YUVC - why you venture capital YZ Fu | VC | LP | HNWI

YZ Yuanzhe Fu + YY Yuyan Wang, founders of YUVC are joined by Sue Xu, Managing Partner at Amino Capital on the YUVC Podcast.

Dr. Sue Xu joined the firm in 2012, with investment theme of data moat, network effect and domain agnostic. She has successful investments from inception to unicorn in Generative AI, Consumer, SaaS and Frontier tech.

Highlights:

YY: Your most hesitant investment so far?
Sue: Most early-stage deals are controversial. No one is a winner for sure.
YY: Advice for Younger Self?
Sue: Find your position in the society. Then you can ignite endless inspiration.

Chapters:

04:34 Gift Moments
15:29 Rationality in VC
20:21 Silicon Valley Angle
24:36 Founder Portrait
28:13 Women in Tech
31:46 Partners at Amino Capital

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YZ Yuanzhe Fu + YY Yuyan Wang, founders of YUVC are thrilled to have Andreas Munk Holm of eu.vc, since we've shared so many common traits and stories.

Andreas, together with David Cruz e Silva, shaped eu.vc to be Europe's headline VC community, where 2 VCs are invited on the show every week. After chatting with 1,000+ VCs, they are also angel LPs of 10+ VC funds.

Highlights:

Do you agree with ‘there are two types of people who want to enter the VC industry, either very smart and capable, or super naive’?
Yes and no. Let me tell you about how I think about venture (from the perspective of people raising funds, because that’s what I care about as an LP)Story about my own journey in venture + realizing how much of a networked industry it is and there being “the in-crowd” and those outside of it. And how this impacts the industry as a whole.Conclusion: There’s clearly an A and B team in venture. So I guess that statement goes even for people IN venture. Just look at the performance dispersion in venture. Even at the fund level, there’s a power law.What are some commonalities of promising European emerging VC funds?
More solo-GPs, some very strongMore specialized firms, obv in deep tech, climate, and some in diversityStarting to see more later stage firms, which is great for Europe.Eastern Europe is incredibly interesting, great tech talent, starting to have breakout companies that feed great angels and founders back into the ecosystem, Romania being the posterboy for this with UI Path.Where do you see eu.vc in five years?
We do everything with an eye to becoming the most well-respected VC centric platform for European venture. Be that in the form of podcasts, educational courses, dinners, survival trips or fund investments.
Chapters:

00:45 On 2 types of VCs: either extremely smart & capable, or naive?07:15 On the game of VC08:15 Andreas' path to VC15:08 Why VC and LP only?21:48 Flywheel effect of running EUVC27:57 EUVC in 5 years35:55 The right GP and the European trends
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YZ Yuanzhe Fu + YY Yuyan Wang, founders of YUVC are joined by Dr. Han Shen, Founding Partner at iFly.vc on the YUVC Podcast.

YUVC had a brunch chat in Shanghai with Dr. Han Shen, founding partner of iFly.vc, a US-based early-stage consumer VC fund.

Dr. Shen is an early investor of Oculus, Weee!, and beyond.

A PhD in Chemistry from @UChicago and an MBA from @wharton , Dr. Shen broke into venture the hard way - visiting 100+ VCs at the Sand Hill Road, working for the series-C lead investor of @tesla (Vantage Point), joining Formation 8 and investing in Oculus (acquired by Facebook for $2b), and building his own fund iFly.vc and investing in @Weee_official the largest Asian fresh food e-commerce company in the U.S.

Highlights:

YZ: What’s the hardest part of building a venture capital fund?
Han: Consistently investing in the next big things.

YY: Your team setup and organizational culture?
Han: I’m a solo GP. I have operations team and associates. I remind them slow is fast, especially in one’s early years of VC.

YZ: Why was Weee!, your portfolio company and now the #1 Asian delivery app in the US, rejected by everyone?
Han: Some simply said TAM wasn’t big. But it wasn’t true. Minorities, including Asian, Hispanic, spend $360b on groceries. This market is under-served.

Chapters:

02:05 Entering VC in 2009
13:53 Investment Thesis of iFly.vc
34:57 the Next Big Thing

Links:
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YZ Yuanzhe Fu + YY Yuyan Wang, founders of YUVC are joined by Guy Kawasaki, the Wise Guy, on the YUVC Podcast.

Guy is on a mission to make people remarkable. He is the co-author of Think Remarkable, the definitive guide to murdering your mediocrity, and the host of the Remarkable People podcast. He's also the chief evangelist of Canva and the ex-chief evangelist of Apple.

Guy’s new book, Think Remarkable, is out! Check it out!

Highlights:

YY: To become more remarkable people, which is better for me as a founder or VC to get an MBA?
Guy: I will tell you that to be a tech entrepreneur, an MBA is not necessary nor it's sufficient. It's two years out of your life where you could be building your product or service.

YY: Could you elaborate a bit more on how you would tailor content to the Remarkable guys?
Guy: I probably prep four to five hours for every episode. Many times the guest is coming on with a new book, so I have to read the new book. And when I start an interview, typically I have a sheet of paper with 20 to 30 questions ready to go.

YZ: Which stage of the three stages in your book, Growth, Great, and Grease, is more difficult for you in your personal development?
Guy: Well, first, I think grace has been the easiest. When you get to be 60, 70 years old, all the crap has been beaten out of you. So it gets easier. I would say the grit phase was probably the hardest. It just takes dedication and it just takes not giving up.

Chapters:

04:21 UCLA, Berkeley Haas, or Stanford?
06:36 Connect the Dots
07:06 How Great is AI?
10:52 Pain Points of VC
14:31 Getting Remarkable People on Your Show
16:21 What Do you Ask the Remarkable People
21:55 Commonalities of the Remarkable People
26:04 Writing a Book with AI
30:47 Meaning of Life

Links:

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YZ Yuanzhe Fu, founder of YUVC is joined by Lawrence Lundy Bryan, Research Partner at Lunar Ventures on the YUVC Podcast.

Lawrence proudly carries out the State of the Future where 150+ frontier technologies were studied. From LLM, eVTOL, nuclear fusion, bitcoin, to Assisted Reproductive Technologies. Check it out!

Highlights:

YZ: What would be the single most powerful and important pieces of advice that you would give to the UK government in terms of technology adoption?

Lawrence: Ambition, it's a hard pitch and I don't imagine it to be successful. So in your framing of the question, would it be successful or not, unlikely. But what I would say is many of the challenges of Utilizing or getting the benefit of technology, especially AI, and we can think about synthetic biology, we can think about new forms of energy, is a lack of political will at a very senior level.

YZ: What does a good content-driven VC look like going forward?

Lawrence: I would strongly argue that maybe looking at it as content is the wrong way to do it. If it's part of your process, like it is with mine, then maybe publishing is a good way to share knowledge. But if it's specifically designed to build a brand or to hit a KPI, it's probably not worth the ROI.

YZ: How would you iterate investment thesis?

Lawrence: So first thing to do is to understand very broad landscape. This is often the hardest thing. What is the problem it is solving? Point to point transport. So instead of just doing a market analysis of vertical takeoff and landing, looking at the Kitty Hawk and looking at Lilliam and looking at the players within that market, say, what are the other ways to move from point to point? On the ground or in the air, whatever it might be, logistics or so moving things around or people around and to start at an extremely high level. What is the problem itself?

Chapters:

01:21 Consultant-turned-VC
08:36 Anything to Unlearn from Consulting?
11:45 Is Research a Must in VC?
15:33 Forming an Investment Thesis
24:59 State of the Future
32:00 Most overrated and underrated technologies
39:17 Meaning of Life

Links:

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YZ Yuanzhe Fu, founder of YUVC is joined by Aleks Shamis, Managing Partner at s16vc on the YUVC Podcast.

Highlights:

YZ: $5M and 10 Countries, what was really the old days of a capital efficient company like?
Aleks: The best way to be capital efficient It's not to have a choice. Majority of companies starting 10 years ago outside of the United States didn't really have a choice but to be capital efficient.

YZ: What is the vision of s16vc?
Aleks: In five years, we just want to be one of the top five European founders funds. I think it's pretty boring, straightforward, very difficult, but straightforward.

YZ: Any advice for me?
Aleks: Say to yourself: today is the best day in your life.

Chapters:

02:19 Capital Efficiency
06:26 Going Global
09:17 Founder-turned-VC
12:11 Founders Fund
22:07 Digital Stack of s16vc
34:53 Startup Advisor
36:22 Advice to Younger Self
38:09 Meaning of Life
40:27 Advice for YUVC

Links:

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