Tank Talks By Ripple Ventures

Building your tech stack as a startup can either help you soar to new highs, or become your biggest nightmare and slow you down. Our guest today is helping founders navigate that path, Taylor Lint is Co-Founder and CEO of Swantide , a platform that automates the configuration and management of your GTM tech stack. Before this week’s episode, we welcome back John Ruffolo to chat about the news maki...

Finding the next Consumer Packaged Good (CPG) winner can be even more elusive than the next big SaaS Startup. Not only do you face similar challenges to software startups, but you also need a solid supply chain and amazing branding just to stay in business. Our guest today has developed a knack for spotting the next big thing in CPG, Shahir Amin is Partner at Sonoma Brands , a specialist growth-eq...

Community is a term thrown around quite a bit these days, but it is clear that building genuine networks of people and working to help others can provide real value. Our guest today is Rex Salisbury , Founder and Managing Partner of Cambrian . Cambrian began in 2015 as a community of members and founders interested in the fintech space and that eventually landed him a role at a16z as a partner on...

Real Estate is one of the best ways to build wealth, and travelling is a great way to spend it! What if there was a way to combine both of those ideas into a single platform? Our guest today is Ali Nichols , Co-Founder of Getaway , who thinks she has figured out a way to combine both of those passions for millennials. On today’s show, we cover how Getaway is combining the demands of younger genera...

We talk to another amazing LP this week, Aakar Vachhani , Partner at Fairview Capital . Fairview has over $3.5B in AUM that focuses on fund investing, co-investments, and direct investment. They have built a reputation for finding and backing emerging managers with diverse backgrounds. About Aakar Vachhani: Aakar Vachhani is a Partner and a member of Fairview Capital’s investment committee. He is...

Those of us in Venture Capital also have bosses called Limited Partners, or LPs, LPs are the folks we raise our funds from, and it’s important to that we find investors that believe in our vision of the future and investing thesis. Our guest today is Dave Sachse , Founder and Managing Partner of the Sachse Family Fund , which does direct investments in early-stage companies as well as being an LP....

Grit or resiliency is one of the most important traits in modern life, especially if you’re a Founder. Our guest today Reed Switzer is one of the youngest guests on Tank Talks, and he’s been a Founder or Co-Founder of multiple companies. His current venture is Hopscotch , a simple, easy-to-use business payments platform that grew out of Reed’s frustrations as a small business owner. About Reed Swi...

Security is another issue we all deal with, but the hassle and complexity of maintaining and proving you are secure can be burdensome, especially to growing startups. Our guest today, Pukar Hamal , Founder and CEO of SecurityPal a platform that aims to be an all-in-one solution that combines bleeding-edge, yet simple, customer-facing technology with in-house squadrons of trained, equipped, and eff...

With the high-profile implosion of FTX, risk has been in the spotlight. What does risk mean, how can retail and institutional investors mitigate it, and how should founders think about it? Our guest today is Evan Dreyer , Head of Risk Management at Tola , a fast, easy, and free tool for businesses to pay and get paid, however, and whenever they want. We talk to Evan about everything risk and how t...

It’s always fun to reconnect with past guests and early success stories from our Ripple Community, and today’s guest is both, Emily Lonetto was a Tank Talks guest back when it was a small in-person event at our co-working space, The Tank. Back then she was the first leadership hire at our portfolio-company Voiceflow , now she’s the Director of Community at Webflow as well as a Venture Partner with...

It’s always great to visit another podcast, and we wanted to share Matt’s guest spot on the Vitalize Podcast , a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work. Hosted by Justin Gordon , the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vit...

Our guest today is at that intersection of public and private partnerships here in Ontario, Canada. Brenda Hogan is the CIO of Venture Ontario , a $205M joint initiative between the Government of Ontario and leading institutional investors to invest primarily in Ontario-based and focused venture capital and growth equity funds that support innovative and high-growth companies. About Brenda Hogan B...

What is a buyer persona and why are they important to your startup? Buyer personas are models of your ideal customer, but what is the best way to generate those personas, and more importantly, are those the right personas to model in the first place? Our guest today is Leena Joshi Co-Founder and CEO of CloseFactor , a company that helps build better buyer personas. We cover how companies can colle...

Mountaineering is a sport that draws a lot of comparisons. Climbing can be done as a lark or as a well-planned expedition. Sometimes even the best-planned climbs can end in disaster due to one wrong choice or factors outside the control of the climbers. And sometimes everything is perfect and an underprepared climber can achieve something special. At the end of the day, you need to show up and do...

The road of a solo GP is full of highs and lows, and today’s guest Kirby Winfield has been through all of it. After working in the 90s tech and startup scene in Seattle, Kirby went on to found Ascend VC as a solo GP. We talk about his biggest lessons, the best advice he’s gotten, and dig into some of the stories from the trenches as an emerging manager. About Kirby Winfield: Kirby Winfield is curr...

Building company culture through a screen is a challenge more and more organizations are facing these days. The benefits of remote work will not go away, so how can organizations adapt and evolve to build a culture with everyone spread out? Our guest today is Jason Goldlist , CEO and Co-Founder of Venue , a remote-first meeting software for culture-obsessed companies. We talk about Jason’s dedicat...

Once is lucky, twice is good. And our guest today is good. Darrell Silver , Founder and CEO of Unbundle Studio, has sold two companies for over $100M and he’s using that experience to start investing. We dig into why Darrell decided to help create tech companies with underappreciated founders in a venture studio model and the mindset needed for running the studio completely off his own balance she...

It’s tempting to think of Venture Capitalists as the top of the food chain, but in reality, we are closer to founders. VCs build an investment thesis and then go test that thesis, both in the fundraising marketplace and in doing their investments. Just like with founders, sometimes the marketplace demands VCs to pivot and change their thesis, sometimes dramatically. And always—always—VCs are held...

The term A/B testing gets thrown around a lot in startups, many use it to great effect, and some know they should use it, but never quite do. Our guest today is Chetan Sharma , Co-Founder and CEO of Eppo , a platform that helps companies run useful, reliable experiments by automating the analysis, diagnostics, and investigations, all on top of your data warehouse. We get into the power of A/B test...

The human component of building a startup has always been, and probably will always be one of the most challenging aspects of any organization. Our guest today is an expert in building culture and getting the best out of people, Sandy Scholes , Chief People Officer, most recently at Flipp, has a wealth of experience in team building and coaching managers to get high performance from their teams. A...

When we are working with our portfolio companies, we find that a big part of success is building a strong sales team. But what’s the best way to do that, and how should sales teams be rewarded and structured. Our guest today is Nabeil Alazzam , Founder and CEO of Forma.ai , a sales compensation platform that removes the guesswork of motivating sales teams and unlocks agility through a delivery-foc...

The trend for companies to become their own media outlet is not going away, and the link between Venture Capital and that trend is growing stronger. Our guest today is Erik Huberman , Founder and CEO of Hawke Media , and the recently launched Hawke Ventures . We talk about Erik’s career, why he launched a VC Fund, and where all of this is going. About Erik Huberman: Erik is the founder and CEO of...

In 2022, Zoom fatigue is a thing. Collaborating, co-working, and networking over a screen presents a new set of issues that we are only now starting to address. Our guest today is Tom Medema , Founder and CEO of usebubbles.com , a platform designed to improve asynchronous collaboration and reduce zoom fatigue. About Tom Medema: Tom Medema is the founder and CEO of bubbles, a workplace productivity...

In 2022 we tend to think that we live in a global marketplace, but regional differences still exist in VC and startups. Our guest today is Akash Bajwa , Investor at Earlybird VC . We talk with Akash about the current state of the European Startup scene, how the recent pullback is affecting things, the rise of European VC superstars like Harry Stebbings, and Earlybird’s plan for its recent $350M fu...

Selling B2B has an entrenched playbook, and some might say it’s so ingrained that it needs to be disrupted. Our guest today is Ross Rich , Co-Founder and CEO of Accord . Accord is a platform that leverages collaboration and community to make the B2B sales and onboarding process smoother. Ross shares how he got accepted into YC based on a hand-drawn piece of paper presentation and no working protot...