Rethinking the traditional VC model with Bryce Roberts of Indie.VC

Bryce Roberts is co-founder and managing director of a different kind of VC firm, Indie.VC. He recently announced v3 of their fund model which is focused on backing revenue-generating companies that are seeking financial independence from the traditional VC rat race. Prior to starting the fund four years ago, Bryce invested in seed stage startups in the mid-2000's out of O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV). Portfolio companies include Bitly, Chartbeat, Codecademy, Foursquare, Hipcamp, OpenX, and a bunch of others. He joins me all the way from his home base in Utah. In this episode: * We talk all things venture capital, including how it's changed over the past decade and where it's going in the future. We've previously talked a bit about distributed teams on the startup side, but here we also talk about distributed teams when it comes to investing, including when Bryce moved from the Bay Area to Utah in the middle of a fund. * How founders can be more honest with themselves about what they really want, and why so many want to quit chasing venture funding that they don't really want, and which leaves them in an escalating cycle of constantly reaching for the next funding milestone. * We talk about which geographies in the Bryce is most bullish on for startups, besides the Bay Area. * We get sidetracked talking about Bryce's membership in the “first name club” on Twitter (his username is @bryce) and whether we might be seeing any of the videos he's created on TikTok anytime soon (we won't). We also talk about some of Bryce's favorite products, including the Apple Watch, a headband that is supposed to help you sleep, and why TikTok is so addictive. We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Also, big thanks to AngelList and FreshBooks for their support.