YouSaid · the spoken record

David Wu

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22
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2015-07-29
most recent
2015-07-29
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1
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  1. “The most recent investment, I think, was a seed in a company called Jot T. And it is a peer-to-peer kind of mesh network over the top messaging app for teens. And whether you have connectivity or no connectivity because you have no Wi-Fi and you maybe don't even have a seller plan on that phone, it'll work to connect to other people in your school. And, you know, of course, we made the investment because we love the entrepreneur, Jared Allgood, that has all the right dimensions of a great entrepreneur. But at the same time, we think that this messaging area where you actually can create a technology that can bring more people into the platform than perhaps was available before makes a lot of sense to us. And we've seen great explosive growth inside of schools.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Know I'm a big fan of Circa, which is an app that Matt Gallaghan did that unfortunately didn't get enough funding to keep going. But I actually consumed a great deal of my news in sort of this atomized content format that was designed for the mobile phone. So I'm bummed out about that one.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “The next industry to be disruptive. You know, I'm very bullish on the intersection and my ergo investment is in this category, the intersection of the Internet of Things and connected devices and medical and wellness. I think in the middle of there, you're going to go up the pecking order from devices that count steps to actually give people superhuman powers. We made the recent investment in Ergo, which is a truly disruptive hearing aid and it's going to change both how people buy, but also the types of people and how you wear a hearing aid. So I think there's going to be a lot of innovation in those areas.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Know, probably the advice I would give to a 20 year old me is something outside of the professional area. Looking back, I've always loved playing sports, but if I had to give advice to my 20-year-old self, I would tell myself to go get better at both basketball and golf because as a 20-year-old, it's much easier to find time and your ability to get good at those two sports is much better than it is at my age.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “You know, it's funny. I think on the entrepreneur side, I often tell people that one of the most common traits in successful CEOs and successful entrepreneurs is revisionist history. So from an entrepreneur's perspective, I think I've made probably tons of mistakes, but I actually can't remember any of them. But from an investor perspective, I would probably say that the biggest mistakes have to be my personal unportfoot or anti-portfolio. And three that come to mind are all for different reasons where companies that I passed on, looking back have turned into quite successful companies would be stitch fix, Instacart, and dollar shave club.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “You know, my favorite books probably right now are The Game of Thrones books, but at the same time, you're a little bit frustrated because I'm incredibly nervous that the HBO series is going to pass the speed of his slow writing and I will be stuck into reconcile the show with the books.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Saying that doesn't make sense. No one's going to wait in line for coffee. And coffee is something you can get anywhere. How could that possibly be an interesting company? And yet Dan went back and alongside of Howard went and visited the people in line at the Starbucks in the Pacific Northwest and noticed, one, how passionate they were about that experience, how frequently they were going back, and how much they would miss that experience if it were taken away. And that was the beginning of this cauldron of consumer passion. And I think both in terms of deciding what companies to fund, but also as they tip from kind of an early adopter Kickstarter techie market to the mass market, what we're looking for is how deeply is something embedding its service or its products in the everyday lives of real people. And that's really the key to where we see these consumer brands tipping.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “So we spent a lot of time internally talking about this phrase that we've coined called the cauldron of consumer passion. And every company we look at, we're really trying to identify, have they found this cauldron of consumer passion? We're very rarely going to look at a company that has unique technology in search of a target market or in search of a problem. I think it goes all the way back to our founding roots. We were started at Mavron by two coffee guys out of Seattle, Howard Schultz, that has hence gone back to run Starbucks, but is still working alongside of us. And Dan Levitan, who partnered with Howard in the old days to take Starbucks public. And he tells the story of how when they were thinking about taking Starbucks public, I think there were 40 stores in the early 90s up in the Pacific Northwest. And he went back to talk to a lot of the bankers in New York about the opportunity. And everyone poo-pooed the idea.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Know We often back first time founders. And, you know, I'm one of those believers that past success is often indicative of future success. And so given a first time founder, you know, maybe a 19-year-old coming out of the UK”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “As examples, three that I think about all the time is one is contagious passion and relentless perseverance, and that's the idea that these people are just insanely passionate about what they're doing and failure is not an option. Another one we look closely at is category advantage from their past experiences or things they've done before that give them an advantage over their nearest competitor. And then third one we talked about a little earlier as well is, you know, I'm really looking for people that are all-star recruiters. And this isn't just recruiting employees, but this is recruiting greatness to be affiliated with the company, whether it's in a board role, an advisor role, an ecosystem or business development, the best entrepreneurs are focused on company building and are recruiting every hour of every day.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “You know, you're exactly right. We are definitely unapologetically team and founder driven. And I think that ties back to our consumer DNA and consumer focused in that there's less and less differentiation on the IP of consumer deals and much more around how well the team understands how to connect with end consumers. We actually take this very seriously. We've kind of put together a list of 10 key traits that we believe are kind of the key success traits for a Mavron consumer successful founder. And we actually score all our potential investments CEOs against this scorecard. And we often look back six months later or 12 months later to see how well they did against that scorecard and what has changed. I think that you could actually find some of these bullet points on our blog or on our website. But I'll signal a couple.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Focused on this power law curve where most of the companies are not going to do that well. So it's the one or two giant hits that are going to cover all the rest of the portfolio and the upside return. And as a result, I think that institutional money wants to put more money to work. It's more of a zero-sum game where they have to elbow everyone else out and they're going to take a much more active role with a much higher risk profile where they may accept that there's a high chance you may not be that successful, but if you are successful, they want you to be a giant, huge company. On the angel side, you know, it really runs the gamut. As I said before, you can get all different kinds of angels that have different motivations in the key is to find motivations that are aligned not only with your company, but also with what you're trying to achieve in your company in the next few years.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “So, I think that there's one critical difference between angel money and institutional money. And what it really comes down to is angels are generally investing their own money. Whereas most institutional funds are primarily investing other people's money and they're investing other people's money for a living. And that shows itself in the angels are often investing for, as I said kind of earlier, for a plethora of all different kinds of reasons. They may be doing it for lots of things that are not even return on capital focused. Things like, you know, they like you. They're passionate about what you're trying to do. They want to pay it forward. And they made a lot of money in their last company. It really runs the gamut. Institutional money for the most part is investing in some kind of thesis about how they're going to make their limited partners money. And so they're very”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Portfolio companies, probably the most successful and the least successful portfolio companies in some of the investors that you're thinking of taking money from and really understand how do they act when things are going well, how do they act when things are not going well and really what's the character values and cadence of these individuals?”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “You know, it's interesting because in the old days, you know, there's this great unpackaging going on, which is in the old days you took funding from maybe one of 10 VC that you had heard of and you get control, advice, and money from the same source. Now you can kind of mix and map a component stereo and get smart advice from old founders paying it forward and advisors and you can get money from dumb money or angels or seed funds or series A funds and control you may even be able to kick down the road so your series A or series B so there's just so much choice out there you know in a lot of ways I encourage entrepreneurs to figure out what do they really need in terms of skill sets around the table that they're missing and in the same way that you would hire an individual or a company to be on your executive team do that same amount of diligence and you know go talk to”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “A lot of these early startups have lots of different things they're working on, but generally I bucket into three areas, which is”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Know when I look at the barrier versus some of the new up and coming areas like LA or even New York, you know, the culture is a little different. And I think it starts off with who are the heroes and the role models in the area. So as companies see breakout success doing amazing things, I think all of a sudden they become the new normal. And so there's not a secret recipe for it, but I think that one of the big differences between the financial mindset of New York is in the Bay Area is New York starts off with, well, you know, this is as big as you possibly can get and this is what's rational for what could happen in the Bay Area is still a very dreaming town. And I think the fact that you see the Facebooks and the Googles and the history of these little product companies that start taking over the world lends credibility to that's what can happen.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “You know, I'm a big fan of Stanford. I'm still my strong supporter of Stanford, but I think it goes beyond just Stanford to the Bay Area. And I think that the Bay Area, we invest primarily all across the United States. And the Bay Area is a very special place. And when I think about the right environment to create a startup ecosystem, there's kind of three prerequisite criteria. I think you need great access to capital. I think you need great access to talent. And third, often overlooked, I think that you need a culture that really encourages swinging for the fences. And kind of a culture that says that doing the impossible is actually something that happens every day.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “You know, I think that seed funds are out there for a variety of different reasons. You know, at the end of the day, I think if it's good for the entrepreneur, it's probably good for the ecosystem and in turn is good for the venture funds. I think that Seeds tend to be less competitive in this series A. There's so many seeds getting funded out there, but at the end of the day, the A's are still happening and they're happening later in larger figures, but there's not that many more series A deals getting funded. So it creates a larger top of the funnel. So it takes more time and effort to see everything that's happening. But at the end of the day, I think knowing what you're good at and what a venture fund specializes in and really concentrating there is the important thing. So I think it raises all boats.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “I think the seed funding environment in San Francisco has exploded almost beyond imagination. And I think there's actually no looking back. There is so much capital and opportunity out there, whether it's angel syndicates or the job acts adding crowdfunding or the plethora of micro VCs. I've heard stats in the staggering number of billions of dollars that are new funds specifically created at C programs. I often hear large-scale VCs starting up C programs and some of them have also staggering numbers where they'll allocate a few hundred million dollars toward seed. So I think it's a phenomenal environment in the Bay Area. It's probably never been a better time to start a company in the Bay Area Cure Founder.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Last seven or so years. I think I've done 30 or 40 angel investments. And then I joined Maveron full-time three years ago and fell in love with the team and the platform. Mavron's sort of a unique venture fund in that we've been around for 16 years and are really, really specialized in what we do. Every investment we make is something that is direct to consumers. So no enterprise infrastructure and hardly even B2B to C. We like things that integrate in people's lives enough that we think they can be breakout consumer brands. And I personally focus a lot on connected devices, marketplaces, and mobile. And almost all of our money goes towards earliest series A stage investments, but we also have a very aggressive seed program that we use to get to know teams really well so we can make a much more educated series.”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Sure. I'm actually a Bay Area native. I grew up in the valley and my father was an entrepreneur and my mother was an artist. And I think that's where I've gotten some of my left, right brain arm wrestling and why I like consumers so much. I spent the bulk of my career as an entrepreneur, started off very much a tech and a product guy and then over time became kind of more of a inside guy, keep the lights on guy, Jack of all trades, master of nothing kind of guy. Was that a company for a decade called Homestead that became a very successful way to build websites and kind of web 1.0 almost went public, almost died within a few months of filing and hung on my fingernails for another seven years and built it back up to about $100 million revenue business and sold it in 2007 to Intuit I ran a bunch of their SaaS businesses and frankly just missed entrepreneurs and missed consumer and so I started doing a lot of angel investing so for the”

    2015-07-29 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 058: 10 Key Traits To Be A Successful Founder with David Wu, General Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source