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Sure Shot Entrepreneur Newsletter

Entrepreneurs First, Kapil Surlaker, Mile Auto: The Sure Shot Entrepreneur Newsletter

Published 20 days ago • 2 min read

Hello Reader,

Startup accelerators have become an essential part of the venture landscape, evolving into a wide spectrum of models, specialized focus areas, and distinct financial terms. Today, entrepreneurs can choose from programs tailored by sector or geography, ranging from equity-free cohorts to traditional venture-backed models.

However, very few platforms are willing to back talented individuals before a company or co-founder even exists. On the upcoming episode of The Sure Shot Entrepreneur, I sat down with Isabel Bescos, Partner at Entrepreneurs First. Thanks to Murray Indick for introducing us! EF takes an extraordinarily early approach: assembling high-potential founders at the inception point and helping them team up to build venture-scale companies. Tune in to hear how they are reshaping early-stage company formation.

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Sept 15, Virtual: Founders Network Pitch Lab

Sept 17, Menlo Park: Guest Speaker at University of California VC Program for Emerging Managers​

Sept 19, San Francisco: INSEAD AI Conference​

Sept 22, Palo Alto: TiE Silicon Valley Investors Day for Women Entrepreneurs

Sept 23, Menlo Park: Sierra Ventures 2026 CXO Summit Evening Reception

Sept 23, San Francisco: Funda Next-Gen Founders Event​

Oct 1, Austin: Funda Texas, The Founder Playbook​

Oct 6, Virtual: InsurtechNY Mentor Day

– Gopi Rangan, Host of the The Sure Shot Entrepreneur podcast​

Startup Corner: Mile Auto

​Mile Auto has acquired The Insurance House, combining its AI-driven, pay-per-mile insurance platform with more than six decades of insurance expertise and established agency relationships across the Southeast.

The combined organization has nearly $100 million in annual premium, more than 55,000 policyholders, and 1,600 independent insurance agencies across 10 states.

Mile Auto uses AI and computer vision to provide mileage-based auto insurance without requiring telematics devices or continuous smartphone GPS tracking. The Insurance House brings underwriting expertise and longstanding agency relationships dating back to 1964.

New Podcast: Why founders matter more than their ideas at the earliest stages

Isabel Bescos, Partner at Entrepreneurs First, was my guest in Episode 194. She explains how EF operates as a different kind of startup accelerator, bringing talented individuals into a structured environment before they necessarily have a co-founder, company, or even a business idea. The goal is to help exceptional people find the right problem, meet potential co-founders, and build companies with venture-scale potential.

Isabel shares the traits EF looks for—including will to power, personal exceptionalism, followership, resilience, and bias to action—and why great founders can find their way to great ideas. She also explains why what someone has actually built and demonstrated can matter more than a polished pitch or business plan.

Connected Insights: Build what matters to the customer.

In Episode 183, Bhaskar Ghosh guest hosts a conversation with his longtime friend and former colleague, Kapil Surlaker. The two worked together at Oracle and LinkedIn, where they helped build some of the technology infrastructure that underpins today's internet.

Their conversation spans AI, data infrastructure, enterprise technology, and the lessons they've learned from building at scale. Kapil explains why LinkedIn's decades-long investment in data foundations positioned it for the AI era, while Bhaskar explores what those lessons mean for today's founders and technology leaders.

One theme stands out: don't build technology simply because you can. Build what is essential to your product, creates differentiation, and ultimately serves the customer. As Kapil puts it, AI may make code easier to create, but you still own the responsibility that comes with it.

It's a fitting complement to Isabel's founder-first perspective: before there is a company to evaluate, the founder matters; once that company is being built, the discipline to focus on what truly matters becomes critical.

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Sure Shot Entrepreneur Newsletter

Gopi Rangan

Enable Peace of Mind for all. We believe in mission-driven entrepreneurs at the earliest stages before the rest of the world realizes the impact of their visionary ideas. This newsletter pairs well with our podcast that shares all the funders and founders' knowledge to startup and scale your ideas. All the best, Gopi

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