Village Global Podcast

Sean Linehan (@seanlinehan), co-founder and CEO of Placement, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an OnDeck Fellowship event.They discuss:- How he navigated the idea maze after leaving Flexport before founding Placement.- How to know when the time is right for your idea.- Early experimentation with an idea and why you need customers, employees, and investors to all be excited about it.- How to find the right co-founder.- His advice on hiring at the earliest stages.- His philosophy on compensation for early hires, including how to think about equity.- How to think about competition, product-market fit, and moats.- How the labor market is changing.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Charles Hudson, founder of Precursor, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded live as part of an OnDeck Fellowship event.They discuss:- How he decides what to invest in.- Why he says that he is often “looking for good ideas that initially look like bad ideas.” - Why he has “an allergy to top-down market assessments.”- How entrepreneurs should think about margins.- Advice for founders working in frontier tech.- Whether he invests based on the entrepreneur or on the idea.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Landon Brand of Wren (@project_wren) and Dani Grant (@thedanigrant) of USV, join Erik on this episode.They discuss:- Dani’s deep dive on the climate crisis and which solutions might be able to help.- Requests for startups in the space and where they would be investing if they were running a fund focused on climate change.- Why cleantech is worth investing in now after the bust in the late 2000s.- Opportunities for investment in different types of power producers.- How Wren can become a billion dollar company.- How carbon-consciousness is spreading throughout businesses and society.- The role of government and the key disagreements about the direction to take to address climate change.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Ramez Naam (@ramez), author of the Nexus series, joins Erik on this episode.They discuss:- The arc of his career and what drove him to work on what he did.- Why clean energy didn’t realize its potential in the 2000s and why now is a good time to invest in clean energy.- His market map of opportunities in clean energy and the impact on the space that Moore’s Law is having.- The influence of Kevin Kelly and Robert Wright on his thinking.- The future of globalization.- How to reconcile egalitarianism and meritocracy.- The state of climate change.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Yancey Strickler (@ystrickler), co-founder of Kickstarter and author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World, joins Erik on this episode.The discuss:- His experience working on Kickstarter and what he realized about the power of the profit motive in an early-stage company.- His vision of the world if the ideas from his book become widespread.- The possibilities for co-op arrangements online and how to organize to ensure that people creating value for a network are the ones capturing that value.- Why he’s a believer in tech and why he hopes that the power of tech can be used to deliver critical goods rather than to serve ads.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Jeff Morris Jr., founder of Chapter One, and Henry McNamara (@henrylmcnamara) of Great Oaks VC join Erik on this episode. They discuss:- The reasons for the change in the D2C market and why companies that were part of “D2C 1.0” would have a hard time scaling today.- Which spaces they’re excited about and where they’ve been investing.- Trends and possibilities in consumer social.- Industries where they see opportunities, including in CBD and consumer fintech.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Mike Rudoy (@mrudoy) and Luke Cohler (@ljcohler) of Jetty join Erik on this episode.They discuss:- The story of founding Jetty and how they got to where they are today.- The problems around rent affordability in the US and how they’re solving those issues.- The evolution of insurance over the last two decades and what enabled the changes.- Where they would be investing if they were running a fund focused on the space.- How they think about the market and the most appropriate business model differently from other companies.- How insurance will have changed in 5-10 years from now.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Fareed Mosavat (@far33d), EIR at Reforge and former director of product at Slack, and Jeff Chang (@jeffchang30), growth engineering lead at Pinterest and angel investor, join Erik on this episode.They discuss:- What’s changed in growth over the last several years.- How to think about product-market fit and when to start investing in growth.- Which metrics to pay attention to and which to ignore.- How to think about payback periods, LTV, and CAC.- How founders should think about acquisition channels.- Common misconceptions that founders have about growth.- How to think about SEO and referrals.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Peter Kazanjy (@Kazanjy), co-founder of Atrium and author of Founding Sales, joins Erik on this episode.They discuss:- The difference between selling to SMBs versus large organizations.- How founders should think about sales as their company grows and evolves.- Common mistakes that people make when growing their sales organization.- What differentiates companies who scale sales successfully versus those who don’t.- How to think about pricing models.- How to measure the effectiveness of your sales team.- How to think about compensation for salespeople.- The best resources he recommends for learning about sales.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Chris Best (@cjgbest), co-founder and CEO of Substack, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss:- How the idea for Substack came about and the early days of the company.- How the internet has impacted media and journalism.- How the world changes if Substack is successful.- How they are enabling journalists to “go independent.”- The implications of the subscription model.- What’s been most popular on Substack and what has surprised him.- How they are thinking about aggregation and distribution.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.