018 Mike Annunziata: Building the best seed stage venture capital firm on the planet (Also Capital‪)‬ Brick by Brick

Mike Annunziata is the Founding Partner of Also Capital, the Co-Founder of ⁠Farther Farms & a board member of Varda Space⁠⁠.




In this episode, Ollie & Mike talk about:


Mike's fund, Also Capital
Deep tech industry trends
How to find great deep tech founders
The founding story of Varda Space
The founding story of Farther Farms
How to master deep tech branding




Timestamps:

00:34 Mike's Background

04:16 Varda Space Founding Story

07:14 Storytelling for Founders

09:47 How do VC's find investment opportunities in Deep Tech?

13:56 How to launch a startup?

17:42 Farther Farms origin story

20:04 The steps to grow Farther Farms from Seed to Series B

22:17 Mike's lessons from his early times as an entrepreneur

24:03 Should you stay in a stable career or start a company?

25:21 Mike's approach to deep tech investing

31:32 Having fun and playing to win

33:58 The importance of getting on that flight

36:47 How the best founders lead their teams?

41:44 The biggest challenge of founding Farther Farms

43:42 The importance of aligning leaders with organisational culture

46:44 The difference between a seed stage founder, a growth stage founder & a public company CEO

48:34 How to pick good board members

50:32 How to guide founders as a board member

53:15 Who are board members typically?

54:11 Branding for deep tech companies

57:31 How to attract the best team to your deep tech startup?

59:18 Exciting frontier technologies arriving in the future

01:03:50 The Also Capital Flywheel

01:06:17 What does being a Father teach you about life?




Mike [Twitter]

Ollie [Twitter, WEBOAF]


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