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

Jonathan Downey is the Founder & CEO @ Airware, the startup that allows you to make better-informed decisions with aerial date, captured by drones. They have raised over $65m in VC funding from some of the very best in the industry including a16z, Kleiner Perkins and Google Ventures just to name a few. Jonathan is also the General Partner @ Commerical Drone Fund, making $250K-$1m investments in early stage companies in the commercial drone space. Prior to Airware, Jonathan was a commercial pilot and a flight controls engineer @ Boeing. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jonathan made the move from commercial pilot to startup founder with one of the hottest drone startups, Airware? 2.) What has been the catalyst for the rising belief in the potential for drones? What has changed about the landscape to make them now not only a commercially viable opportunity but also consumer viable? 3.) How does Jonathan view the commercial landscape today? Where does Jonathan see the highest potential for the commercial application of drones? How does one approach go to market strategy and business model in a completely undefined landscape? 4.) What are the current barriers to adoption for corporations with drones? What does it mean and entail for an organization to adopt drones in terms of new workflows and training? What are the key transformative technologies that will enable new applications and market expansion? 5.) With incumbents now heavily investing in the space, does Jonathan believe this will be a market of disruption or consolidation and acquisition by the exisiting incumbents? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Jonathan's Fave Book: Elon Musk by Ashley Vance Jonathan's Fave Blog: Chris Dixon As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jonathan on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

Scott Raney is a Partner @ Redpoint Ventures, one of the valley's leading multi-stage funds with over 434 investments, close to $4bn in assets under management and 136 IPOs and M&A. At Redpoint Scott has made investments in the likes of Twilio, Stripe and Heroku, just to name a few. Prior to Redpoint, Scott was responsible for new products at NorthPoint Communications, and before that Scott worked at Bain & Company helping clients in the private equity and technology industries. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Scott made his first forays into the world of VC and came to be a Partner @ Redpoint Ventures? 2.) Why does Scott think it is a good thing that we have seen company funding down 6 quarters in a row? What does this mean for startups trying to raise? 3.) What 2 types of companies will continue to find it easy to raise in these markets? What types of companies will struggle to raise? Is there market cyclicality or a return to normal more sustainable times? 4.) Why are investors a lot less willing to take future fundraising risk? How does Scott view the optimal investment decision-making process for a VC partnership? Why does unanimity not work? 5.) Why does Scott believe it is dangerous to be a spreadsheet investor? With the bar being higher today, what are the milestones that startups need to reach in order to be attractive from an investment perspective? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Scott's Fave Book: Born To Run By Bruce Springsteen Scott's Fave Blog: Tom Tunguz Scott's Most Recent Investment: Hashicorp As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Scott on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

Keith Rabois is an investment partner at Khosla Ventures where he has led investments in Stripe, Thoughtspot, HealthTap and Teespring among many others. He also started OpenDoor, which aims to transform the process of selling a home through technology. Keith's unparalleled operational track record does not stop there as he has forged several of the most important new social and commerce platforms over the last decade holding key roles at LinkedIn, Paypal and being COO at Square. As a board member, Keith guided Yelp [NYSE: YELP] and Xoom [NASDAQ: XOOM] from inception to successful IPOs. Simultaneously, he also invested in other like-minded entrepreneurs with early stakes in YouTube [acquired by GOOG], Yammer [acquired by MSFT], Palantir, Lyft, AirBnB, Eventbrite and Quora. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Keith made the move from key executive at LinkedIn, Paypal and Square to being a VC with Khosla? 2.) Question from Lee Hower: What were the biggest learnings from playing a key role at LinkedIn, Paypal and Square? How do they compare to learning from Slide, a not so successful project? Does one learn more from success or failure? 3.) Question from Jason Lemkin: How can founders assess the potential of their teams? How long is it possible to allow individuals to stretch to their roles? What are the signs that people are either exceeding or falling below expectations? 4.) Eric Yuan @ Zoom has previously illustrated the importance to me of sustainable growth. What is Keith's view of this? Why does he not like this term? What are his thoughts on the key constraints on growth for most startups? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Keith's Fave Book: The Upside of Stress Keith's Fave Blog: Stratechery Keith's Most Recent Investment: Forward As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Keith on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

Harley Finkelstein is the COO @ Shopify, the e-commerce platform that has allowed a generation of people to become entrepreneurs and business owners. Harley joined the business with revenues of $5m, today the company has targeted this year for over $600m with over 400,000 merchants on the platform. They have raised over $120m in VC funding from very good friends of the show including Aydin @ Felicis, Jeremy @ Bessemer and Amish @ Firstmark. In May 2015, Shopify went public with a valuation north of $1bn. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Harley make the move from laywer to COO @ Shopify? 2.) Question from Aydin @ Felicis: What have been some strategic inflection points that at the time did not seem like a big deal? How have Harley and Shopify produced and maintained such consistent revenue growth? What is the secret? 3.) Why does Harley believe that the future of retail is not online vs offline? How does Harley react to the suggestion that retail stores need to transition from transaction based, to experience based? 4.) How does Harley view the rise of personal brand in today's technological world? How has this allowed previously non-monetized channels to be monetized? What are some good examples of this? 5.) Why did Harley and Shopify choose to IPO in 2015? How was the roadshow? What was the key learnings for Harley both pre and post-IPO? What does Harley believe it means to be a trusted public company? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Harley's Fave Book: High Output Management Harley's Fave Blog: Wait But Why Harley's Fave Shopify Store: Boosted Boards As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Harley on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

Josh Wolfe, a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Lux Capital, dives into the world of venture capital, discussing his unique journey from science labs to investing. He shares his insights on thematic investing and warns of 'tourist VCs' poised to lose big. Wolfe explains how he identifies the tipping point where heavy science becomes commercialized, emphasizing the need for a robust methodology. He also addresses concerns regarding R&D investment trends and the implications of shorter liquidity cycles in today's market.

Mattias Ljungman is a Co-Founder and General Partner @ Atomico, one of Europe's leading VC funds which Mattias launched in 2006 alongside Niklas Zennstrom. Whilst at Atomico Mattias has been involved in significant exits and transcations including SUpercell (acquired by Softbank), Climate Corporation (acquired by Monsanto and 6Wunderkinder (acquired by Microsoft), just to name a few. As for Harry, Harry Stebbings is the founder of The Twenty Minute VC, the world's largest independent VC podcast with guests including Brad Feld, Andy Rachleff, Peter Fenton and many more. Harry also works very closely with Jason Lemkin @ SaaStr where they work to produce The Official SaaStr Podcast. More recently, Harry joined the fantastic team at Atomico as an EIR on the investment team. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Harry made his first foray into the world of entrepreneurship and then made the move into VC? 2.) From interviewing over 800 of the world's best investors, what have been the biggest takeaways for Harry, both in the realms of investing and interacting with entrepreneurs? 3.) What does Harry believes makes a truly great interview? Is it sheer intellectual rigour or does charisma and energy play a large role? Does Harry release all the episodes he records? 4.) What have been Harry's major takeaways since joining the team at Atomico? What have been the best moments both in terms of intellectual learning and then sentimental memories? 5.) How has Harry's perception and analysis of the VC market changed over the 800 interviews? What does Harry see as the fundamental emerging trends within the VC model itself? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Harry's Fave Book: Madame Bovary, What I Learned Losing A Million Dollars Harry's Fave Blog: Mattermark Daily As always you can follow Harry, Mattias and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

Bill Clerico is the Co-Founder & CEO @ WePay, the most complete payments solution for platforms. To date, they have raised close to $75m in VC funding from some of the best in the business including Max Levchin, Dave McClure and August Capital just to name a few. As for Bill, alongside his role with WePay, Bill is a part-time partner @ Y Combinator and an angel investor. Prior to startups, Bill cut his teeth in the industry at Jefferies in investment banking. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Bill made his way into the world of startups from investment banking? 2.) How does Bill assess the pivot? What is required to pivot successfully? How can this be communicated to both your board and your team? 3.) How does Bill look to relationship build with investors? What are the fundamentals to a healthy and sustainable investor relationship? 4.) Why should founders ensure they are not the only company representative with the board? What are the benefits of the board having many touchpoints within the family? How can this be done effectively? 5.) What does Bill mean he says you must have an 'opinionated culture'? How can this be conveyed to the team and across the organisation? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Bill's Fave Book: Failure Is Not An Option Bill's Fave Blog: The Information As always you can follow Harry, Bill and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

Brendan Wallace, Co-founder of Fifth Wall, dives into the intricate world of real estate tech. He discusses the strategic value LPs can bring to portfolio companies, and the unique dynamics between corporate and traditional LPs. Brendan predicts that autonomous cars could disrupt the real estate industry, detailing the risks and potential timeline for this shift. He also highlights the evolving urban landscape and the challenges of securing funding in the tech-driven real estate market.

Beezer Clarkson is Managing Director @ Sapphire Ventures where she leads Sapphire's investments in venture funds domestically and internationally. Prior to joining Sapphire, Beezer managed day-to-day operations @ DFJ's Global Network, which had $7 billion under management across 16 venture funds worldwide. She has also spent time at Omidyar Network created by Ebay founder, Pierre Omdiyar, Hewlett Packard and Morgan Stanley. Beezer also founded OpenLP.com, an effort to help foster greater understanding in the entrepreneur-to-LP tech ecosystem. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Beezer make her way into the world of limited partners? 2.) How has the venture industry performed as a whole for Q1 2017 both in funds raised and $ invested? How does this compare to previous years? 3.) How is the 1st time fund manager ecosystem developing? Is it fair to say that first-time funds and micro funds are now an established part of LP portfolios? To what extent does shortening fund cycles concern Beezer? 4.) What other areas of the market have we seen explosive growth in? Why was the # of $100-$250m down last year? Why is it different this year? 5.) How does Beezer analyze the recent activity in the public markets? How does this liquidity affect the fundraising market for both startups and GPs? Will we see a return to bubble like times? As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Beezer on Twitter here! The thoughts, comments and opinions in this podcast do not represent investment advice and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sapphire Ventures. Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

Jason Brown is the Founder & CEO @ Tally, the startup that is building a better credit card experience giving power to the consumer. They have investment from some of the leading names in early stage finance including Shasta Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, Ludlow Ventures and Blake Byers @ GV just to name a few. As for Jason, prior to Tally, he founded 3 further startups including most recently Gen110 where helped to bring a new consumer debt product market that finances residential solar installs. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Jason come to found Tally following his 3 prior startup founding experiences? 2.) Why does Jason think you should never settle with candidate hires? What shall startups do when they are growing fast and need someone now? Why does Jason believe you should never use external recruiters? 3.) As this is Jason's 4th startup and he has raised from the likes of Kleiner Perkins in the past, what has Jason learned in terms of fundraising through his past entrepreneurial experiences? What does Jason believe founders should look for from their VCs? 4.) Why does Jason believe that in the majority of cases 'move fast and break things is completely wrong'? What industries does Jason believe you have to lean into the regulators? 5.) How does Jason look to instill radical candor within Tally as a fast scaling startup? What does Jason think this is important for all startups to have engrained in them? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Jason's Fave Book: Science of Interstellar Jason's Fave Blog: First Round Review As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jason on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com - and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.