The Twenty Minute VC
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The Twenty Minute VC takes you inside the world of Venture Capital, Startup Funding and The Pitch. Join host Harry Stebbings and discover how you can attain funding for your business by listening to what the most prominent investors are directly looking for in startups, providing easily actionable tips and tricks that can be put in place to increase your chances of getting funded.
The Twenty Minute VC
2d ago
Matt Lerner is one of the OGs of growth having spent 11 years leading growth teams at PayPal. Post PayPal, Matt led the growth marketing program at 500 Startups. He is also the bestselling author of Growth Levers and How to Find Them. Today, Matt is the Co-Founder and CEO of SYSTM, an accelerator program helping startups find their growth drivers.
In Today’s Episode with Matt Lerner We Discuss:
1. From Philosophy Student to PayPal Growth Leader:
How did Matt make his way into the world of growth?
What were Matt’s biggest lessons from 11 years at PayPal?
What did Matt know now that he w ..read more
The Twenty Minute VC
4d ago
Mike Schroepfer (Schrep) is the Founder & Partner @ Gigascale Capital, a new kind of climate-focused investment firm. Prior to Gigascale, Mike was the CTO @ Meta where he scaled products to billions of users, shipped millions of units of consumer hardware, constructed tens of millions of sq ft of data centers, built teams of up to 35,000, and made breakthroughs in AI. Before Meta, Mike led engineering at Mozilla and founded a company acquired by Sun Microsystems.
In Today’s Show with Mike Schroepfer We Discuss:
1. Lessons from Mark Zuckerberg and Meta:
What are Schrep’s biggest lessons f ..read more
The Twenty Minute VC
5d ago
Jason Lemkin is one of the OG SaaS investors with all of his first five investments turning into unicorns with Pipedrive, Algolia, Talkdesk, Salesloft and RevenueCat all in his portfolio. SaaStr is the largest global community in SaaS and he has taught a generation the fundamentals of SaaS on saastr.com.
In Today’s Episode with Jason Lemkin We Discuss:
1. Growth Rates and Churn Rates: Average/Good/Great:
What is a growth rate that would excite Jason in a SaaS company? What is average?
What levels of churn would worry Jason to see? What would excite him to see?
What does Jason never tolerate ..read more
The Twenty Minute VC
1w ago
Sam Altman is the CEO @ OpenAI, the company on a mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. OpenAI is one of the fastest-scaling companies in history with a valuation of $90BN and $2BN+ in revenue.
Brad Lightcap is the COO @ OpenAI and the man responsible for the incredible scaling of sales, GTM, partnerships and business to today being over $2BN in revenue.
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 Cata ..read more
The Twenty Minute VC
1w ago
Aaron Levie is one of the OG founders of the last two decades as the Co-Founder and CEO of Box. Today, Box does over $1BN in revenue with a market cap of $3.85BN, and has raised over $560 million from the likes of DFJ, Andreesen Horowitz, and Coatue.
In Today’s Episode with Aaron Levie We Discuss:
1. What You Need to Know Entering This AI Wave:
Why does Aaron think we are currently in a transformative window in AI?
What does Aaron think it takes to be successful in this next wave?
Which areas does Aaron think founders should be focusing on today? Where should they not?
2. AI Adoption ..read more
The Twenty Minute VC
1w ago
Nikesh Arora is the CEO @ Palo Alto Networks, the leading cybersecurity company in the world with a market cap of $102BN. Before joining Palo Alto Networks, Nikesh was the President and COO of SoftBank Group. Before that, he spent ten years at Google as a senior exec, and President of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Before that Nikesh was CMO for the T-Mobile International Division of Deutsche Telekom AG. Nikesh serves on the board of Compagnie Financière Richemont S.A. Previously, he served on the boards of SoftBank, Sprint, Colgate-Palmolive Inc., Yahoo! Japan and Tipping Point.
In ..read more
The Twenty Minute VC
2w ago
Jiaona “JZ” Zhang is the Chief Product Officer at Linktree, the world’s leading link-in-bio platform empowering 45M+ creators, brands and SMBs. JZ joined Linktree from Webflow, where she served as SVP of Product. Before that, she spent four years at Airbnb where she built and led numerous teams on the host side. JZ’s also held leadership roles at the likes of Wework, Dropbox and teaches at Stanford University and Reforge.
In Today’s Episode with Jiaona Zhang We Discuss:
1. Entry into the World of Product
How did JZ first fall in love with product?
Why does JZ believe the best PMs have experi ..read more
The Twenty Minute VC
2w ago
Dan Siroker is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Limitless, a personalized AI powered by what you’ve seen, said, or heard. For his latest funding round, Dan took an unusual approach resulting in 1,000 preliminary offers with valuations as high as $1BN — and resulted in a $350 million Series A valuation. Prior to founding Limitless, Dan was the Founder of Optimizely, scaling the company to $120M in ARR and raising from some of the best in the business including Peter Fenton @ Benchmark who led the Series A.
In Today’s Episode with Dan Siroker We Discuss:
1. Serial Entrepreneurs are More Investable:
Wh ..read more
The Twenty Minute VC
2w ago
Tom Blomfield is a Group Partner at YC. Before YC, Tom founded two unicorns in the UK. He was co-founder of Monzo (most recently valued at $5BN), one of the first challenger banks in the UK. Monzo raised more than £1bn and counts 15% of the UK population as customers. Before Monzo, Tom founded GoCardless (YC S11), an online payments processor, most recently valued at $2.1BN.
In Today’s Episode with Tom Blomfield We Discuss:
1. From Founding Two Unicorns to YC Partner:
Does Tom believe that all great founders show signs of exceptionalism early?
What does Tom know now that he wishes he had kno ..read more
The Twenty Minute VC
3w ago
Larry Shurtz is the Chief Sales Officer at Genesys where he oversees the company’s global go-to-market strategies, including commercial activities, field sales and partner ecosystem operations. Larry has nearly three decades of experience in the software industry, from leading Confluent to delivering more than 60% revenue growth and doubling customer count as Chief Revenue Officer, to scaling a 1,300-person team at Salesforce to $2.1 billion in revenue.
In Today’s Episode with Larry Shurtz We Discuss:
1. From Robotics Student to $2.1BN Sales Leader at Salesforce
How did Larry lead 1300 peopl ..read more