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

Rob Lacher founded Visionaries Club in 2019, in just 3 years he has scaled the firm to $600M AUM and backed some of Europe's best including Xentral, Personio, Miro, and Ledgy. Prior to Visionaries, Rob founded the fashion platform AMAZE in 2014 which he sold to Zalando, and founded the European seed and growth stage venture capital fund La Famiglia in 2016.

1.) From Novice Tennis Player to Investing on a Global Stage:

• When Rob realized beating Federer wasn't an option, how did he make his way into the world of venture capital?
• When did Rob know he wanted to be a VC?
• What did Rob learn about himself after leaving La Famiglia?
• What characteristics make business partners compatible?

2.) The Secret to Building a Fund? Hire People With No Experience:

• What does Rob think is the hardest element of building a firm?
• What advice would Rob give to emerging managers when starting their firms?
• What is the single biggest mistake that Rob sees hiring managers make?
• Why does Rob prefer to hire people with no VC experience?

3.) The Red Ocean of European Venture:

• Does Rob think the Series A product in Europe is any good?
• How would Rob advise founders debating a US multi-stage fund or a European offer?
• If Rob could choose one European board member, who would it be and why?
• In Rob's dream, what would the Europe venture ecosystem look like in 2028?
• How does Rob think Europe's family institutions can become Europe's Google?

4.) Lessons on Investing From a Pro:

• Where does Rob think VCs, founders, and boards are misaligned?
• When Rob invests, how central of a role does price actually pay?
• What is Rob's single biggest investing mistake? How did it impact his mindset and approach?
• What are the three ways reserve management strategy has changed?
• What does Rob absolutely hate about VC?

Mike Salguero is the Founder and CEO @ ButcherBox, the meat delivery subscription service that he has scaled to $600M in revenue, 215 employees and the national leader in the space. All of this achieved while raising $0 of venture capital. Prior to ButcherBox, Mike was the Founder & CEO @ CustomMade, an online marketplace that, unlike ButcherBox, raised millions in venture funding from prominent VCs.

1.) The Makings of a Great Entrepreneur:

• How did Mike's father not being present in his childhood impact the type of leader he is today?
• How does Mike's fear of abandonment show itself in his leadership style?
• What does Mike know now that he wishes he had known when he started?

2. Consumer Subscription is Not a VC Backabale Business Model:

• Why does Mike believe consumer subscription D2C businesses are not VC backable?
• What are the biggest challenges of running a consumer subscription business?
• Why did all the D2C food prep and delivery companies fail? What did they do wrong?
• What happens to all the heavily funded D2C subscription companies of the last 5 years?
• Why does Mike believe now is the hardest time ever to do D2C consumer subscription?

3. The Secret to Efficient Marketing:

• How did ButcherBox scale to $50M in revenue with just one marketing channel working?
• When should founders think about the second channel? How should they choose which one?
• Why does Mike not like "brand marketing"? How did ButcherBox burn $8.5M on brand marketing? What are Mike's biggest lessons from doing this?
• What emerging channel does Mike see as having the biggest potential over the coming years?
• Why does customer acquisition increase with time? Why do elections cause it to increase?

4. The Economics of a $600M Revenue ButcherBox:

• How much does it cost ButcherBox to acquire a customer?
• What is their payback period on that customer? How has this change with time?
• What is the single metric that drives the profitability of ButcherBox?
• What are the single biggest points of margin in the business?
• What is the lifetime value of a ButcherBox subscriber?
• What are the single biggest points of churn in the customer lifecycle?

5. Venture Capital: To Raise or Not to Raise:

• Why did Mike never raise venture capital for ButcherBox?
• Has Mike ever sold secondary? Why not?
• What would Mike most like to change about the world of venture capital?
• What are his biggest lessons from raising VC with CustomMade? How did that impact how he approached building ButcherBox?
• What does Mike believe all founders need to know about raising VC?

Tobi Lütke is the CEO and Co-Founder of Shopify, the powerhouse company allowing anyone to start and grow their e-commerce business. Over an incredible 18 years, Tobi has scaled Shopify to 10% of total US e-commerce, millions of merchants in over 170 countries, and a market cap today of over $60BN. Huge thanks to Harley Finkelstein for making this happen.

1. From a Small German Town to One of the World's Most Powerful CEOs:

• What did Tobi want to be when he was growing up?
• Who did Tobi learn most from in his younger years? How does Tobi think about the importance of mentorship in learning?
• What does Tobi know now that he wishes he had known when he started Shopify?

2. You Can Learn More from World of Warcraft Than You Can Companies:

• Why does Tobi believe you can learn more from World of Warcraft than you can from studying companies?
• Why does Tobi believe that humans are terrible at company building? What are the most obvious ways we can improve the quality of the companies we build?
• Why does Tobi believe that in-person is far superior to remote working? What are the nuances?

3. The Best Companies Operate with Many Constraints:

• Why does Tobi believe in all cases, constraints produce creativity?
• What is the difference between an enforced constraint and an artificial constraint?
• How can leaders create and enforce artificial constraints when they are not real?
• How do the best leaders use constraints to ensure their companies move faster and faster?

4. Inside the Mind of Tobi Lütke: Decision-Making & Prioritisation:

• How does Tobi reflect on his own decision-making process? How has it changed?
• Why does Tobi believe that sunk cost fallacy is BS and only leads to your outsourcing approval to someone else?
• Why does Tobi hate "black boxes"? How does he remove them from the org entirely?
• How does Tobi decide what to learn? What is his learning process once he has made this decision?
• How does Tobi decide what to prioritise in terms of strategic initiatives for Shopify?

Jackie Reses is the Chair and CEO of Lead Bank, a community bank in Kansas City. Previously, she was the Executive Chairman of Square Financial Services and Capital Lead and Head of the People Team at Block Inc (Square). Prior, she had leadership positions at Yahoo! and was a Partner at Apax Partners Worldwide. Jackie also spent seven years at Goldman Sachs in mergers and acquisitions and the principal investment area. Jackie is on the board of directors of Endeavor, Affirm and Nubank. Previously, she served on the Board of Directors of Alibaba Group. She has been named one of Forbes' "Self Made Women", Fast Company's "Most Creative People in Business," and American Banker "Most Powerful Woman in Finance".

1. From Humble Beginnings to "Most Powerful Woman in Finance":

• What is Jackie running from?
• How did Jackie's upbringing impact her approach to business and management today?
• What does jackie know now that she wishes she had known when she started her career?

2. Building the Best Teams: Lessons from Square and Yahoo

• Why does Jackie believe that past experience is BS in hiring candidates for a role?
• Why does Jackie deliberately not look for domain knowledge when hiring?
• Why does Jackie believe employers should tell candidates what they suck at in hiring?
• What does Jackie mean when she says, "you have to invest in people for 20 years"?

3. The Best Deal-Maker in the Business: Secret to Negotiating:

• What does Jackie believe is the secret to successful negotiations?
• How did Jackie do the Alibaba deal for Yahoo and make $50BN for them?
• Why does Jackie believe the Laffonts and Coatue are the best risk managers?
• What are the biggest mistakes people make in deal-making today?

4. The Next Wave of Fintech:

• Who wins and who loses in the next wave of fintech?
• What will happen to the crypto industry? How will crypto be regulated?
• Why does Jackie believe that financial super apps are BS?
• Why does Jackie believe that Goldman tried and failed to innovate?
• Will we see a wave of M&A in fintech over the coming years?

Jag Duggal is the CPO @ Nubank where he is responsible for product strategy and roadmap reporting to CEO David Velez. Jag leads over 200 professionals across different functions within his role. Before Nubank, he was the Director of Product Management at Facebook, leading monetization of video and third party content. Before Facebook, Jag spent close to 7 years at Quantcast as a Senior VP of Product Management & Strategy. Finally, pre-Facebook, Jag was at Google for 5 years as a Group Product Manager and Head of Strategy (Display).

1. From Cushy Valley Job to CPO @ Brazilian Startup:

• Why did Jag leave the life of luxury in the valley at Facebook to join David as CPO @ Nubank?
• What does Jag know now that he wishes he had known when he took the position?
• What one piece of advice would Jag give to a product leader starting a new position today?

2. Product: The Playbook, Art vs Science:

• Why does Jag believe that product is 90% science? What is the final 10%?
• Why does Jag believe that you should not listen to your customers?
• What is the right way to ask customers questions to determine their pains?
• Why does Jag believe that you should not fall in love with your own ideas?

3. Building the Bench: Hiring the Best Team:

• How does Jag approach the hiring process for all new product hires?
• What are the single biggest mistakes Jag has made when hiring for the product team?
• What are the must ask questions when hiring for product?
• What hiring lesson did Jag learn from Kevin Systrom? How has he applied it today?
• What did Jag believe about hiring that he now no longer believes?

4. Go Time: Build, Manage and Execute:

• Why does Jag think execution is overrated and strategy deserves more credit than people give it?
• How does Nubank utilise small teams to operate fastest? What have been lessons here?
• What are the best ways to do product post-mortems? What works? What does not work?
• What has been Jag's best product decision? What has been his worst?

Dara Khosrowshahi is the CEO of Uber, where he has managed the company's business in more than 70 countries around the world since 2017. Dara was previously CEO of Expedia, which he grew into one of the world's largest online travel companies. Dara was promoted to Expedia CEO after serving as the Chief Financial Officer of IAC Travel. Before joining IAC, Dara served as Vice President of Allen & Company and spent a number of years as an analyst. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Expedia and Catalyst.org and was previously on the board of the New York Times Company.

1. From the Iranian Revolution to One of the Most Powerful CEOs:

• What is Dara running from? What is he running towards?
• How did seeing his family lose everything impact his mindset to life and business?
• What are 1-2 of Dara's biggest lessons from working with the legendary Barry Diller?
• How did Daniel Ek @ Spotify convince Dara to take the CEO role at Uber?

2. Dara Khosrowshahi: The Foundations of Great Leadership:

• What does high performance in business mean to Dara?
• Does Dara agree, "the best CEOs are the best resource allocators"?
• Does Dara believe he is a better peacetime or wartime CEO? Which is he at Uber?
• What decision-making framework does Dara use to make really hard decisions?
• How does Dara does what to focus on and what to prioritise?

3. Investments and Acquisitions: The Scorecard:

• Why did Dara decide to make the Kareem acquisition? Has it been successful?
• What was the thinking behind the Postmates acquisition?
• What does Dara believe is the single best acquisitions he has made at Uber?
• What has been the worst acquisition he has made at Uber?
• Why does Dara believe that Uber entering scooters was a mistake?

4. The Future: Food Delivery, Parenting, Marriage:

• What does Dara say to those who suggest Uber Eats has lost the war to Doordash?
• What does Dara believe is the secret to a happy marriage?
• How does Dara define great parenting? What does Dara do to be the best father he can be?
• What would Dara like to improve or change about himself? Why?

Mike Maples is one of the OGs of seed investing. As the Co-Founder of Floodgate, he has backed the likes of Twitch, Okta, Lyft, Twitter and more. Mike has been on the Forbes Midas List eight times in the last decade and was also named a "Rising Star" by FORTUNE and profiled by Harvard Business School for his lifetime contributions to entrepreneurship.

1.) Lesson from SVB #1: The Importance of Scenario Planning:

• What is the right way to do scenario planning in startups?
• What is the difference between good vs bad scenario planning?
• What do the best scenario plans include and involve?
• What is the right way to communicate these scenario plans to your stakeholders?

2.) Lesson from SVB #2: The Importance of Financial Agility:

• What does it mean for a startup to be "financially agile"?
• From a banking relationships perspective, what can startups do to be financially agile?
• How many accounts should a startup have? How much runway should be in each?
• Should startups bank with startup banks as well as traditional banks?
• Should startups have their money in sweep accounts and money market accounts?

3.) Lesson from SVB #3: How to Master Crisis Communications:

• Why is it so important for founder to over-communicate in tough times?
• How transparent should they be in these communications?
• What does Mike mean when he says "be radically human"?
• If Mike were to face a crisis, what would he do differently in the way he communicates to his LPs?

4.) Lessons from SVB: The Wider World:

• Why does Mike believe the level of quantitative easing that occurred in COVID was scandalous?
• Does Mike believe the USD will continue to be the reserve currency of the world?
• Will we be in a better or worse macro situation by the end of the year?
• Has Mike ever had a company that achieved true PMF and failed?

Frank Fillman is CRO/Country Leader Australia for Salesforce where he is responsible for responsible for the overall strategy, execution, success, and growth of the $1B+ Australian market across all industries. Prior to Salesforce, Frank was SVP/GM @ Tableau where he was responsible for the strategy, execution, and growth of Tableau's Top Accounts. Over the last 10 years at Salesforce, Frank's accomplishments include $500M+ new revenue closed in 5 years and $1B+ revenue managed. As a result, Frank has been awarded #1 Sales VP of the Year, North America, 3 times! Huge thanks to Zhenya Loginov @ Miro for the intro to Frank today.

1.) From Selling Kitchen Utensils to Leading $1BN Revenue Line for Salesforce:

• How did Frank first make his way into the world of sales selling kitchen utensils?
• Why does Frank believe, "how you handle tragedy defines you"? How did it define him?
• What does Frank know now that he wishes he had known when he started in sales?

2.) Build and Execute the Sales Playbook:

• How does Frank define what a "sales playbook" is today? What is it not?
• Literally, what are the first steps to building a sales playbook? Is it the founder who does it?
• What does a good playbook have? What does a bad playbook have? What makes the best?
• What tools should founders and sales leaders use to create their playbook?

3.) Enterprise Deal Dynamics 101:

• Why does Frank believe that you should never start with the price or "send over numbers"?
• How can enterprise sellers create urgency in a deal cycle? What works? What does not work?
• How does Frank advise sales teams on the use of discounting?
• How open should reps be in communicating the win for them as well as the win for the customer of closing a deal?

4.) Building the Bench:

• How does Frank structure the hiring process for all new sales reps?
• Why does Frank believe that all sales leaders want to be super reps?
• How does Frank rank high potential vs high experience when hiring reps?
• What matters more; the exec have experience in the sector you are selling into or the deal size?
• What are the single biggest mistakes founders and leaders make when hiring sales?

5.) Setting Quota and Deal Reviews:

• How does Frank advise founders on setting quotas? Why does Q1 set the tone for the year?
• How does Frank conduct deal reviews? How often? With who? What is the agenda?
• What is the one question that Frank always asks when a rep says, "the client told us it was not a priority and so it slipped into next quarter"?
• How does Frank advise founders and sales leaders on multi-threading large enterprise accounts?

Frank's Most Recent Book: The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea

Bill Ackman is the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P., an SEC-registered investment adviser founded in 2003. Pershing Square is a concentrated research-intensive fundamental value investor in long and occasionally short investments in the public markets. Bill is also a member of the board of Universal Music Group N.V. He serves as a member of the Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and a member of the Board of Dean's Advisors of the Harvard Business School. Prior to forming Pershing Square, Mr. Ackman co-founded Gotham Partners Management Co., LLC.

1.) From HBS to Starting Your First Fund:

• How did Bill go from HBS to raising his first fund in Gotham Partners? How was that first fundraise?
• From 100 meetings, what worked? What did not work? What were the core fundraising lessons?
• What did Bill learn about great partnerships from his time with David building Gotham?

2.) Bill Ackman: A Winner's Mindset: How To Deal with the Highs and Lows:

• On reflection, what have been the most challenging times for Bill professionally?
• What does he say to himself when he is going through the hardest times? What is his mind talk?
• When the war is lost and it is time for learning, how does Bill reflect and learn from losses?
• Bill has previously described himself as "the most persistent man in America". How does Bill know when enough is enough, he was wrong and it is time to change his approach?

3.) Bill Ackman: SVB + Bank Runs and The Future of our Financial System:

• Why does Bill believe that the depositor guarantees for SVB and Signature Bank have created a "Three Tier Banking System"? What are those three tiers?
• Why does Bill believe that SVB is now the safest place to deposit your money? Why is First Republic Bank and SVB very different in terms of their exposure?
• What can be done to prevent further bank runs? What should the Fed be doing? Why are they not doing it? What would Bill do if he was in charge of the Fed?
• Why does Bill believe the current levels of FDIC insurance are insufficient and outdated? What should be used in their place?

4.) Bill Ackman: The World Around Us & Potential Politician

• Why does Bill want Jamie Dimon to run for President? If it is Trump vs Biden, who wins?
• Why does Bill believe Biden's tax policies destroy the US economy? What should we have instead?
• Why does Bill believe we should give every newborn baby $6,500 and invest it for them when born?
• What are Bill's 10-Year Long's and 10-Year Shorts? Why them?
• Would Bill ever run for politics? When is the right time?

Ophelia Brown is the Founder of Blossom Capital, one of Europe's newest but leading early-stage venture firms. Ophelia and the Blossom team have invested in stand-outs including Checkout, Duffel, Tines, and Moonpay. Prior to Blossom, Ophelia was a GP at LocalGlobe and a Principal at Index Ventures where her investments included Robinhood and Typeform.

1.) From Restaurant-Owning DJ to Leading European VC:

• How Ophelia made her way into the world of venture and came to found Blossom?
• What does Ophelia know now that she wishes she had known when she entered venture?
• What does Ophelia feel she is running away from?

2.) Venture Capital: The Market:

• Why does Ophelia believe the best venture firms focus either by stage/theme/geography?
• Why does Ophelia believe that marketing in venture has no substance? How can founders determine between what is real and what is false?
• Why does Ophelia believe that growth investors have ruined the venture market?
• When does Ophelia believe VCs will realise that FOMO investing is not a good strategy?

3.) Ophelia Brown: The Investor and Fund Manager:

• What has been Ophelia's biggest investing mistake? How did it change her mindset and approach?
• In a world where everyone does seed investing, why does Ophelia not?
• How was raising the first Blossom fund? What were some of her biggest lessons?
• Why does Ophelia believe that follow-on investing can damage returns?
• How does Ophelia reflect on her own relationship to price? When has she paid up and it worked? When has she paid up and it not worked?
• Does Ophelia think it is fair that many find her curt and abrasive to work with?

4.) Europe: Is Now Really The Right Time?

• What would Ophelia like to see change in the way European VCs act?
• If Ophelia could invest in one seed firm, one Series A firm and one growth firm in Europe, what would they be? Why?
• What are 1-2 of the biggest barriers Europe must overcome in the next 5 years?