The podcast for angels and seed investors bold enough to write the first check.I've been in Silicon Valley long enough to know that most investor folks are followers. But there are a few who truly lead and take the bet. How do they do it? What signals are they observing? What makes them different?We'll explore this on the podcast. I hope you'll subscribe!

I work with pre-seed companies (usually 2-10 people) and invest $1-25k.If you are working on AI/ML copilots, consumer hardware, SMB ideas, or climate technology (not financial instruments), please reach out!Why work together?Dropcam's growth from 2 to over 100 people, from inception to acquisition, from $0 to $XXMM in revenue, taught many lessons. We did a few things right and a lot of things wrong.Product and engineering, marketing and sales, hiring and retaining, pitching and raising... my goal is to help leaders get the information and background they need to make the right decisions for their companies.I was a GP at Felicis for 2 years and saw the other side of the table as well - how do investors consider traction, competition, your metrics, and more? I share insights to help you make a more compelling pitch.

VSHAD Holdings is a family-owned commercial real estate investment company. It was started by my father and focused on STNL (single-tenant-net-lease) properties in the Houston area.We continue to invest in the Houston area and are broadening our search area to the rest of the major Texas cities. I now work with the family to assess our current properties and develop new commercial real estate opportunities.

I am exploring a few ideas that could become projects that could become something else.

The Presidential Innovation Fellows program pairs technologists, designers, and strategists with the federal government for year-long residencies that are rooted in technology and citizen needs.I was stationed at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), working under CTO Alex Loehr and CIO Mark Andress to develop software product management as a tradecraft. We took knowledge around Agile software development and SAFe principles and re-oriented it around how NGA and its culture works.My role was like a new VP-Product, observing how teams consider their users while building software to help our Intelligence Community and DoD mission partners. From there, I worked with leadership to:1) define software product management as a work role at NGA, considering Human Development goals around recruiting, hiring, training, and promoting2) align expectations around software product management and program management, clarifying responsibilities among teammates3) develop NGA's The Praxeum, a software product management onboarding to help those already thrown into the work role to better understand what they do (and why) while working with users, customers, stakeholders, and contractor development teams to deliver software4) identify ways to improve our DevSecOps, program management, and contracting processes so that, over time, software product management helps NGA accomplish its mission better, faster, and with higher quality.

I help companies in the Felicis portfolio consider their team and product-building activities when they are at their earliest stages and trying to determine product-market-team fit.

Felicis Ventures leads seed, Series A, and Series B investments in startup companies. If you are building a scalable company that plans to make money (not just gather eyeballs and pray) with amazing product and technology, I hope you'll give me a holler.I'm not interested in advertising technology or products that simply try to addict their users to an interface.It's totally fine if you're a first-time founding team and you're not sure about your pitch, etc. - I've been there and am happy to help you build your company and idea.

Nest makes devices for the thoughtful home. Dropcam / Nest Cam is a way to see your home on your phone and get alerts that matter.I worked with the Dropcam executive team during the acquisition and diligence process, and then with Tony Fadell, Matt Rogers, and the rest of the Nest executive team on integration, bringing a team of 100 into a team of 400 at the time. Lots of lessons.I joined Tony's product team and built a camera roadmap that considered the Nest app, hardware, and overall ecosystem, and also influenced the larger product roadmap, especially for apps and cloud services.This role involved working with sales, finance, operations, marketing, product, design, and engineering leaders across the organization. I worked on everything from defining camera hardware to financial modeling for our blend of hardware and SaaS to consumer marketing to point-of-sale displays to UX considerations for the Nest app and more... all while keeping the customer top-of-mind.We launched Nest Cam, the successor to Dropcam Pro, in June 2015. The European launch happened a month later, in July 2015.

Dropcam helps you watch your home from anywhere - use your computer or mobile phone to check in on the things you care about: home, business, baby, pets.Greg Duffy and I started the company in January 2009, raised angel funding from an amazing list of supporters including Mitch Kapor, Aydin Senkut, and David Cowan, and built an initial version of the product users can purchase today.Accel Partners joined our investor group in a Series A funding, Menlo Ventures led our Series B, and IVP and KPCB hopped on board during the Series C.Dropcam is not just hardware - it's a software experience. The company followed the Apple model of providing a seamless user experience that will bring internet cameras to the mainstream. You have a powerful computer in your pocket - shouldn't you be able to drop in on home while you're away?I focused on hiring, metrics, operations, and marketing during the early stages of the company while providing product and engineering guidance during the first few years.As we scaled the team and found leaders for each part of the organization, I became head of product and built a team and processes that would scale as we grew.Dropcam was acquired by Google's Nest Labs subsidiary in June 2014.

Xobni provides software to mine and organize data in your email.I architected and wrote some of the signature features of Xobni, including the profile management system, which merged person information and automated address book data-handling, and the invite system, which allowed users to virally disseminate Xobni while within Outlook.After the original VP-Engineering left, I took over the role and did even more by implementing processes to help with support and customer feedback; adding a metric-based system to track milestones, releases, and company goals; and coordinating new product and user interface team members to ensure that the engineering team still got things done with little additional overhead.

PowerReviews provides a review and social navigation engine for Internet commerce.I architected and developed portions of http://www.buzzillions.com using Java, JSP, JSTL, and the Endeca platform. I implemented many of our unique features, like tag-based brand comparison and product navigation.Because the site is new, I also worked on search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing (SEM) techniques to increase our visibility and traffic.

NeuroPace is developing a brain implant to help those with severe epilepsy.I implemented signal processing algorithms in C to analyze electroencephalograms (EEGs), and designed software to enable its web-based visual display for hundreds of users across the US.

National Instruments focuses on computer-based measurement and automation by creating software (LabVIEW) and hardware.I led testing and verification of the DAQ-STC2, a signal and timing controller that now powers M Series, the company’s largest hardware product line.