Melody Koh of Nextview Ventures joins Nick on a special Crisis Coverage installment to discuss Super-Technologies; The Everyday Economy; The Overlooked Working Class; and Fear of Missing Out vs. Fear of Looking Dumb. In this episode, we cover:
- Background and path to venture
- Thesis and Focus at NextView
- Hands-on approach (only 2-3 investments/yr)?
- You wrote that when it comes to investing in the COVID era — FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is replaced by FOLD (Fear Of Looking Dumb). What are you seeing from other investors?
- How will this effect ‘Seed’ as a Stage of investing?
- How has the crisis effected your approach?
- Conviction without face to face?
- Recently heard about NextView’s new virtual Accelerator… congrats on the launch. Can you give us a quick overview of the program?
- Do you have any predictions on the long-term effects of this crisis on the ‘Everyday Economy’?
- I saw your tweet about companies shifting the real estate burden to employees as everyone works from home… do you think companies should subsidize this?
- Super-Technologies… railroads, electricity, automobiles, and now internet connectivity. Ideas about what may be some of the next infrastructure type super-technology?
- Why do you think the working class has been overlooked as an opportunity for innovation?
- You cite labor as an opportunity ready for innovation. Why is now the time for innovation here?
- You point out a really interesting observation — that this demographic is more likely to use smartphones as their daily driver and that they tend to skew towards older devices. What does that mean for new tech products?
- Are there examples of tech companies that have successfully built a company designed for this category of workers?
- What are the key success factors or key criteria for success, when launching technologies for the working class?
- Which working class industries do you think are in the best position for change?