Phil

Founder & Investment Associate

Phil G Joseph is the Founder of Rep Matters, which is focused on finding creative ways to inspire, educate, and support Black tech founders. While taking a non-linear path into VC, Phil has always told himself ‘If I follow the light and where I feel drawn to, I will end up where I want to be.’ He believes that preparing yourself for the things you want can lead to opportunities and trusting yourself is extremely important. Saying what you want and taking the right actions to get there regardless of knowing the exact path. Living a passion driven life is something that Phil has always done, from working in sports medicine to what he regards as one of his proudest accomplishments; making the transition to VC. He is set out to economically empower the Black community, and is doing so through his work with Rep Matters and as an Investment Associate at Real Ventures.

Today: I am a passion-driven person, I do whatever I feel most passionate about. Early on in my career my passion was around sports medicine so that's what my background is in. I used to train and rehabilitate athletes. That's what I did during my 20’s. I worked with football teams in the US and then Olympic teams in China. My goal was to work in the NFL and be the cool kid on the block. When I got there, I started to think ‘I don't think this is what I want to do.’ That's when I started pivoting and that's when I went to China. While I was there I started doing some soul searching. What do I want to do next in my life? I was reading Malcolm X's autobiography and Steve Job’s autobiography around the same time, and got inspired. I started thinking ‘alright well how am I going to economically empower the black community at scale?’ When I discovered what VC was, I decided it was going to be the tool I used to do that. I didn't know any VC’s, I only knew one person in tech but was like “im doing this”. I quit my job in China from one day to the next, and quit my career. I travelled in Asia for a bit and when I got back home I decided it was time to do this; become a VC.

Tomorrow: I've always been interested in technology, entrepreneurship and building companies. My curiosity isn't just around what the tech is, but how you put it together, build it and sell it. I was very curious about fundraising, and the idea that people are just giving someone with an idea money. I didn't fully understand it, I wanted to know how to leverage that to make the changes in the world that I want to make. I kept thinking: how can I uplift Black communities economically? Everyone has their own ways of effecting the change they want to see in the world and I saw myself as someone who could help change things economically. Healthcare, policy reform and education are systems I kept thinking about. “How can I put myself in a position to create the change I want to see for myself, my family and my community?” Learning about fundraising, building companies and investing was the right path for me.

The Future: Representation to me, means possibility. If you see yourself in someone else, you see yourself as being able to do whatever they've done in a way. It seems attainable. ‘That person came from where I came from, that person looks like me, I can do that too.’ You start to think less about the barriers and how you can actually accomplish things. Representation creates possibility in someone's mind.