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

20VC: The Services Model of Venture Capital is Broken, The Best Founders Do Need Help, The Most Important Signals to Assess When Meeting Founders & Why Kids Bring Less Happiness and More Joy with Phin Barnes @ TheGP

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Oct 2, 2023

Phin Barnes, Co-founder and Managing Partner of The General Partnership, shares insights from his rich venture capital journey. He discusses why he believes the current services model of VC is broken, emphasizing that even top founders often need support. Phin also touches on the importance of personalized engagement in supporting startups, contrasting fleeting happiness with deeper joy in relationships, particularly in parenting. His reflections on transitioning from a successful career in creative direction to venture capital are both inspiring and thought-provoking.

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ADVICE

Intentional Work

Be intentional about your work and focus on continuous improvement.
Practice the technical aspects of venture investing, like interviewing and coaching founders.

INSIGHT

Founder Priorities

Understanding a founder's priorities is key to successful partnerships.
Ask questions that reveal their motivations and operating style to assess their leadership potential.

ANECDOTE

Early Hustle

Phin Barnes built a lawn-mowing subscription business as a teenager.
He prioritized his time by scheduling during the week, demonstrating early entrepreneurial traits.

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Phin Barnes is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of The General Partnership (TheGP), a venture capital firm that’s redefining what partnership means for founders. Previously, Phin spent over a decade at First Round Capital, where he was responsible for over 60 investments including Blue Apron, Notion, Clover Health, Gauntlet and Persona. Before First Round, he created an independent video game company and before that was an early employee at AND 1 Basketball where he helped scale the brand from $15 to $225 million in revenue and served as the Creative Director for Footwear.

In Today's Episode with Phin Barnes We Discuss:

From Creative Director to Venture Capitalist:

How did Phin make his way into the world of venture having been a Creative Director at a basketball brand?
What does Phin know now that he wishes he could tell himself on his first day in venture?
What are 1-2 of Phin's biggest lessons from his 10 years at First Round which shapes how he invests?

2. The Venture Capital Model is Broken:

Why does Phin believe the current services model of venture is broken?
Do the best founders need your help?
What have been some of the biggest lessons in what the best founders want from their VCs?
What happens to this generation of firms with massive support teams?
Do VCs use these support teams merely to justify massive fund size scaling to LPs?

3. The Venture Landscape Today:

How can we compete in a seed landscape of $5M on $25M against large multi-stage firms?
What founders types are attracted to big brands? What founder profiles are taken in by large rounds and high prices?
Is Phin more or less excited about seed-stage investing now than he has been before?

4. Investing Lessons 101:

What is Phin's biggest hit? How did seeing their success impact his mindset?
What is Phin's biggest loss? How did the loss impact how he views investing?
Traction, team, market; how does Phin rank the three in prioritisation?
What should all young people know when entering the venture landscape?