Associated Associated Podcast

We're bringing you a series on how to ace first meetings. In collaboration with our friends at Pitchdoctor.



We cover the four key narratives that investors want to hear as well as how to frame what your product does effectively.



Sign up to our Substack - theassociatedcollective.substack.com



Check out Pitchdoctor's masterclasses - www.pitchdoctor.app/masterclass

This is a partner episode to a blog post written on our newly launched Associated, The Collective Substack!



Join Associated co-host Danielle as she unpacks a searing question the group has discussed internally for years... are companies from all industries compatible with venture capital financing? The blog post lists out our perceived challenges of being a deeptech company working with alternative capital options and this episode is an interview with a deeptech founder, Barry Bennett. He also happens to be Danielle's father.



He is the CEO of Metals & Materials Engineers (MME) and started his company officially in 2001 after spending time running the metallurgy division of an engineering firm, working for government in an engineering capacity and studying at at top engineering schools in London, Jamaica, New York and Georgia.



We are excited for you to hear this episode. Let us know what you think on X/Twitter or LinkedIn at Associated_Pod.



Links:


https://mmelab.com/
https://theassociatedcollective.substack.com/
https://twitter.com/associated_pod?lang=en
https://uk.linkedin.com/company/associatedpodcast

We're back! Associated is now Associated, The Collective. A minor detail change, we know, but it means a lot to us. Over the last six months our team has thought deeply about the sustainability of this group and we wanted to ensure that whatever we did next could encapsulate every mode of expression we'd like to showcase. We will now come to you via substack with not just podcasts, but blog posts and much more. All the while, having the same north star: making Venture Capital more accessible. 

So without further ado welcome to The Collective !

Notice:
If you want to get in contact with us you can reach us via email at ⁠⁠associatedpodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠ as well as on ⁠Twitter⁠ (@associated_pod).

We are trying to understand our listeners better, so we can make better content. Please consider filling out our listener survey which can be found ⁠here⁠ (https://airtable.com/shraJVvUNv6D7PkDP).



Description: For the last episode of our series on ‘How to Raise a Venture Fund’, Danielle, Francesca and Tunde reunite again to discuss their key takeaways from the previous three episodes, where we interview the founding partners of funds with novel strategies and structures.



Our interviews with Adrian (Übermorgen), Ian (Syndicate) and Alice (Entrepreneur First) yielded fantastic insights which we got to unpack. Some of the key themes we discussed were:


The motivations behind their atypical structures (2 of 3 are structured as companies rather than funds)
Raising capital outside mainstream LP circles
Earning the right to innovate on structure and strategy simultaneously 

We took so many learnings away from each episode and we cannot thank our guests enough for coming on the show!

If you want to get in contact with us you can reach us via email at ⁠associatedpodcast@gmail.com⁠ as well as on Twitter (@associated_pod).

We are trying to understand our listeners better so we can make better content. You can really help us out by filling out our listener survey which you can find here (https://airtable.com/shraJVvUNv6D7PkDP).



Description: In the penultimate episode of Season 8, Danielle and Tunde interview Alice Bentinck, one of the co-founders of Entrepreneur First. Fresh out of a grad program at McKinsey and Co, Alice and her co-founder Matt felt that there was an opportunity to shake up the early stage VC scene and founded Entrepreneur First (EF). Fast forward 12 years, EF has built more than 600 startups across 6 countries that are collectively worth more than US$10B. In this episode, Alice dives deeper into the genesis of EF and the complexities of their business model, unraveling some fascinating twists and turns along the way. She also outlines some of the unique challenges the EF team face such as identifying 'talent investors' as well as exceptional potential founder profiles at pre-ideation stage. A favourite discussion topic of ours is when Alice talks about the importance of social capital during fundraising, so keep your ears pricked for that golden nugget of wisdom!

If you want to get in contact with us you can reach us via email at ⁠associatedpodcast@gmail.com⁠ as well as on Twitter (@associated_pod).

We are trying to understand our listeners better so we can make better content. You can really help us out by filling out our listener survey which you can find here (https://airtable.com/shraJVvUNv6D7PkDP).

Description: This second episode in our final category of fund types, what we are calling peripheral funds, we interview Ian Lee, the co-founder of Syndicate a decentralized investing protocol and social network, the main purpose of this structure is to make investing more accessible to the masses mainly through cost reduction and infrastructure enablement.

In 2021 Syndicate raised $20million let by A16z, other investors included Snoop Dog and Ashton Kutcher. Prior to Syndicate, Ian had an illustrious career across a range of different sectors and roles from automotive to heading up the Crypto division at Citi Bank. It is clear from this episode that Ian is someone that can drive forward new and innovative initiatives and shape them into brilliant success stories, Ian gives a great rendition of some of the learnings he took away from raising multiple different fund types, creating collaborative work structures within large corporations and forming early teams.