20VC: Hims Founder Andrew Dudum on Hims Going Public, The Reasoning and Benefits of SPACs, The Biggest Misconceptions of Successful Company Building & Wall St's Changing Perceptions Towards Growth and Profitability
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 01/21/2021
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Josh Browder is my favourite emerging manager. As the Founder of Browder Capital he has been the first check into unicorns like Micro1, and Yuzu Health to name a few. He turned his Thiel Fellowship Grant of $100K into a whopping $10M angel portfolio. All new investments move into Josh’s Four Seasons Residence where he then trains them on company building. They are only allowed to leave when they raise their seed round. In addition to this, Josh is the Founder & CEO @ DoNotPay, the now profitable company that has raised $22M from Marc Andreessen and others. AGENDA: 00:00 Why I...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Shiv Rao is the CEO and Co-Founder of Abridge, a leader in generative AI for healthcare. The company reached a $5.3 billion valuation following a $300 million funding round with investors including Jensen Huang, Henry Kravis, USV, Bessemer Venture Partners and Elad Gill. A practicing cardiologist, Shiv has scaled the company to 450 employees and partnered with major health systems like Emory and Yale. AGENDA: 04:00 — You just have to survive long enough to not die 06:00 — Did USV liking music make them billions of dollars? 13:58 — The three variants of an AI native company 15:00...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 00:05:11 — Anthropic freezes secondary sales, requiring board approval for all transfers. 00:10:45 — Why Anthropic is buying capacity from Elon Musk. 00:15:35 — Anthropic’s massive $200B revenue commit to Google. 00:18:55 — Goldman Sachs predicts a 24x surge in token consumption driven by agents. 00:31:05 — Will AI labs eat the app layer? The threat to Legal and CX verticals. 00:37:55 — SaaS public markets: HubSpot tanks 18% while Monday.com finds its footing. 00:42:40 — Growth theft: How Clay is commoditizing ZoomInfo’s data business. 00:46:25 — Cerebras...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Patrick Forquer is the Chief Revenue Officer at , the fastest growing enterprise business to ever hit $100M in ARR and now on track to hit over $250M in ARR by the end of the year. They recently raised a $550 million Series D at a $5.55 billion valuation, led by Accel, note 20VC did participate and is an investor in the company. AGENDA: 0:00 – How Jude Law Generated $50 Million in Qualified Pipeline 4:00 – Why Implementation is Your Secret Weapon to Win in AI 5:50 – Why AI Enterprise Sales Require "Legal Engineers" 7:45 – The 6-Figure Rule: When Should Humans Control Sales 12:55...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Cliff Weitzman is the Founder & CEO of Speechify AI. He solved his dyslexia and ADHD in college by building a Voice AI agent that's now used by over 60 million people and has over 1 million five-star ratings. Over 200 software and AI engineers work on Speechify which won the Apple Design award last year. AGENDA: 00:00 — Until You Hit $100K Do Not Spend on any Channel Other than Meta 04:53 — How I hacked the college system by applying to 26 universities 06:33 — The "Great Guy" yearbook prank that accidentally outed me 08:35 — What I learned from hunting down the top 100...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 00:00 – Mag Seven Earnings: The "Super Bowl" of Tech Results 04:45 – Google’s Cloud Explosion & The AI Search "Disruption" That Never Came 15:53 – Microsoft’s $190B Bet: Is AI the Only Thing Keeping Growth Flat? 21:59 – Meta’s $150B Future Bet vs. Wall Street’s Need for Spreadsheets 28:50 – Palantir’s Home Run: Why Big Companies Spend Big Money on AI 38:43 – Apple’s Quiet Consistency & The Stealth Inflation of Memory Chips 41:11 – The SaaS Apocalypse Over? Atlassian and Twilio Lead the Re-acceleration 50:50 – Anthropic’s $50B Raise & The Math...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Tobi Lütke is the co-founder and CEO of Shopify, the global e-commerce titan with a $160 billion market cap. Under his leadership, the company generates over $7 billion in annual revenue and has seen its valuation grow nearly 100x since its 2015 IPO. Today, Shopify has over 8,000 employees and AI now generates over 50% of the Shopify’s code. AGENDA: 00:10:36 - The $160 billion CEO who did not want to be CEO. 00:11:51 - Why don't companies become public? Because it is much worse to be an untrusted public company. 00:16:53 - Why we are about to enter a golden age of entrepreneurship....
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Becca Lindquist is Head of Sales at Clay, one of the fastest-growing AI companies to reach $100M+ ARR. She previously helped scale dbt Labs into a category-defining data platform, building and leading high-performing sales teams. Before that, she was an early sales leader at Heap, where she played a key role in scaling the GTM motion. AGENDA: 00:00 Why most sales reps plateau—and when you should leave your company 02:45 Should you jump from SaaS to a hot AI startup right now? 05:30 How long is too long at one company—and what great tenure actually looks like 08:00 How to read a LinkedIn...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 00:00 $45B Floods into Anthropic from Google & Amazon 05:10 OpenAI Misses Growth Targets — Is This a Real Problem? 08:40 The Rise of AI Agents: Why Humans No Longer Pick Models 12:05 “Compute ≠ Revenue”: The First Crack in the AI Business Model 20:30 China Blocks $2B Manus Deal — AI Cold War Escalates 34:10 Why Google May Be the Biggest Winner in AI Infrastructure 41:50 The Death of SaaS? Agents Replace Apps Like Jira & Canva 46:20 Thoma Bravo Hands Medallia to Creditors — $5B Wiped Out 52:10 The Collapse of Private Equity Exit Routes in VC
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Adam Foroughi is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Applovin, one of the most underdiscussed but incredible businesses. Applovin has a market cap of $160BN, the company does $5.48BN in revenue and has an astonishing $10M EBITDA per head. The margins; 80%+. There is almost no other business in the world like it. AGENDA: 00:00 – Why Winning (Not Fear) Drives the Best Founders 04:30 – When Money Stops Mattering: The Real Founder Motivation 07:15 – $83M CEO Payday: The Truth Behind the Headlines 10:45 – The Hidden Cost of Being a CEO: What No One Tells You 13:00 – Down 92%: How Do You...
info_outlineAndrew Dudum is the Founder & CEO @ Hims & Hers, offering a modern approach to health and wellness and one of the fastest-growing companies to reach $1Bn. Prior to their going public on Tuesday this week, Hims raised over $158M from some of the best including Thrive, Forerunner, Founders Fund, IVP, Redpoint and more. As for Andrew, alongside his role at Hims he is also Co-Founder of Atomic, a company builder and venture fund all in one, backed by Peter Thiel and Marc Andreesen to name two. Prior to Atomic, Andrew led product at TokBox managing a team of 30 leading to their acquisition by Telefonica in 2012.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Andrew made his way from Head of Product at Tokbox to venture capitalist with Atomic to changing healthcare with Hims?
2.) What are the biggest misconceptions people have with regards to what it takes to build a successful company? Why do you not need big teams? How can leaders drive efficiency within small teams? What have been Andrew's biggest lessons in acquiring the best talent in market? What works?
3.) Hims is the fastest company to scale to $1Bn, how does Andrew reflect on how he managed hyper-growth? What did he do well? What was the first to break? What would he do differently? When is the right time to go from generalist to specialist? When is the right time to add more products?
4.) Why did Andrew believe now was the right time to IPO just 4 years into the founding of the business? How did the SPAC process play out? What are the core advantages to Andrew of the SPAC over an IPO? Why will more founders use it in the future? How does Andrew assess the importance or lack of, when it comes to the pricing pop on IPO day?
5.) How does Andrew reflect on his relationship to money? Why does he feel more scared of it now than ever before? How does he think about bringing up his children with an appreciation and respect for money? What 3 traits would Andrew most like his children to have?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode
Andrew’s Favourite Book: The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World
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