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.
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Maltz: The 2014-2015 unicorn boom funded startups with flawed unit economics
“I think in 2014 and 15, during kind of the unicorn boom that we were having, you were seeing things that were getting funded that had amazing revenue growth, but fundamentally flawed unit economics.”
Maltz: Tech IPOs need $100M revenue, 30% growth, and profitability path
“Companies need to be generally over a hundred million dollars in revenue. They need to be growing over 30%, and they need to have, if not, if they're not profitable, they need to have a very clear path to profitability within two to four quarters.”
Maltz: Founders staying until last call at bars are red flags
“You want to find the CEOs who take one drink, they meet the right person in the room, get the business deal, and then they leave. The person who's the last call at the bar CEO, usually not good.”
Maltz: Late-stage VC shifted from reactive relationships to proactive sourcing
“Venture historically has been very much a cottage or relationship industry, and so deal flow would often come to the later stage investors from great early stage firms, and early stage firm would fund a series A or series B, and then basically they'd Go to the…”
Maltz: IVP often makes late-stage investment decisions in days or hours
“We're often making decisions in a matter of days or even hours versus weeks or months, so it's one of those things where you know, you're waiting around a lot, and then you hurry up, and you have this kind of rush process, but the best companies are, that's ho…”
Maltz: Magic Leap raised billions of dollars without a launched product
“You're seeing companies like magic leap without a launch product raise, you know, billions of dollars.”
Maltz: Top CEOs continuously upgrade management teams even during rapid growth
“The best CEOs, even when things are going incredibly well, are constantly making upgrades and changes to their management team.”
Maltz: Facebook successfully transitioned from desktop to mobile revenue post-IPO
“When the company went public on basically desktop revenues and, you know, the market massively changed to mobile and Facebook had done so much investing around mobile in their platform and in their technology and in their advertising that they made this incred…”
Maltz: Board members cannot dictate strategy to CEOs without losing trust
“Whenever you try to tell a CEO, Hey, you have to do this. The natural reaction is to get defensive and Hey, you don't know my business. You're coming in here once every two or three months. How do you know it better than I do? And the answer is we don't. So th…”
Maltz: Aging VCs lose touch with young founders and consumer trends
“I think there's two big challenges with kind of getting older in venture. The first is you just get Farther away from the age of the CEOs, at least in the consumer space and what the kind of teenagers are doing in terms of using the products.”
Maltz: VCs hear 200 pitches yearly but make only two investments
“In a year, maybe 200 companies will present to you and you'll only do one or two investments.”
Maltz: Top companies plan their next S-curve during peak growth
“The best businesses are actually thinking about, even when they're going through that fastest S curve, they're thinking about, what's the next S curve that I can build in the business?”
Maltz: Initial investment theses for Yext and TuneIn failed to pan out
“You know, I've actually had two companies I've invested in a company called Yaxt and a company called TuneIn where the original investment thesis ended up actually not panning out as well.”
Maltz: Junior VCs win by leveraging late nights and engineer networks
“Thinking about as a young person, thinking about what are your comparative advantages that those people can't do. So those people are all busy and you know, I'm busy too. And as a 24 year old you may be able to go out at night until 11 o'clock with a CEO and y…”
Maltz: IVP targets five to ten fastest-growing late-stage companies weekly
“Every week we're talking about what are the five or 10 fastest growing later stage companies that we're incredibly excited about. And then we're thinking about ways to connect directly with the CEO, actually add value to the company before we invest, and then …”