20VC: The Scaling Story of Soho House: Overcoming Dyslexia, Building a Global Brand, Scaling into The US, Retaining Exclusivity with Scale and The Journey to Going Public with Nick Jones, Founder & CEO @ Soho House
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 06/17/2022
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Chad Peets is one of the most straight-talking, no BS sales leaders of our time. Today, he partners with founders of the fastest growing companies in the world, like Harvey, Factory to build the best sales teams in a world of AI. Chris Degnan is a legendary technology sales leader who achieved the historic feat of scaling Snowflake from $0 to $4BN in ARR. AGENDA: 00:00 – The $100M CRO Packages Nobody Believes Are Real 04:10 – Why Most “Elite” Salespeople Are Actually Just Order Takers 08:00 – The Secret to Hiring Killer Sales Talent at Early-Stage Startups 10:05...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 00:00 – Anthropic Eyes $900B Valuation & Andre Karpathy's Shock Move 04:46 – Unpacking Anthropic’s $30 Billion War Chest 10:52 – The True Cost of AI Tokens: Is Salesforce Spending Too Much? 15:59 – The Bear Case for Token Growth & Why Software Leaders Must Adapt 22:56 – Public Tech Rebound: Figma & Datadog Crush Expectations 26:59 – The Death of Traditional Web Builders? The Decline of Wix & Squarespace 36:59 – Compute Starvation: Is the Semiconductor & Hardware Boom Sustainable? 45:59 – Cerebras IPO Smashes Day One: The Biggest Tech Public...
info_outlineThe 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_outlineNick Jones is the Founder & CEO @ Soho House, it all started in 1995 when Nick opened the first location above his restaurant, Cafe Boheme, a members’ club for the local artists and actors of London. Today, Soho House is a global brand, a private members club that includes 33 Houses in 14 countries, with more openings in Europe, Asia, and North America on the horizon. In 2021, Nick took Soho House public on the NASDAQ, 25 years since opening the first location. If that was not enough, Nick is also the owner of Babbington House and Cecconi's, one of my favorite restaurants in London.
In Today's Episode with Nick Jones You Will Learn:
1.) The Start of Soho House:
- What was the founding moment for Nick with Soho House?
- What were the biggest lessons from his 3 prior restaurants not working? How did that experience change his approach to Soho House?
- Why does Nick believe resilience is the most important skill of any entrepreneur? When something is not working? What does Nick tell himself?
- With the rise of Instagram, how have the demands of the consumer changed over time in terms of what they expect from hospitality?
2.) The Art of Storytelling:
- What does Nick believe is the essence of truly great storytelling?
- What do all great stories contain? How do the best storytellers tell those stories?
- Where does Nick believe many founders make mistakes when it comes to storytelling today?
3.) The Art of Leadership:
- How does Nick define his style of leadership today? How has it changed over time?
- What does high performance mean to Nick?
- How does Nick think through retaining high performance while also having a family?
- How does Nick approach hiring? Why does Nick find interviewing so tough?
- How does Nick think through when to hire someone external vs promote internal talent?
4.) The Scale of Soho House:
- What was the single most challenging time in the scaling journey of Soho House?
- What changes when you go public? What are the good? What are the bad?
- What does Nick know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning?