This Week in Startups

0:47 Jason intros Catharine Dockery 4:29 How Catharine came up with Vice Ventures 7:00 What was the response when Catharine began raising her first fund? 7:19 What does harm-reduction mean for Vice Ventures? 9:21 Getting Marc Andreessen to invest in her fund 13:32 Strangest emails Catharine has received since starting Vice Ventures 16:01 Investing in cannabis 20:15 Investing in psychedelics 26:33 Investing in gambling 31:16 Who are Catharine's typical LPs? 32:15 Investing in alcohol 39:33 Investing in sextech 44:06 Vice Ventures strong thesis against harming others 47:22 Is Vice Ventures hiring?

0:51 Jason intros Shan-Lyn Ma 3:17 Starting Zola and competing in a crowded space 5:14 Jason and Shan go through LAUNCH President Sam's Wedding Registry live on air 6:30 How Zola's registry and business model work 9:10 How does Zola look at Amazon's wedding lists 14:29 What has changed in wedding demographics, and how does Zola keep up? 21:26 Jason and Shan share thoughts on romantic proposal locations 25:37 How working for Kevin Ryan at Gilt impacted Shan 33:27 Shan's insights on keeping employees focused, balancing growth and profitability 39:28 What do the next few years look like for Zola? 42:20 Wedding SEO competition 46:33 Raising moral standards in tech 50:19 Shan's thoughts on being underestimated as a female founder 54:01 How the NYC tech scene has changed over the past 10 years

1:10 Jason intros Hong Quan from Karmic Bikes 2:55 What is the OSLO bike? 4:10 Why are there separate classifications for e-bike laws? 9:15 What does OSLO cost? 12:35 How Karmic bikes are different 14:55 Why e-bikes haven't taken off in the US? 16:52 Is Palo Alto the most bike-friendly city in America? 17:28 Hong shows the OSLO Kickstarter Video 21:45 Why not go the scooter route? 27:34 Hong raps for Jason (yes, really) 33:06 Open Office Hours with Jason 33:18 Jason intros Mark from ZenSports, a P2P sports betting startup 40:22 Mark asks Jason how to attract investors as a "Vice tech" company

1:00 Jason Demant intros Roy Bahat 3:14 Roy's thoughts on raising venture capital 4:14 Debunking the myth of pitching VCs 9:24 Two questions VCs ask themselves after hearing a pitch, and how founders can apply them 15:33 The startup paradox 18:04 Does Bloomberg Beta keep up with companies they passed on? 19:51 Selection bias in Silicon Valley 25:32 Why Angel $ from venture-backed founders is so valuable 28:30 Top reasons Roy rejects companies 31:38 Importance of trust founder-investor relationships 34:41 How Roy thinks about valuation & pricing 40:13 Understanding how investors make money 44:18 Roy's thoughts on pitch decks 47:45 How to tell if a VC is interested based on emails 49:40 Pre-qualifying VCs based on your business 51:04 Importance of Founders taking secondary 54:00 How does Roy process upside? 55:40 Roy's views on the future of work regarding creatives 1:01:10 Difficulty of raising different rounds 1:02:00 Investment thesis of Bloomberg Beta 1:05:50 Dealing with rejection from VCs 1:07:40 Raising children in the technological age

0:51 Jason intros Mattieu Gamache-Asselin 2:52 Changing from ScriptDash to Alto Pharmacy 4:19 Meeting and working with Twitch founder Justin Kan in the early days of Alto 6:51 Message to HBO’s Silicon Valley writing room 7:26 Working out of Justin Kan’s house 8:15 Why are pharmacies broken? How is Alto fixing them? 14:25 How did Alto’s team architect a 1.0 version of their pharmacy? 21:44 US Healthcare is broken due to bad incentive structures 28:23 Does Alto compare to Hims and Roman? 32:24 What are Alto’s profit margins? 35:00 This Week in Cinema: It’s a Wonderful Life 39:07 Maintaining balance between being scrappy/aggressive while also abiding by all medical regulations 39:54 How has Alto scaled so far? 45:55 Who is responsible for the opioid crisis? 51:24 What is Alto building to combat the crisis? 53:27 Trading short-term gain for long-term gain 56:56 How Alto was initially received among investors 1:01:03 This Week in Cinema: The Mission 1:04:30 What skill does Matt think many founders lack? 1:07:02 Operational excellence in former Amazon executives 1:13:49 #1 Lesson that Matt has learned since becoming a founder

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Goldbelly - Goldbelly.comEvery.io - http://every.io/Zite - zite.com/twistToday’s show:Today, Zapier’s a multi-billion company helping enterprises integrate AI agents and other time-saving shortcuts into their workflows… but we had the founder on TWiST when they were just getting started!In a 2016 chat, founder Wade Foster walked JCal through their 2012 seed round, running a small entirely remote team with no HQ, the complexities of building a tool that relies on third-party APIs, and why Microsoft Office was the “Holy Grail” for his integration software.PLUS we’ve got a new entrant in your Gamma Pitch Deck competition! Tour CEO/CTO Amulya Parmer tells us how his app is saving property managers time and grief, while eliminating “looky-loos” and increasing their “hit rate.”FINALLY, Alex chats with Tomas Puig of TWiST 500 marketing analysis startup Alembic. It turns out, LLMs aren’t ideal for scrutinizing marketing campaigns because they lack the requisite historical data. Find out how they’re using Spiking Neural Networks (SNN) to dig deeper than GPT and Claude can go.Timestamps:(02:40) Amulya from Tour opens the show with praise for Jason(03:34) Tour’s 2-minute Gamma pitch: automated property tours for managers(06:47) Why Jason thinks Tour is an ideal tool for Gen Z(10:01) Goldbelly - Goldbelly ships America’s most delicious, iconic foods nationwide! Get 20% off your first order by going to Goldbelly.com and using the promo code TWiST at checkout.(13:32) How Tour can eliminate “looky-loos” and increase the “hit rate”(14:38) Why Tour prices based on individual properties and apartments(19:13) Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit every.io.(20:23) Jason wants to sprinkle some AI into Tour(24:29) Welcoming Tomas Puig from Alembic(25:12) Does epic-scale brand marketing actually pay off for these brands?(27:27) The hardest thing about being a marketer…(28:31) Alembic’s origins: organizing huge unstructured data sets(30:18) Zite - Zite is the fastest way to build business software with AI. Go to zite.com/twist to get started.(31:27) Case Study: making sense of Delta’s Olympics data(33:37) Applying simulation models and supercomputers to marketing data(35:48) How Spiking Neural Networks (SNN) help Alembic spot trends and link causal relationships(41:13) The key advantage of training models on private data(43:16) Building their own clusters vs. renting(44:41) “You don’t ask if you have Product Market Fit… You hold on for dear life.”(46:28) Flashback with Alex and Lon to Jason’s 2016 chat with Wade Foster of Zapier(54:48) The dangers of building atop other platform’s APIs(01:03:00) What Zapier learned pre-pandemic about leading remote teams(01:13:12) Why MS Office was the “Holy Grail” for early ZapierSubscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelmFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisThank you to our partners:(10:01) Goldbelly - Goldbelly ships America’s most delicious, iconic foods nationwide! Get 20% off your first order by going to Goldbelly.com and using the promo code TWiST at checkout.(19:13) Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit every.io.(30:18) Zite - Zite is the fastest way to build business software with AI. Go to zite.com/twist to get started.Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidarahttps://youtu.be/pvJa2pzuXWQEoghan McCabehttps://youtu.be/9dHN4YFkgv4