Alex Levitt (Yellow) - Inside Snap Inc.'s Launchpad for Startups, Building Products On Top of Social Platforms, and Her Diligence Process

Our guest today is Alex Levitt, one of the heads of Yellow. Yellow is Snap Inc.'s ecosystem to serve companies at the intersection of creativity and technology with its Accelerator Program, Collabs Program, and Community Programming.

Yellow is currently accepting applications through Sunday, August 23rd for its inaugural Collabs Program. If you're interested in integrating your product into the Snap Platform through Snap Minis, Snap Kit Dynamic Lenses, Scan, SnapML or more, visit YellowLA.com to apply and learn more.

You can follow Alex on Twitter @alexmlevitt. You can also follow your host, Mike, on Twitter @mikegelb. You can also follow for episode announcements @consumervc.

A couple books that inspired Alex are Educated by Tara Westover and Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull.

Here are a few questions I asked Alex -

1. What attracted you to media and technology in the first place?
2. So you worked at WME, rising to digital. What was your focus in the digital department?
3. Talk to me about Snap’s accelerator.
4. What made you excited about joining?
5. What verticals do you focus on?
6. How involved is Snap?
7. How do you think about where you stand in the overall market of accelerators?
8. Walk me through your due diligence process.
9. Launching Product on Platform
10. How should a founder decide whether an accelerator or raising their own round is the appropriate choice?
11. When it comes to business models, advertising business models are a bit out of favor, social has traditionally been tied to advertising
12. How do you think about the early stage venture capital ecosystem?
13. What trends are you currently focused on and makes you excited?
14. How has running an accelerator changed during COVID?
15. What’s one thing you would change about Venture Capital?
16. What’s one piece of advice that you have for founders that are currently fundraising?