Alex Luce, Partner at Creative Ventures, talks about investing in first-time founders, the mistakes they tend to make and the green flags that they can show investors. We also touch on some major red flags that Alex sees and how those can be avoided.
Claudine Emeott, Senior Director at Salesforce Impact Fund talks about investing in impact startups and what qualifies one. We narrow in on what founders of impact startups should and shouldn’t do to benefit the most from their unique position.
Benjamin Narasin, Venture Partner at New Enterprise Associates talks about changes he’s seen in the VC space over the last decade+, and about the process of taking one of his companies public. We also discussed alternatives to the pitch decks and ways founders can speed up their fundraising process.
John Helm, Managing Director at Real Estate Technology Ventures talks about investing in proptech, and details the emerging market of rent-tech. John spoke about the future of this field and where he sees rent-tech going in the U.S. as the pandemic reaches its end. We also spoke about the two companies that John has sold and how he arrived at and identified his exit points.
Lee Greene, former founder and CEO of WearAway and current creator & host of the Stairway to CEO podcast talks about making the pivot from startups to airwaves. We also spoke about the acquisition of WearAway and the company got to that point.
Stacy Stubblefield, Co-Founder and CIO at TeleSign that was acquired by BICS in 2017 talks about them lending their first large customers and that leading to a chain reaction that brought even more large customers. We spoke about marketing your startup by implying what large customer you are working with but not disclosing their name and how it can affect your sales. We also spoke about acquisition of TeleSign and how they got there.
Thibauld Favre, co-founder and CEO of Fairmint talks about a new way to raise money from your customers on an ongoing basis. CAFE stands for Continuous Agreement for Future Equity—continuous being the key word—and this new form of fundraising is on the rise.
Anil Advani, founder and managing partner at Inventus Law and founding member and legal advisor at Excelerate talks about choosing the legal support that best suits your startup. We compare pricing of small and big law firms and some automated software that can help startups avoid working with lawyers altogether. Anil also talked about how lawyers should be open to working with such software and supporting startup founders even when things go south.
Corinne Riley, Investor at Greylock talks about how an investment thesis strengthens a VC fund and a founder’s ability to pitch to that fund effectively. We discuss how much time you should spend trying to fit into an investment thesis and if you can expect a fund to make an exception to their thesis on your behalf.
Emily Zheng, Growth Investor at Brookfield Technology Partners, Proptech Vertical lead at EVCA and Board member at Nittany Lion Fund talks about what validation capital is and what it means to raise validation capital. We also discuss late-stage investing and the difference between growth investing and seed investing.
Andrew Unger, Founder and Managing Partner at High Slope and Co-Founder of Better.com talks about early-stage fundraising, and how Better.com has managed to raise so much money. Andrew also speaks about finding the right partners for your venture and what qualifies a good partner.
Petra Griffith, Founder & Managing Director at Wedbush Ventures talks about venture debt as an alternative to venture capital, key resources that founders can utilize in their ecosystem, and about Wedbush and what they invest in. Petra also explains staying ‘focused on the product’ and her own experience with product development.
Armando Biondi is the Co-founder and CEO at BreadcrumbsIO and has invested in 150+ startups. Previously he served as Co-founder and COO of AdEspresso which has since been acquired by Hootsuite. In this episode he spoke about his experience with AdEspresso and how his approach to building a company changed for his second venture.
Daniel Gould, Alexa Business Development Principal at Amazon, Angel Investor , Band of Angels member and Partner at DV Collective Syndicate speaks on how business development at large corporations differs from small startups and what kind of tools and strategies each should use. We also talk about what Daniel likes to invest in and what DV Collective does.
Christopher Hill — strategic advisor at Retina AI, angel investor, and board observer for the city of Los Angeles talks about government support for the startup process, angel investing, and major mistakes founders make on their pitch decks. We also talk about some free resources that founders frequently forget to utilize and about the ways universities support early-stage founders.
Scott Krivokopich, Managing Partner at 1982 Ventures talks about qualifying questions that you need to ask your investors in order to understand who they are, how they work with other founders, and what to expect from them when hard times come. We also speak about 1982 Ventures, what they invest in and what their decision making process looks like.
Lloyed Lobo, co-founder and president of Boast.ai talks about his bootstraps story and how he raised VC funding. We talk about Boast.ai’s recent $100 million funding round, which Lloyed secured while battling COVID-19.
Jeff Ransdell, founder and managing director at Fuel Ventures talks about how investor outreach works with few or no connections to the world of venture capital. We also debate different approaches to "cold outreach" and much more.
Grant Newlin, Founder and General Partner at Newlin.vc tells us about investing in ag-tech and cross-border investing. We discuss how founders in ag-tech should approach fundraising and how their startup strategy should be different from SaaS startups.
Today’s guest is Marcelo Franco, founder at Verve Capital and previously the co-founder of Sacks.com - the largest e-commerce company in South America at the time that it was acquired. Marcelo explains how his company managed to survive the dot com bubble burst and how he eventually sold Sacks.com. We also discuss what Verve Capital is investing in and why Marcelo likes to invest in founders from outside the United States.
Paul Powers, Founder & CEO of Physna talks about the beginnings of his career in startups and the challenges he faced. We talk a lot about NDAs, IP rights and how important those are for startup founders. We also touch on how deep-tech startup founders can prevent their IP from being stolen without involving or bothering investors. If you are a deep-tech founder, this episode is for you.
Rami Essaid, CEO at Finmark, venture partner at Pioneer Fund and partner at IDEA fund partners and previously the founder of Distil Networks that was acquired for over $100million tells the story of Distil Networks. Absolutely insane similarities between the story of Distil Networks and Silicon Valley show, great advice from Rami to early stage founders and much more in this episode.
This educational episode is about constructing financial models on early stages - what exactly do you need to have, what do your investors expect to see on the pitch deck and what are the major mistakes that founders make while constructing financial models? All this is discussed in this short educational episode with Rami Essaid from Finmark.
Victor Gutwein, Founder and Managing Partner at M25 talks about startup ecosystem in the Midwest and how it changed recently due to the pandemic and where will it go once the pandemic is over. He gave a ton of valuable advice to founders located in Midwest and we've touched onto Victor's own experience of starting a scooter company before scooters were a thing.
