Blog

On Coaching Networks, Zoom, and Series A Signaling Effect

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Jake Saper, Partner at Emergence Capital, a leading venture capital firm focused on world-changing enterprise cloud technology, including Salesforce, SalesLoft, Veeva, and Zoom. Jake serves on the boards of Textio, Guru, Drishti, and DroneDeploy.

In this episode, Jake speaks with Eniac Co-founding GP Tim Young about the firm’s thesis on Coaching Networks and how they believe the under-explored side of machine learning is how to apply that same technology not just to automate tasks away, but to help augment workers that remain and make them better at their jobs.

Jake also sheds light on a very important topic for all seed-stage founders and investors — something he and Tim Young refer to as Series A Signaling Effect. He breaks down his belief and experience on why founders should not take Series A funds during Seed and if so, all the ways it can impact the round, the board and the subsequent investments.

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On reimagining the role of the LP in Venture, perspective on IPOs and advice for new funds

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In this episode, Beezer speaks with Eniac Partner Nihal Mehta on the genesis of OpenLP, a community effort she spearheaded to foster greater understanding in the entrepreneur-to-LP tech ecosystem, as well as the fundamental role of an LP in venture, their relationship to partners and how they want to ensure they are bringing value to the funds beyond just capital.

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On identifying opportunities in vertical SaaS

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In this episode, Brian sits down with Tim Young, a founding partner at Eniac Ventures, to discuss Bessemer’s thesis around vertical SaaS and their top-down strategy for identifying investments. He digs into how they map out industries by GDP, IT spend and the criteria they look for within a sector.

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On doubling down with the NYC tech community

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Jenny Fielding is the newly appointed Managing Director of Techstars, an organization helping entrepreneurs grow their companies through a process of programming, mentorship, and funding. She has been involved with the organization for the past 5 years, working with the former MD Alex Iskold.

Jenny also is the Founder and General Partner of The Fund, a community successful New York City founders and operators supporting the next generation of NYC-based entrepreneurs.

In this episode, Jenny sits down with Eniac Founding Partner Nihal Mehta to discuss Techstars and The Fund, along with her major plans to double down on their commitment to the NYC tech community, partner with local organizations that promote inclusivity.

Jenny addresses the role of New York universities can play in shaping the mindsets of entrepreneurs and founders and why she recently began teaching at Columbia University as an Adjunct Professor on “Venturing to Change the World.” She speaks to how her class is helping open the minds of students that might otherwise not have the exposure or the support to take an entrepreneurial track – namely women – and get them involved in the growing NYC tech community.

Jenny also shares her thoughts on Bad Blood and what she looks for in founders, as well as her favorite podcast

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On lessons from her time working with Obama, Capital G & Slack

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Sarah Cannon is a Partner at Index Ventures focused on investing in consumer businesses. She has had an unconventional path to venture, starting her early career by working in Ghana and as a Policy Advisor on the National Economic Council at the White House during the Obama Administration.

In this episode, Sarah sat down with Hadley Harris, Founding Partner at Eniac Ventures, to share how she went from Ghana, the White House to CapitalG, what led her to join Index in 2018 and why she got into an argument over open source the first time meeting a partner.

Sarah speaks to her time at Capital G, how she supported the India launch and the breadth of her work across Oscar, Multi-Plan with Hellman and Friedman, Care.com and Looker. She also discusses what she is seeing across the future of work industry and the bottom-up approach to productivity tools and its effect on the unbundling of Microsoft.

Sarah also digs into the disaggregation of work into the gig economy from her perspective as an economist, the opportunities she sees across vertical marketplaces and her interest in new tools to serve this new class.

Sarah shares what it is like to work with Danny Rimer, his thesis on authenticity, her time as a Board Observer at Slack and valuable lessons she’s learned from Stewart Butterfield about building a disruptive product and rethinking customer service.

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On the early days of AdMob, a call from Steve Jobs and the secret sauce to Sequoia’s success

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Omar Hamoui is a Partner at Sequoia Capital, arguably one of the most well-known VC firms in the world, with investments in some of the biggest names, including Dropbox, WhatsApp, Xoom, Square, Evernote, InstaCart to name a few.

In this episode, Omar sat down with Nihal Mehta, Founding Partner at Eniac Ventures, to share his story on building AdMob, one of the most successful mobile ad networks, how it caught the attention of Steve Jobs and Sergey Brin and what it was like being acquired by Google.

From being a serial entrepreneur, Omar also discusses his move to VC, the core values of Sequoia and what it is like behind the scenes.

He opens up about the most challenging parts of venture capital, the long feedback loop and why it is a “low ego” job. He also shares his most used app – and it might surprise you!

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On board members: what to look for, how to optimize, expectations at each funding round and managing bad behavior

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Jeff Richards, Managing Director of GGV, speaks with Eniac Ventures’ Founding General Partner Tim Young on all things managing a board, expectations when recruiting & building out your early team and how being a founder is a lot like his experience being a father.

As a two-time founder with more than 13 years of building and operating his companies across the U.S. and Asia, Jeff joined the world of venture capital with a wealth of first-hand experience. Today, at GGV, Jeff focuses on enterprise, cloud, and consumer/internet-based brands. His investments include HotelTonight, Flipboard, Voicera and has been involved in Opendoor, Domo, Square, and Wish. He currently sits on several boards, including Boxed, Brightwheel, Namely, Tile, to name a few, and most recently joined Electric.ai.

Having sat on more than a dozen boards, Jeff digs into all things board members — what to look for, how to optimize, expectations and how to handle bad behavior. He also gives his advice on the biggest differences between your board and team between Seed to A.

Jeff discusses when it is time to start building out your team, why it is important to have an org chart, expectations when recruiting top talent and how founders should be building teams outside tier one markets.

Jeff also shares some personal anecdotes from his life, like how being a founder prepared him for fatherhood and how he maintained his resilience during when his company crashed right before his wedding.

He also speaks to his biggest misses as an investor and the worst advice he’s received lately.

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On raising capital, scaling teams and funding the underserved

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Shivani Siroya, Founder & CEO of Tala, speaks with Nihal Mehta about her journey from finance to entrepreneurship, and now a CEO of a fast-growth company with more than 270 employees across 5 countries and $100M in venture funding.

Tala is a mission-driven tech company opening financial access across emerging markets. Working for the UN Population Fund across Africa, Shivani saw the lack of access available to millions of people firsthand and started working on ways to solve the problem. Less than 5 years later, she had attracted some of the biggest names in venture capital, such as Chris Saca and Steve Case, and now has landed the support of financial giants including PayPal.

In this episode, Shivani talks about the inception of Tala and how it was born to close the huge financial access gap from traditional banking practices. She warns founders to not focus on name brand funds, but shares advice on staying true to your vision and focus on what you are solving and the opportunity will follow.

Shivani speaks about the challenges of hiring and finding the right people who can bring diverse viewpoints, but share Tala’s vision, as well as her responsibility for ensuring the workplace is not only diverse but an environment that is equitable and gives everyone the opportunity to succeed.

She also speaks to how she manages time, the importance of her CEO letters and why she holds a weekly AMA.

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On building the company that democratized podcasting, overcoming challenges of early-stage hiring and what is next for podcasting.

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Founding General Partner Hadley Harris talks with Michael Mignano, Co-founder & CEO of Anchor, the company making it easy for anyone to create a podcast.

Michael built Anchor to democratize audio. By putting a free, full-stack podcasting platform in the pocket of anyone with a smartphone, Anchor is changing the way people think about audio, empowering everyone to have their voices heard, and pioneering new ways for creators to generate revenue. Anchor now powers one-third of all new podcasts in the rapidly growing market.

Prior to founding Anchor, Michael was VP of Product for Aviary, growing the company’s audience to over 100M users before being acquired by Adobe in 2014. Previously, Michael led Digital Product Development for Atlantic Records.

In this episode, Michael talks about how his passion for music and his drive for creativity lead him to build a company that aims to remove the friction from podcasting. He speaks about the challenges he and Co-founder & CTO Nir Zicherman faced early on, and how their roles and approaches to business have changed as they grew.

Michael also speaks to the learning curve they faced early on when hiring. As new entrepreneurs, they learned a lot about finding the right people who align and can execute on your vision and, on the flip side, how to pivot talent with the business needs.

He also shares his views on the industry, their latest new features and the podcasts he has in rotation – they are some good ones!

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On current startup and venture ecosystem in LA, why the city embraced Bird and the challenges facing cities as we embrace the future of transportation.

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Founding General Partner Nihal Mehta talks with Mark Suster, one of the very best VCs in the biz and a true pioneer of LA venture capital.

Mark is the Managing Partner at Upfront Ventures, the largest and longest-serving fund in LA – all the way back to 1996, long before the region became known as Silicon Beach. To date, they’ve invested in more than $1 billion, with about 50% going to tech companies from Santa Barbara to San Diego. Mark’s investments include Bird, Density, Imbellus, Invoca, MakeSpace, mitú, Nanit, Osmo, and Tact.

In this episode, Mark speaks to how his prior experiences influence how he approaches his work today. Most importantly, how his mother was his earliest role model as an entrepreneur, a philanthropist and activist, and how he got into programming on his mother’s computer while still in high school which lead him to become a computer programmer in the late ’80s (when it wasn’t as sought after as it is today). Mark discusses what he learned during his time at Accenture and how it laid a strong foundation for understanding how businesses operate at scale.

Mark speaks to the current startup and venture ecosystem in LA, and why more influencers outside traditional VC are becoming investors. He also addresses the future of transportation, including the rapid adoption of Bird in Los Angeles and what cities are doing to solve the many challenges.

He also addresses the current state of politics, something he covers often on his blog Both Sides of the Table.