Susheel Daswani on Why Smart Money Bets on People
What makes someone write a check before there's a trailer, a cast, or anything to point to except an idea and a person?
In Episode 6, Mark Elias sits down with Susheel Daswani—startup veteran, tech investor, and one of the first people to back We Could Be Heroes—to unpack what it actually looks like to bet on a film from the inside of Silicon Valley.
This isn't a finance conversation. This is about belief, vision pitches, and what early investors really want from the founders they back.
They cover:
Why Susheel said yes when there was nothing to show but a pitch
The difference between a "vision pitch" and a metrics pitch—and when each one wins
What gaming culture, human connection, and storytelling have in common
Why transparent investor updates matter more than polished ones
"Dumb money" vs. "smart money," and how founders unlock the second kind
What success actually looks like when it isn't measured in returns
The takeaway is simple: the earliest believers aren't buying a business plan—they're buying the person, the story, and the conviction behind both.
Because before a movie has a poster, it has a pitch. And someone has to be the first to lean in.
