The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch 20VC: How To Do a 10x Seed Fund in 2025 | Three Frameworks to Evaluate Startups an Founders | Lessons from Losing Billions Missing Airbnb and Pinterest & Investing Lessons from Charlie Munger with Mike Maples @ Floodgate
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Jan 6, 2025 
In a captivating discussion, Mike Maples, co-founding partner at Floodgate and veteran seed investor, shares his insights from two decades in venture capital. He tackles the effectiveness of seed funding as an asset class and lays out strategies for achieving a 10x return. Mike reflects on valuable lessons learned from missing out on Airbnb and Pinterest, while revealing three frameworks for evaluating startups. He also addresses challenges posed by overfunding and the critical importance of product-market fit in today’s investment landscape.
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Smaller Seed Funds
- Create smaller seed funds (e.g., $10M) to make smaller investments (e.g., $100K).
- This allows for attracting valuable angels and playing in a less crowded space.
Fund Size as Strategy
- Fund size dictates your investment strategy and the bar for success.
- A larger fund demands proportionally larger returns from a small number of winning investments.
Dedicated Follow-On Partner
- Dedicate a partner solely to follow-on investments and hold them accountable for those returns.
- This prevents emotional decision-making and promotes objective evaluation.