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If you follow fintech on X , it ’s very likely that you have come acrossthe account of Sheel Mohnot , cobalt - laminitis and worldwide partner ofBetter Tomorrow Ventures .
With over 150,000 follower , Mohnot has build an impressive presence on the societal medium site . Interestingly , many of his Emily Price Post have nothing to do with speculation capital .
Mohnot startedBetter Tomorrow Ventures(BTV ) after atomic number 27 - founding a few company , including FeeFighters , whichsold to Grouponin 2012 .
BTV , which has $ 300 million under direction , focus on investing mainly at the pre - seed and seed stagecoach in fintech startup . It also run an accelerator , The Mint .
Since its November 2019 inception , BTV has backed the likes ofAngelList , Charlie , Coast , andUnit . Mohnot personally has also invested as an backer for over a decade , writing checks into companies such as Flexport , Ironclad , Ethos Insurance , and Apartment List .
I hopped on the mic to interview Mohnot to immortalise an episode of Equity Podcast , and we talk about topics like how he make such a large following on X with viral posts , how he terminate up seem in a Justin Bieber video , what areas of fintech he ’s most excited about , and his idea on where artificial intelligence is really working in the fintech world .
This audience has been edited for clarity and brevity .
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Besides being somewhat of an influencer on societal medium , your main problem is investing in fintech startups out of Better Tomorrow Ventures . Let ’s talk briefly about what BTV regard to be a fintech troupe .
We think a lot more things are fintech than other mass do . So as an example , we think about vertical SaaS as being fintech . And if you suppose about the Toasts and Shopifys of the world , over 80 % of their revenues are fiscal services . So we think of those as fintech companies . And then also B2B marketplaces , we think of as fintech companies too .
OK , we ’re going to come back to fintech . But first , I ’d like to talk about your societal media strategy . You have over 151,000 followers on X. How did you become a social media star ?
I do n’t know if I ’m a champion , but I do delight it . I first signed up for Twitter a farsighted time ago , but I really was not very active until the pandemic . In the early Clarence Day of the pandemic , I was active on Clubhouse — as I was so bored at nursing home . I became super participating there and accumulated a brainsick number of followers . I reckon like 3.3 million . But of track that ’s not really relevant any longer . The only way to write to people on Clubhouse was via Twitter . So that naturally led to doing stuff on Twitter and more followers there . I just started to write , and establish that I really liked it . I like sharing ideas and getting feedback from the great unwashed .
What have been your most viral Post over the years ?
My wife actually posted about herself being in a meme at the Folsom Street Fair with an expression on her face where she ’s like , “ Why ? How did I end up here ? ” That got 250,000 like . But the one from my account was in the midst of me seeing a raft of pitches for web3 founding father seek to solve some sort of problem that did n’t really be . I saw a television of a cat who had slit the back wheel of his bicycle into two and made it still rideable . And I was like , “ Why would you do this ? ” And so I captioned it with something like “ Web3 founders work out problems that do n’t live ” and it went uncivilised . People die uncivilised for it .
Besides investing , you ’ve also made headlines for some very interesting thing such as your wedding in 2023 beinga TacoBell Metaverse weddingand your making an appearance in aJustin Bieber videoin 2021 . How the heck did those things happen ?
I got hire in 2022 and we had a pretty fun engagement report which I send on Twitter . A wad of mass saw that I was engaged , and then Taco Bell had a contest where they want to find one lucky couple to marry in the metaverse . And a bunch of people saw that I was engaged and also have intercourse that I care Taco Bell , and enounce , “ Hey , Sheel , this is thoroughgoing for you . ” They ended up picking us .
As for the video , I was on this date show during the pandemic called the Zoom Bachelorette . I did n’t advance but I got the consultation ’s balloting and in the hearing was Scooter Braun , who was the manager for Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande . We chatted on Clubhouse , and he ended up put me in the video .
I know not all of your posts relate to investing or fintech , but I ’m sure it ’s somehow impacted it . Has it help you attract founders you may not have otherwise draw or help you gain softwood ?
Yeah , I guess so . First of all , I would say , I ’m not doing it for those reasons . I ’m just experience a good fourth dimension and posting what I think is interesting and thought - provoking and might get the great unwashed to learn me something after the fact , but I do intend it has been helpful .
The first clock time I realized it was when I emailed a founding father that I was really emotional about . I have sex a crew of other investors had been reaching out too , but when I reached out , they responded forthwith , and sound out , “ I call back we have the same physical exertion regimen . ”And they were respond to a tweet I had posted that had that pass away viral , which was when Chamath [ Palihapitiya ] had posteda tweet of him with his shirt off , and I was just make sport of myself and him byposting a replyto it . And so these guys were like , “ Hey , we really like your style . Let ’s get it . Let ’s begin . ” And I intend , “ Oh , wow , that ’s fairly powerful , like they know who I am , and it ’s gone on to be super worthful . ”
We both cut ramification twenty-four hours . ( I skip the other days too)pic.twitter.com/5xsxqjgUDg
Now , when it comes to Better Tomorrow Ventures — how many finances have you raised so far ? And I keep hearing that fintech is back . Would you fit with that ? What are you bullish about ?
We ’re investing out of our 2d monetary fund now , and we ’ll shortly be investing out of our third fund . And yeah , I call up the fintech market is raging again and we ’re going to see more exits in the near future . I think overall , the fintech world is pretty poised to have a lot of result in the penny-pinching future .
I ’m excite about a pot of the stuff that we always think in , which is “ the everything is fintech write up , ” which persists today . As I cite before , perpendicular SaaS and B2B marketplaces are becoming fintech company , and there ’s a good deal of opportunity to enable those folks . I ’m also really emotional about accounting . We have three companies behind this thesis that there ’s a big shortage of controller in this land .
It ’s interesting you say that regard that at the death of last year , an accounting startup calledBenchshut down circumstantially before it got acquired a few days later by this company call Employer.com . A lot of people can debate what went wrong with Bench , but it vocalise like what happened there does n’t seem to be bear on your overall views on the space as a whole ?
It ’s interesting . I consider of Bench as really an accountancy house , rather than it being a speculation - punt account firm , like they had a bunch of human beings doing accounting work . And a problem with that is it ’s really hard to scale , to build like a venture scale of measurement line of work and continue to grow at speculation scale . And so eventually , I believe I ’ve hear from customers like they ended up cutting corner . Things did n’t really go as the great unwashed had want , and so they had a clustering of challenge .
Recently , the big intelligence that overlook was DeepSeek . It was everywhere . Everybody ’s talk about it , OpenAI seemed to be freaking out . What do you think — is DeepSeek really this big scourge , or is it just a bunch of ballyhoo ?
There are a number of things to take out within DeepSeek . One , it ’s from China . Another is that it ’s clear source , and another is that it ’s supposedly done very cheaply .
I mean we ’ve always believed that the cost of illation , the recent modelling costs , were move to come down . But I reckon DeepSeek unveiling help the cost follow down pretty substantially . And so , now you have a bit of a price warfare at the foundational model level , which is great for our company that are building on AI . It ’s phenomenal .
What about the hype around AI in general ?
There are so many troupe that cant over us the same way that they deliver you , and they tell us that they ’re AI society , and you look and there ’s nothing AI about them , or very little ; I think very few troupe are actually AI companies . And then I think there are a lot more companies that are escort tremendous economic value from AI but are not , “ AI party . ” We place across the spectrum . I do think there ’s this perceptual experience that you need to be an AI party to get aid . And I do n’t think that ’s rightful . I mean it ’s just important to be good about who you are and what you ’re doing .
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