Ep 07 - Christy Johnson - Cultivating Resilience Through Adaptation, Partnership and Growth
Episode Summary
Christy Johnson, performance engineering lead at VIP Ventures, shares her unconventional path from international microfinance to steel manufacturing to venture capital. She discusses her seven-year tenure as interim-then-permanent CEO of a portfolio company, the firm's hands-on 'performance engineering' approach to supporting founders, and how COVID-19 transformed her company into a successful fully-remote operation.
Key Quotes
"We take a much more collaborative approach because we have to. We're trying to help you do the best work of your life and help you be madly successful. If they just want a check, we are absolutely not the right group to work with."
"It's very easy to have ideas. It's way more difficult to execute on those ideas. I look back on things I probably said when I was on the other side of the table and I cringe. It definitely helped me have a lot more empathy."
"Within the first six weeks of going remote we lost our first and second largest customers. I turned to my husband and said, I'm not sure we're gonna make it. We had to dig deep and make a commitment to each other."
Transcript
Hi welcome to Tales From The Sky Lounge. It's a podcast about business venture and consulting. We go out there in the world and we find people who are making it happen in the tech world and we go and talk to them and get their stories.
So today in the Sky Lounge we have Christy Johnson with VIP Ventures. Hi Christy, welcome to the Sky Lounge.
Hey Todd, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Good to be here.
So Christy, tell us a little bit about how your early career went and how did you find your way to VIP Ventures?
Yeah, so I think for the normal path that people go through, I had a very unorthodox one. When I went to graduate school, I thought I was going to be expat. I got what's called an IMBA, so an International MBA. And I thought that I would spend my career outside the US probably with a very large enterprise company. My first job out of school was a joint venture between the IMF and the World Bank, and they were giving micro loans to very small companies. So I had the nice opportunity to go to Costa Rica and I got to work there a couple years with very small businesses, mostly artisans, and working with them so that they had the capacity to pay the loan back. It was a really wonderful experience. Got to work with a lot of wonderful people and got to see the impact that just small changes within a very small company can make a big difference on the outcome.
Want to go deeper?
Work With MeRelated Episodes
Ep 09 - Bart Foster: Grit Becomes Growth, the Path from Pain to Transformation
Bart Foster shares his journey from corporate executive to founder of SoloHealth, a health screening kiosk company that scaled to 4,000 Walmart locations before he was forced out by his board. After moving to Boulder, Colorado, he founded Business Outside, which uses nature-based experiences to help corporate teams build authentic connections and develop intentional leadership approaches.
Ep 04 - Mark Flickinger: From Rowing to Venture Capital - Lessons in Teamwork and Growth
Mark Flickinger, partner at BIP Ventures, discusses his journey from mechanical engineering and competitive rowing to venture capital. He explains BIP's platform-heavy approach with 50 employees supporting both investors and portfolio companies, their focus on high net worth LPs, and strategies for helping founders navigate the current market environment. Flickinger emphasizes the importance of solving real problems, building strong boards, and maintaining discipline during economic uncertainty.
Ep22 Bryan Dennstedt—2025 Trends: AI, Venture Capital, and the Future of Work!
Bryan Dennstedt, fractional CTO at Tech CXO and sustainable investing advocate, discusses 2025 technology and business trends with host Todd. They explore venture capital's post-SVB recovery, AI's practical applications and limitations, the evolution of marketing through influencer content and podcasts, and emerging shifts in crypto regulation, intellectual property, and remote work culture.