20Growth: Top Growth Lessons from the Early Facebook, Twitter and Quora Days, The Most Important Question to Ask When Building Your Growth Team, How To Test For True Candidate Depth and Quality When Hiring for Growth with Andy Johns, Venture Partner @ Unu
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 11/17/2021
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Sebastian Siemiatkowski is the co-founder and CEO of Klarna, the global digital bank with over 114 million global active users and 3.4 million transactions per day. Seb is one of the leading public company CEOs pushing the boundaries of AI. AGENDA: 04:50 — The Real Threat to SaaS is The Switching Cost Coming Down 05:57 — What revenue multiple will software companies trade at in the future? 14:12 — Why you need to build your own customer service AI to win 23:51 — Klarna has two times the customer base of Revolut. They will beat Revolut 25:39 — How I lost a billion dollars not...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Carles Reina is VP of Sales at ElevenLabs, where he was the first investor and fourth employee. Carles has scaled the revenue org from Day 1 to over $330M in just 3 years. Carles is also an active investor with investments in ElevenLabs, Revolut, Happy Robot and more. AGENDA: 0:00 How I Turned $20K into $16M with Revolut Angel Investment 10:45 Why I Don’t Believe in Product-Market Fit 15:40 How to do Land and Expand: Turning $12K Deals into Millions 19:40 The 20X Rule: A "Ruthless" Comp Plan for Elite Reps 24:35 Public Shaming? Why Honest Pipeline Reviews Save Companies 28:50 Why...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 03:43 Anthropic Predicts $149B in ARR in 2029 09:27 Will FDEs Become More or Less Powerful 26:17 Harvey Raises $200M at an $11BN Valuation 42:45 Is Customer Support a Terrible or Terrific Investment Category 56:14 Anthropic’s Superbowl Ad: Who Won and Who Lost 01:11:30 Do CEOs Have to Work Harder Today Than Ever
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Anish Acharya is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), where he leads consumer and fintech investing at Series A. He serves on the boards of standout portfolio companies including Deel, Mosaic, Clutch, Titan, and HappyRobot and has led early bets in companies like Runway and Carbonated. Before a16z, he founded and exited two startups—Snowball (acquired by Credit Karma) and SocialDeck (acquired by Google) and scaled Credit Karma’s U.S. Card business to over 100 million members. AGENDA: 00:03 - Why building an AI company today requires being in San Francisco 06:58 - The "SaaS...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Ariel Cohen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Navan (formerly TripActions), an AI-powered travel and expense platform. Last month, Ariel took the company public, since being a public company, they have faced a torrid time seeing stock price decline by 50%. The company is currently valued between $4BN-$5BN. AGENDA: 0:00 The Truth About Going Public After 11 Years 5:50 Why We Couldn't Wait: The Real Reason for the IPO 8:15 Disrupting the Giants: Amex, Concur, and the $1T Opportunity 11:50 "If We Don't Build This, We're Dead": Seeing ChatGPT Early 18:35 Why Navan Built Their Own Customer Service...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 00:00 - SpaceX Completes Acquisition of xAI in $1.25 Trillion Merger 08:44 - The Rehabilitation of the IPO and the End of "State Private Forever" 15:53 - The 2026 SaaS Massacre: Public Market Collapse 31:20 - Next-Gen CRM War: Hubspot Down 50%+ vs Next Gen Heavily Funded 45:30 - Microsoft’s $360 Billion Market Cap Loss and the Shift in AI Narrative 52:45 - Nvidia’s Strategic Retreat: The Dispute Over the $100 Billion OpenAI Investment 01:03:30 - Waymo Raises $16 Billion at a $110 Billion Valuation 01:17:30 - The Launch of OpenClaw and Moltbook: 1.5 Million Agents Join a...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Oren Zeev is one of the most prominent solo capitalists in venture. He is one of the most no BS investors of our time. Oren manages over $1BN in AUM and is known for his "radical alignment" approach, often taking $0 in management fees. His track record includes massive successes like Navan, Audible, and Houzz. AGENDA: 03:11 – Why the Best Investments Always Look "Wrong" at the Start 05:58 – The AI Tsunami: How to Spot Beneficiaries vs. Victims 10:43 – The Death of Incumbents? Why Most AI Predictions Are Wrong 14:12 – Why Chasing Hyper-Growth is a "Disaster Waiting to Happen" 19:41 –...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Omer Shai serves as the CMO at Wix. Shai leads a team of over 400 people and is responsible for the company’s global online and offline marketing activity, which boasts an incredible growth of approximately 3 million new users every month. Under Shai, the marketing department has executed hundreds of worldwide campaigns for television and social including 5 Super Bowl commercials, creative videos, podcasts and more. AGENDA: 00:00 — The AI Agent Revolution: 93% Automation? 03:55 — Why I’m Buying TWO Super Bowl Ads This Year 08:58 — The $100M Marketing Secret: Brand vs. Performance...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 03:36 Brex Acquisition by Capital One for $5.15BN 10:54 Does Brex’s Acquisition Help or Hurt Ramp? 16:28 TikTok Deal Completed: Who Won & Who Lost: Analysis 19:30 Anthropic Inference Costs Higher Than Expected 37:50 Open Evidence Raises at $12BN from Thrive and DST 53:56 Wealthront IPO Disaster: Is $1.5BN IPO Too Small? 01:07:27 Salesforce Wins $5BN Army Contract: The Last Laugh for SaaS
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Max Junestrand is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Legora, the legal AI company that has scaled to 750 of the world’s leading law firms as customers and over 300 employees in just 2 years. They have raised over $200M from some of the best in the business including Benchmark, General Catalyst, Redpoint and ICONIQ. AGENDA: 04:16 Why Does Everyone Think Harvey When They Hear Legal AI? 07:35 Why OpenAI is Toast? Switching to Anthropic! 11:47 24 Months: Which Foundation Models Will Win? 23:53 Lessons Scaling from Europe into the US 28:53 Do Americans Work As Hard As They Say? 32:20 Why Seat...
info_outlineAndy Johns is one of the pre-eminent growth leaders of the last decade. Andy's career started in growth at Facebook when the company scaled from 100M-500M active users. Since he has worked in some of the leading growth orgs at companies like Twitter, Quora and more recently at Wealthfront as Head of Growth and President. Andy is also an active angel investor and advisor with companies such as Poshmark, Robinhood, Webflow, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Opendoor. If that was not enough, Andy is currently a Venture Partner @ Unusual Ventures where he focuses on consumer social and network-driven startups.
In Today’s Episode with Andy Johns You Will Learn:
1.) How Andy made his way into the world of startups and growth with his joining the Facebook growth team? What were the biggest takeaways from his time with Facebook, Twitter and Quora? How did that impact his mindset today?
2.) How does Andy define "VP and Head of Growth"? When is the right time to start hiring for your growth team? How should founders determine whether they need a growth leader or growth engineers in the early days? What is the core question founders need to ask on network effects to answer this question? Should the growth team be incorporated into the product team?
3.) How does Andy structure the hiring process for growth hires? What does the structure of the interviews look like? How does Andy test for real depth with candidates? What case studies does he do to really understand their quality? Where do many go wrong with the interview process? What are Andy's biggest suggestions for how to optimise the process?
4.) What does the optimal onboarding process for new hires look like? What takes and processes should they complete in their first month? What are early signs of a poor candidate? How long should one give them if they are not performing? How does Andy approach structure post-mortems within the team? What is the ideal relationship between CEO and Head of Growth?