Investing in Startups
Investing In Startups explores the strategies and stories of leading early-stage venture capitalists. The show is for VCs, angels, founders, operators, and the startup-curious. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just dipping your toes into startups, this podcast is your guide to navigating this dynamic ecosystem. The show is hosted by Joe Magyer, Founder and Managing Partner of Seaplane Ventures.
Episodes
This episode originally aired in September 2024 — and it's aged remarkably well. We're bringing it back with fresh context on why Niki's predictions have proven out.
Niki Scevak is co-founder and partner at Blackbird, Australia and New Zealand's most prominent venture capital firm. What started with a $29M AUD debut fund and 500 meetings to get 96 people to say yes has grown into a platform with six flagship ...
Peter Walker is Head of Insights at Carta, where he tracks some of the most important data shaping venture right now. In this conversation, we talked about hot seed deals, quitting, liquidity, and what the latest market data really says about valuations, exits, and the changing structure of venture.
Peter explains why the most expensive seed deals ...
Ariel Winton-Jones is the founder of The Aligned Fund, where she invests in B2B software companies at the earliest signs of product-market fit. We talked about services as software, what B2B looks like in the age of AI, and why intentional investing can be a real edge.
Ariel explains how her thinking evolved from traditional B2B SaaS into what she c...
Daniel Dart is the Founder and General Partner of Rock Yard Ventures. He is also the founder of the Future Titans summit, an amazing event he recently hosted in Austin for emerging managers and the LPs who back them. Daniel is a collaborative, Seed-focused investor focused on backing founders who are refunding core industries. We talked about Future Titans, ambition, authenticity, and the pursuit of Tier One status. We also e...
Gaurav Jain is the Cofounder and Managing Partner of Afore Capital. Afore is one of the OGs of institutional pre-seed investing and runs the largest dedicated pre-seed venture fund in the world. We talked about momentum as a moat, how vibe-coding effects pre-seed investing, and the importance of great product and distribution. Here's a longer breakdown…
Gaurav explains why m...
We're celebrating our recent 50th episode with a special conversation between host Joe Magyer and guest host Chris Hill of Money Unplugged. Chris interviews Joe about his lessons learned from the first 50 episodes, how AI is impacting startups and venture capital, what Joe has changed his mind about, and investing in startups, both the craft and the show. Joe and Chris also unpack how AI has reshaped venture in just two years...
We're excited to share this interview with Zal Bilimoria, founding partner at Refactor Capital, recorded live at the recent Future Titans emerging manager summit. Zal is a high-conviction, hard-tech investor and solo capitalist who manages more than $225 million. He has a fascinating career, from building products at Netflix and LinkedIn to being an early employee at a16z to later forming Refactor. We talked about why Zal is ...
Seth Levine is a Partner at Foundry Group, a longtime early-stage firm investing in both startups and emerging fund managers. We talked about the art of working with founders, short-term-ism, knowing your own competitive advantage, why AI will create more jobs than it disrupts, and the myth of overnight success. Here's the longer of what we covered:
Doing the real work with founders...
Conor Brennan-Burke and Manu Ebert are the co-founders of Hyperspell. Hyperspell provides a memory and context layer to AI agents is one of our portfolio companies at Seaplane Ventures. I (Joe here) was trying to explain to some friends at a BBQ recently Hyperspell what did and learned pretty quickly that most people aren’t familiar yet with AI agents. Given that and the sudden explosion in interest in AI agents, I thou...
Courtney McCrea is the Cofounder and Managing Partner of Read more
Dan Teran is a Cofounder and Managing Partner of Gutter Capital. Gutter is an early-stage firm based out of New York focused on founders tackling the world’s toughest problems. We talked about why Gutter invests with conviction, why they seek out founders with unique insights rather than Gutter trying to dream up their own, and how AI can solve problems in the real world, not just online. We also dug into:
...
Our guest this week is David Gardner, Cofounder of The Motley Fool. David is one of the best stock pickers of his generation. While for many investors a single 100X investment would be a career-defining win, David has earned a 100X return on 6 companies including Nvidia, Tesla, Amazon, and Netflix. We talked about breaking the rules of investing, optionality, valuation, letting winners run, and much more. David is one of the ...
David Zhou is an investor in emerging managers, an angel investor, a blogger, and the host of the Superclusters podcast. We talked about how LPs can size up emerging managers, how VCs can stand out, portfolio construction, and which of sourcing, picking, and winning is the most important. We also explored:
+ Why David thinks that “access beats picking (then winning)” fo...
We're trying something new with our first roundtable! Our guests are Sonia Nagar from SNAK Venture Partners and Colin Gardiner from Yonder Ventures. Sonia and Colin are both early-stage investors, friends of mine, and experts on marketplaces and network effects. We talked about AI’s role in marketplaces, why network effects aren’t more popular (even though they should be), how to make your own luck, what it’...
Our guest this week is Hunter Walk, Co-Founder of Homebrew and Screendoor. Hunter has a deep background in product, including from his time at Google and YouTube, but is best known for his investing. Homebrew’s big wins over the years include Chime, Plaid, Gusto, Cruise, and more. We talked about trust and context, product, funnel math, investing life after LPs, and why Hunter isn’t as fussy these days about valua...
Joe Magyer is the host of Investing in Startups, but his real job is running his early-stage boutique, Seaplane Ventures. In this episode, Joe is interviewed by his friend Owen Raszkiewicz, Founder and CIO of Rask Group and host of the Australian Investors Podcast. Joe talked why he made the move from public to private markets, how small firms can compete with big firms, the current venture landscape, putting AI to work as an...
Jackie DiMonte is the Cofounder and General Partner of Grid Capital. We talked about power laws, investing with conviction, how to help founders in their earliest stages, small funds vs. big funds, and whether pre-seed valuations really are mental. We spoke in depth about:
- Why Pre/Seed (not just “pre-seed”). Jackie sees pre/seed as a continuum and optimizes for ...
Morgan Flager is the Managing Partner of Silverton Partners. Silverton is an early-stage firm that has had more than 30 companies IPO or get acquired. We talked about the art and science of portfolio construction, when to bend on price, and which of team, product, or market is most important. We also dove into:
Silverton’s “early PMF” lane. Sweet spot is writing ~...
Rex Salisbury is the Founder and General Partner of fintech-focused Cambrian Ventures. We talked about how Rex built a big community and following in the fintech world, why fintech startups are on a roll, disruption versus partnership, and how the venture world is evolving.
Other topics include:
- The Bay Area fosters a unique culture of openness and innovation.
- Building ...
Charles Hudson is the Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures. Precursor is a generalist pre-seed firm based in San Francisco that invests in startups from all over. We talked about the importance of founder-centric investing, portfolio construction, and the balancing act of taking money off the table with winners. Charles has made over 400 investments at Precursor and has a lot of insights to draw upon as a result...
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