To access all our features

Open the Goodpods app
Close icon

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

Harry Stebbings

Star filled black icon

5.0

(10)

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) interviews the world's greatest venture capitalists with prior guests including Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Once per week, 20VC Host, Harry Stebbings is also joined by one of the great founders of our time with prior founder episodes from Spotify's Daniel Ek, Linkedin's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman. If you would like to see more of The Twenty Minute VC (20VC), head to www.20vc.com for more information on the podcast, show notes, resources and more.

 ...more

16 Listeners

1 Comment

All episodes

Best episodes

Top 10 The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch Episodes

Best episodes ranked by Goodpods Users most listened

episode art

20VC: Bill Gurley and Howard Marks: What Happened In 2020? What Can We Expect Looking Forward to 2021?

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

play

01/04/21 • 41 min

Star filled black icon

5.0

Howard Marks is co-chairman and co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, a leading investment firm with more than $120 billion in assets. Prior to founding Oaktree, Howard spent 10 years at The TCW Group, where he was responsible for investments in distressed debt, high yield bonds, and convertible securities. Howard has also written two books, most recently Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side, and it was Warren Buffet who said, “When I see memos from Howard Marks in my mail, they’re the first thing I open and read. I always learn something.”

Bill Gurley is a General Partner @ Benchmark Capital, one of the most successful funds of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Uber, Twitter, Dropbox, WeWork, Snapchat, StitchFix, eBay and many many more. As for Bill, widely recognised as one of the greats of our time having worked with the likes of GrubHub, NextDoor, Uber, OpenTable, Stitch Fix and Zillow. Prior to Benchmark, Bill was a partner with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Before entering venture, Bill spent four years on Wall Street as a top-ranked research analyst, including three years at CS First Boston.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) In March Ray Dalio stated we would be entering a "global recession", how do Howard and Bill feel about this statement? How does today's environment remind Howard and Bill of 2010/11? What is similar? What is different? How does Bill think about investing through cycles?

2.) How does Bill think about investing through cycles? What have Bill's lessons been from seeing many venture vintages on LP performance across cycles? How does Howard think about investing through cycles from a distressed debt perspective? What have his lessons been from Oaktree's performance over the years?

3.) Do Howard and Bill agree we will not see interest rates go anywhere for the next 3-5 years? What is the impact of this sustained low-interest rate environment? What could be done that would see interest rates increase in the future? How does Bill believe this will impact the supply of LP dollars in venture?

4.) How do Bill and Howard evaluate the state of the public markets today? Why does Howard believe that FOMO has really taken effect? How does Bill think about network effects and the laws of compounding with regards to public companies?

5.) Do Howard and Bill agree we are seeing a retreat from globalisation? What are the core impacts of this retreat? Why is Bill so concerned about "regulatory capture"? Why does Bill fear that today, "Washington is for sale"? What would he like to see change?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode

Howard’s Favourite Book: Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America

Bill’s Favourite Book: How Innovation Works

As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for all things 20VC.

4 Listeners

2

bookmark
share episode

Sahil Bloom is the Founding Partner @ SRB Ventures, a $10M fund that leverages the 500K followers Sahil has amassed to invest at the intersection of venture and media. Previously, Sahil spent 7 years at a large investment fund managing >$3.5 billion in capital and serves on the board of 4 companies. He has also been an active angel investor in over 30 companies.

In Today’s Episode with Sahil Bloom You Will Learn:

1.) How Sahil made his way from a career in traditional finance to building a media company and leveraging that to raise the latest SRB fund? How does Sahil advise others is the best way to "find their zone of genius"?

2.) How To Build a Media Engine:

  • What have been some of Sahil's biggest lessons on what works on Twiter and what does not work?
  • What is the golden rule for Twitter?
  • How does Sahil plan and come up with ideas for his Twitter threads? What tools and software does he use? How long does each thread take?

3.) The End of the Road for Traditional Venture:

  • Why does Sahil think traditional venture is dying?
  • What newcomers will take the place of the existing incumbents?
  • Why does he think they are weak? What do new players provide that they do not?
  • Which existing players will remain and be strong? Which will fade out?
  • Does Sahil believe that VCs really provide any value?

4.) SRB Ventures:

  • Why did Sahil decide to raise the new fund?
  • How did he decide on size of the fund? What is the strategy? What is the portfolio construction?
  • How does SRB provide media services others do not?
  • How did Sahil meet Tim Cook and get him to invest in the fund?
  • What is the biggest thing Sahil believes most people misunderstand about luck?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Sahil Bloom

Sahil’s Favourite Book: When Breath Becomes Air: Kalanithi Paul

Sahil’s Most Recent Investment: Wander

3 Listeners

bookmark
share episode

David Friedberg is Founder and CEO of The Production Board (TPB), a holding company established to solve the most fundamental problems that affect our planet, by reimagining global systems of production. Prior to founding The Production Board, David founded The Climate Corporation, a 10-year journey that culminated in their $930M acquisition by Monsanto. If that was not enough, David is the Founder and Chairman at Metromile and also sits on the board of Soylent, Clara Foods, Tillable, Cana Technologies and more.

In Today’s Episode with David Friedberg You Will Learn:

1.) Origins:

  • How David made his way into the world of startups and technology from academia and physics?
  • What were David's biggest takeaways from scaling The Climate Corp to $930M exit to Monsanto?
  • How did the exit put pressure on David for all future companies he builds? How does he manage that?

2.) The Macro: Venture + The Economy

  • How does David foresee the impending rate hikes? What impact will this have on venture and the economy?
  • What segment of the market will be first to be hit? Why is growth investing last to be hit? How does early stage play out in this very new environment?
  • How will we see the velocity of capital deployment change in this new period? What does David believe are some of the crucial flaws of the venture model?
  • How does David reflect on his own price sensitivity? What lessons has he learned from deals he has done or missed that have changed his perspective?

3.) David Frankel: The Business Builder

  • What is David's rubrik for business value creation? How has this changed with time?
  • How mentally plastic does one have to be around the time it takes to see margins, unit economics etc change from negative to positive?
  • How does David and the team approach building new companies at TPB? Where do they find the founding teams? How do they incentivise them?
  • How does TPB approach continuous funding for the companies they create? What milestones need to be hit? How do they assess them?
  • How does David approach liquidity with regards to exits for the companies they create? Why does their holding company structure mean they have different incentives to VCs?

4.) David Friedberg: Father and Husband

  • How does David reflect on his own relationship to money today? How has it changed over time?
  • What have been David's biggest realisations on what provides him true happiness?
  • How did having children change his operating mentality? What does being a great father mean to David?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with David Friedberg

David’s Favourite Book: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

3 Listeners

bookmark
share episode

Scott Belsky is an entrepreneur, author, investor, and currently serves as Adobe’s Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Scott oversees all of product and engineering for Creative Cloud, as well as design for Adobe. In 2006, Scott founded Behance, the leading online platform for the creative industry, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Behance now has over 25M members. Scott is also an early advisor and investor in Pinterest, Uber, Sweetgreen, Carta, Flexport, Airtable, and several others. Finally, if that was not enough, Scott is the author of two national bestselling books - Making Ideas Happen and The Messy Middle.

In Today’s Episode with Scott Belsky You Will Learn:

1.) Narrow the Focus, Increase the Quality:

  • What does Scott believe is the core challenge in product?
  • What was the single biggest product challenge Scott faced at Behance? How did they overcome it?
  • When should product teams listen to customer feedback vs ignore it?
  • What are the core questions product teams should ask user groups to extract the most feedback and value?

2.) The Importance of the First Mile:

  • What does Scott believe makes a great first mile when it comes to the product experience?
  • Where do so many companies go wrong in creating the first mile user experience?
  • Which company at scale has retained this simplicity of the first mile? How did they do it?
  • What does Scott mean when he says, "the devil is in the defaults"? What can product teams learn from this?

3.) The Makings of a Great Product Leader:

  • What are the 3 core questions every great product leader should ask on every screen?
  • How do the best product leaders structure product reviews?
  • Who is invited to product reviews? How often are they? Who sets the agenda? When is it sent?
  • What do the best product leaders do to retain direction and productivity in reviews when there are many people and many ideas? How do they stay on track?

4.) The Hirings of a Great Product Team:

  • How can founders know whether to hire the product leader or retain the role? When is the right time?
  • What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when hiring their first product hires?
  • How should founders structure the hiring process for product hires? What should they look to gain from each interview?
  • What are the must ask questions in those interviews? How do the best respond?
  • What case studies or physical tests can be done to determine the quality of a candidate?

2 Listeners

bookmark
share episode

Ralf Wenzel is the Founder & CEO @ JOKR, a global platform for instant retail delivery at a hyper-local scale serving both the US and LATAM. Ralf has raised over $260M for the company, most recently valuing it at $1.2BN. Prior to JOKR, Ralf spent 7 years as the Founder & CEO @ foodpanda, as well as, enjoying roles as Chief Strategy Officer @ Delivery Hero, Interim Chief Product and Experience Officer @ WeWork and even moving to the other side of the table as a Managing Partner with Softbank.

In Today’s Episode with Ralf Wenzel You Will Learn:

1.) What is the unit economic breakdown for quick commerce business models? What levers can be used to improve it over time?

2.) Comparing the US to LATAM:

  • What is the AOV (average order value) in the US vs LATAM?
  • What is the order frequency in the US vs LATAM?
  • How does labour cost vary when comparing LATAM to the US?
  • How does real estate cost for fulfilment centres differ when comparing LATAM to the US?
  • How do product margins on a per product basis differ when comparing US to LATAM?

3.) New Market Growth and Maturation:

  • What is the payback period for new markets? How has this changed over time?
  • How does the payback period reduce with every new market being opened?
  • What % of AOV is spent on marketing when a new market is opened? How does this marketing spend change over time?
  • In mature markets, how much new customer acquisition is organic vs paid?
  • What is the average weekly growth rate in new vs mature markets?

4.) Business Model Expansions:

  • How does Ralf and JOKR approach the potential for private label goods?
  • How does private label change the margin structure of the goods?
  • What have been their lessons from starting their first private label goods?
  • How does Ralf approach the ability to integrate advertising and paid search?
  • What is needed for paid search and advertising to be a meaningful part of the business?

2 Listeners

bookmark
share episode

Mark Cuban is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Today we are focused on Mark's latest entrepreneurial endeavor, starting Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drug Company, the online pharmacy taking out the middlemen, meaning no price games and huge drug savings. As mentioned, Mark is also the proud owner of Dallas Mavericks, since his taking over they have competed in the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history in 2006 – and became NBA World Champions in 2011. Before Dallas Mavericks, Mark co-founded Broadcast.com – streaming audio over the internet. In just four short years, Broadcast.com (then Audionet) was sold to Yahoo for $5.6 billion dollars. If that was not enough, Mark is also one of ABC’s “Sharks” on the hit show Shark Tank.

In Today’s Episode with Mark Cuban You Will Learn:

1.) Cost Plus Drugs: Origin

  • Why Mark decided to build Cost Plus Drugs?
  • Why has no one done it before?
  • How does Mark think about resource and time allocation with Cost Plus?

2.) Building the Team: Hiring

  • How does mark analyze his approach to hiring? Where is he weak? Where is he strong?
  • What one motto does Mark always use when it comes to hiring?
  • What is the most common mistake Mark sees founders make when it comes to team build?
  • How does Mark identify stress removers? What are the core signals?

3.) Brand + Capital + Business Strategy:

  • Why is the current cost structure of healthcare so damaged in the US? How does Cost Plus change this?
  • How does Mark think about what it takes to build great brand today? Why will Cost Plus not be doing big TV and traditional media advertising?
  • What types of guerilla marketing is Mark most excited by? Why will Mark never have a billboard in Times Square?

4.) AMA with Mark Cuban:

  • What 3 traits does Mark most want his children to adopt?
  • What worries Mark most today?
  • What are Mark's biggest strengths? What are his biggest weaknesses?
  • What single purchase has brought Mark the greatest joy?

2 Listeners

bookmark
share episode

Kyle Parrish is VP Sales @ Figma, the company that connects everyone in the design process so teams can deliver better products, faster. At Figma, Kyle built the sales engine from scratch to today, with over 100 incredible people in sales. Before Figma, Kyle spent over 5 years at Dropbox in numerous different roles including Head of Sales, where he scaled the Austin, Texas office from 3 to over 80 people to Global Partnerships lead, where he was responsible for growing Dropbox’s partner ecosystem.

In Today’s Episode with Kyle Parrish You Will Learn:

1.) How Kyle first made his way into the world of sales and came to be one of the 3 performing sales reps in a 300+ sales team? How that led to his joining the hypergrowth journey of Dropbox? What led Kyle to make the move from Dropbox to the rocketship that is Figma?

2.) When and Who: Does the founder need to be the person to create the sales playbook? How can a founder know whether it is right to hire sales reps or a Head of Sales first? In terms of ARR, is there a time when you have to have a Head of Sales? Does Kyle agree with Jason Lemkin in terms of bringing in reps, two at a time? Where do founders make the biggest mistakes when it comes to the timing of these hires?

3.) How To Know and Test: What non-obvious characteristics do 10x sales hires have? What questions or case studies does Kyle find to be most revealing in identifying these non-obvious traits? How should founders structure the process for new reps and a Head of Sales? Meeting by meeting, what should we look to achieve?

4.) Setting Up for Success: What does the ideal onboarding process look like for new sales reps? What tasks and processes would Kyle expect new reps to complete within the first month or two on the job? What are the clearest signs of a new rep hire not working out? How should founders approach 1-1 and 360 reviews with their new reps?

5.) Working Together: What is the ideal relationship between the founder and the new Head of Sales? How often should they meet? What should the founder expect from the new Head of Sales? How should the Head of Sales work with the Head of Marketing most efficiently?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Kyle Parrish

Kyle's Favourite Sales Blog Post: The Sales Learning Curve

2 Listeners

1

bookmark
share episode

Marcos Galperin is the Founder and CEO @ MercadoLibre, one of LATAM's most successful companies of the last 2 decades. Today MercadoLibre's market cap exceeds $78Bn and the business includes everything from commerce to payments to logistics. Marcos is widely considered one of the great entrepreneurs of the last 2 decades scaling the business from its founding in 1999 while in business school at Stanford to today, a leader in LATAM operating across 18 countries and plans to end 2021 with over 32,000 employees.

In Today’s Episode with Marcos Galperin You Will Learn:

1.) How Marcos made his way into the world of startups and came up with the idea for MercadoLibre while at Stanford Business School?

2.) Talent Acquisition and Retention: What have been some of Marcos' biggest lessons on what it takes to acquire A* talent? Does Marcos believe individuals can scale across company stages? When is a stretch hire a stretch too far? What has been the secret to Marcos having such a retained leadership team? What works? What does not?

3.) Risk and Decision-Making: How does Marcos evaluate his relationship to risk today? What frameworks does Marcos use to make effective decisions today? How does Marcos think about short term vs long term when it comes to resource allocation? How does Marcos prioritise where he makes decisions vs where he is willing to delegate?

4.) Funding and The Crash: How does Marcos reflect on his biggest lessons from going through 2 crashes with MercadoLibre? How did he change the way he ran the business post crash? How does Marcos advise founders today when big rounds are on offer, take the money or wait? What other components are important to consider in this decision?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Marcos Galperin

Parker’s Favourite Book: Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!

2 Listeners

1

bookmark
share episode

Bill Gurley is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful funds of the last decade with a portfolio including Uber, Twitter, Dropbox, Modern Treasury, Snapchat, StitchFix, and many more. As for Bill, widely recognized as one of the greats in venture having worked with GrubHub, NextDoor, Uber, OpenTable, Stitch Fix, and Zillow. Prior to Benchmark, Bill was a partner with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.

Michael Eisenberg spent 15 years as a General Partner @ Benchmark working alongside Bill and the Benchmark partnership. Following Benchmark, Michael co-founded Aleph, one of the leading Israeli venture funds of the last decade with a portfolio including Lemonade, Melio, and HoneyBook, just to name a couple of Aleph's unicorns.

In Today’s Episode with Bill Gurley and Michael Eisenberg You Will Learn:

1.) How does the current market activity in venture today compare to the dot com bubble? What elements are different? What elements are the same? What were the ramifications of the dot com bubble? Would Bill and Michael expect to see the same again? Is there anything good that comes from bubbles? How did the prior bubble impact Michael and Bill's investing mindset?

2.) Does Bill Gurley agree that Benchmark are the only firm to have retained price discipline in this crazy market? How do Bill and Michael think about their own relationship to price today? How does Bill try and answer the question, "what could go right?" when he meets entrepreneurs today? On reflection, what have been Michael and Bill's biggest miss? How did it change their approach?

3.) How does one compete in a world of Tiger and crossover funds? When it comes to capital deployment and pacing, do Michael and Bill agree with the suggestion of "playing the game on the field"? What are the nuances to this statement? What companies does Bill believe capital can be a moat for? What companies is capital not a moat and they should be conservative with raising and pre-emptive rounds?

4.) Do Bill and Michael believe that ownership still matters today with outcomes being larger than ever? How do Bill and Michael feel about the importance of temporal diversification today in a world of compressed deployment cycles? What investing lesson learned over 25 years in the business do Bill and Michael wish they had known when they started?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Bill Gurley and Michael Eisenberg

Bill’s Favourite Book: The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

2 Listeners

1

bookmark
share episode

Rafael Ilishayev is the Co-Founder & Co-CEO @ GoPuff, one of the market leaders delivering daily essentials in minutes. GoPuff's latest funding round priced the company at a reported $8.9Bn in March 2021 and to date, Rafael has raised over $2.4Bn for the company from the likes of Accel, Softbank, Fidelity, Baillie Gifford, D1 Capital and more. Rafael has scaled the company to over 550 US cities with over 7,000 employees nationwide.

In Today’s Episode with Rafael Ilishayev You Will Learn:

1.) How Rafael made his way into the world of startups with the founding of GoPuff and how he turned it from a college delivery business into a nationwide leader with over 7,000 employees?

2.) Funding: Why did Raf wait until 2.5 years into the business before raising funding? What did that time bootstrapping the business teach Raf? How did it change his thinking on unit economics? How were GoPuff able to be EBITDA profitable from day 1? How do they have such superior margins in an industry blighted by low margins?

3.) New Markets: How does GoPuff determine attractive markets to scale into? What are the leading indicators of "good markets"? What resources are required to open new markets? What is the time to breakeven on new markets? How many micro-fulfilment centres does it take to win a new market? What are the biggest challenges moving into new markets?

4.) Competition: The market has become a lot more competitive, why does Raf feel this is not a market you can win without years of experience? What have they built that other new entrants do not have? Will this be a consolidatory landscape or will many of the new entrants die? Why is Raf planning to invest hundreds of millions into Europe over the coming years?

5.) Driver Efficiency & CACs: What have been Raf's biggest lessons when it comes to driver efficiency? How many deliveries does a driver need to make in one hour for the model to work? How does Raf think about the negative network effects of the model where the more demand, the longer delivery time? How can GoPuff prevent that?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Rafael Ilishayev

Rafael’s Favourite Book: Trillion-Dollar Coach: The Leadership Handbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell

As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!

2 Listeners

bookmark
share episode

Show more

Toggle view more icon
























































Comments

5.0

out of 5

Star filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey Icon
Star filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey Icon
Star filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey Icon
Star filled grey IconStar filled grey Icon
Star filled grey Icon

10 Ratings

Star iconStar iconStar iconStar iconStar icon

Review or comment on this podcast...

Post

Garrett

@garrett

May 8

Interesting interviews with some world class VCs and entrepreneurs. Some of the quick editing cuts are a bit jarring so I wish it was edited a little bit better. But still, an overall strong podcast.

Like

Reply

Generate a badge

Get a badge for your website that links back to this

Select type & size
Open dropdown icon

Copy