Podcast appearances and mentions of trinity ventures

In this episode of the IoT For All Podcast, Evan Kaplan, CEO of InfluxData, joins Ryan Chacon to discuss time series data in IoT. The conversation covers the challenges of managing time series data, architecture and design considerations for handling time series data, optimizing data ingestion, organization, and querying, the integration of time series data with machine learning models, and the growing role of sensors and data in creating intelligent, autonomous systems. Evan Kaplan is a passionate entrepreneur and technology leader with nearly 25 years of experience in the CEO role. Evan's career spans from creating startups in his own garage to leading NASDAQ-listed companies generating nearly $200M in annual revenue. Prior to InfluxData, Evan served as Executive in Residence at Trinity Ventures, President and CEO at iPass Corporation (the leader in global Wi-Fi connectivity), and Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Aventail Corporation (the pioneer of SSLVPNs, now part of the Dell Corporation). InfluxData is the creator of InfluxDB, the leading time series platform used to collect, store, and analyze all time series data at any scale. Developers can query and analyze their time-stamped data in real-time to discover, interpret, and share new insights to gain a competitive edge. InfluxData is a remote-first company with a globally distributed workforce. Discover more about IoT at https://www.iotforall.com Find IoT solutions: https://marketplace.iotforall.com More about InfluxData: https://www.influxdata.com Connect with Evan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaplanevan/ (00:00) Intro (00:09) Evan Kaplan and InfluxData (00:47) What is time series data? (03:57) Managing time series data and challenges (09:15) What IoT applications use time series data? (12:04) Trends in data management (13:28) Future outlook on sensors and data (15:28) Learn more and follow up Subscribe to the Channel: https://bit.ly/2NlcEwm Join Our Newsletter: https://newsletter.iotforall.com Follow Us on Social: https://linktr.ee/iot4all

Gus Tai, Investor, Board Member and Retired General Partner at Trinity Ventures, discusses AI in Healthcare startups. Fascinating, comprehensive discussion with concrete pointers.

Gus Tai, Investor, Board Member and Retired General Partner at Trinity Ventures, discusses ideas and opportunities in Education with an AI-augmented framework.

During this week's roundtable, we had Gus Tai, Investor, Board Member and Retired General Partner at Trinity Ventures discuss the implications of Human-centric AI, white spaces, comparables and more.

|Show Notes| This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at The Alumni Society's Leadership Summit in Brooklyn, NYC on June 13, 2024. It marks our show's first ever live recording and the audio level is lower than studio quality. Also, today (July 9, 2024) happens to be our guest's birthday - happy birthday Gus! GUSTAVO'S BIO Gustavo Alberelli (Gus) is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Sunstone Partners, a growth oriented private equity firm that focuses on investments in technology-enabled services and software businesses. Founded in 2015, Sunstone Partners is headquartered in San Mateo, CA and has +$1.7 Billion of committed capital under its first three funds. He is one of a few Latinos in the country that have raised over $1 billion in capital and allocating it to  high growth companies. Prior to co-founding Sunstone Partners, Gustavo was a Managing Director at Trident Capital. Before Trident Capital, Gus was a Director at Kennet Partners where he led or participated in growth equity investments across the technology sector. Gustavo began his investment career in 2003 at Trinity Ventures, where he primarily worked with early-stage technology companies. Prior to becoming an investor, Gus held several business development and marketing positions at Saltare, a venture-backed enterprise software company. He started his career as an analyst in the technology investment banking group of Robertson Stephens in San Francisco. Raised in Miami, Gus earned a BA from Swarthmore College, where he was a Swarthmore Scholar, and an MBA from Columbia Business School. GUSTAVO RELATED LINKS Sunstone Partners Alumni Society Leadership Summit Big Cybersecurity 15X Win  Fund I Closing GENERAL INFO| TOP OF THE GAME: Official website: https://topofthegame-thepod.com/ RSS Feed: https://feed.podbean.com/topofthegame-thepod/feed.xml Hosting service show website: https://topofthegame-thepod.podbean.com/ Javier's LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/javiersaade  SUPPORT & CONNECT: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/96934564 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551086203755 Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOPOFGAMEpod Subscribe on Podbean: https://www.podbean.com/site/podcatcher/index/blog/vLKLE1SKjf6G Email us: info@topofthegame-thepod.com   THANK YOU FOR LISTENING – AVAILABLE ON ALL MAJOR PLATFORMS

Allison has spent over a decade pioneering the of future of work as an employee, investor, and author. Her book, Breaking into Venture, offers a human perspective on succeeding in venture capital. As a General Partner at Semper Virens, she invests in technology transforming workforce, healthcare, and financial services. Allison contributes to Forbes, lectures at Columbia Business School and UC Berkeley Haas, and has a rich background including roles at Goldman Sachs, General Assembly, Fresco Capital, and Trinity Ventures. She holds a BA in Economics with honors and a minor in Film Studies from Harvard.In this episode, you will learn howAllison grew up in the Midwest, witnessing her parents' jobs being disrupted by technology, which influenced her dedication to understanding the future of work.After the financial crisis and seeing algorithmic job replacement at Goldman Sachs, she decided to focus her career on technology and innovation.Working at General Assembly introduced her to venture capital, where she saw the influence VCs have on startups, leading her to co-found Fresco Capital and later join Semper Virens.She emphasizes the importance of creating a unique value add in venture capital, highlighting the significance of building and activating a powerful network.Allison believes AI will augment jobs by taking over specific tasks rather than replacing entire jobs, advocating for a responsible AI implementation process to mitigate risks.Keys to picking a career that won't be automated by a bot.ResourcesConnect with AllisonAI fun fact articleAn episode you might like about limiting AI's adverse effects

Explore the riveting narrative of Ajay Chopra, General Partner at Trinity Ventures, as he unfolds his journey through the dynamic landscape of venture capital. Delve into the untold stories that have moulded his career, gaining insights into the challenges and victories of early-stage investments. Join us in this exploration of Ajay's transformative experiences and glean valuable lessons for budding entrepreneurs. [00:32] - About Ajay Chopra Ajay is the General Partner of Trinity Ventures. It is focused on early-stage investments in consumer and business applications and services. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tbcy/support

How do you find signals for greatness in a noisy world with thousands of ideas? James Cham is a Partner at Bloomberg Beta. At the firm, he focuses on investments in data-centric and machine learning-related companies. Previously, he was a Principal at Trinity Ventures where he focused on investments in consumer services specifically ecommerce, social media, and digital media. James was a Vice President at Bessemer Venture Partners where he focused on advanced web technologies and investments in consumer internet services, security, and digital media sectors along with a number of seed investments. While with Boston Consulting Group, James developed marketing strategies for entertainment and information technology companies. James received an A.B. degree in Computer Science from Harvard University, an M.B.A. from MIT's Sloan School where he was a Siebel Scholar and interned at Sun Microsystems. In this episode, we discuss how to think about organizations as technology, James's early investments in artificial intelligence, and his views on the best path towards AI regulation or “bugs as a public good”. We talk about the latest developments in large language models and the problem with anthropomorphizing AI.

In this episode, our host, Josh Benadiva, engages in a meaningful conversation with Sankaet Pathak, Founder and CEO of Synapse. They discuss Sankaet's journey from establishing the foundation of embedded finance and banking-as-a-service to scaling the company since its inception in 2014. Sankaet shares his insights on creating a startup within the embedded finance sector, his perspectives on hiring and product development, and strategies for centering teams and company efforts around a cohesive vision. Sankaet Pathak wears the hat of the founder and CEO of Synapse, a leading banking-as-a-service provider. His journey with Synapse began in 2014 during his Master's degree at the University of Memphis and has since blossomed into a remarkable success story. Synapse, a comprehensive banking-as-a-service platform, offers a range of services such as payment, card issuance, deposit, lending, compliance, credit, and investment products in the form of APIs to over 15 million end users. Boasting an annualized transaction volume of $67 billion and $11 billion in assets under management across its platform, Synapse has garnered over $50 million in funding from renowned venture firms like Andreessen Horowitz, 500 Startups, and Trinity Ventures.

Schwark Satyavolu, a General Partner at Trinity Ventures, shares lessons from his many years of experience as a founder, operator, technology executive, and now an investor. Schwark talks about unwillingly getting into FinTech when he was building Yodlee, and how he got into investing in crypto startups. He also gives an interesting explanation as to why he likes investing in naive fast learners.In this episode, you'll learn:1:52 The 2000 bubble burst forced me to (unwillingly) get into FinTech - Schwark6:19 A similar thing that happened to FinTech is happening to crypto.19:31 Why naive fast learners succeed in building big companies22:57 Should you pause your startup building until the prevailing macroeconomic volatility eases?The non-profit organizations that Schwark is passionate about: Asha, PrathamAbout Guest SpeakerSchwark Satyavolu is a General Partner at Trinity Ventures. A decades-long financial services insider, Schwark is a serial entrepreneur and inventor with 15 patents. He focuses on fintech, AI and security startups that are laying the fundamental building blocks for the technology-based ecosystems of the future.Before joining Trinity, Schwark co-founded two fintech companies, Yodlee (YDLE) and Truaxis. He also ran a $200 million division of Mastercard and served as a public company executive at LifeLock (acquired by Symantec).About Trinity VenturesTrinity Ventures is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that invests in passionate entrepreneurs who are transforming revolutionary ideas into reality. Trinity focuses on early-stage investments in social commerce and entertainment, digital media, Saas, and cloud and infrastructure. The firm has invested in leading companies such as Aruba Networks, 21Vianet, Blue Nile, LoopNet, Photobucket, SciQuest, Starbucks, BeachMint, Infoblox, Trion Worlds and Zulily.Subscribe to our podcast and stay tuned for our next episode that will drop next Tuesday. Follow Us:  Twitter | Linkedin | Instagram | Facebook

Gabriela Ariana Campoverde sits down with Ram Palaniappan, Founder and CEO of Earnin, which gives people access to their pay directly from their smartphones. No hidden fees, no penalties, no waiting—just access to your hard-earned cash right when you need it. With each transaction users are given the opportunity to pay what they believe is fair. In this episode, you will learn all about how: - Ram started Earnin by lending his own money to his colleagues - Earnin addresses the Earned Wage Access gap - 66% of users see an increase in their ability to pay bills with Earnin' - The lending landscape is changing - And so much more! About Ram Palaniappan Ram Palaniappan, is the Founder and CEO of Earnin. He is passionate about building a financial system for the people, by the people. He is a graduate of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, where he earned his MMS, and Purdue University Krannert School of Management, where he earned his MBA. About Earnin Earnin gives people access to their pay directly from their smartphones, whenever they need it. Launched in 2014, Earnin is driving consumer-empowered finance through mobile technology by breaking open more than $1 trillion held up in America's pay cycle. Current funding partners include Andreessen Horowitz, Matrix Partners, Ribbit Capital, Felicis Ventures, March Capital Partners, Trinity Ventures, Thrive Capital, and Camp One Ventures. To learn more about Earnin, visit earnin.com. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Gabriela's Twitter: twitter.com/byGabyC Gabriela's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/gcampoverde

Gus Tai, one of the most inspiring people I've met at Stanford campus during a course. Gus was over 25 years a venture capitalist at Trinity Ventures. He discovered mindfulness after the dot-com crash. In this interview, we talk about his journey and his path to mindfulness. - - - - - -- - Gus Tai, einer der inspirierendsten Menschen, die ich auf dem Stanford-Campus während eines Kurses getroffen habe. Gus war über 25 Jahre lang Risikokapitalgeber bei Trinity Ventures. Nach dem Dot-Com-Crash entdeckte er die Achtsamkeit. In diesem Interview sprechen wir über seine Reise und seinen Weg zur Achtsamkeit. In diesem Interview sprechen wir darüber: Was Achtsamkeit ist Welche verschiedenen Formen der Meditation es gibt Wie du mit deiner Achtsamkeitspraxis beginnen kannst Wie du dein Narrativ, deine Gedankenkonstrukte über dich und dein Leben ändern kannst Wie du große Entscheidungen triffst Ich freue mich, dass ich dich dieses Jahr wieder auf deiner EVOLVE Journey begleiten kann. Bald wird es genau zu dieser Folge einen Workshop geben. Trage dich hier jetzt schon ein, um weitere Infos zum Workshop zu erhalten. Link zum Newsletter Hier findest du unser wunderschönes Happy Mood Journal. Für mehr Leichtigkeit und Freude im Alltag. Nachhaltig, minimalistisch und mit viel Liebe designed. Link zum Journal! Ich freue mich über deine Meinung, deine Gedanken und Ideen zur Folge auf Instagram unter @jasminchiarabauer. Über deine Bewertung und dein Feedback auf iTunes bin ich dir sehr dankbar!

On this episode of How to Raise A Round, we sat down with Worklete co-founder and CEO Benjamin Kanner. Benjamin built Worklete as a skill-building application that uses sports medicine to reduce injury in frontline workers, inspired by his father. Benjamin's father was a professional athlete and a firefighter—and he utilized both skill sets to protect himself from musculoskeletal injuries—and thus Worklete was born. Benjamin took the initial model for Worklete and built it to scale, and saw massive growth in 2017. As business took off, Benjamin realized his current business practices weren't sustainable — he couldn't do all the selling himself. Benjamin also needed to raise, and quickly—his wife was expecting, and he needed to be done funding before his first child arrived. Benjamin worked with an advisor to maximize the impact of his raise on both coasts—setting a $5M valuation for his priced round. After polishing his pitch with the warm contacts on the East Coast, Benjamin headed to Silicon Valley. In just four weeks, Benjamin raised $6.5M from seven investors in Worklete's Series A. The round was made up of Trinity Ventures' $5M contribution, and a mix of funds from Angel Investors and VCs. Learn more about Worklete ›

In this episode of the TeacherCast Podcast, Jeff sits down with Brian Grey from Remind to discuss the importance of creating a clear two-way communications system between school districts and community members. If you are a new listener to TeacherCast, we would love to hear from you.  Please visit our http://teachercast.net/contact (Contact Page) and let us know how we can help you today! In This Episode ... We will discuss back-to-school and why school will be even more challenging this year – what is driving this The Relationship Gap and how it's contributing to the widening learning gap Two-Way Communication – Crucial to building relationships Mobile-First – Reaching people where they are Accessible Communication (SMS Messages) Multi-Language Friendly Why communication is more important than ever (Why Remind is doing and tie back into the areas above) How to access your education anytime and anywhere. com/plans About Remind Remind is the leading two-way communication platform in education, helping educators reach students and parents where they are. With easy-to-use features that allow schools, districts and other educational organizations to activate engagement across their communities, Remind connects the people and resources that help give every student the opportunity to succeed. Links of Interest Website: https://www.remind.com (https://www.remind.com) Twitter: https://twitter.com/remindhq (https://twitter.com/remindhq) Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RemindHQ/ (https://www.facebook.com/RemindHQ/) About our Guest Bio - About Brian Grey: Brian Grey is the Executive Chairman of Remind.com, the largest network of teachers, students, parents, and administrators in the U.S. With nearly 30 million monthly active users, Remind's communication platform is rapidly emerging as a vital service that supports 2-way communication, family engagement, and personalized learning for all stakeholders who share Remind's vision to give every student an opportunity to succeed. Headquartered in San Francisco, Remind is venture backed by firms including Kleiner Perkins, Social Capital, GSV Acceleration, and OwlVC. Prior to joining Remind, Brian held several leadership roles in the technology and sports media sectors, including serving as CEO of Bleacher Report, SVP/GM of Fox Sports Interactive, and VP/GM of Yahoo! Sports. He has also served as a technology and digital media startup company advisor and investor, serving as an independent CEO advisor to 20 startup CEOs representing a wide array of industries and venture capital investors including Accel Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Battery Ventures, GGV Capital, Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint Ventures, Social Capital, and Trinity Ventures. Links of Interest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bgrey/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bgrey/) Twitter: https://twitter.com/bgrey?lang=en (https://twitter.com/bgrey) Follow our Podcast and Subscribe https://www.teachercast.net/episodes/teachercast-podcast/ (View All Episodes) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-teachercast-podcast/id546631310?mt=2 (Apple Podcasts) https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLmZlZWRidXJuZXIuY29tL1RlYWNoZXJjYXN0Q2FzdFBvZGNhc3RGZWVk (Google Podcasts) https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/teachercast-podcast/the-teachercast-podcast-network-your-educational-professional?refid=stpr (Stitcher Radio) Follow our Host Jeff Bradbury | http://www.twitter.com/jeffbradbury (@JeffBradbury) TeacherCast | http://www.twitter.com/teachercast (@TeacherCast) Join our PLN Are you enjoying the TeacherCast Network, please share your thoughts with the world by https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/teachercast-podcast-teachercast-educational-network/id546631310 (commenting on Apple Podcasts) today? I enjoy reading and sharing your comments on the...

Aviel Ginzburg is a General Partner at Founders' Co-op and former Managing Director of the Alexa Accelerator. In 2010 Aviel co-founded Simply Measured, one of Founders' Co-op's first investments, and was later backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures, and MHS capital. When Simply Measured sold to Sprout Social at the end of 2017, Aviel transitioned into his current role as General Partner. Aviel is one of the most intelligent, sincere, and colorful investors I know.

The private sector gives their side on antitrust compliance. This week, Dean concludes the American Antitrust series with Patricia Nakache, General Partner at Trinity Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm. Dean and Patricia discuss how venture capital firms approach The post American Antitrust: The Future of U.S. Competition Policy with Trinity Venture’s Patricia Nakache appeared first on Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas.

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown the fitness space for a loop. Caliber, a startup that focuses on one-to-one personal training, is today launching a brand new digital coaching platform on the heels of a $2.2 million seed round led by Trinity Ventures. Caliber launched in 2018 with a content model, offering an email newsletter and […]

Patricia Nakache invests in early-stage consumer and business tech startups with current investments including Bevi, EAT Club, Life House, Side, thredUP, and Turo, and previous investments in Care.com (CRCM), LoopNet (LOOP), PayScale (acq. Warburg Pincus), and Sabrix (acq. Thomson Reuters), among others. Patricia is a board member of the National Venture Capital Association and a Lecturer in Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she teaches Startup Garage. She earned an M.B.A from Stanford University and an A.B. from Harvard University.

This Week in Rec Tech is Sponsored by Rejobify.com   Im chris russell here are the headlines this week in recruiting technology   First up, just want to tell you about two upcoming virtual events here at RecTech media, first on July 1st at 2pm we will talk to the founders of Jobwriter an unique to that helps you write job descriptions. It looks to be a better cheaper version of Textio, I have already it and really like what i saw. Register for that event at rectechlive.com Then on July 8th at 4pm ET we will do our monthly virtual meetup for the recruiting technology space, so come network, learn about startups making headlines and more. ...to register head over to rectechmedia.com and look for the link on the home page.. On to the news. Steady, a platform solely focused on advising and advocating for freelancers seeking stable income in the US, announced it has raised an additional $15 million in Series B funding led by Recruit Strategic Partners, a venture capital arm of Recruit Holdings Co., (yes the same company that owns Indeed.com)   Funds from this round will be used to fund accelerated growth to support America’s workforce and grow its U.S. based data, product and technical operations.   The COVID-19 pandemic accelerates Steady’s mission, which is to improve the increasingly challenging lives of American hourly and gig workers. Workers using the Steady platform can track their income, receive personalized income insights, receive guidance on relevant work opportunities, get paid to improve their financial health and receive access to benefits relevant to hourly and gig workers, such as Steady’s new telemedicine support.   Launched in 2018, the Steady app has been downloaded more than 2.7 million times. and can be downloaded for free from the App Store and Google Play.   https://hrtechfeed.com/financial-well-being-app-for-freelancers-lands-16-million-in-funding/ SAN FRANCISCO, June 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Brightside, the leading financial care platform for employers, today announced that it raised $35.1 million in Series A funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) with participation from existing investors Comcast Ventures and Trinity Ventures, the a16z Cultural Leadership Fund, and others. This funding will be used to bring Brightside to more employers and families at a time when they need it most, and improve its financial health offering.   Employee financial stress costs employers nearly $4,000 per employee per year under normal circumstances, according to recent estimates.1,2 Millions of working Americans facing the loss or reduction of income in at least one family member will exacerbate this impact. Financial stress reduces productivity and retention, drives up healthcare costs, and poses a major challenge to any employer with diversity and inclusion goals. Brightside helps employers improve the financial health of their workforce by providing a single destination for employees to address any personal finance need. Brightside combines a human-approach to financial health via dedicated Financial Assistants, available to all employee families with advanced rules engines and unique products linked to paychecks in a way that provides real solutions to employees’ financial stress. On average, Brightside puts over $1,200 back in the pockets of the families they serve.   For more information, please visit: https://www.gobrightside.com. https://hrtechfeed.com/financial-wellness-platform-for-employees-gets-big-round-of-funding/ CareerBuilder today unveils innovative updates to its comprehensive Talent Acquisition Suite, helping businesses reach and convert qualified candidates faster. With a suite of services that impact the entire recruitment process, the updates provide clients with easier access to data and information, facilitate improved communication with candidates and provide an enhanced candidate and client experience. The streamlined end-to-end technology solution enables clients to make smarter, faster and more impactful decisions while cutting costs up to 50 percent and delivering a significant return on their investment.   “From our enhanced career sites, improved data and reporting tools, mobile app updates and new employee engagement offerings, the latest updates to our TA Suite were built with market data and  client feedback in mind,” added Humair Ghauri, Chief Product & Technology Officer, CareerBuilder. “Our team continues to be a leader in the HR Tech industry, driving innovation and offering a comprehensive solution built on AI and machine learning technology. Our team thrives on seeing our products deliver more qualified candidates for our end-users, helping them covert them quickly and providing a seamless experience across our client and job seeker audiences.”   Updates being released include: Delivering a seamless client experience and launching a new career site built on the power of CareerBuilder.com platform. CareerBuilder’s Talent Network now allows clients to easily manage their talent network and career site through our robust recruitment platform.             CareerBuilder is also introducing a new self-service career site that enables clients to create and edit their career sites themselves in real-time.                                 Updates to Talent Discovery Platform improve search, messaging and mobile app features. New filter and search functionality will provide recruiters with quick and easy access to data, information and insights on candidates they find most helpful.                                  CareerBuilder Applicant Tracking (CBAT) has been redesigned, ….New dashboard, requisition, candidate and reporting widgets bring critical information clearly to the forefront, helping recruiters respond quickly to activities within their network. Click Boarding integration allows clients to initiate onboarding from a configured workflow stage, monitor progress at a glance and synchronize data between CBAT and Click Boarding.                                   CareerBuilder’s SocialReferral tool has been updated to include a calendar tool to allow admins the ability to schedule and plan posts and competitions in advance. Clients can now embed their timelines from SocialReferral into their career sites, giving candidates insight into the day-to-day of an organization. https://hrtechfeed.com/careerbuilder-announces-updates-to-talent-acquisition-suite/ DHI Group, Inc. announced today that Dice, its leading career hub for technology professionals, has released Dice Recruiter Profile, bringing transparency to the career management process while enabling recruiters to stand out from the crowd with enriched profiles. Recruiter Profile is the first launch toward realizing Dice’s longer-term vision of a space where recruiters and technologists can connect more directly and transparently.   Dice Recruiter Profile allows employers and recruiters to create an enhanced profile and link it to their posted jobs, building trust and long-term relationships with technologists who are eager to learn more about the employers and individuals contacting them for open positions. Recruiters can showcase their areas of strength and expertise, add a profile photo and highlight their tech focus by promoting their latest news, future hiring needs, and upcoming events.   Dice Recruiter Profile will provide recruiters and hiring managers with: Recruiter branding. By personalizing a recruiter profile and linking it to posted jobs, more candidates will see the person behind the recruiter role and the employer behind the brand, opening two-way dialogue between recruiters and technologists, leading to the best matches for tech roles. Opportunities to build candidate trust. By customizing a recruiter profile with insightful and engaging information about the recruiter and hiring company, candidates will feel more informed, helping to drive transparency between recruiters and technologists, encouraging longer-term relationships and a steady talent pipeline. Attention to tech specialization. When employers share their latest wins, future hiring needs and upcoming events on their Dice Recruiter profile, candidates will see the tech specialties of focus for each employer and role, which will quickly lead specialized technologists to where they’re needed most. https://hrtechfeed.com/dice-launches-recruiter-profiles/ ########## Got a project that an HR freelancer can handle? From writing an employee handbook to freelance sourcers to HR bloggers you can find the right freelancer to handle your HR or recruiting needs right now on https://hrlancers.com/ - browse more than 500 freelancer profiles today

Sankaet Pathak is the Co-founder and CEO of Synapse. Synapse is a San Francisco-based startup that operates a platform enabling banks and fintech companies to easily develop financial services products. It closed a $33 million Series B in 2019 bringing the total funds raised to $50 million, aiming to democratize and become the AWS of financial services. The backers of this startup include Andreessen Horowitz, Core Innovation Capital, and Trinity Ventures. On this episode you will hear: Sankaet's journey from India to the US, and what made him start Synapse? What is SynapseFi and what are they trying to build? What has taken technology so long disrupt the financial services as we know? What is the future of finance? And how does it compare to the Pre-COVID world? Will trust get disrupted? How should one think about building a product that is sustainable? Reach out to Sankaet and Synapse to learn more on Linkedin and Twitter. You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Twitter, Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

In this episode of the Future 1 web show & podcast, we meet Ash Rust. Ash is an entrepreneur turned investor. He is the Managing Partner of Sterling Road, a venture fund focused on pre-seed stage B2B companies. He is currently an advisor to Bullpen Capital and previously worked at Trinity Ventures. Ash has mentored hundreds of startups through accelerator programs including Y-Combinator, Techstars, Alchemist, and universities such as Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Oxford. Before investing, Ash was Cofounder and CEO of SendHub (acquired by: Cameo Global) and Director of Ranking at Klout (acquired: Lithium). In this episode, we learn the importance of coaching founders, and why he feels passionate about it. The material contained on this web series & podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as an offer or a recommendation to buy or sell any security nor is it to be construed as investment advice. Music credits: Clouds by MBB | https://soundcloud.com/mbbofficial , Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com , Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US IMPORTANT NOTICE: This web series and podcast is intended for informational purposes only. The views expressed are not, and should not be construed as investment advice or recommendations. Recipients of this should do their own due diligence, taking into account their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives and risk tolerance (which are not considered in this web series and podcast) before investing. None of this information communication is an offer, nor the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned herein. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/joelpalathinkal/support

This interview originally aired as Episode 229 on April 29, 2019. Manny Medina is the Founder & CEO @ Outreach, the market leading sales engagement platform that turns your team into a revenue driving machine. To date, Manny has raised over $114m in funding from some great people including friends of the show in the form of Alex Clayton @ Spark, Mayfield, Trinity Ventures and DFJ Growth, just to name a few. Prior to founding Outreach, Manny spent 7 years with Microsoft where he ran the Latin America and Canada business development group for Microsoft’s emerging mobile division, representing $50M of yearly revenue. Befofe that Manny was a Senior Product Manager @ Amazon where he engineered the compensation system for Amazon Associates and Web-Services which accounts for 15% of Amazon's traffic.  In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Manny made his way to found the leader in sales engagement from product management at Amazon and Business Development @ Microsoft. How does Manny fundamentally approach managing top of funnel? What are the 2 big dangers of not managing it aggressively? What can be done to ensure not only full but high quality top of funnel?  Why does Manny believe it is so important to track pipeline coverage as one of your core metrics? What does good look like when it comes to pipeline coverage? How does this change if you are creating vs in an existing market? How does Manny think about specialisation within the sales function? Why are SDR’s 99% of the time not able to carry leads to completion?  How does Manny think about quota construction today? Does Manny err on the side of setting high to be ambitious or setting low to increase confidence? How can managers really empower their reps to be aggressive in hitting their quota and exceeding it? How does Manny think about resource allocation on the individual rep level? What is sufficient? What is excessive? Does Manny believe that the founder should always be responsible for selling their product at one moment in time? How did Manny sell the first $1m in ARR simply through walking the streets of SOMA and selling door-to-door? What were his biggest lessons from doing this?  Why does Manny believe that you should not have a VP before $5m?  60 Second SaaStr: What does Manny know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning? What does the future of sales prospecting look like to Manny? What would Manny like to change about the world of SaaS today? Read the transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Manny Medina

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner talks with John Lin, who is a Principal from Trinity Ventures about his key learnings from being an entrepreneur himself and his transition to VC at Trinity. We take a deep dive into his portfolio companies Branch, Grow, Squire and Side. Check out the Youtube version on: https://channel.sandhillroad.io

I had the pleasure of speaking to Sankaet Pathak, who is the CEO of Synapse. Synapse provides building blocks to build financial software products. They enable anyone to compete with Chase Bank or Bank of America on top of Synpase’s infrastructure. With funding from a16z and Trinity Ventures, this is a rocketship in the making. Some of the questions I asked are:What is Synapse?What can a startup build on top of Synapse?What is wrong with the current system of banking?What are some of the companies are Synapse poweringWhat have you learned while building Synapse?What is the big vision for Synapse?What advice do you have for new founders wanting to start a company?Learn more about Synapse here and learn more about Sankaet here. Thanks for tuning into another episode of Forward Thinking Founders. See you next week :) Get on the email list at forwardthinking.substack.com

Investors are losing faith in Uber's promise of rapid growth and market disruption, and are demanding to see actual profits. Oracle's founder Larry Ellison has gone as far as to describe the transport app company as "almost worthless". Manuela Saragosa speaks to Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business, who says the company's problem is that it is a great brand and great app that have been built upon a fundamentally unprofitable market - ride hailing. Meanwhile Patricia Nakache of Trinity Ventures says that Silicon Valley venture capitalists such as hers are becoming increasingly wary of businesses that generate rapid growth by simply burning through billions of dollars of cash. Producer: Edwin Lane (Picture: An UberChopper helicopter in Gdynia, Poland; Credit: Michal Fludra/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Ajay Chopra Contributor Ajay Chopra co-founded Pinnacle Systems in his living room and grew it to a multi-billion dollar public company before becoming a venture capitalist with Trinity Ventures.

James Cham is a partner at Bloomberg Beta, a venture capital firm focused on the future of work. James invests in companies applying machine intelligence to businesses and society. Prior to Bloomberg Beta, James was a Principal at Trinity Ventures and a VP at Bessemer Venture Partners. He was educated in computer science at Harvard and at the MIT Sloan School of Business.Resources James Cham Bloomberg Beta Transcript

James Cham is a partner at Bloomberg Beta, a venture capital firm focused on the future of work. James invests in companies applying machine intelligence to businesses and society. Prior to Bloomberg Beta, James was a Principal at Trinity Ventures and a VP at Bessemer Venture Partners. He was educated in computer science at Harvard and at the MIT Sloan School of Business.

James Cham is a partner at Bloomberg Beta, a venture capital firm focused on the future of work. James invests in companies applying machine intelligence to businesses and society. Prior to Bloomberg Beta, James was a Principal at Trinity Ventures and a VP at Bessemer Venture Partners. He was educated in computer science at Harvard and at the MIT Sloan School of Business.Resources James Cham Bloomberg Beta Transcript

Join us today as we speak with Dr. Cameron Sepah from Trinity Ventures about human innovation.

Manny Medina is the Founder & CEO @ Outreach, the market leading sales engagement platform that turns your team into a revenue driving machine. To date, Manny has raised over $114m in funding from some great people including friends of the show in the form of Alex Clayton @ Spark, Mayfield, Trinity Ventures and DFJ Growth, just to name a few. Prior to founding Outreach, Manny spent 7 years with Microsoft where he ran the Latin America and Canada business development group for Microsoft’s emerging mobile division, representing $50M of yearly revenue. Befofe that Manny was a Senior Product Manager @ Amazon where he engineered the compensation system for Amazon Associates and Web-Services which accounts for 15% of Amazon's traffic. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Manny made his way to found the leader in sales engagement from product management at Amazon and Business Development @ Microsoft? How does Manny fundamentally approach managing top of funnel? What are the 2 big dangers of not managing it aggressively? What can be done to ensure not only full but high quality top of funnel? Why does Manny believe it is so important to track pipeline coverage as one of your core metrics? What does good look like when it comes to pipeline coverage? How does this change if you are creating vs in an existing market? How does Manny think about specialisation within the sales function? Why are SDR’s 99% of the time not able to carry leads to completion? How does Manny think about quota construction today? Does Manny err on the side of setting high to be ambitious or setting low to increase confidence? How can managers really empower their reps to be aggressive in hitting their quota and exceeding it? How does Manny think about resource allocation on the individual rep level? What is sufficient? What is excessive? Does Manny believe that the founder should always be responsible for selling their product at one moment in time? How did Manny sell the first $1m in ARR simply through walking the streets of SOMA and selling door-to-door? What were his biggest lessons from doing this?  Why does Manny believe that you should not have a VP before $5m? 60 Second SaaStr: What does Manny know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning? What does the future of sales prospecting look like to Manny? What would Manny like to change about the world of SaaS today? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Manny Medina

Lee Jacobs and Brian Balfour join Ryan at AngelList HQ for this week's episode. Back in the day, Lee was one of the first syndicate leads on AngelList and later went on to join as a Partner. He previously started an education marketplace startup called Campus Dock. Ryan got to know Lee at AngelList a few years ago, when Lee was kind enough to help him craft his deck as he went out to raise his first fund. Lee is now a full-time investor with his own fund, Edelweiss, which he started with Brian Balfour, Elaine Wherry, and Todd Masonis. Brian Balfour invests part-time at Edelweiss and spends the majority of his time as CEO of Reforge, a professional education program for experienced practitioners. We've had some of our teammates here at Product Hunt go through the program. Prior to Reforge, Brian was the VP of Growth at HubSpot, EIR at Trinity Ventures, and the founder of several startups including Boundless Learning, POPSignal, and Viximo. In this episode we talk about: What kinds of questions Lee and Brian ask founders when they first meet them Some of the mistakes that first-time fund managers make and how to avoid them How to think about fund strategy and why the style of your fund should match your personality The importance of cultivating resilience, both as a founder and as an investor Of course, we talk about some of their favorite products as well. We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Big thanks to Bubble, Spoka, and Dipsea for their support.

Mohit Aron was an early employee at Google. He is a serial entrepreneur and previously co-founder of Nutanix which is worth more than $6 billion today. Nutanix is a virtualized data center platform that provides disruptive datacenter infrastructure solutions for implementing enterprise-class. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of Cohesity which delivers the industry's first hyperconverged secondary storage for backup, test/dev, file services, and analytic datasets. He has raised for Cohesity over $400 million from investors like Sequoia, Accel, Battery, Google Ventures, Foundation Capital, Trinity Ventures, Qualcomm, or SoftBank to name a few.

Mohit Aron was an early employee at Google. He is a serial entrepreneur and previously co-founder of Nutanix which is worth more than $6 billion today. Nutanix is a virtualized data center platform that provides disruptive datacenter infrastructure solutions for implementing enterprise-class. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of Cohesity which delivers the industry’s first hyperconverged secondary storage for backup, test/dev, file services, and analytic datasets. He has raised for Cohesity over $400 million from investors like Sequoia, Accel, Battery, Google Ventures, Foundation Capital, Trinity Ventures, Qualcomm, or SoftBank to name a few.

Eugenio Pace is the cofounder of Auth0, a technology company that builds a suite of modern platforms for developers. The company has raised to date $110 Million from the likes of Bessemer Venture Partners,Trinity Ventures, Meritech Capital Partners, Sapphire Ventures, or K9 Ventures amongst other VC firms.

Eugenio Pace is the cofounder of Auth0, a technology company that builds a suite of modern platforms for developers. The company has raised to date $110 Million from the likes of Bessemer Venture Partners,Trinity Ventures, Meritech Capital Partners, Sapphire Ventures, or K9 Ventures amongst other VC firms.

Schwark Satyavolu is a serial entrepreneur and inventor with 15 patents. He co-founded the fintech companies Yodlee (YDLE) and Truaxis before joining Trinity. Today, he brings his entrepreneurial and broad operational experience to investments in fintech, AI and security startups. The firm/partners has invested in the likes of Starbucks, Branch, LoopNet, New Relic, Care.com, Auth0,... The post The Future of Fintech, AI and Cybersecurity with Schwark Satyavolu of Trinity Ventures appeared first on The Syndicate.

Schwark Satyavolu is a serial entrepreneur and early-stage investor at Trinity Ventures. After founding and growing several innovative startups in the fintech space - a journey that included a stint as an executive at Mastercard - Schwark is now building up the fintech practice at Trinity. His background as an entrepreneur makes him empathetic to the realities of what startup life is life -- a great quality for an investor to have. I also loved hearing Schwark’s perspective on the future of crypto - because it comes from such a deeply informed perspective. Listen in and find out how this successful entrepreneur-turned-investor is shaping the next generation of fintech innovators.

Schwark Satyovolu, original co-founder of Yodlee and general partner of venture capital firm Trinity Ventures, shares his opinion on how open banking and sharing of consumer data is evolving in the U.S.

In episode 22 of Venture Confidential, Dan Scholnick, General Partner at Trinity Ventures, discusses how his past experience as a two time entrepreneur helps him determine which promising companies and charismatic entrepreneurs to invest in as well as what sets Trinity Ventures apart from other funds. The post Ep. #22, Feat. Dan Scholnick of Trinity Ventures appeared first on Heavybit.

In episode 22 of Venture Confidential, Dan Scholnick, General Partner at Trinity Ventures, discusses how his past experience as a two time entrepreneur helps him determine which promising companies and charismatic entrepreneurs to invest in as well as what sets Trinity Ventures apart from other funds.

Luscious Leadership with Danna Lewis Radio Show Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of building a multi-million dollar company from the ground-up? How different, and alike, is it from starting and creating your business, your career, your living life to the fullest? Join The Athena Alliance COO & CEO Danna Lewis & Coco Brown for an intimate monthly conversation of challenges, celebrations and possibilities in creating a purpose and people-first driven organization with work-life integration and creating a huge impact in creating a greater world as core priorities. Coco Brown is founder and CEO of The Athena Alliance, an organization dedicated to advancing diversity in the boardroom by preparing executive women for board service and facilitating board matches. Athena boasts a network of over 150 C-Level women, VCs, and CEOs from over 100 companies including Accenture, Amazon, Salesforce.com, and Trinity Ventures. Prior to her current roles, Coco served as President, COO, and Board Director of Taos, a market leader in IT Services. During her 17 years at Taos, Coco led the company through periods of significant accelerated expansion as well as through a managed contraction during the dotcom bust and financial market crisis of 2008. Her exemplary guidance and tenacity during these fluctuating market conditions earned Coco unmatched insight into the leadership decisions necessary to guide an organization through periods of change. In addition to serving on the Board of Taos from 2004 to 2014, Coco served as a Board Director for MentorNet and was on the finance committee supporting the Board of Directors of Samasource, an organization endorsed by luminaries Marc Benioff and Richard Branson for its work eradicating poverty. Coco established the Operating Committee for the Silicon Valley arm of Golden Seeds and also served as its Chair. Coco’s market impact has earned her a variety of leadership awards including Women Supporting Women, Woman Mentor of the Year Award- Silver, Business Woman of the Year Award, Business Services Award – Silver, and Silicon Valley’s Top 100 Women of Influence Award. coco@athenaalliance.org   www.athenaalliance.org   ~ More About Luscious Leadership with Danna Lewis ~ Are you feeling fantastic or frustrated with your days? Are you living your life based on other people’s paths, projections or expectations? What if instead of showing up with a rebellion, resistance, reaction or ‘whatever’ attitude you could lead yourself lusciously with deeper presence, strategic awareness and courageous kindness to create your entire work-life spectrum as a space of possibility, achievement and fulfillment? Danna Lewis will provide you with the topics and framework to bring the art of pragmatic energy and inspired action of luscious leadership into your life to improve your bottom line from the bedroom to the boardroom. What if you you could embody the courageously conscious and kind strategic awareness to create a life, living and love that work deliciously well for you? danna@dannalewis.com www.dannalewis.com For more great content from Danna Lewis on Luscious Leadership, be sure to find all her replays on the archive page here: https://www.inspiredchoicesnetwork.com/podcast/luscious-leadership-with-danna-lewis/

Patricia Nakache, General Partner at Trinity Ventures, discusses the firm’s investment thesis and some issues encountered by women in technology.

Luscious Leadership with Danna Lewis Radio Show Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of building a multi-million dollar company from the ground-up? How different, and alike, is it from starting and creating your business, your career, your living life to the fullest? Join The Athena Alliance COO & CEO Danna Lewis & Coco Brown for an intimate monthly conversation of challenges, celebrations and possibilities in creating a purpose and people-first driven organization with work-life integration and creating a huge impact in creating a greater world as core priorities. Coco is founder and CEO of The Athena Alliance, an organization dedicated to advancing diversity in the boardroom by preparing executive women for board service and facilitating board matches. Athena boasts a network of over 150 C-Level women, VCs, and CEOs from over 100 companies including Accenture, Amazon, Salesforce.com, and Trinity Ventures. Prior to her current roles, Coco served as President, COO, and Board Director of Taos, a market leader in IT Services. During her 17 years at Taos, Coco led the company through periods of significant accelerated expansion as well as through a managed contraction during the dotcom bust and financial market crisis of 2008. Her exemplary guidance and tenacity during these fluctuating market conditions earned Coco unmatched insight into the leadership decisions necessary to guide an organization through periods of change. In addition to serving on the Board of Taos from 2004 to 2014, Coco served as a Board Director for MentorNet and was on the finance committee supporting the Board of Directors of Samasource, an organization endorsed by luminaries Marc Benioff and Richard Branson for its work eradicating poverty. Coco established the Operating Committee for the Silicon Valley arm of Golden Seeds and also served as its Chair. Coco’s market impact has earned her a variety of leadership awards including Women Supporting Women, Woman Mentor of the Year Award- Silver, Business Woman of the Year Award, Business Services Award – Silver, and Silicon Valley’s Top 100 Women of Influence Award. www.athenaalliance.org ~ More About Luscious Leadership with Danna Lewis ~ Are you feeling fantastic or frustrated with your days? Are you living your life based on other people’s paths, projections or expectations? What if instead of showing up with a rebellion, resistance, reaction or ‘whatever’ attitude you could lead yourself lusciously with deeper presence, strategic awareness and courageous kindness to create your entire work-life spectrum as a space of possibility, achievement and fulfillment? Danna Lewis will provide you with the topics and framework to bring the art of pragmatic energy and inspired action of luscious leadership into your life to improve your bottom line from the bedroom to the boardroom. What if you you could embody the courageously conscious and kind strategic awareness to create a life, living and love that work deliciously well for you? danna@dannalewis.com www.dannalewis.com For more great content from Danna Lewis on Luscious Leadership, be sure to find all her replays on the archive page here: https://www.inspiredchoicesnetwork.com/podcast/luscious-leadership-with-danna-lewis/  

Think you’re onto something BIG, and surprised you’re receiving so many NO’s from investors? It can really make you second guess yourself, and shake your confidence... … but it shouldn’t! Receiving a LOT of NO’s is natural. You may be tempted to listen to the feedback after receiving some NO’s and think you just need to launch your product, change your business model, or grow your customer base, and then you’ll be more attractive to investors. Guess again. The reason you receive for the NO and the feedback you get may not be aligned. Why? Because at the end of the day, investors are human. They don’t want to hurt the feeling of a first time founder, and don’t want to seem rude in case they want to invest later. Yes they just might invest later. So how can you tell what is really going on? Well that’s what we’re going to debunk in today’s episode of Build! To help us out I’ve invited Ooshma Garg who is the CEO and Founder of Gobble, and Danielle Morrill who is the CEO and Founder of Mattermark. They've both recently become investment partners at XFactor Ventures, an investment firm that's focused on investing in female founders and mixed-gender teams. We’re going to help get comfortable with receiving NOs and deciphering what they really mean. You’ll learn: How Danielle and Ooshma learned to keep their spirits up despite all the NOs they received How to be politely persistent with investors who won’t bother taking a meeting with you The various tests investors put first time founder through How to maintain a relationship with an investors even after they say NO -- Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA. -- ## Why Investors Keep Saying NO To Your BIG Idea Transcript   Poornima Vijayashanker: In the previous two episodes of *Build*, we talked about why, even if you have an idea, you might not get investment from it, and it needs to be a big idea in order to even attract interest. But even if it's a big idea, chances are investors aren't going to say “yes.” In today's *Build* episode, we're gonna uncover all the reasons an investor may say “no” to your big idea, so stay tuned.   Welcome to *Build*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker. I'm your host, Poornima Vijayashanker. In each episode, innovators and I debunk a number of myths and misconceptions related to building products, companies, and your career in tech. Now, one misconception that a lot of first-time founders fall prey to is if they have a big idea, some investor's gonna want to put capital and fund it.   The truth is that a lot of funders face nos, and just because they face nos doesn't mean that someone won't eventually invest in them. In today's *Build* episode, we're gonna explore all the reasons that investors may say “no” to your big idea. And to help us out, I've invited both Ooshma Garg and Danielle Morrill.   Ooshma is CEO and Founder of Gobble, and Danielle is CEO and Founder of Mattermark. They've both recently become investment partners at XFactor, an investment firm that's focused on investing in female founders and mixed-gender teams. Thanks a lot for joining me today.   Danielle Morrill: Absolutely.   Ooshma Garg: Thanks for having us.   Poornima Vijayashanker: We've come a lot way since that first South by Southwest where we all shared a hotel room in 2010, and all of us have gone out and fundraised a number of times. I want to start by asking the two of you, what was that first no like that you got from an investor?   Danielle Morrill: I was bummed. I mean, I think the first 10 investment meetings were just nos back to back. First, you're like, "I guess that it would happen. I would get a no," but I'm like, kind of the straight-A's type kid. I keep thinking, “Of course I would get a yes every time," and then after you get them over and over, you're like, "Oh, maybe this just happens. Maybe this is true that you get way more nos than yeses." What do you think?   Ooshma Garg: Man, you know, your company is like your baby. It's a reflection of yourself, so the first no, and even ongoing nos, they're always so personal. I think you get a little bit used to it because you just build some armor and build some strength every day and every year as an entrepreneur, but especially in the very beginning, it's kind of like a survival-of-the-fittest process. You have to be able to psychologically get through the nos, take some feedback, and develop that never-quit attitude early on if you're going to be successful ultimately.   How To Get Over Rejection When Fundraising And Keep Going   Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. So, how did you get over that? How do you even know that you should just take the feedback, deal with the rejection, and keep going?   Danielle Morrill: I made a fundraising playlist on Spotify.   Poornima Vijayashanker: OK.   Danielle Morrill: I think it's Jay-Z who says, "On to the next one." I used to blast that song, like after every pitch, actually after the good ones, too. But honestly, you kind of just have to keep living, and I think part of it is just putting it in context with the rest of your life. Having a playlist for me was sort of a reminder of, “Oh, life just kind of goes on.” It's fun with your team too, I think, to just be...I guess not everyone does this, but with my team at the very early stage, it's not like you can hide the fact you got turned down.   Later on when you're raising, maybe you don't tell everybody that you're raising a series A, but when you're raising early stage money, you get your team to cheer you up. They buy you beers. You do silly things. You kind of have to let life keep happening so that it doesn't get too serious.   Ooshma Garg: Yeah, I agree. What's funny is my fundraising song is "Survivor," by Destiny's Child.   Danielle Morrill: How many people do you think have a fundraiser song?   Ooshma Garg: I don't know. This is the first time we're talking—   Danielle Morrill: We need to make a playlist.   Ooshma Garg: We need to make a playlist.   Danielle Morrill: That's a good idea.   Ooshma Garg: We need to make a playlist for our portfolio.   Poornima Vijayashanker: We'll link with the playlist to you guys. So, do you ever go back to the people that said “no?” Because you guys have done multiple rounds now, where you might have had to go back to those early investors who said “no” and ask for more.   Ooshma Garg: Absolutely. In our case, even our first check as a seed investment, it took me three different introductions, multiple follow-ups, to even get in the door before the no. After someone says “no,” it feels very final, but I think that the big secret is that you have to go back and that you should keep following up. Time and time again, I hear friends talk about series As, series Bs, and so on, where they got a no. They were...they kind of welcomed it and took all the feedback. They updated different investors every week for two months, three months, sometimes six months, and then they close that same investor. They might be a Sequoia, or Andreessen Horowitz, or what have you.   All those funds are looking for stamina and looking for breakout businesses. A breakout business has to have someone that's willing to listen, iterate, and improve. So, the funny thing is, you should see that as just the beginning of your relationship. For our venture financings, we had multiple failed fundraising attempts and then ultimately successful ones. Our funds that invest in us now, Andreessen Horowitz, Trinity Ventures, etc., absolutely said “no” once or twice before. But I maintained that relationship.   Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. What about—   Why It’s Valuable To Reconnect With People Who Said NO   Danielle Morrill: You have to think about it like sales. Like, would you have never contacted a lead again because they didn't convert at the end of the trial? No. If you are in my database, I am going to be talking to you for the rest of your life. If you're in this business, there's a certain set of investors that you really wanna work with. Frankly, they're looking for the people who don't take it so hard that they never come back, to your point about stamina.   I think also, once you go back to people a few times and kind of...you have that feeling of like, “This feels like it's against the rules to go back.” Then you realize that it's actually respected, and so it's a self-fulfilling thing, and you start to find yourself going back more and more.   How To Push For Specific Feedback   Poornima Vijayashanker: Well, it's great that you got feedback, but I think a lot of times, you get this generic feedback, where it's like, "I wanna see more traction," and you're like, "I'm already at, you know, 10k in monthly recurring revenue," or, "I'm already at, like, a million-dollar run rate," like, "How much more traction do you want to see," right? So, how can you kind of push an investor to give you more directed feedback in that note?   Danielle Morrill: Well, I mean, I think...We sit on both sides of the table now, so I think sometimes it's laziness that causes people to ask for these things. So, for example, the "I wanna see more traction." It's kind of like going into Macy's and being like, "Why isn't this a Dior dress?" It's like, OK, if you want a Dior dress, maybe you should go buy one. If you wanna find a company that has, like, $5 million a year of revenue, and you're at seed stage, sorry, this is what we have, and this is what I'm selling, and if it's not what you're interested in, it's fine for you to turn me down, but I'm not...this is not a buffet where you can come back anytime between 10 and 1. I'm trying to raise a round.   You kind of have to, at least inside, hold a certain amount of entitlement over your time. It's not that you need to be entitled to their money, but you're running a process, and I think that that is really important. So, for a lot of these unclear feedbacks, I think it's more important to say, like, "What do you think of what I'm selling now? And if it's not clear what I'm selling, let me remind you and redirect." Honestly, you have just as much a right to claim your time as they do.   Ooshma Garg: Absolutely. And you have to kind of draft or pick your draft, in a way, with your investors. There are ones that I really wanna follow up with, and I would love to work with, and it's not just from my side of the table. I think, just like with employees or anyone else, or with a relationship, you want it to be good with both sides. So, you might see something that they don't, but they've only known you for 30 minutes. You've done all your homework. You know what they've invested in. You know the other founders.   So, you don't just follow up with everyone. You hear the nos. Sometimes, it's not even worth following up. Sometimes it was an introduction, and you didn't really connect. A no is OK. Other times, it comes with something that says, "Our fund requires x, y, or z. Someone at this stage. We need this much ownership." It's important to know what's a BS no and what's actually a valid no. Sometimes...it took me a long time to learn that funds vary drastically in size, and that actually has a huge impact on who can invest in you at different times in your lifecycle. So, timing is important.   Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, hold that thought. We're gonna come back to that in a little bit, the whole fund size, and what makes sense and what doesn't. So, but let's go on to some of the more easy things that you hear and might get rejected. So, I don't know if either of you have faced this, but the whole, "You don't have a technical co-founder." And somehow that's like a gating factor to even get a dollar out of this investor, right? You hear things like this where you're just not meeting a certain checkbox. What's been your response to that sort of stuff?   Danielle Morrill: It depends on the checkbox. Basically, what I would say for technical co-founder or a lot of these is, they're like risk boxes. So, each one...it's almost like if it was a survey, and you added up enough points, then there's too much risk here. It's probably no one reason that's gonna knock you out, but they're trying to figure out where you fit. So, technical co-founder is not necessarily a problem if you nail everything else, but if you don't have a product, and there's no one to build it, then of course, that's gonna be expensive.   So, I think it's—sometimes the way it seems to be coming across to the investor is like it's a checkbox thing, but they're really trying to ask a bigger question. So, I think one thing I've found is that it's good to say, like, "Tell me more about why you're worried about that," rather than just answering the question, making them elucidate more. Cause I've been surprised by some of the answers that I get. The technical co-founder question, I think the assumption is, who's gonna build the product? And they might just be thinking, "Dang, we're gonna need to go raise a big round because you need to hire two or three engineers instead of building it yourself."   They're not actually worried about you not being technical. They don't care that you're not technical. They're more like, "OK, so now I have to assess fundraising risk cause this person's gonna need to go build a team." So, it's easy to think it's about you, and, "Oh, you can't code." And then you kinda like lock down and feel guilty, but I think that's not always the case. A lot of these things are not actually what they seem on the surface.   Poornima Vijayashanker: Right. Yeah, I think another one along those lines is also, "Why are you working on this idea?" Right? So it's, what puts you in that unique position to kind of own domain expertise? Have you guys ever gotten that question, like, "Why this? Why Gobble, Ooshma? Why help people with cooking at the end of their day?"   Ooshma Garg: Right. Well, Gobble is a lucky one for me because it's a mission-driven company, and it started out of my family. What we do is we help people cook home-cooked food in 15 minutes in one pan, and we bring this tradition, and ritual, and love of a household into the modern, busy life. That's something that's very near and dear to me. So, because of that, it shows that I'm just gonna give it my all and not quit.   I think some folks stumble on an opportunity sometimes. You are...you're just a inventor, and you want to tinker around, and you try finding what's gonna fit in today's zeitgeist. Just like founders come in different flavors, I think investors come in different flavors, too. There are investors who are great at investing in arbitrage opportunities. There's investors who really wanna back founders, or social good, or mission-drive folks. Or they wanna back moon-shoots. Or some people wanna back things that have a linear, direct, immediate path to growth.   So, I think having that context when you assess someone's response to you is really important because you kinda, just like with your friends, you have to find your tribe with your investors, as well.   Is The Market For Your Product Big Enough?   Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. So, there's definitely this sizing-up thing, and I think one of the early signals is, they don't feel like your market is big enough, maybe because they're not aware of that market, or maybe they don't get the space. Have either of you had that situation where you come in, you've already got traction, you've got the go-to market team, products in the hand of customers, and they're just kind of scratching their head, like, "Oh, is food...do people eat dinner still these days? Is that still a thing?" How do you deal—   Danielle Morrill: Oh my gosh. I actually don't think it's worthwhile to continue to have the conversation, and I have to shout out to Hunter Walk, who wrote an excellent post about this, I don't know if you guys saw, around a woman who was pitching, and someone said like, "Convince me this market's big enough." And she just said, "Look, I don't wanna work that hard. I've already got traction, people eat dinner, right?" I think there are times when you're looking at this investor, and you have to consider, if they don't get it at this point, especially if you're doing something where you have traction, and it's fairly obvious that the market is big...   I mean, most of us...if you're building breakthrough tech, you might find a situation where markets are unclear in terms of size, like Blockchain, for example. But in most cases, these are professional investors, and they may be testing you, and they might wanna know what you know, so it's worthwhile to at least give them a rough answer, but I would take it as serious data, if they need to be convinced that the market's big enough.   The other side is that, not all markets need to be big to be interesting. It's more about if you can create something that can grow. Obviously creating a market that doesn't exist is a really valuable thing. So, again, I think it goes back to flipping the script a little bit in terms of trying to make sure you understand what they're really getting at. Like, do they not know? Are they testing you? Are they gonna be a huge waste of your time?   How To Get To The Real Question They Are Asking   Poornima Vijayashanker: How can you kind of suss that out? Are there questions or techniques?   Danielle Morrill: I would just start getting curious, like, "How much do you know about the market? Have you invested in this space? Obviously you're interested in us. What do you think?" And it doesn't have to become combative. It's much more of just, like, how does this become a dialogue instead of playing 20 questions, where you're doing all the talking? I think about it kinda like a job interview, I think, in both parties are confused about who's interviewing who, and you really wanna make sure that you find a balance where it's not you, as the founder, talking 80% of the time.   Ooshma Garg: The framing is so important. So, if you're getting some feedback repetitively that, "I don't understand your market," or, "I don't understand your path forward, or your path to revenue, or how you're gonna hire," then you do have to take that feedback and try to iterate and improve your pitch itself. I think that every company...it's very hard that you meet a perfect de-risked company at an early stage. They all have some mini risks, and often times, one big risk. So, sometimes it's, "Wow, there isn't a market for this, but we see that being the future."   Other times, there's a really big market, but maybe it's crowded. So, the question is, how are you gonna be, for example, defensible in the food space? Other times, it's...you have something defensible and proprietary. It's a huge market, but no one's willing to pay for it. So, people aren't willing to pay for music, or TV, or whatever. So, how are you even gonna make money for something that everybody's using?   Whether it's revenue, market, defensibility, IP, every business typically gets stuck, I find, on one big discussion. The better you can hone your slide and your couple lines to make sure that your message is getting across properly, and that resonates, it's just to your advantage cause people have such limited time with you and attention span. You know what is gonna be the hot button in your pitch, so identifying that early and practicing that part the most would probably do you well.   How To Get At An Investors Hot Buttons   Poornima Vijayashanker: So, we previously had Marie Perruchet on the show, and she talked about taking your pitch and then seeing how other people reformulate it, or what are the pieces that they extract? That usually becomes these hot-buttons, or the thing that is most memorable that maybe you need to dive into. Are there other ways that you guys have found to extract that information?   Danielle Morrill: I think...reformulating, literally having someone pitch it back to you, is that what you mean?   Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. As one technique to, like...what's sticky, what is impactful, but then there's the other case of, yeah, what is the hot button that people are probably gonna step away from?   Danielle Morrill: I mean, I think one of the things that is really interesting is whenever you're opening the conversation with an investor, at the very beginning. If you can get them to tell you, like, "Hey, what do you know about my company?" Because that actually is gonna tell you a ton about what they've already decided you're doing, and it's sometimes really wrong, or it's like...you know, there's a lot there, and then you can kind of work from there. If you notice that, pretty consistently, people are having the wrong idea, I mean, kinda to your point about feedback, it's another way of getting—   The reality is, people act like you setup your pitch, and then you go out. But you actually create your pitch, start to go out, and then you're continuously iterating on the pitch. So, you have so many opportunities to make the pitch better. I actually look at the first 10 pitches or so. I kind of set up pitches with targets where I would be interested in working with them, but they're not my top picks, so that I'm actually running the pitch against those folks. That way, if the first three or four say that their first impression of you is different, then you can realize, “Oh, the market already knows who I am.” Very rarely do you get to just go pitch, and no one knows who you are. That's another tactic that I think can be really helpful.   Finding Investors Who Are a Fit   Poornima Vijayashanker: So, coming back to kind of Ooshma's point around finding investors who fit into one of many opportunities, like arbitrage, moon shots, love the space, etc., there's also people who really get beholden to certain stages, right? They're like, "Oh, come back and talk to me once you've figured out your customer acquisition cost, or your lifetime value," right? Are there ways in which you've been able to address that, even if you don't have those metrics yet?   Ooshma Garg: One concept I keep running back to is that MVP concept, or minimum viable product, or even like a prototype. So, with my first company, the vision was to make this recruiting platform for universities all around the country. I made...I started by making wireframes, and envisioning the product, and keeping it simple, but thinking through those wireframes. But then, an advisor kind of looked at that, told me to scrap the whole thing, and said, "Why can't you just start with a mailing list? You're making a recruiting platform. Why don't we just see if there's people interested in your concept, and can you get 10,000 people, or 50,000 people, or how ever many students on your mailing list?"   At first, I was offended because I thought, "Oh my gosh, a mailing list is not a tech company." But often times, you can think about some scrappy proxy or prototype to prove what the person is asking, even if you don't have that exact number or the software or resources to get what exactly they want.   Poornima Vijayashanker: So, what's an example...yeah, if somebody throws out, like, "Ooshma, early days, three years ago, what was your LTV?" And you're like, "I don't have an LTV because I don't know," what would your response be to that?   Ooshma Garg: You know, I probably do two things. So one is, I would look at comparables in the market, and so, just doing studies of the general food industry, in my case, like how often people order takeout, or how often...what are people paying for SAS for these particular products each day, or whatever's relevant to your market. I mean, I'm assuming that you're...that you have some prototype. Very few companies pitch pre-product, so whatever data you have for three months or six months, there has to be something there, some monthly active users, how many times people are logging in, how many purchases people have made.   So, you just have to...I mean, our seed round was raised off of two to three months of early prototype data. I think that's all you need. It's just some prototype that shows some user willingness to pay or engage for three months, and then you can extrapolate that into your vision.   How To Handle Disagreements   Poornima Vijayashanker: Now, there's obviously times where people may disagree, right? They may say something like, "You know what, Danielle, I don't like your distribution strategy. I really just don't think it's gonna work. So, you know, cause I think it's gonna be expensive. Come back when you've figured out something that's a little bit cheaper. Then let's have the conversation. But, for now, no."   Danielle Morrill: It seems like an opportunity for them to prove their value-add as an investor. You know, I think that's valid for people to challenge strategy, but I think, what I would wanna know in that situation is, "If you were my investor, what would you suggest that I do? I totally hear your concerns." Make sure to show them that you're listening, but I think that's their opportunity to step up and actually offer something constructive. I think if they're gonna be in an investor where they're gonna be critical without being constructive, that's actually data for you.   The truth is that strategy's tough. Strategy often breaks down, and we change strategy all the time in startups. That's a huge part of what you're testing. So, I think being gracious and not taking it personally is important, but also making sure that you're asking them to demonstrate their value. I actually think that's gonna make them want to work with you. If that goes well, that's actually gonna be a way to test out, what would this working relationship be? So, I think that's...see it as an opportunity.   Poornima Vijayashanker: I like that.   Ooshma Garg: Yeah. And most people kind of...they send you that no via email, and I'm sure that the large majority don't even ask further questions. Some may not even respond, and others might respond and say, "Thanks for your time. I'll move on." But some small percentage are asking follow-up questions, and I think that's just making them stand out and starting that relationship that we said is so important.   I think that if you really did like someone, and their no isn't tactical or directional enough for you, to ask for a 10-minute phone call just to get a little bit more detail or their advice on strategy towards de-risking that investor's concern, I think can go a really long way. So, I think folks should just practice embracing the no and getting that 10-minute call and feedback as much as possible because that will help give them building blocks for another three months, if they can, and not just sort of wander aimlessly, wondering what someone was saying, or worse, completely ignoring it.   Danielle Morrill: Right. If you're gonna go and worry a bunch about the feedback but not ask for the follow-up, go round and round in circles over three glasses of wine, it would be much less painful to just have that awkward 10-minute call and just know where you stand. I think I've seen founders go in circles over this stuff. Literally years later, they'll tell these stories. It's just not worth the energy. The investor's also probably super uncomfortable giving the rejection. We're gonna talk a little bit about saying no on the other side. So, they're kinda beholden to you to give you that 10 minutes, honestly, so you should take it.   How To Know When An Investor Isn’t A Fit   Poornima Vijayashanker: Now, there's a lot of times where it's very obvious, you know, they tell you, "Here's the no," but...aside from some of the ambiguous feedback around the traction, there are times, though, where they may see a signal. Maybe it's something that happened in a meeting between you and your co-founder, or something else. Maybe they did some back-channeling, right? How do you handle those situations where they might feel like, “Oh, there's no chemistry,” or “I'm not sure where this is going?”   Danielle Morrill: It's tough cause they usually don't tell you.   Ooshma Garg: Yeah, they usually don't tell you. I think that's quite rare, as well. I think the way...the best way to handle that or avoid that is actually to construct your own back-channeling. So, like I said, some of the biggest investors, they will only invest based upon referral. Then, when you get so, kind of, well-known and in high demand, they'll only invest based upon two or three referrals. So, every single step is just like hard work. You can't ask for one intro. You can't just take the no on face value. You have to ask for three intros. Then you have to ask for follow-ups. Then you go to the meeting. Then you follow up on the meeting, and if they say “no,” you follow up again. There's all those little, little, extra steps that other people are doing that I think more folks should know about.   Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, and invest their energy in that versus what Danielle said, around the drama in their heads. So, anything else you guys have heard from your experience? Any other nos that we maybe haven't covered? I know there was some of the stuff that Ooshma was talking about, like the type of investors. Maybe we can dive into that a little bit?   Ooshma Garg: Yeah. I think...Well, with regards to the nos that people give, one of the toughest ones is simply just environmental. There are times when you're starting a company, and it's just a rough funding environment where it's just rough for your market. There might be bigger companies who are...for whatever reason, they're not doing well on the public markets, and that's affecting you. So, like the stamina, managing your psychology, being frugal, focusing on just the minimum prototypes, all of that's so important because the main thing you need to get to yes and get funding is time. You can correct a lot of things in the nos overtime, but there's some environmental factors you just have to weather.   Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, let's dig into that a little bit more. What do you mean by like, public companies? "How does that impact me? I'm just a two-person start-up, why should I care what Google or Facebook is up to?"   Ooshma Garg: Yeah. Well, hopefully your aspiration is to be a big public company, or to just be a big organization in general, and to be, one day, going from wherever you are to making hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars of value for your shareholders, for your employees, for your customers, and so on. So, investors will look at the current state of the market, at the public market, to understand what's happening in your industry. How are those companies valued? What are your chances of getting there, of breaking out? What is it gonna look like when you IPO? That trickles all the way down and influences your valuation, even as early as at the seed stage. So, it's very well-advised to not be delusional and to take a look at the public markets of your industry—   Poornima Vijayashanker: The landscape, yeah.   Ooshma Garg: —and be able to speak to that. I think people will be very impressed.   Paying For A Previous Founder’s Mistakes   Poornima Vijayashanker: I think another situation is, often, we have to pay for previous mistakes. So, the investor might have invested in a space when it was too young, or maybe the founders that they invested in weren't that knowledgeable or were the first. You know, just a number of factors to where, now, they just aren't willing to look at the space, or even...no matter how amazing you are, they're like, "No, sorry, not interested in the space. You might be amazing, unicorn person, but I'm just gonna say ‘no.’"   Ooshma Garg: I would take that no. It's kinda like in relationships. Someone had some issues with another girl that looked like you, or whatever, like it is not your—   Danielle Morrill: He is never gonna stop saying that.   Ooshma Garg: That is not the best guy for you. So, there are many investor fish in the sea, and I think that's just when the numbers game comes into play, and you have to make sure that you're not just talking to five, you're not talking to 10, but you have a big target list that you're just setting up and rolling through.   Poornima Vijayashanker: Awesome.   Danielle Morrill: I think one other thing that is valid but complicated is, people might say to you, "This isn't venture-backable." I actually think that's very helpful feedback to hear. Whether you agree is sort of beside the point. Find out why they think that. Sometimes, investors know things about markets that you never...can't learn until you're in them for a long time, and they can save you years of your life.   So, part of why people get a bad taste in their mouth often has to do with, like, a poor-margin business that can never get better, or a business that caps out somewhere, and there's this trough of sorrow that seems to go on forever and ever, and you don't get to find out until you're a $50-million company, which is great, except for when you have a huge burn rate and expectations. So, especially if you're entering a market where you're fairly new, maybe you're a software-centric person, but you don't have domain expertise, those types of nos can tell you a ton about things that.   It's easy to say, "I don't care. If I get to $50 million of revenue, I'll deal with that then." And you can still make that decision, but I think the key is to actually make sure you understand that no because they are in the business of billion-dollar outcomes. They might know something that you don't, and they might be able to help you redirect towards something that is worth it.   Poornima Vijayashanker: Alright, well thank you, Danielle and Ooshma, for walking us through all those nos. For all of you out there who are watching, if there was a no that you recently received that maybe we didn't unpack, feel free to share it with us in the comments below this video.   That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel where we'll continue the conversation and talk about what it's gonna take to get that yes from an investor. Ciao for now!

Ellen Ellison, Chief Investment Officer at University of Illinois Foundation, and Janet Lorin, Bloomberg News Endowment Reporter, discuss Ellison’s aim to make farmland about 10 percent of the $1.8 billion endowment portfolio. David Wethe, Bloomberg News U.S. Energy Reporter, breaks down the impact of strong growth in crude demand on Schlumberger earnings. Patricia Nakache, General Partner at Trinity Ventures, talks about investing in ecommerce and retail in the age of Amazon. We Drive to the Close with David Dietze, President at PointView Wealth Management. And Carol and Cory hit today’s “Movers and Shakers” on Wall Street and Bloomberg Stocks EditorDave Wilson features the “Stock of the Day.” 

Ellen Ellison, Chief Investment Officer at University of Illinois Foundation, and Janet Lorin, Bloomberg News Endowment Reporter, discuss Ellison's aim to make farmland about 10 percent of the $1.8 billion endowment portfolio. David Wethe, Bloomberg News U.S. Energy Reporter, breaks down the impact of strong growth in crude demand on Schlumberger earnings. Patricia Nakache, General Partner at Trinity Ventures, talks about investing in ecommerce and retail in the age of Amazon. We Drive to the Close with David Dietze, President at PointView Wealth Management. And Carol and Cory hit today's “Movers and Shakers” on Wall Street and Bloomberg Stocks EditorDave Wilson features the “Stock of the Day.”  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Ellen Ellison, Chief Investment Officer at University of Illinois Foundation, and Janet Lorin, Bloomberg News Endowment Reporter, discuss Ellison's aim to make farmland about 10 percent of the $1.8 billion endowment portfolio. David Wethe, Bloomberg News U.S. Energy Reporter, breaks down the impact of strong growth in crude demand on Schlumberger earnings. Patricia Nakache, General Partner at Trinity Ventures, talks about investing in ecommerce and retail in the age of Amazon. We Drive to the Close with David Dietze, President at PointView Wealth Management. And Carol and Cory hit today's “Movers and Shakers” on Wall Street and Bloomberg Stocks EditorDave Wilson features the “Stock of the Day.”  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Ellen Ellison, Chief Investment Officer at University of Illinois Foundation, and Janet Lorin, Bloomberg News Endowment Reporter, discuss Ellison’s aim to make farmland about 10 percent of the $1.8 billion endowment portfolio. David Wethe, Bloomberg News U.S. Energy Reporter, breaks down the impact of strong growth in crude demand on Schlumberger earnings. Patricia Nakache, General Partner at Trinity Ventures, talks about investing in ecommerce and retail in the age of Amazon. We Drive to the Close with David Dietze, President at PointView Wealth Management. And Carol and Cory hit today’s “Movers and Shakers” on Wall Street and Bloomberg Stocks EditorDave Wilson features the “Stock of the Day.” 

Brian Balfour is the Founder & CEO of Reforge, an organization that offers selective growth-focused programs for experienced professionals in marketing, product, data, and engineering. Brian was previously the VP of Growth at Hubspot and an EIR at Trinity Ventures before that. Brian has raised over $30M in venture funding for various startups he launched or joined. Brian also has extensive experience building growth teams and strategies. He’s one of the leading experts on user acquisition and retention and frequently writes on Reforge and his personal blog. Brian joins us to share his story, how he got into tech & startups, how he’s approached developing a growth mindset, how to prioritize growth strategies, why he started Reforge, and much more.

Each week Katie Roof, Matthew Lynley, and myself -- Alex Wilhelm -- try to de-obfuscate the opaque and arcane world of startup finance with the help of someone from the industry. This week, Trinity Ventures' Dan Scholnick was in the studio to assist us. And what a week it has been. First, the Uber goat rodeo continued with investors sending public nasty-grams to one another. According to our guest, this sort of squabble isn't precisely rare, but to see so much aired in public by a company of Uber's scale is not daily fare. If Uber could have a week in which it didn't have some sort of meltdown, we'd appreciate it, because there are other things to talk about. Moving along, Rovio, the company behind the massively popular Angry Birds franchise, is said to have an IPO cooking. The firm recently posted quick revenue growth and rising (adjusted) EBITDA. Media reports indicate that Rovio could raise $400 million at a $2 billion valuation. The firm is not expected to list here in the United States, but instead in Europe, where it's based. Finally, we took a minute to discuss MongoDB's privately filed IPO, something that these pages recently broke. The firm raised modest sums in its youth, including its minute Series A from 2008, a period not known for its venture profligacy. The crew seems bullish on its chances.

Vineet Jain is the Founder & CEO @ Egnyte, the startup that delivers smart content collaboration in the cloud or on-premises. They have raised over $60m in VC funding from the likes of Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures and one of our favourites here, Mike Maples @ Floodgate. Prior to Egnyte, Vineet founded and successfully built Valdero, a supply chain software solution provider, funded by KPCB, MDV and Trinity Ventures. Before that, Vineet held a variety of senior operational positions at KPMG and Bechtel. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How Vineet made his way into the world of SaaS and came to found his second startup in Egnyte? Vineet states that it is not all about top line growth, how does he look to satiate VC appetitie for growth with this mentality? Why does he think that we should discuss EBITDA margins more often within business models in Silicon Valley? Considering this conservative approach, how does Vineet determine when is the right time to put the “pedal to the metal” and raise a large round of funding and really look to gain the market? What metrics suggest product market fit to this extent? Why does Vineet argue that land and expand is all wrong? What alternative does Vineet offer for those looking to sell to enterprise? How does Vineet evaluate “The Rule of 40% For A Healthy SaaS Company”? What are the inherent flaws in this model? How can this model be gamed by posting enormous growth figures? What figures should startups input into this ratio? 60 Second SaaStr What does Vineet know now that he wishes he had known earlier? How long is long enough to give someone who is not performing? What hire does Vineet wish he had made earlier? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Vineet Jain

Brian Balfour is the Founder and CEO of Reforge, an 8-week professional development program for experienced growth and marketing practitioners to accelerate their careers. With ten years of marketing, product, and growth experience Brian has the skills, insight, and network, to be delivering best-in-class growth practitioners throughout Silicon Valley and beyond Prior to starting Reforge, Brian was the VP of Growth at Hubspot where he worked to establish new lines of business from 2014 to 2016. He has also worked as an EIR at Trinity Ventures and cofounded multiple VC-backed companies, one which was bootstrapped, and two of which led to successful acquisitions. In addition to his current work at Reforge, Brian also writes in great detail about growth on Coelevate, his personal site, and has been featured in Forbes, Hacker Monthly, as well as other industry and mainstream media publications. The topics discussed in this episode include the importance of mastering the foundational elements of marketing and why becoming a better marketer is not about tips, tricks, and hacks.

Gus Tai, General Partner at Trinity Ventures, discusses their investment thesis around e-commerce over the years – from BlueNile in 1999, to Zulily, Dot and Bo, and Callisto Media more recently, and what he anticipates for the future.

(Bloomberg) -- Taking Stock with Kathleen Hays and Pimm Fox. GUEST: Gus Tai, General Partner at Trinity Ventures, on mergers and acquisitions: which sectors will have more on the way, which startups are good acquisition targets, and the need for companies to integrate data to keep competitive.

(Bloomberg) -- Taking Stock with Kathleen Hays and Pimm Fox. GUEST: Gus Tai, general partner at Trinity Ventures, on the rise of Pokemon Go, what it means for consumers, Nintendo, and the video game industry at large.

People Rich Miner helped to launch Google Ventures in 2009 as general partner but seven years later, he’s dropped down to a venture partner position so he can concentrate on a secretive edtech project within the Google organisation. Microsoft Ventures continues to build up its team, the latest recruit being Matthew Goldstein who comes from VC firm Trinity Ventures … Continue reading "11 July 2016 – Microsoft Venturing Fund, Exits for Multiple Companies and Investment News plus more"

(Bloomberg) -- Taking Stock with Kathleen Hays and Pimm Fox. GUEST: Ajay Chopra, General Partner at Trinity Ventures, on the Saudi $3 billion investment in Uber, what the June 2 settlement means for drivers, and why Uber will not go public for 2 years.

Jenny Lefcourt is a Partner @ Freestyle where she invests in early stage tech companies. Prior to Freestyle, Jenny was the Founder of Weddingchannel.com and Bella Pictures which were both acquired. During this time, Jenny raised funds from titans of VC including Kleiner Perkins, Trinity Ventures, Amazon and more. Jenny has also angel invested and advised some incredible entrepreneurs with the likes of Minted and Style Seat.   In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Jenny made his way into VC from founding and exiting 2 startups? 2.) What were the differences in raising money as a founder and as a VC? What learnings as a founder did Jenny have that have helped her move into VC? 3.) How have the large macro-economic changes affected Jenny's investing style? Has she seen a change in her investment cadence? Does Jenny place more emphasis on burn reduction now? 4.) Why does Freestyle not invest with a thesis? What are the benefits of this? How does Jenny make investment decisions going forward without a thesis? 5.) What does Jenny mean when she says that VCs suffer from duck syndrome? What can VCs do to make them the best and their founders life easier? Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:  Jenny’s Fave Book: Dreamland, Blinkist (Harry's Suggestion) Jenny’s Most Recent Investment: CREXi As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Jenny 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!   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!

Patricia Nakache is General Partner at Trinity Ventures where she focuses on funding companies launching innovative online consumer and business services. Her portfolio of past investments is just astonishing with the likes of LoopNet and Care.com IPOing, PayScale being acquired by Warburg Pincus, Uptake being acquired by Groupon and many more. To be entered into the competition to win a signed copy of Brad Feld's legendary Venture Deals, all you have to do is click here and upvote this episode on ProductHunt and you will be automatically entered into the competition. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Patricia get into the technology industry and then later make her transition into the world of Venture Capital?  2.) A recent study has shown that the total number of female partners has fallen from 10% to 6% in the time that you have been at Trinity. Why is there this gender misrepresentation and what can be done to improve female equality in the VC industry? 3.) Sheila has invested in some incredible female entrepreneurs such as Sheila Marcelo at Care.com, Illana Stern at Weddington Way and Anna Zornosa at Ruby Ribbon? What excited Patricia about these entrepreneurs and what can female entrepreneurs do to increase their chances of funding? 4.) With the increasing amount of capital available, VCs face greater competition between firms, what can VCs bring to the table to beat the competition? 5.) What elements of the on demand economy face danger in the coming years in a similar way to Homejoy? 5.) Which sector is Patricia most excited about and why? 6.) Why has there been a resurgence in the marketplace model particularly in ecommerce? What are the drivers of this change? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Patricia's Fave Book: Good To Great by Jim Collins Patricia's Fave Blog: Strictly VC, Owler Patricia's Most Recent Investment: Mayvenn  As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Patricia on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session you can follow Harry on Instagram here!     

Increasingly, there is a growing community of less technical people who are interested in becoming more adept at building their own apps and finding ways to monitor them, too. New Relic serves as a case study for a company that is adapting to this shift in business interests. From a new stack perspective, we are increasingly curious about how developer tool companies are changing as tools become more acceptable and the overall market continues to grow. The shifts that happen when the enterprise comes calling served as a topic of discussion last week with Trinity Ventures' Dan Scholnick and New Relic's Bill Lapcevic. Scholnick has been a board member at New Relic since 2008 and is now a General Partner at Trinity. Lapcevic is New Relic's Vice President of Customer Success and Business Development. They joined The New Stack Founder Alex Williams over a cup of San Francisco's Ritual Roasters coffee, which without a doubt helped them savor the conversation as it drifted into topics about the mechanics of running a developer tool business. Learn more at: https://thenewstack.io/the-new-stack-analysts-show-16-how-new-relic-adapted-when-the-enterprise-came-calling/

Visualize the VC inside a glass box, and us looking in to see how a deal progresses internally