Village Global Podcast

Sam Lessin (@lessin) and Bobby Goodlatte (@rsg) join Erik on this episode. They Discuss:- The future of consumer social- How can consumer social startups compete with incumbents- How do you incentivize user growth on new platforms- Are Twitter and Instagram going away- What are the most interesting new ideas in consumer social- Which new consumer social networks will be successful- What technologies will enable the next wave of social networks- Will decentralized social networks ever happen- How can platforms capture and enable social capitalThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Dan Runcie (@RuncieDan) of Trapital joins Erik to discuss business and strategy in hip-hop. Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Zack Kanter (@zackkanter), founder and CEO of Stedi.com, joins Erik on this episode.They discuss:- How Zack thinks about Twitter, why from outside it seems absurd, and why he calls it a “text-based role-playing game.”- How he navigated the idea maze in starting Stedi and the key insight he had that led him to start the company.- How the legibility problem from the book Seeing Like a State has changed how he approaches company-building.- Why he says that “code is not an asset, code is a liability” and how AWS Lambda has changed how he built Stedi —and how all of this is related to legibility.- Why they don’t do performance reviews and what it means to have an “event-driven” culture.- His perspective on bootstrapping versus taking VC, why he says that founding companies requires domain expertise now, and why he built the company in Boulder.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Nadia Eghbal (@nayafia) of Substack joins Erik on this episode.They discuss:- How the internet changes how we find meaning and why new religions haven’t emerged from the internet yet.- The future of newspapers and publishing, and what happens if people can go direct to the reporters they trust via tools like Substack and others.- Her interest in the economics of content creators on the internet.- Shamelessness as a strategy.- Status on the internet and whether it’s really zero sum.- Global cooperation and local versus global impacts.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Sarah Tavel (@sarahtavel), partner at Benchmark, and Ben Rubin (@benrbn), founder of Houseparty and Meerkat, join Erik on this episode.They discuss:- Where the white space is in social and the possibilities for vertical-specific social networks.- Why Facebook looks to young people today the way Yahoo! looked to Sarah’s generation.- What participatory social looks like and how to solve the problem of presence.- Their ideas for new social networks.- What Twitter could have been.- How social interacts with gaming, audio, dating, and other spaces.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Phin Barnes (@phineasb) and Brett Berson (@brettberson), partners at First Round Capital, join Erik on this episode.They discuss:- Why when First Round was started VC was mainly an “anti-network business.”- How the needs of founders and companies have evolved since First Round was started.- The four phases of a company and when to think about raising funds.- How to think about price as an investor.- What, in their opinion, are the predictors of founder success.- Some of the projects and initiatives they’ve worked on at First Round.- How they get up to speed quickly on different spaces.- The future of the firm.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Hiten Shah (@hnshah), Co-Founder of FYI, joins Erik on this episode.They discuss:- Frameworks for picking startup ideas- Navigating the Idea Maze- How has the enterprise market changed in the past decade- Investment outlook for “future of work”- How has growth hacking and go-to-market evolved over the past decade- How to select your customers- Deciding on pricing- When do you start charging- How to think about retention- Can Linkedin be disruptedThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Justin Mares (@jwmares), founder of Kettle & Fire and Perfect Keto, joins Erik on this episode.They discuss:- The state of CPG, the history of the market, and the problems with the incentive structure today.- What has led to the decline in the health of the average American and where Silicon Valley goes wrong with its approach to food.- Where he would be investing if he was running a fund focused on health and wellness.- How to find non-traditional talent.- Why he is short San Francisco.- And much more.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Santiago Suarez (@SantiaSua) of Addi joins Erik on this episode. They Discuss:- Is lending a cyclical business- Lending as a form of customer acquisition- What can fintech lending companies learn from Affirm and Square- How lending in LatAm differs from North America- How to develop competitive advantages as a lending business in LatAm- Lessons to learn from scaling very fast- How to hire early employees- How to decide your company’s culture- How can lending startups compete with banks- How should lending startups think about balance sheet risk- How has the lending ecosystem changed in the past decade- Thoughts on Clearanc- Common mistakes of finch startupsThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Erik is joined on this episode by Mike Maples (@m2jr) of Floodgate. They Discuss:- Have all of the low hanging fruit of startup ideas been picked- How do the best founders approach entrepreneurship- Mike’s thoughts on the various conventional wisdoms of building startups- The power of “change events” for startup creation- How important is market timing- How important is it for your idea to be non-consensus- What makes a great founding team- Can you predict product market fit- Why do co-founder breakups happen and how do you prevent them- How do you know when you have an insight that’s worth pursuing- Thoughts on the Operator Angel movement- What does VC look like a decade from now- The relationship between VCs and their LPs- Investing in non-tech businesses- Can crypto disrupt the VC model- Mental models for what makes a successful investorThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.