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The Feedback Loop

The Feedback Loop

Sherveen Mashayekhi

Every week, 10 startup founders get up on stage in front of a live audience in NYC and give the 1 minute version of their pitch to two venture investors. Then, they receive 5 minutes worth of feedback about their storytelling, pitch, and concept. It's not about an investment being made on the spot, but instead transforming the way a founder talks about their startup -- because the thing that can hold even the best of founders back? Their storytelling. Hosted by Sherveen Mashayekhi and Free Agency.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Top 10 The Feedback Loop Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best The Feedback Loop episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to The Feedback Loop for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite The Feedback Loop episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

On the latest episode, 4 startups pitch their vision of the future. This is the second half of a particular session of The Feedback Loop.


Because the thing that can hold even the best founders back from reaching their ambition? Their pitch. Whether a startup founder is raising money, recruiting a team, or selling their product, it's the pitch at the start of any given conversation that starts them on a journey to success.


As always, hosted by Sherveen Mashayekhi, Founder & CEO of Free Agency. Follow him on X at @Sherveen. Find our guest host, Mat Kaliski of FirstGen & Acronym Venture Capital, on Twitter at @matkaliski.


More on Virginie:

​​​Mat Kaliski is a Principal at Acronym Venture Capital, an early stage fund focused on late seed and early Series A rounds across B2B SaaS and omni-channel consumer companies. He’s also the founder of FirstGen, an organization dedicated to supporting immigrant and first generation founders by helping them raise their first $1M in funding and get to $1M in revenue through the 4Cs: Capabilities, Capital, Customers, and Community. Mat was also the co-founder of Founders Friday.


To attend The Feedback Loop in-person or apply to pitch as a founder, head to afterfeedback.com.


Thank you to all of the brave founders who participated in this episode. The Feedback Loop is dedicated to creating an engine of support for startup founders attempting to change the way the earth spins. We're on your side.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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On the latest episode, we've got an AI-enabled approach to sales enablement, a new infrastructure for B2B invoicing and payments, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and autonomous solutions for civilian and military airspace.


Because the thing that can hold even the best founders back from reaching their ambition? Their pitch. Whether a startup founder is raising money, recruiting a team, or selling their product, it's the pitch at the start of any given conversation that starts them on a journey to success.


As always, hosted by Sherveen Mashayekhi, Founder & CEO of Free Agency. Follow him on X at @Sherveen. Find our guest host, Mat Kaliski of FirstGen & Acronym Venture Capital, on Twitter at @matkaliski.


More on Virginie:

​​​Mat Kaliski is a Principal at Acronym Venture Capital, an early stage fund focused on late seed and early Series A rounds across B2B SaaS and omni-channel consumer companies. He’s also the founder of FirstGen, an organization dedicated to supporting immigrant and first generation founders by helping them raise their first $1M in funding and get to $1M in revenue through the 4Cs: Capabilities, Capital, Customers, and Community. Mat was also the co-founder of Founders Friday.


To attend The Feedback Loop in-person or apply to pitch as a founder, head to afterfeedback.com.


Thank you to all of the brave founders who participated in this episode. The Feedback Loop is dedicated to creating an engine of support for startup founders attempting to change the way the earth spins. We're on your side.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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The Feedback Loop - Ep. 34: Startup Pitch Gone WILD
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10/04/24 • 51 min

It's time for Episode 034 of The Feedback Loop! And this one gets intense.


We go from talking about a fintech platform focused on retail loyalty programs to predictive AI for medical billing to the concept of investing in high-value influencers... all the way to a debate about whether our phones listen to us or 2020 had puppeteers behind it.


Timestamps:

00:00 - Welcome and intros

01:55 - Rewards and local loyalty (Huzza World)

15:50 - Predictive AI for medical billing

31:23 - Invest in Justin before he became Bieber (Creator Stock X)

39:02 - Uh oh! (Creator Stock X, continued)

47:48 - Takeaways, favorites, and bye!


You just have to watch it to believe it.


As always, hosted by Sherveen Mashayekhi, Founder & CEO of Free Agency. ​Today's guest investor is Lainy Painter Singh, Partner at Craft Ventures.


The Feedback Loop is all about getting ambitious founders on stage to pitch and get unfiltered feedback from experienced, honest investors.


Because the thing that can hold even the best founders back from reaching their ambition? Their pitch. Whether a startup founder is raising money, recruiting a team, or selling their product, it's the pitch at the start of any given conversation that starts them on a journey to success.


For those founders on stage and in the audience, it's an answer to the essential query: how to pitch your startup.


More on our guest investor for the episode:

Lainy Painter Singh is a Partner at Craft Ventures, an early stage venture fund with a focus on B2B SaaS startups — where she's invested in companies like ClickUp, Instawork, and Trusted Health. She was previously an investor at Battery Ventures, spent time in biz ops at Gainsight, and started her career at Goldman Sachs (on their tech investment team). She is also an active member of All Raise, the nonprofit on a mission to make tech more accessible, equitable, and diverse.


Follow Sherveen: https://x.com/Sherveen

Follow Lainy: https://x.com/lainypainter


To attend The Feedback Loop in-person or apply to pitch as a founder, head to afterfeedback.com.


Thank you to all of the brave founders who participated in this episode. The Feedback Loop is dedicated to creating an engine of support for startup founders attempting to change the way the earth spins. We're on your side.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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The Feedback Loop - Ep. 033: AI for PMs, Construction, Wealth Mgmt...
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10/01/24 • 63 min

It's time for Episode 033 of The Feedback Loop! We hear from founders building: an AI copilot for product managers, an AI platform for wealth management firms, Duolingo for entrepreneurs, and an AI-enabled construction project management platform.


As always, hosted by Sherveen Mashayekhi, Founder & CEO of Free Agency. ​Today's guest investor is Lainy Painter Singh, Partner at Craft Ventures.


The Feedback Loop is all about getting ambitious founders on stage to pitch and get unfiltered feedback from experienced, honest investors.


Because the thing that can hold even the best founders back from reaching their ambition? Their pitch. Whether a startup founder is raising money, recruiting a team, or selling their product, it's the pitch at the start of any given conversation that starts them on a journey to success.


For those founders on stage and in the audience, it's an answer to the essential query: how to pitch your startup.


Timestamps:

00:00 - Welcome and intros

01:55 - AI for product managers (Iteraite)

17:58 - AI for wealth management firms (LEA)

31:52 - Duolingo for entrepreneurs (Adjacent)

47:43 - AI-enabled construction management (Construct AI)

1:03:55 - Bye!


More on our guest investor for the episode:

Lainy Painter Singh is a Partner at Craft Ventures, an early stage venture fund with a focus on B2B SaaS startups — where she's invested in companies like ClickUp, Instawork, and Trusted Health. She was previously an investor at Battery Ventures, spent time in biz ops at Gainsight, and started her career at Goldman Sachs (on their tech investment team). She is also an active member of All Raise, the nonprofit on a mission to make tech more accessible, equitable, and diverse.


Follow Sherveen: https://x.com/Sherveen

Follow Lainy: https://x.com/lainypainter


To attend The Feedback Loop in-person or apply to pitch as a founder, head to afterfeedback.com.


Thank you to all of the brave founders who participated in this episode. The Feedback Loop is dedicated to creating an engine of support for startup founders attempting to change the way the earth spins. We're on your side.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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The Feedback Loop - Ep. 30: Wearables, college, AI for BI
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09/20/24 • 81 min

On Episode 030 of The Feedback Loop! We hear from founders building: AI-driven enterprise marketing for impact, a wearable for tracking your stress and emotions, an AI-driven platform for business intelligence insights, and a marketplace for college admissions mentorship and guidance.


As always, hosted by Sherveen Mashayekhi, Founder & CEO of Free Agency. ​Today's guest investor is Jesse Middleton, General Partner at Flybridge. More on Jesse below.


The Feedback Loop is all about getting ambitious founders on stage to pitch and get unfiltered feedback from experienced, honest investors.


Because the thing that can hold even the best founders back from reaching their ambition? Their pitch. Whether a startup founder is raising money, recruiting a team, or selling their product, it's the pitch at the start of any given conversation that starts them on a journey to success.


For those founders on stage and in the audience, it's an answer to the essential query: how to pitch your startup.


More on our guest investor for the episode, Jesse:

Jesse Middleton is a General Partner at Flybridge, which has invested in companies like BetterCloud, Bowery, Chief, Codecademy, Firebase, MongoDB, and Splice. He is also an Investment Partner at Next Wave NYC and The Community Fund, was a founding team member at WeWork, and led the technology group at LivePerson. He’s also served as a key advisor to companies like fitmob, inDinero, and Squire.


Follow Sherveen: https://x.com/Sherveen

Follow Jesse: https://x.com/srcasm


To attend The Feedback Loop in-person or apply to pitch as a founder, head to afterfeedback.com.


Thank you to all of the brave founders who participated in this episode. The Feedback Loop is dedicated to creating an engine of support for startup founders attempting to change the way the earth spins. We're on your side.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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On Episode 037 of The Feedback Loop, we hear from founders building in: support platform for people in crisis, SEO for LLMs, and an AI-driven workflow for product compliance.


Timestamps:

00:00 Hello!

06:59 Support platform for people in crisis (Samaritan)

12:16 AI-generated meditation (Exhale AI)

21:49 SEO for Large Language Models (Pearls of Wisdom)

39:18 AI-driven workflow platform for product compliance


As always, hosted by Sherveen Mashayekhi, Founder & CEO of Free Agency. ​Today's guest investor, Ihar Mahaniok, Managing Partner at Geek Ventures.


The Feedback Loop is all about getting ambitious founders on stage to pitch and get unfiltered feedback from experienced, honest investors.


Because the thing that can hold even the best founders back from reaching their ambition? Their pitch. Whether a startup founder is raising money, recruiting a team, or selling their product, it's the pitch at the start of any given conversation that starts them on a journey to success.


For those founders on stage and in the audience, it's an answer to the essential query: how to pitch your startup.


More on our guest investor for the episode:

​Ihar Mahaniok is Managing Partner at Geek Ventures, which he founded in 2021 to support immigrant entrepreneurs building at the pre-seed and seed stage. He’s made more than 200+ investments over the past decade, and has invested early in companies like Instacart, People.ai, Chainalysis, PandaDoc, and Airbyte, to name a few.


Before becoming a full time investor, Ihar was a software engineer at Google for 8 years, where he worked on AI solutions for Maps, Ads, Offers, Search, and the Play Store. He went on to become an engineering leader at Facebook, WeWork, and Grid AI. In other words, he brings a technical leader’s POV to the world of early stage investing.


Follow Sherveen: https://x.com/Sherveen

Follow Ihar: https://x.com/mahaniok


To attend The Feedback Loop in-person or apply to pitch as a founder, head to afterfeedback.com.


Thank you to all of the brave founders who participated in this episode. The Feedback Loop is dedicated to creating an engine of support for startup founders attempting to change the way the earth spins. We're on your side.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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On the latest episode, we've got an evolution on air traffic control, AI for recruiters, and a new spin on the AI search startup, Perplexity. Three rad startups pitch two experienced investors, then get unfiltered feedback to help them improve their pitch, their storytelling, and their objection-handling.


Because the thing that can hold even the best founders back from reaching their ambition? Their pitch. Whether a startup founder is raising money, recruiting a team, or selling their product, it's the pitch at the start of any given conversation that starts them on a journey to success.


As always, hosted by Sherveen Mashayekhi, Founder & CEO of Free Agency. Follow him on X at @Sherveen. Find our guest host, Virginie Raphael of FullCircle, on Twitter at @VirginieRaphael.


More on Virginie:

​​Virginie Raphael is Founder & Managing Partner at FullCircle, where she invests in pre-seed startups across future of work, healthtech + caregiving, and SMB SaaS. She is on the Board of La French Tech New York, which supports French startups both in the US and abroad. She was previously an MD at Tusk Ventures for over 8 years, where she invested in early-stage companies in highly regulated spaces. She also founded Kronos Archives, a digital archiving project for leaders in finance, politics, and philanthropy.


To attend The Feedback Loop in-person or apply to pitch as a founder, head to afterfeedback.com.


Thank you to all of the brave founders who participated in this episode. The Feedback Loop is dedicated to creating an engine of support for startup founders attempting to change the way the earth spins. We're on your side.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

bookmark
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On the latest episode, hear from four startups across stress reduction, movement healthcare, enterprise AI copilots, and an interpreter marketplace. Four rad startups pitch two experienced investors, then get unfiltered feedback to help them improve their pitch, their storytelling, and their objection-handling.


Because the thing that can hold even the best founders back from reaching their ambition? Their pitch. Whether a startup founder is raising money, recruiting a team, or selling their product, it's the pitch at the start of any given conversation that starts them on a journey to success.


As always, hosted by Sherveen Mashayekhi, Founder & CEO of Free Agency. Follow him on X at @Sherveen. Find our guest host, Virginie Raphael of FullCircle, on Twitter at @VirginieRaphael.


More on Mike:

​​Virginie Raphael is Founder & Managing Partner at FullCircle, where she invests in pre-seed startups across future of work, healthtech + caregiving, and SMB SaaS. She is on the Board of La French Tech New York, which supports French startups both in the US and abroad. She was previously an MD at Tusk Ventures for over 8 years, where she invested in early-stage companies in highly regulated spaces. She also founded Kronos Archives, a digital archiving project for leaders in finance, politics, and philanthropy.


To attend The Feedback Loop in-person or apply to pitch as a founder, head to afterfeedback.com.


Thank you to all of the brave founders who participated in this episode. The Feedback Loop is dedicated to creating an engine of support for startup founders attempting to change the way the earth spins. We're on your side.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

bookmark
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THIS WEEK! Plant-to-hotel matching, AI relationship coach, payments for the smallest online transactions, and a new loyalty platform for brands. They have 1 minute to tell their story, then they get UNFILTERED feedback from two check-writing venture capitalists.


Because the thing that can hold even the best founders back from reaching their ambition? Their pitch. Whether a startup founder is raising money, recruiting a team, or selling their product, it's the pitch at the start of any given conversation that starts them on a journey to success.


As always, hosted by Sherveen Mashayekhi, Founder & CEO of Free Agency. Follow him on X at @Sherveen.


​Today's guest investor is Marty Ringlein. On the venture capital side, he's a GP at Adventure Fund, which has invested in early to growth stage companies like Figma, Chime, Plaid, SpaceX, Beehiiv, and SwagUp, to name a few. As a founder, Marty has started and served as CEO at three startups acquired by Twitter, WPP, and Eventbrite, respectively.


Now, he's on his latest upstart journey as Co-founder & CEO of Agree.com, an e-signature and payments platform. In other words, the man knows both how to recognize and craft an excellent startup pitch. There are few resumes in tech as dense as this one. Follow him on X at @martymadrid.


To attend The Feedback Loop in-person or apply to pitch as a founder, head to afterfeedback.com.


Thank you to all of the brave founders who participated in this episode. The Feedback Loop is dedicated to creating an engine of support for startup founders attempting to change the way the earth spins. We're on your side.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

bookmark
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On Episode 029 of The Feedback Loop! We hear from founders building: an AI-driven API platform, an AI copilot for product marketing managers, and a package delivery protection product.


As always, hosted by Sherveen Mashayekhi, Founder & CEO of Free Agency. ​Today's guest investor is Jesse Middleton, General Partner at Flybridge. More on Jesse below.


The Feedback Loop is all about getting ambitious founders on stage to pitch and get unfiltered feedback from experienced, honest investors.


Because the thing that can hold even the best founders back from reaching their ambition? Their pitch. Whether a startup founder is raising money, recruiting a team, or selling their product, it's the pitch at the start of any given conversation that starts them on a journey to success.


Timestamps:

00:00 - Welcome and intros

07:46 - An AI-driven API platform

20:31 - Founders, take on improv!

22:30 - An AI Copilot for PMMs

34:45 - WeWork... somewhere else?

42:53 - Package delivery protection

51:28 - Takeaways & bye!


For those founders on stage and in the audience, it's an answer to the essential query: how to pitch your startup.


More on our guest investor for the episode, Jesse:

Jesse Middleton is a General Partner at Flybridge, which has invested in companies like BetterCloud, Bowery, Chief, Codecademy, Firebase, MongoDB, and Splice. He is also an Investment Partner at Next Wave NYC and The Community Fund, was a founding team member at WeWork, and led the technology group at LivePerson. He’s also served as a key advisor to companies like fitmob, inDinero, and Squire.


Follow Sherveen: https://x.com/Sherveen

Follow Jesse: https://x.com/srcasm


To attend The Feedback Loop in-person or apply to pitch as a founder, head to afterfeedback.com.


Thank you to all of the brave founders who participated in this episode. The Feedback Loop is dedicated to creating an engine of support for startup founders attempting to change the way the earth spins. We're on your side.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

bookmark
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share episode

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FAQ

How many episodes does The Feedback Loop have?

The Feedback Loop currently has 42 episodes available.

What topics does The Feedback Loop cover?

The podcast is about Tech, Venture Capital, Investments, Startups, Podcasts, Technology and Business.

What is the most popular episode on The Feedback Loop?

The episode title 'Ep. 009 | Social profiles for homes, AI for production, edtech AI, + more!' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on The Feedback Loop?

The average episode length on The Feedback Loop is 51 minutes.

How often are episodes of The Feedback Loop released?

Episodes of The Feedback Loop are typically released every 4 days, 1 hour.

When was the first episode of The Feedback Loop?

The first episode of The Feedback Loop was released on May 16, 2024.

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