A Career in Venture Capital: Crystal Voss' Journey and Work-Life Balance Strategies

Speaker 1: 0:10

Hello everyone. Welcome back to this week's Emotional man Weekly Podcast. Today, I am thrilled to have with me my good friend and partner in crime during a MBA program. This is Crystal Voss. She is the director of portfolio management at Structural Capital. She's also a mother with two children, happily married. Welcome to the show, Crystal.

Speaker 2: 0:33

Thanks, Joseph.

Speaker 1: 0:34

Now, crystal, I want to start off about Structural Capital. I know this is a recent position for you, so why don't you go ahead and share with our guests what your work history has been like and how you came to this role right now?

Speaker 2: 0:48

Yeah, so I had previously. I grew up basically working at a corporate bank and then, when I was let go from that position, found myself contracting and ended up at a venture debt company in Arizona. That was just starting out. I had no idea what venture debt was, but just came on as a contractor to help them close their books one year and they said, hey, we don't have anyone to monitor the portfolio, so would you be willing to come in and learn how to do that? And at that point we were about 10, 11 employees and again based in Arizona, and grew in that position quite a bit. By the time I left that company I think we were about 45, 50 people.

Speaker 2: 1:31

So, it grew a lot in about seven years and then I started to during the MBA program. You start to get a little bit itchy and what else can I do? How can I continue to grow? And found Structural Capital who was basically at the same point as my previous company when I first started, so again about 10 people didn't really have someone taking the lead on the portfolio management process and was able to talk them into seeing that they needed this type of position and was hired last year in June. So it's been quite a ride.

Speaker 1: 2:08

What did that conversation look like? Coming in saying, first off, did you already have a connection inside Structural Capital? Yeah, and you got to just share with me what that conversation looks like. Putting forward hey, you need this and you need me, yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:24

So I knew the CFO. The CFO worked at my previous company with me and I was like, hey, I think it's time for me to find something new. And he's like we don't really have anyone doing what you're doing at Trinity, which was the previous company that I was working for, and I said, okay, tell me a little bit about what's going on, how you're working, what's what your deals are like. And he started talking to me about the complexity of the deals that they were doing and they're not really like normal. They like to add some creativity in how they structure their deals. And the more I started listening, the more I kept asking how are you tracking that? How are you keeping up with all of the changes and all of the different things that are going on? Because we're struggling with that. And so I said I can absolutely help you do that, I can help you mainstream it, I can help you streamline everything put in processes, put in procedures and that kind of stuff to really help us keep track, or help them keep track, of the deals and the changes that were going on.

Speaker 2: 3:29

When I met with partners, they're the same way. They're like we don't need, we don't need someone like this. We're fine, we're okay. And the more that I talked to them, the more they were like okay, maybe we do need someone to come in and help us put this together and install some new software, which they were already doing before. They were already looking at that. But when they brought me on, they're like tell us what you think, how do you think this would, which process, which software should we go with? And at that point they were like sold. They were like okay, yeah, we do need what you can provide. And so that's how it started.

Speaker 1: 4:01

That's incredible, especially just knowing and standing in your value, that kind of your experience.

Speaker 2: 4:06

Yeah, that's always been tough for me, because I've always had some sort of imposter syndrome on how I got to where I was and what I was doing, and so that was a real validating point for me, because I'd always had those feelings, so how did you combat it this time around?

Speaker 2: 4:24

Their belief in me and my abilities has really been helpful. They let me take over, they let me do the tasks that I was brought in to do, and they trust my thoughts and they trust my opinions and they ask for them, and so that's been really helpful in strengthening my sense of value.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Incredible. As I understand it, you're doing this at near the end of our shared MBA program and your children are also in the transition stage as well. Right, Because they're 19 and 21. It's going to college, away from home for a little bit. So talk to me about the intersection of transitioning to a new job, transitioning out of the MBA program and your children transitioning out of the house.

Speaker 2: 5:10

I would like to say that they've transitioned out of the house. They both did spend a year in the dorms, but then after that first year they're like, oh, maybe we should be at home. They both are still at home, but they both have their own lives. They work, they go to school, and so as long as they're continuing to do that, they're welcome to stay here and get on their feet. But it has been a transition for them too, because all four of us, or the three of us, were in school at the same time and trying to navigate the normal work or the normal home life where I wasn't around as much, and then they had to start doing a little bit more on their own and taking care of themselves, just a little bit more than maybe what they were doing before. But yeah, they've handled it well. They're pretty strong-minded kids, which is great, which is what we always wanted them to be. It's been good. The transition has actually gone smoother than I think others have had.

Speaker 1: 6:09

What do you suppose that is? The reason why I ask is that we have business owners and leaders in all stages of life, but this is a tricky one Children leaving the home, you're hoping that they have everything they need, and then they come back home when they realize, oh wow, maybe I need a little bit more before I go back out again, but the dynamic has changed, and so if you wouldn't mind sharing what was your experience like with that and why do you feel like it went smoother than perhaps it potentially could have?

Speaker 2: 6:38

So it's hard to quantify this. My kids have always been respectful kids. People will talk to my kids and be like you have really great kids. They're very polite, they're engaging, and so we've always treated them as equals or at the right age. We never talk down to them, we never dismiss them. We listen to them, we value their thoughts. We've always shown them that they have value and we want to know what that is.

Speaker 2: 7:14

And also just beating up front with them about our expectations and what is allowable in our house and what is not, and then just really enforcing that, I think has been great. We've always had very open communications with them. You can ask me anything and they do, which is great. I know that a lot of kids don't do that and I know that a lot of family struggle during like the teenage years. We didn't have that and so it's always people are like how'd you do that? I'm like I have no idea how I did that. We just talked to them. We just we treated them as people and I think that made a big difference.

Speaker 1: 7:51

Yeah, what's interesting is we've had all sorts of family dynamics on the show, with individuals who are struggling with relationships, struggling with spouses, post-divorce, and one of the things that keep on coming back over and over again was either the importance that communication played with establishing boundaries, checking in on emotional health, whether at checking in on the relationship or the neglect of communication led to, I think, one of the best ways that someone said it they called it walls of indifference. That's interesting. Yeah, they said they just found themselves following a separate path and they just had these walls of indifference between them they didn't really know how to bridge. After a while, yeah, drifted apart.

Speaker 1: 8:35

So maybe you can talk about for those business owners who feel like they don't have good communication with their children or with their spouse, maybe talk a little bit about what. How did you facilitate those communications? I think that's something that a lot of people have and they're afraid to bring up a topic and that fears like an undercurrent Between you know, you and your child or you and your spouse. So maybe share just some of your experiences with broaching or talking about maybe taboo topics or expectations and boundaries.

Speaker 2: 9:06

Yeah, those kinds of conversations are always difficult. It's hard, it's uncomfortable and for all parties. And so there are times and I can't say I won't say that we never struggled, especially with my daughter, because she would just she would hold everything in and then We'd be like, okay, but you got to talk, and we would make her sit down and we would not let her leave the room until she unloaded. And Again, it was just a matter of if you want to go to your room or you want to, you want to get out of here, you've got to tell us what's going on, you've got to communicate with us, and she would shut down. And we're like you've got to advocate for yourself, you've got to be your own, you've got to come out for yourself, because we're not always gonna be there and If you can't continue to voice your concerns, you can't open up and say no, or you can't open up and just be communicative in a Concise manner, you're not gonna get anywhere.

Speaker 2: 10:07

And so we forced those conversations in the same with my spouse, when, whenever we would find ourselves Delighting a little bit, we would sit and we would just force the conversation and we wouldn't leave until you're, we wouldn't walk away Until the conversation was done or we completely hashed everything out, and so that I think again, it's hard and it's extremely uncomfortable, but there are things that you have to do. You can't always just walk away from those problems, because they don't go away, they just follow you and that, yeah, today, and you just have this sense of relief. Once it's all done, you're like okay, everything's out in the air, we're all clear, and I think that has really been big again, especially for my daughter and being able to Communicate that way and learn how to do that, especially when she was younger and didn't know how.

Speaker 1: 10:58

Oh, that's so huge that, with some of my clients and some of the people that we I've coached outside of this podcast, we have found that people normally react to emotions in four ways that they suppress the emotion, can numb themselves to it. That most often leads to depression, suicide. They distract themselves from it mindlessly scrolling on Facebook, instagram. That leads to addiction, leads to neglecting your family. People react to the emotion, which leads to Teenagers and adults temper tantrum like two-year-olds blowing up on their family, or people learn how to process the emotion and feel it, which sounds like that's what you are you doing. Okay, this is gonna feel sucky, we're gonna feel it, but it's gonna feel so much better after we felt it. That's amazing. Okay, so talk to me a little bit about your husband that you mentioned in the past. He works, and so what's it like? What was it like for you going through this MBA program, doing this additional school and then Transitioning to a new job? What were some of the conversations you were having with your spouse during this time?

Speaker 2: 12:01

Honestly, he is like my biggest cheerleader, so he's actually the one that encouraged me to do the MBA program. It was like just do it, go Apply, we'll do what we have to do, we'll figure it out. School work he's go do what you need to do. You have class? Fine, I've got it. Take, I'm taking care of everything. And then, with a new job, he knew that I was struggling a little bit at my old job and he's like get out, leave, go do what you need to do, and it's fine. He and he's been like that forever, so we didn't talk about this. But I've known him since I was like nine, so we grew up together. He lived it like down the block from me and it was a small town, so I've known him my whole life. He's been a really great friend and then that friendship just continued and so, again, he's always been the one that's just do it, just try it, you don't know what's gonna happen, we'll figure it out. And so it's been great. He's my biggest support.

Speaker 1: 12:59

That's. I wanted to get into this because I had something that everybody wants in their relationship they want a biggest cheerleader. And so talk to me a little bit, because one of the biggest issues that business owners and leaders have is that, especially people who have started their own company founders it's like their baby. They have a relationship with their company and sometimes that relationship with the company competes with their relationship with their spouse, with their children, even with themselves. And so what have you done to nurture that supportive relationship with each other so that these competing relationships haven't pulled you apart?

Speaker 2: 13:41

So what have we done? We communicate, we communicate a lot. We talk all day, we work constantly like in some sort of communication. We talk at night and then we do a breakfast every weekend, just the two of us where we can just sit and talk to. So there's a lot of communication, but there's also a give and take right. So I may have done the MBA program and I went through all that and he took care of things. So now maybe there's something he wants to do that now that I'm out of that program, he can go and do and pursue, and I'm fully supportive of it. We trade off back and forth. It's not just everything is about me, it's everything is about us. And how can we support each other through that? And so we both try to give each other that space and make sure that each other, that we each have our own lives outside of the marriage but then also are very connected in the marriage.

Speaker 1: 14:39

That makes sense? Yeah, yeah, it does. No, it's phenomenal. What point do you find that having your own lives? I think that helps you individually be more interesting to each other, helps you like, grow and develop. But how do you defend against personal interests taking you away from your relationship with each other?

Speaker 2: 15:02

You can get it to balance right. Your personal interests can't be like 40 hours a week yeah, you've got work and then you've got your personal interests. That's taking up the rest of the time. It's really just a matter of balancing that and making sure that you're watching the time spent away or the other. Your own individual life is not too intrusive on what's at home For me. I play softball, but it's only one night a week and that's my individual time and so that kind of stuff. So it's not huge, but it's something for me.

Speaker 1: 15:38

No, that's really good With your work and him working. How often do your work days exceed, say, an average, or work weeks exceed an average 40 hours in a week?

Speaker 2: 15:53

Now not as much His previous job that he was at prior to his job at ASU. Right now he was doing a lot of weekend and evening events so that was difficult because he was gone Some weeks. It was like 60 hours and especially during high event times it was a lot. So those were difficult times. But now we've actually been able to get to a point in our work lives where we can balance out our work in 40 hours and then still have the rest of the time for ourselves. So it took a little bit to get there. Obviously, when you're first starting out, you're putting in all the hours that you can and establishing yourself. But now I think that we're a little bit older. We've been able to navigate through that and be like okay, this is what is important to me and this is what I can live with and this is the kind of job I can live with to make sure that I'm balancing work and hope.

Speaker 1: 16:51

I think you talk about these kind of stages of life where we're trying to put in a lot of hours to get things established. Startups experience this. I think if you're in like a senior position in the company, it's very easy. I know, we both know Charles. Last time I talked with Charles, he was working 70 80 hours a week. But then you talk about this kind of phase when you realize no, this isn't for me, or my family can't really bear the same longer. Can you share what that was like for for you and your husband Cuz? Obviously you're not working 60 70 hours a week or you're trying to pull back to 40 hours a week, and that's because you've learned that this is what I can live with. So talk to me about what was it like during that phase and what led you to decide to make those changes.

Speaker 2: 17:40

Yeah, it was mostly on his end where he was doing a lot of that. I was usually able to balance it, with the exception of one job where I was doing on-call stuff, but I was doing the on-call stuff from home, so it's not like I was in the office for six years 70 hours a week. I could come home and take care of work from there, but for him it was really difficult because he would go, he would leave home at 6, 30 or 7 to get to work because he was driving and then event nights would be 11 12 at night. So he was really struggling with that and it got to the point where he was just really unhappy and when you're unhappy at work, you're unhappy at home because it just carries, you can't. It's hard to let that go.

Speaker 2: 18:25

And so it got to a point where he's I can't continue to be unhappy like this all the time and not feeling like I'm home and being with the family, and so at that point we're like okay, fine, if you have to take a step down, if you have to Step back into a new position, that's not going to either pay as much as it was before or it's not gonna have the status that you had before. That's okay. If you're okay with it, then let's do that. And so at that point he was like okay, I can't do this anymore, it's just too much. And he was like, okay, and he found a new job. And actually I think he quit before he had the new job and that was yeah. And that's always scary for me because I'm like, oh my gosh, we're like, okay, it'll work, it'll work out. And within a couple weeks he had a new job. So it was okay. But it was just to the point where he was so unhappy that nobody was happy.

Speaker 1: 19:20

How did he go? How did he get through those weeks without tearing each other's eyes out because I don't know about me? When I was there's certain stage of my life, back when I was a nuclear launch officer, new baby, neither of us were sleeping. We're both really hard to be around. I remember just thing he wants. I don't like being around my wife Like it's yeah, it's just off, and so how did you get through that?

Speaker 2: 19:45

We would set aside time for him to come home and be by himself. So it was like okay, you're home, here's 30 minutes, here's an hour, go sit in the bedroom for a little while, go lay down for a little while, decompress, let the day go, I'll make dinner, I'll get everything together and then, when it's ready, you can come out. And so we we tried to give so that he could let it all Float away a little bit and then could reengage with everyone.

Speaker 1: 20:19

That's great. And then talk to me about how you process through. He quit his job before he had one. How were you able to go through that, that kind of whether people thinking about starting a company, thinking through a transition, there's always that kind of worry and fear in the back of their mind. How did you bear that?

Speaker 2: 20:38

Yeah, it's scary, it's crazy scary. We knew that he was. He had already been talking to the person that he's working for now, like they had been in discussions for a while and we figured that position was going to come through. It just hadn't fully come through yet. So we had a good idea that he had something lined up. There were other things that he could do part-time for a little while if this new job didn't fully come into fruition right away. So that helped ease a little bit of the stress that I knew that he could find a job if he needed one. It may not be great, but it's something that he could work at.

Speaker 2: 21:16

And then we just continued to talk through it. Like I said, we talk a lot. We would just communicate through it and talk about what was scary, what was not scary, how we're feeling about it. And it's so weird because my family, especially my mom, is like everything happens for a reason. Everything's going to be okay, things will work out in the end, but maybe hard for a little bit. But you know that something is going to. It's not forever, right? So that's how I got through it as well. I was like this is just temporary, it's going to be okay, we'll figure it out, and we did. But yeah, it's scary. I think I got a few more gray hairs from that. We worked it out.

Speaker 1: 21:57

And I think the most empowering thought that you can have is I can deal with scary.

Speaker 2: 22:04

It's okay, I can deal with scary.

Speaker 1: 22:06

I think it's interesting, in whatever you're dealing with, venture capital or is structural capital? Do they do venture debt or are they more of a classical?

Speaker 2: 22:17

It's like growth capital, a little bit of venture. We don't necessarily underwrite to the companies having venture capitalists continuing to fund the company. We fund really on the basis of the company itself and its ability to perform. So it's more growth capital but there is some venture debt to it.

Speaker 1: 22:39

Okay, now in your world, having key metrics to measure whether or not a company is performing I imagine that's your life. Is it performing? Is it successful? And one of the last questions I always loved ending on is this idea of can you do the same for a family? If you had to identify, if someone came up to you and said, crystal, you have to identify three to five KPIs or metrics to measure your family's health or your family's success, how would you respond to that question?

Speaker 2: 23:19

I would say each family is different. Each family has their own successes. Each family thinks about success differently. What I think about success might not be what somebody else might not be what you do. You have a lot of kids. I have too. Success for me is not having a lot of kids. So I don't think that you can have one or five KPIs for each family. I think it's all different.

Speaker 1: 23:47

What would you say are the KPIs for your family?

Speaker 2: 23:51

For me, knowing that my kids can successfully I've said this before but advocate for themselves. I want to know that if I'm not there, they can stand up for themselves. They're not afraid to say no or they're not afraid to stand up and push back, but also it's just that they're happy doing what they're doing. I never wanted my kids to come to me and say what do you think I should be doing? This is what you expect from me and this is what you've always wanted me to do. I never wanted that. I wanted them to find their own path and be happy in their own path. Success for me is them finding that for themselves and knowing that they're happy doing what they're doing.

Speaker 1: 24:36

How do you determine if that is occurring?

Speaker 2: 24:39

Think for my daughter she's doing elementary education. When I ask her, why are you doing elementary education? She says because I want to be the teacher that I didn't have at that age because she struggled with bullying. She struggled with other kids. To me, that tells me she's thought about her current chosen path, that it's not just an easy oh, I can go get a teaching degree and just go teach, no big deal. She's thought about the value that she can provide in that position and she's passionate about it. She loves little kids of her and she loves doing or in teaching those ages.

Speaker 2: 25:24

I know she's happy in it. She could have easily done something like English or something because she likes to write. I know that this is what she really wants to do. My son he's got so many different interests but he's I want to be a math major, I want to maybe think about going into epidemiology and doing all of this stuff and it's okay. At the same time, we're consistently telling him if you get into this and it's not what you find is right for you or you don't really enjoy it, it's okay to find something else. I think just again, communication and making sure that we're constantly checking in and making sure that the path that they are choosing is something that is still making them happy, and as long as we feel like they're giving us true answers, then I think that's successful.

Speaker 1: 26:20

As concept of. I think it's coming back down to communication for you. It really does.

Speaker 2: 26:25

Yeah, for us it's all about communication.

Speaker 1: 26:28

It's incredible, Crystal. I always like to ask that if there's someone out there who may be a good fit for structural capital, what are you looking for and what would be the best way for them to come in contact with you?

Speaker 2: 26:40

So what are we looking for Towards the end of the year? We're looking probably for analysts, someone who was willing to learn about venture debt or growth capital, who's willing to start at the bottom and work up. It's probably more for entry level, just graduated kind of positions. But yeah, anyone who likes numbers and likes different industries and markets and is really interested in startup businesses, then give me a call.

Speaker 1: 27:14

What about clients?

Speaker 2: 27:16

Clients Ooh, what are we looking for in clients? We're looking for companies that have some revenue, have a good business model already in place, who just needs a little bit of capital to get them to profitability within the next 12 to 24 months. That really has a strong product. We're pretty agnostic as far as the industries don't really do a lot of equipment financing things like that. It really is just debt to help the companies get to that next point in their growth story.

Speaker 1: 27:52

Everyone. This has been Crystal Voss. Thank you so much for spending your time together. She's the director of portfolio management at Structural Capital and a great friend of mine. I thank you so much for your time and just the wisdom and experience you shared with us. I know I'm going to remember communication and the closed door room technique. I think that communicates pretty well. I'm serious about communicating you better. Let's do this. Thanks, joseph. Okay, thank you.