Shows
Fun RaisingJack Dreifuss | Impatient VenturesJack's path into VC is anything but standard: he spent his teens and college years as a professional online poker player until the DOJ shut down online poker in 2011, did a brief hedge-fund stint, then moved to Silicon Valley in 2013 as a sales engineer at Box before building two of his own venture-backed startups. His first real SPV investment, Oats Overnight, returned 12x and hooked him on venture. Now on Fund 2 of Impatient VC, he runs a thematic strategy across deep tech (defense, reshoring, manufacturing) and consumer AI, framing both as national-security bets on "saving the West." He writes $1–3M...
2026-04-2849 min
Fun RaisingAlex Roetter | Moxxie VenturesAlex Roetter brings a rare operator's DNA to venture. Before co-leading Moxxie Ventures with his partner Katie, he ran engineering at Twitter and led an eVTOL (electric flying car) company. Moxxie writes $500K to $2M checks at the pre-seed and seed stage, and Alex's background shapes how the firm shows up for founders: concrete, in-the-trenches conversations about customer problems and go-to-market strategy rather than board decks and process theater.The through-line of the episode is Alex's full rejection of what he calls "finance bro culture" — the posturing, the middle-school-dating negotiation tactics, the manufactured urgency. He has strong, co...
2026-04-2136 min
Fun RaisingNatty Zola | Matchstick VenturesNatty brings a perspective that's rare in early-stage VC: he's a founder-turned-Techstars MD-turned-fund partner, giving him an almost uniquely high volume of reps with early-stage companies. One of his most actionable frameworks is how founders should think about investor qualification. Rather than casting a wide net, Natty argues your top priority is finding the investor who already believes in your thesis and has been looking for you. Your second priority is the open-minded investor you can convert into a believer. The anti-pattern is trying to convince a non-believer, which is just a waste of time. He also flips the...
2026-04-1647 min
Fun RaisingAJ Smith | Outlander VCAJ brings a genuinely distinctive lens to venture. He built defense tech at 16, opened for the Eagles on violin, and had Glenn Fry as a songwriting mentor. That creative background directly shapes how he coaches founders on storytelling: take the biggest, most complex engineering idea in the universe and get it stuck in everybody's head in the shower. It's not just a metaphor for him. It's the actual skill he evaluates when a deck lands in his inbox. He spends about 90 seconds on a pitch deck, and if he can't understand the business by reading headline to headline across 10...
2026-04-1448 min
Fun RaisingJason Chapman | KonvoyJason Chapman brings a distinctly technical lens to early-stage investing. Before launching Convoy in 2018, he was an engineer at IBM's artificial intelligence division, writing code 12 to 18 hours a day. That background shapes how he evaluates deals: he wants to be the most knowledgeable investor on a founder's cap table, going deeper than the typical mile-wide-inch-deep approach. Convoy writes concentrated $3-5M checks, doing only six to eight investments per year, and Jason has led follow-on rounds up to five times into the same company. His pitch to founders is straightforward: his personal net worth is tied up in the...
2026-04-0856 min
Fun RaisingHarrison Dahme | Hack VCHarrison brings a rare perspective to the fundraising conversation as both a repeat founder and one of the few CTO-titled partners in venture. He's spoken to roughly 4,000 companies over the past four or five years, and his advice is grounded in seeing both sides of the table. One of his most practical suggestions is around pitch deck structure: he gravitates toward the appendix first, looking for deep technical detail that reduces the number of follow-up meetings needed. For founders building anything with a technical edge, he recommends investing in that appendix section to answer the first round of questions...
2026-04-0732 min
Fun RaisingLarsen Jensen | Harpoon VenturesLarsen offers a masterclass on the art of the initial pitch, and his core message is counterintuitive: less is more, everywhere. He argues that if you can't communicate your team, problem, and market in four sentences in your outreach email, go back to the drawing board, because longer emails don't signal thoroughness, they signal desperation. He extends this to the pitch meeting itself, noting that experienced VCs essentially know their interest level within the first five to ten minutes, meaning the rest of the call is just validating or invalidating that initial gut reaction. This reframes the entire first...
2026-04-0151 min
Fun RaisingMatias Zorrilla | Harpoon VenturesMatias brings a rare perspective to early-stage investing: he spent years at Goldman and Bank of America helping late-stage and public companies raise hundreds of millions in capital before joining Harpoon Ventures to focus on pre-seed through Series A. That background gives him a clear-eyed view on what founders get wrong about storytelling and financial positioning. His core thesis on pitch decks is refreshingly simple: he cares about founders and market, and almost nothing else at the early stage. He actively discourages founders from including detailed revenue projections or elaborate TAM slides, arguing that speculative financials can actually work...
2026-04-0156 min
Fun RaisingRiley Loftus | Harpoon VenturesRiley brings a perspective shaped by volume. Between Harpoon's deal flow and the hundreds of applications coming through Black Flag, he's reviewing more pitch decks than most early-stage investors, which gives his feedback on what actually stands out real weight. His advice on decks is refreshingly practical: stop overbuilding TAM slides (VCs will do their own market sizing anyway), make sure someone can understand what your product actually does within the first few pages, and don't waste money on a fancy design agency. He points to MatX's deck, which was literally black text on white slides, as proof that...
2026-04-0142 min
Fun RaisingJohn Forbes | Julian Capital & Deep ChecksJohn brings a rare dual perspective to this conversation. On the Julian Capital side, he's evaluating deep tech deals at pre-seed and seed across hardware-intensive sectors like robotics, materials, energy, and space. On the Deep Checks side, he's built a platform specifically to solve what he calls the "matching problem" in deep tech, where unlike software, it's genuinely unclear who the right thesis-fit investor is for any given company, and even investors' own sector preferences shift quarter to quarter. That combination means John sees the funnel from both ends: the founder trying to get in front of the right...
2026-03-3043 min
Fun RaisingJordan Wan | CoFoundJordan brings a go-to-market operator's lens that's genuinely rare among early-stage GPs. He ran one of the largest recruiting firms in NYC, scaling it across over a thousand startups, and that experience shapes everything about how he evaluates founders. His central investing framework is that founders and markets are mirrors of each other. He's not just looking at team pedigree or TAM slides. He wants to understand the rationality (or irrationality) of why someone started this business in the first place. A founder leaving a seven-figure salary to raise a gritty $1.5M pre-seed signals something fundamentally different than someone...
2026-03-3040 min
Eos WetenschapHoe komen vogels aan hun prachtige kleuren? - Ik heb een vraagRood, geel, blauw, glanzend, mat en zelfs kleuren die veranderen naargelang vanuit welke hoek je ze bekijkt. Is al die kleurenpracht bij de vogels uniek? Hoe komen ze aan hun kleuren? En in welke mate kunnen vogels elkaars spectaculaire kleuren zien? Allemaal vragen voor evolutionair bioloog Michael Nicolai.
2026-03-1623 min
Fun RaisingMat Sherman | MatCapMat's model at MatCap flips the traditional VC playbook. Rather than writing large checks and picking winners, he invests at par value to get involved at the founding level, then makes introductions across his investor network to help founders close capital faster. It's closer to a high-volume accelerator than a traditional fund, and that scale gives him a unique window into what actually works in early-stage fundraising. His emphasis on "access transfer" as the core value proposition speaks directly to the structural problem he experienced firsthand: brilliant founders outside the Bay Area or traditional networks can grind for years...
2026-03-1559 min
Fun RaisingAndrew Couillard | Black FlagAndrew brings a rare lens to early-stage investing. Eight years defusing bombs for the Navy, a stint at Stanford, and time embedded as interim chief of staff at a portfolio company gave him both operational instincts and a deep respect for founders who can lead under pressure. His litmus test during pitch calls is simple: "Do I want to go work for this person?" He's not looking for the most technically dense presentation. He's looking for a compelling human being who can attract exceptional people and tell a story worth following. For founders who tend to lead with jargon...
2026-03-1157 min
Fun RaisingGrant Brown | 8090 IndustriesGrant brings a rare perspective to the fundraising conversation because he came up through the industrial world, not finance. He started in oil field operations, worked pipeline infrastructure across Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and beyond, then helped build out a corporate venture arm from scratch before joining 8090. That hands-on background means he's evaluating founders less on polished decks and more on what he calls "hyperfluency," the ability to talk about your technology, go-to-market, and vision at any altitude, from a fifth grader to a deep technical audience. He's explicit that domain credibility doesn't require 20 years of experience; he believes the...
2026-03-1139 min
Fun RaisingBrett Calhoun | Redbud VCBrett's approach to pre-seed investing is built entirely around the founder, not the idea. At a stage where most companies have little to no traction, he goes straight to the team slide and digs for founder-market fit, how the team met, and why this specific group of people will push through when things get hard. His take on pitch meetings is equally refreshing: he doesn't want a presentation, he wants a real conversation.Founders who come in reading slides or rattling off name drops lose him fast. He's looking for emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and someone...
2026-03-0830 min
Fun RaisingJosh Manchester | Champion Hill VenturesJosh brings a unique lens to deal sourcing that most founders simply don't understand. Rather than chasing hot sectors or famous brands, he actively looks for what others are missing, reasoning that the majority of early-stage venture capital lives in the Bay Area, and whatever that community can't or won't think about is exactly where the overlooked opportunities hide. His investment themes, ranging from population decline to human enhancement to "portal fatigue," are not random. They're the product of a systematic effort to ask where smart capital is underrepresented and where a truly zero-to-one founder could build something monopolistic...
2026-03-081h 00
Fun RaisingPhilip Carson | Cubit CapitalPhilip Carson brings a refreshingly contrarian perspective to fundraising from the jump: most startups shouldn't be raising venture capital in the first place. Rather than treating VC as the default path, he pushes founders to honestly assess whether they actually need outside capital or whether they're chasing the idea of being a venture-backed founder. This framing sets the tone for an episode full of honest, un-hype-y advice that's rare to hear from the investor side of the table.One of the most practically useful angles Philip covers is how Cubit actually evaluates founders. He doesn't...
2026-03-0841 min
Fun RaisingArthur Karell | First InArthur's most distinctive contribution in this episode is his "campaign plan" framework, borrowed directly from his Marine Corps background. Rather than just pitching a product vision, he wants founders to show a sequenced, interdependent plan where each milestone unlocks the next. He shares a real example of a three-month-old defense startup that already had a mapped path to their first program of record. For founders, this is a concrete way to stand out: don't just show goals, show the logic chain that connects them.One of the more refreshing moments in this episode is Arthur's...
2026-03-0830 min
Fun RaisingBrandes Woodall | Also CapitalBrandes brings a refreshingly candid perspective on what early-stage investors actually care about, and it might surprise you. When she opens a pitch deck, she scrolls straight to the team slide and almost nothing else. Not the market size, not the financials, not the roadmap. Just the team. For a fund like Also Capital that writes concentrated inception-stage checks, they are making a bet on a person before there is much else to bet on, and Brandes is clear that this is not just a cliche. She wants to be able to guess roughly what a company does just...
2026-03-0838 min
Fun RaisingEthan Austin | Outside VCEthan brings a rare dual lens to this conversation: he spent years as a founder who couldn't get a meeting, then became a managing director at Techstars, where he reviewed thousands of pitches. That combination gives him a clear-eyed view of what actually moves the needle versus what founders obsess over that doesn't matter. His most counterintuitive point: the pitch deck is mostly a red herring. What separates winning rounds from losing ones is process and momentum, not narrative polish. Stacking your investor meetings into a tight three-to-four day window, having your data room ready...
2026-03-0843 min
Fun RaisingEric Shu | Access Venture PartnersEric brings a refreshingly practical framing to fundraising: it is a process, not a pitch. He emphasizes that founders should treat every phase, from outreach to diligence to closing, as a structured workflow. That means building a list of 50 to 100 firms, drilling down to the right individual at each fund (not just the fund itself), and staying on top of communications with a simple tracking system. He also pulls back the curtain on why VCs pass, and his answer might surprise founders who take rejections personally. Fund deployment cycles, internal team dynamics, and unfamiliarity with a market often have...
2026-03-0730 min
Fun RaisingAdam Burrows | Range VenturesAdam's biggest throughline is that how a VC behaves during the fundraising process is exactly how they will behave as a partner for the next decade. He is unusually direct about this, encouraging founders to treat the diligence phase as a mutual interview and to do back-channel reference checks on investors just as VCs do on founders. He gives a sharp breakdown of the VC landscape too, suggesting that roughly 20% of VCs are genuinely valuable, 20% are actually harmful to your company, and 60% do little more than write a check. Knowing which bucket your investor falls into before you close...
2026-03-0733 min
Fun RaisingJakob Diepenbrock | Discipulus VenturesJakob brings a refreshingly practical, no-nonsense perspective to early-stage investing, shaped by building his own community-based fund in El Segundo, the hardware and defense-tech hub that grew out of SpaceX's roots in LA. Unlike most VCs, Discipulus runs a physical two-week residency that front-loads the relationship-building, network access, and demo day prep that most founders spend 6-12 months scraping together on their own. For founders who are technical, mission-driven, and relatively early in their career, Jakob makes a compelling case that plugging into the right ecosystem early is one of the highest-leverage moves they can make.
2026-03-0731 min
Fun RaisingTurner Novak | Banana CapitalTurner Novak is one of the most unique voices you'll hear in early-stage VC. As a solo GP at Banana Capital writing $100K-$250K checks, he operates more like a founder than a traditional fund partner, and that perspective shapes everything he says. He's built an audience of nearly 200,000 followers across social platforms, and he actively uses that distribution to help portfolio founders get in front of customers, recruits, and co-investors. His advice throughout this episode has a practical, ground-level quality that's rare when VCs talk about fundraising.On the process of getting in the...
2026-03-0751 min
Fun RaisingEmily Lindberg | Undeterred CapitalEmily Lindberg brings a genuinely rare perspective to the VC world -- a PhD in biomechanics from UC Berkeley who transitioned into venture through Nucleate, a student-run VC focused on bio companies. That scientific background shapes everything about how Undeterred evaluates deals, and Emily is refreshingly candid about what that means in practice. She emphasizes that even when a fund loves your technology, it has to fit the financial structure of the fund and its return requirements -- a reality many first-time founders overlook entirely.On the question of what gets a founder into the...
2026-03-0726 min
Fun RaisingLeo Banchik | VoyagerLeo brings a rare combination to the table: technical depth as a mechanical engineer with a PhD from MIT, operator experience as a former founder, and the analytical rigor of a McKinsey diligence background. That blend makes his fundraising advice unusually grounded. Where many investors speak in generalities, Leo is specific. He walks founders through how to build their investor CRM, explaining why identifying who leads versus who follows is the most important filter. He also breaks down what he actually looks at first in a pitch deck, including the ask slide, the why now, unit economics, and team...
2026-03-0753 min
Fun RaisingLeo Polovets | Humba VenturesLeo brings a rare dual perspective to fundraising advice: he thinks like an engineer and communicates like an investor. One of the most useful threads throughout the episode is his emphasis on respecting a VC's time and attention. With 50 to 100 cold emails landing in his inbox every week, Leo makes it clear that founders who stand out do so not by explaining everything upfront, but by treating their outreach more like a movie trailer than a plot summary. Two or three genuinely compelling data points, delivered concisely, will outperform a five-paragraph essay every time.Leo...
2026-03-0738 min
Fun Raising"Iron" Mike Steadman | Context VCMike Steadman is not your typical VC. A former Marine infantry officer, three-time national boxing champion, and self-described "underdog and misfit," Mike came up through bootstrapping businesses before landing at Context VC as a venture partner -- a path that gives him a sharp eye for what separates founders who get funded from those who don't. His advice throughout this episode is grounded, tactical, and refreshingly honest.What makes this episode worth your time is how Mike frames fundraising as a second product that founders have to build and sell in parallel with their actual...
2026-03-071h 00
Fun RaisingJesse Marble | Wildwood VenturesJesse brings a rare dual perspective to this episode. Having built and sold his own company before becoming a VC, he speaks to founders as someone who has genuinely sat on both sides of the table. One of the most refreshing threads throughout the conversation is his honesty about what VCs actually go off of at the pre-seed stage: almost nothing. With data rooms described as "ghost towns," Jesse explains that social proof and momentum matter disproportionately, not because VCs are lazy, but because there is simply very little else to evaluate. This reframes the fundraising process less as...
2026-03-0755 min
30 Minuten SluitertijdFotografen zijn VEROORDEELD tot Social Media - 30 Minuten SluitertijdHet is heel simpel: als jij als fotograaf ergens wilt komen, of hoopt dat zoveel mogelijk mensen je foto’s zien, dan MOET je als fotograaf wel aan de slag met social media. Instagram en TikTok beheersen de hedendaagse marketing en zonder is het roepen in de woestijn. TOCH?
In deze kerstaflevering duiken Niels en Michiel in de wereld van social media. Is het echt zo nuttig, is het echt zo verplicht? Of maken we mekaar allemaal helemaal gek met onterechte verwachtingen die ontstaan door groei in volgers die nooit iets bij je gaan ko...
2024-12-2333 min
HagenprekenWaarom Jezus niet arm kon zijnHet volk van God wordt heen en weer geslingerd tussen polariserende stromingen van enerzijds voorspoedsfanatici en anderzijds karigheidschristenen. Beide kampen hebben hun stokpaardjes en drogredenen. Maar de Waarheid lag slechts één keer in het midden. Dat is, toen Christus tussen twee moordenaars gekruisigd werd en voor ons ziek en tot zonde gemaakt werd en gestript van alles.WWas Hij rijk of toch een arme sloeber? Tenslotte laat de Bijbel ons laat zien dat, ‘vossen hebben hole, vogels in de lucht nesten’, maar Jezus had een huis… Waarom de Heer dan toch beweerde dat Hij niets ha...
2023-10-0333 min
Talk TennisThe Rally Tennis App is Here! Mat Vogels Explains Why this App will change your TENNIS Life & get you playing more! (plus, make tennis friends, & improve your game)Want to play more tennis?! Us to! In this episode, Mat Vogels from Rally Tennis talks all about the newest tennis app to help you meet new people and play more tennis! This app connects players of all levels all over the country to get you on the court and hitting more balls! Whether you want to be ultra-competitive or just are looking for someone new to practice with, Rally Tennis will connect you with players close in area and skill level for more court time!
Download Rally Tennis Now: Rally Tennis App
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2021-08-1052 min
Forward Thinking Founders019 - Mat Vogels (Founder of Zestful) on Employee PerksOn this episode of Forward Thinking Founders, Mat Vogels, the CEO and Founder of Zestful comes onto the podcast. Zestful is a company that rethinks how startups offer company perks. In this episode, we go deep into:What is Zestful?What was the first version of Zestful?How did Mat get through the darkest times before Zestful found product market fitThoughts on how founders should handle adversity Rethinking the incentives of employees and how founders can be aware about what incentivizes their teamTips for listeners wanting...
2019-09-0136 min
Hey SueMat Vogels, CEO of Employee Perks Upstart Zestful, on YC, VC, Troughs, Pivots, and PeaksMat Vogels is an extremely zestful CEO. And it's no surprise that he's founded a high-momentum startup called Zestful -- which is setting the standard for the next generation of employee perks -- with the tagline "live full." Because Mat Vogels lives fully. And behind his extraordinary attitude, full-time smile, and easy way of being stands a tenacious startup founder committed to making his company a winner.In this episode of the Real Leaders podcast with Sue Heilbronner, Mat shares his two-year journey in great detail -- the big wins like a berth in Y-combinator and funding...
2019-03-0848 min