Our guest today is Claire Fauquier a Principal at Highland Capital Partners. Highland Capital Partners is one of the oldest venture capital funds that invests primarily at Series A and focuses on the early growth stage. Some of their investments include Harry's, Rent the Runway, and Clearbanc. In this episode we explore some of the differences and milestones companies typically have at the seed and series A stages. explore the milestones at Series A for technology startups and the purchase behaviors of small-medium businesses.One book that inspired Claire professionally is Radical Candor by Kim Scott. One book that inspired her personally is The Glass Castle by Jeannette Wells.You can follow Claire on Twitter @clairefauquier. You can also follow Mike on Twitter @mikegelb. For all episodes, please visit theconsumervc.com. Thanks again for listening.On this episode we discuss -What attracted her to finance and venture capital? The differences in criteria from seed to series A? Diligence process at series A. What made her make the jump to Series A/B from Seed? What is hard about Series A/B investing? It seems like with the proliferation of seed-specific funds, it’s easier to track companies from earlier on. What are some mistakes she's made as an investor? Coronavirus is very top of mind. Has this impacted how she invests? Is she more focused on current portfolio companies rather than new investments? How does she think about deals broadly; if she had an investment philosophy, how would she characterize it?In the consumer spectrum, what types of businesses is she focused on? What is her investment criteria for B2C businesses? What does she advise founders to focus on? How does Highland work with consumer businesses once they invest? What is one thing that she would change about Venture Capital?Full transcriptMike Gelb 1:08 So let's start out very early back in your career, what initially attracted you to finance and then specifically venture capital?Claire Fauquier 1:19 Yeah, I kind of want to separate those two things, because I never felt like I was a finance person. And I think that in venture, we're lucky, because we're sort of not finance people. And I've told people that if I must be bucketed, into the finance world, I'm kind of in like, the fun finance. So. So yeah. So I got into investment banking, because I was a finance major, I was drawn to the numbers and the math and thinking about the economic implications of finance, which I felt was really interesting. But of course, when you're, you know, 2021 and deciding on what you want to do after school, there's sort of one career path for finance majors. And that's going into investment banking. So that's where I sort of delineate it and say that I don't ever really thought of myself as a finance person, I sort of just ended up in that career path thinking it would be a good launching pad. And it was I think I learned a lot. I think I learned a lot of what I didn't want as well. And then I moved on from that. What drew me to venture is totally different. For me, it's this real connection with how we're changing the world, how we're thinking about where the world is, in five to 10 years, and interacting with the people that are enabling that I think it's probably one of the absolute best jobs in the world when you feel like you were the dumbest person every day. And I mean that in a humble way. It is fascinating to talk to all these industry experts and people that are devoting their life to something that is really cool and highly relevant and tangible to what we're doing as consumers day to day and how we live our lives. And so it's sort of the story arc of being part of something that's bigger, I think that drew me to VC and less sort of the the aspects that I would attribute to Finance, if I can sort of answer that from a roundabout perspective for folksMike Gelb 3:03 that I know that entered in VC and kind of went, you know, worked a couple years in investment banking,