Forward Thinking Investors
225 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 101 ratingsForward Thinking Investors is a podcast where Mat Sherman interviews the world's brightest up and coming investors, as well as many who have already proven themselves as the best. Topics will range from portfolio construction theory to what makes a good market, and everything in between. The goal of this podcast is to help popularize the concept of investing with the public and get them familiar with how investors think. Listening to this podcast will make you a better investor and a better founder, so I hope you enjoy Forward Thinking Investors!
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Episodes
020 - Elizabeth Yin, Cofounder and GP of Hustle Fund
August 10, 2021 17:00 - 24 minutesAbout Elizabeth Yin: Elizabeth Yin is a co-founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund, a pre-seed fund for software entrepreneurs. Previously, Elizabeth was a partner at 500 Startups where she invested in seed stage companies and ran the Mountain View accelerator. In a prior life, Elizabeth co-founded and ran an adtech company called LaunchBit (acq 2014). Elizabeth has a BSEE from Stanford and an MBA from MIT Sloan. Elizabeth has reviewed over 20k startup pitches from around the world in th...
019 - Zach Coelius, Managing Partner at Coelius Capital
July 29, 2021 18:00 - 21 minutesAbout Zach: Zach Coelius is a four-time entrepreneur and now investor in early-stage technology companies. Learn more about his rolling fund here or follow him on Twitter here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit newsletter.matsherman.com
018 - Kirby Winfield, Founding Partner at Ascend.vc
July 10, 2021 17:00 - 22 minutesAbout Kirby Kirby Winfield is a seasoned startup operator and investor, and is currently the Founding General Partner at Ascend.vc, a pre-seed stage venture fund investing in marketplace, e-commerce/DTC, and B2B software startups in the Pacific Northwest. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit newsletter.matsherman.com
017 - Hunter Walk, Cofounder and Partner at Homebrew
June 28, 2021 17:00 - 26 minutesAbout Hunter Walk Hunter Walk is a co-founder and Partner at Homebrew, which is an early-stage venture capital firm based in the Bay Area. Before Homebrew, I led consumer product management at YouTube, starting when it was acquired by Google. I originally joined Google in 2003, managing product and sales efforts for AdSense, Google‘s contextual advertising business. My first job in Silicon Valley was as the founding product and marketing guy at Linden Lab. Before graduate school, I was a ma...
016 - Nikhil Basu Trivedi, Cofounder and GP at Footwork
May 26, 2021 17:00 - 1 minuteNikhil is the cofounder and GP of Footwork. Prior, Nikhil was Managing Director at Shasta Ventures, where he invested in Canva, ClassDojo, Frame.io, Imperfect Foods, Lattice, Literati, Pill Club, Tally, and The Farmer's Dog. He was previously at Insight Partners and on the founding team at Artsy. Nikhil found his footwork growing up in the UK, India, and the San Francisco Bay Area, playing cricket and tennis. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers...
015 - Kathryn Finney, Founder and CEO of Genius Guild
April 19, 2021 17:00 - 19 minutesAbout Kathryn Finney (From LinkedIn) Named by Inc Magazine as one of the most influential women in tech, Kathryn Finney has made her mark as an entrepreneur, social media visionary, “women in” advocate, investor, and 3x published author. On the heels of the events of the Summer of 2020, Kathryn created Genius Guild, a business creation platform that uses the venture studio model (Lab & Venture Fund) to invest in Black entrepreneurs building scalable businesses that serve black communities ...
014 - Jenny Fielding, MD At Techstars New York and MP at The Fund
March 19, 2021 17:00 - 23 minutesJenny is the Managing Director of Techstars New York and Managing Partner at The Fund. According to her LinkedIn, she is a pre-seed investor into 140+ companies including: Latch (LTCH), Chainalysis, Alloy, Headway, Supergreat, Contra, Bloomscape, Simple Health, Particle Health, Pair Eyewear, Solo Funds, Halp, Minded, Talent Hack, Rupa Health, Morty, Wagmo, Smarthop, Solid, Remesh, Tempo and so many more! 🚀🚀🚀 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers ...
013 - Gaurav Jain, Cofounder and GP at Afore Capital
February 26, 2021 17:00 - 23 minutesAbout Gaurav (From LinkedIn) Co-founded Afore Capital, one of the largest venture funds ($124M) dedicated to super early stage investments. No investment is "too early" for Afore, and in fact, we prefer to get involved as early as possible and help the company get to the next stage where traditional VCs can get involved. If you think we could be a fit for your startup, please find a warm intro and we'd love to chat! Previously, I made 26 seed-stage investments including Cruise Automation (...
012 - Samara Mejia Hernandez, Founding Partner at Chingona Ventures
February 21, 2021 17:00 - 27 minutesSamara is the Founding Partner of an institutionally-backed pre-seed stage fund, Chingona Ventures, focusing on investing in technology and technology-enabled companies all over the U.S. Prior to this she was an early stage investor at MATH Venture Partners, an early-stage venture fund investing in technology start-ups with differentiated approaches to customer acquisition. In this capacity, she led new investment review, diligence and execution. Prior to venture capital, Samara worked at Go...
011 - Charlie O'Donnell, Founder and Partner at Brooklyn Bridge Ventures
January 18, 2021 17:00 - 39 minutesAbout Charlie O'donnell (From BBV Website) Charlie O'Donnell is the sole Partner and Founder at Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. The fund makes seed and pre-seed investments and was the first venture firm located in Brooklyn--where he was born and raised. Brooklyn Bridge invested in the first rounds of The Wing, Canary, Hungryroot, Ample Hills, Clubhouse, Imagen, and goTenna among others. Charlie has a reputation for being early to identifying important companies. Nick Bilton identifies him as ...
010 - Delian Asparouhov, Principal at Founders Fund
January 14, 2021 17:00 - 28 minutesDelian Asparouhov is a principal at Founders Fund. Before joining Founders Fund, he was a principal at Khosla Ventures, head of growth at Teespring, and founder of a healthcare company called Nightingale. Delian is Bulgarian, attended MIT, and likes to ski and play soccer. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit newsletter.matsherman.com
009 - Jeff Morris Jr., Founder and GP at Chapter One
January 08, 2021 17:00 - 23 minutesAbout Jeff Morris Jr. Jeff Morris is the founder and Managing Partner of Chapter One. He was previously the VP of Product, Revenue at Tinder. In the role, Tinder became the #1 top grossing app in the App Store and one of the top grossing products in mobile history. As a product leader, Morris is passionate about building high performing teams and creating profitable products that delight customers. At Tinder, Morris built the revenue team and led the creation of multiple blockbuster hits ...
008 - Mallun Yen & Leyla Seka, Founders and Partners at Operator Collective
January 06, 2021 17:00 - 43 minutesAbout Operator Collective Mallun and Leyla are partners at Operator Collective. Operator Collective was founded because we believe the power in venture capital is concentrated among a homogenous group that doesn’t represent where our industry is now or where it’s going. Despite the essential role operators play in Silicon Valley, they’ve been largely missing from the venture world. So we’ve created a new access point for operators from diverse backgrounds; they may not be household names, b...
007 - Sheel Monot, Cofounder and GP at Better Tomorrow Ventures
December 24, 2020 17:00 - 28 minutesAbout Sheel: I'm co-founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV) in San Francisco, with Jake Gibson. We're a $75m fund that leads pre-seed and seed rounds in fintech companies globally, generally with a first check of $500k-$1.5m. We take a pretty broad view on fintech, and many vertical SaaS and marketplace businesses fit in our purview too. We invest for a better future and genuinely believe that our companies make the world better; fintech is a great way to improve people's lives. We like ...
006 - Natty Zola, Cofounder and Partner at Matchstick Ventures
December 15, 2020 17:37 - 23 minutesAbout Natty Zola (From Their Website) In 2008, I left a lucrative career to start a company, everlater.com. On my journey, I taught myself how to code, built the product, raised two rounds of venture financing, went through two significant pivots, hired and fired teams, thrived, stumbled, thrived again and ultimately sold the company to AOL. I get what it's like and what it takes to start and scale a company. In 2015, I joined Techstars as Managing Director for the accelerator in Boulder....
004 - Caroline Kassie, GP at Metrodora Ventures
December 09, 2020 16:00 - 25 minutesAbout Caroline Kassie Caroline is a GP at Metrodora Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in the health and education sector. Previously, Caroline was a Partner at Blockchange Ventures and the Executive Director of Beanstalk Labs, an innovation lab concentrated on the development of new business ideas for a New York-based venture fund that invests in early stage retail technology companies. Caroline was also an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meager & Flom LLP where she...
005 - Clara Brenner, Cofounder and Managing Partner at Urban Innovation Fund
December 09, 2020 16:00 - 23 minutesAbout Clara Clara is co-founder and Managing Partner of the Urban Innovation Fund, a venture capital firm that invests in the future of cities. The fund provides seed capital and regulatory support to entrepreneurs solving our toughest urban challenges – helping them grow into tomorrow’s most valued companies. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit newsletter.matsherman.com
003- Leo Polovets, Cofounder and GP at Susa Ventures
August 17, 2020 16:00 - 41 minutesAbout Leo Polovets Leo Polovets is co-founder and General Partner at Susa Ventures, where he focuses on enterprise software; developer tools and technical products; and logistics and supply chain. Leo led Susa's investments in Outlier, Pex, Scalyr, and Stedi. Having been a software engineer for 10+ years, Leo approaches challenges with an engineering mindset and supports portfolio companies in vetting and hiring technical talent. Prior to Susa, Leo was the second engineering hire at Linkedi...
002 - Mac Conwell, Founder and GP of Rarebreed
August 10, 2020 16:00 - 22 minutesAbout Mac McKeever "Mac" Conwell II is the founder and managing partner of RareBreed Ventures. Mac is a former software engineer and two-time founder. One of Mac's companies failed, the other went on to a successful exit. Learn more about Mac by listening to this interview. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit newsletter.matsherman.com
001 - Charles Hudson, Founder and Managing Partner of Precursor Ventures
August 03, 2020 16:00 - 42 minutesAbout Charles Hudson Charles Hudson is the Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of investment for the most promising software and hardware companies. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit newsletter.matsherman.com
FI - Tom Uebel (Command E) On Keyboard Shortcuts in The Workplace
May 26, 2020 12:00 - 21 minutes - 19.3 MBTom Uebel is the co-founder and CEO of Command E. The faster way to navigate your workspace. An easy keyboard shortcut to open any document, contact, file or record from the cloud
PM - Daniel Lobaton chats with Elizabeth Yin about his startup on Partner Mondays
May 25, 2020 12:00 - 54 minutes - 50.2 MBOn this episode of Partner Mondays, Daniel Lobaton (founder) chats with Elizabeth Yin (GP at Hustle Fund) about his startup.
SR - Sunday Roundup with Adam McBride and Mat Sherman
May 24, 2020 12:00 - 43 minutes - 40.1 MBThis is a new segment of the show called Sunday Roundup. Every Sunday, we will publish an episode with different cohosts where Mat and whoever is joining him that day discuss current happenings in tech and startups. This is meant to be a more casual segment, as opposed to The founder interviews (FI's).
FI - Samuel Rosen (Tap) On Putting Water Fountains in The Cloud
May 23, 2020 15:00 - 21 minutes - 19.5 MBSamuel is the founder of Tap. Tap helps you find water anywhere.
FI - Justin Jackson (Transistor) On The Future Of Podcasting
May 22, 2020 12:00 - 29 minutes - 27.1 MBJustin Jackson is the cofounder of Transistor.fm. Transistor is a simple, yet powerful, podcast hosting platform.
FI - Lauren Peate (Multitudes) On Measuring People
May 21, 2020 12:00 - 16 minutes - 14.8 MBLauren is the co-founder and CEO of Multitudes. Multitudes provides analytics to unlock inclusive, high performing teams starting by analyzing Github usage.
FI - KP (Cuppa) On The First Coffeeshop In The Cloud
May 20, 2020 13:00 - 32 minutes - 29.6 MBKP is the founder of Cuppa. Cuppa enables 1-1 virtual coffees ☕️with interesting people from Twitter.
FI - Andrew Chin (Nomi) On Digital Pets in 2020
May 19, 2020 15:00 - 16 minutes - 15.1 MBAndrew is the cofounder of Nomi. Nomi is a creature that you feed with your heartbeats
FI - Alexander Shevchenko (SafeWatch) On Next Generation Alarm Systems
May 18, 2020 12:00 - 14 minutes - 13.1 MBAbout this episode: Alexander Shevchenko is the founder of Safewatch. For only $5/month per camera you can set up alerts for any kind of object, and get 14 days of footage backup. Listen to this episode if you: Want to know what SafeWatch is Are curious to hear this unique approach to home security Want to know how Alexander got into this type of business. Are a homeowner Are interested in security companies Want to hear the big vision for Safewatch More Info: Want to come on...
FI - Ali Fardos (Loftit) On a Better Rent Management System
May 17, 2020 12:00 - 14 minutes - 13.8 MBAli Fardos is the founder and CEO of Loftit. Collect rent. Export rent roll reports. Get valuable insights. Manage your contractors. Fix repairs. Chat with renters.
FI - Marta Lopata (KgBase) On Knowledge Graphs
May 16, 2020 12:00 - 21 minutes - 19.4 MBMarta is the cofounder of KgBase. KgBase helps you build your own knowledge graphs without writing code.
FI - Gaurav Singhal & Nupur Joshi (Arboreum) On Distributed Loan Networks
May 15, 2020 12:00 - 18 minutes - 17.1 MBGaurav and Nupur are cofounders of Arboreum. They are working to creating peer-to-peer lending networks that are more appealing to lenders and borrowers alike, with reduced risk, lower interest rates, and easier access to capital.
FI - Alex Shrestha (Oqqur) On Justin TV, but for VR
May 14, 2020 12:00 - 13 minutes - 12.5 MBAlex Shrestha is the cofounder of Oqqur. Oqqur. Oqqur helps people experience the world, remotely. In real-time. And 360 Degrees.
FI - Matt Shumer (Visos) On The Future of Virtual Reality
May 13, 2020 12:00 - 20 minutes - 19.3 MBMatt is the founder of Visos. Visos is building the first VR headset designer for healthcare.
FI - Kevin Kim (Stadium Live) On Sport Experiences for the Zoomers...Generation Z
May 12, 2020 12:00 - 27 minutes - 25.1 MBKevin Kim is the cofounder and CEO of Stadium Live. Follow live scores, play, earn & shop around sports with friends.
EB (Early Bets) - Pavel Asparouhov & Saneel Sreeni On The Berkeley Startup Scene
May 11, 2020 12:00 - 30 minutes - 28.2 MBPavel and Saneel are both investors at Contrary Capital, and are both involved in the Berkeley startup scene.
FI - Jason Keck (Broker Buddha) On Insurance Broker Software
May 10, 2020 12:00 - 17 minutes - 15.9 MBJason is the founder of Broker Buddha. They help commercial insurance brokers grow sales by simplifying the application and renewal process for you and your clients.
FI - Nathan Baschez (Divinations) On Growing a Substack Newsletter
May 09, 2020 12:00 - 40 minutes - 37.1 MBNathan Baschez is the founder of Divinations. Divinations is a newsletter on business strategy featuring interviews with founders, investors, execs, and academics
Early bets (EB) - Nina Khera (Biotein) On Human Longevity
May 08, 2020 12:00 - 18 minutes - 17 MBThis is a segment on the show called "Early Bets". I find young ambitious people who haven't found their startup yet, but might be starting a company soon. Nina works on various projects in human longevity. Among these projects, one to use gene sequencing to diagnose schizophrenia at an early stage, and another to find phenotypes in the mitochondria of senescent cells. The umbrella company is Biotein.
FI - Robbie Ferguson (Immutable) on Digital Games Merging With The Physical World
May 07, 2020 12:00 - 15 minutes - 14.7 MBRobbie Ferguson is the cofounder of Immutable. Immutable produces games with Immutable Assets: player-owned and openly programmable. Anyone can build tools or services around these assets and market them in an open, real-world economy. Freedom to trade.
FI - Jeremy Stern & Michael Mckain (Loft Radio) On Supporting Creators W/ Ethereum
May 06, 2020 12:00 - 23 minutes - 21.9 MBJeremy Stern and Michael Mckain are the founders of Loft Radio. Loft Radio is exploring new ways to pay creators online.
FI - Kai Frazier (Kai XR) On VR For Kids
May 05, 2020 12:00 - 22 minutes - 20.4 MBKai is the founder of Kai XR. Kai XR is a kid-friendly virtual reality platform where kids can explore, dream, and create.
FI - Daniel Dewar (Paperchain) On Making Money As Musician Online
May 04, 2020 12:00 - 19 minutes - 17.9 MBDaniel is the founder of Paperchain. Paperchain delivers early access for streaming revenue to artists, management and label teams.
FI - Jakub Krcmar (Veracity Protocol) On Trust in Physical Objects
May 03, 2020 12:00 - 17 minutes - 15.8 MBJakub Krcmar is the creator of Veracity Protocol. Veracity Protocol enables any camera to create a tamper-proof Physical Code™ based on an item’s material structure. This secures its authenticity, identity, and security — without special hardware, embedded tags, chips, or markers.
FI - Kirill Zubovsky (Smashnotes) Youtube For Podcast Snippets
May 02, 2020 12:00 - 17 minutes - 16.3 MBKirill Zubovsky is the founder of Smashnotes. Smashnotes is a curated collection of podcast notes.
FI - Derek Chiang (Zelos) On Future of Gaming
May 01, 2020 12:00 - 25 minutes - 23.1 MBDerek Chiang is the Cofounder of Zelos. Zelos enables you to collect points by finishing in-game missions and trade them for new games or in-game currency.
FI - Nikhil Krishnan (Get Real & Out Of Pocket) On The Rise of Creators
April 30, 2020 12:00 - 31 minutes - 29.3 MBNikhil is the founder of Get Real and Out Of Pocket. Get Real is a social experiment in creating more genuine relationships. Out of pocket is a newsletter about healthcare, but funny.
FI - Daniel Shein (Agnoris) On Restaurant Analytics
April 29, 2020 12:00 - 29 minutes - 27.4 MBDaniel Shein is the founder and CEO of Agnoris. Agnoris is a guest intelligence tool for great restaurants to position their menus for maximum sales, engagement and profit.
FI - Suril Kantaria (Savvy) On a New Model for Employer Health Insurance
April 27, 2020 12:00 - 35 minutes - 33 MBSuril Kantaria is the founder of Savvy. The easiest way to get health benefits for your startup, remote / distributed team, or small business.
FI - Oona Rokyta (Lance) On Freelancer Tools
April 26, 2020 12:00 - 19 minutes - 17.6 MBOona is the cofounder of Lance. Lance is your freelancing sidekick. Your finances, legal, and taxes done all in one place, so you can do you.