Mar Hershenson is Pear VC’s Founding Managing Partner. Pear VC’s portfolio includes DoorDash, Gusto, Affinity, among others. After earning a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, Mar co-founded three startups in mobile/e-commerce, enterprise software, and semiconductor industries and has registered 14 separate patents. She is currently a Lecturer at Stanford Univeristy, teaching Lean Launchpad, one of the premier entrepreneurship classes at Stanford. Mar serves on the board of trustees of Harvey Mudd College and the Advisory Board of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Carnegie Mellon University. She is a founder of Equity Summit, the premier conference for connecting URM Venture Capital GPs to LPs, and was an initial founding member of All Raise. She has been recognized by MIT Technology Review as a Top Innovator Under 35, named a Champion of Innovation by Fast Company, awarded the Digital Automation Conference’s Marie R. Pistil Achievement Award, and recognized on the Forbes Midas List in 2021, 2022, and 2023.    You can learn more about:  How to start and run a successful VC fund  How to pitch top investors/ invest in the next generation of unicorn startups  How to keep pursuing your startup idea even when people tell you "no"    ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG ===================== 💼 Check out our sponsor: av.vc/grace 👩‍💼 Our sponsor, Alumni Ventures, offers individual investors access to venture investing through its diversified, professional-grade venture portfolios. The company’s funds have consistently outperformed public market equivalents, with over $1.1 billion raised and invested in over eleven hundred portfolio companies. They have a dedicated team of fifty full-time venture investors and were the #1 most active venture firm in the US in 2022 and #3 globally according to Pitchbook. Investing in venture capital can help reduce overall portfolio risk and increase the likelihood of stronger returns. To learn more, visit av.vc/grace and schedule a call. Investors must be accredited. Please note that all financial investments involve risk, past performance does not guarantee future results, and it is important to conduct your own research and seek professional advice before making any investment decisions. ===================== Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, superstar founders, as well as well-known tech executives in silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company.

Sam Blond is a Partner at Founders Fund, a top Venture Capital firm founded by Peter Thiel and other Co-Founders of PayPal. Founders Fund’s total assets under management are around $11 Billion (according to TechCrunch 2022), and their portfolio includes SpaceX, Palantir, Stripe, Facebook, Airbnb, and Spotify, among others. Before joining Founders Fund, Sam was the former Chief Revenue Officer at Brex, overseeing revenue growth from less than $1M to several hundred million dollars of annualized revenue. Sam joined the company before its official launch, and when he left four years later, the company was valued at $12.5B. Before Brex, Sam was the VP of Sales at Zenefits, overseeing revenue growth from less than $1M to $70M of ARR in two years. He joined the company pre-Series A as employee number 18. When he left, the business was over 1500 employees and was valued at $4.5B.    You can learn more about:  Strategies for accelerating revenue growth in your startup Building a robust network and honing your skills as a sales leader Identifying and investing in the next wave of top-tier SaaS companies ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG ===================== 💼 Check out our sponsor: av.vc/grace 👩‍💼 Our sponsor, Alumni Ventures, offers individual investors access to venture investing through its diversified, professional-grade venture portfolios. The company’s funds have consistently outperformed public market equivalents, with over $1.1 billion raised and invested in over eleven hundred portfolio companies. They have a dedicated team of fifty full-time venture investors and were the #1 most active venture firm in the US in 2022 and #3 globally according to Pitchbook. Investing in venture capital can help reduce overall portfolio risk and increase the likelihood of stronger returns. To learn more, visit av.vc/grace and schedule a call. Investors must be accredited. Please note that all financial investments involve risk, past performance does not guarantee future results, and it is important to conduct your own research and seek professional advice before making any investment decisions. ===================== Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, superstar founders, as well as well-known tech executives in silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company.

David Sobie is a Vice President at PayPal, and he is also a co-founder of Happy Returns. Happy Returns is a Los Angeles-based software and reverse logistics company that works with online merchants to handle product returns. Their clients include Gymshark, Everlane, Levi’s, and Revolve, among other popular e-commerce brands. Prior to that, David served as Chief Marketing Officer at REVOLVE Clothing.  You can learn more about:  How to build an e-commerce SaaS company Raising funding, building industry partnerships, hiring and managing a team  How to set milestones for your company  ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG ===================== 💼 Check out our sponsor: av.vc/grace 👩‍💼 Our sponsor, Alumni Ventures, offers individual investors access to venture investing through its diversified, professional-grade venture portfolios. The company’s funds have consistently outperformed public market equivalents, with over $1.1 billion raised and invested in over eleven hundred portfolio companies. They have a dedicated team of fifty full-time venture investors and were the #1 most active venture firm in the US in 2022 and #3 globally according to Pitchbook. Investing in venture capital can help reduce overall portfolio risk and increase the likelihood of stronger returns. To learn more, visit av.vc/grace and schedule a call. Investors must be accredited. Please note that all financial investments involve risk, past performance does not guarantee future results, and it is important to conduct your own research and seek professional advice before making any investment decisions. ===================== Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, superstar founders, as well as well-known tech executives in silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company.    

Sri Viswanath is a General Partner at Coatue, where he leads AI and enterprise investments in private companies. Prior to joining Coatue, Sri served as Atlassian’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), where he oversaw Atlassian's cloud-native journey – assuming responsibility over the building and scaling Atlassian's cloud platform. Before joining Atlassian, Sri was also CTO and SVP of Engineering at Groupon, the VP of R&D for mobile computing at VMware, and SVP of Engineering at Ning – where he was instrumental in the company's acquisition by Glam. He also led development of several very successful open-source and B-to-B products at Sun Microsystems, served on the Board of Directors for SendGrid, and has a number of patents. Sri currently serves on the Board of Directors for Splunk and holds a M.S. in Management from Stanford University and a M.S. in Computer Science from Clemson University.   You can learn more about:  How to scale your engineering team  How to invest in the next generation AI companies  AI innovation trends  ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, superstar founders, as well as well-known tech executives in silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company. =====================

Keith Peiris is the Co-Founder and CEO of Tome, the AI-native storytelling platform that unlocks your best work. It lets users generate full visual presentations in seconds using simple prompts. In January, Tome became the fastest productivity tool to reach 1M users. Since, it raised a $43 million Series B led by Lightspeed. Other investors include Coatue, Greylock (Reid Hoffman sits on Tome’s board), Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque, and Eric Schmidt. Previously, Keith was a product leader at Instagram, Facebook, and Citizen.   You can learn about: How to build a viral AI product How to build an AI company that's reinventing the future of work Raising funding, team building, and go-to-market strategies ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, superstar founders, as well as well-known tech executives in silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company. =====================

Casey Rosenberg is a popular TikTok creator with over 3M+ followers and over 500 million views. As a creator, Casey has worked with multiple brands, including Honey, Notion Labs, and ABC, among others. Beyond working as a creator, Casey is also an attorney focusing on business law.    You can learn more about:  1. The business side of being a creator  2. Structuring deals with brands as a creator  3. How can brands identify and work with the best creators in their industry  4. Fast-track your audience growth    ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, superstar founders, as well as well-known tech executives in silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company. =====================

Casey Rosenberg is a popular TikTok creator with over 3M+ followers and over 500 million views. As a creator, Casey has worked with multiple brands, including Honey, Notion Labs, and ABC, among others. Beyond working as a creator, Casey is also an attorney focusing on business law.    You can learn more about:  1. The business side of being a creator  2. Structuring deals with brands as a creator  3. How can brands identify and work with the best creators in their industry  4. Fast-track your audience growth    ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, superstar founders, as well as well-known tech executives in silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company. =====================

Noah Jennings is a popular content creator with over one million followers on TikTok. He is a designer with previous clients, including popular e-commerce brands and top Youtube Creator like Glamnetic (505k+ on IG), Fanjoy (493k+ on IG), Sniperwolf (33M+ on YouTube), and has recently launched his own subscription-based design agency called Compound Creative.   You can learn more about:  1. How to create viral content on TikTok  2. How to establish a sustainable business while making content  3. How business can create content to attract potential clients  ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, superstar founders, as well as well-known tech executives in silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company. =====================    

Jeff Morris Jr. is the founder and Managing Partner of Chapter One, an early-stage fund backed by Sequoia, Marc Andreessen, and Chris Dixon, among others. Portfolio including Dapper Labs, The Graph, Compound Finance, Moonpay, and many others. Before starting his own fund, Jeff was Tinder's VP, leading revenue products. Under his leadership, Tinder became the world's #1 top grossing revenue app.  You can learn more about:  How to start an early-stage fund  How to leverage your unfair advantage to build an investing track record  How to build a world-class network  ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, super star founders, as well as well known tech executives in the silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company. =====================

David Beisel is a Co-founder and Partner at NextView Ventures, where he invests in technology-driven companies that are redesigning the Everday Economy. Some of his past portfolios include Attentive, TripleLift, Code Climate, Parsec (acquired by Unity for $320M), BookBub, thredUP (IPO'ed), MealPal, The Nudge, Hatch, and TapCommerce (acquired by Twitter for $100M) among others. Prior to NextView, he served as a Vice President at Venrock (an early-stage VC firm initially established as the venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family). You can learn more about: 1. What to look for when investing in early-stage startups 2. Raising funding as a startup and as a venture fund 3. How to attract top startups and build a high-quality network  ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, super star founders, as well as well known tech executives in the silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company. =====================