The Venture Brief

#64: Tommy Palm - Co-Founder and CEO of Resolution Games - Entering the VR World

Topics: * Developing the earliest types of games and turning a hobby into a job. * VR is growing its share of the entertainment market and the future of it. * The main mistake game founders make relating to marketing * The future of gaming platforms * Main hurdles facing VR gaming. * When to push the gas pedal in developing games for the VR market. * How VCs help in the gaming market Tommy Palm is the co-founder, CEO, and guru of visual computing at Resolution Games, a company backed by Creandum, GV, and Initial capital, building a world-class catalog of titles that brings players into the richest VR and AR worlds possible. Tommy is a long-time Swedish games industry veteran. He is a five-time founder and his company, fabrication games, was acquired by King Digital Entertainment in 2012 to lead their mobile game development division. There, Tommy led the development of Candy Crush that has 2.7Bn downloads and it places fourth on the list of most downloaded apps on AppStore ever. Tommy also founded Stugan, Jadestone, The Game Trail and consulted on games development since he first started programming for Commodore 64 in 1986. Website: https://www.resolutiongames.com/ [https://www.resolutiongames.com/] Twitter: https://twitter.com/tommy_palm?lang=en [https://twitter.com/tommy_palm?lang=en] Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypalm/?originalSubdomain=se [https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypalm/?originalSubdomain=se] Books: Sapiens Graphic Novel [https://amzn.to/3pcGTTN ] Endurance: Shackletocks Incredible Voyage [https://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Incredible-Alfred-Lansing/dp/0465062881 ]

#63: Joe Wolfel and Judson Kauffman - Co-CEOs and Co-Founders of Terradepth - Navy SEAL Experience Applied to Startups

Topics: * The best decision-making hack I have ever heard. * The mindset required to get through Navy SEAL training. * Applying military strategy and tactics to business. * Why ocean exploration must be done and the challenges to overcome * A walk-through of the patented Terradepth solution * Balancing and blending domain expertise with outsider perspectives. * Handling disagreements as Co-CEOs * Why we are not our experiences. Today, we have a special episode because we are interviewing both of the founders, also ex. Navy SEALS, and co-CEOs of Terradepth, Judson Kauffman and Joe Wolfel. Terradepth is a company aiming to capture comprehensive data from the world's ocean on an unprecedented scale, resolution, and price point. Joe was previously the managing partner at Exbellum, a boutique management consulting firm dedicated to solving unique and complex human capital problems. Prior to Exbellum, Joe held leadership roles at the McChrystal Group, a leadership think tank and consulting group, as well as Synexxus Inc., a rapid engineering and manufacturing company focused on the defense space. Prior to these roles, Joe served as a Navy SEAL, conducting multiple deployments through the Middle East and Africa. Judson was also a Navy SEAL, alongside Joe. He deployed three times in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom earning multiple combat distinguishments. After his military career, Judson was selected to lead the US Navy’s Special Operations and Special Warfare Mentor Program to support recruiting and selection efforts nationwide. Following this role, he shifted into business and became the Vice President of Product Development at Lightbulb Innovation Group in Nashville, Tennessee. Website: https://www.terradepth.com/ [https://www.terradepth.com/] Joe Wolfel LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-wolfel-aa76a054/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-wolfel-aa76a054/] Judson Kauffman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judson-k-01468131/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/judson-k-01468131/]

Futurama: Space Manufacturing w/ Twyman Clements - Co-Founder & CEO of Space Tango

Topics: * Starting a microgravity research company * How microgravity is achieved * Vomit comets and drop towers * Developing stem cells in space. * Optimizing the space station supply chain * The next stage of space manufacturing * Testing pills for long-duration flights * The biggest challenges to making manufacturing in space widely adopted. * Space manufacturing in 10 years. Twyman is the co-founder and CEO of Space Tango, a company that manufactures products in space that create transformational solutions that cannot be attained on earth. Twyman went to the University of Kentucky where he got involved with the Space Program which eventually turned into a job. At Kentucky Space, he was a Program Manager for the KySat-2 CubeSat program and was also the lead engineer on KS 5 Regenerative Medicine Experiment that was sent to the ISS in 2014. From there, he founded Space Tango which started small but has grown into the leading player in the on-orbit R&D and Manufacturing industry with 19 missions launched, 94 payloads delivery, and 165 experiments conducted in microgravity conditions. Website: https://spacetango.com/ [https://spacetango.com/] Twyman Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/twyman-clements-88263642/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/twyman-clements-88263642/] Movies: Interstellar [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/], Apollo 13 [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112384/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0]

#62: Peter Bruce-Clark - Partner at Social Impact Capital - Impact Investing Done Right

Topics: * Defining impact investing. * Going from being a natural pessimist to a willful optimist. * The generational divide and how the two invest. * Sucking carbon out of the atmosphere to create diamonds. * investing in companies where Impact and financials are closely interconnected. * Showing up every single day and what that means. Peter is a partner at Social Impact capital, a VC investing in entrepreneurs that are building companies solving the world’s most challenging and entrenched problems. Prior to joining Social Impact Capital, Peter was the Head of Business Development at RCI, investment technology and alternative lending platform backed by 8VC and Soros Fund Management. Prior to that, Peter created an early-stage AI venture capital firm focused on investing in companies using machine learning in high-impact areas of application. He is also the founder of Kalytix Partners, a specialist strategy and management consultancy for institutional investors that was later acquired. In addition to his work, Peter has led research on impact finance and strategic investment at Stanford University, collaborating with Planet Heritage and White Sand Investor Group. His publications include Sovereign Development Funds: The Governance and Management of Strategic Investment Institutions, which was published in The Oxford Handbook of Sovereign Wealth Funds in 2018, and the paper called Impact investments: a call for (re)orientation which was published just a couple of weeks back in SN Business and Economics…. Website: https://social-impact-capital.com/ [https://social-impact-capital.com/] Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pbruceclark/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/pbruceclark/] Twitter: https://twitter.com/pbcolossus?lang=en [https://twitter.com/pbcolossus?lang=en] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/courtjoker/?hl=en [https://www.instagram.com/courtjoker/?hl=en] Book: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Her-Hands-Ottessa-Moshfegh/dp/1984879359 [https://www.amazon.com/Death-Her-Hands-Ottessa-Moshfegh/dp/1984879359] Impact Investments Paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43546-020-00033-6 [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43546-020-00033-6]

#61: Claude Ritter - Co-Founder of Delivery Hero & Cavalry Ventures - GTD, Growth, and Grit

Topics: * Getting sued 20+ times by a single competitor. * The once in a lifetime constellation of founders at Delivery Hero * Growing through acquisitions. * Entrepreneurial partners at Cavalry * Linking your to-do to your calendar * Why aspiring entrepreneurs should work in product roles * Unsustainable growth - how to look at the quality of the growth of a startup * The two most common mistakes entrepreneurs make Claude Ritter is co-founder and managing partner at Cavalry Ventures, primarily focusing on the marketplace and SaaS business models. Claude co-founded Book a tiger, a digital facility services company that he ran as the CEO up until the sale of the business to the rival Helpling in early 2020. Since its launch in 2014, Book a tiger has raised more than $40m in venture capital and operates a network of >500 employed cleaners as well as more than 100 other facility services companies that partner with it. Prior to Book a tiger, in 2010, he co-founded the Berlin-based company Delivery Hero and served 4 years as the chief product officer (CPO). Delivery Hero is the world's largest food-ordering network with a presence in 40+ markets and in 2017 it went public on the Frankfurt stock exchange with a valuation of roughly $5bn (DHER). Before Delivery Hero, Claude spent 5 years as CEO of The NetCircle, a web company that develops and operates large-scale community websites. He also co-founded DUQI, a Chinese real-time photo-sharing site, and Aionics, a web agency based in Switzerland. Book recommendation: https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205 [https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205] Email: claude@cavalry.vc [claude@cavalry.vc] Website: https://autoexec.vc/ [https://autoexec.vc/]/ https://cavalry.vc/ [https://cavalry.vc/] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/critter/?originalSubdomain=de [https://www.linkedin.com/in/critter/?originalSubdomain=de] Twitter: https://twitter.com/clauderitter/ [https://twitter.com/clauderitter/]