Roundtable! Network Effects, Hustle, Raising Money, and More with Colin Gardiner and Sonia Nagar

We’re trying something new this week with our first roundtable. Our guests are Sonia Nagar from SNAK Venture Partners and Colin Gardiner from Yonder Ventures. Sonia and Colin are both early-stage investors, friends of mine, and experts on marketplaces and network effects. We talked about AI’s role in marketplaces, why network effects aren’t more popular (even though they should be), how to make your own luck, what it’s really like to raise your first venture fund, and more. I hope you enjoy and thanks for listening.

The episode is now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, and YouTube Music.

Chapters from Roundtable! Network Effects, Hustle, Raising Money, and More with Colin Gardiner and Sonia Nagar

00:00 – Intro to Sonia Nagar & Colin Gardiner

01:37 – The “two-speed” 2025 venture market and AI-driven froth

05:22 – Marketplaces: why many VCs avoid them, what’s left to build, and AI labor angles

09:41 – Monetization therapy: take rate vs SaaS and turning revenue on earlier

15:43 – AI agents, B2B marketplaces, search costs, and the risk of commoditized markets

19:46 – “Websites might die”: AI browsers/agents vs traditional marketplace UIs

21:22 – Raising Fund I: Sonia and Colin’s different paths, anchor LPs, and who really backs emerging managers

25:29 – The invisible job of fundraising, compounding effort, and shifting focus to portfolio work

28:59 – Spicy takes: over-concentrated early funds, vertical SaaS vs network effects, and ignoring LP fashion

36:06 – How to reach Sonia & Colin

Takeaways from Roundtable! Network Effects, Hustle, Raising Money, and More with Colin Gardiner and Sonia Nagar

• Why 2024–25 felt like a tale of two markets: AI-native rounds getting bid up (seed at $50–100M pre with little or no revenue) while non-AI B2B marketplaces are clearing closer to ~$12.5M post—and how that changes the game for founders pitching today.

• Why many investors still shy away from marketplaces, and why Sonia and Colin think that’s a mistake: B2B marketplaces being a decade behind consumer, the rise of Gen-Z native and digital-asset marketplaces, and where they see the next wave of breakout marketplace companies.

• Monetizing marketplaces without breaking them: when to charge a take rate vs. lead with SaaS or other services; Sonia’s FuelMe case study with different monetization by customer segment; and Colin’s argument for introducing a (even small) take rate early as a true test of product–market fit.

• How AI is rewiring marketplace design: Sonia putting more weight on founder domain expertise than technical co-founders at seed, AI tools making it easier to “vibe code” from 0 → MVP, and the shift from classic “supply-first” playbooks to demand-first plus AI agents that procure supply on the fly.

• Colin’s view on AI agents, price transparency, and margin compression: why agents that shop, quote, and optimize across vendors could crush take rates in commodity markets—and why defensibility increasingly depends on unique supply, logistics, and bundled services rather than just matching buyers and sellers.

• A provocative prediction: websites as we know them fade, and the winners are the marketplaces and vendors that are most “LLM-legible” to AI agents and AI browsers—plus Joe’s real-world example of using agents to re-shop every >$100 online purchase and auto-test coupon codes.

• Inside life as first-time fund managers: how Sonia leveraged a long relationship with the Pritzker family as an anchor LP, how Colin scratched his way through “trench warfare” without an anchor, and why making people money before you raise a fund is the single biggest unlock.

• Tactical advice for aspiring emerging managers: start building LP relationships 1–2 years before you raise, qualify who really does Fund I vs. Fund II/III, accept that Fund I is mostly people who know you, and recognize that investing, fundraising, and firm-building are three separate hard jobs.

• Spicier takes: Colin’s argument that most early-stage VCs aren’t actually great pickers and should run more diversified portfolios (50+ companies) and focus on world-class sourcing, and Sonia’s skepticism that vertical SaaS without strong network effects will be defensible in an AI world.

• The crew also tie their views back to fresh data from AngelList’s 2024 State of U.S. Early-Stage Venture & Startups—including seed valuations rebounding to a $20M median pre-money and AI / ML companies capturing over 20% of all deal volume and ~25% of capital deployed on AngelList in 2024.

• This roundtable builds on Sonia’s earlier episode (“Betting Big on B2B Marketplaces”, E23) and Colin’s (“The Future of Marketplaces and Network Effects”, E15)—two of the show’s most engaged marketplace-focused conversations to date.

The content here is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal or tax advice. The opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect the views of Seaplane Ventures. Our host, guests and clients may hold investments discussed in this podcast. Please invest responsibly.