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In this episode, you'll learn from Nahal Mehta, the co-founder of Eniac Ventures, and Sophia Badalamenti, his chief of staff.
In this episode, you'll learn about how the two work together, inc- including communication preferences and workflows.
Sophia's been working with Nahal for two years, and so you'll hear also about how her role has evolved too.
This is a very exciting episode, and also between the timing of the recording and when this was published, Nahal and Sophia are excited to announce that Nahal is hiring a new chief of staff.
Um, you can learn more about this open role on our job board at chiefofstaff.network/jobs. Excited for you to level up as a chief of staff. Here we go, Sophia and Nahal. Um, how'd you get your chief of staff role?
I'm gonna start there. Great question. Um, so I worked at a company called IFundWomen. It was helping female founders get access to capital. Uh, that business taught me a lot.
One, kinda like what it was like to work with a founder CEO. Yeah.
And I, I got to see the highs and the lows of my boss, you know, supporting her, having a great day, and then also days when she was, like, too busy to take, like, a food and bathroom break. Yeah.
Um, so that gave me a lot of empathy for founders. Um, and then I saw that a lot of women were having trouble getting funding for a number of reasons, so that kind of inspired me to explore venture.
Did not have a finance background. Yeah. Did not know anybody in venture. Um, and everyone was like, "You can't break into venture without being an investment banker," which made me really angry- [laughs]...
and want the job more. So I basically took a few months to learn about venture, to, you know, like, read books, listen to podcasts, newsletters.
I made, like, a hit list on Excel of everyone I wanted to talk to, um, who k- kinda like worked in venture, and so I could ask them about their jobs and what they do. Basically harassed people for a couple of months.
[laughs] And then built my network, um, and saw... Oh, I'm distracted now. [laughs] I saw, um, Eniac was hiring a chief of staff, specifically Nahal. I Googled Nahal. He came up, no offense, Rajma Sujani's husband.
[laughs] And I was like, she's sick. He must be a great person to work for if they're married. Um, we love Rajma. And so then yeah, I, I met Nahal.
I got an introduction to him through somebody, uh, who I had built in my networking- Got it... period. Um, and then we kinda hit it off and went from there. So there was an open role posting. Yes. Um,
and then you got an introduction to that posting, and then was in through the interview process. Yeah. I actually interviewed... Well, first I guessed your Gmail to send you a cold email first.
[laughs] Which I, I sent you an email. Are you serious? Yeah. Oh my God. And I was like, "Hey, can-" The truth comes out two years later. "... give me an interview?"
[laughs] But you didn't answer me, so then I went through a warm introduction. And then after, she sent a message. Shout out to Ally Mullen. She helps a lot of people get into venture. Then- Was she the warm intro? Yeah.
Oh. Um, and then you answered after I got a warm intro. And then, actually this is a life hack for interviewing, I think.
The first interview we had, I asked, "What's one project that you would want me to start within the next couple of weeks?"
Um, and then you kind of outlined a project, and then I kinda did, like, a lock-in on the weekend. Impressed then. Yeah. Yeah. And I... That was also great advice, I think, from Ally Mullen as well. Yeah.
Like, do the project, send it back within 24 hours, and just show that you're already trying to do the job. But we're still trying to do that project. [laughs] Still ongoing. Two years later. We haven't finished it.
That same exact project, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Unfortunately. [laughs] Well, the behind-the-scenes, by the way, on the hiring was, um, we actually had, like, finalists in the...
You know, I was recruiting for like... This was, like, date, like, 50 or 60- Mm-hmm... of the process. Um, and I had a k- few finalists. You know, we were ready to... And then Sophia dropped in, and then I'm like, "Fine.
Let's do one more." And it was at, uh, the coffee shop on 23rd and 6th. Um, that's no more by the way. Just shut down, sadly. Oh, no. I know. Used to want- Oh, that sucks. But, um, I brought Stan- Yeah...
the dog, our dog. Um, and Stan hit it off right away. I was like, "Dogs, you know, is a good judge of character." Um, Stan does not like anybody. Did not like anybody. And then, um, and then we hit it off. Mm-hmm.
And then I was like, "All right. We gotta stop the, stop the train on this process and wait to see what she comes up with on, on this project-" [laughs] "... that's been ongoing for two years."
[laughs] We've, we've made progress on the project. No, the project works. I mean- The project works. Yeah. What is the project?
The project is Nahal basically has spent, like, 25 years building, like, an insane Rolodex in, in tech, and he was like, "It's all in my head.
It's, like, it, it's hard to kinda, like, share with our firm and productize." Um, and he was like, "We need to productize my network," 'cause it really is our, like, go-to-market tool for our founders.
Um, so I was like, I mean, the way I approached it in the beginning was all wrong. I was, like, doing Airtables, apps and whatever.
Um, now we use a software for this called Connect the Dots, where basically, like, we scrape everyone's network on the team. But Nahal is the number one connector by far.
And then, you know, if we're looking to introduce a founder who was in earlier to, uh, car dealerships, um, which is totally random. Mm-hmm.
Sophia jumps in and spits out a list of 12 of these things over the weekendThat somebody in the firm is connected to. Um, and that's one of our superpowers at, at Eniac, that both of us kind of power.
And what's Connected Us as an internal tool? It's actually... I'm gonna give them a shout-out. It's great.
It's free 'cause it's built for, like, enterprise software teams, so, like, obviously an enterprise software team. Free for now. F-free for us, please.
[laughs] Um, but basically, it's, it's meant for, like, sales teams at enterprise companies or B2B SaaS companies.
But, um, basically, it, like, ingests all this data from Gmail, LinkedIn, basically everywhere that you hang out on the internet, and it kind of shows a connection strength. So, like,
if I went to, like, Richmond, which is where I went to college, with someone, and we overlapped at the same time, they would come up as a connection even if we're not, you know, connected on LinkedIn, or we've never emailed or whatever.
So, I don't know, sometimes it'll, like, show people in our network that we don't even know are there, and it's like, "Oh, yeah, I went to... We got, like, a... I went to summer camp with this person, you freak.
Like, how did you know that we know them?" It's good. And so then, um, Nahal, did you have a chief of staff before? Or what was kinda going on in your mind as to, like, why you wanted to hire someone then? Yeah.
We started, I think, at Eniac, kind of this chief of staff. Originally, it was an experiment, um, and now it's a real thing thanks to successful experiences.
Um, it was inspired largely from, um, one of our mentors, Josh Kopelman, at First Round Capital.
And First Round, every GP basically would team up with a chief of staff, and that chief of staff would be complementary to them and really give them a lot of leverage, you know, to go out and crush.
And we wanted to, um... Yeah. We were inspired by that model. So, um, we tested it out first. I think Hadley was the first person of a chief of staff. Mm-hmm. Who was his first chief of staff? It was Monica.
It was Monica was the first one. Yes. And then, um, you know, she's a little rough around the edges, but, um... No, just kidding. She's great. [laughs] Um, shout out to Monica, who's at Microsoft now. Mm-hmm.
Um, she did great. And so, um, th- then myself and Tim were like, "You know, we should go and recruit our own COS." Um, I actually had one prior at Eniac. Lacey. Yeah.
And I think what I realized in kind of the iteration of this role was, um, originally the, the thinking was find somebody that is basically a complement to you- Mm...
in the sense of, like, whatever you're not good at, basically find somebody who's really good at those things that can, you know, basically complete, like, a human being. Like, one human being- Yeah... across two humans.
Um, and I think that, that, that went okay, but I think what's more important, especially, like, in venture that's so competitive, uh, or any industry, to be top of your game, everybody has kinda one superpower, right?
Or something they're really good at. And instead of just patching holes that you have, um, why don't you try to double down on that superpower to make it really special? Yeah. Right?
'Cause you have something already that most people don't have. Instead of then just becoming average by filling your holes, why don't you... Fine, your holes are your holes. You know what I mean?
But your superpowers are really unique. Let's double down on those superpowers. And so that's what I realized with Sophia, is that I think we both have this kind of,
you know, this empathy for other humans, this kinda innate altruism where we just wanna help folks, sometimes to our detriment. Um, look at our inbox. Look at our inbox. [laughs] Um,
but, um, in this, in this industry, um, that's everything, you know? That really differentiates you from most other folks, where the bar is already low as it, as it is.
You know, VCs are notorious at, like, not even sending pass emails, you know. Um,
where we not only do that, but we wanna literally help everybody that we meet, which is a very, very high bar and very hard to do, but we do it.
And so I think finding somebody that has the same values to double down on that superpower, um, has made this, um, like, an incredible experience.
Not only an experience, but, like, has really supercharged the firm- Mm... since she joined. Um, you know, not just for me, I think for everybody. Everybody at the firm would say that,
that we've taken this kind of superpower, and we've really... Everybody uses it, um, all the time. Again, sometimes to our detriment. [laughs] Um, but it's great. It plays to our strengths.
And so tha-that, that was the learning at least from our chief of staff kinda iteration, was, like, find somebody that will make... That will e-enable you to double down on,
on, on your already perceived strengths to truly be exceptional. That is beautiful. [laughs] Podcast is over. Um. Nice job. How did w- how did you figure out, like, what to...
I mean, how did you figure out, like, what the cadence was or how to, like, get up to speed or, like, working together? What was that kind of, like, "All right. Here's how I work. Here's how you work.
How do we make this, like, the one plus one equals three?" Like, what were the... Was there... Did you complete some, a user manual, or were you, Nahal, were you like,
"S-just s-spend time with me, and then we'll figure out ways that, like, work well for you"?
Or, like, how did you kind of, in those, in those, like, first 30, 60, 90 days, like, how did you, like, figure out what was the, like, optimal way to work together? There was a user manual, right?
Wasn't there, like, a day one email? There was a day one email. I think the day one email was you just started, like, dumping all this work on me, and we kinda just got right into it.
And I think, like, on my end, what enabled me to kinda hit the ground running was, like-A, like very psychologically safe environment for me to ask a ton of questions, and like I wasn't scared to mess up because I knew that you weren't gonna like freak out at anything.
Um, so I think that kind of let us kinda hit the ground running. And then another thing was, um, you're very responsive.
So like I'm never really held up by you because you're always kind of multitasking, which is great for me because like even if you're doing something, like I can ask you just a quick blocker and you'll get back to me in a second on Slack.
So I think constant like communication that we don't have to... I don't have to double think anything 'cause I'm never really blocked by you, um, which is great. So that's kinda how it started out. Yeah. We just...
We threw her into the deep end. Um, but she swam, I mean, pretty quickly. You didn't drown. It was also like half... I mean, the beginning was all shadowings.
Like everything you did, I would just like kinda watch, and then I was doing things that were like not rocket science.
Like I was doing follow-ups and like just making sure like you remembered everything that you said you were gonna do.
And then I think that has evolved over time to like me kind of being more of a body double versus just like a follow-upper. Um, but I think,
yeah, being able to shadow and like really just see everything that you were doing enabled me to like double your workflow or copy it, I guess. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you're a sponge as well.
I mean, you lear- learn so quickly, and now to your point, you're literally like the body, a body double in the sense of you can take
independent meetings without me and do the same, you know, uh, re- you know, founder pitches, making introductions to help them. Your judgments getting
on deals is getting, like really good, where like we're doing a lot of reps. It's all about reps in this industry, so I think starting like last year, I'd just be like, "What do you think?" Mm-hmm.
And then now your judgment is so good, I'm like, "Oh, shit. She's right." [laughing] "She's actually right." Um, yeah. But it's actually... It, it's, you know...
Originally, this chief of sta- staff experiment was like Hadley directing, giving somebody access to his inbox. Mm-hmm. And like I've tried to... I think that's why you're still...
You're smiling right now, that- I don't wanna be in there... that you don't wanna be in there.
So, um, but it works because then I'll like naturally filter out the ones that aren't relevant and interesting for her to either think about on next steps or like act on, on next steps. Mm-hmm.
And so, um, that takes a little bit of digging every night from me, but that's like, it's a much better use of time for her because everything that she gets is valuable, uh, and there's no riffraff.
But yeah, I think in the beginning, you just sponged, swam, and now you're like doubling. So it's been an incredible, you know, evolution in two years.
And then, you know, the, uh, mentee always passes the mentor that- Mm-hmm... so, um, one day, um, we'll be Sophia- [laughs]... Sophia's chief of staff. I'm looking forward to that day. [laughing] Yeah.
Is there a JD for that? Or do we... If people are interested in being your, uh, chief of staff to you, send the Gmail cold email. Is that the approach? You can cold email. You have to love Justin Bieber.
[laughs] He's not going anywhere. You couldn't resist. [laughs] I'm like, "Somebody give me a microphone." [laughs] The, the Justin Bieber thing in LA was...
W- So, uh, one, you know, one of the benefits of this job is we get to hang with like incredible founders, right? Obviously, who are changing the world, and so that's our job is to like help unlock their potential. And,
um, so one of our founders is this guy D. Murthy from Ghost, and so we're in LA a couple weeks ago. We had an event, and, uh, I made the mistake of inviting Sophia out, and she's in the, in the club with D.
And, uh, we s- she sees Bruno Mars in the corner, and she can't help but like just like completely change her whole...
And then she tells D about her Justin Bieber stalking experience, and then we quickly ended the night. [laughs] And everybody returned- Yeah... to their, [laughs] to their Ubers and quickly dispersed.
It's hard for me to act normal in front of famous people. I don't know why. Yes. We're working on that. It's okay. Everybody has a superpower. [laughs] Um,
to get into this like body double, to use your analogy, um, was there anything in particular that like switched from like,
you know, collaboration to then like body dou- Was there like a moment where that was like, "Okay, now here's the unlock," or was it just time?
Was, was there like a specific deal or something with founders or anything that like really started to unlock that? I think on my end, like after a little bit,
I think like the trust that we both like knew what we, each other were doing. I mean, obviously I trusted you 'cause you know what you're doing.
But I think af- over time, you've kind of become, begun to trust that I know what I'm doing as well, um, just because it's, again, like you said, so many reps, like hundreds and hundreds of founder calls deep at this point.
I think eventually like maybe you'd be caught up on something, and you'd be like, "Oh, shoot, can you take this loan?"
And then I would do it, and it'd be fine, and then I would send you the follow-ups, and you'd be like, "Oh," like, "That went fine."
And then I think after a while, we realized that we could kinda just do more with the same amount of time. So I think it was like a, a trust and communication thing
that like I wouldn't have been able to do that on my first day 'cause I didn't know what I was doing at all. But yeah. I agree. [laughs] Um, how...
I can imagine there's been-Uh, disagreement, um, or not a hu- 100% always be- being on the same page, um, how have you like worked through that? Well, there's a really good example.
Actually, last summer we made a tweak in our like working style a little bit. Oh, yeah. You know? Where she was getting bogged down by
I think a lot of like deal flow in which like we necessarily would not engage in, and I would know that we wouldn't engage in, but, um, I would pass it to her, and then she would have to like kinda process it- Mm...
and realize that we still weren't gonna do it or engage with that founder. So the, the twe- And she was... I think you were really like drowning in those emails. Mm-hmm. And so the one tweak that we made was that it was,
it was a little bit more effort for me, but it's fine because I, I kn- you know, you knew right away as it's coming into my inbox to actually take the action on it. Mm. Um, and copy Sophia for tracking,
um, but like don't let her necessarily have to mentally process it. So I'll say, you know, "Hey, this is not a fit for a variety of reasons." She's copied on it, fine, she can file it away, but like then it's no
brain damage for her, um, in terms of doing this hundreds of times a day. Yeah. And so I think that cleared up a block of your time, right?
I think the way that this conversation happened too was we were kinda talking about like after, I think this was like a year and a half in, maybe a year in, and then like I basically from shadowing you and building my own network, like I was starting to get really good deal flow as well.
I don't know if it was really good. It was good.
Um, and I was like, "I don't even have time to kinda go through this and, and kind of process some of the higher ROI stuff, like that would benefit not only our team, but the firm."
Um, I was like, "I need to, I need to make time in my day to be able to kind of process this stuff and pay attention to it."
So yeah, it was kind of like a concern that we talked about openly and then found a solution for. Yeah. Yeah.
So I think that, you know, one of the things you have to realize in this business is that if you're tied up with something else, then the opportunity cost to engage with somebody else could be so great. Mm.
So like if you're working on a average deal, like, you know, for, for you or, you know, anybody else, then that takes away time from like the next, you know, Google that you could potentially be working on, you know?
And so I think after that moment I realized it's better to kind of only engage... Like try to block, um, as much, you know, block and tackle time, like things away from you. And then also me as well, you know.
Like we've set a higher bar on our calendars- Mm-hmm... to meet with folks. I don't know how you got on this calendar- [laughs]... 'cause the bar is so high, but somehow you slid through here. Um,
that, um, the IRL meetings are like incredibly like, you know, very high caliber. Mm-hmm. And everything else we can kinda async to email. Yeah.
And ideally, like we have blocks, this never happens, but like the next step is we have blocks of like free time, you know, where we can think about stuff. Haven't seen it yet. Haven't seen it yet. Not yet.
Um, and then I, you know, obviously we try to... I kinda, kinda give each other breaks, you know. So, um, you know, whether it's working from wherever or just taking days off.
You don't take enough like just straight up days off. You probably could do more of that, but like that, that's very helpful to everybody, you know, to the organization.
I try not to work super early in the mornings 'cause I got the kids and pitch and run. Um, but I have emails that go to her at 8:00 AM 'cause she's- Yeah...
a morning person, and then you're not a night person, which is great. No. My brain is done by like 5:00. That's when I like process most of my emails, but I don't send them.
You know, I schedule them for the morning, for, not just for her, for everybody. Mm. I think it's important like to like not... try to like, um,
have people like work during working hours, not just like our team, but like the greater world. Yeah.
It's just like better for the mental stability of the world [chuckles] and, you know, because like if you send an email at night, also somebody's gonna respond and then,
yeah, it's this vicious cycle of like, nobody's getting to chill. Yeah. Um- That's the one thing that is amazing about working for you is that like the first day he was like, "I won't send you an email after 6:00 PM."
And he schedule sends the emails for 8:00 AM, so I don't get anything before then, so I can like wake up and like maybe once or twice a week I'll meditate before I jump into work.
[laughs] And I'm like, I'm not waking up and immediately like, "Oh, shit," like, "What do we have to do?" It, it kinda gives you a beat, and it makes me like...
Like I'll work after 6:00 too, but I'll schedule it and it's kind of just nice knowing that there's like a little balance and like you're not, nothing's like gun to your head, you have to do this right now.
Um, again, like the psychological like, okay, it'll get done and like they're trust- everyone's trusting that it'll get done. Everyone will do their work on their own time.
Unless it's an emergency and Ben from Hyper has to talk right now. [laughs] Ben, we love you if you're listening. [laughs] Um, so you talked about some... That's like a conflict or a situation that you worked through.
Um, and you talked a little bit also about like communication norms. Anything else on as another example of working through a conflict or any other communication norms, best practices that you two have adopted?
Like I don't know if it's five days a week in the office. Uh- Four usually. Four. Um, like do you have a daily stand-up? Do you text like, "Here's the priorities for the day"?
An- anything like that in terms of like just making sure you're on the same page that you two do? This has evolved.
We started by having, I think, twice a week, like a half hour sync, and then obviously in between we'll like Slack and email and text and, you know.But I think recently calendars have been so crazy.
Like, we've been really good at just, like, being in constant communication async. So like, we kind of have a high level, like, weekly priority thing that we'll do, like, a calendar invite on Mondays.
This lives in Google Calendar, where it's, like, broken up by our five, kind of like, things that we have to focus on. So it's like deals, portfolio, network. Fundraising was one of them. We're not fundraising right now.
But we kind of break it up into, like, big categories, and then just, like, kind of brain dump everything we're focusing on that week.
And so we'll do that on Sunday or Monday morning and just, like, set the scene for the week. Like, what do we have to focus on? And then we'll kind of block and tackle throughout the week.
Um, and then it's just, like, in the office. Like, you know, I'll just pop in and be like, "What's going on with this?" So being IRL helps a lot to kinda, like...
We don't have to have time specifically to catch up, 'cause we're kinda doing it throughout the day.
So just to clarify, either on Sunday or Monday, you send each other a calendar invite of, like, the focus for the week on these five buckets. Yeah. It's not very systematized. [laughs] It's, it's on Google Calendar.
It's a recurring, like, Monday. Got it. Just, like, all day event- Yeah... so it's at the top. Nice. And then so, like, if it's Friday and I'm like, "Shoot, what do we have to wrap up for this week that maybe we forgot?"
I'll just go back to Monday and look at the list. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. So like, I did it... I think I did it last night. Mm-hmm. Thanks. Or, or this morning. Uh, you're welcome.
And, and, um, and, but either one of us can do it, and then she had some questions, or we just talked through a few of those things, like, for, like, 20 minutes today. Yeah.
And like, we're, we're, we're pretty set for the week, I feel like. Um, so that's really useful, you know? And then the IRL to your point is really useful too. Yeah. Just like all these,
the, the small little con-conversations that otherwise would take an intentional meeting or a Zoom to set up. And that's, I think, the case with everybody that works, you know, IRL. Yeah.
Um, is there anything about email, text, Slack? Like, is there certain priority preferences or anything like that? Is there like, "Only text me if it's, like, red alert," or, "Slack DM me whenever you want"?
Like, d-have you... Did you f- have you worked through anything like that, that's been, like, super helpful? Yeah, I, I mean sh- I work really well in email. Mm-hmm. I think you do as well. Yeah. I have a hard time, um,
if it's in the inbox, it'll get processed eventually. Um, but like, when somebody texts me or WhatsApp or Telegram or Instagram DM or a Twitter DM or a LinkedIn DM, or the list goes on and on- [laughs]...
um, those things are very hard to process. Like, I have to, if I'm gonna, like, if- get into our workflow to, like, copy it almost and put it into email. Mm-hmm.
'Cause I know email will get processed eventually, and it will get done. It'll either get scheduled. We have a great, uh, exec assistant that supports the firm, Dan Donovan.
Um, so if somebody texts me like, "Hey, can I do a meeting?" I'm like, "Dude, please email me- Mm... and copy Dan," so it gets to, in our workflow.
And then likewise, um, if somebody has to get acted, something has to get acted on, put it in email, and then I'll, I'll add Sophia, you know, to get it done. But I think we, we work well in email.
Email, it's funny, hasn't been, there hasn't been innovation in email in 30 years. [laughs] But it's, it, it works, you know? It's solid. I don't know. You're still... I'm using Superhuman,
and you're still on Gmail, right? I can't- You crush Gmail... I can't handle Superhuman. With all the filters. Superhuman can't handle you, you're saying. Period.
[laughs] But I don't, I mean, you crush Gmail with all your filters and your tags. Yeah.
Like- Um, so the way that I do Gmail, because I am a freak about, like, I can't drop a ball in email because then, well, I, I guess I can, but I just don't like to.
But there's these email tags, so like, that's another KPI. We track everything that goes through our inbox since we run the network. So it's like, how many intros are we making every month?
By the way, I need to get that to you for February. But, um- [laughs] So there's just Gmail tags, and I don't think...
I'm thinking now you can do Gmail tags on Superhuman potentially, but at first I don't think you could, which, I don't know, I have my, my system. You have your system, and it works. Yeah. Yeah.
Are there any other tools, uh, software programs, templates, resources, anything else that you two use to, uh, get more stuff done and hit the KPIs that you talked about? I don't think, like, software necessarily.
I mean, connect the dots for our network, but I think, like, the workflow and, like, just being on the same page is just, like, that's something we've gotten good at over time, I think. I'll give Cheyenne a shout-out.
He taught me this morning what vibe coding is. [laughs] Which basically he, like, you can use, like, no coding to... It's no-code app.
So he made, like, an Asana-like workflow specifically catered to his meeting with Hadley, uh, which is something that I'm not technical enough to do. Maybe I am, but maybe a software plug for that.
I don't know how he does that. Nice. But yeah, we don't, we don't, we're not very high tech. Yeah. It's okay. Low tech. I mean, listen, we're, we're in the people business at the end of the day.
So like, you know, we, we serve people. Um, and, uh, email works great for that. You know, you can give people warm and fuzzies all day long. You can make intros to anybody under the sun.
Everybody has an interface to email, and so I think we're really good at email. That's probably one of our competitive advantages. Mm-hmm. You know, I think both of us, you for sure. Yeah. Responded to my email.
[laughs] It works. Somehow again, this one got through, so maybe we're not that good. [laughs] Um, anything else about, like, now two years into the role, um, any lessons learned that
f- like, that you wish you knew when you started or, yeah, anything else that comes to mind about, like, your journey so far? I don't know about lessons learned.
I think, like-Looking back on the past two years, it's been a really great experience, again, because, like, I don't have to second-guess much that I do because there's a lot of trust.
And, like, Nahal, as I continue to grow in this role, has given me more and more autonomy to just, like, take it and run, um, which has been really empowering for both of us, I think, workflow-wise, and, like, the amount that we've just been able to get done.
Um, so I think that's a product of, like, feeling really comfortable in the environment that I'm in and feeling really supported, and I can't stress enough, like, your responsiveness, like, never blocks me.
So I feel like I'm able to... There, like, there's no bottleneck in what I can do, um, so I think that's great. Like, you're the first person I've worked for who actually likes being in email and, like, likes kind of
not being bogged down in the weeds on email, but, like, it really makes such a huge difference for my workflow where it's like I'm not... I don't have to harass you 10 times to, like, get an answer back.
Very, very fluid in our workflow. So I think, yeah, just, like, feeling supported, um, and, you know, having autonomy to just trust that sometimes I can do what I think is best and we can align on that has been great.
So yeah, and I mean, I mean, there's never a dull moment. It's always great. Like, we're always helping people in email, which feels amazing.
I'm always learning from people who are smarter than me, um, really passionate people, so I think it keeps it exciting, too, just the nature of the work, and, like, learning from you has been amazing, too.
Nahal, do you say, um, when founders... Like, do founders ask you about the chief of staff role? Is there anything that you say to them about that? In terms of, like, people wondering what it is or applying to it or...?
Yeah. Like, should they hire- Yeah... a chief of staff? Oh. Yeah. I, I think s- yeah, for sure. Uh, actually, we had some of our best startups, um, their CEOs live and die by their chief of staff.
I think it's incredibly important role. At, at startups, it's often... it often takes the role of, like, a COO- Mm-hmm... in a lot of ways, you know? Um,
and, um, I think here what I was gonna say is Sophia does not give herself enough credit.
The, I mean, the, the way that she's learned and just cr- like, crushed, uh, here's the word, crushed again, this role in two years.
Um, and so now I think the challenge is she has a ticket to do whatever she wants to do, you know? I think she could become a, like, mini me, um, in terms of, like, an investor who leverages network, uh, to do that.
Um, she can also go and, like, you know, start a... maybe start a company or that we would support or, like, um, join one of our portfolio at early stage. So I think she's trying to figure it out. Mm-hmm.
Um, of course, we would hate to lose her. Um, but, um, ideally she could grow into, you know, a mini me. Um, she already is, you know? Um, by taking your own meetings- Yeah...
from your own networks that you're sourcing, doing your own, you know, diligence on them, applying your own judgment, getting to your own conviction would be the next step all by yourself. Yeah.
And you're very close to doing that in two years, which is crazy. Mm-hmm. You know, I've never actually worked with somebody that could grow that fast. Thanks. So, um, yeah, and that also means I'm slowing down as well.
[laughs] So it's all relative. I don't think you're slowing down. [laughs] Thank you. Lots of energy. But thanks. Yeah.
No, it's a real pleasure and joy and, you know, even just from a year ago, you've grown s- since the last time we did this, you've grown so much. So, um, Sophia's gonna be running the firm one day. [laughs] Thank you.
Glad that, that... Glad this is on the internet. [laughs] Anything else you wanna share? Any parting thoughts, either one of you? Yes. Send us your best founders who are starting companies. We would love to meet them.
Plus two points if they are women. Okay. And what stage...? Yeah. We're investing in pre-seed and seed stage companies, anything pre-product market fit, pre-series A.
Um, we love B2B companies, although we will get excited by anything. We're super generalist tech investors, um, and we love people who are building companies where it's their life's work to, to see this company grow. So
we would love to meet anyone who fits that category. Send an email to Eniac, not the Gmail. [laughs] Send an email to Nahal and Sophia. Send an email to Sophia. Just Sophia. S-O-F-I-A @eniac.vc.
Do not copy Nahal [laughs] @eniac.vc. You will get an answer eventually. And thanks for having us. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
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