20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC

20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC

Ben Einstein is Founder and General Partner @ Bolt, Bolt is a fund designed to address the unique needs of early-stage startups at the intersection of hardware and software, investing up to $500K in pre-seed, pre-product companies. They have created and backed some world class businesses that have received later funding from Khosla, Kleiner Perkins, NEA, and Softtech just to name a few.

In Today's Episode with Ben You Will Learn:

  • How Ben made his way into VC from such a product centric background?
  • Why have we seen a rise in hardware investing over the last 5 years? How has this affected the hardware ecosystem?
  • To what extent do hardware and software integrate today? Why have we seen the rise of software determining the hardware winners?
  • Why is brand the most important thing in consumer hardware? Who has done it best? Who has not done it well?
  • What is Ben's biggest advice to hardware founders today? Why is raising too much money extremely dangerous for hardware founders?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Ben's Fave Blog and Newsletter: Ben Evans

Ben's Fave Book: The Box

Ben's Most Recent Investment: Grow: Redesigning Gardening

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

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

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20Sales: Sierra: Inside Silicon Valley's Fastest Growing Sales Machine & How to Prospect, Outbound and Close Enterprise Deals in AI

20Sales: Sierra: Inside Silicon Valley's Fastest Growing Sales Machine & How to Prospect, Outbound and Close Enterprise Deals in AI

Reggie Marable is the Head of Global Sales at Sierra, a conversational AI platform for businesses. Sierra enables companies like ADT, Sonos, SiriusXM, and WeightWatchers to build AI agents that transf...

2 Maj 20251h 7min

20VC: Why Fund Returners Are Not Enough Anymore | Why Sequoia Had the Best Strategy at the Worst Time | What it Takes to Be Good at Series A and B Today | Benchmark Leads Manus Round: Should US Funds Invest in Chinese AI

20VC: Why Fund Returners Are Not Enough Anymore | Why Sequoia Had the Best Strategy at the Worst Time | What it Takes to Be Good at Series A and B Today | Benchmark Leads Manus Round: Should US Funds Invest in Chinese AI

In Today's Episode We Discuss: 03:56 Why The Risk Lever Has Been Turned Higher than Ever in VC 06:04 Why IRR is the Hardest Thing to Control 09:36 Is Lack of Liquidity Short Term Temporary or Long Ter...

1 Maj 20251h 24min

20VC: VCs are Spreadsheet Monkeys and are Commoditised | Why Fees and Carry Misalign GPs and LPs | Why Founders Will Realise Multi-Stage Funds Damage Seed Rounds | Why We Need European Sovereignty More Than Ever with Taavet Hinrikus

20VC: VCs are Spreadsheet Monkeys and are Commoditised | Why Fees and Carry Misalign GPs and LPs | Why Founders Will Realise Multi-Stage Funds Damage Seed Rounds | Why We Need European Sovereignty More Than Ever with Taavet Hinrikus

Taavet Hinrikus is a Partner at Plural, the early-stage fund that backs the most ambitious founders on a mission to change the world through technology. He co-founded Wise in 2010, where he was CEO an...

28 Apr 202558min

20Growth: Inside Kraken's $1.5BN Growth Playbook: What Works, What Doesn't and What No Founders Understand About Growth That Will Change Their Company with Mayur Gupta

20Growth: Inside Kraken's $1.5BN Growth Playbook: What Works, What Doesn't and What No Founders Understand About Growth That Will Change Their Company with Mayur Gupta

Mayur Gupta is currently the CMO at Kraken, one of the largest crypto platforms in the world. Prior to that, he lead Marketing, Business Transformation and Growth at Gannett - USA Today Network, led G...

25 Apr 202552min

20VC: OpenAI's $3BN Acquisition of Windsurf: The Breakdown | Are Endowment Funds F******* & How LP Deployment to Venture Will Change in 2025 | Why Revenue Multiples are BS, The Rise of AI Rollups and Multi-Stage Funds Destroying Seed Investing

20VC: OpenAI's $3BN Acquisition of Windsurf: The Breakdown | Are Endowment Funds F******* & How LP Deployment to Venture Will Change in 2025 | Why Revenue Multiples are BS, The Rise of AI Rollups and Multi-Stage Funds Destroying Seed Investing

In Today's Show We Discuss: 04:49 Breaking Down the $3BN Windsurf Acquisition 06:18 Why Sam Altman is Playing a Master Game 12:40 Why Multi-Stage Funds are Destroying Seed Managers 21:52 Are Endowmen...

24 Apr 20251h 25min

20VC: Do Rich Founders Make Better Founders | The Best Performing Fund Would Only Back YC Founders on Their Second Time | Why SPACs Will Come Back | Why Short Sellers Should Be Banned | Is Trump Better for Business than Biden with Jason Wilk @ Dave

20VC: Do Rich Founders Make Better Founders | The Best Performing Fund Would Only Back YC Founders on Their Second Time | Why SPACs Will Come Back | Why Short Sellers Should Be Banned | Is Trump Better for Business than Biden with Jason Wilk @ Dave

Jason Wilk is the Founder and CEO of Dave, the greatest turnaround in the public markets of the last 12 months. Dave went public with a market cap of $4BN, just months later the company had a market c...

21 Apr 202558min

20VC: Foundation Models: Who Wins & Who Loses | How Economies and Labour Markets Need to Change in a World of AI | China vs the US in an AI Race: What You Need to Know | Rich Socher, Founder @ You.com

20VC: Foundation Models: Who Wins & Who Loses | How Economies and Labour Markets Need to Change in a World of AI | China vs the US in an AI Race: What You Need to Know | Rich Socher, Founder @ You.com

Rich Socher is the Founder and CEO of You.com. Richard previously served as the Chief Scientist and EVP at Salesforce. Before that, Richard was the CEO/CTO of the AI startup MetaMind, which Salesforce...

18 Apr 20251h 3min

20VC: Why Seed is for Suckers | a16z's $20BN Fund & Founders Fund's $4.6BN: What Makes Them So Good | Why Josh Kushner Is the Master of Venture Capital Strategy | Why Extended Private Markets Screw US Citizens with Jason Lemkin and Rory O'Driscoll

20VC: Why Seed is for Suckers | a16z's $20BN Fund & Founders Fund's $4.6BN: What Makes Them So Good | Why Josh Kushner Is the Master of Venture Capital Strategy | Why Extended Private Markets Screw US Citizens with Jason Lemkin and Rory O'Driscoll

Jason Lemkin is one of the leading SaaS investors of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Algolia, Talkdesk, Owner, RevenueCat, Saleloft and more. Rory O'Driscoll is a General Part...

17 Apr 20251h 29min

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