The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

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20VC: a16z's Scott Kupor on The Biggest Learnings From Scaling a16z from $300m to $7Bn AUM, The Biggest Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Pitching VCs & Why VC Is Simply A Customer Service Business

10 juni 2019 · 30 min
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Scott Kupor is Managing Partner @ Andreessen Horowitz, one of the world's most renowned venture funds with a portfolio including the likes of Facebook, Airbnb, Github, Lyft, Coinbase, Slack and many more. As for Scott, he has been with the firm since its inception in 2009 and has overseen its rapid growth, from three employees to 150+ and from $300 million in assets under management to more than $7 billion today. Before a16z, Scott was a VP @ HP where he managed a $1.5 billion (1,300 person) global support organization for HP Software product portfolio. Scott joined HP as a result of his prior company Opsware, being acquired, where he served as a Senior VP across numerous roles across an incredible 8-year journey. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Scott made his way from the world of law to startups to being Managing Partner at one of the world's most renowned venture firms in the form of a16z?

2.) How did seeing the boom and bust of the dot com bubble and 2008 impact Scott's operating mindset today? Why does he argue that those times are so drastically different to today? How do public markets fundamentally diffferent? How do teams approach to capital efficiency and scaling differ significantly?

3.) What does Scott believe entrepreneurs get most wrong when pitching VCs? Why does Scott argue that product is not the core when pitching VCs? Does Scott agree with Fred @ Okta in weighing it: 70% market, 20% team, 10% product? What is Scott's weighting? Why does Scott believe that the compression of fundraising timelines is a problem? What pitch sticks out to Scott above all others? What made it so memorable?

4.) How does Scott advise founders on determining the right amount to raise for? Does Scott believe that founders should ask for a specific number or a range? Why does Scott believe raising for "runway" is the wrong mindset? Does Scott believe that most bridges are bridges to nowhere? If so, what is the next step? How does one relay that information t…
20VC: Plaid's Zach Perret on Why You Have To Hire For Spikes and What That Really Means, Fintech Predictions From Incumbent Entrants To The Rise of Europe & The 2 Big Questions That CEOs Should Ask Themselves

7 juni 2019 · 33 min
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Zach Perret is the Founder & CEO @ Plaid, the startup providing the easiest way for users to connect their bank accounts to an app whether it be transactions, identity or authentication. To date, Zach has raised over $300m with Plaid from some of the best in the business including Mary Meeker, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Felicis, Spark and Homebrew, just to name a few. As for Zach, as CEO he has scaled Plaid to today with over 300 employees, 3 international offices and over 10Bn transactions analysed. Prior to founding Plaid, Zach was a consultant @ Bain. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Zach made his way into the world of startups from consulting at Bain and what led to the founding of Plaid and the mission to unlock consumer finance? What advice would Zach give to emerging grads today, questioning whether to join or start a startup?

2.) What does great leadership and CEOship look like to Zach? How has Zach seen himself evolve and develop as a leader over the last few years? How does Zach think about prioritisation? How does Zach determine what to say yes vs what to say no to? What has Zach found the most challenging in scaling as a CEO? What has he done to mitigate this?

3.) How does Zach think about constructing the optimal recruitment process? What have been some of Zach's biggest lessons in what it takes to really recruit world-class talent? What does Zach mean when he says, "you have to hire for spikes"? How does Zach manage the tension of keeping the high-quality bar whilst also sustaining the very steep growth curve?

4.) Plaid recently raised $275m, how does Zach think about capital efficiency with Plaid today? How does Zach determine when is the right time to transition from the mindset of lean and iteration to raising a war chest and going for the home run? What is Zach's biggest advice to founders when it comes to investor selection? Is it possible for the investor and the founder to be "friends"?

5.) When assessing the fintech l…
20VC: Why Portfolio Construction Is Inefficient, Why The Only Thing That Matters In Venture Is Pricing & The Future of Venture; Bundled or Unbundled with Zach Coelius

3 juni 2019 · 37 min
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Zach Coelius is Managing Partner @ Coelius Capital and in his own words, "a pretty eclectic investor who loves to see just about any deal". To date, Zach has made investments in the likes of mParticle, Cruise Automation, Branch Metrics, SkySafe, ProsperWorks and more. In addition, Zach is or has been an advisor to LiveRamp, Hellosign, Art19, Loom.ai, Survata and StartGrid just to name a few. Prior to his investing career, Zach was CEO @ Triggit, an online adtech company which he raised over $18m for and was ultimately acquired in 2015. If that was not enough, Zach is also a Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Co. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Zach made his way from the world of operating and adtech to investing and advising startups today? When does Zach feel the ecosystem really started to take him seriously as an investor? What did Zach learn from being in the adtech space that he has applied to his investing today?

2.) The Future of Venture: Naval has previously said we will see "the unbundling of VC", does Zach agree with this view? Why does Zach feel we are seeing both the bundling and the unbundling of venture platforms? What unique challenges does this pose for both sides of the equation? How should entrepreneurs evaluate the different options, bundled vs unbundled?

3.) Portfolio Construction: Why does Zach believe that portfolio construction is fundamentally inefficient? What 2 core areas of venture does portfolio construction cause issues for? When does Zach view to be the ideal insertion point if optimising for absolute returns and not following portfolio construction?

4.) Reserve Allocation and Pricing: Why does Zach think that the current mechanism for reserve allocation is broken? Why is it a fundamentally bias process? What does the optimal investment decision-making process look like to Zach? How does Zach think about the asymmetric information that is gained from being early into a company? How can investors really use it to their advanta…
20VC: Why You Must Have A Customer Acquisition Strategy From Day 1, How To Test and Validate Ideas At Speed & Why You Should Speak To Investors Before Starting Work On Your Idea with Kulveer Taggar, Founder @ CEO @ Zeus Living

31 mei 2019 · 32 min
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Kulveer Taggar is the Founder & CEO @ Zeus Living, the startup providing a home of your own for business travel with smartly furnished homes for extended stays. To date, Kul has raised over $14m in VC funding from some dear friends of the show in the form of Garry and Alexis @ Initialized, James and Pete @ NFX, Mike @ Floodgate, Y Combinator, GV and Naval Ravikant just to name a few. Prior to Zeus, Kul co-founded Auctomatic alongside Stripe's Patrick Collison, they ultimately sold the company for $5m. Before that, Kul co-founded Bosco, alongside former 20VC guest, Monzo's Tom Blomfield, they raised seed funding from YC before moving to the states to start Auctomatic. If that wasn't enough, Kul has also made several angel investments in the likes of Boom, Airhelp, Meetings.io and more. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Kul made his way from Oxford University to being at the centre of one of tech's most powerful hubs of YC and then with the founding of Zeus? What were Kul's biggest takeaways from his first 2 startups? How did that impact his operating mentality?

2.) What did the idea generation process look like for Kul with Zeus? How was James Currier @ NFX so foundational helping here? Why does Kul believe that the idea "really is everything" today? Why does Kul believe that customer acquisition channels are a core part of the product that must be considered from Day 1?

3.) Before hitting on Zeus, Kul and the team had many ideas, what did that idea validation process look like? How did Kul keep morale high in the team when continuously trying and stopping work on new projects? How does Kul think you can use culture as a superpower? As a leader, how can you be both vulnerable and strong at the same time?

4.) Kul has previously said that "tech-enabled businesses are just much harder than pure software plays". Why is that? What makes them so much more challenging? How do the required skills to be successful change when moving from pure software to tech-e…
20VC: Y Combinator's New President, Geoff Ralston on The Single Most Important Perspective An Investor Can Provide A Founder, The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside Paul Graham & Why You Will Lose As An Investor If You "Profile Invest"

27 mei 2019 · 34 min
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Geoff Ralston is President @ Y Combinator, the world's leading accelerator with a portfolio that includes the likes of Stripe, Airbnb, Dropbox, Coinbase, Instacart, DoorDash, Flexport and so many more. As for Geoff, he started his career running engineering at Four11, where he built RocketMail, which in 1997 became Yahoo! Mail. At Yahoo! Geoff worked in engineering, then ran a business unit, then became Chief Product Officer. After Yahoo! he was CEO of Lala, which was acquired in 2009 by Apple. Post Lala, Geoff then co-founded the world's first educational technology accelerator, Imagine K12 which funded dozens of edtech companies including ClassDojo, Remind, and Panorama Education. Imagine K12 merged with YC in 2016. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Geoff made his way into the world of technology and startups, came to found Imagine K12 and how that led to becoming President @ Y Combinator today?

2.) What were Geoff's biggest takeaways from seeing the boom and bust of the macro environment in the dot com and 2008? How did those times impact both his operating and investing mentality? Why does Geoff believe 2000 was "purifying"? Why can the same not be said for 2008? How was 2008 so different?

3.) Frederic Kerrest @ Okta said: "it is 70% market, 20% team and 10% product", would Geoff agree with this weighting? How has his weighting changed over time? YC has "10 Minute Meetings", how can YC really determine whether someone is investable in 10 mins? How does Geoff think about the hailed VC term, "pattern matching"? Why does Geoff believe you lose as an investor if you fall back on "profiles"?

4.) Geoff has worked with 100s of founders in the idea validation stage, how does Geoff know when a founder has the right idea? How does Geoff think about the balance between mission and vision but then also being realistic about when something is not working? When do you quit? Why is the decision internal not external? What is the most important perspective any in…
20VC: Front's Mathilde Collin on Why Discipline Is More Important Than Vision, The Right Way To Approach Investor Updates and Director Reports & How To Effectively Structure 1-1s

24 mei 2019 · 33 min
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Mathilde Collin is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Front, reinventing the email inbox with new workflows and efficient collaboration so people can accomplish more together. To date, Mathilde has raised over $79m in VC funding with Front from some of the best in the business including Bryan Schreier @ Sequoia, Initialized, Uncork Capital, Boldstart and individuals including Andrew Chen, Elad Gil, Ray Tonsing the list goes on. With 4,500+ customers, and 100+ employees, in Paris, San Francisco and Amsterdam, Front is one of the fastest growing companies in SaaS and Mathilde has become a thought leader for the next generation of SaaS CEOs, read more on her blog here. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Mathilde made her way from product manager in Paris to founding one of the hottest and fastest growing companies in the world of SaaS in the form of Front?

2.) What does Mathilde mean when she says, "I would choose discipline over vision any day of the week"? What does discipline really mean to Mathilde? Why is it a priority in the early days? How can a VC stress test and determine the level of discipline a founder has in first meetings? What are the signs or leading indicators?

3.) Communications:

Investor Updates: What is Mathilde's biggest advice to founders when it comes to investor updates? What should they contain? How often should they go out? How should founders ask for help in updates? Where do founders often make mistakes?

Revenue Updates: Why does Mathilde do revenue updates with the team? Is there a danger of being too transparent? What are the benefits of this transparency? What is the structure of the update? Who is privy to it?

Direct Reports: How does Mathilde communicate with her direct reports? Why does Mathilde believe that CEOs should have their calendar public? What is the right cadence for these direct reports?

4.) How does Mathilde approach and think about fundraises with Front today? How can founders know when is the right time to raise? How…
20VC: Softbank Managing Partner, Jeff Housenbold on How Softbank Approach Portfolio Construction, Their Optimal Investment Decision-Making Process and What Excites Softbank Most In Opportunities Today

20 mei 2019 · 34 min
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Jeff Housenbold is a Managing Partner @ Softbank Vision Fund, the leading and most influential firm in the venture space investing more than $93 billion in the businesses and technologies they believe will enable the next stage of the information revolution. To date, Jeff has backed the likes of OpenDoor, DoorDash, Wag, Clutter, Brandless and Katerra just to name a few. Prior to Softbank, Jeff spent 11 years as President and CEO @ Shutterfly, during his tenure the company enjoyed incredible growth with the growth of the team from 103 to 2,600 employees. In the past, Jeff has sat on the board of Caesers Entertainment (the world's largest casino entertainment company), Groupon and Chegg and is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Mellon University. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Jeff made his way from being President and CEO of Shutterfly for 11 years to writing $200m-2Bn checks as Managing Partner @ Softbank Vision Fund?

2.) We have Wag on the small end and Uber on the high end, so how does Softbank think about portfolio construction and insertion point today? Blended, at what stage would Softbank like their capital to be most concentrated? Does Jeff believe that ownership is largely built on the first check or built over time?

3.) What does the internal investment-decision making process look like for Softbank? How does this decision-making process change when considering reserve allocation? How does Softbank think about and approach reserves given their later entry into companies? Given the size of check being written, what does diligence look like in the standard process for Softbank?

4.) Given the forthy pricing environment today, how does Jeff assess his own price sensitivity? Does this differ depending on the stage of entry? With many suggesting Softbank have extended the period of privatisation for companies, how does Jeff and the team think about liquidity? How does Jeff think about the future of secondaries for seed manag…
20VC: How To Build True Human Relationships with VC Pre-Investment, Why Valuation Is Not The Only Term and When To Take Lower Offers & How To Approach Mental Health As A Founder with Jon Dishotsky, Founder & CEO @ Starcity

17 mei 2019 · 31 min
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Jon Dishotsky is the Founder & CEO @ Starcity, the startup on a mission to make cities more affordable to everyone allowing you to live with great people in the city you love. To date, Jon has raised over $28m in funding for Starcity from the likes of Social Capital, Y Combinator, Bullpen Capital, NEA and Kima Ventures in Paris, just to name a few. Prior to founding Starcity, Jon did over 3M square feet of commercial real estate transactions for clients including Optimizely, Cruise Automation, Weebly, Zenefits and many more. Before that he spent 8 years at the prestigious Cushman & Wakefield. Jon is also an active angel investor with investments in the likes of Remote, Fond and Savvy. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Jon made his way from doing real estate transactions for clients including YC to being one of the hottest prop tech startups making cities affordable with Starcity?

2.) Why did it take so long for the venture ecosystem to get excited by the rise of proptech? What was the catalyst? When advising VCs, how do you advise them to get comfortable investing in these heavy asset, non-lean startup businesses? What are the biggest mistakes investors make when analysing proptech?

3.) What were some of Jon's biggest takeaways from his time at YC? How does Jon advise other founders looking to get into YC today? When it comes to investor selection, in what cases would Jon take a lower valuation against other offers? How does Jon advise founders on investor selection? What questions should they ask? Why is it like hiring? What are the common mistakes that Jon sees founders make when selecting investors?

4.) How does Jon advise founders when it comes to improving the quality of their mental health? Where do Jon struggle? How does Jon engage with social media knowing the psychological effects it has? What have been some major breakthroughs for him? Why does Jon believe having kids has made him a better founder? Why does Jon believe that older entrepreneu…
20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on The Strategy Behind The New $600m "Back To The Future" Fund, The Truth To Price Sensitivity at Series A & Why Venture Team Building Is Like Basketball Team Building

13 mei 2019 · 33 min
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Mamoon Hamid is a Partner @ Kleiner Perkins, one of Silicon Valley's most prestigious venture firms counting Google, Airbnb, Amazon, Spotify, Square and many more $Bn companies among their portfolio. As for Mamoon, he has invested in and served on the boards of some of the most innovative software companies of recent times including Box, Figma, Intercom, Netskope, Slack and Yammer. Prior to joining Kleiner Perkins, Mamoon was a Co-Founder and General Partner at Social Capital and before that Mamoon was a Partner at U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), where he spent six years. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Mamoon make the transition from electrical engineer to VC and how did that translate to his role today as Partner @ KPCB?

2.) With Kleiner's new $600m early stage fund, Mamoon had a blank canvas, how does Mamoon think about portfolio construction from a bottom-up perspective? Why is that strategy optimal? How important does Mamoon believe it is for VCs to have a sector focus today? What does he mean when he says, "VCs need to have both majors and minors"?

3.) In today's heated early stage ecosystem, how does Mamoon analyse and reflect on his own price sensitivity? What deal has changed the way he thought about price and he either regrets not paying it or is thrilled he did pay it? How does Mamoon feel about the compressed fundraising timelines we are seeing today? Is this a concern?

4.) How does KPCB think about reserve allocation with the new $600m fund? How do they approach the opportunity cost of dollar deployment in terms of when to stop following on? How does the investment decision-making process change when comparing initial to reserve investment?

5.) Where does Mamoon believe that founders need the most help from their venture investors? Where does Mamoon see the commonalities in founders struggles to scale themselves with their role? What are the biggest mistakes Mamoon sees being made when initial traction has been hit and they start to …
20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises

10 mei 2019 · 31 min
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Michele Romanow is the Founder & CEO @ Clearbanc, the startup that provides entrepreneurs capital to grow without giving up a piece of their company. In 2019 alone, Clearbanc plans to invest $1B in 2,000 companies. To fund these ambitious plans, they have backing from some of the best in the business including Founders Fund, Santi @ Emergence, Social Capital, Precursor Ventures and Y Combinator just to name a few. As for Michele, prior to Clearbanc, she founded SnapSaves, a leading mobile savings platform that was acquired by Groupon. Before Snapsaves, Michele founded Buytopia, one of Canada's leading e-commerce companies with over 2.5m customers. If that was not enough Michele is also a Dragon on Dragons Den Canada, the youngest dragon ever. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Michele made her way from serial entrepreneur with exits to Groupon and being a Dragon on Dragons Den to changing the way we fund today's businesses with Clearbanc?

2.) Why does Michele fundamentally believe we need to rethink the way we fund our businesses? Why does giving away equity to buy FC and Google ads not make sense? What is the solution? What types of business with what types of revenue does this work for? Why does Michele believe we need to fundamentally stop celebrating fundraisings?

3.) So if Clearbanc lends on repeatable revenue from Google and Facebook, how does Michele think about the volatility of CACs we see as businesses progress? Is Michele concerned by the large incumbents pushing up CACs on traditional platforms? Investors can also be wise strategic advisors, how does Michele think about the potential loss of these advisors and board members with an alternative financing mechanism?

4.) From Clearbanc's data, what have been the big learnings on how venture is currently distributed across the US? To what extent does Michele believe that unconscious bias pervades into the decision-making of much of venture? What have Clearbanc discovered in terms of the diversi…
20VC: Why Consumer Brands Must Embrace Physical Retail To Avoid Inflated Online CACs, How To Alter Fund Strategy When Investing In Consumer Retail & Why The Era of The 1,000 Store Brand Is Over with Brendan Wallace, Founder and Managing Partner @ Fifth Wa

6 mei 2019 · 38 min
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Brendan Wallace is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Fifth Wall, the fund with the core thesis being the physical world around us is colliding with technology. Within their portfolio is the likes of Lime, OpenDoor, Clutter, ClassPass, Lyric and Hippo just to name a few. As for Brendan, before co-founding Fifth Wall he co-founded Identified, a data & analytics company focused on workforce optimization that was acquired by Workday in 2014. Prior to that, Brendan co-founded Cabify, the largest ridesharing service in Latin America. If that was not enough, Brendan has been an active angel investor having led over 60 angel investments including Bonobos, Dollar Shave Club, Lyft, SpaceX, Clutter, Philz Coffee and Zenefits. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Brendan made his way from founding the largest ridesharing platform in Latin America to changing the face of early stage real estate and consumer retail investing with Fifth Wall?

2.) What is really going on in retail today? Is "retail apocalypse" a fair term to give to the landscape today? What formats does physical retail no longer work for? What is it perfect for? How does Brendan think about the distribution of physical retail for emerging brands? Will they need 1,000s of stores or is the 1,000 store brand era over?

3.) Why do digitally native brands fundamentally need retail? How much of consumer US spend relies on physical retail still today? When do these DNVB's need to expand into physical retail? From speaking to DNVB CEO's what are the most common challenges they face when making the expansion?

4.) How does expanding into physical retail change the game in terms of customer acquisition for DNVBs? At what point do DNVBs hit the invisible asymptote where acquiring customers through traditional online channels is no longer efficient? How have Amazon impacted the CACs for DNVBs in recent years?

5.) Given the consumer retail focus of the fund, one would expect a lower loss ratio, is it right to as…
20VC: Okta Founder Frederic Kerrest on Why You Want To Be A Monopolist In A Small Market, The Biggest Challenges in Scaling Okta To IPO and Being a16z's First Ever Fund Check

3 mei 2019 · 36 min
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Frederic Kerrest is the Founder & COO @ Okta, the independent and neutral platform that securely connects the right people to the right technologies at the right time. To date Frederic has raised over $415m with Okta from some of the best in the business including Doug Leone @ Sequoia, Marc Andreessen @ a16z, a dear friend of the show in Mike Maples @ Floodgate, Aneel Bhusri @ Greylock and Vinod Khosla, just to name a few. Okta IPO'd in April 2017 at a stock price of $17, today they sit at $102. Before founding Okta, Frederic enjoyed roles with Hummer Winblad on the other side of the table as a VC and also at Salesforce and Sun Microsystems on the operations side. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Frederic came to found the now public Okta having spent time with Salesforce, Sun Microsystems and Hummer Winblad as a VC?

2.) What about an idea makes it worth pursuing and investing in? Does Frederic agree with the advice he was given, "it is 70% market, 20% people and 10% product"? When evaluating a market, what characteristics make for the most attractive markets? How does Frederic think about insertion points into markets? How does he evaluate market adjacencies? Why is it so good to be a monopolist in a small market?

3.) What were some of the hardest times Okta went through? How does Frederic determine the balance between vision and realism? How does Frederic as the leader personally deal with these challenging times? How can a founder determine from their hiring process whether they have product-market fit? What were the key turnings points that contributed to Okta's success? What did you have to get right to keep scaling?

4.) A little birdy told me there was an amazing story behind the a16z investment, what is that story? How did Frederic meet Marc and Ben and how did his relationship with them evolve over time? When analysing his investor base, where did each add real strategic value? What advice does Frederic give to founders today on the theme of …
20VC: Why Lead Lime's Series D Funding Round, Why Engineers Are Underpaid & Why 74% of US Venture Firms Still Do Not Have Female GPs

29 april 2019 · 45 min
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Sarah Smith is a Partner @ Bain Capital Ventures, a leading US venture fund with a portfolio that includes the likes of LinkedIn, Lime, SendGrid, Jet.com and more incredible companies. As for Sarah, what a start she has had to her time at Bain leading investments in the likes Perksy and the unicorn that is Lime. Prior to joining Bain, Sarah spent 5 years at Quora both as VP of Advertising Sales and Operations and then also from 2012-2016 as VP of HR, Recruiting, and Operations scaling the company from 40 to 200 employees. Before Quora, Sarah spent 4 years at Facebook as Director of Online Operations where her team scaled revenue to $1 billion ARR while reducing churn and increasing customer satisfaction. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Sarah made her way into the world of venture having seen the hyper-growth of both Facebook and Quora over 9 years in operations? What were the biggest takeaways from her time with Facebook and Quora? What lessons did Sarah learn as an elementary school music teacher that she has applied to her role in VC?

2.) Sarah and Bain led the Series D in Lime, so how does Sarah think about:

Market Size: How did Sarah think about and assess market size when evaluating Lime? How does Sarah respond to Peter Fenton's statement, "I always laugh when I hear investors say they look for big markets"?

Competition: How did Sarah look to get comfortable entering such a fiercely competitive space? Is capital itself a defensible moat?

Dilution: With such huge future funding requirements for these companies, how did Sarah get comfortable with the level of dilution that will surely occur?

Hardware & Unit economics: How does Sarah think about and respond to the current level of break rates? How does Sarah believe Lime can have positive unit economics within 18 months?

3.) Why does Sarah believe that engineers are fundamentally underpaid? How does this tie into their mindset and attitude to equity? Why does Sarah believe the 4-year vesting sc…
20VC: Why Startup Founders Have One Core Job, How To Reduce Risk & Increase Probability In Your Startup & Why You Should Not Send A Pitch Deck Pre-Investor Meeting with David Rogier, Founder & CEO @ Masterclass

26 april 2019 · 31 min
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David Rogier is the Founder & CEO @ Masterclass, the startup that brings you online classes taught by the world's greatest minds including Steve Martin, Natalie Portman, Margaret Attwood and more. To date, David has raised over $140m in funding for Masterclass from the likes of IVP, NEA, Javelin, Michael Dearing @ Harrison Metal, Atomico and past guests of the show Sam Lessin and Philip Krim. As for David, prior to founding Masterclass, he was on the other side of the table as an investor with Harrison Metal. Before venture, David spent time with IDEO helping to create new consumer products and brands. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How David made his way into the world of startups? How a lesson from his grandmother when he was only 7 shaped the type of company David wanted to build?

2.) David has previously said, "as a founder, you have one job". What is that job? How does David think about how raising VC changes outcomes? Why does David think many founders approach fundraising the wrong way? What questions must founders always ask a VC pre-term sheet? How can founders do their work and diligence on the VC?

3.) Why does David try at all costs to not send the deck to the VC ahead of meeting? Why can this be damaging? How can founders say no politely? Does David agree with the conventional wisdom that "founders must always be raising"? What is the optimal way to structure relationship building with investors?

4.) What does David mean when he says, "pick your investors as board members, not investors"? What does David believe makes the truly special board members? What were David's biggest learnings from Michael Dearing @ Harrison Metal when it comes to boards? What does David believe are big red flags in potential future board members?

5.) When validating the idea and the product, how does David think founders should use testing to prove their thesis at every stage of the business? Why, if proved, does this automatically secure your funding for the nex…
20VC: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on Why It Is More Important To Be Right Than Contrarian, The Most Common Mistakes Made By Hyper-Growth Companies & 3 Characteristics That Make An Individual Incredible At Sourcing

22 april 2019 · 36 min
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Jeremy Liew is a Partner @ Lightspeed Venture Partners, one of the leading firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Snapchat, Mulesoft, Max Levchin's Affirm, AppDynamics and many more incredible companies. As for Jeremy, he is best known for being the 1st investor in Snapchat and has also led investments in StitchFix, Affirm, Ripple, Giphy and Bonobos just to name a few. Previously, Jeremy was with AOL, first as SVP of corporate development and chief of staff to the CEO, and then as general manager of Netscape. Due to his incredible investing success, Jeremy has been featured on the Forbes Midas List multiple times. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Jeremy made his way into the world of venture with Lightspeed and came to be one of the valley's leading consumer investors and minds?

2.) How does Jeremy think about and approach sourcing today? How has mindset on sourcing shifted over the last decade? For a new VC, what would Jeremy advise them in terms of building them benchmark for distinguishing between good and great? How does Jeremy distinguish between good and great? Who does Jeremy believe is the most naturally gifted sourcer and hunter he has worked with?

3.) What does Jeremy mean when he says, "it is more important to be right than contrarian"? From winning some of the hottest deals, what have been Jeremy's lessons on what it takes to win the most competitive? What does he mean when he says, "you have to find your home advantage"? Should investors spend time amplifying their strengths or improving their weaknesses? How does Jeremy think about the round compression timelines on hot deals today? How can investors and founders build relationships fast?

4.) Why does Jeremy believe that founder to VC engagement can be similar to a driving instructor and student? What are the biggest mistakes startups make when they hit initial traction and start to scale? WHat patterns has Jeremy seen? How can founders avoid them?

5.) How doe…
20VC: Figma Founder Dylan Field on The Biggest Mistakes Young Founders Most Often Make, How To Go Slow To Go Fast With Venture Dollars & How The Design Process Will Fundamentally Change Over The Next 5-10 Years

19 april 2019 · 35 min
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Dylan Field is the Founder & CEO @ Figma, the startup that provides a better way to design, prototype and collaborate, all in the browser. To date, Dylan has raised over $82m in funding from some of the world's best investors including Sequoia, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Index Ventures and more. Prior to changing the world of design with Figma, Dylan held roles at Flipboard, Microsoft and LinkedIn and was part of the renowned Thiel Fellowship. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Dylan made his way from Thiel fellow to changing the world of design and prototyping with Figma?

2.) What is the story behind the 4-year journey to the launch of their first product? How did Dylan maintain morale with such an extended window between creation and launch? What are the core challenges of building tools companies and getting initial traction? How did Dylan satiate VCs desire for fast growth with such a long period to launch? Is it possible to "go slow to go fast" with VC dollars?

3.) Sequoia led Figma's Series C, how did the round come together? What was it that made Dylan choose the lead investors for each of his rounds? How did this round compare to prior rounds led by Index, Kleiner and Greylock? How does Dylan advise founders to build relationships of trust and transparency with their VC in short period of time?

4.) How did Dylan approach the topic of board construction? What did he most want to get out of his board? What have been some of Dylan's biggest learnings when it comes to board management? What has Dylan found the most challenging element?

5.) As a young founder himself, where does Dylan see commonalities in the mistakes that other young founders make today? As a young founder, how has Dylan been able to hire A** talent execs? What have been some of the biggest learnings on team assembly and construction through the process?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Dylan's Fave Book: Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful

As always you can fol…
20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android

15 april 2019 · 28 min
Afspelen

Dave Sobota is the Vice President of Corporate Development @ Instacart, the company that delivers your groceries in as little as 1 hour. To date the company has raised over $1.9Bn in funding from some of the very best investors and operators including Mike Moritz @ Sequoia, Jeff Jordan @ a16z, Aaron Levie @ Box, Sam Altman, Garry Tan and more incredible names. As for Dave, prior to Instacart, he was Director of Corporate Development @ Google for over 10 years and before that was with leading law firm, Wilson Sonsini. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Dave made his way from the world of law to Director of Corporate Development at Google to his position at Instacart today?

2.) In 2016, we had 513 BC backed exits, 499 were M&A, so how does Dave assess the M&A landscape today? Why id Dave bullish on the future M&A environment, at least for the next 12 months? Where are his concerns around M&A clustering? How does Dave view the entrance of large scale PE into the tech M&A arena?

3.) From leading Google's M&A practice, what have been Dave's core learnings on whether an entrepreneur should sell their company or remain independent? Paul Graham once said, "startups only talk to corp dev when they are doing really well or really badly". Does Dave agree? What are the reasons a startup would not speak to corp dev? What is the right way for them to communicate this while leaving the door open for future conversations?

4.) How does Dave operationalise the tracking of the startup market and determine what startups he wants to meet? How does Dave like to and think about working with the VC community here? What does that relationship building process look like? In those early meetings, what are the core questions that founders must ask? How much of a role does price play for Dave when considering an acquisition?

5.) How can founders ensure when they sell their company, that it will be properly integrated? What answers from the acquirer suggest it will or will not be?…
20VC: Carta Founder Henry Ward on Why The Best Companies Are Not Product Led But Distribution Led, 3 Requirements Needed For A New Market/Investment To Be Exciting and Why Small Markets Are So Attractive

12 april 2019 · 42 min
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Henry Ward is the Founder & CEO @ Carta, the startup that helps private companies, public companies, and investors manage their cap tables, valuations, investments, and equity plans. To date, Henry has raised over $147m in funding from some of the industries leading investors in USV, Spark, K9 Ventures and Meritech and then also leading founders including Flexport's Ryan Petersen, Transferwise's Taavet Hinrikus and Slack's Stewart Butterfield. Prior to founding Carta, Henry was Founder of SecondSight, a portfolio optimization platform for retail investors. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Henry made his way into the world of startups and came to found the gamechanger of cap tables and valuations with Carta?

2.) What does Henry mean by the term "executive half-life"? How does Henry determine between an exec that can scale with the company and an exec that cannot? What are the leading indicators? When weaknesses are revealed, how does this manifest itself? Does the exec open up and admit to it or does the leadership team have to be proactive?

3.) Question from Manu @ K9: As a first time CEO, what have been the biggest personal challenges for Henry in the scaling of himself? Why does Henry think it is unfair founders are given exemption from blame in scaling but execs are not? How does Henry make decisions differently now to the early days? What have been the improvements?

4.) How does Henry buck the conventional wisdom with his willingness to go after very small markets? What does the N of 1 vs 1of N rule mean here? Why does Henry believe the N of 1 markets is the most attractive? What are the core advantages to owning your market? How can founders think about insertion points? When is the right time to add additional products? How does Henry respond to the traditional notion of "focus"?

5.) Why does Henry believe most founders are afraid to put investors to work? If fundraising is, as Henry suggests "an auction process", what can founders do to optim…
20VC: NEA Partner, Dayna Grayson on Sourcing, Picking, Winning, Gut vs Data in Investment Decision-Making & The Evolution of Entrepreneurial Expectations of Venture

8 april 2019 · 42 min
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Dayna Grayson is a Partner @ NEA, one of the leading venture firms over the last 4 decades with a portfolio including the likes of Opendoor, Jet.com, Uber, WorkDay, Plaid, Box and many more incredible companies. As for Dayna, she has led the firm's investments in the likes of Desktop Metal, Formlabs, Onshape, Glamsquad, Framebridge and Curalate, just to name a few. Prior to joining NEA, Dayna was an investor at North Bridge Venture Partners where she championed companies including Camiant (acquired by Tekelec) and Tapjoy. Before venture Dayna was an engineer at Eye Response Technologies, later acquired by Dynavox Mayer-Johnson and also a product designer at Blackbaud (BLKB), the leading global provider of software to nonprofit organizations. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Dayna made her way into the world of venture and came to be a Partner at NEA from her roots in product design and engineering?

2.) Sourcing: How does Dayna approach the sourcing component of venture today? What does the deck filtering process look like to Dayna, prior to meeting? What has Dayna found works best in really building rapport in the first meetings? What does the conviction building process look like for Dayna from there? If negative, how has Dayna found is the most effective way to say no?

3.) Decision-Making: How does Dayna think about optimising the investment decision-making process? How does Dayna balance between data vs gut? Does NEA require unanimous decision-making? Why does Dayna believe that at A or earlier, the price really does not matter? When does price really become a big issue?

4.) Evolution of Expectations: How does Dayna believe entrepreneurial expectations of VC has changed over the last decade. Where does Dayna believe investors can really provide the most value? Which board member has been the most impressive to Dayna when sitting alongside them on the board? Why?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Dayna's Fave Book: Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and t…
20VC: One Question Founders Must Ask Themselves When Approaching Investor Selection, Why Series B Is One Of The Most Challenging Phases & What Makes For A Successful CEO Transition with Jeff Russakow, CEO @ Boosted

5 april 2019 · 37 min
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Jeff Russakow is the CEO @ Boosted, the startup producing vehicle grade electric skateboards rethinking how we travel. To date, they have raised $74m in funding from the likes of Khosla Ventures, iNovia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and our friends at Initialized. Prior to Boosted, Jeff was CEO @ Gimbal where he doubled revenue in his first year and added 80 new enterprise clients. Before that, Jeff was the CEO @ Findly where he grew the company to 450 employees and 20m end users. Jeff also enjoyed prior roles with the likes of Symantec, Adobe, SAP and Yahoo. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Jeff made his way from leading enterprise CEO to re-thinking the way we travel today as CEO of Boosted?

2.) How does Jeff analyse the current sentiment to fundraising in the valley, specifically with regards to business construction? How has Jeff seen the investor class fundamentally transition over the last 20 years? When approaching investor selection, what is the 1 question that Jeff always asks? Where do founders often make mistakes here?

3.) Having raised the $60m round in 2018, how does Jeff approach the theme of capital efficiency today with Boosted? How does Jeff determine when is the right time to pour fuel on the fire? Why is Series B often the most challenging phase when considering the focus on unit economics and vision simultaneously?

4.) What is Jeff's gut reaction to the statement, "hardware is hard"? Why does Jeff feel this to be a glib statement that misses the point? How does Jeff respond to the criticism of the commodity element of hard, easy to replicate and copy? How would Jeff like to see the investor class change their mindset to hardware? What is the right way to approach it?

5.) What are the core elements required for a successful CEO transition? For a potentially incoming CEO, what must they be wary of with regards to the information conveyed to them by investors of the company? Where has Jeff seen many go wrong in CEO transitions? What …
20VC: Initialized's Garry Tan on The Most Important Thing A Seed Investor Can Do For Founders, How Ownership Requirements Change With Evolution of Funds & Why There Is Not Too Much Capital Chasing Too Few Deals

1 april 2019 · 33 min
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Garry Tan is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Initialized Capital, one of the West Coast's leading early-stage funds with a portfolio including the likes of Coinbase, Instacart, Cruise, Flexport and Opendoor, just to name a few. As for Garry, before co-founding Initialized, he was a partner at Y Combinator for nearly five years where he advised and funded over 600 companies. He was also co-founder of YC-backed blog platform Posterous (acquired by Twitter in 2012). Before that he was employee #10 at Palantir, where he was a founding member of the engineering team for Palantir's financial analysis product, and also fun fact, Garry designed Palantir's logo. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Garry made his way from Founder and YC Partner to managing over $500m AUM today with his leading of Initialized? How did Garry's investment mindset change with the transition from angel to an institutional investor?

2.) What does Garry believe is the one thing pre-seed and seed investors must do that is more important than anything else? What relationship to the very best founders have with failure? How do they think about and approach it? How has Garry seen his own conviction building process in founders change over time? How does Garry approach the turning down of opportunities? What is the right way to deliver that feedback?

3.) Ownership: Initialized's funds have scaled from Fund I being $7m to Fund 4 being $225m, how have their ownership requirements changed with the evolution of their fund size? How does Garry think about collaboration and co-opetition with others funds as a result? What are the core challenges here?

4.) Price Sensitivity: With the larger fund and slightly more flexibility, how does Garry evaluate his own price sensitivity? What deal has Garry passed on due to price and it has stuck with him and taught him a valuable lesson? On pricing, how does Garry and Initialized approach reserve allocation?

5.) Investment Decision-Making: Garry has pr…
20VC: Buffer's Joel Gascoigne on The Moment The Founder Is No Longer The Boss, The Questions Founders Must Ask Their VCs and Why We Need A Spectrum of Different Financing Mechanisms Other Than VC

29 maart 2019 · 32 min
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Joel Gascoigne is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Buffer, the social media management tool that makes it easy for businesses and marketing teams to schedule posts, analyze performance, and manage all their accounts in one place. They had raised both seed and Series A rounds but last summer, spent $3.3m to buy out the majority of their Series A investors, making them much more independent. Joel now runs Buffer as a profitable business with $2m in profit in 2017 and $3m in 2018. Before co-founding Buffer, Joel co-founded OnePage and StartupMill and was a web developer in the UK. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Joel made his way from web developer in the UK to founder of Buffer, in 2018 a business that did $3m in profit?

2.) What does Joel mean when he says that "fundraising is a bigger decision than most people realise"? At what moments does Joel believe that the founders are no longer the boss? When did Joel feel he was no longer the boss? What does Joel wish founders knew more about the VC process and mechanics? What questions must they ask VCs?

3.) Would Joel agree with Anand Sanwal, previously on the show that "VCs foie-gras their startups", forcing synthetic growth? What is the right way for founders to respond to this pressure? How did Joel personally handle the pressure? How does Joel assess and analyse the current VC ecosystem? What would he most like to change?

4.) There was a time when individuals did not want Joel to be CEO, how did Joel deal with that? What would Joel advise founders in the same position? What are the right steps to take? Joel then lost his co-founder, how was that process for Joel? What does he know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of that process? How does he look to retain that level of support and guidance from someone other than a co-founder?

5.) What does Joel mean when he says, "leaders must lean into transparency"? Are there any limitations to being overly transparent? Now as a profitable company, how does …
20VC: Spark Capital's Alex Clayton on How The Best Growth Investors Source, Evaluate and Win Deals, Why Market Depth Is Crucial When Analysing Markets & Why Capital Is Only A Temporary Competitive Advantage

25 maart 2019 · 31 min
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Alex Clayton is a Partner @ Spark Capital, one of the leading firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Slack, Postmates, Oculus, Cruise, Twitter, the list goes on. As for Alex, he co-led Spark's investments in Pendo and Outreach and then led Spark's investments in Justworks, Braze (Appboy) and JFrog. Before Spark, Alex spent three years at Redpoint Ventures as a senior associate where he sourced or was actively involved in the firm's investments in Duo Security, JustWorks, RelateIQ (Salesforce.com), Infer, Lifesize and Sourcegraph. Prior to joining Redpoint, Alex was in the TMT investment-banking division of Goldman Sachs where he worked with Intuit, Yelp, SanDisk, and others. Fun fact, in the past Alex played on the ATP World Tennis Tour, competing in the U.S. Open and many other ATP events. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Alex made his way from the world of investment banking with Goldman Sachs to one of the valley rising stars in the world of enterprise investing? What were Alex's biggest takeaways from his time at Redpoint and working with Tom Tunguz?

2.) How does Alex think about and approach sourcing today? How does Alex find most of his deals? How does Alex breakdown both thesis and network driven sourcing? How does sourcing at growth differ to sourcing at the early stage? If Alex has to meet founders when they are not raising, what does Alex advise founders who are told that you should not "always be raising"?

3.) How does Alex think about market sizing and evaluation today? What does he mean when he says he closely examines "market depth"? How does Alex determine whether a company has the ability to scale from a niche into a much larger TAM? What are the risks Alex is willing vs not willing to take when it comes to market?

4.) How does Alex think about competitor analysis when evaluating an opportunity today? In a world of almost infinite capital, does Alex believe that cash alone is a significant moat for competitio…
20VC: The Acceptable vs Unacceptable Risks To Take When Seed Investing, Why Loss Ratio Is Not A Consideration & Why Series A Is The Right Time To Establish A Board with Mike Hirshland, Co-Founder @ Resolute Ventures

18 maart 2019 · 25 min
Afspelen

Mike Hirshland is the Co-founder of Resolute Ventures, one of the leading pre-seed and seed stage funds of the last decade having recently announced their new $75m Fund IV. In prior funds they have the likes of OpenDoor, Mixmax, Greenhouse, AppZen and more incredible companies. As for Mike, prior to founding Resolute, he founded Dogpatch Labs, the community which helped launch over 350 companies including Instagram. Before Dogpatch, Mike was a partner with Polaris Venture Partners from 1999-2011, where he was the original seed investor behind Automattic, Q1 Labs (acquired by IBM for $600 million), Quantcast and KISSmetrics. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Mike made his way from a legal clerk in the US Supreme Court to founding his own venture firm in the form of Resolute Ventures?

2.) What does Mike mean when he says Resolute invest at the "old seed stage?" What stage of development and traction are the companies at this stage? Why does seed investing out of a $Bn fund not make sense to Mike? What are the acceptable vs unacceptable risks at this stage?

3.) How does Mike think and assess portfolio construction today? How many lines in the portfolio is enough to be sufficiently diversified? How does Mike think about ownership given his thesis on diversification? How does Mike assess his own price sensitivity today? How does Mike think about loss ratio within the portfolio today?

4.) What are the ideal attributes of the founder/VC relationship to Mike? Is it right for the investor to also be friends with their founders? What can founders do to really build and deepen relationships with investors both during and outside of official fundraises? Where does Mike often see founders making mistakes here?

5.) How does Mike think about the right time to establish a board? What does Mike advise founders in terms of board composition in the early days? How does Mike look to build a sense of "board intimacy" with his founders? Why does Mike believe that there is…
20VC: Why The Current VC Financing Mechanism For Consumer Brands Is Broken, Why The Infrastructure To Power Emerging Brands Is Broken and What The Re-Platforming of Retail Means For The Next Decade in Consumer with Adam Pritzker, Chairman & CEO @ Assemble

15 maart 2019 · 29 min
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Adam Pritzker is the Chairman & CEO @ Assembled Brands, a holding company providing working capital and financial services to emerging brands. In October 2018, they raised $100m in development capital from the prestigious Oaktree Capital Management. As for Adam, he is also a co-founder of General Assembly where during his tenure, prior to its acquisition by Addecco Group, he served as Chief Creative Officer, Chief Product Officer, and Chairman. For his entrepreneurial endeavors, Adam was featured in Forbes' 30 Under 30, Vanity Fair's The Next Establishment, Inc. Magazine's 30 Under 30, and Business Insider's Silicon Alley 100. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Adam made his way into the world of startups with the co-founding of General Assembly and how that led to his founding Assembled Brands and financing the future of brands?

2.) Why is Adam optimistic about the current state of the consumer brand and retail environment? How does Adam respond to Alex Taussig @ Lightspeed's suggestion of the "re-platforming of retail"? How does Adam approach the changing demographic of consumer spend? What does this mean for both the brands and the channels they use to acquire customers? Does Adam believe we are in a consumer bubble today?

3.) How does Adam think about the lack of free and open distribution today for consumer companies? Are the traditional channels now too expensive to acquire customers on? How does Adam advise consumer founders on the saturation rate of marketing channels? How can they foresee the ceiling ahead of time?

4.) Adam has previously stated that Instagram is the new QVC, what did he mean by that? What type of consumer brand is Instagram best suited for? Why does Adam believe that in many cases the venture financing method is suboptimal and wrong for these scaling brands? What can founders who have taken VC funds and now seen it was potentially a mistake do?

5.) Why does Adam believe that the "infrastructure to power emerging brands is br…
20VC: What It Takes To Be The Most Effective Coach To Startup Founders, The Biggest Surprises and Challenges About Transitioning To Venture From Operations & 3 Trends Shaking The World of Consumer Today with Victoria Treyger, General Partner @ Felicis Ven

11 maart 2019 · 38 min
Afspelen

Victoria Treyger is a General Partner & Managing Director @ Felicis Ventures, one of the leading venture firms of the last decade backing 2 unicorns per year since founding including Shopify, OpenDoor, Flexport, Adyen, Twitch, Fitbit and many more. At Felicis, Victoria led the firm's investments in prior 20VC guest Assaf Wand @ Hippo, Sentio, Sentilink, Blume, Floravere, and other stealth brands. Prior to joining Felicis, Victoria was Chief Revenue Officer of Kabbage. During her six-year tenure, Victoria and her team were instrumental in scaling revenue into the hundreds of millions of dollars and delivered a compound annual growth rate of over 100%. Victoria's deep operating experience also includes leadership roles at Amazon, American Express, Travelocity, and RingCentral. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Victoria made her way into the world of VC as GP @ Felicis today having scaled revenue into the 100s of millions with Kabbage on the operating side of the table?

2.) Having just made the move from the world of operations, what are the most surprising aspects of venture? What elements have you found to be the most challenging? How does Victoria think about what it takes to be the most effective coach? What can the investor do to build that level of trust and transparency with the founder?

3.) In terms of being a board member, how involved does Victoria think the board member should be? Who is the best board member Victoria has worked with? What made them so special? What are Victoria's biggest pieces of advice to founders when it comes to how to run an efficiency board? What is the right way for founders to think about board composition?

4.) What 3 trends in the world of consumer and CPG make Victoria so excited to be investing in the space today? What has fundamentally changed about the distribution of those products that changes the way we consume the products? Does this mean Victoria would disagree we are in a D2C bubble today?

5.) Speaking of …
20VC: Lambda School Founder, Austen Allred on Why Unemployment Is An Optimisation Problem That Will Be Solved Over The Next 20 Years, Why The Speed and Quality of Decisions Are Not Mutually Exclusive & The 1 Question All Founders Must Ask Themselves Befor

8 maart 2019 · 36 min
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Austen Allred is the Founder & CEO @ Lambda School, a 9 month, immersive program that gives you the tools and training you need to launch your new career—from the comfort of your own home. As a Lambda student, you pay nothing until you're earning $50k or more. And if you don't, it's free. To date, Austen has raised over $48m with Lambda from a personal favourite of mine Bedrock, GGV, GV, Stripe and Ashton Kutcher just to name a few. Prior to founding Lambda, Austen was Senior Manager for Growth @ LendUp and before that co-founded Grasswire. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Austen made his way from being broke, sleeping in a car to founding one of Silicon Valley's hottest startups in the form of Lambda School?

2.) Austen lived in his car for many months in Palo Alto, what did Austen come to learn about himself from that experience? Before Austen has said, "it is not about money", so how would Austen describe his personal relationship to money? Consequently, what does this mean for Austen's relationship to risk?

3.) Austen previously stated he was "determined to never raise VC again before Lambda School". 2 years and $47m later, what changed in his attitude to raising VC? How mus every founder examine their business model before raising VC? What is the one question they must ask pre-raise?

4.) Austen recently raised a $30m Series B round, how did that round come about? What is Austen's biggest advice when it comes to investor selection? How does Austen think about when is the right time to raise big? How does that impact and affect operating mentality? What was it about Geoff Lewis that made Austen take his offer over others?

5.) Question from Geoff @ Bedrock: How does Austen iterate on all aspects of the business so fast? Why does Austen believe that the speed and quality of decisions are not mutually exclusive? Why does Austen believe the faster you ship, the higher quality they will be? How does Austen determine which experiments to stick with vs d…
20VC: The Transition From Founder To CEO, How To Determine When To Stretch On Price in Venture & The Benefits of Attribution for Partnership Dynamics with Jeff Richards, Managing Partner @ GGV Capital

4 maart 2019 · 36 min
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Jeff Richards is Managing Partner @ GGV Capital, one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Alibaba, Slack, Square, Xiaomi, Peloton, OpenDoor, just to name a few. As for Jeff, he sits on the board of or is an observer at BigCommerce, Brightwheel, Gladly, Lambda School, Namely and Tile just to name a few. Jeff also led GGV's investments in Buddy Media (acquired by Salesforce), HotelTonight, Flipboard and has been actively involved in GGV's investments in Opendoor, Domo, Square and Wish. Prior to joining GGV, Jeff founded two software companies: R4 (acquired by VeriSign), and QuantumShift, backed by Texas Pacific Group (TPG). Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Jeff made his way into the world of VC with GGV from founding and scaling 2 software companies in the 90s? What were Jeff's 2 biggest takeaways from having the company he founded raise over $100m then go to $0 in the crash?

2.) How does Jeff approach and see the transition from founder to CEO today? When does this transition need to occur? How do first-time founders differ compared to experienced serial entrepreneurs when it comes to building their teams? Where do they often struggle or make mistakes? What advice does Jeff offer them?

3.) Jeff has previously said, "do not raise for the highest valuation", what is his thinking here? What specific examples does Jeff have of why it can hurt and damage both the founder and the company? How does Jeff think about his own price sensitivity today? How does he determine when a stretch is a stretch too far? From backing the likes of Alibaba, Xiaomi and Didi, what were his biggest takeaways when it came to price?

4.) Decision-making is one of the only products venture has, how does Jeff and GGV approach decision-making as a firm today? Being a slightly later stage firm, how do they think about reserve allocation? What does the re-investment decision-making process look like? How does GGV think about attribution…
20VC: How To Optimise Decision-Making Frameworks, How To Really Get The Most Out Of Your Board and When Your Brother Is Also Your Co-Founder; The Secret To Working with Family with Rob Sadow, Founder & CEO @ Scoop

1 maart 2019 · 33 min
Afspelen

Rob Sadow is the Founder & CEO @ Scoop, the startup that dramatically improves your commute providing convenient carpools with co-workers and neighbours. To date, Rob has raised over $37m in funding for Scoop from the likes of Danny Rimer @ Index, Brook Porter @ G2VP, Zaw Thet @ Signia Venture Partners and BMW i Ventures just to name a few. Before founding Scoop, Rob was a Manager @ Bain & Company and before that spent time in Israel with Better Place, working to provide electric vehicle networks to help accelerate the global transition to sustainable transportation. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Rob made his way from the world of consulting and Bain to founding the future of convenient commutes with Scoop?

2.) How does Rob approach key decisions? What does Brook Porter @ G2VP mean when he says, "from a first principles perspective"? How does Rob determine when to make decisions with the head or the heart? Does Rob agree with Fred Destin, "as a founder, decisions are never perfect, it is about batting average"? Where does Rob see many make mistakes when it comes to decision-making?

3.) How does Rob find the dynamics of working with his brother as his co-founder? What are some of the core challenges? How does one make it scale and how does the relationship need to change over time? What is Rob's biggest advice to others when thinking about the person they partner with?

4.) How does Rob think about board construction? What have been some of Rob's biggest lessons in really using your board to get the most out of them? What works well for this? What does not work? How can founders create this level of relationship with their board members? Should founders direct their ask to specific individuals when soliciting help from their board?

5.) Why does Rob believe that they have next to no attrition of employees at Scoop? What have been some of Rob's biggest lessons when it comes to both culture creation and maintenance? How does Rob think leaders can inve…
20VC: a16z Partner Frank Chen on The Future of Car Ownership, Whether The High Employee Attrition Rate in The Valley Is A Feature or A Bug & His Biggest Lessons From Netscape, Loudcloud & Opsware

25 februari 2019 · 33 min
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Frank Chen is a Partner @ Andreessen Horowitz, one of the world's most prestigious venture firms with a portfolio including the likes of Airbnb, Coinbase, Github, Lyft, Slack and many more incredible companies. As for Frank, prior to joining the world of venture, he was a VP of Products & UI Design at HP Software and before that held the same title at Opsware. Before that, even cooler, Frank was Director of Product Management @ Netscape where he led a cross-functional team that defined, shipped, and marketed Netscape's award-winning LDAP directory and security products. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Frank made the move from the world of operations with Opsware and HP to being a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz?

2.) How does Frank view the current state of play for AI and machine learning? How does the rise of automation shift the economy as we know it? What does it do to class distinctions? How does Frank view it's impact on the labour market? How does Frank think about the value of truly large datasets? Where is the asymptotic moment where the utility value of data is realised?

3.) With the rise of self-driving, how does Frank perceive the future of car ownership? Who will fundamentally own and operate the vehicles? Will it be a horizontal play or a vertical play? In terms of adoption, why is Frank negative towards a driver assisted transition phase and believe in a more binary transition?

4.) How does Frank perceive the rise of automation and self-driving cars impacting public infrastructure? How will the layout of our cities change over time? How does Frank believe urban real estate could be optimised in a more efficient manner? Which nations does Frank believe will be the first to innovate here?

5.) What is the most challenging element of Frank's position as Partner @ a16z? How does Frank think about the right way to say not to an entrepreneur? How does Frank look to scale the learning curve rapidly when investigating new industries? What are t…
20VC: Superhuman's Rahul Vohra on How To Measure Product Market Fit, How To Construct A Process To Increase It & How To Implement A Strong Feedback and Reporting Cycle To Sustain It

22 februari 2019 · 42 min
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Rahul Vohra is the Founder and CEO @ Superhuman, the fastest email experience in the world. Fun fact, users get through their inbox twice as fast — and many see Inbox Zero for the first time in years! To date, they have raised funds from our friends at Boldstart, First Round, John Collison, Sam Altman, Wayne Chang, Mike Ghaffery and Yes VC just to name a few. Previously, Rahul founded Rapportive, the first Gmail plugin to scale to millions of users. Rapportive was ultimately acquired by LinkedIn. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Rahul make his way into the world of startups with the founding of Rapportive and how did that transition to changing the world of email with Superhuman?

2.) What does Rahul mean when he says, "you can reverse engineer a process to get to product market fit"? What does Rahul believe is the defining metric which determines your "product market fit score"? What is Julie Supan's framework? How did Dropbox and Airbnb use it to increase their product market fit? How can founders implement it into their process?

3.) What can founders do to expand the customer base to include users that currently are "somewhat disappointed"? What are the right questions to ask? What do we do with this feedback? How do we further segment the user base? Why should we "disregard the users whereby the primary benefit of the product does not resonate"?

4.) How does Rahul approach product roadmap and prioritisation? How can founders ensure that continuous tracking and user feedback is engrained within the organisation? What tools does Rahul do to monitor and capture this? What are some of Rahul's biggest lessons from going through this painstaking process stage by stage?

5.) Finally on fundraising, what does Rahul mean when he says, "always be raising but never be actively raising"? What are the benefits of this? How can founders transition catch up coffee into fundraising subtly? How does Rahul feel about party rounds? What are the pros? What are th…
20VC: AOL Founder, Steve Case on Why The Best Venture Investments of The Next 10 Years Will Likely Not Be In The Valley, Why The CEO Must Be The Shock Absorber For Company Morale and Why Vision Without Execution is Hallucination

18 februari 2019 · 31 min
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Steve Case is Chairman and CEO of Revolution with the mission being to establish themselves as the premier venture firm outside of Silicon Valley. On the other side of the table, Steve is recognised as one of America's best-known and most accomplished entrepreneurs as the co-founder of America Online (AOL). Under his leadership, AOL was the first internet company to go public and became the world's largest and most valuable internet company delivering an 11,616% return to shareholders. In 2000, Steve negotiated the largest merger in business history, bringing together AOL and Time Warner. Among many other achievements, in 2014, Steve was named a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship. Steve has also been a leading voice in shaping government policy and was instrumental in passing the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act. Finally, Steve is also Chairman of the Case Foundation, where he and his wife, Jean, have invested in hundreds of organizations, initiatives and partnerships. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Steve made his way into the world of technology with the founding of AOL in 1985 and how that led to his founding of Revolution and investing today in the "rise of the rest" today?

2.) Having sat on both sides of the table both as founder and VC, what does Steve thinks make the truly special VCs? How do they engage with entrepreneurs? How do they actively move the needle for their companies? How would he like to see VCs of the future change and adapt their ways?

3.) How does Steve think about market timing when investing today? What were some of Steve's biggest lessons from seeing the dot com bubble and 2008 in both the role of entrepreneur and investor? What does he mean when he says, 'it can be dangerous to have a depression mentality' when investing?

4.) How does Steve analyse and assess the current fundraising environment today? Why does Steve see an incredible opportunity in funding companies outside the 3 traditional hub…
20VC: Brex Founder Henrique Dubugras on Why Being Mission Driven Is Not The Only Way To Build A Massive Business, Why You Should Not Associate Fundraising with The Cash Needs of Your Business & Why You Don't Have To Follow Startup Theory When It Comes To

15 februari 2019 · 27 min
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Henrique Dubugas is the Founder & CEO @ Brex, the first corporate card for startups offering instant online application, no personal liability, and tailored rewards. In a staggering 2 years, Henrique has grown Brex to a $1.1Bn valuation having raised over $180m in funding from some of the best in the business including Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Elad Gil, DST, Y Combinator and IVP just to name a few. As for Henrique, prior to founding Brex he founded Pagar.me, a payments solution that he sold in Sept 2016, a year that the platform processed over $1.5 billion in GMV. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Henrique made his way from learning to code games in Brazil to starting a leading payment processor to founding one of the world's fastest growing B2B companies in Brex?

2.) How does Henrique think about hiring the very best people? How has that strategy shifted and changed over time? What is the best advice Henrique has been given on hiring? What interview questions does Henrique think are crucial to ask? What are leading indicators that an individual has the ability to scale with the company?

3.) Why does Henrique think it is wrong to down people for being "compensation motivated"? How does Henrique think about compensation structures? Should candidates have to take pay cuts to join startups? What have been some of Henrique's biggest learnings and challenges here?

4.) How does Henrique approach the current sentiment to fundraising in the valley today? Why does Henrique disagree with founders who have periods of not speaking to VCs? What does Henrique believe is the right way to build VC relationships? How does Henrique think about the right time to raise? What advice does Henrique have for founders when it comes to investor selection?

5.) How does Henrique think about his own personal development? Where would he personally like to improve and strengthen? What is he doing to make this happen? How has Henrique seen himself as CEO change over the last 2 yea…
20VC: Techstars Founder David Cohen on Why Seed Investing Is A Different Asset Class To Venture, What Makes The Best And The Worst Board Members & Why Every Company Has To Have A Pessimist In The Room

11 februari 2019 · 31 min
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David Cohen is the Founder and co-CEO of Techstars, the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. To date, David has backed hundreds of startups including the likes of Uber, SendGrid, Twilio, ClassPass, PillPack and more. In total, these investments have gone on to create more than $80B in value. Prior to Techstars, David was a co-founder of Pinpoint Technologies which was acquired by ZOLL Medical Corporation in 1999. Later, David was the founder and CEO of earFeeder, a music service that was sold to SonicSwap. If that was not enough, David is also theco-author (with Brad Feld) of Do More Faster; Techstars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How David made his way from, his words "geeky hacker" to the founder of one of the world's largest accelerators, Techstars and investor in multiple unicorns?

2.) What does David mean when he says that when assessing founders he studies "the moment of integrity"? What does he want to see from founders in those moments? What are some potential red flags? If a negative response, what are the subsequent actions an investor must take in this situation?

3.) How does David think about the right time to establish a board? What are the benefits of establishing your board with the seed round? What does David believe is the key to highly efficient boards? How has David changed as a board member over the years? Why does David believe, when building a company, "you always have to have a pessimist in the room"?

4.) When negotiating deals, what does David mean when he says "the terms must match the story"? How does David determine between a bridge and a bridge to nowhere? What can investors do to protect themselves if the targets of the business are not met and they have an uncapped note in place? How should they communicate this?

5.) Techstars today invests in over 500 companies per year, how does David think about reserve allocation across the portfolio? How does David feel about stack …
20VC: What Makes The Best Venture Firms Today So Special, The 3 Structural Impediments That Face Venture Today and Why The Debate on AR vs VR is BS with Anjney Midha, Founder & CEO @ Ubiquity6

8 februari 2019 · 33 min
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Anjney Midha is the Founder & CEO @ Ubiquity6, the startup that allows you to edit reality together, turning any location into a space for real-time, shared AR and VR experiences. To date, Anjney has raised over $38m in funding for Ubiquity6 from some of the very best in the business including Phin @ First Round, Mike Volpi @ Index and Mitch @ Benchmark. Prior to Ubiquity6, Anjney spent 4 years on the other side of the table as an investor @ Kleiner Perkins and then as Founding Partner @ KPCB Edge, Kleiner's program helping founders get off the ground in AR, VR and Computer Vision. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Anjney made his way into the world of startups on the investing side of the table with Kleiner Perkins and how that transitioned to his founding of Ubiquity6?

2.) What does Anjney believe is structurally wrong with venture now more than ever? How does the extended period of privatisation affect emerging partners in venture firms? How does Anjney think the very best of investors think about and analyse history? Why does Anjney believe venture is the business of financing "creative hits"?

3.) What are the 3 structural impediments facing venture today? Why and how does Anjney believe we will see a new class of VC enter the space and be very successful? In what form could this take? How can they outcompete the current crop of VCs? What does Anjney mean when he discusses the "squishy middle" of VC?

4.) Anjney is backed by Index, Benchmark and First Round, what are the commonalities among those firms that make them so special? How do the very best of firms engage and build relationships with their entrepreneurs? How does Anjney believe that focus can be successfully applied to venture? What is the right way for VCs to evaluate themselves?

5.) What do VCs really want to know when they are approaching risk assessment with founders? What can founders do to mitigate risk when pitching to VCs? How do the very best founders attract the very best talen…
20VC: Slow Ventures' Sam Lessin on How VC Forces Certain Companies To Exist and Makes It Difficult To Finance Others, Why Cities Won't Let Scooter Companies Be Profitable and Why Dapps Are A Concern and Where Emphasis Should Be Placed In Crypto

4 februari 2019 · 37 min
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Sam Lessin is a Founding Partner @ Slow Ventures, one of the leading early-stage funds on the West Coast with a portfolio including the likes of Robinhood, Gusto, Pinterest, Casper, Postmates and many more incredible companies. Sam is also the Co-Founder & Co-CEO @ Fin Analytics, the startup that provides precision measurement and coaching for high-performance operations teams. Before founding Fin and Slow, Sam spent 4 years at Facebook as a VP of Product Management following their acquisition of his prior company, Drop.io. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Sam made his way into the world of venture with the founding of Slow following the acquisition of his company and 4 years in product at Facebook?

2.) How does Sam think about the difference between investing small personal checks vs managing institutional funds? What is the subsequent effect on mindset when investing? How does one prevent an increased conservatism? What does Sam mean when he says "VC forces some businesses into existence and makes others hard to fund?

3.) Why does Sam believe that man + machine must have a symbiotic relationship in the future? What does this look like in reality? When comparing today to the industrial revolution, is Sam concerned by the increased rate of adoption today? What does this mean for different categories of work? Why does Sam believe we will need more philosophers?

4.) Why does Sam believe that too much emphasis in the world of crypto is placed on Dapps? Why is he concerned by Dapps? What are of crypto does Sam believe is most exciting and investable today? Does Sam agree with Elad Gil that we will see the re-centralisation of talent back to the valley with the scaling of crypto co's?

5.) On governments, why does Sam not believe that both local and national governments will allow scooter companies to become meaningfully profitable in the future? How does Sam think about the balance and trade-off between privacy and security that faces many governments to…
20VC: How To Build Meaningful Relationships With Your Investors, 4 Key Elements CEOs Must Focus On In Scale Mode & How Top Optimise Leadership Team Dynamics with Joel Flory, Founder & CEO @ VSCO

1 februari 2019 · 31 min
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Joel Flory is the Founder & CEO @ VSCO, the startup that allows you to take your photography to the next level, with the mission to help everybody fall in love with their own creativity. To date, Joel has raised over $70m in funding with VSCO from some of the best in the business including Accel, Glynn Capital Management and Goldcrest Investments. Prior to founding VSCO, Joel founded his own photography company which he ran successfully for 10 years. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Joel made his way from photographer to one of San Francisco's hottest startup founders today?

2.) How does Joel approach the current sentiment and approach to fundraising? Why were Joel and his co-founder unable to raise in the early days? How does Joel approach the element of investor selection? Brand name or partner? How does Joel look to really build relationships with VCs in compressed timeframes? What is Joel's litmus test to determine if a VC is interested? What single value add can a VC provide that is most important?

3.) What does Joel mean when he says, "you have to align your business model with your mission?" How can one really determine if they are aligned? How does this alignment change and alter with scale? What was the thinking behind the shift to a subscription business with VSCO? Was Joel worried it would impact the valuation and change the valuation mechanism to a multiple of revenue assessment?

4.) What do the optimal leadership team dynamics look like to Joel? What has worked well for Joel in binding the leadership team together? What have been some of the biggest challenges? How does Joel think about cross-functional communication across the leadership team?

5.) How does Joel think about his personal development today? Where would he like to improve? Where is he already strong? With a family and company in hyper-growth, how does Joel think about attaining that work-life balance? What advice would he have for other here? How does Joel determine what t…
20VC: First Round's Josh Kopelman on Why Price Is Both An Art and A Science, Why Ownership Must Be Built on First Check and The Negative Consequences of Attribution in Venture

28 januari 2019 · 41 min
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Josh Kopelman is Founder & Partner @ First Round, one of the world's leading seed funds with a portfolio including the likes of Uber, Warby Parker, Flatiron Health, Square, HotelTonight, GOAT and more incredible companies. As for Josh, he founded First Round in 2004 to reinvent seed stage investing. Since he has invested in over 200 startups and been ranked 4th in Forbes Midas List and named one of the top ten 'angel investors' in the US by Newsweek magazine. Josh has previously sat on the boards of Flatiron Health, Clover Health, AppNexus and more. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Josh made his way into the wonderful world of venture from angel investing and what the inspiration behind the founding of First Round was?

2.) How does Josh think about price sensitivity today? What were his learnings from being priced out of the seed round for Twitter and Dropbox? How has Josh seen his relationship to price change over time? How did witnessing the boom and bust both as operator and investor affect his investing mentality today?

3.) How does Josh and First Round think about reserve allocation? How has their thinking changed and evolved over time? Does Josh believe that ownership is fundamentally built on first check? What does the investment decision-making process look like for reserves? In terms of allocation, how does Josh think about time allocation across portfolio? Spend it with the winners, they return the fund or the strugglers and save cents on the dollar?

4.) Josh has spent over 3,000 hours on boards, what have been some of the biggest inflection points that have changed the way he thinks about being a good board member? How has he seen his style and approach change over time? What advice would Josh give to an individual that has just gained their first institutional board seat?

5.) Why does Josh believe that we fundamentally neglect "the pick" today in startup world? Why does Josh believe a high degree of startup mortality begins at the pick (…
20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax

25 januari 2019 · 32 min
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Olof Mathé is the Founder & CEO @ Mixmax, the startup that provides powerful analytics, automation and enhancements for your outbound communications. In the past, Mixmax achieved the almost the impossible in SaaS, true viral growth and a $0 CAC. As a result, Olof has raised over $13m in funding from some dear friends of the show in the form of Jason @ SaaStr, Mike @ Harrison Metal, Mike @ Floodgate and Carl @ Creandum, to name a few. As for Olof, prior to Mixmax he led the team that built Inkling Habitat, now adopted by the world's largest publishers and before that he was an entrepreneur and worked at Skype and McKinsey. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Olof made his way from the world of McKinsey and Skype to changing the way we interact with our email today with Mixmax?

2.) What does Olof mean when he says that founders go through 3 stages of denial when scaling their team? How does Olof think about the right time to add certain roles? What have been some of his big learnings here? Where do people make mistakes in the timing of hires? How does Olof think about the transition from generalist to specialist with scale?

3.) Why does Olof believe that in the majority of cases, it is not optimal or possible for founders to hire through their network? What is the right way for founders to approach building candidate pipe? What is the right way for founders to engage with recruiters? What is required in the recruiter/founder relationship for it to be a success?

4.) Why does Olof get worried when he hears "they will grow into the role"? What are the core leading indicators that suggest someone has the ability to scale vs not scale with the role? How much time does one give an employee to provide value and show their ability in the team? How does Olof think about the right way to let someone go?

5.) What are the 3 interview questions that all founders must ask in the hiring process? What answers indicate a candidate that is best suited for the role and com…
20VC: The Framework LPs Use To Assess Emerging Managers, What Concerns and Excites LPs in Potential Opportunities & The Current State of Seed Today with Hunter Somerville, Partner @ Greenspring Associates

21 januari 2019 · 38 min
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Hunter Somerville is a Partner at Greenspring Associates, a leading venture firm and fund of funds. On the direct side their portfolio includes the likes of Sonos, App Annie, Docusign and Alibaba just to name a few. As for their fund investing, they have backed the likes of Accel, Founders Fund, Thrive, Lightspeed, Foundry Group and many more incredible managers. As for Hunter, he is actively involved in the assessment of micro-vc managers for the Firm where he sits on the LP advisory boards for the likes of Pear, Foundry Group, Scale Venture Partners and BullPen Capital just to name a few. Prior to joining Greenspring, Hunter worked as an Associate for Camden Private Capital. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Hunter made his way into the world of fund investing and came to be a Partner @ Greenspring?

2.) How does Hunter assess the world of micro-VC today? Does Hunter think we will see the market start to shrink as LPs become over-allocated to the space? Why does Hunter believe the barriers for micro VCs to raise are lower than ever? What does this mean for the future of early stage?

3.) How does Hunter fundamentally approach the assessment of new funds? Is it all about track record? How does he look to build a framework/model to predict future performance? What makes Hunter sceptical when assessing new opportunities? Where do many managers go wrong in the fundraising process? How does Hunter think about loss ratio?

4.) As an LP having to allocate to multiple different stages, why does Hunter feel there is a shortage of dedicated A and B round funds? How does Hunter expect both reserve allocation and loss ration to alter as we move from early to later stage? How does Hunter feel about opportunity funds? How does Hunter and other LPs assess GP led restructurings?

5.) Why is Hunter bullish on the future for direct secondaries? Why does he believe this is fundamentally good for the ecosystem? How does Hunter think about early stage managers in their nee…
20VC: Why Every Company Looks One Round Earlier Than It Should Be, Why Investors Don't Understand Term Sheet Psyche & How The Brand Behind The Investor Can Overweight The Attention Their Opinion Is Given with Assaf Wand, Founder & CEO @ Hippo

18 januari 2019 · 33 min
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Assaf Wand is the Founder & CEO @ Hippo, a new kind of insurance company that provides smart coverage for homeowners with a quote in just 60 seconds. To date, Assaf has raised over $109m in funding for Hippo from some dear friends of the show in the form of Felicis Ventures, GGV Capital, Fifth Wall, Zeev Ventures and Lennar just to name a few. Prior to re-imagining the world of insurance, Assaf founded Sabi, creating products that improve everyday life with superior functionality and design. Sabi was acquired by Urbio in 2015. Before that Assaf held numerous different roles including as a consultant at McKinsey and Investment Associate at Intel Capital. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Assaf being the worst employee in the world lead to his entrance into the world of early-stage startups and the founding of Hippo?

2.) How does Assaf analyse the current sentiment and approach to fundraising in the valley today? Why does Assaf believe that every company looks one round earlier than it should be for the VCs? How does Assaf think about investor selection? What is the single biggest value a VC partner can provide? Does Assaf agree that founders should "always be raising"? Why does Assaf believe that top funds should not get significant discounts?

3.) What does Assaf believe are the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when building their board? On boards, why does Assaf believe there is a danger that partners from top funds have their ideas overweighted due to the prestige of their fund? What can be done to prevent this? What does Assaf believe is the right screening process for new board members?

4.) What does Assaf believe separates the good from the great when it comes to board members? How does Assaf really look to building meaninful relationships with his board members? What has worked well? On the flip side, why does Assaf believe the No 1 element of a board is "do no harm"? Where can board members actually be damaging?

5.) Hippo is growing 30% …
20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre

15 januari 2019 · 39 min
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Fred Destin is a Founding Partner @ Stride.VC, one of Europe's newest seed funds with a portfolio including the likes of Cazoo and Forward Health. Over his 17 year career in venture, Fred has established himself as one of Europe's leading VCs with the exit value of 3 of his portfolio companies alone last year totalling more than $4.5Bn with PillPack's $1Bn sale to Amazon, Zoopla to Silverlake for $3Bn and Integral Ad Science to Vista for $850m. Fred has also led investments as a General Partner @ Accel in Deliveroo, the world leader of food on demand and Carwow, the number 1 for new car sales in the UK. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Fred made his way into the world of venture and early stage? What was behind his decision to leave Accel to found Stride with Harry?

2.) Why does Fred think many today misunderstand "risk" in venture? How does that apply across the portfolio? Does Fred agree with Brian Singerman, "venture is a game of upside maximisation"? What risks does Fred define as acceptable vs non-acceptable risks? How does Fred really look to strength test the quality and depth of a founder pre-investment? What are the benefits of going through conflict early?

3.) How does Fred think about price sensitivity? What are the core questions a VC can ask when considering the pricing of an opportunity? How does Fred think about reserve allocation? How does Fred analogize this to the best traders? To what extent does TAM play a dominant role in Fred's evaluation? What does Fred mean when he says "we have to remember, we are the ones that get picked also"?

4.) How does Fred think about and assess innovation within venture? How does Fred perceive the role of data to impact venture over the coming years? Why does Fred believe it is exaggerated that data will disrupt the early stage in the coming years? Where would Fred like to see further innovation in the mechanics of venture?

5.) What does Fred believes separates the good from the great when it comes t…
20VC: How Founders Can Really Get The Most Out of Their Board, Why Culture Fit At The Board Level Is Not Discussed Enough & Why Growth and Culture Are 2 Sides of The Same Coin with Avi Meir, Founder & CEO @ TravelPerk

11 januari 2019 · 30 min
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Avi Meir is the Founder & CEO @ TravelPerk, the startup that allows you to book, manage and report all your business travel in one place. To date, Avi has raised over $73m with TravelPerk from the likes of Felix Capital, Yuri Milner, Spark Capital, Sunstone and LocalGlobe to name a few. Before founding TravelPerk, Avi founded HotelNinjas, a web-based hotel management software platform that was ultimately acquired by Booking.com. Prior to that, Avi was VP Product at Budgetplaces.com, which was acquired by Palamon in 2011. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Avi made his way from the world of hotels to the world of founding startups and what was his entry point? How did Avi's experience with HotelNinja's impact his operating mindset with TravelPerk today?

2.) How does Avi think about attaining the right board composition? What is the ideal structure? How important is it to have industrial experience around the table? What are the 2 other core skills that Avi believes are required on the board? What can founders do to ensure plasticity of mindset at a board level?

3.) What makes the truly special board members? What do they do both in the good and the bad times to make them so good? What does Avi believe makes the more challenging board members to work with? Why does Avi believe that culture fit at the board level is not discussed enough? What can be done by the founder to improve this?

4.) TravelPerk has now raised over $75m in funding, what does Avi believe they have done well to date to allow them to raise this? For the next round, what would Avi like to improve upon and pushback on further? What advice does Avi have for founders entering negotiations when it comes to both valuation and option pool?

5.) Why does Avi believe that culture and growth are 2 sides of the same coin? What have been some of the biggest challenges in scaling the team with the scaling of the company? How does one retain startup culture when no longer a startup? What would Avi do…
20VC: Scott Belsky on Why We Must Challenge Our Faith In The Strength of Resources, Why We Must Rethink The Product Creation and Design Process & How To Determine Between The Good and The Truly Great When Assessing Individuals

7 januari 2019 · 38 min
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Scott Belsky is an executive, entrepreneur, author, and investor. He currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Before Adobe, Scott co-founded Behance in 2006 and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Alongside his role at Adobe, Scott is a Venture Partner at one of the world's leading venture firms, Benchmark. Scott also actively advises and invests in startups personally having one of the most incredible angel portfolios with early checks in Pinterest, Uber, Periscope, Warby Parker, Carta, Flexport and more. Scott is also the author of Harry's favourite book of 2018, The Messy Middle. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Scott made his way into the world of startups with Behance, how that translated to the world of angel investing and being Chief Product Officer @ Adobe? WHat does Scott mean when he discusses the correlation between utilisation and happiness?

2.) What does Scott mean when he says he looks for people whereby 'conversations improve by step function?" What are the best examples of this? How have they shown this? How does Scott think startups founders can manufacture motivation? How has Scott seen the best founders hire the very best team? How do the best founders determine between a stretch and a stretch too far?

3.) In terms of product, what does Scott mean when he refers to the "value of slow cooking"? How does that relate to product creation? Why does Scott often have issues with the MVP approach seen today? How does Scott think about the importance of product simplicity? How can one maintain that over time? Why does Scott believe more founders should spend more time crafting the last mile user experience than they do?

4.) Simplicity is great but VCs often suggest, non-defensible, how does Scott think about building defensibility with simplicity? Simplicity often also narrows market size, how does Scott think about and analyse market size today when investing? Where doe…
20VC: Most Downloaded Founder Episode of 2018: Andrew Dudum, Founder & CEO @ Hims

28 december 2018 · 30 min
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Andrew Dudum is the Founder & CEO @ Hims, one of the fastest growing consumer brands of our time and the fastest growing men's health and wellness brand. To date, they have raised over $97m in VC funding from some of the best in the business including Thrive, Founders Fund, Forerunner, IVP, Redpoint and SV Angel just to name a few. Andrew is also Venture Partner at Atomic, a venture-builder backed by Peter Thiel, Marc Andreesen and many of the world's best investors who recently announced their new $150m fund to start companies solving the world's problems. Prior to Atomic and Hims, Andrew led Product at TokBox.com, the leader in web-based communication and In 2012 TokBox was acquired by the global telecommunications company Telefonica ($TEF). Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Andrew made his way into the world of startups, came to build a venture builder backed by Thiel and Andreesen before starting the fastest growing men's health and wellness brand in Hims?

2.) How does Andrew view the world of online and offline marketing in today's proliferated D2C space? What were the core elements that allowed Hims to achieve such success with their branding? How does Andrew respond to suggestions that there is a lack of free and open distribution due to incumbents paying up for traditional channels making CAC unachievable for startups? How does Andrew look to solve for this?

3.) What does Andrew believe it is that has allowed Hims to execute faster than any other D2C brand in history? How does Andrew distinguish between people and process when considering the scaling at different stages of the business? What are the pros and cons of having such constraints on headcount? When is the right time to pour fuel on the fire?

4.) Hims raised their last round at a $200m valuation in less than a year of operating, how did Andrew evaluate this one? Does this not effectively price Hims out of the majority of M&A? What leads Andrew's thesis with his suggestion that he thou…
20VC: A Framework For Approaching Risk and How It Affects Portfolio Construction | Lessons and Advice From Working with Dropbox's Drew Houston | Why Being A Learning Animal Is The Most Important Factor For Success with Ted Wang, Partner @ Cowboy Ventures

17 december 2018 · 33 min
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Ted Wang is a Partner @ Cowboy Ventures, one of Silicon Valley's leading early-stage funds with the likes of Philz Coffee, Dollar Shave Club, Brandless, DocSend, Accompany and Brit + Co all in their portfolio. As for Ted, prior to VC, Ted spent X years as a leading Silicon Valley lawyer with Fenwick & West where he worked with some of the most notable companies of our times including Facebook, Dropbox, Twitter, Square and Spotify just to name a few. Ted also created the Series Seed Documents - a set of open-sourced financing documents posted on Github used by thousands around the world today. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Ted made his way from one of the most renowned lawyers in the valley with Fenwick & West to partner @ Cowboy alongside Aileen Lee?

2.) How does Ted fundamentally approach risk today? Given this mindset, how does this impact Ted's thinking on optimizing portfolio construction? On the flip side, how has Ted seen many founders wrongly approach the theme of risk? What is the question they need to be asking? What is Ted's story about risk related to his time working with Jet?

3.) What is it that makes Ted believe that "advice is often oversimplified"? If so, how can VCs provide tangible advice to their portfolio companies today? How can founders determine what is the right advice to accept and integrate vs listen and disregard? How does this lead Ted's thinking on the 2 core value adds a VC can provide? What advice did Dropbox Founder, Drew Houston give Ted on when to accept advice?

4.) What does Ted mean when he says "there are 4 parts to venture"? How does Ted think about the theme of learning and self-improvement when assessing founders? How does he look to do this pre-investment? What questions reveal the most? Applying it to himself, where will Ted place his biggest efforts on learning within the realm of venture over the next 12 months?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Ted's Fave Book: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Ted'…
20VC: Why Founders Should Not Always Be Raising, How To Build Relationships with VCs In A Condensed Timeframe, Why The Founder To VC Relationship Is Not Like A Marriage with Dave Vasen, Founder & CEO @ Brightwheel

14 december 2018 · 32 min
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Dave Vasen is the Founder & CEO @ Brightwheel, the child management software solution you need and now the #1 platform for early education. To date, with Brightwheel, Dave has raised over $33m in funding from some of the best in the business including Bessemer, GGV Capital, Lowercase Capital, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, our friends at Eniac Ventures and then the likes of Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca. As for Dave, prior to Brightwheel, he was a VP of Product @ AltSchool and before that spent 3 years at Amazon in numerous different roles including Head of K-12 Education on Kindle and developed and launched the "Made for Kindle" licensing program – both domestic and global. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Dave made his way into the world of edtech and startups from being a consultant at Bain and product manager at Amazon?

2.) Why does Dave fundamentally disagree that founders should always be raising? What is the right way that founders should approach the fundraise? How can founders turn down investor meetings politely when requested and they are not raising? What is the right way to think about capital as a weapon today and the effective allocation of it?

3.) Why does Dave disagree with many elements that the Founder/VC relationship is a marriage? What one element, other than capital, does Dave most look for in a potential investor? What can founders do to really compress the fundraise timeline? How can founders build relationships with VCs under these compressed conditions?

4.) In the valley there is a large amount of glorification around the scaling and founding of companies, how does Dave feel personally about this glorification? How would Dave like to see this mindset fundamentally change? In terms of mindsets, why does Dave push back against the suggestion of VC "pattern recognition"? How has being an older founder and father changed the way he thinks about building Brightwheel today?

5.) How does Dave interpret the meaning of focus today with re…
20VC: Top 3 Considerations When Evaluating Consumer Businesses Today | 700 Meetings, 70 LPs, 2 Years, What It Takes To Raise a First Time Fund| The Power of The Female Network In Action Today with Anu Duggal, Founding Partner @ Female Founders Fund

10 december 2018 · 28 min
Afspelen

Anu Duggal is the Founding Partner @ Female Founders Fund, a leading early-stage fund investing in female-founded technology companies. Within their incredible portfolio is the likes of Zola, Rent The Runway, Maven Clinic, Tala and previous guest, Rockets of Awesome. They also have the most incredible mentor network including the founders of Stitchfix, Care.com, Zola and Tala. Prior to founding Female Founders Fund Anu was CEO @ Doonya, a dance fitness and media company inspired by Bollywood and fun fitness. Before that, Anu was Founder @ Exclusively.In where she headed up New Business Development. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Anu made her way into the world of VC with her founding of Female Founders Fund?

2.) What does Anu mean when she says she likes to focus on "non-obvious opportunities"? What are some clear examples of this? These non-obvious opportunities often appear to have smaller markets, how does Anu think about market size and evolution when investing? Can one blame male VCs for sometimes not identifying with the problem set being solved? What can be done to solve this problem?

3.) What 3 elements do Anu most look for when investing in consumer today? How does Anu respond to the statement that consumer may produce healthy revenue but at the end of the day they will never really produce venture return and be sold for 1.6x EBITDA? How does Anu assess the state of the M&A market today in the world of CPGs?

4.) How was the first fundraising for Female Founders Fund? What did the process look like in terms of amount of meetings, total committed LPs and duration spent raising? What were the common pushbacks from LPs in the fundraise? What did Anu do well that she would do again? How did the raise of the 2nd fund compare to the raise of Fund I?

5.) What does Anu mean when she states, "the power of the female network"? How has Anu seen this work in the real world? How does this allow Anu to see the best deals? How does Anu think about scalin…
20VC: CB Insights' Anand Sanwal on The Most Dangerous Myth Some Investors Have Promoted, Why Most B2B Content Is Crap and How To Make It Successful & Why Predigree Is Overrated and The Right Way To Scale Teams

7 december 2018 · 35 min
Afspelen

Anand Sanwal is the Founder & CEO @ CB Insights, the tech market intelligence platform that ingests massive datasets, to answer complex questions and predict future trends. CB is the 9th best place to work in the US according to GlassDoor and one of the fastest growing SaaS companies in the US. To date, CB Insights has raised over $11m in VC funding, a topic Anand discusses at length in our episode today! Prior to founding CB, Anand held numerous roles at American Express including running a $50m Innovation Fund and managing the company's discretionary investment spend ($4-5Bn p.a.). Before American Express, Anand was one of the early team @ Kozmo.com, one of the most well-funded and infamous startups in NYC history. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Anand came to found CB Insights from running American Express' $50m Innovation fund and the a-ha moment there?

2.) Why does Anand believe that revenue funding is the best kind of funding? What 3 elements does Anand believe it fundamentally allows? What does Anand mean when he says "most have 3 masters, you can only serve two of them at once"? Does Anand believe that founders today are treating their investors as customers?

3.) How does Anand distinguish between business that can be funded from revenue vs those that cannot? How does Anand think about the relationship between growth and margin? Why does it make sense for VCs today to push for the suggestion that startups need to raise big to grow? How can founders think about and respond to this?

4.) Why does Anand believe that most B2B content today is crap? What are the core pillars that make great B2B content today? How does Anand think about potentially going too far when it comes to the risque nature of the content? What advice would Anand give to B2B founders wanting to ramp up their game in content? Where do many go wrong?

5.) What does Anand mean when he says that "pedigree is often overrated"? How has that led Anand's thinking when building out th…
20VC: Index's Danny Rimer on His Biggest Lessons On Price, Ownership, Board Dynamics & Building Consumer Businesses from Backing The Likes of King, Skype, Farfetch, Glossier and more...

3 december 2018 · 41 min
Afspelen

Danny Rimer is a Partner @ Index Ventures, one of the world's leading venture funds with a portfolio including the likes of Dropbox, Skype, King, Bird, Slack and many more incredible companies. As for Danny, he is known for his investments in Dropbox, leading the company's Series B, Etsy, King (makers of world famous, Candy Crush), Skype and more recently many retail and fashion businesses such as Farfetch, Glossier and GOAT. He's been on the coveted Forbes Midas List for more than a decade and in 2017 was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to business and charity and the New York Times included him in its list of the top 20 venture capitalists worldwide. Lees meer

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Danny made his way into the world of venture and came to be a Partner @ Index Ventures?

2.) Having backed the likes of King, Skype, Glossier, how does Danny respond to Peter Fenton and Jeremy Levine's suggestions of a "consumer downturn"? Does Danny believe there is a lack of free and open distribution today? Can startups compete with such inflated CACs? Henry Davis @ Glossier asks: how have you seen acquisition models change over time? How do you envision acquisition models of the future?

3.) Peter Fenton said on the show previously, he always laughs when he hears VCs say they like big markets, how does Danny assess market sizing today? What have been Danny's biggest lessons on assessing market size when looking at his portfolio? How does Danny think about niche markets today in such an Amazon dominant world? How does Danny assess price today? How does Danny determine when to stretch vs stay firm?

4.) Having helped many companies scale to global success, what does Danny believe to be the core considerations in getting your startup ready for global expansion? How did Danny find Index's expansion when opening up their first US office in 2011 in SF? What were some of the biggest challenges? How does Danny think about and assess g…

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