The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch - podcast cover

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

Harry Stebbingswww.thetwentyminutevc.com
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) interviews the world's greatest venture capitalists with prior guests including Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Once per week, 20VC Host, Harry Stebbings is also joined by one of the great founders of our time with prior founder episodes from Spotify's Daniel Ek, Linkedin's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman. If you would like to see more of The Twenty Minute VC (20VC), head to www.20vc.com for more information on the podcast, show notes, resources and more.

Episodes

20VC: Squarespace Founder, Anthony Casalena on Scaling Squarespace from Dorm Room To Public Company with over $700M in ARR, The Decision to Direct List over Traditional IPO or SPAC & What Changes When You Go Public?

Anthony Casalena is the Founder & CEO @ Squarespace , the company that allows you to create a website, sell anything and market your business. To date, Anthony has raised over $948M for the company from the likes of General Atlantic, Index Ventures, Tiger Global; culminating in their IPO in May 2021. Despite the incredible size and scale of Squarespace today, Anthony started the company from his dorm room in 2003 and bootstrapped the business for many years to today with over 1,100 employees...

Oct 08, 202134 min

20VC: The Two Largest Changes in the Investing Market Today, Why The Scarce Resource in Venture is Access & Why Investors Are Acting Mostly Rational and Upside Scenario Planning Needs To Change with Anton Levy, Co-President @ General Atlantic

Anton Levy is Co-President, Managing Director and Global Head of General Atlantic’s Technology sector. Anton has led General Atlantic’s investments in the likes of Alibaba, CrowdStrike, Facebook, Slack and Snapchat and co-led investments in Adyen and Bytedance. As a result, Anton has been named to the Forbes Midas List of top investors each year from 2014 to 2021. Anton has also enjoyed board positions either as a member or observer in companies such as Uber, MercadoLibre, Klarna and Meituan to ...

Oct 05, 202145 min

20VC: The Opendoor Memo: Keith Rabois on The Origins of Opendoor from a Conversation with Peter Thiel, Why Cash is Not a Competitive Moat for Startups Today and What People Misunderstand About Black Swan Events in Real Estate and How it Impacts Opendoor

Keith Rabois is a General Partner @ Founders Fund , one of the most successful venture firms of the last decade with home runs in the likes of SpaceX, Palantir, Stripe, Anduril, Facebook, Airbnb, Nubank and many more. As for Keith, he led the first institutional investments in DoorDash, Affirm and has also led investments in Ramp, Trade Republic, Faire and Stripe. Prior to venture, Keith had the most stellar operating career, joining PayPal when their monthly burn-rate was $6 million; Keith join...

Sep 30, 202137 min

20VC: The Rise of Quick Commerce and Why CPGs ARe Misaligned Being Powered By Ad Spend, The 5 Core Components Consumers Care About When Ordering Today & Why Amazon and Alibaba Will Not Be The Big Players in 10 Years with Ralf Wenzel, Founder & CEO @ JOKR

Ralf Wenzel is the Founder & CEO @ JOKR , a global platform for instant retail delivery at a hyper-local scale. To date, Ralf has raised over $170M for the company from the likes of GGV Capital, Balderton, Softbank and Kaszek, just to name a few. Prior to JOKR, Ralf spent close to 7 years as the Founder & CEO @ foodpanda as well as enjoying roles as Chief Strategy Officer @ Delivery Hero, Interim Chief Product and Experience Officer @ WeWork and even moving to the other side of the table...

Sep 27, 202138 min

Welcome 20Growth: How To Hire a Head of Growth? What are Signs of World-Class Talent? How To Structure the Process? How To Onboard Growth Teams? The Relationship Between Head of Growth and CEO and more with Casey Winters, Chief Product Officer @ Eventbrit

Casey Winters is the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite where he leads the PM, product design, research, and growth marketing teams. Prior to Eventbrite, Casey spent close to 3 years at Pinterest where he led the growth product team. At Pinterest, Casey turned SEO into a scalable acquisition strategy, increasing conversion to signups 5x. Before Pinterest, Casey started the marketing team at Grubhub and scaled Grubhub's demand-side acquisition and retention strategies. Casey played an instrument...

Sep 22, 202143 min

20VC: Investing Lessons From Rounds In Peloton and Square, Why Great Investing is Stock-Picking and Sector Penetration & The Next Decade in Venture, Is Tiger's The Right Model with Hans Tung, Managing Partner @ GGV Capital

Hans Tung is a Managing Partner at GGV Capital, one of the leading venture firms of the last 2 decades with a portfolio including Alibaba, Xiaomi, Peloton, Airbnb, Slack, and many more. As for Hans, he has been named to the Forbes Midas list nine consecutive years from 2013-2021, most recently ranking #3. His portfolio includes 18 unicorns including Affirm, Airbnb, Coinbase, Divvy Homes, Peloton, Poshmark, Slack, Wish and Xiaomi. In 2005, he was among the first Silicon Valley VCs to move to Chin...

Sep 20, 202139 min

20VC: Getir Founder, Nazim Salur on The Future of Last Mile Convenience, Who Will Win? Lessons on Driver Acquisition and Efficiency, Zone Maturity and Time To Profitability and Scaling to 300 Cities in the US in 2022

Nazim Salur is the Founder & CEO of Getir , one of the leading rapid delivery service providers that distribute over 1,500 everyday items within minutes. With an established status in Turkey, where the company trends towards a super-app, and a London launch behind it, Getir has further European and US expansion plans on the horizon. To fuel this expansion, Getir has raised over $1BN from Sequoia and Mike Moritz, Silver Lake, Mubadala, and Tiger Global to name a few. Prior to founding Getir, ...

Sep 16, 202143 min

20VC: Sequoia's Doug Leone on What Has Been Instrumental To Scaling Sequoia Over Generations, How Sequoia Think About International Expansion and What They Learned From China and India & Why When You Lose Pre-Seed You Become Private Equity

Doug Leone is the Global Managing Partner @ Sequoia Capital , one of the world’s most renowned and successful venture firms with a portfolio including the likes of Google, Airbnb, Whatsapp, Stripe, Zoom and many more. As for Doug, he joined Sequoia over 33 years ago and has led investments in Nubank, Meraki, ServiceNow and TradeRepublic to name a few. In Today’s Episode with Doug Leone You Will Learn: 1.) How a 5PM Monday meeting with Don Valentine led to Doug joining Sequoia over 33 years ago? ...

Sep 14, 202149 min

20VC: The Crowdstrike Memo: Accel's Sameer Gandhi on Leading Multiple Internal Rounds for Crowdstrike, Telling George Kurtz to Go Shop His Term Sheet, How To Think Through Market Sizing & The Importance of Speed of Execution and Knowing When To Go Slow To

Sameer Gandhi is a Partner @ Accel , one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Facebook, Dropbox, Atlassian, Hopin, Spotify and more. As for Sameer, he led investments in Crowdstrike, Dropbox, Flipkart, Spotify and more. Prior to Accel, Sameer spent close to 10 years as a Partner @ Sequoia. In Today’s Episode with Sameer Gandhi You Will Learn: 1.) How Sameer first came to meet George, Crowdstrike Founder and CEO? How did a 30-minute meeting turn ...

Sep 02, 202137 min

20VC: Marcelo Claure, CEO of Softbank Group International on Lessons From Investing $1BN Per Week with Masa Son, How Softbank Could Have Up To 8 Companies Go Public in LATAM Alone Next Year & How Softbank Analyse Both Deal Pricing and Competition Today

Marcelo Claure serves as CEO of SoftBank Group International and COO of SoftBank Group Corp., the world’s largest tech investor. At Softbank, Marcelo oversees the company’s strategic direction and its portfolio of operating companies, including WeWork, SB Energy, Fortress, Boston Dynamics, as well as SoftBank’s stake in T-Mobile U.S. He also spearheads the SoftBank Latin America Fund, a $5 billion fund dedicated to investing in technology growth opportunities throughout the region. If that was n...

Aug 30, 202139 min

20VC: Has Price Discipline Disappeared? Is it Possible to Build Ownership Over Time? Why Venture Is Less Collaborative Now Than Ever? How fast Do Breakout Companies Become Obvious? How To Construct an Optimised and Repeatable Investment Decision-Making Pr

Frank Rotman is a founding partner of QED Investors , one of the leading fintech-focused venture firms investing today with a portfolio including the likes of Klarna, Kavak, Quinto Andar, Credit Karma and more. As for Frank, prior to QED, Frank was one of the earliest analysts hired into Capital One and spent almost 13 years there helping build many of the company’s business units and operational areas. Post Capital One, Frank went on to found a student lending company before joining up again wi...

Aug 26, 202155 min

20VC: Coinbase President & COO Emilie Choi on Building Coinbase Ventures into One of the Best Performing Funds with 0 Employees, How Coinbase Thinks Through Internal Resource Allocation and Prioritisation & Why, When and How To Hire Your COO and Head of C

Emilie Choi is the President and Chief Operating Officer @ Coinbase , the easiest place to buy and sell cryptocurrency. Prior to their IPO earlier this year, Coinbase raised funding from some of the best in the business including USV, a16z, Initialized and Ribbit to name a few. As for Emilie, before Coinbase she was Head of Corporate Development for @ LinkedIn and before Linkedin served in various positions at Warner Bros., including as Manager of Corporate Business Development and Strategy. If ...

Aug 23, 202146 min

20VC LATAM Part 2: a16z's Angela Strange on When To Expand Beyond Your Core Market, Why Serving the Unbanked is Such Good Business & Whether the Startup Will Acquire the Distribution before The Incumbent Acquires the Innovation?

Angela Strange is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz , one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Facebook, Github, Slack, Airbnb, Asana and more. As for Angela, she largely focuses on investments in financial services and a16z has made significant investments in LATAM in the likes of Loft, Jeeves, Pomelo and Addi to name a few. Prior to a16z, Angela was a product manager at Google where she launched and grew Chrome for Android and Chrome fo...

Aug 19, 202138 min

20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures

Nicolas Szekasy is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Kaszek Ventures, the largest venture capital firm in Latin America with a portfolio including the likes of Nubank, Notco, Creditas, Bitso and more. Before Kaszek, Nicolás was CFO for 10 years at MercadoLibre (Nasdaq: MELI), Latin America’s largest online commerce and payments platform, where he led its $333 million IPO in 2007. Before MercadoLibre, Nico spent 7 years as CFO @ PepsiCo. If that was not enough, Nico is also on the board of End...

Aug 16, 202138 min

20VC: The Lyft Memo: Floodgate's Ann Miura Ko on Why Successful Seed Investing Is Not Investing In a Company But The Development of a Set of Secrets, Whether Capital Is a Defensible Moat Today &How Startups Should Approach Competition

Ann Miura Ko is the Co-Founding Partner @ Floodgate , one of the leading early-stage firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Twitter, Twitch, Lyft, Okta, Outreach and more. As for Ann, not only did she lead the round for Lyft but in the last 12 months has led rounds for 2 of the hottest companies in the valley; Popparazzi and Popshop Live. Due to her immense investing success, Ann is a multiple Forbes Midas Lister and is also a lecturer in entrepreneurship at Stanford, a...

Aug 12, 202141 min

20VC: Mike Lazerow on Why How You Operate As a VC Is More Important Than Who You Are and What You Have Done, Why Boards Are More Important for the Entrepreneur than Investor & How The Best Entrepreneurs Prep Their Boards & Extract Value From Them

Mike Lazerow is a serial entrepreneur and now Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Velvet Sea Ventures alongside his wife, Kass. Prior investments from the Velvet Sea Partners include Twitter, Square, SpaceX, Snap Inc., Facebook, Pinterest, Domo, and more. Prior to becoming an investor, Mike founded Buddy Media in 2007, selling the company to Salesforce just 5 years later for $745M. Before Buddy Media, Mike co-founded Golf.com, a multi-million dollar profitable golf media property that Mike and Kas...

Aug 02, 202146 min

20VC: A Masterclass in Leadership and Scaling Companies: The Decisions only the CEO Can Make, The Secret To Talent Acquisition and Retention and How To Find The Unscalable Things that are Fundamental To Scale with Christa Quarles, CEO @ Corel Corporation

Christa Quarles is the CEO @ Corel Corporation, building software solutions that simplify the task journey for knowledge workers. Prior to Corel, Christa spent close to 4 years as CEO @ Opendoor, driving a chapter of transformational change for the company. Before Opendoor, Christa was Chief Business Officer @ NextDoor, and finally pre-NextDoor, Christa spent 4 years at The Walt Disney Company where she led Disney Interactive to profitability as Senior Vice President, Interactive Games. If that ...

Jul 29, 202146 min

20VC: Ribbit Capital's Nick Shalek on How To Think Through Ownership and Price Sensitivity, When More Money and Pre-Emptive Rounds are Good vs Bad & Investing Lessons from Yale's David Swensen

Nick Shalek is a General Partner @ Ribbit Capital , specializing in fintech they are one of the most successful venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Robinhood, Coinbase, Revolut, Nubank and more. As for Nick, he started his career as a Senior Analyst @ Yale Investments Office before moving to the world of operations as Director of Business Operations @ Verne Global, a provider of 100% carbon neutral data centers. In Today’s Episode with Nick Shalek You Will Learn: 1.) How ...

Jul 26, 202137 min

20VC: Jeff Immelt on Leadership Lessons from 16 Years as CEO @ GE, Incumbent Innovation; Why Some Have Failed and Other Succeeded, When Boards Have A Positive vs Negative Impact on a Company & The One Fear Startup Founders Are Allowed To Have

Jeff Immelt is a Venture Partner @ NEA serving on both the technology and healthcare investing teams. Prior to entering the world of venture, Jeff served as chairman and CEO of GE for 16 years where he revamped the company’s strategy, re-established market leadership and quadrupled emerging market revenue. As a result, Jeff has been named one of the “World’s Best CEOs” three times by Barron’s . In addition, Jeff is on the board of Sila Nanotechnologies and Twilio. In Today’s Episode with Jeff Im...

Jul 22, 202132 min

20VC: a16z's David George on Leading a16z's Growth Fund Today, The Biggest Misconceptions of Growth Investing, How a16z Think Through Portfolio Construction, Investment Decision-Making and Scenario Planning & How The Entrance of New Players Has Changed Th

David George is a General Partner @ Andreessen Horowitz where he leads their growth investing practice. Since joining in 2019 David has invested in the likes of Clubhouse, Coinbase, Databricks, Figma, Instacart, Robinhood and TripActions just to name a few. David also sits on the board of Current, Greenlight, and Workrise. Prior to a16z, David spent 7 years growth investing at General Atlantic where he invested in the likes of Airbnb, Crowdstrike, Opendoor, Slack and Uber. In Today’s Episode wit...

Jul 19, 202134 min

20VC's Therapist Thursday: We Are Not All Crushing It All The Time So Let's Stop Pretending, Working Through Challenges of Self-Worth and Self-Doubt & How To Find Joy in the Striving with Nick Mehta, CEO @ Gainsight

Nick Mehta is the CEO @ Gainsight , the leader in all things customer success helping you put your customer at the heart of your business. Last year, as a result of their incredible success, Gainsight was acquired by Vista for a reported $1.1Bn but prior to that had raised over $156M from Lightspeed, Battery, Bessemer, Insight and Bain to name a few. As for Nick, he has been named one of the Top SaaS CEOs by the Software report three years in a row and holds one of the highest Glassdoor approval...

Jul 15, 202146 min

20VC: Jet.com's Marc Lore on How To Assess Human Potential and "The Resume Test", Why Chief People Officer Should be One of Your First Hires and Why We Need a New Type of Venture Capital

Marc Lore is a serial entrepreneur turned investor who’s started and sold four companies. Most recently Marc was the President and CEO of Walmart eCommerce US following the sale of his company, Jet.com, to Walmart for $3.3 billion in 2016. Prior to that, Marc founded Diapers.com/Quidsi which sold to Amazon in 2011 for $550 million. As an investor, Marc announced his new venture firm, Vision Capital People, with his co-founder, Alex Rodrigues, earlier this year with $50M of Alex and Marc's own mo...

Jul 12, 202145 min

20VC: CapitalG's Laela Sturdy on The Current State of Growth with Crossover, PE and Hedge Funds All Entering, How To Think Through Upside and Downside Scenario Planning at Growth & The Biggest Challenges Startups Face Post Product-Market-Fit but Pre-Scale

Laela Sturdy is a General Partner @ CapitalG , Alphabet's independent growth fund with investments in the likes of Stripe, UiPath, Looker, Robinhood and Lyft to name a few. As for Laela, she joined CapitalG shortly after inception in 2013 and has led investments in Stripe, Duolingo, Gusto, UiPath and Unqork, to name a few. Prior to CapitalG, Laela was at Google as Managing Director of Emerging Businesses and held leadership roles within YouTube and search. In Today’s Episode with Laela Sturdy Yo...

Jul 08, 202138 min

20VC: Twilio's Jeff Lawson on What It Takes To Create a Tribe, How To Create Anti-Fragile Organisations Through Decentralised Decision-Making and Why Values Are Nice But Principles Are Better

Jeff Lawson is the Founder & CEO @ Twilio , the company that allows you to unite communications and strengthen customer relationships across your business. Prior to their incredibly successful IPO in 2016 Jeff raised funding from some of the best including Bessemer, Union Square Ventures, Redpoint, Salesforce and Founders Fund to name a few. Before founding Twilio, Jeff was co-founder & CTO of NineStar, founding CTO of Stubhub.com, co-founder, CEO & CTO of Versity, and one of the fir...

Jun 28, 202146 min

20VC: Optimising Investment Decision-Making in Compressed Fundraising Timelines & A Deep Dive on Portfolio Construction, Price Sensitivity and The Importance of Ownership with Mark Mullen, Co-Founder @ Bonfire Ventures

Mark Mullen is the Co-Founder of Bonfire Ventures , one of LA's leading early-stage funds, now on their 3rd Fund with $101M in the latest. In the past, Mark has invested in the likes of Trade Desk, Scopely, GOAT, ChowNow, Niantic and Pendo to name a few. Prior to co-founding Bonfire, Mark was a solo GP with Double M and then through Mull Capital, Mark is also an LP in other funds investing in 15 including the likes of Upfront, Freestyle, Backstage and Crosscut to name a few. In Today’s Episode w...

Jun 24, 202141 min

20VC: Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer on Turning the UK Into a Talent Magnet, What Can Be Done To Drive Further Investment in UK Venture & A Breakdown of Morning Routines, Peloton Favourites and Managing Nerves

Rishi Sunak was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer on 13 February 2020. He was previously Chief Secretary to the Treasury from July 2019 to February 2020, and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government from January 2018 to July 2019. He spent his professional career before politics in business and finance, working internationally. He co-founded an investment firm working with companies in multiple geographies and used that experience to...

Jun 21, 202130 min

20VC: GoPuff's Rafael Ilishayev on How GoPuff Has Been EBITDA Profitable From Day 1; The Unit Economics Behind GoPuff, With Intense Competition What Happens To The Food Delivery Space & What It Takes To Launch, Grow and Maintain New Markets

Rafael Ilishayev is the Co-Founder & Co-CEO @ GoPuff , one of the market leaders delivering daily essentials in minutes. GoPuff's latest funding round priced the company at a reported $8.9Bn in March 2021 and to date, Rafael has raised over $2.4Bn for the company from the likes of Accel, Softbank, Fidelity, Baillie Gifford, D1 Capital and more. Rafael has scaled the company to over 550 US cities with over 7,000 employees nationwide. In Today’s Episode with Rafael Ilishayev You Will Learn: 1....

Jun 14, 202135 min

20VC: Why and How The Best Companies Build Economies Around Themselves, When, Why and How To Build Effective Partner/Channel Networks & The Power of Compounding Growth in SaaS with Jay Simons, General Partner @ Bond

Jay Simons is a General Partner @ Bond Capital, with their $1.25Bn debut growth fund in 2019 they made their mark on the venture landscape and have since made investments in the likes of Revolut, Canva, NextDoor, IronClad and my favourite, On Running. As for Jay, prior to entering venture, he spent an incredible 12 years at Atlassian including 9 years as President, playing an instrumental role in their hyper-growth journey. Jay is also a board member with both Zapier and HubSpot, two of my favou...

Jun 10, 202138 min

20VC: DoorDash CEO Tony Xu on The Art of Great Leadership Today, Why The Best Give All of the Credit and Take All of the Blame & How DoorDash Have Won The Best Talent Against the Toughest Competition

Tony Xu is the CEO and Co-founder of DoorDash , the company empowering merchants to grow their businesses by offering on-demand delivery, data-driven insights, and better in-store efficiency. Prior to their IPO in December 2020, Tony raised over $2.5Bn for DoorDash from some of the best including Sequoia, Coatue, Softbank, Kleiner Perkins and DST, to name a few. Before co-founding the business in 2013, Tony worked in Product at Square, led special projects for the CEO and CFO at eBay, and began ...

Jun 07, 202139 min

20VC: Ramp's Eric Glyman on Why You Should Never Take The Highest Price, Working With Venture Funds vs Crossover Funds and How To Determine What To Buy vs Build as a Founder Today?

Eric Glyman is the Founder and CEO @ Ramp , the only corporate card and spend management platform designed to help you spend less. To date, Eric has raised over $390M for the company from some of the best including Thrive, Stripe, Founders Fund, Coatue and Box Group to name a few. Prior to changing the game of spend management, Eric founded Paribus, the price-tracking app that raised seed funding from General Catalyst and Greylock, which was acquired by Capital One in 2016. In Today’s Episode wi...

Jun 02, 202141 min
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