Episode 14: Expanding the venture capital ecosystem with Melanie Strong

Melanie Strong is a founding partner at Next Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on empowering passionate founders to set a new pace in human optimization. Prior to becoming a full-time VC and advisor, Mel spent her career building high-performing teams at Nike, where she held titles like VP of Global Brand Marketing for Nike Women and GM of Nike Skateboarding. In 2019, Mel co-founded NEXT VENTŪRES with Lance Armstrong with the intention of helping founders innovate quickly in the health and wellness space. 

In this episode, Mel discusses the importance of investing in disruptive technologies and FOUNDERS who will have a broad and positive impact on the future of human health and wellness. She shares that only 3% of venture capitalists in the US are women… a bleak statistic… and why it is important for women to embrace the conversation around growing their personal wealth. We share a few laughs about her propensity for WORK… and finally, Mel shares that, while leading your life with gratitude is not easy, it is the ONLY way to be truly fulfilled.

Risky Business

How does one go from big business to start-ups? Admiring the risk-takers and wanting to follow in their paths.

While leading the skateboarding division at Nike, Melanie valued that they were a bit under the radar and could therefore take more risks than perhaps the more mainstream areas of the business.

“There's a point where these big businesses are on a path. And it's really hard to take them off that path, even if that path is ultimately not the right one for that business or that market or that consumer. And I really liked being in a place where we could take risks.

And maybe even for a big company like Nike, try a different way of doing things, a different way of bringing product to market, a different way of organizing our team around the world. We wanted to be that catalyst a little bit for Nike.”

Looking at Nike Skateboarding as a start-up of sorts led Melanie to want to pursue actual start-ups.

“I wanted to do the really big leap, take the risks and find those small companies that were going to lead that next generation of our industry, leading with some of the values that I was hoping to be a part of embedding into these companies.”

Building Something From Scratch

Something else she admired about start-ups was the entrepreneurial spirit of the founders. People who believed in themselves and their ideas enough to make something from nothing and to risk everything to make it succeed.

“The thing that I love most about the work we do today is I get to meet people who are doing the thing that I have never done but have always wanted to do - which was build something from scratch. The amount of courage and arrogance, and I think there's a combination of both, that sort of are required to start something.

To think that your idea is important enough that people are going to want to pay for it. And that, over time, they will come back and pay for it again. I don't know if I could do that. I know that I am wildly amazed by those people.”

Not Just the Status Quo

Sixty-five percent of venture capitalists in North America are white men from Stanford and Harvard. Now with NEXT VENTURES, Melanie and her team don’t want to do what has already been done. They want to disrupt the status quo.

“I’m not interested in just participating in the existing ecosystem.”

They have spent time in communities that serve underrepresented founders and underrepresented populations. Although their backgrounds are in sports, they have had to immerse themselves in areas they aren’t as familiar or as comfortable with.

Melanie also wants to change the narrative around investing by shining a light on founders who don’t fit the typical mold, as well as founders building for-profit businesses.

“People are really comfortable investing in nonprofits. But somehow the hurdle of spending that same amount of money with maybe a female founder, or a person of color founder, who is building something that you really believe in, like why wouldn't you feel comfortable investing that same amount of money in that founder?

You and I don't look like the typical investor, let's change that. We also don't look like the typical founder, let's change that too.”

Making Inclusion a Priority

While at Nike previously and now with NEXT VENTURES, Melanie strives to make inclusion a priority. Whether it be removing the terms ‘men’ and ‘women’ from the Skateboarding website based on feedback from skaters or having conversations with founders about racial and social justice, she knows these topics are not going away.

“In 2020 we had to acknowledge that it was a moment where our companies needed to have a point of view around social and racial justice. And having those conversations with each of our portfolio companies and the founders.

Do you have a point of view and have you been actively participating in that agenda? Both in terms of the employee experience at your company, and then how you show up in the world. How you express those values to your consumers.

That was good for me to see both in terms of my ability to meet those CEOs there and have those kinds of conversations and then also to help them establish how to move forward with a culture within their organizations that was addressing these topics. Because they're not going away.”

Invite Other People In

Although Melanie would be happy to stay behind the scenes, she knows that putting herself out there publicly will only help other people like her who want to be where she is.

“I have always been reminded by my mentors that it is really important for me to be out there. To show, I'm half Japanese and I identify as a female, I have this untraditional pedigree. That has all added up to me hopefully being great at this work."

She stresses that people who have ability, privilege and access, need to use the platforms they’re given.

“And then to also invite other people in.”

Changing the Ecosystem

For Melanie it all goes back to disrupting the existing ecosystem.

“I'd like to see more change, faster. As related to women in sports and leadership roles, people of color in sports and leadership roles. And I think the only way to do that is to create more of a support network, more of the ecosystem, because there are so many disadvantages for those of us who don't look like the mainstream. “

She sees her calling with NEXT VENTURES as changing the mainstream but also participating in other communities that are doing things differently.

“We are squarely within the existing venture capital ecosystem, but there are all these other little ecosystems happening, that are growing, that we're also a part of, and that gets me really excited.

We are trying to change the mainstream, but also participating in all these other communities that are deciding you know what, I'm not going to play the usual game. I'm just going to go and find my people. And I'm going to be wildly successful.”

Thank you, Melanie, for your fantastic insight!
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