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: How Today's Market Changes How Companies Should Approach Burn and Runway, Are Financing Markets Closing? How To Know When To Pay Up vs Stay Price Disciplined & Why The Most Important Thing in Venture is Generating Positive Selection with Bill Cilluf

Bill Cillufo is Partner and Head of International Investments at QED , one of the leading fintech venture firms today with a portfolio including Nubank, Kavak, Klarna, Quinto Andar and Bitso to name a few. As for Bill, he has led investments in Nubank, Loft, Wagestream and Creditas among others. Prior to joining QED, he spent nearly 20 years at Capital One, spanning several roles and leading several businesses. During Bill’s last 3 years at Capital One, he led its Co-Brand and Private Label cred...

Apr 22, 202242 min

20 Product: Robinhood CPO on The 3 Stages of Product Management, How to Structure and Execute Great Product Reviews, The Secret to Building a World-Class Hiring Funnel in Product Team Building with Aparna Chennapragada

Aparna Chennapragada is Chief Product Officer @ Robinhood , the company revolutionizing consumer finance with commission-free investing, and tools to help shape your financial future. As for Aparna, prior to Robinhood, she spent an incredible 12 years at Google, most recently as VP and GM for Consumer Shopping and also as the lead AR and Visual Search products. Aparna is also an active angel investor with a portfolio including Khatabook, Statsig and On Deck to name a few. If that was not enough,...

Apr 20, 202240 min

20VC: Brex's Henrique Dubugras on Advice from Evan Spiegel and Eric Schmidt on CEOship, The Biggest Hiring Mistakes When Scaling, What Everyone Gets Wrong with Product Messaging and When is the Right Time to Launch Secondary Products

Henrique Dubugras is the Founder and CEO @ Brex , the company re-imagining financial systems so every growing company can realize its full potential. To date, Henrique has raised over $1.1BN for Brex from some of the best including Ribbit, Greenoaks, DST, IVP, Caffeinated Capital and Elad Gil to name a few. Henrique is also a board member at Mercado Libre. Prior to co-founding Brex, Henrique co-founded Pagar.me, there he scaled the company to $15BN in GMV and over 100 people before selling the c...

Apr 15, 202234 min

20VC Exclusive: Fast's Domm Holland on What Really Happened at Fast? Were they really Burning $10M per Month? Where did Bolt Succeed Where Fast Did Not? What is It Really Like To Have Stripe Invest in your Company?

Domm Holland is the Founder and CEO @ Fast. Last week Fast announced they would be shutting down the company. In this exclusive 20VC episode we discuss: What really happened with Domm's towing business in Australia? What are the 1-2 biggest mistakes made at Fast? Why has Bolt worked in a way that Fast has not worked? What is it like having Stripe as an investor in your company? Could the board have done more to prevent what happened at Fast?...

Apr 13, 202229 min

20VC: Why Crypto is Software Eating Money, Why Crypto Firms Will Outcompete Traditional Venture Firms, How To Price Tokens and When To Have Them, DAOs: How Are They Structured and What Makes One Successful with Avichal Garg, Co-Founder @ Electric Capital

Avichal Garg is Co-Founder & Partner @ Electric Capital , last month Electric announced they had raised $1BN for their new fund making them one of the largest independent and crypto-native VC firms in the world. As for Avichal, prior to Electric, he was an investor in crypto projects such as Anchorage, Bitwise, Lightning Labs, and OpenSea and unicorns such as Airtable, Cruise, Deel, Figma, Notion and many more. On the operating side, Avichal successfully sold his last company to Facebook whe...

Apr 11, 202257 min

20VC: What Happens To Growth Rounds in this New Environment? Where is the Funding Crunch? How Does This Impact M&A and Going Public? How do Crossover Funds Respond? What Does it Mean For Early Stage and more with Eric Liaw, General Partner @ IVP

Eric Liaw is a General Partner @ IVP , one of the leading later-stage venture capital and growth equity firms of the last decade with $8.7 billion of committed capital and a 40-year IRR of 43.1%. At IVP eric has led investments in Datadog, Github, Klarna, Robinhood and UiPath to name a few. Prior to joining IVP, Eric was with Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) and was actively involved in originating, executing and managing investments, including Netflix, Zillow and eHarmony. As a result of his...

Apr 08, 202240 min

20 Growth: Why Retention Defines Product Market Fit, What is Good Retention Levels Today, The Most Counterintuitive Elements of Product and Growth & Why So Many Startups Mess Up Hiring For Growth Teams with Brian Hale, Head of Consumer Product & Growth @

Brian Hale is Vice President of Consumer Product & Growth @ Doordash. Before joining Doordash, Brian spent an incredible 10 years at Facebook, most recently as VP of Product Growth working across Instagram, Messenger, Whatsapp and more. Prior to Facebook, Brian was Director of Growth @ Uptake.com and it all started for Brian in 1999 working at ACDSee in Canada where he was asked to “figure out that search engine thing”. In Today’s Episode with Brian Hale You Will Learn: 1.) Brian Hale: Entry...

Apr 06, 202240 min

20VC: Founding Legendary Entertainment and Creating Batman, The Hangover and 300, The Importance of Luck vs Skill in Success, How Relationships to Money Change & Why Velocity is the Most Important Factor in Company Building Success with Thomas Tull

Thomas Tull is a leading entrepreneur and investor as the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Tulco, LLC. he has made notable investments in the likes of FIGS, Colossal, IL MAKIAGE, Pinterest, Zoox and Oculus Rift. Previously, Tull was the founder, CEO and Chairman of Legendary Entertainment, the film company that produced blockbusters including The Dark Knight trilogy, 300 and The Hangover franchise. Outside of his investment work, Thomas is a trustee of Carnegie Mellon University, Yellowstone Forever...

Apr 04, 202238 min

20VC: The Biggest Mistakes Startups Make Hiring, The 2 Reasons Startups Fail and How to Avoid Them, Why Most Startup Equity Plans are F****** and Why You Should Scrap Titles From Your Company with Eddie Vivas, Founder & CEO @ Curated

Eduardo Vivas is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Curated , a network where product experts monetize their passion and help consumers make the perfect purchase. To date, Eddie has raised over $141M from some of the best including CapitalG, Greylock and Forerunner to name a few. Eddie is also a stellar angel investor with a portfolio including Telegram, Truebill, AppLovin and Dollar Shave Club among others. Prior to Curated, Eddie spent 3 years at Linkedin as Head of Talent Solutions, following his start...

Apr 01, 202238 min

20 Sales: Notion's CRO Olivia Nottebohm on How To Build Great Operations at Your Company, How To Use The Trust Equation in Hiring, How To Do Referencing Most Effectively and Whether To Fill Seats or Wait for the Perfect Hire?

Olivia Nottebohm is the Chief Revenue Officer @ Notion where she leads the Sales, Marketing, Customer Success and Customer Experience teams. Prior to Notion, Olivia was the COO @ Dropbox where she achieved the first 4 quarters of profitable growth. Before Dropbox Olivia spent over 5 years at Google including as VP Cloud GTM Operations and Global SMB Sales. Finally, before Google, Olivia spent a whopping 15 years at McKinsey & Company. In Today’s Episode with Olivia Nottebohm You Will Learn: ...

Mar 30, 202236 min

20VC: Lessons Scaling Insight Partners to a $20BN Latest Fund, The Two Biggest Learnings on Price, How to Manage and Train Young People in Venture, Why Business Classrooms Do Not Work and How to Assess the Two Commodities in Life; Money and Time with Jeff

Jeff Lieberman is the Managing Director @ Insight Partners , one of the leading investing franchises of the last 25 years with their most recent flagship fund announced earlier this year being a staggering $20BN. As for Jeff, over the last 24 years at Insight, he has led investments in leading companies such as Qualtrics, DeliveryHero, HelloFresh, Cvent, Mimecast, and Udemy. As a result of his many investing successes, he has been selected by AlwaysOn as a Venture Capital 100 winner and by Forbe...

Mar 28, 202237 min

20VC The Memo: Inside the Growth Engines of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Instacart with the Growth Leaders Who Built Them; How Instagram Went from 440M to 1BN, How Twitter Changing Their Signup Flow was a Needlemover and How Removing Card Payment Requ

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. Andy Johns is one of the pre-eminent growth leaders of the last decade. Andy’s career started in growth at Facebook when the company scaled from 100M-500M active users. Since he has worked in some of the leading growth orgs at companies like Twitter, Quora and more...

Mar 25, 202229 min

20VC: Startups Fail Because They Do Not Take Enough Risk, Why A/B Testing is Inefficient and Slows You Down, Why It is Impossible To Hire Good PMs so Stop Trying & 3 Key Signals The Best Engineers Present with Grant LaFontaine, Founder & CEO @ Whatnot

Grant LaFontaine is the Founder & CEO @ Whatnot , the fastest-growing marketplace in the US, empowering people to make a living off their passion. To date, Grant has raised over $225M for Whatnot from the likes of CapitalG, a16z, YC, Scribble Ventures and Wonder Ventures to name a few. Prior to Whatnot, Grant was a PM @ Facebook working on the Oculus App Store and before that was the founder of Kit.com, ultimately acquired by Patreon. In Today’s Episode with Grant LaFontaine You Will Learn: ...

Mar 23, 202240 min

20VC Exclusive: Sequoia's Luciana Lixandru Unveils Sequoia's New 8 Week Accelerator, Arc | Biggest Takeaways from Working with Doug Leone and Roelof Botha | The Journey From a Small Town In Romania to Partner @ Sequoia

Luciana Lixandru is a Partner @ Sequoia , one of the world’s most renowned and successful venture firms with Sequoia-backed companies accounting for more than 20% of NASDAQ's total value. As for Luciana, at Sequoia she has led investments in the likes of PennyLane, Xentral, Veed and Ledgy to name a few. Prior to joining Sequoia in 2020, Luciana was a Partner @ Accel where she made investments in Hopin, Miro, UiPath, Tessian and Deliveroo. As a result of such investing success, Luciana was #2 on ...

Mar 21, 202244 min

20 Product: Lenny Rachitsky on The 3 Key Roles of the Product Manager, 5 Skills All The Best PMs Have, When To Hire Your First PM, How to Structure the Hiring Process for PMs & What Leaders Can Do to Make Their PMs Successful

Lenny Rachitsky is one of the OGs of product, having spent over 7 years at Airbnb as a product lead he left to start his newsletter, find it here . This has scaled to thousands upon thousands of readers and is one of the most popular newsletters on Substack. Lenny is also an extremely active angel investor with a portfolio including Figma, Sorare, Clubhouse, Vanta, WhatNot and many more incredible companies. If that was not enough, Lenny also has the best course on product management, check it o...

Mar 16, 202242 min

20VC: David Friedberg on The Framework for Business Value Creation, The Bifurcation in Venture Today That No One Talks About, The Impact of Interest Rate Hikes on Venture and Step by Step; How TPB Incubates, Funds and Exits The Next Generation of Companie

David Friedberg is Founder and CEO of The Production Board (TPB), a holding company established to solve the most fundamental problems that affect our planet, by reimagining global systems of production. Prior to founding The Production Board, David founded The Climate Corporation, a 10-year journey that culminated in their $930M acquisition by Monsanto. If that was not enough, David is the Founder and Chairman at Metromile and also sits on the board of Soylent, Clara Foods, Tillable, Cana Techn...

Mar 14, 202245 min

20VC: Gitlab CEO Sid Sijbrandij on Why You Are Not Allowed to Present in Meetings at Gitlab, Why it is a Pipedream We Will Go Back to Offices and What is the Future of Work & CEO Coaches; What Makes The Best, When To Have Them and When To Change Them

Sid Sijbrandij is the Co-founder & CEO @ GitLab . GitLab’s single application helps organizations deliver software faster and more efficiently while strengthening their security and compliance. Prior to their IPO last year, Sid raised funding from some of the best including ICONIQ, GV, Tiger, Coatue and D1 to name a few. Under his leadership, the company has grown to over 1,500 employees and over 30 million registered users. If that was not enough, Sid is also an active angel and sits on the...

Mar 11, 202236 min

20 Sales: The Stripe Sales Playbook; Who Should Create It, When Should it Be Done, Where Do Many Go Wrong | How To Identify 10x Sales Hires and How To Structure the Hiring Process in Sales with Jeanne DeWitt Grosser, Head of Americas Revenue & Growth @ St

Jeanne DeWitt Grosser is Head of Americas Revenue & Growth @ Stripe. In this role, Jeanne is responsible for all sales functions across the region including Sales Development, AEs, Solutions Architects, and many more. Jeanne also continues to spearhead Stripe's Enterprise strategy. Prior to this role, Jeanne was Stripe's Head of North America Sales where she built out Stripe's Acquisition Sales teams. Pre-Stripe, Jeanne was CRO @ Dialpad and also spent many years at Google in numerous differ...

Mar 09, 202239 min

20VC: Shopify President, Harley Finkelstein on What is Being a Good Husband, What is Being a Good Father & How to Embrace Vulnerability and Authenticity in Leadership and Marriage

Harley Finkelstein is the President of Shopify, the platform modern commerce is built on. Over the last 12 years, Harley has partnered with Tobi to the tune of building Shopify's revenue to over $4.6BN in 2021 and the team to over 10,000 employees. On the side, Harley is an Advisor to Felicis Ventures and in the past has held board seats at CBC, Omers Ventures and The C100. If that was not enough, you can see Harley on a screen near you as one of the “Dragons” on CBC’s Next Gen Den. In Today’s E...

Mar 07, 202249 min

20VC: 3 Biggest Mistakes Founders Make When Scaling, Management 101 on Trust Building, Morale Maintenance and Hiring & What We Can Learn About Parenting From Nature Programs with Scott Dietzen

Scott Dietzen is Vice Chairman of the Board of Pure Storage and served as the Company’s CEO from 2010 to 2017. Under his leadership, Pure grew to thousands of employees and completed an IPO in 2015. Dietzen is a four-time successful entrepreneur with WebLogic, Zimbra, and Transarc. Before Pure, he was President and CTO of Zimbra (now part of VMware), but originally acquired by Yahoo!, where Dietzen served as interim SVP of Communications and Communities. Prior to Zimbra, Dietzen was CTO of BEA S...

Feb 28, 202237 min

20VC Exclusive: Sahil Bloom on Raising his Debut Venture Fund (SRB Ventures), Why Traditional Venture Firms Are Going to Lose and How Sahil Built a Twitter Audience to 500K+ in 18 Months

Sahil Bloom is the Founding Partner @ SRB Ventures, a $10M fund that leverages the 500K followers Sahil has amassed to invest at the intersection of venture and media. Previously, Sahil spent 7 years at a large investment fund managing >$3.5 billion in capital and serves on the board of 4 companies. He has also been an active angel investor in over 30 companies. In Today’s Episode with Sahil Bloom You Will Learn: 1.) How Sahil made his way from a career in traditional finance to building a me...

Feb 25, 202242 min

The Tiger Global Memo: From Sequoia Capital to Benchmark and Thrive: The World's Best on the Rise of Tiger Global

Tiger Global are one of the most discussed venture firms on the planet. With a deal cadence and capital deployment speed that is unmatched, they have made their mark on the venture landscape like no other over the last 24 months. Today we are joined by leaders from Sequoia, Benchmark, Thrive Capital, General Atlantic, GGV and Aleph to discuss the rise of Tiger and how it impacts the venture ecosystem. In Today’s Episode on Tiger Global You Will Learn: 1.) Doug Leone: Sequoia Capital Why we need ...

Feb 23, 202220 min

20VC: Faire's Max Rhodes on Three Steps To Hire the Best Candidates, Why Every Company Should Have a Strategy Doc and How To Do It & The Art of Referencing; How to Get the Most Out of Every Reference

Max Rhodes is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Faire , the online marketplace where retailers discover their next bestsellers from independent brands across the globe. To date, Max has raised over $1.1BN with Faire from some of the best including Sequoia, Founders Fund, DST, Forerunner, Lightspeed and many more. Prior to starting Faire, Max spent close to 5 years at Square in numerous different roles including Director of Consumer Product at Caviar. In Today’s Episode with Max Rhodes You Will Learn: 1.)...

Feb 18, 202241 min

20Growth: Five Key Functions of a Growth Team, The Biggest Lessons Starting Uber's Growth Team and Scaling Facebook's, How To Structure The Hiring Process for Growth and What Separates Good From Great in Growth Leaders with Ed Baker, Former VP of Growth @

Ed Baker is an angel investor and growth advisor to various startups including Lime, Zwift, Whoop, Crimson Education, GoPeer, and Playbook. Ed was the VP of Product and Growth at Uber from 2013-2017. Prior to Uber, Ed was the Head of International Growth at Facebook, a company he joined after they acquired a startup he co-founded called Friend.ly, which had grown to over 25 million users. In Today’s Episode with Ed Baker You Will Learn: 1.) Ed Baker: Entry into Growth: How Ed made his way into t...

Feb 16, 202250 min

20VC: Bedrock's Geoff Lewis on Whether VCs Actually Provide Value or Not, Why Bedrock Does Not Have An Ownership Focus and The Difference Between Principles and Rules When Building a Firm or Company

Geoff Lewis is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Bedrock , now with over $1BN in AUM, Bedrock invests in breakout technology companies that are incongruent with popular narratives. In the past, Geoff has backed some generational defining companies such as Wish, Lyft, Nubank, RigUp, Vercel, Anduril and many more. Prior to founding Bedrock, Geoff was a Partner @ Founders Fund. In Today’s Episode with Geoff Lewis You Will Learn: 1.) How Geoff made his way into the world of venture with his joining...

Feb 14, 202234 min

20VC: Box's Aaron Levie on Why Founders Cannot Hedge Their Bets, The 2 Categories of Wrong Decision and How To Avoid Them & The Biggest Dangers of Being Over-Funded as a Startup

Aaron Levie is the Founder and CEO @ Box , the company incorporating the best of secure content collaboration with an intuitive user experience suited to the way people work today. Prior to their IPO in 2015, Aaron raised from some of the best in the business including the main man Mark Cuban, a16z, Emergence, DST, Coatue, DFJ and many more. Aaron founded the company from his dorm room at the University of Southern California and has led the company to 1,900 employees and over $770M in revenue, ...

Feb 11, 202235 min

20 Product: Scott Belsky on How to Hire Your Product Leader and Team, 3 Questions All Great Product Leaders Ask, How To Structure and Run Effective Product Reviews & Is Product More Art or Science?

Scott Belsky is an entrepreneur, author, investor, and currently serves as Adobe’s Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Scott oversees all of product and engineering for Creative Cloud, as well as design for Adobe. In 2006, Scott founded Behance, the leading online platform for the creative industry, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Behance now has over 25M members. Scott is also an early advisor and investor in Pinterest, Uber, Sweetgreen, C...

Feb 09, 202245 min

20VC: Biggest Lessons and Challenges Building One of the Most Successful Seed Funds, How To Manage Investor Psychology, Self-Doubt and Insecurity & The Secret to Truly Successful Venture Partnerships with David Frankel, Co-Founder @ Founder Collective

David Frankel is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Founder Collective , one of the great seed firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Uber, Coupang, Airtable, Whoop and many more incredible companies. Previously, David was Co-Founder and CEO of Internet Solutions (IS), the largest ISP in Africa, ultimately acquired by NTT. David is also a founding board member of Endeavor SA and in the past has been selected by the World Economic Forum for the Global Leader of Tomorrow (GLT) progra...

Feb 07, 202244 min

20VC: Mark Cuban on Reshaping the Pharmaceuticals Industry, How To Hire and Build Truly Great Teams and What Brand Really Means Today and How To Build One Successfully

Mark Cuban is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and owner of the Dallas Mavericks . Today we are focused on Mark's latest entrepreneurial endeavor, starting Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drug Company , the online pharmacy taking out the middlemen, meaning no price games and huge drug savings. As mentioned, Mark is also the proud owner of Dallas Mavericks, since his taking over they have competed in the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history in 2006 – and became NBA World Champions in 2011. B...

Feb 04, 202231 min

20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital

Dannie Herzberg is a Partner @ Sequoia Capital and one of the great sales leaders of the last decade. Prior to entering the world of venture, Dannie spent 4 years at Slack as their Head of Enterprise Sales, there Dannie built & scaled the self-serve / SMB, mid-market, and enterprise sales orgs across the Americas as Slack grew from $100M - $1B in revenue. Before Slack, Dannie spent over 5 years at Hubspot building sales, opening an SF office, and then joining product to launch CRM & plat...

Feb 02, 202247 min
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