The VITALIZE Podcast: Venture Capital | Startups | Angel Investing

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Pejman Nozad (@pejmannozad), the Co-Founder and Founding Managing Partner of Pear VC, a firm specializing in seed stage investments that partners with founders at the earliest stages to turn great ideas into category-defining companies. Over the past two decades, he has been a seed investor in some of the most iconic tech companies including Doordash, Dropbox, Applovin, Gusto, Guardant Health, Branch, Aurora Solar, Soundhound, CourseHero, and others.

As an immigrant from Iran, Pejman did not take the typical path towards becoming a VC. After arriving in the U.S., he lived in an attic above a yogurt shop and then worked at a rug store in downtown Palo Alto. He immersed himself in the vanguard of technology and slowly, with a few small investments, developed a reputation for both identifying talent and taking promising ideas to the next level.

Pejman lives in California with his wife, Mania, and their two children. He was included in the Forbes Midas List in 2021 and 2022 and ranked #1 in the U.S. (#2 in the world) on the Forbes Midas Seed List in 2022.

Website: Pear VC

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pejman/

Twitter: @pejmannozad

Email: pejman@pear.vc

Show Notes:

• Pejman’s fascinating background and journey from Iranian soccer player to carwash and yogurt shop employee to rug salesman to investor
• Where Pejman derives his impressive work ethic
• What compelled Pejman to capitalize on the opportunity to transition from rug salesman to venture capitalist
• What makes a great sales person
• How Pejman was able to break into the industry and establish himself as a great investor and partner
• Fostering authentic connection in an over-networked society
• Building Pear as an institution to serve founders at the earliest stages
• Taking 4 years to convince Mar Hershenson to partner with him and start a fund together
• The process of raising their first fund while building community at Stanford
• What differentiates Pear
• Pear’s model and building their platform
• Pejman’s big vision for Pear
• What they look for in founders at Pear
• Why he prefers to get to know founders in person before investing in them
• What drives Pejman today
• What makes Pear a great partner

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

The VITALIZE Podcast presents: Off Topic, a special series where we dig into a variety of topics, trends, and current events in the startup ecosystem. In this inaugural episode of Off Topic, Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Gale Wilkinson (@galeforceVC) and Andrew Gazdecki (@agazdecki).

Gale is the Founder and Managing Partner at VITALIZE, a seed-stage venture fund and angel community investing in The Work Revolution. Previously, Gale founded IrishAngels, one of the largest angel groups in the world. She has led $65M+ in early-stage deals across 80+ startups. Her experience prior to VC includes founding two failed startups, consulting for new product launches with Nielsen, and strategy with Orbitz. Gale received a BBA with honors from Notre Dame and an MBA with honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She was a founding Board member of the C200 Scholars Network, and she is currently a founding Board member of Chicago Blend, an organization focused on increasing diversity in VC and startups.

Andrew Gazdecki is the Founder and CEO of Acquire (previously MicroAcquire), a founder-friendly startup acquisition marketplace. Acquire aims to consolidate the fragmented acquisition market by giving founders and entrepreneurs a single convenient marketplace to meet, coordinate, and close acquisitions. They provide free and instant access to trusted and vetted buyers with total anonymity and are on a mission to turn founder journeys into success stories and foster the next generation of entrepreneurs. They have more than 100,000 registered buyers, more than 2,000 companies listed for sale, and has facilitated more than 500 deals with a combined value of more than $200 million. Andrew has been an entrepreneur for longer than he can remember. He likes to build stuff, mostly companies, and try to tell a story that goes beyond what the company does to how it’s changing markets. Prior to founding MicroAcquire, he started two companies, Bizness Apps and Altcoin.io, both acquired. He’s been featured in NYT, Forbes, WSJ, Inc.com, and Entrepreneur Magazine, as well as prominent industry blogs such as Mashable, TechCrunch and VentureBeat.

Connect with Andrew Gazdecki:

Website: Acquire (previously MicroAcquire)

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/agazdecki/

Twitter: @agazdecki

Connect with Gale Wilkinson:
Website: VITALIZE Venture Capital 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/galevc/

Twitter: @galeforceVC

VITALIZE Newsletter: Re:VITALIZE

VITALIZE Angel Investing Community: VITALIZE Angels

Show Notes:

• Andrew’s pitch to Elon Musk to get the @acquire Twitter handle for his company’s re-brand
• Gale and Andrew’s thoughts on Elon’s takeover of Twitter
• How Andrew stays positive and motivational on Twitter
• ChatGPT, AI as the next tech frontier, and the challenge of differentiating generative content
• The danger of deep fakes
• The opportunities they see for the future of AI
• Acquire’s potential
• Valuation & acquisition trends and predictions in VC
• Their take on the FTX collapse
• Trends Gale, Andrew, and Justin are excited about in 2023

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Lisa Blau and Amanda Eilian, Founding Partners of Able Partners (@ablepartnersnyc), a health & wellness investment fund focused on supporting visionary, early stage brands in positive living. They aim to support entrepreneurs that are helping to make the daily lives of consumers healthier, happier and more meaningful. They seek to partner with companies that are narrowing the Wellness Gap, and are most focused on overlooked or stigmatized communities that have resulted in underserved markets.

Lisa has spent the last decade as an active investor focused on consumer businesses with a particular interest in supporting women-led entrepreneurial ventures. Previously, she co-founded VitalJuice.com, a daily email newsletter on healthy living tips and trends that was acquired by Tasting Table. She also helped build and launch Portero, an online luxury goods auction platform sold to Richemont. Lisa chairs the Investor Group of the Leadership Now Project, a membership organization of business professionals committed to renewing democracy. She is a founding member and leader of the TIME’S UP Care Economy Business Council, a coalition of business leaders and companies committed to building a new American care economy, empowering caregivers, and championing gender equality throughout their workforce. She is a Board Member of The New York Public Library, KIPP New York, and Mt. Sinai’s Parenting Center. 

Amanda has been actively investing in early stage consumer companies for the last decade, drawing on her experience as an institutional investor and entrepreneur. Previously, Amanda was the co-founder of Videolicious, an enterprise video creation platform backed by Amazon, and served as its President until it was acquired by Squarespace (NYSE:SQSP). Under Amanda’s leadership, Videolicious grew to over 5 million users in 103 countries, including Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, Walmart, SAP, Verizon and GE. Prior to forming Videolicious, Amanda was a founding partner of Capitol Acquisition Corporation, a special purpose acquisition vehicle (SPAC) that completed a $265 million initial public offering and became Two Harbors Investment Corp., a $3 billion REIT (NYSE:TWO). TWO grew to over $5 billion of market capitalization (including a spin-off). Amanda began her career in private equity and mergers and acquisitions. Amanda serves on the Board of Directors of the Melanoma Research Alliance and is a member of the Tech:NYC Leadership Council. 

Website: Able Partners

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lisa-jacobs-blau-8284133/ & linkedin.com/in/amanda-eilian-13025b6/

Twitter: @ablepartnersnyc

Email: info@ablepartners.nyc

Show Notes:

• Able Partners’ focus and investment thesis
• Investing in primarily women-led companies
• Why Lisa and Amanda chose to make the jump from founder to investor
• Able Partners’ strong thesis around the wellness gap and some of their investments that embody this
• Deal flow at a very thesis-driven fund
• Important soft skills successful founders need to have
• Trusting your gut on founder red flags
• The power of thoughtful brand building
• The importance of creative connection and community in today’s world
• How to diversify the VC asset class and startup ecosystem

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Jenny Fielding (@jefielding), General Partner at The Fund, a first-of-its-kind venture fund fueled by a community of brilliant founders & operators. The Fund invests in mission-driven, technology-enabled companies at the earliest stages. They are a generalist fund with a focus on the basic stuff we need to live: money, health and work, and have invested in the pre-seed rounds of 200+ companies in 4.5 years. They’ve pooled capital, networks, and expertise to help grow startup ecosystems around the globe in a radical new way, and unlike traditional venture capital, they involve their community in everything they do.

Jenny is a 2x entrepreneur and knows how challenging it is to build great products, inspire a team, and keep the lights on. She spends her time working to surround founders with the resources they need to survive + thrive. She has been the first check into 200+ startups including: Chainalysis, Alloy, Latch, Tempo Automation, Headway, Supergreat, Dash, Contra, Particle Health, Bloomscape, Simple Health, Pair Eyewear, Solo Funds, Halp, Minded, Rupa Health, Morty, Wagmo, Smarthop, Solid, PathSpot, Remesh, Cube, OnePipe, Union Crate, Season, Parsley Health and many more. She is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University where she spent many years as a student.

Website: The Fund
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jennyfielding/
Twitter: @jefielding
Email: J@thefund.vc

Show Notes:

• What Jenny is working on today at The Fund and their “by founders for founders” model
• The logistics of expanding to ten cities and deciding where to launch
• The Fund’s structure and the strategy behind it
• The evolution of The Fund’s growth from fund I to fund III
• The Fund’s investment thesis
• Their portfolio-to-portfolio model and how they’re approaching growth strategically
• How they leverage their diverse community to execute diligence
• The Fund’s venture partners
• What distinguishes good CEOs from great CEOs
• Jenny’s thoughts on valuations in the current 2022 market
• Jenny’s advice for becoming a better investor
• Innovation in highly regulated industries
• Trends Jenny is excited about in the Future of Work
• The value of in-person activity and events
• Merging the experiences of being a founder and investor as a GP at a micro fund

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

In this episode, Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks again with Gale Wilkinson (@galeforceVC), Founder and Managing Partner at VITALIZE, a seed-stage venture fund and angel community investing in The Work Revolution. In this round with Gale, we dig into how she conducts initial founder calls for VITALIZE.

Previously, Gale founded IrishAngels, one of the largest angel groups in the world. She has led $65M+ in early-stage deals across 80+ startups. Her experience prior to VC includes founding two failed startups, consulting for new product launches with Nielsen, and strategy with Orbitz. Gale received a BBA with honors from Notre Dame and an MBA with honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She was a founding Board member of the C200 Scholars Network, and she is currently a founding Board member of Chicago Blend, an organization focused on increasing diversity in VC and startups.

Website: VITALIZE Venture Capital 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/galevc/

Twitter: @galeforceVC

VITALIZE Newsletter: Re:VITALIZE

VITALIZE Angel Investing Community: VITALIZE Angels

Show Notes:

• What Gale looks to get out of initial founder calls
• Gale’s secret to running founder calls
• The general script Gale uses and how she tailors it contextually
• What helps founders stand out
• How Gale takes notes during the call
• Gale’s mindset in initial evaluation of founders and the process for a founder to make it through to diligence
• How these calls differ for Gale as a VC fund manager vs as an angel investor
• Behavioral red flags from founders
• How Gale has adjusted to remote founder calls
• Process and company red flags to look out for
• Factors to consider when determining ownership terms
• How founders/investors should prepare for calls with investors/LPs
• The importance of showing up authentically
• Gale’s thoughts on giving feedback on calls
• What founders should ask VCs

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Richard Kerby (@kerby), Co-Founder and General Partner at Equal Ventures, a seed stage focused fund backing the founders and businesses transforming society and industry. Prior to Equal Ventures, Richard was an investor at Venrock, where he led seed stage and Series A stage investments in 6Sense, Amino Apps, Beckon, Burner, Luxe Valet, and Salsify. 

Prior to joining Venrock, Richard was an investor at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), where he focused on identifying and evaluating later-stage investments. While at IVP, Richard worked with IVP portfolio companies such as Dropbox, FleetMatics, PopSugar, Shazam, and Yext. Previously, Richard worked in the Investment Banking Division of Credit Suisse. 

Richard is a proud Georgetown alum and is a rabid Hoyas basketball fan. He is also the founder of Stealth Mode, a community of more than 1,500 African American founders, operators and investors.

Website: Equal Ventures

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richardkerby/

Twitter: @kerby

Email: kerby@equal.vc

Show Notes:

• Equal Ventures' investment thesis and the strategy behind being generalists
• Deciding to start a fund instead of joining an existing one
• Richard’s key learnings as an emerging manager
• What being hands-on with their founders means at Equal Ventures
• Their all “hands on deck” approach to building the Equal Ventures team
• Running the Emerging Managers Circle and deciding to host summits
• Trends Richard is excited about
• Richard’s view on remote vs. in-person
• How Equal Ventures evaluates founders
• Richard’s advice for emerging managers

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Ray Kallmeyer, CEO and Founder of Enklu (@ExperienceEnklu). After a decades-long career in the AAA video games industry, Ray founded Enklu in 2016 and built and deployed the first wave of spatial apps in augmented reality for the Microsoft HoloLens globally. He now helps enterprises accelerate their spatial transformation with an end-to-end solution which empowers today’s workforce with tomorrow’s technology.

Enklu’s mission is to empower creators with transparent technology. Ray believes in a future where technology fades into the background and people can become more present with each other and their environment.

Ray is an entrepreneur, startup advisor, patent author, featured artist, and public speaker at universities such USC, Stanford, and MIT.

Website: Enklu

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/raykallmeyer/

Twitter: @ExperienceEnklu

Show Notes:

• Enklu and its origin story that stems back to Ray’s childhood
• Why Ray chose entrepreneurship
• The “reality distortion field” and building innovative technology
• Identifying Enklu’s ideal customer profile and use cases
• The realities of how the metaverse and AR will impact the future of work and the world
• Enklu’s big vision

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Andrew Berman (@berman66), Co-Founder and CEO of Vowel, the world's first complete meeting solution designed to make every meeting more inclusive and worthwhile – before, during, and after. Vowel is a collaboration platform that makes meetings searchable, shareable centers of knowledge for your business. By redefining what data capture is capable of, they are optimizing the potential of every team.

They are a remote-first company whose 20+ employees span four continents. Their team is made up of engineers, designers, inventors, entrepreneurs and security experts – from leading organizations like Google, Bridgewater, Nanit, Airbnb, Casper, Recombine and others. They’re building both an inclusive product and an inclusive team that celebrates diverse cultures and backgrounds. 

Andrew’s inspiration is to apply new technology to build products that can touch millions of people in ways that were impossible before. He is also the founder of Nanit, the first camera to track human behavior (the leading baby monitor), an experienced investor from seed to LBO stages (Silicon Valley, NY and other markets), and an active and experienced angel investor (with investments in SaaS, Security, Healthcare, Consumer and CV/AI).

Website: Vowel

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aberman/

Twitter: @berman66

Use coupon code: JUSTGOGRIND for 3 months free of unlimited seats on Vowel’s
Pro plan (monthly only)!

Show Notes:

• How Vowel is creating instant searchable, shareable knowledge through a modern video conferencing tool
• Andy’s journey to founding Vowel
• How the idea for Vowel stemmed from Nanit’s pain points as a distributed team
• Early distribution and organic growth through Twitter
• How Vowel’s original use-cases have expanded naturally and leaning into user-led product development
• Giving their users a 10x improved media experience through their next generation video platform
• The challenges of building Vowel
• Recruiting the original founding team
• Building remote-first company culture
• The fundraising process and Vowel’s powerful cap table of operator- angel investors
• How to vet investors
• Their B2B growth strategy
• Developing their freemium business model
• How they view competition and taking on legacy brands
• Learnings as a multi-time founder and former VC
• What motivates Andy to challenge the status quo and build innovative companies
• Andy’s thoughts on the future of work and running remote teams
• Snagging the vowel.com domain name

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Matt Cohen (@mattybcohen), Founder and Managing Partner at Ripple Ventures, an early-stage venture fund seeking investments in B2B SaaS Startups in various industries ripe for disruption with a focus on workflow automation and data & analytics platforms. As serial entrepreneurs, they are actively involved with all their investments and aren't scared to roll up their sleeves and get dirty. They support entrepreneurs who seek to revolutionize the most competitive global industries by solving difficult problems with the most unique solutions. Their industry focuses include: enterprise software, healthcare technology, and industrial technology. Matt founded Ripple Ventures in 2018 to help entrepreneurs and start-ups learn from his experiences while giving them more than just capital to succeed. With their 'Operators-First' approach, they work with companies every day not just every quarter. 

Matt Cohen is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist focused on early-stage technology. He knows the risk entrepreneurs take when starting a company, and understands what helps them succeed at the earliest stage. He has hands-on experience in selling enterprise SaaS solutions to the top financial institutions globally, and sees the importance of working with trusted advisors and partners early to help scale a business faster.

Website: Ripple Ventures

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/matt-cohen1/

Twitter: @mattybcohen

Podcast: Tank Talks

Show Notes:

• How the many facets of Ripple were developed
• How to build resilient companies
• The decision to build The Tank – a physical incubator space
• How the pandemic impacted The Tank
• How Matt is supporting their founders with mental health
• Building strong infrastructure to withstand unstable markets
• Transparency in their relationship with LPs
• Their concentrated portfolio and deployment strategy through Fund III
• Their Ripple Fellowship Program to support underrepresented founders and future funders
• Matt’s perspective on the future of Web3
• Matt’s family office and how he began investing as an LP

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Brandon Brooks (@OfficialBBrooks), tech entrepreneur, founder & founding partner at Overlooked Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on transparently supporting and investing in early-stage tech and tech-enabled startups with one or more historically ignored founder that are building for humanity, wellness, and in industries lacking innovation.

Brandon has partnered with organizations such as the Pittsburgh Steelers and Players Coalition on various social justice initiatives. With his experience as a bootstrapped tech founder, he looks to share his experiences and insights with other overlooked founders so their startups can excel. Keep an eye out for Brandon’s next project, to be announced in 2023!

Website: Overlooked Ventures

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/inventrify/

Twitter: @OfficialBBrooks
Email: brooks@zinsu.co

Show Notes:

• How Brandon is serving founders in the ecosystem through Inventrify, the first black-owned crowdfunding platform in U.S. and Overlooked Ventures, which he founded with Janine Sickmeyer
• Why Brandon feels a responsibility to solve the problems he’s tackling
• How Brandon’s community approach to venture stems from his upbringing
• The early days of launching Overlooked Ventures
• The role audio spaces played in enabling Brandon to build a network and being a very early Clubhouse user
• Developing the thesis for Overlooked Ventures and discovering their value-add as investors
• Making the democratization of VC a reality by intentionally not taking warm intros
• How Brandon found direction for his next project and how he stays true to his vision and beliefs
• How to handle difficult conversations
• How Brandon is approaching things differently as he builds his newest venture

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Rachel Cossar (@rachelonpointe), Co-Founder and CEO of Virtual Sapiens, a machine learning SaaS platform leveraging AI to help client-facing professionals measurably improve their comfort and confidence in order to master communication skills over video. Like a virtual coach, Virtual Sapiens leverages expert knowledge in body language and presence and provides convenient avenues for receiving personalized feedback and coaching. Users can benchmark their video presence and improvement in their own time with their Virtual Presence Assessment. Users can also use their in-call communication coach, the Sidekick, to receive in-call coaching nudges and encouragements to ensure every call is a success. Both solutions come with progress tracking analytics, so you can actually see your progress over time. Virtual Sapiens amplifies human connection, builds human skills, and leverages cutting edge technology to do so at scale over time. Virtual Sapiens is a VITALIZE portfolio company.

Rachel Cossar is a leader in the field of nonverbal communication and leadership presence facilitation. As a former nationally ranked athlete and professional ballet dancer, Rachel has a knack for translating unique skills into relatable business competencies. Virtual Sapiens, Rachel's most recent venture, comes as an evolution of her combined work as founder of Choreography for Business, a nonverbal communication consulting firm, as well as a faculty member with Mobius Executive Leadership and as a leadership presence facilitator with Ariel Group. Rachel has worked with leaders from GE, BCG, Pfizer, Accenture, McKinsey, HBS and more.

Rachel believes in the power of leveraging unique channels of communication in their own ways. Whether it is in person, on stage, or on video, human connection is the key to organizational impact. At Virtual Sapiens and in all endeavors, Rachel is known to lean in to the future, to uncertainty, and to strengthening human experiences in business and beyond. Rachel's thought leadership has been featured on the TEDx Northeastern stage, Harvard Business Review, The Boston Globe, Psychology Today and more.

Website: Virtual Sapiens

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rachel-cossar/

Twitter: @rachelonpointe

Show Notes:

• What Virtual Sapiens is
• Rachel’s background as a professional ballet dancer and how it led her to found Virtual Sapiens
• How Rachel leveraged the pandemic transition to a virtual world to get Virtual Sapiens off the ground
• The question of bringing on a technical cofounder vs. outsourcing
• How Rachel connected with her technical co-founder, and deciding to work together
• Product development from original vision to today
• How early feedback provided validation and informed product development
• Their ideal customer and how that profile shifted since inception
• How Rachel envisions Virtual Sapiens fitting into the Future of Work
• The decision to go through an accelerator and choosing the Roux Institute chapter of Techstars
• Virtual Sapiens’ business model and pricing strategy
• Lessons from the first 2 years of running a tech startup
• The big vision for Virtual Sapiens

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Anna Barber (@annawbarber), partner at M13, a venture firm accelerating businesses in the future of consumer behavior with four pillars: Health, Money, Work and Commerce. 

M13 is building a team of industry-leading operating executives to help founders make better decisions and win in their category. They believe founders deserve an investor who propels them on their mission of transforming an idea into a successful company, while staying out of their way. This is why they are building a Venture Engine, a full-service venture firm that provides the right people, platform, and partnerships for founding teams to build high-velocity businesses. M13 injects capital to fuel high-growth, while helping founding teams fill gaps in their businesses through their Propulsion Team, which provides strategic counsel, operational expertise, and a constellation of talent, experts, and resources to accelerate growth. Where they see whitespace in an industry, their Launchpad develops the right founding teams, products, and practices to incubate and launch an idea from inception.

An investing partner at M13, Anna is focused on Series A and seed. Previously, she was the managing director of Techstars LA and also a partner in The Fund LA. A certified executive coach, Anna has been a corporate lawyer, McKinsey consultant, product exec, talent manager, film producer, round-the-world traveler and outdoor adventurer. As an entrepreneur, she has been a founder, co-founder and early employee at e-commerce, media and ed tech startups. She serves on the Advisory Board of PledgeLA and is a member of AllRaise.

Website: M13

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/annawbarber/

Twitter: @annawbarber

Show Notes:

• M13’s investment focus
• Anna’s path to becoming a partner at M13
• The learning process and adjustment from investing at pre-seed and early stage to Series A
• How M13’s studio arm, Launchpad, supports their core investing strategy
• M13’s structure and Launchpad’s unique incubation strategy
• Areas Anna is excited about investing in and some of her recent investments (including AllVoices, Northstar and WeeCare)
• Anna’s reflections on tech for working mothers
• Anna’s insights on how Gen Z trends will affect the future of work and commerce
• How Anna approaches supporting founders
• The M13 team’s Propulsion model of portfolio support
• Anna’s experience creating community and inclusion through The Fund LA and Pledge LA and LA Tech Week
• Evaluating founders for Series A investments at M13
• Anna’s fascinating Air Guitar era
• How Anna embodies her mom’s fierceness

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

This is a special episode pulled from the VITALIZE vault—back when The VITALIZE Podcast was Talking Venture! Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Allison Robinson (@mrsrobinson_a), CEO and Founder of The Mom Project, a VITALIZE portfolio company. The Mom Project is a digital talent marketplace and community that connects professionally accomplished women with world-class companies for rewarding employment opportunities. They are changing the way women work and redefining career structures by providing women with real work opportunities that are in balance with their personal goals. This evolution will keep more talented, professionally accomplished women in the workforce. As of September 2022, The Mom Project hit a major milestone: their talent community is now home to over 1 million moms, dads, and allies. 

After having her son Asher in 2015, Allison identified how universally challenging it can be for American mothers to juggle the demands of motherhood with a full-time career and decided to tackle the issue on a national scale. Prior to founding The Mom Project, Allison spent 7 years at Procter and Gamble working on go-to-market strategies for leading household brands with a special focus on moms during her tenure on the Pampers brand.

Website: The Mom Project

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/allison-m-robinson/

Twitter: @mrsrobinson_a

Email: allison.robinson@themomproject.com

Show Notes:

• How The Mom Project is connecting talented women with world-class employers as a marketplace matchmaker and their growth plans for the future
• Allison’s journey from joining Procter & Gamble at the age of 19 to founding The Mom Project
• The customer discovery process and steps Allison took to build an MVP
• Deciding to partner with an agency to build their product
• Leveraging their mission to pitch and onboard companies for The Mom Project’s marketplace
• From bootstrapping to VC fundraising
• What has fueled The Mom Project’s growth
• Their three-pronged go-to-market strategy and scaling by minimizing friction
• Developing their business model
• What moms want from work
• The pandemic’s impact on working moms and how it further validated The Mom Project’s mission
• Acquiring Werk and Glassbreaker and how they approached integration
• Launching their 501c3 Rise to elevate women of color
• The platform’s user experience for moms
• How they’ve solved the supply-demand matching challenge by strategically engaging moms beyond job placement
• Building out The Mom Project’s team
• How Allison’s role as CEO and founder has evolved since the early days
• Allison’s view on the Future of Work, particularly for moms
• How she views the potential of the creator economy
• How Allison stays inspired

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Dan Kimerling (@dkimerling), Founder and Managing Partner of Deciens Capital, a venture capital firm that supports early-stage founders building the next generation of enduring companies in financial services.

Deciens Capital exclusively focuses on financial technology investments with interests in payments, lending, insurance, regtech, risk management, capital markets, trade finance, personal finance, savings, marketplaces, and much more. They seek visionary founders at the earliest stage of their company's life. They support their founders with advice, expertise, relationships, and, yes, capital.

Dan Kimerling is a start-up veteran with three exits, an angel with 30+ deals, an experienced GP, LP, and CxO. He is focused on the future of Financial Services in the US and abroad. Educated at the University of Chicago, YCombinator, and Kauffman Fellows.

Website: Deciens

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dkimerling/

Twitter: @dkimerling

Show Notes:

• Deciens’ investment thesis
• How hard criteria, soft criteria, and timing must align to get a yes from Deciens
• Why leading deals is key to their thesis
• The reality of the transition from angel investing to running a fund
• The parallels between enterprise sales and raising a fund
• The challenge of how to market Deciens authentically and learning to tell their story engagingly
• Deciens’ Venture Partner role dedicated to capital partnerships and capital formation
• The importance of partnering a great product with successful sales marketing as a VC fund
• How Dan’s experience as a founder/operator has influenced how he works with founders as an investor
• Common failure patterns among VC funds
• Deciens’ investment in Sydecar
• Key traits to look for in a founder
• Deciens’ investment in Chipper Cash
• What’s next for Deciens

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Bobby Franklin, the President and CEO of the National Venture Capital Association (@nvca) and Board Chair of Venture Forward. Since 2013, Bobby Franklin has led the venture community’s preeminent trade association focused on empowering the next generation of transformative American companies. As president and CEO of NVCA, he champions public policy that supports the American entrepreneurial ecosystem, making NVCA the dominant voice of the U.S startup ecosystem.

In 2020, Franklin led the launch of Venture Forward, NVCA’s connected organization which drives the industry’s human capital by promoting a strong, diverse, and inclusive venture community that will fuel the economy of tomorrow. Through its VC University program, Venture Forward has educated more than 1500 aspiring and early career VCs, many from historically underrepresented communities.

In 2022, he started hosting NVCA’s first-ever podcast called Venture Capitol. The show provides listeners a unique look at public policy through the eyes of America’s venture capitalists who are investing in the high growth companies of tomorrow. The podcast brings together VCs, policymakers, and policy influencers to discuss and debate issues that impact our nation’s economic future.

Prior to joining NVCA, Franklin spent ten years at CTIA, representing the entire wireless industry. Before CTIA, he served as Vice President, Federal Government Affairs and head of Alltel’s Washington, D.C. office. Franklin began his professional career with eight years of experience on Capitol Hill working for Senator David Pryor (D-AR). Franklin earned his B.S.B.A. in Finance and Banking from the University of Arkansas. He and his wife, Julia, have three young adults and reside in Arlington, VA.
 
Websites: NVCA & Venture Forward
NVCA's Podcast hosted by Bobby: Venture Capitol
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bfranklindc/
Twitter: @nvca
 
Show Notes:

• NVCA: lobbyists for the entrepreneurial ecosystem
• Recent policy trends and updates affecting the VC/startup ecosystem and the potential impact they’ll have
• NVCA membership as a resource for keeping up with VC policy changes
• How NVCA determines which policies to prioritize and the balance between playing offensively and defensively in policymaking
• Where NVCA is currently focusing their energy and what changes Bobby wants to see in the industry
• How Venture Forward is diversifying the industry by democratizing access to information and education about being a VC
• The 2022 VC Human Capital Survey as the definitive resource on VC demographics
• Bobby’s thoughts on the LP-GP dynamic and the long game nature of the industry
• The challenge of policy-makers’ disconnect from the VC industry
• Bobby’s observations from a decade in VC policy
• What can be done to advance the industry beyond the JOBS Act
• Industry trends Bobby is excited about
• Why you need to pay attention to and engage with VC policy-making

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Patrick Utz (@PatrickUtz), Co-Founder & CEO of Abstract, the premier platform and database for working with California state & local legislation that’s bringing lobbying and advocacy into a new era by increasing government transparency. Abstract streamlines how you research and track bills, organize notes, brief stakeholders, and collaborate over legislation in real-time. More than just a bill tracker, Abstract provides the tools necessary to influence legislation and keep stakeholders aligned, all in one place.

Abstract is a VITALIZE portfolio company that recently raised $2.5M from several notable investors, on their thesis of becoming the gateway for understanding messy government data. 

Website: Abstract

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/patrick-utz/

Twitter: @PatrickUtz

Show Notes:

• How Abstract is increasing government transparency
• Abstract’s origin story as a university senior project
• The evolution of Abstract’s product development
• Leaning into their mission to get an alumni from their university to build Abstract’s front-end for free
• Early customer acquisition through cold outreach
• Determining their ideal customer base and what Patrick would have done differently
• Securing funding after 60+ rejections: all while still attending university
• Defining their early north star metric
• How they run pilot programs to construct a product road map
• Structuring Abstract’s business model and the dark art of pricing
• The huge market opportunity for Abstract
• What puts Abstract above their competition
• Hiring to elevate not to delegate, and leveraging their mission to win over tech talent
• What’s next for Abstract
• The decision to build a mobile app
• The big vision for Abstract

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Zach Hudson (@nosduhz), co-founder of Deft, an ad-free, SEO-free search engine for e-commerce. A VITALIZE portfolio company, they are building the future of e-commerce search by enabling its users to find, research, and buy products all in one place.

Zach has 7+ years of experience in e-commerce and gaming technologies, and is a second-time founder. He is a product manager by trade, and a self-taught developer.

Website: Deft

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/hudsonzp/

Twitter: @nosduhz

Show Notes:

• How Deft is enabling trustworthy e-commerce searches
• The evolution of Deft’s product over the last 2 years (since their presentation to Tyler Cowen)
• Zach’s background and how he teamed up with co-founder Alex Gunnarson
• Narrowing down their target and why they started in the furniture and home decor category
• Early customer discovery and product development via their “Wizard of Oz” approach
• How they drove early customer acquisition via organic communities
• From non-scalable acquisition strategies to the diversification of channels
• The challenges and complexities of indexing products
• The evolution of Deft’s business model
• Determining where to establish a paywall for their product
• Taking on Amazon and Google, and what differentiates Deft
• How they vet investors
• Establishing roles and responsibilities as co-founders
• How being data driven fuels their growth
• Which metrics they value most
• Creating stickiness in their product
• What’s next for Deft
• Developing a browser extension and making UX effortless

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Marlon Nichols (@MarlonCNichols), the founding managing partner at MaC Venture Capital, a seed-stage venture capital firm that invests in visionary founders building the future that the world wants to see, and helping entrepreneurs bring the future into focus to find their breakthrough moment. MaC Venture Capital is the result of the merger between successful Los Angeles and Bay Area based Seed funds, Cross Culture Ventures and M Ventures. They are focused on finding ideas, technology, and products that can become infectious, investing in technology companies that benefit from shifts in cultural trends and behaviors in an increasingly diverse global marketplace. They recently raised their $203M Fund II.

Marlon is a Kauffman Fellow who also serves on the Board of Directors. Prior to MaC Venture Capital, Marlon was founder of Cross Culture Ventures and served as Investment Director at Intel Capital. Marlon has an extensive background in technology, private equity, media and entertainment. His unique eye for global and cultural trends, along with shifts in consumer behavior, has helped him uplift and accelerate entrepreneurs and companies that are on the verge of their breakthrough moment. Some of his current and previous portfolio companies include Blavity, Gimlet Media, LISNR, Mayvenn, MongoDB, PlayVS, Pipe, Thrive Market and Wonderschool, among others.

Marlon was recently honored as a member of the 2022 class of the LA500 list and as a top early stage investor on Insider’s 2022 Seed 100 list. Additionally, he is the recipient of MVMT50’s SXSW 2018 Innovator of the Year award, Digital Diversity’s Innovation & Inclusion Change Agent award and was a TechWeek 100 winner. He was named Pitchbook’s 25 Black Founders and VCs to Watch in 2018, 2019 and 2020, and one of Silicon Republic's 26 VC professionals spearheading change. Marlon has been featured on TechCrunch, Fortune, Cheddar, MSNBC, Blavity and NBC, and is adjunct faculty in entrepreneurship and venture capital at the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University.

Website: MaC Venture Capital

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/marloncnichols/

Twitter: @MarlonCNichols

Marlon on the Just Go Grind Podcast in March 2021: Episode #285 on JGG

Show Notes:

• What enabled MaC Venture Capital to double their first raise, closing a $203M Fund II
• The value of a strong reserves strategy
• MaC Venture Capital’s investment in Pipe, which transforms recurring revenue into up-front capital for growth without dilution or restrictive debt
• The story behind MaC Venture Capital’s investment in Truebill, now Rocket Money (check out Co-Founder Haroon Mokhtarzada’s episode on the Just Go Grind podcast)
• What makes a stellar founder
• How they ended up investing in Mahmee and what makes their founder Melissa Hanna such an investable founder
• Where Marlon is excited to invest next
• How Marlon educates himself on new geographies and markets
• Marlon’s perspective on investing in the current market downturn

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Shruti Gandhi (@atShruti), founder and General Partner of Array Ventures, a venture capital firm that focuses on solving impactful problems in the world leveraging revolutionary technology. Often that means category-leading startups that take advantage of data, analytics, workflows, and new platforms to change the way an industry works. They invest in smart people with a bold mission who take big risks in large or new markets.

Shruti brings a strong mix of operating and investing experience. She spent her early career as a developer on mainframe security, collaboration tools, and data analytics. Post engineering, she was an early stage venture capital investor at True Ventures, Samsung Electronics, Lightbank, HighBAR Partners, and the i2A Fund. She is also professor in the Computer Science department at Columbia University.

Website: Array Ventures

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shrutigandhi/

Twitter: @atShruti

Show Notes:

• Array Ventures’ investment focus
• How a failed company led Shruti to found Array Ventures and determine their thesis
• Raising a fund as a solo female GP back in 2015 and her early pitch to investors
• Investing in solutions that solve agitating pain points in enterprise tech stacks
• What founders can expect with Array on their cap table
• How Shruti’s extensive background impacts where she invests
• Signals that Shruti looks for to identify breakout companies at a very early stage, such as Placer.ai
• The complexities around being a solo GP
• How raising Fund III differed from the first two
• Growing the Array Ventures team after raising a $56M Fund III
• Array Ventures’ portfolio construction and ownership targets
• The impact Shruti has personally felt with the increasing number of women in VC
• How Shruti views trends and evaluates innovation in enterprise software
• Shruti’s unique view on remote work
• How Shruti manages her mental wellbeing
• Balancing the many stakeholders in VC

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Peter Barba (@pbarba_22) and Zygimantas (Zygi) Zabieta (@zzabieta), Co-Founders of Lectrium, a full-service platform for EV home charging on a mission to make every home EV-ready. They make the home charging installation process easy through their network of EVITP certified electricians. At Lectrium, they believe that true carbon neutrality can be achieved only if the transition to EVs is frictionless, and their ambition is to standardize and reduce the cost of the installation process and remove financial barriers for EV adoption.

Peter Barba played Division 1 basketball in college and left his job in investment banking to attend Antler’s disruptive startup builder in Oslo, Norway, where he met his co-founder. He is passionate about climate technology, electric vehicles, blockchain, and building businesses. 

Zygi Zabieta loves innovation, EVs, blockchain, renewables, politics, and sustainable planning. He is also a public speaker, host & co-founder of Impact Meetups Vilnius, Community Champion for Nordics and Baltics at WEF Global Shapers, and got his Master of Science degree in Environmental Management & Policy at Lund University (IIIEE).

Website: Lectrium

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/peter-barba/ and linkedin.com/in/zabieta/

Twitter: @pbarba_22 and @zzabieta

Show Notes:

• How Lectrium is making U.S. homes EV-ready
• Lectrium’s origin story
• How they ended up at the Antler accelerator
• How Peter and Zygi met at Antler, bonded, and decided to work together
• The evolution of Lectrium during the Antler program—how a bad idea became the goldmine
• What customer discovery looked like for Lectrium
• Product development and using no-code tools (Zyro and Typeform) for initial building
• Getting their first paying customers
• Lectrium’s business model and customer acquisition
• Bottom-up vs. top-down dealership acquisition strategies
• How they’re approaching growth in these early stages
• How new U.S. public EV charging mandates could affect Lectrium
• The argument for residential vs. public EV charging
• The potential for partnering with auto-manufacturers directly
• Onboarding electricians and their role in Lectrium’s success
• How they’re approaching brand recognition and marketing, and startup showers as the new baby showers
• How they’re managing a distributed team across time zones
• Their execution plan to succeed as market leaders in the next few years

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/