Podcast appearances and mentions of harry stebbings

Everyone loves talking about finding product-market fit. But what if the real challenge in 2025 is keeping it?In this solo episode, I riff on why PMF has become more fleeting than ever. I unpack what Harry Stebbings, Jason Lemkin and Rory O'Driscoll observed —companies that once had a five-year runway now fall out of PMF in five weeks. We explore AI-fueled growth curves, the myth of “escape velocity,” and why today's go-to-market edge can vanish overnight.I also shares a brutal hill from a recent road race (and the startup metaphor it unlocked), plus a text exchange with a growth investor on the hunt for vertical SaaS alpha.If you're an operator, investor, or CFO trying to understand the new physics of scaling, this one's for you.Run the Numbers is sponsored by Gelt. You already know tax season isn't just a deadline—it's a lever.At Gelt, they work with CFOs who aren't just looking to stay compliant—they're looking to unlock strategic value from their tax position. Think: optimized entity structures, real-time visibility across complex ownership, and proactive tax planning that actually moves the needle on cash flow.Gelt gives you quarterly strategy check-ins and proactive estimates, all designed to lower your effective tax rate, protect equity value, and drive long-term efficiency. You get direct access to your Gelt CPA and a clean, modern platform to track it all.Learn if you qualify at go.joingelt.com/mostlymetrics and schedule a call to learn more. Get full access to Mostly metrics at www.mostlymetrics.com/subscribe

Welcome to The Daily Deal — the new show with Harry Stebbings and Jason Lemkin, where we break down the biggest stories in tech, venture, and B2B. From market meltdowns to billion-dollar raises, wild valuations, and the drama behind the deals. We're covering it all! Plus, we'll be joined by some incredible guests to go deeper on the moves shaping the future of our industry.  Today we discuss:  Tech stocks were hammered in late trading today in response to the Trump administration's plans to levy tariffs of between 10% and 49% on imported goods, with Apple shares falling more than 6%. Rippling Deal: Illegal or Hustle? Emergence Raises $1B for B2B Investments Cursor, Replit, Windsurf: Who Wins? Lots of gen AI startups are crossing into the $100M ARR club. The latest entrant is talent marketplace Mercor, last valued at $2B. Is triple triple double double dead? ScaleAI at $25B: Pricey or Potential?  Discussion with Bhavin Shah @ Moveworks: ServiceNow Acquires Moveworks for $2.5B: AI Craze Continues Sequoia Makes 25x on Wiz: Is M&A Open Again? USD Stablecoin issuer Circle has filed to go public. The company, which has raised $1.2 billion in VC money, reported $1.7 billion in 2024 revenue, with $155.7 million in net income. Oracle Cloud Revenue Up 23%: Old Guard Wins in AI? Salesforce Customers Love AgentForce, But Will They Pay? Dustin Moskovitz Retires from Asana: Is SaaS Too Tough? Discussion with Andrew Feldman @ Cerebras: Coreweave's Redemption Provision: A Time Bomb for Coatue? Can OpenAI's $12B Deal Save Coreweave from $5B Loss? OpenAI Won't Profit Until $127B in Annual Revenue A lot of young founders raising big in chips; bullish or bullshit?    

This Week in Startups is brought to you by…Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twistSquarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://www.Squarespace.com/TWISTCLA. Get started with CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors now at https://claconnect.com/techToday's show: Jason and Alex break down the biggest tech stories of the moment. OpenAI is pushing to rewrite copyright laws to benefit AI companies while suing others for doing the same—hypocrisy or smart strategy? Meanwhile, European startups are fleeing to the U.S. as overregulation and weak IPO markets make scaling harder. Harry Stebbings joins to discuss whether Project Europe can reverse the trend. Plus, with AI-driven startups staying lean, angel investing is evolving—should investors wait for traction or bet on potential? Jason shares his 2024 playbook. Watch the full episode now!Timestamps:(0:00) Episode Teaser(1:15) OpenAI's recommendations, stance on copyright, and ethics(8:30) Sam Altman's political donations and the media's response(9:41) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist(15:48) Introduction of guest Harry Stebbings and his venture capital journey(19:51) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST(22:05) Discussing the human aspect of investing and handling criticism(27:37) Project Europe and its support for EU founders(30:49) CLA. Get started with CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors now at https://www.claconnect.com/tech(32:16) Balancing roles as an investor and public figure(33:04) Analyzing the European startup ecosystem(35:48) Addressing Project Europe's age cap and mentorship(38:09) Global talent competition and Europe's stance(42:29) Economic impacts and the future of Project Europe(45:18) Growth and housing in Austin compared to other tech regions(47:36) Startup funding strategies and angel investment advice(55:27) Evolving startup and content creation landscapes(57:37) Founder University announcementSubscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpLinks from the show:Check out Project Europe: https://www.projecteurope.co/Check out 20VC: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/Check out Stride VC: https://stride.vc/Follow Harry:X: https://x.com/HarryStebbingsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrystebbingsFollow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelmFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisThank you to our partners:(9:41) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist(19:51) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST(30:49) CLA. Get started with CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors now at https://www.claconnect.com/techGreat TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarlandCheck out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanisFollow TWiST:Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartupsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartupsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartupsSubstack: https://twistartups.substack.comSubscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916

Learn the 5 laws of creation and how to apply a growth mindset to improving anything you do. The awkward thing about finding our calling. Is that our calling isn't out there looking for us. It's easy to be stuck in mediocrity waiting for the perfect moment or for that ambiguous feeling that we are totally ready and blessed with pre-ordained approval to start our ideas. These days knowledge is abundant and easily accessible. What's scarce is the willingness to show up, create, and launch our thoughts into the world before we feel ready. In this episode: How the world is changing and the new laws of opportunity Instead of waiting for permission, you can create opportunities for yourself How to stop asking "Am I good enough?" and build a framework to continuously improve at anything you do. Upgrade to Premium:

Bonus Track cette semaine avec un investisseur

Bonus Track cette semaine avec un VC

This Week in Startups is brought to you by… Lemon.io - Hire pre-vetted remote developers, get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist Coda. Coda empowers your startup by bringing words, tables, and teams together. Strategize, plan, and track goals effectively with all your valuable data in one place. Go to https://www.coda.io/twist to get started for FREE and get 6 free months of the Team plan. Google Cloud. Accelerate your startup journey with the Google for Startups Cloud Program. Get up to $200K in Google Cloud credits – or up to $350K for AI startups – plus training and guidance. Apply at ⁠https://startups.google.com/twist * Todays show: Alex Wilhelm joins Jason to discuss Amazon's return to office (RTO) policy (11:27), Lina Khan's 60 minutes (31:09), Apple's new iOS features (48:32), Microsoft's big nuclear deals (1:05:25), and more! * Timestamps: (0:00) Jason and Alex kick off the show (2:14) Viral tweet from Harry Stebbings about venture capital and entrepreneurship (4:38) Discussion on the balance between luxury and grit in entrepreneurship (9:29) Cleaning up the excesses in the industry (9:58) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist (11:27) Amazon's return to office (RTO) policy and its implications (20:11) Potential impact of RTO on Amazon's innovation and stock price (20:55) Coda - Empower your startup with Coda's Team plan for free—get 6 months at https://www.Coda.io/twist (22:25) Amazon's use of Gen AI to reduce the need for developers (24:32) Amazon's M&A strategy and competitive positioning (29:39) Google Cloud - Accelerate your startup journey with the Google for Startups Cloud Program. Apply at https://startups.google.com/twist (31:09) Lina Khan, antitrust enforcement, and market competition (45:49) Specific anti-competitive behaviors in tech industry and potential solutions (48:32) Apple's new iOS features and their impact on productivity tools (53:00) Siri's evolution and improved AI capabilities in iOS (57:32) The concept of "getting Sherlock'd" and its impact on startups (59:08) Apple's AI advancements and their implications for OpenAI (1:05:05) The potential challenges of AI dominance in OS-level interfaces (1:05:25) Microsoft's involvement in nuclear power and its significance (1:10:30) The importance of energy independence for AI development (1:15:43) Audience question: Return to office in tech vs. other industries (1:18:11) Audience question: App store rules and market share * Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com * Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp * Follow Alex: X: https://x.com/alex LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm * Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis * Thank you to our partners: (9:58) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist (20:55) Coda - Empower your startup with Coda's Team plan for free—get 6 months at https://www.Coda.io/twist (29:39) Google Cloud - Accelerate your startup journey with the Google for Startups Cloud Program. Apply at https://startups.google.com/twist * Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland * Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis * Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com * Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916

SaaStr 745: Mastering SaaS Sales Hiring, Customer Retention, and Growth with OpenAI, Retool, and 20VC Dominic Grill, Head of Technical Success at OpenAI, and Eleanor Dorfman, Head of Sales at Retool, answer some of the most pressing questions from Harry Stebbings, Founder at 20VC, about mastering the customer lifecycle, how roles and motions in sales and post-sales have changed, the role of AI in sales, and some of the biggest lessons learned at these hyper-growth companies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet. Join us in 2024 at: SaaStr Annual: Sept. 10-12 in the SF Bay Area. Join 12,500 SaaS professionals, CEOs, revenue leaders and investors for the world's LARGEST SaaS community event of the year. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on tickets here: https://www.saastrannual2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave20 --------------   This episode is sponsored by Pendo, the all-in-one product experience platform. Pendo helps your users do the things you really want them to do. You can try Pendo for free at Pendo.io/saastr and check out Mind The Product, the community for product people like… us.   This episode is sponsored by: Remote.com Are international payroll regulations giving you a headache? Remote.com is your solution. With our best-in-class interface and expertise, we consolidate payroll for your employees, whether in one country or a hundred. Trust us with swift, secure payments for your team while you focus on scaling markets and driving business growth.   This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent Get more when Northwest Registered Agent starts your business. They'll form your company fast and stand up your entire business identity in minutes. That means business free domain, business email, website, hosting, address, mail scanning, business phone app, all within minutes. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.

In this episode Erik Torenberg sits down with Jason Lemkin, the founder and CEO of SaaStr, a venture firm, podcast network, event series, and the world's largest community for B2B/SaaS founders. This candid conversation focuses on SaaStr's business model at the intersection of VC, media, and events. Jason also covers why all VC's need to nail the right amount of marketing, what 'edge' looks like in venture, why Jason never created a YC for SaaS, and the distinctions between business models that seem scalable versus those that genuinely achieve exponential growth. -- SPONSORS:

SaaStr 718: Predictions for Venture, IPOs, and the State of SaaS in 2024 with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin and Harry Stebbings, Founder and Host of the 20 Minute VC Harry Stebbings, Host of the 20VC, recently hosted SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin for one of the first podcasts of the year. Together, they talk about the best of SaaS from 2023, the state of SaaS in 2024, and their predictions for Venture and IPOs for the year ahead.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet. Join us in 2024 at: SaaStr Annual: Sept. 10-12 in the SF Bay Area. Join 12,500 SaaS professionals, CEOs, revenue leaders and investors for the world's LARGEST SaaS community event of the year. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on tickets here: https://www.saastrannual2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave20 SaaStr Europa: June 5-6 in London. We'll be hosting the 5th SaaStr Europa in London for two days of content and networking. Join 3,000 SaaS and Cloud leaders. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on Europa tickets here: https://www.saastreuropa2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave200 -------------- This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.

Jeff Seibert is co-founder of Digits, a beautifully designed accounting and reporting platform that essentially sits on top of Intuit's QuickBooks. It then uses that data, plus API-based integrations on incoming and outgoing money in its business, to create a massive information database. Digits then begins to organize and read that data to create more intelligence around it, such as providing automatic answers to the kinds of “how” or “why” questions that an accountant or other finance pro might have around a basic financial report, the kinds of answers that previously would have only been possible through human queries, and being able to read and understand the stories behind paper trails and siloed sources of data. Digits Reports will sit alongside and is based around a search feature that Digits launched last year to help users find transactions that tap into a similar idea: answers are not found just through keywords but in results. Digits has raised $97.5 million from SoftBank's Vision Fund, U.K. investor Harry Stebbings' 20VC Growth, GV, and Benchmark.Where to find Jeff Seibert:• Website: Digits - Accounting, • LinkedIn (13) Jeff Seibert | LinkedInWhere to find Hadi Radwan:• Newsletter: Principles Friday | Hadi Radwan | Substack• LinkedIn: Hadi Radwan | LinkedInIf you like our podcast, please don't forget to subscribe and support us on your favorite podcast players. We also would appreciate your feedback and rating to reach more people.We recently launched our new newsletter, Principles Friday, where I share one principle that can help you in your life or business, one thought-provoking question, and one call to action toward that principle. Please subscribe Here.It is Free and Short (2min).

In episode #2621, We explore the strategies of successful content creators, drawing inspiration from figures like Chamath Palihapitiya and Andrew Wilkinson, both millionaires who have activated paid subscriptions for their Twitter accounts. We discuss their keen understanding of the value of building and leveraging an audience for various opportunities, highlighting the potential for financial success through subscriptions, investments, and business deals. We draw parallels with other content creators, such as Jason Lemkin and Harry Stebbings, who have successfully built conferences, and venture capital opportunities, and gained access to deal flow through their respective platforms. We emphasize the strategic move of building an audience as a means to stand out from the crowd and create diverse opportunities.Don't forget to help us grow by subscribing and liking on YouTube!Check out more of Eric's content (Leveling UP YT) and Neil's videos (Neil Patel YT) TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: (00:00) Today's topic: Why Millionaires & Billionaires are Becoming Content Creators (00:01) Chamath and Andrew Wilkinson are becoming content creators (01:50) Building an audience helps make money and get business deals (03:51) Examples of successful content creators: Jason Lemkin and Harry Stebbings (05:13) Tim Ferriss has a large audience and makes money from investing (06:31) Building an audience is a smart move for success (07:12) That's it for today! Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe! Go to https://www.marketingschool.io to learn more!Links Mentioned in Today's Episode: Chamath Palihapitiya X Andrew Wilkinson X Leave Some Feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with Us:  Single Grain

In episode #2621, We explore the strategies of successful content creators, drawing inspiration from figures like Chamath Palihapitiya and Andrew Wilkinson, both millionaires who have activated paid subscriptions for their Twitter accounts. We discuss their keen understanding of the value of building and leveraging an audience for various opportunities, highlighting the potential for financial success through subscriptions, investments, and business deals. We draw parallels with other content creators, such as Jason Lemkin and Harry Stebbings, who have successfully built conferences, and venture capital opportunities, and gained access to deal flow through their respective platforms. We emphasize the strategic move of building an audience as a means to stand out from the crowd and create diverse opportunities. Don't forget to help us grow by subscribing and liking on YouTube! Check out more of Eric's content (Leveling UP YT) and Neil's videos (Neil Patel YT)  TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: (00:00) Today's topic: Why Millionaires & Billionaires are Becoming Content Creators (00:01) Chamath and Andrew Wilkinson are becoming content creators (01:50) Building an audience helps make money and get business deals (03:51) Examples of successful content creators: Jason Lemkin and Harry Stebbings (05:13) Tim Ferriss has a large audience and makes money from investing (06:31) Building an audience is a smart move for success (07:12) That's it for today! Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe! Go to https://www.marketingschool.io to learn more! Links Mentioned in Today's Episode: Chamath Palihapitiya X Andrew Wilkinson X Leave Some Feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with Us:  Single Grain

I know it can feel scary and uncomfortable to start being public with your passions and interests. But take it from me, it pays off big time!Whether you start a podcast, write blogs, make YouTube videos, or just post on social media - creating content keeps you accountable, helps you improve your thinking, and attracts the career and connections you've been dreaming about.Trust me, I went from a dude with a smartphone to a full-time podcaster simply by starting to share my thoughts and interests out loud.So if you're looking to grow your skills, mindset, network, and career in business, self-improvement, psychology or any interest area - don't wait around for opportunity to strike. Put yourself out there and let the law of creation work its magic!- - -On the growth mindset podcast with Sam Webster Harris, we explore the psychology of happiness, satisfaction, purpose, and growth through the lens of self-improvement. Success and happiness is a state of mind unique to ourselves and is our responsibility to create.Through a process of honest self-reflection of what is holding us back and what is driving us forward, we can lose the ego and build awareness of how to be the best we can be.- - -Connect with Sam:Sam's newsletter on creativity - Explosive ThinkingWatch the pod - YouTube (Growth Mindset)Twitter - @samjamharrisInstagram - @SamJam.zenYoutube - @Samjam- - -Show: Growth Mindset, psychology of self-improvementEpisode: The Law of CreationChapters:00:00 Benefits of Showing Up01:25 Lessons Documenting and Sharing Your Process 04:06 Looking into Harry Stebbings' Experience05:14 Go Niche and Share Your Process and Ideas.06:31 How Creating Content Keeps You Accountable and Attracts Opportunities07:33 How to Know What You're Interested In 08:55 Waiting for Your Calling Won't Work11:10 What the Law of Creation Means13:08 Send Off Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/growth-mindset-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Why is Series A the best risk/reward insertion point when investing today? How has the competition level at Series A and B changed? What do many people not see or know about this stage of the market today? 4. Is Growth Dead: Are Growth Deals Getting Done: What two core elements are needed if you want to raise a growth round today? How have growth round valuations been impacted over the last 12 months? To what extent do founders need to change their expectations on the price of rounds they will be able to get done today? 5. M&A and IPOs: Tough Times Ahead Why will we see continued low levels of activity in M&A markets? What acquisitions are we seeing take place? When will the IPO window crack open? Why were Klaviyo, Instacart and Arm not enough to open the windows?

Harry Stebbings is an entrepreneur and investor. He created 20VC in 2015 when he was 19 years old. Now he's done over 3,127 podcast episodes and built one of the most listened to venture capital show in the world. 0:00 Intro 1:14 “You're Too Young” 3:51 Milestone Thinking 8:00 Uncovering Blindspots 14:39 Studying Psychology 16:55 Loss Of Childhood Joy 19:58 Struggling With Metrics 23:30 Building Mode 25:55 Parenting 30:02 Harry's Biggest Fear 32:23 What Has Harry Learned From Grandpa? 35:21 Connecting With Stranger 38:02 What Gets To Harry? 39:55 Where Has Harry Grown Most From 20VC? 44:23 Harry Cuts Ruthlessly 48:40 Competition In Podcasts? 52:15 Harry's Egregious Tax Bill 54:21 Building In Routine 56:23 Harry's Mom 1:00:12 Harry's Obesity 1:03:44 Entrepreneurs Are Athletes 1:06:52 What Would MrBeast Do If He Was… 1:09:23 What Would Harry Ask Ryan Reynolds? 1:11:41 Current Constraints? 1:18:12 Mental Discipline 1:20:12 Challenge How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish – https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will-Listen/dp/B007ZT6RHY Harry's Links Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Podcast: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf0PBRjhf0rF8fWBIxTuoWA My Links  ✉️ Newsletter: https://dannymiranda.substack.com

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have decided to fight in a cage match. Warren Buffett is amazing. TransDigm shows CEOs can sell stock and still be bullish. Doogles walks through a Morningstar piece on portfolio mistakes. Skippy covers the benefits of living abroad and self awareness. The episode wraps with a recent interview of Bill Ackman by Harry Stebbings.Join the Skippy and Doogles fan club. You can also get more details about the show at skippydoogles.com, show notes on our Substack, and send comments or questions to skippydoogles@gmail.com.

Jason breaks down the valuation tension surrounding YC demo days (2:36), how to get better prices on YC-equivalent startups (8:59), Garry Tan's response to complaints (15:18), and more! Then, Jason reacts to a law firm's leaked expectations list that went viral (29:29) before wrapping with some thoughts about Substack (41:59). (0:00) Jason tees up Friday's topics! (2:36) Understanding the valuation tension of YC's demo day; why some investors resent YC (8:59) Jason's three ways to avoid overpaying for YC startups (13:56) Embroker - Use code TWIST to get an extra 10% off insurance at https://Embroker.com/twist (15:18) Garry Tan's response to demo day valuation complaints; Harry Stebbings and Garry Tan's back and forth on valuations/expectations (24:07) Linode - Apply to Linode's Rise program for a $500 credit and up to six figures in discounts at https://linode.com/twist (25:34) How startups that got accepted into YC can cold email top VCs to raise pre-demo day (29:29) Jason reacts to a law firm's leaked expectations list that went viral (36:13) QuickNode - Get one month free by using code TWIST at https://go.quicknode.com/twist (37:25) Reactions to the viral expectations list (41:59) Substack publishes 2021 gross revenue, net loss, and cash on hand and Jason breaks down the company's position Email your pitch deck to yc@launch.co if you were rejected by YC and want to meet with the LAUNCH team! Subscribe to our YouTube to watch all full episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkkhmBWfS7pILYIk0izkc3A?sub_confirmation=1

Episode 96 is with Kyle Harrison, General Partner at Contrary! In this episode, you will learn Contrary's investment approach, how storytelling drives the world, how to achieve investor-founder fit, and a particular trend amongst tech unicorns that Kyle refers to as “Thinning the Herd”. He also details the downstream impact of the current tech layoffs as well as his experiences on Harry Stebbings' podcast - 20VC. Kyle is one of the most prominent writers in the venture space today, sharing his thoughts at his blog, Investing 101 2.0. Before joining Contrary, Kyle worked in some of the best names in VC, from TCV to Coatue to Index. Through all of these experiences, Kyle has led or participated in investments including Ramp, Pave, Anduril, Gitlab, Databricks and Snowflake to name a few. Contrary https://contrary.com/ Timestamps 2:12 - Intro to Kyle 7:13 - Storytelling drives the World 9:18 - What makes a good investor? 13:45 - Achieving "Investor-Founder Fit" 17:57 - Contrary's Investment Approach 21:47 - What is one contrarian opinion? 25:30 - “Thinning the Herd” 31:50 - Advice for Managing a Down Round 36:15 - Downstream Impact of Tech Layoffs 48:10 - 20VC with Harry Stebbings 51:35 - Proudest Moment & Biggest Regret 54:45 - Lightning Round

Today's guest is Jennifer Phan - co-founder of Passionfroot - a platform empowering creators to partner directly with brands and agencies to monetise their product and services, be it a podcast, a newsletter or YouTube channel.Born to immigrant parents, Jen started her career as VC investor before seeing a gap in the market for creators who are trying to earn money directly from their work. Passionfroot takes care of the admin and business side of earning a living from your work and helps to remove the barriers and gate keepers which have historically been in place and held many creators back.In this conversation, Jen and I discuss the wave of creators turned entrepreneurs, why she wants to empower creators anywhere in the world, what the next frontier for creator entrepreneurs looks like, as well as some of the platforms she recommends to help you grow your community.This is a great conversation with lots of fantastic lessons for founders and creators so I hope you get as much value out of it as I did.Please let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.Jennifer on Twitter / Passionfroot website / Passionfroot Podcast, Creators on Air here / Newsletter hereDanielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham  / Newsletter here 

How do you play the game of content creation and come out on top? Time and energy. Harry Stebbings is a wildly talented podcaster, investor, and content creator. He got his start in podcasting at a very young age and at just 20 years old, he became one of the youngest VCs in the world. Today, Harry is the Founder of The Twenty Minute VC, the world's largest independent venture capital podcast. In today's episode, Harry shares his thoughts on the future of content and his own strategy behind creating content for multiple social media platforms from LinkedIn to TikTok. He talks about how he learned to build a deep network and create relationships that last, and what it means to bundle and unbundle businesses.Press play to hear Harry's thoughts on…How TikTok Helps His Business“On TikTok, you can absolutely go viral with 50 followers, it's much more uncorrelated, which allows for this true democratization of the reach of content in a way that I think is quite exciting... What I love about TikTok is it brings the story front and center, not the person in many ways. And so it can be a real discovery mechanism for content that doesn't quite make it in many ways. But now we have 28% of our viewers download through TikTok. 28% of new subscribers come through TikTok. It's insane.”How Technology Can Solve Problems "If we think about investing in this next generation of innovation, technology has to be the solution to some of the world's biggest problems. Whether it be the macro problems that we face on incoming inequality, whether it be the climate change problems that we face. I mean, it goes on and on."

Jason recently joined Harry Stebbings on 20VC to discuss VC in 2023. Hear why you shouldn't wait to raise (if you're fundable), even though the venture landscape will look better by the end of 2023.   This episode is an excerpt of Jason and Harry's discussion. You can watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/dHIWdwljt7Q   Want to join the SaaStr community? We're the

At 18 years-old, Harry Stebbings started the Twenty Minute VC podcast with fifty dollars and not a single contact in venture capital. He's the first person to turn a podcast into a multi-million pound fund. Across several vehicles, he's raised over $400 million. And he's only 26.Harry is seriously impressive. If you're an entrepreneur, you'll learn exactly what Harry looks for when he invests. But this episode isn't just for those in business. He's overcome bulimia and is now sober, and has tonnes of advice for those who want to take their life to the next level.

Introduction: Welcome to Five & Thrive: a weekly podcast highlighting the Southeast's most interesting news, entrepreneurs, and information of the week, all under 5 minutes.  My name is Jon Birdsong and I'm with Atlanta Ventures.  Welcome everyone to episode 31 of Five and Thrive and the last one of 2022. Outside of the Braves making major trade plays last week, there was some movement in the tech space as well which we'll cover shortly but before we get there, we did want to highlight some valuable and insightful pieces of content that spoke the most to us from the investment perspective. Also, if you're looking for a recap of all of Atlanta Ventures' investments in 2022, we'll link to the news portion of our website which goes through the year's investments and we'll also link to the sign up page to our newsletter which Jacey Cadet sends out monthly on all the specific investments, news, and more.  3 Pieces of Content We Really Like: I'm not putting out a listicle or Top 10 List. But since we started producing this podcast back in June, there are a few pieces of content that really resonated with us. We're only offering 3 to enhance the gravity of the recommendations.  The first one is TwentyVC where Martin Escobari of General Atlantic shares his wisdom and insight around why markets matter most, how to remain a disciplined investor, what they look for in due diligence and much more. I liked this interview because it was so normal. Martin makes his opinion clear on several topics and it all seems so cogent and well thought out.  The second is an article coming from Mark Suster of Upfront VC titled: What does the post crash VC market look like? Mark wrote this in July of this year and there are some timeless themes put into actions specifically discipline and focus. Suster argues in times like these, there are only two things a VC firm can do: either go very big or get very focused. Upfront is does the latter. He walks through, with metrics, how they've kept their strategy consistent of writing checks early at an amount and price point in a very specific ballpark regardless of all of shifting and shiny objects out there in the macroeconomy. A good one to read.    Our third is back to TwentyVC this time Harry Stebbings interviews Brian Singerman of Founders Fund. Brian is a pro's pro and goes into a significant amount of information here including FoundersFund investing style, the overall mismatch in public vs. private markets right now. By the way, this was recorded in October of 2022. Brian also talks about how venture capital is investing in the best entrepreneurs building the best companies at the best possible price. Pretty simple, yet so hard. Worth a listen for sure.  Market Opportunity To Watch:  As y'all know, we love sparking startups out of the Atlanta Ventures' Studio and markets are the biggest factor to success. One market opportunity we are excited about over the next 5-7 years is around solar panels and more specifically solar panel installations. As more and more consumers and businesses install solar panels due to either cost and energy savings, maybe with the help of government incentives as well, there will be an increased number of solar installers. Software will be needed to organize and streamline those services as demand increases. A market to watch for sure.   Raise a Glass: Lastly, as mentioned above, there were deals made into the final holiday hours of the year, maybe even one more between now and the new year but Qualytics out of Orlando went through the Engage program and just closed a $2.5M round led Tech Square Ventures, who've we've highlighted before on this podcast as well as Knoll Ventures — both firms out of Atlanta. Qualytics solves the massive problem of scattered and unorganized data within the organization. When this happens, even the smartest folks in the room are not informed enough to make meaningful, strategic decisions. Qualtyics helps companies manage data quality at scale. Imagine millions or billions of data points scattered across several applications, the opaqueness and confusion can compound quickly. Well done to Founder and CEO, Gorkem Sevinc on closing the round before the final bell of the year.   Annnnd, that's 5 minutes. Thank you for listening to Five and Thrive. We provide 5 minutes of quality information, so you can thrive in the upcoming week. Please subscribe to the show and spread the good word!  Resources discussed in this episode: Atlanta Ventures News from the Year:  https://www.atlantaventures.com/resources/news https://www.atlantaventures.com/newsletter  3 Pieces of Content We Really Like: Martin Escobari of General Atlantic on TwentyVC Mark Suster of Upfront VC - What does the post-crash VC market look like? Brian Singerman of FoundersFund on TwentyVC Market Opportunity to Watch: Solar Panel Installations and Installers Raise a Glass: Qualytics Raises $2.5M  

We sit down with The Twenty Minute VC host and venture capitalist Harry Stebbings to chat about getting started on a new project, creating content, and the current landscape of venture capital.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Camille Ricketts began her career in journalism, at the Wall Street Journal, in 2006. In 2010 she joined Tesla, where she worked in communications alongside Elon Musk. She transitioned into marketing and became the Head of Content and Marketing at First Round Capital and then went on to become the very first marketing hire at Notion. In today's episode, we dig into community-led growth—what it is, and when and how to pursue it. We get super-specific on how Notion championed their most loyal users and built a passionate community, and the incredible outcome it had for the company's growth. We also talk about how to create great content, and how content can drive growth for your business and brand.—Find the transcript for this episode and all past episodes at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/episodes/. Today's transcript will be live by 8 a.m. PT.—Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting this podcast:• Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments: https://www.geteppo.com/• Flatfile—A CSV importer that says yes instead of error: mismatch: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny—Where to find Camille:• Twitter: https://twitter.com/camillericketts• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/camillericketts/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—People referenced:• Ivan Zhao: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanhzhao/• Simon Last: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-last-41404140/• Lexie Barnhorn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexisbarnhorn/• Ben Lang: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmlang/• Claire Butler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairetbutler/• Jessi Craige Shikman at First Round: https://firstround.com/person/jessi-craige-shikman/• Brett Berson at First Round: https://firstround.com/person/brett-berson/• Josh Kopelman at First Round: https://firstround.com/person/josh-kopelman/#mystory• Shaun Young on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunyou/• David Pierce at The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/authors/david-pierceAdditionally, Camille would love to shout out Nate Martins and Andrea Lim, who ran Notion's content program:• Nate Martins: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nate-martins/• Andrea Lim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawlim/Content and companies referenced:• Community & Content Resources: https://tinyurl.com/yrxbb542• Station F: https://stationf.co/• Figma: https://www.figma.com/• Canva: https://www.canva.com/• Stripe: https://stripe.com/• Stripe Atlas: https://stripe.com/atlas• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/• First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/• Jobs to be done framework: https://jobs-to-be-done.com/jobs-to-be-done-a-framework-for-customer-needs-c883cbf61c90• The Only App You Need for Work-Life Productivity: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-only-app-you-need-for-work-life-productivity-1521640800• Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/Referenced in lightning round:• Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning So Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It: https://www.amazon.com/Obviously-Awesome-Product-Positioning-Customers/dp/1999023005• April Dunford on Lenny's podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/april-dunford-on-product-positioning-segmentation-and-optimizing-your-sales-process/• April Dunford's guest post in Lenny's newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/positioning• Harry Stebbings's podcast, 20VC: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/podcast/• Lenny on 20VC: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/lenny-rachitsky/• Tár: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14444726/• Fleishman Is in Trouble: https://www.hulu.com/series/fleishman-is-in-trouble-710e51f8-3387-404d-8b07-e7c9b766d11c• Notion: https://www.notion.so/• Arc: https://arc.net/• Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/• Cron: https://cron.com/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Camille's background(05:43) What it was like working with Elon Musk(07:38) Working at Notion in the early days(12:16) What is community-led growth?(15:48) How Notion measured the impact of marketing efforts(16:35) The most successful community efforts at Notion(18:24) Why metrics aren't always necessary for community growth (19:52) When it makes sense to invest in community-led growth(21:34) How creators make money using Notion(23:12) The Ambassador Program and Champions Program at Notion(27:20) Why founders should consider investing in community and delay monetizing some features(31:03) Companies that have done well in building community(32:54) How to determine the level of community engagement appropriate for your company to invest in(34:00) Using Camille's 2x2 grid to implement community(36:42) How to launch an ambassador program(41:22) Advice for founders who want to build community(47:17) How Lenny got his first 500 newsletter subscribers(48:58) Examples of Camille's most impactful content marketing(51:20) Content-market fit: how to determine the needs of your reader (53:37) Content categories and the time it takes to create top-notch content(57:02) The future of comms and how the press helped Notion grow(1:01:35) Lightning round—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

In 2022 we tend to think that we live in a global marketplace, but regional differences still exist in VC and startups. Our guest today is Akash Bajwa, Investor at Earlybird VC. We talk with Akash about the current state of the European Startup scene, how the recent pullback is affecting things, the rise of European VC superstars like Harry Stebbings, and Earlybird’s plan for its recent $350M fund.About Akash Bajwa:Akash is an early-stage investor at Earlybird, one of Europe's longest-standing early-stage funds. Prior to this Akash was investing in fintech at Augmentum Fintech, and spent time in corporate venture at Barclays Ventures.A word from our sponsor:At Ripple, we manage all of our fund expenses and employee credit cards using Jeeves. The team at Jeeves helped get me and my team setup with physical and virtual credit cards in days. I was able to allow my teammates to expense items in multiple currencies allowing them to pay for anything, anywhere at anytime. We weren’t asked for any personal guarantees or to pay any setup or monthly SaaS fees.Not only does Jeeves save us time, but they also give us cashback on our purchases including expenses like Google, Facebook, or AWS every month. New users can earn up to 3% cashback for their first 90 days.The best part is Jeeves puts up the cash, and you settle up once every 30 days in any currency you want, unlike some other corporate card companies that make you pre-pay every month. Jeeves also recently launched its Jeeves Growth and Working Capital initiative for startups and fast-growing companies to enable more financial freedom for companies. The best thing of all is that Jeeves is live in  24 countries including Canada, US and many other countries around the world.Jeeves truly offers the best all-in-one expense management corporate card program for all startups especially the ones at Ripple and we at Tank Talks could not be more excited to officially partner with them. Listeners of Tank Talks can get set up with a demo of Jeeves today and take advantage of our Tank Talks special with a‍ $250 statement credit after the first $2,500 in spend or a $500 statement credit after the first $5000 in spend. Lastly, all Jeeves cardholders receive access to their Lounge Pass program and access to over 1300 airports globally.Visit tryjeeves.com/tanktalks to learn more.In this episode we discuss:02:32 Akash’s journey to becoming a tech investor05:10 Lessons he learned as an investor at Barclays09:01 Barclay’s investing mentality when he was there12:21 Working and investing at Augmentum, Europe’s publicly listed FinTech fund16:48 The tradeoffs investing from a publicly listed fund20:18 An overview of European VC history and how it’s different from the US26:45 The impact of YC and Silicon Valley creating brain drain in the European market31:52 Differences in European Founders mindsets36:51 How fundraising is different in the European market and it is evolving40:01 Current market factors in how Earlybird is deploying capital45:54 The effect of Harry Stebbings and others to bring attention to Europe50:38 Plans for Earlybird’s new €350M fundFast Favorites:🎙- Favorite Podcast: Invest Like The Best📰- Favorite Newsletter/Blog: Tomasz Tunguz📲- Favorite Tech Gadget: Kindle📈-  Favorite New Trend: Rise of Creators📚- Favorite Book: Guns, Germs, and Steel🤔 - Favorite Life Lesson: Put goodwill out into the world without expectationsFollow Matt Cohen and Tank Talks here!Podcast production support provided by Agentbee.Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com

Today's episode is an amazing conversation I had with Harry Stebbings on the 20VC podcast! We discussed my introduction into the investing world, the first company I ever invested in, how luck plays a role in almost everything in life, the most valuable lesson I ever learned, behind the scenes of the liquor store days and much more! Enjoy! Let me know what you thought. Check out my new NFT project: veefriends.com Join the VeeFriends Discord: https://discord.gg/veefriends Tweet Me! @garyvee Text Me! 212-931-5731 My Newsletter: garyvee.com/newsletter

Tuesday, July 5: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Ana Zucato,  founder and CEO ar Noh, a Brazilian fintech operating in shared finance space that has recently raised $3M seed funding from the Ikes of Kindred Ventures, Positive Ventures, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and The Twenty Minute VC by Harry Stebbings. Prior to founding Noh, Ana worked at Intuit, Truora and GuiaBolso.In today's episode we will learn:1) What are the unique challenges of launching consumer-focused fintech products in Brazil?2) What are three things founders should NOT be doing while fundraising?3) What are the ultimate advantages of building a diverse organization from day zero?4) What are the creative go-to-market strategies Noh used to launch its product in Brazil?5) How did the Brazilian fintech market evolve over the last decade?

To celebrate 10 years of SaaStr, we're revisiting some classic podcast episodes. Up today: a 2016 interview with Harry Stebbings and Front Co-Founder and CEO Mathilde Collin. Just this week, Front announced their Series D at a 1.7 billion dollar valuation that makes Front one of only 11 SaaS Unicorns founded and led by women.   Want to join the SaaStr community? We're the

Today's episode is an amazing conversation I had with Harry Stebbings on the 20VC podcast! We discussed my introduction into the investing world, the first company I ever invested in, how luck plays a role in almost everything in life, the most valuable lesson I ever learned, behind the scenes of the liquor store days and much more! Enjoy! Let me know what you thought. Check out my new NFT project: veefriends.com Join the VeeFriends Discord: https://discord.gg/veefriends Tweet Me! @garyvee Text Me! 212-931-5731 My Newsletter: garyvee.com/newsletter

To celebrate 10 years of SaaStr, we're revisiting some classic podcast episodes. Up today: Harry Stebbings interviews Shippo Co-Founder and CEO Laura Behrens Wu. In April 2016, Shippo had only 22 employees and was just beginning to scale. They've since opened new hubs in Austin and Dublin and in 2021, hired Employee number 200.   Want to join the SaaStr community? We're the

To celebrate 10 years of SaaStr, we're revisiting some classic podcast episodes. Up today: a 2016 interview with Harry Stebbings and Gusto Co-Founder and CEO Josh Reeves. At the time of this interview, Gusto had 350 employees serving 40,000 customers. Today, it's grown to more than 2,000 employees serving over 200,000 businesses. Want to join the SaaStr community? We're the

To celebrate 10 years of SaaStr, we're revisiting some classic podcast episodes. Up today: a 2016 interview with Harry Stebbings and Flexport Founder and CEO, Ryan Petersen. In October 2016, Flexport was a single-product company with a valuation of 300 million. Today, it's a multi-product platform valued at 8 billion.   Ryan discusses why NPS isn't just a customer measurement, and how empowering your employees makes for happier employees and customers.   Want to join the SaaStr community? We're the

In Part 2, Alex and Jamie also talk Harry Stebbings is a young entrepreneur whose podcast "The 20 Minute VC" interviews some of the world's leading businessmen and gets millions of listens a month. He is also a venture capitalist in his own right and talks to the boys about investing, how anyone can be successful and his crazy morning routine. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Andrew Scott is a founding partner of 7percent ventures, a London & San Francisco-based technology VC. Before founding 7percent ventures in 2014, Andrew founded six startups of his own. Among these was the world's first location based social network (Playtxt 2001; patented), online digital news archive (BritishPathe.com, 2002), trust graph/recommendation engine using machine learning (Rummble, 2007; patented). In-between he did strategy consulting for VCs and Corporates including Astra Zeneca, AT&T and Alcatel Lucent. Andrew is also co-founder of ICE, a global non-profit network of tech founders and investors, established in 2009.   In this episode we talk about Andrew's journey from serial entrepreneur to Venture Capital investors. Along the way we learn about his selection criteria for investments, lessons learned from being an entrepreneuer, CEO, and then investors. We also talk about how to stand out as someone looking to get into the VC industry. 

We're celebrating episode 500 of the SaaStr Podcast! Our SaaStr 'OG' podcaster, Harry Stebbings, Founder of The 20 Minute VC and, Jason Lemkin, SaaStr CEO and Founder discuss the future of the markets and how to build a successful SaaS sales team from the ground up. 

Don't miss out on the next #womenintech podcast episode, get notified by signing up here http://womenintechshow.com.Be featured in the Women in Tech Community by creating your profile here http://womenintechvip.com/“Meagan Loyst of Lerer Hippeau and Gen Z VCs” #womenintech Show is a WeAreTech.fm production.To support the Women in Tech podcast go to https://www.patreon.com/womenintechTo be featured on the podcast go to http://womenintechshow.com/featureHost, Espree Devorahttps://twitter.com/espreedevorahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/espreeGuest,Meagan Loysthttps://twitter.com/meaganloysthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/meaganloyst/Be featured in the Women in Tech Community by creating your profile here http://womenintechvip.com/Listener Spotlight,Jo Petersonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jopeterson1/In LA? Here's some awesome resources for you to become immersed in the LA Tech scene -For a calendar of all LA Startup events go to, http://WeAreLATech.comGet Podcast Listeners, http://getpodcastlisteners.com/Resources Mentioned:Lerer Hippeau, https://www.lererhippeau.comGen Z VCs, https://www.genzvcs.comIntros, https://www.intros.aiThe Twenty Minute VC, https://www.thetwentyminutevc.comSmart Women Securities, smart women securitiesGirls Who Invest, https://www.girlswhoinvest.orgBlogHer, https://www.blogher.com/events/blogher-creators-summit/Sequoia Capital, https://www.sequoiacap.comGoody, https://www.ongoody.comTwilight, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/series/twilight-saga-series/_/N-2k2tPeople Mentioned:Warren Buffett, https://www.forbes.com/profile/warren-buffett/?sh=4cd71d646398Andrea Hippeau, https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-hippeau-64658227/Pat Grady, https://www.linkedin.com/in/gradypb/Harry Stebbings, https://twitter.com/HarryStebbingsCredits:Produced and Hosted by Espree Devora, http://espreedevora.comStory Produced, Edited and Mastered by Cory Jennings, https://www.coryjennings.com/Production and Voiceover by Adam Carroll, http://www.ariacreative.ca/Team support by Janice GeronimoMusic by Jay Huffman, https://soundcloud.com/jayhuffmanShort Title: Meagan Loyst 

Podcasting as a medium has been around for close to 20 years, and it has become a vibrant channel of community and connection with little regard for gatekeepers and constraints. Which is wonderful for something like Tank Talks, but less so for communicating non-public and sensitive internal information to employees. Our guest today, JP Gooderham, founder and CEO of Storyboard, is helping companies to use podcasting as a safe, secure, and transparent to way talk to each other and help overcome the physical distance of remote work through podcasts.About JP Gooderham:JP started at Google when he graduated from Tulane University in 2013, he worked his way up the ranks to become Global Product Lead and decided to found Storyboard in 2019. In 2020, Storyboard raised a $4.5M seed round lead by CRV and joined by Harry Stebbings of 20MinuteVC, Operator Partners, Slack Fund, Dave Ambrose, and Matt Ziskie.A word from our sponsor:Ripple Ventures is always focused on helping our founders and CEOs find the best partners to work with. But before we introduce any provider to our companies, we always make sure we try the product first. And when it comes to managing business expenses at Ripple, we were super excited when the team at Jeeves came knocking on our door.Jeeves helped get me and my team setup with physical and virtual credit cards in days. I was able to allow my teammates to expense items in multiple currencies allowing them to pay for anything, anywhere at any time. We weren’t asked for any personal guarantees or pay any setup or annual fees either.Not only does Jeeves save us time, but they also give us up to 3% cashback on our purchases including expenses like Google, Facebook, or AWS every month. The best part, Jeeves puts up the cash, and you settle up once every 30 days, unlike some other corporate card companies that make you pre-pay every month.Jeeves offers a truly all-in-one expense management corporate card program for international startups and we at Tank Talks could not be more excited to partner with them. Listeners of Tank Talks can get set up with a demo of Jeeves today and take advantage of a $700 discount and skip the waitlist by visiting tryjeeves.com/tanktalks to learn more.In this episode we discuss:02:56 The challenges of employee engagement in the landscape of remote work04:56 Ways companies are using Storyboard to reach distributed workforces08:14 Use cases for Storyboard and audio has a way to build and maintain culture11:03 The affect of the pandemic on adoption of platforms like Storyboard13:32 How fast it takes for a company to fully adopt Storyboard into their internal communication15:59 Turning listeners into creators and driving ROI18:42 Storyboard’s playbook for upping ROI to their customers22:54 Diving into social audio tools beyond podcasting25:31 How secure is audio from outside listeners27:36 Case studies of companies using Storyboard to solve communication challenges30:53 How Storyboard is different from traditional Learning and Development33:54 How bottom up content is the future of employee communication and training37:15 Why Harry Stebbings decided to make his first investment in the podcasting spaceFast FavoritesPodcastBeyond The GridNewsletter/BlogNewcomerGadgetWhoopTrendAudioBookShoe Dog by Phil KnightLife LessonEat the frog firstFollow Matt Cohen and Tank Talks here!Podcast production support provided by Agentbee.Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com

Nick deWilde is a Product Marketing Principal at Guild Education. Guild is a fast-growing startup that partners with Fortune 500 employers. Guild unlocks opportunities for America's workforce via education and upskilling.Nick also runs his newsletter, The Jungle Gym. The Jungle Gym helps readers build a more fulfilling career that integrates work and life. Before working at Guild, Nick earned his MBA from Stanford Business School, and was a Managing Partner at Tradecraft.Nick and I talk about his relationship with Twitter, and how social media can both serve you, and be a challenge. We talk about individual brands and growing a platform. Nick also shares his thoughts about marketing yourself as an individual, and we discuss how growing an audience plays into your career.In this episode, you'll learn: Building an audience while working full-time Three reasons people start newsletters What to do when your follower count hits a plateau Links & Resources Morning Brew Fastly Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success Julian Shapiro Sahil Bloom Dickie Bush Medium Tiago Forte Building a Second Brain David Perell Write of Passage Tradecraft Guild Hacker news John Lee Dumas Packy McCormick Mario Gabriele Seth Godin Rachel Carlson On Deck Gong Matt Ragland Charli Prangley The Nathan Barry Show, featuring Kimberly Brooks Harry Stebbings The Twenty Minute VC Isa Adney Liz Fosslien, No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work Discord Reddit Pallet Craft + Commerce ConvertKit Enough Ryan Holiday James Clear Marie Forleo Ramit Sethi Nick deWilde's Links Follow Nick on Twitter Nick's newsletter, The Jungle Gym To tweet, or not to tweet Episode Transcript[00:00:00] Nick:I've tried to do things in my writing where my employer benefits from them. I talk about work a lot, and whenever I talk about hiring, I mention Gild is hiring. There are things I do to just try to make sure that it still feels worth the company's while.[00:00:25] Nathan:In this episode, I talk to Nick deWilde, who writes a popular newsletter called The Jungle Gym. He's got a background in product and growth, and all these things from the startup world. I just love the approach that he's taken to writing these days.We talk about growing as newsletter. We talk about his interesting relationship with Twitter and social media. How it can really serve you and be this great thing, and then it can also be challenging. Maybe you're spending too much time on it, or time on it in a way that's not actually serving you or benefiting you.We talk about the rise of individual brands being used to grow a platform. It's something I've been thinking a lot about, watching Morning Brew and Fastly, and some of these other companies do it. It's just interesting whether you're marketing as a company or an individual. It's just a good conversation. We also talk about audience, and just how that plays into your career.He recently made the switch from a full-time role, to doing more audience-based business stuff. He was just in the middle of that journey. So, it's a fun place and time to catch up in the conversation.Nick, welcome to the show.[00:01:33] Nick:Hey, thanks for having me, Nathan.[00:01:35] Nathan:I want to start on this article you have, that I like a lot, called, “To tweet, or not to tweet,” That got you ahead. I also happened to go to the Shakespeare festival recently, and watched them do “The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged.”So, you know, I could probably pull off a good, to[00:01:50] Nick:Nice.[00:01:51] Nathan:Be or not to be speech right now. It's in my head because I think about all the wonderful things that Twitter and an audience beyond that does for me. Then also the negative sides of it. So maybe we dive into that, but I'd also love to hear what sparked you diving in and building an audience.[00:02:11] Nick:Yeah, I'm so conflicted on Twitter, and audience building in general. Like anything, I imagine there's a fair number of people who you talked to, who are in the writing community, who feel that way. On the one hand, Twitter does so many things for me. Especially over the past couple of years.As we've been in lockdown, lives have moved online. I have met and made friends with so many amazing people through Twitter that I wouldn't have met otherwise. Same with the newsletter, but Twitter is a little bit easier to build those relationships.Twitter has definitely helped grow my bank account. So, there are clearly things that being online and participating in the online world really does for you that are valuable.I think, building an audience is super valuable.When I think about the future of work, and what will be automated and what won't be, I really think that human beings, our greatest strength that is the hardest to copy is our ability to influence other people. This really comes from some of the thinking of author Joseph Heinrich, who looked at what is the secret of human success.It's cultural learning. It's our ability to essentially watch what other people do, and mimic them. We're really good at detecting what is a real human and what's not, and who's someone prestigious that we should learn from, and who isn't.I think that audience building is super valuable. So, even though I don't love the activity of building an audience, I have gotten a lot of value out of it, and I see the value in it. So, I very much come from a conflicted spot in this. I'm very impressed by people like Julian, and Sahil, and Dickie Bush, who have grown amazing audiences.Some days I aspire to 10X my audience, and some days I'm just like, please let me be a monk and live in seclusion.[00:04:20] Nathan:Well? Okay. So I had a Twitter thread last week that I did It was on company culture for remote teams, and I've had some that like take off and do well before, but this was like 1300 retweets, like almost a million impressions, a level of taking off. And on one hand I was like, this is amazing.And the other, I like checked the notifications and the replies so many times, and it was fascinating watching it go from like my circle to the next circle, out to the next circle out. And like, we're still in like positive replies, happy. Oh, build on it, refine it. And then like the one circle past that, which it took about, let's say 12 to 18 hours to get to[00:05:06] Nick:Yeah[00:05:06] Nathan:And that was the. This guy's an idiot. I'd never want to work at that company. you know, like all like the, the haters and the non from there, and then it like dies out and this is weird arc of his, we should graph it, but it just made me think of, is this something that I want to do and want, had I added thousands of Twitter followers?I think I could recreate it. Like maybe one in five attempts would like hit that big. Who knows. but I wrestle with the exact question of like, do I want this?[00:05:36] Nick:You and you're, you're just, you're like jacked up on dopamine. You're like, you're, you're sort of you're you, you, you start just imagining all the good things that will come from this. I should be doing this all the time. Like, you know, I, I mean, I think it's, it's sort of pre progressive problems, right?Like, like there's, there's the problem of like having a smaller audience and like putting something out into the ether and then, this, this kind of, getting no response, right. That, that, that's the first thing that, that actually like most people kind of deal with. Right. And, and, and that's, that's a weird thing because it's like, it's like, you're, you're then judging the quality of your ideas based on the ability of, based on basically your, your audience's response and, and realizing like, you're not actually talking to your audience, you're talking to.Subsection that Twitter has decided that you can talk to at that specific point in time. And so, and then you're basically judging your own ideas based off that. And if, if your idea is like, I think, I think when you hit a certain bar of audience, like you can, you can share ideas that are, pretty complex and nuanced and like you'll, you'll find some, some sort of interest for it and it has a potential to take off, but like there there's stuff where if it's kind of interesting and nuanced there, isn't really kind of a built in audience for it.And people don't really have the time to like always dig in and kind of engage and try to like, find what's at the kernel of, it's why I like newsletters a lot more than I like tweeting. But, but, but, but I think, I think what you're, you know, then there's, there's, there's the problem where once you get big enough, like you're now being your ideas are being put in front of a bunch of people who like you didn't intend them for.And those people for some reason have decided to invite into their lives, like conflict with strangers on the internet, because[00:07:19] Nathan:That's like a primary goal,[00:07:21] Nick:Right, right. It's like, it's it. It's what gives them a great day. Right. And, and, and so, so yeah, it's, it's such a weird thing. And so I, like, I mean, I, I think about this with like, I equate Twitter, often to, to kind of, like refined sugar, right.With refined sugar, right. It's it's, it's what we call supernormal stimuli. Right. It, it, it, or super, super normal stimulus. and, and what that is, is basically something that like replaces some natural, like evolutionary desire you have with something kind of artificial that just sends your brain on like overdrive seeking that thing, seeking that thing over and over.And, and that is. That's what Twitter is. It's, it's, it's refined status instead of refined sugar. And that refined status is like, it just, it takes this thing that you normally do, which is like seek, prestige from your, your tribal group, which was a really good thing to do to make sure that you, you know, ate a good meal.And it, and it puts that into, into this crazy overdrive and it like, it centers your brain around it, and it's, it's such a, it's a really powerful thing. And so I, you know, again, right, it's like, there's all these great gifts that come from Twitter and then there's, then there are all these drawbacks and it's, it's almost like perfect equilibrium of, should you do it or should you not?And I don't begrudge anyone either way for their decision.[00:08:46] Nathan:What I always wonder is if I could only have the benefits, like, is there a way let's say that you don't doom scroll Twitter with the latest news and whatever's going wrong, or whatever, latest Twitter fight there is. Maybe you do in a separate app publish these like smart tweets or brilliant threads that are going to get all this attention.And you do one of those every day, but then like you jump in an hour later and respond to a bunch of comments and then like the next day you do it again for 30 minutes and then like, that's it. And you just bat, like, there is this world where you could own Twitter rather than Twitter owning you, but like, are you capable of it?Do you have the self-discipline to pull that off?[00:09:33] Nick:Totally. And, and I, and I think, I think like, you know, I I've talked, I think Julian about this and I think he uses like tweet deck for it. And I think, I think there are ways you can do it. Right. I like for awhile, I was good at like, I would tweet in the morning and then I would like uninstalled the app off my phone.So I wouldn't look at it. and like, there are things that you can do. it's just, it's just really hard because I think to some degree what Twitter, rewards, especially when, when you're on the audience building path. Right. I think when you're like, tens of thousand or hundreds of thousands of followers, you, you actually have a lot more leeway to do what you want.Because, because like, you're just, it's likely that your tweets will work, but like when you're building your ions, there's, there's something that like, it's sort of like, there's a Turing test that's happening, right. People are sort of looking, are you an engaged human being? Cause I I've I've I knew some people who sort of, they, they schedule and preplan all their tweets and like, and to some degree they, they just, they don't hit, they don't work because it doesn't feel real time.They're responding in real time. So like[00:10:35] Nathan:Out of pace. You're out of touch with what's happening with.[00:10:38] Nick:Exactly And so, and so it's, it's sort of, Twitter's kind of like looking for these weird signs of life. So I think it's, I think it's doable. There, there must be some way to do this, but, it's tough. I think the, the other, the other thing that Twitter did to me, that I, disliked is, it makes me feel like my relationships are very transactional because you have these likes retweets, and like these, these, Very clear, like signals of engagement.You, you start to like, or I start to like, to like keep score. Right. And, and I, and I don't, I like, I don't do that anywhere else in life. I think a good, like obviously good relationships tend to start out transactional and then like, they, you kind of forget what the transactions are and like that, that's what creates a close friendship where like, look like you may have paid from the last time I paid for you this time.It doesn't really matter anymore because we transacted so many times, but, but Twitter, for some reason, the score always feels out there. And, and so that was, that's really been like a little bit of a red flag to me. And I, I I try to keep a generous mindset and a generous spirit on Twitter, but I find it harder than in real life.[00:11:52] Nathan:That makes sense to me. So maybe taking a step back, and maybe we'll wrestle with some of these, like to grow an audience or not to grow an audience questions[00:12:00] Nick:Sure[00:12:02] Nathan:What was the thing that, sparked for you? I'm like, I'm going to go start a sub stack. I'm going to actively work to build an audience.[00:12:10] Nick:Yeah, I, so I was writing on, on medium starting in like 2013, maybe. Um and and really got a lot out of it. I, I started my career out as a, as a screenwriter, so I was planning to go into the TV industry and like, and, and for, you know, for, for many reasons, found that to be, a path where like, you didn't really control your destiny.I saw I met lots of, you know, mid thirties, you know, production assistants who were slightly bitter. And then, so I just kind of realized like, this, this wasn't exactly a good path, for me. And so, but I, I wanted to kind of keep that like, that creativity, that like interaction with an audience, I think, you know, it, it was.And found that in writing. And so And so started publishing on medium. Um we was a great experience in terms of how quick it was to publish, but like the distribution of publishing a medium sucks, right? Like, you're you you, you publish ones and then like you spam all your friends and like, you're, you're just, you're working super hard to like push this thing and promote it.And I was like, there's gotta be some way that's a little bit easier. and so I actually ended up in, I think I took, I took Tiago Forte is building a second brain course that kind of like, magically grandfathered me in somehow to like David Pearl's first um uh cohort or Write of Passage, which was awesome And like, I would say, like, I took a lot out of that, but like the biggest thing was, was like start a newsletter. and so basically I started out, I think I started out with a review even. but but anyway like started publishing. Opted in when I knew onto the email list, which I'm sure they, they may or may not appreciate it, but this is before there were tons of sales tax out.And so I felt like it wasn't, it wasn't that crazy. I probably wouldn't have done that in like 20, 20, but, but w really wanted like a way to like, continually kind of interact with my audience without having to worry about like, you know, just, just kind of constantly doing the heavy promotion work.Um now that's because I now you know posts just as a part of medium but but at least there's those sort of a built in audience that kind of grows over time that you kind of keep with you. and, and so. doing that, it was kind of it's kind of a mix of for work and for life.I, I was, at the time, the managing partner of a, of a, uh immersive education program called Tradecraft. And like we, we would help people make sort of complex career transitions into the startup world. And and so a lot of what I was writing was kind of about that. It was about careers. but it also tied in with, with kind of deep interests.It was sort of why I took the role in the first place. and, and what I found when I, when I moved from Tradecraft over to Guild was like that kind of nicely traveled with me. and, and I think there's, there's something, something really nice about a newsletter, being a kind of an appendage to your career, where, like it expands your professional identity to a certain degree.You, you can become a little bit more than just your job, especially working for, like, like a single individual company, especially if you're, if, if the company is larger you, have to deal with a lot of like coordination challenges. there there's a lot of bureaucracy that happens at a company And one of the nice things about having a newsletter is you are in charge of it. It's like you're the CEO of it. the product ships, when you choose to ship it and you have complete editorial say over it, and the distribution that you put into it is what you get out of it. And and there's something really nice about that.It helped me kind of identify as a person who who, ships a lot, even when, sometimes, you know, you know, you you have to work on something at at work that takes a long time.[00:16:12] Nathan:Have you found a dress core even a strong correlation between the effort that you put in to your newsletter and your audience growth and the results that you get out, or does it feel like a more tenuous connection?[00:16:24] Nick:I think, I think there is a pretty good, like w w when I think a post is going to really hit it usually does and so I would say like, like when I put effort into, into writing something really good, I think usually it meets it meets or exceeds my expectations. And when, and when I feel like something is, I'm kind of honing in on, on a, on a post, like usually I get that too.So I think what, what can also happen. You know, sometimes you post something to hacker news and it turns out it's somehow on the front page and like that your audience growth spikes, or like you get featured in someone else's newsletter and your audience grows spikes. And like, there there's a lot of activities that like, you know, I'm not doing directly to promote it, but but it just sort of, um you know, happens in a nice way.And so that's happened, you know, more than a few times and like, that's a pretty neat thing, but like, I think to some degree that comes from just trying a lot of different things and then like, there's sort of like a, a second order effect of some of those things really, you know, hitting it off.[00:17:28] Nathan:Yeah, I think that's that's right. I knew in the early days of starting my newsletter, I felt a strong correlation between what I was working on and like the effort that I put in and the results that I got out, been been interested well at the time I do like a really epic blog post where I put of effort, you know, we're kind of the, for, you know, off and on for weeks or months and like really a hundred and get friends to read it, all of that.Those pretty much always do really well. But what I'm surprised by is sometimes the throwaway posts really, throwing it. Like, it's a simple idea that you flushed out into a post and you were. Hey, it's Tuesday. I got to get something out. Like it's sort of in that[00:18:09] Nick:Totally[00:18:09] Nathan:Sometimes those really hit.Sometimes they actually resonate. Have you had some of those that were like easy easy ones ones that hit?[00:18:18] Nick:So the, publishing cadence is I do, I do two, two posts a month and one a and it used to be, it used to be one post a month. And then I basically separated out into two. Cause I realized like it was too much to kind of condense into, into one post. And like, I wasn't getting the. The, as many eyeballs on like the second half, so decide to pull them apart.One is kind of one big essay. And the second is a, is is of like a, a But I think of it as like, as like I do pretty deep them. So it's actually of like a, here's what this is about. And a little bit more like, here's what this made me think about.And And, the, the essay is, I always spend a good amount of time on them. or at least this year I've spent a good amount time[00:19:05] Nathan:On all of them two hours, 20 hours, 200 hours?[00:19:11] Nick:2020 is probably probably closest. a really slow writer. And so, and so, like, I, I do, I mean, I like like write and like re-edit the first paragraph, 20 onto the next And likeI don't either Yeah The the the the the, the, top of the like, it's like a then like the last paragraph gets like one glance and I'm like, God, get this thing from Um don't and I I that is the wrong thing to do, yet, somehow I do that anyway. but, but, so, so those, those posts, they tend to get, of. You know, time and care. and then what'll happen is sometimes the, the ones that are like the link roundups, like will, will be very spiky.And I I'll spend, you know, that's, that's a little bit more like a three hour thing, um or four hours or something like that. and yeah, so, and then, and then I had, I had a, a, something that I was doing when I was interviewing folks, I call it the key ring where it was like a pretty structured interview that I would do where I asked the same questions over and over again.That was, that was fun. It, it, it started taking a long time to like do the back and forth. And so I'm putting that on pause for the moment. I may pick it back up again. those are fun just cause you can, you can feature someone that, that you like and get a chance to just and hang out It's kinda like[00:20:40] Nathan:Yeah. Those are always interesting to me. Cause I, I think about that on this podcast of asking the same questions, which I know New, I riff on the questions too or elementBut if you did, in theory, if you're like, did you grow from a hundred subscribers to a thousand subscribers in your newsletter?And you asked that to every single person, then you could compile that over 40 episodes or 40 newsletters or whatever. like, Hey, here's a guide on how to do it. And like, I pulled it from a whole bunch of sources. So that part of like standardized questions intrigues me. don't love it the live, know, version of a or newsletter where it's like, okay, it's too formulaic.People have done super well with us formulaic, like, John Lee Dumas, who did the Podcast entrepreneur on fire. Like he went all out. He was like, this will be 20 minute episodes, we're going to of release one a day, seven days a week and like works for him. I have no desire to do that, you[00:21:36] Nick:Totally[00:21:38] Nathan:Yeah, I don't know. you think about the repurposing side of content like that, or is it more just about the, the upfront.[00:21:45] Nick:I'm at repurposing and, and I, it's something that I, have like a psychological hangup about it. Like I always kind of feel like I need to be just like moving on to the next thing. The next thing, like I've, I've tried like going back and like, be like, oh, I should mind this thing for some, some tweets.And it always feels weird to do. And like, I want to write my Roundup, but I think, I think what I've just recognized as. Another reason why I write the newsletter is like, I want an excuse to have interesting new thoughts each month. I want essentially a performance, right. Where like, we're like, there is a moment where like, if I, if I hadn't been like reading and thinking each month, like, there is a moment that it will, that I will be embarrassed if I don't do that.And like that, that's the way I think about the newsletter. And so, and so repurposing content would be something it's almost like an admission of defeat. which, which I don't is is other people should think but that's an area of my head. And so, and so I think it just like, I need to be onto doing the next thing.There's a bunch of stuff where like, I would love to, I love ways to use the archives, my newsletter better. I think actually like stuff like this is a fun way to do it. Like through a articles and I was like, oh, there's there's stuff I can, I can reference from those. Um but it's it's, it's tough.[00:23:05] Nathan:That makes sense. Okay. So let's talk cadence for a second because this is one of the most popular, common, I don't know, questions that I get from people starting newsletters. Is there, like it should be daily right now, weekly, monthly, twice a month. Can I just do quarterly? Can I grow an audience for the quarterly newsletter?You've settled on twice a month? What was the thought that went into that? And, and what's your present cons on, on that particular.[00:23:33] Nick:I think. I mean, one of the weird things, which I'm like, I don't think it's just me, but like, like, it was like, when you, when you release a newsletter issue, like you naturally lose subscribers, but like, like, like people are reminded that like, they're like, know you have yeah You have keys to their inbox and they're like, like, why why did I let this And so and so like and so ideally like that, you know what I mean, then that's gonna have a rude awakening for, I think, I think people who are like, oh, this, this thing just goes on autopilot. but, but you need something that like is going to generate more new subscribers than it will lose subscribers because I'm a slow writer, like my, my ability to write something that I think is going to generate new subscribers is like twice a month. And like, and, and, if, and if I was, you know, Paki and Mario there, I don't know how fast they are, but like they are, they're dedicated.They can crank out some ungodly number of words, you know, once a week, twice a week, which is super impressive. And I think if I was them, I would do that. And like, you know, I, I love still like Seth Godin writes, like, you know, I feel like he writes every day. And I think so I think if you're, if you're capable of doing that, like, and, and, and doesn't lose subscribers, then like do it and set an appointment.And I think all those things are really nice, but for me, it's like, how do I make sure that like, one it's kinda, it's kinda manageable with a, with like a full-time job, which is the way I've been doing it for a long time. Right. and need to, I think, um you know, there, there are, there are weirdnesses of having a newsletter, any full-time job at the same time.And one of those is like, You are publishing, like if your hobby was sea kayaking, right? Like, like you could do that with no one knowing that you were doing it. Right. And like, and, and there's, there's nothing weird about that. Or like running a marathon or something like that. like it's clearly the thing you're doing on the side, writing a newsletter is like, it's it's knowledge work that is like akin to, to, type of work that you might do in an office Right Coding[00:25:41] Nathan:Marketing copywriting, whatever your your day job[00:25:44] Nick:A hundred percent. And like, and like, if you're putting that out on LinkedIn, like, you know, your managers managers are seeing it and like, and so there's, there's just like, like doing that every day would be, a weird would feel weird to me even if, even if no one else felt weird about and so, and so I feel like twice a month it feels, feels good to me.It's also, it also just like keeps me excited to keep, to keep at it versus making feel like it's like a daily or weekly chore. And I have like a day off, I have a week off in between so that I can like, you know, spend the weekend, not writing if I want to, which is nice.[00:26:23] Nathan:Yeah. I like the idea of timing it to your, like your cadence as a writer. What advice would you have to someone who's in that position of, building audience on the side there, maybe they're doing it secretly at first where they're like awkward about it's this may maybe self promotional, but, but at some point, if you get to any scale right. will either you'll tell people at work about it or they'll find out about it in some way, hopefully be supportive, but I don't know. What advice do you give to someone who's in that[00:26:54] Nick:First, acknowledge that there is weirdness to it. Like there, are, like there are inherent trade-offs to everything and like, and like there is there's weirdness and if, and if you're your, like the, the company I've been working for Guild, like they, like everyone has been more than supportive at it, but, of the, the work and like, but I still have a weird complex about it.You know, I think part of the reason I ended up getting the job was because of, because of the newsletter, some of the stuff I publish of like, you know, shaped our marketing strategy. So there were things where like, I've tried to do things in my writing where my employer benefits from them.Like, you know, whenever I talk about work a lot and whenever I talk about hiring, I mentioned Guild's hiring, Like there, there are, there are things that I do to just try to like, make sure that it still feels worth the company's Weill. And also, like, I think, I think I try to bring in ID.Like I try to have ideas that are useful to what I do at work. so I I wrote this, this piece on, platform branding, which was all about, companies that essentially used their employees to build audiences that, also benefit the companyAnd like, you know, we, ended up using that strategy at Guild which, which was, which was cool.And like that ended up being the strategy doc to some degree, around it, which was cool. And so so so, there's there, there's like ways that you can. think um you bring that in that that are, that valuable. And so I try to sort of look for those things. I, but I think, you know, acknowledged right.That there's, good writing is vulnerable and sometimes it's weird to be vulnerable in front of your colleagues. and, and like it's naturally an attention seeking activity. And if like, if like there's someone at work feels weird about you, like, will be, you know, something that they can talk about, the proverbial water cooler about like, you know, why, why you're not doing your job and you're, you're off writing these letters So so there's there there's weirdness, but like, I think if you can make, if you can allow your company to benefit from the audience you are growing, I think that tends to be a pretty good fit[00:29:12] Nathan:What that made me think of is basically it's going to accelerate or, magnify, whatever someone already thinks of you. So for example, if someone already thinks, like, I don't know, next kind of. he just doesn't contribute that much. Like is he even working half the time then if they publishing once a week, then they're like, see proof of what I already thought. if like the executive at the company is like, Nick is one of the best hires we've ever made. Oh. And look now he's like publishing and rhinos. Like he's a thought leader as well. Like whatever they think is just going to accelerate more. And so maybe it's looking what reputation you already have.[00:29:51] Nick:A hundred percent and it's like, it's like, I mean, the way I see it, and this is kind of what I wrote about in the platform, branding thing is like, I actually think that, having a bunch of employees who are, in a creator type role, um it's like underdeveloped marketing channel. Like you essentially, you have these people who have.Hey, like, I'm going to, going to take my scarcest asset my time give it to this company. and and and now I'm going to build relationships with, with all of these thousands of people who, who listen to these ideas and like, and like that sort of just gives positive energy to the company. So, so actually, like when you compare it, even to like a, a side project that you're coding nights and weekends, I actually think, I think companies should be really supportive of, of, of kind of audience building on the side because it really can benefit them but, but people naturally have a, there's there's a weird feeling about it. And so, and so you have to like, especially as a company, You know, like our, our CEO is, is, is really good at building her own audience on LinkedIn. And I think that gives everyone else some permission to like, you know write vulnerable and things like that.So I think, but I think it, it is, it is a really important thing to be able to have this kind of a group of people who are increasing the company's sort of surface area in Serendip.[00:31:23] Nathan:Yep. I like that. I've wondered about doing something like that for ConvertKit. We have a handful of people on the team who are very prolific creators, for the two myself and then, our creative director, Charlie, frankly, she has like followers on YouTube and a popular channel and all of that.There's a handful of other people who have podcasts and are, are active on Twitter. Our product managers are quite active when you talk to them about things related to ConvertKit, you know, they're like active with customers, but I haven't, or we haven't taken this approach like fast or on deck, or I'm trying to think who else does it, but, but these companies where they're like, okay, there's 15 of us and we're all going to.Become Twitter famous, you know, or start our thing and we'll all drive back. Is it a strategy that you think works well?[00:32:17] Nick:The, the best example of this actually think is, I think on-deck did it, did it really has done it really well on Twitter Um I think gong is actually probably my favorite example. Um especially from a B2B what they do is like is all of their salespeople are out there, like posting content on LinkedIn, but it's not like how great gong is.Almost has nothing to do with gum. It's like you know, an a I'm I'm I'm grinding today. Can't wait to get off for the weekend. It's like, it's like, it, it, it sort of, embodying kind of this, this, like this, the sales lifestyle. Right. And, and, and the, the engagement they get is, is crazy.Right. And like, and that, the thing is, if, so, so there's sort of like, there's kind of like, you can build lifestyle influencers among your employees Right But you can also. Like this idea of building up someone who is, who is a, I know this is kind of a gross word, but thought leader in the, in the, space you're, you're excited about.People kind of come to them, they build affinity with them. And I think you, you can build individuals as marketing channels where like starts out where like someone's reading your posts on LinkedIn. maybe that person hosts a, a kind of invite only webinar for, for the people who engage most of them on LinkedIn.So, so then you're building sort of deeper affinity towards that person. And, and as, as you go down the sales funnel um like marketing and sales, you actually transfer that affinity over to the company as, as like they get into the sale process. from kind of a B2B side, but like, I think you can do it also from a B to C.[00:33:49] Nathan:Do you think that a company like gone. Hired people are good at that and encouraged it, or do you think they like had the people that they hired and said like, okay everyone, this is now what we're doing. a playbook, here's best practices. Here's a slack channel where you can talk about what's working.What's not, but like we're this now. Get on board.[00:34:11] Nick:This is, would be a hundred percent pure speculation. What is, is someone at gong started doing this one of their salespeople and started crushing it. And they're, you know, director of marketing was smart enough to. Hey could be doing a lot like, and B, because it's their salespeople who do it, right.A natural incentive to do it. And so, you know, I would imagine they probably brought on a copywriter and said, Hey, if you need help, you know, crafting these posts, like you can do that It's just, it's such a, it's such a virtuous right? It's like, it's like, because of the affinity you build with these individuals it translates to the company.And like it just sends it a bat signal out to other people who are like that, who want to build audiences, that like the company will help you do that. And they will be supportive. And like, and again, if we imagine that like, they're like audience is this long-term career mode, it's just like, it's such a great gift.You can give to your employees for them to leave with like you know, like you leave ConvertKit and you have, you know, a hundred thousand subscribers or 10,000 it's like, or whatever. Right. It's, it's, it's as much of a gift as like the salary you're giving them. It's just, we don't think of it that way.Cause it's, it's a weird thing to think about getting. From your company[00:35:27] Nathan:Yeah. I mean, that's how we've handled it in that we're very in favor of side projects. We want everyone who wants to, like, we're not gonna force it on. But to have a way to be a, a creator on the, on the side and to have some actual reason to use ConvertKit as a customer. Because it's so different when you're the product and like clicking through the happy path to test something and you're like, Hey guys, it works.Then some customers like this is really frustrating. and so that, like, it's a very different, different, I think that it's just interesting. You're absolutely right about people with that. Like, Matt Reglan, who's been on this show before he was at ConvertKit for years. joined when we were like 20,000 a month in revenues like that. when he eventually moved on to his nets, next thing, you know, he built an, a YouTube audience to like 10,000 subscribers at that point. And that was a whole thing that he'd done a lot with skills he learned at ConvertKit a lot with, you know, our creative director, Charlie, like promoting him and just, all right. But like, it still happens even we've got 70 people on the team and we're talking like six are active in this way. I just wonder how much to encourage it versus how much to just say like, Hey, this is an option if you want it, but like you don't push it any more than that[00:36:51] Nick:I mean, I think one of the interesting things, when you think about like the creator economy is like, I think the creator economy can support a lot of people, but the the challenge is like when you're deciding, should I follow this person? there aren't very good moats in the creator economy. And so and so one of the.Few moats you can have is like companies that you've worked for giving you this brand halo. Right And so, and, and, brand from your company sort of, it says this person might be a little more worth following because someone chose them now, does that true You know, don't think so, but like, it at least sends this signal.And so I think, one, like your brand can do that for, for, for your employees, but also like I think there's a. I think just showing that the company will pour fuel on whatever fire you're starting, I think is like, it's, it's one of the best like employee value props. I think a company can have, It's like, it's like, look the life you want to have. Like, we, want to get you there. like, and like, and I think the kind of people who would come work for ConvertKit it should be that they want to do something in the creator space, because you're serving creators that makes a ton That makes a ton of of sense[00:38:10] Nathan:Yeah. And we've definitely had people that we've hired, who are already creators, and that's grown. So it, an interesting world in all the things that you could do to grow. Like a company or growing audience. I'm not sure that that's the one would pick, but you, you see Morning Brew and, and gong in so many of others doing it and it seems to work, know? So[00:38:33] Nick:Yeah Like, I think it works for like, like select companies in select Right. And like, and there's, and there's probably a channel that works under and like the. way you do it for, you know, for Guild where, like we, you know, we really target, um you know, companies with huge employee populations at the very level Like like we wouldn't do that on, on Twitter. Right. Just doesn't make any sense, but like, would we do it on LinkedIn where like, where, you know, C-suite spends an increasing amount of time and we can directly with those individuals and maybe influence that the five to 10 people that, that matter at those companies with like, you know, one post a week.Totally. so, so it just, it kind of depends on like, um I think companies can, can kind of do it at different levels.[00:39:21] Nathan:So that's interesting of the LinkedIn approach, which I think a lot of creators are either all in, on LinkedIn and loving You know, people have built massive lists over there, or they're like, what's that like, I'll hang out in the Instagram, YouTube, Twitters of the world, you know? but if you imagine that B2B world where let's say I'm, I'm working in sales, either as an executive, trying to get big deals done, or, you know, or as a team member, I have a meeting, we have a great conversation.We connect on LinkedIn, you know, we're now an official connection. And now, even though you're not going to buy my thing now, you're like seeing my content every. Week or every few weeks. And then it's like, oh yeah, you're going to buy that thing from Nathan, you know, whatever B2B tool, like starts to come up.And then when I reach out again and you're like, it's not like, oh yeah, it's that one sales rep that I wasted 20 minutes off on with, you know, six months ago. It's like, oh yeah. I feel like we're friends there. I've learned so much, even though it's just been one to many communication.[00:40:25] Nick:I mean, I think the really powerful thing it's like obviously a sales rep is incentivized to promote the product at company they work for So it's like it's product whether it's in a sales call or on LinkedIn like it will not it will not move the needle for any customer.Because it's sort of priced in that That's what they're expecting. But showing that you are an intellectually interesting person who has deep thoughts about the world, who is, who's a smart person. And then the customer making the connection, man, this smart person out of all the places where they could go work has chosen to work here.[00:41:04] Nathan:Right[00:41:05] Nick:Of something, right. There must be something kind of interesting and special there. And so they built of this affinity and comfort and excitement about you and like, and, and then getting on a sales call with you, you're at this just like this nice advantage, right? You're, you're, you're now slightly a celebrity to them.Right Like and, and there's something, you know, like when your, your email or even your company's email then pops up in their inbox, like it's just that much more likely to open that much more interesting. And sometimes it's, it's those, it's those little things on the margin that can make all the difference.And so I think, especially when you're talking like a, like really big enterprise sales, I actually think it's still, a kind of, underrated strategy.[00:41:48] Nathan:Yeah, sense. talk about a, more from the creator side. Cause that was, know, we went more on the platform company side of the which, you know, someone running a company, I am intrigued in that direction, but I'm curious on the, on the creative side, how do you think about that audience as being for your career and that thing that goes with you as you between roles and giving you a future opportunities and all.[00:42:14] Nick:I think it comes to like writing a newsletter.There's basically three reasons. You'd write a personal newsletter and earliest the way I think about it. Like it's either passion, like, you know, I love cooking and like, this is a way I can express that side of me It's it's profit. I want to actually just make some side income or make this into my full income Or it's General advancement.And maybe the relationship building kind of tithing relationship building probably ties into that. but, but in general, like the, I sort of see one things being being like the reason, like for me, at least for a long time, it's probably been advancement. but, certainly the other two are mixed.Like I'm, you know I'm curious about, you know, turning on the profit spigot out of it And like, it certainly like I wouldn't keep doing it if it didn't hit the passion bucket. and so, and so I think that, that, you have to sort of figure out which of those you're doing. I think, I think like if, if what you want to do, I think most people actually are doing it because they do want new opportunities and relationships.I think actually advancement to me is it's actually, the best reason to do it. Um uh over the other two. And, in that world, like, you kind of want to imagine like, okay, Who is, what kind of job do I want, who is the person that I want to be at some point down the road? Who's the gatekeeper that stands in the way of that.Whether it's like, maybe it's I want to publish a book at some point, right. a publisher stands in the way of that. and so what, what gets this publisher excited? Well, either, maybe I'm writing a newsletter for book publishers and this is the industry standard, but like more likely it's like, it's like, Hey, I built this audience that is then really exciting to a publisher.So-so I or, you know, it's, I want to become a senior engineering manager. and so what's going to be exciting to the VP of engineering who is going to interview me. You know, it, it could be that I have an audience full of engineers, who who like are easy to hire, maybe it's that I just like think in a really deep level about this really complicated problem that is really important to them, but it's, it's sort of like, I think having that, kind of magic gatekeeper mind as as not the person you're necessarily writing for all the time, but the, thing you're trying to build up to, that can be a good north star in that direction.If you're doing this, advancement thing, I still don't think you should pick something that doesn't light you up because it's really, you know, it's really hard to keep doing this, week after week when you're grinding it out for some future version of yourself that you know, may may change.I, I think that, that that tends to be a pretty good path.[00:45:10] Nathan:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me and like networking connection and advancement side of things, I think is one of the best reasons to do. A lot of that. I remember like the first conference that I went to after having a blog and it being such a night and day difference. I wasn't even a speaker at this conference, any of that, but people were like wanting to come up and talk to me because of the articles that I've written you.Whereas like months earlier, you know, pre blog, you go to a conference and I was shy and introverted. Like I didn't talk to anybody. And so I was like, wow, because I published words on the internet. People will now do all the work. Like interesting people will come meet me instead of me having to like put out all the work.This is the best leverage ever on the same way, like podcasts and everything else Write being able to, everyone says the Podcast in there for the audience. It is right. You know, thousands of people will listen to this episode. I am more doing it because I get to meet people like you and Kimberly, who we just had on last week.And right. It's just about meeting people. that's so[00:46:09] Nick:It's like it's like you know, like I think with Podcast, it's crazy because you like appear in somebody's ears. Right. You're like, literally like you're right next to their head, you know And like and it's it's, just like, it's this, it's this wild, like intimate relationship, usually, like I'm listening, you know, on, on two X.So everyone sounds smarter than you than they would were listening to them on one X like it's, it's, it's I think publishing and creating content, especially in a world where like we just live more online where like more of our interactions are, are remote. I think it's, it's a, it's a pretty, it's still sort of an underrated hack, especially in, in your career, right?Like you can, you can do. You know, you, you become inter like instantly, someone who someone wants to take a meeting with and like it's those little, like, sort of marginal decisions, right To like chart the course of your career, right? Like, like, did, did this person meet with you or not? Were they predisposed to like you, before you came in and like, you don't actually know which article is going to hit to make them feel that way, or which Podcast is going to, you know, which Podcast you're going to meet, the person who, you know, might be an ex customer or investor or something like that.But like, there's just such a powerful, you know, with that[00:47:26] Nathan:I think one of my favorite examples a people using an interview show or, you know, interviews in general to break into an industry Harry Stebbings, who does 20 minute VC, because I don't know how old he was when he started it, but like 17, maybe I'm not[00:47:42] Nick:Totally[00:47:43] Nathan:nd he's like, I want to break into the world of venture capital and, you know, interviewing all the biggest names at first people were saying yes to him, probably because of his hustle, because he was young.They're just like, sure. I'll take a chance on this kid on, your 20 minute.And[00:47:59] Nick:Now love I love people who have like, a, a 10 step plan for their career. Maybe you just, you just wanted to create a podcast. It was sort of like,[00:48:11] Nathan:Right[00:48:12] Nick:Doing this for fun, but like, not a ton of people have, have a plan. Right. like, like most people are just sort of doing stuff, but like, if you like sit down and just kind of think about it for like, like 20 minutes and you're like, who might, I want to be like, who does that person like, like what would make me credible in that person's eyes?Like, like how could I, you know, do that thing now. So that in two or three years, like, like Harry's, I've been such a good example. Like, I, I think there, there are so many people who, who like, if they, they sat and gave that like 10 minutes and turn Twitter off, like you can just, like, you can do a lot of, you know, good, good strategy there.[00:48:52] Nathan:Well, I think can do it as a method to break into any business. So if we were like, know if you and I were 18 years old and we're like, wouldn't be in the music business or even right. You wanted to go into screenwriting. you with what you know now, and you and I were brainstorming how to get 18 year old you into like screenwriting, we would probably suggest starting a podcast and you interview all the screenings. In some format and it wouldn't result in work, but then you'd imagine we have this network and this work would come from the network and you're like, no direct connection, but then there's a ton of indirect connections that wouldn't have happened without it.[00:49:31] Nick:You know, it's kind of a similar thing. We talked we've dragged them at Twitter at the beginning. Right. Twitter does this service for people that gives them like a feeling of prestige. Right. And like, and, and what you're basically doing is like, it's like, you're giving an audience to people who don't have time to build one for themselves.And like, you know, most of the people who are listening to this podcast are people who are building audiences in, in some way shape or form, but like most people don't do that. Right And and so, and so you can find all sorts of people who are who are just like all the time, who like, would love to sort of rent someone else's audience to build themselves up.And so like, and so you can be then 18 and it's a total hack to be able to sort of bring on this screenwriter, this music industry, executive, this, you know, a VC. Right. And it's just, it's[00:50:23] Nathan:Right It made me realize another person on the ConvertKit team who does this really well is ISA Adney. Who's our storyteller. she used to teach all of our webinars and workshops and, and, is branched into working on like brand development sides as he writes a lot of and else, but her personal audience, let me take a step back.If you talk to her, she's like, know this person, or whoever at Disney or that kind of thing who worked on, you know, and just like the amount of people that she knows in the world of storytelling and film and everything else, you're like, how do you know all these people? like, oh, I interviewed them for my newsletter, you know?And you're just like, wait, what? And it's like, I was going to say cartoonists, but like illustrators from, from will like draw her a birthday card. can tell us just for her, you know? And you're like, how, and, and it just comes from this exact thing of like, oh, I just interviewed them on my newsletter, which is a fantastic newsletter, but it's not like they came on it because she's wildly famous.It's that[00:51:26] Nick:It's incredible. And I like there, there's a couple other people I've seen who have like, who, who sort of, they have their, their, their full-time job, but like, on the side, right? Like, Liz Bostonian, someone I've known for awhile and interviewed, and she, she wrote a book called no hard feelings about emotions at work.She's about to publish her second one and like the way she's just like, she's known by, by all of these people at all these different companies that like her company would be the perfect company to sell in, to sell into. you know, it's just, it's just there. There's. There's so many good things that can come a bit.I think one thing I'd advise to like, w going back to like this, how do you balance a, like a, like a newsletter and a full-time career is like don't work for any company that doesn't value it because because like you know, clearly there are places like Guild, like ConvertKit like there there's so many different companies where like you can go where like, they will appreciate what you're doing.And if you can, if you can, like, ideally, like, let's say you love to write about cooking, right. If you can find a company where like, that is like, like, especially like building an audience around cooking, like it's, you know, a dishware company or whatever it is, like finding that right place for not just you, but your publication, a really underrated thing, because it just makes everything so much smoother to find that right.Manager find that. Right. you know,[00:52:52] Nathan:Yeah. That makes sense. If it's an uphill battle, like find another, another place where that's actually a asset.[00:52:59] Nick:Someone will like it.[00:53:00] Nathan:Yeah, exactly. So maybe before we wrap up, let's talk about the growth side. Cause everyone's thinking about, okay, I have my newsletter and it has 100 subscribers or 500. How do I grow it to that next tier So I'm curious, what are some of the things that have worked for you on, adding 100 or 500 or a thousand subscribers at a time?[00:53:19] Nick:Twitter Twitter. You, you, you can use Twitter.[00:53:22] Nathan:Yeah[00:53:22] Nick:It's It's frought in many ways you can also use LinkedIn. I actually think LinkedIn is, an underrated place to do it. Like it's to me, it's not as stressful to write a LinkedIn post as it is to write. A tweet, it's a little stressful, cause it's like, it's like, definitely definitely to your company And it's a place where you're in professional domain, but especially if your newsletter is somewhat professional, then I think, I think LinkedIn can be a really good place for it. and a little bit less of a pressure-filled way to do it. I probably one of the underrated things now is like, you know, I look at how many discord servers I'm suddenly in, like in in you know, months and like, I think those are probably good places to like promote.I don't think it's, I don't think you can in communities, it's harder to just be promotional. You need to sort of have earned it by, by building relationships. And so, but I think like, you know, I'm, I'm in a writing group called foster, right? Where, where like where, you know that they help with editing and like, and like everyone's sort of publishes their stuff in there, but like that's a great place to like, to, to sort of build a following, especially sort of early on.Obviously you can do things like hit Reddit, hit hacker news, you know, Reddit, I think I've been banned from like, you know, 20 different subreddits for, you know a just posting a blog post, which seemed to me. But, um and then hacker news, right? You, you, you never know. And, and, you know, getting to the top means you're going to get barraged with terrible comments, but, I think ultimately though you kind of want something you can build, right.And this is, this is the, this is the challenge with Twitter, right? It's like, it's like, there is a weirdness about Twitter, but. Building an audience on Twitter Like it's a great top of funnel for a newsletter, and same way with LinkedIn. And so it's hard to totally steer away from those things. I think one thing I'd to try and toy with once I figure out the monetization piece, of my newsletter is I'd like to try paid ads.And there's this weird discomfort with it with it. if what you value is value is, having an audience and people to write to and you want to grow that audience, I actually think it doesn't need to be that literally every person you painstakingly gathered with your blood, sweat, and tears, right.It's it's I think there's, there's other stuff that you can try, but you obviously don't want to be throwing a lot of money down the drain on, building an audience[00:55:53] Nathan:YeahI've, I've done paid ads with good results of four. I have a local newsletter called from Boise, is just for the Boise area. And in the last month we actually went to a thousand subscribers and we doubled to a little over 2000 subscribers, almost entirely with ads. So like no ads to a thousand and, ads worked well, you know, and it helps to have the hyper-local targeting.So I was in the same boat of like, hadn't played with it before. And, you know, at, I think we paid between $2 and two 50 a subscriber,[00:56:25] Nick:Facebook.[00:56:26] Nathan:Yeah, Facebook and Instagram. So we'll play with it more. What are you thinking maybe we'll end on this question. What do you thinking for on the newsletter?What are you paid? Is it a A A book? What other things are coming up?[00:56:39] Nick:It took me a while to find something I was comfortable with on modernization paid, never, appealed that much to me. just because there, there are some people who I like I will pay for their ideas, but like, overwhelmed with Content. that like, usually when I'm paying for, for, for, for a newsletter, it's because I really liked the person, like their, their, just their style of analysis.I can't get anywhere else. but, but, but the competitive dynamics of newsletter sort of, to me, like they'll, they'll kind of always be someone who something close to what you do for free. And so, and so that, that always kinda, didn't appeal to me as much. Like I think of it as like, This audience, that you're kind of building affinity with over time and like, and can you, ideally sort of find, build something or find something that's going to be really valuable to them.So I actually, literally just this morning, teamed up with this, this company called palette, to, I swear, this, this, this time it was not planned. It just, it just happened nicely, to a team at this company called pallet in pallets, been sort job boards with a bunch of and I actually worked with them on this, this kind of beta product that they're working on, which is this idea of talent collectives. And so what we're doing is like, it's like basically job searching really sucks. Like you're filling out tons of applications. You are, waiting for a long time to hear back from companies.If you are highly desirable, you're getting a lot of recruiter spam and they're just like barraging you. so we're going to do, is, is put basically just an air table form where you can say, Hey, like, this is who I am. This is the kind of role I'm looking for. pallet has this, this, all these companies that they are so, so they're going to basically, send people and you can be anonymous if you want to all sorts of stuff, but they're to their partner companies and then and then they'll send you sort of the intro request, like, Hey, you know, do you want to, do you want to chat with ConvertKit right.And, and, and if you do right, we'll, we'll make the intro, but like, you don't have to worry about our recruiter reaching out to you because they've, they've said they won't do that. so yeah, I think it's cool. you know, if, if, if any of the folks listening to this are like, exploring new job opportunity.We'd love you to come check it out. I think it'll be really neat. I think it'll solve a challenge that a lot of people are facing. For me it felt really native. It felt like I didn't want to do a job board because I don't know these companies. I'm doing a newsletter about careers, and it felt really important that I'm sending people to the right place.I said, “Hey, if you sign up for this, and you take one call from a company, I'll do a 30 minute career coaching session with you.” Even though, I'll get paid some commission, if the person goes to one of these companies, I will really try to give them the best advice for them, because that's what I promised to readers.When you're thinking about monetization, it's like find something that feels native, and not weird to your audience. I think sometimes that can be a pure paid subscription, but you can be creative in different stuff.[00:59:51] Nathan:Yeah, I think that's good. Let's leave it there. I'm super excited to see what comes on the monetization side. It's probably the coolest thing about newsletters and audiences that you can monetize different ways.So, where should people go to follow you and follow your writing, and see more about what you're up to?[01:00:07] Nick:You can follow where I have a conflicted relationship, where there are days I will post a tweet, tweet threads, and the next day I'll feel very ashamed of it, but that's @Nick_deWilde. Then the better place to get my thoughts, I would say, is JungleGym.Substack.com.At some point I should probably switch that to ConvertKit, but yeah, that's another time. We'd love that, and thank you so much for having me. This has been so fun.[01:00:42] Nathan:Yeah, It's been a great conversation and, thanks for coming on, and we'll talk soon.[01:00:47] Nick:Awesome, Nathan.

This episode features Philippe Botteri, Partner at Accel, and Harry Stebbings, Founder of 20VC. Harry interviews Philippe about the Accel Euroscape 2021, which was unveiled on Day 1 of SaaStockEMEA. He shares: - 70% of the top 100 SaaS companies in the Euroscape came from the UK, France, Israel and Germany. Listen to the full episode for the findings and breakdown of the Accel Euroscape 2021 report. This episode is sponsored by Capchase: capchase.com/saastock Become a SaaStock Founder Member - join a private community of ambitious SaaS founders scaling to $10M ARR. Apply now: https://cutt.ly/2ECKuDW

Als Growth Partner & CMO bei CapitalG - Alphabet's Independent Growth Fund und sitzt Thomas Palm im sonnigen Kalifornien. Er investiert in die spannendsten Unternehmen der Welt. Heute gehen wir Thomas Stationen bei Google durch, die er über 10 Jahre lang in leitenden Positionen unterschiedlicher Teams beschritten hat. Er ist fit in Bereichen wie Produktmarketing, Nutzerakquise und Markenaufbau für Verbraucher und Unternehmen. Vor Google war er Mitbegründer und CMO von esanum, Europas größtem Netzwerk für niedergelassene Ärzte. Hier hören wir, wie er mit den Investments bei CapitalG zusammenarbeitet, ihnen beim Wachstum hilft und Potenziale entdeckt. Er gibt uns Einblicke in heiße Themen derzeit auf dem Markt und verrät außerdem was seiner Meinung nach die wichtigsten 3 Trades für einen Unicorn Gründer sind. Nicht verpassen!  Thomas Palm auf LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tpalm/  CapitalG: https://capitalg.com/ David Lawee (CapitalG Gründer) in Harry Stebbings' Podcast „20VC": https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/davidlawee/ Christoph auf LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/christophburseg/  Kontaktiere uns über Instagram: www.instagram.com/vodafonebusinessde/  Und wenn Du mehr zu unseren Business Cases erfahren möchtest, besuche diesen Link: www.vodafone.de/business/featured-digitale-vorreiter/business-cases/  Email für Feedback: digitalevorreiter@podstars.de

Jack Butcher, Bilal Zaidi & Trung Phan discuss what they're finding on the edges of the internet + the latest in business, technology and memes.Watch + Subscribe on YouTube:https://youtu.be/zdv7VmpESKoLet us know what you think on Twitter:@bzaidi@trungtphan@jackbutcher@niadeskTimestamps:0:00:00 – Intro + Trung's 100k Cake0:01:39 – Preview Of What We'll Cover0:03:07 – Harry Stebbings $140mil Fund + a16z Future0:07:51 – Jake Paul's Investing Partner, Geoffrey Wu0:11:37 – Owning Brands: 50 Cent, Nelk Boys + Logan Paul0:15:21 – First Creator Billionaire + Alcohol Brand Plays0:19:04 – Validating Demand + "Trusted Distribution"0:22:22 – $60mil Podcast Deal: Call Her Daddy, Spotify + Barstool Sports0:35:25 – Did Joe Rogan + Alex Cooper Make Good Deals?0:37:43 – YouTube Upside + Mechanics0:41:56 – Tokenization of Creators, Billion Dollar Market Caps + Robinhood For Investing In People0:49:34 – Decentralized Social + Evolution of Bitclout0:52:41 – Opportunities On Bitclout0:56:30 – Gary Vee NFTs + Community0:58:00 – Mark Cuban DeFi Bet + Titan Collapse1:02:50 – Categories of DeFi Projects + Auditing Contracts1:10:57 – Audience Questions: How Bilal, Jack + Trung Met1:15:02 – Trung's Reddit Discovery Process + Reply Guys1:21:20 – Jack's View On Using Substack1:26:40 – Close See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Harry Stebbings war 18 Jahre alt und Erstsemester, als er 2015 seinen Podcast über Venture Capital startete. Letzte Woche gab er bekannt, dass sein VC Fond '20VC' $140 Mio. Dollar eingesammelt hat, die er jetzt als One-Man-Show in junge Start-Ups investieren darf. Wie hat er das geschafft? Was steckt hinter den Solo Capitalists? Und was hat das Ganze mit der Creator Economy zu tun?1. Abonniert meinen Daily Newsletter für die neuesten Trends aus Tech und Media2. Podcast abonnieren: Apple, Spotify, Google & Amazon3. Folgt mir LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok & Twitter4. Ihr wollt euch weiterbilden? Hier sind unsere Masterclasses 5. Ihr sucht einen Keynote Speaker für euer Event? Sprecht mich gerne direkt an: teo@delta.pm

Wie Sarah Nöckel das Tool „Notion“ für ihre wöchentlichen Check-Ins mit sich selbst nutzt, wieso die App „clubhouse“ für sie die deutsche Tech-Szene widerspiegelt, warum Sarah beim Hören des Podcasts „20VC“ von Harry Stebbings immer einen Notizzettel parat liegen hat, was sie an dem Business-Newsletter „Morning Brew“ wertschätzt, weshalb sie Instagram-Likes fast nur an Modebloggerin Caro Daur (@carodaur) vergibt, wie sie am Wochenende mit Dokumentationen auf Netflix abschalten kann, welche Softwaretools sie für ihre Newslettererstellung nutzt und warum Sarah denkt, dass jeder von uns die Welt ein Stück besser machen kann, indem wir mehr Bewusstsein für die Herkunft unserer Lebensmittel entwickeln.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week, Natasha and Danny, otherwise known as your two new favorite Book influencers (inside joke, you'll get if you listen to the show), hopped on the mics to take everyone threw the news, with Grace and Chris in the background.Here's what we got into: Wise announced plans to go public via direct listing, making it the biggest company to use this route to debut on the London Stock Exchange. Andreessen Horowitz goes into publishing with Future, so Danny and Natasha took turns fawning over why everyone has hot takes about a blog, and what could be in the future for Future. Harry Stebbings turned up the volume on 20VC with new $140M fund. Natasha broke down why it matters for emerging fund managers, and why it might quiet some concerns about the growth potential of micro-funds. After we left our usually programmed media and venture conversation, we turned to community. Commsor bought Meetsy to build community tools for all for an undisclosed price. Danny found hobby-market fit with BookClub, a startup that just raised $20 million to make reading experiences more engaging with author-led discussions. Then, the edtech convo continued with Formative's $70 million financing event from this week. Danny had the scoop on Gusto's first-ever acquisition as well as Clair, a tool that is skipping the direct deposit and heading straight for the paycheck.  To close out the funding round section, we spoke about Carbyne making emergencies more streamlined, and what Natasha argued is the headline o' the week: Neo4j raises Neo$325m as graph-based data analysis takes hold in enterprise. To close, we spoke to HBCUvc's $1 million fund to back overlooked founders, and onramp aspiring investors.Well, as you can tell, it's been a busy writing and speaking week for your humble hosts. We're grateful for the opportunity, and will be back in your ears on Monday.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week, Natasha and Danny, otherwise known as your two new favorite Book influencers (inside joke, you'll get if you listen to the show), hopped on the mics to take everyone threw the news, with Grace and Chris in the background.Here's what we got into: Wise announced plans to go public via direct listing, making it the biggest company to use this route to debut on the London Stock Exchange. Andreessen Horowitz goes into publishing with Future, so Danny and Natasha took turns fawning over why everyone has hot takes about a blog, and what could be in the future for Future. Harry Stebbings turned up the volume on 20VC with new $140M fund. Natasha broke down why it matters for emerging fund managers, and why it might quiet some concerns about the growth potential of micro-funds. After we left our usually programmed media and venture conversation, we turned to community. Commsor bought Meetsy to build community tools for all for an undisclosed price. Danny found hobby-market fit with BookClub, a startup that just raised $20 million to make reading experiences more engaging with author-led discussions. Then, the edtech convo continued with Formative's $70 million financing event from this week. Danny had the scoop on Gusto's first-ever acquisition as well as Clair, a tool that is skipping the direct deposit and heading straight for the paycheck.  To close out the funding round section, we spoke about Carbyne making emergencies more streamlined, and what Natasha argued is the headline o' the week: Neo4j raises Neo$325m as graph-based data analysis takes hold in enterprise. To close, we spoke to HBCUvc's $1 million fund to back overlooked founders, and onramp aspiring investors.Well, as you can tell, it's been a busy writing and speaking week for your humble hosts. We're grateful for the opportunity, and will be back in your ears on Monday.

BrowserStack, a software testing platform, has announced its Series B fundraise of $200 million from BOND, at a valuation of $4 billion, making it the highest for any Indian SaaS unicorn. Insight Partners and existing investor Accel participated in the funding. The Series B fundraising makes BrowserStack India's second SaaS unicorn this year, after Chargebee, which attained the tag in April. In its press release, BrowserStack stated that the funding would be used to support its acquisitions, expand its product offerings, and scale growth. Miami-based Novo, a digital banking platform for small businesses, has raised $40.7 million in a Valar Ventures-led Series A funding round. Other investors – Crosslink Capital, Rainfall Ventures, Red Sea Ventures, and BoxGroup – participated in the funding round, the company said in its press release. The company stated that it would use the proceeds from the investment to introduce new capabilities for assisting small businesses save time and money by optimizing their cash flow.Tel Aviv-based Bringg, a cloud platform that helps retailers and logistics providers in last-mile delivery operations, has announced its Series E fundraise worth $100 million, led by Insight Partners at a valuation of $1 billion. The Series E fundraising grants it the unicorn status, making it the first company in last-mile delivery and fulfillment cloud technology to attain the status, its press release said.Vianai Systems, an AI startup, has announced that it has raised $140 million in a Series B funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The Palo Alto-headquartered startup said that many industry stalwarts participated in this round. The new round takes the total to at least $190 million.   20 minute VC podcaster Harry Stebbings has raised funding for 20VC. The current raise represents a 15-fold increase over the $8.3 million initial funds, which was launched less than a year ago. Mr. Stebbings' early-stage fund, 20VC Early, will invest $250,000 to $750,000, while his growth-stage fund, 20VC Explorer, will invest $1 million to $5 million.  DuckDuckGo, an online privacy startup, has claimed a $100M revenue increase. This growth is attributed to secondary investment from existing and new investors. In the last year, its apps have been downloaded over 50 million times. The company intends to extend its operations throughout Europe and other parts of the world.Copenhagen-based Templafy, a B2B business document creation SaaS platform, has raised $60 million in its Series D funding round led by Blue Cloud Ventures. Existing investors – Insight Partners, Seed Capital, Dawn Capital, and Damgaard Company – had participated in the round, reports state.Gloat, a talent marketplace platform helping enterprises worldwide harness talent, has announced its Series C fundraise worth $57 million, led by Accel. Existing investors – Eight Roads Ventures, Intel Capital, Magma Venture Partners, and PICO Partners-participated in the funding round. Trigo, a retail checkout system developer, has raised $10M (the exact amount is undisclosed). Its total funding has crossed $100M with this funding, and it looks to partner with Germany's REWE Group to help them set up a ‘grab and go' shopping experience for its new store in Cologne.Brella, a hybrid event platform, has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Connected Capital. The platform, previously utilized as an offline networking tool, shifted from live events to a virtual event platform once the pandemic struck.Introhive, AI-powered sales, and revenue acceleration platform, has raised $100 million in a Series C funding round led by PSG, a growth equity firm. Other investors include Mavan Capital Partners, The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), and Evergreen Capital.

A few days after announcing their second £100M seed fund, I'm interviewing Pietro who's telling us more about the success of the firm. Stride was the first check investor at Cazoo, a UK-based online used car marketplace that just went public via SPAC.  Good returns for a pre-seed fund, that's the least we can say.  Pietro is a real killer, a very nice guy with whom I had the chance to chat. He is an investor at Stride, the London-based venture capital firm, where he invests first checks in pre-seed founders alongside Fred Destin, and Harry Stebbings. Pia d'Iribarne, who just founded New Wave, was previously a member of the investment team. If you don't know the team, please check their backgrounds. Fred was a former investor at Accel, investing early in Deliveroo and Harry Stebbings recorded more than +2000 podcast episodes interviewing top-notch VCs and successful CEOs, before joining Stride. Pietro entered the startup world 4 years ago through The Family, where he spent most of his time helping European founders raise money from top angel investors and VCs globally. He has also made over 18 angel investments himself.  In this episode, you'll discover : Why did Pietro pick pre-seed? What does he like about pre-seed investing? What surprised him about the pre-seed investing world? What's the angel ecosystem in Europe? How does he react to FOMO (fear of missing out) in today's market? What's his favorite question you ask founders during your first call or meeting with them? What's one question he wishes a founder would ask him? How does he partners with founders before others do? What's one thing he learned working alongside Fred Destin and Harry Stebbings? and more... Huge thanks Pietro,  See you in London :)

Harry Stebbings, the podcaster-turned-VC, is stepping down as a partner of Stride, the London-based venture capital firm he co-founded with Fred Destin, formerly of Accel. In a series of tweets, Destin said that Stebbings won't be involved in Stride's second fund (though he'll remain a partner in fund one), and will instead be focusing on […]

In today's SaaStr insider episode, Harry Stebbings sits down with Ryan Bonnici, Chief Marketing Officer at Whereby to chat about how to market at scale. Together, they cover how to hire marketers at scale and how to use marketing to set your brand above the rest.

Harry Stebbings, the podcaster-turned-VC, is stepping down as a partner of Stride, the London-based venture capital firm he co-founded with Fred Destin, formerly of Accel. In a series of tweets, Destin said that Stebbings won’t be involved in Stride’s second fund (though he’ll remain a partner in fund one), and will instead be focusing on […]

Hey everyone, this is your host Gonz, and welcome to another episode of the Seedtable podcast, where we try to make sense of what is going on in European technology.My guest today is Pietro Invernizzi.Pietro is an investor at Stride, the London-based venture capital firm, investing first checks in pre-seed alongside Fred Destin and Harry Stebbings.Before joining Stride, Pietro entered the startup world 4 years ago through The Family, where he spent most of his time helping founders raise money from top angel investors and VCs. He has also made several angel investments himself. In today's conversation, Pietro and I talk about: why Twitter is two social networks and not just one; How to use writing as a decision-making tool; How Pietro evaluates potential investing deals; body language, humility and rabbit holes; Tips & Tricks for people who are thinking about trying to get into VC; Pietro's advice to pre-seed founders looking to raise their first round; and much much more.I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.   

Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman in conversation with Harry Stebbings, host of the popular podcast The 20 Minute VC. In this episode, Reid and Harry pick back up from their conversation in November 2020 on Harry's show, discussing everything from Reid's earliest lessons as a young entrepreneur; investing in startups such as Airbnb; and up into the current environment of navigating political issues (and a pandemic ) while running a company.

In this episode, we're talking to Sachit Gupta, who has spent a decade helping creators grow their platforms, from Tim Ferriss to Mixergy's Andrew Warner and Seth Godin. Now he's the Program Director for the On Deck Podcaster Fellowship: an 8-week remote program for podcasters who want to grow their audience and build lasting relationships. They combine a world-class curriculum, amazing mentors (like Harry Stebbings, Anthony Pompliano, Laura Shin) and an incredible community to help you find traction online. We are proud to announce that Supercast is the founding monetization partner for the first cohort of podcasters going through this program! https://www.beondeck.com/podcasters (Apply to the On Deck Podcaster Fellowship) (applications close Jan 17th) Main points: How the On Deck Podcaster Fellowship helps you become a more effective podcaster with world-class mentors, a support network and more How Sachit grew Andrew Warner's sponsorship revenue by 4x by ditching CPMs Why sponsorships are NOT always the best way to monetize Do you want 1 customer paying $100,000 or 1000 customers paying $100/year?  Talk to your audience to understand what they want and the value you can offer Using paid ads to market your podcast: What should you know? Enjoy! Timestamps 1:44 How On Deck started 4:53 The power of community: On Deck's Directory 5:44 Training the next generation of podcasting talent: The Podcaster Fellowship 7:17 How Sachit Gupta got into podcasting with Andrew Warner of Mixergy 9:15 Podcast advertising doesn't make sense 10:11 Growing revenue by 4x on a value basis 12:57 Most podcasters don't know who will sponsor them next week 15:18 Sponsorships aren't the best way to monetize 16:11 What price point do you want to be at?  20:21 You can choose multiple price points 21:45 The creative journey is a slow climb 22:28 Talk to a niche audience first before broadening 24:45 How to use paid ads to market your podcast 28:43 Higher price points mean more handholding for customers 30:48 Retaining paid subscribers, and the single-digit growth of Supercast customers 33:11 Signing up to a premium feed is fast! 34:12 Sachit is excited about the proliferation of audio 36:22 What you can expect from the Podcast Fellowship 37:35 Who should join the Fellowship? Links https://www.beondeck.com/podcasters (On Deck Podcaster Fellowship) (applications close Jan 17th) https://twitter.com/sachitgupta (Sachit Gupta's Twitter) Sachit's Email A lot of people say they have writer's block, but not many people say they have talker's block. - Seth Godin

In Ep. 9 of POPP (The Podcast on Private Podcasts), Storyboard CEO JP Gooderham is joined by two fantastic guests — Anna Khan of CRV and Harry Stebbings (host of the popular 20 Minute VC Podcast).We discuss the recent announcement of Storyboard's funding round which will be used to grow the platform by:1. Supporting many different use cases where creators can solve and enhance workplace communication through audio 2. Launching new tools to make it as easy as possible for new voices across the company to leverage audio Join us in this episode as we discuss the future we envision for audio!—-POPP (The Podcast on Private Podcasts) is presented by Storyboard (http://www.trystoryboard.com) and will provide an overview for anyone who wants to launch a private, internal podcast for their organization or company. In this series, we'll interview innovators and leaders who have adopted podcasting to transform their internal communications.Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-on-private-podcasts/id1499419154Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0zcB9s2GiFrr2DQWa9lvPsSearch for Us: "Podcast on Private Podcasts" in your favorite playerMake sure to follow us:Twitter: https://twitter.com/trystoryboardLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/30625790Learn More about StoryboardMake sure to subscribe for our future episodes where we'll interview experts from this area of podcasting. 

Don't miss out on the next WeAreLATech podcast episode, get notified by signing up here http://wearelatech.com/podcastWelcome to WeAreLATech's Los Angeles Tech Community Spotlight!   “Conor Robbins, Host of the Art of VC Podcast”WeAreLATech Podcast is a WeAreTech.fm production.To support our podcast go to http://wearelatech.com/believe To be featured on the podcast go to http://wearelatech.com/feature-your-la-startup/Want to be featured in the WeAreLATech Community? Create your profile here http://wearelatech.com/communityHost,Espree Devorahttps://twitter.com/espreedevorahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/espreeGuest,Conor Robbinshttps://twitter.com/ConorRobbins3https://www.linkedin.com/in/conor-robbins/Listener Spotlight,Chris Mileshttps://twitter.com/milesnextdoorFor a calendar of all LA Startup events go to, http://WeAreLATech.comTo further immerse yourself into the LA Tech community go to http://wearelatech.com/vipLinks Mentioned:The Art of VC Podcast, https://anchor.fm/conor-robbinsThe Art of VC, https://www.theartof.vcHow I Built This, https://www.guyraz.com/howibuiltthisbookClubhouse, https://www.joinclubhouse.comZaarly, https://www.zaarly.comDry Farm Wine, https://www.dryfarmwines.comSequoia Capital, https://www.sequoiacap.comTwenty Minute VC, https://thetwentyminutevc.comCarpool, http://www.carpool.vcExtra, https://extra.appPush For Pizza, https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/push-for-pizzaThe Lean Startup, http://theleanstartup.comAirbnb, https://www.airbnb.comLudlow Ventures, https://www.ludlowventures.comColoft, https://www.builtinla.com/company/coloftThe Art of Gathering, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37424706-the-art-of-gatheringPeople Mentioned:Sean Percival, https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanpercival/Harry Stebbings, https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrystebbings/Tucker Max, https://www.linkedin.com/in/tuckermax/Ashton Kutcher, https://twitter.com/apluskMax Hellerstein, https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximillian-hellerstein-85992a153/Jonathan Triest, https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtriest/Shane Mac, https://www.shanemac.comCam Kashani, https://www.linkedin.com/in/camkashani/Credits:Produced and Hosted by Espree Devora, http://espreedevora.comStory Produced, Edited and Mastered by Cory Jennings, https://www.coryjennings.com/Production and Voiceover by Adam Carroll, http://www.ariacreative.ca/Team support by Janice GeronimoMusic by Jay Huffman, https://soundcloud.com/jayhuffmanShort Title: Conor Robbins

Angel guest is Pietro Invernizzi, 1st cheque investor at Stride VC and actively looking for seed deals. Stride has become one of the most respected VCs in a very short time due to the line up of Pietro, Harry Stebbings and Fred Destin. They have a £100m fund to deploy across a small number of exciting companies and founders. Pietro joins me to listen to and question Kemal's pitch, Send Music. Kemal has been top of his game as a music producer for decades, currently producing for Radio 1 and Radio 1 Xtra's Diplo and friends. His lived experience revealed a pain point of new artists sending tracks to producers and other high profile artists/DJs. Currently, it's all done with traditional file transfer sites but what if there was one just for the music industry that also acted as a marketplace for new artists/producers to get their tracks in front of the ideal people; as well as track the listens, downloads and hopefully get picked up? Enter, Send Music. A very interesting dive into disrupting an old school industry, is a supremely qualified founder enough to back and a look at different business models. Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - www.horseplay.ventures Send Music - https://sendmusic.com/ Stride VC - https://stride.vc/

What's it like to go from 50 to 100 employees? Meet Chris Edson, CEO of Second Nature, an online weight loss plan that helps people make healthy lifestyle changes. In this episode, Chris explains why reaching 100 employees feels like 'going through startup puberty', what made his $10M Series A easier than his seed round, and how brutal honesty won over an experienced US investor. We also talk frankly about why it's difficult for founders that love building to step out of daily operations. Key links: Second Nature website: https://www.secondnature.io/ Open job positions: https://apply.workable.com/secondnature/ Chris Edson profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-edson/ Key timestamps: [01:48] Tell us the story of Second Nature. [06:50] What's it like to go from a 50- to 100-person company? [15:57] How much did you prepare for your pitches and how much was your success down to this preparation? [20:56] How did your Series A compare to your seed round? [32:29] What mistakes have you made along the way and what did you learn from them? [36:29] What advice would you give to someone pushing back against the CEO? [43:27] What's your favourite part of your leadership meeting? [44:32] What's something challenging about being a CEO that you've never told anyone before? A very big thank you (in no particular order) to Megan Kiely, Lorena Morais, Tamzin Foster, Vladimir Banovcanin, Fred Destin, Harry Stebbings, Rory Stirling, Sitar Teli, Matt Lerner, Tom Wakeling, Mike Gibbs, Carlo Bellini, and of course, Chris Edson for making this first episode happen. Got feedback? Email us on podcast@foundercoach.co. And don't forget to hit follow/subscribe so you don't miss out on new episodes.

Check us out on TechCrunch Please Support our Partners as they support us! Thank you First Republic Bank, "Banking for Innovators" and Robert Hughes Thank you E2Generations, "We Solve Problems that Live on Excel" and Kyle Eddins Thank you Thomas Dale and BREX, their corporate credit cards come without a personal guarantee, higher credit limits, and the best rewards program available. Brex also provides a free, easy-to-use cash management account to replace your bank account. PrimeTime VC and Pitch Madness startups get $5K in AWS credits, 3% back on Apple, and priority onboarding. Make a free account in less than 5 minutes Here Thank you, Corey Ladow and TriNet “TriNet. Expertly human HR solutions” For partner and sponsorship opportunities: Click HERE Our VC Competitors: Elliott Robinson @Bessemer Venture Capital Hadley Harris @ENIAC Ventures Kate Brodock @W Fund Chris Douvos @AHOY Capital Host: Charlie Stephens, Leaders Live First In: 1. AI startups received over $1B just this week, propelled by 4 mega-rounds. Last quarter, the number of mega-rounds to AI startups was up from Q1 to 15. What AI companies do you think will make the biggest impact in the near future? 2. We've witnessed a drastic pivot in the VC industry toward a more conservative result-based mindset. COVID-19 has made this even more apparent. With VC's getting back to the basics to make sure founders have sound unit economics, what are the important questions you ask founders when considering an investment? 3. Limited Partners, historically the Money behind the Money, have always invested money in the VC's who then invest money in the startups. But the lines continue to blur as more and more LPs and VCs assume similar roles. What do you think the VC's of the future will look like? Buy or Sell: 1. With AngelList helping Rolling Funds become the new craze, Buy or Sell it Rolling Funds disrupt venture capital? 2. With startups and tech playing such a major role in our lives, Do you think VC's now have the responsibility to weigh in on political and social issues? 3. Founder of the 20minute VC podcast Harry Stebbings tweeted "The best CMO you will ever have is your CEO. Welcome to the generation of personal brands". Buy or Sell Founders needing to build a personal brand presence to help their startup grow? Money Round: 1. Chamath Palihapitiya tweeted - Investing 101: if you want an easy test to figure out which public companies you may want to invest in, do the following: in your phone, check Settings — Screen Time — See All Activity -- Week. When considering investing in a company, how important is it that you'd be personally would be an avid user of the product or service? 2. Ghost kitchen wars - between Virtual Kitchen and Cloud Kitchens, Which company do you think has the better outcome? 3. What's the wildest startup name you've funded and secondly, how important is a good name? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/primetimevc/message

Jesse Scheff is the Founder and CEO of Easyupp, an online platform that allows a salesperson to sell a car from any dealership. EasyUpp is dedicated to providing great dealers and salespeople a platform to help more customers. Built on relationships, Easyupp believes that the people are the purpose. If a salesperson has a customer that wants to buy from them, they should never be limited by inventory. Easyupp provides salespeople a way to help that customer at any dealership and provide dealerships with customers they would have never reached otherwise. Jesse is the President of National Auto Dealers Association class, and likes to approach old challenges in new ways. He is a 3x Ford Triple Crown Award Winner--awarded to only 21 dealers nationally, and he doubled year over year departmental profit and pushed annual sales well over $200 million. About Our Partners This episode is brought to you by Hawke Media. Hawke Media is a full-service Outsourced CMO based in Santa Monica, CA, providing guidance, planning, and execution to grow brands of all sizes, industries, and business models. Hawke Media was recognized by Inc. as the country's fastest-growing marketing consultancy and is proudly one of Glassdoor's "Best Places to Work"​, 2019 #893 on the Forbes 5000 list, UpCity Top Los Angeles Digital Marketing Agency. Hawke’s collaborative process, à la carte offering, and month-to-month fee structure give clients the flexibility they need to boost digital revenues and marketing ROI. Hawke Media The company has serviced over 1500 brands of all sizes, ranging from startups like Tamara Mellon, SiO Beauty and Bottlekeeper to household names like Red Bull, Verizon Wireless and Alibaba. Listen to our interview with Erik Huberman, Founder and CEO of Hawke Media, in episode 23 of the Just Go Grind Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by Toptal. Toptal is an exclusive network of the top freelance software developers, designers, finance experts, product managers, and project managers in the world. Top companies hire Toptal freelancers for their most important projects. Connect with Jesse Scheff EasyUpp Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Jesse on Twitter jesse@easyupp.com Some of the Topics Covered by Jesse Scheff in this Episode What is EasyUpp and the pain point it is designed to solve The first steps Jesse took to start EasyUpp Early customer discovery From being a one-man show to finding a co-founder What the EasyUpp platform started as and how it has evolved EasyUpp's business model and determining pricing Onboarding sales people and dealership partners Geographic expansion and growth Early bootstrapping and Jesse's advice for early-stage fundraising Networking to find investors Determining use of funds Figuring out when to utilize prior industry experience and when to set assumptions aside Jesse's resource recommendations and consuming relevant content The biggest challenges Jesse has faced on his entrepreneurial journey The effect COVID has had on Easyupp and the automotive industry Links from the Episode #134: Zuleyka Strasner, Founder and CEO of Zero, on Building a Convenient Zero-Waste Grocery Delivery Service, Becoming the Largest Sustainability Platform in the U.S., and Growing 15X in 5 Months Akimbo with Seth Godin (podcast) Seth Godin's Startup School (podcast) Y Combinator resources The Twenty Minute VC with Harry Stebbings (podcast) This Week in Startups (podcast) Zero to One by Peter Thiel The Lean Startup by Eric Ries Tim Ferriss on learning Slack Carvana

Our investor series continues with FirstMark Capital Partner & Founder Amish Jani! Amish goes deep on early stage investing with interviewer Harry Stebbings from The Twenty Minute VC.   This conversation was recorded in June 2020 as part of CB Insights Tech Conference.

Ryan co-founded Primer with a simple goal “to free the next generation of kids to be more ambitious, more creative, and think for themselves –– starting with homeschoolers”. The company’s investors include Keith Rabois, Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, Cyan Bannister, Erik Torenberg, Scott Belsky, Fred Ehrsam, Harry Stebbings, David Perell, and more. -- Thank you for listening to Pod of Jake! All shares and reviews are appreciated! If you enjoy this podcast, you might like reading blogofjake.com If you prefer listening over reading, you might prefer Blog of Jake's blog on tape, available through any of your favorite podcast providers. Website: podofjake.com Twitter: @blogofjake Email: jake@blogofjake.com Call: superpeer.com/jake Support: patreon.com/blogofjake Bitcoin: 3ESGQxrJZmGqd2SifqCUiHPvah1uWtN1Zd

Don't miss out on the next #womenintech podcast episode, get notified by signing up here http://womenintechshow.com. Be featured in the Women in Tech Community by creating your profile here http://womenintechvip.com/Emuye Reynolds Of Superhuman“Leadership And Mentorship”#womenintech Show is a WeAreTech.fm production.To support the Women in Tech podcast go to https://www.patreon.com/womenintechTo be featured on the podcast go to http://womenintechshow.com/featureHost, Espree Devorahttps://twitter.com/espreedevorahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/espreeGuest,Emuye Reynoldshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/emuye/https://twitter.com/emuyereynolds?s=21LIstener Spotlight,Susan Peterson bigtinysue@gmail.comBe featured in the Women in Tech Community by creating your profile here http://womenintechvip.com/In LA? Here’s some awesome resources for you to become immersed in the LA Tech scene -For a calendar of all LA Startup events go to, http://WeAreLATech.comGet Podcast Listeners, http://getpodcastlisteners.com/Resources Mentioned:Superhuman, https://superhuman.comSuperhuman Jobs, https://superhuman.com/jobsApple, https://www.apple.comZite, https://www.linkedin.com/company/zite-inc./Flipboard, https://www.linkedin.com/company/flipboard-inc/Brown University, https://www.brown.eduTetris, https://tetris.comMicrosoft, https://www.microsoft.comTwitter, https://twitter.comContra, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_(video_game)Logic, https://www.apple.com/logic-pro/Women In Tech VIP, https://www.facebook.com/groups/womenintechvip/Hyperion, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77566.HyperionThe Twenty Minute VC, https://thetwentyminutevc.comOura Ring, https://ouraring.comPeople Mentioned:Richard Branson, https://www.linkedin.com/in/rbranson/Harry Stebbings, https://www.linkedin.com/in/harry-stebbings-50b8b14b/Tim Ferriss, https://www.linkedin.com/in/timferriss/Credits:Produced and Hosted by Espree Devora, http://espreedevora.comStory Produced, Edited and Mastered by Cory Jennings, https://www.coryjennings.com/Production and Voiceover by Adam Carroll, http://www.ariacreative.ca/Team support by Janice GeronimoMusic by Jay Huffman, https://soundcloud.com/jayhuffmanShort Title: Emuye Reynolds Of Superhuman

Fred Destin Founder Stride.VC, a seed-stage fund focused operating in London and Paris, which he started with Harry Stebbings (a.k.a. the Twenty Minute VC) and Pia d'Iribarne. Prior to Stride, Fred was a General Partner at Accel and Accomplice (f.k.a. Atlas Venture). Of 17 investments he led, 10 have exited and 4 are active value drivers, including 5 companies in excess of $1BN in value (including Zoopla, Deliveroo and Pillpack). His portfolio has a total enterprise value of more than $10BN and he generated in excess of $700M in exit value to investors.

The startup journey moves in waves—whether you’re ready or not. After finding funding and product/market fit, your next steps as a founder in the hypergrowth phase can determine the future of your company. Harry Stebbings of Stride.VC and Robert Vis of MessageBird will walk through lessons learned to survive hypergrowth and what will make a difference when it comes to scaling. Hear how to navigate fast growth and how to look ahead as you travel forward.

What happens when you live with your co-founder, first employee and your girlfriend for 3 years? You apparently end up with one of the fastest growing companies EVER!

Today we’re highlighting Harry Stebbings, host of The 20 Minute VC and founding partner of Stride.vc. Harry is a remarkable person not only for what he’s accomplished at such a young age but for being revered by an entire industry. We talk about the strategy around his very first episode, the growth levers of his podcast, and how to think about creating content with your “competition”. 3:00 - Overcoming the hurdle of age.6:30 - Initial growth strategy.9:00 - Thoughts on competition.14:30 - Why you should own distribution?19:30 - Where does luck come in?24:30 - The pillars of leverage.Harry’s Instagram -> https://www.instagram.com/hstebbings1996His Podcast -> http://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/The Episode With Ashton Kutcher -> http://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/ashtonkutcher/Harry being interviewed on the Techstars Give First podcast:DISCLAIMERJoel Shackleton works for Gold Investment Management. All opinions expressed by Joel and Broc or any podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Gold Investment Management. This Podcast and Substack is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decisions. Clients of Gold Investment Management may hold positions discussed in this podcast. Get on the email list at reformedmillennials.substack.com

In the latest episode of Worth, Asher sits down with Vedika Jain, ex-Stripe and True Layer, and currently the Chief of Staff at Weekend Fund. Among other things, we discuss advice she received from Harry Stebbings on breaking into venture, ways in which Weekend Fund is looking to help founders from underserved markets, and what she believes makes a problem worth solving. [1:05]: Rethinking a traditional childhood education [4:18]: The story of how Vedika ended up at UC Berkeley and what makes a problem worth solving [6:56]: Landing at Stripe and what made their culture so strong [12:22]: Learning how to code and getting into flow at Le Wagon [15:37]: Scaling True Layer from 7 employees to 70 [19:12] Advice from Harry Stebbings and joining forces with Ryan Hoover at Weekend Fund [23:29]: Experimentation on the Weekend Fund model and lessons learned from Weekend Build [34:06]: Roam Research and some trends Vedika feels strongly about [37:07]: Vedika's favorite books and our mutual appreciation of Morgan Housel's writing Worth website - worth.carrd.co Weekend Fund Website - https://weekend.fund/ Vedika's Twitter - https://twitter.com/vedikaja_in Vedika on what makes a problem worth solving - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/creativity-why-i-learned-how-code-vedika-jain/ Recommendations - https://www.notion.so/book-podcast-recommendations-59abba1db1db4fc2b9b9a4e08edb0b24

David Yuan is a General Partner at TCV, where his investments have scored 4 IPOs and 8 acquisitions. These successes and his track record of investing in era-defining companies have earned him a place on Forbes’ Midas List of top technology investors. In this conversation with Harry Stebbings, creator of “The Twenty Minute VC” and SaaStr podcasts, Yuan shares insights into SaaS strategies and why they hold so much potential, how to manage senior talent transitions when scaling a company, and how to take a long-term view through market and investment cycles. For all this and more, settle back and press play.

Josh Felser co-founded and sold two companies -- Spinner and Grouper – for a combined value of nearly $400 million.  Then, he and his partner, Dave Samuel, started one of Silicon Valley’s most successful seed venture funds – Freestyle.   Freestyle has backed companies like Airtable, Intercom, BetterUp, Patreon and Wag. In this wide-ranging discussion, Josh talks about building Spinner and the nail-biting moment an acquirer asked him “what’s your number”.  We also cover Josh’s rebuttal to Kent’s previous episode on Burning Man, and how Josh first met California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.   Other topics include mental health in Silicon Valley, and how to support women and people of color in Silicon Valley.  Also included is some music advice for podcaster Harry Stebbings. Freestyle http://freestyle.vc Burning Man https://burningman.org Rush https://www.rush.com/band/

Woody Marshall joined TCV in 2008 and has since led investments in AirBnB, Groupon, Netflix, Peloton, Spotify and others. Harry Stebbings of “The Twenty Minute VC” leads a fast-paced discussion of the lessons Woody has learned about scaling a range of era-defining business models, how to excel as leader and board member, and the potential pitfalls in pursuing hypergrowth. For insights from a veteran investor who has been named to multiple Midas Lists, settle in and press play.

Harry Stebbings, founder of the Twenty Minute VC podcast and Stride.VC, spends time every day connecting with each of his new followers on social media. He ends every email with “How can I help you?” Listen for more on how he built his podcast to over five million downloads per month, and how he Gives First every day.

Cristina Cordova leads the Payments Partnerships and Platform Partnerships teams at Stripe, the new standard in online payments that handles billions of dollars of business every year for forward thinking businesses around the world. To date, Stripe has raised over $680m in funding from some of the very best in the business including Sequoia, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Thrive, CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins and Tiger Global. As for Cristina, at Stripe she manages partnerships with some of the biggest global players including Apple Pay, Google Pay, WeChat Pay and more and has also held roles such as Head of Diversity and Inclusion and Manager of Partner Engineering. Prior to Stripe, Cristina was Head of Business Development @ Pulse (acq by LinkedIn) and was in the marketing team at Tapulous (acq by Disney). In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Cristina made her way into the world of SaaS and came to be Head of Partnerships at one of the fastest growing startups in the world, Stripe? Does Cristina agree with the common notion that certain people are destined for certain stages of a company’s life? How can one determine whether some has the ability to scale or not? What are the leading indicators? What have been some of Cristina’s biggest lessons in scaling from 28 at Stripe to 1,300? What does Cristina believe is the key to success when it comes to adapting to new roles? What worked? What did not work? Where does Cristina see many go wrong? How should employees think about title both when joining and when at a high growth company? What is the right way for them to think about and approach equity? What does Cristina believe is so special about partnerships with early stage startups? How can partnerships be fundamentally dangerous for early stage companies? How can startups determine when is the right time to engage with partners? What are the key questions and terms startups should focus on when partnering with incumbents? What makes Cristina lean in on a partnership for Stripe? What does Cristina believe is the right way to communicate this excitement and set expectations? For the larger player, what does the optimal agreement look like? What are the commonalities in the reasons that Cristina passes on potential partnerships? Cristina’s 60 Second SaaStr: What does Cristina know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning? Who is killing it in SaaS partnerships today? When is the right time to hire a Head of Partnerships? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:   Jason Lemkin   Harry Stebbings   SaaStr   Cristina Cordova

Claire Hughes Johnson is the COO @ Stripe, the new standard in online payments that handles billions of dollars of business every year for forward-thinking businesses around the world. To date, Stripe has raised over $680m in funding from some of the very best in the business including Sequoia, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Thrive, CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins and Tiger Global. As for Claire, prior to Stripe she spent over 10 years at Google in a range of different roles from VP of Google's self-driving car division to VP of Global Online Sales to VP of Google Offers. At Stripe, Claire has helped take Stripe global in February 2016 with the launch of Atlas, a toolkit that enables any business, anywhere in the world, to incorporate in the United States. If that was not enough, Claire is also a Board Member @ Hallmark Cards. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Claire made her way into the world of SaaS with Stripe following her leading of Google’s self-driving car division? What does Claire mean when she discusses “founding documents”? What is the right way to go about creating them? What element do they need to contain? How can one optimise internal decision-making process with these documents? What question must one always try and ask when making big decisions? How does Claire define a truly special COO? What does that truly great look like? When is the right time for founders to hire that COO? Where do the majority of people go wrong in their assessment of when and what they need in a COO? What is the optimal relationship one can have between CEO and COO? How does Claire think about what Stripe have done right to hire so effectively at scale? What does it take in terms of benchmarks and standards to do so? What does Claire mean when she says you have to step function up your capabilities with scale? What are the core challenges in hiring at scale?   Claire’s 60 Second SaaStr: What would Claire say are her biggest strengths and weaknesses? What does Claire know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning? A moment in Claire’s life that has served as an inflection point and changed the way she thinks? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin   Harry Stebbings   SaaStr   Claire Hughes Johnson

Mattias Ljungman is a Co-Founder and General Partner @ Atomico, one of Europe's leading VC funds which Mattias launched in 2006 alongside Niklas Zennstrom. Whilst at Atomico Mattias has been involved in significant exits and transcations including SUpercell (acquired by Softbank), Climate Corporation (acquired by Monsanto and 6Wunderkinder (acquired by Microsoft), just to name a few. As for Harry, Harry Stebbings is the founder of The Twenty Minute VC, the world's largest independent VC podcast with guests including Brad Feld, Andy Rachleff, Peter Fenton and many more. Harry also works very closely with Jason Lemkin @ SaaStr where they work to produce The Official SaaStr Podcast. More recently, Harry joined the fantastic team at Atomico as an EIR on the investment team.   In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Harry made his first foray into the world of entrepreneurship and then made the move into VC? 2.) From interviewing over 800 of the world's best investors, what have been the biggest takeaways for Harry, both in the realms of investing and interacting with entrepreneurs? 3.) What does Harry believes makes a truly great interview? Is it sheer intellectual rigour or does charisma and energy play a large role? Does Harry release all the episodes he records? 4.) What have been Harry's major takeaways since joining the team at Atomico? What have been the best moments both in terms of intellectual learning and then sentimental memories? 5.) How has Harry's perception and analysis of the VC market changed over the 800 interviews? What does Harry see as the fundamental emerging trends within the VC model itself? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Harry’s Fave Book: Madame Bovary, What I Learned Losing A Million Dollars Harry’s Fave Blog: Mattermark Daily As always you can follow Harry, Mattias and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.  

Harry Stebbings managed to break into venture capital -- one of the most difficult industries to work in -- at the age of just 20. And he did so with a side project that took a strong stance on industry norms: The Twenty-Minute VC. In this episode, he recounts the early days of coming up with his idea, longing to work with millionaires who would hardly give him the time of day, and the moment when everything changed. (Slingshots are short stories about a creative side project that led somewhere surprising or unexpected. They run every other week as part of Unthinkable.)   LINKS TO KNOW: Harry's side project: http://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/ Harry on Twitter: http://twitter.com/harrystebbings Jay's Twitter (best way to chat and offer feedback): http://twitter.com/jayacunzo Jay's Snapchat (go behind-the-scenes making the show): http://snapchat.com/add/jayacunzo   TOPICS DISCUSSED: Venture Capital Tech Startups Investing Brad Feld Mark Suster Tim Draper Social Network Mark Zuckerberg Podcasting Side Projects Creativity Craft Career Growth

We're back!! We've been hard at work trying to get our private beta out, so apologies for the delay. This week we take another intermission from our story to interview one of the world's biggest tech podcasters, who happens to be 19 and lives in the U.K. (neither of those are typos...). Harry Stebbings is nothing short of a podcasting extraordinaire. We got the chance to ask him a few questions about his story and how he built his podcast from basically nothing. Listen in for a fascinating interview with a rare talent and an incredibly interesting podcaster, Mr. Harry Stebbings. Check out the site at http://BuildingNexcast.com Get early access to the app by adding your email to http://nexcast.co Let us know your feedback and suggestions on Twitter @buildingnexcast Or just email us at hi@nexcast.co

We pre-empt podcasts planned with Antonio Garcia Martinez and Sarah Marie of Spec Network, because Donald Trump made us.  (don't worry -- we'll get to Antonio and Sarah Marie shortly)  Without repeating the things Mr. Trump said about sexual assault and sexual harassment -- we're reminded that sexism, in all of its forms, is wrong.  In this previously aired, but always timely podcast, Rachel Fairbanks covers a theme that has come up many times on Something Ventured:  harassment and assault in Silicon Valley are more prevalent than many think.  Hey, this ain't Harry Stebbings 20 Minute VC! -- In the Something Ventured podcast, Silicon Valley insider Kent Lindstrom explores the reality behind the Silicon Valley headlines as he sits down with the people who are shaping the way we view the world online....and beyond.

In this episode, we’re joined by Harry Stebbings- the 20 yr old who has become somewhat of a star in the Venture Capital industry. He set out to make his mark on it after watching Peter Thiel invest in Facebook in the The Social Network movie as a teen. Harry is the host of the 20 Minute VC podcast where he has interviewed over 600 investors and thought-leaders, he’s amassed over 100k subscribers and has sponsors queuing up to put their services in front of his audience. The post #18 How a 20 yr old became a Venture Capital star, Harry Stebbings- The Twenty Minute VC appeared first on Samira Stalks.

Steve O'Hear is best known as a technology journalist, currently at TechCrunch where he focuses on European startups, companies and products. Steve joined TechCrunch in November 2009 as Contributing Editor for TechCrunch Europe, where he worked alongside Editor Mike Butcher to help build TechCrunch's coverage in the continent. In June 2011, Steve took a break from journalism to co-found the London and Prague-based startup Beepl. In his role as CEO, he helped the company raise its first VC round, along with seeing the Question & Answer site through development, private alpha and a high profile public launch. Steve joins Ben Goldsmith to talk about the future of journalism, and whether being an entrepreneur helped Steve to be a better journalist. 0055 Steve talks about why he left journalism in 2009 in order to become the cofounder of a startup… 0300 Steve talks about what it was about Beepl that was so tempting it lured him away from journalism 0430 Did Beepl fail? 0735 The big question: has being an entrepreneur helped Steve to become a better journo 0940 Steve explains why the VC fundraising process necessities a conflict of interest on part of the entrepreneurs raising the money 1230 In the modern age of journalism, will the strict line between church and state (editorial and money-making) move? 1630 Would Steve work for a publication that pays a journalist based on how many clicks they receive? 1855 Steve talks about the kind of journalism that the internet is killing 2030 Clickbait is overhyped: it has always existed; just it used to be only available in print. 2130 So called ‘content creators' are everywhere. Will this deluge of content ever render the journalist extinct? 2320 Steve talks about how he covers news 2600 Even though social media allows journalists to build personal profiles, they are rarely bigger than the publication they write for. 2830 White, male, middle class… the internet has democratised journalism at the entry level. 2900 Big shoutout for Harry Stebbings and the 20VC!

Starting by scoring a first interview with Guy Kawasaki Harry Stebbings walks us through how he started his network from scratch and built his massive following for his 20 Minute VC podcast show. In this podcast, Harry shares his story with Carlos giving unique insights on to some of the amazing marketing efforts that he has created to drive user growth and retain his audience all while highlighting the accomplishments of his interviewees. Discover how he uses channels like Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter to drive his audience to the show and how he discovered which channels best converted for him. www.thetwentyminutevc.com www.twitter.com/HarryStebbings www.seedcamp.com www.carlosespinal.com

Kelly Peeler, founder/CEO of NextGenVest, is tackling the $2.9Bn problem of unclaimed financial aid in a trillion dollar student loan market one text message at a time. NextGenVest is a free, on-demand, text message service that helps students navigate the complex financial aid and student loan process, NextGenVest is quickly becoming a trusted college money mentor helping millennials become smarter about the first and most important financial decision of their lives. Notes Tulipomania by Mike Dash, iBooks #AskGaryVee by Gary Vaynerchuk, iBooks How Kat Cole Went From Hooters Girl to Running a Billion-Dollar Brand by Jessica Grose, Lenny Additional Reading The Biggest Mistakes in Paying for College by Kelly Peeler, LinkedIn Millennials, money and changing the world by Kelly Peeler, TEDx Johns Hopkins University Student Loan Debt Is Leaving Women Broke and Vulnerable by Jill Filipovic, Vice Student Debt Can Hurt Women More Than Men by Natalie Kitroeff, Jonathan Rodkin, Bloomberg NextGenVest CEO On What Fintech Startups Can Learn From Uber by Harry Stebbings, TechCrunch The U.S. education bubble is now upon us by Mohamed A. El-Erian, MarketWatch This one graph shows why the higher ed bubble may be close to bursting by Katie Hardiman, The College Fix What We're Buying With $1 Trillion in Student Loans by Megan McArdle, Bloomberg,  6 Steps to Becoming a Successful Student Entrepreneur (Infographic) by Kim Lachance Shandrow, Entrepreneur Student Startup: Why College Is the Perfect Time to Launch a Business by Jessica Ekstrom, Entrepreneur Find the Right College to Be an Entrepreneur by Delece Smith-Barrow, U.S. News & World Report The 3 Biggest Challenges of Being a Solo Founder by Aihui Ong, Entrepreneur How A Founder Who Sold His Company For $100 Million Survived The Brutal, Early Days Of A Startup Alone by Alyson Shontell, Business Insider The High School Guidance Counselor Shortage by Timothy Pratt, Time Guest bios & transcripts are available on www.broadmic.com.

Today is a very special show as James Wise, Principal at Balderton Capital turns the tables on Host of The Twenty Minute VC, Harry Stebbings. In today's brilliant interview by James we delve into what has led to Harry's interest in the VC industry, why did Harry start The 20 Minute VC, how does Harry identify guests to interview, how does he approach those guests, how has Harry found his first experience in the venture industry, what has surpassed Harry about the VC industry, what traits has Harry spotted that are common among the great VCs interviewed, is Harry optimistic or not about the venture industry, what would Harry recommend for other people looking to go into venture. Items Mentioned in Todays Show: Harry's Favourite Books: Tim Ferris: 4 Hour Work Week, 4 Hour Body Shyp Crowdcube, 3DHubs, Tictail MMC Ventures, Founders Forum As always you can follow Harry, James and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!