20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28

Lyon Wong is the Founding General Partner @ Spectrum 28, a $170m Silicon Valley fund that invests in companies who leverage data and computation to create and transform large industries. Prior to Spectrum 28, Lyon was Partner @ Lightspeed Venture Partners, the $3bn VC fund with investments in the likes of Snapchat, Nest and Giphy, just to name a few. Before Lightspeed Lyon spent time with leading Silicon Valley seed fund, SV Angel, where he worked with the likes of Ron Conway and David Lee.

  

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Lyon come to be GP of Spectrum 28 with their recent $170m fund?

2.) Why does Lyon believe that you do not have to have operational experience to be a good investor? What are the core components to beeing a good investor and value add investor?

3.) Why does Lyon believe that there is no optimal stage to invest? How does he evaluate the efficiency curve and positioning on it? How does this affect his thesis?

4.) Why does Lyon believe that funds must focus on reputation instead of cash on cash? What is the most effective and scalable way to build a reputation in today's venture ecosystem?

5.) How does Lyon evaluate team building at Spectrum 28? What did he look for in potential partners? How does he look to implement generational transition into the fund?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode: 

Lyon’s Fave Blog: Medium, Quora

Lyon’s Fave Book: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Lyon’s Most Recent Investment: PatientBank

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

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

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This episode was supported by Wunder Capital, the leading online investment platform that allows individuals to invest in large scale solar projects across the U.S. Wunder’s solar investment funds allow you to earn up to 11% annually, while diversifying your portfolio, curbing pollution and combating global climate change. Do well by doing good and sign up for a free account here and join the thousands of people that are already achieving their investment targets.