What do cracking game software at age 12, co-founding a pioneering podcast platform, and scaling a food delivery startup to $750M GMV have in common? For Mike Ghaffary, they’re all just chapters in a career defined by strategic timing, bold bets, and a deep intuition for platforms before they tip.
In this episode of Ignite VC, we sat down with Mike Ghaffary, General Partner at Burst Capital and former GP at Social Capital and Canvas Ventures. Mike’s operating resume is equally stacked: he co-founded Stitcher (acquired for $300M by Sirius XM), led business development at Yelp, and became CEO of Eat24, scaling it to 500 employees and nearly a billion dollars in transaction volume.
But his current obsession? The intersection of AI and Main Street—a space Mike believes is poised for a massive wave of transformation.
1. AI as the New Platform Shift—But Where’s the App Store?
Mike compares today’s AI wave to the early internet era: the opportunity is enormous, but the modality is unclear. Unlike the iPhone, which came with a ready-made app store and device layer, AI’s platform moment is more abstract. That hasn’t stopped Mike from betting big on emerging categories like AI agents, labor-replacing vertical SaaS, and intelligent automation.
One example? OfferFit, which Mike describes as “Optimizely on steroids”—using AI to dynamically optimize marketing communications across channels.
2. Why Main Street Is the Ultimate AI Frontier
Burst Capital’s thesis centers around the overlooked engine of the economy: Main Street businesses, from restaurants and salons to doctors and auto shops. These sectors make up nearly half of U.S. GDP, yet remain under-digitized. Mike and his team, all ex-Yelp execs, bring unique operational insight into how to serve this fragmented, underserved segment.
A recent investment: Hosty, an AI voice agent for restaurants that’s already streamlining front-of-house operations.
3. How to Spot the Right Founder in 10 Minutes
Mike admits he can usually tell within the first few minutes of a meeting whether a founder has “the force”—a near-tangible energy he describes as a mix of ambition, irrational persistence, and a chip-on-the-shoulder intensity.
But he’s quick to point out: this energy shows up in different forms. Some founders are bold and brash, others carry “nerdy gravitas.” The key is drive, not polish.
4. What Makes a Great Marketplace?
Mike has developed a detailed Marketplace Checklist, honed over years of investing in and operating marketplaces like Yelp and Eat24. One of his favorite diagnostic questions: Which side of the network values the other more?
Using Uber as an example, he explains how understanding the bottleneck—riders or drivers—can determine everything from incentives to long-term defensibility.
5. Early Revenue Can Be a Mirage
Even with today’s traction-heavy fundraising environment, Mike cautions against over-weighting early revenue. “Sometimes it’s just testing revenue,” he says, pointing out that the true test is durability: retention, repeat behavior, and whether the metrics hold up under scaling.
6. The Power of Timing (and Being a Little Too Early)
Stitcher was arguably ahead of its time—launched before Spotify embraced podcasts, before mobile streaming was ubiquitous. The company sold for $300M eventually, but Mike notes that as founders, they didn’t see much of that. It was a “moral victory,” but a reminder that timing isn't just a detail—it’s the difference between outcome and outlier.
7. Why He’s Done Operating—But Still Loves Founders
After leading teams as large as 500 and enduring all the highs and lows of startup life, Mike has “hung up the jersey” as an operator. Now, he sees his role as a VC not to micromanage, but to coach from the sidelines—like “the uncle you can call when you don’t want to tell your parents.”
Final Thought
Whether he's hacking together code in Replit or helping a founder navigate their first board meeting, Mike Ghaffary brings a unique blend of technical curiosity, marketplace wisdom, and operator empathy to the table. For him, the magic of startups isn't just about being right—it's about being right on time.
And in this next wave of AI and Main Street reinvention, he’s betting big that history doesn’t repeat—but it rhymes.
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Chapters:
Welcome & Guest Introduction (00:01 – 00:38)
Early Passion for Coding and Gaming (00:39 – 02:18)
From Engineering to Business (02:19 – 03:33)
The Origin Story of Stitcher (03:34 – 06:06)
Podcasting’s Early Market Timing (06:07 – 07:50)
The Consumer Platform Trap (07:51 – 09:14)
AI as the New Platform Shift (09:15 – 12:18)
The Challenge of Distribution in AI (12:19 – 15:43)
Main Street Tech and Burst Capital’s Thesis (15:44 – 21:44)
Early Traction vs Long-Term Fit (21:45 – 27:17)
The Eat24 Acquisition and Growth Journey (27:18 – 33:01)
Evaluating Pre-PMF Startups (33:02 – 36:04)
Team and Market Over Metrics (36:05 – 42:49)
Spotting Founder Ambition and Energy (42:50 – 47:58)
The Marketplace Checklist and AI’s Impact (47:59 – 01:12:04)
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