The Full Ratchet: Vc | Venture Capital | Angel Investors | Startup Investing | Fundraising | Crowdfunding | Pitch | Private E

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Jonathan Hsu John Vrionis Trae Vassallo Kane Hsieh Each investor discusses sectors, drivers, and/or trends that may have a significant impact in the future and are potentially positioned for outsized-returns.

Farooq Abbasi of Preface Ventures joins Nick to discuss Funding the Misunderstood Technical Founder, Self Evaluation as a Solo Capitalist, and Capital to Underwrite R&D risk vs. S&M risk. In this episode, we cover: Walk us through your background and path to VC Why did you launch Preface? What's the thesis at Preface? How do you define enterprise/infrastructure frontier enterprise? What's most different about your approach? Are the businesses you fund created and ideated by the founders or is it a collaboration between you and the founders or do you take concepts and bring them to future founders? What's your approach to sourcing? Because your model is different and the founder profile is a bit different than most...  in what unique ways do you provide value post-investment? You're a solo-capitalist...  How do you evaluate yourself and keep some checks/balances on your decisions? Did you put together an LPAC -- if so how big is the group, how often do you meet and when/where do the

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Darren Bechtel Melody Koh Somesh Dash Jeff Fluhr Each investor highlights a situation where they decided not to invest, why they passed, and how it played out.

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Minnie Ingersoll Jim Douglass M.G. Siegler James Currier Each investor discusses a portfolio company that did not survive and why it was that they failed.

Lo Toney of Plexo Capital joins Nick to discuss Common Traits Shared by Top GPs, Why Underrepresented Fund Managers Will Produce Superior Returns, and SPACs vs. Direct Listings vs. IPOs. In this episode, we cover: Walk us through your background and path to VC? Why are Product Management skills similar to the skills required for VC? What's the thesis at Plexo Capital? Do you think a thesis on investing in underrepresented founders will produce superior returns? What do you say to pundits that claim you've restricted your options and will have far fewer managers to choose from... which will adversely impact returns? On a percentage basis... will there be more outsided outcomes from diverse founders (or managers) vs. those that are not diverse? How are you innovating on the LP side? We talked about some of the challenges of raising funds... are there ways that you work with and help emerging managers raising a first-time fund? Not just about performance... especially early on.  What are the common success tra

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Elizabeth Yin Michael Cardamone Gigi Levy-Weiss Niki Pezeshki Each investor describes the most unusual situation or pitch that they've encountered as an investor.

Lanham Napier of BuildGroup joins Nick to discuss Scaling Rackspace, The Evolving Responsibilities of a Venture-Backed CEO, and Confronting Big Tech Monopolies. In this episode, we cover: You took on capital from Seqouia, Norwest and others while at Rackspace.  What was the biggest challenge to taking on venture capital? How were you able to move from the early product-market-fit days to true scale... what were the defining decisions/actions that helped you expand exponentially? As a company leaves the product-market-fit stage and reaches scale, what is the job of the CEO or how does the job of the CEO change as the company scales? You've talked about investing "long-term capital"... what do you mean by that? How have you created a fee-light model, where management fees are eliminated? How do you guide CEOs that have been conditioned to think in 12-18 months cycles, when the long-game is much more critical? You've hired and developed a lot of folks over the years.  What advice do you have for y

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Henrique Dubugras Ryan Gembala Grace Isford Scott Kupor Each investor illustrates a critical lesson learned about startup investing and how it's changed their approach.

Trae Vassallo of Defy Partners joins Nick to discuss Leaving Kleiner Perkins to Start Defy Partners, The State of Venture in the Bay Area, and Maintaining a Beginner's Mind. In this episode, we cover: Can you talk about your transition from Kleiner Perkins? How tough was that decision to make? What was it like to work with John Doerr? What’s the thesis at Defy Partners? When you began Defy you chose not to look at San Francisco. Can you talk about why that is? How do you think this plays out? What will tech and venture in the Bay Area look like a few years from now, when COVID is behind us? Any stats on flight of talent form Bay area to other cities/regions? What changes have you observed in venture/tech that this crisis has either caused or accelerated? You’ve been a founder and can relate w/ the folks you’re working with. How do you try and keep that beginner’s mindset as you gain more experience and get further away from your founder journey? What are some the biggest mistakes you see founde

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Jason Whitney Shawn Carolan David Horowitz Jaclyn Hester Each investor discusses sectors, drivers and/or trends that may have significant impact in the future and are potentially positioned for outsized-returns.

Nikhil Basu Trivedi of joins Nick to discuss Agglomerators vs. Specialists, the Rise of the Solo-Capitalist, and the Importance of Founder-Investor Fit+. In this episode, we cover: Why did you decide to leave Shasta? What's the plan moving forward? The Rise of Solo Capitalists You wrote a great piece on the rise of this behavior, ‘The Rise of the Solo Capitalists’. What do you think has caused the rise in single GP funds? What are the main benefits to both investor and entrepreneur with this model? What are the limitations and/or downsides of this model? You wrote that an LP said that this model ‘may be the biggest threat traditional venture capital firms have seen in a long time’. Why? Founder-Investor Fit What do you think are the most important things for founders to consider when choosing an investor? There are many firms that don't care about the "fit" per se... they just want to get money into the best deals.  And it can be tough for a founder to turn down the best offer or the bi

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Oren Klaff Tamara Steffens Leo Polovets Byron Deeter Each investor highlights a situation where they decided not to invest, why they passed, and how it played out.

Ben Casnocha of Village Global joins Nick to discuss Backing from Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Gates; Lessons from Reid Hoffman; and Building a Network-centric Venture Firm. In this episode, we cover: - How have things changed for the firm since the pandemic broke? - You've raised from some very big names in tech -- Zuckerberg, Hoffman, Gates, Bezos, Greene, Blakely and many more.  How exactly did the formation of Village and fundraise from these notable tech leaders come together? - Village has a unique approach to sourcing...  Tell us about the scout network? - Decision making process, architecture when doing deals at this pace and volume? - Many firms talk about their founder networks and Slack Groups.  But often if you ask founders, the density and connectivity of those networks are lacking.  What is it about your broad founder community that succeeds where others don't? - Worked with Reid Hoffman for two years... what were some of the key lessons from that experience w/ Reid? - YC is in full swing right now.

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: -Beezer Clarkson -Alex Osterwalder -Patrick Gallagher -Steve Blank Each investor discusses a portfolio company that did not survive and why it was that they failed.

- You recently published research on the expansion of 175 US companies into Europe. I’d like to discuss a number of points from the piece, but first off… what prompted you to do this research and write the piece? - Part of the report is about timing… ie. when is the right time is for a b2b SaaS company to make the leap and expand into Europe.  Talk us through your findings and conclusion w/ regard to timing. - In preparation to make that jump, you recently talked about the challenges for “globalizing” a company and that it really starts at the CEO’s desk… what do you mean by that? - As an investor, how do you prepare a CEO to shift mindset from US-centric to a more global one? - When a company makes the leap to Europe, what are some of the most common pitfalls/mistakes they make? - How do the challenges of growing a b2b software company across Europe differ from that of growing it in the United States? - Is there a particular playbook that you follow when bridging the gap between the US and European markets,

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Leah Solivan Kane Hsieh Richard Kerby James Currier Each investor describes the most unusual situation or pitch that they've encountered as an investor. To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.

Jonathan Hsu of Tribe Capital joins Nick to discuss how to Acquire Data, Build Abstractions and Do Research. In this episode, we cover: Walk us through your background and path to VC What’s the thesis at Tribe Capital? How do you define PMF? Could you explain what the 8 Ball diligence framework is? When is a deal too early -- how much data (or over what time continuum do you need data) in order for the model to assess appropriately? Just for evaluation or also sourcing? Can you apply this tool to a range of business types (ie. SaaS vs. Maretkplaces vs. User-Growth, etc.)? How to avoid false positives? Data looks great for early phase -- early market… How do you know that it isn’t luck and the company didn’t stumble onto something with early signals of PMF but they don’t have the insight or flexibility to evolve the business through growth and scale phases? What aspect of early stage investing don’t you use data for? Why is this not appropriate to measure with data? Loss ratio goes down -- do you think it inc

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured: Courtney Reum Mark Suster Sarah Tavel Jason Calacanis Each investor illustrates a critical lesson learned about startup investing and how it's changed their approach. To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.

Check Warner of Ada Ventures joins Nick to discuss Structural Disadvantages in Venture, Investing in the "Overlooked," and Open-Sourcing the VC Fund Raise and Investment Playbook. In this episode, we cover: Background / Path to Venture The thesis at Ada Ventures Is it tough getting the up-rounds from Tier 1 VCs when the profile of the founders doesn't look like the standard, obvious profile that's been funded for the past couple of decades? You look for founders and markets that have been mis-priced… what are the three that you believe to be underpriced? Novel scout program -- how many scouts and who are they? How did you recruit them and how are they incentivized? Talk about your recent fundraise… How did you determine how much to raise? Walk us through the timeline of the fundraise. What resonated most w/ LPs? What was the biggest surprise? How did you create urgency and get LPs to move from a maybe to a yes? What will you do differently next time? You and I have discussed your seed investing framework