How Conviction Uses No Priors to Build Relationships and Reach Founders

How can a VC firm create a scalable platform for thought leadership to bring in founders??

Conviction brought on Pod People to develop, produce, and grow an audience for their industry-defining podcast on the AI revolution, No Priors. At this moment of inflection in technology, the show gives a platform to the world's leading AI engineers, researchers and founders to discuss today’s biggest questions in artificial intelligence.?

"The podcast has been a great way for Elad and I to catch up with friends and builders in the tech industry, curate a mixture of experts on what's happening in AI, and talk about our point of view so founders know to reach out to us,” said Sarah Guo , Founder of Conviction and Co-Host of No Priors alongside serial entrepreneur and a startup investor Elad Gil.?

No Priors has consistently hit #1 on the Technology charts for Apple-US and has become a trusted resource for news and culturally significant moments in the AI space. The podcast was featured by Amazon Music among its “Ones to Watch” collection in March 2024 and interviews on No Priors have been referenced in The New York Times covering AI industry news.?

Creating a platform for increased visibility and industry expertise has become a valuable strategy for many VC firms. A Vanity Fair piece in May explored how both newcomer and veteran venture capitalists are using podcasts to lure in founders. “In recent years, numerous heavy-hitters on Sand Hill Road have set up RSS feeds in the hopes of reaching the eardrums of the next billionaire founder. Whereas investors once had to woo founders with tasting menu dinners or trips on their private jets, they can now do so over Spotify.” (Zucker, 2024)?

Early stage venture capitalist Jason Calcanis has leveraged his podcasts for thought leadership and exposure. “If a VC is passionate about having great conversations,” he says of audio in the same Vanity Fair article, “it’s an excellent medium for building relationships and letting the world know your thoughts.”

Not only can a podcast build a direct relationship with listeners, it can also strengthen the hosts’ relationships with other industry leaders. No Priors has hosted some of the world’s most influential names in AI, from OpenAI Co-Founder & Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, to Co-Founder of Inflection AI Reid Hoffman, and NVIDIA Founder and CEO Jensen Huang.?

For your guide to the AI Revolution -- listen to No Priors wherever you get your podcasts. Not sure where to dive in? Check out the recent episode with OpenAI’s Sora team on how we’ve only seen the “GPT-1 of video models.”

If you, like Conviction, are looking to use a podcast to build industry relationships and reach the eardrums of potential founders, we’d love to help. Pod People makes and markets chart-topping podcasts for the world’s biggest brands, with over 50M listens and hundreds of award nominations.