Distilling Venture Capital

Introduction Welcome to Distilling Venture Capital.  I am your host, Bill Griesinger Distilling VC is a visionary podcast that provides an insightful and informed view of the key trends affecting the VC and tech startup world.  My mission is to cut through and go beyond the hype that tends to dominate the tech landscape.  And provide you with information you can use. Episode Introduction: Welcome back everyone.  Well, today I have the pleasure of welcoming back to the program JP Baric, CEO and Founder at Aurum Capital Ventures, which is engaged in the crypto-mining business.  JP thank you for coming back to join me on the show.    So, the last time we did a program was in mid-May, about 5 months ago, and I introduced Aurum Capital Ventures then as a technology/energy company directly involved in multiple aspects of the crypto-mining industry – and we delved into the many interesting aspects of your business model.  I have received a lot of positive feedback to that show – so glad you’re here to do this aga

Introduction Welcome to Distilling Venture Capital.  I am your host, Bill Griesinger Distilling VC is a visionary podcast that provides an insightful and informed view of the key trends affecting the VC and tech startup world.  My mission is to cut through and go beyond the hype that tends to dominate the tech and VC landscape.  And provide you with information you can use. Episode Introduction: Welcome back everyone.  Today’s Episode is another in my Focus-on-Fintech Series where I bring you a close-up look into the companies in the Fintech Sector and the innovations they are bringing to financial services markets; And, based on the intro theme music for today’s Episode, (Aquarela do Brasil by Gal Costa) you may have guessed we are headed again to the land of Samba, Carnaval, Futebol and now, FINTECH - Brasil.  We’ll revisit why Brasil has become one of the hottest Fintech markets globally, attracting massive investor and consumer interest.   Today I highlight one of the fastest growing Fintech companies

Show Introduction –  Welcome to Distilling Venture Capital.  I am your host, Bill Griesinger Distilling VC is a visionary podcast that provides an insightful and informed view of the key trends affecting the VC and tech startup world, including Fintech.  My mission is to cut through and go beyond the hype that tends to dominate the tech and VC landscape.  And provide you with information you can use. Episode Introduction: Today’s Episode is another in my Focus-on-Fintech Series where I provide you with a close-up look into the top companies in the Fintech sector that are bringing new innovations to the financial services market In today’s Episode, I delve into and distill down new Fintech Company, Alviere, just launched earlier this month. Alviere has created and launched a plug-and-play, single-integration SW platform that streamlines and automates delivery of a broad array of financial products and services. It is headquartered in Cleveland, OH and Lisbon, Portugal – we’ll get into that aspect of the bus

  Introduction Welcome to Distilling Venture Capital.  I am your host, Bill Griesinger Distilling VC is a visionary podcast that provides an insightful and informed view of the key trends affecting the VC and tech startup world.  My mission is to cut through and go beyond the hype that tends to dominate the tech landscape.  And provide you with information you can use   Opening Observations: Hello everyone, and welcome back.  I promised you in the prior Episode that I would devote this Episode to distilling down one of the most famous poster-kids for Unicorns-aren’t-real; WeWork Today, I am going to provide you the insights and analysis that the technology and financial press, investors and others have failed to deliver to you over the last few years regarding this tarnished unicorn. To set the stage though, let’s do a quick timeline review of WeWork leading up to and then after its failed IPO of Sept. of 2019:   WeWork valued itself at a cool $47B by early 2019 and, that in fact would be its valuation l

Introduction Welcome to Distilling Venture Capital.  I am your host, Bill Griesinger Distilling VC is a visionary podcast that provides an insightful and informed view of the key trends affecting the VC and tech startup world.  My mission is to cut through and go beyond the hype that tends to dominate the tech landscape.  And provide you with information you can use Opening Observations: In Today’s Episode I return to what I have termed Unicorn-mania, building on the subject of my first episode in March.  So, it will be a Unicorn-mania Redux. I’m returning to this topic b/c, well, we need to revisit it primarily b/c things seem to be sliding further toward the insane, literally with each passing week. And, I will talk about the continuation of this insanity in the context of some real-life examples:  The true poster-kids for “Unicorns are not real”…  Specifically, I’ll provide insights into WeWork and Uber, and the unmistakable role played by Softbank’s Vision Fund in helping to fuel the craziness. And, le

Introduction Welcome to Distilling Venture Capital.  I am your host, Bill Griesinger Distilling VC is a visionary podcast that provides an insightful and informed view of the key trends affecting the VC and tech startup world, including Fintech.  My mission is to cut through and go beyond the hype that tends to dominate the tech and VC landscape.  And provide you with information you can use. Episode Introduction: Today’s Episode is another in my Focus-on-Fintech Series where I bring you a close-up look into companies in the sector and the innovations they are bringing to the market Given that Fintech is global movement and phenomenon that is changing, for the better, the way we participate in and get finance done around the world, one of the hottest places on the globe for Fintech investment today is Brazil.   In today’s Episode, I delve into and distill down why Fintech is attracting such interest and investment in Brasil Fintech in Brasil: The Basement.io Story To help me do that, I am pleased to be j

Introduction Welcome to Distilling Venture Capital.  I am your host, Bill Griesinger Distilling VC is a visionary podcast that provides an insightful and informed view of the key trends affecting the VC and tech startup world, including Fintech.  My mission is to cut through and go beyond the hype that tends to dominate the tech and VC landscape.  And provide you with information you can use. Episode Introduction: Today’s Episode is part of my Focus-on-Fintech Series As background, When we talk about Fintech, Financial Technology, many in the sector think of technologies being deployed by startups in the areas of payment solutions (Transferwise, Square, many international players), peer-to-peer lenders (Lending Club, FundingCircle, Prosper, SoFi), digital banking – neobanks (many by non-banks), wealth management – robo advisors (Robinhood), AND also insurance-tech and real estate-tech, where the processes in those industries are being automated with technology, blockchain, smart contracts, AI, etc.  There

Introduction Welcome to Distilling Venture Capital.  I am your host, Bill Griesinger Distilling VC is a visionary podcast that provides an insightful and informed view of the key trends affecting the VC and tech startup world.  My mission is to cut through and go beyond the hype that tends to dominate the tech landscape.  And provide you with information you can use. Episode Introduction: I would like to introduce Today’s Episode topic as follows;   We hear a great deal about cryptocurrencies, mostly Bitcoin, and the impact they are having on the financial services and investing landscape, with respect to how we define money, e-commerce, make investments, and even what Central Banks are doing to authorize/issue their own digital currency or stable currency, etc. On the other hand, we don’t hear much or may understand very little about the derivation and creation of cryptocurrencies themselves.  Where do they come from?  What is their intrinsic value and utility?  How is all of this accomplished? So, today

Introduction Welcome to Distilling Venture Capital.  I am your host, Bill Griesinger Distilling VC is a visionary podcast that provides an insightful and informed view of the key trends affecting the VC and tech startup world.  My mission is to cut through and go beyond the hype and Silicon Valley pop-jargon that tends to dominate the tech landscape.  I seek to provide transparency and    Opening Observations: Given that this is my inaugural episode under the Distilling VC label, I thought it would be appropriate and useful to provide you with some brief background regarding the podcast and the type of content you can expect in the future and a little about me… First, the podcast;   The vast majority of episodes I will bring will take you inside the insights, challenges, successes and the journeys revealed and shared directly through the words and experiences of tech company entrepreneurs, sometimes from the VCs who back them and others in the tech and VC community…So, I’ll usually have very interesting gu

For detailed show notes and links go to MarkWKing.com/6 In this episode, I distill some positive and negative lessons about why a startup might need multiple attorneys. The short answer…lawyers are like doctors, they specialize. One size does not fit all situations. Equally important, entrepreneurs need to be careful about who an attorney has a duty of loyalty to. A lawyer that represents a company's best interest does not by default represent the founder. Also in this episode, I reintroduce the Venture Capital Coroner's Report. Previously, I did an entire podcast focused on lessons from failed, VC backed companies. The show failed (I know, ironic, right?). I just couldn't get enough interviews. However, there's more than enough material for an occasional segment of this show. The autopsy of VATLER provides an important lesson about disrupting entrenched players (and a resurrection story in the founding of SpotAngels). Lawyers or Insurance Salesmen? Naval Ravikant - Angel List In a very short post Naval lays

When you read about startups or startup accelerators, you almost hear about teams of co-founders. That’s because there most often, having co-founders is the right way to go. But can a solo founder succeed? What’s a poor startup founder to do if s/he can’t find the right co-founders? Just hang-out and wait? In this episode of Distilling Venture Capital, I look at these questions. Below are some of the articles and resources that I mention. For the detailed show notes and bonus information about Nic Brisbourn go to MarkWKing.com/5 Startups Are Hard. Don't Go It Alone - Satay Patel, Homebrew Ventures Building The Right Founding Team - Nic Brisbourne, Forward Partners How Solo Founders Beat The Odds and Got Into Top Accelerators - Lora Kolodny for the Wall Street Journal I'd love to connect at any of the following: Twitter: @TheMarkWKing LinkedIn: Mark W King Facebook: The Mark W King Old School Email: MarkWKing.com/social  

VC decision making is one of the great mysteries of the business world. In this episode we look at the range of decision making models used by VC funds.  Elizabeth Yin of 500 Startups wrote a great blog post on the topic.  She was also generous enough to record some follow-up thoughts for this episode. The secret behind VC partnerships… The take home point is that venture capital funds fall on a spectrum with champion based decision making on one end and consensus models at the other.  The key is doing your homework. Bonus Info On Elizabeth Yin Here's how Elizabeth describes herself:  Partner at 500 Startups; Investor in seed stage companies and run the Mtn View accelerator. Formerly CEO / Co-founder of LaunchBit (acq '14) and marketer at Google. BSEE from Stanford, MBA from MIT Sloan. Twitter LinkedIn Blog 500 Startups I can't thank Elizabeth enough for calling and leaving some answers to follow-up questions.  She has a great blog and is very active on Twitter.

In this episode we look at advice from Hyde Park Angels and Rob Go of NextView Ventures about how to best pitch your startup to VCs or angel investors. We also look at what you can learn from a story Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures tells about an entrepreneur who successfully convinced Fred to invest without a pitch deck at all. Building The Perfect Pitch Hyde Park Angels As part of their educational series Hyde Park's team created a great outline for the story your pitch should tell. The flow they suggest may be different than you would expect. But, it syncs with the way most venture capitalists and angel investors evaluate opportunities. A Simple Approach To Startup Pitch Decks Rob Go - NextView Ventures Rob Go and the NextView team have created two amazingly helpful templates for startup pitches: one for email and smaller meetings and a second for larger group settings (e.g. a demo day).  I focus on the individual or small group format. Their format has tremendous versatility and does for startup pitc

Satya Patel of Homebrew, Steve Blank of lean startup fame and Aaron Harris of Y-Combinator wrote three amazing posts about founders, co-founders, founding teams and founding CEOs. In this episode, Mark W King explores their best thinking and explains what you need to know. Start-ups Are Hard. Don't Go It Alone by Satya Patel, Partner at seed fund Homebrew Ventures Satya does a great job explaining why founders need co-founders both for their own sake and the sake of their start-ups. Building Great Founding Teams by Steve Blank, author of The Start-up Owners Manual Lean start-up pioneer Steve Blank provides useful definitions for founder, co-founders and the founding CEO. Co-founder Management by Aaron K Harris, Partner at start-up accelerator Y-Combinator Small teams working in close quarters in high pressure situations always creates challenges. Aaron offers practical advice for how teams can be successful working together. Bonus Material - More About Satay Patel How he describes himself:  "Currently Partner

If you really want to understand a business figure out how it makes money. That's true for every kind of business.  It's especially true in venture capital.  Most people think about venture capital in terms of single deals.  A VC's job is to essentially buy low and sell high.  That takes a ton of work. In future episodes we'll take a look at how an individual VC deal makes money. Ultimately, however, venture capitalists make their money by managing a fund of venture investments for other people.  So that begs the question: How do venture capital funds make money?  VCs get paid with a management fee (1-3%) that should cover the costs of keeping the lights on.  It's a nice living, but not the reason someone becomes a venture capitalist.  Venture capital funds get "carry" which is a share of the upside, usually 20% of profits.  Carry is the brass ring. The lion's share of the money. The economic motive for VCs is to make a huge amount of money for other people and share in that success. In this episode we look a

My interviews with venture capital's most successful failures have proven that the sage old advice from Kenny Rogers still applies: "Ya gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run." It's not time to run, but it is time to fold up the Venture Capital Coroner's Report. I just can't get a steady enough supply of guests to keep going. If you want to hear the three reasons people declined to come on the show, listen to this six minute episode. You might be surprised. I'm going to leave the shows up on iTunes and move them to my new website markwking.com You can share them with a friend or catch-up if you missed any episodes. You'll also find my new blog and podcast about impact investing and how lessons from the venture capital industry can change the world for better. Lastly and most importantly, I want to again thank all my guests. The difficulty in getting people to say yes greatly heightened by appreciation of the people who did. You were gracious with your t

As a serial entrepreneur Jeff Novich could spot a problem that meant opportunity.  His Dad had one of those problems in his medical practice.  Doctors' offices were drowning in paper and inefficient communication.  Jeff and his dad saw an opportunity to disrupt how medical offices operate and at the same time improve patient care and satisfaction.  It was a massive home run for Jeff's dad.  But in less than a year Jeff walked away in frustration. Listen to this episode to find out who made him fail fast. My Guest Jeff Novich describes himself as a "product manager who codes."  He's worked on a variety of digital products including VocabSushi.com, FareShare, GroundLink and Grocket.  He's applied his product expertise to educational technology, early ride sharing apps, medical communications and his current role is with ClassPass.com in the fitness space.  He's also has the unique experience of having been through not one, but two, accelerator programs. Jeff's credentials have that entrepreneurial quirkiness th

What were you doing when you were 18? Nikki Durkin was finding co-founders, doing the Y-Combinator thing, raising venture capital, dealing with reporters, replacing co-founders, raising more venture capital and otherwise trying to grow her start-up. Listen in to find out what she learned when it all collapsed. My Guest Nikki Durkin hails from Sydney, Australia.  At the ripe old age of 18 she launched 99Dresses, an online exchange for used fashion. After starting in Sydney, she moved to Silicon Valley to participate in Y Combinator.  While 99Dresses got its fair share of press, Nikki attracted more press than most entrepreneurs both because of her age and her gender.  When 99Dresses ultimately failed, Nikki took the courageous step of posting two long articles on Medium.com, one about being a woman in the tech industry and the other about the emotions of failing.  She discusses both with me on this episode of the podcast. The Take Home Lessons Unlike a lot of my conversations, Nikki and I spent less time on th

Gard Mayer's path as an entrepreneur has more twists & turns than a back road through the mountains. In this venture capital podcast he talks about huge success, complete failure & everything in between, pivoting his start-ups when reality set in My Guest Gard leads Invodo’s sales team, driving growth through expanding the client base and revenue while also growing relationships with existing clients. As one of the original founders of Invodo, Gard brings over 14 years of entrepreneurial experience to the company. Previously, Gard founded and operated SmartHockey Inc., where he established the initial manufacturing and distribution relationships as well as the management team. Gard earned a BA in English from Cornell University. SmartHockey transformed off-ice hockey training with the introduction of the C|Saw Chassis (a.k.a. Bauer TUUK Rocker Chassis), SmartHockey Training Ball and a series of DVDs and Training Guides. SmartHockey products are used throughout the world by top professional teams and u

Peter Vilsholm Therkildsen Schlegel had a path. Get seed capital. Launch start-up. Join incubator. Finish program. Get capital from incubator's loan fund to build start-up. Sounded good to everyone...except one person at the loan fund. And did I mention the letter from the Danish immigration authority? I'm Moving! Well sort of...just a new Twitter handle. I'm phasing out @VCCoroner and focusing on my personal handle @Mark_W_King. Click here for tweets about the podcast and other insights from venture capital's most successful. My Guest Peter has founded several companies, raising money from international venture capital funds and leading companies to international expansion and growth.  As a consultant, he worked as a strategic adviser in four consulting firms, aiding clients grow their businesses globally. He led teams across domains and geographies, hiring and growing people of more than 15 different nationalities. From 2008 to 2011 he was Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer for Agillic, a digital marketi