Playing With Unicorns

When Satoshi Nakamoto famously wrote the Bitcoin white paper on November 13, 2008 it proposed to solve the Byzantine Generals problem. The Byzantine Generals Problem is solving the puzzle of how multiple, separated generals can achieve consensus on the time to attack a particular city. 13 years later the world of crypto is starting to see wider adoption. In 2021 every major media outlet at one poi...

In a way I live in your future. By virtue of receiving 150 startup pitches per week, I have a good sense of what founders are trying to build for the coming decade. At the same time, as a student of history, penetration and cost trends, I can make calculated guesses for when things go from being fringe to mainstream.   In today's episode, I take a stab at which categories investors and entrepreneu...

Jeff's newest book, The End of Jobs: The Rise of On-Demand Wokers and Agile Corporations , provides a look into the future of work by looking into the past. In human history, there have been three monumental technological revolutions: mechanization, electrification, and computerization. These revolutions shaped the future of humanity. Jeff shows the end of work will be a good thing for humanity be...

As most of you know, I want to empower people to work on the things they love. As a result, I am excited that FJ Labs invested early in Clearco (formerly Clearbanc), now valued at $2 billion, which is helping entrepreneurs all around the world to live out their dream. In this episode, I chat with Andrew D'Souza and Michele Romanow, Clearco's founders, to learn about how they started, some of the c...

One of our main theses at FJ Labs is to focus on vertical marketplaces. Slice is a great example of a company that has found product-market fit within a vertical. In this episode Ilir Sela gives insights into how Slice empowered 16,000 pizzerias to compete with giants like Dominos and Pizza Hut. Ilir Sela is the founder and CEO of Slice, formerly MyPizza, the all-in-one ordering and marketing tech...

The education system has not evolved since the industrial era. New tools have been introduced over the years, but nothing has dramatically changed. To reinvent education, you don't more tools to add to the arsenal, but first principal thinking. What assumption have we been making about education? And are these assumptions true? Chrisman Frank is the co-founder and CEO of Synthesis , an enrichment...

9 out of 10 startups fail. This is a gloomy number. However, it has never stopped entrepreneurs from hedging their bets to create successful companies. And I want to help entrepreneurs, whether they're first, second, or third-time founders, increase their odds of success. So this week, I talked to Tom Eisenmann about his new book, Tom is the Howard H. Stevenson Professor of Business Administration...

This is one of the most requested questions I've received since starting Playing with Unicorn podcast. People want to know "How do I build the perfect pitch deck to raise funds?"   So joining me is Kelly Anne Tully, Head of Platform and Investor at FJ Labs. Kelly has helped many of our portfolio companies raise funds. Today, Kelly and I discuss how to create the perfect a pitch deck.

Today's episode is special because Jeff Weinstein interviews Rahim Lakhani, the CFO of Alpha Capital. Most of you will remember Jeff from Episode 13: What's the deal with SPACs. He is the resident SPAC boy at FJ Labs. Rahim has an illustrious record of leading finance, strategy, and sales from Anheuser-Busch InBev to Offerpad, and now Alpha Capital.

Brian Requarth is the Co-Founder of Latitud and former CEO of Viva Real. Through Latitud, he now dedicates his time to providing mentorship and advice for entrepreneurs in Latin America (LATAM). Brian's new book, Viva the Entrepreneur: Founding, Scaling, and Raising Venture Capital in Latin America shares the hard lessons he learned while building and scaling his company. It covers best practices...

Tim Jackson is a fellow entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author. He has lived an interesting life from a career in journalism for the Financial Times, to VC seed funding for technology startups. It was no accident that he would eventually find himself in this world - he recalls speaking on the phone and writing a column about some guy called Jeff, who had just started a company called Amazon i...

This week Kerim Baran (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbaran/) shares where we stand in the world of solar. He covers: • The history of solar • The impressive decline of the cost of panel over the last 40 years • The decline in the cost of batteries • Why ultimately batteries plus panels will cost less than maintaining the grid leading most electricity to be made locally in a distributed fashion even...

I often pondered the makeup of successful founders and founding teams. At FJ Labs we spend a disproportionate amount of time screening for EIRs. We only build 1 or 2 companies per year, so we cannot afford to get it wrong. I was fascinated to talk Magnus Grimeland and Vegard Medbø of Antler because they filter through 50,000 candidates per year in 30 locations around the world including the US, Eu...

It is extremely hard to succeed as an entrepreneur. Even the most successful entrepreneurs have countless ups and downs. I would argue that I failed my way to success. My brother Olivier (https://oliviergrinda.com/), a successful tech entrepreneur and investor in his own right, joins me this week to discuss all the mistakes entrepreneurs make. As we have seemingly made all the mistakes there are t...

Christian is the rare breed of polymath Renaissance Man operating in a world that rewards specialization. We had an extremely broad and far-ranging conversation covering: • Whether you should always pursue your passion • The relative importance of focus • How to make the most of the opportunities presented to you • Spirituality • Happiness • Much More!

SPACs have been one of the hot topics of 2020. Jeff Weinstein, who co-heads investing at FJ Labs, and our resident venture capital nerd, joins to talk about all things SPAC. He covers: • What are SPACs? • How do they operate? • Why are they hot in 2020? • What's in it for sponsors, institutional investors, the companies merging into them and retail investors?

Given the omnipresent doom and gloom of 2020, I took the time to reflect objectively on where things stand and where the world is heading. My deep dive across so many industries and technologies left me inspired and awe struck by the opportunities open to us. We will address the two fundamental issues of our time: climate change and social injustice / inequality of opportunity.

In general, I do not read "business books" as I find them simplistic. Loonshots is the exception to that rule. It blew me away. It mixes compelling personal narratives of entrepreneurs like Edwin Land (Polaroid) and Juan Trippe (Pan Am) with observations from physics and history to weave a very compelling narrative.

Last week we covered how to come up with great startup ideas. This week I present how to evaluate if the idea is worth pursuing. I detail which hypothesis you need to validate and how to go about providing or disproving them. Vivian Graves (https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivian-graves/), an entrepreneur in residence (EIR) at FJ Labs, joins to share how she evaluated whether to pursue a temporary vete...

Many aspiring entrepreneurs struggle to come with compelling startup ideas. I discuss how to quickly determine whether the idea is worth pursuing further. I also share tips and tricks on ideation and early validation. Arne Halleraker , who co-heads investing at FJ Labs, joins to share the startup ideas he came up with for our most recent FJ Labs ideation session this past August.

Most entrepreneurs merely see venture capitalists as a source of capital without understanding how venture capitalists operate. Jeff Weinstein who co-heads investing at FJ Labs, and our resident venture capital nerd, joins to explain the history of venture capital. He details how VC firms operate, how they are funded, and shares his take on the future of the industry. The episode is a must watch f...

Last week we covered whether first time founders should build a company on their own or join an accelerator or a venture studio. As a follow-up, I wanted to present the specifics of the FJ Labs startup studio model. Anthony Valente, Andrea Xu, and Charles Gorra join to describe their experiences at the various stages of our program.

This week we cover whether first time founders should build a company on their own or join an accelerator or a venture studio. Nancy Dong (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancydong/), our first ever guest on Playing With Unicorns, joins to share the framework she used to decide whether she should join FJ Labs (www.fjlabs.com) as an entrepreneur in residence (EIR) after stints at Uber and Harvard Busin...

Given that I was in Lake Placid looking at the foliage change without my multi-screen setup, I tried a "Ask Me Anything" session for the week. It was a resounding success with very varied questions. We covered: • The impact of antitrust laws on the venture ecosystem • The differences between being an angel and running an early stage fund • How we acquired the first customers at OLX • Whether marke...

In the third episode, I described how VCs evaluate startups by using a combination of the team, business, deal terms and whether the idea fits with their thesis to decide whether to invest or not. In this episode, I present FJ Labs' Investment thesis. I start by covering why we focus on marketplaces, then detail:   Our current marketplace theses: Verticalization of horizontals Transition to supply...