Sand Hill Road

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Gen Isayama, co-founder and CEO of World Innovation Lab, a Palo Alto and Tokyo based venture firm investing in growth-stage companies and serving as a bridge between startups and Japanese corporations. 00:00​​ Intro 01:30 World Innovation Lab 04:10 From Japanese lawyer to Silicon Valley VC 09:10 From DCM to WIL 13:55 WIL investment

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Dan Ahrens, founding partner at Left Lane Capital, a New York based venture capital and early growth equity firm that invests in high-growth internet and consumer technology businesses.  00:00​​ Intro  02:43 Consumer vs. enterprise tech  05:09 Getting into venture  07:54 Raising Left Lane I  10:35 Investing

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Divyang Arora, founder and CEO of Byte Kitchen about cooking up the future of digital food halls with Byte Kitchen founder Divyang Arora.   0:00 Intro  1:24 2 minute elevator pitch  4:27 Going all in  8:07 Business Model  14:52 The Byte Kitchen playbook  18:52 Optimal Partner Restaurant Profile  25:39

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Michael Crandell, CEO Bitwarden about scaling open-source password manager Bitwarden.   00:00​ Intro  00:50 What is Bitwarden  03:22 From side hustle to venture-backed  06:36 Joining a Bootstrapper at Series A  09:58 Open-source GTM  13:25 Open-source defensibility  15:35 Community vs. enterprise edi

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Kyle Harrison, general partner at Country about everything from the economics of whale hunting, the venture product offering to his recent joining of Contrary.   00:00​ Intro  01:11 Way into venture  04:58 Time of reflection  07:24 The under-innovated venture model  10:46 Your fund size is your strategy 

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Doug Ludlow, co-founder and CEO of MainStreet, which helps startups and small businesses uncover tax credits.    00:00​​ Intro  01:05 Hipster  05:09 Happy Home Company  07:10 Starting MainStreet  11:22 The nature of Tax credits  16:03 The Path Act  17:52 The MainStreet Product  19:14 Cust

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Kelsey Bishop founder and CEO of Candor, which is a nexgen, authentic social network.   00:00​​ Intro  01:02 What is Candor  03:25 Single player mode  03:56 Kelsey’s background  06:19 Employee-culture fit  08:31 Getting started  10:31 Migrating from bubble  11:38 Raising the Seed  12:42

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Abhishek Nayak the co-founder and CEO of Appsmith, which is an open-source, low code internal tool builder.  00:00​​ Intro  03:15 Entrepreneur in Residence at Accel  05:52 Third time at the Rodeo  09:55 Validating a startup idea at his wedding  11:38 Built for Internal  facing apps  13:48 The Appsm

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Chon Tang, the founding GP of the Skydeck Fund. Chon is an experienced Silicon Valley engineer, entrepreneur and investor. He was formerly founding partner and Managing Director of Junzi Capital Engineering, a leading quantitative hedge fund investing in the commodity space. He has been actively investing in Silicon Valley startups for

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Richard White, the serial entrepreneur behind Uservoice and Fathom.video. Richard is a design engineer and product visionary who has been in the first YC batch with Justin Khan and Emmett Shear for Kiko (YC S05) and most recently came back to the YC W21 to see how startup kids are doing the tricks today.    00:00​​ Intro&n