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Brian Luerssen of Long Jump joins Nick to discuss The Rise of Low-Code/No-Code, How Tech is Changing Developer Roles, and the Launch of Founder-Led Venture Funds. In this episode we cover: Walk us through your background and path to Draftbit. Tell us about the customer market and who you're targeting with Draftbit. Are there good comps or parallels in the non-mobile space? Will the user of Draftbit still be a developer, or do you have cases where it's the application product manager or others? Is it just web apps and native apps covering the spectrum? There's this principled group of developers, that don't want to use App builders. They want to build the ground up themselves. How do you deal with that objection? Have you guys achieved product-market fit? Yes or no?  What's the biggest challenge to getting product-market fit and hitting huge growth numbers? Where do you go now? How do you see the business evolve? What's the end-all large market opportunity for Draftbit? Does it stay a platform that you build

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Ed Sim Lanham Napier McKeever “Mac” Conwell II Mike Smerklo Each investor highlights a situation where they decided not to invest, why they passed, and how it played out. Did you miss our guests' full-length episodes? Ed Sim Episode #266 Lanham Napier Episode #248 McKeever “Mac” Conwell II Episode #277 Mike Smerklo Episode #278 For other great episodes, go to The Full Ratchet blog and catch up! Also, follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. The host of The Full Ratchet is Nick Moran, General Partner of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to investing in the exceptions. To learn more about New Stack Ventures by visiting our Website and LinkedIn and be sure to follow us on Twitter. Are you a founder looking for your next investor? Visit our free tool VC-Rank and tell us about your business. We’ll send a list of possible investors right to your email’s InBox!

Ali Tamaseb of DCVC joins Nick to discuss Data on the Key Traits of Billion-Dollar Startups with the Author of Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups. In this episode we cover: Founders' history of building Second-time founders and their larger chance of being unicorns Super Founders bouncing to different industries isn't detrimental to their success Having domain experience does not correlate to success How non/technical founders partner with the same How proxy metrics do not define a good founder Painkiller or Vitamin Pill? Which holds success? How geography may be a dying metric for success How Super Founders tend to secure investment even in the opening rounds Which type of competition defines the unicorn Timing remains the most difficult thing to crack Missed a recent episode? Go to The Full Ratchet blog and catch up! Also, follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. The host of The Full Ratchet is Nick Moran, General Partner of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to i

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Farooq Abbasi Ty Findley Lo Toney Monique Woodard Each investor discusses a portfolio company that did not survive and why it was that they failed. Did you miss our guests' full-length episodes? Farooq Abbasi Episode #251 Ty Findley Episode #250 Lo Toney Episode #249 Monique Woodard Episode #273 For other great episodes, go to The Full Ratchet blog and catch up! Also, follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. The host of The Full Ratchet is Nick Moran, General Partner of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to investing in the exceptions. To learn more about New Stack Ventures by visiting our Website and LinkedIn and be sure to follow us on Twitter. Are you a founder looking for your next investor? Visit our free tool VC-Rank and tell us about your business. We’ll send a list of possible investors right to your email’s InBox!

Tsune Shirota of World Innovation Lab joins Nick to discuss Tech Competition between China, Japan, and Korea, Why IT is King in Japan, and When American Tech Should Expand to Asia. Other topics include the transition from manual services to software, B2B buying behavior in the US vs Japan, determining the shape of your S-Curve, and best markets - determined by need and distribution. Missed a recent episode? Go to The Full Ratchet blog and catch up! Also, follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. The host of The Full Ratchet is Nick Moran, General Partner of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to investing in the exceptions. To learn more about New Stack Ventures by visiting our Website and LinkedIn and be sure to follow us on Twitter. Are you a founder looking for your next investor? Visit our free tool VC-Rank and tell us about your business. We’ll send a list of possible investors right to your email’s InBox!  

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Reid Christian Glenn Rockman Spencer Maughan Billy Libby Each investor describes the most unusual situation or pitch that they've encountered as an investor.

Ben Sun of Primary Venture Partners joins Nick to discuss Distribution vs. Product, Founders vs. Markets, and Winning Deals in a Hyper-Competitive Seed Market. In this episode, we cover: Can you tell us a bit about your founder journey?  What are your thoughts on the major differences and challenges now versus when you started a Community Connect? Is there a bias at Primary toward consumer investments? What region focus does Primary have? Is Miami a viable tech center or is this hype? What is the thesis at Primary? What areas does the Primary team focus on (strategic, sweat equity, talent recruitment)? How collaborative is that formative ideas stage between Primary and the entrepreneurs? I imagine, some of them come and they're ready to raise, and if it's a great fit, you invest, but in other circumstances, ideas may not be fully fleshed out. How much of a role do you play? We've had many folks on the program that say, it's all about the market. The team is important, but there's sort of a base level of com

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Nicole Quinn Niko Bonatsos Niki Pezeshki Shawn Carolan Each investor illustrates a critical lesson learned about startup investing and how it's changed their approach.

Amy Nauiokas of Anthemis Group joins Nick to discuss Embedded Finance, Community-based Fintech, the Demise of Legacy Institutions, and Driving Returns with a Diversity Investment Mandate. In this episode, we cover: Tell us a bit about your background and your path to venture. Anthemis. What is it? Tell us a bit about the thesis and what you guys do? So where do you find yourself spending most of your time?  Amy can you give us a quick primer on the difference between FinTech and tech fin? What is your quick take on regulation? Are there still major obstacles that need to be overcome? We've seen large tech in some ways abuse opportunity before in FinTech and in other areas, that I'd be curious to hear what your take is on sort of the established incumbent large legacy financial institutions. How do you see them adapt in order to capture value and attempt to maintain their position as well as direct access to customers? Let's talk more about embedded finance. How do you think that may affect wealth management

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Paul Martino David Goldberg Maren Bannon Neil Sequeira Each investor discusses sectors, drivers and/or trends that may have significant impact in the future and are potentially positioned for outsized-returns.

Billy Libby of Upper90 joins Nick to discuss Non-Dilutive Financing Options, Fintech is Eating the World, Digital Asset Aggregation, and Quants Investing in VC. In this episode, we cover: Walk us through your background and path to VC. What’s the thesis at Upper90? On the website, it says "We are not looking to finance major technology disruptors but rather the derivative businesses being created around them." Can you explain what you mean by that? How do you underwrite and assess the risk of some of these platform-dependent technologies (channel choke)? If you build businesses that are dependent on top of Facebook, for instance, or on top of Slack, or businesses related to the Amazon ecosystem, like Thrasio, how do you think about the risk of the platform deciding they no longer want to play nice with you? What is the split of your fund - the equity versus the debt component? And the terms of the debt, are there multiple different forms and different terms, or have you standardized that? Do you do some deb

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Eric Collins Gigi Levy Weiss Tim Guleri Ben Casnocha Each investor highlights a situation where they decided not to invest, why they passed, and how it played out.

Spencer Maughan of Finistere Ventures joins Nick to discuss How the Generational Shift Is Affecting Food, Investing in Vertical Farming and in New Biologics, and Platform Solutions to Food Dilemmas. In this episode, we cover: Walk us through your background and path to VC What’s the thesis at Finistere Ventures? Focus? Check Size? Talk a bit about your global footprint, and why that is of value to the firm or the founders? What makes Finistere unique? What do you see as some of the biggest drivers of change in the food value chain? Are consumers going to embrace alternative produced meats when they are ready for market? With classically long timelines, they're expensive (producing a cost-effective product) and production is difficult. How do you think about that when you're underwriting the risk on an investment? What do you think of insect-based protein as a primary protein source and nourishment source in developed countries? What are the food-related effects from the pandemic that are ephemeral versus, y

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Jonathan Hsu Janet Bannister Avichal Garg Simeon Iheagwam Each investor discusses a portfolio company that did not survive and why it was that they failed.

Dharmesh Thakker of Battery Ventures joins Nick to discuss The Future of Cloud, Business Model Transitions from Subscription to Consumption, and The Shift from Technology-first to End-User Value. In this episode, we cover: Walk us through your background and path to VC. What’s the thesis at Battery? Any significant differences in types of products being built across geographies? How does Battery segment the cloud infrastructure market and find opportunity areas in the subsegments of most interest? To what extent do legacy IT and legacy software impede the rate at which we can progress with new toolsets and new infrastructure? Is there more appetite for modern solutions, just due to demographics? When ROI is opaque, how do you measure time to value and how might time to value might be different for different decision-makers within the organization? What does top-down enterprise selling moving to bottom-up user and influencer adoption mean to ROI of significant scale implementation to new infrastructure? What

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Monique Woodard Sach Chitnis Brendan Wallace Mike Smerklo Each investor describes the most unusual situation or pitch that they've encountered as an investor.

Glenn Rockman of Adjuvant Capital joins Nick to discuss The Future of Public Health, VC Differentiation within Life Sciences, and Preventing the Next Pandemic. In this episode, we cover: Walk us through your background and path to VC. What’s the thesis at Adjuvant? When taking on strategic LPs, especially those that are very high profile, and have their own mandates and their own agendas, do they inform you where you deploy capital, or is Adjuvant completely independent and financially motivated? Is there a standard stage within the clinical or development process that you enter in? Standard check size? Are you multi-stage? You're investing in products designed for people who live on just a few dollars per day ... There's a lot of VCs that won't invest in the underbanked category, for instance, because of low-income dynamics and socio-economic effects, even though there are some big, winners and category creators there. When you're pitching this different lens and different frame to LPs in the life sciences

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Erik Torenberg Patrick Gallagher Alfred Chuang Stephen McIntyre Each investor illustrates a critical lesson learned about startup investing and how it's changed their approach.

Neil Sequeira of Defy joins Nick to discuss Overlooked Opportunity in EdTech, Letting the Entrepreneur Be the Guide, and Defy’s Sage Program. In this episode, we cover: Walk us through your background and path to VC. Remind us of the thesis at Defy. Tell us a little about your team at Defy. How it has grown and evolved and all of the things each person brings to the table which makes the firm stronger? What do you think is one of the most underappreciated skills of the great venture investor? How do you think founders have changed since you first started investing, if at all? Why is leading a round of financing and ownership important to venture capital firms? At the later stages and growth stages, what's the biggest risk or mistake you've seen founders make when bringing on investors, and/or what's the biggest issue that investors may impose that causes issues? What resources would you recommend to the listeners that you found valuable on founding startups or being a long-term sustaining venture investor?

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Monique Woodard Marcelino Pantoja Niko Bonatsos Jim Douglass Each investor discusses sectors, drivers and/or trends that may have significant impact in the future and are potentially positioned for outsized-returns.