Consumer VC: Venture Capital I B2C Startups I Commerce | Early-Stage Investing I Brands Sara Deshpande (Maven) - Investing in companies building on top of Zoom and opportunities in Telehealth
Apr 8, 2021
41:18
My guest today is Sara Deshpande, Partner at Maven Ventures. Maven Ventures is a consumer focused micro-fund that focuses on investing in seed stage companies. Some of their investments include Zoom, Wild Type, Angellist and Nuggs. What I most enjoyed about this conversation was looking at what types of businesses were being built on top of Zoom and the opportunities in telehealth. Without further ado, here's Sara.
You can catch her on Twitter @sara_desh.
Three books that have inspired Sara:
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
Maid by Stephanie Land
Some of the questions I ask Sara:
- You came from healthcare consulting at Deloitte. What was your attraction to venture capital, startups and innovation?
- Tell us a bit about Maven.
- What do you consider micro-VC?
- Walk us through your due diligence process?
- How do you access how big of a pain point a company is solving?
- What are some of the opportunities that you're seeing telehealth?
- Another area of focus are technology that serves families. What's an example of a company you're excited in this space or a problem that you are hoping to see solve?
- Has COVID affected any of the themes you focus on?
- What are some other trends that you're curious about?
- What's one thing that you would change when it came to venture capital?
- What's the best piece of advice that you've received?
- What's one piece of advice that you have for founders?