TIETOJA TÄSTÄ JAKSOSTA
In this episode, Keira sits down with Simon Dedic, Co-Founder of Moonrock Capital.
Simon spent years in a lab at Oxford working on one of the deadliest cancers there is, on a clear path to a career in science. Then he walked away from all of it. He took a bank loan at the bottom of the 2018 bear market, lost most of it, and stayed anyway. In 2019 he started Moonrock with his own money, no outside investors and no safety net. Six years and 76 investments later he is still here.
He is refreshingly blunt about how venture actually works. Most funds are just waiting to see who A16Z backs. Being a real first check means having conviction before there is a product, revenue or a track record to point at.
Simon tells the story of Collector Crypt, a fifty year old collector building something every investor in the room laughed at, now doing over a hundred million a year on Solana.
The conversation also covers why he reads every DM but replies to almost none of them, why meme coins were the worst thing to happen to crypto and what they cost the industry, what he tells founders whose token is down 95 percent, why the most convincing person in the room is often the scammer, and why he thinks attention is now the only genuinely scarce thing left.
Key Takeaways:
- The best time to raise is when you do not need the money.
- Most investors are just copying whoever led the round.
- Back the person, not the idea. Early founders pivot anyway.
- If a token does not behave like equity, it is not worth owning.
- Meme coins turned crypto into a casino and burned a whole wave of newcomers.
- Software and content are getting cheap. Attention is the scarce thing now.
- Play long games with long-term people. Everything else is noise.
01:15 Why the best time to raise is when you do not need it03:29 What a real first check actually looks like05:45 Judging a founder with no product and no numbers09:39 The Pokemon card company every VC laughed at13:19 Why attention is the only scarce asset left25:14 Quitting cancer research and taking a bank loan at the bottom31:01 Why meme coins were the worst thing to happen to crypto38:33 Your token is down 95 percent. Now what?41:27 The biggest red flags in a pitch43:46 Why nine out of ten DMs get no reply1:00:29 A message to his 17 year old self
Guest:
Simon Dedic, Co-Founder, Moonrock CapitalX: @sjdedicX (Moonrock Capital): @MoonrockCapitalLinkedIn: Simon DedicLinkedIn (Moonrock Capital): Moonrock CapitalWebsite: moonrockcapital.io
Host
Keira Nesdale - Portfolio Manager at MH Ventures
X: https://x.com/RealMissAI
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keiranesdale
Instagram: https://instagram.com/RealMissAI
Dealflow Podcast
X: https://x.com/dealflowpodcast
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dealflow/id1859528286
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MH Ventures
Website: https://mhventures.io
X: https://x.com/mhventures
LinkedIn: https://ky.linkedin.com/company/mhventure
