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The Enthusiast: Founders & VCs beyond the Valley
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Enthusiast

Pat Alex

"Amazing businesses can be built from anywhere" - On the Enthusiast host Pat Alex chats with some of the most fascinating founders, operators and investors outside Silicon Valley. 
Every two weeks, he sits down with the likes of Arjuna Costa (Flourish), Paulo Passoni, Jeffrey Paine (Golden Gate Ventures), Gerry Giacoman (Clara) and Monica Brand Engel (Quona) to dissect their challenges around scaling, fundraising, managing boards and company leadership. Taken together, the guests have raised venture capital in the hundreds of millions and are behind their regions' biggest business and venture successes paving the way towards a more equitable and diverse future. 

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Episodes
[Investor Journey] Ali Karabey (212vc) on bringing VC investing to Türkiye, playing the platform game right without losing focus and building convictionApril 02, 2024
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[Operator Stories] Hamdi Tabbaa (Abwaab) on scaling edtech in MENA, market expansion for a highly localized product offering and upsellingMarch 19, 2024
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[Investor Journey] Dave Nangle (VEF) on successful founders go macro as well as micro, timing your entry moments and building global dealflowMarch 05, 2024
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[Investor Journey] Ramiro Lauzan (L Catterton) on timing your exit and fundamentals of themes based investingFebruary 21, 2024
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[Investor Journey] Carl Fritjofsson (Creandum) consistency as a driver of VC success, avoiding shiny objects & finally the advent of European tech leadership?February 06, 2024
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[Investor Journey] Christopher Schroeder on the Venn Diagram between the private & the public sector, unleashing entrepreneurial talent and US leadership in techJanuary 23, 2024
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[Operator Stories] Omair Ansari (Abhi) on tackling access to credit in Pakistan and going multi-product and multi-country early onJanuary 09, 2024
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[Strategic Deepdive] Leah Barto (Endeavor) on where unicorn founders come from, ecosystem building in emerging market and patterns vs. biases November 07, 2023
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[Investor Journey] Julian Roeoes (Picus Capital) on long term investing in transformational companies, their Americas strategy and muscles of private vs. public markets investingOctober 26, 2023
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[Investor Journey] Yana Yasevich & Yash Vardhan Kanoi (Alter Global) on investment roles in venture, curating dealflow and building trust with foundersOctober 10, 2023
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[Investor Journey] Victor Chua (Vynn Capital) on raising capital & investing in SEA, adding value on boards, trends for the regionSeptember 25, 2023
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[Operator Stories] Victor Noguera & Bernardo Cordero (Flat.mx) on fixing real-estate transactions in Mexico, the evolution of the industry and branching out into investing with Nascent.vcSeptember 12, 2023
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[Investor Journey] Fersen Lambranho (GP Investments) on what makes a great CEO, looking back onto 30 years of investing and differences between PE in Brazil vs. USJuly 18, 2023
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Ganesh Rengaswamy (Quona) & Kulin Shah (Onsurity) on the insurtech landscape in India, the founder-investor relationship and scaling OnsurityJuly 05, 2023
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[Operator Stories] Karim Jouini (Expensya) how to avoid value destruction in M&A, scaling across borders and the expense-management spaceJune 15, 2023
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[Operator Stories] Razaq Ahmed (Cowrywise) on revolutionising retail investing in Nigeria, playing the volume game, and using social media as an engagement tacticJune 06, 2023
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[Operator Stories] Sandra Nolasco (Twinco Capital) on fixing global trade finance, growth potential for emerging markets SMEs and sustainabilityMay 15, 2023
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[Operator Stories] Pedro Conrade (Neon) dreaming up the future of financial services in Brazil, when is it the right time to introduce new products and lessons learned from 5 acquisitionsMay 02, 2023
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[Operator Stories] Wiktor Schmidt (Netguru) on optimising for execution risk, scaling Netguru and the launch of Endeavor PolandApril 18, 2023
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[Investor Journey] Inanc Balci (Crestone VC) on scaling Lazada in SEA, launching an emerging markets Fintech VC and parallels between LatAm & Asia April 04, 2023
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[Investor Journey] Lolita Taub (Ganas Ventures) on breaking into VC, community as a moat and creating generational wealthMarch 21, 2023
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[Operator Stories] Gerry Giacomán (Clara) on always be changing, building compounding value and how to balance profitability and growthMarch 07, 2023
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[Investor Stories] Jonathan Whittle (Quona) on why and when it pays to become a bank, parallels to previous bust cycles and Brazil's fintech masterplanFebruary 21, 2023
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[Operator Stories] Sergiu Negut (FintechOS) on reducing friction in fintech product development, legacy infrastructure and low-code solutionsFebruary 07, 2023
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[Investor Journey] Ricardo Kanitz (Spectra) on GP due diligence, emerging fund managers and secrets of portfolio constructionJanuary 17, 2023
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