Tank Talks
32 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 3 years ago -Weekly insightful conversations with leaders in the startup ecosystem discussing the truth about investing, building and running startups. Join your host, Matt Cohen, Founder & Managing Partner at Ripple Ventures, as he interviews CEOs, Venture Capitalist & Founders from around the world.
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Episodes
Tank Talk: Nate & Chris (GPs @ UNION Labs) Deep-Tech Investing at the Early-Stage
January 19, 2021 15:15 - 106 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our two guests Nate Williams & Chris Kim Co-Founders and Managing Partners at UNION Labs to discuss, “Deep Tech Investing at the Early-Stage” Nate & Chris both have an incredible experience in building and scaling deep-tech startups given their mutual background at August Home where they both met back in 2015 and helped grow the company to over $75mm in sales before being acquired. Nate's career originally started at Intel in the Digital Home Group and even...
Tank Talk: Uri Pomerantz (VC @ Jackson Square Ventures) Anti-Hype Venture Investing
January 04, 2021 20:53 - 111 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Uri Pomerantz, Venture Partner at Jackson Square Ventures to discuss, “The Truth About Anti-Hype Investing” Uri has an incredible background as a former Mckinsey consultant, Startup Founder and Venture investor. As a founder, Uri built a startup that was acquired by a Fortune 500 company (John Hancock), and went on to launch a fintech savings app within John Hancock called Twine which was awarded the best overall Fintech mobile app in 2019. Uri w...
Tank Talk: Saurabh Sharma (GP @ Jump Capital) - The Democratization of Data Analytics & Machine Learning
December 16, 2020 22:57 - 97.1 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Saurabh Sharma, General Partner at Jump Capital to discuss, “The Democratization of Data Analytics & Machine Learning” Saurabh has a diverse background in investing, operations & product management and leads Jump's efforts in Enterprise Software and IT Infrastructure. Prior to joining Jump, Saurabh led various roles at Groupon in product, marketing & operations. Previously, he was an early stage investor at Lightbank, an Investment Banker with Bar...
Tank Talk: Dr. Haley Perlus (Peak Performance Coach) - How CEOs Can Handle Adversity Like a High Performance Athlete
November 17, 2020 15:43 - 61.8 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Dr. Haley Perlus, PhD, Peak Performance Coach to discuss “How CEOs Can Handle Adversity Like a High-Performance Athlete” Since the age of 12, Dr. Perlus aspired toward a career in Sport and Exercise Psychology after competing nationally in downhill ski racing. Within one year of earning her PhD. at the age of 28, she became a professor, public speaker, and consultant to the US national team. Dr Perlus has written four books on peak performance and ...
Tank Talk: Samir Kaji (Senior Managing Director @ First Republic Bank) - Breaking Through the Crowd as an Emerging Manager
November 10, 2020 13:07 - 97.7 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Samir Kaji, Senior Managing Director @ First Republic Bank, to discuss “Breaking Through the Crowd as an Emerging Manager” Samir is a well known voice in the venture capital ecosystem having started his career at Silicon Valley Bank at the beginning of the tech boom in 1999. Samir started out as an Analyst and eventually made his way up to Managing Director of the Menlo office where he completed over $5 billion in debt transactions with over 500 co...
Tank Talk: Fabrice Grinda (Founding Partner @ FJ Labs) - Investing in Marketplaces Before It's A Marketplace
November 03, 2020 15:42 - 85.1 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Fabrice Grinda, Founding Partner of @ FJ Labs to discuss “Investing in Marketplaces Before It’s A Marketplace” Before starting FJ Labs, Fabrice was an incredibly successful entrepreneur having launched several startups before and after the dot-com bust in early 2000. His first startup Aucland was started by Fabrice at age 23 which grew into one of the largest auction sites in Europe. Next, Fabrice started Zingy in 2001 and grew it to $200 million i...
Tank Talk: Elaine Zelby (Principal & Director of Growth @ SignalFire) - Product Led Growth Strategies for Startups
October 20, 2020 14:11 - 61.4 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Elaine Zelby, Principal & Director of Growth @ SignalFire to discuss Product Led Growth Strategies for Startups. Before joining SignalFire, Elaine spent the early part of her career at Capriza, an enterprise software startup backed by a16z, and Charles River Ventures as one of the first employees building out many of the go-to-market strategies where she learned how to incentivize internal teams as well as external partners. Elaine later joined sl...
Tank Talk: Ade Ajao (Partner @ Base10 Partners) - How to Invest in Automation & AI for the Real Economy
September 22, 2020 12:59 - 90.5 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Ade Ajao, Managing Partner @ Base10 Partners to discuss Investing in Automation & AI tools for the real economy. Before starting Base10, Ade is best known for being the Co-Founder and CEO of the startup Tuenti, also known as the ‘Spanish Facebook” which he stared back in 2005 in college with some friends. The company eventually went on to be acquired by Telefonica for $100mm 5 years later. In his next act, Ade moved on to Co-Found Identified, a d...
Tank Talk: Ryan Freeman (Head of Enterprise Partnerships @ DoorDash) - Managing Partnerships as a Startup
September 15, 2020 11:43 - 75.9 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Ryan Freeman, Head of Enterprise Partnerships @ DoorDash to discuss Managing Enterprise Partnerships as a Startup. On today's Talk, we ask Ryan about his operator journey starting out in Consulting at Accenture where he worked his way into a global group focused on international expansion. Ryan explains how his experience at Accenture helped shape his views on how startups can deal with ambiguity and strong competencies around specific markets and ...
Tank Talk: Wes Tang-Wymer (Partner @ Rucker Park) - Late-Stage Mega Deals to Early-stage Venture
September 08, 2020 13:05 - 97.6 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Wes Tang-Wymer, Co-Founder & General Partner @ Rucker Park Capital. On today's Talk, we ask Wes about his investor journey starting out in investment banking at Morgan Stanley and his unconventional path towards Wall St. Next, we ask Wes about his transition to the hedge fund world where he landed a role as a long/short equities analyst at Steve Cohen's family office, Point 72 Asset Mgmt, focusing on technology investments. We dig into the extremel...
Tank Talk: Sandeep Bhadra (Partner @ Vertex Ventures) - Investing in Cloud, Data and Cyber for the Next Decade
September 01, 2020 11:55 - 97.4 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Sandeep Bhadra, Partner @ Vertex Ventures. On today's Talk, we ask Sandeep about his operator journey starting out in engineering and product management roles at Texas Instruments. Sandeep explains the lessons he learned around building next-gen technologies and trying to sell his visions internally while navigating around the politics at such a large company. Next we ask Sandeep about his transition to corporate development at Cisco Systems wher...
Tank Talk: Reid Christian (General Partner @ CRV) - Investing in SaaS for the Next 50 Years
August 25, 2020 10:57 - 51.6 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Reid Christian, General Partner @ CRV (Charles River Ventures). On today's Talk, we ask Reid about his journey starting out on the investment banking and private equity side at RBC Capital Markets and Symmetric Capital in Boston. Next, we dig into his transition to venture capital with his role at Battery Ventures and the challenges he faced moving from the corporate banking side over to traditional venture capital. We dig into his lead investment ...
Tank Talk: Lo Toney (Founding Managing Partner @ Plexo Capital) - How Emerging Managers Can Balance Long-term Success Versus Short-term Gains in Venture
August 18, 2020 15:00 - 67.3 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Lo Toney, Founding Managing Partner @ Plexo Capital. On today's Talk, we ask Lo about his operator journey starting out in product & marketing leadership roles at firms like Nike, eBay & Zynga and the lessons he learned around empathy and compassion. Next, we ask Lo about his transition to venture capital with his first job at Comcast ventures where he worked on the catalyst fund as part of their minority-oriented venture program. Moving on, we di...
Tank Talk: Susan Su (Portfolio Growth @ Sound Ventures) - Startup Tips for Growth, Branding and Strategic Partnerships
August 11, 2020 12:48On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Susan Su, Head of Portfolio Growth & Marketing @ Sound Ventures. On today's Talk, we ask Susan about her operator journey starting out in leadership roles in product and marketing at companies like Google and AppSumo in San Francisco. We dig into Susan's role as a venture partner and marketer-in-residence at 500 Startups where she launched and operated a 10-week program for startups and ask her about her proudest accomplishments during her time the...
Tank Talk: Anil Achyuta (Investment Director @ TDK Ventures) - Investing in Frontier Tech at a CVC
August 04, 2020 23:12 - 90.4 MBOn today's Talk, we ask Anil about his journey starting out as a research scientist at global institutions like Draper Labs & Johnson & Johnson in Boston. We dig into Anil's role as head of the “brain on a chip” project funded by DARPA and MIT to study brain diseases. Next we dig into his time as head of external innovation at L’Oreal and the challenges he faced while looking at over 200 startups without making one venture investment. Next, we ask Anil about his journey to TDK Ventures and...
Tank Talk: Villi Iltchev (Partner @ Two Sigma Ventures) - Investing in Emerging Areas at the Early-Stage
July 28, 2020 22:25 - 86.1 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Villi Iltchev, Partner @ Two Sigma Ventures. On today's Talk, we ask Villi about his journey into technology investing after starting his career at HP on the corporate development side and then moving over to Salesforce during the last crisis. We ask Villis' about his time as Vice President of Corp Dev at Salesforce Ventures and about some of the amazing startups he invested in like BOX, Hubspot, Zapier and countless others. We dig into Villi’s ex...
Tank Talk: Elizabeth Yin (Partner @ Hustle Fund) - How to Assess for Hustle at the Early-Stage
July 14, 2020 20:42 - 59.5 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Elizabeth Yin, Co-Founder & Managing Partner @ Hustle Fund. On today's Talk, we ask Elizabeth about her journey in leaving Google during the last crisis to start Launchbit, an ad-tech platform that she eventually sold to BuySellAds and how she eventually made her way onto the investment side with 500 Startups. We dig into Elizabeth's time in running the 500 Startups Mountain View office and how she was able to select founders to back after reviewin...
Tank Talk: Darrell Heaps (Founder @ Q4 Inc.) - How Being An Elite Athlete Makes You a Better CEO
July 10, 2020 22:09 - 92.8 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Darrell Heaps, Founder & CEO @ Q4 Inc. On today's Talk, we ask Darrell about his journey as an Elite Mogul Skier on the World Cup stage and his transition to Founding and Leading Q4 Inc. for the last 15 years. We discuss the bumps and bruises Darrell experienced both on the mountain and in the boardroom. We also dig into Darrell's ability to overcome adversity as an Elite Athlete and how his competitive nature in sports has helped him build Q4 into...
Tank Talk: Tony Conrad (Partner @ True Ventures) - People-First Approach to Investing
July 07, 2020 19:04 - 84.4 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Tony Conrad, Partner @ True Ventures On today's Talk, we ask Tony about his humble beginnings of growing up in a rural farming community in Indiana and how he made his way around the world living in places like Paris, New Delhi & Jakarta. We dig into Tony’s experiences of Co-Founding two startups that both exited to AOL and what he looks for when backing founders. We also ask Tony why he backed specialty coffee brand Blue Bottle Coffee and how it b...
Tank Talk: Mimi Lam & Drummond Munro (Co-Founders @ Superette) - Building a Private Cannabis Company
July 01, 2020 02:01 - 56 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Mimi Lam & Drummond Munro, Co-Founders of Superette, Canada’s Most Awarded Cannabis Startup. On today's Talk, we ask Mimi & Drum about how they originally entered the Cannabis industry before teaming up to start Superette. We dig into how they came up with the unique concept for Superette’s brand and how they differentiated themselves in the already crowded retail cannabis space. We discuss their ability to recruit passionate and talented employees...
Tank Talk: Devon Wright (GM @ Yelp!) - Bootstrapping a Startup & How to Succeed After VCs Say No!
June 18, 2020 22:24 - 98.8 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Devon Wright, General Manager at Yelp! In San Francisco & former Co-Founder & CEO of Turnstyle Solutions. This talk is a special one for me personally as I owe a lot of my entrepreneurial and venture investing career to Devon. Not only was Devon the first person I wrote my initial angel check into back in 2012 to help start Turnstyle before it was even a company, but Devon has become one of my closest friends and supporters to push me to leave my c...
Tank Talk: Tony van Marken (First Ascent Ventures) - How Climbing Mount Everest is Like Building a Startup
June 12, 2020 21:28 - 73.3 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Tony van Marken, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of First Ascent Ventures. Tony is not only a successful businessman and venture capitalist but has an extremely accomplished mountaineering career having become the first South African to climb all Seven Summits, the highest mountains on each of the world’s seven continents. On today's Talk, we ask Tony about his experience climbing Mount Everest in 2005 and his battle with the mountain, poor health a...
Tank Talk: Cole Diamond (CEO Coinsquare) - Discussing Fundraising During a Boom & Managing Capital During a Crisis
June 05, 2020 19:03 - 60.9 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Cole Diamond, the CEO Of Coinsquare. The world’s premier cryptocurrency exchanges platforms for trading Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and many other cryptocurrencies. Cole represents the true meaning of a serial entrepreneur after starting and building several companies in Canada before making his way to becoming the CEO of Coinsquare. Cole previously Co-Founded two other startups that unfortunately didn’t succeed but kept pushing forward and is now well...
Tank Talk: John Ruffolo (Founder OMERS Ventures) - Discussing Venture & Growth Capital and Outlook on Canadian Tech
June 02, 2020 19:30 - 86.9 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest John Ruffolo, Founder & former CEO of OMERS Ventures and Co-Founder & Vice Chair of the Council of Canadian Innovators. John is well known around the VC and Tech ecosystem for starting the Ontario Municipal Workers Pension Funds Venture arm in 2011. John has been instrumental in helping develop some of Canada’s biggest tech companies and was an early investor in some of the biggest exits in Canadian tech. Johns portfolio includes companies such as ...
Tank Talk: Michael Hyatt (Hyatt Family Office) - Discussing Being a Family Office
May 27, 2020 15:07 - 79.6 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Michael Hyatt, Co-Founder of Hyatt Family Office. Michael is well known in the Canadian tech ecosystem as a serial entrepreneur turned angel investor and is regularly seen on TV providing his advice to aspiring entrepreneurs. Before Michael started his first company, he was President & CEO at Dyadem which sold to IHS a US public company in 2011. Michael went on to co-found BlueCat Networks with his brother and eventually sold the business to privat...
Tank Talk: Houman Haghighi (Partner @ Menlo Ventures) - Discussing Early Stage Venture
May 26, 2020 02:50 - 110 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Houman Haghighi, Partner at Menlo Ventures. Houman has spent the last decade of his career investing and building startups. Prior to joining Menlo, Houman was the Director and Head of Business Development at Qualcomm Ventures for over 7 years and was a Senior Product Manager and engineer at Qualcomm Corporate before joining the venture team in 2011. On today's Talk, we ask Houman about his outlook on Venture as a top tier VC and his tips on managi...
Tank Talk: Lawrence Mandel (Director of Production Engineering @ Shopify) - Discussing Remote Engineering Teams
May 26, 2020 02:47 - 80 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Lawrence Mandel, Director of Production Engineering & Developer Acceleration at Shopify. Prior to Shopify, Lawrence spent time at Mozilla as a Director of Engineering where he oversaw the release of the Firefox browser & before that he spent time at IBM as a Senior Product Manager. On today's Talk, we ask Lawrence about running remote engineering teams and some best practices on how to keep developers engaged and on time during COVID. We also talk ...
Tank Talk: Gavin Ezekowitz (Belz Family Office & Associates) - Discussing Early Stage Venture
May 26, 2020 02:42 - 47.7 MBVenture as an asset class, overview of early stage VC, and investment strategies.
Tank Talk: Rob Khazzam (Former GM of Uber Canada) - Discussing Growth
May 25, 2020 18:59 - 61.5 MBGrowth tactics, growth at all cost, and facing adversity in new environments.
Tank Talk: Rob Khazzam (Former GM of Uber Canada) - Discussing Growth Tactics
May 25, 2020 18:59 - 117 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Rob Kazzahm former General Manager of Uber Canada. Rob was one of the first launchers in Central & Eastern Europe and was at the frontlines of trying to onboard drivers and users on to Uber while managing the regulatory environment. We discuss growth tactics that worked and didn't work while assessing the proper way to attract new users with constrained resources. Rob’s experience building the Uber brand in Europe and then managing the Canadian of...
Tank Talk: Chris Rasmussen (President, Founder of Doxim) - Discussing CEO Tactics
May 21, 2020 17:18 - 87.5 MBOn today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Chris Rasmussen, Founder & Chairman of Doxim. Chris founded Doxim in 2000 with a vision to develop and deliver software that helps customers automate and digitize processes that enhance customer engagement. Through the last two decades he has lived through the ground zero of transformational change in business communications, information management, and document automation. Chris is a charismatic and approachable leader, and under his careful guida...
Tank Talks - Trailer
May 20, 2020 16:16 - 1.81 MBWelcome to Tank Talks presented by Ripple Ventures. The interactive podcast series focused on Entreprenuers, Operators & Investors.