Village Global Podcast

Spencer Bogart (@CremeDeLaCrypto) of Blockchain Capital and Brayton Williams (@BraytonKey) of Boost VC, join Erik on this episode.They discuss:- Their analysis of the different eras of crypto and how the thinking of the people involved in the space has evolved.- Whether the crypto bubble in 2017 can be compared to the internet bubble of 1999.- Unpacking the Bitcoin-as-programmable money thesis.- Specific problems that crypto is solving that they have invested in, as well as their requests for startups.- How crypto can disrupt VC.- What might have changed in the crypto space when looking back from 5 years in the future.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.

Fabrice Grinda (@fabricegrinda), entrepreneur and angel investor, joins Erik on this episode.They discuss:- What Fabrice believes about marketplaces and the trend towards verticalization that VCs don’t believe.- How they evaluate investments and the four criteria that they use to determine whether they will invest or not.- His breakdown of some of the failed marketplace startups.- What you need to know if you’re building a marketplace business in 2020.- His analysis of marketplaces for home school, child care, therapy, construction, and more.- How this intersects with the future of work and the future of food.- Why certain legacy marketplaces have managed to stick around.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.

Marco DeMeireles (@MarcoDeMeireles), partner at TCG, joins Erik on this episode.They discuss:- How the firm came to be and how they think about portfolio construction.- What owning the life stage means and why it makes for better businesses.- Some of the spaces they’re thinking about, including weddings, fertility, and funerals.- Marco’s thoughts on e-commerce enablement.- His other requests for startups.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.

Michael Galpert (@msg) and Greg Isenberg (@gregisenberg) join Erik on this episode. They Discuss:- What’s changed about consumer social in the past year- The rise of vertical social networks- The success and future of TikTok- The role of startup acquisitions in making a successful social network- Will there be a new social network for every generation- Will future social networks incorporate a physical element- How will consumer social be different a year from nowThanks 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.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Burak Yenigun (@BurakYngn), founder of Stylus Capital (www.styluscapital.com) joins Erik on this episode.They discuss:- The problem of founder scarcity and why it exists.- The most effective levers for increasing the number of founders.- Whether we are in a bubble or not.- What founders need to know when thinking about interest rates.- The advantages and disadvantages of risk-sharing arrangements for founders, and how they would work.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.

Brent Beshore (@BrentBeshore), founder and CEO of Adventur.es, joins Erik on this episode.They discuss:- What makes Adventur.es “the inverse of traditional private equity,” including why they don’t add debt to a company’s balance sheet when they purchase a company and intend to keep the existing leadership around.- What Silicon Valley doesn’t get about private equity, how it’s different from venture, and how VC and PE might interact in the future.- Some of the industries that Brent thinks are overlooked and the breakdown of some of their past investments.- The book he wrote, The Messy Marketplace, and the lessons it holds for business owners.- The state of the macro environment and how they think about it at Adventur.es.- How they evaluate potential investments and business partners, and his strategies for evaluating people in general.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.

David Booth (@david__booth), co-founder and CEO of On Deck, joins Erik on this episode.They talk about:- Why they started On Deck and the problem they were trying to solve.- Common misconceptions about successful founding teams and the type of relationship needed between co-founders.- The importance of community and how to build a positive one.- Cosign (cosign.co) and the idea of peer-to-peer credentialing.- Where it’s best to be building a company today.- How young people today can build their own syllabus and learn outside of a traditional college.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.

Sam Lessin (@lessin) and Bobby Goodlatte (@rsg) join Erik on this episode. They Discuss:- The future of consumer social- How can consumer social startups compete with incumbents- How do you incentivize user growth on new platforms- Are Twitter and Instagram going away- What are the most interesting new ideas in consumer social- Which new consumer social networks will be successful- What technologies will enable the next wave of social networks- Will decentralized social networks ever happen- How can platforms capture and enable social capitalThanks 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.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Dan Runcie (@RuncieDan) of Trapital joins Erik to discuss business and strategy in hip-hop. 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.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Zack Kanter (@zackkanter), founder and CEO of Stedi.com, joins Erik on this episode.They discuss:- How Zack thinks about Twitter, why from outside it seems absurd, and why he calls it a “text-based role-playing game.”- How he navigated the idea maze in starting Stedi and the key insight he had that led him to start the company.- How the legibility problem from the book Seeing Like a State has changed how he approaches company-building.- Why he says that “code is not an asset, code is a liability” and how AWS Lambda has changed how he built Stedi —and how all of this is related to legibility.- Why they don’t do performance reviews and what it means to have an “event-driven” culture.- His perspective on bootstrapping versus taking VC, why he says that founding companies requires domain expertise now, and why he built the company in Boulder.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.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.