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Jessica Robinson is not your average venture capitalist. She started her career, not in finance or investing, but as a professional tea taster.
In fact, Jessica’s entire career path can be characterized by unconventional pivots. After that tea-tasting gig, she fell in love with the mobility industry and spent time working for tech startups like Zipcar and Techstars before moving on to one of the legacy automotive OEMs: the Ford Motor Company.
That’s when she realized where her true passion was in business, specifically the business of changing the way the world moves and improving the mobility industry while she’s at it. That’s why Jessica joined Chris Thomas to co-found, Assembly Ventures, to help uplift the companies moving the industry forward.
When it comes to taking big career leaps like hers, Jessica says it’s all about embracing the fear of failure — and using it to your advantage.
“In embracing this idea of failure, what you're really looking to do is find better ways,” Jessica says. “In startup life, we call it finding product market fit. It's a little dry and clinical, but the idea here is, you’re really looking for something that makes your customers’ eyes light up.”
Themes discussed in this episode:
Featured Guest: Jessica Robinson
What she does: Jessica is a co-founder and partner at Assembly Ventures, a venture capital fund helping move and transform the world of mobility in the West. She also co-founded the Detroit Mobility Lab, an organization dedicated to helping create a better future for the mobility industry through educational and networking opportunities. With over a decade in the mobility industry, Jessica is a rising global leader and sought-after speaker in her field.
On leadership: “Mindset, I really do believe, is linked to the change that we're talking about in this industry, in the sense that we have the power to choose what we want our companies to be, what the opportunities are that we're going to pursue. And that starts with the mindset of who do we want to be, and everything else follows from there.”
Episode Highlights
Timestamped inflection points from the show
[1:36] From tea taster to venture capitalist: How did one of Jessica Robinson’s first jobs as a professional tea taster kick-start her journey toward venture capitalist and automotive thought leader?
[4:02] An industry rebrand: Does the word “automotive” still accurately sum up our industry today? Jessica explains why the term “mobility” is becoming the norm and how it can take us into the future.
[7:10] Climbing the ladder: From her first auto industry job at Zipcar to a podcast in the sky with Richard Branson for Virgin Media, here’s how Jessica climbed the mobility ladder to a position at Ford’s Smart Mobility project and beyond.
[11:01] The big split: Ford recently announced that its electric vehicle business would be a venture...
