Nick Moran

Aydin Senkut of Felicis Ventures joins Nick to discuss Iconic Companies, Frontier Markets & A Truly Founder Centric Approach. Prior to founding Felicis Ventures, you were a Product Manager at Google, launching their first 10 international sites, its first online search licensing products, and its first Safe Search…talk about what lead to your transition to investing. Felicis dedicates 1% of the first check they write exclusively to founder development and coaching, to help relieve pressure from their founders and maintain a founder centric approach. The investment focus of the firm is in startups that have the potential to be iconic leaders in their respective fields by either reinventing existing products or developing new solutions in highly influential markets.

Previous to Base10 Partners, you had quite a successful career as an entrepreneur, founding highly influential companies such as Tuenti, Identified and Cabify in Latin America – talk a bit about your experience founding and scaling multiple tech companies, ultimately to exit? Adeyemi shares the success stories behind founding, Tuenti – known as the Spanish Facebook and the largest Social Media platform in Spain, later acquired by Telefonica for $100M. Cabify – the equivalent of Uber in Latin America and Spain, and Identified – Workday’s first public acquisition. When investing in Tech companies, especially at early stages, there is always going to be plenty of room for improvement, however, if there’s a great product with real traction, having a little faith in the team will go a long way. The true purpose of Automation is finding real problems, that real people experience everyday and providing legitimate solutions that will create a meaningful change for it’s users.

Jeff Clavier of Uncork Capital joins Nick to discuss Market Cycles, Escalating Costs to Start Up, and the Micro VC Surge. How have the market cycles affected VC, your fund strategy, raising capital and the impact on portfolio companies? Jeff began by investing a couple thousand dollars at a time of his own capital, and after 3 years of founding SoftTech, they raised their first fund of $15M. With there being 600+ Micro VC funds, at the seed stage, Jeff has recently seen less companies being funded and companies that are being funded, raising higher dollar amounts.

Where Apple, Pebble & Google Did Not, Part 1 (Ben Einstein) Where Apple, Pebble & Google Did Not, Part 2 (Ben Einstein) The Importance of Storytelling, VC EQ, and the LP-GP Dating Game, Part 1 (James R. ‘ The Importance of Storytelling, VC EQ, and the LP-GP Dating Game, Part 2 (James R. ‘