The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
1,144 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★ - 292 ratingsThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC) interviews the world's greatest venture capitalists with prior guests including Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Once per week, 20VC Host, Harry Stebbings is also joined by one of the great founders of our time with prior founder episodes from Spotify's Daniel Ek, Linkedin's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman.
If you would like to see more of The Twenty Minute VC (20VC), head to www.20vc.com for more information on the podcast, show notes, resources and more.
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Episodes
20VC: Why Entrepreneurs Care Less About Firm Brand at Seed, How LPs Should Think About GP Commit & How The World of LPs and Fundraising Will Change Post COVID with Apurva Mehta, Managing Partner @ Summit Peak Investments
August 17, 2020 07:10 - 39 minutes - 31.7 MBApurva Mehta is the Managing Partner @ Summit Peak Investments, investing in early stage venture capital funds and making direct co-investments. To date they have backed the likes of Raymond Tonsing, Lachy Groom and Josh Buckley to name a few on the fund side and then on the direct side, invested in Airtable, Virta Health and Sourcegraph. Prior to founding Summit Peak, Apurva spent 7 years as the Deputy Chief Investment Officer at Cook's Children's Hospital and before that spent 3 years as ...
20VC: Why Few Firms Are Doing True Early Stage Investing Today, Why Founders Should Spend Time with Analysts When Raising & The Rise of Pre-Empting Rounds and How To Know When To Engage vs Wait with Anna Khan, General Partner @ CRV
August 14, 2020 06:52 - 42 minutes - 33.9 MBAnna Khan is a General Partner @ CRV, one of the pre-eminent firms of Silicon Valley stretching over what is now an incredible 18 funds. In their portfolio, they have the likes of Airtable, Doordash, Postman and PillPack to name a few. As for Anna, prior to joining CRV, she spent an incredible 6 years at Bessemer investing in the likes of Intercom, NewVoiceMedia, RainforestQA and Zylo. If that was not enough, Anna is also the Founder & CEO @ Launch X Ventures, offering female entrepreneurs ...
20VC: MongoDB CEO, Dev Ittycheria on Why Sometimes You Have To Be Inefficient To Be Effective, The 2 Different Types of Decisions and How Great Leaders Respond To Each & Why Value To Overhead Ratio Is The Metric To Use When Selecting Investors
August 10, 2020 06:59 - 42 minutes - 34.3 MBDev Ittycheria is the President and CEO @ MongoDB, recognized as the world's most popular next-generation database and the first database company to go public in over 26 years. Prior to their IPO, MongoDB raised from some of the best in the business including Sequoia, USV and NEA to name a few. As for Dev, before Mongo Dev was Managing Director at OpenView Venture Partners, Venture Partner at Greylock Partners, and CEO/Co-founder of BladeLogic, which was acquired by BMC for $900 million. De...
20VC: Loom Founder Joe Thomas on Whether To Take Multi-Stage Money at Seed, How Early Stage Founders Should Select Their VC, How Sequoia Won The Loom Deal & The 3 Rules To Operate Remote Teams Successfully
August 07, 2020 07:13 - 43 minutes - 35.2 MBJoe Thomas is the Founder & CEO @ Loom, the startup that helps you get your message across by making it easy to record instantly shareable videos. To date, Joe has raised over $68M from some of the valley's leading firms including Sequoia, Kleiner and Coatue as well as individuals such as Mathilde @ Front, Kevin & Mike @ Instagram and Dylan Field @ Figma to name a few. Prior to founding Loom, Joe was in LA as Director of Product at MyLife.com and before that Director of Operations at MediaP...
20VC: Steve Jurvetson on 20 Years of Friendship with Elon Musk, How To Analyse Market Timing, Why Venture Does Not Scale & Why He Has Never Sold A Share in Any Company He Holds
August 03, 2020 07:43 - 55 minutes - 44.1 MBSteve Jurvetson is the Co-Founder @ Future Ventures who announced their debut and flagship $200M Fund in 2019. Steve's incredible portfolio includes the likes of SpaceX, Tesla, Planet, Memphis Meats, Hotmail, and the deep learning companies Mythic and Nervana. Steve also sits on the board of both SpaceX and Tesla. Prior to founding Future, Steve was the co-founder of renowned valley firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson where he led investments in 5 companies that went public in successful IPOs and ...
20VC: Why The Unbundling of Fintech Will Continue, How VCs Are Propping Up The Neo-Banking Industry & Why We Need A New Framework To Value Businesses Today with Clay Wilkes, Founder & CEO @ Galileo
July 31, 2020 11:16 - 30 minutes - 24.2 MBClay Wilkes is the Founder & CEO @ Galileo, the API standard for card issuing and digital banking, powering many of the leading global FinTech companies including Chime, TransferWise and Monzo to name a few. Prior to their reported $1.2Bn acquisition by SoFi, Clay raised just $86M in funding with Galileo from the likes of Accel and Ryan Smith @ Qualtrics, having run the company as a profitable company before that for over 15 years. Clay also has a keen interest in philanthropy having create...
20VC: Brad Feld, Jerry Colonna and Tracy Lawrence on Depression and Mental Health, The Dangers of Tying Happiness To Milestones & Why Fear, Anxiety and Guilt Are Useless Emotions
July 27, 2020 06:53 - 47 minutes - 38 MBBrad Feld is a Co-Founder and Managing Director @ Foundry Group, one of the most successful venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Zynga, Fitbit and Sendgrid to name a few. Brad is also a co-founder @ Techstars and prior to Foundry, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital. Tracy Lawrence spent the last 8 years as Founder & CEO @ Chewse, the startup that it effortless for office managers to order delicious food for their teams. Tracy grew the team to 300 pe...
20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?
July 20, 2020 05:42 - 38 minutes - 30.5 MBSteve Blank is one of the leading luminaries of Silicon Valley, credited with being foundational to the creation of The Lean Startup movement and having spent the last 9 years at Stanford University as a professor and the last 8 as a Senior Fellow @ Columbia University. Steve is the author of "The Four Steps To The Epiphany" and "The Startup Owner's Manual". Prior to joining the world of academics and writing Steve spent over 20 years in the world of entrepreneurship as part of, or co-found...
20VC: Chamath Palihapitiya on Why IPOs and Direct Listings Are Broken, Turning Social Capital Into A Combination of Berkshire Hathaway, Koch Industries and The Red Cross, Why Forecasts Are Worthless, What Creates True Defensibility & Why You Have To Be Pr
July 13, 2020 06:26 - 52 minutes - 42 MBChamath Palihapitiya is Founder & CEO @ Social Capital, the organisation on a mission to transform society by using technology to solve the world’s hardest problems. Social's portfolio includes the likes of Slack, Yammer, Front, Intercom and Carta to name a few. As for Chamath, prior to founding Social, he spent an incredible 4 years at Facebook including as the original exec in charge of FB Platform as well as being responsible for overseeing core growth components and overseeing FB's mobi...
20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
July 10, 2020 10:35 - 37 minutes - 30.4 MBAlex Mather is the Founder & CEO @ The Athletic, the startup bringing you in-depth sports stories you won't hear anywhere else. To date, Alex has raised over $139M with The Athletic from some of the best in the business including Founders Fund, Bedrock, Y Combinator and Emerson Collective to name a few. Before founding The Athletic, Alex spent an incredible 5 years as part of the hyper-growth @ Strava serving Vice President of Product Management and Product Design. In Today’s Episode You W...
20VC: 8VC’s Joe Lonsdale on How To Foster Contrarian Thinking Within Venture Partnerships, Why The Best VCs Are Company Builders & Why It Is Not Possible To Build Multi-Billion Dollar Companies and Have Worklife Balance
July 07, 2020 10:48 - 38 minutes - 31.1 MBJoe Lonsdale is a General Partner @ 8VC and in the past has invested in many notable companies including Wish, Oculus, Oscar and Guardant Health. As a result, in both 2016 and 2017, Joe was the youngest member of the Forbes 100 Midas List. Prior to 8VC, Joe co-founded Palantir, one of the world's most impactful multi-billion dollar software companies. Joe also co-founded and serves as Chairman @ Addepar, which has over $1.8 trillion managed on its wealth management technology platform. If t...
20VC: Biggest Lessons From Opendoor's Scaling Journey, How To Implement Systems for Growth & The Right Way To Structure Customer Discovery Processes with Julia DeWahl, Angel Investor
July 03, 2020 09:56 - 34 minutes - 28 MBJulia DeWahl is one of the rising stars of the Silicon Valley angel investor community with a portfolio including the likes of Linear (Sequoia-backed), Modern Fertility (USV backed) and Primer (Founders Fund backed). Prior to angel investing Julia was one of the first 10 employees at Opendoor seeing their hyper-growth first hand in many different roles from Head of Seller Experience to being General Manager of Pheonix & City Operations. Before Opendoor, Julia spent 3 years as a consultant a...
20VC: Oren Zeev on Why Diversification Is Overrated, The Downside of Thematic Investing, Making Quality Decisions In Uncertain Conditions & Why He Has No Reserves Allocation
June 29, 2020 06:45 - 38 minutes - 30.7 MBOren Zeev is the Founding Partner @ Zeev Ventures, one of the best and most under the radar firms in the early stage Silicon Valley landscape. Over the past decade, Oren has backed the likes of TripActions, Tipalti, Audible, Houzz, Chegg and Hippo Insurance to name a few. Prior to crushing it with Zeev Ventures, Oren spent 12 years as a General Partner @ Apax Ventures, starting in Israel and then moving to the US where he headed the Technology Practice of Apax and the Silicon Valley office....
20VC: How Fundraising For Funds Has Changed in The World of COVID, The Benefits of Managers Selling Part of Their GP & How To Think Through Your “Minimum Viable Fund Size” with Lo Toney, Founding Managing Partner @ Plexo Capital
June 26, 2020 08:20 - 40 minutes - 32.3 MBLo Toney is the Founding Managing Partner @ Plexo Capital, a very unique firm making both direct investments and fund investments. They have invested in Precursor, Boldstart, Female Founders Fund and WorkBench on the fund side and then PlayVS, Replicated and StyleSeat on the direct side. Prior to Plexo, Lo was a Partner @ GV (Google Ventures) and before that was a Partner with Comcast Ventures where he led the Catalyst Fund. Before venture Lo was an operator enjoying exec roles at Zynga, Ni...
20VC: Andrew Wilkinson on Building The Berkshire Hathway of Tech, Sustainable vs Unsustainable Growth and The Relationship Between Money and Freedom
June 22, 2020 06:42 - 38 minutes - 31 MBAndrew Wilkinson is the Managing Partner @ Tiny, a vehicle that buys, builds and invests in wonderful internet companies. Within their family of companies is Dribble; home to the world's best design professionals; MetaLab and Supercast to name a few. Tiny does also make venture investments in the likes of Superhuman, SpaceX, Pitch and Buffer. Today Andrew oversees a group of companies with over 300 employees and tens of millions in revenue. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Andr...
20VC: Craft Ventures’ David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
June 15, 2020 06:38 - 38 minutes - 30.6 MBDavid Sacks is the Co-Founder @ Craft Ventures, one of Silicon Valley's leading early-stage funds with David's portfolio including the likes of Facebook, Tesla, SpaceX, Palantir, Affirm, Airbnb, Slack and Bird to name a few. David started his career in tech as the first product leader and COO @ Paypal, growing payment volume from $0-$500M per month, leading to their $1.5Bn acquisition by eBay. David then founded Geni.com, creating a family tree for the whole world, the company was acquired ...
20VC: Substack Founder Chris Best on The Future of Public Journalism, Why The Economics Of Attention Have Been Flipped & Why Micropayments For Content Will Not Work
June 12, 2020 07:46 - 31 minutes - 25.6 MBChris Best is the Founder & CEO @ Substack, the company that makes it simple for a writer to start a paid newsletter. To date, Chris has raised over $17M in funding from the likes of a16z, Y Combinator, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear and Zynga Co-Founder Justin Waldron to name a few. Prior to founding Substack, Chris was the Co-Founder & CTO @ Kik, letting users connect with friends, groups and the world around them. The company raised over $220M in funding from Spark, Tencent and USV to name a fe...
20VC: Lightspeed Partner, Merci Victoria Grace on The Future of Collaboration Tools, Bundling vs Unbundling, Synchronous vs Asynchronous & What It Means To Productise The S*** Out of Venture
June 08, 2020 06:33 - 36 minutes - 29.5 MBMerci Victoria Grace is a Partner @ Lightspeed Venture Partners, one of the valley's leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Snapchat, Mulesoft, Affirm, AppDynamics and more. As for Merci, prior to entering the world of venture, Merci spent 3 years at Slack including as Head of Growth where she grew the growth team to over 50 people and drove DAU's from 500K to 5M in under 2 years. Merci is also the Founder of Women In Product a global community of i...
20VC: How To Scientifically Measure Product-Market Fit, How To Efficiently and Accurately Segment Users Into Cohorts, Why Investors Analysing CAC's at Pre-Seed Is Not Useful & How To Determine Between Customer Feedback to Accept vs Reject with Daniel Eric
June 05, 2020 11:16 - 26 minutes - 21.4 MBDaniel Erickson is the Founder & CEO @ Viable Fit, the startup that allows you to find product-market fit faster than ever by collecting structured user feedback to measure PMF on an ongoing basis. Daniel has raised funding from the likes of David Sacks @ Craft Ventures, Todd Goldberg and Superhuman Founder, Rahul Vohra and then also Brianne Kimmel @ Worklife Ventures. Prior to founding Viable Fit, Daniel was VP Engineering @ Eaze and before that spent time as CTO @ Getable and then also ha...
20VC: It’s Time To Talk About Drinking; How To Stop, The Impact It Has, How Life Changes Post-Alcohol and The Biggest Misconceptions on Drinking with Ryan Petersen, Founder @ Flexport, Justin Kan, Founder @ Twitch, Matteo Franceschetti, Founder @ Eight
June 01, 2020 06:23 - 34 minutes - 27.9 MBRyan Petersen is the Founder & CEO @ Flexport, the operating system for global trade with over $1.3Bn in funding from the likes of Softbank, Founders Fund, DST, GV and First Round to name a few. Justin Kan is the Founder @ Atrium and Twitch (acq by Amazon for $1Bn). Justin is also a prolific angel with a portfolio including the likes of Scale AI, Digits, Cruise and Triplebyte to name a few. Matteo Franceschetti is the Founder & CEO @ Eight Sleep, the #1 Smart Mattress, designed to help ...
20VC: TravelPerk’s Avi Meir on Why 2021 Will Be A Record Year For Business Travel, The 3 Priorities For All Founders During COVID, What VCs Can Do To Really Support Their Founders In A Recession
May 29, 2020 10:12 - 29 minutes - 23.8 MBAvi Meir is the Founder & CEO @ TravelPerk, the travel management platform that combines the best of leisure and corporate travel into one smooth experience. To date, Avi has raised over $134m with TravelPerk from the likes of DST, Spark Capital, Felix Capital and Heartcore to name a few. Prior to founding TravelPerk, Avi co-founded HotelNinjas, a hotel management product that was acquired by Booking.com. Before that Avi was VP Product at budgetplaces where he managed a team of 50 across pr...
20VC: Elad Gil on Startup Offense and Defence in a Recession, How The Venture Landscape Has Shifted & All Things Valuations, Secondaries and Layoffs
May 26, 2020 06:29 - 42 minutes - 33.7 MBElad Gil is one of Silicon Valley's most successful and prominent angels of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Stripe, Square, Airbnb, Pinterest, Instacart, Flexport and Brex to name a few. Prior to solely company investing, Elad was an operator as Founder and CEO @ Color Genomics for their first 3 years. Before Color, Elad was a VP of Corporate Strategy @ Twitter following their acquisition of the company he founded, Mixer Labs. Before founding Mixer, Elad spent 3 year...
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
May 22, 2020 09:53 - 32 minutes - 25.8 MBAriel Cohen is the Founder & CEO @ TripActions, 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. ...
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
May 18, 2020 06:51 - 38 minutes - 30.8 MBHamilton Helmer is the Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer @ Strategy Capital 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, 7 Powers. If that was not enough, Hamilton is also an Instructor in the Economics Department @ Stanfor...
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
May 15, 2020 10:32 - 37 minutes - 30.2 MBSarah Kunst is the Founder and Managing Director @ Cleo Capital with a portfolio including the likes of StyleSeat, Glow Bar and PlateJoy to name a few. Prior to venture, Sarah served as a senior advisor at Bumble where she focused on their corporate VC arm, Bumble Fund, and on the board of the Michigan State University Foundation endowment. If that was not enough, Sarah is also a contributing editor @ Vanity Fair. Due to her success, Sarah has been named a Future Innovator by Vanity Fair an...
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
May 11, 2020 06:51 - 42 minutes - 33.9 MBMike Maples is a Founder & Partner @ Floodgate, 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 M...
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
May 08, 2020 11:28 - 28 minutes - 23.2 MBConor White-Sullivan is the Founder & CEO @ Roam Research, 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 C...
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
May 04, 2020 06:44 - 30 minutes - 24.2 MBMark Cuban is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and owner of the Dallas Mavericks. 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...
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
May 01, 2020 10:01 - 36 minutes - 29.6 MBWayne Chang and Jeff Seibert are the co-founders @ Digits, 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,...
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
April 27, 2020 09:07 - 30 minutes - 24.5 MBHowie Liu is the Founder & CEO @ Airtable, 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 socia...
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
April 24, 2020 10:02 - 42 minutes - 33.8 MBRahul Vohra is the Founder & CEO @ Superhuman, 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 w...
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
April 20, 2020 10:21 - 47 minutes - 38 MBMark Suster is the Managing Partner @ Upfront Ventures, 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, Both Sides of The Table. In Today’s ...
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
April 17, 2020 10:32 - 38 minutes - 30.6 MBSarah Cannon is a Partner @ Index Ventures, 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. Akshay Kothari is the COO @ Noti...
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
April 14, 2020 06:46 - 49 minutes - 39.6 MBDavid “DHH” Heinemeier Hansson (@dhh) is the creator of Ruby on Rails, founder and CTO at Basecamp (formerly 37Signals), and the best-selling co-author of Rework and Remote: Office Not Required. 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.) H...
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
April 10, 2020 10:44 - 31 minutes - 25.6 MBBlake Scholl is the Founder & CEO @ Boom Supersonic, 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 Manag...
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
April 08, 2020 06:32 - 31 minutes - 25.4 MBFred Destin is a Founding Partner @ Stride.VC, 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 TheCurren...
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
April 06, 2020 10:11 - 39 minutes - 31.5 MBRavi Viswanathan is the Founder and Managing Partner @ NewView Capital, 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 ...
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
April 03, 2020 11:28 - 38 minutes - 30.5 MBJean-Charles Samulian is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Alan, 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 ...
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
March 30, 2020 10:00 - 25 minutes - 20.7 MBHoward Marks is the Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, 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 a...
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
March 27, 2020 10:44 - 30 minutes - 24.7 MBAlyssa Ravasio is the Founder & CEO @ Hipcamp, 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 Inte...
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
March 23, 2020 11:26 - 32 minutes - 26.4 MBManu Kumar is the Founder @ K9 Ventures, 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 @ HiH...
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
March 20, 2020 11:07 - 28 minutes - 22.6 MBMisha Esipov is the Founder & CEO @ Nova Credit, 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 Apol...
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
March 16, 2020 10:34 - 31 minutes - 25.3 MBToni Schneider is a Partner @ True Ventures, 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 a...
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
March 13, 2020 10:05 - 34 minutes - 27.5 MBAdena Hefets is Co-Founder @ Divvy Homes, 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 Squa...
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
March 09, 2020 07:53 - 37 minutes - 30.3 MBMatt Mochary 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 Spectrum Equity Investors. He then co-founded ...
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
March 06, 2020 10:26 - 34 minutes - 27.4 MBIman Abuzeid is the Founder & CEO @ Incredible Health, 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 K...
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
March 02, 2020 09:17 - 32 minutes - 26.2 MBMark Goldberg is a Partner @ Index Ventures, 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...
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
February 28, 2020 09:26 - 33 minutes - 27 MBTomer London is the Co-Founder @ Gusto, 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 t...
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
February 24, 2020 07:41 - 36 minutes - 29.1 MBVinod Khosla is the Founder @ Khosla Ventures, 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 Genera...
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
February 21, 2020 09:31 - 35 minutes - 28.2 MBEmmett Shear is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Twitch, 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 Tw...