Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lee: VC Board Member Withheld Tough Feedback to Protect LP Fundraise
“I called the board member, and I was like, hey, what's your feeling about how this, like, what kind of coaching are you giving the team about how things are going? It feels like things are off, and we are not doing the things we should be doing. And he was lik…”
Prediction Held up
Lee: Series A valuations will reset to $20M-$40M pre-money
“Well, Series A's we're going to be back to eight to twelve million dollars, and Series A valuations will be back to 20 to 35, 40 pre. And B's will be back to a hundred pre, instead of four or 500 pre.”
Insight
Lee: Mega-funds give junior VCs $2M-$4M checkbooks as training wheels
“There's a lot of, like, basically, as these funds got bigger, they had more fee income. And so they could feed more mouths. And they would hire younger people and say, you have a checkbook. Like, you don't have a big checkbook like I have. Like, you know, the …”
Opinion
Lee: Founders Raising in 2022 Market Will Face VC Bottom Fishers
“And so, like, if you raise now, if you can avoid it, you're gonna be getting a lot of bottom fissures.”
Opinion
Lee: VCs are privately stressed over portfolio companies with unsustainable valuations
“A lot of people are sitting on super overvalued investments. And depending on what price they paid and what's in their portfolio, they are super stressed out right now because they don't see a path for their portfolio companies or a chunk of their portfolio co…”
Disclosure
Lee: Seed founders pitch $6M rounds but quickly reduce asks to $3M
“Right now we're seeing a lot of seed extensions. We're seeing a lot of seed founders who are sending us decks that have a six million dollar seed raise in them. And I'll email the founder and be like, Hey, this looks really interesting. Are you still thinking …”
Assertion Supported
Lee: LPs Have Put on the Brakes for Venture Funds Raising
“Investors, LPs in venture funds have basically put on the brakes. And so any fund that is trying to raise right now is having a pretty hard time for the most part.”
Insight
Lee: Downturn Years Are Historically the Best Times to Found Unicorns
“When we did the original unicorn analysis, we looked at kind of vintage birth years, and like what were the best years to start or found a unicorn, and generally downturn Years are the best years.”
Assertion Supported
Lee: Sequoia Redesigned Fund Structure After Realizing Selling Early Sacrificed Returns
“Well, that's, I mean, that's why Sequoia went to this new fund structure, is because they did the analysis, and they showed that by selling too early, they had left a lot on the table.”
Insight
Lee: Path to Profitability Conversations Only Start Post-Series B
“I think like once you're past post-series B, that's when you're having the conversation about at your board, with your board and then your investors about path to profitability, I would say.”
Insight
Lee: Series A Startups Now Need $5M to $10M Revenue Before Series B
“And then A is really like, you know, can you get from, you know, let's say you know, from post seed, let's say if you're at a million and a half or two million dollars when you raise your A, then you probably need to get to between five and 10 in revenue durin…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lee: Kleiner Perkins held zero LP meetings across 12 years
“We never had an LP meeting in the 12 years that I was there”
Insight
Lee: Self-serve PLG startups can afford longer pre-revenue development than sales-led
“If you don't, if you can have self-serve and you don't have to spend any money on AEs or customer acquisition, then you can spend a lot of time building the product and then it'll fly off the shelves. If you have a product that has to be sold, it's a lot harde…”
Assertion Supported
Lee: Original unicorn analysis showed most founders were serial entrepreneurs
“One of the things that most, like, the, in the original unicorn analysis, the, one of the things that most of the founders had in common is they were serial entrepreneurs.”
Assertion Supported
Lee: Mid-2000s angel investors co-invested at $3M to $4M pre-money valuations
“The seed thing was happening in like the mid 2000, like, oh five, oh six, that's when we really should have started, by the way. And angel investors were getting in at three pre, four pre, and they were all co-investing”
Disclosure
Lee: Over 60% of Cowboy Ventures investments back pre-product founders
“Most of the time, like more than, probably 60% of the investments we've made in the past 10 years are founders who need money to build the product.”
Aileen Lee