20VC: Why Fundraising Is Like Dating and How to Play The Game Successfully & How To Increase The Flexibility of Your Burn When Growth is Ambiguous with Rachel Blumenthal, Founder & CEO @ Rockets of Awesome

20VC: Why Fundraising Is Like Dating and How to Play The Game Successfully & How To Increase The Flexibility of Your Burn When Growth is Ambiguous with Rachel Blumenthal, Founder & CEO @ Rockets of Awesome

Rachel Blumenthal is the Founder & CEO @ Rockets of Awesome, the startup that is reinventing the way parents shop for their kids clothes. To date, Rachel has raised over $19m in VC funding from the likes of Kirsten Green @ Forerunner, August Capital, General Catalyst, Gwyneth Paltrow and Female Founders Fund to name a few. Prior to Rockets of Awesome, Rachel founded fashion jewelry brand, Rachel Leigh. Rachel scaled the business to being available in over 300 stores worldwide and being named one of Oprah's "Favourite Things". Before that Rachel began her career in the publicity department at Yves Saint Lauren.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Rachel went from founding a company that created one of Oprah's "favourite things" to reinventing the way parents shop for their children today?

2.) Why does Rachel believe that "fundraising is like dating"? What does Rachel mean when she says "you have to play the game"? What does this literally look like in practice? What works in generating investor interest? What does not? Where does Rachel see many make mistakes in the fundraising process?

3.) How does Rachel think about capital efficiency with the evolution of her business? What tips and suggestions does Rachel give to increasing burn flexibility when future growth is ambiguous? Why does Rachel disagree with the thesis of raise money when you don't need it? What length of time does Rachel believe is the right time to raise for?

4.) Rachel has said before that, "the best investors are operators". What makes Rachel believe this? What are the drawbacks to operator VCs? What are the benefits to non-operator investors? What makes the truly special investor? How can a founder stress test this prior to their investment? What advice would Rachel give to a non-operator VC to improve their empathy and experience with founders?

5.) Rachel previous sly said to me that "being a woman in this male-dominated environment is everything the stereotype suggests", what moment or story particularly resonates for Rachel when saying this? How did she respond? How can less confident first time minority founders respond in these situations?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Rachel's Fave Book: Fast Company, Inc

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Rachel on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

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Episoder(1376)

20VC: Atlassian CEO on Why Everything is Overvalued & Are We in an AI Bubble | Do Margins Matter & Does Defensibility Exist in an AI World | Is Per Seat Pricing Dead & The Future of Vibe Coding with Mike Cannon-Brookes

20VC: Atlassian CEO on Why Everything is Overvalued & Are We in an AI Bubble | Do Margins Matter & Does Defensibility Exist in an AI World | Is Per Seat Pricing Dead & The Future of Vibe Coding with Mike Cannon-Brookes

Mike Cannon-Brookes is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Atlassian, the $50BN software giant behind products like Jira, Confluence, and Trello. Since founding the company in 2002, he has scaled it to over 300,000 customers globally, generating more than $5BN in annual revenue. Atlassian now employs over 10,000 people across 13 countries and is one of the most successful bootstrapped-to-IPO stories in tech history. Mike is also a leading climate investor and co-owner of several major sports teams. AGENDA: 00:00 Why Unreasonable Men Win in Startups 07:22 How to Make Co-CEOs Work 13:22 Are We in an AI Bubble? Is Everything Overvalued? 26:46 The Future of Software Development: More or Less Devs 32:53 Do Margins Matter in a World of AI 34:02 The Future of Vibe Coding… 36:35 Does Defensibility Exist in a World of AI 42:09 Is Per Seat Pricing Dead in a World of AI 49:01 The Founder Journey and Leadership 54:28 Quick Fire Round: Parenting Advice, Relationship to Money

13 Okt 1h 3min

20Sales: Scaling Snowflake from $0-$3BN in ARR | Snowflake vs Databricks: My Biggest Lessons | Why Customer Success is BS and What Replaces It with Chris Chris Degnan

20Sales: Scaling Snowflake from $0-$3BN in ARR | Snowflake vs Databricks: My Biggest Lessons | Why Customer Success is BS and What Replaces It with Chris Chris Degnan

Chris Degnan is the former Chief Revenue Officer at Snowflake, where he was instrumental in scaling the company from less than $1M in ARR to over $3B in annual revenue. He joined as the first sales hires and built Snowflake's go-to-market engine from scratch, growing the team from to more than 6,000 globally. Under his leadership, Snowflake became one of the fastest-growing enterprise software companies in history, achieving a record-breaking IPO in 2020. AGENDA: 04:34 How to Build a Sales Team from Scratch 07:49 How to Hire and Evaluate Sales Leaders 15:23 Four Big Lessons Scaling Snowflake to $3BN ARR 31:30 Comparing Snowflake and Databricks: What Databricks Did Better? 35:26 How to Manage Sales Team Morale in Competitive Markets 43:53 Why Customer Success is BS and What To Do With It 48:31 How Every Sales Leader Needs to Change in An AI World 49:37 Biggest Reflections on Sales Leadership 54:38 Quick Fire Questions and Final Thoughts 20Sales: Scaling Snowflake from $0-$3BN in ARR | Snowflake vs Databricks: My Biggest Lessons | Why Customer Success is BS and What Replaces It with Chris Chris Degnan

10 Okt 1h 2min

20VC: OpenAI's Multi $BN Deal with AMD | Polymarket, Vercel and Supabase Raise Mega Rounds | Does King Making Really Work in Venture Capital: Harvey vs Legora | Chamath is Back: The SPAC is Back

20VC: OpenAI's Multi $BN Deal with AMD | Polymarket, Vercel and Supabase Raise Mega Rounds | Does King Making Really Work in Venture Capital: Harvey vs Legora | Chamath is Back: The SPAC is Back

AGENDA: 03:29 OpenAI and AMD's Major Partnership 07:35 Microsoft Have F***** Up the OpenAI Partnership 17:08 OpenAI's Developer Day Announcements 20:45 Why VC is the Most Forgiving Asset Class on Price and Valuation 29:10 What Does it Take to IPO in 2025: Why Snyk Will Not IPO 42:30 Four Strategies Companies Need to Take to Own Their Own Destiny 49:31 Vercel Raises $300M at $9BN: Suicide Round or Strategic 55:39 Does King Making Really Work in Venture Capital: Legora vs Harvey 01:08:11 Chamath Raises Latest SPAC: SPACs are Back 01:10:56 Polymarket Raises $2BN at a $9BN Valuation 01:14:53 Quick Fire Questions and Wrap-Up

9 Okt 1h 24min

20VC: Cerebras CEO on Why Raise $1BN and Delay the IPO | NVIDIA Showing Signs They Are Worried About Growth | Concentration of Value in Mag7: Will the AI Train Come to a Halt | Can the US Supply the Energy for AI with Andrew Feldman

20VC: Cerebras CEO on Why Raise $1BN and Delay the IPO | NVIDIA Showing Signs They Are Worried About Growth | Concentration of Value in Mag7: Will the AI Train Come to a Halt | Can the US Supply the Energy for AI with Andrew Feldman

Andrew Feldman is Co-Founder & CEO of Cerebras, building the world's fastest AI inference and training. Cerebras recently closed a $1.1BN Series G round at an $8.1 billion valuation, backed by top names including Fidelity, Atreides, Tiger Global, Valor Equity and 1789 Capital. Under his leadership, they've leapfrogged GPU limits in inference, operate at trillions of tokens per month, and are filing to go public soon. AGENDA: 02:43 Why We Did Not IPO and Raised $1BN From Fidelity 05:03 Analysis of Chip and Compute Landscape Today 07:14 NVIDIA Showing Signs They Are Running Out of Ideas 13:57 The Real Questions to Ask on Chip Depreciation 24:54 Energy Requirements for AI: Is it Feasible? 29:25 Mag7 Value Concentration: Feature or a Bug 31:57 Talent is the Bottleneck and Trump Makes it Worse 32:55 The War for Talent: Secrets No One Sees 34:22 Evaluating the Data Centre Economy: Many Will Lose Money 38:01 Three Changes the US Could Make to Beat China in AI 42:30 Why 80% of our Revenues are in the UAE 47:26 Quick Fire Questions 58:59 Why Work Life Balance is Total BS

6 Okt 1h 4min

20Growth: How to Use Influencers to Scale Growth Insanely Fast | How to Optimise User Onboaring for Growth | How the Best Growth Teams Create Organic Growth and Community | Why LTV/CAC Models are BS with Ketty Slonimsky

20Growth: How to Use Influencers to Scale Growth Insanely Fast | How to Optimise User Onboaring for Growth | How the Best Growth Teams Create Organic Growth and Community | Why LTV/CAC Models are BS with Ketty Slonimsky

Ketty Slonimsky is Chief Growth Officer at Palta, the platform behind apps like Flo (the #1 female health app with 77M+ MAU), Simple, and Zing AI, where she leads a centralized growth function across the portfolio. She was previously first VP Product & Growth at HeliosX (£900M+ ARR, bootstrapped D2C healthtech), has advised companies like SonderMind, Runna, Guardio, Cheddar, P&G Digital Ventures, and is a board advisor at HeliosX. AGENDA: 02:33 What is Growth and When to Hire For It 06:04 Three Profiles of Successful Growth Leaders 10:07 Challenges and Learnings from Failed Ventures 21:17 How to Optimise User Onboarding for Growth 26:14 Biggest Lessons on Retention 30:25 How to Artificially Create Organic Growth and Community Building 32:10 Why LTV Models are BS 37:35 How to Use Influencers to Grow Insanely Fast 47:07 The Metrics that Matter in Growth 49:48 Push Notifications and Engagement: What To Do vs What Not to Do? 51:57 Quick Fire Round

3 Okt 1h

20VC: Are Burn Multiples BS in an AI World | Sam Altman Needs $1TRN of Energy | Klarna, Figma, Stubhub, all Down: Are Public Markets Turning? | FiveTran and DBT: Is the Wave of Consolidation About to Begin?

20VC: Are Burn Multiples BS in an AI World | Sam Altman Needs $1TRN of Energy | Klarna, Figma, Stubhub, all Down: Are Public Markets Turning? | FiveTran and DBT: Is the Wave of Consolidation About to Begin?

AGENDA: 03:58 Understanding Burn Multiples and Capital Efficiency in an AI World 11:54 What Metrics Founders Need to Focus on in a World of AI 19:31 The Role of Kingmakers in Venture Capital: Harvey, Abridge, Profound 33:42 Klarna, Figma, Stubhub, all Down: Are Public Markets Turning? 36:35 OpenAI Needs the Same Energy as Japan… WTF! 41:09 How Can We Fund the $1TRN Sam Altman Needs for Energy 52:39 FiveTran and DBT: Is the Wave of Consolidation About to Begin? 59:44 Does Private Equity Need to Change in a World of AI 01:06:23 Political Expression and Corporate Responsibility

2 Okt 1h 16min

20VC: OpenAI and Anthropic Will Build Their Own Chips | NVIDIA Will Be Worth $10TRN | How to Solve the Energy Required for AI... Nuclear | Why China is Behind the US in the Race for AGI with Jonathan Ross, Groq Founder

20VC: OpenAI and Anthropic Will Build Their Own Chips | NVIDIA Will Be Worth $10TRN | How to Solve the Energy Required for AI... Nuclear | Why China is Behind the US in the Race for AGI with Jonathan Ross, Groq Founder

Jonathan Ross is the Founder & CEO of Groq, the AI chip company redefining inference at scale. Under his leadership, Groq has raised over $3B from top investors. The company has reached a valuation of nearly $7B, positioning itself as one of NVIDIA's most formidable challengers. Previously at Google, Jonathan led the team that built the first Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), making him one of the leading architects of modern AI hardware. AGENDA: 00:00 The Future of AI and Compute 05:07 Why the Hyperscalers Have to Keep Spending Recklessly on AI 12:49 Why OpenAI and Anthropic Will Have to Build Their Own Chips 19:47 OpenAI and Anthropic Will be $5BN Companies: The Bull Case 29:50 Why China is Behind the US in AI and Deepseek is More Expensive to Run 33:55 How Europe Could Compete in AI and Why the US is More Risk Averse Than Europe 42:51 Why AI Will Lead to Too Many Not Too Few Jobs 43:19 Deflationary Pressures and New Job Markets 45:51 The Future of Vibe Coding 47:14 Why AI Companies Should Strive to Have Low Margins 49:31 Why We Have to Have Nuclear Energy and How to Bring it Back 56:55 How Permits are Ruining the Potential of AI 01:03:58 Why OpenAI and Anthropic are so Undervalued 01:16:53 Quickfire: Biggest Fear, Nvidia: $10TRN, Zuck Buying AI: Work or Not

29 Sep 1h 21min

20Product: Revolut Business $1BN Revenue: Five of the Biggest Product Lessons | How Revolut Structures Product and Design Teams | How Revolut Experiments and Invests in New Product Bets | How Revolut Ships Product So Fast with James Gibson

20Product: Revolut Business $1BN Revenue: Five of the Biggest Product Lessons | How Revolut Structures Product and Design Teams | How Revolut Experiments and Invests in New Product Bets | How Revolut Ships Product So Fast with James Gibson

James Gibson is Head of Revolut Business. Under his leadership, Revolut Business now processes over $33 billion in monthly transaction volume and generates more than $1BN in annualised revenue. AGENDA: 04:10 Is Consulting the Worst Background for Aspiring PMs 07:09 How Revolut Hires for it's Product Team 17:21 How Revolut Sets Goals: What Works, What Does Not 19:37 How Revolut Structures Their Product Teams 22:13 How Revolut Structures Product Review Sessions 27:23 New Bets Process at Revolut 29:11 How Revolut Balances Super Users and General Customers 36:55 How Revolut Drives Product Velocity and Efficiency 39:26 Future of Product with AI 44:56 Quick Fire Questions and Reflections

26 Sep 54min

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