Hello, readers of The Venture Lens!
I’m excited to announce the debut episode of The Venture Variety Show! In this podcast, I had the pleasure of recording a chat with Scott Brown from Cervin Ventures. We talked about the evolution of venture platforms and their benefits for entrepreneurs and investors alike.
The focus on platforms was intentional for this first episode. When I began soliciting feedback from friends and experts a year ago, I started sketching out topics. I didn’t want to create another podcast that merely hammered out venture investment trends and deals. Not that there’s anything wrong with those! In fact, this podcast intends to stay true to its name and cover a variety of venture-related themes, including trends, strategies, personalities and success stories shaping the startup and venture communities.
If I succeed, this podcast will appeal to entrepreneurs and investors, alike, as well as the marketing and platform folks who work with them.
Expect discussions with investors, entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, artists and other experts, each bringing their insights to help you and your business level up!
Why Platforms?
But platforms are a favorite subject of mine. I was a journalist for three decades, having sold my first story to a local newspaper in Southern California when I was a student in 1989. Throughout my years as a full-time journalist, I primarily covered business, including every aspect of venture capital, from startups to GPs and LPs. I also covered the marketing beat while at the Silicon Valley Business Journal.
So I naturally I reported on tech and venture marketing in the late 1990s. In the 2000s and 2010s, I again wrote how VCs marketed themselves, and I continued to cover value-add services in the venture community.
Even as an independent journalist, I wrote last year about the rise of platform managers, and that piece remains one of my more popular Substack articles. In that post, I discussed a study on platforms from Visible.vc, which Scott mentions in the podcast, and which dives into the role of Platform Managers and their importance in the venture community.
As you’ll hear in the podcast episode, Scott is the perfect person to discuss the characteristics and impact of platforms, given his extensive marketing background and his experience working with corporates and venture firms.
Give it a listen and tell us what you think!
Future Podcasts from TVVS
Hopefully, The Venture Variety Show will continue to show the inside baseball of venture firms, including the benefits of platforms, current events trends in VC, data-driven reports, expert opinions and more.
If you have suggestions for future interviews, I’d love to hear from you. Just reach out!
You can also follow The Venture Variety Show on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
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