vc_investing

Jenny Lefcourt of Freestyle VC joins Jason for an insightful conversation. They delve into the mission of All Raise and the importance of diversity in venture capital (2:04). Jenny shares her thoughts on embracing non-consensus bets and her experiences investing in Narvar and Discord (20:04). Additionally, they discuss the value of strategy meetings in comparison to traditional board meetings (59:10).

(0:00) Jason kicks off the show

(2:04) Co-Founding All Raise: Promoting Diversity in Venture Capital

(9:53) Prenuvo - Save $300 on Full Body Scans at http://prenuvo.com/twist

(11:23) Biases Towards Certain Business Models

(15:05) Identifying and Avoiding Unsuccessful Business Models

(18:54) LinkedIn Jobs - Post Your First Job for Free at https://linkedIn.com/angel

(20:04) Embracing Non-Consensus Bets

(22:53) Jenny’s Investment in Narvar

(28:16) Understanding the Economics of a Seed Fund

(35:14) Comparing Hype: Generative AI versus Web 3.0

(40:47) Miro - Collaborate with Unlimited Team Members for Free at https://miro.com/startups/

(42:28) Insights from Jenny's Investment in Discord

(47:05) Attaining Product-Market Fit and Making a Significant Impact

(56:56) Exiting Deals: When to Move On

(59:10) Strategy Meetings Compared to Board Meetings

(1:04:04) Jenny's Ideal Timeline for Committing to Investments

FOLLOW Jenny: https://twitter.com/jennylefcourt

FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis

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FOUNDERS! Subscribe to the Founder University podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/founder-university/id1648407190

0:00 Sacks needs the ball

1:43 Trudeau invokes emergency powers to try and stop the truckers protest

13:45 Bitcoin's role in decentralizing currency away from potentially hostile governments

25:37 San Francisco Board of Education recall: what this means for the boundaries of progressivism

42:02 Assessing Tiger Global's new strategy: less late-stage private companies, more Series A and B rounds, more compressed public tech stocks

1:11:24 HIV stem cell breakthrough, Sacks gives some hot takes on Fauci

1:24:59 Sacks' vendetta corner: Sacks vs. Paul Graham

Follow the besties:

https://twitter.com/chamath

https://linktr.ee/calacanis

https://twitter.com/DavidSacks

https://twitter.com/friedberg

Follow the pod:

https://twitter.com/theallinpod

https://linktr.ee/allinpodcast

Intro Music Credit:

https://rb.gy/tppkzl

https://twitter.com/yung_spielburg

Intro Video Credit:

https://twitter.com/TheZachEffect

Referenced in the show:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-17/police-begin-financial-squeeze-trudeau-defends-emergency-edict

https://www.thecountersignal.com/news/rcmp-ban-34-crypto-wallets-from-working-in-canada

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/get-ready-for-the-no-buy-list?utm_source=url

https://twitter.com/Jason/status/1494534850090442752

https://twitter.com/juliettekayyem/status/1491757167308902405

https://twitter.com/juliettekayyem/status/1491789181428715521

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/16/us/san-francisco-school-board-recall.html

https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/1493876167085944834

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/05/24/covid-funding-loophole-san-francisco-school-reopening

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-18/wokeism-has-peaked-in-america-but-is-still-globally-influential

https://twitter.com/Jason/status/1493860336713097218

https://twitter.com/MikeBloomberg/status/1494009394257870848

https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/the-democrats-coming-asian-voter

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/tiger-global-d1-capital-signal-pullback-from-big-private-tech-deals-amid-market-rout

https://www.wsj.com/articles/woman-appears-cured-of-hiv-after-umbilical-cord-blood-transplant-11644945720

https://twitter.com/phil_hellmuth/status/1494144604555206656

https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1493296369796202496

My guest this week is Alex Mittal, co-founder of Funders Club. Following past guest Jeremiah Lowin, Alex is my second elementary school friend to appear on the podcast—a trend I hope continues. Funders club is a unique venture firm, because it is build around a network of investors and entrepreneurs who submit deals for consideration and invest together. But as you’ll hear, Alex and his co-founder Boris aren’t just building an open platform for early stage investing: they also then take a very traditional venture approach, making investing decisions themselves when it comes to building a centralized portfolio. Our conversation is about what Alex has learned investing in almost 300 early stage companies over the past 7 years. Please enjoy.   For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Show Notes 1:30 - (First Question) – Inception of the Founder’s Club             1:36 – Jeremiah Lowin Podcast Episode 3:59 – How the process of their platform works 5:40 – Role of the network in Founders Club setup and success 8:26 – What he has learned from all of the data he has access to 16:00 – Early stage investing and finding the sweet spot 22:17 – What makes a really intriguing bad idea 25:23 – Why he remains so excited about Ethereum 31:18 – More bad ideas             31:55 – Apoorva Mehta on How I Built This Podcast 37:15 – Thoughts on retail and logistics and how they fit his Venn diagram of boring and crazy 43:13 – Chip and electronic design 45:47 – Companies that are not just increasing efficiencies but actually making foundational changes             45:54 – Energy and Civilization: A History 52:34 – What does he look for in founders             55:26 – Pivot or Fail 57:05 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Alex   Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag

My guest this week is David Tisch, who was instrumental in building and fostering venture capital investing in New York City. If you liked my conversation with Jerry Neumann--who, incidentally, introduced me to David--you are going to love this one.  David was a co-founder at tech stars, New York's answer to Silicon Valley’s famous tech incubator Y Combinator. He now runs the Box Group, a prominent seed stage venture capital firm, which has looked at thousands of startups and invested in more than 200.  We explore tech investing outside of Silicon Valley, the tech accelerator model, the evolution of early stage investing, and why the best companies may start coming out of non-traditional venture hubs.  David does a great job of explaining how things have changed for technology startups and why certain strategies--especially those for acquiring customers--won't work nearly as well in the future.  I learned a lot during this hour, and I think you will too. Please enjoy.    For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/tisch For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Show Notes 2:16 – (First question) – Looking at David’s motivation and role in building up the venture capital tech investment scene in New York 6:14 – What David did to further the mission of fostering tech startups in New York, namely his work with TechStars 10:11 – What is Y Combinator and how does that differ from Tech Stars 13:02 – What is the procedure for getting into a startup incubator   17:08 – Most memorable applications 19:12 – What is the boot camp/incubator experience like 20:34 – What should future incubators be focused on to help develop the right ideas 23:46 – What aspects of the business should a start up be focused on in the beginning 26:46 – What got David interested in investing 28:47 – The challenges of launching new tech today and the colonization of identity 32:04 – Exploring David’s investing strategy 35:45 – Finding the consumer facing companies that can scale and provide a return for venture capitalists 38:03 – The problem of scaling up for start ups 39:20 – What business models does David prefer when making venture investments 40:53 – What’s important to look at when investing in other sectors, starting with Fintech 44:41 – Where does David think we are in the venture capital cycle 49:37 – How much does the exit strategy play into the initial seed investment 50:18 – David’s thinking on the portfolio of companies when picking an investment 52:48 – David’s biggest sin of omission 53:56 – Common personality traits among potential founders 55:24 – Is storytelling relevant for startups focused on the enterprise side of the business 56:07 – David’s story to convince founders to work with him 57:51 – biggest mistakes that David has seen 1:01:47 – What does it mean for our health that are time has become completely consumed by technology 1:03:58 – What trend has David most excited looking forward 1:06:44 – Kindest thing anyone has done for David   Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag