Insight certainty 5/5 debate potential 2/5

The biggest sin in venture investing is missing outlier winners

Dan Scheinman · 20VC: Why The Days of Spray and Pray at Seed Are Over, How To Compete In A World of Sequoia Seed Funds & Why Price Doesn't Matter with Dan Scheinman, Angel Investor @ Zoom & Arista Networks · May 21, 2018 · at 21:20

Dan Scheinman, angel investor in Zoom and former head of corporate development at Cisco, analyzes return profiles and pricing sensitivity in startup investing.

0:00 / 0:15exact quote · 15.7s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“The biggest sin is missing that 10% deal that's the huge winner, right? Because no amount of mediocre kind of deals can make up for missing Uber or whatever, Zoom or Arista or whatever you want to say. No amount of things can make up for missing something that's great.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Dan Scheinman

Opinion
Older founders are more efficient in spend and thinking than younger ones
“Yes, I believe that older entrepreneurs have the same or more fire. Sometimes the younger entrepreneurs are as technically adept or more than younger entrepreneurs as They drive value. Because of their experience, they're actually more efficient, both in spend…”
Dan Scheinman May 21, 2018 ▶ 25:20 20VC: Why The Days of Spray and Pray at Seed Are Over, How To Compete In A World of Sequoia Seed Funds & Why Price Doesn't Matter with Dan Scheinman, Angel Investor @ Zoom & Arista Networks
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Acqui-hires now yield only 1x to 1.5x returns for early investors
“What I've seen has been that, in reality, some of those transactions look a lot more like return of capital or maybe one and a half X kind of returns, and it's no longer that lucrative on that side.”
Dan Scheinman May 21, 2018 ▶ 7:24 20VC: Why The Days of Spray and Pray at Seed Are Over, How To Compete In A World of Sequoia Seed Funds & Why Price Doesn't Matter with Dan Scheinman, Angel Investor @ Zoom & Arista Networks
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Big tech is slowing acqui-hires due to internal backlash over retention
“A lot of those companies are slowing down the tech and talent deals because what they found was they were Angering their existing employee base”
Dan Scheinman May 21, 2018 ▶ 7:37 20VC: Why The Days of Spray and Pray at Seed Are Over, How To Compete In A World of Sequoia Seed Funds & Why Price Doesn't Matter with Dan Scheinman, Angel Investor @ Zoom & Arista Networks
Assertion Not checkable as stated
More tech companies were created from 2008 to 2018 than prior history
“There have been more companies created in the last 10 years than probably the entire technology business before that”
Dan Scheinman May 21, 2018 ▶ 3:58 20VC: Why The Days of Spray and Pray at Seed Are Over, How To Compete In A World of Sequoia Seed Funds & Why Price Doesn't Matter with Dan Scheinman, Angel Investor @ Zoom & Arista Networks
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Acqui-hires are becoming increasingly unfavorable for early-stage investors
“A lot of the large companies are no longer really thrilled with tech and talent acquisitions, and those Acquisitions are turning into less and less friendly for early investors”
Dan Scheinman May 21, 2018 ▶ 3:58 20VC: Why The Days of Spray and Pray at Seed Are Over, How To Compete In A World of Sequoia Seed Funds & Why Price Doesn't Matter with Dan Scheinman, Angel Investor @ Zoom & Arista Networks
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Multi-stage VCs will abandon seed investing when the workload accumulates
“I think there's a chance that that may happen again, and as you know, these markets shift and twist and turn, and so I think there could be a chance that these guys, again, intercede, but aren't all that committed when they see how much work there is, where th…”
Dan Scheinman May 21, 2018 ▶ 9:35 20VC: Why The Days of Spray and Pray at Seed Are Over, How To Compete In A World of Sequoia Seed Funds & Why Price Doesn't Matter with Dan Scheinman, Angel Investor @ Zoom & Arista Networks
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.