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

Jonathan Neman is Co-Founder & CEO of Sweetgreen, the mission-driven restaurant brand that serves healthy food at scale. Alongside his co-founders, Jon has scaled Sweetgreen from one small restaurant to one of the US' leading food brands with over 5,000 employees, over 140 locations and $300M+ in revenue. If that was not enough, Jon is also an active board member of MeUndies.

1.) How Jon took the decision to leave his "dream job" as a consultant at Bain to start Sweetgreen? What did his Bain boss tell him that persuaded Jon it was the right decision to leave? How does Jon think about and advise people when it comes to choosing the safe vs the risky path?

2.) How Sweetgreen was not an Overnight Success:

• At what moment did Jon really not think that Sweetgreen would make it? Why?
• How did he deal with those moments of intense stress and pressure?
• How does Jon test for true grit and resilience both in hires and in founders today?

3.) Brand + Capital + Business Strategy:

• How does Jon think deeply about what brand means today?
• What did Sweetgreen do right when it comes to their brand building? How did they marry art and science in the right way?
• What do the unit economics look like on a per store basis? What is the payback period on a per store basis? How has this changed over time?
• How does the store design impact the profit per store? How has store design changed over time?
• What have been some of the biggest lessons in terms of when, where and how to open new stores?

4.) Leading Through COVID:

• What were some of Jon's biggest lessons from leading a consumer brand through COVID
• What were some of the toughest elements for Jon? How did he overcome them?
• How can founders bring people along with their thought process and inspire?
• Who is Jon's biggest mentor? What has he learned from them?

Jon's Favourite Book: Thinking, Fast and Slow: Daniel Kahneman

Anne Wojcicki is the Founder & CEO @ 23andme, offering DNA testing with the most comprehensive ancestry breakdown, personalized health insights, and more. To date, Anne has raised over $1BN for the company from the likes of Sequoia, GV, NEA and many more incredible names. Prior to founding 23andMe, Anne spent a decade on Wall Street investing in healthcare and felt frustrated by a system built around monetizing illness instead of incentivizing prevention. If that was not enough, Anne is also on the board of Cazoo and The Anne Wojcicki Foundation and is an active angel investor with investments in the likes of Embark and Maven Clinic.

1.) How Anne made her way from Wall St healthcare investing to founding one of the leading healthcare companies of the last decade in 23andme?

2.) Trust and Friendship:

• How does Anne determine whether someone is genuine or is being transactional? What are the signs?
• How does Anne approach trust in relationships? Start from a base of full trust and it is to be lost or start with none and it is to be gained?
• What does Anne believe are the core of the best and most healthy relationships she has?

3.) Leadership:

• How does Anne reflect on her own decision-making processes today?
• How does Anne create a safe space where her team feel they can pushback on her and tell her how they feel?
• How does Anne approach internal role migration? What does Anne do to get the very best out of her team?
• How has Anne's leadership style changed over the years?
• How has being on the board of Cazoo changed how Anne reflects on her own board leadership? What have been some of her biggest lessons from Alex Chesterman?

4.) AMA:

• What is the hardest element of Anne's role with 23andme?
• What is Anne's morning routine?
• What 3 traits would Anne most want her children to have?
• Anne can have a billboard anywhere, what do it say on it and why?
• What would Anne most like to change in the world of healthcare over the next decade?

Ali Partovi is the CEO @ Neo, a mentorship community and communal VC fund that announced their new $150M fund last year on the back of early hits from Fund I including Vanta and Kalshi. As an angel, Ali has made personal investments in Dropbox, Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, Convoy and many more. Prior to investing, Ali founded 2 companies, the first; LinkExchange which he sold to Microsoft for $265M in 1998 and the second, iLike which was acquired by Microsoft in 2009.

1.) How Ali made his way into the world of startups with the founding of his first company? How Ali made his way into angel investing and then starting and raising Neo, as a fund?

2.) How To Kill a $125M By Being Too Honest:

• How did Ali lose this $125M with Jerry Yang and Yahoo?
• What led Ali to believe that Paul Graham was so special in 1995? What would Ali have done differently with the benefit of hindsight?
• How does Ali feel about investment misses today? What are his biggest misses? How has it impacted his mindset and approach to investing?

3.) The Meeting with Steve Jobs Did Not Go Well:

• Why did the meeting with Steve Jobs not go well?
• What was wrong with the way Ali phrased his final statement? What did this teach Ali about how founders should communicate the difference between hype and reality?
• What did this experience teach Ali about how founders should run both fundraising and M&A processes? How does Ali build trust with every touchpoint?

4.) U2, Airbnb and Google at Seed:

• How did Bono come to save the day for Ali for his startup in 2009?
• What did this teach Ali about how to frame risk and when to go all in vs hold back?
• How did Ali miss investing in the seed for Airbnb? How did he make up for it with a later investment?
• How did Ali come to miss investing in the Google seed round? Does FOMO haunt Ali today?

Ali's Favourite Book: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Rob Schutz is Chief Growth Officer and Co-founder at Ro, the healthcare technology company building a patient-centric healthcare system. To date, Ro has raised over $870M with a last reported valuation of $5BN and under Rob's growth leadership, Ro has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the country. Prior to Ro, Rob was VP of Growth at Bark, the makers of BarkBox, and helped scale revenue from zero to $100 million. He also founded a Washington DC-based daily deals site that was acquired by kgbdeals in 2011.

1.) How Rob made his way into startups and growth through the world of daily deals? How that led to his leading growth for Bark and ultimately founding Ro? How did leading marketing for Bark impact his growth strategy today with Ro?

2.) What is "Growth" and When to Hire For It:

• How does Rob define "growth and "Head of Growth"?
• When is the right time to start thinking about a growth team?
• Should founders hire a "Head of Growth" first or hire younger growth reps?
• Where should the growth team sit within the organization?

3.) How to Hire Growth Leader and Reps:

• What is the step-by-step process to hire growth leaders and reps?
• How does it differ when hiring growth leaders vs reps?
• What questions does Rob always ask? What separates good from great answers?
• What case studies does Rob like to use to determine candidate quality?
• How can one tell whether marketeers and growth candidates truly understand data?

4.) How to Structure the Onboarding Process:

• What does the optimal onboarding process look like for new hires?
• What tasks and duties do you expect reps and growth leaders to complete in the first month?
• What are some early red flags that the candidate you have is not good enough?
• How can leaders deliberately manufacture moments for growth teams to interact with other teams?
• What are the biggest mistakes growth teams and leaders make in the early days?

Frank Slootman currently serves as Chairman and CEO at Snowflake and has over 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur and executive in the enterprise software industry. Prior to Snowflake, Frank served as CEO and President of ServiceNow taking the company from around $100M in revenue, through an IPO, to $1.4B. Before ServiceNow, Frank served as President of the Backup Recovery Systems Division at EMC following the acquisition of Data Domain Corporation/Data Domain, Inc., where he served as the CEO and President, leading the company through an IPO to its acquisition by EMC for $2.4B. You must check out Frank's book, Amp It Up. It can already be pre-ordered here.

1.) Narrow the Focus, Increase the Quality:

• How does Frank determine what to focus on? What does the prioritisation process look like?
• What one question does Frank ask his team to ensure they are focused?
• What are the best answers? What are the worst? When should you change focus?

2.) When There is Doubt, There is No Doubt:

• What does Frank mean by this? What does it apply to? When is there nuance?
• How long does Frank give people who are underperforming? How does he communicate their underperformance to them directly but productively?
• What is the right way to fire someone? Why are performance reviews BS?

3.) Make The Good People Great:

• How does Frank get the very best out of his teams? How does he make the good great?
• How does he use compensation and equity structures to supercharge his teams?
• How does Frank set stretch targets that are both ambitious but also attainable?

4.) The Art of Leadership and Board Management:

• Why does Frank believe every CEO should be anxious?
• How has Frank changed as a leader over time?
• What is the biggest mistake founders make when it comes to board management?
• How can founders actively manage and control their board?

Frank's Favourite Book: Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favours the Brave, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything

Devin Finzer is the Founder & CEO @ Opensea, the world's first and largest NFT marketplace allowing you to discover, collect, and sell extraordinary NFTs. To date, Devin has raised over $423M for the company with their last $300M round valuing Opensea at $13.3BN. Before changing the world of NFTs, Devin co-founded ClaimDog which was acquired by Credit Karma and before founding ClaimDog, Devin was an engineer at Pinterest. Do want to say, I always love Semil Shah's startup of the year, for 2021 it was Opensea, check out his piece here.

1.) How Devin made his way into the world of NFTs and came to found the first and largest NFT marketplace in the form of Opensea?

2.) The Scaling Story:

• What were the first early signs that Opensea was working when they were in YC? What core metrics did they look at to determine success?
• Given NFTs not being "hot" at the time, how was the fundraising process for Opensea coming out of YC? What were the early investors most excited about?
• What was the inflection point when Opensea and NFTs really started to take off? What most surprised Devin about the way in which the inflection point happened?
• When scaling from $150M to $4BN in GMV, what are the first things to break in a company?
• How does Devin maintain company morale with such volatile crypto and NFT markets?

3.) The Next Decade of NFTs:

• How does Devin predict large brands and companies will utilise NFTs for their businesses?
• In what ways does Devin think creators and celebrities will use NFTs moving forward to create more efficient business models?
• How does Devin respond to the statement, "NFTs do more to harm than help income inequality?"
• What are Devin's biggest concerns moving forward when analysing the NFT market?
• How does Devin see the future for the development and experimentation of NFTs?

4.) The Future of NFT & Gaming:

• How does Devin see NFTs impacting the world of gaming most?
• How does Devin think about interacting with these gaming communities that are external to the centralised Opensea marketplace?

Devin's Favourite Book: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

Ralf Wenzel is the Founder & CEO @ JOKR, a global platform for instant retail delivery at a hyper-local scale serving both the US and LATAM. Ralf has raised over $260M for the company, most recently valuing it at $1.2BN. Prior to JOKR, Ralf spent 7 years as the Founder & CEO @ foodpanda, as well as, enjoying roles as Chief Strategy Officer @ Delivery Hero, Interim Chief Product and Experience Officer @ WeWork and even moving to the other side of the table as a Managing Partner with Softbank.

1.) What is the unit economic breakdown for quick commerce business models? What levers can be used to improve it over time?

2.) Comparing the US to LATAM:

• What is the AOV (average order value) in the US vs LATAM?
• What is the order frequency in the US vs LATAM?
• How does labour cost vary when comparing LATAM to the US?
• How does real estate cost for fulfilment centres differ when comparing LATAM to the US?
• How do product margins on a per product basis differ when comparing US to LATAM?

3.) New Market Growth and Maturation:

• What is the payback period for new markets? How has this changed over time?
• How does the payback period reduce with every new market being opened?
• What % of AOV is spent on marketing when a new market is opened? How does this marketing spend change over time?
• In mature markets, how much new customer acquisition is organic vs paid?
• What is the average weekly growth rate in new vs mature markets?

4.) Business Model Expansions:

• How does Ralf and JOKR approach the potential for private label goods?
• How does private label change the margin structure of the goods?
• What have been their lessons from starting their first private label goods?
• How does Ralf approach the ability to integrate advertising and paid search?
• What is needed for paid search and advertising to be a meaningful part of the business?

Mark Carney is Vice Chair of Brookfield Asset Management and Head of Transition Investing. Prior to Brookfield, Mark served as the Governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, and prior to that as Governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 until 2013. Mark was also Chairman of the Financial Stability Board from 2011 to 2018. Mark is a long-time and well-known advocate for sustainability and is currently the United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. If that was not enough, Mark serves on numerous other boards including Stripe, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum to name a few.

1.) How Mark made his entrance into the world of finance and came to the role of Governor of the Bank of Canada? How did that role lead to his becoming Governor of the Bank of England? How did seeing multiple booms and busts impact Mark's investing mindset?

2.) Governments, Central Banks and Regulation:

• How do governments and central banks retain control in a completely decentralized financial world?
• Can traditional currencies and digital currencies peacefully co-exist?
• What are Mark's predictions for central bank digital currencies?
• How does Mark expect governments and central banks to regulate digital currencies in the coming years?

3.) The Winners and Losers:

• What does the future hold for crypto exchanges?
• How do competitors for digital gold perform?
• Why does Mark believe in crypto "only the niche will survive"?
• What does the rise of Defi mean for traditional banks? What will determine those that survive?
• What does Mark mean when he says the winners will decide "what is my interface with this crypto world?''

4.) The Future of NFTs:

• Do NFTs do more to help or to harm income inequality?
• How does Mark see the future for the development and experimentation of NFTs?
• Who are the winners and losers in the next decade for NFTs?
• How does Mark feel about the pause between productivity gains and real wage benefits that exist today?

Mark's Favourite Book: Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

Will Ahmed is the Founder and CEO @ Whoop, the company on a mission to unlock human performance with their wearable device that is your digital fitness and health coach. To date, Will has raised over $400M for the company with the last round valuing Whoop at $3.6BN and with a cap table including the likes of Softbank, Accomplice, Founder Collective, Foundry Group, IVP and more.

1.) How Will went from being a professional athlete and college student to founding one of the hottest startups in fitness and healthcare? What are the similarities and differences of being an athlete and being a CEO?

2.) What does Will mean when he says, "there is value in the struggle early on"? How does Will advise founders on when to give up vs when to stay the course? If Will had not struggled with funding in the early days, would the Whoop journey be different? How does Will advise founders when it comes to taking funding when it is on the table? What are the nuances to this?

3.) In what way does Will believe "realism is overrated"? When does Will believe it is good to be realistic? In what ways can it be good to be idealistic? How did Will get some of the largest sports stars on the planet to use Whoop in the early days? Why did Will always refuse to pay sports stars to use Whoop? What were the benefits of doing this?

4.) How does Will define high performance? Why does Will believe it is crucial for leaders to disassociate their own personal feelings from the progress of their company? What advice does Will give to leaders in an attempt to do this? What has Will done to be a better CEO in the last year? What does Will believe are his biggest weaknesses as a CEO?

Will's Favourite Book: Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE

Bangaly Kaba is the Head of Platform Growth @ Popshop Live, a live streaming mobile marketplace that combines commerce, entertainment, and social. Prior to Popshop, Bangaly led the product growth and consumer product orgs at Instacart and before Instacart was Head of Growth @ Instagram, where he built and led the product team that helped grow Instagram from 440M to > 1B monthly actives in 2.5yrs. If all of this was not enough, Bangaly has also spent time investing as a Sequoia Scout having made investments into Career Karma, Binti.com and Squad App to name a few.

1.) How Bangaly made his way into the world of growth and came to lead some of the largest growth orgs in tech at the likes of Instacart and Instagram?

2.) How does Bangaly define the rule of "Head of Growth"? When is the right time for founders to start hiring a growth leader? How do they know whether to hire a growth leader or junior growth reps? Where should founders place these first growth hires in the org? Product or marketing?

3.) How would Bangaly structure the hiring process for any growth hire? What are the must-ask questions? What case studies would Bangaly ask all candidates to complete? What are the signals of a 10x growth hire? What are some core red flags that show in the interview process?

4.) What does the ideal onboarding process look like for new growth hires? What are the signs that a new growth hire is hitting target and expectations? What are some early warning signs that a growth hire is not meeting expectations?

5.) What is the ideal relationship between the Head of Growth and the CEO? How often should they meet? How should they structure the discussion? How should the growth team work with product teams to be successful? How should growth teams work with marketing teams?