The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch – Details, episodes & analysis

Scott Gorlick was employee #99 at Uber. Over 6 years, Scott built Uber in Atlanta and helped the company scale from 10 cities to $10B in revenue. Scott is also a prolific angel investor having written early checks into Lime and Standard Cognition to name a few.

In Today's Episode with Scott Gorlick We Discuss:

1. The Driver Acquisition Playbook: Scaling to 1M Drivers

• How did Uber acquire 1M drivers? What was the playbook?
• What worked? What did not work?
• How much of a role did driver-to-driver referral payments have in driver acquisition?
• What did Lyft do on the driver acquisition side that Uber should have done?
• What did the retention look like for drivers on a 30, 60 and 90 day period?

2. The City Expansion Playbook:

• What was the expansion playbook that Uber used for new cities?
• What worked in ramping demand in a new city? What did not work?
• How much of a role did promotions and discounting play? Lessons from them?
• Why did Uber often let Lyft launch in a new market first? What was the benefit of this?
• How did Scott see the maturation rate change with new markets opening? How fast did each subsequent market reach profitability?

3. Travis Kalanick and What Uber Could Have Been:

• How would Uber be different today if Travis was still in charge?
• What are the biggest mistakes that Dara has made with their M&A strategy?
• What are some of Scott's biggest leadership lessons from working with Travis?
• How did Travis create such strong followership and cult around him?
• What were the single biggest management mistakes made by Travis?

 

Arvind Narayanan is a professor of Computer Science at Princeton and the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy. He is a co-author of the book AI Snake Oil and a big proponent of the AI scaling myths around the importance of just adding more compute. He is also the lead author of a textbook on the computer science of cryptocurrencies which has been used in over 150 courses around the world, and an accompanying Coursera course that has had over 700,000 learners.

In Today's Episode with Arvind Narayanan We Discuss:

1. Compute, Data, Algorithms: What is the Bottleneck:

• Why does Arvind disagree with the commonly held notion that more compute will result in an equal and continuous level of model performance improvement?
• Will we continue to see players move into the compute layer in the need to internalise the margin? What does that mean for Nvidia?
• Why does Arvind not believe that data is the bottleneck? How does Arvind analyse the future of synthetic data? Where is it useful? Where is it not?

2. The Future of Models:

• Does Arvind agree that this is the fastest commoditization of a technology he has seen?
• How does Arvind analyse the future of the model landscape? Will we see a world of few very large models or a world of many unbundled and verticalised models?
• Where does Arvind believe the most value will accrue in the model layer?
• Is it possible for smaller companies or university research institutions to even play in the model space given the intense cash needed to fund model development?

3. Education, Healthcare and Misinformation: When AI Goes Wrong:

• What are the single biggest dangers that AI poses to society today?
• To what extent does Arvind believe misinformation through generative AI is going to be a massive problem in democracies and misinformation?
• How does Arvind analyse AI impacting the future of education? What does he believe everyone gets wrong about AI and education?
• Does Arvind agree that AI will be able to put a doctor in everyone's pocket? Where does he believe this theory is weak and falls down?

 

Alexis Ohanian is the Founder and General Partner of Seven Seven Six, an early-stage venture capital firm with $970M AUM. Prior to 776, Alexis was the Co-Founder of Initialized, one of the most successful early-stage firms in history with their first fund returning 56x DPI. Before Initialized, Alexis was a Partner at the world-famous Y Combinator and before that was one of the Co-Founders of Reddit.

In Today's Discussion with Alexis Ohanian We Touch On:

1. $31M in Revenue: The P&L of a Sports Team:

• What are the core revenue drivers for Angel City Football Team?
• How did Alexis convince Tony @ Doordash to write the largest-ever brand sponsorship check to have the Doordash name on the Angel City shirt?
• How much money does Angel City make from ticket sales per year?
• What does the revenue from merchandise look like for Angel City? How has it changed with time?

2. How to Spend $31M Annually To Run a Team:

• What are the single biggest costs in running a sports team?
• Does Alexis believe that salary caps are good or bad for leagues?
• How much money is spent by clubs on content and software today? How should that change?

3. More Cash in Sports Than Ever:

• Prices for teams are at an all-time high. Are we in a bubble for sports assets?
• What remains under-priced and what is over-priced today?
• What are the pros and cons of private equity entering sports ownership in a meaningful way?
• Who is the worst sports team owner who despite his mismanagement, still made billions?

4. Alexis Ohanian: AMA:

• How did Alexis and Serena William's children become millionaires through sports team ownership?
• How did Alexis turn a $10,000 check into $17.1M?
• How did a $10,000 check into a shoe company make Alexis $7M?
• Why does Alexis believe that sports becomes even more valuable in a world of AI?

 

Dave Powers serves as President and CEO of Deckers Brands, a global footwear and apparel company where he focuses on the company’s five high-performing brands: UGG®, Teva®, Sanuk®, HOKA One One® and Koolaburra®. Prior to Deckers, he held executive leadership roles at Converse and Timberland, where he led worldwide retail merchandising, marketing, visual and store design as well as the creation of a sustainable line of footwear and apparel.

In Today's Episode with Dave Powers:

1. The Unlikely CEO of a Global Footwear Company:

• How did Dave make his way into the world of consumer and fashion from the ground up?
• Why did Dave never think he was the type of person to be a CEO?
• What does Dave know now that he wishes he had known when he started his career?

2. From $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN Revenues: The Hoka Story:

• Why did Deckers acquire Hoka for $1.1M? What did they see in this, at the time, futuristic running shoe that no one else saw?
• Was the growth of Hoka linear or were there needle-moving moments that propelled the brand?
• What did they do so right that led to their success?
• What would Dave have done differently in the Hoka journey if he had his time again?

3. From $14.7BN Acquisition to Oprah's Favourite: The UGG Journey:

• How much of a needle mover was it for UGG when Oprah added it to her list of favourite items?
• Why did UGG go through a tough period? What did they do wrong?
• What does it take to resurrect a brand? How can they bring UGG back to life and make it cool?

4. From Abercrombie to LVMH: An Analysis of the Industry:

• How does Dave analyse the rise and fall of Abercrombie and Hollister? Where did it go wrong?
• What does Dave believe LVMH are the best in the world at? What does he learn from them?
• How important is it for consumer companies to have a hero product?
• How can consumer companies scale to mass markets without losing their core audience?

David Cohen is the founder and managing partner at Techstars, so a few amazing stats on techstars first, they have a total of 762 companies of which 90% are active or have been acquired, having raised more than 2bn in funding, as for David he is a serial entrepreneur having founded Pinpoint Technologies which was acquired by ZOLL Medical Corporation in 1999. and David was also the founder and CEO of earFeeder.com, a music service which was sold to SonicSwap.com in 2006.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How David made the transition from Founder to VC with Techstars and Fund I?

2.) Fund I is one of the most successful funds in history; what was the structure with Fund I? Why did David choose a $5m fund size? How did he decide initial to follow on ratio?

3.)  Why was David so valuation sensitive with Fund I? Why was David so rigid on a consistent cheque size on Fund I?

4.)  Why did David decide to expand from being a solo GP fund? What are the challenges and complexities of fund scaling and did David approach this?

5.) Question from Ari Newman: What does David think about uncapped notes? Why does David like big boring companies? Brett Jackson: How did you meet Ryan Graves @ Uber and how did the Uber deal come about? Jason Seats: Where does David still see inefficiencies in the current venture model?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

David's Fave Book: The Soul Of Money

David's Fave Blog: Mattermark Daily

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and David on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Snapchat here!

 

If you are looking to make your move into the world of VC or improve your investing skills,  Venture Capital Unlocked: Secrets of Silicon Valley Investing is a must! It is a 2 week crash course at Stanford run by Stanford Professional Development Centre and 500 Startups. You will learn the mechanics of all things Silicon Valley investing, check it out here.

The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa. Leesa is like the TOMS Shoes or Warby Parker of the mattress industry. Here are 3 reasons why they are the best place to get your new mattress: Leesa has done away with the awkward mattress showroom experience by allowing a fully online experience, shipping to your doorstep for free. Their 10 inch mattresses come in all sizes and is crafted with 3 unique layers o foam including2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of really cool latex like foam design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are made 100% in the US or UK and they give you a 100 night trial, to make sure the mattress is perfect for you. Go to leesa.com/VC and enter promo code VC75 to get $75 off!

Dennis Mortensen is the CEO and Founder of X.ai, the artificial intelligence driven personal assistant that lets people schedule meetings using plain English and nothing more than a CC to [email protected]. Their female persona Amy is so lifelike that users have asked her on a date at a rate of one request per month! X.ai is now one of the best funded AI startups having raised over $30m from our friends at FirstMark and a big thanks to Matt Turck for making the intro and from DCM, who also helped us with some of the questions for Dennis!    In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Dennis came to found X.ai and what the a-ha moment was for him?

2.) What did the training look like for X.ai? How long did it take? How much data did you have to painstakingly annotate? What is more important; data or algorithms?

3.) Many VCs are concerned about large incumbents having proprietary data sets. Does this concern Dennis and what can be done to mitigate this

4.) Question from David Cheg @ DCM: How will AI startups interact with giant corporates also investing heavily in AI research?

5.) How was the fundraising journey for Dennis? How did he approach it strategically? What challenges did he face? How did he go about choosing his investors?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode: 

Dennis’ Fave Book: How To Get Rich by Felix Dennis

Dennis’ Fave Blog: Wait But Why

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Dennis on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!   If you are looking to make your move into the world of VC or improve your investing skills,  Venture Capital Unlocked: Secrets of Silicon Valley Investing is a must! It is a 2 week crash course at Stanford run by Stanford Professional Development Centre and 500 Startups. You will learn the mechanics of all things Silicon Valley investing, check it out here.   The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa. Lees is like the TOMS Shoes or Warby Parker of the mattress industry. Here are 3 reasons why they are the best place to get your new mattress: Leesa has done away with the awkward mattress showroom experience by allowing a fully online experience, shipping to your doorstep for free. Their 10 inch mattresses come in all sizes and is crafted with 3 unique layers o foam including2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of really cool latex like foam design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are made 100% in the US or UK and they give you a 100 night trial, to make sure the mattress is perfect for you. Go to leesa.com/VC and enter promo code VC75 to get $75 off!    

Annie Kadavy is a General Partner @ Charles River Ventures. The prestigious VC fund that is now on it's 16th fund and has backed the likes of Twitter, Yammer and Mailbox just to name a few. At CRV, Annie focuses on all things consumer and has either led or sourced their investments in ClassPass, Cratejoy, Patreon, Laurel & Wolf and DoorDash. Prior to CRV, Annie spent time with SV Angel and Warby Parker.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Annie made her way into the world of VC?

2.)Why have we seen the explosion of marketplaces in recent years? What are the inherent challenges of two sided marketplaces; typically consumers and micro-entrepreneurs? Does Annie agree with Jeff Jordan in stating that these marketplaces need to nurture and manage conditions of perfect competition?

3.) What are the core components to growing traditional producer consumer marketplaces? How do they broach the chicken and the egg problem of supply and demand?

4.) Why is Annie so excited for the potential of bots? Will the transition to bots and conversational interfaces represent a major point of disruption or more of an evolution in the interface paradigm?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Annie's Fave Book: Mindset: How You Can Fulfill Your Potential by Carol Dweck

Annie's Fave Blog: The Skimm

Annie's Most Recent Investment: Roam

From 1995 until 2004 Andy Rachleff was a co-founder and General Partner of Benchmark Capital, who have backed the likes of Twitter, Snapchat, Dropbox, Uber and Instagram. Upon his retirement from Benchmark, Andy joined the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business to teach a variety of courses on entrepreneurship. In 2008 he co-founded Wealthfront Inc, the online financial advisor and investment management solution,  where he now serves as Executive Chairman. In just 3 years, Wealthfront now have over $2bn AUM.    In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Andy made his way into the world of VC and what was the origin story behind the founding of Benchmark?

2.) Andy took the opposite route to most having been a VC and then founding Wealthfront. So what does Andy make of doing VC first and then becoming an operator?

3.) Why does Andy believe Ivy League endowments are the best managed pools of capital? What do they do well and what separates the good from the great?

4.) Andy has worked with some of the world's best CEO's and board members, so what makes the best board member and what makes the best CEO?

5.) How has Andy seen the VC industry evolve and develop over the last 20 years? How has Andy seen his own investment decision making process and patter recognition alter over that time?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode: 

Andy’s Fave Book: The Innovator's Dilemma

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Andy on Twitter here!   The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa, the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Lees have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is order completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com/VC and enter the promo code VC75 to get $75 off!

Sasha Orloff is the CEO and Co-founder of LendUp, a fintech startup offering online and mobile personal loans and credit cards in the United States. Prior to launching LendUp Sasha was on the other side of the table as a VC with Citi Group’s corporate venture capital arm. On the topic of VC funding, LendUp raised an incredible $150m in Jan 2016 from likes of SV Angel, Yuri Milner our friends at Susa and Google Ventures just to name a few. 

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Sasha come to found LendUp following a stint in VC with Citi Group?

2.) What Sasha learnt from VC about running a successful startup and how he applied them to his founding of LendUp?

3.) Was it difficult leaving the security of a VC job to found a startup? Would you have done the same had you had children at the time?

4.) What trends in FinTech is Sasha most excited for? Why does Sasha think banks are in so much trouble? Is there the potential to co-operate rather than replace banks?

5.) How was the fundraising process for Sasha? What was his preferred round and how did they differ from stag to stage?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode: 

Sasha’s Fave Book: Banker To The Poor

Sasha’s Fave Blog: Sam Altman

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Sasha on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!   The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa, the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Lees have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is order completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com/VC and enter the promo code VC75 to get $75 off!      

Chris Douvos is Managing Director @ Venture Investment Associates (VIA) where he is a member of the Firm’s Investment Committee and has responsibility for the management of relationships with the funds’ managers and its limited partners, as well as the identification and development of new relationships for the Firm. Prior to joining VIA, he spent time at The Investment Fund For Foundations (TIFF). where he was responsible for over $1 billion. Prior to that, Chris worked on Princeton University’s endowment team. One of Chris’ most notable investments is his pre-first fund investment in First Round Capital. Chris is also the author of the fantastic blog, www.SuperLP.com, definitely check that out if you have not had the chance yet.  

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Chris make his way into the world of limited partners?

2.) How does Chris respond to FOMO as an LP? Does it affect his decision making process? How does he look to avoid it?

3.) What patterns and processes has Chris developed to asses the ability of potential GPs?

4.) Is Chris concerned by the increasing time it is taking for startups to exit? How does this affect his think as an LP and cash on cash relationship to this asset class?

5.) In 2013, Chris aid micro VC was the most exciting space in VC, where is he most excited for now? Where will we see innovation in the VC market?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode: 

Chris' Fave Blog: RedEye VC, Tomasz Tunguz

Chris' Fave Book: The Great Gatsby

Chris' Most Recent Investment: Other Lab

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Chris on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!   The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa, the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Lees have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is order completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com/VC and enter the promo code VC75 to get $75 off!