Michael 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 then made the transition into the world of LP?
2.) Why have we seen the proliferation of seed funding? Is this a good thing for the economy? Is dumb money good or bad for the early stage environment?
3.) Chris Douvos states we will begin to see the hybridisation of LPs and GPs, does Michael agree? What are the inherent problems with this happening?
4.) What is Michael's blackbox for assessing emerging fund managers? What does he look for? How can they present their edge?
4.) How does Michael respond to Dave McClure's portfolio construction theory of allocating capital to many startups with the realisation that 0.5% become unicorns?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Michael’s Fave Book: Catcher & The Rye
Michael's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Techcrunch, The Twenty Minute VC
As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Michael on Twitter here!
Ann 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 modeling of computer security.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Ann made her way into the wonderful world of VC?
2.) Ann's 2nd day in VC was 9/11, how does Ann view investing in times of crisis and downturn? How does this effect the macro-economy and her investing cadence?
Floodgate state that all venture bankable high growth companies share 4 very common characteristics with regards to power. Here we break them down:
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Ann’s Fave Book: The Poisonwood Bible
Ann's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Benedict Evans
Ann’s Most Recent Investment: The Greatist
1.) How Josh came to found Raden and what the a-ha moment was for him?
2.) Why does Josh believe in the benefits of the dual approach to selling both being online and with physical retail stores?
3.) Why have we seen such innovation in the space in the last 30 years? The incumbents have said, they are bad at selling online, what are they doing wrong? What is Josh doing to optimise the process?
4.) Why is Josh bullish on omni-channel retail? What are the benefits?
5.) How are hardware products innovating on the hardware as a service model and integrating physical retail products with superior mobile experiences?
6.) What trends have we seen in investing in hardware products in the last 5 years or so? Why is hardware becoming more attractive an investment field?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Josh’s Fave Book: Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE
Josh’s Fave Blog: Business of Fashion
Wesley 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, which led to the development of Google Chrome. Fun fact about Wesley he is a massive hacker and IOT enthusiast with over 100 connected devices in his home.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Wesley made the transition from Foundering Google Voice and analytics to being a VC?
2.) What were Wesley's biggest takeaways from leading investment at Google Ventures? When looking at his investment in Nest, what makes Nest such a truly phenomenal connected device?
3.) Wesley previously said, ‘I look for patterns similar to Google Analytics in how if you build something great.' What are those patterns and what does that thought process lead to in terms of thought outcome? What is a good example of this?
4.) Where does Wesley think we are on the programmable interface element of consumer hardware? What would he like to see change or improve in the space?
5.) How has Wesley seen the investor sentiment to hardware change over the last decade? What have been the rivers in the rising positivity of investing in hardware?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Wesley's Fave Book: The Big Short
Wesley's Most Recent Investment: Luma
If you are looking to make your move into the world of VC or improve your investing skills, Venture Capital Unlocked: Secrets of Silicon Valley Investing is a must! It is a 2 week crash course at Stanford run by Stanford Professional Development Centre and 500 Startups. You will learn the mechanics of all things Silicon Valley investing, check it out here.
The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa. Leesa is like the TOMS Shoes or Warby Parker of the mattress industry. Here are 3 reasons why they are the best place to get your new mattress: Leesa has done away with the awkward mattress showroom experience by allowing a fully online experience, shipping to your doorstep for free. Their 10 inch mattresses come in all sizes and is crafted with 3 unique layers o foam including2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of really cool latex like foam design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are made 100% in the US or UK and they give you a 100 night trial, to make sure the mattress is perfect for you. Go to leesa.com/VC and enter promo code VC75 to get $75 off!
David 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 You Will Learn:
1.) How David made the transition from Founder to VC with Techstars and Fund I?
2.) Fund I is one of the most successful funds in history; what was the structure with Fund I? Why did David choose a $5m fund size? How did he decide initial to follow on ratio?
3.) Why was David so valuation sensitive with Fund I? Why was David so rigid on a consistent cheque size on Fund I?
4.) Why did David decide to expand from being a solo GP fund? What are the challenges and complexities of fund scaling and did David approach this?
5.) Question from Ari Newman: What does David think about uncapped notes? Why does David like big boring companies? Brett Jackson: How did you meet Ryan Graves @ Uber and how did the Uber deal come about? Jason Seats: Where does David still see inefficiencies in the current venture model?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
David's Fave Book: The Soul Of Money
David's Fave Blog: Mattermark Daily
If you are looking to make your move into the world of VC or improve your investing skills, Venture Capital Unlocked: Secrets of Silicon Valley Investing is a must! It is a 2 week crash course at Stanford run by Stanford Professional Development Centre and 500 Startups. You will learn the mechanics of all things Silicon Valley investing, check it out here.
The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa. Leesa is like the TOMS Shoes or Warby Parker of the mattress industry. Here are 3 reasons why they are the best place to get your new mattress: Leesa has done away with the awkward mattress showroom experience by allowing a fully online experience, shipping to your doorstep for free. Their 10 inch mattresses come in all sizes and is crafted with 3 unique layers o foam including2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of really cool latex like foam design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are made 100% in the US or UK and they give you a 100 night trial, to make sure the mattress is perfect for you. Go to leesa.com/VC and enter promo code VC75 to get $75 off!
1.) How Dennis came to found X.ai and what the a-ha moment was for him?
2.) What did the training look like for X.ai? How long did it take? How much data did you have to painstakingly annotate? What is more important; data or algorithms?
3.) Many VCs are concerned about large incumbents having proprietary data sets. Does this concern Dennis and what can be done to mitigate this
4.) Question from David Cheg @ DCM: How will AI startups interact with giant corporates also investing heavily in AI research?
5.) How was the fundraising journey for Dennis? How did he approach it strategically? What challenges did he face? How did he go about choosing his investors?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Dennis’ Fave Book: How To Get Rich by Felix Dennis
Dennis’ Fave Blog: Wait But Why
Annie 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?
2.)Why have we seen the explosion of marketplaces in recent years? What are the inherent challenges of two sided marketplaces; typically consumers and micro-entrepreneurs? Does Annie agree with Jeff Jordan in stating that these marketplaces need to nurture and manage conditions of perfect competition?
3.) What are the core components to growing traditional producer consumer marketplaces? How do they broach the chicken and the egg problem of supply and demand?
4.) Why is Annie so excited for the potential of bots? Will the transition to bots and conversational interfaces represent a major point of disruption or more of an evolution in the interface paradigm?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Annie's Fave Book: Mindset: How You Can Fulfill Your Potential by Carol Dweck
Annie's Fave Blog: The Skimm
Annie's Most Recent Investment: Roam
1.) How Andy made his way into the world of VC and what was the origin story behind the founding of Benchmark?
2.) Andy took the opposite route to most having been a VC and then founding Wealthfront. So what does Andy make of doing VC first and then becoming an operator?
3.) Why does Andy believe Ivy League endowments are the best managed pools of capital? What do they do well and what separates the good from the great?
4.) Andy has worked with some of the world's best CEO's and board members, so what makes the best board member and what makes the best CEO?
5.) How has Andy seen the VC industry evolve and develop over the last 20 years? How has Andy seen his own investment decision making process and patter recognition alter over that time?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Andy’s Fave Book: The Innovator's Dilemma
Sasha 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.
1.) How did Sasha come to found LendUp following a stint in VC with Citi Group?
2.) What Sasha learnt from VC about running a successful startup and how he applied them to his founding of LendUp?
3.) Was it difficult leaving the security of a VC job to found a startup? Would you have done the same had you had children at the time?
4.) What trends in FinTech is Sasha most excited for? Why does Sasha think banks are in so much trouble? Is there the potential to co-operate rather than replace banks?
5.) How was the fundraising process for Sasha? What was his preferred round and how did they differ from stag to stage?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Sasha’s Fave Book: Banker To The Poor
Sasha’s Fave Blog: Sam Altman
Chris 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 University’s endowment team. One of Chris’ most notable investments is his pre-first fund investment in First Round Capital. Chris is also the author of the fantastic blog, www.SuperLP.com, definitely check that out if you have not had the chance yet.
1.) How did Chris make his way into the world of limited partners?
2.) How does Chris respond to FOMO as an LP? Does it affect his decision making process? How does he look to avoid it?
3.) What patterns and processes has Chris developed to asses the ability of potential GPs?
4.) Is Chris concerned by the increasing time it is taking for startups to exit? How does this affect his think as an LP and cash on cash relationship to this asset class?
5.) In 2013, Chris aid micro VC was the most exciting space in VC, where is he most excited for now? Where will we see innovation in the VC market?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Chris' Fave Blog: RedEye VC, Tomasz Tunguz
Chris' Fave Book: The Great Gatsby
Chris' Most Recent Investment: Other Lab
Beezer 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 up the world of LPs and if you have not checked that out, it really is a must!
1.) How did Beezer make her way into the world of limited partners?
2.) How do LP's find a new and talented fund manager? Is it a similar referral process as in startups with? How does the sourcing element of the LP world work?
3.) How do GPs raising a fund differ from startups raised their round? What are the similarities and differences in the processes?
4.) What does the investment decision making process look like for Beezer? Are their commonalities in the process of great LP’s processes? What do you at Sapphire focus on when investing??
5.) At Sapphire you have extensively researched the formulas of what makes a great VC, what have been your findings? What are the commonalities amongst the great VCs?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Beezer's Fave Blog: Term Sheet, Strictly VC, The Information
Beezer's Fave Book: The Tale of the One Way Street
Melanie 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.
1.) How did Melanie come to found Canva, what was the a-ha moment for her?
2.) How has Melanie looked to scale the team whilst maintaining the same core startup values and company ethos? What are the strategies at play here?
3.) What does it take to grow in international markets? Where were the benefits of founding Canva in the isolated tech ecosystem of Perth??
4.) What did Melanie look for in her investors? As a newbie to the VC scene how did she approach the fundraising process and what would she like to improve on?
5.) How can products that have both a free and a paid model offer enough in the free version to entice users, whilst retain enough for the paid to justify the price?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Melanie’s Fave Book: Designing The Obvious
1.) How did Nabeel make his way into the world of VC?
2.) What are the biggest lessons Nabeel can apply from his time in the trenches to being a VC at Spark? How has his investment strategy and decision making changed over time?
3.) What were the biggest takeaways for Nabeel as an observer and investor in Oculus?
4.) What is the story behind Spark's investment in Cruise (recently acquired by GM)? How did Nabeel come to meet Kyle and the team? What was the product like? How did it evolve?
5.) What does Cruise’s acquisition mean for the autonomous car industry? What are the inherent challenges for the industry as a whole? How will they be overcome and what timeline are you placing on the industry to come into fruition?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Nabeel’s Fave Blog: AVC
Nabeel’s Most Recent Investment: Fig
1.) How did Bijan make his way into the world of VC?
2.) How did the Twitter and Tumblr deals come about? What made you say yes?
3.) Looking at Bijan's thesis, is it true that Bijan has a preference for first time founders? What are the commonalities of all great first time founders?
4.) Often first time founders nail product market fit but struggle to scale the operations to suit the growth of the product. How does Bijan as a VC lend to this situation?
5.) Does Bijan agree with Fred Wilson's assessment of the consumer downturn? Why does Bijan think that David must beat Goliath in the end?
Bijan’s Most Recent Investment: Lily: Your Throw and Go Camera
Jessica 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 provider for businesses.
1.) How did Jessica come to found Indinero, an SMB accounting startup when she was at University?
2.) Why did Jessica decide to raise funding from angels over VC's? What were the benefits of this?
3.) Why does Jessica believe that institutional capital is never patient capital? What additional value add do angels bring that VCs and HNW's do not bring?
4.) How does Jessica like to involve her investors in the hiring process? How can founders do this and why should they?
5.) Why does Jessica believe it is better to have a board that works for the founder and not the other way round? Does this not lead to conflict?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Jessica’s Fave Book: A Guide To The Good Life
Nikhil Basu Trivedi is an early stage investor with Shasta Ventures, where he focuses on consumer, mobile and SaaS. Prior to joining Shasta, Nikhil was a member of the Insight Venture Partners team in NYC. Before making the move into venture, Nikhil co-founded Artsy in his sophomore year at Princeton University, Artsy now employs over 100 people and has raised over $50m in venture financing. One of Nikhil's main passions is self driving cars and so today's show will be centred around the proliferation of autonomous vehicles and what that means for us as a society?
1.) How did Nikhil come to be a VC in SF having spent his early years in the UK?
2.) Why is Nikhil so excited about self-driving cars? What is the enabler that is allowing this mass rise of the autonomous vehicle?
3.) What happens in a world of little mechanical engineering at all, where repairs can be achieved with software updates? How does this change the complexity of production? How does this change what the supply chain might look like? How does this change the capital structure required?
4.)How does the rise of the autonomous vehicles effect the sharing economy? Is Nikhil bullish on Lyft, Uber, Didi? With on demand, when will we reach a point of equilibrium when the supply of drivers that gets drawn in and the price that attracts consumers will be equivalent?
5.) Who is the leader, is this a winner take all, will the acquisition of GM and Cruise mean a dominance? Who has Nikhil been impressed by?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Nikhil’s Fave Book: Leading by Sir Alex Ferguson and Michael Moritz
Nikhil’s Fave Blog: Mattermark Daily, CB Insights
Nikhil’s Most Recent Investment: Tally
Matt Turck is Managing Director of FirstMark Capital where he invests across a broad range of early-stage enterprise and consumer startups. Prior to FirstMark, he was a Managing Director at Bloomberg Ventures, the investment and incubation arm of Bloomberg LP. Previously, Matt was the co-founder of TripleHop Technologies, a venture-backed enterprise search software startup that was acquired by Oracle. Matt organizes two large monthly events, Data Driven NYC (focuses on Big Data and AI) and Hardwired NYC(focuses on IOT, AR/VR, drones). At Firstmark, Matt has made investments in the likes of Sketchfab, Sense 360 and the much loved X.ai with Amy Ingram as your personal secretary.
1.) How did Matt make his way into the world of VC?
2.) What does big data really mean? With the cool kids in the data world moving on to obsessing over AI, is big data still a ‘thing’ in 2016?
3.) Why is now the time for big data? What has enabled big data to have sudden mass utility across a variety of applications?
4.) How does Matt view the integration of big data and AI? Is AI helping big data deliver it’s promise?
5.) How can we combat the incumbency advantage of large companies owning the majority of datasets? How can startups access similar datasets?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Matt’s Fave Blog: AVC, Chris Dixon, Brad Feld, Wait But Why
Matt’s Most Recent Investment: Hyperscience
1.) How did Jessica come to found The Information following The Wall Street Journal?
2.) Marc Andreesen: 'print journalism is converging in quality and technique with blogs and Wikipedia'. Does Jessica agree with this? Has revisability has led to a lower quality initial publication?
3.) How does Jessica view the competitive landscape for journalism today? Who are competitors and what would Jessica say is complimentary to The Information??
4.) We have seen the decentralization away from the central forms of authority in journalism. What effect has this decentralization had on distribution? Competition? Market size?
5.) What is the monetisation strategy for The Information? Why choose that strategy over the more prevalent others such as advertising?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Jessica’s Fave Book: Ben Bradlee: A Good Life
Jessica’s Fave Blog: Doug Young
Sam Lessin is a Partner at Slow Ventures who have made investments in the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Mattermark, AngelList,Dropbox and many more. On top of this, Sam is also the Founder and Co-CEO at Fin, which is basically like Siri Echo or Google now except it actually works, truly a phenomenal product. Prior to Fin and Slow, Sam was VP of Product Management at Facebook following the acquisition of his company, Drop.io by Facebook in 2010. Sam is also an intern at The Information where he reports directly to the boss Jessica Lessin!
1.) How did Sam come to found Fin and what was his route into VC with Slow?
2.) What are the fundamental shifts that have occurred in the world of tech? How has this affected the wider tech and investing ecosystem?
3.) Will the transition to bots and conversational interfaces represent a major point of disruption or more of an evolution in the interface paradigm?
4.) How can bots establish the same relationship and stickiness with the user as apps? In a world of bot domination where strong data sets is the ultimate weapon, are we not at a fundamental incumbency disadvantage? How can the platforms react to this?
5.) What will the effect of self driving cars be on society? How long before this was be possible? How does the sharing economy and capitalism survive in unison?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Sam’s Fave Book: The Three-Body Problem
Sam’s Fave Blog: The Information
Sam’s Most Recent Investment: Common
Manu Kumar founder and Chief Firestarter at K9 Ventures, a pre-seed and seed stage micro-VC fund based in Palo Alto, according to K9 they invests ‘frighteningly early’ and like to be the first institutional capital invested in a startup. K9 is an investor in Lyft, Twilio, Occipital, eShares, and their companies have been acquired by the likes of Linkedin, Facebook, Dropbox, Paypal and more. 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 eshares!
1.) How did Manu come to found K9 and what was his route into VC? How does Manu define entrepreneurialism and how did this play out in his early life?
2.) “The best buys are found in things most people don’t understand or believe in.” How does this play out in Manu's investment strategy? ?
3.) “The riskiest thing is the belief there’s no risk.” How does risk assessment feature in Manu's investment mentality? How does Manu transition this to your portfolio construction? ?
4.) Josh Koppelman states “What has to be remembered is the defining role of price.” How much of a role does valuation play in Manu's investment decision making process?
5.) “An absence of losses can give you a great start toward a good outcome.” As a seed fund how does Manu approach inevitable losses? How does Manu try and minimize mortality rate?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Manu’s Fave Book: The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll
Manu’s Fave Blog: Strictly VC, Dan Primack: Term Sheet
Manu’s Most Recent Investment: GradeScope
1.) How Rod came to found one of New Zealand's breakout tech startup in Xero?
2.) What were the very first days of Xero like? How and why did Rod decide to IPO from the start? How did Rod convey the narrative so well from day 1?
3.) What does it take to transition a firm like Xero from a 50 man startup to a 500 an company? What are the challenges? How do you assure a consistent hiring quality and mechanism?
4.) How are Xero doing in the US in terms of fighting Intuit? Is it a winner take all market?
5.) How was the fundraising process for Rod? How did Rod choose and meet his investors? What was important for Rod when making the selection?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Rod’s Fave Book: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future
Rod’s Fave Blog: Feedly, Techmeme
As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Rod on Twitter here!
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!
Rob Go is a co-founder and Partner at NextView Ventures, Next View are hands on, high conviction true seed stage investors. Prior to founding NextView, Rob was at Spark Capital and focused on early stage investments in consumer web and mobile. Before joining Spark Capital, Rob worked at Ebay as the Business Product Lead for “Finding”. In this role, he oversaw the launch of major products that enhanced the search, browse, and product discovery experience for tens of millions of users.
1.) How did Rob come to found NextView and what was his route into VC?
2.) NextView are seed investors but what does that really mean today? Why has the entire seed stage moved further down the funnel?
3.) With regards to runway, there are two side son the table, those like Jeff Clavier and I who believe 36 months is optimal. What side of the table is Rob on? Longer or shorter runway?
4.) Why are smaller rounds optimal according to Rob? What do they allow you to do that you cannot do with larger rounds? What does the rise of pre-seed do for Rob as a true seed investor?
5.) Regadless of label competition between VC is now larger than ever, what does Rob make of the personalisation of VC and branding tactics used by Mark Suster etc?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Rob’s Fave Book: Ready Player One
Rob’s Fave Blog: Wait But Why
Rob’s Most Recent Investment: Dia & Co
Aaron Hirschhorn is the founder, CEO and “Top Dog" of DogVacay, the leading online and mobile pet sitting company. DogVacay connects pet parents in need of services with more than 25,000 vetted and insured pet caregivers in 10,000 cities across the country. Founded in March 2012 and based in Santa Monica, CA, the company has over 80 employees and has raised $47M from investors including Omers, Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. Prior to DogVacay, Aaron spent several years in venture capital and technology, working at Monitor Group, Upfront Ventures, and Monitor Ventures. Previously, Aaron was an analyst at Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors.
1.) How did Aaron come to found one of the startup hits to come out of LA? In the beginning what was the harder element the demand or the supply side?
2.) How did Aaron know when he had achieved product market fit with DogVacay? What were the signs and how did he follow this up? How did Aaaron react to VCs laughing at his concept and how did he stay energised and positive?
3.) How was the fundraising process for Aaron with DogVacay and Benchmark, Andreesen and First Round? How can founders look to control the dialogue? How many investors should founders look to target? What makes Aaron want and not want a particular investor?
4.) What business fundamentally work in the on demand economy and what don't ? How should marketplace founders be approaching the issue of unit economics and should growth still be the priority?
5.) What is it like having Bill Gurley as a broad member ? What will be the enabler that will allow DogVacy to achieve that market penetration required?
1.) How did Matt come to found the world's top technical talent pre-company programme?
2.) Should everyone be an entrepreneur? How can a founder determine whether this is the right path for them? Can entrepreneurialism be taught or is it an innate skill within?
3.) What does Matt think of the idea and fear of many founders that they are simply not ready? How do we know when one is ready? What are the signs?
4.) How important is mindset for founders? Matt has previously stated the importance of a growth mindset? What does he mean by this and how does he advise founders to approach this?
5.) What is the most common mistake Matt sees entrepreneurs in EF make? How does he help to combat this?
6.) What does the future of work look like? Where will jobs be at this century?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Matt's Fave Book: Sapiens (Same as Parker Thompson @ AngelList)
Matt's Fave Blog: Marginal Revolution
Matt's Most Recent Investment: Cloud NC, Third Eye