Sacha Lazimi (@SachaLaz), co-founder and CEO of Yubo, and François Meteyer (@FrancoisMeteyer), partner at Alven, join Erik on this episode to discuss:

- The founding of Yubo and the philosophy behind the app.

- What differentiates Gen Z from other generations.

- The future of social networks.

- Lessons for founders building in this space for this audience.

- The future of entertainment, media, and gaming, and where the investment opportunities are.

- The future of Yubo.

Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. 

Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Erik is joined on this episode by Ricardo Sequerra (@ric0seq), Pawel Chudzinski (@pawell), Christoph Janz (@chrija), and Louis Coppey (@louicop), partners at Point Nine Capital.

They discuss:

- The background of the fund and how it got started.

- Their journeys in venture so far.

- Why they have an equal partnership and how to think about when that arrangement works for a firm.

- How SaaS has evolved over the last several years.

- Which large companies might be disrupted by SaaS startups.

- Opportunities in vertical SaaS.

- How machine learning changes the landscape.

- How their thesis on digital marketplaces has evolved and why B2B SaaS is a large market.

- Other spaces they are interested in.

Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. 

Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Flo Crivello (@altimor), former product manager and engineer at Uber, and now starting his next thing, joins Erik to discuss:

- Lessons he learned at Uber, and what he might have done differently if he were in charge of strategy.

- How transportation is evolving and who the winners in the space might be.

- Why the decentralized model works at Uber.

- What people misunderstand about the history of tech and Silicon Valley.

- Whether egalitarianism is eating the world.

- Libertarianism, government, and progress.

- His thoughts on Twitter and thinking in public.

- His book reviews and explanations of why several books in particular are powerful.

- The differences between France and the USA and why they have persisted.

Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. 

Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Kevin Gibbon (@kevingibbon), co-founder of Airhouse and formerly co-founder of Shyp, joins Erik on this episode. Airhouse provides modern, all-in-one ecommerce operations for direct-to-consumer companies.

They discuss:

- Kevin’s entrepreneurial journey and how he came to start Airhouse.

- Lessons learned from founding Shyp.

- Why entrepreneurs need to be clear about whether they are building a business that is truly VC-backable.

- COVID’s implications for ecommerce and which changes endure post-COVID.

- Which subspaces in DTC are more likely to be successful than others.

- How to start a DTC brand and how Airhouse helps.

- Why it’s so difficult to start a DTC brand these days.

Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. 

Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Erik is joined on this episode by:

- David Perrell (@david_perell), of North Star Podcast

- Jeff Umbro (@jeffumbro), of Podglomerate

- Sachit Gupta (@sachitgupta), of Conscious Creators

They discuss:

- Why you should start a podcast.

- How to get a podcast off the ground.

- Why having one gives you access to people you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

- Monetization models and the merits of each of them.

- How to ask better questions and the art of good conversation.

- How to grow your podcast over time.

Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. 

Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Ben Reinhardt (@Ben_Reinhardt), independent researcher and host of Idea Machines Podcast, joins Erik to discuss:

- Why we don’t have more cool science fiction-like technology in the world.

- Why there hasn’t been as much innovation or progress as humanity had hoped for.

- How venture should evolve to increase innovation.

- The challenges posed by system decay.

- The way out of overregulation.

- How to fix government grants.

- How China balances innovation and regulation and how that compares to the US.

- The challenges relating to intellectual property.

- Where he agrees or disagrees with other thinkers in the space.

Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. 

Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Aston Motes (@__aston__), first employee at Dropbox and executive director at /dev/color, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an On Deck Fellowship event.

They discuss:

- The story of how he became the first employee at Dropbox.

- What he learned at the company and how he approached helping to set the culture there.

- How to sell talent on joining your company.

- His frameworks for thinking about startup ideas.

- The possibilities for “bank shot” ideas.

- How to think about finding a co-founder.

- What he looks for in founding teams as an investor.

- Insights on the music industry.

- How to know when it’s time to shut down your startup.

Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. 

Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Andy Johns (@ibringtraffic), investor at Unusual Ventures, joins Erik on this episode.

They discuss:

- His thoughts on transportation at short distances and the business model problem that these companies face.

- Where his thinking is at with respect to opportunities in consumer social today.

- His thoughts on low-code and no-code.

- Why he’s interested in fintech and what a financial social network might look like.

- Other areas in fintech that are interesting.

Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. 

Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Julian Lehr (@lehrjulian) of Stripe joins Erik on this episode. He is the author of the blog post Signalling as a Service.

- The background of the post and why he wrote it.

- Signalling as a framework and his breakdown of the component parts.

- Why there is very little luxury software.

- How this intersects with Eugene Wei’s idea of status as a service.

- How monetization and signal amplification works in digital products.

- His requests for startups in the area.

- The next topics that he’s thinking about in the space.

- His thoughts on reputation and financial capital.

Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. 

Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Alexa von Tobel (@alexavontobel) and Mark Batsiyan (@mbatny) of Inspired Capital join Erik on this episode.

They discuss:

- What fintech 2.0 will look like and their experiences growing a company during the fintech 1.0 era.

- The idea of the self-driving wallet and removing friction for consumers.

- Their investment thesis and the trends they are seeing in fintech.

- How incumbents will react to changes and why they will be just as acquisitive.

- The impact of COVID on fintech.

- How Gen Z thinks about finances.

Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. 

Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.