Elizabeth Yin // Hustle FundProfile Photo

Elizabeth Yin // Hustle Fund

Investor on The Pitch Seasons 6–11

Elizabeth Yin is the Co-Founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund, a pre-seed fund for software startups. Before founding Hustle Fund, Elizabeth was a partner at 500 Startups, where she invested in seed stage companies and ran the Mountain View accelerator. She’s also an entrepreneur who co-founded the ad-tech company LaunchBit, which was acquired in 2014. Her book is called Democratizing Knowledge: How to Build a Startup, Raise Money, Run a VC Firm, and Everything in Between.

March 20, 2024

Season 11: We're Bringing the Heat

The Pitch is back for season 11! Recorded for the first time in front of a live studio audience, we invited the top startup founders and VCs from across the country to join us in Miami. Visionary founders will pitch everythi…
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Nov. 22, 2023

#126 Handle: The Uncut Pitch

For our season 10 finale, we’re trying something crazy. We’re giving you a full pitch from start to finish with no editing whatsoever! Founder Chase Robbins presents his snack delivery business, Handle, to investors Paige Do…
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Nov. 8, 2023

#124 ECGO: Turning Trash Into Treasure With AI

Ever stood at the recycling bin wondering, “Is this cup really recyclable?'' Enter Nicole Toole, the founder of ECGO, an AI-powered app designed to tackle this confusion. With ECGO, you snap a photo of any item, and the app …
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Oct. 25, 2023

#122 Wist: The Killer Use Case for VR?

Venture investors have spent the last decade searching for the killer use case for VR. Today’s founder, Andrew McHugh, thinks he’s found it with his startup, Wist. But days before Andrew gave his pitch, Apple sent shockwaves…
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Sept. 27, 2023

#120 Bevz: A Tech Bro Walks Into a Corner Store...

Jason Vego wants to disrupt an industry so old school he has to sell door to door. Yet somehow his SaaS platform for convenience stores boasts a 95% conversion rate from free trial. Another number comes up in The Pitch Room …
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Sept. 13, 2023

#118 Uncovered: The Business of True Crime

If you're murdered in the US, there's only a 57% chance your killer will be found. Jim Brown aims to change this statistic by enabling the massive true crime community to solve cold cases on his website Uncovered.com. But my…
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Sept. 6, 2023

#117 Lotus: Hardware Hail Mary

Despite a decade in engineering at Apple, Dhaval Patel didn’t have any smart technology in his home. So he designed a ring that converts every home into a smart home – using old technology found in your typical TV remote. Bu…
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Aug. 23, 2023

#115 Gemist: The Crown Jewel of Venture

When Madeline Fraser tried to design her engagement ring online, she was stunned to find it couldn’t be done. After bringing a cash deposit to a rando in LA, Madeline got her custom ring and, with it, a new business idea. Sh…
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Aug. 9, 2023

Season 10: Deals, Dollars, Drama & YouTube!

We’re back for Season 10 with double the digits, double the deals, and double the drama. Your favorite investors return along with some new voices ready to shake up The Pitch Room. And for the first time ever, we’re posting …
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May 17, 2023

#114 Brevity: Your AI Pitch Coach

Co-founders Kelvin Johnson and Max Huc know first impressions are everything. That’s why they created Brevity, an AI powered software to help craft a persuasive first pitch. But pitching a pitch product to a room full of pit…
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April 12, 2023

#111 Stigma: Whose Business Is It Anyway?

Founder Ariana Vargas wants to destigmatize talking about mental health. So she built a social app. No wait, now it’s a Slack app for the workplace? This founder is willing to do whatever it takes to secure investment - mayb…
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April 5, 2023

#110 HandsDown: The Accelerator Pitch

Jenna Sereni believes the best product recommendations come from family and friends. That’s the genesis of her social shopping app, HandsDown. Her pitch starts out like normal - until the investors flip the script and start …
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March 15, 2023

#107 Terrascope: A Computer Vision Tale

This tale starts with a problem Kehan Zhou found when trying to buy a hobby farm. Zillow didn’t have good search options for land and LandWatch.com was even worse, so Kehan ventured off to combine computer vision technology …
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March 8, 2023

#106 Dotcal: The Calendar Wars

There are tons of companies popping up in the scheduling space now that Calendly is valued at 6 billion dollars. Everyone wants to build the next billion dollar calendar app, including David Matthews, founder of Dotcal. He t…
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March 1, 2023

#105 Teffola: Granola Guy Approved

A few years ago, Claire Smith moved back to her family farm, where they practice sustainable farming, and created Teffola. It’s granola made with an ancient Ethiopian grain called teff, which is filled with lots of protein, …
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Feb. 22, 2023

#104 Dressd: Red Carpet or Red Ocean?

Clothing rental companies get a bad rap in the VC world. It seems like no matter how much money investors sink into them, they always just… fail? But today’s founder thinks she found a way to make it work. Capri Wheaton is g…
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Feb. 15, 2023

#103 Get Lost in the AWSM Sauce

AWSM Sauce founders Carl and Paul have perfected a sustainable way of making sauce. But then, they had another idea – a futuristic way of getting sauce on our plates. Will the investors see this as a two-innovations-in-one d…
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Feb. 8, 2023

#102 Tether: Bodyguard of the Grid

Founder Luis Medina Rivas travels across the world to pitch his big vision on how to solve one of the most important problems of our time - energy. His pitch is close to perfect. However, the VCs worry about the location of …
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Nov. 23, 2022

Our Comeback Season Is Here!

Welcome back to The Pitch! This season, we head to Chicago to meet 14 founders with 12 business ideas big enough to change the world. Everything from a better ketchup to a potential solution to one of the biggest problems of…
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Oct. 14, 2020

#98 Hello! You’ve Reached The Pitch Helpline

We're now in a business climate transformed by Covid. And founders need help figuring out how to impress investors, find new customers, and connect with potential cofounders in this uncertain time. We wanted to help out. So …
May 6, 2020

#89 A Big Bet on an Ex-Trucker

For years, Pierre Laguerre worked as a truck driver. During those years he saw one of the biggest inefficiencies in the industry up-close: getting available drivers matched with trucks ready to get on the road. Barely a year…
April 15, 2020

#88 How Startups Can Succeed in a Pandemic

In the last few weeks, COVID-19 has changed just about every business in the country. Investors everywhere are scrambling to help their startups survive the pandemic. On today’s show, investors Elizabeth Yin and Charles Huds…
March 25, 2020

#86 If the Suit Fits, Invest.

Founder Ray Li says he can make you a custom suit, out of a quiz. And his company, Sene, is already making a profit. Ray wants to pursue the technology AND build up a cool brand but the investors wonder if Ray would be bette…
March 4, 2020

#84 The Napkin Pitch

Tiffany Walling McGarity called in to the show and you, our listeners, voted her on to pitch the investors. But from the moment she stepped in the room, it was clear that this pitch would play out differently from the rest. …
Feb. 19, 2020

#83 Can Small Bras Be a Big Market?

In VC, investors want to win big — that’s why they love highly scalable tech companies so much. But today’s founder, Jaclyn Fu, is selling actual things. Her startup, Pepper, makes real bras in a very real factory. There’s n…
Nov. 13, 2019

#78 Got Goals? Grab a Cru

Tiffany Dufu has spent her career uplifting women and girls. Now, she’s turning a lifetime’s worth of expertise into a venture-backed business. Her startup, The Cru, is dedicated to helping women achieve their goals by conne…
Sept. 18, 2019

#72 How Niche Is Too Niche?

Orion Brown is very early in her journey as an entrepreneur. In fact, this is her first pitch to venture capitalists! At this early stage, the investors are listening for something a bit different. They just want to know, is…