18VC Podcast - Next Gen Builders

18VC
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A series featuring student entrepreneurs and new grads turning ideas, side into real ventures. https://www.18-vc.com/

  1. 6h ago

    18VC Podcast Ep #13 With Manuel David @ Paradigm Outreach: The College Dropout Building the Future of Sales Cycle

    Most cold emails get a 1% reply rate and eat three hours of your day. Manuel David dropped out of Arizona State, moved to a San Francisco he'd never set foot in, and built Paradigm, an AI that runs the entire outbound cycle, from finding the lead to booking the meeting on your calendar. On this episode of 18VC, we sit down with Manuel David, founder & CEO of Paradigm Outreach, on why the whole outbound system is broken (not your copy), the infrastructure moat that nobody wants to build, and why he wants the next foundation model to be as powerful as possible. Highlights & Key Insights: Why Paradigm deliberately rejects ~70% of signups at the door – and why he likes it that way The contrarian take that "sounding like AI" was never the real problem – it's who you target "Bring the best model out – all it does is make my product better": his answer to the moat question every AI founder dreads The Apollo → Instantly → HubSpot slog he collapsed into one conversation with an agent named Parry Why he started as an email-infrastructure company and how that became the hardest moat to copy The line he refuses to cross: the AI will never take the meeting for you The word he'd use to describe himself that has nothing to do with what he's building Timestamps: (00:00) Highlight reel (00:38) Intro (01:27) Meet Manuel & Paradigm (02:27) From an ASU dorm room to founder (04:35) Why he dropped out (07:23) Is college outdated? (07:52) The cold email problem (1% reply rates) (09:44) Is the whole outbound system broken? (11:28) Volume vs. reaching the right person (16:00) The "offer guru" that rejects 70% of signups (18:16) Multi-agent orchestration & the feedback loop (19:16) Selling the result vs. the tool (24:52) Apollo + Instantly vs. one platform (27:58) Deterministic, AI, and where humans stay (29:11) Why "sounding AI" isn't the real problem (32:53) Blueprints & opinionated software (37:07) How Paradigm differs from Boardy (39:11) Finding the right lead across 100+ APIs (40:19) Dogfooding, and the pivot to a distribution engine (41:48) The moat when the next model drops (47:19) A world where everyone has an AI SDR (50:55) The 6–12 month vision (52:46) Faith, and betting on himself (54:48) His biggest mistake as a founder (56:24) Advice for student founders Subscribe for the earliest signal on the founders worth watching. — Connect with Manuel David — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuel-david-3b6245328/ X: https://x.com/Manny2techy?s=20 — Paradigm Outreach — Website: https://paradigmoutreach.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/paradigm-outreach/ X: https://x.com/useparadigm — Connect with 18VC — 18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/ 18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb 18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N 18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/ 18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/ 18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC

    58 min

  2. 6d ago

    18VC Podcast Ep #12 With Andy Liu @ Lullaby: Her Boyfriend Beat Calm, Headspace & Melatonin

    Most apps fight to keep you scrolling. Andy built Lullaby to do the opposite – get you off your phone and fall asleep. It started at 2 AM, after a consulting deadline, when her boyfriend made up a bedtime story and it worked better than any meditation app she'd tried. On this episode of 18VC, we sit down with Andy, founder of Lullaby, an AI sleep companion that talks you toward sleep and then gets out of the way, on why she's NOT building a generic AI companion, how "sleep intelligence" is her moat against ChatGPT, and why she'd rather you delete her app. Highlights & Key Insights: The 2 AM origin story: a boyfriend's bedtime story out-performed Calm, Headspace, melatonin, and magnesium Why her North Star is the opposite of every companion app – take you "from scrolling your phone to turning off your phone" The Reddit post that validated the idea, and the top comment that said it all: "Protect that man at all cost" Why she started the company on gut, not market research, and why speed of iteration is the real moat The ICP she's chasing: "overstimulated achievers" who can sleep but can't turn their brain off Her answer to the killer investor question: if ChatGPT and Claude Voice sound human, what's left? "Sleep intelligence." The privacy design: short-term memory feeds a classifier, so the app never stores every sentence you say The surprising interview finding – the content that helps you sleep is usually rooted in childhood familiarity Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (02:15) Cold open (02:37) From Chongqing to NYU to consulting (04:22) The pressure — and the sleep spiral (07:39) 2 AM: the bedtime story that worked (14:45) Why Lullaby isn't an AI companion (18:53) "Protect that man" — validating on Reddit (20:23) Starting on gut, not market research (23:11) The ICP: overstimulated achievers (24:52) What Lullaby actually is today (28:00) What "trust" in an AI really means (33:52) The problem they actually solve (37:12) What the user interviews revealed (42:20) "Is it real, or AI?" — the voice (44:02) The moat: sleep intelligence (47:54) Privacy & the memory design (52:21) The future: a sleep layer for Whoop & Oura (55:29) Perfectionism, killed (57:04) Advice for young founders Subscribe for the earliest signal on the founders worth watching. — Connect with Andy — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zilin-liu-39b273222/ X: https://x.com/zinzazilin Ins: https://www.instagram.com/zilin_zinza/ — Lullaby — App / TestFlight: testflight.apple.com/join/4dPtKheW — Connect with 18VC — 18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/ 18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb 18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N 18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/ 18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/ 18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC

    58 min

  3. Jul 1

    18VC Podcast Ep #11 Conversation with OMNIAPATH and Wov3 Founder Barry Li: He Ran a $1K/Week "Dark Market" at 15 — Now He Teaches Kids to Out-Build AI

    At 15 he was buying instant noodles off Alibaba and reselling them at a 200% margin to starving boarding-school kids – until the principal shut it down. Barry didn't know it yet, but that was his first lesson in supply, demand, and distribution. Five ventures later, he's betting his career on a blunt thesis: in the AI era, either you're well-rounded enough to do anything or deep enough to be irreplaceable, and everyone in the "medium" gets wiped out. On Episode #11 of 18VC, we sit down with Barry, founder of OMNIAPATH (an AI-native entrepreneurship school for young founders) and Wov3, and advisor to Hacker Dojo's first accelerator cohort, on why he teaches teenagers to start companies, why he picked China first, and what 40 partners coming and going taught him about who actually survives. Highlights & Key Insights: The 200%-margin "dark market" he ran out of his dorm — and why getting shut down was his first real business school His rule for who survives AI: be super well-rounded or go absurdly deep — "medium deep" gets replaced Why he killed a profitable $100K college-admissions business the moment he saw ChatGPT 3.5 The "one-person company" bet — and why he thinks solo founders are the default future of work Why he started in China, not the US — and the one word he keeps repeating: distribution What working one-on-one with 300+ students and 40 partners taught him about reading founders before they quit Timestamps: (00:00) Cold open (00:05) Meet Barry (01:07) The kid who challenged everyone (05:51) Family education & the "tree" (13:20) The $1K/week high-school hustle (17:04) Why he builds for students (19:06) OMNIAPATH & the ChatGPT wake-up (24:35) The one-person-company future (28:58) Two ways to survive AI (31:35) The six pillars (40:20) Answering the "anxiety" critique (44:22) Why China first (48:08) Hacker Dojo & the demo day (51:25) Reading founders who stay (55:12) Advice for first-time founders Subscribe for the earliest signal on the founders worth watching.— Connect with Barry —LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barryliofficial/— OMNIAPATH & Wov3 —OMNIAPATH Website: https://www.omniapath.com/Wov3: https://www.wov3.com/Hacker Dojo: https://hackerdojo.org/— Connect with 18VC —18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/ 18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb 18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N 18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/ 18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/ 18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC

    58 min

  4. Jun 28

    18VC Podcast Ep # 10 With TheVentures CIO Ethan Cho: Founders, Foreign Markets, and Going Global from Korea

    TheVentures gets up to 3,000 pitches a year and reads them with an AI agent named Vicky before a human ever steps in. Ethan Cho, their CIO, explains what survives the filter — and why he'd rather hear a grammatically broken sentence from your own mouth than a flawless one written by AI. On this episode of 18VC, we sit down with Ethan Cho — CIO of TheVentures, one of Korea's earliest accelerators-turned-VCs — on building an AI-native fund, why "good companies" beat "good stocks," and the brutal, practical signals he uses to separate real founders from tourists. Highlights & Key Insights: The open-door policy that pulls in 40 applications a week — and how Vicky, their in-house AI agent, became the "first line of defense" Why a perfect, AI-polished deck can hurt you: how seasoned investors "disarm you from that clean sentence" in the Q&A The 3-question framework behind every check: "Why this? Why now? Why you?" Why he gives unfilled military service a "yellow flag" — and why it's "too easy of a reason to say no" The one thing AI can never mass-produce — and why it should shape what students build next Timestamps: (00:00) Highlight reel & intro (00:51) Welcome & meet Ethan / TheVentures (02:06) What excites him about VC (04:11) Good companies vs. good stocks (06:06) Founder intelligence & living abroad (08:28) Why he joined TheVentures (11:30) 3,000 applications & Vicky the AI agent (15:23) The "Korean-only" myth & the 20-min Q&A (19:22) Defining Korea: from Hyundai to Chipotle (21:40) Southeast Asia vs. the US (25:41) The silver economy & the B2G bet (34:29) Raising in Korea: IPO exits & government money (38:31) Raising your first fund: thesis & attention (41:28) The thesis & spotting real founders (45:08) "Ideological fraud" & AI-written pitches (50:21) Military service, diplomas & solo founders (53:45) Co-founders will fight — pick wisely (55:28) Pitch mistakes & the art of saying no (1:01:37) Exits, secondaries & geopolitics (1:06:47) Closing advice: what AI can never copy — Connect with Ethan Cho — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethan-yj-cho/ Substack: https://substack.com/@theventures — TheVentures — Website:https://theventures.vc/ — Connect with 18VC — 18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/ 18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb 18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N 18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/ 18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/ 18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC

    1h 9m

  5. Jun 20

    18VC Podcast Ep # 9 With Model OS Founder Fernando Jia: The Doom of the “Rent Model” Era

    From an investor's seat at Y Combinator China (Miracle Plus), Fernando watched AI startups get absorbed by the very models they were built on. Now he's building Model OS so they can own their intelligence instead of renting it. On Episode 9 of 18VC, we sit down with Fernando, founder & CEO of Model OS (Intelligence Cubed) — the "survival infrastructure" that turns AI apps from prompt wrappers into companies that own their own models, evals, routing, and feedback loop. Highlights & Key Insights: Why he calls most AI apps "prompt wrappers" — and the 3 forces quietly driving a wrapper "extinction event" The exact day Model OS was born: Jan 20, 2025, when DeepSeek trained a frontier-level model for $6M while OpenAI spent tens of billions "Turnitin on chain" — how watermarking model weights pays the original creator a cut every time someone fine-tunes their model When a founder actually needs fine-tuning vs. just RAG — and the foundation-model mistake almost everyone makes first His contrarian advice to young founders itching to drop out (graduate faster instead) Timestamps: (00:00) Cold open (teaser) (00:42) Welcome & intro (02:09) From IB & YC China to founder (02:42) Why build infra, not another wrapper (05:46) What investing taught him (10:01) The DeepSeek moment (12:11) Why founders couldn't fine-tune before (14:14) The "wrapper extinction event" (19:00) Inside the product (22:51) The CMU compute moat (25:47) Watermarking models on-chain (30:42) RAG vs. full fine-tuning (34:53) The 3-layer router (37:34) Competitors & 2.5M users (41:01) How Model OS makes money (45:44) What data is worth fine-tuning on (49:02) Building a research-heavy team (51:50) "Change maker" (52:39) Milestones: IPOs & the AI bubble (54:48) Don't drop out — do this instead (59:31) Wrap Subscribe for the earliest signal on the founders worth watching. — Connect with Fernando — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernando-j/ — Model OS (Intelligence Cubed) — Website: https://modelos.technology/ — Connect with 18VC — 18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/ 18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb 18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N 18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/ 18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/ 18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC

    59 min

  6. Jun 16

    18VC Podcast Ep # 8 From a War Zone to Venture Capital — The "Chaos Native Strategist" Tigran Ghukasyan

    He grew up in Artsakh — an unrecognized state he calls a real-world Neverland — fought in the 2020 war, then pulled off a "physically impossible" transfer to the US without losing a single semester. Now Tigran Ghukasyan is building CyNet at USC — and fresh off an exchange semester in Tokyo with Plug and Play Japan, he makes the case for why this could be the age of Japan. On Episode 8 of 18VC, we sit down with Tigran Ghukasyan — founder of CyNet at USC, co-founder at Spheroid, with experience across Plug and Play US, Armenia, and Japan — on failed first startups, pivoting a metaverse company into an XR-native engine, and why the bottleneck of AI is now physical. Highlights & Key Insights: Why his first startup — repatriating stranded cars through embassies during COVID — failed in every possible way, and what it taught him about the death of middleman arbitrage The funding trap that kills startups and the board-of-directors trap that kills corporate ideas — and why VC is the only environment that escapes both The genetics of risk: ~30% of Americans are built to take risks. In Japan, it's less than 2% How Spheroid pivoted from metaverse to the first XR-native engine — by building momentum with developers instead of pitching decision-makers US is relentless, Europe chases government funding, Japan has kaizen but no commercialization — and why that's about to flip in Japan's favor CyNet's thesis: most accelerators disrespect founders' time and build walls; demolish them and bet on "the power of handshake" His answer to the AI "permanent underclass" debate, and why humans will live in between AI skills The post-war decision everyone called impossible — and the encircled-commander mindset he wants every uncertain founder to steal Timestamps: (00:00) Highlight reel (00:47) Cold open & meet Tigran (02:13) "Chaos native strategist" (04:57) Growing up in Artsakh, a real-world Neverland (10:29) A first startup that failed in every way (14:05) Startups, corporates & why VC (18:07) The founder–investor loop (20:34) Culture & the genetics of risk-taking (23:20) Spheroid: pivoting metaverse into an XR engine (31:32) Plug and Play: US vs Europe vs Japan (36:36) Quantum & the age of Japan (39:40) Touching the elephant: a vision of the future (44:52) CyNet & the power of handshake (51:31) AI, status & the place of humans (57:34) The "impossible" transfer to the US (1:00:01) Own the chaos: advice for founders Subscribe for the earliest signal on the founders worth watching. — Connect with Tigran Ghukasyan — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ghukasyan/ — CyNet — Website: https://courtyardnetworks.com/ — Connect with 18VC — 18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/ 18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb 18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N 18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/ 18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/ 18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC

    1h 2m

  7. Jun 9

    18VC Podcast Ep # 7 Building Invisible AI with Bubbl Founder Tony Xiong: The AI Assistant With No App — It Just Texts You

    Tony Xiong has been building since he was 15 — first a portable drive 10x faster than anything on the market, then a camera he launched into the stratosphere for Sony. Now he's building Bubbl: an AI assistant that lives in your texts and pulls what actually matters out of your message chaos. No app to install — you just text it. On Episode 7 of 18VC, we sit down with Tony Xiong, founder & CEO of Bubbl, on why the real problem was never information overload, how his Action Context Engine learns who you are, and the on-campus growth stunt that taught him a hard lesson about virality. Highlights & Key Insights: - Why the real problem was never information overload — it's knowing which 100 of your 1,000 daily messages actually matter - The "invisible AI" thesis: why the best productivity tool has no app and no interface — you just text it - Inside the Action Context Engine (ACE): how your personal context, relationship graph, and messaging style decide what's worth interrupting you for - The numbers — 47% day-7 retention, 260 beta testers, and 60,000+ messages sent to Bubbl in two months - The growth mistake: hundreds of campus signups in a day who never came back — and what it taught him about viral distribution - Why he calls Bubbl "an introvert" — it listens in the background so it can strike at exactly the right moment - How Bubbl reads your Gmail and WhatsApp without storing a single message Timestamps: (00:00) Episode highlights (00:58) Welcome to Episode 7 (01:53) From product designer to founder (02:48) Building since 15 & a stratosphere stunt (06:32) Meeting his co-founder in a group chat (07:22) What Bubbl actually is (08:18) The origin story & 20 signups on the spot (09:50) No app — just text "Hi Bubble" (11:18) The real problem isn't overload (12:58) "Invisible AI" & why SMS (15:03) How Bubbl decides what matters (16:58) Inside the Action Context Engine (20:28) Privacy: what it stores (and doesn't) (21:19) Competitors & "not an iMessage product" (23:45) Traction, retention & the moat (25:47) Go-to-market & the viral-marketing mistake (30:26) Why Bubbl is "an introvert" (32:34) Hiring & a people-first culture (34:38) Decisions & the message you never knew you missed (37:54) Life beyond building Subscribe for the earliest signal on the founders worth watching. — Connect with Tony Xiong — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haoyu-tony-xiong/ — Bubbl — Website: https://bubblai.com/ Try it: text "Hi Bubbl!" to +1 (949) 283-8690 — Connect with 18VC — 18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/ 18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb 18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N 18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/ 18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/ 18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC

    41 min

  8. Jun 3

    18VC Podcast Ep # 6 Building the AI Operating System for Apparel Manufacturing with ThreadLabs Co-Founders Rylan Jimenez & Diora Juraboeva

    70% of US apparel manufacturers still collect production data manually. Only 16% have real-time visibility across the floor. Most shops still run on WhatsApp threads, Gmail, and the foreman’s memory. Rylan Jimenez and Diora Juraboeva, the co-founders of ThreadLabs, are building the AI intelligence layer for the apparel production industry — not another ERP, but a layer that sits on top of whatever tools a shop already uses, so it works for both a 40-year-old LA cut-and-sew factory with no software and a Chinese factory with an ERP from 20 years ago. In this episode, the hosts Philip and David sit down with Rylan and Diora to unpack how a USC Marshall finance student and a Formula-SAE composites engineer ended up building a manufacturing OS together. We get into how they actually met (month two of college, on Formula SAE), the early ThreadLabs idea that came out of a Google hackathon in 2024, Rylan’s years as a freelance fashion designer, hundreds of hours Rylan spent on factory floors in DTLA, the pivot from a brand-facing AI design tool to a manufacturer-facing ops layer, the macro reshoring tailwind, how the Smart Timelines / Risk Flags / Update Autopilot features actually work, what the Techstars Catalyst program forced them to figure out, and Rylan’s closing advice for student founders — that genuine value doesn’t come from AI, it comes from solving the problem, and that the right first step is to do it without any tech at all. A conversation about staying close to the floor, picking the right wedge, and building in an unsexy, deeply offline industry. — Chapters — (00:00) Highlight reel (00:43) Welcome & how we met Rylan and Diora (02:54) Rylan's path: mech engineering → VC at USC (06:30) What working in VC actually teaches you about building (12:57) Why building beats investing (for now) (15:14) Diora's building journey: F1, USC Racing, Honda, Fisher-Price (17:43) Founding VC Academy together at USC (19:53) How Rylan and Diora actually met (Formula SAE, month two) (23:08) The original ThreadLabs idea: an AI tool for fashion designers (25:48) Rylan's freelance fashion-design years (16–19) (28:07) Where the name "ThreadLabs" came from — and the rebrand coming (29:16) Why now: tariffs, reshoring, and the manufacturing tech gap (32:43) The pivot: from "better ERP" to an intelligence layer on top (35:39) Hundreds of hours on DTLA factory floors — what manufacturers actually want (39:31) What the product does today vs. six months ago (44:21) Onboarding, ERPs, and going white-glove on day one (45:34) Smart Timelines, Risk Flags, and Update Autopilot — how they work (48:23) DTG, screen print, embroidery, cut-and-sew — printing types, not products (50:41) Traction: 5 pilot shops, $50K generated, and where the new product stands (53:27) Scaling beyond LA — international manufacturers and other verticals (56:35) The 3-person founding team (with CTO Dennis Pavlov (01:00:22) What the Techstars Catalyst program actually taught them (01:02:20) One word other than "founder": boring vs. people-orientated (01:05:18) The hardest part of being a founder: scope creep and narrowing down (01:08:47) How being a founder changes the way you live with uncertainty (01:11:26) Mentors, advisors, and Rylan's closing advice for student founders (01:16:08) Outro — Connect with ThreadLabs — Rylan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rylan-jimenez/?skipRedirect=true Diora on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dioraj/?skipRedirect=true ThreadLabs on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thread-labs-sc/ ThreadLabs Website: https://threadlbs.com/landing — Connect with 18VC — 18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/ 18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb 18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N 18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/ 18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/ 18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC

    1h 16m
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A series featuring student entrepreneurs and new grads turning ideas, side into real ventures. https://www.18-vc.com/

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