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

Adi Sideman is the Founder & CEO @ YouNow. Since founding the company in 2011, Adi has grown YouNow to be a global social network with more than 100 million user sessions a month, and creators now producing more than 50,000 hours of original live content each day. They recently released PROPS (Telegram available here), the next generation platform that leverages the power of crypto economics & participation in digital media. To fund this growth, they have raised over $25m in funding from some of the greats of the investing world including Andy Weissman @ USV, David Pakman @ Venrock and future guest Oren Zeev. Due to this incredible progress, YouNow has been named one of the most innovative companies of 2016 by Fast Company and was a finalist for Fastest Rising Startup of 2016 at the Crunchies Awards. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Adi made his way into the world of participatory digital content, came to found the world's first online karaoke company and then found YouNow? 2.) Setting the scene now, where are we at with TV? What platform does Adi believe will rise formidably in it's place? How does that affect the age-old industry of advertising? Why does Adi believe after so many years, now is the time for micro-payment content creation? 3.) Why does the digital media content landscape need to be decentralized? What is fundamentally broken with the current centralised networks? What are the benefits of such decentralization? 4.) How does Adi envision this decentralization to be? Does Adi believe we will build new decentralized protocols and exact the decentralized network through them or does he believe we will integrate new protocols into existing services? 5.) Why does this decentralized network be crypto-based? With centralized networks the value largely accrues to investors and founders, how does Adi sell the value of a decentralized network to an investor base with fiduciary responsibilities? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Adi's Favourite Book: The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Lattice is the #1 performance management solution for growing companies. With Lattice, it's easy to launch 360 performance review cycles as often as you want. And you also get a continuous feedback system with OKR goal tracking, real-time feedback, and 1-on-1 meetings to make sure employees get feedback between reviews. Find out why the likes of CoinBase, PlanGrid, Birchbox and WePay trust Lattice as their performance management solution by heading over to lattice.com to start investing in your people. That's Lattice.com. Recurly, the company powering subscription success, with Recurly's enterprise-class subscription management platform providing rapid time-to-value without requiring massive integration effort and expense and they have the ability to not only increase revenue by 7% but also reduce the all-important churn rate. That is why thousands of customers from Twitch to HubSpot to CBS Interactive trust Recurly as their subscription management platform. Check them out on recurly.com that really is a must.

Nicole Quinn is a Partner @ Lightspeed, one of the world's leading venture funds with a portfolio including the likes of Snapchat, Nest, StitchFix, AppDynamics and Max Levchin's Affirm, just to name a few from their incredible portfolio. At Lightspeed, Nicole focuses on the consumer market having made investments in the likes of Cheddar, Zola and Rothy's. Prior to Lightspeed, Nicole worked at Nutmeg, one of London's leading fintech players and before that spent 8 years covering consumer, eCommerce and brands at Morgan Stanley on the equity sales and research side. At Morgan Stanley, Nicole worked on the IPOs for Facebook, Groupon and Pandora. Fun fact: Nicole is also a star of the big screen featuring on Apple TV's Planet of The Apps. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Nicole made her way from Morgan Stanley to a leading London Fintech player to now, a partner a Lightspeed in San Francisco? 2.) How does Nicole define "digitally native brands"? What are the core benefits of owning the entire customer journey? Why does Nicole believe that brand is a key network effect today? 3.) Why does Nicole disagree that we are in a fallow period for consumer? How does Nicole analyze the incumbent heavy competitive landscape? Does Nicole believe that Amazon does more to make the market than destroy it? 4.) Why does Nicole believe we are in a consolidatory environment? What about the current ecosystem makes now the most exciting time for M&A in a long time? How does Nicole analyze M&A's ability to move the needle with transactions like Bonobos' acquisition? 5.) Being a star of Planet of The Apps, how important does Nicole think it is for investors to have public brands today? How does Nicole view VCs and digitally native brands in the same way? How does this mean that VCs should act in market? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Nicole's Fave Book: The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton Nicole's Fave Blog: Lean Luxe Nicole's Most Recent Investment: Rothy's As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Nicole on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Lattice is the #1 performance management solution for growing companies. With Lattice, it's easy to launch 360 performance review cycles as often as you want. And you also get a continuous feedback system with OKR goal tracking, real-time feedback, and 1-on-1 meetings to make sure employees get feedback between reviews. Find out why the likes of CoinBase, PlanGrid, Birchbox and WePay trust Lattice as their performance management solution by heading over to lattice.com to start investing in your people. That's Lattice.com. Recurly, the company powering subscription success, with Recurly's enterprise-class subscription management platform providing rapid time-to-value without requiring massive integration effort and expense and they have the ability to not only increase revenue by 7% but also reduce the all-important churn rate. That is why thousands of customers from Twitch to HubSpot to CBS Interactive trust Recurly as their subscription management platform. Check them out on recurly.com that really is a must.

Semil Shah is the founder of Haystack, an early stage investment firm now investing out of it's fourth fund, with previous investments in the likes of Instacart, DoorDash, Giphy, OpenDoor & Managed by Q. Semil is also a Venture Partner @ GGV Capital, one of the leading multi-stage funds and in the past he has also been a consultant to 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 all of this, Shah is known for being on the speed dial of some of the industry's most respected VCs with the likes of Marc Andreessen naming him one of his '55 Unknown Rockstars in Tech'. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Semil made the transition from the world of writing to investing alongside some of the best in venture with Haystack? 2.) Why do more and more managers want to introduce institutional capital into their LP base? What are the advantages? What are the drawbacks? Where does Semil see most managers going wrong when pursuing institutional capital for the first time? 3.) What does Semil mean when he states the importance of "pre-marketing"? How open is one in these pre-discussions with potential LPs? What is the right amount of time to be pre-marketing for? How does Semil determine whether to adopt a piece of LP advice and when not to? 4.) In the raising process, why does Semil never like to the use the deck when meeting in person? What core elements of the presentation did LPs always hone in on? What tips does Semil have to potential managers to ensure they can pitch at any time, not just the boardroom? 5.) How has moving from non-institutional to institutional fund, changed how Semil thinks about reserve allocation? Why does Semil believe that the majority of LPs have a wrong thesis to reserve allocation? 6.) Why does Semil believe the VC business model is severely constrained in terms of exits through IPO and acquisition? What does this mean for the use of secondaries? How will managers need to incorporate this into their strategy? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Semil's Fave Blog: AVC Semil's Most Recent Investment: Ironclad As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Semil on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Lattice is the #1 performance management solution for growing companies. With Lattice, it's easy to launch 360 performance review cycles as often as you want. And you also get a continuous feedback system with OKR goal tracking, real-time feedback, and 1-on-1 meetings to make sure employees get feedback between reviews. Find out why the likes of CoinBase, PlanGrid, Birchbox and WePay trust Lattice as their performance management solution by heading over to lattice.com to start investing in your people. That's Lattice.com. Recurly, the company powering subscription success, with Recurly's enterprise-class subscription management platform providing rapid time-to-value without requiring massive integration effort and expense and they have the ability to not only increase revenue by 7% but also reduce the all-important churn rate. That is why thousands of customers from Twitch to HubSpot to CBS Interactive trust Recurly as their subscription management platform. Check them out on recurly.com that really is a must.

Julia Hartz is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Eventbrite, the unicorn startup that is the world's largest event technology platform, powering over 2 million events around the world each year. They have raised over $330m from some of the greats of industry including Roelof Botha @ Sequoia Capital, Jeff Clavier @ SoftTech, David Saks, Bebo's Michael Birch, Tiger Global and many more. Under Julia's leadership, she has taken Eventbrite to become the world's largest event technology platform and has received multiple accolades for workplace culture, being named the best place to work in SF for 7 years running. Personally, Julia has won numerous awards including Fortune's 40 Under 40, Inc's 35 Under 35 and Most Powerful Female Entrepreneurs. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Julia came to found Eventbrite with her husband Kevin from a small apartment in Potrero Hill and turned it into the unicorn it is today? 2.) How did Julia and Kevin meet? What was the meet-cute? How did that translate into the founding of Eventbrite? How did Julia think about partnering with her fiancee at the time, as a business partner? What made it also a great business partnership? 3.) Why does Julia believe that creating a company is like creating a family? How has Julia seen herself scale as CEO of the company, with the immense scaling and growth of the firm? What have been the challenges and how did she overcome them? 4.) What does Julia believe are the requirements for successful CEO transition? How can this be managed correctly both internally and externally? What other elements made last year a particularly momentus year for change at Eventbrite? 5.) How does Julia think about balancing the immediate elements of the present day with the long-term vision for the roadmap? What is the right mindset to adopt? How does one look to prevent "Innovators Dilemma"? How does Julia split her time? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Julia's Fave Book: Overwhelmed Julia's Fave Blog: The Skimm As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Julia on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Lattice is the #1 performance management solution for growing companies. With Lattice, it's easy to launch 360 performance review cycles as often as you want. And you also get a continuous feedback system with OKR goal tracking, real-time feedback, and 1-on-1 meetings to make sure employees get feedback between reviews. Find out why the likes of CoinBase, PlanGrid, Birchbox and WePay trust Lattice as their performance management solution by heading over to lattice.com to start investing in your people. That's Lattice.com. Recurly, the company powering subscription success, with Recurly's enterprise-class subscription management platform providing rapid time-to-value without requiring massive integration effort and expense and they have the ability to not only increase revenue by 7% but also reduce the all-important churn rate. That is why thousands of customers from Twitch to HubSpot to CBS Interactive trust Recurly as their subscription management platform. Check them out on recurly.com that really is a must.

Sam Arbesman is the Scientist-In-Residence @ Lux Capital, the fund that supports scientists and entrepreneurs who pursue counter-conventional solutions to the most vexing puzzles of our time, the more ambitious the project, the better. Sam works with companies and founders that recognize the future happens at the boundaries of science and technology infusing computation into everything from biology to manufacturing.Sam's scientific research has been published in everything from the Wall Street Journal to The New York Times and The Atlantic. Sam is also the author of the award-winning The Half-Life of Facts and the new book Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Sam made his move from being a best-selling author to Scientist in Residence for Lux Capital? As Scientist in Residence, what does Sam do on a day-to-day basis? 2.) What does Sam mean when he says that startups need to embrace "radical interdisciplinarity"? What really is "radical interdisciplinarity"? What are the benefits it brings to an organisation? Does this go contra the importance of specialisation? 3.) How does Sam view the partnership between man and machine? Why does Sam believe we will see computational creativity in a way never seen before? How does Sam view the societal barriers to the embracing of this partnership? 4.) How does Sam view the promise of analogizing in the face of such complex systems? How does Sam assess the perils of such analogies? Does Sam believe that VCs of today are equipped to invest in such complex systems? What must they remember? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Sam's Fave Book: The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson, The Three Body Problem Sam's Fave Blog: Marginal Revolution As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Sam on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Lattice is the #1 performance management solution for growing companies. With Lattice, it's easy to launch 360 performance review cycles as often as you want. And you also get a continuous feedback system with OKR goal tracking, real-time feedback, and 1-on-1 meetings to make sure employees get feedback between reviews. Find out why the likes of CoinBase, PlanGrid, Birchbox and WePay trust Lattice as their performance management solution by heading over to lattice.com to start investing in your people. That's Lattice.com. Recurly, the company powering subscription success, with Recurly's enterprise-class subscription management platform providing rapid time-to-value without requiring massive integration effort and expense and they have the ability to not only increase revenue by 7% but also reduce the all-important churn rate. That is why thousands of customers from Twitch to HubSpot to CBS Interactive trust Recurly as their subscription management platform. Check them out on recurly.com that really is a must.

Aaron VanDevender is the Chief Scientist at Founders Fund, one of the world's leading fund with investments in the likes of Facebook, Airbnb, SpaceX, Spotify and many more incredible companies. At Founders Fund, Aaron monitors the scientific impact of the portfolio, works with portfolio companies, assesses new technologies, and conducts his own research. Prior to Founders Fund, Aaron has designed single-photon and single-atom quantum computers in academia and government (NIST), advanced the quantum-mechanical theory for microscopic black holes, patented the fastest transparent optical switch, and is a co-inventor of yoctotechnology. He then developed next-generation DNA sequencing technology at Halcyon Molecular. His broad scientific interests encompass energy, biotech, nanotech, and computing. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Aaron made his way from microscopic black holes and DNA sequencing to the world of Founders Fund? What does a Scientist-In-Residence do? 2.) Why does Aaron believe that AI is mostly a scam? Where does Aaron see and then want to see further progression in the field of AI and ML? How does Aaron distinguish between crazy and genius? What are the signs? 3.) Why does Aaron believe that the value of massive datasets is largely overplayed? What characteristics of datasets are exciting for Aaron to see when evaluating an opportunity? Where and how can datasets be misleading and lose their value? 4.) How does Aaron view the societal effects of 4m truck drivers being unemployed by the rise of self-driving? How does Aaron view trucking both as goods distribution and wealth distribution networks? 5.) How does Aaron view the implementation of universal basic income? Why does Aaron believe we have a challenge decoupling wealth and virtue? To what extent is this a core problem? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Aaron's Fave Book: Tales From The Thousand & One Arabian Nights Aaron's Fave Blog: Slash Dot Investment Aaron is Most Excited By: Ayar Labs As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Aaron on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Lattice is the #1 performance management solution for growing companies. With Lattice, it's easy to launch 360 performance review cycles as often as you want. And you also get a continuous feedback system with OKR goal tracking, real-time feedback, and 1-on-1 meetings to make sure employees get feedback between reviews. Find out why the likes of CoinBase, PlanGrid, Birchbox and WePay trust Lattice as their performance management solution by heading over to lattice.com to start investing in your people. That's Lattice.com. Recurly, the company powering subscription success, with Recurly's enterprise-class subscription management platform providing rapid time-to-value without requiring massive integration effort and expense and they have the ability to not only increase revenue by 7% but also reduce the all-important churn rate. That is why thousands of customers from Twitch to HubSpot to CBS Interactive trust Recurly as their subscription management platform. Check them out on recurly.com that really is a must.

Luis Von Ahn is the Founder & CEO @ Duolingo, the leading language learning platform with over 100m users. They have backing from some of the best in the investing world with over $100m in funding from the likes of USV, Kleiner Perkins, NEA, Google Capital and even Ashton Kutcher. Prior to Duolingo, Luis is known for inventing CAPTCHAs, being a MacArthur Fellow ("genius grant" recipient), and selling two companies to Google in his 20's. Luis has been named one of the 10 Most Brilliant Scientists by Popular Science Magazine, one of the 20 Best Brains Under 40 by Discover. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Luis, a man as he describes "never great at learning languages", came to found the leading language learning app, Duolingo? 2.) Why do VCs generally believe Edtech to be such a "hard" space? Is that really a fair assumption? How does the role of government change the distribution and landscape of edtech? How does content creation play a pivotal role in edtech today? 3.) What role does Luis believe AI and ML will play for the future of edtech? Will the transition to bots represent a transformational shift in the interface paradigm? How does gamification and edtech integrate? Why does Luis always measure themselves against the most addictive of games? 4.) How has Luis seen himself scale and change as a leader with the scaling of the firm? What story shows an element that Luis struggled with and how did he overcome it? What were the major inflection points in the growth of the firm? 5.) Duolingo recently raised their $25m Series E, how did this round differ from prior rounds? Why did they want to negotiate down the figure they wanted to raise? How did Valley based VCs present herd mentality for the duration of the recent raise? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Luis's Fave Book: Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid Luis' Fave Blog: AVC by Fred Wilson As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Luis on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Lattice is the #1 performance management solution for growing companies. With Lattice, it's easy to launch 360 performance review cycles as often as you want. And you also get a continuous feedback system with OKR goal tracking, real-time feedback, and 1-on-1 meetings to make sure employees get feedback between reviews. Find out why the likes of CoinBase, PlanGrid, Birchbox and WePay trust Lattice as their performance management solution by heading over to lattice.com to start investing in your people. That's Lattice.com. Recurly, the company powering subscription success, with Recurly's enterprise-class subscription management platform providing rapid time-to-value without requiring massive integration effort and expense and they have the ability to not only increase revenue by 7% but also reduce the all-important churn rate. That is why thousands of customers from Twitch to HubSpot to CBS Interactive trust Recurly as their subscription management platform. Check them out on recurly.com that really is a must.

Samir Kaji is what one might call, a master of all things seed stage and micro VC financing. Over his 18 years in venture capital, Samir has assisted or advised over 700 companies and 300 VC firms and has completed tech financing transactions totaling over $4.0 billion in committed capital. Today, Samir is the Senior Managing Director @ First Republic Bank where leads the technology banking team managing venture capital and startup company relationships. He joined First Republic in 2013 from Silicon Valley Bank, where he was also a managing director. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Samir made his entry into the world of VC from the ground up and has come to advise and assist on over $4Bn worth of capital commitments? 2.) Where is the micro VC and seed market today? What is the overview? What has fundamentally changed over the last few years? Are all increases in capital supply good or is this too much? Why is Samir concerned by valuation bloat at seed? 3.) How are LPs reacting to this explosion in seed and micro fund managers? How does this differ when assessing the differing classes of LP from institutions to HNWs and family offices? What are the likelihoods of 1st-time funds attaining institutional capital? 4.) How should potential managers think about the right fund size to raise? How long a timeline should be given to the raising of micro and seed funds? What exceptions are there to this timeline? How does the role of multiple closings play into this timeline? 5.) How does Samir differentiate between raising a fund and building a franchise? What does this mean about how a certain set of anagers not only engages in the fundraising process but also depicts the narrative? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Samir's Fave Book: Hard Thing About Hard Things Samir's Fave Blog: Strictly VC, AVC by Fred Wilson As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Samir on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Lattice is the #1 performance management solution for growing companies. With Lattice, it's easy to launch 360 performance review cycles as often as you want. And you also get a continuous feedback system with OKR goal tracking, real-time feedback, and 1-on-1 meetings to make sure employees get feedback between reviews. Find out why the likes of CoinBase, PlanGrid, Birchbox and WePay trust Lattice as their performance management solution by heading over to lattice.com to start investing in your people. That's Lattice.com. Recurly, the company powering subscription success, with Recurly's enterprise-class subscription management platform providing rapid time-to-value without requiring massive integration effort and expense and they have the ability to not only increase revenue by 7% but also reduce the all-important churn rate. That is why thousands of customers from Twitch to HubSpot to CBS Interactive trust Recurly as their subscription management platform. Check them out on recurly.com that really is a must.

Michael Dearing has established himself as an icon of early-stage venture over the last decade. With his founding of Harrison Metal in 2006, he has backed the likes of Twitter, MoPub, Birchbox, 99Designs and PagerDuty just to name a few of his incredible companies. Prior to being in VC, Michael spent 6 years at eBay across numerous roles and before that held positions at Shoe Warehouse as CEO, The Walt Disney Company in corporate strategy and then Bain & Co as a consultant. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Michael made his way into the world of venture from selling shoes with Shoe Warehouse to eBay to founding his own fund? 2.) Michael has said before that he looks for "personal exceptionalism" within the teams he backs, what does that really mean? How does he distinguish brilliance from arrogance? What is the balance between vision and stubbornness? 3.) How does Michael think about price sensitivity? How does he use it as a determining factor to test his level of conviction in the deal? More broadly, how does Michael view pricing in the market today? Why are the convertible debt markets so toxic? 4.) How does Michael view strategy around reserve allocation? Why does Michael believe reserves are where he has made the biggest mistakes? What are his takeaways from those mistakes? Why does recycling not feature as a core tenet of his strategy? 5.) Why does Michael believe that "benevolent dictatorship" is a beautiful thing? Does this thesis change in the debate over founder vs company first? How does Michael use McCallum's 5 key principles to assess founders and their ability? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Michael's Fave Book: Confederacy of Dunces Michael's Most Recent Investment: Astro As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Michael on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Lattice is the #1 performance management solution for growing companies. With Lattice, it's easy to launch 360 performance review cycles as often as you want. And you also get a continuous feedback system with OKR goal tracking, real-time feedback, and 1-on-1 meetings to make sure employees get feedback between reviews. Find out why the likes of CoinBase, PlanGrid, Birchbox and WePay trust Lattice as their performance management solution by heading over to lattice.com to start investing in your people. That's Lattice.com. Recurly, the company powering subscription success, with Recurly's enterprise-class subscription management platform providing rapid time-to-value without requiring massive integration effort and expense and they have the ability to not only increase revenue by 7% but also reduce the all-important churn rate. That is why thousands of customers from Twitch to HubSpot to CBS Interactive trust Recurly as their subscription management platform. Check them out on recurly.com that really is a must.

Sami Inkinen is the Founder & CEO @ Virta Health, the startup on a mission to reverse type 2 diabetes for 100m people by 2025. They have raised over $35m in funding from the likes of Max Levchin, Ev William's Obvious Ventures, Paypal, Ray Tonsing @ Caffeinated Capital and previous 20VC guest, Bob Kocher @ Venrock. Previously, Sami was a co-founder, COO and President of Trulia until it's IPO and eventual sale for $3.6B. Sami, an avid athlete, is a triathlon world champion in his age group, and recently rowed across the Pacific Ocean from California to Hawaii unsupported with his wife at a record speed to raise awareness about healthy nutrition. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Sami made his way into the world of startups, came to co-found Trulia and then realized his mission to reverse type 2 diabetes with Virta? 2.) Why does Sami disagree with conventional wisdom and say you learn "more from success than you do from failure"? What are the educational benefits of success that you do not get from failure? What did Sami learn from his Trulia journey? 3.) Why does Sami believe that CEOs should read less and listen less? What are the benefits to not empathizing extensively with the problems of the team? What operational structure must be in place for this level of management to occur? 4.) How does Sami compare VC funding to real estate mortgages? Why does Sami believe that it is always better to raise little? What is the one thing time, money and shelf-space all have in common? 5.) What does Sami mean when he says "CEOs must look after themselves like athletes"? What are Sami's top health and nutrition tips for founders and operators with hugely busy lives? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Sami's Fave Book: Unbroken As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Sami on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. If you are an early stage startup, the right infrastructure and support systems are critical, that is where First Republic is so good. First Republic's resources network and expertise allow entrepreneurs to customise a solid foundation for their business. Why First Republic, well you get to leverage their incredible network of VC firms to prepare you for future fundraising events, you get to count on a single point of contact that will be there for you and your employees, you get access to exclusive events and networking opportunities. Their clients include the likes of Instacart, eShares and Wish just to name a few. Check it out by heading over to innovation.firstrepublic.com Segment allows you to collect data from every platform (mobile, web, server, cloud apps) and load it into Segment. Segment then sends the customer data to your tools and destinations where it can be used most effectively, destinations include email, analytics, warehouses, helpdesks and more. With over 200 sources and destinations on the Segment platform that can empower your team, Segment really is the last integration you will ever do and that is why the world's best companies use segment to drive growth and revenue including Atlassian, New Relic and Crate & Barrel. Simply head over to segment.com to find out more.

Bram Sugarman is the Director of Corporate Development & Strategic Partnerships at Shopify, the e-commerce titan that has over 500 merchants in 150 countries on their platform. Prior to joining Shopify, Bram was a venture capitalist with OMERS Ventures, the venture capital arm of one the largest pension funds in the world. As a VC, Bram worked on more than 20 transactions helping the OMERS Ventures grow from 1 investment to 24 investments. Bram helped lead and manage OMERS Ventures' investments in Shopify (IPO), HootSuite, VidYard, PasswordBox (Acquired by Intel), BusBud, Hopper, League, and AppHero (Acquired by Fuse Powered). In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Bram made his way into the world of VC and then jumped to the other side of the table, buying startups with Shopify? 2.) What does using corporate development as a platform to accelerate product roadmap mean? How does this mean it differentiates from traditional M&A? How does Bram work with product team in the M&A process? What are the benefits of doing this? 3.) How does Bram assess the attractiveness of acquihires? What are the 2 differing types of acquihires? What are the essential characteristics of the individuals in those acquihire situations? 4.) With integration being the biggest risk of M&A, what does the ideal post-acquisition process look like? What must be done on both the side of the startup and the acquiror to make the process as smooth as possible? 5.) With regards to pricing and valuation, why does Bram urge founders to consider the long term and what does that mean? How can founders determine the truth with regards to long term objectives of their acquiror? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Bram's Fave Book: Einstein by Walter Isaacson Bram's Most Recent Acquisition: Oberlo As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Bram on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. If you are an early stage startup, the right infrastructure and support systems are critical, that is where First Republic is so good. First Republic's resources network and expertise allow entrepreneurs to customise a solid foundation for their business. Why First Republic, well you get to leverage their incredible network of VC firms to prepare you for future fundraising events, you get to count on a single point of contact that will be there for you and your employees, you get access to exclusive events and networking opportunities. Their clients include the likes of Instacart, eShares and Wish just to name a few. Check it out by heading over to innovation.firstrepublic.com Segment allows you to collect data from every platform (mobile, web, server, cloud apps) and load it into Segment. Segment then sends the customer data to your tools and destinations where it can be used most effectively, destinations include email, analytics, warehouses, helpdesks and more. With over 200 sources and destinations on the Segment platform that can empower your team, Segment really is the last integration you will ever do and that is why the world's best companies use segment to drive growth and revenue including Atlassian, New Relic and Crate & Barrel. Simply head over to segment.com to find out more.

Matt Switzer is the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development @ Hootsuite, the social media management platform that has raised venture funding from some of the best in the world including Accel, Insight Venture Partners and Fidelity. At HootSuite, Matt and his team have raised over $250m in funding, acquired 8 companies and launched 4 new products. Prior to Hootsuite, Matt was on the other side of the table as a VC, where he helped to establish a new fund and manage an incubator. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Matt made his way into the world of VC and then decided to jump to the other side of the table as acquirer with Hootsuite? 2.) What is the build, buy or partner thinking process? When analysing markets, what does that deep dive and examination look like and entail? How does Hootsuite identify and select startups within the identified markets? 3.) How does Hootsuite most like to interact with startups in pipe? What does the relationship building look like? What platforms and tools are used to monitor those relationships post initial meeting? 4.) What does the internal conviction building process look like around a potential deal? What is the traditional structure of such a deal? How does Matt assess price sensitivity and it's ties to product market fit achieved by the startup? 5.) From the other side of the table, when should startups look to be building their M&A pipe? In conversations with potential acquirers, what are the foundations for them to remember? What role do VCs play and value do they provide in these conversations? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Matt's Fave Book: Red Notice Matt's Fave Blog: Tom Tunguz Matt's Most Recent Acquisition: AdEspresso As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Matt on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. If you are an early stage startup, the right infrastructure and support systems are critical, that is where First Republic is so good. First Republic's resources network and expertise allow entrepreneurs to customise a solid foundation for their business. Why First Republic, well you get to leverage their incredible network of VC firms to prepare you for future fundraising events, you get to count on a single point of contact that will be there for you and your employees, you get access to exclusive events and networking opportunities. Their clients include the likes of Instacart, eShares and Wish just to name a few. Check it out by heading over to innovation.firstrepublic.com Segment allows you to collect data from every platform (mobile, web, server, cloud apps) and load it into Segment. Segment then sends the customer data to your tools and destinations where it can be used most effectively, destinations include email, analytics, warehouses, helpdesks and more. With over 200 sources and destinations on the Segment platform that can empower your team, Segment really is the last integration you will ever do and that is why the world's best companies use segment to drive growth and revenue including Atlassian, New Relic and Crate & Barrel. Simply head over to segment.com to find out more.

Roger Dickey is the Founder & CEO @ Gigster, the smart development service combining top developers and designers with artificial intelligence. They have raised over $30m in funding from the likes of a16z, Redpoint, Marc Benioff, Ashton Kutcher, Michael Jordan and then previous guests Rick Marini and Felicis Ventures. Prior to Gigster, Roger founded Mafia Wars, where he built the business to $1Bn in revenues and 100m users. Roger is also a prolific angel investor and LP in venture funds with a portfolio including the likes of Docker, ClassDojo and Addepar, just to name a few. If that was not enough Roger is also an advisor to 8VC, Lemnos Labs and OpenDoor. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Roger made his way from founding Mafia Wars to changing the world of software development with Gigster? 2.) Roger has said before "if you dislike VCs, you have never worked with a good one". So what makes a truly great VC to Roger? What does Roger believe are the core components VCs can add to a company? How should founders view investors when investing in them? 3.) Following Roger's discussion with Mike Vernal, Partner @ Sequoia, why does Roger believe that the Series A is a hiring decision? How does this change how founders should think about the A round & present themselves throughout the round? 4.) Why does Roger think it is important for startup founders to invest in other startups? What benefits does this bring to you and your own company? How does Roger prioritize, time-wise between LP, GP and founder? 5.) When angel investing, Roger admits that he takes the "market first" approach. Why is this? How does Roger assess the element of market creation? How does Roger look to balance between founder first vs company first? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Roger's Fave Book: On Intelligence Roger's Fave Blog: Elad Gil As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Roger on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. If you are an early stage startup, the right infrastructure and support systems are critical, that is where First Republic is so good. First Republic's resources network and expertise allow entrepreneurs to customise a solid foundation for their business. Why First Republic, well you get to leverage their incredible network of VC firms to prepare you for future fundraising events, you get to count on a single point of contact that will be there for you and your employees, you get access to exclusive events and networking opportunities. Their clients include the likes of Instacart, eShares and Wish just to name a few. Check it out by heading over to innovation.firstrepublic.com Segment allows you to collect data from every platform (mobile, web, server, cloud apps) and load it into Segment. Segment then sends the customer data to your tools and destinations where it can be used most effectively, destinations include email, analytics, warehouses, helpdesks and more. With over 200 sources and destinations on the Segment platform that can empower your team, Segment really is the last integration you will ever do and that is why the world's best companies use segment to drive growth and revenue including Atlassian, New Relic and Crate & Barrel. Simply head over to segment.com to find out more.

Drew Oetting is a Founding Partner @ 8VC, one of Silicon Valley's youngest and most exciting new entrants to the VC market with $425m for their debut fund. In just a few years they have built a portfolio including the likes of Oculus, RelateIQ, previous guest Elad Gil & Color, recent guest Mario @ Oscar and many more incredible companies. As for Drew, previously he served as Chief of Staff to fellow 8VC Founding Partner, Joe Lonsdale and was a two-time Bill Gates Investment Asset Management Fellow. Drew is also an advisor to Living On One, Rubicon Global and is a Founding Board Director @ Affinity Technologies. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Drew made his way from Joe Lonsdale's Chief of Staff to Founding Partner @ 8VC? 2.) Why does Drew believe the way we think of VC today will change? How does the extended period of privatization affect the role of the VC and their relationship to the founder vs the company? 3.) Why does Drew believe that funds make big mistakes in the internal setup of their operation? Why do funds not do a good job of developing talent? What are the problems of funds being internally competitive with deal by deal carry etc? 4.) As a Founding Partner of a $425m fund at 26, what were the challenges of having such a position, earlier than usual? How did Drew overcome them? What advice would Drew give to young people who want an accelerated career path? 5.) Why does Drew believe that "VCs have forgotten their job is to invest in entrepreneurs NOT technologists"? How does Drew determine whether someone has the ability to bridge both technologist and entrepreneur? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Drew's Fave Book: Barbarians At The Gate, Fooled By Randomness Drew's Fave Blog: Dan Primack: Axios As always you can follow Harry & The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. If you are an early stage startup, the right infrastructure and support systems are critical, that is where First Republic is so good. First Republic's resources network and expertise allow entrepreneurs to customise a solid foundation for their business. Why First Republic, well you get to leverage their incredible network of VC firms to prepare you for future fundraising events, you get to count on a single point of contact that will be there for you and your employees, you get access to exclusive events and networking opportunities. Their clients include the likes of Instacart, eShares and Wish just to name a few. Check it out by heading over to innovation.firstrepublic.com Segment allows you to collect data from every platform (mobile, web, server, cloud apps) and load it into Segment. Segment then sends the customer data to your tools and destinations where it can be used most effectively, destinations include email, analytics, warehouses, helpdesks and more. With over 200 sources and destinations on the Segment platform that can empower your team, Segment really is the last integration you will ever do and that is why the world's best companies use segment to drive growth and revenue including Atlassian, New Relic and Crate & Barrel. Simply head over to segment.com to find out more.

Eric Vishria is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the world's leading VC funds with a portfolio including the likes of Twitter, Uber, Snapchat, eBay, WeWork, Yelp and many more revolutionary companies of the last decade. At Benchmark, Eric has led deals and sits on the board of the likes of Confluent, Amplitude, and Bugsnag. Prior to being in VC, Eric was the Founder & CEO @ Rockmelt, the startup that sought to re-imagine the browser for the way people use the web today, the company was ultimately acquired by Yahoo in 2013. Prior to Rockmelt Eric held numerous different roles including VP of Products @ HP and VP of Marketing @ Opsware. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Eric came to be one of the 5 GP's at Benchmark following operational success with Rockmelt, HP and Opsware? 2.) Why does Eric believe the pendulum has swung too far to the operational route into VC? What are the under-appreciated benefits of career VCs and the perspective they bring? How does Eric expect the pendulum to swing in the coming years? 3.) What makes the best-performing venture partnerships? How does Benchmark think about partner composition and career pre-VC? How does Benchmark structure investment decision-making? Why do they favor advocacy over unanimity? 4.) What does Eric mean when he says we are at the beginning of an infrastructure renaissance? What opportunities does this create in the venture landscape? How does this lead Eric to consider the current state of the consumer landscape? 5.) How does Eric view multi-stage investing? Why does Eric and Benchmark favour stage specifity when it comes to investing? What are the dangers of larger stage funds investing in earlier rounds for optionality? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Eric's Fave Book: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage To The Antarctic Eric's Most Recent Investment: Confluent As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Eric on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. If you are an early stage startup, the right infrastructure and support systems are critical, that is where First Republic is so good. First Republic's resources network and expertise allow entrepreneurs to customise a solid foundation for their business. Why First Republic, well you get to leverage their incredible network of VC firms to prepare you for future fundraising events, you get to count on a single point of contact that will be there for you and your employees, you get access to exclusive events and networking opportunities. Their clients include the likes of Instacart, eShares and Wish just to name a few. Check it out by heading over to innovation.firstrepublic.com Segment allows you to collect data from every platform (mobile, web, server, cloud apps) and load it into Segment. Segment then sends the customer data to your tools and destinations where it can be used most effectively, destinations include email, analytics, warehouses, helpdesks and more. With over 200 sources and destinations on the Segment platform that can empower your team, Segment really is the last integration you will ever do and that is why the world's best companies use segment to drive growth and revenue including Atlassian, New Relic and Crate & Barrel. Simply head over to segment.com to find out more.

Mario Schlosser is the Founder & CEO @ Oscar, the startup that makes health insurance easy. They have raised over $700m in funding from some of the world's best investors including the likes of Founders Fund, Google Capital, Thrive Capital, Lakestar, Khosla Ventures and Jim Breyer just to name a few. Previously, Mario co-founded the largest social gaming company in Latin America and held roles with the likes of Bridgewater Associates and McKinsey. Fun fact, as a visiting scholar at Stanford University, Mario wrote 10 computer science publications, including one of the most-cited computer science papers published in the past decade. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Mario made his way into the world of healthcare and Oscar from founding Latin America's largest social gaming company? 2.) Why is insurance one of the most complex spaces in tech? Why is there a chance for companies, not governments, to cut costs and innovate on the current system? Does Mario agree with Brian Singerman, "once we go to a single player, innovation ends", thesis? 3.) Oscar has raised over $700m, to what extent does Mario believe that too high a valuation can be a liability? How did Mario look to select his investors? What are the challenges of raising funds for a category-defining opportunity? 4.) Oscar now has over 600 in the team, where have been the inflection points in the scaling of the company? Where have things broken? How does Mario look to rectify and observe these inflection points ahead of time? 5.) How does Mario look to optimise team composition? How does he look to balance athletes with heavy domain experts? Does Mario believe that too much domain expertise can prevent innovation due to a lack of naivety? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Mario's Fave Book: Herr Lehmann Mario's Fave Blog: Spiegel As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Mario on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. If you are an early stage startup, the right infrastructure and support systems are critical, that is where First Republic is so good. First Republic's resources network and expertise allow entrepreneurs to customise a solid foundation for their business. Why First Republic, well you get to leverage their incredible network of VC firms to prepare you for future fundraising events, you get to count on a single point of contact that will be there for you and your employees, you get access to exclusive events and networking opportunities. Their clients include the likes of Instacart, eShares and Wish just to name a few. Check it out by heading over to innovation.firstrepublic.com Segment allows you to collect data from every platform (mobile, web, server, cloud apps) and load it into Segment. Segment then sends the customer data to your tools and destinations where it can be used most effectively, destinations include email, analytics, warehouses, helpdesks and more. With over 200 sources and destinations on the Segment platform that can empower your team, Segment really is the last integration you will ever do and that is why the world's best companies use segment to drive growth and revenue including Atlassian, New Relic and Crate & Barrel. Simply head over to segment.com to find out more.

Jeremy Conrad is a Partner @ Lemnos Labs, the fund that believes in the earliest stages of building hardware, every dollar counts, every hour matters and every decision is crucial to success or failure. Consequently, Lemnos invests in pre-seed and seed hardware startups encountering these very real challenges. Among their portfolio is the likes of previous guest Swift Navigation and Airware, just to name a few. As for Jeremy, prior to VC he was in the United States Airforce where he was in charge of an $80m tests and targets group and was also responsible for the BMC4I system of the Airborne Laser (ABL). In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jeremy made his way from the United States Airforce to investing in the next generation of great hardware founders with Lemnos? 2.) Why does Jeremy believe that now is the time for robotics? What megatrends mean now is the right time? Why does Jeremy believe that core AI today is largely a bunch of nifty tricks? 3.) Why does Jeremy believe that Silicon Valley will dominate the future of robotics? What characteristics does the valley have that mean this is the case? What is the dirty secret of Silicon Valley? 4.) How does Jeremy view the funding environments for hardware? Where is there constrictions of capital for hardware startups? What must hardware founders have in place in order to raise a Series B? 5.) Why does Jeremy believe that consumer electronics is the hardest space for venture today? With the likes of Juicero and Pearl, is consumer still possible today? Are the likes of GoPro and FitBit merely anomalies in the dataset? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Jeremy's Fave Book: The Better Angels of Our Nature Jeremy's Fave Blog: Dan Primack: Pro Rata Jeremy's Most Recent Investment: Marble As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jeremy on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. If you are an early stage startup, the right infrastructure and support systems are critical, that is where First Republic is so good. First Republic's resources network and expertise allow entrepreneurs to customise a solid foundation for their business. Why First Republic, well you get to leverage their incredible network of VC firms to prepare you for future fundraising events, you get to count on a single point of contact that will be there for you and your employees, you get access to exclusive events and networking opportunities. Their clients include the likes of Instacart, eShares and Wish just to name a few. Check it out by heading over to innovation.firstrepublic.com Segment allows you to collect data from every platform (mobile, web, server, cloud apps) and load it into Segment. Segment then sends the customer data to your tools and destinations where it can be used most effectively, destinations include email, analytics, warehouses, helpdesks and more. With over 200 sources and destinations on the Segment platform that can empower your team, Segment really is the last integration you will ever do and that is why the world's best companies use segment to drive growth and revenue including Atlassian, New Relic and Crate & Barrel. Simply head over to segment.com to find out more.

Mike Volpi is a General Partner @ Index Ventures, one of the world's leading venture funds with a portfolio including the likes of Facebook, Dropbox, Slack, Supercell and Deliveroo just to name a few. Mike currently sits on the boards of prior guests, Cockroach Labs and Wealthfront, as well as Blue Bottle Coffee, Sonos and Zuora just to name a few. Prior to Index, Mike was a director @ Cloud.com (acq by Citrix) and StorSimple (acq by Microsoft). Before that, Mike held a number of executive positions including Chief Strategy Officer at Cisco. He also serves on the board of Fiat Chrysler Automotive. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Mike made his transition from operator and M&A exec to General Partner @ Index and opening their West Coast Office? 2.) Question from Dave Morin @ Slow: How did Mike's childhood in Italy and Japan affect how he views and interacts with entrepreneurs today? Question from Danny Rimer: How has Mike found the transition from player to coach with the move to VC? 3.) Question from Andy Rachleff: Having seen both the US and European venture markets, how do they compare? Why does Mike think being an entrepreneur in Europe is far more solitary? What does it take to create a VC brand, like Index in an already very crowded West Coast market? 4.) Having had a front-row seat for the brand building of the likes of Sonos, Blue Bottle and Eero, what does Mike believe are the core tenets to building generation-defining brands? How has this changed over the last 5-10 years? 5.) Does Mike agree with Rob Siegel that the enterprise market is now less exciting given we might be entering a period of consolidation? Why does Mike believe this actually represents opportunity? How will we see open source play a role in the next wave of these enterprise companies? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Mike's Fave Book: Undaunted Courage Mike's Fave Blog: The Information Mike's Most Recent Investment: Eero As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Mike on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. If you are an early stage startup, the right infrastructure and support systems are critical, that is where First Republic is so good. First Republic's resources network and expertise allow entrepreneurs to customise a solid foundation for their business. Why First Republic, well you get to leverage their incredible network of VC firms to prepare you for future fundraising events, you get to count on a single point of contact that will be there for you and your employees, you get access to exclusive events and networking opportunities. Their clients include the likes of Instacart, eShares and Wish just to name a few. Check it out by heading over to innovation.firstrepublic.com Segment allows you to collect data from every platform (mobile, web, server, cloud apps) and load it into Segment. Segment then sends the customer data to your tools and destinations where it can be used most effectively, destinations include email, analytics, warehouses, helpdesks and more. With over 200 sources and destinations on the Segment platform that can empower your team, Segment really is the last integration you will ever do and that is why the world's best companies use segment to drive growth and revenue including Atlassian, New Relic and Crate & Barrel. Simply head over to segment.com to find out more.

Charlie Lee is the creator of Litecoin, the most popular alternative currency to Bitcoin, which Charlie created as a side project in 2011 while working at Google. Today Litecoin has a market cap of $3.29Bn. As well as creating Litecoin, Charlie is also the Director of Engineering @ Coinbase, working alongside recent 20VC guest and Coinbase founder, Brian Armstrong. Prior to this, Charlie held roles at Microsoft, Google and Guidewire. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Charlie made his way from Google to Coinbase to founding Litecoin in his free time? What were Charlie's biggest takeaways from being at Coinbase? 2.) What does Charlie believe is the biggest barrier to the world of cryptocurrency and BTC? What is the holy grail to securing this and the future of the space within mass consumer usage? 3.) How does Charlie think about the largest problem for crypto and BTC, scaling? Why does Charlie believe that Ethereum will have large problems scaling? How does Charlie assess the balance of centralization, scaling and transaction efficiency? 4.) Why is Charlie's biggest concern the current ICO market? Why does he believe it is the "wild west"? What happens to alternative currencies when the ICO market crashes? Who are the ultimate winners in the ICO markets? 5.) How does Charlie analyse the differing communities when comparing ETH to BTC to LTC? Does community serve as a core form of IP for currencies and their stability moving forward? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Charlie's Fave Book: Game of Thrones As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Charlie on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. If you are an early stage startup, the right infrastructure and support systems are critical, that is where First Republic is so good. First Republic's resources network and expertise allow entrepreneurs to customise a solid foundation for their business. Why First Republic, well you get to leverage their incredible network of VC firms to prepare you for future fundraising events, you get to count on a single point of contact that will be there for you and your employees, you get access to exclusive events and networking opportunities. Their clients include the likes of Instacart, eShares and Wish just to name a few. Check it out by heading over to innovation.firstrepublic.com Segment allows you to collect data from every platform (mobile, web, server, cloud apps) and load it into Segment. Segment then sends the customer data to your tools and destinations where it can be used most effectively, destinations include email, analytics, warehouses, helpdesks and more. With over 200 sources and destinations on the Segment platform that can empower your team, Segment really is the last integration you will ever do and that is why the world's best companies use segment to drive growth and revenue including Atlassian, New Relic and Crate & Barrel. Simply head over to segment.com to find out more.

Kathleen Utecht is a General Partner @ Core Innovation Capital, I would say one of the most under the radar but immensely exciting funds in market and they are looking to revolutionize financial services with their portfolio. With their portfolio are the likes of NerdWallet, PayJoy, fundera and Mayvenn just to name a few. Prior to Core, Kat was an investor at Comcast Ventures and WVP Ventures. Prior to her venture roles, Kath invested in and led Green Rock Entertainment, an online/offline commerce startup. Before that, Kat cut her teeth in the world of finance working as an investment banker at Raymond James. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Kat made her way from car entrepreneur dreams to operator to now, General Partner @ Core? 2.) Why does Kat believe that "society is on a downgrade"? Does Kat agree with the Thiel thesis of "we expected flying cars and were given 140 characters"? Where does Kat most want to see entrepreneurs spending their time and skills? 3.) How does Kat view regulation with regards to startup operations and expansion? Why does Kat believe that "sector specific funds should be in every highly regulated deal"? What are the core benefits? How can VCs really aid with regulation? 4.) Kat has previously said that "VC is a lifestyle not a job", what does Kat mean by this? How does this mean VCs should behave with regards to founder interactions and communications? How can entrepreneurs stress test whether a VC has this belief? 5.) How does Kat view the process of losing companies? What does her post mortem analysis look like? Why does Kat believe that if you do not lose companies, you are not taking enough risk? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Kat's Fave Book: Atlas Shrugged Kat's Fave Blog: AVC by Fred Wilson As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Kat on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. If you are an early stage startup, the right infrastructure and support systems are critical, that is where First Republic is so good. First Republic's resources network and expertise allow entrepreneurs to customise a solid foundation for their business. Why First Republic, well you get to leverage their incredible network of VC firms to prepare you for future fundraising events, you get to count on a single point of contact that will be there for you and your employees, you get access to exclusive events and networking opportunities. Their clients include the likes of Instacart, eShares and Wish just to name a few. Check it out by heading over to innovation.firstrepublic.com Segment allows you to collect data from every platform (mobile, web, server, cloud apps) and load it into Segment. Segment then sends the customer data to your tools and destinations where it can be used most effectively, destinations include email, analytics, warehouses, helpdesks and more. With over 200 sources and destinations on the Segment platform that can empower your team, Segment really is the last integration you will ever do and that is why the world's best companies use segment to drive growth and revenue including Atlassian, New Relic and Crate & Barrel. Simply head over to segment.com to find out more.

Andy Weissman is a Partner @ Union Square Ventures, one of the world's leading VC firms with investments in Twitter, Twilio, Zynga, Soundcloud, Tumblr, Lending Club and many more. At USV, Andy sits on the boards of YouNow, ScienceExchange, Figure 1 and previous guest, CircleUp. Prior to joining USV, in 2007 he co-founded betaworks, which both created and invested in social, real-time applications and services. You can also check out Andy's fantastic blog here. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Andy made his way into the world of startups and investing, came to found Betaworks and then made the move to USV? 2.) Andy has previously said the business "is more about luck than skill and process rather than foresight". Why does Andy place so much emphasis on process? How has Andy seen his process evolve over the years? How does the process of an individual balance with the process of the firm? 3.) Why does USV not agree with voting as a method of investment decision making? How do Andy and USV approach reserve allocation? What model and simulators do they use to determine which companies receive follow on funding? 4.) Why does Andy believe that recycling cash from early exits is good for everyone? How has Andy found that LPs respond to this? What is the balance? What is the right amount for recycling, 110%, 120% or 130%? 5.) How does Andy view price sensitivity? To what extent does Andy agree with Peter Fenton that "valuation is a mental trap"? Has there been a time when Andy has lost a deal due to price? How has that changed his psyche and approach to the topic? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Andy's Fave Book: On The Road by Jack Kerouac Andy's Fave Blog: Phish.net, Continuations, Radio Free Mobile Andy's Most Recent Investment: Flip As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Andy on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. If you are an early stage startup, the right infrastructure and support systems are critical, that is where First Republic is so good. First Republic's resources network and expertise allow entrepreneurs to customise a solid foundation for their business. Why First Republic, well you get to leverage their incredible network of VC firms to prepare you for future fundraising events, you get to count on a single point of contact that will be there for you and your employees, you get access to exclusive events and networking opportunities. Their clients include the likes of Instacart, eShares and Wish just to name a few. Check it out by heading over to innovation.firstrepublic.com Segment allows you to collect data from every platform (mobile, web, server, cloud apps) and load it into Segment. Segment then sends the customer data to your tools and destinations where it can be used most effectively, destinations include email, analytics, warehouses, helpdesks and more. With over 200 sources and destinations on the Segment platform that can empower your team, Segment really is the last integration you will ever do and that is why the world's best companies use segment to drive growth and revenue including Atlassian, New Relic and Crate & Barrel. Simply head over to segment.com to find out more.

Wayne Chang is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. His latest company, Crashlytics, was acquired by Twitter in a 9-figure acquisition, its largest acquisition at the time. 5 years later, Crashlytics was acquired again, this time by Google. Wayne is also a prolific angel investor with a portfolio that includes the likes of OpenDoor, SoFi, Gusto, JetSmarter and Planet Labs just to name a few. If that was not enough, Wayne is also a limited partner in several prominent funds including the likes of 137 Ventures, Baseline Ventures, and Boston Seed Capital. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Wayne make his way into the world of founding tech companies and what was the founding story with Crashlytics? 2.) Why does Wayne believe that one of the first hires founders must make is a recruiter? What are the benefits of having this as a dedicated function so early? What must founders look for in these early recruiter hires? 3.) Why does Wayne believe that with regards to VC, you "must avoid the board room"? What is a better environment to interact and pitch? How can early stage startups look to stand out in the rather process driven pitching game? 4.) What is the optimal way for founders to be put in touch with VCs? Should founders speak to associates in the fundraising days? Why does Wayne believe the power of the warm intro is lopsided? 5.) How can founders look to create a sense of urgency within the VC community when raising and closing their round? How can founders look to create a sense of FOMO within the investor class they are pitching? Should they name other funds they are seeing? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Wayne's Fave Book: Enders Game Wayne's Fave Blog: Hacker News As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Wayne on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app – all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry Treehouse is an online school where you can learn how to build websites and apps. Their course library has thousands of hours of content, where you can learn all sorts of topics, including Javascript, iOS, Android and more. With high-quality video instruction from real industry experts teaching you all you need to know, and quizzes and code challenges keep you engaged and on track. Learn on your own schedule and go from beginner to pro. Go to teamtreehouse.com to start your free trial.

Jon Callaghan is a founder of True Ventures, one of the West Coast's leading early stage funds with a portfolio including the likes of Fitbit, recent unicorn Peloton, Automattic (makers of Wordpress) and more amazing companies. Jon also led the deals and sits on the board of Fitbit, Brightroll, Peloton and Glu Mobile, just to name a few. Prior to True, Jon founded 3 of his own companies, the first being in 1986 with Mountain Bike Outfitters Inc. Following several years founding companies, Jon made his move into VC with Summit Partners and then enjoyed roles with AOL's venture incubator, CMGi's Venture group and Globespan Capital. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jon made his first forays into the world of VC and came to co-found True with Phil Black? 2.) How does Jon look to straddle the divide of "founder/VC"? Why does Jon believe it is crucial to have an entrepreneurial mindset as an investor? 3.) Why does Jon believe VCs biggest bias is loss aversion? Why does Jon always believe that the role of the VC is to maximise risk? What 1 thing must all prospective investors get good at very quickly? 4.) How does Jon view reserve allocation? True invest -1% per deal in each company, how do they look to efficiently deploy reserves? What must the communication be between founder and VC with regards to attaining follow on funding? 5.) Why does Jon believe that current board meetings do not serve startup founders? What are the characteristics of the best board members and how they conduct themselves? What is the single biggest problem boards bring to founders? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Jon's Fave Book: Moby Dick Jon's Fave Blog: Dave Pell: NextDraft Jon's Most Recent Investment: Brava As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jon on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app – all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry Treehouse is an online school where you can learn how to build websites and apps. Their course library has thousands of hours of content, where you can learn all sorts of topics, including Javascript, iOS, Android and more. With high-quality video instruction from real industry experts teaching you all you need to know, and quizzes and code challenges keep you engaged and on track. Learn on your own schedule and go from beginner to pro. Go to teamtreehouse.com to start your free trial.

Phil Black is a founder of True Ventures, one of the West Coast's leading early stage funds with a portfolio including the likes of Fitbit, recent unicorn Peloton, Automattic (makers of Wordpress) and more amazing companies. Prior to True, Phil learnt the craft of venture at Summit Partners and at the predecessor firm to Lightspeed Venture Partners. However, it was in 2003 that Phil co-founded a small angel fund, Blacksmith Capital with the mission to prove his thesis that great founders of early stage technology companies can and often prefer to start their businesses and get a lot of traction with $2.5 million or less of initial funding. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Phil made is first forays into the world of VC and his big learnings in the early days of cutting his teeth in the industry? 2.) What were the big takeaways for Phil from experiencing the massive dot com boom days to experiencing the very lowest of funding environments? How did that affect his investment mindset? How does that affect his view of startup raising? 3.) What does Phil consider the 4 major risk categories for startups? What combination of risk categories mean a successful outcome is more possible? Which combination mean that Phil would likely not invest in the company? 4.) How should startups determine the "right" amount to raise for? How does Phil assess optimising runway and evaluating burn? What does Phil make of the hailed "bridge round"? WHy does Phil believe lean is always best? 5.) With considerable funds AUM how does sharing in sub $2.5m rounds provide sufficient levels of ownership to ake fund returns? What is True's required level of ownership? How does Phil assess reserve allocation and pro rata rights? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Phil's Fave Blog: Om Malik, Dan Primack: Axios Phil's Most Recent Investment: Orecco As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Phil on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app – all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry Treehouse is an online school where you can learn how to build websites and apps. Their course library has thousands of hours of content, where you can learn all sorts of topics, including Javascript, iOS, Android and more. With high-quality video instruction from real industry experts teaching you all you need to know, and quizzes and code challenges keep you engaged and on track. Learn on your own schedule and go from beginner to pro. Go to teamtreehouse.com to start your free trial.

Tim Harris is the Founder & CEO @ Swift Navigation, the startup focused on building a world-class organization that will power the next generation of GPS-enabled robots and autonomous vehicles. They have raised over $45m in VC funding from some of our favourites including the likes of First Round, Felicis, Lemnos Labs and NEA. As for Tim, prior to Swift Tim held numerous roles from supply chain consulting to corporate finance encapsulating strategic partnerships and M&A. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Tim made his way from supply chain consulting to providing navigation for an automated future with Swift? 2.) Why does Tim believe that Silicon Valley is no longer optimised for deep tech creation and investing? Why does Tim believe we have seen the transition in Silicon Valley from technology innovation to business model innovation? Is this a problem? 3.) Tim has said before "there is a big lie to Silicon Valley", what is that lie? How does Tim assess unit economics with regards to deep tech businesses? How does he look to evaluate the viability of a deep tech business model? What are the core components? 4.) From the VC perspective, does Tim believe deep tech is an attractive investment opportunity for the current investor class? How does Tim respond to the longer exit cycles and higher capital intensity of deep tech? Does this create inherently frothy environments for valuations given the dilutive element? 5.) How does Tim view the working together of incumbents and deep tech startups? Is this an environment of consolidation, partnership or over arching disruption? What are the core questions founders must ask when considering a partnership? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Tim's Fave Book: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius Tim's Fave Blog: First Round Review As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app – all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry Treehouse is an online school where you can learn how to build websites and apps. Their course library has thousands of hours of content, where you can learn all sorts of topics, including Javascript, iOS, Android and more. With high-quality video instruction from real industry experts teaching you all you need to know, and quizzes and code challenges keep you engaged and on track. Learn on your own schedule and go from beginner to pro. Go to teamtreehouse.com to start your free trial.

Alina Cohen is a General Partner @ Initialized Capital, one of Silicon Valleys leading early stage seed funds. Their portfolio includes the likes of recent unicorn, Coinbase, Flexport, Cruise Automation, OpenDoor and many more incredible companies. As for Alina, prior to Initialized, she ran tech investments for Tamares Group, the first outside investor in Palantir, and previously founded Recrec, a computer vision startup which was acquired by Facebook, where she worked on Platform and Groups. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Alina made her way from selling her computer vision startup to Facebook to GP with one of SF's best new seed funds, Initialized? 2.) Why does Alina think gaming is so similar to start-ups? What core components are the same? What about gaming led Alina to realise there were secrets to the world of starting companies and growing startups in Silicon Valley? 3.) Why is Alina so focused on engineering-centric founders? Why does Alina feel they are the most attractive investment opportunities? Why are they the founder profile that deals best when pivots have to be made? 4.) Why does Alina think that AI is more artificial than intelligent today? If ML is a "leveraged play on data", where are the opportunities for startups with such data incumbency? Does AI just help the big get bigger? 5.) Why is Alina so bullish on the future of personal voice computing? What does Alina think will be the catalyst to consumer adoption? What are the compelling consumer applications with voice? Why does this remind her of the early FB platform days? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Alina's Fave Book: The Three-Body Problem Alina's Most Recent Investment: Fly.io As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Alina on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app – all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry Treehouse is an online school where you can learn how to build websites and apps. Their course library has thousands of hours of content, where you can learn all sorts of topics, including Javascript, iOS, Android and more. With high-quality video instruction from real industry experts teaching you all you need to know, and quizzes and code challenges keep you engaged and on track. Learn on your own schedule and go from beginner to pro. Go to teamtreehouse.com to start your free trial.

Mike Jones is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Science Inc, one of America's most successful incubators with an incredible 3 Science Inc portfolio companies exiting in 2016 alone with the sales of Dollar Shave Club, Hello Society (acquired by NYT) and Famebit (acquired by Google). Science continue to push the frontier of tech with their recent announcement of Science Blockchain, the first ICO blockchain incubator ever, with the ICO pre-sale starting in just 13 days from now. Prior to Science, Mike was the CEO @ MySpace, where he was responsible for one of the most high-profile turn-around challenges in the industry. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Mike made his way from MySpace CEO to founding one of the nation's most successful startup incubators? 2.) Firstly, what is a token in the world of crypto? How does securitized and utility tokens differ? Why does Mike believe the current state of utility tokens is reminiscent of the early days of domain names? 3.) What are the core barriers to traditional investors transferring assets on mass into crypto? What will be the catalyst causing this asset allocation shift in the future? What needs to happen to crypto for it to be attractive for traditionals? 4.) How have we seen the M&A market respond to tokenization? How can we as an ecosystem look to build a framework and structure that allows for a healthy M&A environment? 5.) With so many ICOs occurring today, what will be the determining factors between those that succeed and those that do not? How can individuals from around the world look to assess potential ICO's? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Mike's Fave Book: Ready Player One As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Mike on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app – all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry Treehouse is an online school where you can learn how to build websites and apps. Their course library has thousands of hours of content, where you can learn all sorts of topics, including Javascript, iOS, Android and more. With high-quality video instruction from real industry experts teaching you all you need to know, and quizzes and code challenges keep you engaged and on track. Learn on your own schedule and go from beginner to pro. Go to teamtreehouse.com to start your free trial.

Jonathan Abrams is the Founder and CEO @ Nuzzel, the startup that offers personalised news discovery and curated newsletters for busy professionals. They have backing from some of the investing greats including Marc Andreesen, Naval Ravikant, Homebrew, SoftTech and Lowercase just to name a few. Prior to Nuzzel, Jonathan was the Founder of early social media machine, Friendster attaining funding from Benchmark, Kleiner and Reid Hoffman. Jonathan is also a prolific angel investor counting AngelList, Docker, Front, Instacart, and Slideshare amongst his portfolio. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jonathan made his way into the world of startups and came to found Nuzzel? 2.) Why does Jonathan dislike it when he hears that a VC "fell into the industry"? Why does that not resonate with entrepreneurs? How can it be better phrased to align with operationally minded people? 3.) Why is Jonathan tired of hearing the word conviction from investors? Why does it not make sense to say you invest with conviction? How would Jonathan like to see the use of data to prove conviction-driven (high ownership) is optimal for fund returns? 4.) Does Jonathan believe there are too many seed funds in market today? Why does he believe we have seen a reduction in the numder of $'s going into seed companies? Does Jonathan believe the future is thematic for seed funds? 5.) Why does Jonathan believe the majority of boards "are just not very successful"? What does Jonathan believe makes a great board member? Likewise, what can entrepreneurs do to most effectively manage their board? Why do we need more operational people on boards? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Jonathan's Fave Book: Beggars in Spain by Nanacy Kress Jonathan's Fave Blog: Strictly VC As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jonathan on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app – all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry Treehouse is an online school where you can learn how to build websites and apps. Their course library has thousands of hours of content, where you can learn all sorts of topics, including Javascript, iOS, Android and more. With high-quality video instruction from real industry experts teaching you all you need to know, and quizzes and code challenges keep you engaged and on track. Learn on your own schedule and go from beginner to pro. Go to teamtreehouse.com to start your free trial.

Allison Goldberg is a Managing Director & Senior Vice President @ Time Warner Investments, focusing on investment opportunities that directly enhance Time Warner's ability to meet specific strategic goals. Their portfolio consists of the likes of Mashable, Discord, Admeld (acq by Google) and Mic just to name a few. Allison also directly sits on the boards of Outpost Games, Yieldmo, Bustle and Mic. Prior to Time Warner, Allison cut her teeth in the finance industry with a stint at Morgan Stanley. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Allison made her way from investment banking with Morgan Stanley to running the investment arm of Time Warner? 2.) How has Allison seen the world of corporate VC change over the last 16 years? How has Allison seen the VC perception of corporate VC change over the years? Do corporates still get the preference rights they once received? 3.) What are the big questions entrepreneurs must ask corporate VCs when entering into discussions with them? What are the big red flags entrepreneurs should look for in their dialogue? What line of conversation should give the entrepreneur confidence? 4.) Is there a signalling risk for startups of having corporate investors rather than Tier 1 VCs? How can this signalling risk be mitigated? Why does Allison not think corporates make for good Series A lead investors? 5.) How does Allison view fund structures for corporates? How does the lack of fund end affect how corporates can invest long term? How does it affect their time allocation without needing to raise future funds? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Allison's Fave Book: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Allison's Fave Blog: NextDraft Allison's Most Recent Investment: Mic As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Allison on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app – all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry Treehouse is an online school where you can learn how to build websites and apps. Their course library has thousands of hours of content, where you can learn all sorts of topics, including Javascript, iOS, Android and more. With high-quality video instruction from real industry experts teaching you all you need to know, and quizzes and code challenges keep you engaged and on track. Learn on your own schedule and go from beginner to pro. Go to teamtreehouse.com to start your free trial.

Daniel Gross is a Partner @ Y Combinator, the world's most successful accelerator with alumni that includes the likes of Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, Flexport and many more incredible companies. At Y Combinator Daniel heads up all things YC AI having been a Director @ Apple where he focused on machine learning, as a result of his prior company, Cue (also a YC company) being acquired by Apple in 2013. If that was not enough, Daniel also has one of the valley's most impressive angel portfolios with investments in OpenDoor, Cruise (acquired by GM), Gusto and Github, just to name a few. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Daniel made his way from YC founder to being acquired by Apple to being YC partner? 2.) How does Daniel respond to the statement that "AI, is in part, a scam"? Why does Daniel believe that the impact of AI has not lived up to the hype? 3.) What are the 3 economies of scale that you have with machine learning when you are a large company? What can startups do to mitigate these incumbency advantages? What does Daniel mean when he says it is his job to "democratize AI"? 4.) Does Daniel believe we will see the rise of "AI companies" or machine learning as a sustaining innovation that existing incumbents use? What is Daniel fearful of with regards to this? 5.) How does Daniel view the potential for business models to be built around AI? Daniel has said "machine learning software will eat the software that has eaten the world". What does he mean by this? How does this play out? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Daniel's Fave Book: Enders Game, High Output Management, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running Daniel's Fave Blog: Slate Star Codex Daniel's Most Recent Investment: Rippling As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Daniel on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app – all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry Treehouse is an online school where you can learn how to build websites and apps. Their course library has thousands of hours of content, where you can learn all sorts of topics, including Javascript, iOS, Android and more. With high-quality video instruction from real industry experts teaching you all you need to know, and quizzes and code challenges keep you engaged and on track. Learn on your own schedule and go from beginner to pro. Go to teamtreehouse.com to start your free trial.

Joseph Zwillinger is the Founder @ Allbirds, the startup that makes the world's most comfortable shoes check this out, made out of wool. They have funding from the likes of Maveron, Lerer Hippeau and Slow Ventures and an army of loyal fans that includes Larry Paige, Ben Horowitz, Mary Meeker and Dick Costolo. Prior to co-founding Allbirds, Joey enjoyed a range of careers from investment banking with Goldman Sachs to venture capital with Industry Ventures to working at next generation food and nutrition company, TerraVia. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Joey made his way from investment banker to venture capitalist to Founder @ Allbirds, Silicon Valley's hottest brand? 2.) How does Joey view the core tenets to creating a successful brand? Why must brands today go further to more of a movement? How can companies look to create movements within their customer base? 3.) How does Joey assess the effects of Amazon on retail? How does Joey evaluate the economic ramifications of Amazon's flea market approach on the brands behind the products? Why does Joey want Allbirds to stay far away from Amazon? 4.) How does Joey look to prioritize what he and Allbirds focus on? What is the one core metric that guides all their decisions and behavior? How is this applicable to every company of all stage and sector? 5.) Why does Joey think that not enough VCs are people orientated? How does Josh assess the VC class of today? What does he look for when deciding which investors to choose? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Joey's Fave Book: Man's Search For Meaning Joey's Fave Blog: First Round Review, Dan Primack As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app - all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry Treehouse is an online school where you can learn how to build websites and apps. Their course library has thousands of hours of content, where you can learn all sorts of topics, including Javascript, iOS, Android and more. With high-quality video instruction from real industry experts teaching you all you need to know, and quizzes and code challenges keep you engaged and on track. Learn on your own schedule and go from beginner to pro. Go to teamtreehouse.com to start your free trial.

David Beisel is a co-founder and Partner at NextView Ventures, one of the East Coast's leading early stage funds with their recent $50m seed fund being announced just this month. David was most recently a Vice President at Venrock and previously a Principal at Masthead Venture Partners. Prior to becoming a venture capitalist, David co-founded Sombasa Media, an e-mail marketing company best known for its flagship product BargainDog. Sombasa was successfully acquired by About.com where David served as Vice President of Marketing. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How David made his way into the world of early stage venture and came to co-found NextView? 2.) How did Nextview design an investment decision-making process that allows for outliers to get through? How does this change with the decision for follow on investment? 3.) Why should firms write investment memos for every investment, regardless of stage and sector? How can firms implement a voting process that is both rigourous yet innovative? 4.) Why is David so excited by the voice computing space? With incumbents like Google and Amazon dominating, where is the opportunity for startups to play? Why does David believe that voice is the most natural user interface possible? 5.) Why does David believe distribution is one of the biggest challenges facing startups today? What does David look for in founders that suggest inherent knowledge of marketing and distribution prowess? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: David's Fave Book: Look Homeward, Angel David's Fave Blog: Gotham Voices, Hearing Voices David's Most Recent Investment: Skyways As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and David on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app - all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry Treehouse is an online school where you can learn how to build websites and apps. Their course library has thousands of hours of content, where you can learn all sorts of topics, including Javascript, iOS, Android and more. With high-quality video instruction from real industry experts teaching you all you need to know, and quizzes and code challenges keep you engaged and on track. Learn on your own schedule and go from beginner to pro. Go to teamtreehouse.com to start your free trial.

Jason Calacanis is arguably one of the world's greatest angel investors, as he says he has "got lucky" 7 times and counting with a portfolio that includes the likes of Uber, Thumbtack, Evernote, Tumblr and more incredible companies. Jason has also previously been a scout for Sequoia Capital, where he made the original Uber investment. On the operational side, Jason was previously a Sequoia Founder with Weblogs, sold to AOL for a reported $25-40m. Today he is the Host of This Week In Startups and Founder of The Launch Festival, bringing entrepreneurs together with potential investors. You can buy his fantastic new book, Angel here! CLICK TO PLAY CLICK TO LISTEN ON ITUNES In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Jason make his move into the world of angel investing? Why was now the right time to write, Angel? 2.) What does Jason believe are the 4 questions investors must ask founders? What response to those questions excited Jason to hear? What responses make him nervous? 3.) Why does Jason believe that founders having the option for early liquidity is good? Why does he believe it does the opposite of what VCs think and actually makes them continue to work? What are the dangers of offering early liquidity to those founders? 4.) Why does Jason believe that companies are always bought and not sold? Does VC access to corporate development teams then become a futile exercise? 5.) How does Jason view the scaling of Y Combinator? How does Jason evaluate the valuations placed on YC companies? Why does Jason believe that progressive term sheets are ridiculous? As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jason on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app - all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry Treehouse is an online school where you can learn how to build websites and apps. Their course library has thousands of hours of content, where you can learn all sorts of topics, including Javascript, iOS, Android and more. With high-quality video instruction from real industry experts teaching you all you need to know, and quizzes and code challenges keep you engaged and on track. Learn on your own schedule and go from beginner to pro. Go to teamtreehouse.com to start your free trial.

Brad Hargreaves is the Founder & CEO @ Common, the startup that provides shared housing for those that live in common. They have raised over $20m in VC funding from some of our very favorites including the likes of Maveron, Slow Ventures, Lowercase Capital, 8VC and Brendan Wallace @ Fifth Wall. Prior to Common, Brad was the Founder of General Assembly, the global school for tech, business, and design which has, to date, raised over $140m and has locations across 4 continents. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Brad made his way into the world of tech, came to found General Assembly and then made his move into the world of real estate with Common? 2.) Why have we seen the price of real estate in core urban areas hit an all time high today? How does Brad think this will affect the future of malls? 3.) Why does Brad think that in a scalable business not every element has to scale? What does he mean by this? What proportion of elements have to scale? What are the inflection points in scaling that suggest potential for venture returns? 4.) How does Brad think about the secondary affects of AVs? Which areas does Brad think have the most potential for innovation? How does Brad think about the negative externalities of AV's? What can be done to mitigate their effects? 5.) Why does Brad think that occupational licensing is one of the biggest barriers to economic growth in the US? What reform can be made to enhance this and allow for growth? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Brad's Fave Book: The Lever of Riches Brad's Fave Blog: Kim Mai Cutler, Fifth Wall Newsletter, Steven Smith As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Brad on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, helping platforms offer ROI-positive integrated payments to their users – within their UX and without taking on fraud & regulatory exposure. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team thru Slack or Zendesk. Get the payments revenue you want, without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. Simply visit wepay.com/harry PipeDrive is the Sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it (my words, not Pipedrive's). Plus it easily lets you find the stats you need and is fully customizable. Even better, you can signup for free on here it really is a must.

Renata Quintini is a Partner @ Lux Capital, one of the leaders in the rise of deep tech investing supporting scientists and entrepreneurs providing solutions to the most vexing puzzles of our time, the more ambitious the project, the better. Before Lux, Renata was a partner at Felicis Ventures, where she worked with the likes of Cruise, Dollar Shave Club, Rigetti Computing and Bonobos, just to name a few. Prior to VC, Renata was an investment manager at Stanford University's endowment, which invests in dozens of private equity and venture capital funds. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Renata made her way from LP in venture with Stanford University to dominating seed VC with Felicis to now leading the deep tech investing charge with Lux Capital? 2.) How does the mentality shift from making the move of LP with Stanford to VC with Felicis and Lux? How does Renata believe being an LP made her a better VC? How has what it takes to be a successful emerging manager changed over the last 5-10 years? 3.) What are the 7 rules that Renata gives to all startups at the start of their journey to ensure they do not implode? Where do startups most often falter, from Renata's perspective? How have the requirements and demands of founders changed recently? 4.) How does Renata look to approach every investment opportunity, mentality wise? Why does Renata believe this stance is optimal over the alternative? What are the caveats that must be placed on this to ensure for realism also? 5.) What makes Renata believe that we are seeing the humanisation of technology? How does this affect how deep tech will be designed moving forward? How does this affect how technology truly interacts and integrates with consumer behaviour? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Renata's Fave Book: Daring Greatly Renata's Most Recent Investment: Common Networks As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Renata on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, helping platforms offer ROI-positive integrated payments to their users – within their UX and without taking on fraud & regulatory exposure. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team thru Slack or Zendesk. Get the payments revenue you want, without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. Simply visit wepay.com/harry PipeDrive is the Sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it (my words, not Pipedrive's). Plus it easily lets you find the stats you need and is fully customizable. Even better, you can signup for free on here it really is a must.

Seth Bannon is a Founding Partner at Fifty Years, a San Francisco seed fund that backs entrepreneurs solving the world's biggest problems with technology. With a proclivity for deep tech, Seth has invested in a range of startups shaping the world for the better -- from a company culturing real meat to eat without animals, to a company building small satellites to cover the earth in internet. A graduate of Y Combinator, Seth was named twice to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Social Entrepreneurship. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Seth made his way from working on Obama's digital campaign to being a YC founder to now, founding Fifty Years? 2.) What is the Friedman Doctrine? Why does Seth think it is the most dangerous doctrine in the world? What leads Seth to believe in the potential for both purpose + profit? What is driving this change in millennial mindsets for the importance of purpose? 3.) Why does Seth believe we have seen a large increase in VC $ moving into deep tech as a space? What are the technical reasons for why seed stage deep tech investing is now such an attractive market segment? Do we have adequate deep tech growth financing? 4.) Why does Seth believe that much of Silicon Valley's talent is going to waste? How would Seth like to see talent redistributed to produce the greatest returns for society? What needs to be done for that to occur? 5.) Why is Seth so bullish in his belief for the need for fund cycles to be extended? How does Seth respond to suggestions that due to long development cycles in deep tech, investors have to carry companies for much longer? How has Seth seen the secondaries market open up over the last few years? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Seth's Fave Book: The Idea Factory Seth's Fave Blog: Hacker News Seth's Most Recent Investment: Athelas As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Seth on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, helping platforms offer ROI-positive integrated payments to their users – within their UX and without taking on fraud & regulatory exposure. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team thru Slack or Zendesk. Get the payments revenue you want, without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. Simply visit wepay.com/harry PipeDrive is the Sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it (my words, not Pipedrive's). Plus it easily lets you find the stats you need and is fully customizable. Even better, you can signup for free on here it really is a must.

Brian Armstrong is the Founder & CEO @ Coinbase, the startup that provides the world's most popular way to buy and sell bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin. They have backing from some of the biggest and best in VC having raised over $100m from the likes of Andreesen Horowitz, USV, DFJ and many more incredible investors. As for Brian, prior to Coinbase he was a Software Engineer @ Airbnb and before that founded his own startup, Universitytutor.com In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Brian made his way from Airbnb to founding one of the early disruptors in the crypto space with Coinbase? 2.) Doing an 80/20 analysis, what are the 3 fundamental differences between Bitcoin and ethereum? What is Brian's opinion on the scaling path ahead for ethereum? How do the teams behind ethereum and Bitcoin differ and what effect do these differing approaches have? 3.) What is an ICO? Does Brian believe ICOs will be a sustainable method of company financing in the future? What needs to take place to ensure for the continued momentum of ICOs? What have been the biggest surprises of ICOs for Brian? 4.) How does Brian view the regulatory stance around both ICOs and blockchain more generally? What is he concerned will happen? What would be the optimal regulatory framework for the theme to thrive? 5.) How does the rise of blockchain disrupt the VC industry? Why does Brian agree with Naval in stating the future will involve the unbundling of money, control and advice from the realms of VC? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Brian's Fave Book: Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman Brian's Fave Blog: Week In Ethereum As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Brian on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, helping platforms offer ROI-positive integrated payments to their users – within their UX and without taking on fraud & regulatory exposure. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team thru Slack or Zendesk. Get the payments revenue you want, without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. Simply visit wepay.com/harry PipeDrive is the Sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it (my words, not Pipedrive's). Plus it easily lets you find the stats you need and is fully customizable. Even better, you can signup for free on here it really is a must.

Max Gazor is a General Partner @ CRV, one of the nation's oldest and most successful VC firms now on their 16th fund and with a prior portfolio consisting of the likes of Twitter, Yammer, Zendesk and ClassPass just to name a few. As for Max, he has led deals in the likes of Airtable, Simplivity, Xamarin and many more incredible companies. Prior to CRV, Max led acquisitions and investments across enterprise and emerging technologies for Cisco's Corporate Development team. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Max made his entry into VC and came to be General Partner @ CRV? 2.) How does Max look to really build conviction around the 1% of companies that he invests in? CRV, now on Fund 16, what have been the major lessons as a firm about operating a VC fund successfully? How does CRV actively implement policies to place the entrepreneur first? 3.) How does Max consider capital allocation across stages and the efficient use of follow on funding? How does he stack rank the portfolio and determine which companies to double down on and which not to? 4.) Why does Max believe that AI is where the cloud was 10 years ago? Within the segment, where is Max most excited? Why does Max often advocate for his startups to remain in stealth mode following funding? 5.) When is the right time for startups to formalize their boards? What is the right size of board in the early days? What is the one feeling that the board should make the founder feel in meetings? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Max's Fave Book: Old Man and The Sea Max's Fave Blog: The Twenty Minute VC Max's Most Recent Investment: Airtable As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Max on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, helping platforms offer ROI-positive integrated payments to their users – within their UX and without taking on fraud & regulatory exposure. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team thru Slack or Zendesk. Get the payments revenue you want, without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. Simply visit wepay.com/harry PipeDrive is the Sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it (my words, not Pipedrive's). Plus it easily lets you find the stats you need and is fully customizable. Even better, you can signup for free on here it really is a must.

Will Porteous is the General Partner & COO @ RRE Ventures, one of New York's leading venture funds with investments in the likes of Buzzfeed, The Huffington Post, Giphy and Paperless Post just to name a few. As for Will, he works primarily with media and hardware companies, where he is a Director of BuzzFeed, Paperless Post, Spaceflight, and Spire. Prior to VC, Will held senior management positions with SupplyWorks and NetMarket, the e-commerce pioneer now owned by Cendant Corp. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Will made his entry into VC and came to be the hardware and media specialist as General Partner and COO @ RRE Ventures? 2.) Why does WIll believe VC is like the movie industry? How can VCs be prepared to movie producers? How does the talent required to make a great movie resemble that of making a great startup? 3.) Why does Will think the current venture model of 10-year life cycles is broken? How would he like to see LP liquidy opened with iterations on the current venture model? How can the secondary market be revolutionized to provide such liquidity? 4.) Why does Will believe that location awareness will drive a wave of value creation an order of magnitude greater than anything we have seen before? What is the thesis behind this? What are the barriers, both from a technology and cultural perspective? 5.) What were Will's biggest takeaways from being mentored by the legend, Bill Campbell, Former Chairman and CEO @ Intuit? What did he learn about leadership and incentivising a workforce from Bill? What example does Bill provide from seeing this at Google? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Will's Fave Book: Radical Candor; Be A Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity Will's Fave Blog: AVC by Fred Wilson Will's Most Recent Investment: The Outline As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Will on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, helping platforms offer ROI-positive integrated payments to their users – within their UX and without taking on fraud & regulatory exposure. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team thru Slack or Zendesk. Get the payments revenue you want, without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. Simply visitwepay.com/harry PipeDrive is the Sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it (my words, not Pipedrive's). Plus it easily lets you find the stats you need and is fully customizable. Even better, you can signup for free on here it really is a must.

Nathan Wenzel is the Founder & CEO @ SimpleLegal, the startup that helps legal operations reduce legal spend and improve operational efficiency. They recently raised their $10m Series A led by leading SaaS investors, Emergence Capital with participation from our favourites in the team at Susa Ventures and Rincon Venture Partners. As for Nathan, prior to founding SimpleLegal he spent time in consulting and as a Partner @ BI analytics firm, Edge Solutions. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Nathan made his way from consulting to BI analytics to founding one of SaaS's hottest "overnight successes" in SimpleLegal? 2.) Why does Nathan advocate for the slow and steady approach in startups? What type of business does this make sense for? Does this not go contra the traditional theory of move fast and break things? 3.) Nathan has said before that "most bay area millennials have not seen market corrections". How does Nathan's experience seeing these corrections affect his running of SimpleLegal? Why does Nathan think we have an impending market correction to come? 4.) Why must founders always know the day that they will become profitable? How does that change the way they operate and strategise the running of the business? Why is it also crucial for them to know their zero cash day? 5.) What did John really look for in his investors? What questions should founders ask potential investors pre-investment? How would John look to improve his fundraising process for the Series B? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Nathan's Fave Book: Only The Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove Nathan's Fave Blog: SaaStr As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Nathan on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, helping platforms offer ROI-positive integrated payments to their users – within their UX and without taking on fraud & regulatory exposure. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team thru Slack or Zendesk. Get the payments revenue you want, without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. Simply visit wepay.com/harry PipeDrive is the Sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it (my words, not Pipedrive's). Plus it easily lets you find the stats you need and is fully customizable. Even better, you can signup for free on here it really is a must.

Michael Ma is a Founding Partner @ Liquid 2 Ventures, one of San Francisco's younger and more exciting seed funds, also unique in having Hall of Fame quarter back, Joe Montana as another Founding Partner. Their portfolio includes the likes of previous guest, WorkRamp, NerdWallet, FanDuel and many more very exciting young companies. Prior to Liquid 2, Michael was the co-founder of TalkBin, a YC alum that later sold to Google and was an Investment Team Partner @ First Round's Dorm Room Fund. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How from Michael's parents arriving in the US with $300 Michael made his way into tech ended up in YC, selling his company to Google and ultimately being a VC with Liquid 2? 2.) Does Michael agree with the common suggestion that too much money is chasing too few deals at seed? How does Michael think raising now is different to when raising for Liquid 2? How did having Joe Montana as a founder affect the fundraise? 3.) How does Michael view the optimal decision making process? Does Michael believe in unanimity or conviction driven processes when investing with a partnership? How does this change for follow on? Why is it so important to have silver bullet deals in partnerships? 4.) Does Michael agree with the commonly stated assessment that with the scaling of YC the quality has reduced? How does Michael use his own YC experience to argue against this? How should investors be approaching YC today, in this structure? 5.) How does Michael view fund cycles when investing in such deep tech as he has? Are they too short? How does Michael look to scale the learning curve on new industries and transformational technology? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Michael's Fave Book: Count of Monte Cristo Michael's Fave Blog: TermSheet Michael's Most Recent Investment: Vivid Vision As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Michael on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, helping platforms offer ROI-positive integrated payments to their users – within their UX and without taking on fraud & regulatory exposure. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team thru Slack or Zendesk. Get the payments revenue you want, without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. Simply visitwepay.com/harry PipeDrive is the Sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it (my words, not Pipedrive's). Plus it easily lets you find the stats you need and is fully customizable. Even better, you can signup for free on here it really is a must.

Rahul Mehta is a Managing Partner @ DST, one of the world's leading late stage venture funds with a portfolio including the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Spotify and Alibaba just to name a few of the incredible companies they have backed. As for Rahul himself, he leads the firm's efforts in the US, Indonesia and India where he led deals in Snapchat, Slack, Ola Cabs, Houzz and Zalando. As a result of this incredible portfolio, Rahul was listed to the Forbes Midas List in 2016. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Rahul made the way from tech investment banking to one of the leading growth funds of all time with Yuri Milner investing in Facebook? 2.) Having invested in the likes of Facebook, Snap and Alibaba, how does Rahul assess the leadership teams of some of today's leading players? What makes them the great leaders they are? How can leaders look to make the transition from Founder to CEO? 3.) Why does Rahul argue that founder led businesses are always best? What are the fundamental benefits to this? What hurdles do they have to face to remain CEO for the duration? Where does Rahul see commonalities of CEO's struggling? 4.) How does Rahul look to assess unit economics? What does Rahul have to see in the market to see the long term sustainability of unit economics? Why do companies sometimes have to have poor unit economics in the beginning? 5.) How does Rahul assess the balance of building competitive barriers to entry or focussing on aggressive expansion and being first to market? How does this differ according to sector and funding? How will this change in the future? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Rahul's Fave Book: Open by Andre Agassi Rahul's Most Recent Investment: Wish As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Rahul on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, helping platforms offer ROI-positive integrated payments to their users - within their UX and without taking on fraud & regulatory exposure. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team thru Slack or Zendesk. Get the payments revenue you want, without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. Simply visit wepay.com/harry PipeDrive is the Sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it (my words, not Pipedrive's). Plus it easily lets you find the stats you need and is fully customizable. Even better, you can signup for free on here it really is a must.

Jenna Brown is the Founder & CEO @ Shipamax, a data driven communications platform for brokers and operators. They recently raised their seed round from the likes of FF Angel, Y Combinator, Cherubic Ventures, and top angels including Lee Linden and my personal favorite, Andy Rankin. Prior to Shipamax, Jenna was Head of Global Expansion @ GoCardless, one of London's leading Fintech players and before that was herself a trader at RWE Trading. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jenna made her way from ship broker to YC alum, changing the world of shipping with Shipamax? 2.) How does Jenna compare fundraising in the UK to Europe? Was it a challenge raising US funds, considering Jenna was operating outside of the valley? How did Jenna look to mitigate these concerns? 3.) How did Jenna experience both direct and indirect sexual discrimination throughout the fundraising process? Which form was harder to deal with? How did Jenna respond? In hindsight, would Jenna have done anything differently? 4.) What does Jenna advise founders in terms of taking operator VC money vs non-operator VC money? What differing questions must be asked? What should founders be wary of with both types of investors? 5.) Why does Jenna disagree with the commonly held suggestion that you must get people to pay for your product as soon as possible? Why is this not the case always? In what cases is it optimal to have a smoother and faster onboarding? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Jenna's Fave Book: Hard Thing About Hard Things Jenna's Fave Blog: SaaStr As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jenna on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, helping platforms offer ROI-positive integrated payments to their users - within their UX and without taking on fraud & regulatory exposure. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team thru Slack or Zendesk. Get the payments revenue you want, without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. Simply visit wepay.com/harry PipeDrive is the Sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it (my words, not Pipedrive's). Plus it easily lets you find the stats you need and is fully customizable. Even better, you can signup for free on here it really is a must.

Jason Pressman is a Managing Director @ Shasta Ventures who have made investments in the likes of Nest, Dollar Shave Club, Smule, Class Dojo and more. With 10 portfolio company investments under his belt, Jason invests in both enterprise and consumer, currently serving on the boards of Crittercism, subscription billing unicorn Zuora, as well as Nextdoor and mobile music platform Smule. Prior to joining Shasta, Jason was Vice President, Strategy and Operations at venture-backed Walmart.com, where he took the online retailer from zero to large scale revenue in five years. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jason made his way into the world of venture from Walmart? What were the big takeaways from seeing Walmart enter their hyper-growth phase? 2.) Why does Jason believe it is bullshit to say, "you never regret paying a high price for getting into a good company"? How does Jason evaluate entry point? What makes one entry point attractive and another not? 3.) What does Jason see as the catalysts for the opening of public markets to tech companies? How long does he think this will continue? Is he concerned by the likes of Yext, IPOing with less than aggressive growth rates? 4.) Why does Jason believe there are only 2 price points that work in SaaS? What are they? How does this affect the structure and operations of your SaaS startup? What are the circumstances in which these price points do not apply? 5.) Why does Jason believe that eSports will be bigger than the NBA in 5 years? What are the catalysts driving this change? What needs to be formulated within eSports for this to happen? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Jason's Fave Book: First, Break All The Rules Jason's Most Recent Investment: Plays.tv As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jason on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, helping platforms offer ROI-positive integrated payments to their users - within their UX and without taking on fraud & regulatory exposure. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team thru Slack or Zendesk. Get the payments revenue you want, without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. Simply visit wepay.com/harry PipeDrive is the Sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it (my words, not Pipedrive's). Plus it easily lets you find the stats you need and is fully customizable. Even better, you can signup for free on here it really is a must.

Kirsten Green is the Founding General Partner @ Forerunner Ventures, where she has raised over $250M from leading investors and has invested in more than 40 early-stage companies. Forerunner Ventures is the only VC firm to invest in both Dollar Shave Club and Jet.com, two of the biggest and highest-profile e-commerce exits in recent years, and counts Birchbox, Bonobos, Glossier, Hotel Tonight, Warby Parker and Zola among its portfolio companies. She's been honored in Time's 100 Most Influential People in 2017, named VC of the Year at TechCrunch's 2017 Crunchies Awards, and is part of Forbes 2017 Midas List. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Kirsten came to found one of the most successful early stage funds of the past decade in Forerunner? 2.) Question from Michael Kim @ Cendana: How does Kirsten view the optimal portfolio construction theory for a thematically specialized consumer fund? What is the one question Kirsten asks herself pre-investing in a startup? 3.) Question from David Pakman @ Venrock: Given the scope of consumer as a space, is Forerunner large enough to attain the required ownership levels? What does this mean for the future of Forerunner in terms of further funds, opportunity funds and entry points? 4.) What are the 3 core principles to developing an exciting investment opportunity in the consumer space? What commonalities do they have? What do you look for in a consumer brand founder that might be different from a software founder? 5.) Why does Kirsten believe that Amazon has done more to make the market opportunity than they have to crush it? What makes Kirsten believe we really are in the early innings for commerce? How will we see the notion of brand evolve over the coming years? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Kirsten's Fave Book: Charlie and The Chocolate Factory Kirsten's Fave Blog: TheSkimm Kirsten's Most Recent Investment: Packagd As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Kirsten on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, helping platforms offer ROI-positive integrated payments to their users - within their UX and without taking on fraud & regulatory exposure. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team thru Slack or Zendesk. Get the payments revenue you want, without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. Simply visit wepay.com/harry PipeDrive is the Sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it (my words, not Pipedrive's). Plus it easily lets you find the stats you need and is fully customizable. Even better, you can signup for free on here it really is a must.

Max Levchin is the Founder & CEO @ Affirm, the company that aims to remake consumer finance from the ground up. They have backing from some of the best in the business with over $400m in VC funding from the likes of Founders Fund, Lightspeed, Andreesen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and Spark Capital just to name a few. Prior to Affirm, Max held numerous exec positions including Chairman of Yelp for 11 years and sitting on the board of directors @ Yahoo. Before that, Max founded Slide, subsequently bought by Google and was the Co-Founder & CTO @ Paypal. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Max come to co-found Paypal and how did that serve as the foundations for his founding of Affirm today? 2.) Why does Max believe there is a crucial misalignment between service providers and consumers in financial services? Does Max agree with Bill Clerico that 'we are still in the very early days for Fintech?' 3.) Having co-founded Paypal, Slide and now Affirm, how has Max changed as a leader and CEO? What does Max believe makes the truly great CEOs? Are there commonalities in how they operate and their skills? 4.) What does Max look for in all new hires or when evaluating founders for potential investment? Why is self-awareness so important for entrepreneurs to have? Why does Max want to be slightly terrified by how smart an individual is? 5.) How has having Children changed Max's perception of what is important and what he chooses to spend his time on? How does that reflect in his actions and self-discipline? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Max's Fave Book: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Max on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. eShares is the No 1 Cap Table Management platform, allowing for equity management, 409A valuations, and liquidity, all in one place. eShares is made for companies of all sizes with over 5,000 trusted customers including the likes of Squarespace, Kickstarter, and DoorDash just to name a few. To try out the must have service of the industry, simply head over to esharesinc.com it is a must. Fond is the employee engagement suite with 3 core products, rewards: a recognition platform for rewarding achievements and milestones, perks: a premium corporate discounts program to show employees you care about them and then finally engagement IQ, a free employee engagement survey that allows you to measure the health of your organization. To check it out head over to fond.co

Roseanne Wincek is an investor with IVP, one of the leaders in growth financing with a portfolio including the likes of Snap, AppDynamics, SuperCell and Slack. At IVP, Roseanne focuses on investing in later-stage, high-growth consumer and enterprise companies, currently serving as a Board Observer for MasterClass and actively working with IVP's investments in Compass, Glossier, and Qubole. Prior to IVP, Roseanne was a Principal with Canaan Partners where she completed transactions for Beckon, Metacloud, and Stayful, just to name a few. Prior to VC, Roseanne was a co-founder @ imthemusic working to built music apps on the early Facebook platform. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Roseanne made her way from science labs to startups and one of the valleys leading growth stage funds? 2.) Question from Maha Ibrahim @ Canaan Partners: How has the transition been from early to late stage? How do the industries differ in terms of startup visibility? Assessing the "what could be"? Allocation to reserve funding? Expected hold period? 3.)Why does Roseanne believe we are seeing a blurring of the lines between early and late stage? What is the effect for late stage of earlier stage funds having opportunity funds? What is the effect for early stage funds to see growth funds investing earlier?? 4.) Why does Roseanne believe go to market strategy is now more important than ever? How serious does Roseanne believe the incumbency with regards to distribution channels is? Does this mean startups have to develop proprietary organic distribution channels? 5.) How does Roseanne view competition within the financing market? Question from Jenny Lefcourt @ Freestyle: How has Roseanne consistently gotten into some of the hottest most competitive deals? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Roseanne's Fave Book: Einstein's Refrigerator: Tales of Hot & Cold Roseanne's Most Recent Investment: Masterclass As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Roseanne on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. eShares is the No 1 Cap Table Management platform, allowing for equity management, 409A valuations, and liquidity, all in one place. eShares is made for companies of all sizes with over 5,000 trusted customers including the likes of Squarespace, Kickstarter, and DoorDash just to name a few. To try out the must have service of the industry, simply head over to esharesinc.com it is a must. Fond is the employee engagement suite with 3 core products, rewards: a recognition platform for rewarding achievements and milestones, perks: a premium corporate discounts program to show employees you care about them and then finally engagement IQ, a free employee engagement survey that allows you to measure the health of your organization. To check it out head over to fond.co

Mitch Lasky is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the world's leading VC funds with a portfolio including the likes of Twitter, Uber, Snapchat, eBay, WeWork, Yelp and many more revolutionary companies of the last decade. As for Mitch himself, Mitch has made investments or is on the boards of Snapchat, Riot Games, Discord, Outpost Games and Cyanogen, just to name a few. Prior to Benchmark, Mitch was CEO @ JAMDAT Mobile where he led the mobile gaming company from a 10 employee startup to a 700 employee global business leading their IPO on the NASDAQ in 2004 and later negotiating their sales to Electronic Arts for $680m. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Mitch made his way from leading a 700 person gaming company to IPO to being General Partner with Benchmark? 2.) What does the investment decision-making process look like at Benchmark? Why does Mitch believe small is beautiful when it comes to VC teams? What is it that makes the Benchmark partnership the very special partnership it is? 3.) What makes Mitch say that "venture is very much like Hollywood? What does he mean by this? How does he apply this to talent evaluation? The hits-driven nature of the business? 4.) Why does Mitch struggle when analysing the future for VR? What is it about the current crop of innovation around VR that makes Mitch nervous? Where does Mitch see potential within the realms of VR & AR? 5.) How does Mitch view the continued rise of eSports? Does he believe that the industry will ever be as large as the traditional sports industry? What aspects of the industry does Mitch think is highly investable or not investable? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Mitch's Fave Book: The Genius of System Mitch's Fave Blog: Above The Crowd Mitch's Most Recent Investment: Outpost Games As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Mitch on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. eShares is the No 1 Cap Table Management platform, allowing for equity management, 409A valuations, and liquidity, all in one place. eShares is made for companies of all sizes with over 5,000 trusted customers including the likes of Squarespace, Kickstarter, and DoorDash just to name a few. To try out the must have service of the industry, simply head over to esharesinc.com it is a must. Fond is the employee engagement suite with 3 core products, rewards: a recognition platform for rewarding achievements and milestones, perks: a premium corporate discounts program to show employees you care about them and then finally engagement IQ, a free employee engagement survey that allows you to measure the health of your organization. To check it out head over to fond.co

Kim Scott is the Co-Founder @ Candor, the startup that allows you to become a better leader. Prior to founding Candor, Kim was a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter and several other Silicon Valley companies. She was a member of the faculty at Apple University, developing the course "Managing at Apple," and before that spent 5 years at Google on AdSense, YouTube, and Doubleclick Online Sales and Operations at Google. Previously, Kim was the co-founder and CEO of Juice Software, a collaboration start-up. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Kim came to founder Candor and be an advisor to Twitter, Qualtrics and Dropbox? 2.) How did Kim's interactions with Sheryl Sandberg while at Google shape how Kim views employee feedback? What is the most effective way for a superior to convey their feedback to their employee? 3.) What really is radical candor? How does it differ to more traditional "feedback"? What are the challenges of ruinous empathy? How does this play out in the work environment? How does this contrast to "obnoxious aggression"? 4.) Is this a gender issue? What makes it so difficult for people to be radically candid? Why is it a problem that people are told to 'be professional'? How does that act to de-humanize people? 5.) How do males go most wrong when conveying feedback to their female counterparts? Why is this a problem for both the males and the females involved? What can the female do to ensure that she is not disadvantaged by this? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Kim's Fave Book: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Kim's Fave Blog: Rands In Repose: Management As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Kim on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. eShares is the No 1 Cap Table Management platform, allowing for equity management, 409A valuations, and liquidity, all in one place. eShares is made for companies of all sizes with over 5,000 trusted customers including the likes of Squarespace, Kickstarter, and DoorDash just to name a few. To try out the must have service of the industry, simply head over to esharesinc.com it is a must. Fond is the employee engagement suite with 3 core products, rewards: a recognition platform for rewarding achievements and milestones, perks: a premium corporate discounts program to show employees you care about them and then finally engagement IQ, a free employee engagement survey that allows you to measure the health of your organization. To check it out head over to fond.co

Barry Schuler is a Partner @ DFJ Growth, the team that seeks out companies that have gone through the early stages of funding and are category leaders or are poised to be. Their portfolio includes the likes of Tesla, Twitter, Box, Unity 3D and more fantastic companies. As for Barry, he is credited with being one of the pioneers of the modern Internet as chairman and CEO of America Online and an entrepreneur for over 30 years. Today he serves on the board of some truly game-changing companies in the likes of Coinbase, Unity and Foursquare just to name a few. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Barry make his way from Chairman of Americal Online to Partner @ DFJ Growth, one of the leading growth funds? 2.) Why does Barry believe we have seen a drought of tech IPOs in the last few years? What needs to be done to change this and generate the "200 IPOs a year that we need"? 3.) Why does Barry believe we are in a "bulge and not a bubble" in today's current startup ecosystem? What does Barry suggest will happen to the many highly priced tech startups with lacking exit options? 4.) Why does Barry believe that companies are 'bought and not sold'? How has Barry seen the growth and momentum patterns change for those in hypergrowth? How does that affect the IPO market and their price sensitivity? 5.) Why is Barry concerned that there is too much money chasing too few deals? What does that do to his funnel in producing 10m+ revenue scaling startups? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Barry's Fave Book: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Barry's Most Recent Investment: Unity 3D, Giphy As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Barry on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. eShares is the No 1 Cap Table Management platform, allowing for equity management, 409A valuations, and liquidity, all in one place. eShares is made for companies of all sizes with over 5,000 trusted customers including the likes of Squarespace, Kickstarter, and DoorDash just to name a few. To try out the must have service of the industry, simply head over to esharesinc.com it is a must. Fond is the employee engagement suite with 3 core products, rewards: a recognition platform for rewarding achievements and milestones, perks: a premium corporate discounts program to show employees you care about them and then finally engagement IQ, a free employee engagement survey that allows you to measure the health of your organization. To check it out head over to fond.co