Navot Volk | GroundUp VC | What’s Really Worth Building in 2026? Inside an Investor’s Mind

Description

Navot Volk, a partner at the GroundUp venture fund, on pre-seed and seed investing in an era when nearly every startup pitches itself as AI. The conversation moves between the classic investor question — Why now — and gaming, SaaS, product, distribution, the future of UI, and the real limits of ChatGPT and coding tools like Cursor and Claude Code. At its core is the claim that a good product must deliver clear, fast value, and that even in a world of agents and vibe coding, users still need to understand what they're doing.

Key moments

1. 00:19 · Intro and getting to know Navot
2. 01:25 · Moving to Ground Up Ventures and pre-seed/seed investing
3. 04:11 · What Navot sees in the market: AI, digital transformation and Why Now
4. 06:32 · Evaluating areas without locking into a thesis
5. 07:45 · Why gaming is an interesting market — not necessarily a game studio
6. 10:20 · Books, content and the attention economy
7. 15:26 · What Navot looks for in founders
8. 17:08 · What founders should do before raising money
9. 18:04 · Value, product experience and ChatGPT as an example
10. 20:01 · Distribution, design partners and why classic marketing erodes
11. 21:34 · When the web is written for agents
12. 24:01 · How SaaS and UI could change in 2026
13. 25:27 · The VC world after the 2021 years
14. 28:22 · The tools Navot works with
15. 29:06 · What AI still can't do
16. 31:10 · AI, coding and what it means for juniors
17. 33:19 · Product Sense and product people
18. 36:38 · Will everything really be conversational?
19. 38:42 · Where it's worth building now
20. 40:20 · Wrap-up