Podcasts about lightspeed ventures

In this episode, we're joined by Sydney Sykes, partner at Lightspeed Ventures and co-founder of BLCK VC. Sydney shares her journey into the venture capital world, breaking barriers as a Black woman in a historically exclusive industry. She discusses the importance of representation in investing, the impact of funding Black entrepreneurs, and the role of community in shaping the future of venture capital. Plus, she offers valuable advice for aspiring founders and investors. Don't miss this inspiring and insightful conversation!

Send us a textVivek Gambhir, a leadership powerhouse with over 30 years of experience across boAt, Godrej, and Bain & Company, shares game-changing insights on how to nail the first decade of your career. Currently a Venture Partner at Lightspeed Ventures, Vivek dives into the key principles that set professionals up for long-term success.From building core skills to understanding the importance of mentorship, he offers actionable strategies for thriving in your early career years. Vivek also shares his perspective on navigating challenges, staying adaptable, and making impactful decisions that can shape your professional journey.Whether you're a fresh graduate, a young professional, or someone looking to maximize the foundational years of your career, this conversation is packed with valuable lessons to help you succeed in a competitive world. Tune in to learn how to build a strong career foundation and unlock your true potential.

Pinn Lawjindakul, Partner of Lightspeed Southeast Asia and Jeremy Au discussed: 1. Bain Consultant to Grab Head: Pinn recounted her shift from Bain & Company, where she started as an intern in 2011, to joining Grab in 2015 during its rapid expansion. She highlighted the operational and cultural differences between consulting in San Francisco and Southeast Asia, noting the latter's more hierarchical and less mature environment. At Grab, Pinn tackled challenges such as competing with Uber, Easy Taxi, and Rocket Internet, emphasizing the importance of localized operational advantages. 2. Tiger Global to Lightspeed VC Partner: Pinn reflected on her pivotal time at Tiger Global (2016–2019), where she immersed herself in growth-stage investments like Flipkart. The fast-paced environment and exposure to trend-driven, data-backed decision-making helped her realize the impactful nature of venture capital. This experience solidified her passion for working closely with entrepreneurs and shaping transformative businesses. Transitioning to Lightspeed Ventures, she embraced a focus on early-stage startups in Southeast Asia, drawn by the opportunity to guide founders from the outset and help them adopt a regional mindset critical for success 3. Southeast Asia vs. China & India: She highlighted Lightspeed's report, which debunked the longstanding comparisons of the region to China and India. The report argued that Southeast Asia's fragmented markets, diverse consumer profiles, and smaller economic scale require a unique approach, defying the traditional narratives borrowed from larger, more homogenous markets. They also championed Singapore's underestimated potential as a key driver of economic growth, countering the conventional wisdom that focuses almost exclusively on larger markets like Indonesia, e.g. Gojek vs. Grab. Pinn also highlighted the need for a more rational approach to capital allocation, underscoring how sustainable growth requires founders and investors alike to balance ambition with market realities. Jeremy and Pinn also discussed her perspective being a parent has changed her perspective on startups, what they learned as Bain interns and what advice she would give her younger self. == Pinn is a founding member of Lightspeed Southeast Asia, a global early-stage investment fund. Prior to Lightspeed, she was at Insignia Venture Partners and Tiger Global Management, where she focused on consumer and financial technology across SEA, India and China. She worked closely with Flipkart (sold to Walmart), Ola, Policybazaar, Hike, Games 24x7, Razorpay, Uxin (IPO exit). Pinn started her career as a management consultant at Bain & Company and also founded Grab's motorcycle-on-demand in Bangkok, Thailand. Pinn graduated from Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania with a double degree in Psychology and Finance. === Watch, listen or read the full insight at www.bravesea.com/blog/navigating-sea-markets Nonton, dengar atau baca wawasan lengkapnya di www.bravesea.com/blog/navigating-sea-markets 观看、收听或阅读全文，请访问 www.bravesea.com/blog/navigating-sea-markets Xem, nghe hoặc đọc toàn bộ thông tin chi tiết tại www.bravesea.com/blog/navigating-sea-markets Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at www.bravesea.com WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VakR55X6BIElUEvkN02e TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jeremyau Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremyauz Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeremyau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bravesea Spotify English: https://open.spotify.com/show/4TnqkaWpTT181lMA8xNu0T Bahasa Indonesia: https://open.spotify.com/show/2Vs8t6qPo0eFb4o6zOmiVZ Chinese: https://open.spotify.com/show/20AGbzHhzFDWyRTbHTVDJR Vietnamese: https://open.spotify.com/show/0yqd3Jj0I19NhN0h8lWrK1

(Only) after pouring $72 billion into Southeast Asia, venture capitalists are hitting the reset button in Southeast Asia?  Lightspeed Ventures' report, Southeast Asia: Resetting Expectations, has sparked discussions in our community groups for its honest take on the region's challenges and opportunities, with some calling it “finally an honest report on Southeast Asia.”  But what does it really mean to reset expectations for this region?  Tune into this latest episode as we dive into the evolving landscape of venture capital investment in Southeast Asia, unpacking why the region's tech growth hasn't fully met expectations, the unique role of conglomerates, and what this reset means for future investments and founders navigating these markets.

"So that's why if you have 1 billion to invest, we're not expecting the same return as if you invest 10 million. At that time, when all this money flowed to Southeast Asia, people there thought, "Oh, we made it. Now the world is looking at us. We're finally a good ecosystem.' Everyone was ready to invest in us, but that was just the tide, right? And when the tide recedes, the first place the money will leave is Southeast Asia because it's not offering the best returns. So, the money is going out, and I don't think it's coming back anytime soon. People shouldn't expect investors to be as aggressive as they were. Lastly, great companies will always raise capital. The top ones will always find their way, so there's no issue for them. The challenge is for the ones just below them. It will be very difficult for those companies. Some will have to become much more capital-efficient, for sure." Fresh out of the studio, Arnaud Bonzom, founder of Black Mangroves and angel investor, engages in a lively discussion with our host about the entrepreneurial and venture capital landscape in Southeast Asia for 2024. Arnaud shares his insights on the evolution of late-stage funding and the resetting of expectations in the region's venture capital scene. He also offers valuable advice to founders on how to navigate the challenging fundraising climate and what success could look like for the region in the coming years. You can find Arnaud Bonzom at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnaudbonzom/ and X (formerly known as Twitter): https://x.com/ArnaudBonzom? Audio Episode Highlights: [0:44] Quote of the Day by Arnaud Bonzom #QOTD [2:09] Arnaud's Reflections on Southeast Asia Since 2018 [5:28] Southeast Asia's Economic Challenges [6:15] New Outlook for the Region's Startup Ecosystem [10:37] Lessons from India's B2B Market [14:31] How Venture Capital Works in Southeast Asia [16:52] Over-Optimism in Southeast Asia's VC Landscape [24:27] Challenges in Attracting Foreign Investments [27:38] The U.S. as the Biggest Accessible Market [30:29] Market Segmentation in Asia Pacific [35:44] IPO Slowdown and M&A Challenges [37:59] Zombie Companies in Southeast Asia [39:14] The One Thing Arnaud knows about the SEA ecosystem that very few do [41:28] Explaining DPI (Distributions to Paid-In Capital) [47:48] Timing in Venture Capital Investments [51:48] Advice for Founders in 2023-2024 [53:33] Bottlenecks in Southeast Asia's Startup Ecosystem [56:40] What does great look like for the Southeast Asia ecosystem? [58:45] Crypto Companies in Southeast Asia [60:44] Final Thoughts and Future of Southeast Asia's Startup Ecosystem [61:10] Closing Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig Analyse Asia Main Site: https://analyse.asia Analyse Asia Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kkRwzRZa4JCICr2vm0vGl Analyse Asia Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/analyse-asia-with-bernard-leong/id914868245 Analyse Asia YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AnalyseAsia Analyse Asia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/analyse-asia/ Analyse Asia X (formerly known as Twitter): https://twitter.com/analyseasia Analyse Asia Threads: https://www.threads.net/@analyseasia Sign Up for Our This Week in Asia Newsletter: https://www.analyse.asia/#/portal/signup Subscribe Newsletter on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7149559878934540288

This week on Turpentine VC, Erik Torenberg is joined by Arif Janmohamed, partner at Lightspeed Ventures to dive into the world of AI investment. They explore Lightspeed's evolution from a strong focus on enterprise early-stage investing to becoming a global multi-stage firm with a $7 billion capital reach. Arif shares insights on identifying market opportunities, their frameworks for investing in AI, and the future of cybersecurity.  —

Episode 24: How is AI revolutionizing the game development landscape? Matt Wolfe (https://x.com/mreflow) and Nathan Lands (https://x.com/NathanLands) sit down with Moritz Baier-Lentz (https://www.linkedin.com/in/moritzbaierlentz/), a professional gamer turned venture capitalist, to delve into this transformative topic. In this episode, the hosts explore with Moritz how AI is reshaping game development and the broader gaming industry. They discuss the role of AI in generating game content, the investor perspective on AI-driven games, and potential future trends. Moritz shares insights from his journey—from being a top-ranked Diablo II player to leading major investments in the gaming sector at Lightspeed Ventures. Check out The Next Wave YouTube Channel if you want to see Matt and Nathan on screen: https://lnk.to/thenextwavepd — Show Notes: (00:00) AI is revolutionizing game development, yet controversial. (05:16) Started as pro gamer; shifted to investment banking. (09:35) Excited investor sees AI's proven, increasing value. (13:32) Games are the next frontier for creators. (14:53) Fundamentally new innovation, AI boosts development speed. (21:08) GenAI in games and media will dominate. (24:45) Publishers fined billions; company offers compliance solutions. (27:30) Finding high-growth investments for venture returns. (30:35) Predictions difficult; focus on extraordinary early teams. (35:30) Gaming content industry: $185B, surpasses TV, music, film. (40:17) AR glasses promising, but significant technological hurdles remain. (43:23) AI over XR; head-based sensing device emerging. (45:46) Exciting AI and gaming discussion, mutual passions appreciated. — Mentions: Moritz Baier-Lentz: https://lsvp.com/team-member/moritz-baier-lentz/ Lightspeed: https://lsvp.com/ Bitkraft: https://www.bitkraft.vc/ Black Myth: Wukong: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2358720/Black_Myth_Wukong/ — Check Out Matt's Stuff: • Future Tools - https://futuretools.beehiiv.com/ • Blog - https://www.mattwolfe.com/ • YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/@mreflow — Check Out Nathan's Stuff: Newsletter: https://news.lore.com/ Blog - https://lore.com/ The Next Wave is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Darren Clarke // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

Industry's leading newsletter: www.deconstructoroffun.com/subscribe Join host Michail Katkoff on the Deconstructor of Fun podcast as he delves into the remarkable career journey of Kieran Donovan, founder of k-ID. Explore how Kieran transitioned from a screenwriter to a lawyer and then to a successful startup founder, raising $51 million in just 9 months. Discover what k-ID is all about, a pioneering platform aimed at creating safe online gaming experiences for youth, and their significant traction with major investors like Lightspeed Ventures and a16z. Learn about the complexities of gaming regulation, strategic decisions in venture capital, and the importance of robust youth online safety solutions. Don't miss this insightful conversation! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/deconstructoroffun/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/deconstructoroffun/support

Join us as we delve into the fascinating journey of Bala Krishnan, a tech entrepreneur turned real estate investor. Bala shares his insights on creating exponential wealth through his disciplined 10Y investment model. Learn how he transitioned from tech to ground-up build-to-rent real estate investing, achieving financial independence faster than expected. Tune in to understand the power of wealth multiplication over cash flow and why disciplined investing is crucial in today's market!  About Bala Krishnan Bala founded the tech start-up – Peel, based in Silicon Valley, California. He raised $96 Million from Top-Tier Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists – Harrison Metal, Redpoint Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, Samsung Ventures and Alibaba Investments.Peel launched in the Apple App Store and Sold in the Apple Store. Peel software and reference design ships on all major android phones – Samsung, LG, HTC, Lenovo, Motorola, Huawei, Oppo, Sharp and Panasonic.Bala has been investing in Real Estate deals with a focus on ground-up new construction, land development and heavy-lift value-add and repositioning. With extensive experience in land development, entitlement, stabilization and operations, Bala is a full 360 degree developer with real-life first hand experience in all aspects of the deal life cycle. Bala operates in the Real Estate markets of Silicon Valley (CA), Phoenix (AZ) and Dallas / Fort Worth (TX). Bala's current focus is in building ground-up, Build-toRent Communities and Land Development in the Phoenix MSA market.In 2017, Bala started the “Engineering Entrepreneurship” program at the University of Arizona and designed the course curriculum as a hybrid program developed in collaboration between the Eller School of Business and the University of Arizona Engineering School. This program was further developed and is currently being offered as an elective minor to undergraduate engineering students with courses to choose from for every semester of their study.   Here are some power takeaways from today's conversation:01:55 His background 18:55 What sparked 10y?21:55 Has the model worked through the post-COVID economy?26:30 3 phrases to 10y 31:06 Wealth gain vs cashflow37:31 Build to rent42:09 Contact Bala42:46 Podcast recommendation This show is for entertainment purposes only. Nothing said on the show should be considered financial advice. Before making any decisions, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by Passive Investing from Left Field and Left Field Investors. Written permissions must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.       Resources Mentioned:Podcast Recommendation: Dr. Huberman Podcast: https://www.hubermanlab.com/podcastTosh Show:  @toshshow  Joe Rogan: https://www.joerogan.com/Contact the guest:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/balavkrishnan Advertising Partners:Vyzer:https://vyzer.co/Midloch:https://midloch.com/Left Field Investors:https://www.leftfieldinvestors.com/Rust Belt Capitalhttps://rustbeltcapital.com/Tribevest: https://www.tribevest.com/Avoiding Rookie Errors as a Left Field Investor: 20 Lessons Learned From 14 Years of Passive Investing in Private Syndications by Steve Suhhttps://www.leftfieldinvestors.com/books/

India-based audio platform Pocket FM has secured $103 million in Series D funding led by Lightspeed Ventures with participation from Stepstone Group. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Merci Grace, CEO and co-founder of Panobi, and former partner at Lightspeed Ventures and first Head of Growth at Slack, shares lessons about growth as a discipline, pitfalls of fundraising and her “Marauder's Map” to raising capital, best practices for starting and scaling growth teams, and her vision for making metrics and growth tooling far better. Panobi Have feedback for the show? Send us an email or reach out on Twitter. It Shipped That Way is brought to you by Steamclock Software.

Sebastian Duesterhoeft, partner at Lightspeed Ventures, returns to the pod to talk about anything and everything startup operators need to know about Competitive Moats aka the durable competitive advantage of a company. Supercharge financial operations with Maxio. Request a demo at www.maxio.com/runthenumbers for 10% off your first year. --- PSA: Run The Numbers has a new Spotify and Apple show link. Follow the links to subscribe and ensure you'll never miss an episode Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/run-the-numbers/id1723787140 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0zQCkklNnVgMD364kCW5SV --- SPONSORS: Maxio | Tropic | Thoropass Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

Sebastian Duesterhoeft, partner at Lightspeed Ventures, returns to the pod to talk about anything and everything startup operators need to know about Competitive Moats aka the durable competitive advantage of a company. Supercharge financial operations with Maxio. Request a demo at www.maxio.com/runthenumbers for 10% off your first year. --- SPONSORS: Maxio | Tropic | Thoropass Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

Sebastian Duesterhoeft, partner at Lightspeed Ventures, joins CJ to talk about anything and everything start-up operators need to know about your Total Addressable Market (TAM). If you're looking for an ERP platform, check out our sponsor, NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics  --- SPONSORS: NetSuite provides financial software for all your business needs. More than thirty-six thousand companies have already upgraded to NetSuite, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform ✅ NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and defer payments of a FULL NetSuite implementation for six months. Tropic is the next-generation Procurement Platform that's helping modern CFOs take control of their budgets and bottom line. By combining approval workflows, supplier management, and pricing benchmarks all in one place, Tropic makes savings opportunities easy to find and act on.

This week, we are bringing you another special bonus episode. This week, we are sharing a podcast that our host, Paul Barnhurst, recommends. The Run the Numbers podcast is hosted by CJ Gustafson. The podcast is designed to talk about things he wishes he knew during the early days of his career that no amount of Googling would answer. This week's Show Notes: Sebastian Duesterhoeft, partner at Lightspeed Ventures, joins CJ to talk about anything and everything start-up operators need to know about your Total Addressable Market. Request from you, the audience: We are constantly working to improve Financial Modeler's Corner, and this week, I would like to ask for your help completing the survey about the podcast. This will help us make future episodes better for you, the listener. The survey will only take a few minutes to complete, and your response is invaluable to the team at Financial Modeler's Corner. Link to survey: https://forms.office.com/r/K2fHfSUvFp TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Episode Preview (00:55) SEGMENT: CJ's opening “Off the Books” monologue - the Billion Dollar outcome (02:59) Start of interview (04:38) Why is TAM so important to investors? (09:19) Is a $2B TAM not good enough? (12:06) How big is enough TAM? (13:23) Sponsor: NetSuite (14:44) Frameworks to calculate TAM (19:19) Second and third growth engines (25:18) On "maturity of the market" (28:36) On extensibility (32:27) Why your initial insertion point is crucial to your business (36:22) ServiceNow and Datadog: why these companies are shining examples of expanding their TAM (45:03) SEGMENT: Long-ass Lightning Round (48:43) SEGMENT: Rep Yo Stack - Sponsored by Tropic

Today's guest is Hristo Borisov, cofounder and CEO at Payhawk, a financial system that combines credit cards, payments, expenses, and cash into one integrated experience. Hristo has raised over $236 million with Payhawk from Lightspeed Ventures, Greenoaks, QED investors, and many more. Today, Payhawk is valued at US$1 billion, making it the first Bulgarian startup to achieve Unicorn status. Prior to founding Payhawk, Hristo worked at Telerik as software engineer and a product manager. In this episode, we talk about his founding of Payhawk, the challenges he encountered as an entrepreneur, lessons learned from scaling Payhawk into 32 countries, and much more.

Sebastian Duesterhoeft, partner at Lightspeed Ventures, joins CJ to talk about anything and everything start-up operators need to know about your Total Addressable Market (TAM). If you're looking for an ERP platform, check out our sponsor, NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics  --- SPONSORS: NetSuite provides financial software for all your business needs. More than thirty-six thousand companies have already upgraded to NetSuite, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform ✅ NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and defer payments of a FULL NetSuite implementation for six months. Tropic is the next-generation Procurement Platform that's helping modern CFOs take control of their budgets and bottom line. By combining approval workflows, supplier management, and pricing benchmarks all in one place, Tropic makes savings opportunities easy to find and act on.

Episode Overview: What is AudioMob, and how Christian co- founded this industry first-  $110M worth company in 3 short years.  Following your passion vs following a stable career path.  Keys to professional success and why you should invest in yourself before anything, especially if you're broke.  How to communicate your vision in your company so that people understand. From failure to success - how failing A levels changed Christians life forever.  The biggest hack of your life. How to learn faster ?   Accepting the reality and utilizing energy efficiently.  What did each past business teach Christian. Events organizing, FX trading, drop shipping, affiliate marketing, streaming platforms.  Core learnings in marketing Christian learned while working in Google and Meta. What marketing strategy made the biggest impact in AudioMob growth? How to continuously get better in order to become the best?  Tips to negotiate with a billion dollar company.  Christians purpose.  Entrepreneurship as the ultimate level of self development course.  Why your network really is your net worth.  How do you prepare for the best case scenario? Christian's recipe for happiness.  Show notes:  Growth hacker marketing - Ryan Holiday Key person of influence - Daniel Priestley About Guest: Christian (Forbes 30 Under 30) is the CEO and co-founder of AudioMob, the world's first non-interrupting gaming advertising solution that allows game developers to monetize their audience via audio advertising. AudioMob, a VC backed company who recently closed $14m in funding at a $110M valuation, with Investors such as LightSpeed Ventures, Makers Fund, Google, Supernode Global and Atomico's / Sequoia's angel fund. They are tackling an $18bn dollar opportunity. AudioMob's work and achievements have been featured in Billboard, Techcrunch, Forbes and Business Inside. Find Christian on : LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-facey/ Find Dana on: Instagram https://rb.gy/pm0wwp https://www.youtube.com/@IsThisItPodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to Follow and share. Sponsors: https://momo-kombucha.com Use discount code ISTHISIT15 to get a 15% off of your first order of 6 or 12 bottles of Momo kombucha. If you are enjoying this show, please consider joining my exclusive Patreon Community for some bonus content. http://patreon.com/user?u=82757269 Sign Up for My Newsletter https://mailchi.mp/1f9ea0495d70/better-life-one-tap-away  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dana-grinberga/message

This week, Mary Ann spoke with Mercedes Bent, Partner on the early stage team at Lightspeed Ventures and co-lead of Lightspeed's LatAm region and angel fund. The pair chewed through a number of topics, including:How and why Mercedes started investing in Latin America, and why she thinks the region is more resilient than othersWhy we're early in the hype cycle when it comes to the intersection of AI and fintechWhy generative AI and fintech aren't always the best combination and much more.Equity is back on Friday with our weekly news roundup! Talk to you then!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity's Simplecast website.Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders and more!

What's helped you succeed in the larger company you are at (or left), seldom translates in the new smaller company you find yourself in. This conversation covers strategies for finding the next opportunity, tips for making your transition smooth, frameworks for being a successful leader at a smaller org, what skills / attributes you'll need to succeed, and how to integrate teams that consist of original startup members & hires from larger companies Featuring Vinod Marur, SVP of Engineering @ Databricks & moderated by Ali Irturk, Vice President of Engineering @ CommerceHub. This is a featured session from ELC Annual 2022.Interested in topics like this, and beyond? #ELCAnnual2023 is happening 8/30 & 8/31! You can get your ticket to join your peers, check out all our speakers + explore additional topics at sfelc.com/annual2023ABOUT VINOD MARURVinod Marur is the SVP of Engineering at Databricks. He was previously at Rubrik where he served as SVP Engineering and established a mature engineering organization geared for rapid product development and innovation with a deep focus on product quality and organizational development. Prior to that, Vinod spent nearly 15 years in leadership roles across some of Google's most critical business units, including Search, Ads, and Payments as well as tapping into his passion for developer platforms to create and lead the Actions on Google platform, used by third parties to develop for Google Assistant and other Google products."You've got to want to build houses, not paint walls. Painting walls is fine and it's totally good, but if you do not like to build houses, actually don't make that transition because you're literally gonna go like, 'Oh my God, there is no wall here.' And you're gonna have to build it from scratch. Everything you need to be able to do yourself.”- Vinod Marur   ABOUT ALI IRTURKAli's day-to-day passion is creating and being part of efficient and effective engineering organizations that are firing on all cylinders where team members can achieve autonomy, mastery, and purpose in a psychologically safe environment. Ali is currently realizing this passion by working at CommerceHub as their Vice President of Engineering.He previously worked at rocketship start-ups funded by some of the top VCs in the world including a16z, SoftBank, Microsoft Ventures, and Lightspeed Ventures to name a few. He was the Vice President of Engineering at WorkBoard, a strategy and results enterprise SaaS platform helping large organizations align quickly for results, leading product delivery as well as accessibility, application security, release engineering, platform, and infrastructure teams. Previously, Ali was the Vice President of Engineering at ALICE Technologies working on revolutionizing the construction industry with an artificial intelligence-powered enterprise SaaS product.Ali also created and managed the advanced products group at Cognex Corporation (NASDAQ: CGNX) for 8 years while working as an adjunct professor at UC San Diego. His team worked on creating innovative industrial vision systems and software to help companies improve their product quality, eliminate production errors, and lower manufacturing costs. Examples of the products I worked on were the world's first vision system on chip and the world's fastest 3D scanning system to name a few.Where he is today is quite different from where his journey began. Born and raised in Istanbul, Ali graduated from the Turkish Naval Academy and served as an officer in the Turkish Navy. After leaving the Navy, he earned Master's degrees in Computer Engineering and Economics at UC Santa Barbara, a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science at UC San Diego, and an MBA at UC Berkeley.Join us at ELC Annual 2023!ELC Annual is our flagship conference for engineering leaders. You'll learn from experts in engineering and leadership, gain mentorship and support from like-minded professionals, expand your perspectives, build relationships across the tech industry, and leave with practical prove strategies.Join us this August 30-31 at the Fort Mason Center in San FranciscoFor tickets, head to https://sfelc.com/annual2023SHOW NOTES:Introducing Vinod & Ali (3:17)Vinod's experience @ Google & the motivation to move to smaller startups (3:23)Strategies for searching for the next opportunity (7:07)Taking action vs. stagnation mode (9:31)Know your role within a smaller organization (10:27)Recommendations to make transitioning to a small org smoother (13:11)How long the transition period typically lasts (17:35)Frameworks for being an effective leader at a smaller org (18:42)Eng leadership skills & attributes that matter the most (23:25)Use coaches / mentors to help support your transition (25:55)Things Vinod says he would do differently in his earlier transitions (28:13)Audience Q&A: how leading at a small vs. large company is like working out (30:55)Switching your mindset from top-down to bottom-up (32:37)Navigating the balance between celebrating new features & operational wins at startups (34:44)Tips for integrating your startup between original team & newer hires from large orgs (39:19)Coaching individuals & organizations to accept change on both sides (42:35)Know what problems to focus on & calibrate w/ the right folks (45:12)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

"Auf dem Sterbebett soll das Letzte, was ich sage, sein: War geil." Wer so einen Satz ins OMR Podcast-Mikrofon spricht, schürt gewisse Erwartungen. Im Fall von Moritz Baier-Lentz muss man sagen: zurecht. Beinahe-Profi-Gamer, Stanford MBA, Forbes 30 under 30, Investmentbanker bei Goldman Sachs und nun – mit nicht mal 40 Jahren – Partner bei einer der führenden VC-Firmen mit Hauptwohnsitz Malibu. Und über seine extremen Hobby-Projekte haben Philipp Westermeyer und Baier-Lentz da noch gar nicht gesprochen.

Bhavik Vashi is the Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Carta, a software company that aims to create more ownership in the world by creating a central registry of private assets, providing infrastructure for innovators, and enabling more liquidity.Carta is privately-held, with top-tier investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Ventures, among others, and was last valued at more than 7B USD as of its Series G fundraising round in 2021, which was supported by their own private capital markets platform called CartaX.Prior to Carta, Bhavik spent nearly a decade at Anaplan, across a variety of different roles and regions, where he helped build and scale the company from Series C through an IPO in 2018 and an eventual sale to Private Equity for 10.4B USD in 2022.Topics:00:02:22 - Childhood, growing up in the US, and passion for basketball. 00:06:35 - Early career and interest in tech. 00:15:53 - Career Focus00:17:37 - Consulting vs. Audit00:24:22 - Transition to Anaplan00:27:54 - Career Milestones00:29:57 - Early Days at Anaplan00:39:05 - Big Mistakes 00:42:32 - Prioritizing Character and Motivators, 00:43:54 - The Future of Work00:45:08 - Traveling for Business in China00:50:43 - Working in APAC and Problem Solving00:55:11 - Leading at Carta00:56:50 - Bhavik's Leadership Style00:59:18 - Carta's Expansion Plans, 01:01:03 - Bhavik's Daily Routine01:04:59 - Shifting Priorities01:10:37 - Personal Goals: Career in government, or non-profit organizations to make an impact.Like the show? Subscribe to the BackScoop newsletter to stay updated with the latest news in Southeast Asian startups in minutes: https://www.backscoop.com/.Visit BackScoop's social media pages and show your support!BackScoop (Linkedin): https://www.linkedin.com/company/backscoop/BackScoop (Twitter): https://twitter.com/BackScoopHQBackScoop (Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/BackScoopBackScoop (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/backscoopVisit Amanda Cua's social media pages:Amanda (Linkedin): https://ph.linkedin.com/in/amanda-cuaAmanda (Twitter): https://twitter.com/HeyAmandaCuaVisit Bhavik Vashi's social media pages:Bashik (Linkedin): https://sg.linkedin.com/in/bhavikvashiCarta (Website): https://carta.com/sg/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Southeast Asia may be clubbed as one region in global reports but anyone who has stepped foot here knows that there is no “SEA”. Each market is unique in its cultural and socioeconomic nuances, offering plenty of opportunities for brands who understand how to communicate their value proposition to a varied set of audiences. Very few brands are as familiar with these nuances as Aspire, one of the fastest growing fintechs in Southeast Asia. Aspire was founded in 2018 and since then has raised a total of almost $300 million dollars from well known VCs such as Sequoia Capital, Massmutual Ventures, B Capital Group, and Lightspeed Ventures, to fuel their ambition of becoming an “end-to-end financial operating system” for Southeast Asian businesses. In this episode, we talk to Thomas Jeng who is currently the General Manager of Aspire and formerly the head of Sales at Aspire. Prior to Aspire, Thomas has led commercial and strategy teams at 500 Startups, Gnowbe, and Appworks. He has also mentored hundreds of startups across SEA and has worn the hat of a consultant with BCG and Gartner at the beginning of his career. Thomas's career has spanned from Washington DC to Taipei to Silicon Valley and now to Singapore. Together with Thomas, we explore the similarities and differences between various markets in Southeast Asia, the importance of audience segmentation and how to get it right, how to set up your teams, systems and processes for selling into SEA, and ultimately how to run a sales team in a high growth organization. Mentions: Stuart Butterfield's essay on category creation https://medium.com/@stewart/we-dont-sell-saddles-here-4c59524d650d Connect with Thomas Jeng at https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasjeng/ . Connect with the hosts: Romka Walkowiak: https://www.linkedin.com/in/romka-walkowiak and Adarsh Noronha: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adarshnoronha/ Thank you for tuning into Asia Growth Forecast! Don't forget to hit subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcast (so you never miss an episode)! If you love this show, please leave us a 5-Star Review and share your favorite episodes with friends.

On this episode, I have startup expert Drew Moffitt! Drew leads marketing at Kumospace. As one of the company's earliest employees, he helped take it from a pre-funded product with ~100 users to being used by several million around the world. Kumospace a Lightspeed Ventures portfolio company with more than $24 million in funding.  Drew Moffitt is a seasoned operator who has held the role of founder, corporate spin-off CEO, and head of marketing across a number of both B2B and B2C industries. His background in startups is rich having founded two companies (1 exit) and built four corporate back ventures including one for Ford Motor Company. His startup work has been featured in over 50 publications including Business Insider, Elite Daily, CNET, ABC's Good Morning America, Refinery 29, and New Yorker.   

What if you could combine the best parts of working from home and being in the office? This week on the If You Market podcast we talk with Drew Moffitt about how to stay connected with remote marketing team and the Kumospace application. We also talk about meeting investors on yachts and whether this name is real or not.  Drew Moffitt currently leads marketing Kumospace, a Lightspeed Ventures portfolio company with more than $24 million in funding. He is a seasoned operator who has held the role of founder, corporate spin-off CEO, and head of marketing across a number of both B2B and B2C industries.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This interview features Taehoon (TK) Kim, Co-Founder and CEO of nWay. We discuss going to arcades with his mom in South Korea, why he wasn't allowed to play console games as a kid in Canada, what he learned from Samsung's work culture, why it's hard for VCs to invest in gaming, finding passion at the intersection of technology and art, the best type of IP for game partnerships, how he ended up selling nWay to Animoca Brands, and how player ownership in games creates attachment and meaning, and prevents gamer exploitation.Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteFollow us on LinkedIn: RockWater LinkedInEmail us: tcupod@wearerockwater.comInterview TranscriptThe interview was lightly edited for clarity.Chris Erwin:Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.Taehoon Kim:So I was really upset when Lightspeed thing fell through. I went out drinking with my friends and I got hammered that night. I had another VC pitch the next morning. I was so hungover that during the presentation I threw up three times. During the pitch, I would say, "Excuse me, I'd run to the bathroom." I would throw up, come back, continue the pitch. And I did that three times., And I did the presentation 9:00 AM I came home and I was, "Oh, my God, I totally screwed that up." I fell asleep. I woke up at 4:00 PM, got a call at 5:00 PM saying that he was in. Usually it doesn't happen that way, but it was a really weird period of time in my life.Chris Erwin:This week's episode features TK Kim, CEO of nWay and a serial gaming entrepreneur. So TK was born in Seoul, South Korea to a mom who was a gamer and a lover of arcades. After studying at Cornell, TK started his career at Samsung, where he helped launch their smartphone and next gen mobile gaming businesses. TK then went on to co-found three gaming companies, and raised over $90 million in venture capital. Today he's the CEO of nWay, which is a developer, publisher, and tech platform for competitive multiplayer games across mobile, PC, and consoles. nWay was sold to Animoca in 2020.Some highlights of our chat include why he wasn't allowed to play console games as a kid in Canada, why it's hard for VCs to invest in gaming, finding passion at the intersection of technology and art, why he doesn't mind getting rejected by investors, the best type of IP for game partnerships, and how player ownership in games creates attachment and meaning and prevents gamer exploitation. All right, let's get to it.TK, thanks for being on The Come Up podcast.Taehoon Kim:Hey, thanks for having me. Super excited to be here.Chris Erwin:We have a pretty amazing story to tell about your career, but as always, we're going to rewind a bit and kind of go to the origin story. So it'd be awesome to hear about where you grew up and what your parents and what your household was like.Taehoon Kim:I was born in Seoul, Korea, and then I moved to Vancouver, Canada when I was in fourth grade. I think I was 10 or 11. At the time, growing up in Seoul, a little bit more strict environment. One funny thing is that my mom was a gamer and she would take me to the arcade, I think when I was super young, five or six years old. That's when I got really into gaming and how fun could that could be. But when I moved to Canada, however, she didn't really let me have any consoles, when that switch from the arcade era to the console era happened.I think she was a little bit influenced from the Asian culture and didn't want me to be getting too loose on academics. But when I got the computer, that's when I started really getting back to gaming. She didn't know I was playing games, but I was really into that. And then when Doom came out, that's when I really also started getting into online gaming, which is a big part of the reason why I'm so into PVP and competitive gaming.Chris Erwin:So your mom was a gamer and she would take you to the arcades in Seoul. What were the types of games that you guys liked to play together? And was this just something special that you and your mom did? Or was it a whole family outing that you did with your mom and dad and your siblings?Taehoon Kim:My dad didn't really like games, so it was just me and my mom. And she was really into Galaga and getting on the top of the leaderboard there. Oftentimes, I would watch her play and I would also try, but I wasn't as good as her. So I mean, I would mostly try to beat a record, but I couldn't. That's how I got into it early on.Chris Erwin:Did you also go to the arcade with a lot of your peers growing up when you were in Korea? And did any of your peers parents play? Or was it kind of like, I have the cool mom, she's into gaming, and we'd go do that on the weekends?Taehoon Kim:Oh, later on when I got older and I got in elementary school, yes, I definitely did go to the arcade with my friends. And then later on, in Seoul, arcades turned into PC bang. I'm not sure if you heard of it, but it's like the room full of PCs and it would play PC games there. I mean, I got in earlier than my friends, because of my mom.Chris Erwin:Remind me, what was the reason that you guys came to Vancouver from Korea?Taehoon Kim:I'm not a 100% sure if this is the real reason, but my parents would always tell me it's because I wasn't really fitting well with the type of education in Korea, where it was more, much more strict and less creative. They wanted us, me and my brother, to get a Western education. I think it turned out to be good for me, I guess.Chris Erwin:Do you remember when you were kind of joined the academic and the school system in Vancouver, I know it was at a young age, you were about 10 years old, you said, did you feel that that was like, "Hey, this is immediately different and I really like it and enjoy it"? Or was it nerve-wracking for you to make such a big change in your life to be uprooted at such a young age? What were you feeling at that time?Taehoon Kim:It was immediately different, lot less grinding. Even at third or fourth grade, back in Seoul, it was pretty tough. After school was over at 5:00 PM, I still had to go to all these after school programs until 9:00 PM or something like that. And I didn't do the homework afterwards and everybody was doing it. So there was a lot of peer pressure for parents to also put their kids to the same kind of rigorous program. And when I was in Vancouver, I didn't have to do any of that. So it felt more free and math was a lot easier.Chris Erwin:Math was a lot easier in Vancouver.Taehoon Kim:You know how crazy it is for Asian countries with math early on.Chris Erwin:So you're probably the top of your class. You were such a standout, and I bet at a young age that was pretty fun because it was easy to you too.Taehoon Kim:People thought I was super smart. I wasn't, it was just that I started earlier doing more hard stuff in math. It wasn't necessarily that was smarter. But again, on the other subject, because my English was suffering, I had to get a lot of help. So I would help them in math and they would help me with the other subjects.Chris Erwin:And you mentioned that in Western education there's also probably more emphasis on using the creative part of your brain as well, and balancing that out with the math or the quantitative side. What did that look like to you as you were going through middle school and high school before you went to college? Any specific applications or stories stand out?Taehoon Kim:Yeah, one thing that stood out to me was how a lot of the homeworks and assignments were project based and group based. Where teamwork mattered, and I would have to work with two or three other students to do a project, where we had a lot of freedom to create what we wanted. And the fact that there's no right answers. And it was really weird for me at the beginning, but I got used to it later on. But I think that's kind of a key difference. And at least at that time.Chris Erwin:During your teenage years and coming of age, before you go to Cornell, what was the gaming culture in Vancouver? And what was your role in it?Taehoon Kim:Early '90s when the console wars were happening with Nintendo and Sega, and there was a lot of cool things happening there, but I didn't get to really partake in that. My parents didn't allow me to have consoles. But same things were happening in the PC gaming, especially without modems and the early stage of internet happened. Me and my friends, we got started with Wolfenstein, which was mind blowing.Chris Erwin:Oh, I remember Wolfenstein, it was one of the earliest first person shooters on a PC.Taehoon Kim:It was mind blowing. It was the first game to really utilize 3D spaces in the way it did. But then the real game changer was Doom because you can... Even with the slow modem, I think it was an amazing feat, think about it now, with limited technology and networking, I could dial into, using my modem, and then connect with my friends, and I could play PVP. And that was when the gaming was the most fun for me, actually, playing with friends live. And I would play it late until night early in the morning, over and over again, the same map.Chris Erwin:I remember playing Wolfenstein at my friend's place, shout out, Adam Sachs. And then I also remember playing Doom, and I remember having the cheat codes where I can go into God mode.Taehoon Kim:Oh, right.Chris Erwin:And I was invincible and I could play with five different types of guns, including the rocket launcher. I can specifically remember from my youth some of the different levels. And sitting at my PC station kind of right next to my family's common room. Those are very fun memories. I don't think I was ever doing... I was never live playing with friends. Were you able to do that within the Doom platform? Or were you using a third party application on top of that?Taehoon Kim:I think it was within the Doom platform. It's pretty amazing. Doom was a fast game, so the fact that it worked, it was amazing. When Quake came out, afterwards, that's when I think e-sports was really ended up becoming more serious and people were going to playing at a more higher tier. But that's when I got out of FPS and dove into fighting games.Chris Erwin:Got it. You moved to Vancouver, you're a standout in school, on the math side just because of all your training in Korea. And you're learning about work in these more kind of project based environments or team based work, where there's also a lot of freedom for collaboration. You end up going to Cornell. When you were applying to school, what was your intention? Did you have a very clear focus of, "This is what I want my career to look like, so this is what I'm going to study in undergrad"? Or was it a bit more free flowing?Taehoon Kim:I really wanted to go into a top engineering school. I knew that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to study electrical engineering or computer science, and I was looking at Cornell, MIT, Stanford, they had really good engineering programs. And I knew that the playing online games and doing a lot of mods and all that stuff in the computer, and looking at kind of the early stage of internet, I knew that was going to be a big thing later on. My goal was to kind of get into that sector by studying engineering or information technology.Chris Erwin:Was there any certain moments when you were at Cornell that to help to point you in kind of this gaming leadership, gaming entrepreneurship career path that you've now been on for the last couple decades?Taehoon Kim:Well, a couple things happened. I was good at math. I was good at engineering, and internet was happening. And then one thing I didn't talk about was that I was also really good at art. At one point, I even thought about going to art school. I think it was because of my mom's side of the family, a lot of artists. And I think it was the DNA from my mom's side. What I love about gaming was the fact that you can kind of combine technology and my love for technology and also my love for art.And when I graduated, Cornell, started work at Samsung and there was an opportunity to go into a new gaming. That's when it clicked for me. I was like, "Wow, I really want to get into this industry. It's as both of what I love." But at Cornell, because we had super fast ethernet, a lot of people were playing StarCraft at that time. And that's how I saw the world in terms of, "Wow, these type of massively play online games. I mean, RPGs or games where you can play competitively is going to be a big thing."Chris Erwin:I don't want to date you TK, if that's uncomfortable, but around what time period was this? What year was this around?Taehoon Kim:College was from 1997 to 2002.Chris Erwin:I have to ask, too, when you say that you almost went to art school, and that you had a passion for arts, since it's very early on, what type of art applications? Was it painting? Was it drawing? Was it sculpture? Was it something completely different? What did that look like?Taehoon Kim:Sculpture, I was good, but I didn't excel at it. I was mainly good at sketching, painting, and doing just a lot of creative art, concept art, which is a big part of game development, actually.Chris Erwin:Your first role, what you did for work right after Cornell was you went to Samsung, and there you were a product manager where you helped start Samsung's smartphone business, and you're also a product manager for next-gen mobile gaming. And as you said, this was exciting to you, because you saw gaming as the intersection of technology and art. Tell us how that first role came to be and kind of what you focused on there.Taehoon Kim:I was part of a team called new business development team. Group of 13 people, and our job was to create next-gen businesses. Three businesses that we isolated as something that we should work on was telematics, which is using the map data to help people and navigations and bring new technologies to the car. Second one was smartphone business, taking some of the operating systems from PDAs at the time and then moving that over to the phone. And then third one was gaming, because Nokia was going big with gaming at that time. And Samsung was second to Nokia in market share and someone wanted to do whatever Nokia was doing at that time.So those were three main things. And I got into the gaming side after one of the first business trips was to San Jose, which at that time was hosting GDC, Game Developer Conference. And it was my first time going to GDC. And, yeah, I was just fascinated with the group. It was engineers, artists, players, developers, publishers. And that community really fascinated me, and that's when I decided, "Hey, I really want to be part of this group. I want to get into gaming." So I came back and said, "Hey, I want to take on this project." And a lot of my peers were avoiding the gaming sector, because they knew that was difficult. And Samsung previously tried to do a console and it failed. So they knew it was difficult, but I wanted to get into it. I was super excited to get into it.Chris Erwin:Was it hard to convince your leadership, just based on the past challenges that Samsung had, to do it? Or did they just say, "Hey, TK, sure if you have an idea, see what you can do and then come back to us"?Taehoon Kim:Well, the leadership really wanted to do it mainly because Nokia at the time, that's when they launched their first gaming phone called N-Gage. I'm not sure if a lot of people remember, but it was a really weird device. They launched that business, and it was getting a lot of press. And our CEO was like, "We also have to a quick follow, and we have to get into gaming phones as well." So it was but different from what they did in the past, because it wasn't just a pure console, it's a smartphone plus a gaming device.So it was a completely different type of environment at that time compared to when they were doing console. But nonetheless, because gaming is a [inaudible 00:14:06] driven and also because it's a tough business, my peers were, "Hey, I want to be in another sector." So it was less competitive for me to take on that project.Chris Erwin:So that must have been pretty exciting. Your first role out of school, you work for a very large technology company that essentially gives you as a young in your career a mandate. It's like, "Hey, TK, you know what? You want to go forward and figure out a new gaming business line for Samsung? You got the green light to go and do it." That must have felt pretty good. And I think you were there for a few years. What did you accomplish? And then what was the reason for why you decided to move on from that opportunity?Taehoon Kim:It was a very unique opportunity for me. I think I got lucky being at the right place at the right time, because that's when Samsung was really taking off as a global brand name. That's when they first overtook Sony in brand value. And that's when the consumers were looking at the brand more than as a microwave company, and a major player in the IT space. And that's when they were also hiring a lot of people from overseas.And I did both undergrad and master's program at Cornell. And when I was in my masters, I got to know the founders of Palm, which was also a Cornell EE grad, through my professor. I got really stuck into Palm OS. I was semi expert with the Palm OS. I think that's why they hired me, because Samsung was the first major mobile manufacturer to adopt the Palm OS into their phone. And then the second thing is, because at that time Samsung's culture was still, it wasn't easy for Western certain people to... A lot of people from the US schools starting there, they weren't lasting that long. So it was hard for me as well, but I kind of decided, "Hey, I'm going to really make sure that I can stick around and tough it out."Chris Erwin:I think this is another important point for the listeners is that you are also building another company that you had founded while you were at Samsung called IvyConnection. Is that right?Taehoon Kim:Right.Chris Erwin:I like this because I think this is the beginning of a ongoing theme in your career that you are a builder and you're a founder. You're working at a full-time role, you're also building something on the side. And then this leads to, I think, some other big entrepreneurial ambitions kind of later on that we'll get to. But tell us quickly about IvyConnection.Taehoon Kim:IvyConnection kind of came out of the school project that was doing at Cornell, my master's program. At first, it was supposed to be a platform to connect tutors and students. And then I quickly realized, when I got to Seoul that there were a lot of parents who were looking to send their kids overseas to top schools, and they didn't know that things were different over there in terms how admissions worked. So I kind of created the category, which is a huge category is now it was the first company to do it. And so we did get a lot of demand. I started that right before I started working at Samsung, and it was just continuously growing. I recruited a whole bunch of my friends, and I had them kind of run the company. I was a co-founder, and while working at Samsung, I was advising and helping the growth.Chris Erwin:It's amazing, because you describe at Samsung it was a very brutal work culture at the headquarters. So you're probably working very long hours, very demanding, and then you're also building something on the side. It's like when did you have time to sleep?Taehoon Kim:I was young though, so I didn't need... I was happy to just work, until I was young and single. I was at my early 20s, so it was not problem for me. But, yeah, it was pretty brutal. We had to get to work right at 8:00 AM and the system kind of keeps record of exactly when you get into the company. And then you also had to come out on Saturdays for half a day.Chris Erwin:I did not realize that, that's the expectation across... Is that across all companies in Korea, as part of the work culture and the work norms? Or is that just unique to Samsung?Taehoon Kim:I think what's pretty unique to Samsung. I think at that time chairman wanted us to start early. You basically only have one day weekend.Chris Erwin:And for you, where you're also building another company on the side, it's almost like you never had time that you weren't working or very little bit, most likely. So you're at Samsung for about three years, but then you transition to Realtime Worlds. Explain why did you transition from your Samsung role? And what were you building at Realtime Worlds?Taehoon Kim:As I said, I was a project manager for a new gaming platform, and part of my job was also to source content for the device. And I remember playing Lemmings and I met the creator of Lemons, Dave Jones who just sold DMA Design and created Realtime Worlds. And I try to convince him to create games for my platform, but him and his co-founder, they ended up recruiting me. They're like, "Hey, join us. We just started Realtime Worlds, and we'd love to get your help, because we want to get into online gaming. And you have a lot more exposure to online gaming from Seoul, from Korea. So we wanted to be part of this exciting venture." So I decided to leave Samsung and joined them.Chris Erwin:How was that experience? Was it a similar work culture? Did you feel your past experience was very helpful and so you got in there and you're like you knew exactly what to do? Or was it still a very steep learning curve at that point in your career?Taehoon Kim:It was a steep learning curve for me, in terms of game development, because I have never done game development. Because Realtime Worlds is a game developer and publisher. That's right around when they just signed a contact with Microsoft for a game called Crackdown. It was like a souped up version of GTA. Dave Jones was also the creator and designer of GTA, the original GTA 1 and 2. So it was creating a similar game. And they had ambition to also create an online version of GTA, which is where I got involved.I got one of the large publishers in Korea called Webzen to do a publishing deal to fund portion of development for the GTA online project, and be a publisher for that. So they wanted me to create the Asia branch for Realtime Worlds, they called it Realtime World Korea. I started the studio here in Seoul, recruited some engineers and designers and also did biz dev work to get that publishing deal with Webzen.Chris Erwin:And I think also one of the highlights from your time there is that, did you also help to raise money from NEA, in your role at the company as you guys were growing?Taehoon Kim:Oh, yes. My professor from Cornell, he was friends with the founder of NEA, and he knew a lot of VCs. And Realtime Worlds was based in Scotland, and they knew very little about Silicon Valley. So I told him, "Hey, we're doing something amazing here and online gaming is a new sector, so I think we should be able to raise some money." So I created the deck, which I learned from school on how to do, so created a deck, created a business plan, and then flew over to Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park and pitched to a few VCs including NEA. I was surprised. I was like, it was fairly easy at that time to raise money. NEA decided to, all by themselves, bring $30 million into the company and we didn't even have product launched at that time.Chris Erwin:This is pre-product. Did you go to Sand Hill Road by yourself? Or did you have a support team? Or was the company leadership saying, "Hey, TK, you know what you're doing here, you have the connections, go make this happen by yourself"?Taehoon Kim:It was just me at the beginning. It was just me by myself, just trying it out, because the first meeting is exploratory anyways. So at the beginning it was me. They love what they saw, and then afterwards it was like everybody, all the partners from the NEA side and also everyone from our side. At the beginning, it was just me.Chris Erwin:Wow. Did you enjoy the fundraising process? I mean, it seems like you're wearing so many hats, you're doing business development, you're fundraising, you're also building out different offices as part of the core game development practice. Was there something that you felt like you were gravitating towards more specifically? Or did you like doing it all and having a broad top down view of the company?Taehoon Kim:Yeah, I think the reason I ended up taking the fundraising process is because I actually enjoyed the process. A lot of people hate it, because part of the fundraising process is just being comfortable with getting rejected. But I didn't mind that at all. I'm like, "Fine [inaudible 00:21:57]." And big part of the process is also not only selling, but knowing what they're looking for. So I got really good at researching all the VCs, and instead of having one deck and just one approach for all the VCs, I would custom create the deck for each of the VCs, and only target the top tier ones. I quickly realized that it's actually easier to raise money from the top tier VCs than the second or third tier VCs, surprisingly. And that approach really worked, and I love the process.Chris Erwin:Why is it easier to raise money from top VCs versus tier two, tier three?Taehoon Kim:It's actually simple. The top tier VCs are able to make decisions on their own, even though it seems odd or different or something that doesn't seem intuitive. They are able to say, "Hey, we're going to take a bet on this," and they can make a quick decision. The second and third tier VCs are always looking to see what others are doing. They're always looking for validation. They're always looking to see what the first tier guys are doing.So a lot more due diligence, it takes a lot more work, and they kind of beat around the bush a lot more. They take a lot longer to make their decisions. And a lot of times they bring in other VCs to co-lead or see what they think. So it's actually a lot more work to get them to lead. So if you have a great product and you have a good vision, then just go to the top tier guys. Go straight to top to your guys. They'll be able to make a much quicker and faster decision.Chris Erwin:That's a great insight. TK, though, I do have to say yet again, while you're at Realtime Worlds, I think the same year that you start working there, is 2005, you also are the co-founder of another company called Nurien Software. So yet again, you're working at a company, it's a very big role, you're working across a variety of different company functions, but you're also building something on the side. Is that right?Taehoon Kim:Right. Yeah.Chris Erwin:What was Nurien Software?Taehoon Kim:So Nurien Software was actually a spinoff off of the Realtime Worlds' Korea office. Dave Jones, he introduced me to the guys at Epic Games, and that's when they were launching on Unreal Engine 3. And he also introduced me to another studio who was doing a music game, and that kind of clicked for me. I was like, "Hey, what if we take Unreal Engine 3, which is very high graphics fidelity, which is usually used for like MMORPGs and then create a music game out of it, because the music is to be very visual." And they wanted this to be kind of separate. So I decided to be make it, instead of doing it Realtime Worlds Korea made it into a separate one.And that also started to get momentum. And it turns out music plus gaming was a huge thing, especially in Asia. Just as we were starting the development for, we call it MStar, a music based MMO, another game called Audition just took off massively in China. It was doing a billion a year. It was a tough time for me because Realtime Worlds and Nurien Software, at the same time, was kind of taking off.Chris Erwin:And again, for Nurien Software, you also led a $25 million fundraise from NEA and top VCs.Taehoon Kim:I pitched them on Friday, and they told me they were in on Monday. So it was crazy times. That's when online gaming was really taking off. So it was actually, it's not just me, but it was much easier to raise money at that time.Chris Erwin:Probably, again, working a lot, building, not a lot of sleep. You're running both these companies. And then Nurien Software sells in 2010 to Netmarble CJ E&M. And what was the end result for Realtime Worlds? What happened to that company?Taehoon Kim:I was only running both companies for a short period of time. So right after Nurien Software got funded, the board wanted me to focus on the new VCs, and Nurien Software wanted me to focus on Nurien Software. So I helped Realtime Worlds find a replacement for me, and I left Realtime Worlds, and I was full-time at Nurien.Chris Erwin:Hey, listeners, this is Chris Erwin, your host of The Come Up. I have a quick ask for you, if you dig what we're putting down, if you like the show, if you like our guests, it would really mean a lot, if you can give us a rating wherever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work, and it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it everybody. Let's get back to the interview.Taking a step back, so, TK, you're part of these very exciting companies. The leadership and the founders clearly, really believe in you, and think you are someone special. So they're giving you the green light to essentially co-found spinoffs, and then go raise additional venture funding for that. Did you feel at this point in your early career that you're like, "I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. This is an exciting path, These are growing industries. I'm good at it. I have the right international connections. And now it's time where I want to double down on this, and I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I see white space in these gaming markets, and I want to build towards that. And I'm going to go raise capital to make that happen." What was going through your head? Because it feels like the story that you're telling is so exciting for someone to be at your career stage. What were you feeling?Taehoon Kim:That's when I realized that this act of dreaming something up, raising money for it, and actually launching it and seeing it become real and seeing a product go live, and enjoyed by millions of people, is just really fulfilling. And it's something that I knew that I wanted to continue doing. It's something that I really enjoy.So even to this day, that's the main reason that I'm doing this. Well, it's more than financially driven motives. I just love creating new things and bringing it out to people and surprising people and seeing them delighted. It makes all the hard work worthwhile, and it's a very kind of thrilling experience for me. And that's when I realized, "Hey, I want to do this long term. This is what I'm good at. Coming out with new ideas and getting it funded and launching it." Not all of them are successful, but that's fine. The act of doing it is a reward.Chris Erwin:Very well said. So I think, was it that mindset, I think, a company that you did found and you worked at for one to two years before nWay was Pixelberry. What was the quick take on Pixelberry? What was that?Taehoon Kim:So Pixelberry was also a spinoff from Nurien Software. Nurien Software was an MMO company, so, as I said, it was using Unreal Engine 3. It was still very heavy. You had to download a big client, and run it on pc. And back in 2009, 2010, that's when social gaming and hyper-accessible gaming was taken off. So Pixelberry, at the beginning, was an experiment to try to bring over a lot of the core technologies built at Nurien Software and make them more accessible, and make it so that people can just instantly play on a browser.And the first game that we tried to do was a fashion game, because we realized from launching MStar, which was a music MMO, the best way to monetize those games were through, we're making a lot of money by selling clothing for the avatars, selling fashion, in other words. So we wanted to create a game, a social game, focused on creating fashion and selling fashion.Chris Erwin:I didn't realize that Pixelberry was also a spinoff of Nurien Software. So it seems that you had a really good thing going with the founding team of Lemmings that created Realtime Worlds. There was a lot of market opportunity. The founders really believed in you, and you had all these different ways, as you said, to kind of create and innovate as the gaming markets were evolving, and bring these incredible gaming experiences to users. And I think you were part of that team for almost six years, from 2005 to 2011. What was the catalyst that caused you to break off from that, start the venture that you still run today, which is nWay?Taehoon Kim:I was doing Pixelberry and it wasn't doing that well, mainly because, me as a gamer, didn't really enjoy fashion games that much. Maybe that was the reason. Or maybe because the industry was kind of changing rapidly, but it wasn't doing that well. Zynga and a handful of others were kind of dominating the social gaming space. And the co-founders of Realtime Worlds, Dave Jones and Tony Harman, at that time, just sold realtime worlds to GamersFirst. And they're like, "Hey, TK, let's start a new company together." And that's when I kind of jumped at the opportunity, because I really wanted to work with those guys again. And that's when nWay was founded.Chris Erwin:Oh, got it. So Dave and Tony are part of the founding team of nWay?Taehoon Kim:Yes, the three of us that were the founders [inaudible 00:30:16].Chris Erwin:So I think what would be helpful for the listeners is to explain what was the initial vision for nWay, when you, Dave, and Tony were coming together to found the company. What was your vision for what you wanted to build?Taehoon Kim:By that time, I did a lot of different type of games, did [inaudible 00:30:31] mobile gaming at Samsung, I did MMOs, PC MMOs Unreal Engine 3, and then also browser based games at Pixelberry. And the vision at nWay was like, "Hey, a lot of people are becoming gamers now through new technologies, new devices, mobile was really taking off. People were playing games on mobile browsers, smart TVs, and there was new technologies to bring them all together." So the vision was, "Hey, let's go back to the type of games that we love. Let's go back to the days when we were playing Doom online, and playing fighting games with other live players. Let's bring competitive gaming, let's bring real time multiplier gaming to the emerging platforms." So that was the vision.Let's create new technologies to bring console quality, competitive multiplier games that could run on mobile browsers, smart TVs, where people can kind of play together regardless of what device they were on." That turned out to be a big thing, these days with Fortnite and Minecraft, everybody's playing crossplay games. Your friend is on tablet, somebody else is on a Nintendo Switch, and you can play together.Chris Erwin:Okay, so when you start out, that's the vision. So where do you start? What was the first steps? Is it pre-product, we're going to go raise money, and put together a team? Or in the beginning of it self-finance and you were working on a certain game or a certain platform? What were your first early moves?Taehoon Kim:I took a lot of the learnings from the previous products. So by then I knew how to make games that would run on multiple devices. I knew it wasn't easy, but we wanted to do a quick prototype of an action RPG game, where it can have four player co-op and two player PVP mode that would run on a mobile phone and a browser. We were able to create a quick prototype in about six weeks, and the prototype, it did all the selling for us.Because I could just show it to the investors, "Hey, look, I'm over here. There's another guy on a mobile device, there's another guy on another device." And they could see that we're all synchronized, and they could see that it was a very fast action game. A lot of them were blown away at how there was low latency and running so fast just over the internet. And so we were able to raise money from the top tier VCs. But at the same time, 2011, 2012 was a period of time when there were a lot of acquisitions happening, and we were also getting a lot of acquisition offers at the same time, that complicated the process.Chris Erwin:So six weeks into building a prototype, you're fundraising on Sand Hill Road, but you're also getting inbounds from companies that want to buy your business that early.Taehoon Kim:Yeah. They saw the prototype and immediately give us ridiculous offers to buy the company. It was basically VCs and companies trying to buy us competing, which helped the valuation to go up.Chris Erwin:All right. So a couple questions on that. It's really interesting. One, were you at a point, because you've successfully raised money from Silicon Valley investors, you've had exits for them, where you and the investment funds made money. Were you able at that point, where you felt like you could walk into a room, do a product demo, you didn't need to show up with a deck and they would say, "Yeah, this sounds great, TK, we're going to give you money"? Were you at that point or were you still running a formal process? You show up with the business plan and everything?Taehoon Kim:We didn't need the business plan anymore, but we still need a deck. By then, I just became really an expert on how to create a simple deck that walked through the business, and I knew what type of prototype need to be created to fundraise. It was a simple 15 to 20 slides deck plus a quick demo. And simpler story the better, is this basically a storytelling deck walkthrough, why you're able to do what you're doing now. Why it hasn't been done until now. And then you talk about the market and how big the market would get, show a quick prototype, and talk about the technologies involved. And that was pretty much it.Chris Erwin:You're getting these incredible inbounds from companies who want to buy you, plus, you're also raising from venture capitalists. How did you and the two other founders come together to decide, do we sell or do we not sell?Taehoon Kim:The VCs helped us with that as well, maybe because they were trying to convince us to maybe take their deal. But they would let us know what each of the companies are like, and they would connect us to founders who have sold to that company previously. And I was able to pick their brains or interview them. We decided, "Hey, we really want to try this on our own." So we decided to take the VC route. And I think at that time that was, the VC was Lightspeed Ventures, who gave us a good term sheet and we decided to sign that term sheet.And the reason in the beginning I told you why things became complicated is because after we signed the term sheet with Lightspeed, one of their portfolio companies, KIXEYE, they also decided that they wanted to buy us. And they give us an offer we rejected, and then they got really mad at Lightspeed Ventures asking them why they're funding a company that could be a competitor to them. And KIXEYE basically threatened to sue them if they invested in us. So at the last minute it kind of fell apart.Chris Erwin:Oh, so Lightspeed did not end up investing in you at that point.Taehoon Kim:So imagine this Zynga gave us an offer, a pretty good offer to buy us. We rejected Zynga's offer and signed with Lightspeed, but Lightspeed couldn't follow through because of KIXEYE. I'm thankful to them because at that time they actually gave me a check for a million dollars, it was like a loan, with no interest rate.Chris Erwin:Lightspeed gave it to you?Taehoon Kim:Yeah, I was really surprised by this. They were like, "Hey, we need to talk." I met them at a coffee shop, and they like, "Hey, here's a check for million dollars. I'm really sorry to have wasted your time, and take this money and use it to give more time to find another investor, because it's not your fault that this deal kind of fell through." So if we didn't get that, it would've been a lot harder for us. Because we did spend a lot of time, a lot of cycles with them, and that meant we had less time to finish the fundraising. That million dollar check, give us more time.Chris Erwin:Think about that million dollar Check is an incredible marketing for Lightspeed as being a go-to partner, as a tier one VC, right? Because one, for you, TK, in your career, knowing that they did that, that they had your back, they understood the challenging situation that they put you in. And they were very direct with you about how they want to do a make good. Next time you go need to go raise money for the next thing that you found, are you probably going to have a conversation with Lightspeed? I would say the answer is yes.Taehoon Kim:Yeah, became really good friends with them. But isn't that incredible? They don't know if they're going to get the million dollar back. What if we fail, and we just kind of go bankrupt or whatever, and then I have to pay them back? But they were, "Hey, here's a million dollars, there's no interest rate. You can pay us back time."Chris Erwin:I agree, it is amazing. I think what they were putting a price tag on was, we want to be in the TK business. We want to be in business with Dave and Tony. And so this is not the last time that we're going to have a chance to invest in a company that could make them millions, if not billions of dollars. And so they said, "We're going to invest in that relationship," and probably a $1 million check to them was easy money, right?Taehoon Kim:Yeah.Chris Erwin:That's amazing. I've never heard of something like that before, but I totally get why they did it. That's incredible. So I understand that Lightspeed and other venture firms were introducing you to founders who had sold their businesses to these potential acquirers of your business. What was one or two things that you learned that made you decide, "I don't want to sell right now"?Taehoon Kim:They were describing to me the culture of the company, because once you sell, you're basically getting a job at that company. And if there's a culture fit, that's great. But if it's a different type of culture, then maybe you won't enjoy it as much. Again, I was doing it because I love that process because the actual act of creating and launching is what's rewarding for us. So I think that's main reason why we decided, "Hey, maybe we shouldn't sell." But after Lightspeed thing fell through, we were like, "Oh, maybe we should have sold." Right after that million dollar check and that conversation, literally, the next day or two days from then I was able to get another term sheet from another VC. So this one is actually a funny story. So I was really upset when Lightspeed thing fell through. I went out drinking with my friends, and I got hammered that night. I had another VC pitch the next morning. I was so hungover that during the presentation I threw up three times, and I was doing a pitch.Chris Erwin:During the pitch.Taehoon Kim:Yeah, during the pitch, I would say, "Excuse me, I went to the bathroom." I would throw up, come back, continue the pitch. And I did that three times, and whenever I made that trip to the bathroom, people were kind of laughing at me, who were at the front desk. I did the presentation 9:00 AM, I came home and I was, "Oh, my God, I totally screwed that up." I fell asleep. I woke up at 4:00 PM, got a call at 5:00 PM saying that he was in. So I was like, "What the..." Because I told him the story of what happened as well, so he said, "Hey, all that stuff just added more color to your storytelling," and then he was in.But then later I realized that the reason he was able to make quick decision, this is a Baseline Ventures, by the way. Baseline Venture was, it was a very unique firm that they had one partner, so they were able to make decision very quickly. And I pitched to them, I think, two days after Instagram was acquired by Facebook. So Baseline was in a flush with cash and they were very happy about the outcome. And so I think that's one of the reasons why they were also able to make a bet, and make that decision very quickly. I literally made a pitch 9:00 AM, and then got a call 5:00 PM saying, they wanted to put in the money. Usually, it doesn't happen that way, but it was a really weird period of time in my life.Chris Erwin:No incredible in a situation in which you thought that that was probably the worst pitch that you've ever given in your life, because you're running to the bathroom to throw up. It turns out that it was, at least one of the more impressive pitches in converting a VC into someone who has interest within just a handful of hours. So it just goes to show you got to stay resilient. And you're human, you just went through this traumatic event where Lightspeed pulled out at the last minute, so you need to go blow off some steam. You go out boozing with your buddies, but you come back the next morning, you put your game face on, and you do what you got to do. That's an incredible story. Thank you for sharing that.So then you raised the money from Baseline, and a few others, and then when did you feel, "Okay, we turned down some initial inbound offers to buy the company," but when did you feel that you really started to get some real momentum that showed you and the other founders, "Hey, we have something much bigger here"? What did that look like?Taehoon Kim:That's when mobile gaming was becoming more serious and evolving from just casual Match 3 games to a device that could run any type of game. So that's when we really got a lot of momentum. So the first prototype they created, I told you it was a four player co-op plus a PVP action RPG game. So we continued to develop on that prototype. We called the game ChronoBlade, and when we had a much more alpha version of the game, that's when things were really blowing up in Asia for RPG games and mobile.And during GDC, when a lot of the publishers were in San Francisco, we had publishers after publishers lined up, literally, signing offers on a napkin table and presenting us, "Here's how much we were willing to pay for MGM and royalty fees for your game." And we were able to just pick from the top tier ones. So we had offer from Tencent, NetEase, Netmarble, the biggest and the best. That was at the point in the company when we knew that things were becoming really serious.Chris Erwin:What year was that?Taehoon Kim:I think that was like 2013, about a year after fundraising.Chris Erwin:Seven years later you do end up selling the company to Animoca. How did that come to be?Taehoon Kim:Oh, this is a complicated story. So in 2018 there was a company called Tron, it's a big blockchain company, who moved in right above our office space. And that company was just taking off like crazy and they had happy hours, they had events. As neighbors we would show up, and that's how we kind of learned about blockchain space, and merging blockchain with gaming could be a new thing. And at that time it was getting really difficult to monetize competitive games because the game has to be fair. So we can't sell things that's [inaudible 00:42:30] base, it can only sell cosmetics. And we were always trying to find new ways to innovate on how to monetize those type of games.And we quickly realized, "Hey, if we can make items in the games that players can earn into NFTs, and if the players can kind of trade NPS items among themselves, and we don't have to even sell them, they can get them in the game, and then exchange from themselves," which was already happening in the MMORPG space anyways. And if we can charge a transaction fee for each of the trades, that could be a model where we didn't have to do any of the [inaudible 00:43:01] box stuff that the players didn't like, and have a enough steady and viable business model.And that's how we got into the blockchain space. At the same time, Animoca was investing like crazy into anything related to the blockchain. It's when I met Yat Siu, the chairman of Animoca, and we kind of hit it off. But funny thing happened to my board at that time, I've never seen this happen. I had a five member board, and our lead investor, our biggest investor at the time, Bridge Ventures, which was a IDG Ventures US, who renamed themselves Bridge Ventures, and they separated from IDG. And so they had to raise their own LPs, and their LPs looked at their investment portfolio and said, "Hey, you do a lot of gaming, you do a lot of enterprise, maybe you guys should pick one instead doing both."And they decided to pick enterprise and get out of gaming. But the partner at Bridge Ventures who was on our board, basically, said, "Hey, then what am I going to do?" And he ended up leaving with Bridge Ventures to create a new VC fund called Griffin. Now it's like the biggest gaming fund by the way, but he left. And then TransLink Ventures, which was our second biggest investor, partner from TransLink Ventures for another whole separate reason, he ended up leaving TransLink. And so he was gone. And then our third board member, Peter Levin from Lionsgate, he ended up leaving Lionsgate. So he was gone from the board. So three of our biggest board members all left for different reasons around at the same time, and they were all replaced by new people and the mandate was to get out of gaming. All of a sudden, boom, my board was gone.And so they wanted to get out. They wanted to sell the company. So when I went met with Yat Siu, I hit it off with the Yat, and I thought it would be amazing to work together. And that's how the deal went through. If it was the same board and then there wasn't that kind of shake up at the board level, I'm not sure if I'd be able to sell the company, probably would've been the state of independent. But because of that and the special circumstance, the deal was able to go through. So that was a good thing for Animoca.Chris Erwin:Good thing for Animoca. But if it was up to you, you would've stayed independent for at least a few years longer, because you saw a bigger opportunity ahead, right?Taehoon Kim:Yeah. If it wasn't for that shake, I probably would've stayed independent. But looking back now, I'm thinking that it was a good thing to kind of join forces with Animoca. Right after we joined forces with Animoca, Animoca went through a growth phase. I've never seen a company grow that fast. They basically went from a $100 million valuation to the $6 billion valuation in like two years. They were doubling in valuation every three months. It was kind of nuts. It was really fun to be part of that ride. And right now it's an amazing partnership.Chris Erwin:In that sale, was it a cash and equity deal? So are you able to participate in this crazy run that Animoca's had?Taehoon Kim:It was mostly equity, so it was a huge upside for the investors.Chris Erwin:Got it. A final note before we get to the rapid fire section is now that you're partnered up with Animoca, what do you see as the future for nWay and what you're building together? What gets you excited? And what is some recent success that you want to be building upon?Taehoon Kim:I'm super excited about what we're doing. I think that we're still very early stage with about three, and this whole kind of digital ownership revolution that we're going through. I think there are opportunities for companies like us to develop and publish online games where players can truly own things. I don't want to make a game where it's like an instrument for people to just make money, but I do think that there's something special about being able to really own some of the items that you're playing with. I think it adds meaning, and when you have ownership you just get more attached to things. And so our vision right now is to create more meaningful entertainment through real games that players can play and also have ownership in. And we're going to be doing a lot of experiments and try to really bring together the Web3 community and the gamers under one community.Chris Erwin:And I know something that you've talked about is some recent wins and partnerships and games that you've done is the International Olympic Committee you published Sean White NFTs, likely a powerful marketing engine for that. And then also you have a Power Rangers game, and a game with the WWE. Do you have similar type projects that are upcoming that build on top of these?Taehoon Kim:So Power Rangers and WWE, those are just regular free to play games. They don't have any blockchain or NFT components in there. The innovation there was to have a game where people can just quickly pick up and play and immediately play with another player. Power Rangers especially was super successful. We had over 80 millions downloads, and I think it's in two year five now, and it's continuously profitable. So the game's been amazing.With the Olympic game, we were able to meet with IOC right when their decades long exclusivity with Nintendo and Sega was coming to an end. And so they wanted to explore a new type of game partnerships. One thing that they were noticing is that the younger audience, who were not watching TV anymore was caring less about Olympics and they wanted to focus on bringing the younger audience into caring more about their brand. And they also at the same time noticed that the younger audience are on Fortnite and Minecraft and they're playing games that are crossplay.So they were looking for a game developer or game development partnership where they could have their game run on multiple devices at the same time. And a real time game where people can play to have a social experience. And as you know that's like right on our sweet spot. We were able to prove that we have some of the best kind of technology to make that happen. With another Power Rangers game called Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, I think it's still is the only fighting game in the world where it runs on everywhere, the runs on Xbox, PlayStation, and the Switch. It even ones on a browser through Stadia. And it's a really fast action game and you can play together with anybody on any device, and there's no lag and there's no [inaudible 00:48:45] issues.So they saw that and they were like, "Hey, we want to partner with you guys." I threw them curve ball and said, "We want to partner with you guys, but we also want to add this thing called NFTs. And we think that there's a 100-year-old tradition that's already there with your brand. When people go to the Olympics they still trade the Olympic pins. We want to make the pins into NFTs, also integrate them to the game, so that when people collect these NFT pins, they could use it in the game to give them a boost in the game." To my surprise, even though they are a very conservative organization, we won the RFP, and they wanted to partner with us. And we launched the project and we got a lot of press from that. And that was a really fun project to launch.Chris Erwin:And I just have to ask, this is a minor detail, but this 100-year-old tradition about trading Olympic pins, are these pins like representative? If you're from the United States and you go to the Olympics, you're wearing a US pin, and then the different athletes will trade them amongst themselves. Is that how that works?Taehoon Kim:Well, there's tons of variety of pins created from poster artworks, emblems, mascots, Coca-Cola always creates Olympic pins together. But the tradition got started, I think, in 1932 or something like that, when they had Olympics in Paris, and the officials, for the first time, had badges or pins and they started trading that. But right now there's a really high variety of pins out there.Chris Erwin:Super cool. It sounds like digitizing those pins and converting them into NFTs that can be traded on chain and in an efficient digital manner that seems it's like a perfect application. I had no idea about the underlying tradition behind that, but makes a ton of sense to me.So let's go into rapid fire. Before we do that, I just want to give you some quick kudos. Look, I think we first met two to three months ago over a Zoom call. And so this is literally our second conversation ever. I did research into years story online, but hearing it come to life, there's a few things that really stand out. I think, one, that your willingness to really work hard and also try different things and take bets very early on in your career, but align those bets with things that you are really passionate about.So even if they were risky, you are doing them down these vectors where it was strong, passionate, and meaningful areas to you. And there's almost in a way you were going to will them into existence or make them work. And clearly you took a bet at the intersection of technology and art, which manifested in gaming that has really paid off.Something also stands out is within the category that you've bet on, in contrast to others that would just say, "Hey, I found myself in this unique opportunity. I'm able to open up doors to raise capital, build businesses." And instead of having the goal just be, "I want to make a lot of money," it is. Instead, "I want to bring delight to users. I have a unique expertise of what the gaming ecosystem, where it comes from and where it's going. And I know what users want. And I want to give them delights. And I'm going to enjoy the journey along the way."And I think that's probably something that we didn't get into, but this probably speaks to a reason why you've been able to recruit teams that build alongside you consistently, and investors that want to back you is because you're going to enjoy the journey. And I think when you focus on the end user and the experience and delight, the money is then going to follow versus going about it the other way. So it's clearly worked out incredibly well for you and very excited to see what you continue building next.Taehoon Kim:Thank you.Chris Erwin:Welcome. Let's go to rapid fire. So six questions, the rules are very straightforward. I'm going to ask six questions and the answers can be either one sentence, or maybe just one to two words. Do you understand the rules?Taehoon Kim:Yes.Chris Erwin:All right, here we go. What do you want to do less of in 2022?Taehoon Kim:Less of Zoom meetings, and more of in-person interactions.Chris Erwin:Got it. What one to two things drive your success?Taehoon Kim:I think it's the ability to read the market, ability to raise money, and then having the optimism to try new things and innovate on things that could be deemed risky.Chris Erwin:Got it. What advice do you have for gaming execs going into the second half of this year?Taehoon Kim:The advice would be to focus on making a fun game. There are a lot of game companies who are getting funded going to kind of play to earn or Web3 games, where they're kind of losing that kind of focus. But I think at the end of the day, the game should be fun. And if the games are able to create a community of gamers who really care about the game and their kind of community inside the game, then you can create an economy within the game that's not a bubble, that's sustainable.Chris Erwin:Well said. Any future startup ambitions?Taehoon Kim:I think AR and VR would make a comeback. It's a really difficult business to be in now, but if I kind of look decades into the future, I think that could be something that could be a new space that could be blossoming later on.Chris Erwin:Proudest life moment?Taehoon Kim:I think that would be a tie between when I got married to my wife and also when I had my twin boys in 2011.Chris Erwin:Oh, you're a father of twins. I'm actually a twin myself.Taehoon Kim:Oh, yeah, I have twin boys.Chris Erwin:Oh, that's the best. How old are they?Taehoon Kim:They're both 11.Chris Erwin:Very cool. TK, it's been a delight chatting with you. Thank you for being on The Come Up podcast.Taehoon Kim:Thank you so much. It was definitely a pleasure.Chris Erwin:All right. Quick heads up that our company has a new service offering. We just introduced RockWater Plus, which is for companies who want an ongoing consulting partner at a low monthly retainer, yet, also need a partner who can flex up for bigger projects when they arise. So who is this for? Well, three main stakeholders, one, operators who seek growth and better run operations. Two, investors who need help with custom industry research and diligence. And, three, leadership who wants a bolt-on strategy team and thought partner.So what is included with RockWater Plus? We do weekly calls to review KPIs or any ad hoc operational needs. We create KPI dashboards to do monthly performance tracking. We do ad hoc research ranging from customer surveys to case studies to white space analysis, financial modeling where we can understand your addressable market size, do P&L forecast, ROI analyses, even cash runway projections. We also do monthly trend reports to track new co-launches, M&A activity, partnerships activity in the space. And lastly, we make strategic introductions to new hires, investors for fundraising, and then also potential commercial strategic partnerships. So if any of this sounds appealing or you want to learn more, reach out to us at hello@wearerockwater.com. We can set a call with our leadership.All right. Lastly, we love to hear from our listeners. If you have any feedback on the show or any ideas for guests, shoot us a note at tcupod@wearerockwater.com. All right, that's it everybody. Thanks for listening.The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin, and is a production of RockWater Industries. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcast. And remember to subscribe wherever you listen to our show. And if you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come Up to a Friend. You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/newsletter. And you could follow us on Twitter, @tcupod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck. Music is by Devon Bryant. Logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. And special thanks to Alex Zirin and Eric Kenigsberg from the RockWater team. 

In this episode, Saka talks to Christian Facey about how his successful business venture, Audiomob, started and is running through the use of VC funding and investment. Christian is currently the CEO and co-founder of AudioMob, the world's first non-interrupting gaming advertising solution that allows game developers to monetize their audience via audio advertising. AudioMob, is a VC backed company and recently closed $14m in funding at a $110M valuation, with Investors such as LightSpeed Ventures, Makers Fund, Google, Supernode Global and Atomico's / Sequoia's angel fund. As Founder and CEO, he is focused on creating a brand safe, flexible in-game audio ad platform that is proven to significantly elevate engagement for advertisers and revenue for publishers. In his spare time, he is a hip-hop and jazz producer having taken recent influences from Logic and Jamiroquai, and he has long enjoyed game development. If you think you or someone you know would like to chat with Saka in an exclusive interview, please get in touch!

Mercedes Bent is an investor and operator who lives and breathes startups. Currently, Mercedes serves as a Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, however, Prior to Lightspeed, she was an early employee / General Manager at General Assembly (sold for $412mm 2018). In a short period of time Mercedes ultimately grew her division from $0 to $30mm+ in 2 years. Then, in 2016 she was named a 40 Under 40 for Tech Diversity in Silicon Valley. Mercedes is an investor in Forage, Stori, Flink, Outschool, Hawku, Fan Controlled Sports, Flockjay, Honeylove, House of LRC, and more. In addition, she co-leads Lightspeed's LATAM region and Scout Fund (angel fund). https://lsvp.com/about-us/mercedes-bent Twitter of Shamus Madan (Host): @mbitpodcastTwitter of Mercedes Bent (Guest): @mercebent*Disclaimer: Not investment or financial advice

We discuss how to intentionally select & create new career opportunities, both external and internal! Our guests Ali Irturk (VP of Engineering @ CommerceHub) and Ali Littman (Interim Head of Eng @ Modern Health) share their favorite frameworks around eng leadership plus tips on prioritizing your opportunities, building great relationships, making tough decisions, and identifying your values. They also reveal recommendations on filtering / assessing decisions & their go-to leadership styles!ABOUT ALI LITTMANAli Littman is the Director of Engineering at Modern Health, where she leads product engineering teams that make it possible for people to receive online mental health services the moment they need and at no cost to the individual. Prior to her current role, she served as the Director of Engineering at Omada Health. Outside of her role, she is also a champion for diversity and inclusion, most notably leading a Women's ERG, serving on company-wide belonging councils, and providing imposter syndrome coaching.Ali Littman is a passionate engineering leader specializing in healthcare technology both in traditional and digital healthcare settings. She currently serves as Head of Engineering at Modern Health where she gets to lead engineering teams on the exciting journey of evolving how people access and receive mental health care treatment around the world. Ali enjoys taking startups through their scale phase and has been an engineering leader on hypergrowth journeys at both Omada Health and Modern Health - leading them through organizational, market, and product expansion. Her background in business from Haas at UC Berkeley helps navigate these business challenges with the philosophy of having business strategy inform the engineering strategy.At the end of the day, she cares most about being a great people leader who creates inclusive cultures and teaches managers how to be great managers for their teams. She also goes a step beyond her usual management duties to serve on Belonging Councils, lead ERGs, provides imposter syndrome coaching, and mentor individuals from under-represented groups in tech. Additionally, Ali's led external talks on navigating career growth, imposter syndrome, challenging leadership scenarios, and more!"I view my relationship to people that I work with or people that I manage right now, as actually like a lifelong commitment and I think because of that, I end up with these really strong connections even beyond past opportunities."- Ali Littman   ABOUT ALI IRTURKAli's day-to-day passion is creating and being part of efficient and effective engineering organizations that are firing on all cylinders where team members can achieve autonomy, mastery, and purpose in a psychologically safe environment. He will continue to realize this passion by working at CommerceHub as their Vice President of Engineering.He previously worked at rocketship start-ups funded by some of the top VCs in the world including a16z, SoftBank, Microsoft Ventures, and Lightspeed Ventures to name a few. Ali was the Vice President of Engineering at WorkBoard, a strategy and results enterprise SaaS platform helping large organizations align quickly for results, leading product delivery as well as accessibility, application security, release engineering, platform, and infrastructure teams. Previously, he was the Vice President of Engineering at ALICE Technologies working on revolutionizing the construction industry with an artificial intelligence-powered enterprise SaaS product.Ali also created and managed the advanced products group at Cognex Corporation (NASDAQ: CGNX) for 8 years while working as an adjunct professor at UC San Diego. His team worked on creating innovative industrial vision systems and software to help companies improve their product quality, eliminate production errors, and lower manufacturing costs. Examples of the products he worked on were the world's first vision system on chip and the world's fastest 3D scanning system to name a few.Where Ali is today is quite different from where his journey began. Born and raised in Istanbul, I graduated from the Turkish Naval Academy and served as an officer in the Turkish Navy. After leaving the Navy, he earned Master's degrees in Computer Engineering and Economics at UC Santa Barbara, a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science at UC San Diego, and an MBA at UC Berkeley."In a grander scheme, I think people should be always looking for opportunities at all times. There's a famous saying... 'The best time to eat hors d'oeuvres are... they're being passed around. The moment that if you're not ready to eat, now you're gonna miss that!'"- Ali Irturk   This episode is brought to you by JellyfishFor insights into where engineering teams are investing their time and resources, how they're operating and performing, and the way in which leaders are managing today…Download “The State of Engineering Management Report 2022” HERE:jellyfish.co/emrTo understand how your engineering org compares against teams from across the industry and gain data-driven metrics to inform your strategic decisions regarding the right tools, processes and workflows…Learn More About Jellyfish Benchmarks @ jellyfish.co/benchmarksCheck out our friends at Shortcut!Shortcut is an issue tracker that offers all the functionality, without most of the complexity making it easier for you to plan, collaborate, build, and measure success.Right now, listeners of our show can get 2-months free on any paid plan.Learn more & sign up at shortcut.com/elcTake our DevTools survey & share what dev tools you use!As a gift, we'll send you a copy of one our favorite books AND you'll be entered to win a free ticket to the 2022 ELC Summit!Fill out the DevTools survey HERE: elc.community/devtools2022SHOW NOTES:Frameworks for navigating new internal & external opportunities (3:36)Three steps for determining which opportunities you should prioritize (5:21)Ask this question to validate your assumptions (8:08)Reflecting on your personal values & how they align with opportunities (9:02)Why growth & interpersonal connection matter to Ali Littman (10:08)Ali Irturk's recommendations for great networking (11:13)View your professional relationships as life-long commitments (13:09)Book recommendations for frameworks on the job search process (14:29)How the right manager can provide the best opportunities (16:47)Use a decision-grid to help filter & assess decisions (20:06)Analyzing your energy level & trusting your gut while making decisions (21:52)How your priorities evolve over time (23:49)The hedgehog & outliers concepts (25:45)Balancing your current strengths with opportunities you can grow from (29:29)Why there's no such thing as a singular leadership style (30:47)Vulnerable leadership & creating a culture of trust (34:10)Rapid fire questions (36:42)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe 2-Hour Job Search - Steve Dalton's instructional book on how to conduct a job search in the most efficient way possible.This Is Day One - Drew Dudley's guide to cultivating the behaviors that will help you succeed and empower those around you.Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track - Will Larson's book on attaining and operating in staff engineering roles.Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Dr. Robert B. Cialdini's book on the psychology of why people say yes and how to apply these principles in everyday situations.A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - William B. Irvine's book on how the insights and wisdom of Stoic philosophy are still applicable in our modern lives.Coherence: The Secret Science of Brilliant Leadership - Dr. Alan Watkins' book on the challenges that take a toll on a leader's effectiveness and the solutions designed to improve physiological factors that impact on core competencies.

In this week's episode of Figuring Out we have Ankush Sachdeva Co-founder and CEO of ShareChat. His team created a Moj, a replica of the popular Chinese short video platform TikTok in just 30 hours after the ban of TikTok. In this podcast we have discussed:-How did he create Moj in just 30 hours after the ban of TikTok?-How he built ShareChat after 14 failed startups?-Love & Breakup, Next Big Industry?When we talk about our present, Social Media is one of the prime things out there, that made a place in our life. There is hardly anyone who is not on any social media. In this scenario, one Indian decided to find a social media platform that will change the way Indians perceive social media.Ankush Sachdeva is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Co-Founder of the Indian social media platform, Sharechat, which was launched on 8 January 2015. He supervises the company's growth strategy and examines product development. Ankush Sachdeva is the Founder of Mohalla Tech Private Limited firm which owns Sharechat. Sharechat has over 180 million monthly active users and the app supports 15 Indian languages, He built and experimented with 14 startup ideas before finding success with ShareChat.Mohalla Tech hit unicorn status with a valuation of $2.1 billion, after a $502 million fund raise led by Lightspeed Ventures and Tiger Global.Watch this podcast till the end to know about  short form content and AI, Funding, building in India, social status, and more.Ankush Sachdeva's Social Media Handles ⤵︎Twitter @AnkushSachhttps://twitter.com/AnkushSachLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankush-sachdeva/•   •   •

Mercedes Bent is a Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, a multi-stage venture capital firm with offices around the world, including Silicon Valley, Israel, China, India, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Previously she served as an executive at a VR startup and a General Manager at General Assembly (acquired, 2018) where she oversaw a multi-million dollar business line. On this episode, we talked about what industry accelerations happened because of COVID 19 that she finds interesting as an investor. Follow Will Lucas on Instagram at @willlucas Learn more at AfroTech.com https://instagram.com/afro.tech Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

MERCEDES BENTQuote - “one of the biggest, most profound realization I've had is there is no life path that can be planned or followed.”The Afropolitan Podcast spotlights Afropolitans who aren't afraid to step into the unknown and walk in purpose. With this podcast we hope to empower Africans in the Diaspora to harness their full potential and contribute to the development of a bold and progressive black community.Our guests will share their working formulas, the hard facts about leaving familiar terrain, embracing the unknown, and staying relevant afterwards.This episode features Mercedes Bent, partner at Lightspeed, a venture capital firm based in the USA, with her focus on consumer investments in crypto. Born in North Carolina and raised in California, Mercedes' parents introduced her to web development at a young age and dinner table conversations were centered around the next invention. It's no surprise Mercedes found herself working at startups in her early career as a Product Manager and later as a General Manager.Mercedes' path to VC is a true convergence of her life experiences, finance roles managing P&Ls at two consumer startups (including growing one from $2 to $100M in revenue), and her long-term goal of empowering communities she cares about. A member of Lightspeed's consumer and crypto investing team, Mercedes is primarily focused on investing in crypto, fintech, and other wealth-building and consumer products. Listen and enjoy as Mercedes talks to us about venture capital. Mercedes reading listhttps://www.amazon.com/Anne-Green-Gables-Complete-8-Book/dp/0553609416 Anne of Green Gables by L.M Montgomery. https://www.amazon.com/Singularity-Nearer-Ray-Kurzweil-ebook/dp/B08Y6FYJVY The Singularity Is Nearer by Ray KurzweilShow Notes6:59 Journey to Venture Capital and Lightspeed8:41 Evaluating startups11:00 Common misconceptions about VC12:40 Why Lightspeed15:01 Covid's impact on deal flow and personally 17:41 How the barrier can be broken for women trying to raise capital21:25 First encounter with failure and lessons learned.24:17 Advice to founders struggling to recruit and retain talent 28:24 Advice to people trying to break into VC29:51 If the only thing left in the world was to read a book about your life, what will the title be33:41 What does being Afropolitan mean to youThe Afropolitan Podcast is hosted by Eche Emole, co-founder of Afropolitan.Listen and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Jamit, or wherever you get your podcasts.Want to learn more about Afropolitan? Twitter - https://twitter.com/afropolitanWebsite - https://www.afropolitan.io/Afropolitan Community - https://linktr.ee/afropolitangroup

Merci Grace has been a founder, an investor (at Lightspeed Ventures), head of product and growth (at Slack), and is now a founder again (Panobi). She’s also one of the co-founders of Women in Product, and Fast Company named her one of the Most Creative People in 2017.—Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:• Dovetail: https://dovetailapp.com/lenny• Mixpanel: https://mixpanel.com/startups• Whimsical: https://whimsical.com/lenny—In this episode, we cover:[3:41] Merci’s path to Head of Product and Growth at Slack[4:42] What Merci learned from being a VC that helps her be a better founder[6:50] How to tell a compelling story[9:43] What most people don’t know about Slack[10:27] Why Slack hasn’t created a consumer/social product[15:14] How Slack innovated the PLG motion[17:14] Slack’s early growth strategy[19:57] Slack’s activation point[22:10] Why it’s important to find connectors within a company[26:40] Lessons from optimizing Slack’s onboarding flow[32:12] Most common mistakes in going PLG[35:56] Signs you can go PLG[38:10] PLG vs. bottom-up[40:23] Importance of day-zero value in your tool[42:17] When to bring in your first salesperson[44:47] How to hire amazing people [50:21] Storytelling and Slack’s culture[51:04] How and when to build a growth team[52:08] How to build a more diverse team—Where to find Merci:• Panobi: https://panobi.com/• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merci/• Twitter: https://twitter.com/merci• Website: https://mercigrace.co/• Women in Product: https://www.womenpm.org/ Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

In this series, Pinn Lawjindakul, venture investor at Lightspeed Ventures Partners, explores the challenges and best practices of venture building in emerging markets through conversations with leading investors and founders across India, China, Southeast Asia. In this episode, listen as Pinn talks with Bejul Somaia, Managing Partner at Lightspeed Ventures, India. Bejul got his first exposure to the VC world as an operator just before the dotcom boom and bust, started another company, and then leapt into the venture capital game with gusto.

This episode is brought to you in cooperation with TechChillJoin us in Riga on April 27-29, 2022100+ speakers (including the guest of this episode)200 top US and European investors300 StartupsListen to the episode intro to find a special PROMO CODE for Pursuit of Scrappiness listeners and get 20% OFF Get your pass NOW on https://techchill.co/ ===Rytis Vitkauskas is a Partner at the global VC powerhouse Lightspeed Ventures. Holding an MBA from Harvard Business School, Rytis has also founded and exited startups as well as made tech investments for more than 10 years.In this episode we talk about Rytis's journey to become a VC with Lightspeed, and getting an MBA from Harvard. We also discuss the strategy of Lightspeed and category defining companies. Finally, we compare how Baltic startups match up on the European level and talk about the role of the local VC.The topics covered in this episode with Timestamps[02:40] - INTRODUCTION AND RYTIS'S JOURNEY TO VC AND LIGHTSPEED[06:00] - ON BALTIC ECOSYSTEM NOW AND 10-15 YEARS AGO[11:15] - ON THE HBS EXPERIENCE AND ROI FROM TOP EDUCATION[20:00] - ON LIGHTSPEED STRATEGY IN EUROPE AND THE BALTICS[23:50] - ON CATEGORY DEFINING COMPANIES[36:00] - HOW BALTIC COMPANIES MATCH UP WITH WESTERN EUROPEANS[44:30] - ON EXPECTATIONS FROM LOCAL BALTIC VCs  To reach out to Rytis use email: rytis@lsvp.com Find out more on https://www.pursuitofscrappiness.co/ Support for this episode comes from Nexpay > https://paynexpay.com/===See the videos from interviews on Linkedin > https://www.linkedin.com/company/pursuit-of-scrappiness/ Questions/suggestions? Join our Telegram group > https://t.me/pursuitofscrappiness Watch select full-length episodes on our YouTube channel > https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP6ueaLnjS-CQfrMCm2EoTA  

Italian luxury car maker Alfa Romeo has revealed it will be using non-fungible tokens (NFT) to track and store maintenance records on the blockchain for its new Tonale SUV. Alfa Romeo, which is owned by Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler), appears to be the first carmaker to utilize NFTs in this way, seemingly in a bid to bring transparency and efficiency to a car market that often relies on third parties to track car records. The company says the car's NFT will be able to generate a certificate from records of its maintenance data, but only for service done by certified dealers. The integration is the latest example of the growing “useful” NFT market, which includes use cases for the technology that emphasize function over form. Alchemy Insights, Inc. is the latest crypto startup to become a deca unicorn after a $200 million equity investment led by Lightspeed Ventures and Silver Lake valued the infrastructure company at $10.2 billion. Google Cloud said it's adding Virtual Machine Threat Detection (VMTD), which will help detect threats including malware that mines crypto currency on a compromised account. "VMTD is a first-to-market detection capability from a major cloud provider that provides agentless memory scanning to help detect threats like crypto-mining malware inside your virtual machines running in Google Cloud,” according to a blog post from Google. The move comes after the company said in November that compromised Google Cloud accounts were used by 86% of “malicious actors” to mine cryptocurrencies.

Yubo Ruan is the Founder of Parallel Finance, a new decentralized lending and staking protocol that just recently passed Binance to be the largest third-party program on Polkadot. The company has a current market share of 20.95% and is backed by top-tier investors including Polychain Capital, Pantera Capital, Lightspeed Ventures and Breyer Capital. Yubo learned about crypto in early 2014, and by June of that year he launched his first company while still in high school. Five years later, Yubo sold the company for over $4M, and by that point had started two VC funds focusing on disruptive technologies, and blockchain and crypto. https://parallel.fi/

Great conversation with Aya Kantorovich from FalconX. Discussion of the state of regulation, CeFi vs DeFi, BitMex, AML, AMM, liquidity etc. * DeFi opening finance and democratizing market accessibility for retail * CEX, DEX, or the same? Crypto juggling labels and what it means for traders. * Liquidity! Centralized and decentralized, what differentiates AMMs (Automated Market Makers) from centralized liquidity providers * The global landscape, we cover Cold War, Geopolitical tensions in Africa, China-US relations, and more * And finally, everyone's favorite, regulation! What does regulation mean for institutions, what questions should protocols ask themselves, what are good resources and next steps? About Aya Kantorovich Aya has spent the last few years scaling FinTech companies and currently drives Strategy and Operations at FalconX, an institutional digital asset trading platform backed by Accel Partners, Flybridge Capital and Lightspeed Ventures. Previously, Aya worked at Pantera Capital, the first cryptocurrency fund in the United States, founded in 2013, directly supporting Dan Morehead, CEO as well as Bill Healy, Pantera's President. Aya has worked intimately with over 60 portfolio companies prior to joining FalconX to expand adoption in the ecosystem. Prior to Pantera Capital, Aya was an Investment Manager at Tegus, a buy-side investor research startup focused on TMT investments, joining as the team's first-hire and scaling offices in both San Francisco and Chicago. Aya graduated with a double major in International Affairs and Finance from George Washington University.

This week, we're joined by Barry Eggars, Partner at Lightspeed Ventures. In late 1999, he and his partners set out to found Lightspeed. Barry specializes in information technology infrastructure with a focus on analytic platforms, cloud, IoT, networking, and emerging infrastructure. And, it's emotional intelligence that has enabled him to foster strong relationships throughout the valley. He believes EQ is just as important as big ideas when it comes to building great companies, which is why he focuses his efforts on providing leverage to entrepreneurs rather than creating overhead. And in the episode, Barry shares how he has built a winning team with unique partners across the globe. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/endeavornorthamerica/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/endeavornorthamerica/support

Dan Grunfeld, former Stanford University basketball standout, current technology executive with Lightspeed Ventures and author of the book "By the Grace Of The Game" joins Will and Arthur on this episode of Hoop Dreams The Podcast. Dan Talks about how his father, former NBA star Ernie Gunfeld, inspired his love for the game of basketball, how important his grandmother has been in his life, his days playing overseas, the experiences and friendships he developed through basketball and what led to him writing his new book, "By The Grace Of The Game". The story shares his family's incredible story of surviving the Holocaust, the only know know journey from Auschwitz to the NBA. It details the perseverance it took and how basketball helped his father survive and succeed in America. A unique and memorable episode that you gotta listen to.

Hear from goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow and Lightspeed Ventures partner Nicole Quinn as they talk through founding companies and investment, and everything in between.Support the show (https://websummit.com/)

O Jack Naglieri είναι ιδρυτής και CEO της Panther Labs, μια εταιρεία κυβερνοασφάλειας (Cybersecurity) που βοηθάει τις μεγαλύτερες εταιρείες τεχνολογίας στον εντοπισμό και την απόκρουση οποιασδήποτε ύποπτης δραστηριότητας σε πραγματικό χρόνο. Ιδρύθηκε το 2018 στο San Francisco και μέχρι σήμερα  έχει λάβει χρηματοδότηση πάνω από 20 εκατομμύρια δολάρια από επενδυτές όπως το S28 και η Lightspeed Ventures. Πρόσφατα ξεκίνησε τη λειτουργία γραφείου στην Αθήνα, χάρη σε έναν από τους πρώτους μηχανικούς της ομάδας που έχει ελληνική καταγωγή. Ο Jack μιλάει για τις προκλήσεις του Cybersecurity και γιατί αυτό επηρεάζει την εξέλιξη κάθε τομέα, και για το πώς η σωστή ισορροπία σε μια ομάδα αποτελεί το σημαντικότερο κλειδί ανάπτυξης της Panther Labs.

Our guest today is Mercedes Bent, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mercedes is focused on education and consumer early stage investing. Previously she was working in VR and a General Manager at General Assembly.In this episode, we explore how EdTech is shifting and giving more power to parents and students. We look at social learning and gaming, which together offer a lot of promise for the future of education.Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion: (links)Mercedes' post about the Lightspeed EdTech Portfolio - https://mercedesbent.co/2021/02/24/lightspeeds-edtech-portfolio/Mercedes post about 3 trends that are here to stay - https://mercedesbent.co/2021/08/03/edtech-post-pandemic-3-trends-here-to-stay/Fiveable and StudyStream are some social learning startups mentioned by Mercedes - https://fiveable.me, https://www.studystream.liveMercedes on the Ventures Stories podcast - https://soundcloud.com/venturestories/the-state-and-future-of-edtechWhere to learn more about Mercedes:Twitter - https://twitter.com/mercebentPersonal Website - https://mercedesbent.co/Lightspeed Ventures - https://lsvp.comWhere to learn more about Enrollhand: Website - www.enrollhand.comWebinar - https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.comOur free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

Welcome to episode 84 of the FTX Podcast with special guest Amy Wu, an investment partner at Lightspeed Ventures, with host Tristan Yver.Amy has enjoyed being on both sides of the table as investor and operator, joining Lightspeed in 2019 as an early member of the growth team to lead gaming and growth-stage consumer and enterprise business investing.

Last week we discussed blockchain, and I wanted to continue that conversation, at least for a few minutes, with Amy Wu, a Partner at Lightspeed Ventures I've become acquainted with recently. Amy joined Lightspeed in 2019 as an early member of the growth team, investing in growth-stage consumer and enterprise businesses. Prior to Lightspeed, Amy was an executive for several years, including at global media company Discovery, Inc, and at NewsCred, which she helped raise $60 million for, after starting her career at Insight Venture Partners.Amy's breadth of experience – in early-stage and corporate, in consumer and enterprise businesses, and across the US, Europe, and Asia – make her the perfect candidate to talk to about how venture capitalists make decisions. How, exactly, does a VC place bets on the future? Should emotion be a part of those decisions, or can emotion blind you? And does being a cheerleader and spokesperson, as many VCs are these days, throw off your judgement as a futurist? We talk about all of that and more in this conversation.As always, we welcome your feedback. Please make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play - and make sure to follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn!

In this episode of the Soaked by Slush podcast, we had the opportunity to host Nicole Quinn, Partner at Lightspeed Ventures. As an investor, Nicole is a master at working with founders, brands, and end-customers. Her impressive background in both investing and entrepreneurship has garnered her a wealth of experience and knowledge – especially when it comes to consumer brands. Nicole's unique style of working with founders certainly makes her ideas worth a(n intriguing) listen.  Expect to learn: Do founders need to have a “run through walls”-attitude? How VCs should support their portfolio's founders and the problem with the "founder hero"-myth Why Nicole doesn't want to invest only in the “bubble of Silicon Valley” Why is speaking to customers central to investors as well? Why companies should focus on niche markets first  01:25 Introduction to Nicole 05:55 Important things in successful founders 09:00 The importance of the founding team's obsession 13:10 Talking to customers and apps on Nicole's home screen. 16:38 When founders believe they have product-market fit too early 18:45 People don't want to hear bad things about their companies 19:33 Problem of founder ‘hero mindset' – can grit get too toxic? 23:14 Philosophy of relation-building with founders 26:06 What do founders usually worry about too much? 29:34 Starting niche first 33:38 Would founders experience from first building something smaller before building something that scales  36:14 The importance of listening Find out more about Capchase on capchase.com/slush Check Soaked by Slush out at: Twitter: https://twitter.com/soakedbyslush/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soakedslush/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soakedbyslush/ Soaked by Slush website: https://www.slush.org/soaked/ Slush website: https://www.slush.org Shoot us a message or feedback: soaked@slush.org

Ouriel is the CEO of ZenGo, a new generation of All-in-one crypto wallet focused on simplicity and safety. He's a former executive at ICQ/AOL, founder of TechCrunch France (sold to AOL), Isai.fr (leading French VC) and was general manager of the internet Lab of Gemini and Lightspeed Ventures. Ouriel is French and Israeli, based in Tel Aviv

Miguel Armaza sits down with Alex Taussig, Partner at Lightspeed Ventures, a global multi-stage VC with over $10B in AUM, focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise and Consumer sectors. They've backed some amazing companies, including Snap, Affirm, and GrubHub. Alex focuses on online marketplaces and co-leads Lightspeed's investment efforts in Latin America. He is also the author of the popular weekly newsletter, DRINKING FROM THE FIREHOSE, in which he writes about recent trends in commerce, media, tech, climate, science, and popular culture. In this episode, we discuss - Alex's story and why he decided to stop pursuing a Phd and left academia to join the tech investing world - The intersection of marketplaces and fintech and why the payment technology is the motor oil that makes transactions flow smoothly for marketplaces - Why in Venture Capital it's very important to ask the best possible questions and pay close attention to the answers that reveal an underlying truth - Early investing mistakes and the importance of focus - Lessons from several years of writing a successful newsletter… and a lot more! Alex Taussig Alex joined Lightspeed in 2016 as a partner on the consumer investment team and has spent 12+ years in venture capital. He is passionate about partnering with founders who are reimagining major categories of commerce using technology. At Lightspeed, Alex has led investments in startups disrupting massive industries like food (Daily Harvest, Frubana), retail (Faire), education (Outschool), and weddings (Zola). He also co-leads Lightspeed's investment efforts in Latin America. Prior to joining Lightspeed, Alex was a partner at Highland Capital Partners, where he led investments in and supported over a dozen companies, including thredUP (IPO TDUP, 2021), Carbon Black (IPO CBLK, 2018), 2U (IPO 2014, TWOU), and RentJuice (acquired by Zillow, 2012). Alex is a trained research scientist and breaks down business problems with deductive logic and analytical rigor. He originally studied physics at Harvard College, where he graduated summa cum laude, and then went on to receive a Master's degree in materials engineering from MIT, where he was part of a research group building the first fully optical computer chip. Alex also received an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar, an honor given to the top 5% of the graduating class. Alex publishes a popular weekly(ish) newsletter called DRINKING FROM THE FIREHOSE, in which he writes about recent trends in commerce, media, tech, climate, science, and popular culture. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children and enjoys baking, anime, and heavy metal music. About Lightspeed Venture Partners Lightspeed Venture Partners is a multi-stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise and Consumer sectors. Over the past two decades, the Lightspeed team has backed hundreds of entrepreneurs and helped build more than 400 companies globally, including Snap, Nest, Nutanix, AppDynamics, MuleSoft, OYO, Guardant, Affirm, and GrubHub. Lightspeed and its affiliates currently manage $10.5B across the global Lightspeed platform, with investment professionals and advisors in Silicon Valley, Israel, India, China, Southeast Asia, and Europe. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Miguel's Twitter: twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Miguel's Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

Mercedes' path to VC is a true convergence of her life experiences — a childhood surrounded by inventors, studies at Harvard and Stanford, finance roles at the Federal Reserve and Goldman, and managing P&L at startups in VR and EdTech, and her long-term goal of empowering communities she cares about. She began her venture capital career at Owl Ventures before joining Lightspeed's consumer investing team in 2019.

In this episode, we interviewed Michelle Davey, the Co-Founder and CEO of Wheel. Wheel is working behind the scenes to build many of the telemedicine services you're familiar with. Its online platform matches doctors with patients and also enables any company to stand up a virtual care practice. Wheel makes it simple for companies to build virtual care services under their brand by pairing technology with a nationwide clinician network. Wheel also provides clinicians with the best place to work in virtual care. By helping more companies and clinicians get started in virtual care, Wheel is helping patients get connected to the best care for their health needs. Today, Wheel works with companies of all sizes including publicly-traded digital health innovators, big tech companies, laboratories, retailers, and pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Wheel has raised $66 million from Lightspeed Ventures, CRV, Silverton Partners, Tusk Venture Partners, J.P. Morgan, and Future Shape. Growing up in a rural area with limited medical resources, Michelle became focused on improving patient access to care. Her career took on a journey through healthcare, tech, marketplaces and virtual care. After recognizing the need for a new workforce configuration in healthcare, she co-founded Wheel with Griffin Mulcahey in January of 2018, after working together in the telehealth industry and realizing no one was looking out for those at the center of the healthcare engine: the clinicians on the front lines. Wheel became the industry's first model for delivering high-quality virtual care at scale by empowering clinicians and providing new efficiencies for healthcare companies. Michelle is a thought leader focused on the urgent need for reinventing healthcare delivery models, clinician empowerment, and the future of work in healthcare.

In Episode 18, we speak to Nicole Quinn, General Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Lightspeed Ventures is an iconic Silicon Valley fund that has 10 billion dollars in assets under management. Nicole's focus is on early-stage consumer internet and fintech companies, with a portfolio that includes mental wellness app Calm, Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop, Lady Gaga's Haus Laboratories, cult shoe brand Rothy's, Zola and Girl Boss. Nicole talks about consumer behaviour that is going to stick post COVID, the incredible value of Influencer Marketing for customer acquisition, and shares her predictions for the next big trend in the consumer world. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Episode 18, we speak to Nicole Quinn, General Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Lightspeed Ventures is an iconic Silicon Valley fund that has 10 billion dollars in assets under management. Nicole's focus is on early-stage consumer internet and fintech companies, with a portfolio that includes mental wellness app Calm, Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop, Lady Gaga's Haus Laboratories, cult shoe brand Rothy's, Zola and Girl Boss. "It's important to think big, know where your North Star is. And while you're in execution mode, make sure that you are driving towards the bigger goals." - Nicole Quinn See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mark Campbell, EVOTEK Labs CIO and Paul Ferraro sit down with Saqib Awan, Partner at Lightspeed Ventures to discuss the state of Enterprise IT!Here are a few of the questions/topics we discussed.Was your time at the newspaper foundational to your career overall?How important is the culture of the companies you invest in and how do you effectively review it? You spend a lot of time mentoring and helping entrepreneurs, CIOs, and sales exec’s – what do you take away and share from these experiences and what’s your favorite part of these interactions?In the first part of this year there was a lot of “Dry Powder” in the VC community. Can you explain what that means and is this still the case?What changes have you seen in the types of companies you invested in this time last year and today?How can today’s IT executive avoid being left behind by adopting newer companies in their solution stack without taking undue risk?For those wanting to learn more about the VC community where would you point them?

Materialize, the SQL streaming database startup built on top of the open source Timely Dataflow project, announced a $32 million Series B investment today led by Kleiner Perkins with participation from Lightspeed Ventures. While it was at it, the company also announced a previously unannounced $8 million Series A from last year that had been […]

On this episode, De'Havia interviews Mercedes Bent - Partner at Lightspeed Ventures. At Lightspeed Ventures, Mercedes focuses on investing into early stage consumer startups. She also happens to be 1/5 black women with investment influence at a $1B+ venture fund. Key Topics: Building consumer startups, Growing and Scaling, and Raising funding. Visit our website and submit a question/topic here. Hosted by @de_havia and @imessien Recorded: March 2020

Learn how Nicole Quinn works with a small amount of companies per year to really thrive in their market, and what separates the good from the great. "I realized that what I was really passionate about was angel investing. I found myself running out of the office as soon as the market closed to go do angel investing." - Nicole Quinn. Learn more about this episode of The Mentor Files with Monica Royer at www.monicaandandy.blog/71

Investing in the Future

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we were helmed by Kate Clark, Alex Wilhelm, and yet another extra special guest. Unusual Ventures co-founder and partner John Vironis joined us to talk soil investing (yes, it's a thing), seed investing, growth investing and all the somewhat meaningless funding stages. Vrionis was a longtime investor at Lightspeed Venture Partners and has made big bets on a number of companies, including AppDynamics, Heptio, and Mulesoft. It was a great episode that kicked off with some conversation around DoorDash, the food delivery company that continues to make headlines week after week. We'd like to stop talking about the company, but it intrudes regularly into our notes. This time DoorDash bought a few companies, purchases that appear set to allow the firm to boost its investment and research into self-driving delivery robots. (Kate saw one in the wild recently!) Next we went deep into the subject of seed. John, of course, has been a seed investor for years and has lots to say on the topic. Mostly, we discussed Kate's latest piece on mega-funds making an increasing number of deals at the earliest stage. John doesn't think "stage-agnostic" investing makes any sense. You need experts at each stage making bets on a specific type of company. In his words, 'a heart surgeon wouldn't deliver your baby, right." Then we moved onto one of our favorite subjects, namely direct listings, the IPO market, and if money is too often left on the table. The question takes on extra import when we see results like Dynatrace's IPO, which rose around 50 percent its first day. It seems likely that we'll see other companies pursue the sort of direct listings that Spotify and Slack managed. That segued us brilliantly into our final topic: Airbnb and its financial health. The firm, we reckon, is a good candidate for a direct listing itself. We talked over its numbers, and if we were to sum our perspectives, we'd say that Airbnb is about as impressive as we expected. All that and we had fun, as usual.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we were helmed by Kate Clark, Alex Wilhelm, and yet another extra special guest. Unusual Ventures co-founder and partner John Vironis joined us to talk soil investing (yes, it's a thing), seed investing, growth investing and all the somewhat meaningless funding stages. Vrionis was a longtime investor at Lightspeed Venture Partners and has made big bets on a number of companies, including AppDynamics, Heptio, and Mulesoft. It was a great episode that kicked off with some conversation around DoorDash, the food delivery company that continues to make headlines week after week. We'd like to stop talking about the company, but it intrudes regularly into our notes. This time DoorDash bought a few companies, purchases that appear set to allow the firm to boost its investment and research into self-driving delivery robots. (Kate saw one in the wild recently!) Next we went deep into the subject of seed. John, of course, has been a seed investor for years and has lots to say on the topic. Mostly, we discussed Kate's latest piece on mega-funds making an increasing number of deals at the earliest stage. John doesn't think "stage-agnostic" investing makes any sense. You need experts at each stage making bets on a specific type of company. In his words, 'a heart surgeon wouldn't deliver your baby, right." Then we moved onto one of our favorite subjects, namely direct listings, the IPO market, and if money is too often left on the table. The question takes on extra import when we see results like Dynatrace's IPO, which rose around 50 percent its first day. It seems likely that we'll see other companies pursue the sort of direct listings that Spotify and Slack managed. That segued us brilliantly into our final topic: Airbnb and its financial health. The firm, we reckon, is a good candidate for a direct listing itself. We talked over its numbers, and if we were to sum our perspectives, we'd say that Airbnb is about as impressive as we expected. All that and we had fun, as usual.

Semil Shah, Founder at Haystack & Venture Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, talks about his journey to becoming a successful Venture Capitalist. Semil founded Haystack in 2013 (An Early Stage Investment Fund). Some successful portfolio companies in Haystack include DoorDash, Instacart, Carta, Giphy, and Wag. Some Questions answered by Semil in this Podcast - 1. What are his learnings for people who want to become a VC? 2. How to choose the kind of Investor you want to become? Do you want to sit on the Board or do you want to be Growth & Network Driven? 3. Is there any other path to become a VC other than an Ivy League college followed by some experience as a Consultant? 4. What should a 23-24 year old be doing fresh after college, to enter this Ecosystem? 5. What was his First Fund size? How did he convince his first 5 LPs to put in the money? 6. How did he happen to join Lightspeed Ventures? 7. What are the Key Elements he looks for while investing? 8. How much of his time does he dedicate to raise funds vs time spent on deploying it? 9. What habits does he attribute for his success as a VC in such a short time (which generally takes others 10-15 years to achieve)?

I sit down with Lightspeed Ventures partner Aaron Batalion and Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover to talk about their backgrounds in coding and development, how entrepreneurship is blending together into tech culture, and our thoughts on emerging cryptocurrency. *Originally published on The GaryVee Audio Experience on September 21, 2018

BROUGHT TO YOU BY HIRETUAL! Phenom People has a released a major enhancement to it product suite this week; Theyre calling it the Talent Experience Management (TXM) ...a methodology and platform that unifies technology and experience design to enhance the talent journey, turning interested candidates to thriving employees to enthusiastic brand advocates, while helping recruiters and management boost productivity and communicate seamlessly. Talent Experience Management connects the four key experiences of Candidates, Recruiters, Employees, and Management. TXM helps:  Candidates find the right job, where they will succeed for a long time Recruiters be more productive, finding more quality candidates Employees evolve into the best talent, enabling their careers to flourish Management get the insights they need, allowing them to make smarter business decisions I attended their analyst day and user conference in Philly this week and will be publishing some news and podcasts very soon. -------- Eightfold.ai, the creator of the first Talent Intelligence Platform, announced it has added IVP to its growing list of investors in raising $28 million in a Series C financing. The round, joined by Foundation Capital and Lightspeed Ventures who led previous funding rounds, brings Eightfold.ai’s total funding to $55 million, making it one of the most well-capitalized AI solutions for talent management. Built by co-founders Ashutosh Garg and Varun Kacholia, distinguished engineers out of Google and Facebook, Eightfold.ai’s Talent Intelligence Platform empowers enterprises to solve the number one challenge facing chief executives and chief human resource officers today – hiring and retaining top talent. This new funding follows significant interest in Eightfold.ai’s patented artificial intelligence–based platform which has secured numerous new customers in four continents around the world since emerging from stealth mode one year ago. From Fortune 500 companies to fast-growing technology companies, current customers include Conagra, AdRoll Group, Tata Communications and DigitalOcean. The Talent Intelligence Platform from Eightfold.ai is also available via a growing set of channel partners, including the SAP App Center, and integrates with major human resource information systems (HRIS) and applicant tracking systems (ATS). https://recruitingheadlines.com/eightfold-ai-secures-28-million-in-series-c-funding-for-its-talent-intelligence-platform/ Last week a relatively unknown recruitment technology player called Zippia announced a significant round of funding that will help it continue to build a tool for job seekers in their quest for the ideal career pathway. The San Mateo based company raised a Series A investment of $8.5 million led by e.ventures, with participation from existing shareholders including MHS Capital, NextView Ventures, and Correlation Ventures. This brings the startup’s total capital raised to $12 million since its founding in early 2015. Zippia, uses machine learning and data aggregation to create its ‘career map’, which helps job seekers understand career pathways like never before. Zippia’s tools provide job seekers unique resources, creating a more complete understanding of job titles and career options. Read my Q&a with them on the Recruiting Headlines blog. https://recruitingheadlines.com/zippia-gets-8-million-to-help-people-plan-their-careers/ MINNEAPOLIS –CATS Software, a leading provider of recruiting software, has released the fifth major update to their applicant tracking system. This release focuses on improving recruiter productivity and enhancing communication with candidates and clients. The CATS 5.0 rollout includes numerous features, like a meeting scheduler, SMS texting capabilities, and a new version of the sourcing browser extension, but the anchor point for CATS 5.0 is the complete UI overhaul. “This is a major change in the UI. Most of our past updates have been a continuation of the same thematic elements. This is the first time in a decade where we are fundamentally reshaping, rebranding and recreating CATS from the ground up. That work and passion has culminated in this update—codenamed ‘Nala’—which is the leading edge of user interaction design.” – CATS President Tony Sternberg Key Highlights: Connect with candidates through SMS/marketing text messages Seamlessly schedule meetings by sharing your calendar with candidates Enable candidates to apply faster with a more efficient career portal Increase your productivity in CATS with the sleek, modern UI   https://recruitingheadlines.com/cats-recruiting-software-releases-new-version/ announcing new partnerships with enterprise HR companies such as SAP SuccessFactors which will combine the ease and convenience of hiring tools with the expansive reach of Jobs on Facebook. Now, employers can easily create job posts and manage applications through these applicant tracking systems. This lets businesses continue using the hiring tools they already use, and also access the expansive talent pool on Facebook. And applications from job seekers on Facebook will be sent directly to a partner's tool for a seamless review experience. https://www.facebook.com/business/news/helping-businesses-hire-through-jobs-on-facebook

In this episode, David sits down with Campbell Brown, founder and CEO of Predict HQ. An events intelligence platform based out of San Francisco, Predict HQ helps clients ranging from big-name airlines to Uber better manage their supply and pricing. Since this episode was recorded, Campbell and the team have gone on to raise a further $15m round in funding from the likes of Rampersand VC and the SF-based Lightspeed Ventures. Huge thank you to Jon Davies for the intro that made this episode possible, and we hope you get a lot out of this episode with what is truly an exceptional Kiwi operating on the world stage. If you have any feedback or suggestions please feel free to reach out to us at team(AT)diaspora.nz. Transcription: http://www.diaspora.nz/transcript-for-campbell-brown-founder-of-predicthq-on-the-information-economy-and-what-it-takes-to-crack-the-us-market/

John Vrionis is the founder and managing partner of UnusualVC, a mission-driven seed-stage venture firm and is a venture partner with Lightspeed Ventures (previously a partner). John's invested in the likes of Affirmed, AppDynamics, Docker, Athos, Citadel and many more. Listen and Learn: How John prioritizes diversity and why it leads to better returns What... The post Getting Dirty Middle Eastern Money Out of Venture Industry and Intentionally Raising a Small VC Fund with John Vrionis of UnusualVC appeared first on The Syndicate.

 I sit down with Lightspeed Ventures partner Aaron Batalion and Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover to talk about their backgrounds in coding and development, how entrepreneurship is blending together into tech culture, and our thoughts on emerging cryptocurrency.

Haystack founder and Lightspeed Ventures venture partner Semil Shah talks with Recode's Teddy Schleifer about breaking into the VC world and how the industry is changing. In this episode:03:45 - How Shah got involved with tech07:57 - How hard should it be to get a VC job?16:10 - Misconceptions about venture capital21:33 - What exactly is a “venture partner?”26:08 - How important is luck to being a good VC?31:32 - Being a lone wolf and breaking in36:07 - Doing deals outside Silicon Valley46:31 - SoftBank49:41 - Venture capital in 2038 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Produced by Foundersuite.com, "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders who have raised capital. This episode is with Chetan Rane and Akshay Ramaswamy of Alma Campus. Alma is a college-exclusive social network that enables students to discover and connect with peers on their campus. The Company recently raised from Marissa Mayer, Norwest Venture Partners, Sergio Monsalve, Felicis Ventures, and others. The Company has also raised capital from Lightspeed Ventures, Index Ventures, Pear Startup Garage, Cardinal Ventures. In this episode, Akshay and Chetan talk about building a startup while in college, growth hacks and getting early adopters, choosing investors on an oversubscribed round, and much more.

335: In this interview, Barry discussed industry 4.0, how Lightspeed approaches investments, among other topics including: Industry 4.0 as the digitization of the manufacturing sector The core technology trends that are enabling Industry 4.0, such as connectivity and computational power, intelligence, human/machine interactions, and digital/physical conversions Barry’s timescale for the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies amongst large enterprises The degree to which established manufacturing companies understand and are responding to the threats and opportunities presented by Industry 4.0 How Lightspeed, as a theme-oriented venture firm, approaches investing in the Industry 4.0 space How Lightspeed investigates technology themes and their applicability across sectors and industries How Barry thinks about the security implications of new technologies such as IoT The differentiating factors Barry looks for when making an investment, such as the management team and core technologies The genesis of Lightspeed Ventures, which Barry founded in 1999 How the partners divide up themes and determine where each will focus

EP0105 - Stitch Fix IPO Hot Take This episode is a hot take of the Stitch Fix IPO Filing: How IPO's Work / Jobs Act $1B Exits in E-Commerce Zappos - $850m 2009 Quidsi/diapers - $545m -2010 Kiva - $775b 2012 Trunk Club - $350m 2014 Jet.com - $4b  8/16 Dollar Shave club - $1b 7/16 Chewy.com - $3b 4/17 Zulily - went public with $2.7b Stitch Fix Background Offering History Financing History Stitch Fix financial performance Stitch Fix Customer Value / Churn Personalization and Machine Learning Company size and roles Conclusion Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 105 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Sunday, October 22nd 2017. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. New beta feature - Google Automated Transcription of the show: Transcript Jason:  [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 105 being recorded on Sunday October 22nd 2017 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot:  [0:40] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show Sanders, we started working on a little new show this week and as we got into it real realize that the big news that is dominating the retail and e-commerce world is one event. stitch fixes S14 their IPO so as we got into it. And started working on this week we realized that the stitch fix IPO is really a platform that we can use to talk about some of our favorite topics here on Jason Scott show, it's a little bit of everything Jason it's got, Ikea's venture capital and exit e-commerce subscription Commerce which we talked about one of your favorite topics personalization machine learning and AI. There's an Amazon undertone where you know this is one of the few companies that's made it out hopefully knock on wood and then Amazon dominated world how are they doing that, and for all our e-commerce retail us there's this really interesting KP eyes are key performance indicators here like the cost to acquire customers at lifetime value turn, and one of our other favorite topics is private label and digital native vertical Branch so stitch fix IPO covers everything. Jason:  [1:52] It's like our last hundred and four episodes all rolled into one it's amazing. Scot:  [1:56] Yes clearly Katrina over there with says must be a big lesson her because she's kind of wrapped it all into one company which we appreciate. [2:06] To a lot of the distance, interesting stories so we were at code Commerce now we reported this on the podcast for those either that follow this so in March there was shot talk and Jason Delray the Commerce and had the founder of stitch fix Katrina up there and, she kind of baited her and said that his sources are saying that there are over 500 million in Revenue side I think a lot of people in the street didn't really believe there are that large, and then she said I can't talk about it but we aren't a billion dollars yet so that was really interesting cuz she. Not only was a denial about 500 it actually kind of put a bracket on it that simply said. I'm not going to deny 500 I'm going to say we're less than a billion so then it gave us kind of the sliding scale of somewhere between 500 million and 2 billion is kind of where they were so speculation was running rampant with that and then they hired a. CFO of the Hennessey low change and y La here we go boom the you know they're actually. 977 Million Dollar business this year which is. Pretty darn impressive there you're just as runs August to August I believe which is why they can talk about 2017 it's not over yet. So you know I think it's really interesting that here is this. Pretty big company like I'm in the billion-dollar Revenue Club here and then another thing that's interesting as it's pretty Capital efficient so it's profitable which is good and then also they raise between 40 and $59 in venture capital in a lot of these other billion dollar companies have raised hundreds of millions of dollars of capital so. [3:41] Really interesting case study they also talked about at the code conference that, you know they're there watching and other categories so they've launched men in that business in six months is where it took three and a half years for women and they watch plus and it's already doing it more in its first month, students first year so we had a lot of nice kind of little data points from that conference and then, you know the the s-1 launching has been pretty exciting to read through that but Jason I've read through it with a fine-tooth comb and are. Job in this hot take / deep dive is to pick up that you see parts for you guys and walk you through it. Jason:  [4:22] For sure and we're super lucky as a regular listeners will know Scott is the financial markets Guru amongst the two of us, partly because I'm completely inapt and partly because of you you actually took your own company successfully public and presumably learned a few things along the way so I'm hoping you can get things started by giving us all a primer in the IPO process, and I'm going to start you off with a question and I may have misread this but I had had to pick up a couple places that they may have filed. Earlier in the year confidentially and then there's all this talk this month about this them doing the s-1 filing was that a red herring is this in a new filing or are we just seeing what they filed back in. In July or August. Scot:  [5:13] Yeah the. [5:16] So what happened is the way IPOs worked before 2012 was you filed your S1 and everyone could see it and the super annoying because. That's ones go through usually like 10 or 20 drafts so you submit it and then the SEC is the government body that regulates these things will come back to you and I'll say, Jason what did you mean by that sending you don't answer and then I'll be like okay it while you need to tell potential investors that so there's this like back and forth also. You may not you may not know it's really the kind of a. Nonlinear risk point where you decide to file this one because you've really hung yourself out there and maybe have a bad court maybe you're talking to the SEC for 6 months it usually takes and yeah the back corner in there or, markets turn South so to help companies go public in 2012 they passed the jobs act which. Which does Stanford jobs but it actually stands for Jumpstart our business startups and what that allows you to do is date they separate the the filing so. As a startup and they're certain definitions around this you can choose to have a confidential filing so. We did ours we were totally confidential but I think stitch fix action now it's just that they had filed confidentially was just a signal. The car says it was their choice you can you can do that or not there's probably some reason they decided to do it. [6:44] So in July they announced that they had filed confidentially so would that allowed them to do is to work with their Bankers work with SEC get a quarter kind of under their belts and, then you expand I also let you see how other IPOs so in that time frame they were able to see how Blue Apron did for example or United Snapchat had gone public by then but they, I could see kind of how it worked so that that kind of. It's really nice because it gives you the ability if you want to you can actually kind of yank the filing and not go public financing of the kind of put themselves out there but it does help with this whole process so that's what that was all about. [7:27] So So yes it so we went public at Channel visor in 2013 did this whole process we did the confidential filing work with SEC and, actually use the same Bankers in the same banking team that song stitches could just, sent them a note and they said yep we're working on stitch excite I know exactly the kind of hell what's going to happen there it's going public is a very very exciting kind of a thing that sucks with lots of stress kind of power concert. Pretty interesting times and excited for for this company to get out we we haven't had a lot of IPOs in the market and in quite a while. [8:03] So [8:05] You know this is just one of the most-watched IPOs in a long time because we really haven't had a lot of e-commerce IPOs and then I posed that we've had kind of a dud larger digital world, how can I put two out there Snapchat they went public at a $30 price point in its now 15 and a blue apron when, public at 10 and is now five those are not really successful IPOs so so it should have come. Bad Dana Point out there then we have this company that I'm surprised everyone with the scale that it's at and there's this kind of. Waiting group of e-commerce and digital companies that are not be watching this and really closely and if this IPO can go off not only price well but staying well for for a year or two I think it means good things for this does not cohort of companies that are. Are probably ready to go so in there are the ones that that I kind of think about our you have wish which is the marketplace with largely Chinese Goods box Pinterest house Flipkart stripe. Fanatics instacart Warby Parker in Casper and Kendra Scott Kendra Scott's like more old school but I thought I'd throw it in there because it's kind of interesting. Most of these are unicorns which means they have received a billion-dollar private company valuation and you know any kind of thinks through the scale that they have to be at to do that. [9:27] Your bus is companies can have Revenue that are are very much north of a hundred million if not kind of closing in on 500 million in a billion dollars so they're definitely in that kind of class of companies that have the scale the growth brand to be able to go public. Also it's it's interesting cuz we don't have a lot of data on public e-commerce, that's because a lot of the ones that get ready to go public get snapped up by Amazon that's actually you know not out of the question that maybe Citrix doesn't actually make it public there's there still this is kind of the. [9:58] The about halfway point of that six-month process imagine before the end of the year though price and go out. [10:04] But a lot of times he's S1 stimulate buyers to come out kind of say this is my one time I have to buy this before it becomes public. [10:13] Can I take a new bladder so so why keep an eye on that. The the public companies that are out there there's only three so you have CafePress and Overstock and those are kind of. Micro Capstar kind of sub billion dollars the most successful public e-commerce company so around is Wayfair it has a six billion dollar market cap that's about two times its revenues I think. If you were going to hold my feet to the fire on stitch fix at a billion dollar Revenue. Growing 30% I think it probably is what's a 325 x multiple so I think we're going to see a a market cap. You know it does three to five billion range so much better multiple because it is much more subscription kind of recurring Revenue than you Seattle airfare which kind of has to sell. Everything each time so she Furniture you know I don't think you know in your life when you need furniture and then then you can out of the furniture business for a while. [11:13] Yeah yeah they're definitely you know just a different model but yet a lot lot better gross margins and net margins. And another thing I look at when I see these s ones from IPS perspective is what is the banking Syndicate the the blues to Blue Chip Banks are Goldman Sachs and Morgan, and what you do is when you look at the page and it actually put a digital copy of it even in the PDF or on the s-1 over with sec. There's different positions they mean different things the lead Banker gets this position is a larger font. There's all this kind of History around this that we can't going to but it's pretty interesting and. The. You guys look at the left first and the largest upper left is called lead left is Goldman Sachs and this example so Goldman Sachs is the The Bluest of Blue Chips. Yeah you know Jim Cramer calls them golden sacks slacks and another good company is they rarely do things with with Morgan Stanley those two kind of go head-to-head it's kind of like. [12:13] Oh I don't know Canton gun LG your two sports teams that are bitter rival State they look they usually don't do well together. [12:23] There you go there you and then. So you don't have Morgan Stanley on this week if you have JP Morgan which is very good bank and then you have Barclays RBC Stiefel Piper Jeffrey and William Blair and what will you do here is your thinking short and long-term sign, simultaneously, to the bank's you pick you want a great firm that's going to help you sell your IPO so they have relationships with the buyers of IPOs which are institutional buyers which tend to be hedge funds and mutual funds and. All these banks have that and they will do a great job selling this company. But then the secondary consideration is longer-term what you're trying to do is get a great internet analyst that are are great analyst this is called a cell site analyst dick in. Advanced buy-side analyst that your company is awesome and in public about it and you're in the show we talked a lot about you know these analyst we've had several on the show talking about the things that they report on and. Goldman Sachs you have all these guys have really good analyst and, many of them may be familiar with socks on the show so it will be interesting to see so he's Terry is the big guy e-commerce guy over Goldman Sachs I imagine that's who will cover it and, all down the line there there's some really good unless she wants to go public there's this waiting. And you have the analyst cover it and and it's good as a company to have. People that really understand your business out there banging the drum so that that's kind of what you do when you do the banking process last couple little points on the public market. Thinks there's ticker symbol is going to be S fix and they're going to raise $100 this is really just a placeholder what you do is you put out this initial draft and then you start to get reaction from. [14:04] From buyers are early reaction and then, as you see how the markets going you raise more and then you come up with your pricing and that kind of thing they're using their guitars to public market so you go on the New York Stock Exchange that's what we did at Chow visor they have chosen to go with the NASDAQ it's kind of a, six to one half dozen the other I do like the another aspect of an IPO it's a raising money kind of a thing and then it's a pyramid. And I do like the pr aspect of the New York Stock Exchange you get on CNBC get to ring the bell you're right there New York NASDAQ you just go and press a button at the NASDAQ Market Center in Times Square if so that's exciting in in grandiose, New York Stock Exchange. 22 is what we're going to run to hear is called the prospectus and that's the s-1 which is to the technical number given to these documents by the SEC. And it's only one. People read these aren't familiar with them they get really bogged down at the top the first 50 pages of an s-1 are really cya it's a bunch of lawyer stuff to keep people from suing so. Pass that stuff and don't get wrinkled up and it feels like this kind of effort lawyers called a parade of Horrors it's like literally a list of all the things, the wrong it is a really weird way to collect unit tell people about your company but it's just kind of the way it's done so. You know it's like everything that could possibly go wrong with your company and then you're like an end here's here's why we're so excited, it's really strange strange way to do it but it's done to reduce risk of litigation so skip to that and go right to the management discussion and usually there's a letter from the CEO so. [15:39] Yeah we'll put a link to this over on the SEC in the show notes or or like to download the PDF and use your fine function and go right to management discussion. Jason:  [15:50] Awesome tip let the record show channel advisor got to wake or ticker symbol then then the stitch fix it. Scot:  [15:59] Xperia S fix SF 49959, another thing that is good about this is we haven't had a lot of Billy dollar exits and e-commerce so if if my math right you again this could be hopefully north of Two And in that 325 range depending on how it prices. [16:25] There hasn't been a lot of VC investment in the e-commerce industry because we haven't had a lot of exits ovc dollars chase the exits, and exits are commonly referred to as liquidity events at the two most popular are acquisition or m&a and an IPO so just, quick history here. If some of the bigger one so we had in 2009 we had Zappos at i850 million Quincy diapers.com it 545 million that's Mark Laurie 1.0, and then we had Keva at 775 I don't know if I can count that as e-commerce but but I know this guy saw us let's talk about it 2012 Trunk Club which is very relevant to this one was acquired by Nordstrom for 350 million in 2014, that's not in the billion-dollar kind of close to Club but I thought I'd include it because of the proximity to stitch fix, and then. Mark Lori 2.0 soljet to Walmart for 4 billion on August 16th that guy had like a five five billion and just suck the last 4 years. It's pretty good. Shave club was acquired by Unilever for a billion and then Chewy was recently acquired by PetSmart for 3 billion, Zulily was an interesting one that kind of got the the double whammy so they went public I had about a three billion dollar valuation and then work wired that IPO didn't do well over time that's fatigue with our customer base, hot and then it was acquired by QVC for 2 and 1/2 2.4 billion in August of 2015. Seems like a lot when I say it like that but but since 2009 we've really had like 9 kind of exits 6 or so that are over that billion dollars. [18:03] And three of them were in the last 18 months this is an industry we really need a lot more of these kind of exits to keep venture capitalist investing so this is really important for industry I think we all are all need to be great for this to do really well and in kind of. Bring people back to the e-commerce fold-in Amazon his cast of pretty dark shadow when you talk to people that I know that are trying to raise money, you know they say it's Amazon question that really stops am at you every BC wants to know how is your five or ten million dollar company to go to survive in an Amazon world than now if this does well people and say well so I'm sure we can. That's some of the implications at a macro level. Jason why don't you would kind of gone a pretty long way without actually saying what's just fixed us why don't you bring people to speed on that. Jason:  [18:53] Yeah for sure so stitch fix is. You can think of is an apparel retailer they were founded in 2011 and they had what. I believe it was a novel concept back in 2011. They would sure ate a box of items for a customer and initially this was targeted just at women and so you would do a subscription and you can in that subscription you would get a box. Of 5 items of apparel and accessories and you could. [19:25] Cheap all some or none of the items in that box so essentially you paid $20 up front. Which was that sort of a styling fee the first time you use the service you fill out a survey so that the The Stylist can get your preferences they stitch fix picks five items they think you'll like and want to keep, they send them to you if you like him you pay for him if you keep all five you get a 25% discount if you just want to keep some of them you pay for him and send back what you don't want, if you like none of them you can send the whole box back and you're just out the $20 styling fee and I should mention the styling fee is waived if you keep any of the items. [20:04] I'm so back in 2011 this is the founder of Katrina Lake like literally. Getting customers to pay her for a box she would go shopping at Nordstroms by things know what the return policy was at Nordstrom's. Send them to the customer and the customer and keep them she would return them to the the retailers that she bought them from so she's. She's managing all these sort of return she's almost like a personal concierge, for the Shoppers and she turn this into a very significant Automated Business so over time that that business model is sort of evolved. Initially it was subscription-only and you could kind of pic. The frequency of the subscription you can get a box every month every other month every six months you know I'm a different set of periods. They they. [20:54] Shifted to a model where you can still can have that subscription but you can also just order a fix on demand so you since you don't have the pressure of a box showing up when you don't need one and whenever you feel like you just need to refresh your wardrobe. I want something new to you you can go online hit the fix button then and I'll send you a new box. Originally they were all selling other people's products, and they they started to develop their own Brands what they they call it exclusive Brands and so now portion of the, the products in the Box are coming from stitch fix which will talk more about it later they also added men's much more recently in Ascot mentioned the men's products scaled-up much more rapidly they've also offered plus size boxes, and I think the newest offering is maternity boxes and so all of this from a CEO Katrina Lake who's now. 34 years old which is pretty impressive. You know we're talking about the rare of 1 billion dollar e-commerce exits in the the relatively small number of of e-commerce companies that successfully doing lipo when you talk about those companies that are led by a woman CEO. It's it's like even extremely more rare which is I think exciting and and pretty awesome so you. If you were to read her letter in the s-1 she kind of highlights. [22:26] The Three core principles of the business right the first one is that they're always customer-centric that they're always focusing first on the needs of their customer. Number two, personalization is the future we'll be talking a lot about that and number three they think they have this unique combinations of humans and data and they have made some very substantial investments in AI which will be talking about and they think that unique combination of humans and data are better together than either. Human stylist or artificial intelligence is by itself so that. In a nutshell is the business order effects get these byproducts keep what you want. Send back what you don't and I would argue that it spawned a large industry of similar competitors. In the same category as in an other categories like Children's Apparel for example before we go too much further, do you want to dive into how they they were funded by once they got beontra Tina's original Nordstrom's credit card. Scot:  [23:32] Yeah yeah and she used to work at Poly where I don't know if you ever met her back when she was there at the podium for founder is an ex eBay guy that I've met several times and so she was she was kind of early on in this this whole industry to start with c. Pretty pretty neat that sheep spun out of that and it's. Effectively lap them I think at this point so I share your enthusiasm for female Founders and see is I think it's great the only other guy was kind of what he said that the only one I could think of. Was Meg Whitman at eBay I can't think of another you know kind of a the CEO female CEO kind of in our industry. [24:10] Yeah the IPO level so they are capital efficient and you. The sky saying they only raise 45 million you know it is interesting because 45 million is no no that's not chump change but you know it takes a lot of capital to build a business like this and I think. How many billion dollar businesses have soaked up your I said it before but 100 200 300 million to build a good almost take. 500 million pop service is very impressive and so the funding history. In 2011 Lightspeed Ventures did a seed round. [24:52] 2013 two headed around from Baseline and then very quickly on top of that and and, so I was in February 13th and then in October 13th at a 12-9 Darby with Benchmark and then Benchmark is the company is one of the Blue Chip VC's in the Bay Area, girly a bill girly is on their board from their heat that that's one of the firms that did eBay and Yahoo in the early days, I also an outspoken Uber investor and then they did a series C. In the sea 24 in 14th 6, teen ceduna 14 and then dated a top off kind of in 2017 of 12 million and, I just called a mezzanine round so ABC and mezzanine for those who that haven't raised Venture Capital with the way it works is in an IPO the same way you. You issue new shares so each time that kind of value the company at a pretty money you added this Capital you get a post money and then you get diluted I mention this because I saw a lot of conversations on Twitter when you look at the ownership. You end up with Baseline at 28% Benchmark 25% light speed at 11% and then Katrina Lake the founder at 16%, there's obviously a case there that says that's not fair Katrina should own 80% of this as a founder of you, we are doing is kind of making this bet on your is Venture Capital you get you get more than just Capital but just kind of keep it to that conversation you're making this. [26:27] To you when I take this 45 million and give up you know 85% of the company there should be a bigger outcome then if I didn't do that and. You're clearly these kind of cases you take her 16% you multiply it by that that 3 billion you get like 450 million kind of evaluation of her ownership, I probably the right choice but you don't you never know the other side of the outcome you know maybe if she'd bootstrapped this and waited 5 more years it would actually she could own 80% of it and have just a bigot as an outcome in fast-moving markets where you have, companies like Amazon swimming around its speed that is definitely something that that takes is probably a good choice to raise capital for. And then sink that covers. Big pieces so we don't want to get too bogged down in the financial stuff but Jason do you want to hit some of their revenue highlights. Jason:  [27:23] Yeah so they've had an ice hockey stick which is I think one of the things that that has caught a lot of folks attention 2014, they they reported 73 million dollars in Revenue, 2015 the ramped up to three hundred forty-two million dollars in Revenue 2016 they they doubled at 2 730 million dollars in revenue and in their fiscal year 2017 which is over as you mentioned they were just under a billion dollars at 7977 million dollars which. Parenthetically has to has to kill them that they didn't quite get over that. That be so so it's been a pretty good ramp up and, several of those years were profitable it looks like they they ramped up some expenses in 2017 and maybe weren't as profitable. Scot:  [28:17] Yeah and then the growth rates to just look at the growth rate between 14 and 15 like almost 400% growth so crazy but that was exciting time to be there and then from 15 to 1613 per cent growth death definitely Torrid but not as crazy as 400%, and then between 16 and 1734 per cent and in this is where you know what I'm imagining happened is that kind of said. Yeah should we go raise a $59 in turn around or should we just slow the growth rate get profitable and prove the model. This is interesting decision because what most pundits would tell you is while she loves growth so if they could have. I have gone public at 100% growth rate that probably would have been a different outcome than 34% but you know I think in hindsight it may actually. [29:09] Better that they're growing a little bit slower and more profitable because with the. I mentioned it the the Snapchat problems and questions around their ability to get profitable and then Blue Apron kind of hitting the skids. I think this is this ends up being a nice balance between growth and profitability of so so it will have to kind of see how it prices and then you know. What I'm engine is if they. Delray's over north of $100 that gives you a quite a bit of jet fuel to get that that engine going back up so I bet very quickly they'll try to get back to triple-digit growth building unnoticed looking at some of the numbers they don't. [29:47] The NEP now they don't specifically breakout sales and marketing or art effectively, marketing but I do kind of wrap it up into a number that has gnats GM and that is actually growing a good bit faster than Revenue so, between in 2016 840 per cent versus Revenue at 1:13 and then in 2017 and grew 55% versus 34% in. What you will you see inside a subscription models is in the early days you know it's you can you find your early adopters and it's pretty inexpensive too. Get to them but then as you grow your having spend more and more and more on the acquisition of of customers are the metric commonly known as cat that cost to acquire customer. Did you see any other metrics around that Jason. Jason:  [30:35] Yeah it was like I was the one of the really interesting things is are they. Capturing repeat customers and what's the lifetime value of those those customers, so they they did share a couple of things to give us some insight into that they they reported what they called this repeat rate which is. The percentage of customers from the previous year that purchase in the subsequent year and so they're sitting in in. [31:05] 2016 that was 83% and in 2017 that was 86% which sound pretty good, they also did this kind of convoluted cohort analysis that I'm going to rely on you to try to decode if anyone is cuz I I frankly didn't follow it it didn't seem quite as an. [31:28] As straightforward as I might have expected on one hand but on the flip side I guess I was pleasantly surprised that they tried to get some disability to that at all. Scot:  [31:39] Yeah and what you're trying to do coordinate a Caesar are very confusing because, we're trying to do think of it like a graduating class so teach your graduating class let's say you had a bunch of seniors that graduated in 2017 from high school, and then you followed him through college and the rest your life and you kind of saw what happened to those people that's a cohort analysis secret you lock in time this group of customers acquired from a certain. And you see what happens to them. So The first thing to do in the cohort analysis is they they look at a 2014 cohort and they show the value from that Court was 639. [32:19] And then the value of its dollar so than the value of a 2015 cohort with 718 so I think it is a fault this 14 people. [32:28] From 14 15 16 17 and they said those guys generated 639 / user / that life. [32:36] And they followed him and they said that. That actually went up pretty nicely you know about I will see what is that 10% in so that's good that shows inside of that cohort what you have is a lot of factors you have to learn so it's people that say. I tried this I'm no longer going to use it. It's more complicated in these models that do you have the on-demand like when does someone turn maybe they're on an annual plan you have to wait a whole year to see if they've turned maybe they're there every two years they want to get a fix or no. If someone moves from a monthly to accordingly that's not really churn so you. It gets really hard to measure turn so inside of that 10% increase you have some customers they're leaving but then you also have some customers that are buying more. So what their kind of saying here is the customers that end up buying more. Hope you're over Road by about 10% economically. The factors of turnt that's what's the story they're trying to tell I'd it's interesting I bet you know we don't have privy to this but I bet if we looked at the initial as when they filed this wasn't here and this is a reaction to Blue Nile to Napoli now but Blue Apron. Yeah I just felt like my at yeah it felt very much like a oh crap we have to really kind of figure out explain to people what's going on here. Then if you take that data point then they kind of looks and looks like the 16 cohort came down a bit and then they start looking at some of the first half's and what you see there and they had a little blurb in their hair that said. [34:07] The call in first half of a year so it's kinda like the six months. [34:13] Piece of the second six months they show you some of that and it's really fun and loaded so what happens is people by a fair amount in the first six months and then it kind of declines there, Ina, they talk about it as an opportunity it's also kind of weakness but it's not fair to do for them to get better with the data science this mirrors personal my wife. That was a stitch fix user had it for about four or five months and you have by the end of their had had. [34:41] Acquired enough clothes in it was kind of burned out by the processor forgetting to return it and getting fees and all this kind of stuff so hopefully something a little bit of yellow flag something they need to work on when I do my mask. [34:54] They give you just enough kind of figure this out so this is the first half of 2016 is 3:35 but then the total was like an essay. 5061 FM 506 so that when you do the math in the second half is 154 if so. [35:10] Literally dropped by half over at the pier to be here so let's see what that be 2/3 would be in the front half and then a third on the back half so interesting kind of. Trend air it's not clear how much that Stern and I got two people saying I don't want to box it all or how much is you filled up their wardrobe in their closet they're good to go. Jason:  [35:31] Yep and I I guess I should have mentioned another potential way to think about this is we did not mention the growth interactive customer base but, the back in 2014 when they did 73 million and sales they had 261,000 active customers with their defining as. Someone that bought a box in the latter the received the box in the last 12 months and if you look at their growth of active customers. [35:56] At the end of 2017 they are like almost 2.2 million active customers so the the growth has been. Year-over-year it is always the same order of magnitude as their revenue growth but it it has been slower. Then the revenue growth so that the the fact that they're the revenue is growing faster than active customers. [36:21] The week like on the surface looks like a good thing because it that that implies that they're they're driving greater Revenue per customer as as they get a a bigger and more mature customer base. Scot:  [36:31] Yeah yeah yeah I agree in, I have a feeling that as they do their Roadshow so wanting to keep an eye out for if if this is topics interesting for you, when you do your road show you actually have to record it and it's part of the SEC rules that anyone can watch the road show so it's on Retail Road show if you go to Retail Road show.com you will find that, don't be a window of time in any sings expire pretty quickly so but Jason I will treat when it's up in what you have there probably is Katrina and probably the CF oh and maybe someone else maybe the cool actually walking you through the Roadshow and I. Bats that they have to peel out a little bit more information cuz I think investors are going to be very keenly tied into this and trying to understand really what I think. I think that's the one piece missing hearing and people don't want to know that so it's me an option to see if they have to disclose that. Jason:  [37:28] When are there fun tidbits when you were talking about this this sales and marketing spend they did mention in the ass one that they actually hired miller-brown to do this aided awareness study so essentially in like May of are in December 2016, they went out and interviewed a bunch of women that were in their target market which are women are making over $50,000 a year that live in us and said, are you familiar with stitch fix and 28% of the women that they surveyed said yes in, in December of 2016 so then in May of 2017 after they sort of double that adds fan that aided awareness went up to 41%. [38:11] Like I would take it away Ernest with a pretty large grain of salt. Cuz you're you're asking someone if they remember if they're from they were something in a lot of people will just frankly lie because they don't want to say, they're not friendly with something but if it's true that that 41% of their target market are now from there with them. Like that implies that the the next big tranche of growth is probably harder to achieve than the. The last one was cuz it's it's a heck of a lot easier to go from 20% to 41% then it is to go from 41% to 75%. Scot:  [38:50] Absolutely yeah yeah and then I Delray had an interesting article about talking about how you know it's really kind of a non Coastal audience I don't know, is data that really supported that but I think when you get too many people you have to kind of be spreading out to the Midwest and what not so interesting. Jason:  [39:06] Yeah and I think part of it is just that their price points are like these are not like, super premium price points and you know in general these are not Designer level Apparel in so it's, you know it's it's meant for sort of a more modest consumers and I think there was even I can't remember was in the interview or something that Katrina said recently but she talked about that they at one point had a pretty bad. Inventory glitch where they weigh over bought and the, the root cause of over buying the wrong inventory was it they were buying sort of on-trend stylish stuff and their customers were we're responding that they didn't keep any of the items because they were inappropriate to wear at the PTA meeting for example or that you know, the the the sort of everyday occasions that their customers were we're hoping to use the products for it so I think that that helped Define the. The Target in the use case for Katrina. Scot:  [40:08] Yeah that and that's a really good kind of transition to the AI machine learning in the personalization it's this is kind of a it's really interesting weed from that perspective I've never, you seen anything quite like it so and I know you spend some time on it so it should take us to that. Jason:  [40:23] Yeah yeah it so it's it's almost hard to talk about machine learning and personalization separately Katrina and her in her letter talked about those. Tubing Big premises personalization is super important and then machine learning plus humans you know being the secret sauce, and the reason it's hard to talk about separately is because largely what you're doing with machine learning is. [40:47] More personalizing the the offer in case the actual products to each customer. [40:55] So I do want to start by talking a little bit about this how they use AI overall, so you fill out a 60 question survey and then they want to pick the five items that you are most likely to keep and they said they don't have a standard starter box so it's not like they're sending the same box to everyone. Everyone's box is going to be different based on current trends. Seasons what they have in inventory right now and the the answers to the 60 Questions that they know about you and so one way to do that is have a stylus that. Read your 60 questions and then have him or her go pick the five items in another way to do it is to to use some sort of algorithm to pick those items in so initially, the the model at stitch fix was let's establish a computer algorithm to pick those items and then lets it let the stylist. [41:54] Override it so we know what will pull up a list of candidate items for The Stylist and maybe you know that has eight items in it and you let the stylus pick the final five or maybe that the algorithm shows the first. 5 in the stylus can say yay or nay but interesting Lee. Early on they hire this guy Eric Olsen to be their Chief algorithm officer and build this Audrey them to figure out what you you send in that first box based on the answers to your survey and. Eric is an interesting guy because he was literally the VP of data science at Netflix which we all use as one of the best examples of. AI driven businesses I think he was also a data scientist a Yahoo to a super credible guy that's been working at stitch fix on the this interesting answer to this question. How do I pick the five right things to send to this first customer so that sticky so that she buy some of them so that you're she's profitable but also said that she keeps using the service, cuz it does first five items are wrong your your odds of getting another chance or dramatically lower. So then they're also going to use a I once you. [43:06] Pick some of those first items and don't pick some of those first items they're going to use that data to refine the items they send you in subsequent boxes and that's where they start getting this really valuable contextual data that's both implicit and explicit like they, implicitly know you return something and they can make inferences about why you returned it but there's also an option for customers to tell. The Stylist why they didn't like something until they get this explicit information the him was too long it didn't fit me well. All all of these sorts of things and so very early on situation was a believer in leveraging deep learning. As the merchant instead of heading human sort of dictate what styles customers would get exposed to which Tamiya super interesting. But then in more recent times it actually taking it to the next level so we mentioned. That they started watching their own products and I'm not sure we said this but if it sounds like about 20% of all their sales are from what they call Exclusive Brands which are predominantly. Brands that they created and they're actually using AI to design the products they offer and so what they'll do is they'll say hey. We have a big segment of customers that don't like a neckline lower than. 8 cm and the majority of product we buy from third parties have this 10cm neckline and so we're going to design your own product and it's going to have a 7cm neckline and said they're actually using their they broke each. [44:45] Each piece of apparel into 60 different attributes and they're using a guy to define the attributes that their customers would want that might not exist in that Marketplace in so they're using that too to dictate what what new products. [44:59] The build which is super cool they had not that I have seen disclose any. Hard data about how successful that AI is or how successful that AI versus a human is but another in RF event there the interest x on it in San Diego this year and one of the speakers was this woman Megan Rose, and Megan is the founder of a a smaller company that in some ways is stitch fix for jewelry it's called Rockbox and. Very similar to stitch fix you get a box of five pieces of jewelry to keep what you want you buy it. You return what you don't want the others extra model where you can kind of rent The Jewelry by just keeping it for as long as you want until you want a new piece, but they also are leveraging aai's their stylist and what I found interesting is Megan shared some of the statistics that when they transitioned, from Human curators to machine learning the purchase rate on the first box increase by 300% so that that computer was. 3 times more likely to pick items that that customer would keep they were able to improve their inventory efficiency by 85% when they went to the the AI BAE Systems and they they still cheap stylist but they have the. The way I am. [46:20] Inform the stylist exactly like stitch fix is doing and that enabled them to reduce their stylist cost by 30% so. stitch fix is getting anything like those results that's super substantial. [46:34] Improvement via this machine learning and what's terrifying about it and cool at the same time is. [46:42] If you had a great stylist a great person picking all these products, and she kept doing it and should get better over time and the first time she reads a survey she gets it you know I'm kind of right but by the, thousand times she's read a survey she's much better at it right like this the person wouldn't learn over time and her hit rate would keep getting better but then when you hire the next person. [47:04] They would start at zero just like the first person did right and the magic thing about this that this machine learning algorithm is. [47:13] It has learned from all two point, two million customers of stitch fix and it keeps getting better and better and so it it's scales much better and we worms much faster than a human can come in so you don't potentially the more customers in the more time in service all these things get in the better of the algorithms get, the the the profitability metrics on this business potentially keep going up. Much faster because the conversion rate just gets better over time whereas a lot of other things we do tend to regress to this mean and you kind of keep the same. Same conversion rate over time so it's going to be super interesting to see you know if the actual performance of the company kind of bear out. Does hypothesis is but for sure a hypotheses I always say that wrong for sure. Ate a significant angle of stitch fix is. Personalizing the offer based on this machine learning I think they said they have over 75 data scientist on staff now. We used to joke because every time Katrina would speaking an event the number of data scientist she claimed, had that double then it it almost didn't sound credible but now that we see the the. Numbers behind the business it it turns out that we probably should have been joking cuz it seems like they're all sort of credible number isn't in line with the the revenue growth that they've they've been experiencing. Scot:  [48:44] Yeah one of those things I thought was interesting as they also have a section in there that talks about. Their usage of data science and the obvious one is you went through all this The Styling algorithm, and then they also talked about nustyle development and then what you covered another one is so they have something like how many was it was 3,400 Stylistics. [49:08] Yeah there's a human stylist so, actually have the kannada matchmaking algorithm and so this data science will actually kind of say you know maybe, maybe some The Stylist our new moms and I'll map you up with other new moms so I don't know what day they're looking at but that that's kind of cool and then these 3400 Silas, many of them are part-time so I don't know how the interface works I've seen Amazon. Do this with customer care, you do the thing where you can kind of check-in check-out and and then there's an online your face where you can kind of do whatever style posting things they do did they talk about an application in the s-1 about, I thought that was interesting kind of a matchmaking is how to use data science that use a lot of demand forecasting so you know. Understanding. [49:56] This is is interesting because they send all these products out right so the return rate is pretty important and it's not entirely clear to me what happens to all the stuff. The comes back out of it goes in other people's boxes or what happens but there's some demand forecasting that has to happen there, and then there's merchandising optimization which is. Understanding how to order what size color and style kind of information and even talked about they use a lot of data science in the filming centers in a used one example they have five fulfillment centers so there's a matching of, which people go to which data which fulfillment center and then also they optimize inside the Fulfillment center using the data science for pick path optimization so I thought it was interesting that they've, this YouTube Don't this engine and they're using it in like I bought this at like 7 or 8 different, parts of the business so there's really good scale from those 75 data scientist. Jason:  [50:53] Yep and we should mention I think they filed a number of patents as a result of all this right like they have something like eight eight pending patent application. Scot:  [51:01] Yeah I also thought it's interesting day they love data science but they also talk about there's a human kind of check elements I guess you know. I guess maybe something has arrived at these things sometimes like it want everyone thinks they need purple socks or something that don't have humans to catch them. Jason:  [51:19] Yeah I interpret that is twofold like that there is sort of the final check but I also think that they have decided that customers respond better. To a human interaction so I think, the reason that that one of those core principles is AI plus humans is you know there's a lot of businesses where they would just try to get the AI really right and have a very impersonal experience, and you know just have to let the customer know the computer is selecting these items for you I think the stitch fix model is. That they would like you to build a relationship with that stylist and rely on that stylist as a person, and if you're going to fight or stitch fix I think they want you to feel like you're firing your friend Susan who's your stylist not just fire firing some. [52:06] Some computer that's that using math to pick out that's for you and so I think the human element both has a practical element but I also think it has a strong marketing branding element for them as well. Scot:  [52:19] Yet they get this really interesting case study and then we can move on from machine learning they said one example or Delila embroidery neckline knit top is purchased 52% of the time, and then what's interesting is are algorithms, I can determine How likely a client is up to 80% to purchase the item if we include it in that's in her specific fix them so they can kind of show the power of the you know if you just blast it out to everyone you get 52% but if you can like use the machine learning. Machine engine you get like a order of magnitude higher conversion rate which is pretty neat to your point on the, what they're saying about the machine learning stuff is it used to be in that venture capitalist would look for your eyes looking for a company that has a bit of an unfair advantage and that unfair Advantage used to be Network effects, you like marketplaces are the kings of this like eBay or buyers Springs more sellers is this network effect LinkedIn the more people social. [53:19] That works out this too but now it's interesting is those that data on 2 million clients and think about all the. The transactional data there's there's probably I don't know zillions of Dana Point's there. Any company even an Amazon that has to compute these guys that they're going to have to climb that mountain so it makes it really really hard for a startup to catch up, you pretty quickly dwindle down the number of Cups companies that, eat here too but maybe three or four you can have maybe a Macy's and end their advantage would be they have more customers so they can get to that two million pretty quickly so. Pretty interesting application of machine learning and I think this will be the first machine learning IPO that I've I'm aware of so that'll be another kind of neat thing and that it's also in our space of e-commerce. Jason:  [54:06] Until I mean two things I would just highlight there that. [54:11] I think they're trying to generate you know a version of a virtuous cycle here or an Amazon flywheel that they. [54:19] Significantly invested in their own machine learning Tech and so that they have that capability that we just covered but they also have a business model that just gets them more. Valuable data right so if you think about it and most apparel manufacturers are totally disintermediated from the customer so they get. No data from their actual customers and even if you're a retailer or even if you're a vertically integrated retailer your the Gap and you make all this stuff and you sell it through your stores once it leaves your store for the most part it's gone and you don't you have a return rate you wanted to be as low as possible, but you really you know this this try-before-you-buy send them five things get back what they don't love. Get you a much more valuable data source so the fact that they both. Have this more valuable data and then they have proprietary technology to act on that that data is a potential flywheel for them. [55:19] Oh, I still think it's interesting and somewhat controversial the amount of investment they made in the the. [55:29] The core machine learning technology right like so I could imagine when they they say. Started this in 2011 and I assume that machine learning came in a couple years after that 2013 you could look at it the state of what was out in the market and say if I'm going to be good at this have to build it myself and if I wanted to be a core competency I need to. To build it myself and for sure you need your own experts but. [55:52] The last five years have seen such a huge Improvement and evolution of the off-the-shelf tools that it almost certainly has to be the case that. These guys have spent a bunch of money building their own machine learning tools that are frankly probably inferior to the the version of tensorflow the Google gives you for free today and so it. It is they may have been a little early in the curve having expertise about their data and about the the. Applying machine learning models to their data and having a unique data set seems like a huge competitive Advantage I imagine some smart people could debate about how valuable their their investment in their own. [56:40] Machine learning technology was versus leveraging some of the the amazing technology that's coming on the market now but but I'm not sure whatever know the real answer there. Scot:  [56:49] Yeah, tell if a competitor can get there with a lot less and catch up then it was worth it get a couple of anything else on machinery. [57:04] A couple other, miscellaneous little tidbits they talk a lot about being a good brand partner in this one so they they talk about they have over 700 brand partners and some of those brand selected to provide some exclusives in in the stitch fix this and then as Jason mentioned they do have their own private label and they call that exclusive brands, I am Jason Howard debating my reed was 20% of fish stitch fix his exclusive Brands were were privately, 20% of everything was their own private label but you kind of red it is 20% could be kind of including those non stitch fix brand Partners exclusive thanks. Jason:  [57:44] Yeah they did mention that that some third-party Brands give them exclusive products and so like I'm quite aware that 20% of stuff that stitch fix design or a combination of stuff that's only sold by stitch fix. Scot:  [57:56] Yeah and this reminds me of our Amazon private label discussion where where. Part of Amazon's private label strategy is there their data science is saying look we need a widget like this and no one's doing it you know we need batteries that come. 24 to a box and not in a packaging that you can open and quantity 8 so interesting to see that. Another little tidbit is so they talked about Outsourcing the manufacturing of that private label called exclusive brands, but in 2017 they actually acquired a pretty large thing as 20,000 square-foot facility that's actually an apparel making. The equipment and & Company in Pennsylvania somewhere so it it felt like they were going to go all the way over to clean the grading and start actually making their own things and United States which is pretty interesting. Jason:  [58:45] Yeah although I do think in the s-1 they they made it very clear that the right you should not expect them like to actually fabricate in the US that they wanted some capability in the US for experimenting purposes but the like. [58:59] You should not invest in them based on the premise that they were going to become a US manufacturer. Scot:  [59:04] Yeah and then people wise they have. Pretty impressive 5800 people total 86% identify as female so that it is, pretty amazing what you put 55% of the management team to have 5 helmet centers / 1.5 million-square-foot 1,500 employees in the Fulfillment centers, 3400 Silas 200 client experience Associates million customers that's like what does that 1 / 100 no a thousand. Yeah so that's good ratio there did you dream team is actually pretty small I was surprised 95 Engineers so that's. [59:44] Pretty lean mean for kind of scale they're at and Sadie I guess the 75 data scientist get it closer to effectively. 150 which is closer to what I would think it would be so that's how the people break out largest chunk is the stylist and then the Fulfillment center employees followed by. You know the client experience Associates and then a relatively small Engineering in data science team. Jason:  [1:00:09] Yep and this was not surprising I suspect to you or I but I still talk to a lot of people that aspired to be a billion dollar e-commerce business and they still imagine that they're doing that out of a single fulfillment center. Scot:  [1:00:24] Yeah no. Jason:  [1:00:26] And I at yeah I mean yeah. Not very possible and I'm like this is a perfect example of what you know again at their they're not at a billion dollars yet and there and they they have a customer-facing business where humans interacting with every customer and yet still the largest portion of their, their workforces you know that are close to the the second largest piece of those Workforce it as all those fulfillment employees. Scot:  [1:00:51] Yeah I wanted more information on, fulfillment centers just because again I imagine that that almost every box comes back with something so imagine the it's the reverse supply chain that I'll Eat You Alive on the stuff so. Jason:  [1:01:09] Reverse Logistics are much more, challenging than I mean things are very hard to reverse Logistics are in order of magnitude harder in your right like that's cooked into this model is there's always going to be a high level of reverse Logistics so that that would be an interesting area to have some unique competitive advantages and if they do they they haven't pitched them very hard. Scot:  [1:01:30] Yeah and the day of science didn't necessarily cover that and you know, Gillett Wisconsin to it so what cities send out of too many customers let's say every month they send out a million boxes will probably less a900. Thousand come back with at least one item coming back so I'm have all of them but you know that's hard someone needs to go through there and figure out all that out you kind of know but you have to match it up happens to it. I don't, do the brands allow them to kind of like put it back, or do you have to liquidate it and then does each of these fulfillment centers have an outbound peace and an inbound if they put it back on a shelf that's like a whole it's really super inefficient to like open a bunch of boxes and put all that stuff on shelves that doesn't seem logical that I have a lot of kind of questions around that I bet. probably the Harry part of this thing. Jason:  [1:02:21] And there is like so I think this is more rumor than real problems but so all of these industries are plagued with a little bit of the like. [1:02:30] Oh wait a minute is this close stuff that already got returned from some other retailer right and that. The fuel gets playing there several of these services and I think including stitchfix have at some point shipped products that arrived at a customer's location with another retailers price tag on it. [1:02:50] Right and that you know puts all kinds of questions in the in the mind of the consumer and you start wondering like waiter is this a TJ Max kind of play where they're getting the. The leftover stuff from some some retard where they couldn't sell and then their there they're selling it at at you know predominantly with price which is part of the reason I have such good margins. The. And and the explanation that that stitch fix gave and I think you know this is blown over several years ago now was no no no no we're not getting anything. Back from a retailer that were selling a customer but sometimes we buy something from a brand and we've had a brand make a mistake and send this inventory that was pre labeled. With another retailers labels on it before and so that you know then then created that whole set of conversation. Scot:  [1:03:38] Do you feel like the brands would let them return the stuff. Jason:  [1:03:41] I think you could I thought I do think Brands would let them take returns and resell it I doubt any brands are getting them stock balancing you know you like. [1:03:53] There's very little stock balancing in a pair of these days where you can actually just return stuff that doesn't sell you know they're there often can be some sort of negotiated terms where that the inventory doesn't turn gets. [1:04:06] Gets tossed reduced overtime and you get some price concessions and things that way but yet no I think. [1:04:15] That that stitch fix probably feels like a pretty traditional retailer in, having a match their supply to demand as well as they can and then having how to start a smart strategy for liquidating the inventory that they're not able to sell. So I thought you know I think the date they pay some of the same Challenges ever no spaces there I did there's one other. [1:04:41] I think that the s-1 reminded us up but we but we could have known before this stitch fix is running on an Amazon web services. Scot:  [1:04:49] Yeah yeah it sucks so does Netflix and always makes me wonder like do they sleep at night we're going to Amazon can you. [1:04:57] I don't think Amazon would ever do this but there's the potential for someone to Cana, take a little peek in there and see what's going on under the hood so that that would it's like one of those very very tricky situations there's not really a great Alternatives that I have found two but you know you're kind of your funding and your competitor and your competitor has potential access to your your secret sauce. Jason:  [1:05:20] Yeah and even if they had no access even if they're completely aboveboard and they would never look at the data you are you're still funding your competitor. Scot:  [1:05:30] Absolent yep so that's Amazon wins no matter what. Jason:  [1:05:36] I would prefer the record I would say like I mean AWS is a great service there's lots of reasons to use it it does to me feel like Microsoft with Azure in Google with Google Cloud platform like have some pretty competitive offerings these days. Scot:  [1:05:50] Yeah yeah once you kind of get married in the one who sings it's a little bit of a roach motel it's hard hard to check out. [1:05:56] Degree architecture at some level that you have to do so Jason was kind of. Land plane here with what do you think so we've gone through a lot of highlights and some impressive scale on Revenue growth slowed in a little bit, can't look like it's going up a little bit I'll TV hard to call with the cohort analysis looks like it's a little challenged on the back half of the first year, what's your conclusion Justice IPO mean that the subscription Commerce is the future or or or what do we look like your. Jason:  [1:06:26] Yeah well said to me that's a that's a funny question the. [1:06:32] Yeah we should have we should have mentioned earlier when you talked about it to some of these previous companies there there have. [1:06:38] In the past been these tranches where there was some trendy fatty thing in a bunch of companies had an exit based on that fad right and said the most most obvious recent one would be flash sales you know everyone got up. Advanced evaluation and a bunch of flash flash sale companies had. Had favorable exits in the beginning and less favorable exits at the end and you know today it's pretty clear that there's not a very exciting market for Standalone flash sales that you don't potentially that. A tactic that a retailer would have but it certainly isn't of itself a business model and so when I look at these guys if. [1:07:17] If you're evaluating them on the basis of subscription being the winning model. I think subscription is more likely to be a trend like flash sales I think it's a super valuable tactic. That retailers are smart to use but I don't think that the winning formula in e-commerce is just to go all in on subscriptions and part of the reason I think that is. Most of the companies we think of as subscription model businesses have. Why do they had to abandon their subscription model in order to be successful right and so you know stitch fix. Is a very Soft Cell on the subscription model like they started out subs

Cat Surane and Luke Beseda, Talent Partners for Lightspeed Ventures, discuss avoiding talented related technical debt, encouraging referrals early on, and identifying key candidate motivations on the phone screen.

EP100 - Get to Know Our Listeners To celebrate our 100th episode, we decided to put the focus on the most important element, the listeners.  So we invited three of our most active listeners to be on the show. Radz Mpofu @RadzMpofu Kevin Harmon @imadness Facebook  Ted Fifelski  @ted_gives Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 100 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, September 7th 2017. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.   New beta feature - Google Automated Transcription of the show: Transcript Jason:  [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 100 being recorded on Thursday September 7th 2017 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot & Guests:  [0:40] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason and Scott show listeners Jason how are you doing. Jason:  [0:47] I am doing awesome it's super exciting to be at episode 100. Scot & Guests:  [0:52] It really isn't before we jump into it too deep I wanted to announce that we will be podcasting again at the shop. Org digital Summit, this year the Summit is being held in Sunny Los Angeles on September 25th to 27th. Jason Scott show listeners receive a 10% discount when they register using the code js-10 that's js-10 and we will put a link to the registration in the show notes where you can enter that code, we hope to see everyone there Jason as we mentioned that we've had a pretty big milestone here with 100 episodes. Jason:  [1:31] I know I know I have to be honest when we started this 100 episodes we're not on my radar screen I had to read a podcast primer and it mentioned that like. If you get past episode 7 you've sort of survived the mortality rate so I think my big goal was, was 7 and I've since then read that the average podcast on iTunes only ever gets 24 episodes. Scot & Guests:  [1:56] Yeah yeah and we officially have more episodes in listeners now just kidding we actually we actually. Jason:  [2:01] Yeah that's that's because I have a small family if I had a bigger family we'd have more listeners. Scot & Guests:  [2:05] That's actually it's kind of fun to break down some numbers so we started this I don't know about you but I really didn't have any expectations I just thought we would do it for, the fun aspect of it and looking back it's kind of, ballon my expectations I would share admittedly low so we've had over 200,000 downloads since we started the show, the record months had over 18,000 that was over the summer in June cuz we had so much Amazon news going on, the most popular episode is the June 17th hot take we did which is episode 89 where we talked about the Amazon and Whole Foods acquisition and then as reminder for every one we actually started this whole Adventure on November 13th 2015 with episode 1, do you have a quiz for you Jason how many how many episodes have we recorded. Jason:  [2:57] This will be our 101 including the one I screwed up and we didn't get to publish. Scot & Guests:  [3:04] Boomkin answer inside info but yeah 100 episode soon so pretty exciting. Jason:  [3:09] I share your Your Enthusiasm seems like we should be doing something special for the hundred show. Scot & Guests:  [3:17] Yeah yeah and couple months ago we were pretty good at math so we kind of saw this coming on the calendar and we started thinking about what we should do to celebrate a hundred episodes. Jason:  [3:28] Yep and obviously one of the first things that come up is is with many listeners know, chupitos is constantly hounding us to be on the show and so for while we're thinking hey that's a perfect opportunity to finally Jeff on the show but then you know we thought about it and the reality is this show is for the listeners it's not really about the fancy guest so we turned him down. Scot & Guests:  [3:51] Yeah you know we, Basils cuz of stuff to talk about both at listeners who who would care so what we did is we decided to really kind of turn the microphone around, so we we went to Twitter and and looked at the social engagement that we get and we really active Community here for the show that we really enjoy and, what causes a lot of back and forth and it went challenges us and recommends things and ask questions so we we thought what we would do is have a listener appreciation event in celebration of episode 100, so we somewhat randomly picked three listeners from different geographies all over the world if you will these folks work at all kinds of different size companies and have different kinds of rolls and we invite them tonight to be on the show, to hear about their e-commerce experience and where they think e-commerce is going and just kind of turn it over to the listeners for, for a bit and give everyone a little bit of break from hearing from us for the last hundred episodes. Jason:  [4:50] Yeah yeah I'm super excited about this idea and you know frankly pleasantly shocked that it when we invited accepted our invitation so Scott who's the first guest. Scot & Guests:  [5:02] Well Jason let's kick it off excited to have our first guest here for the listener appreciation show we know him best by his Twitter handle which is RADS radz and that's at radz mpofu on Twitter, what's up rats not much just wrapping up the day here how about you. We're super excited we hit 100 episodes Jason didn't think we'd make it past 5 and I had the long money on going the long haul in the sinks the red 100 we're pretty excited. Yeah I have to say that I would have to agree with you because when I first remember seeing the Jason and Scott Show come out I was just like oh my gosh I have needed this for so long that was like I'm starting my retail career. Yeah I told you guys 100 I don't know why Jason would say that, check two boxes for us here for the first time you're you're the first kind of super listener we've had on the show and then also you're the first International correspondent so you're you're not in the United States of America. Nope I'm in the Toronto or the six as Drake would say okay and is it snowing there. No not yet but it is raining a lot okay interesting summer where it's just been. I bet Seattle and BC weather where this raining a lot. Jason:  [6:26] And in the long run does that mean it's good or bad for the ice wine this year. Scot & Guests:  [6:31] No idea. Jason:  [6:34] Those are mine I mainly focus on the food of every venue so for me Toronto is ice wine and poutine even though I know pooting is really Montreal but you can get it in in Toronto. Scot & Guests:  [6:47] Yeah that's true but you forgot you got to check out Uncle tetsu's cheesecake as well as smoke smoke signals barbecue those are two really good spots those in the true true true Toronto Staples. Jason:  [7:01] Nice I am adding those to the list that the show has already paid off for me. So Reds you mentioned that you you were start listen to show you were starting a retail career you want to tell us a little bit more about what that was and what you're doing now. Scot & Guests:  [7:20] Yeah for sure so even though like rewind a little bit vacuum before that I actually started my. E-commerce sales career in at a company called Ashley Bridget, so I was there when we were still like in a basement making maybe if you know a few hundred thousand dollars and a scale to over a million so that. Being part of that company like they double grabbing use like every year since after that but that experience I think really. Help me get to become a part of tulip which is where I started started my retail. Retail career that don't know a tulip was founded by the founder of well. CA. Oh yeah yeah yeah he was involved in doing that as well so yeah I started my career at tulip that was in. March 2015 and I think a few months after that you guys started the Jason and Scott show and then where is your career taking you now. So now shifted to a company called pagerduty and a lot of people especially in the it the it and devops were all day they definitely know about picture to be it's almost like a household name. We were actually mentioned on Silicon Valley recently some I think it was Guilfoyle he told the Nash that he was on pager to the until we got back at the house he was leaving to go somewhere. But yeah basically Patriot Duty Autumn eats the incident resolution process from end-to-end so a lot of that stuff is being done manually right now so you know I have like an Excel spreadsheet. [9:01] I'm the psychos down you call somebody on it for there's too many modern tools to. Really get the key incidents that you need to resolve resolved so page Diddy animates all of that. Google every e-commerce site wants to be up 24/7 so I think you know you say you're out of the retail business but I think you just kind of dawn to a broader addressable market and I'm sure our vehicle it's probably interesting to your folks. Oh yeah I know definitely we actually just it's funny that you mention that we just started. Retail all of my coworkers are all pinion me for people's contacts so yeah definitely I am still very much plugged into the retail game only doing it through all my coworker. Get in touch with me get in touch with retail Executives Through Me podcast you can recommend they want to learn more. It's how I've already been said I've been telling them don't worry I would cover. Jason:  [9:56] We we have a vested interest in pagerduty tracking the retail Market because you know it's it's going to be sad to go to the industry shows like shop.org and not see you. Scot & Guests:  [10:07] Exactly I think you needed to tell our CEO and her had some marketing that Jennifer Tejada if you ever end up listen to this please we should go to shop talk next year. Jason:  [10:16] Exactly. Scot & Guests:  [10:17] Shop.org. Jason:  [10:20] That both good shows both good shows. Scot & Guests:  [10:22] Oh yeah both really good shows. Jason:  [10:24] The actually have a photo of you and it I think act technically it's from neither I think it was probably from NRF and you you had your then employers Logo shaved into the side of your head. Scot & Guests:  [10:36] Oh yeah okay okay I thought you were going to go in a different direction with that there's another photo of someone who's on stage didn't Maeve look like me I don't know maybe but that was. That was that was in January and I think Dominique actually mentioned that from bonobos on on the previous show I think I got to shut up because of that. Although we never saw you put Jason and Scott show logo in your in your head. Jason:  [11:09] That's going to take a more talented Barber than the to it. Scot & Guests:  [11:13] I fixed I was always thinking maybe just a j plus s but I don't do it at all. Jason:  [11:21] Yeah I know you need portraits of two portly dudes. Scot & Guests:  [11:24] Two rats two quick ones Have you listened to every episode. I wish I could say that I have but. The last one that I listen to since I've been ramping up at pagerduty was are the one with the Accel partners and then one that was either just before that or just after that was with. The CEO of the CEO of Kohl's and ModCloth I remember listening to those when so I think I'm about 20 episodes behind at this point. Cool you'll have to just drive to Florida and you could pick them all up. Yeah exactly exactly or I'll do it on my next plane trip to San Francisco. [12:10] What were what were a couple of your favorite shows so I think my favorite show obviously I can't, I can't not do it but Danza episode on bonobos that was my favorite one but also the ones with Rob Schmaltz from Talbots as well as Faisal masud, I'm from Staples, those were like really those are I think those are probably with my top three favorite ones all the a lot of the retail executive. Interviews were like I'm on my favorite ones those ones you know I got to learn so much about you know what's going on in retail and all the changes that if you know what happened this year and I'm sure that will continue so I think those are all my favorite ones. Jason:  [12:56] Very cool that being said any as one of our super listeners were we're always looking to make the show better anything you feel like we could be doing better or any tips for things we should think about trying. Scot & Guests:  [13:10] So I thought about this and. I think what you guys have done is really cool you know you have the Deep Dives as well as. The the retail executive interviews so I'd love to see maybe a little bit of a panel you know between and I'll maybe not people that are like opposing and Views but would love to find out. Maybe get like the behind-the-scenes story from what happened at Sears maybe not like. Anything like bad that happened but like to know where did. They live like missile I'm so like maybe a previous executive from there and then you know maybe get somebody from. Walmart or one of the opening or tomorrow off and coming retail brands. Could have done better or there now fallen by the wayside in the ones that are doing really well and see if they can. Meet in the middle and what can be done. [14:13] Where do you where do you see the future of retail and e-commerce. I think right now it's still very much in a state of upheaval. Get out like I'm actually keeping tabs of all the retailers that either went belly-up or like we're struggling really. Really tough out there was like it's the year started off with like BCBG and then the Limited, then actually remember seeing HMV Yonge and Dundas Square here in Toronto that's kind of like the Union Square Toronto onto the San Francisco people out there so I remember seeing that one shut down as well and then all American Apparel. I think all of these a lot of these retail Brands I'm hoping it doesn't continue but it looks like it well I think there's still going to be a lot more. A lot more unfortunate seems like that I put on top of that too kind of. You know balance that I would say that there might even be more consolidation that's going to happen at a lot of people are saying that it might not happen but from. What we've seen from Walmart this year with the acquisition of Moosejaw and the novo's band also more recently with some of the shoe retailers I think. Michael Kors just acquired Jimmy Choo and then on top of that Vince Camuto was acquired by although or vice versa so yeah I think there's definite going to be a lot more retailers that are. Going under if they don't figure out how to go digital and no kind of modernize their with their in-store experience and then on top of that. Jason:  [15:50] That's very cool I don't want to get one question in that we've actually ask every guest but Scott keeps making me edit the answer out so so hopefully for the 100th episode I'll finally get to get it in there. Would you say that you like Jason a little better than Scott or way better than Scott. Scot & Guests:  [16:10] I would say that the two of you I hold you both very near and dear my heart and there's no way I could pick them from the two of you. Jason:  [16:17] So you lied you're willing to be honest about everything else and then you I on that one alright. Scot & Guests:  [16:22] Good answer he's he's texting me right now saying that I'm his favorite. You weren't supposed to say that I have a kind of sales question which is you're there in Canada in Toronto and your imagine. You have territories that are boom across the continent is it hard to be in the sales rep in candidates Ellington us or doesn't feel different at all than if you were in New York or something. No I don't think it's that big it's that different at all I think it actually might even play to your advantage we're kind of seen as the we had this running joke on my previous company and to love that, everybody always sauce in the in the states as the friendly Canadians we are always just really do a comedy versus you know kind of like that. I don't want to generalize but you know the ones that play hard ball in New York or something like that so I definitely plays to word Vantage I would say that it's probably tougher to sell, in Canada versus outside of Canada Canadians sometimes don't like buying from Canadians I will say that much. Jason:  [17:29] Interesting I feel like we do have the perception that that Canadians are super friendly I mean it it's like I'm sorry a sort of a catch phrase for Canadians. Scot & Guests:  [17:39] Yeah I know right I actually had was made fun of in an Uber I took Uber pool for one of the first times, on a recent business trip and the gentleman the back just what he found out that it was from Canada he was just like, or you going to say I'm sorry a lot and even put on the Canadian accents it's definitely known across America. Jason:  [18:03] I totally get it this may offend you but I am frequently mistaken as a Canadian that people feel like I have a Canadian accent. [18:13] Which I have never lived in Canada but. Scot & Guests:  [18:17] Can you say a boat. Jason:  [18:18] I definitely can go a boat but that's because you know did a lot of work in Minneapolis which is little known fact but it's actually north of Canada is a lot of Minneapolis. Scot & Guests:  [18:28] Yeah yeah I've heard that. Jason:  [18:30] Culturally I used to make that joke and then I married a woman from Detroit and I warned that Detroit actually is. Scot & Guests:  [18:37] Canada. Jason:  [18:39] You you drive south to go to Windsor to drink when you're 18 that's the whole that's all gig when you grow up in Detroit apparently. Scot & Guests:  [18:46] Yeah yeah I've heard a lot of people say that and even on the opposite end, back in I'd say what the seventies and eighties a lot of people would drive down from Toronto and Windsor to the states to go check out Hip Hop shows because there was nothing in Canada. Jason:  [19:03] Wow certainly not true anymore Toronto is like that got a lot of great Hip Hop. Scot & Guests:  [19:08] Yeah yeah Drake in the weekend and all those guys. Jason:  [19:14] Very cool what was red we greatly appreciate your. Royal falling and the suggestions you sent all along and we look forward to getting you back in the industry and getting you all caught up on the show so thanks very much for being part of the episode 100. Scot & Guests:  [19:33] Yeah thanks a lot for having me guys and hopefully I'll sing me up a lot more retail shows I'm going to use this as leverage internally at pagerduty. Awesome thanks for as we really appreciate it. Okay Jason are next listener on listener and 100 is Kevin Harmon I've known Kevin 415 of the longest term. Ebayers I've met I think if we met at one of the early eBay live shows and he has been a huge fan of the show welcome to the show Kevin. Text Jason how are you guys. Jason:  [20:14] We are terrific 100 episode what could be better. Scot & Guests:  [20:19] Boom that's right yeah so yeah we really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to join us so I'll let Jason Kick It Off. Jason:  [20:29] Yeah so Kevin Scott mention you been a long time eBay so do you want to give us the the background about how you got into the account Biz and what you're doing today. Scot & Guests:  [20:40] Sure I've been an e-commerce for a long time I think 2001 is when we started and for about 10 years I stayed in the media side we sold DVDs and CDs and video games and books. On eBay and Amazon other places did that for a long time and for some weird reason books and CDs and DVDs of again stop selling so well so. We moved on to another couple things are doing then and then now what we do is I have another company that sells clothing and books now. Jason:  [21:16] Very cool and predominately as a Marketplace seller. Scot & Guests:  [21:20] Yes 100% so we're sort of you know eBay phds Amazon phds we know a lot about both and we do the best we can. Jason:  [21:31] Nice and are you mostly focus on North America so those are the two two big platforms for you. [21:38] Gotcha and we do often talk about the Walmart marketplace as well if you looked at that at all or. Scot & Guests:  [21:46] Yeah we are looking into that Walmart in and Jed as well so we think that that might be a pretty viable saying coming down the road here. Cool so I know you listen to a lot of episodes you can listen to every episode I listen to. Show me episodes of the Jason I'm going to call you out on this I think you said that welcome to the Jason's not show about 6 times now. I didn't even catch that. Jason:  [22:24] That's a special service to the fans that I give to that the loyalist. Scot & Guests:  [22:28] Yep. Jason:  [22:31] That's all I mean to Beyonce it's a it's a Freudian slip my other podcast is called the Jason and snot show. Scot & Guests:  [22:38] Oh that's so strange it's for its for ents. Jason:  [22:40] Deaf deaf. Scot & Guests:  [22:42] What are several times I know it's hard to pick but what are a couple of your favorite shows. I think my favorite one was the one with Melissa Burdick from the Mars agency just because you know my Amazon experience and that she seemed, super knowledgeable about Amazon and it was a really good conversation you guys had with her I really enjoyed the the whole thing about you know crap which is hilarious. It was good crap joke the most I have to have like 6 I can't listen that fast normally get pumped up. Yes you super knowledgeable. Jason:  [23:25] And since we're talking about her I should give her a plug she's actually no longer with the Mars agency Melissa and another of our guests. Have started their own business which is now called the laying verdict which is of an Amazon consultancy so that's Andrea way right Scott am I remembering correctly. Scot & Guests:  [23:47] Yeah I think they should call it like Mel B and Andrea or something help her but I didn't ask me I was debating with Scott. Just trying to find an end and acronym for a crap for that. Amazon Canada and I can't for the great ones got didn't like it but I might tell you guys anyway which is it's it's not crap its poop which is probably only offline profit. Jason:  [24:13] Okay I'll. Scot & Guests:  [24:15] PG-13 know you're gone now. Jason:  [24:22] Well you know. One of the things we're always trying to do is improve the show and so as a one of our best listeners that is heard the majority of our shows any feedback you have anything we should be doing different or the drugs you nuts. Scot & Guests:  [24:40] Know the address to the Scott unbridled enthusiasm for Amazon domination. Minutes I wish I was more Counterpoint to that every once in awhile it's. It's cool to watch a hurricane make landfall not sure unless you want to people on the land as falling on butt. I think it'd be great to have like a I don't know what chat room or I'll take take live Twitter questions except her a little more often just just just involve your audience. Jason:  [25:13] Yeah I know that's great feedback we definitely are looking for ways it's actually one of the the deficiencies of the podcast format is you know. We don't have a way for example to email all of our listeners and get questions or those sorts of things do you have to use a parallel to like Facebook or Twitter and you know it. A very loyal but small subset of our podcast listeners are following us on those other platform so. Love to find more ways to engage more customers and get more feedback but that is only a great suggestion I do feel the need to slightly defend us though. Totally hear you on the Amazon world domination and I would love to be the the Counterpoint more loudly. But I continue to be shocked I work with all these. Our big Fortune 100 retailers and it's still more often than not that I walk into a retailer that dramatically underestimates Amazon as the competition and so like. They absolutely have flaws in their absolutely ways to thrive in in the market against them in all those sorts of things but it still turns out that like more of the people in our industry then I would expect. Underestimate them rather than overestimate them so so you know maybe we err on the side of hitting that a little hard but I, I often feel like I have to be in evangelist for a half serious at threat they are so much so that one of my biggest clients that they think they have a funny nickname for me they call me Paul Revere. Scot & Guests:  [26:48] Know he was right I mean the that is actually very amazing. When you see me look at what I've done I mean they're an amazing amazing company that has effort on their own set of rules they know that. I start unique in the world and yeah they're gone disrupt everything sooner or later probably sooner. That's a good transition you you've been common the marketplace Biz 4. Pussy 2001 you 15 20 years what are some of the big trends that you've seen in and where do you where do you think the marketplace part of the world goes. I think the marketplace continues but it seems to me like it's a lot easier to start a business than it used to be for sure you know 15 years ago when we started that was quite an effort. And now with all the tools available now it's a lot easier to get into a business but I also think that there's a lot of consolidation going on so I think it's harder to grow a business and you know grow into a large business in particular. I think because these large sights Amazon Facebook. Google the beginning on more and more of the entire end and process and so the more pieces they don't have that the lesson Advantage you have. I even if you saw on those platforms it can still sometimes be a disadvantage so. I think e-commerce continues and grows like crazy I don't I have concern for the really small business owners though going forward. Yeah and it's Russian cuz I have that same concern and you know you and I have known. [28:20] Know more people that have gotten out of the business owner still in it and then put then what kind of countercyclical e happens there, is baffalo like some of these small business platforms like Magento Bigcommerce and Shopify there exploding so there's these it seems like there's these Merchants out there that have, yeah that are doing well like Shopify just hit I think the 500,000 small store owner, what's a kind of Wonder like who are those people and you know that that seems to be where things have shifted the marketplaces if that so competitive that the a lot of folks have gone to just creating there a little, but then I don't quite understand how there, going to differentiate themselves and get their name out there wifey that's exactly right so 15 years ago the easiest way to start with on eBay. So every small company in the world start on eBay and then they sorta grew or didn't grow a coordinate the eBay's growth are Amazon's girls and now the Shopify and the other. Consolidated sites we can do a lot of different things on one place now everything is Shifting to calm and that's a that's a big change I don't know. I can't I can't judges level success over anything else yet I being too soon but it's definitely a big change in the marketplace in the last 2 or 3 years. Jason:  [29:42] Yeah it's it is fascinating I mean, play I would argue the eat of your really successful Amazon Seller that like or or any plat Marketplace seller like that that shouldn't be your only platform that you should you should have a presence on a platform you own into the. The extent that you do earn your own traffic and aren't you know and earn your own customers. Like you don't want to be actively driving them to the marketplace you you do want to be driving them to that that platform you own so I totally get why. The the shopify's of the world would be successful alongside the the big marketplaces but is you guys are both aware like. You know painfully difficult and expensive to grow a meaningful audience on that on that digital property that you own versus. Nina taking advantage of the the incredible traffic that that Amazon in particular has belt. Scot & Guests:  [30:40] Is there a true and you know I've always go to Amazon and eBay Caesars. As a market expenses an advertising expense and you're paying those fees they bring you the customers. And so you know on your own. It's you're on your own until you bring customers to you it's a much different situation and much more difficult situation but if you can if you can achieve it I think you have a lot better chance of surviving long-term. Jason:  [31:05] Yeah for sure we will use the I used to have this kind of derogatory term for people that. Brands that tried to use Facebook as their only digital platform in Fitchburg Facebook's a wonderful tool. But I used to call them digital sharecroppers because they're you know you're you're planting your crop shirt you're putting all your equity in this land that you don't own and you know in the early days. Facebook change the terms and conditions of how you could use that land. Very frequently in that you know was a huge disruption to to all those Brands and you know it does feel like. The marketplaces today are are very similar to that like there's huge opportunities there but you are a digital sharecropper like you know if the day that Marketplace decides that they've hit some critical mass and don't need you anymore. You know that your your your business is definitely in Jeopardy so it's. Scary to have all those eggs in that in that one basket is good to own some land of your own. Scot & Guests:  [32:04] Yep and that's been a major change the last couple years as well so so back in the day. EBay wooden Scott can attest to this I think even said one time that it seems like people just kind of flavors over there sometimes wear any 6 months. They can make it a complete change the marketplace that really disrupted louder seller base. Can I get used to that and then or later something else will come along and just kept going like that what you could never really establish eBay presents Amazon. Another hand they watch the products the truck didn't change at all the solid for a long long time. Until the last time say couple years and now Amazon surround to the point with her information. A new Rose new changes that you know can hurt some sellers I can help other sellers but but it's almost like Amazon let you grow your business bigger before they decided I didn't need you and I don't know witches. What the worst scenario is there you know you can get shaken off by eBay or you can get kind of gets trampled on by Amazon at some point. Either either have those risks which again why I'm sure every consultant tells people to sell in multiple marketplaces and make sure the doc is a priority. Jason:  [33:13] Yep. So keeping the fan show light let's turn to a much more important topic I heard a rumor that you rival Scott as a Star Wars fan. Scot & Guests:  [33:29] Boy that depends on what metric you're talking about but I'm a huge Star Wars fan absolutely. I have a big question what's your favorite movie. Thesaurus really starting to warm to that one. Tricky question is what's the best one of the three new ones that's the tough one. Yes another one another tricky 1ru if you could only watch one more movie this year, would you do Blade Runner or pussy we've got is there another Marvel and coming up and then then you have Last Jedi. Is it Last Jedi Bar None or would you consider some the others. Man that's a tough one I mean it's definitely Last Jedi but I am really looking forward to Blade Runner. I think Ridley Scott if you got the right guy I've got the right directors you got the right characters again. I'm really really hopeful that they could do something spectacular with that. Jason:  [34:48] So the question I always like to ask and this may be the the wrong audience for this but so I have A2 year old son what order should I be showing him the movies. Scot & Guests:  [35:00] Machete Star Wars movies I would say 4 5 6 7 8. Jason:  [35:08] Okay I get 456 first a lot but that that's. The skip the prequels is a good one there is like there's some fan edits of the prequels that are much better like I wonder could we replace the could we make one of those the official Canon instead of the the George Lucas versions. Scot & Guests:  [35:28] What you can probably edit those three movies together to make one pretty good movie I mean that's definitely cool things happened but how to pick one that's hard to even recommend them. Jason:  [35:40] I think none of the fan edits that I've seen that are you know some of these have had millions of hits on on YouTube none of them have Jar Jar Binks in the middle. Scot & Guests:  [35:48] But that's alright uh I think the woman Darth Maul I'm sure you guys have seen that at your fan is amazing really good really good fanfiction there. Jason:  [36:00] And I apologize for digressing but like perhaps my the funniest Star Wars thing I ever saw on television as you guys remember when Stephen Colbert did the. The contest for the the lightsaber green screen fight. Scot & Guests:  [36:17] Yeah that's good I did I was good. Jason:  [36:22] So super super quickly for listeners they may not be as big a Geeks as as Scott and Kevin the. Tons of people on the internet where do I. Making your own videos of lightsaber fights and so Stephen Colbert decided hey he would do this funny contest he would pretend to be fighting with a lightsaber in front of a green screen and make the video available this fans. And he would have a contest with prizes for the free the three fans that made the best scene using his. His greensaver is green screen lightsaber fight and so they they show the the two finalists on on this Colbert show and the first one is this you know woman Lisa from. From the you know I like Minneapolis or whatever and she's she's got this great video that she made featuring Stephen Colbert fighting the video and then. The the other finalist is George from. Marin County California and as as they're talking like it becomes obvious that it's George Lucas. Scot & Guests:  [37:31] Yes it was hysterical. Jason:  [37:32] And he's he's like in his own thing and they've like you know they've like. Cut new scenes for the movie this thing but the best question was you know Stephen is asking them both like do you own all the movies and George George's like I own all of them except the first one there's some dispute about the first. [37:53] Which I thought was a funny line. Scot & Guests:  [37:55] Yeah that that in like that the SNL auditions for Star Wars 7 was great too that's so cool. Star Wars is the entire ecosystem around it is also awesome. Jason:  [38:08] Would you say that something that Star Wars has in common with a Jason and Scott show that it's a sort of that kind of cultural phenomenon. Scot & Guests:  [38:15] Yeah I think you guys just need to add a conference right you need to have a Jason Scott convention and. Bring a bunch of your gas there and everything else in a certain place and I don't know is there I know Scott's wearing a red jumpsuit right now probably I don't know what you're wearing Jason but you know some sort of attire for the show we could all wear it would be cool. Yeah we get wicked mix in a Star Wars convention at the same time how awesome would that be. Jason:  [38:39] I'm thinking it's going to be at your that that at Scott's new residents which is that that the new hotel. Scot & Guests:  [38:46] Absolutely I can't wait for that. Jason:  [38:51] So I do before we get out I just want to wrap up like we had a good conversation about where the future of marketplaces are going I'd be curious if you had a maybe. SAE more General POV about you know how what what retail looks like in the future like does this digital. Disruption like you don't continue to play out how it's playing out now to see any big changes coming that the other listeners be thinking about. Scot & Guests:  [39:20] Personally I think that we're honestly really only beginning to see the beginnings of the acceleration. Honestly I don't know that's not good news for people but I think these large companies that are getting much larger much faster are described in. On a scale that that we've never seen before and will probably accelerate so I worry about things for example like even Brands themselves you know I worry. I worry that when you get when when is going to come in like Amazon starts doing a ton of private-label stuff I just a time and way more than we even even know about. And then answer to something with that like a voice product like Alexa. The combinations to it is really deadly and when you fit when he think about how deadly it is it's a little scary you know if you ask Alexa to buy something Alexis probably not suggest you it's on Amazon brand suggestions. And when you can when you take those you know brand spend billions of dollars on. On marketing and their packaging and they're looking their feel and when you remove all of that I'm invoice removes all of that so. I get this weird thing that Amazon is attempting to. Accelerates the death of Brands but but taking a lot of that margin that Brands used to enjoy and sort of shipping over to itself. So I definitely that Trend coming and maybe accelerating Scott yeah it's it's their stuff only you know when you ask. Her can't say it cuz she's right here. [40:52] For Alexa when you ask her for her batteries you know that's going to be an Amazon basic battery I think there's definitely rust there I think, brands are not really putting all that together I don't think you know Jason's earlier point they take Amazon seriously it off and then I don't think they get the voice thing and how it really, is a different way to shop where all the packaging and all that looking field doesn't really matter. [41:24] The decisions you have to make tonight bet exciting if you want to space not have toothpaste. I think Amazon is realize that and I think they're going to do their best to sell you Amazon toothpaste instead of your own and by the way they'll give it to an in an hour right so. Amazon has been spending all this time building this gigantic ecosystem in the background and I think you're just now beginning to see if that's it. Yeah yeah and then you know the Counterpoint, to that which I feel is ironic but I'll I'll do this is that you know when we first started Channel advisor it when was kind of like you had to be able to answer the Google question you know, how is Google now you have to answer the Amazon question so these things tend to go and 10:15 year cycle so, we'll see you know I think they'll be there's some company we probably don't know the name of yet you have some some dudes in the garage somewhere and there will be another competitor to Amazon that, the tides so it probably won't be as game over it feels like when you're in the in the heart of it but it is a little scary. [42:30] Yeah I mean if you think about brand searches right so they used to be all Google now it's it's got to be pretty split between Google Amazon and eBay. And in Facebook I should say Facebook in particular so even that even the even way to find products is draft dramatically changing. [42:49] Absolutely well we really appreciate you sharing your thoughts Kevin and and of course being such a long-term listener we really appreciate it and you give us a lot of great feedback, we will try to integrate your feedback here tonight and do more kind of live questions and those kinds of things and we hope you listen to the next hundred episodes. I love the show I love it and thanks for let me find next we be on. Jason:  [43:14] Thanks so much for being on. Scot & Guests:  [43:16] Discontinuing with episode 100 listener preciation we are excited to welcome on to the show Ted for felski Ted is on Twitter as Ted, TD underscored gives gives and he's always one of the first people to start a conversation after we put a show out there so not only is he an avid listener but he's also very, timely on on his downloads mustn'ts, Ted lives in Austin Texas and is part of the e-commerce startup Community there he is the father of 3 boys and co-founder of simplytapp welcome to the show 10. Hey guys will thanks for having me I always enjoy your show so I'm glad to be here on your podcast as well. Jason:  [43:58] We are thrilled to have you Ted Scott mentioned that you're currently the co-founder simply tap and we're going to get to that in just a minute, do you know when we have guests on the show we always like to get a little bit of the color about their career matriculation and how they got where they are so can you. Can you give us the Reader's Digest of a of how you got here. Scot & Guests:  [44:20] Yeah definitely so my career kind of started. You're out of college with a degree in finance going straight into International Business Development for the World Trade Center so I did that for about a year-and-a-half and then found my way. Down to Texas on a Consulting gig which. Ultimately led me to my actual degree in finance over the boutique firm here in Austin Texas called Arthur Financial Services. Doing technology evaluation for the energy and oil and gas Industries. And so I always knew I wanted to start my own company and you know. God willing and gave me a opportunity when my co-founder of simplytapp move down here from Knoxville in about 6 years ago and so we. Yeah we kind of met. Online it away before tender was big or before meet up with big I just threw some some blogs and we hit it off and he had a great idea I had a great idea we mashed them together and started a company in off at once. Cool what would really appreciate you listening to the show when when did you hear about the show and when did when did we kind of pick you up as a listener. Well I've been I think I've listened to every episode for the last say. Maybe April 2016 so coming up on a year and a half or so and. [45:50] What I was looking for when I found your your show was some smart guys with some opinions around the. E-commerce and commerce space so when I found yours not only did I find it interesting but I also enjoyed listening to. Take the given take you both hat and so obviously you guys spend a lot of time covering the world of Amazon because it's such a big part of the current ecosystem right now. At least how it affects everyone both from an employment standpoint to an idea standpoint to it infrastructure standpoint and so. I thought that was something that I had necessarily heard the level of detail and so that's really gravitated me towards Georgia podcasting. You would come out with with good episodes one after another and so I can listen to them. At normal speed where is most of them they you know you stood him up a little bit you get to about 1.7 maybe 2 x. And you get some faster but I've set through a regular speed with you guys since the beginning so and then obviously I started following guys on Twitter. And your website reached out to try to. Find out as much about you guys as possible to make sure the stuff I'm hearing your podcast is legitimate and I think it is, devious plan is working with pulled you into the the evil web that we have one. [47:32] And it your your diction to. Starbucks though Jason is a little bit over-the-top I hear that mentioned every so often and I just wonder how much Starbucks this guy drink if he takes it with him on trips and mouth isn't it everywhere already sell. Jason:  [47:46] Yeah it's it's a little bit of a problem I actually had a moment this morning I huge line at the Starbucks so I thought I'd be really Advanced user and do Mobile Pay to skip the line. So I do Mobile Pay and I'm sitting there waiting and I never comes and never comes and then I go to the phone and realize I sent the mobile pain to a different store. Scot & Guests:  [48:05] Oh yeah I actually saw your Tweet there but they were nice enough I thought that was a real. Jason:  [48:09] Oh my God they were rock stars they when they realize what I did they made my drink for me anyway didn't charge me in save my day. Scot & Guests:  [48:17] Bullets I think the price they probably was in your show so they're like. India favorite guess that we've had on the show that that's kind of come to mine favorite guests. You know you guys have had so many good ones over the years while since I posted over the year and a half. Not really you know everyone seems to be pretty good and I'm not a big names guy so. I really don't remember anyone that jumps jumps out that's like why I'm glad you guys had that on there because I was to a couple of them and I always match him up so. So no sorry. Jason:  [49:00] Know where they're all so good that you can't pick up it's like picking when your favorite. Scot & Guests:  [49:04] It's a Neverfull a while honey I can pick that but I'm kidding. You know what one of the episodes I really enjoyed was when you guys decided to put a token name on the new checkout process or shopping experience from Amazon. Seems like every time that they come out with a new way to deliver a product or service. You know you guys come up with another acronym for it that is really hard to explain or or remember or say it but you guys use it as if it's a thing so. Jason:  [49:36] #j Scot & Guests:  [49:37] Appreciate that yes that's the one. Yeah... Was I think here in Texas I think of JJ Watt which is the football. Little bit bigger deal than Jay water itself or maybe someday lumpy you know he'll retire Hill go into the announcer booth and JWoww still be around. Jason:  [50:00] I feel like it's always going to be safer to say to Jeff Bezos the Jay Watts not a big deal than it's ever going to be to say to JJ Watt that he's not a big deal. Scot & Guests:  [50:08] Well you know I mean there for people who follow just Beason Amazon me he has been bulking up there has been a lot of memes lately with him you know looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger so I mean. Jason:  [50:20] Know know know he looks totally fit but he still looks like maybe JJ's right arm. Scot & Guests:  [50:24] Yeah fair enough fair enough so it's working obviously as you guys cover Amazon. An undercut of all the to do and how they affect the rest of the industry is obviously here in Austin Texas Whole Foods has been a staple of one of the corporation's at kind of the Hallmark for what it means to be Austin right it's this. Upstart started neon 25 30 years ago from hey I just want to produce and Supply Wholesome foods that are well. You can't find in general Grocers and so obviously with the news of them acquiring them I was really excited because my office is about a block-and-a-half from their headquarters and I go there quite frequently for lunch so I know the prices of everything another people. Know when the announcement was made that Amazon was essentially going to a choir Whole Foods. I walked in there and the place was some pins and needles but to be fair you know the day that the acquisition actually went through. And I'm sailing back I was expecting maybe a sign or you know everything to be saying free on it because it's. Our delivery for something you know I didn't see any of that but the people. We're in good spirits and so I thought that was at least initially a good sign. The communication between Amazon and Whole Foods is going to be. [51:58] Good enough or you know smooth enough to wear. What makes Whole Foods Whole Foods and experience hopefully won't get washed away by technology day one it's going to maybe gradually going to go in that direction so nice. Turn off people are scared at least here in Austin for the for that acquisition Bill actually go through. Jason:  [52:24] No I think that is true and I only have to say. The day one experience was remarkable I think we've all been super impressed with how much they got done in terms of integration on that on you. That that first day of the. Under Amazon control this Monday. Scot & Guests:  [52:44] I don't know what you guys experience but headquarters never moves you know they put a new payment systems they put in terminal they put in new ideas that app never works like, this'll last post ever touch so it's weird because it is headquarters it should be you know of a flagship you think they would get that one right, straight away but there was nothing integrated in nothing to headquarters was just nothing at all, so except for some commentary about why why the employees couldn't use Alexa for something so. Jason:  [53:19] That's funny it that's a common thing so that the headquarters Store the store that's closest to the headquarters for almost all retailers like. Always has this unique character and like one of the things is it's almost always run by a totally cynical manager who's not impressed by anything right because. Can you think about it every vendor that ever called on Whole Foods has gone to that store and they explore that store and they probably like stopped and talked to the manager about how important they were to Whole Foods and all that sort of stuff. And you know of course all the Senior Management from the company shop there and all those things in like if you were going to be Star Struck by by the executives coming into your store. You wouldn't do very well in that that. Headquarter store so that the surviving manager there 10 tends to usually be a guy that walks to the beat of his own drummer. Scot & Guests:  [54:12] Yeah I think that's definitely true you know I've met quite a few of their their Executives being so close and you calling on them from time to time whether it be something that I would working on that I want to show them we're just in general curiosity they, they've all been pretty open even though they do get solicited constantly but even pretty open I've been able to. Have some pretty good conversations and coffee and what not have lunch with them so I haven't in a while obviously they've had other things on their mind. But they've been really great Bunch for as large as I've become so I'm excited to see what happens to them not to make this an episode about. About Amazon and Whole Foods but. I think it's going to be exciting and I think there's going to be some Growing Pains But ultimately it's going to really Drive. The industry as a whole towards better things from a consumer perspective. Jason:  [55:11] No I totally agree I do want to change topics to we mention you're the co-founder of Simply tap and tell us a little bit more about that. Scot & Guests:  [55:21] Absolutely so simply tap is a cloud-based payments company the idea was born from. My desire to want to do something in a meaningful industry. I'm being in finance specifically in the energy world I thought it was just phenomenal how you can take this material and it just runs everything right and I still looking at the world around me I said you know what there's there's something very similar to, two oil and gas and that is currency that's a meal money basically its Financial systems and so. With a degree in finance I said well that's pretty perfect than I do about three years of research and finally went Doug came down. On to Austin he had been working on us a specific. Not to get too confident but a specific architecture software architecture for doing cryptographic based payments. And today that that system is the one we've created and it's used on over 500 million devices worldwide mainly Android it's called host card emulation or agency in so when we came together. I saw that and I said this is this is what you've made hear your idea here is in phenomenal so I you know put my business development had onto my marketing hat. You know we started the company and since then you know we've had a large Bank clients and small Bank clients around the world. [56:53] But ultimately you know over the last year we've said well there's a whole lot of Green Space here in the United States and so we are going to create a new. A new mobile payment in a new shopping experience called game g a n e and so that's really what we as a company have been working on this past year and so we're looking forward to to launching yet. Star over the next month or so and see where it goes. Know it's it's been fun ride we were venture-backed we have great gravy C's and fries and Ventures and Lightspeed Ventures and blue sky from Canada. It's been fun and it's exciting and I know Scott you have gone down this path in your previous life and honestly now with spiffy and you've been around the block. But it's this is my first time accepting someone else's money and then requiring to return that back to them. 100 fold if you will so it's something that I'm very. Thankful of had the chance to experience and grow team build a product in Market that Prada. It's all been is open very exciting and it's all been very kind of. Nice to do it here in a place like Austin or there so many resources to to learn and to grow and to kind of pull from. That's awesome congrats on the funding the we just had I don't know if you heard it or not but we had Shane from Zola on and I believe Lightspeed was an investor in those guys they're they're very active in the e-commerce space as I'm sure you know. [58:32] We were a core Payments Technology and and the patents we have around it RR. Are very very strong however has a small company it becomes. Delicate to put the least and how you how you handle yourself. So unlike many of the things a light speed run Commerce invests in which is more on on platforms that are to enable Commerce or speed up Commerce or grow Commerce from. Cat facilitating position this one was was more of a linchpin to make Mobile payment actually happen. I'm so it's a very technical technology that we use now Visa NASCAR DMX and everyone around the world leverages. But yeah Lightspeed is a is a wonderful Venture Capital firm how to see the not Basin Austin we are fortunate for them to seek us out at the time. That doesn't usually happen but we were in a space that they really liked I want individual there and. Notice women introduce themselves if we want to give you a bunch of money we said I don't know if we can trust you you know and the dance began you know over 6 months and then finally they convince us that they work or not, we're going to steal everything from us and you Story Goes On so. Jason:  [1:00:09] That that's a great story and just just to make sure I have it right so simply tap. Which is almost a B2B play that would have license technology to other folks that would use it for for mobile cloud-based payments and then game which is Gano is a. Consumer-facing app that you guys have lunch that fits art of the echo system that leverages that technology do I do I have that right. Scot & Guests:  [1:00:35] Yeah you got that right so it's it's Gane . But that's that's fine I mean you got softener so it's just me going to be listening as my own. Jason:  [1:00:49] Now Jeff Bezos isn't going to find your app. Scot & Guests:  [1:00:51] All good I don't need him find anything that you can worry. Jason:  [1:00:55] And when you guys say host card emulation. I'm taking a wild guess but so you're using NFC chip in the Android to sort of spoof the NFC antenna that would be in a nfc-enabled piece of plastic is that. [1:01:12] Kind of true or no am I totally wrong. Scot & Guests:  [1:01:15] Know your you're quite right with a couple technical differences so an NFC radio is simply just a radio it can it can pass just been any protocol NFC. Is a particular protocol that everyone leverages. Or I should say what people know as of NFC and so what we essentially do is we take that cryptographic element which is typically considered a secure element. And we host that in a remote server so at the time you want to make a payment what we've done is we've we've incremented the cryptographic element a number of times. And then sent those essentially loaded transactions ready to be used down to the device for storage, a time of payment over NFC or really any means we deliver that, that cryptographic element that send merged with the transaction itself so it can then be validated on the back and buy a large processor. Stop a process that would process that particular issued product so it works with just about any. Every it's a universal standard now. But yeah it's it's on Android devices it was on Windows devices and blackberry but obviously those aren't around anymore so it's now Android. Jason:  [1:02:44] So one burning question so obviously the newer Apple devices have an NFC radio in them but likes. Heretofore they haven't opened up that radio 2. What are useful things we'd like to do it almost sounds like they're starting to an I thought I had read that they were going to start opening that up in some some Limited Format are you up to speed on that at all is there any any hope in the future of. I'm getting NFC functionality out of the the Apple. Scot & Guests:  [1:03:13] Well I'd like to preface this common by no one knows what Apple do until Apple does it but we do know Apple quite well. And what I would I'd like to say is it was great to see them it help the entire ecosystem when they chose to adopt. NFC technology as for payment. There's great advantages to opening it up and leveraging a architecture that we've you know. What created the industry called height post-credit Malaysian it would offer all the things that you might like to do with that particular type of radio or frequency. Making the experience that you have with the device in the world around you much more interactive and much more powerful potentially now they have recently opened up what they would say the readability for their NFC chip. Which allows you to Simply hit a tag and RFID tag. And then if there's a URL based there it will then pull the oral up just like you were to go to a website or provide you with information. Based off the products so one of the examples of this is RFID lock tags on very expensive bottles of wine typically this is seen in China or areas where. You can simply refill a bottle with bad wine charge the good one prices and so what this. Opening up in the way of Apple allows them to do is now you can just a simply walk up to the the bottle of wine in the store. [1:04:52] Wherever they'll go is to stop hearing about a product and it will then either provide you information about that particular part. Or it can potentially allow your mobile device to download a coupon or a code. Or take you to a website where you can learn more about that particular product where it came from maybe it could be pulled directly into a health app where, hey if scans it says no this is no good for you because it has XYZ and we know you're allergic to XYZ so it's a great step forward. It's going to be used pacifically for marketing and it's not necessarily. Fully opening their NFC stack as as people in the industry. Cool all this fancy payments talk is over my head but, makes me ask how you feel about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency cuz I'm assume you have a lot of time thinking about that when we were giving to last session say. Bitcoin was all the rage on in Silicon Valley and you couldn't get through one meeting without them asking what your Bitcoin play. And I'd scratch my head and say look you know if the government doesn't take it as this is my general stance if the government doesn't take. You can't pay your taxes with it and the government can't regulate it then it will never exist here in the United States as a main form currency not to mention that. [1:06:22] There are very large incumbents like visa and MasterCard on the banking system as a whole that will not allow a cryptocurrency as a de-facto currency to exist because they already have the compute power they already have the infrastructure. So for Bitcoin as a currency to become mainstream and many of my friends with hate me for this because their Bitcoin. I'll put that way it just won't be supporting the ecosystem and the incumbents can simply squash it through regulation what screw do just. Bearing it throughout marketing dollars so. You have the currency know what chain is more interesting there's other Alternatives but you look at and you have to compare the Computing cost of walk chain with the existing cost of computing a cryptographic keys. It's kind of you know it's not Cheaper by any means the decentralized. Essential system is not cheaper here just spreading off the cost across the notes. And if those nodes one day decide that it's too expensive for them will guess what your your network of nodes gets you no crappier. Because now you're losing computer power so I know it's going to be a big fight it's better suited for countries with currencies that are have wild. Deflation or inflation. [1:07:53] So I won't most likely won't hear work here in the United States for ever until these except sit as their defacto. Jason:  [1:08:02] It's interesting in general with wood agreed with you and share your skepticism but the one thing I didn't see coming that seems like it's helping to make it slightly more mainstream is ransomware. Scot & Guests:  [1:08:13] Very fair very fair you know the problem is you can as an organ well I see the problem is and you're right ransomware offers this. This way but you know. Anna silly want to go and find and hold Bitcoin and no one does right so if it if it's not an everyday occurrence and the payment systems as they stand today no this very very well. If you can get someone to change their habits and Amazon in anyone else will notice to then you really have no chance write a one-off purchase from a retailer I'll let Kohl's. Even if they give you a deep discount and you never go back, you didn't win anything you just discounted your products and services and you're not you're not making any moment towards them adopting your brand or knowing your brand any better you just trick them or force them to. Of the economics of it to experience what you want to experience. It's going to be a long fight ransomware will always exist being in people with cryptocurrencies at hopefully. You know I obviously it's not a good use case come mainstream use case your fraud and theft and blackmail but it is a use case and you know it maybe if it keeps growing and. Everyone's like hell yeah I need to have a little jingle of Bitcoin in my pocket. Cuz I know I'm vulnerable and someone's going to hack me and all my pictures are going to be frozen or stolen or my business whatever. [1:09:49] That does a use case. Jason:  [1:09:51] If you had some of the pictures on your phone that Scott has on his you'd want to carry a little bit coin. Scot & Guests:  [1:09:56] I think it wouldn't I think you just leaving locked forever that what you couldn't get back to him because yeah. When one quick, final question you're at you're there and Austin. Quite a hotbed of metal e-commerce but but high-tech can, investing in things like that do you is there a kind of a community of e-commerce people do you get the shipping guys down there like shipstation you've got that coremetrics bazaarvoice, Bret Hart and his kind of crew or down there how does that work in and did you pick Austin or you just kind of ended up there. Well so I didn't pick Austin I was actually living in Chicago before I moved down to Austin and it was College buddy before you got married at 4 months I had some time so I took that Consulting gig here in Texas and I can live anywhere. So he was an awesome I said sure sounds like a good place. But as far as the I mean I'm here there's a ton of opportunity and it's a great great Community but as far as the Commerce Committee goes you know what. It's definitely here. Because the size of Austin is so much smaller more accessible than say so can Valley or New York. It's easy to get in touch with and have conversations with but I can't really say that there is a. [1:11:28] Yeah I don't go out and play poker with with five other you know individuals who are all in the payments or e-commerce space even though it's there's so much of it here it doesn't happen as much as you would think. I've often thought about starting a you know I'm morning Club of some form around e-commerce but what I found is. [1:11:52] There's there's anecdotal stuff that everyone runs into when you're selling things online when your building logistics for whatever product you're selling and everyone has a little bit of different take which is nice but the end of the day Commerce is Commerce, and you know the tools that emerge as as best. Best use case tools or advantageous tools they all seem to be in your hands all the same time. Time for whatever reason the sales guys are getting those tools you know how to the businesses. Have have a good Rolodex to call on in so you know I think that the individuals here in Austin are are quite. You're in tune with the heartbeat of e-commerce and since th

On this episode of After The App, I sit down with Lightspeed Ventures partner Aaron Batalion and Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover to talk about their backgrounds in coding and development, how entrepreneurship is blending together into tech culture, and our thoughts on emerging cryptocurrency.