Ep 236 – SemperVirens General Partner and Co-Founder, InsureTech Connect, Caribou Honig
Caribou Honig, our most frequent guest and honorary chairman, returns to get us excited about ITC Vegas and the state of InsureTech in general. In our chat, we go down memory lane about how the conference started and how it’s grown throughout the years to now be the Super Bowl of events in the insurance space. Caribou talks about the importance of scalability and sustainability, why you should hug your local regulator, and the importance of finding and focusing on your niche.
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What You’ll Hear In This Episode:
[2:12] It’s the Super Bowl of InsureTech – the ITC!
[5:18] Why did Caribou choose Santa Fe?
[7:50] Launching and selling InsureTech Connect.
[9:06] The growth of the conference over time.
[10:15] Caribou’s appreciation of the emotional feedback from in person conferences.
[10:40] Does Caribou fancy himself an insuretech professional, conference professional, or both?
[11:50] This year, the ITC Vegas conference expects over 9,000 people.
[13:07] What insuretech is today, and how it has developed over the years. Also, how it is similar to FinTech.
[14:55] The importance of finding and focusing on your niche.
[17:32] The maturation of the industry.
[20:57[ How the M&A market has been over the past several years, and how that has affected InsureTech.
[30:44] How the energy has shifted from the customer facing InsureTechs over to the B2B.
[32:50] Caribou discusses his interest in regulation.
[36:43] Caribou’s advice: hug a regulator when you see them!
[36:44] What can we expect for the conference, and what if someone wants to hang with Caribou while there? [38:30] Caribou’s two day jobs right now: launching and growing conferences and working as a general partner at the VC Fund SemperVirens.
