The Road Untraveled: VC Perspectives with Brian Hollins

"I firmly believe that for-profit technology companies stand the best chance of solving many of the world’s toughest problems and venture lets me be a part of that process." Amy is a Partner at Costanoa Ventures where she focuses primarily on fintech. In addition to deepening the firm’s fintech portfolio in the US, Amy has driven the firm’s expansion into emerging markets, specifically i...

Ben Lerer is a Managing Partner at Lerer Hippeau. He is the Co-Founder and former CEO of Thrillist, which was acquired by Vox Media in 2022. He chairs the Board of Directors for Urban Upbound and is an Associate Member of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences (IADAS). Lerer holds a BS from the University of Pennsylvania.

Wen-Wen is a Partner at Gradient Ventures. Previously, Wen-Wen was the CEO & Co-founder of NexTravel (YCW15), a leading corporate travel solution that serviced thousands of customers like Lyft, Twilio, and Stripe. She grew the business to over $100M in annual sales before exiting to Travelperk in 2020. Prior to this, Wen-Wen worked with a number of startups in leadership roles. She started her...

Kate Goodall (she/her) is the Co-Founder and CEO of Halcyon, an incubator for early-stage impact ventures. Since launching in 2014, Goodall has added an early-stage venture fund (of which she is co-managing director), an angel investing network, microloan fund, and a range of intensive programs, continually seeking to serve increasing numbers of entrepreneurs globally in more ways in order to solv...

Daniel Acheampong, Founder, Visible Hands VC Daniel was most recently an Entrepreneur in Resident at MIT designX, where he co-founded a marketplace platform. He was an associate at Summit Partners, where he helped manage the firm’s due diligence process to raise investment funds. Previously, he was a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, where he supported senior management in supervising the New En...

About Ajay: Ajay Relan is an investor, entrepreneur, and community builder. Prior to Slauson & Co., Ajay was a founding Partner at Queensbridge Venture Partners. With a keen focus on brand building and storytelling, Ajay's passion lies in identifying trends and engineering culturally aligned brands. A lifelong Angeleno, Ajay has established a business portfolio grounded in community. His most...

About Samara:  Samara Mejia Hernandez is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Chingona Ventures, a Venture Fund that focuses on rapidly changing sectors and founders with experiences that uniquely position them to build startups in underserved growth markets. The fund has $60MM in AUM and has made over 40 investments across technology sectors in Financial, Food, Future of Learning, a...

Key takeaways: --Your limit to opportunities is your own mindset.  --Founders should build their network consistently over time. It will help you understand the fundraising journey, and bring you honest feedback about how long the journey will take. --Early stage investors are "founder evaluators" more so than "business evaluators". Help them believe you have the network, skills, grit, intell...

Elisa Miller-Out , Managing Partner Elisa Miller-Out is Chloe Capital’s Co-Founder and Managing Partner. She is an experienced serial tech entrepreneur, having founded and led seven companies over 20+ years. She is an experienced investor, having invested in 45 companies, in addition to executing 10 M&A transactions. Elisa is also an active board director and community builder. As an Innovatio...

Eric is the founder and GP of Contrary. Contrary's portfolio includes hyper-growth companies like Anduril, Ramp, and Zepto. Key Takeaways:  Identify the brightest people in the world first, then build infrastructure to support them for their entire life Identify LPs who believe in you emotionally before they believe in your model (not people in wealth preservation mode) Price compression has...

Topics covered:  Finding founders through thesis-driven investing Spotting resilient founders- are they building because this product needs to exist What this new market means for deal pacing Driving value add for portfolio companies The talent recruiting landscape Building your brand in venture About Meera : I’m an early stage investor at Redpoint Ventures passionate about empowering consume...

Nathan Beckord is the CEO of Foundersuite.com and VentureArchetypes.com. On the consulting and advisory side, he mainly works with early stage internet, B2B software, mobile, and consumer product startups. He is also interested in platforms, markets, and networks. Nathan has worked with several crowdfunding companies, such as Kickstarter and Appbackr. He is also the organizer of StartupBD.com and...

Sam Lessin - General Partner at Slow Ventures. He has co-founded two companies, Fin and Drop.io (acquired by Facebook in 2010). Between 2010 and 2014 Sam was a VP of product management at Facebook, where he managed the People, Places, and Things product group and the Identity product group. Sam started his career at Bain and Company and attended Harvard as part of the graduating class of 2005.&nbs...

Jenny Feilding, General Partner at The Fund, Adjunct professor at Columbia, and entrepreneur joins us on the Road Untraveled this week. Jenny is a pre-seed investor and mentor to hundreds of founders around the world. She is a 2x entrepreneur herself and knows how challenging it is to build great products, inspire a team and keep the lights on. She has helped start-ups such as Latch (LTCH), Chaina...

Hunter Walk, Co-founder and Partner at Homebrew. Homebrew is a seed-stage venture firm with investments like Chime, Plaid, Gusto, and many more. Prior to Homebrew, Hunter received his BA from Vasser and MBA from Stanford and then spent time at Youtube as a director of product management. Episode Highlights: Lessons learned at Google and Youtube as a director of product management  The Screen...

Key Take-Aways Ben Black - Founder and CEO of Akkadian Ventures: 1. "Venture capital requires a level of trust that is unlike any other business because you find out your failures first before you figure out your wins. And if you want to press personal relationships and really put a lot of pressure on them, deal with failure together." 2. Tune out the noise of others and focus inward before l...

I had an insightful conversation with David Fialkow, Co-founder and Managing Director of General Catalyst, a venture capital firm that partners with founders from seed to growth stage to build companies that withstand the test of time.  Key Take-Aways From This Episode:  1. David speaks about the importance of connection and the value of working with his partner Joel Cutler to build Gene...

On today's episode, I am joined by Barry Eggers, Founding Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Episode Key Takeaways:  Barry shares with us his 20+ year journey from a new venture firm in the early 2000s to the global powerhouse that is Lightspeed today. We get Barrys take on the state of venture and his position on acknowledging and preparing for the ups and downs that come with being in...

Jean-Pierre Adechi, Founder & CEO, Wheeli Key Takeaways 1. The system isn't merit based- build relationships and a network that can help you build trust in the communities that will allow you to access the resources you need to succeed  2. Lean on advisors and people from the community to better identify folks who want to help you navigate the system 3. Be clear about your ask and be dire...

Charles Hudson is Founder and Managing Partner at Precursor Ventures Key Takeaways: 1. Volume matters- do you get to meet enough companies in a year. They meet 3-4k companies and make 30 investments. You can't identify high quality founders if you don't see enough of them. 2. Some investors are great product people, some are good at market structure, some are good people pickers. It helps in...

Key Takeaways 1. Exceptional founders understand "what matters most". They help triage what is most important and help their teams deliver on the priorities that matter most for the growth of the business. 2. Founders must be "learning animals"- ready to scale and upskill at all times. They must surround themselves with smart talent, ask questions, and practice maintaining self-awareness. 3. Edtec...

Jeff Harbach, President & CEO, Kauffman Fellows Key Takeaways The worlds biggest problems will be solved by companies that weren't venture backable in the past. More importantly, the people building those companies will be the folks who have experiencing dealing with those problems first hand, and will likely be more representative of society (more diverse, younger, etc.). KFP builds an awaren...

Key Takeaways: 1. 70% of the value in tech has been created by catalyzing network effects within the core business. 2. Competition in the venture ecosystem is good for business. The disbalance of power in the past caused bad behavior, and more competition is good for Founders and helps them find the best partner for their specific endeavor. 3. Look for Founder's who can take other peoples perspect...

David Tisch, Founder & Managing Partner, Box Group Key Takeaways, 1) Behind every great company are people, and it's our job to identify the best teams and try to convince them to let us work with them.  2) Friends give advice, parents tell people what to do. The best investors are friends, who prioritize Founder interest over their own. 3) The process of finding great companies never end...

Leyla Seka, Partner, Operator Collective Key Takeaways: 1) Build consensus within an organization and work in the background to gain momentum before asking for support. Bring in a holistic view and others opinions to make sure you are analyzing all the valid perspectives. 2) Come solution oriented when you are working to create change. 3) There's no finish line to equality work. The country i...