Semil Shah
44 statements across 4 episodes · 5 bullish · 9 bearish · 1 people on the record · first statement Jul 25, 2016 by Semil Shah · said 33 times in 17 episodes since 2016 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Semil Shah's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year
brought up most by Harry Stebbings (22), Barry Eggers (4), Katie Stanton (2), Jason Lemkin (2), Adam Besvinick (2), Mike Mignano (1)
tap a year for its mentions
2026 1 mention in 1 episode
2023 2 mentions in 1 episode
2022 6 mentions in 1 episode
2020 12 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: The Implications of a Biden vs a Trump Administration on Venture and Startups, How The Rise of Rolling Funds, SPACs and Solo Capitalists Will Impact Venture & What We Can Do To Swing the Race Pendulum in VC with Barry Eggers, Founding Partner @ Ligh
- 20VC: Moxxie Ventures' Katie Stanton on What It Takes To Raise A First Time Fund As A Solo GP, The Entrance of Multi-Stage Funds Into Seed Rounds and The Inverse Relationship of Those That Fund Diverse Managers and Those That Say They Do
- 20VC: Lessons from 150 Angel Investments into the likes of Carta, Gusto, Airtable and Superhuman, Creating Algorithms and Models For Investing At Seed & Why Younger Investors Have An Advantage When It Comes To Finding Deals Early with Jude Gomila, Angel I
- 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
- 20VC: Multi-Stage Funds Investing At Seed Are Option Value Investing, Why The Biggest Enemy For Venture Firms Is Group Think and How Running Companies Changes Your Investment Mentality with Manu Kumar, Founder @ K9 Ventures
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2019 4 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: How To Drop The BS and Relationship Build With Investors, What Investors Can vs Cannot Help Your Company With & Why When There Is Doubt There Is No Doubt In Hiring
- 20VC: Carta Founder Henry Ward on Why The Best Companies Are Not Product Led But Distribution Led, 3 Requirements Needed For A New Market/Investment To Be Exciting and Why Small Markets Are So Attractive
- 20VC: The Framework LPs Use To Assess Emerging Managers, What Concerns and Excites LPs in Potential Opportunities & The Current State of Seed Today with Hunter Somerville, Partner @ Greenspring Associates
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2018 4 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: A Framework For Approaching Risk and How It Affects Portfolio Construction | Lessons and Advice From Working with Dropbox's Drew Houston | Why Being A Learning Animal Is The Most Important Factor For Success with Ted Wang, Partner @ Cowboy Ventures
- 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures
- 20VC: Why Founding Your First Company Is Like Learning Through A Thousand Paper Cuts, The 3 Core Phases to Product Adoption and Why Valuation Obsession Must Change In The Valley with Armon Dadgar, Founder & CTO @ Hashicorp
- 20VC: Why This Is Just The Start for Consumer Mobile, 3 Lessons China Taught About How To Invest Better In The US & How To Think About The Opportunity Cost of Capital Deployment with Hans Tung, Managing Partner @ GGV Capital
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2017 3 mentions in 1 episode
Everything said about Semil Shah, oldest first
Jul 25, 2016
Jul 25, 2016 neutral
Semil Shah: Some Founders Refuse to Raise via AngelList Syndicates
“And so people can either pre-fund me or have work, can go on a deal by deal basis, but I don't bring everything to AngelList. Even though I'm a big AngelList fan, sometimes entrepreneurs, for whatever reason right now, don't want, even in a private syndicate, …”
Jul 25, 2016
Jul 25, 2016
Jul 25, 2016 negative
Semil Shah: VCs Misuse 'Founder Friendly' to Avoid Giving Honest Feedback
“I think in the way people think of founder friendly, I am not. People think founder friendly is like they walk on eggshells around other people so that they don't piss somebody off, even the founder. They're so nervous about losing deal flow or getting a negat…”
Jul 25, 2016
Jul 25, 2016
Semil Shah Maintains a Core Network of 80 Investors for Co-Investments
“I keep a very tight network of about 80 seed investors, angels that I know, larger VCs, and kind of executives at companies that I've all Invested with in some way or worked with in some way, and if there's ever room in any of the companies that I'm investing …”
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017
VCs backed Shah's first fund instead of hiring him directly
“A couple of them hiring me as a kind of consultant to moonlight with them, while I was working at startups, and actually, it was a lot of VCs that put me, you know, they wouldn't hire me, but they would put me in business with a little small fund”
Oct 23, 2017 bearish
Oct 23, 2017
Seed fund LPs substitute follow-on signaling for track record
“In this world, we don't have Results yet. So everything people look at are proxies for real results. And the proxies in seed are who follows your deals? How much money is put behind those deals? Can you continually do that? Can you intercept the good deals?”
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017
Haystack's early funds relied on $10,000 to $25,000 checks
“When I raised my first, second fund, I just went to people I knew, like founders I've backed, VCs that I worked for, and would literally be collecting 10 K checks, 25 K checks. You know, still took some 10 K checks on this fund from people I know.”
Oct 23, 2017 neutral
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 positive
Venture pre-marketing to LPs should start over six months in advance
“I know I had written six months in the post that I wrote. I'd probably say even longer. So the pre-marketing is just the casual, like reminder, the casual, Hey, here's what I'm doing. The casual, Hey, what do you think about this? Do you have any feedback? It'…”
Oct 23, 2017 positive
Prioritize feedback from micro-fund LPs over multi-asset mega-fund managers
“If somebody is an LP and helps start a great micro fund of funds and is also a direct investor in 10 different funds that you know, they probably have really good feedback that no matter how harsh it is, you've got to listen to it, versus somebody who's managi…”
Sep 16, 2019 negative
Sep 16, 2019 neutral
Shah: Multi-stage VCs require 10% seed ownership to justify partner time
“What I do think is that it's tough for one of these larger VC firms to warrant a partner's time and brand experience extension to a seed round unless they own about 10% as an option, because what you're saying then is like, I'm going to hold 10% in pro rata, a…”
Sep 16, 2019 neutral
Sep 16, 2019 neutral
Nov 21, 2022
Nov 21, 2022 neutral
Nov 21, 2022 bearish
Nov 21, 2022 negative
Nov 21, 2022 positive
Nov 21, 2022
Nov 21, 2022
Shah: Limit preferential LP terms strictly to a fund's first iteration
“And so like, basically if you, if you're trying to offer preferential terms to get the jet off the runway and get some thrust, That's fine, but just don't have it be successive in, in future funds. Like, gate it to that one fund.”
Nov 21, 2022
Nov 21, 2022
Nov 21, 2022 positive
Nov 21, 2022
Nov 21, 2022 bearish
Nov 21, 2022
Shah: Haystack's 10-year deal valuations clustered between $8M and $15M
“If you look at the activity of all the deals over, over 10 years, I would say there's like a tight clustering between eight and fifteen million dollars as the entry point and the rounds being, you know, three million dollars or less.”
Nov 21, 2022 negative
Shah: LPs' biggest mistake was permitting fund size escalation and blind pools
“I think on the LP side, the sin was going along with fund size escalation and allowing and enabling those firms to allocate within those funds. So I believe like In having separate vehicles for separate separate activities, because that's the best governor. An…”
Nov 21, 2022
Nov 21, 2022 positive
Nov 21, 2022 negative
Shah: Scaling seed funds to $100M+ breaks collaborative syndicate dynamics
“If I had a hundred, fifty million dollar fund, that whole collaboration layer of how we work would change, which would then set off a chain reaction of how the deal flow would change and how we would have to operate with the companies would change.”
Nov 21, 2022
Nov 21, 2022
Nov 21, 2022 negative
Nov 21, 2022
Shah: Raising institutional capital requires organic industry chatter and name-checking
“I think that like, if you're not getting name checked by institutional LPs and other people aren't talking about what you're doing, it's almost impossible to raise institutional capital, whether it's a three million dollar check or thirty million dollar check …”