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

Cem Sertoglu is one of the great venture investors of the last decade. Cem is famed for writing the first check into UiPath and over several rounds turning $16.5M into $2.1BN. Cem recently started Bek Ventures, a $250M fund that was 3x oversubscribed. 

In Today’s Show with Cem Sertoglu We Discuss:

1. Has Venture Capital Been Commoditised:

• Why does Cem believe that VC has not been commoditised?

• Why does Cem believe many VCs today are not even VCs anymore?

• How does Cem advise founders who have offers from large multi-stage firms? What questions should they ask them pre-working with them? 

• How do the best founders select the VC they choose to work with?

2. Price, Reserves, Loss Ratios:

• Why does Cem believe that price does not matter?

• How does Cem approach reserves and reserves management?

• What does Cem know now about reserves that he wishes he had known when he started investing?

• Does Cem care about loss ratio? Does he do scenario planning when making investments?

3. Making $2.1BN on UiPath: 

• How did Cem meet Daniel for the first time? Was it obvious he was incredible?

• Why did they only write a $1M check and not take the whole round with $1.5M?

• Why did 40 of the best investors in Europe all turn down UiPath for the Series A?

• What did doing the bridge round for UiPath teach Cem about reserves?

• When was it obvious UiPath was going to be a mega hit?

• How did they continue to concentrate capital with each round?

• When did they first start to sell shares in UiPath?

• What was their approach to the selldown of their position?

• When the company IPO’d, how much of it did they have? 

4. AMA with One of Europe’s Best:

• Does signalling exist? How does Cem advise founders on this?

• What has been his biggest loss? How did that change his mindset?

• What has been Cem’s biggest miss? What did he not see?

• Why does Cem always believe you should manufacture arguments with founders before investing?

• Why does Cem believe a high GP commit can actually misalign the GP and the LP?

Alain De Botton is one of the greatest philosophers of our time. His work has had a profound impact on me more than any other. I have wanted to do this episode for the last 8 years. 

In Today’s Episode with Alain De Botton We Discuss:

1. Why Status is Making You Miserable: 

• Why are we richer yet more anxious than ever?

• What is the right way to define status? Why do we want it so much?

• Is it bad to want status? What are some non-obvious signs that you are seeking status when you do not realise it?

• Does social media enhance the desire for status? How so?

• Do the happiest people want status the least? What are Alain’s biggest observations in how truly happy people think about status?

2. Why Parents Want You To Fail: 

• Why is the sign of good parenting when your child does not want to be famous?

• Why do your parents sometimes want you to fail? 

• What should parents do if their child wants to chase an unachievable goal?

• Why should parents encourage their children to start very early? 

3. Why Meritocracy is a Fallacy & Meaningful Work:

• Why does Alain believe a true meritocracy is an impossible dream?

• Why is meritocracy a bad thing when taken to the extreme?

• Why does Alain believe that companies are not families?

• Why does Alain tell people that they should not bring their full selves to work? 

4. WTF is “Meaningful Work”: 

• What does it mean to do “meaningful work”?

• Why do humans need to do “meaningful work” today in a way that we did not many years ago?

• What are Alain’s biggest pieces of advice to young people today, unsure of what they should do with their lives and careers?

• Why does Alain believe the idea of a “calling” is BS?

5. Ambition, Achievement and Sacrifice:

• What does Alain mean when he says “you have to tolerate your own averageness”?

• What does Alain say to the young generation who want work/life balance?

• What does Alain mean when he said you “cannot be at war with yourself”?

• Does Alain agree that to achieve you must sacrifice?

Raman Malik is the Head of Growth at Perplexity where he is responsible for growth marketing, onboarding, activation, retention, and monetisation. Prior to Perplexity, Raman, was an early member of the growth team at Lyft and joined Perplexity earlier this year after his own startup journey. 

In Today’s Episode with Perplexity’s Head of Growth: 

1. Inside the Perplexity Growth Machine:

• What have been the single biggest needle movers in the growth of Perplexity?

• What has not worked? What have they learned from that?

• How have partnerships driven growth? Lessons on what makes a good vs bad partnership?

• Why does Raman think paid acquisition is a drug and Perplexity do not do it? How does Raman advise other founders when it comes to paid acquisition?

2. Acquisition, Retention, Churn: Mastering the Basics:

• Why does Raman think that brand marketing is BS? When does it become more important?

• What are the simplest things startups and product teams can do to drive retention up?

• How do Perplexity count an “engaged user”? What metric suggests they have a retained user?

• What is the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to A/B tests?

3. How Perplexity Built a Growth Machine:

• Why does Raman advise all founders to hire more former founders?

• How does the way you manage founders turned employees differ from employees who have never been founders?

• What is the must under appreciated growth channel today that has worked for Perplexity?

• What growth channel has been the biggest flop for Perplexity? What did Raman learn from losing money on the channel?

Markus Villig is the Founder and CEO of Bolt, a global mobility platform with more than 200 million lifetime customers in more than 50 countries and 600 cities. Bolt has raised over €1 billion in funding from investors like Sequoia, D1 and G Squared, making Markus the youngest founder of a billion-dollar company in Europe.

In Today’s Episode with Markus Villig:

1. Starting an $8BN Company:

• How did Markus come up with the idea for Bolt before Uber existed?

• How did Markus find his co-founder? Why did 30 people turn down the chance to co-found Bolt? What are Markus’ biggest tips on finding a co-founder?

• How did Markus use a $5K loan from his parents as the pre-seed round?

• How did Markus get the first riders for Bolt? What worked? What did not work?

• How did Markus get the first driver for Bolt? What worked? What did not work?

2. Expanding to be a Global Champion:

• How did Markus expand Bolt to $10M in ARR on just $1M of funding?

• What did the international expansion playbook look like? What worked? What did not work? How has it changed over time?

• What one simple change led to their becoming the leader in Africa?

• What was the best country to launch? What was the worst?

• What is the most profitable country today? What is the least?

3. The $8BN Company that no VC Wanted to Fund:

• Why did every large VC in Europe turn down Bolt early on?

• How did a real estate company in the Baltics save Bolt with lifeline funding?

• When did Sequoia come into the mix? Does Sequoia move the needle for your company when they invest?

• How do New York financially driven investors differ to the traditional VC ecosystem?

• What would Markus most like to change about the world of VC?

4. The Future: Micromobility, Self-Driving Cars, Uber:

• Will the rise of self-driving cars harm or help companies like Bolt and Uber?

• What is the future for micromobility? Does it cannibalise the core business for Bolt and Uber?

• What is Uber better at Bolt doing? What are Uber worse at than Bolt? How will that change moving forward?

• Waymo, buy or short? Why?

Matt Grimm is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Anduril Industries, an American defense technology company that specializes in advanced autonomous systems. To date, Anduril has raised over $3.7BN with the latest round pricing the company at a whopping $14BN. Before Anduril, Matt was a Principal at Mithril Capital Management alongside Peter Thiel. Before Mithril, Matt was an early hire at Palantir, where he was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan to ensure U.S. forces had the best technology for the mission. 

                           In Today’s Episode with Matt Grimm We Discuss:

1. China/Taiwan, Ukraine/Russia & Israel/Gaza:

• How will a Trump administration change US foreign policy and approach to conflict?

• Will China invade Taiwan? What does Matt expect to see happen there?

• Will Trump put an end to the war in Ukraine? What will be the outcome?

• Is Israel wrong to defend itself in the way it has? How will the situation in Gaza be resolved?

2. The Future of War:

• What will war look like in the future?

• How is software and autonomy changing the world of war? 

• Why does the incentive structure of governments buying military equipment need to change around the world?

• Will we see a world of robodogs fighting on battlefields? What does weaponry of the future look like?

3. Are We In a Defence Bubble:

• With the massive increase in funding to defence companies, does Matt think we are in a defence bubble?

• What does Matt believe all investors should know about the defence industry before they make investments in the space?

• What should defence founders at the early stage know about building a defence company at scale? What changes?

• Who will be the buyer for the many defence companies that have raised early rounds of funding and go out of business? 

4. Matt Grimm: AMA:

• Does money make you happy?

• What is the biggest luxury purchase you have made?

• Should TikTok be banned in the US?

• What would Matt do today if he knew he would not fail?

Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, one of the most important companies in history. OpenAI is on a mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. Prior to OpenAI, Sam was the President of Y Combinator and an angel investor in Stripe, Airbnb, Reddit and Instacart. 

                                         15 Questions with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman:

1. Will the trajectory of model capability improvement keep going at the same rate as it has been?

2. When did Sam doubt the continuance of scaling laws most? What has been the hardest technical research challenge OpenAI have overcome?

3. How worried is Sam about semiconductor supply chains and international tensions around them? 

4. What is Sam’s biggest worry today? How has it changed over the last 12 months and 5 years?

5. In what ways does Sam feel he was and is unprepared for the role of CEO of OpenAI?

6. Was Masa Son right to suggest that $9TRN of value will be created every year by AI?

7. Why does Sam disagree with Larry Ellison’s statement that it will cost $100BN to enter the foundation model race?

8. Was Keith Rabois right that the best way to build companies is to hire under 30s? 

9. What unmade decision weighs on Sam’s mind most often?

10. What is Sam most grateful to Y Combinator for? 

11. What would Sam build if he were a 23 year old starting today with the foundational AI technology that is already in place?

12. What should startups not try and build as OpenAI will steamroll them? What should they try and build where OpenAI will not go?

13. What does Sam believe is the most exciting use of agents that he has not seen created yet?

14. How does Sam believe that human potential is most wasted today?

15. Who does Sam most respect in the world of AI today? Why them?

Vlad Tenev is a Co-Founder and CEO of Robinhood, the commission free stock trading and investing app with a market cap today of $20.7BN. Over the incredible 11 year journey Vlad has raised over $5BN from some of the world’s best investors including Sequoia, a16z, DST, Ribbit and Index. Before Robinhood, Vlad started two finance companies in New York City. 

In Today’s Episode with Vlad Tenev We Discuss: 

1. Surviving a Scandal: The Gamestop Saga:

• What was the single hardest element of the sage for Vlad?

• What did the sage teach Vlad about how to tell stories effectively?

• What did Vlad not do in the period that he wishes he had of done?

• What did he do that he wishes he had not done?

• What advice does Vlad have for any founder going into a crisis?

2. Founder Mode and The Biggest BS Myths of Leadership:

• How does Vlad analyse and assess Paul Graham’s “Founder Mode”?

• Where is Founder mode right? Where is it dangerous?

• What canonical leadership statements and lessons does Vlad most disagree with?

• How has Vlad changed most significantly as a leader?

3. 8x $100M Revenue Lines: Scaling a Juggernaut:

• What have been the single biggest challenges of scaling 8 lines of revenue each with over $100M in them?

• What have been Vlad’s biggest lessons on when and how to release new products?

• Why did Vlad decide to abandon the Europe launch? Was it right with the benefit of hindsight?

• What did Vlad not invest in with Robinhood that he wishes he had of done?

Karri Saarinen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Linear. The company has raised from some of the best in the business including Sequoia and Accel. Before founding Linear, Karri was the principal designer at Airbnb and the founding designer at Coinbase. 

10 Lessons with One of Silicon Valley’s Most In-Demand Founders:

How to Become a Master Fundraiser:

1. Why does Karri believe it is BS advice that founders should “always be raising”?

2. What is Karri’s biggest advice to founders on minimising dilution?

3. What do most founders think they know about fundraising but do not?

4. What is the best way to put your VCs to work? How can you give them homework to do?

5. What has been the single best VC meeting Karri has had?

6. What has been the worst VC meeting?

Product and Growth:

1. What does Karri mean when he says “founder must focus on quality growth over hypergrowth?”

2. How does Karri advise founders on how soon to release and monetise their first product? Wait for platform ready or ship more feature products and monetise?

3. What have been the single biggest product lessons for Karri from Airbnb and Coinbase?

4. What are the most commons ways that growth plateaus? What breaks first?

Karri AMA:

• Brian Armstrong or Brian Chesky; who would you invest in first?

• Would you sell Linear today for $3BN in cash?

• What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started?

• What did you believe that you now no longer believe?

Daniel Khachab is the co-founder and CEO of Choco. Today, Choco’s AI platform facilitates half of all food traded in major cities like New York, Paris, London, and Berlin, cutting food waste and streamlining distribution. Since its founding in 2018, Choco has raised $330 million from Bessemer, Coatue (its first European investment), and Insight, reaching unicorn status within 2.5 years. Previously, Daniel was the youngest Managing Director at Rocket Internet, where he oversaw growth across Latin America, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.

                                    From Seed to $1BN in 30 Months:

1. We Killed a $BN SaaS Business to be AI First:

• Why does Daniel believe that SaaS is dead?

• What does an AI-first company mean? 

• Why does Daniel believe AI-first companies will win the next 10 years?

• What foundation models does Daniel and Choco use today?

• How has the cost of using different models changed?

• What categories are vulnerable to being attacked with vertical products from the foundation model providers?

2. Europe is F*******: Why and What To Do:

• Why does Daniel believe Europe is at a massive disadvantage in the next 10 years of AI?

• Chips: What can Europe do to encourage chip production and manufacturing to take place on European soil?

• Energy: What can European governments do to encourage energy providers and new forms of renewable energy to innovate to provide the energy AI needs?

• Talent: Why does Daniel believe AI talent is the hardest problem that Europe faces? What can governments in EU do to resolve this problem?

3. Lessons Scaling to $1BN in 30 Months:

• Does Daniel regret raising at a $1.1BN valuation? 

• Why did he throw a unicorn party with the round? Why does he regret it so much?

• What did Daniel spend money on that he wish he had not spent money on?

• What did Daniel not spend money on that with the benefit of hindsight, they should have spent money on?

• When your competition raises a lot of funding, does that mean you should also?

Mark Goldberg is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Chemistry, a $350M fund announced just yesterday with the mission to lead the best seed and Series A rounds. Before Chemistry, Mark was a Partner at Index Ventures, where he led early stage investments in Plaid, Bridge, Pilot, Anrok and Persona. Prior to Index Ventures, Mark was one of the first business hires at Dropbox.

In Today’s Episode with Mark Goldberg We Discuss:

1. The Truth About Multi-Stage Firms:

• Why are portfolio services there to help the investing partners and not the founders?

• What are the most broken elements within a multi-stage firm?

• How does decision-making break down in large partnerships?

• When is the right time to work with multi-stage firms? When is not?

2. From Boutique High Margins to Commoditised Low Margins: 

• With the immense amount of cash that has entered VC, will returns simply get worse?

• Who will be the winners in the next 10 years of venture?

• Who will be the losers? What can they do today to change this?

• What element of the future of venture are not enough people spending time on?

3. Lessons from Leading Unicorn Company Rounds:

• What happens to all the unicorns with insanely high prices they cannot grow into?

• What has been Mark’s biggest hit? What did he learn?

• What has been his biggest miss? How did that change his go-forward approach?

• Does Mark agree that 90% of VC do not add value?