20VC: Why Every Startup Will Either Fail or Rebrand, How To Do OKRs The Right Way & How To Know The Reversible From the Irreversible Mistakes with Jack Groetzinger, Founder & CEO @ SeatGeek

Kevin Hartz is a Partner @ Founders Fund, one of the world's most prestigious and successful VC funds with prior investments in the likes of Facebook, Airbnb, SpaceX, Spotify and many more incredible companies. Prior to Founders Fund, Kevin was Founder & CEO @ Eventbrite, the company that powers thousands of millions of events around the world with backing from the likes of Sequoia and SV Angel. Before that Kevin was the Founder of Xoom Corporation, the international money transfer company that went public in 2012 and was acquired by Paypal in 2015. Kevin has also been a prolific angel with a personal portfolio including Airbnb, Uber, Paypal, Pinterest and Yammer. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) Question from Brian Singerman: How did Kevin come to be the world famous Kevin Hartz? What was Kevin's entry into the world of VC? 2.) How has Kevin seen his investment decision making and evaluation process change when comparing his angel deals in Uber, Paypal and Airbnb to today, investing institutionally with Founders Fund? 3.) How does Kevin see believe his time in operations lends to him being a better investor today? Does Kevin agree with Pat Grady @ Sequoia in stating, 'the rate of decay on operating experience has never been greater'? 4.) With no Monday morning Partner meetings, if a Partner wants to push a deal through, how do you do it at Founders Fund? How do you structure those conversations internally? 5.) What have been Kevin's biggest learnings since joining Founders Fund? How did Kevin look to scale the VC learning curve as fast as possible? What elements did Kevin find most challenging? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Kevin's Fave Book: Peter Thiel: Zero To One Kevin's Most Recent Investment: HyperTrack As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Kevin on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Zoom is the No 1 Video and WebConferencing Service, providing one consistent enterprise experience that allows you to engage in an array of activities including online meetings, video webinars, collaboration-enabled conference rooms and business instant messaging. Plus, it is the easiest solution to use, buy and scale with the most straightforward pricing. Do not take our word for it, Zoom's their partnership with Sequoia in their latest 100m funding round says it all. Zoom is a must for your business. Vidyard is the video platform for business that helps marketing and sales teams drive more revenue through the use of online video. Going beyond video hosting and management, Vidyard helps businesses drive greater engagement in their video content, track the viewing activities of each individual viewer, and turn those views into action. Global leaders such as Microsoft, McKesson, Lenovo, and LinkedIn rely on Vidyard to power their video content strategies and turn viewer into customers. Check them out at vidyard.com.

22 Mai 201721min

Jonathan Downey is the Founder & CEO @ Airware, the startup that allows you to make better-informed decisions with aerial date, captured by drones. They have raised over $65m in VC funding from some of the very best in the industry including a16z, Kleiner Perkins and Google Ventures just to name a few. Jonathan is also the General Partner @ Commerical Drone Fund, making $250K-$1m investments in early stage companies in the commercial drone space. Prior to Airware, Jonathan was a commercial pilot and a flight controls engineer @ Boeing. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jonathan made the move from commercial pilot to startup founder with one of the hottest drone startups, Airware? 2.) What has been the catalyst for the rising belief in the potential for drones? What has changed about the landscape to make them now not only a commercially viable opportunity but also consumer viable? 3.) How does Jonathan view the commercial landscape today? Where does Jonathan see the highest potential for the commercial application of drones? How does one approach go to market strategy and business model in a completely undefined landscape? 4.) What are the current barriers to adoption for corporations with drones? What does it mean and entail for an organization to adopt drones in terms of new workflows and training? What are the key transformative technologies that will enable new applications and market expansion? 5.) With incumbents now heavily investing in the space, does Jonathan believe this will be a market of disruption or consolidation and acquisition by the exisiting incumbents? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Jonathan's Fave Book: Elon Musk by Ashley Vance Jonathan's Fave Blog: Chris Dixon As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jonathan on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

19 Mai 201726min

Scott Raney is a Partner @ Redpoint Ventures, one of the valley's leading multi-stage funds with over 434 investments, close to $4bn in assets under management and 136 IPOs and M&A. At Redpoint Scott has made investments in the likes of Twilio, Stripe and Heroku, just to name a few. Prior to Redpoint, Scott was responsible for new products at NorthPoint Communications, and before that Scott worked at Bain & Company helping clients in the private equity and technology industries. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Scott made his first forays into the world of VC and came to be a Partner @ Redpoint Ventures? 2.) Why does Scott think it is a good thing that we have seen company funding down 6 quarters in a row? What does this mean for startups trying to raise? 3.) What 2 types of companies will continue to find it easy to raise in these markets? What types of companies will struggle to raise? Is there market cyclicality or a return to normal more sustainable times? 4.) Why are investors a lot less willing to take future fundraising risk? How does Scott view the optimal investment decision-making process for a VC partnership? Why does unanimity not work? 5.) Why does Scott believe it is dangerous to be a spreadsheet investor? With the bar being higher today, what are the milestones that startups need to reach in order to be attractive from an investment perspective? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Scott's Fave Book: Born To Run By Bruce Springsteen Scott's Fave Blog: Tom Tunguz Scott's Most Recent Investment: Hashicorp 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. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

17 Mai 201725min

Keith Rabois is an investment partner at Khosla Ventures where he has led investments in Stripe, Thoughtspot, HealthTap and Teespring among many others. He also started OpenDoor, which aims to transform the process of selling a home through technology. Keith's unparalleled operational track record does not stop there as he has forged several of the most important new social and commerce platforms over the last decade holding key roles at LinkedIn, Paypal and being COO at Square. As a board member, Keith guided Yelp [NYSE: YELP] and Xoom [NASDAQ: XOOM] from inception to successful IPOs. Simultaneously, he also invested in other like-minded entrepreneurs with early stakes in YouTube [acquired by GOOG], Yammer [acquired by MSFT], Palantir, Lyft, AirBnB, Eventbrite and Quora. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Keith made the move from key executive at LinkedIn, Paypal and Square to being a VC with Khosla? 2.) Question from Lee Hower: What were the biggest learnings from playing a key role at LinkedIn, Paypal and Square? How do they compare to learning from Slide, a not so successful project? Does one learn more from success or failure? 3.) Question from Jason Lemkin: How can founders assess the potential of their teams? How long is it possible to allow individuals to stretch to their roles? What are the signs that people are either exceeding or falling below expectations? 4.) Eric Yuan @ Zoom has previously illustrated the importance to me of sustainable growth. What is Keith's view of this? Why does he not like this term? What are his thoughts on the key constraints on growth for most startups? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Keith's Fave Book: The Upside of Stress Keith's Fave Blog: Stratechery Keith's Most Recent Investment: Forward As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Keith on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

15 Mai 201731min

Harley Finkelstein is the COO @ Shopify, the e-commerce platform that has allowed a generation of people to become entrepreneurs and business owners. Harley joined the business with revenues of $5m, today the company has targeted this year for over $600m with over 400,000 merchants on the platform. They have raised over $120m in VC funding from very good friends of the show including Aydin @ Felicis, Jeremy @ Bessemer and Amish @ Firstmark. In May 2015, Shopify went public with a valuation north of $1bn. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Harley make the move from laywer to COO @ Shopify? 2.) Question from Aydin @ Felicis: What have been some strategic inflection points that at the time did not seem like a big deal? How have Harley and Shopify produced and maintained such consistent revenue growth? What is the secret? 3.) Why does Harley believe that the future of retail is not online vs offline? How does Harley react to the suggestion that retail stores need to transition from transaction based, to experience based? 4.) How does Harley view the rise of personal brand in today's technological world? How has this allowed previously non-monetized channels to be monetized? What are some good examples of this? 5.) Why did Harley and Shopify choose to IPO in 2015? How was the roadshow? What was the key learnings for Harley both pre and post-IPO? What does Harley believe it means to be a trusted public company? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Harley's Fave Book: High Output Management Harley's Fave Blog: Wait But Why Harley's Fave Shopify Store: Boosted Boards As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Harley on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

12 Mai 201730min

Josh Wolfe is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Lux Capital, the fund that supports scientists and entrepreneurs who pursue counter-conventional solutions to the most vexing puzzles of our time, the more ambitious the project, the better. Josh is a founding investor and board member with Bill Gates in Kymeta, making cutting-edge antennas for high-speed global satellite and space communications. In 2008 Josh co-founded and funded Kurion, the company was among the first responders to the Fukushima disaster. In February 2016, Veolia acquired Kurion for nearly $400 million—more than 40 times Lux's total investment. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Josh make his way into VC from the science lab? What was it about venture that got Josh hooked? 2.) How does Josh view the rise of thematic investing? Why does Josh believe there are a lot of tourist VCs who are going to lose a lot of money? 3.) Investing in such frontier technologies, how does Josh view market creation? How does Josh look to build a thesis and a methodology when investing in a company without an existing market? 4.) What is the inflection point for Josh for when heavy science and R&D becomes investable? What is that tipping point where science becomes commercialized? 5.) Does Josh get concerned that with such heavy IP and corporations not investing in R&D that this is a market for acquihires? What are the pros and cons of this shortened liquidity cycles? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Josh's Fave Book: Sapiens Josh's Fave Blog: Media Redefined Josh's Most Recent Investment: Recursion Pharmaceuticals As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Josh on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

10 Mai 201729min

Mattias Ljungman is a Co-Founder and General Partner @ Atomico, one of Europe's leading VC funds which Mattias launched in 2006 alongside Niklas Zennstrom. Whilst at Atomico Mattias has been involved in significant exits and transcations including SUpercell (acquired by Softbank), Climate Corporation (acquired by Monsanto and 6Wunderkinder (acquired by Microsoft), just to name a few. As for Harry, Harry Stebbings is the founder of The Twenty Minute VC, the world's largest independent VC podcast with guests including Brad Feld, Andy Rachleff, Peter Fenton and many more. Harry also works very closely with Jason Lemkin @ SaaStr where they work to produce The Official SaaStr Podcast. More recently, Harry joined the fantastic team at Atomico as an EIR on the investment team. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Harry made his first foray into the world of entrepreneurship and then made the move into VC? 2.) From interviewing over 800 of the world's best investors, what have been the biggest takeaways for Harry, both in the realms of investing and interacting with entrepreneurs? 3.) What does Harry believes makes a truly great interview? Is it sheer intellectual rigour or does charisma and energy play a large role? Does Harry release all the episodes he records? 4.) What have been Harry's major takeaways since joining the team at Atomico? What have been the best moments both in terms of intellectual learning and then sentimental memories? 5.) How has Harry's perception and analysis of the VC market changed over the 800 interviews? What does Harry see as the fundamental emerging trends within the VC model itself? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Harry's Fave Book: Madame Bovary, What I Learned Losing A Million Dollars Harry's Fave Blog: Mattermark Daily As always you can follow Harry, Mattias and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

8 Mai 201723min

Bill Clerico is the Co-Founder & CEO @ WePay, the most complete payments solution for platforms. To date, they have raised close to $75m in VC funding from some of the best in the business including Max Levchin, Dave McClure and August Capital just to name a few. As for Bill, alongside his role with WePay, Bill is a part-time partner @ Y Combinator and an angel investor. Prior to startups, Bill cut his teeth in the industry at Jefferies in investment banking. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Bill made his way into the world of startups from investment banking? 2.) How does Bill assess the pivot? What is required to pivot successfully? How can this be communicated to both your board and your team? 3.) How does Bill look to relationship build with investors? What are the fundamentals to a healthy and sustainable investor relationship? 4.) Why should founders ensure they are not the only company representative with the board? What are the benefits of the board having many touchpoints within the family? How can this be done effectively? 5.) What does Bill mean he says you must have an 'opinionated culture'? How can this be conveyed to the team and across the organisation? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Bill's Fave Book: Failure Is Not An Option Bill's Fave Blog: The Information As always you can follow Harry, Bill and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

5 Mai 201723min