Today we’d like to introduce you to Ari Stiegler.
Ari, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
As an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, I’ve always been interested in harnessing the latest technologies to develop products and services that generate returns and offer solutions the social challenges our society faces. I first realized this interest while an undergraduate at the University of Southern California. Within my first few weeks on campus, I saw how many of my peers struggled to access consistent, quality, low-cost transportation. With rideshare technology still in its infancy, I reached out to Lyft with a novel platform to get more users to join the service. The Lyft Ambassador program—credited withdrawing thousands of new riders to the platform—launched my career as an entrepreneur and instilled within me the investment philosophies and ethics that continue to guide my approach today.
After my experience with Lyft, I co-founded a number of startup ventures across an array of different spaces, including fintech and edtech. The unifying thread between these endeavors—and the ethos that motivates my current work with Flux Capital—is my desire to use technology to spur new markets and catalyze new solutions.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I fundamentally believe that no entrepreneur has followed a smooth path toward their goals. Struggle and failure are inextricable from the entrepreneurial experience—the trick is learning how to handle and use these failures in a way that benefits your product or business model. Adversity often teaches you more about your product or venture than anything else. It is essential to view setbacks not as permanent impediments or as indictments on your skill as an entrepreneur but as critical opportunities to learn how your product works in the wild and to make the adjustment that will propel you to your goals.
Please tell us about Flux Capital.
Flux Capital is a Venture Capital fund focusing on technology startups.
Family offices and high net worth individuals often lack access to private investment opportunities, focusing instead on more readily available public market investments.
Flux Capital’s mission is to manage venture investments for family offices and high net worth individuals by leveraging unique private market investment opportunities within our target sectors.
We focus on four core industries for which we have long-term sector confidence and an asymmetric informational advantage. By forming strategic partnerships with other VC and angel investors, Flux Capital is able to achieve an otherwise unattainable level of access to investment opportunities across these sectors.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
In my experience, I’ve often seen intrinsic interest drive success. I discovered I had an affinity for technology-based ventures and startups because, simply, I had always been interested in cutting-edge innovation and the firms redefining what we thought was possible. At Flux Capital, we employ the same approach. Every day, I spend at least thirty minutes reading through the latest business and technology news—not because I’m hunting for opportunities, but because it interests and matters to me. The rest of the Flux Capital team thinks similarly, and many of our conversations concern the latest trends and developments across our target fields, even if we aren’t explicitly talking about work. When we all have an intrinsic interest in advancing the fields in which we operate, we truly reach our full potential.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Los Angeles is a global hub for finance, innovation, and creativity. At Flux Capital, we focus our work on three specific sectors—space and transportation, educational technology, and financial technology. The Greater Los Angeles area is a global leader in all three. From Hawthorne-based Space X to the world-class universities to the financial centers in Downtown and Century City, Los Angeles is an ideal location work as both a venture capitalist and an entrepreneur.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
My team at Flux Capital deserves a lot of credit for their efforts to seek out new opportunities that both deliver returns to our clients and help usher in the next wave of technological innovation. At Flux Capital, it often feels like we all learn from each other. Everyone has unique insights and skills that help inform our investment approaches in different ways—which ultimately helps us deliver for our clients.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.fluxcapital.co/
- Email: [email protected]
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ari-stiegler-68157931/
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