On Kyle York’s crazy podcast journey he makes a stop at The Top podcast with Nathan Latka. This 19-minute episode is a very fast-paced Q&A that gets right to the point, so we break it down for you.
Listen to this episode of the Nathan Latka podcast here.
Investing through York IE
The interview kicks off with Nathan asking Kyle about York IE and how investments are done through and with York IE. Kyle answers by explaining his career and how he got into angel investing which then led him to the idea of York IE. Kyle then explains how York IE is a vertically integrated business made up of three components, a SaaS platform, an investment practice, and a consulting/advising practice.
The SaaS Side
Nathan questions Kyle on the SaaS platform opportunity, something that hasn’t publicly launched yet. Kyle explains that Fuel, the name of the SaaS platform, is a market and competitive intelligence platform and that York IE’s analysts and account managers use it for market research and analysis — meaning that we’re the first beta customer. Kyles informs Nathan on when he thinks it will be the right time to release Fuel publicly to the market for individual, team, and enterprise account access and how it’s operator-first capabilities uniquely differentiate from other platforms or analyst firms in the market.
The Native Advisory Services Practice
Later in this Nathan Latka podcast, Kyle dives into the details of Fuel and certain features it will entail to better help entrepreneurs, operators, and executives. Nathan and Kyle continue to discuss Fuel and as Kyle answers technical questions about the product as well as opines on strategic direction. Kyle tells Nathan how a lot of what’s in Fuel is based on what he learned at Dyn and Oracle and especially his work in messaging/positioning, brand building, product strategy, GTM, partnerships & certainly M&A. Kyle goes in to tell Nathan about how Fuel differentiates itself from the Crunchbases and Pitchbooks and goes into detail about the business strategy behind Fuel and the “Smart Notebook” components for doing real work in the platform. Over time, these business growth services will live as white-gloved professional services on top of the self-service offering from Fuel.
Back to the Investments
Nathan then asks about how York IE invests. Kyle states that York IE is not a traditional venture fund and how he took what he learned from angel investing and applied it to York IE. Kyle states how people invest alongside York IE’s capital and that there isn’t a traditional management fee nor fund economics. Explaining the different model of investing, a captive and evergreen deal by deal syndicate model, Kyle brings up the history of York IE’s investments and how they are growing. Nathan asks Kyle about an angel investment Kyle did and how they are working and growing through the pandemic.
York IE History
Nathan fires off questions concerning York IE, like when it was founded, questions about services clients, and the overall growth of the York IE brand. Kyle then explains the timeline of York IE and what the roadmap looks like for the future, including the Fuel launch in the first half of 2021.
Quick Questions
This episode of the Nathan Latka podcast ends with rapid questions about business, career, and life that you’ll have to listen to. Wow, what a fire cooker!
We want to thank Nathan Latka for a great podcast interview that held so many unique questions about York IE. Follow Nathan on Twitter here.
