Shardul Shah is a Partner at Index Ventures. He explains his process for deciding whether to continuously double down and concentrate capital in existing portfolio companies.
“So I'm not thinking about averaging down my cost basis. I'm not thinking about incrementally increasing my ownership. I'm building a net new investment case on, can I create, you know, a fund returner? And with that, like I do all the work again. So if I think about companies that I've been involved with, I've rotated shadow partners to help me with an objective view on reassessing the management team. I've redone customer calls. I've redone competitive analysis. I've rebuilt financial models. Like I do all the work again and Often in, like, short order because I've doubled down, you know, multiple times within a year.”
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More from Shardul Shah
Insight
Shah: Team quality is far more important than market in VC
“Like, there's this canonical question, I think, in our industry. Is it the market or is it the team, right? And I think many great firms would argue that it's market. In my view, it's very clearly the team.”
Shardul ShahSep 16, 2024▶ 8:03Shardul Shah: How Index Makes Decisions & Why Benchmarks & Averages in VC are BS | E1202 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Shah: Pattern recognition and VC benchmarking are exercises in psychological safety
“There's so much long tail risk in a company that I feel like the exercise around pattern recognition benchmarking as just like two examples, risk mitigation as a third are exercises in psychological safety.”
Shardul ShahSep 16, 2024▶ 30:30Shardul Shah: How Index Makes Decisions & Why Benchmarks & Averages in VC are BS | E1202 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Shah: Total addressable market calculations are a trap for venture investors
“TAM is a trap. Like, go back and look at the S-ones of some of the biggest public companies today. Their market caps are bigger than what they thought the TAM would be.”
Shardul ShahSep 16, 2024▶ 13:59Shardul Shah: How Index Makes Decisions & Why Benchmarks & Averages in VC are BS | E1202 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Shah: VCs fail by picking wrong investments, not overpaying
“But when I think about conviction in people at the earliest stages I think you can be really elastic on price. At late stage, if you have conviction, price is just a representation of like future expected, expected free cashflow, right? So you're probably not …”
Shardul ShahSep 16, 2024▶ 12:02Shardul Shah: How Index Makes Decisions & Why Benchmarks & Averages in VC are BS | E1202 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
PredictionNot publicly verifiable
Shah: Index Ventures targets 5x upside on late-stage growth investments
“It's super dangerous. I think to say there's a safe two X, there's no such thing. And you alluded to this with the memory of all of the activity from 2021. There's no such thing as a safe two X. And so what we're looking for is definitely five X plus upside, e…”
Shardul ShahSep 16, 2024▶ 20:37Shardul Shah: How Index Makes Decisions & Why Benchmarks & Averages in VC are BS | E1202 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
AssertionPartly supported
Shah: Wiz grew faster in four years than any company ever
“Bottoms up, the, you know, the business in, in, in four years, the company has grown faster than any company of all time with unbelievable productivity in different segments, in different geographies.”
Shardul ShahSep 16, 2024▶ 25:01Shardul Shah: How Index Makes Decisions & Why Benchmarks & Averages in VC are BS | E1202 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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