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The Conviction Punch with Eli Blee-Goldman(!)
A special chance to meet Eli, the third founder of Character, and learn about the inner workings of venture capital. This week on episode 6 of Jake & JZ we talked about:
- How Jake got to ride in the very first Waymo (when it was just a prototype on the Google campus)
- Jake’s rollercoaster of emotion meeting Eli
- Eli’s winding path to VC (it led through Botswana!), his famously good intuition, and “Eli-isms”
- Phaidra: Why we invested, how we work with the team, and the real value of a startup board member
- Why we use blinded scorecards to make investment decisions
- Jake’s annotated copy of the viral MrBeast production memo (download it here!)
- The importance of starting at the end
- And much more
📩 Get an email about every episode at JakeAndJZ.com
💸 Learn more about our seed fund Character Capital
🥸 Find Jake on LinkedIn and X
🤠 Find JZ on LinkedIn and X
Chapters
0:00 Jake got to ride in the very first Waymo
3:35 Jake & JZ’s impressions of Waymo in San Francisco
7:55 Welcoming our cofounder Eli Blee-Goldman to the show!
8:15 Jake’s rollercoaster of emotion meeting Eli
10:35 Eli’s winding path to VC (it led through Botswana!)
13:35 How Eli developed his famously good intuition
15:40 How Eli got his first job in VC
20:20 Showing up and putting in the work
21:50 A fine Eli-ism: The Conviction Punch!
26:05 The mismatch between founders and VCs
30:40 Why Eli got excited about Phaidra
34:00 Wait, what does Phaidra do, anyway?
36:15 Why we use blinded scorecards to make investment decisions
39:30 How Design Sprints make startups more capital efficient
42:15 The role of board members at an early-stage startup
47:40 Why Eli decided to start Character Capital
50:25 The viral MrBeast production memo
52:05 “This is like Sun Tzu, it’s like the Art of War”
52:45 Jake walks through his annotated version of the MrBeast memo
57:05 Start at the end: Choosing the title and thumbnail BEFORE making the video
59:55 Seth Godin: “Marketing is how we create the conditions for people to find what they are looking for”
1:00:50 MrBeast and Lightning Demos
1:03:00 Clickbait headlines and the feeling of success
View all episodes
By Jake Knapp and John ZeratskyA special chance to meet Eli, the third founder of Character, and learn about the inner workings of venture capital. This week on episode 6 of Jake & JZ we talked about:
- How Jake got to ride in the very first Waymo (when it was just a prototype on the Google campus)
- Jake’s rollercoaster of emotion meeting Eli
- Eli’s winding path to VC (it led through Botswana!), his famously good intuition, and “Eli-isms”
- Phaidra: Why we invested, how we work with the team, and the real value of a startup board member
- Why we use blinded scorecards to make investment decisions
- Jake’s annotated copy of the viral MrBeast production memo (download it here!)
- The importance of starting at the end
- And much more
📩 Get an email about every episode at JakeAndJZ.com
💸 Learn more about our seed fund Character Capital
🥸 Find Jake on LinkedIn and X
🤠 Find JZ on LinkedIn and X
Chapters
0:00 Jake got to ride in the very first Waymo
3:35 Jake & JZ’s impressions of Waymo in San Francisco
7:55 Welcoming our cofounder Eli Blee-Goldman to the show!
8:15 Jake’s rollercoaster of emotion meeting Eli
10:35 Eli’s winding path to VC (it led through Botswana!)
13:35 How Eli developed his famously good intuition
15:40 How Eli got his first job in VC
20:20 Showing up and putting in the work
21:50 A fine Eli-ism: The Conviction Punch!
26:05 The mismatch between founders and VCs
30:40 Why Eli got excited about Phaidra
34:00 Wait, what does Phaidra do, anyway?
36:15 Why we use blinded scorecards to make investment decisions
39:30 How Design Sprints make startups more capital efficient
42:15 The role of board members at an early-stage startup
47:40 Why Eli decided to start Character Capital
50:25 The viral MrBeast production memo
52:05 “This is like Sun Tzu, it’s like the Art of War”
52:45 Jake walks through his annotated version of the MrBeast memo
57:05 Start at the end: Choosing the title and thumbnail BEFORE making the video
59:55 Seth Godin: “Marketing is how we create the conditions for people to find what they are looking for”
1:00:50 MrBeast and Lightning Demos
1:03:00 Clickbait headlines and the feeling of success