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

Tom Hulme is a Managing Partner of GV (Google Ventures), and leads the European team. Today, GV has over $10BN in AUM and Tom has led investments in Lemonade.com (IPO), Snyk, Secret Escapes, Blockchain.com, GoCardless, Blue Vision Labs (exited to Lyft), and Currency Cloud (exited to Visa). Prior to joining venture full-time, Tom was one of Europe's most successful angel investors with a 5x DPI track record and 20x+ TVPI.

1. Lessons from a 24x TVPI Angel Track Record:

• What are Tom's biggest lessons from his biggest winners angel investing?
• What are Tom's biggest takeaways from the 0's in his angel track record?
• What is the biggest advice Tom would give to angel investors starting out today?
• What are the single biggest mistakes Tom sees angel investors make today?

2. The Four Pillars of Venture Capital:

• What does Tom believe are the four key components of being successful as a VC?
• Why does Tom describe VC as "being a founder on anti-depressants"?
• How does Tom categorise the three different types of investors that exist?
• Sourcing, selecting, servicing: What is Tom best at and what is he worst at?

3. The Conventional Wisdom in Venture That is Not True:

• Why does Tom believe it is BS that you should never sell your winners?
• Why does Tom believe he has never had complete conviction in any of the companies he invests in?
• Why does Tom believe the "everything has to be a fund returner mindset" is BS?
• Why naivety doesn't lead to great founders? Why employees at rocketships are the best founders?

4. AI: Foundation Models, Generative AI, The Incumbents: Where Does the Value Go:

• Does Tom believe there is money to be made investing in foundation models?
• Why does Tom liken investing in foundation models to investing in power stations?
• Where does Tom believe there is value in the application layer?
• Why does Tom think that generative AI is largely a sustaining innovation?
• Why does Tom think Microsoft will win the next wave of AI? Who else is well-positioned?
• Why does Tom believe there is a correlation between those that fear monger around AGI and those that need funding for their businesses?

Sarah Tavel is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful and renowned venture firms in the world. At Benchmark, Sarah has led rounds in Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Medely, Rekki, Glide, Cambly and more. Prior to Benchmark, Sarah was a Partner at Greylock Partners. Before Greylock, Sarah was the first 30 employees at Pinterest. Sarah joined Pinterest in 2012 after co-leading the Series A investment while at Bessemer Venture Partners.

1. Becoming a GP at The Most Renowned Firm in Venture:

• How did the process of Sarah joining Benchmark start? How did it progress? What was it that convinced her to leave Greylock and join Benchmark?
• What does Sarah believe makes Peter Fenton the world-class investor that he is?
• What does Sarah know now that she wishes she had known when she started in venture?

2. Foundation Models: Is it All Going to Zero:

• Will foundation models be commoditised?
• Will 99% of the funding going to foundation models go to 0?
• How does Sarah view the future of open vs closed source?
• Why does Sarah believe that all frontier models of the future will be closed-source?
• Why does the business model of foundation models remind Sarah of the food delivery business?

3. Application Layer: Where $BN Companies Will Be Built:

• Why does Sarah believe that sustainable value-creating companies will be in the application layer?
• How does Sarah determine between a wrapper on top of ChatGPT and true product value?
• Are enterprises opening real budgets for AI today or are we still in experimental budgets?
• How does Sarah think about how AI companies differentiate when there are so many in the same space of customer service, sales team support etc etc?
• Why does Sarah believe that it is rational to pay more for these companies when investing in them?
• What does Sarah mean when she says the future is "selling the work and not the tools"?

4. Inside Benchmark: How the Best Do Venture:

• What is the one rule that Benchmark is willing to break when doing a deal?
• Why do Benchmark aim to be the best recruitment firm in the world?
• Why do Benchmark not agree with the concept of reserves?
• In a case where Benchmark have lost, why did they lose? How did they change their approach?

Eric Glyman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ramp, America's fastest growing corporate card and finance automation platform. Under Eric's leadership, Ramp has raised more than $1 billion in financing, with a valuation of $8.1 billion. Prior to Ramp, Eric co-founded Paribus, a price-tracking app to help consumers save money (acquired by Capital One). Ramp recently raised another $150 million series D round co-led by Founders Fund and Khosla ventures, with a post-money valuation of $7.65 billion.

Keith Rabois is a Managing Director @ Khosla Ventures and one of the most respected venture investors of the last decade. Keith has led investments in Stripe, Faire, Ramp, Affirm and many more. Prior to Khosla Ventures, Keith was General Partner at Founders Fund, where he led investments for Ramp, Trade Republic, and Aven.

In Today's Episode with Eric Glyman and Keith Rabois We Discuss:

1. Behind Ramp's Partnership with Founders Fund & Khosla Ventures

• How did the first Founders Fund deal come to be? How was the first meeting?

• What does Keith mean when he says Ramp has the "secret sauce" to be successful?

• What are 1-2 things Keith thinks Eric is world-class at? What are 1-2 things Eric thinks Keith is world-class at?

• How did the latest Khosla deal come to happen?

1. Ramp: The Fastest Executing Company on the Planet.

• How is Eric so good at executing at Ramp? What is his biggest advice to founders on speed of execution?

• What are Eric's biggest challenges in the next 12 months at Ramp?

• Why does Keith believe momentum is crucial for early stage startups? What are some easy ways founders can build momentum?

• How does Eric think AI will accelerate Ramp and the world of finance?

1. Leadership Lessons From the Best Founders

• What are Keith's biggest lessons from Brian Chesky @ Airbnb?

• What did Keith learn from Jack Dorsey @ Square about leadership?

• What does Eric think founders today should build? What should they not build?

• What did Eric learn from Keith on how founders should measure time & progress?

1. Hiring & Team Management

• How did Ramp build a solid talent team? What did they do differently?

• Does Keith & Eric believe it is better to hire externally or promote internally? What is the right balance?

• Does Keith agree founders should hire & get out the way or micromanage?

• How many direct reports does Keith think is enough?

Mark Suster is a General Partner @ Upfront Ventures, one of LA's leading early-stage venture firms. Prior to leading Upfront, Mark was a serial entrepreneur having founded two software companies, selling both with the last selling to Salesforce.com. Mark is also a prolific writer and one of his favourite pieces, Lines Not Dots is one for the ages.

1. From Serial Entrepreneur to Leading VC:

• How Mark made his way into the world of venture having sold two prior companies?
• What does Mark know now that he wishes he had known when he started in venture?
• What advice does Mark give to all young investors starting their career today?

2. How to Raise a Fund:

• What are Mark's single biggest lessons from 15 years of fundraising for funds?
• Should managers look to institutions or friends and family first?
• Are LPs sheep? Do institutions anchoring funds lead to many others jumping in?
• What is the right amount to do a first close on? What is the right way to message the first close?
• What are the single biggest mistakes Mark sees managers make when raising?

3. Exit Environments are F******: What Now:

• Why are IPOs not the liquidity events that everyone thinks they are?
• When does Mark believe IPO windows will open again?
• How does Mark evaluate the M&A landscape today?
• With little M&A and IPO activity, why does Mark believe private equity will step into their shoes?
• With the change to private equity being the buyer, what does that mean for the sale price of the assets? What does that mean for the future of venture returns?

4. Trump, The Woke Left and The World Around Us:

• Is Mark concerned about the potential of Trump winning the election?
• Would Mark rather a Biden administration as the alternative?
• Why is Mark so worried by the woke left?
• Does Mark always believe there has been this deep-seated anti-semitism in the US education system? What can be done to remove this from our education system?

Arthur Mensch is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mistral AI. Since its inception in May 2023, Mistral has raised over $520M in funding from investors like Andreeseen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Microsoft with a current valuation of $2 billion. Before founding Mistral, Arthur was a research scientist at DeepMind, one of the leading AI institutions in the world.

In Today's Episode with Arthur Mensch We Discuss:

1. From Models to Team Building: Arthur's Greatest Lessons at DeepMind

• What were Arthur's biggest lessons from his time at DeepMind?

• How did DeepMind shape how Arthur built Mistral?

• Why does Arthur believe smaller teams are better for AI?

• Why did Arthur decide to leave DeepMind and start Mistral?

1. Scaling Mistral to $2 Billion Valuation Within a Year

• What made Mistral 7B so successful? What did Arthur learn from the model release?

• What are the biggest barriers at Mistral today?

• How does Arthur balance the sales and research teams at Mistral?

• What does Arthur know now that he wishes he had known when he started Mistral?

1. How to Win in AI: Open Source, Cost, & Adoption

• Why did Arthur open-source some models? Why did he close some?

• How quickly will the cost of compute go down? Why does Arthur believe marginal costs will not go to zero?

• How will open-sourcing LLMs affect the marginal cost?

• Does Arthur think open source is ready for enterprise adoption?

• What questions should enterprises be asking about AI adoption today?

• What are the biggest challenges to AI adoption today?

1. The Future of LLMs

• What does Arthur think are the largest bottlenecks of model quality today?

• Does Arthur think future models will be more generalized or vertical-focused?

• What does Arthur think about the future of commoditization in models?

• Why is Arthur optimistic about the profitability of the application layer of AI?

• How should models differentiate themselves today?

Adam Gross is one of the masters of product-led growth (PLG). Most recently, Adam was Vimeo's interim CEO. Before Vimeo, Adam was CEO of Heroku, which he joined after selling his startup, Cloudconnect in 2013. Additionally, Adam has held executive leadership roles at Salesforce and Dropbox, and has been an active angel investor & advisor to companies, including Buildkite, Cribl, and Tailscale.

In Today's Episode with Adam Gross We Discuss:

1. PLG Tactics from Dropbox, Heroku and Salesforce:

• What were Adam's biggest takeaways from his time at Salesforce? How did it shape his growth mindset?

• What did Adam learn about customer acquisition at Dropbox?

• What would Adam most like to change about growth today?

1. Product-Led Growth: The Fundamentals:

• What is growth? What is it not? What do founders get wrong about growth?

• Why does Adam think PLG is not for everybody?

• What do most great PLG businesses have in common?

• How are value propositions segmented in PLG? How can startups transition from individual to enterprise clients?

• Why does Adam think startups doing paid acquisition sub $100M aren't actually PLG?

1. The Secrets to Optimizing Growth Channels:

• What are the most common reasons fast-growing companies plateau?

• How does Adam advise founders on diversifying channels?

• What are the biggest mistakes founders make when scaling into enterprise?

• How should startups do effective product marketing in horizontal products?

• What is emotive & strategic marketing? How should startups balance both?

1. How Angel Investing Changes How You View Companies:

• What are Adam's top 3 pieces of advice for founders?

• What does Adam mean when he says you are either hiring a poet or a librarian?

• What are the biggest mistakes founders make when hiring?

• What was Adam's biggest investment miss? What did he learn from it?

Rujul Zaparde is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zip, the world's leading Intake-to-Pay solution, adopted by leading enterprises and startups including Snowflake, Canva, Airtable, Webflow, and others. In 2023, Zip raised $100 million in a Series C round, valuing the company at $1.5 billion. Before founding Zip, Rujul was a Visiting Partner at Y Combinator and a product manager at Airbnb.

In Today's Episode with Rujul Zaparde We Discuss:

1. From Airbnb PM to $1.5BN Founder

• How did Rujul's first company fail? What were his lessons?

• What did Rujul learn from his time at Airbnb?

• How did Rujul come to co-found Zip? What was the aha moment?

• What did Rujul wish he'd known when he started Zip?

1. Standing Out in a Hyper-Competitive Market

• Why did Rujul pick such a competitive market? How did they stand out?

• Does Rujul think founders should focus on pain points or platform solutions on day one?

• What is Rujul's advice to founders who are in the discovery process?

• Does Rujul agree with Trae Stephens @ Founders Fund that serial entrepreneurs doing B2B enterprise SaaS are wasting their talent?

1. The Biggest Lessons Scaling Zip to $1.5BN Valuation

• Which key moment caused Zip to accelerate?

• Why does Rujul think speed is the most important element in startups?

• Why does Rujul not believe in design partners?

• Why does Rujul believe repeatability is the most important thing when pitching?

• Does Rujul think AI will destroy outbound sales?

1. How to Hire & Manage Teams

• What was Rujul's "rude awakening" building a sales team?

• What was Rujul's biggest hiring mistake? What did he learn from it?

• How does Rujul decide where to focus his attention and resources?

• Why does Rujul believe younger managers are more creative?

Daniel Dines is the Co-Founder @ UiPath, one of the most incredible journeys in startups. For 10 years, UiPath was a bootstrapped company that scaled to just $500K in revenue. Then it all changed, product market fit became obvious and the rest is history. The company went on to raise funding from Sequoia, Accel, Kleiner Perkins and more. Today, the company is worth over $10BN, listed on the NASDAQ and does $1BN+ in revenue.

1. From a Dollar a Day to Romania's Richest Man:

• How would Daniel's parents and teachers have described the young Daniel?
• How did Daniel first learn to code? Why was his first programming job on $300 per month the best?
• How did Daniel learn English by playing bridge with his friends?
• What was the a-ha moment for Daniel with UiPath?

2. Becoming a Billionaire: The Mental Journey:

• What does Daniel mean when he says everyone is a prisoner of their own mind?
• How does Daniel reflect on his own relationship to money?
• How did having absolutely nothing impact Daniel's relationship to risk?
• Why does Daniel think that he does not really experience or feel happiness?

3. 10 Years to $500K ARR: The Miracle Bootstrapping Journey:

• After 10 years, UiPath had just $500K in ARR, what was the one single moment that changed everything in 2014?
• How did raising the seed round change everything for Daniel? How did it change his approach to operating?
• What was the impact of having Sequoia invest? Does it change the game? Why did Daniel say no to them the first time they tried for the Series B?

4. Journey to a $10BN Public Company: The Crucible Moments:

• How did the company almost go bust when it spent $400M against a plan of $150M in 2021?
• What is the single proudest moment Daniel has of the 19 year journey with UiPath?
• What have been Daniel's biggest management lessons in scaling UiPath to $1BN in ARR?
• Knowing all that Daniel does today, what would he have done differently about the UiPath journey?

Girish Mathrubootham is the founder and CEO of Freshworks, India's first SaaS company to list on NASDAQ. Today, Freshworks has over $596M in ARR with a $5.27BN market cap, with investors like Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management, and CapitalG. Girish is also a founding member of SaaSBOOMi, Asia's largest community of founders and product builders, and has invested in over 60 startups. On top of that, Girish is also the Founder of Together Fund, a $150M fund focusing on Indian B2B companies going global from day 1.

In Today's Episode with Girish Mathrubootham We Discuss:

1. From Online Forum to the Founding of a $5BN Company:

• How did a horrible customer service experience prompt Girish to start Freshworks? What was the aha moment?

• What were Girish's biggest challenges founding Freshwork in 2010?

• How was building the first product? What worked? What didn't work?

1. Biggest Lessons on Product, Pricing and People Scaling to $5.2BN:

• Why does Girish believe Indian companies have to win globally before winning India?

• What were Girish's biggest mistakes scaling Freshworks? What were his lessons?

• Why does Girish believe starting high and going down never works in software?

• When does Girish think is the best time to build the second product?

• How did Freshworks lose against Slack? What did he learn from the experience?

1. The Biggest Lessons to Becoming the Best Leader:

• How has Girish's leadership style changed over time?

• What were Girish's biggest hiring mistakes?

• What was Girish's biggest challenge in building culture during COVID?

• What is one piece of advice Girish believes every CEO should follow?

1. How India Will Become a Global Player in Tech, AI and Football:

• Why does Girish believe now is the time for India tech?

• What are the most common misconceptions of India tech?

• What traits does Girish look for in founders he invests in?

• What was Girish's biggest investment mistake? What did he learn from it?

Vickie Peng is a Product Partner at Sequoia and the co-creator of Arc, their company-building immersion programme for pre-seed and seed stage founders. Prior to Sequoia, Vickie was a product manager at Polyvore (acquired by Yahoo for $200M) and Instagram, where she grew SMB advertising from $200M to $1BN.

In Today's Episode with Vickie Peng We Discuss:

1. Lessons from 15 Years in Product

• How did Vickie make her way into the world of product?

• How did Vickie turn a small side business into a massive revenue machine at TrialPay?

• How did Vickie scale Instagram SMB ads to $1BN? What were her takeaways?

• What was Vickie's business model at Polyvore that eventually led to the $200M acquisition by Yahoo?

1. Lessons from Scaling 100+ Companies in Sequoia

• What does Vickie believe are the biggest mistakes early stage founders make when telling stories?

• Which 2 components does Vickie believe every great product mission should include?

• How should pre-product-market fit founders set their north star metric?

1. Perfecting Product Strategy

• What was Vickie's biggest product mistake? What were her lessons?

• Why does Vickie think the best product people build less product?

• What is Vickie's advice to product leaders starting their first day on the job?

• What are the most common mistakes founders make when hiring product teams?

1. Product-Market Fit Masterclass

• Why does Vickie believe product-market fit is a journey not a destination?

• What are the biggest reasons founders fail to get product-market fit?

• What are the 3 types of product-market fit?

• How does Vickie advise founders to differentiate themselves in competitive markets?

• What is Vickie's framework for competing against incumbents?