E1067: Garry Tan, Managing Partner & Co-Founder of Initialized Capital, on dealing with downstream investors as a Seed-stage firm, software companies acting as governments, possibility of building IPO-level companies while fully-distributed & much more!
May 21, 2020
E1065 AMA: Slice CEO Ilir Sela answers questions from founders: tips on selling into scattered markets (like Mom & Pop shops), COVID’s impact on the restaurant industry, scaling Slice’s $43M Series C & more!
May 21, 2020
E1064: News Roundtable! Sam Parr & Zach Coelius on Barstool Sports vs. Call Her Daddy, SoftBank’s $17B loss, TikTok poaches former Disney exec as CEO, Facebook launches Shops & more!
May 20, 2020
All-In E3: Modern Cold War between US & China, economic recovery, potential mass migration out of San Francisco, pandemic politicization & more with David Sacks & David Friedberg
May 20, 2020
E1062: News Roundtable! Acquired.FM Co-Hosts Ben Gilbert & David Rosenthal on Clubhouse’s pre-launch $100M valuation, Joe Rogan to Spotify, Uber layoffs, food delivery wars, Facebook buys GIPHY & more!
May 13, 2020
E1060 AMA: Range CEO & Co-Founder Dan Pupius answers questions from founders: meeting & collaborating with Evan Williams, divvying up time while building a remote team, product development advice, benefits of co-founders & more
May 12, 2020
E1058: Slice CEO & Founder Ilir Sela helps local pizzerias compete with chains by digitizing orders & small fees, shares insights on raising $40M+ Series C during pandemic, “reverse franchise model”, viral GrubHub invoice, helping front-line workers & local pizzerias with Pizza vs. Pandemic
May 12, 2020
E1057: Founders Fund General Partner Keith Rabois on stock market bounce back, domain expertise being overrated, US/China issues, 2020 election, recipe for startups success, chaos making way for a new generation of entrepreneurs & much more!
May 11, 2020
E1056 AMA: StartX & Nexus Events Founder Cameron Teitelman answers questions from founders: how universities with no entrepreneurial culture can mimic Stanford, building flexible & sustainable culture during COVID, scaling Nexus Events rapidly & more!
May 8, 2020
E1055: Hustle Fund Co-Founder & General Partner Elizabeth Yin on her unique portfolio strategy, attracting first-time LPs, optimism for post-COVID fundraising, dealing with pro rata as a smaller fund & more!
May 7, 2020
AMA 2: All Turtles CEO Phil Libin answers questions from founders: should early-stage founders prioritize data or instincts, building global products, ML risks, thoughts on remote work
May 6, 2020
E1054: The Power of Accelerators E3 Siobhan Dullea, CEO of MassChallenge on running a non-profit accelerator, accepting hundreds of companies per year, what makes a great application, why East Coast investors are more conservative & more!
May 1, 2020
E1052: Range CEO & Co-Founder Dan Pupius shares best practices on building culture as a remote team, insights from working on Google+, importance of asynchronous communication on distributed teams, Holacracy & more!
April 30, 2020
AMA 1: freeCodeCamp’s Quincy Larson answers founder and developer questions
April 29, 2020
E1051: The Power of Accelerators E2 Cameron Teitelman, Founder & Chairman of StartX on optimizing Stanford’s entrepreneurial landscape, thesis on peer-support groups’ correlation to founder success, why growth-stage founders join StartX & more!
April 27, 2020
E1050: PlayVS CEO & Founder Delane Parnell shares his incredible journey from the projects to raising almost $100M to build the esports platform of the future, breaking through as an outsider in tech, using leverage & partnerships to create a moat, his top 5 entrepreneurs & more!
April 24, 2020
E1049: freeCodeCamp Founder Quincy Larson shares insights on democratizing developer skills, which programs to learn to land a coding job, if anyone can learn to code, maximizing earning potential & more!
April 22, 2020
E1048: The Power of Accelerators E1 Steve Barsh, Managing Partner of Dreamit Ventures on top portfolio companies, focusing on specific verticals, tips for nailing accelerator interviews, follow-on philosophy & more
April 21, 2020
E1047: Ask Jason Slack Special! Sourcing talent during a crisis, building strong culture & motivating remote teams, investing in distributed startups, importance of market timing & more!
April 16, 2020
E1046: News Roundtable! TechCrunch’s Alex Wilhelm & Slow Ventures’ Sam Lessin on COVID’s potential privacy risk, private/public investor outlooks, remote work challenges & at-risk early-stage investors
April 14, 2020
E1045: 15Five CEO & Co-Founder David Hassell shares insights on remote work: transitioning from in-person to remote, tips for keeping employees engaged, defining trust & more!
April 10, 2020
SNEAK PREVIEW: E2 All-In with Chamath Palihapitiya & Jason Calacanis: Rebooting the economy, understanding corporate debt, steps to avoid a depression & more with David Sacks
April 10, 2020
E1044: Ask Jason! Starting a company in an economic crisis, bringing on & compensating startup advisors, scaling diligence as an angel investor, Jason’s thoughts on solving the unemployment surge & more!
April 9, 2020
E41: “Angel” Podcast: Shawn Carolan, Managing Partner at Menlo Ventures shares insights on his early investments in Uber, Roku, Siri & JUMP Bikes, adjusting his approach in response to hundreds of new venture funds with billions in dry powder & more!
April 7, 2020
E1043: News Roundtable! Bloomberg Beta’s Roy Bahat & Coelius Capital’s Zach Coelius on how tech is helping during the crisis, how startups should approach SMB loans, when VC funding will bounce back, Notion’s $50M raise, Zoom’s security issues, Luckin coffee & more!
April 3, 2020
E1042: Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis) shares insights on Recode incident, need for decentralized citizen journalism, techlash through the years, potential COVID-19 endgames: bull, bear & base case scenarios
April 1, 2020
E40: “Angel” Podcast: Jeff Richards, Managing Partner at GGV Capital shares lessons for founders & investors from 2008 recession & Dot-com bust, criteria for taking on venture debt, valuing companies in a down market & more
March 31, 2020
E1041: The Lean Startup’s Eric Ries gives tactical advice for founders during an economic downturn: obligations of leadership, extending runway, handling layoffs with grace, finding new revenue opportunities, capitalizing on silver-linings & more!
March 27, 2020
E1040: Figma CEO & Co-Founder Dylan Field shares insights on crucial moments in Figma’s creation, overcoming SaaS burnout, active vs. passive user-pricing, getting Greylock & Sequoia to invest after they initially passed & more!
March 25, 2020
E39: “Angel” Podcast: Sarah Guo, General Partner at Greylock Partners shares insights on Greylock’s “Zero to One” investment thesis, sharpening her decision-making skills, ranking team, market & product as investment criteria & the changing landscape of VC
March 24, 2020
E1039: Independent Journalist Vincent Woo reflects on his piece, “Lambda School’s Misleading Promises”, shares insights on what drew him to the story, where Lambda School went wrong, how they can be better & more
March 20, 2020
E1038: News Roundtable! Index Ventures’ Sarah Cannon & TechCrunch’s Alex Wilhelm on COVID-19’s impact so far: lessons learned, Sarah’s stimulus plan, endgame scenarios & more
March 18, 2020
E1 All-In with Chamath Palihapitiya & Jason Calacanis: US Response to COVID-19 & Impact on Startups, Venture Capital & Public Markets with David Friedberg
March 18, 2020
E38: “Angel” Podcast: David Cowan, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners shares insights on owning up to his anti-portfolio, understanding sunk cost, top traits for becoming a VC & best Founders & CEOs he’s ever worked with
March 17, 2020
E1037: LAUNCH Accelerator Class 16 Founders of BasicBlock (payment solution for truckers), DaoCloud (lead-gen for health & wellness practitioners) & Lately (AI-powered social media writing software) reflect on their journeys through the program
March 14, 2020
EMERGENCY POD: E0 All-In with Chamath Palihapitiya & Jason Calacanis: COVID-19 Political, Economic & Social Ramifications featuring The Production Board’s David Friedberg (frmly Founder/CEO, The Climate Corporation)
March 13, 2020
E1036: #AskJason Special! When to join a startup to maximize equity & job security, types of companies that will thrive in an economic downturn, legendary founder & investor traits, tips for starting a podcast & more!
March 11, 2020
E37: “Angel” Podcast: Nicole Quinn, Partner at Lightspeed shares benefits of celebrity founders like Lady Gaga & Gwyneth Paltrow, insights on investing in consumer & power of “Force of Nature” product people
March 10, 2020
E1035: SoftBank Managing Partner Jeff Housenbold on deploying the $100B Vision Fund, getting recruited by Masayoshi Son, counseling founders to manage massive capital, creating moats, reasons for shift toward profits, lessons from WeWork & more
March 6, 2020
E1034: Formlabs CEO & Co-Founder Max Lobovsky shares insights on hitting $100M in revenue as a 3D printing platform, most lucrative use cases, growing organically, best 3D printing examples in science fiction
March 4, 2020
E36: “Angel” Podcast: Ajay Agarwal, Partner at Bain Capital shares insights on culture evolving from sales-driven to product-driven, why enterprise software is the ideal business, best investments & anti-portfolio
March 3, 2020
E1033: News Roundtable! Lambda School CEO Austen Allred & General Catalyst Partner Katherine Boyle on Lambda School controversy, Techlash & late-stage journalism, Robinhood down as Dow jumps & more!
February 27, 2020
E1032: News Roundtable! Robinhood Snacks’ Duo Jack Kramer & Nick Martell on Coronavirus’ impact on public markets, Iger out at Disney – Buy or Sell?, link-baiting Tesla crash, defining Cult Stocks & more!
February 26, 2020
E35: “Angel” Podcast: Sarah Tavel, Partner at Benchmark shares insights on getting recruited by Peter Fenton, disrupting VC gender norms from the inside, transitioning from operator to investor & more
February 25, 2020
E1031: Zumper CEO & Co-Founder Anthemos Georgiades makes renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel, shares insights on monetizing marketplaces, diversifying revenue streams to limit downside, Airbnb’s effect on the rental market & more!
February 21, 2020
E1030: News Roundtable! Zapier CEO Wade Foster & Early-Stage Investor Monique Woodard on Tech Journalists vs. Founders/VCs, Twitter’s fake news detection, Kickstarter union, Blue Apron plummeting, Lambda School controversy & more!
February 19, 2020
E34: “Angel” Podcast: George Zachary, General Partner at CRV shares insights on cancer scare shifting his focus to investing in health-tech, passing on Google at MDV, CRISPR & “designer babies”, coronavirus threat, origins of Sand Hill Road & more!
February 18, 2020
E1029: Basecamp Co-Founder & Author David Heinemeier Hansson (@DHH) debates Jason on reining in capitalism, benefits of state-run education & healthcare, big-tech disappointments, work-from-home paradigm shift, wealth tax & more!
February 14, 2020
E1028: Laura Huang, author of “Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage” shares insights on overcoming disadvantages to create an edge, being bitter vs. getting better, structural bias in tech & more
February 12, 2020
E33: “Angel” Podcast: Dan Rose, Chairman at Coatue Management is leading a $700M early-stage fund, shares insights on working with Bezos & Zuckerberg during pivotal years at Amazon & Facebook, 100+ angel investments, standout founder traits & more
February 11, 2020
E1027: Orreco CEO & Founder Dr. Brian Moore built a platform that optimizes performance of elite athletes, shares cutting-edge benefits of blood sampling, biomarkers, inflammation reduction, glucose monitoring & more!
February 7, 2020
E1026: Cocoon Co-Founders Sachin Monga & Alex Cornell are building an intimate app to connect close circles, share insights on key standout features, raising money as a messaging app, breeding trust via strong domain names, ideal customers & more
February 5, 2020
E32: “Angel” podcast: Season 4 Premiere! Sarah Cannon, Partner at Index Ventures, shares insights on investing in the future of work, underrated emerging startup markets, going from the Obama Administration to Venture Capital, increasing upward mobility in America, fixing the gig economy & more!
February 4, 2020
E1025: #StartupTuneup @ Founder.University Part 2!: 6 founders pitch to Jason & Dave Samuel of Freestyle Capital on AI driving assistance, sleep-aid wearables, marijuana, B2B food analytics & more!
February 3, 2020
E1024: #StartupTuneup @ Founder.University: 6 founders pitch to Jason & Dave Samuel of Freestyle Capital on merging communication networks, athlete performance tracking, DTC women’s clothing, smart tabletop gaming systems & more!
January 31, 2020
E1023: News Roundtable! Machine Zone CEO Kristen Dumont & The Register’s Iain Thomson on Bezos phone hack, Tesla valuation skyrocketing, DJ Elon, Coronavirus, Barstool Sports funding, unions, proposed Uber/DoorDash merger & more!
January 28, 2020
E1022: One Drop CEO & Founder Jeff Dachis helps people with diabetes manage & improve their blood-sugar levels, shares insights on making data actionable, recent strategic partnership with Bayer, issues with US healthcare & potential life-expansion
January 24, 2020
E1021: Bubble Co-CEO & Co-Founder Emmanuel Straschnov built a no-code platform to empower the next generation of programmers, shares insights on bootstrapping to over 300k users, developing skills while scaling & more
January 21, 2020
E1020: CEO/Investor Coach & Author Matt Mochary shares insights on developing his coaching method, understanding & overcoming primal fear, addressing imposter syndrome & more
January 17, 2020
E1019: Mahmee CEO & Co-Founder Melissa Hanna is helping new moms navigate thru postpartum care, shares insights on getting Serena Williams & Mark Cuban to invest, improving the experience for mothers of color & adding structure to a fragmented industry
January 14, 2020
E1018: #AskJason! Avoiding first-time founder mistakes, causes of big-tech layoffs, participating in a Series A as an Angel, running a US-based startup as an international student, importance of having a strong lead investor & more!
January 10, 2020
E1017: Open Office Hours LIVE! Jason helps founders with their biggest challenges: scaling as a solo founder, reducing churn, raising capital in a heavily regulated field, pivoting from one-time payments to SaaS & more @ WSGR
January 7, 2020
E1016: Substack CEO & Co-Founder Chris Best empowers writers via his email newsletter platform, shares insights on driving change in the attention economy, raising $15M from a16z, providing value to retain talent & more
January 3, 2020
E1015: Open Office Hours LIVE! Jason helps founders with their biggest challenges: gaining interest from investors, scaling while bootstrapping in a niche market, automating operations tasks, acquiring national customers & focusing on customers in the cannabis compliance space @ WSGR
December 31, 2019
E1014: Open Office Hours LIVE! Jason helps founders with their biggest challenges: targeting a specific segment of customers, overcoming past failures in a market, developing new nuclear energy, competing against a major incumbent & more!
December 27, 2019
E1013: Decade Wrap-Up Roundtable! Garry Tan, Initialized Capital & Zach Coelius, Coelius Capital on the biggest hits & misses of the past decade: Trump, Theranos, Streaming, Mindfulness, Crypto, Tesla, WeWork, Amazon Prime, Vaping & more!
December 24, 2019
E1012: Open Office Hours LIVE! Jason helps founders with their biggest challenges: goal-setting, starting a sales flywheel, converting bounced customers, capitalizing on investor feedback & more!
December 20, 2019
E1011: Check Point CEO & Co-founder Gil Shwed shares insights on being the “Godfather of Cybersecurity”, growing Check Point into Israel’s most impactful tech company, pricing & developing products for an emerging market, best practices on protecting data from hackers & the next generation of cybersecurity
December 17, 2019
E1010: TWiST Live! Thumbtack CEO & Co-founder Marco Zappacosta shares insights on pivoting to optimize for consumer experience, starting a company during the great recession vs. 2019, fundraising tips & the future of Thumbtack
December 13, 2019
E1009: #StartupTuneup! Startmate Founders pitch Jason: AR presentation platform, experiential marketing, wearables that help menstrual cramps, education thru e-sports & more!
December 10, 2019
E1008: VSCO CEO & Co-founder Joel Flory is building a photo-sharing platform free of ads, likes & comments to empower creators, shares insights on appealing to Gen Z, expanding their global reach & the magic of subscriptions
December 6, 2019
E1007: DoNotPay CEO & Founder Josh Browder built an AI lawyer to fight corporations & governments, demos product features & how it helps consumers, shares insights on following in footsteps of his father Bill Browder, & future of consumer empowerment
December 3, 2019
E1006: Farmer’s Fridge CEO & Founder Luke Saunders is creating a connected network of vending machines offering fresh & healthy meals, shares insights on creating a restaurant-like experience, solving food-supply chain issues, capitalizing on grassroots marketing & real-world virality & using sales data to create the most appealing menu
November 29, 2019
E1005: Scale AI CEO & Co-founder Alexandr Wang creates training data for all AI applications to improve machine learning, shares insights on the future of autonomous vehicles, China’s AI advantages over US, importance of humans focusing on higher-value work & next major trends in AI
November 26, 2019
E1004: Yousician CEO & Co-founder Chris Thür created an interactive platform to master musical instruments, shares insights on acquiring 1M+ users, increasing retention through gamification, using profitability as leverage while attracting investors as an international startup
November 22, 2019
E1003: The Athletic CEO & Co-founder Alex Mather is building a paid online sports media publication, shares insights on attracting investors in a seemingly dying industry, managing 500+ remote writers, creating interesting angles through unique coverage & more
November 19, 2019
E1002: Wealthfront CEO & Co-founder Andy Rachleff on hitting escape velocity at Wealthfront, pioneering “self-driving money” for consumers, shares insights on product-building in 1980’s vs. today, best investor attributes, & the future of NextGen banking
November 15, 2019
E1001: Eight Sleep CEO & Co-founder Matteo Franceschetti pioneered “sleep-fitness” with smart heating & cooling technology; shares insights on product iteration, delighting customers, innovating in D2C, raising $40M from LAUNCH, Founders Fund, Craft & more
November 12, 2019
E1000: 1000th Episode Retrospective! Jason & TWiST lifers Lon Harris, Brian Alvey, & Tyler Crowley re-live favorite moments & guests, highlighting innovations in podcasting & tech over the last decade, hitting global trends & what’s in store for the next 1000
November 8, 2019
E999: ROOM CEO & Co-founder Brian Chen is building phone booths for the modern office, shares insights on maximizing open floor plans, partnering with Calm to reduce stress at work, maintaining capital efficiency as a hardware startup
November 6, 2019
E998: The Next Unicorns: Benchling CEO & Co-founder Sajith Wickramasekara is increasing efficiency for scientists with a cloud-based platform, gives insights on recent life-science innovations, ethics of gene therapy & defining the line between quackery & brilliance – E10 of 10-ep miniseries
November 5, 2019
E997: HubSpot CEO & Co-founder Brian Halligan shares insights on the origin of inbound marketing, how The Grateful Dead inspired HubSpot, importance of customer experience, managing employees in the Glassdoor Era & more
November 1, 2019
E996: Clearbit CEO & Co-founder Alex MacCaw is creating god-mode for marketers with Clearbit X, gives insights on dynamic customer targeting, prioritizing profitability over valuation, GDPR’s adverse effect on Facebook & Google, value of aggregated data & benefits of CEO coaching
October 30, 2019
E995: The Next Unicorns: NEXT Trucking CEO & Co-founder Lidia Yan brings trucking into the digital age with her two-sided marketplace, shares insights on finding & focusing on an untapped market, owning & innovating drayage, navigating the trucking industry as a woman & scaling the right team for success – E9 of 10-ep miniseries
October 29, 2019
E994: All Turtles CEO Phil Libin shares his state machine that answers all growth questions; Future of Early-Stage VC w/Pete Flint (NFX), Rebecca Lynn (Canvas Ventures), Dave Samuel (Freestyle Capital); plus LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk w/Lever CTO Nate Smith
October 25, 2019
E993: Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra shares the formula for his Product-Market Fit Engine; Future of Angel Investing w/Jeff Clavier (Uncork), Ben Ling (Bling), Clara Brenner (Urban Innovation Fund); plus LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk w/Help Scout VP of Sales Tim Thyne
October 23, 2019
E992: The Next Unicorns: Expanse CEO & Co-founder Tim Junio reduces exposure to online threats by providing “attack surface visibility”, shares insights into current threats from China & Russia, potential 2020 election tampering, reasons for cybersecurity optimism & more – E8 of 10-ep miniseries
October 22, 2019
E991: #StartupTuneup with Urban-X: Waste-reducing marketplaces, traffic liability reduction, recreational sharing spaces, firefighter safety software & energy cost saving AI
October 18, 2019
E990: SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie on driving growth by listening to customers & employees, importance of a strong & diverse board, direct listings v. IPOs, lessons learned from WeWork; plus LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk featuring Yosiat Gimbernard from Odoo
October 16, 2019
E989: The Next Unicorns: Culture Amp CEO & Co-founder Didier Elzinga is building an employee analytics platform that keeps workers satisfied & motivated, shares insights on the changing role of culture, what modern employees value & maintaining culture while scaling – E7 of 10-ep miniseries
October 15, 2019
E988: Aileen Lee, Founder & Managing Partner of Cowboy Ventures, pioneered actionable change to diversify tech & VC, shares early days innovating in e-commerce, insights on current funding landscape, dangers of prioritized growth over sustainability, & lessons learned from backing winners like Dollar Shave Club from LAUNCH Scale 2019
October 12, 2019
E987: The Next Unicorns: Upgrade CEO & Co-founder Renaud Laplanche is empowering users to better understand credit through his consumer credit platform, announces the Upgrade Card, shares insights on taking LendingClub public & how startups have changed since he started his first company in 2000 – E6 of 10-ep miniseries
October 11, 2019
E986: StockX Co-founder Josh Luber is building a stock market for things, shares insights on the two cultural shifts that brought sneaker culture mainstream, attracting Mark Wahlberg, Eminem & Steve Aoki to invest along with Google Ventures & Marc Benioff & growing a unicorn out of a sneaker-data site
October 8, 2019
E985: #AskJason! Recognizing great founders as an investor, dealing with a lack of updates, raising capital through crowdfunding, the ideal makeup of today’s founder, how Angel Investing has changed since the release of “Angel”, standing out in slow-to-adapt markets
October 4, 2019
E984: Vice Ventures Founding Partner Catharine Dockery raised $25M to invest in vices: marijuana, sextech, gambling, alcohol, vaping; shares insights on hacking her way into VC through cold emails & a strong investment thesis, capitalizing on early markets hungry for investment
October 3, 2019
E983: The Next Unicorns: Zola CEO & Co-founder Shan-Lyn Ma shares insights on growing her all-in-one wedding platform in a $100bn market, adapting to changes in wedding demographics, balancing growth and profitability while keeping her team focused, raising moral standards in tech – E5 of 10-ep miniseries
October 1, 2019
E982: Karmic Bikes Founder Hong Quan on creating the “Tesla of E-Bikes” with OSLO, bootstrapping through Kickstarter, lowering costs as a strategy, insights on U.S. resistance to widespread E-Bike adoption, & why this vehicle is the future of transportation, plus Office Hours with Jason!
September 27, 2019
E981: Roy Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta, shares the myths of venture capital, the great value of founders turned investors, why VCs reject startups, searing insights on fundraising & valuations, and predictions on the future of enterprise, AI, work & automation @ LAUNCH Accelerator
September 25, 2019
E980: The Next Unicorns: Alto Pharmacy CEO & Co-founder Mattieu Gamache-Asselin is working to fix the broken US pharmacy system by removing friction & aligning incentives among patients, doctors & insurers, shares insights on trading short-term profits for long-term success, combating the opioid crisis, early days meeting Justin Kan, & innovating in a difficult market – E4 of 10-ep miniseries
September 24, 2019
E979: Open Office Hours LIVE! Jason helps founders with their biggest challenges: Understanding investors in your market, proving a business is venture-scale, balancing growth & spend, changing consumer behavior via advertising
September 20, 2019
E978: #StartupTuneup Japan! Millennial-targeted modernized homes, SaaS for “desk-free” workers, women’s lifestyle app development, investor evaluation database, connecting space satellites & antenna owners, food services for international visitors – with angel investor Kotaro Chiba
September 18, 2019
E977: The Next Unicorns: Standard Cognition CEO & Co-founder Jordan Fisher is making autonomous checkout available anywhere through camera computing, raised $86M to compete against Amazon Go, potential for other market opportunities, empowering both costumers and retailers — filmed at the Standard Store in SF — E3 of 10-ep miniseries
September 17, 2019
E976: Shoot My Travel CEO & Co-founder Valerie Lopez is building a global on-demand photography startup, doubling revenue YOY with minimal funding, sharing lessons from the LAUNCH Accelerator & the importance of delighting customers
September 13, 2019
E975: Machine Zone CEO Kristen Dumont on growing her mobile gaming unicorn, journey from advisor to COO to CEO, iterating to the best business model, creating exciting content for a global market, attracting celebrity talent, & optimizing for employee productivity at the highest level
September 11, 2019
E974: The Next Unicorns: Grove Collaborative CEO & Co-founder Stuart Landesberg grew his natural household goods startup to $100M+ in revenue as a B Corp, brings natural products to underserved markets, successfully competes against Amazon as a first-time founder – E2 of 10-ep miniseries
September 10, 2019
E973: Webflow CEO & Co-founder Vlad Magdalin shares insights on growing his no-code startup to $20M in revenue, securing recent $72M round, maintaining profitability while scaling, & pioneering the “Pegasus” movement of startups that skip funding rounds thanks to massive growth
September 6, 2019
E972: “Robbed of Equity”: Toptal denies any shares to employees & investors. Amir Efrati of The Information on breaking the story, founder Taso Du Val’s stock hoarding, unusual tactics & changing landscape of startup-investor relations; then former employee Scott Ritter on his ~8-year tenure, not receiving earned share worth $2m & life after Toptal
September 4, 2019
E971: The Next Unicorns: Checkr CEO & Co-founder Daniel Yanisse built the first API for background checks, shares insights on scaling to 10,000+ customers, bringing transparency & fairness to hiring, growth v. profitability, the future of gig economy & the changing role of the modern tech CEO – E1 of 10-ep miniseries
September 3, 2019
E970: Revel CEO & Co-founder Lisa Marrone is building communities for women over 50, creating networking opportunities & solving loneliness through curated collaborative events, shares insights on inspiration, virality, scaling strategies, and pricing; plus Office Hours with Jason
August 30, 2019
E969: News Roundtable! Molly Wood, Marketplace & Alex Wilhelm, Crunchbase News on WeWork IPO, obfuscation & the consequences of too much money, Peloton appeal, Jeffrey Epstein & the culpability of tech elite, TikTok data mining Americans & other China-US rivalry concerns, Long Term Stock Exchange explained, JUUL danger
August 27, 2019
E968: Open Office Hours LIVE! Jason helps founders with their biggest challenges: acquiring enough customers to successfully fundraise, when to raise prices, hype vs. metrics in the seed stage, avoiding dying markets & more
August 23, 2019
E967: Twilio CEO & Co-Founder Jeff Lawson on growing Twilio to 160,000 customers & a billion-dollar run rate, innovating in a trillion-dollar market, learning from Bezos, strategic timing of Twilio’s IPO, the importance of focusing on customers over competition & always waking up with a Day 1 mindset
August 20, 2019
E966: Scott Harrison, charity: water Founder & CEO shares journey from club promoter to entrepreneur & philanthropist, raising $400M to bring clean & safe water to 5000 new people every single day, scaling with SaaS model & equity sharing, solving for global water shortage & combating charity distrust with 100% of donations going toward saving lives
August 16, 2019
E965: Kim Scott, author of “Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity,” shares secrets of great leadership through giving & getting honest feedback, lessons learned running Google’s AdSense & working with Sheryl Sandberg, strategies for rooting out toxic behaviors to create a sustainable healthy workplace culture
August 13, 2019
E964: PodShare Co-founder & CEO Elvina Beck builds co-living communities where tenants trade privacy for access to the most desirable locations at a low-price point, shares insights on bootstrapping to profitability, using Pods to tackle homelessness, & creating a new market for fluid, transferable real estate
August 9, 2019
E963: Cameo CEO & Co-founder Steven Galanis allows celebrities to monetize their fame by delivering personal messages to fans, shares his unique founding story, new $50m raise by Kleiner Perkins, insights from massive growth, expanding into global markets & leading the future of influencer-fan interaction
August 6, 2019
E962: Sophia Amoruso, Girlboss CEO & Co-founder, shares the evolution of #Girlboss from book, podcast & TV series to recently launched digital network for ambitious women, her personal journey from a “freegan” dumpster diving anarchist to successful entrepreneur, tough lessons learned from Nasty Gal, & the inspiring growth of female founders
August 2, 2019
E961: Open Office Hours LIVE! Jason helps founders with their biggest challenges: pitching to avoid being pigeonholed, expanding in slow markets, scaling past grass-roots beginnings, marketing beyond traditional channels & more
July 30, 2019
E960: The Future of Angel Investing with Paul Judge (TechSquare Labs), Elizabeth Yin, (Hustle Fund), Shaun Abrahamson (Urban Us); The Metrics that Matter with Allen Chen, Co-founder & CEO of Fitbod @ LAUNCH Festival Sydney
July 26, 2019
E959: Hipcamp CEO & Founder Alyssa Ravasio announces new $25m raise from Andreessen Horowitz to scale her camping, glamping & outdoor recreation platform, shares insights on developing talent, staying on mission, the importance of brand, & evolving as an entrepreneur from being the solution to building it
July 23, 2019
E958: Matt Horiuchi, Director of User Acquisition at Calm, breaks down “Growth, Paid Marketing & Attribution”: best strategies for understanding LTV/CAC, where your customers are coming from, most effective channels, creating the right messaging, & optimizing competitive analysis @ Founder.University
July 19, 2019
E957: Luminous Computing CEO & Co-founder Marcus Gomez is building the world’s largest supercomputer that fits in the palm of your hand, allowing AI to go supernova by giving everyone the compute to scale anything, raises $9m seed from Bill Gates, Gigafund, Travis Kalanick & others working to steer the future of AI toward common good
July 18, 2019
E956: Scaling Your Startup, “Culture”: Creating your culture, hiring, diversity & inclusion, high performance, scaling culture, work environment & tools with Jason Calacanis & LAUNCH Managing Directors Ashley Whitehurst & Jacqui Deegan — E10 of 10-ep miniseries
July 16, 2019
E955: Office Hours Sydney! Australian founders present universal startup challenges: finding the right geo, fundraising & pivoting in niche market, gaining traction in hardware/software, effective messaging for a noble vision & more with Jason & investor Mike Savino
July 12, 2019
E954: Gentry Underwood, Co-founder & CEO of Navigator, demos new AI assistant for meeting efficiency & teamwork, insights from selling Mailbox to Dropbox for $100M just 37 days after launching, SaaS burnout in SV, desktop v. mobile cognition, mastering form emerging from functionality
July 9, 2019
E953: Neyborly Co-founder & CEO Ben Seidl shares journey from nearly shutting down to $1m in revenue, optimizing LAUNCH Founder.University, Accelerator & Jason’s Syndicate, redefining a massive market & leveraging the retail apocalypse to create a network of flexible real estate
July 5, 2019
E952: MasterClass Co-founder & CEO David Rogier on shaping the future of online learning with life-changing & accessible classes taught by world’s top talent, landing Dustin Hoffman as 1st to scaling to over 60 celebrity courses, lessons in raising & deploying funding, early inspiration & lifelong love of education gifted by grandmother who fled Nazis in Poland @ LAUNCH Festival Sydney 2019
July 2, 2019
E951: News Roundtable! Antonio Garcia Martinez (“Chaos Monkeys,” WIRED) & Zach Coelius (Coelius Capital) take on Facebook content moderation, crypto play with Libra & the currency of audacity, Ive departs Apple, trade & surveillance war with China, obliteration of objectivity, forecasts on the death of physical labor, rise in immersive VR & sensory enhancement implants
July 1, 2019
E31: “Angel” podcast: Samantha Wong, Partner at Blackbird Ventures (Canva, Culture Amp), shares insights on the growth of Australia’s startup ecosystem, valuations outside of SV & benefits for investors, focusing on deep tech & “science nonfiction,” backing founders with an unstoppable force, & how immigration laws impact entrepreneurship
June 28, 2019
E950: Ethos Co-founder & CEO Peter Colis makes life insurance accessible to everyone, leverages data to eliminate friction & simplify the traditional complications, enables 99% of customers to obtain an affordable policy in 10 minutes with no medical exam or blood test
June 25, 2019
E949: Pony.ai co-founder & CEO James Peng shares insights from scaling his global self-driving unicorn, developing Level 4 & 5 autonomous tech to make any car operate safely in all conditions without human intervention, visions for trucking & ride-hailing, creating collaboration between U.S. & China, how the cultures compare, & other lessons innovating in our driverless future
June 24, 2019
E30: “Angel” podcast: Part 2. Dave Morin of Slow Ventures (250+ investments inc. Slack, Pinterest, Twitter), shares insights on favorite business models & products, backing founders with a tangible sense of inevitability, the rise of two internets, democratization of passion, & an optimistic future with the advancement of self-care tech
June 21, 2019
E948: HackerOne CEO Mårten Mickos shares insights on how he grew his bug bounty army to 400,000 strong by providing a path to hack for good, most common security vulnerabilities, worst security breaches, hacking the Pentagon, protecting the open source that unites us & scaling a company culture that defaults to disclosure
June 19, 2019
E29: “Angel” podcast: Dave Morin of Slow Ventures shares insights from 250+ investments (Slack, Pinterest, Twitter), architecting Facebook & building Path, promoting mental health with Sunrise, combatting the internet’s true tax of depression & how founders can get help – Part 1
June 18, 2019
E947: Mike Ghaffary, General Partner at Canvas Ventures, shares “Strategic Advantages” @ Founder.University & shows how startups can identify, evaluate & strengthen defensibility in their markets
June 14, 2019
E946: Part 2! Jerry Colonna, legendary investor & executive coach, shares new book, “Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up,” insights on absolute complicity in creating our own conditions & strategies we need to overcome self-imposed limitations in business & in life
June 12, 2019
E945: Scaling Your Startup, “Delighting Your Customers”: Talking to customers, tracking NPS & product-market fit, maintaining focus, getting feedback, tactics & tools for customer success with Jason Calacanis & LAUNCH Managing Directors Jason Demant & Jacqui Deegan — E9 of 10-ep miniseries
June 11, 2019
E944: Jerry Colonna, legendary investor & executive coach, shares new book, “Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up,” insights on absolute complicity in creating our own conditions & strategies we need to overcome self-imposed limitations in business & in life – Part 1
June 10, 2019
E28: “Angel” podcast: Ryan Hoover, Founder of Weekend Fund & Product Hunt, shares lessons from building his early-stage fund, harnessing excitement for new markets, betting on founders with strong perspectives & unique qualities, & bringing his expertise & passion for creating communities to venture capital
June 7, 2019
E943: Qualtrics CEO & Co-Founder Ryan Smith shares insights from building his data powerhouse, bootstrapping to profitability, refusing VC & foregoing IPO to sell for $8b, keeping focus, going all in, democratizing information & creating the new category of experience management
June 4, 2019
E942: #StartupTuneup @ Founder.University: 9 founders pitch to Jason & Dave Samuel of Freestyle Capital on AI transport platform, content creation, keto cookies, adventure subscription, restaurant delivery, on-demand consulting, video & event marketing
June 3, 2019
E27: “Angel” podcast: Mamoon Hamid, Partner at Kleiner Perkins & expert early investor (Slack, Box, Intercom) on evolving from growth to venture, lessons from founding & leaving Social Capital, exceptional founder qualities, wisdom of complementary teams, & the winning formula of hard work & timing
May 31, 2019
E941: #AskJason Call-in: Getting ready for investment, social media transparency & brand protection, finding angels that bring value, common pitching mistakes, intangible qualities investors look for in founders & more
May 29, 2019
E940: Scaling Your Startup, “Marketing”: Finding North Star, social channels & content to grow audience, retargeting, converting customers & understanding marketing tools with Jason Calacanis, LAUNCH Managing Director Jacqui Deegan & LAUNCH President Samantha August — E8 of 10-ep miniseries
May 28, 2019
E939: Canva CEO & Co-Founder Melanie Perkins shares insights from growing her Australian college startup into a global unicorn with over one billion designs & 15m monthly active users, breaking into Silicon Valley, landing the first investment from Mary Meeker’s Bond, & realizing her vision to be one of the world’s most valuable companies, doing the most good one can do
May 27, 2019
E26: “Angel” podcast: Ben Ling of Bling Capital (prev. Khosla Ventures), shares strategies from 100+ investments & 9 unicorns, qualities of great founders & teams, assessing market opportunities, the art of startup valuations, Google’s early days, the future of AR/VR, & lessons from leading change in consumer behavior
May 24, 2019
E938: TripActions Co-Founder & CEO Ariel Cohen shares insights from growing his business travel unicorn 600% YOY, harnessing AI & ML to upend antiquated infrastructures, the art of finding product-market fit & scaling rapidly with core values & culture built on service & efficiency
May 23, 2019
E937: Scaling Your Startup, “Fundraising: Diving into the Details”: Ideal numbers, finding investors, refining your deck, what to do during & after your first meeting, term sheets & due diligence with Jason Calacanis & LAUNCH Managing Directors Ashley Whitehurst & Jason Demant — E7 of 10-ep miniseries
May 21, 2019
E936: #StartupTuneup with Urban-X: Founders innovating in construction robotics, shuttle service, AI & real-time heavy equipment optimization & electric car subscription get candid feedback from Jason
May 20, 2019
E25: “Angel” podcast: Chris Redlitz, General Partner of Transmedia Capital, shares success of The Last Mile program teaching tech to incarcerated populations, insights from investing/advising in 90+ startups, nurturing networks & deal flow, evolution of syndicates, urgency of smart money first, & backing founders with passion, presence & perseverance
May 17, 2019
E935: Segment Co-Founder & CEO Peter Reinhardt shares insights from pioneering customer data infrastructure (CDI) to unseat CRM, lessons from first failed product launch & critical pivots, the importance of customer pain as your startup’s North Star, & building the unicorn that actually protects customer privacy
May 16, 2019
E934: Scaling Your Startup, “Staying Lean”: Creating low-burn culture, raising for runway, optimizing with hacks, firing fast & what to do when it hits the fan with Jason Calacanis, LAUNCH Managing Director Jason Demant & LAUNCH President Samantha August — E6 of 10-ep miniseries
May 15, 2019
E933: Scaling Your Startup, “Sales”: Hiring salespeople, ideal compensation, prospecting, nurturing & closing leads, upselling & utilizing sales tools with Jason Calacanis, LAUNCH Managing Director Jacqui Deegan & LAUNCH President Samantha August — E5 of 10-ep miniseries
May 14, 2019
E932: Office Hours with Jason! Founders present their most pressing challenges: B2B pricing, focusing on customer retention v. traction, scaling on-boarding, upselling, productizing advice
May 13, 2019
E24: “Angel” podcast: Mitch Kapor, Partner at Kapor Capital, shares stellar return results of their portfolio’s first-ever Impact Report, investing with purpose to close gaps & back entrepreneurs with distance traveled, insights on Uber’s IPO, fixing the gig economy, promoting diversity in Silicon Valley & creating long-term value v. short-term gains
May 10, 2019
E931: JFrog Co-Founder & CEO Shlomi Ben Haim shares lessons from growing his DevOps unicorn, helming massive growth, hitting essential milestones from Series A through D, integrating valuable acquisitions, & leading the future of security
May 9, 2019
E930: Scaling Your Startup, “Team”: First hires, outsourcing, HR, org structure, compensation, firing & other tough choices with Jason Calacanis, LAUNCH Managing Director Ashley Whitehurst & LAUNCH President Samantha August — E4 of 10-ep miniseries
May 8, 2019
E929: Scaling Your Startup, “Business Model & Turning on Revenue”: Charging customers, revenue streams, unit economics, considering competitors, key metrics & more to build your business, with Jason Calacanis & LAUNCH Managing Directors Jason Demant & Jacqui Deegan — E3 of 10-ep miniseries
May 7, 2019
E928: Adam Foroughi, AppLovin Co-Founder & CEO, shares insights on the mobile gaming boom, early bootstrapping to profitability, massive opportunities in 5G, handling fraud, privacy, parenting, commitment to culture & other lessons from building his app-discovery unicorn
May 6, 2019
E23: “Angel” podcast: Matt Ocko, Managing Partner of Data Collective, invests in deep tech with an algorithmic edge, shares decision-making in difficult markets, building a world-class team, the state of Seed in 2019, being brave & taking risks to create a utopian future
May 3, 2019
E927: Melody McCloskey, Founder & CEO of StyleSeat, shares the goals, product & measurement strategies in growing her beauty & wellness marketplace to 18m clients in 16,000 cities across the US @ Founder.University
April 30, 2019
E926 Casey Neistat, Legendary Vlogger & Founder of 368, shares journey from leaving home at 15 to leading YouTube’s creative pioneers, the evolution of social media & continued quest for authenticity, challenges of success, cultivating gratitude, & starting a new community for artistic collaboration
April 29, 2019
E22: “Angel” podcast: Charles Hudson, Managing Partner of Precursor Ventures, shares strategies on the great rewards & risks of pre-seed, betting on founders with unique insight, analyzing market structure vs. size, importance of mobilization to increase SV diversity, & the art of making early deals without data
April 26, 2019
E925: Founder.University #StartupTuneup: 6 startups innovating in online fitness, data-less tipping, rapid customized merch, rechargeable batteries, smart investments & cross-border ecommerce get candid feedback from Jason & Julie Lein, Urban Innovation Fund
April 23, 2019
E924: Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig on early days innovating in internet publishing, journey from executive to entrepreneur, insights on IPO experience, dangers of information abuse, the changing college landscape, & how prioritizing students & optimizing tech creates affordable, accessible education
April 22, 2019
E21: “Angel” Season 3 Premiere! 500 Startups Co-founder & Managing Partner Christine Tsai shares lessons from her fund’s 10 unicorns & 2200+ startups across 74 countries, what it takes to be a successful founder, achieving a 26% women-led portfolio, greatest hits/misses, & strong leadership through adversity
April 19, 2019
E923: All Turtles Co-founder & CEO Phil Libin (prev. Evernote) launches Sift news therapy to promote understanding over anxiety, shares model for innovation at his AI multi-product startup, insights on failing efficiently, the future of health & work, & what it takes to make a world-class app
April 18, 2019
E922: Scaling Your Startup, “Communication”: Essential tools, tips, and tactics for founders to most effectively communicate with investors, their team, and each other, with Jason Calacanis, LAUNCH President Samantha August & LAUNCH Managing Director Ashley Whitehurst — E2 of 10-ep miniseries
April 16, 2019
E921: Confluent Co-Founder & CEO Jay Kreps shares insights from building his data streaming cloud platform unicorn, new partnership with Google Cloud, learnings as lead engineer at LinkedIn, & the future of innovation in enterprise
April 12, 2019
E920: Rally Rd. Co-Founder & CEO Chris Bruno turns collectible cars into stocks, shares vision of product expansion to make high value assets accessible to everyone & create a new generation of excited, diversified investors
April 11, 2019
E919: Scaling Your Startup, “Funding Your Company”: What startups need to know to raise their rounds right & other tips from an early investor in 200+ startups & 7 unicorns (Uber, Thumbtack, Calm) with Jason Calacanis & LAUNCH Managing Directors Jason Demant & Ashley Whitehurst — E1 of 10-ep miniseries
April 9, 2019
E918: Stack Overflow CEO & co-founder Joel Spolsky shares lessons growing his groundbreaking Q&A site to 100m+ monthly visitors, insights on leading, pivoting, selling Trello, engaging with VCs, becoming focused & what he’s looking for in his replacement as CEO
April 5, 2019
E917: Five9 CEO Rowan Trollope on how his cloud-based contact center is leading the future of customer success by fixing a globally hated experience that eats $500b/year, shares insights on qualities of a great acquisition, the power of AI to revitalize jobs, & the critical importance of setting company culture to avoid tribalism
April 2, 2019
E916: Office Hours with Jason, Part 2! Founders present their most pressing challenges: finding the best revenue model to hit escape velocity, building communities to share & realize goals, prioritizing fundraising versus growth
March 29, 2019
E915: Office Hours with Jason! Founders present their most pressing challenges: immediate growth & revenue versus product development, expanding into new verticals, marketing a unique product on a tight budget, prioritizing results over the perfect pitch-PART 1
March 26, 2019
E914: News Roundtable! Parker Thompson, AngelList & Ryan Block, Begin: Apple announcements (what’s hot & not), inside IPO big wave & high valuations, Beto the hacker, favorite apps, the futures of crypto, political ads, social media & the venture industrial complex
March 22, 2019
E913: Roland Ligtenberg, Co-founder & SVP Growth of Housecall Pro, shares growth hacking strategies on go-to-market, customer acquisition, marketing & sales channels from Seed through Series B @ Founder.University
March 19, 2019
E912: #AskJason Call-in: Stepping stones to VC, attracting top talent on a tight budget, pay-to-pitch & other startup scams, educating investors on the problem & your solution, landing leads for your round & more
March 15, 2019
E911: Kabbage Co-founder & CEO Rob Frohwein disrupts business financing by using real-time data to grant capital in minutes, shares insights on founder stress, the future of financing & building a billion-dollar company that helps other startups scale
March 12, 2019
E910: Founder.University #StartupTuneup: 9 startups in talent & ride-share marketplaces, insurance fraud detection, anonymous global messaging, high-end home repair, curated digital shopping & more get candid feedback from Jason & Jenny Lefcourt, Freestyle Capital
March 8, 2019
E909: Part 2! Roger McNamee, author of “Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe,” investor & early Zuck mentor, distills the destructive power of persuasive tech, the cult of libertarianism in SV, election interference, Russian subversion of American democracy & Big Tech’s dystopian surveillance, data collection & what we can do about it
March 5, 2019
E908: Roger McNamee, early Facebook investor & author of “Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe,” shares early days mentoring Zuck, the destructive power of persuasive tech, the Russian plan to subvert American democracy, & Beyond Facebook: Big Tech’s dystopian surveillance, data collection & what we can do about it – PART 1
March 1, 2019
E907: The Syndicate Showcase: Jason shares 4 portfolio startups & why he invested; founders present product, achievements & updates since syndication, w/ 15Five (employee performance management) , Growth Boulevard (growth & content marketing tools), Steezy (online dance with top instructors), and WhereBy.Us (local newsletter & media network)
February 26, 2019
E906: Caterina Fake, co-founder of Yes VC & Flickr, explores tech’s unintended consequences in new podcast “Should This Exist?”; shares insights on community building, founder skills, the zebra movement, the future of capitalism & funding startups that embody creativity & expression
February 22, 2019
E905: PT2 – Keith Rabois, operator (PayPal, Opendoor) & investor (Khosla, future Founders Fund) shares advice on getting into tech, insights on censorship, secondary shares, selling too early, self-driving, biggest misses, economic concerns & other lessons from his lifelong quest to monopolize talent & fund startups that will change the world
February 19, 2019
E904: Legendary investor & operator Keith Rabois (Khosla Ventures, PayPal, Opendoor) shares advice for entrepreneurs in the current anti-VC/anti-hustle climate, insights on Thiel, Trump, Margaret Thatcher & Masayoshi Son, & lessons from his lifelong quest to monopolize talent & fund startups that will change the world – PART 1
February 15, 2019
E903: DeepMap CEO & Co-founder James Wu built the world’s greatest maps for Google, Apple & Baidu, now provides precision HD mapping technology & real-time data for autonomous vehicles // Office Hours with Jason! Balancing supply & demand
February 12, 2019
E902: Looking Glass Factory Co-founder & CEO Shawn Frayne demos his 3D holographic display that creates shared experiences & unlimited potential for human-tech direct interaction // “Guess the Fake Startup!”: which chat product is too outrageous to exist?
February 8, 2019
E901: Twilio SendGrid CEO Sameer Dholakia shares how he led $30m co. to $2b acquisition with strategic focus on marketing, product & team, embedded values & scalable culture, aligning with the right partners, knowing what great looks like, & expanding platform that’s already delivered over 1 trillion emails to date
February 5, 2019
E900: Justin Kan, co-founder of Justin.tv, Twitch.tv & Atrium, shares lessons pioneering live-stream video, early days at YC, learning from failure, selling as a superpower, strengthening core & building startups from the joy of exploration
February 1, 2019
E899: News Roundtable! Zach Coelius (Coelius Capital) & Gadget Guy Dave Mathews (NewAer): Apple’s self-driving Project Titan is dropped, FaceTime eavesdrops, flying cars, latest Facebook scandal, the largest privacy breach ever (again!), journalism ills, & the return of Deadpool (fallen startup of the week)
January 29, 2019
E898: Office Hours with Jason! Founders present their most pressing startup challenges: strengthening momentum after fundraise, igniting excitement for biometrics, educating angels on personal flight, increasing sales for AI video, targeting the right investors, & more
January 25, 2019
E897: Obvious Ventures Co-founder & Managing Director James Joaquin brings operator expertise to VC to fund #worldpositive startups; shares early days pioneering online photo, teaming up with Ev Williams, insights on founder mental health, investor bad behavior, crypto potential, & staying focused on realizing a sustainable planet
January 22, 2019
E896: NURX Co-founder & CEO Hans Gangeskar makes healthcare accessible with home delivery of birth control, HIV prevention & now an HPV testing kit, connects customers to an integrated network of doctors & pharmacies for direct control // Join Jason for “Guess the Fake Startup!”: which D2C company is too outrageous to exist?
January 18, 2019
E895: News Roundtable! Anthony Pompliano & Mick Liubinskas do a Crypto deep dive: the state of bitcoin, ideal use cases, Ripple trouble, ICO flame-outs & scams, incremental improvements & exponential potential; plus, Black Swan events, aliens arriving, markets collapsing & accreditation laws strangling the American Dream
January 15, 2019
E894: How do you know when to hire a CEO? Owl Labs Co-founder & outgoing CEO Max Makeev & new CEO Frank Weishaupt on applying robotics thinking to transform video conferencing, shaping the future of distributed teams, & hitting the gas on growth by handing over the reins
January 11, 2019
E893: All #AskJason! Working in VC, prospects for non-revenue projects, cliche entrepreneur phrases, effective networking tips, recession-proof industries, what makes a great investment, negotiating co-founder title, misguided startup advice, SV v. NYC
January 9, 2019
E892: News Roundtable! Peter Rojas & Monique Woodard: CES (5G, bread robots, double standards & more!), tech backlashes & what lies beneath, the dilemmas of regulation, have we reached peak Apple?, political deja vu, online harassment & the rise of fake internet
January 4, 2019
E891: #AllAskJason Call-In: right approach to metrics, customer acquisition & retention, landing qualified leads & true feedback from the front lines, to take or not to take investor money, relentless focus as a strategy
January 1, 2019
E890: #StartupTuneup: 16 founders pitch for Jason’s candid feedback on scaling: from social networks to smart contact lenses, flying on-demand to subscription freelancers, multi-purpose boxes to blockchain for litigants & many more @ LAUNCH SCALE
December 28, 2018
E889: Union Square Ventures Partner & Co-founder Brad Burnham shares insights on market forces, innovation impinged by dominant players & consolidating network effects, the enduring benefits of open systems, potential for distributed trust, & continued conviction for crypto to create a platform that is not evil
December 21, 2018
E888: Honor CEO & Co-founder Seth Sternberg (prev. Meebo, Google) turns his tech expertise toward human betterment, combining care professionals with machine learning for quality home care; shares lessons as serial entrepreneur, raising money, assembling teams, navigating execution & market risks
December 18, 2018
E887: #StartupTuneup @ TWiST Live! Jason’s candid feedback to founders on teledentistry as a service, tax management for cannabis, stylish activewear bras, data science for software engineering, online 3D printing, integrated traveling platform
December 14, 2018
E886: Samasource Founder & CEO Leila Janah is reducing poverty by training people in Africa in AI & future technologies to earn 400% more; shares her LXMI organic skincare products, the rewards & challenges of running two startups, raising VC, & the profitable art of doing more with less
December 13, 2018
E885: Year-end special TWiST! Top 2018 trends, prominent players & 2019 predictions for products, AI, podcasting, platforms, entertainment, politics & much more – with Nick Abouzeid, Lon Harris, Rob May, Skye Pillsbury & Austin Smith
December 11, 2018
E884: News Roundtable! Kim-Mai Cutler, Initialized Capital & Ryan Carson, Treehouse talk IPO heat: Uber & Lyft file, more on deck, effects to ricochet across transportation & housing; diversity in tech & the future of education; the latest in Facebook & Google moral bankruptcy
December 9, 2018
E883: #AllAskJason: low-cost marketing, protecting stealable ideas, decacorns & superunicorns, early-traction momentum, advice for non-tech founders, transparency best practices, unique ideas, advice for kid entrepreneurs, running out of money – with LAUNCH CMO Presh
December 7, 2018
E882: TWiST Live! OpenAI Co-founder & CTO Greg Brockman on our rapid acceleration toward artificial general intelligence: shares achievements in deep learning, the death of Moore’s Law (300,000x compute increase), & the risks of malice, competition & unintended consequences as OpenAI races to build AGI that benefits humanity
December 4, 2018
E881: Helm CEO & Co-founder Giri Sreenivas built a personal server to safeguard your online data in this era of runaway surveillance; insights on hacking, Snowden, the unceasing exploitation of information by government, advertisers & big tech, & a $4m raise led by Initialized Capital to protect us at this privacy tipping point
November 30, 2018
E880: Brandless CEO & Co-founder Tina Sharkey (prev., iVillage, AOL) shares how her ecommerce platform eliminates inefficiency, builds community & disrupts retail with products reflecting the values of consumers, not brands; shares insights from early internet, creating a culture of intention, raising $240m from SoftBank Vision Fund & more
November 26, 2018
E879: News Roundtable! Antonio García Martínez (“Chaos Monkeys,” WIRED) & Iain Thomson (The Register): Facebook’s embattled leadership & unraveling internal culture, world’s 1st gene-edited babies, bitcoin zero-bound?, deep-fakes, Amazon HQ2 fiasco, social-media genius of Ocasio-Cortez & more
November 23, 2018
E878: Founder.University #StartupTuneup: 9 startups in drone recovery, automated architecture, daily newsletters, soccer software, SMB marketing, design management, shoe commerce, tech recruiting, boutique delivery & more get candid feedback from Jason & Kirby Harris, Base Ventures
November 20, 2018
E877: Fairygodboss CEO & Co-founder Georgene Huang built a career marketplace for women, shares insights on best companies, equal pay, forced arbitration for misconduct, work-life balance, & results from her Sexual Harassment in Workplace Survey that shows, even post- #MeToo, how far we have to go
November 18, 2018
E876: “Founder Lessons”: 5 founders whose startups range from shut down to scaling share their best advice, mistakes they will never repeat & strategies they will double-down on for future success @ LAUNCH Scale
November 16, 2018
E875: Founder & CEO Andrew Parker built Papa to solve loneliness across generations with “grandkids on demand” companionship & non-skilled assistance, shares progress since YC, expanding & pursuing partnership w/ Medicare, & securing $2.4m from Alexis Ohanian
November 13, 2018
E874: #AllAskJason Call-In: Jason’s candid feedback on getting investors’ attention pre- product-market fit, selling the big vision, conquering small markets before big, optimizing potential in apparel, breaking into tech from outside SV
November 11, 2018
E873: The Syndicate Showcase: Jason presents 3 portfolio startups & reveals why he invested; founders demo & share accomplishments resulting from Jason’s accelerator & syndicate, w/ Cafe X (robotic coffee), LeadIQ (sales prospecting), Kush Marketplace (wholesale cannabis)
November 9, 2018
E872: David Cohen, Techstars founder & world’s top angel with investments creating $80b+ value in 30 cities across 13 countries, shares insights on picking over-performers, prioritizing quality before quantity, data dilemmas & misplaced outrage, & the early-stage exhilaration of helping founders figure it out
November 5, 2018
E871: Craig Newmark on founding & scaling profitable legend Craigslist with dogged dedication to customer service & no VC, now driven to fund the good work in the world, reverse misinformation & stay in touch with what’s real to get our country back on track
November 2, 2018
E870: CEO Bentley Hall brings Good Eggs back from the brink to raise $50m Series C led by Bill Gurley, stays focused on foundation & happy customers before hyper-growth, shares inventory & plans to expand on a mission to make fresh food the default not the exception
October 30, 2018
E869: Mar Hershenson, Pear VC: “Building Companies from 0 to 1” & what startups need to know to get from idea to Series A; & James Currier, NFX: “Network Effects Produces 70% of the Value in Tech” & how startups can create network effects for defensibility & scale @ LAUNCH SCALE
October 26, 2018
E868: Calm Co-founder Alex Tew shares lessons on hyper-growth done well, finding the right investors, creating a new market & making a positive difference in the world with 1m+ subscribers, $80m revenue & a $250m valuation
October 23, 2018
E867: Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra (prev., Rapportive) created instantaneous email to democratize productivity, demos why customers not only pay but evangelize (w/ 70k on waitlist), shares insights as 2nd-time founder on fundraising, churn, marketing & the workflow of the future
October 19, 2018
E866: “Future of Early-Stage Investing” with Garry Tan (Initialized Capital), Hunter Walk (Homebrew), Andrea Zurek (XG Ventures): Insights on founder-market fit, the value of operators, outdated venture models, & helping startups break through Series A bottleneck
October 16, 2018
E865: Nextdoor CEO & Co-founder Nirav Tolia on getting to 90% of US neighborhoods & 100m users globally with organic growth & hard choices, shares thoughts on parody, possible IPO, & becoming the unique social network that protects, as well as connects, its members
October 12, 2018
E864: Social Capital’s Chamath Palihapitiya on how he fell for the mythology & Ponzi scheme of Silicon Valley, is now getting back to solving problems that matter; urges founders to grow real, grow slow, & stay true to what they want to build in the world @ LAUNCH Scale
October 9, 2018
E863: Optimism breaks barriers: Omaze CEO Matt Pohlson makes a difference through dream experiences with A-list stars, shares lessons in gratitude, family gambling, coming back from the dead (literally), Bono’s magic, & the smart business of crowdfunded charity
October 5, 2018
E862: Andela CEO Jeremy Johnson & his team are training Africa’s top talent to become the world’s software engineers, bridging the gap between a high-growth population & the global need for technical expertise
October 3, 2018
E861: #StartupTuneup Urban-X: Founders solving for cities pitch Jason on data-driven grades for apartments, urban outdoor spaces, connecting tolls to connected vehicles, bike-safety helmets riders will actually wear
E859: Emergency Pod! Instagram founders flee Facebook, things Jason hates/loves, tips for founders, the startup Jason wish existed
September 25, 2018
E858: #AllAskJason Call-In: Candid advice on founder mental health & the extreme pursuit of startups, syndicate investing best practices, setting up outside SV, the future of robot-enabled retail, & the dream social media platform to unseat Facebook
September 21, 2018
E857: Solving drowning: WAVE Co-founder & CEO Mark Caron demos his innovation detecting swimmers in distress, alerting lifeguards & parents; shares challenges & opportunities of changing human behavior, convincing VCs of the growing market for saving lives
September 18, 2018
E856: #StartupTuneup Equity Crowdfunding: Republic Co-founder Ken Nguyen opens opportunity floodgates for startups & investors with diversity-focused crowdfunding, joins Jason to hear pitches on enterprise collaboration, smartphone numbers on demand, & next-gen tailoring
September 14, 2018
E855: Blavity CEO & Co-founder Morgan DeBaun on how she built her media empire for black millennials based on trust in the era of fake news & Facebook fatigue, scaled to 5 brands (+counting) with 4m+ social, & landed Series A led by GV, smashing every SV barrier along the way
September 11, 2018
E854: Kairos CEO & Co-founder Brian Brackeen on innovating in facial recognition, processing over a billion faces, raising $30m via token sale, the dream & dystopia of AI, the persistence of racial profiling, & why he won’t sell his technology to law enforcement
September 7, 2018
E853: #StartupTuneup “Solving Oceans”: 5 founders share their visions for cleaning up oil spills, fishing sustainably, harnessing wave power, rapidly biodegradable products, & data to eliminate waste
September 5, 2018
E852: News Roundtable! Clara Brenner, Urban Innovation Fund & Iain Thomson, The Register: Facebook & Twitter testify, Google misfires, free speech v. de-platforming, scooter war victors & victims, rise of IPOs & income inequality, security shenanigans
August 31, 2018
E851: Ubiquity6 Co-founder & CEO Anjney Midha on creating multiplayer AR for the real world, raising $37.5m from top SV investors to play with parallel universes, become the browser of spaces & define the future of shared mixed reality
August 29, 2018
E850: All #AskJason Call-In! Candid feedback on marketplaces, getting customers, breaking into VC, social media envy spiral, execution over ideas, abandoning your C corp, hiring & keeping great talent, networking outside of SV
August 21, 2018
E849: Ernst-Jan Pfauth, CEO of The Correspondent, on breaking the journalism crowdfunding world record, launching in U.S., & innovating by ignoring the news & creating for readers instead of advertisers & owners
August 17, 2018
E848: Introducing Tonal smart home fitness center that measures, monitors, instructs & adapts for a personalized full-body workout; CEO/founder Aly Orady demos his invention & vision for the future of health & fitness
August 16, 2018
E847: Emergency Pod! “Low-Burn Mindset”: Jason’s sneak preview from his next book breaks down your burn rate, why it needs to stay low & how to keep it there to extend your runway
August 14, 2018
E846: Adam Nelson of Social Capital shares his playbook on “What it Takes to Raise a Series A in 2018”: what (& who) investors fund, optimizing team, scalability, market, narrative & the fundamentals of fundraising @ Founder.University
August 10, 2018
E845: News Roundtable! Ryan Hoover, Product Hunt & Gadget Guy Dave Mathews, NewAer: Tesla going private—or getting purchased?, Twitter trolls, Discord takes on Steam, ISPs out of control & out of touch, intro PH Sip News, bike-share bike piles towering around the globe
August 7, 2018
E844: TWiST on the Town! Bumblebee Spaces demos a new dimension, creating extra living space with AI & robotics; Pure Watercraft drives Jason with its high-powered electric outboard motor
August 3, 2018
E843: CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins founded Promise to provide equitable alternatives to incarceration, reduce recidivism & save counties massive costs; shares journey from Prince manager to startup founder, landing JAY-Z as investor & taking on our badly broken jail system
August 1, 2018
E842: Bonus TWiST Breaking News: Apple & Tesla crush it, Facebook & Twitter crash, & how startups can survive a market correction or collapse
July 31, 2018
E841: Randy Komisar, entrepreneur & Kleiner Perkins VC, shares “Straight Talk for Startups” & insights on why startups fail, cultivating luck as a skill & accountability over apology, how VC has changed, the future of the market & the enduring wisdom of investing in talent
July 27, 2018
E840: All #AskJason! Live call-ins & chat room questions on finding investors, marketing your skills, Service as a Software, angel mentoring, best networking, hating on social media, future of AR & more
July 25, 2018
E839: Mapistry CEO & Founder Allie Janoch shares her SaaS platform for environmental regulation that provides detailed & inexpensive data in real-time, flips incentives for managers toward compliance, overturns dire pollution problems & investor skepticism to scale
July 20, 2018
E838: David Sacks on raising $350m for Craft Ventures, betting big on scooter unicorn Bird & transforming transportation, future of VR & crypto, lessons scaling Yammer from 0 to $1b, cleaning up Zenefits, keys to frictionless flywheel & great early-stage investing @ LAUNCH Angel Summit
July 18, 2018
E837: #StartupTuneup @ LAUNCH Festival Sydney: Founders pitch Jason on solutions in user-generated video, hiring salespeople fast, attention marketplace for biz, mentorship matching platform, finding nearest parking & more
E835: Panda.af founder Daniel Singer created a voice-controlled camera that brings to life the movie in your head, takes on Snapchat & Facebook, shares the secrets of Gen Z & being a serial entrepreneur at 18
July 6, 2018
E834: HVMN Co-founder & CEO Geoffrey Woo on creating world’s 1st drinkable ketone, disrupting the sugar market, bio-hacking for optimal performance & super-fueling the future of human health
June 29, 2018
E833: Crushing Customer Acquisition: Andy Artz, Social Capital explains how to think about your funnel like an investor (“If Warren Buffet Were a Marketer”) & Whitney Sales, Acceleprise walks through the optimal sales process @ LAUNCH Festival Sydney
June 26, 2018
E832: The Future of Global VC: Seizing opportunities, markets, customers & money in the U.S., Australia & beyond with Ben Narasin (NEA), Samantha Wong (Blackbird Ventures), Stonly Baptiste (Urban.us) @ LAUNCH Festival Sydney
June 22, 2018
E831: Founder.University #StartupTuneup: 10 startups in portable PT, fashion, sustainable shrimp, Latino services, education, budtenders-brands connector, nuclear-powered space tugs & more get candid feedback from Jason & investor Monique Woodard
June 20, 2018
E830: Jeff Clavier of Uncork Capital shares seed funding strategies: understanding VC, prepping the pitch, setting valuations, targeting investors, avoiding traps & more @ LAUNCH Incubator
June 15, 2018
E829: All #AskJason! Leveling up teams, data collection dilemmas, Masayoshi Son $100b, getting into investing in SV & beyond, valuations, pizza, China, unemployment, startup patience & more
June 12, 2018
E828: WSJ investigative reporter John Carreyrou shares how he broke Theranos story & reveals its staggering scope of fraud & deception in his new book, “BAD BLOOD: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup”
June 8, 2018
E827: News Roundtable! Lon Harris & Sarah Cooper: Mystery sonic attacks in Cuba & China, SF’s belligerent police-calling scooters, social media data detox attempts, Trumps twitter blocks, Oculus Go steps it up, Elon takes on fake news
June 5, 2018
E826: “Dying for a Paycheck”: Stanford Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer shares the dire consequences of toxicity in the modern workplace & solutions for improving employee health
June 1, 2018
E825: David Bennahum, Founder of the Ready creative building platform (@getreadyio) shares how to extend your runway and be frugal to give your startup the greatest chance of success @ LAUNCH Incubator
May 29, 2018
E824: “Open Book Challenge”! Jason’s request for startups to replace Facebook gets underway: meet four founders with unique solutions to unseat the social media giant (applications open until 6/15/18)
May 25, 2018
E823: Lambda School CEO Austen Allred created an immersive online training for software engineers at no upfront cost, disrupts education by eliminating student debt & aligning incentives of his school with those of its learners
May 22, 2018
E822: Misty Robotics Founder Ian Bernstein (fmr Sphero) intros his programmable robot Misty II, & shares insights from developing BB-8, inspiring next generation with STEM education & creating the future of personal robots
May 18, 2018
E821: News Roundtable! Jeff Bercovici, Inc. & Alex Kantrowitz, BuzzFeed: Facebook plays to regain trust, Google A.I. terrifies, Amazon fake reviews, autopilot dilemma, tech’s global reckoning, & this week in startups that let you avoid death
May 15, 2018
E820: JUMP Bikes founder Ryan Rzepecki on building SF’s only electrified, dockless bike share, being acquired by Uber, gearing up for massive multi-city scale & defining the future of cities and transportation
May 11, 2018
E819: Brave founder Brendan Eich (fmr Mozilla, JavaScript) on creating the ad-blocking, anon browser for our age, rewarding users with crypto-payment tokens, & raising $35m in 30 seconds for a rare ICO resulting in an actual product
May 8, 2018
E818: Firstminute Capital founder Brent Hoberman shares insights building ecommerce pioneer lastminute.com, joys of early-stage VC & backing obsessed founders, the future of A.I., outlook for media, & the unique challenges & opportunities of pan-European investing
May 4, 2018
E817: News Roundtable! Gadget Guy Dave Mathews (NewAer ) & Austin Smith (Inside.com): Elon rants at investors, Facebook steals again w/Dating, Telegram cancels public ICO, Cambridge Analytica bankrupts, WhatsApp founder quits, scooters confound
May 1, 2018
E816: Mike Ghaffary of Social Capital shares strategies for getting the edge with “Productivity for Your Startup: An Action Plan” @ LAUNCH Incubator
April 27, 2018
E815: All #AskJason: Surprising founders, effective crowdsourcing, AI hot or hype?, video game startups, cannabis, holding v. selling, raising $, building expertise
April 24, 2018
E814: Airtable Co-founder Howie Liu raises $52m Series B for his smart spreadsheets, launches “Blocks” customizable apps to supercharge database insights, shares lessons as a 2nd-time founder & vision for the ultimate workflow
April 20, 2018
E813: Andy Rachleff shares insights from co-founding Benchmark & building Wealthfront to manage $10b+ assets, announces 50% fee cut for Risk Parity, talks stock market, financial literacy & the wisdom of investing against human instinct
April 17, 2018
E812: Startup Tuneup, Down Under! 6 Australian startups pitch Jason on VR therapy, food scrap collection, tree-planting robots, entrepreneurialism for kids, vets-pet owner platform, & homeowner all-in-one custom building
April 13, 2018
E811: News Roundtable! Iain Thomson, The Register & Brian Alvey, Clipisode: Zuck testifies to Congress, Facebook’s data dilemma, Trump orders USPS review, YouTube demonetization fallout, self-driving car accidents & the dangers of human distraction
April 10, 2018
E810: Clara Brenner, Urban Innovation Fund: “Forming a Board: Why & When (or, To Board or Not to Board) & Domingo Guerra, Appthority “Founder Lessons from Seed to Series B” @ Founder.University
April 6, 2018
E809: Abra Founder Bill Barhydt built the 1st global wallet to buy, store & invest 20 crypto- & 50 fiat currencies; shares insights on ICOs (the good, bad & ugly), bitcoin’s euphoric rollercoaster, liquidity, mining, the IRS & crypto’s immutable fate to transform the world
April 4, 2018
E808: News Roundtable! Cade Metz, NYT & Sarah Cooper, The Cooper Review: YouTube shooting, Trump attacks Amazon, A.I. fights for talent, deconstructing Zuck, crypto plummets, the fate (& fatal) of self-driving
April 2, 2018
E20: “Angel” podcast: Ask an Angel! Jason Calacanis & Ed Roman answer questions on startup runway concerns, syndicate hit rates, advising best practices, founder updates, due diligence, pro-rata rights, investment legal structures & more
March 30, 2018
E807: Intercom co-founder Des Traynor explains exactly how to “Build the Right Thing” and scale strategically with principles, values, and mission @ LAUNCH Incubator
March 27, 2018
E806: Rachel Hepworth, Head of Growth Marketing at Slack, breaks down how startups can best “Go to Market and Grow” @ Founder.University
March 25, 2018
E19: “Angel” podcast: Pete Flint, NFX Managing Partner & Trulia Founder, shares insights from entrepreneurship to investing, criteria for $150m seed fund, supporting persistent founders, company-building & culture, targeting markets ripe for disruption, & the power of data network effects
March 23, 2018
E805: Innovating Biology: next-level tech tackles the human condition with Contraline’s non-surgical, reversible male contraception & Spiral Therapeutics’ hydrogel therapy for hearing loss prevention
March 20, 2018
E804: News Roundtable! Antonio Garcia Martinez (“Chaos Monkeys,” original Facebook Ads PM) & Austin Smith (Inside.com) dissect the deepening Facebook data scandal & Cambridge Analytica’s Trump ties & info; also autonomous Uber fatality, full Theranos implosion
March 17, 2018
E803: Startup Tuneup “Solving Cities”: 6 co’s pitch to Jason innovating in autonomous tech sensors, city maps from space, ML for road monitoring, AI-improved city grids, safer construction sites, & alt. car ownership
March 13, 2018
E802: All #AskJason! Minimizing burn rate, SV mental health, self-funding to Series A, equity splits, “sustainability” stigma, solo-founding, founder/angel bad habits, product+services & more
March 9, 2018
E801: Open Listings CEO Judd Schoenholtz on creating a self-service real estate market, promoting affordability & returning agent costs to buyers, reducing legacy bad behavior, & driving the future of housing
March 9, 2018
E801: Open Listings CEO Judd Schoenholtz on creating a self-service real estate market, promoting affordability & returning agent costs to buyers, reducing legacy bad behavior, & driving the future of housing
March 6, 2018
E800: Startup Tuneup/#AskJason LIVE: Five founders pitch for Jason’s candid feedback (& audience votes) in co-working, healthcare, education, investing, and peer networking
February 27, 2018
E799: Introducing Skydio, 1st self-flying camera that follows you around; CEO Adam Bry discusses trustworthy autonomy, consumer to military applications & demos the drone chasing @Jason in an alley
February 23, 2018
E798: News Roundtable! Antonio Garcia Martinez (author “Chaos Monkeys”) & Clara Brenner (Urban Innovation Fund) dissect Facebook’s Russia problem, targeted ads & dilemmas of unrestricted growth, crypto news, harassment in VC, gun control & Gen Z activism
February 20, 2018
E797: “Funding Your Startup”: Jenny Lefcourt, VC at Freestyle Capital & serial entrepreneur, shares anatomy of the ideal deck & ultimate pitch to raise your round right @ Founder.University
February 18, 2018
E18: “Angel” podcast: Rob May, investor 45+ co’s & founder Talla & Backupify, shares dealbreakers, successful founder patterns, using scar tissue as entrepreneur to be a better angel, creating Talla’s ICO & future of bots, blockchain, & crypto
February 16, 2018
E796: Othman Laraki, Color CEO & Co-founder, uses genetics to engage people in preventative health & early disease detection, draws on deep experience as entrepreneur, investor & carrier of BRCA gene
February 13, 2018
E795: Charles Hudson, Managing Partner Precursor Ventures, breaks down how not to mess up your Seed round, manage product, team & investors, avoid distractions, critical hiring questions, future milestones & more @ Founder.University
February 9, 2018
E794: Max Levchin, co-founder Affirm, PayPal, Slide & investor 120+ co’s on SV early days, finding Peter Thiel & Elon Musk, fighting fraud, Yahoo! board tales, mentoring startups, & returning to Fintech with “beneficience” & giving credit to the consumers who really need it
February 8, 2018
E17 “Angel” podcast: Clara Brenner, Urban Innovation Fund shares insights from ~50 investments focused on solving our biggest challenges, importance of tenacity, momentum, culture to scale & positive communication with investors
February 2, 2018
E793: News Roundtable! Ari Levy, CNBC & Dave Mathews, NewAer: Crazy Crypto, Bitcoin rollercoaster & exploding ICOs, Q4 “Earningsaggedon” & what’s next for Amazon/Alphabet/Apple/Facebook, Trump Tax & influx of $, tech graveyard
January 30, 2018
E792: Patty McCord, prev. Netflix Chief Talent Officer & cornerstone of its epic success, shares strategies & actionable insights from her new book, “Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility.”
January 28, 2018
E16: “Angel” podcast: Arjun Sethi, Social Capital on bringing skills as a founder (MessageMe, Lolapps) & Yahoo head of growth to early-stage investing, being candid, overcoming hubris, taking methodical risks, & the critical importance of rapid-learning, resilient teams
January 26, 2018
E791: All Ask Jason! FOMO strategies for investors, product managers as founders, right times to raise, investable media, crypto mania, automotive startup explosion, angel failures & lessons
January 19, 2018
E790: “How to 10x Your People”: David Hassell of 15Five shares best strategies for setting & scaling your startup team & culture @ Founder.University
January 18, 2018
E15: “Angel” podcast: Arlan Hamilton, Backstage Capital on being a self-taught VC, creating a rocket ship to fund 64+ underrepresented founders in just 2yrs, launching an upcoming studio, & mastering the art of disciplined investing
January 16, 2018
E789: “Eliminating Dealbreakers”: Clara Brenner, Urban Innovation Fund, breaks down how to avoid common pitfalls in fundraising @ Founder.University
January 12, 2018
E788: News Roundtable! Jeff Bercovici (Inc.) & Ryan Block (Begin, prev. Engadget) talk Facebook newsfeed about-face, CES strange robots & Kodak’s confusing crypto play, Tesla 3, Thiel intrigue, Google diversity controversy
January 9, 2018
E787: One Concern CEO & natural disaster survivor Ahmad Wani created A.I. platform Seismic Concern to predict earthquake impact, direct response teams with greater accuracy, & save lives
January 4, 2018
E14: “Angel” podcast: Satya Patel, Homebrew, on 80+ investments, betting on founders with mission, solving problems over building biz, funding “phases” not stages, portfolio stars, & the critical importance of boards & organizational muscle memory
December 29, 2017
E786: Startup Tuneup: 8 founders pitch for Jason’s candid feedback in healthcare, sports SaaS, marketing, (co)workspace, voter/candidate match, home repair, interactive mirror @ Founder.University
December 22, 2017
E13: “Angel” podcast: Jeff Clavier, Uncork Capital, on pioneering micro VC, lessons from 200+ investments & 5 funds, strategizing at Seed for Series A crunch, risky ICOs, & the hard-won wisdom of always be raising
December 18, 2017
E785: News Roundtable, Top Tech 2017! Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt & Adam Ludwin of Chain take on net neutrality & fallout, crypto craze & FOMO, hottest products & predictions for biggest stories of 2018
December 17, 2017
E12: “Angel” podcast: Boldstart Founder Ed Sim on 20yrs seeding 50+ enterprise co’s, how his father’s fleeing N. Korea shaped his VC, NYC deep tech, & being 1st dollar in to guide founder-product fit to product-market fit to self-sustainability
December 12, 2017
E784: Introducing Descript: Founder Andrew Mason (Groupon) puts seamless audio editing & transcription directly into hands of podcasters, a tool to catapult a booming industry into the stratosphere
December 10, 2017
E11: “Angel” podcast: Urban.us Shaun Abrahamson & Stonly Baptiste seed & support startups to improve cities, solve climate/housing/transportation, & profit in expanding urban megaregions & TAM
December 8, 2017
E783: Finless Foods is creating clean fish, a biotech solution to the increasing scarcity of healthy, affordable seafood for our planet; CEO Mike Selden demos sustainability with cutting-edge cell culture tech
December 6, 2017
E782: Founder.University Startup Tuneup: Jason & Brian Alvey dissect then perfect pitches in 7 verticals (stain-free clothes, outdoor marketplace, political engagement, acct data, podcast sharing, healthcare, electric scooters!)
November 30, 2017
E10: “Angel” podcast: Matt Brezina, investor in 65+ startups (Dropbox, Cruise) & founder (Xobni, Sincerely) shares strategies for backing relentlessly resourceful founder-builders & bringing operational value in return
November 28, 2017
E781: Matrix Partners’ David Skok breaks down how to get inside your buyer’s head to increase funnel conversion rates; Maren Kate Donovan’s lessons from building Zirtual to $11m/yr & losing it overnight
November 20, 2017
E780: News Roundtable! Peter Rojas (Betaworks, prev. Engadget), Iain Thomson (The Register): Tesla two-punch w/Roadster & Semi, Apple AR boom/VR bust, StitchFix & IPO cautions, backflipping robots & future of auto warfare
November 17, 2017
E779: Brian Armstrong, Coinbase & Tim Draper, DFJ on the state of cryptocurrency’s maturing market: ICOs as new funding vehicle, disruption of VC, the end of fiat, rise of open source, & the continued dominance & resiliency of bitcoin
November 15, 2017
E778: LAUNCH Scale: Greylock’s Josh Elman (prev. FB, Twitter) breaks down the only metric that matters for hyper-growth; Talla’s Rob May (prev. Backupify) presents his step-by-step guide for whether blockchain/ICO is right for your startup
November 14, 2017
E9: “Angel” podcast: Ask An Angel! Jason Calacanis & Brian Alvey answer investor questions on picking startups, evaluating founders, due diligence, how syndicates work, deal terms & more
November 10, 2017
E777: Startups on a mission: AID:Tech uses blockchain to prevent fraud & corruption by issuing digital identities to the undocumented; RoboKind robots teach social & emotional skills to children with autism
November 8, 2017
E776: Social Capital’s Chamath Palihapitiya on turbulent VC ecosystem, ICO skepticism & rethinking biz models to WIN; Samsung NEXT’s David Eun on transforming industry by meeting entrepreneurs wherever they are
November 3, 2017
E775: CoinList, the collab behind Filecoin $205m+ ICO, emerges as one-stop compliance, anti-money laundering & financial services platform for all ICOs; CEO Andy Bromberg talks risks & rewards of the token explosion
November 2, 2017
E774: All #AskJason: product pitches, investment v. bootstrapping, best models & metrics for SaaS & enterprise, getting to revenue, diversity in teams, landing angels & VCs, with Brian Alvey
November 1, 2017
BONUS TWiST Breaking News: Big tech testifies to congress over Russia’s interference in election
October 31, 2017
E8: “Angel” podcast: Pear VC Founding Managing Partner Pejman Nozad shares lessons from selling rugs as an immigrant to seeding 100+ co’s & 6 unicorns, staying disciplined & backing founders who want to make a difference
E772: LAUNCH SCALE! Investors Ben Narasin (NEA), Arlan Hamilton (Backstage Capital) & Zach Coelius (Angel, Syndicate Lead) share with founders what they look for & what it takes in 2017
October 20, 2017
E771: Best of Europe #STHLMTech: Future of Games with Unity’s David Helgason & Future of Investing (& pitches) with BackingMinds, Norrsken, Wellstreet
October 17, 2017
E770: Northvolt CEO Peter Carlsson takes on Tesla with new gigafactory; iZettle & Founder Jacob de Geer power Europe fintech-#STHLMtech Fest
October 10, 2017
E769: #TWiSTLive @ WSGR: Balaji Srinivasan (21.co & a16z) on pioneering crypto & social tokens, judging ICOs, extended longevity, free speech, future tech predictions as the internet becomes world’s biggest stock market
October 9, 2017
E7: “Angel” podcast: Dave Samuel, Freestyle Capital, on joy & risk of early-stage, qualities of ideal founder, team & product, portfolio faves, & focused investing as a former entrepreneur
October 6, 2017
E768: Freestyle Capital’s Dave Samuel on the joy & risk of early-stage VC, ideal founder & product qualities, focused investing as a former entrepreneur, creating the world’s smartest toilet, & founding then selling the 1st internet music service to AOL
October 3, 2017
E767: Jason Goldberg (Pepo, Fab.com) introduces Simple Token for apps to launch branded crypto tokens, shares serial entrepreneur highs & lows, gaining perspective with age, & building the plumbing for a decentralized web
September 26, 2017
E766: Casey Winters (Greylock, prev. Pinterest & Grubhub) shows how to measure retention & product-market fit to LAUNCH Incubator
September 24, 2017
E6: “Angel” podcast: Ben Narasin shares his strategy behind 80 portfolio co’s (w/ 50% Series A conversions & 3 unicorns), proven thesis on successful startups & founders, & betting on the strength of conviction
September 19, 2017
E765: Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde on his P2P revolution for tech access, jail-time lessons, broken democracy, death of privacy, redefining politics, & the frightening specter of President Zuck – at #SthlmTech Fest
September 15, 2017
E764: News Roundtable! Molly Wood (Marketplace Tech) & Sarah Frier (Bloomberg): Facebook takes Russian money (& next bombshell predictions), divisive ads, Zuck run amok, $1000 Apple, AI predicts orientation, Bodega blow-up
September 9, 2017
E5: “Angel” podcast: Zach Coelius, founder-turned-angel & Syndicate leader with a $1b exit after only 2yrs investing, shares insights on advising, hustling, deal flow, & the thrill of first market validation
September 8, 2017
E762: Leap Motion uses high-fidelity hand tracking to make AR/VR come to life; CEO/co-founder Michael Buckwald talks mission, predictions, & successfully funding a 10yr journey pre product-market fit
September 5, 2017
E761: Tim O’Reilly & new book “WTF: What’s the Future & Why It’s Up to Us” use tech’s history & lessons to reveal the true nature of our economy, & the difficult choices we need to make now for our future economic survival
September 3, 2017
E760: MedAware & uHoo: two emerging international health startups aiming to eliminate prescription errors & toxic air
September 1, 2017
E759: Tezos CEO/Co-founder Kathleen Breitman on her record-breaking $232m ICO for a new self-governing smart contract blockchain, fundraising in Switzerland’s Crypto Valley, innovating beyond skepticism, the rise of cypherpunks & the world-changing potential of cryptocurrency
August 29, 2017
E758: Blockchain CEO Peter Smith on scaling his cryptocurrency wallet to 16m+ users, new Etherium & bitcoin cash integration, ICO predictions, the state of the dark web, regulation speculation, & the power of monetary velocity
August 26, 2017
E4: “Angel” podcast: angel & syndicate leader Ed Roman on optimizing for outsized outcomes, leaning on gut & market analysis, not learning the wrong lessons, avoiding fraudulent customers, & swinging for fences (only) in SV
August 25, 2017
E757: Kevin Kelly, “Wired” Founding Executive Editor & “The Inevitable” author/futurist, on transformative A.I. & soft singularity, our global identity crisis, radical optimism about employment, & finding ourselves at only the beginning of the internet
August 22, 2017
E756: Technology pioneer Jim Clark, Co-founder Netscape & Silicon Graphics, launches CommandScape, a building management system for commercial & premium properties, & shares vision on future of security, jobs & the core of entrepreneurship
August 18, 2017
E755: News Roundtable! Ari Levy (CNBC) & Dave Mathews (NewAer): Trump’s disbanded panels, Cloudflare & other co’s boot white supremacists, Amazon reigns (still), rough summer for IPOs, Uber settles with FTC, Bitcoin predictions
August 15, 2017
E754: Atipica Founder & CEO Laura Gomez combines artificial & human intelligence in recruiting to tackle SV’s talent & diversity crisis, helping businesses excel in the workforce of the future
August 12, 2017
E3: “Angel” podcast: Andrea Zurek, XG Ventures (Facebook, Twitter) & angel since 2006, shares startup selection criteria, lessons building Google, ideal terms & valuations, solving hard problems & finding right combination of money, fortitude, discipline
August 11, 2017
E753: LAUNCH Angel Summit: Esther Dyson on early days of angel investing, jobs with purpose, improving America’s health, & future of AR, VR, & self-driving cars
August 4, 2017
E752: All #AskJason: Bootstrapping in flyover states, beating powerful competition, product v. pitch deck, hardware traction & metrics, advice for non-accredited investors, online communities dos & don’ts
August 1, 2017
E751: Live at Spotify NYC: Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize winner & author (“The Power of Habit,” “Smarter Faster Better”), on social responsibility of tech, science of habits, self-motivation & winning teams, anti-intellectualism in Trump era, immigration & more
July 29, 2017
E2: “Angel” podcast: super angel & syndicate leader Gil Penchina on 20 yrs & 200+ investments, learning the game & making your own rules, which founders to back & avoid, optimizing deal flow, minimizing failure, & enjoying the chaos
July 28, 2017
E750: LAUNCH Angel Summit: Sequoia Partner Alfred Lin on backing mission-driven founders, seed stage strategies, the rise of A.I., & the future of tech startups
July 25, 2017
E749: James Altucher interviews Jason on his new book “Angel”: a guidebook to becoming a world-class investor — or founder — in America’s new system of wealth creation
July 21, 2017
E748: LAUNCH Angel Summit: Top VC Brian Singerman, Founders Fund (fmr Google, angel) shares portfolio bests (Stemcentrx, SpaceX, DeepMind) & favorite bets
July 19, 2017
E747: The Syndicate 2: Top startups pitch to world-class investors: w/RecoverX, Stowaway, Zembula, Vow To Be Chic, Elemeno Health, MailHaven
July 18, 2017
E1: “Angel” Podcast Premiere: Cyan Banister, angel investor now Founders Fund VC, shares portfolio hits/misses, deal flow strategies, finding founder-product fit & backing startups that change human behavior
July 14, 2017
E746: Talla CEO Rob May on using A.I. & machine learning to automate HR & IT, the power of bots, the future of jobs, & the age of verticalized A.I.
July 11, 2017
E745: Tovala founder & CEO David Rabie introduces his smart, cloud-connected oven to cook ready-made meals with a smartphone
July 7, 2017
E744: Initialized Capital Operating Partner & TechCrunch contributor Kim-Mai Cutler on affordable housing crisis in San Francisco Bay Area at intersection of race, class, & Silicon Valley
June 30, 2017
E743: News Roundtable! Robert Scoble & Iain Thomson talk new Apple AR, iPhone’s 10 yrs, data collecting destroying privacy for everybody, Amazon gets Whole Foods, Google stops Gmail scan, Trump attacks, Binary Capital, Uber future
June 27, 2017
E742: Stockholm Startup Showcase with Tyler Crowley: Tictail connects world’s best designers; FishBrain levels up fishing with data; Simris pioneers agribusiness with algae; Venue crowdsources live music experiences
June 23, 2017
E741: Kevin Rose, True Ventures PT2: Best ways to pitch, lessons from investing & Google Ventures, cryptocurrency, housing crises, tech & politics
June 20, 2017
E740: Kevin Rose, True Ventures PT1: early Digg days, what it takes to make great products, building Oak meditation app w/fan engagement & real-time data, evaluating founder-investor fit, advice for pitching
June 13, 2017
E739: “Gut Feel” in angel investing: Wharton Prof of Entrepreneurship Laura Huang on how early investors make decisions, quantifying the unquantifiable, questioning meritocracy, the role of gender & other biases (& how to hack them)
June 6, 2017
E738: Treehouse online coding school & founder Ryan Carson get aspiring programmers & developers “zero to job-ready” & use the power of apprenticeships to close the tech skills gap for underrepresented groups
June 2, 2017
E737: Brit + Co founder & CEO Brit Morin on building her digital media & ecommerce powerhouse at intersection of creativity & tech, connecting users w/makers, partnering w/Target, inspiring women & Gen Z, & defining the future of retail
May 30, 2017
E736: Robinhood uses free stock trading to open access to the entire American financial system; co-founder Vlad Tenev talks mission, building a billion dollar startup & the business of millennial money management
May 26, 2017
E735: All #AskJason: Failing after product-market fit, consumer app VC & monetization, the (un)necessity of patents, (un)fundable b-corps, hard lessons, focus above everything
E733: News Roundtable! Molly Wood (Marketplace) & Ben Parr (Octane AI): future of net neutrality, Google Lens & iPhone-less predictions, Uber Freight, Biz Stone’s return, how to save Twitter, Elon’s tunnel vision, breaking Trump chaos
May 12, 2017
E732: “The Syndicate”: 7 top startups across 7 verticals pitch to 20 world-class investors, w/Cafe X, Connected Signals, Blokable, Tueo Health, Interviewed, PowerScout, Underground Cellar
May 9, 2017
E731: Inside LAUNCH Incubator, PT2: Ready: Cross-platform programming for personal robotics; Keepster: Curating messages to keep what matters most; Genius Link: Fixing broken links for global brands; Poppins: Child care reimagined with invitation-based service
May 5, 2017
E730: Inside LAUNCH Incubator, PT1: Transported: Virtual Reality Tours for Real Estate & FitBod: Personalized strength-training powered by machine learning
May 2, 2017
E729: Founder Richard Craib shares his A.I. hedge fund Numerai, built with an anonymous network of 15,000 (& counting) data scientists, encryption, the blockchain, his own currency to reward collaboration, and a mission to manage the world’s money
April 28, 2017
E728: “Angel” Sneak Peek + Startup Tune-up: Founder Institute students get first-look at Jason’s upcoming book on angel investing, as he refines their pitches & shares career lessons, insights & advice
April 25, 2017
E727: Future of Food: ROBOTS! w/Alex Garden (Zume Pizza), Henry Hu (Cafe X), Deepak Sekar (Chowbotics); bonus: Hotel Tonight’s Amanda Richardson shares how to grow revenue by giving away your product
April 21, 2017
E726: Investor Outlook with Hunter Walk (Homebrew), Megan Quinn (Spark Capital), & Jalak Jobanputra (FuturePerfect VC); bonus: Rishi Garg, Mayfield (prev. VP CorpDev, Twitter) shares how to stay sane while selling your company
April 18, 2017
E725: 500 Startups’ Dave McClure shares strategies as SV’s most prolific investor, common early-stage startup mistakes & advice to founders; Greylock’s Sarah Tavel on 10 lessons from scaling Pinterest
April 14, 2017
E724: Investor Outlook with Gil Penchina (Flight.vc), Cyan Banister (Founders Fund), Ryan Feit (SeedInvest); Jed Katz of Javelin Venture Partners on a step-by-step practical guide to getting your Series B
April 11, 2017
E723: Stripe CEO Patrick Collison on building his online payment powerhouse, creating Atlas to incorporate the world’s entrepreneurs, public/private markets, & increasing the GDP of the internet
April 7, 2017
E722: Bill Gurley of Benchmark, SV leader & legendary investor (Uber, Twitter, Snapchat) at LAUNCH Festival April 6 2017
