LA Venture Podcast: Petra Griffith of Wedbush Ventures

One of my new favorite L.A. investors is Petra Griffith, who joins to discuss Wedbush Ventures on this week's episode of L.A. Venture. Griffith founded Wedbush Ventures in May of 2020. It's an early-stage venture fund that invests in seed and pre-seed stage companies.

Key takeaways:

• Griffith's work at Grandpoint Bank made her realize that traditional banks have a really hard time with venture debt because venture debt doesn't look at cash flow or regular metrics. Instead, venture debt looks at who's backing the company and is interested in the ability of the company to raise money in the future.
• While working on Netflix's first product team, Griffith learned that consumers needed to both trust the platform brand and feel emotionally connected to the show — quickly — if they were to become fans.
• Griffith says she initially felt foolish speaking up about what she thought, but learning how to do so turned out to be a game changer because admitting what she wanted out loud, allowed people to open doors for her.

" ...going from from Yahoo to the bank and then from the bank to Netflix [...] I remember the first week being, like drinking from the fire hose." — Petra Griffith

"I always try to think about, 'how do you create a culture that's transparent, that's about problem solving, that is not afraid to raise issues and not afraid to probe'." — Petra Griffith

"I think the willingness to pay for content will hit a wall soon. And so I think about other ways in which people are really finding value...And I think it's around community. I think it's around being proud of being in a community and being proud of what the community stands for." — Petra Griffith

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