The Superpowers of Founders: A VC's Guide to Spotting the Best | James Shecter from Makena Capital

Understanding VC

🕰️ Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction

00:48 - Opening Question

01:08 - Challenges in Evaluating Founders

03:56 - Assessing Founders

06:58 - Market and Product Assessments

09:25 - Founder-led companies do better at later stages?

12:00 - The Importance of Quantitative Assessments

13:14 - Psychological and Motivational Discernment

16:24 - Value Creation in AI

20:30 - Framework for Assessing Founders

24:32 - Storytelling + Narrative

26:43 - Vision

31:35 - Inquisition + Curiosity

33:42 - Grit and Drive

35:40 - Do Founders really need External Validation?

37:51 - Irreverence for Status Quo

39:53 - Resourcefulness in Time and Money

41:46 - Magnetism

45:56 - Superpowers

50:32 - Not-So “Ideal” Founders

51:45 - Curiosity as Sign of Intelligence

54:45 - Adapting to Time Constraints

01:01:09 - Conclusion

📍 About:

Born and raised in Philadelphia, James Shecter began his journey into entrepreneurship and venture capital as an undergraduate, where he served as a strategist and consultant for several student-run startups, including Seated and Transcend. He launched his professional career at Citibank in New York City, providing multi-stage M&A advisory services in the aerospace and business services sectors. Following this, he transitioned to Lee Equity, a middle-market private equity firm, where he was involved in various transactions within the fintech/insurtech and healthcare industries.

Most recently, James worked at 9Yards Capital, a growth-stage venture capital firm based in Los Angeles, where he contributed to deploying over $50 million into fintech, logistics, and enterprise startups such as Chainalysis, LeafLink, and Remote HR. Additionally, he co-leads The MBA Fund, an institutional seed fund that supports entrepreneurs from the Harvard, Stanford, and University of Pennsylvania ecosystems.

Since his high school years, James has been actively engaged in mentoring, tutoring, and coaching students from inner-city Philadelphia. He holds an MBA from Wharton and a BA in Behavioral Economics from Harvard. Outside of his professional pursuits, James enjoys surfing, reading, and writing, and is working towards building a collection of guitars as functional decor for his future home.

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📍 About:

Understanding VC is a podcast that provides founders with the knowledge and resources they need to understand venture capital. Our goal is to create the best and most comprehensive resource on venture capital on the internet, so that founders can make informed decisions about their businesses and secure the funding they need to succeed.