Episodit
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Meet Next Legacy Partners. While many members of both the Next Play and Legacy Venture communities are aware by now, the start of 2023 has been an eventful one for both firms. Having joined forces, Next Legacy now stands poised to deliver lasting impact and superior returns to our partners. Next Play Founder Ryan Nece and Legacy Founder Russ Hall join a conversation with Next Legacy Venture Partner Hunter Hillenmeyer to discuss the rationale and the goals behind the formation of Next Legacy. They also dive into the current state of VC, a trip down memory lane to the founding of each firm in 1999 and 2014, and a glance out towards the goals for the future. The conversation also provides more color into how and why funds of funds exist than has ever been shared in this format. While Next Legacy Perspectives is usually about sharing the brave exploits of our broader community, this momentous occasion felt worth celebrating through this quick acknowledgement of all the hard work that made Next Legacy possible. Here's to the next 25 years!
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Next Legacy is no stranger to serving the needs of athletes, but when Oren Gabriel and Next Play Capital Founder Ryan Nece, now Managing Partner at Next Legacy, first discussed the challenge facing athletes as they transition beyond the world of sports, both of them saw an opportunity. NextPlayU is the product of that brainstorm. Oren and his talented co-founders have been building a platform to help athletes, both college and professional, find success in their careers beyond the world of sports. Oren's journey as a founder is a fantastic story and one that is very close to home for the Next Play team. Tune in to hear about the exciting vision of NextPlayU and the ways they hope to support this underserved, but hyper-competent talent pool as they transition from sports into the workforce.
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While immigration is a polarizing topic in the US, Welcome Tech and their vision to become the digital Ellis Island somehow manage to rise above the politics. Amir Hemmat, Welcome Tech's founder, explains that if you think of a country like a company, attracting the best talent and then creating ideal conditions for their success is a no brainer. This is Welcome Tech's mission. With millions of immigrants in the United States now leveraging the Welcome Tech platform, the company is well on its way. In this conversation, Amir digs into the many reasons why a company like Welcome Tech needs to exist, including why the government itself is not well positioned to serve immigrants this comprehensively. Regardless of your stance on immigration, Amir's no-nonsense views on how to empower immigrants to contribute and thrive in a new country will have you nodding in agreement. Check it out, and let us know what you think.
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Harry and his teammates at Mill do not look like your typical early stage startup. For one, they come with a pedigree from some of the most iconic tech companies ever, names like Apple, Google, and Nest. He and Mill Co-Founder Matt Rogers have been in the trenches together, most notably building Nest from $0 to more than $1B in annual revenue, culminating in their acquisition by Google. Startups that include hardware + software scare many VCs. The added complexity and working capital requirements are just a few reasons to validate those fears. Harry articulates wonderfully both the "why" behind Mill's bold vision and the ways that their experienced team gives them an unfair advantage. Mill's vision to "outsmart waste" by equipping families everywhere to keep food waste out of landfills, and even from becoming waste in the first place, will inspire listeners to be a part of solving what Harry describes as the "dumbest climate problem," the fact that nearly 10% of the total greenhouse gas problem comes from wasted food sitting landfills. Mill is coming out of stealth now and is ready to share their vision with the world.
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Most venture-funded startup founders begin their journeys with grand ambitions from the outset. Such was not the case with Natalie, who started Babylist in 2011 to improve upon her own experience setting up a baby registry while expecting her first child. Now almost a dozen years later, she has both a tween and a company who are maturing rapidly. From those humble beginnings Natalie turned her side hustle into a force in online commerce, where Babylist now manages a registry for nearly half of expecting parents in the U.S. Her lessons learned and plans for future growth will inspire anyone who has a side project that they dream could one day become their main thing. Her personal growth, from engineer & expecting mother into CEO, and the growth of Babylist from side hustle to juggernaut, both offer models for personal and professional development that the rest of us can follow.
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Chase Griffin is a quarterback at UCLA and perhaps the most pioneering NIL athlete in college sports. Despite having not yet regularly started at QB for UCLA, Chase has more brand partnerships than many of the best known names in the college game. Whether you love the new world of college sports where athletes can monetize their Name, Image, and Likeness or you think this new dynamic has ruined the game, you will be inspired by the story of Chase Griffin. His marketability has as much to do with his personality and his values as it does with the strength of his arm or the caliber of his play. Is Chase a model for the future of college sports or an anomaly amidst the transition of college athletics from amateur game to professional farm league? Hear about his journey to decide for yourself.
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Matt Pohslon has spent the last decade innovating on what it means to serve non-profits. Omaze, a for-profit company that raises money for great causes by offering once-in-a-lifetime experiences, has a mission grounded in going beyond raising awareness to making huge impacts (and raising lots of money) for the causes it supports. Matt and Omaze are well on their way, but it hasn't been a straight line. Omaze has continued to evolve its business. Matt himself suffered a near death experience that precipitated a huge change in the Omaze model. Hear from this inspiring founder who is blurring the lines between capitalism and the nonprofit world in the best possible way.
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Wes started FPV with co-founder Pegah Ebrahimi with one goal in mind: to back truly exceptional founders who are attacking a problem "they've been thinking about their whole life." Wes knows what a successful founder looks like. His track record as an investor at both Felicis and Google Ventures (now GV) speaks for itself. On top of that, his experience leading product teams at Google, including Analytics and Voice, gives him both the insights and scar tissue to spot the best builders before it is obvious that they will succeed.
Whenever a manager "spins out" of a more established firm, they are trading security for opportunity. Hear Wes discuss why he and Pegah felt like now was the right time to start FPV and how they plan to work with founders in the years to come.
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Andrew Brandt knows the business side of sports about as well as anyone. He followed up a career as an agent by joining the Packers in 1999 to negotiate player contracts and manage the cap. He is now a blogger, ESPN expert, professor and leader of the Moorad Center for sports law at Villanova, and podcaster. He was an insider for some of the most definitive moments of the modern NFL, including the decision to take Aaron Rodgers with a 1st round pick in the 2005 NFL Draft despite having future Hall of Famer and NFL ironman Brett Favre at quarterback. Hear Andrew relive some of these stories from the inside, get his perspective on how to get a job in sports, and listen to Andrew's philosophy that any job should be looked at as a chapter and not a career, especially if your current job has an expiration date, like playing pro sports. Andrew is experienced enough to cut through all the industry BS, yet real enough to stay in sync with the humanity of sports. Enjoy his reflections on this week's podcast and follow him on Twitter @AndrewBrandt to see for yourself.
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Many incredible people in this world recognize a need and conceptualize founding a company, but very few bring their ideas to life. After noticing the impact that Breast Cancer Awareness has in only one month of the year, Jake Kloberdanz set out to create something that gives back every single day. He and seven other cause-minded entrepreneurs founded ONEHOPE in 2007 with the mission to “share wine and give hope”. Today, ONEHOPE is one of the largest direct-to-consumer wineries in the world, and proceeds of their award-winning wines have allowed ONEHOPE to donate over $8 million to local and global causes including access to clean water, hunger relief, health research, and education.
Since launching ONEHOPE in 2007, Jake has successfully raised more than $75 million to help grow the brand from zero to over 1.5 million bottles a year, and build a flagship vineyard, home and winery from the ground up in the heart of Napa. In this episode, Jake shares headwinds and tailwinds of starting a business, realities of fundraising, and the absolute essentials to keeping your business successful (spoiler: relationships, brand and hard work). Tune in to learn more!
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Colleen Cutcliffe, co-founder and CEO of Pendulum Therapeutics, is leading the charge on helping humanity live better, healthier, and longer lives. She does this through her study of the microbiome – what other scientists and doctors now know drives nearly every avenue of our bodies (think: cognition, aging, metabolism, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s). By creating a product that has the efficacy of a drug but safety of a probiotic, Pendulum Therapeutics has become the next generation health company with an entirely new thing – a medical probiotic. Pendulum is backed by Mayo Clinic, Meritech Capital, Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures and True Ventures, to name a few.
Colleen's impressive background includes a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Microbiology from Johns Hopkins University, but she shares that her role as a mother is what ultimately led her to co-found Pendulum Therapeutics. Listen in to hear Colleen’s favorite sports moment (her bit on sports is phenomenal!), to learn what “leaky gut” is and how to fix it, and how to discover if you are aging healthy or not.
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Jonathan Harris has had a bit of the Midas touch when it comes to hardware technology businesses. Major roles at GoPro, Roku, and Jawbone prior to Molekule all made it apparent that Jonathan knew the industry and knew what a winner looked like. Yet, he is quick to acknowledge that Molekule represents a lot of firsts for him. Jonathan spoke of his past companies, an iconic trio, as "nice to haves." What separates Molekule, in his mind, is its lofty mission: to provide clean air to everyone, everywhere. When you hear Jonathan talk about leadership at Molekule, it begins to make sense why he was tapped in the summer of 2021 as the growth CEO for this rapidly growing company. Among his most important lessons: always listening - to customers, to employees, and to the market. Despite being only a few quarters into the job, Jonathan speaks with a long-term focus. Tune in to hear what he means by "capping the pyramid" as one key to building enduring organizations and products. Other topics include how to hire (and fire), how to present problems to colleagues, and how to build accountability into an organization. Enjoy.
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Hannah Gordon did not grow up in a football obsessed family - her grandad once asked her why people always found linemen to be so "offensive." Despite the lack of early grooming, Hannah has become one of the top power brokers in the NFL as the Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel of the San Francisco 49ers. Hannah's conversation with Ryan Nece covers many hot NFL topics such as diversity & equity, cannabis, and gambling. She also shares some of her thoughts on work life balance (a term she frustratedly points out is most commonly applied to women) and team building. She says every team member needs work ethic, intelligence, and integrity, but that one of these stands above the rest as the most important. Check out this week's conversation to learn which trait she thinks is the single biggest must-have for any great teammate, in sports or in business.
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Aydin was an unlikely candidate to build one of the fastest growing venture funds of the last decade. Almost entirely a product person at iconic companies like Google, Aydin has parlayed a $4M angel investing start into a platform that just raised an impressive $900M fund. His conversation with Next Play Partner Hunter Hillenmeyer takes a deep dive into their path to success. He names empathy for founders as a bedrock conviction that has allowed Felicis to invest an some of today’s most iconic tech companies. Their formula: risk taking & conviction while playing to their unique strengths as a firm. Aydin is also the first guest on the pod to recommend a book written by an athlete. Listen now to see whose book he “can’t wait to read for a third time" with his kids.
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Ross Tucker's childhood dream was to write for Sports Illustrated. When he got the chance to do just that after a successful career in the NFL, Ross earned the chance to be very purposeful about his next steps in media. The result is a career that spans podcasting, play by play, radio, and even his own recruiting business. Just don't call it work. Ross is a rare example of a superfan turned insider who retains the perspective of how lucky someone is to get paid to do something they love. Ross's conversation with Next Play's Hunter Hillenmeyer covers his sports career, his business career, and how a bias towards action can take you far in life.
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Founder, investor, and now champion for under-resourced entrepreneurs through Google for Startups. These are a few of the many hats worn by Jewel Burks Solomon. Jewel's conversation with Next Play founder Ryan Nece goes deep on her breadth of experience. This 3x Google employee talks about what she's learned in her several roles at the company, how they have helped her in her subsequent roles, and what she is trying to accomplish now. Jewel shares some great insight on topics such as the evolving role of HBCUs in the tech world, Atlanta as a center of industry, and what people should be trying to get out of an internship. Hint: her first stint at Google started as an intern. Tune in for a great perspective on the plight of a diverse entrepreneur who has paved the way for many more to follow in her very large footsteps!
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There aren't many 32 year olds in VC with stronger pedigree than Nikhil Basu Trivedi. He moved to Silicon Valley at the age of 13 and worked his way up through the ranks at Insight Partners and Shasta Ventures, where he refined his craft and revealed a knack for finding and winning competitive deals with great founders. This podcast is a must-listen for anyone considering starting their own VC fund. Nikhil has just started Footwork with his partner, Mike Smith, anchored by many of the best investors in the world. Nikhil shares their roadmap for Footwork. Why now? What stage companies should they invest in? What industries? What core values should drive the firm? The conversation offers insights both for how to get started on laying out the framework for a new fund, but it also reveals the level of thought and planning required to "build a firm, not a fund." We're betting on Footwork becoming one of the next great names in Silicon Valley lore. Check out this conversation with Nikhil Basu Trivedi to see if you agree.
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Next Play has many athletes as members of our unique community. Usually their story adds up. Where and how they grew up makes their path to stardom in football or basketball seem plausible. Such is not the case with Blaine Scully. How does a multi-sport star in California high school sports go on to become one of the United States' most decorated rugby stars ever? And, no, rugby was not one of his sports in high school. In this episode of Next Play Perspectives, Blaine takes us on his journey to finding the game of rugby and shows us how nichier sports like this in America tend to draw participants with an intrinsic love of the game. Blaine's rugby journey took him all over the globe. He is now in the first inning of his second career, starting a family, and exploring where his next intrinsic passions lie.
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Greg Sands has his fingerprints all over the Silicon Valley we know today. As the first head of product at Netscape, Greg helped build the foundation of the original internet boom. As a partner at Sutter Hill and now Founder of Costanoa, Greg continues to work with founders to build industry defining platforms. His conversation with Ryan Nece covers the gamut. What is Greg most excited about from an investing perspective today? What motivates him, or people in general, to show up and give great effort every day? You'll hear Greg use the word "values" about a dozen times in this interview. Hear him explain what values mean to his firm, to his family, and to all the people he works with.
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