Hi, everyone. This is David Cohen, and I'm here with my amazing co host, Brad Feld. Hey, Brad! And this is the gift first podcast in the start up world. Give first means simply trying to help anyone, especially entrepreneurs without any expectation of getting anything back. So we'll be talking to mentors and founders about what give first looks like an action and how it makes great entrepreneurship possible. We pulled everyone, and they said consistently that their favorite part of the show was the legal mumbo jumbo. So here it is. The following discussion is an expression of personal opinion and does not represent the opinion of techstars or any company. We discuss our conversations for informational purposes only, including any mention of securities or funds. This is not legal business, investment or tax advice. It is not intended for use by any investor certain

of textures, funds own or may on in the future. Securities and some of the company's discussed in this podcast got it. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another year, another decade, Brad of Give. First, it's Actually it's actually not a new decade until December 31st 2020 but

actually eating stuff

was January 1st 2021 would be the beginning of the new decade. I don't know. I just I read The Farmer's Almanac, and that's what it says.

Okay, I thought you had some technicality or

something. You know, it's a it's a It's a classic programmers fence post problem. And I think most people think that, you know, 2020 January 1st is the beginning, but it's actually January 1st 2021

like based zero base, one kind of issue. There you go. I was just coating, which should scare the hell out of you. Andi. I had that exact issue. I decided I was gonna code something this year because I'm a coded much from, like, 10 years. And it's totally useless when I'm creating. But it's very fun. And I just had that base.

You're a problem. Are you? Are you programming your visual basic? No, it's PHP coming. Oh, you've made progress.

Yeah, exactly. Hey, 20 episodes in. This is our little recap, I guess 20 episodes of get first. That's pretty cool. Finals? Yes,

I've heard from a bunch of my podcast friends that people typically don't make it past number five. So we've met toe 20

with quadruple all of their expectations. Amazing. Well, you know, one of the guests that we had Harry stabbings he said that you just gotta keep going and he's done thousands. And he said

that Harry Harry's at 9200 307 or something exactly. Made a number

by the time you hear this will be that far. But, uh, yeah, let's talk through a few of the guests we've had in the last six or eight episodes. Harry was one of, you know, Harry had never done podcast. He was so nervous, I thought was really funny.

It was pretty awesome. Normally, when Harry does a podcast and I've been on the 20 minute VC a few times, you know, he sends you, Ah, bunch of questions in a script, and he's super super prepared. And, of course, within three minutes, when he and I start doing something, I we immediately go off script in its way off. Whenever he was planning, I kept waiting before the one we did with him or that you did with him. I kept waiting to see that long thing from him. That says, Here's what I want to talk about, and here's exactly what's gonna go every three minutes. But that never showed up,

which was cool because he said, You know, I've never been on this side of the microphone and, you know, I've never actually done on interview on a podcast. And we had very little plan as you, you, you and I like to do. And we just kind of talked about, Uh yeah, what he's learned over the years and some of his favorite episodes and if it was really fun to hear it. So if you have chicken upset out, I definitely would. Another one that was kind of different. That I thought was really fun. That we did recently was just Josh Hicks have pleaded, which we sort of recorded live, and I have a live podcast, but that's what we call it at the Blacks to launch pad the propellant in New York. So that was really fun to do live

some of the stuff when I listen to the podcast that that you did with Josh. The whole discussion about being an introverted leader really, really rang true, and I thought he was very articulate about not just how how he personally dealt with it but how he worked with his founder, co founder with it and how it really impacted

things. Is the business evolved? Yeah, it is sort of the boss versus leader, right versus manager thing. And I think, you know, he started out much like I did just, you know, programmer on the tech side. And, you know, I learned a lot as a company. Grew like crazy. That's that was a fun one to do with all the college students there. We had probably 300 students students in the room. And,

you know, they asked a bunch of questions afterwards. And, you know, we captured most of that for you. So it's a fun one too. Anything. You remember that, Sando?

Uh, we need to last year with her in the last half of last year with people who have really really long relationship with, um one that you didn't want that I did. The one that you did was with Heidi Roizen, who I was partners with at Mobius Venture Capital for a long time on dhe. We spent tons of time working together when I was in the Bay Area I would typically stay at her house and live with her family during this time period between 1999 and 2006 or 2007. I have had a room in her house and after 10 and it was fun to listen to her talk. We haven't really worked closely together since, uh, 7 4008 So over a decade, And, you know, we've had some things that have overlapped, and we've had plenty of interactions. But don't listen to her talk about not just her journey, but how she's thinking about her role and what she does today. Ah,

and really the definition for her of what meaningful work is. So that was one that was joyful to listen to. And then the other, which was an interview I did was with the Rajat Bhargava, who's the very entrepreneurs cofounded the very first company that I made my first angel investment in. And it was ah, investment that I made In 1994 a company called Net Genesis Raj, with a handful of well, other fraternity brothers and his friend mighty started, started the company. Raj was 20 or 21 he looked like he was about 14 on today. Still looks like he's about 14 which is 16 16 17 16. Um, but we had a lot of fun talking through, UH, both our experiences together,

his entrepreneurial journey, what we learned from each other in a mentor mentee relationship and some of the other mentors that he along the way. And then he applied some of the dynamics around give first to his current company, which is a company called Jump Cloud. That's would be to be SAS company. And, uh, I thought he did a really good job of articulating how the principles of Give First, which we generally talk about in the context of people, can also really function in the context of how our company engages with their perspective, customers and real customers. And, yeah, I think it's easy to sort of paint a landscape of Freemium models and things like that. But what Ross said was away more profound than that and give me a a couple of good things for the give first book that I'm working on that will come out next year. Sometime.

A couple of smart cookies there, for sure. I learned a ton from listening to that one with rajas. Well, and you know, Heidi, of course, is just a wealth of experience and knowledge. So those air great wants to check out one of things I think we've done. Hopefully pretty well is made. Sure we got some good good balance on the podcast, you know, gender wise. We all said, Janet Bannister, um of riel up in Canada. Um,

she's a fantastic investor. We work very closely with her on a couple of programmes, Montreal and Toronto around the accelerators. And, you know, she talked a lot about just managing her time and just the engine that she has on. And I thought there was some really great techniques for people in there about how they can sort of think about their time and because I know that's a problem. A lot.

Another impressive woman who was on the podcasters, Elizabeth Krauss, who people in and around Boulder. I'm sure no. Well, and, uh, Elizabeth's been involved in text ours for a long time, then started an accelerator. Ah, with her partner see part of Iran called Merge Lane, which is now an investment fund. Um, we were early investors. David, you were an investor in merger and I think, or at least a mentor in the early programs,

along with a little yes, sure. And you know, watching watching Elizabeth's own journey and experience has been powerful, but also listening to her reflect on how she approaches funding women lead cos how she thinks about it now that she's been doing it for a while. She was very, very early on the focus on companies that, you know, had at least 11 female founder, a CZ well, a cz how she went from really not knowing howto think about angel investing or making seed investments to now really having institutionalized the activity and being part of a much larger cohort of both men and women, but especially women who are now investing in early states. Startups.

Yeah, I just got a great podcast of around that. I think you and I both been on separately that, um, you know, sort of is about G. P's S O. That's the fun one toe listen to as well. If you go check out Elizabeth Cross and learn more about Merge Lane. But you can hear all that in that episode that we haven't get first. Some guy named Jason Mendelssohn have that guy. We shouldn't talk much about him. Probably.

I enjoyed listening to you and Jason talk about venture deals. Jason and I just came out with the fourth edition. I have, ah, the book venture deals be smarter than your lawyer and venture capitalist, which we wrote the first edition in 2000 11. And, ah, you'll have really good banter back and forth about and not just the book, but a motivation for the book and dynamics around its or how you know how the fourth Edition came to be. What's new, what's new in it. And it's Yeah, it's always a pleasure to listen to you. Talk is you've got you've got a great great friendship, both working relationship and friendship. That's just fun toe fun

to observe. And we still laugh because we were actually just cracking each other up on that podcast because we had not planned. You know, any of the sort of back and forth that we had around the music stuff at the end, and as you know, Jason's really into music and we hit a stride there and then another episode that I think was memorable. This is Mark Naeger, and yet they admire at the same time. So two people on which was a different way of doing it as well that run a rural of Inter fund in Colorado, and you've been really involved there, but sort of the notion of doing it out of the way part of the world are out of the way places coming from, you know, Mark who is obviously super involved in textures for a long time and before that started weekend and up global helping build all of that up. But you know, those guys have a very different perspective about how to find the next interesting companies in the world.

When when we did that podcast, I was in Aspen at my place there. Mark was at his place in Telluride, where he lives, and Day was in his place in Carbondale and, hey, sort of fascination that I had looking back on it waas the sort of med iness of what we were doing right. We're talking about building start up communities in cities that were not mainstream places and that we're part of effectively rural Colorado or probably more correct and non urban Colorado, right? Those those places that both Mark and Dave have focused on our outside of the front range. And I would see Mark in particular, has really spent ah, huge amount of time intellectually trying to understand what to do and how to build communities in these rural areas. And Dave has been an incredible practitioner of it, as has Mark, um, and the two of them together and sort of playing off each other on what they both both learned separately on from things that they've done. That that overlap is pretty powerful.

So I'm gonna guess that some of that's gonna end up in your refreshed start of communities book.

Maybe started started. Well, there's two books, right? There's Start of Community Way, which is a sequel to start up communities. That's, um, that's being delivered to the publisher on Friday afternoon. So it'll be published April May at the latest, and at the same time, I'm coming out with a second edition of start up communities, which includes a bunch of refreshes on different things that were in the first edition as well as some things that I just fundamentally got wrong or punted on on some tie ins to start a community way. So good foreshadowing. And for those of you that are following what Techstars is doing, uh, hasn't been announced yet. I don't know if it'll be announced by the time this podcast comes out, but if it hasn't, um if you think about ah Techstars and you think about books, there will be something that connects the two together

an interesting way. You're just full of teases. People are gonna be happy they're listening. Thio, This recap, addition. Think of all the all the advance information you get. Gosh, we should make a habit of that. So people should always listen to this one because given little previa will stink peak around the corner into next year. Now we have a few guests or into this year now lined up by the novel, but not the new decade yet correct. Just the old decades. Still the last year of the current decade. As you would say it, I have Philip McKernan coming up. That should be out soon. Phyllis become a good friend of mine. A lot of people in our community now, Jerry Kelowna as an amazing CEO, coach and partnership coach Phillip is sort of the equivalent of that Andi sort of life coach for individuals and really find discussion with him that I'm looking forward to getting out into the world soon.

Another one coming is with Lend Fassler. Len was the co chairman of the company that bought my first company. Ah, and he and I then subsequently did a couple of other companies together, um Lens in his late eighties. But he's incredible and really the person that much of my own learning around business and business deals, how to do acquisitions, how to do investments, how to treat people, how to really think long term and, frankly, how to approach things from a mentor perspective and give first came from. So it was a real delight to spend some time with Len. We had a couple of other people from Techstars there that are involved Jenny Lot and Frank Alfano, both who have been involved in companies with Len and I in the past,

and hopefully that one will be out pretty soon. I'm looking forward to that one, too. Um, so I think What have we learned? Brad? 20 podcasts in. It's not very many, but I think we've learned that. You gotta do a little bit of work ahead of it. You gotta Harry stepping has taught us that from 20 minute VC. Right? You gotta maybe talk to some people that know that person gets some good content because you only have about 20 minutes. I have gotten some feedback by the way that people want longer ones. They say sometimes you're just getting into the good stuff and the podcast is over. I'd love to hear an hour. I don't know if most people feel that way, but I've heard that a lot.

Curious for people's feedback, I think a few of the ones that I've done it stretched to about 30 minutes and I don't feel like we've run out of. We don't. All right, We don't run. I run outta gas a 20 or 30 minutes, but it feels like a feels like a bite sized chunk. Like that's enough. Um I mean, another thing we learned is you just got to do it like so many other things and get comfortable with it. I think it took me. I know the 1st 10 or so before I really felt like I had any sort of ah, rhythm while we were doing it, the first couple we tried to do together and that was a debacle. Um, you know, having to moderators on dhe one guest was really hard having one moderator and two guests which we tried with Mark and Dave.

We'll probably do that again. That worked pretty well. And, uh, I'm thing I learned was a little bit of pre work with the gassed. Uh, some of them will listen to all the all the podcaster last couple of podcasts in advance. Some won't. But helping them understand Ah, that it's not about a specific. Like, I want to get this one or this two point these two points across, but kind of. Here's the place we wanna wander around it and let's just have a conversation. Really? Change is the tempo a lot versus it being this stiff like here are the

questions we want to get to. Actually, it's much more fun when it's a real conversation back and forth and have fun doing that with you. Brad. I hope people look forward to the next 20 or so podcasts will probably back there for them with a little recap again. But I hope everybody has an awesome 2020 and a year from now looks forward to a new decade, and

I think I think our goal will be to do another 20

before the end of the decade. Oh, yeah, that should be no problem. Pace to far exceed that. Thanks for listening, everybody. And if you do have feedback ideas for guests, if you want longer podcast, shorter podcast podcast at all. E mail US at podcasts at techstars dot com. Of course. Check out and subscribe to bypass it. First techstars dot com.

Before we started, David told me that he's already tired of people wishing him Happy New Year. So Happy

New Year. Thanks for listening to the show today. We'd love to hear your feedback ideas for any person that you love to hear from you First, Please also leave us a rating in review and reach out to us at podcasts at techstars dot com, where you can reach me on Twitter at be felled. See you next time.