At an LA Tech Week panel hosted by Athlete Strategies about investing in sports, Angel City head of strategy and chief of staff Kari Fleischauer said that years before launching the women’s National Women’s Soccer League team, Angel City FC was pounding the pavement letting people know about the excitement ladies soccer can bring. In the soccer world, Los Angeles-based women’s soccer team Angel City FC has put in the work to become a household name, not just in LA County but across the nation. “There is an emotional intelligence that's really important around innovation,” she said.Ĭlick the link above to hear the full episode, and subscribe to LA Venture on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Both sides need to build trust to create a roadmap that benefits all parties. From the startup side, entrepreneurs need to be aware that coming in too aggressively can cause friction. From the corporate side, she said companies need to be willing to listen to startups who can transform their operations. Kearns said bridging the gap between small startups and large corporations requires strong communication skills. But you know, there's a skill set that I can bring to different industries. “As you can see from the fact that now I'm doing ag tech and admitting you know, that I don't know everything. “I think the thread that goes throughout my career is really curiosity,” Kearns said. Touchdown is working with farming cooperatives CHS and Growmark to see how tech ranging from the supply chain to digital twins can transform farming. She said the firm looks closely at crop production and precision ag-both of which contribute to the fund’s overall focus on sustainability. Kearns is now leading Touchdown’s newest fund, focused on agricultural technology. Corporations’ scale gives them the ability to experiment and expand quickly. Her class focuses on four building blocks that corporations can use to advance industries: research and development, business development (partnerships), venture investment and mergers and acquisitions. And you have deadlines and quarterly reports, and things like that.” “And that's hard to do when you're doing your day-to-day job. “They want to be able to try and see where the ball’s going,” she said. Kearns also teaches a class at UCLA on “corporate entrepreneurship and innovation,” which, she said, seems like an oxymoron to many, but makes sense when you think about what corporations need. “The biggest piece of advice that I can give is being really clear about what it is you want from the corporation, or how you would envision partnering with the corporation because then someone can figure out who the right person is to talk to,” she said. When working with large enterprises, she says it’s crucial for startups to be clear about what they want from a corporate partnership. Now at Touchdown, Kearns helps startups and corporates work together. Any of our corporate partners are tapping into that breadth.” “Touchdown has now over 50 people, and we work across all different types of industries. “The challenge was, were we going to see the best deals, because we weren't necessarily seeing all of the deals,” Kearns said. When they considered whether to create a venture arm, they looked at how Touchdown’s resources could help the company set up a much for effective venture investing program. She said the studio was considering how to prepare for the future, including whether to set up an accelerator or in-house incubator. Kearns worked with Touchdown for three years while at 20th Century Fox on various projects. That’s when the discussion turned more toward “‘Okay, we have to rethink this a little bit’,” Kearns said. “I think it wasn't until Netflix had really, really taken off that I think everybody got shaken more to the core,” she said. Executives didn’t consider the possibilities of new technology until much later. The industry was extremely concerned that what happened to the music industry with the rapid expansion of Napster could soon happen to them.
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