Trailblazers

This week we chat with Paige Finn Doherty! Paige is the Founding Partner of Behind Genius Ventures, an early-stage venture firm managing nearly $14 million in AUM. Behind Genius makes concentrated investments in pre-seed and seed-stage companies led by technical storytellers across applied AI, frontier tech, and what’s next. A writer and former engineer, Paige first broke into venture capital in a truly unconventional way by writing a best-selling “children’s book for adults” about how venture capital works, Seed to Harvest. At the time, she was working as a Developer Success Engineer at WorkOS, a role she actually landed through Twitter! Paige’s impact and storytelling have earned her widespread recognition: she was featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Cover in Venture Capital (2022), named a Rising SDSU Aztec Awardee, and most recently, inducted into the Rancho Bernardo High School Hall of Fame. Originally from San Diego and now based in San Francisco, Paige continues to bring transparency, creativity, and heart to the world of venture through storytelling and curio ✨ This episode is presented by Brex. Brex: brex.com/trailblazerspod This episode is supported by RocketReach, Gusto, OpenPhone & Athena. RocketReach: rocketreach.co/trailblazers Gusto: gusto.com/trailblazers Quo: Quo.com/trailblazers Athena: athenago.me/Erica-Wenger Follow Us! Paige Finn Doherty: @paigedoherty Behind Genius Substack: @behindgenius.substack.com @thetrailblazerspod: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok Erica Wenger: @erica_wenger 🐘 Learn more about Park Rangers Capital!

This week we chat with Claire Hughes Johnson! Claire is the former COO of Stripe, where she played a critical role in scaling the company from 160 employees to more than 7,000 during its period of rapid global expansion. Before Stripe, she spent over a decade at Google, leading large international teams across multiple high-growth products and operations. She now serves on the boards of HubSpot, The Atlantic, Aurora, and several other organizations, is an active angel investor, and is the bestselling author of Scaling People, widely regarded as a modern classic on leadership, management, and organizational design. ✨ This episode is presented by Brex. Brex: brex.com/trailblazerspod This episode is supported by RocketReach, Gusto, OpenPhone & Athena. RocketReach: rocketreach.co/trailblazers Gusto: gusto.com/trailblazers Quo: Quo.com/trailblazers Athena: athenago.me/Erica-Wenger Follow Us! Claire Hughes Johnson: @chughesjohnson @thetrailblazerspod: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok Erica Wenger: @erica_wenger 🐘 Learn more about Park Rangers Capital!

Welcome back to Trailblazers by Park Rangers Capital! In this week’s solo episode, host Erica Wenger breaks down 7 things she wishes every founder knew before raising their first check. The honest, unfiltered truths that can dramatically change the way you approach fundraising. Drawing from the countless lessons she’s learned while raising for her own firm, Erica unpacks the realities behind investor conversations, what actually moves a deal forward, and the common mistakes first-time founders don’t even realize they’re making. From understanding how investors really make decisions to setting expectations, building genuine momentum, and crafting a narrative that sticks, Erica shares the tactical learning nuggets she had to earn the hard way. If you’re preparing for your first raise or simply want a clearer look at how fundraising really works behind the scenes. This episode is your grounded, practical guide to entering the capital-raising arena with confidence. ✨ This episode is presented by Brex. Brex: brex.com/trailblazerspod This episode is supported by Rocketreach, Gusto, OpenPhone & Athena. RocketReach: rocketreach.co/trailblazers Gusto: gusto.com/trailblazers Quo (formerly OpenPhone): Quo.com/trailblazers Athena: athenago.me/Erica-Wenger Follow Us! @thetrailblazerspod: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok Erica Wenger: @erica_wenger 🐘 Learn more about Park Rangers Capital!

This week, we chat with Nikhil Basu Trivedi! Nikhil is Co-Founder & General Partner at Footwork, an early-stage focused venture firm in San Francisco. Footwork leads Seed and Series A rounds in companies with early signs of product-market fit, across both consumer technology and the consumerization of enterprise technology. The firm was founded in 2021 and is investing its second fund, with $400M of AUM. Footwork’s portfolio companies include Elicit, Felt, GPTZero, Tracksuit, Watershed, and WindBorne. Nikhil was previously a Managing Director at Shasta Ventures, where he led the firm's investments in Athelas, Canva, ClassDojo, Color, Frame.io, Imperfect Foods, Lattice, and The Farmer's Dog. He started his career on the investing team at Insight Partners and on the founding team at Artsy. Nikhil graduated from Princeton University with a degree in molecular biology and finance. ✨ This episode is presented by Brex. Brex: brex.com/trailblazerspod This episode is supported by RocketReach, Gusto, OpenPhone & Athena. RocketReach: rocketreach.co/trailblazers Gusto: gusto.com/trailblazers Quo: Quo.com/trailblazers Athena: athenago.me/Erica-Wenger Follow Us! Nikhil: https://x.com/nbt @thetrailblazerspod: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok Erica Wenger: @erica_wenger 🐘 Learn more about Park Rangers Capital!

This week, we chat with Jeffrey Bussgang! Jeff has spent his career at the intersection of startup experimentation and transformative technology. For over a decade, he has taught one of Harvard Business School’s most popular entrepreneurship courses, Launching Tech Ventures, where he's helped thousands of founders build and scale successful companies. As co-founder of Flybridge Capital Partners (a leading seed VC fund with over $1 billion under management), he and his partners were early to recognize AI’s potential to transform startups, evolving the firm’s investment thesis to focus exclusively on AI-forward companies and founders. Before his time as an educator and investor, Bussgang experienced the startup journey firsthand—joining Open Market’s early team and helping lead it through an IPO in 1996, and then co-founding Upromise in 2000, which was successfully acquired. This unique vantage point—as professor, investor, and startup executive—has given him an unmatched perspective on how AI is revolutionizing the startup landscape. ✨ This episode is presented by Brex. Brex: brex.com/trailblazerspod This episode is supported by RocketReach, Gusto, OpenPhone & Athena. RocketReach: rocketreach.co/trailblazers Gusto: gusto.com/trailblazers Quo: Quo.com/trailblazers Athena: athenago.me/Erica-Wenger Follow Us! Linkedin : Jeff Bussgang @thetrailblazerspod: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok Erica Wenger: @erica_wenger 🐘 Learn more about Park Rangers Capital!