The Full Ratchet

On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following investors are featured: Jordan Nof Pete Wilkins Anand Sanwal Each investor highlights a situation where they decided not to invest, why they passed, and how it played out.

UILabs recently hosted a panel of IoT experts to discuss the future roadmap for IoT. I moderated the discussion and the panel included: Ben Forgan, CEO of Hologram Brenna Berman, Executive Director of City Digital, UI Labs Jenny Fielding, Managing Director, Techstars IoT Jim Gagnard, CEO of SmartSignal (acquired by...

Jason Calacanis is back for part 2 of the interview to discuss his book and secrets to successful angel investing. We address questions including: His thoughts on the original Sequoia scout program and the many similar programs today How he does such high volume of investments when he insists on spending hours with every startup founder […]

Jason Calacanis joins Nick to discuss his new book and his secrets to successful angel investing. We address questions including: Why Jason wrote the book What drives him to continue angel investing after all his success His thoughts on angels that make large investments during their first year of angel investing His focus on finding […]

Welcome back to TFR for another Cram Session. In these special releases, we have aggregated the takeaways and tips from previous episodes. In this installment, we will be recapping the following episodes: 79. Hardware Investing, Part 1 (Avidan Ross) 80. Hardware Investing, Part 2 (Avidan Ross) 81. Getting Smart on a New Market, Part 1 […]

Today we cover Part 2 of Dispelling Conventional Wisdom in VC with Eric Paley of Founder Collective. In this segment we address: I wanted to get your quick take on follow-on investing. There was a recent twitter convo w/ you, Parker Tompson, Semil Shah & Nick Ducoff on Follow-on funding… Nick made the statement: Knowing […]

Eric Paley of Founder Collective joins Nick to dispell some conventional wisdom in VC. We address questions including: What’s the focus at Founder Collective? What are the downsides of heavily funded companies? Overview and Methodology for your study of 71 IPOs: ‘Overdosing on VC: Lessons from 71 IPOs’ Conventional VC wisdom says more capital, better […]

Trey Hart of Northern Trust is back to cover Part 2 of the GP-LP relationship. In this segment we address: Key mistakes that GPs make The key characteristics that successful GP’s share The importance of an ownership focus What winning really looks like for GPs, in terms of metrics (ie. DPI, TVPI, IRR, cash on […]

Trey Hart, SVP of 50 South Capital at Northern Trust, joins Nick for a deep dive on the relationship between LPs and GPs. In Part 1, we will address questions including: Trey’s path to becoming an LP His thoughts on being a GP The types of GPs and categories they fall into The importance of […]

TastyTrade was kind enough to invite Nick on their program, Bootstrapping in America. In this episode the interview audio will be available on the podcast and the video is here on the blog. Hosts Kristi Ross and Tony Batista interview Nick about the Podcast, the investment group and what types of startups he invests in. […]

Today we cover Part 2 of hardware products that have succeeded where others failed with Ben Einstein of Bolt. In this segment we address: You’ve discussed Pebble’s inability to ‘cross the chasm’ and access the early & late majority, while Fitbit was able to. What were the key reasons why Fitbit succeeded where Pebble did […]

Ben Einstein of Bolt joins Nick to cover Hardware products that have succeeded where others failed, Part 1. We will address questions including: To start off, can you talk about your thesis and approach toward investing in hardware? What are your thoughts on hardware startups designing for one use case vs. building a platform? You’ve […]

Welcome back to TFR for another Cram Session. In these special releases, we have aggregated the takeaways and tips from previous episodes. In this installment, we will be recapping the following episodes: 73. Virtual Reality Investing, Part 1 (Adam Draper) 74. Virtual Reality Investing, Part 2 (Adam Draper) 75. No Fun Allowed, Part 1 (Jonathon […]