Sand Hill Road

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Chon Tang, the founding GP of the Skydeck Fund. Chon is an experienced Silicon Valley engineer, entrepreneur and investor. He was formerly founding partner and Managing Director of Junzi Capital Engineering, a leading quantitative hedge fund investing in the commodity space. He has been actively investing in Silicon Valley startups for 12 years, and has personal investments in over 25 deals with multiple IPOs and exits.    00:00​​ Intro  03:40​​ Starting a tech company in 2000  09:27​​ Founder-investor transition  17:51​​ The art of talent arbitrage  22:09​ Raising Fund II  27:00​​ Portfolio construction  30:40​​ Skydeck Fund entry point  32:50​​ Success stories  37:00​​ Skydeck Accelerator Program + Challenges  41:00​​ The accidental VC  45:00​ Next Skydeck batch

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Richard White, the serial entrepreneur behind Uservoice and Fathom.video. Richard is a design engineer and product visionary who has been in the first YC batch with Justin Khan and Emmett Shear for Kiko (YC S05) and most recently came back to the YC W21 to see how startup kids are doing the tricks today.    00:00​​ Intro  00:51​ Who is Richard White  03:40 The power of cold emails  05:09 Kiko (YC S05)  08:53 The UserVoice journey  12:09 Traction and funding  16:09 UserVoice today  $18:16 Starting Fathom  22:28 The Fathom product  27:35 Fathom customer profile  30:27 Fathom in remote orgs  32:03 Richard's own use of Fathom  33:57 Fathom integrations  36:14 Zoom Marketplace + platform risk $ 39:20 Going through YC (again)  42:57 Fathom seed round  46:11 The fun of fundraising  47:28 Vision for Fathom

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Shmulik Fishman, founder and CEO of Argyle, about raising the Series A through an investment memo and the firm’s mission of making user-permissioned employment data ubiquitous and reinvent credit decisioning for lenders and consumers.    00:00​​ Intro  00:56 What does Argyle do?  03:17 Experiencing the pain point  06:48 Raising the Series A with an investment memo  11:41 Automated form population  14:05 Real-time income/employment verification  17:52 Status quo: credit bureaus  22:18 Technical/data moats  26:59 Standing on the shoulders of giants  28:40 API integrations  30:28 Screen scraping vs. API scanning  32:41 Traction and metrics  35:26 Pricing Strategy  38:36 Argyle Team  41:36 Remote-first valuation discount/premium

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Drew Oetting, founding partner of 8VC, about building a multi-billion venture firm from the ground up with Joe Lonsdale.    00:00 Intro  01:05 Operation Mask  06:33 Resilience  12:54 Views on Venture  20:06 Building 8VC / Addepar  26:30 Raising the maiden fund  30:48 8VC Investment Thesis  40:01 Drew as a VC  50:53 Silicon Hills

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Seth Sternberg the co-founder and CEO of Honor, which is a managed marketplace for in-home care that has recently announced a USD 370m Series E led by Baillie Gifford.   00:00​​ Intro  01:19 Elevator pitch  02:19 Original inspiration  05:28 The Meebo experience  08:06 Serial founder problems  09:06 Getting the founder team together  10:52 The Honor MVP and marketplace model  14:52 Marketplace supply side  19:44 Marketplace demand side  21:57 Fundraising journey  25:07 Growth capital rounds  27:07 Expansion strategy  28:56 Homestead acquisition  31:45 Competitive landscape  31:45 Competitive landscape  34:08 GTM and growth strategies

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Kimberly Shenk of Novi Connect, B2B marketplace to help brands build and manufacture transparent products, which recently announced a $10.3M Series A led by Greylock 00:00​​ Intro  02:04 Getting started with Naked Poppy  04:09 From Naked Poppy to Novi Connect  05:17 Sustainable Chemicals Market  07:30 Kimberly’s data science background  09:19 The Novi Connect Business Model  11:11 The Novi Connect MVP  12:49 Getting the first Customers  13:42 Growth Metrics and Milestone  14:33 Fundraising journey  15:50 Series A led by Greylock  17:37 Mulit-sided B2B marketplace  21:26 Growth metrics and milestones  23:26 Acting as certification agent  24:24 Competition  26:49 AI-driven platform  28:26 Scaling Novi Connect  29:37 Newjoiner Bootcamp  30:53 Priorities and focus  31:53 Category expansion  33:14 Longterm vision

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Jordan Nof of Tusk Venture Partners, a venture firm that invests in early-stage consumer technology startups operating in heavily regulated markets.   00:00​​ Intro  01:39 Investment thesis 2022  02:36 Lithic  05:02 Tusk Venture Partners  08:46 Meeting Bradley Tusk  12:52 Regulatory investment thesis  14:58 The role of regulations in startups  16:37 Fanduel / repeal of PAPSA  17:33 Tusk entry stage  19:01 Consumer vs. Enterprise  19:43 Roman - men’s health  21:34 Alma - mental health care 23:31 Out of scope areas  25:14 Bird - scooter wars  29:36 First mover vs. fast follower  32:50 Sunday - DTC lawn care  37:11 Focus areas 2022  41:02 How to get in touch

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Casey Fenton, founder of Couchsurfing and Upstock, about the early days for Couchsurfing when Casey was pioneering what has since become known as the “sharing economy” and how is is now bringing the sharing economy to the cap table with Upstock.     00:00​​ Intro  01:13 The Couchsurfing proof-of-concept  02:46 The first Couchsurfing stay  03:49 501(c)3 non-profit status  06:34 The mechanics of the benchmark Series A  06:34 The mechanics of the benchmark Series A  08:27 The Couchsurfing MVP  10:38 The donation-based model  11:58 The demand side monetization model  15:34 The chicken-and-egg question  17:11 Casey’s philosophy on ego hacking  21:11 Building for the internet without ego  23:57 Upstock  28:34 Ideal customer moment  30:20 Switching costs  31:09 Competitors and integrations  33:40 Milestone-based equity kickers  35:03 Following Casey’s work

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Andrew Gazdecki, founder of MicroAcquire. The episode was recorded when MicroAcquire was still a fully bootstrapped one person company. A few weeks later MicroAcquire announced that it had raised a $6.3m Seed round led by Bessemer Ventures.   00:00 Intro  01:09 What is MicroAcquire?  02:55 Buying a micro-SaaS as a learning experience  05:15 Andrew’s own founder path  10:40 Key bootstrapper metrics  14:53 Solving the chicken-and-egg problem  19:17 Supply side: company profiles  20:24 Marketplace discovery vs. transaction facilitation  22:45 Microacquire marketplace monetisation  26:51 Microacquire as a curated marketplace  30:12 Dealing with inflated seller asks  33:25 Disrupting the business broker industry  35:45 Competitor marketplaces  36:50 Scaling Microacquire  38:10 Raising venture capital vs. bootstrapping

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Queenly co-founders Trisha Bantigue and Kathy Zhou about building a consumer marketplace and tackling the formalwear industry.   00:00 Intro  00:56 The Queenly Elevator Pitch  01:52 Launching Queenly during lockdown  04:04 The pageant dress market   08:06 Formal wear resale market microstructure  10:16 The Queenly minimum viable product  12:37 Go to market strategy  14:56 Queenly marketplace metrics  16:36 The Queenly fundraising journey  20:40 Raising $6.3m From Andressen Horowitz   22:58 Solving the marketplace chicken and egg problem  24:58 Unlocking supply  27:02 Offering power seller tools to boost supply  28:15 Cracking the demand side  29:12 Facilitating Marketplace Transactions  31:36 Marketplace take rate  32:43 Competition And Playbook  35:16 Formal wear Price dynamics  38:22 The Queenly Vision