The Twenty Minute Vc: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Tooey Courtemanche, Jr. is the Founder, CEO, President, and Chairman of the Board of Procore. He founded Procore in 2002 with a mission to connect everyone in construction on a global platform. After 13 years of business, the company had just $9.6M in revenue, 8 years after that they have over $890M in revenue. Under his leadership, Procore has grown to become a leading global provider of construction management software, connecting over 2 million users across 150+ countries. Today Procore trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker PCOR. Huge thanks to Brian @ Bessemer and Will @ Iconiq for some amazing question suggestions today. In Today's Episode with Tooey Courtemanche: 1. The Founding of a $8.5BN Company: How did Tooey's wife, Hilary and their house-building lead to the idea for Procore? What does Tooey know now that he wishes he had known when he started? Did Tooey always know he would be a success? What was the moment of most doubt? 2. The 13-Year Journey to $9.6M in Revenue:

Dominik Richter is the Founder & CEO @ HelloFresh, one of the largest direct-to-consumer businesses of the last decade and the #1 recipe box delivery service. Fun fact, two of the three biggest cooking facilities in North America are HelloFresh facilities with the third being Disney World Orlando. Dominik has made over 40 angel investments in the EU and the US. In Today's Episode with Dominik Richter We Discuss: 1. The Founding of One of the Largest D2C Companies: How did Diminik's dreams of being a footballer translate to founding HelloFresh? What does he know now that he wishes he had known when he started? Why does Dominik respect the brands that large banks have built? 2. To Raise or Not to Raise: Why does Dominik believe when you raise VC, you either have to sell or go public? What are the single biggest differences between raising in the US vs Europe? What are Dominik's biggest pieces of advice to founders raising today? Why does Dominik believe so many of the D2C companies should not

Guillaume Cabane is a growth advisor to high-growth SaaS Startups, including Ramp, Spot, Airbyte, G2, Gorgias, Metadata, Madkudu, and others. Guillaume held VP of Growth roles at Drift, Segment, and other successful startups, where he helped them grow from ~50 to 300. Prior, Guillaume spent 6 years at Apple. In Today's Episode with Guillaume Cabane We Discuss: 1. Entry into Growth: How did Guillaume make his way into the world of growth? What are 1-2 of his biggest lessons from him time at Segment where he 4x revenue? What does Guillaume know now that he wishes he had known when he entered growth? 2. Enterprise vs SMB & CAC/LTV: Why does Guillaume think it is harder to go enterprise down than SMB up? What are the biggest mistakes companies make when scaling into enterprise? What are the biggest mistakes startups make with product-led-growth motions? Why does Guillaume believe it is impossible to analyse CAC/LTV in early companies? 3. Activation, Engagement and KPI Setting: What are th

Keith Rabois is a General Partner @ Founders Fund, one of the world's best venture funds with a portfolio including the likes of Facebook, SpaceX, Anduril, Tesla and many more. For the last 23 years straight, Keith has either invested in or founded a $BN company. Keith is also the Co-Founder and CEO @ Openstore, the company that will buy or run your Shopify business. Mike Shebat is the Founder and CEO @ Traba, the company providing industrial staffing when and where you need it. To date, Mike has raised $49M with Traba from some of the best including Founders Fund, General Catalyst and Khosla Ventures. In Today's Episode We Discuss: 1. What it Takes to Build a Great: Why does Mike expect everyone to work in office 12 hours per day, 4 days per week? At what point does an extra hour of work not lead to more output? What are the expectations in terms of emails, out of office, the weekends? Keith, from the 23 BN companies you have worked with, is this insane work ethic aligned to all of them? Which had

Des Traynor is a Co-Founder of Intercom, and has built and led many teams within the company, including Product, Marketing, and Customer Support. Yann LeCun is VP & Chief AI Scientist at Meta and Silver Professor at NYU affiliated with the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences & the Center for Data Science. He was the founding Director of FAIR and of the NYU Center for Data Science.  Emad Mostaque is the Co-Founder and CEO @ StabilityAI, the parent company of Stable Diffusion. Stability are building the foundation to activate humanity’s potential. Jeff Seibert is the Founder & CEO @ Digits, building the future of AI-powered accounting. Digits have raised funding from the likes of Peter Fenton @ Benchmark and 20VC. Tomasz Tunguz is the Founder and General Partner @ Theory Ventures, just announced last week, Theory is a $230M fund that invests $1-25m in early-stage companies that leverage technology discontinuities into go-to-market advantages. Douwe Kiela is the CEO of Contextual AI

Jeff Seibert is the Founder & CEO @ Digits, building the future of AI-powered accounting. Digits have raised funding from the likes of Peter Fenton @ Benchmark and 20VC. Jeff previously served as Twitter's Head of Consumer Product, a position he came to following the acquisition of his prior company, Crashlytics. Today, Crashlytics is the de-facto mobile crash reporting solution for iOS and Android and runs on over 6 Billion monthly active smartphones worldwide. In Today's Episode with Jeff Seibert We Discuss: 1. The Art of the Pivot: What are Jeff's biggest pieces of advice to founders pivoting? How do you know when you have enough data to make the decision to pivot? What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when pivoting? 2. AI: Who Wins and Who Loses: Why does Jeff believe that OpenAI will transition into an infrastructure play? What are the most significant challenges OpenAI will face moving forward? Why does Jeff believe that Apple are best positioned to win in an AI world? Wh

Matteo Franceschetti is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Eight Sleep, a company dedicated to fueling human potential through optimal sleep. To date, Matteo has raised over $160M for the business from the likes of Founders Fund, Ryan Petersen, Naval Ravikant, Kevin Hart, AROD and many more. In Todays Episode with Matteo Franceschetti We Discuss: 1. Why Did Sleep Need "Solving": Why did Matteo decide he wanted to spend decades of his life-solving sleep? If Matteo has known how hard it was going to be, would he do it again? What does Matteo know now that he wishes he had known at the start of the journey? 2. Hiring the Best Team: What is Matteo's playbook for hiring? What are the five questions that Matteo asks in every interview? What are big red flags? What are strong signals of great talent? If people have been let go in a RIFF, is that a concern? How does Matteo construct hiring panels? What vote count is enough for an approved hire? What are Matteo's biggest lessons on title and pay a new hire receiv

Rebecca Kaden is a Managing Partner @ Union Square Ventures, one of the leading early-stage firms of the last decade with investments in Twitter, Twilio, Coinbase and many more. Nicole Quinn is a General Partner @ Lightspeed where she has led investments or sits on the board of Calm, Cameo and LunchClub to name a few. Eurie Kim is a Managing Partner @ Forerunner Ventures, the leading early-stage consumer fund. Eurie has led investments and sits on the board of Oura, The Farmers Dog, Curology and more. In Today's Roundtable We Discuss: 1. Seed Rounds: Is it even possible for traditional seed funds to play in a world of multi-stage funds investing so aggressively at the seed stage? Is seed immune to the macro environment? Will seed pricing remain as high as ever? What advice does the team have for seed founders approaching a Series A? What do they need? 2. Series A: How is the Series A market looking today? Is there a crunch at the Series A? To what extent are valuations compressed at the Ser

Des Traynor is a Co-Founder of Intercom, and has built and led many teams within the company, including Product, Marketing, and Customer Support. Today Des leads all Intercom’s R&D efforts, and parts of Intercom’s marketing. In Today's Episode with Des We Discuss: 1. From Consultancy to Founding a Unicorn: What was the founding a-ha moment for Des and the team with Intercom? Why does Des believe that most startup advice is BS and outdated in 5 years? What does Des know now that he wishes he had known when he started? 2. LLMs: The World is Not Equal: What does Des mean when he says the world of LLMs is not equal? How do the different LLMs very in quality, price and speciality? Does Des agree with Alex @ Nabla, "the best companies in the future will work with many LLMs at the same time and switch between them for different things"? To what extent does Des believe LLMs will be commoditised and it will be a race to the bottom? Would Des be a buyer of OpenAI at a $90BN price? Why not? 3. How

Ryan Petersen is Founder & CEO @ Flexport, a leader in global supply chain technology. In 2022, Flexport moved more than $26 billion of merchandise. Over the last 10 years, Ryan has raised close to $2.5BN for the business with the latest valuation pegging the business at $8BN. Prior to starting Flexport, Ryan was the founder and CEO of ImportGenius, a premier provider of transaction data for the global trade industry. In Today's Episode with Ryan Petersen We Discuss: 1. The Origins of a Generational Defining Leader: What did Ryan want to be when he was growing up? How did scooters and motorbikes in China lead to the idea for Flexport? What does Ryan know now that he wishes he had known when he started Flexport? 2. Speed and Money: The Secrets To Execution: Does Ryan believe speed is key to execution? What is the difference between speed and velocity? What advice does Ryan have to founders who raise a lot of money? How should it impact hiring? What are the most common ways founders become in

Chris Degnan serves as Snowflake’s Chief Revenue Officer and has been with the company since 2013. Starting as employee #13 and Sales employee #1, Chris built a go-to-market strategy from the ground up, driving sustained high growth and global reach. Under his sales leadership, Snowflake has grown its annual product revenue from $0 to over $1 billion. Prior to Snowflake, Chris served in Sales leadership roles at EMC and Aveksa, and worked in enterprise sales at Informatica and Covalent Technologies (acquired by VMware). In Today's Episode with Chris Degnen We Discuss: 1. From SDR To World Leading CRO: How did Chris first make his way into the world of sales? What does he know now that he wishes he had known when he started in sales? What are the single biggest mistakes young sales people make today scaling their careers? 2. The Secret to Hitting Quota in Sales: Why does Chris believe all reps need to do 8 customer calls per week? How do the best sales reps approach sales prospecting today? Is c

Danny Cohen is the President of Access Entertainment, a division of Len Blavatnik's Access Industries. Access Entertainment’s corporate investments include film and television studio A24; Europe’s fastest-growing company Tripledot Studios; creator economy leader Spotter; and a new immersive arts’ experience launched in collaboration with David Hockney and Lightroom. Before joining Access, Danny was the Director of BBC Television where he had responsibility for all of the BBC's network channels and the greenlighting and production of the BBC's drama, entertainment, comedy, arts, history, science, educational content and documentary.  In Today's Episode with Danny Cohen We Discuss: 1. From Leading the BBC to Investing for Len Blavatnik: How did Danny make his way from leading the BBC to investing for Len @ Access? What was he most nervous about when making the transition to investing? What has been the hardest investing skill to learn? 2. Great Founders are Like Great Actors: What are the biggest

Joey Zwillinger is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Allbirds, the company behind the world's most comfortable shoe. In Nov 2021, Joey took the company public and the stock soared to an all-time high of $4BN, today the company has a market cap of $137M. Prior to Allbirds, Joey spent six years at biotechnology firm, Terravia, leading its renewable chemical business, developing and selling high-performance algae-based chemicals into various industries such as CPG, personal care, and industrials. In Today's Episode with Joey Zwillinger We Discuss: The Founding Moment: How did Joey's wife's friendship lead to the co-founding of Allbirds? What does Joey know now that he wishes he had known at the founding moment? What does Joey believe he is running away from? What is he running towards? 2. Public Market Performance Review: Why has Allbirds lost 97% of it's value since going public? What mistakes were made? Why has revenue declined for the first time this year? What strategic investments have Allbirds pu

Jack Altman is the Founder and CEO @ Lattice, the #1 people management platform, last valued at $3BN. Jack is an investor through his founding of Jack Altman Capital where he has invested in WorkOS, NexHealth, Owner.com, Mercury and more. Auren Hoffman is the Founder and CEO @ Safegraph, the most accurate database of global points of interest, last valued at $550M. Auren is an investor through his founding of Flex Capital where he has invested in Chime, Checkr, Coinbase, Flexport, Vercel and more. Jason Lemkin is the Founder and CEO @ SaaStr, the world's largest SaaS community. Jason is an investor through his founding of The SaaStr Fund. In the past, Jason has invested in Pipedrive, Algolia, Salesloft, Front, GreenHouse, Owner.com, Gorgias and more. In Today's Episode on Founder-Led Funds We Discuss: Why have we seen the rise of "Founder-led Funds"? Are founder-led funds more empathetic to the founders they invest in? How do founder-led funds source and pick investments in a way that traditional V

David Meyer is the SVP Products at Databricks where he drives product strategy and execution. He previously ran Engineering and Product Management at OneLogin, where he grew the company to thousands of customers and market leadership. Before OneLogin, he cofounded UniversityNow, an accredited open university system, running Product and Engineering. Prior to that, David managed a $1 billion portfolio of business intelligence products at SAP and co-led cloud strategy. His first software journey was at Plumtree which went public before being acquired by BEA in 2005. In Today's Episode with David Meyer We Discuss: Entry into Product: How did David make his way into the world of product? Why did he not want to go into it? Why does David advise everyone "do not go into product management"? What does David know now that he wishes he had known when he entered product? 2. How to be a Great Product Leader: Why does David think most leaders suck at leading? Why is the most important thing to make your t

Nick Tomaino is the Founder and General Partner @ 1confirmation, one of the leading seed firms fueling the decentralization of the web and society. The fund started with $26M in backing from individuals including Peter Thiel and Mark Cuban and it has been reported that the firm now has over $1B in assets under management. Nick has led seed investments in OpenSea, dYdX, SuperRare, Polkadot and Cosmos among others. Prior to 1confirmation, Nick was a Principal @ Runa Capital and before that led business development and marketing at Coinbase in the early days of the company. In Today's Episode with Nick Tomaino We Discuss: From Cryptokitties to founding the Leading Seed Crypto Firm: How did Nick first come into contact with crypto and bitcoin specifically? How did getting fired from Coinbase catalyse his move into venture? What does Nick know today that he wishes he had known when he started investing? 2. The Landscape Today: Funds and SBF Are the current generation of crypto funds too large? Sho

Ed Sim is one of the best seed round investors in venture as the Founder and Managing Partner @ Boldstart, Ed focuses specifically on developer, infra and SaaS at pre-seed and seed round. Over the last decade, Ed has backed some of the best including Snyk, BigID, Kustomer, Front and Superhuman. In Today's Episode on Seed Rounds We Discuss: The Three Types of Seed Round: What are the three different types of seed round today? Has seed ever been this competitive? Will seed be unimpacted by the macro decline we are seeing? Why are growth and multi-stage funds being more active than ever in seed? 2. Too Much Cash Will Kill You! Why does Ed believe that too much capital can kill companies at the seed round? Why does Ed believe that the best founders are not always optimising for the highest price? What are the single biggest negatives of taking a high price at the seed round? What advice does Ed have for founders who have large offers from multi-stage funds at seed? 3. Is Growth Dead? Why do

Ely Lerner is an EIR at Reforge and an advisor for startups transitioning from traction to hypergrowth. Previously he was Head of Consumer Product at Chime, and before that spent an incredible 8 years at Yelp in a number of different roles including Head of Product at Eat24, and Product Leader/GM at Yelp. In Today's Episode with Ely Lerner We Discuss: 1. Entry into Growth: How did Ely make his way from engineering manager to growth leader? What are a couple of his single biggest takeaways from his time with Yelp and Chime? Why do employees in large companies have to have P&L ownership when innovating within the larger company they are in? 2. Advisors: What, When and How: What are the three different types of advisors founders can work with today? When is the right time to engage with each of them? Should the advisor have had direct experience with the problem you need help with? How should these advisors be compensated; what is normal? What are 1-2 of the biggest reasons startup advisory ro

Matthieu Rouif is the Co-Founder and CEO @ PhotoRoom, one of the fastest-growing YC companies having scaled to an astonishing $50M in ARR in just 3 years. Their capital efficiency is immense having scaled to $20M in ARR on just $2M of invested capital. Prior to founding PhotoRoom, Matthieu founded several start-ups, including an app for ski resorts, HeyCrowd, and Replay, a video editor which was ultimately acquired by GoPro. Whilst at GoPro, Mattheiu led all image editing products. In Today's Episode with Matthieu Rouif We Discuss: From GoPro to One of YC's Fastest Growing Companies: How did Matthieu make the move from GoPro to founding PhotoRoom? What are the big mistakes Matthieu made on prior companies that he did differently with PhotoRoom? What does Matthieu know now that he wishes he had known when he started PhotoRoom? 2. Scaling to $20M in ARR with $2M of Cash: What allowed Matthieu and PhotoRoom to be so capital-efficient in their scaling? What are the biggest mistakes founders make

Harry Stebbings is the Founder of 20VC, building the next great financial institution at the intersection of media and venture capital. 20VC has reached over 125M downloads in 100+ countries and has featured the likes of Doug Leone, Bill Gurley, Marc Benioff, Daniel Ek and more. On the investing side, Harry has raised over $400M and made investments in the likes of Pachama, Linear, TripleDot, Superhuman, AgentSync, Linktree, Sorare and more. In Today's Episode We Cover: Are LPs Open for Business: How has what LPs look for in new manager investments changed? What type of funds will be able to raise? Which will not be able to raise? What can managers do to significantly increase their chances of raising a new fund? 2. The Seed Investing Landscape: Harder Than Ever Why is seed pricing as high as ever? Why are multi-stage funds more active in seed than ever? How does this impact seed? How will seed change and evolve over the next 6-12 months? 3. Series A + B: The Best Place to be Investing