Startup Investing: Trace Cohen of New York Venture Partners on How to Manage Deal Flow, Evaluate Startups, and Partner with Great Founders

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Trace Cohen (@Trace_Cohen), Managing Director of New York Venture Partners, where he manages over 50 direct early stage startup investments. NYVP is a Family Office that invests in early stage startups that provides an ecosystem of financing, mentorship and strategic marketing. Trace has sourced/met thousands of founders, conducted due diligence, leading to multiple strategic investments every month, while also helping to manage over 50 current investments. He also runs the Active Investors Community with hundreds of investors around the world providing deal flow, speakers and networking opportunities through his newsletter, Slack channel and Upstream app.

He was the President and Co-Founder of Launch.it, a new self-publishing platform for PR professionals, agencies and brands to launch and socialize everything new. Prior to that Trace was an SVP at iFluencePR where he “created understanding for a complex world.” He specializes in strategic PR for tech companies looking to develop their communications, branding and outreach strategies to connect with their communities and customers with transparency. Trace is a graduate of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University with a double major in Entrepreneurship and Marketing. He is one of the original Co-Founders and former CMO of Brand-Yourself.com, which helped students and young professionals manage their reputation and personal brands online.

Website: New York Venture Partners

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tracecohen

Twitter: @Trace_Cohen

Trace's Email: [email protected]

Show Notes:

Investing as a family business for TraceStudying entrepreneurship before it was coolStarting his first company, Brand Yourself, from his college dorm roomJoining his father as a full time professional angel investorTrace’s distinction between angel investor and professional angel investorTrace’s process for investing at New York Venture PartnersTheir “do diligence” processWhere they get their deal flow and how they manage and prioritize itInvestors as “marriage counselors/therapists”Being in the businesses of saying ‘no’ and exitsSome of Trace’s best investments, like Fi and UizardEvaluating founders based on their attitude around what’s possibleWhere they invest geographically and how that has shifted in the last 5 yearsMaking memes and having one go viralTrace’s newsletter The Active Investor List

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. 

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. 

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. 

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/