Seed to Harvest

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Welcome back to Seed to Harvest, a podcast with founders, creators, and investors about their stories, frameworks and tactics. Today, I’m joined by Sara Zulkosky, Managing Partner at Recast Capital. Prior to co-founding Recast, Sara served as a Venture Partner at Greenspring Associates, a venture capital platform with over $12B in assets under management. She also gives back to the young investing community as a coach for the Georgetown VCIC team led by 5 young female investors this last year.

Seed to Harvest is a podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.

Connect with Paige🌱💜

Behind Genius Ventures blog | https://www.behindgeniusventures.com/

Personal Blog | https://paigefinndoherty.com/

Twitter | https://twitter.com/paigefinnn

00:00 Welcome to Seed To Harvest: Sara Zulkosky
05:24 Sara Zulkosky
10:44 Addressing issues around fundraising
15:41 Supporting industry leading franchises as a future
20:19 Advice for emerging managers in 2023

Show notes:
Sara Zulkosky | https://twitter.com/sarazulkosky?lang=en

Recast Capital | https://recastcapital.com/

Greenspring Associates | https://www.stepstonegroup.com/

Courtney McCrea | https://twitter.com/courtneyrmccrea

Kauffman Fellows | https://www.kauffmanfellows.org/

Georgetown VCIC team | https://msb.georgetown.edu/news-story/all-women-vcic-undergraduate-team-advances-to-global-finals/

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Today, I’m joined by Kelli Fontaine, Partner at Cendana Capital who previously served as Director for Trinity Capital Investment. Cendana Capital invests globally in very early stage funds, and now manages over $2.2B. They are our anchor investor for Fund 2, and I could not be more excited to have Kelli on the show today.

Seed to Harvest is a podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.

Connect with Paige🌱💜

Website | https://www.behindgeniusventures.com/

Blog | https://www.behindgeniusventures.com/blog

Twitter | https://twitter.com/paigefinnn

Tiktok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seedtoharvest

00:00 Welcome to Seed To Harvest: Kelli Fontaine
04:42 Why Cendana chose to partner with BGV
10:33 How Kelli's role has evolved as Cendana has grown
15:44 What stands out to Kelli in initial meetings with managers?
21:58 Seed stage venture firms evolving in the next 10 years

Show notes:
Kelli Fontaine | https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellitrent

Cendana Capital | https://www.cendanacapital.com/

Michael Kim | https://twitter.com/mkrocks?lang=en

Trinity Capital | https://trinitycap.com/

Medium Article by Silicon Foundry | https://sifoundry.medium.com/seed-investing-macrotrends-an-interview-with-kelli-fontaine-from-cendana-capital-3781d1a31471

Graham Pingree | https://twitter.com/gpingree?lang=en

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Today, I’m joined by Monique Woodard, the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Cake Ventures. Cake Ventures is a pre-seed and seed venture capital firm investing in companies that touch areas of demographic change including aging and longevity, the increased spending power of women, and the shift to majority-minority. A Forbes article published on Jan 12, 2023, claims that Cake Ventures has closed its debut fund at $17 million dollars. Monique was previously a Venture Scout for Lightspeed Venture Partners and a Venture Partner for 500 Startups.

Seed to Harvest is a podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.

Connect with Paige🌱💜

Behind Genius Ventures blog | https://www.behindgeniusventures.com/post/monque-woodard-founding-partner-of-cake-ventures-seed-to-harvest-ep

Personal Blog | https://paigefinndoherty.com/

Twitter | https://twitter.com/paigefinnn

00:00 Welcome to Seed To Harvest: Monique Woodard
04:56 The rise of a new majority
09:38 Thoughts on TikTok
15:41 The power of the female dollar

Show notes:
Monique Woodard | https://twitter.com/moniquewoodard

Cake Ventures | https://www.cake.vc/

500 Startups | https://500.co/

Jeremy Liew | https://twitter.com/jeremysliew

Lightspeed | https://lsvp.com/

Mitch Kapor | https://twitter.com/mkapor

Freada Klein | https://twitter.com/therealfreada

Kapor Capital | https://www.kaporcapital.com/

Ed Zimmerman | https://twitter.com/edgrapenutzimm

First Close Partners | https://firstclosepartners.com/about/

Pamper Nail Gallery | https://pampernailgallery.com/
Bright | https://www.learnwithbright.com/

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Today, I’m joined by Sydney Thomas, the Founding Partner of Impressionism Capital. She invests in early stage startups, specifically focusing on investing in real people. Since becoming the first hire at Precursor VC, Sydney has built a community of over 400 co-investors along with intuitive systems that scale small to midsize teams. She is a proud Beyoncé stan and dedicated writer who writes about her experience building her first fund on her blog.

Seed to Harvest is a podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.

00:00 Welcome to Seed To Harvest: Sydney Thomas
05:41 Floating in the Matrix
10:21 Learnings from Charles Hudson
15:41 Deep history in legislation
20:21 Building systems that scale

Show notes:
Sydney Paige Thomas | https://twitter.com/sydneypaige10

Impressionism Capital | https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydneypthomas/

Precursor VC | https://precursorvc.com/

Shruti Shah | https://www.linkedin.com/in/shrutishah1/

Jennifer Kim | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsnkim/

Charles Hudson | https://twitter.com/chudson

Maria Salamanca | https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariasalamanca1/

Jomayra Herrera | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jomayraherrera/

Miriam Rivera | https://twitter.com/miriamulu1

COZY song | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81j9gt1rXuk

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Today, I’m joined by Ann Bordetsky, a Partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Ann has helped build some of Silicon Valley's most iconic technology companies, such as Rival Inc, which was acquired by Ticketmaster in 2020 and has served in operator roles at Uber, Twitter, and several mobility startups. She uses her operator superpowers to help visionary founders design and grow their companies to scale. She's also been an active angel investor in many female founders.

Seed to Harvest is a podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.

00:00 Welcome to Seed To Harvest: Ann Bordetsky
05:02 Making Tough Decisions
10:05 More constraints will lead to greater efficiency
14:06 Ann's favorite books
20:19 Journey to joining NEA
25:58 Maintaining engagement and trust

Show notes:
Ann Bordetsky | https://twitter.com/annbordetsky

NEA | https://www.nea.com/

Rival Inc | https://www.linkedin.com/company/rival-inc/

Uber | https://www.uber.com/

Let My People Go Surfing | https://www.amazon.com/Let-People-Surfing-Education-Businessman/dp/0143037838

Shoe Dog | https://www.amazon.com/Shoe-Dog-Phil-Knight/dp/1508211809

The Hard Things About Hard Things | https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Ben-Horowitz-ebook/dp/B00DQ845EA

The Originals | https://www.amazon.com/Originals-How-Non-Conformists-Move-World/dp/014312885X

Elpha | https://elpha.com/

Luke Pappas | https://twitter.com/luke_pappas

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Today, I’m joined by Julia Lipton, the Founding Partner of Awesome People Ventures. She was previously the first business hire and Director of Marketing at Quixey in 2011. Julia was also the Head of Growth at Rise and the Head of Virtual Visits at One Medical Group. Furthermore, she founded Soundboard, which offers high touch advising for venture-backed startups. Julia currently is the Founding Partner of Awesome People Ventures that invests in awesome people doing awesome things in Web3.

Seed to Harvest is a podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.

00:00 Welcome to Seed To Harvest: Julia Lipton
05:04 The culture and storytelling of Quixey
10:08 Julia on the startup track
15:09 Authenticity attracts people
20:04 Deep working day for Julia
25:18 Best person Julia has ever worked with

Show notes:
Julia Lipton | https://twitter.com/julialipton

Awesome People Ventures | https://www.awesomepeople.ventures/

Quixey | http://quixey.com/

Rise | https://www.rise.us/

One Medical | https://www.onemedical.com/

Pallet board | https://awesomepeople.pallet.com/jobs

Pallet | https://www.pallet.com/

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Send us Fan Mail

Seed to Harvest is a podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.

Today, I’m joined by Jana Iris. She’s a coffee lover, start-up advisor and investor. Since 2008, she’s been an early employee of startups, including Engine Yard, New Relic, and HashiCorp, focused on building their developer communities. In 2022, she switched gears into angel investing and advising companies like Spacelift, Fermyon Technologies, SuperTokens, and CloudQuery.Now she invests alongside her team at TQ Ventures.

00:00 Welcome to Seed To Harvest: Jana Iris
05:25 Meeting the founder of HashiCorp
10:04 The difference between open core and open source
15:46 HashiCorp going public
20:05 Incorporating Burning Man into HashiCorp
25:12 Jana declaring her mentor

Show notes:
Jana Iris | https://twitter.com/janaboruta

HashiCorp | https://www.hashicorp.com/

TQ Ventures | https://www.tqventures.com/

Engine Yard | https://www.engineyard.com/

Groupon | https://www.groupon.com/

Mitchell Hashimoto | https://twitter.com/mitchellh

Vagrant | https://www.vagrantup.com/

Yehuda Katz | https://twitter.com/wycats

Evan Phoenix | https://twitter.com/evanphx

Brian Ford | https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-ford-231b4732

Gitpod | https://www.gitpod.io/

Gabbi | https://www.gabbi.com/

Grace Isford | https://twitter.com/graceisford

Michael Stoppelman | https://twitter.com/stopman

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Seed to Harvest is a podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.

In this episode, I’ll share the inspiration, our process, the reason behind our podcast creation decisions including our tech stack. I’ll start with our idea generation + move through pre-production, editing, review, and publishing. We’re getting tactical today!

00:00 Welcome To Seed To Harvest

05:30 Meet the team

7:48 The tech stack

11:35 How we invite guest to Seed To Harvest

15:50 Podcast recording equipment

18:10 The editing process

20:00 The compliance process and publishing

Show notes:

Venture Deals | https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1119594820/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQiAyracBhDoARIsACGFcS4s_Cn-dpgBpr6sdJNQ0jyTOa1nrywWv_deWNFw7uQPKcxcfbB3mQsaAg3CEALw_wcB&hvadid=583797917473&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9031339&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=897748182257647611&hvtargid=kwd-303132979398&hydadcr=21871_10169513&keywords=venture+deal&qid=1670292693&s=books&sr=1-1

Seed To Harvest by Paige Doherty | https://www.amazon.com/Seed-Harvest-Explanation-Venture-Capital/dp/0578906457/ref=sr_1_1?crid=K91BH5HB38G3&keywords=seed+to+harvest+paige&qid=1670292721&s=books&sprefix=seed+to+harvest+paig%2Cstripbooks%2C124&sr=1-1

 riverside.fm | http://riverside.fm

descript.fm | http://descript.fm

Canva | https://www.canva.com/

 Buzzsprout | https://www.buzzsprout.com/

Twitter | https://twitter.com/

LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/

Slack | https://slack.com/

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Send us Fan Mail

Seed to Harvest is a podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.

Today, I’m joined by Gale Wilkinson, General Partner at Vitalize VC. After graduating with her degree in marketing, she consulted CPG companies on new product launches. After starting two businesses, she started an angel network in 2012, launched Vitalize Fund I in 2017 and has since invested in 100+ companies, deploying over $65M in capital. Now she is a Transact Global member, Kauffman Fellow, and passionate about democratizing access to angel investing.

00:00 Welcome to Seed To Harvest: Gale Wilkinson

04:30 Implementing the traction EOS system

10:29 Benefits that Gale has received from participating in Kauffman

14:59 Crafting an overall portfolio strategy

15:50 Jaclyn on liking the opposite of being transactional

20:14 What should investors look out for when considering round valuation?

Show notes:

Gale Wilkinson | https://twitter.com/galeforceVC

VITALIZE vc | https://www.vitalize.vc/

Kauffman Fellows | https://www.kauffmanfellows.org/

Caroline Casson | https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_

Justin Gordon | https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Annette Huynh | https://www.linkedin.com/in/annettehuynh/

John Hayes | https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-hayes-vc/

Anand Engineer | https://twitter.com/Project_Anand

Larissa Insogna | https://twitter.com/LarissaInsogna

Recast | https://recastcapital.com/

On Deck | https://www.beondeck.com/

Oper8r | https://oper8r.substack.com/

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

Seed to Harvest is a podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.

Today, I’m joined by Jaclyn Hester, Partner at Foundry Group. At Foundry, Jaclyn leads direct investments in early-stage companies. She operates with a passion for supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs and investors. Since 2016, Jaclyn has focused on making direct investments as well as launching the partner fund strategy, building Foundry’s portfolio to over 45 managers. Jaclyn first fell in love with entrepreneurship while earning her JD/MBA at CU Boulder. There, she served as Executive Director of Startup Colorado and was a practicing attorney where she advised M&A transactions and early stage financing.

00:00 Welcome to Seed To Harvest: Jaclyn Hester

05:34 Where does networking bring an advantage?

10:11 How to manage challenging issues.

14:59 One of the standout annual meetings.

20:13 Jaclyn on liking the opposite of being transactional

24:55 What's going on in the Boulder startup ecosystem?

30:25 Jaclyn on having a different level of founder empathy.

Show notes:

Jaclyn Hester | https://twitter.com/jfreester?lang=en

Foundry | https://foundry.vc/

Lindel Eakman | https://twitter.com/LDEakman

USV | https://www.usv.com/

Spark | https://www.sparkcapital.com/

Give First | https://givefirst.techstars.com/

Natty Zola | https://twitter.com/nattyz

Matchstick Ventures | https://www.matchstick.vc/

Ryan Broshar | https://twitter.com/rbroshar

FareHarbor | https://fareharbor.com/

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