The Sherveen Show

Tune in to my conversation with Elizabeth Gascoigne, Founder and CEO of Absence of Proof. It's a non-alcoholic event curation company, online bottle boutique, and beverage distributor, pushing the world's capability to have and enjoy boozeless experiences.

Gen Z drinks an estimated 20% less per capita than their millennial counterparts (1). Since the 1970s, and especially from 2010 to 2020, we've seen massive declines in underage alcohol use (2) (3).

There are more non-alcoholic bars, events, and pop-ups than ever. Companies like Kin Euphorics and Liquid Death are popularizing an "out loud" version of abstaining. And Absence of Proof is helping elevate non-alcoholic nightlife as an alternative to drinks-based norms.

And today, we chat about Elizabeth's founder journey, the mechanics behind her many-business-model, bootstrapped business, her view on other non-alcoholic beverage companies, the demographics at play, how she views venture capital having not yet taken it on, and we even cover Andrew Huberman as it relates to a mission-driven founder staying aligned to their movement and zeitgeist. A fun conversation with a super compelling entrepreneur.

This is Episode 005 of The Sherveen Show.

Follow Sherveen on X: https://www.x.com/sherveen

Follow Elizabeth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-gascoigne

1: https://globalnews.ca/news/9411516/alcohol-consumption-decline-gen-z/

2: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7612362/

3: https://news.gallup.com/poll/509690/young-adults-drinking-less-prior-decades.aspx

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Tune in to my conversation with Mette Dyhrberg, Founder and CEO of Mymee. Mymee is a digital care platform designed to help individuals manage autoimmune diseases like arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, lupus, and long COVID. They combine a mobile app, data analytics, and certified health coaches for their clinically-validated solution. They've raised a little over $15M from New York ventures, Half Court Ventures, and others.

And today, we chat about Mette's founder journey, the challenges of and opportunities in dealing with autoimmune disease, how she views being insurer- and practitioner-friendly, her unique business model in healthtech, the debate between RCTs and personalized medicine, raising venture funding, and so much more.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction!

00:45 Understanding Mymee's Mission

02:47 Challenges in Autoimmune Healthcare

04:23 The Mymee Method Explained

05:51 Patient Experience and Journey

10:22 The Role of Triggers in Autoimmune Diseases

18:02 Innovative Business Model and Market Strategy

22:22 Passion and Challenges in Healthtech

25:06 The Rise of Behavioral Change Companies

25:27 The Impact of COVID on Digital Health

26:37 Personalized Medicine vs. Western Medicine

28:46 Challenges in Medical Trials and Innovations

33:21 Creative Solutions in Business and Medicine

35:44 Startup Strategies and Team Building

37:29 Patient Advocacy and Autoimmune Conditions

45:29 The Future of Quantified Self and Wellness

This is Episode 004 of The Sherveen Show.

Follow Sherveen on X: https://www.x.com/sherveen

Follow Mette: https://x.com/metamette

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Timestamps:

00:00 - Hello!

00:27 - Tech imposes consequences

01:58 - Upwork gets hit by AI

03:56 - Layoffs in the video games industry

08:16 - Employees giving up on startup equity

11:37 - AI for job search is... bad?

13:15 - Venture capital firms offering refunds

15:52 - Women in tech sounding an alarm

17:34 - You should listen to this podcast

19:11 - Bye!

Relevant links:

https://x.com/varadhjain/status/1843080099916313056/photo/1

https://x.com/emollick/status/1841929292021956712

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4527336

https://x.com/ballmatthew/status/1843351557712293944

https://www.matthewball.co/all/gaming2024

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7249138994670645250/

https://x.com/rohanpaul_ai/status/1842712127556956230

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/02/technology/crv-vc-fund-returning-money.html

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/why-women-in-tech-are-sounding-an-alarm

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/07/vc-firm-nfx-laid-off-4-employees-and-plans-to-hire-more-investors/

https://www.theverge.com/24260181/rabbit-r1-large-action-model-lam-playground-generative-ai-jesse-lyu-interview-users

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Tune in to my conversation with Ravin Thambapillai, the co-founder and CEO of Credal.ai. They've raised about $5M (from YC, Spark Capital, Drive Capital) to build an AI application platform targeted at the enterprise. He's an Oxford graduate and Xoogler, and he and his co-founder (Jack Fischer) cut their teeth in the world of enterprise data security & AI at Palantir before starting Credal.

And today, we chat about Ravin's founder journey, going through YC, his discovery of the Credal thesis, how he thinks about the frontier AI models and their integration into his product, building AI for the enterprise, and so much more. It's a wide-ranging conversation with someone making AI more practical for everyone else.

00:00 Introductions

00:39 What is Credal?

05:26 From Palantir & COVID to Enterprise AI

13:38 Navigating AI, Open Source, and Models

17:24 Is OpenAI going to eat Perplexity?

23:19 The Future of AI and Enterprise Integration

24:17 The limits of foundational models

27:46 Does Ravin recommend Y Combinator?

31:13 Fundraising, venture capital, and the AI ecosystem

33:09 Advice for AI startup founders

36:00 Crowd Q&A

49:40 Thanks, and bye!

This is Episode 002 of The Sherveen Show.

Follow Sherveen on X: https://www.x.com/sherveen

Follow Ravin: https://x.com/ravin_tham

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Episode 001 of The Sherveen Show! What the heck is The Sherveen Show? It's a new podcast where we'll be discussing the intersection of tech, startups, business, and society.

I'm always interested in connecting two disparate stories, tying together unobvious trends, and paying attention to different communities. I'm not here to give you a scoop on the news, but instead to share a take, mine or someone else's. Because when we understand how things work, we can move with far more intention.

And by the way, I'm Sherveen, the founder and CEO of venture-backed Free Agency. I'm also an occasional angel investor and host of two other shows + podcasts. More than anything, I'm a nuance guy.

Sometimes, it'll be takes on the news. Other times, deep dives on evergreen topics. Sometimes, it'll just be me talking to you, and other times, it'll be conversations with startup founders, tech CEOs, academics, subject matter experts, and influencers. Always trying to connect the dots.

Twice a week.

And today, we're hitting two topics:

- The dockworker strike and its relationship to other unions fighting automation

- 3 types of content that are increasing in value in the age of AI, despite the odds

Okay, that's all for now. More soon. Subscribe. See ya.

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