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Most senior operators have spent decades doing founding-level work inside other people's…
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Vish Rao Dumpeti shared thisthe $110B problem in construction rework was diagnosed by one question at SF TECH WEEK by a16z , and any founder can run it on themselves. oct 7, Coast-to-Coast Startup Lab demo day. Rocket Mixer® put builders on a train from New York to San Francisco and had them pitch on arrival to a panel of investors that included Sarah Romanko of Geek Ventures . one team was going after construction rework, a problem they sized at about $110B a year, half of it from miscommunication. lidar and photo capture on site, compared against the 3D model. a dashboard for the project manager. a judge, roughly: this feels very white-collar friendly. someone who lives in Excel and Salesforce would love it. how comfortable is a plumber going to be with this dashboard? if you're building software for a trade, here's the version of that test you can run this week: who in your company has done the end user's job, for pay, in the last five years? what does the product look like at 6am on a phone with gloves on? which screen does your buyer love, and does your user open the same one? how many of your first ten design reviews had the user in the room, with a vote? i learned this the hard way. the person who's held the tool gets equity and a seat in the design review, which is the cheapest way to get that answer right the first time.
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Vish Rao Dumpeti shared thisthe $110B problem in construction rework was diagnosed by one question at SF TECH WEEK by a16z , and any founder can run it on themselves. oct 7, Coast-to-Coast Startup Lab demo day. Rocket Mixer® put builders on a train from New York to San Francisco and had them pitch on arrival to a panel of investors that included Sarah Romanko of Geek Ventures . one team was going after construction rework, a problem they sized at about $110B a year, half of it from miscommunication. lidar and photo capture on site, compared against the 3D model. a dashboard for the project manager. a judge, roughly: this feels very white-collar friendly. someone who lives in Excel and Salesforce would love it. how comfortable is a plumber going to be with this dashboard? if you're building software for a trade, here's the version of that test you can run this week: who in your company has done the end user's job, for pay, in the last five years? what does the product look like at 6am on a phone with gloves on? which screen does your buyer love, and does your user open the same one? how many of your first ten design reviews had the user in the room, with a vote? i learned this the hard way. the person who's held the tool gets equity and a seat in the design review, which is the cheapest way to get that answer right the first time.
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Vish Rao Dumpeti reposted thisVish Rao Dumpeti reposted this"always be learning and always be growing through sharing" one line life lessons from Vish Rao Dumpeti #AlwaysBeLearning #onelinelifelessons
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Vish Rao Dumpeti reacted on thisVish Rao Dumpeti reacted on thisPhilly, you delivered. 🧀🥩 The skysync team, along with some good friends and partners, ran a booth at the Salesforce Agentforce World Tour in Philadelphia this week. One topic on the table: ROI with AI. One snack on the table: Philly cheesesteaks. Both went fast. What stood out from the conversations: • Everyone is building agents. Far fewer can say what their agents actually returned. • Leaders want AI managed like a team member, with a scorecard, not shipped and forgotten. • The Salesforce ecosystem in Philly shows up for each other. Partners, customers, and SEs all stopped by to compare notes. Huge thanks to the Salesforce team Talya Levenson Mynae Kuawogai for the energy and to everyone who swung by to talk AI. If we met and you want to keep the ROI conversation going. Spacial thanks to Vish Rao DumpetiVish Rao Dumpeti Chloe WongChloe Wong Samuel Risberg Kelly P Kennedy Forward Share Ventures #Agentforce #Salesforce #AIROI #SkySync #WorldTour #Philadelphia
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Vish Rao Dumpeti shared thisa room of allocators answered the question every first-time GP has, on oct 7, and the answer was more encouraging than i expected: how do you get backed with no fund track record. Forward Share Ventures co-hosted From Exit to LP with Geek Ventures during SF TECH WEEK by a16z , sponsored alongside EisnerAmper and J.P. Morgan. 51 allocators in the room: LPs, family offices, funds of funds, wealth managers. on the panel, Steven Park of Alexandria Capital | A Hightower Company, Pedro Saltos of Invus Opportunities, and a five-time founder who now runs his own family office. paraphrasing from my notes, what they said they look for in a first-time manager: your personal track record, since you don't have a fund one. where did you operate, what did you build, what do you know about a sector that we can't get to ourselves. one allocator said it in six words: we love GPs with operator backgrounds. proof before commitment. show the value before anyone wires anything. send the deal flow, share the diligence, be useful for a year. a long clock. one panelist's frame was five-plus years before backing a manager. everyone in the room was there to start a relationship, and they said so. the meeting itself. someone asked how you get a real conversation with an LP. the answer: more often than not, we'd take it. so ask. if you're an operator thinking about a fund, that's the playbook. your edge is the thing you did for fifteen years, and the relationship starts now for money that shows up in 2028. i underestimated how patient allocators are. they'll wait longer than most founders think, but they won't move without proof first.
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Vish Rao Dumpeti posted thisfive things to get right before you launch a venture studio: lessons from someone who ran one, wound down the accelerator attached to it, and shared what he learned. on the evening of oct 7, after our LP event in San Francisco, i spent a long time with an emerging manager who ran a fund with an accelerator attached and later wound the accelerator down. i'm leaving him unnamed because i didn't ask. his lessons, as close to his words as i can get: 1. founders came because of the fund. in his words, they wouldn't have cared about the accelerator on its own. 2. two babies. you want both to work, so you start fitting companies into the fund that don't belong there. 3. LP clarity. his LPs wanted one clean answer to what they were backing, and giving them one made every later conversation easier. 4. equity timing. they took equity at phase two instead of day one. by then the best companies had outgrown the agreed valuation, which turned into a cross-border legal project. his fix, and i agree: take the equity on day one. 5. the why. his accelerator existed to build a track record for the fund. once the fund's brand did that on its own, the accelerator was redundant. if you're thinking about launching a studio, or adding a program to a fund, those five are worth answering before anyone asks. what i'd want in place: equity set at co-founding, before there's a company to argue about. that's how ForwardShare does it, and it's the cheapest moment there will ever be. one product. for us the studio is the product and capital exists to back what it builds. once you can say that in a sentence, your LPs can repeat it. a named owner for the two-babies bias. there's no structural fix for it, so someone's job has to be saying no. a track record plan that doesn't depend on the program. if the program exists to prove the fund, say so, and plan for the day you don't need it. the studio model as we know it is ten to fifteen years old, ideally onward. the people running them now are the ones who get to produce the long data, which is a good reason to compare notes.
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Vish Rao Dumpeti reposted thisTomorrow, Vineet Shah, Vish Rao Dumpeti and I are hosting the very first Global Venture Studio Innovation Half Day with the operators running venture studios, the LPs backing them, and the founders building companies inside them. We have such an incredible lineup of speakers and agenda in store for you: ⭐ Agenda (PT) ⭐ 8:00 - Organizers' Welcome: Myrto Lalacos, Vineet Shah and Vish Rao Dumpeti 8:10 - The State of Venture Studios 2026: Neal Ghosh, 9point8 Collective 8:35 - The AI-Accelerated Studio: Henk Kok, Xablu Venture Studio, and Teija Bean, Forum Ventures 8:55 - AI-Native Venture Studios: Michael van Lier, Builders 9:20 - What LPs Look For in a Studio Fund: Sarah Adams Anderson, Vault Fund 9:45 - From the NFL to Limited Partner: Jason Phillips 10:05 - From Lab to Company: Shabab Saad, CarboMat Inc. 10:25 - Why I Built My Company Inside a Studio: Emad ElShawa, Shepherd AI Thursday 29 October, 8 to 11am PT / 4 to 7pm CET. Register through the event below. See you there! 🫡Vish Rao Dumpeti reposted thisVenture studios are becoming a central pillar of the innovation and venture ecosystem. Some cohorts of studios have delivered roughly 2x the IRR of traditional benchmarks and around 33% faster exits. AI is also changing how quickly these startup factories spin out companies, letting them test and validate far more ideas than they could a few years ago. More studios are now launching their own investment vehicles to build on that success. The Global Venture Studio Innovation Half Day is a live online mini-conference on the latest trends in venture studios and studio funds, and where the ecosystem is heading next. Thursday 29 October, 8 to 11am PT / 4 to 7pm CET. Register through the event below. What we'll cover: → How venture studios and studio funds work → The global state of play and latest trends → The LP case for venture studios within early-stage venture → Co-investing and diligence-sharing between VCs and studios → How founders use the studio model to launch companies → The influence of AI on the studio sector → Where the studio ecosystem is heading, from the people building it The speakers: → Neal Ghosh of 9point8 Collective on the state of venture studios in 2026 → Henk Kok of Xablu Venture Studio and Teija Bean of Forum Ventures on how AI is changing validation and kill decisions → Michael van Lier of Builders on what an AI-native studio looks like in practice → Sarah Adams Anderson of Vault Fund on what LPs look for in a studio fund → Former NFL linebacker Jason Phillips on why he backed a venture studio fund as an LP → Shabab Saad of CarboMat Inc. on when a studio makes sense for a deep-tech founder → Emad ElShawa of Shepherd AI on building his company inside a studio Who should attend: → Emerging GPs and venture studio founders, from first-time builders to those with a decade of operating history → Operators, ex-founders and domain experts considering becoming a studio founder, LP or advisor → LPs considering a first allocation to venture studios, including family offices, operator LPs and high-net-worth investors → VCs interested in co-investing with studios Hosted by Myrto Lalacos (The Emerging VC), Vineet Shah (8 Clockwise) and Vish Rao Dumpeti (Forward Share Ventures). Thursday 29 October, 8 to 11am PT / 4 to 7pm CET. Register through the event below.
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Vish Rao Dumpeti reacted on thisVish Rao Dumpeti reacted on thisA year ago, the One Way Summit drew 500 people. This week it drew over 1,000. I was on stage for "VCs on the Immigrant Edge," talking about how the immigrant founder journey shapes fundraising - what it looks like to evaluate someone pre-product, pre-revenue, sometimes while they're still holding the job that holds their visa. That room doubling in a year isn't a coincidence. It's confirmation of something we've bet on since 2014: backing immigrant founders isn't philanthropy. It's a winning investment strategy. This week's newsletter has the receipts - three new funding rounds, each one founded by someone who moved countries before they built a company, plus where the $100K H-1B fee fight and the EB-1A court split actually stand right now. Read + subscribe: https://lnkd.in/gZBtBFPTLast Week in Immigration, Venture & Entrepreneurship — Oct 23-30, 2026Last Week in Immigration, Venture & Entrepreneurship — Oct 23-30, 2026
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Vish Rao Dumpeti reacted on thisVish Rao Dumpeti reacted on thisWe co-hosted and sponsored our first event at Vettable And I decided to do it internationally, at Mexico City Tech Week. 🇲🇽 I had no idea what to expect. The results speak for themselves: 300+ event signups 180+ LATAM founders interested in joining Vettable 36+ venture funds interested in using Vettable as their infrastructure for due diligence and investment applications Over $100M in venture capital represented by funds we signed onto Vettable LIVE during the event Founders onboarded on the spot And the feedback we kept hearing? “This was the best event of Mexico City Tech Week.” I’m an American-Guyanese founder from New York building a company with a vision to make venture capital more accessible, transparent, and efficient. To bring that vision to another country and watch founders and investors embrace it in real time was surreal. A few years ago, this was just an idea. Now we’re building relationships and infrastructure across borders. I’m beyond grateful to the friends, sponsors, and partners who took a chance on me and believed in what we’re building. HubSpot HubSpot For Startups NachoNacho Deel Vettable We didn’t come to Mexico City just to host an event. We came to build a bridge between founders and capital. And we’re just getting started. Thank you, Mexico City. 🇲🇽❤️ 🚀 Andy Karuza Daniel Cossío Dan Gallagher mi amigos! #MexicoCityTechWeek #LATAMStartups #VentureCapital #StartupEcosystem #VettableAI
Experience & Education
Volunteer Experience
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WeWork x Flatiron School Mentorship Program Lead, Organizer, Mentor
Flatiron School
Science and Technology
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Organizer, Coach, Mentor
Technovation
Science and Technology
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Organizer, Mentor
PilotDC
Science and Technology
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Advisor
StartupCentral
Science and Technology
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Tech Advisor, Open Source Contributor, Donor
Caring About The Strays (CATS)
Animal Welfare
Patents
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Context sensitive user group communications
US ***0089439
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Joint liability agreements state engine in a networked environment
US ***4246752
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Method and system to index captioned objects in published literature for information discovery tasks
US ***5199B2
Honors & Awards
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Top 5 Startups @ SXSW, MakeMe
TechBreakfast
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Hottest Startup Showcase, MakeMe
Tech Cocktail
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Innovation Challenge, The Listen Project, The New York Times
The New York Times
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Odyssey Award (x2), LatAm Hack Days, Project Asenna, Yahoo!
Yahoo!
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Super Star Award (x3), Yahoo! Sports, World Cup
Yahoo!
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Above and Beyond, CSA Illuminator (x2), ProQuest
ProQuest
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