Sheel Mohnot on All Things Fintech, Starting Better Tomorrow Ventures

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Jan 9, 2025

Sheel Mohnot, Co-founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures and fintech expert, shares insights from his two decades in the industry. He discusses the innovative landscape of fintech, highlighting opportunities in vertical SaaS and embedded finance. Sheel reflects on lessons learned while competing with Stripe and the emotional complexities of acquisition decisions. He emphasizes common pitfalls for early-stage startups and the strategic importance of ownership in venture capital. Plus, he delves into the origins of The Mint accelerator, designed to nurture fintech startups.

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INSIGHT

Fintech Opportunity

Financial services represent a significant portion of global GDP and should be inherently digital.
Despite this, many financial processes remain surprisingly analog, presenting substantial opportunities for fintech innovation.

INSIGHT

Fintech's Impact

Fintech has a disproportionate potential to improve lives due to its connection with financial well-being.
Better Tomorrow Ventures aims to enhance both people's lives and their own performance.

INSIGHT

Key Fintech Areas

BTV focuses on embedded fintech and accounting software due to their significant potential.
Accountant shortages create opportunities for technology to automate and improve accounting processes.

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Sheel Mohnot is the Co-founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures, an early stage fintech focused fund leading rounds in pre-seed and seed-stage companies.
Our conversation weaves through Sheel’s two decades of building and investing in fintech, starting BTV, and why they started a fintech-focused accelerator, The Mint.
Fun facts on Sheel, he was a contestant on the Zoom Bachelor during COVID lockdowns, in a Justin Bieber music video, got married in the Taco Bell Metaverse, and was once banned from Uber.
We talk lessons competing against Stripe before selling his first company, common fintech startup pitfalls, and the trick every VC should use when fundraising.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(03:13) Why fintech makes disproportionate positive change
(07:49) Most interesting opportunities in fintech today
(09:09) The accountant shortage
(12:59) Common early fintech startup pitfalls
(16:09) Building Fee Fighters to cut payment processing fees
(21:15) Lessons competing with Stripe
(21:57) Getting acquired by Groupon and adding $600m in market cap
(25:11) Biggest first-time startup mistakes
(29:21) Getting $10k in Uber credit via paid Google ads
(32:13) Investing in Flexport
(36:19) Navigating hot vs underhyped rounds
(43:39) Sheel’s domain auction company
(53:18) How he started angel investing
(54:57) Spotify acquiring his podcast “The Pitch”
(59:55) Why accelerators succeed and fail
(01:06:07) The Mint, BTV’s fintech-focused accelerator
(01:09:56) Camp BTV in the Santa Cruz Mountains
(01:11:41) Early days of NerdWallet
(01:14:55) Raising $75m BTV Fund 1 with Jake to fill a gap in the market
(01:18:36) Understanding Fund of Funds incentives
(01:22:15) References in VC fundraising
(01:24:02) $150m BTV Fund 2
(01:27:13) Importance of following-on when leading rounds
Referenced:
BTV: https://www.btv.vc/
The Mint: https://www.themint.vc/
Fee Fighters: https://techcrunch.com/2011/09/23/feefighters-launches-payment-gateway-samurai/
Follow Sheel:
Twitter: https://x.com/pitdesi
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smohnot/
Follow Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
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