20VC Roundtable: Why Early Stage Founders Should Not be Investing, Why Great Founders Have Low EQ, How the Structure of VC Firms Will Change, Will Founder-Led Funds Compete with Sequoia & Is Investing a Team Sport?

From 1995 until 2004 Andy Rachleff was a co-founder and General Partner of Benchmark Capital, who have backed the likes of Twitter, Snapchat, Dropbox, Uber and Instagram. Upon his retirement from Benchmark, Andy joined the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business to teach a variety of courses on entrepreneurship. In 2008 he co-founded Wealthfront Inc, the online financial advisor and investment management solution, where he now serves as Executive Chairman. In just 3 years, Wealthfront now have over $2bn AUM. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Andy made his way into the world of VC, became the Co-Founder @ Benchmark and what was the origin story behind the founding of Wealthfront? 2.) On rejoining Wealthfront as CEO Andy stated, 'I am an investor, not a CEO but what I did not realize was that I am a founder'. At what point did Andy realize this? Would Andy say that this is a strategic inflection point for Wealthfront with his return? 3.) What are the few elements that will make or break Wealthfront in the coming years? It it the best CEOs that are able to both balance the challenges with the opportunities? 4.) What does the future hold for Wealthfront? What is the exciting news? What does this mean for the road ahead and the world of automated personal finance? As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Andy on Twitter here! X.ai is AI-poweredered personal assistant for scheduling meetings bringing you Amy or Andrew. The assistant you interact with like you would to any other person and it allows you to avoid the tedious hours of email ping pong in order to schedule one meeting. Even better, there is no sign in, no password, no download, all you do is cc amy@x.ai beautiful! And you can check it out now on x.ai it really is a must! Workable is the all-in-one recruiting software for ambitious companies. From posting a job to tracking and managing candidates, Workable provides everything you need to hire better. Transparent communication, organized candidate profiles, structured interviews and a full reporting suite gives hiring teams the information they need to make the best choice. Workable is available for desktop and mobile and you can find out more on workable.com where you can try it for free.

10 Maalis 201721min

Lee Hower is a co-founder and Partner at NextView Ventures, one of the East coast's leading early stage funds with investments in the likes of Dia & Co, Sunrise, TaskRabbit and GrabCad just to name a few. As for Lee, prior to being a VC with NextView, Lee started his career as an early employee of PayPal in product and business development roles, through the company's 2002 IPO and sale to eBay. After PayPal, Lee was a co-founder of LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) and served as head of corporate development. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Lee made his way from the early days of PayPal with Elon Musk to the founding team of LinkedIn with Reid Hoffman to founding NextView and being a VC? 2.) What were Lee's biggest takeaways from his time working with Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman in the early days of PayPal? How has that experience affected how he invests today? 3.) Unlike other Paypal mafia members, Lee decided not to pursue the multi-stage investing strategy. Why was this? How does Lee evaluate the current seed environment? 4.) Why does Lee believe it is fundamental to study the history of VC and innovation? How does this affect his mindset when investing? 5.) What would Lee advice to a junior VC or someone looking to move into the industry in terms of differentiation and personal branding? What is key? How should this be approached? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Lee's Fave Book: The Globalisation Paradox Lee's Most Recent Investment: Optimus Ride As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Lee on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. X.ai is AI-poweredered personal assistant for scheduling meetings bringing you Amy or Andrew. The assistant you interact with like you would to any other person and it allows you to avoid the tedious hours of email ping pong in order to schedule one meeting. Even better, there is no sign in, no password, no download, all you do is cc amy@x.ai beautiful! And you can check it out now on x.ai it really is a must! Workable is the all-in-one recruiting software for ambitious companies. From posting a job to tracking and managing candidates, Workable provides everything you need to hire better. Transparent communication, organized candidate profiles, structured interviews and a full reporting suite gives hiring teams the information they need to make the best choice. Workable is available for desktop and mobile and you can find out more on workable.com where you can try it for free.

8 Maalis 201726min

John Borthwick is the Founder & CEO @ Betaworks, the New York-based startup platform combining 3 areas of expertise. They have a studio where they have built products including Giphy, Dots, Bitly and more. They have a fund with prior investments including Tumblr, Medium and Kickstarter. Finally they have a camp, a thematic accelerator program for companies in frontier technology sectors. As for John, Prior to Betaworks, John was an SVP at Time Warner Inc following John's previous company, WP-Studio, being acquired by AOLTW. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How John made his way from AOL and Time Warner to founder of Betaworks? 2.) Why is John skeptical of the traditional VC model? Why does John believe that the market has adapted but the VC model has not? 3.) Why does John believe fund cycles are simply too short, in the same school of thought as Matt Ocko @ Data Collective? What are the problems with this? 4.) How does John evaluate Fred Wilson's post on the consumer downturn? Why does John think we are addicted to short term rapid fire hits? 5.) Why is John not surprised that AI, Bots, VR and AR are being 'labeled a disappointment for the last year? What does he think will be the catalyst for their rise? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: John's Fave Book: King Lear As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and John on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. X.ai is AI-poweredered personal assistant for scheduling meetings bringing you Amy or Andrew. The assistant you interact with like you would to any other person and it allows you to avoid the tedious hours of email ping pong in order to schedule one meeting. Even better, there is no sign in, no password, no download, all you do is cc amy@x.ai beautiful! And you can check it out now on x.ai it really is a must! Workable is the all-in-one recruiting software for ambitious companies. From posting a job to tracking and managing candidates, Workable provides everything you need to hire better. Transparent communication, organized candidate profiles, structured interviews and a full reporting suite gives hiring teams the information they need to make the best choice. Workable is available for desktop and mobile and you can find out more on workable.com where you can try it for free.

6 Maalis 201734min

Dennis Mortensen is the CEO and Founder of X.ai, the artificial intelligence driven personal assistant that lets people schedule meetings using plain English and nothing more than a CC to amy@x.ai. Their female persona Amy is so lifelike that users have asked her on a date at a rate of one request per month! X.ai is now one of the best funded AI startups having raised over $30m from our friends at FirstMark and DCM and a big thanks to Matt Turck for making the intro and from DCM, who also helped us with some of the questions for Dennis! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Dennis came to found one of the leading AI startups today with X.ai? 2.) Why is product market fit like porn? How does this analogy affect Dennis' evaluation of product market fit? 3.) What are the fundamental features required to turn a single user consumer product into an enterprise product? How should that transition be managed? 4.) Is Dennis concerned by large incumbents making their entrance into the world of more traditional enterprise companies with the likes of GSuite and Facebook for Work? 5.) How did Dennis evaluate the right pricing method for X.ai? What pricing mechanisms did he consider? What does Dennis believe is the future of enterprise pricing? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Dennis' Fave Book: Shoe Dog Dennis' Fave Blog or Newsletter: Azeem Azhar: The Exponential View As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Dennis on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. X.ai is AI-poweredered personal assistant for scheduling meetings bringing you Amy or Andrew. The assistant you interact with like you would to any other person and it allows you to avoid the tedious hours of email ping pong in order to schedule one meeting. Even better, there is no sign in, no password, no download, all you do is cc amy@x.ai beautiful! And you can check it out now on x.ai it really is a must! Workable is the all-in-one recruiting software for ambitious companies. From posting a job to tracking and managing candidates, Workable provides everything you need to hire better. Transparent communication, organized candidate profiles, structured interviews and a full reporting suite gives hiring teams the information they need to make the best choice. Workable is available for desktop and mobile and you can find out more on workable.com where you can try it for free.

3 Maalis 201724min

Roger Ehrenberg is the Founder and Managing Partner @ IA Ventures, one of New York's leading early stage funds with investments in the likes of TransferWise and The Trade Desk. Prior to IA, Roger was a prolific angel investor making investments in over 40 companies including BuddyMedia and previous guest, Howard Lindzon's StockTwits. Before that, Roger served as President and CEO @ DB Advisors, Deutsche Bank's internal hedge fund trading platform which managed $6Bn in capital across multiple geographies. In Today's Episode with Roger You Will Learn: How Roger made his way into VC from the world of Wall St? How does Roger view the diversification model of 50+ in a portfolio in micro VC? What levels of ownership does that require? With regards to small and honed portfolios Roger has previously said that 'small is beautiful'. How does Roger approach this with IA and what capital pools does this allow his partners? Roger has also said that 'VC platforms are not a panacea'. What does he mean by this? What do founders really want from an investment partner today? What is the effect of Roger and IA being outside the traditional echo chambers of Silicon Valley? How does this affect Roger's dealflow? Hiring ability? Partnership opportunities? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Roger's Fave Blog and Newsletter: Maria Popova: BrainPickings Roger's Fave Book: Out Of The Crisis Roger's Most Recent Investment: Octane Lending As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Roger on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. X.ai is AI-powered personal assistant for scheduling meetings bringing you Amy or Andrew. The assistant you interact with like you would to any other person and it allows you to avoid the tedious hours of email ping pong in order to schedule one meeting. Even better, there is no sign in, no password, no download, all you do is cc amy@x.ai beautiful! And you can check it out now on x.ai it really is a must! Workable is the all-in-one recruiting software for ambitious companies. From posting a job to tracking and managing candidates, Workable provides everything you need to hire better. Transparent communication, organized candidate profiles, structured interviews and a full reporting suite gives hiring teams the information they need to make the best choice. Workable is available for desktop and mobile and you can find out more on workable.com where you can try it for free.

1 Maalis 201728min

Scott Belsky is a Venture Partner @ Benchmark, one of the world's leading VC funds. As an early-stage investor himself he has made investments in the likes of Uber, Warby Parker, Pinterest and Flexport just to name a few. Prior to Benchmark, Scott co-founded Behance in 2006, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. After Behance's acquisition, Scott served as Adobe's Vice President of Products, rebooting Adobe's mobile product strategy and leading Behance until 2016. If that was not enough Scott is also, the co-founder and Chairman of a new marketplace product under development. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Scott made his move into VC with Benchmark having founded Behance and been a VP @ Adobe? 2.) How did Scott see his investment decision making process change when comparing being an angel to a VC? What was it about VC that made Scott realise that he would not be a traditional VC? 3.) Why does Scott believe that when momentum is growing too fast it is generally likely to fade out? At what point is the transition point between large momentum that is and is not sustainable? 4.) Why is Scott fascinated by 'the journey in between'? What gives Scott hope when reviewing a company in this stage? What does he always look for? 5.) Why does Scott think that autonomous vehicles in cities will be a public utility? Will the data sets produced be publicly or privately owned? Who will operate mass transit systems? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Scott's Fave Book: Tribe: On Homecoming & Belonging Scott's Fave Blog or Newsletter: The Information As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Scott on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. X.ai is AI-poweredered personal assistant for scheduling meetings bringing you Amy or Andrew. The assistant you interact with like you would to any other person and it allows you to avoid the tedious hours of email ping pong in order to schedule one meeting. Even better, there is no sign in, no password, no download, all you do is cc amy@x.ai beautiful! And you can check it out now on x.ai it really is a must! Workable is the all-in-one recruiting software for ambitious companies. From posting a job to tracking and managing candidates, Workable provides everything you need to hire better. Transparent communication, organized candidate profiles, structured interviews and a full reporting suite gives hiring teams the information they need to make the best choice. Workable is available for desktop and mobile and you can find out more on workable.com where you can try it for free.

27 Helmi 201729min

Jeremy Johnson is the Founder & CEO @ Andela, the startup that aims to bring a scientific approach to building engineering teams. They have backing from some of the best investors in the world with the likes of the Zuckerberg-Chan Initiative, Spark Capital, Google Ventures and our friends at Susa Ventures just to name a few. As for Jeremy, prior to founding Andela, Jeremy co-founded 2U, one of the fastest-growing education technology startups in history. 2U went public in 2014 (NASDAQ:TWOU) and continues to transform higher education. Jeremy has spoken on education and entrepreneurship at meetings hosted by the White house and Congress and was named "30 Under 30" by Inc. Magazine in 2012 and Forbes in 2013 and 2014. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jeremy made his entry into startups and came to found Andela? 2.) Question from Paige Craig: How did the Zuckerberg-Chan Initiative deal come about? What has been the effect of taking that round for the company and for you as the founder? 3.) How does Jeremy view the contrast between being CEO and being founder? What does he believe makes a truly great CEO? 4.) Andela is an intensely operational and logistics based business, how did Jeremy learn to handle this? What were the fundamental challenges? 5.) How does Jeremy view the future wof work? Why does Jeremy believe the future can only be in decentralised work forces? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Jeremy's Fave Book: The Power of One Jeremy's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Social Snippets, Charles Hudson @ Precursor As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jeremy on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Intercom is the first to bring messaging products for marketing and customer support together on one integrated platform. With Intercom, businesses can chat directly with prospective customers on their website, engage current users with targeted messages based on their behavior, and provide personal support at scale with an integrated help desk and knowledge base. This is perfect for Businesses that want to help people visiting their website become customers. Marketing and growth teams that want to onboard and retain users by sending the right messages at the right time and Support teams that want to move beyond email to provide personalized, scalable support so simply head over to Intercom.com/20MVC Cooley are the global law firm built around startups and venture capital. Since forming the first venture fund in Silicon Valley, Cooley has formed more venture capital funds than any other law firm in the world, with 50+ years working with VCs. They help VCs form and manage funds, make investments and handle the myriad issues that arise through a fund's lifetime. So to learn more about the #1 most active law firm representing VC-backed companies going public. Head over to cooley.com and also at cooleygo.com.

24 Helmi 201723min

Ben Blumenfeld is the Co-Founder & General Partner @ Designer Fund, they invest in startups co-founded by designers and build and educate design teams through their program, Bridge. Designer Fund's portfolio includes the likes of Gusto, Stripe, Shyp, Operator and many more incredible companies. As for Ben, previously Ben was a design lead at Facebook for over 5 years where he helped build products for nearly a billion people and grow Facebook's world-class design team. He was also the design director at Varien which he helped build into one of the world's leading e-commerce firms. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Ben made the move from designer to General Partner @ Designer Fund? 2.) How does Ben's design background inform how he invests in companies and then supports them post-investment? How does he evaluate design opportunities from the design perspective? 3.) Why now has design become such a competitive advantage in tech? What has changed? What are the fundamentals of beautifully designed products today? 4.) How does Ben believe the current crop of VCs view design? What do they not understand? What should they look to understand? Will we see a new class of design-centric VCs? 5.) From seeing the likes of Facebook, Medium and Asana scale deign teams, what have been the takeaways to effectively scaling design teams with the growth of an organisation? What is required for this to be successful? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Ben's Fave Book: The Power of One Ben's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Social Snippets, Charles Hudson @ Precursor Ben's Most Recent Investment: Hustle As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Ben on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Intercom is the first to bring messaging products for marketing and customer support together on one integrated platform. With Intercom, businesses can chat directly with prospective customers on their website, engage current users with targeted messages based on their behavior, and provide personal support at scale with an integrated help desk and knowledge base. This is perfect for Businesses that want to help people visiting their website become customers. Marketing and growth teams that want to onboard and retain users by sending the right messages at the right time and Support teams that want to move beyond email to provide personalized, scalable support so simply head over to Intercom.com/20MVC Cooley are the global law firm built around startups and venture capital. Since forming the first venture fund in Silicon Valley, Cooley has formed more venture capital funds than any other law firm in the world, with 50+ years working with VCs. They help VCs form and manage funds, make investments and handle the myriad issues that arise through a fund's lifetime. So to learn more about the #1 most active law firm representing VC-backed companies going public. Head over to cooley.com and also at cooleygo.com.

22 Helmi 201728min