20VC: UiPath: The 10 Year Bootstrapping Journey that Turned into a $10BN Public Company | From a Dollar a Day to Romania's Richest Man | Happiness, Wealth, Risk and more with Daniel Dines, Co-Founder @ UiPath
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 04/22/2024
20VC: Figma's IPO: The Full Breakdown | Index Returns $3.5BN on Two Deals | Why Melio's $2.5BN Acquisition is "Discouraging" | Asana's New CEO and the Great Founder Exodus | Oracle's $30BN AI Deal and What it Means for Incumbents
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 00:00 – $400B in AI CapEx: Rational Investment or Madness? 05:00 – Figma's IPO: Rule of 80, $1.5B in cash, 40% margins. Unreal. 08:00 – Adobe Screwed the Deal—Should They Have Just Bought Canva? 16:00 – Pay-to-Play Deals: Heroic Hail Mary or Guaranteed Write-Off? 21:30 – How Index Is Returning $3.5B on 2 Deals 24:00 – Melio’s $2.5B Exit: Insane Growth… So Why Did They Sell?! 35:00 – Massive Penthouses and the Death of Focus: AI Founders Beware 39:00 – Chime, Anthropic, Menlo & The Art of Selling LPs the Future 41:00 – Couchbase Acquired: PE Buyers Are...
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20VC: Inside KKR's Monster $8BN European Fund | The $500M Turkey Gamble That Went Wrong | Do Andreessen & General Catalyst Scare KKR? | Will AI Kill the PE Model? | Can The PE Model Survive without IPOs and Where is the Liquidity with Philip Freise
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Philipp Freise is Co-Head of European Private Equity at KKR, where he manages the largest private fund in Europe with $8BN in the latest fund. Philip has led KKR's investments in FGS Global, Superstruct, Axel Springer SE, BMG Rights Management, Fotolia, GetYourGuide, GfK SE, Leonine, Mediawan SAS, Scout24 Switzerland and Trainline. Previously, Philip worked at McKinsey & Company in and co-founded Berlin-based VC firm Venturepark, Europe's first pan-European incubator. Agenda: 00:00 – "We Lost $500M in Turkey. Here’s Why We’ll Never Do It Again." 01:40 – Inside Europe’s Biggest PE...
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20Sales: How to Layer Enterprise Sales on PLG | How to Sell AI Tools To Enterprises That Are Scared | Should Reps Own Their Own Pipeline | Mistakes All Founders Make When Moving From Founder-Led to Rep-Led Sales with Kim Graves
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Kim Graves is GM, Americas at Notion, where she oversees all Sales and Customer Success efforts across the region. She brings extensive experience in building and scaling high-performing sales organizations, most notably at Slack where she helped grow revenue from $6M to over $1.5B. In addition to her operational role, Kim serves as a founding partner at 20SALES, a GTM-focused VC firm, where she advises early-stage companies on scaling revenue and optimizing sales processes. Agenda: 07:00 – The Secret to Winning a Discount Conversation 09:30 – Notion’s Wild New Sales Method: Mindsets...
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20VC: Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross Bought with Zuck's $100BN AI Budget | Navan Files to Go Public and Canva Pulls the Brakes: Why and What Happens | Why Larry Ellison is the Smartest Man in Tech | Substance or Sizzle: What is Real and What is BS in AI
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Agenda: 04:21 - The Meta Acquisition Bombshell: Nat Friedman & Daniel Gross Join Facebook?! 06:00 - Facebook’s $100 Billion Gamble: Can Zuck Buy the Future? 09:27 - The “Magic Room” Theory: Why Only Insiders Get Billion-Dollar Paydays 11:27 - Is Loyalty Dead in Silicon Valley? The Great Talent Exodus 16:00 - Harvey’s $5 Billion Valuation: Genius or Bubble? 19:00 - The AI Gold Rush: Can Software Really Eat Human Labor? 22:00 - The B2B Unicorn Dilemma: Are There Enough $100B Companies? 25:00 - IPO Mania: Why Navan, Canva, and Circle Are Shaking Up the Markets 29:00 - Meme Stocks...
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20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Johannes Reck is the Founder and CEO of GetYourGuide, the $2BN company that started with a holiday to China and nothing to do. For the first two years, GetYourGuide received only 5 bookings. Today the platform is worth $2BN. They have raised from some of the best, including an amazing story with Masa Son and Softbank. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 01:45 – “I Regret Our Series A — Too Much Dilution” 03:50 – US vs Europe: Why European Founders Are Tougher 06:10 – “Germany Spends €100B on Pensions, €7B on VC – It’s Insane” 08:40 – Why Europe Fails to Build $10B...
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20Product: How Duolingo Build Product 10x Faster with AI | Duolingo's Biggest Lessons on Paywalls, Push Notifications and In-App Purchases | Why Small Teams are the Future of Product | Why PMs Will Become Extinct with Cem Kansu, CPO @ Duolingo
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Cem Kansu is the Chief Product Officer at Duolingo, where he leads product strategy for over 90 million monthly active learners. Since joining Duolingo, Cem has played a pivotal role in driving record user engagement, revenue growth, and product innovation, including the launch of Duolingo Math and the wildly successful Duolingo Music. Under his leadership, the company has consistently ranked as the #1 education app globally. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 04:12 – Cem’s Origin Story: From Google Ads to Saving Duolingo’s Business 06:45 – “Mini CEO” Myth: Why PMs Need to...
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20VC: Scale's $14.8BN Acquisition: Is Scale a Dead Man Walking / What Did Meta Buy | Chime IPO: Are IPOs Hotter Than Ever | Ramp Hits $16BN Diluting Only 1% | Salesforce, Slack and Dropbox Falling Behind: Are Incumbents Losing Ground
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Agenda: 00:00 – Meta’s $14.8B Deal for Scale: The Analysis 05:40 – Will Scale Lose Their $800M ARR? Will All Customers Leave? 13:00 – Who is the Winner from All Scale Customers Leaving? 21:30 – Who Made the Most Money From Scale? 24:00 – LPs Just Got $14B Back. Are They Reinvesting? 26:45 – Chime IPO: The Breakdown 29:20 – Ramp Hits $16B Valuation: Are We Back in 2021? 31:10 – Ramp vs Brex vs Mercury: Who’s the Real Winner? 34:00 – Gusto Going Public with $900M in ARR??? 36:40 – Dropbox vs Glean: Can the Old Guard Survive the AI Wave? 38:50 – Is Slack Dead as a...
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20VC: How We Made $800M on Coursera | We Lost Money on Uber and Made Money on Lyft | We Did 3x on Postmates in 18 Months | DPI is King, MOIC is BS | We Dodged Theranos and I Still Lost Millions with Larry Aschebrook @ G Squared
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Larry Aschebrook is the Founder and Managing Partner of G Squared in what is one of the wildest stories of venture capital. Larry started G Squared with nothing, dialling for dollars having personally invested in Twitter and Uber. In his first fund, Larry made sizable bets into SpaceX, Palantir, Alibaba and Twitter. Larry has also had mega losses along the way (discussed in the show) in Getir, 23andme and more. Today, Larry manages over $5BN and has invested in all the best from Wiz to Spotify to Revolut and Anthropic. Agenda: 00:00 – From Broke to Billion-Dollar Bets 03:40 – The...
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20VC: SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink: Elon’s Empire After the Firestorm | Are Circle and Coreweave Meme Stocks: IPO Analysis | Anduril Raises $2.6BN & Becomes Founders Fund's 1st and 2nd Largest Check Ever | Cursor Now 20% of SaaS Spend and the SaaS Slowdown
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Agenda: 00:03 – Circle’s IPO: Investors Just Left $BNs on the Table 00:06 – CoreWeave & Circle: Are We Back to Meme Stock Madness? 00:11 – Should Stripe and Databricks Finally Go Public? 00:17 – US Stock Markets: How They DOMINATE the Global Game 00:21 – 50% of Unicorns Are DOOMED. What Happens Now? 00:25 – Founders Fund Just Dropped $1B on Anduril. Why?! 00:29 – What Would You Do If LPs Let You Go Wild? 00:36 – What Missing Out on Millions for Docusign Taught Rory 00:44 – Cursor is 20% of SaaS Spend: The Shocking Data Behind the SaaS Slowdown 00:47 – AI vs. SaaS: The...
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20VC: Fiverr CEO: ‘If You’re Not Adapting to AI, F* You. You’re Done | Why "Time to Copy" is the Most Important Metric in Startups Today | Why 99% of AI Companies Today Will Die | Why Governments Will Take Control of AI with Micha Kauffman
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Micha Kaufman is the Founder and CEO of Fiverr, the leading online marketplace for freelance services. Fiverr has had an insane ride in the public markets, in 2019 the company went public with a $650M market cap, at their peak that hit over $8BN. Today, facing a wave of AI, the company has a market cap of $1.121BN on an estimated $430M EOY revenues. Prior to co-founding Fiverr, Micha successfully founded and led several startups over the last 30 years. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 00:00 – “Fuck you. It’s not my job to make you better.” Micha’s viral internal email...
info_outlineDaniel Dines is the Co-Founder @ UiPath, one of the most incredible journeys in startups. For 10 years, UiPath was a bootstrapped company that scaled to just $500K in revenue. Then it all changed, product market fit became obvious and the rest is history. The company went on to raise funding from Sequoia, Accel, Kleiner Perkins and more. Today, the company is worth over $10BN, listed on the NASDAQ and does $1BN+ in revenue.
In Today's Episode with Daniel Dines We Discuss:
1. From a Dollar a Day to Romania's Richest Man:
- How would Daniel's parents and teachers have described the young Daniel?
- How did Daniel first learn to code? Why was his first programming job on $300 per month the best?
- How did Daniel learn English by playing bridge with his friends?
- What was the a-ha moment for Daniel with UiPath?
2. Becoming a Billionaire: The Mental Journey:
- What does Daniel mean when he says everyone is a prisoner of their own mind?
- How does Daniel reflect on his own relationship to money?
- How did having absolutely nothing impact Daniel's relationship to risk?
- Why does Daniel think that he does not really experience or feel happiness?
3. 10 Years to $500K ARR: The Miracle Bootstrapping Journey:
- After 10 years, UiPath had just $500K in ARR, what was the one single moment that changed everything in 2014?
- How did raising the seed round change everything for Daniel? How did it change his approach to operating?
- What was the impact of having Sequoia invest? Does it change the game? Why did Daniel say no to them the first time they tried for the Series B?
4. Journey to a $10BN Public Company: The Crucible Moments:
- How did the company almost go bust when it spent $400M against a plan of $150M in 2021?
- What is the single proudest moment Daniel has of the 19 year journey with UiPath?
- What have been Daniel's biggest management lessons in scaling UiPath to $1BN in ARR?
- Knowing all that Daniel does today, what would he have done differently about the UiPath journey?