In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Richard White, the serial entrepreneur behind Uservoice and Fathom.video. Richard is a design engineer and product visionary who has been in the first YC batch with Justin Khan and Emmett Shear for Kiko (YC S05) and most recently came back to the YC W21 to see how startup kids are doing the tricks today. 00:00 Intro 00:51 Who is Richard White 03:40 The power of cold emails 05:09 Kiko (YC S05) 08:53 The UserVoice journey 12:09 Traction and funding 16:09 UserVoice today $18:16 Starting Fathom 22:28 The Fathom product 27:35 Fathom customer profile 30:27 Fathom in remote orgs 32:03 Richard's own use of Fathom 33:57 Fathom integrations 36:14 Zoom Marketplace + platform risk $ 39:20 Going through YC (again) 42:57 Fathom seed round 46:11 The fun of fundraising 47:28 Vision for Fathom
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Gen Isayama, co-founder and CEO of World Innovation Lab, a Palo Alto and Tokyo based venture firm investing in growth-stage companies and serving as a bridge between startups and Japanese corporations. 00:00 Intro 01:30 World Innovation Lab 04:10 From Japanese lawyer to Silicon Valley VC 09:10 From DCM to WIL 13:55 WIL investment thesis 19:40 Japanese entrepreneurial culture 26:57 Open innovation Models at WIL 31:57 Raising Fund I 37:00 Full spectrum of WIL Activities 42:16 Investment strategy and portfolio construction 48:06 Outlook for WIL III 51:23 Call to action
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Dan Ahrens, founding partner at Left Lane Capital, a New York based venture capital and early growth equity firm that invests in high-growth internet and consumer technology businesses. 00:00 Intro 02:43 Consumer vs. enterprise tech 05:09 Getting into venture 07:54 Raising Left Lane I 10:35 Investing while fundraising 13:09 The Left Lane Capital playbook 17:09 Due diligence in a hot market 18:52 Scaling Left Lane Capital 21:36 Deployment pace 23:28 Focus area 26:04 Hard conversations 28:10 Arc 32:53 Exo Freight 35:28 Supply Chain Tech 37:04 Call to action
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Divyang Arora, founder and CEO of Byte Kitchen about cooking up the future of digital food halls with Byte Kitchen founder Divyang Arora. 0:00 Intro 1:24 2 minute elevator pitch 4:27 Going all in 8:07 Business Model 14:52 The Byte Kitchen playbook 18:52 Optimal Partner Restaurant Profile 25:39 End customer benefits 27:25 Raising the Seed Round 30:14 Early traction 31:54 Byte Kitchen's Use of Tech 34:50 Call to Action
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Michael Crandell, CEO Bitwarden about scaling open-source password manager Bitwarden. 00:00 Intro 00:50 What is Bitwarden 03:22 From side hustle to venture-backed 06:36 Joining a Bootstrapper at Series A 09:58 Open-source GTM 13:25 Open-source defensibility 15:35 Community vs. enterprise edition 17:37 Revenue traction 19:51 Competition 22:25 Fundraising journey 25:46 Use of funds 28:25 Go-to-market strategy 31:40 Building a remote-first company 35:11 Arbitrating talent 36:00 Next steps for Bitwarden 38:28 Not the first time at the rodeo
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Kyle Harrison, general partner at Country about everything from the economics of whale hunting, the venture product offering to his recent joining of Contrary. 00:00 Intro 01:11 Way into venture 04:58 Time of reflection 07:24 The under-innovated venture model 10:46 Your fund size is your strategy 16:16 The nature of the general partnership 20:38 Rethinking the org chart 25:13 VC product vs. VC service 28:31 VC product industry practice 31:13 From monolithic brands to solo capitalist 37:18 The future of venture tribes 39:52 Joining Contrary
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Doug Ludlow, co-founder and CEO of MainStreet, which helps startups and small businesses uncover tax credits. 00:00 Intro 01:05 Hipster 05:09 Happy Home Company 07:10 Starting MainStreet 11:22 The nature of Tax credits 16:03 The Path Act 17:52 The MainStreet Product 19:14 Customer success stories 20:41 Customer profile 22:40 Audit protection / guarantee 24:13 Moats 25:37 Whitespace vs. Switching 26:30 MainStreet traction 27:47 Fundraising 28:17 Pre-empted Series A 30:22 MainStreet layoffs 32:42 Unit economics 33:42 Unit economics 34:50 Vision for MainStreet 37:42 Fast five 39:01 Call to action
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Kelsey Bishop founder and CEO of Candor, which is a nexgen, authentic social network. 00:00 Intro 01:02 What is Candor 03:25 Single player mode 03:56 Kelsey’s background 06:19 Employee-culture fit 08:31 Getting started 10:31 Migrating from bubble 11:38 Raising the Seed 12:42 Getting pre-empted 13:50 Raising from angels 15:23 Solo founder journey 16:58 Product + traction 21:47 Business model 23:03 Talking to users 24:51 Remote first company 26:25 Becoming a CEO 27:03 Call to action
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Abhishek Nayak the co-founder and CEO of Appsmith, which is an open-source, low code internal tool builder. 00:00 Intro 03:15 Entrepreneur in Residence at Accel 05:52 Third time at the Rodeo 09:55 Validating a startup idea at his wedding 11:38 Built for Internal facing apps 13:48 The Appsmith Customer Persona 15:06 From Dataset to app 15:42 What Appsmith is replacing 17:07 The Appsmith killer feature 18:29 Getting to the first 100 users 21:40 Customer love + product iteration 23:07 Competition 25:24 Open source vs. closed source 27:53 Open source applications vs. infrastructure 31:07 Open core model 34:12 Traction and metrics 36:43 Metrics tracked over time 37:43 Fundraising for 3rd time 39:27 Fundraising journey 43:50 Remote company discounts 45:27 Call to action
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Chon Tang, the founding GP of the Skydeck Fund. Chon is an experienced Silicon Valley engineer, entrepreneur and investor. He was formerly founding partner and Managing Director of Junzi Capital Engineering, a leading quantitative hedge fund investing in the commodity space. He has been actively investing in Silicon Valley startups for 12 years, and has personal investments in over 25 deals with multiple IPOs and exits. 00:00 Intro 03:40 Starting a tech company in 2000 09:27 Founder-investor transition 17:51 The art of talent arbitrage 22:09 Raising Fund II 27:00 Portfolio construction 30:40 Skydeck Fund entry point 32:50 Success stories 37:00 Skydeck Accelerator Program + Challenges 41:00 The accidental VC 45:00 Next Skydeck batch
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Shmulik Fishman, founder and CEO of Argyle, about raising the Series A through an investment memo and the firm’s mission of making user-permissioned employment data ubiquitous and reinvent credit decisioning for lenders and consumers. 00:00 Intro 00:56 What does Argyle do? 03:17 Experiencing the pain point 06:48 Raising the Series A with an investment memo 11:41 Automated form population 14:05 Real-time income/employment verification 17:52 Status quo: credit bureaus 22:18 Technical/data moats 26:59 Standing on the shoulders of giants 28:40 API integrations 30:28 Screen scraping vs. API scanning 32:41 Traction and metrics 35:26 Pricing Strategy 38:36 Argyle Team 41:36 Remote-first valuation discount/premium
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Seth Sternberg the co-founder and CEO of Honor, which is a managed marketplace for in-home care that has recently announced a USD 370m Series E led by Baillie Gifford. 00:00 Intro 01:19 Elevator pitch 02:19 Original inspiration 05:28 The Meebo experience 08:06 Serial founder problems 09:06 Getting the founder team together 10:52 The Honor MVP and marketplace model 14:52 Marketplace supply side 19:44 Marketplace demand side 21:57 Fundraising journey 25:07 Growth capital rounds 27:07 Expansion strategy 28:56 Homestead acquisition 31:45 Competitive landscape 31:45 Competitive landscape 34:08 GTM and growth strategies
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Casey Fenton, founder of Couchsurfing and Upstock, about the early days for Couchsurfing when Casey was pioneering what has since become known as the “sharing economy” and how is is now bringing the sharing economy to the cap table with Upstock. 00:00 Intro 01:13 The Couchsurfing proof-of-concept 02:46 The first Couchsurfing stay 03:49 501(c)3 non-profit status 06:34 The mechanics of the benchmark Series A 06:34 The mechanics of the benchmark Series A 08:27 The Couchsurfing MVP 10:38 The donation-based model 11:58 The demand side monetization model 15:34 The chicken-and-egg question 17:11 Casey’s philosophy on ego hacking 21:11 Building for the internet without ego 23:57 Upstock 28:34 Ideal customer moment 30:20 Switching costs 31:09 Competitors and integrations 33:40 Milestone-based equity kickers 35:03 Following Casey’s work
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Andrew Gazdecki, founder of MicroAcquire. The episode was recorded when MicroAcquire was still a fully bootstrapped one person company. A few weeks later MicroAcquire announced that it had raised a $6.3m Seed round led by Bessemer Ventures. 00:00 Intro 01:09 What is MicroAcquire? 02:55 Buying a micro-SaaS as a learning experience 05:15 Andrew’s own founder path 10:40 Key bootstrapper metrics 14:53 Solving the chicken-and-egg problem 19:17 Supply side: company profiles 20:24 Marketplace discovery vs. transaction facilitation 22:45 Microacquire marketplace monetisation 26:51 Microacquire as a curated marketplace 30:12 Dealing with inflated seller asks 33:25 Disrupting the business broker industry 35:45 Competitor marketplaces 36:50 Scaling Microacquire 38:10 Raising venture capital vs. bootstrapping
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Queenly co-founders Trisha Bantigue and Kathy Zhou about building a consumer marketplace and tackling the formalwear industry. 00:00 Intro 00:56 The Queenly Elevator Pitch 01:52 Launching Queenly during lockdown 04:04 The pageant dress market 08:06 Formal wear resale market microstructure 10:16 The Queenly minimum viable product 12:37 Go to market strategy 14:56 Queenly marketplace metrics 16:36 The Queenly fundraising journey 20:40 Raising $6.3m From Andressen Horowitz 22:58 Solving the marketplace chicken and egg problem 24:58 Unlocking supply 27:02 Offering power seller tools to boost supply 28:15 Cracking the demand side 29:12 Facilitating Marketplace Transactions 31:36 Marketplace take rate 32:43 Competition And Playbook 35:16 Formal wear Price dynamics 38:22 The Queenly Vision
00:00 Intro 00:24 Welcome to Miami 01:08 Operators Podcast 03:21 Finding the right guests 06:54 Delian’s founder/operator 08:22 Cohort analysis with Keith at Square 10:30 Nightingale 12:24 Operating experience at Teespring 14:24 Varda Space 17:45 Splitting time between Varda and FF 19:45 Varda Space incubation 23:50 Delian as an investor at Founders Fund 27:07 Faire 30:56 Tiger Global and the rise of crossover funds 35:31 Hyperscaling 36:45 Moving to Miami 39:45 Keeping up with Delian
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Remote.com founder Job van der Voort about building the future of remote work. 0:00 Intro 00:49 The first two years of Remote 02:19 Preparing for the perfect Storm at Gitlab 06:17 Leaving Gitlab 10:47 Business model 14:10 Legal war chest 15:20 Fintech-payment layer 16:20 SaaS layer 17:52 Pricing 19:47 Competitive landscape 24:12 Seed round 25:42 Series A 28:37 Remote best practices 31:52 Enabling random bump ins 34:07 The remote company handbook or “bible” 35:23 Remote company stack 36:20 Asynchronous vs. synchronous work 40:19 Remote for startups
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Sheel Mohnot, co-founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures about his journey as a founder, angel investor and co-founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures. 00:00 Intro 01:11 Guest appearance on a Justin Bieber/Ariana Grande music video 03:16 The “pronoia” mindest 03:16 The “pronoia” mindest 05:04 Sheel’s background 07:56 The Pitch 12:12 Investing with founder authority 14:16 500 Startups fintech fund 18:25 Fintech thesis and sector evolution 22:09 Fintech backend 23:43 Better Tommorrow Ventures 29:24 Differentiation 32:52 Reserve capital 34:52 The good, the bad and the ugly investments 37:40 Sheel-defining investment 41:10 …the bad and the ugly
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Reeves Wiedeman, author of "Billion Dollar Loser: the epic rise and fall of WeWork". 00:00 Adam's intro 01:11 Intro 01:38 Adam Neumann 04:11 Adam's art of persuasion 05:41 Book title 08:10 Writing process 13:01 WeWork evolution and business model 16:21 Tech vs. real estate company 19:25 WeWork community 22:01 WeWork funding journey 25:11 JPMorgan round 26:50 Masa and the Softbank round 30:39 Acquisitions and side businesses 33:16 Valuation and comps 36:59 Public persona and IPOs 38:50 WeWork today 40:07 Staying in touch with Reeves
In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Kyle Lui, Partner at DCM, about the recent IPO roll that DCM has been on. The Menlo Park-based firm has generated a 61x return on investments that have gone public in the past two years. Kuaishou is the standout, with its market cap to entry valuation at 2,000x. 00:00 Intro 00:50 Who is Kyle Lui 01:33 Intro to DCM 03:30 DCM IX and the A-Fund 05:36 Differentiation through US-Asia angle 07:45 DCM's Japan strategy 08:48 DCM's recent roll 10:00 Biggest winner Kuaishou 11:07 All three sides of the table 14:01 Choicepass 15:36 First 5 years at DCM 18:52 Docsend investment 21:47 Lime investment 23:57 Him’s and Hers investment 26:05 D2C unit economics 28:13 Keeping up with what Kyle is up to 29:33 Kyle's investment focus areas