The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
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20VC: Scaling from a $4M Angel Fund to $900M, Why Seed May Be The Best priced Asset Class and Not Overpriced At All & The 3 Stages of Fund Scaling and What it Takes To Build a Firm with Aydin Senkut, Founder and Managing Partner @ Felicis
27 mei 2022 · 43 min
Aydin Senkut is the Founder and Managing Partner of Felicis. An original super angel turned multi-stage investor, he has been named on the Forbes Midas List for the past nine years (2014-2022). Felicis has been an incredible 16-year journey starting with a $4M Fund I back in 2006, their most recent fund in 2021 was $900M. Along the way, Felicis has invested in over 45 unicorns including Adyen, Canva, Shopify, Notion, Opendoor, and Plaid. Prior to starting Felicis, Aydin was a Senior Manager at Google where he spent an incredible 6 years. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Aydin Senkut:
1.) The Founding of Felicis:
How did Aydin transition from a successful angel to the first $41M institutional fund with Felicis?
How did Aydin's mindset change moving from investing personal to LP capital?
What does Aydin know now that he wishes he had known when he started Fund I?
2.) Fund Mechanics: Building a Portfolio
Why does Aydin believe portfolios need to have 40-50 positions to be diversified enough?
Given Aydin being multi-stage, how important is ownership on first check for Aydin and Felicis?
Does Aydin believe it is possible to really concentrate capital into your best performers?
How does Aydin think through outcome scenario planning? What is his biggest takeaway from this?
3.) Aydin Senkut: The Investor
What have been the biggest changes in Aydin's style of investing over the last 16 years?
What was Aydin's biggest miss? How did it impact his mindset moving forward?
What is Aydin's biggest insecurity as an investor today? How has it changed?
Where does Aydin still believe he is weak as an investor? What is he doing to combat it?
4.) The Venture Landscape:
Why does Aydin believe that despite the pricing, seed is the best risk-adjusted asset class?
How does Aydin evaluate where crossover funds will move with the death of many growth rounds?
What segment of the market will be hit hardest by the crunch? What worries with this?
What would Aydin most like to change a…
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20 Sales: How To Create and Execute a World-Class Sales Playbook, Why You Should Do Both PLG and Enterprise Sales at the Same Time, Three Non-Obvious Qualities the Best Sales Reps Have & The Four Steps To Sales Team Onboarding with Oliver Jay, Former CRO
25 mei 2022 · 41 min
Oliver Jay (OJ) is one of the most successful sales leaders of the last decade. Most recently, OJ spent 6 years at Asana where he was hired as the company's first revenue leader. As CRO, OJ was responsible for product-led and sales-led revenue and grew the team from less than 20 to over 450. Before Asana, OJ spent 4 years at Dropbox in a period of hyper-scaling for the business where OJ was Head of APAC and LATAM. At Dropbox, OJ scaled the sales team from 0 to 50 while tripling ARR. If that was not enough, OJ is also an independent board member at Grab, the leading Super app in Southeast Asia. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Oliver Jay You Will Learn:
1.) Entry into Sales:
How did OJ make his way into sales with Dropbox?
If OJ were to choose 1-2 lessons from his time at Dropbox and Asana that have stayed with him, what would they be? How did they impact his mindset?
What were some of the non-obvious but crucial things Asana and Dropbox did in sales that led to success?
2.) The Playbook:
Why does OG disagree with so many definitions of "the sales playbook"? What is the sales playbook to OJ? What are the different chapters?
Should the founder be the one to create the sales playbook?
What are the signs that the founder has a repeatable and scalable playbook?
When is the right time to hire the first sales rep? Should it be a Head of Sales or Sales Rep?
How does the first hire depend on whether you are PLG or enterprise sales led?
3.) The Hiring Process:
How does OJ structure the hiring process?
How does OJ know the qualities that he wants to uncover in each candidate?
What questions does OJ ask to unpack whether the candidate has those qualities?
How does this differ when hiring sales reps vs sales leaders?
How does OJ use the sales demo to test the quality of a candidate? What does he want to see?
Who does OJ bring into the interview process? When do they get involved?
What are two questions that will immediately tell whether someone is a good manager?
4.)…
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20VC: Oren Zeev on Raising 3 Funds and $1BN in 12 Months; Why Temporal Diversification is BS, Why Both LPs and GPs are Way Over-Diversified & Why Venture Partnerships are Sub-Optimal and Challenging
23 mei 2022 · 44 min
Oren Zeev is the Founding Partner @ Zeev Ventures and one of the OGs of solo capitalism. Oren has an incredible portfolio including investments in Audible, Houzz, Chegg, Riverside, Tipalti, TripActions, and Firebolt to name a few. Oren is also very unlike any other VC firm, he does not employ any associates, principals, or staff. He doesn't have partners or partner meetings. No LP meetings. No processes. No investment committees or memos. Nada. Oren is doing it differently. Prior to starting Zeev Ventures, Oren spent 12 years as a GP @ Apax Partners where he c-headed their technology practice in their Silicon Valley office. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Oren Zeev You Will Learn:
1.) Origins into Venture:
How did Oren make his way into venture over 20 years ago?
How does the crash of today compare to the dot com and 2008? What is the same? What is different?
Why did Oren decide to leave Apax and start Zeev Ventures on his own?
2.) Deployment Pace:
Why does Oren believe that the benefits of temporal diversification are overstated?
Oren raised 3 funds and over $1BN in a year, how does this current environment impact how Oren thinks about deployment pace? Will he change anything?
How does Oren explain deployment pace to LPs who question him?
3.) Ownership:
How central a role does ownership play for Oren in terms of his investor psychology?
Does Oren believe it is possible to increase your ownership in subsequent rounds, in your best companies?
What are the biggest mistakes that big funds make with regards to ownership requirements?
Why is there a misalignment between GP and LP when it comes to increasing ownership vs markups?
4.) Price Sensitivity:
How does Oren evaluate his own relationship to price today?
What have been some of Oren's biggest lessons on price from his biggest wins and losesses?
What mistake do the majority of investors make when it comes to price?
5.) Diversification:
Why does Oren believe that both GPs and LPs are wildly over-diversifi…
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20VC: The Job of the CEO is Do As Little As Possible; How To Hire, What Questions To Ask, Why Pointy People are Always 100xers, How To Tell Great Stories Today & How Leaders Must Determine What To Delegate vs What To Control with Ian Siegel, Co-Founder an
20 mei 2022 · 47 min
Ian Siegel is the Founder and CEO @ ZipRecruiter, a leading online employment marketplace that uses AI-driven matching technology to actively connect millions of businesses and job seekers to their next great opportunity. Since co-founding the company in 2010, more than 1.8M employers have used ZipRecruiter to find their next great hire and over 500 million job applications have been submitted through the site. Prior to their IPO last year, Ian bootstrapped the company for many years to many millions in revenue before taking venture funding from IVP, Wellington Management and Basepoint Ventures to name a few. Before founding ZipRecruiter, Ian served in key leadership roles at CitySearch, Stamps.com, and Rent.com (an eBay company). Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Ian Siegel You Will Learn:
1.) The Founding of Olo:
How did Ian co-found ZipRecruiter from his kitchen with no venture funding and his 3 friends?
Why did they decide to not raise venture funding in the early days?
What was the catalyst at $50M in revenue for realising now was the right time to raise funding?
2.) The Art of Great Storytelling
What does truly great storytelling mean to Ian? What are the components of a great story?
Why do so many people today f*** up their product marketing and messaging?
Why does Ian believe Version 1.0 is the only one that takes true courage?
3.) CEO's Do As Little As Possible
Why does Ian believe his job as CEO is to do as little as possible?
How does Ian determine between the things he, the CEO should do, vs those those he should delegate?
Why does Ian believe the art of leadership and the art of parenting are the same?
4.) The Art of Hiring:
How has Ian's approach to hiring changed over the years?
What does Ian mean when he says, "I look for pointy people"? How does he detect them?
What are the two qualities that make the best execs? What questions reveal them?
5.) Parenting and Marriage:
Does Ian worry that with increasing family commitments, he loses an inch…
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20Growth: Five Signs of Top Growth Talent and How to Detect Them, How to Structure and Conduct the Most Efficient Customer Discovery Process & The Framework to Determine Your North Star and When To Change it with Darius Contractor, Former VP Growth @ Airt
18 mei 2022 · 52 min
Darius Contractor is one of the pre-eminent growth leaders of the last decade. As a growth OG, he has been VP Growth @ Airtable, where he led the growth, engineering, and product teams. Before Airtable, Darius was Head of Product Growth @ Facebook Messenger and finally, before Facebook, Darius spent 4 years as Head of Growth Engineering at Dropbox; here, Darius helped drive Dropbox to $100M in net new revenue through Dropbox Business. If that was not enough, Darius is also an active angel and fund investor with a portfolio including Calm, Airtable, Clubhouse, Census and LP checks in Maven Ventures and Long Journey Ventures. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Darius Contractor You Will Learn:
1.) Darius Contractor: Entry into Growth:
How did Darius make his way into the world of growth? What was that first entry position?
What are 1-2 of the biggest takeaways for Darius from his time at Airtable, Dropbox and Facebook?
What 1-2 pieces of advice would Darius give to a growth leader starting a new role today?
2.) When is the Right Time:
What does the term"growth" really mean to Darius? How do so many confuse it?
When is the right time to make your first growth hire as a startup?
Should this hire be a junior growth person or a growth leader?
Should this initial growth team be placed inside an existing team or as a standalone team?
Where do so many startups make mistakes when making this first hire?
3.) Who To Hire:
How does one structure the process for your first growth hire? What are the stages?
What are the qualities that we are looking to uncover in these first hires?
What are the 4 interview stages to go through to test for these qualities?
How should founders use case studies and practicals as a way to test for these qualities?
4.) Onboarding and Integration:
What does the optimal onboarding process for new growth hires look like?
What do the best growth hires do in the first 30/60/90 days?
What are some early red flags that a new hire is a mis-hire?
How…
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20VC: The Founding of General Catalyst, What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time, Why VCs Need to Give Founders Greater Permission to Go For It & Why Venture Capital is Like Tennis with David Fialkow, Co-Founder @ General Catalyst
16 mei 2022 · 50 min
David Fialkow is the Co-Founder and Managing Director @ General Catalyst, one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Stripe, Snap, Airbnb, Anduril, Canva and many more amazing names. Prior to founding General Catalyst with Joel Cutler, David was a serial entrepreneur building and selling 4 successful companies. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with David Fialkow:
1.) Everything Great Starts Small:
How did David and Joel decide on a Hawaiin beach that they wanted to start General Catalyst?
Why did they decide to name it General Catalyst?
How did the first fundraise go for GC Fund I?
2.) Creating a Firm: The Early Days
What design objectives did Joel and David have when they started the firm?
How did Joel and David think about firm expansion; going to the West Coast? Coming to Europe? Going multi-stage? What drives their decision to do new products?
On reflection, what were some of the toughest elements of the early days with GC?
What does David believe they got right? Why? What did they get wrong? How would he change it?
3.) The Partnership:
What does David believe makes for a truly successful venture partnership?
How does a great venture partnership align to what makes a successful marriage?
How does David approach trust? How does he build it with people?
What situations would cause David to lose trust? Why do so few people understand it?
What does David believe is the true secret to authentic relationship building?
4.) Doing the Impossible: Generational Transition:
What does David believe they did so right in their generational transition at GC?
What do many firms get wrong in handing over the reins to the next generation?
What are the biggest commonalities between venture partnerships and filmmaking?
Mentioned in Today's Episode with David Fialkow:
David's Favourite Book: The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People
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20 Product: iPhone Creator, Tony Fadell on Marketing Lessons Learned from Steve Jobs, What is Truly Great Product Marketing, How The Best Product Teams Do Post-Mortems and Product Reviews & Is Product Art or Science, Data or Gut?
11 mei 2022 · 54 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 game-changing 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, this is 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:
1.) Everything Great Starts Small:
How did Tony make his way into the world of product in the early days?
What were his biggest takeaways from the massive flop of General Magic?
How did Tony come to Apple and what were the early creation days of iPod and iPhone?
2.) Data and Brand:
Does Tony believe great product building is art or science? When should teams listen to their gut vs the data?
When was a time that Tony listened to his gut? When was a time Tony listened to the data? How did each situation evolve and turn out?
How does Tony think about creating a truly special first mile experience? Where do so many companies go wrong in the first mile today?
How does Tony balance between business decisions (COGs etc) and product decisions that will delight customers?
3.) Lessons from Steve Jobs on Product Marketing:
How does Tony define great product management? Why do so many people get it wrong?
What are Tony's biggest lessons from working with Steve Jobs on what makes great product marketing?
Where does Tony see so many companies make the biggest mistakes when it comes to messaging?
What is the difference between messaging, marketing and communications?
4.) Hiring Product Teams:
What are the clearest signals of the best product talent when interviewing them?
What questions does Tony always ask product people to determine quality?
How do great product teams remain upbeat when launches fail and remain modest when they are wildly successful?
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20VC: WTF Is Going On? 3 Outcomes for What Could Happen From Here; What Needs to Happen To Avoid Recession? Why Stagnation is Most Likely and What This Means for Startups and Venture & Why Catastrophe is More Likely Than Ever and Switzerland Could Be a "H
9 mei 2022 · 57 min
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 Delivery Hero, and many more. Prior to FJ Labs, Fabrice served as CEO for three multinational companies; including OLX, one of the largest websites in the world with over 300 million unique visitors per month. As a result of his incredible investing success, Fabrice was named the #1 Angel Investor in the world by Forbes. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Fabrice Grinda:
1.) Everything Great Starts Small:
How did Fabrice make his way into the world of investing from founding 3 companies?
How does Fabrice feel about founders raising funds with external LPs?
Why does Fabrice feel that investing as an angel made him a better CEO?
2.) WTF is Going On: The Market Today
How does Fabrice assess what is happening in the market today?
What is causing the massive public market drops we are seeing?
How do inflation rates and interest rates have such an impact on where we are?
How much of this is a result of COVID, the shift to goods from services and supply chains?
3.) The Optimistic Case:
How does Fabrice think things could get better from here? What needs to happen?
What could the Fed do to enable this optimistic outcome to take place?
What would need to happen in geo-politics and Russia for this to happen?
What is the probability today of this optimistic case happening?
4.) The Great Stagnation:
How does Fabrice think the economy could go sideways from here?
What are the core drivers of this?
Why is this the most likely outcome of all? What is the probability of this happening?
5.) The Catastrophe:
How could this market get so much worse?
What level of interest rate change would cause this outcome to occur?
Why does Fabrice think that Switzerland is a "House of Cards"? What would this mean if Switzerland fell? What other European countries does Fabrice think are vulnerable?…
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20VC: Why the Traditional Seed Fund Model No Longer Works, Why Multi-Stage Funds Investing at Seed Bring Signaling Risk but also Less Pressure, The One Criteria All Potential Sales Hires Need to Have and The Clear Signs of 10x Sales Hires with Jason Lemki
6 mei 2022 · 54 min
Jason Lemkin is the Founder and Managing Partner @ SaaStr, a social community of 500,000+ SaaS founders and a $100M venture fund. In the past, Jason has made investments in the likes of Algolia, Talkdesk, Pipedrive, and RevenueCat to name a few. Prior to SaaStr, Jason was the Co-Founder and CEO @ Echosign, backed by Emergence Capital, Echosign was bought by Adobe and is Adobe Sign as we know it today. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Jason Lemkin You Will Learn:
1.) Origins into Venture:
How Jason made his way into the world of venture having sold EchoSign?
What were some of Jason's biggest lessons from his first 4 investments being unicorns?
2.) The Importance of Ownership & Multi-Stage Funds
How does Jason assess the importance of ownership today?
If companies can be $20BN, does ownership really matter?
How does Jason advise founders who have offers from multi-stage funds at seed?
Why does taking multi-stage money at seed result in less pressure for founders?
Does Jason believe that signaling risk from large funds is real, when investing at seed?
3.) Building Your Sales Team
Does the founder have to be the one to create the sales playbook? What are the nuances?
Should you hire a Head of Sales or sales reps first? What should you expect from each?
What are the one criteria that you must look for when hiring your first sales reps?
What are the signals that a sales rep or leader is a 10x hire?
What works when hiring sales reps, 80% of the time?
4.) Boards and VC Value Add:
Why has Jason changed his mind when it comes to boards? Why are some inefficient and some very efficient?
How do the best founders manage their board? How do they bring in their exec team?
What is the right documentation to prepare for board meetings? Why does Jason prefer slide decks over Notion and Coda?
How can leaders use board meetings to direct and goal set with functional leads?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Jason Lemkin
Jason's Most Recent Investment: Owner
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20VC: The Memo: Chris Sacca on Why We Are Breeding a Generation of Entitled Assholes, Harley Finkelstein on What Great Fatherhood Really Means, Deena Shakir on How Kids Make You a Better Investor and Anne Wojcicki on How Children Change Your Approach to R
4 mei 2022 · 36 min
Chris Sacca is the Founder and Chairman @ Lowercase Capital, one of the best performing funds in the history of venture capital with a portfolio including Uber, Stripe, Twitter, Instagram, Twilio, Docker and many more. Lees meer
Why does Chris believe we have bred a generation of asshole kids?
What is the right way to negotiate with children? How has that impacted how he manages his team?
Anne Wojcicki is the Founder & CEO @ 23andMe, offering DNA testing with the most comprehensive ancestry breakdown, personalized health insights, and more.
How did having kids change Anne's approach to time allocation and risk?
Harley Finkelstein is the President of Shopify. Over the last 12 years, Harley has partnered with Tobi to the tune of building Shopify's revenue to over $4.6BN in 2021 and the team to over 10,000 employees.
Does Harley believe he has always been a good father?
What changes has Harley made to be more present and there for his children?
Why does Harley advise couples therapy as early in a relationship as possible?
Deena Shakir is a Partner at Lux Capital, one of the leading firms investing in emerging science and technology ventures at the outermost edges of what is possible.
What specific negotiation tactics from parenting can be applied to business?
How can a parent show their children they listen, they understand and are there for them?
Why does Deena believe children make you more productive and more efficient?
Eric Liaw is a General Partner @ IVP, one of the leading later-stage venture capital and growth equity firms of the last decade with $8.7 billion of committed capital and a 40-year IRR of 43.1%.
What have been the biggest challenges for Eric of managing family and work?
What have been some of Eric's biggest lessons in terms of how he communicates about his work to his family?
Scott Dietzen is Vice Chairman of the Board of Pure Storage and served as the Company's CEO from 2010 to 2017. Under his leadership, Pure grew to thousands of employees a…
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20VC: Scaling to $2BN AUM in 3 years, Fundraising Lessons and Tactics from 2,500 LP Meetings & What it Takes to Build a Firm That Stands the Test of Time with Harley Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital
2 mei 2022 · 49 min
Harley Miller is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Left Lane Capital, one of the fastest-growing growth equity firms of the last five years. Just yesterday, Left Lane announced the closing of their new fund taking their AUM to over $2BN with an early portfolio including M1 Finance, Masterworks, Choco, GoStudent, to name a few. Prior to founding Left Lane, Harley spent over 9 years at Insight Partners investing in the likes of DeliveryHero, HelloFresh, N26, Calm, Udemy and many more breakout companies. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Harley Miller You Will Learn:
1.) Origins into Venture:
How Harley made his way into the world of venture with his first role at Insight?
What were Harley's biggest lessons and takeaways from 10 years at Insight?
2.) Left Lane: Fundraising
What are harley's biggest takeaways on fundraising from speaking to 2,500 LPs for Left Lane I?
With that experience in mind, what advice does Harley give to other first time fund managers on what it takes to raise successfully?
How did the Left Lane pitch to LPs change over time? What worked? What did not work?
With the benefit of hindsight, what fundraising elements would Harley have done differently?
3.) Left Lane: Firm Building
What are the hardest elements of building a firm today?
How did Harley navigate the transition from investor to fund manager? What was challenging?
What is Harley's biggest advice to young people in venture looking to scale their career fast?
What are 1-2 core inputs aspiring VCs should focus on as they build their career?
4.) Left Lane: Investing and Consumer
How does Harley approach portfolio construction with the new fund?
How does Harley think through outcome scenario planning and ownership requirements with the new fund?
How does Harley think traditional growth equity models can be applied to consumer investing?
What will Left Lane be in 20 years? What firm does Harley want to build?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Harley Miller
Harley's Most Rece…
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20VC: Scaling to $122M ARR IPO with $6M in Net Burn, Olo. The Ultimate Journey of Capital Efficiency, What Worked, What Did Not Work and How Leaders Need To Reshape Thinking Around Resource and Attention Allocation
29 april 2022 · 37 min
Noah Glass is the Founder and CEO @ Olo, the interface between restaurants and the on-demand world powering millions of orders per day. Olo is an incredible tale of capital efficiency, at IPO the company had a net burn of just $6M with $122M in ARR. Noah raised from some of the best in the business with names such as David Frankel @ Founder Collective, Danny Meyer, Scott Shleifer @ Tiger Global, all on the cap table. Prior to founding Olo, Noah was International Expansion Manager for Endeavour Global, launching the first African Endeavour affiliate. If that was not enough, Noah is also on the board of Portillo's, Share our Strength and the Culinary Institute for America. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Noah Glass You Will Learn:
1.) The Founding of Olo:
What was the founding a-ha moment for Noah with Olo?
What did David Frankel do that compelled Noah, now was the time to start Olo?
What have been some of Noah's biggest lessons from working with David Frankel?
2.) Capital Efficiency: Scaling to $122M ARR with $6M Net Burn
Why did Noah and the team not raise more money in the early Olo days?
How does Noah advise early founders who are concerned if they do not raise, their competition will?
What are 2-3 of the core levers that allow Olo to be so efficient? What can others learn from them?
What would Noah have done differently fundraise wise, with the benefit of hindsight?
3.) Decision Making: The Secret
What does Noah mean when he says; "capital allocation and attention allocation are intertwined"?
How has Noah changed and evolved his decision-making as a leader?
How does Noah use a CEO coach? What do they discuss? How often? What works? What does not?
What decision did Noah make that proved to be the wrong one? How did he come back from it?
4.) Noah Glass: The Father and Husband
How does Noah do so much as CEO and also not lose an inch on being an amazing father and husband?
What does Noah believe is the secret to a truly successful marriage, while also bei…
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20 Sales: Zoom's Head of North America Sales on When To Hire a Head of Sales, Why You Should Hire a Head of Sales Before Sales Reps, The 3 Traits to Look for When Hiring Sales Reps & What Sales Leaders Can Do To Make Their Sales Team Feel Like They Are Wi
27 april 2022 · 38 min
Mitch Tarica is Head of North America Sales at Zoom Video Communications. Before joining Zoom, Mitch spent over 5 years at RingCentral including as Senior VP of Worldwide Sales and Customer Success. Finally, before RingCentral, Mitch was at Oracle for over 7 years in numerous different sales roles. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Mitch Tarica You Will Learn:
1.) Entry into Sales:
How did Mitch make his way into sales with one of the first SaaS companies in the world?
What were his early lessons on what truly great sales entails?
What elements does Mitch fear we have lost in the art of sales over time?
2.) The Playbook:
Should the founder be the one to create the sales playbook?
What are the signs that the founder has a repeatable and scalable playbook?
When is the right time to make the first sales hire? Should it be a Head of Sales or Sales Rep?
How does the first hire depend on whether you are PLG or enterprise sales led?
3.) The Hiring Process:
How does Mitch structure the hiring process? Step by step, what does he want to achieve?
What questions does Mitch ask in the first interview, always?
What are the 3 traits that Mitch believes all great sales hires have? How does he test for them?
How do Zoom use practical sales tests to determine the ability of a potential sales hire?
How does Mitch see many founders make mistakes in the sales hiring process?
4.) Sales Onboarding:
What are the crucial steps to do sales onboarding right?
How should leaders structure the first 30,60 and 90 days for their new reps?
What are some early red flags that leaders should watch for with new reps?
What more can leaders do to make sure their reps are as successful as possible in the early days?
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20VC: Why You Should Think Twice Before Taking Multi-Stage Money at Seed, Why Venture Has Never Been Less Collaborative, How Becoming a Parent Made Me a Better Investor and Why We Should Be Optimistic About the Future of Diversity in Venture with Deena Sh
25 april 2022 · 36 min
Deena Shakir is a Partner at Lux Capital, one of the leading firms investing in emerging science and technology ventures at the outermost edges of what is possible. Deena has led a number of investments including in Maven Clinic, Mos, Ramp, Alife and SteadyMD to name a few. Before joining Lux, Deena was a Partner at GV and previously led product partnerships at Google for early-stage products in healthcare, AI/ML and search at Google. Before tech and venture, Deena was an aspiring anthropologist, journalist, diplomat, aid worker and was a Presidential Management Fellow at the U.S. Department of State under Secretary Clinton. There Deena helped launch President Obama's first Global Entrepreneurship Summit in 2010. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Deena Shakir You Will Learn:
1.) Origins into Venture:
How Deena made her way from journalism and the world of politics to rockstar healthcare investor?
What were Deena's biggest takeaways from seeing her parents build a new life in the US?
2.) Competition in Venture:
Why should founders not take multi-stage fund money at seed?
What problems does it cause? How do VCs try and justify it? What red flags should founders look for?
How does Deena advise her companies when it comes to pre-emptive rounds? When should they take them? When should they not take them?
3.) Deena Shakir: The Person
How has becoming a parent changed Deena's operating mentality?
Why does Deena believe she has never been better as an investor post becoming a mother?
Why does Deena feel so many questions around parenting are wrong? In what ways would she like those questions of female operators and investors to change?
4.) Diversity and Inclusion: We Should Be Optimistic
Why is Deena optimistic about the future of diversity and inclusion in tech and venture?
What drives her optimism? What remains a cause for concern for Deena on this topic?
What more can both companies and venture funds do to improve the landscape?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episod…
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20VC: How Today's Market Changes How Companies Should Approach Burn and Runway, Are Financing Markets Closing? How To Know When To Pay Up vs Stay Price Disciplined & Why The Most Important Thing in Venture is Generating Positive Selection with Bill Cilluf
22 april 2022 · 42 min
Bill Cillufo is Partner and Head of International Investments at QED, one of the leading fintech venture firms today with a portfolio including Nubank, Kavak, Klarna, Quinto Andar and Bitso to name a few. As for Bill, he has led investments in Nubank, Loft, Wagestream and Creditas among others. Prior to joining QED, he spent nearly 20 years at Capital One, spanning several roles and leading several businesses. During Bill's last 3 years at Capital One, he led its Co-Brand and Private Label credit card business, building the business nearly from scratch to one of the top few players in the US market. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Bill Cillufo You Will Learn:
1.) Origins into Venture:
How Bill made his way from 20 years at Capital One to becoming a Partner @ QED?
How did Capital One inform his mindset around unit economics?
Having seen booms and busts firsthand with Capital One, how did that impact his investing mindset today?
2.) The Landscape: What is Happening?
Where does Bill believe the biggest crunch in funding markets is today?
Does Bill believe this will trickle down to the early stage?
How does Bill advise his portfolio companies on runway and burn given the environment?
What does Bill believe that many have not seen that is coming?
3.) Bill Cillufo: The Investor
How does Bill analyse his own relationship to price and price sensitivity?
How has Bill changed as an investor over the last 5 years? What caused the changes?
How does Bill reflect on reserves management given the new landscape we are in?
4.) QED: The Expansion
Does Bill believe that expanding geographically has become easier with time?
What has become harder about expanding into new geographies?
How important does Bill believe partnering with local firms is when VCs enter new territories?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Bill Cillufo
Bill's Favourite Book: Tom Clancy: The Hunt for Red October
Bill's Most Recent Investment: Refyne
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20 Product: Robinhood CPO on The 3 Stages of Product Management, How to Structure and Execute Great Product Reviews, The Secret to Building a World-Class Hiring Funnel in Product Team Building with Aparna Chennapragada
20 april 2022 · 40 min
Aparna Chennapragada is Chief Product Officer @ Robinhood, the company revolutionizing consumer finance with commission-free investing, and tools to help shape your financial future. As for Aparna, prior to Robinhood, she spent an incredible 12 years at Google, most recently as VP and GM for Consumer Shopping and also as the lead AR and Visual Search products. Aparna is also an active angel investor with a portfolio including Khatabook, Statsig and On Deck to name a few. If that was not enough, Aparna is also a board member at Capital One. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Aparna Chennapragada You Will Learn:
1.) Origins in Product:
How Aparna made her way into the world of product and product management?
What were Aparna's biggest takeaways from her 12 years at Google?
What does product management mean to Arpana today?
2.) Customer Discovery: 101
What are the 3 different stages of product management?
What does great customer discovery look like?
What are the best questions to ask? How should one dig deeper?
Where do so many make mistakes in customer discovery?
What should product people take from the answers? What should they disregard?
3.) The Hiring Process:
How should founders breakdown the process of hiring for their first in product?
What does the interview process look like? How should founders structure it?
What core questions should teams ask of prospective candidates?
What are red flags when interviewing potential product hires?
What literal tests and case studies can founders do to test the quality of candidates?
4.) The Onboarding Process:
How should founders structure the onboarding process for new product hires?
What can founders do to make PMs successful in their first 30 days?
Where do many product hires make the biggest mistakes in the first 30 days?
What can product hires do to build trust with their new team?
Items Mentioned in Today's Episode with Aparna Chennapragada
Aparna's Fave Resource: Shishir's Executive Onboarding
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20VC: Brex's Henrique Dubugras on Advice from Evan Spiegel and Eric Schmidt on CEOship, The Biggest Hiring Mistakes When Scaling, What Everyone Gets Wrong with Product Messaging and When is the Right Time to Launch Secondary Products
15 april 2022 · 34 min
Henrique Dubugras is the Founder and CEO @ Brex, the company re-imagining financial systems so every growing company can realize its full potential. To date, Henrique has raised over $1.1BN for Brex from some of the best including Ribbit, Greenoaks, DST, IVP, Caffeinated Capital and Elad Gil to name a few. Henrique is also a board member at Mercado Libre. Prior to co-founding Brex, Henrique co-founded Pagar.me, there he scaled the company to $15BN in GMV and over 100 people before selling the company in 2016. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Henrique Dubugras You Will Learn:
1.) The Founding of Brex:
What was the founding a-ha moment for Henrique and Pedro with Brex?
What advice did Evan Spiegel give Henrique when it comes to being a great CEO?
2.) Hiring: The Trials and Tribulations
What have been Henrique's biggest hiring mistakes?
How do founders know when they are ready to bring in the seasoned exec vs the younger jack of all trades candidate?
What have been Henrique's biggest lessons in what it takes to hire true A* talent?
Where does Henrique see other founders make big hiring mistakes?
3.) Product Expansion and Marketing:
How does Henrique assess when is the right time to release a second product?
What have been Henrique's biggest mistakes and lessons when it comes to product marketing?
How can one retain the simplicity of product messaging with scaling the product?
Brex expanded the product too far, too fast. How did they walk it back so successfully?
4.) Henrique: The Leader
How does Henrique approach his own relationship to money today? How has it changed over time?
What luxury expenditure has Henrique made over the last 12 months that he feels is worth it?
How does Henrique think about ego management? What does he do to keep his in check?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Henrique Dubugras
Henrique's Favourite Book: The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
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20VC Exclusive: Fast's Domm Holland on What Really Happened at Fast? Were they really Burning $10M per Month? Where did Bolt Succeed Where Fast Did Not? What is It Really Like To Have Stripe Invest in your Company?
13 april 2022 · 29 min
Domm Holland is the Founder and CEO @ Fast. Lees meer
Last week Fast announced they would be shutting down the company.
In this exclusive 20VC episode we discuss:
What really happened with Domm's towing business in Australia?
What are the 1-2 biggest mistakes made at Fast?
Why has Bolt worked in a way that Fast has not worked?
What is it like having Stripe as an investor in your company?
Could the board have done more to prevent what happened at Fast?
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20VC: Why Crypto is Software Eating Money, Why Crypto Firms Will Outcompete Traditional Venture Firms, How To Price Tokens and When To Have Them, DAOs: How Are They Structured and What Makes One Successful with Avichal Garg, Co-Founder @ Electric Capital
11 april 2022 · 57 min
Avichal Garg is Co-Founder & Partner @ Electric Capital, last month Electric announced they had raised $1BN for their new fund making them one of the largest independent and crypto-native VC firms in the world. As for Avichal, prior to Electric, he was an investor in crypto projects such as Anchorage, Bitwise, Lightning Labs, and OpenSea and unicorns such as Airtable, Cruise, Deel, Figma, Notion and many more. On the operating side, Avichal successfully sold his last company to Facebook where he became Director of Product Management for the Local product group, a team of 400 engineers responsible for billions in revenue. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Avichal Garg You Will Learn:
1.) Origins into Venture:
How did Avichal make his way into the world of startups and angel investing?
How did Avichal make the pivot from software to crypto investing?
Was Avichal nervous when making the move to institutionalize what had been personal investing?
What does Avichal know now that he wishes he had known at the start of Electric?
2.) The Landscape: Crypto Investing
How does Avichal assess the crypto fund landscape today?
Will we continue to see a small number of firms (a16z, Katie Haun, Paradigm, Electric) dominate the market?
What happens to all the small crypto funds that have been raised in the last year?
Why does Avichal believe crypto investing is much more collaborative than venture investing?
How can venture size returns be made if the ownership levels are so much smaller?
3.) Crypto Firms vs Traditional VC Firms:
Why does Avichal believe that crypto is software eating money?
What does this mean for traditional venture? Who will survive? Who will die? Who will thrive?
Why can generalist firms not compete with crypto native firms?
How are the teams of crypto native firms structured so differently to those of traditional VCs?
Do crypto projects and investments need the same level of service and help that generalist VCs provide with their platform services?
4.)…
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20VC: What Happens To Growth Rounds in this New Environment? Where is the Funding Crunch? How Does This Impact M&A and Going Public? How do Crossover Funds Respond? What Does it Mean For Early Stage and more with Eric Liaw, General Partner @ IVP
8 april 2022 · 40 min
Eric Liaw is a General Partner @ IVP, one of the leading later-stage venture capital and growth equity firms of the last decade with $8.7 billion of committed capital and a 40-year IRR of 43.1%. At IVP eric has led investments in Datadog, Github, Klarna, Robinhood and UiPath to name a few. Prior to joining IVP, Eric was with Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) and was actively involved in originating, executing and managing investments, including Netflix, Zillow and eHarmony. As a result of his investing success, Eric was recognized by GrowthCap as one of the Top 25 Software Investors of 2021 and 2020. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Eric Liaw You Will Learn:
1.) Origins into Venture:
How did Eric make his way into the world of venture way back over 20 years ago?
What were some of Eric's biggest lessons from his early years at TCV?
What are the most significant changes in venture over the last decade?
2.) Eric Liaw: The Investor:
How has Eric changed as an investor over the last decade? What caused those changes?
How does Eric reflect on his own relationship to price? How does he determine when to pay up vs when to remain disciplined?
What has been Eric's biggest miss? How did it alter his style of investing?
From UiPath to Supercell, what has been Eric's favourite story of travelling around the world to win a deal?
3.) The Market: Venture
How does Eric expect IPO markets to behave as we move further in 2022?
How does Eric expect large M&A to play out for the rest of the year?
With the public markets crashing; how does this impact the large growth rounds of 2021?
What does Eric expect to happen to early stage pricing with the crash at late stage?
How does Eric expect crossover funds to behave in this new environment?
4.) Eric Liaw: The Person
How does Eric think about being an awesome Dad and also not losing an inch on being a world class investor?
How does Eric reflect on his own ego when having such large investing wins? Where does he feel he is most i…
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20 Growth: Why Retention Defines Product Market Fit, What is Good Retention Levels Today, The Most Counterintuitive Elements of Product and Growth & Why So Many Startups Mess Up Hiring For Growth Teams with Brian Hale, Head of Consumer Product & Growth @
6 april 2022 · 40 min
Brian Hale is Vice President of Consumer Product & Growth @ Doordash. Before joining Doordash, Brian spent an incredible 10 years at Facebook, most recently as VP of Product Growth working across Instagram, Messenger, Whatsapp and more. Prior to Facebook, Brian was Director of Growth @ Uptake.com and it all started for Brian in 1999 working at ACDSee in Canada where he was asked to "figure out that search engine thing". Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Brian Hale You Will Learn:
1.) Brian Hale: Entry into Growth:
How Brian made his way into the world of growth from being a "marine ceramic engineer"?
What were 1-2 of his biggest takeaways from his 10-year journey with Facebook?
What are 1-2 of the biggest misconceptions about the Facebook growth team?
2.) When is the Right Time:
When is the right time for startups to hire their first growth leads or reps?
How should the founder allocate resources to the growth team? Hire new designers, engineers etc for the team or pluck them from existing teams within the company?
What are the biggest mistakes startups make on the timing of this hire?
How can startups accurately assess whether they have product-market-fit?
What levels of retention suggest PMF? How does this change by industry?
3.) Who To Hire:
Step by step, how does Brian structure the interview process for all new growth hires?
What are the must-ask questions for growth leaders to ask candidates in interviews?
What are the clear signs and answers that suggest a 10x growth hire? How do the very best interact with data? What do they really hone in on?
What literal tests does Brian do to determine the quality of a hire? How do the best perform?
4.) Onboarding and Integration:
What is the optimal onboarding process for all new growth hires?
What can leaders do to set their new growth teams up for success?
What are the biggest ways new growth hires can mess up in the first 60 days?
What have been some of the biggest challenges for Brian in his onboarding at…
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20VC: Founding Legendary Entertainment and Creating Batman, The Hangover and 300, The Importance of Luck vs Skill in Success, How Relationships to Money Change & Why Velocity is the Most Important Factor in Company Building Success with Thomas Tull
4 april 2022 · 38 min
Thomas Tull is a leading entrepreneur and investor as the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Tulco, LLC. he has made notable investments in the likes of FIGS, Colossal, IL MAKIAGE, Pinterest, Zoox and Oculus Rift. Previously, Tull was the founder, CEO and Chairman of Legendary Entertainment, the film company that produced blockbusters including The Dark Knight trilogy, 300 and The Hangover franchise. Outside of his investment work, Thomas is a trustee of Carnegie Mellon University, Yellowstone Forever, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution. If that was not enough, Tull is also part of the ownership group of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the six-time Super Bowl champions. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Thomas Tull You Will Learn:
1.) From Laundromats to Legendary Entertainment:
How did Thomas first make his way into the world of business starting with laundromats?
How did growing up without money impact Thomas' early mindset?
What advice does Thomas give to young people today on starting their own business?
2.) Thomas Tull: The Investor:
How does Thomas approach risk today? Where is the boundary of acceptable vs unacceptable risk?
How does Thomas assess his own relationship to money? How has it changed over time?
How does Thomas protect himself from people and occasions where one is being used for their money or status?
To what extent does Thomas believe success is luck vs skill?
3.) Legendary Entertainment:
How did Thomas make his way into the movie business with the founding of Legendary Entertainment?
How did Thomas first meet Chris Nolan? What did the early days of making Batman Begins look like?
What were some of the most memorable times from making 300 with Gerard Butler?
What were some of the most challenging elements of scaling Legendary? With the benefit of hindsight, is there anything that Thomas would do differently?
4.) The Macro:
Why does Thomas believe public markets are the least rational they have ever been?
F…
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20VC: The Biggest Mistakes Startups Make Hiring, The 2 Reasons Startups Fail and How to Avoid Them, Why Most Startup Equity Plans are F****** and Why You Should Scrap Titles From Your Company with Eddie Vivas, Founder & CEO @ Curated
1 april 2022 · 38 min
Eduardo Vivas is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Curated, a network where product experts monetize their passion and help consumers make the perfect purchase. To date, Eddie has raised over $141M from some of the best including CapitalG, Greylock and Forerunner to name a few. Eddie is also a stellar angel investor with a portfolio including Telegram, Truebill, AppLovin and Dollar Shave Club among others. Prior to Curated, Eddie spent 3 years at Linkedin as Head of Talent Solutions, following his startup, Bright, being acquired by them in 2014. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Eddie Vivas You Will Learn:
1.) The Founding of Curated:
What was the aha moment for Eddie with Curated?
What were Eddie's biggest takeaways from his prior companies? What did he take with him that worked? What did he disregard that did not work?
What were some of Eddie's biggest lessons from Linkedin? How did it impact his mindset?
2.) The Compound Startup:
Why did Eddie decide it was right to build so much of the tooling themselves?
How does Eddie determine when to buy vs build?
What are the biggest mistakes Eddie sees founders making when building multiple internal tools at the same time?
How does build a compound startup increase the strategic value of a company?
3.) Hiring: Missionaries not Mercenaries
How does Eddie structure his hiring process at Curated? Why does he not believe that startups are for everyone?
What are the biggest signals that a person is a missionary and not a mercenary? How do mercenaries act in a way that is different to missionaries?
What questions in an interview process show these traits?
What are some of the biggest mistakes Eddie has made when hiring?
4.) Equity and Compensation:
What is Eddie's biggest advice to founders when it comes to equity allocations for the team?
Why does Eddie believe it is crucial to offer and provide secondaries for the team?
How does Eddie feel about the amount of secondaries founders take today so early?
Item's Mentioned In Toda…
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20 Sales: Notion's CRO Olivia Nottebohm on How To Build Great Operations at Your Company, How To Use The Trust Equation in Hiring, How To Do Referencing Most Effectively and Whether To Fill Seats or Wait for the Perfect Hire?
30 maart 2022 · 36 min
Olivia Nottebohm is the Chief Revenue Officer @ Notion where she leads the Sales, Marketing, Customer Success and Customer Experience teams. Prior to Notion, Olivia was the COO @ Dropbox where she achieved the first 4 quarters of profitable growth. Before Dropbox Olivia spent over 5 years at Google including as VP Cloud GTM Operations and Global SMB Sales. Finally, before Google, Olivia spent a whopping 15 years at McKinsey & Company. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Olivia Nottebohm You Will Learn:
1.) Origins:
How Olivia made her way into the world of startups and tech?
What are 1-2 big takeaways Olivia has from her 5+ years at Google? How have they shaped her operating mindset today?
How does Olivia balance her love for analysis and data with speed and agility of decisions?
2.) Good vs Great Operations (Ops):
What does great ops really mean to Olivia? What are the 1-2 things founders can implement today to improve their ops immediately?
What are the core mistakes founders make when instilling ops for the first time?
How does Olivia coordinate the global Notion team to be as effective as possible?
What has worked? What has not worked?
3.) The Hiring Process:
Why does Olivia believe all leaders will have to accept they will not have all the talent they need over the coming years?
With that in mind, is it best to hire B players or always keep the bar high? If and when can the bar be lowered?
How does Olivia construct the hiring process? What are the core questions she will always ask?
What is the secret to great referencing? How does Olivia enable the other side to feel safe telling her everything they know about the candidate?
4.) Cross-Functional Communication:
How does Olivia advise founders on the best way to get different functions working together?
What works? What does not? What are some big mistakes Olivia sees over and over?
At what point in company scaling does this comms begin to breakdown?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Olivia Notte…
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20VC: Lessons Scaling Insight Partners to a $20BN Latest Fund, The Two Biggest Learnings on Price, How to Manage and Train Young People in Venture, Why Business Classrooms Do Not Work and How to Assess the Two Commodities in Life; Money and Time with Jeff
28 maart 2022 · 37 min
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. As for Jeff, over the last 24 years at Insight, he has led investments in leading companies such as Qualtrics, DeliveryHero, HelloFresh, Cvent, Mimecast, and Udemy. As a result of his many investing successes, he has been selected by AlwaysOn as a Venture Capital 100 winner and by Forbes as a member of the Midas List. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Jeff Lieberman You Will Learn:
1.) Origins into Venture:
How did Jeff's roommate at college open his eyes to the world of venture capital?
What were Jeff's biggest lessons from seeing the work ethic of his parents?
How does Jeff imbue the same level of ambition on his children that he had growing up with no money?
Why is Jeff keen for his children not to go to college? How does he advise them?
2.) Jeff Lieberman: The Investor:
What are Jeff's biggest observations on the current landscape given his seeing first hand the dot com bust and 2008? How is now different? How is it the same?
Price Sensitivity: How does Jeff reflect on his own price sensitivity? How has it changed over time?
Deployment Pace: How does Jeff analyse deployment pace today both for the industry and for Insight? Does Jeff agree with the notion of "playing the game on the field"?
The Biggest Miss: What have been some of Jeff's biggest misses? How did those misses impact the process with which he invests?
3.) Insight: The Firm
What are the most challenging elements of firm building today?
Why do all juniors have control over the Partners calendars? How does this work in practice?
How does Jeff create an environment of safety where very young, junior people feel like they can challenge anyone and have discussion?
How do Insight train young people? What is the process? What works? What does not work?
4.) AMA:
What does Jeff know now about…
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20VC The Memo: Inside the Growth Engines of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Instacart with the Growth Leaders Who Built Them; How Instagram Went from 440M to 1BN, How Twitter Changing Their Signup Flow was a Needlemover and How Removing Card Payment Requ
25 maart 2022 · 29 min
Casey Winters is the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite where he leads the PM, product design, research, and growth marketing teams. Prior to Eventbrite, Casey spent close to 3 years at Pinterest where he led the growth product team. Lees meer
Andy Johns is one of the pre-eminent growth leaders of the last decade. Andy's career started in growth at Facebook when the company scaled from 100M-500M active users. Since he has worked in some of the leading growth orgs at companies like Twitter, Quora and more recently at Wealthfront as Head of Growth and President.
Bangaly Kaba is the Head of Platform Growth @ Popshop Live, a live streaming mobile marketplace that combines commerce, entertainment, and social. Prior to Popshop, Bangaly led the product growth and consumer product orgs at Instacart and before Instacart was Head of Growth @ Instagram, where he built and led the product team that helped grow Instagram from 440M to > 1B monthly actives in 2.5yrs.
Elena Verna is a master when it comes to all things starting and scaling growth organizations. Previously, Elena spent over 7 years as SVP Growth @ SurveyMonkey where she ran product, growth marketing, and data teams. Post SurveyMonkey, Elena worked with the rocket ship that is Miro both as Interim CMO and as an advisor.
Ed Baker is an angel investor and growth advisor to various startups including Lime, Zwift, Whoop, Crimson Education, GoPeer, and Playbook. Ed was the VP of Product and Growth at Uber from 2013-2017. Prior to Uber, Ed was the Head of International Growth at Facebook.
Rob Schutz is Chief Growth Officer and Co-founder at Ro, the healthcare technology company building a patient-centric healthcare system. Under Rob's growth leadership, Ro has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the country. Prior to Ro, Rob was VP of Growth at Bark, the makers of BarkBox, and helped scale revenue from zero to $100 million.
In Today's Episode with Ed Baker You Will Learn:
1.) Casey Winters:
How does Casey define…
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20VC: Startups Fail Because They Do Not Take Enough Risk, Why A/B Testing is Inefficient and Slows You Down, Why It is Impossible To Hire Good PMs so Stop Trying & 3 Key Signals The Best Engineers Present with Grant LaFontaine, Founder & CEO @ Whatnot
23 maart 2022 · 40 min
Grant LaFontaine is the Founder & CEO @ Whatnot, the fastest-growing marketplace in the US, empowering people to make a living off their passion. To date, Grant has raised over $225M for Whatnot from the likes of CapitalG, a16z, YC, Scribble Ventures and Wonder Ventures to name a few. Prior to Whatnot, Grant was a PM @ Facebook working on the Oculus App Store and before that was the founder of Kit.com, ultimately acquired by Patreon. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Grant LaFontaine You Will Learn:
1.) The Founding of Whatnot:
How did Grant make his way into the world of tech and startups?
What were some of his biggest lessons from Facebook? How did that impact how he has built Whatnot?
2.) Impossible To Hire Product Managers:
Why does Grant believe it is impossible to hire product managers today?
How does this impact the decision-making powers of engineers?
How does Grant test for this product knowledge in all engineers he adds to the team?
What are clear signals of 10x engineers in hiring processes?
3.) A/B Testing and Risk Mindset:
Why does Grant not believe in the effectiveness of A/B testing? Why does it not work?
Why does Grant believe one of the biggest reasons for startups failing is they do not take enough risk?
How does Grant try to ensure that his team takes as much risk as possible with everything that they do?
How does mindset to risk change with scale of company and with leadership?
4.) AMA:
Why does Grant disagree with founders angel investing?
What are the biggest challenges Whatnot has faced in scaling?
CEO coach? Who? When? What is the biggest lesson?
What is the single driving metric of Whatnot? How does Grant advise founders to determine their North Star metric?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Grant LaFontaine
Grant's Favourite Book: Foundation: 1/3 (Foundation Trilogy)
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20VC Exclusive: Sequoia's Luciana Lixandru Unveils Sequoia's New 8 Week Accelerator, Arc | Biggest Takeaways from Working with Doug Leone and Roelof Botha | The Journey From a Small Town In Romania to Partner @ Sequoia
21 maart 2022 · 44 min
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. As for Luciana, at Sequoia she has led investments in the likes of PennyLane, Xentral, Veed and Ledgy to name a few. Prior to joining Sequoia in 2020, Luciana was a Partner @ Accel where she made investments in Hopin, Miro, UiPath, Tessian and Deliveroo. As a result of such investing success, Luciana was #2 on the Midas List in 2021. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Luciana Lixandru You Will Learn:
1.) Origins:
How did Luciana make her way from a small town in Romania to being Partner @ Sequoia?
What were the 1-2 crucible moments in her life that changed the course of her life?
2.) Luciana: The Investor
How has Luciana's investing style changed and developed over the years?
How does Luciana reflect on her own relationship to price? What misses caused these changes?
Hopin, Miro, Deliveroo, UiPath, how did having such winners so early impact Luciana's investing mindset?
What would Luciana say is her biggest insecurity today? What drives this?
3.) Sequoia: The Team
What are Luciana's biggest takeaways from working with Doug Leone, Alfren Lin, Roelof Botha and Pat Grady?
What does the decision-making process look like for new deals within Sequoia?
How does the Sequoia partnership create an environment of safety where everyone can discuss and debate freely?
How does Luciana approach training and mentorship? What works and what does not?
4.) Sequoia in Europe + Sequoia's Arc:
What is Arc? Why was now the right time for Sequoia to do it?
What is the structure for the program?
How many startups are part of it? Who is able to apply?
How much capital do the startups receive? What else do they receive in mentoring etc?
In 5 years time, what would success look like for Luciana with Arc?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Luciana Lixandru
Luciana's Favourite Book: The Spy and…
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20 Product: Lenny Rachitsky on The 3 Key Roles of the Product Manager, 5 Skills All The Best PMs Have, When To Hire Your First PM, How to Structure the Hiring Process for PMs & What Leaders Can Do to Make Their PMs Successful
16 maart 2022 · 42 min
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. This has scaled to thousands upon thousands of readers and is one of the most popular newsletters on Substack. Lenny is also an extremely active angel investor with a portfolio including Figma, Sorare, Clubhouse, Vanta, WhatNot and many more incredible companies. If that was not enough, Lenny also has the best course on product management, check it out here. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Lenny Rachitsky You Will Learn:
1.) Origins in Product:
How did Lenny make his way iunto the world of product management at Airbnb?
What were some of his biggest takeaways from his time at Airbnb on product?
What mistakes did he make on product at Airbnb? How did it impact his product thinking?
2.) Product Management: 101
How does Lenny define product management today? How is the role of PM changing?
When is the right time to hire your first PM as a startup?
What is the difference between Head of Product and CPO? When do you hire each?
What are the biggest mistakes founders make when hiring their first product hires?
3.) The Hiring Process:
How should founders breakdown the process of hiring for their first in product?
What does the interview process look like? How should founders structure it?
What core questions should teams ask of prospective candidates?
What are red flags when interviewing potential product hires?
4.) The Onboarding Process:
How should founders structure the onboarding process for new product hires?
What can founders do to make PMs successful in their first 30 days?
Where do many product hires make the biggest mistakes in the first 30 days?
What can product hires do to build trust with their new team?
Items Mentioned in Today's Episode with Lenny Rachitsky
Lenny's Fave Book: The Mom Test
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20VC: David Friedberg on The Framework for Business Value Creation, The Bifurcation in Venture Today That No One Talks About, The Impact of Interest Rate Hikes on Venture and Step by Step; How TPB Incubates, Funds and Exits The Next Generation of Companie
14 maart 2022 · 45 min
David Friedberg is Founder and CEO of The Production Board (TPB), a holding company established to solve the most fundamental problems that affect our planet, by reimagining global systems of production. Prior to founding The Production Board, David founded The Climate Corporation, a 10-year journey that culminated in their $930M acquisition by Monsanto. If that was not enough, David is the Founder and Chairman at Metromile and also sits on the board of Soylent, Clara Foods, Tillable, Cana Technologies and more. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with David Friedberg You Will Learn:
1.) Origins:
How David made his way into the world of startups and technology from academia and physics?
What were David's biggest takeaways from scaling The Climate Corp to $930M exit to Monsanto?
How did the exit put pressure on David for all future companies he builds? How does he manage that?
2.) The Macro: Venture + The Economy
How does David foresee the impending rate hikes? What impact will this have on venture and the economy?
What segment of the market will be first to be hit? Why is growth investing last to be hit? How does early stage play out in this very new environment?
How will we see the velocity of capital deployment change in this new period? What does David believe are some of the crucial flaws of the venture model?
How does David reflect on his own price sensitivity? What lessons has he learned from deals he has done or missed that have changed his perspective?
3.) David Frankel: The Business Builder
What is David's rubrik for business value creation? How has this changed with time?
How mentally plastic does one have to be around the time it takes to see margins, unit economics etc change from negative to positive?
How does David and the team approach building new companies at TPB? Where do they find the founding teams? How do they incentivise them?
How does TPB approach continuous funding for the companies they create? What milestones need to be hit? How do they asse…
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20VC: Gitlab CEO Sid Sijbrandij on Why You Are Not Allowed to Present in Meetings at Gitlab, Why it is a Pipedream We Will Go Back to Offices and What is the Future of Work & CEO Coaches; What Makes The Best, When To Have Them and When To Change Them
11 maart 2022 · 36 min
Sid Sijbrandij is the Co-founder & CEO @ GitLab. GitLab's single application helps organizations deliver software faster and more efficiently while strengthening their security and compliance. Prior to their IPO last year, Sid raised funding from some of the best including ICONIQ, GV, Tiger, Coatue and D1 to name a few. Under his leadership, the company has grown to over 1,500 employees and over 30 million registered users. If that was not enough, Sid is also an active angel and sits on the board of Meltano, a spinout of Gitlab that allows you to manage all the data tools in your stack. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Sid Sijbrandij You Will Learn:
1.) The Founding of Gitlab:
How did Sid make his way into the world of tech and startups?
What was it about Gitlab as a project that excited Sid so much from Day 1?
How did Sid convince his co-founder to turn Gitlab from a project into a company?
2.) The Future of Work:
Why does Sid believe it is a fallacy that everyone will go back to the office?
What are the 1-2 most important things for companies to do when moving to a remote work environment? Where does Sid see many make mistakes?
What have Gitlab done to create a remote working environment so successfully? What have they tried that has not worked?
What stage of company building does remote work best for? When is it most challenging?
3.) Sid: The Leader
How has Sid changed and evolved as a leader over the Gitlab journey?
How does Sid look to get as much feedback as possible on his leadership?
How does Sid create an environment of safety where everyone feels they can provide feedback?
How does Sid work with his CEO coach? Should every CEO have one? What should one look for in them? How do you know when you need to change your CEO coach?
4.) Sid: The Board Member:
What have been Sid's biggest lessons on what makes successful board management?
In prep for the meeting, what materials does Sid provide? When does he send them? Does he present to the board? What m…
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20 Sales: The Stripe Sales Playbook; Who Should Create It, When Should it Be Done, Where Do Many Go Wrong | How To Identify 10x Sales Hires and How To Structure the Hiring Process in Sales with Jeanne DeWitt Grosser, Head of Americas Revenue & Growth @ St
9 maart 2022 · 39 min
Jeanne DeWitt Grosser is Head of Americas Revenue & Growth @ Stripe. In this role, Jeanne is responsible for all sales functions across the region including Sales Development, AEs, Solutions Architects, and many more. Jeanne also continues to spearhead Stripe's Enterprise strategy. Prior to this role, Jeanne was Stripe's Head of North America Sales where she built out Stripe's Acquisition Sales teams. Pre-Stripe, Jeanne was CRO @ Dialpad and also spent many years at Google in numerous different roles including most recently as Director of GSuite SMB & Mid-Market Sales, North America and LATAM. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Jeanne DeWitt Grosser You Will Learn:
1.) Entry into Sales:
How did Jeanne make her way into her first sales job in tech?
What did Jeanne learn from her many years at Google about how sales should interact with engineering?
In hindsight, what would Jeanne have done differently/improved from her time with Dialpad?
How did the role with Stripe come about?
2.) The Playbook:
Does the founder need to be the one to create the sales playbook?
When is the right time to bring in the first sales hire? Should they be a sales leader or rep?
How does both the playbook and the type of sales hire change when hiring for a product-led-growth motion vs a traditional enterprise motion?
What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when hiring their first in sales?
3.) The Hiring Process:
How should founders structure the hiring process for their first sales hires?
What did Dialpad do in the sales hiring process that worked well? How has Jeanne taken that to her hiring process at Stripe?
What should be achieved or learned in each consecutive interview?
How can founders use sales case studies most effectively? How can founders know if sales candidates truly have a strong grasp of the product?
What are early signs of a 10x sales hire? What are red flags to look out for in the process?
4.) Sales Onboarding:
What does the ideal onboarding process look …
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20VC: Shopify President, Harley Finkelstein on What is Being a Good Husband, What is Being a Good Father & How to Embrace Vulnerability and Authenticity in Leadership and Marriage
7 maart 2022 · 49 min
Harley Finkelstein is the President of Shopify, the platform modern commerce is built on. Over the last 12 years, Harley has partnered with Tobi to the tune of building Shopify's revenue to over $4.6BN in 2021 and the team to over 10,000 employees. On the side, Harley is an Advisor to Felicis Ventures and in the past has held board seats at CBC, Omers Ventures and The C100. If that was not enough, you can see Harley on a screen near you as one of the "Dragons" on CBC's Next Gen Den. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Harley Finkelstein You Will Learn:
1.) The Founding Story:
What was Harley's first entrepreneurial endeavour?
How did seeing his family lose everything impact Harley's mindset and ambition?
How did Harley first meet Tobi @ Shopify? How did the Shopify journey begin?
2.) Leadership Lessons:
How has Harley changed as a leader over the 13 years with Shopify?
How does Harley embrace vulnerability and authenticity in his communication with the team?
What is Harley most insecure about when he looks at leadership today?
What have been some of the biggest lessons Harley has learned from his board on what great leadership is?
3.) The Art of Marriage:
What does Harley believe makes the most successful marriage?
Why have Harley and his wife been seeing a marriage therapist from the early days?
What is the biggest mistake people make when communicating with partners?
How has Harley changed as a husband over the years?
4.) The Joy of Fatherhood:
Does Harley always believe he has been a good father?
What was his realisation moment that he was not being the father he wanted to be?
What core elements of his behaviour did he change? How did that impact his relationship with his kids?
How does Harley ensure he performs at the highest level while also being there and being present for his family?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Harley Finkelstein
Harley's Favourite Book: The Book of Ichigo Ichie: The Art of Making the Most of Every Moment, the Japanes…
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20VC: 3 Biggest Mistakes Founders Make When Scaling, Management 101 on Trust Building, Morale Maintenance and Hiring & What We Can Learn About Parenting From Nature Programs with Scott Dietzen
28 februari 2022 · 37 min
Scott Dietzen is Vice Chairman of the Board of Pure Storage and served as the Company's CEO from 2010 to 2017. Under his leadership, Pure grew to thousands of employees and
completed an IPO in 2015. Dietzen is a four-time successful entrepreneur with WebLogic, Zimbra, and Transarc. Before Pure, he was President and CTO of Zimbra (now part of VMware), but originally acquired by Yahoo!, where Dietzen served as interim SVP of Communications and Communities. Prior to Zimbra, Dietzen was CTO of BEA Systems, where he helped craft the technology and business strategy for WebLogic that drove BEA from $61m in annual revenues prior to the WebLogic acquisition to over $1B. Lees meerIn Today's Episode with Scott Dietzen You Will Learn:
1.) The Journey to Pure Storage CEO:
How did Scott make his way into the world of tech and startups?
What was the hardest element of making the transition from CTO to CEO?
What advice would Scott give to more technical leaders looking to make the move to CEO? Where do so many make mistakes?
2.) How To Build Trust in a Team:
What are the most important ways that leaders can build trust with their teams?
How can leaders be honest and share the hard truths without damaging role?
What is the right tone to communicate both the big wins and big losses?
Why does Scott always believe the losses teach more? How does Scott approach post-mortems?
3.) The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make:
What are the single biggest hiring mistakes that founders make?
What are the single biggest firing mistakes executives make?
Why should founders sometimes say no to customers?
How should founders approach investor selection and valuation for rounds?
4.) How to Optimise a Board:
What specifically can founders do to optimise their board?
What are the biggest errors founders make when communicating with their board?
What is the value per word framework? How does it tell which board member is the best?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Scott Dietzen
Scott's Fa…
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20VC Exclusive: Sahil Bloom on Raising his Debut Venture Fund (SRB Ventures), Why Traditional Venture Firms Are Going to Lose and How Sahil Built a Twitter Audience to 500K+ in 18 Months
25 februari 2022 · 42 min
Sahil Bloom is the Founding Partner @ SRB Ventures, a $10M fund that leverages the 500K followers Sahil has amassed to invest at the intersection of venture and media. Previously, Sahil spent 7 years at a large investment fund managing >$3.5 billion in capital and serves on the board of 4 companies. He has also been an active angel investor in over 30 companies. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Sahil Bloom You Will Learn:
1.) How Sahil made his way from a career in traditional finance to building a media company and leveraging that to raise the latest SRB fund? How does Sahil advise others is the best way to "find their zone of genius"?
2.) How To Build a Media Engine:
What have been some of Sahil's biggest lessons on what works on Twiter and what does not work?
What is the golden rule for Twitter?
How does Sahil plan and come up with ideas for his Twitter threads? What tools and software does he use? How long does each thread take?
3.) The End of the Road for Traditional Venture:
Why does Sahil think traditional venture is dying?
What newcomers will take the place of the existing incumbents?
Why does he think they are weak? What do new players provide that they do not?
Which existing players will remain and be strong? Which will fade out?
Does Sahil believe that VCs really provide any value?
4.) SRB Ventures:
Why did Sahil decide to raise the new fund?
How did he decide on size of the fund? What is the strategy? What is the portfolio construction?
How does SRB provide media services others do not?
How did Sahil meet Tim Cook and get him to invest in the fund?
What is the biggest thing Sahil believes most people misunderstand about luck?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Sahil Bloom
Sahil's Favourite Book: When Breath Becomes Air: Kalanithi Paul
Sahil's Most Recent Investment: Wander
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The Tiger Global Memo: From Sequoia Capital to Benchmark and Thrive: The World's Best on the Rise of Tiger Global
23 februari 2022 · 20 min
Tiger Global are one of the most discussed venture firms on the planet. With a deal cadence and capital deployment speed that is unmatched, they have made their mark on the venture landscape like no other over the last 24 months. Today we are joined by leaders from Sequoia, Benchmark, Thrive Capital, General Atlantic, GGV and Aleph to discuss the rise of Tiger and how it impacts the venture ecosystem. Lees meer
In Today's Episode on Tiger Global You Will Learn:
1.) Doug Leone: Sequoia Capital
Why we need to change the words when use in venture? Why we need to get rid of "the game"?
How does the rise of Tiger compare to the rise of prior entrants with the same approach?
Why does Doug believe that the craft of venture will persist despite these new entrants?
2.) Bill Gurley: Benchmark Capital
How does Bill analyse the change in late stage venture today?
What are the main drivers of the increased competition in late stage venture?
Why does Bill get concerned not by Tiger but how others respond to Tiger's model?
How does Bill analyse the entry of hedge funds and PE funds into traditional venture models?
3.) Michael Eisenberg: Aleph
How does Michael think about the "weaponisation of capital"?
What are the significant benefits for a fund of having more capital than their competitors?
How does this capital advantage change in boom and bust times?
4.) Anton Levy: General Atlantic
Why does Anton believe that funds are leveraging their assets more efficiently than ever?
How does Anton approach the mindset of AUM scaling without lowering returns?
Why does Anton never want to compete on price?
How does GA think about competing in a world of Tiger and hedge funds investing in tech?
5.) Hans Tung: GGV
Why did Hans always believe the model to look at moving forward was Tiger?
Why does Tiger's business model allow them structural and financial advantages over their competitors?
What does Hans make of the data network effects of Tiger with their strategy?
6.) Kareem Z…
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20VC: Faire's Max Rhodes on Three Steps To Hire the Best Candidates, Why Every Company Should Have a Strategy Doc and How To Do It & The Art of Referencing; How to Get the Most Out of Every Reference
18 februari 2022 · 41 min
Max Rhodes is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Faire, the online marketplace where retailers discover their next bestsellers from independent brands across the globe. To date, Max has raised over $1.1BN with Faire from some of the best including Sequoia, Founders Fund, DST, Forerunner, Lightspeed and many more. Prior to starting Faire, Max spent close to 5 years at Square in numerous different roles including Director of Consumer Product at Caviar. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Max Rhodes You Will Learn:
1.) The Founding Story:
How Max made his way into the world of startups with his joining an early Square team?
How did his 5 years at Square impact how he approaches company building with Faire?
How did Square's approach to product and mission impact Max's thinking?
2.) How To Hire Effectively:
How does Max construct the hiring process? Where do many founders make mistakes?
What does Max mean by "deep behavioural interview"? What questions does he ask?
What are the signals of 10/10 candidates? What are red flags he looks for?
How does Max determine capability? What literal tests can be done to test for this?
3.) How To Reference People:
How does Max approach the referencing process when hiring people?
How does Max make the other side feel comfortable, so they will open up and share everything?
What have been some of Max's biggest lessons on what it takes to do referencing well?
Where do many make mistakes with referencing?
How does Max use an "out of 10" system to determine the quality of the candidate?
4.) How to Strategise:
How does Max use strategy docs to orient the direction of the company?
How often does Max write them? How long do they take to write?
What are the core components of the strategy docs?
Who else is involved in their writing? Once written, what is the right format to discuss with the team?
How does Max approach how rigid he is to the strategies outlined? How does he determine whether he should change strategy or stick to plan?
Item's Me…
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20Growth: Five Key Functions of a Growth Team, The Biggest Lessons Starting Uber's Growth Team and Scaling Facebook's, How To Structure The Hiring Process for Growth and What Separates Good From Great in Growth Leaders with Ed Baker, Former VP of Growth @
16 februari 2022 · 50 min
Ed Baker is an angel investor and growth advisor to various startups including Lime, Zwift, Whoop, Crimson Education, GoPeer, and Playbook. Ed was the VP of Product and Growth at Uber from 2013-2017. Prior to Uber, Ed was the Head of International Growth at Facebook, a company he joined after they acquired a startup he co-founded called Friend.ly, which had grown to over 25 million users. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Ed Baker You Will Learn:
1.) Ed Baker: Entry into Growth:
How Ed made his way into the world of growth from his start founding a dating site while at Harvard?
How he made his way to lead international growth at Facebook? How his time with Facebook led to his joing Uber to start Uber's growth team?
What were Ed's biggest lessons from Uber and Facebook? How did his approach to growth and mindset change as a result of his time there?
2.) When is the Right Time:
When is the right time for startups to hire their first growth leads or reps?
How should they determine whether to promote from within or hire externally?
What are the biggest mistakes startups make on the timing of this hire?
How can startups accurately assess whether they have product-market-fit?
3.) Who To Hire:
Step by step, how does Ed structure the interview process for all new growth hires?
What are the must ask questions for growth leaders to ask candidates in interviews?
What are the clear signs and answers that suggest a 10x growth hire?
What literal tests does Ed do to determine the quality of a hire? How do the best perform?
4.) Onboarding and Integration:
What is the optimal onboarding process for all new growth hires?
How do the best growth hires start in the first 60 days? What do they achieve?
What are some of the early signs that a growth hire is not working out?
How should the relationship be between the CEO and the Head of Growth?
How can the Head of Growth foster a strong relationship between growth and product teams?
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20VC: Bedrock's Geoff Lewis on Whether VCs Actually Provide Value or Not, Why Bedrock Does Not Have An Ownership Focus and The Difference Between Principles and Rules When Building a Firm or Company
14 februari 2022 · 34 min
Geoff Lewis is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Bedrock, now with over $1BN in AUM, Bedrock invests in breakout technology companies that are incongruent with popular narratives. In the past, Geoff has backed some generational defining companies such as Wish, Lyft, Nubank, RigUp, Vercel, Anduril and many more. Prior to founding Bedrock, Geoff was a Partner @ Founders Fund. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Geoff Lewis You Will Learn:
1.) How Geoff made his way into the world of venture with his joining Founders Fund? How his time with Founders Fund led to his co-founding Bedrock with Eric?
2.) Geoff Lewis: The Investor:
How does Geoff reflect on his own relationship to price? How does he determine when to pay up vs walk away?
How does Geoff approach the re-investment decision-making process? Where do most go wrong when it comes to allocating reserves?
What have been some of Geoff's biggest misses? How did they impact his investing mindset?
Why does Geoff not believe that ownership is as crucial as other VCs suggest?
3.) Bedrock: The Firm
What have been some of the biggest challenges in building Bedrock?
Where does Geoff believe many firms make core mistakes in firm building?
What are the differences between principles and rules? Why does Geoff believe all firms need to have principles?
How does Geoff approach internal talent building? What are the signals of people that will succeed in venture? How do they approach learning?
4.) The Market:
How does Geoff analyse the current state of the venture market?
Does Geoff agree with the notion of "play the game on the field"?
Why does Geoff think markups are BS and just VCs looking for external validation?
How has Geoff learned to isolate from the VC community and retain that purity of mindset working with great entrepreneurs?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Geoff Lewis
Geoff's Favourite Book: Friedrich Nietzsche
Geoff's Most Recent Investment: Praxis
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20VC: Box's Aaron Levie on Why Founders Cannot Hedge Their Bets, The 2 Categories of Wrong Decision and How To Avoid Them & The Biggest Dangers of Being Over-Funded as a Startup
11 februari 2022 · 35 min
Aaron Levie is the Founder and CEO @ Box, the company incorporating the best of secure content collaboration with an intuitive user experience suited to the way people work today. Prior to their IPO in 2015, Aaron raised from some of the best in the business including the main man Mark Cuban, a16z, Emergence, DST, Coatue, DFJ and many more. Aaron founded the company from his dorm room at the University of Southern California and has led the company to 1,900 employees and over $770M in revenue, as of 2021 data. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Aaron Levie You Will Learn:
1.) How Aaron founded Box from his dorm room at the University of Southern California? What was that founding a-ha moment? What did the first year look like? Does Aaron agree, "serial entrepreneurship is overrated"?
2.) Phases of Leadership and Company Growth:
How does Aaron define the different phases of leadership required as a company grows?
Which phase did Aaron find the most challenging? How did he overcome it?
What are the first things to break when companies grow? What can founders do to prevent this?
Does Aaron agree, "the best CEOs are the best resource allocators"?
3.) The Market:
How does Aaron thinkj about the dislocation between private company valuations and public company market caps?
What does Aaron believe are the biggest challenges founders face when they are over-capitalised?
What does Aaron mean when he says, "raise when cash is cheap, spend as if it was expensive"? How does Aaron advise founders on fundraising today?
4.) The Team and Culture:
How does Aaron create a safe space where all team members can come to him with anything?
How does Aaron approach effective goal setting? How does one balance between achieveable and also aggressive goals?
How does Aaron approach the art of delegation? What is his decision-making framework for what to delegate vs what to control?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Aaron Levie
Aaron's Favourite Book: Innovator's Dilemma: When Ne…
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20 Product: Scott Belsky on How to Hire Your Product Leader and Team, 3 Questions All Great Product Leaders Ask, How To Structure and Run Effective Product Reviews & Is Product More Art or Science?
9 februari 2022 · 45 min
Scott Belsky is an entrepreneur, author, investor, and currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Scott oversees all of product and engineering for Creative Cloud, as well as design for Adobe. In 2006, Scott founded Behance, the leading online platform for the creative industry, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Behance now has over 25M members. Scott is also an early advisor and investor in Pinterest, Uber, Sweetgreen, Carta, Flexport, Airtable, and several others. Finally, if that was not enough, Scott is the author of two national bestselling books - Making Ideas Happen and The Messy Middle. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Scott Belsky You Will Learn:
1.) Narrow the Focus, Increase the Quality:
What does Scott believe is the core challenge in product?
What was the single biggest product challenge Scott faced at Behance? How did they overcome it?
When should product teams listen to customer feedback vs ignore it?
What are the core questions product teams should ask user groups to extract the most feedback and value?
2.) The Importance of the First Mile:
What does Scott believe makes a great first mile when it comes to the product experience?
Where do so many companies go wrong in creating the first mile user experience?
Which company at scale has retained this simplicity of the first mile? How did they do it?
What does Scott mean when he says, "the devil is in the defaults"? What can product teams learn from this?
3.) The Makings of a Great Product Leader:
What are the 3 core questions every great product leader should ask on every screen?
How do the best product leaders structure product reviews?
Who is invited to product reviews? How often are they? Who sets the agenda? When is it sent?
What do the best product leaders do to retain direction and productivity in reviews when there are many people and many ideas? How do they stay on track?
4.) The Hirings of a Great Product Team:
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20VC: Biggest Lessons and Challenges Building One of the Most Successful Seed Funds, How To Manage Investor Psychology, Self-Doubt and Insecurity & The Secret to Truly Successful Venture Partnerships with David Frankel, Co-Founder @ Founder Collective
7 februari 2022 · 44 min
David Frankel is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Founder Collective, one of the great seed firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Uber, Coupang, Airtable, Whoop and many more incredible companies. Previously, David was Co-Founder and CEO of Internet Solutions (IS), the largest ISP in Africa, ultimately acquired by NTT. David is also a founding board member of Endeavor SA and in the past has been selected by the World Economic Forum for the Global Leader of Tomorrow (GLT) program. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with David Frankel You Will Learn:
1.) How David made his way into the world of angel investing? How his mindset changed when making the transition from angel to an institutional investor with the founding of Founder Collective?
2.) Building the Firm: Founder Collective
What are the biggest challenges in venture firm building today?
Why is "deploy" and "the game" banned as words within Founder Collective? What terms are promoted as an alternative?
How does David construct investment decision-making in the partnership?
How does David create a safe space where all team members can share their thoughts in a non-judgemental, safe environment?
What are the biggest mistakes or challenges that David sees firms make when building?
3.) David Frankel: Investor Mindset
How does David analyse the current seed market today? What does he like? What worries him?
Does David agree that early stage investing has never been less collaborative?
How does David reflect on his own relationship to price today? How does he determine when to pay up vs when not to?
How does David think about the compression on fund deployment timelines? Will this change?
How does David keep a fresh and clean mind when viewing new opportunities, having seen many work and not work? How does one retain that mental purity when investing?
What have been some of David's biggest misses? How did it impact his style of investing?
4.) The Partnership:
What was the most recent disagreement D…
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20VC: Mark Cuban on Reshaping the Pharmaceuticals Industry, How To Hire and Build Truly Great Teams and What Brand Really Means Today and How To Build One Successfully
4 februari 2022 · 31 min
Mark Cuban is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Today we are focused on Mark's latest entrepreneurial endeavor, starting Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drug Company, the online pharmacy taking out the middlemen, meaning no price games and huge drug savings. As mentioned, Mark is also the proud owner of Dallas Mavericks, since his taking over they have competed in the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history in 2006 – and became NBA World Champions in 2011. Before Dallas Mavericks, Mark co-founded Broadcast.com – streaming audio over the internet. In just four short years, Broadcast.com (then Audionet) was sold to Yahoo for $5.6 billion dollars. If that was not enough, Mark is also one of ABC's "Sharks" on the hit show Shark Tank. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Mark Cuban You Will Learn:
1.) Cost Plus Drugs: Origin
Why Mark decided to build Cost Plus Drugs?
Why has no one done it before?
How does Mark think about resource and time allocation with Cost Plus?
2.) Building the Team: Hiring
How does mark analyze his approach to hiring? Where is he weak? Where is he strong?
What one motto does Mark always use when it comes to hiring?
What is the most common mistake Mark sees founders make when it comes to team build?
How does Mark identify stress removers? What are the core signals?
3.) Brand + Capital + Business Strategy:
Why is the current cost structure of healthcare so damaged in the US? How does Cost Plus change this?
How does Mark think about what it takes to build great brand today? Why will Cost Plus not be doing big TV and traditional media advertising?
What types of guerilla marketing is Mark most excited by? Why will Mark never have a billboard in Times Square?
4.) AMA with Mark Cuban:
What 3 traits does Mark most want his children to adopt?
What worries Mark most today?
What are Mark's biggest strengths? What are his biggest weaknesses?
What single purchase has brought Mark the greatest joy?
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20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
2 februari 2022 · 46 min
Dannie Herzberg is a Partner @ Sequoia Capital and one of the great sales leaders of the last decade. Prior to entering the world of venture, Dannie spent 4 years at Slack as their Head of Enterprise Sales, there Dannie built & scaled the self-serve / SMB, mid-market, and enterprise sales orgs across the Americas as Slack grew from $100M - $1B in revenue. Before Slack, Dannie spent over 5 years at Hubspot building sales, opening an SF office, and then joining product to launch CRM & platform. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Dannie Herzberg You Will Learn:
1.) How Dannie got her first job in sales at Hubspot through being a waitress in a Boston Diner? What were her biggest lessons from her 5 years scaling sales at Hubspot? How did Dannie's 4 years at Slack impact her operating and sales mindset today?
2.) The Playbook:
Does the founder need to be the one to create the sales playbook?
When is the right time to bring in the first sales hire? Should they be a sales leader or rep?
When is the right time to bring in a CRO, sales enablement and revenue ops?
What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when hiring their first in sales?
3.) The Hiring Process:
How should founders structure the hiring process for their first sales hires?
What should be achieved or learned in each consecutive interview?
How can founders use sales case studies most effectively?
What are early signs of a 10x sales hire? What are red flags to look out for in the process?
4.) Sales Onboarding:
What does the ideal onboarding process look like for new sales hires?
What tasks and duties should all sales hires perform in the first 60 days?
What are early signs that a new hire is not performing to the right standard?
How does the first few months differ for sales reps when comparing a product-led-growth company to an enterprise company?
How can new sales hires really engage with broader functions within the team in the first 30 days?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Dannie Her…
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20VC: How Startup Valuations, Fund Deployment Cycles, M&A and IPO Markets Will All Change in This New Market, Where Will The Biggest Crunch Be, When Is The Right Time To Be Aggressive vs Conservative with Roger Ehrenberg, Founding Partner @ IA Ventures
31 januari 2022 · 45 min
Roger Ehrenberg is a Founding Partner @ IA Ventures, one of the most successful seed funds of the last decade with $475 million across their four funds. Previous investments include The Trade Desk, Datadog, Digital Ocean, Wise and Recorded Future. Most recently, Roger took a step away from the day-to-day running of the firm, since he started IA Sports Partners, investing in sports franchises and other sports-related assets. Last month, Roger, alongside his two sons, started Eberg Capital, an investment vehicle focused on web3, crypto, NFTs and next-gen infrastructure. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Roger Ehrenberg You Will Learn:
1.) How Roger made his way into the world of angel investing and venture having had a successful career on Wall St? How did seeing the booms and busts of the dot com and 2008 impact his investing mindset today? How does today compare to those times?
2.) The Investor Mindset:
What is Roger's #1 rule when it comes to managing investor psychology in volatile times?
What does Roger do to calm his mind and prevent worry and fear when markets crash? What works? What does not work?
How does one assess how close we are to the bottom? Why does Roger believe there is more "blood on the streets to come"?
When does Roger believe is the right time to pullback vs when to be aggressive in deployment?
What company profiles will do well vs poorly moving into this new cycle?
3.) Investing Strategy:
How does this new market impact the three different investing categories; early, Series A & B and growth?
Why does Roger believe deployment timelines will be extended? How will pricing be impacted?
Why does Roger believe that the Series A & B crunch is the most worrisome? How will their bar for what makes a great company change?
Should early stage managers alter their reserves strategy in the face of more stringent Series A rounds? Why does it not make sense to invest in "pay to play" rounds?
How does Roger adivse the companies that he works with today on …
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20VC: The Robinhood Memo: The Early Metrics That Showed Robinhood was a Breakout Company, The Cost Structure of Robinhood in the Early Days and Why it is a More Efficient Business than eTrade & How Vlad Has Developed as a Leader Over Time with Rick Yang a
28 januari 2022 · 32 min
Scott Sandell is the Managing General Partner of NEA, one of the leading firms of the last 3 decades with now close to $24Bn under management and a portfolio including Salesforce, Robinhood, Plaid, Databricks and more. As for Scott, since joining the firm in 1996 he has led investments in Salesforce.com, Tableau Software, WebEx and Workday and serves on the board of Robinhood, Cloudflare, Coursera and Divvy to name a few. Lees meer
Rick Yang is a General Partner and Head of Consumer Investing @ NEA, since joining in 2007 he has led investments in the likes of Masterclass, Plaid, Robinhood and many more.
In Today's Episode with Scott Sandell and Rick Yang You Will Learn:
1.) How Rick came to meet Vlad, Robinhood Founder, for the first time? What impressed Rick most in that first meeting? How did the internal discussions proceed at NEA? Was it a unanimous decision to make the investment?
2.) The Market:
How did Rick and Scott evaluate the market at the time? Bottoms up, top down?
How did the market change and evolve both in ways they did and did not expect?
How do Rick and Scott evaluate market timing risk today when investing?
How did Rick and Scott approach outcome scenario planning with Robinhood?
3.) The Traction:
What core signals and datapoints made Rick realise Robinhood had product-market-fit?
How did Rick and NEA analyse Robinhood's early organic customer acquisition? How did the board advise on how to spend their first marketing dollars?
How does the cost structure of the business compare to Charles Swaab and eTrade? Why is Robinhood such a superior model?
4.) The Team:
How has Vlad evolved and developed as a leader over time?
How did Vlad handle the 36 hours in Feb 2021 when he had to go and raise $3BN+?
Who is the unsung hero of the Robinhood team? What have they done to deserve this?
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20VC: Sweetgreen Founder Jonathan Neman on Leadership Lessons from Managing Through COVID, The Importance of Failing Fast and Iterating & How the Best Leaders Bring Together Brand, Capital Allocation and Strategy
26 januari 2022 · 44 min
Jonathan Neman is Co-Founder & CEO of Sweetgreen, the mission-driven restaurant brand that serves healthy food at scale. Alongside his co-founders, Jon has scaled Sweetgreen from one small restaurant to one of the US' leading food brands with over 5,000 employees, over 140 locations and $300M+ in revenue. If that was not enough, Jon is also an active board member of MeUndies. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Jonathan Neman You Will Learn:
1.) How Jon took the decision to leave his "dream job" as a consultant at Bain to start Sweetgreen? What did his Bain boss tell him that persuaded Jon it was the right decision to leave? How does Jon think about and advise people when it comes to choosing the safe vs the risky path?
2.) How Sweetgreen was not an Overnight Success:
At what moment did Jon really not think that Sweetgreen would make it? Why?
How did he deal with those moments of intense stress and pressure?
How does Jon test for true grit and resilience both in hires and in founders today?
3.) Brand + Capital + Business Strategy:
How does Jon think deeply about what brand means today?
What did Sweetgreen do right when it comes to their brand building? How did they marry art and science in the right way?
What do the unit economics look like on a per store basis? What is the payback period on a per store basis? How has this changed over time?
How does the store design impact the profit per store? How has store design changed over time?
What have been some of the biggest lessons in terms of when, where and how to open new stores?
4.) Leading Through COVID:
What were some of Jon's biggest lessons from leading a consumer brand through COVID
What were some of the toughest elements for Jon? How did he overcome them?
How can founders bring people along with their thought process and inspire?
Who is Jon's biggest mentor? What has he learned from them?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Jonathan Neman
Jon's Favourite Book: Thinking, Fast and Slow: Daniel Kahnem…
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20VC: 23andMe's Anne Wojcicki on How To Approach Trust in Business and Personal Relationships, Leadership Lessons from Sheryl Sandberg and Reflections on How The Best Founders Manage Their Boards
24 januari 2022 · 41 min
Anne Wojcicki is the Founder & CEO @ 23andme, offering DNA testing with the most comprehensive ancestry breakdown, personalized health insights, and more. To date, Anne has raised over $1BN for the company from the likes of Sequoia, GV, NEA and many more incredible names. Prior to founding 23andMe, Anne spent a decade on Wall Street investing in healthcare and felt frustrated by a system built around monetizing illness instead of incentivizing prevention. If that was not enough, Anne is also on the board of Cazoo and The Anne Wojcicki Foundation and is an active angel investor with investments in the likes of Embark and Maven Clinic. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Anne Wojcicki You Will Learn:
1.) How Anne made her way from Wall St healthcare investing to founding one of the leading healthcare companies of the last decade in 23andme?
2.) Trust and Friendship:
How does Anne determine whether someone is genuine or is being transactional? What are the signs?
How does Anne approach trust in relationships? Start from a base of full trust and it is to be lost or start with none and it is to be gained?
What does Anne believe are the core of the best and most healthy relationships she has?
3.) Leadership:
How does Anne reflect on her own decision-making processes today?
How does Anne create a safe space where her team feel they can pushback on her and tell her how they feel?
How does Anne approach internal role migration? What does Anne do to get the very best out of her team?
How has Anne's leadership style changed over the years?
How has being on the board of Cazoo changed how Anne reflects on her own board leadership? What have been some of her biggest lessons from Alex Chesterman?
4.) AMA:
What is the hardest element of Anne's role with 23andme?
What is Anne's morning routine?
What 3 traits would Anne most want her children to have?
Anne can have a billboard anywhere, what do it say on it and why?
What would Anne most like to change in the world of healthcar…
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20VC: How I Lost a $125M Deal with Yahoo by Being Too Honest, The M&A Meeting with Steve Jobs That Did Not Go Well and How U2's Bono Saved The Day For One Tech Startup with Ali Partovi, CEO @ Neo
21 januari 2022 · 40 min
Ali Partovi is the CEO @ Neo, a mentorship community and communal VC fund that announced their new $150M fund last year on the back of early hits from Fund I including Vanta and Kalshi. As an angel, Ali has made personal investments in Dropbox, Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, Convoy and many more. Prior to investing, Ali founded 2 companies, the first; LinkExchange which he sold to Microsoft for $265M in 1998 and the second, iLike which was acquired by Microsoft in 2009. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Ali Partovi You Will Learn:
1.) How Ali made his way into the world of startups with the founding of his first company? How Ali made his way into angel investing and then starting and raising Neo, as a fund?
2.) How To Kill a $125M By Being Too Honest:
How did Ali lose this $125M with Jerry Yang and Yahoo?
What led Ali to believe that Paul Graham was so special in 1995? What would Ali have done differently with the benefit of hindsight?
How does Ali feel about investment misses today? What are his biggest misses? How has it impacted his mindset and approach to investing?
3.) The Meeting with Steve Jobs Did Not Go Well:
Why did the meeting with Steve Jobs not go well?
What was wrong with the way Ali phrased his final statement? What did this teach Ali about how founders should communicate the difference between hype and reality?
What did this experience teach Ali about how founders should run both fundraising and M&A processes? How does Ali build trust with every touchpoint?
4.) U2, Airbnb and Google at Seed:
How did Bono come to save the day for Ali for his startup in 2009?
What did this teach Ali about how to frame risk and when to go all in vs hold back?
How did Ali miss investing in the seed for Airbnb? How did he make up for it with a later investment?
How did Ali come to miss investing in the Google seed round? Does FOMO haunt Ali today?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Ali Partovi
Ali's Favourite Book: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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20Growth: The Biggest Lie in Startup Growth and Marketing, Why You Do Not Need To Diversify Customer Acquisition Channels in the Early Days & When and How To Build Your Growth Team with Rob Schutz, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer @ Ro
19 januari 2022 · 40 min
Rob Schutz is Chief Growth Officer and Co-founder at Ro, the healthcare technology company building a patient-centric healthcare system. To date, Ro has raised over $870M with a last reported valuation of $5BN and under Rob's growth leadership, Ro has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the country. Prior to Ro, Rob was VP of Growth at Bark, the makers of BarkBox, and helped scale revenue from zero to $100 million. He also founded a Washington DC-based daily deals site that was acquired by kgbdeals in 2011. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Rob Schutz You Will Learn:
1.) How Rob made his way into startups and growth through the world of daily deals? How that led to his leading growth for Bark and ultimately founding Ro? How did leading marketing for Bark impact his growth strategy today with Ro?
2.) What is "Growth" and When to Hire For It:
How does Rob define "growth and "Head of Growth"?
When is the right time to start thinking about a growth team?
Should founders hire a "Head of Growth" first or hire younger growth reps?
Where should the growth team sit within the organization?
3.) How to Hire Growth Leader and Reps:
What is the step-by-step process to hire growth leaders and reps?
How does it differ when hiring growth leaders vs reps?
What questions does Rob always ask? What separates good from great answers?
What case studies does Rob like to use to determine candidate quality?
How can one tell whether marketeers and growth candidates truly understand data?
4.) How to Structure the Onboarding Process:
What does the optimal onboarding process look like for new hires?
What tasks and duties do you expect reps and growth leaders to complete in the first month?
What are some early red flags that the candidate you have is not good enough?
How can leaders deliberately manufacture moments for growth teams to interact with other teams?
What are the biggest mistakes growth teams and leaders make in the early days?