This Week in Startups Weekly Recap April 4-10
Jason Calacanis
I invest in 100 new startups a year... get a meeting with my team at launch.co/apply, or learn how to start a company by joining founder.university (our 12-week course). watch thisweekinstartups.com if you love startups
Hey Everybody, Hey Everybody!
With Molly on vacation this week, we brought returning fan favorites David & Ben from Acquired and Zach Coelius & Antonio Garcia Martinez on to help with the news. Plus, we had great conversations with, Dune Analytics co-founder Fredrik Haga, Freestyle Capital's Dave Samuel, Rose Technology CEO Alex Campbell, climate investor Jay Koh from The Lightsmith Group and TCG Crypto's Gaby Goldberg.
Producer’s Pick
You’ve probably never heard of Alex from Rose Technology but you won't forget him after this interview. He's developed unique insights from his vantage point as CEO of a data analytics company. He fearlessly took Jason’s wide-ranging questions and brought unique data sets to back up his opinions on global macro-evolution. (Apple | Spotify | Youtube)
Also, if you are considering investing in crypto projects, Fredrik Haga from Dune Analytics lays out key metrics to evaluate them. It’s a fascinating new reporting paradigm compared to traditional filings done by public companies. (Youtube)
In VC Sunday School, Jason answers a question about investing in down rounds. Then, Molly chats with Jay Koh, an investor at The Lightsmith Group about how he invests in the climate landscape, cautionary tales from the first climate investing wave, and more.
First, Jason chats with Alex Campbell of Rose Technology, a data analytics tool and marketplace that helps organizations more clearly understand macro trends. Alex is a former trader for Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates and shares some incredible insights on the global macro environment across Chinese real estate, investment rates, Bitcoin, Tether, historical financial crises and more. Then, for another edition of "OK Boomer," Producer Rachel Chats with Gaby Goldberg from TCG's Crypto investment arm. They talk about resources to get started in crypto and why Gaby invests at the intersection of consumer and crypto.
First, Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal from Acquired join Jason to talk portfolio construction, Roelof Botha succeeding Doug Leone at Sequoia, and to debate the takeaway from Fast's demise. Then Lon Harris from Inside Streaming joins to discuss the final two episodes of The Dropout!
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We kick off our crypto series with Dune Analytics CEO and Founder Frederik Haga about crypto on-chain analytics. Dune lets analysts query blockchain data and quickly make visualizations. People use the platform to answer questions like:
Antonio Garcia Martinez (Chaos Monkeys, The Pull Request) and Zach Coelius (Coelius Capital) join to discuss a wide range of news topics including Antonio's trip to Ukraine, the one-click checkout company Fast closing down, Elon Musk joining Twitter's board, Apple taking on Facebook in ads (and how it will impact the battle for AR/VR), crypto regulation and more!
Dave Samuel of Freestyle VC joins for a discussion on early-stage investing. Freestyle invested early in startups including Airtable, Patreon and Intercom. We talk about how fund size dictates strategy, how to give feedback to founders (especially when it's a no) and more.
Other news we covered this week
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