The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC takes you inside the world of Venture Capital, Startup Funding and The Pitch. Join our host, Harry Stebbings and discover how you can attain funding for your business by listening to what the most prominent investors are directly looking for in startups, providing easily actionable tips and tricks that can be put in place to increase your chances of getting funded. Although, you may not want to raise funding for a startup. The Twenty Minute VC also provides an instructional guide as to what it takes to get employed in the Venture Capital industry, with VCs giving specific advice on how to get noticed from the crowd and increasing your chances of employment. If that wasn't enough our amazing Venture Capitalists also provide their analysis of the current technology market, providing advice and suggestions on the latest investing trends and predictions. Join us so you can see how you can get BIG, powerful improvements, fast. Would you like to see more of The Twenty Minute VC, head on over to www.thetwentyminutevc.com for more information on the podcast, show notes, resources and a more detailed analysis of the technology and Venture Capital industry.

20VC: TripActions CEO Ariel Cohen on The Future of Business and Personal Travel & Layoffs; How To Do Them The Right Way & Maintain Company Culture and Morale 05/22/2020

20VC: TripActions CEO Ariel Cohen on The Future of Business and Personal Travel & Layoffs; How To Do Them The Right Way & Maintain Company Culture and Morale is the Founder & CEO @ , the company trusted by more than 4,000 companies to manage their business travel and expenses. To date, Ariel has raised more than $980M with TripActions from the likes of Lightspeed, Oren Zeev and a16z to name a few. Prior to TripActions, Ariel co-founded StreamOnce, a business multimedia integration platform which was acquired by Jive Software. Prior to StreamOnce, Ariel led Product Management in a senior leadership role at Hewlett-Packard. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Ariel made his way into the world of tech and came to change the way we think about business travel today with TripActions? 2.) What are TripActions doing in their business to be there for their partners, customers and suppliers in the long term? TripActions engaged in layoffs, how did Ariel approach the size of layoff required? What is the right way to do layoffs? How does this change in a remote world? 3.) Given the uncertainty, how does Ariel advise founders to assess and correct their burn and spending? What is a reasonable amount of runway to reserve for? For those hit hard on the demand side, what can they do to build durable defensibility when they can't scale demand? 4.) How does Ariel view the future of business travel? Does Zoom replace much of the business trips? What will the landscape look like in 3 years? What players will survive? Who will thrive? 5.) From a founder psychology perspective, what has Avi done to cope in these very challenging times? What has worked? What has not worked? What does Ariel advise founders struggling to cope psychologically? What can investors do to be there for their founders? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Ariel’s Fave Book: As always you can follow and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/14525024

20VC: 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy: Deconstructing Economies of Scale, How To Assess True Market Size, Assessing Risk vs Uncertainty, What “Brand As Power” Really Means with Hamilton Helmer, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Offi is the Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer @ a long-only public equity fund that selects securities for investment based on Power Dynamics, a proprietary model of fundamental value, developed by Hamilton over decades of strategy consulting with clients such as Hewlett-Packard, Adobe and more. Hamilton is also the author of one of my favourite books, . If that was not enough, Hamilton is also an Instructor in the Economics Department @ Stanford University. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Hamilton made his way into the world of investing from advising some of the largest tech titans on the planet with Adobe and HP? 2.) What is a strategy mental model? What makes the most effective strategic models? What characteristics do they have? How should founders balance between sticking to models and being willing to change them? What are Hamilton's biggest takeaways from working with Netflix? 3.) "All strategy begins with invention", what did Hamilton mean by this? How does Hamilton explain the success of copycats in markets? How does Hamilton separate between first mover and creator? How does Hamilton analyse the transition from startup to pricer with scale economics? 4.) How does Hamilton advise founders to view and approach competition? Why does Hamilton totally disagree with the requirement of being 10x better than your competition? Is product innovation alone enough without brand or business model innovation? 5.) How does Hamilton define "brand"? Is brand an attainable strategy alone or is it the byproduct of something else? How transferable is brand in one category to alternative categories? How does a brand truly know when they have sustainable leverage and power? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Hamilton’s Fave Book: , As always you can follow and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/14462264

20VC: Sarah Kunst on Why There Is Plenty Of Investor Money Still Available, The Megan Markle Effect and How It Impacts Hiring and Talent & Whether GP Commits Prevent Diversity and Inclusion 05/15/2020

20VC: Floodgate’s Mike Maples on 3 Key Breakthroughs Startups Experience in Success, The Rise of Angel and Operator Funds, Multi-Stage Funds Re-Entering Seed Investing and The Insight Development Framework is a Founder & Partner @ , one of the leading early-stage firms of the last decade with investments in the likes of Lyft, Twitch, Twitter, Okta and Sonos to name a few. He has been on the Forbes Midas List since 2010 and was also named one of “8 Rising Stars” by FORTUNE Magazine. Before becoming a full-time investor, Mike was involved as a founder and operating executive at back-to-back startup IPOs, including Tivoli Systems (IPO TIVS, acquired by IBM) and Motive (IPO MOTV, acquired by Alcatel-Lucent.) In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Mike made his way from founding startups to entering the world of venture and the gap he saw in the market when founding Floodgate? 2.) Mike has previously said, "a startup is not a company, it is a series of breakthroughs". How does Mike define a breakthrough? What are the 2 most meaningful breakthroughs a startup can experience? Which excites Mike the most to see? How do the best startups scale pre-breakthrough to post-breakthrough? 3.) What are the core ways inflections can create breakthrough opportunities? What were Mike's learnings on inflections from investing in Lyft? What does Mike mean when he talks about the importance of "backcasting"? What did investing in Twitch teach Mike about forecasting? 4.) How does Mike feel about the rise of operator and angel funds? How does Mike analyse the re-entrance of large multi-stage funds back into seed markets? Does Mike agree with Semil Shah, "founders are voting with their feet and taking multi-stage money at seed"? 5.) As Mike's peers have all moved into larger funds, Mike did not, why? How does Mike view "fund size as your strategy"? How does Mike think about the centrality of ownership? Does Mike really believe you can concentrate capital into your winners? What are the challenges? Why does Mike feel self-promotion is one of the biggest challenges in VC? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Mike’s Fave Book: Mike’s Most Recent Investment: As always you can follow , and and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/14365967

20VC: How Roam Research Analyse Product Design, Team-Building, The Future of Collaboration Tools & Applying Tesla Go-To-Market To Roam with Conor White-Sullivan, Founder & CEO @ Roam Research is the Founder & CEO @ , the tool taking over our industry providing a seamless note-taking tool for networked thought. Prior to founding Roam, Conor founded 2 prior businesses and also worked at HuffPost as a Co-Founder of HuffPost Labs where he reported directly to Arianna Huffington and HuffPost CTO. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Conor's high school wrestling career taught him "how to win"? What was the founding story with Roam? How does Conor think about when to stay true to the vision and persist vs when to give up? 2.) How does Conor think about the product design philosophy they have @ Roam? Conor has said before, "Roam is not about taking better notes", what is Roam about then? How does Conor think about the importance of adding challenge to a product? What does he mean when he discusses the importance of "low floors and high ceilings" with regards to product design? 3.) How would Conor analyse his own hiring and team-building philosophy? Why are the two most important traits, "girt and autodidacts"?How does Conor really stress these two characteristics in an interview process? Why does Conor choose to live with the team? What are the benefits of this? 4.) Does Conor believe we are in a phase of bundling or unbundling when it comes to collaboration tools? Does Conor believe we will see large players acquire and consolidate over the coming months? Why does Conor compare Roam more to Google than other collaboration tools? 5.) How does Conor think about go-to-market today? What were some of Conor's biggest takeaways for bootstrapping for years with revenue from customers? Why is Conor borrowing from the Tesla GTM? What does that really mean in practice? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Conor’s Fave Book: As always you can follow , and and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/14335901

20VC: Mark Cuban on His Relationship To Wealth and Risk, Why Coming Out of The Pandemic Will Be The Best Time In The History of Mankind To Start A Business & Why Silicon Valley Investors Are Like Old Hollywood is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and owner of the . His career began with his founding of MicroSolutions, a company he went on to sell to CompuServe in 1990. Then in 1995 Mark co-founded Broadcast.com - streaming audio over the internet. In just four short years, Broadcast.com (then Audionet) was sold to Yahoo for $5.6 billion dollars. Following the acquisition in 2000, Mark acquired the Dallas Mavericks where since his taking over they have competed in the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history in 2006 - and becoming NBA World Champions in 2011. They are currently listed as one of Forbes' most valuable franchises in sports. If that was not enough, Mark is also one of ABC's "Sharks" on the hit show Shark Tank. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Mark made his way into the world of technology and startups having been fired from his first job in sales? 2.) How does Mark evaluate his relationship to wealth and money? How has that changed over time? What advice does Mark have to those that tie happiness and money together? 3.) What does Mark think about Silicon Valley investors today? Why does he believe they and the valley are like Hollywood? Why does Mark believe that if the greatest tech companies of today had been started elsewhere, they would be more successful? 4.) How does Mark evaluate his own investing philosophy today? How does Mark think about price and price sensitivity? Why is Mark so keen to have his investment funded from the cashflow of the business? Does this not narrow opportunity and limit upside? How does Mark evaluate risk today? 5.) Why does Mark believe post-COVID is the single greatest time to be an entrepreneur? What advice would he give to an entrepreneur starting their new business in this time? How would Mark go about the re-opening of society post lockdown? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Mark’s Fave Book: , As always you can follow , and and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/14268254

20VC: Framework For Hiring The Best Talent 100% Remotely, Raising $32M From Benchmark and GV Pre-Launch and How To Think Through Capital Efficiency and Runway Today with Jeff Seibert and Wayne Chang, Co-Founders @ Digits and are the co-founders @ , the company that gives you a complete, real-time understanding of your expenses, all in just a few clicks. To date, Wayne and Jeff have raised over $32M for Digits from some of the best in the business including Peter Fenton @ Benchmark and Jess Verrilli @ GV and then with the most incredible base of angels with the founders from Box, Github, Stitch Fix, Tinder, Gusto and more. Prior to Digits, Wayne and Jeff co-founded Crashlytics, acquired by Twitter for a 9-figure sum in Jan 2013 and then acquired from Twitter by Google in 2017. If that was not enough they are also LPs in some of the world's most exclusive funds and angels in the likes of Gusto, OpenDoor and SoFi to name a few. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Jeff and Wayne make their way into the world of tech and startups? How did Wayne crashing a startup dinner start everything for them? 2.) How did Jeff and Wayne's prior success with Crashlytics impact their operating mindset scaling Digits today? What worked? What did not work? What gets easier with time? What gets harder the second time around? 3.) What have been Wayne and Jeff's biggest lessons from having a remote team from Day 1? What structure and framework do they use to hire the best remote talent? How does that change at the exec level? How do they think about optimising product management for remote teams? 4.) How would Wayne and Jeff summarise their design philosophy with Digits? Why does Wayne believe "minimalism only favours the designer"? When does it make sense to actually add some complexity to your product? 5.) Digits raised $33M pre-launch, why did they favour this approach? How do they think about when to transition from lean and iterative to aggressive and pouring fuel on the fire? Why did they choose to work with Peter Fenton? How do they think about optimising their angel network? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Wayne’s Fave Book: Jeff's Fave Book: As always you can follow and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/14231231

20VC: Airtable's Howie Liu on Potential Consolidation In The Collaboration Tools Market, The Transition From Peacetime To Wartime CEO & How To Make The Move To Remote Work Successful; The Process Beyond The Tools is the Founder & CEO @ , the all in one collaboration platform that has taken so much of our ecosystem by storm. To date, Howie has raised over $170M from some of the best in the business including Benchmark, Thrive, Coatue, Caffeinated Capital, Founder Collective, CRV and Freestyle to name a few. Prior to founding Airtable, Howie was the Co-Founder @ Etacts, an automated intelligent CRM that was acquired by Salesforce just 9 months after creation. Howie then led the social CRM product at Salesforce. Fun fact, Howie started his career as an intern at Freestyle Ventures. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Howie made his way from founding Etacts to changing the way we think about databases and spreadsheets today with Airtable? How did Salesforce acquiring Etacts impact Howie's operating mentality with Airtable? 2.) With the rise of remote work, what have been Howie's core observations from the last month of the world going WFH? What does it take to succeed? What mistakes have Airtable made in their process of work from home? Why did it not work? What lessons did Howie take from that? 3.) How does Howie think about Airtable's transition from an application to a platform? What does he perceive as the core challenges in making the transition? What lessons has he learned from studying others who have done it? Why did Howie choose Peter Fenton @ Benchmark to work with? 4.) How has Howie seen himself evolve and scale as a leader over the last few years? What have been the most challenging elements? How does Howie think about which individuals he would like as mentors? How does he determine which advice to ingest vs to reject? 5.) How does Howie analyse the remote work/collaboration tools environment today? Does Howie believe we will enter a period of consolidation with the proliferation of new tools created? Does Howie believe we will see an unbundling in collaboration tools? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Howie’s Fave Book: , As always you can follow and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/14160065

20VC: Superhuman’s Rahul Vohra on How 1-1 Customer Onboarding Can Scale Efficiently to $100M ARR, Why Gamification Does Not Work But Game Design Does & What Game Design Means For The Next Generation Of Product Managers is the Founder & CEO @ , the startup that has rebuilt the inbox from the ground up creating the fastest email experience ever made. To date, Rahul has raised over $56m with Superhuman from some of the best in the business including a16z, First Round, Box Group and then 2 of my favourites in Jeff Morris Jr @ Chapter One and Ed and Elliot @ Boldstart. Prior to founding Superhuman, Rahul was the Founder @ Rapportive, a company later acquired by LinkedIn in 2014. If that was not enough, Rahul is also an investor having co-founded a new firm with Todd Goldberg just last year. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Rahul made his way from making the first plugin for Gmail with Rapportive to changing how we think about email today with Superhuman? 2.) Why does Rahul believe game design is worth doing? What is the difference between game design and gamification? What does it take to create a game? What is the truth on game design? 3.) What are the core 5 factors that make up effective game design? How can products incorporate goals to make the user feel emotion when engaging? What emotions does one want the user to feel? How can they be tested? What controls should be placed around the UX? Why are controls so fundamental? 4.) What is the difference between a toy and a game? How can one effectively incorporate toys into their product? How has Superhuman done this effectively to date? Hw can designers create a system of flow in the user experience? What works? What does not work? 5.) Did Rahul intentionally create an entirely new category when it comes to onboarding? Why does Rahul pushback on people that suggest 1-1 onboarding is not scalable? What does the unit economics look like? How does this scale to $100M ARR? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Rahul’s Fave Book: As always you can follow and on Twitter here! simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables, and get valuations. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carta to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and Carta now offers Fund Administration so you can see real-time data in the Carta platform and work with Carta’s team of experienced fund accountants. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/14127329

20VC: Upfront’s Mark Suster on COVID Redefining What A Great Company Looks Like and What Valuations Look Like, Why Pay-To-Play Is Back On The Table & Why We Will See The Death of Party Rounds is the Managing Partner @ , one of LA's leading and largest venture firms with a portfolio including the likes of Bird, GOAT, Maker Studios and Ring.com to name a few. Prior to joining the world of venture, Mark was the founder & CEO of two successful enterprise software companies, the most recent of which was sold to Salesforce.com where Mark became VP, Products. Mark is also the author of one of my favourite industry blogs, . In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Mark made his way from founding enterprise companies to joining "the dark side" of venture with his move to Upfront? 2.) How does the current economic landscape change the world of B2B? How will renewals be impacted? How will customers approach discounting? Similarly, how will the world of B2C be impacted by COVID? How does this impact marketing and ad spend? 3.) How does Mark think about reserve allocation today with Upfront? How does that change in the face of COVID? Why does Mark believe this environment will redefine valuations? How should founders respond in the face of heavily changed valuations? 4.) Does Mark believe we will see a graveyard of new venture firms who have deployed too quickly and have too many hungry mouths to feed? How does Mark think about building temporal diversification into the portfolio? How can managers use reserves more intelligently moving forward? 5.) Does Mark agree with the Twittersphere that VCs remain "open for business"? How will we see deal volume impact? How will we see size of transaction impacted? What is the most important role a VC can play today? How will the M&A market also be impacte din the face of COVID? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Mark’s Fave Book: Mark's Most Recent Investment: As always you can follow , and and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/14060696

20VC: Notion's Fundraise with Index: The Most Anticipated Deal in The Valley: How It Came To Be | The Future of Remote Work |How Notion Approach The Balance of Growth and Profitability 04/17/2020

20VC: Notion's Fundraise with Index: The Most Anticipated Deal in The Valley: How It Came To Be | The Future of Remote Work |How Notion Approach The Balance of Growth and Profitability is a Partner @ , one of the world’s leading venture funds with a portfolio including the likes of Dropbox, Skype, Figma, Bird, Slack and many more incredible companies. As for Sarah, at Index, she works with groundbreaking companies including Notion, Slack, Pitch, Quill and Instabase. Prior to Index Sarah spent time at CapitalG, Warburg Pincus and even worked in The White House as Policy Advisor for the National Economic Council. is the COO @ , the company that has taken the modern working world by storm as the all-in-one workspace to write, plan, collaborate and get organised. Just last week Notion raised a $50M round led by Index at a reported $2Bn valuation. Prior to Notion, Akshay spent 5 years at LinkedIn following his prior company, Pulse News, being acquired by LinkedIn in 2013. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Sarah make her way into the world of venture from The White House and come to be a Partner @ Index today? How did Akshay parlay his angel investment into Notion into joining as COO the company 5 years later? 2.) With such a proliferation of collaboration tools today, how does Sarah see the remote work/collaboration tools landscape playing out? Are wein a phase of bundling or unbundling? Will we enter a phase of heavy consolidation? How does Notion think about the transition from an application to a platform? What are the challenges in doing so? 3.) What have been some of Akshay's core observations and learnings from watching the world move to remote work overnight? What behaviours will remain post COVID? What behaviours will not? What sectors will be forever changed due to the crisis? What opportunities does that bring about? 4.) Why did Notion decide to keep the team so small for so long? What are the advantages? How does Notion think about maintaining quality when hiring for scale now? What have been some of Akshay's biggest learnings in what it takes to attract A* talent to Notion? 5.) Why did Notion choose the route of profitability over the more conventional early path of the VC treadmill? How does one's mindset change when suddenly raising a large round of new financing? What becomes possible? What guard rails still need to be set? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Akshay’s Fave Book: Sarah's Fave Book: As always you can follow and on Twitter here! simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables, and get valuations. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carta to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and Carta now offers Fund Administration so you can see real-time data in the Carta platform and work with Carta’s team of experienced fund accountants. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/14027573

20VC: Basecamp Founder David Heinemeier Hansson on Why It Is The Biggest BS To Chase Being A Unicorn, His Relationship to Wealth and Status and Why Now More Than Ever It Is A Myth Entrepreneurs Have To Raise VC David “DHH” Heinemeier Hansson () is the creator of , founder and CTO at (formerly ), and the best-selling co-author of and . If that was not enough, fun fact, he went from not having a driver’s license at 25 to winning, at 34, the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, one of the most prestigious automobile races in the world. It is often called the “Grand Prix of endurance and efficiency.” In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How David made his way into the world of tech and startups from his childhood living in Copenhagen and how a cold email led to the founding of Basecamp with Jason Fried? 2.) What have been some of David’s core observations as people move to remote work over the last few weeks? What is the #1 mistake that 90% of teams make? How does David advise founders to approach loneliness and depression in their team? What strategies have Basecamp used to unite the team and inspire collaboration and teamwork? 3.) Why have David and Jason always tried to keep the Basecamp team as small as possible? Why does David believe one of the biggest problems is that execs have too much time? How does that manifest itself? What does David’s week look like? How does he approach meetings? 4.) Why does David hate the majority of “mission statements” today? What are the best composed of? What are the worst? What feelings does David believe your mission statement should inspire in the reader? What does David believe one needs to do to build a challenger brand today? 5.) Why has David and Basecamp always resisted the conventional path of raising VC funds? Why does David believe needs VC money is total BS? Why does David believe it is BS to chase being a unicorn? Why have founders got this so wrong today and what can they do to change? 6.) How would David describe his relationship to money? How has that relationship changed over time? What are the core challenges as one moves from a monetary to a deeper appreciation of what makes one happy? How did the transition occur for David? How does David advise others in terms of finding their moment for the transition? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: David’s Fave Book: As always you can follow , and and on Twitter here! simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables, and get valuations. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carta to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and Carta now offers Fund Administration so you can see real-time data in the Carta platform and work with Carta’s team of experienced fund accountants. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13979969

20VC: Why Venture Fund Life Cycles Do Not Align To Companies Today, Actionable Strategies To Separate Good From Great When Assessing and Hiring Multiple Candidates & Why We Need More Adventure in Venture Capital with Blake Scholl, Founder & CEO @ Boom Sup is the Founder & CEO @ , the world's fastest commercial aeroplane, aspiring to bring back supersonic passenger flight at an affordable price. To date, Blake has raised over $166M in funding with Boom from the likes of Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Ray Tonsing @ Caffeinated Capital, Homebrew and 8VC to name a few who have featured on the show in the past. Prior to changing the world of commercial flight, Blake started his career with a 5-year stint at Amazon as a Manager of Social Networks and Automated Advertising. Blake then went on to found his own company, Kima Labs, acquired by Groupon in 2012 where he then spent 2 further years before founding Boom. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Blake made the move from Groupon to changing the way we think about commercial travel today with Boom Supersonic? 2.) How was the fundraising process for Blake given he was raising for supersonic jets? What is his most memorable fundraising moment? Where does Balek believe investors provide outsized value? Where could the investing class improve? How should the fund structures today change? 3.) What deliberate choices and decisions has Blake made to find and acquire the best talent? What is Blake's favourite interview question? What works? What does not work? What specific elements has Blake built into the culture at Boom to build operational excellence? 4.) How has Blake seen himself evolve and develop as a leader over the last few years? What have been the most challenging elements to develop and scale? How does Blake feel on whether founders should have experience on the industry they are entering or if there are benefits of not having so? 5.) What would Blake really like to change about the world of tech and Silicon Valley today? How does Blake feel about the current level of both innovation and founder ambitions? What can be further done to foster this in the coming years? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Blake’s Fave Book: As always you can follow , and and on Twitter here! simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables, and get valuations. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carta to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and Carta now offers Fund Administration so you can see real-time data in the Carta platform and work with Carta’s team of experienced fund accountants. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13932806

20VC: Are VCs Still “Open For Business”, How VCs Attitude To Risk Has Changed & The 2 Most Valuable Assets To Founders Today with Fred Destin, Founding Partner @ Stride VC 04/08/2020

20VC: Are VCs Still “Open For Business”, How VCs Attitude To Risk Has Changed & The 2 Most Valuable Assets To Founders Today with Fred Destin, Founding Partner @ Stride VC is a Founding Partner @ , one of Europe's newest and largest early-stage seed firms. Prior to co-founding Stride, Fred was a General Partner @ Accel where he was the lead investor and board member at Deliveroo, Pillpack (acq. AMZN for $1BN) and Carwow. Prior to Accel, he was a partner at Atlas Venture (now Accomplice) where he invested in and served on the board of Pillpack, Zoopla (IPO), Secret Escapes, Integral Ad Science (partial exit to Vista at $850M) and TheCurrencyCloud to name a few. Fun fact, his portfolio has a total enterprise value of more than $10BN and he generated in excess of $700M in exit value to investors. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Fred make his way into the world of venture and come to co-found one of Europe's newest and largest seed funds in Stride.VC? 2.) If you look to Twitter, all VCs are "open for business", does Fred really believe the market is still open for business? How will deal volume be affected? How bad does Fred think this could get? How does this downturn compare to that of the dot-com and 2008? 3.) Why did Stride decide to take the decision to pause on investing at this moment in time? How does Fred respond to the suggestion of better pricing and less competition at this time? How does Fred believe venture investors view of risk evolves at this time? What is the first to change? 4.) With many new funds deploying their first fund in 18 months, does Fred think we will see a gravyard of new fund managers out of cash and with cash hungry portfolios? What advice does Fred give to newer managers of other elements they have to be minfdul/aware of? 5.) How does Fred think about the right way for managers to communicate with their LPs at this time? What has Stride done that has worked? Does Fred believe we will see many LPs defaulting on their initial commitments? How does Fred think emerging managers can navigate this? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Fred’s Fave Movie: Fred’s Most Recent Investment: As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13899890

20VC: Raising A $1.35Bn Fund I, The Emerging Secondary Opportunity For Early Stage Managers and Founders & What It Takes To Win The Best Growth Deals Today with Ravi Viswanathan, Founder & Managing Partner @ NewView Capital is the Founder and Managing Partner @ , launched in 2018 with their $1.35Bn Fund I, they have already set themselves as leaders in the world of growth funding with 3 massive exits in less than 2 years in the form of Plaid, sold to Visa for $5.3Bn, Acquia, sold to Vista Equity for $1Bn and then Scout, sold to WorkDay for $540M. Prior to founding NewView Ravis spent 14 years at one of the largest venture firms in the business, NEA where he co-led their venture growth equity practice and in 2016, became COO @ Nea. Before the world of venture, Ravi spent 4 years as a VP @ Goldman Sachs and before that was at McKinsey & Co. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Ravi made his way into the world of venture from investment banking and how that led to his founding the monster $1.35Bn Fund I for NewView Capital? 2.) Given the first fund being $1.35Bn, how did Ravi find the fundraising process for NewView? On reflection, what did he and the team do well that they would do again? What did they not do well that they would alter? What advice would Ravi give to first-time fund managers raising today? 3.) Would Ravi agree with Bill Gurley, "the biggest challenge today is the sheer quantum of capital flowing into the industry"? What does Ravi make of the rise of private equity (PE) houses entering the venture landscape? How does it change the exit landscape? 4.) How does Ravi think about the right way for funds to navigate and approach the secondary market? What advice would he give to emerging managers? How does Ravi feel about founder secondaries? What framework does he use to determine whether the amount is reasonable? 5.) How does Ravi think about what it take to truly win the best deals in competition today? If one does not have the budget of a16z, how does one build a venture platform? Where do the majority of investors make mistakes when it comes to VC value add? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Ravi's Fave Book: , Ravi’s Most Recent Investment: As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! Businesses are always looking for ways to shorten their sales cycles. provides secure, effortless eSignatures proven to speed up contract signing by 80%. Most clients go from a multi-week turnaround to a multi-hour one. They’re an industry leader and have been voted #1 for Ease of Use two years in a row on G2 Crowd. Don’t let pen and paper processes slow you down. to join the millions of users already using HelloSign to close more deals faster! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13866323

20VC: The Framework to Scale A Team From 20 to 190 in 24 Months, How To Structure The Perfect Investor Updates & How To Create A Culture of Distributed Ownership with Radical Transparency with Jean-Charles Samulian, Co-Founder & CEO @ Alan is the Co-Founder & CEO @ , the startup revolutionising health insurance with a service centred on people, simplicity and comfort. To date, Jean-Charles has raised over $85M in funding with Alan from some of the best in the business including Jan Hammer @ Index, Shakil Khan, Tom Stafford @ DST, Xavier Niel and Brent Hoberman to name a few. Prior to changing the healthcare insurance system, Jean-Charles founded Expliseat, revolutionising airline seating for economy class, now used by some of the world's leading airlines. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jean-Charles made his way from re-inventing the airline seating industry to re-inventing the way consumers experience healthcare insurance? How did re-inventing the airline seat prepare and impact Jean-Charles' mindset going into the highly regulated healthcare market with Alan? 2.) How does JC structure his investor updates? What framework does JC believe these investor updates should take? Does he include thank you's at the end? Does he include requests for help? How does he involve the team in the writing of these updates? How does JC insert core strategic thinking into his updates? How much time does JC allocate to writing updates? How does JC think about transparency when coming investor updates? 3.) How has JC created a culture of distributed ownership combined with radical transparency? What are the key elements to achieve this? Where do so many go wrong with culture maintenance and creation? What have been the biggest challenges in scaling from 20 to 190 people in just 2 years? What has worked? What has not worked? 4.) How does JC structure the hiring process at Alan? Why does JC believe in the importance of "shadowing" for people to be excellent at hiring? How does JC define "excellence" in a potential candidate? What questions does JC most like to ask candidates? How does JC think about the right way to optimise new employee onboarding? Where do many go wrong with onboarding? What have been their core lessons at Alan as to what it takes to make it great? 5.) How does JC think about extreme self-organization today? How does JC structure his day and his time? How would JC summarise his relationship to his phone? What does he actively do to reduce his dependence on his phone? What has worked and what has not worked with regards to increasing productivity? How does JC advise others looking to make their first steps in increasing their productivity? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Jean-Charles’s Fave Book: As always you can follow , and and on Twitter here! simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables, and get valuations. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carta to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and Carta now offers Fund Administration so you can see real-time data in the Carta platform and work with Carta’s team of experienced fund accountants. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13832165

20VC: Howard Marks on How COVID-19 Impacts Our Economy, Liquidity and National Debt, Why The Theory of Falling Knives and Market Bottoms is Wrong & Why The Best Investors Are Fundamentally Unemotional Howard Marks is the Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of , a leading investment firm with more than $120 billion in assets. Prior to founding Oaktree, Howard spent 10 years at The TCW Group, where he was responsible for investments in distressed debt, high yield bonds, and convertible securities. Previously, Howard was with Citicorp for 16 years, where he served as Vice President and senior portfolio manager in charge of convertible and high yield securities. Howard has also written two books, most recently , and it was Warren Buffet who said, “When I see memos from Howard Marks in my mail, they’re the first thing I open and read. I always learn something.” In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Howard first made his way into the world of finance over 50 years ago? How did not getting an investment banking job change the course of Howard’s life? 2.) What does Howard believe is the fundamental economic crisis occurring today? How does Howard expect liquidity availability to change over the next few years? What analogies of prior downturns and recessions can we look to learn from? How does this downturn differ and align to prior recessions and downturns? What policies would Howard like to see governments enact to prevent the worst-case scenario? 3.) In conditions of such uncertainty, how does Howard think about how to manage and move forward with such volatility? What are Howard's frameworks and mechanisms to analyse crises events like this? Taking the analysis one level further, how bad does Howard believe this could get? If short of The Great Depression, are there scenarios that could lead there? What are the leading signals? 4.) Being proactive, how does today's situation change the mentality and activity at Oaktree? Why does Howard not agree with the notion of "the falling knife"? How does Howard think about market bottoms? How does Howard determine the right insertion point? Why does Howard believe the best investors are unemotional? How can one manage the psychology of catching a falling knife that falls further? 5.) What advice would Howard give to the may millions of working professionals today that have never seen a recession in their professional career? What makes Howard the most nervous when he looks at and assess the landscape today? What does Howard believe is the biggest misconception people believe with regards to the current economic crisis? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Howard’s Fave Book: As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13759562

20VC: How To Solve The Chicken and Egg Problem in Marketplaces? How Important Is Differentiated Supply? How To Prevent Leakage? How to Create Marketplace Defensibility and more with Alyssa Ravasio, Founder & CEO @ Hipcamp is the Founder & CEO @ , the startup that allows you to book unique camping experiences on over 300,000 campsites, cabins, RV parks, public parks and more. To date, Alyssa has raised over $41M in funding from some of the best in the business including Benchmark, a16z, Brad Feld, Dave Morin, Sam Shank @ Hotel Tonight and more. Prior to founding Hipcamp, Alyssa enjoyed numerous diverse roles including being Director of Sales & Marketing @ Revel Systems to working on International Information and Communication Policy in the US State Department. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Alyssa made her way from the US State Department to founding the game-changer of camping experiences in the form of Hipcamp? 2.) How did Alyssa solve the classic chicken and egg problem for marketplaces in the early days with Hipcamp? How important does Alyssa believe it is for marketplaces to have truly differentiated supply? How does Alyssa think about what it takes to prevent leakage in marketplaces today? How can marketplace founders be strategic in building moats around their business? What works? What does not work when building marketplace defensibility? 3.) How does Alyssa manage the psychology of being CEO? What does Alyssa find to be the most challenging element of the role? What have been Alyssa's biggest lessons from her last 12 months in the role? How has she seen her style of leadership change and develop over time? How does Alyssa deal with the shit hit the fan moments? 4.) How did Alyssa find the fundraising process for Hipcamp? Why did Alyssa wait 5 years before raising the Series A? What changed in the business that made Alyssa realise then was the right time to raise big? How did the Series B with a16z and Andrew Chen catalyse so fast? Why did Alyssa select the investors she did? What investors did Alyssa not select or not select her that she would also loved to have worked with? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Alyssa’s Fave Book: , As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables, and get valuations. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carta to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and Carta now offers Fund Administration so you can see real-time data in the Carta platform and work with Carta’s team of experienced fund accountants. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13726100

20VC: Multi-Stage Funds Investing At Seed Are Option Value Investing, Why The Biggest Enemy For Venture Firms Is Group Think and How Running Companies Changes Your Investment Mentality with Manu Kumar, Founder @ K9 Ventures is the Founder @ , one of the leading seed firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Carta, Lyft, Twilio, Auth0 and Lucidchart to name a few incredible companies. Prior to K9, Manu was either the founder or co-founder of 4 companies, 3 of which with successful exits and the 4th being the fantastic Carta. Manu also has an incredible model with K9 where he not only invests in companies but also founds them and is currently the founder and CEO @ HiHello, the company that allows you to network smarter providing digital business cards designed to help you curate and grow your network. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Manu made his way into the world of venture having founded 4 prior companies and how he came to found K9 and be one of the OG's of pre-seed funding, having coined the term? 2.) What does Manu believe have been the biggest and most significant changes in the early stage market over the last 7 years? How does Manu evaluate the rise of operator and scout funds? Would Manu agree with Semil Shah, "founders are voting with their feet and taking multi-stage money at seed?" What advice does Manu give to founders on taking multi-stage money at seed? How does Manu evaluate their aggressive movement back into the seed stage? Why is it? 3.) Given Manu only makes 3-4 new investments per year, how does Manu think about and assess his own portfolio construction today? How does Manu think about building temporal diversification into the portfolio? What does Manu believe is the biggest mistake early-stage managers make in the first few years? Why does Manu believe that "group think" is so dangerous for funds today? What can they do deliberately to avoid it? 4.) Manu not only invests but also founds companies at the same time, how does Manu split his time and what does his day look like? What are the benefits of investing and operating simultaneously? What are the biggest challenges and drawbacks? What elements did Manu believe as an investor before starting his new company, HiHello, that he has now changed his mind on, post founding the company? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Manu’s Fave Book: Manu’s Most Recent Investment: As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13660178

20VC: How To Assess Risk and Value Creation, Why It Would Be Better If VCs Had Smaller Portfolios & How To Optimise Internal Decision-Making with Misha Esipov, Founder & CEO @ Nova Credit 03/20/2020

20VC: How To Assess Risk and Value Creation, Why It Would Be Better If VCs Had Smaller Portfolios & How To Optimise Internal Decision-Making with Misha Esipov, Founder & CEO @ Nova Credit is the Founder & CEO @ , the startup that allows you to use your international credit history to apply for credit cards, apartment rentals, loans and more. To date, Misha has raised over $69M with Nova from some of the best in the business Kleiner Perkins, Index, First Round, Pear and Core Innovation Capital to name a few. As for Misha, prior to changing the world of credit history, he spent over 5 years in the more traditional world of finance including time at Apollo in the world of private equity and then also Goldman Sachs in the world of investment banking. If that was not enough, due to the incredible impact Nova is having, Misha also sits on the board of World Education Services. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Misha made his way from the world of investment banking and private equity with Goldman and Apollo to changing the way we think about international credit with the founding of Nova? 2.) How does Misah think about and asses both risk and value creation? How did Misha's time at Goldman Sachs influence his operating mentality and how he thinks about the value of data today? Why does Misha find the growth at all costs and revenue later mindset challenging? What core fundamentals around unit economics did Misha establish early with Nova? How does Misha advise founders when it comes to unit economics? 3.) Misha has raised over $69M from some of the best, how did Misha find the process of fundraising? Where specifically does Misha believe his investors provide outside value? What is the optimal way to use an investor in the recruitment process? Where does Misha believe investors could do better and improve? How does Misha advise founders when it comes to manager selection? 4.) How does Misha manage the psychology of being CEO? How does he deal with the shit hit the fan moments? How has his role changed over the last 3 years? What elements have been the most challenging to learn and scale? 5.) How does Misha advise founders on building a diverse pipeline of recruitment candidates from day 1? Why does Misha believe that no recruitment firm can solve for diversity? What is his process as a result for ensuring a truly diverse team? What works? What does not? How does Misha building a culture of accountability? How does Misha think about optimising internal decision-making? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Misha’s Fave Book: As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables, and get valuations. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carta to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and Carta now offers Fund Administration so you can see real-time data in the Carta platform and work with Carta’s team of experienced fund accountants. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13627448

20VC: True Ventures' Toni Schneider on How Being CEO @ Automattic (Wordpress) Made Him A Better Investor, The Biggest Lessons from Automattic on Running Successful Remote Teams and The Right Way For Investors To Show Founders They Have Their Support (Note is a Partner @ , one of the valley's leading early-stage firms with a portfolio including the likes of Peloton, Hashicorp, Fitbit, Automattic (Wordpress) and Tray.io to name a few. As for Toni, he has spent 14 years as a Partner @ True but during that tenure, he was also the CEO of Automattic for 8 years where he helped WordPress.com become a top 10 global internet destination with close to a billion monthly visitors. Before that, he was a VP @ Yahoo post their acquisition of the company he was CEO of Oddpost, much of their work formed the basis for Yahoo mail. (Note: Recorded Pre-Coronavirus) In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Toni made his way into the world of venture following two turns in the seat of CEO and then joining Yahoo? 2.) Does Toni fundamentally believe it helps when investing to have been both an operator with Automattic and Partner @ True? How did being CEO @ Automattic shape how he thinks about investing today? How did Toni manage the balancing act of a being a CEO and Partner at a venture fund for 7 years? Having been a CEO and having worked with the best, what does Toni believe are the qualities that make the great CEO of today? 3.) Why does Toni believe that startups do not have to be as stressful as they are or are portrayed to be? How does Toni deal with the shit hit the fan moments? What can an investor do in times of high stress when the founder is not performing? What is the right way for them to express that the performance is not where it needs to be? On the flip side, what is the right way for investors to show their support to the founders? 4.) What are Toni's biggest learnings from the Wordpress days on what it takes to run a truly successful remote team? Where does Toni see many people going wrong today? What does Toni advise those considering going remote first? What does Toni believe are the biggest pros and cons of the model? What infrastructure does one need to have in place to make it seamless? Does it still make sense for companies to be in the valley? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Toni’s Fave Book: , Toni’s Most Recent Investment: As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13565153

20VC: 3 Addictions Of Early-Stage Startup Founders, How Founders Should Strategically Think Through Unit Economics From Day 1 & Why Micromanagement Can Be Beneficial In The Early Days with Adena Hefets, Co-Founder @ Divvy Homes is Co-Founder @ , the startup that turns your monthly rent into a down payment allowing you to get on the property ladder, sooner. To date, Adena has raised over $189M with Divvy from some of the best in the business including a16z, Ray Tonsing @ Caffeinated, Max Levchin, DFJ and Threshold Ventures to name a few. Prior to founding Divvy, Adena was an early-stage fintech investor at DF. Before the world of venture, Adena was part of the original team that started Square Capital and grew the product to over 10,000 advances ($50M) within 1 year. Finally, before that, Adena started her career in the world of private equity with TPG. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Adena made her way from the world of venture with DFJ to changing the way we think about homeownership with Divvy? 2.) What does Adena believe are the 3 addictions of many early-stage startup founders? How does Adena advise founders on the right way to think about paid marketing? What have been some surprising lessons from seeing Divvy's CAC change over time? How does Adena advise founders to construct a playbook and cadence for hiring? 3.) How does Adena think differently about unit economics today? Is it fundamental to have this mindset from Day 1? Where does Adena believe many founders go wrong when it comes to unit economics? Who is to blame for this desire for synthetic growth? The founders? The VCs? 4.) Considering female founders get a tiny portion of VC funds raised, how was the fundraise for Adena with Divvy? How does Adena advise other female founders and minorities on fundraising successfully? Does Adena believe that founders should always be raising? How does raising debt differ to raising equity? Why is it so much more challenging? 5.) Why does Adena believe that micromanagement can be beneficial in the early days? How does Adena ensure that it does not lead to dependencies and dejected team members? What does Adena to do push people to really get the most out of them? What works? What does not? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Adena’s Fave Book: As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables, and get valuations. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carta to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and Carta now offers Fund Administration so you can see real-time data in the Carta platform and work with Carta’s team of experienced fund accountants. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13534829

20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors coaches some of the world's leading venture capitalists and founders helping them to build the best organizations possible. On the VC side, Matt has worked with Peter Fenton @ Benchmark, several Sequoia Partners, Hemant @ GC and Mamoon @ Kleiner to name a few. As for founders, Matt has worked with the founders of Brex, Coinbase, Plaid, Reddit, Flexport and more. Prior to coaching, Matt began his business career as an investor with . He then co-founded eventually sold to MCI/Verizon. In his own words, Matt went on to have fun (making the Academy Award short-listed documentary ) and do good (starting the ). In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Matt made his way from growth investor to immensely successful founder to now coaching the world's leading investors and founders? 2.) How does Matt advise founders to think about their relationship towards fear and anger? Why doe they generate bad quality of decision-making? What should be done when one recognises they are fearful or angry? Where do many founders and investors go wrong here? 3.) How does Matt advise founders who struggle with issues of self-doubt and imposter syndrome? What process should they go through to gain their confidence? What should they not do? How should they communicate their self-doubt to their team and the world? 4.) How does Matt advise founders in terms of the optimal communication strategy both with their team and their co-founders? Does radical transparency need to be instant or should it be timed correctly? What are the best conflict resolution strategies between founding teams? 5.) Why does Matt believe boards are the death of investors? Why are board members not optimally placed to advise their founders? What does Matt believe makes the best board members having worked with the likes of Peter Fenton? What does Matt advise new board members to be the best board member they can be? As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13466183

20VC: Why Most Founders Do Not Structure Their Fundraise Correctly, The Pros Of Having An MBA As A Startup Founder & How To Manage The Psychology Of Being CEO and Overcome Self Doubt with Iman Abuzeid, Founder & CEO @ Incredible Health is the Founder & CEO @ , the startup that connects hospitals with nurses and other high shortage healthcare professionals to dramatically speed up the hiring process. To date, Iman has raised over $17M with Incredible Health from some dear friends of the show including NFX, a16z, Charles Hudson @ Precursor and Obvious Ventures to name a few. As for Iman, prior to Incredible, she was a medical doctor, a McKinsey alumnus and led product management at AliveCor, a Khosla-backed health tech startup. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Iman made her way into the world of startups from a family of surgeons and then through being a medical doctor herself? 2.) How was the fundraising process for Iman as a female minority founder? What advice would Iman give to other women and/ or minority when it comes to getting the very best investors? Where does Iman see so many founders make mistakes raising? How should founders structure their meetings with VCs? 3.) Where does Iman believe VCs can be most helpful? Where do many think VCs are helpful but they are actually not? What does Iman think of the "VC Twitter" ecosystem at play today? What investors said no along the way but Iman really liked? Why? Why does Iman believe MBA's provide such an advantage to startup founders today? 4.) How does Iman manage the psychology of being a CEO? How does Iman deal with moments of self-doubt and imposter syndrome? How has Iman seen herself evolve and change as a leader over the last 3 years? What elements have been the most challenging to come to grips with? 5.) Why does Iman still believe if you are not building your startup in the bay, you are missing out? What is so special about Silicon Valley? What advice does Iman give to founders looking to build a diverse team from day 1? How does Iman think about inevitable hiring mistakes? When is the right time to pull the plug? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Iman’s Fave Book: As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13438598

20VC: Index Ventures Partner, Mark Goldberg on The Questions Founders Must Ask A Multi-Stage Fund Before Taking Their Money At Seed, Why Most Angels Will Lose Their Money & Why We Will See Our First $100Bn Neo-Bank Shortly is a Partner @ , one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Dropbox, Revolut, Supercell, Plaid and Transferwise to name a few. As for Mark, since joining Index he has largely specialised on all things financial services and sits on the board of Plaid, Nova Credit, Intercom, Pilot and more incredible companies. Prior to Index, Mark spent 3 years in BizOps at Dropbox where the company increased tenfold during his time there. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Mark made his way into the world of venture with Index having spent 3 years at Dropbox during a transformational time for the company? What were Mark's biggest takeaways from seeing the growth cycle at Dropbox? How did that impact his investing mindset with Index? 2.) Why does Mark believe that venture as an asset class is commoditising? What does Mark believe the best funds will have to do to stay ahead? How does Mark build relationships of trust and authenticity so early with founders? What works? What does not? What is the right way to deliver direct and tough feedback to founders? 3.) How does Mark feel about multi-stage funds re-entering seed investing again? What are the right questions seed founders should ask multi-stage funds when determining whether to take their money? What does Mark believe it takes to be competitive and win the very best of deals? How is the Founder <> VC dynamic changing with capital supply? 4.) Why does Mark believe that most angels are going to lose their money? What does Mark wish all angels knew when they started? How does Mark feel about the rise of founders investing alongside operating? What are the pros? What are the cons? How does Mark feel about the rise of scout funds? Where is there place in the ecosystem? 5.) We are seeing unparalleled levels of activity in fintech, is this a boom or are we at the start of a fundamental shift in the landscape? Why does Mark believe we will soon see our first $100Bn neo-bank? Why does Mark believe we will see a strong rise in the consolidatory environment for fintech moving forward? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Mark’s Fave Book: As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13369373

20VC: Gusto Co-Founder, Tomer London on Why Most Founders Approach Fundraising With The Wrong Mindset Today, How To Construct A Values/Motivation Alignment Test To Determine The Right Investors For You & Why Delight Is So Crucial To The Success of Any Con is the Co-Founder @ , the people platform for small businesses providing one place to run payroll, manage benefits, and support your team. To date, Tomer and the team have raised over $520M with Gusto from some of the industry's leading investors including General Catalyst, CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins, T Rowe, Fidelity and more and then individuals including Shopify Founder Tobias Luttke, Sam Altman, Max Levchin, Matt Mullenweg, Kevin Hartz and Elad Gil to name a few. Prior to Gusto, Tomer did a PHD in Electrical Engineering at Stanford and before that was Founder and CEO @ Vizmo, mobile self-service technologies for enterprise to try to fix customer care. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Tomer made his way from creating inventory management software for his Father's small business in Israel to Stanford and founding the unicorn that is Gusto? 2.) Why does Tomer believe that most founders approach fundraising with the wrong mindset today? What does he mean when he says, "fundraising = creating change"? What is the "values motivation alignment"? How can founders use it to help them select the right investor for them? Why should you add investors just as you would new team members? 3.) Having raised over $200M in the latest financing, how does Tomer think about when is the right time to pour fuel on the fire and go big? Is it a fundamentally different mindset when you have so much cash thrown on you? What would Tomer advise founders with suddenly expanded budgets? With 111 investors on the Gusto cap table, what would Tomer advise founders when it comes to cap table management? 4.) What have been Tomer's biggest learnings when it comes to building a delightful product at scale across different segments? How important does Tomer feel time to delight from the UX perspective is? How does Tomer think about testing levels of user delight? NPS? Product analytics? How does Tomer think about the balance between product development and going all out for scaling? 5.) How has Tomer seen himself change and evolve as a leader of the last 5 years? What elements has he found super challenging to come to grips with? Where does Tomer believe he has a superpower on the flip side? Question from Laela @ CapitalG, what specifically did you do to create the culture that you did in the early days? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Tomer’s Fave Book: As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13338122

20VC: Vinod Khosla on What Venture Assistance Really Means, Why Many VCs Are Not Qualified To Advise Founders & Why Startups Can Innovate So Much Faster Than Incumbents 02/24/2020

20VC: Vinod Khosla on What Venture Assistance Really Means, Why Many VCs Are Not Qualified To Advise Founders & Why Startups Can Innovate So Much Faster Than Incumbents is the Founder @ , one of the valley’s most renowned firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Square, Affirm, DoorDash, Impossible Foods and OpenDoor just to name a few. As for Vinod, he started his career as a Founder, founding Daisy Systems, a company that went on to IPO. Then in 1982, Vinod founded Sun Microsystems where he pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors. In 1986, Vinod joined his longtime friend, John Doerr and became a General Partner @ KPCB where he helped incubate Juniper Networks and helped transform the telecommunications business with Cerent Corporation, which was acquired by Cisco Systems in 1999 for $7.2 billion. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Vinod made his way into the world of startups with the founding of Daisy and Sun Microsystems and how that led to his entry into the world of venture with KPCB and ultimately founding Khosla Ventures? 2.) How does Vinod feel about the term "venture assistance" today? Where does Vinod believe VCs can really drive value? How does Vinod allocate his time to drive as much value for the portfolio as possible? How does Vinod get involved when it comes to talent acquisition for the portfolio? 3.) Why does Vinod believe that most board members are not qualified to advise entrepreneurs today? Why does Vinod believe that most value is driven outside of the board? What can founders to do make their boards as efficient as possible? How does Vinod advise founders to determine which advice to take vs which to disregard? 4.) How does Vinod assess his own approach and attitude to risk today? What does Vinod believe are acceptable vs unacceptable risks in startups? How does Vinod believe the very best founders think about risk management? Does Vinod agree time is the biggest killer of startups? Why does Vinod believe startups are so much quicker to innovate than incumbents? 5.) Why does Vinod believe that tolerance for failure has gone down in Silicon Valley? How does Vinod determine between the realism of when something is not work and to give up vs the visionary persistence to see a project through to the very end? What experience of his own have really led his thinking here? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Vinod’s Fave Book: , As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13273832

20VC: Twitch Founder & CEO Emmett Shear on When To Persist vs When To Give Up For Entrepreneurs, The Fundamental Tension When Scaling Orgs and How To Optimise Them & How The Role of CEO Fundamentally Changes with Scale is the Co-Founder & CEO @ , the world's leading live streaming platform for gamers and the things we love. Prior to Twitch's exit to Amazon for a reported $970M, Emmett raised over $42M in funding from some of the best including Thrive Capital, Bessemer, Mike Maples, Aydin Senkut, Paul Graham and Y Combinator. Emmett is also a part-time Partner @ Y Combinator, advising YC companies on everything from fundraising strategy to product decisions to hiring and firing. Before Twitch, Emmett co-founded Kiko, a company he later sold on eBay for 6 figures. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Emmett made his way into the world of startups with Kiko? How he ended up selling that for 6 figures on eBay? How that led to the creation of Justin.TV & Twitch? 2.) Why does Emmett believe starting a startup is like "deciding to take on the burden of Sisyphus?" At what point in the journey does is start to get easier? Does Emmett agree with many on the show who say, "it does not get easier, it just gets different"? How does one know when to give up vs when to persist and follow the vision? 3.) How does Emmett think about structuring an org at 1,500 people? Why does Emmett believe there is a fundamental tension when scaling teams between centralisation and decentralisation? How does one structure a reorg without causing instability? How does one communicate the reorg to the team? Where does Emmett see many go wrong here? 4.) Does Emmett agree the best CEOs are the best resource allocators? How does Emmett approach internal resource allocation today between both functions and projects? What does he find most challenging here? What does the decision-making process look like? What are his taekaways from Apple, Amazon and Microsoft in how they determine and process resource allocation internally? 5.) How does Emmett believe he has changed and evolved as a leader over the last 10 years with Twitch? What elements has he found the most challenging to master? What has he done to combat those weaknesses? Where has he always been naturally strong? What makes him so good at those particular functions? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Emmett’s Fave Book: As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13246121

20VC: Ashton Kutcher on Early Lessons From Investing in Airbnb and Spotify, Why VC Ownership Requirements Are Becoming More and More Egregious & What Being Good At Product Truly Means 02/17/2020

20VC: Ashton Kutcher on Early Lessons From Investing in Airbnb and Spotify, Why VC Ownership Requirements Are Becoming More and More Egregious & What Being Good At Product Truly Means is a Founder & General Partner @ . Over the last 5 years, Ashton and his partner, Guy Oseary, have built Sound into one of the West Coast's leading new entrants with a portfolio including Lambda School, Calm, Gitlab, Affirm, Bird and many more incredible companies. As for Ashton, he started his investing career as an angel with early home runs including Spotify, Alibaba, Skype, Airbnb and Optimizely. Due to his immense success both in media and technology, Ashton has been named one of TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World”. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Ashton made his way into the world of startups with his foray into angel investing in Skype, Spotify etc? How did that lead to his founding Sound Ventures most recently? 2.) How does Ashton's background in the world of media impact Sound's investment strategy and the type of deals they get excited by? Question from Daniel Ek @ Spotify: How did your deal sourcing look lin the early days? How has that changed over time and with the institutionalisation of Sound? 3.) Why does Ashton believe people creating the future are perpetually young? What question does Ashton always like to ask founders? What does he look for in their answer? How does Ashton ensure founders feel comfortable with him? What does he do to allow them to open up? What is the hardest thing Ashton feels he has persevered through? 4.) How does Ashton build strong product intuition about products in areas he is not familiar with? In terms of great product, Ashton backed Spotify with Daniel Ek and Shak Khan, what did Ashton see in Spotify way back then? How did Shak and Daniel innovate on distribution and customer acquisition with him and Spotify? 5.) What have been Ashton's learnings in what it takes to truly win the best and most competitive deals? Before as an angel, Ashton's check size was friendly, now with Sound it is competitive with VCs, how does Ashton approach the element of now competing with many VCs he once co-operated with? What does Ashton make of the rise of many celebrity investors today? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Ashton’s Fave Book: , Ashton’s Most Recent Investment: As always you can follow , and Ashton on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13180334

20VC: How Founders Should Think Through Distribution and Customer Acquisition Today, The Challenges of the Digital Advertising Duopoly Currently & How To Structure Company Post Mortems Effectively with Gabriel Weinberg, Founder & CEO @ DuckDuckGo is the Founder & CEO @ , the Internet privacy company that empowers you to seamlessly take control of your personal information online, without any tradeoffs. Over the last 12 years, Gabe has scaled DuckDuckGo to doing 1.6Bn private searches every month, a team of 83 full time fully remote employees, raising funding from some of the best in the business; USV and most importantly, being a profitable company. If that was not enough, Gabe has also written two phenomenal books, and In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Gabriel made his way into the world of startups and came to found one of today's leading search engines and privacy companies in DuckDuckGo? 2.) Gabriel decided to raise $13M from USV 4 years into the life of DDG, why did he believe that was the right time? Why does Gabe believe that DDG never needed any primary capital? How does Gabe advise founders to think when it comes to chasing profitability early? How does Gabe view the relationship between growth and capital? Are they in conflict or aligned? What does Gabe make of the many $100M rounds getting done today? 3.) How does Gabe feel about the lack of free and open distribution today? How does Gabe strategise when it comes to channel diversification? What is the right level of marketing channel diversification to have? How do you know when to really double down on one that is working? How should founders be thinking about channel saturation rates? What have been Gabes biggest lessons on payback period over the last 12 years with DDG? 4.) How does Gabe feel about the digital advertising duopoly on the internet between Facebook and Google? Why does Gabe argue that this duo of incumbents are so much more powerful than any other prior generation of incumbents? How does Gabe think about strategies to reduce their data monopolies? 5.) DDG is 83 people and fully remote, what have been Gabe's biggest lessons on what it takes to run a fully-remote team from Day 1? What mistakes did they make? WHat would Gabe advise founders contemplating the fully remote strategy? Why does Gabe have nor formal hierarchy or org chart internally at DDG? Why is this so important for culture and employee morale? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Gabe’s Fave Book: As always you can follow , and on Twitter here! /episode/index/show/thetwentyminutevc/id/13151249

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