Podcast appearances and mentions of rebecca kaden

In this episode of Turpentine VC, Erik Torenberg sits with Rebecca Kaden, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures. They discuss USV's partnership-driven model, different venture strategies, whether automation in venture is imminent, and what USV looks for in investors. If you need an ecommerce platform, check out our sponsor Shopify: https://shopify.com/momentofzen for a $1/month trial period. --- Check out Erik's new show Request for Startups featuring a rotating cast of founders and investors (including Dan) sharing their requests for startups they want to exist in the world, and also their stories of navigating the idea maze in different sectors so founders don't have to reinvent the wheel anymore. The first episode is out now - we over better dating apps, references as a service, and WeWork for productivity Watch and Subscribe on Substack: https://requestforstartups.substack.com/p/receipt-based-dating-reference-checks Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/request-for-startups-with-erik-torenberg/id1728659822 Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/739L1LR32QI2XyoZlRh5nv --- We're hiring across the board at Turpentine and for Erik's personal team on other projects he's incubating. He's hiring a Chief of Staff, EA, Head of Special Projects, Investment Associate, and more. For a list of JDs, check out: eriktorenberg.com. --- SPONSOR: SHOPIFY | NETSUITE Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. Shopify powers 10% of ALL eCommerce in the US. And Shopify's the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklinen, and 1,000,000s of other entrepreneurs across 175 countries.From their all-in-one e-commerce platform, to their in-person POS system – wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered. With free Shopify Magic, sell more with less effort by whipping up captivating content that converts – from blog posts to product descriptions using AI. Sign up for $1/month trial period: https://shopify.com/momentofzen NetSuite has 25 years of providing financial software for all your business needs. More than 36,000 businesses have already upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform head to NetSuite http://netsuite.com/turpentine and download your own customized KPI checklist. --- Join our free newsletter to get Erik's top 3 insights from each episode: https://turpentinevc.substack.com/ --- RELATED SHOWS: https://link.chtbl.com/thelimitedpartner If you like Turpentine VC, check out our show The Limited Partner with David Weisburd, where David talks to the investors behind the investors: https://link.chtbl.com/thelimitedpartner --- X / TWITTER: @rebeccakaden (Rebecca) @eriktorenberg (Erik) @Turpentinemedia --- TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Intro (00:51) Understanding Union Square Ventures' Approach (03:03) Venture Strategies and Future Trends (05:58) The Role of Technology and Data in VC (10:32) The Importance of Partnership Models in VC (18:07) Sponsors: NetSuite | Shopify (20:43) Generational Transition in Venture Capital Firms (23:27) Criteria for Hiring Investors at Union Square Ventures (25:16) Anatomy of a Partner Meeting (26:26) Managing Cash and Discussing Opportunities (27:00) Sharing Knowledge and Encouraging Participation (27:11) Reviewing the Entire Portfolio Weekly (27:42) Maintaining Fluency in Business Conversations (28:08) Exploring Opportunities in Unconventional Spaces (29:20) The Power of Ideas and Thesis Development (29:46) Pushing Boundaries in Mental Health and Education (31:52) Exploring the Potential of Personalized Education (36:38) The Future of Virtual Learning (38:17) Exploring Opportunities in Mental Health (43:37) Investing in the Trucking Industry (45:48) Exploring Opportunities in the Fertility Space (50:16) The Role of Networks in Investment (51:01) Advice for Emerging Managers

Rebecca Kaden is a Managing Partner @ Union Square Ventures, one of the leading early-stage firms of the last decade with investments in Twitter, Twilio, Coinbase and many more. Nicole Quinn is a General Partner @ Lightspeed where she has led investments or sits on the board of Calm, Cameo and LunchClub to name a few. Eurie Kim is a Managing Partner @ Forerunner Ventures, the leading early-stage consumer fund. Eurie has led investments and sits on the board of Oura, The Farmers Dog, Curology and more. In Today's Roundtable We Discuss: 1. Seed Rounds: Is it even possible for traditional seed funds to play in a world of multi-stage funds investing so aggressively at the seed stage? Is seed immune to the macro environment? Will seed pricing remain as high as ever? What advice does the team have for seed founders approaching a Series A? What do they need? 2. Series A: How is the Series A market looking today? Is there a crunch at the Series A? To what extent are valuations compressed at the Series A? What 3 core elements do companies at the A stage, looking for a Series B next, need to focus on? 3. Series B and Beyond: Is the real crunch at the Series B? Why are down rounds so much better than structured rounds for companies raising? Will we see a wave of M&A in the next 12 months? 4. Crypto, AI and Hot Takes: Why is now the best time to be investing in crypto? Why is investing in AI a lottery right now? What is the most controversial thing that each believes today?

Union Square Ventures has some of the best performing funds in the venture capital industry. As I've reported, USV-backer UTIMCO disclosed in a recent filing that USV had delivered the public investment fund an internal rate of return of 59%. And that number will likely go up over time. (For instance, USV portfolio company Casetext sold to Thomson Reuters for $650 million after the UTIMCO performance update.) I invited USV managing partner Rebecca Kaden onto the Newcomer podcast to talk about how USV consistently invests in unconventional companies. We started off our conversation talking about Journey Clinical, the psychedelics company, in which Kaden announced a Series A investment in January. We also discussed USV's $200 million climate fund strategy, her interest in the AI application layer, and how rising interest rates are effecting the venture capital asset class. Give it a listenHighlighted ExcerptsThe transcript has been edited for clarity.Eric: How do you repeatedly invest in weird things like psychedelics?Rebecca: This thesis around access to care, which has attracted so much capital — some of it ours and is proving to be a good category — has been where the market has gone, but it's actually only one piece of the puzzle. The way we get into things that are unusual is by having strong theses about where things are going versus being extremely opportunistic. Obviously, there's a balance. But that thesis thinking is important. A lot of thesis work on this category really led to the belief that access to care is only half the puzzle. The other is how is care itself going to evolve, and you start unraveling that thread: how is care itself evolving? The real biggest last evolution of care is SSRIs. Those are prescription drugs and have been very important to the treatment for mental health crises, but there's a lot of things they don't treat. They're not a one size fits all model. And they're basically all we got, right? The innovation has not had a lot of other layers, except for psychedelics. And so we became very interested in psychedelics as the next card to get turned over and the next option in needing a bucket of options to treat a crisis.Eric: There are pharmaceutical companies. If there's money to be made, shouldn't they be trying? What's happening that it feels like you need a real outsider thinking to bring ketamine, a drug that's legal, to people's lives that the medical system is unable or unwilling to do what's happening?Rebecca: Well, this isn't really unique to psychedelics or to mental health. Pharmaceutical companies make drugs, so the development of drugs goes with them, but the distribution and networks of access is outside of it. That's not particularly new or unique here. That's where business opportunity has been. So the idea is, when you talk about distribution and networks of access, that's often where these business opportunities lie. The development of drugs is kind of a different beast, which lies in the pharmaceuticals. Why is there a business opportunity with creating access? Because the same reason technology drives business opportunity into anything. Offline access is slower, it's more gated; it's more piecemeal. You have to be at the right doctor at the right time, you have to find it. By creating a network, you just allow anyone anywhere to find access and education at a faster speed and with much broader supply, which brings efficiency to the market.Eric: Do you think mushrooms are going to be on the table soon? Or how much was this a bet that the regulatory regime would change?Rebecca: I don't think mushrooms as we think about them in a recreational sense are just gonna get legalized, maybe they will, but that's a separate kind of thing. I think other forms of psychedelics in formats that are right for care are very much going to get legalized. And actually, as we did our research, to us that's a when not an if. When you dig into what's going on clinical trials and in the clinical world, in some ways that seems pretty easy to bet on that these will continue to happen. And if not exactly the form that we've outlined, rapid new forms of options for care for mental health diseases are going to get approved and released. They're going to need a network of education and distribution to go into the therapist network.I do think there's a regulatory risk here. There's some amount of regulatory risk on psychedelics. We have to be honest about it. But I actually think more about regulatory risk across broader online healthcare in general. We're at somewhat of a time of that whole market still getting worked out on not unique to mental health and not unique to psychedelics, but what you can prescribe online and to whom and to how and how to allow that really important access that we've come to rely on, but also do it in an appropriately controlled way.Eric: You come from a consumer focused firm. When you were interviewing with USV, was it clear that you were shifting away from consumer, and how have you thought about consumer professionally?Rebecca: We don't think a lot about the divide in our portfolio if we think about our fund construction, or how we're looking at the world between consumer and B2B. What we think about is this thesis and the mechanics involved, for instance the role of building network driven businesses and the opportunity to leverage bottom up networks to create moats and scale and to broaden access by driving value and down costs systematically across categories we care about. Sometimes the right application when you pull the threads of that thesis is a consumer product or service, and sometimes it's the enabling infrastructure of them. But most of USV's investments had been one of those two things. They've either been the end application or the enabling infrastructure involved, but a common theme throughout our investments is how do you build important networks that can change industries, but rise outside of them. If you think about Journey Clinical, it's a network of therapists. They're stronger, and the more you add on to them, it's a bottom up growing network of acquiring the therapist, even though it interacts with the healthcare system and can change it. But it's growing this network outside of the infrastructure to then impact the existing structure. We really like that if you think across of our investments, and sometimes that turns out to be consumer, if you think about an Outschool in education, or a Duolingo, or a Twitter, and sometimes it turns out to be the enabling infrastructure or the B2B Marketplace application like Journey Clinical.Eric: What are your thoughts on AI in consumer?Rebecca: The piece of the AI craziness that I'm most excited about is the application layer. There's still a lot of kind of complexity and uncertainty on the foundational model and on the enabling infrastructure on where equity value aggregates — how much of the stack the models own, how defensible those models are, how that shakes out — but what I feel like we can have more conviction about is that it unleashes a wave of consumer innovation that's going to be really fun. The way this is gonna get utilized is by products that we want to use. I'm excited about unleashing this rejuvenated value around fun things to do, where the coolest thing about AI driven applications is they get better if people actually use them. So the strongest incentive of the team is to increase engagement and utility. The only way to do that is to combine utility with fun. There's gonna be so many things in the market that if things aren't fun to use, you'll go to another option. But the team has a huge incentive to get you to stick because that's how their product gets better. So if you think about something like Duolingo, which has been on this for a long time of leveraging machine learning and AI to create better consumer experiences — streaks, gamification, fun — infused with the utility of language learning is critical, because their product gets better if I use it. I'm really excited to see that apply to lots of different consumer applications. We've been talking a lot and everyone's been talking a lot about whether they're going to be moats. Is stickiness going to be possible? The barriers are so low. The moat is going to be fun and teams that can create rapid new fun things that keep you on the platform. We haven't seen that in a while. I'm excited about it. Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe

Union Square Ventures has some of the best performing funds in the venture capital industry. As I've reported, USV-backer UTIMCO disclosed in a recent filing that USV had delivered the public investment fund an internal rate of return of 59%. And that number will likely go up over time. (For instance, USV portfolio company Casetext sold to Thomson Reuters for $650 million after the UTIMCO performance update.) I invited USV managing partner Rebecca Kaden onto the Newcomer podcast to talk about how USV consistently invests in unconventional companies. We started off our conversation talking about Journey Clinical, the psychedelics company, in which Kaden announced a Series A investment in January. We also discussed USV's $200 million climate fund strategy, her interest in the AI application layer, and how rising interest rates are effecting the venture capital asset class. Give it a listenHighlighted ExcerptsThe transcript has been edited for clarity.Eric: How do you repeatedly invest in weird things like psychedelics?Rebecca: This thesis around access to care, which has attracted so much capital — some of it ours and is proving to be a good category — has been where the market has gone, but it's actually only one piece of the puzzle. The way we get into things that are unusual is by having strong theses about where things are going versus being extremely opportunistic. Obviously, there's a balance. But that thesis thinking is important. A lot of thesis work on this category really led to the belief that access to care is only half the puzzle. The other is how is care itself going to evolve, and you start unraveling that thread: how is care itself evolving? The real biggest last evolution of care is SSRIs. Those are prescription drugs and have been very important to the treatment for mental health crises, but there's a lot of things they don't treat. They're not a one size fits all model. And they're basically all we got, right? The innovation has not had a lot of other layers, except for psychedelics. And so we became very interested in psychedelics as the next card to get turned over and the next option in needing a bucket of options to treat a crisis.Eric: There are pharmaceutical companies. If there's money to be made, shouldn't they be trying? What's happening that it feels like you need a real outsider thinking to bring ketamine, a drug that's legal, to people's lives that the medical system is unable or unwilling to do what's happening?Rebecca: Well, this isn't really unique to psychedelics or to mental health. Pharmaceutical companies make drugs, so the development of drugs goes with them, but the distribution and networks of access is outside of it. That's not particularly new or unique here. That's where business opportunity has been. So the idea is, when you talk about distribution and networks of access, that's often where these business opportunities lie. The development of drugs is kind of a different beast, which lies in the pharmaceuticals. Why is there a business opportunity with creating access? Because the same reason technology drives business opportunity into anything. Offline access is slower, it's more gated; it's more piecemeal. You have to be at the right doctor at the right time, you have to find it. By creating a network, you just allow anyone anywhere to find access and education at a faster speed and with much broader supply, which brings efficiency to the market.Eric: Do you think mushrooms are going to be on the table soon? Or how much was this a bet that the regulatory regime would change?Rebecca: I don't think mushrooms as we think about them in a recreational sense are just gonna get legalized, maybe they will, but that's a separate kind of thing. I think other forms of psychedelics in formats that are right for care are very much going to get legalized. And actually, as we did our research, to us that's a when not an if. When you dig into what's going on clinical trials and in the clinical world, in some ways that seems pretty easy to bet on that these will continue to happen. And if not exactly the form that we've outlined, rapid new forms of options for care for mental health diseases are going to get approved and released. They're going to need a network of education and distribution to go into the therapist network.I do think there's a regulatory risk here. There's some amount of regulatory risk on psychedelics. We have to be honest about it. But I actually think more about regulatory risk across broader online healthcare in general. We're at somewhat of a time of that whole market still getting worked out on not unique to mental health and not unique to psychedelics, but what you can prescribe online and to whom and to how and how to allow that really important access that we've come to rely on, but also do it in an appropriately controlled way.Eric: You come from a consumer focused firm. When you were interviewing with USV, was it clear that you were shifting away from consumer, and how have you thought about consumer professionally?Rebecca: We don't think a lot about the divide in our portfolio if we think about our fund construction, or how we're looking at the world between consumer and B2B. What we think about is this thesis and the mechanics involved, for instance the role of building network driven businesses and the opportunity to leverage bottom up networks to create moats and scale and to broaden access by driving value and down costs systematically across categories we care about. Sometimes the right application when you pull the threads of that thesis is a consumer product or service, and sometimes it's the enabling infrastructure of them. But most of USV's investments had been one of those two things. They've either been the end application or the enabling infrastructure involved, but a common theme throughout our investments is how do you build important networks that can change industries, but rise outside of them. If you think about Journey Clinical, it's a network of therapists. They're stronger, and the more you add on to them, it's a bottom up growing network of acquiring the therapist, even though it interacts with the healthcare system and can change it. But it's growing this network outside of the infrastructure to then impact the existing structure. We really like that if you think across of our investments, and sometimes that turns out to be consumer, if you think about an Outschool in education, or a Duolingo, or a Twitter, and sometimes it turns out to be the enabling infrastructure or the B2B Marketplace application like Journey Clinical.Eric: What are your thoughts on AI in consumer?Rebecca: The piece of the AI craziness that I'm most excited about is the application layer. There's still a lot of kind of complexity and uncertainty on the foundational model and on the enabling infrastructure on where equity value aggregates — how much of the stack the models own, how defensible those models are, how that shakes out — but what I feel like we can have more conviction about is that it unleashes a wave of consumer innovation that's going to be really fun. The way this is gonna get utilized is by products that we want to use. I'm excited about unleashing this rejuvenated value around fun things to do, where the coolest thing about AI driven applications is they get better if people actually use them. So the strongest incentive of the team is to increase engagement and utility. The only way to do that is to combine utility with fun. There's gonna be so many things in the market that if things aren't fun to use, you'll go to another option. But the team has a huge incentive to get you to stick because that's how their product gets better. So if you think about something like Duolingo, which has been on this for a long time of leveraging machine learning and AI to create better consumer experiences — streaks, gamification, fun — infused with the utility of language learning is critical, because their product gets better if I use it. I'm really excited to see that apply to lots of different consumer applications. We've been talking a lot and everyone's been talking a lot about whether they're going to be moats. Is stickiness going to be possible? The barriers are so low. The moat is going to be fun and teams that can create rapid new fun things that keep you on the platform. We haven't seen that in a while. I'm excited about it. Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe

Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton and Dan Morehead, Founder & CEO at Pantera Capital, discuss the SEC suing Coinbase and Binance. Charles Baillie, Co-President at Quantum, talks about investment opportunities in energy. Rebecca Kaden, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures, shares her thoughts on VC investing. Bloomberg Businessweek Editor Joel Weber and Bloomberg News Autos Reporter Gabrielle Coppola provide the details of Gabrielle's Businessweek Magazine cover story US Battery Startup's Failure Paved Way for China's EV Dominance. And we Drive to the Close with Jeff Travis, Portfolio Manager at Oak Associates. Hosts: Carol Massar and Matt Miller. Producer: Paul Brennan.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton and Dan Morehead, Founder & CEO at Pantera Capital, discuss the SEC suing Coinbase and Binance. Charles Baillie, Co-President at Quantum, talks about investment opportunities in energy. Rebecca Kaden, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures, shares her thoughts on VC investing. Bloomberg Businessweek Editor Joel Weber and Bloomberg News Autos Reporter Gabrielle Coppola provide the details of Gabrielle's Businessweek Magazine cover story US Battery Startup's Failure Paved Way for China's EV Dominance. And we Drive to the Close with Jeff Travis, Portfolio Manager at Oak Associates. Hosts: Carol Massar and Matt Miller. Producer: Paul Brennan.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Upfront Partner Aditi Maliwal sits down with Nick Grossman and Rebecca Kaden of USV to hear the two's journey in venture, how to keep true to their strategy, and the firm's distribution strategy. Recorded March 1, 2023 at the Upfront Summit.

Today Rebecca Kaden, a General Partner at the famed venture firm Union Square Ventures, joins the podcast. USV is based in NYC and is known for thesis-driven investing in companies like Twitter, Polygon, Coinbase, Stash, Duolingo, Cloudflare, Twilio, Etsy, and more. The firm manages over $1 billion across funds with notable investors, including Fred Wilson, Andy Weissman, Albert Wenger, Brad Burnham, and John Buttrick. Learn more about USV & Rebecca here: https://www.usv.com/Twitter of Host (Shamus Madan): @mbitpodcastTwitter of Guest (Rebecca Kaden): @rebeccakaden

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, we're trying something new. Natasha spent a good chunk of last week at the All Raise VC summit, an annual off-the-record event that brings together some of the best and brightest in the investment community. After the summit, she sat down with Mandela SH Dixon -- All Raise's new CEO -- to unpack what happened, and discuss how today's changing venture capital market will impact diverse founders.The first half of this episode is a conversation between Natasha and Mandela, and then we'll bring on Alex and turn to some on-the-ground clips from the summit. Sound bytes from Freestyle's Jenny Lefcourt, January Ventures' Jennifer Neundorfer, Rethink Impact's Heidi Patel and Union Square Ventures' Rebecca Kaden will get the classic Equity treatment. Or, put differently, Alex and Natasha will react to top investors talking about their game plans for the next market cycle. It's fun!

Listen now | Episode 71 Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.This week we have Rebecca Kaden, General Partner at Union Square Ventures, who I consider as one of the very best venture firms in the world, as they’ve backed companies such as Stripe, Twitter, Etsy, LendingClub, and Coinbase.The firm is also very thesis and mission-driven, including investing in the future by addressing issues like the climate crisis. Union Square Ventures was founded in 2003 by Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham and currently has $1.9B in AUM. Subscribe at ventureunlocked.substack.com

Our guest today is Rebecca Kaden. Rebecca is a Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures. She has a particular interest in education and an extremely deep understanding of the evolving EdTech landscape. Rebecca began her career as a journalist and prior to USV was a General Partner at Maveron, a consumer focused early stage fund.In this episode, we talk about how new technology can decentralize many aspects of what school is today, so that the learning experience can really feel individual for each student.Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:Our first episode with Sora Schools - https://blog.enrollhand.com/have-you-heard-of-sora-schools/Our second episode with Sora Schools - https://blog.enrollhand.com/roadmap-club/Venture Stories episode: Redesigning School for Students To Thrive with Rebecca Kaden of USV and Garrett Smiley of Sora Schools - https://soundcloud.com/venturestories/redesigning-school-forOur episode: 420 Learning Guides Coach Learners Towards Mastery, with Kelly Smith, CEO at Prenda - https://blog.enrollhand.com/420-learning-guides/Our pisode: Will the Consumerization of Education Continue, with Jennifer Carolan - https://blog.enrollhand.com/consumerization-k12-education/John Danner on Twitter about Web3 & Education - https://twitter.com/jwdanner/status/1442539746358530056Where to learn more about Rebecca:Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-kaden/Twitter - https://twitter.com/rebeccakadenWebsite - https://www.usv.com/Where to learn more about Enrollhand: Website - www.enrollhand.comWebinar - https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.comOur free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

For full show notes, links, RSVPs to live podcast recordings and more visit thedeepend.substack.comRebecca Kaden on Twitter: @rebeccakaden

Garrett Smiley (@gw_smiles), co-founder of Sora Schools, and Rebecca Kaden (@rebeccakaden), investor at USV, join special guest host Anne Dwane (@adwane), co-founder and partner at Village Global, on this episode.They discuss:- The story of how Sora Schools came about and how they plan to create the best high school in the world.- How Rebecca and USV evaluated the business.- Why a new model for education is needed today.- The role of a school in the 21st century and the importance of community.- What it was like fundraising during a pandemic.- Other needs and problems that provide opportunities for entrepreneurs in the education space.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Garrett Smiley (@gw_smiles), co-founder of Sora Schools, and Rebecca Kaden (@rebeccakaden), investor at USV, join special guest host Anne Dwane (@adwane), co-founder and partner at Village Global, on this episode.They discuss:- The story of how Sora Schools came about and how they plan to create the best high school in the world.- How Rebecca and USV evaluated the business.- Why a new model for education is needed today.- The role of a school in the 21st century and the importance of community.- What it was like fundraising during a pandemic.- Other needs and problems that provide opportunities for entrepreneurs in the education space.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Union Square Ventures is one of the most revered venture firms in New York City. This week I was thrilled to chat with Rebecca Kaden, General Partner at USV. We started off the conversation talking about some of Rebecca’s fundamental beliefs on how to succeed in venture - primarily the importance of matching horizontal and vertical perspective and providing value in each interaction. We then spent the majority of the dialogue on USV’s Thesis 3.0 and dove deeply into the future of education before rounding out with how Rebecca expects venture capital to change over the coming years.

cc: growth journeys from emerging ecosystems to global markets. Hosted by Enis Hulli and Rina Onur. Rebecca Kaden is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures. She began her career as a journalist and prior to USV was a General Partner at Maveron, a consumer-focused early stage fund. Rebecca was born in New York City, where she now resides. She has invested in numerous technology companies disrupting legacy infrastructures and is continuing to look at startups that will be adapting our status quo for the future. What’s in this episode? Building an investment thesis and sourcing deals based on conviction The rise of distributed teams and exodus from established startup hubs like Silicon Valley and NYC The nature of investing globally and the support of local VCs in emerging markets Staying competitive and relevant in the VC space with a small team Main struggles emerging market startups face in scaling globally Difficulty of creating high quality content and its benefits You can reach us through our website or @getcced on Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and Linkedin.

My guest today is Rebecca Kaden, a partner at famed venture firm union square ventures. USV is known for thesis-driven investing, which is the topic of our conversation. Rebecca walks us through the evolution of USV’s thesis into its third generation, and from there we explore many of the most interesting and exciting areas of business, technology, and learning. Please enjoy our conversation For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Show Notes 1:11 – (First Question) – An overview of Union Square Ventures Thesis 3.0 7:49 – Core changes that can help any community 9:59 – Ways to fix the broken education system 13:41 – Gap between job preparedness and the education system 14:44 – Companies creating education systems to prepare people for careers in their field 18:49 – Most unique technological solution for people to educate themselves 22:00 – Ways to improve access to capital 26:49 – The distribution problem in capital markets 28:19 – How does she assess an early-stage company and its team’s ability to assess their ability to maximize distribution 30:56 – Digital marketing and why it could be broken 34:22 – Examples of masterful marketing 36:07 – How they are focused on improving wellbeing, their first focus on healthcare 39:35 – Wellbeing on their focus on community             41:29– The Art of Community: Seven Principles for Belonging 45:30 – Her thoughts on mentorship 48:23 – What she has learned in her time at USV 51:50 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Rebecca Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

You know what happens when you assume: you make an investment mistake. So why are so many startup founders and everyday investors assuming today’s endless well of venture capital is...actually endless?This week on Morning Brew’s weekly podcast, Business Casual, Union Square Ventures managing partner Rebecca Kaden explains that, even though venture as a whole is armed with more capital than ever before, “nerves are spiking and we know change is coming.”But what does that change look like? When the change does come, where’s the opportunity in a venture-funded world packed with potential WeWorks? And what are the long-term implications of today’s multibillion-dollar private check-writing?In this episode, Kaden explains. Plus, we...Determine why the inherent risk of venture capital is so misconceived by the marketExplain why recessions are good for venture capitalists and bad for youCompare and contrast our economic predictions with those of Juicy J.Don’t miss it. While you’re here, subscribe to Business Casual and leave us a rating and review.

Panel on Women in Venture Capital with Beth Ferreira, Managing Director at FirstMark Capital, Ellie Wheeler, partner at Greycroft and Rebecca Kaden, partner at Union Square Ventures. In this panel discussion, three female VC leaders talk about the New York venture capital landscape and the importance of diversity in a corporate org chart and the obstacles that female founders face.

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with impressive fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the remarkable stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech.   You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify and iHeartRadio   In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with John Buttrick, partner at Union Square Ventures.  USV is recognized as one of the top VCs worldwide.   Current partners are Brad Burnham, John Buttrick, Rebecca Kaden, Albert Wenger, Andy Weissman and Fred Wilson.  John has been with USV since 2010.   Tune in and Listen.   Subscribe now on iTunes, Google , Stitcher, Spotify and iHeartRadio to hear next Tuesday's episode with Cliff Sirlin from LaunchCapital.   About the host:   John is the host of the twice-weekly “Bank On It” podcast recorded onsite at offices of Carpenter Group, a creative services agency focused on the financial services industry. He's a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He's in the center of the fintech ecosystem, keeping current with the ever-innovating industry.   Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter or on Medium

Erik is joined on this episode by Rebecca Kaden (@rebeccak46), investor at Union Square Ventures, Nikhil Basu Trivedi (@nbt), VC at Shasta Ventures, and Jonathan Yoni Regev (@jyonni), CEO and co-founder of The Farmer’s Dog.They talk about where we are in the evolution of the consumer packaged goods space. Rebecca explains why this is a unique moment where consumers are eager to try new things from new brands. They discuss the three types of defensibility in a CPG startup and Nikhil points out that it’s difficult to figure out whether a business model can really be defensible at such an early stage. Jonathan explains what they’re trying to do a The Farmer’s Dog and Rebecca and Nikhil talk about why they love the pets space for new investments, including some of the unique forces at play in the pet landscape.They also talk about communities that have sprung up around certain CPG brands and how communities could be the future of both CPG and consumer social. They discuss the potential for another huge horizontal community like Snap or Instagram to emerge and what they would be looking for in “the next Instagram.”We apologize for the quality of Jonathan’s audio.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Erik is joined on this episode by Rebecca Kaden (@rebeccak46), investor at Union Square Ventures, Nikhil Basu Trivedi (@nbt), VC at Shasta Ventures, and Jonathan Yoni Regev (@jyonni), CEO and co-founder of The Farmer’s Dog.They talk about where we are in the evolution of the consumer packaged goods space. Rebecca explains why this is a unique moment where consumers are eager to try new things from new brands. They discuss the three types of defensibility in a CPG startup and Nikhil points out that it’s difficult to figure out whether a business model can really be defensible at such an early stage. Jonathan explains what they’re trying to do a The Farmer’s Dog and Rebecca and Nikhil talk about why they love the pets space for new investments, including some of the unique forces at play in the pet landscape.They also talk about communities that have sprung up around certain CPG brands and how communities could be the future of both CPG and consumer social. They discuss the potential for another huge horizontal community like Snap or Instagram to emerge and what they would be looking for in “the next Instagram.”We apologize for the quality of Jonathan’s audio.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Rebecca Kaden, General Partner at Union Square Ventures, discusses her firm’s capital efficient investment thesis and debates the pros and cons of blitzscaling.

Rebecca Kaden is a General Partner @ Union Square Ventures, one of the most successful funds of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Twitter, Twilio, Zynga, Soundcloud, Tumblr, Lending Club and many more. As for Rebecca, prior to USV, Sarah was a General Partner @ Maveron, a consumer-only seed and series A fund where she invested in the likes of Allbirds, Dia & Co, Periscope, Earnest and Eargo just to name a few. Before Maveron, Rebecca took the route of many great VCs and was a journalist, working as Special Projects Editor @ Narrative Magazine. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Rebecca made her way into the world of VC from journalism? How her journey with Maveron led to her becoming a General Partner with the prestigious USV? 2.) Having mastered the craft of VC in the world of consumer, how does Rebecca respond to Peter Fenton and Jeremy Levine's statement, "we are in a consumer downturn"? How does Rebecca think about the lack of free and open distribution today? How can startups compete with incumbents for cost-efficient customer acquisition? 3.) How does Rebecca evaluate the role of Amazon today? How does Rebecca look to get comfortable that Amazon is not moving into the space of a portfolio company? Does Rebecca agree, "if you are not a top 3 priority", you have a couple of years on them? How can startups learn from the execution advantage shown by Amazon over the last decade? 4.) With several recent consumer acquisitions under $200m, does Rebecca still believe that venture returns can be made at scale in consumer? How does Rebecca analyse how to think about multiple on revenue when evaluating consumer companies? Why Does Rebecca believe we are in a moment of fragmentation, not consolidation? 5.) How does Rebecca compare the partnerships of US and Maveron having been a GP now at both firms? What are the similarities? What are the differences? What does Rebecca believe are the core advantages of small partnerships and controlled fund sizes? How does the addition of the thesis-driven investing style effect Rebecca's thinking? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Rebecca’s Fave Book: Pale Fire  Rebecca’s Most Recent Investment: Modern Fertility As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Rebecca on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Rebecca Kaden of Union Square Ventures joins Nick to discuss USV's Newest GP on Leveraged Growth, Consumer Brand Building & Customer Obsession. In this episode, we cover: I've heard you talk about Allbirds, Zullily, and others before, can you highlight a few notable investments from your time at Maveron? Previous career as a journalist? Did you write about tech? How'd you end up joining Maveron? Why the move to USV? Fred Wilson said: "Each partner who has joined USV has done two things very well. First, they have figured how to operate inside of our shared investment thesis. And second, they have figured out how to stretch it." You've said: "Next up: exploring the intersection between our core USV thesis around network effects, whether centralized or decentralized and the entrepreneurs building the standout consumer businesses that integrate into our hearts and minds." Talk about the types of Network effects that you look for and can create large, strong businesses on the consumer-side. Investment Process/Structure at Maveron vs. USV? You often talk a lot about one of my favorite items... customer obsession. It's well documented on this podcast that I will not invest in founders that aren't customer obsessed. I'd love to hear your thoughts here and how you test for this characteristic with early-stage founders. What are your thoughts on the role of brand and importance of brand in consumer companies? What are the key elements to building strong brand and can you give us specific examples that you've observed in portfolio companies? Thoughts on vertically-integrated brands-- strengths and weaknesses, is that critical for a brand w/ a physical good for you to make an investment? What's your role as investor, are you passive or active; are you coaching and teaching or more of a listener and support? What's your style? What do you like least about your job? In what ways do woman VCs support and help each other out in this male-dominated industry. Case Study-- very incomplete information, two companies, early stage, very similar sector and product category, both have exceptional founding teams... one has modest growth rates but exceptional NPS scores, the other has exceptional growth rate but modest NPS.  All other things being equal, which one are you more likely to invest in?   To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.

Rebecca Kaden (@rebeccak46) recently joined Union Square Ventures in in her hometown of New York City as a partner. She and Erik (@eriktorenberg) talk about why she joined USV and the three “waves” of investment theses for the firm. They discuss the unique dynamics in a partnership versus a company. She talks about her recent investment in Nurx, a company that specializes in delivery of birth control to women who might otherwise not be able to access it. Rebecca also talks about why network effects apply to more than just social networks and what opportunities are opening up in the consumer healthcare space. They also discuss potential opportunities in fintech and insurance and why now, in the age of Amazon, it’s still a great time to create a consumer brand.If you like what you hear, please review us on your favourite podcast platform. Thanks!Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or on Twitter @villageglobal.

Rebecca Kaden (@rebeccak46) recently joined Union Square Ventures in in her hometown of New York City as a partner. She and Erik (@eriktorenberg) talk about why she joined USV and the three “waves” of investment theses for the firm. They discuss the unique dynamics in a partnership versus a company. She talks about her recent investment in Nurx, a company that specializes in delivery of birth control to women who might otherwise not be able to access it. Rebecca also talks about why network effects apply to more than just social networks and what opportunities are opening up in the consumer healthcare space. They also discuss potential opportunities in fintech and insurance and why now, in the age of Amazon, it’s still a great time to create a consumer brand.If you like what you hear, please review us on your favourite podcast platform. Thanks!Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or on Twitter @villageglobal.

This week we had the full crew on deck, including Katie Roof, Matthew Lynley, and myself -- Alex! -- to dive into the biggest news of the week. We weren't alone, thankfully, as Maveron partner Rebecca Kaden joined us in the studio to mull over the latest. The news of the week was earnings-themed, unsurprisingly, including Amazon's big revenue beat and profit miss, Alphahbet's slightly fretful growth and losses on its "Other Bets," whatever the hell happened to Twitter during the San Francisco dawn, and Facebook's continued triumphal parade.

This week we had the full crew on deck, including Katie Roof, Matthew Lynley, and myself -- Alex! -- to dive into the biggest news of the week. We weren't alone, thankfully, as Maveron partner Rebecca Kaden joined us in the studio to mull over the latest. The news of the week was earnings-themed, unsurprisingly, including Amazon's big revenue beat and profit miss, Alphahbet's slightly fretful growth and losses on its "Other Bets," whatever the hell happened to Twitter during the San Francisco dawn, and Facebook's continued triumphal parade.

Rebecca Kaden is a Partner at Maveron where she identifies emerging consumer-focused entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, Southern California, and New York. Rebecca also plays a leading role in Maveron's seed program, where they partner with emerging consumer companies at their earliest stages. She’s a Board Observer at August, Common, Darby Smart, Dolls Kill, Eargo, Earnest and General Assembly. Her outstanding achievements have been recognised by Forbes who included Rebecca is their annual '30 Under 30'.   As always we would like thank the awesome team at Mattermark for providing us with all the data and analysis for the show today, check out Mattermark search here!   In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Rebecca made her way into the wonderful world of VC? 2.) Maveron have shown their belief in the consumerisation of IOT. What are Rebecca's thoughts on the space, how it is progressing, barriers that are preventing mass adoption? 3.) What is your take on the integration of messaging and chat with IOT? Whis there a recent broader market positivity towards chat interfaces at the moment? 4.) Maveron have also shown their likeability towards hardware investments so why is this? Why do Maveron not feel the broader VC market concerns of shipping, logistics? Are we seeing a shift in investing patterns in hardware? 5.) How do Rebecca approach the common problem with consumer startups transtioning from an early adopter market to a mass market product?  What does Rebecca feel is the tipping point? What is necessary to make the transition from SF hipster client to everyone? 6.) What are the benefits are of having a narrow investing thesis (only consumer)? How has Rebecca found it? Is it challenging when finding companies you would like to invest in but are outside the mandate? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Rebecca's Fave Book: Pale Fire, Vladamir Nobokov Rebecca's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Sarah Tavel, Brad Feld, Wait But Why Rebecca's Most Recent Investment: Booster Fuels   As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Rebecca on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!   How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A hundred? A thousand? The answer is too many. But here’s the thing—even though I knew I wanted to do something about it, I didn’t know how. It’s called SaneBox. SaneBox sorts through your email and moves all of the trivial stuff into a different folder so the only messages in your inbox are the ones you actually want to see. Visit sanebox.com/20VC today and they’ll throw in an extra $20 credit on top of the two-week free trial.