🧠 WHAT WILL YOU LEARN IN THIS INTERVIEW?
1. How the iconic Facebook like button was designed?
2. How a designer invested early in startups like Figma, Framer and Diagram?
📢 WHY IS SOLEIO CUERVO A ROCKSTAR?
Soleio Cuervo is a software designer turned investor. He led early design efforts at Facebook, Messenger, then Dropbox. Now he invests in extraordinary software startups and helps them win through great design. He is a proud backer of Figma, Framer, Vercel, Vanta, Perplexity, Synthesia, Read.cv, Pulley, Replit, Universe, Liveblocks, tldraw, Plain, and dozens more startups worldwide!
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Interview trailer
(00:50) Who is Soleio Cuervo? (software designer turned investor)
(1:23) How does a VC deal with FOMO?
(3:09) VC shares their framework for deciding who to meet
(6:25) How does a VC deal with an overwhelming amount of inbound requests?
(9:15) Importance of being diplomatic when saying 'No'
(10:37) Soleio Cuervo explains how he designed the iconic Facebook like button
(17:08) Investing in Dropbox
(19:23) Structuring your week based on initiatives
(20:19) How Jayneil gatecrashed a VIP event in San Francisco
(21:17) How Drew Houston closes candidates at Dropbox?
(22:19) Why raise your own VC fund compared to joining Benchmark, Sequoia, or Andreessen Horowitz?
(24:57) Investing your money into startups or raise a big VC fund?
(28:46) Investing pre Series A in Figma
(36:27) Why build relationship with a startup team over rushing to write a check?
(37:38) Seeing the multiplayer demo for the first time from Evan Wallace at Figma
(39:26) Investing in Framer's seed round
(41:56) Why did Framer survive through the hard times and multiple pivots?
(43:05) Investing Diagram's seed round (acquired by Figma)
(45:49) Soleio gives Jayneil career advice
(50:36) Why is Jayneil so excited about the research tool Ballpark?
🤝 CONNECT WITH SOLEIO CUERVO
Twitter - https://twitter.com/soleio
Website - https://read.cv/soleio
🤙 CONNECT WITH JAYNEIL DALAL
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayneil
Twitter - https://twitter.com/jayneildalal
📺 INTERVIEW VIDEO:
https://youtu.be/hZ3Z2frAWvM
🫣 Sneak Peek into Figma Files of top designers for FREE:
https://www.sneakpeek.design/