Building Startups Where No One’s Looking: Why Dan Magnuszewski at Radial Ventures is Betting on Buffalo

In this episode of Beyond the Core, we sit down with Dan Magnuszewski—co-founder of ACV Auctions (NYSE: ACVA) and now founding partner at Radial Ventures, a new venture studio focused on launching startups in Buffalo, New York.

Dan shares what he learned taking ACV from zero to IPO, why he’s doubling down on building in Buffalo, and how Radial Ventures is using AI to turn “unsexy industries” into billion-dollar opportunities. We cover everything from venture studio structure to ROI models to sourcing overlooked ideas in overlooked markets.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Intro

1:00 - Dan’s journey from engineer to startup founder to studio builder

5:00 - What Dan learned building ACV Auctions into a public company

7:30 - Spinning up an internal R&D lab inside ACV

11:00 - When moonshot projects become strategic growth levers

14:00 - Building for revenue vs. building for value

19:00 - Why Dan launched a venture studio in Buffalo

22:00 - How 43North helped seed Radial Ventures

25:00 - Why Buffalo is an underrated startup ecosystem

28:00 - “You have to move to San Francisco” — Dan’s response

33:00 - Collaborating with local corporates to source and fund ideas

36:00 - How Radial Ventures uses AI to validate ideas fast

40:00 - Studio structure: equity, founder incentives, and fundraising

48:00 - Measuring ROI for a regional venture studio

52:00 - Final thoughts & how to get in touch

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