The VITALIZE Podcast: Venture Capital | Startups | Angel Investing

Justin Gordon (justingordon212) talks with Jordi Hays (@jordihays), Co-Founder and CEO of investing platform Party Round. Party Round is building better tools for founders, starting with an automated fundraising tool. Generate & send docs, collect signatures, and receive funds, automating your raise from open to close. Previously, Jordi Hays founded Likewise and Branded Native.

Website: Party Round

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jordi-hays-559199113/

Twitter: @jordihays

Email: [email protected]

Show Notes:

• How Party Round is simplifying the process of raising capital for founders
• How Jordi got inspired to start Party Round and what sets it apart from other fundraising platforms
• How Jordi and his co-founder Sarah Chase got Party Round off the ground
• Why they focused on marketing early on
• The story behind Party Round’s viral drops
• How their team brainstorms and executes their drops
• Why their BIGTECH Fellowship drop was meaningful for Jordi
• How Jordi approaches choosing investors
• What’s next for Party Round

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Katie Shea (@katiesheasays), Managing Partner at Divergent Capital, a first check investor for startups commercializing unique technological and scientific innovations coupled with a nontraditional business model beyond SaaS and enterprise. Katie has spent her entire career working with technology & internet startups as an entrepreneur, operator & investor. 

Prior to Divergent, Katie was General Partner at Kairos/K50. Before that, she ran a growth consultancy working with early-stage tech companies as an interim CMO/Head of Growth. Previously, Katie was the Head of Marketing at OrderGroove - an enterprise loyalty platform used by retailers including Walmart, CVS & L'Oreal. She joined as the ninth employee & was the first full-time marketing hire through the Series A and B.

Katie started her career by co-founding a manufacturing company from her NYU dorm room that was acquired in 2013. The company's best-selling brands were sold at Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, The Shopping Channel & thousands of global retail locations.

Katie has been featured in the New York Times, CNN, New York Daily News, BusinessWeek, Fox News, Forbes, Cosmopolitan, Entrepreneur Magazine & more. She's an active angel investor and a well-known ecosystem builder who frequently brings together founders, angel investors & VCs.

Katie holds a BS in Finance & Marketing from NYU Stern and lives in NYC.

Website: Divergent Capital

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/katiesheanyc/

Twitter: @katiesheasays

Katie's Email: [email protected]

Show Notes:

• How Katie got into angel investing in 2014
• Katie’s first investment with Bombas Socks
• Katie’s advice for people hesitating to start investing in startups
• The transition from operator to full time VC investor
• Her experience with Kairos Society
• How Katie identifies early talent
• Building Divergent as an institutional multi-decade fund with Lucy Wang
• Their experience raising a fund
• Their approach to portfolio management
• Why they stay under the radar with their digital presence
• Playing to your strengths

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Deon Nicholas (@dojiboy9), CEO and Co-Founder of Forethought, the 2018 TechCrunch Disrupt winner that is transforming the customer experience by infusing human-centered AI at each stage of the customer support journey. With Forethought, organizations can resolve common cases instantly, predict and prioritize tickets, and assist agents with relevant knowledge—all from one AI platform. Founded by a team of Dropbox, Palantir, and Autonomy alumni in 2017, Forethought’s mission is to unlock human potential through the power of AI.

Website: Forethought

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/deon-nicholas

Twitter: @dojiboy9

Instagram: @dojiboy9

Email: [email protected]

Show Notes:

• How Forethought is transforming the customer support experience
• Going from 20 to 140+ employees in 18 months
• Navigating extremely rapid growth while simultaneously empowering employees to do their best work
• How the pandemic-induced global shift to digital work affected Forethought
• How they manage their distributed team via 4 hubs
• How Forethought is impacting their stakeholders’ daily lives with their human-centered AI platform
• What has made Forethought stand out in the industry
• The secret sauce of “true AI”
• Defining their ideal customer profile
• How Deon views the future of human-centered AI
• What has helped Deon navigate the challenges of being a founder and running a rapidly growing tech startup

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Ted Blosser (@TedBlosser), CEO and Co-Founder of WorkRamp, the leading end-to-end training platform for educating employees and customers at scale. Founded in 2015, WorkRamp empowers every professional to reach their full potential through learning. As leaders in learning, they firmly believe that the best businesses thrive when their employees feel supported and equipped with the proper tools to succeed. WorkRamp is committed to building a platform focused on revolutionizing the way we all learn. They’re creating amazing learner experiences to engage your employees, customers, and partners in a completely different way. Today, organizations from hypergrowth startups to Fortune 500 companies use WorkRamp to build the most successful teams in the world.  Prior to founding WorkRamp, Ted and his co-founder Arsh Mand worked together at Box.

Website: WorkRamp
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tedblosser
Twitter: @TedBlosser
Email: [email protected]

Show Notes:

• How Ted Blosser and his co-founder Arsh Mand sought out the opportunity to found WorkRamp
• The first iteration of WorkRamp and the evolution of the platform 
• The challenge of the product market fit journey and defining their target customer
• Recent labor market trends that resulted from the pandemic and how they influenced today’s version of WorkRamp
• The variety of use cases for WorkRamp and how they cater to the needs of companies as they evolve
• How they’ve been mindful about narrowing down the huge TAM of workplace training
• What has fueled WorkRamp’s growth in recent years
• How they were able to have the confidence to go against the grain of market trends
• How they’re adjusting to meet social trends, consumer needs, and modern attention spans
• The big vision for WorkRamp and how Ted’s approach to growth will get them there

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Romeen Sheth (@RomeenSheth), who runs $50M bootstrapped business Metasys Technologies, angel invests regularly, and hosts his own podcast, Square One. 

Romeen is the President of Metasys Technologies, a workforce management advisory firm based in Atlanta. Metasys partners with leading global organizations on the full lifecycle of their talent management strategy. They have been recognized by Inc. 5000 as one of the fastest growing private businesses in the country and work with over 50 leading global organizations today.

On his podcast, Square One: Conversations with the Best in Business, he unpacks the journey of founders, investors, and executives at the cutting edge of business. The conversations on the show dive deep into a variety of industries, business models, and the stories of how some of the most innovative companies of our time have been built.

Additionally, he is an increasingly active angel investor. In 2021, he made over 25 investments in companies such as Bolt and Slice.

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/romeen-sheth-07494427/
Twitter: @RomeenSheth

Show Notes:

• Why Romeen started his podcast, Square One 
• How he found success in podcasting before it was a popular industry 
• The impact podcasting has had on his career
• Romeen’s thoughts on Twitter as a tool for investors and founders
• How he views adding value as a strategic angel
• Romeen’s authenticity approach to growth
• The mental unlock that led Romeen to angel investing
• Romeen’s approach to building relationships 
• Creating an organic versus a transactional community
• Why Romeen has become a more active angel investor over the last year
• How Romeen allocates his funds 
• His approach to evaluating companies by looking at structural opportunities
• Romeen’s strategy for allocating his time as an operator, investor, and creator by viewing them as cohesive

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Trace Cohen (@Trace_Cohen), Managing Director of New York Venture Partners, where he manages over 50 direct early stage startup investments. NYVP is a Family Office that invests in early stage startups that provides an ecosystem of financing, mentorship and strategic marketing. Trace has sourced/met thousands of founders, conducted due diligence, leading to multiple strategic investments every month, while also helping to manage over 50 current investments. He also runs the Active Investors Community with hundreds of investors around the world providing deal flow, speakers and networking opportunities through his newsletter, Slack channel and Upstream app.

He was the President and Co-Founder of Launch.it, a new self-publishing platform for PR professionals, agencies and brands to launch and socialize everything new. Prior to that Trace was an SVP at iFluencePR where he “created understanding for a complex world.” He specializes in strategic PR for tech companies looking to develop their communications, branding and outreach strategies to connect with their communities and customers with transparency. Trace is a graduate of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University with a double major in Entrepreneurship and Marketing. He is one of the original Co-Founders and former CMO of Brand-Yourself.com, which helped students and young professionals manage their reputation and personal brands online.

Website: New York Venture Partners

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tracecohen

Twitter: @Trace_Cohen

Trace's Email: [email protected]

Show Notes:

• Investing as a family business for Trace
• Studying entrepreneurship before it was cool
• Starting his first company, Brand Yourself, from his college dorm room
• Joining his father as a full time professional angel investor
• Trace’s distinction between angel investor and professional angel investor
• Trace’s process for investing at New York Venture Partners
• Their “do diligence” process
• Where they get their deal flow and how they manage and prioritize it
• Investors as “marriage counselors/therapists”
• Being in the businesses of saying ‘no’ and exits
• Some of Trace’s best investments, like Fi and Uizard
• Evaluating founders based on their attitude around what’s possible
• Where they invest geographically and how that has shifted in the last 5 years
• Making memes and having one go viral
• Trace’s newsletter The Active Investor List

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Claire Schmidt (@clairecaveny), Founder and CEO of AllVoices, an employee feedback management platform that empowers employees to anonymously provide feedback, ask questions, share positive input, and report harassment, bias, or culture issues directly to their company’s leadership. With AllVoices, companies gain access to real-time data and analytics that help them make proactive decisions and resolve issues before they become organizational norms. AllVoices helps companies build sustainable and healthy cultures, where engaged employees speak up and feel heard.

While Claire was working as the Vice President of Technology and Innovation at 20th Century Fox she came across Susan Fowler's blog, exposing the toxic harassment she experienced as a software engineer at Uber. The story occupied part of Claire’s mind for months. She began speaking with HR professionals and discovered that the tools available to employees to share feedback or report issues were ineffective, ominous and rarely used. The whistleblower hotlines in the market were outdated and clunky. This lack of an effective and comprehensive employee feedback management platform, was encouraging toxic workplace cultures of silence and unresolved, systemic issues. So Claire began building AllVoices. Then Susan’s voice along with countless others became the start of the #MeToo movement, and the potential of AllVoices became even more clear to investors and supporters, launching our rapid growth. Now, they’re the leading Employee Feedback Management Platform, trusted by leading companies and preferred by employees.

Website: AllVoices

Podcast: AllVoices, Reimagining Company Culture

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/clairecschmidt

Twitter: @clairecaveny

Email: [email protected]

Show Notes:

• What AllVoices is and how Claire came up with the idea
• Leveraging technology to provide a better employee experience
• How Claire’s passion led her to take the leap from leaving her full time position at 20th Century Fox to being an entrepreneur
• The pain points and gap in the market that Claire discovered in her research, which led to the founding of AllVoices
• Starting AllVoices in the midst of the Harvey Weinstein scandal
• Onboarding her first customers before she even had a product
• The challenges of rushing to build a safe and secure platform for sensitive information
• How the product has evolved over the past few years
• How the COVID-19 pandemic and the explosion of remote work impacted use cases for AllVoices
• Claire’s advice for proactively building a great company culture and how they're doing so at AllVoices
• Claire’s perspective on the decision around in-person versus remote work
• How to hire great people and actively listen to your employees

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Ellen DaSilva (@ellenjdasilva), who is an active angel investor and scout with Sequoia Capital, focusing on Seed and Series A consumer tech companies. Until recently, she was the Head of Business Development at Hims & Hers. A graduate of Harvard Business School, Ellen has spent time working at Barclays Capital and Twitter. Ellen was also a Partner at Rough Draft Ventures where she invested in student teams from the Boston area. She also co-authored the book “Pitching & Closing: Everything You Need To Know About Business Development, Partnerships, and Making Deals that Matter.”

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ellenjdasilva
Twitter: @ellenjdasilva

Show Notes:

• How Ellen began angel investing in 2015 
• How she was deal sourcing during business school
• What Ellen was looking for in her early investments and how that has changed over time
• Deal sourcing via Twitter
• Deciding to invest in Fast within 10 minutes of meeting founder Allison Allen
• How Twitter democratizes access for both founders and investors
• Investing in Clubhouse early
• Cold outreach as an investor
• Getting validation as an investor
• How Ellen manages her angel investing portfolio alongside having a fulltime job and being an operator herself
• How Ellen provides value beyond money to the companies she invests in
• Leveraging your value add as an investor in your pitch to founders
• How the value unlock investors provide can be much more important than the financial element
• What Ellen learned writing the book Pitching and Closing: Everything You Need to Know About Business Development, Partnerships, and Making Deals that Matter with Alex Taub
• Transitioning from being an angel investor to being a scout with Sequoia Capital
• Ellen’s experience with the Rough Draft program 

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Eva Ho (@eva_ho), General Partner at Fika Ventures, an LA-based boutique seed fund that invests in founders solving meaningful, systemic problems through the use of data, related AI-enabled technologies, and automation.

Prior to Fika, Eva was a founding GP at Susa Ventures. She is a serial entrepreneur and founder, most recently a founding executive at Factual, a leading location data provider in Los Angeles. Previously, she was a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Google and Youtube for 5 years. Prior to Google, she was the head of marketing for Applied Semantics, a company that sold to Google in 2003. She also co-founded Navigating Cancer, a health startup, in 2008 which is now based in Seattle. She is active in the non-profit sector, serving on the boards of California Community Foundation and First Descents. She is also a founding member of All Raise. She recently served as the Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the city of Los Angeles working with Mayor Eric Garcetti and his team.

In her spare time, you can find her wandering remote geo coordinates, with a special affinity for cold, inhospitable places. Almost always, she is accompanied by her trusty camera and a backpack too large for her frame. Eva holds an MBA from Cornell and a BA from Harvard.

Website: Fika Ventures
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/evaho1
Twitter: @eva_ho
Eva's Email: [email protected]  
 

Show Notes:

• Eva’s original vision for launching Fika Ventures with her partner TX Zhuo
• Eva’s time with Susa Ventures
• Eva’s personal background and the journey that has brought her to where she is today
• How she began angel investing in 2013 and her path to VC
• The importance of representation and diversity in VC
• Eva’s advice for improving and growing as an investor
• The mindset shift from operator to investor
• Finka Ventures' portfolio construction and the progression through their three funds
• Balancing discipline around a clearly focused thesis with knowing when to make exceptions and take risks
• Adapting to the quickly changing world of modern investing
• Eva’s thoughts on the Future of Work and embracing discomfort
• Eva’s experience with Screendoor

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Alexandra Zatarain (@a_zatarain), co-founder and VP of Brand and Marketing at Eight Sleep, the world's first sleep fitness company. Eight Sleep designs tech-enabled products, content and services that make people sleep fit.

In 2017, Alexandra was named by Forbes to the 30 Under 30 list of young professionals making an impact in the Consumer Technology industry. The same year, she was a speaker at the Forbes Under 30 Summit on the topic of longevity, sleep and technology. Prior to Eight Sleep, Alexandra applied her marketing experience at various startups, academic institutions, and Wall Street organizations. She was raised in Tijuana, Mexico and now lives in New York City. She holds a B.S. in Communication Science from Tecnologico de Monterrey.

Website: Eight Sleep
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alexandrazatarain
Twitter: @a_zatarain

Show Notes:

• The evolution of marketing for Eight Sleep and repositioning the brand 
• Defining their target market and what Alexandra thinks they should have done differently
• Balancing listening to your intuition as a founder and advice from investors
• Working with Khosla Ventures
• Using your company’s vision as a north star for innovation and branding
• How remote work has benefitted Eight Sleep and how they keep their team moving in the same direction
• Mitigating supply chain issues through managing customer expectations and heightened customer service
• How they approach growth in different markets
• Building community around creating a new category in fitness
• Using storytelling as strategy in partnerships
• Managing engagement on Twitter
• Becoming a scout at Cleo Capital 
• Where Alexandra focuses her angel investments
• How she leverages her expertise for companies she invests in
• How and why Alexandra began angel investing

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/