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http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2013/09/11/former-nba-star-jamal-mashburn-launches-venture-capital-firm/
Former NBA Star Jamal Mashburn Launches Venture Capital Firm
ByTimothy Hay
Jamal Mashburn wasn’t called “Monster Mash” for nothing. In his heyday as a forward for the Dallas Mavericks, Miami Heat and other teams, his skills put fear into those who had to face him on the court.
But from his earliest days in the National Basketball Association, Mr. Mashburn always had other interests, and always had a Plan B.
“I always wanted to be that guy with the briefcase,” he said. “I saw pro sports from a different angle. I grew up in Harlem, and my dad was a boxer. He worked hard all his life, he sparred with Muhammad Ali. He accomplished a lot, but in the end he had nothing to show for it.
“So, I used to look at those guys with the briefcases and think, ‘What’s inside there?’ To me, it signified the brain, and I had a lifelong desire to carry that briefcase.”
Mr. Mashburn today owns 80 restaurants, a realty company, Toyota and Lexus dealerships and a range of other businesses.
But instead of retiring now that he has learned what is in fact inside all of those briefcases, Mr. Mashburn has reinvented himself again. He has teamed up with another pro athlete–National Football League offensive tackle Winston Justice–to launch a venture capital firm for investing in high-tech startups.
Justice Mashburn Capital Partners, as the Florida-based firm is called, has already made its first investment. The firm participated in a funding round for LevelEleven Inc., a software company bringing game mechanics to the sales departments at large corporations.
The firm has no limited partners outside of Messrs. Mashburn and Justice, who put up their own money to raise a formal investment fund.
The idea percolated over the years, Mr. Mashburn said, as a growing number of teammates and other athletes asked him to invest money for them, something he was not prepared to do in an off-hand way. But the constant queries planted the idea, he said.
Getting pitched on business ventures won’t be new for Mr. Mashburn, but the quality of the pitches will hopefully improve now that he is a venture capitalist, he said.
“Athletes get pitched all the time,” he said. “People have this view that you’re not the smart money, you’re the dumb money. We get pitched mom-and-pop businesses that are not scalable. We get pitched on the marketing side, heavily. We get pitched by people who say their company is the next Google. Well, if you’re the next Google, why are you free to sit here and talk to me on a Tuesday afternoon?”
Nowadays, the pitches are coming from the makers of educational software, digital advertising and analytics products, mobile banking, security and gamification companies, he said.
Asked how he will fit in with the fast-pace world of technology and venture capital, Mr. Mashburn said all pro athletes have an entrepreneurial streak. Just like company founders, they wade out alone into untested waters with only their acumen and skills to fall back on.
“I made my first real business decision at age 10,” he said. “I had wanted to be a baseball player, until this Dominican kid threw a really, really fast fastball at me. At that time, I decided not to be a baseball player.” ________________________________________
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