20VC: Raising $126M Across 3 Rounds in Just 6 Months, Being the Youngest Founder of a Unicorn Company | But Everything Was Not as it Seemed: The Real Story of Vise: The Regrets, Mistakes and Mis-Hires with Vise's Samir Vasavada
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 06/28/2024
20VC: Sam Altman on The Trajectory of Model Capability Improvements: Will Scaling Laws Continue | Semi-Conductor Supply Chains | What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI and Where is Opportunity
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, one of the most important companies in history. OpenAI is on a mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. Prior to OpenAI, Sam was the President of Y Combinator and an angel investor in Stripe, Airbnb, Reddit and Instacart. 15 Questions with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: 1. Will the trajectory of model capability improvement keep going at the same rate as it has been? 2. When did...
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20VC: Robinhood's Vlad Tenev on Founder Mode | Building 8x $100M Revenue Lines | Lessons from Raising $5BN and the Gamestop Saga | The Future of Artificial Intelligence, Wealth Management and Home Ownership
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Vlad Tenev is a Co-Founder and CEO of Robinhood, the commission free stock trading and investing app with a market cap today of $20.7BN. Over the incredible 11 year journey Vlad has raised over $5BN from some of the world’s best investors including Sequoia, a16z, DST, Ribbit and Index. Before Robinhood, Vlad started two finance companies in New York City. In Today’s Episode with Vlad Tenev We Discuss: 1. Surviving a Scandal: The Gamestop Saga: What was the single hardest element of the sage for Vlad? What did the sage teach Vlad about how to tell stories effectively? What...
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20VC: Linear's Karri Saarinen How to be Grow Capital Efficiently in a World of BS Growth | How to Fundraise with Leverage | How to Select Investors and How to Give Them Homework in the Raise Process & Growth Lessons from Airbnb and Coinbase
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Karri Saarinen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Linear. The company has raised from some of the best in the business including Sequoia and Accel. Before founding Linear, Karri was the principal designer at Airbnb and the founding designer at Coinbase. 10 Lessons with One of Silicon Valley’s Most In-Demand Founders: How to Become a Master Fundraiser: Why does Karri believe it is BS advice that founders should “always be raising”? What is Karri’s biggest advice to founders on minimising dilution? What do most founders think they know about fundraising but do not? What is the...
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20VC: Why SaaS is Dead | Why AI First Companies Will Win | We are in the Middle of a Cold War for AI Talent | Why Europe is F******* and We Need to Stop Whining with Daniel Khachab, Co-Founder @ Choco
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Daniel Khachab is the co-founder and CEO of Choco. Today, Choco’s AI platform facilitates half of all food traded in major cities like New York, Paris, London, and Berlin, cutting food waste and streamlining distribution. Since its founding in 2018, Choco has raised $330 million from Bessemer, Coatue (its first European investment), and Insight, reaching unicorn status within 2.5 years. Previously, Daniel was the youngest Managing Director at Rocket Internet, where he oversaw growth across Latin America, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. ...
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20VC: The Truth About Multi-Stage Firms; Why Portfolio Services are for VCs not Founders | Why Politics is Rife & Decision-Making is Broken in Large VCs | Why Reserves are Bad for Founders & How Boutique Firms Will Win with Mark Goldberg @ Chemistry
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Mark Goldberg is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Chemistry, a $350M fund announced just yesterday with the mission to lead the best seed and Series A rounds. Before Chemistry, Mark was a Partner at Index Ventures, where he led early stage investments in Plaid, Bridge, Pilot, Anrok and Persona. Prior to Index Ventures, Mark was one of the first business hires at Dropbox. In Today’s Episode with Mark Goldberg We Discuss: 1. The Truth About Multi-Stage Firms: Why are portfolio services there to help the investing partners and not the founders? What are the most broken elements within a...
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20Sales: Biggest Lessons Scaling Slack from $6M to $1BN in ARR | How to Build a Customer Success Machine and Where Most Go Wrong | The Framework to Hire All Sales Reps: Take-Home Assignments, Hiring Panels and more with AJ Tennant @ Glean
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AJ Tennant is the Vice President of Sales & Success at Glean, Glean has more than 20x'd its revenue and 100x'd its user base in the just two and a half years he's been there. Before Glean, AJ had incredible runs at Slack and Facebook. At Slack, AJ helped grow revenue from $6 million to more than $1 billion. In Today’s Episode with AJ Tennant We Discuss: 1. How to Sell AI Tools in 2024: Are we still in the experimental budget phase for AI? How does selling AI tools differ to selling traditional SaaS? What are enterprises biggest concerns when it comes to adopting AI tools? ...
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20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on Investing Lessons from Leading Rounds in Figma, Slack and Rippling | Lessons Building a Generational Defining Firm with Kleiner Perkins | AI: Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Mamoon Hamid is a General Partner @ Kleiner Perkins and one of the greatest venture investors of our time. In the past, Mamoon has led rounds in Figma, Slack, Rippling, Intercom, Glean and Box. Prior to joining Kleiner Perkins, Mamoon was a Co-Founder of Social Capital, and prior to that a Partner at U.S. Venture Partners (USVP). In Today’s Episode with Mamoon Hamid We Discuss: 1. The Greatest Venture Deal of All Time: Figma or Slack: What is Mamoon’s highest returning deal? What did Mamoon see in Dylan and Figma when they had no revenue and very little user data? What...
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20Growth: Revolut's Chief Growth Officer on The Growth Playbook Revolut Used to Scale to $2.2BN in Revenue | How Revolut Launch and Grow Products | Why the Best PMs Don't Need A/B Tests & Why CAC is a BS Metric with Antoine Le Nel
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Antoine Le Nel is the Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at Revolut, one of the fastest growing fintechs on the planet. Prior to Revolut, Antoine spent an incredible 7 years at King (Makers of Candy Crush) overseeing continuous expansion of the world's most famous mobile game as VP of Growth. 10 Questions with Revolut’s Chief Growth Officer: Why does Antoine believe that the best product and growth teams do not need to do A/B tests? Why does Antoine believe the best growth teams do not believe in anything? What growth tactics have worked best for Revolut? What did they...
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20VC: Why Founder Mode is Dangerous & Could Encourage Bad Behaviour | Why Fundraising is a Waste of Time & OKRs are BS | Why Angel Investing is Bad for Founders to Do and the VC Model is on it's Last Legs with Zach Perret @ Plaid
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Zach Perret is the CEO and Co-Founder of Plaid, a technology platform reshaping financial services. To date, Zach has raised over $734M for Plaid from the likes of NEA, Spark, GV, Coatue and a16z, to name a few. Today, thousands of companies including the largest fintechs, several of the Fortune 500, and many of the largest banks use Plaid. In addition, Zach is also a Co-Founder of Mischief, an early-stage venture fund in San Francisco. In Today’s Episode with Zach Perret We Discuss: 1. Founder Mode: Why “Founder Mode” will be the most dangerous blog post written in the last...
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20VC: Investing Lessons from FC Seeding Uber, Airtable and Coupang | Why Pro Rata is the Original Sin in VC | Why Liquidity Has Died in 2024 | Why LPs are Pissed with VCs | The Hard Truth About Seed Fund Economics with David Frankel @ Founder Collective
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
David Frankel is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Founder Collective, one of the best seed firms of the last decade. David has led rounds in companies such as Suno, Coupang, SeatGeek and PillPack (sold to Amazon for ~$1B). Previously, David was Co-Founder and CEO of Internet Solutions (IS), the largest ISP in Africa, ultimately acquired by NTT Japan. David has been named to the six times. In 2023, he was #11 and in 2024, he appeared at #15 on the Midas List of the world's best venture capital investors and at #2 on the Midas list of seed investors. 10 Questions With One of the...
info_outlineSamir Vasavada is the Co-Founder & CEO of Vise, a technology-powered asset manager. Samir and his co-founder, Runik founded Vise from the Midwest at 16 years old. They bootstrapped the company before dropping out of high school and raising $128M in just 6 months from some of the best including Sequoia Capital and Founders Fund. The company achieved unicorn status when the pair turned 20 years old, making them the youngest founders of a $BN company at the time.
In Today's Episode with Samir Vasavada We Discuss:
1. The Biggest Hiring Mistakes That Broke Us:
- Why is hiring people who come with a playbook one of the most damaging things you can do?
- Why is it impossible to build a remote company that performs the same as in person?
- Why is it the worst thing to hire people who have a reputation they are obsessed with maintaining?
- Why do you never want to hire people who join because of who your investors are?
- Why does Samir regret not firing people faster? How much time is enough time to know?
- Why is hiring in a hot market one of the most dangerous things you can do?
2. Fundraising: 3 Rounds and $126M in 6 Months:
- Does Samir regret raising so much money so soon in the company life?
- What did Samir do that he regrets doing, having had so much money so early?
- How did the need for free food at an event lead to a term sheet and $50M from Sequoia?
- Did Samir feel that he could talk to investors when things were going really badly?
- Why does Samir believe that liquidation preference matters more than valuation?
3. The Depression, The Pressure and Wisdom From Jensen Huang:
- What did Jensen Huang teach Samir when it comes to wealth and leadership?
- How did Samir deal with the pressure of raising $126M in 6 months and being the youngest unicorn founder, ever at the time?
- Was Samir hurt when people he thought were his friends, no longer stuck with him when the company was no longer "hot"?
- What was Samir's darkest time? How did he overcome and get out of it?
- Does Samir blame his parents for the pressure they put on him from such a young age?