20 VC 036: The Pitching Process: From Email to Term Sheet with Stephan von Perger @ Wellington Partners

Biz Stone is best known as the Co-Founder of Twitter and Medium. Biz is also an investor in the likes of Slack, Square, Intercom, Beyond Meat and Blue Bottle Coffee. Biz also co-founded Jelly, a "human in the loop" AI search service, which was acquired by Pinterest. Due to his many successes, Biz has been recognized as INC Magazine Entrepreneur of the Decade and one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in the World. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Biz make his way into the world of startups and come to found Odeo/Twitter one day on a car trip with Ev Williams? 2.) How does Biz evaluate his relationship to money? How does Biz think about teaching his son the value of money? What does Biz mean when he says wealth 'accentuates your current self"? How did Biz get off the treadmill of always wanting and chasing more? 3.) How does Biz think about insecurity and self-doubt? How does Biz approach saying no? How does he get comfortable with not always being Mr Popular? What is so challenging here? How does Biz feel about founding tieing their identities to their company? 4.) Why did Biz come back to Twitter in 2017? With hindsight, what would he have done differently if he were to return again? What were the biggest challenges when he arrived? Why was internal morale low? What did he and Jack do to increase it? What worked? What did not? 5.) Why does Biz not feel Silicon Valley is an "insider-only" universe? Why does Biz feel Silicon Valley is a mindset? How does Biz think about the decentralisation of talent moving forward? How does Biz compare the UK to the US startup ecosystem? What is worse in the UK? Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode Biz's Favourite Book: Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

8 Tammi 202136min

Howard Marks is co-chairman and co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, a leading investment firm with more than $120 billion in assets. Prior to founding Oaktree, Howard spent 10 years at The TCW Group, where he was responsible for investments in distressed debt, high yield bonds, and convertible securities. Howard has also written two books, most recently Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side, and it was Warren Buffet who said, "When I see memos from Howard Marks in my mail, they're the first thing I open and read. I always learn something." Bill Gurley is a General Partner @ Benchmark Capital, one of the most successful funds of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Uber, Twitter, Dropbox, WeWork, Snapchat, StitchFix, eBay and many many more. As for Bill, widely recognised as one of the greats of our time having worked with the likes of GrubHub, NextDoor, Uber, OpenTable, Stitch Fix and Zillow. Prior to Benchmark, Bill was a partner with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Before entering venture, Bill spent four years on Wall Street as a top-ranked research analyst, including three years at CS First Boston. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) In March Ray Dalio stated we would be entering a "global recession", how do Howard and Bill feel about this statement? How does today's environment remind Howard and Bill of 2010/11? What is similar? What is different? How does Bill think about investing through cycles? 2.) How does Bill think about investing through cycles? What have Bill's lessons been from seeing many venture vintages on LP performance across cycles? How does Howard think about investing through cycles from a distressed debt perspective? What have his lessons been from Oaktree's performance over the years? 3.) Do Howard and Bill agree we will not see interest rates go anywhere for the next 3-5 years? What is the impact of this sustained low-interest rate environment? What could be done that would see interest rates increase in the future? How does Bill believe this will impact the supply of LP dollars in venture? 4.) How do Bill and Howard evaluate the state of the public markets today? Why does Howard believe that FOMO has really taken effect? How does Bill think about network effects and the laws of compounding with regards to public companies? 5.) Do Howard and Bill agree we are seeing a retreat from globalisation? What are the core impacts of this retreat? Why is Bill so concerned about "regulatory capture"? Why does Bill fear that today, "Washington is for sale"? What would he like to see change? Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode Howard's Favourite Book: Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America Bill's Favourite Book: How Innovation Works As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for all things 20VC.

4 Tammi 202141min

Quentin Clark is a Managing Director @ General Catalyst, one of the most prominent firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Stripe, Airbnb, Snap, Anduril, Deliveroo and Cazoo to name a few. As for Quentin, at GC he has led deals in the likes of Kernel, Coda, Commure just to name a few. Before entering the world of venture Quentin was the CTO @ Dropbox and before that he was the Chief Business Officer @ SAP. Finally, before SAP, Quentin spent an incredible 20 years at Microsoft in a variety of different roles play a key part in their hyper-growth. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Quentin made his way from CTO @ Dropbox and 20 years at Microsoft to being an MD with General Catalyst today? 2.) What were Quentin's biggest management takeaways from his 20 years at Microsoft? What is his favourite story about working with Bill Gates? How does Quentin think about the art of delegation? How does Quentin differentiate between leadership and management? 3.) How does Quentin believe the world of fundraising has changed with COVID? How does Quentin build relationships of trust in these compressed fundraising timelines? What works? What does not work? How can you really build that relationship off Zoom? How does this change the fundraising landscape moving forward? 4.) What does Quentin mean when he says he likes to "lead without authority"? How does that translate into his management style? How does Quentin evaluate his style of board membership? How does Quentin know whether to wear the investor vs the operator hat on the board? 5.) Does Quentin believe we are really moving the needle in terms of the projects that venture is funding today? What would Quentin like to see more of? What would Quentin like to change about the world of venture? How does Quentin evaluate market timing risk when investing? Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode Quentin's Favourite Book: Stranger in a Strange Land Quentin's Most Recent Investment: Sprout Therapy As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!

28 Joulu 202036min

Avlok Kohli is the CEO of AngelList Venture which has facilitated the funding of over 5,000 startups including 47 unicorns and is home to 4,300 funds and syndicates with $2.2B in assets under management. This year, AngelList Venture launched the much-discussed, Rolling Funds and Avlok recently launched his own rolling fund, Avlok Capital. Prior to AngelList, Avlok built and sold two companies; FastBite, acquired by Square in 2015 and Fairy, also acquired. If that was not enough, Avlok is also an angel in 25 companies. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Avlok made his way into the world of facilitating over $2Bn in AUM having sold 2 prior companies on the other side of the table as a founder? What is Avlok's favourite Jack Dorsey story? 2.) Why does Avlok believe Rollings Funds are the "printing presses of innovation" for capital markets? Does Avlok believe that everyone should be a fund manager and managing capital? What are the benefits of rollings funds vs traditional micro funds? 3.) How does the rise of rolling funds impact the early stage pricing of companies? How does it impact the competitive landscape for seed and pre-seed allocations? Is Avlok concerned about a wave of undisciplined capital entering the market? 4.) How does Avlok evaluate reserve allocations for early stage and micro fund managers today? What does the data show for funds that do reserve for pro-rata vs those that do not? How has this impacted Avlok's own approach to pro-rata and reserve deployment? Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode Avlok's Favourite Book: Meditations As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

21 Joulu 202036min

David Hsu is the Founder & CEO @ Retool, the company that allows you to build internal tools, remarkably fast. David has raised over $69M with Retool from the very best in startups including Sequoia, YC, Patrick and John @ Stripe, Henrique & Pedro @ Brex, Paul Graham, Nat @ Github, Peter @ Segment, Tomer @ Gusto and Elad Gil to name a few incredible names. Today Retool works with some of the biggest companies in the world from Amazon to Volvo to Mercedes Benz. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How David made his way from studying philosophy at Oxford to creating one of the valley's hottest companies in the form of Retool? 2.) How does David analyse pivots today? How does one balance between vision and persistence vs realism and knowing when is the right time to pivot? How did a conversation with John Collison change the course of Retool? What advice does David have for founders on pivoting? 3.) Why does David believe that YC is useful pre-product-market fit but useless post-product-market fit? What elements are so helpful vs not about YC? Why did David raise his Series A as a split between Sequoia and prominent angels? Why was that transformational for the company? 4.) Why was David sceptical of VCs for a long time? Why does David believe VCs are useless pre-product-market fit and useful post-product-market fit? What have been David's biggest takeaways from working with Bryan Schrier @ Sequoia? 5.) Why does David believe that once you are profitable and growing it is actually quite hard to become unprofitable? How does David advise founders considering raising VC vs bootstrapping? How does David know when to allocate resources more aggressively to a segment? What are the signs? Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode David's Favourite Book: Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

17 Joulu 202039min

Dylan Field is the Founder & CEO @ Figma, the company that helps teams create, test, and ship better designs from start to finish and is one of 2020's fastest-growing companies. To date, Dylan has raised over $132M with Figma from some of the best including Sequoia, a16z, Index, Greylock, Founders Fund and Kleiner Perkins. Figma's latest round valued them at a reported $2Bn. Prior to founding Figma, Dylan enjoyed internships at Flipboard, LinkedIn and O'Reilly Media. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Dylan made his way from an internship at O'Reilly Media and a Thiel Fellowship to founding Figma, one of the fastest-growing unicorns? 2.) How does Dylan feel about the future of education? What core questions do students need to ask before entering? How does Dylan assess the impact of the Thiel Fellowship today? Why does Dylan believe that everyone should be an intern? What did he take from that experience? 3.) How would Dylan describe his leadership style today? How has it changed over time? How did he get past micro-managing in the early days and learn to delegate? How does Dylan think about insecurity and vulnerability as a young leader today? 4.) What does Dylan foresee as the biggest challenges in Figma's transition from application to platform? How does Dylan evaluate the success of the Figma plugin ecosystem? How does Dylan think about the right cadence to roll out new products? How does Dylan think about catering to power users vs catering to the standard everyday user? 5.) What have been the most significant impacts of COVID for Figma? Why did Dylan choose to adopt a hybrid model for Figma in terms of working styles moving forward? What have been Dylan's biggest lessons of what it takes to attract the very best talent? What works? What does not? Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode Dylan's Favourite Book: Snow Crash As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

14 Joulu 202030min

Johnny Boufarhat is the Founder & CEO @ Hopin, one of the fastest-growing companies on the planet, providing an online events platform where you can create engaging virtual events that connect people around the globe. In the last 13 months, Johnny has raised over $174M for Hopin from the likes of Accel, IVP, Slack, Northzone, Coatue, Salesforce and of course, 20VC Fund. With the funding, again in just 13 months, Johnny has grown the team from 10 people to over 210 people in 37 countries. In October of this year, Semil Shah awarded Hopin the label, "The Breakout Tech Startup Of 2020". In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Johnny made his way into the world of startups and how severe health challenges led to his realisation and founding of Hopin? 2.) What have been Johnny's biggest lessons scaling the team from 10 to 235 in just 12 months? What starts to break and when? What does Johnny believe are the 3 stages of startup growth? What have been Johnny's learnings on what it takes to acquire the very best talent? 3.) Why does Johnny believe that remote has so fundamentally changed the game? How does remote culture differ from physical culture? What advice does Johnny have for those shifting from physical to remote? Where does Johnny see so many make mistakes with the remote model? 4.) Why does Johnny believe fundraising is a game of leverage? How does Johnny advise founders to structure their raise? Should they shop their term sheets around? Should founders always be raising? How should they think through a pre-emptive round? How does COVID change the world of fundraising? 5.) What does the world of virtual events look like in a post COVID world? What events will remain virtual? What will not? How does Hopin expand beyond purely events into the much wider "connection" space? How does that look both from M&A and product expansion? Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode Johnny's Favourite Book: Nineteen Eighty-Four As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

10 Joulu 202030min

Reid Hoffman is a Silicon Valley stalwart in the modern technology world. On the investing side, he is a Partner @ Greylock, one of the leading venture firms of the last 2 decades with a portfolio including Facebook, Airbnb, Dropbox, Figma, Appdynamics and Okta to name a few. Reid has led investments in Airbnb, Convoy, Coda and Aurora to name a few. As an operator, Reid co-founded LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network and before LinkedIn, Reid served as executive vice president at PayPal, where he was a founding board member. If that was not enough, Reid is the co-author of Blitzscaling and two New York Times best-selling books: The Start-up of You and The Alliance. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Reid made his way into the world of startups, came to found Linkedin and how that led to his joining Greylock? 2.) Does Reid consider himself an innate and natural leader today? How has his leadership style changed over time? What elements does Reid struggle with? How has he scaled to these leadership challenges? What does Reid believe are the different strands of leadership? 3.) How does Reid think about what separates the good from the great board members? What is the biggest danger for board members today? How do the very best founders manage their boards? How does Reid think about the weight of his words today? 4.) How does Reid think about the importance of ownership? How does Reid analyse price today? What was the story behind Greylock investing in Airbnb? What did Reid see so clearly and before anyone else saw it? What is the story with Stripe? Why did Reid turn Stripe down? 5.) How does Reid think about ensuring venture partnerships always have a learning mindset? What can be done deliberately to ensure this? Where do many people struggle here? How can partners develop trust within venture partnerships? Where does trust most often break down? Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode Reid's Favourite Book: Thinking, Fast and Slow, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

7 Joulu 202045min