Emily Rich is a co-founder and partner at M8 Ventures, a venture fund that focuses on investing in tech startups during their “pre-seed” stage. Emily is also Director of Startups for APAC, where she has been tasked with helping to drive startup growth in the Asia-Pacific region. This is a special episode featuring guest host Alan Jones, an investor and veteran of Australia’s startup ecosystem who has supported Australian startups independently and through BlueChilli, Blackbird Ventures, Pollenizer Ventures and Startmate. In the conversation, Emily discusses how she got her start co-founding a machine learning startup, and her belief that while bootstrapping a business may be an appealing prospect for early founders, that seeking investment early and taking what she calls “smart money” is often a better path for fast and sustainable growth.