, risk, and reward. Students from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) stopped in to learn more about the entrepreneurial community in East Tennessee, get exposure to the 121 Tech Hub, and hear from one of the community’s most prominent representatives.
teknovation.biz readers should be familiar with Bruce by now, but for those newer to the entrepreneurship ecosystem, he is the Co-Founder and General Partner for Market Square Ventures – Knoxville’s new venture capital firm. He also is the Founder of Uncat and Cirrus Insight. He launched the Startup Knox initiative, helped develop the 100Knoxville program, recently opened 121 Tech Hub for tech-enabled founders downtown, and that barely scratches the surface.
“Doing so many things – how do you manage your time? And, how have you developed such a high tolerance for risk?” HQ asked.
Bruce said the risk tolerance comes somewhat naturally for him.
“I always have this underlying feeling that everything is just going to work out. I may be high-stress getting everything together, but once the moment comes, there’s just a calm,” Bruce said.
He explained how part of being a founder is having an appetite for risk – and a willingness to bet on yourself.
“For me, a good place to start would be differentiating between like real risk and perceived risk,” Bruce said. “Real risk would be an immigrant having five dollars in their pocket and needing to feed an entire family. In that case, yes, they need to make something happen in order to be okay. But most people aren’t in that boat. Most of us just have perceived risk.”
In the realm of Market Square Ventures, one of the more difficult parts of his role is to convince other East Tennesseans that investing in start-ups is worth the risk. Of the dozen companies that MSV has already invested in, Bruce predicted that a couple will fail and a couple will succeed. It’s a roller coaster, but all it takes is one great high-growth company to prove the concept.
That’s why in the early stages of MSV, Bruce said they are primarily investing in companies that have a track-record of success – either with an experienced founder, or a concept that already has proven traction with its customer base.
“There are plenty of examples of someone hitting a home run, and then hitting another one, and another one. There are also instances of strikeouts. It’s a risk,” Bruce said. “So, right now we’re focused on proving to our limited partners that their investment was worth it.”
In addition to the discussion about risk, Bruce also detailed the recent MSV investments, previously reported in teknovation.biz. He also discussed the selection process for investing in a company.
The next and final Founder Friday session of the semester will be on Friday, May 2 with Randy Boyd. UTK students may know him as the President of the UT System, but he is also the Founder of the world’s leading dog and cat product supplier with more than 4,600 pet-related products created. His brand names include Invisible Fence, PetSafe, and SportDOG. He is also the Owner of Boyd Sports, which owns and manages the Knoxville Smokies.
Join HQ as he interviews Boyd at 9 a.m. at 121 W Jackson AveKnoxville, TN 37902.
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