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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The 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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Now displaying: Page 13
Feb 23, 2022

Tiger Global are one of the most discussed venture firms on the planet. With a deal cadence and capital deployment speed that is unmatched, they have made their mark on the venture landscape like no other over the last 24 months. Today we are joined by leaders from Sequoia, Benchmark, Thrive Capital, General Atlantic, GGV and Aleph to discuss the rise of Tiger and how it impacts the venture ecosystem.

In Today’s Episode on Tiger Global You Will Learn:

1.) Doug Leone: Sequoia Capital

  • Why we need to change the words when use in venture? Why we need to get rid of "the game"?
  • How does the rise of Tiger compare to the rise of prior entrants with the same approach?
  • Why does Doug believe that the craft of venture will persist despite these new entrants?

2.) Bill Gurley: Benchmark Capital

  • How does Bill analyse the change in late stage venture today?
  • What are the main drivers of the increased competition in late stage venture?
  • Why does Bill get concerned not by Tiger but how others respond to Tiger's model?
  • How does Bill analyse the entry of hedge funds and PE funds into traditional venture models?

3.) Michael Eisenberg: Aleph

  • How does Michael think about the "weaponisation of capital"?
  • What are the significant benefits for a fund of having more capital than their competitors?
  • How does this capital advantage change in boom and bust times?

4.) Anton Levy: General Atlantic

  • Why does Anton believe that funds are leveraging their assets more efficiently than ever?
  • How does Anton approach the mindset of AUM scaling without lowering returns?
  • Why does Anton never want to compete on price?
  • How does GA think about competing in a world of Tiger and hedge funds investing in tech?

5.) Hans Tung: GGV

  • Why did Hans always believe the model to look at moving forward was Tiger?
  • Why does Tiger's business model allow them structural and financial advantages over their competitors?
  • What does Hans make of the data network effects of Tiger with their strategy?

6.) Kareem Zaki: Thrive Capital

  • Why does Kareem think Tiger's approach makes absolute sense?
  • Why does Kareem believe so many in venture like to try and discredit the Tiger model?
  • How does Tiger's approach differ to Thrive's?

Feb 18, 2022

Max Rhodes is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Faire, the online marketplace where retailers discover their next bestsellers from independent brands across the globe. To date, Max has raised over $1.1BN with Faire from some of the best including Sequoia, Founders Fund, DST, Forerunner, Lightspeed and many more. Prior to starting Faire, Max spent close to 5 years at Square in numerous different roles including Director of Consumer Product at Caviar.

In Today’s Episode with Max Rhodes You Will Learn:

1.) The Founding Story:

  • How Max made his way into the world of startups with his joining an early Square team?
  • How did his 5 years at Square impact how he approaches company building with Faire?
  • How did Square's approach to product and mission impact Max's thinking?

2.) How To Hire Effectively:

  • How does Max construct the hiring process? Where do many founders make mistakes?
  • What does Max mean by "deep behavioural interview"? What questions does he ask?
  • What are the signals of 10/10 candidates? What are red flags he looks for?
  • How does Max determine capability? What literal tests can be done to test for this?

3.) How To Reference People:

  • How does Max approach the referencing process when hiring people?
  • How does Max make the other side feel comfortable, so they will open up and share everything?
  • What have been some of Max's biggest lessons on what it takes to do referencing well?
  • Where do many make mistakes with referencing?
  • How does Max use an "out of 10" system to determine the quality of the candidate?

4.) How to Strategise:

  • How does Max use strategy docs to orient the direction of the company?
  • How often does Max write them? How long do they take to write?
  • What are the core components of the strategy docs?
  • Who else is involved in their writing? Once written, what is the right format to discuss with the team?
  • How does Max approach how rigid he is to the strategies outlined? How does he determine whether he should change strategy or stick to plan?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Max Rhodes

Max’s Favourite Book: Good Strategy Bad Strategy, Who: The A Method for Hiring

Feb 16, 2022

Ed Baker is an angel investor and growth advisor to various startups including Lime, Zwift, Whoop, Crimson Education, GoPeer, and Playbook. Ed was the VP of Product and Growth at Uber from 2013-2017. Prior to Uber, Ed was the Head of International Growth at Facebook, a company he joined after they acquired a startup he co-founded called Friend.ly, which had grown to over 25 million users.

In Today’s Episode with Ed Baker You Will Learn:

1.) Ed Baker: Entry into Growth:

  • How Ed made his way into the world of growth from his start founding a dating site while at Harvard?
  • How he made his way to lead international growth at Facebook? How his time with Facebook led to his joing Uber to start Uber's growth team?
  • What were Ed's biggest lessons from Uber and Facebook? How did his approach to growth and mindset change as a result of his time there?

2.) When is the Right Time:

  • When is the right time for startups to hire their first growth leads or reps?
  • How should they determine whether to promote from within or hire externally?
  • What are the biggest mistakes startups make on the timing of this hire?
  • How can startups accurately assess whether they have product-market-fit?

3.) Who To Hire:

  • Step by step, how does Ed structure the interview process for all new growth hires?
  • What are the must ask questions for growth leaders to ask candidates in interviews?
  • What are the clear signs and answers that suggest a 10x growth hire?
  • What literal tests does Ed do to determine the quality of a hire? How do the best perform?

4.) Onboarding and Integration:

  • What is the optimal onboarding process for all new growth hires?
  • How do the best growth hires start in the first 60 days? What do they achieve?
  • What are some of the early signs that a growth hire is not working out?
  • How should the relationship be between the CEO and the Head of Growth?
  • How can the Head of Growth foster a strong relationship between growth and product teams?

Feb 14, 2022

Geoff Lewis is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Bedrock, now with over $1BN in AUM, Bedrock invests in breakout technology companies that are incongruent with popular narratives. In the past, Geoff has backed some generational defining companies such as Wish, Lyft, Nubank, RigUp, Vercel, Anduril and many more. Prior to founding Bedrock, Geoff was a Partner @ Founders Fund.

In Today’s Episode with Geoff Lewis You Will Learn:

1.) How Geoff made his way into the world of venture with his joining Founders Fund? How his time with Founders Fund led to his co-founding Bedrock with Eric?

2.) Geoff Lewis: The Investor:

  • How does Geoff reflect on his own relationship to price? How does he determine when to pay up vs walk away?
  • How does Geoff approach the re-investment decision-making process? Where do most go wrong when it comes to allocating reserves?
  • What have been some of Geoff's biggest misses? How did they impact his investing mindset?
  • Why does Geoff not believe that ownership is as crucial as other VCs suggest?

3.) Bedrock: The Firm

  • What have been some of the biggest challenges in building Bedrock?
  • Where does Geoff believe many firms make core mistakes in firm building?
  • What are the differences between principles and rules? Why does Geoff believe all firms need to have principles?
  • How does Geoff approach internal talent building? What are the signals of people that will succeed in venture? How do they approach learning?

4.) The Market:

  • How does Geoff analyse the current state of the venture market?
  • Does Geoff agree with the notion of "play the game on the field"?
  • Why does Geoff think markups are BS and just VCs looking for external validation?
  • How has Geoff learned to isolate from the VC community and retain that purity of mindset working with great entrepreneurs?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Geoff Lewis

Geoff’s Favourite Book: Friedrich Nietzsche

Geoff’s Most Recent Investment: Praxis

Feb 11, 2022

Aaron Levie is the Founder and CEO @ Box, the company incorporating the best of secure content collaboration with an intuitive user experience suited to the way people work today. Prior to their IPO in 2015, Aaron raised from some of the best in the business including the main man Mark Cuban, a16z, Emergence, DST, Coatue, DFJ and many more. Aaron founded the company from his dorm room at the University of Southern California and has led the company to 1,900 employees and over $770M in revenue, as of 2021 data.

In Today’s Episode with Aaron Levie You Will Learn:

1.) How Aaron founded Box from his dorm room at the University of Southern California? What was that founding a-ha moment? What did the first year look like? Does Aaron agree, "serial entrepreneurship is overrated"?

2.) Phases of Leadership and Company Growth:

  • How does Aaron define the different phases of leadership required as a company grows?
  • Which phase did Aaron find the most challenging? How did he overcome it?
  • What are the first things to break when companies grow? What can founders do to prevent this?
  • Does Aaron agree, "the best CEOs are the best resource allocators"?

3.) The Market:

  • How does Aaron thinkj about the dislocation between private company valuations and public company market caps?
  • What does Aaron believe are the biggest challenges founders face when they are over-capitalised?
  • What does Aaron mean when he says, "raise when cash is cheap, spend as if it was expensive"? How does Aaron advise founders on fundraising today?

4.) The Team and Culture:

  • How does Aaron create a safe space where all team members can come to him with anything?
  • How does Aaron approach effective goal setting? How does one balance between achieveable and also aggressive goals?
  • How does Aaron approach the art of delegation? What is his decision-making framework for what to delegate vs what to control?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Aaron Levie

Aaron’s Favourite Book: Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change)

Feb 9, 2022

Scott Belsky is an entrepreneur, author, investor, and currently serves as Adobe’s Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Scott oversees all of product and engineering for Creative Cloud, as well as design for Adobe. In 2006, Scott founded Behance, the leading online platform for the creative industry, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Behance now has over 25M members. Scott is also an early advisor and investor in Pinterest, Uber, Sweetgreen, Carta, Flexport, Airtable, and several others. Finally, if that was not enough, Scott is the author of two national bestselling books - Making Ideas Happen and The Messy Middle.

In Today’s Episode with Scott Belsky You Will Learn:

1.) Narrow the Focus, Increase the Quality:

  • What does Scott believe is the core challenge in product?
  • What was the single biggest product challenge Scott faced at Behance? How did they overcome it?
  • When should product teams listen to customer feedback vs ignore it?
  • What are the core questions product teams should ask user groups to extract the most feedback and value?

2.) The Importance of the First Mile:

  • What does Scott believe makes a great first mile when it comes to the product experience?
  • Where do so many companies go wrong in creating the first mile user experience?
  • Which company at scale has retained this simplicity of the first mile? How did they do it?
  • What does Scott mean when he says, "the devil is in the defaults"? What can product teams learn from this?

3.) The Makings of a Great Product Leader:

  • What are the 3 core questions every great product leader should ask on every screen?
  • How do the best product leaders structure product reviews?
  • Who is invited to product reviews? How often are they? Who sets the agenda? When is it sent?
  • What do the best product leaders do to retain direction and productivity in reviews when there are many people and many ideas? How do they stay on track?

4.) The Hirings of a Great Product Team:

  • How can founders know whether to hire the product leader or retain the role? When is the right time?
  • What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when hiring their first product hires?
  • How should founders structure the hiring process for product hires? What should they look to gain from each interview?
  • What are the must ask questions in those interviews? How do the best respond?
  • What case studies or physical tests can be done to determine the quality of a candidate?

Feb 7, 2022

David Frankel is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Founder Collective, one of the great seed firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Uber, Coupang, Airtable, Whoop and many more incredible companies. Previously, David was Co-Founder and CEO of Internet Solutions (IS), the largest ISP in Africa, ultimately acquired by NTT. David is also a founding board member of Endeavor SA and in the past has been selected by the World Economic Forum for the Global Leader of Tomorrow (GLT) program.

In Today’s Episode with David Frankel You Will Learn:

1.) How David made his way into the world of angel investing? How his mindset changed when making the transition from angel to an institutional investor with the founding of Founder Collective?

2.) Building the Firm: Founder Collective

  • What are the biggest challenges in venture firm building today?
  • Why is "deploy" and "the game" banned as words within Founder Collective? What terms are promoted as an alternative?
  • How does David construct investment decision-making in the partnership?
  • How does David create a safe space where all team members can share their thoughts in a non-judgemental, safe environment?
  • What are the biggest mistakes or challenges that David sees firms make when building?

3.) David Frankel: Investor Mindset

  • How does David analyse the current seed market today? What does he like? What worries him?
  • Does David agree that early stage investing has never been less collaborative?
  • How does David reflect on his own relationship to price today? How does he determine when to pay up vs when not to?
  • How does David think about the compression on fund deployment timelines? Will this change?
  • How does David keep a fresh and clean mind when viewing new opportunities, having seen many work and not work? How does one retain that mental purity when investing?
  • What have been some of David's biggest misses? How did it impact his style of investing?

4.) The Partnership:

  • What was the most recent disagreement David had with the partnership? How was it resolved?
  • How does David approach self-doubt and insecurity within the partnership? How can this be managed successfully?
  • What have been some of David's biggest lessons on how to give effective feedback without being judgemental?
  • In a world of Zoom, how did the partnership retain the same level and quality of connection that they had in person? What works? What does not work?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with David Frankel

David’s Favourite Book: The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

David's Most Recent Investment: PairTree

Feb 4, 2022

Mark Cuban is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Today we are focused on Mark's latest entrepreneurial endeavor, starting Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drug Company, the online pharmacy taking out the middlemen, meaning no price games and huge drug savings. As mentioned, Mark is also the proud owner of Dallas Mavericks, since his taking over they have competed in the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history in 2006 – and became NBA World Champions in 2011. Before Dallas Mavericks, 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. If that was not enough, Mark is also one of ABC’s “Sharks” on the hit show Shark Tank.

In Today’s Episode with Mark Cuban You Will Learn:

1.) Cost Plus Drugs: Origin

  • Why Mark decided to build Cost Plus Drugs?
  • Why has no one done it before?
  • How does Mark think about resource and time allocation with Cost Plus?

2.) Building the Team: Hiring

  • How does mark analyze his approach to hiring? Where is he weak? Where is he strong?
  • What one motto does Mark always use when it comes to hiring?
  • What is the most common mistake Mark sees founders make when it comes to team build?
  • How does Mark identify stress removers? What are the core signals?

3.) Brand + Capital + Business Strategy:

  • Why is the current cost structure of healthcare so damaged in the US? How does Cost Plus change this?
  • How does Mark think about what it takes to build great brand today? Why will Cost Plus not be doing big TV and traditional media advertising?
  • What types of guerilla marketing is Mark most excited by? Why will Mark never have a billboard in Times Square?

4.) AMA with Mark Cuban:

  • What 3 traits does Mark most want his children to adopt?
  • What worries Mark most today?
  • What are Mark's biggest strengths? What are his biggest weaknesses?
  • What single purchase has brought Mark the greatest joy?

Feb 2, 2022

Dannie Herzberg is a Partner @ Sequoia Capital and one of the great sales leaders of the last decade. Prior to entering the world of venture, Dannie spent 4 years at Slack as their Head of Enterprise Sales, there Dannie built & scaled the self-serve / SMB, mid-market, and enterprise sales orgs across the Americas as Slack grew from $100M - $1B in revenue. Before Slack, Dannie spent over 5 years at Hubspot building sales, opening an SF office, and then joining product to launch CRM & platform.

In Today’s Episode with Dannie Herzberg You Will Learn:

1.) How Dannie got her first job in sales at Hubspot through being a waitress in a Boston Diner? What were her biggest lessons from her 5 years scaling sales at Hubspot? How did Dannie's 4 years at Slack impact her operating and sales mindset today?

2.) The Playbook:

  • Does the founder need to be the one to create the sales playbook?
  • When is the right time to bring in the first sales hire? Should they be a sales leader or rep?
  • When is the right time to bring in a CRO, sales enablement and revenue ops?
  • What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when hiring their first in sales?

3.) The Hiring Process:

  • How should founders structure the hiring process for their first sales hires?
  • What should be achieved or learned in each consecutive interview?
  • How can founders use sales case studies most effectively?
  • What are early signs of a 10x sales hire? What are red flags to look out for in the process?

4.) Sales Onboarding:

  • What does the ideal onboarding process look like for new sales hires?
  • What tasks and duties should all sales hires perform in the first 60 days?
  • What are early signs that a new hire is not performing to the right standard?
  • How does the first few months differ for sales reps when comparing a product-led-growth company to an enterprise company?
  • How can new sales hires really engage with broader functions within the team in the first 30 days?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Dannie Herzberg

Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online

Jan 31, 2022

Roger Ehrenberg is a Founding Partner @ IA Ventures, one of the most successful seed funds of the last decade with $475 million across their four funds. Previous investments include The Trade Desk, Datadog, Digital Ocean, Wise and Recorded Future. Most recently, Roger took a step away from the day-to-day running of the firm, since he started IA Sports Partners, investing in sports franchises and other sports-related assets. Last month, Roger, alongside his two sons, started Eberg Capital, an investment vehicle focused on web3, crypto, NFTs and next-gen infrastructure.

In Today’s Episode with Roger Ehrenberg You Will Learn:

1.) How Roger made his way into the world of angel investing and venture having had a successful career on Wall St? How did seeing the booms and busts of the dot com and 2008 impact his investing mindset today? How does today compare to those times?

2.) The Investor Mindset:

  • What is Roger's #1 rule when it comes to managing investor psychology in volatile times?
  • What does Roger do to calm his mind and prevent worry and fear when markets crash? What works? What does not work?
  • How does one assess how close we are to the bottom? Why does Roger believe there is more "blood on the streets to come"?
  • When does Roger believe is the right time to pullback vs when to be aggressive in deployment?
  • What company profiles will do well vs poorly moving into this new cycle?

3.) Investing Strategy:

  • How does this new market impact the three different investing categories; early, Series A & B and growth?
  • Why does Roger believe deployment timelines will be extended? How will pricing be impacted?
  • Why does Roger believe that the Series A & B crunch is the most worrisome? How will their bar for what makes a great company change?
  • Should early stage managers alter their reserves strategy in the face of more stringent Series A rounds? Why does it not make sense to invest in "pay to play" rounds?
  • How does Roger adivse the companies that he works with today on burn vs growth?

4.) AMA:

  • How does Roger evaluate his own relationship to money today? How has it changed over time?
  • What does Roger believes makes a truly successful marriage? What can one do to foster extreme trust and safety in a marriage?
  • What does Roger believe have been some of the biggest insecurities he has had to overcome over the last decade? How did he overcome them?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Roger Ehrenberg

RIP Good Times by Sequoia Capital

Jan 28, 2022

Scott Sandell is the Managing General Partner of NEA, one of the leading firms of the last 3 decades with now close to $24Bn under management and a portfolio including Salesforce, Robinhood, Plaid, Databricks and more. As for Scott, since joining the firm in 1996 he has led investments in Salesforce.com, Tableau Software, WebEx and Workday and serves on the board of Robinhood, Cloudflare, Coursera and Divvy to name a few. 

Rick Yang is a General Partner and Head of Consumer Investing @ NEA, since joining in 2007 he has led investments in the likes of Masterclass, Plaid, Robinhood and many more.

In Today’s Episode with Scott Sandell and Rick Yang You Will Learn:

1.) How Rick came to meet Vlad, Robinhood Founder, for the first time? What impressed Rick most in that first meeting? How did the internal discussions proceed at NEA? Was it a unanimous decision to make the investment?

2.) The Market:

  • How did Rick and Scott evaluate the market at the time? Bottoms up, top down?
  • How did the market change and evolve both in ways they did and did not expect?
  • How do Rick and Scott evaluate market timing risk today when investing?
  • How did Rick and Scott approach outcome scenario planning with Robinhood?

3.) The Traction:

  • What core signals and datapoints made Rick realise Robinhood had product-market-fit?
  • How did Rick and NEA analyse Robinhood's early organic customer acquisition? How did the board advise on how to spend their first marketing dollars?
  • How does the cost structure of the business compare to Charles Swaab and eTrade? Why is Robinhood such a superior model?

4.) The Team: 

  • How has Vlad evolved and developed as a leader over time?
  • How did Vlad handle the 36 hours in Feb 2021 when he had to go and raise $3BN+?
  • Who is the unsung hero of the Robinhood team? What have they done to deserve this?

Jan 26, 2022

Jonathan Neman is Co-Founder & CEO of Sweetgreen, the mission-driven restaurant brand that serves healthy food at scale. Alongside his co-founders, Jon has scaled Sweetgreen from one small restaurant to one of the US' leading food brands with over 5,000 employees, over 140 locations and $300M+ in revenue. If that was not enough, Jon is also an active board member of MeUndies.

In Today’s Episode with Jonathan Neman You Will Learn:

1.) How Jon took the decision to leave his "dream job" as a consultant at Bain to start Sweetgreen? What did his Bain boss tell him that persuaded Jon it was the right decision to leave? How does Jon think about and advise people when it comes to choosing the safe vs the risky path?

2.) How Sweetgreen was not an Overnight Success:

  • At what moment did Jon really not think that Sweetgreen would make it? Why?
  • How did he deal with those moments of intense stress and pressure?
  • How does Jon test for true grit and resilience both in hires and in founders today?

3.) Brand + Capital + Business Strategy:

  • How does Jon think deeply about what brand means today?
  • What did Sweetgreen do right when it comes to their brand building? How did they marry art and science in the right way?
  • What do the unit economics look like on a per store basis? What is the payback period on a per store basis? How has this changed over time?
  • How does the store design impact the profit per store? How has store design changed over time?
  • What have been some of the biggest lessons in terms of when, where and how to open new stores?

4.) Leading Through COVID:

  • What were some of Jon's biggest lessons from leading a consumer brand through COVID
  • What were some of the toughest elements for Jon? How did he overcome them?
  • How can founders bring people along with their thought process and inspire?
  • Who is Jon's biggest mentor? What has he learned from them?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Jonathan Neman

Jon’s Favourite Book: Thinking, Fast and Slow: Daniel Kahneman

Jan 24, 2022

Anne Wojcicki is the Founder & CEO @ 23andme, offering DNA testing with the most comprehensive ancestry breakdown, personalized health insights, and more. To date, Anne has raised over $1BN for the company from the likes of Sequoia, GV, NEA and many more incredible names. Prior to founding 23andMe, Anne spent a decade on Wall Street investing in healthcare and felt frustrated by a system built around monetizing illness instead of incentivizing prevention. If that was not enough, Anne is also on the board of Cazoo and The Anne Wojcicki Foundation and is an active angel investor with investments in the likes of Embark and Maven Clinic.

In Today’s Episode with Anne Wojcicki You Will Learn:

1.) How Anne made her way from Wall St healthcare investing to founding one of the leading healthcare companies of the last decade in 23andme?

2.) Trust and Friendship:

  • How does Anne determine whether someone is genuine or is being transactional? What are the signs?
  • How does Anne approach trust in relationships? Start from a base of full trust and it is to be lost or start with none and it is to be gained?
  • What does Anne believe are the core of the best and most healthy relationships she has?

3.) Leadership:

  • How does Anne reflect on her own decision-making processes today?
  • How does Anne create a safe space where her team feel they can pushback on her and tell her how they feel?
  • How does Anne approach internal role migration? What does Anne do to get the very best out of her team?
  • How has Anne's leadership style changed over the years?
  • How has being on the board of Cazoo changed how Anne reflects on her own board leadership? What have been some of her biggest lessons from Alex Chesterman?

4.) AMA:

  • What is the hardest element of Anne's role with 23andme?
  • What is Anne's morning routine?
  • What 3 traits would Anne most want her children to have?
  • Anne can have a billboard anywhere, what do it say on it and why?
  • What would Anne most like to change in the world of healthcare over the next decade?  

Jan 21, 2022

Ali Partovi is the CEO @ Neo, a mentorship community and communal VC fund that announced their new $150M fund last year on the back of early hits from Fund I including Vanta and Kalshi. As an angel, Ali has made personal investments in Dropbox, Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, Convoy and many more. Prior to investing, Ali founded 2 companies, the first; LinkExchange which he sold to Microsoft for $265M in 1998 and the second, iLike which was acquired by Microsoft in 2009.

In Today’s Episode with Ali Partovi You Will Learn:

1.) How Ali made his way into the world of startups with the founding of his first company? How Ali made his way into angel investing and then starting and raising Neo, as a fund?

2.) How To Kill a $125M By Being Too Honest:

  • How did Ali lose this $125M with Jerry Yang and Yahoo?
  • What led Ali to believe that Paul Graham was so special in 1995? What would Ali have done differently with the benefit of hindsight?
  • How does Ali feel about investment misses today? What are his biggest misses? How has it impacted his mindset and approach to investing?

3.) The Meeting with Steve Jobs Did Not Go Well:

  • Why did the meeting with Steve Jobs not go well?
  • What was wrong with the way Ali phrased his final statement? What did this teach Ali about how founders should communicate the difference between hype and reality?
  • What did this experience teach Ali about how founders should run both fundraising and M&A processes? How does Ali build trust with every touchpoint?

4.) U2, Airbnb and Google at Seed:

  • How did Bono come to save the day for Ali for his startup in 2009?
  • What did this teach Ali about how to frame risk and when to go all in vs hold back?
  • How did Ali miss investing in the seed for Airbnb? How did he make up for it with a later investment?
  • How did Ali come to miss investing in the Google seed round? Does FOMO haunt Ali today?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Ali Partovi

Ali’s Favourite Book: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Jan 19, 2022

Rob Schutz is Chief Growth Officer and Co-founder at Ro, the healthcare technology company building a patient-centric healthcare system. To date, Ro has raised over $870M with a last reported valuation of $5BN and under Rob’s growth leadership, Ro has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the country. Prior to Ro, Rob was VP of Growth at Bark, the makers of BarkBox, and helped scale revenue from zero to $100 million. He also founded a Washington DC-based daily deals site that was acquired by kgbdeals in 2011.

In Today’s Episode with Rob Schutz You Will Learn:

1.) How Rob made his way into startups and growth through the world of daily deals? How that led to his leading growth for Bark and ultimately founding Ro? How did leading marketing for Bark impact his growth strategy today with Ro?

2.) What is "Growth" and When to Hire For It:

  • How does Rob define "growth and "Head of Growth"?
  • When is the right time to start thinking about a growth team?
  • Should founders hire a "Head of Growth" first or hire younger growth reps?
  • Where should the growth team sit within the organization?

3.) How to Hire Growth Leader and Reps:

  • What is the step-by-step process to hire growth leaders and reps?
  • How does it differ when hiring growth leaders vs reps?
  • What questions does Rob always ask? What separates good from great answers?
  • What case studies does Rob like to use to determine candidate quality?
  • How can one tell whether marketeers and growth candidates truly understand data?

4.) How to Structure the Onboarding Process:

  • What does the optimal onboarding process look like for new hires?
  • What tasks and duties do you expect reps and growth leaders to complete in the first month? 
  • What are some early red flags that the candidate you have is not good enough?
  • How can leaders deliberately manufacture moments for growth teams to interact with other teams?
  • What are the biggest mistakes growth teams and leaders make in the early days?

Jan 17, 2022

Frank Slootman currently serves as Chairman and CEO at Snowflake and has over 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur and executive in the enterprise software industry. Prior to Snowflake, Frank served as CEO and President of ServiceNow taking the company from around $100M in revenue, through an IPO, to $1.4B. Before ServiceNow, Frank served as President of the Backup Recovery Systems Division at EMC following the acquisition of Data Domain Corporation/Data Domain, Inc., where he served as the CEO and President, leading the company through an IPO to its acquisition by EMC for $2.4B. You must check out Frank's book, Amp It Up. It can already be pre-ordered here.

In Today’s Episode with Frank Slootman You Will Learn:

1.) Narrow the Focus, Increase the Quality:

  • How does Frank determine what to focus on? What does the prioritisation process look like?
  • What one question does Frank ask his team to ensure they are focused?
  • What are the best answers? What are the worst? When should you change focus?

2.) When There is Doubt, There is No Doubt:

  • What does Frank mean by this? What does it apply to? When is there nuance?
  • How long does Frank give people who are underperforming? How does he communicate their underperformance to them directly but productively?
  • What is the right way to fire someone? Why are performance reviews BS?

3.) Make The Good People Great:

  • How does Frank get the very best out of his teams? How does he make the good great?
  • How does he use compensation and equity structures to supercharge his teams?
  • How does Frank set stretch targets that are both ambitious but also attainable?

4.) The Art of Leadership and Board Management:

  • Why does Frank believe every CEO should be anxious?
  • How has Frank changed as a leader over time?
  • What is the biggest mistake founders make when it comes to board management?
  • How can founders actively manage and control their board?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Frank Slootman

Frank’s Favourite Book: Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favours the Brave, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything

Jan 14, 2022

Devin Finzer is the Founder & CEO @ Opensea, the world's first and largest NFT marketplace allowing you to discover, collect, and sell extraordinary NFTs. To date, Devin has raised over $423M for the company with their last $300M round valuing Opensea at $13.3BN. Before changing the world of NFTs, Devin co-founded ClaimDog which was acquired by Credit Karma and before founding ClaimDog, Devin was an engineer at Pinterest. Do want to say, I always love Semil Shah's startup of the year, for 2021 it was Opensea, check out his piece here.

In Today’s Episode with Devin Finzer You Will Learn:

1.) How Devin made his way into the world of NFTs and came to found the first and largest NFT marketplace in the form of Opensea?

2.) The Scaling Story:

  • What were the first early signs that Opensea was working when they were in YC? What core metrics did they look at to determine success?
  • Given NFTs not being "hot" at the time, how was the fundraising process for Opensea coming out of YC? What were the early investors most excited about?
  • What was the inflection point when Opensea and NFTs really started to take off? What most surprised Devin about the way in which the inflection point happened?
  • When scaling from $150M to $4BN in GMV, what are the first things to break in a company?
  • How does Devin maintain company morale with such volatile crypto and NFT markets?

3.) The Next Decade of NFTs:

  • How does Devin predict large brands and companies will utilise NFTs for their businesses?
  • In what ways does Devin think creators and celebrities will use NFTs moving forward to create more efficient business models?
  • How does Devin respond to the statement, "NFTs do more to harm than help income inequality?"
  • What are Devin's biggest concerns moving forward when analysing the NFT market?
  • How does Devin see the future for the development and experimentation of NFTs?

4.) The Future of NFT & Gaming:

  • How does Devin see NFTs impacting the world of gaming most?
  • How does Devin think about interacting with these gaming communities that are external to the centralised Opensea marketplace?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Devin Finzer

Devin’s Favourite Book: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

Jan 12, 2022

Ralf Wenzel is the Founder & CEO @ JOKR, a global platform for instant retail delivery at a hyper-local scale serving both the US and LATAM. Ralf has raised over $260M for the company, most recently valuing it at $1.2BN. Prior to JOKR, Ralf spent 7 years as the Founder & CEO @ foodpanda, as well as, enjoying roles as Chief Strategy Officer @ Delivery Hero, Interim Chief Product and Experience Officer @ WeWork and even moving to the other side of the table as a Managing Partner with Softbank.

In Today’s Episode with Ralf Wenzel You Will Learn:

1.) What is the unit economic breakdown for quick commerce business models? What levers can be used to improve it over time?

2.) Comparing the US to LATAM:

  • What is the AOV (average order value) in the US vs LATAM?
  • What is the order frequency in the US vs LATAM?
  • How does labour cost vary when comparing LATAM to the US?
  • How does real estate cost for fulfilment centres differ when comparing LATAM to the US?
  • How do product margins on a per product basis differ when comparing US to LATAM?

3.) New Market Growth and Maturation:

  • What is the payback period for new markets? How has this changed over time?
  • How does the payback period reduce with every new market being opened?
  • What % of AOV is spent on marketing when a new market is opened? How does this marketing spend change over time?
  • In mature markets, how much new customer acquisition is organic vs paid?
  • What is the average weekly growth rate in new vs mature markets?

4.) Business Model Expansions:

  • How does Ralf and JOKR approach the potential for private label goods?
  • How does private label change the margin structure of the goods?
  • What have been their lessons from starting their first private label goods?
  • How does Ralf approach the ability to integrate advertising and paid search?
  • What is needed for paid search and advertising to be a meaningful part of the business?

Jan 10, 2022

Mark Carney is Vice Chair of Brookfield Asset Management and Head of Transition Investing. Prior to Brookfield, Mark served as the Governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, and prior to that as Governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 until 2013. Mark was also Chairman of the Financial Stability Board from 2011 to 2018. Mark is a long-time and well-known advocate for sustainability and is currently the United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. If that was not enough, Mark serves on numerous other boards including Stripe, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum to name a few.

In Today’s Episode with Mark Carney You Will Learn:

1.) How Mark made his entrance into the world of finance and came to the role of Governor of the Bank of Canada? How did that role lead to his becoming Governor of the Bank of England? How did seeing multiple booms and busts impact Mark's investing mindset?

2.) Governments, Central Banks and Regulation:

  • How do governments and central banks retain control in a completely decentralized financial world?
  • Can traditional currencies and digital currencies peacefully co-exist?
  • What are Mark's predictions for central bank digital currencies?
  • How does Mark expect governments and central banks to regulate digital currencies in the coming years?

3.) The Winners and Losers:

  • What does the future hold for crypto exchanges?
  • How do competitors for digital gold perform?
  • Why does Mark believe in crypto "only the niche will survive"?
  • What does the rise of Defi mean for traditional banks? What will determine those that survive?
  • What does Mark mean when he says the winners will decide "what is my interface with this crypto world?''

4.) The Future of NFTs:

  • Do NFTs do more to help or to harm income inequality?
  • How does Mark see the future for the development and experimentation of NFTs?
  • Who are the winners and losers in the next decade for NFTs?
  • How does Mark feel about the pause between productivity gains and real wage benefits that exist today? 

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Mark Carney

Mark’s Favourite Book: Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

Jan 5, 2022

Will Ahmed is the Founder and CEO @ Whoop, the company on a mission to unlock human performance with their wearable device that is your digital fitness and health coach. To date, Will has raised over $400M for the company with the last round valuing Whoop at $3.6BN and with a cap table including the likes of Softbank, Accomplice, Founder Collective, Foundry Group, IVP and more.

In Today’s Episode with Will Ahmed You Will Learn:

1.) How Will went from being a professional athlete and college student to founding one of the hottest startups in fitness and healthcare? What are the similarities and differences of being an athlete and being a CEO?

2.) What does Will mean when he says, "there is value in the struggle early on"? How does Will advise founders on when to give up vs when to stay the course? If Will had not struggled with funding in the early days, would the Whoop journey be different? How does Will advise founders when it comes to taking funding when it is on the table? What are the nuances to this?

3.) In what way does Will believe "realism is overrated"? When does Will believe it is good to be realistic? In what ways can it be good to be idealistic? How did Will get some of the largest sports stars on the planet to use Whoop in the early days? Why did Will always refuse to pay sports stars to use Whoop? What were the benefits of doing this?

4.) How does Will define high performance? Why does Will believe it is crucial for leaders to disassociate their own personal feelings from the progress of their company? What advice does Will give to leaders in an attempt to do this? What has Will done to be a better CEO in the last year? What does Will believe are his biggest weaknesses as a CEO? 

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Will Ahmed

Will’s Favourite Book: Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE

Dec 16, 2021

Bangaly Kaba is the Head of Platform Growth @ Popshop Live, a live streaming mobile marketplace that combines commerce, entertainment, and social. Prior to Popshop, Bangaly led the product growth and consumer product orgs at Instacart and before Instacart was Head of Growth @ Instagram, where he built and led the product team that helped grow Instagram from 440M to > 1B monthly actives in 2.5yrs. If all of this was not enough, Bangaly has also spent time investing as a Sequoia Scout having made investments into Career Karma, Binti.com and Squad App to name a few.

In Today’s Episode with Bangaly Kaba You Will Learn:

1.) How Bangaly made his way into the world of growth and came to lead some of the largest growth orgs in tech at the likes of Instacart and Instagram?

2.) How does Bangaly define the rule of "Head of Growth"? When is the right time for founders to start hiring a growth leader? How do they know whether to hire a growth leader or junior growth reps? Where should founders place these first growth hires in the org? Product or marketing?

3.) How would Bangaly structure the hiring process for any growth hire? What are the must-ask questions? What case studies would Bangaly ask all candidates to complete? What are the signals of a 10x growth hire? What are some core red flags that show in the interview process?

4.) What does the ideal onboarding process look like for new growth hires? What are the signs that a new growth hire is hitting target and expectations? What are some early warning signs that a growth hire is not meeting expectations?  

5.) What is the ideal relationship between the Head of Growth and the CEO? How often should they meet? How should they structure the discussion? How should the growth team work with product teams to be successful? How should growth teams work with marketing teams?

Dec 13, 2021

John Doerr is an engineer, venture capitalist, the chairman of Kleiner Perkins, and the author of the #1 New York Times best-seller Measure What Matters. For over 40 years, John has helped build some of the most generational defining companies of our generation. He was an original investor and board member at Google and Amazon, helping to create more than a million jobs. A pioneer of Silicon Valley’s cleantech movement, John has invested in zero emissions technologies since 2006. Check out his latest book, Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now.

In Today’s Episode with John Doerr You Will Learn:

1.) What was John's entry into climate change investing? Having backed the likes of Amazon and Google, why did John decide then was the right time to do a climate fund, a pandemic fund, an iPhone fund? How does John think about market timing risk today? How does John determine between risks he is vs is not willing to take?

2.) What was one of John's biggest lessons on risk and upside from working alongside Tom Perkins? How did the Google deal come together? Where did John first meet Larry and Serge? What convinced John to write them a $12M check for 12% of the company? Why was it a contested deal within the partnership? How did the discussion go internally?

3.) Why and how is climate innovating and investing different today than it was in 2008? What are the core OKR's laid out in the book, that we need to achieve as a society? Why does John believe that governments are the biggest problem to us achieving these objectives? What does John mean when he says, "I am hopeful but not optimistic"?

4.) What does truly great listening mean to John? How would John describe his style of board membership? What do the truly special board members do? What does John do that makes him often cited as one of the best at recruiting? What is John's biggest investing miss? How did it change his mindset and approach? What investment is John most proud of, that no one knows? 

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with John Doerr

John’s Favourite Book: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need

Dec 8, 2021

Kyle Parrish is VP Sales @ Figma, the company that connects everyone in the design process so teams can deliver better products, faster. At Figma, Kyle built the sales engine from scratch to today, with over 100 incredible people in sales. Before Figma, Kyle spent over 5 years at Dropbox in numerous different roles including Head of Sales, where he scaled the Austin, Texas office from 3 to over 80 people to Global Partnerships lead, where he was responsible for growing Dropbox’s partner ecosystem.

In Today’s Episode with Kyle Parrish You Will Learn:

1.) How Kyle first made his way into the world of sales and came to be one of the 3 performing sales reps in a 300+ sales team? How that led to his joining the hypergrowth journey of Dropbox? What led Kyle to make the move from Dropbox to the rocketship that is Figma?

2.) When and Who: Does the founder need to be the person to create the sales playbook? How can a founder know whether it is right to hire sales reps or a Head of Sales first? In terms of ARR, is there a time when you have to have a Head of Sales? Does Kyle agree with Jason Lemkin in terms of bringing in reps, two at a time? Where do founders make the biggest mistakes when it comes to the timing of these hires?

3.) How To Know and Test: What non-obvious characteristics do 10x sales hires have? What questions or case studies does Kyle find to be most revealing in identifying these non-obvious traits? How should founders structure the process for new reps and a Head of Sales? Meeting by meeting, what should we look to achieve?

4.) Setting Up for Success: What does the ideal onboarding process look like for new sales reps? What tasks and processes would Kyle expect new reps to complete within the first month or two on the job? What are the clearest signs of a new rep hire not working out? How should founders approach 1-1 and 360 reviews with their new reps?  

5.) Working Together: What is the ideal relationship between the founder and the new Head of Sales? How often should they meet? What should the founder expect from the new Head of Sales? How should the Head of Sales work with the Head of Marketing most efficiently?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Kyle Parrish

Kyle's Favourite Sales Blog Post: The Sales Learning Curve

Dec 6, 2021

Bill Gurley is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful funds of the last decade with a portfolio including Uber, Twitter, Dropbox, Modern Treasury, Snapchat, StitchFix, and many more. As for Bill, widely recognized as one of the greats in venture having worked with GrubHub, NextDoor, Uber, OpenTable, Stitch Fix, and Zillow. Prior to Benchmark, Bill was a partner with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.

Michael Eisenberg spent 15 years as a General Partner @ Benchmark working alongside Bill and the Benchmark partnership. Following Benchmark, Michael co-founded Aleph, one of the leading Israeli venture funds of the last decade with a portfolio including Lemonade, Melio, and HoneyBook, just to name a couple of Aleph's unicorns.

In Today’s Episode with Bill Gurley and Michael Eisenberg You Will Learn:

1.) How does the current market activity in venture today compare to the dot com bubble? What elements are different? What elements are the same? What were the ramifications of the dot com bubble? Would Bill and Michael expect to see the same again? Is there anything good that comes from bubbles? How did the prior bubble impact Michael and Bill's investing mindset?

2.) Does Bill Gurley agree that Benchmark are the only firm to have retained price discipline in this crazy market? How do Bill and Michael think about their own relationship to price today? How does Bill try and answer the question, "what could go right?" when he meets entrepreneurs today? On reflection, what have been Michael and Bill's biggest miss? How did it change their approach?

3.) How does one compete in a world of Tiger and crossover funds? When it comes to capital deployment and pacing, do Michael and Bill agree with the suggestion of "playing the game on the field"? What are the nuances to this statement? What companies does Bill believe capital can be a moat for? What companies is capital not a moat and they should be conservative with raising and pre-emptive rounds?

4.) Do Bill and Michael believe that ownership still matters today with outcomes being larger than ever? How do Bill and Michael feel about the importance of temporal diversification today in a world of compressed deployment cycles? What investing lesson learned over 25 years in the business do Bill and Michael wish they had known when they started? 

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Bill Gurley and Michael Eisenberg

Bill’s Favourite Book: The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

Nov 29, 2021

Adam Foroughi is the Co-Founder and CEO @ AppLovin, the company that allows developers to market, monetize, analyze and publish their apps. Under Adam's leadership, he has taken the company public, grown the team to over 1,000 people around the world, and scaled revenue in 2020 to $1.5Bn. Prior to AppLovin, Adam founded two companies—Lifestreet Media and Social Hour, and before that Adam started his career as a derivatives trader.

In Today’s Episode with Adam Foroughi You Will Learn:

1.) How Adam made his way into the world of startups and came to found one of the world's largest gaming, advertising and marketing companies in the form of AppLovin?

2.) Adam founded 4 companies before AppLovin, does Adam believe in the benefits of serial entrepreneurship? What has he done differently with AppLovin having learned from past experience? What did he do the same, having seen it work before?

3.) Why does Adam advocate for as few meetings as possible within the company? Why does Adam believe meetings are unproductive? How do decisions get made internally without meetings? What is the structure and process? How does Adam create an environment where people make decisions without the fear of the repercussions? What are the breakpoints in company scaling?

4.) Why does Adam think that VCs did not want to invest in the early rounds? What were his biggest takeaways from those early fundraising days? How has Adam found the transition to being a public markets CEO? What does he like? What does he not like? How does Adam feel about pleasing the street but also having a long-term mindset?  

5.) How does Adam structure his day? With 5 children, how does Adam approach work/life balance? What does his exercise and sleep routine look like? How does he do both weights and running without losing the productivity of the weights? What changes has he made in the last year that have made a significant difference?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Adam Foroughi

Adam's Favourite Book: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

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