The Art of VC

Z Holly is a venture partner at Good Growth Capital where she invests in early stage complex science and technology startups. Z scouts, cultivates, and invests in innovative teams in the hard sciences—aerospace, advanced materials, energy, sustainability, optics, communications—plus medical devices and data science. The team at Good Growth is renowned for their deep operating experience, diverse and extensive network, and impact and founder-centered values.

In addition to her current role at Good Growth, Z also worked with TED to conceive, launch and host the first ever TEDx event. She's also built innovation centers at both MIT and USC, served as advisor to the Obama Administration, and co-founded and grew award-winning computer telephony pioneer Stylus Innovation. 

To learn about more of her experience or reach out, check out her Twitter, IG, or LinkedIn. 

Jordan Nof is the managing partner and co founder of Tusk Venture Partners.

Tusk Venture Partners is a New York City-based venture capital firm that invests in early stage technology companies operating in highly regulated markets or creating new verticals where no regulatory framework currently exists. Our unique backgrounds allow us to understand regulatory risk better than any other fund and offer a platform that helps our portfolio companies execute against those risks like no other venture capital firm can.

Founded in 2016, Tusk Venture Partners manages over $100 million from a global group of institutional investors and remains the first and only venture capital firm positioned at the nexus of technology, politics and regulation. Our portfolio includes some of the most transformative consumer technology companies across sectors that include fintech, transportation, and digital health.

After lots of cold emailing, I'm thrilled to have JCal on this week's episode of the podcast. 

We spend a significant amount of time talking about media/podcasting which I think is incredibly applicable for the following reason: digital appearance is important in today's market. I've learned a ton so far about different ways to stand out in a seemingly crowded space even though I'm just getting started. Hearing Jason talk about this truly accelerated my understanding in just an hour recording session. 

Besides media we also spend some time chatting about how poker compares to angel investing, evaluating early stage founders, and the hot topic of education. See links below for more on Jason and his work:

- JCal on Twitter

- LAUNCH

- This Week in Startups

- The All-In Podcast

- Other fun links via LinkTree

This week, a massive welcome and congratulations to Primary Ventures' newest partner, Jason Shuman. 

Jason and I travel way back to kick things off, chatting about how driving for Uber and sourcing deals for NYC investors led to his first VC gig at Corigin Ventures (now Alpaca). We also take a look at where the NYC seed market is at and why deal size/valuations are on the rise. In the later half of this episode, Jason and I take a look at his investment in Latch. Another episode with close to perfect timing, as Latch went public just before our recording date. 

Here's what we reference:

- OnDeck

- Primary Ventures

- Alpaca Ventures

- Primary's NYC Q4 Seed Report

- Latch

- Latch goes public via SPAC

That's all. Enjoy, 

CR

Andrew Lee (partner at Initialized) joins me today on the show to chat about his investment in Routefusion, an API working to solve the inefficiencies within cross border payments. 

For some context, Routefusion's API enables neo-banks, payroll providers, platforms, and marketplaces to begin offering cross-border payments to their customers in days. When you compare this to existing solutions, where the timeline ranges from 6-12 months, the difference is massive. 

In addition to breaking down why the deal went down we also chat about things like Andrew's background and authenticity within the world of content. 

For more on Andrew and Routefusion, check below!

- Andrew's medium

- Details on the Routefusion investment

- Press

That's all. Enjoy, 

CR

Welcome back to another episode of the pod. Today I'm sharing a conversation I had with Lindel Eakman, partner at Foundry Group. 

I reached out to Lindel after reading a piece on TechCrunch about how he joined the team to institutionalize their LP investments. Because of what he's built with Foundry Group Next, 80% of their early stage deals come from their partner funds. In this one, we'll spend some time chatting about Foundry's mesh network: how it works and why it's so effective. Towards the end, Lindel and I chat about his recent investment in Ludlow Venture's 4th fund. 

As always, here's what we reference (if I miss anything, feel free to bug me about it :))

- How Foundry Group expands its network by backing emerging managers

- Sequoia's scout program

- Hip-Hop Managing Money

- Lindel's blog

- Ludlow Ventures

- Venture Deals

- Foundry Group's partner funds 

That's all. Enjoy, 

CR

Long time coming with this one. Today I'm joined by Jackson Bubala. 

Jackson is an investor at Motivate VC, where he just joined after some time at Founder Equity (both in the Chicago ecosystem). Jackson also writes a fantastic newsletter, Stealing Signs, which baseball fans will especially appreciate. 

In this one we'll chat about Jackson's investment in a new SKU data API, leveraging structural opportunity in venture, and how asset fragmentation is making seed rounds more competitive. When we mention the investment, we'll call it "stealth co." until it's publicly announced. 

For more info on some of the stuff we reference, check the links below:

- Structural Opportunity 

- What is SKU Data?

- Tastytrade exit: a midwest unicorn

- Episode with Lisa Cuesta 

- Episode with Jeff Morris

- Episode with Shane Mac

- Upstream

That's all. Enjoy, 

CR

P.S. - want to reach out? Best way is a message via Twitter.

Today's guest, Mike Duda, is taking on both traditional marketing agencies and venture funds with Bullish. 

Bullish has been labeled as 'America's most dangerous agency' by AdWeek and continues to push the limit in building some of the most disruptive consumer brands out there. Some of their investments include Casper, Harry's, Hu, Peloton, Warby Parker, Nom Nom, and Care/of. 

We talk about what Bullish does and how they're challenging existing models in the first part of this. Some of the other things we riff on are Mike's investment in Harry's, focussing on NPS over TAM, the value of storefronts, becoming obsessed with your customer, and what makes a great brand.

If you want to learn more about Mike, Bullish, or some of the other things we chat about... explore the links below:

- What is NPS?

- Harry's

- Hu's exit

- More context on Bullish

That's all. Enjoy,

CR

Josh Ephraim on the show today and I couldn't be more excited to have him be TheArtof.VC's first Thursday episode. 

Josh joined Dorm Room Fund during graduate school at Berkeley which gave him amazing exposure to a unique demographic of founders that hadn't completed college degrees. He's now an attorney at Gunderson Dettmer representing early stage startup companies. In this one we chat about things like underrated legal terms for founders, identifying early talent, Josh's experience at Dorm Room Fund, and why DRF uses SAFEs.

I'll throw the links we reference below:

- Dorm Room Fund

- Jonathan Goodwin episode

- Josh's piece on Berkeley helping founders

- Josh's piece on SAFE's 

- OnDeck

- Vise

That's all. Enjoy, 

CR