20VC: Whoop Founder, Will Ahmed on How CEOs Can Perform at their Highest Level, Why There is Value in Struggle Early On, Why Realism is Overrated in Startups and How To Create a Culture of Delegated Decision-Making
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 01/05/2022
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Oliver Jay (OJ) is one of the most successful sales leaders of the last decade. Most recently, OJ spent 6 years at Asana where he was hired as the company's first revenue leader. As CRO, OJ was responsible for product-led and sales-led revenue and grew the team from less than 20 to over 450. Before Asana, OJ spent 4 years at Dropbox in a period of hyper-scaling for the business where OJ was Head of APAC and LATAM. At Dropbox, OJ scaled the sales team from 0 to 50 while tripling ARR. If that was not enough, OJ is also an independent board member at Grab, the leading Super app in Southeast...
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is the Founding Partner @ and one of the OGs of solo capitalism. Oren has an incredible portfolio including investments in Audible, Houzz, Chegg, Riverside, Tipalti, TripActions, and Firebolt to name a few. Oren is also very unlike any other VC firm, he does not employ any associates, principals, or staff. He doesn't have partners or partner meetings. No LP meetings. No processes. No investment committees or memos. Nada. Oren is doing it differently. Prior to starting Zeev Ventures, Oren spent 12 years as a GP @ Apax Partners where he c-headed their technology practice in their Silicon...
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is the Founder and CEO @ , a leading online employment marketplace that uses AI-driven matching technology to actively connect millions of businesses and job seekers to their next great opportunity. Since co-founding the company in 2010, more than 1.8M employers have used ZipRecruiter to find their next great hire and over 500 million job applications have been submitted through the site. Prior to their IPO last year, Ian bootstrapped the company for many years to many millions in revenue before taking venture funding from IVP, Wellington Management and Basepoint Ventures to name a few....
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is one of the pre-eminent growth leaders of the last decade. As a growth OG, he has been VP Growth @ Airtable, where he led the growth, engineering, and product teams. Before Airtable, Darius was Head of Product Growth @ Facebook Messenger and finally, before Facebook, Darius spent 4 years as Head of Growth Engineering at Dropbox; here, Darius helped drive Dropbox to $100M in net new revenue through Dropbox Business. If that was not enough, Darius is also an active angel and fund investor with a portfolio including Calm, Airtable, Clubhouse, Census and LP checks in Maven Ventures and Long...
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is the Co-Founder and Managing Director @ , one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Stripe, Snap, Airbnb, Anduril, Canva and many more amazing names. Prior to founding General Catalyst with Joel Cutler, David was a serial entrepreneur building and selling 4 successful companies. In Today’s Episode with David Fialkow: 1.) Everything Great Starts Small: How did David and Joel decide on a Hawaiin beach that they wanted to start General Catalyst? Why did they decide to name it General Catalyst? How did the first fundraise go for GC Fund I? ...
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is the Founder & Managing Partner at . Today with over $2.2BN AUM, Ravi has built a portfolio including Plaid, Duolingo, Hims & Hers, MessageBird, and Scopely. Prior to founding NVC, Ravi was a General Partner at NEA, where he co-led the firm's fintech investment practice and made investments in Braintree (acquired by PayPal), MuleSoft (acquired by Salesforce) and Plaid to name a few. In Today's Episode with Ravi Viswanathan: 1.) Entry Into Venture: How Ravi made his way into the world of venture with NEA? What led Ravi to spin out of NEA and raise $1.3BN for the debut NewView...
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, often referred to as the father of the iPod is one of the leading product thinkers of the last 30 years as one of the makers of some of the most game-changing products in society from the iPhone and iPod to more recently founding Nest, creating the Nest Thermostat, leading to their $3.2BN acquisition by Google. Tony recently released Build, this is a masterclass taking 30 years of product and company building lessons and packaging them for you, check it out . In Today's Episode with Tony Fadell: 1.) Everything Great Starts Small: How did Tony make his way into the world of product...
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is the Founding Partner @ , with over 700 investments, Fabrice has had over 250 exits and built a portfolio including Alibaba, Coupang, Airbnb, Instacart, Flexport, and Delivery Hero, and many more. Prior to FJ Labs, Fabrice served as CEO for three multinational companies; including OLX, one of the largest websites in the world with over 300 million unique visitors per month. As a result of his incredible investing success, Fabrice was named the In Today's Episode with Fabrice Grinda: 1.) Everything Great Starts Small: How did Fabrice make his way into the world of investing...
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is the Founder and Managing Partner @ , a social community of 500,000+ SaaS founders and a $100M venture fund. In the past, Jason has made investments in the likes of Algolia, Talkdesk, Pipedrive, and RevenueCat to name a few. Prior to SaaStr, Jason was the Co-Founder and CEO @ Echosign, backed by Emergence Capital, Echosign was bought by Adobe and is Adobe Sign as we know it today. In Today’s Episode with Jason Lemkin You Will Learn: 1.) Origins into Venture: How Jason made his way into the world of venture having sold EchoSign? What were some of Jason's biggest lessons...
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is the Founder and Chairman @ , one of the with a portfolio including Uber, Stripe, Twitter, Instagram, Twilio, Docker and many more. Why does Chris believe we have bred a generation of asshole kids? What is the right way to negotiate with children? How has that impacted how he manages his team? is the Founder & CEO @ , offering DNA testing with the most comprehensive ancestry breakdown, personalized health insights, and more. How did having kids change Anne's approach to time allocation and risk? is the President of Shopify. Over the...
info_outlineWill Ahmed is the Founder and CEO @ Whoop, the company on a mission to unlock human performance with their wearable device that is your digital fitness and health coach. To date, Will has raised over $400M for the company with the last round valuing Whoop at $3.6BN and with a cap table including the likes of Softbank, Accomplice, Founder Collective, Foundry Group, IVP and more.
In Today’s Episode with Will Ahmed You Will Learn:
1.) How Will went from being a professional athlete and college student to founding one of the hottest startups in fitness and healthcare? What are the similarities and differences of being an athlete and being a CEO?
2.) What does Will mean when he says, "there is value in the struggle early on"? How does Will advise founders on when to give up vs when to stay the course? If Will had not struggled with funding in the early days, would the Whoop journey be different? How does Will advise founders when it comes to taking funding when it is on the table? What are the nuances to this?
3.) In what way does Will believe "realism is overrated"? When does Will believe it is good to be realistic? In what ways can it be good to be idealistic? How did Will get some of the largest sports stars on the planet to use Whoop in the early days? Why did Will always refuse to pay sports stars to use Whoop? What were the benefits of doing this?
4.) How does Will define high performance? Why does Will believe it is crucial for leaders to disassociate their own personal feelings from the progress of their company? What advice does Will give to leaders in an attempt to do this? What has Will done to be a better CEO in the last year? What does Will believe are his biggest weaknesses as a CEO?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Will Ahmed
Will’s Favourite Book: Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE