Confluence.VC Clay Norris and Tyler Dean

Guest: Jake Kupperman (@jbkupperman)

Company: Level Ventures

Location: New York, NY

Background: Level is a leading data-driven investment manager focused on technology innovation. Their team thinks about venture investing differently than most, and they apply deep levels of data science to inform their decision-making process.

Talking points (five-second version):


The human aspect of venture capital becoming more data driven
LP value creation to venture funds
Non-obvious differences between working in venture and working at a fund of funds

Talking points (five-second version):


The old state of venture investing
The new state of venture investing
Why the market is ripe for new workflows

Guest: Nico Cerdeira (@nicocerdeira)

Company: Failory

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Background: Failory is a content side for founders, and Nico has led their team for the past five years. Their team has mastered their marketing, and their site brings in hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month. They use programmatic SEO to make this happen, and we cover more of the details in this talk.

Talking points (five-second version):


The fundamentals of programmatic SEO
How Failory reached 200k+ unique visitors / month with a team of one
Ways to monetize a content site
Lessons on how companies have found product-market fit

Key takeaways (30-second version):


If you're ignoring search trends, your business has no shot. You have to win attention in today's world. Search trends tell you where attention lives today.
Programmatic SEO is about building thousands of pages to capture long tail search demand. You do this by keeping the structure of the page consistent and mapping information to that structure.
You can learn a TON by observing people and companies that have won at programmatic SEO. Nomad List, Zapier, and Failory are three companies to study.
Increasing prices is the best way to grow top line. This can be uncomfortable if you're starting out.
Sponsorships affiliate programs subscriptions. All business owners prefer recurring dollars over transactional dollars. If you warrant sponsorship, use it to earn recurring revenue down the road.
Lack of PMF is the biggest reason startups fail. If you want to save yourself time, money, and heartache, check this out.
You want ruthless feedback instead of passive compliments. The best way to pre-sale is to justify demand first.

Guest: Matt Knight (@JustMattKnight)

Company: Proptech Angel Group

Location: Atlanta, GA

Background: Proptech Angel Group is an angel group out of Atlanta that, as the name suggests, invests in companies shaping the future of real estate. The group has grown to ~200 members, and Matt is the founder and leader of the group. If you invest in proptech, he's a great guy to know.

Talking points (five-second version):


Running an angel group vs. running a traditional fund
Subsectors of proptech worth betting on
Non-obvious takeaways growing a paid community to 200 members

Key takeaways (30-second version):


Angel groups are a great source of inside information. If you're looking to get answers to questions you can't find on Twitter, try an angel group.
Angel groups are slow because members notoriously don't have free time. Many of these people are running their own companies, so chasing down capital is the biggest con to running an angel group.
You have much more flexibility running an angel group than a traditional fund. This is the two-sided coin of having less structure.
You can learn things academically, but you don't really understand things until you get anecdotal evidence. To better understand academic concepts, practice them in real life.
Any community is going to follow a Pareto's principle. 20% of members will produce 80% of the value. Find those people, and reward them to keep them engaged.
When you're in an up-cycle, everybody wants things that are growing to expand revenue. During a down-cycle, people start focusing more on cost-cutters and other things that can streamline operations to reduce overhead.
People are renting for longer periods of time for a few different reasons. Some are priced out as home prices have increased, but others are choosing to avoid homeownership because it is more convenient for them to rent.

Guest: Mack Kolarich (@MackKolarich)



Company: Assure



Background: Assure is the OG and most-used special purpose vehicle platform. They help anybody running SPVs by handling all of the administrative work that you don't have time for. Mack is a VP, and he also leads up their analytics team to leverage data to better understand trends.



Talking points (five-second version):


Perspectives on building track record
SPV trends
Takeaways on innovation within the VC tech stack



Key takeaways (30-second version):


Managing SPVs is more complex than you think. When it comes time to launch your first SPV, you want to go with an SPV provider that has seen everything before.
SPVs aren’t just for VCs. Real estate funds, crypto funds, broker dealers, and others use SPVs to pool funds.
50% of funds admitted to sacrificing diligence to get into deals. This was one of the takeaways from the survey we ran with Assure earlier this year on how junior VCs are looking at special purpose vehicles.
The main reason that investors aren’t building their personal track record is a lack of capital. SPVs offer a way around this.
Syndicate leads are competing for LP attention today. LPs today are backing 20-30 different syndicates, and this optionality on the LP side is making it harder to get deals done.
The number of family offices participating in SPVs has dropped in half over the past year. However, those that have stuck around have doubled the size of their investment.

Guest: Drew Glover (@DrewBailer)

Company: Fiat Growth

Background: Fiat Growth is an emerging VC focused on supporting and growing the next generation of fintech companies.

Talking points (five-second version):


Differences in evaluating and investing companies at different stages of the lifecycle
Overcoming the hurdles of selling into financial services
Subsectors of fintech that Drew and the team are diving into