Podcast appearances and mentions of rob go

In this episode of "The Idea Maze," Rob Go sits down with Bryce Roberts, Founder of Indie Enterprises. Bryce  Bryce discusses his shift from a corporate setting to focusing on investments that prioritize customer needs and sustainable cash flows over traditional funding routes. He emphasizes the value of starting small, taking risks, and maintaining independence, providing insights into how these principles guide his support for unconventional entrepreneurs. 

In this episode of "The Idea Maze," Rob Go sits down with Tom Petit, one of the co-founders of Didero, an AI company focused on automating supply chain management. Born in Belgium and spending early years in Texas, Tom's unique childhood has shaped his entrepreneurial spirit. He opens up about the introspective journey of exiting a venture-backed business and rediscovering the curiosity that led him to be a founder in the first place.  He also dives into the inception of Didero and the profound impact of finding true meaning in work and life. Show link: The 7 Principles of Making Marriage Work

Rob and Rob take to the ring to settle seven of the most controversial property debates once and for all. Will there be a clear winner? Let's find out... Plus, we also bring you the latest news on that small topic of the election!   (0:34) News story of the week  (4:20) The debate begins…  (5:12) Lets kick-off with flats vs houses  (7:25) Interest only vs capital repayments  (9:45) New build vs old properties  (12:31) Capital growth vs yield  (15:26) Hands-on vs hands-off    (18:18) Limited company vs personal name    (19:50) Property vs stocks  (24:09) Hub Extra   Links mentioned:  Buy To Let – only a third of landlords feel positive about it  Jabra Evolve2 65 Wireless PC Headset  Enjoy the show?  Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts - it really helps others find us!  Sign up for our free weekly newsletter, Property Pulse  Find out more about Property Hub Invest  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 331 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Rob Go, Co-Founder & Partner at NextView Ventures. I've been fortunate to have many people support my journey with building VentureFizz through the years and Rob was one of the earliest. Shortly after I launched the site, he reached out looking to meet up and needless to say, I jumped at the chance. Through the years, Rob has always been incredibly helpful with his feedback on VentureFizz when I needed an outside perspective. I thank him at the beginning of our show, but I did want to note a sincere “thank you” here as well. Rob's also has a podcast that you should check out called The Idea Maze where he asks the question: where do great entrepreneurial ideas really come from? You can find it on all major podcast platforms, plus I have included a link to it in the show notes. NextView Ventures is a pre-seed and seed stage VC firm that invests in founders who want to redesign the Everyday Economy. The firm's portfolio includes Bobbie, The Browser Company, Devoted Health, WHOOP, Attentive, and more. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * The five flavors of AI. * Rob's background story including what he learned from his Dad's entrepreneurial endeavors, getting his career started in management consulting, and then learning product at eBay. * How he landed a VC position at Spark Capital, plus a fun story about his almost investment into Groupon. * What led Rob and his Co-Founders, David Beisel and Lee Hower, down the path of starting a seed stage firm and what the seed investing landscape looked like back then. * What Rob is targeting for investments and the importance of founder-opportunity fit. * What he's learned while running a venture firm. * And so much more. This Week's Sponsor This is exciting… for the “Hey Mom, I made it” category… we are in a book… not any old book… but a book from MIT! Be on the lookout for the new book for entrepreneurs called Startup Tactics. It is available globally starting on April 2nd and it features 15 tactics entrepreneurs need for success. You'll find VentureFizz listed as a “tool of the trade” in the chapter on Hiring for Startups! Amazing!!! Get your copy now from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop.org.

After our first year of The Idea Maze, we wanted to share five key takeaways that we have distilled from these conversations. Listen  to host Rob Go break down the most significant lessons he learned from past episodes. 

“The Flying Experience with Ryan and Rob” “Go with your Gut” "Minimum Wage" "Child Flies Alone" 

On our second episode, Rob Go is joined by ianacare Co-Founder, Jessica Kim. Jessica shares her experience as an EIR (Entrepreneur in Residence) before pivoting to care for her mom. Jessica's grief and frustration inspired her to tackle the inadequate system of support for caregivers together with her co-founder, Steve Lee. 

Rob Go is a co-founder and Partner at NextView, one of the leading seed firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Attentive, Devoted Health, Whoop, and Grove Collaborative. Prior to co-founding NextView, Rob was an investor at Spark Capital and held product and product marketing roles at Ebay. He began his career as a consultant at The Parthenon Group. In Today's Episode with Rob Go We Discuss: 1. Entry into the World of Venture: How a cold call from a VC firm led to Rob entering the world of venture? Why does Rob believe venture is a young person's game? What does Rob know now that he wishes he had known when started in venture? 2. Preparing Docs for a Fundraise: What docs should fund managers have ready before they start the raise? How should they structure their data room? Where do the majority of LPs spend their time, document-wise? What are the single biggest mistakes emerging managers make preparing docs for a raise? 3. Meeting Your First LPs: What is the best way for emerging managers to meet LPs for the first time? Should they send the deck before or after the meeting? What questions should emerging managers ask to qualify LPs in or out of a meeting? What are some clear early signs that a first meeting went well? 4. Closing LPs: The Tips and Tricks: How important is it for a fund to have an anchor? How much of a fund should the anchor be? Are there different qualities of anchor LPs? Should managers ever sell part of their GP or give an LP part of the carry? What can managers do to enforce a sense of urgency to get LPs over the line? What are signs that an LP will not invest in the fund without rejecting you yet? Should emerging managers impose a minimum check size on new LPs?

Welcome to the first episode of the Idea Maze, where our host Rob Go sits down with Stu Wall. Stu is the CEO and cofounder of Setpoint.io, a residential fintech platform. A repeat founder, he walks us through starting Setpoint, grappling with finding the right idea, and the stress of holding on to your founder identity.  

Welcome to The Idea Maze. Stay tuned for our first episode, dropping on June 1. The Idea Maze is a podcast that asks the question: where do great entrepreneurial ideas really come from? Many of us have heard the origin stories of larger-than-life successes, but by the time a company becomes a household name, these stories have been revised to sound more like legend than history. In this podcast, we will be speaking with founders who are still very much in the Idea Maze, and are willing to share the mistakes, false starts, u-turns, and reboots that led from having zero idea to where they are today. Hosted and created by Rob Go, founding partner of NextView

The lads start their pre-season warm ups.

Rob Go of NextView Ventures joins Nick to discuss Reflections From 10 Years at NextView, Dogma vs Discipline, the Importance of Effective Post Money, and Market Sizing Pitfalls. In this episode we cover: Is VC fundamentally changing under our feet? What are other biggest industry shifts that have changed the way you operate at Next View? Most LPs are focused on their fund managers' ownership percentage at entry. Explain what effective post-money at exit is and why that has become a north star from next view? Takeaway #3: There is a Goldilocks zone between too much dogma and lack of discipline. Can you give us an example or two of strategies that were difficult to let go of or move on from? Your favorite saying internally is “anything worth doing is worth doing fast”. Yet this is a pretty long cycle business and it takes time for a portfolio to mature and drive returns. What were the key learnings with regards to returns and metrics? How do you know if you're winning if the metrics are a bit of a red herring?  Are there any alternative metrics or signals you look for to quantitatively gauge performance? You cited the biggest observable misses for most VC's and it's related to market size -- what's been your observation here and where are investors missing? You suggest that founders and investors should make each other a bit uncomfortable. Why? Does this ever prevent you from winning deals? What's your opinion on competition after a decade of investing? How do you think about the competitive set of investors and how to maintain and edge in sourcing and winning the best deals? Do you have any advice for founders w/regards to fundraising? Missed a recent episode? Go to The Full Ratchet blog and catch up! Also, follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

John Lawson, Chief Executive Officer at Colder Ice Media, started in e-commerce in 2000 on eBay. He claims that people talked about business in Ebay chat rooms, making it  “the first social commerce platform” before there was such a term. At the time, John sold bandanas, and was pestered by constant customer questions for information on “how to fold a bandana.” So, he made a video and tracked ten thousand sales – not ten thousand dollars in sales – from that single video listing. Today's digital/social media was not the beginning of social commerce. John says, “No matter where you go, whether first world country or third world country, there is a central location that is a marketplace where people do commerce” and that no matter the channel, there is always a person on the other end. If you appeal to human instinct, people will respond. Commerce, by its very nature, requires human interaction and “social” should be much more broadly defined. John explains that there are social channels that many people do not recognize as social, e.g., Amazon Comments. John wrote a book, Kickass Social Commerce, which offers universal stories of social commerce (as opposed to social media). In one story the book, he tells how Madam C.J. Walker, an African-American entrepreneur, developed a line of hair care products, marketed them to her friends, then sold them door to door, and finally had her friends set up “product presentation” parties for a cut of the sales, a sales strategy later used by such companies as Tupperware and Avon. Walker became the first self-made female millionaire in the US. John describes this as “early social marketing.” John presented “Twenty-one Kickass Social Commerce Tactics to Sell More Today” at HubSpot's 2020 Inbound Conference, where he talked about the phases of social that make people buy and “the flywheel of contacting, engaging, getting people to take action, and then measuring that action to create better contact.” Two key concepts he covered were: Identify and define your avatar, your King Consumer . . . and profile in detail a minimum of three people who would purchase your product. Establish a need for reciprocity. DO SOMETHING for your King Consumer that creates an imbalance that makes them feel that the need to do something for you in return. In a candid and enlightening history lesson, John also discusses how race has impacted the growth and development of black entrepreneurship. Thank you, John. John can be reached through “Colder Ice” on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest – almost everywhere except on Tick-Tock. ROB: Welcome to the marketing agency leadership podcast, I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by John Lawson, Chief Executive Officer of Colder Ice Media, based in Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome to the podcast, John. JOHN: Hey, thanks for having me, bro. ROB: Yeah. Good to have you here. If we were you know, if it weren't COVID, we might meet up in person. JOHN: Right? ROB: We have an Atlanta episode today. JOHN: Absolutely. ROB: Well, why don't you start off, John, by giving us a rundown of Colder Ice Media and what you all do exceptionally? JOHN: What I do exceptionally. I do e-commerce. Right. And I started my e-commerce business back in 2000 on eBay as a necessity. People were asking me the same question over and over, how to fold a bandana because I sold bandanas. It was annoying. So, I made a video on YouTube on how to fold a bandana. I would give everybody who asked that question that link. That bandana video went completely viral. Three hundred thousand people watched the video. Out of that, we were able to track ten thousand sales – not ten thousand dollars – but actual sales from that single video listing. That was like a cavalcade of understanding for me as people started asking me, “Hey, how do you do videos for selling stuff online?” I'm like, “Answer questions that people want.” That got me on stages. Finally I was like, “OK, if you need help with how to use social – the whole world of social – then that's what we did with Colder Ice Media. ROB: That's a very fun story. I can see why someone would put you on stage to talk about it. I think within that, at a tactical level, there's some cleverness, I think probably in your attribution –  because when you're talking about was not the easiest time to tie through who bought this thing. So how did you sort out that people were buying OR buying more of your product from that particular video? What was your tracking? JOHN: We would just look at the Google tag. Google tells you where traffic was coming from and we would see YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, and I'm like, “Dude, this is crazy.: And then, like you say, back in the day, the tools were not that deep, but they would show you the views. I would see these peaks and valleys in the number of views.  The week of Halloween, the peak would be 10X normal viewership. I had no idea that Halloween would be a great time to run specials selling bandanas. And I got that kind of information just by the volume of watchers during that Halloween week. So, it's if you take all of the parts, then you start seeing trends. You can't see a trend in a month. I know people think you can, but a real trend comes over years. When you see something happen three years, you can jump on and really take advantage of those little blips that other people are not able to see because they're just getting started. So, there's value in being there for a long haul, especially on social media. ROB: Wow. How many YouTube channels do you have in your orbit now? JOHN: Five. Yeah, I'm short. I will tell you one thing that I do – every time I get a new client, I create their own Google space – go out and create a Google account – because you need a Google account to create the YouTube. You're going to need that for writing or using their Google advertising. I will create that entire environment and isolate it for myself. What we do – we can show them the value of one-to-one versus, “Oh, by the way, here's some other tracking inside of your tracking.” I'm like, “No, we're tracking this. Put this in your cart so you can see exactly what our efforts are bringing to your business.” ROB: That makes perfect sense. You got this start in understanding on the video side, but you have this, I think, a broader intentionality around social commerce in general. How has that unfolded – your understanding from that first moment of “a video driving sales” to the broader portfolio of social platforms and tactics? JOHN: That's great . . . I like that question. What happened with me is I got really fascinated with Twitter in the beginning. I'm talking about . . . there were like one hundred thousand people on Twitter when I joined. What was fascinating for me is that I had created this business and I left the office space and I didn't have a whole lot of conversations anymore. So, I started using Twitter to just conversate with people while I was sitting at home in my home office. All of a sudden, it just started naturally moving into, “Hey, what do you do?” “Here's what I do.” “Oh, Ok.” Then I start talking about what I did. The e-commerce thing just started bringing other people in that were in the same field. That made me say, “Why or what is it about being or putting your expertise out that makes people suddenly feel like you are their expert?” You hear about this – everybody today will say, if you want to be an influencer, the first thing you do is start going to places and giving your expertise, There was no playbook when I was doing this. But I would watch this happen and it would happen organically. So, you start wondering. Social is very organic. I know people think it is some technology, but it's really not. I've traveled all over the world and no matter where you go, whether first world country or third world country, there is a central location that is a marketplace where people do commerce. In that commerce marketplace, there's always at least one coffee shop where you have social. Social and commerce go together. I tell people. Facebook was not the first social platform neither was MySpace. Actually, eBay was the first platform. Why? Back in the day, we would sit in these chat rooms while we were waiting for eBay auctions to end. A lot of people were talking about business in those chat rooms. They were a social commerce platform way before there was a term. They were doing social because social has been here since chat boards and chat rooms. AOL was Facebook, 1990. Social has been here forever. And if you grasp what I'd like to call the flywheel of contacting, engaging, getting people to take action, and then measuring that action to create better contact  . . . it goes around and around in that flywheel. And that's kind of what I talked about when we were doing the Inbound thing. It was about the phases of social that make people buy. ROB: Let's get right into that. We were talking beforehand. We were probably hoping to meet up at the Inbound conference and record this live and in person or in Atlanta. But we're not meeting up for things like that right now. But Inbound still happened. HubSpot's big Inbound conference, tens of thousands of people, maybe more – online. And your session there was “Twenty-one Kickass Social Commerce Tactics to Sell More Today.” And so I'd love you to dig in and get us into some of the meat and potatoes, maybe some particular things that you saw resonate back out into your audience on Social because you probably were paying attention to that. JOHN: Yeah, I mean, the first thing I'm all about and I tell people and Ok, I get it these do feel very, "Oh I've heard that before." And that's probably the problem is that if you've heard identify your avatar, I call him the King consumer. If you can identify and get in the mind of your King Consumer, then everything that you do after that speaks to that King Consumer. Create at least one. But I say really, at minimum three people that actually purchase your product. They can be real people or they can be fake people. Let's say you don't have your product in market yet, or you think you know who's going to buy that product when you create this King consumer, what you have to do is start thinking about everything that that consumer is into. I want you to go deep into your thought patterns about, not just what they're what they want, but what do they need, what situation are they in? How do they know how many kids do they have? What job do they have?  What are they what do they listen to? What do they say? What are some of the terminology they use? And the more you find that out, the better your business is going to be. I know when I created our business and I was selling those bandanas, I bought those because I was into hip hop and everybody in my neighborhood was wearing the bandanas. I could sell that to people in my sphere. But once I started putting it out there and getting the feedback from others, I was like, whoa, wait a minute; these aren't hip hoppers that are just buying these. These are the bikers. Oh, wow, that's cool. Like I said, people do in the Halloween. Oh, Ok. Cool. And once I started asking my people, hey, how are you using that? How did you like that? You got to definitely go out there and ask. You have to ask. What you're going to learn from your ask are things you're never going to be able to come up with in your own mind. Things that you think when you think that your product and you are your customer – you're not. You're absolutely not. So back to the original question. Identifying that King consumer is one of the things you have to do. The next thing I talk about was reciprocity. If you do something for others, there becomes an imbalance in them that makes them feel like they have to do something for you. That was the whole thing about me teaching people – and I didn't tell you that is the main question actually was – how to fold a bandana like Tupac. Right. And it's so ridiculous. But remember, this is early 2000s, so or late 2000. So, the deal was in my mind, I'm like; everybody knows how to do that. But here's the deal. The people between the East Coast in the West Coast – those flyovers would watch videos and they wanted the same look and they didn't know. Once I taught them how to fold that bandana, then when they were making their choice on who to buy one from, they automatically thought about, “Hey, those guys taught me how to do it.” And just by the nature of who we are, we wanted to make the balance inside of ourselves with reciprocity. So, I'll buy it from them. They might be a dollar more, but I'll go ahead and do it. So, you really want to think about that. That's human nature. We want to get in balance. We always do. If I ask all my friends to help me move, I know, when one of them asks me to help them move, I can't say no. That's reciprocity. Right? ROB: And it's even more helpful in it's not just that they want to know this information. It's that the Internet to an extent and social have made it possible to ask questions that you're too embarrassed to ask your friends. So, you're bailing people out of feeling silly that they don't know how to fold that bandana. JOHN: Yeah, that's true. That's true. Or, they don't even know who to ask. ROB: Yeah. And that continues on out to – I think you look at the some of the beauty influencers and all these makeup tips. There are people who want to know how to do something with their makeup and they are embarrassed that they cannot. Yeah. YouTube bails us out of that. YouTube bailed me out of not knowing how to fix my toilet . . . anything. JOHN: And think of who are the biggest beauty influencers out there – a lot of them are males. That's crazy, right? But you think these guys wanted to put on makeup and a lot of their audience maybe never did. So, who are you going to ask? Your sister? There's a whole lot I got to do before I ask my sister how to put on makeup, There's a whole lot of steps I got to go through. ROB: Yeah, you're probably not going to get a straight up answer right away on that. JOHN: There's going to be some other conversation where exactly we need to have a deeper conversation. ROB: Amazing. I like how the story it started out. When did you realize that you were going to be into this world of social and commerce and Colder Ice Media for the longer run? Was that evident right away? Or was there something after the instigating moment that really cemented the business for you? JOHN: It was probably around 2012 2013. These guys were writing a column about eBay sellers and they asked me if I could do an interview as one of people who are eBay success stories. I agreed.  We get on the phone and were doing this interview and she's like, ”You're one of ten people we're going to feature blah, blah, blah.” But we stayed on the phone for 80 to 90 minutes. And I was like, “Just for a feature piece, this is kind of weird.” We were just having good conversation. At the end of that call . . . she and her husband are a team and write together . . . . . . at the end of the call, they said, “John, man, that was really good stuff. I think we're going to make a multipart feature just on your business.”  I was like, “Really? That's pretty cool.”  And then he's like, “Hey, and if you ever think about writing a book, I'd help you because we've written twenty-two books and we'd love to help you.”  I was like, “Really?” I had never thought about writing a book before because I never thought I had much to say . . . or how much you need to say. But once we put the treatment together, it became my social commerce book. First. It was about social commerce, not just social media. But the key thing was, I don't care how many people like me – I want you to buy from me. There are a lot of people out here who have social influence but couldn't get people to piss on them if they were on fire – they don't really have the ability to move people. There's a difference between having likes and having people that will buy from you. And that's the big difference to me in social media. For me, it was all about the commerce portion. ROB: And what's the name of the book folks want to go . . . JOHN: Kickass Social Commerce. ROB: Excellent. Excellent. Any additional publishings of it or is it still pretty fresh? JOHN: You know what? Here's the thing. When I wrote the book, I wrote it forever. Yeah, right. I did. I literally did because the concepts, again, of social and purchasing go together. So, I grabbed all of these universal stories. And one of my major stories, he first story I talk about is a woman called Madam C.J. Walker. Have you heard of her? ROB: I am not familiar with her. JOHN: Great. Fantastic. So, I could tell this story if you don't mind. ROB: Go. JOHN: All right. So, here's the deal. Madam C.J. Walker was an African-American, a black woman. OK, I like that better. Right? She was a black woman and she created a scalp ointment because her hair was falling out from straightening it. She created an ointment that would keep her hair healthy. And other women saw her hair from going to where she had maybe patches, bald spots, and not healthy hair to these long, luxurious locks. People asked, “What are you using?” She had created this thing in her kitchen and she ended up going from her sink and to the bathtub to create larger volumes of it to sell to her friends. Well, the business starts growing and she starts going door to door to do sales. So that's the first part, right? You go from friends telling friends to going door to door. Her door to door sales grew so much that she realized that she was limited by the number of doors she could go to in a day, and that was hampering the growth of her base simply because there's only so many doors you can knock on. So, she came up with this great idea. She said, look, I'll get one of my clients that already buys for me to have a party and I'll go to the party and display my products at the party. Sound familiar? ROB: Mmm-hmm. JOHN: She was the one that created the model that today Mary Kay and Avon use. She created that and that was, again, social. You're expanding your network by using small influencers to bring their friends in and allowing you to do that demonstration. Of course, you would give them a cut for the party. Ultimately, she built a house bigger than the White House . . . and this was in 1918. This is she is the first self-made female millionaire in America. She was ranked number six of the top 10 entrepreneurs in Entrepreneur magazine for all time, one of the greatest success stories. But I tell this story because, as I was listening and reading and researching, I realized how social media can grow for commerce because. literally, she had her own, quote “Facebook” by doing what she did with these people. So, it's universal. I wrote from that understanding . . . from that standpoint. ROB: Yeah. You can imagine a version of a book on social commerce that would get nitty-gritty – focus very much on the popular channels, marketing channels of the day, would talk about specific ad-spending tactics – and it would have a very short shelf life. But I get the sense from talking to you that you define social channels – and you did this a little bit with eBay – you define that remarkably differently from many people. So, when we think about social channels today, what are some other channels you think may not be intuitively understood as social, but yet are extremely so? JOHN: Hmm, that's a good question. ROB: Because we could talk about Tick-Tock, but we don't and we can, but we don't have to. I don't think you could write a book with a long shelf life if that was your frame of mind. JOHN: Right. Because the channels always change their rules. Yeah. But if your understanding is, no matter what their handle is, there is a person on the other end and there are certain things that we . . . we as humans are just a higher level of animals and there's certain habits that we have that we're always going to use. No matter what channel you use to get there, if you nail that human instinct, they're going to respond to it. Here's what I give you that you wouldn't think of: Amazon comments. Amazon comment, that is a social channel. There are some people that do nothing but read and post or try things and post and then they read other stuff from people. And then they respond in those posts. They do this all day long. Why are they doing that? Because that's their social world. ROB: Hmm. Have you seen some people using Slack communities in a business context, maybe? JOHN: Yes, absolutely. Because what they're doing now is they're getting people away – moreso Reddit. I mean, Reddit, its killer. Reddit is really killer. But a Slack community is a great way to get people that are interested in a specific topic away from the distraction that is social media, especially in an election year. ROB: Hmm, right. Plenty of that. JOHN: There's so much of that. And people's moods are being changed sometimes by the constant back and forth in these major social channels like Facebook or Twitter. It gets distracting. So, you get your people out from there into a nice global world that doesn't have all the noise in it. ROB: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's almost in some cases, there's too much – If you were in a room, there are some rooms where there's too much shouting to be helpful. You can't help people who are in the middle of a fight. JOHN: Right. Exactly. It's like it's really hard to get my attention when there's a train wreck right in front of us. ROB: What does that pivot point look like? What's it look like? What's an example – help us kind of think through it and catalyze our thinking – of someone who's commenting on reviews on Amazon and they're selling something and it's driving – I understand it conceptually, but it's a bit abstract. Is there a concrete example you've seen where they comment on this thing because they were selling this other thing? JOHN: Well, what ends up happening is, if you comment a lot, Amazon flags you as a commenter. Once you get that known as a trusted source, once you get that flagging, then other people that are trying to get reviews by people that have that tag or that flag will start reaching out to send you products. ROB: Got it. JOHN: Right. So, here's the deal. Once you recognize that people are gravitating to you, starting to ask you for your opinion, you've probably got something going on there. I've got a client right now that built a business – and this is so weird – around selling old music media. So, it's flipping CDs. Who buys a CD today? Why don't I get that? I didn't get that. I get it now. He's done six figures just teaching people how to look for CDs at garage sales and thrift stores. That's just amazing to me. You wouldn't think there was a community around that before this. I just never knew. So, there are a lot of niches – there are people that do nothing but needlepoint – there's a niche for darn near everything and it doesn't take a lot of people for you to reach out and find an audience that will either purchase from you or take your recommendations and purchase other things so you can become that influencer for that thing. ROB: Right. It's like the kind of the Kevin Kelly conversation, around a thousand true fans and there are lots of thousands of fans that are looking to be with him.  JOHN: Who did you say? ROB: Kevin Kelly, I think. JOHN: Who's Kevin Kelly? Wait a minute, is not the original? ROB: It might be. Where have you heard it most? JOHN: I'm just going to check this out because. Ok, says Kevin Kelly. Interesting. I'm thinking. Anyway, go ahead. Go ahead. I want to talk about it, Ok? KK.org got it. Technically. ROB: Yep. JOHN: Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Because it's funny you say that. When it first came out, I was so into that. The reason why I was into it, just to go a little bit backwards. is because I'm a huge Prince fan. When Prince left the label, he left a multi-million-dollar deal with Warner Brothers. He was like, “You know what? You can have my entire song category. I just want to be free.” And I was like, “What the hell?” Right after that, he put out his own album. This was the early 90s, He used like a chat room, basically a chat board, to sell a hundred thousand records. Now, this is a man that sold 10 million records for just his Purple Rain album and now he's selling a hundred thousand. And he said, “You know what? I made more off that hundred thousand records than I ever made off of Purple Rain. And when that thousand true fans came out, I was like, ‘Wow'.” That is the basis from where I teach. If you can get a thousand true fans, you're in. ROB: That's amazing, I didn't know that story about Prince, but even in the music world, it brings me forward even to someone like Run the Jewels. Their first album, they put it on their website for free. And they kept on doing their albums for free. And now their albums are basically for free, even if on Spotify. But they were able to cut through a lot of noise and find their fans a lot faster, but still make a living and in a way that is far beyond just selling music. JOHN: Right. Most musicians don't make their money off selling music anyway. That's why they have to tour. Yeah. They have to tour to pay for everything because, I mean, the music business is an amazing thing. I don't want to go into how they really do their business, but let's put it like this: If you sell a million records, you're probably not a millionaire. ROB: Yeah, man. Well, John, this is this is quite a knowledge drop here. I hope that when we're back to meeting in person, people will get a chance to get out and see you and meet you and hear you. When people want to find you and when they want to find Colder Ice Media, where should they go to track you down? JOHN: Just put in Colder Ice. That's all you got to do. Put it in your browser and I will show up I'm Colder Ice on every platform. I am one of those branding crazy people that did that a long time ago. And I'm Colder Ice on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. I don't care where you go. Pretty much I own Colder Ice except for Tick-Tock. Somebody stopped me on Tick-Tock. ROB: Oh man, that's tough. Well maybe you can make a phone call at some point and get it unlocked for Colder Ice. The handle you reserve when you were early on Twitter, did you get another good Twitter handle early. JOHN: Man, you are just pulling out all the good stories. But my name is so common. John Lawson. When I first looked it up, there were like eight million John Lawsons. I had the story in my head. I remember this story that back in segregation – a lot of people don't understand this, but African-Americans are some very original entrepreneurs, not because we had the entrepreneurial spirit – but you had to be an entrepreneur if you wanted to feed your family. You couldn't I couldn't walk into the regular grocery store and buy groceries back then. You had to have a black-only grocery store. There was a black-only cab company. There was a black-only bus company, black-only hotels. All of that. Run by black people because “white people wasn't sharing.” But literally, those storefronts that were serving the black community, the day that integration became the norm, they would see their customers walk right past their storefronts to go shop downtown. They came up with the saying, “Well, I guess the white man's ice is colder.” And I always remember that: colder ice. That's the story. ROB: Wow, I didn't know that either and you're gracious in your history lessons. There's a lot of strong feelings tied up in that. I know. We're all trying to figure out different ways to actually be sorry and be better. JOHN: No, we're all getting better, man. That it's all good effects on your ear. That's the great story of America. ROB: Well, John, thank you for coming on again. I can't wait to get out and hear you share something in real life, but I appreciate you joining virtually as well. And I think our audience is better for it as well. JOHN: This was a great interview. I really had fun. ROB: Thank you. Thank you for listening. The marketing agency leadership podcast is presented by Converged. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting email info@convergehq.com or visit us on the web at Convergehq.com.

How does one go from being an operator to starting a venture capital fund? Rob Go, co-founder of NextView Ventures shared how he got started as a VC, how companies in NextView’s portfolio as well as NextView have been adapting to the pandemic, what’s changed for the firm since the pandemic hit, the new accelerator program and much much more. Rob Go is a co-founder and Partner at NextView Ventures. Prior to founding NextView, Rob was at Spark Capital, Ebay, as well as, Fidelity Investments and BzzAgent. Catch him on Twitter at @robgo Catch the video at https://youtu.be/3Ng8IqiBlSk --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pjain/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/pjain/support

Rob Go, General Partner, NextView Ventures Key Takeaways: 1. E-com businesses that have subscription-like unit economics will begin to be treated more favorably as this crisis unlocks a new consistent consumer base. 2. Dislocation between economic realities and public markets exists, but early stage company valuations are still predominantly driven by their competition. 3. Reference checks are a critical and useful way to check on a founder in a remote environment.

Is it insensitive to use a buddha statue as a decoration? Does it matter? Should we ask Rob? Go on then!Rob Mulholland Has An Opinion is the hilarious comedy podcast where stand-up comedian Rob Mulholland has funny opinions about things.If you'd like to suggest a topic for me to have an opinion on then please get in touch via twitter (@robmulholland), instagram (@robmulholland), Facebook (/robmulhollandcomedy) or email info@robcomedy.co.ukFor tour news and tickets join the mailing list at www.robcomedy.co.uk.Watch my full stand-up special "Too Big To Fail" for free now on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I-uiNpv3k4Support the show (https://www.paypal.com/popcomrob)

This week: The N-word fetish, Rob gets woke on Lobster, Netflix takes on Georgia, the New Old Ghostbusters 3 Remaster, Dark Crystal all day long, Batman comes down to the chin, John Cusack as Madmartigan, nobody getting tickets to Galaxy's Edge, explaining Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding to my parents, speaking of the Witcher 3..., Modern Warfare again, James Cameron on Dark Fate, Onward: finally a movie for boys, Rob's monogamously single, Jared Harris likes to hang himself, and Data's Beta...Plus! A very long 1988 Willow Re-Review!- SharonPS: for some reason segments of the 1988 Willow: Making of Adventure documentary would not properly stream, so I've re-editing to the podcast to exclude those dead moments. Here's the doc if you want to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXk4rrm-2WA&t=152shttps://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-we-into/id1447059928?mt=2https://open.spotify.com/show/3rFe0yta57HAtwHsEk5KOT?si=PxZYWWSZTeezLqQO8Z8Ruwhttps://www.patreon.com/Whatweintohttps://www.facebook.com/whatweinto/https://twitter.com/dial_lawrencehttps://www.instagram.com/whatweintopodcast/Email us: whatweinto@gmail.comSupport the show (http://patreon.com/whatweinto)

The gloves are off this week. It's Buy vs Rent. Rob vs Rob. Everyday we get asked is it better to buy or rent? Is it better to pay off your mortgage or invest your money? We're going to break it down for you this week, so you can find out what will help you achieve your goals sooner.   NEWS THIS WEEK There's a lot of chatter about the Energy Performance Certificates coming in soon. We take a look at what it's going to mean for you. Electrical Safety Certificates are becoming mandatory soon too. We'll also let know how this will affect you. RESOURCE OF THE WEEK We're revisiting 2 great resources of the week, this week. First is Open - The Andre Agassi autobiography. Second is the very excellent Masters of Scale Podcast with LinkedIn Co-Found Reid Hoffman. We think both are amazing and definitely worth revisiting. IF YOU ENJOYED THE PROPERTY PODCAST, PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW ON ITUNES Reviews are really important in helping other people to find the show, so by way of thanks we read out every single review we receive on air. If you'd like to hear your name on the show, leave us a review on iTunes here. Not sure how to leave a review? This video shows you how to review and subscribe on iTunes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Comic Box: Fletch and Rob go to Wakanda. The Pull List: Tell us who should helm Batgirl now that Joss Whedon has exited the project, what you thought of Black Panther, and how those post scenes stand up against the rest of the MCU's Where to find the show and send in suggestions: Twitter:@ComicBoxCast Email: TheComicBoxPodcast@gmail.com Where to find Rob: Personal Twitter: @Knowby Where to Find This Week's Guest: Fletch Twitter: @TheKyleFletcher Instagram: fletchagrams BEHOLD! The Geek to Geek Podcast Network: GeektoGeekCast.com Geek to Geek Podcast RunningShoes.tv Geektitude Tea Time with Katie and Chelsea Youtube: Geek to Geek Slack: GeektoGeekCast Reddit: /r/geektogeekcast Dig this podcast? Show your support by subscribing or adding a star rating or review on iTunes! If you don't, you'll freeze. And you never freeze.  

Rob Go is a founding partner of NextView Ventures, a seed fund focused on consumer and the everyday economy. Based out of Boston and NYC, NextView has been leading the way on East Coast consumer innovation and built a great brand through their podcast and constant content. Prior to this, Rob worked at Spark Capital... The post Rob Go of NextView Ventures on Ecommerce, Consumer Tech and Investing in the Everyday Economy appeared first on The Syndicate.

On the podcast today, NextView cofounder Rob Go sits down with Andy Rachleff, VC veteran and the president, CEO, and executive chairman of Wealthfront. They talk about how Andy came up with the term product-market fit, how he applied his own lessons (and updated them) in building Wealthfront, and the mental models founders can use to unlock their real unfair advantage in a tactics-obsessed world: how you think. Follow Andy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/arachleff  Follow Rob on Twitter: http://twitter.com/robgo  Subscribe to the newsletter, The Next View, to get 1 new link and 1 strong opinion on tech each week: http://nextviewvc.com/blog 

In this episode we look at advice from Hyde Park Angels and Rob Go of NextView Ventures about how to best pitch your startup to VCs or angel investors. We also look at what you can learn from a story Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures tells about an entrepreneur who successfully convinced Fred to invest without a pitch deck at all. Building The Perfect Pitch Hyde Park Angels As part of their educational series Hyde Park's team created a great outline for the story your pitch should tell. The flow they suggest may be different than you would expect. But, it syncs with the way most venture capitalists and angel investors evaluate opportunities. A Simple Approach To Startup Pitch Decks Rob Go - NextView Ventures Rob Go and the NextView team have created two amazingly helpful templates for startup pitches: one for email and smaller meetings and a second for larger group settings (e.g. a demo day).  I focus on the individual or small group format. Their format has tremendous versatility and does for startup pitches what responsive design and HTML 5 did for web sites. You can use content once and then adapt literally in the middle of a pitch to tailor it to your unique audience. Here's the PowerPoint template It's hosted on DropBox.  If you don't want to sign in there to get it you can go to SlideShare.net (just to manage expectations, they released it on SlideShare as a single PDF, not in an editable format for PowerPoint or Keynote) As a little extra bonus here are some early pitches from companies you probably know. (yes...I know. Some are probably bootlegged and incomplete, but they're interesting none the less.) LinkedIn Buffer YouTube FourSquare Best Seed Pitch Ever Fred Wilson - Union Square Ventures Do you even need a pitch? Sounds like heresy. No self-respecting entrepreneur would pitch a startup without a deck. Fred says you can and has the story to prove it. Bonus Information about Rob Go Rob describes himself this way: "Here’s a quick background on who I am: 1. My name is Rob, I live in Lexington, MA 2. I’m married and have two young daughters. My wife and I met in college at Duke University - Go Blue Devils! 3. We really love our church in Arlington, MA. It’s called Highrock and it’s a wonderful and vibrant community. Email me if you want to visit! 4. I grew up in the Philippines (ages 0-9) and Hong Kong (ages 9-17). 5. I am a cofounder of NextView Ventures, a seed stage investment firm focused on internet enabled innovation. I try to spend as much time as possible working with entrepreneurs and investing in businesses that are trying to solve important problems for everyday people. 6. The best way to reach me is by email: rob at nextviewventures dot com" Blog NextView Ventures Twitter @RobGO LinkedIn  

For his birthday, this episode's guest, decided he wanted to spend some time with us (big mistake). Rob Go (http://robgo.org/ or @robgo on Twitter), a partner and co-founder at NextView Ventures joins us for a fun conversation about all sorts of stuff including the latest gift-giving trends, some great advice for east coast entrepreneurs, thoughts on the Boston tech scene, and more. We play the usual games including the Startup Name Game. Oddly, Rob was prepared with market size and other metrics. Rob and NextView have been great friends and supporters of the podcast so at the very least, you owe this episode a listen.   This episode is actually sponsored by Grove (grovegrown.com). We thank them for their support as well.  

In today’s episode I sit down with Rob Go, Co-Founder and Partner at NextView Ventures, a seed-stage VC firm focused on internet and software businesses, investing in both B2C and B2B companies. NextView has investments in companies such as Drift, InsightSqaured, Bridj, and TaskRabbit. Before founding NextView, Rob was at Spark Capital and focused on early stage consumer web and mobile companies. Prior to Spark Capital, Rob worked at eBay as the Business Product Lead overseeing the launch of products that enhanced the search, browse, and discovery experience for millions of users. NextView believes in being great at one thing: high-conviction, hands-on seed investing.   In this episode, Rob shares among other things:                 Why he decided to start his own VC firm The three problems with VC are                 What growing up abroad taught him about running a company                 What makes the Boston startup scene unique                 Deal killers                 How early stage startup valuations have changed over the last ten years                 Why a smaller seed round can be better than a larger seed round                 What he’s learned raising money for his first fund                 His advice to founders raising money Links from this episode:                 Boston Tech Guide                 Congrats to the Sunrise Team                 Lessons from my Dad Amazon Echo Nest Thermostat The Trend Back Towards Smaller Seed Rounds RentJuice Dia&Co Wait But Why The Martian Ready Player One High Failure Strategies 2U PillPack Traction Podcast Rog Go on Twitter Jay Acunzo on snapchat   If you liked this episode: Follow the podcast on Twitter Subscribe on iTunes or your podcast app and write a review Get in touch with feedback, ideas, or to say hi: nic {AT} startupbostonpodcast [DOT] com

Rob's recent Shape of Traction blog post explores a big problem in gaining initial traction. You can find the post below, as well as David Beisel's Part 2. In this episode, Jay Acunzo talks with Rob about how to make heads or tails of this "traction" stuff.   SHAPE OF TRACTION, Part 1: robgo.org/2016/09/07/the-shape-of-traction/   Part 2: HOW MUCH TRACTION DO I NEED TO RAISE VC? genuinevc.com/2016/09/26/shape-t…e-round-financing/   Follow Rob and Jay - twitter.com/robgo and twitter.com/jayacunzo

Rob Go, Co-Founder of NextView Ventures, knows what the future of business looks like. In fact, he’s invested in it. As an early-stage VC, he’s backed many companies that made it big. In this episode, Rob shares his thoughts on what it takes to get traction for your product and what else he looks for in companies he invests in.

Rob Go is a co-founder and Partner at NextView Ventures, Next View are hands on, high conviction true seed stage investors. Prior to founding NextView, Rob was at Spark Capital and focused on early stage investments in consumer web and mobile. Before joining Spark Capital, Rob worked at Ebay as the Business Product Lead for “Finding”. In this role, he oversaw the launch of major products that enhanced the search, browse, and product discovery experience for tens of millions of users.  In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Rob come to found NextView and what was his route into VC? 2.)  NextView are seed investors but what does that really mean today? Why has the entire seed stage moved further down the funnel? 3.) With regards to runway, there are two side son the table, those like Jeff Clavier and I who believe 36 months is optimal. What side of the table is Rob on? Longer or shorter runway? 4.) Why are smaller rounds optimal according to Rob? What do they allow you to do that you cannot do with larger rounds? What does the rise of pre-seed do for Rob as a true seed investor? 5.) Regadless of label competition between VC is now larger than ever, what does Rob make of the personalisation of VC and branding tactics used by Mark Suster etc? Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:  Rob’s Fave Book: Ready Player One Rob’s Fave Blog: Wait But Why Rob’s Most Recent Investment: Dia & Co As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Rob 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!   Attend one of the best conferences of the year, Sunrise, with speakers from the likes of Atlasssian, Canva and Planet Labs. Check it out here!   The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa, the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Lees have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is order completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com/VC and enter the promo code VC75 to get $75 off!  

NextView's Rob Go, Tim Devane, and Jay Acunzo break down the key findings, themes, and stories from the firm's new report, The State of NYC Seed. Find the full report and SlideShare here: http://nextviewventures.com/blog/state-of-nyc-seed/ Twitter handles from the show: @RobGo, @TDevane, @JayAcunzo Topics discussed: The general climate in early-stage startups and VCs in New York City The tech landscape across four key sectors: consumer goods and services, food logistics and on-demand, media and publishing, and fintech The effects of legacy industries and companies to NYC tech, as well as those of recent fast-risers like Warby Parker, Buzzfeed, Vice, Vox, and more. The talent surplus and where the next wave of top-tier founders will originate And much more...  

DraftKings' Jason Robins -- In this episode, NextView partner Rob Go talks to the CEO of the newest unicorn -- Jason Robins of DraftKings. Jason is generous with his storytelling and tactical tips for fundraising when VCs aren't receptive, partnering with larger players in your industry (as DraftKings was able to do with brands like Disney/ESPN, the MLB, the NHL, etc.), and building a company that's capable of being truly analytical -- not just driven by data but obsessed with it. So ... how does a unicorn gain traction anyway? STARTUP LESSONS YOU'LL LEARN: - A clever question to ask VCs to ensure you get a firm answer. - Tactics for fundraising when being met with some resistance. - How young startups can partner with massive brands. - Why and how you should build a data-obsessed team. - Marketing and user acquisition advice for those in hot, competitive markets. STORIES YOU'LL HEAR: - The early struggles Jason experienced while raising fundraising (and the way they overcame this pushback). - The surprising companies that breed highly analytical minds and user acquisition geniuses. - The hiring process at DraftKings and other data-obsessed companies. LINKS MENTIONED: - Jason's company: DraftKings.com - Jason's Twitter: @JasonDRobins Let me know what you think of the show -- tweet me (Jay Acunzo) @Jay_zo

Launching this spring, a podcast from NextView Ventures about the creative, unusual, clever, and downright brilliant things that entrepreneurs do to gain early results. While everyone gets told to "do things that don't scale," we don't often hear what those things actually are -- at least not until a company succeeds and the story gets polished for the press. NextView partner Rob Go and VP of Platform Jay Acunzo talk to top founders, startup executives, media members, and VCs about how they scrapped and fought their way to enough traction to survive and advance against the odds. Subscribe at the NextView blog for seed-stage startups, the View from Seed.

We had the chance to sit down and chat with co-founder Rob Go of NextView Ventures while at their offices in Boston. With a background in operational product-focused roles at eBay, Fidelity and BzzAgent, and having spent some time as a VC at Spark Capital prior to starting NextView, Rob brings a wealth of different points of view to the companies he works with.

  On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following investors are featured: Imran Ahmad Dave Berkus Rob Go Each investor describes their investment thesis and how they evaluate startups for investment.   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.

Rob Go joins Nick on The Full Ratchet to discuss VC Portfolio Strategy including: What are the five main parameters that VCs consider with regards to portfolio strategy? From your standpoint, what is the single best strategy that a VC firm can employ? How is your portfolio strategy structured and why? As you watch...   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.