Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Cut the Tie. Hi, I'm your host, thomas Helfrich. We're here to help you cut ties to whatever's holding you back from success. Help you unleash the best versions of yourself and maybe the best entrepreneur. Today, we're joined by Alexander Veach. Alexander, how are you today Doing great? How about you? I am delicious. Thank you for asking. Take a moment, introduce yourself and what it is you do.

Speaker 2: 0:25

Sure Well, alex Veach, here I'm at Veach AI, and Veach AI is an AI-powered platform that transforms messy, unstructured deal data into clean, investor-ready insights.

Speaker 2: 0:32

We're automating due diligence preparation and data packaging across acquisitions, secondaries and exits, and we want investors to act faster, have more confidence and have less overhead. Primarily looking to serve private equity and venture capital firms, especially those focused on life sciences and mid-market transactions, we also support boutique M&A players and secondary buyers navigating complex diligence workflows, and our goal is to build an intelligent infrastructure for capital markets. And, in short, I think what Bloomberg did for public equities, I'm trying to do for private deals by turning fragmented data into clarity and risk detection and automation, and all the noise from consulting into precise insights. And why are you the guy to work with? Yeah, I have unique background that's at the intersection of AI, life sciences and private equity and, based on my experience and deep operational and strategic expertise from industry and also in management consulting, I believe I build and bring the right tools for the needs of the current market and we're looking into a lot of innovative opportunities that will make life easier and also drive value for both patients and investors.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Along your way. Like I say, you've had quite an interesting career in AI and consulting what's kind of been the biggest tie you've had to cut to find success.

Speaker 2: 2:00

Well, I would say, on the personal side, it starts there with my entrepreneurial journey. I think I went into this year wanting to stop overanalyzing. I had this chronic overpreparation syndrome and the idea that I needed every single detail figured out before moving and in reality I think that was just some fear hiding behind some perfectionism hiding behind some perfectionism. And so I let go of that mindset to be overanalyzing. I just want to move at founder speed, with real clarity, and, of course, in the business side that also meant cutting the ties to some of the professional organizations that I had before, so leaving the big corporate world behind, in a sense, and creating my own path and really driving my own accountability, learning business development and sales, and creating the relationships around something that's truly innovative. And that's where I am now.

Speaker 1: 2:49

Any fear, like you say, any procrastination, perfectionism, is always rooted in a fear. Specifically, what fear did you have?

Speaker 2: 2:58

Yeah, I mean, perfection is tricky and I think the reality is that you don't necessarily need to have every single detail figured out. Sometimes the 80-20 rule really does apply and it's better just to move quickly. So instead of having every detail mapped out, sometimes it's better just to talk to the customer and understand their perspective and help that. Let that guide your path forward and go to market strategy, and so let that be evidence-based as opposed to completely strategic in nature.

Speaker 1: 3:29

Yeah, I mean fair to say, like sometimes that fear is the perception of others thinking that you don't, you're not smart, or you don't have it, or you're, you're, you're an imposter, like, does that kind of sit behind that perfectionism and that procrastination piece to move forward?

Speaker 2: 3:42

Yeah, absolutely. And the first step is awareness. If you can even take that time to reflect and know your own values and face in the mirror what that obstacle is and try to understand what your deep-seated emotional block is there, once you face it, you can unleash tremendous power and momentum behind what you're trying to build, or your goal or your purpose. So I think that's extremely important for you to cut that tie, whether it's, as I mentioned, specific details in the product that you may or may not have complete clarity over, or just sales. For example, I hadn't done so much sales in my life. I was previously an engineer and then got into business development from the management consulting side, but on the software development side, really talking to customers, making sure it's not just projecting a fear, but really understanding what you want and what you need to succeed and going after it. And let the fear go away. And once you inhabit the confidence that you need to pursue your business, a lot of good things start happening.

Speaker 1: 4:46

So I think that's an important reflection moment is that the fear is not procrastination, perfection. The fear is someone's perception of you and when you take that fear and turn it from something that limits you into something that fuels you, now you got something. Now we're cooking with gas, so to speak. All right, and it's a learning opportunity. So you can always improve. It is and you look at that fear as a learning opportunity to remind you of what it is. But if you can say it out loud, I'm afraid that someone's going to think I'm stupid or whatever it is. You're on your path. Describe the moment that shifted your perspective, that kind of set you on that path to cut the tie, sure.

Speaker 2: 5:22

Well, working in management, consulting and being on these diligence calls with a private equity firm managing a biotech portfolio, I think it became very obvious to me that things could be improved. So every deal required months of consulting works and these firms are spending hundreds of thousand dollars in prep costs. And it was just to even decide if a company was close to being exit ready. And that's when I think it clicked for me and that these customers or these clients don't need necessarily a dashboard, but they needed real AI infrastructure that could handle this task. You know, start structuring unstructured data and clean and score and package the whole deal at scale. And that's really the moment that helped me reframe my entire approach that the large companies, the big firms, were not going to be the innovators here, but it was really a moment for me where I decided I needed to lead and build.

Speaker 1: 6:21

Yeah, I could see your. I mean, the analogy I'd use would be those firms that you're working for, the management consulting. They're running the full marathon as fast as they can and they've trained well to do it. What you're offering to them, what you could be as an asset, is someone who can run 25 miles of that marathon in seconds, and then they can take it the last mile with the client and they could do it faster and have more competitiveness. And I don't know what your market is or how you're targeting it quite yet, but that sounds like selling to the management consulting firm a technology that does. This is the place to be, because that does move faster.

Speaker 2: 6:53

Yeah, and I I mean I see different types of customers, one being the private equity firms as top use use case and the decision makers there. But certainly consultants who are driving that work for their own clients surely could benefit from this and I don't think it's in their interest to develop these tools quite yet as it would cannibalize their own business, but surely they could be strategic partners with us and help on execution, support and strategic projects that go beyond just looking at the bottom line but really involve operation strategy or transformation work. So certainly there are opportunities to collaborate.

Speaker 1: 7:29

Yeah, yeah. What's been the impact since kind of cutting the tie?

Speaker 2: 7:33

Yeah, so cutting the tie to the perfectionism that I talked about, and I think what it has unlocked essentially is more speed and momentum. So, personally, I think I've become more decisive as a leader and professionally. I stopped waiting for validation or for opportunities to come to me at the firm and I really started operating with more discipline and conviction. I brought a lot of structure into my life and that, I think, helps unlock more actions and also very focused glide path towards my go-to market strategy. And, yeah, I think our messaging has also gotten sharper. So our investor materials are getting tighter and we're really trying to generate real traction in the market now. So I think I'm on the way towards understanding the true post-problem validation now and really working with our earliest design partners on understanding their needs and catering to them for custom solutions, but also building something that scales.

Speaker 1: 8:35

Yeah, the perfectionist that learns to let go becomes a very good, very lethal weapon in creating content and other materials. Because it's pretty damn good and they just don't realize it was perfect for somebody else. Even their 80% was way past what most people go to. So good for you that you're seeing the benefit of that and speed. What's the lesson you give your listeners? Oh sorry, go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 8:55

Yeah, I just wanted to make it very clear, like, what I'm trying to deliver is what used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the consulting model and it would take months to deliver this. I'm trying to automate that entire process and actually generate real-time insights for a fraction of the cost. So I think it's an exciting opportunity, and especially in life sciences, where there's the opportunity to bring therapies and diagnostics to market faster and shorten the deal cycle. I think there's going to be the opportunity to have real impact for patients, as I said, but also to bring institutional level diligence to smaller businesses that may have never had access to that. So I think there's a real possibility to improve the whole private markets.

Speaker 1: 9:41

Great, I love the vision of it. What's the lesson for the listener? It's great.

Speaker 2: 9:47

I love the vision of it. What's the lesson for the listener? Yeah, don't wait for your full vision to be ready. I think, like mine, it's evolving over time. So have speed, assisted with structure, and let that assist your brilliance. Okay, so anchor in your have clarification, but then move quickly, and so I think my execution model is really a form of truth for me, if that makes sense and you'll find your market faster by building with that momentum rather than just theorizing in a vacuum.

Speaker 1: 10:17

Yeah, I love that. Some rapid fire questions Are you ready? Yes, let's do it. Okay, who gives you inspiration?

Speaker 2: 10:23

Yes, let's do it, okay. Who gives you inspiration? Oh, I would say my parents. Just the way that they raised their children with grace, with hard work and faith. They showed me that the legacy that they're building is built every single day, and it's not just declared with no expectations. It's something that hard work delivers.

Speaker 1: 10:45

That's beautiful. I hope my kids say that about me one day. What's the best advice you've ever received?

Speaker 2: 10:52

I would say I was talking to a Bain Company mentor that I had and he really asked me to think about systems as opposed to just storytelling, because the stories can fade, but systems and infrastructure can stand the test of time and truly win. So build infrastructure, not just narratives.

Speaker 1: 11:12

And I think if you combine those two, by the way, then you have it. If you can say here's the story and it was built upon this, and here's another story, different one, also built upon this. That's when it becomes incredibly lethal. In the sales piece it's like oh, I want that, I want to be a story, so what's that? One must read book.

Speaker 2: 11:33

For me recently it was Principles by Ray Dalio, I would say for my context building truth and transparency and a scalable way to enhance trust in any system, especially startups. That was my biggest takeaway.

Speaker 1: 11:47

That's great. You're deep in the AI world. What's your favorite technology?

Speaker 2: 11:51

Besides Veatch AI, which I think is the future for capital efficiency.

Speaker 1: 11:54

That's a fair answer right yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:56

But outside of that we love what OpenAI is doing with their agentic framework, so like autogen, so how AIs will work work in teams, not just solo capacity and I'm fascinated by the swarm and agentic space and coordination for objectives at the society level. I think it's going to be fascinating, and recently I was playing around with google notebooks lm and just the way it can just generate these podcasts and audio overviews from large text it. It's really fun.

Speaker 1: 12:26

So yeah, yeah. It's like as a podcaster, I'm like even this is going to go away, actually. So it's crazy. If you had to start over, when would you do that and what would you do differently?

Speaker 2: 12:38

Wow, yeah. Well, I don't have any regrets, but I would say I would talk less and build more and just keep testing, iterate over and over and talk to customers. And yeah, I think that's the biggest fear that investors have for previous consultants, that there'll be all strategy and no implementation or action. So that's the one thing I want to prove wrong. And yeah, I think the early momentum matters more than the polished theory, and so high quality, fast execution.

Speaker 1: 13:12

Yeah, If there's a question I should have asked you today, but didn't. What is that question and how do you answer it?

Speaker 2: 13:20

So what's driving me to build VHAI, to build my current venture? I truly believe that capital now is like energy and it actually has the power to heal or to harm us. And you know, I think I've evolved in that thinking from being a bioengineer and to spending more time in business. I think when capital moves efficiently, with integrity, it can truly fuel innovation. And a lot of times in the past we haven't had that truth. And now, with AI, we're at this ability to enhance our insights or extract insights very quickly, and our execution models should be aligned to that intelligence.

Speaker 2: 14:03

So, and especially in life sciences. So today, I think much of private capital is stuck in these outdated systems, literally running manual diligences at the big four like it's still early 2000s, so like nothing has changed in 20 years and I'm building VJI to change that, so that diligence doesn't slow down progress but actually accelerates it and offers clarity. And ultimately, I think it's about making that invisible visible, so bubbling up those insights or risks and opportunities and letting the capital flow to the right teams and at the right time.

Speaker 1: 14:38

I love that. Shameless plug time for you, by the way, and I so appreciate Alexander. You always come in on there. Alex, I call you Alexander because my daughter's Alexandra, so I feel compelled to say your full name anyway. Probably won't make the edit for yeah On my emails.

Speaker 2: 14:51

I think both names are always there, but I'm very approachable, you know, and I do have other creative pursuits, but I love to keep the formal edge, of course, and it keeps me in check of course, and it keeps me in check.

Speaker 1: 15:06

So yes, Let me ask you the question again for edit purposes.

Speaker 2: 15:12

Shameless plug for you. Who should get ahold of you and how do they do that? Sure Well, I would love to talk to investors in the space who are looking to enhance their deal analytics and want to bring in AI long-term, and so Veatch AI is really created with that audience in mind, and on my LinkedIn you can find me at Alex Veatch or Alexander Veatch. So yeah, please reach out. If you're a private equity or venture capital operator or secondaries buyer or M&A advisor working on life science deals, or any founder or investor just struggling with unstructured diligence data, so we're really excited to bring on some firms even at no cost, with early access for VHAI. And if you're in a diligence heavy transactions right now and want to reduce your prep time and increase your accuracy, I'd really love to hear from you.

Speaker 1: 16:03

Love it. Thank you so much for coming on out today. All right, thanks so much for having me. Always great. I think everyone who's been listening and watching to this point here you know. One call to action is well, first of all, go cut a tie to something holding you back, but then hit that follow button on Apple or Spotify and if you're a YouTuber, hit the subscribe. Thanks for listening. Get out there. Go cut the tie to anything holding you back from.