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

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

20VC: Benchmark's Peter Fenton on The Single Question That Defines The Art of Early Stage Venture, Marketing Timing Risk, Why The Oversupply of Capital Is Good & His Biggest Lessons from 12 Years On The New Relic Board

Mar 29, 2021
Peter Fenton, General Partner at Benchmark, discusses his impressive track record in venture capital, including investments in notable firms like New Relic. He shares how a casual golf game sparked New Relic's Series A investment, illustrating the importance of trust in startup relationships. Fenton dives into the nuances of market timing and the concept of 'unlocking consumption' in today's investment landscape. Lastly, he reflects on the positive aspects of capital oversupply and how it can enhance innovation and collaboration within the venture ecosystem.
34:31

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Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

  • The origin of New Relic was sparked during a golf outing, recognizing the need for application performance management tools and providing developers with visibility into their applications.
  • Sustained commitment to product invention, focusing on delivering a wow-factor and user-friendly software experience, contributed to New Relic's long-term success.

Deep dives

The Origin Story of New Relic

The podcast episode discusses the origin story of New Relic, highlighting how the idea for the company originated during a golf outing between the co-founders. They recognized the need for application performance management (APM) tools and the potential to provide developers with visibility into their applications in the wild. The vision was to create a product that would enable application monitoring and help developers optimize their code and user experience. Despite initial doubts about the market's size, New Relic's simplified deployment process and the emergence of cloud services contributed to its growth into a significant company.

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