Alex Mittal's guest appearances

Alex Mittal

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Fish Sauce

Jerry Neumann

Rahul Vohra

David Sacks

Kyle Lui

Anu Hariharan

Daniel Ek

Emmett Shear

Kathryn Minshew

Alyssa Ravasio

Roelof Botha

Rebecca Kaden

Alice Bentinck

Annie Duke

Todd McKinnon

Jenny Lefcourt

OwlTail

My guest this week is Alex Mittal, co-founder of Funders Club. Following past guest Jeremiah Lowin, Alex is my second elementary school friend to appear on the podcast—a trend I hope continues. Funders club is a unique venture firm, because it is build around a network of investors and entrepreneurs who submit deals for consideration and invest together. But as you’ll hear, Alex and his co-founder Boris aren’t just building an open platform for early stage investing: they also then take a very traditional venture approach, making investing decisions themselves when it comes to building a centralized portfolio. Our conversation is about what Alex has learned investing in almost 300 early stage companies over the past 7 years. Please enjoy.   For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Show Notes 1:30 - (First Question) – Inception of the Founder’s Club              1:36 – Jeremiah Lowin Podcast Episode 3:59 – How the process of their platform works 5:40 – Role of the network in Founders Club setup and success 8:26 – What he has learned from all of the data he has access to 16:00 – Early stage investing and finding the sweet spot 22:17 – What makes a really intriguing bad idea 25:23 – Why he remains so excited about Ethereum 31:18 – More bad ideas              31:55 – Apoorva Mehta on How I Built This Podcast 37:15 – Thoughts on retail and logistics and how they fit his Venn diagram of boring and crazy 43:13 – Chip and electronic design 45:47 – Companies that are not just increasing efficiencies but actually making foundational changes              45:54 –  Energy and Civilization: A History 52:34 – What does he look for in founders              55:26 – Pivot or Fail 57:05 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Alex   Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag

My guest this week is Alex Mittal, co-founder of Funders Club. Following past guest Jeremiah Lowin, Alex is my second elementary school friend to appear on the podcast—a trend I hope continues. Funders club is a unique venture firm, because it is build around a network of investors and entrepreneurs who submit deals for consideration and invest together. But as you’ll hear, Alex and his co-founder Boris aren’t just building an open platform for early stage investing: they also then take a very traditional venture approach, making investing decisions themselves when it comes to building a centralized portfolio. Our conversation is about what Alex has learned investing in almost 300 early stage companies over the past 7 years. Please enjoy. For more episodes go to <a href="http://investorfieldguide.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast</a>. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at <a href="http://investorfieldguide.com/bookclub" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub</a>. Follow Patrick on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/patrick_oshag" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@patrick_oshag</a> Show Notes 1:30 - (First Question) – Inception of the Founder’s Club             1:36 – <a href="http://investorfieldguide.com/machinelearning/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jeremiah Lowin Podcast Episode</a> 3:59 – How the process of their platform works 5:40 – Role of the network in Founders Club setup and success 8:26 – What he has learned from all of the data he has access to 16:00 – Early stage investing and finding the sweet spot 22:17 – What makes a really intriguing bad idea 25:23 – Why he remains so excited about Ethereum 31:18 – More bad ideas             31:55 – <a href="https://radiopublic.com/HowIBuiltThis/ep/s1!74729" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apoorva Mehta on How I Built This Podcast</a> 37:15 – Thoughts on retail and logistics and how they fit his Venn diagram of boring and crazy 43:13 – Chip and electronic design 45:47 – Companies that are not just increasing efficiencies but actually making foundational changes             45:54 – <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Energy-Civilization-History-MIT-Press/dp/0262035774" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Energy and Civilization: A History</a> 52:34 – What does he look for in founders             55:26 – <a href="https://avc.com/2018/11/pivot-or-fail/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Pivot or Fail</a> 57:05 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Alex Learn More For more episodes go to <a href="http://investorfieldguide.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast</a>.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at <a href="http://investorfieldguide.com/bookclub" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub</a> Follow Patrick on twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/patrick_oshag" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@patrick_oshag</a>

Alex Mittal  – Early Stage Investing - [Invest Like the Best, EP.119]

Alex Mittal is the Co-Founder and CEO at FundersClub, the world's first online VC platform. 💰With the aspiration of removing human bias from fundraising, FundersClub is an online marketplace that uses software and networks to discover, fund, and support founders. Previously, Alex was a serial entrepreneur, having buit everything from Crederity (background checking and data company) to Innova Dynamics (electronic materials and nanotechnology platform). In the episode, Alex also shares his unique upbringing having been raised by Chinese and Indian parents 👪, and how those values of always questioning and being capital efficient is instilled in FundersClub’s values.

Alex Mittal is the Co-Founder and CEO at FundersClub, the world's first online VC platform. 💰With the aspiration of removing human bias from fundraising, FundersClub is an online marketplace that uses software and networks to discover, fund, and support founders. Previously, Alex was a serial entrepreneur, having buit everything from Crederity (background checking and data company) to Innova Dynamics (electronic materials and nanotechnology platform). In the episode, Alex also shares his unique upbringing having been raised by Chinese and Indian parents 👪, and how those values of always questioning and being capital efficient is instilled in FundersClub’s values.

Ep 20: Building an Online VC Community with Alex Mittal, Co-Founder & CEO of FundersClub

Alex Mittal is the Founder &amp; CEO @ Funders Club, the company that uses software and networks to provide investors with access to the world's most promising startups. Their portfolio includes the likes of Slack, Greenhouse, Shippo and Flexport just to name a few. They are backed by some of the world's leading investors themselves with the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, Felicis Ventures and First Round Capital. Prior to starting FundersClub, Alex was the founding CEO of Innova Dynamics, a VC-backed touchscreen hardware company, leading the company from university laboratory to securing design-in collaborations with today's major consumer electronics companies. Previously, he was the founding CTO of Crederity, a VC-backed identity and credential verification enterprise software company.  In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Alex made his way from YC founder to revolutionizing seed stage investing with Funders Club? 2.) Why is Alex still so bullish on the on-demand space? How does Alex evaluate on-demand startups? What metrics are attractive in the space? What do good unit economics look like for on-demand startups? 3.) Does Alex agree that we are experiencing a AI bubble? Where are the shortcomings in the current state of AI and machine learning? How does Alex expect the space to play out and what does Alex advise entrepreneurs in the space? 4.) What does Alex make of the rise of investing in hard science startups? Why does he get concerned to see traditional software VCs investing in the space? How should VCs view the rise of nontech businesses both in hard science and consumer? 5.) You have said before that 'the API is not in the past but is still to come'. Why are you so bullish on the continued expansion of APIs? Where do the inherent oportuities and use cases remain? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Alex's Fave Book: The Art of War by Sun Tsu Alex's Fave Blog: Eric Newcomer, Mattermark Daily As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Alex on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. X.ai is AI-powered personal assistant for scheduling meetings bringing you Amy or Andrew. The assistant you interact with like you would to any other person and it allows you to avoid the tedious hours of email ping pong in order to schedule one meeting. Even better, there is no sign in, no password, no download, all you do is cc amy@x.ai beautiful! And you can check it out now on x.ai it really is a must! Workable is the all-in-one recruiting software for ambitious companies. From posting a job to tracking and managing candidates, Workable provides everything you need to hire better. Transparent communication, organized candidate profiles, structured interviews and a full reporting suite gives hiring teams the information they need to make the best choice. Workable is available for desktop and mobile and you can find out more on workable.com where you can try it for free.

<a href="https://twitter.com/mittal" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Alex Mittal</a> is the Founder &amp; CEO @ <a href="https://fundersclub.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Funders Club</a>, the company that uses software and networks to provide investors with access to the world's most promising startups. Their portfolio includes the likes of Slack, Greenhouse, Shippo and Flexport just to name a few. They are backed by some of the world's leading investors themselves with the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, Felicis Ventures and First Round Capital. Prior to starting FundersClub, Alex was the founding CEO of Innova Dynamics, a VC-backed touchscreen hardware company, leading the company from university laboratory to securing design-in collaborations with today's major consumer electronics companies. Previously, he was the founding CTO of Crederity, a VC-backed identity and credential verification enterprise software company.  In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Alex made his way from YC founder to revolutionizing seed stage investing with Funders Club? 2.) Why is Alex still so bullish on the on-demand space? How does Alex evaluate on-demand startups? What metrics are attractive in the space? What do good unit economics look like for on-demand startups? 3.) Does Alex agree that we are experiencing a AI bubble? Where are the shortcomings in the current state of AI and machine learning? How does Alex expect the space to play out and what does Alex advise entrepreneurs in the space? 4.) What does Alex make of the rise of investing in hard science startups? Why does he get concerned to see traditional software VCs investing in the space? How should VCs view the rise of nontech businesses both in hard science and consumer? 5.) You have said before that 'the API is not in the past but is still to come'. Why are you so bullish on the continued expansion of APIs? Where do the inherent oportuities and use cases remain? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Alex's Fave Book: <a href="http://amzn.to/2nRmqVm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Art of War by Sun Tsu</a> Alex's Fave Blog: <a href="http://tinyletter.com/ericnewcomer" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Eric Newcomer</a>, <a href="https://mattermark.com/newsletters/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mattermark Daily</a> As always you can follow <a href="https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Harry</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/twentyminutevc" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Twenty Minute VC</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/mittal" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Alex</a> on Twitter here! <a href="https://www.snapchat.com/add/hstebbings" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.</a> <a href="https://x.ai/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">X.ai</a> is AI-powered personal assistant for scheduling meetings bringing you Amy or Andrew. The assistant you interact with like you would to any other person and it allows you to avoid the tedious hours of email ping pong in order to schedule one meeting. Even better, there is no sign in, no password, no download, all you do is cc <a href="mailto:amy@x.ai">amy@x.ai</a> beautiful! And you can check it out now on <a href="https://x.ai/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">x.ai</a> it really is a must! <a href="https://www.workable.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Workable</a> is the all-in-one recruiting software for ambitious companies. From posting a job to tracking and managing candidates, Workable provides everything you need to hire better. Transparent communication, organized candidate profiles, structured interviews and a full reporting suite gives hiring teams the information they need to make the best choice. Workable is available for desktop and mobile and you can find out more on <a href="https://www.workable.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">workable.com</a> where you can try it for free.

20VC: How Every VC Firm Is A Marketplace, Why A Large Amount of Promise in AI Today Is Impossible & Entrepreneurs 3 Main Pain Points of Fundraising with Alex Mittal, Founder & CEO @ Funders Club