Mitchell Green, founder of Lead Edge Capital, explains his firm's investment heuristic prioritizing capital efficiency (historical revenue exceeding total cash burn).
0:00 / 0:19exact quote · 19.0s
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“If you build a business with 20 of revenue, you're growing 30. And you've only burned three million bucks. You're doing something right. And if we can get in there and own preferred stock at the top of the cap structure, and it's recurring and has 80% gross margin, the probability to lose all your money is really, really low.”
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More from Mitchell Green
Opinion
Green: VCs holding stock in 2021 cost LPs hundreds of billions
“I think the amount of money that private equity Growth equity, venture firms cost their investors by not selling in mid to late 21 is in the tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Mitchell GreenJan 27, 2025▶ 42:38Mitchell Green - Lead Edge of Harnessing Networks (EP.429)
Insight
Green: In outbound VC sourcing, responsive companies are usually low-performing
“And we had a rule at Bessemer. If the company called you back, it really sucked. It was the CEO you call every two days for a month. That's the CEO you want to get on the phone.”
Mitchell GreenJan 27, 2025▶ 10:28Mitchell Green - Lead Edge of Harnessing Networks (EP.429)
Disclosure
Green: Lead Edge publicly shames analysts who fail to write thank-you notes
“I actually have a handwritten thank you note tracker that I get for every employee at the firm, and I assure you, if a twenty-two-year-old analyst wants to get called out in front of 85 people, I have no problem doing it.”
Mitchell GreenJan 27, 2025▶ 38:20Mitchell Green - Lead Edge of Harnessing Networks (EP.429)
Opinion
Green: Sequoia, Kleiner, and Bessemer had little differentiation beyond check size
“And I didn't frankly think there was much difference between Bessemer and Sequoia and Kleiner at the time, and General Atlantic and TCV, other than some people wrote bigger checks and smaller checks.”
Mitchell GreenJan 27, 2025▶ 12:23Mitchell Green - Lead Edge of Harnessing Networks (EP.429)
Disclosure
Green: Venture funds with 50 to 200 investments effectively become index funds
“So we want to run funds with about 20 investments. We think there's too many funds that become index funds, and they just have 50, a 102 hundred investments in them. We think that's crazy.”
Mitchell GreenJan 27, 2025▶ 39:17Mitchell Green - Lead Edge of Harnessing Networks (EP.429)
Opinion
Green: Most investment funds provide awful information disclosure to limited partners
“I would rate most funds information disclosure as awful. Not bad. Awful.”
Mitchell GreenJan 27, 2025▶ 41:34Mitchell Green - Lead Edge of Harnessing Networks (EP.429)
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