20VC: How Startups Should React To Today's Funding Environment & Why Big Markets Are More Forgiving with Jenny Lefcourt, Partner @ Freestyle.vc

Jenny Lefcourt is a Partner @ Freestyle where she invests in early stage tech companies. Prior to Freestyle, Jenny was the Founder of Weddingchannel.com and Bella Pictures which were both acquired. During this time, Jenny raised funds from titans of VC including Kleiner Perkins, Trinity Ventures, Amazon and more. Jenny has also angel invested and advised some incredible entrepreneurs with the likes of Minted and Style Seat.   In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Jenny made his way into VC from founding and exiting 2 startups?

2.) What were the differences in raising money as a founder and as a VC? What learnings as a founder did Jenny have that have helped her move into VC?

3.) How have the large macro-economic changes affected Jenny's investing style? Has she seen a change in her investment cadence? Does Jenny place more emphasis on burn reduction now?

4.) Why does Freestyle not invest with a thesis? What are the benefits of this? How does Jenny make investment decisions going forward without a thesis?

5.) What does Jenny mean when she says that VCs suffer from duck syndrome? What can VCs do to make them the best and their founders life easier?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode: 

Jenny’s Fave Book: Dreamland, Blinkist (Harry's Suggestion)

Jenny’s Most Recent Investment: CREXi

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Jenny on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!   The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa, the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Lees have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is order completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com/VC and enter the promo code VC75 to get $75 off!