My guest today is Paul Hsiao, co-founder and General Partner at Canvas Ventures. Canvas is one of the leading Series A firms having invested in Zola, Thrive Global and Roofstock. You'll learn what are the ingredients that could make for a spectacular marketplace businesses, what the series a currently looks like, and much much more. Without further ado, here's Paul.
And there you have it. It was a pleasure chatting with Paul. You can follow him @paul_hsiao on Twitter.
Some of the questions I ask Paul:
- What was your initial attraction to technology?
- After Mazu Networks, why did you decide to become a venture capitalist?
- How did Canvas come together?
- I know one of your main focuses is marketplace businesses. There’s alot of chatter in consumer how consumer SaaS type businesses are becoming the future of consumer software as a primary business model. What do you make of the current landscape?
- What makes a market place business exciting for you to invest in?
- What is your due diligence process? What are the metrics you typically see at the Series A?
- In today’s market where it seems like there’s more unicorns today than maybe the number of companies that were raising a Series A 10 years ago, what is your expectation when you invest in a company?
- What’s your biggest learning from this COVID period?
- After a first time founder raises a Series A, what do you find is the most common element that the founder might have a hard time with when it comes to the board meetings?
- What are some of the differences investing in enterprise vs. consumer facing businesses?
- I read that one of your passions is the data economy. How do you describe the data economy and what are some of the ways it could transform B2C businesses?
- What’s one thing that you would change about venture capital?
- What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
- What’s your biggest piece of advice for anyone building businesses that you find yourself saying the most?
