The consumer sector has seen a decline in VC funding. This is due to many factors such as the high churn rates and difficulty in find product market fit often saturated markets. Jess Lee knows both sides well having been co-founder and former CEO of Polyvore and currently a Partner at Sequoia Capital. Over her illustrious career, Jess has spent time working as Product Manager at Google, as CEO at Polyvore, and most recently as Partner at Sequoia Capital, where she became the youngest partner as well as the firm's first female Partner in the United States. We spent time exploring the many aspects of Jess' journey, her focus on consumer and community, and her outlook for the future of venture and startups in this episode from June 2020.

Do entrepreneurs need talent agents like movie stars?Is the future of the entertainment industry equity based? How do you become a better leader?These are just a few of the questions Jeremy Zimmer answers in his episode of my firstminute from June 2020. Jeremy Zimmer is the Chief Executive Officer and a co-founder of UTA. One of the industry’s leading agents for decades, he has been instrumental in establishing UTA as one of the world’s pre-eminent talent agencies with a reputation for its artist-first focus. He oversees more than 1,200 agents, executives and employees globally.After rising through the ranks as a talent agent, Zimmer co-founded UTA in 1991 and was named CEO in 2012. Since then, he’s led the company’s remarkable evolution into one of the world’s leading talent and entertainment companies through a series of ambitious acquisitions and expansions across news, speakers, content creation, music, esports, digital talent and sports spaces.From fabled Hollywood family to super-agent to multi-hyphenate entertainment leader, Zimmer has helped guide the careers of some of the most influential names in entertainment today and personally represents artists such as Bryan Cranston, Chance the Rapper, DJ Khaled, Chelsea Handler, Kevin Hart, Anthony Hopkins, Don Cheadle, Tyra Banks, Ryan Seacrest, Noah Baumbach, Brian Robbins, and YG.During the session, we explored everything from how Jeremy got started in his career, to his leadership advice in times of crisis, to his passion for the Arts, to his views on the future of media, entertainment and more.

What has Peter Fenton learned from his experience as one of Benchmark’s General Partners? Nurture relational curiosity VC is a youthful business Business logic doesn’t age well but human nature does There are just a few of the things he discusses with us in this episode of my firstminute from June 2020. Peter became a General Partner at Benchmark a little more than a decade ago after graduating from Stanford, part of the famous class of 1994 (which included the likes of Brian Acton, the founder of WhatsApp, and David Sacks, the C.E.O. of Zenefits). Peter was an early investor in Twitter, back when it had 25 employees and sat on the board until 2017.Peter's current investments include EngineYard, Lithium, New Relic, Pentaho, Polyvore, Terracotta, Yelp and Zendesk. He also sits on a number of boards including Yelp, Docker, Zuora and many more.

How did entrepreneurs fund businesses before venture capital? 💡💸Dr Hermann Hauser tells his story of how he co-founded Acorn back in 1978 with £50 of his own money. The computer company went on to become the “British Apple”. He was also co-founder of ARM ($31bn acquisition by Softbank), co-founder of Amadeus Capital, Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the Royal Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and an Honorary Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.Dr Hermann Hauser is a science-based innovator and serial entrepreneur who has successfully developed and financed over 100 high-tech companies whilst offering inspiration and mentorship to the next generation of entrepreneurs.In this episode from May 2020, firstminute co-founder and General Partner, Spencer Crawley sat down and spoke with Dr Hauser about his firstminute of his career and what he sees are the next big trends. Of the top 4 macro technological trends he’s spotted, he goes in depth into Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and the positive impact they will have on how … and how much individuals work. 

Three unicorn founders turned investors, Cristina Fonseca, Fabrice Grinda, and Paul Forster, discuss imposter syndrome, acquiring market share globally, lessons from successful and unsuccessful startups, and transitioning to investors post-exits.

Happy wife investor, happy lifeMany say an investor-founder relationship is like a marriage. That includes David Helgason and Bing Gordon.In this episode of myfirstminute from May 2020, we covered everything from the earliest days of their careers, as founder and CEO of Unity Technologies for David and Chief Creative Officer at EA for Bing, to how they now enjoy helping and backing founders. David is a founding Partner at Nordics Makers, a group of ten top Nordic angels, and also has his private vehicle, Foobar.vc. As for Bing, he joined Kleiner Perkins in 2008 and serves as Chief Product Officer for the firm. He also leads Kleiner Perkins' Fund, the investment initiative to fund and build applications and services that deliver on the promise of the social web. 

Mental health and sports have never been more intertwined. As conversations grow and taboos dwindle, mental health, or mental fitness as it’s increasingly being called, is an essential of our greater health. In this episode of myfirsminute podcast, we spoke with Rio Ferdinand (Former England and Manchester United Captain) and Michael Acton Smith OBE (Co-founder & CEO of Calm) in May 2020. This discussion ranged in focus, starting with Rio's journey from West Ham's youth team to playing professionally for Manchester United and as part of England's World Cup squads, leading on to his life and career post-football and his current interest in technology and investment. This was complimented by the exploration of Michael Acton Smith's journey in Founding Firebox.com, Mind Candy and most recently Calm ($1bn private valuation). Two exceptional leaders with a passion for health and technology, make for an insightful and inspiring conversation!

The power of a crisis, where to spend your startup budget and how do people learn. We discussed this and much more with Spencer Rascoff in May 2020. Spencer is Co-founder & former CEO of Zillow, Board Advisor at Tripadvisor, Co-founder & Executive Chairman of dot.LA, Co-founder Hotwire.com and Co-author of the New York Times' bestseller "Zillow Talk: The New Rules of Real Estate". We dived into Spencer's career as an investor, entrepreneur and company leader who has co-founded two businesses that became household names, Zillow ($8bn market cap) and Hotwire.com ($663m acquisition by IAC). Early this year, he also launched, dot.LA, a media and journalism company dedicated to covering and bringing together L.A.’s startup world.

What do history and tech have in common? More than you would think. An example is that most people are either Greek or Roman. Greeks are great thinkers, philosophers and architects. 🏛Romans are road builders, executors and operators. 🔨Finding the combination of greek and roman in one individual is very rare but not impossible. An example is Elon Musk, said Kevin Hartz, Co-Founder & Chairman at Eventbrite.During the session from May 2020, Kevin and Spencer Crawley, Co-founder and General Partner at firstminute capital, discussed the high and low points Kevin experienced with founding and growing Eventbrite and Xoom. They also covered his transition into the world of investing, the key criteria that he looks for as part of his investment process, and the advice he is currently employing with his own team and portfolio companies. Some of Kevin's early/seed investments include: Airbnb (Seed, Series A), Uber (Series B), Pinterest (Seed, Series A), and PayPal (Seed).

What are the elements which have driven Nico Rosberg to success in Formula One and in business? Nico Rosberg became Formula 1 World Champion in 2016 with Mercedes AMG Petronas and has since embarked on a career as a sustainability entrepreneur and investor in green technologies.Nico Rosberg's drive as an entrepreneur is fuelled by the will to drive positive change for society and mankind. He pursues this approach not only in his business activities, but also as an ambassador for sustainable change in mobility through technological innovation. Rosberg has invested in numerous successful start-ups such as Lilium, Volocopter, What3Words, Tier and Lyft. He is also an investor and shareholder of the all-electric racing series Formula E. Rosberg is also a co-owner of the German vehicle technology company TRE GmbH, one of the leading companies in the field of chassis development.In 2019, Nico co-founded the GREENTECH Festival, a global platform for innovative and pioneering green technologies, which attracted almost 40,000 visitors at its premiere.Nico remains linked to Formula One through his commentary for the German TV channels SKY & RTL, his Rosberg Racing young driver’s academy and his engineering company TRE. He continues his work as an ambassador for many outstanding brands such as Rolex, Deutsche Bahn, Kempinski Hotels and Heineken.In this episode of myfirstminute from May 2020, Nico talks about his racing career and how he’s driving the sustainability movement with GREENTECH Festival.