Dealflow

Why do fashion legends and global brands call a graffiti kid from New York before every big trend?Frankie Colamarino grew up in Staten Island, where his mum was the tailor for Wu-Tang Clan. He went from AOL graffiti chat rooms to Nike's 2012 Olympics. Today, when brands want to know what's next, they call him first. Right now, his answer is AI.In this episode of Dealflow, Keira Nesdale sits down with Frankie, co-founder and creative director of Problem, the agency behind work for Nike, Logitech and the makers of Call of Duty. Music videos that cost $2 million five years ago now cost them under $1,000. The tools got cheap. The taste didn't.His agency runs on AI, yet he still draws every first frame by hand. He bets everything on AI, yet says anyone nervous about it should be.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💡 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:1. How a $2 million music video becomes a $1,000 one without losing the craft2. Why brands call Problem first when a new trend starts ramping up3. Why training AI on your own work beats training it on the whole internet4. How AI reads every client email first, so humans only spend time where it counts5. Why ideas are now free and execution is the only thing worth paying for━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🕒 CHAPTERS & KEY MOMENTS:00:00 - Buzzword or Breakthrough? AI in Entertainment02:29 - Is AI Cheating? Vinyl vs iPhone03:15 - Hand-Drawn Frames, AI-Finished Videos04:37 - Inside Problem Intelligence: A Room Full of Mirrors07:21 - Ideas Are Free, Execution Isn't11:27 - AI Reads the Email Before a Human Does12:53 - Problem's Work With LVMH, Nike and Logitech14:59 - Why Brands Call Them First16:12 - The AI Management System They Built for Themselves19:06 - From Cartoon Character to Real IP: The Dizzy Bird Story21:49 - Nouns and Building Community IP30:05 - Boutique Agency or Scalable Business?32:42 - Can a Non-Creative Person Be Creative?39:38 - Will Your Communities Become Your Identity?43:36 - All In on AI, and Still Nervous45:36 - The Most Advanced Tech Starts in a Google Doc46:54 - Do Big Tech CEOs Believe What They're Selling?50:20 - Why He'd Give Away What He Built52:57 - From Graffiti in New York to Leave It Better Than You Found It54:19 - He Builds Attention for Brands, Not for Himself56:31 - Staten Island, Wu-Tang and Coming Back to Entertainment01:00:04 - Would Problem Survive Without Its Founders?01:01:43 - 20 Years of Work, Rewritten by AI01:05:37 - From AOL Graffiti Chat Rooms: Advice to His 17-Year-Old Self01:11:03 - What AI Should Never Take From Us━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 CONNECT WITH FRANKIE:• Website: https://frankie.co• Problem: https://problem.tv• Problem Intelligence: https://problem.tv/intelligence• Instagram: / frankie • X: https://x.com/franke• LinkedIn: / frankieco ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━✨ CONNECT WITH MH VENTURES:• Website: https://www.mhventures.io/• X: https://x.com/MHVentures✨ CONNECT WITH KEIRA:• Website: https://realmissai.com/• YouTube: / @realmissai • LinkedIn: / keira-nesdale-b287899b • X: https://x.com/RealMissAI• Social: / realmissai ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN TO THE PODCAST:• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0QIuSAR...• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 JOIN THE DISCUSSION:If brands called you first for the next big trend, what would you tell them is coming after AI? Drop a comment below!#AIinEntertainment #AICreativity #CreativeAgency #AIMusicVideo #AIforCreatives #TrendSetter #FounderStory

Keira sits down with Adrian Wall, Managing Director of the Digital Sovereignty Alliance, a nonprofit in Washington DC that helps write the crypto laws senators vote on.Adrian explains why America is at risk of losing the dollar's place at the centre of world finance, not to a war or a crash, but to paperwork. While Washington argues, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore are writing their rules, and the bill that would set America's has sat in the Senate for a year.From there the conversation moves to the question he keeps coming back to: why is it so slow? Adrian is blunt. It is not the ethics or the hard questions. It is politics, and he no longer thinks the bill passes this fall.He breaks down what clear rules would unlock, what happens if nothing passes, and why a retired school teacher in Ohio who bought crypto completely legally could still end up being sued. He explains why stablecoins were invented, the questions to ask before you trust anyone offering interest on one, and why Amazon, Meta and Home Depot are not allowed to make their own money.The conversation also covers twenty years brokering deals across China, Latin America, Africa and the US, the timber deal in Papua New Guinea that fell apart because nobody offered the one thing the tribe wanted, what Harvard did not teach him, and the steakhouse he loved for three years before admitting nobody was coming.Plus, whether AI will get the same political treatment as crypto, how far away he thinks we are from AGI, and the one message he would send back to his 17 year old self.Key takeaways:The US dollar buys America time, but that time is running out.Without clear rules, the money and the builders go somewhere else.People who bought crypto legally can still be left exposed by the law.If someone cannot tell you who backs your stablecoin, that is your answer.The store should not also print the money you spend in it.Access without education is a bridge to nowhere.Your AI is only as smart as the person using it.Timestamps:00:00 Intro02:24 Where US crypto law stands today06:45 Two futures for American crypto12:03 Why Washington is moving so slowly15:24 Are crypto founders leaving America?17:28 Why new technology needs new laws19:48 The retired teacher in Ohio23:18 Inside the Digital Sovereignty Alliance28:40 "Isn't crypto a scam?"32:42 Why stablecoins were invented34:59 Stablecoin interest vs your bank account39:04 Why big retailers cannot issue their own money42:25 A bridge to nowhere48:46 Doing deals across cultures51:54 The church that killed a timber deal56:31 What Harvard did not teach him58:06 The steakhouse nobody came to1:06:24 Will AI get the same treatment as crypto?1:09:58 How close are we to AGI?1:13:04 A message to his 17 year old selfGUESTAdrian Wall, Managing Director, Digital Sovereignty AllianceX: https://x.com/AdrianWall8395X: https://x.com/DiscoverDSALinkedIn:   / adrian-wall-8b50002  Website: https://discoverdsa.orgHOSTKeira Nesdale, Portfolio Manager at MH VenturesX: https://x.com/RealMissAILinkedIn:   / keiranesdale  Instagram:   / realmissai  Dealflow PodcastX: https://x.com/dealflowpodcastApple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6RKf6kR...YouTube:    / @dealflowpodcast  MH VENTURESWebsite: https://mhventures.ioX: https://x.com/mhventuresLinkedIn:   / mhventure  

In this episode, Keira sits down with Mike Taylor, Co-Founder of GTM Ventures, a firm that has publicly refused to pick a thesis.Mike explains why attaching yourself to a narrative becomes a filter that quietly stops you from reading the market, and why the only red thread in their portfolio is the founder. From there the conversation moves to the thing he keeps circling back to all episode: distribution. Anyone can build now. Claude Code and Codex mean a person with no technical background can spin up an app by talking to it. So if the tech is no longer the moat, what is?Mike breaks down why Web3 built the plumbing before anyone lived in the house, why thousands of L2s launched with almost no users, and why it was simply easier to raise money on infrastructure than on a product. He shares his own story as one of the first 50 tokens listed on Binance back in 2017, what token launches actually cost founders today, and the exact moment a startup earns the right to launch one.The conversation also covers how a Master of Architecture turned into a career in crypto venture capital, the fitness landscape idea he borrows from evolutionary biology to explain why big companies cannot adapt, and a live teardown where he redesigns the DealFlow podcast on the spot using the same framework he runs with portfolio founders.Plus, the red flag he watches for in every founding team, why stablecoins are being adopted faster in emerging markets than in the West, and the one message he would send back to his 17 year old self.Key takeaways:A thesis can turn into a filter that stops you reading the market.When anyone can build the tech, distribution becomes the only real moat.Web3 built infrastructure first and forgot to check if anyone wanted it.Tokens work when the buyers and the users are the same people.The service providers show up exactly when a founder is most desperate.Big companies cannot move. Small ones can. That is the whole advantage.The most successful person in the room is usually the most relaxed one.Timestamps:00:00 Intro07:44 The venture firm with no thesis 15:10 Are we in an AI bubble? 19:53 Why code stopped being a moat 23:27 Web3 built the plumbing before the house 26:47 One of the first 50 tokens listed on Binance 36:57 When a startup actually needs a token 44:10 From architect to crypto investor 55:40 A live teardown of enablers and blockers 1:10:04 The red flag that kills startups 1:15:14 A message to his 17 year old selfGUESTMike Taylor, Co-Founder, WTG VenturesX: https://x.com/taylormikerobX: https://x.com/wtgventuresLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikertaylor/Website: https://www.wtgventures.com/HOSTKeira Nesdale, Portfolio Manager at MH VenturesX: https://x.com/RealMissAILinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keiranesdaleInstagram: https://instagram.com/RealMissAIDealflow PodcastX: https://x.com/dealflowpodcastApple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dealflow/id1859528286Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6RKf6kRL2q0XEgQeYp9r0dYouTube: https://youtube.com/@DealFlowPodcastMH VENTURESWebsite: https://mhventures.ioX: https://x.com/mhventures LinkedIn: https://ky.linkedin.com/company/mhventure

In this episode, Keira sits down with Will Patterson, Founder of Third Earth Capital and Head of Ventures at Hashgraph Ventures, where he is deploying a new $100 million fund.Will came to crypto through banking. He took his first bonus, put all of it into Bitcoin at $22,000, and watched it fall. What kept him in was not the trade. It was noticing how much an international wire transfer cost compared to what was actually being moved. He went to Avalanche, spent six months asking the basic questions nobody senior wants to ask out loud, and turned that into his own fund and first checks into Movement Labs and Nirvana Labs.He is blunt about what went wrong in the last cycle. Teams raised too much, spent it on incentives, and bought users who left the day the money stopped. The infrastructure got commoditised. The value moved to the apps.Will explains why he thinks stablecoins are the biggest thing crypto has ever produced, why banks and fintechs are suddenly racing to issue their own, and why crypto ends up being the natural rails for AI. If AI touches money, and agents can already spend on their own, that money has to move somewhere.The conversation also covers the one question he asks in every pitch, why paying influencers to tweet has mostly stopped working, exactly how to slide into his DMs without getting ignored, and the wallet he is quietly building on the side that gives away free Bitcoin to anyone standing in the right place.Key Takeaways:Stablecoins are the biggest thing crypto has ever built. Banks are only now catching on.Most tokens went to zero because teams bought users instead of earning them.The chains are commoditised. The value has moved to the apps.If AI touches money, that money runs on crypto rails.Every pitch comes down to one question: what is your unfair advantage?Paying accounts to tweet is over. Better products win retail now.Patience is king. Get good at something and the money follows.Timestamps:03:58 The bonus, Bitcoin at $22k, and the wire transfer that changed everything07:16 Raising a fund in a bear market11:02 Why most tokens go to zero17:48 What he actually looks for in a founder20:09 Do tokens still have value?25:33 Is paying influencers dead?30:52 Why stablecoins are the story right now36:56 How to pitch him without getting ignored51:39 Is AI a bubble?58:44 Building when AI can copy you in an hour1:03:01 A message to his 17 year old selfGuestWill Patterson - Head of Ventures, Hashgraph Ventures / Founder, Third Earth CapitalWebsite (Hashgraph Ventures): https://hashgraphvc.com/LinkedIn (Hashgraph Ventures): https://www.linkedin.com/company/hashgraph-ventures/X (Will): https://x.com/iwillpatLinkedIn (Will): https://www.linkedin.com/in/whpatter/HostKeira Nesdale - Portfolio Manager at MH VenturesX: https://x.com/RealMissAILinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keiranesdaleInstagram: https://instagram.com/RealMissAIDealflow PodcastX: https://x.com/dealflowpodcastApple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dealflow/id1859528286Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6RKf6kRL2q0XEgQeYp9r0dYouTube: https://youtube.com/@DealFlowPodcastMH VenturesWebsite: https://mhventures.ioX: https://x.com/mhventures LinkedIn: https://ky.linkedin.com/company/mhventure#HashgraphVentures #CryptoVC #Web3 #Blockchain #Stablecoins #Bitcoin #DeFi #AI #EarlyStage #Founders #Crypto #VentureCapital #StartupAdvice #DealFlowPodcast

In this episode, Keira sits down with Simon Dedic, Co-Founder of Moonrock Capital.Simon spent years in a lab at Oxford working on one of the deadliest cancers there is, on a clear path to a career in science. Then he walked away from all of it. He took a bank loan at the bottom of the 2018 bear market, lost most of it, and stayed anyway. In 2019 he started Moonrock with his own money, no outside investors and no safety net. Six years and 76 investments later he is still here.He is refreshingly blunt about how venture actually works. Most funds are just waiting to see who A16Z backs. Being a real first check means having conviction before there is a product, revenue or a track record to point at.Simon tells the story of Collector Crypt, a fifty year old collector building something every investor in the room laughed at, now doing over a hundred million a year on Solana.The conversation also covers why he reads every DM but replies to almost none of them, why meme coins were the worst thing to happen to crypto and what they cost the industry, what he tells founders whose token is down 95 percent, why the most convincing person in the room is often the scammer, and why he thinks attention is now the only genuinely scarce thing left.Key Takeaways:The best time to raise is when you do not need the money.Most investors are just copying whoever led the round.Back the person, not the idea. Early founders pivot anyway.If a token does not behave like equity, it is not worth owning.Meme coins turned crypto into a casino and burned a whole wave of newcomers.Software and content are getting cheap. Attention is the scarce thing now.Play long games with long-term people. Everything else is noise.01:15 Why the best time to raise is when you do not need it03:29 What a real first check actually looks like05:45 Judging a founder with no product and no numbers09:39 The Pokemon card company every VC laughed at13:19 Why attention is the only scarce asset left25:14 Quitting cancer research and taking a bank loan at the bottom31:01 Why meme coins were the worst thing to happen to crypto38:33 Your token is down 95 percent. Now what?41:27 The biggest red flags in a pitch43:46 Why nine out of ten DMs get no reply1:00:29 A message to his 17 year old selfGuest:Simon Dedic, Co-Founder, Moonrock CapitalX: @sjdedicX (Moonrock Capital): @MoonrockCapitalLinkedIn: Simon DedicLinkedIn (Moonrock Capital): Moonrock CapitalWebsite: moonrockcapital.ioHostKeira Nesdale - Portfolio Manager at MH VenturesX: https://x.com/RealMissAILinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keiranesdaleInstagram: https://instagram.com/RealMissAIDealflow PodcastX: https://x.com/dealflowpodcastApple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dealflow/id1859528286Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6RKf6kRL2q0XEgQeYp9r0dYouTube: https://youtube.com/@DealFlowPodcastMH VenturesWebsite: https://mhventures.ioX: https://x.com/mhventures LinkedIn: https://ky.linkedin.com/company/mhventure