Transcript
Introduction
Patrick
We've always found that even in public equities, you learn more once you have a live portfolio. One of the best ways to learn is to put some capital at risk. To learn more about the venture capital world, for example, I made an investment in a startup called Ladder, a platform business that connects coaches, fitness trainers to begin with, with consumers who want or need a coach to help them improve their fitness and their health. The idea is by making the entire coaching system more efficient, Ladder can provide consumers with a real person as a coach, but at a fraction of the cost, and provide coaches with both new customers and a much better way of managing their existing business. If you're interested in the backstory of this business, you can listen to episode number 60, the podcast with founder Brett Maloley, and his story of the vision for Ladder.
We are now six months into the launch of the business, with thousands of users and coaches on the platform and run-rate revenue past a million dollars. What I was most curious about at this stage, aside from building something useful of course, was the relationship between a startup and institutional venture capitalists who are allocating capital from their funds into startups at various stages. For this episode, I asked two VCs to sit down with me and Brett and treat the conversation as they would a normal pitch meeting so that we, the audience, can get a peek into their world and the types of questions that they ask.