Itamar Novick has spent his career spotting opportunities before they became obvious.

As an early executive at Life360, he helped scale the company from seed stage to IPO. Today, as founder of Recursive Ventures, he backs AI startups at the pre-seed and seed stage, often when the product, market, and business model are still taking shape.

In this conversation, Matt Johns and Itamar explore why investors initially passed on Life360, what real user demand can reveal before consensus forms, and how Itamar evaluates founders when there is limited data and no certainty.

They also discuss the current AI opportunity, the difference between infrastructure and application-layer investing, the risk of AI-related job disruption, and why human adaptation may be moving far more slowly than the technology itself.

This episode is about capital allocation, founder judgment, conviction, and what serious investors can learn from the signals others overlook.

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DISCLAIMER: This video represents the views and opinions of it's guest and does not reflect the views and opinions of HoneyHive Capital Partners LLC. Nothing in this video nor any communications from it should be treated as constituting financial, investment, legal, tax or other advice of any kind, or as a recommendation to buy or sell an interest with respect to any investment.

Most investors spend serious time on financial due diligence. Almost none add the layer that can hit hardest, especially for Christian investors.

In this solo episode, Matt Johns introduces a practical framework called moral due diligence: a repeatable three-step process for evaluating whether an investment aligns with your values before your capital is already committed.

Matt walks through a real scenario, a retail strip center investment that passed every financial check, only to reveal a morally compromising anchor tenant months later — and breaks down exactly how a structured screening process could have caught it in advance.

What you'll hear in this episode:

— Why a deal can be financially clean and still be morally compromised
— The difference between financial due diligence and moral due diligence
— The three-step framework: Discover, Discern, Decide
— How negative screens work and why the largest Christian investment firms already use them
— A traffic light system for assessing moral risk in any deal (green, yellow, red)
— Four ways to respond once a moral concern is identified: walk away, mitigate, redirect, or engage
— Where AI tools fit into the screening process and where they don't

If you want to start defining your own moral exclusions before your next deal lands on your desk, claim your free Christian Investment Alignment Assessment at christianalts.com.

📌 Subscribe to our Youtube for new episodes: / @ChristianAltsTV
📌 Join the ChristianAlts newsletter:
https://newsletter.christianalts.com/
📌 Follow on LinkedIn for investing insights: / matthewbjohns

DISCLAIMER: This video represents the views and opinions of it's guest and does not reflect the views and opinions of HoneyHive Capital Partners LLC. Nothing in this video nor any communications from it should be treated as constituting financial, investment, legal, tax or other advice of any kind, or as a recommendation to buy or sell an interest with respect to any investment.

What if one of the most powerful ways to build a startup community was not another pitch event, investor panel, or networking happy hour but a dinner table?

In this episode, Matt Johns sits down with Jon and Cherie Werner during the Texas Venture Gala and Forum to talk about how they helped build FIESTA, a monthly gathering in Austin that has connected thousands of founders, funders, entrepreneurs, and innovators.

But this conversation is not just about startups. It is about hospitality, trust, belonging, Christian entrepreneurship, and what it looks like to bring faith-shaped presence into the marketplace without making it forced or performative.

Jon shares from his background as a technologist and entrepreneur, including building Bones in Motion, a mobile fitness company acquired by Adidas. Cherie brings the heart of the story: how community, encouragement, and simple acts of connection can help address the loneliness many founders experience.

Together, they show why no-agenda generosity can sometimes create more real impact than traditional networking ever could.

In this episode, we discuss:

How FIESTA started over dinner

Why Austin’s startup community needed a place of belonging

The loneliness problem many founders face

What makes no-agenda community different from normal networking

How Christian investors and startup founders can connect with purpose

Why the marketplace can become a mission field

How one simple ask helped lead to a $1.5M raise

ChristianAlts explores alternative investing, private markets, capital allocation, stewardship, and conviction-led thinking through a Christian lens.

📌 Subscribe to our Youtube for new episodes: / @ChristianAltsTV
📌 Join the ChristianAlts newsletter:
https://newsletter.christianalts.com/
📌 Follow on LinkedIn for investing insights: / matthewbjohns

DISCLAIMER: This video represents the views and opinions of it's guest and does not reflect the views and opinions of HoneyHive Capital Partners LLC. Nothing in this video nor any communications from it should be treated as constituting financial, investment, legal, tax or other advice of any kind, or as a recommendation to buy or sell an interest with respect to any investment.