18VC Podcast - Next Gen Builders

18VC Podcast Ep # 8 From a War Zone to Venture Capital — The "Chaos Native Strategist" Tigran Ghukasyan

He grew up in Artsakh — an unrecognized state he calls a real-world Neverland — fought in the 2020 war, then pulled off a "physically impossible" transfer to the US without losing a single semester. Now Tigran Ghukasyan is building CyNet at USC — and fresh off an exchange semester in Tokyo with Plug and Play Japan, he makes the case for why this could be the age of Japan. On Episode 8 of 18VC, we sit down with Tigran Ghukasyan — founder of CyNet at USC, co-founder at Spheroid, with experience across Plug and Play US, Armenia, and Japan — on failed first startups, pivoting a metaverse company into an XR-native engine, and why the bottleneck of AI is now physical. Highlights & Key Insights: * Why his first startup — repatriating stranded cars through embassies during COVID — failed in every possible way, and what it taught him about the death of middleman arbitrage * The funding trap that kills startups and the board-of-directors trap that kills corporate ideas — and why VC is the only environment that escapes both * The genetics of risk: ~30% of Americans are built to take risks. In Japan, it's less than 2% * How Spheroid pivoted from metaverse to the first XR-native engine — by building momentum with developers instead of pitching decision-makers * US is relentless, Europe chases government funding, Japan has kaizen but no commercialization — and why that's about to flip in Japan's favor * CyNet's thesis: most accelerators disrespect founders' time and build walls; demolish them and bet on "the power of handshake" * His answer to the AI "permanent underclass" debate, and why humans will live in between AI skills * The post-war decision everyone called impossible — and the encircled-commander mindset he wants every uncertain founder to steal Timestamps: (00:00) Highlight reel (00:47) Cold open & meet Tigran (02:13) "Chaos native strategist" (04:57) Growing up in Artsakh, a real-world Neverland (10:29) A first startup that failed in every way (14:05) Startups, corporates & why VC (18:07) The founder–investor loop (20:34) Culture & the genetics of risk-taking (23:20) Spheroid: pivoting metaverse into an XR engine (31:32) Plug and Play: US vs Europe vs Japan (36:36) Quantum & the age of Japan (39:40) Touching the elephant: a vision of the future (44:52) CyNet & the power of handshake (51:31) AI, status & the place of humans (57:34) The "impossible" transfer to the US (1:00:01) Own the chaos: advice for founders Subscribe for the earliest signal on the founders worth watching. — Connect with Tigran Ghukasyan — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ghukasyan/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ghukasyan/] — CyNet — Website: https://courtyardnetworks.com/ [https://courtyardnetworks.com/] — Connect with 18VC — 18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/ [https://www.18-vc.com/] 18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb [https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb] 18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N [https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N] 18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/] 18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/ [https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/] 18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC [https://x.com/Official18VC]

18VC Podcast Ep # 7 Building Invisible AI with Bubbl Founder Tony Xiong: The AI Assistant With No App — It Just Texts You

Tony Xiong has been building since he was 15 — first a portable drive 10x faster than anything on the market, then a camera he launched into the stratosphere for Sony. Now he's building Bubbl: an AI assistant that lives in your texts and pulls what actually matters out of your message chaos. No app to install — you just text it. On Episode 7 of 18VC, we sit down with Tony Xiong, founder & CEO of Bubbl, on why the real problem was never information overload, how his Action Context Engine learns who you are, and the on-campus growth stunt that taught him a hard lesson about virality. Highlights & Key Insights: - Why the real problem was never information overload — it's knowing which 100 of your 1,000 daily messages actually matter - The "invisible AI" thesis: why the best productivity tool has no app and no interface — you just text it - Inside the Action Context Engine (ACE): how your personal context, relationship graph, and messaging style decide what's worth interrupting you for - The numbers — 47% day-7 retention, 260 beta testers, and 60,000+ messages sent to Bubbl in two months - The growth mistake: hundreds of campus signups in a day who never came back — and what it taught him about viral distribution - Why he calls Bubbl "an introvert" — it listens in the background so it can strike at exactly the right moment - How Bubbl reads your Gmail and WhatsApp without storing a single message Timestamps: (00:00) Episode highlights (00:58) Welcome to Episode 7 (01:53) From product designer to founder (02:48) Building since 15 & a stratosphere stunt (06:32) Meeting his co-founder in a group chat (07:22) What Bubbl actually is (08:18) The origin story & 20 signups on the spot (09:50) No app — just text "Hi Bubble" (11:18) The real problem isn't overload (12:58) "Invisible AI" & why SMS (15:03) How Bubbl decides what matters (16:58) Inside the Action Context Engine (20:28) Privacy: what it stores (and doesn't) (21:19) Competitors & "not an iMessage product" (23:45) Traction, retention & the moat (25:47) Go-to-market & the viral-marketing mistake (30:26) Why Bubbl is "an introvert" (32:34) Hiring & a people-first culture (34:38) Decisions & the message you never knew you missed (37:54) Life beyond building Subscribe for the earliest signal on the founders worth watching. — Connect with Tony Xiong — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haoyu-tony-xiong/ — Bubbl — Website: https://bubblai.com/ Try it: text "Hi Bubbl!" to +1 (949) 283-8690 — Connect with 18VC — 18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/ 18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb 18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N 18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/ 18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/ 18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC

18VC Podcast Ep # 6 Building the AI Operating System for Apparel Manufacturing with ThreadLabs Co-Founders Rylan Jimenez & Diora Juraboeva

70% of US apparel manufacturers still collect production data manually. Only 16% have real-time visibility across the floor. Most shops still run on WhatsApp threads, Gmail, and the foreman’s memory. Rylan Jimenez and Diora Juraboeva, the co-founders of ThreadLabs, are building the AI intelligence layer for the apparel production industry — not another ERP, but a layer that sits on top of whatever tools a shop already uses, so it works for both a 40-year-old LA cut-and-sew factory with no software and a Chinese factory with an ERP from 20 years ago. In this episode, the hosts Philip and David sit down with Rylan and Diora to unpack how a USC Marshall finance student and a Formula-SAE composites engineer ended up building a manufacturing OS together. We get into how they actually met (month two of college, on Formula SAE), the early ThreadLabs idea that came out of a Google hackathon in 2024, Rylan’s years as a freelance fashion designer, hundreds of hours Rylan spent on factory floors in DTLA, the pivot from a brand-facing AI design tool to a manufacturer-facing ops layer, the macro reshoring tailwind, how the Smart Timelines / Risk Flags / Update Autopilot features actually work, what the Techstars Catalyst program forced them to figure out, and Rylan’s closing advice for student founders — that genuine value doesn’t come from AI, it comes from solving the problem, and that the right first step is to do it without any tech at all. A conversation about staying close to the floor, picking the right wedge, and building in an unsexy, deeply offline industry. — Chapters — (00:00) Highlight reel (00:43) Welcome & how we met Rylan and Diora (02:54) Rylan's path: mech engineering → VC at USC (06:30) What working in VC actually teaches you about building (12:57) Why building beats investing (for now) (15:14) Diora's building journey: F1, USC Racing, Honda, Fisher-Price (17:43) Founding VC Academy together at USC (19:53) How Rylan and Diora actually met (Formula SAE, month two) (23:08) The original ThreadLabs idea: an AI tool for fashion designers (25:48) Rylan's freelance fashion-design years (16–19) (28:07) Where the name "ThreadLabs" came from — and the rebrand coming (29:16) Why now: tariffs, reshoring, and the manufacturing tech gap (32:43) The pivot: from "better ERP" to an intelligence layer on top (35:39) Hundreds of hours on DTLA factory floors — what manufacturers actually want (39:31) What the product does today vs. six months ago (44:21) Onboarding, ERPs, and going white-glove on day one (45:34) Smart Timelines, Risk Flags, and Update Autopilot — how they work (48:23) DTG, screen print, embroidery, cut-and-sew — printing types, not products (50:41) Traction: 5 pilot shops, $50K generated, and where the new product stands (53:27) Scaling beyond LA — international manufacturers and other verticals (56:35) The 3-person founding team (with CTO Dennis Pavlov (01:00:22) What the Techstars Catalyst program actually taught them (01:02:20) One word other than "founder": boring vs. people-orientated (01:05:18) The hardest part of being a founder: scope creep and narrowing down (01:08:47) How being a founder changes the way you live with uncertainty (01:11:26) Mentors, advisors, and Rylan's closing advice for student founders (01:16:08) Outro — Connect with ThreadLabs — Rylan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rylan-jimenez/?skipRedirect=true [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rylan-jimenez/?skipRedirect=true] Diora on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dioraj/?skipRedirect=true [https://www.linkedin.com/in/dioraj/?skipRedirect=true] ThreadLabs on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thread-labs-sc/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/thread-labs-sc/] ThreadLabs Website: https://threadlbs.com/landing [https://threadlbs.com/landing] — Connect with 18VC — 18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/ [https://www.18-vc.com/] 18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb [https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb] 18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N [https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N] 18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/ [https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/] 18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/] 18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC [https://x.com/Official18VC]

18VC Podcast Ep # 5 "You can't AI your way out of bad taste" — Diana Melencio (GP, XRC Ventures) on building the next $100M consumer brands

"You can't AI your way out of bad taste." Diana Melencio is the General Partner of XRC Ventures' Brand Capital Fund — a NYC-based seed-to-Series A consumer fund whose LPs include some of the largest public retailers, CPG companies, and global mall operators in the world. Before becoming a GP, Diana was a two-time consumer-tech founder (OK My Outfit and Quinn) and spent a decade in equity research and growth equity at Robertson Stephens, Morgan Keegan, and Cramer Rosenthal McGlynn — including time on a Financial Times-ranked #1 Specialty Retail team. In this episode, Diana joins Lucas and Philip from Paris to explain why consumer VC is the most contrarian bet in the market right now — and why her fund's diligence process looks more like growth equity and private equity than traditional venture. In this conversation, you'll hear: * The difference between a good idea, a good business, and a venture-backable business — and why Diana now tells most consumer founders to skip VC entirely * Why XRC "sets up the acquisition from the beginning" — and the Venn diagram method she uses to source brands, starting from Fortune 500 CFO conversations * How XRC built a proprietary AI tool to track newly launched DTC brands via their Shopify checkout pages, and why she still believes consumer sourcing is fundamentally relationship-driven * The two metrics that matter most in her diligence (hint: repeat purchase rate and price-per-fluid-ounce) * What "taste" actually means in a founder — illustrated through the origin stories of two XRC portfolio companies: Homefield (built by a college student screen-printing vintage Indiana sports tees in his dorm) and Naked Sundays (founded by an Australian news correspondent who watched colleagues get skin cancer cut out of their faces) * Why the post-Allbirds, post-Casper reality of consumer IPOs has reshaped how she invests * Diana's honest answer on whether she'd found again — and the lengths she went to keep her first two startups alive (Christmas trees and Airbnb-ing her spare room included) If you're building, backing, or thinking about consumer brands in 2026, this conversation is worth 45 minutes of your week. CHAPTERS (00:00) Highlight reel (00:41) Welcome & introduction (01:36) From Wall Street to fashion: Robertson Stephens, the mentor who told her to leave, and finding 20,000 users in two months (06:17) Why fashion, and the virtual try-on problem she's still bearish on (09:13) Lessons from 2x founding: good idea vs. good business vs. venture-backable business (11:56) Navigating imposter syndrome as a GP (14:45) Inside XRC: two funds, one ecosystem, and the symbiotic deal flow between them (17:08) Biggest success vs. bitterest lesson — and the AI co-founder question (19:09) XRC's edge: C-suite relationships at strategics (21:16) Why consumer VC is the contrarian bet of 2026 (23:42) AI in deal sourcing: XRC's proprietary brand-tracking tool (26:27) The diligence process: thematic, growth-equity-style, and built for strategic exit from day one (31:09) What "taste" means: the Homefield and Naked Sundays origin stories (36:42) What separates a high-potential consumer founder (39:33) The most common fundraising mistakes (41:43) Would she found again? "It was soul-crushing." (42:55) Where to follow Diana (43:35) The childhood dream and the path here More on XRC Ventures and Diana: XRC Ventures — https://www.xrcventures.com [https://www.xrcventures.com] XRC careers (Silicon Valley intern role) — https://www.xrcventures.comhttps://careers.xrcventures.com/companies/xrc-ventures-2/jobs/78500795-2026-analysts-part-time-interns#content [https://careers.xrcventures.com/companies/xrc-ventures-2/jobs/78500795-2026-analysts-part-time-interns#content] The Brand Capital Report (Diana's Substack) — https://brandcapitalfund.substack.com [https://brandcapitalfund.substack.com] Diana on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianamelencio/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianamelencio/] XRC Ventures on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/company/xrcventures [https://www.linkedin.com/company/xrcventures] More on 18VC & 18VC Podcast: 18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/ [https://www.18-vc.com/] 18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/ [https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/] 18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/] 18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC [https://x.com/Official18VC]

18VC Podcast Ep # 4 With Sabrina Li: “Question the Status Quo” — A Gen Z Investor's Playbook

What does it actually take to break into venture capital as a new grad — and stay sharp once you're in? In Episode 4 of the 18VC Podcast, we sit down with Sabrina Li, an investor at Sunstone Management, an early-stage VC firm in Southern California writing pre-seed and seed checks across the U.S. As one of Sunstone's earliest new-grad hires, Sabrina shares what it's like to build a venture practice from zero, how she evaluates founders and markets, and why "questioning the status quo" guides every call she makes. We unpack how a finance student from USC Marshall ended up in early-stage VC, the three levels of consumer demand every founder must understand — must-have, good-to-have, and status — and why she'd rather see one paying customer than ten letters of intent. Sabrina also breaks down what makes a defensible moat in the age of AI, how Gen Z investors are reshaping taste in the industry, how to say no to a founder respectfully, and her honest take on whether fresh grads should jump straight into venture. A few moments worth pressing pause for: — Why "question the status quo" isn't a slogan, it's a job description — The three levels of demand and how founders mistake one for another — What replaced IP as a real moat in the AI era — What separates a strong founding team from a great resume— The best rejection she's ever seen — and why feedback beats ghosting — How AI is reshaping (but not replacing) early-stage investing Whether you're a student founder preparing your first pitch, an aspiring investor mapping your path in, or just curious about how early-stage capital really works behind the scenes, this conversation is full of frameworks you can use right away. Timeline (00:00) Highlight reel (00:21) Welcome & introducing Sabrina Li (01:21) Question the status quo (03:34) From finance to venture (05:15) Breaking into VC as a new grad (08:11) On not having a single role model (09:36) Inside Sunstone Management (10:34) Why consumer over B2B (11:55) A VC's actual day-to-day (15:51) Contrarian investing (17:41) Building a deal pipeline from zero (20:21) What makes cold outreach work (23:11) Traction: revenue beats LOIs (24:51) The three levels of demand (28:11) Creating demand from nothing (30:46) Market size and what's VC-backable (34:36) Moats in the AI era (38:06) What a strong founding team looks like (40:46) Taste in investing: doers vs. storytellers (43:11) How early-stage valuation works (47:16) Mistakes founders make when pitching (50:51) How to say no respectfully (53:51) How the market has shifted since 2022 (57:41) AI, solo GPs, and Gen Z investors (1:01:21) Would Sabrina start her own fund? (1:04:46) Advice for fresh grads entering VC (1:07:21) Wrap-up More on Sabrina Li Sabrina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xinyili-sabrina/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/xinyili-sabrina/] More on 18VC 18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/ [https://www.18-vc.com/] 18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb [https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb] 18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=fNESLXbsr51NArLV [https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=fNESLXbsr51NArLV] 18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/ [https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/] 18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/] 18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC [https://x.com/Official18VC] Join 18VC Slack Channel: https://join.slack.com/t/18-vc/shared_invite/zt-3ugj1lmxu-WG6kULWaF95rp4UOnCY~kw [https://join.slack.com/t/18-vc/shared_invite/zt-3ugj1lmxu-WG6kULWaF95rp4UOnCY~kw]