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

Christian Hernandez is the Co-Founder and Partner @ Whitestar Capital in London. Prior to co-founding White Star Capital, Christian worked at Facebook and led the international expansion of the company’s Business Development, Platform and Developer Network groups. He previously held leadership roles in the U.S. and Europe at Google and Microsoft and started his career in technology at MicroStrategy, a startup he joined prior to its 1999 IPO. Christian has worked closely with entrepreneurs and leading VCs and has been an active angel investor and advisor. He represents White Star on the Boards of KeyMe, Glow Media, Bloglovin’ and Hole 19. Christian also serves as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. We would like to say a special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data used in the show today and you can check out Mattermark Search here! Click To Play In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Christian made his way into startups and the investing industry? 2.) Having worked with the likes of Facebook, Google and Microsoft, how has Christian seen the ecosystem develop; for both the good and the bad? 3.) Moving to White Star specifically now, what is the thesis, investment mandate? Average cheque size, preferred sectors? Geography? Talking of geography, WSC has a transatlantic model with offices in both London and NYC, why is that? What are the benefits of having this spread? 4.) According to Mattermark, White Star have 38% of your portfolio in mobile, so what are Christians views on the evolution of mobile? How does he respond to Fred Wilson’s post about the mobile downtown and the difficulty in attaining and maintaining traction for mobile apps? What are Christian's thoughts on discovery? 5.) Where does Christian stand on the relationship between growth and revenue? Are there any cases where it can be beneficial to focus solely on growth? In today’s environment, with VCs moderating their valuations more, is it possible to raise on pure momentum growth? 6.) Christian recently wrote an article: ‘Hiring For The Future Of Your Company’, so what does he really mean by this? Is it not a little ironic coming from the VC scene, an inherently risky asset class who have a fundamental unwillingness to move away from the old hiring style of investment bank or consultancy, in many cases? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Christian's Fave Book: Physics of the Future Christian's Fave Blog: Medium, Nuzzel Christian's Most Serendipitous Investment: Keyme As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Christian on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Tom Tunguz is a Partner @ Redpoint Ventures, where he has invested in Axial, Dremio, Expensify, Electric Imp, Looker, and ThredUP. Before joining Redpoint, Tomasz was the product manager for Google’s AdSense social-media products and AdSense internationalization. Tom is also the author of the world famous blog and newsletter which can be found at http://tomtunguz.com We would like to say a special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data used in the show today and you can check out Mattermark Search here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Tom made his way into startups and the investing industry? 2.) What does the huge drop in late stage saas valuations mean for the early guys? Does Tom expect them to hunker down? Take more time? Spend less cash? 3.) In recent years with the likes of Zenefits, we have seen the rise of Free Saas Enabled Marketplaces, why have we seen this rise, what are the benefits of adopting this strategy? Does the lack of predictability and lower (30%) gross margin not generate concern towards the model? 4.) Where does Tom see room for real innovation in SaaS? Is Tom excited about mobile enterprise? 5.) Question from Javier Soltero @ Microsoft: How have you approached developing your 'personal' brand and how that has made an impact in your development as an investor? 6.) Question from Eric ver Ploeg (episode 70) and Tak Lo (Episode 37): Where does Tom generate the ideas for articles and what does the idea creation process look like?’ What does the scheduling look like to churn our such high quality content on a daily occurrence? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Tom's Fave Book: Narcissus and Goldmund Tom's Fave Blog: Saastr, David Skok Tom's Most Recent Investment: Dremio As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Tom on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Hiten Shah is one of the most prominent players in the data marketing industry having co-Founded both KissMetrics (raised $10m+ VC Funding) and Crazy Egg (bootstrapped), both wildly successful businesses serving some of the world's largest companies. Hiten is also an extremely successful angel investor with investments in the likes of Buffer, Mattermark and MessageMe (acquired by Yahoo.) In addition, Hiten is also a serial startup advisor having been an advisor with Linkedin, SlideShare and Wordpress' Automattic. We would like to say a special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data used in the show today and you can check out Mattermark Search here! In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Hiten made his way into startups and the investing industry? 2.) Why did Hiten decide to take VC funding for on startup and not the other? Did taking VC funding allow for much greater growth or make him less resourceful and creative? 3.) How have Hiten's entrepreneurial endeavours altered his attitude to investing? How does Hiten's large personal brand add to his investing style? 4.) Hiten has said before that he likes to ask founders 'what is their earliest most traumatic memory'? Why is that and what does Hiten learn from that? 5.) Question from Erik Torenberg @ ProductHunt: How does Hiten assess which startups he wants to spend time with as an advisor? 6.) Question from Ryan Hoover @ ProductHunt: What is the most counter-intuitive advice for this starting a company? Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode: Hiten’s Fave Book: The War of Art Hiten’s Fave Blog: 731 Users Reveal Why Slack Is So Addictive As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Hiten on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Jim Scheinman is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Maven Ventures, a leading seed stage consumer VC with investments in the likes of AngelList, WealthFront and Altspace. Prior to founding Maven, Jim was a pioneer in the early days of the social media revolution as Head of Business Development and Sales at the first social networking site, Friendster. However, in 2005, Jim left Friendster to join co-founders Michael and Xochi Birch to launch Bebo as the first employee and Board member. Bebo later went on to become a unicorn for Jim, however, that was not his only unicorn as he was also an investor in Tango ($bn valuation) and NBCi (IPOd for 6bn.) We would like to say a special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data used in the show today and you can check out Mattermark Search here! Click To Play In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jim made his way into startups and the investing industry? 2.) What was it like being in the midst of the social media revolution as it was taking place? How does Jim view the social scene today? Why does Jim think there is skepticism to investing in social? 3.) On consumer mobile Fred Wilson stated: ‘doing anything in the consumer mobile space is super hard. i can’t think of many consumer mobile apps that have gained massive traction and sustained it. can you?' So why is the space so hard? Is it not a monopoly play with the dominant incumbents? 4.) How has Jim seen the consumer landscape develop over the last decade with the rise of mobile? How can you tackle the distribution challenges inherent within mobile? Does Jim agree that with mobile consumer product market fit is no longer enough to gain a large user base? 5.) What are the core elements of building a successful consumer business? What are the challenges? Is there a pareto’s principle on this, with 20% determining 80% of the returns? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Jim's Fave Book: The Boys In The Boat Jim's Fave Blog: Mattermark, Strictly VC, TechCrunch Jim's Most Recent Investment: HomeMade As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Jim on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Andy McLoughlin is a Partner with SoftTech VC, where he primarily invests in B2B, SaaS, developer tools and mobile applications. Prior to joining SoftTech, Andy was co-founder of London-based Huddle, under Andy’s leadership, Huddle became one of Europe’s most awarded and well-known technology startups, raising over $80M of venture funding to date. Since 2010 Andy has been a prolific angel investor building a portfolio covering 35 startups, mostly in the SaaS / B2B space. Just to name a few of the investments from his incredible portfolio Andy was an angel in the likes of Buffer, Intercom, Pipedrive, Postmates, Secret Escapes, just to name a few. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Andy made his startup as an entrepreneur and then VC? 2.) What was it that made Andy make the move from the world of entrepreneurship to VC? 3.) As a seed stage investor, what does Andy make of the Series A crunch? How prevalent has it been for him as an investor? What is the optimal amount of runway founders should raise for? 4.) What does Andy think of the size and cadence of the first funding rounds that we are seeing now? What does he make of the rise of the second seed or the bridge round? Is it an indication of trouble? 5.) SoftTech are near the closing of Fund V, so what is the thesis and the mission going forward? What themes and spaces is Andy most excited by and why? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Andy's Fave Book: The New York Trilogy, Hatching Twitter Andy's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Medium Newsletter, Mark Suster: Both Sides Of The Table Andy's Most Recent Investment: Captain401 As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Andy on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! This episode was supported by Wunder Capital, the leading online investment platform that allows individuals to invest in large scale solar projects across the U.S. Wunder’s solar investment funds allow you to earn up to 11% annually, while diversifying your portfolio, curbing pollution and combating global climate change. Do well by doing good and sign up for a free account here and join the thousands of people that are already achieving their investment targets.

Gary Liu is the CEO @ Digg, the incredibly famous platform that allows users to find, read and share the most talked about stories on the internet. Prior to joining Digg, Gary was an early employee at Spotify holding numerous positions including, Head of Spotify Labs and Global Director of Ad Product Strategy. Gary joined Spotify from AOL, where he was the Director of Sales Strategy and Operations at Patch. Before joining AOL, Gary was a business and sales operations leader at Google and Clickable. We would like to say a special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data used in the show today and you can check out Mattermark Search here! Click To Play In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Gary made his entry into the world of tech and later became CEO at Digg? 2.) What were Gary's biggest takeaways from his time at Google and being an early employee at Spotfiy? How has he adapted those learnings to his role now at Digg? 3.) What really happened at Digg? What went wrong? Why did Digg not live up to the early hype of being the darling of the internet age? How are Digg evolving to change this? 4.) In the vastly competitive space of content creation and distribution, how do Digg stand out and differentiate themselves from the plethora of options available to consumers? 5.) How do Digg try to engage and unite the community through the commenting process without alienating people through the potential for malicious posts and trolling? 6.) How does a platform like Digg plan to monetize content with the ever disappearing ad dollar? Does it concern Gary or does he see potential in other avenues? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Gary's Fave Book: J.D Salinger, The Catcher and The Rye Gary's Fave Blog: Jon Russell, Asia Tech News Review As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Gary on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Adam Draper is a fourth generation venture capitalist and the Founder & CEO @ Boost VC, a specialised seed stage accelerator that invests in blockchain and virtual reality startups. Before starting Boost, Adam angel invested in 20 companies including Coinbase, Plangrid and Practice Fusion. During his angel investment period, Adam was also the Founder of Xpert Financial in his aim to revolutionise the financial markets for private companies. We would like to say a special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data used in the show today and you can check out Mattermark Search here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Adam made his way into startups and the investing industry? 2.) Why is Adam so bullish on the topics of bitcoin and virtual reality? 3.) What are the fundamental use cases for bitcoin and why have we not seen mass adoption on a global scale so far? What are the barriers to adoption? 4.) What is the investment attitude to the bitcoin and VR space? Does the volatility of the price in bitcoin affect the level of investment going into the sector? 5.) What would Adam like to see more of in the space? What is he most excited for and where does he see the most potential? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Adam's Fave Book: The Name Of The Wind Adam's Fave Blog: Mugglenet Adam's Most Recent Investment: Joystream As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Adam on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Tim Draper is the founding partner of leading venture capital firms Draper Associates and DFJ. Some of his Venture successes include Skype, Baidu, Tesla, Hotmail, Twitch.tv, and hundreds of others. Fun fact about Tim, it was his original suggestion to use viral marketing in web-based email to geometrically spread an Internet product to its market was instrumental to the successes of Hotmail, YahooMail, and Gmail and has been adopted as a standard marketing technique by thousands of businesses. His prominence is evident through his being named 100 most influential Harvard Alumni, and seven on the Forbes Midas List. He was named Always-On #1 top venture capital deal maker. We would like to say a special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data used in the show today and you can check out Mattermark Search here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Tim made his way into startups and the investing industry? 2.) Having founded Draper Associates in 1985, how has Tim seen the investing landscape develop over time? 3.) Draper obviously invests across a variety of stage, but what is Tim's preferred stage? Where does he see the most opportunity for venture returns? Why? 4.) Of all the companies Tim has seen, which was the best pitch? Why? Which founder inspired Tim the most? Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently? 5.) What is DraperU? What are the plans for the future? What is the vision? Why did Tim choose to do a reality show in StartupU? Has it been a very different experience being the lead in a TV show compared to investing in startups? 6.)Why is behind Tim's immense belief in Bitcoin. Why is this? When did Tim realize the potential? How long will adoption take? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Tim's Fave Book: The Startup Game by William Draper, Michael Rothschild: Bionomics Tim's Most Recent Investment: Laurel and Wolf, Favor Delivery As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Tim on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Niccolo De Masi is the CEO & Chairman @ Glu Mobile, one of the world's hottest gaming companies with title including the current No 1 Game in the App Store with the Kendall and Kylie Game, Glu is also the maker of the Kim Kardashian game and the likes of Deer Hunter and many more. Prior to Glu, Niccolo was CEO at mobile entertainment company Hands On Mobile and before that Niccolo was the CEO at London listed mobile entertainment company, Monstermob Group Plc. We would like to say a special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data used in the show today and you can check out Mattermark Search here! Click To Play In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Niccolo came to be CEO at one of the world's hottest gaming companies, Glu Mobile? 2.) How did Niccolo make the transition from feature phone business to smartphone business with Glu so successfully? How did Glu's public market status affect the transition? 3.) How important is transparency within organisations as a leader, whether it be Founder or CEO? What are the important elements to communicate with your team and your investors? 4.) Why are private market valuations so misaligned with the public market? What will happen to the plethora of newly made unicorns? 5.) How does Niccolo source potential acquisition targets, what does he look for in, so called 'well valued assets'? What makes them well valued? 6.) What is Niccolo's turnaround strategy for his acquisition targets? How can Glu's platform elevate companies that are in distress? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Niccolo's Fave Book: The Rise and Fall Of The Great Powers As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Niccolo on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Tyler Willis is probably one of the best angel investors around and has invested in seed stage companies that have gone on to raise from the likes of Index Ventures, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures and others. Some of these investments include the likes of wildly popular ride sharing app Lyft, the incredible Patreon (now delivering 2m a month to creators) and Change.org which now has over 80m users. We would like to say a special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data used in the show today and you can check out Mattermark Search here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Tyler made it into startups and the investing industry? 2.) Where does Tyler sit on investor specialisation? Is it best to have preferred sectors and round sizes? 3.) What elements are essential for Tyler pre investment and what can be tweaked later down the line? 4.) Question from Arielle Zuckerberg: How does Tyler evaluate customer acquisition so well? What is his approach to this with potential investments and portfolio companies? 5.) Why are people so negative on the future of innovation? Is Founders Fund's 'we expected flying cars and instead got 140 characters' fair? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Tyler's Fave Book: Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen Tyler's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Mattermark Daily As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Tyler on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Arielle Zuckerberg, Partner @ Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Arielle Zuckerberg joined KPCB in 2015 and focuses on early-stage investments in the firm’s digital practice as part of the venture team. Arielle joined Kleiner from Humin, where she led product for the company’s mobile apps. She started her career as a product manager by day and Hackathon host by night at Wildfire Interactive, Inc., which was acquired by Google in 2012. After the acquisition, Arielle worked as a product manager on social ads at Google. Outside of KPCB, Arielle has made several angel investments across the food tech and health sectors in the likes of Partender, Bitty Foods and The Ticket Fairy, just to name a few. We would like to say a special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data used in the show today and you can check out Mattermark Search here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Arielle made it into startups and the investing industry? 2.) What has the move been like from angel to VC? What theories and investment theses are adjustable? How doe the fiduciary responsibility to your LP's adjust your risk profile when investing? 3.) Questions from Tyler Willis: How does Arielle evaluate new products? How does Arielle learn and how does Ariele come down on the learning curve on new things so quickly (new investor to KPCB in ~2 years, for example). 4.) Arielle has now spent her first few months in venture, what have been the biggest surprises? Biggest challenges? What is Arielle's fave part and what is her least fave part? 5.) How does Arielle see the AI space now? Where does she see room for innovation? Is there anything Arielle is concerned about? 6.) Now when doing research for this interview I came across Arielle's New Years Resolution list from 2012! So what are your new years resolutions for 2016? What are the goals you are aiming for? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Arielle's Fave Book: The Symposium by Plato As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Arielle on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Ryan Caldbeck is the Founder & CEO @ CircleUp, the online investing platform that allows you to invest in innovative consumer companies. They have raised funding from some of the best including USV, Maveron and Canaan Partners (all past guests). Before Ryan founded CircleUp, he worked in consumer product and retail-focused private equity at TSG Consumer Partners and Encore Consumer Capital exposing him to many great consumer and retail businesses that were too small to obtain funding through the customary private equity channels. As a result, he decided to make funding available to these promising companies through CircleUp. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Ryan made the move from the world of VC to founding his own tech startup? 2.) Why is CircleUp marketplace investing, not crowdfunding? What does Ryan believe are the misnomers around the term crowdfunding? 3.) Where do you see this sector making sense and where does he think it is not so efficient? Why is it wrong for tech companies? 4.) One manjor aspect in the UK that this segment has struggled with is it’s ability to attract institutional investors to the sector. So with CircleUp, how are institutional investors getting into this market and is there anything more Ryan would like to see with this regard? 5.) To what extent does Ryan think this is disrupting private capital formation? Should VCs be concerned? What sector of the funding environment is most vulnerable to being disrupted by the rise of marketplace investing? 6.) How was the funding process for Ryan? CircleUp raised over $30m over several rounds with investors from our friends at USV and Maveron, how that came about and what Ryan would advise founders entering the process? Items Mentioned In Todays Show: Ryan's Fave Blog: AVC, Jeff Jordan, Bill Gurley As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC and Harry on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Dustin Dolginow is the General Partner @ Maiden Lane, the first online venture fund which uses AngelList as it's operating system, serving as the institutional capital partner to the best angel investors in the world. Dustin has made investments in the likes of Getable, PipeDrive, Beepi and many more incredible companies. Dustin is also a venture partner with Accomplice where he serves some of the best entrepreneurs on the planet. Prior to investing, Andy cut his teeth in the operations game with Social Swipe, which allowed merchants to gain more value from their transaction data. Click To Play In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Dustin made it into startups and the investing industry? 2.) What were Dustin's major takeaways from his operational experience and how has he applied them to his role investing with Maiden Lane? 3.) Where does Ryan you democratisation of funding going in the next five years? What direction does Dustin believe we are moving in? 4.) Dustin has said that 'capital is a crappy differentiator' so what value add should founders look for in their VCs? How are we seeing the VC value add evolve over time? 4.) How does Dustin sell Maiden Lane in the sea of seed funds that have emerged over the last few years? How important does Dustin think it is for VCs and funds to have personal brands? What is bigger the brand of the VC or the fund? 5.) What is it Dustin looks for in products? Are there any must haves? Any design requirements? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Dustin's Fave Book: Development As Freedom Dustin's Most Recent Investment: AtVenue (Tom Williams) As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Dustin on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Gil Penchina is the Founder @ Flight.vc, a network of AngelList syndicates that covers a wide range of sectors from SaaS to security from Israel to England. Gil also has the title of the largest raise for an AngelList syndicate, essentially turning himself into a one man fund. Some of Gil's investments include the likes of Paypal, Indiegogo, AngelList, Linkedin and many more. Prior to his investing career, Gil cut his teeth with operating roles at numerous companies including Ebay. We would also like to wish Gil the best of luck in his nomination for Angel Investor of The Year at tonight's Crunchies by TechCrunch. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Gil made it into startups and the investing industry? 2.) Why did Gil choose numerous syndicate approach over one huge syndicate? What are the benefits of having numerous specialized syndicates? 3.) What is included in Gil's sell of Flight as an investor? What is the driving force behind the success of Flight? What is the biggest challenge within this job as founder? 4.) How does Gil try and convince the startups that the syndicate method of investment is better for them? How does Gil portray his value add to startups? 5.) Does Gil insist on pro-rata rights? Should founders always grant them to early stage investors?Which VCs does Gil like to work with and what makes them a good VC? 6.) Where does Gil see the future of first AngelList? Will it replace the archaic system of VC? What are Gil's plans for his syndicates? Is Gil looking to move into Series A and B rounds? How do you plan to become the Fidelity of this asset class? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Gil's Fave Book: Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged Gil's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Nuzzel Gil's Most Recent Investment: Happn As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Gil on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! This episode was supported by Wunder Capital, the leading online investment platform that allows individuals to invest in large scale solar projects across the U.S. Wunder’s solar investment funds allow you to earn up to 11% annually, while diversifying your portfolio, curbing pollution and combating global climate change. Do well by doing good and sign up for a free account here and join the thousands of people that are already achieving their investment targets.

Kelly Peeler is the Founder and CEO of NextGenVest, the College Money Mentor for every student, helping students navigate the financial aid and student loan application process. While at Harvard, Kelly started Business Across Borders, a non profit that helps Iraqi students rebuild their own economy by starting their own companies and the International Women in Business Summit, bringing together top female college leaders. She was selected as one of the eight Kauffman Foundation Global Scholars, named by Goldman Sachs as one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs, and named a White House #StartTheSpark Ambassador. Her TED Talk is called "How to Change the World as a Millennial - Don't be Stupid with Money" and can be found here. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Kelly made it into startups and what was the origin story for NextGenVest? 2.) How has the Fintech ecosystem evolved over the last 5 years? What does Kelly mean by Fintech 1.0 and the next phase of Fintech? 3.) How can emerging brands and in particular fintech brands build loyalty with the emerging millennial generation? What is the attention graph for millenials looking like? 4.) What does Kelly mean when she states a shift from financial organisation with Mint to financial efficiency today? 5.) What key determinants that have made Uber so successful can be used within Fintech startups to build the same trust and relationship? 6.) What is Kelly's view of startups taking a platform dependent approach? What are the benefits and what are the concerns? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Kelly's Fave Book: The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Kelly on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Hadley Harris is the Founding General Partner at Eniac Ventures, the first seed stage venture fund focussed exclusively on mobile. Eniac's investments include the likes of Soundcloud, Airbnb, Elevate and many more incredible mobile first companies. Before Eniac, Hadley was a two-time entrepreneur in the mobile space, as an executive at Vlingo, acquired by Nuance Communications for $225m and after Vlingo he became CMO of Thumb, which was acquired by Ypulse. Hadley also worked at Charles River Ventures where he spent time helping with mobile investments while looking for a young startup to join. As if his portfolio does not prove enough of what a seed stage investing legend he is, he was also named by Business Insider as 'New York's Best Early Stage Investor'. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Hadley made it into startups and the investing industry? 2.) What does an engineering degree provide when investing? Why did Eniac decide to focus solely on mobile? 2.) How has Hadley seen the NY venture and startup scene develop over the last years? Does an ecosystem need anchor companies to be great? Ex-Googlers, and ex-Facebook, ex-LinkedIn, ex-Sun, etc. are so important to the Bay Area ecosystem. What are New York's anchor companies? How has that affected the ecosystem? 3.) What is it like helping companies like Soundcloud and Airbnb scale when in hyper growth mode? At the seed level, how important a role does valuation play when determining whether to invest or not? 5.) Why is raising a Series B so tough? Is it the embodiment of the funding barbell? Has NYC, like London, seen a rise in the second seed round? 6.) What are Hadley's thoughts on VC founder alignment? What are the common characteristics of the best founders that Hadley has worked with and invested in? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Hadley's Fave Book: Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner Hadley's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Nuzzel Hadley's Most Recent Investment: Phhhoto: Instant Moving Pictures As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Hadley on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Martin Mignot is an early stage investor at Index Ventures where he specialises in SaaS, marketplaces and mobile. He is actively looking after Index's investments in Algolia, Blablacar, Capitaine Train, Deliveroo, Drivy, Rad, Swiftkey and TheFamily. He worked on 50+ transactions to date, including Assistly, Auxmoney, BaseCRM, Cloud.com, Codecademy, DimDim, Factual, Farfetch, Flipboard, Funding Circle, Gluster, HouseTrip, Just-Eat, Lookout, Nastygal, Notonthehighstreet, Onefinestay, PeoplePerHour, TrustPilot, Soluto and SoundCloud. Prior to joining Index, Martin was in the TMT team at UBS Investment Bank and co-founded the beauty subscription business Boudoir Prive (acquired by Joliebox/Birchbox) and a student web radio service (www.rsp.fm). A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! Click To Play In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) Where did it all start for Martin? What is the Martin Mignot story? 2.) How does Martin view venture as a career vs coming into it later on? Why does Martin think venture is now a viable career from the offset? 3.) Does Martin agree with Sheryl Sandberg’s statement, it doesn’t matter where you sit, as long as you have a seat on the rocketship? How important is valuation for Martin when making the decision? 4.) How Martin goes about sourcing the latest and greatest startups from the European ecosystem? 5.) How does Martin evaluate founders and consider their ability to execute on their plan, prior to making the investment? 6.) Talking of difficulty for startups attaining funding, what are your thoughts on VC founder alignment? You have said to focus before on the business and not the team, unless exceptional cases prevail, this is very strange for me to hear. Why is it you have adopted this stance and why do you feel it is best? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Martin's Fave Book: I Have America Surrounded by Tim Leary Martin's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Ben Evans Newsletter As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Martin on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Jeff Seibert is an experienced serial-entrepreneur and currently Senior Director of Product at Twitter. Previously, Seibert was the CEO of Crashlytics, which he co-founded in 2011 with Wayne Chang. Crashlytics delivered crash analysis tools for iOS and Android apps via an SDK that reached 300 Million mobile devices worldwide. Crashlytics was acquired by Twitter in 2013 for $259m. In 2007, Seibert co-founded Increo and served as its COO and lead architect until its acquisition by Box in August of 2009. He subsequently oversaw the integration of Increo’s document preview and annotation technologies into the company's cloud-based content platform. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jeff made his move into the wonderful world of tech? Today we are going to break up your story into 3 chapters: 1.) Acquisition by Box: What was it like going to Sand Hill Road to raise in 2009? How much runway would Jeff advise for a startup and how can companies know whether a strategic acquisition is optimal or whether they should continue building with a further round? Jeff has spoke before about being overly transparent with this team about the acquisition. What are the problems with being overly transparent and how can you balance the two? 2.) Acquired by Twitter: At what point did Jeff transition to thinking the acquisition by Twitter would be a beneficial and viable and why? A reason for Jeff being favourable to the acquisition was Twitter's agreement of continued investment in the space. How can founders negotiate and ensure that this occurs with their acquisition? One of the mistakes stated about the acquisition by Twitter was the reporting structure. How can founders ensure that they are speaking to the VPs of engineering, CEOs etc and attain the support they need? 3.) Life at Twitter: How life is following the acquisition? What are Jeff's plans for the future as Senior Director of Product at Twitter? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Jeff' Fave Book: How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie Jeff's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Daring Fireball As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Jeff on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Ellie Wheeler is a Partner at Greycroft Partners where she focuses on investment opportunities in next-generation commerce, consumer mobile, and associated SaaS solutions. Ellie manages several investments for Greycroft, including BaubleBar, Flashpoint Intel, Eloquii, and Plain Vanilla Games (QuizUp). Prior to joining Greycroft, Ellie worked in a similar role evaluating investment opportunities at Lowercase Capital with Chris Sacca. Before working with Lowercase, Ellie worked at Cisco where she was involved in multiple acquisitions and investments, including PostPath, Jabber, Xobni, and Tandberg. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Ellie made her way into the wonderful world of tech and VC? 2.) What were Ellie's biggest takeaways from working with the legend that is Chris Sacca? 3.) As an investment focus of Ellie's, how does Ellie think the mobile commerce space has changed and how consumer behaviours are changing in the space? 4.) What are Ellie's views on push notifications? What are the Do's and Don'ts? What can be done to make push notifications more effective? 5.) Do wearables change the push notification space? What are Ellie's views on wearables with their investment in BaubleBar? Are consumers ready for them? 6.) Talking of wearables, how does Ellie respond to hardware investments? Typically a space VC shy away from? What are the problems for Ellie? What attracts her with hardware? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Ellie's Fave Book: The Power of One Ellie's Most Recent Investment: Blinkist As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Ellie on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Bryan Johnson is an entrepreneur and investor. He is the founder of OS Fund and Braintree, the latter of which was bought by eBay in 2013 for $800 million in cash. Bryan launched OS Fund in 2014 with $100 million of his personal capital to support inventors and scientists who aim to benefit humanity. His investments include endeavors to extend healthy human life to 100+ (Human Longevity), replicate the human visual cortex (Vicarious), mine an asteroid (Planetary Resources), reinvent transportation (Matternet), and reimagine food (Hampton Creek), among others. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Bryan made his start in the world of tech and how he has come to the OS fund today? 2.) What was the pivotal moment in Bryan's career? When was the turning point? What was was the hardest part of the entrepreneurial journey and how did Bryan conquer it? 3.) What is the main motivation behind the OS fund? Which areas does Bryan most want to solve and where does he see significant market opportunities? 4.) Does the longevity of return to Bryan's exits concern him? Most investments exit with 10 years, human lifespan startups take a little longer! What sort of time frame does Bryan have in mind when investing in these companies? 5.) What does Bryan really perceive synthetic biology to mean? Are we seeing improvements in this sector? 6.) The OS Fund have recently released a white paper detailing extensively their process for investing? Why did Bryan decide on this open source style of investing? 7.) What would Bryan like to see more of? Where does Bryan see a lot of people investing that he thinks is a mistake? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Bryan's Fave Book: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage to the Antarctic Bryan's Most Recent Investment: Ginkgo Bioworks As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Bryan on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

James Beshara is the Co-Founder @ Tilt the micro-crowdfunding platform that allows you to receive funding from friends—changing the way collaborative funding works. Tilt has raised $37 million from 3 rounds of funding from the likes of Andreesen, SV Angel, Alexis Ohanian, Naval Ravikant and Sean Parker just to name a few. As for James Before co-founding Tilt, he studied Development Economics as an undergrad and then went on to build dvelo.org, a site for crowdfunding loans and donations to poverty-alleviation organizations in developing countries. In order to vote for who you think will win James and Harry's beer pong match, head over to @twentyminutevc on Twitter and vote using our poll. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! Click To Play In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) What were the origins of Tilt? How did James go from a micro loans collector in Africa to founder of one of SF's hottest startups? 2.) What does James make of the current crowdfunding landscape? What will it take for crowdfunding to go mass market? 3.) What are Tilt doing to make crowdfunding more bite sized and consumer friendly? How important is the on boarding process for Tilt? How are Tilt approaching customer retention? What are James' targets for the year ahead with Tilt? 4.) With investors like Andreesen, SV Angel, Naval Ravikant, Sean Parker just to name a few, what the investment journey like? I heard the first funding took 6-8 months and the series A took 6 days with a16z. What changed to turn it around? 5.) On PH LIVE James stated that founding a company is a destination less journey and although admirable I struggle with that from the investors perspective. How did James sell a startup in a pitch with no exit strategy? 6.) What was it that attracted James to the investors that he chose? What value add was James most attracted to? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: James' Fave Book: 100 Years of Solitude, The Power Of Now As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and James on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

James Cameron is an early stage investor at Accel where he focuses on enterprise software, security, fintech and marketplace businesses. Prior to joining Accel, he founded and ran BipSync, a SaaS-based research platform for investment management. James also spent time on the tech banking team at Morgan Stanley and as a corporate lawyer at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London, Shanghai and Hong Kong. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How James made his way into the world of startups and investing? 2.) How does James go about finding the needles in the haystack in the sea of amazing startups? Do James use data to find great companies? Do you think this will be a continuing trend, in terms of algorithmic deal sourcing? 3.) What cool stuff has James been seeing in the enterprise software and security sector? Does James think there are any underhyped or overhyped segments of these markets? 4.) One very dominant eco system for tech in general but specifically security is Israel, how do the UK and Israeli ecosystems differ? Is there anything we can do in the UK to harness the spirit encapsulated by the Israeli ecosystem? 5.) What are the catalysts or drivers of these communities’ growth? Do you agree with Marc Andreesen in saying we shouldn't think about building "The Silicon Valley of X" because the components that make up SV aren't repeatable and areas should instead specialize on specific verticals, like bitcoin or security. What do you think about that concept? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: James' Fave Book: Crossing The Chasm James' Fave Blog or Newsletter: Adrian Colyer: The Morning Paper James' Most Recent Investment: Doctolib As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and James on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Fred Destin is General Partner at Accel in London where he focuses on consumer and software investments. He is the lead investor and board member at Deliveroo, Pillpack (featured in ep: 89 with Eric Paley) and KNC. Prior to Accel, he was a partner at Atlas Venture where he worked with with companies like Zoopla (public), Secret Escapes, Integral Ad Science, Dailymotion (acquired by Orange), PriceMinister (acquired by Rakuten) and others. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! Click To Play In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Fred made his way into the world of startups and investing? 2.) What is it like investing in rocketships like Deliveroo and PillPack? 3.) What are the reasons most startups fail at the seed stage? What are the most common reasons that founders get fired? 4.) Why does Fred believe raising a Series B so tough? Is it the embodiment of the funding barbell? 5.) What are Fred's thoughts on VC founder alignment? Why does Fred deliberately cause tension between a founder prior to making an investment? In what form does this take? 6.) When I asked Fred for topics he was interested in, he gave me a list and one of them, I have never had suggested before and it is ‘Why are VC’s so schizo’? What does Fred mean? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Fred's Fave Book: Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master & Margarita Fred's Fave Blog or Newsletter: The Atlantic, Tech.eu Fred's Most Recent Investment: Deliveroo As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Fred on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Matt Lieber is cofounder and President of Gimlet Media. In a previous life, Matt produced radio shows (On Point, Fair Game) and podcasts (Slate Culture Gabfest). He also worked as a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, where he focused on media and digital business. Then he chucked it all for Gimlet. He holds an MBA from MIT Sloan. In Today's Show You Will Learn: 1.) Matt reveals the origins of Gimlet? 2.) What were the dilemmas for Matt in raising Gimlet's round? What determinant made Matt realize raising was right? What advice would Matt give to founders who are unsure if they should raise or not? 3.) One of the main concerns with raising suggested by Alex Blumberg was that the company would feel like a totally different company, and by different ‘I mean worse’, to quote Alex. So how can a Founder maintain company culture as they grow excessively? 4.) Why did Matt decide to play it cool and not announce to VCs Gimlet were raising? Did Matt expect to get a term sheet as quickly and easily as he did? Were there any hiccups to the funding process? Were Gimlet tempted by any other offers? What value add about Tim O'Reilly made Gimlet most attracted to him? 5.) Question from Matt Hartman at Betaworks: How does Gimlet decide which new shows to create? Is it about creating new shows for an overlapping audience or to expanding audience demographics?? 6.) Where does Matt see the future of podcasting going? Many do not believe in it’s potential to be a big business, what does Matt say? What are the challenges, what needs to happen to combat them? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Matt's Fave Book: Great Plains by Ian Frazier Matt's Fave Blog: Stratechery by Ben Thompson As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Matt on Twitter here! Likewise, if you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, follow him on Instagram here!

Kate Shillo is Director @ Galvanize Ventures, a prolific seed fund which acts as the the investment arm of Galvanize -- a collection of "tech campuses" that offer coworking space and educational programs in order to encourage continuous learning and helping others to grow. within Galvanize, the organization focused on continuous learning and helping others to grow. To date Galvanize ventures have made an astonishing 48 investments in 2 years. Prior to Galvanize, Kate helped Ken Lerer launch Lerer Ventures, now called Lerer Hippeau Ventures due to the addition of Eric Hippeau who was only the show only recently, there Kate lead the investments in the likes of Venmo and Paperless Post. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Kate made her way into the world of startups and investing? 2.) What were the biggest takeaways from Kate's time at Lerer Hippeau Ventures and working with the amazing Ken Lerer? 3.) What was it about Galvanize that made Kate leave LHV and Kate provides a brief synopsis on Galvanize Ventures? Sectors? Stage? Geography? 4.) With 42 investments since Feb 2014. What is the strategy at Galvanize? Galvanize's sector weighting is largest in mobile, how does Kate view the space and how would Kate respond to the likes of Fred Wilson stating consumer mobile is very difficult with difficult customer acquisition and then even harder, customer retention? 5.) How has the process been for Kate in establishing the fund? What are Kate and Galvanize's key differentiators to the sea of other NYC seed funds? How does Kate approach deal sourcing at Galvanize? If investing outside the Galvanize community, what channels are the preferred channels? 6.) Why is Kate so excited about hardware? Where does Kate see the future of IOT going? Is crowdfunding an option for hardware startups? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Kate's Fave Book: The God of Small Things Kate's Fave Mobile Apps: Slack, Sunrise Calendar, Moments, TwoDots, Panna, Wildcard Kate's Fave Blog or Newsletter: AVC, Ben Evans Kate's Most Recent Investment: Msg.ai As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Kate on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

David Tisch is the Managing Partner of BoxGroup, one of New York most prolific seed investors with investments in over 120 seed-stage technology companies including Vine, Sunrise Calendar, Warby Parker, Harry’s, Oscar, Meerkat, and Zady. As of 2014, David is also the Co-Founder of Spring, an app that allows the worlds best brands to sell directly to consumers on mobile, with his brother Alan who is the CEO. Prior to Box and Spring, David co-founded TechStars NYC, and was named to NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s Advisory Council on Technology. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! Click To Play In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How David made his way into the world of startups and investing? 2.) Having started Box in 2008, how has David seen the NY venture and startup scene develop over the last years? Matt Hartman @ Betaworks: how has that impacted the type of investments you make? Has it changed your thesis, theme, or any other aspect of how you invest? Kanyi Maqubela @ Collaborative: Does an ecosystem need anchor companies to be great? What are New York's anchor companies? 3.) What is the vision with Box? Is this a fund that lasts through the ages? Last year I heard you made 3 hires, is this a sign of a desire to create the NYC fund? At Box you have a weighting towards mobile consumer tech, how do you respond to Fred Wilson’s post about the mobile downtown and the difficulty in attaining and maintating traction for mobile apps? 4.) What was the motivation behind moving into the world of entrepreneurship with Spring? What aspects of Alan's and Box as a product has contributed to it’s massive success? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: David's Fave Productivity Tools: Captio David's Most Recent Investment: Nucleus: The Smart Home Wireless Intercom As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and David on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Ivan Mazour is a serial entrepreneur, investor and author. He is the CEO and Founder of Ometria - a predictive analytics and marketing platform built specifically for retailers, letting them use data to increase revenues and provide an improved customer experience. Alongside this main role, he is also the Founding Partner of Innova Kapital - an early stage VC firm investing in UK-based technology startups, including companies like YPlan and organisations like Entrepreneur First. Ivan also writes a popular blog called “A Young Entrepreneur in London”. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! Click To Play In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Ivan progressed from making 30+ investments to founding one of Europe's hottest startups? 2.) Considering Ivan's recent fundraising, what does Ivan think of the recent funding environment and landscape? How was it raising venture funding now? 3.) What was the difference between raising an angel round to raising a VC round? Did Ivan have to adapt your pitch accordingly? Do they have differing desires and expectations? 4.) Having raised both VC and angel money recently for Ometria, how has that led Ivan to view his own investing style? Is there anything Ivan looks for or at differently now he has experienced fundraising from the other side? 5.) What have been the hardest and most challenging aspects of growing Ometria? How did Ivan overcome them? 6.) Taking futuristically now on the sector of e-commerce, where does Ivan see the future of technology integrating with retail? Will we see an end to bricks and mortar stores? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Ivan's Fave Book: Rich Dad, Poor Dad & How To Win Friends And Influence People Ivan's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Saastr Ivan's Fave Productivity Tools: ToDoist, Google Keep, Google Hangouts As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Ivan on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Philipp Moehring is Head of AngelList Europe and their first European hire, a role he has had since Jan 2014. Whilst being Head of AngelList Europe, he is also Venture Partner for 500 Startups and prior to 500 and AngelList, Philipp was a Principal at Seedcamp and has been involved in more than 100 startups since becoming an investor. For anyone looking to join an AngelList syndicate, absolutely check out Philipp’s here! A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Philipp made it into startups and investing with AngelList and now 500? 2.) In a recent post Philipp said that management consulting, investment banking and accounting were the worst backgrounds for VCs. Why do you think this and where would you like to see the new breed of VCs emerging from? 3.) Considering your work with AngelList, how do you think the US investing scene differs from the European? Why are we seeing this sudden influx of US capital into European markets? What is driving this influx? 4.) The recent £400m that AngelList received from CSC, Philipp tells us a little more about this and what it means for European companies? 5.) How does Philipp's role with 500 integrate with the AngelList model? How does Philipp split the time? Is Philipp ever concerned that with the dominance of syndicates in the years to come, VCs will become non existent? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Philipp's Fave Book: Snow crash, Follow Philipp on GoodReads Here Philipp's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Brad Feld's: Feld Thoughts Philipp's Biggest Productivity Tips: SelfControl (Mac) As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Philipp on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Morten Lund, best know for his seed investment in Skype, he has also founded and co-invested in more than 100 startups including the likes of Airhelp who you might recognize as we interviewed their CEO Nicolas Michaelsen in episode check 32, as well as Bullguard, Maxthon and many more. In today’s incredible interview we talk about the story behind his skype investment, how he went from $150m to bankruptcy moving to the present both with his work with Coders Trust helping coders in developing countries to improve their lives to his rocketship journey with one of the world’s most exciting fintech companies in Tradeshift, who have raised a total of over $200m. If you love today's episode, simply click here and share the love! A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Morten got into the technology industry and the world of investing? 2.) How did Morten's investment in Skype come about? How did Morten deal with the bankruptcy and how it changed him as a person? 3.) How does Morten view the current state of European fintech? Where are the significant market opportunities that are yet to be exploited? 4.) Following Morten bankruptcy, he only works with "really cool people". So what makes Morten like someone and believe in them? 5.) How did TradeShift come about from Morten's basement? What was the a-ha moment? What has driven the immense success with over $200m invested? What is the future for the company and the future of money? 6.) Looking forward, what is Morten's main goal and aspiration and how does he plan on attaining it? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Morten's Fave Book: Shantaram Morten's Fave Blog or Newsletter: The Economist Morten's Most Recent Investment: Hippocorn As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Morten on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Richard Hanson is CEO and co-founder of HiringScreen, where rocket science meets recruitment. Founded in Jan 2015 in Hong Kong, HiringScreen has raised over $800,000 from a number of investors with plans to expand into the Philippines and Indonesia. Before founding HiringScreen, Richard was an award winning headhunter and recruitment consultancy owner. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) What were the origins of Hiring Screen? What was the a-ha moment for Richard? 2.) What advice would Richard give to founders contemplating entering accelerators? What should they look for and why should they be wary of? 3.) Why does Richard believe that a startup with multiple founders is more beneficial than single founder startups? What would he suggest someone looking to find a co-founder is to do? 4.) Why did Richard start Hiring Screen in Hong Kong? What are Richard's views on Asia's emerging tech scene? What advice would Richard give to a founder deciding where to start a startup? 5.) What has been the most challenging element of growing Hiring Screen? How did Richard overcome it and alter the company from there? 6.) If Richard were to found Hiring Screen again, what would he do differently? Is there anything he wishes he had known before the process? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Richard's Fave Book: The Alliance by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh Richard's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Calacanis, Feld Thoughts As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Richard on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! Free Ebook: How to boost your Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) by over 100% I would like to say a huge thank you to our sponsor for today's show: LoyaltyBay. Have you ever wished more of your website visitors would convert into a sale, signup or referral? If so, you need Loyalty Bay. With their saas conversion optimizer tool they increase any conversion metric by offering potential customers a choice of personalised rewards to get them to convert. They work with large enterprises like Virgin Media through to startups and have increased conversions on average by over 100%. Free 30 day trial at www.loyaltybay.co.uk

Sitar Teli is Managing Partner at Connect Ventures and has been a venture capitalist for eight years, focusing on early-stage investments in both consumer and B2B companies. Previously with Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, where she led their Series A round in SoundCloud, she has experience with content, gaming and ecommerce startups. Sitar has a dual degree in Mechanical Engineering and Economics from Duke University. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Sitar make her way into the wonderful world of VC? 2.) How does Sitar approach the difficult task of saying no to entrepreneurs? What is the framework she has adopted over her 8 years in venture? 3.) There are a large amount of sources of capital for business in the seed stage, why did Sitar believe this was the stage with the most opportunity? Is too much capital chasing too few deals? 4.) With the increasing prominence of crowdfunding, is it a viable alternative to VC? Is Sitar concerned that quality deal flow is being lost to Crowdfunding? 5.) What is driving the growth of the European tech startup scene? 6.) Prior to making investments such as that of Citymapper, one obviously has to look at the team and the product. So what do you look for in a founder and what to you makes a great product? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Sitar's Fave Book: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Sitar's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Benedict Evans Newsletter Sitar's Fave Apps: Outlook, Sunrise, Citymapper Sitar's Most Recent Investment: Knyttan As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Sitar on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! Free Ebook: How to boost your Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) by over 100% Have you ever wished more of your website visitors would convert into a sale, signup or referral? If so, you need Loyalty Bay. With their saas conversion optimizer tool they increase any conversion metric by offering potential customers a choice of personalised rewards to get them to convert. They work with large enterprises like Virgin Media through to startups and have increased conversions on average by over 100%. Free 30 day trial at www.loyaltybay.co.uk

Boris Wertz is one of the top tech early-stage investors in North America and the founding partner of Version One. He is also a board partner with Andreessen Horowitz. Before becoming an investor, Boris was the COO of AbeBooks.com which sold to Amazon in 2008. He was responsible for marketing, business development, product, customer service and international operations – leading a team of 60 people. In 2005, he was named the Pacific Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Boris make his way into the wonderful world of VC? 2.) Why have we seen a mass re-emergence of the marketplace model now? 3.) What was the objective in writing Version One’s book, A Guide To Marketplaces? What did Boris feel the public needed to know that was not already known? 4.) For an entrepreneur looking to move into the marketplace sector, how can they select the right market, are there any essential components they must consider? 5.) The book discusses the benefits of both direct and indirect network effects for marketplaces but in the early days what should startups focus on; demand or supply? How should they go about addressing this element? 6.) What are the core required elements of scaling a marketplace? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Boris's Fave Book: Hard Things About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz Boris's Fave Blog or Newsletter: AVC by Fred Wilson Boris's Most Recent Investment: Headout To check out The Two Minute Takeaway from today's show, click here! As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Boris on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! Free Ebook: How to boost your Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) by over 100% Have you ever wished more of your website visitors would convert into a sale, signup or referral? If so, you need Loyalty Bay. With their saas conversion optimizer tool they increase any conversion metric by offering potential customers a choice of personalised rewards to get them to convert. They work with large enterprises like Virgin Media through to startups and have increased conversions on average by over 100%. Free 30 day trial at www.loyaltybay.co.uk

Sumeet Shah is an investor @ Brand Foundry Ventures, who have investments in the likes of Warby Parker, Birchbox and Contently. Sumeet himself is pivotal in sourcing and managing new opportunities at Brand Foundry with over 6 years of experience across the startup and private equity industries, formerly running new business strategies at Gist Digital and handling business development and project work at Gotham Consulting Partners. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Sumeet made his way into the wonderful world of VC? 2.) What stage is Brand Foundry active in? Does Sarah Lacy’s analysis of a ‘Series A Crunch’ concern Sumeet? Has he seen a widening in the gap between the amount that raise seed to then go onto raise Series A? 3.) What does Sumeet believe are the key pieces to run a successful business? In the first 100 days, what are the most important elements to focus on? 4.) Sumeet recently tweeted ‘To All Startups, the most helpful investor is not always the largest’. How can startups determine who is the most helpful? What should startups expect from their investors? What does Sumeet believe makes the best investor? 5.) What would Sumeet say is his biggest strength as an investor and what would he most like to improve upon? As a seed investor, how does Sumeet respond to Aileen Lee’s suggestion that in investing you can only make really money when invested in unicorns? 6.) Is Sumeet bullish on the future of NYC tech? What are the strengths of NY? Where is it booming? Are there any elements of SF, Sumeet would like NY to have? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Sumeet's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Term Sheet by Dan Primack, Strictly VC Sumeet's Fave Book: Things A Little Birdy Told Me by Biz Stone Sumeet's Most Recent Investment: Lola: A Better Month Awaits You As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Sumeet on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! Free Ebook: How to boost your Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) by over 100% Have you ever wanted to know who someone is simply from an email address?With Loyalty Bay's Super Users product now you can. Simply input an email address and it will go off and find publicly available profile information i.e. Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter etc for that email address. This is incredibly powerful in building a richer data profile on your users for marketers and business development people alike. Free 30 day Trial. Check out www.loyaltybay.co.uk

Eric Hippeau is a Managing Partner at Lerer Hippeau Ventures. He is the chairman of RebelMouse and co-founder of NowThis Media. Previously, Eric was the Chief Executive Officer of The Huffington Post and a Special Partner at Softbank Capital, where he served as Managing Partner. Prior to Softbank Capital, Eric was Chairman and CEO of Ziff-Davis, which was the largest media company serving the technology sector. He serves on the Board of various private and public companies, including Buzzed & Starwood Hotels and Resorts. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Eric make his way into the world of tech and venture? 2.) Question from Eric Paley: How does Eric compare the role of VC to the role of operator and does Eric think each draws on the same skills and strengths? 3.) What does Eric think makes a great VC and what makes a great operator? Are there any commonalities in the individuals he has come across? 4.) Eric reveals the best pitches he has seen and what made them so effective and flips the coin to discuss the worst pitches and what not to do when pitching a VC? 5.) Eric has made many investments in adtech and content, an area most VCs are hesitant of. So why are VCs hesitant of this space and why does Eric think he and Ken have been able to master it and produce great returns? 6.) With Eric's experience as CEO at Huffington Post, how does Eric view the changes to the media landscape and what are his predictions and concerns for the next few years? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Eric's Fave Book: The Lord of The Rings Eric's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Strictly VC, Dan Primack: Termsheet Eric's Most Recent Investment: The Drone Racing League As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Eric on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! Free Ebook: How to boost your Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) by over 100% Have you ever wanted to know who someone is simply from an email address? With Loyalty Bay's Super Users product now you can. Simply input an email address and it will go off and find publicly available profile information i.e. Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter etc for that email address. This is incredibly powerful in building a richer data profile on your users for marketers and business development people alike. Free 30 day Trial. Check out www.loyaltybay.co.uk

Daniel van Binsbergen is CEO and co-founder of Lexoo, an online marketplace that connects businesses with lawyers. Founded in 2014 in London, Lexoo has raised over $1.7M from a number of investors, including Forward Partners. Before founding Lexoo, Daniel was a senior associate at an international law firm, working in London and Amsterdam. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) What were the origins of Lexoo? What was the a-ha moment for Daniel? 2.) Was Daniel nervous about leaving the security of the legal profession to found a startup? What does Daniel advise people who want to make the leap but are not sure if it is worth risking everything? 3.) Why is there a divergence between the advancement of tech and the lacking progression of the legal space? 4.) Why did Daniel start Lexoo in a completely no tech, manual way? How was that? What would Daniel advise fellow founders who do not have the technical skills to build their idea? 5.) How did Daniel meet his investors? How did he find the fundraising experience? What was the challenging and surprising elements of the journey? 6.) If Daniel were to found Lexoo again, what would he do differently? Is there anything he wishes he had known before the process? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Daniel's Fave Book: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick Daniel's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Mattermark, Seth Godin, James Altucher Daniel's Must Have Software: Sunrise, Trello As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Daniel on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Matthew is an Investor at Forward Partners: a super-early stage London VC. Forward Partners invests in solo-founders, idea stage and seed stage eCommerce, marketplace and related software businesses providing them with funding, office space and the support of an expert in-house engineering, product and growth team. Before becoming a VC, Matthew had varying degrees of success (!) with retail and security tech start-ups. He began his career in Sales, Structuring and Trading at investment banks. He holds a BA in Economics and Politics and an MBA from SDA Bocconi. A huge thank you to Mattermark for all the data discussed in today's show and you can find them here! CLICK TO PLAY In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Matt make his way into the world of VC? What would he advise someone wanting to get into the industry? 2.) How does Forward Partners differentiate themselves in such a sea of seed funds? What is unique about their model? 3.) What are the key activities that entrepreneurs can do to build a successful business, ready for Series A? What would Matt advise someone who has an idea but no technical skills? 4.) What are the nuances and complexities of the early stage funding environment? How do Forward approach and overcome them? Are there any common misconceptions? 5.) What are the similarities and differences between the US and the UK with regards to start-up attractiveness? Where would Matt choose to found his startup if he were a founder? 6.) Considering YC’s recent intake, where does Matt see growth areas in consumer facing startups? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Matthew's Fave Book: Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master & Margarita Matthew's Fave Newsletter: Mattermark Daily, The Equity Kicker, First Round Review Matthew's Most Recent Investment: Live Better With As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Matthew on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Dharmesh Raithatha is the Product Partner at Forward Partners. He works with idea stage investments on product, growth and business strategy. He has a passion for User Research, Lean UX and using data to inform decision making. Dharmesh has over 15 years in product roles for companies like Mind Candy and the BBC. He has founded 2 startups and successfully sold one. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data used in today's episode and can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Dharmesh make his way into the world of VC? 2.) How has Dharmesh's startup driven past, altered his investment pattern? What are the benefits and weaknesses to this kind of operational experience? 3.) At Forward there Open Office Hours where people come and share ideas, so what is it about the ideas you like that make them good, what makes the bad ones bad? 4.) What are Dharmesh's tips or advice for idea creation and brainstorming? 5.) What would Dharmesh advice non-technical people looking to found a tech startup? 6.) What does Dharmesh believe makes a great founder? Has he seen any commonalities in the great founders he has worked with? 7.) What should teams focus on in the first 100 days of their startup? What is the 20% that produces 80% of the results? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Dharmesh's Fave Book: How To Create A Product Customers Love by Marty Cagan Dharmesh's Fave Newsletter: Silicon Valley Product Group Dharmesh's Most Recent Investment: The Gifting Company As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Dharmesh on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! I would like to say a huge thank you to our sponsor for today's show: LoyaltyBay. Have you ever wished more of your website visitors would convert into a sale, signup or referral? If so, you need Loyalty Bay. With their saas conversion optimizer tool they increase any conversion metric by offering potential customers a choice of personalised rewards to get them to convert. They work with large enterprises like Virgin Media through to startups and have increased conversions on average by over 100%. Free 30 day trial at www.loyaltybay.co.uk

Ryan Hoover is the Founder and CEO @ ProductHunt, winner of TechCrunch "Best New Startup 2014". ProductHunt is a community of people sharing, upvoting, and geeking out about new technology products, games, and books. Before Product Hunt, Ryan was an EIR at Tradecraft and Director of Product at PlayHaven. As a writer, Ryan has contributed to Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal and written many essays, including features for TechCrunch, Forbes, Pando, Fast Company, and The Next Web. He writes about startup trends, product designs, and production growth on his blog, ryanhoover.me. I would like to thank Mattermark for providing all the data and analysis for this interview and you can check them out here! CLICK TO PLAY In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did ProductHunt get started and what was the a-ha moment for Ryan in the founding of ProductHunt? 2.) PH has gone from a newsletter to friends to a a16z backed startup with employees around the globe. What have been the drivers of PH's success? 3.) PH harness the crowd for feedback on everything from designs to features. Why does Ryan prefer this open sourced feedback approach? What are the benefits? What would Ryan suggest to founders looking to adopt a similar feedback style? 4.) Question from Matt Hartman at Betaworks: Considering Ryan's work with Nir Eyal on Hooked, are there elements of Hooked that Ryan baked into the infrastructure of PH and what were they? 5.) How has Ryan created such a close and intimate relationship with his audience? What are the tools and strategies that Ryan uses to build that community? What advice does Ryan give for people looking to network and make a community around them? 6.) Where does Ryan see PH in 5 years time? What is his vision for the PH platform? How does a platform such as ProductHunt plan to monetise? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Ryan's Fave Book: The Art of Game Design: A Book Of Lenses Ryan's Fave Podcasts: TWIST by Jason Calacanis, Startup: Gimlet Media, Mystery Show: Gimlet Media As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Ryan on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

David Teten is a Partner at ff Venture Capital and is also Founder and Chairman of Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York, the largest angel group in New York. David is currently co-leading the first study on “how to disrupt the investing industry.” He led the first-ever study of best practices of venture capital and private equity funds in originating new deals (#1 all time most-read study in the Journal of Private Equity) and the first-ever study of VCs in creating portfolio company value. He has published in Harvard Business Review, Institutional Investor, and other leading publications. David's blog is one of the most extensive and actionable blogs there is, seriously you have to check it out and it can be found at teten.com. I would like to thank Mattermark for providing all the data and analysis for this interview and you can check them out here! CLICK TO PLAY In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did David make the move into the world of vc and technology? 2.) What is David's approach to deal sourcing? What strategies would he recommend to other VCs to find the best startups and entrepreneurs? 3.) What does David think are the most effective ways that VC and PE funds are helping to increase portfolio company value? 4.) How should an entrepreneur evaluate how value-added a VC can be? Are there any signs that one VC has more value add than another? 5.) Is VC moving to the operational model in terms of headcount, with the moves of firms like a16z who provide extensive services as additional value add? 5.) Why did David and ff invest in Indiegogo? Is it not an alternative finance method that is competing with VC? Has David notice a loss in deal flow to AngelList? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: David's Fave Book: Edward Tufte: Graphical Communication of Quantitative Data David's Fave Blog: PandoDaily David's Most Recent Investment: Skycatch As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and David on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Kanyi Maqubela is a Partner at Collaborative Fund, who have made investments in AngelList, CodeAcademy, AltSchool, Reddit, Task Rabbit just to name a few. On a more personal note, and a little background on Kanyi, he is originally from Johannesburg South Africa, and was a founding employee at Doostang, a venture-backed peer-to-peer career marketplace, he attended Stanford University and as Kanyi states his most meaningful and difficult work done so far is his work on the Obama Campaign in 2008. You can checkout Kanyi's blog here! I would like to thank Mattermark for providing all the data and analysis for this interview and you can check them out here! CLICK TO PLAY In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Kanyi made the move into VC and tech from South Africa? 2.) Was the decision to leave Stanford tough? Why would Kanyi advise others to say in school? What was so tough about the startup experience for Kanyi? 3.) What is the investing thesis at Collaborative Fund? What stage do you prefer? Average cheque size? Sector preference? Does specializing in themes result in higher returns? 4.) How is it being such a young partner in the industry? What are the challenges Kanyi has face? Does Kanyi think his age acts as a disadvantage when it comes to attracting older founders? 5.) What are Kanyi's personal marketing strategies that he uses to establish his own personal brand? What platforms are most effective? 6.) How effective does Kanyi find demo days and hackathons as source of deal flow? Are there any tips Kanyi would suggest to maximise their utility? What is Collaborative's most effective form of deal sourcing today? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Kanyi's Fave Book: The Brothers Karamazov Kanyi's Most Recent Investment: CircleUp As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Kanyi on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Erin Glenn is the CEO @ Quire where she aims to create a way for communities to invest and collaborate with companies and their founders. Quire is changing the way companies are owned and built. Prior to being CEO, Erin was CFO at SF based video game maker KIXEYE, an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and UBS, and a management consultant in the US and South East Asia. All the data and research mentioned in today's show is provided by the kind team at Mattermark, check them out here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Erin made her way into the wonderful world technology? 2.) What is Quire, how does Quire work, what companies does Quire raise for? 3.) Over the last few years we have seen a massive increase in the crowdfunding sector in general. What are the key drivers of the rise of this sector? 4.) With the greater and greater amounts being raised on these platforms, many are suggesting they have the potential to replace VC. What are Erin's thoughts on this? Or are the systems fundamentally different? 5.) What are the greatest barriers to mass market adoption of the crowdfunding model? What have been the biggest challenges faced in the journey with Quire? 6.) How does Quire, as a crowdfunding platform plan to draw investors away from funds and other portfolio based assets given the level of risk associated with investing in young companies? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Erin's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Fred Wilson: AVC Erin's Fave Book: Magic Erin's Fave Quire Funded Companies: Gimlet Media, Kano, Duel As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Erin on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Samir Kaji is the Managing Director @ First Republic Bank, a leading private bank and wealth management company on Sand Hill Road. Samir, has 13 years of banking experience, working with venture capital and private equity clients in Silicon Valley. Prior to joining First Republic, Kaji worked for Silicon Valley Bank. Samir writes an awesome blog on the VC, investing and startup scene at (http://pevcbanker.com). All the data and research mentioned in today's show is provided by the kind team at Mattermark, check them out here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Samir made his way into the wonderful world of venture and technology? 2.) We often hear the term, Micro VC bandied around, are there any common characteristics and criteria that discern Micro VCs from traditional VCs? 3.) Why has there has been this massive growth of the seed stage funding environment? What is driving this end of the funding cycle? Is it being damaged with the rise of AngelList syndicates? 4.) What trends and emerging themes has Samir seen come out of this exponentially expanding sector? What effect has AngelList had on the MicroVC market? 5.) What are Samir's thoughts for the future of seed funding? What do you think the seed funding landscape will look like in 20 years time? 6.) Why do smaller funds tend to outperform larger VCs? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Samir's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Dan Primack: TermSheet, Ezra Galston: Breaking VC Samir's Fave Book: Phil Jackson: A Team In Search Of It's Soul, Adam Grant: Give & Take As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Samir on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Ed Sim, Founding Partner @ Boldstart Ventures, Ed truly has had the most astonishing career in early stage SaaS having led first round investments in todays market leaders, LivePerson (now on Nasdaq) and GoToMeeting (acquired by Citrix). Over the 19 years in early stage SaaS he has also helped a number of entrepreneurs scale from seed to market leader with his portfolio companies being acquired by the likes of Google, Linkedin and Salesforce, and I would like to say that all the data and information presented in today's show is provided by the kind folks at Mattermark, check then out at www.mattermark.com In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Ed made his way into the wonderful world of venture? 2.) Why did Ed start a seed stage SaaS fund? Where did he see the market opportunity?How was the fundraising process for Ed? Were there any surprises? 3.) How does Ed view the current seed stage funding environment, is there too much money chasing too few deals? 4.) Ed backed cloud companies in 2000. What is different from then vs today’s saas companies? 5.) How do you value early stage SaaS startups, when there are often very few clear metrics at this stage? 6.) What makes a great enterprise founder at seed stage? 7.) How has the seed stage SaaS environment changed over the 19 years of Ed's career? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Ed's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Jason Calacanis: LaunchTicker Ed's Fave iPhone App: Slack As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Ed on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! Have you ever wanted to know who someone is simply from an email address?With Loyalty Bay's Super Users product now you can. Simply input an email address and it will go off and find publicly available profile information i.e. Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter etc for that email address. This is incredibly powerful in building a richer data profile on your users for marketers and business development people alike. Free 30 day Trial. Check out www.loyaltybay.co.uk

Nikos Moraitakis is the Founder & CEO @ Workable, one of Balderton Capital's latest additions to their portfolio. Workable is the affordable and usable hiring software that which replaces email and spreadsheets with an applicant tracking system that your team will actually enjoy using. Prior to founding Workable, Nikos was a Senior VP of Business Development at Upstream where he played a key role in the company's growth from startup into one of the world’s top marketing technology companies, where he was actively involved in enterprise sales across 40 countries in 4 continents. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Nikos made his way into the world of startups and tech and founded Workable? What was the a-ha moment? 2.) What was it like starting a company in Greece? Were there sufficient levels of engineers? Why did Workable decide to move some operations to the US? 3.) Why does Nikos think the enterprise SaaS space has become so hot? What has changed? Has this upturn in interest made it easier with more capital inflowing or more difficult with increased company creation? 5.) How did Workable meet their investors? How was the fundraising experience? What was the challenging and surprising elements of the journey? Advice to founders? 6.) Looking back at his time founding Workable, what does Nikos wish someone had told him at the beginning? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Nikos' Fave Book: Fooled by Randomness Nikos' Fave Blog: Bill Gurley: Above The Crowd As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Nikos on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! I would like to say a huge thank you to our sponsors today, LoyaltyBay. Have you ever wished more of your website visitors would convert into a sale, signup or referral? If so, you need Loyalty Bay. With their saas conversion optimizer tool they increase any conversion metric by offering potential customers a choice of personalised rewards to get them to convert. They work with large enterprises like Virgin Media through to startups and have increased conversions on average by over 100%. Free 30 day trial at www.loyaltybay.co.uk

Daniel Waterhouse is a General Partner @ Balderton Capital, which he joined in 2013 and he currently sits on the boards of Top10, ROLI, Lovecrafts, TrademarkNow, Tictail, Achica, Thread and Workable. Prior to Balderton, Daniel spent 5 years as a partner at Wellington Partners and invested in a number of fast-growing companies including EyeEm, Hailo, YPlan, Bookatable (also a Balderton portfolio company), SumAll, Readmill (sold to Dropbox) and Qype (sold to Yelp). Before Wellington, Daniel was a sector partner at 3i where he worked on all of their venture and private equity investments in the internet sector in North America and Europe. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Daniel made his way into the wonderful world of VC? 2.) How has Daniel's mathematics background impacted his investing style? 3.) At Balderton 50% of the partners have very operational backgrounds and 50% are much more investment rooted. What has Daniel gained and missed as an investor from having a outside view of the startup world? 4.) How has Daniel seen the landscape change in the last 15 years? What was his first pitch meeting like? What was his last like? 5.) What are Daniel's thoughts on the enterprise SaaS space? Do Daniel think there is further to go in the consumerisation of Enterprise Software? Does the announcement of Emergence moving from the sector signal a turning tide? 6.) Daniel led the investment in Curious AI and Thread, using machine learning to augment its stylist approach, so what makes Daniel excited about the developments in AI? How is the sector going to develop over the next 20 years? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Daniel's Fave Book: The Brain That Teaches Itself Daniel's Most Recent Investment: Curious AI As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Daniel on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! I would like to say a huge thank you to our sponsor for today's show: LoyaltyBay. Have you ever wished more of your website visitors would convert into a sale, signup or referral? If so, you need Loyalty Bay. With their saas conversion optimizer tool they increase any conversion metric by offering potential customers a choice of personalised rewards to get them to convert. They work with large enterprises like Virgin Media through to startups and have increased conversions on average by over 100%. Free 30 day trial at www.loyaltybay.co.uk

Suranga Chandratillake is a General Partner @ Balderton Capital. He was previously an entrepreneur and engineer having founded blinkx, the intelligent search engine for video and audio content in Cambridge in 2004. He then lead the company for eight years as CEO through its journey of moving to San Francisco, building a profitable business and going public in London where it achieved a peak market capitalisation in excess of $1Bn. Before founding blinkx, Suranga was an early employee at Autonomy Corporation - joining as an engineer in the Cambridge R&D team and ultimately serving as the company's US CTO in San Francisco. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Suranga made his way into the wonderful world of VC? 2.) Why are so many technical European CEOs fearful of continuing the position as CEO? What can we do to improve it? 3.) What does Suranga think makes a great CEO? Which CEO Suranga respects the most and why? 4.) How have Suranga's years as an entrepreneur affected his investing style? Does Suranga have a consistent investing style or does he look to iterate a lot? 5.) Balderton is an Equal Partnership VC, what does that really entail? Why does Suranga think this model is the most efficient? Looking at the new appointment of Lars, how do the GPs assess new candidates for the treasured GP position? 6.) What sectors is Suranga most excited by and why? Does Suranga think there is further to go in the consumerisation of Enterprise Software? Does the announcement of Emergence moving from the sector signal a turning tide? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Suranga's Fave Book: The Old Man And The Sea Suranga's Most Recent Investment: Cloud Nine As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Suranga on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! I would like to say a huge thank you to our sponsor for today's show: LoyaltyBay. Have you ever wished more of your website visitors would convert into a sale, signup or referral? If so, you need Loyalty Bay. With their saas conversion optimizer tool they increase any conversion metric by offering potential customers a choice of personalised rewards to get them to convert. They work with large enterprises like Virgin Media through to startups and have increased conversions on average by over 100%. Free 30 day trial at www.loyaltybay.co.uk

Ayan Mitra is the Founder & CEO @ Crowdbnk, an investment crowdfunding platform that allows you to invest in high growth businesses through both equity and debt. Ayan himself has a background as an enterprise architect and technical manager, having worked with leading consumer companies including M&S, Orange and First Direct. He took his LBS MBA to follow his passion and launch CrowdBnk in 2011. Since 2011 Crowdbnk has raised nearly £20m for high growth startups. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Ayan make his way into the world of startups and tech and start Crowdbnk? 2.) What is Crowdbnk, how does it work, what companies Crowdbnk raise for, what is their minimum investment etc? 3.) What are the key drivers of the massive rise of the crowdfunding sector? What effect will the recent SEC ruling have on global crowdfunding? 4.) With the greater and greater amounts being raised on these platforms, does Crowdfunding have the potential to replace VCs in the future? 5.) What are the greatest barriers to mass market adoption of the crowdfunding model? What have been the biggest challenges faced in the journey with Crowdbnk? 6.) How do crowdfunding platforms plan to draw investors away from funds and other portfolio based assets given the level of risk associated with investing in young companies? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Ayan's Fave Book: Intelligent Investing by Benjamin Graham Ayan's Fave Crowdbnk Investment: Gojimo by George Burgess As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Crowdbnk on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session you can follow him on Instagram here!

Eric Paley is the Managing Partner at Founder Collective, one of the world's most successful seed funds with investments in the likes of Uber, Hunch, Makerbot and About.me. Prior to Founder Collective, Eric was the Co-Founder and CEO of Brontes Technologies, later acquired by 3M for $95m. Following it’s acquisition Eric began making angel investments and it was not long before Eric and David, 'super angel' at the time, saw the potential for a Founder First seed fund and Founder Collective was born. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Eric made his move into the wonderful world of venture from founding Brontes Technologies? 2.) What does Eric make of early stage valuations? When creating a venture fund why did Eric believe the seed stage was the stage with the most opportunity? 3.) Question from the legend, David Hornik @ August: At such an early stage where Founder Collective traditionally put in $0.1m-$0.3m, does Eric feel they put in enough money to make it matter? 4.) Does Eric believe that by not doing follow on rounds they are missing out? Does this resistance to seed funds set Founder Collective apart? David did mention that you have begun to follow on now, so what makes you follow on with one portfolio company and not another? 5.) The Founder journey is testing both physically and emotionally, what elements of support do Founder Collective provide outside of the business relationship? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Eric's Fave Book: Fooled By Randomness As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Eric on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session you can follow him on Instagram here!

David Frankel is the Managing Partner at Founder Collective, one of the world's most successful seed funds with investments in the likes of Uber, Hunch, Makerbot and About.me. Prior to Founder Collective, David was the Founder and CEO of Internet Solutions, one of the largest ISP providers in Africa. Following it’s acquisition David made his move into the investing game becoming one of the very first ‘super angels’, following exceptional success in this field, David along with Eric Paley (coming on the show on Wednesday) and Micah Rosenbloom founded Founder Collective, a seed stage venture fund whereby everyone at Founder Collective has started a technology company, they have lived and breathed the founder experience, a true founder friendly venture fund. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did David make his move into the wonderful world of venture from being a founder and 'super angel'? 2.) Question from Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst: How has David evolved as an investor over time? Has his strategy and approach altered? 3.) David has experienced some immense cycles both up and down, how has he seen the seed funding environment evolve? 4.) What was it like working with Chris Dixon from a16z? What advice would David give to someone looking to maintain or create a network around them? What other sources of deal flow do you utilize? How do you most like to be approached? 5.) How did FC's investment in Uber come about? What does David make of the regulatory hurdles Uber face with regards to employees or contractors? What is the future for Uber? 6.) What can we expect from Founder Collective? What is David excited about and why? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: David's Fave Book: Eating Well For Optimum Health, Playing The Enemy David's Fave Blog: Dan Primack, Term Sheet David's Most Recent Investment: Pillpack As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and David on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session you can follow him on Instagram here!

Steve O’Hear is best known as a technology journalist, currently at TechCrunch where he focuses on European startups, companies and products. He first joined TechCrunch in November 2009 as Contributing Editor for TechCrunch Europe, where he worked alongside Editor Mike Butcher to help build TechCrunch’s European coverage. However, in June 2011 having caught the startup bug, Steve took a break from journalism to co-found the London and Prague-based startup Beepl. In November 2012, Beepl was acquired by Brand Embassy. Steve is also the writer and director of the critically acclaimed Silicon Valley documentary ‘In Search of the Valley’. Before we delve into the show today, our dear friend and kind donator, Brad Feld has agreed to do a competition giveaway featuring signed copies of his amazing book, Venture Deals, all you have to do to be in with a chance is headover to the website at www.thetwentyminutevc.com and sign up for our newsletter. It’s that simple. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) Where did it all start for Steve, how did you make he make his entrance into the tech industry, journalism and then founding Beepl? 2.) How did Steve find the transition from journalist to entrepreneur? What were the hardest aspects of the journey? What surprised Steve about the fundraising process for Beepl? 3.) In such a crowded space such as news generation, what is it about TechCrunch that makes it The Bible to the tech community? 4.) Obviously articles and news brings comments from the community. How do TechCrunch try and engage and unite the community? Have there been any difficulties with the commenting process etc? 5.) How does a platform like TechCrunch plan to monetize content with the ever disappearing ad dollar? Is it something that concerns TechCrunch? 6.) Where does Steve think we are going in both wider media and journalism? Is journalism heading to the short form with the increasing prominence of platforms such as Buzzfeed? How does the industry Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Steve's Fave Book: The Big Sleep Steve's Fave Blog: Tech.eu As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Steve on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session you can follow him on Instagram here!