TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - thank you so much for listening to this and sharing it with your friends and family, for sharing a kind review or rating, and for following us on social media. So…Have you ever had a great idea that you’re just super excited about? You probably have and the initial spark is always pretty palpable. Naturally, since we are social and communal animals, we want to share our excitement with others to capture the energy of the idea and help fuel it even further. Now if we translate this to the startup space, using effective and compelling storytelling to accelerate and solidify and scale an idea or the launch of a company seems like a no brainer, but one that takes curation, experience, and precision. So it was terrific to share a conversation recently with Jay Kapoor. Jay is a founding partner of VSC Ventures, a venture capital fund that invests in early stage companies with the support of PR, go-to-market and media strategy. Jay was born in Chandigarh, India and emigrated with his family first to Kuwait, then Canada, before settling in New Jersey for the past many years. His through-line of personal experiences includes beginning his career in media and entertainment, first as an investment banker and more recently as an executive in corporate strategy with the National Football League and then at Madison Square Garden. He also spearheaded seed investment at Launch Capital, investing in many unicorn companies in fintech and transportation. Now maybe this is what he had in mind when as a teenager, he served as a press box announcer for his high school football team…but the connecting of many personal and professional dots speaks to a well developed empathy and the sharpened used of story as a central driver of success speaks to Jay’s passion and aim to perfect this craft. I have to say this is also evidenced by Jay’s podcasting host duties on The Game Plan, a show that interviews professional athletes about their journeys and lessons after retirement, and Climb, featuring expert conversations about climate innovation. We caught up to chat and to get a window into Jay’s world, and we started by talking about how storytelling has made him a better listener?