S 01 | Ep 55 Mastering the Art of Seed Investing and Startup Innovation Mike Maples Jr ., co - founding partner of Floodgate and eight - time Forbes Midas List honoree , joins the show to share the framework behind his book " Pattern Breakers " and what separates startups that change the future from those that merely compete in the present . Mike opens with the origin story of seed investing , explaining how he identified a gap between angel checks and Series A rounds at a moment when lean startup thinking was beginning to emerge , and how he used that insight as a pitch filter to quickly find investors who were ready to believe in a new future rather than wasting time convincing skeptics . Mike walks through his three - part breakthrough framework : the insight breakthrough , which requires a non - consensus view of the future powered by real inflections ; the product - market fit breakthrough , defined as finding what you can uniquely offer that people are desperate for ; and the growth breakthrough , which is the exponential word - of - mouth escape velocity that follows when the first two are right . Mike also unpacks founder - future fit , the idea that certain founders are authentically matched to certain futures , and why the right kind of disagreeableness looks very different depending on who you are .