The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
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20VC: The Two Biggest Mistakes Every Founder Makes, Why Founders Are Not Ambitious Enough Today, Why Having a Narrow Target Customer is Dangerous & The Three Possible Outcomes in Company Building with Matthew Prince, Co-Founder @ Cloudflare
16 oktober 2023 · 54 min
Matthew Prince is the co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare, on a mission is to help build a better Internet. Matthew has scaled Cloudflare to over $1BN in revenue, $20BN in market cap, and over 3,200 employees. Today the company runs one of the world's largest networks, which spans more than 200 cities in over 100 countries. Matthew is a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, winner of the 2011 Tech Fellow Award, and serves on the Board of Advisors for the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Matthew Prince We Discuss:
1. From Selling Fireworks to Public Company CEO:
How did Matthew first make money selling fireworks as a kid?
Does Mathew believe in the trope "you have to love what you do"?
What does Matthew know now that he wishes he had known when he started Cloudflare?
2. Money, Identity and Happiness:
Why does Matthew feel many of the most successful founders lose their way when they leave their companies? How does he assess Gates, Bezos and others?
Does Matthew tie his own identity to Cloudflare and the success of the company?
How does Matthew evaluate his own relationship to money today? How has it changed over time?
How does Matthew keep score today on how he is doing? What is success to Matthew?
3. The Three Outcomes for Companies Today:
What are the three outcomes available to companies today?
What is the worst and why?
What are the two biggest mistakes Matthew sees founders make today?
Why does Matthew know that diverse teams are more successful? What is the proof?
What is Matthew's single biggest advice to founders when it comes to selecting a co-founder?
4. Focus is BS: You Have to Have Mega Ambition:
Why does Matthew believe it is BS to have a very specific target customer from the offset?
What does Matthew believe are the benefits of not having an ICP in the early days?
What are the biggest pieces of VC advice to founders that Matthew knows to be wron…
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20VC: Israeli Resilience From Tech and Beyond with Michael Eisenberg and Adi Levanon
12 oktober 2023 · 44 min
Michael Eisenberg spent 15 years as a General Partner @ Benchmark working alongside Bill and the Benchmark partnership. Following Benchmark, Michael co-founded Aleph, one of the leading Israeli venture funds of the last decade with a portfolio including Lemonade, Melio and HoneyBook, just to name a couple of Aleph's unicorns. Lees meer
Adi Levanon is the Founder & Managing Partner @ Selah Ventures, a solo-GP-founded venture fund investing $500k checks into AI-based solutions that enhance financial services, healthcare organizations, fintechs, and SMBs, with a focus on founders in the US and Israelis globally.
In Today's Episode on Israeli Resilience We Discuss:
Where are we at today? What is it like on the ground, today?
Have the international community reacted as expected? What more can be done?
What does it mean to be called up for "reserve"?
How are companies dealing with 25% of their teams being called into the armed forces?
Are VCs investing still? Does work carry on?
Whose reactions are exemplary and we should look to follow?
Whose have been woeful and should be called out?
What are the single biggest misconceptions of the situation?
What can people do to help? What can be done?
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20VC Roundtable: Are IPOs Back? Is Growth Dead? What Does it Take to Raise a Growth Round Today? How Do VCs Solve The Liquidity Challenge? Will We See a Massive Resetting of Valuations? AI Hype Growth Rounds?
11 oktober 2023 · 51 min
Deven Parekh is a Managing Director at Insight Partners, one of the leading investing franchises of the last 25 years. Deven has made more than 90 investments since joining in 2000 including in the likes of Twitter, Alibaba, JD.com, Chargebee and Automattic (WordPress) to name a few. Lees meer
Woody Marshall is a General Partner @ TCV, one of the most successful growth funds of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Facebook, AirBnB, Spotify, LinkedIn and many more incredible companies.
Jason Lemkin is the Founder @ SaaStr one of the best-performing early-stage venture funds focused on SaaS. In the past, Jason has led investments in Algolia, Pipedrive, Salesloft, TalkDesk, and RevenueCat to name a few.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
1. The Growth Landscape Overview:
Is growth dead? Are any growth deals getting done?
How has the price changed for growth deals that are getting done?
Which type of growth companies will vs will not be able to raise?
What happens to all of the growth companies with $300-$500M in cash but little revenue?
2. The Great Reset: Valuations Need to Change:
Why should companies be actively resetting their valuations? What are the benefits?
What will happen between VCs and LPs when there is no incentive for VCs to reset their portfolio valuations when they need to go out and raise from those same LPs?
Structure is often part of these valuation resets, is structure to rounds always bad? When is it good? What type of structure is acceptable vs unacceptable?
3. Are the Public Markets Creeping Open:
Should we take comfort from ARM, Instacart and Klaviyo and assume the public markets are going to open again? If not, what will cause them to open?
How should we analyze the performance of the IPOs above? Many have been negative, are they right to suggest this is not the response we wanted?
Why does Woody believe, like Instacart taking a 75% discount to their last round, we should have more and more companies go public at discounts…
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20VC: Atlassian Co-Founder Scott Farquhar on The Biggest Lessons Scaling Atlassian to $50BN Market Cap; The Four Roles of the CEO, The Funding Round That Net Accel $6BN, The Regrets of Omission and Commission & The Honeymoon Cut Short
9 oktober 2023 · 53 min
Scott Farquhar is the Co-Founder & Co-CEO @ Atlassian. Scott co-founded the company with his university friend, Mike Cannon-Brookes, in 2002 from Australia. Over an incredible 20-year journey they have grown to a market cap of $50BN today, over 11,000 staff globally and serving over 260,000 customers. Scott is also a co-founder of Skip Capital, a private investment fund with a portfolio including Figma, Snyk, Canva and more. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Scott Farquhar We Discuss:
1. The 20-Year Journey to $50BN Market Cap:
How did Scott first make his way into the world of tech and come to co-found Atlassian?
What does Scott know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
From 20 years with Mike, what is Scott's biggest advice on choosing your co-founder?
2. The Fundraising Masterclass with Atlassian:
An emergency phone call, a honeymoon cut short; how did the first funding round for Atlassian come to be? Where was the business revenue-wise at the time?
Why did Scott not like the traditional fundraising process? What did he do to add game theory and ensure that they got the best deal as a company?
Why did Scott choose Accel with their offer? How did Peter Fenton lose a $3BN deal with Atlassian?
3. Lessons Scaling Atlassian to $4BN in Revenue:
What does Scott believe are the 4 core roles of the CEO? Is resource allocation the most important?
What are the single biggest acts of commission and omission that Scott regrets?
What are the biggest lessons Scott has from shutting down Stride, their Slack competitor?
4. Scott: The Father, Husband and Philanthropist:
What does great fatherhood mean to Scott today?
What is the secret to a truly successful marriage?
How does Scott assess his relationship to money today? How has it changed with time?
How does Scott think about bringing children up in a world of affluence and abundance?
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20VC: Why Great Companies are Defined by How Many Things They Say No To, Why Being First Does Not Matter & Why Market Over Traction or Team is the Most Important Thing with Guillermo Rauch, Founder & CEO @ Vercel
6 oktober 2023 · 59 min
Guillermo Rauch is the Founder and CEO @ Vercel, giving developers the frameworks, workflows, and infrastructure to build a faster, more personalized Web. To date, Guillermo has raised $312M from Accel, Bedrock, Greenoaks, GV and more. Prior to founding Vercel, Guillermo co-founded LearnBoost and Cloudup where he served the company as CTO through its acquisition by Automattic in 2013. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Guillermo Rauch We Discuss:
1. From Argentina to SF: The Boy Making Money Online:
How did Guillermo first get into computers and start making money online?
Does Guillermo still believe the US and SF offers the same opportunities it did when he came?
Did Guillermo feel the weight of responsibility of providing for his family at a young age?
2. Timing, Markets and Narrative Violations:
Why does Guillermo believe it does not matter being first but being right?
Why does Guillermo believe the most important thing for a company is market selection?
Why does Guillermo believe it is crucial that founders and companies have "narrative violations"?
3. The Future of AI:
What model will win in the future; open or closed?
Where does the value accrue; startups or incumbents?
How will the SaaS business model change in a world of AI?
4. Silicon Valley's Most Successful Angel You Did Not Know:
What are some of Guillermo's biggest lessons from angel investing?
What is his single biggest miss? How has it changed how he thinks?
What have been his biggest hits? How did they impact how he thinks about what it takes to win?
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20Sales: Why the Founder Should Not Be the One to Create the Sales Playbook, Why You Should Hire a Sales Leader Before Sales Reps & Why You Should Not Hire Sales Leaders From Big Companies with Matt Rosenberg, CRO @ Grammarly
4 oktober 2023 · 51 min
Matt Rosenberg is Grammarly's Chief Revenue Officer and Head of Grammarly Business. He leads all B2B revenue, operations, and growth for Grammarly Business, Grammarly for Education, and Grammarly for Developers. Previously, as CRO of Compass, he took the company into the Fortune 500 and contributed to a more than eightfold increase in business growth. Prior to Compass, Matt served as Eventbrite's CRO leading them to become the largest event platform in the world by event count. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Matt Rosenberg We Discuss:
1. From Miserable Lawyer to World Beating Sales Leader:
How did Matt make the transition from lawyer to sales leader?
What does Matt know now that he wishes he had known when he started in sales?
What are Matt's biggest pieces of advice for anyone who wants to make a career change and is lacking confidence?
2. The Playbook and Hiring The Team:
How does Matt define the "sales playbook"?
Should the founder be the one to create and execute V1 of the playbook?
Should the first sales hire be a rep or a sales leader?
When is the right time to make that all-important first sales hire?
3. Discounting, Champions and Urgency:
What can sales team do to create urgency in deal cycles? What works? What does not?
How does Matt approach discounting? When to do it vs when not to? What level is acceptable?
What are the biggest secrets to creating champions within prospects?
Why does Matt believe that deals are won and lost in prospecting?
4. Developing Great Sales Talent:
How does Matt use sales call recordings to train teams? What is his 3x3 matrix for coaching calls?
What is a good reason to lose a deal vs a bad reason? How does Matt do deal reviews?
What are the single biggest elements sales leaders can do to nurture sales talent?
What are the biggest mistakes sales leaders make when developing talent internally?
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20VC: The Services Model of Venture Capital is Broken, The Best Founders Do Need Help, The Most Important Signals to Assess When Meeting Founders & Why Kids Bring Less Happiness and More Joy with Phin Barnes @ TheGP
2 oktober 2023 · 1 uur 2 min
Phin Barnes is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of The General Partnership (TheGP), a venture capital firm that's redefining what partnership means for founders. Previously, Phin spent over a decade at First Round Capital, where he was responsible for over 60 investments including Blue Apron, Notion, Clover Health, Gauntlet and Persona. Before First Round, he created an independent video game company and before that was an early employee at AND 1 Basketball where he helped scale the brand from $15 to $225 million in revenue and served as the Creative Director for Footwear. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Phin Barnes We Discuss:
From Creative Director to Venture Capitalist:
How did Phin make his way into the world of venture having been a Creative Director at a basketball brand?
What does Phin know now that he wishes he could tell himself on his first day in venture?
What are 1-2 of Phin's biggest lessons from his 10 years at First Round which shapes how he invests?
2. The Venture Capital Model is Broken:
Why does Phin believe the current services model of venture is broken?
Do the best founders need your help?
What have been some of the biggest lessons in what the best founders want from their VCs?
What happens to this generation of firms with massive support teams?
Do VCs use these support teams merely to justify massive fund size scaling to LPs?
3. The Venture Landscape Today:
How can we compete in a seed landscape of $5M on $25M against large multi-stage firms?
What founders types are attracted to big brands? What founder profiles are taken in by large rounds and high prices?
Is Phin more or less excited about seed-stage investing now than he has been before?
4. Investing Lessons 101:
What is Phin's biggest hit? How did seeing their success impact his mindset?
What is Phin's biggest loss? How did the loss impact how he views investing?
Traction, team, market; how does Phin rank the three in prioritisation?
What should all young people know when en…
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20Product: Why Product Memes Are More Important Than a Product Roadmap, Why Writing is the Essential Skill for Product People, How AI Changes The Role of Product, Big Mistakes Founders Make When Hiring Product Teams with Kevin Niparko, VP Product @ Twilio
29 september 2023 · 46 min
Kevin Niparko is the VP of Product @ Twilio. Kevin joined Twilio through the acquisition of Segment where he spent an incredible 8 years in numerous different roles including as Head of Product. Before entering the world of product, Kevin was a Management Associate at the world-renowned, Bridgewater Associates. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Kevin Niparko We Discuss:
1. From Bridgewater to Head of Product:
How Kevin made his way from the world of asset management and analytics to leading product teams?
What are 1-2 of Kevin's biggest takeaways from his time at Bridgewater with Ray Dalio?
How did the 8 year journey with Segment leading to their $3BN acquisition impact his approach to product?
2. What Makes a Great Product Person:
Does Kevin believe that product is more art or science? If he were to put a number on it? What would it be out of 100?
Why does Kevin believe that all product people should learn to write?
Why does Kevin believe that the best product people are generalists and not specialists?
Why does Kevin think that analytics is an insanely good start for product people?
3. How to Hire the Best Product People:
How does Kevin approach the hiring process for product hires today?
What are the non-obvious traits of hires he looks for? How does he test for them?
Does Kevin use case studies? Where do many fall down? What do the best do?
4. Product Reviews: Good vs Great:
How often does Kevin do product reviews? Who is invited?
How have product reviews changed in a world where the company is now fully remote?
What is the difference between good and great product reviews?
What is the single best product decision Kevin has made? What did he learn?
What is the worst product decision Kevin made? How did that change his approach?
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20VC: "How Being a Founder Almost Killed Me"; We Have Lied to a Generation of Founders | The Hardest Truths About Being a Founder Revealed | Why AI Co-Pilot is BS, Seat Pricing is Over & User Interfaces are Stupid with Christian Lanng
27 september 2023 · 1 uur 9 min
Christian Lanng is the Founder and Former CEO @ Tradeshift, a company he took from garage to unicorn raising over $900M for with a latest price of $2.7BN in 2021. Just last month, Christian stepped away from the company and is now Chairman @ Beyond Work, building a better work experience through AI native software. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Christian Lanng We Discuss:
1. Burnout: When it Hits:
How did Christian know when something was really seriously wrong? What were the signs?
How did being a founder literally almost kill Christian? How was that not a wakeup moment?
How does being a founder make you so out of touch with reality?
2. The Things We Are Never Told:
Why does Christian think one of the biggest crimes is the myth that everyone can be a founder?
What are the single biggest things about VCs that founders are not told?
Why does Christian believe fundraising is absolutely a game? What are the rules to win it?
What makes the best VCs? What makes the worst VCs?
Why does Christian not like to take a discount for a brand name VC?
3. The Chaos That Happens Inside a Company:
Why does Christian believe politics should not be discussed within companies?
What are Christian's biggest lessons on working with friends? Why after 14 years does Christian only have 3 friends that still talk to him?
How did Christian fire 50% of his leadership team and productivity not change at all?
Why does Christian believe US startups are inherently better than European ones?
4. Parenting and Relationship to Money:
Does Christian regret not being a present father for his child when building Tradeshift?
What are the two options as a founder you have when bringing up kids?
Was Christian scared to leave Tradeshift? How does he reflect on his relationship to money?
5. AI: Co-Pilot is BS, The Future Business Model and more...
Why does Christian believe co-pilot is the last dying breathe attempt from incumbents?
Why does Christian believe that per-seat pricing will die? W…
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20VC: Marc Benioff on The Future of San Francisco and What He Would Do if in Charge? Marc Benioff's Five Step Process to Priorities and Why Money Does Not Make You Happy & Work From Home vs In-Person; How to Manage in Changing Worlds
25 september 2023 · 32 min
Marc Benioff is Chair, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Salesforce and a pioneer of cloud computing. Under Benioff's leadership, Salesforce is the #1 provider of CRM software globally and one of the world's fastest-growing enterprise software companies. Benioff founded Salesforce in 1999, and it is now a Fortune 150 company with 70,000+ employees. Benioff is the owner and co-chair of TIME, and the founder of TIME Ventures. Benioff is the author of the New York Times bestseller Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change. Benioff was named "Innovator of the Decade" by Forbes and is recognized as one of the World's 25 Greatest Leaders by Fortune. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Marc Benioff We Discuss:
1. The Future of San Francisco:
What would Marc do if he were in charge of San Francisco today?
What would he change with regards to housing, policing and crime?
Why does Marc believe there are doomsday proclaimers on SF? What do they have to gain?
Will Dreamforce always be held in San Francisco?
2. Money and Ambition: The Mind Behind a $200BN Machine
Does Marc believe that money makes you happy?
How has Marc's relationship to money changed over time?
How does Marc think about bringing children up in a more affluent home?
What does Marc advise anyone who is seeking "happiness" today?
3. Mastering Decisions and Prioritisation:
How does Marc assess his own decision-making framework today? Has it changed with time?
What is Marc's 5 step process to understand your own priorities today?
What does Marc believe are the three biggest priorities for Salesforce today?
What are the single biggest blockers that would prevent Salesforce from achieving their goals?
4. Marc Benioff: AMA:
What does great fatherhood mean to Marc?
Who would win the cage fight, Zuck or Elon?
What does a day in the life of Marc Benioff look like?
What does Marc think about work from home?
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20VC: Are Foundation Models Becoming Commoditised? Do OpenAI and Anthropic of the World Have a Sustaining Moat? Why Smaller Models May Work Better? Why Incumbents with Data Power Win the AI War with Christian Kleinerman, SVP Product @ Snowflake
22 september 2023 · 45 min
Christian Kleinerman is the SVP of Product @ Snowflake. Before Snowflake, Christian spent close to 5 years at Google as a Senior Director of Product Management @ YouTube working on their infrastructure and data systems. Before YouTube, Christian spent over 13 years at Microsoft serving as General Manager of the Data Warehousing product unit where he was responsible for a broad portfolio of products. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Christian Kleinerman We Discuss:
1. Lessons from the Greats:
How did Christian first make his way into the world of product?
What are 1-2 of his biggest lessons from working with Satya Nadella and Frank Slootman?
What are 1-2 of hs biggest product lessons from Google and Microsoft?
2. Generative AI: Real vs Fake:
How does Christian analyze the current generative AI landscape?
Which segments will be the fastest to adopt? Which will be the slowest?
What aspects of the ecosystems are overblown? Which are under-appreciated?
How does Christian respond to many VCs who suggest that many startups are simply wrappers on GPT?
3. Models 101: Why Size is Not Everything!
What matters more, the size of the data or the size of the model?
Will any of the models used today be used in a year?
Does Christian believe Alex @ Nabla is right in saying that "the most successful companies will be those that are able to transition between models the easiest"?
How are we seeing the evolution of model size impact the accuracy of result snad size of data required?
4. Incumbent vs startup & Open vs Closed:
Who is best positioned to win; startups or incumbents?
What are the nuances; which spaces are best served for startups to win vs incumbents?
Will open or closed source be the dominant mode?
What are the single biggest challenges preventing open from being successful?
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20VC Roundtable: Is the VC Model Broken? The Biggest Disconnect Ever Between TVPI & DPI, Why Market Size is Dangerous, Why "Go Fast" is Terrible Advice, The Dangers of Raising Large Rounds at High Prices & Why Next Year Will See the Biggest Hiring Spree i
20 september 2023 · 1 uur 18 min
Eric Paley is the Managing Partner at Founder Collective, one of the world's most successful seed funds with investments in the likes of Uber, The Trade Desk, Coupang and Airtable. Lees meer
Mike Maples is one of the OGs of seed investing. As the Co-Founder of Floodgate, he has backed the likes of Twitch, Okta, Lyft, Twitter and more.
Jason Lemkin is the Founder @ SaaStr one of the best-performing early-stage venture funds with a portfolio including Algolia, Pipedrive, Salesloft, TalkDesk, and RevenueCat to name a few.
In Today's Episode on Is the Venture Model Broken? :
Is the classic seed model dead? Can seed funds play in a world of $25M valuations?
Why is having a firm grasp of the present the best thing an early-stage investor can have?
Why does Mike Maples believe no company with true product-market-fit has ever failed?
Why does Eric Paley believe "go faster" is the worst startup advice?
Why does Mike Maples believe there is a direct relationship between price and risk?
Why does Mike Maples believe that outliers by their very nature are lower priced?
Why does Eric Paley not focus on ownership? Why can it be dangerous?
What are the biggest risks for founders raising at valuations that are too high?
Why does Eric Paley believe we will have the biggest chasm between TVPI and DPI in the prior vintage of venture capital returns?
Why does Eric believe the majority of SPACs were BS and great companies can always go public?
Why does Jason believe that if multiples do not reflate, the venture model is broken?
Why does Jason believe we will see the biggest hiring spree in tech next year?
How has illiquidity allowed Eric Paley to make some of the best investment decisions?
What is Mike Maples biggest lesson from selling Twitter stock early at $1BN?
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20VC: Benchmark General Partner, Miles Grimshaw on The Five Pillars of Venture Capital, Why Data Can Be a Trap When Early-Stage Investing, Investing Lessons from Missing Figma and Plaid & The New Business Model for AI & Why Co-Pilot is an Incumbent Strate
18 september 2023 · 1 uur 21 min
Miles Grimshaw is a General Partner @ Benchmark, widely considered one of the best venture capital firms in history. Prior to joining the Benchmark Partnership, Miles was a General Partner @ Thrive Capital where he led investments in Airtable, Monzo, Lattice, Github, Segment, Slack and Benchling to name a few. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Miles Grimshaw We Discuss:
1. Straight into VC From University: From Yale to Thrive
How did Miles come to land a role with Josh Kushner and Thrive right out of Yale?
What are 1-2 of his biggest lessons from working with Josh @ Thrive for 8 years?
What does Miles know now that he wishes he had known when he started in venture?
2. The Pillars of Venture Capital: Sourcing, Selecting, Servicing:
What does Miles believe are the 5 core pillars of successful venture capital?
1-5, what is his strongest and what is his weakest?
Does Miles really believe that VCs add value today?
What are the most clear ways that Miles have seen VCs destroy value in portfolio companies?
3. Investment Decision Making: From Github to Segment:
What is the single most important question that Miles has to answer to say yes to an investment?
How does Miles think about both market sizing risk and market timing risk?
What have been Miles' biggest hits? What did he learn from making those investments?
What have been Miles' biggest misses? What did he learn from missing Figma and Plaid?
What have been 1-2 of Miles's biggest lessons so far from working with Bill Gurley and Peter Fenton?
4. AI: What Happens Next:
Does Miles believe we are in an AI bubble today? How does he assess the landscape?
Why does Miles believe that the "Co-Pilot" strategy is an incumbent strategy?
Where does Miles believe the value will accrue; the application layer or the infrastructure layer?
What does Miles mean when he says the future is in "selling the work and not the software"?
What business model disruption and adoption disruption does Miles believe AI will enable?
Why …
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20VC: The Biggest AI Leaders on What Matters More; Model Size or Data Size & Where Does The Value in AI Accrue; to Startups or to Incumbents
15 september 2023 · 31 min
Richard Socher is the founder and CEO of You.com. Richard previously served as the Chief Scientist and EVP at Salesforce. Lees meer
Douwe Kiela is the CEO of Contextual AI, building the contextual language model to power the future of businesses. Previously, he was the Head of Research at Hugging Face, and before that a Research Scientist at Facebook AI Research.
Alex Lebrun is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nabla, an AI assistant for doctors. Prior to Nabla, he led engineering at Facebook AI Research. Alex founded Wit.ai, acquired by Facebook in 2015.
Tomasz Tunguz is the Founder and General Partner @ Theory Ventures, just announced last week, Theory is a $230M fund that invests $1-25m in early-stage companies that leverage technology discontinuities into go-to-market advantages.
Sarah Guo is the Founding Partner @ Conviction Capital, a $100M first fund purpose-built to serve "Software 3.0" companies. Prior to founding Conviction, Sarah was a General Partner at Greylock where she made investments in the likes of Figma, Coda and Neeva.
Emad Mostaque is the Co-Founder and CEO @ StabilityAI, the parent company of Stable Diffusion. Stability are building the foundation to activate humanity's potential. To date, Emad has raised over $110M with Stability with the latest round reportedly pricing the company at $4BN.
Clem Delangue is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Hugging Face, the AI community building the future. To date, Clem has raised over $160M from the likes of Sequoia, Coatue, Addition and Lux Capital to name a few.
Cris Valenzuela is the CEO and co-founder of Runway, the company that trains and builds generative AI models for content creation. To date, Cris has raised over $285M for the company from the likes of Lux Capital, Felicis, Coatue, Amplify, and Nvidia to name a few.
Noam Shazeer is the co-founder and CEO of Character.AI. A renowned computer scientist and researcher, Shazeer is one of the foremost experts in artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processin…
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20VC: The Dubsmash Memo: Scaling to 43M Users in 10 Days, Why TikTok Was a Competitor Like Never Seen Before, Good vs Great Consumer Products and What Every Consumer Product Needs & The Future of Consumer Social with Suchit Dash
13 september 2023 · 56 min
Suchit Dash is the VP of Core Product Experience at Reddit, responsible for the surfaces that millions of users interact with daily. Prior to Reddit, Suchit was a cofounder at Dubsmash, a short video platform that was used by millions globally and acquired by Reddit in December 2020. In just 10 days, Suchit scaled the product to an immense 43M users, and gained fans such as Neymar and Jimmy Fallon. Suchit previously held roles at Soundcloud and PayPal. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Suchit Dash We Discuss:
1. The Founding of Dubsmash & V1:
How did the founding of Dubsmash come to be?
Suchit scaled V1 of the product to 43M users in 10 days, what was the secret? What worked?
What were the first signs that all was not right?
How did the team respond to the realization that their retention numbers were terrible?
What are Suchit's biggest lessons and pieces of advice from this massive V1 and launch?
2. Data: Retention, Cohorts and The Smiley Face:
What specific data did Suchit and the team really use to understand their level of product market fit?
What level of retention were they looking for? What is average, good, and great in terms of retention in consumer social?
What is really important for founders to try and observe and analyze in net new user cohorts?
When and why did the team start to see the hailed smiley face of consumer returning to the app?
3. Battling TikTok:
Despite the resurgence, TikTok was roaring, what did TikTok do so well to take the market?
How did TikTok leverage both FB and Snap's ad platform to acquire so many users so fast?
What did TikTok not do well? What could they have done better?
How did TikTok pay and incentivize the creator community?
What are some of Suchit's biggest lessons and advice for founders battling a better-funded incumbent?
4. The Decision to Sell: Being Acquired by Reddit:
Ultimately, why did Suchit decide to sell the company to Reddit?
Why did the first two acquisition attempts fail?
What are 1-2 of the bigg…
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20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank
11 september 2023 · 1 uur 4 min
David Velez is the Founder and CEO of Nubank, one of the largest and fastest-growing financial institutions in the world. 1 in 2 people in Brazil alone have a Nubank account. Nubank's purple credit card in Mexico is the highest-rated NPS product of any consumer product in the world. Before founding Nubank in 2013, David was a partner at Sequoia Capital between 2011 and 2013, in charge of the firm's Latin American investments group. Before Sequoia, David worked in investment banking and growth equity at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and General Atlantic. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with David Velez We Discuss:
1. From Sequoia Partner to Creating One of the Largest Financial Institutions:
What was the Sequoia interview process like?
What questions did Doug Leone really dive into when hiring David?
What impressed David most about how Sequoia interview and win talent?
What are 1-2 of David's biggest lessons from working with Doug Leone?
2. From a Small House to a $BN Public Company:
What does David believe are the 1-2 core but non-obvious reasons why Nubank scaled so fast?
What does David believe are the most non-obvious but massive opportunities Nubank has to 10x from here?
Why does David believe emerging market fintech providers will be more valuable than Western fintechs?
What does David believe Western fintechs and regulators can learn from BRIC economy fintechs?
3. How AI Changes The Future of Financial Services:
How does David believe AI will change financial services?
What products are the lowest-hanging fruit? Which products will be harder for AI to serve?
How will AI handle the ambiguity of which master to serve; the consumer and their experience or the bank and their fees and profit motive?
Will banks need to own and operate their own models? If using other models, what will differentiate them when they are layers on top of someone else's technology?
4. David Velez: The Leader and Father:
What does it mean to be a great listener? How does David appro…
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20Sales: Why Everyone is Responsible for Demand Generation, How to do Great Sales Discovery, How to Reduce Sales Cycles and Create Urgency and Deal Reviews; Good and Bad Reasons to Lose a Deal with Doug Adamic, CRO @ Brex
8 september 2023 · 54 min
Doug Adamic is the CRO @ Brex and leads the company's revenue and growth strategy. Prior to Brex, Doug was most recently the Chief Revenue Officer at SAP Concur, a provider of travel spend management solutions and services. During his 16-year tenure oversaw an organization of 600+ employees. He was responsible for all aspects of revenue, generating go-to-market strategies and departments. Prior to SAP Concur, he had a five-year tenure as an Enterprise Sales Manager for Kronos, Inc. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Doug Adamic We Discuss:
1. Entry into Sales:
Does Doug believe that love of sales is innate or can be learned? When did he discover his love?
What does Doug know now about sales he wish he had known when he started?
What are 1-2 of his biggest takeaways from leading 600+ people at SAP?
2. Discovery, Pipeline and Qualification:
What are the three core reasons why companies buy software today? How do the best sales teams use those needs to get deals done fast?
What does great sales discovery mean today? Why do you have to make customers feel uncomfortable to understand their true needs?
What are the biggest mistakes sales teams make when asking questions, determining customer pain, willingness to pay etc etc?
Why does Doug believe that everyone in the company is responsible for demand creation?
What are the core pillars to success in qualification? Where do so many go wrong?
3. Getting Deals Done:
Why does Doug disagree that now is the hardest time to be selling? Are companies buying new software today?
What is the secret to opening up organizations that say they are not open for buying new software?
How can sales teams create multiple champions in a prospect? How can they determine who is really a buyer vs who is an influencer in a prospect?
What are the biggest tactics that can be used to reduce sales cycles and create urgency in a sales process?
4. Discounting, Trust and Deal Reviews:
What is a good reason to lose a deal?
What is a bad reason t…
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20VC: Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds & AUM is a Vanity Metric | Why 99% of Investments in AI Startups Will Go To Zero | Being a "Traction First" VC & Investing Lessons from Investing in Canva and Missing Figma with Nikhil Basu-Trivedi
6 september 2023 · 1 uur 1 min
Nikhil Basu Trivedi is Co-Founder & General Partner at Footwork, an early-stage focused venture firm investing its first fund. In his venture career, he has invested in the early rounds of several companies that have exited or are currently valued at over $1B, including Athelas, Canva, ClassDojo, Color Health, Frame.io, Imperfect Foods, Lattice, and The Farmer's Dog. Prior to Footwork, Nikhil was a Managing Director at Shasta Ventures, on the investment team at Insight Partners, and on the founding team at Artsy. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Nikhil Basu Trivedi We Discuss:
1. From Summer Intern to Founding a Firm: The 13 Year Journey:
How did Nikhil first make his way into venture as an intern at Insight Partners in NYC?
What does Nikhil know now that he wishes he had known on his first day in venture?
Why does Nikhil advise all young VCs to "not look at their business card"? Why does title not matter in venture?
Should founders meet with Juniors as well as GPs and more senior people?
2. Small Funds Outperform Large Funds:
Why does Nikhil believe that small funds outperform large funds?
Why is AUM the biggest bullshit metric in VC?
How does Nikhil advise seed stage founders who have offers from seed firms for smaller rounds at lower valuations and are weighing them against larger rounds with higher valuations from multi-stage funds?
Does Nikhil believe that platform value-added services really provide any value?
3. The Art of Investing:
What has been Nikhil's biggest investing win? How has it changed his approach to investing?
How does Nikhil prioritize between people, traction, and market? What is most important?
What has been Nikhil's biggest investing miss? How has that changed his approach?
Does Nikhil believe the great founders are immediately obvious?
Why is market size the single question that keeps Nikhil up the most?
4. The Dysfunctions of Venture Capital:
What are the single biggest areas of misalignment between GP and LP?
What do many GPs …
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20VC: The $3.1BN Meeting That Led to an Uber Acquisition, The Battle With Uber; How to Outcompete When You Have 10x Less Cash & The Marketing Campaigns That Led to Pakistan MDs Fleeing and Elon Musk Fanboying with Mudassir Sheikha, CEO @ Careem
4 september 2023 · 47 min
Mudassir Sheikha is the CEO and Co-Founder of Careem. Over the last 11 years, Mudassir has scaled the service to more than 80 cities in 10 countries, with 1,400+ colleagues and more than 2.5 million Captains. With such success, in 2020 Uber announced they would be acquiring Careem for a reported $3.1BN. Prior to Careem, Mudassir co-founded "DeviceAnywhere", a company that was acquired by "Keynote" in 2008 before joining the management consulting firm "McKinsey & Company" in Dubai. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Mudassir Sheikha We Discuss:
1. From McKinsey to $3.1BN Exit to Uber:
What was the founding a-ha moment for Mudassir with Careem?
What does Mudassir know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
What does Mudassir believe he is running away from?
2. Finding Product-Market Fit:
What is the single biggest mistake founders make when trying to find product-market fit?
Does Mudassir believe you have to do things that do not scale, to scale? What did Careem do?
What are some of Mudassir's biggest pieces of advice to founders on finding a core target audience and doing customer discovery the right way?
3. Competing with Giants: How To Win When You Cannot Outspend:
How did Careem beat Uber when they had 1/100th of their budget?
What advice does Mudassir have for founders who have competition that is much better funded?
What is the story of spending the night in bunk beds and barely sleeping before raising $300M the next day? How did that happen?
4. The Acquisition: How it Went Down:
How did Mudassir and Dara @ Uber first come to meet?
How did Dara's approach contrast with the prior approach of Travis Kalanick?
Why did Mudassir decide to sell and join Uber?
What were the main reasons or arguments against the acquisition?
5. Talk to me About:
Careem's Pakistan MD having to flee Pakistan for his safety post a marketing campaign?
Elon Musk likes one of Careem's promotional videos and why?
An investor who wired $1M with absolutely no paperwork?
T…
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20VC: Spending $2M to Train a Single AI Model: What Matters More; Model Size or Data Size | Hallucinations: Feature or Bug | Will Everyone Have an AI Friend in the Future & Raising $150M from a16z with Noam Shazeer, Co-Founder & CEO @ Character.ai
31 augustus 2023 · 35 min
Noam Shazeer is the co-founder and CEO of Character.AI, a full-stack AI computing platform that gives people access to their own flexible superintelligence. A renowned computer scientist and researcher, Shazeer is one of the foremost experts in artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP). He is a key author for the Transformer, a revolutionary deep learning model enabling language understanding, machine translation, and text generation that has become the foundation of many NLP models. A former member of the Google Brain team, Shazeer led the development of spelling corrector capabilities within Gmail, the algorithm at the heart of AdSense. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Noam Shazeer We Discuss:
1. Entry into the World of AI and NLP:
How did Noam first make his way into the world of AI and come to work on spell corrector with Google?
What are 1-2 of his biggest takeaways from spending 20 years at Google?
What does Noam know now that he wishes he had known when he started Character?
2. Model Size or Data Size:
What is more important, the size of the data or the size of the model?
Does Noam agree that "we will not use models in a year that we have today?" What is the lifespan of a model?
Does Noam agree that the companies that win are those that are able to switch between models with the most ease?
With the majority of data being able to be downloaded from the internet, is there real value in data anymore?
3. The Biggest Barriers:
What is the single biggest barrier to Character today?
What are the most challenging elements of model training? Why did they need to spend $2M to train an early model?
What are the most difficult elements of releasing a horizontal product with so many different use cases?
Where does the value accrue in the race for AI dominance; startups or incumbents?
4. AI's Role on Society:
Why does Noam believe that AI can create greater not worse human connections?
Why is Noam not concerned by the speed of adoption of…
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20VC: Why AI Models are not a Moat, Where Does the Value in AI Accrue; Startups or Incumbents, What the World Has Got Wrong About AI, Why AI Needs a New Story and Who is the Right People to Tell it with Cris Valenzuela, Co-Founder & CEO @ Runway
28 augustus 2023 · 41 min
Cris Valenzuela is the CEO and co-founder of Runway, the company that trains and builds generative AI models for content creation. To date, Cris has raised over $285M for the company from the likes of Lux Capital, Felicis, Coatue, Amplify, and Nvidia to name a few. Runway's customers include academy-nominated movies, TV shows, media companies, and creatives across industries. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Cris Valenzuela We Discuss:
1. From Childhood in Chile to Founding one of the Hottest AI Startups:
What was the founding moment for Cris with Runway?
His investors described Cris as an "outsider". Does Cris believe he is an outsider? What are the biggest pros and cons of being an outsider?
What does Cris believe he is running from? What is he running towards?
2. Models are not a Moat: Models 101:
What does Cris believe is more important; model size or data size?
Why does Cris believe that models are not a moat?
How does Cris think about the lifespan of models? Will any used today be used in a year?
Are hallucinations a feature or a bug? What are the nuances?
3. The World Has Got AI Wrong: We Need Different Stories:
Why does Cris believe the world has got AI wrong?
Why do we need different stories for what AI can do and will be? Who should tell them?
Why do groups like screenwriters riot and protest if the tool is empowering and not replacing?
4. Company Building 101: Hiring and Fundraising:
What are the biggest pieces of startup advice that are total BS?
What has been the single biggest lesson Cris has learned when it comes to fundraising?
Does Cris believe that VCs really add value?
What have been the single biggest hiring mistakes that Cris has made?
How has Cris structured their interview process to make it the best interview process in the world?
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20Product: Enterprises are not Adopting AI Yet, When Will AI Break Into Enterprise, What are the Blockers, What Do Enterprises Need from AI & Why Services Companies Will Win in the Next 10 Years of AI Implementation with Howie Liu, Founder & CEO @ Airtabl
25 augustus 2023 · 39 min
Howie Liu is the Founder and CEO @ Airtable, the fastest way to build apps for your business. To date, Howie has raised over $1BN with Airtable with the last round valuing the company at $11BN and an investor base including Benchmark, Thrive, Caffeinated, Greenoaks and Coatue to name a few. Lees meer
In Todays Episode with Howie Liu We Discuss:
1. Scaling into Enterprise:
What are the single biggest challenges when moving from PLG to enterprise?
Why does Howie believe you have only truly hit enterprise when you sign $1M contracts?
How long did it take for Airtable to sign their first $1M ARR contract?
How can founders know when is the right time to scale into enterprise?
How does the product need to change with the scaling?
2. Enterprises: Do They Really Love AI:
Why does Howie believe that enterprises are not jumping on AI yet?
When does enterprise interest turn into enterprise buying and purchasing?
What are the single biggest barriers to enterprises buying AI solutions today?
Post-purchase, what are the biggest implementation challenges for enterprises with AI?
3. The Changing Sales Process:
Are we seeing the bundling of tools within large enterprises today?
Which categories and vendors are most vulnerable? Which will survive the cuts?
What do vendors need to do to prove to CFOs that they need to remain in their budget?
How has the customer success process changed over the last year with tightening budgets?
4. Howie Liu: AMA:
Airtable famously got Benchmark to lead their Series C, how did this come to be when they famously always only do Series A?
Why does Howie believe that it is total BS to suggest post-PMF, everything is good?
What does Howie know now that he wishes he had known when he started Airtable?
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20VC: NEW FORMAT: Mega Funds Will Come Back, Why Markups Have Corrupted VC, Why RIFs Should Always Be An Embarrassment To SaaS Founders and Why Pitching is BS and Fake with Jason Lemkin and Rick Zullo
23 augustus 2023 · 54 min
Jason Lemkin is the Founder @ SaaStr one of the best-performing early-stage venture funds focused on SaaS. In the past, Jason has led investments in Algolia, Pipedrive, Salesloft, TalkDesk, and RevenueCat to name a few. Prior to SaaStr, Jason was an entrepreneur, selling EchoSign to Adobe for $100M where it is now a $250M ARR product. Lees meer
Rick Zullo is the Co-Founder and General Partner at Equal Ventures. Prior to co-founding Equal Ventures, Rick was an investor at Lightbank, Prior to Lightbank, Rick worked with investment firms Foundation Capital, Bowery Capital, and Lightview Capital.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
1. Why Venture Capital Needs It's Jerry Maguire Moment:
Why does Rick believe that VC needs it's "Jerry Maguire" moment?
What needs to change? What needs to stay the same?
Why does Jason believe we will see even more mega funds in 2024 and 2025?
2. Unicorns are So 2019:
Why does Jason believe that "unicorn investing is mostly dead for bigger funds and none of them are looking for a $1BN outcome anymore?"
Why does Rick believe that multi-stage fund investing at seed simply does not make sense?
What does Rick believe many founders need to know when they take multi-stage money at seed?
Of the over 1,000 unicorns created over the last few years, how many of them do Rick and Jason feel are actually unicorns today?
3. Efficiency and Growth: We Need it All:
Why does Jason believe, as a founder you should be embarrassed if you ever had a RIF (reduction in force)?
Last year many founders got a pass on growth as they were more efficient. Is that pass over? Do they need to get back to growth?
What is the single biggest reason that companies do not scale from seed to Series A?
What happens to the many companies with years of runway but no product-market-fit?
Are we entering a new age of efficient company building or will we go back to high burn environments and excessive spending?
4. Entering the World of LPs:
If Jason and Rick were to advise LPs to…
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20VC: The Biggest Lies of Silicon Valley, Why Entrepreneurship is Not For Everyone, Why VCs are Out of Touch, Why Many Would Be Great Entrepreneurs Will Burn Out, Why You Should Let Your Children Suffer and Why You Will Choose The Wrong Partner with Nick
21 augustus 2023 · 58 min
Nick Huber is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and content creator focused on real estate and small business. In the last 9 months, Nick has co-founded 6 companies including RE Cost Set, RecruitJet, Titan Risk, Blue Key Capital, Tax Credit Hunter, and WebRun Labs. His primary business, Bolt Storage, owns 1.8M sqft of self-storage facilities across 62 locations in 11 states. Lees meer
In Todays Episode with Nick Huber We Discuss:
Wealth:
What the richest families in the world all understand and what the majority of people forget?
What are the two best ways to make money as an employee? What do most forget/not do?
Why money does make you happy and why society drastically undervalues wealth today?
Why we should not be concerned by the levels of income inequality?
Marriage and Parenting:
5. Why it is BS to not pass your wealth down to your children?
6. Why you have to let your kids suffer in order for them to grow?
7. How do you stop kids from becoming assholes if they are brought up with money?
8. Why the majority of the time, people choose the wrong partner? What should we look for?
9. What is the number one thing you can do to set your child up for success?Silicon Valley and Entrepreneurship:
10. Why entrepreneurship is not for everyone? Who is it for?
11. Why VCs are out of touch and naive?
12. What is the single biggest lie of Silicon Valley?
13. Why will so many would-be great entrepreneurs burn themselves out when they should not have to?
Management and Brand Building:
14. How to build a brand today? Why you have to be controversial to be interesting?
15. How to deal with hate and criticism? Why you cannot please everybody?
16. Why woke culture can give you an advantage if you do not have it?
17. How to build a strategic network the right way? How to become a card in someone's rolodex?
18. What is the single worst thing you can do when hiring?
19. What do you do when you lose trust in an employee?
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20VC: Does Value Accrue to Incumbents or Startups in the AI Race, Why Model Size Matters More Than Data Size, Why Artificial General Intelligence is Far Away, Why Carpenters Will Be Paid More Than Software Engineers & Future of Jobs with Richard Socher
18 augustus 2023 · 46 min
Richard Socher is the founder and CEO of You.com. Richard previously served as the Chief Scientist and EVP at Salesforce. Before that, Richard was the CEO/CTO of AI startup MetaMind, acquired by Salesforce in 2016. He is widely recognized as having brought neural networks into the field of natural language processing, inventing the most widely used word vectors, contextual vectors and prompt engineering. He has over 150,000 citations and served as an adjunct professor in the computer science department at Stanford. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Richard Socher We Discuss:
1. The Decade-Long Journey to Becoming an AI OG:
How did Richard first make his way into the world of AI over a decade ago?
What are 1-2 of his biggest lessons from working with Marc Benioff?
How did 5 years at Salesforce impact how he both thinks and operates?
2. Models: Does Size Matter:
How important is model size? Is data size more important?
What are the biggest misconceptions people have around models today?
How does Richard respond to the suggestion that "many startups are wrappers around LLMs"?
Are hallucinations a feature or a bug?
3. Where Does Value Accrue:
Where does Richard believe most of the value will accrue; startup or incumbent?
Which incumbents are best positioned to win? Which are the laggards and behind?
What do many not see about the startup vs incumbent race in the AI war?
4. Open vs Closed: Which Wins:
Does Richard favour Yann LeCun's open approach? Or is the world of AI more closed?
What are the biggest challenges of an open ecosystem?
What are the nuances that make both challenging?
5. Richard Socher: AMA:
Why will carpenters be paid more than software engineers in 10 years?
Why is AGI still way off? Are people too unrealistic?
How much money does Google make off search every day? Why does that leave them vulnerable?
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20Growth: Why Product-Market Fit is Not Enough, Revenue Does Not Create Usage, Metrics Must Be Before Strategy, Why it is Always Better to Concentrate than Diversify Marketing Channels and Secrets from Hubspot's Growth Engine with Brian Balfour @ Reforge
16 augustus 2023 · 58 min
Brian Balfour is the Founder and CEO of Reforge. Previously, he was the VP of Growth @ HubSpot. Prior to HubSpot, he was an EIR @ Trinity Ventures and founder of Boundless Learning and Viximo. He advises companies including Blue Bottle Coffee, Gametime, Lumoid, GrabCAD, and Help Scout on growth and customer acquisition. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Brian Balfour We Discuss:
1. Entry into Growth and Lessons from Hubspot:
How did Brian make his entry into the world of growth?
What does Brian know now about growth that he wishes he had known when he started in growth?
What are 1-2 of his single biggest takeaways from his time at Hubspot that impacted his mindset?
2. The Foundations:
What is growth? What is it not?
What does Brian mean when he says "all growth can be boiled down to 4 things"?
When is the right time to bring in your first growth person?
Should the first growth person be senior or junior?
Should the growth team be standalone or sit within an existing function?
3. The Importance of Product Channel Fit:
What is product channel fit? How should founders approach it?
How do you know when you have it?
What are the single biggest mistakes founders make with regards to PCF?
4. Next Comes Channel Model Fit:
What is channel model fit? How should founders approach it?
What are clear indicators that you have or do not have channel model fit?
What are the biggest mistakes founders make with CMF?
5. Finally, Model Market Fit:
What is model market fit? How should founders approach it?
What are clear indicators that you have or do not have model market fit?
What are the biggest mistakes founders make with MMF?
6. Brian Balfour: AMA:
Why is product market fit not enough?
What does Brian mean when he says "revenue does not create usage"?
What are the biggest dangers of mixing customers and users?
What do Hubspot do better than anyone else to know when an existing product/strategy is dying?
Is it always better to diversify marketing channels?
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20VC: Scaling Wait But Why to 600,000 Subs; Behind the Scenes on The Research Process, How to Learn Entirely New Topics Fast, The Writing Process and Building Good Habits & The Distribution Process and the Business Behind the Blog with Tim Urban
14 augustus 2023 · 59 min
Tim Urban is the writer/illustrator and co-founder of Wait But Why, a long-form, stick-figure-illustrated website with over 600,000 subscribers and a monthly average of half a million visitors. He has produced dozens of viral articles on a wide range of topics, from artificial intelligence to social anxiety to humans becoming a multi-planetary species. Tim's 2016 TED main stage talk is the third most-watched TED talk in history with 66 million views. In 2023, Tim published his bestselling book What's Our Problem? A Self Help Book for Societies. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Tim Urban We Discuss:
1. The Founding of Wait by Why:
What was the a-ha moment for Tim that Wait but Why should be his life's work and sole focus?
What does Tim know now that he wishes he had known when he started?
What does Tim believe he is running away from? Why is he so fearful of constraints?
2. Wait But Why: The Scaling Journey to 600,000 Subs:
What was the first piece to really go viral? How did that change the trajectory?
What single piece is Tim most proud of? What piece is he least proud of?
What has been the hardest element of scaling Wait But Why?
What was the most surprising and unexpected elements of Wait But Why's scaling?
3. Topic Selection: Choosing What To Write:
What does the process look like for Tim when deciding what topic to write about?
How does Tim know what his audience will want to hear about vs what they will not?
What topics has Tim thought would be interesting but post initial research, are not?
4. The Writing Process:
How does Tim approach the writing process? How has his changed over time?
What mechanisms does Tim put in place to avoid writers block?
What are some of Tim's biggest tips to aspiring writers and authors?
5. The Distribution Process:
How does Tim approach distributing the content once produced? What works? What does not?
Why did Tim choose newsletter, Twitter and Instagram as his channels of choice?
How important has the newsletter bee…
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20VC Roundtable: NEW FORMAT: Why the Seed Investing Model is Broken, How to Make Money at Seed Moving Forward; Who Wins and Who Loses, Why Venture Value Add Platforms are BS and Failed and Why There Will be an IPO per Week in H2 2024
11 augustus 2023 · 54 min
Sam Lessin is a Co-Founder and Partner @ Slow Ventures with a portfolio including the likes of Airtable, Robinhood, Slack, Solana, PillPack and many more unicorn companies. Prior to Slow, Sam was a VP Product at Facebook having sold his company to Meta. Lees meer
Frank Rotman is a founding partner of QED Investors, one of the leading fintech-focused venture firms investing today with a portfolio including the likes of Klarna, Kavak, Quinto Andar, Credit Karma and more. As for Frank, prior to QED, Frank was one of the earliest analysts hired into Capital One and spent almost 13 years there helping build many of the company's business units and operational areas.
Jason Lemkin is the Founder @ SaaStr one of the best-performing early-stage venture funds focused on SaaS. In the past, Jason has led investments in Algolia, Pipedrive, Salesloft, TalkDesk, and RevenueCat to name a few. Prior to SaaStr, Jason was an entrepreneur, selling EchoSign to Adobe for $100M where it is now a $250M ARR product.
In Today's Discussion on Why Seed is Broken We Discuss:
1. The Seed Model Was Broken and What Comes Now:
Why does Sam Lessin believe the model for seed of a "factory line" was broken?
What does he believe will replace it?
Why does Jason Lemkin argue that this might not be the case for SaaS and enterprise?
2. Round Construction: YC, Multi-Stage Funds and Party Rounds:
Why does Sam Lessin believe we have seen the end of party rounds? Why does Jason Lemkin disagree and we will see more than ever?
Why does Sam Lessin believe the factory model of YC churning out companies is over? Where does Jason Lemkin believe the value lies in the YC model?
Will the multi-stage funds remain in seed? How has their entrance and deployment changed the seed market?
3. VC Value Add at Seed: Is it BS?
Why does Jason believe all talent arms in venture firms have failed?
Why does Sam believe that no VCs provide value?
Do the best founders really need help? Why do Jason and Sam disagree?
4. What Hap…
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20VC: The Memo: The State of the VC Market: Why Seed Funds Can't Invest in "Hot Startups" Anymore, Why Series A & B is Terrible, Why the IPO Market Will Explode in 2024 & Why VC DD is BS & Every VC Has More Fraud in their Portfolio with Jason Lemkin
9 augustus 2023 · 1 uur 9 min
Jason Lemkin is the Founder @ SaaStr one of the best-performing early-stage venture funds focused on SaaS. In the past, Jason has led investments in Algolia, Pipedrive, Salesloft, TalkDesk, and RevenueCat to name a few. Prior to SaaStr, Jason was an entrepreneur, selling EchoSign to Adobe for $100M where it is now a $250M ARR product. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Jason Lemkin We Discuss:
1. WTF is Happening At Seed Right Now:
Why does Jason believe seed is more active than ever?
Is the pricing of seed rounds impacted since the downturn?
Why does Jason believe it is not only not the end of party rounds but just the beginning of them?
Why does Jason believe you cannot fail if you have $1M in ARR and an amazing founder?
Why does Jason believe that seed investors cannot participate in "hot seed rounds" anymore?
2. Is Series A a Dead Zone:
How does Jason analyze the Series A and B environment today?
What has changed in what investors expect and want to see in potential Series A and B investments?
What happens to the many companies who raised pre-emptive Series As and have 10 years of runway but no product-market fit?
Why does Jason believe founders should offer to give the money back when it is not working?
What happens to the Series A and B market in the next 18 months? When does it come back?
3. Growth: People are Too Negative!
Why does Jason believe that growth is more active than many are giving credit for?
What are the ARR benchmarks required to get a good growth round term sheet today?
Why does Jason believe that VC DD is a load of BS?
Why does Jason believe that every VC has fraud in their portfolio? Will they come out?
4. Ring That Bell: IPOs and M&A:
Why does Jason believe 2024 will be an amazing year for IPOs?
Why does much of the IPO market rely on Stripe and Databricks?
What is needed for an amazing 2024 IPO market?
How does Jason evaluate the M&A market in 2024? Will regulation get in the way?
5. Jason Lemkin: AMA:
Why does Jason Lemkin …
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20VC: Vinod Khosla on How AI Impacts The Future of Healthcare, Education, Income Equality, Geo-Politics, Music and Climate Change
7 augustus 2023 · 44 min
Vinod Khosla is the Founder of Khosla Ventures, one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with investments in OpenAI, Stripe, DoorDash, Commonwealth Fusion Systems and many more. Prior to founding Khosla, Vinod was a co-founder of Daisy Systems and founding CEO of Sun Microsystems. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Vinod Khosla We Discuss:
1. The State of AI Today:
Does Vinod believe we are in a bubble or is the excitement justified based on technological development?
What are the single biggest lessons that Vinod has from prior bubbles?
What is different about this time? What is Vinod concerned about with this AI bubble?
2. The Future of Healthcare and Music:
How does Vinod evaluate the impact AI will have on the future of healthcare?
How does Vinod analyse the impact AI will have on the future of music and content creation?
Does Vinod believe that humans will resist these advancements?
Who will be the laggards, slow to embrace it and who will be the early adopters?
3. Solving Income Inequality:
Does Vinod believe AI does more to harm or to hurt income inequality?
What mechanisms can be put in place to ensure that AI does not further concentrate wealth into the hands of the few?
Does Vinod believe in universal basic income? What does everyone get wrong with UBI?
4. The Future of Energy, Climate and Politics:
Why is forcing non-economic solutions the wrong approach to climate? What is the right approach?
Why is Vinod so bullish on fusion and geothermal? How does fusion bankrupt entire industries?
How does the advancements in energy and resource creation change global politics?
Does Vinod believe Larry Summers was right; "China is a prison, Japan is a nursing home and Europe is a museum"?
5. Vinod Khosla: AMA:
What is Vinod's single biggest investing miss?
What does Vinod know now that he wishes he had known when he started investing?
Why did the Taylor Swift concert have such a profound impact on him?
What was Marc Andreesen like when he bac…
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20VC: Why "Hire Great People and Get Out of the Way" is Total BS, Why Your Upbringing Can Make You a Worse Leader & A Bentley, Two Nissan Cubes and Becoming One of Macedonia's Largest Employers; The Story of Slice with Ilir Sela
4 augustus 2023 · 46 min
Ilir Sela is the Founder and CEO of Slice, the all-in-one ordering and marketing tech platform for local pizzerias. Through its partnerships, Slice has driven over $1B in earnings for over 18,000 independent pizzerias nationwide. Fun fact, Slice is also one of the largest employers in Macedonia and at one point, employed so many people there, they had to start their own school to train more people. Before Slice, Ilir started Nerd Force and sold it in 2008. Huge thanks to Jeff Richards (GGV) and Ben Sun (Primary) for some amazing questions today. Lees meer
In Today's Discussion with Ilir Sela We Discuss:
1. From Macedonia to the Bright Lights of NYC and Bentley Buying:
How Ilir made his way into the world of startups having grown up in Macedonia?
How did his less affluent upbringing impact his approach to company building?
How does Ilir think about the importance of money? How did he come to buy a Bentley?
What does Ilir know now that he wishes he had known when he started?
2. Why Bootstrapped Was Best & The Decision to Fundraise:
Why did Ilir scale the business to $4M in revenue without ever fundraising?
What does Ilir believe are the benefits of scaling businesses with less money?
What would Ilir have done differently had he raised money earlier?
What advice does Ilir have for founders who see competitors raising more money than them?
3. Why Delegation is BS and Your Upbringing F***** You Up:
Why does Ilir believe that much of our upbringing can instill principles which make us a worse leader?
Why does Ilir believe it is BS to hire great people and get out of the way?
What are the single biggest mistakes Ilir sees founders make in company scaling?
What have been some of Ilir's biggest lessons in talent acquisition?
4. Decision-Making 101:
How does Ilir analyze his decision-making framework today?
Where does he need to improve as a leader today? What does he need to do to get there?
What has been the single best decision he made with Slice? What did he le…
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20Sales: Why The Founder Has To Be The One To Create The Sales Playbook, When To Hire Your First Rep, Why Junior is Better Than Senior, How to Manage Sales Rep Compensation, How To Onboard New Sales Reps and more with Lori Jimenez, CRO @ WorkRamp
2 augustus 2023 · 52 min
Lori Jimenez is the Chief Revenue Officer at WorkRamp where she is responsible for sales, customer success, solutions engineering, sales development, and revenue operations. Over her 25-year career, Lori has a track record of scaling high-growth GTM teams at companies including Google, TripActions/Navan, Facebook, and Box. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Lori Jimenez We Discuss:
1. From a First Sales Job at 15 Years Old to Leading Sales Teams at Google and Facebook:
How Lori made her foray into the world of sales at the age of 15?
What are 1-2 of Lori's biggest takeaways from her time at Google, Facebook and Box?
What does Lori know now that she wishes she had known at the start of her career in sales?
2. The Sales Playbook: What, When and How:
How does Lori define the "sales playbook"? What is it not?
Should the founder be the one to create the sales playbook?
When is the right time for founders to make their first sales hires?
What is the right profile for the first sales hires?
Should founders hire 2 sales reps at a time? What are the pros and cons?
3. The Hiring Process: Building the Sales Team:
How does Lori structure the hiring process for all new sales hires?
What are the must-ask questions to ask in every sales hiring meeting?
What are the biggest red flags founders should look for when hiring for sales?
What are Lori's biggest lessons on how to navigate compensation discussions with potential sales hires?
What are Lori's biggest lessons on what title negotiation says about a candidate?
What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when hiring for sales teams?
4. Scaling the Machine: Bringing the Dollars In:
How does Lori approach discounting? When is the right time to do it?
Is old-school enterprise sales and entertaining dead? How has it changed?
How does Lori structure deal reviews? What is a good vs a bad reason to lose a deal?
How does Lori approach multi-year deals? What is good? What is bad?
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20VC: Marcelo Claure & Shu Nyatta on Lessons from Investing $7.5BN at Softbank & Why Dumb Money has Gone, Why "LATAM is Under Construction" and the Next 10 Years Will Be the Best & Investing Lessons from Missing Nubank & OpenAI & Investing in FTX
31 juli 2023 · 58 min
Marcelo Claure is the Founder & CEO of Claure Group, a multi-billion-dollar global investment firm. He is the Executive Chairman and Managing Partner of Bicycle Capital, a $500M Latin America-focused growth equity fund, and was appointed Chairman in Latin America of SHEIN, the global #1 on-demand fashion company in the world. Claure was also the CEO of SoftBank Group International where he launched SoftBank's $8B Latin America Funds, and had direct oversight for SoftBank's operating companies. As an entrepreneur, Marcelo built Brightstar from a small local distributor to the world's largest global wireless distribution and services company. In addition, Claure led the turnaround of US wireless telecommunications company Sprint and helped orchestrate its US$195 billion merger with T-Mobile. Lees meer
Shu Nyatta is the founder of Bicycle Capital. Before Bicycle, Shu was most recently a Managing Partner at SoftBank Group International, where he launched and managed two separate funds - the SoftBank Latin America Fund and the Opportunity Fund for early-stage investments in US-based founders-of-color. In the first part of his SoftBank career, Shu was a founding Partner of SoftBank's Vision Fund. Several companies have retained him on their boards as an independent board member following his departure from SoftBank, including Lemonade (NYSE: LMND), Kavak and Tribal Credit. Shu also serves on the board of Endeavor Global - the leading global community of, by and for high-impact entrepreneurs.
In Today's Episode Featuring Bicycle Capital We Discuss:
1. From Deploying $10BN at Softbank to Founding Bicycle Capital:
What was the founding moment for Marcelo and Shu in the founding of Bicycle?
What does Shu believe is Marcelo's superpower? How has working with Marcelo changed the way he thinks?
Why does Marcelo believe that he is not a good investor? How does Shu make him better, specifically?
2. Lessons from Investing $10BN at Softbank:
What are 1-2 of the biggest lessons from i…
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20VC: Four Criteria to Assess Great Founders, Why and How the Best Leaders Make the Wrong Decisions 40% of the Time, Lessons Scaling King from 100 Employees to 2,400 and Making $1BN of EBITDA with Stephane Kurgan, Venture Partner @ Index Ventures
28 juli 2023 · 49 min
Stephane Kurgan is widely considered one of the best operators in Europe. During his tenure as COO @ King, King went from $65m to $2.4B in bookings, from 100 to 2,400 employees, and did a $7B IPO before being acquired by Activision Blizzard. Prior to joining King, Stephane served as CFO of Tideway Ltd. (acquired by BMC Software) and was the co-founder and CEO of Digital Reserve. Today, Stephane serves as a Venture Partner at Index Ventures, one of the leading venture firms of the last decade and more recently as an executive advisor at Technology Crossover Ventures. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Stephane Kurgan We Discuss:
1. From Belgium Boy to Europe's Leading Operator:
How a CD Rom company was the starting place for one of Europe's best executives?
What does Steph believe he is running away from?
What does Steph know now that he wishes he had known when he started?
2. Four Criteria of Truly Great Leaders:
What four traits do all truly special leaders have?
What are the 1-2 that are the hardest to find in great leaders today?
Why does Steph believe that even the best leaders are wrong 40% of the time?
How does Steph approach decision-making? How has it changed over time?
What is the most toxic element of decisions within companies today?
When does Steph change plan because a decision is wrong vs stick to it?
3. Speed of Execution and Mission Statements:
How important does Steph believe speed of execution is today?
What are the elements that one can go fast on vs go slow and be very deliberate on?
What elements has Steph gone fast on in the past that led to a mistake? How would he have changed his approach with the benefit of hindsight?
Why does Steph believe that mission statements have different value at different company stages?
What is Steph's biggest advice to founders on creating mission statements?
4. Delivering Feedback and Maintaining Trust:
What are 1-2 of Steph's biggest lessons when it comes to delivering feedback well?
What are the bigg…
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20Growth: Biggest Growth Lessons from Instacart and Opendoor, Why 70% of Growth Experiments Should Fail and How to Fail Fast, How to Hire a Growth Team; Secrets and Tips & Why Operator Investors WIll be the Best Investors in 10 Years with Sri Batchu @ Ram
26 juli 2023 · 58 min
Sri Batchu currently leads Growth at Ramp. He previously led Growth Strategy and Operations at Instacart where he also helped grow their Ads business. Prior to that, he was one of the first 50 employees at Opendoor where he built, scaled, and managed a variety of business teams including Analytics, Sales, and Pricing. During his time, the company grew from $100M to $5B+ revenue and to 1500+ people. He started his career in management consulting at McKinsey and also held various investing roles including in private equity at Bain Capital. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Sri Batchu We Discuss:
1. From Harvard to Private Equity to Leading the Best Growth Teams:
How did Sri make his way into the world of growth with Instacart and Opendoor?
What are 1-2 of his biggest takeaways from his time at Instacart? How did it change his approach and mindset towards growth?
How did Zilllow burn themselves by buying homes? What did that teach Sri about hitting metrics and goal setting in growth teams?
2. Growth Teams Should Fail and Fail Fast:
What is the right ratio of success to failure within growth teams?
What are specific ways that growth teams can increase the speed with which they fail?
How are the best post-mortems run? Who joins them? Who leads the agenda?
What are Sri's biggest lessons on how to set the right goals?
Where do so many growth teams go wrong with the North Star that they set for themselves?
3. Building the Bench: Hiring a Growth Team:
When is the right time to make your first growth hires?
What profile should your first growth hires be?
How should one structure the interview process when hiring growth teams?
What is the first question Sri asks all new hires?
Why does Sri believe you have to hire slowly?
Should candidates do case studies as part of the process, if so, on a new company or on the company they are interviewing for?
4. When Operators Become Investors:
Why does Sri believe the best investors of the next 10 years will be operators?
Why …
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20VC: Instagram CEO, Adam Mosseri on Threads: The Journey from 0-100M Users; What Worked, What Didn't and the Plans Ahead | Instagram: Biggest Mistakes, Successes, Misconceptions, TikTok Competition & The Future of Social Media; Interest Graph or Friend G
24 juli 2023 · 1 uur 10 min
Adam Mosseri is the Head of Instagram, where he is responsible for overseeing the engineering, product, and business teams and leading Meta's efforts on creators and Reels. Adam has been at Meta for more than fifteen years. He started at Meta as a designer for Facebook's mobile app before moving to product management, where he led the Facebook News Feed product and engineering teams, and served as the Head of Facebook News Feed. Adam began his career founding a design consultancy focused on graphic, interaction, and exhibition design before joining TokBox as the company's first designer. Lees meer
In Today's Discussion with Adam Mosseri We Discuss:
1. From Designer to Product Leader to Instagram CEO:
What did Adam learn from his first job bartending? How did it impact his approach to customer support and research?
What are the top 1-2 pieces of advice Adam would give to someone wanting to make the move from individual contributor to leader?
If Adam was "not amazing at anything", what did he do that enabled him to rise above the rest and become CEO of Instagram?
What have been 1-2 of the biggest lessons from working with Mark Zuckerberg for 15 years?
2. A Deep Dive on the Wild Times as Instagram CEO:
What has been Adam's single biggest mistake as CEO of Instagram?
What does Adam believe is the least known feature within Instagram that has made them successful?
What does Adam believe has been the biggest product decision he has made as CEO?
Why does Adam believe that Instagram is too complicated as a product?
Who does Adam believe is the most formidable competitor to Instagram?
Was Instagram Reels a simple copy of TikTok? What have Instagram learned from TikTok?
How does Adam respond to the statement that Instagram is a "copy-cat machine" and lacks innovaton?
3. Threads: The Journey from 0-100M Users in Three Days:
Did Adam and the team expect the response they got to Threads?
Why did they decide to break Threads out into a separate app?
What went into bootst…
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20VC: Why Hiring in Tech is Broken and Founders Need to be as Good at Firing as they are Hiring, Why Product Differentiation is Unsustainable & Why the Current Generation of Tech Employees are Entitled and What Needs to Change with Jean-Denis Greze @ Plai
21 juli 2023 · 50 min
Jean-Denis Greze is Chief Technology Officer at Plaid where oversees global product business units across North America and Europe. Prior to joining Plaid, Jean-Denis was Director of Engineering at Dropbox. Jean-Denis is also a prolific angel investor with a portfolio including the likes of Nex Health, Merge.dev and Rupa Health to name a few. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Jean-Denis Greze We Discuss:
1. The Journey to One of the Most Powerful CTOs:
How JD made his way into the world of tech with his first role at Dropbox?
How does JD analyse a Linkedin CV today? What are the signals of outperformers?
What does JD know now that he wishes he had known when he started in tech?
2. Hiring the Best: 101:
What are JD's single biggest lessons on hiring the best talent?
What have been some of JD's biggest hiring mistakes?
Why does JD believe founders need to be as good at firing as they are hiring?
Does JD believe people can scale with the scaling of a company? If they do not scale, do you layer them or do you let them go?
How does JD determine whether to bring in an external candidate vs promote someone from within?
3. Product Differentiation is not Sustainable:
Why does JD believe that product differentiation is not sustainable? Why is UX as a moat BS?
How does this lead JD to suggest Salesforce is a short in the public markets?
Why does JD believe that Snowflake is also a short?
What does Snowflake teach us about the different stages of product market fit?
What are the biggest mistakes founders make when analyzing product market fit?
4. Remote Work, Titles and Entitlement:
Why does JD believe most tech employees treat their employer in the same way French citizens treat the French government?
How does JD analyse the impact of remote work on both productivity and culture?
Why does JD believe titles are BS in the beginning but matter with scale?
Why does JD believe that you should not hire for the long term?
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20Product: The Secret to Successful Onboarding from Notion and Airtable, The Biggest Mistakes Startups Make in PLG Today& Why 90% of Onboarding Today is Done Poorly with Lauryn Isford, Head of Product Growth @ Notion
19 juli 2023 · 47 min
Lauryn Isford is the Head of Product Growth at Notion, managing Notion's product-led growth engine and self-serve business. Before Notion, she led growth at Airtable, and previously worked on growth teams including Meta, Dropbox, and Blue Bottle Coffee. Lauryn is an active angel investor and advisor supporting companies building product-led go-to-market motions. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Lauryn Isford:
1. From Blue Bottle to Airtable and Notion:
How did Lauryn first make her way into the world of product and growth?
What are 1-2 of her biggest takeaways from Dropbox, Facebook and Blue Bottle?
What does Lauryn know now that she wishes she had known when she started?
2. What is Growth: 101:
How does Lauryn define growth? What is it not?
When is the right time to make your first growth hire?
What profile should your first hire in growth be?
What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when hiring growth teams?
3. Mastering the Onboarding Experience:
What are the core elements of a successful onboarding experience?
How important is time to value in onboarding today?
What are the biggest mistakes product teams make in company onboarding?
What is the most effective onboarding technique and workflow in PLG today?
Why are 90% of current onboarding's done badly?
4. Making Growth work with the Rest of the Org:
What are the single biggest barriers to growth and product working together well?
What can leaders do to make their growth teams work well with product teams?
How can growth teams experiment and test with product without messing up codebases?
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20VC: Top Three Lessons from Working with Jeff Bezos for 23 Years at Amazon, How the Best Leader Hire, Fire, Prioritise and Make Decisions & How to Be Responsible for 1M Employees and Be a Rockstar Husband and Father with Dave Clark @ Flexport
17 juli 2023 · 43 min
Dave Clark is the CEO of Flexport, the global freight forwarder and logistics platform that has now raised over $2.5BN to build the category leader. Prior to Flexport, Dave began his career at Amazon in 1999 as an Operations Manager, working his way up to become the CEO of Amazon's worldwide consumer business in 2021. By the time Dave left, he was responsible for over 1 million employees. Dave spearheaded the launch of Amazon Robotics and grew the company's logistics divisions to include Amazon's own planes, trailers, and last-mile delivery vehicles through Amazon's own delivery network (which today ships more packages than FedEx and UPS). Huge thanks to Ryan Peterson for some amazing question suggestions today. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Dave Clark We Discuss:
1. From Operations Manager to CEO @ Amazon:
How did Dave Clark make his way into the world of startups with Amazon in 1999?
What are 1-2 of his biggest lessons from spending 23 years at Amazon?
What are 1-2 of his biggest takeaways from working alongside Jeff Bezos for 23 years?
2. How Big Leaders Make Big Decisions:
What is Dave's decision-making framework when it comes to big decisions?
What is the biggest decision Dave made that went wrong? How did it impact his mindset?
How does Dave think through prioritisation as a leader today?
What are the biggest mistakes founders make when it comes to focus?
3. How Big Leaders Hire Big Talent:
What are 1-2 of Dave's biggest lessons on what it takes to acquire the best talent?
Does Dave believe that people can scale with the scaling of the company?
How does Dave think through the challenge of promoting internally vs bringing in external talent?
Why does Dave like to hire people straight out of college? What are the benefits?
4. How Big People Deal with Big Problems: Kids, Money and Ego
What are 1-2 of Dave's biggest lessons when it comes to parenting?
How does Dave think about giving his kids the same hunger and ambition, when they are brought up in s…
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20VC: Why Fund Sizes Should Be Smaller, Should Founders Also Have Their Own Funds, Is Emerging Markets Investing Gone, Is Fintech Investing Dead & Who Will Be The Winners and Losers in VC in the Next 10 Years with Sheel Mohnot, Co-Founder @ BTV
14 juli 2023 · 49 min
Sheel Mohnot is a Co-Founder and General Partner @ Better Tomorrow Ventures, a $225M fund that leads rounds in pre-seed and seed-stage fintech companies globally. Sheel and Jake (his co-founder) invested for many years together before founding BTV and wrote checks into Mercury, Flexport, Ramp, and Hippo Insurance to name a few. As for Sheel, before BTV he ran 500 Fintech for close to 7 years, and before that was a founder, founding two companies, both of which were acquired. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Sheel Mohnot We Discuss:
1. VC Needs to Change:
Why does Sheel believe that VCs should have smaller funds?
What are the biggest misalignments between founders and VCs today?
What are the biggest points of friction between VCs and their LPs today?
2. VC in 10 Years Time:
Who are going to be the winners in venture in 10 years time?
Who are going to be the losers?
Will micro-funds be bigger or smaller as a segment of the ecosystem?
Will solo-GPs be bigger or smaller? Were they a zero-interest rate phenomenon?
3. The Errors of a Bull Market:
What does Sheel believe are the single biggest mistakes made by VCs between 2020-2022?
Did Sheel take liquidity off the table in the last few years? What have been some of his biggest lessons on when to sell?
How does Sheel evaluate the flood of capital into emerging markets in the bull market? What happens now?
Fintech is also experiencing the same challenging time, how does Sheel assess what is happening in the fintech financing market today?
4. Building a Fund: Lessons, Mistakes and Advice Scaling to $225M:
What are the single biggest mistakes Sheel and Jake have made in the fun scaling? How has it impacted their mindset?
What does Sheel know now about fund management that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
What advice does Sheel give to emerging managers today, raising their first and second funds?
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20Sales: Slack, Atlassian, Dropbox: Five of the Biggest Lessons on Starting, Scaling and Managing Sales Teams from 25 Years Leading the Best with Kevin Egan, Global Head of Enterprise Sales at Atlassian
12 juli 2023 · 37 min
Kevin Egan is the Global Head of Enterprise Sales at Atlassian and brings more than 25 years of enterprise sales experience and leadership to the company. Prior to his current role, Kevin served as the Vice President of North America Sales at both Slack and Dropbox and has held various senior sales leadership positions at Salesforce. Lees meer
In Todays Episode With Kevin Egan We Discuss:
1. The Makings of a Truly Great Enterprise Sales Leader:
How did Kevin first make his way into the world of enterprise sales?
What does Kevin know now that he wishes he had known when he entered sales?
What advice would Kevin give to a new sales leader today starting a new role?
2. The Sales Playbook:
How does Kevin define "the sales playbook"? Does the founder have to be the one to create the sales playbook
When is the right time to hire your first salespeople? Should they be senior or junior first?
What are the different types of reps to hire in the early days? Should you hire two at a time?
3. PLG vs Enterprise:
Does Kevin believe it is possible to run both PLG and enterprise playbook at the same time?
How does one know when they are ready to scale from PLG into enterprise? What are the signs?
What do companies need to change in the way their sales team, is structured to make the transition from PMG to enterprise sales?
What are the single biggest mistakes Kevin sees founders make in the scaling from PLG to enterprise?
4. Hiring the Sales Team:
What non-obvious characteristics and attitudes should we look for in sales reps?
How does Kevin structure the hiring process for all new additions to sales and revenue teams?
What makes good PLG sales leaders? How are they different from enterprise sales leaders?
What questions and case studies are most revealing for you in identifying them?
What have been some of Kevin's biggest lessons on comp structure for these early rep hires?
5. Making the Machine Work:
How does Kevin build trust with his early sales rep hires? What wor…
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20VC: Simon Sinek on Trust; How it is Gained and Lost | Why Millennials Avoid Conflict | How to Listen Effectively | What Makes The Best Feedback and How to Provide It | Why Humans Do Not Change & How To Find Out Who You Really Are
10 juli 2023 · 52 min
Simon Sinek is an optimist and author, as we discuss in the show today. Simon is best known for his TED Talk on the concept of WHY (62M views), and his video on millennials in the workplace (80M views in 7 days). Simon is also a bestselling author including global bestseller Start with WHY, Leaders Eat Last and The Infinite Game. In addition, Simon is the founder of The Optimism Company, a leadership learning and development company, and he publishes other inspiring thinkers and doers through his publishing partnership with Penguin Random House called Optimism Press. Lees meer
In Today's Discussion with Simon Sinek We Discuss:
1. The Makings of Simon Sinek:
In what ways does Simon believe that his parents and upbringing shaped who he is today?
What does Simon want to be when he grows up?
What was the catalytic moment to the "Simon Sinek brand"? When was that big break moment?
2. Identity:
Simon has said before, "I define myself by who I am and not what I do". Is it wrong to define yourself by what you do?
What do you do if you do not know who you are? What do you do if you do not like the answers to who you are?
Is it possible to change who you are? What does that process look like?
What is Simon's biggest advice to those looking to find a greater sense of self and identity?
3. Trust:
Does Simon start relationships with inherent trust and it is there to be lost or no trust and it is there to be gained over time?
When has someone broken Simon's trust? How did it impact how he approaches trust today?
In the case of cheating in a relationship, does Simon believe it is possible to regain trust over time?
Simon has said before, "trust is built on telling the truth". Does it ever make sense or is even right to tell a little white lie in a relationship?
4. Creating Safe Spaces:
How can we create safe spaces for our partners to be their full selves?
Does this differ professionally and personally?
What are the biggest mistakes people make in building safe spaces?
…
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20VC: Why Data Size Matters More Than Model Size, Why The Google Employee Was Wrong; OpenAI and Google Have the Advantage & Why Open Source is Not Going to Win with Douwe Kiela, Co-Founder @ Contextual AI
30 juni 2023 · 42 min
Douwe Kiela is the CEO of Contextual AI, building the contextual language model to power the future of businesses. Last month Contextual closed a $20M funding round including Bain Capital, Sarah Guo, Elad Gil and 20VC. He is also an Adjunct Professor in Symbolic Systems at Stanford University. Previously, he was the Head of Research at Hugging Face, and before that a Research Scientist at Facebook AI Research. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Douwe Kiela We Discuss:
1. Founding a Foundational Model Company in 2023:
How did Douwe make his way into the world of AI and ML over a decade ago?
What are some of his biggest lessons from his time working with Yann LeCun and Meta?
How does Douwe's background in philosophy help him in AI today?
2. Foundational Model Providers: Challenges and Alternatives:
What are the biggest problems with the existing foundational data models?
Will there be one to rule them all? How does the landscape play out?
Why does Douwe believe OpenAI's data acquisition strategy has been the best?
3. Data Models: Size and Structure:
Why does Douwe believe it is naive to think the open approach will beat the closed approach?
What are the biggest downsides to the open approach?
Does the size of data model matter today? What matters more?
How important is access to proprietary data? Are VCs naive to turn down founders due to a lack of access to proprietary data?
4. Regulation and the World Around Us:
How does Douwe expect the regulatory landscape to play out around AI?
Why is Europe the worst when it comes to regulation? Will this be different this time?
How does Douwe analyse Elon's petition to pause the development of AI for 6 months?
Do founders building AI companies have to be in the valley?
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20VC: The Rent the Runway Memo: How Paid Marketing & Growth Hacking Ruined a Generation of Companies, When Will Rent the Runway Be Profitable & How Does it Compare to Other Fashion Co's and Why "I Wish I Ran My Startup Like a Public Company"
28 juni 2023 · 40 min
Jennifer Hyman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rent the Runway, the world's first and largest shared designer closet. Under Jennifer's leadership, RTR has made history by being the first company to go public with a female founder/CEO, COO, and CFO. Jennifer serves on the Board of The Estée Lauder Companies and Zalando, and also is a Founding Member of the NYSE Board Advisory Council, a Member of the Women.nyc Advisory Board and a Member of the Launch with GS Advisory Council for Goldman Sachs. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Jennifer Hyman We Discuss:
1. The 14-Year Overnight Success: Scaling Rent The Runway To IPO:
What was the a-ha founding moment for Jennifer with RTR?
What does Jenn know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning?
Does Jenn believe that naivete is good or not when starting a business?
2. Building the Best Team:
What have been Jenn's single biggest lessons when it comes to acquiring the best talent?
What have been Jenn's biggest hiring mistakes over the years?
How does Jenn approach the interview process? Why does Jenn not focus on their professional career and achievements? What questions does she ask?
What does Jenn believe are the single biggest mistakes founders make when building their teams?
3. Building the Business for IPO and Beyond:
Why does Jenn wish she had run RTR as a private company in the same way she does now as a public company? How does the way you run the company differ?
What about the unit economics of RTR suggesting it is a fundamentally better business than apparel competitors? How have their margin profiles changed over time?
Why does Wall St not love RTR? What is required for that to change? Why does Jenn believe the street is wrong on how they analyse RTR?
4. Boards 101: Leading and Learning from Estee Lauder:
What are Jenn's biggest lessons to founders on how to manage boards successfully?
What have been 1-2 of Jenn's biggest lessons from being on the Estee Lauder board?
What do the best board members do?…
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20VC: Eight Pieces of Startup Advice that are BS: Why You Do Not Have to Love Your Space, It Is Ok To Do It For The Money, Focus Is Not Everything, Speed Is Not The Most Important Thing with Akin Babayigit, Co-Founder @ Tripledot Studios
26 juni 2023 · 1 uur 7 min
Akin Babayigit is a serial entrepreneur and an active angel investor. He is currently the Founder and COO of Tripledot Studios, one of the fastest-growing mobile gaming companies in the world, which was recently valued at over $1.4BN. In just 4 years, Tripledot grew to generate several hundred million dollars per year in revenue and currently entertains over 50 million people every month. Tripledot was recently named as the #1 fastest-growing European company by FT, as well as being named as the fastest-growing Tech business in the UK, in the annual "UK Tech Awards". Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Akin Babayigit We Discuss:
Entry into the World of Startups and Gaming:
How Akin made his way from Turkey to HBS and founding a unicorn in Tripledot?
How did the lack of a father figure impact Akin's approach to parenting?
What are 1-2 of Akin's biggest takeaways from his time at Facebook, Skype and King.com?
What advice would Akin give to all new joiners at a company today?
90% of Startup Advice is Total BS:
BS Myth #1: "You have to be passionate about your domain". Why does Akin disagree with this? If you do not have passion for the domain, what do you have to have?
BS Myth #2: "You have to be solving a real problem". Why does Akin disagree with this mantra? If you are not solving a real problem, what should you be solving?
BS Myth #3: "When you do a startup, your life will suck for a long period of time". Why does Akin strongly disagree with this? Does it get easier over time? What does Akin advise founders to make the earlier days easier?
BS Myth #4: "Focus is everything. You should focus on a single thing and only do that." Why does Akin believe that focus can be dangerous? How should founders know when to pivot vs when to keep going?
BS Myth #5: "Mission and vision statements are so important." Why does Akin believe that the majority of mission statements are BS? Is it worth having them at all?
BS Myth #6: "You should hire people with domain experience." Why d…
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20VC: How to Raise a Venture Fund from Deck to First Meetings to Final Close, Why Venture is a Young Person's Game and Why Multi-Stage Funds Have Not Ruined Seed with Rob Go, Co-Founder @ Nextview
23 juni 2023 · 55 min
Rob Go is a co-founder and Partner at NextView, one of the leading seed firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Attentive, Devoted Health, Whoop, and Grove Collaborative. Prior to co-founding NextView, Rob was an investor at Spark Capital and held product and product marketing roles at Ebay. He began his career as a consultant at The Parthenon Group. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Rob Go We Discuss:
1. Entry into the World of Venture:
How a cold call from a VC firm led to Rob entering the world of venture?
Why does Rob believe venture is a young person's game?
What does Rob know now that he wishes he had known when started in venture?
2. Preparing Docs for a Fundraise:
What docs should fund managers have ready before they start the raise?
How should they structure their data room?
Where do the majority of LPs spend their time, document-wise?
What are the single biggest mistakes emerging managers make preparing docs for a raise?
3. Meeting Your First LPs:
What is the best way for emerging managers to meet LPs for the first time?
Should they send the deck before or after the meeting?
What questions should emerging managers ask to qualify LPs in or out of a meeting?
What are some clear early signs that a first meeting went well?
4. Closing LPs: The Tips and Tricks:
How important is it for a fund to have an anchor?
How much of a fund should the anchor be?
Are there different qualities of anchor LPs?
Should managers ever sell part of their GP or give an LP part of the carry?
What can managers do to enforce a sense of urgency to get LPs over the line?
What are signs that an LP will not invest in the fund without rejecting you yet?
Should emerging managers impose a minimum check size on new LPs?
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20Growth: How to Master PR and Comms, How to Get Your Startup Written About; Press Releases, Fundraising Announcements, Embargos etc & Lessons Scaling Duolingo from 3-200M Users with Gina Gotthilf, Co-Founder @ Latitud
21 juni 2023 · 55 min
Gina Gotthilf is a Co-Founder and COO at Latitud, an a16z-backed platform supporting the next generation of iconic tech startups in Latin America through digital products, a community and fund. Previously, Gina led growth and marketing at Duolingo from 3 to 200 million users via organic strategies and was part of the executive team. She also worked on the Mike Bloomberg presidential campaign, helping oversee the creation of digital ad campaigns at a historical budget, and led growth and community for Tumblr in Latin America. Lees meer
In Today's Discussion with Gina Gotthilf We Discuss:
Entry into the World of Growth:
How Gina went from working on a farm to leading growth for Tumblr in LATAM?
What are 1-2 of Gina's biggest takeaways from her time leading growth for Duolingo?
What does Gina know now that she wishes she had known when she entered the world of growth?
15 Top Tips and Secrets to Being Featured in the Best Publications:
What is the best way to get in touch with journalists? What mistakes do founders have when they reach out to journalists?
Should founders get in touch with more than one journalist at a publication?
Should founders be explicit about the embargos they have on a story? Should they stick to them?
Should founders be more wary of being published in a publication with a paywall?
What materials should they send to journalists to get their attention?
Should founders send press releases in early messages to journalists?
How can founders control in some way what the journalist will ultimately publish?
How long before the company wants the piece to come out, should they reach out to journalists?
How can founders create FOMO when trying to get journalists to write their story?
How can founders create social validity with journalists, when they are a small company?
Once published, what should the distribution strategy look like?
How can you get people you know to like and share content you are featured in?
What are the top tips and tricks to…
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20VC: Why No Models Today Will Be Used in a Year, Why Open Will Always Beat Closed in AI, Why Proprietary Data is Less Important Than Ever And Why EU AI Regulation is a Disaster with Alex Lebrun, Founder & CEO @ Nabla
19 juni 2023 · 56 min
Alex Lebrun is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nabla, an AI assistant for doctors. Prior to Nabla, he led engineering at Facebook AI Research. Alex founded Wit.ai, an AI platform that makes it easy to build apps that understand natural human language. Wit.ai was acquired by Facebook in 2015. Prior to Wit, Alex was the Founder and CEO of VirtuOz, the world pioneer in customer service chatbots, acquired by Nuance Communications in 2013. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Alex Lebrun We Discuss:
1. Third Time Lucky and Lessons from Zuckerberg:
How did Alex make his way into the world of startups with the founding of his first company?
What worked with Alex's prior companies that he has taken with him to Nabla? What did not work that he has left behind?
What were the single biggest takeaways for Alex from working with Mark Zuckerberg? How does Mark prepare for meetings? How does Mark negotiate so well?
2. Open vs Closed:
Why does Alex believe the winning AI models will always be open?
Why are open models not as transparent as people think they are?
What are the biggest downsides to both open and closed models?
Does Alex agree with Emad @ Stability that we will have "national data sets"?
3. Incumbent vs Startup:
Who wins in the AI race; startups or incumbents?
How important is access to proprietary data in winning in AI today?
How does Alex respond to many VCs who suggest so many AI startups are merely "a thin layer on top of a foundational model"? Is that a fair critique?
Which startups are best placed to challenge incumbents? Which incumbents have been most impressive in adopting AI into existing product suites?
4. Models 101: Size, Quality, Switching Costs:
Why will the best companies switch the models that they use often?
Will any models in action today be used in a year?
How important is the size of the model? How will this change with time?
In what way is new EU regulation around models going to harm European AI companies?
5. Location Matters: Who Wins:
When …
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20Product: Slack CPO Noah Weiss on How to Master Product-Led-Growth, The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make When Scaling Into Enterprise & What Needs to Change with your Product, Team and Processes when Scaling From PLG to Enterprise
16 juni 2023 · 52 min
Noah Weiss is the Chief Product Officer of Slack, overseeing the product team's strategy and development. Over his seven years at Slack, Noah has led various parts of the product organization, including the self-service SMB business and product-led growth; the Virtual HQ team that launched huddles and clips; and the search and machine learning teams. Prior to Slack, Noah served as SVP of Product and Analytics at Foursquare. He started his career at Google leading the structured data search team and working on display ads. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Noah Weiss We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Product and Road to Slack CPO:
How did Noah make his first foray into the world of product with Google?
What are 1-2 of his single biggest takeaways from his time with Google and Foursquare?
What model did Noah learn at Google that he applies to product today?
2.) Product 101: The Foundations:
Is product more art or science? If Noah were to put a number on it what would it be?
What are product principles? What makes good vs bad product principles?
What are the biggest mistakes that founders make when instilling product principles?
Does Noah believe with Gustav Soderstrom, "talk is cheap and so we should do more of it"?
3.) How to Master Product-Led-Growth:
What are some of Noah's biggest lessons on how to master PLG?
What are the biggest mistakes Noah sees early stage founders make today when going for the PLG approach? How does he advise them?
When is the right time to move into enterprise? What needs to change?
How do you change who you build product for? The buyer or the user?
Why does Noah believe product speed will always be the most important thing in product?
4.) The Internals of Slack:
How does Slack do post-mortems today? Who comes? Who sets the agenda? How has this changed in a world of remote? What does it take to do them well?
How do Slack do product testing pre-launch of new products? Do they know when something is going to be a hit? What did they think w…
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20VC: UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak on Investing More in AI Safety Research Than Any Other Country in the World, How AI Changes the Future of Education, His Top 5 Priorities as Prime Minister Today & How to Make the UK the Centre of AI
14 juni 2023 · 22 min
Rishi Sunak is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was previously appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer from 13 February 2020 to 5 July 2022. He was Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 24 July 2019 to 13 February 2020, and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government from 9 January 2018 to 24 July 2019. Before entering the world of politics, Rishi co-founded an investment firm. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Rishi Sunak We Discuss:
1. The United Kingdom: Open for AI: Open for Business
Why does Rishi believe the UK is best placed to lead the way for innovation in AI?
What can the government do to ensure the public and private sectors work together most efficiently?
Why has Rishi created an entirely new division just for this? How does this change how decisions for AI and technology are made?
2. $100M Funding: The Largest Government Funding in the World:
Why did Rishi decide to allocate the largest pool of capital of any nation toward AI safety?
What is the strategy for the $100M? How will it be invested? Who will manage it?
What are the challenges and opportunities in setting up this $100M funding program?
3. Education: Attracting the Best in the World:
What has Rishi done to ensure the best talent in the world, wants to and can work in the UK?
What new initiative has Rishi put in place to ensure the world's brightest students can freely move to and work in the UK?
What can be done to ensure the UK continues to foster the same level of homegrown talent that we always have done? What can we do to improve our current education system for AI even further?
Why does Rishi believe one of the greatest opportunities for AI lies in education and teaching?
4. Making Regulation Work Effectively:
How does Rishi think about creating regulation which is both effective and not prohibitive?
What can we do to create a government that moves at the speed of business?
What does Rishi believe are the biggest mis…