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

Cem Sertoglu is one of the great venture investors of the last decade. Cem is famed for writing the first check into UiPath and over several rounds turning $16.5M into $2.1BN. Cem recently started Bek Ventures, a $250M fund that was 3x oversubscribed.  In Today’s Show with Cem Sertoglu We Discuss: 1. Has Venture Capital Been Commoditised: Why does Cem believe that VC has not been commoditised? Why does Cem believe many VCs today are not even VCs anymore? How does Cem advise founders who have offers from large multi-stage firms? What questions should they ask them pre-working with them?  How do the best founders select the VC they choose to work with? 2. Price, Reserves, Loss Ratios: Why does Cem believe that price does not matter? How does Cem approach reserves and reserves management? What does Cem know now about reserves that he wishes he had known when he started investing? Does Cem care about loss ratio? Does he do scenario planning when making investments? 3. Making $2.1BN on UiPath:  How did Cem meet Daniel for the first time? Was it obvious he was incredible? Why did they only write a $1M check and not take the whole round with $1.5M? Why did 40 of the best investors in Europe all turn down UiPath for the Series A? What did doing the bridge round for UiPath teach Cem about reserves? When was it obvious UiPath was going to be a mega hit? How did they continue to concentrate capital with each round? When did they first start to sell shares in UiPath? What was their approach to the selldown of their position? When the company IPO’d, how much of it did they have?  4. AMA with One of Europe’s Best: Does signalling exist? How does Cem advise founders on this? What has been his biggest loss? How did that change his mindset? What has been Cem’s biggest miss? What did he not see? Why does Cem always believe you should manufacture arguments with founders before investing? Why does Cem believe a high GP commit can actually misalign the GP and the LP?    

Alain De Botton is one of the greatest philosophers of our time. His work has had a profound impact on me more than any other. I have wanted to do this episode for the last 8 years.  In Today’s Episode with Alain De Botton We Discuss: 1. Why Status is Making You Miserable:  Why are we richer yet more anxious than ever? What is the right way to define status? Why do we want it so much? Is it bad to want status? What are some non-obvious signs that you are seeking status when you do not realise it? Does social media enhance the desire for status? How so? Do the happiest people want status the least? What are Alain’s biggest observations in how truly happy people think about status? 2. Why Parents Want You To Fail:  Why is the sign of good parenting when your child does not want to be famous? Why do your parents sometimes want you to fail?  What should parents do if their child wants to chase an unachievable goal? Why should parents encourage their children to start very early?  3. Why Meritocracy is a Fallacy & Meaningful Work: Why does Alain believe a true meritocracy is an impossible dream? Why is meritocracy a bad thing when taken to the extreme? Why does Alain believe that companies are not families? Why does Alain tell people that they should not bring their full selves to work?  4. WTF is “Meaningful Work”:  What does it mean to do “meaningful work”? Why do humans need to do “meaningful work” today in a way that we did not many years ago? What are Alain’s biggest pieces of advice to young people today, unsure of what they should do with their lives and careers? Why does Alain believe the idea of a “calling” is BS? 5. Ambition, Achievement and Sacrifice: What does Alain mean when he says “you have to tolerate your own averageness”? What does Alain say to the young generation who want work/life balance? What does Alain mean when he said you “cannot be at war with yourself”? Does Alain agree that to achieve you must sacrifice?    

Raman Malik is the Head of Growth at Perplexity where he is responsible for growth marketing, onboarding, activation, retention, and monetisation. Prior to Perplexity, Raman, was an early member of the growth team at Lyft and joined Perplexity earlier this year after his own startup journey.  In Today’s Episode with Perplexity’s Head of Growth:  1. Inside the Perplexity Growth Machine: What have been the single biggest needle movers in the growth of Perplexity? What has not worked? What have they learned from that? How have partnerships driven growth? Lessons on what makes a good vs bad partnership? Why does Raman think paid acquisition is a drug and Perplexity do not do it? How does Raman advise other founders when it comes to paid acquisition? 2. Acquisition, Retention, Churn: Mastering the Basics: Why does Raman think that brand marketing is BS? When does it become more important? What are the simplest things startups and product teams can do to drive retention up? How do Perplexity count an “engaged user”? What metric suggests they have a retained user? What is the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to A/B tests? 3. How Perplexity Built a Growth Machine: Why does Raman advise all founders to hire more former founders? How does the way you manage founders turned employees differ from employees who have never been founders? What is the must under appreciated growth channel today that has worked for Perplexity? What growth channel has been the biggest flop for Perplexity? What did Raman learn from losing money on the channel?

Markus Villig is the Founder and CEO of Bolt, a global mobility platform with more than 200 million lifetime customers in more than 50 countries and 600 cities. Bolt has raised over €1 billion in funding from investors like Sequoia, D1 and G Squared, making Markus the youngest founder of a billion-dollar company in Europe. In Today’s Episode with Markus Villig: 1. Starting an $8BN Company: How did Markus come up with the idea for Bolt before Uber existed? How did Markus find his co-founder? Why did 30 people turn down the chance to co-found Bolt? What are Markus’ biggest tips on finding a co-founder? How did Markus use a $5K loan from his parents as the pre-seed round? How did Markus get the first riders for Bolt? What worked? What did not work? How did Markus get the first driver for Bolt? What worked? What did not work? 2. Expanding to be a Global Champion: How did Markus expand Bolt to $10M in ARR on just $1M of funding? What did the international expansion playbook look like? What worked? What did not work? How has it changed over time? What one simple change led to their becoming the leader in Africa? What was the best country to launch? What was the worst? What is the most profitable country today? What is the least? 3. The $8BN Company that no VC Wanted to Fund: Why did every large VC in Europe turn down Bolt early on? How did a real estate company in the Baltics save Bolt with lifeline funding? When did Sequoia come into the mix? Does Sequoia move the needle for your company when they invest? How do New York financially driven investors differ to the traditional VC ecosystem? What would Markus most like to change about the world of VC? 4. The Future: Micromobility, Self-Driving Cars, Uber: Will the rise of self-driving cars harm or help companies like Bolt and Uber? What is the future for micromobility? Does it cannibalise the core business for Bolt and Uber? What is Uber better at Bolt doing? What are Uber worse at than Bolt? How will that change moving forward? Waymo, buy or short? Why?