The Capital Stack

Today, David is talking to Sean O’Brien. Sean O'Brien is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Overline, an Atlanta-based seed-stage venture capital fund that he runs with his partner, Michael Cohn. He has had a 30-year career spanning investment banking, hedge fund management, and corporate strategy/M&A roles. O’Brien currently serves as Board Member at Resultid, BreachRx, HopDrive, The Zero Proof, Press Sports, and Makeswift. Previously, he served as President, Strategic Initiatives & Chief Strategy Officer at PGi, a public technology company that was acquired by private equity in 2015 for over $1 billion. At PGi, he oversaw the company's Legal, HR, and Program Management Organizations, in addition to managing Corporate Development, Corporate Strategy, and Mergers & Acquisitions. O’Brien has completed 30+ corporate acquisitions, divestitures, and company sales, and he has funded, advised, and mentored dozens of early-stage companies. He is an All-Star Techstars mentor and a mentor at Endeavor Atlanta.

What You’ll Learn:

• Seed fund management and founder operator background 
• Leading Rounds
• Investor Relationship Building
• Portfolio Construction
• Deploying Capital and Market Timing
• Fund Ownership
• Thematic Investing
• Calculating a future dilution

Favorite Quote:

“We want to have a different type of relationship with founders. We truly want to be the first call whether is good news or bad news ”

-- 

The Capital Stack

All Things Tech Investing and Value Creation

Early growth investor David Paul interviews the world's greatest ecosystem, learns how to start and scale your own business, and finds an edge in today's capital markets.  To connect with David, visit:

Twitter - CLICK HERE

Substack - CLICK HERE

LinkedIn - CLICK HERE

IG - CLICK HERE

DISCLAIMER:

David Paul is the founder and general partner at DWP Capital.  All opinions expressed by David and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of DWP capital.  This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for decisions. David and guests may maintain positions in the securities discussed on this podcast.

Today, David is talking to Neal Bloom. Neal Bloom is the CEO of Rising Tide Partners, a communications firm, and the co-founder & Managing Director of Interlock Capital, a venture investment firm. He is Chair Emeritus of Startup San Diego.

Neal graduated with an undergraduate engineering degree from UCSD and went to work on NASA's Space Shuttle program, launching astronauts to the Space Station. He has since obtained an M.B.A. with an emphasis in entrepreneurship and marketing.

Neal later co-founded Portfolium to help new grads brand themselves with existing classwork as work experience in a visual format. Portfolium was acquired by Instructure ($INST) in 2019. He then went to work building an investment community of domain expert operators to close the gap between capital and subject matter experts. This group, Interlock Capital, has deployed $3.6M into 17 companies in 17 months.

Mr. Bloom has focused on a variety of

·   Build a multi-city media company and a marketing agency that focuses on economic development, sustainability, and evangelism of the SoCal tech ecosystem, winning multiple awards along the way

·   Amplify the story of dozens of local governments and special districts in connecting with their communities

·   Interviewed hundreds of leaders for tens of thousands of downloads through his podcast

·   Helping create an annual conference to inspire entrepreneurship

·   Mentor dozens of founders to either leap and/or to keep building quality businesses

·   Advising stakeholders in multiple regions on the changing needs for talent and capital in the technology space

·   Angel investing into 50+ early-stage companies while inspiring more entrepreneurs to become investors as well

·   Recruit 250+ operators to begin their angel investing journey with Interlock Capital

·   Raising a venture fund to double down early-stage investing in dynamic technology leaders

LinkedIn: /in/nealbbloom

TWITTER: @NealBloom

What You’ll Learn:

• Angel Investing to Raising Fund I
• Understanding of the marketplace model
• Building community prospective
• How to educate the community to get out of their bubble as a company
• The necessity of a founder to be a talent scout
• Importance of being active in sharing an opinion 
• Community understanding that everyone is after the same thing 
• Importance of connecting talent to talent
• Fund structure 
• Social media presence growth

Favorite Quote:

“Show up! And do not wait to start!”

-- 

The Capital Stack

All Things Tech Investing and Value Creation

Early growth investor David Paul interviews the world's greatest ecosystem, learns how to start and scale your own business, and finds an edge in today's capital markets.  To connect with David, visit:

Twitter - CLICK HERE

Substack - CLICK HERE

LinkedIn - CLICK HERE

IG - CLICK HERE

DISCLAIMER:

David Paul is the founder and general partner at DWP Capital.  All opinions expressed by David and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of DWP capital.  This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for decisions. David and guests may maintain positions in the securities discussed on this podcast.

Today, David is talking to Jacob Findlay. 

Jacob Findlay is the Co-founder of Fullbay. Five years ago, he made the leap from healthcare to truck repair. He wanted to take the best ideas from the electronic medical records world and apply them to heavy-duty repair. In other words, build a medical record for trucks.

At the time, Jacob was in the Director of Finance role for a wildly successful startup company called WebPT. More than 10,000 physical therapy clinics in the United States—one-third of all clinics in the country—now run on WebPT’s software.

Despite his success at WebPT, he left to spend a year running the office side of a truck repair shop. He wanted to gain street credibility in truck repair. He then launched Fullbay in the Fall of 2015.

Today Fullbay is the number one fleet repair platform in North America. Jacob is a CPA, a cellist, a so-so surfer, and the father of seven children.

What You’ll Learn:

• Importance of a good sales execution 
• Steps to achieve product-market fit
• Understanding and identifying a problem before building a product
• Progress of the product after launch
• Understanding customers and how to implement the product
• Adjusting training accordingly to SMB customer 
• Best ways to identify product-market fit 
• Importance of keeping a simple finance plan

Favorite Quote:

“If you wanna succeed in business, identify a problem, solve it, and then sell it.”

-- 

The Capital Stack

All Things Tech Investing and Value Creation

Early growth investor David Paul interviews the world's greatest ecosystem, learns how to start and scale your own business, and finds an edge in today's capital markets.  To connect with David, visit:

Twitter - CLICK HERE

Substack - CLICK HERE

LinkedIn - CLICK HERE

IG - CLICK HERE

DISCLAIMER:

David Paul is the founder and general partner at DWP Capital.  All opinions expressed by David and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of DWP capital.  This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for decisions. David and guests may maintain positions in the securities discussed on this podcast.

Today, David is speaking with John Francis.

John Francis brings his experiences as an operator and institutional venture investor. John Francis with Clay Gordon started Stout Street Capital in 2017. As General Partner, he focuses on investment opportunities in the IT software serving sectors such as Construction, Government, Energy, Cleantech, Media, Advertising, HR, Healthcare, and Cloud services. John works actively on several portfolio company boards, including Schola, Fluent Forever, Botco.ai, and Ad Fontes. He previously served on the boards of Popwallet (acquired by Snapchat (Nasdaq: SNAP)) and has made investments in companies such as Left-hand robotics(Acquired by TORO(NYSE: TTS)

What You’ll Learn:

• Difficulties in raising capital as a non-operator VC
• Operator vs. non-operator background VC
• The importance of having Empathy as a VC
• Benefits and flexibility of being a small check fund
• Difficult to identify an exceptional founder 
• Ways to look at pre-seed and seed companies
• Benefits and necessities of writing a follow on check

Favorite Quote:

“Always ask for a lullaby before getting into a business.”

-- 

The Capital Stack

All Things Tech Investing and Value Creation

Early growth investor David Paul interviews the world's greatest ecosystem, learns how to start and scale your own business, and finds an edge in today's capital markets.  To connect with David, visit:

Twitter - CLICK HERE

Substack - CLICK HERE

LinkedIn - CLICK HERE

IG - CLICK HERE

DISCLAIMER:

David Paul is the founder and general partner at DWP Capital.  All opinions expressed by David and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of DWP capital.  This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for decisions. David and guests may maintain positions in the securities discussed on this podcast.

Today, David is speaking with Cory Lee Berg. 

Cory is a technology specialist and coach. He believes software teams with a clear vision and proper leadership can build excellent products while enjoying the journey.

Described as a “pragmatic technologist with a rare ability to yield results and make engineers smile,” Cory has devoted his professional life to helping advance a vision where business and software act as true partners in creating exciting, vibrant software and solutions to make the world a better place.

Cory is the author of the 5-star review book, Software++: Must-Have Skills for Software Engineers.

In his spare time, Cory runs www.softwaretshirts.com, an e-commerce site designed to uplift the spirits of technology workers everywhere.

He is also launching a program to foster and promote next-generation leadership skills for technology leaders everywhere.

What You’ll Learn:

• Product Management
• Product Strategy (Short / Long term)
• When to Bring in a Product Manager.
• Product Simplicity (Framework /right person)
• Messaging and Expectations around Product Launch
• Founder Bias within Product
• Emotional Intelligence for in Tech Leadership
• Recruitment Top Tech Talent

Favorite Quote:

“If you aren’t going to build it deep, then don’t build it at all.”

-- 

The Capital Stack

All Things Tech Investing and Value Creation

Early growth investor David Paul interviews the world's greatest ecosystem, learns how to start and scale your own business, and finds an edge in today's capital markets.  To connect with David, visit:

Twitter - CLICK HERE

Substack - CLICK HERE

LinkedIn - CLICK HERE

IG - CLICK HERE

DISCLAIMER:

David Paul is the founder and general partner at DWP Capital.  All opinions expressed by David and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of DWP capital.  This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for decisions. David and guests may maintain positions in the securities discussed on this podcast.

Today, David is speaking with Jess Randall. Jesse Randall is the CEO and Co-Founder of Sweater Ventures, a VC fund that gives access to venture capital to everyone, regardless of your wealth or accreditation status. Sweater just raised $15M Series Seed earlier this year in order to build the technology to put an investment team in the palm of your hands via a mobile app where you can keep up to date on your portfolio. Sweater aims to give everyone a chance at investing in the next big startup through the fund. In addition to Sweater, Jesse is an avid Ironman competitor, a family man with five children, and a previous founder of several other companies.

What You’ll Learn:

• Private Market Accreditation Guidelines
• Being a Registered Investment Company
• Comparing Sweater and a Mutual Fund
• Investment Thesis and Deal Flow
• Target Returns
• Redemptions and Managing Cash
• Managing Deployment Velocity and Fundraising
• Consumer-facing brands, products, and apps on the sweater platform

Favorite Quote:

“Focus on your strength. It is better to take your strength from 10-100 than focus on your weakness from 1-10”

-- 

The Capital Stack

All Things Tech Investing and Value Creation

Early growth investor David Paul interviews the world's greatest ecosystem, learns how to start and scale your own business, and finds an edge in today's capital markets.  To connect with David, visit:

Twitter - CLICK HERE

Substack - CLICK HERE

LinkedIn - CLICK HERE

IG - CLICK HERE

DISCLAIMER:

David Paul is the founder and general partner at DWP Capital.  All opinions expressed by David and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of DWP capital.  This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for decisions. David and guests may maintain positions in the securities discussed on this podcast.

Today, David is speaking with Jack Freeman. Jack has worked with growth-stage technology businesses his whole career and has been a partner to nearly twenty portfolio companies at PeakSpan. He currently leads Payments, Supply Chain, and E-Commerce logistics. Prior to joining PeakSpan, Jack worked for Stackpop, an early-stage startup where he helped build out a SaaS-based cost management platform to help CTOs and IT teams buy and manage their internet infrastructure. After his startup was disrupted by AWS, Jack joined Macquarie Capital where he spent three years executing software M&A and capital markets transactions. Jack holds a B.A. in Economics from Middlebury College; and prior to Middlebury, he played division I soccer for Seton Hall University. Jack lives in Brooklyn Heights with his wife and recently rescued puppy, Willow – the sweetest Great Pyrenees you’ll ever meet. Once a year, Jack champions a team of thirty in a charity bike ride to the Hamptons to support his brother’s autism program, Quest, where he’s raised over $100K. Since retiring from collegiate soccer, Jack has become an avid distance runner and is halfway to completing the “big six” world marathon majors.

What You’ll Learn:

• Activities in a Later Stage Growth Equity Firm 
• From Associate to Partner
• Yearly Strategic Planning at a VC Firm
• Supplementing SaaS Revenue with Payments 
• Thematic Research
• Understanding Internal Biases 
• Understanding of Tech-Enabled Services
• Follow-on Strategies 
• Valuations in Growth Equity
• 10-Year SaaS Benchmarks
• Good vs. Bad Board Members

Favorite Quote:

“Be Patient!”

-- 

The Capital Stack

All Things Tech Investing and Value Creation

Early growth investor David Paul interviews the world's greatest ecosystem, learns how to start and scale your own business, and finds an edge in today's capital markets.  To connect with David, visit:

Twitter - CLICK HERE

Substack - CLICK HERE

LinkedIn - CLICK HERE

IG - CLICK HERE

DISCLAIMER:

David Paul is the founder and general partner at DWP Capital.  All opinions expressed by David and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of DWP capital.  This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for decisions. David and guests may maintain positions in the securities discussed on this podcast.

Today, David is speaking with John Mizzi. John is the co-founder and CEO of Vero Technologies. He was previously the COO of Bond.One, a capital markets technology platform, focused on streamlining settlement and reconciliation functions for asset servicers (Corporate Trustees and Administrators) in the debt capital markets. As an entrepreneur-in-residence for Danish software company, cVation, he launched 2 fintech companies, Bond.One and IMTC. IMTC is a portfolio management software solution for investment managers. He is currently on the Board of Directors for the McCarton Foundation, a nonprofit organization that seeks to educate, empower, and provide exceptional treatment for children with autism. John attended the University of Michigan, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. While in Ann Arbor, he co-founded InSilico, an education technology start-up focused on developing software solutions for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

What You’ll Learn:

• Managing Yourself and Employees 
• How a fintech product should look like to determine creditworthiness
• Process to raise a seed fund as a balance sheet lending business 
• FinTech milestones and ways to evaluate a FinTech company
• Go to market motion
• Channel Sales through banks 
• Level of Product Market-Fit
• 30/60/90 days plan after a $4M raise 

Favorite Quote:

“You do not do business with business, you do business with people”

-- 

The Capital Stack

All Things Tech Investing and Value Creation

Early growth investor David Paul interviews the world's greatest ecosystem, learns how to start and scale your own business, and finds an edge in today's capital markets.  To connect with David, visit:

Twitter - CLICK HERE

Substack - CLICK HERE

LinkedIn - CLICK HERE

IG - CLICK HERE

DISCLAIMER:

David Paul is the founder and general partner at DWP Capital.  All opinions expressed by David and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of DWP capital.  This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for decisions. David and guests may maintain positions in the securities discussed on this podcast.

Today, David is speaking with Ryan Edwards. Ryan Edwards has 20 years of financial experience across large and small banking institutions. He has a 14-year history of lending to emerging technology companies through his time at both Silicon Valley Bank and Comerica. He has worked with hundreds of borrowers over the years and has extensive experience in venture debt, working capital finance, specialty lending, and portfolio management. The scale of companies that Ryan has worked with over the years has ranged from pre-revenue startups to public companies. His debt fund, Prospeq, works with underserved companies across the US. 

What You’ll Learn:

• Transitioning from a bank executive to an emerging manager
• Bank vs. Fund credit debt
• Fund Formation
• Current market opportunity
• LP returns 
• Emerging manager challenges 
• Debt vs. Equity 
• Deal source strategy and mechanism 
• How to set an investment decision in a new fund 

Favorite Quote:

“View everything as an opportunity, opportunistic as a partnership. Add value together and be supportive of the people that you are working with. Always think about the best way to give and not the best way to gain something”

-- 

The Capital Stack

All Things Tech Investing and Value Creation

Early growth investor David Paul interviews the world's greatest ecosystem, learns how to start and scale your own business, and finds an edge in today's capital markets.  To connect with David, visit:

Twitter - CLICK HERE

Substack - CLICK HERE

LinkedIn - CLICK HERE

IG - CLICK HERE

DISCLAIMER:

David Paul is the founder and general partner at DWP Capital.  All opinions expressed by David and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of DWP capital.  This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for decisions. David and guests may maintain positions in the securities discussed on this podcast.

Today, David is speaking with Gabe Cooper. Gabe Cooper is the Founder and CEO of Virtuous, a Responsive Fundraising Platform helping charities increase generosity and do more good. Gabe has a passion for creating market-defining software and helping nonprofits reimagine generosity.

Gabe frequently writes and speaks about empowering nonprofits to grow generosity using technology. In 2020, he wrote and published the book Responsive Fundraising as a way to help nonprofits connect more personally with donors at a scale.

What You’ll Learn:

• Selling to Non-Business Minded People
• Managing Remote Teams
• Segmenting Vertical SaaS Market
• Finding Product-Market Fit
• Developing Go To Market Fit
• Scaling Customer Success
• Difference between raising a Seed, Series A, and Series B rounds
• Making Strategic Acquisitions 

Favorite Quote:

“Most CEOs including myself don’t actually know what we are doing. We are out of our skies all the time. VCs also do not know what they are doing and they do not know how to run your business.”

-- 

The Capital Stack

All Things Tech Investing and Value Creation

Early growth investor David Paul interviews the world's greatest ecosystem, learns how to start and scale your own business, and finds an edge in today's capital markets.  To connect with David, visit:

Twitter - CLICK HERE

Substack - CLICK HERE

LinkedIn - CLICK HERE

IG - CLICK HERE

DISCLAIMER:

David Paul is the founder and general partner at DWP Capital.  All opinions expressed by David and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of DWP capital.  This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for decisions. David and guests may maintain positions in the securities discussed on this podcast.