The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Episodes
20VC: Why Signalling Risk is Real, What Founders Need to Know About Taking Multi-Stage Money vs Seed Fund Money, Lessons Scaling to $600M AUM, The Secret to Hiring in VC; Hire People with No VC Experience & How Venture Will Be Disrupted with Rob Lacher
07 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Rob Lacher founded Visionaries Club in 2019, in just 3 years he has scaled the firm to $600M AUM and backed some of Europe's best including Xentral, ...
20VC: The Memo: Scaling to $600M Revenues with No Venture Funding, The Most In Detail Breakdown of Consumer Subscription Unit Economics & Why D2C and Consumer Subscription is Not a VC Backable Model with Mike Salguero, Founder @ ButcherBox
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Salguero is the Founder and CEO @ ButcherBox, the meat delivery subscription service that he has scaled to $600M in revenue, 215 employees and t...
20VC: Shopify Founder Tobi Lütke on Why Micromanagement is Good | Why You Will Learn More From Studying World of Warcraft Guilds Than You Will Companies | Why Happiness is BS; Lessons on Marriage, Fatherhood & Decision-Making Quality
03 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tobi Lütke is the CEO and Co-Founder of Shopify, the powerhouse company allowing anyone to start and grow their e-commerce business. Over an incredi...
20VC: The Secret to Negotiating; Making $50BN for Yahoo on Alibaba | Why Everything You Know About Hiring is Wrong; Domain Knowledge and Past Experience are Dangerous | The Next 10 Years for Fintech; Winners, Losers and Crypto with Jackie Reses, CEO @ Lea
31 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jackie Reses is the Chair and CEO of Lead Bank, a community bank in Kansas City. Previously, she was the Executive Chairman of Square Financial Ser...
20Product: Nubank's CPO on Why Product is 90% Science and 10% Art, Why Execution is Overrated and Strategic Clarity is Under-Appreciated, Why You Should Never Fall in Love With Your Own Ideas & Nubank's Biggest Product Challenges Scaling to 80M Users
29 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jag Duggal is the CPO @ Nubank where he is responsible for product strategy and roadmap reporting to CEO David Velez. Jag leads over 200 professional...
20VC: Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi on Why Uber Eats is Not Losing the Fight to Doordash | Uber's M&A Strategy; A Scorecard Analysis from Careem to Postmates & Skip | Why Uber's Investment in Scooters was a Mistake | Secret to Marriage, Parenting & High Per
27 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dara Khosrowshahi is the CEO of Uber, where he has managed the company's business in more than 70 countries around the world since 2017. Dara was pre...
20VC: Three Core Lessons for Founders From the SVB Crisis From Financial Agility (Banking) to Constructing Scenario Plans and Mastering Crisis Communications | How The Western World Has Not Been Responsible with its Money & Why The Fed Is Backing Itself I
24 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Maples is one of the OGs of seed investing. As the Co-Founder of Floodgate, he has backed the likes of Twitch, Okta, Lyft, Twitter and more. Mik...
20Sales: The 3 Profiles of a Sales Rep, How to Negotiate in a Sales Process, How to Sell to a CFO & How You Should Shift Sales Messaging in a Downturn with Frank Fillmann, CRO @ Salesforce Australia
22 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Frank Fillman is CRO/Country Leader Australia for Salesforce where he is responsible for responsible for the overall strategy, execution, success, an...
20VC: Bill Ackman on The Banking Crisis, What the Fed Should Do, The Three-Tiered Banking System, Why SVB is the Safest, Why Jamie Dimon Should Run For President & Investing Lessons; Losing $400M on Netflix and Making $2.8BN in COVID
20 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Bill Ackman is the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P., an SEC-registered investment adviser founded in 2003. Pershing Square is a concen...
20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital
17 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ophelia Brown is the Founder of Blossom Capital, one of Europe's newest but leading early-stage venture firms. Ophelia and the Blossom team have inve...
20Growth: The Inside Story to Uber's Hypergrowth Scaling; What Worked, What Did Not? | Spending a $1BN Budget at Uber and Why China was the Wild West for Uber | Why You Do Not Need a Growth Team with Adam Grenier
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Grenier is an OG of the growth world. His first role in growth, was none other than Uber where he was Head of Growth Marketing and Innovation bu...
20VC: SVB: What Happened? What Happens Now? Will Depositors Have Deposits Guaranteed? How Long Will It Take? Will There Be a Buyer? Who is the Most Likely Buyer? What is the Best and Worst Outcome?
12 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jackie Reses is the CEO of Lead Bank and previous Exec Chair of Square Financial Services and Head of Lending and Banking. One of only people to have...
20VC: Why AI Will Lead to Thousands of Billionaires and Elon Musk's, Will TikTok Be Banned and How Facebook Should Be Investing in AI & Why Startups Have Become Too Soft; We Need a Spiritual Reform with Amjad Masad, Founder & CEO @ Replit
10 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Amjad Masad is the Founder and CEO @ Replit, whose mission is to bring the next billion software creators online. With Replit, Amjad has raised over ...
20Product: Shopify's VP Product on Why the Founder is Always the Head of Product, What Makes Truly Special Product Managers, Why The Majority of Product Managers Need to Change, Why Top-Down Decision-Making in Product is Good & How Shopify Will Be Bigger
08 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Glen Coates is the VP of Product @ Shopify, leading the development of Shopify's core commerce platform. He also oversees the core developer platform...
20VC: Meta CMO Alex Schultz on The Crucible Moments Scaling Facebook to 1BN Users, Turning Facebook Reels Into a Monetisation Engine, Competing Against TikTok and SNAP, Coming Out in the World of Tech; The Challenges and What Needs to Change
06 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Schultz is the Chief Marketing Officer and VP of Analytics for Meta (formerly Facebook), leading Marketing, Analytics, and Internationalization....
20VC: Will LPs Pull Out of Existing Managers, How Will Fund Sizes Change Moving Forward, Is Now The Time to be Aggressive on Secondaries, What is the Discount on Secondaries Today, Who Will Win and Lose in the Next Five Years with Hunter Somerville, Partn
03 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hunter Somerville is a Partner @ Stepstone, one of the largest secondary buyers, fund investors and players in our ecosystem with over $600BN in capi...
20VC: The Story of Ring: Scaling from an Idea in a Garage to Richard Branson Investing and a Reported $1BN Amazon Acquisition | Why Building a Brand is Like Making Great Wine | The Secret to Hiring Success; Hire Marathoners and more with Jamie Siminoff
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jamie Siminoff is the Founder and Chief Inventor @ Ring, with Ring Jamie, created the world's first Wi-Fi video doorbell while working in his garage ...
20VC: How Multi-Stage Funds Changed The Game For Seed Rounds, Why Signalling Risk is BS, The Three Most Important Variables for Founders When Raising Rounds & A Debate on Portfolio Construction: Does Ownership Matter with David Tisch
27 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
David Tisch is the Managing Partner of BoxGroup, one of the leading seed-stage investment firms of the last decade having invested in over 500 seed...
20VC: Why Value Investing is BS, The Most Insane Elements of SPACs, Why Simplification is the Secret to High Margins & Why Good Values Should Make You Uncomfortable with Joey Levin, CEO @ IAC
24 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Joey Levin is the CEO of IAC where he has overseen the constant evolution of the company, including the initial IPO and subsequent spin-off of Match ...
20VC: Instagram Founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger on Why Social Networks Should Be Less Social & The Next Wave of Social | Why San Francisco Will Return with a Vengeance and The Future For Remote Work | Let's Get Personal: Relationships to Money, Be
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are the co-founders of Instagram. Since its release in 2010, Instagram has become of the most significant products in ...
20Sales: What is Sales Engineering? When and How to Hire Them? How They Should Work With AE's? How to Measure Their Success? How They Change Close Rates and Sales Comp Plans with Zach Lawryk, Head of Solutions Consulting @ Rippling
20 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Zach Lawryk is Head of Solutions Consulting @ Rippling, what is solutions consulting? They are the product expert in the solution that ties a busines...
20VC: Grammy Nominee Aloe Blacc on Working with Avicii on "Wake Me Up", The Art of Great Storytelling, Behind The Scenes on the Songwriting Process and Why Rules Are Just "Good Suggestions"
17 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Aloe Blacc is a GRAMMY nominee and the voice behind such hits as Wake Me Up, The Man, SOS, I Need A Dollar, and many more. Aloe has toured the world,...
20Growth: Top Five Growth Lessons Scaling Stitchfix to IPO, How to Master the Art of Paid Marketing, Why CAC/LTV is a BS Metric & How To Use Payback Period as an Alternative to CAC/LTV with Mike Duboe, Partner @ Greylock
15 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Duboe is a Partner @ Greylock where he sits on the board of Builder, Inventa, Novi, Pepper, Postscript. Prior to entering the world of venture, ...
20VC: Why This Time Will Be Worse Than The Great Financial Crisis, Why Down-Rounds, Firesales and Shutdowns Will Happen & The Ultimate Startup Survival Guide; 7 Steps to Ensure Your Company Survives The Storm
13 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tom Loverro is a Partner @ IVP where he has led or was actively involved in investments in Amplitude, Coinbase, Hashicorp and Datadog to name a few. ...
20VC: Boston Celtics' Steve Pagliuca on The Future of Sports Team Ownership; What Happened with the Chelsea Acquisition | Why More Money is Pouring Into Sport Than Ever & Do These Assets Keep Increasing in Value
10 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Steve Pagliuca is a Senior Advisor at Bain Capital, the firm he joined in 1982 and as a Managing Director of Bain Capital, he has helped build the fi...
20VC: Why Salesforce, SAP and Concur Will Die | Scaling 3x and Raising at a $9.2BN Valuation in COVID | How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry Forever | Never Before Revealed Margins on Travel and Expense Management with Ariel Cohen, Co-Founder & CEO
08 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ariel Cohen is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Navan (formerly TripActions), the #1 travel management super-app used by over 8,000 companies. Ariel has rais...
20VC: Thoma Bravo's Orlando Bravo on Why Now is The New Normal, Why Every Company in the World is Worth its Future Cashflows, The Three Core Elements Thoma Bravo Need to See in Any Potential Deal & Orlando's Relationship to Risk, Wealth and Parenting
06 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Orlando Bravo is a Founder and Managing Partner of Thoma Bravo. He led Thoma Bravo's early entry into software buyouts and built the firm into one of...
20Product: When to Hire a CPO, The Three Different Types of CPO, How To Know What You Need, How To Structure the Hiring Process, What Are the Must-Ask Questions, What Tests and Case Studies Should Be Used, How Should Their Compensation Package Be Structur
03 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Annie Pearl is the CPO @ Calendly, the company that makes scheduling meetings simple and painless. Before Calendly, Annie led Glassdoor's product v...
20VC: From $57M in ARR to $297M in Just 12 Months; Why Speed of Execution is the Most Important Factor to Success, Hiring 2,000 People in 3 Years Remotely & Secondaries; Why, When and How Much To Take Out with Alex Bouaziz, Co-Founder & CEO @ Deel
01 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Bouaziz is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Deel, the all-in-one platform made to simplify all things HR, built for global teams near and far. In the la...
20VC: Homebrew's Hunter Walk and Satya Patel on Why $100M is Not Enough To Execute a Seed Strategy Today | Why They Decided not to Raise New External Funds | Where Are We in the Cycle & What is Truly F***** | Why Founders Should Take Secondaries Earlier
30 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hunter Walk and Satya Patel are Co-Founders and Partners @ Homebrew, one of the leading seed funds of the last decade. Following 10 years of stellar ...
20VC: Canva Co-Founder, Cliff Obrecht on The Journey From 100 VC Rejections to a $40BN Company, Why Good Enough is Not Good Enough, The Secret to Hiring Non-Obvious Talent and Relationships to Money and Why They Are Giving Away Billions
27 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Cliff Obrecht is the Co-Founder & COO @ Canva, the free-to-use online graphic design tool that makes it easy for anyone to design anything from prese...
20Sales: Why You Should Not Do PLG and Enterprise Sales at the Same Time | How To Move Into Enterprise Sales Gradually | How To Make a Comp Plan For Sales Teams | Why Discounting is Good and Can Be Used with Stevie Case, CRO @ Vanta
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Stevie Case is the CRO @ Vanta where she oversees Vanta's go-to-market team to support the company's rapid growth. Prior to joining Vanta, Stevie was...
20VC: USV's Albert Wenger on What Elon Musk Should Do with Twitter | The State of Crypto Today; The Impact of SBF and Why Now is the Best Time To Invest in Crypto | Are We Too Late to Save The Climate and Why Civil Disobedience is Required | Will TikTok b
23 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Albert Wenger is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, one of the most successful venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including ...
20VC: Turning Canned Water into a $700M Media and Health Company, What Makes Truly Great Brands, How Founders Can Build Their Brand From Day 1 Today & How to Create Viral Content with Little to No Budget with Mike Cessario, Founder and CEO @ Liquid Death
20 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Cessario is the Founder and CEO @ Liquid Death, the man hacking the healthy beverage market with the first hilarious water brand. It is working,...
20Growth: When To Make Your First Growth Hire? How To Structure the Hiring Process for Growth? Five Core Things the Best Growth Hires Do in the First Week? What to Expect New Growth Hires to Achieve in the First 30 and 90 Days with Hila Qu, Growth Advisor
18 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hila Qu is one of the leading growth execs of the last decade. Hila helped scale Acorns from 1 million to 5 million users as their VP of growth. Hi...
20VC: a16z's Jeff Jordan on The Ultimate Guide to Investing in Marketplaces, Two Core Features to Look for in All Marketplace Investments, Why Fragmented Supply is so Important & Lessons from Airbnb, Pinterest and Instacart on What Makes the Best Cohorts
16 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff Jordan is a General Partner @ a16z where he serves on the boards of Airbnb, Incredible Health, Instacart, Lookout, and Pinterest, just to name a...
20VC: WTF is Going On in VC? Are VCs Still Investing? How Has What VCs Want in Investments Changed? Are LPs Investing in New Funds? Why VCs That Invest in Public Markets Are Losers? Dec 2023; Will It Be Better Or Worse with Jason Lemkin
13 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The question is: "are VCs still investing?". Today we are joined by Jason Lemkin; one of the OGs of SaaS of the last decade. As the Founder of SaaSt...
20VC: The Memo: How to Raise a Venture Capital Fund (Part I) | The Core Lessons from Raising $400M Over The Last Four Years| The Biggest Mistakes VCs Make When Fundraising | How To Find and Build Relationships with New LPs
11 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How To Raise a Venture Capital Fund Over the last 4 years, I have raised around $400M across different vehicles from many different types of invest...
20VC: From a $5,000 College Fund to a $10BN+ Public Company, How to Beat People Who Are Smarter Than You, Why Happier Teams Outperform and How Software Buying Patterns are Changing in 2023 with Henry Schuck, CEO @ ZoomInfo
09 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Henry Schuck is the Founder and CEO @ ZoomInfo. From ZoomInfo's founding moment, putting $25,000 on a credit card, Henry has led the company to today...
20VC: Why Financial Planning and Goals Do Not Work, The Decision to Ban Politics in the Workplace and Losing 1/3 of the Team Overnight & The One Question That Will Drive All Decision-Making for Leaders with Jason Fried, CEO @ 37Signals
06 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Fried the Co-Founder and CEO at 37signals, makers of Basecamp and HEY. Over an incredible 21-year journey, Jason and his co-founder David ha...
20VC Special: How To Fundraise Like a Pro: How to Size and Price a Round, How to Create FOMO and Urgency in a Fundraise, How to Structure Angel Allocations, The 7 Deadly Sins of Fundraising Decks, The 3 Signs a Potential Investor is Bad News
21 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
20VC: Fundraising 101 Today we are going to walk through the process of raising a funding round for a hypothetical company. We will break it down by d...
20VC: Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy on Leadership Lessons Learned from Reed Hastings and Daniel Ek, What is Peloton's Competitive Advantage and Why Peloton is a Team and Not a Family
19 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Barry McCarthy is Peloton's CEO and President. McCarthy is a seasoned executive who served as CFO of Spotify from 2015 to January 2020, and CFO of Ne...
20VC: Leadership Lessons from Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, The Early Days of TheFacebook Advising Mark Zuckerberg and Why Now is Not the Right Time For Startups to Stockpile Cash with Hadi Partovi, CEO @ Code.org
16 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hadi Partovi is a tech entrepreneur and investor, and CEO of the education nonprofit Code.org. Before founding Code.org, Hadi founded two prior start...
20 Sales: Webflow's Maggie Hott on When to Start and How to Scale the Best Outbound Sales Team, Why Founders Should Not Hire a Head of Sales First, The Must Ask Questions When Hiring Sales Reps and How To Structure the Process
14 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Maggie Hott is the Director of Sales @ Webflow where she leads their Sales Dev, Account Executive, and Solution Engineering orgs. Prior to Webflow, M...
20VC: Mailchimp's Ben Chestnut on The Biggest Leadership Lessons Scaling to a $12Bn Acquisition and $1BN+ ARR, The Secret to Happiness, Being a Great Husband and Father & Why 2021 was the Right Time To Sell to Intuit
12 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ben Chestnut is the Co-Founder of Mailchimp, the all-in-one marketing platform for small businesses. Last year, in Sept 2021 it was announced that In...
20VC: The Story of Turning Around MTV, AOL and Time Warner | How To Be Effective When Making Hard Decisions | Tactics vs Strategy and Why Plans Are BS with Bob Pittman, CEO @ iHeartMedia
09 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Bob Pittman is Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, Inc., the number one audio company in America. Prior to iHeart, Bob has just had the most amazing car...
20 Product: Marty Cagan on The Four Questions of Great Product Management, Product Lessons from Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and eBay's Pierre Omidyar & The Difference Between Truly Great Product Teams and the Rest
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Marty Cagan is one of the OGs of Product and Product Management as the Founder of Silicon Valley Product Group. Before founding SVPG, Marty served as...
20VC: a16z's Martin Casado on How the Venture Model is Broken, Why VCs Should Be Running Wall St, Who Wins and Who Loses in the Next Generation of Venture & Investing Lessons from Marc Andreesen, Ben Horowitz and Chris Dixon
05 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Martin Casado is a General Partner @ a16z where he focuses on enterprise investing. At a16z, Martin has led investments and serves on the board of db...
20VC: Plaid and Column Co-Founder, William Hockey on Why the Brands that Win in Fintech Will Not Be Financial Services Brands, What US Banking Can Learn from China & Why Companies Can Be Built Slower than People Think?
02 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Will Hockey is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO @ Column, the only nationally chartered bank built to enable developers and builders to create new financial...
20VC: Jason Lemkin on Why Founders Do Not Care About Their VCs Anymore, Why Zoom Made Us All Worse Investors, Why 80-90% IRR Should Have Been Warning Signs and the Algolia Journey From Seed to $2.25BN Valuation
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Lemkin is one of the OGs of SaaS of the last decade. As the Founder of SaaStr, he has inspired more SaaS founders than one can imagine building...
20VC: Wolt CEO, Miki Kuusi on Leadership Lessons Scaling to a Reported $8.1BN Exit to Doordash, Building Teams not Families, The Difference Between Trust and Safety Within Companies, How To Use Compensation to Create Culture & Why You Should Not Be Lookin
28 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Miki Kuusi is the CEO of Wolt and Head of DoorDash International. In 2014 Miki founded Wolt with a mission to turn the smartphone into a remote contr...
20VC: When to Make Your First Growth Hire? Senior or Junior? How To Onboard Them? How To Monitor Their Progress? from Growth Leaders @ Facebook, Instagram, Lyft, Instacart, Miro and more
25 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Casey Winters is the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite. Prior to Eventbrite, Casey led the growth product team at Pinterest. Before Pinterest, Ca...
20VC: Why Operating Experience Becomes Irrelevant Fast and Operators Often Give Bad Advice to Founders, Is Silicon Valley Really Dead? Are Gen Z the Most Entitled Employees? What Will Happen to a Generation of Pre-PMF Companies with $50M in the Bank with
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jeffrey Katzenberg is an entertainment industry executive and entrepreneur, who throughout his career has repeatedly reshaped the media landscape. Je...
20VC: Semil Shah on The Biggest Mistakes VCs and LPs Made Over the Last 24 Months, Why LP Churn is Coming, Core Lessons on Scaling from $1M Haystack Fund I to Today and How To Find, Win and Manage LPs as an Emerging Manager
21 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Semil Shah is the Founder of Haystack, one of the leading pre-seed and seed firms of the last decade. Among Semil's portfolio include the likes of Do...
20VC Rising Star: Why Founders Should Expect More From Their VCs | How To Know Pre-Investment Whether a VC Will Be Valuable and How to Get the Most Value Out of Them | Is There a Misalignment Between Founders and VCs with Oana Olteanu, Partner @ SignalFir
18 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Oana Olteanu is a Partner @ SignalFire where she focuses on enterprise software at Seed, Series A and Series B. Prior to joining SignalFire, Oana was...
20 Sales: The Ultimate Guide to Sales Onboarding for New Sales Reps and Sales Leaders, The Biggest Red Flags in the First 30 Days & What Can Be Done to Set Them Up for Success with Leaders from Figma, Dropbox, Miro and more.
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Oliver Jay (OJ) is one of the most successful sales leaders of the last decade. Most recently, OJ spent 6 years as CRO @ Asana and grew the team fro...
20VC: ARK Invest's Cathie Wood on Why ARK Has Not Had More Outflows Despite Performance, How the Global Tech Equities Market Will Go From $7Trn to $210Trn in 8-10 Years, The Future for Facebook and How Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey Could Create the Biggest Di
14 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Cathie Wood is the CEO & CIO @ ARK Invest, focusing solely on disruptive innovation, primarily in the public equity markets. ARK has become renowned ...
20VC: Why Market Size is Everything | Three Signs of a Bull Market and How To Remain Disciplined | Why Investing is a Young Person's Game | The Secret to Negotiation | Missing a $200M Opportunity in Nubank and more with Martín Escobari, Co-President @ Ge
11 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Martín Escobari is Co-President, Managing Director and Head of General Atlantic's business in Latin America. Martín is Chairman of the firm's Inves...
20 Product: Hugo Barra on Lessons Building Hardware Products at Android, Xiaomi, Oculus, and Detect; Feature Kings vs. Budget Kings; 996 Work Culture in China; There Are No MVPs in Hardware; The 3.5-Hour Recruiting Interview
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hugo Barra is the OG of consumer hardware of the last decade. In Hugo's current position, he is the CEO @ Detect, building tools that empower people ...
20VC: Coinbase's Brian Armstrong on Real vs Fake Emergencies, Coinbase's Failed NFT Launch, The Politicisation of Leadership, Why This Crypto Winter is Different From The Past & Brian's Development and Insecurities as a Leader
07 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Armstrong is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Coinbase, the easiest place to buy and sell cryptocurrency. Over the last 10 years, Brian has led Coinbas...
20VC: Michael Mauboussin on Good vs Bad Investment Decision-Making Processes, How To Improve Your Process, How To Know When it Needs Improving and The Single Biggest Mistakes People Make In Their Decision-Making Process
04 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Mauboussin is Head of Consilient Research at Counterpoint Global. Previously, he was Director of Research at BlueMountain Capital, Head of Gl...
20VC: The GoPuff Memo: Why 10-15 Minute Delivery is an Unsustainable Model, The Plan to Make GoPuff Profitable by 2024, Mistakes Made in Europe and What the Europe Plan Should Have Been and What Does Quick Commerce Look Like in 5 Years with Rafael Illisha
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Raf Illishayev is the Co-Founder and CEO @ GoPuff, one of the market leaders delivering daily essentials in minutes. GoPuff's latest funding round pr...
20VC: Founders Fund's Brian Singerman on The Price Mismatch Between Public vs Private, Why Now Is Not The Best Time To Be Investing, Why Brian Never Thinks About Reserves and Believes in Cross-Fund Investing & Writing a $400M Check Into Anduril Across Rou
31 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Singerman is a Partner @ Founders Fund, one of the best-performing funds of the last two decades. Among their portfolio, they have the likes of...
20VC: Chris Sacca, Chamath Palihapitiya, Gary Vee, Brad Gerstner and more on Their Relationship To Money, How It Has Changed with Time and Wealth, How They Bring Up Their Children To Engender the Same Values of Ambition and Hard Work?
28 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Sacca is the Founder and Chairman @ Lowercase Capital, one of the best performing funds in the history of venture capital with a portfolio ...
20Growth: Biggest Growth Lessons from Reddit and Zynga on Scaling to Millions of Users | Why, When and How To Hire Your First Growth Hires | The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make In Hiring, Onboarding and Integration for Growth Teams with Vaibhav Sahgal, VP
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Vaibhav Sahgal is VP of Consumer Product @ Reddit where he has been for close to 5 years. Prior to his leading consumer product, Vaibhav spent 3 year...
20VC: Uber's Journey to Becoming the Most Valuable Private Tech Company in History, Raising $3BN From Saudi in Just 60 Days, Uber's $30BN Mistake in Food Delivery, Why Recent Uber M&A Will be the Worst in Tech & Mastering Negotiations and Deal-Making with
24 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Emil Michael is the Former Chief Business Officer at Uber and is commonly referred to as Travis Kalanick's right-hand man. At Uber, Emil was instrume...
20VC: Why 75% of Active Investors Will Disappear in the Next Few Years, The Death of "So So" Venture Firms is Coming, The Rise of Blackstone of Venture Firms and What That Does To Venture Returns, How the World of LPs is Broken and more with Kyle Harrison
21 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kyle Harrison is a General Partner @ Contrary and one of my favorite writers on the venture space with his blog, Investing 101 2.0. Before joining Co...
20 Sales: How To Structure The Interview Process for All Sales Reps, The Must-Ask Questions When Identifying Potential Sales Talent & The 3 Biggest Mistakes Founders Make When Hiring Their First Reps with Lauren Schwartz, VP of Enterprise Sales @ Fivetran
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Lauren Schwartz is Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Fivetran, the leading platform for modern data movement. She has helped scale Fivetran's ent...
20VC: Dropbox's Drew Houston on Leadership; Hiring, Firing, Breakpoints in Company Scaling, The Story of Nearly Getting Acquired by Steve Jobs and Apple, How Founders Should Think Through Potential Investors and Acquisitions
17 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Drew Houston is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Dropbox, for over 700 million users and +600,000 teams, Dropbox is the choice for storing and sharing their ...
20VC: Why The CEO Should Make As Few Decisions As Possible, The Trade-Off Between Freedom and Raising Big From VCs & Why Our Jobs Are Not As Hard As We Think and How To Assess Talent and Potential As a Result with Tristan Handy, Founder & CEO @ dbt Labs
14 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tristan Handy is the Founder and CEO @ dbt, a data transformation tool that enables data analysts and engineers to transform, test and document data i...
20 Product: Spotify's Gustav Söderström on Why Product is 100% Science and 0% Art, Why You Should Look at the Competition and then Do Something Completely Different & Why Talk is Cheap and Product Teams Should Do More of it; Structuring the Best Debate
12 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gustav Söderström is Spotify's Chief Research & Development Officer. He has the CPO & CTO responsibility, overseeing the product, design, data, and ...
20VC: Altimeter's Brad Gerstner on Why Supercycles and the Powerlaw is the Most Important Thing In Investing, Why Portfolio Diversification is the Opposite of Risk Mitigation and The #1 Question Brad Asks All New Recruits
10 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Brad Gerstner is the Founder and CEO of Altimeter, a life-cycle technology investment firm that manages public and private portfolios. Brad has perso...
20VC: Kevin Weil on The Biggest Lessons from Leading Product at Instagram and Twitter | How Working With Kevin Systrom Impacted His Approach To Product | 3 Things Instagram Did To Make Stories So Successful and Why Investing Makes Operators Better at Thei
07 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Weil is President of Product and Business @ Planet and Operator in Residence @ Scribble Ventures. In the past, Kevin has been Head of Product a...
20VC: The Rippling Memo: Bedrock's Geoff Lewis on The Conviction Building Process to Write a $200M Check and Co-Lead Rippling's Series D | Why No Competitor Can Out Execute Rippling | Uncapped SAFE's Why You Should Never Do Them and Why Geoff Broke The Ru
05 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Geoff Lewis is a Founder and Managing Partner of Bedrock, one of the breakout and new venture firms of the last decade, famously in search of narrati...
20VC: Rippling's Parker Conrad on The Four Main Benefits From Building a Compound Startup | Why There Should Never Be a Trade-Off Between Speed and Quality | How Zenefits Gave Parker a Chip on the Shoulder and Why That is so Important?
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Parker Conrad is the Founder & CEO @ Rippling, the company that lets you easily manage your employees' payroll, benefits, expenses, devices, apps & m...
20VC: Lessons from Alfred Lin and Ron Conway | Why the World Does Not Want Your Startup To Exist and How the Best Founders Fight It | How To Build Moats and Defensibility Against Large Incumbents with Tarek Mansour, Founder & CEO @ Kalshi
30 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tarek Mansour is the Founder and CEO @ Kalshi, the first regulated exchange where you can trade directly on the outcome of events. Tarek has raised f...
20Growth: Hubspot CMO Kipp Bodnar on Why the Best Marketers Think Like VCs | Why the Best Companies Do Not Start with Product Marketing | New Channels; When To Do, How Much To Spend, How To Test, When To Stop
28 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kipp Bodnar is the Chief Marketing Officer of HubSpot, where he sets HubSpot's global inbound marketing strategy. Prior to his role as CMO, Kipp serv...
20VC: Clubhouse Founder Paul Davison on What Went Right and What Went Wrong | What Does Clubhouse Do Now To Regain Mindshare? | Why Clubhouse is not a Content Platform? | What is the Next Wave of Consumer Social and Does Web3 Play a Role? |
26 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Davison is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Clubhouse, the startup that believes people are at the centre of every moment, providing a platform to talk ...
20VC: Why Greed is the #1 Enemy of Venture Returns, Why Not Enough VCs Play to Win and Lessons from Scaling to $100M and 1,200 Employees and Then Cratering with Julio Vasconcellos, Founder @ Atlantico
23 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Julio Vasconcellos is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Atlantico, one of the leading early-stage funds in Latin America. Prior to the world of vent...
20 Product: The No 1 Metric You Need To Look at When Building Product | Why the Best in Product Have No Domain Experience | Why You Should Not Hire From Incumbents & The Difference Between Good vs Great PMs with David Lieb, Visiting Group Partner @ Y Comb
21 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
David Lieb is one of the product OGs of the last decade. As the founder of Bump David pioneered how over 150M users shared data, contacts and more be...
20VC: From Struggling to Raise Funding to IPOing at Close to $9BN Just Five Years Later; The $8BN Company You Might Not Know | How To Build Large Companies with Small Teams | The Biggest Hiring Lessons and Mistakes with Seba Kanovich, CEO @ dlocal
16 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Seba Kanovich is the CEO @ dlocal, the #1 payments leader with a single solution focused on Latin America and other emerging markets. In June 2021, d...
20 Sales: How To Interview Sales People; The Red Flags and What to Look For, How Sales Leaders Should Change Goals and Quotas in Harder Markets and What Reps Can Do To Ensure They Hit Their Numbers in These Markets with Eleanor Dorfman, Sales Leader @ Ret
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Eleanor Dorfman is a Sales Leader @ Retool, the company that allows you to build internal tools, remarkably fast. Prior to Retool, Eleanor joined Ret...
20VC: Why 95% of Venture Capital is Not Really "Venture Capital" | The Five Core Levers Needed To Assess Risk and Price a Startup | The Future of Venture; Who Wins, Who Loses, What Happens to the Crossover Funds with Will Quist, Partner @ Slow Ventures
12 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Will Quist is a Partner @ Slow Ventures. Over the last decade, the team at Slow Ventures have invested in the earliest rounds of over 500 companies i...
20VC News: Anchor Founder, Mike Mignano Joins Lightspeed as Partner: The Future of Social Media | Why Clubhouse Has a Challenging Model | Why TikTok Could be a $2TN Company | Why BeReal is Defensible | What Happens To OpenSea in a New World for NFTs
07 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Mignano is a Partner @ Lightspeed, one of the most successful venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Snap, Aff...
20VC: Arm CEO Rene Haas on How The Best Leaders Make Decisions and The Trade-Off Between Speed and Quality | Leadership Lessons from 7 Years at Nvidia | How Companies Can Retain Speed, Innovation and Agility at Scale
02 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rene Haas is the CEO @ Arm. The technologies that Arm creates are used in over 230+ Bn devices with everything from sensors to smartphones to servers...
20Product: Calendly CPO Annie Pearl on Why All PLG Companies Eventually Need to Embrace Enterprise, Why it is Easier to Scale into Enterprise than Visa Versa and the Calendly PLG Playbook; What Works and What Does Not?
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Annie Pearl is the CPO @ Calendly, the company that makes scheduling meetings simple and painless. The company now has over 10M users around the worl...
20VC: Is Now Really the Best Time to Be Investing? WTF is Happening at Growth Stage Investing? Why VCs Have Gotten Lazy Over the Last 2 Years? Investing Lessons from Hitting with Braze and Missing with Snowflake with Logan Bartlett, Managing Director @ Re
29 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Logan Bartlett is a Managing Director @ Redpoint, a firm with a portfolio including the likes of Stripe, Nubank, Twilio, Netflix, Snowflake and many ...
20VC: Bumble's Whitney Wolfe Herd on How The Best Leaders Manage Intense Pressure, How To Think Through Risk vs Reward Frameworks & What it Truly Means to Listen so Your Teams Will Talk
26 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Whitney Wolfe Herd is the Founder and CEO @ Bumble, changing the way people date, find friends, and the perception of meeting online, for the better....
20VC: 10 Lessons on Scaling 20VC to 100M+ Downloads | How To Build an Audience and a Next-Generation Media Company
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last 7 years, I have scaled 20VC to 100M+ downloads, and listeners in 117 countries, and all of this with a spend of less than $1,000. Here ...
20VC: Why Market Always Wins Over the Founder & Why I Do Not Do Market Sizing | Why it is not the Best Time to be Investing but it is the Best Time to Have a Fund & The Type of Deals to do Today | Why The Best Founders Have 100 Year Plans with Wes Chan, C
22 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Wes Chan is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at FPV Ventures, a $450M early-stage fund, launched earlier this year. Wes is an investor in five $10...
20 Sales: Three Reasons Why Sales People Fail | The Two Things That Matter When Hiring Sales Leaders | Why Revenue, Discounting and Price Do Not Matter in the Early Days with Jordan Van Horn, Revenue Leader @ Monte Carlo
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jordan Van Horn is a Revenue Leader @ Monte Carlo, the world's first data observability company. Prior to this role, Jordan spent an incredible 4 yea...
20VC: Fintech OG Sheel Mohnot on Lessons from Investing in Flexport and ChipperCash and Missing Robinhood and Chime, Why Overly Large GP Commits are Dangerous, Biggest Mistakes Managers Make with Fund I and Emerging Markets; Which Survive?
15 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sheel Mohnot is a Co-Founder and General Partner @ Better Tomorrow Ventures, a $225M fund that leads rounds in pre-seed and seed-stage fintech ...
20VC: 13 of the Great Investing Minds on When to Pay Up vs When To Remain Disciplined and Walk Because the Price is too High: The Ultimate Guide to Price Sensitivity
12 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Marcelo Claure is an entrepreneur and investor who has founded and led some of the world's most iconic businesses. He is currently the Chairman & CEO...
20 Growth: Why You Need a Growth Hire Pre Product-Market-Fit? Why Every Company Will Be a Media Company and How To Do It | Communities; What Really Are They? How To Build Them? What Makes The Best? Why Do Many Not Work? | Kieran Flanagan, SVP Marketing @
10 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kieran Flanagan is SVP Marketing at HubSpot, where he has helped the business grow internationally, move to a product-led business, quadrupled its ma...
20VC: Investing Lessons from Fred Wilson and Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | Why the Secret to Winning in Venture is Splitting Deals |Learnings From the Biggest Hits and Biggest Losses | Why Anyone That Always Does Their Pro-Rata is Wrong with Mo
08 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mo Koyfman is the Founder and General Partner @ Shine Capital, who announced earlier this year Shine II, a $200M early-stage fund, and Shine Opportun...
20VC: Raising $60M and Not Touching a Dollar of It; The 3 Decisions That Led to a Cash-Flow Positive Business, Why Not Being Able To Fundraise in the Early Days Can Help Build Your Business & What are the First Things To Break in Scaling Orgs with Sameer
05 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sameer Shariff is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Cambly, the company that allows you to become fluent faster through one-on-one video chat lessons with nat...
20 Product: Shreyas Doshi on The Three Different Types of Product Leaders and How To Hire Them, The 6 Different Product Metrics You Need To Know and What Good is For Each of Them & Table Stakes Features vs Wow Features; What To Prioritise
03 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Shreyas Doshi is an investor, advisor, and all-around product OG. Most recently Shreyas spent over 5 years at Stripe where he was Stripe's first PM M...
20VC: Forerunner's Kirsten Green on The Biggest Challenges Scaling Both Teams and AUM, What Truly is High Performance in Fund Management & Why Parenting and Relationships are an Enabler To Your Best Work
01 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kirsten Green is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Forerunner Ventures, one of the leading firms of the last decade investing at the intersection of...
20VC: Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone on The Yahoo Turnaround Plan; What Needs To Happen | Leadership 101: The 4 Things To Look For When Hiring | Surviving a Crash; Biggest Advice on Cuts, Layoffs, Investor Communications
29 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jim Lanzone is the CEO @ Yahoo, a company that today reaches nearly 900 million people around the world and is the third largest property on the Inte...
20VC: The Memo: What is a Sales Playbook? Does the Founder Need to Create It? Should the First Sales Hire Be a Leader or a Rep?
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today we deconstruct the canonical question in early-stage sales. Does the founder need to create the sales playbook? Then secondly, if not, should t...