The PRQL: Founder Obsession and Funding Options with Jonathan Bragdon of Capacity

Eric Dodds 00:03
Welcome to the data stack show prequel. This is a short bonus episode where we preview the upcoming show. You’ll get to meet our guest and hear about the topics we’re going to cover. If they’re interesting to you, you can catch the full length show when it drops on Wednesday. Welcome back to the show, everyone. We have a great time planned today because my friend Jonathan Bragdon has joined us for the show. And Jonathan is the founder of capacity, which is a VC firm, and they have a very unique approach that I’ve loved learning about recently, but you also have a background in data and technology. So we have tons to cover. Thanks for joining us. Jonathan.

Jonathan Bragdon 00:44
Yeah, great to be here. Thanks.

Eric Dodds 00:48
Here, all right. Well, give us the brief background. You started in tech and now you’re a VC, so give us the 30 second connect the dots.

Jonathan Bragdon 00:57
Yeah, sort of eased into tech through consumer packaged goods, a little bit of like way back in the day, even 2000s and barcodes and trade marketing and but eventually ended up in deeper in tech, during simulation modeling, some data science, some IoT stuff built a Few companies, couple venture back couple weren’t and then started to do a little bit of studio, of a studio inside one of those companies, never got that far. Really wanted to get into doing a fund to accelerate a studio, and ended up going over to the dark side after that company, the fund, oh, four years ago. All right, that’s great.

John Wessel 01:42
So before the show, we were talking a little bit about few different things. One of the topics I’m excited to dive into is what matters. So if you’re say you’re one of our listeners at your early stage startup, what matters other than your financials and growth plan, like maybe some of the obvious things, but what actually matters when you’re growing your business, if you’re looking to raise money. So we want to talk about that. And then what are some topics you’re interested in digging into?

Jonathan Bragdon 02:05
Yeah, love to talk about that. I love, I love really early stage companies, but ones that have gotten a little bit of revenue along the way. And so the obvious conversation is, how’s the interaction with the customer happen? But more basic than that is, what problem are they trying to solve, and what’s the founder obsessed with? And then how do we move back from that? And for me as a VC, yeah, I get really interested in, how do you fund those things? And so a lot of the even the language around tech investing overlaps, and Eric and I were talking about this a little bit just to there’s a tech stack. But there can also be a capital stack, and so I get pretty deep into the capital stack. So it’ll be fun to talk about that, too. Awesome.

Eric Dodds 02:48
Well, let’s dig in. All right, let’s do it. All right. That’s a wrap for the people. The full length episode will drop Wednesday morning. Subscribe now so you don’t miss it.