Podcast appearances and mentions of Josh Kopelman

Howard Morgan's inimitable career began with his early and prescient interest in computers. In fact, Howard has been on email for 51 years! He is currently the Chair and General Partner of B Capital. He is considered one of the pioneers of early-stage investing, having co-founded First Round Capital alongside Josh Kopelman, which was the first professional seed stage fund and the first institutional investor in Uber.Prior to First Round, Howard helped found Idealab with Bill Gross, and served as President of Renaissance Technologies, which he co-founded with Jim Simons. Renaissance Technologies is the best performing investment firm of all time, and its mysterious and famous Medallion Fund is considered to be the most successful fund ever.Howard shares insights into the importance of being at the right place at the right time, choosing great partners, and his approach to investments, mentorship, health, and philanthropy. Listen in on Michael Sonnenfeldt's conversation with the globally recognized venture capitalist, visionary, and TIGER 21 Member Howard Morgan.Watch clips:Behind Howard Morgan's SuccessHow to accomplish almost anythingBirth of RenTecTopics:(0:41) Introducing Howard Morgan(4:29) Howard Morgan's Journey: From Academia to RenTec(7:15) Renaissance Technologies: Pioneering Quantitative Investing(12:53) VC Successes: First Round Capital to Uber(14:10) “You can accomplish anything if you don't care who gets the credit.”(16:01) Philosophy of Success: Mentors, Investments(22:30) Aging, Dr. Comite(24:25) Heliogen(27:50) Ideally, Blastoff, and Timing Matters(31:18) How Howard Morgan Evaluates an Investment(32:11) First Round Capital, B Capital Approach(34:54) Health: Biological Age 11 Years Younger(37:45) Philanthropy: Generational Wealth, Impact, Legacy(42:13) Tip JarAbout:TIGER 21 is the premier peer membership organization for ultra successful entrepreneurs, investors, and executives.Links:tiger21.comMichael Sonnenfeldt - LinkedIn | @mwsonnenfeldt@HLMorganRelated: Renaissance Technologies - Acquired“Why The F We're Still Doing This”The Discoverers - BoorstinThe Anxious Generation - HaidtFollow & Connect:Podcast | YouTube | X | LinkedIn | Blog Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Annie Duke is a former professional poker player, a decision-making expert, and a special partner at First Round Capital. She is the author of Thinking in Bets (a national bestseller) and Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away and the co-founder of the Alliance for Decision Education, a nonprofit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education. In our conversation, we cover:• What Annie learned from the late Daniel Kahneman• The power of pre-mortems and “kill criteria”• The relationship between money and happiness• The power of “mental time travel”• The nominal group technique for better decision quality• How First Round Capital improved their decision-making process• Many tactical decision-making frameworks—Brought to you by:• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security.• UserTesting—Human understanding. Human experiences.• LinkedIn Ads—Reach professionals and drive results for your business—Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/making-better-decisions-annie-duke—Where to find Annie Duke:• X: https://twitter.com/AnnieDuke• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annie-duke/• Website: https://www.annieduke.com/• Substack: https://www.annieduke.com/substack/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Annie's background(03:53) Lessons from Daniel Kahneman: humility, curiosity, and open-mindedness(09:15) The importance of unconditional love in parenting(15:15) Mental time travel and “nevertheless”(20:06) The extent of improvement possible in decision-making (24:54) Independent brainstorming for better decisions(35:36) Making sure people feel heard(42:41) The “3Ds” framework to make better decisions(44:49) Decision quality(55:46) Improving decision-making at First Round Capital(01:05:05) Using pre-mortems and kill criteria(01:10:15) Making explicit what's implicit(01:10:55) The challenges of quitting and knowing when to walk away(01:19:23) Where to find Annie—Referenced:• Daniel Kahneman, Who Plumbed the Psychology of Economics, Dies at 90: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/business/daniel-kahneman-dead.html• Adversarial collaboration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversarial_collaboration• Does more money correlate with greater happiness?: https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/does-more-money-correlate-greater-happiness-Penn-Princeton-research#• Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36857342/• Strategic decisions: When can you trust your gut?: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/strategic-decisions-when-can-you-trust-your-gut• Cass Sunstein on X: https://twitter.com/CassSunstein• Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinside• A framework for finding product-market fit | Todd Jackson (First Round Capital): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-framework-for-finding-product-market• First Round Capital: https://firstround.com/• Brett Berson on X: https://twitter.com/brettberson• Renegade Partners: https://www.renegadepartners.com/• Renata Quintini on X: https://twitter.com/rquintini• Roseanne Wincek on X: https://twitter.com/imthemusic• Josh Kopelman on X: https://twitter.com/joshk• Bill Trenchard on X: https://twitter.com/btrenchard• Linnea Gandhi on X: https://twitter.com/linneagandhi• Maurice Schweitzer on X: https://twitter.com/me_schweitzer• Problems with premortems: https://sjdm.org/presentations/2021-Poster-Gandhi-Linnea-debiasing-premortem-selfserving~.pdf• Create a Solid Plan on How to Fail Big This Year: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2020/02/07/create-a-solid-plan-on-how-to-fail-big-this-year/• Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away: https://www.amazon.com/Quit-Power-Knowing-When-Walk/dp/0593422996/• Richard Thaler on X: https://twitter.com/R_Thaler• Stewart Butterfield on X: https://twitter.com/stewart• Glitch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_(video_game)• How the Founder of Slack & Flickr Turned Colossal Failures into Billion-Dollar Companies: https://medium.com/swlh/how-the-founder-of-slack-flickr-turned-failures-into-million-and-billion-dollar-companies-7bcaf0d35d66• The Most Fascinating Profile You'll Ever Read About a Guy and His Boring Startup: https://www.wired.com/2014/08/the-most-fascinating-profile-youll-ever-read-about-a-guy-and-his-boring-startup/• The Alliance for Decision Education: https://alliancefordecisioneducation.org/• Make Better Decisions course on Maven: https://maven.com/annie-duke/make-better-decisions—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Todd Jackson is a Partner at First Round Capital. Before moving into venture capital, he played a crucial role as VP of Product and Design at Dropbox, guiding the company until its IPO in 2018. Prior to Dropbox, Todd led product management for Twitter's Content and Discovery teams after selling his startup, Cover, to Twitter in 2014. Before Cover, Todd oversaw product development for Facebook's Newsfeed, Photos, and Groups. He kickstarted his career at Google as an associate product manager and eventually led product for Gmail, witnessing its growth from beta to 200 million users. In our conversation, we discuss:• Why product-market fit (PMF) matters• First Round Capital's four-part PMF framework• Level one: Nascent product-market fit• Level two: Developing product-market fit• Level three: Strong product-market fit• Level four: Extreme product-market fit• Examples of companies at each level• How to know if you're stuck at a level, and how to get unstuck• What to change if you're stuck: persona, problem, promise, and product• The goals and challenges at each stage—Brought to you by:• WorkOS—The modern API for auth and user identity• Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments• CommandBar—AI-powered user assistance for modern products and impatient users—Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-framework-for-finding-product-market—Where to find Todd Jackson:• X: https://twitter.com/tjack• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Todd's background(06:07) First Round Capital's PMF framework(09:07) Why product-market fit is so important(11:02) Who can benefit from this framework(12:55) The product-market fit method(16:54) Broad overview of the framework(21:35) Level one: nascent product-market fit(33:16) The four P's(39:13) Level two: developing product-market fit(49:13) Signs you're stuck at level two, and what to do(55:12) Level three: strong product-market fit(01:00:17) Signs you're stuck at level three, and what to do(01:02:22) Level four: extreme product-market fit(01:06:55) Rough timelines for each level(01:11:18) A quick recap of the framework(01:12:15) Diving deeper on the four P's: what to do if you're stuck(01:13:56) Dollar-driven discovery(01:25:11) Apply for the product-market-fit method program—Referenced:• First Round: https://firstround.com/• Twitter Acquires Cover: https://www.vox.com/2014/4/7/11625332/twitter-acquires-cover-an-android-mobile-startup• Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/• Rahul Vohra on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulvohra/• How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product Market Fit: https://review.firstround.com/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/• How to validate your startup idea: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/validating-your-startup-idea• How the most successful B2B startups came up with their original idea: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-the-most-successful-b2b-startups• How to know if you've got product-market fit: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-know-if-youve-got-productmarket• A guide for finding product-market fit in B2B: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/finding-product-market-fit• Product-market fit method: http://pmf.firstround.com/• Stripe: https://stripe.com/• Plaid: https://plaid.com/• Paths to PMF: https://review.firstround.com/series/product-market-fit/• WeWork: https://www.wework.com/• Casper: https://casper.com/• Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/• Christina Cacioppo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ccacioppo/• Ramp: https://ramp.com/• Velocity over everything: How Ramp became the fastest-growing SaaS startup of all time | Geoff Charles (VP of Product): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/velocity-over-everything-how-ramp-became-the-fastest-growing-saas-startup-of-all-time-geoff-charl/• Jack Altman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackealtman/• Lattice: https://lattice.com/• Zachary Perret on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zperret/• Positioning: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/positioning• Retool: https://retool.com/• David Hsu on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dvdhsu/• Persona: https://withpersona.com/• Rick Song on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-song-25198b24/• Lloyd Tabb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lloydtabb/• Looker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looker_(company)• Jason Boehmig on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jboehmig/• Ironclad: https://ironcladapp.com/• Lessons in leadership | Scaling an org and tactical management advice | Jack Altman (Lattice): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZzXqf61mrQ• Filip Kaliszan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaliszan/• Verkada: https://www.verkada.com/• Ali Ghodsi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alighodsi/• Databricks: https://www.databricks.com/• Stripe Radar: https://stripe.com/radar• Stripe Atlas: https://stripe.com/atlas• Square Stand: https://squareup.com/shop/hardware/us/en/products/ipad-pos-stand-integrated-card-reader• Cash App: https://cash.app/• Square Checking: https://squareup.com/us/en/campaign/banking/checking• Square Loan: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5654-get-started-with-square-capital• Casey Winters on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseywinters/• How to sell your ideas and rise within your company | Casey Winters, Eventbrite: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-sell-your-ideas-and-rise-within-your-company-casey-winters-eventbrite/• Josh Kopelman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkopelman/• The art and science of pricing | Madhavan Ramanujam (Monetizing Innovation, Simon-Kucher): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/videos/the-art-and-science-of-pricing-madhavan-ramanujam-monetizing-innovation-simon-kucher/• Simon Kucher: https://www.simon-kucher.com/—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Today we bring you a living legend. Miguel Armaza sits down with Howard Morgan, Chair and General Partner at B Capital, a global investment firm with $6.3 billion in AUM and 160+ portfolio companies.Howard is also a true technology pioneer. He was one of the first people in history to experience the web, and had computer #50 on the ARPANET. His research also contributed to the development of the modern internet.Howard is also a trailblazer of tech investing, having co-founded firms like Renaissance technologies with Jim Simons, and First Round Capital with Josh Kopelman.We discuss:Bringing the internet to Wharton and sending his first email in the early 70sBuilding Renaissance Technologies, the best-performing fund of all-timeLessons for founders and investors after 50 years of investing in tech companies, including the seed rounds of Uber, Square, and RobloxBuilding a truly global investment firm at B CapitalThe impact of GenAI and why every company should be leveraging enterprise AI tools today… and a lot more!  Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today's global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4ZMiguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBcFintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

Camille Ricketts began her career in journalism, at the Wall Street Journal, in 2006. In 2010 she joined Tesla, where she worked in communications alongside Elon Musk. She transitioned into marketing and became the Head of Content and Marketing at First Round Capital and then went on to become the very first marketing hire at Notion. In today's episode, we dig into community-led growth—what it is, and when and how to pursue it. We get super-specific on how Notion championed their most loyal users and built a passionate community, and the incredible outcome it had for the company's growth. We also talk about how to create great content, and how content can drive growth for your business and brand.—Find the transcript for this episode and all past episodes at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/episodes/. Today's transcript will be live by 8 a.m. PT.—Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting this podcast:• Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments: https://www.geteppo.com/• Flatfile—A CSV importer that says yes instead of error: mismatch: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny—Where to find Camille:• Twitter: https://twitter.com/camillericketts• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/camillericketts/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—People referenced:• Ivan Zhao: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanhzhao/• Simon Last: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-last-41404140/• Lexie Barnhorn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexisbarnhorn/• Ben Lang: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmlang/• Claire Butler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairetbutler/• Jessi Craige Shikman at First Round: https://firstround.com/person/jessi-craige-shikman/• Brett Berson at First Round: https://firstround.com/person/brett-berson/• Josh Kopelman at First Round: https://firstround.com/person/josh-kopelman/#mystory• Shaun Young on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunyou/• David Pierce at The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/authors/david-pierceAdditionally, Camille would love to shout out Nate Martins and Andrea Lim, who ran Notion's content program:• Nate Martins: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nate-martins/• Andrea Lim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawlim/Content and companies referenced:• Community & Content Resources: https://tinyurl.com/yrxbb542• Station F: https://stationf.co/• Figma: https://www.figma.com/• Canva: https://www.canva.com/• Stripe: https://stripe.com/• Stripe Atlas: https://stripe.com/atlas• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/• First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/• Jobs to be done framework: https://jobs-to-be-done.com/jobs-to-be-done-a-framework-for-customer-needs-c883cbf61c90• The Only App You Need for Work-Life Productivity: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-only-app-you-need-for-work-life-productivity-1521640800• Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/Referenced in lightning round:• Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning So Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It: https://www.amazon.com/Obviously-Awesome-Product-Positioning-Customers/dp/1999023005• April Dunford on Lenny's podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/april-dunford-on-product-positioning-segmentation-and-optimizing-your-sales-process/• April Dunford's guest post in Lenny's newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/positioning• Harry Stebbings's podcast, 20VC: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/podcast/• Lenny on 20VC: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/lenny-rachitsky/• Tár: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14444726/• Fleishman Is in Trouble: https://www.hulu.com/series/fleishman-is-in-trouble-710e51f8-3387-404d-8b07-e7c9b766d11c• Notion: https://www.notion.so/• Arc: https://arc.net/• Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/• Cron: https://cron.com/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Camille's background(05:43) What it was like working with Elon Musk(07:38) Working at Notion in the early days(12:16) What is community-led growth?(15:48) How Notion measured the impact of marketing efforts(16:35) The most successful community efforts at Notion(18:24) Why metrics aren't always necessary for community growth (19:52) When it makes sense to invest in community-led growth(21:34) How creators make money using Notion(23:12) The Ambassador Program and Champions Program at Notion(27:20) Why founders should consider investing in community and delay monetizing some features(31:03) Companies that have done well in building community(32:54) How to determine the level of community engagement appropriate for your company to invest in(34:00) Using Camille's 2x2 grid to implement community(36:42) How to launch an ambassador program(41:22) Advice for founders who want to build community(47:17) How Lenny got his first 500 newsletter subscribers(48:58) Examples of Camille's most impactful content marketing(51:20) Content-market fit: how to determine the needs of your reader (53:37) Content categories and the time it takes to create top-notch content(57:02) The future of comms and how the press helped Notion grow(1:01:35) Lightning round—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Howard Morgan is currently the Chairman of B Capital. He co-founded First Round Capital with Josh Kopelman as the first professional Seed Stage Fund, where he remains Senior Advisor. Prior to First Round, Howard helped found Idealab with Bill Gross, and served as President of Renaissance Technologies, which he co-founded with Jim Simons. Prior to his move into the business of technology, Howard served as a professor at the Wharton School and the Moore School, both at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as at Cornell University. He is also an Executive Fellow at UC Berkeley. Howard's research on user interface technology and the optimization of computer networks was critical to bringing the ARPAnet to Philadelphia in the 1970s. Through this early internet participation, he helped corporate and government agencies use technology to improve the efficiency of both large and small organizations. He also has deep experience with very large databases, and served as the first Editor of the ACM Transactions on Database Systems Journal. Throughout his career, Howard has sought out great people and nurtured them so that they could realize their dreams. His mentees have included both PhD students researching a key topic, and early stage entrepreneurs building companies and taking them from seed stage through initial public offerings. He currently serves as a Director of Idealab, and he is on the board of several non-profits including Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and Math For America. He has also served on a number of public company Boards, including Franklin Electronic Publishers and Internet Brands, Inc. He was CEO of Kentek and Franklin during various turnover or transitional periods and in 1997 he was named Delaware Valley Entrepreneur of the Year. Howard is a respected author and a frequent speaker at major industry conferences. Howard received a PhD in Operations Research from Cornell University in 1968, and a BS in Physics from City College of the City University of New York in 1965.

I'm sure most of our listeners remember or even still use Mint.com. I have vivid memories of the company as it basically kicked off a Fintech revolution and it was such a major success story. In the span of two years, it launched at a TechCrunch event and was acquired by Intuit for $170M. This was back in 2009, about a year after Sequoia Capital published its famous RIP good times presentation. Lofty valuations and unicorns were not a common thing back then and this exit was a homerun at the time. I still remember the blog post about the exit from Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital, who was an early investor in the company. It mentioned how Aaron was a member of the First Round Capital blank check club, which they did follow through on that promise as an investor in his other companies. Looking back, there were 3 reasons why Mint.com stood out for me - 1. It was a design first type of product which was not common especially in the financial services industry. 2. It was free for consumers to use, so they had to figure out an alternative way to generate revenue. 3. It automatically pulled in your financial data and categorized transactions, which is something that we just take for granted now. Since Mint.com, Aaron has gone on to build other companies and his latest startup is called Vital. The company is building software for care teams & patients, with a focus on the Emergency Room (ER) experience. Vital uses AI/ML to transform the care experience, increase patient & staff satisfaction, and increase revenue for their clients. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Why having a “fail fast” mentality may not be the best way to build a company if you are solving a really complex problem. * Aaron's full background story including examples as an entrepreneur and a builder from an early age. He even had a business called getawebsite.com and yes, he owned that domain, which he later sold. * The full lifecycle story of Mint.com with lots of great stories and lessons learned along the way. * How Vital is disrupting the healthcare industry and emergency room experience for consumers. * The difference between building a consumer product versus an enterprise solution in the healthcare industry. * Advice on building the initial foundation team for a startup. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Welcome to More Equity. Today, we're bringing you a new episode from our Harlem Capital Limited Partner Series — connecting with Harlem Capital LPs to share insights on navigating the VC fundraising journey. In today's episode, we speak with Josh Kopelman, co-founder and Partner at First Round Capital, an early stage venture capital firm. Prior to creating First Round, Josh has been an active entrepreneur and investor in the Internet industry since its commercialization — founding 3 companies all with successful acquisitions or IPOs. Josh not only serves as an LP for Harlem Capital, but also as a mentor – using his experience as a fellow GP to provide insight and clarity on the journey to building a successful fund. Tune in as Henri and Josh discuss the logistics of being a General Partner — from the mechanics of evolving your fund strategy to managing ownership and evaluating liquidity opportunities.

Kate Taylor is Head of Customer Experience at Notion, one of the fastest-growing startups of the last 5 years with over $68M in funding from some of the best in the business including Index, Daniel Gross, Elad Gil, Lachy Groom, Josh Kopelman and Aydin Senkut to name a few. As for Kate, prior to making the move to Notion just last month, she spent an incredible 8 years at Dropbox including holding roles such as Head of Sales Development, North America and Director of Global SMB Revenue and Operations. Before Notion, Kate spent 2 years at Salesforce in the corporate sales and enterprise business units.   In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Kate made her way into the world of SaaS with Salesforce, how that led to her 8 year tenure at Dropbox before joining the breakout, Notion? Why does Kate not believe that in startups you can “do it all”? How to discover the problems people care about? How to think through prioritisation of problems at the early stage? Where do many people make mistakes here? How does Kate approach delegation at scale? When is the right time to start? How can founders let go and entrust others to do the role they have been doing? How can leaders build trust with the people they work with? How can leaders empower employees with act with conviction and invest in them?         What is the role of sales in a product-led growth organisation? How can sales and product work effectively well together? Where do many mistakes happen in sales and product? How can product and marketing also collaborate productively? What can one do to shorten the feedback cycles as much as possible? Kate’s 60 Second SaaStr: Most challenging element of Kate’s role with Notion? What would Kate like to change about the world of SaaS? What does Kate know now that she wishes she had known from the beginning?  If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr

Three time founder, two acquisitions, one IPO – Josh Kopelman then decided to try his hand at investing to help other founders navigate their own journeys. The result is one of the best brands in VC, regularly stocking the Midas List, leading in rankings of entrepreneurs favorite VCs, and regularly producing top decile returns. First Round Capital is one of the most heavily access restricted VC funds on the planet and one of the most sought after investors by founders trying to build the next big thing.   Josh is a wealth of thoughtful, candid reflections on why First Round always seems to do things their own way. Most funds with their track record would now be raising $1B+ funds and leading mega rounds to further exploit their impressive portfolio of high growth companies. First Round chooses to focus on what they do best, helping startups navigate their first 24 months of existence.  Listen to Josh explain why they choose to focus – and why they expect that same tunnel vision in their founders. 

Connie & Alex review this week's tech news and then chat with Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital about SPACs, direct listings, rolling funds, and all things venture. Music:1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)3. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)

Josh Kopelman is the co-founder of First Round Capital, a pioneering seed-stage venture capital firm. He's been an active entrepreneur and investor in the Internet industry since it's commercialization. He co-founded Infonautics while still an undergrad in 1996, which went public in 1999. He then co-founded and ran Half.com, a fixed price marketplace connecting buyers and sellers of used books, movies and music products, which he sold to eBay in 2000.In this episode, we discuss Josh's early career as an entrepreneur and all of the lessons learned having started two companies, taking one of them public at a really young age, and then selling Half.com to eBay at the height of the dot com. We discuss his early angel investing practice, including investments in companies like Linkedin and Delicious, and the ultimate decision to start First Round Capital with his partners, raise institutional funds, and build out their unique "platform."As always, a huge thank you to Carta, the title sponsor for this season of Origins. It's a core product that we use daily  -->  Get 10% off when you use the Notation Signup Link (Terms and conditions apply). This season is also sponsored by SVB and Cooley, two of the earliest and most trusted supporters of our work at Notation. 

Steve Cofield, Dave Cokin and Josh Kopelman rant about why they can't bet the hot dog eating contest in Las Vegas. Is Mike Gundy on his way out at Okie State? And Cokin has his betting snitches around the NL Central. Please check out our sponsors: Dustin DeHart at Nova Home Loans - https://www.novahomeloans.com/dustin-dehart Justin Watkins from Battle Born Injury Lawyers - https://www.battleborninjurylawyers.com/our-attorneys/justin-watkins/ MeatUPVegas. Use the CODE: Cofield for a discount - https://www.meatupvegas.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is Josh Kopelman, the founder of famed venture capital firm First Round Capital. Prior to starting First Round, which has invested at the earliest stages in companies like Square, Uber, and Roblox, Josh was a three-time entrepreneur, so our conversation spans early-stage investing, business building, and entrepreneurship. I’ll not sure forget his analogy distinguishing between navigators and cartographers, nor the rest of the interesting ideas he shared after seeing and investing in so many great businesses. We also discuss how First Round has bucked the trend to build what I’d call a platform adjacent to the core investing business which does a lot for their entrepreneurs and is a model for other professional investing firms, both in venture and elsewhere. Please enjoy my conversation with Josh Kopelman.  This episode is brought to by Koyfin. For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Show Notes (2:05) – (First question) – How pandemic has impacted their investing strategies (3:54) – How this stressful environment impacts founders (6:23) – His early career as a founder and how startup culture has changed (10:15) – Most important lessons from his entrepreneurial career and building from just an idea (11:50) – How to analyze a founder (14:05) – Common disagreements when it comes to deciding on an investment (15:33) – How many opportunities they evaluate in a meeting (16:16) – The curvy road to their investment in Roadblox (17:52) – Whether the concept for a platform is overused (19:36) – Founders asking what google search they should build on (20:46) – Solving existing or forecasted problems (25:39) – How the startup scene is impacted by the huge legacy tech companies (30:28) – What makes a great early stage investor (32:19) – Do they focus on founders or themes (33:19) – Where will valuations and returns come back to after the pandemic (36:30) – How are business models evolving in technology entrepreneurship             (36:31) – Matt Clifford Podcast Episode (39:40) – The Dorm Room Fund (43:02) – Whether investment funds should have their own platform (47:31) – Product mistakes in software building (51:52) – What he’s most excited about for the future (54:05) – The kindest thing anyone has done for him  Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Founder and Managing Partner of First Round Capital Josh Kopelman talks with Upfront Managing Partner Mark Suster about scaling a VC with early stage as a focus. Topics include: - What's changed in the early stage ecosystem - Why Josh believes 70% of VC is picking the right founder - His advice for new funds and for LPs considering new venture investments - How and why they've invested in platform as a value-add service

Trish and I spent an afternoon chatting with Josh Kopelman, who is the publisher of DiningOut San Diego.  DiningOutSD magazine is published in eight cities, including Denver, Chicago, Miami, and Atlanta. Josh founded the magazine as the fourth city in the DiningOut family. His role is to spotlight all the amazing talent in San Diego, Baja, and Southern California through the magazine and social media. If you want to know what is happening in our dining scene, this podcast is for you! IG: @DiningOutSD FB: DiningOutSanDiego http://diningout.com/sandiego/   Food for Thought is sponsored by Cangshan Cutlery.  Cangshan Cutlery offers a wide variety of artfully designed knives. Made with German steel they are suitable for professional chefs, beginners, and anyone in between.   Cangshan combines the best qualities of eastern and western styles, designs, materials and workmanship to create unique knives for all levels of creatives and professionals. http://www.cangshancutlery.com   We are proud to support and recommend Kitchens for Good. Kitchens for Good's mission is to break the cycles of food waste, poverty, and hunger, through innovative programs in workforce training, healthy food production, and social enterprise. The program is a tuition-free, certified culinary apprenticeship program that trains individuals with barriers to employment to launch their career in the culinary and hospitality industry. The program specifically serves individuals who are experiencing significantly high unemployment rates: formerly incarcerated adults, foster youth transitioning out of the system, survivors of domestic violence, individuals with mental health disorders, and individuals with histories of substance abuse. Donate, volunteer, or find more about their event and catering services at https://www.kitchensforgood.org   We hope that you enjoy this podcast. Please like & follow us if you do.  Produced at Studio C Creative Sound Recorders in San Diego CA http://www.studio-c.com    

Episode 8 of our podcast "Off the Sidelines" is full of advice for aspiring investors.

Episode 8 of our podcast "Off the Sidelines" is full of advice for aspiring investors.

This podcast is a recording of a fireside chat with Phin Barnes, partner at First Round Capital. In this podcast: -Phin explains why First Round focuses on seed investments, what they look for, and how they structure their deals. -He also explains the concept of “diversity debt” and why it’s important to focus on building a diverse team from the beginning, even if it takes longer. First round was founded by Wharton alum Josh Kopelman and has a female investing partner. Lots of great insights from Phin and stay till the end for the answer to the audience question about why we should invest in women.

Josh Kopelman co-founded First Round Capital in 2004 to reinvent seed-stage investing. Since that time, the firm has invested in over 300 emerging technology startups – becoming one of the most active venture capital firms in the country. Josh has consistently made the Forbes “Midas List” which ranks the top 100 tech investors, earning the number four spot in 2014. Early in his career, in 1992, Josh co-founded Infonautics Corporation – and took it public on the NASDAQ stock exchange in 1996. Josh founded Half.com in July of 1999, and led it to become one of the largest sellers of used books, movies and music in the world. Half.com was acquired by eBay in July 2000. In this episode, Danielle and Luke chat with Josh about which founders catch his attention, and how he selects startups for investment. You’ll hear his advice on pitching your company, how to stay honest with your investors, and how to create your own roadmap as a founder.  Follow Comcast NBCUniversal Lift Labs online: Join the Newsletter! comcastnbculift.com @LIFT_Labs on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook

In this episode the guys (Luke & Logan) talk with former OKC Sports Animal personality Josh Kopelman on NBA free agency, Poker, and OU Football --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/doghousepodcast/support

Josh Kopelman, Founder and Partner at First Round Capital, a seed-stage venture firm that has invested in some of the biggest names, including Uber, Square and Flatiron Health. First Round aims to help early-stage companies build a strong product-market fit and offers some of the industry’s first and best tools from their custom-built software to sharing their deep industry insight with their publication First Round Review. In this episode, Josh speaks with Eniac Co-founding Partner Nihal Mehta on his journey from being one of the first students at Penn to get an email address to how he leveraged his early experience on the Internet to founding his first three companies - Infonautics, Half.com, and TurnTide. Josh then seized the opportunity to start First Round with Chris Fralic and Rob Hayes when the cost to start a company was decreasing, but the average venture firm tripled in size. Josh speaks to his advantage of living in Philadelphia, why they are placing big bets in New York and his perspective why it has never been easier to build a company outside of Silicon Valley. He also addresses scaling teams and the regional talent gap. He speaks to why First Round operates like a startup, continuing to improve and find new products that better serve their founders and community. He also shares why their fund size has remained consistent and how they view fund model vs fund size. Josh also shares why they left Twitter, DropBox, and Zynga on the table. If you liked this episode, please share and tag us on Twitter: @joshk @firstround @nihalmehta @EniacVC @seedtoscale Send comments or suggestions to seedtoscale@eniac.vc.

Pat Grady is a Partner @ Sequoia, one of the world's leading and most renowned venture firms with a portfolio including WhatsApp, Zoom, Stripe, Airbnb, Github and many more incredible companies. As for Pat, at Sequoia he co-leads the firms growth investment team and has been involved with some of the true greats, Hubspot, Zoom, Okta, Qualtrics, the list goes on. Prior to Sequoia Pat spent three years with Summit Partners. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Pat made his way from Summit Partners to co-leading Sequoia's growth investment team? Was it intimidating for Pat entering a partnership with Jim Goetz, Don Valentine, Roelof Botha? How did he manage those nerves? 2.) So many different funds and activities, so what is Sequoia focused on today? Where does Sequoia think about their ideal insertion point today? How do they see the deployment of their blended capital across rounds? Does Pat believe in ownership on first check or building ownership over time? How does Pat think about the extended window of privatisation with IPOs being continuously delayed? 3.) Does Pat believe that VC really is a team sport today? Does Pat agree with Josh Kopelman's statement, "I would rather be a better picker of partners than investments"? What are the core requirements, skills and traits that Sequoia looks for when adding to their partnership? 4.) What is the investment decision-making process at Sequoia? How do they feel about unanimity vs conviction based investment decisions? What are the pros and cons of each? What does Pat believe is the most non-obvious investment decision that Sequoia have made? Sequoia run an incredibly rigorous process when investing, how does Pat balance between that level of rigour with the speed to win the deal? 5.) What advice would Pat give to someone that has just gained their first institutional board? What does Pat know now that he wishes he had known when he started in VC? How does Pat think about time allocation across the portfolio? Concentrate on winners or the strugglers are where your reputation is built? Leading Sequoia Growth and with a beautiful family, how does Pat approach work/life balance? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Pat’s Fave Book: God Friended Me Pat’s Most Recent Investment: Embark: Revolutionizing Commercial Transport  As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Pat on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

In this episode, we talk with Frank Demmler, who can take credit for 500 companies, some 10,000 jobs, and $1 billion of investment capital. For over 30 years he has been an investor, advisor, and educator in Pittsburgh's technology-based entrepreneurial community, which hardly existed when he first started but has grown to be one of the most active and desirable entrepreneurship hubs today. We dive into two of the companies he assisted, Automated Healthcare, which deploys robots in hospital pharmacies and has been acquired by McKesson for $65 million, and clothing brand Modcloth. He shares Modcloth's startup story from college sweethearts to putting a few clothes online for sale to turning into a beloved brand that innovated especially through the power of crowdsourcing. Much to absorb in this episode, especially if you are interested in leveraging the power of your tribe. You can connect with Frank via LinkedIn. ________________Full, Unedited, Transcript: F Geyrhalter:                 Welcome to Hitting The Mark. We had so many founders on the show lately that it was definitely time to bring on an investor to once again hear from the other side of the table. Not just any investor. Today, we have the pleasure to pick the brain of a man who Income Magazine described as Pittsburgh's startup whisperer. Taking credit for 500 companies, some 10,000 jobs, and $1 billion of investment capital. Today, we welcome the one and only Frank Demmler, who, for over 30 years has been an investor, advisor, and educator in Pittsburgh's technology based entrepreneurial community, which hardly existed when he first started, but has grown to be one of the most active and desirable entrepreneurship hubs today. Frank has also been an adjunct professor for entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University for over 30 years. With that being said, welcome Frank. F Demmler:                   Thank you Fabian. Looking forward to it. I want to make one correction. I don't take credit for all of those things. The entrepreneurs who created the businesses and raised the money, they're the ones who did it. I just helped. F Geyrhalter:                 I absolutely love that. You know, that kind of already sums up the type of person that I believe you are, so I'm so excited to finally have you on the show. Let's talk a little bit about those companies that you invested in. It's a pretty large number, and it's hard to pick one or two brands to dive into today, but I was intrigued by two specifically. One of which, he actually picked. Let's start with that one, because it's a rather peculiar one. Automated Healthcare, which deploys robots in hospital pharmacies and has been acquired by McKesson for $65 million. Okay, so, if that did not get my listeners excited to have you on the show, I am not sure what would. Tell us a bit about Automated Healthcare, when and how you got involved, and how you saw it shape into a brand that is worth that amount of money. F Demmler:                   It was a situation where I had worked with the founders of the company in a variety of capacities; as an advisor, educator. One of the co-founders was a former of student of mine. Learned about, they had applied to an economic development organization in Pennsylvania called The Ben Franklin Technology Partnership, and they had been rejected for their grant. I was adamantly opposed to that decision, so I went and advocated on their behalf, and they were able to get, at that time, an $88,000 grant to purchase a robot so they could do the proof of concept of putting a robot in a hospital and having it be able to pick medications off a pegboard with reliability. With that introduction and interaction, when it came time for the company to raise money, I was a general partner of the Pittsburgh Seed Fund, and it was just a natural extension of what we'd been doing to make the investment in the company and help it move forward. F Geyrhalter:                 How do you feel that Automated Healthcare, like, what role did branding or the idea of branding play for Automated Healthcare? Because, obviously, they're a B2B robotics brand in the healthcare space, so it feels, like, really far removed, but it seems like it still played a role. F Demmler:                   Oh, very definitely. I hate to admit it, but the initial investment was in 1990, so I don't know if your listeners were even born then, but ... F Geyrhalter:                 I think it's okay Frank, because I said over the last 30 years twice in my intro, so I kind of already gave away that there's a huge amount of knowledge in you, let's put it that way. F Demmler:                   Back in 1990, the healthcare system was undergoing major revolutions that continue to this day. One area of particular concern was that the error rate of medications leaving a hospital pharmacy and being delivered to a patient had an error rate between one and 10%, with an average of 1-3/4%. Most of those errors were things like 100mg of Tylenol instead of 15, or whatever, but some of them could be fatal. This appeared to be a great opportunity for the application of robotic technology, because in fact, the process of picking those pills was repetitive and could be programmed in such a way that a robot could do it, and that would replace an army of white-frocked young people running around the pharmacy doing hand picking, which was the way it was done back there. By saying Automated Healthcare, it positioned the company as one that was using advanced technology. It was resonating in an industry that was only beginning to appreciate that there were technologies that ultimately could be adopted by hospitals to improve patient care and improve financial performance. F Geyrhalter:                 It was really branding a new segment, like, disrupting with a new definition of what a business can do within the healthcare space. F Demmler:                   Exactly. It literally revolutionized how hospitals would manage and distribute their drugs. One of the benefits of that is, prior to Automated Healthcare, the professional pharmacist played more a role of a grocery store checkout person who would review the medications once they'd been picked and try to make sure that they were the right thing for the right patient. You had a highly compensated professional who really wasn't able to do his or her professional job of working with the patients, working with the nurses, but was sitting there checking out sets of pills. F Geyrhalter:                 Well, and obviously, I think those are a lot of the jobs that are going to be replaced in the future and a lot of people are afraid of that, but the way that you put it and the way that I see it too, those are individuals that actually are not utilizing the full capacity of their intellect doing the work that they're currently doing. It is actually a very positive movement, and it seems to me that Automated Healthcare and your investment in them or your mentoring them actually, they were pretty much on the forefront of what now is becoming a really widely discussed topic. F Demmler:                   Yeah, and I believe that Automated Healthcare was the first time a hospital had introduced barcodes into its information system. Because, it was basically, the barcodes enabled the ability of, the medications were put in individual packages with barcodes on them, and then the arm of the robot would scan that barcode, confirm that it is what it is, pull it off, and do that. It was a very elegant but self contained application because the patient's bed or nightstand would have a barcode confirming that it's the patient. The nurse would have a barcoded wristband, and then the medication. What you had was a closed loop of information of how the pills have been distributed, or the medications. F Geyrhalter:                 Fascinating. Let's move over to another brand that you helped shape over the years: ModCloth, which is a vintage inspired clothing brand for young women, and they had quite a great founding story. Tell us how you got involved with them and at what stage of the company's foundation did they step in. Were they students of yours? F Demmler:                   Yes, well, the male was a student. I have to correct what I sent you. Koger is the last name, so Susan and Eric Koger are the founders of ModCloth. They had been high school sweethearts. They came to Carnegie Mellon University as students, and got married somewhere along the line. The thing was that Susan loved vintage clothing, so that whenever she and Eric were going to different towns, her first stop would be into the consignment stores and other sources of used or historical garments. She would buy probably a lot of stuff from those places, and it got to the point where their apartment was overflowing with her vintage clothing, and obviously she can't wear all that often, and so ultimately they came up with the idea of, let's sell Susan's purchases over the internet. This is back in 2004, I believe. At that time, the internet, stores were beginning to emerge on the internet. Eric, who was a joint computer science and business major designed the website and got them up and going. Lo and behold, the reaction to Susan's inventory was very positive, very strong. Susan came up with the concept of finding young designers who designed with vintage inspired concepts applied. They borrowed, I believe, on the order of $50,000 from an uncle, like, in October of 2004, so they could buy some inventory and get the designs made. Again, lo and behold, the designs were being gobbled up as soon as they hit the website. They actually used that to their advantage during the very earliest stages in that, because cash was tight, she would order whatever clothing she could based upon financial ability, put it on the site, and typically within one to three hours the inventory would sell out. That, then, caused the fans of the site to log in multiple times a day in order to not miss a new item coming on. That was probably one of the first social marketing tactics that I had seen that had been successful. That success got them into low six digit sales, slightly more than $100,000, which wasn't chump change at that time, either. F Geyrhalter:                 Right. F Demmler:                   But, by the same token, because of the customer adoption and because of the brand that they had created, and branded Susan Koger as a thought leader or probably today would be called an influencer, she and the designs of the product line all became a brand and a product and a lifestyle that distinguished it from other such clothing providers. That got the attention of a number of very high profile angel investors, Jeff Fleur from StubHub, Mike Maples, Josh Kopelman among others. They put in a super angel round, I guess it would be called, and that's what allowed the company to transition from a two person selling out of their apartment into a company. That success then led to institutional investors and over time, the brand grew from zero to over $150 million of annual revenues, and ultimately, it was acquired by Jet.com, which itself had been acquired by Walmart, because Walmart wanted to create some branded strategies rather than being viewed as a commodity/low price cheap provider. That was sort of the cycle of the business. It still exists as an independent brand, you can find it on the internet, but that's sort of the history. F Geyrhalter:                 What a fascinating story. I mean, there's a woman in college and she buys too much vintage clothing, and at some point the boyfriend says, "Look, let's start selling that. Instead of using eBay, let me just create a website where we can sell your stuff." That went from an $18,000 in income to $15 million in income in only four years. I mean those stories are amazing, and today if you go to the ModCloth website, it has Halsey and Awkwafina as models and, you know, and obviously it was just acquired by Walmart at the same time that I guess Bonobos was acquired by Walmart, so obviously to boost the Walmart brand for a younger audience. It's such a success story and I believe that one of the big pieces to that brand's success, and you hinted at it within your story about the brand, is crowdsourcing, because ModCloth actually became the first retailer, I read, to supplement an existing business model with crowdsourcing efforts. You know, as you mentioned, Susan started that, I guess she called it the B to buyer program, where she got her designs, post them on the site soliciting customers to vote for which design to produce, which then of course created a huge buzz and made the customer feel like they had a voice, but in turn, they pretty much presold product almost instantaneously, and I guess the genius moving crowdsourcing actually must have come out of a complete necessity at the time for her, because she just had to do it this way in order to sustain. F Demmler:                   Yes. I mean, she did. Exactly as you said, they didn't have the cashflow that they could afford to invest in inventory and hope somebody bought it. She was able to basically create what were ultimately auctions of, "Here are five designs that we identified. Which one would you buy," among the users. They would vote. Lo and behold, whoever won, that one would be purchased and the buyers were already predetermined, and so they would sell out pretty quickly. F Geyrhalter:                 Right, exactly. Just to give our listeners some more insight into all the different ways that she actually, well, ModCloth as a brand, is actually using crowdsourcing, here are three of them that I want to share that I read about. The first one is style gallery, which is a user generated image gallery where customers send in photos of themselves modeling in ModCloth designs, and then of course, you know, other people see how the clothing actually looks on real people. Then, there's fit for me, which is a feature on the ModCloth app which allows you to see suggestions for clothing that will fit their exact body shape based on other user's reviews. Then, last but not least, and I think this is such a cool thought, they ran a contest in 2012 called Make The Cut. What they did is, ModCloth created products based on consumer ideas. Suddenly, the consumer became an artist, and the contest winners had their drawings, their sketches of clothing, adapted into real clothes for the spring line, with each Make The Cut garment product then featuring the artist's name printed on the label. You suddenly had your name on the back of a piece of clothing from a brand that you already love. F Geyrhalter:                 Obviously, they used some nifty brand strategies and they were also very in tune with the current site guys, because they were taking a stance on the topic of body image when it was rarely discussed in the media. Do you know with this particular startup investment of yours or nurturing of yours, mentoring of yours, when did the team actually started to actively invest time or money into brand strategy voice or design? I think a lot of it came very organic, but at some point they must have said, "Let's hire an agency. Let's do this the real way." Do you know that transition or how a lot of these amazing brand thoughts came about with ModCloth? F Demmler:                   As you noted, some of them were organic. For example, the one where people would take pictures of themselves in outfits and share that, they'd also created a discussion board where people would be able to explain that they're using a dress from one source and a blouse from another and a scarf from another and a pair of shoes. Then people would talk about, "Hey, have you tried such and such?" It was really part and parcel of the company. Once we had the super angels on board who did have consumer marketing backgrounds, they were able to help us in terms of identifying the right agencies. That would have been two to three years into the company, but 12 to 18 months after getting the super angel investment that they were able to do a full professional shift into the crowdsourcing and customer engagement. F Geyrhalter:                 When do you advise your companies, typically, to invest in branding? Does it vary by startup focus? Does it vary by B2B, B2C, you know, tack, you know, apps, etc? F Demmler:                   Yeah. Well, as an investor, what I want to do is mitigate risk. F Geyrhalter:                 Right. F Demmler:                   Certainly, with any B2C company, creating a brand that customers will resonate with is an essential part of that process. If the company's vision, theme, culture, and brand aren't all aligned, you end up with dissonance and very poor customer pickup. It really is essential that you put all of those things together on a branded basis in order to capture the customers. F Geyrhalter:                 Absolutely. With B2C companies, it sounds like you push them towards turning into that brand rather sooner than later, and with B2B companies you must probably take a little bit of a stance back. F Demmler:                   Yeah. I mean, for example, Automated Healthcare made great use of its brand, but the other technique that the founders did was, among their first 10 customers were four of the past five presidents of the American Hospital Pharmacy Association. Not only did the brand get established, but it got established and linked to thought leaders within their industry. You have everything sort of working in sync, reinforcing each bit. F Geyrhalter:                 Right, right. That creates that holistic brand, absolutely. How much of your time do you spend mentoring? It seems like you pretty much dedicated yourself to helping entrepreneurs thrive. Often, people hear the word investor and they immediately conjure up a stereotype which is not always positive. Right? But, it can in fact be a very nurturing and extremely satisfying line of work. F Demmler:                   Yeah, absolutely. I've been doing this since 1984, and every day is a new challenge with the opportunity to learn new technologies, to meet people who have dreams and aspirations, and to be able to help those people go from being a wannabe entrepreneur to an entrepreneur. Yeah, I spend my time very much on the early stage. Well over half my time is more in the nurturing and working with the companies. Then, when they get to a certain scale, either the investment mechanism that I've got where I will help them determine what investors might be appropriate to help them at what time. F Geyrhalter:                 Do you only work with startups within the Pittsburgh system, and they're usually all part of incubators and accelerators, or the university that you work with? F Demmler:                   I work primarily in Pittsburgh. It's where my network is and where I've got history and all of that. But, I also have worked with companies throughout North America, I guess. I did a webinar for the Technology Transfer Tactics, which is a industry Bible for university tech transfer offices. I talked about a variety of things that were germane to them, for example. The key thing I worked on there was splitting the founder's pie. It had to do with university spin outs, how do you take 100% and divide it appropriately among whoever the founder group is. That's a tangential. Yeah, working with the company and helping it figure out the ways of success, I mean, one way that I look at it is, if you put entrepreneurship on a scale of zero to 10, where zero is somebody who ought to keep a job, stay in a job, and not even think about being an entrepreneur, and then at 10 you've got your Mark Zuckerberg or that ilk, most of the people that I work with are sort of in the zero to three range. They typically will have one or two key strengths that are relevant. University spin outs, obviously, it's going to be the technology and the ownership in the technology. My goal is to help those people get into the range of six-plus. What I mean by that is, they will understand the vocabulary of what they've gotten into. They will understand why a bank is not going to fund them on the first day, and understand how investors will be looking at them. I've spent a lot of my time doing that, and for the ones that can move to that level, then getting them funded. Here at Pittsburgh, we've had the Innovation Works, which I was with for 13 years, founded Alpha Lab as one of the first incubators in the country, founded back in 2008. It has created, typically it'll have 12 to 15 new companies a year divided into two cycles. We also have Alpha Lab Gear, which is a hardware-oriented accelerator. They are adding to the mix of companies. They don't dominate it because quite often, well, accelerator companies are often pretty fragile, even when they go through the process. Working with them to make them investment ready sometimes takes more than what the accelerator program provides. F Geyrhalter:                 Oh, for sure, yeah. I mean, you've been doing this since 1984. What is a big piece of brand advice that you can share with our founders as a takeaway from this podcast session? F Demmler:                   Today the thought is, customer discovery is the bellwether of being an entrepreneur. Unlike when I first started this business, where it might cost a half a million dollars to develop a software product, you know, in today's world, it's $25,000 or $50,000. You actually do have the ability to go to customers and get their direct feedback on what it is you're trying to do, and as you do that, you listen to what your customers tell you, and quite often, you'll find out that the business you thought you were in isn't that at all, but what you're providing to the customers has a different value. Once you've sort of hit on that, the core value of the offering, then branding that and using that as a way to create identity and growth is essential. F Geyrhalter:                 In the end, it is about empathy with your customer. Right? Really, really, putting yourself into their shoes and listening to them and understanding what they actually ache for, despite what you offer, and then moving your product more into their sphere. F Demmler:                   Exactly. F Geyrhalter:                 Thank you Frank. I think it took us quite a bit of back and forth to finally make this happen, but I'm so grateful that you were able to take this 20 minutes of your time from your many duties as the startup whisperer to educate my listeners. I really appreciate it. F Demmler:                   Happy to do it Fabian. Feel free to call me in the future if you'd like. F Geyrhalter:                 Absolutely, and thank you all for listening. Please take a few seconds right now to hit that subscribe button and give the show a quick rating. It is the only currency I take from you in return for putting together this show every two weeks, from finding interesting guests like Frank to getting them booked, prepping, recording, and doing the post. It is definitely a time consuming labor of love. This podcast is brought to you by FINIEN, a brand consultancy creating strategic verbal and visual brand clarity. You can learn more about FINIEN, which I also happen to run, and explore my books on brand building at FINIEN.com. The Hitting The Mark music was written and produced by Happiness Won. I will see you next time, when we once again will be Hitting The Mark

Josh Kopelman is Founder & Partner @ First Round, one of the world’s leading seed funds with a portfolio including the likes of Uber, Warby Parker, Flatiron Health, Square, HotelTonight, GOAT and more incredible companies. As for Josh, he founded First Round in 2004 to reinvent seed stage investing. Since he has invested in over 200 startups and been ranked 4th in Forbes Midas List and named one of the top ten ‘angel investors’ in the US by Newsweek magazine. Josh has previously sat on the boards of Flatiron Health, Clover Health, AppNexus and more.  In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Josh made his way into the wonderful world of venture from angel investing and what the inspiration behind the founding of First Round was? 2.) How does Josh think about price sensitivity today? What were his learnings from being priced out of the seed round for Twitter and Dropbox? How has Josh seen his relationship to price change over time? How did witnessing the boom and bust both as operator and investor affect his investing mentality today? 3.) How does Josh and First Round think about reserve allocation? How has their thinking changed and evolved over time? Does Josh believe that ownership is fundamentally built on first check? What does the investment decision-making process look like for reserves? In terms of allocation, how does Josh think about time allocation across portfolio? Spend it with the winners, they return the fund or the strugglers and save cents on the dollar? 4.) Josh has spent over 3,000 hours on boards, what have been some of the biggest inflection points that have changed the way he thinks about being a good board member? How has he seen his style and approach change over time? What advice would Josh give to an individual that has just gained their first institutional board seat? 5.) Why does Josh believe that we fundamentally neglect "the pick" today in startup world? Why does Josh believe a high degree of startup mortality begins at the pick (idea) stage? How do the very best founders aproach this stage? How should these founders approach picking their investors? What should they look for? What should they be wary of? 6.) Why does Josh want to be known as a better picker of partners than investments? How has Josh thought about the building ou of the first round partnership over time? If there was anything he would have done differently, what would it be? Why does Josh fundamentally disagree with attribution? How does Josh think about generational transition? What are the steps required to do it well? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Josh’s Fave Book: Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Joel on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Are you thinking about life insurance in the new year? Ladder is the smart and easy way to get term life insurance online. With Ladder there are no commissioned agents and no policy fees — you can be done in minutes. Even better, coverage can start today, if you qualify, and you can cancel anytime. Ladder is licensed and backed by trusted partners, with billions in coverage. Visit ladderlife.com to apply and get an instant decision on fully underwritten term life insurance, and check life insurance off your list TODAY. Ready for tax season? Wishing you’d kept a closer eye on your books this year? Set yourself up for success in 2019 with Pilot. Pilot is a bookkeeping company focused on the needs of startups. Their team of SF-based bookkeepers are assisted by engineers to automate the most error-prone parts of bookkeeping, so you know you’re getting an accurate report every month. Plus, Pilot does accrual basis bookkeeping in Quickbooks Online, so you’re never locked into a proprietary platform. Learn more and sign up here. Don’t wait – the first 100 members of the Twenty Minute VC community get 20% off Pilot Core for six months.

Josh Kopelman has been an active entrepreneur and investor in the Internet industry since its commercialization. In 1992, while he was a student at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Josh co-founded Infonautics Corporation – and took it public on the NASDAQ stock exchange in 1996.  July of 1999, Josh co-founded Half.com, and led it to become one of the largest sellers of used books, movies and music in the world. Half.com was acquired by eBay in July 2000. In late 2003, Josh helped to found TurnTide, an anti-spam company that created the world's first anti-spam router. TurnTide was acquired by Symantec just six months later. Josh then founded First Round Capital in 2004 to reinvent seed-stage investing. Since that time, the firm has invested in over 200 emerging technology startups, including Uber, Mint, and Blue Apron.  Josh was ranked fourth on Forbes 2015 “Midas List” of the top 100 tech investors, he’s been awarded Ernst and Young’s prestigious “Entrepreneur of the Year” award, and is an inventor on thirteen U.S. Patents for his work in Internet technology. Support Philly Who? Donate via Paypal, Venmo: @podphillywho, Become a Monthly Patron, Purchase a T-Shirt or Hat, Become a Sponsor

At the seed stage the best bets are startup founders who have an understanding of the risks and struggle ahead says venture capitalist Josh Kopelman. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Josh Kopelman, Founder and Partner at First Round Capital, joins host Dan Loney live at the Wharton Global Forum NY 2018 to discuss how companies get off the ground and what he looks for in startup teams when he invests, on Knowledge@Wharton.http://www.whartonnewyork18.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My guest for Episode 72 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is US based serial entrepreneur, Aaron Patzer. Aaron started his career at IBM before founding 2 web development and online marketing companies. He then went on to become the technical lead for the San Jose division of Nascentric before deciding to found his own startup. He attended and won at the very first TechCrunch Battlefield event with a little known personal finance app at that time called mint.com which grew to over 1.5 million users and sold to Intuit within 2 years for $170M. He then founded Fountain, an on demand answers app that again sold within 2 years to Porch for an undisclosed fee. He is now on to his 3rd company, Vital Software which is an AI software that is a mobile check-in for patients, and automatically creates electronic medical records designed for doctors and nurses, with the aim being to cut ER wait times in half. In this interview we talk about: Building startups as a solo founder The Value of equity Solving big problems PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION Techboard's Startup Community Award   Show notes: Mint.com Intuit Quickbooks Turbotax Fountain Vital Software Hyperloop Quicken Josh Kopelman First Round Capital Aaron Patzer (LinkedIn) Feedback/ connect/ say hello:  Rohit@startupplaybook.co @playbookstartup (Twitter) @rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit) Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn) Credits: Intro music credit to Bensound Other channels: Don't have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud The post Ep072 – Aaron Patzer (Founder – Mint.com) on the value of equity appeared first on Startup Playbook.

Josh is an entrepreneur, investor, and founder of First Round Capital. We talk about his come up story, starting half.com and selling it to ebay, how he started First Round, how he learned how to invest, advice to entrepreneurs, and much more. For anyone looking to learn how to invest, Josh is one of the best in the game and drops a bunch of gems in this episode.

Josh is an active entrepreneur and investor who cofounded Infonautics Corporation and took it public while a student at the Wharton School. He later founded Half.com, which was acquired by eBay, and helped found anti-spam company TurnTide. In 2004, Josh founded First Round Capital to reinvent seed-stage investing.

In this interview, Josh Kopelman reveals what characterises a great entrepreneur and what type of investments he's interested in. He also explains how to spot market opportunities and why sometimes the best products never win.