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

Will Wu is the CTO @ Match Group, the owner and operator of the largest global portfolio of popular online dating services including Tinder, Match.com, OkCupid, and Hinge to name a few. Prior to Match, Will was VP of Product at Snap Inc. As the 35th employee, Will spearheaded the creation of Snapchat's "Discover" content platform. He also led the creation and growth of the "Chat" messaging feature, which today is a primary Snapchat engagement driver that connects hundreds of millions of people each day.

1. The Journey to Snap CPO:

• How did Evan make his way into the world of product and come to meet Evan Spiegel?
• What are 1-2 of his biggest takeaways from his time at Snap?
• What does Will know now that he wishes he had known when he started in product?

2. How to Hire Product Teams:

• How does Will structure the interview process for new product hires?
• What are the most telling questions of a candidate's product skills in hiring?
• What case studies and tests does Will do to assess a candidate?
• What are 1-2 of Will's biggest hiring mistakes in product?

3. How to Do Product Reviews Effectively:

• What are Will's biggest lessons on what it takes to do product reviews well?
• What are the biggest mistakes product leaders make in product reviews?
• How can teams drive focus in product reviews? What works? What does not?

4. Product: Art or Science?

• How does Will balance between gut/intuition and data in product decisions?
• Is simple always better in product design?
• What is human-centered design? How does it impact how Will approaches product?

Dave Kellogg is one of the OGs of Saas. Among his many accomplishments, Dave was the CMO of Business Objects where he helped scale the business from $30M to $1BN in revenue. Dave has also been a CEO twice, once scaling the business from $0 to $80M and the other business from $8M to $50M before selling it. Dave is also an advisor to some of the best including GainSight, Logickull, MongoDB, Pigment, Recorded Future, and Tableau.

1. What are the Metrics That Matter:

• Why is CAC payback period such a flawed metric?
• What is CAC ratio? Why is it more effective than understanding payback?
• Why is gross revenue retention more important than net revenue retention?
• What are the single biggest mistakes that founders make when using metrics today?

2. How to Build and Scale the Best Sales Teams:

• Why should founders hire three sales reps at one time? What is the benefit?
• What are the three different types of sales calls all teams must have?
• What should all CEOs and Heads of Sales ask of their sales team in forecasting?
• What is the single biggest mistake most companies make in forecasting?
• How should a CEO/board member respond to a sales team that lets a deal slip to next quarter?

3. Are CFOs Buying New Tech and How to Win Renewals:

• Are CFOs open for business? How has the top down sales process changed in the last year?
• Why is the way that startups think about renewals completely broken?
• What are the three different types of customer success teams we have today?
• What is the core role of customer success? How can we incentivise them to sell more?

4. Mastering Product Marketing, Customer Profiles and Crossing the Chasm:

• How can we use product marketing to increase sales velocity?
• What is the single biggest risk in product marketing today?
• What does Dave mean when he says "an ICP starts as an aspiration and becomes a regression?"

Ryan Akkina is a member of the Global Investment Team at the MIT Investment Management Company (MITIMCo), which is responsible for managing MIT's endowment and pension plans. Ryan has invested in the likes of Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, a16z, Greenoaks and Initialized to name a few. Ryan also leads many of MITIMCo's direct co-investments including most notably into Coupang and Rippling. Prior to joining MITIMCo, Ryan was a consultant at McKinsey & Company.

1. From Engineer to LP with MIT:

• How did Ryan make his way into the world of fund investing as an LP with MIT?
• Why did he turn down the chance to be a VC early in his career?
• What does Ryan know now that he wishes he had known when he started at MIT?

2. The Manager Evaluation Process for MIT:

• What does Ryan look for most when investing in new managers?
• How important is track record when evaluating a new manager?
• What is the biggest mistake Ryan has made in picking a manager? What did he not see that he wish he had seen? How did that change his process?

3. How MIT Builds Their Portfolio:

• How does MIT construct their portfolio from private to public to everything in between?
• What are the three different types of check sizes that MIT writes when investing in new managers?
• What are the most common reasons why MIT will not re-up with a manager?
• What are the single biggest reasons why great managers turn bad?

4. MIT: The Direct Investor:

• Why does MIT see so much opportunity in direct investing?
• How does MIT approach the direct investing process? How do they approach underwriting themselves vs working with their managers in the process?
• How do MIT think about the right number of direct deals to make up their portfolio?
• How do they approach check sizing on a per-company direct investment?
• What has been Ryan's biggest direct investing mistake? How did that change his approach and mindset?

5. LP Markets Today and Where We Go From Here:

• Are LPs open for business today? What type of firms will not struggle? Which will?
• How does Ryan view liquidity windows today? When will M&A and IPO markets open?
• What would Ryan most like to change about the world of LPs?
• Why does Ryan believe the LP incentive structure in terms of compensation is broken?

Dave Ripley is the CEO @ Kraken, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, valued in 2022 at a whopping $10.8BN. Prior to Kraken, Dave was the Co-Founder of Glidera, a market-leading Blockchain technology company that Kraken acquired in 2016.

1. From Boston Consulting Group to CEO of Kraken:

• How did Dave first make his way into the world of crypto?
• What are the single hardest elements of a CEO transition?
• What does Dave know now that he wishes he had known about CEOship?

2. What is the Usage for Crypto:

• Other than as a store of value, what application usage does crypto serve?
• Global payments are fine as is and are improving, why do they need crypto?
• Global remittance is served by Remote and Deel, why do they need crypto?
• No applications have been provided well, what really is the use case that makes sense?

3. Should Gensler Be Let Go and The SEC is Wrong:

• Why is the approach of the SEC completely flawed?
• Should Gensler be fired for his ineffectiveness?
• What is the right policy stance and approach to take from here?

Sean Murray is the CRO @ Greenhouse which is the fourth company Sean has scaled successfully into the enterprise. Sean's prior roles include revenue leadership positions at Saleloft (CRO), Xactly (VP Sales), and CEB, now Gartner (Head of MID Global Sales).

1. The Origin Story: Is a Love of Sales Born:

• How did Sean first fall in love with Sales?
• What does Sean know now that he wishes he had known when he started his career in sales?
• What is Sean's biggest advice to a young person entering the sales world today?

2. Sales has Changed; You Need to Change with It:

• Why do CMOs need to be good sellers and CROs need to be good marketers today?
• Have we seen the total blending of sales and marketing today?
• Should we get rid of all sales teams and just have content marketing teams?

3. How to Move into the Enterprise Successfully:

• What are the three biggest mistakes startups make when scaling into the enterprise?
• What easy wins can they do early in the sales process to enterprises to get a good start?
• How important are logos? Does social validity really work in enterprise?
• How should sales teams use discounting in enterprise sales most effectively?
• What is the right way for sales leaders and CROs to budget for enterprise?
• Is there a way to test enterprise without committing the company and a lot of resources?

4. How to Build the Best Sales Team Today:

• What is the right hiring process for all new sales hires?
• What are the questions you have to ask in the interviews?
• What do the case studies entail? What are signals of the best reps?
• What are the biggest mistakes teams make when hiring new sales reps?
• What have been Sean's biggest lessons on comp and negotiation with new reps?

Adam Fisher is a Partner @ Bessemer Venture Partners and one of the most successful investors in Israel over the last two decades with seed investments in Fiverr, Wix, Melio, HiBob and more. Adam has now made over 60 investments and has had an incredible 23 successful exits. Adam has now been in venture for over 27 years having started his career at Jerusalem Venture Partners in 1996.

1. Lessons from 27 Years in Venture Capital:

• How did Adam first make his way into the world of venture straight out of college?
• Does Adam agree with Doug Leone that VC has changed from a "boutique, high margin business to a commoditized, low margin industry"?
• What does Adam know now that he wishes he had known when he started in venture?

2. How to Pick Winners: 23 Exits in 60 Investments:

• To what extent does Adam think pattern recognition is a good thing? When is it bad?
• Does Adam prefer to invest in outsider founders approaching a problem with fresh eyes or insider founders who know the problem back to front?
• Why does Adam believe that "category creation is BS"?
• Why does Adam not like to invest in big, hugely ambitious markets? Why are smaller markets best?

3. The Deal: Mastering the Art of Negotiation and the Deal:

• How does Adam reflect on his own relationship to price?
• When doing an investment, does Adam think about who would do the next round?
• How important is ownership to Adam? Does he want it all on first check?
• Why does Adam not like to invest in hot AI rounds?
• What have been Adam's single biggest investing mistakes? How did it change his approach?

4. Mastering the Art of Portfolio Management:

• Why does Adam believe that it is impossible to know which of your portfolio will be the breakout winners early on?
• How does Adam approach reserve allocations with this in mind?
• How does Adam know when is the right time to sell a position?
• What does Adam believe was the biggest sin of the zero interest rate environment period?

Zaria Parvez is Duolingo's Senior Global Social Media Manager where she is famed for scaling Duolingo's TikTok from 50K followers in September 2021 to 8M followers today. The Duolingo TikTok has 143 viral videos (view counts of 1M or higher) due to Zaria's creativity. What started as a test-and-learn initiative has become Duolingo's most successful social buzz and word-of-mouth initiative to date – all because of Zaria's insights, instincts, and expertise.

1. From College Student to TikTok Star:

• How did Zaria make her way into the world of social media and Duolingo?
• When did Zaria realize the power of TikTok? What did she do as a first step?
• What does Zaria know now about growing on TikTok that she wishes she'd known when she started?

2. How to Create a Viral Video:

• What have been Zaria's biggest lessons in what it takes to create a viral video?
• What does Zaria mean when she says the best content is "medicine to candy"?
• What does the ideation process look like for new content ideas?
• How much budget should be set aside for new content?
• What does Zaria mean when she says Duolingo's TikTok needs to view like a "sitcom"?

3. How to Tie Success in Content Back to Hard Dollars:

• How is "success" in content measured at Duolingo?
• How fast does Zaria know if a video is a hit or not? What is the right cadence to post?
• How should companies determine whether content is ultimately successful or not?
• What is the single metric that Zaria is focused on today?

4. How to Build the Best Content Team:

• Why should companies not work with content agencies if they want the best results?
• Why does Zaria believe you have to hire troublemakers if you want success in content?
• What are the single biggest mistakes companies make w

Shyam Sankar is Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Palantir Technologies in addition to the Chairman of Ginkgo Bioworks. Shyam holds a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University and a M.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.

1. Journey to the Top of Defence:

• How did Shyam make his way into the world of startups and get a role with Kevin Hartz at Xoom?
• How did seeing Shyam's parents lose everything impact his mindset and drive?
• What does Shyam know now that he wishes he had known when he started his career?

2. How the World's Governments Buy Defence:

• What is the playbook for selling defence to different governments?
• Why is the way that governments purchase and procure so broken?
• If Shyam were head of the DOD, what would he change?
• Why does the DOD "need to pick winners"?
• Which governments are the best to work with? Which are the worst?

3. A World In Conflict: What Changes:

• How does conflict change the buying process and urgency for governments?
• How do elections change the buying cadence and process for different governments?
• Looking forward to 2024, how does Shyam predict the state of different global conflicts?

4. Hiring 101: You Have To Hire Artists:

• What have been Shyam's single biggest lessons on what it takes to hire the best of the best?
• Why does Shyam believe that hiring great people is like talent management in Hollywood?
• Why does Shyam believe talent should be "shielded from budgets"?
• What have been some of Shyam's biggest hiring mistakes? How did he learn from them?

Brian Halligan is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairperson of HubSpot. Brian led the business as CEO for 15 years from Day 1 to a $30BN public company with 7,000 employees. Among Brian numerous achievements, Brian is famed for coining the term "inbound marketing", he is a globally recognised author, he is also an incredible teacher having developed MIT's popular Scaling Entrepreneurial Ventures class. In addition to all of this, he is also the Co-Founder of Propeller Ventures, a $100 million climate tech venture fund, specializing in ocean innovation investments.

1. The Makings of a Generational Defining Entrepreneur:

• How did the first job as a paperboy lead to the founding of a $30BN company?
• How does Brian analyse the importance of luck vs skill in success?
• What is Brian running from? What is he running towards?

2. How to Be the Best Leader from 15 Years as CEO:

• What are Brian's biggest lessons in leadership from Elon Musk and Jensen Huang?
• How has Brian's leadership style changed over time?
• Why is the way leaders prioritise what they do today completely broken?
• How can leaders use quarterly goals to prioritise most effectively?
• Does Brian believe people are born CEOs? Are MBAs worth it for CEOs?

3. How to Build the Best Team:

• What is the #1 failure condition of teams today?
• Why does Brian believe most of your employees are mercenaries and not missionaries? Is that ok?
• Why do recovery plans never work? Once lost, can trust in teams be regained?
• Are people destined for certain stages of company growth?
• Why does culture always break when teams hit 100 people?

4. The Best Deal in VC History:

• Why did Hubspot sell 47% of the company to General Catalyst in their Series A?
• How did Sequoia come to lead their Series D?
• How much of a needle mover is it for companies and founders to have Sequoia invest?
• Why did Brian sell secondary to Sequoia in the Series D? Is it the most costly mistake he has made?

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. Just last week, Keith announced he would be rejoining Khosla from Founders Fund, where he spent an immensely successful 5 years as a General Partner. Prior to Founders Fund, Keith started his career at Khosla where he spent 6 years and led investments in DoorDash, Opendoor, Webflow and more.

1. The Decision to Rejoin Khosla Ventures:

• Why did Keith decide to rejoin Khosla Ventures from Founders Fund?
• What did Keith miss most that Khosla did, that Founders Fund did not?
• How did Delian take the news?

2. Comparing Two Great Firms: Founders Fund vs Khosla Ventures:

• Investing Style: How does Keith compare the investing styles when analyzing FF and KV?
• Price Discipline: Which firm is more price-disciplined? Does price discipline even matter?
• What are the single biggest mistakes Keith has made on price? How did it change how he invests?
• Founder Type: What sort of founder would choose KV? What founder would choose FF?
• How did the depth & quality of investment decision-making compare between KV and FF?

3. What It Takes To Win in Venture in 2024:

• Liquidity: What have been Keith's biggest lessons on when is the right time to sell positions?
• Capital Planning: What have been Keith's biggest lessons on the most effective use of reserves?
• Why does Keith believe if you do not lose some deals as an investor, you are not competing for the right companies?
• Khosla Ventures recently raised $3BN. How important is the ability to support companies across their lifetime in 2024 vs stage specific?

4. Where is The Best Place to Invest:

• Why does Keith think seed is the best place to be investing today?
• Why despite the better risk/reward profile, does Keith think Series A is not the best place to invest?
• Does Keith believe we will see the return of growth investing in 2024?
• What does Keith predict for the M&A market in 2024? Did Figma kill all activity?
• When will the IPO windows open again? Why would Stripe go out this year?

5. Keith Rabois: AMA:

• Why did Keith not want to start his own fund? Will he ever?
• What have been Keith's biggest lessons from working with Vinod Khosla and Peter Thiel?
• What were Keith's biggest lessons from Roelof Botha on what it takes to be an effective board member?
• How does Keith think about bitcoin in 2024?