The GoingVC Podcast

The GoingVC Podcast

By GoingVCBusinessInvesting
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The GoingVC Podcast episodes

  • Episode 48 - Infinite Curiosity: John Forbes on Deep Tech Diligence and Building Deep Checks

    👋 Hey Listener!

    We're really excited to be bringing to you today our conversation with John Forbes at Julian Capital and Deep Checks. As always, if you've got any questions, feedback, guest ideas, or just want to say hey, don't hesitate to shoot us a message at [email protected].

    John Forbes (@john___forbes) started two businesses before finishing high school, joined Dorm Room Fund as its youngest partner at Berkeley, and helped take a disaster-coordination startup from zero to product-market fit before landing at Julian Capital, a pre-seed and seed deep tech fund. He also runs Deep Checks, the largest deep tech funding platform. He joins JJ and Asad to talk about why deep tech is having its moment, the three risks investors get wrong, and how AI is rewiring diligence.

    Sections

    • Origin story — T-shirts and wellness apps in high school, four years at Dorm Room Fund (including a 20-block sprint to the interview), and a climate tech wedge into deep tech
    • Why deep tech, why now — Software's compressing multiples, falling defensibility, and the structural tailwinds pulling capital toward hardware
    • Deep Checks — Solving the matching problem in deep tech: one-minute applications, batches every three weeks, and vetting investors who are actively deploying, not just "deep tech curious"
    • Life as a principal — Sourcing, diligence, LP updates, and building a startup for startups
    • Infinite curiosity — Why sitting at the frontier with founders chasing their magnum opus never gets old
    • The biggest mistakes in deep tech diligence — Underwriting market pull, wrapping your head around the shape of technical risk, and stress-testing the competitive landscape
    • How deep tech founders should pitch — Less metrics, more proof that you're the exceptional founder for this exact business
    • AI in deep tech — Core to the product, core to the workflows, or an extension of your own brain
    • Trends and a shout-out — Surprisingly uniform submissions across subsectors, and Aalo's small modular reactors for data centers
    • The future of diligence — Expert-level context at your fingertips, and why asking the right questions now beats being the expert
    • Advice for emerging managers — Sourcing is the input that matters most; picking and winning don't matter if you're not seeing the best companies
    • Book — David McCullough's John Adams biography (and wanting to be Ben Franklin when he grows up)
    28 min
  • Episode 47 - Talent Is Everywhere, Capital Isn't with Bedy Yang of 500 Global

    👋 Hey Listener!


    We're really excited to be bringing to you today our conversation with Bedy Yang at 500 Global. As always, if you've got any questions, feedback, guest ideas, or just want to say hey, don't hesitate to shoot us a message at [email protected].


    Bedy Yang has spent 15 years helping 500 Global grow from an accelerator running lots of little bets into a $2.2B multi-stage platform with 30+ unicorns. She joins JJ and Asad to talk about investing outside-in, what first-time managers get wrong about LPs, and where AI alpha actually concentrates.


    Sections

    • Origin story — Growing up Chinese-Brazilian with roots in Taiwan, and how a global network became an accidental path into venture
    • The seat at the table — The Startup to Startup dinner that crystallized her "talent is everywhere" conviction
    • 500's evolution — From one fund to regional funds with partners on the ground, and why local expertise was the unlock
    • What she's had to unlearn — Over-modeling market outcomes (the Nubank lesson), and trusting founders to figure it out
    • VC Unlocked — Why 500 built a training program, what they screen for in participants, and the "permission" effect on first-time managers
    • What first-timers misunderstand about LPs — Institutional capital takes years; your first close is usually closer to home than you think
    • Fund two — Why the second raise is the hard one, and what makes LPs re-up before returns land
    • Emerging markets misconceptions — Separating markets big enough to win alone from those that must go global on day one
    • Underappreciated regions — Eastern Europe and Central Asia, sitting between East and West
    • Sovereign and government capital — The Sanabil work with PIF, right-sizing a first fund, and doubling it halfway through
    • AI — Why infrastructure alpha stays concentrated in Silicon Valley, where the rest of the world can win, and the 18-month window for nations
    • Closing advice + book — There's no perfect time to raise, and The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
    51 min

About The GoingVC Podcast

From the publisher's feed

The GoingVC Podcast - uncovering new paths into VC, diving deeper into alternative models, and addressing areas of weakness with Asad Ali, and JJ MacLean (@jjmaclean) from the GoingVC team.