Everyday Health

Venture Studio (14): Bo Peabody: Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Author, Restaurateur

This is Episode (14) of Venture Studio

Welcome to this week's conversation with the multi-talented Bo Peabody, founder or co-founder of Tripod (acq. by Lycos/Terra), Everyday Health, VoodooVox, HealthGuru, UplayMe, Village Ventures, (a NYC-based $135m venture fund focused on both the media and financial services sectors), author of the book, Lucky or Smart, and owner of the hospitality company Mezze, Inc. which operates three award-winning restaurants he started. (Yes- I can personally confirm that Mezze Bistro up in Williamstown, MA is a great spot if you're ever in the area for the summer theater festival or just passing through).

We caught up with Bo in NYC recently, and in the interest of time focused our conversation on his against-the-grain habit of founding and investing in content companies- which he has been doing for years with great success.

It's no surprise- he's been an iconoclast since I met him some some seventeen years ago when he was a college student launching Tripod in the very early days of the web. Hardly any one knew or understood what the heck he was doing back then- but he did. Enjoy.

:40  -  Why does Bo invest in content when most everyone else runs from it? 

1:41 -  Learn about Everyday Health (largest health property on the web)

4:10 - We discuss portfolio companies: Health Guru, Tech Media Network, Babble, Daily Makeover, Travel Ad Network, Trefis

6:57 - Who is Bo syndicating with these days?

8:20 - What's the right deal pace for a venture fund?

9:00 - We discuss Lucky or Smart and the recent Business Insider series

11:53 - Bo's take on the Village Ventures and their expansion


         Square1Bank-rectangle-ese-shadow        Small_logo_startup-gp_color 

VENTURE STUDIO 2                 Nyvc_200x100-1

Venture Studio (12): Matt Harris, Co-Founder of Village Ventures

This is Episode (12) of Venture Studio

Welcome to this week's conversation with Matt Harris, co-founder and Managing General Partner of Village Ventures, a NYC-based $135m venture fund focused on both the media and financial services sectors. Matt founded Village Ventures with his college roommate Bo Peabody approximately eleven years ago and together they've grown their network of partner funds to 15 in size across the United States and Europe.

Matt is the partner in his fund who invests exclusively in financial services companies sitting on the Boards of such companies as iSend, OnDeck Capital, TxVia, BlueTarp Financial and others. As you'll learn in the conversation below, he's extremely bullish on the mobile payments and point-of-sale space. You can also get acquainted with his point of view on things on his blog, aptly named- For The Win.

At the risk of embarassing him it must be said that, (to put it mildly), he's held in great esteem not just by the entrepreneurs in whom he invests but notably by his many peers in the investment community. Enough said.... Enjoy

:20  -  Getting to know Village Ventures- their story 

1:14 -  The Village Ventures network of partner funds

2:05 - The financial services sector & mobile payments in particular

3:17 - The value prop of portfolio company, BankSimple

5:22 - "The linkage between geography & banking has been severed"

6:34 - Portfolio company: OnDeck Capital

7:54 - "Venture is most fun when you are solving a societal problem"

8:04 - Learn about the Village Ventures portfolio

9:24 - What's going on in venture in Europe/UK? 

10:24 -  Matt's thoughts on the Mobile Payments & Point-of-Sale space

 11:17 - I ask Matt about his blog, "For the Win"

 

Click Here for Venture Studio (13) w/ Jeff Clavier, Founder SoftTech VC


         Square1Bank-rectangle-ese-shadow        Small_logo_startup-gp_color 

VENTURE STUDIO 2                 Nyvc_200x100-1