There’s a lot of talk about who will be able to compete with Amazon and Shopify post pandemic. Our guest today, Anton von Rueden, and his team at Boosted Commerce are looking at Amazon and Shopify as the OS for ecommerce, to see who is succeeding and then buying those winners and helping grow them through efficiencies and internal operating systems.

Anton’s Background:Anton von Rueden is currently Boosted Commerce’s President & COO. He began his career in Germany in 1999, joining a small startup that would become eBay Germany. At eBay, Anton managed marketing, built eBay’s European Customer Service Center, and then, as Managing Director, established eBay’s business teams in Austria and Switzerland.

In 2012 he co-founded Carfrogger and led the company as CEO until the successful completion of a merger in 2014. Anton subsequently joined TechStyle Fashion Group as General Manager of Global Customer Service before relocating from Berlin to El Segundo to serve as Chief Operating Officer, overseeing all Global Operations. Anton also serves on the Advisory Boards of the Los Angeles Kings and Sondors Network.

Aduro Advisors is the premier fund administrator for venture capital and private equity firms. Led by a team of industry veterans and powered by proprietary software, FundPanel.io, Aduro pairs best-in-class service with the robust and flexible technology that the industry demands. 

From emerging managers just starting out to seasoned firms looking to supplement an internal team, Aduro’s back office solution rises to the challenge of supporting your firm’s specific needs.

https://aduroadvisors.com/

In this episode we discuss:

03:37 Anton’s journey to Boosted commerce05:26 How Boosted looks for acquisition targets06:57 What “Fifth Ave Placement” means on Amazon08:29 Why they focus on CPG and personal care products09:53 The purchase criteria Boosted11:26 Advice to new sellers on Amazon14:19 The truth about competition from Amazon Basics15:56 Do buyers even know who they are buying from17:39 The registration and verification process on Amazon’s side19:38 The future of Amazon merchants20:38 The future of brick and mortar commerce22:47 How distribution will help shape commerce24:26 Boosted’s edge in the FBA rollup market27:15 The onboarding process28:15 The software Boosted Commerce uses to gain edge30:03 Third-party addons to make Shopify closer to the Amazon experience31:19 How consumer habits can evolve over time32:33 Instagram and other social shopping platforms33:29 Livestream shopping and video ads on Amazon35:10 The pandemic’s effect on Boosted Commerce’s operations37:00 Thoughts on supply chain globalization39:28 What North Americans should know about the German tech scene41:28 The tech ecosystem in Miami

Books Anton Recommends:

Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Whitman

Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution by Robert Chesnut

Rebooting Work: Transform How You Work in the Age of Entrepreneurship by Maynard Web and Carlye Adler

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It’s always a pleasure to talk with someone who is at the intersection of technology trends, and today our guest Boris Wertz is at the forefront of investing in crypto and has been for the last five years. Through his position as an early investor in Dapper Labs, creators of CryptoKitties and NBA TopShot, Boris has been an early believer in the power of blockchain and crypto and he’s now setting his sights on climate change investing and the creator economy.

Boris’ Background:Boris Wertz is founding partner of Version One and one of the top tech early-stage investors in North America. Born in Germany and based in Vancouver, Boris takes a wide-angle view to find great companies all across North America with a focus on the pre-seed and the seed stage in marketplaces, enterprise SaaS, crypto, healthcare, energy, climate.. He is a board partner with Andreessen Horowitz and is well-respected for his uncanny ability to find the next generation of leaders. Before becoming an investor, Boris built an online marketplace for used and out-of-print books in 1999, selling the business to AbeBooks.com where he became COO and led a team of 140 people doing $250mm in platform revenues. After AbeBooks.com was sold to Amazon, he moved into investing, first as an angel and now with his own fund Version One which launched in 2012.

Aduro Advisors is the premier fund administrator for venture capital and private equity firms. Led by a team of industry veterans and powered by proprietary software, FundPanel.io, Aduro pairs best-in-class service with the robust and flexible technology that the industry demands. 

From emerging managers just starting out to seasoned firms looking to supplement an internal team, Aduro’s back office solution rises to the challenge of supporting your firm’s specific needs.

https://aduroadvisors.com/

In this episode we discuss:

03:27 The growth of DeFi as an industry

04:48 How negative associations with the early ICO market has affected DeFi

07:01 The opportunity Boris saw in 2017

10:32 The speed of innovation the crypto space

12:14 How big the market for Ethereum can grow

13:52 Valuing crypto platforms and protocols

15:04 How Uniswap.com works and its power

17:10 The lending mechanic in Ethereum

19:58 New platforms like nexusmutual.io and opyn.co

23:42 How DeFi compares and competes with another Boris portfolio company, Coinbase

28:28 Has Boris bought any TopShot packs personally

30:39 Selling his Cryptokitties investment to his LPs

32:30 The future of cryptoart

34:33 What value means with today’s meme-investing

35:47 How his team decides on what is worth investing in

38:50 Addressing Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger’s crypto critique

41:08 Working with LPs as investment thesis evolves

44:02 How portfolio company silviaterra.com is working to fight climate change

45:34 Investing while remote

46:43 Boris’s favorite podcast: Invest Like The Best

47:22 Boris’s favorite newsletter or blog: stratechery.com

47:51 Boris’s favorite tech gadget: Google Pixel

48:21 Favorite new trend: The creator economy

49:34 Favorite book: Albert Banger’s forthcoming book

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Successful founders have been mythologized in startup culture, but the reality of getting to a success is less glamorous, and much harder than it seems. Our guest today, Mike Silagadze, founder and now former CEO of TopHat, joins me to discuss his journey founding one of the largest EdTech companies, his decision to hand over the CEO role, and why he’s joining Ripple Ventures as a Venture Partner.

This is a fun, no-holds-barred look at what it takes to create a successful startup.

Mike’s Background:Mike founded Top Hat in 2009 with Mohsen Shahini who is now the Chief Academic Officer for the company. Noticing that the graduation rate for university students in North America is below fifty percent, Mike and Mohsen realized that there was a problem of student engagement in the classroom. Through Top Hat, Mike and his team have aimed to better the relationships between students and their instructors and make the university experience a positive one for all. Since its inception in 2009,the company has raised over $350 million dollars and Top Hat is on its way to being one of Canada’s next unicorns.

Prior to Top Hat, Mike was an early employee at Miovision Technologies in Waterloo, another great Canadian success story. Mike is a graduate of the University of Waterloo in Electrical Engineering. 

Aduro Advisors is the premier fund administrator for venture capital and private equity firms. Led by a team of industry veterans and powered by proprietary software, FundPanel.io, Aduro pairs best-in-class service with the robust and flexible technology that the industry demands. 

From emerging managers just starting out to seasoned firms looking to supplement an internal team, Aduro’s back office solution rises to the challenge of supporting your firm’s specific needs.

https://aduroadvisors.com/

In this episode:

03:37 Starting a business during the financial crisis of 2008

06:32 Raising his first capital and working with those early investors

09:39 The importance of storytelling and pitching in early startups

12:11 Would he invest in himself if he heard his original pitch

13:30 Finding product/market fit

19:35 Maintaining your dataroom in between raises

22:28 Benefits of having strong investors

23:45 The reasons to acquire a company when you’re a startup

31:04 Mike’s thoughts on investment bankers

34:13 Did he consider selling early

35:06 He he decided to join Ripple Ventures as Venture Partner

37:43 The biggest changes in the Canadian startup scene

39:06 Thoughts on remote-first versus in-person

41:33 The future of crypto and DeFi

Mike’s Book Recommendations:Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Taleb

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Working with startups a common theme emerges, the need to hire qualified people at scale is a challenge all of them face. Our guest today, Amit Bhatia, co-founder and CEO of Datapeople.io, is working to improve the recruitment process through data and science to allow much more precise measurement of how companies hire.

Amit’s Background:CEO Co-Founder of Datapeople for 6 years, before you were a investment banker at Morgan Stanley and before that he was a Software Engineer working neural networks.

Aduro Advisors is the premier fund administrator for venture capital and private equity firms. Led by a team of industry veterans and powered by proprietary software, FundPanel.io, Aduro pairs best-in-class service with the robust and flexible technology that the industry demands. 

From emerging managers just starting out to seasoned firms looking to supplement an internal team, Aduro’s back office solution rises to the challenge of supporting your firm’s specific needs.

https://aduroadvisors.com/contact/

In this episode we discuss:

03:03 The history of Datapeople.io

05:17 How data helps solve the recruiting problem

07:31 Indicators that they found Product/Market fit

09:40 Current state recruiting

13:10 How Datapeople helps with transparency in the hiring process

16:56 Examples of how language in job listings can exclude qualified candidates

19:36 Ways to fix systemic problems in hiring

21:55 How referrals can be a part of the problem

26:52 Fixing the problems with internships

28:37 Getting better data to help solve hiring problems

31:48 Target market for Datapeople

33:01 How they get their data

34:53 Realworld results from using Datapeople

36:27 What’s next

Books Amit recommends:Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel KahnemanMoney Ball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael LewisThe Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

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There’s a lot of stories around how the pandemic has changed and shifted business, our guest today Shaunak Amin is one of the biggest success stories. His startup Stadium was able to quickly pivot and grow a new business SnackMagic entirely during the lockdown and now is at $20M ARR.

Shaunak’s Background: Shaunak Amin is co-founder and CEO of STADIUM and SnackMagic. He is an experienced entrepreneur and operator, and has helped launch and scale businesses in different industries.

In addition to the entrepreneurial ventures, his career spans financial technology and investment management with senior roles at Novus - a fintech firm based in NYC, SAIL Advisors- a multi-billion dollar family office based out of Hong Kong, ING Investment Management and SEI Investments

Shaunak also holds a BS from University of Pennsylvania. He started his first business, Tikka Foods, during his Sophomore year at PENN that initially started as a food truck and ultimately evolved into a wholesale delivery service of ready-to-eat, contemporary Indian food.

For more on this story, check out this playlist:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnuoDHNwT1mVI7wPP-kunbjLKgnSY5ZJP

In this episode we discuss:

01:31 Shaunak’s early entrepreneurial experiences

02:37 Lessons from those days that he’s applied to Stadium and SnackMagic

03:27 The business model of Stadium

05:23 How Covid pushed Stadium to pivot

07:32 Mindset of the company in the early days of the pandemic

10:04 The effect on the team size

11:05 The decision to fully launch SnackMagic

14:08 Research process to validate SnackMagic

15:41 Timeline of idea to first order

17:50 Why they didn;t choose to be subscription first

20:00 How SnackMagic manages SKUs and helps consumers discover new snacks

22:31 Getting access to brands

24:10 The data around the purchase decisions

25:00 How consumers use the platform to try and then buy in bulk

26:06 The best sales channel for SnackMagic

26:45 The biggest headache for scaling

27:26 Network effect of treating it forward

28:34 Customer experience tracking

29:20 How they weed out weak snacks

29:57 The hidden gem of data around what people want to eat

31:03 Why Shaunak decided to take a large Series A

32:17 The future of SnackMagic

33:30 Moving beyond snacks

Books Shaunak recommends:The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. GoldrattInfluence: The Psychology of Persuation by Robert B Cialdini PhDThe Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton M. ChristensenBlue Ocean Strategy, Expanded Edition: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim

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On today’s Tank Talk we have Jonathan Tower, renowned venture capitalist and author of a recent piece on the Series A gap in VC.

Jonathan’s Background: Jonathan Tower is the Managing Partner at Catapult, a cross-border venture capital platform which specializes in investing in emerging tech hubs outside Silicon Valley. Jonathan has deployed more than $220mm in more than 50 companies across three core investment themes: consumer (ecommerce, marketplaces), enterprise (software, services) and frontier technologies (AI/data/robotics, etc).

Jonathan's investments include early bets in Jet.com (acquired by Walmart for $3.5 Billion), Dollar Shave Club (acquired by Unilever for $1 Billion), Freshly (acquired by Nestle for $1.5 Billion), and many other companies that have gone on to become market leaders.

Jonathan began his venture career with Gabriel Venture Partners and, more recently, was a Managing Director at TriplePoint Capital and a Managing Director at Hercules Capital. Previously, he was CEO at two successful software companies, an M&A investment banker, and a management consultant with Accenture and Braxton Associates.

In this episode we discuss:

01:17 Why seed investors grown over the last decade

04:35 What Series B and C funds are in for with the influx of capital into earlier stages

06:41 Concerns with the current trends

08:10 How the flood of capital misallocates funds to secondary players and real estate

11:18 Recruiting competition in this market

14:53 How Seed and A series has evolved in the last few years

16:16 The YC effect on startups and investors

19:03 How the concentration of follow-on deals can distort funds

21:05 What is the metric that startups should aim for to attract investors

23:01 Should seed investors evolve in later later stage

26:11 The right way to evolve to keep your LPs

27:34 Why start a new firm

30:53 How the pandemic has affirmed his investment thesis

32:09 What the Catapult pitch was to LPs

34:17 Advice to emerging managers raising their first fund

38:11 The ingredients for creating a successful tech ecosystem

41:57 How remote is affecting new tech ecosystem

44:04 The long term vision for Catapult

Books Jonathan recommends:Meditation by Marcus AureliusSkin In The Game Akim TalebThe Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture by Scott Belsky

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On today’s Tank Talks we have Eric Woo, founder and CEO of Revere VC. With so much funding and new ways for founders and VCs to raise capital, what will be the new normal for fundraising and VC in general.

Eric’s Background:Eric is an experienced investor and thought leader in the emerging manager and micro VC ecosystem. Eric has deployed over $150M across funds and direct investments throughout his career. He started his career in Venture as Principal at Northgate Capital and then moved over Top Tier Capital. Most recently, Eric was Head of Institutional Capital at Angelist before launching Revere VC last year to build a new model described as the “Vanguard for Venture Capital.”

In this episode we discuss:

01:25 Why Wric is so passionate about the emerging VC space

02:52 History of emerging managers

05:20 Limits of specialization of funds

08:03 How LPs can force emerging managers to grow away from specialization

11:20 Power law and portfolio construction

13:48 SPVs for follow-on vs. reserves

15:51 Creating access through community and how LPs view side hustles

18:19 How LPs use references to vet investments

20:36 Rolling funds and how institutional investors view them

24:12 What is edge in VC in 2021

27:57 Investing in information

32:10 It’s not how you invest, it’s what you invest in

34:11 About Revere VC

35:55 How Eric is working to change the mindset around investing

38:05 Venture philanthropy

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On today’s Tank Talks we have Braughm Ricke, founder and CEO of Aduro Advisors, which is a platform that allows fund to streamline accounting and operations.

Braughm’s Background:CEO and Founder of Aduro Advisors in Denver, CO. Former Founding CFO of True Ventures with over 20+ years of VC experience. He began his career in venture capital in 1999 and was the Controller at Sofinnova Ventures. Before working in the venture industry, he was an Accounting Analyst at Fidelity Investments. Braughm launched Aduro as a tech-enabled Fund Administrator and has grown to over 300+ Firms and over $30 Billion assets under administration and works with top tier managers like Lowercase Capital, Homebrew, and Craft Ventures.

In this episode we discuss:

01:46 The spark to leave True Ventures and start Aduro

03:14 What emerging managers ask when starting a fund

04:15 Defining fund administration

06:04 How Aduro handles the boring things while managers source deals

06:57 The opportunity for technology to disrupt the VC world

09:18 How Aduro scales with clients

11:16 LPs and how they are adapting to the surge in emerging managers

13:13 Fundraising and timing the market

15:56 Launching an institutional fund on Angellist

17:13 How new crowd equity platforms will effect emerging managers

19:16 The rise of co-investing

20:32 Emerging managers of fund of funds

21:24 Breaking up the VC oligopoly with data

23:57 How using tools like Aduro gives managers and LPs more confidence

25:15 What funds will look like moving forward

27:01 The push for data standardization across the industry

29:47 Giving LPs clarity as dilution and other factors happen

Books Braughm recommends:The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday

The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William N. Thorndike

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

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It’s been a busy week in the Rippleverse with adding a new partner, two Clubhouse events, and starting Q2.

With all that going on we thought we would revisit Samir Kaji’s episode from last October. Samir is a friend of the pod and he has recently announced a new venture, Allocate, which is dedicated to helping emerging managers connect with LPs.

We will be back with fresh episodes for the rest of April and beyond!

Today on Tank Talks! We have Rob Petrozzo, co-founder of Rally Rd to talk about “Democratizing investing in rare collectables.”

Rob’s Background: Rob Petrozzo is the Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer of Rally Rd, a platform where investors can buy and sell equity shares in collectible assets like cars, watches, sports memorabilia and art. The company aims to make investing in these illiquid assets more exciting, safe and accessible to everyone. Rally recently closed a $17 million in fundraising from some amazing backers, both strategic and financial including Porsche Ventures, the Raptor Group and Co-Founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian.

In this episode we discuss:

01:59 How Rally Rd got its start

04:43 What it took to get to launch

06:50 The decision to jump into different asset classes

08:41 Fee structure and the business model

10:27 How an IPO works on Rally Rd

11:27 Demographics of the average Rally Rd investor

13:34 The strength the assets are on Rally Rd

15:32 How an asset gets sold from the market

18:52 Proxy voting mechanism

19:33 Partnerships and what they look like in the future

20:53 The effect of Top Shots on the market

22:46 Rally Rd’s plan to enter the digital collectable market

24:46 NFTs and Rally Rd

26:46 Working with their high profile investors

29:48 The liquidity of the market

32:11 Growth into intangible assets

35:40 Legacy auction houses entering the market

38:28 Rob’s favorite asset on the platform

Book Rob recommendsInside the Nudge Unit by David Halpern

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