Voices of Women in Venture 🌊

At the intersection of technology, entertainment, and venture capital, Mariah Lichtenstern addresses social, economic, and environmental equity through entrepreneurship. 

Mariah is the Founding Partner of DiverseCity Ventures and Managing Director of the Founder Institute, Sacramento Chapter. She is a member of UCLA Ventures, and serves as an advisor for CalSEED CleanTech Fund, Berkeley SkyDeck, and Village Capital Finance Forward US 2019.

Connect with GWE:

Follow GWE on Instagram

Follow Steve P. Young on Instagram

Named one of the most influential investors in the Nordics, Sophia Bendz is a Swedish angel investor and partner at Atomico. As one of the first employees at Spotify, she helped the company go from product idea to millions of customers within just a few years. Sophia has been a champion of founders, investing in more than 30 as an angel investor, and launched the Angel Programme at Atomico. This episode was recorded in London at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, where Sophia was a featured speaker.

"How I Angel Invest" on Medium

This episode is sponsored by DigitalOcean. Apply for DigitalOcean Hatch.(To inquire about sponsoring the YFM podcast, please get in touch.)

Producer: Anna Eichenauer

*Please note that this episode was recorded before the coronavirus global pandemic*

Madeline Keulen is Vice President at Victress Capital. Victress Capital is an early stage venture capital firm that provides visionary and diverse founding teams in the consumer space with capital and resources for growth. Victress has backed 21 innovative companies led by tenacious founders including Alyce, Daily Harvest, Harper Wilde, Rae, and Summersalt. 

Prior to Victress, Madeline developed her consumer expertise as an operator, experiencing first-hand the importance of customer-centric values while working at Apple and The Walt Disney Company. She then moved to Oliver Wyman, where she focused on partnering with leading consumer product and services businesses on strategic growth initiatives, operational improvement, and post-merger integrations.

You can follow Madeline on Twitter @mkeulen and check out her blog mkeulen.com To follow along behind the scenes of the show, you can follow @mikegelb and @consumervc.

One book that inspired her professionally and personally is How Will You Measure Your Life? By Clay Christensen. A couple other books that inspired her professionally are Sam Walton’s Made in America and Phil Knight’s Shoedog.

On this episode you will learn - 

1. What attracted Madeline to startups and venture capital in the first place? How was she able to break into venture? A bit about Victress Capital? What she looks for at the seed stage? Her diligence process?
2. Boston’s startup ecosystem. What is the value of a brand? How to think about competitive advantage and moat? How she thinks about contrasting trends? Is this the hardest period to build a brand in today’s climate since it seems so easy to launch a brand?
3. How the DTC channel has changed? Why she is so bullish on consumer? What she would change about venture capital? Advice for founders in secondary and tertiary markets. The importance of knowing your why.

Working with your friends can either be the worst thing you’ve ever done or the best decision you’ve ever made. Fortunately, for actress and dynamic entrepreneur Keisha Knight Pulliam (@keshiaknightpulliam) and businesswoman extraordinaire, Arian Simone (@ariansimone), they walk the line of business partners and best friends seamlessly.  With a friendship that spans over 20 years and about the same amount of time put into their own ventures, Arian and Keisha wanted to help women of color-led businesses in a practical way. So, they created the Fearless Fund - a venture capital fund that invests in WOC businesses seeking pre-seed, seed level or series A financing. The are bridging the gap in venture capital funding for women of color founders. To hear just how deep their friendship goes and how beautifully it lends itself to a successful VC fund - keep on listening.

• UnBossed Host: Marquita Harris (@marquita_harris_)
• Producer: Tiffany Ashitey (@misstiffsays)
• Associate Producers: Ashley Hobbs (@ashleylatruly) + Shantel Holder (@shadesofshan_)
• Bookings: Marquita Harris, Tiffany Ashitey
• Audio: Anthony Frasier (@anthonyfrasier) + Josh Gwynn (@regardingjosh) 
• Music: Gold Standard Creative (@gscdotnyc)

Merci Victoria Grace is a Partner @ Lightspeed Venture Partners, one of the valley's leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Snapchat, Mulesoft, Affirm, AppDynamics and more. As for Merci, prior to entering the world of venture, Merci spent 3 years at Slack including as Head of Growth where she grew the growth team to over 50 people and drove DAU's from 500K to 5M in under 2 years. Merci is also the Founder of Women In Product a global community of incredible women in product management.

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In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Merci made her way into the world of venture having led the growth team at Slack for close to 3 years?

2.) Merci has been working to productise venture, so what core elements of venture need productising? What systems and tools has Merci put in place to create a product around these processes and methods? What have been the biggest challenge in the attempt to productise VC?

3.) How does the decision-making process look like at Lightspeed? How does Merci use post mortems to help her improve post having lost a deal? How does she structure those post-mortems? What have been some of the core takeaways? What internal tech stack does LSVP run itself on?

4.) How does Merci see the future of the collaboration tools market? Are we entering a period of bundling or unbundling? How does Merci feel about the debate between synchronous and asynchronous? How does Merci determine between those who have grown sustainably vs unsustainably in the time of COVID?

5.) Why do the majority of collaboration tool startups fail? What do they get so wrong in their go-to-market? For those that succeed, what are the commonalities in those that succeed? Why is being good at Twitter a competitive advantage? How does Merci feel about the Superhuman, high touch onboarding style?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Merci's Fave Book: Never Split The Difference: Negotiate As If Your Life Depended on It

As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

As one of Inside Outside's most listened to podcasts of 2019, enjoy our interview with Olivia O'Sullivan of Acceleprise. It was originally published on June 18, 2019.

Olivia O'Sullivan is the Head of Corporate Engagement at Acceleprise, a B2B SaaS accelerator. Accelerprise invests in early-tech companies building enterprise technology. Olivia's focus is on mid-market and enterprise companies interested in collaborations with startups. Her background includes work in advertising and on product and innovation teams for McDonald's and Dow Jones. Olivia spoke with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, about corporate/startup matchmaking, trends and Acceleprise's future.

Key factors in selecting startups include:
- Understanding the founding team. Can they solve the challenge? 
- Traction and product market fit. Want to accelerate growth. 
- Thresholds and levels of expectations. 
- Collaboration on the product.  Emphasis on the initial period where you make introductions. The missing piece is how to transition into providing impact. 
- Make sure two groups of people are set up to participate with each other and engage in a partnership. 
- Provide long-term strategic support.
- Innovation doesn’t happen in a silo. Need a long-term strategy. Participate in the ecosystem before you see change.  Corporations are in different places in innovation
- Companies wanting roundtables and market intelligence.
- Companies with established processes and venture teams. 

New Trends 
- Ten years ago, there were lots of corporate accelerators. Now a lot of established independent accelerators doing great work.
- Now more meaningful partnership doing co-collaboration with startups.
- Financial services companies are partnering with startups.
- Health tech
- Unlocking the power of data in the health world.  What are the core skills for entrepreneurs?
- Long-term vision and steps to get there. 
- Someone who will get the work done to get over hurdles. 
- People who are connectors on the corporate innovation side.  What’s next for Acceleprise
- Kick off upcoming programs in SF and NY
- Investing in another 20 companies. Already invested in over 100.
- Opening office in Toronto. 

For More Information

For more information on Acceleprise or to connect with Olivia check out https://acceleprise.vc

If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy:
Ep. 139 – Northwestern Mutual’s Vivek Bedi on Digital Transformation in the Financial Industry
Ep. 137 – Deloitte’s Michael Frankel on Growth, Hybrid Talent & Corporate/Startup Collaboration
Ep. 127 – Vanguard & CEC’s John Buhl on Lean Startup at Scale

Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play.   

FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE at insideoutside.io

Sarah Kunst is the Founder and Managing Director @ Cleo Capital with a portfolio including the likes of StyleSeat, Glow Bar and PlateJoy to name a few. Prior to venture, Sarah served as a senior advisor at Bumble where she focused on their corporate VC arm, Bumble Fund, and on the board of the Michigan State University Foundation endowment. If that was not enough, Sarah is also a contributing editor @ Vanity Fair. Due to her success, Sarah has been named a Future Innovator by Vanity Fair and a top woman in VC by Wall St Journal.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Sarah made her way into the world of venture from Bumble and how that led to her founding Cleo Capital?

2.) Does Sarah believe VCs really are still "open for business"? What does Sarah make of all the dry powder sitting on the sidelines? How does Sarah think reserve allocation strategies will change today? Why does Sarah believe another great vintage of funds is to come, as it did in 08'?

3.) What would Sarah most like to change about the world of venture? Does Sarah agree that GP commit expectations prevent diversity in venture? How was the fundraising process for Sarah? How can VCs prove skin in the game without having personal capital?

4.) What is the #1 piece of advice Sarah is giving her founders in these COVID times? How does Sarah advise her founders on approaching the talent market today? How does Sarah advise her founders on burn and capital allocation given COVID?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Sarah's Fave Book: Attached: Are you Anxious, Avoidant or Secure? How the science of adult attachment can help you find – and keep

Sarah's Most Recent Investment: Planet Forward

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Sarah and on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Finding small gems, investing in them, building teams, getting other like-minded supporters involved, combining the right ingredients for growth
 that’s what Swati has done her entire career.

For starters, she invested in herself, getting degrees at Oxford and Harvard as a Rhodes scholar. She learned how great teams and companies are built from the inside at start-ups Quid & Square. Most recently, she learned how capital supports and amplifies entrepreneurs as a partner at KPCB.

Music by Jeff Kaale (1, 2, 3, 4)  

Victoria Treyger is a General Partner & Managing Director @ Felicis Ventures, one of the leading venture firms of the last decade backing 2 unicorns per year since founding including Shopify, OpenDoor, Flexport, Adyen, Twitch, Fitbit and many more. At Felicis, Victoria led the firm's investments in prior 20VC guest Assaf Wand @ Hippo, Sentio, Sentilink, Blume, Floravere, and other stealth brands. Prior to joining Felicis, Victoria was Chief Revenue Officer of Kabbage. During her six-year tenure, Victoria and her team were instrumental in scaling revenue into the hundreds of millions of dollars and delivered a compound annual growth rate of over 100%. Victoria's deep operating experience also includes leadership roles at Amazon, American Express, Travelocity, and RingCentral.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Victoria made her way into the world of VC as GP @ Felicis today having scaled revenue into the 100s of millions with Kabbage on the operating side of the table?

2.) Having just made the move from the world of operations, what are the most surprising aspects of venture? What elements have you found to be the most challenging? How does Victoria think about what it takes to be the most effective coach? What can the investor do to build that level of trust and transparency with the founder?

3.) In terms of being a board member, how involved does Victoria think the board member should be? Who is the best board member Victoria has worked with? What made them so special? What are Victoria's biggest pieces of advice to founders when it comes to how to run an efficiency board? What is the right way for founders to think about board composition?

4.) What 3 trends in the world of consumer and CPG make Victoria so excited to be investing in the space today? What has fundamentally changed about the distribution of those products that changes the way we consume the products? Does this mean Victoria would disagree we are in a D2C bubble today?

5.) Speaking of distribution, how does Victoria respond to the suggestion "there is a lack of free and open distribution today" with customer acquisition costs being so expensive? How does Victoria think about the consumer and CPG space's ability to provide venture returns at scale moving forward?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Victoria's Fave Book: Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential, Personal History

Victoria's Most Recent Investment: SentiLink

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Victoria on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Atlanta tech entrepreneur Jewel Burks Solomon, head of Google For Startups for the US and managing partner of Collab Capital, Justin Dawkins, managing partner at Collab Capital and co-founder of Goodie Nation, and Barry Givens, Managing Director at Techstars and Managing Partner at Collab Capital, join the program for a roundtable conversation on the role of technology in modern day activism. Plus, Ashley Robinson, Principal of the BLUE Institute, discusses a new virtual leadership training program for young millennials of color. And, we hear the latest on today’s preliminary hearing for the three men charged with the killing of Ahmaud Arbery.

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