The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
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20VC: The Rippling Memo: Bedrock's Geoff Lewis on The Conviction Building Process to Write a $200M Check and Co-Lead Rippling's Series D | Why No Competitor Can Out Execute Rippling | Uncapped SAFE's Why You Should Never Do Them and Why Geoff Broke The Ru
5 oktober 2022 · 48 min
Geoff Lewis is a Founder and Managing Partner of Bedrock, one of the breakout and new venture firms of the last decade, famously in search of narrative violations. He serves or has served on the Board of Directors for companies including Lyft (NASDAQ: LYFT), Nubank (NYSE: NU), Epirus, and Vercel. Additionally, he has led sizable early-stage venture capital investments in dozens of companies including Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST), Tilray (NASDAQ: TLRY), Leafly (NASDAQ: LFLY), Wish (NASDAQ: WISH), Workrise, and Rippling. Prior to founding Bedrock, Geoff served as a partner at Founders Fund for several years. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Geoff Lewis:
1.) Meeting Parker Conrad: A Generational Defining Entrepreneur:
How did Geoff first come to meet Parker Conrad, over a decade prior to making the first Rippling investment?
What was it about Parker that compelled Geoff so much in the early days?
How did Geoff analyze the chip on Parker's shoulder from Zenefits? How does he believe it has driven him with Rippling?
2.) Searching for Narrative Violations in Rippling:
Why does Geoff believe Parker himself is a "narrative violation"?
What does Geoff believe is the foundational narrative violation in the way Parker is building Rippling?
Rippling has a large portion of its team as former founders, how does Geoff believe this impacts the culture of Rippling?
What does Geoff believe are the single biggest barriers to Rippling being the "App Store for Business"?
On the upside case, if Rippling goes right, how big could this be?
3.) Rippling: The Financing:
What has been Geoff's biggest lesson on price and price sensitivity that he has learned through Rippling?
Why does Geoff never do uncapped notes? Why did Geoff break that rule with Rippling?
What gave Geoff the conviction to write Bedrock's largest ever check in Rippling's Series D?
What was the massive mistake that both Geoff and Bedrock made in not financing their Series C?
4.) Geoff Lewis: The Investor
What single trai…
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20VC: Rippling's Parker Conrad on The Four Main Benefits From Building a Compound Startup | Why There Should Never Be a Trade-Off Between Speed and Quality | How Zenefits Gave Parker a Chip on the Shoulder and Why That is so Important?
3 oktober 2022 · 45 min
Parker Conrad is the Founder & CEO @ Rippling, the company that lets you easily manage your employees' payroll, benefits, expenses, devices, apps & more—in one place. To date, Parker has raised over $697M for Rippling from some of the best including Sequoia, Founders Fund, Greenoaks, Bedrock, Kleiner Perkins and Initialized to name a few. Prior to founding Rippling, Parker was the Co-Founder and CEO @ Zenefits and if that was not enough, Parker is also a prominent angel having invested in Census, Pulley and then also AgentSync and TrueNorth, alongside 20VC Fund. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Parker Conrad:
1.) Entry in Startups and Zenefits:
How did Parker make his way into the world of startups?
How did Parker end up being kicked out of his own company, Zenefits? How did he respond?
How did that experience of being kicked out of Zenefits inspire him to build Rippling?
2.) Parker Conrad: The Leader:
How does Parker define "high performance"? How would Parker describe his leadership style today?
Why does Parker fundamentally disagree that with speed comes a trade-off in quality? How does Parker ensure Rippling does all things fast and to the best of its ability?
How would Parker break down his decision-making framework today? How does he decide what to prioritize vs not? How does he decide what to delegate vs not?
What are Parker's biggest insecurities in leadership today? How have they changed over time? What does Parker do to combat and mitigate them?
3.) Rippling: The Compound Startup
How does Parker define a compound startup?
What types of business do this verticalized approach work for vs not work for?
What does Parker believe are the 4 core benefits of this approach?
What are the single biggest challenges of building a compound startup?
4.) Rippling: The Economics:
How does this compound startup approach impact ability to cross-sell? How much net new ARR today comes from cross-sell?
What have been some of Rippling's biggest lessons on what it takes…
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20VC: Lessons from Alfred Lin and Ron Conway | Why the World Does Not Want Your Startup To Exist and How the Best Founders Fight It | How To Build Moats and Defensibility Against Large Incumbents with Tarek Mansour, Founder & CEO @ Kalshi
30 september 2022 · 34 min
Tarek Mansour is the Founder and CEO @ Kalshi, the first regulated exchange where you can trade directly on the outcome of events. Tarek has raised funding from some of the best including Alfred Lin @ Sequoia, Ali Partovi @ Neo, Ron Conway, Charles Schwab and Henry Kravis. Before founding Kalshi, Tarek worked at the likes of Citadel, Palantir and Goldman Sachs, in various different roles. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Tarek Mansour We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Startups:
How did Tarek make his way from a nerdy kid in Lebanon to having his first startup funded by Sequoia and billionaires likes Charles Schwab and Henry Kravis?
How did his mother's continuous desire for excellence change Tarek's mindset?
What are the biggest lessons that Tarek took from his mother's strict parenting and how did he apply them to how he manages the team at Kalshi today?
2.) What it Takes to Succeed:
Why does Tarek believe that the world does not want your startup to exist?
In that case, what are the core traits that founders need to fight this headwind?
Does Tarek believe in work-life balance? What are some of the struggles of this?
Does Tarek believe you should work on your weaknesses or double down on your strengths?
3.) Building the Team:
Does Tarek believe that naivete is a strength or a weakness? At what point does it change between being a strength to being a weakness?
Does Tarek prefer to hire more senior experienced people or younger hustlers with more energy?
What have been the single biggest hiring mistakes that Tarek has made? How has it changed his approach to team building?
What is the one single trait that if Tarek sees, he will not hire?
How does Tarek make the interview process both fun but different and challenging?
Where do so many founders make mistakes in how they construct the hiring process?
4.) Tarek Mansour: AMA:
What have been the single biggest lessons from working with Ron Conway and Alfred Lin?
What are some of Tarek's biggest insecurities in leade…
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20Growth: Hubspot CMO Kipp Bodnar on Why the Best Marketers Think Like VCs | Why the Best Companies Do Not Start with Product Marketing | New Channels; When To Do, How Much To Spend, How To Test, When To Stop
28 september 2022 · 52 min
Kipp Bodnar is the Chief Marketing Officer of HubSpot, where he sets HubSpot's global inbound marketing strategy. Prior to his role as CMO, Kipp served as VP of Marketing at HubSpot, overseeing all demand generation activity worldwide and building out the EMEA and APAC marketing teams. Kipp serves as a marketing advisor for SimplyMeasured, InsightSquared and Guidebook. Kipp is the co-author of "The B2B Social Media Book: Become a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads with Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email, and More." Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Kipp Bodnar We Discuss:
1.) The Journey to CMO @ Hubspot:
How Kipp made his way into the world of marketing and came to be CMO @ Hubspot?
What does Kipp know now that he wishes all CMOs knew when they started?
2.) Choosing The Channel:
How does Kipp advise founders on which channel they should focus on? What is the framework which will tell them which channel is right for them?
How many different channels should they try? How focussed should they be? Should they have independent teams for each channel?
How do the best founders allocate resources to new channels? How do you know when one is not working and you need to stop? When do you just need to keep going and persisting?
What have been some of Kipp's biggest mistakes when entering new channels?
3.) Product Marketing, Brand Marketing and Founders Marketing:
How does Kipp advise founders who say that, "social and personal brand is just not for them"?
In what two ways does Kipp believe that all businesses are constrained?
Does Kipp agree that the state of product marketing has never been worse? What is truly great product marketing to Kipp?
How does Kipp distinguish between good and great brand marketing? How has what it takes to be great at brand marketing changed over time?
4.) The Best Marketing People:
What are signs of clear 10x performers in marketing?
What advice would Kipp give to someone aspiring to be a CMO? What mistakes do 95% make that …
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20VC: Clubhouse Founder Paul Davison on What Went Right and What Went Wrong | What Does Clubhouse Do Now To Regain Mindshare? | Why Clubhouse is not a Content Platform? | What is the Next Wave of Consumer Social and Does Web3 Play a Role? |
26 september 2022 · 37 min
Paul Davison is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Clubhouse, the startup that believes people are at the centre of every moment, providing a platform to talk with friends and meet new friends. To date, Paul has raised over $310M with Clubhouse from a16z, DST, Elad Gil, Naval Ravikant, and many more. Prior to co-founding Clubhouse, Paul was the Founder of Highlight, a location-based consumer social service backed by Benchmark. Before Highlight, Paul actually spent time at Benchmark as an EiR. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Paul Davison We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Startups:
How Paul came to found Highlight in the early days of consumer social?
What elements worked with Highlight that he took with him to Clubhouse? Which elements did not work that he learned from?
2.) Clubhouse: What Worked:
What does Paul believe are the primary reasons that Clubhouse grew so fast?
What metrics does Paul use to determine true product-market-fit and stickiness?
What is good retention on Day 1, Day 7 and Day 30? How important is 12-month retention?
3.) Clubhouse: What Did Not Work:
COVID: Does Paul believe that Clubhouse was the COVID antidote we all needed? How sustainable is that if so? What trends make it more sustainable?
Live Does Not Work: How does Paul respond to Mike Mignano's comments that "live does not work"? Why does Paul believe that Clubhouse is not a content platform?
Quality: Does Paul agree that the quality of live is not as good as the quality of produced content? Is that a problem? If the quality is worse, what is significantly better about live?
4.) The Future of Social:
Does Paul agree that we are seeing the disregard of the once hailed social graph in favour of a new era of recommendation media? What does this mean for Clubhouse?
With the rise of the likes of BeReal, how does Paul think about the importance of authenticity in the next wave of consumer social?
How does Paul forsee Web3 and the next generation of consumer social being interlinked? What will it take f…
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20VC: Why Greed is the #1 Enemy of Venture Returns, Why Not Enough VCs Play to Win and Lessons from Scaling to $100M and 1,200 Employees and Then Cratering with Julio Vasconcellos, Founder @ Atlantico
23 september 2022 · 50 min
Julio Vasconcellos is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Atlantico, one of the leading early-stage funds in Latin America. Prior to the world of venture, Julio got his break in the world of startups as Facebook's first country lead for Brazil. Julio then went on to co-found Peixe Urbano, a company he scaled to over 1,200 employees and $100M+ in revenue. Post the sale of Peixe Urbano, Julio became an EiR @ Benchmark Capital where he met Scott Belsky. Scott and Julio went on to co-found Prefer, a Benchmark backed company transforming the future of work. If that was not enough, Julio has a stellar angel track record with prior investments in the likes of Ipsy and Quinto Andar. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Julio Vasconcellos We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Startups:
What are 1-2 of Julio's biggest takeaways from being Facebook's first hire in Brazil?
What does Julio know now that he wishes he had known at the start of his career in startups?
2.) Lessons from Scaling Peixe Urbano to $100M in Revenue:
How does Julio advise founders on when is the right time to launch a second product or market?
How does Julio advise founders on the right balance between growth and unit economics?
When times are tougher, should founders cut fast or cut slower? What is irreversible?
What are the single biggest and worst things to break in hyper-scaling?
3.) Investing: Why Not Enough Play To Win:
What is more important, a great market or a great founder?
Why do not enough VCs today play to win? If they do not play to win, what do they play to do?
Why is greed the number one enemy of venture returns?
What are the single biggest investing lessons Julio has learned from Benchmark Founder, Andy Rachleff? How have they impacted his investing mindset?
Why does Julio believe you can have a close relationship with founders as an angel and not a VC?
How did Julio's approach to investing change with the transition from angel to VC?
Does Julio believe that boards really add any value? If so, ho…
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20 Product: The No 1 Metric You Need To Look at When Building Product | Why the Best in Product Have No Domain Experience | Why You Should Not Hire From Incumbents & The Difference Between Good vs Great PMs with David Lieb, Visiting Group Partner @ Y Comb
21 september 2022 · 58 min
David Lieb is one of the product OGs of the last decade. As the founder of Bump David pioneered how over 150M users shared data, contacts and more before the company was acquired by Google. At Google, David took this one step further by creating Google Photos, which he has led with immense success for the last 9 years. In the last few weeks, David announced his latest move, to join Y Combinator, one of the world's leading accelerators as a Visiting Group Partner. If that was not enough, David also has a stellar angel portfolio with the likes of Rippling, Flexport, Tally, Maven and many more. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with David Lieb We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Product:
How did an idea at business school turn into Bump and ultimately the creation of Google Photos?
What are the single biggest mistakes David made with the early Bump product?
What does David know now that he wishes he had known at the start of Bump?
2.) Scaling the Team Alongside the Product:
What is product-market fit to David? What is it not?
What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when they think they have it?
What should founders do first and most importantly, when they do have it?
Why does David believe individual user data is more important than relying on data?
3.) Product: Art or Science:
Why does the description we have for product managers need to change?
How does David determine when to act on customer feedback vs stick to the current product plan?
What is the right way to do customer discovery? What questions are best to ask? Where do founders make the biggest mistakes in customer discovery?
Ultimately, is product more art or science? Is this changing with ever-increasing data?
4.) Product: The Process:
How does David conduct product reviews? What are the biggest mistakes founders and product leaders make when managing product reviews?
Who is invited? Who sets the agenda? Who determines who is accountable for what?
How do product reviews change in a world of Zoom? What…
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20VC: From Struggling to Raise Funding to IPOing at Close to $9BN Just Five Years Later; The $8BN Company You Might Not Know | How To Build Large Companies with Small Teams | The Biggest Hiring Lessons and Mistakes with Seba Kanovich, CEO @ dlocal
16 september 2022 · 39 min
Seba Kanovich is the CEO @ dlocal, the #1 payments leader with a single solution focused on Latin America and other emerging markets. In June 2021, dlocal raised $617M in their NASDAQ IPO listing valuing the company at nearly $9BN. Before their IPO, dlocal raised from some of the best including General Atlantic, Bond Capital, and Oren Zeev to name a few. Prior to dlocal, Seba was CEO @ AstroPay, a leading payment solution provider in Emerging Markets. Lees meer
In Todays Episode with Seba Kanovich We Discuss:
1.) The Journey to CEO of an $8BN Company:
How Seba made his way to the role of CEO of an $8BN company through dinner at his mother-in-law's house?
What does Seba know now that he wishes he had known when he first became CEO?
2.) Leadership 101:
What does "high performance" in business and leadership mean?
How important are velocity and speed of execution in startups? When should one trade speed for quality? Where is the nuance?
How does Seba approach prioritization? What framework does he use to determine what to focus on?
How does Seba think through effective delegation? How can leaders determine what only they can do?
3.) Leadership: The Challenges and Lessons:
What are Seba's biggest insecurities in leadership today? How does he manage them? How have they changed over time?
What is the single most painful leadership lesson Seba has learned that he is also pleased to have learned?
What gets easier with scale as a leader? What gets harder?
In a scaling organization, what is the first thing to break? What can be done to mitigate this?
4.) The Funding and The IPO:
Why did dlocal bootstrap for 4 years instead of raise funding? How did that process change their mindset toward capital efficiency? What was good about it? What was bad?
What are the single biggest advantages great investors can bring to the table?
Why did Seba decide 2021 was the right time to go public?
What was the biggest surprise about going public? What is better and what is worse abou…
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20 Sales: How To Interview Sales People; The Red Flags and What to Look For, How Sales Leaders Should Change Goals and Quotas in Harder Markets and What Reps Can Do To Ensure They Hit Their Numbers in These Markets with Eleanor Dorfman, Sales Leader @ Ret
14 september 2022 · 38 min
Eleanor Dorfman is a Sales Leader @ Retool, the company that allows you to build internal tools, remarkably fast. Prior to Retool, Eleanor joined Retool when there were only three account executives and has scaled the sales org sales to over 30 AEs, many SEs, and an entire SDR team. Before Retool, Eleanor was at Segment, where she built out the company's customer success operations team before pivoting to creating an expansion sales team, renewals team, and a new business sales team. Finally, before Segment, Eleanor made her way into startups, starting as an unpaid intern at Clever, just four years later, Eleanor was Head of Customer Success and Solutions Engineering. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Eleanor Dorfman We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Sales from Working with the US Education Department:
How did Eleanor get her first role as an unpaid intern at Clever?
What are 1-2 of her biggest takeaways from her time at Segment?
What are the biggest advantages of sales reps having experience in customer success?
2.) The Sales Playbook:
How does Eleanor define, "a sales playbook"? When does it need to be created?
Does it need to be the founder who creates it or can it be a Head of Sales?
Is it possible to run a PLG and enterprise motion from Day 1? How does this change your sales playbook?
How does Eleanor advise founders on when is the right time to layer on an enterprise motion, on top of a PLG motion?
3.) Who, What and When: Building the Sales Team
Should founders hire a Head of Sales first or sales reps first? If sales reps, should founders always hire sales reps in two's?
How does Eleanor structure the hiring process for all new sales team recruits?
What are the clearest signals of 10x sales hires? What are red flags in the interview process?
How does Eleanor use demo's and case studies to determine technical ability?
4.) The First 30, 60 and 90 Days: The Onboarding:
What is the right structure for all new sales hires to be onboarded?
Why does Eleanor believe…
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20VC: Why 95% of Venture Capital is Not Really "Venture Capital" | The Five Core Levers Needed To Assess Risk and Price a Startup | The Future of Venture; Who Wins, Who Loses, What Happens to the Crossover Funds with Will Quist, Partner @ Slow Ventures
12 september 2022 · 46 min
Will Quist is a Partner @ Slow Ventures. Over the last decade, the team at Slow Ventures have invested in the earliest rounds of over 500 companies including Robinhood, NextDoor, Airtable, Solana and many more. As for Will, prior to Slow he spent over 8 years at Industry Ventures and before industry, cut his teeth in the world of finance at Banc of America. Lees meer
In Todays Episode with Will Quist We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Venture:
How Will made his way from 6th generation San Francisco to Partner @ Slow?
What are 1-2 of the biggest takeaways from his early 1-1s with Don Valentine?
What does Will know now that he wishes he had known when he started in venture with Industry?
2.) WTF Really is Venture Capital?
Why does Will believe that 95% of venture capital today is not really venture capital?
What is true venture capital in Will's mind?
How does Will divide the world of VC into two with; venture classic and new venture?
How are they different? How are their return profiles different?
3.) The Questions: Discovering Greatness:
Why does Will believe "for the most part, investors across asset classes are just asking the same questions"?
What are those questions? What different answers are each looking for?
What are the 5 core questions that will needs to understand to determine conviction and accurately price an asset?
How does Will think through and analyze the question when meeting founders of; "what needs to come true for this business to become a great business"?
4.) The Future of Venture Capital:
How does Will predict the venture capital ecosystem will look in 5 and then 10 years?
What are the most concerning traits of the venture ecosystem for Will today?
Who will be the winners of the next decade? Who will be the losers?
What happens to the crossover funds? What will happen to Tiger?
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20VC News: Anchor Founder, Mike Mignano Joins Lightspeed as Partner: The Future of Social Media | Why Clubhouse Has a Challenging Model | Why TikTok Could be a $2TN Company | Why BeReal is Defensible | What Happens To OpenSea in a New World for NFTs
7 september 2022 · 55 min
Mike Mignano is a Partner @ Lightspeed, one of the most successful venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Snap, Affirm, Epic Games, Mulesoft and more. As for Mike, prior to venture, he was Head of Talk for Spotify where he led the podcast, live, and video businesses for the world's leading audio streaming platform. Michael came to Spotify through their acquisition of Anchor, a company he co-founded and is credited for democratizing podcasting globally. Mike has also been a prolific angel investor with a portfolio including Cameo, Pipe, Sandbox VR and Stir. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Mike Mignano We Discuss:
1.) Exclusive News:
What exclusive news does Mike have to share today?
What would Mike most like to change about the way founders experience the product of venture capital? How can VCs be better?
What is Mike most nervous about in the new role?
2.) The World of Social is Changing Forever:
Why does Mike believe there has never been a better time for the next social media giant to be born?
Why are the largest social giants leaving behind the social graph?
What is recommendation media? Why is it a better business model?
How does the shift from social graph to recommendation media change the way large social giants operate and interact today?
3.) Startups: Risers, Fallers and Is There Room For Another Giant?
What does Mike believe Clubhouse did well? What was their undoing?
Does Mike believe BeReal is defensible? What features make it both sticky and defensible?
Will TikTok be a $2 trillion dollar company? Will Meta catch TikTok or have they gone too far ahead?
Will OpenSea be able to sustain and make the market for NFTs, despite crypto crashing?
Should startups be concerned about large social giants "copying" their features?
What does true defensibility look like in consumer social today?
4.) Angel Investing: Hits, Misses and Lessons:
From writing over 50 angel checks, what are the single biggest lessons Mike has le…
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20VC: Arm CEO Rene Haas on How The Best Leaders Make Decisions and The Trade-Off Between Speed and Quality | Leadership Lessons from 7 Years at Nvidia | How Companies Can Retain Speed, Innovation and Agility at Scale
2 september 2022 · 39 min
Rene Haas is the CEO @ Arm. The technologies that Arm creates are used in over 230+ Bn devices with everything from sensors to smartphones to servers. In 2016 Softbank made Arm it's largest ever acquisition with a reported price of $32Bn. As for Rene, he was appointed CEO in February 2022 having spent the last 8 years in numerous different roles within the company. Before Arm, Rene was Vice President & General Manager of the Computing Products Business Unit at Nvidia where he enjoyed a very successful 7 years with the team there. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Rene Haas We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Tech from Eastman Kodak:
How did Rene make his way into the world of technology and innovation?
What are 1-2 of the biggest takeaways from his 7 years at Nvidia?
How did working with Jensen impact his leadership approach and philosophy?
2.) Decision-Making in Leadership:
What is the single biggest mistake leaders make when making decisions today?
How does Rene balance the trade-off between speed vs quality of decision?
At what point does Rene believe leaders have enough data to make a decision?
What does Rene know now that he wishes he had known when he started on decisions?
3.) Scaling the Org and Remaining Nimble:
Agile: How does one retain the speed and agility of a startup when one is the size that Arm is today?
Ambition: How does Rene as a leader inspire the same level of ambition and vision in his team when Arm is as large as it is?
Risk: How does Rene encourage his teams to take large risks when they have so much more to lose?
Breakage: What are the first things to break in scaling? What can leaders do to get ahead of them?
4.) Leadership 101:
What really is strategy? What is it not? What mistakes do all leaders make when it comes to strategy?
How does Rene define "high performance" in leadership? How has his style of leadership changed over time?
How does Rene approach vulnerability in leadership? What are the pros and cons?
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20Product: Calendly CPO Annie Pearl on Why All PLG Companies Eventually Need to Embrace Enterprise, Why it is Easier to Scale into Enterprise than Visa Versa and the Calendly PLG Playbook; What Works and What Does Not?
31 augustus 2022 · 45 min
Annie Pearl is the CPO @ Calendly, the company that makes scheduling meetings simple and painless. The company now has over 10M users around the world and over 50,000 companies loving the product. As for Annie, before Calendly, Annie led Glassdoor's product vision and user experience, managing a 70 person product and design org. Prior to Glassdoor, Annie led enterprise product teams at Box both before and after their 2015 IPO. If this was not enough, Annie is also on the Board of WorkRamp and Well Health. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Annie Pearl We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Product From Consulting:
How did Annie make her way into the world of product and come to lead product teams at Box and GlassDoor?
What are 1-2 of her biggest takeaways from her time at Box and GlassDoor? How did they impact her product mindset?
What does Annie know now that she wishes she had known when she started in product?
2.) PLG vs Enterprise: What, When, How:
Is it possible to do PLG and top-down enterprise strategy together from Day 1?
Why does every PLG company eventually have to adopt an enterprise strategy?
What are the single biggest challenges companies face when moving to enterprise?
How do founders know when is the right time to make this transition?
How do founders need to restructure their org to make the transition to enterprise?
3.) Building the Product Bench: Hiring:
When is the right time to hire your first product leader? What are the core signals?
What are the core character traits needed for a first product leader?
How do we specifically structure the interview to test for them?
Who do we bring into the interview process from other parts of the org?
Do we do case studies with candidates? If so, how long do they have with the data? What is the difference between good vs great with case studies?
4.) Product Strategy, Reviews and Alignment:
How does Annie assess how often product strategy should be reviewed? When should it change?
How does Annie approach post-m…
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20VC: Is Now Really the Best Time to Be Investing? WTF is Happening at Growth Stage Investing? Why VCs Have Gotten Lazy Over the Last 2 Years? Investing Lessons from Hitting with Braze and Missing with Snowflake with Logan Bartlett, Managing Director @ Re
29 augustus 2022 · 54 min
Logan Bartlett is a Managing Director @ Redpoint, a firm with a portfolio including the likes of Stripe, Nubank, Twilio, Netflix, Snowflake and many more incredible names. As for Logan, at Redpoint he has led investments in the likes of Ramp, Monte Carlo, Cribl, Crossbeam and Acuity MD to name a few. Before joining Redpoint, Logan spent over 5 years with the team at Battery where he made investments in Pendo, Amplitude, Dataiku, Braze and Kustomer. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Logan Bartlett We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Venture:
How Logan made his way into the world of venture joining Battery Ventures?
What are 1-2 of Logan's biggest takeaways from his time with Battery?
What does Logan know now that he wishes he had known when he started in venture?
2.) The Venture Landscape Today:
Is now really the best time to be investing? How does Logan compare today to prior vintages? How does this differ when comparing consumer to B2B?
How does Logan analyze the state of the growth market? Is anyone really doing deals today? If so, what is the discount on price vs last year?
How do the public markets impact the later stage financings which have disappeared in the last 3 months? How do the later stage financings impact the early stage?
Does Logan agree that "venture has never been less collaborative as it is today"?
3.) The Role of the Venture Investor:
Why does Logan believe that VCs have gotten lazy over the last 2 years? Does Logan believe we will see even more GPs at the top retire in the downturn?
How does Logan analyse his role as a board member today? How has his style changed over time?
What is the single best board Logan is on? Why that one? Who is the best board member Logan works with? What makes this board member so good?
How does Logan assess the importance of personal brand in venture today? Why does Logan believe no company should hire PR firms from the early days?
4.) Investing Style and Lessons:
What has been Logan's single biggest hit as an investo…
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20VC: Bumble's Whitney Wolfe Herd on How The Best Leaders Manage Intense Pressure, How To Think Through Risk vs Reward Frameworks & What it Truly Means to Listen so Your Teams Will Talk
26 augustus 2022 · 39 min
Whitney Wolfe Herd is the Founder and CEO @ Bumble, changing the way people date, find friends, and the perception of meeting online, for the better. Women make the first move. Over an incredible 6 year journey, Whitney has scaled Bumble to a community of over 100 million across six continents. Bumble has facilitated an incredible 1.8 billion first moves as of 2021 and so many more by now. Prior to founding Bumble, Whitney was the Co-Founder and VP of Marketing @ Tinder. Lees meer
In Todays Episode with Whitney Wolfe Herd We Discuss:
1.) Founding Bumble:
How Whitney made her way into the world of startups with her co-founding Tinder?
What happened when Whitney left Tinder in a very public way?
How did that and the scrutiny that came with it, impact her? How did she change?
2.) CEOship 101:
What does "High Performance" mean to Whitney?
What are the biggest benefits and biggest downside of transparency? What are the few things that as a leader, you cannot be transparent about them?
What does it mean to truly listen as a leader? What are the biggest mistakes leaders make when it comes to listening?
3.) Risk and Pressure in Leadership:
What is the single moment of highest pressure Whitney has been through in the Bumble journey?
How does Whitney deal with pressure as a leader today? How has that changed?
How does Whitney approach risk as a leader today? What is too risky?
How does Whitney think through her own decision-making framework?
4.) Whitney: The Mother and Wife
What does Whitney believe makes a truly successful marriage?
How does Whitney not lose an inch of performance as a public markets CEO and also be an amazing mother to two children under the age of 2?
What does Whitney know now that she wishes she had known when she started Bumble?
As a leader and mother, what gets easier with time, what gets harder?
Items Mentioned in Today's Episode with Whitney:
Whitney's Favourite Book: Shantaram
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20VC: 10 Lessons on Scaling 20VC to 100M+ Downloads | How To Build an Audience and a Next-Generation Media Company
24 augustus 2022 · 18 min
Over the last 7 years, I have scaled 20VC to 100M+ downloads, and listeners in 117 countries, and all of this with a spend of less than $1,000. Here are 10 of my biggest lessons: Lees meer
Lesson 1: Persistence: This is a game of who can last the longest.
Lesson 2: Platform Selection: Choose the platform that best aligns to your skills and passion, not the one that is "hottest" at the time.
Lesson 3: Just Start: The biggest reason people fail is because they do not take the first step. The V1 will never be perfect but it will improve. Press publish.
Lesson 4: Consistency: You have to create a habit within your audience. You have to let them know when they should expect your content. This will also creating a forcing function for you to stick to.
Lesson 5: Be Targeted on your Content Topic: Do not be vague. You have to be very specific in the topic you choose. Start very niche. Find your 100 true fans. Expand from there.
Lesson 6: Every Piece of Content is Born Multi-Channel: You do a talk. This is not a single talk. This can be turned into a podcast. Several TikToks. A medium piece. No content is in isolation.
Lesson 7: The Right Ratio Between Creation and Distribution: Do not create content and then press publish and think the work ends there. You have to spend the same amount of time distributing the content as you do creating it.
Lesson 8: Create Champions: In the early days it is all about finding your 100 true fans. DM people that follow you. Make them feel special. They will retain and tell their friends. Create champions.
Lesson 9: Bring People Into the Creation Process: When people feel a part of the creation of content, they will share it actively. Make more people feel part of the creation process.
Lesson 10: Each Channel is Different, Optimise for Them: Different channels require different content types, formats, audio, optimise on a per channel basis.
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20VC: Why Market Always Wins Over the Founder & Why I Do Not Do Market Sizing | Why it is not the Best Time to be Investing but it is the Best Time to Have a Fund & The Type of Deals to do Today | Why The Best Founders Have 100 Year Plans with Wes Chan, C
22 augustus 2022 · 49 min
Wes Chan is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at FPV Ventures, a $450M early-stage fund, launched earlier this year. Wes is an investor in five $10B+ "decacorns," his most notable being Canva where he is a member of the board of directors and led the Series A and C rounds. Wes also wrote the first or very early check into Plaid, Flexport, Gusto, Lucid, and RobinHood. Before FPV Wes was a Managing Director at Felicis Ventures and before Felicis Wes founded GV's seed investing program. If that was not enough, as an operator, Wes co-founded Google Analytics and Google Voice and holds 18 US patents for his work in creating Google AdWords. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Wes Chan
1.) From Founding Google Analytics to Venture:
How did Wes make his way from founding Google Voice and Google Analytics to starting GV's seed investing program?
What are 1-2 of the single biggest product takeaways from working closely with Larry and Sergey @ Google?
How did Wes make his way from Google to Felicis and scaling the firm with Aydin Senkut?
2.) Market vs Founder: Why Market Sizing is BS:
Why does Wes believe that the market always wins over the founder?
That said, what does Wes mean when he says "the best founders have 100 year plans?"
How does Wes question and analyse 100 year plans? What makes the best? What makes the worst?
Why does Wes not do market sizing? Why does Wes not do outcome scenario planning?
What does Wes believe is the biggest fallacy of outcome scenario planning?
3.) The Venture Landscape:
Does Wes believe that now is really the best time to be investing?
Why does Wes believe there are some treacherous deals being done now? What are the signs that these deals are challenging?
What advice does Wes give founders fundraising in these markets?
What does Wes believe are elements that traditional VCs decide to do, which prevents founders from choosing to work with them?
Does Wes believe VCs on board truly provide value? If so, which ones and why them?
4.) FPV…
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20 Sales: Three Reasons Why Sales People Fail | The Two Things That Matter When Hiring Sales Leaders | Why Revenue, Discounting and Price Do Not Matter in the Early Days with Jordan Van Horn, Revenue Leader @ Monte Carlo
17 augustus 2022 · 54 min
Jordan Van Horn is a Revenue Leader @ Monte Carlo, the world's first data observability company. Prior to this role, Jordan spent an incredible 4 years in sales at Segment including as VP of Sales leading a sales team of 50+ Account Executives and leading the first international expansion for the company into Dublin. Before Segment, Jordan was at Dropbox for 4 years leading enterprise sales for Dropbox Business in California. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Jordan Van Horn We Discuss:
1.) Entry into the World of Sales:
How did Jordan make his way into the world of sales first with a vineyard?
What are 1-2 of the biggest takeaways for Jordan from seeing the scaling sales teams at both Segment and Dropbox? How did seeing that impact his mindset?
What does Jordan know now that he wishes he had known when he entered sales?
2.) The Sales Playbook:
How does Jordan define "the sales playbook"? What is it not?
What five core things should the sales playbook help you accomplish?
Should the founder be responsible for the sales playbook? Can it be created by a Head of Sales?
How does Jordan advise founders on three signals that now is the right time to bring in a sales hire?
How does Jordan advise founders on whether the first sales hire should be a rep or a leader?
3.) The Secrets to Pricing and Discounting:
Why does Jordan not care what price customers pay in the early days? If it is not about ARR, what should teams be optimizing for?
When does price discipline become important in a company journey? What are the dangers of not having price discipline?
What two tools do sales leaders have to use in order to create urgency in a deal closing process?
How should sales leaders think about building multiple champions within a potential customer? At what price point is it worth it?
4.) The Hiring Process:
How does Jordan structure the hiring process for all new sales hires?
What are the must-ask questions that Jordan asks all new candidates? What does he want to see in …
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20VC: Fintech OG Sheel Mohnot on Lessons from Investing in Flexport and ChipperCash and Missing Robinhood and Chime, Why Overly Large GP Commits are Dangerous, Biggest Mistakes Managers Make with Fund I and Emerging Markets; Which Survive?
15 augustus 2022 · 43 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. If that was not enough, Sheel is also a master at measuring the width of swimming pools and making cameo appearances in music videos with Justin Bieber. Lees meer
In Todays Episode with Sheel Mohnot We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Venture:
How Sheel made his way into the world of venture having founded 2 fintech companies?
Why did no LPs give Sheel money in the early 500 Fintech days? What were some of his biggest lessons from investing in 100s of companies with 500 Fintech?
How did BTV with Jake come together most recently? What are the biggest differences to Sheel of being a fund manager vs being an investor?
2.) The Power Law:
How does Sheel define "the power law" in venture capital? What multiple of return would be power law status?
Given the size of outcome available with these power law returns, how does Sheel approach portfolio construction? Would it not be best to invest in 100s of companies?
Who does Sheel believe has done the indexing approach best? Why?
3.) Venture Capital has Never Been Less Collaborative:
Why does Sheel disagree with Harry that venture capital has never been less collaborative?
Why now, for the first time, are large multi-stage funds taking single-digit ownership?
Does Sheel agree with Harry it is moronic to have "guaranteed pro-rata"? How does Sheel approach re-investment decision-making? When does he pay up vs not?
4.) The Biggest Wins and Misses:
What have been Sheel's biggest wins from a cashback and a multiple perspective?
How did Sheel miss the chance to inv…
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20VC: 13 of the Great Investing Minds on When to Pay Up vs When To Remain Disciplined and Walk Because the Price is too High: The Ultimate Guide to Price Sensitivity
12 augustus 2022 · 28 min
Marcelo Claure is an entrepreneur and investor who has founded and led some of the world's most iconic businesses. He is currently the Chairman & CEO of Claure Capital, a newly founded multi-billion-dollar global investment firm. Before this, Marcelo was COO @ Softbank Group, the world's largest technology investment company. Lees meer
Bill Gurley is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful funds of the last decade with a portfolio including Uber, Twitter, Dropbox, Modern Treasury, Snapchat, StitchFix, and many more.
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.
David Tisch is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Box Group, one of the leading seed focused firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Airtable, Glossier, PillPack, Plaid and many more.
Cyan Banister is one of the most successful and renowned early-stage investors in the last decade. Her portfolio includes the likes of SpaceX, Uber, Affirm, Opendoor Postmates, Niantic and Thumbtack to name a few.
Zach Weinberg is a Co-Founder of Operator Partners, operators funding operators, with no outside LPs, just their own capital.
Luciana Lixandru is a Partner @ Sequoia, one of the world's most renowned and successful venture firms with Sequoia-backed companies accounting for more than 20% of NASDAQ's total value.
Jeff Lieberman is the Managing Director @ Insight Partners, one of the leading investing franchises of the last 25 years with their most recent flagship fund announced earlier this year being a staggering $20BN.
Nick Shalek is a General Partner @ Ribbit Capital, specializing in fintech they are one of the most successful venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Robinhood, Coinbase, Revolut, Nubank and more.
Frank Rotman is a founding partner of QED Investors, one of the leading fintech…
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20 Growth: Why You Need a Growth Hire Pre Product-Market-Fit? Why Every Company Will Be a Media Company and How To Do It | Communities; What Really Are They? How To Build Them? What Makes The Best? Why Do Many Not Work? | Kieran Flanagan, SVP Marketing @
10 augustus 2022 · 55 min
Kieran Flanagan is SVP Marketing at HubSpot, where he has helped the business grow internationally, move to a product-led business, quadrupled its marketing demand, and built out its media team, including the acquisition of 'The Hustle.' He is also an advisor and investor in early-stage companies. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Kieran Flanagan We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Growth and Marketing:
How did Kieran make his way into the world of growth and marketing?
What has been 1-2 of Kieran's biggest lessons from seeing firsthand the hyper-scaling of Hubspot?
On reflection, how would Kieran summarise both Hubspot's community building attempts and also their product messaging?
2.) Why You Need Growth Hires Pre Product Market Fit:
What does "growth" mean to Kieran? Where do so many get it wrong?
Why does Kieran believe that you should have a growth team/people before product market fit? What specifically do they do and work on during this stage?
Pre PMF, what is the core metric that all startups should focus on? How does it change with time?
3.) Building Your Growth Team:
What does Kieran believe are the 3 key stages to hiring for growth?
How should founders determine whether to have external standalone growth teams or integrate them into existing functions?
What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when hiring for growth?
4.) The Future is Content:
Why does Kieran believe every great tech brand will have to become a media brand?
Why is Elon Musk an example of the perfect brand? What has he done right?
Why does Kieran say that data is the best and worst thing that has happened to marketing?
5.) WTF Really is Community:
How does Kieran define "community"? What is it? What is it not?
What makes the best communities? Why do some work and others not?
Should every company have a community approach? Who does it make sense for?
Have Hubspot done a good job at community building? On reflection, is there anything that Kieran would have done differently?
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20VC: Investing Lessons from Fred Wilson and Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | Why the Secret to Winning in Venture is Splitting Deals |Learnings From the Biggest Hits and Biggest Losses | Why Anyone That Always Does Their Pro-Rata is Wrong with Mo
8 augustus 2022 · 49 min
Mo Koyfman is the Founder and General Partner @ Shine Capital, who announced earlier this year Shine II, a $200M early-stage fund, and Shine Opportunities I, a $100M vehicle. Prior to founding Shine, Mo was the Managing Member @ Moko Brands where he made angel investments in Coinbase, Polychain, Harry's to name a few. Before Moko, Mo spent over 7 years as a General Partner @ Spark Capital where he made investments in Plaid, Warby Parker, Skillshare and Hivemapper, to name a few. Finally prior to Spark, Mo spent over 5 years at IAC where he oversaw group of companies that included Connected Ventures, parent of Vimeo, CollegeHumor & BustedTees. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Mo Koyfman:
1.) From Entrepreneurial Parents to IAC, Spark Capital and Founding Shine:
How did Mo make his way into the world of venture having worked with Dara Khros, Barry Diller and Jeremy Liew?
What were some of the biggest takeaways from his time with Barry Diller and IAC?
How did Mo's time at Spark impact his investing mindset? What did he learn that he took with him to founding Shine?
2.) Investment Firm vs Investment Partnership:
What are the biggest differences between investment firms and investment partnerships?
What are the biggest risks founders are taking when they take money from investment firms?
Mo has very strong beliefs, how does he manage and inspire debates within his firm without shutting down or intimidating younger, less experienced team members?
What does Mo mean when he says, "firms are great but partners matter".
3.) How To Win in Venture:
Why does Mo always believe that small funds outperform large funds?
What have been some of Mo's biggest lessons from Fred Wilson on fund strategy and sizing?
How much of an emphasis does Mo place on the importance of ownership?
Why does Mo believe the way to win in venture is to be collaborative?
Why does Mo believe in the macro conditions we are entering, the landscape is about to become a lot more collaborative?
Why does M…
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20VC: Raising $60M and Not Touching a Dollar of It; The 3 Decisions That Led to a Cash-Flow Positive Business, Why Not Being Able To Fundraise in the Early Days Can Help Build Your Business & What are the First Things To Break in Scaling Orgs with Sameer
5 augustus 2022 · 35 min
Sameer Shariff is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Cambly, the company that allows you to become fluent faster through one-on-one video chat lessons with native English tutors. To date, Sameer has raised over $60M with Cambly from the best including Jeremy Levine @ Bessemer, Sarah Tavel @ Benchmark, Monashees, YC and more. Prior to founding Cambly, Sameer spent close to 5 years at Google on the Search Quality team and became the Tech Lead of the Search experiments team helping make experimentation a core part of the launch process. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Sameer Sharif We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Startups and Co-Founding Cambly:
How did Sameer make his way into the world of tech with his joining Google straight out of college?
What were the 1-2 biggest takeaways from his time at Google? How did it shape his mindset?
What was the a-ha moment for Sameer with Cambly?
2.) The Trials and Tribulations of Leadership:
What does "high performance" mean to Sameer in business? How has it changed over time?
What are the first things to break in a scaling company?
How do the best companies retain speed and agility with scale?
What are the single biggest hiring mistakes Sameer has made? What did he learn?
3.) The Fundraise that Led to Cash Flow Positive:
Why does Sameer think it was so hard to fundraise for Cambly in the early days?
When they failed to raise their Series A, what 3-4 core decisions did they make to get Cambly to cash flow positive as fast as possible?
How did Sameer communicate their failed fundraising to the team? How did he do this in a way that rallied the troops and did not worry or scare them?
What was the tipping point for fundraising to become much much easier for the company?
Given they have not touched any of their Series A or Series B funds, how does Sameer think about the balance of growth vs profitability?
4.) Marketplace Dynamics 101:
How did Cambly acquire the first 100 customers on the demand side?
What is the most challenging dynamic of …
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20 Product: Shreyas Doshi on The Three Different Types of Product Leaders and How To Hire Them, The 6 Different Product Metrics You Need To Know and What Good is For Each of Them & Table Stakes Features vs Wow Features; What To Prioritise
3 augustus 2022 · 46 min
Shreyas Doshi is an investor, advisor, and all-around product OG. Most recently Shreyas spent over 5 years at Stripe where he was Stripe's first PM Manager and helped define and grow the Product Management function (from ~5 to more than 50 people). Before Stripe, Shreyas was a Director of Product Management @ Twitter and prior to Twitter spent over 6 years as a Group Product Manager @ Google. Today Shreyas has invested and advises some of the best including advising Airtable, Kalshi, Lendflow, to name a few. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Shreyas Doshi:
1.) Entry into Product:
How did Shreyas make his way into the world of product and product management?
Why did Shreyas decide not to do business school when it was the conventional route for everyone going into product management?
What were some of Shreyas' biggest takeaways from his time at Stripe and Google? How did they impact his product mind today?
2.) Product Management 101:
How does Shreyas define product management today? How do many confuse it?
How does Shreyas define product success today? What is the single biggest mistake Shreyas sees founders make when determining the success/PMF of their product?
Does Shreyas believe that great product management is science or art? Data or intuition? When should you listen to customers? When should you not?
3.) Metrics 101 & How To Use Them:
What is the single biggest mistake Shreyas sees founders make when it comes to selecting their North Star metric?
How should founders think about input vs output metrics? What is the difference between the two?
What are the 6 types of metrics that all founders and product teams need to focus on? How does their importance change over time?
How should the responsibility for these metrics be split between different people and teams?
4.) Three Types of Product Leader:
What are the three different types of product leaders?
The Craftsperson: What is their core strength? What is their core weakness? How do they interact with the…
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20VC: Forerunner's Kirsten Green on The Biggest Challenges Scaling Both Teams and AUM, What Truly is High Performance in Fund Management & Why Parenting and Relationships are an Enabler To Your Best Work
1 augustus 2022 · 41 min
Kirsten Green is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Forerunner Ventures, one of the leading firms of the last decade investing at the intersection of innovation and culture. As a founder, Kirsten has led efforts to raise over $2B+ from leading institutional investors and invest in more than 100 companies. She currently serves as a board member at Glossier, Ritual, Faire, Hims & Hers, and Curated, to name a few. She has also invested in other smash hits including Chime, Jet, Warby Parker, Hotel Tonight and many more. Due to her immense success, Kirsten has been honored in Time's 100 Most Influential People and named a Top 20 Venture Capitalists by The New York Times in 2018 & 2017. Prior to Forerunner, Kirsten was an equity research analyst and investor at Banc of America Securities. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Kirsten Green We Discuss:
1.) Entry in Venture at 40 and Founding Forerunner:
How did Kirsten make her way into VC at 40 with the founding of Forerunner having never had a role in VC before?
What did everyone tell Kirsten when she was looking to break into venture? What did she tell herself when she heard this?
What does Kirsten believe she is running from? What does she believe she is running toward?
2.) Fund Management and Leadership:
How does Kirsten define high-performance today? What are the nuances of high performance in fund management?
How would Kirsten describe her leadership style today? How has it changed over time?
What have been some of Kirsten's biggest lessons in terms of what it takes to retain quality with scaling AUM and teams?
What have been Kirsten's biggest lessons when it comes to giving hard feedback with kindness?
3.) The Venture Landscape Today and Forerunner's Position:
Why does Kirsten believe the venture landscape is more dynamic today than ever?
Does Kirsten agree with the statement that venture is less collaborative than ever?
Why did Kirsten and Forerunner seem to amend strategy and move into B2B?
Why does Kirsten dis…
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20VC: Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone on The Yahoo Turnaround Plan; What Needs To Happen | Leadership 101: The 4 Things To Look For When Hiring | Surviving a Crash; Biggest Advice on Cuts, Layoffs, Investor Communications
29 juli 2022 · 46 min
Jim Lanzone is the CEO @ Yahoo, a company that today reaches nearly 900 million people around the world and is the third largest property on the Internet. Prior to Yahoo, Tim was the CEO of Tinder, the world's most popular app for meeting new people, downloaded by more than 400 million people. Before Tinder, Jim spent a decade as President and CEO of CBS Interactive, a top 10 global Internet company with brands ranging from CBS All Access to CNET. He joined CBS Interactive in 2011 when CBS Corporation purchased Clicker Media, where he was founder and CEO. Before founding Clicker, Jim served as CEO of Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves). Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Jim Lanzone
1.) Jim's Entry into the World of Startups:
How did Jim go from law school to founding his first tech startup in the dot com boom?
How did seeing the crash and the first company going bust, shape Jim's perspectives on great leadership?
What does Jim know now that he wishes he had known when he started way back in 1999?
2.) Leadership 101:
How does Jim define "high performance" in business today?
What are the 4 things Jim always looks for when hiring new people?
Why does Jim believe the standard interview process and questions are broken? How does he do it differently? What are his biggest lessons on how to hire effectively?
How does Jim know when to let someone go? How long do you give under-performers?
3.) Crashes and Turnarounds:
Jim has seen three crashes as a CEO, what are Jim's biggest lessons from 3 prior crashes?
How does Jim advise founders to be acting today? What should they focus on?
How can leaders maintain morale and optimism in the face of tough macro times?
How does Jim advise founders to communicate both with their investors and board when it comes to reduced performance in harder times?
4.) The Yahoo Turnaround:
What does Jim believe the 1-2 core things Yahoo needs to fix is? Why are they priorities?
How does Jim approach turning round the Yahoo brand? How does he plan…
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20VC: The Memo: What is a Sales Playbook? Does the Founder Need to Create It? Should the First Sales Hire Be a Leader or a Rep?
27 juli 2022 · 32 min
Today we deconstruct the canonical question in early-stage sales. Does the founder need to create the sales playbook? Then secondly, if not, should the first sales hires be reps or a sales leader? Today we are joined by 7 of the best sales leaders to share their thoughts. Lees meer
Jordan Van Horn is a Revenue Leader @ Montecarlo. Previously Jordan spent 4 years with Segment and before that spent another 4 years at Dropbox.
Oliver Jay (OJ) most recently spent 6 years at Asana where he was hired as the company's first revenue leader. Before Asana, OJ spent 4 years at Dropbox where he scaled the sales team from 0 to 50 while tripling ARR.
Dannie Herzberg is a Partner @ Sequoia Capital and previously spent 4 years at Slack as their Head of Enterprise Sales. Before Slack, Dannie spent 5 years at Hubspot building sales, opening an SF office, and then joining product to launch CRM & platform.
Zhenya Loginov is the CRO @ Miro, where he runs the go-to-market team of 700+ people across 11 global offices. Prior to Miro, Zhenya was the COO @ Segment. Finally, before Segment, Zhenya led a 100-person team at Dropbox across numerous different functional areas.
Kyle Parrish is VP Sales @ Figma, where he has scaled the sales team from 0 to over 100 people in sales. Before Figma, Kyle spent over 5 years at Dropbox in numerous different roles including Head of Sales, where he scaled the Austin, Texas office from 3 to over 80 people.
Sam Taylor is the VP of Sales and Customer Success @ Loom, at Loom Sam leads Revenue Org including: Direct Sales, Customer Success, Self-Serve Revenue Growth/Assist. Prior to Loom, Sam spent over 4 years at Salesforce, following their acquisition of Quip, where he was the first sales leader. Before Salesforce and Quip, Sam spent over 3 years at Dropbox as a mid-market sales leader.
Jeanne DeWitt Grosser is Head of Americas Revenue & Growth @ Stripe. Pre-Stripe, Jeanne was CRO @ Dialpad and also spent many years at Google in numerous different roles includin…
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20VC: Tony Fadell on The 3 Hats of Being a CEO, How the Best Leaders Inspire, How to Create Your Own Role within a Company, The Art of Parenting and Teaching Children Resiliency & New York Times' 36 Questions on Love!
25 juli 2022 · 45 min
Tony Fadell, often referred to as the father of the iPod is one of the leading product thinkers of the last 30 years as one of the makers of some of the most revolutionary products in society from the iPhone and iPod to more recently founding Nest, creating the Nest Thermostat, leading to their $3.2BN acquisition by Google. Tony recently released Build, a masterclass taking 30 years of product and company building lessons and packaging them for you, check it out here. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Tony Fadell: New York Times' 36 Questions of Love
1.) On reflection, what would Tony most like to change about his childhood?
How did moving so much as a child change who Tony was as a person?
How can parents instill that same grit and desire in their kids today?
What does Tony think is the biggest problem with modern parenting?
2.) As a leader, should the company you are building be a family or a team?
What does Tony believe are the 3 hats of being a great CEO?
What is the biggest challenge in the transition between hats?
Where does Tony see many founders make the biggest mistake?
Which hat was Tony strongest with? What was he weakest with?
3.) How to solve the loneliness of being a solo founder?
Why does Tony believe that everyone needs a co-founder?
Why does Tony not like to invest in teams with a solo founder or more than 4 founders?
For Tony, what is the ideal composition of that founding team?
How does he test for these skills and traits pre-investing?
4.) How to think differently in the face of adversity?
Tony has made bold bets when everyone says he is crazy, how does he not question himself and remain strong in the face of criticism?
How does Tony know when to change his mind? When to accept that the bold idea was not right?
Is Tony concerned in the face of macro challenges today, investment and commitment to climate change will be cut heavily?
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20VC: Why Market Matters So Much More Than Founding Team | Why Crypto Investing is Less Collaborative Than Ever | Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | Why Solana Will Beat Ethereum | The Network Effects You Need To Understand with Kyle Samani, C
22 juli 2022 · 41 min
Kyle Samani is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Multicoin Capital, one of the leading crypto native funds of the last decade with positions in Solana, FTX, Fractal, and Helium to name a few. As for Kyle, before moving to the world of venture and crypto, he founded Pristine, a health IT startup that raised more than $5M in VC, and was acquired by Upskill. Lees meer
In Today's Episode With Kyle Samani We Discuss:
1.) The Founding of Multicoin Capital:
How did Kyle make his way from a healthcare startup to founding Multicoin?
What was his a-ha moment with the realization of the opportunity we have ahead of us in crypto?
What does Kyle know now that he wishes he had known when he started Multicoin?
2.) Crypto Investing in 2022:
Why does Kyle believe the crypt investing landscape is less collaborative than ever?
What are the biggest challenges of token issuances today?
How does the option of liquidity help and hurt Kyle's investor psychology?
Is Kyle concerned the volatility in the market will harm institutional investor sentiment for crypto?
3.) Constructing a Crypto Portfolio in 2022:
Why does Kyle not believe in temporal diversification?
Why does sector-centric company diversification suck?
Why are the loss ratios in crypto so much lower than in traditional venture?
Why does Kyle believe a no reserves model is optimal in crypto?
4.) Multicoin vs Traditional Venture Firms:
Why does Kyle believe that every person over 10 people in a venture firm is a net negative towards the investment decision-making process?
What do Kyle and Multicoin do reach the truth together? How do they aggressively use writing and word docs to progress their thoughts?
Their discussions are "brutal", how brutal can one be in a discussion on a deal? How does one make team members feel safe but also really push them for the truth and debate?
Item's Mentioned in Today's Episode:
Kyle's Favourite Recent Reading: Eugene Wei
Kyle's Most Recent Investment: Delphia
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20 Sales: The Biggest Challenges Building Outbound Sales Teams and How To Overcome Them | How The Best Sales Reps Do Customer Discovery | 2 Elements Sales Teams Are Always Responsible For | Sam Taylor, VP Sales and Customer Success @ Loom
20 juli 2022 · 52 min
Sam Taylor is the VP of Sales and Customer Success @ Loom, an essential tool for hybrid and remote teams allowing you to record quick videos of your screen and cam. At Loom Sam leads Revenue Org including: Direct Sales, Customer Success, Self-Serve Revenue Growth/Assist, Sales Development, Global Customer Support, Revenue Ops + Strategy and Sales Enablement. Prior to Loom, Sam spent over 4 years at Salesforce, following their acquisition of Quip, where he was the first sales leader. Before Salesforce and Quip, Sam spent over 3 years at Dropbox as a mid-market sales leader. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
1.) Entry into the World of Sales:
How did Sam land his first big role in sales at Salesforce?
How did the sales orgs differ when comparing Salesforce to Dropbox?
What are 1-2 of Sam's biggest lessons from his time at Salesforce and Dropbox that shapes how he thinks today?
2.) Sales People Should Be Customer Therapists:
What is the right way to approach customer discovery?
How can sales reps get potential customers on a call in the first place?
What are the right questions to ask? What engenders the most honesty?
What are the wrong questions to ask? What are common mistakes?
How do the best sales reps then feed that back to customer success and product?
3.) The When and The Who:
When should founders consider hiring their first sales hire?
Should this hire be a sales leader or a sales rep? What are the nuances?
What are the characteristics of the best first sales hires?
What are the first sales hires really on the hook for?
Why does Sam disagree with the word "playbook" and instead suggest "frameworks"?
4.) How To Hire The Best: The Process
What are Sam's lessons on what it takes to hire the very best sales reps?
What are the right questions to ask in the interview process?
What tangible case studies or tests are done to measure quality?
Who is brought into the hiring process and at what stage?
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20VC: Why Being First Does Not Matter, Why Defensibility on Day 1 Does Not Exist, Three Core Elements To Move into Enterprise Effectively and What Makes Truly Great Product Marketing Today with Des Traynor, Co-Founder @ Intercom
18 juli 2022 · 1 uur 4 min
Des Traynor is a Co-founder and the Chief Strategy Officer of Intercom, the modern customer communications platform that unifies every aspect of the customer journey. To date, Intercom has raised over $238M from some of the best including Index, ICONIQ, Kleiner, GV, and Bessemer. As for Des, before co-founding Intercom, he was a UX consultant, a university lecturer in computer science, and also a Ph.D. researcher. Des is also a prolific angel investor with a portfolio including the likes of Stripe, Algolia, Notion, Miro, and many more. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
1.) Origins of Intercom:
How did Des make his way into the world of startups and come to co-found Intercom?
When did they realize they really had something with Intercom and had to focus on it?
What does Des know now that he wishes he had known at the start of Intercom?
2. Two of the Biggest Myths in Startups: Being First and Defensibility
Why does Des believe that being the first does not matter? Why is it not an advantage?
Why does Des believe that no company has defensibility on day 1? How does Des believe defensibility is built?
What does Des mean when he says, when investing in companies he looks for a "long road to the starting line"?
3.) Product 101: A Masterclass on Product:
How does Des answer the question of when to release a second product?
How should the second product be resourced? MVP and lean or full budget and committed?
What are the biggest mistakes people make when releasing a second product? What mistakes have Des and Intercom made when releasing new products?
How does Des advise founders on when to stop working on a product? How do you know when it is not working?
How does Des determine between a feature and a product both when building and when investing?
4.) Moving to Enterprise:
What does Des believe are the three core things all companies need to scale into the enterprise effectively? Which should they do first? Which is most challenging?
How does Des advise fou…
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20VC: The Most Powerful Investor You Might Not Know | Why The Distinction Between Public vs Private is BS | The Misalignments Between GPs and their LPs | Portfolio Construction 101: Diversification, Capital Concentration, Loss Rates with Peter Singlehurst
15 juli 2022 · 45 min
Peter Singlehurst is the Head of Private Companies at Baillie Gifford. As of 31st March 2022, funds under Baillie Gifford's management and advice totaled £277bn. The firm is owned and run by 51 of its senior executives who operate as a partnership, a structure that has endured for over a century. As for Peter, he has been with Baillie Gifford since graduating from Durham University 12 years ago and has backed some astonishing breakouts such as Wise, Grammarly and Zymergen to name a few. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Peter Singlehurst We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Venture:
How Peter landed his role with Baillie Gifford straight out of university?
Why does Peter and Baillie Gifford prefer to hire young people without backgrounds or studies in finance? Why do they tend to be better investors?
What does Peter believe are the basic building blocks that can be taught in investing? What cannot be taught and needs to be learned with experience and time?
2.) The Biggest Misnomers and Misalignments in Venture:
Why does Peter believe the distinction between public vs private markets is BS?
Why does Peter believe it is an advantage to invest at the same time in both public and private markets?
Why does Peter think there is an inherent misalignment in venture between GPs and their LPs?
3.) Baillie Gifford: Constructing a Portfolio with £277BN:
How does Baillie Gifford approach portfolio construction today?
How many lines do they want to have in their portfolio? What is the right level of diversification?
How does Peter think about sizing each position? How does Peter think about capital concentration across rounds vs first check being the largest?
How does Peter approach outcome scenario planning? How does Peter think about downside protection and loss rates?
4.) Peter Singlehurst: The Investor:
How has Peter's investing style changed over the last 10 years? What has gotten easier? What has gotten harder?
What is Peter's biggest miss? How did it change his approach?
Wh…
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20 Growth: Shopify's VP of Growth on Why Standalone Growth Teams Operate More Efficiently than Integrated Ones, Why You Should Hire as Senior Growth Leaders as Possible and The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make When Making Their First Growth Hires
13 juli 2022 · 43 min
Luc Levesque is currently the VP of Growth at Shopify and also advises companies like Twitter, Pinterest, and Quora. At the age of 21, Luc founded TravelPod, the world's first travel blogging platform. 10 years later, TravelPod was acquired by Expedia, where Luc led the creation of two award-winning products: TripWow and the Traveler IQ Challenge. Luc then served as an executive at TripAdvisor, where he built and led the growth team which helped TripAdvisor become the world's largest travel site. Luc was then recruited by Mark Zuckerberg to Facebook where he was an executive and led the creation of Messenger Kids. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Luc Levesque We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Growth:
When did Luc realise the power of "growth" within every company?
How did Luc subsequently make his way into the world of growth pose-selling his first company?
What does Luc know now that he wishes he had known when he made the entry into growth?
2.) Growth and Viral Loops:
How does Luc define "growth" today?
How should leaders choose what is the right north star to focus on for their business?
Should this north star change? If so, how often should the north star change?
How does Luc define "viral loops"? What makes the best viral loops today?
3.) Growth: Building the Team:
When is the right time for founders to start thinking about building a growth team?
Should it be standalone or integrated into other functions in the company?
Should the first growth hires be senior and tasked with hiring the team or junior and be more lean as a way to test growth as a new function?
What are the signals Luc looks for when hiring for growth?
What are the best questions that reveal the characteristics growth leaders need to have?
4.) Growth: The Action:
What is a growth decision Luc made without data? How did it go?
What are some growth tactics that have become stronger over time? What have died a death?
How should leaders know when to kill a new project vs continue and keep testi…
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20VC: Matt Mullenweg on Relationships to Risk, Money and Insecurity as a Leader | Lessons from a Parent's Passing and the Pre-Grieving Process | What is High Performance in Leadership Today?
11 juli 2022 · 48 min
Matt Mullenweg is the Founder of Automattic, the force behind WordPress, Tumblr, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Longreads, Simplenote, Pocket Casts, and more. What started as a simple open-source blogging platform, Matt has turned into one of the most significant internet properties of our generation, now powering over 43% of sites on the internet. Alongside Automattic, Matt also invests through Audrey Capital and has backed the likes of Stripe, SpaceX, Gitlab, and Sendgrid to name a few. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Matt Mullenweg We Discuss:
1.) The Origins of WordPress:
How did Matt start the for-profit, Automattic, as a 19-year-old, having been a lead developer for WordPress?
What were the clearest signs to Matt in the early days that WordPress could change the world?
What does Matt know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of WordPress?
2.) Matt Mullenweg: The Essence of Leadership:
What does high performance mean to Matt? How has that changed over time?
What does truly great listening mean to Matt as a leader today? Where do many get this wrong?
How does Matt approach decision-making today? What are the two types of decisions?
What are Matt's biggest insecurities in leadership today? How have they changed over time?
3.) Matt Mullenweg: The Person:
Why does Matt have insecurities around his body? How do those insecurities manifest?
What did Matt learn about himself in the pre-grieving process before his father's passing?
How does Matt assess his own relationship to risk today?
How does Matt think through his relationship to money today? Has it changed?
4.) WordPress: The Company:
Why did Matt decide it was the right decision to buy Tumblr? Why did Matt make himself the CEO earlier this year?
With many strong cashflow businesses within Automattic, how does Matt think through the balance between growth and profitability?
Why does Automattic not have any emails within the company? How do 2,000 people communicate so effectively?
Items Mentioned i…
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20VC: How to Build Anti-Fragile Venture Portfolios Today | Why Diversification is Overrated in Portfolio Construction | How to Think Through Sizing Investments, Market Sizing and Pricing in Today's Environment with Mike Chalfen @ Chalfen Ventures
8 juli 2022 · 57 min
Mike Chalfen is a solo GP with Chalfen Ventures and one of the most respected and successful early-stage investors in Europe over the last two decades. Among Mike's incredible portfolio includes the likes of King.com (makers of Candy Crush), Houzz, Tipalti, Snyk, and Tray.io, to name a few. Some incredible facts on Mike, he has a 15x career track record, he has a portfolio value of over $40BN+ and he joined the venture industry, the year of my birth! Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Mike Chalfen You Will Learn:
1.) Entry Into Venture and The Broken Customer Experience of VC:
How did Mike make his original entry into venture way back in 1996?
What does Mike mean when he speaks of the difference between "managing your career vs the money you invest"?
What does Mike believe are some of the greatest challenges of venture partnerships today?
What does Mike believe that the customer experience in venture partnerships for founders is broken today?
How did seeing the prior booms and busts impact Mike's investing mentality today?
3.) Portfolio Construction 101:
How does Mike think about portfolio construction today?
With 9-10 core positions, why does Mike disagree with the traditional notion of "diversification"?
How does the decision-making framework for Mike change when considering new investments vs re-investments?
Does Mike believe that pro-rata is a lazy notion? What does Mike need to see on the upside to re-invest?
How does Mike feel about the importance of temporal diversification? Why did Mike increase the cadence of his investing in 2021? Does he regret the increased speed?
3.) The Market 101:
How does Mike think about the importance of market sizing? If we always underestimate the size of our winners, is this market sizing exercise not destined for failure?
Why does Mike believe so many over the last few years have poorly sized markets they invested in?
How does Mike assess market timing risk? What market risk is he willing vs not willing to take?
What ha…
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20 Product: The Ultimate Guide to Product Reviews: What Makes the Best vs the Worst | How Often Should They Be | Who Should Be Invited | Who Sets The Agenda | How to do Follow-Ups Post Product Reviews
6 juli 2022 · 35 min
Scott Belsky is an entrepreneur, master of product reviews, author, investor, and currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Lees meer
Tony Fadell, often referred to as the father of the iPod is one of the leading product thinkers of the last 30 years as one of the makers of some of the most game-changing products in society from the iPhone and iPod to more recently founding Nest.
Lenny Rachitsky is one of the OGs of product, having spent over 7 years at Airbnb as a product lead he left to start his newsletter, find it here.
Kayvon Beykpour is one of the most prominent product leaders of the last decade. For the last 7 years, Kayvon has been at Twitter where he led all of the teams across Product, Engineering, Design, Research and Customer Service & Operations.
Aparna Chennapragada is Chief Product Officer @ Robinhood, the company revolutionising consumer finance with commission-free investing.
In Today's Episode Breaking Down Product Reviews We Discuss:
1.) What makes a truly great product review?
2.) What are the biggest mistakes that product leaders make when leading product reviews?
3.) Who should be invited to the product review? How does this change with scale? How does this change in a world of remote work and Zoom?
4.) Who should set the agenda for the product review?
5.) How can leaders assign accountability and ensure that the follow-ups from product reviews are executed on?
6.) How can leaders ensure that they do not dominate product reviews with the weight of their words? How can they give designers and devs the space to share their thoughts without being judged?
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20VC: Hiring 101; The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | Fundraising; What to Optimize for, How Profitability Changes Leverage When Raising | SMB to Enterprise; When to Move, What Changes and Dangers of Moving Too Early with Daniel Yan
1 juli 2022 · 40 min
Daniel Yanisse is the co-founder and CEO of Checkr, a leading HR technology company, currently valued at $5 billion. During the journey, Daniel has raised over $679M for Checkr from some of the best including Accel, Bond, Coatue, GV, Elad Gil and IVP to name a few. Prior to Checkr, Daniel was a software engineer and helped develop prototypes of the Mars Rover for NASA. Daniel has been recognized in Forbes "30 Under 30" and recently Checkr was recognized by Forbes as one of America's best start-up employers. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Daniel Yanisse You Will Learn:
1.) The Origins of Checkr: The $5BN Company
How did Daniel come to co-found Checkr? What was the a-ha moment?
How did Daniel's experience with his prior company impact how he thought about building Checkr?
What does Daniel know now that he wishes all first-time founders knew when they started?
2.) Hiring 101:
What are the single biggest hiring mistakes Daniel made in the early days of Checkr?
How does Daniel structure his interview process for new candidates today? How has it changed?
How does Daniel test for ego and humility in the interview process?
How does Daniel approach giving feedback today? How has it changed over time?
What does Daniel believe is the right way to let someone go? How long does one give a team member who is not performing?
3.) Fundraising 101:
How does Daniel advise founders going out to raise today in the challenging market conditions?
What terms should founders optimize for? What terms should they not optimize for?
What are the single biggest mistakes Daniel sees founders make when raising?
What does Daniel wish he had done differently with Checkr's raises?
What was the hardest raise for Checkr? Why was it so hard? What was the outcome?
4.) Going into Enterprise:
Why does Daniel believe they went into enterprise too soon? What was the result of this?
How does Daniel advise founders on when is the right time to go into enterprise?
What changes in both your compan…
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20VC: The Memo: Bill Gurley, Doug Leone, Keith Rabois; Investing Lessons from Prior Busts, How Their Investor Psychology Changed, What Can Be Applied To Today's Market
29 juni 2022 · 27 min
Bill Gurley is a General Partner @ Benchmark Capital, Bill, is widely recognized as one of the greats of our time having worked with the likes of GrubHub, NextDoor, Uber, OpenTable, Stitch Fix, and Zillow. Lees meer
Doug Leone is the Global Managing Partner @ Sequoia Capital, one of the world's most renowned and successful venture firms with a portfolio including the likes of Google, Airbnb, Whatsapp, Stripe, Zoom and many more.
Keith Rabois is a General Partner @ Founders Fund, one of the best performing funds of the last decade with a portfolio including Facebook, Airbnb, SpaceX, Stripe, Anduril, the list goes on.
Arthur Patterson and Jim Swartz founded Accel in 1983. Under their leadership, they have built Accel into one of the most prominent venture firms of the last 4 decades.
Michael Eisenberg is a Co-Founder and Equal Partner @ Aleph, with a portfolio including the likes of Lemonade, Melio and HoneyBook, they are one of the leading early-stage firms of the last decade.
Sonali De Rycker is a Partner @ Accel, one of the leading firms of the last 3 decades with a portfolio that includes the likes of UiPath, Miro, Spotify and many more incredible companies.
Fabrice Grinda is the Founding Partner @ FJ Labs, with over 700 investments, Fabrice has had over 250 exits and built a portfolio including Alibaba, Coupang, Airbnb, Instacart, Flexport, and many more.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How does the current environment compare to prior busts?
2.) How will the changing interest rates impact the startup funding climate moving forward?
3.) Why is the rate of inflation the only true metric which reveals the ultimate fate of the economy?
4.) What are the world's leading investors telling their founders?
5.) How are the best investors in the world thinking through reserves management?
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20VC: Accel's Sonali De Rycker on Building a Generational Defining Venture Firm; Hiring, Culture, Incentives | Investing; Biggest Mistakes, Biggest Lessons from Prior Crashes, Why Market Size is Dangerous to Focus On | Decision-Making; Type 1 vs Type 2 Ri
27 juni 2022 · 48 min
Sonali De Rycker is a Partner @ Accel, one of the leading firms of the last 3 decades with a portfolio that includes the likes of UiPath, Miro, Spotify, and many more incredible companies. As for Sonali, Sonali led Accel's investments in Avito (acquired by Naspers), Spotify (NYSE: SPOT), Primer, Monzo, Letgo (acquired by Naspers), Kry/Livi, Soldo, Hopin, and Sennder. Prior to Accel, Sonali was with Atlas Venture (now Accomplice). She also previously served on the board of Match.com (NASDAQ:MTCH). Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Sonali De Rycker You Will Learn:
1.) From Small Town in India To Leading Venture Capitalist:
How Sonali made her way from a small town in India to becoming one of the most prominent VCs of the last decade?
What were some of Sonali's biggest lessons from seeing the booms and busts of 2000 and 2008? What climate does the crash today resemble more? Why so?
How does Sonali advise younger investors who have not lived through a downturn? What should their investor psychology be right now?
2.) Firm Building: Accel:
What are the most challenging and non-obvious elements of building a firm today?
What have been some of the biggest mistakes Accel has made when adding to the team?
What qualities do Sonali and Accel specifically look for when interviewing candidates to join the team? What specific questions tease out whether the candidate has these traits?
What specific structures does Accel have in place to encourage the team to work together as one cohesive unit? How do they use bonuses as a team incentive?
3.) Sonali: The Investor:
How has Sonali's investing style changed over the years? What moments caused these changes to happen?
What are some of the biggest mistakes Sonali has made in her investing career? What did she learn from them?
On the flip side, from winners such as Spotify and Supercell, what did Sonali learn from her biggest winners?
Why does Sonali believe that market sizing and outcome scenario planning is useless and will lead …
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20VC: From Kitchen Table to $134M Fund II; Raising Your First Time Fund: Lessons from 400 LP Meetings, How To Find New LPs, What Materials to Use, How To Get LPs To Commit, The Challenges on Minimum Check Sizes and GP Commits and more with Henri Pierre-Ja
24 juni 2022 · 44 min
Henri Pierre-Jacques is Managing Partner of Harlem Capital, on a mission to change the face of entrepreneurship by investing in 1,000 diverse founders over the next 20 years. From a kitchen table with his Co-Founder, Jarrid, Henri has scaled Harlem in just a few years to their latest fund last year of $134M, well over-subscribed from their $100M target. Prior to Harlem, Henri was in Private Equity at ICV Partners, and before PE was an Investment Banker at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Henri Pierre-Jacques
1.) From Kitchen Table to $134M Fund:
How did Henri make his way into venture having had the idea for Harlem at the kitchen table with his best friend?
How did Henri use his angel investing strategically to position him to raise Fund I?
How did Henri's mindset change when making the transition from angel to VC?
2.) The First Fundraise: Harlem I
How long did it take to raise the first fund? How many meetings did they have?
What were the most common reasons LPs said no for the first fund?
What were their biggest lessons around what potential LPs did and did not like?
How does Henri advise new managers when it comes to meeting new LPs?
How does Henri use past deal memos to serve as discussion material with LPs?
3.) Building the Firm: The Strategy:
What was the portfolio construction for the first fund?
How does Henri separate the world of funds into 3 distinct groups?
How did they approach reserves management with the first funds? What are some of Henri's biggest lessons when it comes to effective reserves management?
How does Henri assess his own relationship to price and ownership? How does that change with fund size?
What are some very important nuances that Henri does not believe many managers think about?
4.) It Is Time For Change:
Specifically, what are Harlem street doing to ensure the next generation of investors is much more diverse? How do they leverage their intern program to achieve this?
What would Henri like …
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20 Sales: Why Founders Should Not Be The One To Create The Sales Playbook, How To Structure Each Interview in the Hiring Process For Sales Reps, How To Use an "Interview Panel" Effectively and more with Zhenya Loginov, CRO @ Miro
22 juni 2022 · 49 min
Zhenya Loginov is the CRO @ Miro, the leading visual collaboration platform that helps bring teams together and meaningfully improves the way people work. At Miro, I run the go-to-market team of 700+ people across 11 global offices. Prior to Miro, Zhenya was the COO @ Segment where he built and ran the global go-to-market team of 200+ people, expanded the product-market fit into the Enterprise and grew revenue 6x, leading to their acquisition by Twilio for $3.2Bn. Finally, before Segment, Zhenya led a 100-person team at Dropbox across numerous different functional areas. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Zhenya Loginov You Will Learn:
1.) Entry into Sales as an Outsider:
How Zhenya made his way into sales as an outsider and came to be one of the most powerful revenue leaders today with Miro?
What are 1-2 of the biggest takeaways for Zhenya from his time at Segment and Dropbox? How did they impact his mindset today?
Why did Dropbox not win the enterprise when they had the chance? What mistakes did they make?
2.) The Sales Playbook: What, Why and How:
What does "the sales playbook mean to Zhenya?
Does the founder need to be the one to create the sales playbook?
What are the signs that the founders needs to bring in their first sales hire?
Should this sales hire be a sales leader or more junior sales rep?
Is is possible to run a PLG and enterprise sales motion at the same time in the early days of the company?
What do many founders misunderstand when contemplating adopting an enterprise sales strategy?
3.) Hiring the Team:
How does Zhenya structure the interview process for new sales hires?
Zhenya spends 5 hours with each candidate, what does he look to get out of each meeting?
How does Zhenya break down the criteria for what he wants to see? What are some examples of this?
How does Zhenya test to determine if the candidate has these criteria? What questions does he find to be most revealing? Why does Zhenya find case studies to not be useful?
How does Zhenya …
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20VC: Gary Vaynerchuk on The Most Painful Lessons Learned but Why it was Good to Learn Them, Why You Have to Change the Timeframe You Have For Success, His Relationship to Money and How it Has Changed Over Time & His First 3 Angel Investments; Twitter, Fa
20 juni 2022 · 31 min
Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur and serves as the Chairman of VaynerX, the CEO of VaynerMedia and the Creator & CEO of VeeFriends. Now Gary is a content machine and documents his life as a CEO daily through his social media channels which have more than 34 million followers and garnishes over 272 million monthly impressions/views across all platforms. He is also a five-time New York Times Best-Selling Author and is a prolific angel investor with early investments in companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo, Snapchat, Coinbase and Uber. If this was not enough, Gary serves on the board of GymShark, MikMak, Bojangles Restaurants, and Pencils of Promise. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Gary Vaynerchuk We Discuss:
1.) From Wine Library to One of The Great Angels in Tech:
How did Gary make the transition from scaling the wine library to $60M in revenue to angel investing in Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr?
To what extent does Gary think luck plays a role in one's success today?
What are Gary's biggest lessons from having FB, Twitter and Tumblr as his first investments? How has his style of angel investing changed over time?
2.) Hard Lessons Learned and Insecurity:
What is the most painful lesson Gary has learned that he is also pleased to have learned?
How did Gary's relationship with his father impact how he engages with his children as a father today?
What are Gary's biggest insecurities today? How does he try and combat them? What works?
3.) Money and Success:
How does Gary evaluate his relationship with money today? How has it changed over time?
Why does Gary believe that most people think too short-term? What can one do to inspire a more long-term mindset to building?
Does Gary believe that everything has a price? What is the one thing for Gary that does not have a price?
4.) Resource and Time Allocation:
How does Gary determine the projects to do vs not to do?
How does Gary know when to quit a new project? How does Gary advise founders on wh…
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20VC: The Scaling Story of Soho House: Overcoming Dyslexia, Building a Global Brand, Scaling into The US, Retaining Exclusivity with Scale and The Journey to Going Public with Nick Jones, Founder & CEO @ Soho House
17 juni 2022 · 26 min
Nick Jones is the Founder & CEO @ Soho House, it all started in 1995 when Nick opened the first location above his restaurant, Cafe Boheme, a members' club for the local artists and actors of London. Today, Soho House is a global brand, a private members club that includes 33 Houses in 14 countries, with more openings in Europe, Asia, and North America on the horizon. In 2021, Nick took Soho House public on the NASDAQ, 25 years since opening the first location. If that was not enough, Nick is also the owner of Babbington House and Cecconi's, one of my favorite restaurants in London. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Nick Jones You Will Learn:
1.) The Start of Soho House:
What was the founding moment for Nick with Soho House?
What were the biggest lessons from his 3 prior restaurants not working? How did that experience change his approach to Soho House?
Why does Nick believe resilience is the most important skill of any entrepreneur? When something is not working? What does Nick tell himself?
With the rise of Instagram, how have the demands of the consumer changed over time in terms of what they expect from hospitality?
2.) The Art of Storytelling:
What does Nick believe is the essence of truly great storytelling?
What do all great stories contain? How do the best storytellers tell those stories?
Where does Nick believe many founders make mistakes when it comes to storytelling today?
3.) The Art of Leadership:
How does Nick define his style of leadership today? How has it changed over time?
What does high performance mean to Nick?
How does Nick think through retaining high performance while also having a family?
How does Nick approach hiring? Why does Nick find interviewing so tough?
How does Nick think through when to hire someone external vs promote internal talent?
4.) The Scale of Soho House:
What was the single most challenging time in the scaling journey of Soho House?
What changes when you go public? What are the good? What are the bad?
What does N…
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20 Growth: Viral Loops; How To Create and Sustain Them, Why Interviews for Product and Growth Hires are BS and What To Do Instead, Mastering the Onboarding Process; Structuring the First 90 Days with Adam Fishman, Former Head of Growth @ Lyft
15 juni 2022 · 50 min
Adam Fishman is one of the leading growth practitioners of the last decade. Most recently, Adam was the Chief Product and Growth Offer at Imperfect Foods, where Adam built a 40-person product and growth organization, responsible for 70% of overall company metrics and growing revenue by 400% in one year to $600M annually. Before Imperfect, Adam spent 4 years as VP of Product and Growth @ Patreon, driving the company pivot and rebrand and helping the company scale to $1BN GMV and $100M in revenue. Finally, before Patreon, Adam was the Head of Growth @ Lyft, Adam was the first growth and marketing employee hired, grew the team to 18 people, and reported directly to the founders. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Adam You Will Learn:
1.) Entry into Growth:
How Adam first made his way into the world of growth when "growth" did not exist as a function?
What were Adam's biggest lessons from leading Lyft's growth team? How did that impact his mindset?
What are some of Adam's biggest takeaways from his time at Patreon? What are some of the biggest mistakes he made at Patreon?
2.) The Basics: Growth 101: What and When:
How does Adam define "growth" today? What is it? What is it not?
When is the right time to hire your first growth hires?
Should this first hire be a seasoned growth leader or a more junior growth rep?
What characteristics and skill sets should this growth hire have?
3.) The Hiring Process:
How should founders structure the hiring process for their first growth hire?
What 3 questions should all founders ask in the hiring process for growth?
How can founders use data and case studies to really test the skillsets of growth candidates?
Why does Adam believe that the hiring process for growth and product is so broken?
4.) The Onboarding Process:
What is the right way to structure the onboarding process for new growth hires?
How should growth hires create cross-functional relationships and communication with the rest of the team? What has worked for Adam in …
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20VC: Hubspot Co-Founder Dharmesh Shah on The 3 Risks All Startups Face, Angel Investing Rules; No Founder Meetings and No Due Diligence, SMB vs Enterprise; Lessons on Pricing, Distribution and Why You Should Resist Going Enterprise
13 juni 2022 · 1 uur 4 min
Dharmesh Shah is the Founder and CTO @ Hubspot, a full CRM platform with marketing, sales, service, and CMS software. Dharmesh started Hubspot in 2006 and today it is a publicly-traded company (NYSE: HUBS) with over 3,500+ people and a market capitalization of $16.9 billion. Prior to founding HubSpot, Dharmesh founded Pyramid Digital Solutions, which he bootstrapped with less than $10,000 and after 11 years of CEOship, Dharmesh helped the company get acquired in 2005 by SunGard Business Systems. In addition to co-authoring "Inbound Marketing" Dharmesh founded and writes for OnStartups.com -- a top-ranking startup blog and community with more than 1,000,000 members. Finally, if all of this was not enough, he is an angel investor in over 90 startups, including Coinbase, AngelList, Gusto, Okta and many more. and a frequent speaker on startups, growth, and the business of technology. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Dharmesh Shah We Discuss:
1.) The Founding of Hubspot:
How did Dharmesh's wife help Dharmesh find his co-founder in Brian?
What about SMB did both Dharmesh and Brian find a shared passion for?
What is the single biggest mistake Dharmesh made in the early days of Hubspot?
2.) The Culture Code:
What is Dharmesh's single biggest advice to founders when it comes to culture?
What does Dharmesh mean when he says "you have to treat culture like a product"?
What does Dharmesh mean when he says he looks for a "low ego to accomplishment ratio"? How does he test for this when hiring new hires?
How do the best people approach both responsibility and accountability? How does this show in their work and behaviour?
3.) The 3 Kinds of Risk in Startups:
What does Dharmesh believe are the 3 core risks all startups face in the early days?
How does Dharmesh advise founders when it comes to "testing for a market"? What is the right way to do customer discovery? What are the biggest mistakes founders make in the discovery process?
How does Dharmesh advise founders on when t…
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20VC: Why and How Traditional Venture Firms Need to Innovate, Building Spreadsheets To Figure Out Relationships to Money, Ego and Identity Management with Success and The Biggest Lessons from Working with Mark Zuckerberg in the Early FB Days with Ruchi Sa
10 juni 2022 · 45 min
Ruchi Sanghvi is a Founder and Partner @ South Park Commons Fund, a home for the most talented technologists, builders, and domain experts figuring out what's next. Prior to SPC, Ruchi was the first female executive at Dropbox and served as their Vice President of Operations. Prior to Dropbox, Ruchi was the first female engineer at Facebook, and was instrumental in implementing the first versions of key features like News Feed, Facebook Platform, Facebook Connect and Privacy. Ruchi has also served as a director on the board of Paytm, India's largest mobile payments platform. Prior to SPC, Ruchi was an active angel investor in 50+ companies including Gusto, Pinterest, Paytm, Brex, Figma, and Stemcentrx. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Ruchi Sanghvi:
1.) From First Female Engineer To Community Leader and Fund Manager:
How Ruchi made her way into the world of tech becoming the first female engineer at Facebook?
What were her biggest lessons from her time at Facebook?
What does Ruchi believe makes Mark Zuckerberg the special leader he is?
How did Ruchi's time at Dropbox impact how she operates today?
Does Ruchi agree with the Facebook motto, "move fast and break things"?
2.) Answering Life's Big Questions: Ego, Money, and Insecurity:
What advice did Ruchi's father give her before he passed away that really impacted how Ruchi operates and acts in the world today?
How does Ruchi assess her own relationship to money? How has it changed over time? How does she use a spreadsheet to measure her relationship to money?
Having had such success so young, how does Ruchi approach ego management? When has Ruchi been arrogant in the past? How does she manage her ego today?
What are Ruchi's biggest insecurities today? Why are they?
3.) Will DAOs Replace Venture Capital:
How does Ruchi analyze the crypto fund landscape today? Where are the opportunities?
Does Ruchi believe that large multi-stage firms can simply hire crypto partners and win in the new world of Web3 and crypto?
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20 Product: Twitter's Former Head of Product, Kayvon Beykpour on How to Structure and Manage the Best Product Reviews, The Core Set of Questions to Ask All Potential Product Hires and When To Continue vs Quit on New Products
8 juni 2022 · 43 min
Kayvon Beykpour is one of the most prominent product leaders of the last decade. For the last 7 years, Kayvon has been at Twitter where he led all of the teams across Product, Engineering, Design, Research and Customer Service & Operations. Kayvon came to Twitter through Periscope, the live broadcasting app that raised from GV, Bessemer, Scott Belsky and was ultimately acquired by Twitter in 2015. If that was not enough, Kayvon is also an active angel investor today. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Kayvon Beykpour You Will Learn:
1.) Entry into Product:
How did Kayvon make his way into the world of tech and come to be Head of Consumer Product @ Twitter?
What were some of Kayvon's biggest lessons from the journey with Periscope?
What were some of Kayvon's biggest takeaways from working closely with Scott Belsky?
2.) Building Your Product Team:
How does Kayvon advise on your first product hires? Should it be Head of Product or more junior product team members?
When is the right time for the founder to hand off some core product decisions to these hires?
What are the core traits and characteristics of some of the best first product hires?
3.) Perfecting the Hiring Process for Product Teams:
How does Kayvon approach the hiring process for all new product team members?
What are the stages? What does he look to learn at each stage?
What questions reveal the most in product candidates? How do the best respond?
How does Kayvon use case studies and product demos in the process?
4.) Building Product: 101:
How does Kayvon approach product reviews? Who is invited? Who sets the agenda? How often?
What have been Kayvon's biggest lessons about what leaders need to do to get the most from their product teams? How do they communicate?
What has been one of Kayvon's biggest product mistakes? What did he learn?
How does Kayvon advise founders on when to give up on a new product vs when to iterate and persist?
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20VC: Why DAOs Will Replace Venture Capital, What Existing Incumbent Venture Firms Can Do To Survive, The Biggest Challenges Facing New DAOs Today and Whether Web3 Will Bring More or Less Income Inequality
6 juni 2022 · 47 min
Ian Lee is the Co-Founder of Syndicate, a web3 startup that has raised over $28M from a16z, Kleiner Perkins, IDEO, and 300+ investors. Previously, Ian was Managing Partner of IDEO CoLab Ventures, a crypto venture fund backed by IDEO focused on web3, crypto, and blockchain startups. From 2017-2021, Ian led investments and helped incubate 80+ crypto startups in the areas of DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, and more. From 2014-2017, Ian was the Head of Crypto at Citigroup and Citi Ventures globally. Listen to our prior episode on DAOs with Avichal Garg here. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Ian Lee We Discuss:
1.) Ian's Entry into Tech and Crypto:
Why did Ian decide early on that he did not like being a VC?
What was it that changed his mind, showing him the impact investing can have?
What have been the most significant but non-obvious developments in crypto?
2.) Why DAOs Will Replace Venture Capital:
Why does Ian believe that DAOs will replace venture capital firms over time?
How does Ian analyze the current landscape of Web3 investing and VC?
Can existing firms layer on a Web3 Partner or Fund and win in the new Web3 landscape?
How will the next generation of Web3 native firms be structured?
3.) DAOs 101:
What really is a DAO? What is not a DAO?
How are DAOs structured? How many people are invited? Who decides who is invited?
How are decisions made within DAOs? How does this differ dependent on structure?
What are the single biggest challenges that DAOs face today in operations?
4.) Crypto is The Future of the Internet:
What does Ian mean when he says "crypto is the future of the internet"?
What does this mean for the distribution of ownership and wealth in the next generation of the internet?
Do DAOs and Web3 do more to harm or hurt income inequality today?
What are the drivers that would lead Web3 to centralize wealth even further?
Items Mentioned in Today's Episode with Ian Lee:
Ian's Fave Book: The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way…
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20VC: The Most Revealing Breakdown of Unit Economics for Quick Commerce; AOVs, Retention, Delivery Costs and more, Why The Business Model is Different for Emerging Markets & Will This Be a Market of Consolidation or Many Players
1 juni 2022 · 53 min
Over the last 10 days, we have seen unprecedented levels of layoffs from some of the biggest quick commerce providers in the world from Getir to GoPuff to Zapp and Gorillas. Today we dive into the world of quick commerce in emerging markets to uncover what is the same and what is different about the model in emerging markets. Lees meer
Usman Gul is the Founder & CEO @ Airlift, one of the fastest-growing quick commerce providers in the world with core operations in Pakistan. Airlift has raised over $100M in funding from First Round, Josh Buckley, Sam Altman, and 20VC.
Ralf Wenzel is the Founder & CEO @ JOKR, a unique provider in the quick commerce market with their dual operations in both the US and LATAM. They are one of the only providers to operate in both emerging and developed economies. To date, JOKR has raised over $288M from Softbank, Balderton, GGV, and Kaszek to name a few.
Aadit Palicha is the Founder & CEO @ Zepto, they have taken the Indian quick commerce market by storm since their early days in YC. To date, Aadit has raised over $360M with Zepto from YC, Lachy Groom, Breyer Capital, and Rocket Internet to name a few.
In Today's Episode on Quick Commerce in Emerging Markets You Will Learn:
1.) Emerging Markets vs Developed Economies: Where is Quick Commerce Best?
What are the single biggest benefits for quick commerce providers in emerging markets?
What are the single biggest challenges of operating quick commerce companies in emerging markets as compared to developed economies?
From a cost of goods and delivery perspective, what is the single biggest difference comparing operating in emerging markets?
2.) Warehouses, Picking and Delivery: The Economics Broken Down:
What % of revenue does Zepto, Airlift and JOKR spend on average for new warehouses in mature markets? How does this change over time? How do they select warehouse locations?
What % of revenue is picking costs for Zepto, Airlift and JOKR? What are some needle moving things that could reduce…
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20VC: Keith Rabois on Why Buy Low, Sell High Does Not Work in Venture, Keith's Biggest Lessons from Prior Crashes, Why Today's Public Markets are not an Over-Reaction, Why Valuation is a Trap & Why Wokeness is a Function of Entitlement
30 mei 2022 · 40 min
Keith Rabois is a General Partner @ Founders Fund, one of the best performing funds of the last decade with a portfolio including Facebook, Airbnb, SpaceX, Stripe, Anduril, the list goes on. As for Keith, he has led the first institutional investments in DoorDash, Affirm and co-founded Opendoor. He has also led investments in Faire, Ramp, Trade Republic, and Stripe. As an operator, Keith has an unparalleled track record as a Senior Exec at Paypal, he then went on to influential roles at Linkedin and being COO at Square. Finally, as an angel, Keith made early investments into Airbnb, Lyft, Palantir, Wish and more. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Keith Rabois:
1.) Buy Low, Sell High: What BS!
Why does Keith believe that "buy low, sell high" does not work in venture?
Why would it lead you to very dangerous investment decisions at the early stage?
How does the size of your fund impact the appropriateness of "buy low, sell high"?
2.) The Current Landscape:
Does Keith believe the current state of public markets is an over-reaction or a new normal?
How does Keith respond to the suggestion that Founders Fund has paused new investments given the uncertainty in the market?
How does Keith think about investing through cycles and temporal diversification?
How does Keith advise young investors today questioning whether they are actually any good at this?
What does Keith believe are his biggest fears and insecurities today?
3.) Outcome Scenario Planning and Competitor Analysis:
Does Keith believe outcome scenario planning is important?
Why does Keith believe you can always tell your biggest hits early? What have been the core signs for him?
What have been some of Keith's biggest lessons from Mike Moritz and Vinod Khosla when it comes to upside maximization? What are the right questions to ask?
Why does Keith believe you do need to look through public market comps when investing in startups?
4.) Time Allocation and Losing Faith in Founders:
How does Keith approach time …