EP 26: If you want Dave dollars, this top 10 list is for you.

Mark Engelen, co-founder of RxLive joins us for a portfolio profile.

This long Covid pandemic not only reshuffled the deck for many of us, it flung the deck up into the air and torched it like one of those fire breathers at the circus. But it's long been known that game changing societal events bring game changing opportunity. Accordingly the last year saw startups thrive, hibernate and throw in the towel. In this episode Dave runs us through the Seedfunders portfolio, and startup investments in general, to see who has built up an immunity and who had to get a note from their doctor.

'If you believe that, I've got some swamp land in Florida I'd love to sell you." That round about way of calling someone gullible actually has a pretty nefarious history. For decades, unscrupulous hucksters sold Florida swamp land, Brooklyn Bridges and timeshares on the moon to unwitting buyers. The government stepped in and created rules to help protect investors from being ripped off. That was tough to accomplish on a deal by deal basis, so the protection was built around the investor - the assumption being that if you were worth a good amount of money, you probably knew what you were doing. Thus the concept of being accredited was born.

In the last few years, that protection has started to do more harm than good. The internet has made buyers savvier and startups desire access to the investment dollars held by the masses. The SEC has listened and has developed new regulations that open investing up to all. In this episode, Dave walks us through these revolutionary changes.

The Yogi-isms could not be contained to one episode, so we made it a double header. In today's episode, we continue studying the unintentional startup wisdom contained in Yogi's cryptic quotes.

Yogi Berra was one of the greatest catchers in baseball history. He won 3 MVPs and 10 World Series. He lead multiple teams to the World Series as a coach. He was pretty awesome on the field, but is perhaps even more famous for his Yogi-isms. They might not make sense at first. They might make your head hurt. They might lead you to unexpected insight, and that's exactly what happened to Dave. He realized that many of Yogi's sayings applied well to startups. In this episode we run through a few of Yogi's best to see what lessons they have for founders and investors.

Dave has officially gone bionic. While I wouldn't dare race him, I will gladly listen to his latest insights on the med-tech space. That's exactly what we do in this episode.

Dave started both of the major investing vehicles in Tampa Bay: Florida Funders and SeedFunders. Between the two, he's reviewed thousands of companies and seen them bloom and bust. In this episode Dave shares how those experiences have shaped his investment decision making. And there's no better way to make the wisdom go down than a top ten list.

Decentralized and trustless blockchain protocols open a universe of services previously reserved for governments or large institutions. The opportunities are massive but many of them require founders and investors to completely change the way they think about societal infrastructure.   Want to be your own bank? Want found a digital nation? Want to invest in a project owned by everyone?  Want to invest in a project owned by no one? Want to do any of those in world where traditional borders mean nothing?  This is the Cryptoverse, and in this episode we go floating around the tin can.

Uber is quite successful, and it has been for while. So long in fact that we've already cycled through startups being the 'Uber of xyz' as a badge of honor to it being an overused cliché. The Uber of 1980, however, would have been...well, hitchhiking. That's because the Uber app doesn't work without GPS which wasn't available then. And also, there were no apps in 1980. Nor smartphones. Timing is important, and it's worth your time to listen to Dave explain why.

In episode 23, Dave walks us through his professional journey. From the steel mills of Pennsylvania he emerged as an unlikely founder, and ultimately became a hero in the Florida startup ecosystem. He's experienced the highs and lows of building, funding and exiting companies, and has been highly adaptable as times have changed. Second best of all, he's willing to share his hard gained insight with us. Best of all, you get that wisdom packaged so that it goes directly into the deepest part of your brain. A place that only the Dave top ten list can reach.