20VC: 3 Questions Founders Must Stress Test VCs with, What Separates the Good From The Great VCs & Why 80% of VC Detract Value From Board Meetings with Seth Sternberg, Founder & CEO @ Honor

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 Maj 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 Maj 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 Maj 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 Maj 201723min

Brendan Wallace is a Co-Founder of Fifth Wall, the fund that specializes in technology for the built world and real estate tech. Prior to Fifth Wall, Brendan was Co-founder & CEO of Identified, a data & analytics company that raised $33 million of venture capital and was acquired by Workday (WDAY) in 2014. Brendan also co-founded Cabify, the largest ridesharing service in Latin America, which has raised $143 million and operates in 14 countries and 50 cities. If that was not enough, Brendan has been an active angel investor and manages one of the largest syndicates on Angellist, having led over 50 angel investments including Bonobos, Dollar Shave Club, Earnest, Philz Coffee and Zenefits. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Brendan made the transition from the world of startup founding to investing with Fifth Wall? 2.) How does Brendan feel fund managers can approach LP composition in order to provide strategic value add to portfolio companies? How did he approach this? 3.) How do the differing sources of LP money differ when comparing corporate LPs to more traditional fund of funds and endowment funds? Why did Brendan decide it was optimal to have both in Fifth Wall? 4.) Brendan has previously said 'autonomous cars are the next meteor to hit the real estate industry'. What are the 3 differing types of risk that could prevent this rise? What timeline does Brendan believe we are looking at for self-driving? 5.) How does Brendan see the urban landscape evolving and developing over time? Will we see a renewed period of urbanisation or urban spread? How do the macro levers affect this? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Brendan's Fave Book: The Accidental Superpower Brendan's Fave Blog: CB Insights Brendan's Most Recent Investment: VTS: The Leading Asset and Asset Management Platform As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Brendan 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.

3 Maj 201731min

Beezer Clarkson is Managing Director @ Sapphire Ventures where she leads Sapphire's investments in venture funds domestically and internationally. Prior to joining Sapphire, Beezer managed day-to-day operations @ DFJ's Global Network, which had $7 billion under management across 16 venture funds worldwide. She has also spent time at Omidyar Network created by Ebay founder, Pierre Omdiyar, Hewlett Packard and Morgan Stanley. Beezer also founded OpenLP.com, an effort to help foster greater understanding in the entrepreneur-to-LP tech ecosystem. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Beezer make her way into the world of limited partners? 2.) How has the venture industry performed as a whole for Q1 2017 both in funds raised and $ invested? How does this compare to previous years? 3.) How is the 1st time fund manager ecosystem developing? Is it fair to say that first-time funds and micro funds are now an established part of LP portfolios? To what extent does shortening fund cycles concern Beezer? 4.) What other areas of the market have we seen explosive growth in? Why was the # of $100-$250m down last year? Why is it different this year? 5.) How does Beezer analyze the recent activity in the public markets? How does this liquidity affect the fundraising market for both startups and GPs? Will we see a return to bubble like times? As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Beezer on Twitter here! The thoughts, comments and opinions in this podcast do not represent investment advice and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sapphire Ventures. 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.

1 Maj 201727min

Jason Brown is the Founder & CEO @ Tally, the startup that is building a better credit card experience giving power to the consumer. They have investment from some of the leading names in early stage finance including Shasta Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, Ludlow Ventures and Blake Byers @ GV just to name a few. As for Jason, prior to Tally, he founded 3 further startups including most recently Gen110 where helped to bring a new consumer debt product market that finances residential solar installs. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Jason come to found Tally following his 3 prior startup founding experiences? 2.) Why does Jason think you should never settle with candidate hires? What shall startups do when they are growing fast and need someone now? Why does Jason believe you should never use external recruiters? 3.) As this is Jason's 4th startup and he has raised from the likes of Kleiner Perkins in the past, what has Jason learned in terms of fundraising through his past entrepreneurial experiences? What does Jason believe founders should look for from their VCs? 4.) Why does Jason believe that in the majority of cases 'move fast and break things is completely wrong'? What industries does Jason believe you have to lean into the regulators? 5.) How does Jason look to instill radical candor within Tally as a fast scaling startup? What does Jason think this is important for all startups to have engrained in them? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Jason's Fave Book: Science of Interstellar Jason's Fave Blog: First Round Review As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jason 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.

28 Apr 201728min

Gene Frantz is a Partner of CapitalG, Alphabet's growth investment fund which has investments in the likes of Airbnb, Snap Inc and Stripe. As for Gene, before joining CapitalG, Gene was a partner at TPG Capital, a global private equity fund. During his 13 years at TPG, Gene was responsible for multiple technology and telecom investments and represented TPG on multiple public and private company boards of directors. Prior to TPG Capital, Gene worked at Oracle Corporation leading its venture capital effort and previous to that in corporate development. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Gene made his way from the world of traditional private equity to investing with Google? 2.) Gene has seen many investment cycles, how has Gene experience of both the ups and the downs of the market affected how he invests today? 3.) What does a company need to show or provide today in order to get a large late-stage cheque or IPO? How has this changed over the years? 4.) Why does Gene think that late stage financing has been massively commoditized? How can late stage funds looks to differentiate themselves in today's market? 5.) How does Gene view the extension of private markets and the delayed IPO? Why does he think management teams are less willing to IPO today? Does it concern him? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Gene's Fave Book: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Religion & Politics Gene's Fave Blog: The Information Gene's Most Recent Investment: Stripe 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. 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.

26 Apr 201721min