The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding

Latest Episodes:

20VC: The First ICO Blockchain Incubator Ever, Why ICO's Will Change The World of Venture As We Know It & How The M&A Market Will Respond To ICO's with Mike, Jones, Co-Founder @ Science Inc Aug 28, 2017

Show notes

Mike Jones is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Science Inc, one of America's most successful incubators with an incredible 3 Science Inc portfolio companies exiting in 2016 alone with the sales of Dollar Shave Club, Hello Society (acquired by NYT) and Famebit (acquired by Google). Science continue to push the frontier of tech with their recent announcement of Science Blockchain, the first ICO blockchain incubator ever, with the ICO pre-sale starting in just 13 days from now. Prior to Science, Mike was the CEO @ MySpace, where he was responsible for one of the most high-profile turn-around challenges in the industry.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Mike made his way from MySpace CEO to founding one of the nation's most successful startup incubators?

2.) Firstly, what is a token in the world of crypto? How does securitized and utility tokens differ? Why does Mike believe the current state of utility tokens is reminiscent of the early days of domain names?

3.) What are the core barriers to traditional investors transferring assets on mass into crypto? What will be the catalyst causing this asset allocation shift in the future? What needs to happen to crypto for it to be attractive for traditionals?

4.) How have we seen the M&A market respond to tokenization? How can we as an ecosystem look to build a framework and structure that allows for a healthy M&A environment?

5.) With so many ICOs occurring today, what will be the determining factors between those that succeed and those that do not? How can individuals from around the world look to assess potential ICO's?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Mike's Fave Book: Ready Player One

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

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

Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app – all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry

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20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" Aug 25, 2017

Show notes

Jonathan Abrams is the Founder and CEO @ Nuzzel, the startup that offers personalised news discovery and curated newsletters for busy professionals. They have backing from some of the investing greats including Marc Andreesen, Naval Ravikant, Homebrew, SoftTech and Lowercase just to name a few. Prior to Nuzzel, Jonathan was the Founder of early social media machine, Friendster attaining funding from Benchmark, Kleiner and Reid Hoffman. Jonathan is also a prolific angel investor counting AngelList, Docker, Front, Instacart, and Slideshare amongst his portfolio.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Jonathan made his way into the world of startups and came to found Nuzzel?

2.) Why does Jonathan dislike it when he hears that a VC "fell into the industry"? Why does that not resonate with entrepreneurs? How can it be better phrased to align with operationally minded people?

3.) Why is Jonathan tired of hearing the word conviction from investors? Why does it not make sense to say you invest with conviction? How would Jonathan like to see the use of data to prove conviction-driven (high ownership) is optimal for fund returns?

4.) Does Jonathan believe there are too many seed funds in market today? Why does he believe we have seen a reduction in the numder of $'s going into seed companies? Does Jonathan believe the future is thematic for seed funds?

5.) Why does Jonathan believe the majority of boards "are just not very successful"? What does Jonathan believe makes a great board member? Likewise, what can entrepreneurs do to most effectively manage their board? Why do we need more operational people on boards?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Jonathan's Fave Book: Beggars in Spain by Nanacy Kress

Jonathan's Fave Blog: Strictly VC

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.

20VC: What Are The Big Questions Entrepreneurs & VCs Must Ask Corporate VCs, Why Corporate VCs Are Not Your Best Lead For Series A & Why The "You Have To Network Your Way To Us' Is Wrong with Allison Goldberg, Managing Director @ Time Warner Investments Aug 23, 2017

Show notes

Allison Goldberg is a Managing Director & Senior Vice President @ Time Warner Investments, focusing on investment opportunities that directly enhance Time Warner's ability to meet specific strategic goals. Their portfolio consists of the likes of Mashable, Discord, Admeld (acq by Google) and Mic just to name a few. Allison also directly sits on the boards of Outpost Games, Yieldmo, Bustle and Mic. Prior to Time Warner, Allison cut her teeth in the finance industry with a stint at Morgan Stanley.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Allison made her way from investment banking with Morgan Stanley to running the investment arm of Time Warner?

2.) How has Allison seen the world of corporate VC change over the last 16 years? How has Allison seen the VC perception of corporate VC change over the years? Do corporates still get the preference rights they once received?

3.) What are the big questions entrepreneurs must ask corporate VCs when entering into discussions with them? What are the big red flags entrepreneurs should look for in their dialogue? What line of conversation should give the entrepreneur confidence?

4.) Is there a signalling risk for startups of having corporate investors rather than Tier 1 VCs? How can this signalling risk be mitigated? Why does Allison not think corporates make for good Series A lead investors?

5.) How does Allison view fund structures for corporates? How does the lack of fund end affect how corporates can invest long term? How does it affect their time allocation without needing to raise future funds?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Allison's Fave Book: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Allison's Fave Blog: NextDraft

Allison's Most Recent Investment: Mic

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

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

20VC: YC's Daniel Gross on How YC Can Democratise AI & Reduce Incumbency Advantages, Why ML Enabled Software Will Eat The Software That Ate The World & Whether AI Will Produce Independent Companies or Be Technology within Incumbents Aug 21, 2017

Show notes

Daniel Gross is a Partner @ Y Combinator, the world's most successful accelerator with alumni that includes the likes of Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, Flexport and many more incredible companies. At Y Combinator Daniel heads up all things YC AI having been a Director @ Apple where he focused on machine learning, as a result of his prior company, Cue (also a YC company) being acquired by Apple in 2013. If that was not enough, Daniel also has one of the valley's most impressive angel portfolios with investments in OpenDoor, Cruise (acquired by GM), Gusto and Github, just to name a few.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Daniel made his way from YC founder to being acquired by Apple to being YC partner?

2.) How does Daniel respond to the statement that "AI, is in part, a scam"? Why does Daniel believe that the impact of AI has not lived up to the hype?

3.) What are the 3 economies of scale that you have with machine learning when you are a large company? What can startups do to mitigate these incumbency advantages? What does Daniel mean when he says it is his job to "democratize AI"?

4.) Does Daniel believe we will see the rise of "AI companies" or machine learning as a sustaining innovation that existing incumbents use? What is Daniel fearful of with regards to this?

5.) How does Daniel view the potential for business models to be built around AI? Daniel has said "machine learning software will eat the software that has eaten the world". What does he mean by this? How does this play out?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Daniel's Fave Book: Enders Game, High Output Management, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Daniel's Fave Blog: Slate Star Codex

Daniel's Most Recent Investment: Rippling

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

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

20VC: What Larry Paige, Mary Meeker and Ben Horowitz All Have In Common, Why You Have To Build A Movement Not A Brand & Why This Really Is A Great Time To Be An Entrepreneur with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds Aug 18, 2017

Show notes

Joseph Zwillinger is the Founder @ Allbirds, the startup that makes the world's most comfortable shoes check this out, made out of wool. They have funding from the likes of Maveron, Lerer Hippeau and Slow Ventures and an army of loyal fans that includes Larry Paige, Ben Horowitz, Mary Meeker and Dick Costolo. Prior to co-founding Allbirds, Joey enjoyed a range of careers from investment banking with Goldman Sachs to venture capital with Industry Ventures to working at next generation food and nutrition company, TerraVia.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Joey made his way from investment banker to venture capitalist to Founder @ Allbirds, Silicon Valley's hottest brand?

2.) How does Joey view the core tenets to creating a successful brand? Why must brands today go further to more of a movement? How can companies look to create movements within their customer base?

3.) How does Joey assess the effects of Amazon on retail? How does Joey evaluate the economic ramifications of Amazon's flea market approach on the brands behind the products? Why does Joey want Allbirds to stay far away from Amazon?

4.) How does Joey look to prioritize what he and Allbirds focus on? What is the one core metric that guides all their decisions and behavior? How is this applicable to every company of all stage and sector?

5.) Why does Joey think that not enough VCs are people orientated? How does Josh assess the VC class of today? What does he look for when deciding which investors to choose?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Joey's Fave Book: Man's Search For Meaning

Joey's Fave Blog: First Round Review, Dan Primack

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

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

Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app - all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry

20VC: How To Design Investment Decision Making That Allows For Outliers, Why Personal Voice Computing Is The Next Big Platform & The Challenges That Could Prevent It with David Beisel, Founding Partner @ NextView Ventures Aug 16, 2017

Show notes

David Beisel is a co-founder and Partner at NextView Ventures, one of the East Coast's leading early stage funds with their recent $50m seed fund being announced just this month. David was most recently a Vice President at Venrock and previously a Principal at Masthead Venture Partners. Prior to becoming a venture capitalist, David co-founded Sombasa Media, an e-mail marketing company best known for its flagship product BargainDog. Sombasa was successfully acquired by About.com where David served as Vice President of Marketing.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How David made his way into the world of early stage venture and came to co-found NextView?

2.) How did Nextview design an investment decision-making process that allows for outliers to get through? How does this change with the decision for follow on investment?

3.) Why should firms write investment memos for every investment, regardless of stage and sector? How can firms implement a voting process that is both rigourous yet innovative?

4.) Why is David so excited by the voice computing space? With incumbents like Google and Amazon dominating, where is the opportunity for startups to play? Why does David believe that voice is the most natural user interface possible?

5.) Why does David believe distribution is one of the biggest challenges facing startups today? What does David look for in founders that suggest inherent knowledge of marketing and distribution prowess?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

David's Fave Book: Look Homeward, Angel

David's Fave Blog: Gotham Voices, Hearing Voices

David's Most Recent Investment: Skyways

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.

Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app - all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry

20VC: Jason Calacanis on The 4 Questions Investors Must Ask Founders, Whether YC Have Scaled Their Process Successfully & Why Early Founder Liquidity Is Good Not Bad Aug 14, 2017

Show notes

Jason Calacanis is arguably one of the world's greatest angel investors, as he says he has "got lucky" 7 times and counting with a portfolio that includes the likes of Uber, Thumbtack, Evernote, Tumblr and more incredible companies. Jason has also previously been a scout for Sequoia Capital, where he made the original Uber investment. On the operational side, Jason was previously a Sequoia Founder with Weblogs, sold to AOL for a reported $25-40m. Today he is the Host of This Week In Startups and Founder of The Launch Festival, bringing entrepreneurs together with potential investors. You can buy his fantastic new book, Angel here!

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In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Jason make his move into the world of angel investing? Why was now the right time to write, Angel?

2.) What does Jason believe are the 4 questions investors must ask founders? What response to those questions excited Jason to hear? What responses make him nervous?

3.) Why does Jason believe that founders having the option for early liquidity is good? Why does he believe it does the opposite of what VCs think and actually makes them continue to work? What are the dangers of offering early liquidity to those founders?

4.) Why does Jason believe that companies are always bought and not sold? Does VC access to corporate development teams then become a futile exercise?

5.) How does Jason view the scaling of Y Combinator? How does Jason evaluate the valuations placed on YC companies? Why does Jason believe that progressive term sheets are ridiculous?

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.

Pendo delivers the only complete platform that helps companies create great products. The Pendo Product Experience Platform enables product teams to understand product usage, collect user feedback, measure NPS, assist users, and promote new features in-app - all without requiring any engineering resources. This unique combination of capabilities helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Pendo is the proven choice of Salesforce, Cisco, Optimizely Citrix, BMC and many more leading companies. Start a free trial at http://go.pendo.io/harry

20VC: Why Not Every Element of A Scalable Business Has To Scale, Why You Should Be Bearish on Retail & Why Fewer Businesses Are Getting Started Today Since The Great Depression with Brad Hargreaves, Founder & CEO @ Common Aug 11, 2017

Show notes

Brad Hargreaves is the Founder & CEO @ Common, the startup that provides shared housing for those that live in common. They have raised over $20m in VC funding from some of our very favorites including the likes of Maveron, Slow Ventures, Lowercase Capital, 8VC and Brendan Wallace @ Fifth Wall. Prior to Common, Brad was the Founder of General Assembly, the global school for tech, business, and design which has, to date, raised over $140m and has locations across 4 continents.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Brad made his way into the world of tech, came to found General Assembly and then made his move into the world of real estate with Common?

2.) Why have we seen the price of real estate in core urban areas hit an all time high today? How does Brad think this will affect the future of malls?

3.) Why does Brad think that in a scalable business not every element has to scale? What does he mean by this? What proportion of elements have to scale? What are the inflection points in scaling that suggest potential for venture returns?

4.) How does Brad think about the secondary affects of AVs? Which areas does Brad think have the most potential for innovation? How does Brad think about the negative externalities of AV's? What can be done to mitigate their effects?

5.) Why does Brad think that occupational licensing is one of the biggest barriers to economic growth in the US? What reform can be made to enhance this and allow for growth?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Brad's Fave Book: The Lever of Riches

Brad's Fave Blog: Kim Mai Cutler, Fifth Wall Newsletter, Steven Smith

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

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

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20VC: The 7 Requirements For Startup Scaling, Why VCs Must Approach Every Conversation with A Yes Mentality & Why We Will See The Humanisation of Technology with Renata Quintini, Partner @ Lux Capital Aug 09, 2017

Show notes

Renata Quintini is a Partner @ Lux Capital, one of the leaders in the rise of deep tech investing supporting scientists and entrepreneurs providing solutions to the most vexing puzzles of our time, the more ambitious the project, the better. Before Lux, Renata was a partner at Felicis Ventures, where she worked with the likes of Cruise, Dollar Shave Club, Rigetti Computing and Bonobos, just to name a few. Prior to VC, Renata was an investment manager at Stanford University's endowment, which invests in dozens of private equity and venture capital funds.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Renata made her way from LP in venture with Stanford University to dominating seed VC with Felicis to now leading the deep tech investing charge with Lux Capital?

2.) How does the mentality shift from making the move of LP with Stanford to VC with Felicis and Lux? How does Renata believe being an LP made her a better VC? How has what it takes to be a successful emerging manager changed over the last 5-10 years?

3.) What are the 7 rules that Renata gives to all startups at the start of their journey to ensure they do not implode? Where do startups most often falter, from Renata's perspective? How have the requirements and demands of founders changed recently?

4.) How does Renata look to approach every investment opportunity, mentality wise? Why does Renata believe this stance is optimal over the alternative? What are the caveats that must be placed on this to ensure for realism also?

5.) What makes Renata believe that we are seeing the humanisation of technology? How does this affect how deep tech will be designed moving forward? How does this affect how technology truly interacts and integrates with consumer behaviour?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Renata's Fave Book: Daring Greatly

Renata's Most Recent Investment: Common Networks

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

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

20VC: Why We Will Continue To See An Explosion In Deep Tech Financing, Why Much of Silicon Valley's Talent Is Going To Waste & How Fund Cycles Need To Be Adjusted To Work With Deep Tech with Seth Bannon, Founding Partner @ Fifty Years Aug 07, 2017

Show notes

Seth Bannon is a Founding Partner at Fifty Years, a San Francisco seed fund that backs entrepreneurs solving the world's biggest problems with technology. With a proclivity for deep tech, Seth has invested in a range of startups shaping the world for the better -- from a company culturing real meat to eat without animals, to a company building small satellites to cover the earth in internet. A graduate of Y Combinator, Seth was named twice to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Social Entrepreneurship.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Seth made his way from working on Obama's digital campaign to being a YC founder to now, founding Fifty Years?

2.) What is the Friedman Doctrine? Why does Seth think it is the most dangerous doctrine in the world? What leads Seth to believe in the potential for both purpose + profit? What is driving this change in millennial mindsets for the importance of purpose?

3.) Why does Seth believe we have seen a large increase in VC $ moving into deep tech as a space? What are the technical reasons for why seed stage deep tech investing is now such an attractive market segment? Do we have adequate deep tech growth financing?

4.) Why does Seth believe that much of Silicon Valley's talent is going to waste? How would Seth like to see talent redistributed to produce the greatest returns for society? What needs to be done for that to occur?

5.) Why is Seth so bullish in his belief for the need for fund cycles to be extended? How does Seth respond to suggestions that due to long development cycles in deep tech, investors have to carry companies for much longer? How has Seth seen the secondaries market open up over the last few years?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Seth's Fave Book: The Idea Factory

Seth's Fave Blog: Hacker News

Seth's Most Recent Investment: Athelas

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

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