How VC diligence works at different stages + Fion's Sudarshan Sridharan on wildfire tech | E1522
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.2 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 31 July 2022
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
First up on the Sunday show, Jason breaks down the different levels of diligence at different company stages for VC Sunday School (2:02). Then, Fion Technologies CEO Sudarshan Sridharan joins to talk helping firefighters fight wildfires with mapping technology. (21:31)
(0:00) Jason tees up today's Sunday edition of This Week in Startups!
(2:02) Molly recaps her first half year of investing, then asks Jason about diligence at different stages of investing in different verticals
(10:23) UserTesting - Get real human insights from customers, try for free today at https://usertesting.com/twist
(11:40) Jason on great investments coming out of "prepared minds", the importance of testing and trying
(19:57) OpenPhone - Get an extra 20% off any plan for your first 6 months at https://openphone.com/twist
(21:31) Molly welcomes Fion Technologies CEO Sudarshan Sridharan to discuss helping wildfire fighting with software and his founding story
(32:36) Brave - Download today at https://brave.com/twist to browse faster, search privately and so much more
(33:56) Sudarshan explains how the Fion app helps firefighters, its pricing model, and more
(41:06) The state of wildfires in the US, why Sudarshan is building Fion
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. Welcome. It's our Sunday show with kicking it off with a really important VC |
| 0:04.7 | Sunday school discussion. And this is about diligence and research and how to be a great investor. |
| 0:10.2 | When let's face it, you may not have the domain expertise in every single vertical you approach. |
| 0:15.8 | And what it's like to build a career venture capital not over 10 months, but over 10 years. Molly's |
| 0:21.3 | doing a great job in climbing and sustainability. And we all get to follow along with her journey |
| 0:26.6 | and learn as she learns. And this has been a great series. Of course, every Sunday we have this |
| 0:32.2 | week in climbing as well. And this time Molly is interviewing the founder of a situational awareness |
| 0:38.0 | company. It's an app that helps firefighters who are fighting these insane wildfires we're seeing, |
| 0:45.2 | especially here in California, Northern California, where it seems like every summer we have to do |
| 0:49.9 | with these more and more intense fires. It's a really cool startup. Stick with us. It's going to |
| 0:55.1 | be a great show. This week in startups is brought to you by user testing. With user testing, |
| 1:02.1 | you'll understand it from your customer's perspective by seeing how they interact with your |
| 1:06.6 | products, apps, or messaging, get real-time feedback real fast. Put yourself in your customer |
| 1:13.6 | shoes, visit usertesting.com slash twist for a free trial, user testing, real human insight, |
| 1:21.2 | open phone. As a startup founder, a lot of mistakes are easy to roll back. But using your personal |
| 1:26.9 | cell phone number as your company number isn't one of them. Open phone makes it easy to get business |
| 1:32.4 | phone numbers for you and your team right on top of your existing devices. Visit openphone.com slash |
| 1:39.4 | twist to get 20% off your first six months. And Brave is an internet privacy company on a mission |
| 1:47.8 | to protect your personal info online. Download Brave today at brave.com slash twist to browse faster, |
| 1:56.9 | search privately, and so much more. All in a single click. |
| 2:02.4 | Alright Molly, here we are. It's July going into August. You've been at it for over six months |
| 2:09.2 | coming in the second half of your first year. As an investor, now you're in the second half of |
... |
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