Jeffrey Fidelman is the Founder & CEO of Fidelman & Company, an investment bank purpose-built for early-stage companies and emerging managers. A Harvard graduate who spent a decade at Morgan Stanley and HSBC before helping run a $120–125M venture fund, he’s since scaled a 40-person team that blends institutional process with hands-on fundraising execution. With a productized “fundraising as a service” model and the launch of Fundex, he offers a transparent, data-driven path from deck and model to qualified investor conversations.

With experience across banking, venture, and company-building, Jeffrey offers insights into building an institutional fundraising engine: licensing and compliance that set real advisors apart, a weekly lead-generation and personalization workflow, pricing and incentives that mirror Wall Street, and why consistent follow-through (not a “magic” deck) moves capital. In this episode, he discusses the gap between venture and banking, productizing best practices, when he turns founders away, how GPs should communicate with LPs, and what’s changing in today’s market—from “venture winter” to the rise of AI infrastructure and energy.

In Today’s Episode We Discuss:

00:01 Intro & guest background

00:37 Career path: banking to VC

02:56 Productizing fundraising

04:16 “Do it for us” inflection point

06:58 Licenses, transparency, pricing

09:42 Fundex launch & vision

10:42 Saying no & realistic timelines

12:29 Weekly lead-gen workflow

14:54 Multi-touch outreach cadence

15:49 Targeted spearfishing approach

17:03 Team design for outbound

19:26 CRM evolution to Fundex

20:39 Fee structures by vehicle

28:57 Monthly LP/GP update format

31:48 60–90 day testing windows

35:48 Market shift & venture winter

41:05 What LPs value most

43:06 Personal brand over company page

47:07 Valuation frameworks

52:00 AI infra & energy thesis

58:50 Fundex recap & close

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Max Greenwald is the co-founder and CEO of Warmly.ai, a platform building AI agents that warm your TAM and route hot leads to sales. A former Google PM who helped ship Google’s viral “Where’s Waldo” Maps April Fools (played by ~100M people), he’s navigated six pivots and the gauntlet from idea to real GTM repeatability. With on-the-ground experience from Techstars Boulder to scaling revenue and team, he offers hard-won insights into finding (and keeping) product-market fit, building a sales-then-marketing engine, and using AI across the stack. In this episode, he discusses his open/close framework for PMF, why Warmly embraced AI agents early, what’s changing in MarTech, and how to lead through the messy middle.

In Today’s Episode We Discuss

00:01 Intro and guest setup

01:12 Princeton to Google path

02:45 Leaving Big Tech to found Warmly

04:10 Early rejections and resilience

05:30 Co-founder dynamics and roles

06:50 The Open/Close framework

08:05 Defining ICP and not-for list

09:18 Six pivots, one mission

10:40 From de-anonymization to conversations

12:00 AI concierge on high-intent pages

13:22 Multi-signal lead scoring

14:45 Routing with context to AEs

16:10 Dogfooding and feedback loops

17:35 GTM systems and repeatability

18:50 Omnichannel orchestration

20:15 Content atoms and proof assets

22:00 Metrics that actually matter

23:30 Pipeline quality over volume

25:05 Hiring the first great AE

27:20 RevOps cadence and signal reviews

29:10 Buyer intent vs interest

31:00 Demand gen without waste

33:05 Agents as always-on SDRs

34:40 Near-term roadmap and vision

36:06 Closing takeaways

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Gabriel Jarrosson is a seven-time founder with three exits and the General Partner of Lobster Capital, a fund specializing in top-performing YC startups. With over $25 million invested in early-stage companies, Gabriel brings a rare blend of founder grit and investor insight—shaped by years of building, failing, and ultimately scaling ventures from scratch.

With his experience as both an entrepreneur and an investor, Gabriel offers candid insights into what true early traction looks like, why most founders misunderstand product-market fit, and how to say “no” to good deals in pursuit of great ones.

In this episode, Gabriel and Brian dive deep into founder psychology, traction-driven investing, and the new reality of AI in venture capital—alongside stories from the front lines of YC and the making of Lobster Capital’s standout thesis.

In Today’s Episode We Discuss:

00:01 Introduction and Gabriel’s Background

00:55 From Engineer to Founder

02:30 First Angel Investments

03:10 Building a Syndicate and YouTube Growth

04:38 Launching Lobster Capital

05:14 Lessons from Seven Startups

06:03 The Myth of Build It and They Will Come

07:32 Defining Early Traction

08:21 Learning to Say No as an Investor

10:06 Balancing Rational Bets and Moonshots

11:57 Portfolio Construction and Risk

13:12 Understanding Venture Uncertainty

15:22 Hitting Fund Returns and Outliers

15:40 The Story Behind the Lobster Name

17:12 Symbolism and Meaning of Lobsters

18:38 Investing Only in the Top 2 Percent of YC

20:04 Fund One to Fund Two Evolution

21:24 Raising and Reserving Capital

22:39 The Debate on Pro Rata Strategy

23:32 Recycling and LP Expectations

24:00 Defining Good Better Best YC Traction

26:42 Revenue Benchmarks and Growth Rates

27:55 Evaluating Momentum Behind Numbers

30:52 Finding the Best Startups in YC

31:48 The YC Conversion Rate Challenge

33:33 Navigating Founder Access and Signals

34:42 Demo Day Strategy and Valuation Discipline

37:06 Evaluating Teams and Founder Archetypes

38:19 Repeat YC Founders and Background Signals

40:25 Stanford MIT Berkeley and Hiring at Big Tech

41:53 Founder Energy and Hard No Decisions

42:40 Balancing Team Market and Timing

43:20 Proof of Execution Through Traction

44:46 The Market Always Decides

46:28 Using AI in Venture Capital

47:49 Human Judgment vs Automation

48:42 Fundraising as a Trust Game

50:10 Can AI Replace VCs

51:38 How AI Is Changing Entrepreneurship

53:45 Lowering Barriers to Building Startups

54:47 AI Accelerating Exits and Liquidity

55:15 The New Speed of Startup Creation

56:25 Key Metrics Beyond ARR

56:50 Red Flags Even in Strong Startups

58:13 Passion for Space and Frontier Tech

59:43 Health Longevity and Optimization

01:00:42 Coaching Founders to Stay Lean

01:02:00 The Founder Archetype Relentless Resourcefulness

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Ga6v0YUsHotLhjap67uu5

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Visit Our Website: https://www.teamignite.ventures

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🔥 Club Ignite is booking fast — our next gathering of top founders, investors, and operators will be our biggest yet. Apply now before spots fill: https://teamignite.decilehub.com/e/club-ignite-25