YouSaid · the spoken record

Brianne Kimmel

lines on the record: 35
first: 2019-10-14
most recent: 2019-10-14
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

“Focus on DTC because as a software person and as someone in SaaS, like there are so many similarities that are happening right now where we're selling software direct to consumers. We're thinking more about brand and community and all of these sort of macro trends that consumers are experiencing like they're also bringing it to the workplace. And I think that's something where like the more you can build a community around you and the more you can find individuals who are like-minded but in different sectors, I think that's where you're going to find and unlock the most amount of learning rather than feeling tied to a formality of having a more traditional mentor someone you meet on an ongoing basis or potentially someone who is even two, three steps ahead of you career-wise.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know, I think it's really interesting. I disagree with the traditional notion of having a mentor. And the reason for that is I often find with a mentorship relationship, I think that oftentimes the mentee is typically over-indexing on information and inputs from one data point. So I'm actually finding that of the individuals that I meet who are accelerating in their career, you know, they're achieving this sort of like breakout moment where they've built something, they've become known for something, you know, they're sort of thriving in their day to day. I would say that those individuals have done a fantastic job of both building a community of like-minded peers around them. And more importantly, I think that they've found individuals outside of their direct industry that they can learn from. I see this happen a lot where a number of my friends are in the direct consumer space. And I'm so thankful to have both CEOs and both investors that fully”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Missed in Silicon Valley is the fact that the ecosystem is incredibly compressed in a way where you can learn a lot and you can learn a lot quickly. However, as life goes on and things start to evolve, I think understanding how your work life and your personal life come together and what are ways for tech companies to keep individuals in the workforce longer and what are new ways such as remote and distributed teams where individuals can access great careers in technology irrespective of location and ones that they can potentially continue and carry into various different life phases as you think about potentially having kids.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say right now I've been very focused on building work life. And I think that what I'm finding is especially with something that touches the future of work, I'm very mindful of the power and impact that technology has on everyday people. So one of the things that I've been personally investigating in my free time is really understanding what are some of the root causes of underemployment and what are new classes of work and new ways for people to make money outside of urban metro areas. This is something that really stood out on the trip to Tulsa where Tulsa has been very forward thinking in building a program that they call Tulsa Remote where essentially you have individuals who were born and raised in Oklahoma or you have people who were born and raised on the coast and you know they're looking for a lifestyle change. You know they're ready to have kids they are potentially caregiver of an aging parent. I think one of the things that is oftentimes”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that really being thoughtful and evaluating that individual partner's network is important. So you can ask hiring questions for later rounds. I think really, you know, digging into who would be someone they suggest for a future independent board seat. I think that you really have a lot of leverage early on, especially between seat and series A, to get to know a partner, to really understand like, is this someone that you want to spend the next 10 years with and really understanding their thoughts around later funding rounds, future hiring, and really investigating if this is the right partner for you in the long term?”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And infrastructure and companies to be built around this. And I see these new clubs like Apple's Cloud really being that next generation and really creating a platform for entrepreneurs to meet other like-minded entrepreneurs. And I think we'll see really great businesses coming off the back of these sort of platforms and co-working spaces. Shift founders always be raising or is that a misnomer? It's an interesting question. I think that founders should always be building the relationship. I spend most of my time in seed and I help entrepreneurs get ready for the Series A. And I think that that is an inflection point in your company where you're adding a 10-year partner. You know, choosing your board member is no easy feat. I highly encourage entrepreneurs to really keep in mind that at this moment in time, you know, in the tech ecosystem, investors are on the sell side. And what that means is entrepreneurs can really take advantage of getting to know the potential board member by scheduling working sessions, you know, whiteboard sessions to evaluate accordingly.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the whole point of this trip, and this is part of Roy's ongoing Comeback Cities tour, is to really take a step back, really spend time with industries from the past, from sort of an investment standpoint to really take a step back and look at Tulsa is famous for what they call Black Wall Street. And there was this moment in history where, you know, the first major U.S. city that had an entire ecosystem of black entrepreneurs building great businesses such as designer good stores, movie theaters, restaurants, four other black Americans, like that was just a key moment in U.S. history. And I think that's great when I think about the future of work because I think there are these new tech-enabled venture-backed businesses, Ethels Club, as an example, is basically Soho House for African Americans. And I do believe that we can take these insights from places like Black Wall Street. We can apply it to like, what are the programs?”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think now you'll start to see more companies that are thinking about the way that they collect. That would have been an amazing talk from Rahul. I had him on the show and he was just incredible. Couldn't be a bigger fan of his. So that's exciting to hear. I do want to move into my favorite though, Brianne, which is the quick firearound. So I say a short statement and then you hit me with your immediate thoughts. Are you ready to rock and roll? Yeah, that sounds great. Okay, so I'm boarding a flight to SF. I need a book for the flight. What's the book and why? Oh, that's a great question. So I tend to read a lot of fiction, which is kind of funny. I feel like a lot of folks in Silicon Valley tend to read a lot of non-fiction. So I have been going through there are a number of comic books that touch the future of work. So I'm quite turning into this weird, like dystopian sort of comic book reader. That is absolutely bizarre. No, I'm kidding. Tell me, what would you most like to change about Silicon Valley and tech today? You're at the epicenter between SF and LA. What would you like to change? I just got back from Tulsa late last night. So I went with Bloomberg Beta and 15 venture capitalists from Silicon Valley in New York.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think that there's been conversations for a while around freemium being a great marketing channel, around the ability to quick and launch SaaS businesses. And I think one of the challenges that I faced with the category holistically, oftentimes the products are fairly easy to build. You get in a race for free users, and then later you attempt to monetize. And I think with this sort of scrappy mentality, typically you do end up having a dozen companies that are actively solving the same problem with a very similar solution. You can oftentimes find that it does attract a certain type of entrepreneur as well, where I oftentimes do find that it mirrors more of a side hustle or an application that is potentially an experiment which hopes to gain meaningful traction. I think that those sort of applications are few and far between, I think specifically in sort of the venture world, simply because”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really start to layer in traditional enterprise faster than the previous generation, which was solely self serve and increasingly reliant on paid marketing.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of hype beat SAS, which would be scrappy SAS. And historically, we've seen a lot of landing page experiments. We've seen very quick product releases on product hunt, and you see the sort of freemium model where I think that era of SAS is slowly going away. And the reason for that is that the products are easy to build. You then get into this race, which is much similar to consumer product, where you end up spending a lot of time, energy, money on paid marketing, where unless you have a competitive advantage or unique distribution channels, you end up spending a lot on consumer paid marketing, and then you end up finding that you have a lot of free users who aren't converting to paid. And, you know, I'm starting to see that this next generation of great software businesses are building both great consumer quality products in parallel, they're also really thoughtful in sort of how they build a wait list, who are the users that they accept to the product, and how do they”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a really interesting question, and I think this is something that I speak a lot to these consumer operators who are entering B2B. And one of the things that is important to consider is with a lot of these self-serve SaaS companies, you know, many APIs, a lot of workflow tools, a lot of the things that we're seeing in the ecosystem today, quite frankly, they're easy to build. And I think when you have a product that's fairly easy to build, then what you need to consider is there needs to be some sort of competitive advantage. Now, maybe that competitive advantage comes from your access to other great tech companies. Like maybe you are really strong on building closed products, accepting only users who need a very specific criteria and sort of align with your product vision. And therefore you can build and scaled this product alongside other great product leaders. You know, that's sort of one option. I think historically we've seen what I sort of call the opposite.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, it's a great question. So I think when we look at some of the changes that are happening in B2B SaaS, I often say that the traditional B2B language is entirely dead and irrelevant. And the reason for that is we're actually seeing that, you know, the next generation of great SaaS companies, they're actually being built by operators who are spinning out of consumer tech companies. So I think they're bringing the same sort of best practices and methodologies that they had at companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, Uber. You see really great consumer product builders who have experienced legacy software internally or quite frankly, you know, these companies are scaling so quickly that there aren't really tools and infrastructure that's readily available. So they end up building their own tools in-house and figuring out that these tools are actually widely applicable and they could be something that they can either open source or potentially”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I think we've hit this really interesting moment in time where I think there are a number of changes happening. So from a consumer point of view, people are incredibly motivated professionally. We are also seeking creative outlets, especially as the workforce becomes increasingly technical. The lines between work and life are increasingly blurred. And the vision for the fund was to really take a step back and imagine, you know, what does the future of work look like? Not just from a software standpoint for individuals who are building software applications for other startups, but what are some new ways that both individuals are accessing new types of work? What are new ways for individuals to make money, thinking more even about what are some of the services and programs that need to be built to unlock human potential at scale?”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think that the definition of angel and the expectation from entrepreneurs has changed over time. I frequently say to entrepreneurs, if an angel sources and clothes is one key candidate or they give you one to do dedicated hours per month, they've delivered their value for, say, a 25 to 50 K check. I think that one thing to keep in mind is like, especially with angel investors, we pride ourselves on having a strong reputation.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then the same goes for Jeff Morris Jr., who I know you've had on the show before. Jeff is product leader at Tinder First, but also has built this amazing VC fund called Chapter One. And, you know, to see how Jeff balances a number of companies and he's supportful, he's very helpful across the portfolio because he stayed very focused on product. I think we'll continue to see these sort of emerging workhorses, as I call them, and individuals who are very mindful with portfolio construction. And they really spend a lot of time with entrepreneurs to ensure that both from an operating standpoint and from a fundraising standpoint, they help them get from seed to series A.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This track record in the ecosystem where they have the ears of Series A investors, they know how to facilitate great introductions. And I think they themselves as individuals on the cap table help you have this sort of competitive advantage that other potential competitors that are trying to enter the space don't have access to. And I think that presents a second layer, which is what I call the workhorses. And, you know, these are up and coming angels. These are active operators who are meeting startups on evening and weekends. Many of these individuals have become my closest friends because we've all been in the same boat. You know, I was meeting startups on evenings and weekends when I was at Sendas. Ryan Delk, who's the COO at Omni, same thing where Ryan, you know, really is thoughtful about the companies that he invests in because, you know, he's an active operator, he's Omni first, but really wants to give back and invest in the next generation of great companies. So he is someone who's very thoughtful in sort of the way he thinks about his portfolio construction.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, this is a really interesting point, and this is something that I spend a lot of time with entrepreneurs on. I think that from an angel point of view, I think this is where angels have the most amount of leverage. So typically when I meet a company, spend time grooming them, getting the pitch deck ready, and then introducing them to both multi-stage funds and potential angels, that's where the whole conversation starts to happen around like, what would a perfect cap table look like? And I think oftentimes like there's an interesting argument around like how much work do you actually need to get out of an angel to make them valuable? And I typically say, you know, founders should find both show horses and workhorses. And I'll explain what that means. But, you know, from a show horse standpoint, there are individuals that are amazing social signals for follow-on investors. So in that bucket, I would think of investors like Aladd Gill, Scott Belsky, the entire collective of hashtag angels, angels who are both helpful, but I think most importantly, they've established”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it gives creators of artisan goods access to brick and mortar. It's breathing new life into cafes and restaurants and sort of local brick and mortar store owners can stay relevant with the latest goods. And I think the one thing that I think a lot about on a daily basis is there's this new rise of the creative class. We have individuals starting podcasts, designers who are sharing their portfolios broadly and basically becoming influencers at these massive design conferences and sort of media lifestyle entertainment conferences like South by Southwest. And we see this new category of professionals who are actually subject matter experts and becoming influencers in their own regard.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“An athlete, a person of influence to really diversify their investment portfolio and in parallel choose companies that align with their brand. So I think, you know, historically, we've seen sort of athletes align with more CPG-related products. But one interesting thing that I'm seeing lately is, you know, I invest in a lot of tools and platforms that do get implemented and adopted in Hollywood. I think that celebrities, influencers, people who have historically played in these spaces, they recognize that they take a portfolio approach to their career. And I think the next generation of great consumer tech companies, they sort of meet at this intersection of work and life. They have unlocked entrepreneurship at an incredibly massive scale. And now we're seeing that sort of next generation where, you know, there are platforms like FAIR, which is modern wholesale.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's fascinating. I mean, I spend a lot of time in Los Angeles and even looking at my LP construction for Fund One. And you do have some interesting people who are potentially a little bit outside of the traditional Silicon Valley circles. And I think there are two things that are happening. I think the first thing is that startups are going mainstream. I think startup culture is going mainstream beyond these sort of quirky shows like Silicon Valley. I think that one of the greatest talking points that I hear consistently from A-List celebrities, from athletes, from people who are not spending their day-to-day solely focused on building technology and sort of software is that startups are a talking point. And I think that right now, not only is it an incredibly fascinating asset class, I think that it's also something where if you can have strong brand alignment, it's a great way for a celebrity”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you see it more and more today? And I think the greatest thing an entrepreneur can do today is to stay focused. And I know that that's quite a conservative point of view. However, I think that right now in the ecosystem, there are a lot of distractions, and I think that when you look at the historical track record of scout programs or”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Deploying my own capital because the economics make more sense and you have a lot more vested interests in that particular company. And then I think the third piece is there are a lot of individuals who are exploring this more boutique micro VC model where potentially you can continue operating. So I meet a lot of individuals who operate in the one to five million dollar fund mark and for them they're doing it part-time and their arrangement with LPs is that they do have a lot of flexibility in terms of the number of checks that they write and I think that they oftentimes lean on these angel networks that they've built or potentially they have a very strong alignment with multi-stage funds who can help them get into some of the investments that they're making.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a really interesting time. I mean, I think that we're seeing a number of changes. I think that from an angel point of view, there is a lot of capital that's available in the market. If you're an operator at an interesting hot tech company, it's fairly easy to become a scout for a VC fund. And I think that there's this combination of scout funds, less syndicates, and there's these new ways to really build a track record as an angel. And I think when you have these sort of programs in the ecosystem, the next logical step is for you as an individual to essentially invest in your own platform. So I know both Angelists and Carda have great productized offerings for individuals who want to start their own micro VC funds. What I will say is I think that there are a lot of angels who are currently exploring. Do I continue scouting? Do I potentially remove scouting as an option and be”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very tactical questions like, How do I negotiate this sublease on an office in Soma? So I think there are a number of questions where potentially the multi-stage firms typically view this as things you should figure out on your own, where I think that a lot of the boutique seed funds already have the infrastructure in place. It's sort of like they are a great first call because no question is something that they haven't heard before from other first time founders who are potentially new to the Bay Area or potentially just figuring things out on the fly.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know, I do share some concerns around how quickly the seed landscape is moving. I think that I'm an investor in a company called Tandem, which was in the Last YC batch, which very quickly became the hottest company in the YC batch. And I think that was a really good signal of just how hot the market is right now and just how much capital is freely flowing, especially for early stage companies. And, you know, I think for entrepreneurs, it's a really interesting time because I think that some of the seed funds are not able to move as quickly. They do have a smaller fund size and they are more thoughtful in the way that they engage with companies. But I think that when you choose a more boutique seed fund or you choose especially a sort of career seed investor, then I think that the day-to-day will be very different. I think that they already have systems and programs and processes in place to help you find product market fit. You don't have to be concerned with assets.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Starts to gain some momentum and some heat, it is more difficult for a seed fund to compete with one of the sort of top tier multi-stage funds.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think founders are going to multi-stage funds, but I will also say that multistage funds have done a really impressive job of really ramping up their seed practices. So I think it's happening on both sides. I think you have enough repeat entrepreneurs who are working on their second or third idea already have established relationships in Silicon Valley. They kind of already have a sense for who they want on their board. And for those individuals, they already have the relationships. a path to what they would envision for a great series A. So I think for those individuals, they do go to the multistage firms. And I think, to be honest, like one of the challenges that the existing seed funds face is that because of the large fund size from these multistage firms, then they can very quickly write a check with very little diligence or they can do it based on existing relationships. So I do find that once a company”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The 100 to 150 is still a friendly check size where I'm able to get into the deal alongside a multi-stage fund, potentially another seed fund. However, I'm still fairly nimble and unable to get into some fairly competitive rounds.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a really interesting point. I mean, I think for me, coming from an angel point of view, I was typically playing around the 25 to 50K checkmark. What I wanted to do from a portfolio construction standpoint with work life is incrementally grow that check size. So I will say my average check is around 100, 150, and I can scale up to 200K. What I will say is I think that 150K mark, it is still fairly friendly capital. So I think one of the interesting things is for the majority of companies that I'm investing in, oftentimes they come to me with an idea. They may be pre-product, repeat entrepreneur, or potentially some product pre-revenue, and they're likely talking to multistage funds. Oftentimes, we're seeing in the seed landscape, I think that the lines and the numbers and the letters are getting blurred. But I will say that those two companies that I'm talking to are out actively pitching a multi-sage firm as a lead. So I found”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It will be a growing trend in Silicon Valley. One example that I have is, you know, I feel like there is basically an underutilization of talent. And I think that there are a lot of really impressive ideas that get abandoned over time. So what I typically find is oftentimes, you know, there are companies that have gone through a program such as Y Combinator. There may be two or three batches outside of the program. And, you know, you start to hit this inflection point where you're not quite achieving venture scale. However, you have a really great SaaS business that you built. And I think during that period in time, oftentimes entrepreneurs, they start to think about their second idea. You know, they start to recognize that we live in this compressed ecosystem, which is primarily fueled by venture capital. They start to feel pressure from investors. They're starting to think about like, what is that next billion dollar idea, knowing that what they've built is kind of getting stuck and not quite hitting venture returns. So I think having the ability to”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, this is a really interesting point. And I think this is something that I had explored very early on. So I actually had started out at Expedia and had spent a lot of time really understanding multi-product companies, kind of looking at the IAC model and looking at what are some opportunities in the future of software. And I kept coming back to this thought that to truly support SaaS businesses, I do believe that venture is only one path. You know, where I spend most of my time and where I'm most excited is more specifically building and helping entrepreneurs scale venture sized outcomes. But what I will say is I wanted to structure work life in a way where if I meet great entrepreneurs who are hitting some roadblocks around the five to 10 million ARR mark, I do want to have the ability sort of a separate structure to facilitate some boutique funding models such as private equity. It's been really interesting to see. I think this is something that”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you're sort of experimenting in parallel. So that was how I sort of started from a teaching point of view, then started angel investing, and then went out to raise some outside capital to build work life.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To then writing angel checks while I was at Zendesk. So I think, like many individuals, I started with sort of the 25 to 50k angel checks and over time built a track record, which we can talk about later. You got into great companies like Webflow, which I know you spoke to Vlad, VoiceFlow, Air Garage, which is a company that I'm really excited about that's an up-and-coming one. And, you know, once I started building that track record, decided that rather than joining a fund or rather than going sort of broad as an angel across both consumer and B2B, I wanted to lean into the Zendesk experience and sort of the traction I was getting with SaaS school and then build my own dedicated SaaS fund to support more specifically bottoms-up business models. Oftentimes I invest in two strong technical co-founders where typically they need a little bit more support on the go-to-market side, so helping them determine do they go self-serve, do they do top-down, more often than not, it's a combination of both.”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I think this has been a long time coming, and I'll walk through sort of how I got started because it's a little bit non-traditional. I actually started teaching classes at General Assembly very early in my career. So I kind of always had these two sort of parallel tracks that I was running. First of all, I was operating at Expedia, had started out in more of a performance and growth marketing role, and then scaled into a head of social media role, which owned performance marketing, brand community, and customer support, which kind of ties into the later Zendus experience. But in parallel, I have teaching classes, taught over 5,000 students. I had a go-to-market bootcamp that I was teaching. I ended up spinning that out into a program that I run today, twice a year called SaaSchool. And then SASCOL is a self-funded community-led program taught by amazing executives at brand name SaaS companies. And in building that community, had sort of progressed from advising”
2019-10-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source