The VentureFizz Podcast

It’s a Zoom world that we are living in these days as it relates to meetings. Yes, Zoom became a verb and the company experienced insane levels of growth from the pandemic… but let’s face it, the future of work has also changed with most companies embracing remote work and the world of online meetings are here to stay.

So, if this is the way of the world, shouldn’t your online meeting experience and profile look a lot more personalized and meaningful?

Ankith thinks so and the company just launched their new Zoom client for creatives where you can remove the barriers to true self expression and bring the full you. Macro raised over $4M last year with tier-A investors.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* Tips for running a successful and inclusive online meeting.

* Ankith’s background and his experience with a startup before going back to school to pursue an MBA/MS at Harvard, which is where he met his Co-Founder, John Keck.

* A deep dive into the creation of Macro and the different iterations of the product to where it is today.

* A product demo of Macro where he shares lots of the core features, which you can also find on YouTube.

* Why a company should have three different versions of their pitch deck when raising funding.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

I’m excited that there is a renewed interest in space and new goals that seem aggressive, like traveling to Mars for example. But as we’ve witnessed in the past, when the most brilliant and ambitious people work on a challenge, the improbable becomes probable.

Natalya is one of these pioneers, who as a child dreamed of becoming an astronaut. She actually applied to NASA twice but was unfortunately denied. Instead, she is using her brilliant mind to build a company in the space industry, which has turned out to be perfect timing because of this renewed interest in space and also the rapid growth of the satellite industry. According to The Hustle, there are about 6,000 satellites in orbit and that number is expected to grow to 50,000 by 2030.

Accion Systems is redefining space mobility with the world’s most advanced ion electrospray in-space propulsion systems. To put it simply, the company has built ground breaking technology which helps satellites maneuver while in orbit. The company recently announced a $42M Series C round of funding led by Tracker Capital.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* A discussion around the space industry, the mission to Mars, and civilian space travel.

* Natalya’s academic career which ultimately led her down the path to pursue her PhD studies at the MIT Space Propulsion Lab.

* The full founding story of Accion Systems with her Co-Founder, Louis Perna, and all the details on their revolutionary product.

* How they went about getting traction and raising capital.

* Lessons learned from building a company in the space industry.

* Natalya’s role as an investor with XFactor Ventures which invests in female funded companies.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

For this podcast, I’ve interviewed lots of Venture Capitalists, who talk about their portfolio of investments in companies, but where does this capital come from? When a VC firm announces it’s latest fund of $100M or $1B, who is providing this capital?

Well, It’s typically pension funds, university endowment funds, family offices, or high net worth individuals. The investors in these funds are called Limited Partners or LP’s for short and they are the end client for a VC that is ultimately expecting a return on the capital that has been allocated to a fund.

Thus, I was excited to speak with Sara, who has a lot of experience in the venture industry as an LP and her current firm Recast Capital is a fund of funds, meaning she has raised her own fund that in return provides capital to VC firms. The firm’s strategy is to invest in and empower emerging managers in venture with a focus on diverse partnerships. The goal of the firm is to provide exceptional returns by investing in diverse emerging venture managers.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* Is the VC industry making progress in terms of having more diversity?

* Sara’s educational background and her experience joining an early stage startup and how her career progressed over this period of time.

* How Sara transitioned into the investment side of the equation and her experience at CNF Investments & Greenspring Associates.

* What led Sara and her Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Courtney McCrea, down the path of starting Recast Capital and how they go about making investments into VC funds.

* Details on how the VC industry works and how to get a venture capital fund started.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

This is a long overdue episode, as I’ve been wanting to interview Joe for our podcast for quite some time. Joe has been a long time supporter of VentureFizz and was one of our earliest contributors. If you look into the archives of VentureFizz, you’ll find lots of blog posts where he shares advice on tech trends and building companies.

What’s great about Joe is the level of transparency that he shares in his stories and when giving advice, which translates into not only a great and inspirational interview, but so much useful information.

Joe founded CloudHealth Technologies in 2012 to focus on creating a new product category and after multiple rounds of venture capital funding and years of hypergrowth, the company was acquired by VMware in 2018.

Here’s a fun fact about Joe, he was actually part of the first Scrum team back in the early 1990’s when Waterfall was the go-to methodology for developing software.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* Advice for founders on letting go and delegating responsibilities.

* A journey through Joe’s professional career as a Software Engineer and the evolution to a leadership role in terms of heading up the engineering function at startups.

* The full background story of CloudHealth… from its MVP and first sale… to figuring out product market fit… to raising capital… and of course, scaling the company to the point of the acquisition.

* Advice for founders on building a world class engineering team.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Technology Analyst, Venture Capitalist, Philanthropist, Entrepreneur, Movie Producer… these are just some of the roles that Todd has held throughout his career.

His track record as a VC is very impressive, but could his latest initiative be his most successful yet? Todd and his Co-Founder, Jeff Morin, are jumping into the home connected fitness ring with Liteboxer.

The company recently announced a $20M Series A round of funding for its full body boxing experience which includes breakthrough technology to give you a challenging and engaging workout.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* Todd’s thoughts on the market for tech investing and skyrocketing valuations.

* His background growing up, plus the early foundational years for his career and how he got into the VC industry.

* His time at Battery Ventures, including the story of his early investment in Akamai.

* What led him down the path to start Spark Capital and what he looks for when making investments.

* All the details on Liteboxer - from the initial inspiration, to building the product, plus some of the details on how they are planning on competing in the home fitness category.

* Advice for founders on hiring and recruiting for their management team.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

This is a first! It’s the first time I’ve had the opportunity to interview both a founder and an investor in the same episode. I wasn’t sure how it would go, but after conducting the interview, I think this might be an interesting format to consider moving forward.

We obviously discussed all the details about Vecna Robotics, the autonomous mobile robot and workflow orchestration company, but it was really interesting to learn the story behind the investment. It was like a live version of those common “why we invested” blog posts the VC often write to detail their thought process behind their investment.

As you’ll hear, the background story of each person and how they got to where they are today really sets the stage for why I love doing this podcast. It would be hard to find other individuals who have more expertise in their respective fields and why this is a perfect match to hopefully build a massive company.

In this episode of our podcast, we also cover:

* What the future holds for mobile robots and autonomous vehicles.

* The founding story of Vecna and why they spun out Vecna Robotics.

* Use cases and why the market is ready for the solutions provided by Vecna Robotics, plus the company’s growth plans ahead.

* The details on Blackhorn Ventures and what Trevor is targeting for investments.

* Common pitch mistakes entrepreneurs make while raising funding for robotics companies.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

From this podcast, I get to interview lots of highly accomplished entrepreneurs, however it’s not every day that you get to interview a successful entrepreneur, investor, Head of Brand at a fast growing startup, a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, author, .. oh and…. and a four time US national champion for gymnastics...and a Hall of Fame gymnast.

Needless to say, we cover a lot of ground and it’s an inspirational interview on so many levels.

In addition to her many accomplishments, a lot of Lisa’s personal brand and platform is centered around empowering women which is helping to create the next generation of female leaders.

I know my two teenage daughters will be listening to this episode because I want them to know that the world is their oyster and if you put in the hard work, anything is possible.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* Lisa’s background growing up, plus all the details on the level of dedication that was required to be a world class gymnast and what this experience was like.

* How she got involved in the world of entrepreneurship.

* Her experience building SheWorx, a leading community platform for female entrepreneur, which was acquired by Republic, where she is currently the Head of Brand and Communications.

* Three pieces of advice for being a confident investor.

* An overview of her first book, The Bad Bitch Business Bible, which is scheduled for release next year.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

If you are a Venture Capitalist, you are most likely looking for entrepreneurs who can identify problems ahead of the market, but of course not too-too early. And, you’re looking for founders who are uniquely qualified to solve those problems, plus build a world class company at scale.

It’s a tall ask, but entrepreneurs like Andres are made for this. He’s a serial entrepreneur who loves hard tech. He likes the technical challenges that most people don’t have the expertise or desire to solve. He has built many successful companies and the common thread is his ability to see how the market will evolve and in his case how it will evolve around the world of data storage, especially in the cloud.

His latest company, Nasuni, is the world’s first cloud-native global file system. As previously noted, being early to market can be a competitive advantage and this is certainly the case for Nasuni, as the company has been growing at a very rapid pace.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* A fun discussion about a failed startup that Andres was building with his brother, Antonio, which was aiming at solving the problem of home media storage for consumers which was a very different landscape back in 2000.

* How his graduate work in Physics at Boston University helped shape the foundation of his expertise.

* The details on Abuzz, a first generation social media company, that was acquired by The New York Times.

* Building Archivas, the first enterprise-class cloud storage system which was acquired by Hitachi.

* All the details on Nasuni - from its creation to it’s aggressive growth plans ahead.

* Advice on hiring and building out a company's initial engineering team.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Landing a job in venture capital is challenging and one of the main reasons why is based on the scarcity of positions available. This stat might be a bit old, but at one point, the number of professional athletes in the US was about equal to the number of VC positions. Pretty crazy when you paint the picture that way.

To top it off, there’s no defined career path on how to get there and oftentimes the jobs are not advertised.

However, this has changed in recent years due to the availability of information and John was one of the first to really provide a deep level of insight into how to land a job in venture capital and he also started aggregating the positions available. If you type the search term venture capital jobs or something related in Google, John’s blog - which started in 2008 - appears on the first page of the search results.

Fast forward, John and his co-founder, Arno Niazi, have taken this expertise to build GoingVC, a VC education and career acceleration program to help you land that ideal job in the industry. The program already has hundreds of members & alumni.

Oh… and one would think this is a full time job, but believe it or not, John also has a very successful career in product management for tech companies.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* Tips and advice on time management, which is something that he needs to be very good at.

* John’s background growing up and a look at how he was able to break into the VC industry.

* A deep dive into his professional career at companies like Turbonomic, AWS, and DigitalOcean.

* The full background story on how John started his blog and started aggregating jobs in venture capital.

* How he went on to start GoingVC, the impact it has made, plus what people can expect by going through the program.

* How a VC firm is structured by each role.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Successful serial entrepreneurs are unique in their ability to see transformational shifts before they happen and then they ultimately build a company to meet this future demand. In Jon’s case, it started during his time at MIT when he saw an opportunity in the CAD industry to automate an engineer’s sketchbook. It led him to start his first company called Premise which was later acquired.

The next shift was recognizing the difficulty of using CAD software for product designers and thinking there has to be a better way. This led to the launch of SolidWorks and they built their software to run on Microsoft Windows, which was groundbreaking at the time. The company scaled rapidly and it led to another successful acquisition.

As technology evolved to more of a SaaS business model and cloud based architecture, this opened the door for his latest company called Onshape. It changed the game for product designers in many ways, but especially for team based product development collaboration. The company also scaled aggressively and another amazing acquisition, this time by PTC in 2019.

Oh, and not only is Jon a great entrepreneur, but he was also part of the famous MIT Blackjack Team, which we discuss in lots of detail about this experience and also his interest in magic.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* His experience using a computer for the first time at his high school which includes a very precious fun fact about a popular movie from the 80’s.

* Why he chose to study Mechanical Engineering at MIT and how he got involved in the CAD software industry.

* A journey through Jon’s entrepreneurial career including lots of stories around the companies he’s built.

* All the details about the launch of Onshape, its acquisition by PTC, including the growing popularity of the platform as well as their focus on making a meaningful impact on important initiatives like education where over 1M educators and students have free access to their software.

* Advice for founders on building out their core foundational team.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.