Jana Messerschmidt
Co-Founder, #ANGELS. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorfounderexecutiveoperator@janamal ↗
Messerschmidt served as VP of Global Business Development and Platform at Twitter and led early streaming partnerships at Netflix. In 2015, she co-founded the investment collective #ANGELS and later served as a Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners.
1shows
1appearances
16statements
4resolved
4supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
16said about them ↓ Everything Jana Messerschmidt said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Messerschmidt: Employee underperformance is always the sole responsibility of their manager
“My general, like, managing philosophy around why people don't perform is it's really the sole responsibility of their manager. You've either failed to give them the context of what you're trying to achieve, or you've hired a person with the wrong skills in the…”
Messerschmidt: Women hold just 9% of equity value in tech companies
“Women make up roughly 33% of the workforce of tech companies, yet they hold just nine percent of the equity value. Men hold the other 91%.”
Messerschmidt: Early founders must focus exclusively on metrics for next round
“So at the early stages of company building, like when you're pre-seed, seed, series A, you really shouldn't be focused on anything else other than do I have the right tactics in place to hit those metrics that are going to give you more money.”
Messerschmidt: Growth velocity beats overall revenue when raising a Series A
“So we'd much rather back a company who's gone from like zero to 500 K in a few months with strong organic traffic than a company who hit a million dollars a month rate, but the growth has slowed significantly.”
Messerschmidt: 70% of Fortnite users have made in-app purchases
“There's some crazy statistics of Fortnite, like, I think, 70% of their users have spent money in the app.”
Messerschmidt: Carta allocated over $8M in equity to correct gender inequality
“He measured his own cap table and he realized that it was not equal. And so he took swift action and he allocated more than eight million dollars in additional equity awards to women to correct the inequalities.”
Messerschmidt: Compressed VC deal timelines and inflated valuations harm everybody
“There's just so much competition for deals. And I think having to make these decisions too quickly or prices being driven up of deals, I think it's just bad for everybody, founders, investors, and employees.”
Messerschmidt: Netflix culture deck values were actively lived by employees
“These weren't just values that were thrown up on a wall or mentioned it in all hands once or twice. They really embodied what it was like to work there.”
Messerschmidt: Unprofitable startups must perpetually raise capital until profitable
“Unless you're running a profitable business, you're going to run out of money, typically one to two years after you raise. And so you're absolutely always going to have to raise more capital. So you're actually always raising until you're profitable.”
Messerschmidt: Startups cannot sustainably grow long-term on paid ad spend
“So I think in general, like you can't plan to grow your business on ad spin perpetuity and the channels just get too saturated and too expensive. So you've really got to find that distribution advantage.”
Messerschmidt: Asking VCs to define target metrics tests their partner quality
“Well, I think you can learn a lot about who you might want to work with by seeing if they actually do the work. And so it's a good first test of, you know, is this person going to be in the trenches with me? And are they going to help me?”
Messerschmidt: Founder negotiation leverage depends entirely on having strong alternatives
“Your power in the negotiation, it's driven by the alternatives that you have. So you want to go into your next fundraising with metrics that are so compelling that you're in control over who you work with and at what terms.”
Messerschmidt: Founders should avoid party rounds and secure institutional leads
“You're going to either want to have a lead or a co-lead of institutional investors. You want to avoid party rounds, but there's usually some allocation that you can leave over to bring strategic angels or individuals onto the cap table.”
Messerschmidt: #Angels syndicate has invested in over 100 startups
“And now, nearly five years later, we've invested in more than a hundred companies as a group, and those companies include Bird, Cameo, Gusto, Carta, Airtable, Lambda School, Carrot Fertility, Modern Fertility, Vector Space, and countless more.”
Messerschmidt: Netflix cited Fortnite as a potential competitor on earnings call
“Netflix mentioned Fortnite in a recent earnings call as, you know, being a potential competitor, right?”
The other half of the tape: Jana Messerschmidt's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 16 times in 4 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Jeremy Liew 10Harry Stebbings 6
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 16
2020 6 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Lightspeed Partner, Merci Victoria Grace on The Future of Collaboration Tools, Bundling vs Unbundling, Synchronous vs Asynchronous & What It Means To Productise The S*** Out of Venture
- 20VC: Moxxie Ventures' Katie Stanton on What It Takes To Raise A First Time Fund As A Solo GP, The Entrance of Multi-Stage Funds Into Seed Rounds and The Inverse Relationship of Those That Fund Diverse Managers and Those That Say They Do
- 20VC: The Implications of a Biden vs a Trump Administration on Venture and Startups, How The Rise of Rolling Funds, SPACs and Solo Capitalists Will Impact Venture & What We Can Do To Swing the Race Pendulum in VC with Barry Eggers, Founding Partner @ Ligh
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Jana's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Co-Founder, #ANGELS | 1 | 16 | 100% 4/4 | full record on 20VC → |