The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 85 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Danny Rimer: TAM and market size are noise in startup investing
“One of our tenants is definitely that market size TAM is noise.”
Danny Rimer: Index Ventures portfolio company Joost was a 'shit show'
“Being an investor in Juiced, which was a shit show”
Danny Rimer: Sector, impact, and geographic funds compromise on investment quality
“I'm not a huge fan of sector funds because I think that with sectors, you're not looking for the best companies. You're looking for the best company in that sector. I'm not a fan of impact funds because you're rationalizing A mediocre investment because you're…”
Danny Rimer: Investors should abandon theses to back extraordinary founders
“If the person's extraordinary, throw all theses out the window and just back the founder.”
Danny Rimer: Great companies can go public in any market environment
“I do believe that the best companies at that stage when they are ready to go public can go public in any market.”
Index Ventures' best investments have always been unanimous
“Our best decisions, our best investments have always been unanimous, which has a lot to do with the dynamic of the partnership being so varied and diverse in terms of who we are and how we approach things.”
Danny Rimer: VC signaling risk is largely a thing of the past
“I think there's so much money sloshing around and so many folks have so many different funds that signal risk is, is more of the past. I mean, if you look at the continuum of entrepreneurial power versus investor power over the last couple of decades, It's onl…”
Danny Rimer: Future VC will split into aggregators and artisans
“I mean, of course, we're trying to wedge ourselves in between, right? That's the plan, but I agree with you. I think there will be asset aggregators and artisans, and what we're trying to be, what we talk about internally, is scaled artisans.”
Index limits lead partners to one vote on exit decisions
“I mean, in our winners, it's a question of, first of all, just being disciplined about when to exit, and making sure that we are not sort of falling into the trap of thinking that because they've been successful, they will naturally be more successful over tim…”
Index Ventures avoided crypto because no partner found conviction
“We were trying to squint and figure out who was going to be the champion and was going to lead us to the promised land of being excited about crypto, and none of us could do it.”
Danny Rimer: London maintained pre-Brexit levels of entrepreneurial dynamism
“London has continued to maintain a real, basically an equivalent dynamism of entrepreneurialism as it did pre-Brexit, which is a total shock to me, but it's absolutely true.”
Index Ventures will not significantly expand fund sizes over ten years
“First of all, that the partnership is not much bigger than it is today, that our funds are not much bigger than it is today, but that our returns have only gotten better”
Danny Rimer Cares Least About Valuation and Initial Market Size
“So if my partners were around the table, they'd probably tell you that I'm probably the partner who cares least about price, that if I think that the entrepreneur and the opportunity is large enough, I just want to be an investor in that company, and that I'm …”
Danny Rimer: Nasty Gal Could Have Succeeded With Co-Investor Board Support
“And I often think that what I should have done was share the workload with Someone else who's super competent and who would have been really helpful in the journey, because there were a lot of reasons why nasty gal could have been a phenomenal investment, but …”
Danny Rimer: Decisions must never be revisited or debated once made
“Your job is to make a decision. That's the concept of seeing a snake and killing it. You make a decision. The most important one is don't revisit that decision. Once you've made that decision, once you have commit, you're all in. You're not gonna, it's not up …”
Index Ventures missed investing in Spotify, Snap, Airbnb, and LinkedIn
“One is Spotify, another one is Snap, another one's Airbnb, another one's LinkedIn. Those are the four that we had real opportunity in some fashion or another to manufacture the opportunity for Index to be in the round, and we failed for different reasons.”
Index misjudged Airbnb by focusing on hotel cannibalization over market creation
“When one of the big lessons on Airbnb was when we were evaluating it, we were thinking, how many hotel rooms is Airbnb going to cannibalize? Rather than thinking, actually, Airbnb is going to create an entirely new market, an entirely, entirely new amount of i…”
Danny Rimer: Languishing SaaS companies suffer from poor execution, not markets
“And the ones that are languishing Probably is more a reflection of execution and product market fit at this point rather than rather than the fact that they're languishing for other reasons.”
Danny Rimer: Not doubling down on Nvidia was a big mistake
“Clearly, I mean, I invested in NVIDIA. I should have doubled down a lot more when I did a couple of years ago. That, that was a big mistake.”
Danny Rimer: Larger VC funds delay carry and shift focus to fees
“We've always been focused on getting to carry as soon as possible. And the larger the funds, the longer it will take and the more attractive the management fee is.”
Danny Rimer: Rolex is a much better business than Apple
“Rolex actually sells more from a profit standpoint. Rolex and used Rolexes are a much better business than Apple.”
Danny Rimer: Apple and Airbnb are rare exceptions in product-driven marketing
“Most companies that have been successful, be they enterprise or consumer in the tech space, The marketing has been a byproduct of a great product or service. Really, the exception to the rule would be Apple, and probably Airbnb, and I'm, and I scratch my head …”
Danny Rimer: Almost no Index Ventures portfolio companies have mainstream brands
“Very few of our companies across the portfolio, and we have a pretty significant portfolio, and we thankfully have some great entrepreneurs, very few of them legitimately have brands yet. In fact, I'm not sure that any of them truly have mainstream brands.”
Index Ventures has no sovereign wealth fund or family office LPs
“Our LPs are, we have no family offices and sovereign wealth funds. So, they're all institutions, and they're mostly non-profits, or Their customers are nonprofits.”
Index Ventures' biggest mistakes come from holding investments too long
“The biggest mistakes that we've done as a firm is holding on too long rather than selling too early.”
Index Ventures sold Etsy too early before Josh Silverman's turnaround
“Another one where we sold too early was definitely Etsy. We didn't take into consideration the fact that Josh Silverman was going to come in and totally transform the organization, and that obviously we left a lot of money on the table.”
Index passed on Snapchat due to fund concentration limits
“What happened there was we, to my recollection, we had the opportunity to invest, but we had a growth fund, and we were unwilling to put the amount necessary to lock in the round, and so as a result of that, we didn't do the deal.”
Danny Rimer: Evan Spiegel spiked in key areas but lacked well-roundedness
“By the way, what I would say about Evan is he spiked in certain areas. I mean, he was not Great in other areas, and I'm still not sure that he's great in the other areas.”
Danny Rimer: US founders overrate their abilities due to excess polish
“In the US, folks are super confident, and so, you know, they will not only spike in certain areas, but they're actually not that good in certain areas, but they'll still think that they spike in those areas, and so the level of polish and sophistication that y…”
Danny Rimer: Operators do not necessarily make the best investors
“That's part of the reason why I think that operators are not necessarily the best investors.”
Danny Rimer: Rescue attempt for Nasty Gal carried high opportunity cost
“And I did get a positive vote, but it was not the high average that I got on the first one, and so I felt responsible to the partners that I didn't put good money after bad, and not only did I put good money after bad, but the opportunity cost of spending time…”
Index Ventures scales new offices by relocating existing partners
“When we open offices, we don't actually hire folks to open the office. We actually take partners from one office and move them.”
Danny Rimer: VCs should prioritize gut instinct over analytical decision rationalization
“And I'm sort of saying actually, you know, what is the first impact? What is the first reaction that you have to the founder, to the opportunity? How does it make you feel? Can you build on that? Like, all of that other stuff is actually gonna help you rationa…”
Danny Rimer: Staying at Index in ten years indicates a failed transition
“I shouldn't be there in 10 years. If I'm still there, I'm doing something wrong, or they, or they're doing something wrong. So I'd like to see that the baton has been passed, and that the folks are taking Index to Higher and higher territory, but maintaining w…”
Danny Rimer: VCs Are Poor at Predicting Dramatic Platform Shifts
“It's really difficult to call when there's going to be a dramatic shift from the current mainstream platform to the next, and actually, I don't think it's necessarily something that VCs do really well in predicting.”
Danny Rimer: Amazon Is Poorly Positioned to Capture Niche Consumer Markets
“As much as Amazon is fantastic on the mainstream, we think that when it comes to niches, Amazon is not particularly well positioned to go after it.”
Danny Rimer: Global Connectivity Causes Niche Markets to Explode in Scale
“I think that if there's something that we've gotten wrong repeatedly is underestimate the size of specific niches, and what we tend to forget is when you're connecting most of the world's population, there are going to be niches that explode in size as a resul…”
Danny Rimer: Etsy Scaled From 250k to Over 3M Merchants, Defying Critics
“I'll never forget investing in Etsy and folks saying, well, it's crazy. You know, they already have 250,000 merchants online, all these arts and craft stores. Like, how many more can there be? And I think we're three million plus at this point in counting.”
Danny Rimer: Founders Rarely Grow Into the Ambition Needed for Global Scale
“It's really rare that folks grow into it. They actually have to start with that level of ambition.”
Danny Rimer: Excess Capital Leads to Operational Laxity and Repeated Mistakes
“In our experience, the more money you have, the more lax you are, the more likely you are to make repeated mistakes across multiple places at the same time.”
Danny Rimer: Generational Transition Is the Single Biggest Trap for VC Firms
“Being a student of history, it's probably, from an industry standpoint, the biggest amount of quicksand that there is there for firms that have been great and have failed over time, and so, given the fact that we're not great yet, we're going to make sure that…”
Danny Rimer: VCs Get Paid for Finding Winners, Not Dodging Failures
“We don't get paid for dodging companies that are not successful. Most companies are not going to be successful. So the schadenfreude or The pat on the back for having missed or not invested in something that could have been a disaster, that's not really helpfu…”
Danny Rimer: Nasty Gal Was His Worst Investment to Date
“So a big lesson was in the worst investment that I've done today, which is Nasty Gal, which was an e-commerce brand that we invested in.”
Danny Rimer: VCs Shouldn't Prioritize Equity Ownership Over Helpful Syndicate Partners
“So that, that was a big lesson that I learned relatively recently, which is never really focused so much on ownership and make sure that you have people around the table who are going to be really helpful in the journey of making a successful company.”
Danny Rimer: VCs Must Spend Most Time With Companies Needing Them Least
“I mean, I would say that this is the biggest difference between a venture capitalist and an operator. You have to figure out how to spend the most amount of time with the companies that need you least, and the least amount of time with companies that need you …”
Danny Rimer: Index Ventures Restructured Good Eggs After Other Investors Bailed
“The second one was, Good Eggs was an example of a company that we invested in. It basically went under. We had to restructure it. The other investors decided to bail. We brought in a new CEO who He, as Jeff Wiener talks about with Reid Hoffman, had a founding …”