Seed to Harvest

Send us a textSeed to Harvest is a new podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.On our seventh episode, I speak with Alda Leu Dennis, the General Partner at Initialized Capital about negotiating term sheets, being the general council at Founders Fund, her investing inspirations Peter Thiel and Garry Tan, and the importance of financial inclusion.Alda is a lawyer, previously a litigator and previously the general council at founders fund. A mom of three, she grew up in Texas and her parents owned restaurants. She's always looking for women founders to invest in and has invested in The Mom Project, Maven and Tia - all companies founded by women focused on women.For a bit of context, Initialized is a VC firm that invests in early-stage companies with conviction before it's obvious. They work with visionary founders using software to tackle some of the world’s biggest problems and support them through product-market fit and beyond. They’re early believers in companies like Coinbase, Instacart, Flexport, and Cruise.Find her on twitter here: https://twitter.com/AldaLeuDennis  Thank you to our sponsor for Season 1 - Stripe. Over the past decade, Stripe has supported the growth of the most ambitious businesses, including Shopify, Lyft, and Kickstarter. In fact, Kickstarter was able to scale to accept payments from 195 countries, all supported by Stripe’s payments platform. Stripe uniquely knows how to support startups; from their 'Atlas' product that allows you to turn your idea into a business, by helping you incorporate quickly; to their 'Capital' product that provides funding to help scale your startup—Stripe has tools you need to grow your business and if you want to learn how Stripe can support you, visit stripe.com today.Support the show

Send us a textSeed to Harvest is a new podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.In our sixth episode, I speak with Roseanne Wincek. Roseanne Wincek, one of the cofounders and managing director at Renegade Partners, is originally from Cleveland. Once set on nabbing a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley, instead she left the school with a master’s degree in biophysics to head to Stanford for her MBA. A previous founder, she spent time at Canaan as a principal, and then headed to IVP, where she rose through the ranks to partner, investing across enterprise and consumer companies that include Glossier, Compass, MasterClass and TransferWise. In today’s episode, we talk about what to report to your board as both an entrepreneur and a VChow to nurture a cofounder relationshipRoseanne’s scientific approach to venture - diving into kinetics and thermodynamics Thank you to our sponsor for Season 1 - Stripe. Over the past decade, Stripe has supported the growth of the most ambitious businesses, including Shopify, Lyft, and Kickstarter. In fact, Kickstarter was able to scale to accept payments from 195 countries, all supported by Stripe’s payments platform. Stripe uniquely knows how to support startups; from their 'Atlas' product that allows you to turn your idea into a business, by helping you incorporate quickly; to their 'Capital' product that provides funding to help scale your startup—Stripe has tools you need to grow your business and if you want to learn how Stripe can support you, visit stripe.com today.Support the show

Send us a textSeed to Harvest is a new podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.On our fifth episode, I chose to do a special collaboration between award-winning film producer Siena Oberman & renowned venture capital investor Heather Hartnett. In this conversation, we explore the similarities & differences fundraising as a film producer vs venture capitalist, how both Siena & Heather chose independent routes & advice for aspiring folks in film and venture.  Heather Hartnett is the founding partner of Human Ventures, a startup studio and venture firm investing in wellness, digital health, and backed by renowned investors including Ray Dalio of Bridgewater, David Solomon of Goldman Sachs, and James Murdoch. She’s a founding member of Transact Global (how we met), the largest peer-led group of female fund managers with over $1B in AUM represented there. A graduate of the Kauffman Fellowship Program, she has been listed as one of The 50 Most Influential Women in America by Hearst Digital Media Publications, is a frequent speaker at TechCrunch Disrupt, and is a regular contributor to Forbes, where she covers a range of venture capital topics. Heather is also an investor in our fund, Behind Genius Ventures! Siena Oberman is the founder of Artemis Pictures, a film production company focusing on stylistically bold independent films and female driven stories. She was named in the 2022 Forbes Under 30 List, Variety Top 10 Producers to Watch in 2021, and Diversity in Cannes Top 10 Female Filmmakers to Watch in 2019. She's had feature films in TIFF, Berlinale, Tribeca, Telluride, and Venice. Her films have been acquired by companies such as A24, IFC, Screen Media, Universal, Lionsgate, Hulu, and eOne. Before Artemis, Siena was a Development Executive at Yale Productions. Prior to producing, Siena went to USC and studied Business and Cinema.Thank you to our sponsor for Season 1 - Stripe. Over the past decade, Stripe has supported the growth of the most ambitious businesses, including Shopify, Lyft, and Kickstarter. In fact, Kickstarter was able to scale to accept payments from 195 countries, all supported by Stripe’s payments platform. Stripe uniquely knows how to support startups; from their 'Atlas' product that allows you to turn your idea into a business, by helping you incorporate quickly; to their 'Capital' product that provides funding to help scale your startup—Stripe has tools you need to grow your business and if you want to learn how Stripe can support you, visit stripe.com today.Support the show

Send us a textSeed to Harvest is a new podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.In our fourth episode, I speak with Mac Conwell. Mac Conwell is the founding partner of RareBreed Ventures, a former entrepreneur, Kaufmann fellow and enthusiastic drag racer. On this episode, we focus on navigating fundraising, advice for aspiring VCs, and building in public. Mentioned: 506c, Kauffman Fellowship, building a twitter audience. RareBreed Ventures is a Pre-seed Fund that is investing in exceptional founders outside of the large tech eco-systems earlier than everyone else. They target a check size of 250K. With early meaningful cash upfront, wraparound services to increase capacity, and institutional knowledge from the RareBreed team they can accelerate a company's growth at the earliest stages and shrink the time it takes them to go from Pre-seed to Series A. Thank you to our sponsor for Season 1 - Stripe. Over the past decade, Stripe has supported the growth of the most ambitious businesses, including Shopify, Lyft, and Kickstarter. In fact, Kickstarter was able to scale to accept payments from 195 countries, all supported by Stripe’s payments platform. Stripe uniquely knows how to support startups; from their 'Atlas' product that allows you to turn your idea into a business, by helping you incorporate quickly; to their 'Capital' product that provides funding to help scale your startup—Stripe has tools you need to grow your business and if you want to learn how Stripe can support you, visit stripe.com today.Support the show

Send us a textSeed to Harvest is a new podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.In our third episode, I speak with Kat Cole. Kat Cole is an American business woman, investor and entrepreneur. She worked her way up from being a waitress at Hooters to their youngest executive vice president in charge of global expansion to working at Cinnabon and turning it into a billion dollar brand. She then became the president and chief operating officer of their parent company Focus Brands. She was most recently named the president and COO of Athletic Greens.  Thank you to our sponsor for Season 1 - Stripe. Over the past decade, Stripe has supported the growth of the most ambitious businesses, including Shopify, Lyft, and Kickstarter. In fact, Kickstarter was able to scale to accept payments from 195 countries, all supported by Stripe’s payments platform. Stripe uniquely knows how to support startups; from their 'Atlas' product that allows you to turn your idea into a business, by helping you incorporate quickly; to their 'Capital' product that provides funding to help scale your startup—Stripe has tools you need to grow your business and if you want to learn how Stripe can support you, visit stripe.com today.Support the show

Send us a textSeed to Harvest is a new podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.In our second episode, I speak with Jenny Lefcourt. Jenny has been an entrepreneur, operator, board member, advisor, and investor in tech companies for over 20 years. She's the general partner at Freestyle, a San Francisco based firm whose investments include Airtable, Intercom, Patreon, and BetterUp. She's a founding member of All Raise, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing diversity and funders and founders. Thank you to our sponsor for Season 1 - Stripe. Over the past decade, Stripe has supported the growth of the most ambitious businesses, including Shopify, Lyft, and Kickstarter. In fact, Kickstarter was able to scale to accept payments from 195 countries, all supported by Stripe’s payments platform. Stripe uniquely knows how to support startups; from their 'Atlas' product that allows you to turn your idea into a business, by helping you incorporate quickly; to their 'Capital' product that provides funding to help scale your startup—Stripe has tools you need to grow your business and if you want to learn how Stripe can support you, visit stripe.com today.Support the show

Send us a textSeed to Harvest is a new podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults. Thank you to our sponsor for Season 1 - Stripe. Over the past decade, Stripe has supported the growth of the most ambitious businesses, including Shopify, Lyft, and Kickstarter. In fact, Kickstarter was able to scale to accept payments from 195 countries, all supported by Stripe’s payments platform. Stripe uniquely knows how to support startups; from their 'Atlas' product that allows you to turn your idea into a business, by helping you incorporate quickly; to their 'Capital' product that provides funding to help scale your startup—Stripe has tools you need to grow your business and if you want to learn how Stripe can support you, visit stripe.com today.In the first episode of Seed to Harvest, Paige Doherty interviews Shuo Chen. Shuo is the General Partner of IO VC,  and a faculty member at UC Berkeley and Singularity University. Former Air Cadet, voice actress, Guinness World Record pipa (Chinese guitar) player and gardening geek.Shuo is appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to serve as 1 of 13 voting members on California's Mental Health Commission (as the first Asian American Commissioner), which includes overseeing ~$2.6 billion annually in state budget and advising the Governor or the Legislature on mental health policy.In her venture role, Shuo has invested in companies now acquired by Goldman Sachs, Ford, Caterpillar, Binance and Dialpad, as well as now unicorns including Boom, Checkr, Grubmarket, Instacart and Rescale. She has helped portfolio companies close deals with Amazon, Apple, Google, Mercedes-Benz and NASA among others, as well as scaled portfolio companies into Europe and Asia.Prior, Shuo worked at Goldman Sachs in investment banking, where she worked with clients including Alibaba and Tencent, as well as represented the firm on the Board of Women in Finance. Before that, Shuo was at PwC, where she worked on Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola and LinkedIn’s $119 million acquisition of SlideShare. Shuo has also co-authored one of the leading books on financial regulations published by Cambridge University Press in 2019, and sits on the Advisory Board of Forbes China, where she advises on content and awards for Asian Americans in North America.In our first episode, we cover her stories of visiting Richard Branson's island, feeding lemurs, gardening, and investing frameworks.  Support the show