This Much I Know - The Seedcamp Podcast

As an entrepreneur of 20+ years, turned venture capitalist for the last decade+, Michael is passionate about investing to accelerate innovation and empower the next generation of entrepreneurs. He is a lecturer at Harvard University, and shares lots of his amazingly relevant content on his blog: http://mjskok.com/ Carlos had the chance to sit down with Michael and ask him many questions about his background and his views on governance in a startup.

While in NYC, we had the chance to catch up with Spencer Lazar of General Catalyst. Spencer has been a long-time friend and is one of those few VCs who has been a product manager turned VC turned founder turned VC again, so it was great to catch up with him and hear his story. From GC's website: Spencer focuses on early stage software & internet investments, with a particular interest in online marketplaces, mobile applications, web services, and enterprise IT. He was previously the cofounder of Spontaneously, Inc - an iOS development studio. Prior to that he was an early stage software & internet investor at Accel in London, where he sourced and worked with companies including Hailo, Birchbox, Bonobos, ForgeRock, and Qriously. Preceding that, he was a growth equity investor at Insight Venture Partners, where he sourced & helped manage the firm's investments in 3P Learning, BeyondTrust, and GenArts. He started his career as a product manager at the mobile enterprise software developer, ScrollMotion.

We had the chance to catch up with long-time friends Andrew and James of Valar Ventures (http://www.valar.com/about) during Seedcamp's US Trip stop in NYC. Valar, a co-investor in Transferwise (http://www.transferwise.com) with us and other investors, is unique, for a US-based VC, in its mandate to "look for exceptionally talented founders who are creating beautiful products that are valuable across multiple geographies." In their words: Valar’s core thesis is that an increasing number of transformative technology companies are being started outside of Silicon Valley and the United States, and that the founders of those companies will benefit from having a US partner that understands their unique challenges and opportunities and can help them achieve optimal growth. We talked about what they look for in an investment, but also key things they've seen work (and not).

On our very first day of Seedcamp's Spring US Trip, we had the chance to visit Lucas Nelson of Gotham Ventures. With a background in hacking and a clear interest in the more technical companies and founders, he provides a very unique view into the world of investing and adding value as an investor. During our chat his interest in helping CTOs surfaced. Through his co-creation of http://www.startupctosummit.com he provides CTOs a way to share their learnings with each other, and shares some of the top mistakes during our talk. If you're ever in NYC, don't hesitate to get in touch with Lucas.

Gearoid O'Rourke, Growth & Design lead at Hassle.com joins Carlos to discuss the subtleties behind the different styles of design thinking, and how founders should start thinking about design early on in their company's journey. During our chat, Gearoid mentioned a couple of resources, which included: Undercover User Experience Design by Cennydd Bowles A Book Apart series - http://abookapart.com/ Design+Banter - http://designandbanter.com/ If you want to get in touch with Gearoid, feel free to follow him on twitter - https://twitter.com/gearoidorourke

While visiting our offices to record a Meerkat video, we managed to hijack Vojtech, Communications Manager at Index Ventures to sit down with Dave and Carlos to chat about his background in PR and explored how startups can leverage PR as well as a content strategy to make an impact for customers and investors.

Philipp Moehring, ex-Seedcamp team member and now part of the team heading up AngelList Europe, shares with us his views on the future of platforms, investing in Europe, and his view on how things are evolving in the tech ecosystem globally. Note: Sorry for the bad echo in the room. Our normal room (which arguably isn't perfect either) wasn't free.

Podcasting is increasingly becoming the future of spoken media, with more and more people getting into the medium through the ease of recording through mobile devices. Tor Rauden, founder of Seedcamp company Opinion, walks us through what he thinks of Podcasting and its future. If you want to download the app, go here: https://itunes.apple.com/app/opinion-record-podcasts-edit/id926260308

On this episode of the Seedcamp Podcast Series, Carlos interviews James Moed and explores some of the thinking behind his recent post on three things to think about before thinking about design (which can be read here: http://seedcamp.com/resources/3-things-to-talk-about-before-talking-about-design/). A little more about James: James Moed advises both innovation leaders and design teams, helping them to combine fresh insights around customer behaviour with inspiration from other sectors, new business models, and emerging technologies. James has worked with startups, governments, and social enterprises, as well as corporations in a range of industries - from retail to IT, luxury, and health care. Previously Director of Financial Service Design at IDEO in London, James is especially passionate about making finances feel human again, through services that transform our complex relationship with money. His experience is broad, including insurance networks for Indian farmers, budgeting tools for US credit card users, and loyalty strategies for private wealth clients. Having worked with teams from Generali, Barclays, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Bupa, and the Government of Singapore, James helps organisations build a customer centered approach to innovation, drawing the connections between real-life user observations, new offerings, partnerships, and strategies for growth.

Ales Spetic, founder of https://cubesensors.com/ and previous Seedcamp founder, walks us through some of the early challenges of starting a hardware company.