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As someone who entered the venture industry in the wake of the Dot-com crash, I have a deep appreciation for new managers, their entry point into the industry, and how that shapes their world view. For me, it was pure carnage for the first few years of “investing”. I put that in quotes because it was mostly triaging the portfolio and trying to assess which companies were worth saving and which were destined for the Dot-com dust bin. Shortly after stepping out on my own to start OATV, another bubble burst with the Global Financial Crisis™. My trips to NYC for board meetings were often capped off with midnight strolls through Zuccatti Park to witness the occupation of Occupy Wall Street. The markets were in free fall, checkbooks closed, and founders, once again, were at the mercy of the market. But easy times never make for strong people and that's why I was excited to sit down with Turner Novak when we both found ourselves in Columbia, MO for the Main Street Summit a few weeks back. His is a “chronically online” story of discovery and persistence into the world of startups and VCs. Through the use of memes, social networks, and data, Turner was able to build an audience and a “fantasy portfolio” to land himself an internship and, eventually, a fund of his own. Turner came into his own as an investor in the frothy times of the not-too-distant past. With wide eyes and fresh funds to deploy at his newly formed firm, Banana Capital, he set to work deploying near the peak of the ZIRP bubble. I thought it would be fun to unpack the experience of someone who built their brand online, from the midwest, and began deploying into a market that's rules and dynamics quickly changed on them. With that as the goal, this one did not disappoint. A few takeaways: - Turner's exposure to entrepreneurship began early with his mother running a small wedding gown business. Turner developed an interest in technology and the internet during his teenage years, teaching himself programming.- Turner's path into venture capital began in college, where he joined the investment club and got hooked on investing. After working in commercial lending and for a nonprofit endowment, he started building a “fantasy VC portfolio” on Twitter, which helped him break into the industry. His visibility on social media eventually led to his first job in venture capital.- Turner's largest learning from the last few years in venture is the importance of entry points — getting in at the right valuation can make or break an investment. While many aspects of startups are unpredictable, controlling the price you pay is crucial for long-term success.This was a really fun one and I think Turner has a bright future ahead of him as an investor and fund builder. The easy times may be over, but I can see his strength already showing through as he navigates this new reality. I hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed recording it. PS - Today is my birthday and all I want is for you to A) subscribe to the INDIE YouTube channel (just hit that subscribe button) and B) send the next category defining company our way. Is that too much to ask?!?
Zach begins by discussing his company and founding story before discussing how he has seen his company grow in recent years. He then talks about what is an integrated platform, the challenges he's seen in the industry, and advice for companies looking to adopt IoT. Zach Supalla built an IoT product from scratch and delivered it to thousands of customers in 6 months. Did it again four or five times. Helped enterprise customers like Jacuzzi, Keurig, and Watsco do the same. He built a global team of 100+ and a company serving hundreds of enterprises and thousands of IoT engineers, and raised $80M in venture capital from Spark Capital, Root Ventures, OATV, and others. San Francisco Business Times 40 Under 40. IDC listed the particle as a Major Player in Worldwide IoT Platforms. It was one of Fast Company's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in the Internet of Things in 2015, Business Insider's Enterprise Start-ups to Bet Your Career On in 2017, and Forbes' Top 25 IoT Startups to Watch in 2019.Particle is an all-in-one (hardware+software+connectivity) platform for IoT products and connected devices. Zach and his team help manufacturers bring their physical products online. The main verticals the company operates in include light electric vehicles, smart energy, HVAC, emissions monitoring, and industrial equipment monitoring.
Bryce Roberts is a co-founder at OATV - one of the formative Seed funds. Their portfolio includes Bitly, Figma, and Foursquare. At OATV, Bryce ALSO developed Indie VC, probably the most high-profile example of a fund doing venture differently.
Bryce Roberts, Managing Director, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV), and Founder, Indie.vc, discusses the issues with the venture capital financing model, and explored alternatives.
Clandestine influence campaigns are rampant on social media. Whether pushing Russian agitprop or lies about vaccines, they can impact policy and make us question what is true. A technologist, Wall Street veteran, and citizen advisor to Congress, DiResta will tell us how bad it is and some things we can do. Renée DiResta studies narrative manipulation as the Director of Research at New Knowledge. She is a Mozilla Foundation fellow on Media, Misinformation and Trust, and is affiliated with the Berkman-Klein Center at Harvard and the Data Science Institute at Columbia University. Renee is a WIRED Ideas contributor, writing about discourse and the internet. In past lives she has been on the founding team of supply chain logistics startup Haven, a venture capitalist at OATV, and a trader at Jane Street.
VC’s Bryce Roberts of OATV and Indie.vc, and Chris Marks of Blue Note Ventures both found the standard issue of the VC world was not a fit for them. They both sought out to set a new path, one that aligned with who they are and what they value. In a conversation with Jerry, and each other, they explore the challenges on their journey, and the potential opportunities they have to better connect with entrepreneurs through those challenges. In listening to this conversation, we hope you’ll consider: In my own work, what are my values? What are my priorities? What would it mean to invest in being myself? Leave us a review on iTunes! Follow our step by step guides: - How To: Leave a Review on Your Computer: - How To: Leave a Review on Your iPhone: Never miss an episode! Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on all our episode releases.
Origins - A podcast about Limited Partners, created by Notation Capital
Bryce Roberts is the founder of Indie VC, a 12-month program and venture fund designed to fund and support founders on a path to profitability. Before that, Bryce was a co-founder of OATV in 2005, one of the earliest seed focused VC firms, where they invested in companies like Fastly, Foursquare, Planet, Hipcamp, and others. On this episode, we discuss the earliest days of seed investing and raising OATV while Bryce lived in Utah, as well as the difficult decision to morph OATV into what is now Indie VC. Bryce has a decidedly different and refreshing perspective on venture capital than anyone we've had on Origins - He believes that raising capital should not turn a business into a binary outcome and that more founders should think about the road to profitability - What Bryce describes as "permissionless entrepreneurship."
As the founder of Indie.vc, and Co-Founder of O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Bryce Roberts talks about the importance of accepting your mediocrity when you first start out as a leader, not relying on having a mentor to save you, and being open and honest with yourself in order to evolve in a leadership role. Every few… Read the full article
Bryce Roberts is the founder of Indie.vc , an investment fund that is leading the new counter-culture startup movement, focusing on revenue and sustainable growth, rather than unhealthy obsession with raising money to achieve a billion-dollar valuation. Fueled by his own desire to do things differently, Bryce lives in Utah with his wife and five children, he works from home office, and while working hard, also finds the time to be a hands-on dad and have a life too. If you like startups, venture investment, or would like to learn about it and find out for yourself why Bryce is a great funding partner for you, you would love the whole episode. Yet, if you only want to hear his advice on how to spend meaningful time with your family while also working in a hard-stress environment, skip to about 40 minutes into the episode for a quick work of wisdom. Big thanks to Create33 for hosting Indie.vc event and for giving me space to record this episode. As always, check out Rad Dad website for the full list of past episodes. There is something there for everyone.
Bryce, a co-founder of O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and Indie.vc joins to talk about the limits of traditional venture capital. What can / can’t traditional venture capital support in terms of company building in 2017? What are some financing alternatives?
Bryce Roberts, Managing Director, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV), and Founder, Indie.vc, discusses the issues with the venture capital financing model, and explored alternatives.
Bryce Roberts, founder of OATV and Indie.vc, talks with us about their new model for investing in seed stage companies. Rather than shooting straight for an acquisition or an IPO and focusing on securing the next found of funding, his new model encourages Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” - Oscar Wilde VC’s Bryce Roberts of OATV and Indie.vc, and Chris Marks of Blue Note Ventures both found the standard issue of the VC world was not a fit for them. They both sought out to set a new path, one that aligned with who they are and what they value. In a conversation with Jerry, and each other, they explore the challenges on their journey, and the potential opportunities they have to better connect with entrepreneurs through those challenges. This conversation may leave you asking yourself: In my own work, what are my values? What are my priorities? What am I wearing today? Links Bryce Roberts on Twitter - https://twitter.com/bryce Chris Marks on Twitter - https://twitter.com/bluenotevc Indie.vc - http://indie.vc Blue Note Ventures - http://bluenotevc.com O’Reilly Alphatech Ventures - http://oatv.com Bryce’s blog post - The Peace Dividend of the Seed Surge - http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-the-unicorn-club/ Aileen Lee’s article on on Unicorn startups - http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-the-unicorn-club/http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-the-unicorn-club/
What happens when you take your own path and stay true to yourself? Good things happen. Managing director + co-founder of OATV and the creative mind behind Indie.vc, Bryce Roberts joins us for the last episode of 2015. Joe, Diego and Piper also take a quick look back at 2015.
Last year, on the last day of the HIMSS'11 conference, Richard Boyd of Lockheed Martin Virtual World Labs shared his "Simulation Prescription"; showing how gaming and simulation technology have the potential to further revolutionize health care. One year later, OATV was able to catch up with Richard, now Director of Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (or as Aneesh Chopra calls him - "Disruptive Man"), on the developments that Lockheed Martin has taken to create a Virtual World Ecosystem Framework. The great news? Lockheed has taken a kernel approach, creating roles for what he hopes is going to become a massively parallel contribution system. AND it's going to be released with an open license with the goal of getting simulation everywhere on any modern web browser. Richard says that we can expect to see the software "kernel" made available midway through 2012, thanks in large part to some of Lockheed's federal partners.
In addition to his 2010 Government Open Source Conference keynote, David Riley joined us at the conference to talk about details of the CONNECT initiative, with health IT expert and OATV co-founder Jeremy Murtishaw. David outlines the basics of the project, as well as it's acceptance in the health IT community. He also addresses the structure, the security architecture as well as detailing about how health information exchange happens in detail.