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

Zachary Bookman is Co-Founder and CEO of OpenGov, the GovTech cloud software leader that was acquired for a staggering $1.8BN earlier this year. Prior to acquisition, Zac raised over $180M from some of the best of the best including Marc Andreesen, Josh Kushner, Joe Lonsdale and Founder Collective to name a few.  Zac is also a successful angel investor with investments in Flexport, Flock Safety and Addepar.  In Today’s Show with Zac Bookman We Discuss: 04:27 Navigating Enterprise Sales and Pricing Strategies 07:49 The Importance of High Gross Retention in SaaS 11:03 Investor Relations and the Power Law in Venture Capital 14:32 WTF is Product Market Fit 18:14 What No One Knows About M&A 20:05 Fundraising Challenges and Lessons Learned 32:51 What Marc Andreesen Taught Me About Boards 34:18 Why Founders and Investors are Misaligned 35:29 The OpenGov Acquisition: Selling for $1.8BN 37:22 What Does It Feel Like to Sell for $1.8BN 43:58 Why Venture Capital is a S*** Asset Class 45:13 Investment Mistakes and Lessons 01:02:05 The Importance of In-Person Collaboration    

Nik Storonsky is the Co-Founder and CEO of Revolut, one of the fastest-growing companies in the world with a $45BN valuation and 50M customers around the world. In July 2024, Revolut posted a whopping $2.2BN in revenue with $545M in pre-tax profit in 2023. To date, Nik has raised $1.8BN for the company from the likes of Index, Balderton, Ribbit, DST and TCV.  In Today’s Show with Nik Storonsky We Discuss: 1. When & Where Will Revolut IPO: What does Revolut need to do or change before they are ready to go public? When would Nik like for Revolut to go public? When they do go public, where would Nik list? Would it be in London? How does Nik respond to claims that he has moved to Dubai for tax reasons? 2. What Revolut Needs to Achieve to Hit $100BN: Why has no challenger bank won the US market yet? What will Revolut do differently to allow them to win the US market? What market share will Revolut have in Europe in 3 years time? What line of the business that does not exist today, will be the biggest in 5 years time? 3. How to Build an Execution Machine: Why does Nik believe the biggest mistake he made was hiring senior managers? What have been Nik’s biggest lessons on how to hire for roles you have never hired for before? What works? What does not? How does Nik retain insane velocity of execution at scale? How does Nik bucket people into three different buckets? What does each bucket mean for the type of work they do and the expectations placed on them? 4. How Revolut Tests New Products: How does Revolut use a portfolio approach to test new product ideas? How are teams for new ideas structured? What roles do they have? How much time and resources are they given? What is the tracking process to determine the success of new products? What % of new products do succeed and progress to the core app? Which product did Nik think would be massive but turned out to be a flop? What did Nik not expect to be massive and turned out to be mega hit? 5. The UK and Europe: Are We F******: The Chancellor has said we will have no growth in the UK for the next 3 years. How does it feel for Nik to grow Revolut in this environment? If Nik could advise Keir Starmer on how to turn the UK around, what would he say? Why does Nik believe the US has created so many more $100BN companies? Why does Nik believe that work/life imbalance is the secret to success and happiness?    

George Arison is the CEO of Grindr. The app that results in 40% of lesbian and gay marriages, the average user uses the app for 1 hour per day and sends more messages on Grindr than they do Whatsapp. The company will do over $300M in revenue in 2024 with a 40% EBITDA margin. One of the insane public company success stories. Prior to Grindr, George was the Founder and CEO of Shift, which he took public in 2020. In Today’s Episode with George Arison We Discuss: 1. Wild Story of How the Chinese Bought and Lost Grindr:  How did the Chinese come to buy Grindr and then fire the founder? Why did the US government force the sale of the company from the Chinese? What happened when the whole development team was in Taiwan and then resigned overnight? George got the CEO role in Sept and the company went public in Oct. How did that all happen so fast? 2. How Grindr is a Free Cash Flow Machine: What are the three core ways that Grindr is able to print money with a 40% EBITDA margin? Why does Grindr not spend any money on marketing or customer acquisition? Why does George think that most companies have way too many people? Why does George believe that most startups are very badly managed? What will Grindr do with the insane amount of free cash flow the company is producing? 3. Lessons Building Grindr to $300M in Revenue: What has George done with Grindr that he wishes he had not done? What has he not done that he wishes he had done? Why does George not make political statements today? Does George think we have freedom of speech when CEOs face such repercussions for political views? What does Wall St not understand about Grindr that it really should understand?  

Guy Podjarny founded Tessl, Snyk and Blaze. Tessl is reimagining software development for the AI era and shaping AI Native Development. Snyk created and leads the Developer Security category, and is now a multi-billion dollar company with over 1,000 employees. Guy was previously CTO at Akamai (following its acquisition of Blaze), is an active angel investor, and co-hosts of the AI Native Dev podcast. In Today’s Episode with Guy Podjarny We Discuss:  03:02 Discussion on NVIDIA's Market Position 04:14 Will We See a Trough of Disillusionment in AI 07:36 The Future of AI Development and Specialized Models 10:17 Challenges and Opportunities in AI Dev Tools 17:41 Concerns About Closed vs. Open Development Platforms 21:27 Speculations on AI's Role in Application Layers 24:40 Google's Competitive Edge 25:28 IPO and M&A in the Trump Era 26:45 The Future Role of Software Developers 32:20 Security Challenges in AI Development 33:41 Spicy Questions and Charity Donations 36:05 Quickfire Round: Insights and Advice