YouSaid · the spoken record

Chris Fralic

lines on the record: 35
first: 2021-04-29
most recent: 2021-04-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Thanks, and then he walked in and did the interview and rang the bell. And it was, you know, in COVID, not everybody can get into the exchange, but it was the surreal, cool, like, almost dreamlike moment to watch him take the company public after 13 years of working with him.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so the first one was with Max in 2011 when we went to the very first Roblox user conference. It was at the Exploratorium, I think it's called in San Francisco, and it was the first chance to see hundreds of Robloxians in person meeting and talking and keynotes and it was amazing to see it come to life in person. But I close with one of the most special experiences was when the company listed a couple of weeks ago, I live in Philadelphia, I drove up to the New York Stock Exchange that morning and knew Dave was going to be arriving around seven in the morning and I got there a little early, had a cup of coffee and I was sitting there just looking up at the Roblox sign on the New York Stock Exchange with the little fearless girl statue right in front of me and it was quiet and kind of surreal and then Dave just pulled up in a black SUV with his wife and I got to give him a high five and a wave and a good luck.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd probably think of two in the first phase, Keith Lucas was at the company for 10 years. He did everything from being in charge of product. He was in charge of engineering. He was the CTO at one point. And again, he was there for about 10 years in the earlier period. And when the company announced the direct listing, I called him up and said, Keith, I don't think Roblox would be Roblox without you. And I believe that. The other name I would mention, who's currently the chief business officer, is Craig Donato, formerly at QBC in Oodle, and goes all the way back to excited home. He's been there about four years and kind of runs everything on the business side. And those that know him just think he's fantastic and he is, but he's not as widely known as he might be. And I think the growth and where Roblox is today kind of started around when he joined and it's not an accident. He's just an incredible business person.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When the inflection point started to happen, there was a lot of different opinions of what was really driving it. My takeaway would be”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think we were concerned about things like Lego Universe, which was rumored to be launching and might be a competitor. We were thinking about things like Club Penguin back in the day. But generally, I think the biggest fear was they would be always under the radar, always second player to later Minecraft or maybe later Fortnite, and not be able to break out and above it, and they certainly were able to.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll combine this one with, if you think about someone who is involved in Roblox that people don't know so much is Anthony Lee of Altos Ventures. If you want to talk to me about Roblox, you really want to talk to him about it because he led that first round that we didn't get involved in. He's been in the company since before we were, and he has remained on the board to this day. And when Roblox went public, Altos owned about twenty-four percent of the company. And you don't know who he is, or you might not know who he is. He is the most under the radar. You talk about the substance to hype ratio. And again, he's just been the absolute most consistent voice of reason, understanding the product. I would say that he would go into Roblox. I don't know if it was ever week or ever other week, but he was in the company, sleeves rolled up in between board meetings for 13 years. So you got to get him on your show.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On his teachings, I wasn't in board meetings with him, but before I got there he was, and they would say Peter would just be in the board meeting for an hour and a half and not say one word, but then would come in with his one question at the end that would encapsulate everything and drive home what they needed to do. And that's what I would hope to be.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think you need to be authentic to what you can bring to the table and what level of engagement you expect to have. And I would suggest more listening and less talking as board members. You know, if I look at all the board members I've seen in action, the number that are really adding value, really trusted partners of the CEO are in a small percentage. I think probably the bulk are mostly harmless or sometimes helpful and they write checks. And there's some that are just destructive. They're taking meetings in wrong directions or giving bad advice or won't shut up. Like first don't destruct value. Maybe you can add value and maybe you can be somewhere in the middle. And I've seen some new investors or first-time board members try and be too helpful or to push their point of view too hard. I was on a nonprofit board that was involved with Peter Drucker, right? The famous management guru.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And about 75 companies got to work with dozens and dozens of great founders and kind of shift into that role. So that's what I bring to the table”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I like to be as engaged and partnered and supporting the CEO as I possibly can. I've been a board observer as much as board member over many of the companies that I've worked with over fifteen years. One of the times that I kind of took pride in not making a distinction between observing and being a board member was one of our companies was acquired by Adobe when we were needing to work on the paperwork. Neither the CEO nor I could remember if I was actually a board member or just an observer. And I was an observer, so I didn't have to sign anything, but it just showed that we were acting as if I was the full board member. That's the role I try and play. And I've worked in startups and in tech companies and pitched VCs as part of the first twenty years in business. I have that perspective as an operator. I'm a sales and business development guy at part. And so I bring that perspective and then as an investor at first round for last 15 years, I've deployed about $100 million.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not sure about in his personal development, he always had the vision never changed his conviction or his vision of what it could be. The reality of the product and the rest of the world, I think, changed to come into alignment with his vision.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was off to the races, and it's been incredible to see him do it. He's built himself up personally through coaching. He's become an expert on interviewing and hiring. Like when there's an open role, he will interview a dozen of the world's best people at that role in order to find the one that is the right and best fit for Roblox. You're seeing it as he's building out and developing the board of directors. It's incredible to watch.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think the development and even transformation of Dave Bazooki as a CEO, there'll be books written on it. It's the most profound leveling up I've ever seen firsthand. Like I think there'll be pictures of Jeff Bezos when he was skinny and young and had hair and then he's bulked up and walking around Sun Valley like before and after. That would be a metaphor in my mind for how not how Dave looks but how he's developed personally, how he's been able to lead a team that is absolutely world class. And even his decision, which is his personal decision to become a public company, there were a few years of board members politely, nicely asking when Dave thought he might be ready to be a public company and it was always often the future. And then there was one board meeting where the bit had flipped and Dave had changed his mind and decided he wanted to be a public company and a public company CEO.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That makes intuitive sense to me that there's a tendency to let more ride, to play it for the upside, even just in terms of fund management to make sure that you're calling and deploying all the capital in a fund versus 80% or not taking. So I think you absolutely see that.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think that's probably one of the hardest decisions as an investor. With 2020 hindsight, you could look at what you might have done for the best outcome. And I think different firms have different takes on that, different partners inside of funds have different perspectives on that. But if you look at our investments in our two most notable returns with Uber and with Roblox, we had taken some capital off the table along the way at various points, which made sense and drove great returns relatively.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Feels like there's a little too much too soon. Maybe that we went from one guardrail of not enough companies and going public to the other guardrail of too many and we'll come back in the middle somewhere.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think what we have had in general is a dearth of public companies. The hurdles have been too high. I think I read that we are down to or were down to half of the number of public companies we had a decade or two earlier. That's in the US. The rest of the world hasn't slowed down. So just on a relative basis, it's not where you want to be. So it's good that we're finding more ways to get more public companies, but it almost feels like unnaturally fast. If you look at the number of companies that would have on their own found their way to be public ready, that might be one number, but that issues being forced by the number of spacks that are out there with a ticking clock that have to find companies to merge with, it just feels like a race that won't end well or the quality will by definition be diminishing over time. Companies that aren't really ready to go public will be dragged out into public and we'll see how that works. But I just”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Railing against mispriced IPOs and dollars left on the table and conflicts of interest in that process forever, and I think Roblox showed what can go right in that process if you're able to do a direct listing has a lot of benefits if the company doesn't need the cash and can direct list. That works out well. But just the public markets being open to the level that they are today is a phenomenon. I just have a hard time getting my head used to because most of my investing career, you could have said the IPO markets were closed or for maybe the mid to later part of my career, the narrative was that private markets were overvaluing companies relative to the public markets. And that's not true now either. It's really a whole new world. So I think Annette, it's good. I think it'll go too far. You know, the SPAC invasion of the SPACs, I think some of that will end badly. It's too much, too quick, I believe. But in general, more public...”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would probably say it's a little bit of both. Like at one point, we were as a full-time institutional seed stage fund back when Josh started it probably in 04, 05. And when I joined in around 06, there were maybe one or two handfuls of firms that focused on that. It was a very short list and a pretty unique positioning in the market. And so we were able to see most every deal that would fit our profile and were known in that marketplace. So the challenge is now there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of firms that would fit that profile and billions and billions of dollars. The good side of it is that follow on capital is much more available. The other big change is just that the public markets are open. Roblox is one great example at Bill Gurley is extremely excited to see that they went out in a direct listing versus an IPO process.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think it's shifted generally, the advice is to take the money when it's offered if it's serious interest. It's smart to spend a little bit of time to see if it's real and if it's something you want to consider. I think the world has changed pretty dramatically with how many dollars are around in how many funds. So I think companies can be overly distracted by it, but in general, if the market is offering you capital at an attractive price, it's generally a good idea to engage with it.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have played that out in even a faster level and had some hype along with a lot of substance. To your point about preemptive rounds, sequoia and index just led around that valued that once little company rec room at over a billion dollars. So I would say being in Roblox was helpful for me to see what this next generation VR originally version could be and they're kind of so far living up to that. So that's what I've learned.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think you can use it positively and you need to be careful to not have it impact you negatively. Like so I'll give you on the negative side I work with Josh at half.com. We were acquired by eBay. So I've spent a lot of time in e-commerce, person-to-person e-commerce, and really felt like I knew it very well. And remember, we had the opportunity to look at Etsy. And I was almost dismissive, or I just thought of it as this little niche of handmade goods or something. And I think I was jaded. I mean, I thought I knew so much from eBay that it kind of turned me off to the whole category of what might take them on. But I would say on the positive side, we're fortunate to be investors in a company called Rec Room, which started out as a pure virtual reality play, but with avatars and shared worlds and building experiences together, I could see early on it had a lot of similarities to Roblox.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think in the current startup and tech world that hype rules the day, whether it's social media or tech news or a fundraising or a famous investor, like there's a lot of forces that drive the perception of a lot of companies super high. If you look at the ratio of that to their actual substance, like what's happening in the business, then Roblox is a fairly great example of a company that had almost no hype, an incredible amount of substance. And if you knew what the numbers were and where they were going, you knew what a business this was, but no one else knew it. Like I remember really being on the lookout for validation of this, right? Like I remember when the first child of a friend at their house knew what Roblox was and heard that I was involved and almost ran across the room to say, do you know Builderman? That's Dave Bizu.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say as the company was going public, I was going back and looking through some notes of my takeaways from board meetings and just general updates and there were periods of big misses on the financial side. There were key hires that weren't working out as hoped needed to be replaced. And in particular, like we went out for a fundraise and couldn't get anybody interested. So that was a tough period. But again, it never seemed to overly phase Dave, and he had complete conviction on what roadblocks could be in spite of all those facts and never stopped and then the numbers caught up and the reality caught up and the world started to get a sense of what Roblox really, really was.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Company, and he knew, he always knew that it could be bigger and better on its own, and he never wavered. And to be honest, I didn't share that conviction all the time. I didn't think it could be as big as it is now, but I think he always did.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is a unique story, but there's certainly lessons to be learned from it. I think Dave Bazooki is one of the greatest founders and leaders of our generation, certainly that I've ever personally worked with. From a product vision, from seeing that this could be the platform for human coexperience and the metaverse and millions or eventually hundreds of millions or even billions of people playing and communicating and building together. He's had that vision from day one and really never wavered from it, even in the face of growth being relatively slow at some times, or certainly linear, and investors just not paying attention. There were a lot of times when the company was missing some numbers, when the company couldn't find hires that would stick and last, win financings didn't come together, and Dave never wavered once. And even to the point when there were acquisition offers for the”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's way harder for everything you mentioned, and there's so much more capital that's around so many more firms. Again, I think Roblox was unique in being under the radar company for so long, whereas anything that's got traction and visibility will have swarms of investors circling them and, you know, potentially preempting or not making it easy, or you're going to have to fight to maintain your pro radar much less build your position.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Average check size and valuation has gone up dramatically. I think that's sort of the game that's being played more is buying more ownership up front with bigger checks.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's changed over time, and fortunately for us in our thinking around Roblox was we were making relatively small bets. Our initial investment was $500K Roblox or so, and that was probably on the high end of an average investment. And we were starting to think about our best companies and opportunities. Where could we put more capital to work? How could we deploy more into the best companies and buy up our ownership? And that's what we were able to do at Roblox with that extra $3 million we were able to almost triple our ownership percentage. And then in subsequent rounds where we didn't participate, we're diluted down, but still in the end managed to have over 5% of the company at their direct listing. I think what's shifted over time at first round and in other funds is recognizing you may not have that opportunity to buy up down the road, so you better get your ownership position upfront. And so average time to make a decision drops.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, I think part of it is when you look back at a vintage of companies or a fund, it's not always obvious who the winners are out of the gate. Very clearly for us in the case of first round capital two, when we made our last investment in that, I distinctly remember looking with our partners looking back and saying, are there any really great companies in this fund? And it turns out that fund had Uber and Square and Roblox in it. And we didn't know it at the time. Now, Square and Uber became what they're known for today much more quickly. And people have been excited about them and the valuations have reflected that for a long time. Roblox was almost under the radar for probably 10, certainly nine or ten of the 13 years we've been involved. You could very much call that a slow bake. It was quietly but still consistently growing, but always under the radar. And, you know, I think one of the lessons is we've learned that some of these”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think we might have been fortunate back in those days to have made a really poor investment decision missed one of our biggest of all time with Twitter when we were all early users we had an opportunity to invest at first round and didn't primarily really only because the price was twenty million dollars I remember the conversation where we said it just doesn't fit our fund model didn't feel right at the time and clearly was a big miss for us but it informed us to not get hung up on price for what we think can be breakout companies and so one example where we learned and invested it at even higher price was with square jack dorsey is then new company”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“which I remembered distinctly was on version eighty seven of a company that was less than two years old, and the numbers were just going up and to the right. And my son kept on playing, so we had this unique, unfair advantage to know what was going on, both from financial perspective of a potential investor, but also from a player who was super passionate and kept the relationship with Dave was how we managed to get our foot in the door with a first smaller initial investment.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some things are different than and now there was more time to get to know someone back then than you do now, particularly in a COVID world where things are done in days or weeks over Zoom. And we did miss the first round of Roblox and came in a little bit later in between the next round that we ultimately led and when I joined the board. But I think something that remains true is you can keep a relationship through a no, even though we passed it wasn't like that was the one opportunity for a transaction and it either worked or didn't and then if it didn't we never spoke again we kept in touch it was barely a speed bump like Dave acted like it didn't really matter that much that we passed initially and I was glad and lucky that we had enough of a relationship to keep in conversation and I think that might have surprised him a little bit and caused him to open up the kimona even more and started showing me his business plan”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Highly recommend that, especially if they're really into gaming and you're fortunate enough to be introduced to future awesome company.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“$10 million valuation seemed outrageous, was way out of our normal range back then. And the game really looked raw. It was not anywhere near what it looks like today, very blocky, broke a lot, hard to get going with it, and we passed. But luckily did it in such a way that I kept a relationship with Dave very glad that my son, Max, kept playing almost every day, and I would watch him and play with him. And it gave me a good reason to stay in touch with Dave and to keep seeing him on trips to California and getting updated on the business, and luckily about six months later, we were able to make our first small investment and later on did a larger investment.”
2021-04-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source