Wagner: Relying on a startup's second act is highly risky
Peter Wagner · Peter Wagner: 27 Years of Investing Lessons of Picking Founders, Price Discipline & Reserve | E1123 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Mar 6, 2024 · at 25:20
Peter Wagner is a Founding Partner at Wing Venture Capital. He is discussing how Wing evaluates market sizing and why startups should target large initial markets rather than relying on future expansions.
0:00 / 0:15exact quote · 15.5s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“It's incredibly difficult for a startup to do a second thing, you know, so, so any sort of notion about Oh, well, I'll do this first thing, and it's not that big an opportunity, but I'll be, then I'll be able to do this second thing. It's like, oh boy, you know, like, it's hard enough to do one thing.”
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 Peter Wagner
Wagner: SoftBank and mega-funds pollute good startup opportunities with excess capital
“There's certainly lots of otherwise good opportunities that have been polluted or dragged down by, you know, whatever soft bank showing up, and, you know, or any other number of people that, that we can name”
Peter Wagner: VCs Funding Capital-Intensive Sectors Are Repeating Bubble Mistakes
“Yes. And you know, and you can get away with it sometimes, just like I got away with it, with that early deal. If you can find, you know, other people's money on advantageous terms to sort of fund you through you know, the valley of death there you know, like,…”
Wagner: Excessive fund scale gets in the way of VC excellence
“The adventure is a scale game. Like, I think it actually kind of runs quite the opposite, that excessive scale, you know, gets in the way of excellence. So, you know, you can be too small too, you know, don't get me wrong, and scale, scale has its benefits, bu…”
Wagner: VC partners are rarely punished for consensus mistakes
“There's this kind of safety in the herd thing, and I, a belief within, you know, firms and partners, and not incorrect, that if they're making the same mistake that everyone else in the industry is making, they probably won't be punished for it, because, you k…”