One Investment Leads to Another
Photo: Aaron Pergament Photography
Any aspiring entrepreneur would happily take a meeting with Ludlow Ventures a venture capital firm located in downtown Detroit.
On a typical day hundreds of unsolicited e-mails arrive in company inboxes and Ludlow’s schedulers are busy setting up meetings with eager entrepreneurs who hope Ludlow will fund their dreams.
And if they make it through the doors one of the first faces they’ll see is that of Jonathan Triest a 34-year-old venture capitalist who runs the company with partners Brett deMarrais and Blake Robbins.
“I have the attention span of a gnat which gave me trouble growing up but this line of work with the vastly different businesses and personalities I meet lends itself well to my personality ” says Triest.
These days Triest is funding entrepreneurs to the tune of millions of dollars annually. From his post-modern offices in Detroit he’s bet on more than 100 companies already among them in-car heads-up-display device Navdy; Honey an app that scours the Internet for coupons and discounts; and Notarize.com an application that allows consumers to connect with a notary public by live video or via their mobile device.
But it’s his newfound love — Torah — that keeps him grounded and his priorities in order. And he knows that success in business could never come without blessings from Above. “It’s now abundantly clear to me that everything in my life both personally and professionally both good and bad comes from Hashem.”
What I Learned in Yeshivah
The Ludlow office in downtown Detroit is hip and inviting with funky art on the walls and half-painted half-exposed brick décor. Out-of-the-box thinking is encouraged — part of the reason there are orb-shaped swings hanging from the ceiling and a ping-pong table set up for an afternoon game. The temptation for constant fun can have its downsides though; Triest admits he sometimes leaves the office to find a quiet space to work.
Triest who started Ludlow in 2009 after receiving a generous start-up loan from his father Brent Triest and great-uncle Warren Coville has set his firm apart from the others by emphasizing personal relationships with his clients. Ludlow has even passed up tempting investment opportunities because the personal fit didn’t work. “We always say it’s like going on a road trip with someone. Here it’s going to be a long journey — some as long as ten years or so — and we want to like the people in the front seat.”
Triest likes to push the envelope. At a technology conference in San Francisco in October 2016 he spoke to a packed audience of business executives on the subject of “Everything I’ve Learned about Building a Strong Company Culture I Learned in Yeshivah.”
Despite initial skepticism (“What’s yeshivah?”) the attendees — some of whom were Jewish but most of whom were not — listened as Triest described the importance of taking a weekly break from the daily grind and avoiding the number one destroyer of any company culture — gossip.
He also told his audience that great leaders admit their mistakes and provided examples from the great Torah sages of the Sanhedrin who encouraged the most inexperienced members to share their opinions first before their viewpoints could be swayed by senior opinions.
As a kid Triest was kicked out of Hebrew school — more than once. But to hear how this young successful venture capitalist became who he is today perhaps we should start from the very beginning
Excerpted from Mishpacha Magazine. To view full version, SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE or LOG IN.
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