20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 09/25/2024
20Sales: Scaling Hubspot from $3M to $1BN in ARR | How to Hire and Ramp Sales Teams | How to Scale Customer Success Successfully | How and When to Go International and Crush It with Jeetu Mahtani
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Jeetu Mahtani was an early member of the HubSpot team. Under his leadership and the sales organization, the business grew its non-US revenue from $3M ARR to close to $1B ARR. After running the International business as the global MD and Sales leader, he then moved to lead the customer success org which expanded to managing 1,500 people in customer success. In Today's Episode with Jeetu Mahtani We Discuss: 1. How to Go International for Startups: What are Jeetu's biggest lessons from Hubspot on what startups can do to make their international expansion a success? What were the biggest...
info_outline
20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Eric Vishria is a General Partner @ Benchmark Capital, one of the world's leading venture firms. At Benchmark, Eric has served on over 10 boards including Confluent (CFLT), Amplitude (AMPL), Benchling, Contentful, Cerebras and several other private companies. Prior to joining Benchmark, Eric was the Co‐Founder and CEO of RockMelt, acquired by Yahoo in 2013. In Today's Episode with Eric Vishria We Discuss: 1. How to Make Money Investing in AI Today: How does Eric think through where value will accrue in the stack between chips, models and applications? Why does Eric believe...
info_outline
20VC: From Potato Farm to $200M in Revenue: The Never-Before-Told Story of Flo Health: Scaling to $1BN Valuation, 75M Users & Getting 100s of No's From Investors Along the Way with Dmitry Gurski
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Dmitry Gurski is the Co-Founder and CEO of Flo Health, the leading women's health app and the first European femtech unicorn. Launched in 2015, Flo Health has grown to over 70 million monthly active users and 5 million paid subscribers. The app is recognized as the #1 recommended tool for period and cycle tracking, and it recently achieved a valuation exceeding $1 billion. Beyond Flo, Dmitry is a partner at Palta, a co-founding company with a portfolio of successful startups including Simple App, MSQRD (acquired by Facebook), AIMatter (acquired by Google), and Wannaby (acquired by...
info_outline
20Growth: The 7 Core Levers to Win at Consumer Subscription: Growth Loops, CAC + LTV Benchmarks, Pricing, Packaging, Notifications, Discounts, Paywalls | The Breakdown with Phil Carter
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Phil Carter is one of the best growth leaders of the last decade helping world-class companies like Faire, Quizlet, and Ibotta accelerate their growth. Today, Phil is a who helps Seed - Series C consumer subscription businesses define their growth strategy. In Today's Episode with Phil Carter We Discuss: The Seven Core Levers to Win at Consumer Subscription: How to Optimize Subscription Pricing and Packaging: Step: Single vs multiple subs tiers? Monthly, weekly or annually? How often should it be revisited? Biggest mistakes companies make with pricing and packaging? ...
info_outline
20VC: Notion's Founder on "Founder Mode": When it Works & When it Doesn't | Why The Way Startups Fundraise & Construct Boards is Broken | Raising at a $10BN Valuation in Peak Bubble Times and How Notion Has More Money Than Ever Before with Akshay Kothari
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Akshay Kothari is Co-Founder at Notion, one of the fastest-growing companies of the last decade. Akshay has run every function in the company from sales, to marketing to finance and even led their fundraising efforts raising $340M+ from Sequoia, Index and Coatue with the latest round pricing them at $10BN. Before Notion, Akshay was VP Product at Linkedin for 5+ years, leading all of their content efforts. He joined LinkedIn when his previous company, Pulse, was acquired by LinkedIn in 2013. In Today's Episode with Akshay Kothari We Discuss: 1. Founder Mode, Veto Powers and Focus: Does...
info_outline
20VC: Index's Shardul Shah on Why Market Size is a Trap | Biggest Lessons on Pricing from Leading Rounds in Wiz & Datadog | Why Benchmarks & Averages in VC are BS | How Index Makes Decisions and Why Growth & Early are the Same Investing Style
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Shardul Shah is a Partner at Index Ventures and one of the greatest cyber security investors of the last two decades. Among his many wins, Shardul has led rounds in Datadog, Wiz, Duo Security, Coalition and more. Shardul is also the only Partner investing at Index to have worked in every single Index office from London, to SF, to NYC to Geneva. Prior to Index, Shardul worked with Summit Partners, focusing on healthcare and internet technologies. In Today's Episode with Shardul Shah We Discuss: 1. Investing Lessons from Wiz and Datadog: Why does Shardul believe that TAM (total...
info_outline
20Product: What Facebook, Monzo and Deliveroo Do and Do Not Do To Build Great Products | How to Structure Product Teams For Success | Is Simple Always Better in Product and The Art vs Science of Product Design with Mike Hudack
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Mike Hudack is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sling, a peer-to-peer payments app whose vision is to simplify the way the world connects financially. Previously, he held roles at Monzo Bank as Chief Product Officer, Deliveroo as Chief Product and Technology Officer, and Facebook where he led ads product and sharing product. In Today's Episode with Mike Hudack We Discuss: 1. Product: Art vs Science: What is the true art of product? What makes the great product leaders and PMs? Is simple always better in product? How do you retain product simplicity with time? When should data be used over...
info_outline
20VC: Scaling ServiceNow to $5BN in ARR | Leadership Lessons from Doug Leone, Frank Slootman and Bill McDermott | VC Value Add: Is it Real and Why the Worst VCs are "Seagull VCs"
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
David Schneider is a General Partner @ Coatue and one of the great operators of the last 20 years. Prior to Coatue, David was instrumental in ServiceNow’s growth to over $100B+ public market value. David led the growth of the company from $100M to $5BN in revenue. Before joining ServiceNow, David held senior positions at Data Domain, the company he joined at $0 in revenue and scaled to $1BN in revenue and an IPO and acquisition. In Today's Episode with David Schneider We Discuss: ServiceNow: Secrets to Scaling to $5BN in ARR: What are David's biggest lessons from scaling...
info_outline
20VC: Tinder Founder Sean Rad on Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | Leadership Lessons Scaling Tinder | The Future of Love, Dating and Social Media | The Secret to Your Relationship with Money and Marriage
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Sean Rad is the Founder and former CEO of Tinder. Sean has made more romantic connections between humans than anyone in history with Tinder having matched 50BN different people. Sean is also the Founder of Rad Fund which has made over 100 investments in companies and funds. In Today's Episode with Sean Rad We Discuss: 1. Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Consumer Social App: Starting: How did the idea for Tinder come to Sean in a restaurant in LA? Scaling: What are Sean's biggest lessons for consumer apps scaling to their first 10,000 users? User Acquisition: How did a party...
info_outline
20VC: Why VC is a Ponzi Scheme Today | Why Most VCs are Bankers | Why Big VCs Ruin Startups | Why Incentives in VC are Broken | Why American Dynamism is a Tool for VCs to Raise Money with Nick Chirls, Asylum Ventures
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Nick Chirls is the Founder of , a new venture firm dedicated to the creative act of building companies; treating founders like artists, not assets. Asylum raised $55 million to invest $1-2 million in early-stage founders practising the art of making startups. Prior to Asylum, Nick co-founded Notation Capital, one of NYC's most successful pre-seed firms. In Today's Episode with Nick Chirls We Discuss: 1. Why Venture Capital is Broken Today: Why is VC a ponzi scheme today? Why are most VCs sheep and have lost all creativity? Why are most investors today incentivised to get dollars out...
info_outlineEric Vishria is a General Partner @ Benchmark Capital, one of the world's leading venture firms. At Benchmark, Eric has served on over 10 boards including Confluent (CFLT), Amplitude (AMPL), Benchling, Contentful, Cerebras and several other private companies. Prior to joining Benchmark, Eric was the Co‐Founder and CEO of RockMelt, acquired by Yahoo in 2013.
In Today's Episode with Eric Vishria We Discuss:
1. How to Make Money Investing in AI Today:
- How does Eric think through where value will accrue in the stack between chips, models and applications?
- Why does Eric believe foundation models are the fastest commoditising asset in history?
- Why does Eric believe that Nvidia will not be the only game in town in the next 3-5 years?
2. How to Invest in AI Application Layer Successfully:
- How does Eric analyse between a standalone and deep product vs a product that foundation model will commodities and incorporate into their feature set?
- How does Eric differentiate between the 10 different players all going after customer service, or sales tools or data analyst products etc?
- How does Eric analyse the quality of revenue of these AI application layer companies? What does he mean when he describes their revenue as "sugar high"?
3. How the Best VC Firm Makes Decisions:
- What is the decision-making process for all new deals in Benchmark?
- As specifically as possible, how does the voting process inside Benchmark work?
- What deal was the most contentious deal that went through? What did the partnership learn?
- How has the Benchmark decision-making process changed over 10 years?
4. Does AI Break Venture Capital Models:
- Does the price of AI deals and size of their rounds break the Benchmark model?
- Will foundation model companies all be acquired by the larger cloud providers?
- Unless multiples reflate in the public markets, does venture as an asset class have hope?
- Why does AI make paying ludicrously high prices potentially rational?