This week we’re having tea with Nick Tommarello, founder and CEO at Wefunder, a crowdfunding platform that allows anyone—customers, users, fans—to invest as little as $100 in companies they love. Nick is an alumni of Y Combinator (W13) and Techstars (Boston '10). In this episode, Nick and Immad discuss: How the law changed on crowdfunding options Why founders might choose to raise funds on Wefunder The benefits of having distributed ownership The future of Wefunder and crowdfunding

Join Immad Akhund with Pilot CEO and Co-founder, Waseem Daher, and Ramp's Chief Business Officer, Colin Kennedy, as they discuss the acquisition process for startups.

This week we’re having tea with Mike Miller and Michael Ma, Partners at Liquid 2 Ventures. Before joining Liquid 2, Mike founded Cloudant (now IBM’s Cloud Data Services) and raised $18M before getting acquired by IBM. Michael Ma was the COO & Founder of TalkBin, acquired by Google, and then served as a Product Manager for Google. In this episode, Mike and Michael share: - Areas they’re excited about investing in - What Liquid 2 looks for in a great team - The most common mistakes...

This week we’re having tea with Leo Polovets, co-founder and General Partner at Susa Ventures. Before joining Susa Ventures, Leo was the second engineering hire at LinkedIn and built the first versions of products like LinkedIn Jobs and LinkedIn Groups. In this episode, Leo shares: 06:50: Tips for sending a cold intro 18:44: How founders can think about and pitch valuations 50:29: If seed-stage founders should pay themselves a salary

This week we’re having tea with Scott Orn, COO at Kruze Consulting, a startup CFO consulting firm. Prior to joining Kruze, where he runs the Venture Debt consulting practice, Scott was a Partner at Lighthouse Capital and has been part of deals like Upwork, Impossible Foods, and Freshbooks.

This week we’re having tea with Alex Bouaziz, Founder of Deel. Prior to founding Deel, Alex Bouaziz was Founding Partner at Sarona Ventures and Co-founder at Lifeslice, a mobile app for creating collaborative videos. In this episode, Alex shares: 03:50: How to create serendipity between remote employees 14:20: Choosing between independent contractors vs. salaried employees 18:40: How to think about cost-of-living and salary adjustments Want to hear more? Like the episode? Send us a note...

This week we’re having tea with Kanyi Maqubela and Steve Jang, Managing Partners at Kindred Ventures, which has invested in 80+ startups including Uber, Postmates, and Coinbase. Prior to Kindred, Kanyi was a Partner at Collaborative Fund, where he invested in Tala and Walker & Co. As an entrepreneur, Steve was a co-founder at Bitski, a cryptoasset wallet SDK provider, and SoundTracking (acquired by Rhapsody).

This week we’re having tea with Sahil Lavingia, the founder & CEO at Gumroad, an online platform that enables creators to sell products directly to consumers. Prior to Gumroad, Sahil was the second employee at Pinterest. He recently launched a $5m rolling fund using Twitter and a Notion memo; his limited partners include Arlan Hamilton, Tim Ferris, and Naval Ravikant.

This week we’re having tea with Jamie Quint, former Head of Growth at Notion. Before joining Notion, Jamie was the Senior Director of Product - Monetization at Reddit, building out the revenue product org from scratch and leading it to 3x revenue growth. He's also a growth advisor and has consulted for companies including Twitch, Everlane, and Credit Sesame.

This week we’re having tea with Hunter Walk and Satya Patel, Partners at Homebrew. Prior to Homebrew, Hunter led consumer product management at YouTube and managed product and sales for Google’s AdSense. Satya was previously VP Product at Twitter and joined Google in 2003 to work on AdSense.

This week we’re having tea with John Bautista, Partner and Board Director at Orrick. As a partner in the Silicon Valley office, he co-leads the Emerging Companies Group, which advises emerging companies and venture capital firms. He is also a board member and co-founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, as well as an advisor and co-founder of Clerky.com.

This week we're having tea with Elizabeth Yin, 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.

This week we’re having tea with Kevin Hartz, co-founder and chairman of Eventbrite. He's an early investor in startups like PayPal, Airbnb, and Pinterest. Most recently, he founded A-*, a new special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) which raised $200 million to acquire A-One and take it public. In this episode, Kevin shares: 0:55: What a SPAC is and why he chose to start one 04:44: How he launched a SPAC in 60 days 15:45: The revenue number at which startups should go public 19:21: The...

This week we’re having tea with Andrew Ofstad, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Airtable. Andrew previously led the redesign of Google Maps and worked as a PM on Android. In this episode, Andrew shares: 0:39: The timeline of getting Airtable to market 9:10: Tradeoffs between going after a narrow use case and building a horizontal product 17:05: How Airtable thought about pricing their pro account Want to hear more? Like the episode? Send us a note at [email protected].

This week we’re having tea with Chris Lyons who leads the Cultural Leadership Fund at Andreessen Horowitz. The goal of the CLF is to connect great cultural leaders to the best new technology companies and enable more African Americans to get into tech. Chris previously served as Chief of Staff at Andreessen Horowitz and worked with Jermaine Dupri as a music producer and engineer. In this episode, Chris shares: 0:45: How Chris’ journey led him to A16Z and the CLF 5:10: Why CLF is tackling...

This week we’re having tea with Allison Barr Allen. Allison is the COO and co-founder of Fast, a one-click login and check out startup. They recently raised a $20m Series A from Stripe and Index Ventures. Previously, she was Head of Product Operations for the Money team at Uber. She is also an angel investor with Trail Run Capital. In this episode, Allison shares: 3:50: Why existing financial tools don’t serve customers well 5:30: Where she sees opportunities in fintech and...

This week we’re having tea with Semil Shah. Through his seed fund, Haystack, he's invested in 70+ startups including Instacart, DoorDash, and Opendoor. He's also a venture partner at Lightspeed. In this episode, Semil shares: - 2:48: What entrepreneurs need to know about portfolio construction - 10:08: Why public markets aren't matching the private investment sector - 19:30: How entrepreneurs can use valuation as a lever when fundraising - 22:28: Why he passed on investing in Clubhouse Want...

This week we’re having tea with Brianne Kimmel, founder and managing partner of Work Life Ventures. She’s an investor in Webflow, Voiceflow, Tandem, and 20+ startups focused on the future of work. Business Insider recently named Brianne a top angel investor that every startup should know. In this episode, Brianne shares: 3:25: Why productivity tools blur lines between consumer and enterprise 6:12: Tools to help remote teams stay connected 9:30: How companies can reimagine benefits for remote...

This week we're having tea with Brad Flora, a Visiting Partner at Y Combinator. Prior to YC, Brad founded and sold Perfect Audience, an online advertising startup. He's an active angel investor and has invested in 150 startups around the globe. In this episode, Brad shares: 4:08: How he broke into investing  5:26: Why he bets big on international markets 13:16: Where he sees investment opportunities  15:33: Why raising in Silicon Valley is harder for international startups

This week we're having tea with Cadran Cowansage. Cadran is the CEO and founder of Elpha, an online community for women in tech. Prior to founding Elpha, Cadran was an Engineering lead at Y Combinator and Senior Software Engineer at Mongo DB. In this episode, Cadran shares: 1:55: How to know if building community makes sense for your company 5:05: What resources you need to invest in community building 8:45: Tactics to get a new community off the ground 13:10: How to building and monetize a...

This week, we're having tea with serial entrepreneur and investor, Elad Gil. In a past life, Elad started the Mobile team at Google and co-founded Color Genomics. Now, he's an investor and advisor to companies including Airbnb, Pinterest, and Stripe. He's also the author of the High Growth Handbook.  In this episode, Elad shares: 1:27: How both early and late stage companies can adjust to a downturn  6:52: The amount of runway you should aim for  13:05: How to position decelerated growth to...

This week we're having tea with Seth Bannon, a founding partner at Fifty Years. Fifty Years, a seed fund backing socially impactful startups, has invested in companies including Memphis Meats, Solugen, and Astranis. Previously, Seth was founder/CEO of Amicus, a Y Combinator-backed fundraising tool for non-profits. In this episode, Seth shares: 2:00: The technological advancements that came out of WWII efforts, and how COVID-19 can help us prepare for future pandemics 4:45: Where...

This week, we’re having tea with James Beshara, an angel investor in companies like Gusto, ThirdLove and Halo Top. James was also the CEO/Founder of Tilt, a crowdfunding platform that was acquired by Airbnb. In this episode, James shares: 0:35: How a very early bet on Gusto got James into investing 6:30: A 5-step framework for evaluating D2C brands 15:45: How D2C brands can think about valuations and fundraising Want to hear more? Like the episode? Send us a note at [email protected].