This time on Startup Foundations we chat with Erik Torenberg about his journey from founding his first startup to founding his venture capital fund, Village Global.

We cover the full lifecycle of his career: from founding a company, Rapt.FM, which lead to Product Hunt, and how seeing 1000’s of companies on Product Hunt led him to start OnDeck, where he used the information and lessons from seeing so many products launching to create a community for talented founders. In founding OnDeck, Erik was able to find his co-founder at Village Global. A true startup circle of life.

We also talk about how to approach finding the right co-founder and the keys to forging a co-founder relationship that is built to last through the high and low points of the startup journey.

Erik reflects on the benefits of having a positive-sum mindset and how that is essential to being an effective startup founder and investor. In addition to his best investments and mental models, we also go through some of the ones he has missed or passed on.

This was an awesome interview that will be especially meaningful for people who are interested in building a product or investing in startups at the early stage.