Opinion
50-year mortgages are a terrible idea for building home equity
“Trump wants to address the affordability crisis, which is a real problem. And said, what we should do is extend mortgages to 50 years. So you have 50 years to pay it off instead of 30 years. I think it's a terrible idea because basically what happens is you gi…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Founders are pitching Trump administration connections as a core competitive advantage
“In the past, I'd never seen anybody pitch, like, a core part of their pitch as being, I'm close to administration. I've heard so many pitches about that now, which is kind of sad, honestly, but it is what it is.”
Opinion
Surrogacy matching is not a venture opportunity due to misaligned incentives
“I think in this case, I don't think it's a venture opportunity. And I also think venture capital incentivizes growth. And that might incentivize the wrong thing in this space.”
Opinion
A Barry's Bootcamp-style EMS workout chain is a massive startup opportunity
“I think you basically build a berries of EMS where, like, you have a workout routine And it's really fun. And there's a class and people put on this thing and they, they're used to it and they get jacked and people see them getting jacked.”
Insight
Listening to an author's podcast delivers 80% of their book's value
“So, I haven't, this is, I haven't read a book in, like, 15 years, and I think it's very, very contrarian opinion, but I think, like, I have so many friends that are authors that I talk to that are just, like, trying to get the words out, but if you, like, list…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
On-demand food delivery startups like Sprig wasted roughly one-third of their food
“And the problems are, one, they're wasting a ton of food. Like you cannot predict how much food you need on any given day. And they were like, yeah, we have this AI model, like we're going to Predict if there's a Giants game, it's this, if this, it's actually …”
Assertion Supported
Sheel Mohnot claims there is no evidence Yelp extorts businesses over reviews
“I never found any evidence of that actually happening, though. Like, people have been, like, Provide me evidence, and I don't think there's actual evidence of that happening. There is with the Better Business Bureau, by the way, but not with Yelp, from what I …”
Disclosure
Bitcoin and Nvidia stock are VC Sheel Mohnot's largest personal assets
“Actually, looking at my assets, it's probably Bitcoin number one, Nvidia number two, and then like, the house that I live in number three.”
Insight
Housing affordability requires supply reform, not demand subsidies
“So I think the solution, like we do have an affordability crisis, no question, but the solution is not to induce demand because if you induce demand, What happens? You have the same fixed amount of properties. You're just making prices go up. So the solution i…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
SF longevity WhatsApp groups were trying to buy EMS suit maker Katalyst
“I'm in a bunch of like these longevity groups in San Francisco and WhatsApp and people are, People were, like, trying to buy the company.”
Disclosure
Sheel Mohnot realized a 100x return selling early shares in Flexport
“Yeah and I sold some of my shares and the ones that I sold, it was more than a hundred X return.”
Assertion Partly supported
Almost 80% of median US retiree net worth is home equity
“So even today for when people retire, the median American, when they retire, Almost 80% of their net worth is the equity in their home.”
Assertion Supported
Deep Lawn uses satellite AI to instantly generate lawn care quotes
“A buddy of mine who has a company called Deep Lawn. All they do is they help lawn companies quote. And so the lawn company you put in the address, it looks at satellite imagery. Using some AI to determine how much grass you have, comes up with a square footage…”
Assertion Supported
Surrogacy in the United States costs roughly $150,000 to $200,000
“Yeah, so it costs roughly, 150 to 200,000 dollars.”
Disclosure
Sheel Mohnot's surrogate receives roughly $75,000 in compensation
“So I think in our case, she gets 75,000 dollars roughly something in that ballpark.”
Assertion Supported
Early Facebook monetized by selling campus sidebar ads for $10 daily
“And at this time, Facebook was limited to college campuses. And the way that they monetize Facebook at that time was you could set up a flyer. So like I went to Carnegie Mellon, I could pay 10 dollars a day to have the sidebar at Carnegie Mellon. And it was ba…”
Disclosure
Buyers prepay 100% and wait five years for affinity retirement community homes
“For this, for the one my parents did, there was a waiting list. So my parents prepaid. They put a hundred percent of the money down and didn't get the home for five years.”
Disclosure
Sheel Mohnot netted $80,000 selling color-matched replacement iPod mini headphones
“So how much were you to make? I want to say net was probably like 80,000 dollars.”
Sheel Mohnot