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: The 3 Things LPs Want To See From VCs & Why The Table Stakes For VCs Is Higher Than Ever with Judith Elsea, Co-Founder @ Weathergage Capital
September 26, 2016 07:51 - 31 minutes - 25.4 MBJudith Elsea is a Co-Founder @ Weathergage Capital, one of the world's leading fund of funds with over $950m AUM. Prior to Wealthergage, Judith was Chief Investment Officer of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation from 1993 to 2001. As CIO, she directed a $2 billion globally diversified investment portfolio, committing over $600 million to US early stage venture funds and other private equity partnerships. She was also instrumental in the creation and implementation of the Kauffman Fellows Pr...
20VC: Intercom's Eoghan McCabe on What Makes A Truly Great CEO & What Founders Should Look For In Their Investors
September 23, 2016 10:02 - 24 minutes - 19.3 MBEoghan McCabe is the CEO and co-founder of Intercom. The customer communications platform that has taken the SaaS world by storm in the last few years with 116m in VC funding from truly some of the world’s best including Bessemer, Social Capital and Index Ventures. Prior to Intercom, he founded Contrast, an award-winning software design consultancy, and co-founded Exceptional, a developer tool startup acquired in 2011 and now a part of Rackspace. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1....
20VC: Why Valuation Is A Stupid Concept, VC Is Ripe For Disruption & Not All LPs Are Made Equal with Michael Skok, Founding Partner @ Underscore VC
September 21, 2016 08:29 - 33 minutes - 26.7 MBMichael Skok is a Founding Partner @ Underscore VC. Michael started his first software business as a teenager, spent 21 years as an entrepreneur where he founded and recruited teams that attracted over $100m in private equity for investments in multiple software companies. Over the last 13 years as a venture investor. Along the way, he also mentored and taught for 4 years at Harvard as an EIR at Harvard Business School, and spent a year interviewing entrepreneurs on a “listening tour” before...
20VC: Index's Ilya Fushman on The Key Lessons From Scaling Dropbox To 400m Users, Is Excessive Amounts Of Capital Driving Valuations Too High In The Valley & Why Venture Is Like Being On A Swim Team Not A Soccer Team
September 19, 2016 07:21 - 26 minutes - 21.2 MBIlya Fushman is a Partner at Index Ventures where he has made investments in the likes of Slack, Intercom, Dropbox and Optimizely. Prior to joining Index, Ilya was the head of product at Dropbox. As one of Dropbox’s first 75 employees, he helped build and run the company’s business and corporate development functions, before taking on a product leadership role and building out Dropbox, Dropbox for Business and the developer platform. Before Dropbox, he was a principal at Khosla Ventures and ...
20VC: Eero's Nick Weaver on Why You Have To Grow One Stage Ahead of Where Your Business Is At and Why If You Want A Great Customer Experience, You Have To Own All The Parts
September 16, 2016 09:52 - 22 minutes - 18.1 MBNick Weaver is the Founder & CEO @ Eero. The company that makes your wifi hyper fast, super simple and brilliantly efficient. Prior to founding Eero, Nick was himself a VC at Menlo Ventures where he worked with companies like Uber, Betterment, Periscope and Dropcam. Before becoming a VC, Nick co-founded StartX, the community for the best Stanford entrepreneurs providing them with the required resources to build the next generation of leading companies. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn...
20VC: Do VC's Really Hustle Enough? The Takeaways From Watching Twitter Scale From 30 to 2,500 & Why Chris Sacca Is Like Yoda with Ryan Sarver, Partner @ Redpoint
September 14, 2016 11:18 - 25 minutes - 20.8 MBRyan Sarver is a Partner @ Redpoint where he focuses on early stage consumer startups. He sits on the board at Luxe, where he led the seed and A rounds, and was an early investor in Memoir. Prior to joining Redpoint, Ryan was a director at Twitter, where he oversaw the Twitter Platform and its developer ecosystem. Before Twitter, Ryan was director of consumer products at Skyhook Wireless, which pioneered the Wi-Fi and cellular tower triangulation technology incorporated in the Apple iPhone, ...
20VC: Redpoint's Tom Tunguz on Winning with Data: How To Gain A Competitive Advantage & Dominate Markets with Data and 5 Steps To Create A Data Driven Company
September 12, 2016 08:05 - 26 minutes - 21.5 MBTom Tunguz is a Partner @ Redpoint Ventures, where he has invested in the likes of Axial, Dremio, Expensify, Electric Imp, Looker, and ThredUP. Tomasz is also the co-author of Winning with Data: Transform Your Culture, Empower Your People, and Shape the Future, which explores the cultural changes big data brings to business, and shows you how to adapt your organization to leverage data to maximum effect. Before joining Redpoint, Tomasz was the product manager for Google’s AdSense social-medi...
20VC: Giphy's Adam Leibsohn on From Being Homeless To Founding a Multi Hundred Million Dollar Startup & The Challenges of Creating One of The World's Largest Search Engine
September 09, 2016 12:01 - 27 minutes - 22.2 MBAdam Leibsohn is the Founder and COO @ Giphy, the company that brings you joy and laughter through gifs. Earlier this year, Giphy raised a phenomenal $55m Series C financing from the likes of General Catalyst, Lerer Hippeau, Lightspeed and Betaworks. As for Adam he is one of the coolest and most genuine founders I have ever interviewed and is so committed to the startup cause that at one point he went without a home to pay for the startup dream! In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.)...
20VC: What Is Wrong With The VC Industry, Why VC Is A Customer Service Game and Why Car Ownership Will Be A Thing Of The Past with Brett DeMarrais, Partner @ Ludlow Ventures
September 07, 2016 07:34 - 28 minutes - 22.9 MBBrett DeMarrais is a Partner @ Ludlow Ventures, who have investments in the likes of ProductHunt, Sprig, AngelList and uBeam. Prior to joining Ludlow, Brett founded Wedit, a crowd sourced wedding video platform that reduced the cost of wedding videos and made them social. Within the first year of launching the company Wedit had won the top industry awards for customer satisfaction (Brides Choice 2012 and Best of The Knot 2012). Previously, Brett worked at Out of the Blue Entertainment. ...
20VC: Lerer Hippeau's Ben Lerer on 'Investing With Imagination', Strategies To Avoid Fomo & Develop Pattern Recognition As An Investor and Why We Have Seen The Rise of Direct To Consumer Business & Will This Continue With Further M&A
September 05, 2016 08:47 - 31 minutes - 24.9 MBBen Lerer is a Managing Partner at Lerer Hippeau Ventures and co-founder & CEO of Thrillist Media Group. Ben was among Ernst & Young’s 2013 Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winners, Forbes list of “Most Powerful CEOs Under 40”, ” Entrepreneur Magazine’s “Top 5 Entrepreneurs of the Year,” and Silicon Alley Insider’s “100 Coolest People in Tech”. Ben is also an active mentor for NYC Venture Fellows, TechStars and E[nstitute]. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Ben came to found Thril...
20VC: How To Win The Strategic Process Of Fundraising and Optimising Co-Founder Relationships and Break Ups with Kathryn Minshew, Founder & CEO @ The Muse
September 02, 2016 10:51 - 30 minutes - 24.4 MBKathryn Minshew is the Founder & CEO @ The Muse, named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Media and Inc.’s 15 Women to Watch in Tech. Before founding The Muse, Kathryn worked on vaccines in Rwanda and Malawi with the Clinton Health Access Initiative and was previously at McKinsey. Kathryn has spoken at MIT and Harvard, appeared on The TODAY Show and CNN, and contributes on career and entrepreneurship to the Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1....
20VC: Why Great Founders Are Both Visionary & Stubborn, The Investment Mindset Shift From Angel To VC & How To React When The 'S*** Hits The Fan?' with Jesse Middleton, General Partner @ Flybridge Capital Partners
August 31, 2016 08:16 - 30 minutes - 24.1 MBJesse Middleton is a General Partner @ Flybridge Capital Partners. Prior to joining Flybridge, Jesse was an early executive at WeWork, one of the fastest growing and most valuable startups in history. He co-founded WeWork Labs in 2011, and ran WeWork X, M&A, startup investments, business and digital product development as well as inside sales during his five-year tenure at the company. Prior to WeWork, Jesse was the co-founder and CEO of Backstory, a venture backed startup. Jesse also has ex...
20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
August 29, 2016 08:56 - 31 minutes - 24.9 MBPeter Pham is a Co-Founder at Science, the startup studio that helps incubate companies co-building them alongside CEO's, with recent companies like Dollar Shave Club (acquired by Unilever for $1B) and leading marketplace, DogVacay. More recently Science created created one of the top 100 iOS Apps called Wishbone. Peter has also helped his portfolio raise over $350M in that time. Previously as an operator, he led Photobucket to its $300M acquisition by Fox Interactive Media as well as CEO of...
20VC: Maximising Engagement and Retention on Mobile & Why There Should Always Be Availability To A Free Product with Sean Brecker, CEO @ Headspace
August 26, 2016 11:46 - 27 minutes - 22.4 MBSean Brecker is the CEO @ Headspace where he is the driving force behind all financial and commercial matters including overseeing the company's growth of it's product line which now has over 8m downloads. Sean was also instrumental in attaining the first institutional round of financing which included investment from the likes of LinkedIn's Jeff Weiner, Jim Breyer, Jessica Alba and Jared Leto, just to name a few. Prior to Headspace, Sean spent 15 years in banking with the likes of JP Morga...
20VC: Why Raising A Fund Is Like Raising A $25m Seed Round with No Product & Why Not All LP Money Is Equal with Chad Byers, General Partner @ Susa Ventures
August 24, 2016 07:57 - 24 minutes - 20 MBChad Byers is a General Partner @ Susa Ventures and very exciting news, Susa last week announced the raise of Susa II, a new $50m fund, testament to the quality of fund 1 which included the likes of former guests Lyst, RobinHood, LendUp and many more incredible companies. As for Chad, he focuses on investments in enterprise software, fintech, and healthcare. Prior to Susa, Chad spent time in various marketing and product management roles. As well as being a prolific angel investor in over 3...
20VC: Upfront Ventures' Greg Bettinelli on Testing For Founder 'Grit' & What It Takes To Build A Successful Consumer Brand Today
August 22, 2016 07:28 - 26 minutes - 21.1 MBGreg Bettinelli is a Partner at Upfront Ventures where he specialises in businesses at the juncture of retail and technology. Prior to Upfront, Greg was the CMO for HauteLook, a leading online flash-sale retailer that was acquired by Nordstrom for $270mm. Before HauteLook, Greg was Executive Vice President of Business Development and Strategy at Live Nation, responsible for strategic direction and key business partnerships for Live Nation’s ticketing and digital businesses. Before Live Natio...
20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
August 19, 2016 09:06 - 25 minutes - 20.3 MBPaul Berberian is the CEO of Orbotix, the company that created Sphero, the robotic ball controlled from your smartphone. They have investment from our friends in Boulder, Brad Feld and David Cohen. Prior to Sphero, Paul was the co-founder of Raindance Communications (NASDAQ: RNDC). Paul also founded Market Force Information, an emerging information company with a vision to provide retailers. As well as, LINK-VTC, a video teleconferencing company, which was sold in 1995 to Frontier Communicat...
20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
August 17, 2016 08:33 - 27 minutes - 22.2 MBBen Einstein is Founder and General Partner @ Bolt, Bolt is a fund designed to address the unique needs of early-stage startups at the intersection of hardware and software, investing up to $500K in pre-seed, pre-product companies. They have created and backed some world class businesses that have received later funding from Khosla, Kleiner Perkins, NEA, and Softtech just to name a few. In Today’s Episode with Ben You Will Learn: How Ben made his way into VC from such a product centric ba...
20VC: 500 Startups' Dave McClure on Whether Unicorns Are Necessary For Venture Returns & Why Ownership Is Not The Math To Think About When Investing
August 15, 2016 08:57 - 27 minutes - 21.9 MBDave McClure is the founding partner of 500 Startups, who have made over 1500 investments in the likes of Twilio, SendGrid, Intercom and Makerbot just to name a few. Prior to 500 Dave was on the investment team at Founders Fund, he also led the Facebook Fund Incubator and was Head of Marketing @ Paypal pre IPO. In Today’s Episode with Dave You Will Learn: How Dave made his way into VC and came to found 500 Startups? Do you need unicorn exits to have significant venture returns? What is ...
20VC: Wealthfront's Adam Nash on What Makes Great CEO's & Why Humans Suck At Investing
August 12, 2016 07:57 - 27 minutes - 22.2 MBAdam Nash is the President and CEO of Wealthfront, where he is on a mission to put the client first and change the bad practices of the financial services industry. Adam joined Wealthfront from Greylock Partners, where he was an Executive-in-Residence. Prior to Greylock, he was VP of Product Management at LinkedIn, where he built the teams responsible for core product, user experience, platform and mobile. Adam also held a number of roles at Ebay, Atlas Venture Preview Systems and Apple. In...
20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
August 10, 2016 08:03 - 26 minutes - 20.9 MBDavid Pakman is a Partner at Venrock and the man behind Venrock’s leading of the Series A and B rounds for Dollar Shave Club. Prior to Venrock David spent 12 years as an internet entrepreneur. Including being CEO of eMusic, the world’s leading digital retailer of independent music, second only to iTunes. Prior to eMusic, David co-founded Myplay in 1999, which he later sold, in 2001, to Bertelsmann’s ecommerce Group. If that wasn’t enough David is also the co-creator of Apple Computer’s Musi...
20VC: Data Collective's Matt Ocko on Why "All Fund Size Models Are Wrong" and The Lifecycle of Current Venture Funds Is Inefficient?
August 08, 2016 07:31 - 28 minutes - 22.6 MBMatt Ocko is the Co-Managing Partner and Co-Founder @ Data Collective and has over 3 decades of experience as a tech entrepreneur and VC and has made investments in the likes of Facebook, Zynga, Uber and AngelList just to name a few. If that was not enough he is also an inventor on over 40 granted or in process patents. A truly deep thinker and one of my fave ever shows to record. In Today’s Episode with Matt You Will Learn: How Matt made his way into VC and came to co-found Data Collecti...
20VC: Turning Down Apple & Getting Funded By Chamath @ Social Capital with Dhananja Jayalath, Co-Founder & CEO @ Athos
August 05, 2016 11:17 - 20 minutes - 16.4 MBDhananja Jayalath is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Athos, creating the new standard for fitness by changing the way we train the human body. Athos have funding from our friends at Social Capital, Felix Capital and DCM Ventures just to name a few of their investors. Prior to Athos, DJ turned down a job with Apple straight from University to pursue his vision of creating the next generation of consumer fitness wearables with Athos. In Today’s Episode with DJ You Will Learn: How DJ went from Univer...
20VC: From Seed To Series A: The Due Diligence, The Valuations, The Investment Decision Making Process with Steve Schlafman @ RRE Ventures
August 03, 2016 07:37 - 24 minutes - 19.9 MBSteve Schlafman is an early stage investor @ RRE Ventures, where he specialises on marketplaces, mobile services, and hardware. Steve is responsible for RRE’s investments in theSkimm, Hightower, TinyBop, Breather, and Managed by Q. Prior to joining RRE as a Principal, Steve was a Principal and rockstar seed investor at Lerer Ventures. Before becoming a venture capitalist, Steve worked at Stickybits Inc. and Turntable.fm, and served as Director of Venture Investments at The Kraft Group. Steve...
20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Really Do Any Real Work'?
August 01, 2016 10:56 - 26 minutes - 21.2 MBJustin Kan is a Partner @ world renowned, Y Combinator. The birthplace of the likes of Airbnb, Reddit, Dropbox, Stripe, Zenefits and many more incredible companies. Prior to YC, Justin co-founded SocialCam, acquired by Autodesk for $60m and Twitch.tv, the world's leading video platform and community for gamers, acquired by Amazon for $970m in 2014. In Today’s Episode with Justin You Will Learn: How Justin came to found Twitch.tv and then later made the transition into VC with YC? Havi...
20VC: Why People Should Never Be Surprised If Fired, Subscription E-Commerce Is Hot & People Never Give True and Direct Feedback with Amir Elaguizy, Co-Founder @ Cratejoy
July 29, 2016 08:33 - 26 minutes - 21 MBAmir Elaguizy is the Founder & CEO @ YC backed, Cratejoy, the website builder and backend for subscription e-commerce stores. Cratejoy have funding from the likes of General Catalyst, Andreesen Horowitz, Y Combinator and Charles River Ventures With regards to Amir, he previously founded Market Zero, a poker software company which was acquired by Zynga, where he then spent time as a game CTO. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Amir came to be an entrepreneur, got acquired by Zyn...
20VC: Mythbuster: Is Mobile Dying? Is AR/VR Overhyped? Is The Excitement Around Bots Justified with Sean Flynn, Partner @ Shasta Ventures
July 27, 2016 08:24 - 29 minutes - 23.5 MBSean Flynn is a Managing Partner @ Shasta Ventures where he invests in mobile-enabled consumer Internet and enterprise software companies. Sean has led Shasta's investments in Dollar Shave Club, Whisper and serves on the board of directors for the likes of TimeHop, Zefr, Swipely, Bloc and TigerText. Before joining Shasta, Sean worked at Yahoo, where he focused on growing the company's communication and messaging products such as Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, Groups and Flickr. In Today’s Episode...
20VC: Semil Shah on Why The Most Important Thing An Investor Can Do Is Attract Follow On & The Fundamentals of VC Branding
July 25, 2016 08:12 - 23 minutes - 18.9 MBSemil Shah is the founder of Haystack, an early stage investment firm now investing out of it’s third fund, with previous investments being Instacart, DoorDash, Managed by Q. In the past he has also been a consultant to some of the leading funds in the valley including the likes of Kleiner Perkins, DFJ, General Catalyst and more. If that was not enough, Shah also has an extensive career in media having been a contributor for both TechCrunch and the Harvard Business Review in the past. Due to...
20VC: Unity 3D's David Helgason on Building a $bn Business, Getting Funded By Sequoia and Powering The Pokemon Revolution
July 22, 2016 09:29 - 24 minutes - 19.8 MBDavid Helgason is the Founder and Board Member @ Unity 3D. The company that recently announced a new $181m Series C, valuing the company at $1.5bn. Unity’s platform has revolutionized the game industry by allowing any size studio from Indie to Triple-A to create beautiful and compelling games and experiences and monetize them with their advertising and analytics services. As for David, he served as CEO of Unity from its founding in 2003 right up until 2014 taking the company through numero...
20VC: Why The Whole Industry Is Backward Looking, The Best Funds Are Entrepreneur Led and Venture Is All About Access with Alex Bangash, Founder @ Trusted Insight
July 20, 2016 07:25 - 26 minutes - 21.1 MBAlex Bangash is a Managing Director @ Rumson Group where he helps his clients invest in some of the best performing funds around the world. Alex has done just that having made over 50 investments into funds across the globe. If that was not enough he is also the founder of Trusted Insight, the worlds largest platform for institutional investors and backing from the first investors or founder @ Facebook, LinkedIn, Mint and Match.com. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Alex made his...
20VC: Flybridge's Jeff Bussgang on Why It Is Not All About Unit Economics & Why VCs Are Big Data Decision Makers
July 18, 2016 07:44 - 24 minutes - 19.8 MBJeff Bussgang is a Co-Founder and General partner @ Flybridge Capital, where has made investments in numerous incredible companies including 2 former guests of the show, Jeff Seibert @ Crashlytics (sold to Twitter) and Josh Udashkin @ Raden. Jeff is also a Senior Lecturer @ Harvard Business School where he has co-authored no less than 15 cases. He is also an author having written the renowned, Mastering The VC Game to the acclaim of The Financial Times, TechCrunch, BusinessWeek and more. Jef...
20VC: Why Every Employee Should Re-Apply For Their Job Every Year & The Strategies To Prepare For A Successful Fundraise with Kyle Hill, Founder & CEO @ HomeHero
July 15, 2016 06:16 - 29 minutes - 24 MBKyle Hill is the Co-Founder & CEO @ HomeHero, one of the largest providers of non-medical home care in California. HomeHero has provided over 1 million hours of care to thousands of families and won "Best Employment Website of 2014". Due to this immense success Kyle has been on CNN, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and many more. HomeHero has raised funds from some of the world's best investors including Chamath & Mamoon @ Social Capital, Jason Calacanis @ TWIST and Peter & Michael @ Science Inc....
20VC: USV's Brad Burnham on Co-Founding USV with Fred Wilson, What They Look For In Potential Partners & Whether We Are Entering a Period of Consolidation or Expansion
July 13, 2016 07:07 - 24 minutes - 19.8 MBBrad Burnham is the Co-Founder & Managing Partner @ Union Square Ventures. I feel Brad is far better described by his partner Fred Wilson, than I ever could so this is Fred's words on Brad. "Brad and I founded USV together in 2003. We had both been in the venture business for more than a decade, had made a fair bit of money, but were still hungry to prove ourselves. Brad is the strategist and the most principled investor in our firm. It was Brad's idea to write a treatise on venture capital ...
20VC: USV's Albert Wenger on Automation Replacing Humans, The Universal Basic Income and The Instalment & The Deployment Phase
July 11, 2016 06:35 - 26 minutes - 21.6 MBAlbert Wenger is a partner at Union Square Ventures, one of the world's leading VC firms with investments in Twitter, Twilio, Zynga, Soundcloud, Tumblr, Lending Club and many more. Before joining USV, Albert was the president of del.icio.us through the company’s sale to Yahoo and an angel investor (Etsy, Tumblr). He previously founded or co-founded several companies, including a management consulting firm and an early hosted data analytics company. Albert also writes a fantastic blog at Co...
20VC: When To Transition From Growth to Profitability & The KPI's of The On Demand Economy with Frank Mycroft @ Booster Fuels
July 08, 2016 10:28 - 29 minutes - 23.5 MBFrank Mycroft is the Founder & CEO @ Booster Fuels, the on-demand fuel delivery service backed by the likes of our friends at Maveron and Version One. As for Frank himself, he is literally a former rocket scientist with Nasa and has more degrees that I have done podcast episodes, making him one of the smartest guests we have ever had on the show. Directly prior to Booster Fuels, Frank was the VP of Strategy @ Planetary Resources, the Redmond based, asteroid mining company. In Today’s Epi...
20VC: What It Takes To Raise A VC Fund & Investing in First Time Fund Managers with Michael Kim @ Cendana Capital
July 06, 2016 06:49 - 27 minutes - 22.3 MBMichael Kim is the founder and Managing Partner of Cendana Capital, a fund of funds which invests in seed VC funds. Michael has many of our previous guests in his portfolio including the likes of SoftTech, Freestyle, Founder Collective, Collaborative Fund and many more, clearly great minds think alike! Prior to Cendana, Michael was one of the original partners of Rustic Canyon Partners a VC firm with $1bn AUM. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Michael made his way into VC and th...
20VC: The 4 Required Powers For A Startup To Be A $500m Business with "The Most Powerful Woman in Startups", Ann Miura Ko, Co-Founder @ Floodgate
July 04, 2016 09:22 - 32 minutes - 26.4 MBAnn Miura-Ko has been called "the most powerful woman in startups" by Forbes and is the Co-Founder of Floodgate, one of the valley's leading early stage funds with investments in the likes of Twitter, Twitch and TaskRabbit. Some of Ann's investments at Floodgate include Lyft, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Refinery29, Chloe and Isabel, Maker Media, Wanelo, TaskRabbit, and Modcloth. Ann is also a lecturer in the School of Engineering at Stanford University, where she got her PhD focused on mathematical mod...
20VC: Why Great VCs Know The Opportunity In Hardware, Physical Stores Will Not Disappear and The Importance of Consumer Brand with Josh Udashkin @ Raden
July 01, 2016 08:51 - 28 minutes - 22.8 MBJosh Udashkin is the Founder and CEO @ Raden, essentially making the unsexy sexy with a design-forward app-connected piece of luggage that provides a superior end-to-end travel experience. Prior to founding Raden, Udashkin practiced law and did international development for Canadian shoe company, Aldo. To date, Raden have raised funds from our friends @ First Round Capital, Lerer Hippeau, Pritzker Group and many more incredible investors. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How J...
20VC: Felicis' Wesley Chan on The Rise of IoT, Getting Recruited by Larry Page & Creating Google's Biggest Success Disaster
June 29, 2016 09:25 - 31 minutes - 25.3 MBWesley Chan is a Manging Director @ Felicis Ventures where he has led investments in the likes of Canva, Flexport and Luma, just to name a few. Prior to Felicis, Wesley was a General Partner @ Google Ventures. Before Google Ventures he was an early employee at Google, where he founded and launched Google Analytics and Google Voice, resulting in his being awarded Google’s Founders Award–the company’s most prestigious recognition–for leading the development of Google’s early client efforts, wh...
20VC: Techstars Founder, David Cohen on Scaling Techstars Ventures and Investing In Uber, Twilio and Sendgrid
June 27, 2016 08:35 - 26 minutes - 21.3 MBDavid Cohen is the founder and managing partner at Techstars, so a few amazing stats on techstars first, they have a total of 762 companies of which 90% are active or have been acquired, having raised more than 2bn in funding, as for David he is a serial entrepreneur having founded Pinpoint Technologies which was acquired by ZOLL Medical Corporation in 1999. and David was also the founder and CEO of earFeeder.com, a music service which was sold to SonicSwap.com in 2006. In Today's Episode ...
20VC: X.ai's Dennis Mortensen on Why There Is No Incumbency Advantage in Artificial Intelligence
June 24, 2016 11:55 - 30 minutes - 24.9 MBDennis Mortensen is the CEO and Founder of X.ai, the artificial intelligence driven personal assistant that lets people schedule meetings using plain English and nothing more than a CC to [email protected]. Their female persona Amy is so lifelike that users have asked her on a date at a rate of one request per month! X.ai is now one of the best funded AI startups having raised over $30m from our friends at FirstMark and a big thanks to Matt Turck for making the intro and from DCM, who also helped u...
20VC: Why Bots Are The New Black, Conversational Interface Is The Next of For Consumerisation and The Determinants Of A Successful Marketplace with Annie Kadavy, General Partner @ CRV
June 22, 2016 09:37 - 31 minutes - 25.6 MBAnnie Kadavy is a General Partner @ Charles River Ventures. The prestigious VC fund that is now on it's 16th fund and has backed the likes of Twitter, Yammer and Mailbox just to name a few. At CRV, Annie focuses on all things consumer and has either led or sourced their investments in ClassPass, Cratejoy, Patreon, Laurel & Wolf and DoorDash. Prior to CRV, Annie spent time with SV Angel and Warby Parker. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Annie made her way into the world of VC? ...
20VC: Andy Rachleff, Founder @ Benchmark & Wealthfront on What Makes The Best CEO & Board Member & Why Ivy League Endowments Are The Best Managed Capital In The World
June 20, 2016 08:19 - 26 minutes - 20.9 MBFrom 1995 until 2004 Andy Rachleff was a co-founder and General Partner of Benchmark Capital, who have backed the likes of Twitter, Snapchat, Dropbox, Uber and Instagram. Upon his retirement from Benchmark, Andy joined the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business to teach a variety of courses on entrepreneurship. In 2008 he co-founded Wealthfront Inc, the online financial advisor and investment management solution, where he now serves as Executive Chairman. In just 3 years, Wealt...
20VC: Raising $150m, Meeting Yuri Milner & Revolutionising Mobile Finance with Sasha Orloff @ LendUp
June 17, 2016 11:30 - 24 minutes - 19.9 MBSasha Orloff is the CEO and Co-founder of LendUp, a fintech startup offering online and mobile personal loans and credit cards in the United States. Prior to launching LendUp Sasha was on the other side of the table as a VC with Citi Group’s corporate venture capital arm. On the topic of VC funding, LendUp raised an incredible $150m in Jan 2016 from likes of SV Angel, Yuri Milner our friends at Susa and Google Ventures just to name a few. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Sa...
20VC: Will LPs Replace GPs with Chris Douvos, Managing Director @ VIA
June 15, 2016 05:56 - 29 minutes - 23.9 MBChris Douvos is Managing Director @ Venture Investment Associates (VIA) where he is a member of the Firm’s Investment Committee and has responsibility for the management of relationships with the funds’ managers and its limited partners, as well as the identification and development of new relationships for the Firm. Prior to joining VIA, he spent time at The Investment Fund For Foundations (TIFF). where he was responsible for over $1 billion. Prior to that, Chris worked on Princeton Unive...
20VC: What LP's Want In VCs with Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director @ Sapphire Ventures
June 13, 2016 07:20 - 28 minutes - 22.8 MBBeezer Clarkson is Managing Director @ Sapphire Ventures where she leads Sapphire’s investments in venture funds domestically and internationally. Prior to joining Sapphire, Beezer managed day-to-day operations @ DFJ’s Global Network, which had $7 billion under management across 16 venture funds worldwide. She has also spent time at Omidyar Network created by Ebay founder, Pierre Omdiyar, Hewlett Packard and Morgan Stanley. Beezer also runs the incredible openlp.com which is really opening...
20VC: Start Niche, Move Broader & Become Profitable Quickly with Melanie Perkins, Founder & CEO @ Canva
June 10, 2016 07:45 - 26 minutes - 20.9 MBMelanie Perkins, Founder & CEO at Canva the disruptive online platform allowing anyone to create professional quality designs. They have over 10m users from 179 countries and have funding from our friends at Shasta, Felicis and upcoming guests Blackbird Ventures and Airtree in Australia. Prior to Canva, Melanie was the Fusion Yearbooks which she grew to be the largest Yearbook publisher in Australia. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Melanie come to found Canva, what was th...
20VC: Spark's Nabeel Hyatt on Investing in Oculus and Cruise & What It Takes To Invest Ahead Of The Curve
June 08, 2016 08:16 - 26 minutes - 21.5 MBNabeel Hyatt is a venture partner at Spark Capital where he invests in entrepreneurs using that rare combination of design and technology to transform markets. He is currently on the board of Spark Capital’s investments in Cruise (acquired by General Motors), Fig, Harmonix, Postmates, Proletariat, and Thalmic Labs. Nabeel was previously cofounder and CEO of Conduit Labs, which was sold to Zynga in 2010, where he then became General Manager up through the IPO. Prior to that he was variously c...
20VC: Spark's Bijan Sabet on Investing in Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare & Why First Time Founders Are So Exciting
June 06, 2016 08:08 - 24 minutes - 19.7 MBBijan Sabet is General Partner @ Spark Capital where he primarily invests in digital canvases and online communities for people at work and at play. Bijan led early investments for Spark in the likes of Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, OMGPOP and Runkeeper just to name a few. Before becoming an investor, Bijan led product management and business development at GameLogic (acquired by Scientific Games), Moxi Digital (acquired by Digeo) and WebTV Networks (acquired by Microsoft Corporation). ...
20VC: inDinero's Jessica Mah on Why Angel Money Is Better Than Institutional Money and Boards Should Work For Founders
June 03, 2016 09:06 - 24 minutes - 19.6 MBJessica Mah is Founder and CEO of inDinero, which she started back in 2010 to help entrepreneurs with all their accounting and tax needs after going through the same challenges with her own businesses. Jessica has grown inDinero from zero to multi-million dollar revenues with over 100 full-time employees and has been featured in the Forbes and Inc 30 Under 30 Lists. The company has raised over $10M to date and is growing rapidly. Her goal is grow inDinero into being the leading accounting p...