20VC: Why Follow-On Investments Are Always A Better Investment, Why Spray and Pray Investing Is Like The Stock Market & Why Startups Need A Board From Day One with Jerry Neumann

James Currier is the Managing Partner @ NFX and one of Silicon Valley's foremost experts in growth and network effects. Just last week, NFX announded their latest fund, a new $150m fund to turn NFX into a significant institution. As for James, before becoming an investor, he co-founded one of the internet's first successful user-generated companies, Tickle, in 1999. Under James' leadership, Tickle grew to become the 18th largest website in the world and was acquired by Monster for $110 million. James then co-founded three other successful companies - Wonderhill (online video games, merged with Kabam in 2010 which then sold for $800M), IronPearl (acquired by PayPal in 2013), and Jiff (raised $68M from Venrock & GE before merging with Castlight in 2017). In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How James made his way from multiple success in the world of operations with Tickle, Jiff and Wonderhill to now managing NFX's new $150m fund? 2.) Why does James believe speed is the number one superpower for startups? How important is being first to market for products? Why does language and psychology play a much more prominent role? What should the correlation be between product and the language used to market the product? 3.) What does James believe the main job of the founder is? Where do most founders go wrong in depicting their story? Why is it so important for founders to "speak with data"? How can one retain that personal sentiment when heavily using data? 4.) Why does James believe that network effects play such a prominent role within value creation of companies? What really is core to network effect success? Other than marketplaces and social networks, what other forms of network effect exist and succeed? 5.) What does James believe is the right mindset for growth? What has James always believed about paid growth? Why is James altering his views on paid growth in today's environment? Does James believe we are in a fallow period for the consumer space? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: James' Fave Book: The Razor's Edge James' Fave Blog: The Edge James' Most Recent Investment: Outdoorsy As always you can follow Harry, James and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Namely is the all-in-one HR, payroll, and benefits platform your employees will love to use. It's as intuitive as social media, but powerful enough to support the complexity of today's workforce. Namely's mission is to help mid-sized companies build a better workplace. See how Namely can transform your workplace at www.Namely.com. Eero is the world's best-reviewed wifi. A system of eero and eero Beacons wirelessly connects to blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi, so despite the increased number of devices with Christmas coming, you'll still be able to get powerful mesh WiFi in every nook and cranny of your home, backyard included. No more dead spots, slow spots, drop-offs, or buffering — right out of the box. Eero is only available in the US and Canada and you can check it out here!

13 Dec 201730min

Olaf Carlson-Wee is the Founder & CEO @ Polychain Capital, one of the world's premier funds actively managing a portfolio of blockchain assets. Having founded the firm less than 2 years ago with their initial $4m fund, Polychain now has over $200m AUM with backing from the likes of Sequoia, Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz and USV just to name a few. Prior to founding Polychain, Olaf was the first employee at Coinbase serving as their Head of Risk and as product manager. In addition, Olaf has also been an active angel with a portfolio including the likes of Robinhood, Ethereum and Numerai. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Olaf made his way into the world of crypto from academic studies to Coinbase to today with Polychain? 2.) What really is Polychain Capital and what is the primary mandate with the $250m AUM? With the firm's investments being always liquid, how does one look to stay aligned to founders with an exit possible at any time? How does Olaf think about LP fund withdrawal, would that symbolize a snowball effect in the crypto space? 3.) How does sourcing crypto opportunities differ from sourcing venture opportunities? How does the subsequent DD process change when evaluating crypto opportunities? What does Olaf want to see in whitepapers and what are the big red flags when analysing crypto investments? 4.) How does Olaf think about the exit environment for crypto assets? How does Olaf believe traditional corporate acquirers will respond to crypto assets and those that have raised through ICO? What does Olaf mean when he says, "we will see token network acquisitions in the future"? 5.) Have tokens created a paradigm shift in the method through which companies are funded? Charlie Lee @ Litecoin stated on the show, "ICO's were his biggest concern for crypto". Does Olaf share this concern and where does he see the nuances? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Olaf's Fave Book: Infinite Jest Olaf's Most Recent Investment: 0x Project As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Namely is the all-in-one HR, payroll, and benefits platform your employees will love to use. It's as intuitive as social media, but powerful enough to support the complexity of today's workforce. Namely's mission is to help mid-sized companies build a better workplace. See how Namely can transform your workplace at www.Namely.com. Eero is the world's best-reviewed wifi. A system of eero and eero Beacons wirelessly connects to blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi, so despite the increased number of devices with Christmas coming, you'll still be able to get powerful mesh WiFi in every nook and cranny of your home, backyard included. No more dead spots, slow spots, drop-offs, or buffering — right out of the box. Eero is only available in the US and Canada and you can check it out here!

11 Dec 201727min

Jyoti Bansal is the former Founder & CEO of AppDynamics, backed to the tune of over $350m in VC funding from the likes of Lightspeed, Greylock and Kleiner Perkins, just to name a few, before it's ultimate acquisition by Cisco for $3.7Bn. Today, Jyoti is the Founder and CEO of BIG Labs, essentially a laboratory for creating, developing, and launching innovative ideas. The first of these ideas being turned into companies being, Harness.io the industry's first continuous delivery as a service platform, where Jyoti is the Founder & CEO. As a result of his tremendous success, Jyoti has been a recipient of many leadership awards including, "Best Cloud Computing CEO to Work For," "Best CEO" by San Francisco Business Times. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jyoti made his way from selling farm machinery with his father in India to founding and selling AppDynamics for $3.7Bn? 2.) How does Jyoti look to build world class teams around him? What are the core characteristics and profiles and seed success into an organisation? How does Jyoti look to optimise each individual function in the organisation? 3.) What did the sale process of AppDynamics look like? Did Jyoti and the team run a dual process of acquisition & IPO? How did the deal come about? What were the negotiations like? Why did Jyoti turn down the first two offers? What was critical to the successful deal? 4.) Jyoti has said before, "there are 3 simple things VCs look for". What are those 3 things? How did the fundraising of AppDynamics go in the early days? What was it about the first 20 pitches that made VCs say no? What does Jyoti most look for now when choosing the VCs to work with? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Jyoti's Fave Book: Crime and Punishment As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jyoti on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Namely is the all-in-one HR, payroll, and benefits platform your employees will love to use. It's as intuitive as social media, but powerful enough to support the complexity of today's workforce. Namely's mission is to help mid-sized companies build a better workplace. See how Namely can transform your workplace at www.Namely.com. Eero is the world's best-reviewed wifi. A system of eero and eero Beacons wirelessly connects to blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi, so despite the increased number of devices with Christmas coming, you'll still be able to get powerful mesh WiFi in every nook and cranny of your home, backyard included. No more dead spots, slow spots, drop-offs, or buffering — right out of the box. Eero is only available in the US and Canada and you can check it out here!

8 Dec 201721min

Jake Flomenberg is a Partner @ Accel, one of the top performing venture funds of the last decade with investments in the likes of Dropbox, Slack, Facebook, Deliveroo and Atlassian, just to name a few. As for Jake, at Accel he specializes on all things Big Data and has led investments in the likes of Demisto, Origami Logic, Sumo Logic, Trifacta, and Zoomdata. Prior to Accel, Jake was director of product management at Splunk, where he was responsible for the product's user interface and big data strategy. Before that, he worked at Cloudera where he helped the founding team tackle a broad array of sales, marketing and product issues. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jake made the transition from the world of operations with Cloudera and Splunk to the other side of the table, as Partner at Accel? 2.) Why does Jake believe a large element of his role is "how to make AI not BS"? How does he approach this from the three-legged stool of machine learning, data and workflow? How do each subsequently rank? 3.) To what extent is Jake concerned by the data incumbency advantages that are present in the market with Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple (GAFA)? Where is the room for real opportunity and innovation? When should a startup be concerned about GAFA entering? 4.) How does Jake respond to Aaron Van Devender's suggestion that the value of large datasets is overplayed? Where are the inflection points in dataset value? How does David compare the value of initial data vs derivative data and the subsequent value? 5.) How does Jake assess the current state of the cybersecurity market? Is this increased investment period sustainable or due to more macro attention and events? Where does Jake feel the real opportunity is in cyber today? Where is it overplayed? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Jake's Fave Book: Ready Player One Jake's Fave Blog: The Morning Paper (Harry's Favourite also) Jake's Most Recent Investment: Radar As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jake on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Namely is the all-in-one HR, payroll, and benefits platform your employees will love to use. It's as intuitive as social media, but powerful enough to support the complexity of today's workforce. Namely's mission is to help mid-sized companies build a better workplace. See how Namely can transform your workplace at www.Namely.com. Eero is the world's best-reviewed wifi. A system of eero and eero Beacons wirelessly connects to blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi, so despite the increased number of devices with Christmas coming, you'll still be able to get powerful mesh WiFi in every nook and cranny of your home, backyard included. No more dead spots, slow spots, drop-offs, or buffering — right out of the box. Eero is only available in the US and Canada and you can check it out here!

6 Dec 201725min

Rich Wong is a General Partner @ Accel, one of the world's leading venture funds with investments in the likes of Dropbox, Slack, Facebook, Deliveroo and Atlassian, just to name a few. As for Rich, Rich has led investments in the likes of Rovio (IPO), SwiftKey, AdMob, MoPub and more incredible companies. Rich also sits on the boards of the likes of Checkr, Osmo, Rovio and Atlassian where he was first outside Board member and lead investor. Prior to joining Accel, Rich served as SVP of products for mobile pioneer, Openwave Systems and CMO of Covad Communications. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Rich made his way into the world of VC with Accel from OpenWave and having been active in the mobile and broadband ecosystems? 2.) What does Rich mean when he states the rise of the "Globalisation of VC"? How does Accel both find and win deals in locations such as Australia, Finland? How do the founder's mentalities differ to Bay area founder mentality? 3.) How does Rich think about price sensitivity when assessing opportunities? What would be considered a good return multiple when investing from the early stage fund? How does this differ from the growth fund? 4.) What is the internal structure of investment decision making at Accel? How does Rich analyze reserve allocation? How does initial to reserve decision-making differ? How does the Accel partnership determine the 10% of portfolio that are "winners"? 5.) Question from Manu Kumar @ K9: How does Rich decide when is the right time for a company to scale? What is the balance of not too early and not too late? How should unit economics play a role in this decision? What characteristic must be inherent within multiple functions of the business, pre-scaling? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Rich's Fave Book: The Big Short Rich's Fave Blog: Wolf Street Rich's Most Recent Investment: Instabug As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Rich on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Namely is the all-in-one HR, payroll, and benefits platform your employees will love to use. It's as intuitive as social media, but powerful enough to support the complexity of today's workforce. Namely's mission is to help mid-sized companies build a better workplace. See how Namely can transform your workplace at www.Namely.com. Eero is the world's best-reviewed wifi. A system of eero and eero Beacons wirelessly connects to blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi, so despite the increased number of devices with Christmas coming, you'll still be able to get powerful mesh WiFi in every nook and cranny of your home, backyard included. No more dead spots, slow spots, drop-offs, or buffering — right out of the box. Eero is only available in the US and Canada and you can check it out here!

4 Dec 201726min

Debbie Sterling is the Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox, an award‐winning toy company on a mission to "disrupt the pink aisle." An engineer and entrepreneur, Sterling has made it her mission in life to tackle the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Sterling was named TIME's "Person of the Moment" and Business Insider's "30 Women Who Are Changing the World" and is regarded as one of the leaders of the movement toward getting more girls interested in engineering and technology. In January 2014, GoldieBlox beat out more than 20,000 businesses in a contest run by Intuit to become the first‐ever small business to air a commercial during the Super Bowl. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Debbie overcame the "engineering boys club" at Stanford and the a-ha moment that led to the creation of Goldieblox? 2.) How does Debbie look to overcome those really tough times as an entrepreneur, from exclusion to the "engineering boys club" to a harsh reception at an accelerator, how did Debbie look to deal with that personally? 3.) Question from Kanyi Maqubela: Is the gender diversity issue primarily a pipeline problem? Where are the key cracks in the system? What does Debbie believe is the point of key leverage? 4.) Question from Harley Finkelstein @ Shopify: How does Debbie ensure that everyone of Goldieblox's videos go viral as it does? What is both the content creation strategy? How does Debbie look to optimise distribution of their content to attain that virality? 5.) Why does Debbie believe that VCs are missing a massive opportunity by not investing in CPG and hardware? What single value add would be most attractive to Debbie for an investor entering the space? What must hardware and CPG founders really look for in their investor base? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Debbie's Fave Book: The Brothers Karamazov As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Debbie on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Available in carry-on and check-in sizes, Raden is the case for better, smarter travel. By pairing the lightest and most durable materials with technology, travelers can charge their devices on the go, weigh, and track their cases. Visit Raden.com to use code 20VC at checkout. After purchase, you will receive $25 credit to Uber this Holiday season. If a UK listener, head over to Selfridges.com and/or Selfridges on Oxford St. and farfetch.com to shop Raden today. The Simba Hybrid. The most advanced mattress in the world. With a unique combination of two thousand five hundred conical pocket springs and responsive memory foam, it offers the perfect support for two people. A mattress that responds to you and your partner's sleeping patterns. Delivered free, with a one hundred night sleep trial, free returns and a ten year guarantee. Start your free trial at simbasleep.com

1 Dec 201729min

David Waxman is the Founding Partner @ TenOneTen Ventures, one of the leading new venture firms in the rising tide of LA tech. Their portfolio companies have enjoyed exits from the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon Cisco, AirBnB and including companies like eCommerce pioneer and unicorn, Wish and the world's leading airspace services platform, AirMap. As for David, prior to TenOneTen, David enjoyed an incredible career in operations starting with the founding of his first company, Firefly in 1995, an early pioneer in personalization and privacy technology which he sold to Microsoft in 1998. David then co-founded PeoplePC, a company dedicated to simplifying the process of joining the online world. The company went public in 2001 and was acquired by EarthLink in 2002. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How David made his way from selling a company to Microsoft and taking the next public to being one of the leading new managers in LA's tech scene? 2.) Why does David believe that market sizing is a futile effort, or as he calls it "Tamfoolery"? What is the right way that founders should present the market to investors, both in discussion and visually? Why is it impossible for investors to foresee market magnitude? 3.) Why does David strongly dislike convertible notes? Why does he believe that they are worse for not only investor but founders too? In what rare cases do they make sense? Why are they completely ridiculous in multi-million $ deals? 4.) Why does David believe that pro-rata rights have become such a mess? How can founders honour the agreements with their early investors and satiate the ownership appetite of A funds? How would David navigate this if he were a founder today? 5.) Why does David believe the biggest asymettry in VC is the DD that founders engage with, in comparison to that of VC on Founder DD? How should founders structure this DD on investors? What is the right framework? What is the crucial question to ask? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: David's Fave Book: The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm David's Fave Blog: Strictly VC, Nuzzel David's Most Recent Investment: Velocity As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and David on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Available in carry-on and check-in sizes, Raden is the case for better, smarter travel. By pairing the lightest and most durable materials with technology, travelers can charge their devices on the go, weigh, and track their cases. Visit Raden.com to use code 20VC at checkout. After purchase, you will receive $25 credit to Uber this Holiday season. If a UK listener, head over to Selfridges.com and/or Selfridges on Oxford St. and farfetch.com to shop Raden today. The Simba Hybrid. The most advanced mattress in the world. With a unique combination of two thousand five hundred conical pocket springs and responsive memory foam, it offers the perfect support for two people. A mattress that responds to you and your partner's sleeping patterns. Delivered free, with a one hundred night sleep trial, free returns and a ten year guarantee. Start your free trial at simbasleep.com

29 Nov 201726min

Bing Gordon is a Partner and Chief Product Officer @ Kleiner Perkins, one of the world's most prestigious venture funds with prior investments in the likes of Google, Amazon, Twitter, Square and Airbnb just to name a few. At Kleiner Bing has either worked with or invested in the likes of Spotify, Zynga, Amazon, Twitter and Magic Leap, just to name a few. Bing also serves on the boards of Zynga, Zazzle, N3twork and until March this year, Amazon. Prior to Kleiner, Bing had been a long-time executive at Electronic Arts, beginning with EA's founding in 1982 with initial funding from Kleiner Perkins. He was chief creative officer at EA from 1998 to 2008 and previously headed EA marketing and product development. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Bing made the move from Chief Creative Officer at EA to Partner @ Kleiner Perkins? 2.) What were Bing's biggest lessons from sitting on the boards of Amazon and Zynga and working with Jeff Bezos and Mark Pincus? What is the most important value-add that a VC should bring? What question must all new board members ask themselves? 3.) Why does Bing believe there are two types of investors in VC? How does Bing determine whether it is right to fix losers or ride winners? How does Bing look to balance between being the cheerleader or critical analyst to the CEO? 4.) What are the signs of truly great and productive board meetings? From Bing's vast experience, which VCs does Bing most like to sit on a board with and why? Which board meeting sticks out in Bing's memory as being of particular significance and why? 5.) What mentality do all great investors have when entering deals? What are the two commonalities of people that are largely right in their choices? How important a role does valuation play for Bing when evaluation potential opportunities? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Bing's Fave Book: Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking) Bing's Most Recent Investment: N3twork As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Bing on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Available in carry-on and check-in sizes, Raden is the case for better, smarter travel. By pairing the lightest and most durable materials with technology, travelers can charge their devices on the go, weigh, and track their cases. Visit Raden.com to use code 20VC at checkout. After purchase, you will receive $25 credit to Uber this Holiday season. If a UK listener, head over to Selfridges.com and/or Selfridges on Oxford St. and farfetch.com to shop Raden today. The Simba Hybrid. The most advanced mattress in the world. With a unique combination of two thousand five hundred conical pocket springs and responsive memory foam, it offers the perfect support for two people. A mattress that responds to you and your partner's sleeping patterns. Delivered free, with a one hundred night sleep trial, free returns and a ten year guarantee. Start your free trial at simbasleep.com

27 Nov 201725min