Hey there! My name is Emily Kist.

I’m 24 years old and living in St. Paul, Minnesota (ope). I’ve only ever lived in state capital cities (minus that one summer in Omaha…) I’m also a Virgo sun and Gemini moon, if that matters to you 🙂

I received my bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in May 2022. It’s where I discovered angel investing and venture capital. In my senior year, I started a student-led venture fund. Our team raised $1M and called it the Husker Venture Fund. I was also heavily involved in our school’s entrepreneurship center and various clubs across campus.

Today, I live with my boyfriend in a one-bedroom apartment and work from home. I’m a Venture & Innovation Associate at Nelnet’s corporate VC arm. I’ve been with the company for 1.5 years full time, and interned for 2. I LOVE my job and I am super lucky to get to travel for work, too.

In my past eras, I’ve been a bank teller, an accounting intern, consulting intern, and a barista! I will ALWAYS miss working in a coffee shop ☕️ Shoutout Reactor Coffee.

Things I love: all things dairy, astrology/tarot, plants, hot yoga, ASMR, exploring the Twin Cities, and puzzles

Hey! Hey! Maria Here (the other ½ of the soapbox duo) 🥳

I’m a 22-year-old fresh college grad who just moved from one Midwest city to another. I’m originally from the Oregon Coast, where I grew up playing basketball, poorly surfing in the cold ocean, and being a principal's kid (yikes).

I graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (#gbr) in May 2023 and started full-time work in June 2023. I’m an Associate at Redbud VC in Columbia, MO, where I currently live full-time. Redbud is a generalist pre-seed VC fund, meaning we invest in a wide variety of industries at the early stages. I love being the first check/supporter in a founder’s journey and digging into a diverse set of industries.

Outside of work, I love to read; I am a regular at the Columbia Public Library (catch me in the 300s) and late on my returns, more than I’d like to admit. 🙃  I love to cook and host dinner parties. I find a lot of joy in my weekly grocery lists and will never be quiet about what’s interesting in food. I’m a reality TV connoisseur and the current rotation consists of Survivor, The Kardashians, and the new Kitchen Nightmares. 📺

I can’t wait to share this first edition of Soapbox with you all! Cheers 🎉

Clifton Strengths: Competition, Arranger, Individualization, Significance, Input

I’ve spent a fair amount of my life as a young person facing rejection. As a child getting cut from sports teams, as a teen not making it into elite colleges, and as a young adult facing brutal internship/job passes, I am no stranger to the painful ache that rejection causes. I have a deep understanding of some of the long-standing effects tough rejections can have, and it’s hard not to recall times when I showed up at my best and met with what I deemed to be the “worst.” 

The complex and burdensome emotions that rejection can illicit are something that I spur in founders every day. I spend a large portion of my time as an investor rejecting founders, and being so familiar with the feelings myself, it is a dichotomy I’m learning to be comfortable with. I sit across the table from founders each day who have put EVERYTHING into their businesses, and 99% I follow up with an email on my firm passing on investment.

There are a few reasons in particular why I wanted to write about rejection as my first “soapbox.” #1 I want founders to know that no matter how quickly calls go - I can feel the emotion, time, energy, and capital that they have put into their business and that even though I say no often, I don’t say it lightly. #2 VCs themselves are a business, and that’s not talked about enough. We care about founders, and we deeply want them to succeed, but ultimately, our duty is to our investors called LP’s whom we seek to drive returns for (more on this in the future).

No’s are said for a variety of reasons, and most of the time, No’s can be traced back to more arbitrary reasons and things that founders can’t control, such as portfolio construction, biases towards certain industries/verticals, conviction/market trends, other deal flow in the pipeline, etc. Each “No” is rooted in a complex and sometimes uncontrollable combination of events and circumstances, but that doesn’t make them hurt any less.

I’ve thought a lot about how I can be more comfortable dishing out multiple rejections on a daily basis. I’ve found that transparency drives clear expectations, and intentionality helps reason with difficult emotions. I’ve learned to start each intro call by sharing a clear background on Redbud; I leave time for founders to ask me any questions they may have about our process; if there is a perceived conflict of interest, I mention it immediately. My favorite question I’ve started asking is for founders to share thier favorite articles, white papers, or case studies with me. It has allowed me to do a quick dive into their industry, gather my thoughts, and communicate them to my GP clearly. Information drives reasoning. In the midst of my most poignant rejections, I’ve always asked myself, “why?”. Now, I deliver the clearest and most concise ”why” I can to founders in each rejection post intro or second call.

Ultimately, rejection is an inherent part of raising capital, and while it may never be easy, my goal is to handle it with respect and empathy. I’m striving to create a culture where the pain of rejection isn’t lessened, but the clarity behind it is increased. I'm starting to view rejection as an opportunity for evolution - both for myself and the entrepreneurs I interact with. It's a chance to mutually refine our approaches, learn from setbacks, and foster resilience. Something that not many other events/emotions have the opportunity to illicit.

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