This week, we sat down with Leeor Mushin, General Partner at Formation. Formation is an early-stage fund that partners with founders from day one. We dive into his experience starting a fund at Stanford by investing in his classmates, the journey of building a managed marketplace, and key signals that indicate it's the right time to start a fund.  Leeor also shares insights on why 'ugly ducklings' are ripe for disruption, along with his unique approach to sourcing talent and creating a competitive edge for Formation. 

Episode Chapters:

1. Growing up in Texas - 1:52
2. Moving to Stanford - 4:25
3. Founding Digital Stairway - 8:55
4. Joining Floodgate - 13:32
5. Community sourcing - 19:05
6. Starting a fund - 23:00
7. The "Ugly Duckling" - 29:51
8. Founder attributes - 35:45
9. Business school or not? - 38:40
10. Quick-fire round - 40:30

As always, feel free to contact us at [email protected]. We would love to hear ideas for content, guests, and overall feedback.

This episode is brought to you by Grata, the world's leading deal sourcing platform. Our AI-powered search, investment-grade data, and intuitive workflows give you the edge needed to find and win deals in your industry. Visit grata.com to schedule a demo today.

Fresh out of Y Combinator’s Summer batch, Overlap is an AI-driven app that uses LLMs to curate the best moments from podcast episodes. Imagine having a smart assistant who reads through every podcast transcript, finds the best parts or parts most relevant to your search, and strings them together to form a new curated stream of content - that is what Overlap does. Podcasts are an exponentially growing source of unique information. Make use of it! Check out Overlap 2.0 on the App Store today.