The GoingVC Podcast

There are genuine operational insights buried here - earning deal allocation by delivering introductions and talent before investing, sharing deal-pass rationales with LPs as an education tool, and navigating B2B enterprise sales from the buyer's seat - but they're diluted by extended career autobiography, host cheerleading, and generic closing advice about persistence and saying no.

“we secure deals for our startups away earlier than we invest”

“why we looked into the company and why we decided not to invest. Right. Because I think that that's a way of educating people about our process”

The strategy of pre-investment founder assistance (customer intros, talent warm referrals) to earn Series B allocation in competitive rounds is a genuinely differentiated articulation, and the LP-as-client model with 6,000 webinars and deal-pass transparency is non-standard. However, the fundraising narrative and emerging-manager advice recycle well-worn themes, and the investment thesis matrix is framed more originally than it actually is.

“we come very prepared. We say why won't we have a look into this five customers of yours and the names we draw are ah, not known usually by startup”

“we don't pretend to be always a lead. So we can either call lead or we can follow”

Victor is a genuine large-scale operator: CTO of Sberbank overseeing 45M MAU and 25,000 engineers, architect of one of Russia's earliest mobile banks, and a credible practitioner-turned-investor with verifiable portfolio outcomes including an eToro IPO. He is not a career thought leader - his operational depth is real and unusual in the VC podcast circuit.

“45 million monthly asset users which was bigger than Chase Manhattan, Citi and Wells Fargo and a Bank of America combined”

“I scaled up engineering teams up to 25,000 engineers”

Victor deploys concrete figures throughout - 45M MAU, 25,000 engineers, 28,000 branches, $100M fund one, 25% of fund one concentrated in eToro, 150 co-investors, $400M AUM - and the eToro story has a specific timeline (met Yoni in 2015 in Israel, joint venture announced, first-day customer acquisition exceeded five years of regional efforts). Fund 4 details are deliberately withheld, and some growth claims remain impressionistic rather than audited.

“we managed to invest Almost I think 25% of our first fund into just one company”

“after the first day of announcing the joint venture they got more customers in this region than in five years or so before”

The hosts structure the conversation competently and cover reasonable territory (fundraising, deal sourcing, LP management, community), but they respond to almost every answer with effusive praise rather than substantive follow-up, and no claim is meaningfully challenged throughout the hour. JJ's brief anecdote about LP reporting preferences is the one moment of genuine host contribution.

“Of no words, you've managed 25,000. That is amazing. You're the first person I know who's managed so many”

“raising $100 million is easy. It's the first time I've heard someone say that and I absolutely love it”