YouSaid · the spoken record

Brian Ascher

lines on the record: 27
first: 2017-05-31
most recent: 2017-05-31
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“What's your favorite quote and why? This comes from Jack London's Credo, and the first line of this poem is, I would rather be ashes than dust, and it's really a statement of how to live your life fully and not just play it safe and idle. No, I agree. And then what's your most recent publicly announced investment? And why did you say yes? It's a company called Socrates. And what we're trying to do is be like Alexa for the enterprise, very large companies that might have 50,000, $100,000 employees or more to provide assistance in all the various corporate services, whether it's HR or benefits or approvals, travel, expense reporting, facilities request, book a conference room, et cetera, et cetera. All the things that take you away from productively doing your job, but are nonetheless necessary and which would otherwise require calling an H.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Cat, I can say color yellow, I could say place, and it finds it, but also they're creating things like photo albums and movies and animations without you even asking for them. They're surfacing photos from three years ago today, or here's a photo of all your children smiling just proactively without ever asking for it. I think that is a harbinger of the way most software in any category will work in the future. I think it's stunning. I'm downloading it now. No, I haven't actually tried it yet, so I will do.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For everything. I've tried to go paperless as best I can. I use Google Drive for anything that's going to be collaborative. And of course I use Box for Work stuff and Dropbox for personal stuff. And these are some of the tools I can't live without. What would you most like to change in VCN startups? I'd like to see it be less transactional and more relationship oriented. I feel like it's become a bit of a yeah, yeah, yeah, write me a check and join this long cap table list, but ultimately for me, again, it's about the long-term partnership relationship. What's your favorite new product and why? Google photos to me is not getting nearly the credit and discussion it deserves for being a truly remarkable example of artificial intelligence.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I'm very excited for this one in terms of updating my toolbox. So it's a short statement followed by about 60 seconds per one. How does that sound? Wonderful. So let's start with your favorite book and why. So a book I'm giving out a lot these days is called Extreme Ownership, how US Navy SEALs Lead and Win, and it's written by a former Navy SEAL Chaco Willink. And it's all about how leaders need to really take responsibility for their entire environment, not only their subordinate, but also their peers and also their bosses or superiors and really not blame other people, but take accountability. And I think it sounds like platitudes, but when you read the book, you realize, boy, I know so few leaders who actually do this, but the most effective leaders I do exhibit these traits. I think it's a beautifully written book. What are your favorite productivity tools? So I use Evernote and the Evernote Scan Snap Scan.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bad happening to him. Instead, I would help him. And so our friendship only deepened. It's wonderful to do business with your friends, frankly. Absolutely. No, no, I do agree. But I do want to move into a quick firearound, man. As she's more centered around favorites, favourite of everything.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I think it's definitely possible. It doesn't have to be the case. I think there needs to be mutual respect and trust and general like spending time with each other because you will spend a lot of time and it could go for a lot of years. But it can also go all the way to the point of very, very close personal relationships. One of my favorite entrepreneurs, Brent Lang, who's the CEO of Ocera, he and I knew each other for a good dozen years before we invested and then I was on his board for 12 years. So like a 25 year friendship that started in our first jobs out of college and then business school and family friend the whole nine yards and we went through tough times in the business and then good times and all the while our friendship endured because we trusted each other. The friendship didn't get in the way of the inevitable and necessary hard conversations and it was a testament to his confidence and ability to trust that sharing all the tough stuff with me wouldn't result in something.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A challenge to the quest that you're going to be on. So I think if those things go well and you're really bonding and relating and communicating pre-investment, that bodes generally pretty well for post-investment. Can I ask, to what...”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“While you're still making up your mind on the investment? Yeah, absolutely. I think it comes down to the interaction you have when you're asking a bunch of tough questions, maybe sharing a bunch of risks and concerns. Does the entrepreneur get defensive or can they react in a very pragmatic, realistic way that inspires confidence that this person understands that this is going to be really hard? They're going to get things wrong, and that you asking questions about this is not a bad thing, is not taboo. It's actually, you know, I always say that, look, I'm a lot less tough than a market is. I may ask a question, but the market's going to vote with their dollars to buy or not buy your product or to, you know, have you in a sales cycle for nine months and then ultimately decide against you. All those things. So like we shouldn't have conversations that are painful when it's just trying to seek truth about a company or about a”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a good two way street, I'm going to tell you all the stuff that you need to know and the things that are going wrong, and I'm going to pitch in and help and be calm, cool, collected, and collaborative, then that's the ideal relationship. And, you know, when you go through the tough times and you're then enjoying a spell of good weather and sunshine, it's a beautiful thing. The thing I love about Venture is the alignment. Sometimes you can get out of alignment with an entrepreneur, but it's both your jobs to get back in alignment and work towards the common goal. Can I ask, is there a...”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I'm super intrigued here how you evaluate the ideal relationship then between the entrepreneur and the VC. What's your thought process? This is my most fun part of being a VC while I enjoy a good pitch. I really love the relationships that I get to form with entrepreneurs and executive teams at our companies. And what makes for a really healthy relationship is trust, transparency, and approaching it as a true partnership. And the trust goes both ways. If you're going to make a safe environment for a founder to share all the problems and challenges and setbacks and even mistakes that they face, then you as a venture capitalist have to ask React in a constructive, helpful, non-threatening way. I assume going into every one of our companies that we're going to spend most of our time in board meetings and outside of board meetings solving problems, fixing things, trying to make it better. We actually spend very little time congratulating ourselves on the great quarter or the wonderful press we got from a launch or what have you.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or a bunch of other things in general. And they set up this problem so well, I compared it to what would it be like if you went to a grocery store and you had no idea what things cost until you were checking out and then they sent you a bill 30 days later that they didn't even have to say what exactly they did to solve this problem by the time they were finished outlining the outlandish state of US healthcare on the problem. You were ready to give them money because they were going to solve it. They had gotten you so riled up that this was a problem worth solving that it was like a done deal by slide five. And I just thought that that was exactly what one needs to do to generate excitement about why their company exists. Absolutely. I love that. We spoke about the portfolio company there and the investment made. A lot of entrepreneurs forget the post-investment relationship when they're in the fundraising mode and the importance of choosing the potential partner that will be your VC and potential board member.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think you need to let the VC know, or you're raising $2 million or $10 million? That's kind of an important thing. No, absolutely. But kind of providing this insight, I'm really intrigued now to hear, what's the best pitch you've seen and why was it so compelling? A perfect example of the phenomena that I mentioned earlier of set up the problem really well was cast light health. This is a Venrock investment. They're now public. So if you like the story, you can go buy the stock. But they set up the problem as follows. In healthcare, unlike any other market, the consumer, the patient doesn't know what things are going to cost until they've already received the service. And in fact, 30 days later, when you get this nearly incomprehensible bill that's called an explanation of benefits and has some lots of numbers and jargon on it. But you can't go in and shop for an MRI or much less an exam.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Risk factors. And so maybe it was a form of a humble brag or humble confidence. But I thought it was overall very effective. No, I agree. I love that. Another big question that a lot of entrepreneurs ask me, and I always like to see it, again, I'd be intrigued to hear your thoughts. Should they include the dollar raise in the slide of how much they're raising and potential utility of the capital that is being presented? Do you like to see that? I actually do like to see the amount you're raising. It's sort of an important fact and it has implications for how much ownership may be available, valuation, how capital intensive they think this first phase is going to be, what sort of milestones they can achieve. I don't particularly find that there's a whole lot of variance in how they're going to use the funds. So I don't need to spend a lot of time there because I assume you're going to hire a bunch of people to build your product and sell your product. Sometimes there's some unique things and details that are important, but I wouldn't spend a ton of time there.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is the point at which you really need to put yourself in my shoes and listen to my argument as to why I think this is the pivotal point of why I'm starting this company. Do you like entrepreneurs to include the risk element in their slides and in their pitch in terms of these are the potential problems that may arise and then potentially ways that we could combat this? Do you like to see that or do you think it's potentially not something that needs to be included? I quite enjoy it personally. I do too because I chose real self-awareness and a realistic sense of the challenges in front of you. You still need the optimism and excitement about the future, but ultimately being invented to identify the things that can go wrong is awesome. I remember seeing Jack Dorsey's pitch for squares series A, and he literally started with like, these are 75 things that could kill this company in the short term. And I thought it was a very confident because 75 things is quite a few.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Insight, they should present it as a non obvious insight. Fact often happens as the opposite. They present this non-obvious insight as if it should be obvious to everyone, and when they get questions or resistance, they get defensive or make the audience feel like a bunch of morons for not seeing it. Whereas I think if you flip it around and say, I recognize that you might think this is crazy. And in fact, most people think it's crazy, and that is the insight I have. Because three years from now, this is going to seem obvious. Here is why I am so confident that this need exists or where I can solve this technology problem. And I think that is ultimately what early stage VCs are looking for. We're looking for a non-consensus viewpoint that will ultimately prove right, and the market will catch up and reward the company for achieving this goal. I just think if you reframe it as you don't get pissed off when the investor doesn't see it, show them that, hey, this is what you came for. It's like that Riyan.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like to bring up, which is I've noticed that when pitches go wrong or often a cause of wrong pitches is the entrepreneur assuming that something is obvious and then getting resistance from the audience and getting defensive about the questions they're being asked. And in reality, this is the perfect opportunity to actually seal the deal, to nail the fact that, hey, I as an entrepreneur, I have a non-obvious insight. It might be a market insight that I know that this need is way bigger out there than anyone would have realized. So maybe it's Airbnb realizing that people are willing to rent out a room or their couch in their private residence, and there are other people who are willing to pay to sleep there. Or it could be a technology insight like Tesla realizing that they could build a really awesome electric car when up to that point people thought electric cars were bogus. So when an entrepreneur has this non-observation,”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Agree with Alan Demo, one that always very much irritates me, and I'm probably unfair to say this, but very much irritates me is the market element where we're pitched now, I've seen three times now, trillion dollar markets, which to some extent can be ridiculous when it's being pitched by nightclub software. So I'm intrigued to hear your thoughts on how you approach market slides, kind of the tam around them, and whether you're a bottoms-up man or a top-down. Well, I'm definitely not top-down from the sense of, you know, here's what Forrester or Gartner or some consulting firm says, and it ridiculously large number. All I'm really looking for is the entrepreneur thoughtful about their claim on the market size. Have they identified the segment that they're really going to serve? And if it's a well-crafted, deeply insightful analysis, then I'm willing to buy that the market may in fact be larger than I would have assumed, which sort of is a very important point.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I envision a better future. I have a market inside or I have a technology insight that's going to make things better. So that's What's your thoughts on demos internally within the pitch? Do you love to see them? If so, what do you think makes a great demo? Or do you think they're not necessary? I do love a great demo. As a former product manager who gave lots and lots of live demos, I think they could be super compelling. But again, you need to craft it as a little short story with characters and a plot, some tension, and then ultimately resolution. So when I say characters in a plot, I think it's very important to set up who you are as the user. Pretend, put your audience in the shoes of the user who's going to use this product. And what their problem is, and then walk them through a scenario or two of why they're using this product and how it makes their life better, rather than just clicking through a bunch of features and menu items, and here's the next thing that this thing can do, like put it all in a story, in the service of why you make the world better.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure, everyone does it, but they don't. A lot of pitches start with the team slide, which I understand why this comes from, because no one wants to come in and not introduce themselves. But I think you can introduce yourself. Here's my name. Here's my role. Here's the people with me. But generally a team slide, it's hard to generate excitement and interest. Like you might all have very impressive backgrounds, but a five-minute slog of three or four or ten people's resumes is just not high energy. And it's much better to do it at the middle or end of a presentation when you actually know what you'd be listening for, like what are the relevant points in a background that feed into this business. The other thing people tend to start with is the origin story. Here's how we got started and why. And sometimes there's some relevant nuggets in there, but again, it's better once you have the context of understanding the business and generally the origin stories tend to ramble and include a lot of things that frankly are not quite relevant. Start by setting up the problem. This is what is wrong with the current world. And this is how...”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Academy Awards for movies, and there's, to my knowledge, no category for improvisational sketches. Plus, you want to get quantitative and use pictures worth a thousand words, all that sort of stuff. So my first advice is to have slides. They're not only useful for fundraising, but the PowerPoint deck has become the de facto business plan. It can substitute for your mission statement vision statement, et cetera. There's never not a good time to have a good short deck about your company. That's good for internal partnerships, et cetera. And you could always come to a meeting ready to give it. And if someone says, no, no, I don't want slides. I just want to talk, then you can always talk, or you could always take a conversation and say, you know, I just want to show you three slides that I think will really capture the essence of what we're doing or really demonstrate our traction. So that's the first point. But when it comes to how should I start, I have a very specific opinion on this, which is start by setting up the problem. And that might seem obvious.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That you have and how you like them to start. I love pitches. I think, you know, as a VC, you have to be an eternal optimist. A good pitch is a story well told about how the future is going to be better than the present. And so who wouldn't like that? I think the first bit of advice is to have a pitch. There's a current meme out there which says that you don't want to have slides. You want to have a conversation. You want to seem like you're not actually looking for their money. They'll be lucky to get their money into your company. And I appreciate the sentiment of where that's coming from. I don't favor pitches because I like a power dynamic between, you know, the seller and the buyer. I like pitches because it's putting your best foot forward in really crafting a beautiful narrative around your vision for the future. And I think that's generally a lot more effective than winging it in a freeform conversation. It's why they have”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Associate, or you do it late in life when you're being invited in because you do have a track record and you have something that will be immediately appealing to entrepreneurs because you founded a successful company, you were a senior at a great company. So both tracks are very worthwhile. It really depends how compelled you are that you absolutely want to be a VC when you're younger. It is the harder path. The numbers are slightly against you. But I always say if that's what's in your heart, then go pursue it. There's always room for one more. Absolutely. And there's certainly always room for one more good one. And I'd also add a third path in starting a podcast. Increasingly common these days. Absolutely. Absolutely. Before we dive into sectors and the technology itself, now as a VC, a lot of entrepreneurs ask me, how would you like me to pitch? And more specifically, how do I start my pitch? So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and the advice that you give entrepreneurs in terms of kind of the expectations.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Benro and I had great mentors, and I've stayed ever since, and now the program itself is 22 years old. There's been hundreds of fellows, and now it's a global program bringing folks from all over the world and all sorts of nationalities and very high percentage of women coming through the program. And it's a great thing. But that was my gateway to venture. Can I ask, is there any advice you give to people looking to make their way into Venture State? It's probably one of the most common questions that I get in terms of their entrance intervention. Is there anything that you would advise people looking to make their way in? Well, there's kind of two paths. You beat and kick and scratch and claw your way in as a young person who doesn't yet really have much to bring to the table by way of a track record or proven deal flow based on your stature as a founder or senior executive at a platform company. So you get in at the bottom and you climb your way up through performance. And that was kind of the track that I took joining early as kind of an.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“arrived at your destination. Brian, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show today. A huge thanks to Alex at IDG for the intro. But thank you so much for joining me today, Brian. Oh, my pleasure. Happy to be here. I'd love to get started, though, Brian, with a bit about you and how you made your way into what I describe as the wonderful world of VC. I do love what I do, so I would agree. It is wonderful. It's a privilege to work with great entrepreneurs every day. I got in through this thing called the Kaufman Fellows program. I had been a product manager at Intuit, managing the Quicken product family and helping launch Quicken.com. This is going back almost 20 years, over 20 years, really, when I started Intuit. And I had heard about this Kaufman Fellows program that was kind of modeled after White House fellows trying to bring people into internships and venture capital and the goal at the time was to reach far and wide for folks with slightly different backgrounds than typical. And that program got me paired with”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and add them to their email conversations, plus with built in tracking powered by the video platform, video creators will know who is watching what and which video messages resonate with which users. They'll receive immediate playback notifications that will eliminate the wandering of whether the recipient received or watched their content and you can find out more and download viewed it for free at videard.com forward slash viewed it. But it's now time for me to shut up and I'm delighted to hand over to Brian Asher, partner at Venrock.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We head into the episode today. A lot of people ask me, Harry, you do so many calls and interviews, but what do you use? My response, Zoom, the number one video and web conferencing service providing one consistent enterprise experience that allows you to an array of activities, including online meetings, video webinars, collaboration-enabled conference rooms, and business IM, just to name a few. And it's the easiest solution to use, buy, and scale, and for sure the most straightforward pricing. But hey, don't take my word for it. Their partnership with Sequoia in their latest 100 million funding rounds says it all. Zoom really is a must check out for your business. I cannot emphasize that enough, and you can find them at zoom.us. Speaking of video, though, to power your company there with Zoom, you must check out viewed it. Viewed it is a free video recording tool that makes it easy for organizations to embrace the power of video for personalized communications for you to enable sales professionals, executive leaders and customer support teams to easily record personalized videos”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We are back, and welcome to the 20-minute VC with me, your host Harry Stebbings. I'd love to see you on Snapchat at H. Stebbings with 2Bs. All ads get a personal message from me. But for the show today, and I'm not sure I've quite had a VC on the show who's had such a good hit rate with investments exiting as our guest today. So joining me on the show today, we have Brian Asher, partner at Venrock, a leading VC fund with prior investments in the likes of Nest, Dollar Shave Club, App Nexus, and many more. At Venrock, Brian invests broadly across enterprise and consumer markets and has enjoyed no less than 10 of his investments exiting successfully. Due to this exit rate, Brand's been named to the Forbes Midas list multiple times for the VCs who've backed the most profitable winners in the last four years. Prior to Venrock, Brian was a senior product manager at Intuit and responsible for Quicken and Quicken.com. I do also want to say a massive thank you to previous guests David Patman and Nick Bime at Venrock and Alex Rosner at IDG for the intro to Brian today without which this episode would not have been possible.”
2017-05-31 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How Both Founders & GPs Should Construct Their Pitch, Why VCs Are Eternal Optimists & What Makes The Best Post-Investment VC/Founder Relationship with Brian Ascher, Partner @ Venrock · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source