Spearhead

This week, Cory speaks to innovator and venture capitalist Wesley Chan. Wesley is the Managing Director and General Partner at Felicis Ventures, an early to late venture capital firm that has funded hundred of startups in 40 countries with nine $1 billion dollar plus exits in the past seven years which include Ring, Rovio, Twitch, Fitbit, Shopify and more.

Before Felicis, Wesley was a Google veteran who founded Google Analytics, Google Voice and holds 16 US patents for his contributions to building Google's early advertising system. In this week's episode, Wesley talks about the early days of Google, lessons learned, advice on being on the board of a startup, his investment in Ring, and how to get quality deal flow.

This week, Cory speaks to venture capitalist Tim Draper, the founder of Draper Associates, DFJ and the Draper Venture Network. The firms’ investments include Skype, SpaceX, Coinbase, Robinhood, Box, TwitchTV, Cruise Automation and many others.

Tim is also the founder of Draper University, a residential and online school based in San Mateo, California, to help extraordinary people accomplish their life missions. He is also a leading spokesperson for Bitcoin, Blockchain, ICOs, and cryptocurrencies. In this week's episode, he talks about the importance of building a brand as an investor, new models of venture capital, what he’s learned working with LP’s, how conviction changes over time, what company he thinks will 1000x, and more.

This week, Cory speaks to venture capitalist Jeff Clavier, Founder and Managing Partner at Uncork Capital, a seed stage venture capital firm that has closed 200+ investments since 2004. Jeff has participated in dozens of highly successful deals including Fitbit, SendGrid, Mint, Postmates and more.

In this week's episode, Jeff talks about how to develop conviction, the story of how he invested in Fitbit, due diligence before signing a term sheet, how to build a network if you're not from Silicon Valley, passing on Uber and LinkedIn, and the current state of valuations.

This week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur and venture capitalist Tony Conrad. Conrad is the founder of About.me and Sphere, and a partner at True Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that's funded more than 250 companies including Ring and BrightRoll. Tony led True Venture's investments in Wordpress, BlueBottle, MakerBot, and more.

In this week's episode, Tony talks about his first meeting with Wordpress, what's it like to run companies and invest in them at the same time, his process on vetting a founder, where he sees venture changing, and a discussion around diversity in investing.

In angel investing, there are no overnight success stories. Proven investor Tom McInerney from TGM established himself over the course of making 70 deals in the past 12 years, specializing in early-stage internet companies. Tom calls investing “the get rich slow business,” and says, “best case, your winners take years and years and years to mature.”

Despite how difficult succeeding as an investor is, Tom knows that to others, it looks easy. “As an investor, I think entrepreneurs probably don't realize investors have a hard job. It looks easy. I think if they understood fund returns they would be wildly disappointed. You just naturally read about things that work,” Tom says.

Tom joined Cory Levy on the Spearhead Podcast to talk about his experiences as an investor and to share his advice for fellow angels. Among the long list of successful investments he’s made over the years are missed opportunities in now large tech giants, including Thumbtack and Airbnb. “One thing I took away was, as I continue to do well -- take risks. As an investor, you have to take risks,” says Tom.

Tom takes risks on founders he believes in, regardless of the other angels or firms involved in a round or if he’s the first check or the last. “One thing I would say is just because a bunch of great folks are in a round, doesn't mean that it's going to work. I probably overvalued some, like ‘Goldman Sachs and Excella are coming into this round, so it's got to be good.’ That's not necessarily true. You still got to believe in the company yourself I think to write a check.”

Writing a check, for Tom, has significance over and above the capital it provides to the company. “When you invest in a company, as an angel, you should think about it as lending your credibility.” By signing a check, you’re putting your name and the name of your investment group publicly on a company, and by lending your credibility to a founder, you’re helping them leverage your name and brand to help accomplish their goals. When you’re not willing to endorse a startup and back them with your name and money, you need to give a “no.”

“Giving good no’s as an investor is hard but it's really important,” Tom says. Tom explains that he tries to give the best no possible to help founders understand why he’s passing on them. Despite the importance of giving a good no, Tom also cautions founders from taking them as a sign that something is wrong with their business. “Founders shouldn't over-read a no, and investors should make it clear that just because they're saying no doesn't mean that they are right.” However, if a group of founders is consistently hearing no for the same reasons from different investors, they should address this concern.

Listen to the full interview between Cory Levy and Tom McInerney here on the Spearhead Podcast.

This week, Cory speaks to venture capitalist Jeff Fagnan. Jeff is a founder of Accomplice, where he focuses on emerging companies in enterprise and Internet infrastructure. Jeff is well known as a founding investor, working with most of his portfolio since inception, sometimes as a co-founder including Veracode (Sold to CA Technologies‍). Jeff sits on the board of many scaling startups including AngelList, CoinList, Carbon Black (CBLK), Earnest (sold to Navien‍‍‍t), Integral Ad Scien‍‍‍ce (sold to Vista Equity Partners), PillPack (sold to AMZN), and more. He is also the co-founder of Spearhead with Naval Ravikant.

In this week's episode, he talks about his start as an investor, what he’s learned about investing over the past two decades, how to cultivate a network, what every investor needs to have in order to be successful, and a lot more!

This week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur, technology executive and angel investor Elad Gil, who is well known for working with high growth tech companies like Airbnb, Twitter, Google, Instacart, Coinbase, Stripe, and Square as they've grown from small companies into global brands. Across all of these break-out companies, a set of common patterns has evolved into a repeatable playbook that Gil has made available to everyone on Amazon today called, "High Growth Handbook". Featuring over a dozen interviews with some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley including Reid Hoffman, Marc Andreessen and Aaron Levie. In this week's episode, he talks about how to help companies post-investment, his thoughts on secondary market, proactive vs reactive investing, how much time to spend with a team before funding, data driven investing and what systems to put in place starting out.

Guest: Elad Gil

http://www.eladgil.com

https://twitter.com/eladgil

https://www.amazon.com/High-Growth-Handbook-Elad-Gil/dp/1732265100

Host: Cory Levy

https://twitter.com/cory

https://afterschoolapp.com

http://internapalooza.com